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lisbeth-kk · 6 months ago

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May Prompts (29) Hero

The Luckiest Girl in the World (chapter 29)

Summary: Rosie lets us get one more glimpse of the wedding, before the tale of new beginnings for all of them are revealed.

Twenty-Nine Years Old

Papa had of course composed a waltz for our wedding, and after I’d danced with my husband, still strange to call him that, it was Dad’s turn. Papa still played but had switched to the waltz from Dad’s and his wedding now, and the waltz I’d danced to with Dad all those years ago. It was such a precious moment, and when it was played again, by the string quartet this time, I found myself in Papa’s arms.

“Thank you for making us a new waltz,” I said and looked up at him.

“You’re welcome, Bee. It was my pleasure.”

His smile was the one I called “the Bee and Dad smile”. It was warm, genuine and radiated love and affection.

***

Timothy had been the first speaker and had used most of it to praise The Fab Four for raising me in the most unusual fashion. He avoided any “government secrets”, which I deduced was due to uncle Myc’s meddling.

“He’s a fucking hero, your Timothy,” uncle Greg told me later that evening, not entirely sober.

“Language, Gregory,” uncle Myc scolded him, which earned him a swat on his…yeah, well, I guess you can deduce the rest.

Dad’s speech was as incoherent and rambling as expected, bringing back anecdotes of Ted the bear’s last real meal, my theatrical announcement regarding Dad and Papa’s love for each other in the train carriage, how proud he was of me, and in the same sentence also thanking uncle Myc for being the best uncle.

“Sorry, Greg. That was before you and…” Dad said with an embarrassed grimace.

The uncle in question just waved it off, while looking adoringly at uncle Myc.

And of course there was praising of Papa for being the best thing that had ever happened to either of us. By the time he finished, there were tissues, sniffles and stifled sobs all around.

***

I had looked forward to Papa’s speech, having heard his encomium of Dad at their wedding, but it became instantly clear that his speech to me would surpass my wildest expectations. He started it with addressing me with words no one but me and Dad had ever heard, and I sought out Timothy’s hand and held on for dear life, lest I’d be transformed into a puddle of tears.

“My precious girl, my heart. I couldn’t believe my luck the day John brought you home to Baker Street. To be given the privilege of raising you, is the greatest honour I could ever receive. From that very first day you trusted me to take care of you as well as your father did. You gave your love freely, without any hesitation, and even if I wasn’t your legal parent from the beginning, it didn’t matter to you. But it mattered to me. The first time you called me Papa…”

He closed his eyes for a moment to gather himself, clearly overwhelmed by the memories. Dad took his hand and squeezed it soothingly. Before he continued the speech, he looked down at Dad and a silent conversation took place. Releasing his hand from Dad’s, Papa straightened and started to speak once more.

The anecdotes Papa told, differed from Dad’s. My first trip, to Barts of all places, were described in detail. How Molly had scolded him for bringing a seven-month-old toddler to the morgue, his pride when he witnessed my first graduation in the dojo, getting my yellow belt, how stunned he was that I got along so well with his brother, (I still can’t believe he mentioned him), and his certainty that Timothy was my soul mate just like Dad was his.

All this sentiment elicited another round of sniffles, which a decade ago, would’ve made my Papa roll his eyes, but he’d softened over the years, I realised. Not that he would ever admit to it, mind you.

***

One year later, things had changed considerably. Dad and Papa had retired and moved to Sussex, and Timothy and I got the best Christmas present, the deed to 221 Baker Street with the clause that Dee could inhabit 221A for as long as she liked.

I’d missed my childhood home and I never thrived in that other part of the city. Timothy couldn’t believe our luck and made plans for creating his own writing den in 221C. Papa’s lab had been stripped bare, so it really was a blank canvas to do with as we pleased.

And then it was the biggest thing of all. A new life was growing inside me. The ultrasound showed a healthy foetus, but the sex was impossible to discern because of the position. We didn’t want to know anyway. The important thing was that everything was alright. Being a doctor’s daughter, I knew quite a lot about how bad things could get.

When we got home, after I’d texted my parents that everything was going well inside my womb, I rummaged around for my mother’s book with all the children’s names in it. She had made no notes in it, neither had Papa in his quest for alternative names for uncle Greg. I wouldn’t have minded seeing his scribbles, but now that I was going to be a mother myself, I felt conflicted thinking about the mother I never knew. Come to think of it, I’d never even seen her handwriting.

***

Timothy had asked me about my childhood a few days after I discovered that I was pregnant.

“If you can sum it up in one word, image, or a sentence, what will it be?”

I didn’t have to think twice before answering.

“My parents and their love for me and for each other.”

Timothy just nodded, not the least bit surprised by this.

“I would like to name the baby after them,” I said, which Timothy fully agreed to.

His sister had named two of her four children after their parents, and Timothy was rather fond of my family, despite his bickering with them.

“I consider it a love language,” he told me.

“Don’t you dare tell them! The consequences might be…something sinister,” I said.

Also available on AO3

@calaisreno @totallysilvergirl @keirgreeneyes @helloliriels @raina-at

More tags in the replies

#may prompts 2024 #may 29: hero #sherlock fandom #rosie watson #sherlock #john watson #mycroft holmes #greg lestrade #johnlock #bbc sherlock #sherlock fanfic #ao3 fanfic

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wrenn-frug · 2 years ago

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Hate personality quizzes with questions like this, this is totally subjective based on what they're writing and why

#hi personality quizzes annoy me #personality quiz #tales from the morgue

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genshin-impacted · 2 years ago

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three ways to say goodbye

Never once does Alhaitham ever say the words ‘good-bye.’ (And one time he doesn’t need to.) OR You die in four three different ways; Alhaitham deals with your death differently each time.

Word Count: ~3.5k (one shot)

Notes: Alhaitham x Reader (3+1 fic), gender-neutral reader, Alhaitham POV, major character death(s) (you), ANGST, mainly hurt with comfort at the end, exploratory fic on how Alhaitham deals with grief & death-- his devotion, each part has specific notes

[anticlimatic]

notes: slight description of dead body (you), blood, ambiguous relationship status; implied roommates with Kaveh and Alhaitham, could be ot3 if you squint, mild profanity

Your death came without warning, without rhyme or reason. It doesn't make sense for you to die here, your potential on the brink of being fully realized, your journey cut abruptly before it has even started. As a narrative, your death is almost anticlimactic, unpredictable and hidden away in the forests of Sumeru where the rangers found you, body broken and eyes closed forever. Your wings must have failed you midflight, plummeting you down to the ground without a safety net. If there were any signs of foul play, it is hard to tell; there is so much blood to wash off of you.

