#gothamswhiteknight

[babydxhl]

@gothams-white-knight

continued from x.

She was still shivering; to hide it, she rubbed the towel over her hair, ducking her face to keep him from seeing her chattering teeth. It was no use, really. Her fingertips were pale blue, and the weeks in Arkham had turned her sickly even before the wind coming off the Gotham Bay had had its shot at her, the almost-bruised skin under her eyes mirroring Harvey's.

"I just need the night," she said. She had watched him with an owl-like gaze from the moment she'd stepped inside, as if she expected him to dart down a hallway and call the cops. The thought of red-blue lights flickering in the windows — the sound of a door cracking open under a steel-capped boot playing on repeat in her mind like some ghostly record — made her sit up a little straighter despite the ache in her bones.

"Coffee. Black." She had managed to snag her pills on the way out, tongueing the sedatives but taking the antipsychotics, and now she reached into her coat pocket to close her hand around the bottle like a touchstone. The still point of the turning world. You're fine. "I'll make some calls, and I'll be out."

[queryxecho]

@gothams-white-knight​ starter

“Well, we already had bad cop and good cop tonight- and considering this fun little detour from Blackgate’s notorious five star accommodations, I’m going to assume lawyer.” Diedre rolled the word off with some distain. Honestly, coppers might be preferable. 

“You know, there’s rumors you’re un-buyable,” Nina chimed in. “That’s not the kind of reputation that keeps you alive around here. Ballsy, but not entirely smart. It’s amazing you even managed to get elected.” 

Diedre lifted up her shackled wrists, annoyed. “Are these necessary? They’re terribly uncomfortable.” 

[babydxhl]

@gothams-white-knight

[badclown]

@gothams-white-knight​:

(Setting Meme)

Harvey wandered through the house of mirrors, the mirrors warping and distorting his reflection into someone unrecognizable. He cursed under his breath. He’d only been in here for ten minutes and he was already hopelessly lost. Why did he even go to the carnival? He was a city boy. Fairs and carnivals were never his thing.

Just my luck. He thought dryly. His reflection seemed to shift and ripple in the mirrors. Transforming into something else. Something monstrous. It was just an illusion, a puzzle. But it still unsettled him.

As Harvey continued walking, he saw something. A flash of green. Long green hair, and the back of a purple suit. He froze where he was.

"Hello?" he called, his voice echoing slightly. "Great. Looks like I've got company." He muttered under his breath.

There’s something about the distorted image of his face that Joker took pleasure in. The upper half of his face grew wide and bulbous in the glass before her so that her vision was filled with the glorious blue of just one of his eyes. What would he look like with those eyes filled with intensity, looking up at her from the floor and framed by that pale, pale face? What sort of sound would he make if she sank teeth into him, if she curled her fingers into a fist in his hair? What a fucking waste. 

As she moved, his reflection did too, and the purple of her silk suit behind him. No doubt he recognized her signature colors, the flash of her tattoos on bleached skin: aposematism in the wilds of Gotham City. There was no point to any of this if he wasn’t afraid, but that was the problem with Harvey Dent: he couldn’t be ruled by fear. If Joker couldn’t command through fear, then she would let everyone know what happened when she wasn’t feared. What did it sound like when he screamed? A genuine scream, guttural, visceral. The sound of everything he had ever loved and ever lost. What did that sound like?

“MIssssterrr Dent.” Her voice echoed against all the mirrors, and she kept moving to make the sound more confusing.

[bxrningblack]

❛ what are you doing out here by yourself? ❜

i'm too sick to find the meme @gothams-white-knight

Well, there's a first time for everything. Getting checked-up on by well-off men on her way home was a first. Maybe it's a good thing the surprise hits as much as it does, as it halts the instinct to reach for the pepper spray in her shoulder bag. Usually underworlders kept her safe enough, but every once and awhile there were unhoused folks who weren't with the program. Better safe than sorry and all that.

"Volunteer shift at Faith's Household. It's a shelter my father runs." Public PR was important to garnering a wider flock. More importantly, no one noticed when members of Faith's just disappeared.

"You're dressed too nice for this part of town. Shouldn't I be asking you the same thing?"

[normallyxstranger]

✨ I know we haven't interacted yet, but I'm curious!

@gothams-white-knight

send ✨ or ( ‘SPARKLE’ ) and i’ll tell you at least one thing i like most about you, your blog, your portrayal, or your muse

//We should seriously change that haven't-interacted-yet thing.

But I see you on the dash and as odd as it might sound, just seeing your presence there is kind of... reassuring? Like, you're part of my dash! I enjoy seeing you there. I've come to look forward to your posts and such.

