#accountable for my crimes acutally.

[bylertruther]

every time i rb my own post with my mile long tags tacked on n see it in my activity tab im just like jfc. how do u ppl deal with me. how do we live like this. why do u not hunt me for sport whenever i do tht. I Need To Be Put Down Actually

[she-is-ovarit]

I am on government insurance (Medicaid). Out of pocket, my psychologist's rate is $225 an hour. He went through a decade or more of school, obtained a PhD, and graduated with student loan debt. He didn't state how much, but I can imagine it's likely in the hundreds of thousands considering he still has this debt and graduated with his PhD in the early 2000s.

He shared with me that out of that $225 rate, he obtains about $25 from one Medicaid client's insurance company. The insurance company pockets the rest. My friend, another therapist, has a similar story. She makes $75 off of Medicaid clients usually when her rate out of pocket is $200.

Most therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists are no longer accepting Medicaid/Medicare insurances because of this reason, which people who are poor are on. Over half of mental health professionals are no longer accepting insurance, period. I think we all understand that low-income people and low-income communities struggle the most with mental health issues, and if you are a person of color in the US you are more likely to be low-income. If you are a domestic violence survivor turned homeless because you left your significant other, you are also more likely to be on Medicaid. If you are a first generation student, you are most likely on Medicaid. If you are formerly incarcerated, you are most likely on Medicaid. And so on.

Additionally, if you are a human being of the female sex, you are far more likely to seek out therapy than someone of the male sex. Overwhelmingly men don't seek out therapy unless their female significant partner pleads with them, pressures them, or gives them an ultimatum which influences them to make an appointment. What does this mean when the vast majority of mass shooters, rapists, pedophiles, and domestic violence abusers are male?

Figure 2. Percentage of adults aged 18 and over who had received any mental health treatment, taken medication for their mental health, or received counseling or therapy from a mental health professional in the past 12 months, by sex: United States, 2019

Pair all of these details with the fact that mental health professionals are in such high demand right now, that even with private insurance the wait list is anywhere from three to six months out. Insurance agencies are business, and the corruption inherent. Many focus on prioritizing coverage for acute crisis rather than treating long term underlying conditions (which in turn prevents acute crises), don't provide coverage for co-occurring conditions, are advertising that more providers are accepting their insurance than there actually are, and are solely driven by financial interest.

I wonder how much domestic violence, sexual violence, child abuse, poverty, hate crimes, generational trauma, and overall suffering within individuals and in their societies can be reduced by valuing mental health and holding insurance companies accountable for their financial exploitation.

We talk about the US healthcare crisis without talking about the US mental health crisis.

[shinelikethunder]

Regarding your tags about Good Omens not making your brain go brrrr - it's really interesting because early on while I was watching the new season, I found myself asking, like, "Is this actually good or do I just enjoy it?" And very quickly I decided the answer was "Well, you see, I enjoy it so much."

But as a result I've been thinking a lot about how I define whether or not a story is "good" because surely that indefinable quality of Makes Brain Go Brrrrrr should figure into it somewhere. And there's the inverse phenomenon to account for, of things that are like a dead fish to the fictive libido. I think that might be even more subjective, though.

It's not that I think quality is a totally meaningless concept when assessing art, I've just been thinking I might need to make more space within my metric for things like "joy" and "energy" and "vibrates my brain like a tumble dryer". As opposed to seeing those things as incidental and trying to take my own emotional response out of the equation.

it's a factor for sure, but if SPN proves anything, it's that "vibrates my brain like a tumble dryer" can be completely orthogonal to quality and enjoyment... sometimes the vibration is from canon having a two-for-one flash sale on hate crimes and writing crimes, y'know? sometimes episodes i find genuinely excruciating make me want to dissect them like bugs. (and on the flip side, there are plenty of works i do very much love on their artistic merits and enjoy, but not in the specific way that makes me want to scream in the tags of a tumblr gifset.)

like, yeah, variants of that Roger Ebert Reviews The Mummy (1999) reaction of "i can't even say what this has to recommend it except that i enjoyed the shit out of every minute of it" do deserve space as merits in their own right, but also, for me personally at least, that Brain Go Brr quality of... investment? engagement? obsessive need to poke at it and roll around in it and rotate it on the blorbo rotisserie?... doesn't necessarily have a straightforward relationship with quality or enjoyment. see previous reblog tags re: liking nbc hannibal perfectly well the first time around, but only losing my absolute shit over it when approaching via some borderline-unreadable thomas harris nonsense that managed to sink the first hooks in. and also many previous rants about the brain-go-brr-ness of rtd's doctor who being at its height when the show was most direly in need of fixing.

all of which is kind of a digression from good omens 2, which provoked neither fandom brainrot nor any particularly strong other type of enjoyment - i was sitting there going "this is... nice i guess?" amidst an increasingly acute realization that whatever quality of the book it was that originally hooked me in, pratchett's barbed sense of humor was absolutely vital for making the silliness land for me. i wish everyone who can get in their OTP Feelings about GO2 the joy of it, and will mostly be saluting from a distance as i scroll past on the dash. it seems to have succeeded reasonably well at the things it set out to do--and it turns out those things didn't do it for me, on any of the levels i might've wanted them to. the strange nature of it all is, i'd probably have much more specific criticisms if it had grabbed me.

[ear-worthy]

Blue Sky Podcast Celebrates National Optimism Month In March

Did you know that March is National Optimism Month? Being optimistic is now harder than ever. Politicians not in power describe doom and gloom. Social media is a viper's nest of the worst humanity has to offer. The local news only focuses on the bad stuff -- fires, crime, violence, and even meteorological scare tactics. Intolerance threatens democracy globally as we are expected to conform to a specific lifestyle and religion. 

But there is still plenty of reason to be optimistic. Reason number one for optimism is personal health and wellness. 

An American study of 2,564 men and women who were 65 and older also found that optimism is good for blood pressure. Researchers used a four-item positive-emotion summary scale to evaluate each participant during a home visit. They also measured blood pressure, height, and weight and collected information about age, marital status, alcohol use, diabetes, and medication. Even after taking these other factors into account, people with positive emotions had lower blood pressures than those with a negative outlook. On average, the people with the most positive emotions had the lowest blood pressure. The results of this research show that compared to optimists, pessimists nurtured little hope for the future and were more at risk for depressive and anxiety disorders, with subsequent impairment of social functioning and quality of life. The role of optimism in the quality of life has also been investigated in depressive disorders emerging in patients suffering from somatic pathologies, (such as acute coronary syndrome, for instance) in which a significant inverse correlation was found between dispositional optimism and level of satisfaction in life on one hand and depressive symptoms emerging after the cardiovascular event on the other hand

What does all this have to do with podcasting? 

Two words. Blue Sky.

  Blue Sky is hosted by Bill Burke, founder of The Optimism Institute, and this weekly podcast features inspiring leaders, authors, researchers, and big thinkers who are taking on some of our world’s toughest challenges with an infectious sense of optimism. Blue Sky takes its name from the meditation reminder that there’s always blue sky above, sometimes you just have to get your head above the clouds to see it. The show is hosted by Bill Burke, founder of The Optimism Institute and former media executive (president of TBS Superstation, and led the launch of Turner Classic Movies!)

Since March is National Optimism Month, the Blue Sky podcast has a special milestone 50th episode with author / podcaster Kelly Corrigan of the Kelly Corrigan Wonders podcast. 

On the 50th episode, Kelly Corrigan describes to Bill Burke the many things she’s learned in her life and career about optimism and how we all can benefit from life’s setbacks to become better people and forge stronger relationships. Kelly reflects on lessons she learned from her parents, and how facing her own cancer diagnosis and battle with the disease left her with a greater sense of empathy for others with similar hardships. She also explains why she thinks intellectual humility is a key ingredient for an optimistic outlook, and also that “there’s no feeling as good as being useful to someone.”

It is a thoughtful, lively, entertaining, and thoroughly optimistic discussion.  

One of my favorite episodes is with Kathryn Goetzke in August 2023. Following a challenging childhood and the tragic death of her father, Goetzke decided that the best way to tackle depression and despair is to create reasons for hope.  After studying the issue deeply with experts in psychology, she determined that hope was both teachable and measurable, and has made it her life’s work to spread this message.   In 2022, she published The Biggest Little Book About Hope, and continues to be a global mental health ambassador. She was recently appointed to represent the World Federation for Mental Health at the United Nations and in this Blue Sky episode she describes how she came to be so passionate about this work and why she remains so committed to the cause of spreading the good news about the powerful effects of maintaining a hopeful attitude.

Check out Blue Sky. Burke is a terrific host with a pleasing voice and humble manner, but he's not a pie-in-the-sky Pollyanna. There are so many energizing episodes where Burke talks with people who have a "get-it-done" mentality instead of a "what's the use" mindset. 

I'll end by stating that I am optimistic that you will listen to Blue Sky.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "Pessimism never won any battle."

[originalleftist]

Over the last few years, I did considerable research on Age of Sail Piracy.

I also spent a lot of time following the Depp v Heard case.

These things should have fuck all to do with one another, Depp playing a pirate in a popular movie should have zero bearing on how he is perceived in real life, but unfortunately it did.

However, I have sometimes found myself thinking about how much the difference between the loveable, charming rogue Depp's fans seem to see him as, and the reality of him as a drunken, violent, racist, misogynist, r*pist criminals, parallels the contrast between how pirates have often been portrayed as romantic rebels or heroes, and the frequent reality of them as drunken, violent, racist, misogynist, r*pist criminals. And how that perception helped him get away with horrific abuse of his ex-wife and others, and of the legal system- just as it sometimes helped historical pirates.

As someone who admittedly enjoys the fictionalized portrayals of pirates as well as the history of them, that thought leaves me feeling unsettled, even guilty. Certainly, you can argue that the historical context is wildly different- the historical pirates we all know (or think we do) often lived in a time where their actions weren't really any more immoral or criminal than those accepted by "mainstream" society, and some where operating from positions of relative disadvantage, which the mega-millionaire star Johnny Depp most certainly was not. And of course it's all the distant past now (few if any people, notably, glorify modern pirates). But that pattern, of romanticizing terrible people, persists today, and still has horrible consequences. And that the tendency to romanticize historical outlaws indirectly aided Depp in escaping accountability for his crimes, and continuing his abuse, both in terms of how it shaped his image, and the material wealth which that role provided him.

Maybe Johnny Depp is a lot more like a pirate than even his fans imagine- but in a much darker way than they think.

It's far from the only or even the most obvious example of how our perceptions of history shape the present, but it is one that I am acutely aware of because of my particular interests and focus over the last few years.

[crystaljins]

Shadows lurking

Characters: Seokjin x Reader

Word count: 2.8 K

Synopsis: You shouldn’t have come alone.

Gryffindor!Seokjin x Slytherin!reader

Notes: The request for this particular drabble was they wanted a gryff!jin and slytherin!reader with lots of pining, tension and rivalry. Writing scenes with tension isn’t my strong point but I thought I’d give it a go anyway! Hopefully it’s fun and entertaining. I also didn’t say this before I posted the last drabble, but the gorgeous banners you’ve been seeing for these drabbles are actually not made by me! I’ve added credits now (I couldn’t find their tumblr account but that has now been sorted!). Please send them lots of love for the gorgeous banners!

Warnings: There’s a creepy, unnamed beast in the forbidden forest, mentions of cheating, organised crime, snooping, lying and betrayal. Also some very contrived moments to force our leads to get up close and personal LOL

GORGEOUS BANNER BY @joheunsaram​ 

Masterlist

Your breath comes in harsh rattles in your chest. Branches try to snag you and catch on the sleeves of your robes, but you just crash through them. You’re going to die, alone in the forbidden forest, at the hand of some spooky, evil creature. You should have listened to the warm call of your bed, should have heeded the curfew set by the professors, anything. You have so many regrets.

A rogue fallen tree in your path stops your desperate sprint. Your shin glances off the branch and you go tumbling forward. For a moment you are airborne from the sheer speed at which you hit the tree, and then you crash into the ground in a spray of dead leaves and sharp twigs.

You squeeze your eyes shut, aware of the way an ice cold something trickles down the back of your neck, ready to die. This is it. You’re never going to see your parents again, never going to hex Agatha Rhymes behind her back again like she deserves. You can only hope that death comes quickly and painlessly.

But no such thing happens. Instead, a bright burst of warmth, the full force of sunshine and laughter, lights up the area around you, breaking through the cold, frosty night. 

When the blinding glow eventually fades, you are acutely aware of how the night seems warmer, and how whatever was chasing you is gone. Not that you can see anything to explain how you were saved. 

You can still hear though, and Kim Seokjin would never hesitate when the opportunity arises to gloat. 

“I thought reptiles didn’t come out in the cold.” He comments, and you flinch when you feel him settle before you. You’re still blinded by whatever spell he cast, so you merely push yourself to your hands and knees, wincing at the way the cuts and scrapes across your body suddenly all seem to burn at once now that the adrenaline rush is fading. “Yet here you are, ready to die cold and alone in the Forbidden Forest.”

Kim Seokjin is probably one of the last people you’d want to see you like this. Not only is he the poster boy for pigheaded Gryffindors, he’s probably the reason you’re in this mess in the first place. 

At least, it’s easier to blame him instead of yourself.

“So,” he asks nonchalantly, taking one of your hands between his with surprising gentleness considering the history of animosity between you two. “How’s the whole “ignoring me” approach going for you? Were you worried I’d stop you from getting murdered by some freaky ice beast if you spoke to me?”

You don’t respond. Your vision is starting to clear, and you can make out his faint outline amidst the darkness. It’s surprising that he knew you were here, but it’s even more surprising that he ventured into the depths of the Forbidden Forest to find you. Just a few short weeks ago this wouldn’t have happened. 

Your prolonged silence seems to irritate Jin. 

“Still going with the silent treatment, huh?” He asks, and there’s a bitterness to his tone that sets you off for some reason. As if he has a right to be upset. After everything that happened. “I guess that’s just the go-to Slytherin approach. Ignore your problems and sneak around behind people’s backs.”

