#theft of drugs

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Alfred Hall Gets 5 Years And 5 Lashes," Vancouver Sun. October 16, 1943. Page 1 & 8. --- For the first time in a decade or more lashes were added to a penitentiary sentence when punishment was meted out in Assize Court today by Chief Justice Wendell Farris to seven prisoners.

Accompanied by a scathing denunciation of the "detestable crimes" of which he had been found guilty - two charges of gross indecency - Alfred G. Hall, 53-year-old self-styled psychologist and nutritionist, was sentenced to five years in the penitentiary and five lashes.

At the same time, Frederick Hathaway, 43, leader of the Aryan Astrological Occult Church of Christ, was given the maximum term for indecent assault, two years in the penitentiary.

Charles Willard Davis, 41, former New Westminster druggist who pleaded guilty to possession of drugs while he was staff sergeant in the RCAMC, was sent to the penitentiary for six years, with a fine of $1000, or an additional six months.

Other sentences given today, were:

Pte. George Donald Bowie, 27, two years from his arrest on May 29 for a statutory offense.

Ralph Prentice, 28, salesman, and Robert Morgan, 27, laborer, three years for burglary.

Robert Findlay, 21, fisherman, one year for burglary.

HAD FAIR TRIAL When court convenes at 10:30 a.m. Monday, Mr. Justice Stiney Smith will preside for the re-trial of two cases in which there were disagreements earlier in the assizes. They are Herbert Gordon Penny, false pretenses, and Robert Walter Millman, theft.

Hall, who is general director of the World Fellowship of Faith and Service and operator of its adjunct, the Human Adjustment institute, claimed he was greatly handicapped at his trials by lack of counsel. He told the chief justice also that there was a public movement to prevent the career which he had chosen as his life work in Vancouver.

"You had extremely fair trials and your ability in conducting your defense was such that I am satisfied it would not have been excelled by many lawyers," Chief Justice Farris told the prisoner.

LONG PERIOD "I think you have a contempt for the law and the decent things of life," he added, and then recited Hall's criminal record which began in Vancouver 20 years ago and extended to Toronto, Chicago, Seattle and back to Vancouver to pile up six convictions for false pretenses, theft, fraud, con-games, violation of immigration laws and non-support.

The chief justice said Hall's conduct in court indicated more than ordinary ability and a remarkable brain. It is too bad, he remarked, that science has not advanced sufficiently to correct the quirk which prevents his ability being of service to the community rather than a disgrace to himself. His Lordship said he could see nothing in the case which war ranted sympathy or leniency.

"Absolutely brazenly you defended yourself on this detestable charge, and I sentence you to five years with five lashes, as I believe that it is only by such means you may be brought to a realization of your position. Though the thought of the lash is to me abhorrent, in a case such as yours I see nothing else that will serve."

In making the sentences on the two counts concurrent, the chief justice stipulated that if the lashes are not given in the first case they shall be given in the second, within four weeks of Hall's admission to the penitentiary.

"COSMETIC SCIENCE" "In the second case you went into the box and your admissions were such as to my mind shows a completely perverted mind and a system of carrying on these perversions with your so-called institute to further what I might term your beastly desires," declared the judge.

Objections taken by G. V. Pelton in behalf of Hathaway of alleged prejudice at his trial by reference to cosmetic science instead of cosmic and the use of the name Hall instead of Hathaway, might be grounds of appeal; also his trial by jury on a lesser charge than the one on which he was committed.

"In these days, when people are seeking faith and religious outlet, those who profess religion and in the name of that religion, commit a crime, it becomes a very serious matter," Chief Justice Farris told the cosmic science lecturer who claimed at his trial to have visited Mars, Venus and other planets.

He was not unmindful of the suffering of drug addicts, the chief justice said after hearing a second impassioned plea by T. F. Hurley for leniency for Davis, the staff sergeant who admitted stealing morphine and cocaine from army supplies and substituting other medicines for a year.

But Davis' case was different to the ordinary drug case because he knew thed anger of going near narcotics; still he took a position of responsibility know- ing there might be serious consequences.

'KNEW WAY AROUND' His Lordship thought it remarkable that Canada has no institutions for the treatment of drug addicts.

He said he took into consideration the sorrow of his parents, wife, a son overseas and a brother invalided home; also the co-operation Davis gave in preventing the serious consequences there might have been. However, the judge said the Crown might have charged him under a section with a maximum penalty of 11 years instead of seven.

A strong recommendation by the jury for mercy was taken into consideration by the chief justice, he said, when he gave Bowie two years from the date of his arrest for an offense against a young girl. He said he also recalled that the complainant was "one who knew her way about" and that the soldier had been drinking.

Criminal records for 10 years and 13 years were confirmed by Prentice and Morgan respectively, when they appeared for sentence for a dairy safe-blowing.

[one-time-i-dreamt]

MatPat stole my car to sell drugs.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A "secure" system can be the most dangerous of all

Two decades ago, my life changed forever: hearing Bruce Schneier explain that “security” doesn’t exist in the abstract. You can only be secure from some threat. A fire alarm won’t protect you from burglaries. A condom won’t protect you from mass shootings. It seems obvious, but how often do we hear about “security” without any mention of who is being made secure, and from which threat?

