#w someone who might actually want to spend time w me..... jurys still out on that tho

[toastsnaffler]

man i was planning on calling a friend tonight but they've blown me off completely with no explanation or apology. I would be annoyed but tbh I was kind of expecting them to do this 😮‍💨

[erintoknow]

there’s no turning back

Spiraling - A Fallen Hero: Rebirth Fan-fiction

Ortega’s gravity is pulling you back into everything you can’t have. The fantasy that anyone would care about you is as seductive as it is destructive. [In Undertow]

[Read on AO3]

It’s unsettling how quickly routine can develop, and with it familiarity. As the days turn into weeks turn into first one month then another. It’s not falling back into old habits, not exactly. But then again, it’s hard to tell sometimes. Volunteer work with Ortega, splitting weeks between the hospital and soup kitchen. It’s starting to feel… normal.

Was Ortega always this warm? Always this quick to touch, to catch your hand, to smile or frown? Were you always so quick to do the same?

It doesn’t feel right. Like… any moment god, or… something like it will realize the mistake and cast you down. Punish you for daring to feel like this.

You’d deserve it.

After all, you’re double-dipping. First as Jane, Ortega’s girlfriend, and again as Ariadne, that ghost from the past that just refuses to die. What game, exactly, Ortega is playing here you’re not sure. But in the five years you knew her, for all the relationships and flings she might have gone through, not once did she cheat. So… You must be reading her wrong right? How she is behaving to Ariadne?

If it’s not dating then what is it?

Wishful thinking or, maybe it’s a bleed over in perception or, or, or, something, anything to explain it away. Attraction – to this body? With it’s deformities and branding and everything twisted and wrong. It’s not – it’s not possible.

And then you think about the beach and –

Oh, you idiot. Why did you do that?

Why did Ortega do that?

Kiss you.

Repeatedly.

Finger to your lips, the memory of her mouth on yours is like a ghost. Electric and heart racing. Just thinking about it again and you can feel your face warm as you stare out the window. Want to pull your shawl up over your head and melt into a puddle. Shouldn’t be smiling like this. This is messed up. It’s wrong. God, are you crazy? Have you lost your entire fucking mind? This is… it’s you we’re talking about here. There’s no fucking way she would… right?

Goddammit this is making your head hurt.

The break room door swings up and you scramble to your feet, arms swinging wildly as you struggle to keep your balance. For a moment coming out of your reverie there’s the assumption it must be Ortega coming in but – no, your awareness brushes the mind seconds before you turn and see her. All sharks and barbed wire.

“L– lady Argent. Um. Hi.”

She narrows her eyes, looking you up and down. “Waiting for Herald?”

Have to swallow the lump in your throat, battle back the nausea. “Um. H–herald? Yeah.” You shrug, avoiding her eyes. Actually Ortega had asked you for advice on something. But you’re not about to disabuse Argent of her assumption. She thinks you’re a wash-up and a has-been. And if your inability to stare her in the face and acknowledge what you’ve done contributes to that, well, that works out just fine, doesn’t it?

“Hrm.” Argent frowns, “That’s right, you’re giving him pointers or something? Whatever,” she shrugs and turns towards the fridge. Yanks open the door with no small amount of force. “Not my problem. As long as he stays out of my hair, we’re good.”

Okay. This seems like a safe enough subject. You can do this, Ariadne.

“He’s… um.” You falter as Argent turns to look at you again, a box of cold rice in one hand. “He’s got no idea how to use his boost in a–a–a fight. I’m having to… to um, start from well, from square one.”

“Well, maybe if he had ever listened to me, he wouldn’t have beefed it.” Argent scowls. “He should just carry a damn gun already. Could just fly around people’s cover.”

“Do… do you really think Herald is the type of person to, uh, well, um… carry a gun?”

She rolls her eyes, pulling into a seat. “Of course you would take his side. Bleeding hearts.”

You blink at that. “W–what?” You? A bleeding heart? You have to keep your face blank. Fight to not laugh at the idea.

She points a chopstick at you, “You heard me.”

When you don’t immediately respond she shifts focus to the rice, shoveling it into her mouth. You… should get out of here. If Herald still wants to train this week he has your number. Well, he has a number of yours.

Being alone in a room with Lady Argent is near the very bottom of the list of things you want to be. It’s hard enough facing her when you’re in your armor. At least Ghost – Banshee now, you remind yourself – has some sort of rivalry building that gives you a framing to work with. Just as yourself, as Ariadne the has–been… it’s too… too…

Whatever – Don’t think about it. You’re going to have nightmares tonight as it is, anyway.

Quietly you slowly meander around the perimeter of the break room and make your exit. Argent doesn’t stop you. Barely even thinks of you. If you’re lucky, you’ll stay that way. A bug beneath her notice.

As tempting as it is, you don’t really have the trust, or the cover, to go snooping around. You’ll just find a conference room or something to hold up in. Ortega will message or call or whatever whim strikes her when she can’t find you. She’s certainly never been shy about hunting you down.

“–you. There’s something going on here.”

Oooooor the snooping could come to you. You hang back. Shut the door to a conference room. Can only pick up one mind on the other side but– static. Ortega? Ortega and… Chen? Can feel your stomach twist.

“Your opinion is noted, but your personal feelings are clouding your judgement on this Ortega.” Chen. Yep, that’s Chen alright.

“It doesn’t fit the MO, or anything we know about motive. Why spend all that work only to flush it away?” Ortega. She sounds frustrated. Raising her voice. You can just imagine the static electricity crawling up her arms, discharge triggered by the stress in her hands.

“You know as well as I do that these things can change as a villain settles in. Maybe the change of name was meant to be a tip off.”

Name change? They’re not talking about…? You can feel your breath catch in your throat.

“And we’ve seen that. Compare how mouthy they’ve gotten to their debut. Come on, Wei. Think this through. Someone else is using them as cover. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“...the jury is still out on that one. And saving bystanders to the assassination attempt would still fit the profile we’ve built.” There’s a pause. “No, I’m not convinced.” Chen’s voice drops. The two of them continue to argue, muffled by the door. Skimming his thoughts doesn’t give you much more to work with. If the Rangers still can’t figure out what exactly Banshee’s deal is, that’s fine with you. The longer they spend guessing, the longer you have to build your strength.

The doorknob turns and you jump back, biting your lip. Ortega catches your eyes as she steps out. Momentary surprise is washed away with an embarrassed smile. “Sorry, I got a little heated there.”

“I – I wasn’t–” You cough, face red. “I wasn’t uh, trying to eavesdrop I just… Argent kicked me out of the break room so, well, um…”

“Ari, you’re fine.” Ortega laughs, a hand on your shoulder guiding you away from the conference room. “Actually, I wanted to ask your opinion on the whole thing so it’s fine.”

“It – it is?”

“Not here though. Com’on, let’s go to my office.”

“I’m… not in trouble am I?”

Ortega gives you a wry look. “Not yet. Why? Looking to make some?”

You offer an uneasy smile back. “I’ll be good.”

–––

“So.. what’s the deal?” You settle into your chair as Ortega takes the one by the computer. You watch as she grabs some papers off the desk shuffling through them.

“I wanted your opinion on Banshee.”

You frown, folding your arms against your chest under your shawl. Thank god for that shawl. No one can see the sweat dripping down your armpits. “Ghost?”

Ortega gives you a curious look. “Banshee, remember?”

“No, I knew that.” You correct her before you can stop yourself. “I mean, uh – why ask me?” You sigh. “I thought I had made my feelings on all this pretty clear.”

“I think that makes it all the more important.” Ortega whispers.

“Huh?” You didn’t hear that right, did you?

“Do you think they’re a killer?”

You stare at her. “Wh–what do you mean?”

“You know, Mayor Alavrez’s personal aide?” Ortega offers, “Has kind of an anti-corruption bent to him?”

Ochoa had been priming Vanderpoel as an informant for a big expose on City Hall corruption. You’d been hoping to keep him around as a pawn to push against the Mayor when election season rolled around. Did the Rangers suspect something there?

You blink and tilt your head. One hand finds itself digging into your leg, tracing patterns. “I... “ You laugh, “Ortega, who keeps up on that kind of stuff?”

“Argent says she interrupted Banshee in middle of… doing something with Mayor Alavrez’s aide.”

“So…?”

“There was that hit job on Marconi, and Banshee took a hostage in that last fight with Argent.” Ortega pauses, you steal a quick glance at her face only for the weight of her gaze to force your eyes away again.

“Fuck.”

“Ariadne…?” Ortega furrows her brow.

“No, I just – What are you asking?” You sigh. A long, drawn-out exhale as you run your hands through your hair. You look back up and find Ortega’s brown eyes searching your face.