Thanks for sending!

[babydxhl]

@gothams-white-knight

[floofee]

A, V, and W?

A. If you could get away with one murder in your lifetime without any legal, social, or emotional repercussions, would you kill someone?Hmmmm I don't think I would tbh, no, not even a horrible serial killer/terrorist/dictator. Because I'd have to live with the fact that I've murdered someone and I don't think I could do that.Beating the shit out of someone however...V. A world without religion, good, bad, neutral?Hm. I personally don't believe in God, so it wouldn't make that much of a difference for me. But, religion has been a cause for war throughout all of history, and it still is. People get killed because they don't share the same religion etc etc etc. Buuuuuut, I also know that religion is a source of solace for a lot of people. And I think that if religion didn't exist, we would find something else to rage wars over, to murder each other over (I mean, we do that already, but I hope you get my point). So I honestly think it wouldn't make that much of a difference on a global scale (beside all the money that goes into the churches etc right now being available for other things), but for individual people... Okay I have no idea where I'm going with this. I'm going with neutral. W. The men's rights movement, legitimate cause or laughable, and why?From what I've seen here on tumblr, completely laughable. That doesn't mean there aren't issues that men deal with. You know, the whole 'be a man' thing for example. Which is really really damaging for young boys who get told that they need to man up if they cry etc. But the men's rights movements, completely laughable, yep.

[babydxhl]

In the almost two years since she had left Gotham – severing, at that time, the ‘temptation’ of old habits by cutting all ties with her old associates – Mary Dahl had spoken little of her old life. She had a therapist, a little court-appointed man who found her unpleasant, and who was happy to sit talking in generics about the power of positive thinking instead of about anything real.

For the first month she had tried to do nothing. Records, books, the occasional trip to the theatre or a movie when she could stand it. The idle days had left her wanting to scream. It had been in its own way like being thrown back into a metaphorical padded cell – bored out of her mind, staring at the walls, passing entire days without saying a word. In the third month she’d threatened to do something drastic, and Dr Positive-Thinking had pulled some strings and found her the teaching job.

Now, with the afternoon light flooding in through the windows, she had been hunched over a series of papers on Fundamentals of Choreography – dull, questionably written, one with a smiley face sticker from a student who was trying unsuccessfully to get on her good side – when the knock came ringing through the front hall. A quick inspection of the security camera aimed at the front step did little to ease her furrowed brow. From somewhere upstairs, quiet music trailed through the floorboards.

“What are you doing here?” she said by way of greeting, the breeze ruffling her hair as she pulled back the door.

Closed, plotted starter for @babydxhl

Harvey stood outside Mary’s apartment. He was just released from Blackgate on parole, and trying to pick up the pieces of his life. He’d spent all morning going back and forth with himself, wondering if this was a good idea. If he should even bother. Mary wasn’t…Wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, and maybe she didn’t even want to see him. If that were the case, he would just politely apologize and be on his way. He knew not to bother when he wasn’t wanted.

He’d heard she was living in Bludhaven, and this was her current address. Maybe she didn’t want to see him. He couldn’t blame her. But there was only one way to find out. Harvey took a deep breath, managed to calm down, and knocked on the front door.

[babydxhl]

@gothams-white-knight

continued from x.

"Oh, shut up," she told him, not looking up, but her fingers still shook just a little as she slipped the lockpick — snagged from the props department, still with its crisp ID tag dangling off the end — from her pocket. The lock itself was antique, the sketelon-esque make of old movies, of Holmes novels.

"We won't get caught." Her voice was hushed but firm. They would not get caught because Mary Dahl willed it, because Mary Dahl couldn't allow it. Like a little god. She peered at the lock, squinting. "Point the torch this way."

[queryxecho]

I know we haven't interacted yet, but omg, PLEASE read Harvey!

@gothams-white-knight why would you let them be more smug

"You politics bunnies really swing one way or the other with barely a middle ground," Nina said, looking him up and down with a chuckle.

"Dom," Diedre agreed. "Maybe with an exception here and there not unlike Nina, but you give 'this tie can be handcuffs if you don't stop being bratty."

"Pleasure dom." Nina added. "You romantics at heart and your spoiling. Tend to eat out like they're starving too. On that note, let's toss in praise. I think giving and receiving for that." Politians and their underlying need for validation.

"Denial. We know better than to think all pleasure doms do is spoil."

"Course all this is contingent," Nina said. "We suspect you're not a one night stand guy. Romantics. Good for you, being a whore leads to a lot of downfalls in politics. How do you think we got so much dirt on the city after all our time at Pandora's?"

