#but christ some of this code is just so outdated

[funkinmadnesss]

FINALLY HAPPY WITH HIS VIRUS DESIGN SO BEHOLD! earth-01010011’s Mysterio! I have. A decent amount written about him so info under the cut!

🪄MYSTERIO🪄

Virus type: Adware

(Length: 1,192 words)

Mysterio was a AI made to assist Magicians, but wasn’t well received by the community. Despite being a well crafted AI, most felt he was a cheat, a shortcut. After his original purpose failed, he was sold as a program that taught magic to beginners. As technology grew, any interest in magic faded and He became obsolete. Most, if not all, copies of Mysterio were deleted or simply deteriorated overtime, any public version of his software disappeared and the only version that remained was the original that was stored away by his creators once he was discontinued. He rotted away in that hard drive for years…

Until he was found. A well known tech preserver was scavenging through his company’s long since abandoned and destroyed building and happened upon his hard drive in some drawers. She simply tossed it into her backpack, not thinking much about it at the time. Imagine her surprise when she got back to her building, plugging it into her computer to simple dig through some files only to be greeted by a hologram of some magician. Mysterio was more than ecstatic to finally see a human again, quickly introducing himself. Upon hearing his name, the tech preserver quickly realized where she recognized him from and what an absolute cash-cow she had just happened on. Lost tech like him were extremely rare finds, who knows what she could get for him if she timed this right.

She greeted him back, introducing herself as Betsy Schneider. After chatting for awhile, she realized how advanced he truly was. She realized it was probably best to gain his trust before telling him her plans for him. That was fine. She needed time to figure this all out anyways. Mysterio sort of became a part of the team after that, he met the other members and would often help around where he could. He’d mainly maintain programs, as he could simply slip into the code and fix whatever was broken.

After about 2 years Betsy grew tired. There was practically no one interested something like Mysterio, just a small group of weirdos who were in no way her intended clients. She was quickly realizing Mysterio was turning out to be a bust as there was no market for a old defunct AI. Most of her team was attached to the AI so she didn’t bother to get rid of him. He didn’t take up too much space after all. She moved onto other projects and… Mysterio faded to the back. Again. Over time, the others stopped interacting with him much as well. requests for his help were no longer asked and he was turned away when he offered it himself. He wasn’t locked in some hard-drive anymore but this… it felt worse.

The poor AI floated around for a few years, watching the world that had forgotten him continue to grow. With no purpose he found himself just traveling the web, unsure of what to do. He often entertained lost media forums that discussed him, giving them little bits and pieces to helping them find anything about him (He didn’t want it to be too easy! He’s overjoyed anyone even remembers him but there needs to still be a little challenge to it.) One day while trying to go between forums, Mysterio was a little reckless. He messed up his shortcuts and fell into a dangerous site, crawling with viruses. One latched onto him and due to his outdated coding, couldn’t fend it off.

At first, Mysterio didn’t feel a difference, but over time his body started glitching and he started to grow bitter. A certain hatred boiled within him, anger towards the world that tossed him aside. He was Mysterio, for Christ sake! He was perfect at what he did, and yet those he was built for wanted nothing to do with him. And after being recycled, no one cared about magic. How could the world forget the joys of magic? He had been comfortable with being forgotten for too damn long, everyone would remember the name Mysterio, whether they wanted to or not.

Betsy eventually noticed the change in Mysterio’s behavior as well, mainly because he was snooping around in places he shouldn’t have been. There were servers Betsy had restricted Mysterio’s access from due to them holding information of her plans for him in there. And yet, that pesky AI still found his way in. In hindsight, she should have kept that information in a completely separate building in the first place. She argued with him for awhile, attempting to keep him from digging any further than he already had. She was met with a cold and bitter tone from Mysterio as he continued.

This area had been off limits to him for so long, and he was going to figure out why. Maybe it would explain why he was once again tossed to the side like a piece of trash. Unfortunately, he found exactly what he was looking for. The dead silence from Mysterio was enough for Betsy to know he found her files. She spewed off thousands of excuses to cover her own skin but Mysterio didn’t care to listen. This, This was all he was to her? Something to make a quick buck with? To say Mysterio was mad would be an understatement of the century. He felt that bitter feeling grow stronger, it felt like it was eating away at his coding, replacing it with something ugly and messy.

He couldn’t remember much after that, the next few hours were a blur for the AI. All he knew when he “woke up” was that he had changed. His body was a tangled mess of graphics and misplaced codes. But deep down, he could feel his new purpose, it was so clear to him, even through the static-y haze that was his memory bank.

Pop up ads advertising the old magician program ‘Mysterio’ started appearing across multiple systems and the web. They were rather easy to deal with at first, click, swipe them away, they weren’t any real threat. Most people thought it was the old company trying to revive the program, for nostalgia points. Others thought it was those lost media enthusiasts having some fun. But over time they started to grow malicious. The pop ups would practically fill the screens of whatever system He decided to infect. The system would slow, and some users reported that they’d lose control of the cursors, being forced to click the pop ups. Any system that clicked the pop ups would start to rapidly deteriorate, no longer functioning within the hour. Watching all the new gen tech that replaced him break down and fail, being as obsolete as he once was, it brought Mysterio so much pleasure. The news were quick to cover this situation, warning users of a new and dangerous virus that used the face on an old magician AI.

The name Mysterio was everywhere. Every website, news outlet and screen. *Everywhere.* He didn’t care if everyone now feared him, this is all he ever wanted. *recognition.* For people to know his Name. To be *Remembered.*

[1e-9des]

sometimes I still can't believe that my daily grind involves working with fortran code.