“You always had a knack for knowing what the bad guys were thinking, Ari.” There’s a strange evenness to her voice. It takes the sharp pain of your fingernails digging into your thigh to keep you present.

“That’s – Ortega, that was a long time ago.” You force a laugh. “And – and anyway…” Your stomach twists. “Is it really that much of a mystery? Banshee already killed that uh, Macaroni guy. You can’t really turn back from that.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

You furrow your brow, biting the inside of your cheek. Not so sure? Not so sure of what? Banshee killing Marconi had been a cut and dry story all over the news. And it’s not like you were able to save him, just because you weren’t responsible for the explosion didn’t make you any less guilty.

Ortega sighs, “And now this thing with Alavrez’s aide. Argent was on the scene as fast as she could, but Banshee had plenty of opportunity to kill him if that had been the goal.”

What was it you overheard her and Chen talk about? Someone else using Banshee for cover? Cover for what? Obviously they’re both mistaken, but what exactly does Ortega think is going on here?

Ortega leans back in her chair, blowing air through her lips. “Chen says I’m too close, so… what do you think?”

You stare at her, point a hand at your chest. “What do I think?”

“Did Banshee kill Marconi?”

“I – I’m sorry, did I miss something? When did that become the question?”

"Let’s just say the evidence doesn’t line up as well as the official story would have you believe.”

Your eyes widen at that. That’s a normal enough reaction for someone completely innocent right? Your heart is pounding in your chest and you can feel the sweat on your armpits. “I… Okay. I guess… putting that particular… attack aside,” You force yourself to meet Ortega’s eyes. “I mean, well. Does she – them – they, do they seem like the… the type, to uh well, do that?” This is crazy. It’s one thing to be getting insider gossip, it’s another to be walking a tightrope over a pit full of live alligators. “They’ve uh, they’ve had… plenty of opportunities. Why kill just that one guy?”

“Maybe Marconi wouldn’t give them something they wanted?”

“That’s… possible.” You have to concede. “But…” You’re playing with fire here. Need to be dead careful with your words. “You think they’re a telepath, right?”

Ortega nods.

“So… like, even if someone decides they don’t want to, uh, to talk anymore. If this… criminal is as powerful a telepath as you think, I don’t know if that would be a barrier?”

“What do you mean?”

“I–I–I mean, well – As long as someone’s alive, you can work with that. Uh. Mentally speaking. You can’t… can’t get thoughts from a corpse.”

Ortega drums her fingers against her chin, staring over your shoulder at the unfinished wall. “That’s kind of creepy.”

Oh god. Oh christ. How did you get yourself into this mess?

“That’s… just my guess?” You have to take a breath, swallow the bile back. It’s a struggle not to let the tension show any more than it already is. “And… it’s not like I’ve kept up the past couple years. Maybe I’m completely off base. But… I don’t think there’s anything Banshee would have to gain from killing these guys.”

“So you think they would kill somebody?”

“I… I didn’t say that!” You sit up, waving your hand. “I–I–I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

“Ari?”

You look up, “S–sorry.” You bunch up your hands, shrinking into your seat. “I’m a little out of it already.”

Ortega’s expression changes, a different kind of concern. “Are you sleeping okay?”

“Um…” You chew your cheek, look away from her to stare at the blank whiteboard. “No. Uh… Therapy.” You throw the word out there with a shrug. “It’s been… it’s been hard. Digging things up.” Not a complete lie. You rub your head, plaster a smile back on your face. “Sorry, sorry. Um. Let’s focus on this… Banshee mess?”

“I guess it depends on what their agenda actually is.”

“Yeah.”

“They definitely seem to have some sort of political bent to their attacks.” Ortega glances at you from the corner of her eye. “It’s making a lot of suits very nervous.”

“For their lives or their careers?”

That gets a small smirk. “Soon it’s gonna be both.”

“That’s… fair.” You’re not sure your smile is as genuine as you’d like. Who’s trying to undermine you? Once was coincidence but twice makes a pattern. It’s enough to make your skin crawl. You need to be more careful. Maybe it’s time to drop Rosie, as helpful as having her around is. Up your OpSec.

Fuck – you’re zoning out again. You scan the run, looking for something to distract the conversation with. “Who’s that?” You nod towards the photo taped to the frame of Ortega’s computer monitor.

“Who?” She spins around in her chair. “Oh. That.” She looks back at you, embarrassed? “A reminder, that’s all.”

“Reminder?” You tilt your head.

“I… may have punched a reporter at your funeral. I’m surprised you didn’t already know?” She pries the photograph off it’s tape backing and hands it over to you. A newspaper clipping it looks like. Somebody’s byline. Vernon Browne? “He was an asshole.” Ortega sighs, a scowl settling over the embarrassment. “A real asshole. I quit the next week. They were going to fire me otherwise.”

“I had a funeral?” The words spill out of your mouth before you can stop them.

Ortega makes a face like you just slapped her. “Of course you had one. Ari, why wouldn’t you? I told you when we met.”

“S–sorry. I just… never thought about it.” Things like you don’t ‘get’ funerals. You’re disposable. Break down into parts and re-use whatever’s still good. “I… uh. I didn’t really… think anyone cared.”

“Ari–” Ortega blinks hard. You can tell she’s barely restraining herself from touching you. “Of course people cared. A… lot of people cared. About both of you.”

Both?

Anathema.

Fuck.

You rub at your face.

“We didn’t have a body for either of you, but that didn’t mean we were just… just going to forget about you.” Ortega looks away, balling her hands into fists. Little sparks crawling up her arms. “And then this pendejo shows up with all these… weird accusations. At your goddamn funeral and, and…”

Have to keep your face blank. “...accusations…?”

“He was a conspiracy nut. Ranted about all kinds of crazy things.” Ortega throws her hands in the air. “I don’t remember even half of the nonsense he shouted. But it – it was your goddamn funeral and he wouldn’t shut up and…”

“So you… punched him?”

“I’d have kicked his teeth in too if Wei hadn’t grabbed me. Still broke his nose. Ortega shakes her head. “He had a time of it, reading me the hospital bill.”

“Chen’s an asshole.”

“So are we all.” Ortega takes the picture back from you, sticks it back to the monitor. “Anyway, he retired not long after. But I keep the picture around. It’s a reminder.”

You watch Ortega’s face, the shift in her body language. Sometimes she seems as energetic and gung-ho as she was seven years ago. And other times, like right now, you can really see the weight of middle-age starting to settle into her. “A reminder?”

“Not to let my emotions get the better of me like that again.”

You frown. “So… when Wei said you were too close…”

“Yeah.” Ortega frowns with you, raises a hand up to rub the back of her neck.

“Well…” Your voice feels small, drowning into the empty walls as you stare at your lap. “I think… maybe your hunch is right.”

“Thanks.” Her hand finds your knee. You let it stay there.

[slapmeagain-blog]

COVID-19 LIFE

18 May 2020

How can it be 12 days since I last posted?  It must be the distraction of improving weather, the amount of time I am spending on the garden, and getting ready to enjoy the outdoor season: bringing all the outdoor furniture up from the basement, cleaning the porch, patio and deck, putting covers back on all the cushions, moving all the plants that have been hibernating in the sun room out of doors; ferns for the urns on the front steps, and hanging from hooks above the balustrades on the porch, potted palms next to the wooden furniture facing Pearl street.  There are the big self-watering planters filled with semi-tropicals on the deck off the sun room and the giant urns on the blue-stone patio.  New plantings in the bare spots in the flowers beds, potting a new lime tree, an on-going losing battle with crabgrass and other unworthy competitors to my lawn.  I could have a booth selling dandelion leaves for salad at the Wall Street farmer’s market on Saturday morning if I had the time.  Re-seeding bare patches under the copper beech tree and the corner near the vegetable patch, seeding herbs and greens in tiny compostable pots that have to be misted twice a day.  Cutting away dead leaves and growth from everything and moving the potted plants from beneath the living room windows to their appointed positions out of doors.  Ahh....

The weather had been so cool, damp and dreary, that I had to take matters into my own hands and say enough is enough, that it was about time we moved from bare hints of spring to full on spring mode on May 14th, mainly to keep Marco from packing his bags and moving back to Tuscany, where temperatures are already well into the high seventies and eighties.  Temperatures here rose as ordered.  We hit 80 a couple of days ago which has delayed Marco’s imminent migration.  I even enjoyed a pitcher of iced tea!

