#almost like the game is begging me to commit moral atrocities so that i can get a good screenshot

[trappedinafantasy37]

Smoochin in the murder tribunal. Peep a dead Sarevok in the background.

[e-vasong]

Leverage AU ideas

Submission (Hey, it looked like tumblr sent this to me under your real name, so I’m not gonna say who submitted it just in case that was an accident, but @ submitter if you want credit feel free to hit me up with a URL or something, or reblog this and @ me or whatever!):

 Idrk how tumblr works but, for your leverage au: Vanya is Reggie’s real daughter which is why she has the violin but she was neglected bc reggie was obsessed with the others. The others are jealous of Vanya for her normal life/being Reggie’s real kid.

Eventually however she comes to the for help (probably bc of Lenard) and she helps them and they become a real family.

Maybe at some point she gets infected with a bio weapon that could kill everyone (maybe lenard tries to sell it to the commission) or learns dangerous information and they all have to save Vanya!

Oh God.  (Presuming these are about the Reginald-As-Archie-Raises-The-Kids-As-Criminals AU.)  These are so good.

The others are all homeless kids or kids from the system that Reggie plucked out and adopted because he saw tendencies in them that he believed, with training, could make them the best team of criminals around.

And this all translates so well to the canon dynamic where Vanya/the rest of the family both don’t really process the abuse endured by the other party.

Reginald neglects Vanya in favor of the others; tells them they have potential.  And when Vanya asks to join in on the lessons he tells her that she has no talent at all.  He tells her again and again how he chose the others, and the implication is clear.  That if it had been up to him, he never would have chosen her at all.

Meanwhile, the others are jealous of Vanya, Reginald’s biological kid.  They’re always aware, on some level, that he only took them in because he thought they might be useful--that it was money and power that brought them into his care, as if he’d bought them.  That he could always just...put them back, in a way they feel he can’t do with Vanya.  They look at Vanya, who spends her days practicing the violin and studying normal school subjects while they have to devote their days to things like disabling laser grids, swindling people out of their funds, and getting beaten into the ground in martial arts training, and they’re--they’re jealous.  Of course they are, even if they don’t know it.

It takes them a long time (though not as long as in canon, I think) to realize they never should have blamed each other.  It was always their father.

Instead of writing a tell-all book, Vanya turns over a bunch of information to the FBI.  Their father gets arrested, a handful of the siblings get their covers blown on an important job and almost get killed by the mark’s henchman.  It’s a shitshow all around.  Their dad’s the only one to go to jail, though before he serves any real time a sniper takes him out through a courthouse window.  They can’t figure out who did it; the mystery haunts them all for years.  The others don’t get caught, but they’re still furious that Vanya almost got them killed.

(And later, much later, Vanya will join up with her family to run a con.  Some of them haven’t let go of their suspicion and hurt yet.  She doesn’t quite blame them, but it still stings.  But here’s the thing.  There are always people out there looking to exploit weakness.  And Vanya will argue with her siblings.  Diego will snap: don’t pretend like you care, you almost got us killed!

And Harold Jenkins will be waiting.  Once a young homeless thief and grifter himself, Harold heard of Reginald Hargreeves collecting prodigious young criminals off the street and begged, begged Hargreeves to take him in.  Hargreeves had sniffed, shouldered the child out of the way.  If you really had any talent, Hargreeves had said, you would have conned me into it.

But Reginald Hargreeves’ vision had always been flawed.  Harold is no perfect criminal, but he’s a dangerous one.  And when Vanya storms out of the team’s homebase in the torrential rain, Harold pops his hood up, plasters the gentle, personable smile of Leonard Peabody onto his face, and sets his con into motion.)