Tighnari was the one to set your limbs straight to make you look more comfortable, and Cyno was the one to tell Alhaitham to come and identify your body.

It's only a formality at this point. Cyno and Tighnari-- Alhaitham thinks they would not have let Collei see your body, bruised as it is-- would have been ample identification checks. They know you well, consider you a friend. It may also be a sort of mercy from Cyno to inform Alhaitham of what has happened so he can be one of the first to know, the first to see you.

They know Alhaitham was more important to you than any of them-- Alhaitham included-- could truly understand. So, of course, it is Alhaitham who gets to know first.

Cyno peels back the cover from your head. It must be the least injured part of your body because the only tell-tale sign that you are dead is the stillness of your face. You are the most animated person he knows, even if you aren't aware of it. You constantly move your eyes to see the world for what it is, lips always upturned subconsciously, though Alhaitham can remember the days when you went without for quite some time. It was a trying period for you, but your smile came back eventually, and all felt right in the world.

Alhaitham knows it will not come back this time.

"It's them," he says, though you look far from the person you were when you were still alive. "Where will the body be stored?"

"The Sumeru morgue," Cyno replies. He pauses. "Will you-"

"They have no family. No next of kin." Alhaitham says, "I will arrange their funeral."

Cyno only nods, and Alhaitham watches as he goes to cover your face up with a foreboding sense of dread he cannot place. Cyno does not apologize to Alhaitham for his loss. Neither of them is the type to placate others even in their grief. As for "his" loss? Certainly not just his. You were well loved, a bud in bloom among the vines of the Akademiya with your reputation built from the soil up. Those that knew you will mourn.

Yes, Alhaitham is in mourning, right now, isn't he? Everyone else believes it to be so. Tighnari tells him ‘my condolences' even though his own face is tight with regret, as though he could have single handedly prevented this from happening. He doesn't see Collei but perhaps that is telling enough of her grief. Cyno tells him that he will let Dehya and Candace know, and Alhaitham can only nod in agreement.

Alhaitham thinks he knows the reason for the dread when he comes home and Kaveh is there. His roommate has been pacing around in the living room, Alhaitham can tell. Without either you or Alhaitham present, Kaveh was worried but trying not to think of the worst-case scenario. Alhaitham has to be the one to break the news to him of the worst-case scenario, and he braces himself for the torrent.

If Alhaitham is the person who knows you best, then Kaveh is right behind him. Your death will devastate Kaveh, even if Kaveh does not know it yet.

"You're lying," Kaveh tells him. His face is as impassive as Alhaitham has ever seen. "You're lying to me, and it's not fucking funny-"

"I’m not lying," Alhaitham says. When Kaveh opens his mouth to argue, spit vitriol, call him a liar again, Alhaitham feels his own temper rise, and for a twisted moment, it almost feels familiar, him and Kaveh at each other's throats, except they've never argued over something as serious as this. "I wouldn’t lie about this. And you know it."

Alhaitham expects it to escalate. Kaveh will raise his voice and Alhaitham will too, both of them feeding their animosity into each other like they have never done since their Akademiya days. Even their latest bickering is nothing, and with you added into the mix, it becomes even less than that-- more eye rolls and snarky remarks than anything close to an argument.

But you're gone. So everything is different now, even if no one wants it to be. And when Kaveh's lips begin to tremble, his face falling upon the realization that oh god, Alhaitham is telling the truth, Alhaitham realizes something too. Telling Kaveh about your death was worthy of dread, but the thought that nothing will ever be the same with you gone, makes the foreboding feeling gape and widen.

He will pass by Lambad's Tavern and walk in, expecting you to be there at the third seat of the bar, writing your essay, but you will not. He will sit at the table nearest the window in the House of Daena and read while waiting for you to come and ask him to find a book, but you will not. He will walk home, noise canceling headphones off despite the bustle of the city, because he expects you to come up from behind him, hoping to surprise him for once, but you will never come. He will enter an empty home, quiet and devoid of sound, and instead of being relieved, he will only feel the same heavy dread, knowing you will never come home again.

Alhaitham never said he loved you aloud, and now he never will. Did you know anyways? Without him telling you, did you know that he loved you? Through the way he believed in you, the way he said your name, the times he's helped you, eaten with you, let you sleep on his shoulder and in his bed when you were tired. You knew him best, cherished him more than he could understand. Did you know he loved you like you loved him?

The unspoken questions, the unsaid words. As abrupt your death is, it is permanent, and Alhaitham will have to live life knowing there is an empty space where you once were that will never be filled again.

[stay]

notes: slight description of dead body (you), blood, established relationship

Alhaitham cannot control things that are beyond his abilities to do so. The heavenly principles are far beyond him, beyond even the archons themselves, so it only makes sense that the events that transpire involving them are out of his control.

This upsets him less than most people would think. He's a thinker, calculating each of his steps before implementing them, so it would make sense when he can’t plan out every step of the way. People would be right to an extent, but Alhaitham is logical enough to understand there is no use trying to change something that he cannot. And why waste time being upset over that when he can focus on the things he can control?

Only… he is human, and even he miscalculates. When he thinks of the things within his power to control, he thinks about your happiness, his ability to make you laugh and blush, the ways he can keep you safe. He did not anticipate, as he holds your hands slick from your own blood, that your safety is beyond his control.

"Let me stop the bleeding," Alhaitham tells you, scanning his surroundings for anything he can to help him staunch your wound. You look at him, breathing shallow, his grip not once faltering even as you seem to lose the strength to hold onto him. "Don't fall asleep. Keep looking at me. I'll use my cape for now-"

"Alhaitham."

"I’ll lift your body up," he says, clicking his tongue when his hands slip from under you with the blood. "Tie this around you for now. The Traveler wasn't far from here-"

"Haitham."

"-even Paimon can help carry your legs if you can't walk anymore. I know she can-" Alhaitham stops when you start to push his hands away from your abdomen where the bleeding is most heavy. "What are you doing?"

"Can you," you begin to say, rasping these words as though it is taking every breath to speak, "can you just hold me? Haitham."

Alhaitham shakes his head. "I’ll hold you later.” He tells you, swallowing thickly as you look into his eyes as though searching for something. The next words makes his mouth dry, but he must say it. He must try. “I promise. I have to do this-"

"I can tell I'm not gonna make it."

Alhaitham shifts his legs under him and feels his knees soak in blood.

"Respectfully," Alhaitham says icily, "you may be more well versed with medicine than me, but you aren't at full capacity right now to judge accurately."

You laugh at this. Alhaitham doesn't see how any of this could be funny to you. He doesn't understand you. He never has. But, oh, he wishes he does; wishes he had all the time in the world to get to understand you more.

He feels your hand paw at his wrist, your fingers cold as ice.