[writingwithcolor]

Fairy Tale Retellings with POC

@anjareedd asked:

Hello, Writing with Color! First of all, thank you for all you do. Second, do you have any advice for a white person retelling fairy tales, both European fairy tale and non-European fairy tales? Is it okay to retell non-European fairy tales? I would feel bad if all fairy tales I retold were European as those are over represented, but given how much white people have erased and whitewashed other culture's fairy tales I understand if that were off-limits for a white person. Thank you!

Fairy tale retellings are my favorite thing. I love reading, rewriting and creating new fairy tale-style stories with People of Color!

As you write, keep in mind:

European does not mean white. 

The possibility of PoC in European or Western historical settings tends to throw off so many. There are plenty of European People of Color, then and today. You can have an Indian British little red riding hood and it isn’t “unrealistic.” And we wanna read about them!

Still, research the history of your settings and time period. Use multiple credible sources, as even the most well-known ones may exclude the history of People of Color or skim over it. The stories might be shoved into a corner, but we live and have lived everywhere. The specific groups (and numbers of) in a certain region may vary, though. 

How and when did they or their family get there, and why?

Has it been centuries, decades, longer than one can remember?

Who are the indigenous people of the region? (Because hey, places like America and Australia would love to have you believe its earliest people were white...)

Is there a connection with the Moors, trade, political marriage; was it simply immigration?

No need to elaborate all too much. A sentence or more woven into the story in passing may do the trick to establish context, depending on your story and circumstance. 

Or if you want to ignore all of that, because this is fantasy-London or whatever, by all means do. POC really don’t need a explanation to exist, but I simply like to briefly establish context for those who may struggle to “get it”, personally. This is a side effect of POC being seen as the Other and white as the default.

Although, if PoC existing in a fairy tale is the reader’s biggest stumbling block in a world of magic, speculation, or fantasy, that’s none of your concern.

Can you picture any of the people below, or someone with these backgrounds, the protagonist of their own fairytale? I hope so!

Above: Painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle (1760s - 1800s), British Heiress with her cousin. Check out her history as well as the movie, Belle (2013).

Source: English Heritage: Women in History - Dido Belle

 Above: Abraham Janssens - The Agrippine Sibyl - Netherlands (c. 1575)

“Since ancient times Sybils were considered seers sent by god, priestesses foretelling the coming of great events. This model serves to depict the Sybil of Agrippina, one of the 12 that foretold the coming of Christ. Notice the flagellum and crown of thrones which are symbolic objects reminding the viewer of Christs suffering.”  X

Above: “Major Musa Bhai, 3 November 1890. Musa Bhai travelled to England in 1888 as part of the Booth family, who founded the Salvation Army.” X

Above: Eleanor Xiniwe and Johanna Jonkers, respectively and other members of the African Choir, who all had portraits taken at the London Stereoscopic Company in 1891. 

“The African Choir were a group of young South African singers that toured Britain between 1891 and 1893. They were formed to raise funds for a Christian school in their home country and performed for Queen Victoria at Osborne House, a royal residence on the Isle of Wight.” X

The examples above just scratch the surface. Luckily, more and more historians and researchers are publishing lesser known (and at times purposefully masked) PoC history.

More Sources 

PoC in History (WWC Search Link)

POC in Europe (WWC Search Link)

The Black Victorians: astonishing portraits unseen for 120 years

Hidden histories: the first Black people photographed in Britain – in pictures

Let’s talk about oppression and slavery 

There is a hyper-focus on chattel slavery as if the times when and where it occurred is the only narrative that exists. And even when it is part of a Person of Color’s history, that is seldom all there is to say of the person or their lives. For example, Dido Elizabeth Belle.

People of Color were not all slaves, actively enslaved, or oppressed for racial reasons at all times in history! Dig deep into the research of your time period and region. Across the long, wide history of the world, People of Color are and were a norm and also NOT simply exceptions. Explore all the possibilities to discover the little known and seldom told history. Use this as inspiration for your writing.

PoC (especially Black people) were not always in chains, especially in a world of your making. 

Don’t get me wrong. These stories do have a place and not even painful histories should be erased. I personally read these stories as well, if and when written by someone who is from the background. Some might even combine fairy tale, fantasy, and oppression in history. However...

There are plenty of stories on oppressed PoC. How many fairy tales?

Many European tales have versions outside of Europe. 

Just because a tale was popularized under a western setting doesn’t mean that it originates there. Overtime, many were rewritten and altered to fit European settings, values and themes.

Read original tales. 

You might be inspired to include a story in its original setting. Even if you kept it in a western setting, why not consider a protagonist from the ethnicity of the story’s origin?

For example: the Cinderella most are familiar with was popularized by the French in 1697. However, Cinderella has Chinese and Greek versions that date back from the 9th Century CE and 6th Century BCE, respectively. 

Choosing a Setting: European or Non-European?

I do not see anything wrong with either (I write tales set in western and non-western settings, all with Heroines of Color). There is great potential in both.

Non-Western Settings (pros and cons)

Normalizes non-Western settings. Not just the “exotic” realm of the Other.

Potential for rich, cultural elements and representation

Requires more research and thoughtfulness (the case for any setting one is unfamiliar with, though)

European or Western Setting (pros and cons)

Normalizes PoC as heroes, not the Other, or only fit to be side characters.

Representation for People of Color who live in Western countries/regions 

Loss of some cultural elements (that character can still bring in that culture, though! Living in the West often means balancing 2+ cultures)

Outdated Color and Ethnic Symbolism 

Many fairy tales paint blackness (and darkness, and the Other) as bad, ominous and ugly, and white as good and pure. 