“I mean, I could try the Gryffindor approach.” You nearly snarl. You can see his face now in the bone white moonlight that slices through the interwoven branches overhead. “You folk have always preferred the head on approach, right? Hope that your skulls are thick enough to bash your way through, cause goodness knows your head isn’t good for anything else?” 

Jin’s eyes flash with barely suppressed anger and he clenches his jaw. But you aren’t finished. 

“Oh wait,” you recall sarcastically. You hate the venom in your tone. You hate the way his presence seems to sting against your skin, worse than the cuts and bruises you’re covered in.  “But that’s not your preferred approach, is it? You do seem to be a big fan of the Slytherin approach.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Jin says, and his tone is quiet, lethal in a way that you didn’t think he was capable of. “I’m not a mind-reader, (Y/N). If you have a problem with me, just say it. I’m sick of dealing with your stupid mind games. You’re such a-“

“Such a what?” You cut in, surprised by how angry you are.  Initially, you had been sad, and miserable, but slowly you feel the heat of anger trickle in. He drives you crazy. “Such a snake?”

Jin goes silent, pursing his lips. 

“I didn’t say that.” He grits out. You laugh and it lacks humour. 

“You didn’t have to, Jin. I can tell. You’re just like every other one of your stupid friends. You think you’re so much better than us because you wear red instead of green, but you know what?” You lean in close to his face so that you can revel in the way his expression wavers just slightly. “You’re a liar. A faker. You’re worse than a snake. Or did you forget why we’ve even been spending time together? Tell me, how does it feel, sneaking around behind your friends’ backs?” You continue. You don’t even know what you’re saying- you just want to get under his skin. You want him to be bothered in the same way that you are. You want him to squirm, because then at least you’ll feel like you’re on even footing. You despise how he always seems to have the upper hand. “It’s pretty fun, isn’t it? Lying like a snake? Surprisingly easy?” You feel the way his breath puffs against your skin in shaky exhales, and it feels good to see that stupid, perfect mask stripped away. To see the happy-go-lucky, popular, handsome Quidditch captain Jin lose that awful smile, the one that seems tattooed permanently to his face. The anger in his face slips when you echo back the words that he had used to describe you just a few days ago and understanding replaces it. You don’t like that- you don’t want him to understand you. You want his anger. If he’s angry and antagonistic then at least you feel less like a villain. “Let me tell you something about the Slytherin way, since you tried to take a page from our book. When we lie, we don’t get caught.”

Jin bites his lip and looks away, shamed. And he should be ashamed. Perhaps you should cut him some slack since he saved your life from whatever terrifying creature had pursued you, but you wish he’d just left you to die. He’s already proved he’s not the person you thought he was. Slytherins are prideful beings, and your pride is hurt. 

No, worse than that. 

Your feelings are hurt. You would be the shame of Slytherin, the laughingstock of the school, if anyone knew. Who knew Jin had the power to hurt your feelings?

A few short months ago, he didn’t. A few short months ago, everything was simple. Jin hated you and you hated him. Quidditch captain, obnoxious Gryffindor, the sweetheart of the school... all qualities in direct opposition to you. The two of you went together like oil and water and on more than one occasion, professors had actively had to adjust the entire school’s schedule to avoid you two working together. 

That all changed when your professor had begged you to join the school journalism team at the start of the year. The Daily Hogwarts Times was a dying paper with very few students interested in it, but it had combined the few strengths you had- a tendency towards nosiness and a sharp, entertaining wit that came across well in black ink. In just a short while, you’d developed a small team, gained a following of bored students eager for gossip and finally people were looking at Slytherins as more than shallow bullies. 

And then Kim Seokjin had approached you with a story. You’d only been pursuing journalism a short time, but you couldn’t turn down the thrill of a story as big as Kim Seokjin’s.

And, if you’re being totally honest with yourself, which is rare enough in itself, something about the desperation in Jin’s face when he had approached you had stuck with you. As much as you hated him, as obnoxious as you found him, as much history as there was between the two of you, he needed help. He hadn’t reached out to you, his enemy, for nothing. 

And it was likely because he couldn’t trust anyone in his own house. It’s no secret that Gryffindors are the darlings of the school, and professors are a little more likely to turn a blind eye based purely on the belief that Gryffindors would never misbehave to the detriment of another. 

Except they were and they are. It’s not even the blatant cheating, the sourcing of exams before, the contacting of external reps to “scout” students and the bribery into classes they never should have made it into in the first place. It’s the sabotage, the active steps taken to ensure the students who should be topping the year are anything but and for what? To make it into a cutthroat, prestigious wizarding university halfway across the world that had only just started accepting foreign students? 

And so, you and Jin had been working together for months in secret, trying to gather evidence, to discover who sat at the core of all these misdemeanours. Because surface level misdemeanours like these don’t mean much- students cheat all the time. Slytherins cheat all the time. No, it’s the inherent organisation to it all, the fact that there has to be some sort of mastermind behind it all that makes it such a scoop. 

And it would have proceeded, straightforward like that. You get the scoop. Jin gets his scholarship back, the one he had lost to one of the many cheaters. Except...

Except you had caught feelings. Like an idiot. Like the opposite of what a Slytherin should be doing. You’d been doing a lot of that lately, not acting like a Slytherin should. Like coming to this forest alone and unprepared because of a random letter you had received promising a lead in your investigation. 

Only, when you had been planning to approach Jin about it, he hadn’t been the Jin you knew. You don’t think he even knew you were there- maybe he wouldn’t have said those things if he did. It had been him and a group of his obnoxious Gryffindor friends, the ones who liked to roll their eyes and jeer at Slytherins in the hallways. They were laughing together, fooling around and being noisy in the way that Gryffindors seem to always be. And then you’d heard your name. It had only been lighthearted- bumping elbows and joking that Jin had been seen spending time with you.

“As if I’d spend time with a snake,” he had snorted. “Liars and cheats, the lot of them. And she’s the worst culprit of all of them.”

It was stupid, in hindsight. You’re normally the type to roll your eyes and brush off comments like that. But something about the way Jin had said it… you hadn’t even had it in you to give him the chance to clear his name or explain himself. You weren’t really in a state to, after a blow like that. Instead, you’d decided that your original approach of seeing stories through on your own was far preferable to the hard, painful sensation in the centre of your chest. It had been painful, ignoring him like that, but nowhere near as painful as his words had been, and eventually you had decided you would brave the anonymous tip off meeting on your own.

Which was how you’d ended up here, bruised, bleeding and heartbroken. 

Jin maintains his silence as he ignites the tip of his wand with a quick spell, examining the lacerations that trace length of your forearms. His anger seems to have cooled drastically, especially after your petty outburst. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small vial. He tips a small amount against the tip of his thumb, before gently smoothing his thumb across each cut with a carefulness that makes your heart tremor uneasily in your chest. The bleeding lines vanish with the movement of his thumb.

“So, you heard all that. I guess that’s why you’ve been ignoring me, huh?” He finally says, looking up at you. With the light of his wand, you can now see his expression in full. It may just be the lighting, but he looks pale, and sweat beads at his temples like he’s just run a mile. “For what it’s worth... I didn’t mean a word of it.” He looks away, adjusting the glasses that rest on the tip of his nose. “You’re ten times more trustworthy than they could ever be. I just didn’t want them to catch on that we’re on their tails.”

That leaves you silent. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense. If you’re chasing rats, the quickest way to send them scurrying back into the putrid depths is to let them know you’re there. If people clued in that you and Jin were chasing the story, your leads would dry up and the past few months of gathering evidence would have been for naught. 

“It looks like we’re too late though.” Jin remarks, peering around the eerie depths of the forest. “This is a setup if I ever saw one- obviously they were hoping you wouldn’t come out. They must have worked out you were on their trail.”

He sighs, and gets to his feet, dusting off his robes and stretching a hand outwards to you. You glare at it for a moment, and he rolls his eyes, crouching down so he can grab your hand and yank you not-so-gently to your feet. He doesn’t let go of your hand, once you are on your feet, and instead he uses it to pull you closer. 

“(Y/N),” he calls gently. It’s a tone you’re still not quite used to him taking with you, but it’s been coming more and more frequently as of late. “Talk to me. Be mad. Be sad. Anything. Just...” he hesitates, before opening his mouth again. “Don’t shut me out like this. Please. Not after everything we’ve been through together.” 

You brave the discomfort in your chest and meet his gaze. In the light from his wand, his eyes are bright and warm. They’re kind in a way you’ve always been jealous of. Why does he get to emanate such warmth and kindness when all you seem to bring to the table is ice and misery?

“Do you mean it?” You finally say. And you hate how weak and pathetic you sound. “That I’m trustworthy? Do you trust me?”

Jin looks surprised by your line of questioning. For a moment, he looks genuinely surprised before his expression melts into a pleased, cheeky sort of grin. 

He’s about to answer, but then in the next moment, he’s up against you, pinning you to the trunk of a tree. 

“Don’t move.” He hisses, catching your surprised gasp with his palm pressed against your lips and extinguishing his wand with the other.

The cold, rotten feeling from earlier returns to the air. An unpleasant rumble vibrates through the air. And Jin presses in closer against you until you can feel the shallow, tight flutters of his ribcage as it expands against yours. His breath puffs warm against you, in direct contrast with the chill that clings to your skin. 

The presence draws closer- that pungent, rotten smell returns. Jin squeezes his eyes shut and tucks his face into the crook of your neck. This close, you’re aware of the way that fear makes his breaths shaky and uneven. 

The silence draws out between you two until finally the air warms and the presence vanishes. 

“Sorry.” Jin gasps against you. “It sees us based on movement- if we don’t move, it can’t see us.” 

“I-it’s fine.” You stutter, but internally curse yourself for being so affected by his proximity. It’s so utterly juvenile to be affected by a crush like this. “We should get out of here.” You say quickly, going to push him away with a hand against his chest. 

His hand shoots up to grab your wrist. 

“I do trust you, just so you know.” He says quickly. “In answer to your earlier question. We’re partners now, (Y/N). So, I hope any future expeditions like these are done together.”

He steps back, tugging you alongside by your wrist. 

“And maybe after you publish this story, we can have a chat about how sweet it is that you care so much about my trust and how obvious that huge crush you have on me is.” He offers as a parting shot. 

He only just barely manages to dodge the petty jinx you toss at him in response.

[heyheydidjaknow]

Original Ask: Do you think you can do bayverse tmnt turtles for Leo, raph, donnie, Mikey as its goes like this , they were raised by the shredder as they're father died after their mutation as he didn't make it out the fire , they all the best foot clan soldier and obedient dogs they are and satisfied the shredder and they are given access to their pleasure and women , when they are doing a crime , they come across (s/o) , who she is just walking and gets robbed by a gang and the turtles come to the rescue and they start a liking of (s/o), who treats them kindly but they want to break her and make them theirs , as kidnapping her and forcing her into sexual acts with them as they want her all for themselves

I cut this one a bit shorter than I might have because I wanted to actually be able to release it with the others. It’s also a bit more innocent than the others, but that isn’t saying much. I might continue this one on my own time, actually, but that’s neither here nor there. The other parts of this request are linked at the end.

Note that the following content contains stalking, kidnapping, and other content you may find disturbing. Discretion is advised.

Donatello

He was not particularly good at fighting, had little passion for it, and never claimed otherwise. He had little place amongst his brothers, but use amongst the Foot. There were reasons for him not to leave, not the least of which being that the only people he knew were there, and if he did leave he had nowhere to go. Unlike his brothers, he was acutely aware of the legal ramifications of their involvement with the Foot; there were worse things, he supposed, than having to be involved in this sort of thing under the condition of not getting caught. Personality-wise, he was colder, but the burning curiosity was still there, fueled by his master’s willingness to embrace the future and his need for a good accountant. He had never been stronger than his siblings, but he was naturally stronger than humans and made do with what he could, and though his guardian– not father, he knew, never father– was not particularly keen with his overthinking, he respected education and technology enough to allow him the resources necessary to do a lot of the more math and science-oriented work he excelled at, though his advancements scientifically were typically more to do with biochemistry than mechanical engineering. As a result of all this, he rarely went out on missions, only really being called in to talk to other people outside of his brothers for training purposes (the old adage proved true; he made a fine teacher.)

It got lonely. He would be the first to admit it. The only one who would talk to him was Michelangelo, the other two considering themselves too above him to waste their time. Though he was not a social creature by nature, there was something disheartening, even to him, about spending almost every waking hour surrounded on all sides by screens, working for more for the sake of working than any definitive, tangible purpose outside of a short-sighted dream. He enjoyed what he did, sure, but he quickly came to understand that this alone was not sufficient in fulfilling all of his needs, socially speaking. YouTube videos and meal breaks only counted for so much, and even if he were to indulge in the women he was allowed, in his mind, it was about as pointless as curbing hunger with cotton balls, like curbing thirst with a coffee; momentary satisfaction with no substance. If he were to buy a woman, he understood, the odds of her loving him were near nonexistent.

That was what he was looking for. Not love, necessarily, but something akin to what he understood it to be as derived from pirated movies, articles, and videos: unconditional romantic affection derived from character as opposed to accomplishment. If he were to get in any sort of relationship with the women who wanted him, he understood, that would be essentially impossible, since no woman in her right mind would consciously decide to love an Oroku. This fact, that this seemingly paramount human experience was one he would personally be unable to ever have, was disheartening, but not cripplingly so. He saw it a bit like death: an unfortunate inevitably completely out of his control, but not the worst thing in the world. It was not so much a painful absence as it was an uncomfortable one, one that his brothers coped in other ways that he just happened to find largely insufficient.

He started using chat rooms when he was relatively young out of sexual curiosity. He thought, at the time, that he could imitate sex anonymously as well any normal person would. Of course, it never went anywhere, but on occasion– once, every six months or so, when the isolation got to him– he would return to the sites he had visited with the pretense of seeing what had changed since he had last logged on. One of the sites he had found and used was a chat-roulette style anonymous room in which you would simply type in your basic information and a user name and begin rolling for partners. It was on one of these nostalgic revisits that he met you, unique in the fact that you had sent a greeting as opposed to the customary “asl?” common amongst the chatroom community. It had been a lovely conversation about a movie you had recently watched that he was familiar with, the first of its kind in quite some time, and had gone so well, in your opinion, that you wanted to continue it. You offered him contact information via a third-party messaging system he was personally unfamiliar with and offered to talk to him again.

