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#everyone is up for believing and supporting victims until the victim is a successful woman who was able to turn the situation on its head
niallschesthair · 2 years
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you know what annoys me of the taylor swift album release cycle? the incessant, unnecessary comments the general public and even some people in the fandom make about how taylor "always victimises herself for no reason", or how she "loves to play the victim when she's just a rich popstar without real problems", and more recently that she "shouldn't use words like intrusive thoughts, trauma, and emotional abuse to talk about what's happened to her or her experiences with anxiety because she doesn't know what that's like". it fucking infuriates me.
taylor swift acts and writes like a victim because, quite simply, she's been made one, point black, end of the sentence. she should be allowed to write about her experiences with abuse, any type of abuse from any source, without people deciding for her if it was actually abusive or traumatic, or policing her choice of coping mechanism.
people's unwillingness to accept and acknowledge much of what taylor has gone through during her career as abuse and trauma is baffling to me because i honestly can't think of a term that describes it better.
she has been made fun of and ridiculised by the media since she was a child for doing things children and teenagers do (be naive about love, write about boys, go on dates, dress age appropriate), she's been slut shamed by everyone on the internet for dating a less than average amount, she's gone through public humiliation on a mass scale twice now (the first one when she was just nineteen) by a much older, well respected, established male artist, she has been abused by men both professionally and emotionally, she was made an example of what girls ought not to do or be lest you end up just like her, she's been isolated since childhood because she never felt she fit in with the rest.
she's gone through all of those things while at the same time being gaslighted (and i'm using this word in its original clinical meaning and not the internet meme one) into thinking none of that was as bad as she's making it out to be and she ended up okay so it can't have caused her real trauma because nothing happened, it was all fine and a joke. these are things we recognise as hurtful, abusive, and traumatic in other people but as soon as they're experienced by someone who copes with it through writing music she then sells for a profit then suddenly it's not and she's exaggerating it for attention.
she talks about herself in the same hyper-aware, hyper-vigilant, anxious way victims of abuse and survivors of high stress situations do and that's why her music resonates with so many of us who have been abused in the past as well, because she's putting into words things we experience on the daily and i genuinely don't think it's because she wants to. no one wants to go through those things and then go through a new cycle of humiliation every time you talk about your experiences just to make a few dollars.
it's maddening that the attitude most people take when discussing her trauma is to minimise it or straight up deny it because she was able to transform some of that pain into a #1 single
i don't ask people to sympathise or feel bad about her but to accept that we have agreed that online bullying and dog piling on a mass scale is abusive and traumatic, that women being taken advantage of by the male superiors is traumatic, that women being slut shamed for enjoying their sexuality is abusive and traumatic, that being in relationships where your partner is volatile is traumatic, that being coerced and manipulated into relationships with older men is abusive, that being retaliated against in public after revealing you were sexually assaulted is traumatic; so why should none of that apply to her? why is she not allowed to be vocal about being in all those situations without someone telling her she's not gone through actual trauma? why does everyone gets to decide for her whether or not she's actually been abused and if she can or cannot claim victimhood?
accepting taylor's abuse and her victimhood does nothing to take away from yours or that of others. accepting that she's allowed and entitled to discuss her experiences doesn't silence you. you don't have to like her but to dismiss her is disrespectful because when you do that you're not only dismissing her own experiences with abuse and trauma, but that of people in similar situations who empathise and identify with her.
TL;DR: taylor doesn't write about being a victim nearly as much as the people trying to discredit her work say she does, but if she did she would be entirely justified in it because she has been in a lot of situations where she's been victimised and abused by people who knew what they were doing to her and you don't get to decide if she was sufficiently traumatised by them or not. recognising taylor's experience with abuse does nothing to minimise or invalidate yours, two people can be abused in two different ways and doesn't mean one is less entitled to compassion. it's not a competition.
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boldlyvoid · 3 years
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Intro to Criminal Minds: Why They Did It
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Criminal Minds x MINDHUNTER AU
Spencer Reid x Margaret Carr (OC)
Part 1: Ed Kemper.
Summary: Spencer is teaching a 7-week seminar on the most interesting criminal cases, explaining their actions to understand why they took place. Only, not everyone in the audience is a student.
warnings: graphic details of a real rape and murder case, like every trigger in the book, applies to this fic so read with caution (if you watch either show you're used to it, however), it's all real and did actually happen and I don't support any of it. strangers to lovers, mutual pining, flirting, fluff, eventual smut, idiots in love, OC is Wendy Carr's daughter, her bio father is Jason Gideon
word count: 3.9K
He'd be lying if he said he wasn't having fun teaching.
He started with guest speaking, moving to special seminars a few times a year. But he wanted something more, settling for a 7-week criminal justice elective of his choosing.
Intro to Criminal Minds: why they did it. Giving Spencer an excuse to share the most intimate facts about serial offenders in a setting where no one could tell him to shut up.
14 students total signed up for the two-hour Seminar, taking place every Thursday at 11 am from September until Halloween. Over the 7 weeks, he would explain the fascinating insights of the most successful killers in the United States. Only asking that his students write about a prolific crime they find interesting by the end of term, for their full grade.
All he wanted was to read about obscure killers from around the world, from the perspective of aspiring profilers.
The first Thursday, he came prepared with his coffee a half hour before the class. He wanted to write the main points on the whiteboard in advance, nice and neatly.
To his surprise, a student was already there waiting for him. "Oh, hello,” he smiled softly.
She was sitting with a book in her hands, she pushed her glasses up her nose to look at him as he walked in. She was older than his typical student, around 35. Probably finishing up a degree or adding something to what she already had.
"Hi," she smiled at him. “Sorry, I’m early, I was visiting my mom at Quantico earlier.” She explained. "I'm not a teacher's pet or anything. Promise, I’m not even a student.”
It made him laugh slightly, correcting him like she read his mind. "It's okay, I'm Doctor Reid," he introduced himself softly.
“Margaret Carr, Peggy is also fine.”
"Pleasure to meet you," he said quickly before focusing his attention on the whiteboard.
He could feel her eyes on him the whole time he wrote, not wanting to turn around and catch her. "That's so interesting," he heard her mumble under her breath.
"Hmm?" He turned around.
"It's just that, everyday occurrences that never phase the regular person somehow cause psychopaths to kill," she read the board back to him.
"I was reading a study a while back about how psycho killers medulla oblongata is approximately 19% smaller than the average human’s. Based on the way they're nurtured as children affects if they grow up to kill. The ones that don't often end up in law enforcement and other positions of power where their psychopathic tendencies can come to play."
He was taken aback for a moment. He had never experienced a student who was like him before. Someone who just pulled facts into conversations like it was nothing.
"I read that as well," he smiled. "It is fascinating. The smallest amount of bullying and abuse from a mother or disappearance of a father figure can set them off."
"Or, on the other hand, there are people like Ted Bundy," she added. "He was well-loved and taken care of, but it went to his head. His god complex and affinity for lying led him to be incredibly charismatic and enabled his killing."
"You're very educated on this already; are you just interested in hearing me speak today?" He asked, not wanting her to leave, finding it interesting that she was there.
"Oh," she blushed. "I was going to talk to you more about it after the seminar actually."
“Okay, I’ll be waiting for you,” he felt a little giddy at the prospect.
"Thanks," she laughed. "Seriously though, I'm a big fan of your teaching style, I saw a few of your classes when my dad was teaching at the academy in 2005. It's a lot easier to remember facts if the lecturer genuinely loves what they're talking about."
"You're going to like this Seminar then. It’s basically just a way for me to get paid while unloading all the random facts I have,” he warned her with a smile.
"I know." She smiled back at him.
The rest of his students filed in slowly. By 11 am, 14 faces were staring back at him.
"Hello," he waved awkwardly. "I'm dr. Spencer Reid. For the last 12 years, I've worked with the FBI's Behavioural Analysis Unit. Catching serial offenders across the country."
He took a deep breath, letting the nerves find their way out of him. "I've been asked time and time again who my favourite serial killer is, which is a peculiar way to phrase the question. It feels morally wrong to have a favourite in the way people do with baseball players.
"I am, however, fascinated with several serial offenders' reasoning and explanation for why they did what they did. Every single killer is different, but it all comes back to 1 thing. Do you know what that is?"
They all shook their heads. “What is your relationship with your parents like?" He asked. 
Everyone in the room reacted; some students sighed, some rolled their eyes as they recalled their parents and childhoods to memory.
"When a person decides to kill, it's often never in the moment. It's in childhood. The majority of serial offender's stories start the same; their mother didn't love them, their father left. Someone at home abused them or put them down repeatedly."
"Thus, causing a hatred so primal to bubble. No matter how hard they try and fight it, the bubble always bursts. They go from fantasizing to killing in retaliation for their abuse, taking the anger out in stages."
He referred to the board. "Every killer has a stressor and a trigger—something that causes the urge to bubble and the event that causes the bubble to rupture.”
"Edmund Kemper is a fascinating example of this. He grew up with a family for the first few years of his life before his father fully abandoned them. His mother handled the situation by turning her anger onto her son; it was his fault his father left, he looked just like him, Ed was just another useless man who would never amount to anything," he emphasized the words. Hoping the class sees the effects words have on children.
"He started by cutting up dolls, stealing his sister's barbies and cutting their heads off. In his mind, he was getting out his anger and hatred for how his mother saw him. She hated men, causing him to mature with a warped idea of what women are truly like."
"His attraction to killing worsened his mother's hatred; she could tell something was wrong with him, that he didn't react to everyday situations the way he should. By the time he was ten, she was locking him in the basement for days on end, telling him he was a monster and her biggest regret."
"The change in her rage amplified his own. He hated hearing her speak. He hated the way she walked around, thinking she was better than him. That just because she was a mother and a working woman, she deserved respect and submissive’s. All he could see was a woman with a big head who needed to be humbled. This is the moment when the psychotic side of his brain blended his hatred of his mother with how good it felt to kill."
"Is that why he, you know?" Peggy cut in, running her finger along her neck as she pretended to cut her head off.
He pressed his lips together in an awkward smile, nodding. "His signature, as it's called, was decapitation. But more specifically necrophiling the severed head of his victims."
The whole class let out a disgusted noise, Peggy and Spencer making eye contact while they shrugged, it wasn't news to them.
"At age ten, he moved from barbies to cats and dogs, never leaving them around for his mother to see. While he hated her, he was also absolutely terrified of her. Breading a special type of killer. When you think of school shooters or preferential predators, what do they have in common?" He asked.
He pointed at a student in the back. "They have a specific type of victim they’re after?"
"Exactly. Most serial offenders want to go after the cause of their pain or attraction. However, Ed wasn't able to kill the source of his rage for a long time. His mother mentally abused him so intensely that he believed she was in control of him and that her opinion of him mattered. He saw her as his God, he loved her, but he also knew that he disappointed her.
"He ran away soon after to find his father. Travelling to California, only to be told he was unwanted there as well. It wasn't just his mother that his father was escaping; it was the fundamental aspect of family that he didn't want. Ed defiantly didn't want to go back to his mother after that, so he moved in with his paternal grandparents."
He kept catching the looks on Peggy's face. She knew the story already, waiting patiently to hear the words he chose to make the horrific acts seem a little more conversational.
"His grandmother was exactly like his mother. If I had to guess, his father most likely had a distaste for his own mother and thus divorced Ed's mom. Only he never grew up to be a killer, just an absent father—his absence doing to Ed what never happened to him."
"Ed killed his grandparents when he was 15. Telling the police and his therapists that they had beaten him constantly, they refused to feed him and called him names. He said he snapped from the trauma; it was self-defence."
Peggy laughed to herself, making him smile softly. "Sending him to a mental hospital instead of a juvenile facility was the worst thing they could've done for him," Spencer added.
"Why?" A student asked.
"Ed is a psychopath." He reminded them. "He doesn't feel empathy the way we do. You can admit that you feel bad for him, yes? If you understand why he killed people, it doesn't make you sick, like him, it makes you human. You see a hurt person hurting others; Ed Kemper sees himself as a new sort of God, choosing who dies, how and when."
"He was brilliant, having the exact IQ as I do," just a humblebrag, "the staff trusted him. He looked like an innocent boy, smart enough to take matters into his own hands for the betterment of his life. They gave him computer privileges, they let him work the front desk and file patient information. Giving him all the resources to learn about who he was inside and how to get away with it perfectly."
"Damn," another kid added. "When did he get out?"
"At 21.” He answered the student quickly. “Ed was interviewed by my mentor Jason Gideon, in the 70s. Where he explained that being locked up during his sexual prime, as well as the access to information, is what truly set him off more than his mother.
"He moved back in with her and his sister when he came out of the institution, immediately returning to the constant ridicule. He went from being told all the time that he was a smart and charming young man, capable of rehabilitation to a useless, no-good son, who would have been better off collecting in a condom or running down her leg."
The whole class laughed, shocked at his repetition of Ed's mother's words.
"He got his licence when he was released. And remember, this was prime time for hitchhiking in California; everyone and their mother walked the roads with a thumb in the air. It was the birth of free love and recreational marijuana usage. It was also the best hunting ground for a learning serial killer."
"He was able to pick women up, but like I said, missing his sexual prime while in an institution made him almost impotent. He didn't know how to speak to women; he had to create a fantasy in his mind every time, one that involved killing, before he could look at a woman."
"How did he get them in his car then?" A voice asked from the back.
"He was 6'9, 300lbs; he looked like a big teddy bear. And his mother was the local college administrative assistant, so the whole town knew him anyway. If Ed offered to give them a ride, it wouldn't be that bad, right?" Peggy turned around to face the class as she explained for Spencer, who just shook his head.
"He only wanted to rape the victims, originally," Spencer added. "But he couldn't. There was no release of the tension. The bubble that had been growing inside him was at its breaking point; he needed to just do it. Get it over with and move on."
"He killed 6 women in succession after that. Gaining the name "The Co-Ed Killer," well before anyone even suspected Ed Kemper," Spencer took a sip of coffee, feeling his throat start to dry as they reached the insane part.
"He was overly friendly with the cops; he wanted to get his record expunged and join the force.” Spencer finally continued. “Being told, "don't worry about your record, worry about your weight.""
"Most killers enjoy wearing a uniform for the power and talking to the police about their cases, in the hopes of gauging how smart they really are—taking pride in the fact that they are getting away with it for so long."
"He watched all the cop shows, and he read all the books. He knew that in order to get away with it, he had to do it where no one could trace it back to him. He knew he had to keep his cool and avoid looking obsessed with the case, but just curious enough to gain insight into how they thought he was doing it. It went on for years, and they had absolutely zero leads, finding headless bodies every few months before they finally received a call." He left them hanging, walking over to his sheet of paper and pretending to read it while they anticipated the catch.
"Ed always knew that he wanted to kill his mother. He just never knew when,” Spencer teased the story along. Noticing as the students fidgeted in their seats as they wondered what happened next.
“In his interview with Gideon, Ed said that he knew she would die 7 days before he killed her. He walked into her room that night to find her reading, with the audacity to ask if he wanted to come in and chat all night. Teasing him for the way he rambled to her. It was the last time she ever did that."
"It's hard to imagine his signature with the fact his second last victim was his mother," Peggy added, cringing at the thought.
"Wait," another student interjected. "Who was his last kill then if he only really wanted to kill her?"
"Remember how I said he lacked empathy?" Spencer asked. "He loved his mother in the same way a prisoner can end up loving their captor."
Peggy nods at the comparison, looking like she's never thought of it that way before, then smiling at him.
"You grow a bond through the trauma and when the only thing you've ever known is violence and hate, you don't know what to do when that's gone, it's hard to cope."
"He said he killed his mother so that she never had to know what he did. She'd never have to sit at his court hearings or be able to tell the media that she always knew he was a killer."
"His last kill was his mother's best friend," He finally answered the question.
"He didn't want his mother to be even more disappointed in him, but he also didn't want his mother's best friend to find her like that and be upset. So the obvious answer to him was to kill her too."
"What the fuck?" He heard a couple of kids say under their breath.
"Yeah," he agreed with an almost chuckle. "This is what I mean by their answers are fascinating. It makes so much sense to them; clearly, if I kill my mother, her friend will be upset, so the best answer would be to put her out of her misery as well. He sees them as objects, like a matching set. One would lose value without the other."
Everyone was silent then. The students took in all the information they had just received, staring up at him with a look of disgust mixed with wonder.
"Any questions?"
Peggy raised her hand for a change; he pointed towards her in approval. "You missed the part where he specifically took the heads from the three women before his mother and brought them back home with him. He buried them in the yard outside her bedroom window, making sure they were always looking up to her."
Spencer was amazed that she knew the details. "Yes, I guess I did."
"I always found that part particularly interesting in this case," Peggy added. "Her opinion mattered so much to him. He knew how much she loved her co-ed's and how they looked up to her so much. They'd be exactly like her. He felt trapped in a town of women who were exactly like his nightmare, and his response was to make them physically look up to her for the rest of her life."
"Exactly." Spencer smiled. "understanding how he sees the situation and how the events played out in his mind is the key in figuring out who he is."
"If you were on the case in '72 when the first victims were discovered, how would you have handled it, Dr. Reid?" A male student in the back asked in the silence between answers, taking his shot before Peggy and Spencer went any further in their discussion.
“That's a hard thing to answer, connecting evidence back then was a lot harder than it is today, if it wasn’t for men like Ed there wouldn’t really be this many answers,” Spencer said honestly.
Another student put her hand up, “what’s the worst thing he did in your opinion?”
That racked his brain, there was a handful of horrific things he did that were particularly horrific, “probably his mother's entire murder.”
“What did he do?”
Before Spencer could answer he saw Peggy open her mouth and start explaining. “He not only cut off her head and fucked her neck, but he also took her vocal cords out and shoved them down the garbage disposal. And before he called the cops, he cleaned everything up and made her look presentable because he said his mother wouldn’t want guests to see the mess.”
The class all cringed, sinking into their seats with disgust. But that didn’t stop Peggy from explaining it all further.
“He used to go to a bar all the cops went to and he would talk about his case. They would always one-up themselves and say they were close which gave him this false idea that they were on his tail and they’d find his mother soon. But when they didn’t, he called it in from a payphone and said he’d come over and explain it all. And boy did he ever, the cops said he wouldn’t shut up. And then when they put him in the cop car finally, a woman walked past him and he threw up.”
Spencer watched her with awe, the way she could call information to memory like that was beautiful. He listened to her like he’s never heard a fact before, she was so intriguing.
“Thank you for the detail,” he teased her lightly. “Sometimes I get so caught up that the really gross parts get swept aside.”
The class smiled at him, he had gained their trust and attention within only 1 hour of class.
“I know you said you don’t have a favourite,” another student asked from the back. “I agree it’s weird, but who is the one you gravitate towards the most?”
“I’ve met hundreds of serial killers, I’ve read about thousands,” he explained. “I think Ed Kemper is the one I gravitate the most around because he was so willing and open to explaining why he is the way he is. Going as far as to say that the only way they could keep women safe is to give him a lobotomy. He didn’t believe there was any correcting to be done, only removal of the evil within him.”
He heard slight mumbles as everyone took in what he said. “Does anyone here have a killer or a case that interested them in learning more, or just introduced you to the chase of justice?”
Peggy put her hand up, “I personally think BTK is the scariest, most tactical, and just downright evil man to ever exist. He scares me to no end but he’s so interesting to learn about.”
“Ahh,” Spencer agreed. “Too bad you won't be here for week 3. But with that I think I’ll end the class, next week we’ll be discussing the difference between Ted Bundy and Richard Speck.” He nodded lightly, watching the majority of them close their books and had on out.
“I really enjoyed the class,” she said softly. Holding her purse in one hand, a collection of files in the other.
Spencer turned to look at her then, smiling right back. “It was a pleasure to teach alongside you.”
“What do you mean?” She teased, “it’s not like my mom and dad were the ones who did all the interviews."
“Carr,” he repeats her last name. The gears turning in his mind as he brings all the information forth.
“Your mother is Wendy Carr, she was recruited after the BTK case with Bill Tench, she’s who was behind that study you mentioned.”
“I know,” she smiled.
“Who’s your father?”
“Guess,” she looked at him with an unimpressed look on her face, pushing her glasses up slightly.
“You’re kidding? Gideon never said he had a daughter let alone a,” he stops himself before he can embarrass himself any further.
She smiled at the implication of his words, “but he’s told me all about you Dr. Reid, that’s why I'm here.”
“You need help with a case and I’m the only agent in Virginia currently,” he pressed his lips together awkwardly. Knowing it was too good to be true that she would have any interest in him in the slightest.
“No actually, I have a case I’ve been working on privately and I need some help. I asked my dad but he said you’d be able to help me the best. I agree,” she corrected him softly. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I was a big fan of yours. When I would sit in and watch his lectures, before he knew I was his kid, you would always step in at the best parts, adding the smallest details to the story that the average person would forget. It’s magnificent.”
He laughed slightly, tugging at his collar as she complimented him. “Thank you, you’re quite magnificent as well,” he replied with a blush and a smile
She didn’t look like Gideon, probably because she smiled so much. Like sunshine on legs, she beamed, all but blinding him with her smile as she stared at him, “do you want to get lunch and go over this case with me?”
“I’d love to.”
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traincat · 3 years
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I’ve been trying to piece together a few things from your Twitter and Tumblr posts alike and still can’t make heads or tales of things, so would you mind helping out a FF & spideytorch noob? 1) what is currently happening with Johnny in the comics? (I’ve fallen head over heels for this guy, largely all your doing) 2) when’s the last time he and Peter have interacted, canon wise? (And do you think upcoming interactions are likely?) 3) your thoughts on if they’ll have him come out in the near future? (has that ‘biggest change to the fantastic four’ teaser come to pass yet?) Love all your content, thank you!
I'd say no problem but then I started thinking about this current run again and got a headache. But yes, I can do that to save you from reading it, because it is very largely not good.
So I don't think it's unfair to just flat out say the current Fantastic Four run is not very good, largely due to writer Dan Slott's efforts. Slott was previously on Amazing Spider-Man for 10 years, to mixed opinions, but a large portion of Spider-Man fandom, myself included, blames him near singlehandedly for the decline in quality of Spider-Man books over those ten years. I will say, in the interest of fairness, that Slott as a writer has an incredible fondness for the Spider-Man/Human Torch relationship, and that a lot of the recent teamups and interactions between them have been written or co-written by him. So it's all not all negative here. But in general, I personally find Slott's more recent comics (the last seven-ish years especially) to be badly plotted out, messily characterized disasters that feature characters written with all the emotion of a cardboard cutout. That's me putting it nicely.
To explain this fully, you have to understand the position Fantastic Four comics were in from the years 2015 through 2018, both in the fictional 616 universe and in the real publishing world. Following the 2015 Secret Wars event (great if you want some Johnny angst in the background of your plot), the Fantastic Four were disbanded -- Reed, Sue, and their many biological and found family children were presumed dead but in reality were remaking the multiverse, unable, for a reason that was never clearly defined, to reach home. Ben and Johnny were left on Earth. They had an unspecified falling out, likely due to Reed and Sue's absence, and went their separate ways -- Ben joined the Guardians of the Galaxy and went to space. Johnny was featured on both Inhumans and Avengers books. What's notable about this period is that it's the first time since 1961 that there was no Fantastic Four book being published by Marvel. Now the real world reason behind this is both complicated and extremely petty: Marvel really wanted the Fantastic Four film rights. Marvel denied this explanation at the time, stating that the reason was sales motivated, but it was a thoroughly flimsy excuse and Jonathan Hickman, writer of 2015's Secret Wars and overseer of the current X-Men plot, gave an interview saying the decision was film rights motivated. This decision kept the Fantastic Four books off the shelves for three years, up until the Disney-Fox merger, which secured the X-Men and Fantastic Four rights for Disney's Marvel Studios. Marvel then announced that the Fantastic Four book would be returning. So that's a little bit of background as to the precarious place the Fantastic Four currently occupy in the Marvel universe -- it's worth noting that this year is their 60th anniversary, and Marvel has done very little for it. Compare this to the X-Men, whose film rights Marvel also obtained during the Disney-Fox merger, and whose books are currently dominating the publishing lineup. The Fantastic Four definitely occupy an unpopular position, one Marvel themselves is at least partially responsible for forcing them into.
But to move back into the actual content of the book -- the readjustment period Slott wrote reintroducing the Fantastic Four into the Marvel universe can be described as clumsy, at best. It's never fully explained why Reed, Sue, and the kids couldn't return to Earth, something that was explored in Chip Zdarsky's 2017 Marvel Two-in-One, which featured Ben, Johnny, and Doom on a multiversal roadtrip to try and find their family and which I on the whole recommend, despite it having an awkward ending due to being cut short by Slott's announced Fantastic Four main title.
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(Marvel Two-in-One 2017 #4)
Instead, the Fantastic Four return to a Marvel universe a little different than how they left it, with the Baxter Building -- formerly the offices of Parker Industries, the company Doc Ock started in Peter's body during Superior Spider-Man that Peter inherited after his defeat and then lost spectacularly when he trashed his own company to fight nazis (good for him) -- occupied by a different fantastic foursome in a plot that goes nowhere and does nothing. This is somewhat emblematic of the early days of Slott's run -- he introduces ideas that fail to go anywhere, including Johnny's rekindled relationship with his other best friend and former college roommate, Wyatt Wingfoot, who he was seen being very cuddly with in the early issues.
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(FF 2018 #1) A small group of Fantastic Four fans have argued for a while that if Marvel was to have Johnny come out, a relationship with Wyatt would feel very natural -- they're already close, with Wyatt being an important Fantastic Four supporting character since the '60s. I have some further analysis here on the conspiracy theory that Johnny and Wyatt were supposed to be in relationship at the beginning of this run but that that plot was, for whatever reason, nixed. I don't know that I entirely believe this theory, for the record -- but I do think the pieces line up remarkably well.