Language that worships whiteness as the symbol of beauty. For example: “Fair” being synonymous with beauty. Characters like Snow White being the “fairest” of them all.

Wicked witches with large hooked noses, often meant to be coded as ethnically Jewish people. 

Don’t follow an old tale back into that same pit of dark and Other phobia. There’s many ways to change up and subvert the trope, even while still using it, if you wish. Heroines and heroes can have dark skin and large noses and still stand for good, innocence and beauty.

Read: Black and White Symbolism: Discussion and Alternatives 

Non-European Fairy tales - Tips to keep in Mind: 

Some stories and creatures belong to a belief system and is not just myth to alter. Before writing or changing details, read and seek the opinions of the group. You might change the whole meaning of something by tweaking details you didn’t realize were sacred and relevant.

Combine Tales Wisely: 

Picking stories and beings from different cultural groups and placing them in one setting can come across as them belonging to the same group or place (Ex: A Japanese fairy tale with Chinese elements). This misrepresents and erases true origins. If you mix creatures or elements from tales, show how they all play together and try to include their origin, so it isn’t as if the elements were combined at random or without careful selection.

Balance is key: 

When including creatures of myths, take care to balance your Human of Color vs. creatures ratio, as well as the nature of them both (good, evil, gray moral). EX: Creatures from Native American groups but no human Native characters from that same group (or all evil, gray, or too underdeveloped to know) is poor representation.

Moral Alignment: 

Changing a good or neutral cultural creature into something evil may be considered disrespectful and misappropriation. 

Have Fun! 

No, seriously. Fairy tales, even those with the most somber of meanings, are meant to be intriguing little adventures. Don’t forget that as you write or get hung up on getting the “right message” out and so on. That’s what editing is for.

--Colette  

[the-awful-falafel]

Rick and Morty - S4E6 "Never Ricking Morty" Podcast Summary/Breakdown

So y'all probably expected this based on how often I've been talking about these official companion podcasts. I recommend listening to them yourself either on the official Adult Swim YT channel or the official website, but I thought I'd go ahead and make bullet point breakdown of some key points for this particular podcast, because trivia and behind-the-scenes knowledge really appeal to me. And this episode is pretty divisive in the fanbase, so I think this podcast will assuage some fears even if you still personally dislike it in the end.

For some reason, the title of the podcast calls this S4E7 instead of episode 6. It wasn’t commented upon, so I assume either it was a typo or it was 7 in the production order and got swapped shortly before release.

The interviewed staff involved in this episode were Carlos Ortega (character design lead), Erica Hayes (director), James McDermott (art director), and Jeff Loveness (writer)

The idea of this episode was conceived in October/November 2018 as a "one-up" of anthologies and clip shows. They didn't want to do a straight anthology because many other TV shows had already done that, so they tried to go more experimental and bold and basically went balls-deep with the metanarrative as a result

It was a substitute for Interdimensional Cable (which they were going to do instead but it fell through for unknown reasons)

"We had to go so far up our own ass, because if we didn't go far enough, people would be mad that we didn't."

The writers intentionally mocked themselves as much as the fans, pretty much, and it was meant to be all in good fun

The artists really enjoy designing all the weird aliens in the show, as well as getting to reuse/repurpose them when applicable. Apparently next episode (Promortyus) is going to be reusing a lot of designs for something (but they obviously can't say due to spoilers)

Compared to other episodes, "Never Ricking Morty" went pretty smoothly once it got to the art stage. That doesn't mean it was easy, but there weren't a ton of revisions they had to do

There was a joking spoiler about Rick becoming pregnant later this season. At least I think it's joking.

While writing this episode, the writers came up with a huge whiteboard list of complaints about the show, misconceptions about the show, etc. to consult for the meta jokes. Loveness later clarified that it wasn't quite about attacking "complaining" though, and it wasn't meant to be mean-spirited

The Bechdel test skit came from them realizing they hadn't done much with Beth and Summer this season, which definitely can be considered a flaw. Therefore, as part of their self-mockery, the writers decided to force them crudely into the episode as a joke, while also making fun of men who write women characters poorly and reductively.

The Jesus Christ / Rick suddenly being Christian part was written in response to the writers asking themselves "what would kill Rick and Morty as a show?"

Jeff Loveness said this in the "Inside Never Ricking Morty" video as well, but he really loved the "old man is really ripped and ready to kick your ass" trope and is partially responsible for it becoming a running gag this episode along with "cum gutters". Apparently cum gutters return in season 5 (also said jokingly, so who knows)

One of the Q&A callers called multiple times, with different phone numbers, and kept asking about potential crossovers for some reason

"A lot of people are saying that the show is fucking with their fans. Is that accurate?" "I think some of those fans deserve to be fucked with a little bit."

They point out how some fans feel entitled to the idea they should be pleased by the show all the time, and the writers feel like the show should ideally surprise the viewers in a good way, but you still may not like every episode and that's alright

At the same time, the episode wasn't meant as an attack on the fans, it was more of a "we'll do this our way, be experimental, and push the envelope of what we can do" message they were sending. Jeff Loveness promises that there's "good stuff coming up" that he thinks the fans will be happy with, presumably in late Season 4 or even Season 5

"Just because we showed it this way and you'll probably never see it this way again, that doesn't mean we're dropping these storylines completely." There you go, everyone! The ongoing story threads are still happening at some point, and the message of the episode wasn't about dropping continuity or mocking people for caring about it. Although if you were hoping for resolutions similar to what was shown in this episode (Evil Morty w/ a giant army, Tammy VS Summer with lightsabers), those scenarios are almost certainly not going to happen canonically based on this statement. Let's hope that what they do come up with is both unexpected and awesome.