Take the US welfare system. It is very “secure” in that it is hedged in by a thicket of red-tape, audits, inspections and onerous procedures. To get food stamps, housing vouchers, or cash aid, you must navigate a Soviet-grade bureaucratic system of Kafkaesque proportions. Indeed, one of the great ironies of the post-Cold War world is that the USA has become a “Utopia Of Rules” (as David Graeber put it), subjecting everyday people to the state-run bureacracies that the USAUSAUSA set endlessly ridiculed the USSR for:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/02/02/david-graebers-the-utopia-of-rules-on-technology-stupidity-and-the-secret-joys-of-bureaucracy/

(The right says it wants to “shrink the US government until fits in a bathtub — and then drown it” — but not the whole government. They want unlimited government bloat for that part of the state that is dedicated to tormenting benefits claimants, especially if its functions are managed by a Beltway Bandit profiteer who bills Uncle Sucker up the wazoo for rubber-stamping “DENIED” on every claim.)

The US benefits system has a sophisticated, expensive, fully staffed anti-fraud system — but it’s a highly selective form of anti-fraud. The system is oriented solely to prevent fraud against itself, with no thought to protecting benefits recipients themselves from fraud.

And those recipients — by definition the poorest and most vulnerable among us — are easy pickings for continuous, ghastly, eye-watering acts of fraud. These benefits are distributed via prepaid debit cards — EBT Cards — that lack the basic security measures that every other kind of card has had for years. These are simple magstripe cards, lacking basic chip-and-pin defenses, to say nothing of contactless countermeasures.

That means that fraudsters can — and do — install skimmers in the point-of-sale terminals used by benefits recipients to withdraw their cash benefits, pay for food using SNAP (AKA Food Stamps), and receive other benefits.

It’s impossible to overstate how widespread these skimmers are, and how much money criminals make by stealing from poor people. Writing for Businessweek, Jessica Fu describes the mad scramble benefits recipients go through every month, standing by ATMs at midnight on the night of the first of every month in hopes of withdrawing the cash they use to pay for their rent and utility bills before it is stolen by a crook who captured their card number with a skimmer:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-06-28/ebt-theft-takes-millions-of-dollars-from-the-neediest-americans

One of Fu’s sources, Lexisnexis Risk Solutions’s Haywood Talcove, describes these EBT cards as having the security of a “glorified hotel room key.” He recounts how US police departments saw a massive explosion in EBT skimming: from 300 complaints in January 2022 to 18,000 in January 2023.

The skimmer rings are extremely well organized. The people who install the skimmers — working in pairs, with one person to distract the cashier while the other quickly installs the skimmer — don’t know who they work for. Neither do the people who use cards cloned from skimmer data to cash out benefits recipients’ accounts. When they are arrested, they refuse to turn on their immediate recruiters, fearing reprisals against their families.

These low-level crooks stroll up to ATMs and feed a succession of cloned cards into them, emptying account after account. Or they swipe cards at grocery checkouts, buying cases of Red Bull and other easily sold grocery products with some victim’s entire SNAP balance.

Some police agencies are pursuing these criminal gangs and trying figure out who’s running them, but the authorities who issue SNAP cards are doing little to nothing to stop the pipeline at their end. Simply upgrading SNAP terminals to chip-and-pin would exponentially raise the cost and complexity that thieves incur.

Indeed, that’s why every other kind of payment card uses these systems. How is it that these systems were upgraded, while SNAP cards remain in mired in 20th century “glorified hotel room key” territory? Well, as our friends on the right never cease to remind us: “incentives matter.”

When your credit card gets cloned, it’s your banks and credit card company that pays for the losses, not you. So the banks demanded (and funded) the upgrade to new anti-fraud measures. By contrast, most states have no system for refunding stolen benefits to skimmers’ victims.

In other words, all of the anti-fraud in the benefits system is devoted to catching benefits cheating — a phenomenon that is so rare as to be almost nonexistent (1.54%), notwithstanding right wingers’ fevered, Reagan-era folktales about “welfare queens”:

https://blog.gitnux.com/food-stamp-fraud-statistics/

Meanwhile, the most widespread and costly form of fraud in the benefits system — fraud perpetrated against benefits recipients — is blithely ignored.

Really, it’s worse than that. In deciding to protect the welfare system rather than welfare recipients, we’ve made it vastly harder for benefits claimants who’ve been victimized by fraudsters to remain fed and sheltered. After all, if we made it simple and straightforward for benefits recipients to re-claim money that was stolen from them, we’d make it that much easier to defraud the system.

“Security” is always and forever a matter of securing some specific thing, against some specific risk. In other words, security reflects values — it reveals whose risk matters, and whose doesn’t. For the American benefits system, risks to the system matter. Risks to people don’t.

It’s not just the welfare system that prioritizes its own risks against the people it exists to serve. Think of the systems used to fight drug abuse in clinical settings.

Medical facilities that use or dispense powerful pain-killers have exquisitely tuned, sophisticated, frequently audited security systems to prevent patients from tricking their doctors or pharmacists into administering extra drugs (especially opioids). “Extra” in this case means “more drugs than are strictly necessary to manage pain.”

The rationale for this is only incidentally medical. Someone who gets a little too much painkiller during a medical procedure or an acute pain episode is not at any particular risk of enduring harm — the risks are minor and easily managed (say, by keeping a patient in bed a little longer while they recover from sedation).

The real agenda here is preventing addiction and abuse by addicted people. There’s a genuine problem with opioid abuse, and that problem does have its origins in overprescription. But — crucially — that overprescription wasn’t the result of wimpy patients insisting on endless painkillers until they enslaved themselves to their pills.

