Third Unused Utility Belt | Video

[hellofist]

[Hello there Barge. Cass is in the library, sitting on the floor with a bunch of books spread around her. When she turns the feed on, she's got a copy of A Tale of Two Cities in her hands. She'd recognized it as the book she had tried to read when she had stayed at Tim's apartment, but it was only the spine and the cover she knew. She still has no idea what it's about, or even what it is.]

Um. Don't know lots of things. Trying to learn. Reading, how to... use comm. But...

[Well, staring at words and trying to will them into making sense? It's not very effective.]

Need help. Had offers. Cashing in. [It's possible she got that phrase from Dean.] In library. Anyone can come, need... lots of help.


(ooc: ABSOLUTELY ANYONE is welcome to come and see Cass about reading, even if they haven't previously talked to her about helping out. Come and poke the little bat!)

Comments

[Video]

[hellofist]

[Lucky for both of them, she doesn't want to talk about anything upsetting. Just easy stuff, like trying to learn to read. That's... super easy. Right.]

Don't know... where to start, really. Just picked things.

[Except that's not exactly true. She might just keep this copy of A Tale of Two Cities forever.]

[Video -- also this is Private because Ror is actually paranoid]

[wemaketheworld]

Have easier things to read.

[Yes, Rorschach, because sharing your old copies of the New Frontiersmen is always a good idea.]

You start at the beginning; best way to do anything. Like solving a case. Find the pieces, string them together. Complicates from there.

[A pause, a momentary clench and relaxation of his jaw. He's thinking. Considering. What to say, what to leave out, and this is really a sign of how far he's come already, isn't it, that he's stopping to think on how best to actually help someone else instead of just focusing on preventing the spread of the negative. He seems to come to some kind of consensus, clears his throat, then:]

Easier to find the words when you put them on paper. When you see them. Dead men have said more of value, of importance, than most still living.

[Video | Private] Ror paranoid? NEVER

[hellofist]

What is it?

[Because no one has told her about his ideals, the things he believes. She doesn't know not to ask that kind of thing.]

Not much... of a detective. Try, though.

[And all of this is good advice. She gets up abruptly, leaves the comm behind for a minute but when she comes back, she has a pen and a pad of paper.]

Any other tips?

[Video | Private] IKR madness

[wemaketheworld]

New Frontiersman. Good paper. Not encumbered by liberal sensibilities.

[He manages to sneer the word, as if it's a curse in itself. This is why you shouldn't ask him about them, Cass, he'll fill your head with things that won't help and claim it's informational. Truth.]

Trying is better than avoiding. Better than most.

No tips. Not for reading. [Pause. Okay, maybe one.] Don't rush.

[Video | Private] don't believe it for a second

[hellofist]

Lib- what?

[She has no idea what that means but clearly it's bad if he makes that face. Right? And she recognizes that as a compliment, so she smiles at Rorschach and nods.]

Thanks. And, won't rush. Will take time. Get right.

[Video | Private] but he's so REASONABLE, come on guys.

[wemaketheworld]

Liberal sensibilities. Thoughts. Leanings.

Too soft.

[Should be enough of an explanation, right? Right.]

Good. Can drop off a few issues.

[Video | Private] totally a good role model for young, impressionable girls

[hellofist]

Want to... come now? Can help read.

[Even though once she actually knows what's in those she might be scarred forever.]

[Video | Private] absolutely!

[wemaketheworld]

[It's how he rolls, scarring the people around him little by little.]

Hurm. Could. Not busy now.

[He doesn't need to ask where you live. He already knows. And without so much as an actual good-bye, he kills the feed and he's on his way.

About fifteen minutes later there's a knock on the door.]

[Video | Private]

[hellofist]

[She opens the door quickly enough and steps to the side to let him in.]

Hi. Didn't... get lost?

[She's teasing him because there's only a few types of people who know where people live without being told and he's clearly one of them.]

[Video | Private]

[wemaketheworld]

[He glances inside, left, right, taking stock of the place, then skulks into the room. He's got a few pamphlets stuffed under an arm; he'll hand them over in a minute.]

