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leighsartworks216 · 13 days ago

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Top Surgery Scars

Miles Edgeworth & transmasc!Reader

This was written a LONG time ago but I never did post it. And I certainly could go back in and edit it but uhhh I didn't

Warnings: silly, trans phoenix wright, trans reader, day at the beach, scars, pov third person, so much Y/N use I'm sorry

Word Count: 1,451

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AO3

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Miles liked to think he was knowledgeable in a wide variety of areas - and he was, to an extent. He knew plenty about blood splatter, how knives tore skin in different ways, entrance and exit wounds from different caliber guns, and much much more pertaining to investigations and surrounding his duty as a prosecutor. But every now and then, some things just elude him.

It was a hot day - one of the hottest this year so far. There were no cases (or at least nothing urgent or worth his time), and Phoenix called him complaining about his broken AC. When Maya complained in the background, whining about wanting to go to the beach, Miles was generous enough to offer renting a small portion of a private beach for them. And then Gumshoe got roped in. And his forensic investigator, Y/N. And Kay. Until he was reduced to being dragged along out of his nice, cool office and into the sun.

It wasn’t all bad, even though he preferred to sit under an umbrella with a towel protecting his feet from the hot sand. Phoenix was able to bring a cooler bottled water and juice, Y/N remembered to bring sunscreen and went around forcing everybody to put some on, Maya brought along plastic castle molds to teach her cousin Pearl how to build sandcastles, and Gumshoe brought an extra towel for Edgeworth even if he insisted he would not be getting in the water.

He watched from the shade as everybody enjoyed themselves. Most of the others ran directly into the water and were splashing each other, laughing loud enough that beach-goers miles away would hear them. Honestly, he was surprised when Y/N didn’t join them. He didn’t bother prying into the reason - he was sitting up there with them after all, but something caught his eye that sent his mind swirling with thoughts.

Faced with a bunch of shirtless peers he wasn’t used to seeing shirtless, it was only natural his eyes would glance at odd places. He looked away as quickly as possible, embarrassed enough as it was that he was looking in the first place, but he did a double take when he saw a faint reddish line across the investigator’s chest. When they caught him staring, they just smiled and offered him a spare book to read. He declined, but his mind wouldn’t stop seeing the mark.

He figured it was a scar - the general appearance as well as its uniformity suggested it was surgical as well. So, they had surgery.

That in itself wasn’t unusual, and he didn’t truly know his subordinates well enough to think much of it. Except it’s placement still bothered him. It followed a clear path under their pectoral muscles. Miles could really only think of a few surgeries that would follow an incision like that.

His first thought was heart surgery, or even just open-chest surgery. Perhaps your heart wasn’t very strong and you needed a replacement, or you had surgery for a pacemaker. He considered this for a moment. Yet, all images he saw of heart surgery or open-chest scars, it was a small incision down the sternum. This didn’t match at all.

His second thought was cancer. The idea alone had him subconsciously furrowing his brow as he stared blankly at the shoreline. Gumshoe crossed his sight path, looking confused, and Miles schooled his expression back to its usual cool neutrality.

If they had breast cancer and went through a procedure to remove the affected tissue, certainly it would leave a similar scar-pattern. Double mastectomies weren’t uncommon. He was sure most women would rather have both removed in order to remain a semblance of balance, though he could not back this assumption up with his limited knowledge.

And yet, something within his logical reasoning didn’t feel like it added up quite right. His finger tapped against his arm, trying to work through the knot little by little.

“You’re not gonna get in, Edgeworth?”

Ripped from his deductive reasoning, Miles squinted to see Phoenix haloed by the too-bright sun. “No,” he shot down the mere thought. Phoenix stared for a minute, expecting an explanation. He huffed when he didn’t get one.

“A little salt water won’t kill you,” he scolded. He dug through the cooler for a second for a bottle of water and prepared to turn and join the others back at the water, but something stopped him. His eyes widened and he excitedly tapped the investigator on the arm to get their attention. Without any warning, he lifted his swim shirt just enough to reveal a barely-there scar along his pecks. A very similar scar to Y/N’s. “Hey, we match!”

Miles startled. He was prepared to interrogate Phoenix about his apparent run-in with cancer he’d never known about, or to scold the defense attorney for his crass remark on a situation Y/N may not have yet come to terms with. And then they laughed.

Y/N set their book aside and stood up, excitedly going into a round of rapid-fire questions back and forth with Phoenix. They stared and awed over each other’s chests.

“When did you have yours done?”

“When I was, maybe, 15? So 8 years ago? What about you?”

“Oh, just a couple years ago!”

“That’s so cool! They look like they’re healing great.” Phoenix blushed and scratched the back of his head. His spikes were severely deflated from the ocean water. “If you don’t mind me saying.”

Y/N laughed. “Not at all! It’s so cool to meet someone else in the wild! Who was your surgeon? What kind of procedure did they go for?”

“They did double-incision for me. I’m pretty sure they put my nipple on sideways, though,” Phoenix laughed.

Miles’ curiosity got the better of him. He stood up as well and cleared his throat. Both of them immediately turned to look at him. Yet, under their stares, he found he had to look away to get his question out. “Would you mind explaining what you’re talking about?”

Phoenix floundered for a moment trying to find a way to explain it. “We had a surgery done that removes our, uhm.” He gestured, but Miles just quirked a brow at him.

“Sir, how much do you know about transgender people?”

He tapped his finger on his arm, thinking. “Not much, I suppose.”

“Well,” they continued, “some people don’t feel comfortable in their bodies. There are surgeries they can undergo that help them feel like they belong in their skin. Mr. Wright and I both had top surgery, which flattens our chests so we look more masculine.”

Ah. So the inconsistency in his logic was due to his lack of knowledge. He blushed and bowed slightly. “I apologize if I came across as insensitive,” he said. “I… suspected you both had survived cancer.”

Phoenix chuckled, but it was not unkind. “Thankfully not.”

“NIIICK!” They all turned to look at the screaming spirit-medium. Gumshoe was struggling to stack pales of wet sand on top of each other while Kay cheered him on; Pearly sat a few feet away packing a castle-mold with sand that was definitely too dry. “We’re having a sand castle competition!”

“I’ll be right there!”

“Hurry up!!”

Phoenix smiled at his childhood friend and his new friend in the making. “I gotta run before Maya starts pelting me with sand. But if you ever wanna know more, you can always ask, okay, Edgeworth?”

“I appreciate the offer.”

“No problem!” Maya’s shouting followed Phoenix the whole time he ran across the hot sand to the shoreline. Miles did not envy the defense attorney as he was reduced to fetching water.

Y/N cleared their throat. It seemed while he was distracted watching the chaos, they had grabbed two juice boxes and were sitting down. They offered the second box to him once he was sitting back down.

“If there’s anything you want to ask about right now, I’d be happy to answer however I can.”

“I don’t want to intrude on your time.”

They smiled. “Not at all! I’d be happy to teach you more.”

Miles thought about the offer for a moment. Stiffly, he pulled the straw from the side and stabbed it into the little hole. He felt childish. “Could you… explain what Wright meant about a ‘double-incision’ procedure?”

“Absolutely!”

As Phoenix, Maya, and Pearl faced off against Gumshoe and Kay, arguing over who won their competition, and as the sun slowly lowered in the sky, Miles and Y/N sat together under their umbrellas, talking endlessly without a care in the world for the heat that drew them all out there in the first place.

---

Tag List:

@writeawaythepain @sleepyqueerenergy @marina-and-the-memes @islandfrogeery

#fanfic #fanfiction #miles edgeworth #miles edgeworth x reader #miles edgeworth & reader #ace attorney #transmasc reader #x transmasc reader #trans reader #x trans reader

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haggishlyhagging · 1 year ago

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As the fetus's rights increased, mother's just kept diminishing. Poor pregnant women were hauled into court by male prosecutors, physicians, and husbands. Their blood was tested for drug traces without their consent or even notification, their confidentiality rights were routinely violated in the state's zeal to compile a case against them, and they were forced into obstetrical surgery for the "good" of the fetus, even at risk of their own lives.

Here are just a few of the many cases from the decade's pregnancy police blotter and court docket:

• In Michigan, a juvenile court took custody of a newborn because the mother took a few Valium pills while pregnant, to ease pain caused by an auto accident injury. The mother of three had no history of drug abuse or parental neglect. It took more than a year for her to get her child back.