[queryxecho]

"Oh, you don't just have a death wish for yourself, you think we have one too," Diedre said incredulously. He's out of his mind. Which wasn't exactly new for this city, but there were more fun ways to go about it.

Still... they weren't exactly thrilled at the idea of spending more time in Blackgate either. The fact of the matter was every time they went in, they came out worse.

There's a minute where the girls just looked at each other with a mix of pained contemplation. A silent conversation before Nina broke the silence.

"Pino's bodyguard has got a weakness for our old place of employment." Pandora's Box. Known for it's discreetness and fulfilling every dirty wish your heart desired. But dangerous leverage if you were working for the son of a mobster.

"He's got some....tastes," Diedre put delicately, "that the family and his wife would probably consider an embarrassment if found out."

"It won't give you Sal," Nina admitted. But it could maybe be a start at getting people to flip more than they were typically willing.

Running on borrowed time. Harvey tried not to let her words get to him. And yet…Gotham had a way of corrupting people. It sank its teeth into them, rotted them from the inside out. The city turned good men (and women) into monsters. What if he became a monster? What if he was weak? No. Now was not the time to dwell on these things.

Harvey hesitated, then said in a low voice: “I’m looking for information on Salvatore Maroni. If not, anything on the Maroni family is greatly appreciated.” Carmine Falcone’s death had left a massive power vacuum in the Gotham underworld. With Falcone gone, Sal Maroni rose to power. He was a dangerous, formidable man, and not one to be taken lightly; but he was only a shadow of the Roman. If Harvey could prosecute Maroni- and that was a very big if. No one could ever pin anything on him- maybe, just maybe, Gotham had a bright future ahead. But this was only the first step.

[babydxhl]

👫If you're still accepting!

send a 👫and I’ll write four headcanons I have about our muses’ relationship

Mary always struggles with seeing Harvey with his family, particularly with Dolores; she tends to be a lot more irritable, short with him afterwards. He knows why, even if she's been sparing with details about her home life, and they've reached a quiet level of distance, of comfort about it.

There are half a dozen published paparazzi photos of Mary where Harvey is visible in the background, sometimes blurred, sometimes in profile, sometimes staring directly into the lens. She cuts out each one and delivers the magazine clippings to him every time.

After they're both recovered they make it a habit to stay in touch, going to the same diners, finding comfort in the mundane and the familiar. After a while Mary has one of the upstairs rooms at her place turned into a spare bedroom, and though neither of them say anything about it they know it's Harvey's, whenever he needs it.

Long, long, long late night phone calls when they're paranoid things are getting a little shaky, when they're worried they might get sucked back into it all. They're not monsters, just people, they tell each other, repeating it back and forth in a thousand different ways until they can sleep without Gotham looming overhead like something waiting to swallow them whole.

[babydxhl]

📸

send 📸 for photos my muse has taken of yours | still accepting.

[babydxhl]

❛ Don’t you ever just say hello? ❜

the batman sentence starters | still accepting.

"No." She reached up and set the baseball cap she'd been wearing down on his head, at the same time slipping off her sunglasses, tapping one end of them against her chin. "Harvey, Harvey, Harvey," she hummed, aware that she had placed herself directly between him and the pile of textbooks almost taller than she was.

"What are you doing tonight, huh? And don't say 'this'," she gestured at the stacks of books, the notepads, the pens and crumpled papers and abandoned cups of coffee, "that's too boring. I know somewhere fun."

[babydxhl]

“I’m surviving.”

the sopranos sentence starters | still accepting.

“Are you?”

In the last few weeks, Mary had developed a habit of gnawing the skin around her thumbnail, a nasty behaviour brought on by an attempt to quit nicotine. She picked idly at the bloody cuticle now; the cold air had turned her fingernails a pale blue. It was approaching the coldest days of winter, the night coming on too fast and the snow piled high by the side of the road. If Mary had put her palm against the windowpane, she was certain it would stick there.

“They’ll close campus next week. And it’s not like the heating’s any good here, anyway.” She looked up from her thumb and scrutinised Harvey with narrowed eyes. She had been raised to know that talking about money was obscene, in bad taste, but she also knew without saying anything that he couldn’t afford a place of his own. And if he didn’t want to go home—

“My parents left for California on Saturday,” she said, her tone casual, leaning back against the wood panelling. The thought of her mother and father, on the other side of the country, warm, tan, sipping cool drinks on a hotel balcony with a view of palm trees and the beach, turning on the AC, for Chrissakes, left a sour taste in the back of her throat. Better to turn to the matter at hand: not letting Harvey Dent freeze to death out of what she viewed as sheer stubbornness. “They won’t be back until January.”