Anyway, that didn't/hasn't yet happened, obviously. Slott instead for the most part put Johnny on the back burner for the beginning of his run, up until the Spyre arc, which I have reason to believe is the main story he pitched that he credits with securing him the Fantastic Four title. The Spyre arc suggests that the Fantastic Four's failed space exploration during which they got their powers wasn't just to beat the commies to the moon, as Lee and Kirby envisioned (simpler days), but to reach a specific planet outside of our galaxy. When the team sets out to conquer this mission, they arrive at the planet, but are quickly captured. The planet, they find out, operates like a soulmate AU -- everyone has a fated person that they are matched to via a gold armband. Reed and Sue are soulmates (and Ben is confined to an underground subterranean with the other monsters, because this is a Fantastic Four comic) while it's discovered! Shocker! That Johnny is actually the soulmate of the one the planet's inhabitants, a winged woman named Sky, with the suggestion that this is both why Johnny's previous relationships have never worked and why he loves space exploration -- he was just trying to get to his Soulmate TM.
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(FF 2018 #15) "What's going on here? Where are my clothes?" As you can see, this didn't start off super great, with Johnny being separated from his family, stripped naked, and put in Sky's bed with a soulmate armband slapped on him. Did I mention they're only removable if your soulmate takes it off for you? And that Sky has consistently refused despite Johnny asking her to? Yeah. It's bad. (I think it's important to note Johnny's long history as a victim of assault plays into this narrative, whether or not Slott is personally holding that in mind while writing, which I don't believe he is. cw in the linked post for discussions of sexual assault.) There's an additional issue here in that Slott has a history of problematic writing regarding women of color, featuring characters he's created to act as love interests being oversexualized, infantilized, villainized, or some mix of all three, with two examples of this phenomena being Cindy Moon and Lian Tang, both of whom he introduced in quick succession in Amazing Spider-Man. Slott certainly didn't have to write Sky as manipulative or controlling towards Johnny, but that's what he chose to do, and that factors into the bigger picture of unfortunate themes in his writing.
Sky returns to Earth with the Fantastic Four despite Johnny appearing unenthused about the idea and initially generally reluctant to interact with her. Apparently they went on a few dates after this and kind of made up. I don't know because I stopped reading for about ten issues in there but I feel confident I missed very little. It's hard to talk about the Sky plot without referencing Johnny's previous interactions with a character named Lyja, a Skrull whose relationship to Johnny I have a long breakdown of here. It's doubly hard, because Lyja actually showed back up in Fantastic Four during this plot. Lyja's modus operandi has remained consistent throughout almost all of her appearances, which I guess makes sense, because she literally has no storylines that do not involve her being obsessed with Johnny, and this recent story isn't any different: Lyja shows up, Lyja disguises herself as another woman in Johnny's life to get close to Johnny, Lyja gets caught and claims it was all fine because she did it for love. This time she disguised herself as Sky.
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(FF 2018 #32) Not gonna lie, kind of proud of him for this one. That's one of my problems with Slott -- very occasionally, he busts out good moments, only to undermine them with the rest of his narrative.
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In the same issue, Alicia Masters, the first woman Lyja impersonated in order to get close to Johnny, uses her supervillain stepfather's radioactive clay to control Lyja's mind and send her back to space, and I do think she utilized girl power when she did this. Johnny, left reeling after Lyja's latest attempts to trick him into a relationship, ends this issue by sleeping with Victorious, Dr. Doom's right hand woman.
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I know she pegged him. I know it. This scene was a little controversial in Johnny fandom, because a lot of people viewed it as Johnny cheating on Sky and thought that that action was out of character for Johnny. I'm personally of a little different opinion, which is that regardless of whether or not you view Johnny and Sky in a committed enough relationship that Johnny's tryst would count as infidelity when all Johnny and Sky are bound by are magic plot soulmate bracelets, I think Lyja's involvement changes things significantly when it comes to Johnny's characterization. All of Johnny's "playboy" periods, if we can call them that, coincide directly with Lyja having been in and then left his life again, which I think makes a certain amount of sense -- it's Johnny trying to wrest control back after a situation where he had none. None of this is explicitly canon, I have to note, but sometimes in comics you have to do the work yourself. So I think this is a case of something being accidentally extremely in character that Slott accidentally stumbled into because he had these love triangles in mind, not because he put a lot of thought into it.
Speaking of love triangles! Johnny sleeping with Victorious gets more complicated when Dr. Doom announces his intent to marry Victorious -- not because he has any romantic interest in her (this engagement caused a lot of uproar in Fantastic Four because Victorious had been previously referred to as being like Doom's adopted daughter) but in order to install her as Latverian regent in his absence. I'm not going to lie, I love a political wedding. Victorious, for some reason, thinks Doom will be deeply upset that she slept with some closeted blond twink and the member of the Fantastic Four he views least as an enemy and more as an annoyance. Johnny, who Sky is currently not talking to because she "felt" him sleeping with Victorious through their magic plot soulmate bracelets, also feels nervous about Doom finding out about this, which I guess is slightly more valid. Anyway, for some completely ridiculous reason, Victorious decides the best time to tell Doom about this little indiscretion is when they're standing at the altar, which coincidentally the Fantastic Four are also standing at, because Doom asked Reed to be his best man in a not at all homoerotic little setup involving midnight swordfighting and Reed slipping Doom's emerald ring onto his own finger. Sorry to sidetrack into DoomReed territory here but it's just like. It's just a lot.
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(FF 2018 #33) Also, Ben walked the bride down the aisle. :,) Look at his gigantic hand.
Anyway then Doom decides he's going to kill everyone in a completely reasonable and not at all overblown reaction to Johnny and Zora having what was most likely both disappointing for Zora and weepy for Johnny sex. And that brings us up to where Fantastic Four comics left us yesterday -- in answer to your "big change" question, that's most likely coming up in the next issue, so it hasn't come to pass yet.
Having gotten all that out of the way -- the last time Johnny and Peter interacted canon-wise was in the recent Empyre Fallout Fantastic Four, at the end of the Empyre event:
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It was cute! Slott does right good interactions between them. This is possibly the Stockholm Syndrome talking. I don't know if more interactions are likely imminent -- the Empyre event was fairly recent. On the other hand, Slott does like writing interactions between them. So I'd give it about a 50/50 shot. I was skimming the letter page in the latest issue and someone wrote in asking if Peter was likely to appear in the pages of Fantastic Four again any time soon, so there is definitely a demand.
As for Johnny coming out -- I don't know. It's not a call I feel comfortable making at this moment, which I guess means I wouldn't bet money on it. I'd like to say yes, especially because I think Slott set up, whether that was his intention or more likely not, several good places in his run where Johnny could have come out. The beginning, when he's implied to be living with Wyatt again and where he and Wyatt are paralleled against Ben and Alicia. Ben's bachelor party, where Johnny laments not finding the right person -- specifically person and not woman -- and where Ben tells him to "be brave, Johnny Storm." And the soulmate planet plot, where I think could have had a very different and much better ending if Johnny had told Sky that she couldn't be his romantic soulmate, because he knows he wants to be with a man. But those are just places that I think would have made good opportunities for a coming out story. Instead, Johnny's been involved (dubiously) with three different women over the space of the last 10 issues, which is more heterosexuality at one time than he's been confronted with in the last 60 years. So my thoughts are still that it's going to happen eventually, but quite possibly not anytime soon.
Hope that helps! And that my incredibly long answer about what's currently going on with Johnny in comics sheds some light on things!
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andreafmn · 3 years
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Running In Circles - Chapter 2
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Word Count: 2,663
Characters: Female Reader Rossi Character, Aaron Hotchner, David Rossi, Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, Jennifer “JJ”Jareau, Emily Prentiss, Penelope Garcia
Story Description: (Y/N) Rossi is following in her father’s footsteps by joining the BAU team as a profiler. The girl genius knew almost everything but she could have never predicted falling for Aaron Hotchner, her boss and her father’s friend. in their world mutual feelings are not enough to push them together. Will all the adversities and obstacles they face pull them together or push them apart forever?
*DISCLAIMER* I do not own in any way Criminal Minds, all credits of the pre-established characters, script, and storyline belong to Jeff Davis and CBS Network. The only thing I own is Arden Rossi, any upcoming characters, and her storyline, as well as her effects in the others’ story line.
Chapter: 2/?
Chapter Description: The team goes back to work as Aaron Hotchner considers retiring from the team and spend time with his son. (Y/n) can’t help but provide emotional support for the Hotchner boys.
A/N: I enjoy angst and slow burns way too much XD. If you enjoy my writing I’ll also be posting them in AO3 and Wattpad along with other stories (I also hope to start taking requests if ya’ll want) Hope you enjoy and all constructive criticism is encouraged.
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Chapter 2
Once it was over, the interviews came. We knew the story. We lived it. The case was open and shut. They could try and make us pint it all on Hotch, the easy way out, but we knew better. And we would stand next to our unit chief whatever the price.
Haley’s funeral was no easier than being at the scene. It was a somber day and the sadness was imprinted in us. We all walked with dropped shoulders and a tight chest. I stood between Derek and Reid, using Morgan as support because I felt that my legs would give out at any moment. My father stood behind me rubbing circles on my back to comfort me. As we laid the roses on top of the casket, we laid to rest the life of Haley, a woman I only knew through the loving words Hotch spoke of.
The group did not know what to do to help the heartbroken man. It would take time to heal even just the smallest bit of his heart. All we could hope for was that he would come back to the team.
At the worst possible moment, the phone rings. No other team available and someone in need, we had to go to work. We all rolled our eyes or shook our heads; this was the job. But would it be the same without him?
I went to Hotch before we left and gave him a hug.
“Call me if you guys need anything,” he said.
“Just take care of your son,” I smiled, and he softly returned one of his own. I squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and left to join the team.
On the plane, we were caught up with the case. We stored all our feelings and got the machines running. We needed to finish this quickly and perfectly.
Two women, both brunettes and young, high-powered executives, murdered in their own homes, the floor around them decorated with flower petals. After Emily and Derek visited the crime scene, we had another part of the puzzle, the unsub was stalking his victims. Everything just seemed so perfect and staged, there was no way he was not prepared.
I stayed with JJ in the station working on the announcement and trying to figure something else from the details provided and the crime scene photos, but JJ could see my head wasn’t in it completely for the first time.
“Hey,” she said, taking my attention from the piece of paper I had been eyeing for the past five minutes. “What’s on your mind? Talk to me.”
“Is it wrong that I feel bad for being here?” I sighed. “Working like nothing’s happened.”
“Of course not, we all feel a bit guilty,” she smiled. “I know you most of all.”
My eyes opened in shock.
“Oh, come on, (Y/N). Everyone knows you have a not-so-secret crush on Hotch,” she laughed. “The only one that can’t see it is him. And probably your dad. Parents can be quite oblivious to their children’s feelings in this way.”
My head flew into my hands to cover the embarrassment that was flooding my cheeks. It was one thing to assume the whole team knew, another was to have it confirmed.
“It’s okay, (Y/N), we’ll see what comes of it. What I can say is that you can’t let this stop you from doing your job.”
She smiled one last time and it was all I needed to push Aaron Hotchner to the back of my mind and bring the case forward.
“Find anything?” My father asked entering the small room at the police station, Reid following behind.
“Several people had access to each home,” I said rubbing my temple. “Housekeeper, gardener, pool cleaner, dog walker…”
“Each with their own key and an alibi to match,” JJ added, an annoyed tone rolling off her tongue.
“Any crossover?”
“None. We even vetted delivery people and utility workers.” I sighed.
“Garcia, do you have anything?” Reid said, sitting down.
“There’s no hits at the prints at all. But I did what Sir Derek there asked, and I created a paper trail,” Penny explained. “There’s no cross-over between the two victims themselves in the weeks leading up to their murders, but they did run in similar circles.”
Penelope continued to explain how both victims lived quite a lavish and high-class lifestyle as Emily and Derek joined us. We figured this man would fit right in this crowd. Educated, intelligent, a gentleman. What we had yet to pinpoint was how the unsub entered the homes with no signs of forced entry. It was clear we were not going to make any headway tonight and Derek knew it too. So, he decided we should be done for the day and we would come back tomorrow well-rested and with fresh eyes.
That night I laid in the bed of my hotel room staring at the ceiling. All I could think of was Hotch and everything he was going through. I could only imagine.
And as if by fate, my phone rang. Aaron Hotchner.
“Hello?”
“Oh,” Hotch said surprised. “Did I wake you?”
“No, I haven’t been able to sleep.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I guess I’m just worried about you.”
He chuckled softly. “You really shouldn’t.”
“But I do, Hotch.”
He stayed silent, only his slow breathing was heard through the phone.
“Did I fail her?” He asked after some minutes of comfortable silence.
“Absolutely not.”
“I promised her that I would catch Foyet and spend the rest of my life making it up to her.”
“And you still can.”
“But” he exhaled loudly. “How?”
“By being the best father you can be to Jack and continue living your life in the best way you can.”
“You know, Dave told me that I had to figure out what kind of father I wanted to be and then I’d know what to do. But I have no idea what that is.”
“Hotch…”
“I’m serious,” he interrupted. “I don’t know what kind of father I am. I catch killers. I save lives. I’m a hero until my key hits the front door, and then I’m just the father who’s never there. Haley was raising Jack all by herself and that was my support blanket. I was able to do my job because I knew he was cared for by another parent. A better parent.”
He sobbed softly as the last words escaped his mouth.
“I’m going to stop you right there,” I said, trying my best not to sound angry. “To that little boy, you are the only real hero that exists. He knows that when you’re not home it’s because you’re out here catching the bad guys like Foyet and making the world better for his sake. He knows that everything you do is out of love for him.
You know, when I was little my dad was absent quite a lot because of this job, but there was one thing that I knew for sure, that he loved me more than anything and that he worked better and faster because he wanted to come back home to me. And never ever have I resented him for leaving and catching the bad guys. He’s the reason I became an FBI agent.
You are an amazing father and anything you choose will be the right thing for Jack.”
After a minute of sobs, Hotch started to calm down.
“Thank you, (Y/N). You have no idea how much I needed that right now,” he cleared his throat. “How’s the case going?”
“Nope,” I laughed. “Not going to talk about the case.”
“Really?” He chuckled.
“Yes, Hotch. Take a breather. You deserve it.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, and I could hear his smile through the phone.
We had been talking for about an hour when I heard him yawn.
“Seems you’re getting sleepy there, Hotchner.” I laughed. “We should both get some rest. If it’s 3 am over here it must be 2 am in Washington. So, good night and see you soon.”
“Good night, (Y/N). Again, thank you. Sweet dreams.” And he hung up.
And finally, I drifted to sleep.
The next morning, we were up and ready for business.
“We believe our unsub is already with his next victim,” my father started. “If he matches the patter, she’ll be a successful woman, probably brunette, early 30s to mid-40s. She’ll be at home in Nashville’s upper echelon.”
“This means that he fits in,” I explained. “He drives the right car, he wears the right clothes, he’s highly intelligent. He probably comes from a place of status.”
“This guy’s sociable and he’s endearing,” said Morgan. “You would never suspect that this man is capable of murder. But he will do whatever it takes to protect the fantasy that he’s trying to relive.”
“It’s this fantasy which fuels his drive. He’s reliving a romantic evening and recreating it with each of his victims.”
“He most likely had a relationship taken away from him,” Derek crossed his arms. “So, look at men who have lost loved ones or have gone through a messy divorce.”
After finishing with the profile, we set out to establishments that fit the criteria to possibly get a suspect. As we worked, we got a call. Another crime scene, but this one was different.
A male victim. Overkill on the female. Something made him change his M.O.
Out in the garage, Reid and I looked for any sort of clues and I noticed his sight direct to the car. There may be another way we could connect the victims and how the unsub made their way into their homes.
Finally, Garcia had something with the hunch Spencer had figured. She overlaid all the geographical routes the victims had taken against the geo profile to show what we were missing with any paper trail. Although it was not a clear answer, Erika Silverman was the only one that did not fit the extravagant lifestyle and she only went and came from her work or her home. Except on Tuesday, where she went to the Botanical Gardens, what was she doing there? JJ, Reid, and I left for the gardens to find out.
And just as we had suspected, there had been an event to which Erika had attended. And a puzzle piece revealed itself.
“An event up here would be a hard sell for women in heels,” JJ commented.
“Well, most of our private events hire valets to drive the cars down to the base of the park so they don’t have to hike it up the hill.”
“Who had access to your keys but goes unseen?” Reid asked.
“And to your GPS,” I added.
“Dealerships program your home address into the navigation system before your car even leaves the lot.”
“He had turn-by-turn directions straight to her front door and the keys to get him inside,” I pointed.
We now had how he got his victims and how he entered their house without force. Now, all we had to do was pinpoint his next victim and see who he was.
JJ was instructed to get dad and Prentiss to pick up the owner of the valet service used in the event, and Derek, Reid, and I stayed behind to canvass the employees. We could catch this guy in action unless he had already gotten his next victim.
Joe Belser. That was our unsub. With the profile, the owner was able to point out the suspect quickly. And off we were.
JJ, Reid, and I headed to the venue and the rest of the team went to Belser’s house. He wasn’t in the apartment, but they had found the meaning behind the roses and universal garage door openers. In the venue, Reid called Garcia to see which of the VIP guests could be the next potential victim.
Ann Herron was the next victim, and he was already at her house.
“FBI! PUT IT DOWN!” Derek screamed, blinding Joe with his flashlight. I walked in from behind Derek and kneed Belser’s stomach. He fell to the ground groaning and Emily grabbed the man by the throat to immobilize him.
“Fantasy’s over,” she spat. “Is that what you did to them? You hit them to shut them up and then forced them to play along with your sick delusion?”
 “I love them,” Joe said sinisterly.
“You’re finally gonna meet your soulmate, Joe,” I added from behind Prentiss. “In prison.”
“Only you’re not gonna be able to push him around like you did those women,” Emily continued. “And when he comes for you in the middle of the night, when you’re least expecting it, you do me a favor. Play along.” 
She stood the man up forcibly and put him in handcuffs and I went outside to check on the victim.
“How is she?” Derek asked walking out of the house with my father.
“She’s strong,” I said closing the ambulance door. “She’ll make it. But you don’t survive something like that without scars.”
“Scars remind us where we’ve been,” my father commented. “They don’t have to dictate where we’re going.”
He put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my head as we walked back to the SUVs, finally on our way home.
The next day, I called up my dad so he would accompany me to Haley’s grave. Something told me I had to go. At the cemetery, I saw what the pull was. Sitting in front of the headstone less grave was Hotch. I walked up to him first, my father close behind. Hotch lifted his head and stared into my eyes, sitting up slightly.
“I had a feeling I’d find you here,” I spoke softly. “Have you told her yet?”
“Told her what?” He mused.
“That you’re coming back to the team,” my father joined his left side. Hotch looked at him. “That fighting the bad guys is who you are.”
Hotch lowered his head and shook it. “I don’t have to tell her. She already knows.”
I squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and gave him a soft smile. My father did the same and walked to my side, so we’d retreat, giving Hotch some space.
“So, do you want me to drive you back to your house?” My father asked.
“No,” I smiled. “I’m gonna stay with Hotch for a bit and then I’ll go home.”
“Okay, darling.” He kisses the top of my head. “I’ll pick you up on Monday then. Ciao, Mia Bella.”
“Bye, dad.”
Once my dad left, I sat down on a bench and waited for Hotch.
“(Y/N), you’re still here?” Hotch questioned with a smile on his face.
“Yeah, thought you might want some company.”
“Truthfully,” he chuckled. “I do. Thank you.”
“How about this, we pick up Jack, you guys come over and I crack open a present I had for Jack.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he motioned me to his car. “Let’s go.”
We drove quietly to his apartment, only the low volume of the radio and the sound of our breathing could be heard. It didn’t take long to arrive at the complex, where he opened the car door for me and led me upstairs. Inside apartment #121, was Jessica Brooks, Haley’s sister, and Jack playing a card game.
“(Y/N)!” Jack screamed as soon as I walked through the door, running to give me a hug.
“Hey, buddy!” I hugged back.
“Hotch, you’re back,” she exclaimed. “Good to see you again, (Y/N).”
“Good to see you, too,” I smiled. “How you holding up?”
“As good as I can be.” She answered as she began to gather her things. “Well, I’ll see you soon. Bye, little guy.”
“Bye, Aunt Jessica.”
“Bye, guys.” She said as she left.
“Hey, little man,” I directed to Jack. “I’ve got an idea.”
“What is it?”
“How about you to pack a go-bag and you and dad come over so we can open a present I have for you?”
“Yes!” He exclaimed as he sped off to his room to pack.
“I think you should go help him,” I smiled at Hotch. “If I have any memory of being a kid, they’re not very good at packing.”
“Yeah,” he grinned. “Maybe I should.”
I waited for both father and son to pack for the night asking myself why I was putting myself in this position. Growing closer to a man I had a 0% chance with. But I couldn’t help it. All in all, he was my friend, and he needed all the support he could get.
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A/N: if you wish to be tagged for the next parts, please let me know. I’d be happy to. <3
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stillness-in-green · 3 years
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Ahistorical, Absurd, and Unsustainable (Part Three)
An Examination of the Mass Arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front
Introduction and Part One Part Two
PART THREE: Ethical Problems
Law Enforcement Conduct
The first thing that jumps out—the thing everyone talks about first and foremost about the raid—was Hawks’ murder of Twice. Murder is a controversial word in this context, I know, but I stand by it: regardless of his guilt or his intent, Bubaigawara Jin was a fleeing man who Hawks made a cold, rational decision to quite literally stab in the back. In that moment, Hawks appointed himself as an executioner of the state and murdered a man without due process—no trial, no judge, no nothing. It was an extrajudicial killing,[26] and while I know many people in the U.S. have gotten kind of jaded about that sort of thing, let me assure you that police brutality is still police brutality even when it’s being exercised against people who have committed crimes.
To illustrate this, allow me to share a few more excerpts from the Penal Code:
Assault and Cruelty by Specialized Public Employees: When a person performing or assisting in judicial, prosecutorial or police duties commits, in the performance of their duties, an act of assault or physical or mental cruelty upon the accused, suspect or any other person, imprisonment or imprisonment without work for not more than 7 years is imposed.
Abuse of Authority Causing Death or Injury by Specialized Public Employees: A person who commits a crime prescribed under the preceding Article and thereby causes the death or injury of another person is dealt with by the punishment for the crimes of injury or the punishment prescribed in the preceding Article, whichever is severer.
The punishments for Criminal Injury are imprisonment for not more than fifteen years or a fine of not more than 500,000 yen or, if the injury results in death, imprisonment for not less than three years. That’s really what Hawks ought to be looking at for Twice's murder, save that apparently heroes just aren't liable for this stuff, otherwise they'd be up against it all the time in the course of “fighting villains.” Certainly, Hawks doesn’t seem to have faced any repercussions thus far, beyond having to apologize in a press conference.
Now, again, many American readers of My Hero Academia are deeply embedded in a culture that normalizes police violence, and so there is a lot of callous handwaving about how Hawks did the right thing because Jin was a significant threat. In response to such dismissal, let me provide a few more numbers:
In the U.S. in 2019, law enforcement killed over a thousand people.
In the same year in Japan, law enforcement killed two. Two people.
In the U.S., a major factor in how police keep skating on these deaths is the legal doctrine of qualified immunity, which is nominally intended to protect officers from frivolous lawsuits in cases where they’re ruled to be acting in “good faith,” a vague ruling which has made successful prosecution of police brutality and negligence all but impossible.
Japan, and I cannot stress this enough, does not have this doctrine. The significance of law enforcement taking a life is not so casually brushed aside in other places in the world, so please don’t try to tell me that Horikoshi was trying to get across the idea that Hawks did the right thing, easy as that. The critical depiction of heroes and Hero Society dehumanizing their enemies is all over the manga.
When the Tartarus guards discuss what the government is doing about Gigantomachia, one of them complains that the higher-ups can’t use missiles—missiles!—on him because he’s quote-unquote-human.[27] During their battle at Kamino, All Might tells All For One that this time, he’s going to put him in a prison cell—he characterizes his attempt to kill All For One six years ago as a mistake. Even in the spin-off manga, Vigilantes, designated police representative Tsukauchi[28] looks absolutely aghast at Endeavor’s willingness to use lethal force against Pop Step, an innocent-until-proven-guilty minor, even though, at that time, they have all the evidence in the world that she is actively engaged in setting off bombs in populated areas.
Most prominent is the series’ treatment of the High End Noumu. The heroes rationalize them as corpses, monsters, inhuman, all in order to kill them guilt-free,[29] and this rationalization spills over to Shigaraki during the War Arc, as the chasm of understanding between heroes and villains reaches its most stark. Yet, that same arc was proceeded by the reveal of the truth about Kurogiri, which had Tsukauchi directly acknowledge that they may have misunderstood the Noumu as the series dangled the possibility that Kurogiri possesses lingering awareness from Shirakumo Oboro. Earlier, we had Ending, a man who wanted Endeavor to kill him and thought Endeavor would do it specifically because Endeavor killed the High End, and this act set him decisively apart from the non-murdery heroic norm. Even into the War Arc itself, we were getting new information on the Noumu: to wit, we were shown incontrovertible proof—in the form of Woman’s internal monologue in Chapter 268—that the High End Noumu do think.
Even if we assume the government has relaxed its prohibitions about public servants assaulting people in the course of carrying out their duty, it does not follow that Hawks’ extrajudicial execution was totally fine. Heroes are not supposed to kill because police are not supposed to kill, and in Japan, it isn’t assumed that they will the moment they run into resistance.
And look, this is not to say that Japanese police never get away with police brutality. Obviously, the country has its own problems with the issue, typically involving racism and ethnocentrism. But the way that some people in the fandom just brush off Jin’s death does a disservice to the way the series frames Hawks’ actions and what that framing is communicating to a Japanese reader.