Meanwhile, in the wider world, 90,000 Americans are dead, and there have been 1,400,000 confirmed cases of the virus. 36,000,000 Americans have filed unemployment claims (Marco and I are not eligible) and armed civilian militia have overrun the Michigan state  legislature and shut down Oregon’s demanding that the governments re-open the economies. Who are these people?  They are clearly a small but vocal minority of the disparate groups of supremacists, right wing Christians, and hard line second amendment defenders who are being encouraged by the man in the white house (note to my great-grandchildren: many people in these times refuse to even speak the name of the current resident of the White House.  Something we borrowed as a form of protest from the Harry Potter novel series where people were afraid to even mention the name of the antagonist -- Voldemort.)  We’re not ‘afraid’ to mention his name, we just feel that he shouldn’t be given any form of legitimacy, not as a man, and certainly not at as a president.

Closer to home, here in Kingston, NY, a barber in a hipster-retro shop on John Street, has been cutting hair on the sly, in defiance of the shutdown, and has been diagnosed with the virus.  Officials are searching for anyone who might have had their haircut by him (eye roll). On the brighter side, Liberato (Marco’s niece's fiance was finally able to legally open his brand spanking new barber shop in San Querico (Tuscany) this week and is booked solid for two weeks -- 97 appointments.  It’s curious that the Kingston barber made international headlines.  We heard about it from as far afield as Siena (IT) and Geneva (CH, not NY!)  Most people are taking the shutdown seriously, but many are not, and it’s a very divisive topic.  One security guard was shot, in Michigan, for telling a customer to put on a mask or leave the store.  Another liquor store owner in Flint (Michigan clearly has anger management issues) was shot in the ankle for the same reason.  Many people feel that the lock down is a useless exercise, that we should just open up and get it over with.  It’s not killing as many as we thought it might, and cases have started to fall off in the worst hit places.  But the whole point was to ‘flatten the curve’ to prevent the health care system from getting overwhelmed and to protect the vulnerable.  That part has worked.  So where do you begin, and how much is enough, to get the economy started again without creating new spikes and hot-spots of the disease and risk overwhelming the hospitals?  The scientists argue that it can’t be done safely until we have tested most of the population to get a handle on how many people have already had it.  Supposedly, 60% is a magic number for ‘herd immunity,’ above which the virus will slowly die out because it can’t sustain itself in a smaller pool, but that assumes that once you’ve had it, you are immune.  The jury is still out on that.  So much information, so little reliability.  Example: Marco read in the Italian press today that the US had come up with a vaccine and was testing it.  Here, however, the medical professionals are saying we are at least a year, maybe two, away from a vaccine.  It’s no wonder people are acting crazy.  Anyone can  pretty much find someone out there who is saying exactly the thing that appeals to their fears and some of us act on those fears, with the encouragement of the 12-year old in chief, who says he is now taking hydroychloroquine, the efficacy of which is questionable and is said to have potentially harmful side effects.  A couple of months ago, a couple in Arizona took it after he touted it.  The husband died and the wife was hospitalized in serious condition.  Well, let’s hope he manages to kill or incapacitate himself soon.

That’s plenty on that topic.  I don’t know if it is because we are safely ensconced in Kingston in a big house surrounded by lawns and stone walls and flowers that I don’t feel particularly under threat by the virus.  But at the same time, I don’t feel the loss of human contact (other than with Cole, Ashe and Carter and the hugs). My time is my own, and I’m enjoying finding ways to fill it -- cooking, reading, planning for reopening my hospitality locations, gardening, studying, watching movies....  My biggest fears, really, are economic.  When this is over, what will my investments be worth, what will the townhouse in Brooklyn be worth, how will I support myself, help Marco, and leave something to my son and grand kids when I go?  Up until now those were not serious issues for me. 

 I do miss eating out in places where I know people or places where the food is particularly transcendent, but cooking at home and really investing in keeping food interesting, has been a pleasant challenge.  And as I settle in to lock down -- it’s been two months now -- I find I am seeking less amusement in martinis, mushrooms, and space cookies, and more in reading, writing, studying and cooking and actually having a schedule for those activities.  I also love the efficiency of online visual visits, both personal and for study and business.  I’m staying in closer contact with so many of my friends than I did before lockdown.  We have a call tonight at 7 p.m. with Joe and Vicki in LA which I am looking forward to, and we are doing a weekly family call on Sundays with the kids, Roy and CT in Hawaii, Maud in Brooklyn, Hedy and Firth and M and me here in Kingston.  

Hawaii, by the way, is pretty safe.  And here, in Ulster County, we’ve had fewer than 40 deaths and 1500 cases.  And considering how many people like me have fled from the city to Kingston, I’m surprised it’s not higher.  East Hampton, for example, was a hot spot because of all the rich NYC types that have homes there and left the city.  Sorry, sorry.  I promised to stop.  Times article says that wealthier neighborhoods in NYC have lost 40% of their population!  I’m so glad the kids are at our place to keep an eye on things.  And Marco’s finding a rhythm, too.  Check it out.

I finally plodded though to the end of Thomas Campanella’s book, “Brooklyn: The Once and Future City”.  It was very, very informative, even if many parts of it would be far more interesting to civic planners and architects than to casual readers, but it really did put a lot in perspective on Brooklyn’s economic and social trajectory through nearly 300 years with some interesting segues into geological formations that impact the place still today.  Sadly, as interesting and appealing a place as Brooklyn is, very little scholarly work has been done on it’s history.  Until very recently, the focus has always been on Manhattan.  It did correct a number of my own misconceptions.  Importantly, despite the fact that Robert Moses was not thrilled at the design for the proposed Dodger Stadium at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, it doesn’t appear that he, on his own, could have stopped it.  Research suggests that it was the disappearing fan base (fleeing the crime-ridden city in the 50s and 60s) that made the move to LA more an economic decision than has otherwise been speculated.  And I’m no fan of Robert Moses. The study group, in the end, actually wanted to put the stadium complex in Park Slope, bordered by Sterling, Bergen, Vanderbilt and Boerum Place.  What a disaster that would have been on so many levels!!  Not the least of which would have been the United Jet that crashed in that spot in 1960. And the Weisberg’s wouldn’t have been my neighbors for 34 years because their house would have been razed.

Other non-essential slightly amusing details. Deer ‘resistant’ plants are not deer ‘proof’.  And our herd doesn’t seem to be made up of fussy eaters. So, we are frustrated by the number of our plants that are being ravaged.  Apparently, based on an internet search, Marco has discovered that piss and cayenne pepper are good home garden deer deterrents!  Well...  I am putting it to the test with a mixture of BOTH.  I’ll keep you posted on results.  (I won’t go into detail on how the mixture is obtained/prepared, interesting as it may be.)  Hungry?  Peanut butter, honey and banana -- not since I was 10 years old.  Think I’ll write a kids’ Covid cookbook!

[lovemesomerafael]

El Amor Todo Lo Puede         Chapter 41:  Restless

Source: @minidodds

Chapters 1-40

Rafael Barba was making his closing arguments, meaning this trial was finally going to end.  Laura was looking forward to the opportunity to go to the gym and work off all this nervous energy.  As nice as it was to have the opportunity to sit for hours doing nothing but watching Rafael, the trouble was the “sit for hours” part.  Laura wasn’t much good at sitting still.  She found it especially difficult in this situation, because she couldn’t shake the feeling that any moment the defendant was going to go off. He was visibly wired, taut, like a panther crouched and ready to spring.  

Laura wasn’t the only one who felt it.  She could see the court bailiffs eyeing him, too.  She would let them take care of the defendant, Cameron.  But Rafael sat less than ten feet from him.  And if Cameron decided to go after Rafael, Laura was going to get to him first.  Rafael didn’t have to love her.  He could be as brusque and businesslike as he wanted.  She’d been dealing with that all summer, and she rarely still cried about it. But that didn’t mean she didn’t love him.  And it certainly didn’t mean she would let anyone hurt him.

She missed Rafael a hundred times a day.  At first, the pain had been so acute she sometimes had to lock herself in the bathroom at the station and just sit on the floor, knees pulled up tightly to her chest, rocking and crying.  That hadn’t happened in a while.  The months had done at least that much.  These days, missing him usually took the form of hearing him say something particularly clever, or seeing him do something that reminded her of when they’d been a couple. She usually didn’t cry about it anymore.  Usually, but not never.

Laura wasn’t concerned that Cameron would be acquitted – he wouldn’t. But until he was safely shackled and out of this courtroom, he was a threat to Rafael, and she was anxious. Not a good state of mind for someone as restless as Laura to be in as she sat through a week-long trial.  She was glad the day was nearly over; it had been a long afternoon.

Rafael, on the other hand, was in his element.  He had no fear of Cameron.  Cameron was a blowhard and a bully, nothing more.  Rafael was in complete control of this trial, making sure that a rapist went to prison and wiping the floor with smarmy Trevor Langan in the process.  It was a good day.  Best of all, he could feel Laura in the first row, directly behind him.  He wasn’t above showing off in front of her, even now.