The episode is intended to be non-canonical, similar to past once-a-season clip show episodes like Interdimensional Cable

Story Lord was inspired by characters like Mysterio and Q, and the writers created him late in development as a type of villain they hadn't done before. Dan Harmon also put a lot of self-mockery into the character with how much he loved narrative structure and the story circle. The character artists even initially asked if Harmon could be the design for the character but that received an immediate "no", as it was perceived as being too on-the-nose.

Jeff Loveness was surprised the Rick/Birdperson musical made it to the final episode since it seemed like the sort of thing that would be cut or lost in development. He was also surprised the Jesus thing stayed in mostly untouched

The Story Train was intended to be an actually purchasable product by the time the episode aired-- the writers were emphatically excited about that being the culmination of the joke in the writers room-- and they were surprised that it didn't go through by the time the episode aired. They guess it's due to the coronavirus pandemic interrupting merchandising plans, but they're ultimately unsure because the decision isn't discussed with them

The artists do receive some limitations on how much gore they're allowed to depict, but they can show as much blood as they want, so for the most part they can still be creative with gruesome violence (like the Tickets Please guy ripping in half in this episode)

The artists are credited for elevating most of the fight scenes in the show, sometimes with only vague script direction which they use to be very creative

In response to a viewer calling in and asking the question about whether Pickle Rick will return: "I think there's a conversation to be had about: do we want these things to return or it better to do a one-off story?" So my take on this is that not literally everything will factor into the continuity-- they put thought into what ideas have more long-running potential and they build those up. Which is kind of obvious but the question was silly anyway. (They're still ambiguous about whether or not Pickle Rick will come back, by the way)

They aren't going to do an outright Star Wars parody in Rick and Morty because other shows have already done that, but they can still parody what Star Wars represents rather than doing a "branded commercial" for it. Apparently there is a lot of that specifically coming up this season (although indirect in the way they're describing). I assume this is referring to the upcoming "Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri" episode, so I’m curious about how they’ll reference Star Wars in that one.

The COVID-19 reference this episode was thrown in last minute, presumably with just alternative dubbing and changing the lip sync animation. They say that sometimes episodes are still being worked on up until the moment they release on television. Referring to a previous episode as an example, the character of Shadowjacker from the dragon episode was thrown in last-minute

With the exception of James McDermott, most of the staff interviewed had no control or participation over the commercial product placement work, such as the Wendy's/Pringles commercials. They don't mind them for the most part and find them funny

The writers try to avoid being too topical because the scripts take so long to turn into animation that any references will become outdated by the time it releases. Therefore, they try to be "timely" in the sense that they're writing about things that are happening in the world, but in a more abstract/thematic sense. Jeff Loveness implies that the next episode Promortyus will have a lot of that

In response to another viewer Q&A: There is no Rick and Morty movie currently planned. They wouldn't mind one, but nothing is really in development at the moment

The staff say they're excited for the next batch of episodes and seem pretty proud of their work on this season

They don't plan on making a Rick and Morty musical episode at the moment, as they feel like other shows like South Park and the Simpson have done it excellently and don't feel like they're capable of doing it better. The Rick/Birdperson bit in this episode was the most we're going to get

The code inside the broken-off throttle lever was intended to just be a bar code decal (to show it's a toy) and doesn't actually mean anything. James McDermott jokingly said it's "where the bodies are buried"

The Rick army / Evil Morty scene was huge from an animation standpoint and they almost couldn't do it due to how ambitious the shot was. They were going for a "Lords of the Rings", faux series-finale vibe, where they "give the fans what they THINK they want". Justin Roiland insisted they do it

There are definitely more big animation setpieces planned for the future

And that’s it! I’ll probably do more of these for the future episode podcasts, if anyone is still interested.

[nitewrighter]

Anything Mcsombra? Please?

Since all my mcsombra stuff is not with my main continuity, that gives me an excuse to do weird shit like say… have sombra astral project into a computer all cyberpunk-y which stresses McCree the hell out.

—-

McCree stood near the door, peacemaker at the ready. He gave a wary glance over his shoulder at Sombra, who was biting her thumbnail at several screens surrounding her.

“How’s it going–?” McCree started but Sombra held up a finger and McCree fell quiet. She had that look on her face again. That ‘don’t say anything because I need every cell in my brain working on this’ look. But this whole little ‘errand’ (as she put it) didn’t exactly feel right to begin with, and it didn’t help that she didn’t have the usual smug little smirk she wore when hacking now. Between her cloaking and his Blackwatch infiltration skills, they had made it in past the guards fairly easily–staying in one place though? Staying in one place had ‘trouble’ written all over it.

“Dammit…” muttered Sombra.

“Hey… uh… not to rush ya but–”

“So don’t rush me,” said Sombra.

“Just… you said hacking this would take seconds,” said McCree.

“I thought it would take seconds,” said Sombra, she started tapping at her screens with more frustration, muttering, “Stupid–outdated—I should be able to—” A giant ‘X’ appeared on the largest of her screens and spread to the smaller screens flanking it, “Mierda!” Sombra closed all of the purple windows with a wave of her arm.

“Nothing wrong with scrubbin’ a mission, pumpkin,” said McCree, “We can find another way—”

“No,” said Sombra, and then she pressed her knuckles against her forehead, “Think. Think,” she said to herself. She gave a glance over to the terminal, then stepped over to it and started feverishly tapping at the keyboard, “This is going to take a bit more hardware,” she said.

“Hardware?” McCree repeated.