Messaging you quickly became an integral part of his daily routine. Every night, at around seven, he would message you, and more often than not, you messaged back within the hour. Your conversations were hardly ground-breaking to him, mostly regarding media the two of you were familiar with, but they were extraordinary in their innocuousness, in how relaxed they were. He told you as much, and after a month or so of you messaging him unprompted by anything but tradition, you introduced him to your online friends. You invited him into group chats. They thought he was odd– you knew most of them in real life– but you had gone so far as to vouch for him. “He’s shy is all,” you teased, not understanding what it meant to him that you bothered. “Enjoy it while it lasts. When he starts talking, he cannot shut up.” Pretty soon, he had something akin to friends, if only for your sake, and while your group and he mixed as well as oil and water, he was allowed and welcomed with arms more open than he was used to. This investment in your conversations only grew when, after about a month, you had your first call. If you recognized his voice, you did not say, and though the first call was possibly the tensest of his life, after that, it became as natural as breathing, talking to you.

He explained it to a transfixed Mikey, once. “Talking to her,” he had sighed, a smile spreading slowly across his face, “ just makes sense.”

The thought had first crossed his mind on a Tuesday night. He remembered specifically that it was a Tuesday because a restaurant you happened to frequent gave you a discount on Tuesdays, a prospect which delighted you to no end. Unlike most nights, however, you had deemed the walk – by your estimate, ten minutes– to be a stupid use of energy, and ordered in. This in itself would have been unremarkable had it not been that you had never used their delivery service before and had, thus, made the order over the phone, and for you to receive your food, you needed to give the restaurant your address. Half an hour later, you received your food– or, anyways, you vocalized as much– and the conversation went on as normal.

That night, after the two of you had signed off, working on a neurotoxin Shredder had requested, he found himself drifting back to the call, the address. He had not left his laboratory in quite some while, so his knowledge of the streets above was somewhat limited, but he knew where you were. It was not particularly far, about a half-hour walk on a busy night, twenty of a slower one. So long as progress was made, he knew, he would hardly be penalized for taking a break, for walking around. It was not as if he was being held against his will; he could, if he so chose, walk to where you lived, just to get an idea of what your life was like beyond the screen. You thought he lived in Montana. You would never need to know he was there.

He shut it down at first. A part of him was worried that you might have been lying to him, or that he might be careless and get caught. If you found out, you might stop talking to him. You would hate him.

Minds that can stand to stare at test tubes, spreadsheets, and code for long periods, however, were hardly made to simply let things go.

After about a month, on a day in which his experiments needed little personal monitoring, on a Friday night, he convinced you to try to stay up for the sake of seeing how long you could go. It was not the most elaborate or well-thought-out excuse in the world to make sure that you were asleep, but he was confident in his ability to outlast you, and sure enough, you were out before he even had to reach for caffeine. Finding your address was about as simple as he had imagined it to be, and though finding which window would give him a decent look at you without arousing the suspicions of anyone else who happened to pass by proved to be a bit of a challenge, he managed well enough.

He thought your voice matched your appearance. He had asked you basic questions in the past– hair color, eye color and symbolism, things like that– but he never would have expected that you looked so real, and though there were certain aspects of you that he was simply unable to see due to distance, he could not help but drink in the sight of you.

Your name was not hard to find online. He was not the computer wizard he might have been, but he was still comfortable enough around electronics to figure it out. He did not visit every night. He had things to do, numbers, and tests to run, and he hardly had the free time to check on you that often. He considered installing a camera somewhere, but thought better of it; while installing it and connecting it would be easy enough, he was unsure that he would be able to find a place where you would not find it, and he hardly wanted to make you paranoid. As often as he could afford to go, however, he saw you. Sometimes you were awake, headphones on, and oblivious to all but what was on your computer, others you were fast asleep. If he was feeling particularly daring, he would go so far as to watch you while the two of you talked or messaged. He never went into your home on these visits– he considered that a step too far– but that hardly discouraged him any. He would not personally call himself “addicted to you” in the same way that songs seemed to always advertise, but Donnie would be the first to admit that the transition from a warm sort of affection towards you to the undeniable romantic attraction was not a gradual one. Love– or whatever this was– certainly did feel a lot like falling, and the shift promoted what he decided to call a hyper fixation.

“You should just take her.”

His fingers paused over his keyboard, processing what his brother had just said. “What?”

“You should just take her,” his younger brother repeated, a cadence similar to that of someone telling their friend to “shoot their shot”. “Grab her, carry her over, and keep her here.”

“I can’t kidnap her.” The laugh that bubbled in his throat was one of incredulity. “That’s– that’s ridiculous! Why would I– why would you even suggest that?”

If he was joking, Michelangelo was very good at hiding it. “What’s stopping you?”

“The law,” Donnie snarked back, ignoring how his heart leaped at the idea. “It’s illegal, and women apparently don’t take too kindly to it, so all it would do was make her dislike me or get me arrested.”

He chuckled at that. “I thought you said we’re doomed if we get found out anyway!” He walked over to him, flicking him as he hopped onto his older brother’s desk. “The only reason you don’t is that you’re scared that she’s not gonna like you,”

“Am not!”

“Are too.” He grinned, draping his feet over his older sibling’s backrest. “You know who didn’t think he’d get the girl at the end?”

It was moments like these when he regretted sharing his interests. “Who, Mikey?”

“Mark from BJD. And you know who got the girl at the end of that movie?”

You would hate him. “Mark.”

“Mark.” He removed his legs, folding them with a complete disregard for the papers strewn about it. “And girls totally dig that movie! That actor is in a ton of romantic movies, and you know why, Donnie?”

Even if it would be a dream come true for him, you would hate him. “Why?”

“Because he was willing to go for her even if she didn’t know he wanted her.” He slipped off the desk, and his brother, lost in thought, barely noticed the papers that slid onto the floor.

“She’d…” He shut himself down. “We aren’t human. There’s a difference.”

“Beauty and the Beast.” Mikey counted on his fingers. “Twilight. When has a lack of humanity ever stopped anyone?”

An indescribable sort of warmth filled him. “We’re criminals,” he mumbled, more to himself than his brother. “We can’t... I can’t…”

“You know how many women would kill to be with us?” He slipped his hands into his pockets. “Many. Chicks totally dig bad boys, and yeah, sure, maybe you don’t do much–”

“The hell I don’t.”

“-- But you’re still an Oroku, son of the leader of the infamous Foot Clan.” His voice lowered as he leaned his elbows against the desk, watching his brother’s face. “And, hey? At least it would objectively not be the worst thing you’ve ever done.”

Michelangelo never brought it up again. Neither did he. About a month later, he ran out of excuses not to. A month after that, he took you.

The order was not questioned. They would have to be suicidal to question the intentions of an Oroku.

The first couple of weeks were the worst. For lack of a place to put you, he kept you in his lab, blindfolded, strapped to a metal chair he had designed a week in advance. It was hardly comfortable, and he regretted not having someplace nicer to keep you, but it served its purpose. You stayed put, and that was what was important at that point. The first day was distressing for you if your cries and pleas for help were any indicators, but he thought better of giving you something to calm you down. You needed to adjust on your own; sedatives were to only be used if absolutely necessary. Mikey, ever the extrovert, proved to be rather helpful as the days went on. He was more than willing to talk to you while his brother worked, to ease you into feeling something akin to comfort, and over the course of the week, you screamed less and less.

On day nine, he talked to you. Same time as was customary before. He had brought you all your meals, helped you with blood circulation and other necessary actions, but he had not talked to you for fear you would hate him. You had stopped screaming, though; he hoped you would be at least a bit more receptive, after all this time.

He knelt before you, then, having asked Mikey to leave them. He did not protest, giving a thumbs up on his way out. Gently, he bowed, letting himself be cradled in your thighs. It was the first time he had touched you, laying his head on your lap. If you minded this simple show of affection, you did not vocalize it.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, absent. You were so warm.

He was unsure if you heard.

His eyes rose to yours, obscured by the blindfold. “I should have planned better,” he admitted, a smile ghosting across his face. “It all happened so fast; you deserve better.”

You were shaking.

He rose to his feet, forearm pressed into the backrest of your chair. Carefully, he pressed his forehead against yours. “Why are you crying?” A free hand cupped your face, lifting the blindfold just enough so that he could wipe your tears away. “I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

If he was farther away, he would not have heard your question. “Why?” you breathed. “I don’t understand. Why would you do this?”

His brow furrowed. “Are you scared?”

Your breathing stuttered.

He pulled away slightly. It was inevitable. Change was hard. You would come around.

You just needed time.

Leonardo

Raphael

Michelangelo

Previous Works

[dwellordream]

“Olive Morris learned early in life the consequences of fighting injustice. She was just 17 in November 1969 when she became caught up in an incident of police brutality. One minute she was hanging out with friends at Desmond’s Hip City, a record store in Brixton, in South London, the next she found herself being beaten by officers.

Accounts vary on exactly what happened. What is known is that Clement Gomwalk, a Nigerian diplomat who was driving his Mercedes, was pulled over by the police near the record store and accused of stealing the car. At the time, the so-called British “sus” law — a reference to a “suspected person” — allowed the police to stop and search people purely on suspicion of wrongdoing, and black people often found themselves the target. Gomwalk protested his arrest and the police became more forceful. A scuffle ensued, and spectators joined in.

At some point Morris stepped in, and she was handcuffed. She fought back, and the officers arrested her on charges of assault and detained her at a police station. “Each time I tried to talk or raise my head I was slapped in the face,” she was quoted as saying in “Violence at Desmond’s Hip City: Gender and Soul Power in London,” an essay by Tanisha C. Ford from the book “The Other Special Relationship: Race, Rights, and Riots in Britain and the United States” (2016). After the police released her some hours later, she went to King’s College Hospital, where pictures were taken of her swollen face and body.

The incident catapulted her into a movement of black women in 1970s Britain fighting against racial discrimination. Morris went on to raise awareness of inequalities by traveling, writing, organizing protests and setting up support groups. She “represents the kind of Black women who, over the years, have thrown themselves into the struggle in this country and made an indelible, if anonymous, mark,” Stella Dadzie, Suzanne Scafe and Beverley Bryan wrote in “Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain” (1985). The authors helped start the movement.

Systemic racism in Britain in the 1970s was particularly acute in the wake of the right-wing politician Enoch Powell’s 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech, an incendiary attack on racial integration that has been denounced as one of the most racist public addresses in modern British history. A disproportionate number of black families lived in poverty and were subject to police brutality. Black children were classed as educationally subnormal. Mounting racial tensions eventually fed into the Brixton Riots of 1981, in which mostly young black men attacked buildings, set fire to cars and fought the police for three days, resulted in the injuries of 300 people.

As a result, “our kids were being criminalized,” Dadzie said in a phone interview, “steered into a life of petty crime and unemployment.” Between temporary jobs doing clerical work at various offices, Morris helped set up the Brixton Black Women’s Group and the Organization of Women of African and Asian Descent, or OWAAD, the first networks for women of color in Britain. The networks, and OWAAD in particular, had a decisive influence, mobilizing black women to engage in politics and push back against inequalities, particularly in housing and education.

Morris was often one of the loudest voices at demonstrations, including one she helped organize in 1972 after two black children living in public housing died in a fire that was started when their portable heaters were knocked over. The protesters, including 15 children, rallied outside local government offices to demand safer heating in public housing.

Government workers threatened to call the police, but Morris knew the police wouldn’t arrest the children, so she told the group to disperse and sent the children inside the government office. Several minutes later, the head of the housing department came outside and agreed to look into the matter. Central heating was soon installed.

“She never regarded herself as a leader, but in fact she took the lead,” her partner, Mike McColgan, said in a phone interview. In 1972, Morris started squatting in underused buildings. Occupying empty or abandoned buildings was not a crime; rather, if squatters stayed in buildings long enough, they could eventually claim rights to them. At the time, thousands of people were on waiting lists for housing or were living in poor conditions, and by squatting, Morris and others called attention to the fact that properties remained vacant even as people were homeless.

In one instance, a vacant flat above a launderette in South London that Morris and a friend, Liz Obi, had squatted in was turned into a bookshop, called Sabaar, that catered to the black community. It became a meeting space for groups like the Black Workers’ Movement and Black People Against State Harassment.

Morris also traveled to broaden her knowledge and share what she had learned with others. In China she saw how workers were encouraged to develop ideas rather than simply complete mindless tasks, Morris wrote in the Brixton Black Women’s Group newsletter in 1977. “This at first was very difficult for us to understand, because we are so used to being told that workers can only do the mere minimum, like standing in front of a machine or pulling one lever at a time,” she wrote. “We as Black people, of course, are used to being told by racists that we can only learn one thing at a time.”

Olive Elaine Morris was born on June 26, 1952, in St. Catherine, Jamaica, to Vincent Nathaniel Morris and Doris Lowena (Moseley) Morris. Her parents later moved to London, leaving Olive and her three siblings with her grandmother. Olive and her brother Basil joined their parents in London in 1961, and their two younger siblings, Jennifer and Ferran, moved there later. Her father worked as a forklift driver. Her mother built radios and televisions in a factory and cleaned offices.

Morris studied economics and sociology at the University of Manchester on a scholarship, graduating in 1978. She joined the Black Panthers’ Youth Collective as a teenager at a time when there were few legal protections against racial discrimination in Britain. In that time she supported black and white workers on picket lines, protested an immigration law that restricted the rights of commonwealth citizens, and demonstrated against the “sus” laws.

In the summer of 1978, she was bicycling in Spain with McColgan when she felt a sudden pain. On returning home she learned she had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer. She died on July 12, 1979, at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London. She was 27. The government in South London named an administrative building after her, but it is now set to be demolished, to clear the way for private housing to be built on the site. There are plans to lay a cornerstone memorializing Morris, and a scholarship fund will be set up in her name.