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Also, even putting aside the matter of his death, openly taunting a mentally ill man about how easy it was to fool him definitely pings me as an act of mental cruelty, though of course there’s no one to sue Hawks over that one, seeing as he murdered the victim and only witness. (Chapter 264)
That all said, there are other issues with the heroes’ actions during the raid. One is called out right in the text: Midnight acknowledges that the use of chemical agents is illegal, but calls upon Momo to engineer knock-out drugs to use against Gigantomachia anyway. Is that an action Momo will face any repercussions for at all? And if not, what does it imply about the setting that she won’t?
Here’s another big one: what’s the legality of heroes using their quirks against civilians? Because that’s what the vast majority of the PLF are, civilians. Oh, they’re suspects, sure, but throughout the manga, “heroes” aren’t set up as people who just fight any and every tiny crime they come across. From the very first chapter, heroes are set up as a specific counter to “evildoers” designated as “villains”—legally defined as people who use their quirks illegally two or more times.[30]
There is a very illuminating scene in the second chapter of Vigilantes in which Aizawa confronts Knuckleduster for his assault of a random businessman and, the moment he realizes Knuckleduster is quirkless, apologizes for the misunderstanding and walks away. If Knuckleduster doesn’t have a quirk, Knuckleduster by definition cannot be a villain, and thus, Aizawa is not authorized to throw down with him.[31] It’s somewhat unclear, not least because a lot of the evidence is in the more-interested-in-systemic-worldbuilding Vigilantes, but there is reason to believe that heroes are not allowed to use their quirks against people who are committing mundane crimes.[32] If anything, I should think that heroes only using their quirks on people who are using their quirks illegally is part of the philosophical scaffolding that gives heroes their moral authority—you see this argument from the first bearer of One For All, who loudly espouses that people not only should not use their quirks selfishly, but that quirks should only be used to help others. This kind of supposed selflessness is what MHA’s current society is built on.
To see the relevance here, consider Trumpet. Oh, he absolutely was using his quirk illegally, but can the system prove that?[33] After all, he only ever used it on allies—do you think they're in a big hurry to snitch on him? Do you think Mr. Compress is going to? And if the police can't prove Trumpet used his quirk illegally, then is he even a capital-V Villain? What about all those other rank and file types? Certainly we saw the ones at the villa fighting back with quirks, but what about those supporters at bases scattered around the country? Did they fight back, and if so, did they do it with quirks? If not, was it legal for them to be targeted by heroes?
More importantly, can they mount an argument on that, be it a legal or a moral one?
The Scope of the Operation
The next big ethical problem actually predates the raid itself, and it’s this: how did the Commission know where to target their raids? How did they obtain that information? Specifically, how many privacy violations were involved? It strains credulity well past my personal breaking point to imagine that Hawks and the Commission were able to get every name, every base of operations, especially given the limitations they were under—the fact that Hawks couldn’t communicate openly, the hard time limit before the PLF put their plan in motion, making sure they didn’t tip off someone in the massive secret organization that had people working in heroics, the government, the infrastructure, etc.—but let’s consider the sorts of avenues the HPSC did have available to them.
So to start with, they send in Hawks, who’s specifically trained to extract information from people without raising suspicion about his motives. Doubtlessly, he’s able to get all sorts of names,[34] starting with the higher-ups—not just Re-Destro and his inner circle, but also any of the advisors that e.g. run businesses that they invite him to patronize, MLA heroes, and so on. And with a decent crop of names in hand—let us assume for the sake of argument that Hawks had some way to communicate those names to his handlers—the HPSC can start doing background checks and digging in.
Where do these people come from? Where were they born, and, if they moved, where did they settle? Where do they work? What are their social pastimes? Trace the commonalities, look into publicly available records, use wiretaps…
Yes, the police in Japan can totally use wiretaps if they suspect organized criminal activity—it was one of the powers expanded significantly under that controversial 2017 law I footnoted earlier. One thing to note is that this does require a warrant, or at least the expectation that a judge will grant a warrant.[35] But how far does that go? Can they get a warrant for financial records? How about phone records? E-mail accounts?
Can they wiretap people for no reason save their association with a name Hawks provided? If a PLF member attends a Jazzercize class on Thursday mornings, does every member of that class start noticing a weird little reverb on their phone calls for a week? Does Re-Destro’s hometown have an influx of people poking around evaluating its potential as a place to live? If Slidin’ Go once snatched your dog out of traffic and you subsequently bought a Slidin’ Go keychain, are you and your family now under investigation?
Getting details on people like the CEO of Detnerat and the head of the Hearts & Minds Party is probably pretty straightforward; heck, investigating Kizuki Chitose’s publication history was probably a goldmine in and of itself. That sort of surveillance gets more complicated and difficult to justify—and to make credible to the reader—the further down the chain of command you go, though. Sooner or later, the HPSC would have had to make a call: knowing that they don’t have the time, freedom, and resources to perfectly get only and exactly everyone that’s a real threat, do they overcompensate or do they undercompensate?
You only have to look at Hero Society to know which answer they were going to go with.[36]
To be fair, undercompensating, while it clearly would have been easier on their strained resources, ran the risk of leaving threats out there to come back to bite them later. They likely thought that they’d done enough undercompensating for Shigaraki Tomura, compounded by the fact that apparently there hadn’t been enough done about Destro’s followers back in the day, either. I mean, better to grab everyone and then let the courts sort it out, right? Rather than risk innocents getting hurt?
Well, let’s talk about innocents. Innocents, and the costs of overcompensating.
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Pictured: a man who was in daily close contact with the leader of the movement and who was at one point in time in possession of a copy of the movement's manifesto. (Chapter 218)
The problem with grabbing everyone in a group, even the most obviously PLF-aligned groups, is that there are always going to be both people who don’t seem to know anything because they’re very good at living double lives and aren’t particularly active on the recruitment front, and people who don’t seem to know anything because they legitimately don’t know anything.
The Gunga Villa is straightforward enough—on paper, it was probably reserved for a business retreat for four months, because you certainly wouldn’t want some random newlywed couple booked for a nice mountain honeymoon recognizing Shigaraki Tomura wandering around. Same story for the employees; the MLA wouldn’t have put the League up at the villa if there was a chance that anyone there would rat them out. So I think we can assume relatively fairly that anyone in the building the day of the conference is solidly implicated, whatever their claims might be otherwise.
Of course, plenty might well try to claim that they were just there for the vacation, or just started work last week and had no idea the place was a nest for conspiracy, but that was where Hawks spent most of his time, and most of the people at the villa presumably fought back against the heroes. It might be a complicated process, matching hero eyewitness testimony to every person there, but you can at least sort of see the path to it.
Other groups, however, are a lot less straightforward. Consider the following categories:
The Liberated Districts
As I discussed earlier, Deika was presumably a high watermark on societal saturation, but Deika still only counted 90% of the population as “Liberation Warriors, lying in wait.” That leaves 10% unaccounted for. So who are those 10%? Are they children?[37] Some children too young to know anything about the PLF, and some old enough to know but not yet old enough to be considered warriors for the cause? Are they instead elderly people, maybe remnants from when the MLA first started to infiltrate the town that have just never had enough close family or social life to get pulled into the Liberation Army by the usual vectors?
By far the worst option is if Trumpet’s 90% accounts for anyone even remotely connected to the MLA—that would mean one out of every ten people in Deika is legitimately completely ignorant of what the powers that be had brought in. How on earth are you supposed to tell those people apart from the other 90% when the heroes sweep in and arrest absolutely everyone? Or are we to believe that the HPSC had time to get in an agent to flash a covert L-sign at everyone in town and they only arrested people who visibly acknowledged it?
These problems only get worse for our hypothetical town that’s 70% PLF. That opens you up to far more people who have only recently started getting drawn in. Consider the disaffected twenty-something whose family has no idea what’s been keeping him out so late in the evenings. The young mother who met the nicest and most convincing people via the daycare, but whose husband is always out of town on business trips so she hasn’t had time to introduce him to anyone. The working parents who just joined up and whose kid, away at hero school, doesn’t know anything—yet.[38]
Evaluating these peoples’ social circles and financial history for other PLF attachments is going to turn up a ludicrous number of false positives unless the Commission can narrow down exactly when and where such people crossed paths with the ideology of Liberation. So many people would have been raised to it, people whose entire lives are suspect, but mistaking even one new recruit for a lifelong loyalist gives you exponentially more avenues to baselessly suspect people—and as established, the Commission just doesn’t have the time to be overly discerning.
Detnerat, Shoowaysha, and Feel Good Inc.
This is another line of attack that seems like it should be a bullseye, but is actually quite the opposite. Detnerat is a business that is run by the leader of the entire movement, yet the fact that not everyone who works there is a member of the MLA is one of the very first things we find out about them! Miyashita was something akin to a personal aide or secretary to Rikiya, someone Rikiya liked well enough that he was on the verge of introducing Miyashita to his other friends—and Miyashita didn’t know the first thing about his boss’s true affiliations. It’s patently obvious from that alone that not everyone at Detnerat is PLF, and it's likely that the numbers of the faithful are even thinner at Curious and Skeptic's outfits, where they're high-ranked executives but, crucially, not actually in charge.
This is, of course, complicated further by the fact that people who work at e.g. a publishing house are probably there because they agree with that publishing house’s politics, whether or not they know what’s going on behind the scenes. Ditto with Detnerat—certainly there would be people there who just needed a job and could charm their way through an interview without an inner passion for the work, but loads of people probably work there because they legitimately believe in the company’s ethos. So how do you tell people who have relatively radical personal politics without having any idea about the terrorism apart from the people who are absolutely PLF/ex-MLA but who are now lying about it because their organization's cover is blown and the response to that is, “Well, time to go back underground!”
The Hearts & Minds Party
Membership of this party would seem to be a good indicator, but using it that way too unquestioningly is also very flawed. This is because the HMP particularly is probably an excellent recruitment tool for the MLA/PLF. The note above about having radical political beliefs but still being ignorant about the planned acts of terror is especially true for the HMP. The Commission cannot just pull the voting records and arrest all of them because plenty of them are going to be totally ignorant of what was really going on with the heart of the party, only joining up because they believed in the kinds of things the HMP was platforming on—less repressive quirk use laws, prison reform, very possibly issues like the abolishment of the legal category “villain” or greater social safety nets. Just because someone votes for those things, doesn’t mean they know about or would support the MLA’s violent extremism or the PLF’s anarchic goals.
So at what level of initiation does the Commission call a cut-off? How long does someone have to have been voting straight-ticket HMP for them to be considered condemned by that association?
Over and over again, the question arises: how did the heroes and the police distinguish the initiated from the uninitiated? And given that Japan’s legal system at least nominally requires that guilt be proven, what are they going to do when huge numbers of those people claim innocence?
The Presupposition of Guilt
Let’s take a few minutes to circle back to what I talked about earlier, the presumption of guilt and how it relates to arrests, convictions, and the perception of arrestees in Japan. This is going to swerve hard back towards real-life Japan issues for a bit, but it is exceptionally relevant when examining what’s likely to happen to the people arrested in the raids, innocent and guilty alike, so thanks in advance for bearing with me.
In Japan, the rate of conviction is extraordinarily high—if you’re in anime fandom and active in social justice circles, you may have seen the tumblr posts about the country’s famed 99.9% conviction rate.[39] There are a range of explanations for this. Defenders argue that, compared to police in many other countries, police in Japan are very cautious and don't move to prosecute unless a case is all but airtight; thus, many who are arrested may well be released without charge if there is even the slightest doubt that the case will hold up in court. One can easily see truth to this by looking at the numbers on how many people are arrested in Japan versus how many are actually charged: Wikipedia notes (albeit without citation) that in the U.S., roughly 42% of arrests in felony cases result in prosecution, while in Japan the figure is only 17.5%.
Conversely, critics note that a major feature of convictions in Japan is the confession, and confessions can be coerced, particularly in the sorts of conditions that those imprisoned in pre-trial detention are kept—no legal representation, no contact with their families, loved ones or employers, no requirement that they be informed about what they’re being charged with, potential weeks upon weeks kept in isolation, sessions of questioning that can extend for most of the day.
There have also been cases in which confessions have been found to be falsified, for example by having the suspect sign a paper and then filling in or altering other details after the fact.
There are some other factors about confessions to be aware of here:
In Japan, it is not legally permissible for a suspect to be convicted solely based on their confession. The constitutional provision in this regard is something called himitsu no bakuro, the “revelation of secret.” The revelation of secret is something in the confession that is factually verifiable and which, at the time of the confession, only the suspect could have known. Common examples are things like the location of a previously undiscovered body or the time and location where a weapon used in the crime was purchased. The majority of verdicts that are overturned in Japan are overturned because of issues with a confession.
Sentencing is also very lenient compared to the U.S., particularly if the suspect was cooperative with police and admitted guilt (seen as showing remorse). Thus you wind up with a situation in which suspects believe that they’ll lose a case if they go to trial (because practically everyone does) and prosecutors—rather more aware of the weaknesses in a case than a confused and vulnerable layman—don’t want to bring a shaky case to trial, and thus both parties are invested in whatever will get the suspect out with a minimum of effort. The result of this is a high number of people released on “suspended prosecution,” which is an admission of guilt, but with a prosecutor's decision to show lenience while still establishing precedent for possible later offenses warranting more severe punishment. This is a particularly common result for first-time offenders, especially in non-violent crimes.
Note that suspended prosecution is not at all the same thing as being released for lack of evidence; a suspect is conceding their guilt by accepting the arrangement. However, many suspects who the police might not be confident in convicting are known to sign confessions and accept the arrangement regardless, because, along with fear for their livelihoods, it’s known that judges tend to view extended time in detention as a sign of guilt. Also too, if admitting guilt is seen as showing remorse, then maintaining one’s innocence is often perceived as a lack of remorse—leading to fears that fighting the charges will result not only in defeat, but also in harsher sentencing!
All of these factors combine into a problem with perception of guilt that feeds on itself endlessly at all levels. Let me use a run-on sentence to summarize: the general public views anyone who is even arrested as probably guilty, because the police are seen as generally only moving on those who are guilty, because police specifically only prosecute those who they can all but prove are guilty, but guilt can be “proven” by a sufficiently detailed confession, and while confessions are required to have some corroborating evidence, they can easily be falsified and may well be offered up with minimal resistance because the suspect is also convinced that judges will only be harsher on them if they put up a fight because suspects also believe that they will be convicted at trial because everyone knows the conviction rate is unbelievably high.
Japan likes to think of itself as a “safe” country, which is in large part why its deeply concerning arrest and detainment procedures have held up repeatedly in court. These things help keep people safe, after all, and who wouldn't want people to be safe?
Returning, then, to the matter of My Hero Academia and the Paranormal Liberation Front mass arrest, I don’t think it’s overstating things to claim that the dehumanization of villains and the glamorization of heroes has probably exacerbated these problems.
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Cruel punishments are illegal under Article 36 of the Japanese constitution? But what if someone really, really deserves it, though? (Chapter 94)
You can see that willingness to shrug off civil rights violations as long as it means safety in the symbol All Might represents, a hero who is there to beat up baddies, not ask questions about why they're being bad. Ditto Tartarus, where the Bad People get put, regardless of whether their Bad really warrants so awful a punishment or whether the severity of such a punishment serves as an effective deterrent.[40]
As to the presupposition of guilt, if a hero thinks they saw someone Doing A Bad, and confidently testifies to that effect, who’s going to doubt them? It’s blunt to the point of headache-inducing that Midoriya Izuku, the boy who will be the greatest hero, who’s treated by the story as if he’s the first person in history to think about “saving” a “villain,” doesn’t even start to think about such a thing until he literally experiences a psychic impression of a five-year-old crying within the heart of Shigaraki Tomura.
At the press conference in Chapter 306, it’s illustrated numerous times that huge portions of society don’t particularly care about Dabi’s accusations. They don’t ask for Hawks to face justice for the murder he openly admits to committing; they don’t ask for apologies for the heroes’ wrongdoings. They ask for heroes to make them feel safe. Even if it means lying to them; even if it means asking Endeavor to go out there and “take down” his firstborn son. People are uneasy about the accusations, certainly, but what they want is not for heroes to take responsibility for their actions, to atone for them, but rather to deny that there’s any truth to the accusations at all.
This is not a society that, in the wake of Gigantomachia’s rampage, is going to be open to the possibility that some people caught up in the mass arrest are legitimately innocent and that everyone, even villains, deserves to be afforded the full extent of their rights.
The Dissolution of the HMP
Speaking of rights, let’s go over one that we can immediately see has been flagrantly violated in the manga compared to the state of real-life Japanese law—the overnight dissolution of the Hearts & Minds Party.
As discussed earlier, it's unlikely that every member is a dyed-in-the-wool terrorist. There are bound to be perfectly innocent people in the country who just so happen to agree with the HMP’s campaign platforms. Now, all of those people are going to turn on the evening news[41] and be blindsided with the news that their political party has just been dissolved and some enormous percentage of its membership arrested. This was not publicized or forewarned; it just happened, in a matter of hours. Do you think those people—people who are members of a party that specifically opposes the current status quo—are just going to nod and say, “Oh, wow, that sucks, but who am I to question the wisdom of the government and its agents? Time to find a new political party, I guess!” Would you?
I can assure you that you wouldn’t, because let me be clear: under current Japanese law, what we’re told happened to the HMP is unbelievably illegal—not only because they were dissolved at all, but particularly the speed with which that dissolution was carried out.
I mentioned earlier, in the section “Japan and Illegal Organizations,” that there were methods by which organizations can be dissolved. Now I’d like to look at that in more detail.
Any organization that’s been flagged as a potential threat—that “terroristic subversive activity” designation—can come under investigation from the Public Security Intelligence Agency. Their recommendations are then passed up for evaluation by a member of the Public Security Examination Commission,[42] who can pass a variety of prohibitions—the bans I mentioned earlier on printing activities, public assembly, and a few others. These prohibitions are issued in periods lasting up to six months, at which point they are re-evaluated and can be dismissed or renewed.
If the Public Security Examination Commission decides that the comparatively soft-pedal restrictions on freedom of the press or freedom of assembly are not sufficient to deter the organization in question from committing terroristic subversive activity continuously/repeatedly in the future, the Commission can elect to order the organization dissolved. This revokes their rights mentioned above entirely, and further stipulates that they liquidate their assets,[42] and that no member of or representative for the organization can take actions in the organization’s interest (e.g. things like opening bank accounts or buying property). The only exception to the latter restriction is a designated representative for the organization who is granted the right to manage its assets in the process of overseeing the dissolution.
Any of the designations above can be appealed, but dissolution is permanent until specifically overturned.
Now, it might well seem that the HMP could be targeted under the “advocating for subversive terroristic activity” criteria, but here’s the problem with that: that criteria is based on the organization engaging in/advocating for such terroristic subversiveness as an organizational activity—that is, the activity in question is a foundational, core aspect of the organization’s endeavors. And I simply don’t think that’s how the HMP operates. To reiterate, I believe they’re a recruitment tool, meant to siphon people into the MLA (later the PLF) proper, but otherwise a perfectly legitimate political party with real political aims, outreach, goals, and so on.
Of course, I can easily see the anger over all the destruction leading the Ministry of Justice to being heavy-handed in its response to the Paranormal Liberation Front and any organization even suspected of being associated with it, of which the HMP is the most prominent. I could also simply be wrong about what the HMP says at their rallies. Regardless of either of those possibilities, however, there is still the matter of the timetable.
There was a period in Japanese history that organizations—political parties especially—could be dissolved on the spot. The Meiji Constitution granted that right to the Minister of Home Affairs, a Cabinet position appointed by the Emperor, and indeed, any number of socialist, communist, or labor-oriented parties were banned and dissolved within scant months of their establishment for their alleged leftist or subversive leanings.[44] The Farmer-Labor Party of 1925 was dissolved three hours after its establishment! So clearly there’s some precedent—or at least, there was. Like many things, the power to summarily dissolve organizations did not survive the Meiji Constitution’s transformation into its modern-day incarnation after World War II.
The Subversive Activities Prevention Act, the same one that lays out the causes for dissolving an organization, also details a legally mandated process by which this dissolution is carried out. Most prominently, organizations cannot just be dissolved with no notice, no chance to defend themselves. Any disposition curtailing an organization's activities, from the bans on their printed material to complete dissolution, is required to be announced both via the government's official gazette[45] and, if the residence of a chief officer or representative of the organization is known, also via written notification. These notifications must be sent at least seven days before the hearing date—a hearing which, further, the organization has the legal right to send agents to in order to present statements and evidence in their own favor, as well as examine the evidence being presented against them.
This clearly did not happen. Bare minimum, Hanabata Koku, as leader of the Hearts & Minds Party, should have had an address the Commission could get ahold of, especially given all the snooping they so obviously must have been doing to unearth the extent of the PLF’s reach.
It’s instructive, in this regard, to look to history. To wit, I’ve said a lot about how gun-shy Japan is to dissolve organizations outright, thanks to its history of governmental repression—but how true is that really? If the government really wanted to, couldn’t it just decide to crack down on something and ride out the controversy? Has it done as much before?
To put all this into proper perspective: no. It hasn’t. The government has invoked the Subversive Activities Prevention Act against a group rather than individuals only once in all the time since the act was passed in 1952.
It was against Aum Shinrikyo, and it didn’t happen until seven months after the subway attacks. Even with nearly unanimous desire to prosecute, even though Aum had been under police surveillance prior to the attacks, even though lawsuits against them were and had been ongoing, meaning at least some measure of investigation was being done openly, it still took seven months to gather the evidence, submit it to the Public Safety Examination Commission, allow Aum their appeal, and enact the ruling. That’s because, in a society ordered by democratic processes, these things take time.[46]
But the HMP? No one who wasn’t a member knew about their affiliation with the League of Villains—much less an underground army!—until Hawks got the word out, and the Hero Public Safety Commission had to be rigorously careful that news of their investigations not leak because they knew they had their own moles to deal with. So far as we know, the Hearts & Minds Party remained a legit organization right up until the day of the raid. It is functionally impossible under current Japanese law for them to have been dissolved in the scant few hours between the commencement of the raid and the attack on Tartarus in which the two guards mention the dissolution.
Even if the relevant agency in the Ministry of Justice submitted their paperwork the absolute minimum of time in advance, there is no way the HMP and Trumpet—and therefore Re-Destro and the League and everyone else—shouldn’t have known that the government was moving against them. The only answer is that the Ministry of Justice was evading its legal obligation to notify both the public[47] and the HMP itself, or that the Japanese government, in the wake of the Advent of the Exceptional, throttled back on constitutionally guaranteed freedoms exactly the way human rights activists today are always warning about.
Stigma and Recidivism
In the same way that In Custody is not (or shouldn't be) a magic status effect preventing villains from escaping from police, In Jail is not an endgame state. Most people in prison are not there for life (or death) sentences, particularly not in Japan. Even if the majority of the PLF gets stuck in prison for decades, there will, eventually, be an “after” for them. So what happens “after”?
Well, like many countries, Japan has made efforts in the modern day to offer training classes and parole officers to help reacclimate ex-convicts into society once they’ve done their time, but it remains a difficult process, and the country has a relatively high recidivism rate. Given the stigma against criminals—present to a degree in all countries, but particularly exacerbated in Japan—it is frequently difficult for released prisoners to find stable housing or employment—both key factors helping to prevent recidivism.
So does MHA’s Japan have similar programs? Well, it’s hard to say, given that the only prison we’ve actually seen is Tartarus, which is obviously a poor model to base a lot of judgement on—save, of course, that any country that could develop a place like Tartarus is a country with an appalling deficit of care for criminals’ human rights, which doesn’t bode well for their other prisons.
Speaking of things that don’t bode well, though, we have two obvious examples in the canon of how convicted criminals fare: both Gentle Criminal and Twice are, it’s suggested, prosecuted for their foundational fuck-ups—Tobita for obstructing public duties[48] and Jin for his traffic infraction. It’s unclear whether they went to prison or not—given the relative lenience shown to first-time offenders, I’m inclined to think probably not—but even given these very mild offenses, their lives were turned completely upside-down, and no apparent efforts were made to help them through chaotic periods that saw Tobita apparently disowned and Jin losing his job.
Consider the harsh reactions they garnered and the apparent lack of assistance from any social structure despite the relative mildness of their wrongs, and things start to look very bad indeed for the PLF. Will there be any steps taken at all to deradicalize them? Does taking such steps seem likely, given what we've seen of MHA’s legal and carceral systems thus far? Further, if there is no plan for deradicalization, how exactly do the heroes propose to stop this from happening again (and again, and again and again and again)?
Here’s another alarming thought: what will be done with the children? There’s no way around the fact that the MLA, and therefore the PLF, included children[49]—and I don’t mean it in the tumblr sense of describing a sixteen-year-old as “a literal child,” though there would be some of those, too. No, I mean the grade-schoolers, the toddlers, the babies. Maybe some of them will have non-PLF family they could hypothetically go to, but as I have written about in the past, there’s a very real bias about orphans and other children separated from their parents in Japan, and even blood ties are not always enough to overcome that stigma. Alternative care is in a woefully sorry state as it is in Japan, and this would only be compounded for PLF kids—damned first for their criminal associations and again for being the children society doesn’t want.
However many thousands of them that may be.[50]
So here again, a question recurs. Where before it was, “How do you tell the guilty from the innocent?” here it’s, “How do you stop the societal backlash from ruining countless peoples’ lives both now and for decades into the future?” What kind of stigma will all these people—rank and file who come out of prison deradicalized and ready to rejoin society, children who were too young to understand why heroes took their parents away, ignorant family and friends who just lost loved ones to a massive government sweep, innocents swept up in the net and imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit—going to be facing? How long, then, before that stigma sees them radicalized in turn?