You shake your head so slowly, and the smile you give him blooms just as slowly as the Padisarah flower he gave you last week. Your smile is no less beautiful though, no less bright despite it all.

"Maybe." You sigh. "But I’d like for you to hold me anyways. Please?" You say, "I feel so cold."

Alhaitham swallows his protests, because in the end, it is logic that will always win against all else: there is a low percentage that any help will arrive, and Alhaitham cannot do anything to save you.

“Okay,” he says quietly, gathering you up into his arms. Strong as he is, he is so gentle with the way he brings your head to rest against his shoulders, bringing your legs over his lap so he can cradle your body against his to share the warmth. He hears you sigh in relief, though he doubts it’s because you feel any warmer. It is purely comfort that he is providing, until the end.

For the first time since his youth, Alhaitham feels helpless.

“Your eyes are so pretty,” you tell him, words slurring. He lets out a huff of laughter– he feels delirious almost– that is shakier than usual, taking your cold hands and kissing your fingers as though it could bring it some semblance of warmth. “Lots of colors.”

‘Thanks,’ he could say dryly, like he always does. ‘I think I might like yours better,’ he could say; it would get a laugh out of you, and isn’t that what he always wants for you? ‘I love you’ would work too; it always works when it’s you.

Alhaitham opens his mouth to reply, but instead of anything he has planned, he says to you instead with all the desperation in his heart, “Please stay.”

“I love you,” you tell him instead; you always made it sound so easy to say.

In the aftermath, when the dust has settled and those who have not toppled remain, Kaveh finds Alhaitham hours after your death, cradling your body, his face buried into your neck.

[anticipatory]

notes: next two parts have the same back story- you have a leyline curse similar to Dainsleif; some fluff here! established relationship

“How long,” you ask as you lie in bed with him, “do you think I have?”

Alhaitham’s hand stops tracing lines on your back over the curse marks that paint your skin abyss blue. It’s not an unfamiliar question. You ask every once in a while, because you can’t see the progression of the ley line curse on your back, so you rely on him to tell you how far it’s spread.

Based on the growth, which only seems to go faster by the day, Alhaitham calculates you have about another year before it consumes your entire body.

Only six months ago it was invisible to the naked eye. Tonight, the blues spread outward like butterfly wings from the middle of your spine to reach your shoulders. You’ve already stopped wearing sleeveless shirts to cover the marks, but when they go past your neck or onto your hands, it’ll be difficult to justify wearing turtlenecks and gloves all the time while in Sumeru.

“Let’s take a vacation to Shnezhnaya at the end of the year,” Alhaitham says instead. “I have three months worth of sick days and breaks.”

You pause for a moment before letting him guide the conversation away. “Isn’t one of their main cuisines soup dishes? Borscht or something like that.” He hears you say, amused. “You hate soups.”

“It makes it difficult to read,” he explains, tracing lines into your back again. You sigh in contentment as he spreads the expanse of his palm along your shoulders, memorizing the abyssal stars that align along the path he makes. “I can deal with it for a little bit. I can cook something else while we’re there.”

You’re quiet for a little bit, breathing even and steady that Alhaitham thinks you’ve fallen asleep while he was memorizing the dips and curves of your body. You shift when he lifts the blanket up higher over you. He can hear you swallow audibly as though readying yourself to say something, probably to redirect the conversation back to your initial question, he suspects. Before he can say anything, you say with a voice as equally shaky as it is steady, “I’m sorry.”

Alhaitham’s heart stops. “Why are you apologizing?” He asks as calmly as ever when you do not answer, “Because I’ll have to cook on vacation? Not really that an inconvenience, isn’t it? I’m assuming we’ll split the responsibility.”

No answer.

“I wasn’t going to use the vacation dates anyways,” he continues. “And I hardly get sick. Though now that we’re talking about it, three months in one place is a long time. Perhaps we should consider traveling-”

Then he sees you crumble before his eyes, shoulders shaking, face burying into your hands as you start to cry.

Experienced at loving you now, Alhaitham is quick to bring you close. Lucky enough for him, you still melt against him, welcoming his embrace as he coaxes you to turn his way and bury yourself into his nape instead of your hands. He can still hear your apologies mixed between the gasps of air you take, your tears seemingly unending. He holds you steady, voice calm even though his heart is leaping in his chest as it always does when you are upset.

“What’s wrong?” he says, voice hushed. And like every other time you are upset, he asks you, "What can I do to fix it?”

“I don’t-” you say, voice cracking, “I don’t want to leave you.”

“...You don’t know that you will,” Alhaitham says. And it’s true. Neither of you know what will happen for certain. A lone blond traveler with a curse similar to you had passed by and told him of his eventual fate, and you had likened it to your own. But there’s no proof proving the two of you are the same, though it can’t be said that there is no connection between your fates at all.

“How long do you think I have?” You ask again, and he knows he cannot hide it from you any longer.

“A year at most,” he says. Your eyelashes brush by his collarbone when you close your eyes shut. He stops you before your thoughts can even form. “I am not leaving you.” He scoffs and you make a noise of indignation. “Don’t even think about saying something like that.”

“You didn’t let me say anything yet,” he hears you grumble, and he lets a huff of laughter out at the sound of your petulant voice.

“Do you really think I would do something if I didn’t want to?” Alhaitham says dryly, “And what’s the thought process behind me leaving you before you can leave me? I’d love to know.” When you are quiet, he continues softly, “Do you think I am that fragile to fall apart when you are gone?”

“...No,” you say finally. “But I think you underestimate how strongly you feel.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, really,” you say, and your voice is light again, as it always is when you talk about how much you love him. “‘Cause I know better. How much you really feel, even if your face is… like that.”

“Like what,” Alhaitham says bluntly. When you only laugh into his shoulder, he can’t help but smile with you.

If Alhaitham could describe it, it feels like the longest goodbye. ‘Live every moment like it’s your last’ becomes the mantra between the two of you, though neither of you has said those exact words out loud. You love in abundance, laugh in abundance, bicker in full as though you are trying to live out the rest of your lives in one year.

The day Alhaitham takes you to the snowy lands of Snezhnaya is sooner than later, the scarves and gloves worn more days than not. As promised, you two do share the cooking duties for those months, getting cozy by the fireplace and learning how to icefish from the locals. He learns how to barter with the merchants there and commissions the two of you rings to wear. Though he never sees you wear it outside, he can always feel the ring when he holds your gloved hands. He thinks you never take it off.

When Alhaitham returns from Snezhnaya, he comes home alone with nothing but a golden band on his ring finger. The people that know him know better than to ask.