Rather, the opioid epidemic has its origins in the billionaire Sackler crime family, whose Purdue Pharma used scientific fraud, cash incentives, and other deceptive practices to trick, coerce, or bribe doctors into systematically overprescribing their Oxycontin cash cow, even as they laundered their reputation with showy charitable donations:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/12/monopolist-solidarity/#sacklers-billions

The Sacklers got to keep their billions — and people undergoing painful medical procedures or living with chronic pain are left holding the bag, subject to tight pain-med controls that forces them to prove — through increasingly stringent systems — that they truly deserve their medicine.

In other words, the beneficiary of the opioid control system is the system itself — not the patients who need opioids.

There’s an extremely disturbing — even nightmarish — example of this in the news: the Yale Fertility Clinic, where hundreds of women endured unimaginably painful egg harvesting procedures with no anaesthesia at all.

These women had complained for years about the pain they suffered, and many had ended up needing emergency care after the fact because of traumatic injuries caused by undergoing the procedure without pain control. But the doctors and nurses at the Yale clinic ignored their screams of pain and their post-operative complaints.

It turned out that an opioid-addicted nurse had been swapping the fentanyl in the drug cabinet for saline, and taking the fentanyl home for her own use.

This made national headlines at the time, and it is the subject of “The Retrievals,” a new New York Times documentary series podcast:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/podcasts/serial-the-retrievals-yale-fertility-clinic.html

If the pain medication management system was designed to manage pain, then these thefts would have been discovered early on. If the system was designed so that anyone who experienced pain was treated until the pain was under control, the deception would have been uncovered almost immediately.

As Stafford Beer said, “the purpose of any system is what it does.” The pain medication management system was designed to manage pain medication, not pain itself.

The system was designed to be secure from opioid-seeking addicted patients. It was not designed to make patients secure from pain. Its values — our values, as a society — were revealed through its workings.

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/2023/07/13/whose-security/#for-me-not-thee

[Image ID: A down-the-barrel view of a massive, battleship-gray artillery piece protruding from the brick battlement of a fortress. From the black depths of the barrel shines a red neon 'EBT' sign.]

Image: Bjarne Henning Kvaale (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oscarsborg_28cm_Krupp_cannon_4_-_panoramio.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[frosted-skies]

trikey —

deliver to: heaven

TW: Dr*gs, overdose and s*icidal ideation

i would wait for you a thousand years, but would my life last long enough?

trevor philips x michael de santa

a series of nine letters, corresponding to the nine years since michael townley’s death during a failed heist in ludendorff, north yankton, written by trevor philips.

the nine letters are kept safely in individual envelopes, stacked chronologically and locked in a wooden box under his bed.

engraved in the wood was:

deliver to: heaven.

—

playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Yv3sN3tq0kfgZyI83k5P2?si=JKbagLZiS0KzG9A9vOgbjA&pi=a-ATFl3aYgQmuF

2004.

Michael.

I can't believe you’re not with me anymore. I can’t believe you are gone, I can’t believe you are dead. I couldn't leave your tombstone, even after everyone else had left, including your wife and children.

I stayed there for god knows how long. I cried in the cold unforgiving North Yankton winter, kneeling next to your grave. I held onto your tombstone. That smooth concrete with your name engraved.

Michael Townley, 1965-2004.

I wanted to dig out your body, I wanted to look at your face one last time. I cried, screamed, begged for all of this to be a dream. I prayed to a God I didn't even know existed, I yelled into the empty grey skies. I yelled your name. hoping that somehow and somewhere, you’d come back.

Why did it have to end like this? I should have taken that bullet instead of you, I should have died and not you. Why was it you? Why did it have to be you? Why? I don’t know how to live without you, Mikey. You were my everything. And now���you’re gone.

Maybe you’re happier on the other side wherever you end up. I don’t fucking know. But I can’t think of a way to live a life without you. I’d crumble without you. I can’t stop thinking about you. I see you in everything and everywhere. I can’t get you outta my mind. I have a shirt of yours. And a jacket. Those are my only two things that will remind me of you. And I’ll treasure it with my whole life. I promise.

I’m missing you so much, Townley. And I’ll keep missing you forever. I’ll always be waiting for you on the other side. No matter how long it takes. I’m waiting for you. I promise.

T.

2005.

Michael.

It’s been a year since you left me. A fucking year. 12 months, 48 weeks, 365 days, 8760 hours and 525,600 minutes.

All that time. I spent it alone. I moved to another part of the US. I decided to move to San Andreas. Blaine County. Sandy Shores. In a trailer.

I did drugs. All that you could think of. Just so I can fill the void and the never ending pain that your death caused. I still can’t believe that you’re actually gone. Sometimes I saw see you in my dreams. Sometimes I see your face in other people’s. God, I miss you so much I think I’m going a bit crazy.

But I don’t think you would like to see me like this, do you? I don’t know. But I just needed something to quell me from the emptiness that you left me. I still have that shirt and jacket of yours. I take care of it well, so your scent doesn’t ever go away. I kept all the pictures we took. I look at them when I miss you the most. And then I cry my eyes out. And then I smoke meth. And repeat.

One year since you left me and I’m struggling. I don’t know what will happen to me soon. But I’ll wait for you. I promise, I will never forget you and I’ll wait.

I miss you and I love you. Forever. Until I die.

T.

2006.

Michael.

Two years. Two fucking years. Two years have passed since you died.

I don’t know if I’m surviving. Barely.

Writing to Brad. He’s in prison. Even though I hate his guts kinda, I still write. I’m not heartless am I?