In 2015 Morris also became a face of the Brixton Pound, a currency designed to support businesses in South London. Those who knew Morris lament that she isn’t around to fight the inequalities that remain. Black people are still more likely than white people to be stopped by the police in Britain. Some argue that racism remains entrenched in the establishment and that intolerance has been rising. “If she was alive she would still be out there demonstrating,” her sister, Jennifer Lewis, said in a phone interview. “She would still be fighting.”

- Amie Tseng, “Overlooked No More: How Olive Morris Fought for Black Women’s Rights in Britain.”

[imaginetonyandbucky]

The Buy In

Chapter 3: Puzzle Wrapped in an Enigma 

by @dracusfyre

On the way back home after the brothel closed, Bucky logged into Discord and dropped into a channel labeled only with random numbers and letters. First day of work was :thumbs up:  but there were two dudebros who tried to jam up my shit. Wish they would back off, he wrote. The channel was monitored 24/7 in case of emergency or actionable intel.

He waited as the dots danced, then his police handler wrote, that sucks. who are they?

Bucky typed the last four of Rumlow and Rollins’ badge numbers and put his phone back in his pocket. This operation was way more important than those two swinging dicks; between the video from tonight, which was going to be a PR nightmare for the department, and his request, Rumlow and Rollins better be manning a desk for the foreseeable future.

He was pulling out his keys to his apartment building when he heard a car door opening nearby. His head whipped around and his other hand was already on the pistol in the holster at the small of his back when he heard, “Whoa there Blue Eyes,” in a familiar voice. The figure that stepped out of the car held his hands up and stepped into the light.  “Hard day at the office?”

“I’ve had worse,” Bucky said warily.

“How’d everything go today?” Stark shoved his hands in his pocket and leaned against his car, the streetlight casting harsh shadows on his face.

“Fine. Didn’t KT give you a debrief?”

“Yeah, I heard his side. I wanna hear your side.”

Bucky thought about it, wondering if he should put a shine on it or be honest. “KT and Hawkeye’s play tonight was clever and would have worked perfectly against a different set of cops. But I think those two won’t give up until they get back at the person who embarrassed them. Might have made more problems than they solved.”

“Yeah?” Stark tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. “You sure about that? KT's been on the job for a few years now and thought it was a good call. It's your first day and you saw the cops for all of fifteen minutes.”

Bucky shrugged. “I’ve met guys like them before. Don't strike me as the type to know when they're beat. Best thing would be for them to be encouraged to take a long walk off a short pier.”

Stark made a thoughtful noise. “But KT explained office policy on that?”

“Yeah. Only as a last resort.” Bucky tried to sound neutral, but something of his skepticism must have bled through.

“You don’t agree?”

The note in Stark’s voice put Bucky on high alert. Higher alert, since his heart was still racing from before. “I get the logic, it’s just…different,” Bucky said. “Makes sense though. Bodies attract attention.”

“Is that the only reason you think it's a good policy?” Stark asked neutrally.

Bucky hesitated. He got the feeling there was a right and wrong answer to this and wished this conversation had happened six hours ago when he was less tired. “Killing people changes things,” he said finally - honestly - hoping he wasn’t about to touchy-feely himself out of this operation. Between the military, the police, and then undercover work with organized crime, he had been so steeped in machismo that it had become second nature – to those guys, life was one big dick measuring contest - but Stark didn’t seem to work like that. Or at least, he didn't want people to think he worked like that. “Not just changes people, but like…it sends a message to everyone else. ‘This is what a life is worth.’” Bucky took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing himself to maintain eye contact with Stark.  “People respond to that. Makes them…mean. Hard. So if you can avoid that...” He ran a hand over the back of his neck, feeling like an idiot. He probably sounded ridiculous. “So, yeah. Anyway. Guess if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right? Seems to be working for you.”

“We do alright,” Stark said slowly, and Bucky figured he must have said the right thing because he straightened and held out a hand for Bucky to shake. Bucky looked at it with surprise and took it, feeling acutely aware of the strength of Stark’s grip and the callouses on his palms. “Welcome aboard.”

                                               ***

Tony got back in his car as Blue Eyes continued into his building, cranking it and pulling away from the curb on autopilot. If Blue Eyes hadn’t been a cop, Tony would have told himself that he was too good to be true; as it was, Tony wondered if it was possible that the police or feds or whoever had profiled him well enough to give “Brooks” a gold plated script to work from. But it hadn’t felt like the new guy was playing him tonight; his comments had been too rambling and inarticulate to have been prepared in advance. Rhodey was going to think he was an idiot, but he really though Brooks was being honest with him tonight, which had the potential to change things.

At the first stoplight, he pulled out his phone and texted Rhodey.

I like him.

Rhodey sent a rolling eyes emoji almost immediately. Blue Eyes?

Yeah I want to keep him. he’s wasted as a cop.

The three dots must have started and stopped a dozen times; Tony was almost back to his own place when he finally got a response. You’re playing with fire.

Tony smirked. I know, he wrote back. It’s what I do.

Yeah, but this time, if you get burnt, we all do. Tony pulled into his private garage and turned off the car, listening to the engine tick as it cooled. Rhodey was right. As much as he was intrigued by Blue Eyes, he couldn’t put his people at risk by tugging on that thread. “Dammit,” he said out loud, scowling as he got out of the car. “Ten years ago I wouldn't have thought twice.”

                                             ***

A few weeks into the operation Bucky and KT were making the rounds, checking in with the businesses and people on their beat, and Bucky was suddenly struck by two things: one, just how much this gig felt like being a street cop, walking the sidewalks just observing the neighborhood; and two, how no one was ever this happy to see him when he was a street cop. People saw KT and more often than not, they were smiling, chatty about business and local gossip. Most of them greeted Bucky (“Oh, this must be Blue Eyes,” which had yet to stop making Bucky’s ears burn) and were happy to introduce themselves. The ones that weren’t smiling were the ones that had something to complain about: permit not going through, shipment delayed, broken equipment that insurance wasn’t paying out for. KT took notes, nodded and commiserated, and when they left almost everyone looked at least mollified, if not cheered.

“You know, for us playing the bag men today, we sure aren’t picking up any money,” Bucky commented. A couple of times KT had taken a store owner to the side and Bucky, straining his ears, heard something about loans; these people always had the look of someone explaining why they couldn’t pay but it wasn’t their fault, honest. Like everything else, KT made notes and listened politely.

“That’s not what we’re doing,” KT said. “This is check in. We do it every two weeks or so. Money stuff is all handled online.”

“Yeah?” Bucky knew for a fact that the FBI had been working with the Treasury to trace Stark’s money, and, failing to find any signs of dirty money or money laundering, had concluded he must be operating with cash only.

“Yeah. Boss didn’t want to tempt anyone or make them a target.” That was smart, Bucky reflected. Ripping off other gangs was an art form in organized crime. Still, he had to wonder how Stark kept the money transfers so well hidden from the best financial analysts in the US government.

“No targets except his accountant,” Bucky joked, fishing for info. “Like with Al Capone.”

KT just shrugged at that, like he didn’t know and didn’t care, so Bucky left it alone. “So what do we do with that stuff?” Bucky said, gesturing at the notebook KT had been writing in all morning.

“We take care of it.” He took the notebook out and flipped through it. “Not too much stuff this time.”

Bucky turned that over in his head. “So under the Mechanic, fixers actually…fix things,” he said. “You’re really going to call a shipping company and an insurance office and everything?”

“Yep. Well, we are.”

Made sense; if businesses were paying Stark for protection, he could also throw in other services to sweeten the pot and keep people from rolling on him. Bucky shoved his hands in his pockets and was lost in thought while he mostly followed KT around the neighborhood. Granted he’d only been here for less than a week, but so far nothing was adding up to what he’d read in the case files on Stark and his organization. It was making him uneasy. He’d come here with a picture in his head, and a goal of filling in the holes so they could make a case against an organized crime boss; but now he was increasingly realizing that something was wrong with the picture. So when KT told him one night that they had the next two days off, Bucky sent another message on the Discord channel and when he got a confirmation, he went to the New York Library, the big one with the stone lions and millions of tourists. He went to the adult services desk and asked for a laptop. The librarian studied his ID, went to a safe, and handed him a laptop from inside. Bucky found a study carrell in a quiet spot and logged on with an 8 character name and 16 character password, established and memorized before he’d started this operation, and opened up the case files on Stark.

Scrolling through, Bucky felt some of his disquiet ease as he re-read the laundry list of crimes Stark was reportedly involved in: racketeering, tax fraud, illegal gambling, high-end car theft. Armed obberies; he opened up the file on robberies and realized with morbid amusement that even while Stark protected his own people from being targeted, he had no problem targeting bagmen from other gangs, making off with hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time. Tax fraud, obviously; if Tony was hiding all of his income from the FBI, he was definitely hiding it from the IRS. Though as he opened up Stark’s tax statements, gotten from a subpoena to the IRS, and noticed that the document for just one year was hundreds of pages long, Bucky reflected that a good accountant could hide a lot of money in his legitimate businesses and all the assets that Stark had inherited from his parents.

At the back of the file was sex trafficking, which was based on a handful of reports that said that prostitutes were disappearing from other parts of the city and showing up working for Stark. Bucky put a note next to that one recommending the line of investigation be dropped. After spending hours and hours at the brothel chatting to the Widow and the ladies there, waiting to see if Rumlow returned, he knew none of the men or women there were being forced to stay, not even for lack of other work. Widow recruited from all around the city, helping people get out of the business if they wanted to and offering others a chance to work for her. Turns out, most of that building was devoted to the people who worked in the brothel: everyone got their own apartment, which was separate from the suites they entertained clients, and there was an in-house doctor and even childcare in the basement. All the money went straight back to the sex workers, except for this mysterious buy-in that no one had explained yet, and they were using it for a bewildering array of side projects that the women were more than happy to talk about during their down time.

After a few hours, which included writing up his reports from the past few weeks of working for Stark, Bucky sat back and closed the laptop. It was his first month, he reminded himself. No one was going to let him close to the real work of the organization after just a few weeks. He sent another message to his handler on Discord, and when he got a confirmation back, he stood up and walked away from the carrell; when he was about twenty feet away, he saw his police contact, dressed like a soccer mom, come by and spirit the laptop away.

His next stop was the gym; by the time he was done, shirt soaked wet with sweat and muscles aching, his head felt clearer.  He didn’t know why Stark was trying so hard to seem like a good guy, but if Bucky was patient enough he’d scrape past all the pseudo-philanthropy and get to the real man underneath. Stark wasn’t the first guy to be handsome and charming and charismatic while hiding a dark side.

[meanstreetspodcasts]

Wolfe in Sheep's Clothing

“I rarely leave my house. I do like it here. I would be an idiot to leave this chair, made to fit me.” (Rex Stout, Before I Die)

Nero Wolfe made his first appearance in 1934, and his adventures are still being enjoyed nearly eighty years later in books, TV shows, and - beginning on April 10, 1943 - radio dramas.  Not bad for a man who hated leaving his house more than nearly anything in the world.

Wolfe, the eccentric genius who weighs a seventh of a ton, was created by writer Rex Stout.  Stout made a tidy sum inventing a system to track the money school children saved in their accounts, and he used his earnings and royalties to travel the world and embark on a career as a writer.  His first Wolfe novel, Fer-de-Lance, was published in 1934, and Stout would go on to write 33 novels and 39 stories featuring Wolfe until his death in 1975.  Over the course of the novels and stories, Stout fleshed out the character, who enjoyed fine food and good beer, tended to his orchids, and solved mysteries when he had to earn a fee, always with the aid of his assistant (and the narrator of the stories), Archie Goodwin.

Stout’s brilliant stroke was to combine two archetypes of detective fiction into one duo.  Nero Wolfe was a classic refined detective in the mold of Sherlock Holmes, right down to his eccentricities, anti-social personality, and acute agoraphobia.  He could listen to clues as they were presented to him in his drawing room and deduce the solution to a crime without ever leaving the chair especially designed for his massive weight.  At his side was Archie, a more streetwise sleuth in the mold of (though not nearly as hard-boiled) Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.  Archie carried a gun and had an eye for a blonde like his brethren, but he drank milk instead of bourbon and he had a playful demeanor - particularly with his boss and their frequent foil on the police force, Inspector Cramer.

Wolfe came to the screen in 1934 and 1937, but it would take almost ten years for the character to make his radio debut.  From 1943 to 1944, ABC aired The Adventures of Nero Wolfe which starred J.B. Williams, Santos Ortega, and Luis Van Rooten as Wolfe during various points in the run.  A falling out between ABC and Stout’s representatives prevented the series from continuing, but a new version would premier on the Mutual Network in 1946.  Francis X. Bushman starred as Wolfe, with Elliott Lewis, a veteran radio actor who would soon take the director’s chair on Suspense, as Archie.  

But it is the 1950 NBC series The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe that is most fondly remembered and which came the closest to capturing the essence of Stout’s stories.  First and foremost, they found an actor who could fully embody Wolfe’s larger than life persona - Sydney Greenstreet.

A longtime theater actor, Greenstreet’s big break came as Kasper Gutman (“The Fat Man”) opposite Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon in 1941 at age 62. After receiving an Academy Award nomination for the role, Greenstreet appeared in films like Casablanca, The Mask of Demetrios, and Across the Pacific.  At age 71, he was cast as Wolfe, and his trademark characteristics - arched speech, droll laugh, deliberate intonation - perfectly fit Nero Wolfe’s larger than life personality.

Over the course of the series, no fewer than six actors were heard as Archie Goodwin. Each of the first three episodes featured a different Archie: Wally Maher (October 20); Lamont Johnson (October 27); and Herb Ellis (November 10). Beginning on November 24, actor Larry Dobkin assumed the role.  Dobkin had previously been heard as Louie the cab driver on The Saint and as Detective Lt. Matthews on The Adventures of Philip Marlowe.  After eight episodes, Dobkin left and his old co-star Gerald Mohr voiced Goodwin for the next four episodes. Mohr was on a radio detective roll; he had just wrapped his two-year run as Marlowe and would return for a Marlowe summer series a few months after his gig as Archie came to a close.  Harry Bartell, a veteran of Escape and Dragnet as well as the Petri Wine announcer for The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, stepped into Archie’s shoes for the final ten episodes of the series.