[priorities]

notes: connected background as previous but different ending; fluff! established relationship; happy end

Alhaitham has always been the type to stay in the background. People might be inclined to call him the ‘mastermind’ but that’s giving him too much credit considering how much he wants to remain unknown and unperceived. But he supposes having a hand in toppling the heavenly principles and destroying the castle in the sky and being unrecognized is asking for too much.

“You’re an… interesting guy,” you tell him, a few days after the climactic battle which, fortunately, neither of you had to have a large part in. (Well, there was that key role for you… and another for him, but that is neither here nor there.) You snicker into your hand when he shoots you a strange look.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Alhaitham asks, and before he can continue his retort, you are sitting on his lap even though the two of you are supposed to both be on bedrest, in separate beds. Tighnari is going to kill them if he finds them now that he knows neither of you are going to die any time soon.

“It means you’re an interesting guy,” you say. “The first thing you tell me is that you hate involving yourself into tedious things. And then you get yourself into making strategies to take down literal gods, which sounds pretty tedious to me.”

Your smile is beautific when you look at him, your arms finding their way around his neck and legs over his lap. Instinctively, he puts a hand around your back and holds onto your legs so you don’t fall. He takes a peek at your back and sees that the abyssal blue has not moved a single centimeter beyond your shoulder blades. He knows that was what was calculated, but still, he breathes a sigh of relief upon its confirmation.

“I always make a basic list of pros and cons for a plan,” Alhaitham says. “I just deemed overthrowing gods to be less tedious than the alternative outcome.”

“And what could possibly be more tedious than overthrowing a literal god?” You laugh, looking up at him as though he hung the moon and stars. He thinks if he hung the moon and stars, then you must be the one holding up the sun in the sky.

“Losing you,” Alhaitham says simply. “I’d prefer not to imagine a life without you in it, so I made sure that a life with you would happen.”

Alhaitham knows you are smart enough to know what he was going to say, but you seem surprised anyways, eyes wide and tears welling up at his admission. Perhaps some time ago, Alhaitham would not have believed it would have ever been worth upheaving his life for the sake of another person. But Alhaitham has never been one for halves; the moment he decided to have you in his life, then there was no other option for him.

“I love you,” you say, and he thinks overthrowing gods is an easy choice to make if three words is enough to make him feel this happy, if your arms around him is enough to make him content.

He’s said it before, and he’ll say it again– it’s only a matter of priorities. You just happen to be right on top of that list.

#alhaitham x reader #genshin impact x reader #al haitham x reader #alhaitham #i think this may be my first genshin angst fic #like the fact some of these parts dont end happily? crazy for me #OFF BRAND i would say #couldnt resist adding a happy part tho :)

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boombox-fuckboy · 1 year ago

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Hey, @t0tally-n0t-3m0, figured this might be easier to read as a post. Here's 24 pods with nonbinary lead characters to get you started. There's more out there, so if anyone wants to add on, go for it.

Additional Postage Required: (Sci-Fi) Adventures of an interstellar courier who starts to get glimpses of the past from their packages.

Anamnesis (on the Tin Can Audio feed): (Mystery, Weird Fiction) Someone wakes in a temple in an empty town with no memory. Short, really nice sound design.

Badlands Cola: (Mystery, Supernatural & Horror elements) big city PI Sunny is hired to find information on a rural cult leader, and is drawn into a world of strange radio, horse enthusiasts, and dinosaur bones.

The Dead Letter Office of Somewhere, Ohio (one of two leads, you'll meet them halfway in): (Supernatural, Weird) Two workers for an Ohio dead letter office read the strange confiscated mail their organisation collects, and do some follow up investigation.

either: (Weird Fiction, Sci-Fi, Romance) An explosion at a duck factory sends a pet robot to another reality, connecting two very different (but both lonely) people.

Hello From The Hallowoods: (Supernatural Horror) A dramatic entity beyond your comprehension visits your nightmares to tell stories of the people (in varying degrees of human and alive) that inhabit the strange, deadly, and beautiful Hallowoods.

Inn Between: (Fantasy, Adventure) Ever wondered what the party gets up to at the tavern between D&D sessions? (Not a tabletop).

Jar of Rebuke: (Supernatural, Horror elements) An unkillable amnesiac scientist (they die, just have a hard time staying dead) investigates weird entities, makes friends, and eats a lot of tasty food in the strange town he lives in.

Khôra Podcast: (Sci-Fi, Adventure) Somewhere between inspired by and adapted from greek mythology, a space adventure following four mythological figures on their search for the golden fleece.

Less is Morgue: (Comedy, Horror elements) A ghoul and a ghost host a podcast about whatever they please in the ghoul's mom's basement, and manage to get off topic anyway.

Light Hearts: (Slice-of-Life, Supernatural elements) Three friends run a lightly haunted queer café. Upbeat and wholesome.

The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality: (Weird Fiction, Supernatural, Horror elements) A friendly AI tour guide leads you on a tour of the Mistholme Museum, explaining the strange and often alternatural story behind each item. (To be clear, the nb lead is an AI with no concept of gender, but the creator is NB also and it is far from the only nb character.)

Monstrous Agonies: (Advice, Supernatural) An interpersonal advice show for supernatural entities and other people living liminally in the modern world.

ROGUEMAKER: (Sci-fi, Whodunnit) A commercial space flight explodes and passengers are left isolated in the escape pods, only connected for minutes at a time and unsure what happened, or why.

Second Star to the Left: (Sci-Fi) Audio logs of a colonist sent to a new world and her communications with the minder in charge of keeping her alive.

Sidequesting: (Fantasy) A wholesome podcast following Rion, an adventurer with a difference: they only do sidequests.

SINKHOLE: (Sci-fi, Weird Fiction) Forum posts from a data restoration community in a near future where the human brain is its own computer and one city hosts a massive void.

Skyjacks: Courier's Call: (Tabletop, Fantasy) Three young postal workers aboard a skyship go on various adventures. Kid-friendly but enjoyable for all ages.

The Starport Inn: (Supernatural, Mystery) An FBI agent sent to a rural town to solve a disappearance finds they've walked into something much stranger.

The Supernatural Protection Agency: (Supernatural) Call logs for a helpline that aims to solve the supernatural problems plaguing your life.

Tell No Tales: (Supernatural, Horror elements) Leo Quinn, secretary to the man in charge of the world's leading ghost removal service, interviews various ghosts in an attempt to create a device capable of actually recording them, in the hopes of taking down the company they work for.

Trial and Error: (Sci-Fi) Interviews with various AI as a scientist attempts to make sense of spontaneous machine sentience.

Under the Electric Stars: (Sci-Fi) A courier's failed heist to help their AI friend/navigator pulls them into a world of crime organisations and unethical science.

