[ it's said very drily, as his profile is Right There. ]
It's been drilled into me to be aware of what's going on around me. As much as I can be. Crowds, and crowds in the dark are kinda counter-intuitive to that.
Sorry? [ no it's terrible because sometimes your insecurities are, actually, that people think you're an idiot and not smart enough to figure out clues which is...something he thinks about but doesn't always focus on. so he takes a few seconds to regroup. ]
But okay. I'm asking. What the hell are you doing back where you're from that it's something you've had to get used to?
Honest answer? It's what I was taught by Teach. Don't put yourself in a crowd, it makes you vulnerable. You can't see who's out there, or if they're watching you. Same sort of thing with face coverings, hoods, anything like that.
Teach was one though. That's why she taught us -- can't really live safety on the run if you're too busy defending yourself and two sons who can't do jack for themselves.
Guess that makes sense in a world where it's mostly every man for themselves. [ ... ] So she actually raised you. That's a little different than just teaching you things. [ it adds context to the kind of relationship, he thinks. ]
If you're only sort of a hitman, what does that actually mean? You just know how to defend yourself like one to take out anyone you need to?
Teach is Teach, but yeah. She raised me. [ he literally never calls her mother. ]
Trained like one. Teach stopped the jobs for cash thing a long time ago, for... reasons she didn't really explain. She had her own agenda, and that was something like her inheritance.
[ he has realized the difference does not matter to shu, clearly, so he leaves it alone. ]
So she was like...a mercenary? Or a bounty hunter. And you and somebody else were taught her skills until she stopped and now you're just doing your own thing that's left you with way too much awareness and some paranoia to make sure you're never caught off-guard. Did I get that right?
[ yeah that’s a whole situation he’s not at a canon point to fully understand and also literally a memshare so survive and get the lore. ]
No, she was a hitman as far as I know. She left the group she worked for because they got… [ he wobbles a hand, almost thoughtfully. ] You know when something starts with good intentions — extreme, but from a place that’s genuine? And then it grows and expands and morphs into something it was never meant to be?
They got like that. And she started taking out their hitmen as a way of sniping the heads off the snakes.
[ rude. but fine, both of us survive and then give me lore.
as it is, jonas is nodding because yes. yes he does actually understand that. which is unfortunate to think that's how this came to be, but he understands. ]
Fighting from the inside. Sure, that makes complete sense. You know where the root of the corruption is and you just start working against it. [ ...and then he takes the rest of that into consideration and he frowns lightly. ]
...sorry to hear that though. I mean I'm sure it was always something you guys were aware could happen with that line of work but...that's still pretty bad. [ there's a pause, like he's not sure he wants to ask? but he does because i hate to say this but he does respect shu quite a bit. their movie adventure is on pause because it's lore time, and he's lighting a cigarette in solidarity. ]
So what happened to the group she was with? If she wasn't able to finish what she started.
they truly are just chainsmoking outside the movies. rude of them. ]
Didn’t really know the name of it until recently. One of my housemates is a journalist — she interviewed some woman, locked up for murdering her roommate. The woman wanted to talk to someone unrelated about a certain group working in New Sieg.
[ … ]
Ruy Lopez was started by undocumented illegal immigrants, who wanted to claw back rights from the people who owned them like slaves. But in the past few months they’ve been behind four cases Limbo dragged us in to — a bank owner smuggling funds; mob boss stealing from the group who was willing to try and murder a kid and his family to get those goods back; researchers making a manmade strain of ebola and trying to hide the vaccine when it leaked into the public, and a fashion designer buying the immigrants they’re smuggling in for his fashion shows.
[ stop they will watch a movie when they finish their cigarettes!! also. wow. this sure is a lot, and judging by the way jonas is watching shu he seems to be trying to wrap his head around it. ]
And after that the pieces started falling into place. [ damn. irony is right. ] It's always a little funny to see people because the things they've hated and lose track of what their initial goals were. What do you think they're actually hoping to accomplish? Those...don't exactly sound like small-time crimes.
I don’t really know much about them. Teuta needed Scarecrow to hack encrypted data, but she let us know it was potentially dangerous — like, “would hunt us down if they know we had it” dangerous. So.
We knew what we were getting into when we went digging, but— we still doesn’t really know what it is. Just what they’ve been tangentially involved in. There’s probably people who still believe in the good the group can do. The list of names we got was huge, after all. Not every person there is going to be corrupt or immoral.
[ he exhales slowly, a plume of smoke rising from his mouth and his cigarette. ]
But I’d put money on most of the people with the bulk of the power being like that. It probably went from something like gathering resources and powers to protect themselves, to something self serving for the select few.
[ he does not think to ask why this man's name is scarecrow. ]
Isn't that kind of always the way? Power and money are the root of all evil and whatever. I would be more surprised if the bulk of people were corrupt because of it. Once you find things that work...people don't know when to stop and it becomes a cycle.
[ but that's pretty wild, frankly. ]
So what were you planning to do about it knowing all of that? How do you even move forward with that information?
Limbo's thing is sniffing after dodgy shit happening in the city. This is like sniffing out the core of it all -- the thing Teuta had was a coded list of names. Every person in Ruy Lopez.
Because once you know who all is connected, all you have to do is pull a thread and the whole organization collapses. It makes sense. [ woof. ] Here's hoping nobody ever catches on you guys have that list then.
