#context over my dead body

[indigoidiot]

maybe im you and youre me and hes him and

(context in replies)

#submas #indigo's idiosyncrasies #ingo #emmet #pokemon #jirachi #sneasler #akari #warden ingo #warden emmet #tw eye contact #like. a lot of eye contact #context over my dead body #funny things happen look at it hilarious #identity au

[running-in-the-dark]

oh - when my nephew was here he also told me that my mother said medication doesn't have any effect on hunger.

hahaha that's so fucking funny, I'm gonna scream :)

(was just reminded of this because I feel like I'm starving. because of my new meds. when without them... I don't really feel hungry until many hours after I should have eaten.)

#literally how can you say something so fucking stupid when you have zero experience with it yourself #I mean that's just what she does. always and about everything. but this one is particularly infuriating #I bet it came up because they were talking about my weight. and it wouldn't have been nice :) so that's just. awesome to know. #anyway yeah I literally feel COMPLETELY different when I'm on certain antidepressants. they make me hungry ALL THE TIME. and not slightly #hungry like hm I could eat. nope. so hungry that it feels like I'm starving only a few hours after I've had a meal #but sure! you know better! totally! #and it's LITERALLY in the damn information leaflet as a common side effect. for like three different meds I'm on. but no it's just because #I'm stupid :) #(for context. my mother is the most openly and proudly fatphobic person ever. she will very loudly talk about a fat person's body when they #are only a couple meters away. she hates fat people. so. this isn't a neutral statement coming from her. it's filled with hate and disgust #and I'm fucking sick of this shit. literally I'd feel so much more comfortable in my body if she were dead. it's the biggest hurdle to #getting over my own internalised fatphobia. my first thought is usually something she would say. it fucking sucks.) #tw fatphobia

[panicbones]

there is smthn very special abt getting fucked up on classical literature. et tu brute is an incredibly famous line but seeing an annotation that said a writing which inspired the play wrote this line as "you too, my child?" is like getting hit in the head with rocks i think. add in the common belief that brutus is caesars son. plus the fact brutus was unequivocally caesars favorite. and brutus had to convince himself (on very shaky logic) to even go through with it. rocks to the skull attack attack attack

#IT HURTS ITS LIKE. OUURRUCGB #i actually havent watched any plays of it but in my minds eye its awful and tender and caesar says it softly #oh brother lines that make you shake when you have context #and then friends romans countrymen lend me your ears #mark antony having to pause his speech to sob openly over caesars dead body #oooohhhh its like. oh its like explode raaaugh attack YUEEECG #ides of march

[lettersiarrange]

My coworkers (of 1.5 yrs??) seem to mistakenly have gotten the impression that i loved living in the UK

How it is even possible for them to have formed that opinion is beyond me

#literally this weekend one of my coworkers brought it up #i was like... girl no 😭 #i liked TRAVELING #in part to Escape the hell country #the first time i mentioned to my boss that I'd be interested in going international she got really excited telling me about UK opportunities #and i had to be like - let me stop you there - i would move back to the UK over my dead body #which took her aback LOL #it's fine we're on the same page now abt sending me to a diff european country and she thinks it's funny #but I'm really like... i certainly never SAID i liked living in the UK #i will readily tell strangers how much i hated it #but i guess since me living there usually comes up in neutral contexts they all just assume it was a cool time #it was not <3

[nolongeradysphoricsatyr]

“i’ve made it clear, no PISS”

#over my dead body will you get context

[juneviews]

Yeah Foei was done after that SH thing and so was White, who is seen doing shit yet again, now laughing along to Prom talking about being scared of people with big breasts because they might kill him in his sleep, and how he peeked on a younger girl in school?? And Mond and Sing are laughing along as well?? At least Sing is kind of wtf-ing him in that second clip, but still, how did that pass to be released and why are they like this??? Or is it some lost in translation and cultural context differences again?

https://twitter.com/wingcfs/status/1654477580693635072?t=nUzooc7VDxiPLrfwAJ6QOg&s=19

hmmm... I'm not sure the two situations are comparable tbh, so here's my feelings about it:

foei posting this alt right anti lgbtq+ post is literally the worst thing I've ever seen from a gmmtv actor. yes, even worse than krist imo.

what prom did is bad, though the boob things imo (and I have huge ass boobs so I'm concerned) was just a dumb joke & wasn't offensive even though it wasn't funny at all. it felt like he was just trying to be entertaining but it fell flat.

the preschooler thing is definitely more fucking weird, even though I do not think he's a p3do, he's just a fucking weirdo & should've never told this story. I shall never stan this guy.

now though, for blaming mond, sing & white, I don't agree at all. I've been hurt by white's comments in the past & criticized them, but here they invited the guy to be on their channel, there was literally nothing they could do besides cut that segment out (which they deffo should've done before it even aired.) they do look uncomfy & like they're judging him, but it's clearly one of these situations were you can't say your true feelings bc you're in public & on the fucking job. blaming them bc they were fucking bystanders is honestly the dumbest shit I've ever heard.

tldr: what foei did & what prom and ESPECIALLY mond, sing & white did are absolutely not comparable imo so let's stop this idea of "every gmmtv actor is trash." they're 100+ actors, some of them are bigots, some of them are dumb af, and some of them are good. stop lumping every drama together, some are way more serious than others & some are a product of cultural difference. I'm tired.

#answers #funny how everyone loves cancelling smaller actors but when ohm sa'ed a guy on camera no one said shit #I hate this double standard tbh #like bl fans will forgive the most atrocious shit in the bl shows they watch but will jump on any opportunity to cancel an actor - #- without taking in any context or the gravity of the situation #this is not against you anon btw but also about another ask I got which I will not answer bc I've said all of my feelings here #I created the foei post bc I was pissed & hurt and want him to apologize but I'm annoyed I need to discuss another dumber situation #cancel white atp I don't even care he's lost my favors but mond & sing? over my dead body #to be clear I am NOT defending prom or now phuwin who's also getting cancelled #I AM advocating for nuance bc getting the pitchforks out every time does not help

[suddenlymicah]

"Yeah it's fine theyre just having gay bird sex" is going into the silly micah quotes book

#silly micah quotes #shitpost #yeah yeah “whats the context” #i'll give you the context over my dead fucking body #sorry if i seem angry in these tags #someone called me maam

[castielmacleod]

The demon curing “ritual” in spn is honestly so abysmally boring. That was really the best most interesting and creative way to cure a demon they could come up with. Go Andrew give us nothing

#No pomp no circumstance no sigils or extensive latin chanting or candles or literally whatever idfk. Literally ANYTHING #There is no actual “ritual” to it you’re just injecting a guy over and over with a few hours in between. It’s downright CLINICAL #It has me clinging to my suspension of disbelief with my fingernails lol it BARELY makes sense even in the obvious SFF context #Like there’s not really any traceable logic to it other than “human blood makes demon human” which.. I mean the demon is already #possessing a human so………? #Does something happen particularly to a human’s blood while they’re possessed that the human blood makes a difference in? #Or is it more about the fact that it’s ~purified~ #And do NOT get me started on the human blood being literally actually successfully purified through Catholic confession. Oh my god #Like that canonically works in the world of s/p/n. I could just scream #And I love how it involves turning the demon into a human at the expense of the vessel. What about that guy? #The demon gets resurrected—literally brought back to human life—and gets to keep the body of the person they possessed? #Like Cas losing his grace and being trapped in his vessel that way is one thing but like these priests are literally #choosing the demon over the possession victim. I mean maybe if the possession victim was already dead then okay I guess but was he? #8x22 is not really clear on that #Pretends to be shocked etc #My posts #Like not to sound like I would trade the Crowley curing scene in 8x23 for literally anything because I would not #That break down that Crowley has is the scene of all time #The surrounding circumstances to the break down could have been soooo much more interesting and tbh believable though

[umabloomer]

I got a job at a Ukrainian museum.

On the first day someone asks me if I have any Ukrainian heritage. I say I had ancestors from Odesa, but they were Jewish, so they weren’t considered Ukrainian, and they wouldn’t have considered themselves Ukrainian. My job is every day I go through boxes of Ukrainian textiles and I write a physical description, take measurements, take photographs, and upload everything into the database. I look up “Jewish” in the database and there is no result. 