You cannot sweep 115,000 people under the rug and not expect there to be a stain—and given the narrative themes of the rest of My Hero Academia thus far, it’s absurd to think that’s even an option.
Next time: how scrapping the ex-MLA portions of the PLF undermines MHA's narrative integrity.
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Footnotes (Part Three)
[26] And in the legal sense, murder in the second degree.
[27] For the monstrous callousness of his comments in that conversation, said guard is immediately murdered by karma All For One. I very much hope we ever get Shishikura’s opinion on this, because I’m pretty sure the guard was his dad.
[28] Who, in Chapter 35 of that series, leads a group of police firing rubber bullets at an active villain, emphasizing that the police are trained in non-lethal tactics, and any escalation from that is not to be taken lightly.
[29] Indeed, you could make a fair argument that that’s exactly why the manga included the Noumu to begin with, though the lower-tier ones wind up captured as often as not.
[30] Vigilantes, Chapter 74.
[31] This sidesteps the matter of “rescue heroes,” those who focus on disaster response and evacuation. Note, however, that this is not a categorization that pits those heroes against non-quirk-abusing civilians. Non-quirk-abusing civilians are criminals for police to deal with, not heroes of any stripe.
[32] This would be in keeping with real-world de-escalation tactics. So for e.g. the purse-snatcher in Chapter 1, where we’re told he didn’t use his quirk until he’d been backed into a corner, I would bet that Kamuy Woods or whoever confronted the thief didn’t start actually using their quirk on the man until he went into giant mode. That is anyway a kinder interpretation than noting that he was a heteromorph and would have been using his quirk automatically just by virtue of existing in public.
[33] After digging him out from under the stairway it had a teenager drop on top of him, I mean. Did he even have much of a chance to use Incite at the villa, do you think?
[34] Though given that literally every member of the MLA we’ve met is addressed solely by their code name, I don’t for a second believe he could have gotten real names out of everyone he talked to.
[35] And judges virtually always grant warrants. It’s that presumption of guilt thing again.
[36] But that panel of the normally taciturn Edgeshot shouting at a bunch of high schoolers not to let a single person escape is pretty damn telling too.
[37] 14% of the Japanese populace is under 14 years old, so that’s not too far off, though I’d be inclined to think, based on everything we know about them, that the MLA was having more kids than Japan at large, not fewer.
[38] This should have been Uraraka, by the way.
[39] An exaggeration, but only by a handful of tenths of a percentage point.
[40] Though until recently, it’s served as a great check on recidivism, clearly.
[41] You know, assuming that they weren't all arrested in the middle of their workday or cleaning house or going to university or what have you.
[42] Both are among the agencies that make up the Ministry of Justice. I’d be willing to bet that, in-universe, the Hero Public Safety Commission is also under the Ministry of Justice umbrella.
[43] The funds are then remitted to the National Treasury.
[44] Though one thing to note for our current context is that, even when those parties were dissolved, it did not automatically follow that any duly elected representatives were expelled from office. Unless there was legal reason to remove them, any elected officials were simply rendered “Independents” rather than being affiliated with a political party. The constitution stipulates that Diet members can only be expelled by a two-thirds majority vote, though in such circumstances, most politicians choose to step down from their positions before it comes to such drastic measures.
[45] A newspaper or other bulletin officially authorized by the government to publish public and legal notices—in Japan these days, it’s an online site/newsletter.
[46] And they’re often still controversial with progressive activists, as the invocation against Aum was even contemporaneously! Incidentally, Aum’s dissolution lasted for a mere two years before the government panel ultimately declined to make it permanent.
[47] And if you don’t think the HMP had someone watching the official Japanese government website, you’re clearly not taking them seriously.
[48] And possibly more besides; the dialogue in question trails off in a way that suggests that the obstruction charge is only the first in a list.
[49] Start at Yotsubashi Rikiya being inducted when he was still in schoolboy shorts and continue right on up through the people we see in school uniforms in various mass battle scenes involving the MLA rank and file.
[50] And it easily could be thousands. If, say, even 10% of the PLF are minors, that’d be well over 10,000 kids, and thus we’re right back to overcrowding problems, except this time they’re about Japan’s child services programs, and the last thing they need is a new group of kids that numbers a full third of the number of children already in their care in real-life Japan. Naturally, the number only climbs if you think Re-Destro wasn’t counting kids in his initial reckoning of the MLA’s membership.
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therealjordan23 · 3 years
Note
Hi Jordan. What r ur thoughts on Laurel Hubbard and her competing in the Olympics?
Grab a cup of coffee guys, this is a long one.
Before we get into anything,I am obviously in support of trans people, and their rights. So, hecklers, don't be putting words in my mouth, because I know Tumblr is one of those places where the LGBT community is extremely prominent. Almost to the point where it's too much, I once saw one user shame someone for being heterosexual, but that isn't the point. The point is, be fair.
I'm gonna be completely honest. I personally think it's a disadvantage to the female athletes, who were born a woman, to have to compete against a woman who was born a man. Although Laurel Hubbard came out as trans 8 years ago, and has met all the requirements to compete, from a biological perspective, she obviously has a lot more advantages.
The IOC policy specifies conditions under which those who transition from male to female are eligible to compete in the female category. Among them is that the athlete has declared that her gender identity is female and that the declaration cannot be changed, for sporting purposes, for a minimum of four years.
And you're sitting there, going like, wow, so they're making it fair and inclusive. But here's why this isn't a great rule: the IOC requires only that a trans woman has maintained a particular level of testosterone for 12 months in order to compete as a ‘self-identifying’ woman. This completely ignores the physical advantages in speed, height, stamina and strength that a male-born athlete will have. The determining criteria—a maximum reading of 10 nanomoles per litre of testosterone—is as least five times more than a biological woman.
Hubbard, when she was Gavin Hubbard, wasn't anything to sneeze at. Before transitioning, Hubbard competed under the name Gavin and was New Zealand’s junior men’s champion and a national record holder. Gavin Hubbard hit a 300-kilogram total in the over-105 kilogram men’s category, which at the 2019 Junior World Championships “would have been good enough for last place by 31 kg.” Gavin Hubbard was a “talented, but not a world-calibre athlete.” By age 34, Hubbard had plateaued. Yet after transitioning in 2012, Hubbard saw years of success in the women’s division.
But before we get into that, let's talk about somebody named Feagaiga Stowers.
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This young woman is only a year younger than me. She endured tremendous difficulties in her childhood, where she eventually entered the Samoa Victims Support Group, to end up where she is today. Stowers' meteoric rise has proven there is hope for everyone. And she’s done everything possible to be on top of her game, where she deserves to be.
This was until she stepped up on the weightlifting platform in 2019, where her hopes of clinching a Pacific Games gold were crushed by a fellow competitor, Laurel Hubbard.
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"The striking contrast between a disadvantaged female of colour being overpowered by a silver-spoon legatee of white settler privilege who previously competed in men’s weightlifting was not a good look on Hubbard."
None of this is fair to the female born athletes, who have been training and training for this moment. Only to get usurped by somebody who very obviously has advantages over them. Many of the female athletes have shown distress about this. They say it feels like a bad/sick joke:
"Women were not consulted and did not consent to this policy which will make a complete mockery of their sport."
"If Hubbard wins, observers will see that an aging natal-male athlete who could never hope to be on an Olympic men’s podium can win a medal in the women’s division."
“Essentially, the policy of the IOC is that a transgender woman may have five times the average total testosterone of a biological woman.”
“Life-changing opportunities are missed for some athletes – medals and Olympic qualifications – and we are powerless. Of course, this debate is taking place in a broader context of discrimination against transgender people and that is why the question is never free of ideology.”
People are afraid to express their concern over this, because many supporters are using the word "discrimination" against them. Meaning if you disagree, you're suddenly against transgender people. So, not only are they going through all of this, but when they express their feelings over this, they're labeled discriminatory. Which, you know, is never good.
Now, I'm going to let my friend, Mary, take the reins:
"Hi, guys, my name is Margaret, but you can call me Mary for short. I have known Jordan since the third grade, and was actually born a male. I am 6'3 tall, I weigh about 180 lbs. I transitioned about 6 years ago, yet, there are always going to be factors that make me better than an average woman from a physical and biological standpoint. When I see people like Laurel Hubbard competing, completely unbothered, it genuinely infuriates me. I don't think it's fair to the women who have been training their whole lives for this,
When Hubbard was asked about this, this was her response:
"It's not really my job to change what they think, what they feel and what they believe. I just hope they look at the bigger picture, rather than just trusting whatever their gut may have told them. I'm just me."
But this isn't us being close minded. We are openly getting more and more supportive in favour of trans people. People are so much warmer to me now than they were back in, say, 2016.
However, even I, as a trans woman, see the unjust nature in this. There are just some cases where it can never be made fair, and this is one of them. The Olympics are a prime example of this. It can never be made fair, because we both know Hubbard will come out on top. Because like it or not, she has the body of a 30 something year old man, with 5 times more testosterone inside of her.
It's Jordan now, and I agree with everything Mary said above.
I love the Olympics.
But, I am not in support of Laurel Hubbard competing.
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anightflower · 4 years
Text
Come and Find Me Chapter 4: The Andrew Curtis Case
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Guys I am so sorry this took so long. On top of school kicking my ass, I had to rewrite and reedit this chapter several times until I got to one that I deemed worthy. I am going to try and post Chapter Five early for you guys if I can. 
Spencer Reid x Reader
Warnings: Mentions of Violence, Rape, Abuse
Masterlist 
Spencer glanced around the room at all the police officers assembled. He cleared his throat. 
“The Unsub is a white male in his late 20s to mid-30s. He is a man with an average build and a friendly face, someone who women would not pose as a threat.”
“Since there were no signs of forced entry, we believe he’s posing as someone who women would let into their house. Classic cases of this include maintenance men there to check up on things, someone who needs help after their car broke down, or a similar case like that.” Emily explained. “This is a man who fakes confidence, but in reality views himself as inadequate in some way, he knows he can’t fight off another man, so he chooses women who live alone and are essentially defenseless.” 
“Yet, he hates that they are successful enough to support themselves or that they have any sort of power.” Morgan chimed in.
“He clearly was cheated on or had some sort of marital issue that caused him to spiral into this spree. He is a sexual sadist projecting his partner onto the women he attacks, that’s why he chokes them, watching the life drain from their eyes sparks something in him and gives him a sense of power. That is also why he rapes his victims, he loves the idea that he is all powerful and they are helpless.” Hotch explained. 
Spencer swallowed, “Comparing his last four victims it seems his type is 20-30 year old females with (Y/C/H) and (Y/C/E).” 
Which coincidentally looks like the love of my life. Spencer thought, repressing a shudder.
________________________________________________________________
Spencer starred in shock at the scene around him. He was just finishing up the geographical profile, when they had received a call about yet another body. 
Her empty bulking eyes stared up at the ceiling, her body was beaten, cut, and bruised. 
“Strangulation marks on her neck, multiple stab wounds and injuries, this looks like our unsub.” Emily resisted the urge to shudder. 
“Man, whoever cheated on this guy, must have really broken him.” Morgan mused, looking around at the bloody scribblings on the wall. 
Spencer knew that if they tested the blood on the wall, it would match the victims. He looked at the frames on the wall, trying to ignore the blood that seemed to coat everything. The victim had her diploma hung up and multiple pictures of her smiling with family or friends. Spencer stared hard at the name on the diploma; Adria Winston.
It scared Spencer how easily he could see you in this woman’s place. Injured, dying, pleading for him, for anyone to save you-
“Reid. Reid, are you alright?” Morgan clapped a hand on Spencer's shoulder, drawing him back to the present. 
Spencer shook himself out of his dazed state. “Yeah, uh I just need to step out for a second.” He said, pushing past Morgan and making his way outside Adria’s house. He pulled out his phone and dialed your number, it was late, so you would most likely be asleep, but-
You picked up on the third ring. “Hi baby, are you alright?” Spencer bit back a smile at the sleepiness in your voice.
“Not really, but I just really needed to hear your voice. How is Ohio?” Spencer asked, trying to distract himself from what he just saw. You could tell, but you played along with it. 
“Not too bad, whoever designed the Google lounge has nothing on me.” You joked. 
“Well, we already knew that.” Spencer smiled. 
“Yeah, you wouldn’t believe some of the cool stuff I found, I’m telling you if the employees complain about these amazing comfy chairs I got for their break room, I am totally coming back and stealing all 22 of them for my apartment.” You said enthusiastically. “They're perfect for reading in Spence, I’m telling you, you would love them.” 
Spencer let out a little laugh, “I’m sure they are. We will have to see if we can find some, but I don’t think 22 will fit in either of our apartments.” 
“I suppose you’re right” You sighed dramatically, but then took a more serious tone of voice. “Are you alright baby?” 
Spencer’s chest tightened at your worried tone of voice. “There’s a sick selfish part of me that is so glad that you aren’t here (Y/N). All of these girls look so much like you-” Spencer paused, swallowing back tears. “I just am so glad you are safe, I don’t think I could focus as well on this case if I knew you could possibly be in danger.” 
“Aw Spencer, I am so sorry baby. You aren’t sick or selfish for wanting me to be safe, everyone focuses on the safety of those they love, it’s only human. I know you are going to catch this guy, you are the most brilliant man and agent I have ever met. Just don’t tell your team I said that, I don’t want a bad reputation before they even meet me.” You teased, trying to lighten his dark mood. 
Spencer let out a small laugh and sniffled. “Trust me the team is going to love you. We will have to figure out when you can meet them, but I definitely want to wait until things settle down a bit here.” 
There was silence on your end for a second. “Listen Spence, I can stay here a bit longer if it will help you focus, but when I come home I am taking self-defense classes and such. I want you to have a sane mind knowing that your girlfriend actually can handle herself. I honestly think it will help me keep sane too, after hearing everything about this case.” 
Spencer heart skipped a beat, as much as he wanted you safe and sound, he also needed to hold you in his arms to keep his sanity. But ultimately you were the one who should lead your life, not Spencer.  “I appreciate you considering me, but I want the ultimate decision to be made by you Princess, I trust your judgement and I don’t want you living your life based on my fear.” 
You breath caught in your throat at the sentiment. “I love you Spencer Reid.” 
Spencer could have sworn his heart stopped. The two of you hadn’t said I love you yet. Part of him wished it was in person, but just hearing you say it, meant the world to him. “I love you more (Y/N) (Y/L/N).”
So help him god, Spencer would catch whoever this unsub was and put him away, so you could come home to a safer city. 
________________________________________________________________
“You know what strikes me as funny?” Emily asked, looking at the crime scene photos. 
The room was silent, waiting to hear what she had to say. 
“Each of these unsubs reported strange gifts and letters being sent to their home. The police had thought it was nothing, but now I am thinking that maybe this could be a connection. I mean think about it, didn’t you guys notice that each victim received a gift box wrapped the exact same way?” 
Morgan nodded. “Yeah they had the white box with the red bow-”
Spencer chimed in, “Red typically symbolizes love and infatuation, but in this case it was the unsub’s warning, red meant war or violence was about to come upon this victim.” 
“Reid and JJ I want you to talk to the officers and get the reports these women filed for harassment, I think we are missing a connection.” Hotch ordered. 
An hour or so later they had that connection.  
“All of the victims received their gifts from a delivery service called ‘Special Delivery.’” JJ explained to everyone. 
“Well it seems we have to pay them a visit.” Hotch said. 
________________________________________________________________
Special Delivery was a small Ma and Pa store, located just a couple blocks from Ava’s coffee shop. Spencer debated on stopping in to check in with her and maybe grab the team coffee. 
Spencer had quickly taken a liking to Ava, not only because he had called him your “sexy superhero boyfriend,” but because she was a reliable friend to you, one who always managed to bring a smile to your face. She reminded Spencer of a more wild Emily, in the best way possible.
Emily stopped outside the storefront window, glancing at the display of chocolates, gift baskets, and jewelry. “Why is it always the cute small places that get ruined? Can’t it be one of those big corporate offices that fuck over their employees instead?” 
Spencer huffed a laugh. 
As they entered the store, the bell let out a delicate twinkle. Causing a silver-streaked brunette to pop out from the back of the store. Her round face held a warm smile as she approached them. 
“Hello dears! What can I do for you?” She asked as she excitedly clasped her hands together.
“Hello Mrs. Ellison, my name is SSA Prentiss and this is Dr. Reid, we had a few questions for you.” Emily said gently, flashing her badge to the woman. 
The woman's smile dimmed a bit, “Oh, uh of course, is everything alright?” 
“Mrs. Ellison I am sure you’ve heard of the recent tragedies-” Emily began, 
“Oh yes, I’ve been keeping up with the news, it’s just dreadful that something so horrible could happen so close to home. You see these things in movies or in other places, but you just never expect them to happen right near you.” Mrs. Ellison said sorrowfully, wrapping her arms around herself. 
“Mrs. Ellison, I am afraid everyone of these victims received several deliveries from your shop. Each was wrapped exactly the same, white box, red bow, does this ring any bells for you?” Spencer asked, cutting to the chase. 
“Well dear, it is Valentine season, red, pink, and white are the typical go to colors.” She shrugged. 
“Do you have any regulars? He would have each gift he bought wrapped the exact same way? He would seem friendly, but would be on the quieter side?” Emily asked, attempting to prod the older woman’s memory. 
“I’m afraid none of that is ringing any bells dear, I am so sorry.” Mrs. Ellison said apologetically. 
“Do you have any other employees? Or do you run this place all by yourself?” Spencer asked. 
Mrs. Ellison, let out a small laugh, “Oh goodness me, no. I get so many orders, I could never do it by myself. I previously had three employees, Jess, Remy, and Andrew, but I had to fire Andrew when I found him stealing from our stock. It was a shame too, he was a hardworking boy, but I’m afraid he just fell apart after his wife left him.”
Emily and Spencer exchanged a quick glance. “Do you happen to know why his wife left him?” Spencer asked, his heart picking up speed. 
“Oh it's not my business to share-” Mrs. Ellison hesitated. 
“Please Mrs. Ellison, this could be crucial information.” Emily urged her. 
Mrs. Ellison let out a sigh. “That horrible girl cheated on him. I just couldn’t understand it either, Drew was such a doting gentleman to her, it simply didn’t make sense.” 
“Do you still have his contact information? His address?” 
“Why of course, but you couldn’t possibly think he has anything to do with this-” Mrs. Ellison began, making her way to behind the counter to grab a binder. She looked up worried when Spencer and Emily didn’t answer right away. “Do you?” She urged. 
“It’s quite possible he had nothing to do with it, we just need to follow through with every angle.” Emily quickly explained. 
“Of course.” Mrs. Ellison said, but her hands slightly shook as she opened up her binder to get Andrew’s address. 
________________________________________________________________
“Andrew Curtis, this is the FBI, open up.” Hotch hollered from outside the door. There was no response. Hotch looked to his team to make sure they were ready, then kicked in the door. 
As the team checked different rooms, several calls of “Clear!” echoed throughout the house. Curtis was not there. 
Morgan made his way to the basement and swallowed back a gag. “Hotch! You better come see this.” 
Guns at the ready, Spencer, Hotch, Rossi, and Emily, made their way down to Morgan. 
“What the hell.” Emily huffed as they all beheld the horrific sight before them. 
It was a girl, for sure. She had the same mutilated marks as far as they could tell, but her body was decently decayed. 
“He’s displaying her like a trophy.” Spencer observed. “He props her up naked and makes sure her wounds are fully on display to remind him what he did.”
“There’s more trophies over here.” Rossi said in disgust, gesturing to a shelf full of different valuables. 
“He’s sick.” Morgan hissed. 
“We need a med team down here to remove a body. As soon as it’s IDed we need to know and alert any next of kin.” Hotch ordered into his earpiece. 
Rossi put on a glove and began to go through the other trophies for evidence. “I’ll talk to the victims families and see if any of them recognize these items.” 
Morgan dialed up Garcia. 
“Speak and be heard, the all-knowing goddess listens.” 
“Hey baby girl, I need you to look up any missing person’s reports from around this area. The victim has (y/c/h) and (y/c/e). She fits our victimology to a t, but we need to figure out who she is.”
“I’m on it.” Garcia said. 
“And Garcia,” Hotch said, stopping her before she hung up. “I need you to find a license plate for Andrew Curtis. Also check to see if he rents or owns any other property, he’s currently not at his home and it is too close to other buildings for his victims to not be heard.” 
“You got it. Talk soon.” She said, hanging up. 
About half an hour later Garcia got back to them. “Curtis drives a 2003 silver sedan with the license plate 637-IRT. I also found that he rents a small storage unit that’s a 20 minute drive in a more secluded part of town. I am sending the address to you guys now.” 
“Thanks Garcia.” Hotch said. He turned to JJ “I need you to get an APB on Curtis. I want you to warn the public to keep an eye out for him.” 
JJ nodded and rushed off with her phone. Hotch looked to the rest of the team. “Everyone else, vests on, we are heading to that storage unit.”
________________________________________________________________
“Fuck Drew, what are we going to do?” The boy asked as he looked at the screen projecting a news report on Andrew Curtis.
“Well, it might be the end for me, little brother, but I have you as my legacy. They don’t have a clue that you are even involved, so I need you to get out of here.”
“No, no, no. I am not going to leave you!” The Boy cried, tears streaming down his face. 
Drew huffed a laugh. “Now, now, little bro. It isn’t the time for tears. I’ve taught you everything you need to know. You need to get your girl from that Doctor remember?”
“How am I supposed to do this without you?” The Boy asked, fear filled his voice. 
“Your time will come. You have to be a man about this. You have the skills now and you have our little videos to watch. Your own little tutorial to pluck that girl right out of Dr. Reid’s hands. You need to hide those and hide them well. Promise me you won’t fuck up your chance.” Drew growled. 
The Boy whimpered and Drew smacked him. “Promise me!” He yelled. 
“I promise.” The Boy sobbed, grabbing at his pained cheek.
Drew’s face softened and he gave the boy a smile. “Good, now get out of here legacy and make me proud. I expect to see you on the news someday.” He winked. ��You remember our code right?” 
The boy nodded. 
“Then this isn’t the last time we will speak to each other. Now get the fuck out of here, I already fucked with the security footage, so they won’t even know you were here.” Drew explained, pushing the boy out towards the parking lot. 
The Boy’s heart broke as he rushed from his mentor, not only because he knew he would never be able to see Drew in person after this, but because he knew that he would never be able to ruin the 6th victim. The sixth whore that was tied up in the trunk of Drew’s car. 
________________________________________________________________
The girl sobs were muffled by her gag. Drew pulled on her hair harder as he dragged her to the storage unit. He knew he didn’t have much time left, so he might as well let every moment count huh?
The girl’s sobs turned into terrified screams as she beheld the bloodied storage room and the various knives and devices within it. 
“Shut up you stupid bitch.” He growled in her ear.
The girl whimpered something and Drew ripped away her gag. 
“Please.” She begged and Drew simply laughed as he lugged her limp body towards the table in the center of the room.
“Please, just let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I have a family who cares about me-” She pleaded. 
“Whores don’t have families. Whores have nothing. They just cheat and lie and move onto the next guy. Huh Madelyn?” He growled as he threw her up onto the table.
“My name isn’t Madelyn, please it’s Emily-” The girl sobbed.
“Enough of your lies Madelyn. You stupid slut. You couldn’t stay loyal could you?” Drew snarled, hitting the girl’s head hard against the table.
She sobbed harder. “My name is Emily, my name isn’t Madelyn, please it’s Emily.” She babbled.
“SHUT UP.” He said, hitting her again.
Suddenly a shout rose up from outside the storage unit door. “Andrew Curtis, this is the FBI, come out with your hands raised.” 
The smile that crept across Drew’s face was wicked. He grabbed a knife and pulled Emily against him. “Let’s have some fun, shall we?” He whispered in her ear. 
“Andrew Curtis, this is your last warning. We will come in armed and ready.” Hotch’s voice shouted again. 
Drew remained where he was, the sick smile on his face, as tears streamed down Emily’s face. 
When the door burst open and several agents poured in, he did not flinch or cower away. 
“Drop the weapon.” Hotch boomed, his voice echoing in the space.
“Now, now, now, where would the fun be in that?” Drew mocked. 
“Put down the weapon, Curtis and let the girl go.” Rossi ordered. 
Drew’s eyes looked past all of them and fell on Spencer, he bit back a smile.
“Come any closer and I’ll slice her throat.” Drew threatened, pressing the knife harder to Emily’s throat, a few drops of crimson blossomed and crept down her neck.
“If you don’t let Miss Bloise go, then we will be forced to take action Mr. Curtis.” Rossi explained.
Drew’s hand shook, god he wanted them to come at him, but then he thought of his mentee, how lost he would be without him. 
He lowered the knife and let the girl go. She ran towards one of the agents, tears mixing with the blood that ran down her neck. JJ wrapped an arm around the girl and guided her out. 
Morgan rushed to Curtis, pinning him down against the floor and putting cuffs around his wrists. 
Though they had caught him, Hotch felt uneasy. Curtis had given in too quickly. The greasy smile across Curtis’s face as Morgan led him away only heightened his suspicions. 
________________________________________________________________
The team sat outside the interrogation room, watching as Hotch tried to get a rise out of Andrew Curtis. He and JJ had gone in; Hotch to be the intimidator, JJ to be the trigger as she looked a bit similar to the victims. So far the man had just sat in the chair, his arms crossed, silent and smirking. It had been almost an hour and they had gotten nothing out of him.
Spencer felt as though Curtis could see him through the two-way mirror. 
“You know Agent,” Curtis began. “I know you’re trying to be the big bad wolf, but it’s not going to work, I’ve dealt with worse than you.”
Morgan looked about ready to kick in the door and beat the confession out of Andrew. 
“Send me in, I’ll get an answer out of him” Morgan growled, cracking his knuckles.
