Mike Welch

Concept: Head of the Public Defenders office.

AKA: “bleeding heart” and snowflake are some of the kinder epithets that he’s been called by some of the DA’s staff

Desc: Tallish, flyaway hair reminiscent of Jake Busey. Clean well engineered smile. tired eyes. Hits the gym every other day, still. Eats like a horse. Needs glasses.

History: By rights he shouldn’t even be here. He’s a privileged kid. a B+ plus student in law school. he ought to be on the partner track somewhere. But He’s not. He’s working in a cramped little office for precious little money and his job is coming perilously close to consuming his entire life. It’s not like he’s planning to die working this job or anything, but he never seems to get off the dime when it comes to working on his own life.

Mike may have self esteem issues, but it is at least clear that he takes his job and the lives he quite literally holds in his hands very very seriously. Some think maybe he’s got some guilt over something big, like he skated when someone else did not. But so far no one has dug it out and and some have certainly tried.

   He drives himself very hard, and while he’s never said as much, he does so in order to let the other lawyers in the PD office know where he stands on the work itself. It breaks his heart a little every time one of his people leaves and gets a gig somewhere else. even though he’s outwardly happy for them.

Attitude:  “Ok. Stop. You’re approaching this like some mental exercise. Like some Gendankenexperiment or some bullshit like that. If you do that, a man goes to jail for a portion of his life.

Skills: Mike is in decent shape but isn’t truly a combatant. He could throw a punch maybe and he  actually HAS a small light pistol which he’s not bad with. But in a fight he’s liable to go down fast. Although he may keep trying to get up...He’s got a little more stamina than anything else in his physical suite. Long nights working on cases, and he runs a bit at night in order to clear his head. Socially, he’s pretty adept with a little more manipulation than anything else. he’s also solid mentally with more resolve than anything. More than most of the people in his office, truth be told.  He’s loaded with dots in academics (Spec: Law) and he’d make a pretty decent investigator from working with the PI that the PD office occasionally has to hire. he’s not genius brilliant like some other litigators, but he Always DOES THE FUCKING WORK and if they haven’t, brilliant or no, he’ll crush them.

Gear: his attache is home to a laptop, His pistol, his smartphone, and bottled water. he’s normally got a breakfast bar in there and yellowjackets, or stacker 2. Mike does not sleep much. Although he has been found nodded off in his office.

Home: He and his wife Joyce live in a modest little brownstone in a decent neighborhood gated community. Mike is still occasionally embarrassed by the privilege they still enjoy, but he tries to make up for it by being involved in the neighborhood watch. Mike wants kids, but Joyce refuses to have them as long as he’s still wrangling the PD’s office. He’ll never see them otherwise.

Circle: If you aren’t some sort of habitual lowlife or an officer of the court, You probably won’t get to know mike at all. Sorry.

Story Uses:

“i’m sorry, Christine is right. This is a loser of a case. My advice to you is plead it out.”

Mike is going to be overseeing things in the PD’s office and if something goes sideways, he may step in and try to head it off.

Options:

Mike may have suffered some sort of transformative event. Like a mastigos awakening or something like that. Or he may be wolf blooded and working closely with his kin. He may have something extra in his pockets.

Connections:

 Judge Stephen Warren Quite possibly the worst jurist I have ever seen in my life.

ADA Calvin Donloe Kind of a cock. Still sort of a friend of sorts.

Judge Mattarazzo  I'd like to work for this guy someday maybe.

Christine Horowitz Naturally, this one is kind of complicated. Mike and Christine have a thing, and there's a certain amount of tension between them and it tends to rear it's head occasionally, but he didn't meet her until after he was already married to Joyce, and it doesn't matter what HE wants. He's already made a commitment. So...

Scamps

To put it lightly, Scamps is a fuck bar. 

I mean, not like people are practically humping on the tables or anything like that.

Scamps is situated in a small strip mall adjacent to a  number of apartment complexes. And the main demo of this neighborhood is young urban professionals. HORNY young urban professionals.  People who work long hours and don’t really have the time to actually look for a relationship.

Scamps is such a meat market that the expectation is if you’re there, it means you’re looking to bump uglies tonight and you aren’t terribly picky about who with. Doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed at all but you’ve got to be some kind of misanthrope to not get laid if you go in there to drink and relax a bit.

One might be tempted to think that there is something supernatural going on here. But there isn’t. Although there ARE spirits that congregate here for the outpouring of emotional and sexual energy on display. For some spirits this place is like an endless buffet. In fact, the place is like a regular watering hole for those sorts of creatures that trade in lust and there seems to be a sort of unspoken covenant about not upsetting the applecart. If there is any that the creature who come here for sustenance DON'T Want. it's open warfare guaranteed to scare off the people. But if you turn up here and start making waves, or worse, leave an untidy corpse out to be found, they will come for you. And you likely won't see them until it's too late because they'll come at you sideways.

There's really nothing supernatural going here. it's not some ley line thing, or greater demon aspected towards lust. It’s simply a central location for many of the locals to get loose and their apartments are within walking distance so any kind of hijinks are possible on a friday night.

The bar isn’t terribly well stocked. The most popular whiskey they have is Fireball. They’ve got a few flavored vodkas and dazzling selection of light beers. But nothing artisanal. The tiny kitchen does pub grub and every bit of it is fried.

Most of the TV’s are tuned to ESPN or local sports.  They have darts and pool and Karaoke on the weekend evenings.

Casey runs the bar. She’s cute in a kind of ravenesque way. Her ink is quite impressive. She runs the bar and programs all the music.  She does a whole night of rockabilly on wednesday, not because she likes that shit but because it draws in the hipsters. When the place is all but empty, she kicks over onto her personal play list and sings along with the Cure. Casey is the de facto den mother for the other Bartenders and keeping them on a straight and virtuous path is not easy when the clientele is clearly ready to go. 

The place opens at 5pm and stays open until last call at 2am. 7 days a week except for certain holidays. 

Connections:
Dr. Laney Reese and her roommate sometimes turn up here on the weekend nights. She's made friends with Casey and is considering some ink herself as result. Casey's offered to do it for her.
ADA Calvin Donloe is often in here with friends of his from the office. While Calvin likes to look, he's not interested in fucking things up with his woman. But he'll play wingman any night for his bros.
Blaise Newkirk Brought home a Daeva one night and she gave it to him so good that occasionally he comes around hoping to see her again.
Christine Horowitz "Oh sweet god, what am I doing here again? This guy is worse than the last one mom tried to set me up with. I have to be out of my mind..."
Rick Deluca  It's not a party until Quinn the Eskimo gets there.
Collette Reeves "C'mon. my apartment is right over there.
Darla Grumman "Still crushing on Casey after all these years. It's not helped by the fact that Casey is heteroflexible and tends to like to kiss girls when she's got a few drinks in her.
Lara X  SO many of her articles have been written right at this very bar.