The Weird: (Tabletop, Supernatural, Comedy, Horror elements) The two staff members at The Department of the Weird travel America in their shitty Ford Fiesta to investigate various strange happenings

#audio drama #recommendations

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halfmoth-halfman · 2 years ago

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i. it's a new day, it's a new life

Pairing: Mob Boss!Price x F!Reader Word Count: 2.6k Warnings: alcohol mention, (very, very brief) blood mention Disclaimer: I do not own modern warfare or any of the modern warfare characters. prev | next

If you’re on time, you’re late.

That’s what your father drilled into your head—one of his many rules for life and how it should be lived. As a kid, you hadn’t cared much about the endless rules and regulations and life lessons he tried to impart on you, but as an adult, you’ve found an appreciation for his old words of wisdom. You try to live your life accordingly—be a woman he would’ve been proud of.

Though, you suppose trying to make him proud is what got you in this situation in the first place.

Regardless, his schedule is burned into your brain, leaving you wide awake and ready to go a full two hours before your first shift at The 141. Nerves and excitement combine into a cocktail of restlessness that has you pacing the length of your motel room. It’s a short walk both ways, your feet following the already well-worn path of the dingy, frayed carpet.

When pacing doesn’t settle you, you opt to lie down. Flopping back onto the partially stained sheets of your lumpy bed to stare up at the ceiling—its popcorn surface cracked and chipped from a shoddy attempt at repairing the water damage.

This isn’t where you expected to end up—stuck in some rundown motel with nothing but the clothes on your back.

You thought you’d get much farther than this.

But with hardly any cash and a car running on empty, rival territory seemed as good a place to stop as any. At the very least, it meant you wouldn’t be followed.

If there were any rules your father was lenient on, crossing into 141 territory wasn’t one of them; everyone in your family—and anyone who was familiar with them—knew better than to disobey him.

Had he a grave, you might’ve actually visited it to give your thanks.

A stray mattress spring digs into your lower back—sharp edge scratching through your thin, black shirt and the thick denim of your jacket—pulling you from your wandering thoughts.

Might as well get a head start.

You bounce yourself into an upright position, double-checking the laces of your boots before you stand. The lights flicker when you flip the switch, flashing too bright before shutting off as you step out into crisp autumn air. You look at the door behind you, slotting your keys between your fingers to form a makeshift claw in your fist as you cross the parking lot to your car.

Your car’s in as bad shape as the room—bought used, and paid for in cash—but it gets you where you need to go, so you don’t complain. You slide into the driver’s seat—shutting the door twice because it never closes all the way the first time—and check for your duffle bag in the backseat before putting your key in the ignition. It takes a minute to start, then another to stop rattling, but you have extra time and don’t mind the wait.

The drive to the club is uneventful—too early for morning traffic—and you have another hour before you’re meant to start, so you take your time on the drive.

You park in the back this time, tucking your duffle bag under the backseat, then double and triple-checking that the doors are locked before making your way to the front of the club.

No one else appears to be inside, but the door’s unlocked, and the lights are on. You can see a small, wheeled cart full of cleaning supplies sitting near the stage that you can only guess is for you. If your watch is correct, you have a little under half an hour before you have to start. You could start now—get a jump on what you're sure is to be a busy day—or…

Your father’s armchair tales ring in the back of your head.

What was it he had said?

They paint the walls red so you can’t see the blood stains and keep the bodies in a morgue hidden behind the walk-in freezer.

You doubt there are any secret morgues, but you are curious about the rest of the interior. And it would help to be familiar with the layout before you start cleaning, right?

It takes alarmingly little to convince yourself to have a little walkabout—you always were too curious for your own good—making your way to the bar first. The stairs leading to the second floor are on the left and roped off with a thick velvet cord, so you turn your attention to the right side.

The booths don’t interest you; though the heavy curtains cover them, you know what lies behind them. There's a short hall past them that leads to a large set of double doors with glass windows that reveal part of a massive kitchen. Even from here, you can tell the countertops are polished to perfection. It almost reminds you of—

Nope.

You turn away from the kitchen, ignoring the small knot of dread and nostalgia that begins to settle in the pit of your stomach. You turn to face the stage, leaning back against the bar top. There’s a hallway to the left of the stage that winds around behind it, but there are no lights to illuminate the way, and you know better than to wander down unlit hallways.

That just leaves—

Between the booths and the hallway behind the stage are a pair of solid black double doors. Similar to the one in front of the stairs, a gold stanchion sits in front of them, but there’s no velvet cord connecting them.

You’ve got twenty-six minutes to kill.

Why not?

A small skip down the stairs and a few hurried steps, and you’re at the door, glancing to your left and right before you set a hand on the cold metal of the door handle and turn.

With a sharp click, the door sways open.

Why don’t they ever lock their doors?

You creep inside, holding the handle down to shut the door silently behind you. You’re let into a small waiting room with more double doors—this set is solid glass, save for the handles, with one door slightly askew. You take that as an invitation, waltzing through the doors with care to not leave fingerprints on the glass.

You’d have to be the one to clean them, after all.

A strange sense of nostalgia hits you as soon as you enter the office. All dark wood and luxury, you’re hit by the scent of cigars—the expensive kind your father kept in his own office but never actually smoked—with undertones of a spiced cologne. You stand opposite the desk—a spacious cocobolo covered in papers, picture frames, and a closed laptop.

The wall to your right has been converted to several overflowing bookshelves surrounding a large fireplace. The wall to your left houses a large TV and a fully stocked whiskey cabinet that stretches up to the ceiling. Plush couches sit on either side of you—two near the fireplace and one facing the wall-mounted television—matching the chairs sitting in front of the desk.

Probably shouldn’t be in here.

You ignore the desk and the alcohol, heading straight for the wall of books. There are a few you recognize, but most are unfamiliar to you. Your fingertips graze the spines, admiring the soft feel of the leather covers as you search for titles you know.

It takes a few shelves, but you manage to find one you recognize. You pluck it from the shelf without a thought—in awe at the beautiful, custom cover—but the weight of it takes you by surprise. It’s not an overly thick book, you think, balancing it in one hand to open the cover, so why is it—

The carved-out pages are a surprise.

The gun even more so.

Definitely shouldn’t be in here.

“Find something you like?”

You snap the book shut with a swiftness, holding it behind your back as you slowly turn toward the doors. A man stands in the open space, staring you down with an arched brow on his otherwise blank face.

He hadn’t been there the day before; you’re sure you would’ve remembered him if he had.

Kyle and the others had seemed friendly—if somewhat caught off-guard—but this man is all authority. Calm, intimidating authority. Gentle waves ready to pull you into the violent undertow.

Dark brown hair just beginning to grey at the temples and…unique facial hair; he stares you down with piercing blue eyes and thick arms folded across his broad chest.

You know designer when you see it.