Why so many Archies to one Nero?  There’s no definite answer.  Some have said it was because Greenstreet was difficult to work with; others speculate the revolving door of co-stars was a sign of retooling to see if the ratings would improve.

And while the series was well done, with even Rex Stout praising Greenstreet’s performance (he was less complimentary of the program itself), it did not fare well enough in the ratings to earn a second year.  The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe wrapped up its run on April 27, 1951.  Fortunately for fans, the entire series run are available in great condition.  One can listen to the full run and hear Greenstreet lend his one-of-a-kind voice to Wolfe, and even with so many actors playing Archie Goodwin, none is sub-par.  Each brings his own style to the character while staying true to Stout’s creation.  And backing up Greenstreet and his Goodwins every week are a great cast, including Bill Johnstone as Inspector Cramer, Howard McNear, Betty Lou Gerson, Peter Leeds, and Barney Phillips.

Since the radio era came to an end, Nero Wolfe has continued to entertain fans outside of the books. Several TV shows have aired, including one single-season program starring radio veteran William Conrad as Wolfe and an absolutely delightful but criminally short-lived production on A&E with Timothy Hutton as Archie and Maury Chaykin as Wolfe. And for fans who want more audio adventures of the pair, the CBC mounted an impressive series of adaptations in 1982.

Check out this episode!

[ryttu3k]

All Night Road Journal entries! For players who are new to VtM, this is absolutely invaluable. For those who are familiar with VtM, it's still pretty neat! Find it in the menu below your stats.

Note - the Characters list changes depending on your in-game actions; this list is based on my Banu Haqim hot mess Courier, Pyre.

Characters

Kindred

Aila: A powerful Daughter of Haqim. You consumed her, Blood and soul, ten years ago.

Edouard Chambet: A member of the Ministry and influential fixer. Or he was until you and Raúl destroyed him.

Julian Sim: Your sire Technological visionary, data scientist, and (by Camarilla standards) an "Anarch" bent on bringing down the Masquerade. You and he worked together under the Camarilla's thumb for a few years before going your separate ways. Now you're both back in Tucson.

Prince Lettow: A Gangrel, originally a minor aristocrat from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—making him one of the few elders left in Arizona. Lettow came to America after serving as a pilot in the Great War.

Called the Eagle Prince on account of his eagle servant, Riga, Lettow seized control of Tucson after the last Prince launched a murderous and doomed campaign against all non-Ventrue in the city. He magnanimously spared the old Prince's childer and has sought to rule with as much compassion as an undead crime lord can allow himself.

Millicent Rue: A blood trader whose specialty is finding obscure vintages for fussy Ventrue. From a clan called Lasombra, which you don't know anything about. After the fall of Camp Scheffler, has started to rebuild her "business."

Dove: Prince Lettow of Tucson's second in command, a Nosferatu and former courier. Keeps her mouth shut about her past, but she has known Lettow for many years.

Invidia Caul: A Tremere sorceress who works for Julian Sim ever since Prince Lettow forced the closure of her research facility, Kiowa Xenogenetics.

D'Espine: A Toreador. Manages the Cinderblock, a jazz club in Dallas. Obsessed with surgically modifying her ghouls.

Elin Olivecrona: A Ventrue. After the fall of Camp Scheffler, Olivecrona disappeared into the bureaucracy of the US government to work against the Second Inquisition.

Lampago: An ancient vampire—or some kind of related creature—who lurked in Tucson for years until hunters finally drove her away. She now dwells in Biosphere Zero.

Pattermuster: A Brujah. You helped him block a proposed renovation to the hospital.

Reremouse: A Nosferatu elder that dwelled beneath the sands of the California desert. You and Julian spent a depressing year feeding the elder to keep him dormant. When he finally arose, you helped Julian teleport him across the world using ancient sorcery that you do not fully understand.

Z: Julian Sim's mysterious acolyte.

Ghouls

Raúl Cañedo: Vampire hunter you first encountered when a wight attacked you after your CR-X broke down. Now your retainer. Knows how to fight and hunt; also a capable investigator.

Miguel: One of Lettow's retainers and couriers. Killed at Camp Scheffler, probably by hunters affiliated with the Second Inquisition.

Carlos: One of Dove's retainers. A police detective and the local Camarilla's contact with the Tucson police.

Nadia Goh: One of Julian Sim's retainers. Works as a delivery girl for a Malaysian restaurant when not helping Julian.

Others

Elena Prodan: Owner of Covenant Pawn Shop.

Agent Samantha Donati: Technically just a special agent with the FBI's Special Affairs Division, Agent Donati in fact controls most Second Inquisition activity across the Southwest. Her lightning-quick strikes have destroyed dozens of vampires and thrown the local Camarilla into chaos.

Clans

Banu Haqim

Originally from the Middle East, the "Assamites" were once feared assassins and sorcerers. They have recently entered into a tentative alliance with the Camarilla, the vampire shadow-society of Europe and the Americas.

Disciplines: Blood Sorcery, Celerity, Obfuscate. Some Banu Haqim focus on rituals, while others favor inhuman speed and the powers of invisibility.

Clan Weakness: Thirst for vitae. Banu Haqim are compelled to commit diablerie—the sin of draining another vampire, body and soul.

Brujah

Once a proud clan of philosophers, the rage-fueled "Rebels" are now scattered and disorganized.

Disciplines: Celerity, Potence, Presence. Unnatural strength and speed help the unsubtle Brujah in a fight, but the secret to their survival is in shaping crowds with their eerie charisma.

Clan Weakness: Temper. Brujah are prone to losing control of their Beast in terrible rages.

Gangrel

The savage "Outlanders" are shapeshifting beastmasters who, almost alone among vampires, can survive outside of the cities.

Disciplines: Animalism, Fortitude, Protean. Gangrel flesh is both hardy and able to change its form; the Outlanders also have various powers over living animals.

Clan Weakness: Feral. Gangrel struggle to relate to normal humans, especially as their Humanity declines.

Malkavian

The "Lunatics" are all mad, but their madness gives them strange insights. They often serve as court seers and mad prophets.

Disciplines: Auspex, Dominate, Obfuscate. Keen senses and the power to vanish from sight give Malkavians their reputation as prophets. Their mental compulsions often spread their insanity.

Clan Weakness: Madness. All Malkavians are incurably insane.

The Ministry

Formerly the "Followers of Set," the Ministry are friendly and good. There is nothing bad about the Ministry. They are here to help and to get you what you need. They are not a snake cult.

Disciplines: Obfuscate, Presence, Protean. Vampires of the Ministry can become invisible, control minds, and turn into giant snakes (it always helps).

Clan Weakness: No problems here, nothing to worry about.

Nosferatu

The "Sewer Rats" are hideous and malformed vampires whose information-gathering skills make them invaluable. They once managed electronic communication for the Kindred, until the Second Inquisition infiltrated their servers.

Disciplines: Animalism, Obfuscate, Potence. Nosferatu use their shadow-powers not just to turn invisible, but to hide their hideous faces. When exposed, they can call on their unnatural strength, or their allies among the Creatures of the Night.

Clan Weakness: Hideous. All Nosferatu are monstrous in appearance.

Toreador

The elegant and sophisticated "Aesthetes" would prefer you didn't call them "Degenerates." Obsessed with beauty, the vampires of Clan Toreador can seem almost alive when their passions move them.

Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Presence. Supernaturally keen senses and a beguiling aura let the Aesthetes thrive among high culture; when things go wrong, unnatural speed helps them escape.

Clan Weakness: Distracted. Toreador are so obsessed with beauty that it can endanger them.

Tremere

The "Usurpers" of Clan Tremere are said to descend from a mortal wizard who stole immortal life from an ancient vampire. Once organized into a disciplined arcane hierarchy, the sorcerers of Clan Tremere are in turmoil after the destruction of their greatest occult stronghold.

Disciplines: Auspex, Blood Sorcery, Dominate. Though famous for their Thaumaturgy—their intricate sorcerous tradition—many Tremere also possess supernaturally acute senses and the power to command mortals with a word.

Clan Weakness: Frail Blood. This manifests in different ways for different Usurpers. Some mend their flesh slowly; others cannot form Blood Bonds or create ghoul servitors.

Ventrue

The Clan of Kings rules from the shadows, controlling modern boardrooms as they once controlled courts and cathedrals. The mental powers of the "Blue Bloods" also protect the Masquerade.

Disciplines: Dominate, Fortitude, Presence. Ventrue study two distinct paths of mental control: Presence is more subtle, Dominate more direct. Some are also nearly indestructible, even when exposed to banes like fire and sunlight.

Clan Weakness: Refined palate. Ventrue cannot drink bagged or animal blood, and most are restricted to a particular kind of human prey.

Caitiff

Not a clan at all, Caitiff vampires are the Clanless—those whose Blood is too thin or whose education was too inadequate for them to join a proper clan.

Disciplines: Varies based on ancestry and inclination.

Clan Weakness: Outcast. The Camarilla has little respect for Caitiff, and other vampires don't treat them well either.

Hunger and Willpower

All vampires suffer from an undying Hunger for blood. Using Disciplines (vampire powers) and mending wounds uses some of the blood you've stolen and increases your Hunger; so does the simple act of rising every night. Only killing and fully draining a living human slakes your Hunger fully, and then only for a time. As a Child of Haqim, drinking vampire Blood also increases your Hunger.

If you become hungry enough, you lose the ability to activate Disciplines or mend your wounds. If your Hunger equals or exceeds your Willpower, you suffer penalties to actions that require concentration and self-control. That includes most actions you take, except those that risk a messy critical—see that entry. The penalties grow as your Hunger grows.

Willpower is based on your Resolve and Composure scores. Increase those scores to increase your Willpower and ignore the distraction caused by your Hunger. Certain actions, like extended negotiations or staying out too close to the sun, can mentally exhaust you, temporarily reducing your Willpower. You can regain lost Willpower by embodying your Convictions (see Experience and Convictions).

Messy Criticals

Succeed too well on certain actions and you run the risk of unleashing your Beast. The monster within you assures your success…at any cost.

Any choice that ends in an exclamation point ("!") risks a messy critical. Most of these are attacks or other aggressive actions where you risk losing control, such as threatening people or bashing down doors. Any choice that involves hunting and drinking from a human also risks a messy critical, and messy criticals there usually result in you draining the mortal completely, reducing your Humanity and leaving you with a corpse to dispose of.

The good news is that choices that risk a messy critical aren't more difficult due to Hunger (see Hunger and Willpower). Your Beast guides you in these savage actions, even when you're desperate for blood.

Experience and Convictions

After a decade of lethargy and routine, you find yourself bursting with newfound creative vigor!

You gain experience in two chief ways: first, by going on missions and succeeding in your goals. Second, by gaining Convictions and living up to them. To gain a Conviction, select choices that increase that personality trait: if you want to Defy the Traditions, then you must Defy the Traditions: ignore vampire laws like the Masquerade (see that entry), disobey elder vampires, and defy the Camarilla. If you want to Seek Luxury, then demand money and inducements as often as possible.

The Masquerade

The First Tradition of the Camarilla—what passes for civilization among the undead—is to hide the existence of vampires from the mortal herd. This is the Masquerade. You can violate the Masquerade by openly using obvious supernatural powers (such as shapeshifting), feeding in public, or failing to dispose of a body you drained.

Violating the Masquerade risks the wrath of elders among the Camarilla. Worse, with the Second Inquisition raging across the United States, a breach of the Masquerade risks sending an entire Second Inquisition kill team to your doorstep. Such an attack usually comes in daylight and can destroy you if you're not careful.

Humanity and the Beast

Vampires aren't human. They're dead things animated by stolen blood, with a screaming monster in their head they call the Beast. Perhaps because of this damned state, most vampires cling to their Humanity and struggle to control the Beast's savage urges.

But the Beast is always waiting. Acts of callousness and brutality strip vampires of their Humanity until, in the end, they are nothing but mindless animals that lurk in the shadows and hunt at night. Even before that point, low-Humanity vampires struggle to act with kindness or empathy.

Killing mortals (unless attacked first, such as by hunters or assassins) is a sure way to lose Humanity. The Beast permits no excuses—killing to feed and killing to hide your true nature (and protect the Masquerade) will stain your soul as surely as killing for sport.

Regaining Humanity is arduous but possible through great acts of sacrifice and by risking yourself for others. But beware: if your Humanity falls low enough, you'll have to spend Willpower (see Hunger and Willpower) to perform even small acts of decency.

The Camarilla

The Camarilla—the so-called Ivory Tower—is a secret society of vampires dedicated to hiding their existence from mortals, a guiding ideology called the Masquerade. Most Camarilla cities are ruled by a Prince (the term is gender neutral). Beneath this monarch is an elaborate hierarchy of underlings and overlords, bound together through favors, mutual enemies, the Traditions (including the Masquerade), and the overwhelming nightly drive to find more blood. Vampires of the Camarilla call each other "Kindred." They all appreciate the bitter irony of that term.

The rise of the Second Inquisition has made the Camarilla more paranoid and restrictive. Where once the Princes tolerated "Anarchs" and fringe types (like independent couriers), now they retreat into their Elysiums—hidden sanctums where they can conduct their business in peace—and try to weather the storm. These nights, the Camarilla are the vampire elite, and like any elite, they are happy to sacrifice everyone else for their own safety or convenience.

The Second Inquisition

The first Inquisition taught the arrogant vampires of the Middle Ages that they were not invincible. They learned that mortals, while weak alone, were almost unstoppable when organized and when they knew their enemy.

The vampires of the Camarilla took the lessons of the Inquisition to heart, hiding their actions behind the Masquerade. But no deception is perfect. As digital technology proliferated in the twentieth century, young vampires adapted, leaving their elders in the dust. They didn't know that mortals were listening in. And even when they realized the danger, many in the Camarilla believed they could direct these hunters at their enemies.

The results of this arrogance were catastrophic: the fires of the Second Inquisition blazed across the world, destroying elders and fledglings alike, cleansing whole cities of vampires. Embedded in the security and intelligence agencies of various national governments, including the FBI and the CIA, the Second Inquisition employs every weapon at its disposal to hunt down and destroy vampires. Now the SI has turned its sights on Arizona. Its goal is nothing less than the total eradication of every vampire in the state.