Rafael and Laura had somehow cobbled together a working relationship, cool and impersonal and overly polite as it was.  He thought there might even someday come a night when he didn’t purposely work too late to avoid being home at times he used to spend with Laura, only to lie awake thinking about her anyway.  For some reason, she and Stone still hadn’t gotten together.  He knew that because he had seen Stone a couple of times at Forlini’s, treating the bar like a corner bodega where he could just stop and pick up a girl on his way home.  

He also knew it because, prior to a meeting one morning, he’d been pouring himself a cup of coffee and overheard a conversation between Fin and Laura.

“So how was your date with Rollins’s friend?”

Since Fin and Laura were the only two at the table, Fin had to be speaking to her, although Rafael’s back was to them.  

“I only did that as a favor to her.  And he was a troglodyte.”

Rafael couldn’t help but grin with both amusement and relief. Which was stronger, he didn’t examine too closely.

“Troglo-what now?”

Rafael turned around then, not being able to convincingly spend any more time simply pouring a cup of coffee.  “A caveman,” he told Fin as he sat down at the table.

“Why’nt you just say caveman, then?  Damn nerds all up in here…”  Fin complained.  

Spontaneously, accidentally, Rafael and Laura had begun to share a smile before both catching themselves and awkwardly fumbling to look elsewhere as though it hadn’t happened.  That moment had been both the highlight and the most painful part of Rafael’s day.  He couldn’t have known that the same was true for Laura.

At this moment, Rafael was walking around as he gave his closing argument, first standing in front of the jury to address them directly, then standing in front of the defense table and gesturing toward Cameron as he laid out the evidence, link by link.  

Laura wished he wouldn’t do that.  As long as he was closer to Cameron than he was to her, Cameron could get to him before she could.  With each additional fact and piece of evidence, she could see Cameron’s jaw clench harder and his face get redder.  His hands had been in fists throughout the trial, but now he was actually knocking them softly against the table in front of him.  A couple times, he shifted his weight as if to stand.  Each time, Laura shifted hers in the same way, ready to jump up.

Cameron’s obvious difficulties controlling his seething anger had caused the court bailiffs to move a little closer to him.  One, a wiry Asian woman who looked like she could move quickly, stood within 5 feet of the defense table ready to act.  The other, a tall, beefy white guy with a very red face, had inched to within three feet of the defendant.  Although he stood slightly behind Cameron so that he couldn’t be seen directly, Laura could sense the defendant’s awareness of the bailiff just behind him.

Rafael continued his closing, bringing up a photograph of the victim on the large screen across the room from the jury.  Laura noticed Cameron’s face turn a frighteningly dark shade of red that seemed almost purple.  

This wasn’t good.  She elbowed Fin, sitting at her left, as she moved forward to the edge of her seat. She pulled the edge of her blazer back from in front of her holster and unsnapped the strap that secured her weapon. Fin did the same.  

Rafael moved back behind the prosecution table.  Continuing his closing, he turned toward the defendant, who glared at him with abject hate.  Laura leaned forward and placed an arm on the rail between the gallery and the counsel tables.  That was when Rafael made a particularly strong point, put so cleverly that there were scattered laughs in the courtroom.  That did it.

At that moment, the defendant’s pent-up rage exploded in a violent roar as he used one hand to push the table at which he had been sitting halfway to the judge’s bench.  With the other, he pulled the red-faced, beefy bailiff toward him by the belt and grabbed his sidearm before the bailiff had a chance to react. 

In one fluid movement, Laura stood and vaulted the rail with one arm, throwing herself at Rafael and allowing her momentum to knock him to the floor, where she landed on top of him.  She pulled her Glock from its holster and aimed, leaning on Rafael’s back as much to cover his body and keep his head down as to give her a steady firing platform.  “Stay down,” she said into his ear. But it was already over.  There had been only one shot: Fin dropping the defendant where he stood.

The courtroom filled with the cries of terrified onlookers and court staff, the judge pounding her gavel and screaming ineffectually for order, and the chaotic banging and scraping of fifty people trying to escape from the room using the same two doors.  Laura didn’t immediately let Rafael up – she surveyed the entire courtroom from where she lay on top of him behind the table to ensure that there was no further threat.  The other detectives were doing the same.  When they saw that there was no more danger, the rest of the team began to assist those in distress and work to calm the general panic. 

Laura levered herself off of Rafael’s back and sat up next to where he lay prone on the floor.  She holstered her gun, then gave him a quick but thorough once-over and saw no blood.  “¿Estas bien?”[1]

Rafael began to roll to a sitting position.  “I’ll get back to you on that.”

Laura put her hand on his shoulder and pushed off him to stand. She offered him her hand to help him up, which he declined.  “I’m good here.”

She squatted down next to him.  “Look at me, Rafael.”

He did.  Her heart contracted at being this close to him, looking into his beautiful green eyes.

“You’re OK,” she said, nodding slightly at the same time and willing him to believe it.  

“Yeah.  Yeah, I’m OK.”  He didn’t look, or sound, convinced.

Laura, not knowing what else to say and not wanting to crowd him, especially given their circumstances, stood up and said, “I’m gonna see what I can do here.”

For the next two hours, each member of the team was busy taking statements from those who had been present during the shooting.  They assisted the crime scene unit and the Medical Examiner as they did their work, finally helping to load the body onto a cart for transport to the morgue.  As Laura turned away afterward, she noticed that there were less than ten people left in the room.  One of them was Rafael, sitting slumped in his accustomed place at counsel table, head down, hands folded in front of him.  He stared at a legal pad that she could see had nothing written on it.

She walked over and leaned on the rail near him.  

“You saved my life,” he said, not looking at her.  

She pulled a chair from the defense table and sat down facing him across his table, trying to figure out what a neutral distance was.  After what had just happened, she knew to let him speak if he wanted to, or just sit with him if he didn’t.

“You knocked me down.  If he’d have shot, he’d have hit you instead of me.”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

He looked up at her with his eyes, not moving his head.

“That’s why I knocked you down.  Bullet would’ve gone right over our heads. Anyway, Fin got him.”  She deliberately tried to keep her voice neutral, factual. She wouldn’t deny the reality of the situation, but needed to avoid feeding his reaction.

“And then you stayed there, protecting me.  Why did you do that?”

“You know why.  It’s the job.”  

He didn’t respond.  He looked over at the bloodstain where Cameron’s body had been.  A team of custodians was already beginning work to clean the stained area of the floor.  

“By tomorrow, that’ll be gone, and it’ll be like this never happened.”  He sighed. “Except it won’t.”

“No.  It won’t. But you’ll be OK anyway.”

They sat in silence.  After a few minutes, Lieutenant Benson called to them that it was late and there was nothing more to be done, so the team was leaving.  

“We’ll be right behind you,” Laura answered in a casual voice, waving nonchalantly.  There were some intrigued looks between the other members of the squad.

“I didn’t think he’d do anything.  I thought he was all talk.”

“Most of them are.”

“But you and Fin took him seriously.”

“That’s – “

“The job, I know.  But I feel like I should’ve been shot, just for being such a colossal idiot.”

“Good grief, Rafael, if stupidity was a capital offense…   I know there’s a good joke there, but I’m too tired to think of it right now.”

Rafael actually chuffed and his lips twisted at that. “Raincheck.”

“Thanks.”  

Again they fell into silence.  Rafael was busy processing what had happened.  He appreciated Laura just sitting with him, not judging or preaching, just letting him work it through.  With anyone else, he might have felt the need to be cool, to downplay his reaction.  But even after everything that had happened between them – or maybe because of it – he didn’t think he needed to waste the effort with her.  When the custodial team actually began mopping up pooled blood, Rafael decided he’d had enough.  

“Let’s go home,” he said.  

“Let’s.”  

They both liked the way that sounded.  As they walked slowly from the courtroom, somewhat farther apart than perhaps other coworkers might, Rafael thought how much he needed to spend the evening with her in her cheerful, laid-back apartment.  He needed to eat takeout in front of a ridiculously violent movie where The Rock did impossible stunts and beat the hell out of everyone he came across, and he needed Laura next to him wearing one of her grubby outfits, with her hair pulled thoughtlessly into a knot on top of her head.  And then he needed to make love and fall asleep holding one another.  

The similarity of their thoughts, had they known it, would have shocked them both.  But they would have to settle for being together in the same car on the ride home.