Some objects have no context at all, some come with handwritten notes or related documents. I look at thick hand-spun, hand-woven linen heavy with embroidery. Embroidery they say can take a year or more. I think of someone dressed for a wedding in their best clothes they made with their own hands. Some shirts were donated with photographs of the original owners dressed in them, for a dance at the Ukrainian Labour Temple, in 1935. I handle the pieces carefully, looking at how they fit the men in the photos, and how they look almost a hundred years later packed in acid-free tissue. One of the men died a few years later, in the war. He was younger than I am now. The military archive has more photographs of him with his mother, his father, his fiancé. I take care in writing the catalogue entry, breathing in the history, getting tearful. 

I imagine people dressed in their best shirts at Easter, going around town in their best shirts burning the houses of Jews, in their best shirts, killing Jews. A shirt with dense embroidery all over the sleeves and chest has a note that says it is from Husiatyn. I look it up and find that it was largely a Jewish town, and Ukrainians lived in the outskirts. There is a fortress synagogue from the Renaissance period, now abandoned. 

When my partner Aaron visits I take him to an event at the museum where a man shows his collection of over fifty musical instruments from Ukraine, and he plays each one. Children are seated on the floor at the front. We’re standing in a corner, the room full of Ukrainians, very aware that we look like Jews, but not sure if anyone recognizes what that looks like anymore. Aaron gets emotional over a song played on the bandura. 

A note with a dress says it came from the Buchach region. I find a story of Jewish life in Buchach in the early twentieth century, preparing to flee as the Nazis take over. I cry over this.

I’m cataloguing a set of commemorative ribbons that were placed on the grave of a Ukrainian Nationalist leader, Yevhen Konovalets, after he was assassinated. The ribbons were collected and stored by another Nationalist, Andriy Melnyk, who took over leadership after Konovalets’ death. The ribbons are painted or embroidered with messages honouring the dead politician. I start to recognize the word for “leader”, the Cyrillic letters which make up the name of the colonel, the letters “OYH” which stand for Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN in English). The OUN played a big part in the Lviv pogroms in 1941, I learn. The Wikipedia article has a black and white image of a woman in her underwear, running in terror from a man and a young boy carrying a stick of wood. The woman’s face is dark, her nose may be bleeding. Her underwear is torn, her breast exposed. I’m measuring, photographing, recording the stains and loose threads in the banners that honour men who would have done this to me. 

Every day I can’t stop looking at my phone, looking up the news from Gaza, tapping through Instagram stories that show what the news won’t. Half my family won’t talk to the other half, after I share an article by a scholar of Holocaust and genocide studies, who says Israel is committing a genocide. My dad makes a comment that compares Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. This gets him in trouble. My aunt says I must have learned this antisemitism at university, but there is no excuse for my dad. 

This morning I see images from Israeli attacks in the West Bank, where they are not at war. There are naked bodies on the dusty ground. I’m not sure if they are alive. This is what I think of when I see the image from the Lviv pogrom. If what it means for Jews to be safe from oppression is to become the oppressor, I don’t want safety. I don’t want to speak about Jews as if we are one People, because I have so little in common with those in green uniforms and tanks. I am called a self-hating Jew but I think I am a self-reflecting Jew.

I don’t know how to articulate how it feels to be handling objects which remind me of Jewish traumas I inherited only from history classes and books. Textiles hold evidence of the bodies that made them and used them. I measure the waist of a skirt and notice that it is the same as my waist size. I think of clothing and textiles that were looted from Jewish homes during pogroms. I think of clothing and textiles that were looted from Palestinian homes during the ongoing Nakba. Clothes hold the shape of the body that once dressed in them. Sometimes there are tears, mends, stains. I am rummaging through personal belongings in my nitrile gloves. 

I am hands-on learning about the violence caused by Ukrainian Nationalism while more than nine thousand Palestinians have been killed by the State of Israel in three weeks, not to mention all those who have been killed in the last seventy-five years of occupation, in the name of the Jewish Nation, the Jewish People — me? If we (and I am hesitant to say “we”) learned anything from the centuries of being killed, it was how to kill. This should not have been the lesson learned. Zionism wants us to feel constantly like the victims, like we need to defend ourself, like violence is necessary, inevitable. I need community that believes in freedom for all, not just our own People. I need the half of my family who believes in this necessary “self-defence” to remember our history, and not just the one that ends happily ever after with the creation of the State of Israel. Genocide should not be this controversial. We should not be okay with this. 

Tomorrow I will go to work and keep cataloguing banners that honour the leader of an organization which led pogroms. I will keep checking the news, crying into my phone, coordinating with organizers about our next actions, grappling with how we can be a tiny part in ending this genocide that the world won’t acknowledge, out of guilt over the ones it ignored long ago. 

#palestine #jewish #museums #history #ukraine

[jade-curtiss]

Wow I can't believe I woke up in time so I can have the delightful experience of going waste my time with service canada. It will be great.

#it's a walking distance but like just the concept that someone is fucking sick and absolutely no one #no fucking body could help at all because I currently don't have much of a social circle #i mean the only person helping me is also struggling with the same shit #so we're just equally pissed while none can do anything to progress with their own situation #it seems to be kind of common in quebec to have that kind of situation #i moved in montreal actually to reduce how often and actually have accessibility #but to make in context #if i would have stayed in a rural place in my own context I'd be dead by now and that's a fact #i don't know if every other province are like this but the idea we give that we are such a progressive country stop existing #with simple things like not being able to drive and if you have any kind of disability that could be easily accomodable well fuck it #they will just leave you in your own shit while giving a fake sympathetic apology and this is exactly why i want to slug canadians more than #americans in general #i mean if usamericans have something over Canadians in every circumstance is that they're genuine to an extend #being genuine and honest is probably the least canadian thing someone can do #instead they recognize your problems if they see them pretend things will change only to make the problem worse in a subtle way and #expect you to die in the meantime (no it's not an exaggeration eugenics are very fundamental in this culture) #probably more than in america actually #it's weird how Canadian culture rest upon only two things and it's eugenics and colonial elitism #and yet it passes for the most progressive country because we don't shoot all sort of marginalizable people on sight #but do we do anything to help them #the answer #is #also #no #also our healthcare is a fucking scam

[faeriekit]

#i'm very pro danny accidentally adopts a whole bunch of talons previous installments

*

The next day, the body was back.

The green was gone from its eyes, but the awareness wasn't; it spent about an hour watching people go around outside Danny's apartment, which was new behavior. None of the corpses that shadowed him had shown any interest in garden-variety humans before. Now it sat at the window and watched families come home from school or head to their afternoon shifts.

That went into Danny's notes.

After that hour, it taught itself to flush the toilet repeatedly, rearranged the contents of Danny's half-assed linen closet (again) and then stood hovering over the safe where Danny had stashed the ectoplasm.

"...Okay," said Danny.

The dead body croaked. It was a new sound, but there was no context for it. Danny just kind of...wrote it down and hoped for the best.

The day after, Danny woke up at a very reasonable ten forty eight in the morning to find stray corpses feeding each other spoonfuls of ectoplasm in the kitchen.

At that point he kind of had to throw out the notes on how much each one was dosed with, because what the fuck.

"Really?!" Danny shouted, spooking the bodies into fleeing behind chairs and doors and back into his closet again. The only one that didn't flee was Danny's ringmaster corpse of the hour, of course. "You really couldn't wait??"

It stuck out a withered black tongue out at the mortician, who was, really, the victim in all of this. A victim to his parents' whims and a victim to the dead people who followed him around all the time.

This was how Danny found out that, when it doubt, the corpses could just tear through solid steel if they were motivated enough. The finger-marks were so deep and so embedded that they actually looked more like rough claws in the metal.

Great.

Danny ordered a new locking cage for the fridge on Prime and darted off to work. One of his regulars was on the table, though, so Danny just ended up doing what he would have at home— sewing up a gash in its neck and reattaching dead fingers back onto dead stumps.

On the third day, in which four of Danny's frequent fliers had learned from the first how to flush the toilet (and therefore raise the water bill immensely) Danny got a ring from a dark voice he (almost) recognized.

