#his solution to ''data scraping'' (whatever that means) is to prevent people from using the platform

[lilyfreshwater]

ELON MUSK PUT A LIMIT OF HOW MANY POSTS YOU CAN READ A DAY ON TWITTER????? IS HE FUCKING CRAZY??????

[elanorjane]

Vigilante Rose [Ch 1/20]

Summary: The small business owners in Hyperion Heights are the targets of a major crime wave. When the police, especially a particularly irritating detective, refuse to do anything about it, Belle decides to save her bookstore and the city she loves herself. With help from her costumer friend, Jefferson, Belle develops a secret alter ego to defend Hyperion Heights from those who mean it harm.  

Detective Weaver has a pile of unsolved break-ins on his desk and a vigilante who thinks she can take the law into her own hands. Now, he not only has to catch the vandals but uncover the identity of a mysterious masked woman who manages to get to every crime scene before he does. All while fighting his growing attraction to the latest victim, a local bookstore owner.

When their two trails begin to converge, revealing something even more sinister than they imagined, their mutual desire becomes the least of their problems.

AO3 Link 

Belle stood back to admire her new book display. It wasn’t an exhibit of shiny, new books like some of the Seattle bookstores she’d visited, but it was hers. She’d themed it around adventure novels. The Mysterious Island was there, as well as Moby Dick, The Hobbit, The Princess Bride, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She’d also added a few contemporary adventure and romantic suspense novels by Naomi Novik and Kat Martin so female authors would be represented. No reason to let men have all the fun.   

Dodgson's Books - she’d christened the store as an homage to Lewis Carroll’s real name - was a mix of used and new books, which she painstakingly curated. She couldn’t afford to stock all the best sellers just yet, but she did her best to meet the needs of the Hyperion Heights community. Which, admittedly, were few and far between. Hyperion Heights had the distinction of having one of the lowest child and adult literacy rates in the state of Washington.

Part of the depressing data could be blamed on funding. The schools in Hyperion Heights were underfunded, as was the local library. Belle was actually a librarian by trade and had worked at the Hyperion Heights Free Library for a few years. Like many public libraries, they’d been a shelter for the homeless, mentally ill, and young adults with bad home lives. While she’d worked there she’d helped Hyperion Heights residents find and apply for jobs, connect with social services, taught basic computer skills, and been an understanding ear for the kids who didn’t have one at home or school. But when the library’s budget got cut by the local government, so did the library’s operating hours...and her position.

Government officials believed crime could be solved by more police instead of investing in social programs that could prevent crime from happening in the first place. She had nothing against the police, but over the past several years she’d watched as money from community services were taken away and given to law enforcement. She hadn’t seen a corresponding drop in lawbreaking. In fact, it was getting worse. Break-ins and robberies of local storefronts were on the rise. She wished the local precinct had partnered with the library and other community programs, instead of financially strangling them to death.   

So Belle had found herself in the middle of a catch-22. How could the people of Hyperion Heights read more and get ahead in life, thereby no longer relying on nefarious means, if they had limited to no access to books? So, when she was let go from the library, Belle had poured her heart, soul, and entire savings account into Dodgson’s.

She dreamed of expanding the collection but for now she had mostly gently used books, many of them from her own personal shelves. She’d also love to have a proper coffee shop in the back. Right now she served hot chocolate out of an ancient coffee urn and some homemade baked goods she arranged on a three tier tray at the front desk, with a suggested donation of fifty cents each. Not everyone in Hyperion Heights could afford to pay, and that included a lot of her friends from the library who now hung out in Dodgson’s when the library was closed. Belle didn’t mind. If they needed a safe space, Belle was happy to be it.

The bell above the front door rang and Belle looked away from her books towards the noise. Tilly rushed in, grabbing a muffin from the plate at the front desk as she passed by and pocketing it, without breaking her stride.  

Tilly was one of the kids that Belle knew well from the library. When she’d moved on and opened Dodgson’s, Tilly had loyally followed her. They shared a mutual love of the travel section and could spend hours pouring over books and talking about places they’d never been to. Belle knew Tilly was homeless and struggled with mental illness, which got her into scrapes with the law sometimes, but she was a really sweet kid. She had a friend, Robin, that she hung around with a lot. Belle thought there might be more to it than that, but didn’t want to push.

Tilly ran to the back of the store where she stood. “Belle, did you hear what happened?” the words came out in a rush.

“Hi, Tilly,” Belle greeted calmly. Tilly was easily anxious and upset. You never knew, it could be something legitimately serious, or it could be one of her less coherent days. Either way, Belle preferred to be a reliably calm presence in her life. “No, what happened?” Belle waited, letting Tilly have her complete attention. 

“Tatiana’s got blown up last night!”

“Blown up?” Belle repeated, alarmed.

“Yeah,” she hurried on. Tilly grew impatient when you didn’t understand her right away. “Blown up! You know,” she mimed striking a match on her leg and throwing it. “Boom!” she made an explosion noise and threw her hands wide.

“Oh no,” Belle lowered herself into one of the nearby chairs.

Not again. It could have been an accident, but she strongly doubted it. Hyperion Heights was riddled with crime, but it wasn’t her imagination, it was absolutely getting worse and the people who financially could handle it the least were suffering the most. Even if you had great insurance, which most of them didn’t, the loss in business alone while you fixed the place up was enough to sink a vulnerable business.

Tatiana, like herself, was one of the newer business owners. Young people like them had begun taking advantage of the low rent in the ungentrified Hyperion Heights to start the businesses of their dreams. Tatiana had gone from a Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack employee to owning her own food truck. She’d been one of Hyperion Heights’ greatest success stories. Belle had gone to the grand opening and had the most delicious beignet she’d ever eaten. Tatiana was a symbol of what Hyperion Heights could be if given the chance.

Now it was gone. Problems had started when Victoria Belfrey began increasing rents for no reason, which was why Tatiana had decided on a food truck instead of a storefront. Now, there was a serial vandal on the loose, targeting local businesses. There’d been a series of incidents around town that on the face of things looked like accidents, only to be revealed later by the police that there had been tampering and malicious intent.   

“Poor Tatiana. Is she okay?” Belle asked, her heart breaking for her fellow small business owner.

Whether it was from her naturally curious nature or living on the streets, Tilly tended to know everything about Hyperion Heights.

“She’s real torn up about it, but nobody’s dead if that’s what you mean,” Tilly replied flippantly, flopping down in the chair across from hers and tearing into her muffin.

Belle could only hope Tatiana had the means and willingness to rebuild. Many before her hadn’t. They’d pulled up stakes and left Hyperion Heights. More and more of the neighborhood’s best and brightest were leaving. Brain drain, they called it.

Belle didn’t know what she’d do if she was in Tatiana’s place. She didn’t have enough money left in her bank account to afford Belfrey’s rent hikes elsewhere in town. With no library, and no bookstore, she wouldn’t know what to do next. She could try the WorkBunny app for odd jobs, but how long would that last? But she knew she didn’t want to leave. Hyperion Heights, despite its faults, was her home. She’d moved here to take the library job and she’d adopted it as her own. She didn’t want to abandon it, she wanted it to get better and she wanted to be part of the revitalization. A part of the solution, not the problem.

Belle recognized how blessed she was to have been raised by two incredibly loving parents who had protected her from the atrocities of the world. She’d decided a long time ago that if she couldn’t see the world, she wanted to make her part of it, and her friend’s lives, better.

Looking across the table at Tilly devouring her muffin only solidified her decision. She’d do whatever she could help to save Hyperion Heights and the people in it.