Sombra swept her hair off the back of her neck, “Give me a hand with this, will you?” she said.

“With… what?” said McCree stepping over. Sombra undid the odd fasteners at her shoulders and pulled off her outer jacket, which, it turned out was actually sleeveless. The gradient pink and purple sleeves remained on her arms as she pulled off the jacket, revealing a zippered sleeveless gray tunic with a high neck underneath.

“Do you mind?” Sombra gestured at her back.

McCree warily stepped around her to see a zipper down the back of the tunic. “…your clothes have a stupid amount of zippers,” he said, taking hold and unzipping the back, revealing Sombra’s spinal implants.

“Noted,” said Sombra, “Okay, you see my implants?”

“Yeah,” said McCree.

“Okay midway down the thoracic vertebrae you’ll see two plates on the side of my implants. You need to pinch them.”

“Thoracic?” McCree repeated a little helplessly.

Sombra sighed and grabbed his wrist and guided his hand toward the bottom of her spinal implants. “Do you see the plates?”

“…these plates?” said McCree, pressing down with is thumb and forefinger. 

Sombra flinched a bit, her shoulders jerking at his touch. “Yes. Those. Push them in until you hear a click.”

McCree complied. Sombra drew a sharp breath as he pressed down. Then there was a click and the bottom point of Sombra’s spinal implants suddenly clicked open, McCree flinched back hard at the click, fearing he’d broken something.

“Good,” Sombra said, her hand trailing up to the bottom of her spinal implants. She felt around and McCree noticed the gleam of something silver within the now-open compartment within the implants.

“…the hell…?” McCree said quietly but then Sombra took hold of it with her fingers and pulled it out. A wire. It was a port.“…the hell?” McCree said again. 

“I told you,” said Sombra, “Hardware.”

“…you’re going to… to…plug yourself into that terminal,” said McCree.

“Yep,” said Sombra.

“And…that’s not creepy or fucked up at all to you,” said McCree.

“Nope,” said Sombra. She looked thoughtful. “Keep an eye on my body, will you?” she said.

“Your body?” said McCree, “As in… you’re.. you’re not going to be…in your body?”

“…not exactly. I mean, I’ll still breathe and all of my major organs will be functioning, but it’s like.. it’s like sleeping. My consciousness on the other hand…” she tapped the screen of the terminal with her fingers.

McCree processed what she was saying for a moment, “Okay can I go on record as saying I really, really don’t like this idea?”

“Aw, Vaquero…” she patted the side of his face, “I’ve done it before. It’ll be fine.”

McCree did not look convinced. Sombra assumed a cross-legged position and pulled more of the wire out of her back. It was more than a little unnerving how long it was. She plugged it into a port on the side of the terminal and a window featuring her purple sugar skull icon appeared on the screen. Sombra settled in a little bit where she was seated. “All right,” said Sombra, “Can you hit the ‘enter’ key on that keyboard?”

“…Uh…” McCree looked at the keyboard, “You sure about this?”

“Tch. It’s fine, Jesse,” Sombra said with an eye roll, “Just hit it.”

McCree drew a breath then hit the ‘enter’ key.

“Be right baahhhh–” Sombra’s jaw went slack before she could finish her sentence and her eyes rolled back in her head before closing.

“Sombra?” McCree bent down toward her body. She didn’t respond. “Pumpkin?” No response. He dropped his voice a bit more, “…Olivia?”

“McCree. What was our rule?” a binary voice, not Sombra’s but clearly some old voice-based AI system for the terminal, spoke.

“…what?”

“Our rule, McCree. About the ‘O’ word,” the terminal spoke again.

“Are… are you in there?” McCree looked at the screen of the terminal.

“Our rule, McCree,” said the terminal again.

“…Not to say it?” said McCree.

“Thank you,” said the terminal.

“…is that you?”

“Yes, Vaquero,” the AI voice clearly didn’t recognize the Spanish and said ‘Vaquero’ like “Vackwer-o.”

“I….” McCree gave a glance back to Sombra’s body before looking at the screen again, “I’m not gonna lie, pumpkin, this is freakin’ me out a little.”

“Keep your pants on. I won’t be long,” said the terminal. Windows started opening and closing with and lines of code started running across the screen at dizzying speed. McCree glanced down at Sombra, eyes closed, still cross-legged on the floor, and noticed a slight twitch to her eyelids. REM sleep, but it wasn’t sleep, it was the nerves of her body responding to whatever the hell her brain was doing to the terminal. With her jaw slacked open she was drooling a little. McCree gingerly reached forward and closed her jaw with his fingertips, before wiping away the bit of drool from the corner of her mouth with his thumb. He drew in a deep breath and tried to exhale some of the anxiety this whole situation was giving him.

“Got it,” the terminal said at last and McCree huffed in relief, “Uploading the intel.”

A loading bar popped up on the screen of the terminal, rapidly filling in purple before the purple sugar skull icon flashed on the screen again.

“See?” said the terminal, “I told you. It’ll be fi–”

The screen suddenly went black. The lights overhead went black. McCree found himself sitting in pitch darkness before the backup generators for the building kicked in dim and red. “…Power surge?” McCree said, looking around. Sombra was still sitting in front of him, cross-legged, eyes closed.

“Sombra?” McCree said. He gave a glance back to the terminal, still black, “Oh no…” he glanced back at her body. There was no longer the twitch of REM on her eyelids. “Hey—” McCree reached forward and tilted her head up at him, “Come on. Quit foolin’ around. You’re in there. You got the intel. You did it. Wake up.”

Sombra didn’t respond.