"Is he here?"

Danny squinted, jerking the phone further under his ear as he whipped up some scrambled eggs. The dead girl leaning over his shoulder leaned a little closer to watch the egg froth up. "Is who here? Who is this?"

"This is Batman. Is— the body requisitioned from your facility currently at your place of residence?"

Danny fully let go of the whisk. It landed haphazardly in the glass bowl he'd been stirring in. "What on Earth is a Batman?" he asked, incredulous.

"I visited your workplace previously."

Oh! "Yeah, the cop's friend. I remember now." Danny pulled the whisk out of the liquid eggs and held it out to the body. The unusually animate cadaver mostly prodded the whisk wires and paid no attention to him. "No one's here but me, though. Not that it's your business...?"

"And there are no non-living bodies currently in your apartment?"

Danny ignored the flushing noise in the other room. "I don't know, dude. They practically live in the walls at this point. Don't come over unless you have a warrant."

The call ended with a click.

His omelette turned out amazing, by the way. In case you were wondering.

On the fourth day, the ectoplasm was gone, because the corpses had apparently all taught each other how to lockpick the container in the fridge.

"Okay, some of that was meant to be my dinner. No more lotion at the funeral home now, okay? Now you all can be ashy forever. I'm so serious," Danny complained to the only visible dead person in the room.

The dead person held up a cracked egg. It was probably a gesture of peace, but now there was egg on his vinyl flooring to deal with. And. It wasn't exactly all that comforting in the end.

On the fifth day, Danny awoke to the sensation of a hand jamming itself through his neck until it punched into the mattress beneath him.

Fuck.

#dp x dc #I'm very pro Danny accidentally adopts a whole bunch of talons #could absolutely be an excuse for #talon!dick #talons #faer fic #dpxdc #dcxdp #death tw #well. the funeral industry anyway #medical tw #corpse tw #dead people #dcu crossover #the original post is free to a good home but I'm just chugging along here

[nagitoedit]

i should make a ko parody of ashfurbrightside to cope with the horrors of being alive

#id been thinking about it for a while actually #not a good sign for my mental health but its funny #its like an odd . like a triangle or maybe more . of ash ko and j.d. which isnt a good thing #ash jd freakish obsessive possessiveness over a girl #jd ko threatening to blow a place up and kill everyone commits suicide #ash ko . fire scene threats to kill people dead body found murderer was a girl who ends up getting crushed by large object kinda #girl comes back* and helps solve a situation and save people from The Evil #^ dont worry about the contradiction of it being a suicide but also a murder it requires too much context and im too mentally ill #to explain more right now my head hurts and i dont feel real i peeped the horror for 1.5hrs and im going to have nightmares #head in hands

[dandelion-idk]

went to visit the tag for my first ever otp after not touching it for like 3 years and damn, it was a rollercoaster. First I was like "yup, even after all this time and no new content" only to see new posts from my favorite artist, which actually got me all excited only to realize the newest one is from the beginning of 2022, which got me all sad. Then i realized that people were posting stuff in ANOTHER tag so i went and got excited again but i realized again that the most recent stuff was in october and got sad again, only to realize that there was ANOTHER ANOTHER tag that people were posting and got excited only to realize that it didnt have much either and got sad again only to realize—

#for context the otp is a rare pair that has accumulated a good chunk of material over time #LIKE OMG CANT WE ALL AGREE HOW TO CALL THIS SHIP ALREADY #in the spanish community for the ship everything was 100x easier #im so happy people are still shipping my babies tho #its like 🥺🥺🥺 last time i checked there was a dead body in the coffin now theres a zombie #its coming back to life!!!!

[sundrop-writes]

Careful - Chapter One

(Dad)Spencer Reid x (Mom)Fem!Reader

Chapter One: Over Yet

We can go farther, beyond the end.

Summary:

You and Spencer broke up more than four years ago. Since then, he has tried his best to forget about you. He has pushed all of his feelings down - locked them away into a little box that he never touches.

That is, until he sees your name on a list of potential victims being stalked and killed by a man who kills single mothers. (And he quickly realizes that your son could be his.)

Dad!Spencer Reid x Mom!Fem!Reader. Exes to Lovers. Angst.

Word Count: 5,900

Criminal Minds Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist

Please keep in mind - I am not doing a taglist for this series, so please do not ask to be tagged in future parts. I do not do taglists. If you want to be notified when future parts of this fic are posted, you can follow this blog and turn on notifications here - I don't make personal posts on this blog, it is just pure posts of my fanfiction. Or you can subcribe on AO3 to get email notifications when this series is posted. You can also view the posting schedule on the series materlist and check @tenpintsof-sundrop for any information about possible changes to that schedule.

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: general warnings for a Criminal Minds episode - mentions of murder/killing, somewhat graphic descriptions of killing, somewhat graphic descriptions of dead bodies, the underlying misogyny that comes with a man killing women, mentions of children being orphaned due to their mothers being killed (though there is no mentions of other living family members taking care of those children - you can imaging that they still have nice families to take care of them if you want, I didn’t fill in that detail), mentions of children being in proximity of a serial killer; exes to lovers - the reader and Spencer broke up and the reason why will be revealed later; mentions of pregnancy/mentions of the reader having a child; mentions of sex that resulted in a child/pregnancy (there is no detailed sex scenes/detailed smut in this chapter, but there will be in other chapters); mentions of JJ x Will; the reader’s looks are described as vaguely as possible; passing mention of incest (in the context of a historical figure); all statements that Spencer makes toward the end of this chapter were heavily researched and are factual; I think that’s about it?

A/N: The reader and Spencer originally dated around Season 1/Season 2 - I state at some point during the fic that they dated for 3 years before breaking up, so they started dating when he was very early Season 1 baby Spence (or even before Season 1) and they broke up around Season 2. So technically this fic takes place around Season 6 - but because I didn't want to distract from the plot, I didn't mention any of the stuff going on with Emily or any of those major canon plot points, and I am using pictures of later versions of Spencer just because that's who I was picturing in my head while writing this. But that's how the math works out. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the fic!! This chapter is more of an introduction before we really get into the meat of things, but I still hope that you guys like it.

...

The team had been in Portland for three days.

No leads, a confusing, inconsistent profile - huge pieces missing that would likely give them the real answers. 

A patient killer with an extended timeline who likely wouldn’t kill again for months - leaving them chasing their tails, looking for answers. 

“Okay, so, let’s take a step back.” Hotch sighed. “What do we know so far?” 

He leaned against a nearby table, looking at everyone with the hope of reassessing the case from a different angle. The hope of talking it out to get some answers. 

Another woman’s body had been found just before they arrived, and that would mean that the UnSub would be out hunting again soon. This was both good and bad. 

Good, because the UnSub clearly had to spend a lot of time stalking his victims - he knew a lot of details of their lives, and he had spent a lot of time developing an intimate fantasy of being a part of their family in his mind. So he wouldn’t be killing again the next day. No woman was in immediate danger. It gave the team more time to find viable suspects. 

Bad because they had no physical evidence, no good leads. And thus far, the profile was leading them nowhere. It felt incomplete. 

They could find no real connections between the victims - their gyms, their banks, their childcare, their grocery stores. Somehow, the victims didn’t seem to have any crossover in their lives. There was no real way to say how the UnSub had met them. And someone like this - he would have interacted with them at least once in order to become obsessed and stalk them to this degree. 

“Five women dead within the last three years.” Prentiss announced, starting to round up the facts that the team knew for certain. “All of them mothers, all with children under the age of five. All within the same ten square mile radius of Oregon, around Portland’s suburban neighborhoods.” 

She slumped back into her chair with a tired huff, and then continued. 

“The UnSub breaks into their homes through a backdoor or a back window, and somehow goes undetected in such an upscale neighborhood.” She sighed. “He kills the mothers, but he leaves their children alive. And then he calls 9-1-1 to report the death as a case of child neglect.” 

“So he was likely neglected by his own mother in his childhood.” Morgan easily theorized. 