• In California, a young woman was brought up on fetal neglect charges under a law that, ironically, was meant to force negligent fathers to pay child support. Her offenses included failing to heed a doctor's advice (a doctor who had failed to follow up on her treatment), not getting to the hospital with due haste, and having sex with her husband. The husband, a batterer whose brutal outbursts had summoned the police to their apartment more than a dozen times in one year alone, was not charged —or even investigated.

• In lowa, the state took a woman's baby away at birth even though no real harm to the infant was evident—because she had, among other alleged offenses, "paid no attention to the nutritional value of the food she ate during her pregnancy," as an AP story later characterized the Juvenile Court testimony. "[S]he simply picked the foods that tasted good to her."

• In Wyoming, a woman was charged with felony child abuse for allegedly drinking while pregnant. A battered wife, she had been arrested on this charge after she sought police protection from her abusive husband.

• In Illinois, a woman was summoned to court after her husband accused her of damaging their daughter's intestine in an auto accident during her pregnancy. She wasn't even the driver.

• In Michigan, another husband hauled his wife into court to accuse her of taking tetracycline during her pregnancy; the drug, prescribed by her physician, allegedly discolored their son's teeth, he charged. The state's appellate court ruled that the husband did indeed have the right to sue for this "prenatal negligence."

• In Maryland, a woman lost custody of her fetus when she refused to transfer to a hospital in another city, a move she resisted because it would have meant stranding her nineteen-month-old son.

• In South Carolina, an eighteen-year-old pregnant woman was arrested before she had even given birth, on the suspicion that she may have passed cocaine to her fetus. The charge, based on a single urine test, didn't hold up; she delivered a healthy drug-free baby. Even so, and even though the Department of Social Services found no evidence of abuse or neglect, State prosecutors announced that they intended to pursue the case anyway.

• In Wisconsin, a sixteen-year-old pregnant girl was confined in a secure detention facility because of her alleged tendencies "to be on the run" and "to lack motivation" to seek prenatal care.

Certainly society has a compelling interest in bringing healthy children into the world, both a moral and practical obligation to help women take care of themselves while they're pregnant. But the punitive and vindictive treatment mothers were beginning to receive from legislators, police, prosecutors, and judges in the 80s suggests that more than simple concern for children's welfare was at work here. Police loaded their suspects into paddy wagons still bleeding from labor; prosecutors barged into maternity wards to conduct their interrogations. Judges threw pregnant women with drug problems into jail for months at a time, even though, as the federal General Accounting Office and other investigative agencies have found, the prenatal care offered pregnant women in American prisons is scandalously deficient or nonexistent (many prisons don't even have gynecologists)—and has caused numerous incarcerated women to give birth to critically ill and damaged babies. Police were eager to throw the book at erring pregnant women. In the case of Pamela Rae Stewart of San Diego the battered woman charged with having sex against her doctor's orders—the officer who headed up the investigation wanted her tried for manslaughter. "In my mind, I didn't see any difference between born and unborn," Lieutenant Ray Narramore explains later. "The only question I had was why they didn't go for a murder charge. I would have been satisfied with murder. That wouldn't have been off-base. I mean, we have a lady here who was not following doctor's orders."

Lawmakers' claims that they just wanted to improve conditions for future children rang especially false. At the same time that legislators were assailing low-income mothers for failing to take care of their fetuses, they were making devastating cuts in the very services that poor pregnant women needed to meet the lawmakers' demands. How was an impoverished woman supposed to deliver a healthy fetus when she was denied prenatal care, nutrition supplements, welfare payments, and housing assistance? In the District of Columbia, Marion Barry declared infant health a top priority of his mayoral campaign—then cut health-care funding, forcing prenatal clinics to scale back drastically and eliminate outright their evening hours needed by the many working women. Doctors increasingly berated low-income mothers, but they also increasingly refused to treat them. By the end of the decade, more than one-fourth of all counties nationwide lacked any clinic where poor women could get prenatal care, and a third of doctors wouldn't treat pregnant women who were Medicaid patients. In New York State, a health department study found that seven of the state's counties had no comprehensive prenatal care for poor women whatsoever; several of these counties, not so coincidentally, had infant mortality rates that were more than double the national average. In California in 1986, twelve counties didn't have a single doctor willing to accept the state's low-income MediCal patients; in fact, the National Health Law Program concluded that the situation in California was so bad that poor pregnant women are "essentially cut off from access to care."

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

#susan faludi #female oppression #prenatal care #low income women #pregnancy #amerika #failed state #court-ordered kidnapping #USA is a society that wants to die #misogyny

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rapeculturerealities · 2 years ago

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Fatal shooting of Karina Gonzalez once again highlights difficulty of seizing guns from spouse accused of abuse -

Two weeks before Karina Gonzalez was fatally shot in her Little Village home, she walked into the Ogden district police station and said her husband had threatened to kill her.

“You do not know who I am,” Jose Alvarez had yelled to his wife, according to her complaint, which also noted Alvarez had a gun in the home.

In the days that followed, Gonzalez was granted an order of protection against Alvarez banning him from their home. Chicago police filed a clear and present danger report on him, and Illinois State Police revoked his firearm owners identification card.

Yet Alvarez was still in the home and still had his Glock 9mm handgun on July 3 when prosecutors say he fatally shot his wife and 15-year-old daughter and wounded his 18-year-old son.

Under current state law, there is no clear process for removing a gun after an order of protection has been issued, according to domestic violence prevention advocates. The law also does not dictate how quickly it must be done.

#Domestic violence #Intimate partner violence #tw murder #Shooting #Guns

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beardedmrbean · 4 months ago

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SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Three years after a former Georgia district attorney was indicted on charges alleging she interfered with police investigating the 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the case's slow progression through the court system has sputtered to a halt, one the presiding judge insists is temporary.

Jackie Johnson was the state's top prosecutor for coastal Glynn County in February 2020, when Arbery was chased by three white men in pickup trucks who had spotted him running in their neighborhood. The 25-year-old Black man died in the street after one of his pursuers shot him with a shotgun.

Johnson transferred the case to an outside prosecutor because the man who initiated the deadly chase, Greg McMichael, was her former employee. But Georgia's attorney general says she illegally used her office to try to protect the retired investigator and his son, Travis McMichael, who fired the fatal shots.

Both McMichaels already have been convicted and sentenced to prison in back-to-back trials for murder and federal hate crimes. So has a neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, whose cellphone video of the shooting triggered a national outcry over Arbery’s death. A court heard their first appeals six months ago.

The criminal misconduct case against Johnson has moved at a comparative crawl since a grand jury indicted her on Sept. 2, 2021, on a felony count of violating her oath of office and a misdemeanor count of hindering a police officer.

While the men responsible for Arbery's death are serving life sentences, the slain man's family has insisted that justice won’t be complete until Johnson stands trial.

“It’s very, very important,” said Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery's mother. “Jackie Johnson was really part of the problem early on.”

Johnson has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. After losing reelection in 2020, she told The Associated Press that she immediately recused herself in the handling of Arbery's killing because of Greg McMichael's involvement.

Johnson's case has stalled as one of her attorneys, Brian Steel, has spent most of the past two years in an Atlanta courtroom defending Grammy-winning rapper Young Thug against racketeering and gang charges. Jury selection in the case took 10 months, prosecutors began presenting evidence last November and they are still calling witnesses.

Senior Judge John R. Turner, who was assigned to Johnson’s case, insists there is nothing he can do but wait.

“If anyone’s concerned that the case is being shuffled under the rug, I can guarantee you it’s not,” Turner told the AP in a phone interview. “It’s moving at a snail’s pace, but it will move forward eventually.”

After Arbery was killed, Greg McMichael told police that he and his son had armed themselves and chased the Black man, suspecting he was a fleeing criminal. Bryan, who didn't know any of the men, made a similar assumption after seeing them pass his home and joined in his own truck.

The indictment against Johnson alleges she told police they shouldn't arrest Travis McMichael. It also accuses her of “showing favor and affection” to Greg McMichael by calling on George Barnhill, a district attorney in a neighboring judicial circuit, to advise police about how to handle the shooting.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr appointed Barnhill four days later to take over as outside prosecutor. Carr has said he picked Barnhill without knowing he already had advised police that he saw no grounds for arrests in Arbery's death.