“Unfortunately, the confession won’t stand up in court if they found out you beat the shit out of Curtis to get it” Emily smirked, trying to lighten the mood.
“The Court doesn’t have to know” Morgan argued, making Emily scoff. 
“Focus kids.” Rossi ordered sternly, but Spencer could tell he was fighting back a small smile. 
Hotch and JJ came out of the room. Hotch looked to Spencer, his expression grim. “He wants to talk with you.”
Spencer looked at Hotch confused, “Why me?”
“He’s ‘fascinated by you’” Hotch explained. “I know it’s not ideal and you don’t have to go in their Reid, but-”
“But, we could get the confession out of him. We have the charges for Miss Bloise, but we want to pin him for the other girls he attacked. I understand and I will do it.” Spencer said. 
“I’ll stick with you Spence” JJ reassured, putting a hand on his arm. “You won’t be alone.”
Spencer nodded, sending a grateful look JJ’s way as they made their way into the interrogation room.
“Ah the elusive doctor. So glad you could join us.” Drew purred.
Spencer said nothing as he moved to sit down across from Curtis.
“-your wife left you Mr. Curtis, is that correct?” JJ asked.
“Please doll, a pretty thing like you can call me Drew” Drew said, looking JJ up and down. 
Spencer’s fists clenched in anger as he felt JJ tense next to him.
“The file says she left you after she cheated on you. Did you have medical issues Mr. Curtis?” Reid asked, drawing Curtis’s attention to him. “Did you struggle to please your own wife?”
Curtis growled. “That stupid whore has nothing to do with this.” 
“Ah so you couldn’t and when she left you for a man that could, you projected your anger for her onto these women. You were angry at them for being confident and independent, much like your wife who knew what she wanted.” Spencer said, sitting back in his chair with a faint smirk. 
“These women were nothing but whores, willing to let men in like me. They wanted someone so badly they let a stranger into their house.” Curtis hissed.
“Mr. Curtis, you were a delivery man. They didn’t let you in, you forced your way into their homes didn’t you?”
“If a man needs a glass of water, can’t he let himself in?” Curtis purred. “They turned their backs on a predator and got what was coming to them.” 
“Did you attack them in their homes?” JJ asked. 
“Only to make them quiet, couldn’t have the neighbors hear them scream.” Curtis laughed and Spencer resisted the urge to choke out the man across from him. 
They placed images of all of his supposed victim’s before him. “Do you recognize these women?” JJ asked, her voice harsh and cold. 
Curtis looked over all of them, silent for a couple minutes. Spencer’s patience thinned. “Well?” 
Curtis pointed to an image of Lila Jennings, the third victim of this case. “She screamed the loudest.” He pointed to another image. “She was a hot piece of ass, it was fun breaking her.” 
“Enough.” Spencer hissed. 
“In short Doctor, yes I do recognize these women. Every single one of them and no I do not regret a single one.”
Without saying another word, JJ and Spencer got up, taking the files with them. Curtis’s laughter rang out behind them as they shut the door.
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TAGLIST
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82 notes · View notes
Text
The Woes of Winning (Gavin x MC)
Fandom: Mr. Love: Queen’s Choice
Pairing: Gavin x MC
Word Count: 1,521
Warning: NSFW Smut
Requested by: Anonymous
Written by: @voltage-vixen​
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“Boss, everything turned out great!” Willow praised, filling up the coolers with another round of drinks.
“Thanks to everyone pitching in,” MC responded, before sending the younger woman on her way to assist Anna.
The small production company was celebrating the success of their most recent commercial and were partaking in festivities at one of the nearby beaches. Invitations had been extended to friends and family of the staff, and everyone was immersed in the lively atmosphere of the jovial gathering. MC was helping serve the guests their food, and Gavin being the kind soul he was offered to man the grill.
“Please don’t hesitate to inform me if you need anything else,” MC reminded the crowd, as she cleared away the tables.
Pausing to wipe away the sweat trickling from her brow, MC stole a glance to admire the way the sweltering heat left Gavin illuminating in perspiration. The fabric of his damp shirt clung to his form, accentuating the cuts of his muscular upper body. Gavin noticed her staring and granted her a small wave while giving the grill a final wipe down. He placed the tongs down, and casually acknowledged MC’s coworkers as he made his way over to join MC.
“Hi,” MC greeted Gavin, blushing as he threw his arm around her shoulder.
“Hi yourself,” Gavin responded, tucking the producer’s slicked bangs behind her ear. “Man, it’s pretty hot out here today.”
“It is hot out here!” Minor suddenly interjected, stumbling over to the couple. “I propose we finally put those water balloons to good use and have ourselves a good old-fashioned smack down!”
Perhaps it was a combination of the scorching humidity and the strength of the alcohol consumed, but Minor reiterated his desire by holding up the large bucket stocked with the loaded balloons and breaking into an obnoxious fit of giggles. Sighing in dejection, MC massaged her temples preparing to lecture her former classmate.  
“Minor, those water balloons are for the chil-GAVIN!”
Taking advantage of MC’s occupied state of mind, Gavin had snatched one of the balloons and purposely dropped it down onto her foot without any warning. Soon the noise from the commotion drew others in, and joyful laughs could be heard around the beach’s vicinity. MC reached for one of the balloons to counterattack against Gavin, but her efforts fell in vain when he took off running.
“You’re not getting away this time, Gavin!”
MC launched a water balloon into the air, her pupils widened in a hopeful anticipation that for once she would finally gain the upper hand on the adept police captain. Her moment of joy was short lived however when Gavin effortlessly dodged the attack at the last second.
“Nice one, bro! You’re going to have to do better than that if you even think you have a shot of hitting Gavin, MC!” Minor cheered, before Kiki pelted a balloon of her own that struck him square in the face.
“Admit defeat, and I promise to not embarrass you anymore in front of the group,” Gavin warned, his lips curling up into a playful smile, ignoring the groaning Minor rolling around on the sand.
“Fine, you win,” MC pouted. At least that’s what she wanted Gavin to believe, as she leisurely shuffled over to her boyfriend with a water balloon hidden behind her back. “Truce?”
Attempting to distract Gavin by sticking her pinky out, MC yelped when he swiftly grasped onto her wrist.
“Pretty sly of you to try and pull a fast one on me,” Gavin confronted, the slits of his eyes narrowing. “As an officer of the law, I have an obligation to punish you.”
SPLASH
The balloon that MC had been holding in her hand fell out of her hand and to the ground, standing in shock as she fell victim to Gavin’s own water balloon invasion he inflicted upon his unsuspecting partner. Drenched from the water, MC’s clothing hugged the curves of her chest. Glancing down, MC gasped and covered herself when she realized the outline of her bra was visible under the anew translucent blouse.
“Don’t move.”
Paralyzed by Gavin’s authoritative command, MC adhered his order and obliged as he hoisted her up into his arms. Cradling her protectively against his chest, Gavin stormed down the beach into the direction of the changing stalls. The chill of the onset evening breeze brushed against her misty skin snapped her mind back into reality where she glimpsed around the beach at the party still ongoing.
“Gavin, please wait! I need to make sure that-.”
“No, you don’t.”
MC’s head snapped in the direction of the voice that interrupted her, and discovered Anna was standing nearby smirking meaningfully. Anna’s eyebrows creased and her arms were crossed, while Willow did her best to stifle giggles.
“We can handle everything from here, MC,” Anna called out in assurance. “Take good care of our girl, Gavin!”
Gavin’s cheeks flushed with a tint of pink, but nonetheless persisted until they arrived at the changing unit. Surveying the area to ensure they were alone, Gavin threw back the curtain of the nearest changing stall, and quickly forced his way inside with MC.
“Gavin, what the-….”
MC’s breath was instantly taken away as Gavin’s lips passionately claimed her own. His one hand fumbled around with the buttons on the front of her soaked blouse, while the other entangled in the fine layers of her curly hair. Her knees buckled against Gavin when his teeth nibbled down the side of her neck, and a sensuous purr escaped when he finally ripped the shirt from her body.
“I’m sorry I can’t help myself. I wanted to win, but the thought of others witnessing you in this state was too much for me to bear,” Gavin huffed, his fingers reaching down into MC’s skirt to caress her bud  before slipping a finger past her velvety folds into her core. “Looks like your shirt isn’t the only thing that’s wet today.”
“Gavin, don’t stop,” MC whimpered, bucking her hips downwards to better ride his finger. “No more teasing. You won the showdown fair and square, meaning it’s time for you claim your prize already!”
Gavin didn’t need to be told twice to help MC shimmy out of the remainder of her clothing. The garments slid to the floor and pooled around her ankles. Her tongue ran along the curve of her lips in a blissful admiration of Gavin stroking the length of his member, before pushing her back up against the wall of the stall they were in.
“Wrap your arms around my neck,” the officer ordered, and grunted when she willingly obliged, giving his hair on the back of his head a flirtatious tug for good measure.
“Your body is about to pay for that,” Gavin murmured in retortion, flashing her a devious warning smile.
He slipped his arm under MC’s thigh to support her, pressed his erection deep into her opening, and relished in the beautiful sounds of her gratifying hissing when her walls spanned to accommodate him. Gavin slapped the mound of her ass, and then tightened his grip around her waist, bracing to intensify the rhyme of his thrusting.
“So wet and tight for me. God, how good you feel should be illegal.”
Gavin slammed his hips eliciting a carnal cry from MC as she feverishly clawed his back, grinding against him out of a desperation to relieve the pressure in her lower belly. Her eyes pleaded with Gavin, but she whimpered when his thumb instead pressed against the bend of her lips.
“Shh! Keep your voice down. I would hate to have to issue you a noise complaint, miss naughty,” he instructed. “And I don’t want anyone else hearing these adorable sounds you’re making for me.”
“Gavin,” she moaned as he leaned over to place soft kisses on her breasts, sucking hard when his tongue found her nipple.
“Come for me now, MC.”
MC squirmed when his fingers rubbed against her swollen clit and triumphantly arched her head back when her walls began to quiver. Gavin’s hand was madly fondling her nub, giving MC the final push to achieve her rewarding sensation.
“Gavin,” she panted, eyes glazed over and body pulsating waves of ecstasy of their secret tryst on the beach. “I-I love you.”
Still fully encompassed within MC, Gavin lovingly nuzzled his forehead against her own.
“I love you too,” Gavin whispered.
MC’s long eyelashes batted serene butterfly kisses down Gavin’s face, and she brushed her nose against his. Gavin leaned in for a kiss that shortly intensified into a lavish make out session. The couple groaned in unison when Gavin’s erection expanded and grew harder inside of MC. Both exchanged a knowing glance and braced themselves for what was about to become a wild second round of lovemaking.
“Remind me to thank Minor later,” Gavin chuckled, before rousing his hips to shift upwards again.
Falling back into sync with their previous rhythm, Gavin and MC tuned out the rest of the busy world and spent the remainder of the hot summer evening heating things up even further.
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The manipulative, toxic, unhealthy and possessive relationship mahiru-guren. Part 1..
Can I say that they relationship is built towards love? No, not at all. Can I say that was love between guren and mahiru from both parts? No, absolutely not (even so kagami tried to make them a couple in catastrophe so bad, like it was the most beautiful and innocent love, when actually their interection is not more than toxic, unhealthy and extremely manipulative something that love or care shouldn’t be, that is not love, not all end always good, but this kind of interaction end hurt, disgraceful and deathly not even with all about her demon's possession to make her look like a victim could make this a good romantic love, bcs is not something that stop them to have a relationship) There wasn't never love at all in mahiru's part and guren's part. Their relationship was built upon manipulation from mahiru'part.
Guren was just an innocent sweet child that doesn't know anything about life and I can't blame him for not being able to see that is bad and cruel people out there in the world,he has (and have) an innocent and sweet heart, he is ignorant about so many things, even about manipulation, vengeance, abuse, and control and he just know his people and even he is training try to have a normal life, even so that he is being educated in an exaggerated and unhealthy way, as the next head of the family would be and carrying on his shoulders responsibilities that a child of his age should not, and is not wrong for him to train, but not to make him assume so much responsibility for people's lives and that is something that Mahiru used to her advantage to force him to protect her, in other words she exploited everything what she saw in guren as a child for her needs. Mahiru, was a vengeful girl who knew what she wanted and what she was doing, she is not a cute or innocent girl. Maybe some people see their interection since child like cute, innocent and sweet but is not the case. She knew that the Ichinose family would pay for her actions, even so she did not care and her actions are selfish one, something a child shouldn’t  know about that. But she knew her family was following her if not, why she would go there in the first place? she get free will when they go look for her and she already know guren would cover her up and they would be hurt and still she did not care and does nothing that manipulate and use guren at her will.
Mahiru does nothing but build guren's mind on manipulation since 5.
Manipulative, narcissistic since 5.
1: "lives is a fantasy world which may include, flirting, affairs and dream of unlimited success and will lie and distort facts and change events to suit their one agenda"
Vol 6 manipulation facts: “Rather serious wounds. Are you being bullied?”“Then why did you suffer such serious injuries?”“What kind of training?”“Eh. Then Guren must be strong.”If I say that I am the fairy of this forest, what are you going to do?”“I have no parents.”“If you want me to tell you. Come here at this time to bath again tomorrow. Then you will be able to see me again.”“Have you ever despised training?”“Has Guren been in a relationship before? Do you have a girl you like or something like this?”“What kind of boy do you want to grow up to be?”“What happens if you become strong?”
2: And here start a classic manipulative behavior. manipulator “(makes) a small request that you agree to, which is followed by the real request. It’s harder to say no, because you’ve already said yes…Now it’s all about them and their complaints, and you’re on the defense.”
“Everything?! If so, then if I ask you to bring some cake here, can you do it?”“You can’t do anything right?”“Then let’s have it next time. Remember to prepare it, Guren.”“Eh, you want a girl to prepare it?”“Furthermore, Guren will definitely become strong one day and get a cake for me right?”“Then I’ll wait until Guren becomes strong.”“That’s okay. But you must let me become a cute bride.”“Guren’s cute bride. I want to be someone like this in the future.”“Is it because you think that that might make me happy?”“I love most.”“I love Guren.”“Must there be a reason for our encounter?”“Never mind. I have already checked that there is no one here. Also, even if I am being found, Guren will become strong and protect me right?”“Hmm. Yeah. Because talking with the child of trash Ichinose House, must be the thing father despise most.However……”“However, things did not progress as smoothly. Because the child of the Ichinose House is too cute, I accidentally fell in love.”“After we become adults……that, we, can we marry?”“Like how we are now. Can we be together forever?
3:THEY WEAKEN YOUR SELF-CONFIDENCE: “Emotional manipulators seek out the vulnerabilities of people in order to exploit them. In fact, they may consciously or unconsciously create relationships with people who are the most vulnerable and willing to be controlled"
Even guren in this chapter feel he have some sense of self-worth, he believe he is strong and he is doing it for his people, he didn't give a crap about hiragi's issue toward them, but that didn't last because she put in his brain that little worth must be to protect her and save her, She destroyed his little self worth and built a new one, about not being strong enough to protect her and stay with her. She over flatter him in a way that is not seen sincere and actually it wasn’t bcs she went there with darkness porpuse. She was manipulating guren and others to get her way. That's why guren think he love her (In fact, Guren was never able to know or understand what he really felt for her, because he just have doubts and question himself about what ties him to her all the time). Because she was broken him down and built him back up to believe it. It wasn't an accident. And yeah people can say nothing of this is like that and is exaggerate bcs she was a child, but a child don't do this to other people, she knew everything she was doing, everything.
Grow up guren and more facts upon her manipulation, control and abuse.
4:"Guilty trips to control, expert at using Passive aggressive behavior to hurt, bullying, arrogant, acts superior to people close to them, anger, violence, abuse, use guilt, charm, hope, love, obligation, fear or confusion to get what they want"
Vol 2: “Enough of that. Keep quiet” tinge of anger colored her voice.(this is control and not a nice way to treat guren by the way and get angry with a person for no reason is not be good).“And a thug like you has learned how to flatter people?”( thug? For real? since when guren is a thug to her? when  she saw guren like that? that is not even being nice or treat a person how should be treat)
And here cames sayuri's part in by the way she was observing the situation and "helps" when guren try to stop the massacre that sheishiro was doing to her. She doesn't care about sayuri at all bcs she could stop it before but after guren show up she doesn’t move a finger to help her, so  she used that opportunity to make feel guren worthless."With your power, you won’t win against Seishirou. If you go, you’ll be murdered.”(drown him down, this is not care) “Don’t tell me you intend to murder someone here?”( didn't she do that? how much hypocrisy can be show in her words?) “Here, your attendant.”( treat sayuri like trash bcs is the way she see people and is true and throw sayuri at guren as an object that is worth nothing). “I hate getting apologies from you. Especially, from the you who is always weak and cannot protect a girl…” ( guilty trips and treat a person like worthless crap, the worst thing is that she says it in front of everyone else, humiliating him, punishing him as if he was absolutely worthless, and as if guren owed something to her, like blaming him for not protect her when she was a child, bcs this words are to herself not from sayuri or other girl. what make her diferent from her family when she is too pride of herself and even is worse than anybody on that school).
Guren was trying to live his life but this get worse upon more and more about a possessive, obsessive and manipulative interection. You don't drown down people you love and humiliate him like he doesn't worth anything. She is false, her kindness is false and is hipocrite with people around her and that is a fact. A healthy relationship doesn't drag you down it inspires you to be better. It support you and guren is not her property and he owes nothing to her.
“Because Mahiru-san is your lover, is she not?”But Guren laughed in response.“I’m not stupid enough to make a woman I haven’t seen in ten years my lover.” “Ahaha, I see.” “Exactly.” “But there’s still an attachment, no?” “No.” “No no, there is. The fact that your power—is at a much higher level for someone your age, is all because to rescue Mahiru-san from the Hiiragi House……”“I already said there isn't”“ Mahiru-san said that she still likes you. She wanted to be together with you. She said to achieve this, she was willing to do anything, even betray her own family.”“It doesn’t matter. You seem to have misunderstood, I didn’t become strong because of her……”
First than anything she is no one to obligated a person to stay with her or love her, that is not more than being a controlling and a psycho person. Saito is already saying she wants to achieve this, be the most powerful, even if that means kills many people on the ways like if they weren’t exist in the first place, bcs she is the one that is suffering so much, and those people out there are worthless objects.
Guren, after no seeing her for ten years still have some sense of self-worth, and honestly he thinks that met her was just a childhood thing and was an ignorant, can we see guren was an innocent child? he even think if he was capatable to defeat her, but met her again, make guren feel worthless bcs of her control and manipulation towards him. If guren did not feel that he was self-worth, even a little, why hide his power? He himself knows he is strong, he analyzes the attack patterns of the others, he is smart on his own right. But according to mahiru, nothing that what you are or obtain on your own merit is useful, power is obtained by committing atrocities, which makes guren feel useless, someone who has no value not only as a person but also as a human being, mahiru does nothing but abuse and destroy other people morally, psychologically, emotionally and physically to achieve her goals.
Can you see the difference between guren without her and guren close to her?
She wear him down his self-esteem and undermine his mental health and she's been doing it since kids, when guren is close to her, even since child, one can see, she bit chips away he's self-esteem and there is when he begin to doubt his perceptions and reality. Guren always feel wounded, frustrated, confused, misunderstood, depressed, anxious, or worthless any time he interact with her and that is no more than being emotionally abuse. And all of this start in their first meet, everybody forget that guren start to feel weak when he couldn’t protect her? (and even having 24 still thinks that he was weak for that reason? and that wasn’t more than mental abuse from her. When actually she was strong and have more free that what she was saying?) Guren with the real people he loves is mentally healthy, smiles, trust, care about the world and has fun, if we believe that his relationship with mahiru from child made guren happy, is wrong, because it caused pain and problems to his family and him, and did nothing but break him down, emotionally and physically, and mahiru did nothing but brainwashed him that he would marry her. Even when Guren grew up, he saw again that the power he seek and wanted was to protect his family. For the first time in his life, he finds value, ideals and belief about friendship, loving and protecting his loved ones, by will, beyond what was instilled in him since he was a child, he does it because he loves them because they support him and they see in him the real guren and not the guren that mahiru wants to force to be, that's not love, guren has no responsibility for mahiru, she forces him to have it because she brainwashed him that that's his responsibility towards her. Guren believe he is a damn rat and all of that is cause for her, bcs he didn’t see himself like that when was a child, but who forced him to feel worthlless? Can you see the difference about guren living in reality with his beloved ones and fantasy with her?
She was telling to saito since child she just want one thing, guren, and like she is a hiragi she could have whatever she wanted, even if that means make guren surrender to her bcs she see him like her property not as a person. Can you see that this was never about shinoa? She wanted to be a queen is other hiragi more, hungry power and have whatever she wanted no matter what, so if she has to eliminate every person guren could love, then why not, and make guren to do it better to her.  Puppy guren is what she see on him. She is not capable of having things without forcing them, she has to take it, and if it is not as she wants, she tortures, manipulates, destroys or kills.
“Don’t say such cruel things.”“So powerful…… You’ve really become stronger, Guren. Was it because of me?”“No.”“Ah, no?”“Aah, no. Don’t make me repeat myself.”Mahiru was not pleased and bit her lip. Guren had seen this expression before. When they were younger, he had seen it on several occasions. Mahiru had always asked if Guren liked her, and when he had always evaded her questions, she would have that expression on her face. “Really……? The reason why I became stronger was because I wanted to be with Guren.”“Fu, fufu…… Once you have the power, it becomes very enjoyable. Isn’t that how you feel, Guren? To let your body become so strong like now you have to be completely immersed in it.”“But the physical body has a limit. I can’t reach a higher level with this. “I guess I can say that it’s almost done. But, Guren. Even with just this, I’m already undefeatable, right?”“Ah, aren’t you being a bit hypocritical? As if you have never made any similar sacrifices…… You have got to be kidding? In order to get this strong, I think you must have also given up something.”“Wasn’t this what we agreed to that day? Under the blue sky, on the green grass. How can you protect something if you don’t have power? Even the people you care about, you cannot protect. Even the important things, you cannot protect. That’s why you need power. Me too, you too…… Right, Guren?”“Why don’t you come with me? If you do, you can also become this powerful. With me together, to make this power complete…… To make it…… complete.”Don’t… don’t come here, Guren. I’m already…… I’m already swallowed by the…… «Kiju». It, it was a failure…… I, I’m already, not…… shut up, shut up! I’m not swallowed up yet! I still have a lot more power…… A whole lot more power……”“I really like you.”“I’m going to ask you again, Guren. Do you want to come together with me?”Guren replied. “No.”“You will gain more power.”“Not interested.”“Ahaha. It looks like Guren really hates me now.”She sounded a little sad. However, Guren replied,“That’s not the problem. The power I seek is not the same as yours.”“Really?”“Really.”“Alright…… But when did we become this different?”“I like you, Guren.”She said.“This is my true feeling. So, I will always wait…… always wait for the day you need me again.”
To her, people are not more than trash that killing each others, but she has the right to killed them? And that is not bad at all? So that make her innocent, victim and a saviour? There is no need to sacrifice people, to become strong, guren is right, she seeks power to dominate, to control, to be on top, guren does not seek that, and for mahiru, her mind does not reach more than seeking power through diabolical things and atrocities. And if there is something that she loves, it is that power that she uses while committing atrocities. And why guren should be the hypocrite here?, if he has become strong without going that far, in fact he is stronger and smarter than anyone in that school, even more than the jujo, goshi and sangu, and he has shown it.
She used her love bombing towards guren can we talk here that mahiru already knows what she wanted, that her goal, was guren, no save the damn world, and yes i know she is possess (but even so she still is her true self and she doesn’t change since child, bcs still is manipulative, controller, egoist, selfish and does not support that others go against her will) and she knows what the hell she is doing and saying, she is aware of everything and doesn’t feel a damn remorse about all of that and people is gonna say, demons use her desire, etc, but her desire is power, nothing more and how manipulate guren about her demon’s issue. Can we talk here how she uses her demons possession to make guren feel pity towards her, can you see her clear manipulation on how she acusses of doing things guren is not doing\things she is doing and how she think guren and her were equals and how he didn’t give a crap about her. She wasn’t capatable to understand and know guren a little. She pleading, begging and repeating something over and over until he wear down. Crying, acting dependant, despondent,sulking and withdrawing. Lack sympathy for others, especially those she exploit (guren) she is not looking to love him, she is looking to control him.
mahiru met guren since 5 and after 10 years she used love bombing that is when someone overwhelms another with attention, flattery and adoration. Is yet another manipulation tactic used by narcissist’s. While there are many reasons behind why a narcissist love bombs, those reasons are typically selfish ones. It’s used by someone to receive a certain result from another person. Whether it’s control or receiving adoration back there are many reasons someone love bombs. Are a false illusion by someone who (most likely) has not fallen in love. It is a form of manipulation and once she feels you are “easily controllable,” the love bombs disappear and emotional abuse sets in and can be used as a way of “trapping” or “buttering someone up” to convince them to be in a relationship. Then once their in a relationship, narcissistic abuse sets in.
Their interaction wasnt a met between two innocent childs was plan and research about a little boy, they relationship start from hurt other people and was more interaction than relationship bcs they don’t know  each other, not from child and less from teenagers. He force himself to love her by her look, godness, fairy, most beautiful girl and the most victim from everybody. Is not more than a fantasy bond what guren had for her. She love him for his strength, for being strong. because if it wasn’t for that she would lost interest in him.There wasn't any sincere action from her towards guren, not even since child. Their interaction (not even relationship, bcs never was one in the firt place) Start: greedy Progress: lust End: pain
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emdythewriter · 4 years
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a new light | epilogue (Elriel)
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*5 years later*
Azriel is sitting out on the back porch of the cottage style home that him and Elain moved into right after they got married three years ago. The backyard is currently filled with kids running around and chasing each other, well all but one child that is.