They all split ways for a while, the way I described in my other post.  Allison keeps grifting.  Falls in love with a mark, Patrick, at one point.  It ends badly.  Ben and Klaus are a hacker/thief duo, except Ben has more scruples about who they victimize than Klaus, and it makes things tense as hell between them sometimes.  Diego is working as a ‘retrieval specialist’ with an intense moral code and a willingness to turn on anyone that hires him if they prove themselves shitty enough.  Luther gets out of the life and goes to live in the same apartment complex as Vanya.  They end up staying close the whole time, with Vanya giving music lessons out of her apartment and Luther teaching martial arts classes.

And then they all get a missive.  An invitation, a promise of a job.  Luther almost throws it away, but Vanya stops him.  We should check it out, she says.  And so they do.  And there they find all the others: Diego, Allison, Klaus, and Ben.

And Five.  Five, the brother they’ve long thought dead.  He looks tired.  And after he fields their frantic embraces, their questions, and even lets them cry on him a bit (though he doesn’t look very happy about it), he leans back, and he tells them he has a job to offer them all.

He gets a chorus of rejections almost immediately.  Vanya presumes she isn’t invited.  Luther says he’s out of the game, and Allison says she’s trying to get out.  Diego mainly seems skeptical that Five has anything worth offering.  Klaus wants to go back to his apartment and not take jobs that are like, hard, or anything.  Low risk only, please.  Come on, Ben, let’s go.

Ben shoots Klaus a furious glare.  Actually, he says.  I can make my own decisions, Klaus.  I want to hear what Five has to say.

Five has to repress a grin. Ben has always been Five’s favorite brother.

Five puts a manila folder on the table.  His siblings pick it up, start passing it around.  It’s not long before they’re frowning, clearly distressed by what they’re reading.

“His name is James Moore,” Five says.  “He’s seven years old.  He has a rare blood disease, but there’s a new experimental treatment that his doctors believe could save his life.  His insurance company is refusing to pay for his treatment; they keep forcing the family to jump through loopholes.  It’s a, uh, company policy that they didn’t include in the contract.  Stall paying for treatment until it’s too late.  Commit a moral atrocity, let innocents die, profit.  Y’know how it goes.  Age old story, really.”

“I don’t con sick people,” Diego says, and Five rolls his eyes.

“Good, because that’s not what I’m suggesting.”

“The insurance company?” Allison catches on first.  Ben follows suit, eyebrows shooting up as he realizes what Five is saying.  “You’re suggesting we con Perseus Insurance?  Owned by one of the most powerful men in the world?  That Perseus Insurance?”

Five leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees.  He’s planned this speech.  He has a plan to take down the Commission, but it involves moving a lot of pieces very, very slowly.  And if he can take down some other bad people along the way?  Good.  But he needs a team he can trust.  He needs his family, which means this pitch needs to work.  

“The rich and powerful take what they want,” Five says slowly.  “Right now, James and his family,” he gestures to the Moore file, “are suffering under an enormous weight.  I’m suggesting that we provide...leverage.”

[rewoundcircuit]

there were things that scared me when i was twelve, but i'm thirteen now | atsuko | trial vi.vi | re: everyone

[ suicide tw ]

Atsuko sighs.

“Did I say anything about ‘ruling the galaxy’? No, I didn’t. The purpose of our organization is to expose wrongdoings, to give the public motivation to take matters into their own hands. The reason you were placed in this killing game wasn’t because I wanted to 'kill the rich’ either, but rather because you’re part of my class. I don’t even want to kill the rich either, simply expose those elite who are more than content with manipulating and ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. I’d like them receive their just desserts. And, by the by, we’re not an organization made up of purely Hope’s Peak students or alumni." She rolls her eyes. "We’re consisted of mostly 'regular’ people, as one might say. It’s simply the fact that the people here on site are former SHSLs.”

At Himawari’s accusation, her lips purse.

“Punishing Ryuza-kun? No, we wouldn’t– Listen.” She pinches her nose. “He has anxiety, understand? He had his reasons for not wearing an eye patch during the game, but now he wants to keep it on, so please leave him alone.”