Both were quiet, awkward, uncomfortable, trying to figure out how to be together outside of work.  They’d had drinks with the whole squad a couple of times since Rafael had ended their relationship, which had been a little awkward at first, although liquor helped. But this was the first time they’d been together alone since their breakup.  It helped that they’d just been through a traumatic experience, which gave them an obvious topic of conversation and also the bond that unites people who have been through such an event.  But there was a massive, obnoxious elephant in the room that was pretty hard to ignore.

They walked down the street, far enough apart that there was no chance their hands would accidentally touch, making occasional innocuous remarks about the September weather and the shortening of the days that comes with the season.  Laura knew that she should try to get Rafael to talk about Cameron’s attempt to shoot him. But she was uncomfortably aware of her angry words to him that first day, when she had told him that they were not friends, and that he was no longer allowed to ask whether she was OK. She decided to do the right thing, and let him call her a hypocrite if he wanted to.  The fact was, she would do the same thing for any of the other members of the team in a similar situation.

“So, um…  Cameron. It’s supposed to be helpful if you talk about this kind of stuff.”

“So Lindstrom said,” Rafael responded.

“Yeah, I guess this isn’t your first time to the dance, is it?”

“And I can’t help but notice that this stuff didn’t happen to me before I met you.  Coincidence?”

Oh, it felt good to hear that gentle, teasing tone in his voice after so long!  It hurt terribly, too, but Laura was used to everything wonderful he did reminding her of what she’d lost.  She would have loved to say something clever back, but could think of nothing.  Self-conscious and nervous, all she could do was smile.

“Lindstrom wanted me to tell him the whole story of what happened with Rhee.  Apparently, that’s healing.  But this... you were there.  You know what happened.”

“Actually, it would be interesting to hear it from your perspective. I mean, did you expect me to tackle you?”

“No!  As a matter of fact, I was meaning to ask you how you got there.  How much do you weigh, anyway?  It felt like I got hit by a truck.”

“You did not just ask me how much I weigh!  I know your mami taught you better than that.”

“I stand corrected.  Still felt like a truck.”

“Thank you.  Or sorry. Not sure which.”

“Thank you?  Why would it be thank you?”

“OK so maybe for you it’s sorry.  But if I tackle a bad guy – sorry, offender or suspect, not bad guy – I’d be thrilled if he felt like he got hit by a truck.”  

Laura had exaggerated the way she said “offender or suspect”, making gentle fun of his instructions to her during their first witness prep meeting together.  Rafael would like to have been able to spit out a few curse words when he actually felt his dick twitch just from being teased by her.  His mind went temporarily blank and he completely forgot what they were talking about.  ¡Coño![2]  Three months apart, and she still affected him every bit as much as she ever had.

Fortunately for him, she went on.  “You might not have noticed it, you were too busy pontificating, but-“

“Pontificating?  I do not pontificate.”

“Waxing eloquent?”

“Better.”

“Anyway, you were putting your thing down,” she looked mischievously at him, causing yet more agitation in his pants and his mind to once again go offline temporarily.  “So you weren’t watching Cameron.  But we were, and the bailiffs were, because it was clear he was going to blow.  So when he did, I hopped the rail and covered you.”

“Literally.”

“But that’s my story.  You were supposed to be telling me your story.”

They reached the parking garage and, as he always did, he opened her door for her.  As she always did, she found that small courtesy disproportionately sexy.

When they’d buckled in and Rafael was starting the car, he said, “I honestly didn’t see it.  I was concentrating on putting my thing down,” he looked that teasing, under-the-eyebrows look at her and suddenly it was her whose body was responding.  “I was in the zone.  I had an outline, and I was running through it.  Maybe paying a little attention to how ill Mr. Langan was starting to look…  And then Cameron stood up and the next thing I knew, OOF.”  

“And…?”

“And I… wasn’t quite sure what had happened for a second.  I think I felt you hit me at the same time I heard the gunshot.  I think.”

“Happened pretty fast.  I’m not sure, either.”

“Which means if Fin hadn’t gotten him, you might not have gotten there in time.”  The drop in the volume and register of Rafael’s voice evidenced the effect this realization had on him.

“Fin got him,” she said in a quiet, but firm voice.

“Yes, but…”  

The implications hung in the air for a moment.

In the same quiet tone, Laura asked, “Did you and Dr. Lindstrom ever talk about ‘what ifs’?”

“A little.”

“Dr. Charles said you look at them like you’re window shopping. You acknowledge them, say ‘isn’t that interesting’, and move on.”

“Lindstrom said something similar.  Maybe not as picturesque.”

“Fin got him, Rafael.”

“Yeah.”

A few minutes of silence ensued, during which they each followed their own thoughts.  

“I have to thank you for being there.  Again.”

“Someone messes with you, they mess with me.”

“So I’ve heard.  Nice to know it still applies.”  

 That night, after they said an uncomfortable good night as Rafael took the elevator and Laura the stairs to their respective apartments, Laura let herself into her apartment just before the tears became uncontrollable. Everything about him was the same: all the things she loved about the way he looked, his ability to tease her in a way that felt like foreplay, the smoldering looks he didn’t even know he gave, the way he smelled when she was close enough…  Everything but one, crucial thing.  He didn’t want her.  For the first time in weeks, she found herself sitting on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, rocking to dissipate some of the biting ache of loss.  

It was one of those nights when Rafael laid awake, unable to think of anything but Laura.  He didn’t even care that it hurt like hell.  He couldn’t stop, and he didn’t want to.

[1] Are you OK?

[2] All-purpose swear word.

[benjyfen]

wands at the ready, BENJY FENWICK has joined the fight! the TWENTY FIVE year old works as a MINOR LEAGUE QUIDDITCH COMMENTATOR, but spends HIS time fighting for THE ORDER. BENJY is known to be EASYGOING & PERCEPTIVE, as well as NONCHALANT & REACTIVE.

               hey everyone!! i’ve played benjy exactly Once before but i’ve written him in a few fics and tbh i’m ??? so excited to bring him to y’all!! he has a pinterest HERE and also i chose that gif bc i cannot stop laughing at it lmao

               AESTHETIC: balancing a chair on its back legs, an easy grin, quick fingers, muggle comics, cans of coke, bomber jackets, denim, tracing patterns on friends’ skin, a carefree grin on the eve of battle, eyes always reacting, a shock of laughter in the dark of the night, scuffed shoes, homemade popcorn, spray paint, sunglasses af, walkman in your jacket

               CHARACTER INSPO: jack wilder (now you see me); johnny storm (marvel comics); joel “drainpipe” edwards (vinyl); sam wilson (mcu); some aspects of steve harrington in there too (stranger things)

my muggleborn son’s a libra ( oct 4 ) ( this is bc it’s my friend’s birthday and sometimes i look at him and i’m like… wow benjy got some of his chill from you huh )

so... the 24/25 yo cohort/age group, i think

was gryffindor keeper in his seventh year

currently works as a quidditch commentator in the minor leagues ( as in, not international. probs like ballycastle bats vs appleby arrows kinda thing, so if you’re character’s a quidditch player, quidditch reporter or even just a quidditch fan, hmu!!! )

benjy voice: “first thing’s first, i’m the realest CHILLEST”

arrived at hogwarts as a fan of rugby ( union, he doesn’t really fuck w league tbh ), football, comics and muggle music and was like ??? y’all have moving posters ??? more importantly, y’all actually fly on brooms ??? i thought that was a stereotype

he loves having magic but he’s never lost his muggle roots

honestly thinks some of the shit the purebloods pull ( not the genocide stuff, gross, he’s fighting against that; the stuff like owning peacocks lmao ) is fucking hilarious and can be found jaunting into the auror offices & ministry lunch area just to drop in on mary and his fellow muggleborns like “guys i have the funniest pureblood story to tell you lmao”

actually really perceptive, and surprisingly good at advice sometimes, like usually he’s just chill and up for a laugh but ?? he’s pretty observant and he cares about his friends. he’s not, like, particularly fervent or feels the need to show it in a tangible, explicit way, but he’s always… there? like if you just need someone to sit with in the night, he’s there, and if you need someone to go to a bar with and mainline tequila until you can forget the eyes of the people you fought that night, he can do that too

but yeah he’s p ?? lowkey perceptive sometimes honestly. like. he’s just like, when his friends are being dramatic and beating themselves up for stuff, like — here for home truths, but usually delivers them softly/low key

“mate am genuinely jus here for a laff x”

would looooove some friendos his age too! he looooves a muggleborn squad always ofc ( and the other order members for sure!!! he’s like “yeah man, let’s hang & fight the darkness at the same time AYYYYOOO” but also muggleborns and/or gryffindors within a few years of him.... hmu ) but he wants some people who were at school w him etc. + like, he’s a fun guy, give him all the friends

theoretically smart enough to not rile death eaters. jury’s out as to whether he decides to follow this reasonable approach LMAO

has probably ironically finger gunned enough that even he’s not sure if it’s ironic anymore

the sunglasses emoji

on a more serious note, he’s… not afraid to die, like he does think it’s worth it, but at the same time, it isn’t really something that feels real to him??? like as a possibility??? like intellectually he knows it is but like… he can’t imagine it happening, not really, not yet, you know??