Barnhill stepped aside after a few weeks, but not before he sent a letter to police captain arguing the McMichaels acted legally and Arbery was killed in self-defense.

After Johnson was charged, she reported to jail for booking and was released without having to post bond. Her attorneys waived a formal reading of the charges before a judge and she has yet to appear in court. The judge denied legal motions by Johnson’s lawyers to dismiss the case last November. Court records show no further developments over the past 10 months.

“Securing an indictment is just one step in our ongoing pursuit of justice for Ahmaud Arbery and his family," Carr said in a statement. "We have never stopped fighting for them, and we look forward to the opportunity to present our case in court.”

Johnson's attorneys, Steel and John Ossick, did not respond to emails and a phone message seeking comment. They have argued in court filings there is “not a scintilla of evidence” that she hindered police.

Prosecutors responded with a court filing that listed 16 calls between phones belonging to Johnson and Greg McMichael in the weeks following the shooting.

Two legal experts who aren't involved in the case said there is no deadline for Johnson to stand trial. She hasn't been jailed, so there is little pressure to expedite her case.

Steel's prolonged absence because of the Atlanta gang trial likely isn't the only factor slowing the case, Atlanta defense attorney Don Samuel said.

Courts remain saddled with a backlog of cases since the COVID-19 lockdowns, he said. And the attorney general's office has a limited staff of criminal prosecutors with their own busy caseloads.

Samuel also questioned whether prosecutors have a strong case against Johnson. Even if she opposed charging the McMichaels in Arbery's death, he said, prosecutors haven't accused her of taking bribes or similar blatant corruption.

District attorneys “have a huge amount of discretion to make decisions about what cases to pursue,” Samuel said. “The notion that we’re going to start prosecuting DAs for prosecuting or not prosecuting strikes me as really being on the edge of propriety.”

Danny Porter, the former district attorney for Gwinnett County in metro Atlanta, said prosecutors like Johnson have a legitimate role in advising police on whether or not to arrest suspects before an investigation is complete.

As for Johnson's recommendation in 2020 that the attorney general replace her with another prosecutor who concluded Arbery's killing was justified, Porter said: “I don’t think that’s a violation of the law, though it might have made them mad.”

#nunyas news

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uboat53 · 8 months ago

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Well, the Trump trial is officially over and the reaction to it sparked an idea I need explore. SHORT RANT (TM) time?

INTRODUCTION

Anyone else notice something interesting about the Republican response to the verdict? They's lots of talk about "rigged trials" and "election interference", but there's not a lot of talk about the evidence. I mean, if you really thought that someone wasn't guilty of something, wouldn't you want to make a case for it? Heck, if you really thought that a trial was rigged or that the other party was interfering in the election, wouldn't you be able to put up some evidence for that?

There's a reason for that, though, the Republican response has nothing to do with the evidence. Many of them DO, in fact, seem to think he's guilty, but they still think he shouldn't be convicted. The reasons for this are pretty interesting.

THE WORLDVIEW

In 2018, a composter named Frank Wilhoit from Ohio came up with a definition of conservatism. It goes like this:

"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups that the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

And, here's the thing, he's not wrong. Just look at how the conservative response to campus or BLM protests varies from their response to the attack on the US Capitol. Look at how their statements about law enforcement in general deviate from their statements about Trump's legal travails. None of these statements make sense if you hold a belief in the American concepts of equal justice under law, but they make perfect sense if you believe that Trump and his followers are part of the in-group and the law isn't supposed to bind them.

THE EVIDENCE

The great thing about the American legal system is that, in order to convict someone of a crime, you have to be very clear about what they did and why you think they did it. In other words, you have to lay out the evidence.

In this case, jurors believed, based on Stormy Daniel's testimony as well as corroborating evidence, that (a) Trump had an affair with her, they believed, based on financial records and corroborating evidence, that (b) Michael Cohen paid her in order to capture her story and prevent it from coming out, they believed, based on financial records, written records, and corroborating evidence that (c) Trump paid Cohen back for this, they believed, based on testimony by Hope Hicks, Michael Cohen, and others, that (d) the story was prevented from coming out because it was believed it would harm Trump's chances of being elected, and they believed, based on all of this and other corroborating evidence, that (e) Trump's business records were falsified in order to conceal the nature of this payment which would constitute an illegal campaign contribution.

Whether you understand the evidence as the jury did or not, the evidence is laid out for all to see. Also, each decision the judge and prosecutor made was a matter of public record. It is striking that no Republican in the country seems to think there was anything wrong with the evidence, what the jury interpreted from it, or with any specific decision made by the DA or judge during the trial. In fact, it's becoming more obvious that many of them don't seem to have any issues at all with what the jury found or with any of the schedules or procedures of the trial itself.

THE UNAMERICAN TRUTH

Fundamentally, American law is premised on the idea of equal justice under law; this is the concept that the law should apply equally to every person no matter their station. This type of conservatism is, therefore, at odds with one of the most basic premises of American law and has been since the founding.

And, like most bad things in America, this worldview goes back to racism. This is exactly the same worldview that allowed people to justify enslaving black people purely on the basis of the color of their skin. It's the same worldview that allowed people to justify hanging a black man merely on the accusation that he had whistled at a white woman but to refuse to convict a white man who had clearly murdered a black one. It's the worldview behind slavery, the KKK, and Jim Crow.

Republicans and conservatives today aren't arguing that Trump is innocent of the charges he's been convicted on, they seem to largely accept the evidence on that front. What they're arguing is far more dangerous to our country, they're arguing that no law should ever be enforced against Donald Trump or any member of their in-group no matter how guilty they are.

#politics #us politics #republicans #trump #trump trial #trump verdict #trump guilty #racism

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enchiibean · 2 years ago

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Now I'm curious about what Narumitsu things you go "he would not fucking say that" about :0 Alternatively go ahead and give out the Narumitsu/Tasutsumu thoughts >:3

HELP OKAY. These will both be sooo incoherent and will contains spoilers so I will put this all under a read more just in case.

I will admit that I haven’t read any Narumitsu fics in a hot minute but I feel like a lot of the ones I TRIED to read back in the summer felt kinda like they were. Like. Stripped of the things that I personally like about them like the complexity and the admiration and how much they CARE for and will support each other despite being “rivals” on opposite sides of the court. And I’m not saying that every depiction of them has to be super complicated or emotionally life-changing or anything because I love reading just. Fluff or silly stuff. But I feel like they were being replaced by some generic yaoi pair where one of them is super dominant and possessive while the other one is super woobified, if that makes sense? And I would just stare and be like that is NOT them!!!! I feel like this happens to a lot of mlm ships though, especially when they’re popular. The nuance is taken away and the yaoi effect takes its place. Have you also seen this. Is this only in my imagination. Was I just bad at picking out fics (probably).

ANYWAY Narumitsu/Tasutsumu comparisons I am taking out my notes. This isn’t even necessarily romantic/from a shipping point of view, I just think they’re very similar!! First of all, they’re both pairs of childhood friends who had shared dreams. For Narumitsu, as children, they both wanted to become defence attorneys to protect truth and justice, while Tasutsumu wanted to become actors together. However, as they grow up, one of them changes paths, without warning, and not necessarily because they wanted to. Edgeworth ends up as a prosecutor instead of a defence attorney after being raised by Von Karma, while Tsumugi becomes a tutor instead of an actor. Meanwhile, Phoenix and Tasuku are both still working towards defence and acting but they both want to know what changed (although Tasuku has a lot better of an idea on that) and have no way of knowing.

Another thing is they both have a “divorced” arc where one of them had what they saw as a HUGE failure and then left to somewhere the other couldn’t follow. For Tasutsumu, this is the same situation above because Tsumugi abruptly changed paths BECAUSE this failure and Reni’s words affected him so much that he didn’t think he could act anymore. For Narumitsu, you could say that similarly, this aligns with the situation outlined before because Phoenix couldn’t contact Edgeworth in any way until they were on opposite ends of the court, but I was thinking more of the post-AA1 “PROSECUTOR MILES EDGEWORTH CHOOSES DEATH” era where Edgeworth got up and left to Europe. And I think these situations are more similar because in these, there’s more anger. Tasuku is angry that Tsumugi abandoned their dream, while Phoenix is angry at Edgeworth because he thinks that he’s quit being a prosecutor. I think that they both perceive this as selfish. For Tasuku, it feels like a betrayal to him because he thought that acting was so incredibly important to both of them and Tsumugi being able to quit after one failure is proof to him that it wasn’t as important to Tsumugi as it was to Tasuku. Plus, they’d been friends all their lives and he just leaves without a word!