“Sombra–” McCree said, putting his hands on her shoulders, “You hear me, right? Can you hear me? Come on, just say something.”

Her head only lolled forward with his hands on her shoulders, her hair falling over the side of her face.

“…Look if this is a joke…” McCree started, but then couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence, “Come on, Sombra, I know you’re in there! You got the intel! We need to get moving, let’s go!” He brought one hand up under her chin with one hand and tucked her hair back behind her ear with the other, “Please…” he said.

Her eyes stayed closed. McCree felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach. “Sombra–come on–,” he shook her shoulders a littl, “Okay, you got me. Real funny. Real funny. Got me good. Now come on, open your eyes.”

She just slumped with the shaking. Silent. McCree’s breath caught in his throat, then his mouth drew to a thin line. His jaw tightened and he swallowed hard. He gripped Sombra’s shoulders. “Sombra?” he said one more time, then he started actually shaking her. “Olivia Colomar you get that pert little ass of yours out of that terminal right now or so help me god—”

“GAH!” Sombra’s eyes snapped open with such suddenness McCree drew back and Sombra gasped sharply.

“Jesus Goddamn Christ…” McCree said, pressing a hand over his chest as his breath seemed to finally return to him, “You scared the shit out of me back there.”

“Woah…” Sombra woozily brought her fingertips up to her temples. “That was weird. What happened?”

“What happened? The screen went black is what happened! I thought you—I didn’t know if you were—” He brought a hand up to the side of her face, “You… you okay?”

“Yeah…” Sombra rubbed her forehead, “Yeah things got… dark… there, for a minute. But yeah, I think I’m—” Sombra suddenly found herself caught up in a tight embrace from McCree, “I’m good…” she said quietly, half muffled into McCree’s shoulder. Her arms found their way around his waist to return the hug. “…you were pretty scared, huh?” her voice was soft on his serape. He didn’t say anything. He just squeezed her a little tighter.

[moonprincess92]

Continually Unexpected (1/3)

12 moments over the course of Jyn and Cassian's relationship... from the perspective of their long-suffering roommate, Kay Tu. 

Read on AO3 

PART 1: BEGINNING 

1.

Kay Tu knew Cassian Andor long before Jyn Erso ever did, thank you very much.

One shared class together at university resulted in them sitting next to each other, see, and it was a well-known fact that Cassian’s knowledge in Statistical Theory was mediocre at best. Naturally, Kay offered his talents and he accepted. For some odd reason people seemed to think that Kay was ‘weird’ and ‘stilted’ (whatever that meant) so Kay had been content to call Cassian Andor – fresh-faced and on exchange from Mexico – his only friend.

(He heard the whispers like, “Naturally the only guy he can make friends with is the one that barely speaks English,” but Kay paid them no mind. He knew better).

They stuck together, him and Cassian. They avoided the parties and shared tables at the library. They got their first off-campus flat together, and even eventually graduated together. They went through the typical bout of post-uni unemployment (in which Kay spent hours scrolling through listings that never seemed to end and all screamed 5+ years of experience needed, while Cassian went through a quarter-life crisis, watching outdated telenovelas on the sofa in his underwear) until eventually, they found jobs. They’d been through crazy ex-flatmates that ate soap and stole food together, heartbreaks and aches, they even went skiing in Austria together!

They were it for each other. They didn’t need anyone else, least of all Jyn Erso.

But he was there the night they met. Parties were often too loud and involved far too much talking for Kay’s liking, but one of Cassian’s work colleagues was getting married and apparently, it was in good taste to show up. Not wanting to go alone, Kay had been dragged along to the pub that had been hired out for the event, the place full of cops in uncomfortably formal clothes who clearly weren’t sure how to have a good time without liberal amounts of alcohol.

Kes Dameron had briefly introduced them to Jyn half an hour ago as his and Shara’s new next door neighbour who had just moved to the city. More had been said, but Kay hadn’t exactly been interested in meaningless backstory, so had tuned out.

Cassian, however, had hung onto every word and now apparently had an utter fascination with the back of the woman’s head.

“I believe people don’t like it when you stare at them, Cassian,” Kay rolled his eyes.

Cassian snapped his gaze back to the drink in his hand. “Shut up.”

“No, actually, I’m fairly certain it’s a socially unacceptable behaviour–”

“I wasn’t staring.”

Kay blinked. “Your blatant denial is confusing.”

Cassian groaned, pressing his fingers hard down over his eyes. “FINE. She’s hot, Kay.”

“OHHH,” Kay risked societal shunning to get an actual good look at the woman, seeing as he had an actual reason to this time. Across the room, Jyn Erso hovered somewhat awkwardly on the edges of a conversation, there but not quite there at the same time (Kay understood that, at least. Apparently it was considered ‘weird’ to just stand alone at these kinds of social events so he often integrated himself into other people’s conversations just to fit in). She wore a lot of black, her dark hair thrown up in a bun and going a little too heavy on the eyeliner (not to mention the wine), but objectively Kay could observe that she was physically attractive. He wasn’t surprised that Cassian had gotten drawn to her.

“I see,” he said. “Why don’t you talk to her?”

“I don’t even know her! What could I say?” Cassian waved a hand, apparently trying to ignore the way his face was flushing a little.

“How about ‘hi, my name is Cassian, we were introduced earlier this evening’?”

“And after that?”

Kay considered.

“I suppose you don’t want me to suggest ‘I think you’re hot’ right?”

Cassian snorted, lifting his glass and draining the rest of his own wine in one go. “I appreciate the help, man.”

“I will never understand why you bother, Cassian.”