call him mudblood and honestly depending on who you are, he’s probably gonna shoot you a shit-eating grin and give you the finger guns or raise an eyebrow at you. call his friend that and he might punch you though lol

but like, more on the mudblood thing: he doesn’t like it, ofc not, but it’s sorta like — don’t let the bastards get you down?? like, damn, it’s so much easier to treat it irreverently and let it lose its power?? which was… harder when he first understood what it meant ( which was after being told, properly—it was when he first really felt the hate and scorn that came with the word being thrown at you ) but now it’s almost second nature

he actually has a lot of chill ( i thank his libra-ness tbh ) and a dry sense of humour a lot but like. v much ready for the fight

really good at picking locks lol. “nothing is ever really locked”

has had pink streaks in his hair before he don’t care. loves the muggle rock and punk. also spray paint. he’s my cool lil vandal

def not a rich kid. doesn’t get to see his fam as much anymore but he’s like ?? honestly he loves them and he figures he sees them sporadically which is like? normal for someone his age? lmao. like all his muggle friends are living away from their fam too. but yeah he grew up with hand-me-downs and his mother working double shift and his little brother dumpster diving for shoes to play footy in. it got a bit better when his dad came back into the picture — still not with his mother ( which benjy’s glad for lmao. he gets along all right with both of them, but they were never a good combo in his opinion ) but back in town and with a steady job and he was helping support benjy’s school stuff and his little brother jamie’s schooling and stuff. so benj knows his fam’s all right now, but he never grew up with spare cash

looooves his walkman lmao

THIS pinterest board is for a group of characters ( including benjy ) in a muggle au fic but honestly a lot of it still vibes him lmao

yeah so!! if ya wanna hang or plot w this chill order bub, hmu!! loves the order. significantly less keen on death eaters lmao but i want them (baby boi’s gotta get blown up u know u know)

[aion-rsa]

Myst: Creators Rand and Robyn Miller Unlock the Secrets of the PC Classic

https://ift.tt/3kBOrgP

In 1991, two brothers—Rand and Robyn Miller—along with a handful of artists and engineers, set out to create a game unlike anything that had come before it, harnessing powerful new PC technology to immerse players in a fantastical island world inside a book. The game was called Myst, a point-and-click adventure full of infuriatingly difficult puzzles and driven by a twisted, fantastical story about a tragically dysfunctional family

Released in 1993, the game was lauded by fans and critics alike, became a killer app for CD-ROM drives, and went on to become the best selling PC game ever (over 6.3 million copies sold by 2000) until The Sims dethroned it in 2002. More than two decades after its release, there are even plans to turn the game into a movie and TV series. Myst is one of the most unlikely commercial success stories in gaming history, particularly due to the fact that the game was so strange, so notoriously difficult, and was made by such a small team (Cyan Worlds, founded by the Miller brothers in 1987).

“I was more of a gamer than Robyn, but both of us settled with Myst on the idea that, well let’s not have people die and start over, because that irritated both of us. We felt like we were building a real world, and in a real world, you don’t just die and start over every five minutes.” Rand says of the initial conceit that led to the creation of the game. “We wanted to add friction that would slow you down but we didn’t think that there were rules to video games necessarily, so we’ll pull out the dying and see if we could do it without that.” 

Indeed, there’s no dying in Myst, a revolutionary idea at a time when “Game Over”s  were a staple in virtually every game on the market. Instead, Myst tasked players with exploring its world and decrypting its story, eschewing combat for puzzles that challenged and engaged you but weren’t life-or-death ordeals.

“I’d love to tell you we knew exactly what we were doing, but we didn’t,” Rand says. “It was just another experiment along the scale of how to make things a little more sophisticated, and even within the game itself, you can see how we were expanding and building more cohesiveness into the worlds as we went.”

Despite its humble origins, Myst was a huge deal for a lot of people in the ‘90s, including me. I remember the thrill of watching it run on the new PC my parents bought for me and my brothers in the mid-90s, marveling at the FMV elements combined with the detailed pre-rendered environments.

“For me, Myst was for games what Star Wars was for movies,” explains Philip Shane, a filmmaker who’s launched a Kickstarter for a documentary about the making of the PC classic. Shane previously co-wrote the Sundance Special Jury Prize-winning documentary Being Elmo (2011). “I was 10 years old when Star Wars came out and, in my mind, I was the same age when I played Myst. Just like with Star Wars today, when you look back on Myst, it was the first time you ever saw something with that level of detail. It was an odd game, but for me it was huge.”

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Myst is responsible for a wave of cinematic, immersive games with rich storytelling that are as popular in 2020 as they ever were. Games like The Witness, Outer Wilds, and Quern draw inspiration from Myst’s original puzzle-adventure formula, while Dear Esther, Gone Home, and The Stanley Parable are heavily influenced by the world-building and environmental storytelling Myst pioneered. 

“I think in our minds, it does feel like we’re building worlds and not necessarily games,” says Rand of Cyan’s approach to making games. “We try so hard to create this consistent flow in our worlds. It’s not easy. It takes a lot of effort to tie the environment with the story and the puzzles. It’s not always perfect. But we make that attempt to make it seem viable as far as worlds go.”

“And so we started coming up with [Myst’s] backstory,” Robyn adds. “And it helped to give us a better understanding of the entire world and maybe a better understanding of where the world should move onto for where we were going with it. We filled out the details, the empty spaces in our minds.”

Rand says that The Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien were a particular inspiration when building the world of Myst. 

“[The Lord of the Rings] felt like you’re just reading one of the books, but the world was much bigger than that. It felt like you had a window. You were just experiencing a small window into a much larger world. And for some reason, that really resonated with us.” Rand explains. “That made those worlds seem so much more real to us. And so, when it came time to do our worlds, that’s naturally where we land. We build backstory and wrapped stuff around the family and what had happened. Stuff that didn’t even need to be told in the little window of the Myst game. But in our world, it gave it weight and I love that.”

The brothers also credit Alice in Wonderland, Tintin comics, and Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island as major influences on Myst.

“We had a couple of months to design the thing, and so it was more of a regurgitation of everything we had collectively in our psyches and aesthetic selves and whatever those influences were,” Robyn says. “Tonally it created something that was mysterious and weird, but it was all these things pressed together into this weirdness.”

Myst’s central tale, of Atrus and his warring sons Achenar and Sirrus, stretches far beyond the original game, to tie-in novels and its four sequels (one of which was developed by Ubisoft independently). Due to budgetary restrictions, Rand and Robyn were forced to act in the game themselves, with Rand playing Atrus and Achenar, and Robyn playing Sirrus (Rand continued to play Atrus in the game’s sequels).

“I would not call it acting,” Robyn says. “The fact that we got anything that looked good out of what we did is a miracle. It was just me and Rand really, and the thing I remember most is that we were laughing hysterically through it.”

“Like Robyn said, it’s a wonder we got anything out of us,” Rand says. “Looking back, in spite of the fact that we would not have cast ourselves had we had a real budget and to do things the way we wanted to, it’s cool again that we as brothers got to play those brothers and look back and laugh at it. I’ve got tapes.”

Though he was a longtime fan of Myst, Shane had never thought to make a documentary about the game until he met with the Miller brothers at a games convention in 2016, where they were presenting a keynote. At an after party, he approached them as a fan, without an inkling that the ensuing conversation would launch him into the next stage of his career.

“I was terrified,” Shane recalls of meeting the Millers. “I went up to them and immediately I thought, ‘Surely someone has made a documentary about Myst.’ So I said, ‘Has anyone ever made a documentary about Myst? And they were like, ‘No.’ And so I was like, ‘Could I?’ And they were like, ‘Really? Yeah.’ In spite of the making of Myst being a 25-year-long story, this was the fastest I’ve ever gone from conception of a documentary idea to green light. It was as fast as the neurons of three people could go. Just a couple of weeks later, my camera person, my cinematographer Kyle Kelly, and I flew out to Spokane and started filming.”

Spokane is the home of Cyan Worlds and the birthplace of Myst, its sequel Riven (1997), spiritual successor Obduction (2016), and the forthcoming Firmament, the studio’s first major VR release. Shane remembers watching a short, grainy documentary clip of the brothers talking about the making of Myst on a disc included with the original game’s release. “There were these two guys making the game at home,” he recalls. “At one point, the camera pans away and you see all these trees. I was like, ‘Those are the trees from Myst.’ It was like they lived in the game.”