Phoenix feels similarly betrayed because he went through SO MUCH to be reunited with Edgeworth and save him, to become his friend again, just for Edgeworth to disappear at the end of it all. In his eyes, Edgeworth is still operating on the basis that he needs to be perfect, and if he isn’t perfect at prosecution, then he might as well not be a prosecutor at all. To Phoenix, “Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth’s death” is him quitting prosecution for what he sees as a petty reason. By the end of Justice for All, we learn that for Edgeworth, this was not the case; “Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth’s death” was him abandoning his previous ways and becoming a new type of lawyer. He’d already been saved by Phoenix, and he was trying to learn how to become closer to that lawyer he dreamed of being as a child who fought for justice (rather than the ruthless prosecutor he’d been who was willing to do anything for a win and he also had to deal with the fact that he probably got innocent people convicted), which is what Phoenix had wanted. But can you blame Phoenix for thinking this? I mean, Edgeworth was vague as hell in that note and disappeared without a trace. Both him AND Tsumugi disappear without a trace, knowing where Phoenix and Tasuku are (Edgeworth reads about Phoenix’s cases in the news and Tsumugi goes to see Tasuku’s plays), but not letting them know where THEY are. Anyway, Tasuku and Edgeworth both thought that their respective friends were willing to give up on not only their dreams, their work, but also THEM because they were no longer perfect and were upset by this.

Also, this has less to do with their relationships, but a similarity between Tasuku and Edgeworth is that they were forced into “perfection” by their mentors. The ways their mentors made them act led them to becoming hated by their peers and also distanced them from why they were pursuing acting/law in the first place. Reni kept pushing Tasuku into the prince box and put him on a pedestal as the top actor, which painted a target on his back in God Troupe's competitive environment. This took away a lot of what Tasuku loved about acting; trying all types of new roles, doing it with people who share that passion, and just. Acting for the sake of acting!! And the way Reni had one idea of what “good” acting is and thought that he could only do princely roles, as well as his peers’ opinions on him and the way he couldn’t show weakness in front of them which furthered their opinion that he was cold and thought he was above them, when really he felt isolated and alone.

Von Karma hammered into Edgeworth since he was young that he has to be PERFECT, and that means a perfect win streak. I’m almost certain that he switched from defence to prosecution because of him (I just can’t remember if or where this was Actually Confirmed). He wants a perfect streak because of him. And similar to Tasuku, he’s kind of alienated by his peers because of it with the “demon prosecutor” image who’s willing to do ANYTHING to maintain that perfect win streak. And the fact that he’s been taught to care more about wins than anything else in his profession made him lose focus of his ideals and why he wanted to become a (defence) lawyer in the first place, which was to find out the truth behind a case and to bring justice and protect people!!

Also, they both eventually break away from those mentors!! Tasuku left Reni and God Troupe because he saw what he did with Taichi and Mankai in episode 3 and he couldn’t stay with a troupe that would be willing to sabotage others like this to stay on top of them. And after 1-4, after being on the defence podium, Edgeworth gets to see how Von Karma REALLY is and what he’s willing to do to maintain that streak and stay as the “best” prosecutor!! It puts things into perspective for him because he’s been taught to try to emulate Von Karma for most of his life but he realizes that if that means doing all of THIS then he doesn’t want to. They both decide they want to change. Perfection wasn’t either of their goals in the first place, they just wanted to improve and this is how they were taught to do that. And their morals lead them to changing for the better :)

#timeskip #narumitsu #tasutsumu #analysis #i guess this is an analysis. enjoy!! i hope this is understandable! and that it’s not too wordy #i could probably say more but my brain is fried rn :(#i’m not writing a proper outro sorry this isn’t for class i’m not making a proper essay <3 #ask

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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Fake democracies take power by controlling who gives orders to public officials. During Hungarian elections, local polling station committees count the votes. Our research found that in 2018, committees that only had government members on them were far more likely to have irregularities in the count than those composed of both government and opposition. Surprising? Not especially. But it’s also the same reason that Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin wants to prevent the committee that appoints new judges from meeting. And it’s why the Israeli Supreme Court needs to hold the line to defend democracy.

In democracies, citizens elect people to make laws and also to supervise their execution. The catch is that in a parliamentary democracy, such as Israel’s, the same people take on both roles. When the people elected to make the law ignore that distinction and execute the laws they would like to have rather than the ones that exist, it amounts corruption or malpractice, and the judiciary is supposed to hold wayward officials to account. When the laws those officials would like to have concern the rules by which laws themselves are made—that is, when they are constitutional, or in the Israeli terminology, Basic Laws—conflating both roles threatens the survival of democracy itself.

Governments depend on appointed officials: civil servants, police, and soldiers to put laws into practice. These people depend for their livelihoods on a government paycheck and for promotion on a bureaucratic hierarchy. In a real democracy, their tasks are governed by the law, and they are protected from dismissal and reprisals if they follow it. In a fake democracy, the executive leadership takes control. That way, corrupt officials can intimidate opposition-aligned or simply foreign businesses (as happens in Hungary), or police officers taking orders from anti-democratic ministers can use excessive force against demonstrators (as they recently did in Israel).

Officials who don’t want to support the government line can resign, as Air Force reservists, soldiers, and even nuclear scientists have threatened to do in Israel. But resignations can never be enough because an honest official’s resignation gives the corrupt government a chance to appoint an obedient replacement. Officials who want to uphold democracy need to be able to do it when it matters—while they are still in their jobs.

The current crisis in Israel will come to a head in September, when the Supreme Court hears challenges to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most recent judicial coup law. The law was written to change the way the Supreme Court interprets government actions by preventing it from blocking them by applying a test known as “reasonableness.”

Although Netanyahu—a man with a tenuous relationship to the truth—denies it, the new law would apply to decisions to fire the attorney general (Israel’s chief public prosecutor and an independent office, unlike in the United States) or not to convene the judicial appointments panel, where the government doesn’t have enough allies to exert control, or to dismiss the police chief on the grounds that he was insufficiently repressive.

The Supreme Court needs to be able to instruct officials not to obey illegal government orders, and to order security forces to protect officials from reprisals, which means the court needs to invalidate the law. (Such conflict is not unheard of in constitutional states: It nearly occurred in the United States under the administration of former President George W. Bush)

Unlike in Hungary, where constitutional weaknesses (the interaction of a majoritarian electoral system and the ability to change the constitution with a two-thirds majority of a unicameral parliament) gave Prime Minister Viktor Orban the formal constitutional authority to dismantle checks and balances, Israel’s constitution, like the United Kingdom’s, is uncodified. In Israel, the Supreme Court can test legislation against the country’s fundamental values (as expressed in the declaration of independence) and strike down incompatible laws.

In Hungary, the courts cannot review constitutional amendments, and European Court of Human Rights judgements, which are theoretically binding on Hungary, are often not implemented. The Hungarian judiciary did not ask the European Court of Justice to review Orban’s constitutional changes, even though the EU now thinks they have damaged judicial independence so much that it has demanded that Hungary undo them in order to be trusted with EU funds. Because of the timidity of the Hungarian judicial system, the EU had to wait several years, until the Polish government attempted a similar judicial coup, before it could develop the jurisprudence needed to stop takeovers of the judiciary.

Israel’s courts must not be so timid. Although it has never struck down a Basic Law, the Supreme Court has prepared the ground by developing jurisprudence that could be used to do so. It could question whether this reform really is a Basic Law or if it was just called one without justification. Alternatively, it could argue that the law breached the core values of the Israeli legal system by destroying the separation of powers. (Either something is so fundamental that it undermines the system; or it is only notionally, but not actually, fundamental. It can’t be both). In a tactic borrowed from major British constitutional cases, Israel’s court has now said it will meet as a full bench of 15 justices when it hears challenges to Netanyahu’s law.