And though he appears dressed in simple black pants and a white button-up with rolled-up sleeves, you can tell the fabric, and its quality, cost more than most anyone could afford.

He’s handsome—in a stern, professor sort of way.

“Good read?” he asks, stormy cerulean gaze dipping down to where your hands are tucked behind your back.

Oh.

That deep rasp melts into your ears, dripping into your brain to pour a fiery path down your spine and settle into a burning pit low in your belly.

“I wasn’t— I—” you stutter, struggling for words and praying he can’t see the red blooming on your face.

Calm down.

The worst he can do is kill you.

You collect yourself, opening your mouth to respond properly, but he beats you to it, “Club’s not open right now, love.”

“I work here,” you say, plastering that award-winning smile on your face. His eyes snap to yours, thick brows knitting together.

“That so?” he asks, slow and disbelieving. “And what is it you do here?”

“Clean,” you answer. You move the book-slash-gun-case to one hand so you can check your watch. “In fact, my shift starts in…two minutes and thirty-six seconds. So, I should probably…y’know…go clean.”

You take easy, deliberate steps, moving in front of the desk so you can set the book on top of it. You try to be discreet, but something about those eyes tells you not much gets past this man. You take a step forward, but he doesn’t move, standing firmly in your path.

“The new cleaner,” he sighs, uncrossing his arms to run his thumb over an eyebrow. “It’s Robin, yeah?”

“Canary, actually.” The smile does little to hide the bite in your voice, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“Canary,” he says your name slowly, letting it roll off his tongue as if to get a taste of your character. “The woman my son hired with no phone and asked to be paid in cash.”

His son? Kyle?

Well…at least your boss is nice to look at.

“Yep, that would be me—” you straighten up, extending your hand out to him, “—pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Sir,” he laughs to himself—a quiet, amused huff just under his breath—and reaches out to wrap his large hand around yours. “Price. John Price.”

His handshake is firm—a little too firm in your opinion—but he’s so warm the heat from his skin sinks into your palm and spreads up your arm.

“Did Gaz go over the club rules with you when he hired you?” Mr. Price asks, holding your gaze as he shakes your hand.

“Gaz?”

“My son, Kyle.”

“Oh. No, not really.” The handshake continues through your short conversation, his hand slowly tightening around yours. You loosen your grip to pull away, but his fingers squeeze around yours.

“I won’t bore you with the details, then. But I’ll let you know the most important one.”

Shocks of pain shoot through your wrist as his hand tightens into a vice. He yanks you forward with surprising strength, and you stumble at the sudden jerk. You catch yourself before you collide with him, but you’re significantly closer—almost chest-to-chest with him.

He takes it in stride, leaning down to set his mouth near your ear. His beard scratches at your skin as the pressure from his hand begins to cut off circulation in your own.

He smells just how his office looks: all smoked wood and wealth and danger.

“You don’t come into my office. Ever. Understood?” His voice is a quiet growl in your ear—a gentle one-time forgiveness with a warning that is more promise than threat; you doubt he’s ever made a threat he wouldn’t follow through on.

A chill wracks your body.

You can’t tell if it’s from fear or inappropriate excitement.

He pulls back to look at you, ocean-hued eyes staring down into yours. You don’t trust yourself to speak, so you nod, and finally he lets go of your hand.

He brushes past you, scent lingering behind as you attempt to massage the feeling back into your palm.

“You can go home for the day. Start fresh tomorrow,” Mr. Price says casually, picking up the book you’d left on his desk and heading to return it to its place on the bookshelf. “Ghost will show you out.”

You whip around to stare at his back in confusion.

“Ghost?”

Is this place fucking haunted?

What are the ethics of employing the dead?

He looks back at you, nodding at something over your shoulder. You slowly follow his gaze, turning your head like a horror-movie protagonist.

Your nose nearly collides with an impressively solid chest. You crane your head up, searching for a face that must be attached to this solid wall of muscle and intimidation before you. How had a man that size gotten so close without a sound?

He’s dressed in solid black, this giant, every inch of skin covered from the neck down. A cloth mask rests over the bottom half of his face, white paint dried and chipping in the shape of the bottom half of a skull. His honey-brown eyes are shadowed by smudged black paint that reminds you all too much of your three-day-old eyeliner after a weekend bender. His sandy-blonde hair is cropped short, strands hanging messily over his forehead. Twin scars bisect his left eyebrow and eyelid, and pull taut as he glares down at you.

“Let’s go.” He doesn’t give you a chance to respond, crushing grip wrapping around your forearm to pull you toward the door. He shoves you through it—not hard, but forceful enough for you to trip over your own feet—following directly behind you.

“See you tomorrow, Sparrow!” Mr. Price calls just as the door shuts.

Ghost follows you all the way to the parking lot, close enough for you to feel his body heat at your back at all times. He watches you get into your car, shut the door once then twice, and listens to the engine struggle to a start.

He doesn’t leave as you pull out of the lot, and you can see his shadowy form watching you in your rear-view mirror.

You get back to the motel in record time, but once you pull into a space, you can’t find it in yourself to get out. Instead, you fold your arms over the steering wheel, dropping your head on top.

“What am I doing?” you mumble, pressing your forehead into your arms.

That was the question, wasn’t it?

What are you doing?

You didn’t have to be here. You could’ve been back in the comfort of your home, lounging by one of the pools or getting ready for some fancy gala with those frilly little cakes and good wine.

But pools and galas meant skimpy bathing suits and revealing dresses; both options meant being leered at by those around you and being put down by—

Stop it.

You turn and rest your cheek on your arms, glancing behind you at the duffle bag lying on the floorboards.

It’s not ideal, where you’re at now, but it’s better than where you used to be. A small bump in the road is all this is. No one will follow you here, and you can deal with John Price and his intimidatingly handsome face for the few weeks it’ll take to get some cash under your belt so you can move on.

For now, you're safe, and that’s all you need.

taglist: @sleepyendymion, @blazedprince, @blueoorchid, @ohgodthebogisback, @melancholyy-hill, @wasteland-babe

#captain price x reader #john price x reader #price x reader #captain price #john price #modern warfare #modern warfare 2 #mw fics #moth writes

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truetalesteam · 9 months ago

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True Tales of the Illuminati needs YOUR help to fund a third season!

Big news! We just launched our indiegogo to crowdfund the third season of our show, True Tales of the Illuminati.

True Tales is our full-cast audio comedy about conspiracies gone wrong, where a group of illuminati goons bounce haplessly throughout history snatching defeat from the jaws of other, weirder defeats.

In our first season (which you can listen to here or on your podcatcher of choice) , our gang of Illuminauts failed to keep the pyramids a secret. In the second, they failed to fake the moon landing so hard that they had to actually land on the moon. In the third, Beck and the gang will be going up against their toughest foe yet - the Enlightenment.