“All of the victims upper-middle class, single mothers to one child with good jobs. All of them are of the same physical type.” Rossi added on. “They’re the same race, they have the hair color, they’re the same body type - all in their late twenties to early thirties. So the UnSub definitely has a type. He’s most definitely recreating a fantasy of some kind - perhaps taking out revenge on his own mother, but protecting himself. Which is why he never hurts the children.” 

“Yeah, but the children are different.” Morgan replied. “Sometimes boys, sometimes girls. Some of them are biracial - he doesn’t look for a specific type in the father. He doesn’t necessarily need to see himself in the children.” 

Then, as another thought occurred to him, Morgan continued on: 

“Plus, the children’s ages vary from barely a year old all the way up to five - if he was looking to seek revenge on his mother, looking to protect a younger version of himself, then he would have locked in on a critical event that he needs to protect himself from. The age of the children would be more consistent, at least, because he would be looking to protect himself as he hits the age that he was most traumatized by a specific event.” 

“That’s good.” Hotch nodded. “Then we know that it’s more about the mothers. He hates women at his core. Protecting the children is just a byproduct of his obsession over these women.” 

“But we still have no clue how these women could be connected or how they met the UnSub.” Morgan replied, jaw stiff with frustration. 

“Focus on what we do know.” Hotch reminded him. 

“All of the women were killed via stabbing. They all had over a dozen stab wounds to their stomachs and genital areas.” Rossi replied. “So, he is an aggressive sexual sadist.” 

“But if he hates women so much, why spend so much time in the house?” Morgan argued gently. “Every single one of these scenes has evidence that the UnSub spent hours - possibly up to a day in the house before he killed them. He cooked dinner, set the table, and made the women eat it before he killed them. Including a second place setting for a child. Some of the kids even said that ‘the scary man’ tucked them into bed and read them a story.” 

He held up one of the crime scene photos that depicted the scene of the family’s place settings - a haunting scene of plates not cleaned up from dinner, with a flower vase sitting in the middle of the table with a few white flowers wilting inside of it. 

“He’s right - why bother to show them the kindness of a last meal if he shows so much aggression toward them during the killing?” Prentiss added on. 

“It’s a routine.” Hotch said, the thought suddenly occurring to him. “It’s likely that he chooses single mothers because he gets to play the role of the father. With the real father figure absent from the picture, it makes it easier for him to impose himself into that role. At least for a temporary amount of time.” 

“It is strange.” Reid added on, clearly swimming in thought. “It’s almost like he’s courting them? Sending them gifts, showing what a good father he could be. Each of the women were sent white carnations sometime in the days before they were killed, and after the killing, he lays the flowers around their head in a halo-like fashion. It is said that carnations represent motherhood, and the white shade could depict an angelic innocence that he’s projecting onto these women.” 

“So he views these women as angelic figures, yet he kills them so brutally?” Prentiss scoffed. “It just doesn’t add up.” 

“Maybe he views the killing itself as a type of purification.” Reid theorized. “It’s not uncommon for killers to emotionally fetishize dead bodies and consider them more ‘pure’ than their living counterparts.” 

Prentiss visibly cringed at this. 

“Wait.” JJ said, looking at one of the crime scene photos with a sharp line pulling her brows together. 

Everyone looked to her, waiting for her to finish this thought. 

“I don’t think that the mothers were the only ones sent gifts.” 

She held up the photo, showing a picture of a colorful child’s play mat in the living room. Everyone stared at the photo in confusion, and JJ sighed and began to explain. 

“Look at this toy truck in the middle.” She said, pointing at something that almost blended into the background of the photo. The true focus was a large handprint - one that belonged to the killer, but he had worn gloves. “It’s wooden, it’s hand-carved, it’s old fashioned. All the other toys are plastic, brightly coloured. Remember what the UnSub said in the second 9-1-1 call?” 

“‘She pretends to have her son’s best interests at heart, but she was going to let him get cancer from sucking on those cheap plastic toys.’” Reid said, repeating it word-for-word, using his impeccable memory. 

“Exactly.” JJ confirmed with a nod. “Clearly the UnSub believes that he would be a good father because he can gift his child something hand-made instead of something mass produced.” 

“Alright, get the crime scene techs back over there to pick up the truck, maybe he wasn’t wearing gloves when he made it and there is some slim chance he left a print on it.” Hotch said, and JJ left to call the crime scene unit. 

This left the team sitting in silence for a few more moments until Reid spoke up again. 

“What about preschools?” He said, suddenly coming out of a wave of thought to announce this to the room. 

“What?” Prentiss prompted, wondering what on earth he was talking about. 

“Preschools.” Spencer confirmed, looking across the table at her. 

“We checked already, none of the victims’ children went to the same preschool.” Morgan reminded him. “Two of the kids didn’t even go to preschool.” 

“Yeah, but preschools typically have large waitlists.” Spencer argued. 

Naturally, all eyes in the room fell on him, waiting for him to explain. 

“In the first 9-1-1 call, the UnSub said that the victim ‘shipped her son off to be cared for by strangers half the time’.” He explained, once again perfectly reciting this from memory. “What if the UnSub resents preschools and the schooling system for taking these children away from their mothers, so he’s choosing his victims off of a preschool waitlist? What if that’s where his obsession stems from because that’s where his rage stems from?” 

Reid jumped up, pointing to the map he had been using to make a geographical profile. 

“All of the victims live within the same school district.” He added on. “So they would be applying to the same group of preschools.” 

“I’ll call Garcia.” Morgan announced. 

A few minutes later, Morgan connected Garcia’s call to the comm on the center of the conference table they were working from. 

“Hey, pumpkin pies.” She greeted them sweetly, as usual. “So it turns out, the preschool that Tommy Laird, and Emily Ashton, the third and the fourth victim had in common, does have a waitlist. But none of the other victims’ names were on it.” 

“Come on, babygirl. I know you’re holding out on me.” Morgan said, giving a small smirk. 

“Oh, my Adonis, if I don’t have your trembling anticipation, I have nothing.” Garcia giggled. “The school’s waitlist, and their applications, are handled by a firm called Gordon & Stanheight. And it turns out, they handle the applications and waitlisting for five other preschools in the area.” 

“Which gives the UnSub a perfect way to pick his victims.” Morgan sighed. “The first interaction that gets him hooked might not even be in person-” 

“Unless he’s picking them out of the line-up on paper and then waiting to meet them in person?” Prentiss replied. “With this type of guy, the smallest smile, a nod in his direction - that could be consent in his mind to play father to a household that’s missing one.” 

“You said they handle forms for five different schools? That just widened the victim pool.” Rossi groaned. 

“And the suspect pool.” Garcia added on. “The firm has thirty male employees. And I did a bit more digging - the preschool applications have ten ‘optional’ questions on the bottom that are definitely not marked as such. Questions directed at the parent filling out the form, rather than vital information about the child. Things such as: ‘what’s your favorite food?’, ‘when is your birthday?’, ‘what’s your favorite color?’, ‘do you plan on having more children?’ - typical survey schlock,” 

“That would explain why the UnSub served Lisa Laird a birthday cake.” Reid sighed. “He knew it was her birthday two days before he killed her.”

“I have a feeling I’m not gonna like where this is going.” Emily sighed. 

“Oh, sugar. You probably won’t.” Penelope easily agreed. “The ‘optional’ part of the forms is sold off to other companies as survey data. And those forms are seen and handled by over a thousand male employees of Gordon & Stanheight’s larger ‘data processing’ sector.” 

“Well the UnSub has to be local to Portland. So narrow down the suspect list based on his last known address and go from there.” Hotch said. “Also, it would be someone who has a criminal record. Someone committing this level of violence wouldn’t be a first time offender.” 

“Gotcha.” Penelope said. “Penny G, out.” 

… 

The team ended up raiding Gordon & Stanheight’s Portland based office. 

After some pointless conversation, some threats of lawsuits, and some even larger threats of being detained for impeding an FBI investigation, the team was able to get their hands on the preschool applications. Over two-dozen boxes worth, that they would have to sort through. 

So this left JJ, Reid, Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, and Prentiss knee deep in paper, looking for anyone who fit the UnSub’s victimology - praying that they would be able to pick out the next victim and get to her before the UnSub did. 

“We’re never gonna get through these fast enough, are we?” Prentiss sighed, continuing to sift through the papers. 