I went to visit you up in North Yankton. Still cold as always. I think the priest saw me. I don’t know. Don’t care. I sat there for probably three hours. Talking to you. Talking to a fucking stone. I don’t know if you heard me. I guess you did.

I miss you so much Mikey. I really do. Why did you have to leave me so soon?

I have no energy to write more. I’m gonna go smoke meth probably.

I miss you. I love you.

T.

2007.

Michael.

Three fucking years.

Three.

The more days I live, the more I wonder if I should still stay. My life has no purpose.

My tolerance grew. The usual amount I smoked isn’t cutting it anymore.

I sometimes smoke with a picture of you next to me. You’re my only friend. I think.

I tried huffing gas. Interesting experience. Ended up with a pounding headache and puking my guts out at the abandoned motel. Who cares.

I don’t think I should stay alive anymore, Mikey.

I can’t do this anymore. I’m numb. I feel invisible. Miserable. Horrible.

I should just…die. I have no purpose to live anymore. Especially without you here with me. I’m tired of crying, breathing, and living. I might just die by an overdose. I should.

I’m broken, Mikey. Maybe I’ll see you. You’re waiting for me, right?

T.

2008.

Michael.

Four years. Sorry I wrote later than usual.

I was high as fuck. Took a mix of meth and heroin. Crazy. I probably killed a guy or two. I don’t know.

Almost died. Wasn’t planning to at that moment.

I heard your voice when I was tripping. Were you visiting me Mikey? I missed you.

I dont know if it was the drugs or my imagination. But I swear I saw you.

Planning to overdose next year, on the fifth year. Probably gonna mix a fuckton of drugs. It’ll be effective. I hope so. I just wanna meet you again.

You’re waiting right? Wait for me Mikey.

I’m coming.

T.

2009.

Michael.

Well…I tried.

I overdosed. I drank, I smoked. Somehow. But somehow, I’m still alive. Fuck.

Damn it. Fuck. Wait for me Mikey.

Please. I wanna see you again.

Hold you. Hug you. Talk to you.

Wait for me. Please.

I’ll come to you, Mikey. I promise.

T.

2010.

Michael.

Six years have passed.

I still wished I was the one who got shot. Not you. God. I miss you everyday. It hurts. Even the drugs aren’t cutting it anymore.

I miss you so much. I don’t know how to describe it. This grief seems to go on forever.

Should I just…keep living and accept the fact that you’re gone?

Tried to die twice to meet you but it seems like my life has other plans. Maybe one day I’ll accept the fact that you’re gone. But that doesn’t change the fact that I miss you so much. Remember that.

T.

2011.

Michael.

Coming to terms with the fact that you’re dead is weird. I’m still doing drugs though.

I think I found a friend. His name is Ron or whatever. He's a bit of a weirdo and his wife's an ass.

He's kinda like a little apprentice to me. I started a little drug stint to make money. Forgot to tell you that.

Even though I'm slowly accepting reality…that you're gone…

I will never forget you.

Take my word for that.

T.

2012.

Michael.

Sorry for not writing. Ron got a divorce from his ass wife. He lives in the trailer next to mine. I got another kid. Wade. Very gullible young kid.

I've been thinking of you a lot.

I've fully accepted that you're dead. After eight damn years. Almost a decade of me crying at night because I missed you.

Accepting that you're dead feels weird. Really weird. It's kinda like I've made peace with it. I no longer feel the weight of my grief. Nor have I felt that soul-crushing, rose-thorns-on-my-throat feeling of deathly missing you. Even after all that.

Remember that in another universe I still love you with all my heart.

T.

2013.

Michael.

Happy New Year. Well…I'm a month late. You don't care, do you?

I hope you're okay wherever you are. It's almost ten years since you're gone.

Isn't it weird that everyone grieves differently? I'm here always having you in my thoughts. Maybe your wife moved on quick and married someone else!

Finally accepting your death is calming. I'm not a miserable mess anymore. I have those two idiots and my business to occupy my time.

You're always in my thoughts. I miss you lots, Mikey. I love you lots, too.

T.

[hummingbird-of-light]

Round 2: Twentieth story for @badthingshappenbingo ~

Title: Third Wheel

Fandom: Star Trek (AOS)

Character(s): Robert "Robbie" Scott, Female OC, Leah McCoy (mentioned)

Relationship(s): Robert "Robbie" Scott/Leah McCoy (mentioned)

Rating: M

Words: 902

Prompt: Organ Theft

Warnings: Kidnapping, Non-con Drug Use, Swearing, Ambiguous/Open Ending

(You can also find this story on AO3)

~ Third Wheel ~

When Robert "Robbie" Scott had met his girlfriend's new colleague, he hadn't been too sure what to think of her at first.

It wasn't like Samantha Lorson wasn't friendly. On the contrary, she was a really nice lass who took great care of all her patients. But something had felt kinda off about her. Robbie just hadn't been able to find out what it was.

When Samantha and Leah started to become better friends, the Scotsman had eventually shaken off the strange feeling and over time he had actually started to like the blonde nurse too.

Samantha sometimes joined them for lunch or they all went out together at the weekend. Robbie often worried that the woman would start to feel like the third wheel, hanging out with a couple, but she never said anything.

And so, in the end, everything appeared to turn out fine. Or at least Robbie had thought so.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

"Oi! Let me go!" The Scotsman's voice echoed back from the walls of the more or less empty room.

There was not much furniture – except for the operating table he was lying on of course.