Next to Az on the porch is his four year old nephew, Emerson who’s the oldest of Cassian and Nesta’s children. He’s a lot like his mom and isn’t much for people or social events. So he just watches the three families gathered at Az’s house with his uncle.
It’s the last weekend of the summer before sending the kids back to preschool and kindergarten for Emerson. Elain had decided to host a cookout as a last little get to getter before all their lives got crazy again. Not that Elain’s business hasn’t been keeping her very busy.
When Elain finally opened her shop a few years ago she already had a waiting list of orders and the business has only grown since. Last year she opened a second location in another part of Velaris and now she’s working on another location in the capital of Winter, where Vivianne moved two years ago to be with her boyfriend recently turned husband.
Due to the growth Azriel decided to step back from Rhy’s law firm and focus on new goals that he started to grow passionate about alongside Elain. Now he runs a non-profit Rhys helped him build from the ground up and at the beginning of the year they finally were able to open up the office.
The charity focuses on helping victims of abuse whether it’s with a partner, parent, or even a stranger. Az even hosted the first event for the charity in the spring where they held an auction and donated the proceeds to several women’s shelters in Velaris. In October he’ll host a Halloween party filled with rides and haunted houses and games for all ages. Then in December he’ll partner with Rhys at the Starlight ball as well.
On top of all the success Elain and Az have both accomplished in their work lives there’s also been rewards in their personal lives. A few months after they got married Elain discovered she was pregnant with their daughter, Hope. Then six months ago they welcomed their second little girl, June.
Currently Hope is running around playing with Rhys and Feyre’s oldest, Hunter. The two were born three weeks apart, Hunter being the older one and since then they’ve been inseparable. As for June she’s currently playing with the other babies by their mother’s.
Feyre is pulling a car toy out of her daughter, Rose’s mouth while Nesta is yelling at her third child who takes after her father. Marley is currently two years old and in the middle of her first prank war of many with Cassian. Oliver, Nesta and Cassian’s youngest is laughing as he watches his troublesome sister.
Azriel chuckles as he watches the failed prank Marley attempts on Cassian who likes to call himself the King of Pranks. When he catches his daughter she shrieks and runs away only to have her father race after her. Those two are going to be trouble, Az thinks as he takes a sip of the mixed drink Feyre had made for all of them.
“Mom’s going to lose her voice again,” Emerson says, watching his little sister be caught by their dad. “She just got it back too.” Nesta had always been the one to yell when she gets mad and ever since Marley learned to crawl Nesta’s been losing her voice every few weeks.
“Yeah but it’ll only get worse if Oliver takes after those two,” Az responds. He can only imagine how much Nesta will start drinking if she ends up with two meddlesome kids, especially considering Cassian is trying to convince her to have another baby within the next year.
“That’s why Marley won’t be allowed to influence my brother,” Emerson says sternly. He’s definitely like his mom, Az thinks as he watches the young boy next to him. Emerson may act like his mother but he looks just like his father. He has the say dark hair, skin tone, and grin as Cassian the only difference is the eyes, those are grey like Nesta’s.
Rhys, who’s been manning the grill calls out that the burgers and hot dogs are done. The kids rush to their seats, even Emerson who has the same love for food as Cassian. Azriel walks over to his wife and takes June from her so she can run into the house and grab the side dishes.
There’s already potatoes and corn out on the table but Elain had made a salad and chopped up some fruit before everyone came over. Az puts June in her high chair they had set in between him and Elain’s seats. Strapping her in putting a bib around her neck Az shakes out a bag of cereal for her to snack on.
His wife comes back out and adds some fruit to June’s tray as well before sitting down and grabbing her own food. Bowls and trays of food get passed around the table as they all make their plates for themselves and their children.
Once everyone is settled the conversations start. There’s talk of the kids which is everyone’s favorite topic. Then there’s talk of work and some charity events Az hopes to do throughout the next year. They also talk about the little things that have taken place throughout their lives.
“Sometimes I wish we took a page out of Amren’s book and waited to have kids,” Nesta tells her husband as the conversation switches topics once again. Amren who is Nesta’s closest friend has spent the past year travelling the world with her fiance, Varian before getting married and settling down.
“If you went the Amren route you probably would never have kids,” Rhys comments knowing his former partner. When Amren got back together with Varian she decided to leave Rhys’s firm and work at a different one in Adriata.
“That’s very true and why would you want to miss out on this cuteness?” Cassian says as he bounces Oliver on his lap, their son having scarfed down his dinner. Oliver realizing that people are looking at him, smiles and babbles as he looks up at his mother.
Nesta smiles widely at her youngest. “Yeah I guess you’re right for once,” she tells her husband as she takes Oliver from him. Hugging her son close. Elain is smiling just like everyone around the table who all know what Nesta went through to get where she is now.
“So does that mean we can have another?” Cassian says hoping he’s finally broken through to his wife.
“Ask me when he’s one,” Nesta responds, rocking Oliver who’s starting to doze off.
“Deal,” Cassian says lovingly watching his wife and son. Az knows his friend is also thinking about what he did in a past life to deserve this.
“Anyone else want more kids?” Feyre asks curiously.
“Maybe in another couple of years,” Elain says looking over at Azriel.
“Sounds good to me,” he tells his wife with a smile. Back when they had first started talking about a family Azriel had told her he didn’t care how many kids they had as long as she wanted them.
“You want another baby darling?” Rhys asks his wife using her nickname.
“I don’t know,” Feyre says honestly. Rhys nods, smiling.
“Well whatever you decide I’ll support you all the way,” Rhys reaches down into Feyre’s lap for her hand bringing it to his mouth for a kiss. Feyre smiles.
“Even if she asks you to get a vasectomy?” Cassian asks with a shudder.
“Yes because I actually listen to my wife,” Rhys combats.
“Hey I listen to Nesta!” Cassian argues.
“Rarely,” Nesta mumbles, causing Cassian to huff in annoyance mostly because he knows it’s true.
Az laughs as he watches his friends, his family and appreciating that this is his life. It’s a life he never thought he would get to hold. Then a woman with the kindest soul moved into his building and made him crave a life like this one.
Looking over at the woman that changed everything for him, his love, his wife, his Elain Az can’t hold back his smile. It’s a smile she reads easily and returns knowing that he changed her life just as much as she did his.
“I love you,” Elain whispers to her husband, all the unsaid feelings and emotions wrapped in those three words and he’s hit with it all as he grasps and squeezes her hand.
“I love you,” Azriel whispers right back with the same impact as Elain’s own whispered words.
They both hang on to each other as the banter between their family continues until it starts to grow dark and the children grow restless along with the dimming light. Saying goodbye they watch as Nesta and Cassian drive back to their home as well as Feyre and Rhys.
Elain and Azriel walked back into the house, hand in hand with Hope running ahead and June knocked out on her father’s shoulder.
Laughing Elain follows her oldest into Hope’s room while Az puts June in her crib. With the girls in bed they head to their own bed together.
“I still can’t believe I get to do this every night forever,” Az whispers into the darkness as he pulls his wife into his arms. She rests a hand on his chest and smiles at her husband.
“I can’t either,” Elain says, pressing kisses onto Az’s bare chest.
“We have to be up early,” Azriel tells her as she continues down his body.
“I don’t care,” Az chuckles before pulling his wife back up and flipping her onto her back.
“Well then I guess it’s about to be a long night,” he whispers in Elain’s ear, rocking his erection against her sensitive core. Elain moans into a searing kiss.
This is the dream, Azriel thinks as he kisses his wife and pours all the love he feels for her and all the love she’s given him into one beginning kiss.
Tag list:
@thephilosophyofblank​ @roseteaofficial​ @sleeping-and-books​ @court-of-fuck-me-daddy​ @azriels-forgotten-shadow​ @tintinnabulary​ @jemma-nessian-and-elriel​ @chemicha​ @but-she-was-aelin-galathynius @ttakeitbacknoww​ @azrielismycinnamonrollprimary​ @mis-lil-red​ @poisonous00​ @julesherondalex​ @theogvodkaaunt @rapunzel1523​ @l0sts0uls1128​ @lord-douglas-the-third​ @musicalfae @sezkins79​ @eloeloeheheh​ @caldelray @abimomeopectore​ @tswaney17​ @wonderlandatemypancakes @loysydark​ @imheretooa​ @illyriangarbage​ @emmejo26​ @amitynotpity​ @alingelina​ @hav-illi-ard​ @amylindle @ellenoftroy​ @hizqueen4life​ @rheapendragon @judexcardanxgreenbriar​ @psmarra @hail-doodles​ @strangely-constructed-soul​
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deadstrangeblog · 5 years
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The Sad Case of The Lipstick Killer
North Kenmore Avenue is a much sought-after residential area in the city of Chicago, with a children’s park surrounding the apartments and transport links within walking distance. It lies around the corner from a prestigious Catholic school and the uptown setting is popular with young families and elderly residents alike, it’s safe atmosphere and cheap living costs appealing to people from all walks of life. North Kenmore wasn’t always as safe though. In 1945, in Apartment 4108, a woman was brutally murdered there.
It was June 5th when 44-year-old Josephine Ross was found slain on her apartment floor. Police were greeted by a messy scene– Pools of blood surrounded Josephine and the smashed up apartment indicated there had been a struggle. She had been stabbed multiple times and a dress had been wrapped around her head. Usually, when a killer covers the face of a victim, it suggests that they feel a great deal of remorse about the crime they have committed and that death is almost always the end result of an impulsive sex crime. However, this seemed different. No evidence of sexual assault was present and death had definitely been the result of a frenzied attack. Police found a clump of dark hair in Josephine’s hand, as if she had been in a violent struggle with somebody. Naturally, police turned to her ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands, all of whom had an alibi. Although the neighbourhood was frightened at the prospect of a murderer living close by, the police assured people there was nothing to worry about and that Ms. Ross had been killed by a startled burglar. Her murder didn’t make the front page, and she was sadly written off by investigators.
Six months later, and we are in December. Our killer strikes again but, this time, police begin to take notice. On the 10th of the month, divorcee Frances Brown was found dead in her apartment. She had been stabbed and shot, the bread knife used in her murder still lodged in her throat when a cleaning lady discovered the body. The grim message shown above, written in unusual handwriting, was scrawled on the apartment wall in red lipstick (earning the killer his moniker) but apart from that, little evidence was found. Compared to the first murder, police did have a bit more to go on: a bloody fingerprint and a possible eyewitness. John Derick, the concierge for the lobby, said he saw a nervous man and heard “possible gunshots” at around 4 a.m. Given the lack of surveillance technology during the 40s, it was impossible to confirm John’s account.
The last known murder of the deluded “Lipstick Killer” was a truly shocking crime against an innocent little girl. Six-year-old Suzanne Degnan (below) was snatched from her bedroom in Edgewater, Chicago, on January of 1946. Her bedroom window had been left open and a wooden ladder was still propped up against it. At the time, police had no reason to believe her abduction was connected to the Lipstick killer, as kidnapping little girls didn’t fit his modus operandi. A ransom note left at the scene read “GeI $20,000 Reddy & wAITe foR WoRd. do NoT NoTify FBI oR Police. Bills IN 5’s & 10’s. BuRN This FoR heR SAfTY.” That night, a man persistently telephoned the Degnan residence demanding the ransom, only to hang up as details were being exchanged. Those phone calls would later turn out to be a cruel joke performed by two high-school students, Vince Costello and Theodore Campbell. Sick with anguish, her family could only hope that the police could find Suzanne before it was too late. Sadly, their worst fears were confirmed. Acting on an anonymous tip, detectives travelled to a sewer just a block away from the Degnan residence and found Suzanne’s decapitated head. Where was the rest of her body? Investigators were now faced with the grim prospect that somebody had dismembered a little girl, and they were unfortunately right. They found her torso in storm drain, and both her legs had been discarded in separate catch basins. Her tiny arms were found a month later in another sewer. Blood, presumed to be Suzanne’s, was found in the drains of laundry tubs in the basement laundry room of a nearby apartment building. This crime was truly grisly, and without advanced forensic technology, it was hard to bring the killer to justice.
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In a desperate bid to catch the murderer, police questioned hundreds of suspects and gave polygraph examinations to about 170 of them. In several press releases, they claimed to have captured the killer terrorising the city of Chicago, but they were always mistaken. All suspects were eventually released.
In June, 17-year-old criminal William Heirens (below) was burgling an apartment when he was confronted by the janitor and fled. Police were called, and Heirens was subdued by an off-duty police officer who dropped several flowerpots onto his head to render him unconscious. From the day of his arrest on June 26, 1946, things travelled on a downward spiral for Heirens and this once lucky burglar had run all out of luck. For some reason, police believed that Heirens was the Lipstick Killer and decided to question him. For six consecutive days, he was interrogated by police officers. He was denied food, water, and the right to an attorney, and two psychiatrists even gave him Sodium Pentothal (a potent barbiturate) without his consent. Most shocking of all, the 17-year-old was given a spinal tap without any anaesthesia. For days later, he was in incredible pain and couldn’t perform a polygraph test because his adrenaline-fuelled heart was beating too fast. Eventually, he cracked. He confessed to police that he had committed these crimes under an alter-ego named “George.” He explained to psychologists that he always took the rap for the crimes of “George” including theft, murder, and everything in between. The Chicago police department were suspicious of this defence, and accused Heirens of lying in the hopes of getting an insanity defence in court. Apart from his confession, police had nothing to go on. No evidence linked Heirens to the murders, and this polite University of Chicago student seemed incapable of such heinous crimes. It seemed like a bizarre arrest, but for the general public, it was good enough.
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As suggested by his defence attorneys, Heirens confessed to all crimes. On his court date on August 7, 1946, Heirens took full responsibility for the three murders. The prosecution had him reenact the abduction and murder of Suzanne Degnan in court multiple times, all of which he did inconsistently. On the night of September 4th, Heirens attempted suicide in his cell and had timed it to coincide during a shift change of the prison guards. He was discovered hanging and was revived successfully by prison guards. He said later that sheer despair drove him to attempt suicide; “Everyone believed I was guilty…If I weren’t alive, I felt I could avoid being adjudged guilty by the law and thereby gain some victory. But I wasn’t successful even at that. …Before I walked into the courtroom my counsel told me to just enter a plea of guilty and keep my mouth shut afterward. I didn’t even have a trial..”
The next morning, the prosecution and defence were making their closing statements. The judge, Chief Justice Harold G. Ward, formally sentenced Heirens to three life terms. Somehow, he had been lucky enough to avoid the electric chair. As Heirens waited to be transferred to Stateville Prison from the Cook County Jail, Sheriff Michael Mulcahy asked Heirens if Suzanne Degnan suffered when she was killed. Heirens simply replied: “I can’t tell you if she suffered, Sheriff Mulcahy. I didn’t kill her. Tell Mr. Degnan to please look after his other daughter, because whoever killed Suzanne is still out there.”
Likely innocent, William Heirens still spent the rest of his life imprisoned. In 2002, a petition for his release was filed but eventually denied. In his older years, he suffered from diabetes and was confined to a wheelchair with limited eyesight. He died of natural causes on March 5th, 2012, due to complications with his illness.
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In 1994, Dolores Kennedy formed a team of forensic experts to look into the murders and they found several inconsistencies, most notable was that Heirens’ confessions didn’t fully match the evidence. Heirens claimed that he was forced to confess by the police, and this is also supported by other evidence. They also concluded that the handwriting of the lipstick message and that of the ransom note were not the same and that neither matched that of Heirens. They also looked into the police force working on the case: Before Heirens was arrested, police had taken particular interest in a janitor called Hector Verburgh. 65-year-old Hector was from Belgium, and struggled to write fluently in English. With this in mind, isn’t it odd that police still arrested him and accused him of the murders? How could a man with no knowledge of English writing, scribble such an eloquently written note on his supposed victim’s wall? It didn’t stop there. Like Heirens, Verburgh was subjected to extreme torture. For two days, police interrogated him and beat him so badly that he sustained a dislocated shoulder. After his terrifying ordeal, he successfully sued the Chicago Police Department for $15,000.
“Oh, they hanged me up, they blindfolded me … I can’t put up my arms, they are sore. They had handcuffs on me for hours and hours. They threw me in the cell and blindfolded me. They handcuffed my hands behind my back and pulled me up on bars until my toes touched the floor. I no eat, I go to the hospital. Oh, I am so sick. Any more and I would have confessed to anything.”
With such atrocious behaviour from the police department, it’s safe to say that the man convicted of these crimes was not the real killer, merely a scapegoat for shoddy police work. The true identity of the Lipstick Killer is yet to be discovered, and, sadly, it seems that those who were murdered were not the only victims in this disturbing case.
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sonderrow-moved · 4 years
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                           LINK TO QUINN            LINK TO JAEL           LINK TO ROY
LIKE for a preestablished relationship/plotting line with Archer… BUT have at least one category in mind before I hop in your IMs!
I entirely get the urge of wanting to roleplay, expand our muses together, and this is my personal starting pack for Archer! If you’re hooked to one category but don’t think your muse can fit still HMU about it and I’ll see how we can work that out!
REMINDER I HAVE A LOT OF THREADS. Like often a lot. Roleplaying is something that effortlessly really relaxes me, but I am still one human. I like to see all my threads through no matter how long the wait is and do my best ! Thus we might not be threading right off the bat depending on how much stuff I have, but everything established can get into asks, dash shenanigans, etc. What matters is that it shapes our characters. 🙏
BUSINESS PEERS. Archer’s professional and very efficient work ethic made him notorious in unspoken matters as someone who will get things done with no needs of public recognition… which would lead to inner, private and ultimately more treasured recognition. He used to have clients, partners and met a lot of others at parties he went frequently to, mostly charity parties often disguised as business ones. Those partners may have known his father, maybe his grandfather, or maybe they’re fresh right out the bat, maybe the Kessler company sought them, maybe your muse’s company sought them and you stumbled upon him. Mind you that Archer has made the scandalous decision to sell the majority of his actions towards the company and doesn’t get more involved than necessary with its activities. This profile fits to every muse high enough in the business ranks to meet Archer; at least chief of a team in a department. It’s all about title. Do be reminded that the Kessler company is known to have an illegal and scandalous history as of NOW and that a lawful good muse would probably not want to be associated with it, or any muse wanting to go legal.
LEGAL WORKERS. With the horribly enormous pile of cases Archer’s been involved with, he needs a lawyer cabinet to back him and his business. Multiple ones. Maybe it is a genuinely crooked one, or a blindly optimistic one who believes his claims of innocence and being against the world, maybe the whole cabinet is broken and as a newly employed lawyer you are still too innocent until you notice. Law enforcers and government representatives knows how much Archer is guilty (or not), making him infamous in their ranks as one of those irritating cases where the system doesn’t seem to work. For muses working in the justice system, on any side, from judge to prison guard.
“FRIENDS”. Archer lost all of his friends when he was accused and imprisoned. He would have done the same thing; every one who was still linked by friendship to him risked everything. You’re one of those, because you’re not an idiot… or maybe you are and you did lose everything to keep your integrity. Or maybe you really were too stupid and loyal and believed Archer did nothing. This applies to particular muses who can fit in a scenario like this. Although for the sake of social standing Archer could “befriend” quite some people, he had a particular preference towards artists and introverted yet talented minds who had lots of potential, wanting to make them grow.
CRIMINALS. Con artists, mafiosos, yakuzas, drug dealers, maybe assassins, thieves, hackers, corrupted law enforcement agents, rich guys with illegal fetishes… Archer has dealt at least with all of them at least once. As a “cleaner” before he finally sat down on the CEO chair, Archer was the one who by circumstances became known for his professionalism, cool head and ability to erase any evidence from even the most alarming and need-to-be-quickly-done situation. Even a killer who does so as a hobby or for personal gain would eventually be caught as he goes on, unless he can take a contract or too, and have him give a helping hand in exchange for secrecy.  This applies to muses with at least a medium-ranked profile in the underground (so no simple alley drug dealer unless plotted).
ENTERTAINERS & SEX WORKERS. Given how Archer sees sex as being an extremely powerful tool, he often got around the latter, choosing carefully which escort he’ll personally put at his services. Archer kept the best ones at hand, to please contacts and clients. He respects them for their work, but he wanted professionalism from you and not cry if you got almost cut in half after a night. Although he stepped down from his CEO position, Archer was pushed into his sire’s hotel line, which secretly dealt with human trafficking and prostitution. With his experience, he slowly is coming back and is moving all his contacts over there, wanting to change his approach. Despite the need of running a very real business, he cannot ignore the amount of work his sire’s illegal business brings. This profile fills every muse working in the sex business outside camshows and movies. They don’t have to be the ones close to Archer.
VICTIM(S). Archer is a very high-rated criminal. Although he has only been found guilty of extortion, corruption, blackmailing, piracy and other business-linked crimes, he was accused but not found guilty of sequestration, serial murder, serial rape, torture, committing indignity to a body, publishing obscene material, harassment, insert lots of other legal terms surrounding this. Accusations which have been highly mediatized given how high profile he was at the time, him being used as a scapegoat and the scandal only worsened when it was said it was both on minors and adults. I won’t get too much on what the truth is, but if you’d like your muse to be victim of Archer’s real crime(s), do hit me up I’ll be very selective on this given it’s important to his background story. This profile would fit highly disturbed muse, hobos, prostitutes, people living in very poor districts, pretty much people who have the perfect victim profile. OR it can also be other businessmen, common people, those who would have their life ruined indirectly or directly any organization Archer was or is involved with, the most common being as putting you in debt with the mafia knocking at your door to kill you, break your legs or torture someone you love until you give them what they want.
NEAR THE VICTIM(S). There are suspicions your friend/lover/brother/whatever was done wrong because of Archer. Maybe you’re the one who pressed charges. Maybe it’s not you, but in some way you were involved indirectly in the scandal and it did something to you and you have your own opinion on it. Maybe you seek where Archer is to kill him, maybe just talk to him and understand… something.This profile fits a muse who has lost someone close to them in suspicious circumstances.
PARTNER IN CRIME. You were there and you liked every bit of it probably (or if not you’re surely dead). VERY SELECTIVE. This profile fits muse with probable sociopathic and/or psychopathic tendencies who knows their way across the most fucked-up places of the underworld.
OBSESSION. High profile criminals with atrocious records are known to, sadly, have, yes,fans. Your muse believes that Archer did most of what he was accused for, choose to your discretion. Maybe they wanted to visit him, maybe they sent him gifts and mails, maybe they were already almost obsessed with him BEFORE he was accused given his bit of a disturbed but extremely charismatic and successful behavior and just FELL more as he was sequestrated. This profile fits muse going to the simple nerd with morbid curiosity to the very intense stalker.
MATCHMAKING. Since his teens, Archer has met multiple people for a potential marriage; the woman in question and the relatives that accompany her. And… when bored, his sister has the nasty habit of wanting to play matchmaker with him; Archer may not be the best person, but he’d hate to not make up to someone his hell of a relative tricked. Self explanatory. Archer’s sister, Eve (Everleigh), is owner of two modern galleries, so single people susceptible to befriend her could fall into that trap.
SCHOOL FACES. Archer cut next to every tie which couldn’t help in business after he graduated from university. It was brutal and without much warning although given how he was drawn to his duty, nobody was surprised. Archer got schooled at home as a child after becoming a depressed before going to a rich high-end private school. Afterwards, he became a star tennis player and the moral support of the team. He was also the president of a literature club where he was able to bond a bit with nerds and was known to tutors younger kids he believed had potential to help his reputation or parents who had power to help his family. Archer was mostly loved by everyone, but still bullied the weak or didn’t hesitate to stomp on other to raise himself higher. Victims of his young impulses, partner or rival in the tennis court, maybe the librarian, maybe a classmate, maybe someone from another school who always saw him and wanted to know him. This profile fits muses that Archer would not talk to unless he knew them from the past. Mostly younger muses that leads a life that has nothing to do with his work. RP can be during his younger years or simply skipped to the main verse.
MEALS. As a vampire, Archer consolidated his hypnotic powers and feeding, starting to leave some preys alive, but dazed and forgetful at times. On top of the numbness and blinding aphrodisiac the poison in his biting provides, he is able to leave the impression like their meeting was a dream; victims will remember vaguely his face, voice or other depending on characters, but not remember the feeding. However, willing and loyal ones may even befriend Archer, who finds consenting people much easier to deal with than laying bodies and sudden disappearances. This profile fits grey morale muses, ones who loves the supernatural, masochists, etc. who’d trade their blood and silence in exchange of being around a vampire. Archer only feeds on females if they ask directly for it or if there is nothing else, highly preferring to feed on males, which is linked to his sexual preferences.
RED LIGHT DISTRICT. Archer has become a prominent figure of the red light district; as the one guy who owned everything (which is not true, but blown out of proportions). Due to the forceful, ruthless and undeniably lustful reputation his sire has, being the envoy puts him in a powerful position where the line between him and the one who turned him might blur to others, as if they were the same person. Anything new in the district goes through him and pros and cons are weighted for healthy competition. Outside the hotels and their affiliated businesses, Archer personally owns two bars; one is lounge gay bar and the other one of the same style, only for the supernaturals of every shape and form, with products to cater their needs. Both are actually places made to cater to his difficult and high maintenance taste; if you cannot find it, do it yourself. Those bars include their own staff, which he selects himself to make sure nobody he would find inappropriate works under his image. As for the hotel line itself, it includes its own staff, administration, underground administration and staff, restaurant staff and entertainment staff for diverse shows and parties thrown. This profile fits any muse which would frequent the red light district, from newcomers to others looking for a job, frequent visitors and owners of businesses. From the woman who runs an escort club with a heart of steel to the bartender who just wants to pay his education fees to the security guard who has nightmare about the noises he hears behind closed doors.
HITMEN. You were paid to fuck with him, but thing is it’s pretty complicated. This profile is picky since obviously the attempt is going to fail and you cannot always RP back and forth attempts. This would be nearly a comical bond with a need to plot a resolution depending on your muse!