“We just have to go as fast as we can, and hope the UnSub sticks to his schedule.” Morgan replied. “He has to spend time stalking them, learning their routine. Even if he has chosen his victim by now, he won’t break into the house until he’s fully confident that he won’t be disrupted.” 

“And the stalking helps build up the fantasy.” Reid added on. “He romanticizes them from afar, sends them gifts. It adds to his delusions of grandeur and forbidden love. The idea that he’s swooping in to become the perfect father figure for these ‘broken’ families.” 

“So we’re hanging all our hopes on the idea that this psychopath needs time to ‘fall in love’ with his next victim before he kills her?” Prentiss groaned. 

“Sadly, yes.” Rossi confirmed. 

“It helps that most of these applications are from two-parent households.” JJ pointed out. “We can throw out anything with a second applicant on the form, because he’s only targeting single mothers.” 

The rest of the conversation easily became quiet in Spencer’s ears when he saw it. 

It should have been just another page among the sea of paper in his hands, but when he saw those words on the page - that name - it was like a punch to the gut. It pushed all the air out of him in seconds, it made him dizzy, made him struggle to breathe. Like a reel flashing through his mind, it brought back a flood of memories he thought he had locked away forever. 

It was you. 

What the hell were you doing applying for preschools? 

Spencer rushed to tear this paper away from the others in order to read it more carefully. 

Surely enough, the application was filled out in your handwriting. Something that had barely changed over the years. And it was all right there, laid out in front of his eyes, clear as day - 

You had a son. 

A son named Sebastian, who was three years old. Spencer checked the date on the form, eagerly looking for a birth date for your son. His birthday had just recently passed, actually, so he was four years old now. 

And his birth date was… fuck. 

He had been born eight and a half months, almost nine months exactly after the two of you had broken up. Your son had been born eight and a half months after the day you had left and Spencer had never seen you again. 

One thousand, seven hundred and two days. 

Four years, eight months, and two days. 

It wasn’t difficult math. 

Your son was the perfect age to be Spencer’s child. Was this Spencer’s child? 

His hands began to shake at the very thought of it.  

Is that why you had disappeared from his life with such haste? Because you knew that you were pregnant and you didn’t want Spencer to be a part of your child’s life? 

Had you been keeping this from him intentionally? 

He hadn’t thought about you in four long years, he had tried so hard not to. He had spent so long forcing himself not to miss you, and now he was struck with the realization that he might have a child out there with the woman he considered to be his regrettable lost love. A child he didn’t know - a child who he had missed four whole years with. 

What the fuck was going on? 

There were no pictures included with the application, and suddenly, Spencer found himself dying to see the boy. He wanted to know if there was any physical resemblance to himself, or if he was jumping to conclusions. 

Maybe you had cheated on him. Maybe that was why you had left town and never contacted him again. Maybe the kid wasn’t his at all, maybe- 

“Reid.” JJ called out gently, getting his attention. 

Spencer suddenly realized that he was hyperventilating, staring down at the application with your name on it in his hand, wrinkling the paper as he squeezed it more frantically. 

“Did you find something?” 

… 

All in all, the team found four different women who fit the victim pattern in the files - you being one of them. 

So the team split up, ready to knock on each of the womens’ doors, preparing to warn them that if they received any gifts or saw any suspicious men lingering around them in the next few days, they should call. They had to hope that the UnSub wouldn’t move on from this victim pool if he saw the FBI around. But he was overly confident, he had contacted police before. 

It could definitely work. 

When Hotch found out that Spencer had known you, he said that Spencer should be the one to knock on your door. That you might find it comforting to hear that you and your child could possibly be in danger if it were coming from ‘an old friend’. Spencer stuttered over himself and didn’t have the words to explain that you weren’t just a good friend to him, but a romantic flame. He didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of the team by telling everyone that the break-up had been messy, and sudden, and Spencer still wasn’t even completely sure what had caused it. He didn’t want to rip open his old wounds in front of everyone. 

So he simply shut his mouth and got in the car with JJ, and they made their way toward your house. 

…

“So…” JJ’s voice broke through the undulating silence of the car ride - filled by nothing but the sound of the car’s motor running and gears grinding inside Spencer’s mind as he tried to figure all of this out. “I do have to ask the obvious question,” 

“What is that?” Spencer probed, slightly glad to be relieved of his own thoughts. 

He wasn’t so glad when JJ pried those thoughts out of his mind and spilled them to the open air. 

“Is the kid yours?” She wondered aloud. “I mean - when did you and Y/N break up?” 

JJ had known you as Spencer’s girlfriend. 

Come to think of it, she was probably the only person on the current field team who had some kind of a relationship with you back when you and Spencer dated. 

Initially, it had been by accident. JJ had driven him home one night after a particularly long and sleepless case, and you had been coming to his apartment to drop off some books he had asked for (shortly after he had given you a key). When JJ saw you, her natural curiosity got the better of her - even more so when you stuck out your hand and introduced yourself as ‘Spencer’s girlfriend’ without hesitation. 

The two of you got to talking, and JJ invited you to ‘girls night’. You met Elle and Penelope shortly after. You had become pretty good friends with the three of them before the break-up. 

But Spencer had always felt secretive…. well, protective of you. He didn’t want Morgan teasing him about you, or him wanting to have ‘guy talk’ about things that occurred in the bedroom. Not when it might mean talking about intimate moments with you. Spencer had only introduced you to Gideon over coffee about three weeks before the break-up, and that felt like a lifetime ago. 

Back then, having you, Elle, and Gideon leave his life all in a matter of a few months felt like hell on earth. It felt like being grabbed by his ankles and shaken for all he was worth. He really wasn’t sure that he was ready to see you again. 

It had been four years. 

JJ was someone he could lean on right now. 

“Four years ago.” He told her, completely honest. 

“And how old is the kid?” JJ asked. 

“Four - four years old.” Spencer stuttered out, realizing that now as he was speaking about this very real possibility, he might be breathing more life into it. 

“Oh my god.” JJ sighed. “Well… could it-? I mean…? Did the two of you?” 

It took Spencer a moment to clue into what JJ was talking about. He gave her a sideways glance and she took her eyes off the road for a moment, raising her brows and giving him a pointed look. 

“Please tell me you know what does and what doesn’t make a baby,” JJ groaned. 

“Oh!” Spencer huffed, a small wave of embarrassment flooding him. “Yes! God, yes. I know.” 

There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Spencer felt the need to clarify his answer. 

“We - I mean. We…” He trailed off for a moment, clearing his throat. “We didn’t always use… protection. We were together for three years, at the time, it was on the table.” 

“Kids were on the table for you back then?” JJ asked, clearly shocked by this. “I could not imagine little twenty-four year old Spence with a baby.” 

“Well… it’s something I’ve always wanted.” He mumbled quietly in reply. 

It was true. At the time, Spencer easily imagined himself getting married to you, having multiple kids with you. These days, seeing JJ with Henry and Will brought him the occasional underlying pang of jealousy - but since breaking up with you, there hadn’t been anyone else in Spencer’s life that he could have imagined having kids with. He thought that he was going to be alone and childless for the rest of his life. That the dream was long dead for him. 

“Hey - then, maybe this is a blessing in disguise?” JJ posed. “If we hadn’t been looking through those forms because of this UnSub, you never would have found Y/N again. You wouldn’t even know this baby exists.” 

There was another thing that JJ was dying to ask - something she held back because she felt like it was a touch too personal. (Even if ‘too personal’ was basically how the BAU team lived - knee deep in each other’s business, all the time). 

She wanted to know why you had a baby, a baby that Spencer had very likely fathered, and you hadn’t contacted him about it. Spencer seemed entirely clueless about the child’s existence before now, and JJ knew that because of what his own father had been like, he wouldn’t just blow off a kid that was his if he knew that one was out there in the world. 

So why hadn’t you told Spencer about the baby? 

“What if the kid isn’t yours?” JJ wondered aloud. 

Maybe that would unburden him. She knew that either way, Spencer would fight to protect you from the UnSub. But if the kid wasn’t his - he would walk away again, and he wouldn’t have to be hung up on the heartbreak of dealing with his ex just to parent a child together. 