Robbie tried his best to pull at his restraints once more, but it was impossible for him to move his arms or legs.

"Let me out of here!"

He didn't remember too much of the night before. He just knew that he had been out at the club with Leah and Samantha.

"Let me go!" No matter how loud Robbie screamed, no one seemed to hear him.

He was just about to try it again when suddenly a door at the end of the room opened. A switch was flipped and quickly bright light filled the room, blinding Robbie whose eyes had been adjusted to the darkness, for a moment.

"Would you please stop screaming, Rob? It's kinda useless. No one will hear you anyway."

Robbie's blood froze in his veins when he heard the familiar nickname and once his eyes got used to the light, he stared at the person, who had entered the room, with a shocked expression on his face.

"Samantha?"

The blonde nurse gave him a smile, closing the door behind her and stepping over to the operating table.

"Hey Rob. How you feeling? I see the effect of the knockout drops has worn off."

The Scotsman couldn't stop his mouth from opening in disbelief. He frowned in confusion, shaking his head.

"Wh-what? I... I don't understand. I–"

"Oh, Rob," Samantha sighed, placing one hand on the man's cheek, "you really are naïve, aren't you?"

She let her eyes wander up and down Robbie's bare body, the smile turning bigger. He was wearing nothing but his underwear. A blush crept onto the Scotsman's face.

"What kind of crazy shit is this!" Robbie demanded to know, glaring at the woman looking down at him.

Samantha just chuckled.

"Don't worry, Rob. I'm not really into guys." She turned her head and looked at a smaller table that was set up next to the operating table. "However, I'm interested in the beautiful things inside of them."

Robbie followed her gaze and almost instantly his heart stopped beating for a second.

There were... all kinds of medical tools. He pulled at his restraints again. It was useless.

"You know, Rob, right from the start I knew that I wanted you out of my way. Seeing you so close with pretty Leah... It was just so disgusting." Samantha made a face as she talked about everything. Slowly, she stepped over to the table with the tools and put on some gloves. "But I could see just how much she loves you. So, I had second thoughts."

Robbie felt his mouth go dry as he watched Samantha pick up a scalpel. It was shining in the unnatural light of the lamps.

"Of course, I still looked you up in the hospital's computer system to find out everything I need about you and your health status."

The Scotsman slowly shook his head as he listened to the nurse. This couldn't be happening! It had to be a nightmare!

"You see, selling organs is a really lucrative business. Been doing it for several years now and I need a lot of money to keep up my life's standard."

Robbie's breathing fastened and his heart started to race.

"N-nae. Y-ye cannae be serious," he muttered, horrified by the thought of what Samantha was implying. But the woman only sighed, turning back to face him.

"It's a real pity. In the end, I kinda started to like you, Rob. Unfortunately, the group I work for has a new customer." She grabbed a syringe from the table and tested if it worked. "And you are the perfect donor."

"P-please, Samantha. D-don't do this. Ye cannae do this! Wh-what about Leah? Ye cannae do this to her! Without me–"

"Shhh," Samantha whispered, placing one finger on Robbie's lips to shut him up. A crazy smile formed on her lips when she grabbed his arm and injected whatever was inside the syringe into his bloodstream. "Don't worry about Leah, Rob. I'll take good care of her once you're gone. Just go to sleep now. Tomorrow your heart will belong to someone else."

And no matter how hard he tried to fight it, eventually Robbie lost his consciousness, not knowing if he ever was to wake up again.

[e-m-p-error]

[ Closed Starter For @voxiiferous || Vox ]

[ Erasmo ]

When he'd gone to sleep at that party, he hadn't known what he was going to do. He'd been too out of it to move, too tired, too drugged to do anything. He remembered touching the heart tattoo on the back of his neck just in time to pass out when he saw a large heeled boot appear near his head. He was safe. Ozzie wouldn't let anything bad happen to him.

Waking up was odd. He was warm, too warm, and in the backseat of a car he didn't recognize. A huge car that he didn't recognize.

Getting out of the convertible, he dropped onto the cracked sidewalk and began to walk. His head was pounding, and he wanted something to drink. As he rounded a corner, he came across a huge building that looked kind of like what he assumed was a skyscraper. He'd never actually seen one in real life before.

Erasmo wandered inside, heading for a vending machine he saw in a little alcove near the door. Voxerade? He frowned. That seemed like his only option here, so he went to buy a blue one; only to discover that the machine wouldn't accept his dollar bills.

Damn it. It wasn't like they were wrinkled to Hell and back! And six dollars for a single drink? That was ridiculous.

Glancing around, he noticed this part of the lobby was fairly empty. With a sigh, he dropped to his knees, mindful of his tight, high-waisted shorts, and pulled a lockpick kit out of his pocket. Sliding it into the lock on the vending machine, he wiggled it around until it popped open.

Taking two blue Voxerades out of the machine, he set them on the floor beside his heeled boots. Closing the machine up, he locked it again, turning to grab his drinks off the floor just in time to see he'd been caught. By a-- What the Hell was that?

"Shit." He mumbled, before putting on a flirtatious smile, "Uh, hi~ I promise this isn't what it looks like." He needed to figure out what it was, though. All he knew for sure, now, was that he was not in California anymore.