Pretty sure that's all films in general. [ ... ] I definitely want to hear more about...all of this. But you don't have to worry about being attacked and caught off guard in the middle of the day here if you want to actually go inside and see something.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
...really? They just don't have them where you're from even if you guys have drive-ins?
no subject
[ ... he shakes his head. ]
They have them. I don't really like busy, enclosed spaces though. You can't see people's faces.
no subject
...probably doesn't help that it's dark, too. Is it important to you to be able to see them?
no subject
It's been drilled into me to be aware of what's going on around me. As much as I can be. Crowds, and crowds in the dark are kinda counter-intuitive to that.
no subject
Right, no. Sorry...I wasn't really thinking. My bad.
no subject
All of you dodge asking about it like it's some kind of disease.
no subject
But okay. I'm asking. What the hell are you doing back where you're from that it's something you've had to get used to?
no subject
Honest answer? It's what I was taught by Teach. Don't put yourself in a crowd, it makes you vulnerable. You can't see who's out there, or if they're watching you. Same sort of thing with face coverings, hoods, anything like that.
no subject
...are you like a hitman? Is that what you were being taught and everything?
no subject
Sort of.
Teach was one though. That's why she taught us -- can't really live safety on the run if you're too busy defending yourself and two sons who can't do jack for themselves.
no subject
Guess that makes sense in a world where it's mostly every man for themselves. [ ... ] So she actually raised you. That's a little different than just teaching you things. [ it adds context to the kind of relationship, he thinks. ]
If you're only sort of a hitman, what does that actually mean? You just know how to defend yourself like one to take out anyone you need to?
no subject
Trained like one. Teach stopped the jobs for cash thing a long time ago, for... reasons she didn't really explain. She had her own agenda, and that was something like her inheritance.
no subject
So she was like...a mercenary? Or a bounty hunter. And you and somebody else were taught her skills until she stopped and now you're just doing your own thing that's left you with way too much awareness and some paranoia to make sure you're never caught off-guard. Did I get that right?
no subject
No, she was a hitman as far as I know. She left the group she worked for because they got… [ he wobbles a hand, almost thoughtfully. ] You know when something starts with good intentions — extreme, but from a place that’s genuine? And then it grows and expands and morphs into something it was never meant to be?
They got like that. And she started taking out their hitmen as a way of sniping the heads off the snakes.
[ he’s lighting up a cigarette at this point. ]
And then she was killed.
no subject
as it is, jonas is nodding because yes. yes he does actually understand that. which is unfortunate to think that's how this came to be, but he understands. ]
Fighting from the inside. Sure, that makes complete sense. You know where the root of the corruption is and you just start working against it. [ ...and then he takes the rest of that into consideration and he frowns lightly. ]
...sorry to hear that though. I mean I'm sure it was always something you guys were aware could happen with that line of work but...that's still pretty bad. [ there's a pause, like he's not sure he wants to ask? but he does because i hate to say this but he does respect shu quite a bit. their movie adventure is on pause because it's lore time, and he's lighting a cigarette in solidarity. ]
So what happened to the group she was with? If she wasn't able to finish what she started.
no subject
they truly are just chainsmoking outside the movies. rude of them. ]
Didn’t really know the name of it until recently. One of my housemates is a journalist — she interviewed some woman, locked up for murdering her roommate. The woman wanted to talk to someone unrelated about a certain group working in New Sieg.
[ … ]
Ruy Lopez was started by undocumented illegal immigrants, who wanted to claw back rights from the people who owned them like slaves. But in the past few months they’ve been behind four cases Limbo dragged us in to — a bank owner smuggling funds; mob boss stealing from the group who was willing to try and murder a kid and his family to get those goods back; researchers making a manmade strain of ebola and trying to hide the vaccine when it leaked into the public, and a fashion designer buying the immigrants they’re smuggling in for his fashion shows.
Ironic, right?
no subject
And after that the pieces started falling into place. [ damn. irony is right. ] It's always a little funny to see people because the things they've hated and lose track of what their initial goals were. What do you think they're actually hoping to accomplish? Those...don't exactly sound like small-time crimes.
no subject
We knew what we were getting into when we went digging, but— we still doesn’t really know what it is. Just what they’ve been tangentially involved in. There’s probably people who still believe in the good the group can do. The list of names we got was huge, after all. Not every person there is going to be corrupt or immoral.
[ he exhales slowly, a plume of smoke rising from his mouth and his cigarette. ]
But I’d put money on most of the people with the bulk of the power being like that. It probably went from something like gathering resources and powers to protect themselves, to something self serving for the select few.
no subject
Isn't that kind of always the way? Power and money are the root of all evil and whatever. I would be more surprised if the bulk of people were corrupt because of it. Once you find things that work...people don't know when to stop and it becomes a cycle.
[ but that's pretty wild, frankly. ]
So what were you planning to do about it knowing all of that? How do you even move forward with that information?
no subject
Limbo's thing is sniffing after dodgy shit happening in the city. This is like sniffing out the core of it all -- the thing Teuta had was a coded list of names. Every person in Ruy Lopez.
That's why it was guarded so fiercely.
no subject
no subject
[ as it turns out like three people they know are heavily involved so the irony is they’d probably be protected on two of those three fronts. ]
But Scarecrow didn’t get where he is by being a shit hacker with bad security, so.
no subject
no subject
no subject
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)