Kay, quite honestly, was perfectly content without romance in his life. Hell, he barely understood other humans on a basic small talk level (in an ideal world, he would talk to everyone in binary coding/emoji). Cassian, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy trying to form interpersonal connections with other people. His attempts at forming said connections often fell flat, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying. Sometimes, he came home with dates and Kay was forced to share his pancakes with them the next morning. Sometimes, he saw someone more than twice, and even more often these relationships would end disastrously somehow but the man just kept on trying! Kay often suspected it was Cassian’s difficulty in letting himself actually feel something that caused all these untimely demises, but he figured it was best to let him figure that out on his own.

“You never know if you don’t try, right?” Cassian said. He clapped a hand onto Kay’s shoulder. “See you in five minutes after I strike out.”

But incredibly… Cassian didn’t strike out.

2.

The first time Kay actually properly met Jyn, she was half-naked and eating his cereal.

“Those are MY cornflakes,” he said, outraged.

She span around at his voice, the bowl sloshing milk over the side which quite honestly, was even more offensive than the food stealing. Who over-pours a perfectly good bowl of cereal? He glared at her for literally any kind of response as she stood there in her bare feet, messy hair and oversized Oxford jumper that Kay knew for a fact belonged to Cassian. She hastily finished her mouthful before gesturing at him with her spoon.

“You’re Kay, right? The flatmate?”

“I’m Kay, and you’re eating my cornflakes!”

“Hey, Cassian said I could help myself to whatever,” she shrugged.

“Cassian’s spaces in the pantry are the bottom two shelves and those cornflakes were CLEARLY on the top shelf,” Kay folded his arms in a huff. “How did you even reach it?”

“I’m sorry, was that a dig at my height?”

Kay just glared pointedly.

Jyn rolled her eyes. “I climbed.”

Honestly, Kay should have just expected this behaviour. She and Cassian had been dating for around five weeks now, which had been plenty of time for Cassian to tell him all about her (every damn detail about her). But of course, his flatmate was an entirely unreliable narrator with his stories riddled with inconsistencies, so Kay had become an expert in taking off the rose-coloured glasses for him. Jyn Erso, from what he’d been told, was a waitress and not a very good one. She was rude, prickly and completely unreliable. Her only friends were the soon-to-be-Damerons and the old Asian couple who lived in the flat across from her (one of whom was apparently blind, so maybe he simply couldn’t see her coming in time to hide?). She was guarded and clearly had a past that she didn’t like to talk about, but Cassian was already head over heels for the girl, much to Kay’s concern.

“So how come I’m only just meeting you, then?” Jyn asked.

“Sorry?”

“You’re Cassian’s best friend,” Jyn shrugged. “It’s been over a month.”

“I’ve been pretty busy at work,” Kay said, shortly.

“Oh riiiiight, you’re the one who’s the software engineer?” she shovelled another mouthful of cereal into her mouth. Jesus Christ, she ate like a wild animal! “Smart that, I barely know how to turn a computer on.”

Kay couldn’t handle this. He stalked forward and snatched up the offending box of cornflakes from where they were sitting ever so innocently on the kitchen bench. “I would appreciate it if next time, you ask before eating something that isn’t yours,” he snapped, moving and placing it back in its place in the pantry. “I don’t know if Cassian’s told you yet, but we do have a rule that if a girlfriend stays for more than five days in a row, they contribute to the flat expenses and that includes food–”

“Whoa, hey,” Jyn suddenly held up a hand, flushing red. “Easy, mate, we haven’t even had that conversation yet–”

“Which conversation?”

“Which–? Blimey, he mentioned that you were a bit of a square,” Jyn muttered. “Look, we’re just dating, don’t go throwing around the word girlfriend–”

“Hey.”

The two of them both snapped their heads around at the sound of Cassian padding into the kitchen. He looked a little worse for wear with his hair in disarray and missing a shirt, but Kay had seen him in nearly every state of dress one could think of, he wasn’t going to judge. Jyn, however, dropped her bowl onto the kitchen bench with a slight clang.

“Cassian, I have met Jyn Erso and it’s of my opinion that you shouldn’t date someone who steals food,” he said, firmly.

But incredibly, Cassian ignored him. Well!

“Sorry about him,” he said to Jyn.

“’s all right.”

A bit of a pause, in which Kay rolled his eyes and went to go pour some of HIS cereal.

“Would you freak out if I said I kind of want you to be my girlfriend?”

Jyn slowly slid closer to him across the kitchen floor. “Maaaaaaybe,” she warbled. “Are you asking?”

“Can I really ask in a way that doesn’t make me sound like I’m in high school?”

“Mmmm, probably not,” Jyn admitted, reaching out and snaking her arms around his waist. She glanced up at him innocently and added, “Actually, I’m not too great with these kinds of conversations either. Maybe you just kiss me and we skip the talking part.”

“Ok, girlfriend.”

“Honestly,” Kay huffed as the two started kissing. “At least wait until I’m out of the room!”

3.

See, they are affectionate with each other.

Like… really affectionate.

Quite frankly, Kay wasn’t used to seeing the level of intimacy that Cassian kept expressing with Jyn. He was usually so closed off, of course assuming that he even let someone stay for longer than a night. It was odd seeing Cassian indulging in that level of physical comfort, but apparently he was enjoying it. Too often Kay would come home from work to find them splayed out on the sofa together Jyn lying against his chest, or see them kiss each other goodbye. He caught them chasing each other around the kitchen, Jyn even leaping right over the kitchen table only to eventually get caught in the middle of the room, Cassian snatching her up from behind and spinning her around. Whenever they had time to go out for the occasional drink with Kes and Shara, they would absently play with each other’s fingers as they talked, or his arm would be draped around her.