Netanyahu has said that he would ignore the Supreme Court if it blocks the law. The court must not be deterred by his bluster. Indeed, this is the most serious constitutional crisis in Israel since June 1948, when the Irgun, a militia affiliated to those parts of the Zionist movement that would evolve into the Likud party, sought to import weapons on a ship called the Altalena for its own use in the War of Independence rather than channeling all military equipment to the recently established Israel Defense Forces.

After a tense standoff, then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered the ship sunk. Future Prime Minister Menachem Begin, then the head of the Irgun who was aboard the ship as it was shelled, ordered his men not to fight back in order to prevent civil war from breaking out in the nascent Israeli state. Sixteen Irgun members and three Israel Defense Forces soldiers died.

Today, Israel faces another constitutional crisis. Justice Minister Yariv Levin is at the helm of an effort that threatens to splinter Israeli society just as the ship commanded by his great uncle Eliahu Lankin did in 1948.

The Supreme Court must command officials to disobey any attempts that Netanyahu or Levin might make to instruct them to ignore the court. Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister and a Likud member, has made clear he would take inspiration from Begin’s statesmanship and “act according to law” if the Supreme Court strikes down Netanyahu’s legislation.

The power is in the court’s hands: When it hears the case, it will be the last constitutional bulwark of democracy in Israel. It is the court that must decide whether to hand over power to Netanyahu or order him to cease his attacks on Israeli democracy.

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grap3fru1t-b3ach · 2 years ago

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i am now compelled to make my account useful again. So have some apocalypse bitches that I love so goddamn much.

*SHARP INHALE*

Starting with:

VANQUISH they/them

° the most responsible of the crew, but also the snobbiest.

° arrogant af! Talk shit, get hit. (With an execution axe)

° judgmental (fitting for a corrupt judge)

° they run a little kangaroo court, where they see the jury and the prosecutors as little marionettes they can play with for their little sick, twisted, and unfair puppet show.

ILLNESS he/him

°feeshy 💚💜💚

°likes to sing, uses it to lure ppl in.

°plays the role of an "angel of mercy" (for those who don't know, that's a type of serial killer who kills people under their care who are very ill and are suffering from their illness, even if they can still be healed) except here, he's not actually sympathetic for you at all :)

° the tallest of the harebringers, and the most plump.

°makes his own special plagues himself. The one he's carrying rn doesn't have a name just yet, but it's his favorite by far.

°DON'T let those droopy eyes and soft voice fool you, he can lose his temper at the drop of a hat.

°Can and will cry. Like, a lot.

°has his own diseases himself,but he's pretty immune.

°has pollen allergies.

HATRED she/it

°ANT LADY

°likes spreading rumors about ppl she finds "problamatic"

°will fight you with her bare hands if she finds you a nuisance

°her braid makes her explode like a bomb, but it doesn't hurt or kill her. (Not like any of them CAN die anyhow)

°axe crazy arsonist

°don't say shit bout her shit plzdontyouwilldiehorriblypleasedon-

WILT he/him

°can sap any energy from plants and crops for himself, yet he is unable to gain weight... Especially with how much he takes. (Daym)

°his ragdoll look is supposed to be some sort of irony, he's a toy himself, yet he sees the people around him as toys for himself.

°speaking of, he uses his ragdoll appearance to manipulate children into thinking he's a doll their parents secretly threw away years ago. (He usually does this to 4-9 year olds)

°he also manipulates authority figures and law makers into raising the prices of food and bevrages.

°like the others, his short tempered side comes to light when things don't go his way, but out of all of them, his tantrums are the most destructive.

°he's a bit insecure about his lazy right eye. (His right)

DECAY she/her

°gives souls who died in the hands of the others a little comfort before spiriting them away.

°LOVES animals! Especially cats and crows.

°Despite her being all sweet n cute n stuff, she also has a reputation of goading people into suicide at times.

°illness and hatred are VERY protective over her (they aren't her parents, they all treat each other like siblings) make her cry, see what happens. :)

°she complains about headaches alot. But she refuses to remove the knife from her head, she calls it her "good luck charm"

° can turn into a crow herself.

WORMWOOD he/them

°leader of the harbringers

° technically the harebringer of havoc?

° HAHAHA HOW ARW YOU THAT SHORT-

° he's kinda scary despite his tiny stature...

°heard some of yall like those stained glass angel wings, SAY NO MORE!

°one of the "cavern angels" which are basically evil angels that are like that naturally and haven't been cast aside like fallen angels.

° birch tree, worm, get it??? Ha! Haha, ha... I'm not funny :(

°BE AFRAID!

Height comparison!

congratulations on getting thus far! Have some lore as a reward!

So basically, wormwood was always very lonely, so he made these guys out of calamity energy, he also bosses them around quite a bit, so sometimes, they sneak off and do their own thing. (Usually ends in them getting in trouble) wormwood was feeling generous one day, and decides to conquer an island for his harebringers to rule over their own piece of land and make it to their liking! The harebringers had a fuckin field day with this, and used this as an advantage to leech off the residents' sufferings. So now, it's up to Elpis to save the residents and end wormwood's schemes once again. (I'll give y'all Elpis later tho, I'm still working on her)

That's everything, thanks for listening to me ramble about my children.🩷

TL;DR art of the 5 harebringers in my version along side wormwood! Including vanquish, illness, hatred, wilt and decay.

#horsemen of the apocalypse #Conquest horsemen #War horseman #Famine horseman #Pestilence horseman #Death horseman #wormwood #oc art #art dump #BK rambles

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onecornerface · 2 years ago

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The FBI Paid a Violent Felon to Infiltrate Denver’s Racial Justice Movement

"What’s been publicly known about the federal government’s activity during the summer of 2020 is astonishing: The Justice Department charged hundreds of people for their roles in First Amendment-protected demonstrations; the Department of Homeland Security deployed more than 750 agents, dressed in military-style uniforms, to Portland and abducted demonstrators in unmarked vans; and the Drug Enforcement Administration, using surveillance powers intended to stop drug runners, spied on more than 50 racial justice groups nationwide, among them a peaceful group that held a vigil on a public university campus in Florida." "As Windecker [the FBI informant] gained prominence among the protesters, eventually rising to a leadership role, he was accusing real activists of being FBI informants. These baseless accusations sowed mistrust and undermined some of the most effective organizers in the community." "One rainy summer afternoon after becoming a paid informant, Windecker met with his FBI handler, Special Agent Scott Dahlstrom. The federal agent clicked on a hidden camera device. [...] Dahlstrom asked Windecker if he remembered his tasking orders — which involved enticing a Black racial justice activist into committing a felony." "Windecker introduced Shelby to his supposed outlaw biker buddy — an FBI undercover agent who went by the nickname “Red” — and together they drove to Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser’s home. As a hidden camera recorded them, the undercover agent encouraged Shelby to commit to a plot to assassinate Weiser, and even suggested they could hire a hitman for as little as $500. Still, Shelby refused to move forward with any plans and immediately cut off contact with Windecker and the undercover agent. Although Shelby was not charged with a crime, local prosecutors used the FBI’s undercover recordings to convince a judge to seize Shelby’s guns under Colorado’s red flag law." "Windecker had given Hall money days earlier and asked him to buy a gun. Hall had agreed and bought a Smith & Wesson handgun for Windecker, despite knowing that Windecker was a convicted felon. Hall didn’t think he had a choice in the transaction. He believed that Windecker, who made the looming prospect of violence part of his identity, would come after him if he refused. [...] federal agents arrested Hall. He pleaded guilty to a felony firearms violation — for buying a gun, with the government’s money, for the government’s informant — and received three years of probation." https://theintercept.com/2023/02/07/fbi-denver-racial-justice-protests-informant/

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reasoningdaily · 2 years ago

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Donald Trump is expected to be indicted this week by a Manhattan grand jury following an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. into whether Trump’s alleged payment of hush money to former porn star Stormy Daniels rose to felony-level criminality on the part of the ex-president. Once again, Trump is facing court over allegedly shady dealings, and his chief nemesis is a Black man, only this time that Bragg isn’t trying to rent one of Trump’s apartments, he’s seeking a historic conviction that could mark the first time a former president ends up incarcerated.