The Beckoning

A strange event called the Beckoning recently started luring elder vampires to the Middle East. No one knows the source of the Beckoning, but the sudden loss of so many elders—and the vast supernatural power they possess—has thrown the Camarilla into chaos and allowed Anarchs and other independent groups to seize power.

The Nature of the Blood

A vampire's vitae—the stolen blood that flows through your veins—has a variety of supernatural powers.

Disciplines. A vampire's supernatural arts are called Disciplines. Different clans manifest different arts, from mind control and shapeshifting to superhuman strength and speed. Most Disciplines require Blood to activate (increasing your Hunger) and grant a significant bonus to any relevant action you undertake. This bonus increases with your level of mastery.

Mending. You can use the blood you take to repair your dead flesh. In fact, this is the only way vampires can "heal," as they cannot do so naturally.

Ghouls. A vampire who feeds vitae to a living mortal creates a ghoul. Sometimes called a retainer or a thrall, a ghoul does not age, manifests minor supernatural powers such as occasional bursts of great strength, and is loyal to their vampire regnant through the Blood Bond (see below). Most established vampires make use of one or more ghouls to handle their daylight business.

The Embrace. Feed a mortal your vitae and you create a ghoul. Drain a mortal to death and feed that mortal your Blood and you create a new vampire of your clan. You are now the sire to a childe. This act is called the Embrace. Most Princes of the Camarilla forbid Embracing new vampires except under special conditions, as there are always too many vampires and never enough places to hunt.

The Blood Bond. Drink a vampire's blood three times on three separate nights and you are bound to that vampire, forced into service through a supernatural compulsion called the Blood Bond. If you create a ghoul, that ghoul is soon Blood Bound to you. Beware of your sire—you've already tasted your sire's Blood once, when you were Embraced and turned into a vampire!

Learning from the Blood. Vampires of different clans begin with different Disciplines, but you can unlock more Disciplines by tasting the Blood of another vampire and then receiving instruction from them.

Diablerie. To drain another vampire, body and soul, is called diablerie, and the Camarilla consider it the most awful of crimes. But young vampires practice the art in secret anyway, hunting their elders, in order to lower their generation and gain greater power.

Generation. According to legend, the first vampire was Caine, the first murderer. Legend further says that Caine had three childer, who had childer of their own, and that those vampires of the Third Generation founded the clans. Whether or not you believe this story, when a vampire Embraces a mortal, that childe's Blood is thinner and weaker than the sire's. Vampires of high generation are sometimes Caitiff (the Clanless), and those of very high generation are thin-bloods—barely vampires at all. Though a vampire's Disciplines develop with age, generation does not change…except through diablerie.

Functions of Abilities, Skills, and Disciplines

Abilities

Strength: Punching, wrestling, clawing (if you have claws). Most climbing where you haul yourself up.

Dexterity: Balance, speed, reacting quickly. Attacking with a bladed weapon or in coyote form (if you can change shape), reacting quickly. Most shooting that relies on speed.

Stamina: Adds to your Health. Not used actively.

Charisma: Getting people to like you. Leading people into battle or giving them orders. Impressing a crowd.

Manipulation: Getting people to do what you want (even if they don't like you). Most kinds of lies and deceit.

Composure: Adds to your Willpower. Staying cool, in social situations or in a fight (especially when threatened by fire or sunlight).

Intelligence: Education, reasoning ability, analysis. Most forms of research.

Wits: Cunning, cleverness, noticing things on the go. Intuition, "following your nose." Shooting when you can't see clearly.

Resolve: Adds to your Willpower. Determination, patience. Performing tasks that take all night or that are mentally draining.

Use the language of the choices to determine what is being tested. "Quickly" usually means Dexterity, "clever" signals Wits, "patient" implies Resolve.

Specific descriptions override general rules. You normally use Dexterity to strike with a sword, but if there's a lot of smoke and the choice says you need to be clever to hit, that's Wits.

Skills

Athletics: Jumping, swimming, running, dodging.

Combat: Brawling, wrestling, wielding swords or improvised weapons, using claws or teeth.

Drive: This gets your AE86 to its destination in one piece.

Firearms: Shooting a gun.

Clandestine: Sneaking, moving silently, hiding, picking locks, forcing doors.

Intimidation: Threatening, bullying, and forcing others to back down.

Leadership: Giving orders. Commanding your ghoul; also adds a passive boost when you work together with your ghoul.

Persuasion: Getting people to do what you want in a more or less straightforward manner, without lies or threats. Also covers etiquette and manners.

Streetwise: Bribery. Knowing streets and alleys (useful for quick getaways). Interacting with criminals.

Subterfuge: Lying, swindling, and deceiving. Also includes palming, picking pockets, and similar deceptions.

Academics: Nonscientific education—everything from history and philosophy to occult lore. Used in Blood Sorcery.

Awareness: Noticing things just by looking around (or listening or sniffing around).

Investigation: Careful, systematic exploring. Helps you both find hidden items and interrogate people until you find something.

Technology: Crafts, car repair, computer use, and hacking, as well as scientific acumen.

Survival: Finding shelter (especially from sunlight!), hunting wild animals.

Disciplines

Most Disciplines increase your Hunger when used but add a bonus to your actions.

Animalism: Grants you a wolf companion who grants significant bonuses to actions when activated. Your lobo gains power as you advance this Discipline. Low risk of a Masquerade breach; your lobo is just a "big weird dog."

Auspex: Enhances your senses, typically improving skills like Awareness, Investigation, and (if you're shooting where you can't see clearly) Firearms. Low risk of Masquerade breach; Auspex affects only you.

Blood Sorcery: Not a proper Discipline so much as a collection of ritual techniques developed over millennia. Most rituals take time and grant automatic success to an action; particularly challenging rituals, or those opposed by another sorcerer, often rely on Intelligence and Academics. Risk of Masquerade breach varies based on the ritual.

Celerity: Supernatural speed and quickness. Offers only a modest bonus, but helps with a huge number of activities, especially when you need to fight or flee. Mortals will be surprised by but not suspicious of the lowest level of Celerity; any more than that breaches the Masquerade.

Dominate: Overwhelming short-term mind control. Usually succeeds automatically, especially on mortals. A blunt instrument; doesn't gently boost your natural abilities like Presence. Low Masquerade risk since it's so uncanny. Dominate can also be used to scramble memories, which protects your secrets.

Fortitude: Unnatural resilience, even against the vampire's natural banes (fire and sunlight). Not used actively; it works automatically when you're hurt to absorb injury. Low risk of Masquerade breach—maybe you were wearing body armor?

Obfuscate: Fading from sight. Not literal invisibility; people just don't notice you. Mostly used to enhance Clandestine when sneaking. Low risk of Masquerade breach unless you just vanish in front of someone.

Potence: Monstrous strength. Increase your ferocity in combat and smash right through obstacles. Like Celerity, mortals will accept the lowest levels of Potence as the effects of adrenaline, but any more than that breaches the Masquerade.

Presence: Unnatural allure and charisma. Use it to fill mortals with dread (enhances Intimidate) or to enhance your natural charm (pairs with a large number of social skills). Lacks the immediate and inescapable power of Dominate, but more flexible. Low risk of Masquerade breach; people just believe you're unusually magnetic.

Protean: Three distinct shapeshifting powers. Beginners can grow wolflike claws to rip their enemies to shreds. Intermediate students learn how to meld with the earth, sinking into the ground to escape pursuers (or the rising sun). Masters take the form of beasts—in your case, a coyote. Any use of Protean is a huge and obvious Masquerade breach.

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Surprise Quarantine Prompt Party? Yay! What about a supercorp angst (maybe with a happy ending), after season five, Lex in jail, Leviathan defeated, Lena decides that she doesn’t need/want Kara or the “superfriends”, after all they were so quick to forget and judge her (when she isn’t the only one with a villain family)? And, how the Super Team deals with being the villain of someone’s story?

When Lena finally acts against Lex, she does so with devastating efficiency. 

It starts with Lex-- a thorough and exhaustive accounting of every misapplication of funds, every subversive contingency he’d planned and kept in reserve should he ever be told no by the federal government. She establishes beyond the shadow of a doubt the creation of Cadmus under his hand, before he finally set it free to wreak terror across the country. 

When the news breaks, Kara breathes a sigh of relief, grateful that for once she’d been proven wrong.

By the time the trial commences and the Senate begins hearing testimony, the Superfriends wait with acute anticipation to get their DEO back.

That anticipation shatters when Lena’s testimony clearly and without hesitation calls for the complete and immediate dissolution of the Department of Extranormal Operations.

“Lena…” Kara exhales when she visits her friend’s balcony later that night. Betrayal stabs deep in her chest. “How could you?”

“How could you?” Lena clips back, all bite and no give. She places one hand on the mountain of paper onto her desk, almost a foot deep. “Did you really think I wouldn’t have seen what the DEO had done before my brother became director?”

Kara swallows thickly. She doesn’t know what lies among those reams of paper, what this reality might hold that differs between the DEO that is and the DEO she knew it to be.

“Incursions into homes and businesses without warrant or probable cause. Aliens and humans, arrested without due process! Prisoners vanished without a trace.”

“That-- that’s not--”

“And don’t you dare try to tell me that it’s unique to this reality!” Lena seethes. “There are events detailed in these pages that are breathtakingly familiar, Supergirl, and I know for a fact that the DEO was involved with more than a few of them in the last reality too.”

For the first time in her life, words completely abandon Kara, in any language. All she can do is shake her head, mouth agape.

“And should I even bother to list the countless reports of unnecessary force perpetrated by the great Supergirl herself? How long have you operated outside the law as an anonymous vigilante, doling out justice however you see fit?”

“That is not true,” Kara finally finds her voice. “I only ever assisted the police--”

“By doling out pre-judicial corporal punishment in the form of concussions and broken bones, for law enforcement officers who have repeatedly voiced frustration towards your self-insertion in pedestrian crime. How dare you.”

Kara blinks, and tears spill down her cheeks. “Lena, that’s not--”

“How dare you come to me, again and again, for help you didn’t deserve, in exploits you never made fully known to me. And how dare you have the gall to condemn me for not wanting the DEO, this organization, to get their hands on my best friend!”

It takes every ounce of Kara’s strength not to stagger back under the force of Lena’s words. The anger in her voice hits like a physical blow, and the fire in her eyes sears Kara’s soul. She can only stare, with lips quivering, as she waits for Lena’s next move. 

Thankfully, it’s not to call for security, or reveal a hidden stash of kryptonite. Instead she draws herself to her full height, chin lifting to regard Kara with a withering glare.

“My brother may have intended to insult me by putting me in charge of outreach and charity,” she delivers coolly, “but it’s in that role I’ve learned first hand that the shadows the alien populations fears at night aren’t thieves or bigots. It’s the DEO, and their pet muscle. In my foolishness, I allowed you to abuse my trust and my resources, but no more. I will not rest until the DEO is reduced to nothing more than a shameful bullet point in future history books.”

Kara tries to reach out, just one more time. “Lena, please, we can explain--”

“I’m done trusting you,” Lena snaps. “Any of you.”

Her eyes harden, and Kara knows she has no chance of being heard tonight. Or maybe ever. 

“Get out of my office,” comes one final command. “And don’t you dare come back.”

[wackygoofball]

Hello tis me Handwithoutahand on my main. I had a really interesting AU idea for Braime and was curious if you wanted to make one of your awesome posts about it. The idea was of Brienne training to become one of the first few women special agents at Quantico in the 80's. Who finds an unlikely ally in Jaime when he is 99% of the time a huge douche bag to everyone else, and he's a senior agent who's been working there for 15+ years. I was listening to all the awesome 80s music and got this idea.

Hi,

thanks so much for the lovely prompt - and for elaborating further when I didn’t know what to do because sometimes my brain is confused. :)

Anyway. I hope this moodboard is to your liking (and to the liking of similarly minded people, of course).

Moodboard: Jaime x Brienne - FBI Training AU

Brienne of Tarth is one of the first women ever allowed to join the ranks of the FBI of Westeros. Already going through basic training posed a particular challenge for Brienne - not because she found it too tough, far from it, she knocked anyone into the dust, but because she is still viewed as “just another woman - and an ugly one while at it.” Whereas she couldn’t care less about what people make of her ungainly looks, Brienne is acutely aware that she won’t find any friends in the training camp in King’s Landing.

Nonetheless, Brienne is determined to follow through with the program and become a special agent. She wants to truly prevent crime from happening, she wants to keep people safe. She already lost the man she was secretly in love with, Renly Baratheon, to a crime never truly investigated to its end - at least in her opinion - and Brienne has no intention to let that happen again, so long she can help it.

Yet, the reality of being the only woman in the training program continues to take its toll on her, despite Brienne’s efforts not to care, even less so lament. Her fellow trainees won’t work with her, some ignore her, others seemingly have a vested interest to get her to quit, and others just flat-out hate her, for what it seems. And that despite the fact that they all work towards the same goal.

The situation is not in the least relieved by senior agent and pain-in-the-ass Jaime Lannister, who takes his dear fun torturing the trainees “just a little bit” in an effort to prepare them for what awaits them as special agents. Not only is he a snarky asshole most of the time, but to Brienne’s mind, a man who shot his own commander should certainly not be the one to teach them about integrity or the values the FBI is meant to uphold.

Brienne knows that one thing for sure: She can’t trust anyone other than herself. And if she wants to succeed in this program, she will have to do it all on her own as well - and she will.

However, things soon turn grim when animosity morphs into attacks against her in an effort to get her to quit by scaring her. While Brienne knows this to be no more than a scare-tactic, the “pranks” go too far soon. And surprisingly, it is Jaime fuckin’ Lannister who comes to the rescue and doesn’t just show care for her as a person but also displays a strong moral codex Brienne wouldn’t have accounted to him until she sees it at work with her own two eyes.