[demadogs]

i despise when people bring up how noah auditioned for theo for the goldfinch and they make it about byler like plz for the love of god try to separate finns characters if you hear that and only think “omg think of the byler edits!!1!1” i am so embarrassed it feels like youre shipping the actors not any characters

[vamptastic]

'i think we should get rid of the police and prison system, except for crimes i think are bad. we should have special, even more militarized police for those people.' -person who is not actually anti-police in the slightest

[byanyan]

@lee-sol sent 🤳 + 15 for:

ㅤbyan's hobbies

ㅤyour hobbies have never been what others expected of you, and though you used to try to meet those expectations, nothing you did ever seemed to be good enough... so eventually, you started leaning in the opposite direction. you embraced the things you enjoyed despite the disdain cast your way and, in all your anger, you also found yourself taking enjoyment in more destructive uses of your time, in the sorts of activities that were perfect for making use of all those emotions you bottled up for so long. nowadays, your hobbies are a strange mishmash of creation and destruction — from drawing and painting, stick & poke tattooing, creating new outfits to suit your style, and experimenting with makeup to getting high, parkouring your way across the city, playing with fire, breaking anything that isn't yours, and picking fights with anyone who looks at you the wrong way. you know you should probably put more of your effort in to some of these over others, but you stopped caring about what you should and shouldn't do at about the same time you realized that your life never meant anything to those around you anyway.

[just-your-average-tangerine]

3 weeks back in my parents house and I'm listening to simple plan again. This bodes well

[quotesfrommyreading]

Since the turn of the twentieth century, this practice had been increasingly popular. Robbers would knock on an apartment door, force a chloroform-soaked rag over the face of whoever answered, and take what they wanted while their victim remained unconscious. “Burglar uses Chloroform: Attacks a Woman in a Flat, Robs Her and Cuts off her Hair,” read one New York Time headline in March 1900. Beautiful hair for wigs was as valuable as some jewelry, the newspaper pointed out. And there were the burglars who “put an entire family under anesthetic” in 1907 before emptying their house; the train robbers who drugged a Pullman car full of passengers and emptied pockets and purses; the party host who put chloroform into his guests' drinks, then went through their wallets and disappeared with $3,000; and the robbers who chloroformed an attorney on a busy Manhattan street in 1910, yanked off his heavy gold and diamond ring, and disappeared into the crowd. Occasionally chloroform played a role in real tragedy; a Long Island father, in 1911, killed his son and two daughters with chloroform and then, leaving a suicide note, walked away into the gray Atlantic.

  —  The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (Deborah Blum)

[magnoliamyrrh]

walked into the smokers area and theres two dudes w british accents talking about how its getting harder to deal on the streets and steal cars cuz the cameras and cops are getting worse lmao wait this is so funny theyre talking as if complainin abt regular buisniss

[j3st3r-13]

bars,brawls and brotherhood

hey, @bedazzledroach i’m your valentines @gtavfest art swap buddy, i wrote about Trevor/Lamar platonic hangout. this is pretty wholesome in my view however there is mentions of referenced drug use and references to to sex lmao

hope you like it  and happy valentines day :)

pairing: platonic Lamar/Trevor 

word count: 2452 words

summary: Lamar’s bored and thats never good for anybody, especially Franklin as it leaves him to clear up Lamar’s mess, but one fateful night Lamar goes in search of a certain hillbilly to entertain him, Lamar shouldn’t be surprised to realise it ends up in drunken chaos

The bass shakes the dirty floor, and Trevor can still hear the strippers gossiping even over the shitty club music he has blaring so loud that Wade is starting to go deaf. He groans and adjusts his forever-stained sweatpants. He rises to his feet, slowly with his back cracking and re-stretching, maybe he was getting old… but he wouldn't retire like that fat fuck Mikey. 

Fuck him 

The meth head now risen to his full height began scouring the dingy office behind the unicorn for his trusty pipe. He looked under porn mags, fast food wrappers, and files, and rifled through draws. His fingertips brushed the cool glass, and he let his scared lips twitch upwards. He packed the bowl and lit up until the smoke filled all the cracks that fucking Mikey boy had left on his psyche. The meth made him feel whole and undamaged, the aura  of bliss was shattered in the back room by the shrill tone emitting from his cracked IFruit.

“What?” 

“Hey crazy, wanna get a drink fool?”

“You askin’ me on a date Lamar?” teased the now high redneck,

“Oh yeah, I'm gonna suck yo dick and everything.”

“Where do you wanna meet me, princess? Alleyway?”

“Fuck you, ill be at your titty bar in like 10 fool.”

Trevor's phone let out a beep signifying that Lamar had hung up, the psychopath took one last hit from the well-used pipe before strolling out to the bar with his usual swagger. Nikki was working the bar rather than the floor. She went red at the sight of him, no doubt last Wednesday? Thursdays? Team bonding exercise had been in her head, right at the forefront,  from how she gazed at him. Trevor sent her a sultry wink, dropped down onto the stool, and waited for his buddy. Nikki bent over to grab him a bottle giving him a goood view of her ass, and as she approached her boss he spoke with a hushed tone, “You wanna get outta here, Uncle T?”

“Agh, as much as I wanna sugar, I'm waiting on my buddy.” 

Nikki pouted before leaving him in the hopes to score some more tips from the other bewitched patrons. He watched her in action, batted eyelashes, licked lips, allowing good views of her bra… it was how she worked. How his ma worked. Memories of his mother flooded his brain until a firm hand landed on his shoulder and a laugh escaped Lamar.

“Jesus homie, I wanted to get out to hang out with some fool, but if you gonna be chasing these bitches then fuck, imma head back to my place.”