If it feels like Trump has spent the last 50 years being sued over his business practices and antagonizing Black people, your instinct isn’t far off. In 1973, the Justice Department sued Trump for discriminating against Black prospective tenants in his then rental real estate portfolio. Trump settled, and to this day claims he did nothing wrong. That lawsuit foreshadowed two themes in Trump’s life that this week could also begin his downfall: court battles over his business practices and tussles with Black folks who refused to be cowed by his racist public policy and rhetoric.

Since then, Trump been accused of jerking contractors who worked on his construction sites out of their money. The Trump Organization reorganized under federal bankruptcy protection three times. The company was convicted last year of tax fraud. He bought an infamous full-page New York Times ad asking for the death penalty (which didn’t exist in New York at the time) for five Black teenagers who were ultimately exonerated for the rape of a white woman who was jogging in Central Park. His presidential campaign and four years in the White House centered on anti-Black and anti-immigrant demagoguery.

So you’re not wrong if you also think it’s fitting that since leaving office, the biggest threats to his fortune and his freedom are investigations led by three Black prosecutors: Bragg, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose office could still indict Trump over his attempts to undo Georgia’s 2020 election results, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is suing the Trump Organization in civil court over the kind of accounting practices at the company’s criminal conviction.

Trump has tried hard to delay or derail all those investigations. He challenged subpoenas. He filed an unsuccessful countersuit against James. He made veiled threats against Willis. He was seen sticking a banana in the tailpipe of Bragg’s chauffeured SUV (ok, that didn’t happen but you can’t stop seeing the visual, can you?). As late as Monday morning, his legal team filed paperwork to try to get Willis thrown off the case and to seal her grand jury’s report, which recommends criminal charges against multiple, unnamed people. Wanna guess who one of those people just might be? So far, none of it has worked.

Still, that it’s Bragg whose investigation appears to have reached the finish line first is ironic. A year ago this week, I questioned whether Bragg was pulling punches on Trump after one of the former lead prosecutors from Bragg’s team wrote a scathing resignation letter that accused his ex-boss of ignoring overwhelming evidence that Trump had committed multiple felonies. Back then, it looked like if any of the investigations against Trump would implode, it would be Bragg’s.

I’ve interviewed Bragg several times since and asked him directly about the Trump investigation. Every time, he was measured and cautious with his words, demure about discussing an ongoing grand jury proceeding. But never once did he close the door on the idea that his office would prosecute Trump if evidence led the grand jury to indict. And as I noted in last year’s piece, it’s pretty easy for New York prosecutors to get grand juries to bring charges if they really want to.

Of course, an indictment is a long, long way from a conviction and the trial of a former president–especially one that would play out in a New York courtroom–would be a spectacle that would do more pay-per-view buys than a Floyd Mayweather fight. But if boxing is the appropriate metaphor for Trump’s current legal woes, maybe with all his antagonizing, he finally picked the wrong opponent, somebody he couldn’t push around the ring too easily. Somebody willing to punch back, or even go on the offensive. Maybe this time, he finally loses.

#Will This Black Man Be Donald Trump's Downfall?#Alvin Bragg #NY State Prosecutors #donald trump #Stormy Daniels

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rlyehtaxidermist · 1 year ago

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I've talked about the polygraph a couple of times on this post, though I admit that the plants thing is new to me.

Technically, the polygraph isn't used in the US legal system - polygraph tests are almost never admissible in court. The Supreme Court, in US v. Scheffer, called the device unreliable but left it to individual jurisdictions to decide whether to use it; most ban it outright, some allow it only if the defense and prosecution both assent to the procedure.

The primary users of it are law enforcement, especially for employee screening; usage of polygraphy outside these sorts of positions is illegal under the Employee Polygraph Protection Act. However, the government still prosecutes people who claim to know how to "beat" a polygraph - and while it may be inadmissible, it's often used by prosecutors to attempt to force people to sign admissible confessions based on the results of the polygraph, as part of the general fuckedupedness of the US's plea deal based criminal courts.

My go-to piece on the polygraph is the HSCA testimony of CIA director Richard Helms, who is perhaps a bit more honest than he should have been about why he thinks the polygraph works:

Mr. HELMS - ...we discovered there were some Eastern Europeans who could defeat the polygraph at any time. Americans are not very good at it, because we are raised to tell the truth and when we lie it is easy to tell are lying. But we find a lot of Europeans and Asiatics can handle that polygraph without a blip, and you know they are lying and you have evidence that they are lying.

Chairman STOKES - I am advised that the CIA used polygraph tests on all its employees. Mr. HELMS - It works very well with Americans.

He later clarifies

Mr. HELMS - What I, in effect, was trying to say was that there is an occasional individual who lives in that part of the world who has spent his life lying about one thing or another and therefore becomes so good at it that he can pass the polygraph test. But this would be 1 individual in maybe 1 million or a 100,000, something of that kind. I imagine Americans, if they set their minds to it, could do it as well. I meant no offense to Eastern Europeans as a category or any individual Eastern European.

which just goes to show that cops have been using the same I'm-not-racist-but line for fifty years

one of the best academic paper titles

#we all know they've been using it for longer this is just SO similar

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tala-bez-i · 1 month ago

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At first sight II Chapter Twenty-One

(m!reader x Bonten!Haruchiyo Sanzu)

Fluff/slash/reader is male/cursing/BontenTimeline/drugs and alcohol mentioned/violence/blood/death

All characters that appeared in the Tokyo Revengers manga and anime belong to Ken Wakui.

Words: 4124

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You sat at the table, repeating in your head everything you knew about Junko Yoshioka’s Blossom. It all still looked and sounded like a scenario from one of those twisted yaoi mangas that tempted you from the shelves in various stores selling such things.

Maybe if you were a teenager living in the current times, you would buy them like crazy until your own mother would give you a hard time about the shrinking living space, but no. You were a grown man, already approaching thirty, and your poor brain was not necessarily able to register all of it, process it, and spit out feedback containing a simplified description of the whole situation.

"What don't you understand?" The dark-haired woman who sat across from you and worked on her notebook asked calmly.

"Please don't get upset." You answered her, stroking the rim of your cup, in which you still had your cappuccino. "It's just that this is all so absurd that I need more time to be able to understand it. I thought things like this only happened in... What's it called? Fanfiction?"

Tomoko let out a short, quiet laugh and tore her eyes away from the screen for a moment to look at you.

"I had the same thing two days before we took over the boy from them." She answered you and went back to her work. Her fingers moved efficiently and quickly over the keyboard, causing a pleasant, quiet clicking of the keys. "The boy didn't have an easy life, and it won't get any easier now. He's currently in a safe facility for young people from, let's call it, difficult families." You watched every slight change in her facial expression and had to admit that your sister really didn't look her age. She looked a few years younger than she actually was. "We generally suspect that the youngster may have a lot of knowledge about various things that interest us, and that could mean that..."

“He’s up for questioning.” You finished for her and took a sip of your coffee.

“Yeah.” Tomoko looked up at you again. “I think he knows more about Takenaka.”

“If so, he’ll need protection. You know Nagasawa’s dead?”

The woman's fingers froze over the keyboard and that glint appeared in your sister's eyes, suggesting attention and increased focus.

"When did this happen and under what circumstances?" Tomoko's tone of voice suggested that she was in cop mode, so you lowered your voice, just to be safe, so the information wouldn't reach the wrong ears.

“Yesterday morning. They found him hanging from his own bedsheet.”

“How do you know that?”

“I went to the facility with Okumura today to talk to him again. The guard was confused by the whole situation.”

"Why?"

“Two hours before we got there, we got permission to re-interview him from the prosecutor, who had supposedly been briefed on the situation the day before.”

Tomoko closed her notebook and leaned forward. “The guy’s name.”

“I think you know who I’m talking about, Tomoko.” You replied, not wanting to risk saying his name out loud.

Your sister’s dark eyes scanned your face carefully and slowly, as if searching for the slightest sign of a lie, but when she looked into your eyes, you knew she knew who you meant.

“He has too many connections.” She said quietly, and you knew perfectly well that she was referring to Bonten.

“I wonder if they know anything.”

“About his interest in the brothel, yes.” She told you calmly. “But about him having a conflict with Takenaka, I don’t think so. I can’t vouch for that.”

“They didn’t mention anything?”