With his documentary, Shane endeavoured to delve into the lives of the Miller brothers on a personal level, which meant spending a lot of time talking to them and picking their brains. Looking back on the making of Myst over a quarter of a century after its release has been an unexpectedly profound experience for Robyn in particular, who hasn’t been involved in making video games hands-on for decades now. Robyn left the company after the release of Riven in 1997 while Rand stayed on as CEO of Cyan Worlds.

“Well, I’d forgotten about Myst,” Robyn says of revisiting the game almost 30 years later. “If I play Myst today, it’s like I’m actually playing Myst [for the first time] and I have to remember things. It’s weird. I haven’t worked on any of that stuff in such a long time, so it’s fun to talk about Myst now.”

Shane says he has every intention of going through the brothers’ archive of tapes but that the success of the Kickstarter will largely determine how much he’ll be able to comb through for the documentary. “Research for a documentary is more time-intensive and expensive than people might know,” he explains. “And a big part of it is time. The more successful we are with the Kickstarter, the deeper I’m going to be able to go [into the archives]. I can’t promise anything, but I want to get that stuff. Rand has a ton of home movies. They both have a lot of stuff that they’ve saved up.”

Currently, Cyan is hard at work on its forthcoming puzzle-adventure game, Firmament. The studio is deep into development, and while Cyan originally targeted a July 2020 release date, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the team to push the release back, announcing in a recent Kickstarter backers’ update that the game likely wouldn’t be finished until 2022. But the team is still working hard on the game from home, and according to Rand, they were largely prepared to work remotely and continue development.

“Firmament‘s probably one of the best storylines we’ve done in a game since I’ve been doing this. It’s really cool,” Rand says. “Whether we can pull it off, I think, Robyn and I talked about this so many years ago is, even for Myst and Riven: you can have big plans for a story, but at some level, it’s about being able to communicate it. Sometimes you just have to simplify it so that it’s satisfying and people get it. So we’ll see what we can do with Firmament, but it’s a great, great storyline.”

When it does arrive, Firmament will be the latest in a long line of memorable experiences from Cyan Worlds. But Myst will always be their crowning achievement, a game that continues to impact its players today. The Miller brothers admit that Myst grew beyond anything they could have possibly imagined.

Robyn puts the enduring legacy of this game best: “We made Myst and we never expected it to continue on this many years later especially. Now it’s so much larger than Myst. It’s got a life of its own. There are so many people who are involved in — whether it’s creating, writing their own stories about it, or painting pictures, or having guilds, or the Mysterium [an annual celebration of the game] getting together every year. It just goes on and on and on, it’s this world that exists out there. This massive thing that is much larger than the Myst games. We feel privileged and humbled to be a part of that, privileged and humbled to have been there at the beginning.”   Shane’s The Myst Documentary is currently in pre-production and will cover both the origin of Myst as well as the current work being done at Cyan Worlds. The project has more than 2,000 backers as of this writing. Check out the Kickstarter here.

The post Myst: Creators Rand and Robyn Miller Unlock the Secrets of the PC Classic appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[madpicks]

New Post has been published on https://www.madpicks.com/sports/soccer/chicago-fire-taking-huge-risk-signing-bastian-schweinsteiger/

Chicago Fire taking a huge risk by signing Bastian Schweinsteiger

Schweinsteiger will depart Manchester United and join up with the Fire immediately. It’s a flashy signing for Chicago, but probably not a smart one.

The Chicago Fire made some late breaking news on Monday night when the Chicago Tribune reported that the club had signed Bastian Schweinsteiger. An official announcement is expected this week, and Schweinsteiger will join the Fire immediately.

On its face, this sounds like a good thing. The Fire, one of the worst teams in MLS over the last decade, has picked up a World Cup and Champions League winner with serious name recognition. But when you dive into the details, his signing doesn’t look particularly wise.

He’s making a lot of money

Schweinsteiger will make $4.5 million this season, which is significant investment for the Fire. They’ve been unwilling to splash the cash around recently and ranked second-to-last in attendance in 2016. They’re not the LA Galaxy, New York City FC, Toronto FC, Seattle Sounders or Atlanta United. They’re not going to commit $20 million or more to salaries like those teams can.

For one of the league’s richer teams, signing Schweinsteiger could be a worthwhile risk. But Chicago has to spend their money more carefully, and if they’re going to sink that much into one player, they should be pretty sure he’s going to produce. They can’t be sure about anything with Schweinsteiger, for a couple of reasons.

Let’s get into them.

He hasn’t been able to stay healthy

This is the last goal Schweinsteiger scored for Germany. He looks pretty lively here, right?

Well, he’d been on the pitch for two minutes at this point. The issue with Schweinsteiger isn’t his quality — he’s unquestionably and unequivocally one of the best all-around midfielders in the history of the sport — but his ability to stay healthy. This current season is Schweinsteiger’s fourth in a row where he hasn’t been on the pitch much. He was exiled during Manchester United’s preseason because Jose Mourinho didn’t think he could be counted on all season.

The Fire are gambling that Schweinsteiger can actually start most of their games. There’s plenty of reason to believe he won’t be up to that.

He’s a strange fit

While Schweinsteiger started his career as a winger, he’s played his best soccer as a central midfielder. He was a box-to-box midfielder at his peak, then later in his career, after losing some of his physical gifts, more of a deep-lying playmaker. But slower central midfielders usually struggle in that spot in MLS, so it’s a popular prediction that Schweinsteiger will move up the pitch and play as a No. 10.

Schweinsteiger figures to be the No. 10, w/De Leeuw (when he heals up) sliding outside. Alvarez odd man out. We’ll see if it works. #cf97 https://t.co/5Vq0JAMjLI

— Jeff Carlisle (@JeffreyCarlisle) March 21, 2017

Schweinsteiger can succeed in this spot. He’s reasonably creative and technically sound. He can probably adapt his game to play more through balls, especially at MLS level where the defenses aren’t quite as difficult to pass through as they are when you’re playing for Manchester United or Bayern Munich.

But if that’s what the Fire wanted… why not just sign a true No. 10? You know, someone who’s a natural at the position, and who has a demonstrated history of creative passing from an advanced position? Schweinsteiger’s intelligent and talented enough to adapt to any position, but signing him to use him in one he hasn’t played before is strange.

Nothing the Fire brass says makes any sense

A month before the 2016 season kicked off, the Fire decided to trade attacking midfielder Harry Shipp.

While he’s not exactly a huge box office draw, Shipp grew up in Illinois and joined the Fire’s academy as a teenager. Among the few hardcore fans they do have, he was a popular player. He was also the team’s best player in 2014 and 2015. He was only 24 years old at the time.

So why ditch Shipp? Head coach Veljko Paunović said he didn’t fit the system, presumably because he’s not particularly athletic.

“We can’t say at that point we could guarantee for Harry that he was going to have the role that everybody and he expected. We had to decide obviously and make the best possible decision … I think that the first reason, the technical reason, is why we decided to do that. For the style of play and for what we are looking for in that position is something that we decided was very important.”

One year later, Shipp’s old position is about to be taken up by a player who is slower than him and who runs much less. Apparently, fitting Paunović’s system doesn’t matter that much anymore, even though he’s still the coach.

Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports

The quotes that general manager Nelson Rodriguez offered up for the Tribune story are baffling too. “We’re adding someone who has won at every level, including the very highest levels, and has done so in a way that is consistent with our values,” Rodriguez told the paper. “We as a club will now be forced to hold ourselves to a higher standard, an accountability level. Previously, I think we could satisfy ourselves with what is known domestically. Now we need to rise to a standard that is set more internationally.”

This is complete nonsense. The Fire haven’t reached respectability on a domestic level since they signed Cuauhtémoc Blanco in 2007. They haven’t even reached respectability on a local level. Rodriguez is out here trying to sell us a house with spectacular interior decorating while asking us to ignore the cracked foundation.

Is Schweinsteiger a box office draw?

There are a lot of soccer fans in the Chicagoland area who have either never been to a Fire match or haven’t gone in a few years. A big-name superstar signing might attract them to a match. But then what?

Schweinsteiger isn’t flashy or an off-pitch celebrity, so he’s probably not going to hook any repeat customers unless the team around him is good enough to win games. MLS is not different from any other sport in that people show up to the games when their local team is competitive, but don’t bother when the team is bad for an extended period of time. The Fire made some good moves in the offseason, but the jury’s still out on whether they can compete for a playoff spot.

Plus, getting Toyota Park requires one heck of a trek for most potential Fire fans. It’s in the southwest suburbs, a 30 minute drive from downtown in no traffic, and about a 45 minute drive on a normal day in Chicago. For many north side residents, the drive is an hour-plus. The stadium is nowhere near a train station.

Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

Schweinsteiger might get a lot of people through the gates one time, but if the Fire aren’t any good? It’ll be hard to convince people who are currently casual fans to make that trip repeatedly.

Still, this could go very well!

OK, let’s say you’re a Fire or Schweinsteiger fan. You don’t want to hear any of the reasons why this deal is doomed. You don’t care about whether or not the Fire are making a sound business decision. That’s fine, I understand. Let me give you the good news.

Bastian Schweinsteiger is a very good player. He’s probably more intelligent than any player in MLS and there aren’t many players with better technique. His half-season away from playing regularly might have let him heal up. There’s no reason to believe that a healthy Schweinsteiger wouldn’t be very effective, even if he’s put into a position he’s never played before. And if he plays in front of Dax McCarty and Juninho, he can probably get away with not running very often.

But while Schweinsteiger is an excellent player who might deserve the benefit of the doubt, his employers do not. The Fire haven’t won a playoff game since 2009. The owner who signed off on the Schweinsteiger acquisition has also inked failed DPs Nery Castillo, Sherjill MacDonald, Federico Puppo, Juan Luis Anangonó and Kennedy Igboananike. They traded for DPs Gilberto, Freddie Ljungberg and Álvaro Fernández, who all struggled in a Fire shirt.

If someone else signed Schweinsteiger, it might be fair to assume that they had a plan for him and a backup plan if things didn’t work out well. There’s no reason to assume that about the Fire. This deal looks like a dumb one, and should be assumed to be dumb until exhaustively proven otherwise.

[junker-town]

Chicago Fire taking a huge risk by signing Bastian Schweinsteiger

Schweinsteiger will depart Manchester United and join up with the Fire immediately. It’s a flashy signing for Chicago, but probably not a smart one.

The Chicago Fire made some late breaking news on Monday night when the Chicago Tribune reported that the club had signed Bastian Schweinsteiger. An official announcement is expected this week, and Schweinsteiger will join the Fire immediately.

On its face, this sounds like a good thing. The Fire, one of the worst teams in MLS over the last decade, has picked up a World Cup and Champions League winner with serious name recognition. But when you dive into the details, his signing doesn’t look particularly wise.

He’s making a lot of money

Schweinsteiger will make $4.5 million this season, which is significant investment for the Fire. They’ve been unwilling to splash the cash around recently and ranked second-to-last in attendance in 2016. They’re not the LA Galaxy, New York City FC, Toronto FC, Seattle Sounders or Atlanta United. They’re not going to commit $20 million or more to salaries like those teams can.

For one of the league’s richer teams, signing Schweinsteiger could be a worthwhile risk. But Chicago has to spend their money more carefully, and if they’re going to sink that much into one player, they should be pretty sure he’s going to produce. They can’t be sure about anything with Schweinsteiger, for a couple of reasons.

Let’s get into them.

He hasn’t been able to stay healthy

This is the last goal Schweinsteiger scored for Germany. He looks pretty lively here, right?

Well, he’d been on the pitch for two minutes at this point. The issue with Schweinsteiger isn’t his quality — he’s unquestionably and unequivocally one of the best all-around midfielders in the history of the sport — but his ability to stay healthy. This current season is Schweinsteiger’s fourth in a row where he hasn’t been on the pitch much. He was exiled during Manchester United’s preseason because Jose Mourinho didn’t think he could be counted on all season.

The Fire are gambling that Schweinsteiger can actually start most of their games. There’s plenty of reason to believe he won’t be up to that.

He’s a strange fit

While Schweinsteiger started his career as a winger, he’s played his best soccer as a central midfielder. He was a box-to-box midfielder at his peak, then later in his career, after losing some of his physical gifts, more of a deep-lying playmaker. But slower central midfielders usually struggle in that spot in MLS, so it’s a popular prediction that Schweinsteiger will move up the pitch and play as a No. 10.

Schweinsteiger figures to be the No. 10, w/De Leeuw (when he heals up) sliding outside. Alvarez odd man out. We'll see if it works. #cf97 https://t.co/5Vq0JAMjLI

— Jeff Carlisle (@JeffreyCarlisle) March 21, 2017

Schweinsteiger can succeed in this spot. He’s reasonably creative and technically sound. He can probably adapt his game to play more through balls, especially at MLS level where the defenses aren’t quite as difficult to pass through as they are when you’re playing for Manchester United or Bayern Munich.

But if that’s what the Fire wanted... why not just sign a true No. 10? You know, someone who’s a natural at the position, and who has a demonstrated history of creative passing from an advanced position? Schweinsteiger’s intelligent and talented enough to adapt to any position, but signing him to use him in one he hasn’t played before is strange.

Nothing the Fire brass says makes any sense

A month before the 2016 season kicked off, the Fire decided to trade attacking midfielder Harry Shipp.

While he’s not exactly a huge box office draw, Shipp grew up in Illinois and joined the Fire’s academy as a teenager. Among the few hardcore fans they do have, he was a popular player. He was also the team’s best player in 2014 and 2015. He was only 24 years old at the time.

So why ditch Shipp? Head coach Veljko Paunović said he didn’t fit the system, presumably because he’s not particularly athletic.

“We can’t say at that point we could guarantee for Harry that he was going to have the role that everybody and he expected. We had to decide obviously and make the best possible decision ... I think that the first reason, the technical reason, is why we decided to do that. For the style of play and for what we are looking for in that position is something that we decided was very important.”

One year later, Shipp’s old position is about to be taken up by a player who is slower than him and who runs much less. Apparently, fitting Paunović’s system doesn’t matter that much anymore, even though he’s still the coach.

Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports

The quotes that general manager Nelson Rodriguez offered up for the Tribune story are baffling too. “We’re adding someone who has won at every level, including the very highest levels, and has done so in a way that is consistent with our values,” Rodriguez told the paper. “We as a club will now be forced to hold ourselves to a higher standard, an accountability level. Previously, I think we could satisfy ourselves with what is known domestically. Now we need to rise to a standard that is set more internationally.”

This is complete nonsense. The Fire haven’t reached respectability on a domestic level since they signed Cuauhtémoc Blanco in 2007. They haven’t even reached respectability on a local level. Rodriguez is out here trying to sell us a house with spectacular interior decorating while asking us to ignore the cracked foundation.

Is Schweinsteiger a box office draw?

There are a lot of soccer fans in the Chicagoland area who have either never been to a Fire match or haven’t gone in a few years. A big-name superstar signing might attract them to a match. But then what?

Schweinsteiger isn’t flashy or an off-pitch celebrity, so he’s probably not going to hook any repeat customers unless the team around him is good enough to win games. MLS is not different from any other sport in that people show up to the games when their local team is competitive, but don’t bother when the team is bad for an extended period of time. The Fire made some good moves in the offseason, but the jury’s still out on whether they can compete for a playoff spot.

Plus, getting Toyota Park requires one heck of a trek for most potential Fire fans. It’s in the southwest suburbs, a 30 minute drive from downtown in no traffic, and about a 45 minute drive on a normal day in Chicago. For many north side residents, the drive is an hour-plus. The stadium is nowhere near a train station.

Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

Schweinsteiger might get a lot of people through the gates one time, but if the Fire aren’t any good? It’ll be hard to convince people who are currently casual fans to make that trip repeatedly.

Still, this could go very well!

OK, let’s say you’re a Fire or Schweinsteiger fan. You don’t want to hear any of the reasons why this deal is doomed. You don’t care about whether or not the Fire are making a sound business decision. That’s fine, I understand. Let me give you the good news.

Bastian Schweinsteiger is a very good player. He’s probably more intelligent than any player in MLS and there aren’t many players with better technique. His half-season away from playing regularly might have let him heal up. There’s no reason to believe that a healthy Schweinsteiger wouldn’t be very effective, even if he’s put into a position he’s never played before. And if he plays in front of Dax McCarty and Juninho, he can probably get away with not running very often.

But while Schweinsteiger is an excellent player who might deserve the benefit of the doubt, his employers do not. The Fire haven’t won a playoff game since 2009. The owner who signed off on the Schweinsteiger acquisition has also inked failed DPs Nery Castillo, Sherjill MacDonald, Federico Puppo, Juan Luis Anangonó and Kennedy Igboananike. They traded for DPs Gilberto, Freddie Ljungberg and Álvaro Fernández, who all struggled in a Fire shirt.

If someone else signed Schweinsteiger, it might be fair to assume that they had a plan for him and a backup plan if things didn’t work out well. There’s no reason to assume that about the Fire. This deal looks like a dumb one, and should be assumed to be dumb until exhaustively proven otherwise.