“Honestly… I think I’ll be more heartbroken if I find out that he’s not even mine.” Spencer told her, his voice quiet and already lulling with that disappointment. 

That was not something JJ had considered. She frowned as she saw the sadness paint across Spencer’s face. 

“One thing at a time, alright?” 

…

When they pulled into your driveway, Spencer’s mind immediately began churning. 

It was a nice house. It was a beautiful, quiet neighborhood. The front yard was clean and trimmed and there was a silver SUV in the driveway with a ‘baby on board’ sticker in the rear window. There was a rocking chair on the porch, but he didn’t see many children’s toys out front on the lawn. He guessed that was a good thing. Letting children play in the front where they could run into the street and potentially get hit by a car was too dangerous. He was glad to already see signs that you were a good mother. 

Spencer felt like he was opening up a book halfway, desperately wanting to be filled in on the previous chapters while having missed so much. Still wanting to read ahead and see more. 

He had already missed so much of your son’s life. He had missed you. That was something forming the biggest knot in his gut. He had truly missed you. The times he had allowed himself to think of you over these past few years - he had missed you so dearly. 

And now the two of you likely had a child together. 

Craning his neck to get a better look, desperately trying to take in more information, Spencer’s eyes were wide and hungry as JJ put the car in park by the curb in front of your house. As Spencer reached for the passenger side door handle, JJ’s phone rang. 

“I have to take this.” She sighed. “You go ahead.” 

She gave Spencer a distinct look that said ‘I know you need a minute alone with Y/N’, and he nodded, stepping out of the vehicle while she greeted whoever was on the other line. He smoothed down his tie - for once in his whole life, he was actually worried about how he looked. Only because he knew that he was going to see you. Perhaps he had only ever felt like this before going on his first date with you. 

He had such a strange lashing of emotions going through him as he approached the door. Fear, anxiety, anticipation. Longing. 

He truly had tried so hard to lock away his feelings for you when you had left. He had tried to move on. He had considered, briefly, in passing, dating other women. There had been times when someone else caught his eye, and he considered asking her out on a date. Morgan had offered to ‘set him up’. Penelope had offered too, telling him that he deserved to ‘get back out there’. 

Whenever she asked about you, his heart freshly cracked open. 

At one point, she had advised him to write a long, Shakespearian letter, pouring out his heart to you in an effort to get you back - one which she would mail. (Because of course, she could get your new address in a heartbeat.) But he didn’t want to experience the heartbreak all over again if you ignored him. He didn’t want to sit, waiting by the mailbox every single day like a lost dog, waiting for you to write him back in return. 

You had disappeared from his life for a reason. Just like everyone else had. For a long time, Spencer convinced himself that he was simply meant to end up alone. 

Perhaps if he had known about your son - a child that could very well be his - then he might have felt differently about getting Penelope to contact you. 

But now he was standing at your front door, his fist shaking as he raised his hand to knock. 

He let out a sharp breath and steadied himself, giving three swift, firm knocks against the door and then trying to wait patiently. His heart thumped inside of his throat, and it felt like forever. 

“Sorry!” Your voice called out from behind the door, muffled. “Sorry, I almost didn’t hear you. I was-” 

You cut off your own words as you opened the door - the moment you caught Spencer’s eye and recognized it was him, pure shock fell across your features, and you froze on the spot. 

You were just as stunning as ever. You had barely aged at all - your hair was different than the last time he had seen you, of course. And you were dressed casually - wearing a simple hooded sweatshirt with a drawstring and a pair of jeans with some fuzzy slipper boots on. But pale blue looked so good on you.

So much like the pale blue dress you had worn on your first date with him. 

You were breath-taking. 

“Y/N.” He greeted you, his throat dry already. 

You didn’t say anything, simply continuing to stare him down with wide-eyed shock. 

Seeing you again, Spencer couldn’t help but to think back to that first date. 

The first night that he knew he was in love with you. 

… 

He had taken you to see the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. 

It was Spencer’s idea of a good time - and it ended up being one of the most beautiful, most romantic, most unique first dates that you had ever been on. 

It was difficult not to fall for him with the beautiful music in the air and his glossy eyes, so sickeningly thick with affection, staring you down all night. 

Afterwards, the two of you stopped to get ice cream at a small shop that was a short walk down from the orchestra. And now you were both enjoying your ice cream as you walked along in the cool night air - enjoying the peace and quiet and the gentle breeze in the darkness. 

It was a perfect night. 

Spencer could think of no better way to spend it than with you. The yellow bulbs of the street lights practically cast a glow onto your skin, the mulberry lipstick now worn off your lips as you brought the pink spoon to your mouth and licked up your sweet treat. 

His stomach was churning with nerves. Joyous nerves. 

And as per usual, when he was nervous - he rambled. 

“You know, Bach actually married his cousin.” He said, spouting off the first thing that came to mind. 

You told him that Bach was one of your favorite composers - it’s why he had thought to bring you to the orchestra on a date in the first place. 

“I did not know that.” You giggled. “So what? Was it like a ‘third cousin twice removed’ type situation?” 

Spencer found himself grinning at the fact that you actually engaged him in the conversation, rather than staring at him with an odd look for bringing up such a strange topic. 

“Not quite.” He replied. “They had the same surname before marriage.” 

“Oh, ew.” You chuckled again, giving a shudder at the thought of this. 

Spencer knew it was an odd topic to discuss on a date, and if he rambled on too much, it might freak you out - but he couldn’t stop himself. His mouth ran away with him, and he continued. 

“He married Maria Barbara Bach, and they had seven children together.” He told you. “His sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel became composers and musicians much like their father, which was actually carrying on a legacy started by Bach’s father himself - who was a seventh generation musician. He was the one who taught Bach the organ from a very young age.” 

“Why don’t people play the organ anymore?” You wondered aloud. “Except in churches, I guess. The organ rocks.” 

Spencer’s brain began rocketing off at the fact that you had asked him a question. A question he could answer. 

“The organ has actually long been associated with divinity.” He replied. “The instrument rose in popularity alongside Catholicism throughout the eighteenth century, and in a sense, that was part of what made Bach a sort of ‘rockstar’ of his time. The religious references in his work, and his mastery of the organ - all of it made him incredibly popular at the time because it caused him to be favored by the church and by royal figures associated with the church.” 

Spencer gleamed a large smile, heavily enjoying that he could share these facts with you. He thought for certain that any moment, you would change the subject or imply that he should stop talking. But instead, you engaged the conversation more. 

“Religious references?” You questioned, wondering what he meant by this. 

“Yes!” Spencer grinned, suddenly very excited by the explanation behind this. “Even in his secular music, Bach would often incorporate the acronym ‘INJ’, a Latin abbreviation that means ‘In Nomine Jesu’, or ‘in the name of Jesus’. It was something he put on all of his manuscripts.” 

You grinned back. You found it fascinating that being around Spencer for such short periods of time caused you to learn so many things. It easily made you want to be around him more. 

“Interesting.” You replied. 

“And his talent on the organ was seen as something that made him ‘divine’ at the time. Divine enough to be worthy of performing for royalty.” Spencer added on. “In 1708, Bach got a position as the court organist in Weimer for Duke Wilhelm. And later when he requested early release from this position, desiring to go work for Prince Leopold of Koethen, the Duke actually had him arrested and put in jail for several weeks in 1716.” 

Spencer laughed at this mental image - the composer being put in jail. 

“Ooh, harsh.” You sighed. “But I guess Dukes have too much power.” 

Spencer let out another bright laugh at this. 

“And see, the interesting thing is, Bach later became the conductor of the court orchestra, in which Prince Leopold played.” 

“So he got his wish,�� You replied with a smile. 

“And see-” 

Spencer set off on another rant again, and you couldn’t help yourself. You put your spoon into the cup of ice cream and then you used your now free hand to reach out and grab Spencer by his tie - you pulled him toward you before he could get anymore words out, and he let out a shocked, choked-off sound when you pressed your mouth into his. 