“No.” She sighed quietly and looked towards the cafe’s window. “It would be best if you tried asking them yourself. You have a deal with them, and as long as you’re working on solving the Takenaka case, they’ll be able to give you some information. You just have to ask them. They won’t hand you anything on a silver platter.”

“I know, I know…” You frowned slightly. “The question is, who should I go to first?”

“I would say Sanzu, since he’s number 2, but it would be better if you tried contacting Kakucho. Out of the two of them, he’s the more sensible one.”

“And Mochizuki?”

"He won't have time for you. Why did he come to your mind?"

“Because last time he was the one who contacted me.” Tomoko looked at you in surprise, waiting for further explanation. "They were going to do something that would make my and Okumura's colleagues' work harder, so we could go back to this case."

"And what?"

"He said it was all sorted. Later it turned out that the daughter of one of those detectives was kidnapped..."

"Yeah, yeah... We're working on it." Tomoko nodded, but the corners of her mouth turned up slightly.

"Okumura heard a rumor that Bonten had nothing to do with it." You added, feeling that the matter had a deeper meaning.

“Oh, they do and they don’t.” The woman’s smile grew significantly, sending a shiver down your spine.

“Can you tell me more?”

“Absolutely not.” She made a serious face, though there was still amusement in her eyes. “As I mentioned, we’re working on the case.”

"Tomoko, please. I won't interfere."

The woman sighed quietly, but a smile appeared on her lips again.

"The girl is with someone in the syndicate, that's true. What's not true is that she was kidnapped. Let's say she got invited to the party of her life and decided it would be a sin to refuse." She lifted her cup to her lips and took a sip of black coffee. “She's in no danger until she starts freaking out about something. Let's just say that the young lady isn't necessarily a good girl and loves to raise her old man's blood pressure."

"Something, like you?" escaped your lips and the woman regarded you with a slightly colder gaze.

"The pot calling the kettle black." She mumbled and you gently bit the inside of your cheek. "Stop doing that." She nudged your ankle with her booted foot. Your dentist must think you have mental problems, seeing all these scars.”

You shrugged, dropping your gaze to the cup you were holding in both hands. Your mother always scolded your father for this habit too. Gently and politely, but still.

„Tomoko…”

„Hmm?”

“Have you ever heard of Haji?”

“The one from Nagasawa’s brothel? No. I only know about him from what Wada and Riku told me.” Your sister replied, turning her gaze back to the window. “He’s quite polite towards customers, but from what I’ve gathered, he’s set to take over Nagasawa and Takenaka’s entire business.”

"Nothing stands in his way now. The owners are dead..."

"He still has to convince the bosses. Taking over a gang business isn't as easy as it seems, brother. If someone discovers in advance any connection between the guy and the deaths of the previous owners of a brothel, nightclub or other place run by trusted people of the syndicate, he himself will end up much worse than he would like."

“He needs to have someone to protect him.” You said and looked at Tomoko. “Like Uncle Shou.”

“Like Uncle Shou.” The woman repeated with a nod. “I won’t deny it. The guy has some pretty solid connections with Bonten. I think you’ve connected the dots by now, right?”

“Yeah. Okumura and I figured it out.”

“Excellent. Did you report it further?”

“We don’t have any solid evidence.” Other than the tapes…

“Okay. You have to catch him red-handed somehow. You have to have tapes of him confessing. Fuck, any connection to these cases.”

“To Takenaka and Nagasawa.” You said, just to make sure, and the woman held up a single finger.

"And Riku. Remember, Blossom is still Uncle Shou's favorite."

Fuck. You forgot about him.

You pressed your lips into a thin line and nodded. "When can we talk to him about this?"

"I have no idea. Find clues with Okumura that Riku is involved and you'll get permission to interrogate the boy." Tomoko said, finishing her coffee.

You watched as she put her notebook in her purse and quickly finished your cappuccino.

“Just one more question, Ko-chan.” Your sister looked at you, slightly surprised. “Can you think of anything why I should be careful with Sanzu now?”

Tomoko ran a hand through her tied-up dark hair and raised an eyebrow.

“All I know is that he’s planning some big surprise.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have no idea, Y/n. It's a surprise.” She started to leave the cafe and, passing the counter where the barista was standing, added. “The gentleman's coffee is on me.”

“I'll pay for myself!” You followed her, but your sister disappeared through the door, and the woman who worked for you in another reality smiled apologetically.

“Too late. When Mrs. L/n gives an order like that, you have to listen.” She said calmly and pointed to a piece of paper with empty spaces for stickers. “I can recommend our regular promotion for that. Mrs. L/n doesn't collect stickers, but you can give her a small gift.”

You looked at the small colorful piece of paper and felt your ears start to get warm.

"But wouldn't that mean she made the gift herself?" You asked quietly, feeling embarrassed.

The woman laughed quietly. "Yes, that's true, but..." She turned the coupon over. "This time, our promotion is combined with this one." You looked at a series of discount codes for various products from a drugstore that Tomoko liked to shop at. "All we have to do is secretly refill the stickers and..."

“That’s very kind of you, but I have to decline.” You interrupted her. “If my sister doesn’t want something, it’s best not to force it on her.”

You said goodbye to the petite woman and left the café. You stood on the sidewalk for a moment, looking first to the right, then to the left, and headed back to the police station, wondering if Okumura had managed to get anything done.

You were halfway there when a car pulled up next to you and the window was rolled down.

“Get in, L/n.” You heard your partner’s voice and did as you were told. “You were right. The old man said that Kitagawa made a simple mistake by giving us permission to talk to Nagasawa.”

You fastened your seatbelt, listening to what the man had to say.

"He said he would try to sort it out with him today and that we shouldn't worry about it. The prosecutor has had a lot of open cases on his plate for some time now and he had the right to make a mistake."

"Tomoko suggested trying to contact someone from Bonten HQ to explain his connection to what happened to Takenaka."

"And who's supposed to do that? L/n, she's the one who does that, not us. We don't have any other contacts with the syndicate like her, Wada, Riku, and the older Takenaka." Shinji answered you, pulling into the traffic that had decreased at the moment. "If she doesn't give us anything, then we can cross the rest out, at least for now. Wada gave us the footage from the brothel's cameras, Takenaka confirmed some information, and we don't currently have access to the young one."

“Until we get something that clearly indicates that he has more knowledge about Jun’s business with Uncle Shou… Or their conflict in general, we won’t be allowed to talk to the boy.”

“Are you kidding?” Okumura gave you a quick look. “I thought that just being interested would be enough. Besides, if we don’t ask him the right questions, we might not find out what the boy knows and what he doesn’t.”

“True, but you know who all this can bring down and unless we actually get something in a roundabout way…” You shrugged. "No questioning."

The dark-haired detective cursed under his breath and there was silence for a moment.

"Where are we going?" You asked when you noticed the familiar buildings and despite the fact that you had only been there once, you started to guess where you were going.

"Someone left us information about who Haji was doing business with behind Nagasawa's back." He answered you in a rather light tone and you looked at him with interest.

"Pink Cloud Host Club?"

"Uh-huh." The man confirmed and you felt a pleasant shiver of excitement run down your spine. "We got a tip that the owner, Kanata Nishitani, is currently there and this is our chance to have some kind of conversation with him."

"I suspect his wife would be more willing to talk." You said trying to sound calm but feeling excited just thinking about Rosie, it wasn't easy.

"Hmm, tell me, L/n. Was that the first time you saw her?" Okumura asked carefully, and for a split second you held your breath. "Not that it was anything, but you were acting pretty weird back then. It was the first time you pulled such a stunt, like from a romantic series..."

"Yeah, the first time." You interrupted him, feeling the irritation rising inside you. "Let's not go back to this topic, please. Let's focus on what needs to be done, okay?"

"Sure, no problem." He said, lightly lifting his fingers from the steering wheel, then added. "Do you think her husband makes her serve some customers? She only mentioned helping run the club, but..."

"What does that have to do with anything?" You asked, looking at the man carefully. "We received information about Haji's alleged cooperation with, I assume, Nishitani. The woman doesn't need to know about it. Yes, she did mention helping her husband, but she can only deal with the girls they employ."

“Right.” Okumura parked in the same parking spot as last time and you had to walk the rest of the way.