“And I’d prefer if you accused me of things, they were things I’m guilty of, you know? I would think there’s enough material for you to work with without coming up with baseless accusations. I understand that as someone who’s obsessed with making sure they’re a hundred percent in the right and I’m a hundred percent in the wrong, it’s so much easier to come up with whatever nonsense narratives you’re spouting about my 'creating a story for your lives’ or my 'being a control freak’, but I'm begging you to think even once before you speak and make false presumptions.”

And that’s enough of that.

She listens to Yoko’s speech with a mild amount of bemusement and tiredness all mixed into one before she extends a hand in the robot’s direction.

“This sort of thing speaks for itself, doesn’t it? You can’t look me in the eye and tell me this isn’t something straight out of a dystopian novel. Letting society be determined by corrupt leaders because 'everything would be so much more simple’…” She shakes her head.

“Oh, and, by the by, we’ve a few hundred or so hidden guns around hereabouts for extreme cases. So, please don’t feel threatened by Kurusu-san and her friends! She has no power here, and can’t hurt me or anyone who chooses not to fall whim to Hope’s Peak’s fancy. You think she’d be placed in this game otherwise?”

As for what Ryuunosuke says… well, for once, that takes her aback, just a little bit.

“'Live and bear the consequences of my sin’, huh…”

“Yoshida-san, that really was profound! I think my heart might have skipped a beat or something. But, hm,” she looks up through her lashes, “I’d honestly rather get a lobotomy than submit myself to Hope’s Peak Academy. If I believed in the courts of justice in the slightest, then once this game was over, I wouldn’t object to my crimes being properly tried, to be punished by being forced to live.”

She seems to be addressing both him and Kimiko, now.

“But you know… Hope’s Peak Academy wouldn’t let me off that easy, you know? They’d stick their hands in my brain and probably make me commit atrocities far worse than a killing game. If they can cause harm to this world by manipulating a gaming streamer… can you imagine what they’d do with a duchess? With a figure that’s already got a foot in the political life? Ara,” she laughs, but as she pushes a strand of hair behind an ear, she’s shaking, just a little. “No, no, I’d much rather die, for both my sake and the sake of the thousands of those who would hurt under my hand.”

“Hey, maybe to sweeten the deal a bit, this is going for the long haul, here, but if we’re successful in exposing Hope’s Peak and some sort of truly fair system manages to fit itself up there, I’ll serve my time and go to jail. Or,” she shrugs, “whatever.”

“Oh, and by the by.” Atsuko rolls her eyes. “No protagonist-like hope is going to bring back erased memories. There’ll be no longing, no 'hole in the heart’…” She pauses, looking a little solemn, as if she’s speaking from experience, but shakes her head. “Hope’s Peak Academy is very thorough. They can’t afford to slip up, you know?”

Bouncing to Mayura now.

“Hey… well.” She clears her throat. “Just to clarify, it’s not I who is erasing your memories, but Hope’s Peak Academy. What reason would I have for the memory of what happened here to just die?” She frowns. “Really, I want you to remember everyone who died here; and I speak that with honesty in my heart.”

Then she sits through being told to rot. we’re going to address that and group it with aki stuff cause i gotta wake up in a few hours

“What I want from you all… well, I’ve already gotten that. You’ve prevented some of yourselves from being forced to commit atrocities by dying. People are selfish–”

Atsuko’s lips suddenly purse, and it seems as if she was about to say something - maybe about morality or something of the sort, but she shakes her head.

“My reasoning for letting this stop here, huh…”

She holds her hand over her chin before shaking her head and laughing lightly.

“I guess I just really am that nice and think more than enough people here have died, ara." 

Man it’s almost 1 am 

"Oh, and, Kita-san.” She’s wrapping this up a bit lamely. “The fear thing was wholly unpleasant. If it’s any comfort, I think it… weighs a lot less on your character than if you had been influenced by another motive.” She dips her head. “Apologies.”