SUBMISSIVES. Archer’s history as a dom was… infamous. Long story short, he was known to be good, but dangerous. With a more stable mind he wouldn’t mind going back to one of his favorite hobbies. The deal is simple; he owns the person obviously, no penetration sex, no deep kissing, no romance (which doesn’t mean no affection or love) and not to start screaming about it on the streets. Although he wouldn’t mind so much now to play by the rules, if allowed Archer will become ruthless, enjoying giving permanent marks on others and inflict gradually harsher punishments or rewards. This profile fits, well, masochists and submissives people, from any form and shape really (a victim is a victim) who are willing to give their body for a mutual game, be they be paying Archer or not. Very selective… because Archer is difficult. The way he treats your muse can be from pretty sweet to downward harsh… entirely depends on what degree he finds your muse attractive. Beware scars and broken parts. Sessions can last from one evening to a whole weekend.
MISC.I’ll add more when I think of them! DO THROW ME YOUR IDEAS LET’S GO.
Like with any interaction, relationships are officially in the singleverse timeline if it is roleplayed to a minimum extensively. Looking forwards to write with you!
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howtohero · 4 years
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#298 Taking Over the World
Hello? Is this thing on? Ah, perfect. Hello world, it’s me, Smuggles, the fiendish criminal who orchestrated the end of the Age of Superheroes and ushered in the Age of Villains, or the Age of Smuggles, my compatriots and I are still workshopping the name. Anyway, now that things are well and truly finished for your pathetic heroes and those who would try to guide them through life, I thought I might take a moment to explain to you all how all of this came to be, so that you might truly comprehend the absoluteness of our control and the futility of trying to stop us. And yes, I’m sure I know what you’re thinking, thanks to the mind reading flakes that Professor Brain-Scrambler mixed into every box of the aggressively marketed Cereal Flakes: Everyone’s Favorite Cereal and Favorite Flake in the world. You’re all thinking: Ooh is he really going to monologue now? That’s so passé, how gauche. But I feel as though I deserve this. You might have trouble believing this but this is actually my very first supervillain monologue. I don’t often succeed at my villainous plots, and even when I do, a successful smuggling kind of means there won’t be an audience for whom I can monologue. So excuse me if I feel like gloating for a bit.
Before I get into things though, I think it would be quite remiss of me not to thank those who helped me get to where I am now, starting with the real MVPs, the How To Hero team. The How To Hero team? Aren’t they good guys? Aren’t they victims in all of this? How could they have helped you? All good questions, to be sure, but they are indeed responsible for my meteoric rise to power. Of course they didn’t know it at the time. You see, three years ago I was nothing more than a petty thief with a costume and a codename. Barely a supervillain as some have called me. It was rare that I even saw superheroes, let alone did battle with them. Until June 8, 2017, when a certain blog told every two-bit would-be cape-fetishishist that I would be a good villain to test their crime-fighting chops on. Suddenly, I was being accosted nightly by every man, woman, child and giant badger with a hero-complex. It was humiliating, it was painful, and I vowed that I would get revenge on anybody who contributed to my nightly beatings, so, every superhero ever and also How To hero. I decided to start with the blog, as that seemed easier, and also they were the only ones on my revenge list who hadn’t already decisively proven that they could beat me up. So I began reading their guide, know thine enemy and all, and in time I discovered that while they may not be much of a superhero guide, they were, unwittingly, laying out everything one might need to be the ultimate supervillain. I reached out to an old accomplice of mine Perry the Pirate, who helped me hack into How To Hero’s database so I could access notes and drafts that they had yet to publish so I could glean even more information and tips from them. Apparently another lawyer in his firm worked closely with the guide and had a backdoor into their system on his computer. I pored over the information I found, sifting through thousands of unbearable puns and jokes to get what I needed, and thus, a plan began to form.
Historically speaking, the main obstacle in any villains way to world domination is the large contingent of heroes who love freedom and peace and living in a non-dominated world. They’re always spouting on and on about rights and justice and love, I know, they’re exhausting. But people tend to like them, and people tend to be inspired by them. Which often means that when a supervillain manages to take out one hero, somebody else will very quickly take up their mantle and continue their fight for them. So it is not enough to just pick off heroes one by one. In order to truly get rid of them, they, all of them, would need to be taken off the board all at once. And such an event would need to occur when a villain, or a group of villains, is ready to step in a take control, so that they may do so swiftly as soon as the heroes fall. This part, I realized, was crucial, no time at all could pass between the fall of the heroes and the rise of the villains. Any sort of grace period would allow for the rise of new heroes, and we would be right back where we started. So even though How To Hero had foolishly provided me with a roadmap to taking out the world’s heroes, I needed to put some pieces into play first. I needed to garner the support of my fellow villains.
Not an easy feat for the preeminent starter-villain. 
Honestly, it wouldn’t be an easy feat for anyone, had it not, once again, been for How To Hero. You see, most villain team-ups fail eventually. The villains will always end up betraying each other or falling out over some petty reason like “who gets to control which coast” or “what are we going to name the henchmen”. The rate of decline goes up the more villains you add to your team. So if I was going to form a villainous alliance capable of taking out the heroes and taking over the world, I would need to find a way to overcome the virulent backstabbing and counter-plotting that often plagued supervillain team-ups. So imagine my delight, when How To Hero published a guide on fights between supervillains and how to resolve them. Armed with the tools I would need to diffuse any fights that might arise I approached Al “Da Boss” Marconi, a big time supervillain and crime boss.
A few things you need to know about Marconi, he is quick to anger and only speaks to people whom he respects. So my first attempts at meeting with him ended with me being hurled out of a fortieth story window. Thankfully, on the advice of How To Hero, I was wearing a parachute and ended up being just fine. I realized I would need to find a way to impress Marconi. If I could get him onboard, most of the villain community would be similarly swayed. So I set my eyes towards bigger fish... Oh, not Charlie, that was actually something else. You know what, I might as well talk about that now, while we’re on the subject.
If I was going to take out every hero in the world I would need engineer large-scale threat, but as I’ve said, I didn’t not have large-scale threat connections. In fact, after Perry the Pirate left the villain game to become a lawyer, my only supervillain contact was another low-level villain named Charlie the Fish Whisperer. He mind controls fish by whispering to them, that’s not exactly large-scale, world-threatening stuff. It is, what you could charitably define, as a lame superpower. But that’s ok, How To Hero has a guide to using lame superpowers to your advantage. It was all about perception. All I needed to do was make others perceive Charlie the Fish Whisperer as a world-ending threat. But how to do that? Charlie was only a semi-formidable threat in the water so what were we to do? Mount on attack on Atlantis? How To Hero told us we’d be fools to try. Besides, if we allowed the idea that Charlie was only threatening in the water to stick, he’d never rise to world-ending threat. I realized we would need to speak to a specialist. 
Our world has nearly ended so many times, that there are several former heralds of the apocalypse just hanging around without much to do. I set up a meeting with a fellow called The Dark Harbinger who used to do some freelance heralding for folks like Karalaxus and The Living Ingestor. He taught Charlie and I what these big threat guys are actually like, and How To Hero taught us everything we needed to know about putting on a facade to trick others. But being able to talk the talk wouldn’t be enough. We needed a big dramatic action that would cement the new Charlie the Whisperer in the minds of heroes. Thankfully, How To Hero clued us in to another specialist we could speak to. A man named Ivan Karolov, aka Mister Immortal. Karolov agreed to meet with us, who can say why, I honestly think he was just bored. He had somehow found himself as the prime minister of Finland and I think he was itching to fake his death again and move on. Karolov used his skills and experience at faking his own death to help us make it look like Charlie the Fish Whisperer had killed him with a goldfish he had smuggled into Kesäranta. Charlie rebranded as Chuck and the heroes of the world became convinced that he was truly dangerous and locked him away in an alternate dimension. Obviously that’s not how I saw things playing out, but no matter. I had a world-ending threat that I could use as needed.
Now, to switch gears, I must explain how I finally gained the respect of Al Marconi and the rest of the supervillain community. To put it briefly, I went to Hell. Now, now, don’t give me that look, it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as it sounds. In fact, How To Hero made it easy. All I needed was some peanut butter, and get this, I already had some! Just lying around in my cupboard. All I needed to do was put some out in a pentagram to attract a demon and we were in business. I planned on recruiting some Underworld bigwig to my campaign. How could Marconi not respect me if I had the legions of Hell behind my cause. The rulers of Hell are actually easier to appeal to than mortal villains. All I would need to do is pledge my everlasting and eternal soul to whomever was sitting on the throne that day and I would be given an army of ghouls and undead spirits to command. What do I care about my soul? Whatever demon I dealt with would only get once I died, and How To Hero had very helpfully laid out exactly how I could achieve immortality. Luckily though, I didn’t even end up needing to pledge my soul, once again How To Hero came to my rescue. While reading one night I came across a shocking diatribe against a man named Greg Greginski. Greginski is a well known talk show host who frequently talks about superheroes and their ilk, and rarely in a positive light, which is why How To Hero takes issue with him. Greg Greginski is not well-liked in the superhero community, but those of us in the supervillain community are privy to the fact that Greg Greginski is not simply a television host. He’s so much more. He’s part-time ruler of Hell, Greg the Skeleton King, and after How To Hero’s disrespectful remarks towards him, he was willing to throw his weight behind my crusade against the blog, free of charge. 
Once I had Greg the Skeleton King on board, I went back to Marconi with an army of damned souls and he was very quick to endorse my movement as well, especially after being dangled out the window by a ghost who occasionally struggled to stay corporeal. Marconi agreed to spread the word amongst the rest of the villains and I moved on to the final phase of my plan. Taking out all the world’s superheroes in one fell swoop. As I alluded to at the beginning of my post, How To Hero handed me the perfect plan on a silver platter. All I needed to do was trigger a superhero/supervillain team-up. According to How To Hero, when a threat is large enough, superheroes will form temporary alliances with supervillains until the threat is dealt with. This makes sense, supervillains don’t want the world to be destroyed, who would they do crimes against if the world is gone. So heroes need no worry about supervillains pulling anything shady during such a team-up, unless of course, the villains knew that the threat was fake, and that there was no real risk to the world. Enter Chuck the Fish Whisperer, my very own personal world-ending threat. The only problem though, was that Chuck had already been defeated and locked away, earlier than I’d planned. Oh well, at least he was still alive, I just needed access to a interdimensional portal generator. How To Hero had already laid out to me how difficult it is to cross dimensions, the easiest way would be to use somebody else’s existing interdimensional portal generator. Luckily, I knew somebody who could help, Frederick Kaminsky aka Dr. Brainwave. 
Dr. Brainwave was perfect, he had already built a portal generator, and he lived in How To Hero headquarters. He could be my man on the inside. He could be my partner in all of this. Or, well, he could have been. If he hadn’t been a world-grade idiot. It seems that, in his work with How To Hero as their supervillain correspondent, Dr. Brainwave had actually grown to like the team behind the blog. He had begun to think of them as his friends. He wouldn’t allow me access to his machine he told me, but as a professional courtesy he wouldn’t tell anybody about my plan to free Chuck. I let him think that Chuck was the brains and that I was simply his henchman, his sidekick. Brainwave didn’t think I was a threat, and so he didn’t take any steps to report me to the authorities. This ended up being his undoing. If Dr. Brainwave wouldn’t help me, then I would need somebody else on the inside. Unsurprisingly, Brainwave’s beloved guide held the answers. Allow me to quote from the blog’s guide to joining a team that has not invited you to be apart of it: 
If you want to join one of these teams and there’s already somebody there with your powers you’re definitely going to have to sabotage them. We understand that sabotaging another hero to steal their spot on a superhero team isn’t a very superheroic thing to do but some things are just more important! [Don’t] Poison them! Depower them somehow (maybe with some type of ray and/or beam)! Humiliate them by beating them at Dance Dance Revolution at the next superhero dance festival and tractor rodeo which I’m nigh certain is a real thing.
If I wanted to join the How To Hero team, I would have to get rid of the person who already filled my niche. I wouldn’t do it with poison or Dance Dance Revolution though, I would do it with a bomb. A bomb that I had smuggled out of Brainwave’s own workshop when I had met with him. I mailed a bomb to How To Hero’s office. Best case I kill everybody in the building and then just waltz in and use Brainwave’s portal generator to unleash Chuck, trigger a superhero/supervillain team-up, and then have the villain betray the heroes once they’ve let their guard down. Worst case, I take out Brainwave and steal his job. I knew Brainwave always wore rocket boots, he was almost as much of an avid reader of this blog as I was, so I knew that if anybody was going to fly the bomb out of the office, it would have to be him. Afterwards it was just a matter of filling out an application and coasting on my reputation as a non-threat. Sure enough, those fools fell for it hook, line and, sinker. So here we are now, the superheroes are gone, and I and my allies rule the world. And it’s all thanks to this little blog. 
That’s all for now, stay tuned for my first slew of villainous decrees and demands soon. Welcome to the new world order.
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truecrimesposts · 4 years
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Blueprint for Murder
Kemi Adeyoola
On June 28 2006, 18-year-old Kemi Adeyoola, daughter of a multi millionaire, was sentenced to the murder of an elderly woman after an incriminating 'blueprint' was discovered. The blueprint was written during her stint in a young offenders institution. The plan? A truly 'fiendish' crime, brutally stabbing 84 year old Anne Mendel 14 times. She was convicted at the Old Bailey yesterday and sentenced today to a recommended minimum of a least 20 years behind bars.
No one could understand why this twisted teen targeted elderly Anne Mendel, they were neighbours for a short time in North London. On first meeting Anne Mendel the first thing that you'd notice would be her size, at around 7 stone and barely 4 foot 10 she was a small woman who had spent her whole life helping others.
Kemi Adeyoola was her complete opposite. She was working at the time as a £500 a night prostitute and had served time for shoplifting. The 'blueprint for murder' that she was later found to have written while she was in a young offenders' institution was over 18 pages long, and detailed her plan to make £3 million by killing a 'wealthy, quite elderly and defenceless' victim.
The blueprint was actually discovered in her cell while she was still in the institution, but all that was done to protect te outside world was the creation of a council monitoring team to supervise her for three months after her release. But unfortunately psychiatrists decided that Kemi wasn't a risk to the public and tragically less than a month after the supervision ended, Anne Mendel was dead.
81 year old Leonard Mendel, Anne's husband, found Anne Mendel wearing blood soaked pyjamas and pink dressing gown, with a pile of clothes thrown on top of her.
Kemi who is the daughter of a property tycoon worth around £10 million, faces a life sentence. After this verdict those closely following the case stated that they believed that she was 'born to kill' and that she was a 'supremely arrogant phschopath with a total disregard for humanity'.
Kemi has since been disowned by her father Bola Adeyoola, he stated:
'Nobody is born evil but what she did was evil. She is no longer my daughter. I will never see her again, and don't want her anywhere near me. I regret the day I ever met her mother. When I saw Mrs Mendel's picture I started crying. As a Christian, I can't believe anyone would do that.'
Mr Adeyoola, a 49 year old former boxer who lived in a £2 million Berkshire home with his latest wife, had previously given his daughter free accommodation in the home as well as a £140 a week job.
Discussing this he said, 'She was staying with me until a month before the murder, when I found out she had been shoplifting. I do wonder wether this woman would still be alive if I hadn't kicked her out. At first I couldn't accept that somebody with my blood in her veins could do this to anyone - but then I saw the evidence. She should rot in hell.'
His marriage to Kemi's mother Mercuria lasted barely 4 years, and he had very little contact during the upbringing of his three children. Mercuria also has a fourth child from a different relationship.
She and her children moved to a succession of homes in places including Cheltenham and Peterborough, frequently alienating neighbours. While staying in one specific property in Gloucestershire, Kemi reportedly killed the goldfish in a neighbour's pond and blamed it on a cat.
The teenage killer briefly boarded at £23,000-a-year Wycliffe College. The independent school at Stonehouse in the Cotswolds prides itself on its academic and sporting achievements, but Kemi only lasted a few months because of a row over who was paying her fees.
The family then moved to Elmcroft Road in Golders Green for several months, living next to Mr and Mrs Mendel.
The elderly couple had been married for 50 years and lived a quiet, rewarding life. They had two children, and 14 grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Their son Yitzhak appealed for help after his mother's murder said 'My mother spent every day of her week performing good deeds and charity work. She devoted her whole life to visiting the sick, helping friends and neighbours and bringing a smile to everyone she knew - even complete strangers.'
In her youth Anne Mendel had worked as a hospital secretary and joined the Army during the Second World War, helping to track German bombers blitzing the East End of London.
While living beside Anne Mendel, Kemi locked herself out of her home and was quickly allowed into Anne's home. Anne Mendel did this despite the fact that neighbours reported Kemi subjecting residents nearby to a 'reign of terror'. Reportedly abusing young children, harassing neighbours due to their race and even smearing excrement on windows.
A resident who wanted to remain anonymous stated, "She gave a lot of trouble to one particular family. Once she lay in wait for the man, an Asian, behind a bush and punched him in the face, breaking his nose. She called his wife a "Paki lover". He said she tried to poison his dog as well.' Kemi was later arrested for this.
Other neighbours recall Mr Adeyoola sometimes turning up in his Rolls Royce to see his children, but the visits were brief and infrequent.
Kemi pretty much ignored her and by the time that she was 15 she had already fallen into bad habits. She was stealing frequently from high Street stores. She told the jury when in court that it was a skill and explained how she became adept at changing receipts to get refunds for these stolen goods.
However her arrogance outweighed her skill it seems, as after a string of convictions found herself finally facing a custodial sentence.
Her self-obsession continued and she reportedly talked to one of her siblings bragging about her acting talents when she was questioned by a youth worker. She said that she wept, mumbled and arched her back in an attempt to convince her of her 'innocence and vulnerability' to try and get herself a shorter sentence.
'It worked such a treat I could tell she was touched,' she wrote. 'I felt she sensed my anguish.'
However, her arrogance once again got in her way and she ended up at Bulwood Hall young offenders' institute in Essex for 3 months.
This young offenders institute is where she would craft her devious plan.
Her blueprint was discovered during a routine cell search, it was titled Prison and After - Making Life Again and included a shopping list and logged in detail her plan to kill dismember and dispose of a victim in pursuit of £3 million. The shopping list consisted of sharp knives or butchers knives, guns, drugs and handcuffs.
She imagined several different scenarios including stalking an elderly woman in a wealthy area, posing as a student carrying out a questionnaire.
'Run lightly and silently behind her and cover her mouth with a gloved hand,' she wrote. 'Make her so scared she co-operates. Keep calm, composed and silent. She must co-operate or take a knife to her throat. Tell her, "This is your only warning... With your butcher's knife, remove her head. Wrap it in film to contain bleeding, detach limbs one by one.'
When these writings were discovered she told her psychiatrists and prison staff that her notes were part of the draft of a novel. And incredibly, they believed her. The psychiatric assessment carried out after the document was discovered claimed that it 'did not indicate any concern that Miss Adeyoola would be pre-disposed in any way to this type of violence - nor was there any evidence of this type of violence in her past'. It described her as a 'highly intelligent and sophisticated young person . . . who with good support should make a good recovery and engage in her A level studies.' Kemi told a psychiatrist that she had accused 4 grade A GCSE's which they believed and said they felt it was a shame that she had been arrested.
However after her release in November 2004,1 education wasn't even on her radar. She moved into a flat with another teenager, telling the court that her job as an 'escort' easily paid for her £800 a month flat. She claimed that 'It is a completely legitimate and professional business. We earned up to £5,000 a week.'
In March 2005 her first month without any supervision at an end, Kemi turned her words into action.
Mr Mendel left the home for just an hour to pick up the plane tickets for their upcoming trip to Israel, and within this hour, Anne Mendel was dead. Kemi attacked the elderly woman in her home, inflicting deep wounds to the victims torso, right arm and blade with a blade that was proven to be at least 1 inch wide and 5 inches long.
A spokesman for the Barnet Youth Offending Team said: 'There was nothing in the file that would have predicted homicide. The psychiatric report did not predict any likely occurrence of this.'
Kemi appeared at her trial dressed in a pinstriped suit pink trainers and spangly belt, and she reportedly seemed completely unmoved by her crime. She was smiling and actually exchanging text messages during court recesses.
She lied to the police over the nature of the DNA evidence that had been found on Anne's body, claiming that she had actually visited the pensioner the day before the murder and that the elderly woman has scratched her hand as she helped her across the road.
Kemi then used a 16 year old girl, who can't be named, to try and construct herself an alibi for her brutal crime.
Detective Chief Inspector Steve Morris called her 'a callous and devious young woman', adding: 'Her cold, calculated use of extreme violence beggars belief.'
The police investigating the case believe that Kemi never intended to stop there. In fact, they believe that Anne Mendel may simply have been a 'dry run' before targeting a wealthier victim. Detective Sergeant Paul Belsham said: 'If she had got away with this then God knows what she might have done. She is very very dangerous.'
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Mr Mendel, who has moved to Israel to live with his daughter, described his wife as someone 'whose life was taken up with kindness and giving up of herself to others The unjust end she met, having so much taken away in such an undeserving manner, left us in total shock.'
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blakelywintersfield · 5 years
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what do you think about cancel culture?
So it took me a while to answer this ask ‘cause I have... a lot to say about the subject.
There’s a lot to unpack when it comes to cancel culture. Its roots I like to believe are well intended -- a means to alert vulnerable groups about individuals that have a history of hurting them. But people have taken it... way too far.
I think it’s important to hold people accountable for their actions. There’s a lot of people who get away with horrible things, simply because they produce likeable material (makeup, music, movies, entertainment, etc.). People like Jeffree Star, PewDiePie, and Kat Von D have gotten away with their horrific treatment of others for years because people enjoy their content -- and two out of three of them still are wildly successful. What pushes people over the limit? Often times it’s a matter of what white people take major issue in. In Kat’s case, being anti-vax. Is being anti-vax bad? Hell yeah it is. As someone who’s immuno-compromised it literally could lead to an early, painful, slow death for me. And don’t get me wrong, I wanna die, but not from something that takes months of suffering. But people blatantly ignored her other awful acts -- such as her antisemitic actions (telling her former boss to “burn in hell jewbag” (sic) in the form of writing on a photo she left for him and drawing a Nazi symbol on it), complacency in victim blaming (her neo-Nazi husband blames his daughter’s rape on his daughter), denying and viciously responding to criticisms about her pedophilic makeup names (”Underage Red”, “Lolita”, second not in reference to the Japanese style but the book), and actively killing her pets (she killed one cat by leaving a house full of burning candles -- cat knocked down the candles, house went up in flames, cat died; she also was found forcing a vegan diet onto her cats -- I’m unsure if this has continued but I believe one of her cats died from it). All of these are huge reasons to “cancel” her -- to boycott her products. But people didn’t actively hate her until she came out as anti-vax, something that effects the majority. And that’s part of the issue with cancel culture: people pick and choose what’s acceptable depending on how badly it effects them personally.
Let’s focus on the other two mentioned: Jeffree and Felix. Jeffree has a very, very, veryyyyy long past of being a racist piece of shit. Not even lowkey ignorant white person racist (i.e. ”I didn’t know making fun of AAE and viewing dreadlocks as trashy was racist”). I’m talking straight up using the n-slur, with the hard -er too, towards a black woman. And this was recent, too. There just haven’t been any physical references beforehand, only personal accounts. But people have defended him -- and still defend him -- on these actions, because he apologized. But then he’ll do it again a month later. And there’ll be definitive proof of it. He’ll keep doing it over, and over, and over again. And people will continue to excuse him because he keeps apologizing! That’s not how apologies work! As someone who’s been abused, apologies mean nothing if you don’t actively work on fixing what you’re apologizing for!! My abusers would apologize and then do the exact same thing again so many times that I lost count long ago! And of course, Shane Dawson hasn’t helped because he’s head over heels for the guy, so he’s been using his popularity to try and clear his name -- which is ironic, considering he’s been under fire for being racist in the past too. The only difference is he actually cleaned his act up, until now, of course. Because now, instead of creating racist content himself, he’s defending a chronically racist shitbag. And people continue to defend him, because his shitty actions effects mainly black women -- a minority in comparison to the amount of white people in the states. Jeffree continues to be wildly successful because his problematic behavior only effects a minority, and that’s... not okay.
Felix has a very similar history to Jeffree, but with antisemitism, and in my opinion he’s even worse because he’ll apologize then do something nice like donate to a charity. And that would be fantastic if he wouldn’t continue to do antisemitic things like actively support white supremacists. People continue to defend him because he does charitable things, but I constantly remind people that abusive people aren’t abusive 24/7 -- that’s literally how they get away with abuse. They abuse, then take you out for a fancy date, kiss you gently and tell you how beautiful you are. Then they do something abusive. It’s an endless cycle. And that’s honestly what Felix does. Apologize, do something really fucking nice, and then repeat his shitty action. And he has other extremely influential people defend him -- it’s why I had to stop following JackSepticEye and Markiplier. They continuously vouched for him. They continuously defended him. And they did it in the form of saying “he’s a really good person, I know him personally, he’s really fucking sweet and nice”. That’s what people say about the partner of someone really close to me! Their friends defend them all the time, but they’ve never seen how they treat my friend. They don’t know about how they are in a relationship. And that’s all we ever hear about abusers. No one wants to accept that their longtime friend is shitty. But Mark and Sean contribute to the toxic ideology of “defend your friends to the end”. And it disenfranchises those effected because 1) they’re not Jewish, they have absolutely no say in the matter, and 2) they’re abusing their popularity to keep their friend from being properly criticized. I don’t think either of them are shitty people, per se, but they’re being extremely toxic by not letting their friend see that they’re a repeat offender and need to either work on their shit or face the music. Mark and Sean both have the power to make Felix change if they just give him the ultimatum of “us or this”.