That’s right, reason IS the font of goodness, and it’s back to the 18th century to deal with the likes of Denis Diderot, Johanne Weishaupt, and Wolfgang Goethe. Can they match their scintillating wit? Create an objective test of intellectual acumen? Kiss?

We've been acclaimed by the AV Club on their Podmass roundup and made it to the finalists in the 2020 and 2022 Audioverse awards.

We've also had the following very kind words said about us:

"True Tales of the Illuminati is the wackiest, most ridiculous fun. Get swept away into a witty, space-time spanning rollercoaster ride of Looney Tunes hijinks and cartoonish comedy. It reminds me of my favourite audio fiction comedies, from Victoriocity and Wooden Overcoats to Oblivity and The Amelia Project. If you want your ears full of laugh out loud audio mayhem, please help bring this project to life!"

Ella Watts, BBC Studios, Doctor Who Redacted

"One of the funniest scripted podcasts out there, with brilliant characters and a wildly imaginative world. We need more!"

Tom Crowley, Wooden Overcoats, Victoriocity, Crowley Time with me, Tom Crowley

"True Tales is a fantastic, hilarious workplace satire, perfect for the post-truth era."

Henry Galley, Less is Morgue co-creator

Pretty good, right? If you're intrigued, if you like the show, if you want to help us make more, please head over to our indiegogo and drop us a few dollars. If you drop us more than a few, we even have rewards, like early access, stickers, pins, and more!

Oh, and did we mention that we're releasing 15-30 minute standalone minisodes as we hit our funding goals? The first one is already out for your enjoyment here, and we’ll be releasing new ones for every $3k raised. If we hit our $9000 goal, we'll drop a minisode by very special guest writer and performer, Tom Crowley! That’s right, the one from the pull quote! Tom’s one of our favorite writers and performers and he’s given us an incredible minisode, so as you can imagine, we really want to share it with you. So help us do just that!

Making this show is a labor of love, but we also need to pay our actors, our sound designer and rent studio space to make this as great as we can. Thank you so much if you decide to be a part of that. If you decide to donate, head on over to truetalesteam.com/crowdfund. We hope to see you there.

Illuminati, Ollominoto, The True Tales Team

#true tales of the illuminati #crowdfund #season 3 #comedy #audio drama #full cast audio drama #help us make season 3 #ttoti season 3 crowdfund #illuminati ollominoto

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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The Sacklers woulda gotten away with it if it wasn't for those darned meddling feds

The saga of the Sacklers, a multigenerational billionaire crime family of mass-murdering dope-peddlers, is an enraging parable about how the wealthy, the courts, and sadistic high-powered lawyers collude to destroy the lives of millions, profit handsomely, and evade justice.

But there's an unexpected twist to this tale. After the Sacklers procured a sham bankruptcy that denied their victims the right to sue while leaving their fortune largely intact, the Supreme Court – yes, this Supreme Court – saw through the scam and froze the process, pending a full hearing:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/us/supreme-court-purdue-pharma-opioid-settlement.html

The Sacklers basically invented modern, legal dope peddling. Arthur Sackler, the family's original crime-boss, revived the practice of direct-to-consumer drug marketing, dormant since the death of the medicine show, to peddle Valium. An aggressive and shrewd lobbyist, Arthur built the family fortune and, more importantly, its connections:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-the-sackler-family-built-a-pharma-dynasty-and-fueled-an-american-calamity/

A generation later, the family's business company created Oxycontin, and procured misleading and false research about the drug's safety kickstarting the opioid epidemic, whose American body-count is closing in on a million dead. Armed with inflated claims about opioid safety, the Sacklers' pharma reps bribed, cajoled and tricked doctors into writing millions of prescriptions for oxy.

This scam had a natural best-before date. As ODs flooded America's ERs and bodies piled up in America's morgues, it became increasingly clear that something was rotten. The Sacklers pursued a multipronged campaign to keep the truth from coming to light, and to keep the billions flowing.

On the one hand, they hired McKinsey to find novel ways to encourage doctors to keep writing prescriptions and to convince pharmacists to turn a blind eye to abuse. McKinsey had all kinds of great ideas here, including paying pharma distributors cash bonuses for every overdose death in their territory:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/business/mckinsey-opioids-settlement.html

When the issue of these deaths came up in public, the Sacklers blamed "criminal addicts" for their own misery, stigmatizing both people who desperately needed pain relief and the people who'd been deliberately hooked on the Sacklers' products. The legacy of this smear campaign is still with us, both in the contempt for people struggling with addiction and in the cruel barriers placed between people in unbearable agony and medical relief.

But mostly, the Sacklers kept their names out of it. They laundered their reputations by donating a homeopathic fraction of their vast drug fortune to art galleries and museums in a bid to make their names synonymous with good deeds.

The Sacklers didn't invent this trick. Think of the way that history's great monsters – Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, Ford – are remembered today for the foundations and charities that bear their names, not for the untold misery they inflicted on their workers, their crimes against their customers, and the corruption of governments.

But the Sacklers made those Gilded Age barons seem like amateurs. They invented a modern elite philanthropy playbook that Anand Giridharadas documents in his must-read Winners Take All, about the charity-industrial complex that washes away an ocean of blood with a trickle of money:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/10/winners-take-all-modern-philanthropy-means-that-giving-some-away-is-more-important-than-how-you-got-it/

As part of this PR exercise, the individual Sacklers kept their names and images out of the public eye. For years, there were virtually no news-service photos of individual Sacklers. When journalists dared to criticize the family, they used vicious attack-lawyers to intimidate them into retractions and silence (I was threatened by the Sacklers' lawyers).

They also worked their media mogul pals, like Mike Bloomberg, who added their names to the "Friends of Mike" list that Bloomberg reporters were required to consult before writing negative coverage:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/29/friends-of-mike-enemies-of-the-people/#sacklerbergs

But Stein's Law says that "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." As lawsuits mounted, the Sacklers found themselves increasingly synonymous with death, not charitable works. But like any canny criminal, the Sacklers had a getaway plan.

First, they extracted vast sums from Purdue and shifted it into offshore financial secrecy havens:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purduepharma-bankruptcy/sacklers-reaped-up-to-13-billion-from-oxycontin-maker-u-s-states-say-idUSKBN1WJ19V

Even as this money was disappearing into legal black holes, the Sacklers demanded – and received – extraordinary protection from the courts, who aggressively sealed testimony and materials presented through discovery:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-courts-secrecy-judges/

When this gambit finally failed, the Sacklers insisted that were down to their last $4 billion, and, with trillions in claims pending against them, they declared bankruptcy.