“They aren't bitches Lamar,” Trevor hissed before his anger simmered down and he spoke again with a lighter tone “could be like your and F’s Threesome, where your di-”

“Come on, homie you ever gon let that go!”

Trevor laughed at Lamar's reaction before gesturing for a beer for his “homie”  once the chilled bottle rested in the gangbangers grasp, he muttered, “what's cracking withchu you fucking weirdo?”

“You know, fuckin’,smokin’ fightin’, shootin’ you get it right buddy?”

“Course dog, I'm like a jungle cat, like a panther, I've got this magnetic thing that attracts people yanno?”

Trevor chuckled under his breath and assured the younger man that he fully understood, he finished the rest of his bottle, and then like magic, Nikki had replaced it in less than a second.

Lamar was quiet for a moment before almost awkwardly muttering “so, um since you all up in this mentorship thing/role model/inspiration tip with the homie franklin. I was wondering, you know, why don't you give an up-and-comer the game?”

“yeah…sure you know what professor t’s gon give you a lesson, loyalty- fuck everything else.”

“Like only going to burger shot?”

“Like your brothers are your crew, without them? You're nothing.”

“Well, Frank aint that good of a student if he leaving me on the road to hang with you motherfuckers.” Lamar shot back, clearly irritated by his homies becoming more distant so he chugged the bottle and was brought another by faithful Nikki. 

“Michael doesn't impart the same value system as me.”

“That clear ya weirdo, isn't that the guy that you love at first sighted?”

“Ohhh yes, my dear friend, that's the fat sack of shit I love at first sighted.”

“Fuck man, I dont wanna make you stop acting normal so you wanna get drunk as fuck”

“You read my mind.” With that Trevor called for a bottle of vodka to be brought to the two tattooed men, lamar and Trevor drank a good half the bottle while exchanging stories, quips, and insults. It reminded him of Micheal before the sun melted away his spine.

Trevor let out a shout of laughter at Lamar's reactions, the gangbanger had a much lower tolerance and was going a little green around the gills where Trevor was just starting to become a little unsteady.

Lamar fell off the stool and floundered on the floor like some sort of pissed fish, while the hillbilly howled with laughter. If Trevor did not own the bar then they would've been kicked out hours ago. Lamar cussed him out for not helping a “homie in need” before cracking up as well. Nikki raised a brow but kept the drinks coming in fear of invoking her boss's wrath.

Trevor sluggishly thrust out his hand and pulled Lamar off the dirty carpet before howling with loud laughter when Lamar stumbled and fell face-first into his chest. The gangbanger looked confused at his surroundings for a mere moment, before ripping his face away. 

“Do- dog you smell like shit!” Lamar hissed, the bite drowned in vodka and dopamine. Trevor winked and tossed him a cold- bottle of beer

That was a Mistake 

Lamar was far too drunk to catch the bottle, and the glass exploded onto the floor, with green glass shattering like shrapnel and cheap beer soaking into the carpet, unluckily for the two men something else exploded in their vicinity 

A man, wearing a horrifically ugly polo had stormed over and began yelling at the pair, spittle flying everywhere. “SHUT UP! Why the FUCK haven't you been kicked out yet!” ugly polo kept yelling even when Trevor's eyes had gone dark and the remaining humanity had fled to escape the oncoming bloodbath. His mouth split into a wide grin and his fingers absentmindedly grasped the bottle and prepared to swing. 

A smack echoed through the club, Lamar had smacked him full across the face and was now giggling like a schoolgirl.

Polo went bright red, and Trevor swore he could see steam coming out of his ears like impotent rage. There was a moment of peace and then the club exploded, and fights broke out like rashes, and chaos enveloped the men. Trevor flipped the bottle in his  grasp before swinging upwards and letting out a triumphant roar as it connected.

Polo crumbled and fell to the floor. 

Trevor's wild eyes flitted around him in search of Lamar. Lamar was fighting valiantly but due to his blood being 80% liquor, his swings were mistimed and wide. Wading through a sea of battles, Trevor balled up his fist and sent it hurtling into the men beating Lamar. 

A swift punch to the ribs had wanker one staggering away, and a strong headbutt had wankers twos nose exploding and spraying blood all over the two friends. Trevor pushed down the urge for bloodshed and scooped up Lamar. The gangbanger used him as a human crutch as Trevor dragged them outside.

The fresh air effect was instantaneous, Lamar sobered rather quickly while Trevor calmed as if the fire that violence fed had been doused with a bucket of serenity. Well as serene as it could get with Lamar spitting out blood right next to him.

“You alright down there buddy?”

“All those bitches lyin’ they want Lamar… they all want me … all of ‘em” rasped Lamar as he collapsed, falling onto the broken pavement outside the raging unicorn.

“I'll take that as a no.” mused Trevor as he dropped onto the pavement next to Lamar, resting his back against the bodhi's wheels he slung his arm over Lamar's shoulders and pulled him into a side hug, surprisingly Lamar didnt bitch about the Trevor Philips stench he just coughed before relaxing into it. If he was soberer this could have warranted a very cruel joke about him not showering but he wasn't throwing a fit so the pair remained quiet. Despite the fiasco that had just erupted he could fight the upturn twitch of his lips. He had gotten drunk with his buddy and fought straight after, the ideal Trevor Philips night.

“Whatchu smiling at you fuckin’ weird ass.”

“I saved you in there so I wanna be called sir knight trev from now on.”

“Kiss my ass white as shit knight.”