While Brienne remains determined to stay in the program, despite Jaime’s warnings for her own safety, she has to come to realize that Jaime Lannister may actually be the only trustworthy person in the camp. Likewise, Jaime has to see that the young trainee with astonish blue eyes is not just here to “get back” at her former high school bullies in an effort to make a point. She is here for the right reasons. She wants to fight crime. She wants to win back justice, piece by piece, in a world steadily ripping it away from the people.

Jaime soon has another realization, though: He doesn’t just care about Brienne’s safety because she is part of the team but because he starts to feel things for her that surely have no place in the FBI, even less so when it comes to Brienne, who has a tough enough standing in the FBI as things currently stand.

But all of that has to wait when a new case arrives - and it may surpass any challenge they faced by far - because if they can’t make it work, it may well be that neither one of them will walk out of that situation alive…

[chiseler]

TWO NEW FILMS

Viewed by Henri Duvernois

Le Bataillon des sans-amour [Battalion of the Unloved]

(The Mayor of Hell)

I was greatly moved by this film. The dreadful existence of some delinquent children, I believe, can never be shown enough. And it is not blindly optimistic to declare most of them capable of reform. During my research for a novel, I discussed this subject with the man most qualified to do so, the head of instruction at the Petite Roquette [a Paris prison for boys 7-20]. He told me flat out:

“Eight out of ten, at least, if they are treated kindly, intelligently, gently, are capable of becoming splendid fellows. And I myself would not hesitate to have them associate with my own children. If you write a book on this subject, your surest inspiration will be pity.”

He told me this at a time when France did not yet have a juvenile court, and where judges, broken-hearted—more than once I saw tears in their eyes—were obliged to condemn a poor tubercular starveling of twelve, guilty only of vagrancy and not the slightest crime.

The effect of these films on the public is healthy. There are still too many martyred children—as recent news items show—but there are, above all, unrecognized, too many unfortunate children. Their sad stories do not always end in suicide, like the poor little Rozentweig child, victim of brutish imbeciles [a minor cause célèbre of 1933: Sonia Rozensweig, 13, a refugee Polish Jew, drowned herself after an encounter involving herself, a 7-year-old brother or cousin, and a local shopkeeper, which ended in the police station; leftwing and rightwing papers gave widely divergent accounts of the affair], or the baby slowly tortured by an appalling stepmother. Children are beaten. Children are, morally, abandoned. I was struck by these lines, during the courtroom scene of the film: “I’m sick of supporting him!” says one father, to which the boy replies, “When did you ever support me?”

The battalion of the unloved, then, is made up of young vagabonds left to the streets by the carelessness or poverty of their parents. A director may, through his careful reproduction of life, make a work of art at art’s finest: the sensitive transposition of truth. So it is here. The actors are between twelve and fifteen years old. Each, by his physical appearance, voice, costume, is a chapter of a  novel. Here is the snitch, the traitor, who steals and pillages but can and will sell out his comrades. Here is the leader, quick to deal out chastisement, bolder and more energetic than the others, more dangerous too, in whose generous nature his good and bad instincts are at war. A kind word, a caress may save him. But one must divine his heart and pierce his tough shell to reach it. There is the hate-filled one, who would love with the same fervor if he were given the chance; the fat kid, greedy and lazy; the pickaninny who follows the gang because he’s hungry; the sickly boy who wants to have a little fun before he dies.

The whole gang is condemned to reform school. The latter is directed by one Thompson, whom the film’s authors have perhaps made too starkly a villain. There are (and, above all, there have been) a good many of these civil servants who, without being monsters of cruelty like Thompson, even while undeviatingly pursuing their duty—what they believe is their duty—have produced equally deplorable results.

But there must be a counterforce: Dorothy, the reform school’s nurse. She is not satisfied merely to take care of the boys when they are ill. She wants them to be better treated and better fed. Her smile and her blondeness perform the miracle. An inspector is named, an insouciant young man placed there by crooked politicians. For love of Dorothy, he no longer smiles and approves. He furloughs the savage director and takes his place. Surprise! The mess hall’s foul gruel is replaced by bacon and eggs and cream cakes. The boys are made responsible for organizing themselves; they name one judge, another chief of police, etc. There is laughter and song in what once was hell. But the director returns. By a rather too neat coincidence, Gargan, the inspector, is charged with murder. The other triumphs. Once again the school is a prison. A little TB case, confined to an icy cell, dies of cold. The boys revolt, a torch-bearing mob. Terrified, the director jumps off a roof and falls to his death. Gargan, found innocent, returns. Order is restored and Gargan will marry Dorothy.

The film is full of exquisite details. One, especially poignant, bowled me over. This was not the death of the little TB case, admirably handled though it was. It was the moment when Jimmy, the gang leader, while being upbraided, takes a sheet of paper and a pencil and, in a few strokes, makes a lovely sketch. If someone takes an interest in him, flatters him with a few compliments, he might become a great artist. If he is treated roughly, he will surely become a criminal… The agonizing question of vocation is raised here. And a detail like this honors and illuminates a film.

This film is marvelously interpreted by the boys, headed by Frankie Darrow as Jimmy, very well by Madge Evans and James Cagney as the nurse and the inspector, and with great sensitivity by Arthur Byron as the kindly judge.

La Porte des rêves [The Door of Dreams]

(The Keyhole)  

The Keyhole tells the story of the beautiful Anne, wife of Maurice, her former partner in a dance act. Believing herself divorced, she has married a rich older man, Schuyler Brooks. But the divorce was not finalized. Maurice takes advantage of the situation, blackmailing his ex-wife by threatening to reveal the truth. He makes her meet with him, extorts large sums, tears her jewels from her.

Terrified, Anne asks her own sister-in-law for help. Maurice must be gotten out of New York. He is a foreigner; they will arrange that his return visa be refused. Anne claims she is going to Cuba. Maurice will follow her there and she will be rid of him.

Brooks thinks she is traveling because she is weary of her luxurious but dull conjugal existence and seeks an adventure. He hires a handsome private detective, Davis, to seduce her and become her lover. When he has done so, he is to telephone the husband, who will fly to Cuba and take the couple in flagrante. But Anne falls truly in love with the detective, and he falls in love with her. He saves her from an ambush arranged by Maurice. When Brooks, alerted by his sister, arrives to take Anne back, the ex-husband flees, falls off a balcony, and is killed. Brooks opens the door. Anne is in Davis’s arms, passionately kissing him. The jealous husband has gotten what he paid for…

Of course, any plot summary is derisive for a film of this type, whose worth lies in its dramatic sweep and the talent of its interpreters. The action is here only to serve the actors and give a pretext for ingenious images, marvelously coordinated. There is no question of psychology. In any event, to disarm criticism, the actors in The Keyhole make the heroine a former dancer, accustomed to a certain liberty and who may thus, over the course of a cruise, swayed by sweet music, the sea, and the starry sky, let herself be beguiled by a mere detective, private though he be.

But what delighted me and must be set apart is, in the role of Dot, a little blonde tart, the charming Glenda Farrell. We have already seen her in certain supporting roles where she struck us by her intelligence and acuteness of observation. Glenda Farrell belongs to that small number of actresses who produce true literary creations, through the amused tenderness with which they realize a character who would be, with another, insignificant and purposeless. She was from head to toe the cruise ship charmer who shares her takings with the barman, chooses lonely and naïve men, and drops them when she sees that the game is not worth the candle. More and more, talking pictures will use and showcase talents of this sort. And it is among them that directors must seek future stars, rather than among the immobile beauties, vamps or victims, inherited from the late silent cinema.

Such a reproach is not addressed to Kay Francis, who has magnetism and authority and, above all, that invaluable advantage for a cinema artist: a ravishing and sensitive shape to the mouth. I do not have the space here to develop this argument, but the mouth is of capital importance in film—more so even than the eyes—and not for the final kiss alone. Smile, emotion, irony, fear, radiant youth and sudden aging, it expresses everything. Take, for example, in France, the mouth of Gaby Morlay and, in America, that of Irene Dunne. If so many actresses disappoint us with their monotony, it is above all because nature has refused them this power of expression.

Henry Kolker has naturalness and ease. He establishes the character of a deceived husband and saves it from convention. Finally, the rhythm of the film is excellent and its technique fully mastered, meaning that it does not intrude and serves the story without overwhelming it.

Translated by Phoebe Green

First published in Pour Vous magazine

NUMERO. 259

2 NOV. 1933 

[gladrial]

Bad Thing - Chapter 9

Author's Notes:

We are very, extremely, sincerely sorry for the long wait on the rest of this story! Most of it is already written, thanks ENTIRELY to Gladrial, just needing detail and polish. Thank you so much, from the bottom of our fangirl hearts, for enjoying this and letting us know! This is a story close to our souls and we cannot wait to share the rest with y'all!

Risque has put together a soundtrack for this fic on Spotify, though it frustratingly leaves out the song that inspired the title, which is the hard to locate "I've Done A Bad Thing" by Ellen Reid. Consider that the real first track!

---

August had started with a heatwave. A dumb, stupid heatwave that reminded Harleen of a time early in high school where she'd rode with some friends to a lake outside the city, eight teenagers packed in an ancient van with no air conditioning. Somewhere in the middle of Nowhere, Gotham County, the engine decided that life wasn't worth living and, since it was a time before everybody had a cell phone, they were stranded on a lonely stretch of road, with the sun beating down on them, and not even a brief breeze to bring respite. Most of them had also already been drinking, getting a headstart on the drinking they were going to do at the lake, which led to Harleen and her friend Amber taking turns holding each other's hair while they puked into the roadside weeds.

"...And that's why I'll never drink lemonade and vodka ever again," Harleen concluded, flicking the ash from her cigarette off the side of the balcony. "Or get in a van that's old enough to have grandchildren."

Miss Murton laughed, coughing out a cloud of cigarette smoke as she did.

Millie, Harleen reminded herself as the older woman had insisted she stop addressing her so formally. She patted her back, concerned, but Millie brushed her off, insisting she was fine.

"Just reminds me of my own youth, is all. I'm always tickled by how, at the heart, nothing ever changes."

-at the hands of the notorious Joker. Upon hearing his name, Harley suddenly became acutely aware of the televised news broadcast playing softly in the background, through the open sliding door.

"Turn it up," Harley asked, as she knew still had the remote and Harley was busy leaning her head to see the screen, her attention now focused fully on the shaky footage of wreckage and smoke.

Miss Murton grabbed the remote and raised the sound, the announcer's General American accent droning over an aerial shot of the scene, the view of twisted metal and firemen scaling rubble.

At least thirty-one dead in the wake of last night's attack on the subway. Many more in critical condition following the forced derailing.

"Horrible," Millie offered sadly. "I used to think that it was impossible for anyone to be truly evil. But him-"

Harley declined to respond. She'd never gone into detail about her job with Millie. Patient confidentiality notwithstanding, Leland had warned her not to let loose even the most mundane details of her job early on, particularly with such a high profile case. She could see why. Arkham Asylum was constantly hounded for information from the media and bribes worked exceedingly well, not just with general staff, but also for the doctors. Of course, aside from the obvious security risk idly chatting about her career would be, there was the real possibility that it would lead to morbid curiosity or straight-up avoidance.

Better to let someone really get to know you first, Leland had advised. Harley had taken it to heart. She didn't really want to get in a mental health debate with someone Miss Murton's age anyway, imagining she'd be very set in her ways.

Thankfully, Commissioner Gordon has confirmed that the clown prince of crime is currently in custody and awaiting his return to Arkham Asylum.

That certainly hadn't taken as long as Harley thought it would. After all the trouble he'd put her through to only be out a few days? ...Still he had indicated it was for a specific purpose. She realized uneasily that this must have been it.

"Make sure to lock the door behind him this time," her companion muttered bitterly behind another cigarette. "Honestly, why is it so hard to keep him in there?"

In this specific incident, Harley knew exactly why. She inhaled sharply, feeling that familiar pang of guilt trying to creep in. The one that he had argued out of her not a few nights ago. Exhaling, she decided this was a prime incident to bring up in their next session.

---

Dr. Quinzel waited patiently in the therapy room. Normally, she'd have some anxiety about seeing her patient once again, but it seemed strangely absent this time. Perhaps because it'd only been a week since she'd last seen him. Or perhaps because this was all becoming rather commonplace. A thought that, she knew, should fill her with concern, but somehow it didn't. This all felt...strangely natural.

Even so, things had been extremely tense the last time they saw one another. It had ended okay eventually, but there had been a point when she thought he really was done with her. So why then wasn't she the slightest bit scared?

She closed her eyes and briefly analyzed herself. Her behavior. His behavior. Their interactions. The answer lay there somewhere. He was done with her because she wasn't living up to his expectations. He should have killed her, but he didn't.

It was far from the first time it crossed her mind. He could have done it in the car. She remembered how angry he had been. He'd let her go instead. Why? She recalled other incidents when she'd irritated him on some level. Questioning him on the way to their date. She'd disappointed him that day too, on the rooftops. Times she said or did things that he found asinine.

All in all, very minor infractions, if infractions at all. But, she reminded herself, logic didn't matter where he was concerned. They were infractions to him. And it didn't matter how minor, he'd killed for far less, for seemingly no reason at all. She couldn't analyze him in the same framework as other people.

He'd had every opportunity. She'd allowed herself to be as vulnerable as a person can be around another. She should, by all accounts, be very dead…but she wasn't.

She went back to the night in question, when she'd disappointed him the most. He hadn't killed her. He'd approached her at home and actively sought her out for some form of understanding instead. She imagined he would have gone ahead with it, if she hadn't reciprocated.

She smiled to herself. He was seeking connection in the only way he knew how and she'd successfully risen to the occasion. Perhaps if others had made more of an effort...but then, a large part of her was selfishly glad no one had.

"Morning, Dr. Quinzel," Jeremy greeted her as he and Sean escorted her patient inside. "You look like you're in a good mood."

"It's going to be a good day," she replied, regarding the Joker. He had come in calmly without any of his normal quips. Instead he wore an expression of someone torn between surprise and self-satisfaction.

"Well, well. Look who's still here," Joker commented, after security had put the pitifully futile restraints on him and left.

"I'm your doctor," Harley replied, glancing above the brim of her glasses toward him, as she fingered through his most recent file. "Where else would I be?"

"That was entirely up to you," he reminded her. "All part of our bargain."