He sighed gently against your lips, and unconsciously dropped his own melting chocolate cone on the ground by his feet as his limp hands drifted toward your waist. He was dizzy, and now every single fact he had ever known about any composer had vanished from his head. In that moment, standing under a random street lamp on a random sidewalk somewhere - all he knew was the soft, pillowy feeling of your lips and the cool night breeze against his skin. 

It was perfect. You were perfect. 

You found his intelligence and the enthusiasm with which he spoke to be so utterly irresistible. You had been on so many dates with men before where they had acted like talking about their interests was a chore. Where they had made it seem like the whole thing was simply a routine, waiting for the end of the night so they could get into your pants. And for them, that’s what it probably was. 

But Spencer was nothing like that. 

He spoke about everything with such intense passion - and you couldn’t resist the urge to try and suck that very passion off his lips. 

When you were forced to pull back slightly, your lungs crying out for oxygen, Spencer let out a gentle moan and began puffing out sweet little pants across your chin as he tried to catch his breath. You kept a hold of his tie, wanting to keep him close, and he stayed there, gently pressing his forehead against yours. 

“That was… wow.” He sighed. 

“I didn’t think I would ever find you at a loss for words, Doctor Reid.” You replied with a giggle. 

“Well, I - you - wow.” 

It was all he could muster, causing you both to break down into laughter. 

Back then - everything had been perfect. 

He had no clue where it all went so wrong.

...

Continue reading: Chapter Two - Liar

#sundrop writes #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #dad!spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds x you #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fic

[calder]

Released in 2010, Obsidian Entertainment's Fallout: New Vegas actively concerns itself with the realities of gay existence, and is widely recognized as a noteworthy work of queer science fiction. New Vegas extensively examines social attitudes towards homosexuality among the game's major factions, and primarily conveys this lore through gay and bisexual characters describing their own experiences. It also allowed the player to mechanically set the Courier's sexual orientation. By taking both available perks, the player character can be bisexual. By choosing neither, the player can opt out of seeing flirtatious dialogue options.

Uniquely, Fallout: New Vegas explores homosexuality in the context of wasteland societies, and touches upon related issues. The core theme of New Vegas is that the desire to recreate the past is driven by irrational nostalgia, and any endeavor to manifest past glory is dangerous and doomed. The social issue of homophobia is used as a demonstrative example. The resurrection of corporate and military power structures presents new avenues for Old World problems such as institutional homophobia to reemerge. One of the many issues that divide the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion is the latter's open persecution of gay people. The NCR is described as tolerant and even accepting of same-sex relationships, though acceptance tends to fall off the further one moves away from the developed, urbanized core of New California. In recent years, the Republic's rapid economic transformation has led to an unforeseen erosion of the humanitarian ideals which it was founded to serve. In practice, to recreate America was to take on its shortcomings and its sins. As subsistence scavenging has dried up, the people of the NCR increasingly turn to wage labor, entrepreneurial venture, or military enlistment to keep their families fed. Meanwhile, their government enacts morally corrosive imperialism (narrative verbiage), their dominion expanding indefinitely as their infrastructure crumbles from within. This has led to a profit-based imperial monoculture which must conquer, consume, and coerce to perpetuate. As personal politics and service labor grow in importance, people find themselves more inclined to present as "normal" in the interest of financial stability and political expedience. A loading screen visualizes this culture of artificial social normalcy: the portrait of President Aradesh on the NCR 5$ bill neglects to depict his unibrow, earring, and facial scarification, overall portraying the once-chieftain so cleanly-cut as to be unrecognizable at first glance. He also appears to be wearing a collared shirt or suit as opposed to the robe he wore in Fallout.

In the Legion, Caesar has mandated that every legionnaire take a wife and produce children, citing high infant mortality rates and the constant need for soldiers, and going as far as instituting child quotas. He treats human beings as a resource to be exploited for war. Ostensibly in this aim homosexuality has been declared a capital offense punishable by death. Historically, routine demonstrations of violence towards women and gay people are a deliberate feature of fascist societies, the only logical cultural conclusion of a government devoted entirely to war and control. In Forlorn Hope letter 9, an NCR soldier wrote wrote the following to his boyfriend:

Dearest Andrew, Writing this seems pretty morbid, but tomorrow we march into the no man's land between our camp and Nelson, which is crawling with Legion. The Major insisted I write this damn "if you get this, I'm dead" letter so here it is. What a crock. I have the luck of the devil and your love on my side, so I'll be home soon. Keep the porch light on for me. We'll party in New Vegas when I get back. I love you. —Devin

Devin believed he would prevail over the Legion because his love would keep him safe. He was found dying or dead on the battlefield, the letter was found on his body. In a post-release patch, the injured soldiers were removed from the battlefield for performance reasons, and never re-implemented. Driven largely in reaction to the Legion's hyper-masculine posturing and misogyny, rumors persist across the Mojave that gay male relationships are not only common within the Legion, but condoned. These rumors are repeated commonly in NCR society. A closeted NCR Major mentions that the Legion is "a little more... forgiving" about close male "friendships," speaking in a hushed tone to avoid suspicion. At the same outpost, the player can encounter Cass, a bisexual civilian woman. She may flirt with a male Courier, who may imply they are gay, prompting her to imply gay men are more common in the Legion. Even as gay men fight and die in the name of love under his command, NCR General Oliver may remark to Courier Six at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam: "If you think after all that's happened, I'm going to grab my ankles and take it like the Legion..."

This writing pertains to institutionalized homophobia which manifests in practice though power structures and social interactions without being written into law. Simply put, in his derogatory remark, the general expresses to his army that military surrender is gay, much like their gay enemy. From the brevity and bluntness of this remark, it's clear that this sentiment is already well understood among his ranks. Logically, to project strength in the eyes of such a leader, one might also project homophobia by scrutinizing and harassing one's peers and subordinates. In this atmosphere, the expression of homophobia is not only normalized, but materially incentivized. For the ambitious, it becomes a tool, and a way of casting shame upon rivals. For the closeted, homophobia becomes a survival tactic, hoping to throw scrutiny off oneself. This is why Major Knight is immediately frightened when a male Courier flirts with him. He is so profoundly alienated that he romanticizes life as a gay man under the Legion. The Legion punish homosexuality with death, and yet Knight characterizes them as more "forgiving" than the NCR. Through these apparently disparate events, the audience can trace how a distorted perception of gay people emerges among insecure men in a military environment, and subsequently becomes ingrained in the corresponding civilian culture. At the 188 Trading Post, a lesbian from the Brotherhood of Steel named Veronica also wryly remarks that she believes legionaries have gay sex about as often as straight sex. She also notes that this only applies to men, as women have no rights whatsoever in Legion society. In this aside, she conveys a pre-existing frustration with lesbophobic social norms. Veronica also mentions that the people of her bunker would rather she remain on the surface. The Mojave Brotherhood of Steel has no official policy prohibiting homosexuality, but an implicit attitude among its dominant members that their limited numbers require everyone to have children to avoid extinction. Numerically, this may seem logical on the surface, given their reluctance to recruit outsiders. However, given their tiny population, this is an ineffective countermeasure, as they do not have nearly enough members to maintain genetic diversity for more than a few generations. This approach is not universally supported by all family units within the Brotherhood, but every individual is ultimately at the mercy of the elder. Veronica was in a lesbian relationship, but they were quietly separated by Elder Elijah, due to the dominant culture of enforcing heterosexual pairing among their population.

Caesar's law has not ended homosexuality within his domain. Despite the obvious risks, some legionaries have continued to pursue relationships behind closed doors, especially given their access to slaves. So long as members complete their societal obligations and fulfill the child quotas, they are able to pursue romance with other men in secret. Homosexual relationships in the faction are noted as being relatively equal compared to the average Legion husband and wife, in a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" sort of open secret policy. Gay legionaries must always make sure to keep their activities hidden. A centurion was once almost caught fraternizing with the teenage boy he had chosen to tend his tent. Despite previous "romantic" intentions, he quickly resolved to dispose of the slave to dispel suspicion. Had they been caught together, the centurion would have been charged with homosexuality and sentenced to death. This story is only known because the enslaved young man, Jimmy, managed to escape execution. Further illustrating the cruelty intrinsic to Legion governance, it's stated that homosexuality was the crime, and not the rape of a young slave; in fact, it seems Jimmy was forced to contribute to the child quota despite being a gay teenager, and the experience left him traumatized. He has resolved to never have sex with another woman, as the very notion triggers memories which fill him with disgust, and (in his own words) makes him feel like a slave all over again. The Strip is indifferent to gay people, viewing them as another opportunity to make caps. Both the Gomorrah and the Atomic Wrangler are interested in maximizing profits, and their prostitution services cater to clients regardless of their orientation. The openly gay Jimmy works at nearby Casa Madrid, but there is some tension among his peers due to his co-worker Maude's blatant homophobia. She supposes he's "okay, for one of those," and if propositioned by a female Courier, Maude will direct them to Sweetie for such "perverted" services. Pretty Sarah must regularly intervene to keep the peace among her staff.