“Bend over princess.” Trevor thrust lazily in the air, making obscene gestures that would make any sailor blush, but his company was far from some old nun with a stick up her ass or some prude. His company wolf whistled badly and just encouraged it with a mouth that was more alcohol than spit, dripping blood over his green shirt.

Lamar laughed and instantly regretted it once pain shot through his ribs like fireworks. Trevor noticed and demanded to know why the wince, once told he’d been cracked in the ribs by another club goer the hillbilly raised a brow, laughed, and called him a pussy in all of about three seconds. The pair rested next to the truck alongside all the other dirt in the shit hole of a city. The rats were bigger than dogs; there was more plastic in women's tits than the sea; and the residents were fat sacks of lying shit snakes. 

Felt like home.

Sirens flooded his ears, and he lethargically raised his head so that red and blue flooded his vision. Trevor cursed and pulled his friend to his feet for the second time that night, before: dragging him to the passenger side; buckling him in; getting in his seat; buckling himself, and tearing out of the parking lot.

The Los Santos air had become bitter and cold while the moon reigned over the light-polluted skies. Lamar was incoherent and yelling, the driver laughed and swung the car around corners at alarming speeds to the joy of his passenger. Trevor sped around the cracked streets of Los Santos letting the bodhi roar and hug the streets like a koala and tree. 

A warm hand clamped down on Trevor's forearm, snapping him from his reverie instantly, his hazel eyes flitted over to his opposite seat, and let out a soft sigh the gangbanger looked uncomfortable, and slurred out “dog im gonna fuckin’ hurl if you dont cut it out.”

“Whatever you pussy,” Trevor stopped pressing so hard on the accelerator “where to dog?”

“Take me home… I ain't sure you knowin’ where the LD’s cribs such a go- a good idea…” he trailed off, seemingly slipping back into his own mind and ignoring Trevor.

“Are you fucking kidding! The nights just getting started we haven't even had an orgy or killed someone!”

“Dog what, you know what i'm ignoring that, take me to strawberry.” Trevor snarled and went to yank the wheel back to the heart of Los Santos. After realising Lamar gripped the wheel and yanked it in his direction causing the bodhi to swerve across all three lanes. Cursing Trevor rightened the truck and slammed onto the brakes. Eyes flaming like an inferno, he whipped around to face the drunken gangbanger.

“What the fuck Davis?!”

“Take.me.home! I ain't being your emotional support bitch, cause creepers pussy-whipped drive. me .home!” 

“You are fucking deranged!” hissed Trevor, shaking with a mix of rage that slowly was transformed into broken humour. He even began laughing at Lamar's shocked expression, he slammed his foot on the gas and tore away from his current resting spot. Lamar cursed and gripped the door handle as the bodhi raced down the narrow streets, overtaking cars and riding up on the sidewalks.

Trevor sped across a junction, disregarding the traffic lights and the other motors while the gangbanger yelled “when this CRAZY MOTHERFUCKER kills me I want all my shit going to chop! FUCK all those other fools! I dont want you anywhere near my whacked corpse YOU CRAZY FUCKER!”

“I thought you liked crazy driving?” giggled Trevor after Lamar had read his will out loud, and the psychopath raced across lanes.

“FUCK YOU!” cursed Lamar, while the two men argued the roads flitted by until the black man began to recognize his surroundings and their inhabitants. Completely sober and with his heart hammering as he had just snorted an entire bucket load of coke Lamar attempted to calm down with the knowledge that he wasn't far from home to comfort him.

Trevor swung the bodhi into Lamar's neighbourhood, and with a squeal of brakes and a very enthusiastic “ta-da” from the driver, they had arrived at Lamar's crib. The gangbanger punched Trevor in the arm before collapsing into his seat with rapid breaths painting his lips.

“Sooo princess… you gonna invite me in?” asked Trevor with an innocent expression that didn't match his character at all.

“Dog. you got me drunk as hell, started a brawl, and drove like a- like a - like THAT and you wanna be invited in?”

“You started that brawl actually, I saved you that's why I'm the white as-shit knight. So yes I wanna come in”

“Dog you crazy motherfucker… you got coke?.”

“Glovebox, princess, does this mean naughty naughty trevy can come in?”

 Lamar reached forward and dug through the glovebox, grimacing as his fingers grazed over used pornmags until he felt the square parcel, he pulled it out, and even in the moonlight, Lamar could make out the scraggly “coke” written in pink sharpie “Never call yourself that again, but yeah dog we can have a few lines.”

The duo left the car and began walking to Lamar's front door, Trevor tossed an arm over his shoulder and pulled him close as they walked down the front porch. Lamar didn't complain, just fished around his pockets for his keys.

The door swung open and the men walked inside, there were movie posters and a sexy girl calendar depicting the wrong month, Trevor tsked and muttered: “A few… yeah fucking right oh princess this night has just begun!”

Trevor draped himself over the couch, with his arm slung across the back and while Lamar began cutting some very generous lines, he couldn't help but agree.

[1337wtfomgbbq]

Bjarne: So, Jan and Marco.

Bjarne: According to this, you two are being accused of: Armed Robbery, Vandalism, Drug Abuse, Grand Theft Auto…

Jan: We had a bad day.

Bjarne: And… MURDER?!

Jan:

Lance: *dead in a corner*

Marco shrugs: It was a pretty bad day…

[identityunfounded]

jury duty is fucking stupid why would anyone want their peers judging them have you seen your peers? insane every one of them

[thedragonkingkazimir]

The Dragon King Kazimir - Issue Three, Part Nine