But I digress. The main issue highlighted here is that people who actually do bad things and continue to do bad things aren’t being held accountable because people don’t care to acknowledge what doesn’t directly effect them. This is the first main issue with cancel culture.
Let’s focus on another man under scrutiny: John Lennon. Now, let me put out there for disclaimer purposes that this man is far from perfect and has problematic parts to him as well. He’s done some shitty things. But cancel culture looooooooves to dig at this man. To put it crudely, they really enjoy beating this dead... man. And mainly over one really bad thing he did, which was hit his wife. However, people love to 1) over-exaggerate it, and 2) completely ignore how he handled the aftermath. Cancel culture often refers to him as a “wife beater”, as though this were a chronic habit or that he severely brutalized his wife. But they conveniently ignore that he apologized, both to her and publicly, taught himself about domestic abuse and spoke up for women’s rights, and even wrote multiple songs about how he fucked up and he shouldn’t be excuse for what he did. And, most importantly, his wife forgave him. The victim in this situation forgave him, and people still dig into this one thing and use it as their reason to hate him and his band to this day. Genuine criticism of him and what he’s done have gone to the wayside because of this one fact with no context, and it’s a huge phenomena because people, for whatever reason, love to hate popular things. Like I said, he’s done shitty things! He wasn’t perfect! But to use one issue that was literally resolved to hate him is just a lazy excuse to hate what’s popular, and that comes to our second issue with cancel culture: people want to hate what’s popular and will go to any lengths to excuse their hatred, even if issues that have been resolved.
The last main issue I have is that cancel culture is often set up in very black and white terms. Person does bad thing, they’re bad, end of discussion. But that’s... not how life works. Not at all. I know religion isn’t universal, especially Christianity, but there’s one point in Christianity that is universal: humans are flawed. No human being to have ever existed is perfect. And with the rise of technology and social media, a lot of mistakes have a permanent proof out there. Be it through tweets, tumblr or Facebook posts, Instagram or Snapchat stories, whatever it is, there is proof. And people like to take it way too far.
For example... well, I’ll use myself. There’s good things to not being tumblr famous, and I’m blessed with that, because I used to be a major shithead. Well. Okay, I still am, but I was bigoted, uninformed, and had a lot of internalized issues. For anyone that doesn’t know, I was raised in a conservative Christian household where my father was Southern Baptist and my mother had been raised Catholic (her personal religious views are much more lax though, thankfully). Both came from small towns in Illinois and Missouri respectively, and their parents, the same. I was aggressively homophobic and transphobic (ironic, eh?), covertly racist and sexist, and just overall a really shitty person. And while I didn’t join tumblr until after I’d finally started to grow, a lot of people on here are younger -- some even lying about their age and joining before they’re 13. And like me, many of these kids are in close-minded households. And for the longest time I refused to listen to other people because of the good ol’ backfire effect, but once I began to accept I was wrong, I learned. Of course I still have learning to do -- I always do. I always will. And that’s okay. But if I were 12 year old me on tumblr today, I would, well. I would’ve probably killed myself by now, because of all the bullying and hate for being a shithead child. A shithead, yes. But a child. Someone that’s going to be ignorant to a lot of things because they haven’t been alive for as long. And not everyone has informed parents that make it a point to teach them. Adults are a little harder to forgive, I’ll admit, but children have a lot more potential to learn and grow, and we often treat them just like adults.
The final issue with cancel culture is that it gives no room for improvement and no assumption of someone’s innocence. While it hurts to be on the victim end, we as a whole are obligated to correct the issue. I personally would like it to be those not effected doing that (i.e. someone making a transphobic comment having other cis people explain why it’s transphobic and isn’t okay), but regardless, we need to assume innocent until guilty with these kinds of things. It’s not easy, sure, but if I had been on tumblr while I was a shitty kid parroting my dad’s awful world views, cancel culture would’ve labeled me a piece of shit with no chance of redemption, and if I didn’t kill myself there’s no fucking way in hell I would’ve learned, because that kind of treatment would’ve stuck with me and made it harder for me to listen to the other side’s reasoning, even if they were right. We need to approach people in a manner of calm education, instead of ready to kill. In no way am I saying this is an easy thing to do, but unless they’ve refused to open themselves up in any way whatsoever, immediately chalking someone up as a lost cause is just... counter-productive. We have to acknowledge that people are flawed, and can learn and grow. We need to give people space to improve. It’s not all or nothing.
All in all, cancel culture has a good base, but its execution has become irrational and a means to justify hating those that really don’t deserve it, while turning a blind eye to those that actually are problematic. There’s a lot to be improved on.
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transboygenius · 5 years
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SE4SON: Chapter 18
[*Meanwhile, in the modern world*]
A sleep deprived, messy Judy Neutron was screaming at the RPD (Retroville Police Department) through the phone, accompanied by a sane, and frightened, Mrs. Dean.
"What do you mean there's still no lead?! I don't care how early in the morning it is! Shouldn't you boys be doing your job?! Whatever happened to serve and protect?! It's been a week since I've lost my Jamie!" "Jimmy." Mrs. Dean corrected. "Jimmy, I mean! My son Jimmy! For being gone that long, who knows what has happened to him?! He's got a gourd shaped head, and an ice cream cowlick hairdo! How is that hard for you to miss?! Yeah? Well then, search around the globe if you have to-"
The RPD then hung up. Poor Judy. It was 5:00 in the morning. She literally won't rest until she finds her son in one piece. She hasn't bathed in five days, and tried using perfume instead. Sleep meant nothing to her no more, so she drinks at least three cups of coffee a day. Possibly more. She hasn't cooked in awhile, either. Just ordering takeout and reheating frozen foods. It isn't like Judy to not prepare a home cooked meal for more than one day. She's been pulling all nighters, circling the whole town, or country, in her car, stapling posters everywhere, and searching for her Jimmy. She's like a detective on a stakeout. All this lack of rest has turned her mind loopy. For some unknown reason, she keeps accidentally addressing "Jimmy" as "Jamie." Apart from the fact that Nick is gone too, Mrs. Dean is also there as Judy's emotional support.
"Judy, you need to calm down. Here, have some warm tea." "Calm down? Calm down! There's no time to calm down, now that I know that the RPD isn't any help!" "There's always time to calm down. Wherever your son is, he's probably fine for now! He's smart enough to take care of himself." "How would you know?! Your son isn't lost!" "Technically, he is." "Oh... But are you even making an effort to find him?" "I'm doing what I can to find him! The reason I came up to you to begin with was to figure out what my son has in connection with yours!" "Shouldn't you be able to know that yourself? You are his mother, right? A mother always knows her child best!" "If I could! Nick is easy to read as a closed book. We don't communicate so often. I think it has something to do with his father being so unpleasant." "You can save me the sob story for later! I gotta phone the next police department!" "No! Stop!" "I must find Jamie!" "Jimmy!" "My name is Judy, dammit!"
................................
[*That morning*]
Jimmy fell asleep with the diary laying on his face. While both him and Nick usually wake up by the rooster's cry, Nick removed the diary and shook him awake.
"Nick? Is it breakfast time?" "No, not yet. You gotta help me." "*Looks at the broom in his hands* You need help cleaning?" "I need you to help me from HER."
Nick was then surprised by a hard smack on the back, by a mop. Sally was trying to fight with him, in hopes to help the "Silver Knight" regain his memory. All Nick has done so far was block out her attacks. Not that he would make a lousy swordsman, he just can't bring himself to hit someone much younger than him. Instead of actual swords, their using cleaning implements. The battle begun when Sally woke Nick up with a smack on the chest. No matter what he told her, she just wouldn't believe him.
"Fight back, Nick! Trying knocking the weapon out of my hand! It might give you some nostalgia!" "Little girl, we're not a pair of enchanted cartoon characters! We're just two lost boys from the future! I'll prove it to you! Cageflix! Ramen Bowl! Internet!" "Stop making up excuses to back out and fight me!" "You're four years younger than me!"
Jimmy then broke up the fight.
"Hey, Sally?" Asked Jimmy. "Yes?" Replied Sally. "Wouldn't you like to meet our friends? You know, the ones who illegally inherit this ranch?" "But we're in the middle of something!" "You must meet them now, cuz if you don't, they might think we're holding a hostage captive." "Yeah. And we already have this mean Christian fanatic who thinks we're the devil's spawns." Said Nick.
Rolling her eyes, Sally then put down her mop, and decided to let Jimmy and Nick lead her into the hut. To make a good impression for keeping a stranger, Nick began to make breakfast: Moose sandwiches, blueberry strudels, and freshly squeezed orange juice. He also put on some coffee. Sally began to drool from looking at Nick's fine art.
"It looks great! Guess you learned something while under amnesia! Although, it'd really be fun to see Jimmy, here, turn a morsel of meat into a whole cured ham before my eyes." Said Sally, clutching a knife and fork.
Jimmy got annoyed by her comment, since he doesn't exactly believe in magic. Just in time, a weary Diana, Rodent Girl, and Benson entered the kitchen. Sally was intrigued by Diana's appearance. She has never seen a woman that large before. Rodent Girl went over to the cupboard to fetch her coffee mug. Being so drowsy, she spoke in her usual, monotone morning voice, and greeted Sally like she was a regular to them. Diana and Benson were both shocked to see a little girl, they've never seen before, in their kitchen. The two stood in silence for a few seconds, and frankly so did Jimmy, Nick, and Sally.
"Morning, Jimmy. Morning, Nick. Morning, kid I don't even know." Greeted a tired Rodent Girl. "Uhhhhhh, Miss Oona... Aren't you the slightest surprised at the unexpected guest?" Asked Benson. "I'm too tired to emote."
Diana looked Sally straight in the eye. Sally was frozen from the buff lady's eye contact, despite that she didn't look ominous.
"Hello?" Asked Diana. "H-hi?" Replied Sally. "HOLY, MACARONI! THERE'S A KID WE DON'T KNOW SITTING RIGHT HERE IN OUR KITCHEN!" Screamed Rodent Girl, after drinking her coffee.
Jimmy then decided to explain the whole thing, and Nick served as his second voice. The two boys told them about how this little girl followed them due to some misidentification for a Wise Wizard and Silver Knight ("It's not a misidentification! It's true!"), how they welcomed her into their hospitality since her parents were caught victim of a penalty, and how she's under no one's care because it's illustrated by king's law that orphans must serve their entire youth in laborism. Diana was so moved by Sally's backstory. She started sobbing, her eyes watered, and she swept the little girl off the ground.
"*Weeping* How can any man be so cruel, as to separate a child away from their family?! They may never experience the warm embrace of a mother or father ever again! That is so INHUMAN!" Said Diana. "I'm terribly sorry for your loss, young lady." Benson spoke casually. "I second that." And so did Rodent Girl. "That's it?! What on Earth is wrong with you two?! This child's parents have been hanged, all for the greater good! Could you try showing at least a small dose of your sympathy?!" "I find that very difficult, since my parents have always neglected me." Benson replied casually. "And I was abandoned at birth." And SO did Rodent Girl. "You heartless brutes!"
Diana then put Sally down.
"Little girl...!" Said Diana. "This little girl has a name, you know." Replied Sally. "...I don't care if I have to steal overtime to feed another mouth around here! Consider us your new family!" "Uhh, thanks! Very much! (That's neat! A buff mom, a mousy older sister, and a girly uncle!)" "Let me introduce everyone! I'm Diana! This is Rodent Girl, Benson, *Points out the window* Butterscotch, and there's Mitzi, but she's currently at work right now. You can meet her later! She's real nice! She may be even nicer to you. You've already met Jimmy and Nick!" "The legendary Wise Wizard and Silver Knight!" "What now?" Asked Rodent Girl. "No, we're not! It's just a coincidence! I don't even believe in magic!" Exclaimed Jimmy. "The Wise Wizard and Silver Knight. I thought their warm, loving relationship reminded me of some pair." Quote Benson. "HA! See?" Bragged Sally. "Wait a minute. You mean to tell me they were real?" Asked Nick. "Mm! I was just a tiny lad at that time. Although I've never really met them, I did follow them around among tall crowds, trying to get their autograph, since they were quite popular to the youngsters. I had no success, however. But witnessing the Silver Knight in battle, and the Wise Wizard with his gifted sorcery, that was about the happiest memory of my childhood." "You can meet them officially when I help them regain their memories back!" Suggested Sally. "Oh, these two young gentlemen can't possibly be them!" "I know it's hard to believe by first glance, but trust me! What you see here is a spell gone wrong! Heck, it's probably the cause of their amnesia!" "Nonsense! Besides, if that were them, why would they want to return here?" "They're here to rid us of our pain once again! Although they can't remember anything, they still hold their heroic instincts within their hearts, and their brains!" "We're not here to relieve anyone of their pain! Just Diana and her crew! (Minus Mitzi)" Said Jimmy. "And the reason we're risking our butts out there is because they were kind enough to offer us food and a roof to sleep under while other Middle Age folks just wanted to burn us at the stake!" Nick spoke through gritted teeth.
.............................
[*Back in the modern ages*]
Carl looked through his magic supplies one last time. He doesn't feel like performing again since Jimmy is still gone. Jimmy would've been the only person who would sit down to watch him, since he wasn't a very good magician. At all. He hasn't even found that darn rabbit yet. The guys on TV sure make it look easy. Suddenly, he heard the doorbell ring. As Carl went to answer it, he found it was Sheen, holding a pink paper box, with a grin on his face. Sheen was just about the second last person he wanted to see right now.
"What do you want?" Carl asked in displease. "Well, I just happened to walk by a local bakery downtown, and my sweet tooth just urged me to walk right in! While looking through the selections, I started thinking about you. So, I picked up your favorite pastry!" Replied Sheen. "Goat milk matcha pound cake?" "Nope! Cwaaaaaaaasonts!"
Sheen opened the box to reveal a baker's dozen of golden croissants. Carl was still unamused, and just decided to close the door. Sheen, however, stopped the door by sticking his foot out!
"Wait, Carl! I've spent $30.95 for the baker's dozen! I was gonna use that money to purchase a VespaGirl body pillow online!" "You think you can just buy my friendship back with some baked, buttery, crispy, delectable... *Mouth starts to water* But you can't! What you had said broke my heart! Jimmy is important to my life just as you were!" "I am important to your life?" "I said 'were!' Now get off my doorstep!"
Carl then went to close the door again, but with all strength this time to keep Sheen from getting in, since he was holding a box. Sheen had to drop the croissants to force the door open.
"Carl! Carl! At least let me tell you something!" "I've heard about enough from you!" "But I came here to say I'm sorry!" "What?"
Carl opened the door wide.
"I'm sorry. Taking back everything I've ever said to you. I didn't know Jimmy meant that much to your life. You two were very close together more than any pair I knew. Possibly even the romantic ones. Also, I miss you, buddy. I'm lonely. I have Libby, but I can't be disgusting and foolish around her now, can't I? Look; Just because Jimmy can't be my friend, doesn't mean he can't be yours. We could still hang as pals, even with Jimmy around. I mean, we never liked Cindy, but we still tolerated her presence. *Gets down on his knees* Please, take me back. All those degrading words were just my invalid opinion. Nothing I say is even true."
Carl hesitated for a bit, while Sheen looked up at him, sweating. The allergy boy just closed the door. Sheen, being so heartbroken, hung his head down. Way before Jimmy came into their lives, him and Carl were the best of friends. Although Carl didn't like Ultralord, and Sheen thought llamas were too weak and soft, they both spoke to each other on the same mindset. The two were goofy and idiotic. Carl became friends with Jimmy after feeling sorry for the big haired misfit. A few months later, Sheen also became Jimmy's friend after he helped him pass the math test his grade depended on. The boy genius was more generous and considerate back then. Also, he discovered the cool gadgets he built. As they officially formed a trio, Carl and Sheen were more closer than ever. Jimmy was a bonus addition. That didn't mean he loved Jimmy less. Except maybe right now.
What's he gonna do without Carl in his life? He loves Libby, but he feels he doesn't have that much in common with her. She dedicates her life to fashion and music. Sheen dedicates his life to Ultralord and gross stuff. Around Carl, he feels that he can truly be himself with. Who else could want Sheen as a friend? Sheen seems to annoy everyone. That kid with the shades kinda admires him? Nah! He was probably just being polite. There's his dad. Awww, who is he kidding? You can't have your own father as a friend! Just then, Sheen heard the door reopen. Carl was back, but now clutching an old llama plush, that's missing an eye.
"If you're truly sorry, then how 'bout apologizing to Lucy the Llama as well?" "C'mon, Carl! That was five years ago!" "Well. I guess you're not sorry at all-" "Wait! I was only kidding! I love Lucy!"
Sheen then seized the plush toy out of Carl's hand.
"Lucy; I'm sorry for ripping your left eye out. My Triclops figurine needed it so badly, and it would've been embarrassing to face off Ultralord with only two eyes."
Then, Sheen planted a kiss on the toy's forehead. Carl was quite astounded. He didn't think Sheen would go that far. Sheen hates Lucy the Llama. As Sheen gave Carl his plush back, the allergy boy embraced his friend into a hug. Sheen returned it by folding his arms around him.
"Apology accepted. But you can't say anything mean about Jimmy no more!" "Promise! Now let's go find that whippy dip head son of a gun together! Sorry, that wasn't suppose to sound mean." "Right on!"
Just as they were about to leave the Wheezer doorstep, Carl picked up as many croissants he could hold. Even though they've been on the dirty ground, Carl didn't mind taking a bite out of them. He thought they were still good. Sheen cringed in disgust. A kid named Creg suddenly rolls by on his skateboard, gets himself into an accident, then breaks his leg.
"Why are so many of these kids breaking their legs?!" Screamed Sheen. "Probably because Nick's not here to do it?" Replied Carl.
.............................
[*At the Neutron household*]
Mrs. Dean finally got Judy to calm down. All she had to do was request her to tell her stories about her son, as many as she wants. She figured she would get Judy to relax with anything Jimmy related. She even managed to get her to drink the tea she made. For the last two hours, Mrs. Dean grew bored listening to Judy's stories all day, about Jimmy's tangled situations. If she listens to any more, she fears she'll also go insane in this mad house.
"So on that Sunday, I was there doing my weekend cleaning. Jimmy was watching his favorite philosophy program. He suddenly got hungry, and asked me, a woman with her hands full at that moment, to fetch him a snack. I said, 'Well, there must be something wrong with your arms if you can't get it yourself.' He then pulled out one of his wacky inventions from under the sofa, a robotic arm of some sort, and attempted to reach for his needed snack. Unfortunately for him, the controls were infirm, resulting in reckless steering. He knocked down potted plants, china, Hugh's duck collection, etc. My perfectly clean house. Then there was this night, that happened two years ago. Mr. Vortex, I know his forename I just don't care, delivered me my son, wrapped in a toilet paper cocoon. His daughter also brought back one of his invention, some cannon that launches TP rolls, and she claimed he used it to foil her slumber party. I can't believe I punished him for it. I never even liked that Cindy. Jimmy sure had the right idea breaking things off with her. What did he even see in that ungrateful witch anyways? Why were they even dating at such a young age?! They're not even in middle school yet!" "There was this other time-" "Hugh, get back down!" "Okay!"
Mrs. Dean was finally put into relieve as Libby ran straight into the house, with news. Carl and Sheen were behind her.
"MRS. NEUTRON! MRS. NEUTRON! Hello, Mrs. Dean. MRS. NEUTRON!" Libby came in screaming. "Not now, Libby. Can't you see the grown ups are talking?" Said Judy. "It's about Jimmy!" "MY JIMMY?!" "And Nick!" "HUH-?!" Mrs. Dean fell off from her seat. "I can't take the credit though! I owe it to these two companions! Especially you, Sheen. *Blows kiss*" "What did we ever do? We see the famous pop star, Rioona, pull up in her limo to cut the ribbon for the new RnB themed cafe. Libby starts getting jumpy, squealing 'OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH! IT'S RIOONA! PULLING UP JUST WHEN WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF AN IMPORTANT INVESTIGATION! I DON'T WANNA LEAVE! I WANNA STAY FOR A MINUTE! MAYBE A FEW HOURS!' And then I said, 'Why not just take a picture? It lasts longer.'" Said Carl. "By just those words alone, that gave me a brain blast of my own! (Oooooooh, I just rhymed) By the way, I've got about 164 shots of Rioona opening the cafe! I even got myself in some of the shots! Look!"
Judy just slapped the phone out of Libby's hand. Everyone was intimidated, except Carl, who was in love with her more. What a woman.
"Just tell me where my baby is!" "Okay... You see, by just the sheer mention of 'picture,' that's when it hit me! I forgot, we all forgot, Jimmy had his security cams activated, and they were still working by the time I revisited the lab! ...which looked like either a tornado hit it or Cindy got her revenge again. I managed to extract the footage onto my hard drive! Look!"
Libby opened up her laptop, then inserted the hard drive. The footage began to play on media player. There was Jimmy and Nick, handcuffed together, trying to find a solution to undo the chain. Nick touched the keyboard, despite Jimmy's warning. The security breach got triggered, weapons engaged, and the two boys ran into a police box, which is supposedly the boy genius's time machine. The machine vanished, and all was history. We searched all around Retroville for nothing?
"So... It was your son's fault that my Jimmy is gone." Said Judy. "What?! I'm pretty sure Nick didn't know about this installed security system! If only Jimmy took the liberty to tell him!" Replied Mrs. Dean. "Oh, so you're saying it is Jimmy's fault?!" "WHO CARES ABOUT WHOSE FAULT IT IS?! We've lost them both and there's possibly no way to get them back. None of us is a secondary Einstein, and it's not like you could purchase a time machine on the web!" "Apparently, yes you can." Said Libby. "What?!" Both mothers.
While Judy and Mrs. Dean were arguing, Libby pulled up Cbae.com on her laptop and searched "time machine." You can surprisingly buy anything off of Cbae. But, just their luck, it costs $500,000,000, plus $100,000 for shipping. No use in trying to search a cheaper deal, because that's the only one available.
"But none of us have that kind of money!" Said Judy. "Maybe if we put together all of our money, we could make it work! *Starts digging into his pockets* I have $16, 42¢, a wrapper from a Chuckles bar, some bobby pins, lint, hey, it's the key to the handcuffs!" Spoke Carl, trying to help. "Oh, like that's gonna help us now!" Whined Sheen. "Calm down, y'all. I know where we can get that money. But, it may involve something we're going to regret." Said Libby. "*Gasp* You don't mean..."
............................
[*Elsewhere, in Eustace Strych's living room*]
"So you want me, formal enemy of Jimmy Neutron, to lend you a total amount of $500,100,000?" Said Eustace. "So none of us is selling our bodies? What a relief!" Sheen blurted. "I think you should stay off the internet for awhile." Libby suggested. "What's the catch?" Eustace continued to question the adults. "You see, it's for a very, very, important cause, young man." Judy answered. "And how important may that be? Hmmmmmm?" "Well-" "My son, Nick, needs an operation! He's broken his legs numerous times, but eventually both of them have ripped out from their sockets! Gruesomely! Blood everywhere! The hospital is charging me that much to reattach his legs back, plus to get him out of his coma! The prices are so high because of the evil greediness of capitalism! They don't even care about children! Please have a heart! He's Jimmy's friend, too!" Mrs. Dean butted in. "Ha-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho, what makes you think I'd even care to support a charity cause for some washed up has-been? Like anybody would care anymore. I don't support any charity cause, for that matter. Giving to the needy means less for me. Besides, me and Neutron don't exactly have the best history together. On second thought, if you want that money so badly, you're gonna have to bring Neutron right here, have him beg to me, and apologize for underestimating my superiority to his genius!" "We can't!" "Why not?" "Because, h-he's trying to invent a new life saving device!" "Well, No Neutron, no money! Guess I'll have to buy myself a third water park!"
The squad then went to the hall to talk.
"What are we gonna do now?" Asked Judy. "Does he know Jimmy is missing?" Also, asked Mrs. Dean. "Frankly, not. But if he ever does, we may never get that money." Replied Libby. "We're not gonna get that cash anyways. How are we gonna bring Jimmy out here?" Carl whined. "WAIT! There was something useful Jimmy actually taught me, a long time ago!" Sheen had an idea.
He then requested Goddard to project a life-like hologram of Jimmy, just like what happened at his tenth birthday party. Judy felt like crying, seeing that the hologram looks exactly like her son. She even wanted to touch it. Sheen then told her to stay focused, and handed her a voice moduling microphone. Goddard ejected a hand sized camera drone and displayed his teleprompter. He then got the hologram to march to Eustace's location. It then met with him in the living room.
"Ah, Neutron! I thought you'd show here eventually. What's wrong? Did that lifesaver of yours turn out to be a failure?" "Yes, indeed. I don't know what could've happen, but maybe I'm not as smart as I used to." "Like you ever were." "You're right. And I'm here to say I am sorry for getting in the way of your plans. I'm sorry for looking through your integrity. You have showed me that it's not about the brains. It's about what you can buy. I am selfish. I'm a loser. I suck and you rule." "The sweet sound of music!" "I'm not worthy of friends and that's probably why Cindy broke up with me for." "Didn't know you two were actually dating. You don't strike me as a boy who has a way with the ladies." "You're absolutely right! Now, will you please, please, lend me the money, so I can help my poor, hurt, dying reject of a friend?" "Well, I suppose you have amused me enough." "*Judy accidentally whispers into the microphone* What a spoiled little brat." "Excuse me?!" "I said I soiled my pants cuz I'm a brat." "Oh. Hurry up and take your money before you start leaking onto my carpet!"
Eustace ordered his butler to fetch the money. He then came back with a huge sack of cash. The hologram wouldn't be able to hold it, so Judy and Mrs. Dean quickly entered the scene to grab the sack.
"Thank you very much, kind sir! *Looks at the hologram* Jimmy, I am both proud and disappointed in you, my son! C'mon, we have a has-been to save!" Said Judy, then they took a run for it.
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