The Followers of the Apocalypse, well-read punks who seek to embody healing through anarchistic values, are not concerned with gender. Most are openly and casually sexually active. Upon meeting Courier Six, Arcade Gannon offhandedly makes his gayness known, unprompted. The audience must face the fact that Arcade's apprehension of the Legion is far from abstract; under Legion law, he would be put to death. One possible ending gives further insight into Caesar's hypocrisy: should the player sell Arcade into slavery and leave Caesar alive, he will keep Arcade as a personal physician and philosophical advisor. They intellectually spar at length, and Caesar grows singularly fond of him. Accordingly, Arcade imitates the historic suicide of Cato the Younger by disemboweling himself. The Legion's remaining medics attempted to save his life, but none were Arcade's equal. Caesar understood his doctor's final gesture of contempt, and mourned him for months.

New Vegas ventures further into themes of healing from the trauma of sexual violence, from the perspective of a lesbian character. Corporal Betsy, an NCR sharpshooter, is a rape survivor, and suffers with PTSD from the incident. Her unprocessed trauma has manifested as a maladaptive tendency to aggressively and explicitly proposition the women she encounters, in an effort to reassert a sense of control. This defensive hypersexual impulse has negatively impacted her ability to connect with other women. A male superior officer notes that her behavior is inappropriate for anyone of her stature, but abstains from disciplining her out of sincere concern for her mental health. The Courier can help her begin to recognize these problems, and convince her to seek treatment from Doctor Usanagi at the New Vegas medical clinic, which proves helpful to her as she processes and heals from her trauma.

In Old World Blues, the Think Tank are five floating brains in jars who express themselves by waving robotic arms bearing screens depicting facial features. Before the War, they were federal scientists who committed crimes against humanity in the name of weapons development. Each is stuck in some sort of neuro-bionic feedback loop which prevents them from moving forward with their projects, mentally binding them to their central laboratory. Walking through their homes at Higgs Village, it's clear each was deeply neurotic before they were transformed into floating brains. Now without bodies, they attempt to maintain the illusion that they are exempt from sexuality as purely mental beings, but each displays obvious interest in the human form. They have codified this shaming with the term "formography." Most of the men are obsessively defensive over their complete disinterest in penises, which they talk about constantly. However, the shameless Dr. Dala shows overwhelming interest in observing and recording any and all human functions. Already androgynous in her pre-War life, Dala has taken to self-identifying as a "gender neutral entity" (though she is not known to use they/them pronouns). Regardless of the Courier's gender, they may coquettishly scratch themselves, clear their throat, and stretch in front of Dala until her biomed gel decoagulates. Dr. 8 also responds positively to graphic masturbation advice from Couriers of either gender. The X-8 research facility is ostensibly a massive immersive shrine to Doctor Borous's hatred of Richie "Ball-Lover" Marcus, a long-dead child who bullied Borous centuries ago. He also clings to his resentment of one Betsy Bright, who refused to attend a dance with him, supposedly so she could "go smoke with RICHIE MARCUS." Clearly arrested in development, Borous has literally built a temple to the fantasy of torturing his adolescent romantic rival and feeding him to dogs. His frozen, static characterization of the jock Richie Marcus as a "pinko-commie" who "likes balls" reflects the shallowness, pettiness, and overall misanthropy underlying his patriotic identity. It remains apparent throughout Old World Blues that the Think Tank are all chronically sexually repressed, which is inseparable from the values of the violent and judgmental pre-War culture which created them. With time and isolation, this ingrained repression has manifested as various intense and deranged psychosexual behaviors, including rage-fueled homophobia, voyeurism, and the obsessive performance of puritanical pretense.

____

“Although I’ve been out for a very long time, I made a conscious effort to be out with relation to this project, as I wanted to be visible as a lesbian in the game industry. New Vegas itself is, I think, one of (if not the) best games out there in how we treat homosexuality – and all of that is very intentional.”

“If my work on FNV, if my being out has helped even one gay person, then I have succeeded.” — Tess “Obsidian’s Gay Cowgirl” Treadwell

____

written (with help from other editors) for fallout.fandom.com/wiki/LGBT_representation_in_the_Fallout_series criticism welcome

#fnv

[radiance1]

Vlad Masters has died.

Or at the very least, that is what the upper class was lead to believe. Could you blame them? His death was wildly convincing, and the thing was.

No one knew who would inherit Vladco and his fortune.

As far as they knew, Masters never had any heirs to speak of at all. Not even an illegitimate child, or a foster care. He doesn't even have relatives that the fortune and company could go to.

So, safe to say, they were quite looking forwards to what would happen to the company. Would it sink, or stay afloat?

Now, normally, Damian wouldn't have cared a single bit about what would happen. But seeing as he is forced to go to an event held at the very dead Vlad Masters' mansion, he thinks he should have the right to see what'll happen.

The company's various stockholders were all gathered together, as well as Lex Luthor and other rich upper-class individuals. He knows that Vlad and Lex didn't like each other very well, so he thinks that Lex Luthor may or may not be backing the biggest current stockholder so that he'll have a say in the man's company when they take over.

Honestly, the event was pretty boring. He thought there would be... more, happening. Considering the context of this event.

So, he leaves. He's really just exploring to stave off his boredom, but if he found Vlad Masters' secrets before his death, well. Might as well, really.

He comes upon a room filled wall to wall with merchandise that screamed Masters was a packers fan before his death. Quite the large one at that as well. He picked up one item just to take a look at it, it wasn't something he was too interested in, but it was sort of impressive.

He turned when he heard the door open behind him, and saw a girl that was probably around his age staring at him with concern.

The thing is, she wasn't dressed like a guest. Or even a maid. She was dressed like a poor person.

So obviously he thought she was breaking in to find things to steal and sell off.

"I'm telling dad you tried stealing his packers merch." And with that, the girl was off, and Damian found himself running after her.

Why?

Boredom.

But also, father? He genuinely considers who she was talking about, clearly it couldn't have been anyone participating in the event, so was he also another thief that wanted to steal from Masters?

What sort of thief reveals they have another roaming around where they're stealing from? And their blood relation at that?

He realized that they were running towards where all the guests were gathered, and Damian thought that this girl was either lost, or genuinely didn't know what she was doing.

"Dad! Some kid is trying to steal your merchandise!" Said the girl, slamming open the doors and causing the attention of everyone present to fall directly on her as she paused.

Damian couldn't see it, but he thinks she's quite stupefied in that moment, paused on her pause. It was completely, and utterly quiet for a moment as the guests stared at her, and she stared back.

However, the next moment. The very detailed coffin laying in the center of the room suddenly swung itself open with a great pillar of green fire that reached the ceiling, causing his attention to switch over to it.

He saw lines on the floor around the coffin, lines that he previously ignored as some kind of design choice.

Lines that were filled with a liquid none to dissimilar to Lazarous Water.

A hand reached out of the coffin. "WHO DARES TO TOUCH MY PRECIOUS MERCHANDISE!?" And from beyond the grave the previously dead now arisen body of Vlad Masters pulled himself out of his own coffin, with inhumane red eyes.

So. Damian came to two conclusions that night.

One, Vlad Masters may or may not have had ties with the League of Assassins in some way, leading to his now ressurection.

Two, Vlad Masters has a daughter that was extremely well hidden from basically everyone present at the gathering and, maybe even the world at large.

#dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #dcxdp #dc x dp crossover