Hurm. Don't get lost.

[Well that's a ridiculous implication you're making there, Cass. Also what is teasing and how does it work.]

action

[hellofist]

[There really isn't much to see. Her Batgirl suit is in a pile on the floor, the yellow utility belt draped over the chair, but that's the only real decoration to her room. Other than that, the room looks exactly like it did when she first moved in.]

No, wouldn't think so.

[Her eyes are on the pamphlets, though. Her desire to learn to read right now is plain on her face.]

action

[wemaketheworld]

[Rorschach follows her gaze, but he'd already assumed before he has the confirmation. He hands them over, about three of them; the one on top has a black and white photo on the top half, shots of Rorschach (with his face this time), Nite Owl, and the Comedian. He scowls at it before the newsprint leaves his fingertips, but it's only a story. Only ink on paper. Sticks and stones can break your bones, but pictures only hurt politicians and Hollywood, and sometimes not even then.

He'll wait for her to look it over, see what her initial impressions are, before volunteering any assistance.]

action

[hellofist]

[She focuses on the ones of him, of course. She hadn't expected the books to be about him.]

You're in? Are they... stories about you?

action

[wemaketheworld]

[He seems to figure more prominently in the second two issues, at least on the cover, one an image of him skulking in an alley, the other more grainy and blurred; it got issues off the shelves, to have that connection to him, even as dubious a one as it was. Human nature, he supposes. It isn't why he brought them, or why he read the paper in the first place, he's never been much inclined towards narcissism. These were just the closest at hand. The ones most relevant to what he'd been working on before his death that hadn't already been marked to hell and back.]

Some. Masked Adventurers. [He taps the article on top, then flips through to the next one. Another tap.]

Outlawed vigilantes.

[A last paging through to find the final one. He sneers at this one too; a waste. What started the problem to begin with.]

Keane Act.

Articles. Not stories. Truth.

action

[hellofist]

[Well, that has her attention quickly.]

Outlawed? Why? World needs us.

action

[wemaketheworld]

Got a lot of people pissed off. Cops. Civilians. Government had to do something to appease them. Golden age passed anyway; we fell out of favor.

Easier just to cast aside.

[...the fact that Rorschach killed a few people and openly badmouthed the police probably didn't help much.]

action

[hellofist]

[Something like that happened in Gotham, too, and it makes just as little sense hearing about it happening in Rorschach's world as it did then.]

Dumb. They need us.

action

[wemaketheworld]

Don't seem to think so.

[A pause, and then a sigh. Well. The Rorschach equivalent of one, anyway, it really just kind of sounds like a grunt. One day someone will catalog all the sounds he makes that aren't words and translate them and everyone's lives will be easier.]

No more costumed villains. Relegated to drug busts and common criminals.

[Granted, those are the ones he tended to go after anyway, drug dealers and pimps and rapists and the scum that lurk in dark alleys, but even so. The villains retiring tended to make it harder to justify their existence even if there hadn't been plenty of other reasons the public stopped wanting them around.]

Going to read or going to talk about old days?

action

[hellofist]

[Luckily for Cassandra, she doesn't need a Rorschach dictionary to understand him. It's all in is body language, and she nods in response to his question.]

Yes, reading. Start with... your book?

[She doesn't suggest his issue to suck up. It's more that she wants to learn more about him and he doesn't exactly show a lot of signs that he's going to tell her himself.]

action

[wemaketheworld]

[That will probably take some getting used to, but it will be nice to have someone around who he doesn't need to explain himself to. Doesn't have to assume they'll translate what he means the right way instead of stomping off in a snit from miscommunication.]

Not my issue. Only made cover. Newspaper, not book.

[But he pulls it out of the pile anyway. The one they published right after the Comedian's murder, the one with the article about the manhunt, about the Keane Act. About the murder and what the police, with all their supposed insight, had to say about it.

He pokes at the title at the top, the insignia in black and white, stars and stripes; almost patriotic.]

"New Frontiersman."