She cringed inwardly, but was certain it didn't show. She'd become rather good at hiding her inner thoughts, given the recent twists and turns of her life. She knew no one could hear them in here. Not unless she made the very stupid choice to record their session, something she could not afford at this point. Still, hearing the word 'bargain' between them, within these walls, was unsettling.

"As I recall," Harley said, putting his file down on the desk in front of her. "That was something you had come up with."

"Ah, so you helped me have my little romp out of the kindness of your heart then? If memory serves, you didn't seem too enthusiastic at the time."

This was off the topic she wanted to focus on, but part of her was glad he'd brought it up. After all, it was precisely what she had been thinking about before he'd entered. Therapy was meant to air thoughts that were uncomfortable to confront. In this case, uncomfortable for her...but still. Doing so with this would keep them from being bogged down by it later.

She tapped a pen rhythmically against the surface of the desk, considering her response. "Maybe I don't know what I want," she offered carefully.

Once the words had left her lips, she felt an unexpected weight lift off her shoulders. She'd had a plan. A plan that she'd been relentlessly pursuing, despite feelings she didn't want to admit to. Feelings that ultimately none of it was going to make her happy.

"Oh, but I think you do." He leaned in conspiratorially as much as his restraints would allow. "I have to admit, I was looking forward to following your career, but this is better. Much, much better. I was dreading whoever they were going to dump me on next. They wouldn't have been half as fun as you."

Harley laughed. "Well, while we're confessing things, it might have occurred to me that anything I could choose to do wouldn't be half as exciting as what we've been doing lately."

"Darling, you haven't seen anything yet," he promised with a wink. "Speaking of, what are the chances of you opening the door for me again, as it were?"

She let the pen drop from her hand. It landed absently on the floor as she stared at him, slack-jawed with a half-smile.

"What?" he continued innocently. "We could have one of our little sleepovers. You like those!"

"You just got here!" she exclaimed with disbelief.

"I wasn't suggesting it be today. I haven't even seen the old gang yet."

Harley shook her head absently. "Unbelievable," she said to herself, a giggle betraying her.

"That wasn't a no!" Joker declared triumphantly.

Harley pointed at the file in front of her assertively in an attempt to regain control of the conversation. "Getting back on track, we need to talk about the subway incident."

"Oh that." He rolled his head dismissively. "Last I heard, the death count has gone up to thirty-six. Hardly my record, but not bad."

"You're upset that more people didn't die as a result of your actions?"

"Oh, it could have been more," he replied, defensively. "Or it could have been none. See, that's the thing when playing with the Bat. You've got to have distractions in place. If you're single-minded, he will hone in relentlessly and you won't have a prayer."

"I don't understand," Harley admitted, wondering if it was better or worse that these massive acts of violence had a strategy behind them.

"Well, if I had planned, for example, to attack one subway train he would have sniffed that out. It's not like I was being subtle. I wanted his attention after all. So, he would have figured it out, stopped it, and dragged me away. A very short, anticlimactic game, wouldn't you agree?"

"So...what'd you do instead?"

"This time? Divide and conquer," he continued, smugly. "Instead of saying 'x marks the spot', I planted many an x. Unlike our resident riddle machine." He rolled his eyes heavily with disdain. "He literally wants to be caught. What kind of gimmick is that? 'Come catch me Batman.' 'Oh no. You caught me.'"

Harley snickered behind her hand, trying to compose herself.

"Feel free to laugh, my dear," the Joker encouraged. "He's truly a ridiculous man."

"I shouldn't encourage the mocking of another patient under our care," she stated, straightening her glasses.

Joker smirked at her with a tilt of the head. "He once had an underground game show. Do you know what he called it? The Riddle Factory."

She exploded in laughter despite herself. "Oh my god! That's so stupid."

"Agreed."

Blinking back tears, she suddenly regarded him with irritation. "You've gotten us off track again."

"My mind does tend to wander," he admitted apologetically. "Where were we?"

"Divide and conquer."

"Ah yes," he continued. "So I made it clear that my latest scheme would be taking place on the subway, but which station? Which train? Who could say? To make doubly sure, because the Bat is a crafty one, I redoubled my efforts. I actually had several explosives ready in different locations. Enough to keep the entire Bat-clan busy. By the time they had finished, they'd deactivated all but one. C'est la vie."

"A most engaging tale," she complimented. "But what happened wasn't really going to be my question."

"Apologies," he offered. "I appear to have jumped the gun."

"You were very insistent that this had to happen at a very specific time. Why?"

His eyes gleamed. "Oh, it was a very important anniversary. I couldn't possibly have missed it."

"Anniversary? For you and Batman?" she clarified, scribbling in her notebook.

"Who else would I go through so much effort for? To think he almost ruined it too," he finished sadly. "He appreciates the lengths I go to so little."

---

"I'm just saying that the physical health of the patients under our care should be just as, if not more, important than the mental care," Kirkwood stated pretentiously. "You can't care for the mind if the body is not healthy."

Harley hid the desire to roll her eyes yet again, struggling to look busy. Not that it ever worked. It was as though he was arguing not with her but at her, seeing as she never swapped words with him at this point. Why would he think that she, a psychiatrist, was a good candidate for this conversation?

This morning routine she was forced into was getting beyond tiresome. She was considering asking him to leave, point blank, even if it did open a can of worms at work she didn't want to deal with, when Jeremy suddenly walked in. Without a word, he pulled another chair up to her desk to join them, as though he had been expected.

"Thanks for inviting me," Jeremy said to her casually, setting down a coffee and bagel on her desk.

She stared at him awkwardly for a moment, before replying with a confused, "...You're welcome?"

"Not a bad way to start the day," he replied quickly, seemingly oblivious to the perplexed faces Kirkwood and she were throwing at him. "I never make time for breakfast."

Kirkwood wasn't just confused, Harley realized. He was annoyed. Really annoyed. Her eyes flashed quickly between him and back to Jeremy who was giving her a look with intent.

"Not a morning person then?" Harley asked him nonchalantly, suddenly acting as though she had expected him all along.

Jeremy's posture relaxed upon her understanding and hers followed suit. Kirkwood's only seemed to tighten all the more as a result.

"Not really," Jeremy admitted, taking a bite out of his bagel. "How about you?"

"I suppose life has forced me to become one, but I don't think I come by it naturally," Harley answered. "But I didn't have a lot of choice in college. Between classes and gym practice and meets-" she finished with a shrug.

"You did gymnastics in college?" he asked, sounding somewhat impressed.

"Yes. I actually got a scholarship through it." She didn't try to hide the sound of self-satisfaction in her voice, still rightfully proud of herself after all the grueling practice and sickeningly early mornings.

"No shit," Jeremy commented. "Well, show us what you can do!"

Harley chuckled, enjoying the attention. "I'd say I'm rusty, but I've actually gotten back in the swing of things lately. Just the same, I don't think here's the place and I'm not dressed right anyway."

"I'm a morning person," Kirkwood offered, which had nearly startled Harley, having momentarily forgotten he was there.

He must have realized as much, because he suddenly excused himself, claiming he needed to get to his wing of the building and started with his day. Both Harley and Jeremy wished him a good day and waited for the door to close behind him.

Jeremy instantly turned to Harley with a look of sincerity. "I'm so sorry. If I've overstepped my bounds, just say so. It's just...I've seen him bothering you a lot...or at least it seems like he's bothering you...and I just thought maybe it'd help if I-" He gestured around helplessly. "I don't know."

"Are you kidding?" Harley exclaimed. "You're my hero! He's been driving me absolutely up the wall! Thank you. A million times thank you. If you can see he's bothering me, why can't he?"

"He's just trying to wear you down. You don't have to put up with it, you know."

"I know," she sighed helplessly. "It's just...he hasn't really done anything. What am I supposed to do? Complain to HR that he won't stop exchanging pleasantries?"

"Well, if it helps," he offered. "I don't mind doing this more, if you'd like."

"Jeremy, you don't have to do that. I would never ask someone else to be subjected to him on a daily basis too."

"Have to? Who said anything about 'have to'?" he asked with a mischievous grin. "I'm still hoping to get a cartwheel out of you or something."

Harley laughed at that, good and loud. "We'll see," she offered simply, grateful not to have to face these awkward mornings alone anymore.

---

It felt surreal being there once more already, Harley mused as she entered the cemetery for the second time in four months. She'd barely been working at Arkham more than a year and here she was again for a work related death.

She silently walked with a small group of co-workers to the gravesite of the guard the Joker had killed during his latest escapade. Everyone was respectfully quiet, making it easy for her to get lost in thought. An image of a chalkboard declaring 'Zero Days Since Our Last Workplace Incident' came to mind and she stifled a chuckle.

All thoughts of levity quickly abated as she found herself face-to-face with an open casket. This wasn't the result of an unfortunate workplace accident. It had been cold-blooded murder.

The cold-face looking back at her as she paid her respects wasn't one she was familiar with from day-to-day. She only ever saw him once, but it was a face she'd never forget. The face of someone trying to comfort and reassure her, before he'd been brutally stabbed to death.

Stabbed to death with her knife. The knife she'd smuggled into Arkham. The knife she'd willingly given to a notorious killer and set loose.

She couldn't help feeling like this face, albeit dead, was staring at her knowingly, even through shut eyes. She was overcome with this feeling that it would continue to do so, even six feet beneath the earth. Even from the comfort of her home. Cold, dead eyes piercing her apartment walls.

Next thing she knew, Harley found herself seated in a folding chair. Several concerned faces watched her intently, though she managed to focus on Joan kneeling in front of her first.

"Take it easy," Joan suggested softly.

"Did-Did I faint?" Harley asked.

"No," her mentor assured her. "Well...perhaps nearly. Jeremy here made sure to catch you before you hit the ground though."

Harley looked up to see Jeremy smiling at her warmly. They both took a seat on either side of her as the service began, but she couldn't focus on the words. Even sitting between two people that obviously cared for her, she felt so alone.

She hadn't wanted to come. Knew it would only make things worse for her, but could see little way out of it. She'd been the last person to see him alive after all. All it served to do was make her feel completely guilt-ridden...which granted, why shouldn't she? Bad enough that she was responsible, but then she had to go and have a spell right there in front of everyone, making herself the center of attention during an event where she absolutely should not be.

At least Kirkwood wasn't here. He'd probably spend the remainder of the service mooning over her.

The casket closed with a dull thud and she felt herself jump slightly at the sound. She moved mechanically, following the crowd of people as they made to leave. Maybe she could blend in with them unnoticed and those dead eyes would lose sight of her.

---

It hadn't taken long before he'd convinced her to escort him out of the asylum once more. She'd agreed, but with the stipulation that it'd be done quickly and quietly this time. He didn't argue. She supposed she could have done so just as easily the first time around, avoiding bloodshed, if she'd just had gone through with it without a fuss.

What had followed was a rather lengthy stint of him coming in and out of her apartment at will, often staying the night and even conducting business over the phone in full earshot of her. One day, she'd come home with takeout and dessert to find him engaged in what she could only consider a kidnapping craft project, discarded letters cut from magazines and being glued to construction paper, the whole cliche topped off with a lunchbox of fingers in the fridge.

"See, Harl? The guy was already dead, it's not time sensitive. Plenty of time to eat and watch the movie, I can finish this after. Just push the box of Fred Fingers to the side and the cheesecake will fit." Both the Fred Fingers and cheesecake were gone by the next morning.

Though she wasn't aware of it at first, eventually a hat here, some socks there, and there was enough of Joker's laundry mixed with hers to fit in the top drawer. Which Harley emptied the moment she thought of it, feeling slightly drunk and giddy with the thought. Two of his purple trench coats, though different fabrics and shades of his signature purple, hung in the coat closet. One of his jester headed canes sat beneath, leaning against her vacuum.

Seeing his handguns casually out on a table or in a shoulder holster slung over the back of a chair was normal now and loose ammo cartridges were scattered around the apartment. Erring on the side of caution, she didn't move them, though she suspected it was less "strategic placement in case of attack" and more him emptying his pockets wherever he pleased. Appropriately, the Joker's belongings were home to a seemingly endless assortment of pill bottles, knives, and colorful "props" that she, as a rule, always considered dangerous.

They had meandering talks about everything and nothing, enjoying the constant stream of comedy that he played on the television. Relaxing on the couch, his head in her lap, her fingers brushing through his tousled curls as the smoke from their cigarettes curled around and up. She often snuggled against his chest in bed, her petite form enveloped by his long arms and his hands petting the back of her neck. At times, Harley had watched him sleep, marveling in the rare stillness of a face so often in motion.

She had to admit, she hadn't been this happy in years. It was so nice to have someone to come home to, even if it was sporadic.

And she noticed those eyes she had been so scared of following her home...they were strangely absent whenever he was around.

Harley brushed her teeth vigorously, taking note of his own purple toothbrush looking up at her. She shook her head in disbelief at the turn of events that had brought her here. It was such an innocuous thing, a toothbrush, but it was his and it was next to hers, something she doubted anyone else could ever claim.

The thought put a bounce in her step. She placed her own toothbrush in the holder next to his and skipped out of the bathroom to her bedroom.

"Well, someone's in a good mood tonight," he commented, looking up from his phone as she hopped into bed next to him.

"Why shouldn't I be?" She asked, melting into the sheets beneath her. "Life is good."

"Is it, cupcake?" He looked down at her suggestively, giving Harley that fluttery drop feeling in her stomach. "I know something that would make it even better."

Giving a blowjob was like riding a bike, Harley thought, falling quickly into the familiar movements with her tongue and lips. The Joker's cock was thick and long enough that she could only get a few inches after the head into her mouth at once, though he didn't seem to mind, petting and stroking her hair while murmuring words of affection and encouragement. She swirled her tongue around the soft skin near the slit, her left hand cupping and fondling his balls gently. Her right wrapped around the exposed length of shaft she couldn't fit in, her own fair complexion seeming like a deep tan next to his ever so lightly pink-tinged alabaster and tiny pulsing blue veins.

Though Harley was no stranger to giving head, she was surprised with how much more into it she was than with previous men, actually working herself up even with all her concentration on his pleasure.

And his were the only eyes she could see.