When a normal person declares bankruptcy, they are required to divest themselves of nearly everything of value they possess, and then still find themselves hounded by cruel arm-breakers who deluge them with threatening calls and letters:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation

But for the richest people in America, bankruptcy is merely a way to cleanse one's balance sheet of liabilities for any atrocity you may have committed on the way, without giving up your fortune.

The Sacklers are a case-study in how a corrupt bankruptcy can be conducted.

Purdue Pharma presents a maddening case-study in the corrupt benefits of bankruptcy. When it was announced in March, many were outraged to learn that the Sacklers were going to walk away with billions, while their victims got stiffed.

First, they converted their victims' right to compensation into "property" that the Sacklers themselves owned. This transferred jurisdiction over these claims from the regular court system to the bankruptcy court. A bankruptcy judge – not a jury – would decide how much each of these claims was worth, and then what how much of that worth these victims (now recast as creditors) would be entitled to through the bankruptcy.

Thus tens of thousands of claims were nonconsensually settled without a trial, by an administrative judge with no criminal jurisdiction, not a federal judge who'd undergone Senate confirmation:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/31/vaccine-for-the-global-south/#claims-extinguished

These "coercive restructuring techniques" are not available to everyday people who are drowning in student debt or credit-card bills – these are the exclusive purview of the wealthiest Americans, who enjoy a completely different bankruptcy system that is rigged in their favor.

Three judges – David Jones and Marvin Isgur of Houston and Bob Drain of New York – hear 96% of the country's large corporate bankruptcies:

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2021/05/judge-shopping-in-bankruptcy.html

These judges are unbelievably horny for corporations, embracing a legal theory "that casts the invention of the limited liability corporation alongside that of the steam engine as a paradigmatic development in the pursuit of prosperity":

https://prospect.org/justice/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-the-sacklers-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy/

Now there are more than three bankruptcy judges in America, so how do the nation's biggest companies get their cases heard by these three enthusiastic Renfields for corporate vampirism?

They cheat.

For example: when GM was facing bankruptcy, it argued that it was a New York company on the basis that it owned a single Chevy dealership in Harlem, and got in front of Judge Drain.

The Sacklers were – characteristically – even more brazen. They really wanted to get their case in front of Judge Drain, the nation's most enthusiastic supporter of "third party releases," through which bankrupt billionaires can wipe the slate clean, securing dismissals of all claims by the people they wronged.

Drain is also uniquely hostile to independent examiners, "an independent third-party appointed by the court to investigate 'fraud, dishonesty, incompetence, misconduct, mismanagement, or irregularity…by current or former management of the debtor."

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3851339

If you're the Sacklers, hoping to keep two thirds of your billions and extinguish all claims by your victims, there is no better helpmeet than Judge Robert Drain of the Southern District of New York.

So, 192 days before filing for bankruptcy, the Sacklers opened an office in White Plains, New York (a company may claim jurisdiction in a specific court once they've operated a business there for 180 days).

Then they filed a bankruptcy in which they altered the metadata on their casefile, inserting the code for a Westchester county hearing into the machine-readable, human-invisible parts of the documents they uploaded to the federal Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system (they also captioned the case with "RDD, for "Robert D Drain").

They chose their judge, and the judge obliged. UCLA Law's Lynn LoPucki is one of the leading scholars of these bankruptcy "megacases," and has written extensively on why these three judges are so deferential to corporate criminals seeking to flense themselves of culpability. She sees judges like Drain motivated by "personal aggrandizement and celebrity and ability to indirectly channel to the local bankruptcy bar. The judge is the star and the ringmaster of a megacase – very appealing to certain personalities."

Thus, these judges are "willing and eager to cater to debtors to attract business…[an] assurance to debtors that…these judges will not transfer out cases with improper venue or rule against the debtor…"

https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/02870w66d

This kind of judge-shopping goes beyond the Sacklers; the cases that Drain and co preside over make a mockery of the idea of America as a land of equal justice. "Prepack" and "drive-through" bankruptcies are reliable get-out-of-jail-free cards for capitalism's worst monsters: private equity firms.

Whether PE murdered your grandmother by buying her care-home and putting each worker in charge of 30 seniors:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/portopiccolo-nursing-homes-maryland/2020/12/21/a1ffb2a6-292b-11eb-9b14-ad872157ebc9_story.html

or poisoned your kids by filling your neighborhood with carcinogens:

https://www.webmd.com/special-reports/ethylene-oxide/20190719/residents-unaware-of-cancer-causing-toxin-in-air

limited liability wipes the slate clean.

30% of America's bankruptcies are private equity companies using the bankruptcy system to wipe away claims for their misdeeds, while keeping a fortune, thanks to the shield of limited liability.

Take Millennium Health, JamesS lattery's fake drug-testing company, which promised to help nursing homes figure out whether seniors were abusing (or selling) their meds by testing their piss for angel dust and other drugs. Slattery defrauded Medicare and Medicaid for millions, borrowed $1.8 billion (Slattery got $1.3 billion of that). He eventually walked away from this fraud after paying a mere $256m to settle all claims, and kept a fortune in assets, including the 40 vintage planes his private company ("Pissed Away LLC" – I am not making this up) owned:

https://prospect.org/justice/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-the-sacklers-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy/

For the wealthy, bankruptcy is the sport of kings, a way to skip out on consequences. For the poor, bankruptcy is an anchor – or a noose. This is by design: judges who preside over elite bankruptcies speak of their protagonists as heroic "risk takers" and tiptoe around any consequences, lest these titans be chained to a mortal's fate, costing us all the benefits of their entrepreneurial genius.

PE companies helped the Sacklers design their own bankruptcy strategy, and it was a standout, even by the standards of Bob Drain and his kangaroo bankruptcy court. But now, the Supreme Court has pumped the brakes on the whole enterprise.

The judges ruled that the exceptions the Sacklers took advantage of were intended for bankrupts in "financial distress" – not billionaires with vast fortunes hidden overseas. In so doing, the court threatens all manner of corrupt arrangements, from "the Boy Scouts, wildfires and allegations of sexual abuse in the church diocese — where third parties get a benefit from a bankruptcy they themselves aren’t going through.”

The case was brought by the DoJ's US Trustee Program, which lost in the Second Circuit when it tried to halt the Purdue bankruptcy and argued that the Sacklers themselves had to declare bankruptcy to discharge the claims against them.

Now the Supremes have hit pause on the bankruptcy the Second Circuit approved, and will hear the case themselves. It's only one step on a long road, but it's an unprecedented one. Some of the country's filthiest fortunes are riding on the outcome.

Going to Defcon this weekend? I’m giving a keynote, “An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse,” tomorrow (Aug 12) at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

Image: Edwardx (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Serpentine_Sackler_Gallery,_June_2016_05.jpg

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