The temperature didn’t seem to be any lower than before, and the groups of people passing by, most of whom were very cheerful, gave you a false sense of extra warmth. You frowned slightly, having the impression that Kabukicho was a bit more crowded than last time.

This caused memories from your youth, when the area wasn’t as colorful as it was now, to briefly flash through your mind.

"Hey, L/n..." One of your companions pulled you closer with his arm. "If you rob that businessman over there..." He pointed to some guy who seemed to be intoxicated. He was leaning his hand against the wall of a building, and on either side of him two laughing prostitutes were talking to him. "I'll buy you a round at the brothel."

"Come on..." Your second companion spoke up, pulling the first one away. "He's a waste of whores. You see what a weakling he is. If he can't get himself a pussy, don't waste your money on him."

It wasn't very nice, but by then you were used to this type of teasing from your Valhalla colleagues. You didn't even pay much attention to it.

"L/n." You heard Okumura's voice next to you, and it was only then that you realized that you were standing in front of the illuminated window of the host club, staring at the photo of the guy you helped in the park not so long ago. Under his photo was a large sign announcing that he was temporarily unavailable in the club's offer. Like a note apologizing in a store for the lack of a certain product."

"I'm coming, I'm coming. Sorry." You answered him and stood next to him as close as the narrow entrance to the building would allow.

The man pressed the videophone button and almost immediately a small light came on, signaling that the camera was on.

"How can we help?" A male voice came through the speaker, the sound of which froze you for a moment. "The club opens in less than an hour..."

"Mr. Nishitani?"

"Yes. What is it?"

"I'm Detective Okumura and this is Detective L/n. We wanted to talk, if it's not too much trouble." Your partner explained.

You knew that voice. You had heard it before, more than once, but you couldn't place it with any face. You didn't know any Nishitani, not in this reality or the previous one, but a huge red flag started to grow in your head.

"Ah, my wife mentioned that you were here. Of course, please come in." The owner of the host club said, and a soft sound was heard, signaling the release of the door lock.

You followed Okumura inside and in the lobby you were greeted by one of the girls who was an employee of the host club and after greeting you politely, she showed you the way to the owner's office, which you had already been to once.

As soon as you entered the room, you were greeted from behind the desk by a man you recognized immediately. Hideki Nagano. Sitting in front of you was fucking Hideki Nagano.

The name Uchiyama immediately popped into your head, and in your mind's eye you saw Emiko's face. Your memories from before the time-leaps appeared one after another, even touching on your son, whom you will never have...

"My partner and I have a few questions and we would appreciate it if you would agree to cooperate with us." Shinji's words tore you from your thoughts and you began to look closely at the man sitting there.

In this reality, his hair was neatly trimmed and you could bet a small amount of money that his wife, Rosie, was responsible for it. If indeed the woman was his wife of her own free will.

“About Onikawa, right?” He leaned back in his chair, his eyes flicking from your partner to you. “What else do you want to know? Rosie gave you all the information, and so did Onikawa. I have nothing more to add.”

“We understand, and please don't worry, we're not here in this case.”

“Oh?” The man whose nose you would have loved to bust tilted his head slightly to the side.

"Can you tell us anything about the man who goes by the name Haji?" Okumura said and you didn't miss the subtle change in the club owner's face, suggesting some concern.

"Excuse me, who?" He asked with a slight smile.

"Haji. He works at the sex house owned by Jin Nagasawa and Junko Yoshioka." You said, trying to keep your voice calm and professional.

"I recognize Nagasawa and Takenaka, but this is the first I've heard of someone named Haji." Nishitani shrugged, trying to look relaxed again. "Maybe you should talk to the owners of other brothels?"

"Are you suggesting anyone in particular?" Okumura asked, pulling out his small notebook.

"Hachirou Kuroda." He said, pouting out his lower lip slightly. His tone sounded so nonchalant that it didn't match his suddenly harder gaze. The combination intrigued you greatly.

"Kuroda? Who is he?" Okumura asked, and your interlocutor licked his lips.

"The owner of the brothel two blocks away. He owns the entire building, so his girls don't have to leave their workplace." He began to explain, and you could clearly hear the irritation in his voice. “The guy exploits girls and women without caring about anything.”

Because you happen to be interested in anything more than profit. - You thought, but a small voice in your head told you that despite a certain amount of insincerity on his part, this time there might actually be something to it. And that was hard for you to accept.

"Uh-huh, so Kuroda might know more about Haji, right?"

You looked at Shinji and saw some tension on his face. Had he heard about the guy before?

"I heard things have changed in the Nagasawa brothel." Nishitani announced, getting up from his chair. His hands began to pick up his phone and cigarette case from the desk, which he calmly put into the pockets of his clean, evenly ironed pants. "Girls like to gossip, do you know, gentlemen detectives? It doesn't matter what brothel they're from, they like to spread gossip among themselves. Mainly to damage the competition, but there are also some who shit in their own nest." He looked from your partner to you, and this time his eyes met yours. "You know what I mean. Not every pimp tolerates such behavior in his host club, brothel, house of pleasure. Call it whatever you want. Some like it when girls compete with each other for a client, but when knives or scissors are used and the value of one of the whores drops..." He smiled crookedly. "That's not tolerated here, and my sweet wife keeps order. Fuck, I'm glad I found her. A woman with a heart of gold."

“Which building is this?” Okumura asked and the man gave the address from memory, not once stuttering, which piqued both your interest and distrust.

“Thank you for your help and if you hear any rumors about Haji, please contact us.” Shinji put his notebook in the pocket of his coat and you and the man left the room that served as the owner's office.

"Of course, Detective Okumura. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything." Nishitani announced as you walked down the short hallway towards the front door.

A few girls passed you on the way, rushing to finish getting ready for their work, and for a split second you thought you saw Rosie herself in one of the rooms you passed, helping some girl with her hair.

"In case you gentlemen are looking for some nice company..." The owner of the Pink Cloud began and smiled seeing the significant look from the black-haired detective. "Of course, gentlemen. I am absolutely not encouraging you to do anything. Have a nice evening."

"We didn't even think about it." You said and as soon as you stood on the already quite crowded sidewalk again, the building doors closed behind you with a quiet click.

"God." Shinji sighed, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. "Let this end, because as patient as my Princess is, her hormones are starting to get the better of her more and more often."

"Oh?"

The man took a deep drag on his cigarette, exhaled smoke, and leaned toward you, inhaling deeply through his nose.

You looked at him, completely surprised, not fully understanding what he was doing.

“Yes, if I can smell it from you, then she can smell it from me too.” He grumbled, heading in the direction where you left the car. "Last time I saw her sniffing the collar of my shirts for two nights in a row, searching for the scent of a woman's perfume. I didn't say anything to that, and she doesn't say anything either, knowing full well what case we're working on, but..." Okumura shook his head. "She knows what I'm capable of, and even though I've been refraining from using the services of girls for a long time now, Mimiko is increasingly worried that I'll cheat on her."

“She's understanding…” You started truthfully, but as soon as your friend looked at you from the corner of his eye, you nodded. “I know what you’re talking about, Okumura. Mimiko is a good woman and she understands your job. She knows what you’ve done before, but you gave her your word that you wouldn’t do it again, and believe me or not, she trusts you. The fact that she’s checking your shirts… I think it’s just a reflex.”

“A reflex?” The detective snorted, taking an even deeper drag on his cigarette. “What fucking reflex?”

You sighed and gently bit the inside of your cheek.

"Listen. We have to visit brothels, saturated with women's perfumes and sometimes other scents. You spend relatively less time at home than before and for several months there has been no intimacy between you and your wife..." You looked at him uncertainly. "Right? Or... Or maybe something happened?"

"With two kids who won't leave my side when I come home? Fuck, L/n..." He sighed, but the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. "I know what you're getting at. You're a good friend, L/n. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Maybe try spending more time with Mimiko in the near future?" You raised one hand, seeing his expression that suggested an upcoming protest. "The only thing we can do now is check Kuroda. If he doesn't contribute anything, there's no point in hanging around brothels. In the meantime, we might as well work from our homes."

"Ah, fuck. Working from home with my two rascals." Okumura grumbled quietly. "I wouldn't dream of anything else..."

#tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x y/n #male reader #tokyo revengers haruchiyo sanzu #haruchiyo sanzu #haruchiyo sanzu x reader

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