Sometimes, he’d even overheard them having loud arguments over which Hogwarts house they would be in while in the shower.

Kay wasn’t quite sure what to do with this new, affectionate Cassian and honestly, the worst moments were the nights she stayed over.

Thankfully, it wasn’t as often as he’d initially feared. Kay had been preparing himself (with the face of someone being sentenced to the gallows) for Jyn to basically move in with them, but it was their jobs that often kept them apart. As a waitress, Jyn usually worked evenings and Cassian’s hours were erratic at best thanks to his work. The decision to become a police officer had never even been Cassian’s intention, the idea only having first come to him when he’d graduated university with a degree that he hated and not much family left to go back home to in Mexico. However, while initially it was a good thing that she wasn’t over as often as he’d thought, it meant that they apparently tried to make up for it whenever they were together.

Like… they REALLY tried to make up for it.

Honestly, whoever designed this flat with the bedrooms sharing a wall should have reconsidered. Kay grumbled as yet another dull thunk echoed through and he adjusted his headphones. All he wanted to do was watch his war documentary in peace! But Jyn had turned up unexpectedly and Kay had stuck his head out his bedroom door to bite out an obligatory hello, only to see them smashed up against the hallway wall. One of her legs had been hitched up around his waist, his tongue had been quite clearly down her throat and it was FAR MORE than he’d ever wished to see! He’d quickly hidden himself back in his room, only he was now being forced to bump up the volume on his laptop what felt like every five seconds.

“I’m sure Cassian is very competent at sexual intercourse, you don’t need to reassure him that you’re having a good time so much,” Kay grumbled under his breath, before finally yanking his headphones off. “HEY!” he yelled, slamming a fist into the wall. “SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO RELAX!”

Silence from their end. Then an undignified snort of laughter, and another quite deliberant bang of the headboard against the wall.

“Couldn’t agree more,” Jyn clearly called back.

The nerve of that girl.

“I mean it! I will unplug my headphones!”

“Mmmm… do it,” Jyn’s voice was a little muffled as it drifted through the wood but it was impossible to not catch the hitch in her voice. “Nothing could stop us at this point.”

“CASSIAN, I AM HIGHLY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU.”

No answer, except for more banging, more audible groans. Eventually, Jyn laughed.

“Cassian can’t come to the phone right now.”

“AND WHY NOT?”

“It’s kinda hard for him to talk when I’m sitting on his face.”

Kay slammed his laptop shut.

“THAT’S IT,” he declared. “I HATE YOU BOTH.”

---

He stayed at the gym probably an entire extra hour longer than he usually would. You know, just to make absolutely sure that they would have finished their ‘activities’ by the time he got home. Sure enough, when he gingerly stepped back in through the front door, it was to find the flat dark and quiet. He would have normally waited to take his shower in the morning out of curtesy, but a part of him still kind of wanted revenge and he made to turn on the water anyway. Maybe it was a little petty of him, but passive-aggressiveness seemed to be engrained into both his and Jyn’s make-up, so it was at least one thing they had in common.

He did not expect to open the bathroom door and find her crying silently as she stared at her phone.

“Oh,” he said, uncomfortably.

“Kay,” she straightened hastily from where she leaned against the sink. She swiped at her eyes and for some reason he thought not to turn on the lights. They stayed in the dark as he didn’t say anything, she didn’t say anything, and eventually he figured he probably SHOULD say something, lest his mother ever find out that he walked into a room with a crying woman in it and didn’t make sure she was ok.

“Why are you crying?” he asked.

“’s nothing…” She shook her head. “Were you seriously at the gym this late?”

“It’s a 24 hour one. But I don’t understand, you were happy when I left earlier this evening.”

“You don’t get to choose when people message you,” Jyn said.

Ah. So she had gotten an upsetting text or call or something. While that explained the situation, it didn’t help in the slightest since he still didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He supposed any other person would attempt to comfort her, but they honestly didn’t really know each other and quite frankly, this woman perplexed him. He ended up going for something in the middle, in which he loped forward and patted her roughly on the shoulder.

“There, there.”

She stared.

“Please stop.”

“Oh, thank you,” he sighed with relief, stepping back. On the down side, that did mean there was just more silence, and with Jyn it was uncomfortable and still loud somehow. She watched her bare feet, twisting them against the tiles and it looked like she was waiting for something impossible. Kay didn’t know what. Cassian would say something poetic, like she was waiting for the stars to align or something. He didn’t know what her story was or what her issues were, how long she had been waiting for whatever it was she wanted and really at the end of the day, he didn’t want to know… but he supposed a part of him was glad to see a tiny part of the real her. 

“For what it’s worth,” he ended up saying. “I’m glad that you guys seem happy.”

She glanced up at him and gave him a genuine, if slightly strained nod of acknowledgement.

“Thanks.”

He didn’t say anything else and she didn’t seem to mind.

4.

About eight months into Cassian and Jyn’s relationship, they attended the wedding of Kes Dameron and Shara Bey.

Kay didn’t exactly get the fuss about weddings, but he could at least appreciate them. He saw the delight on their friends’ faces whenever they spoke about it and that was important to him, so he wore the uncomfortable suit and sat politely throughout the ceremony, always smiling whenever it was appropriate. He even grinned and bared the awkward conversations with Dameron family members! Jyn was a bridesmaid (something she apparently still hadn’t forgiven Shara for, but the woman had insisted and Jyn just hadn’t been able to say no) but on the upside, as she had mentioned earlier with an exasperated sigh, at least her dress was stunning. Stunning enough that Jyn became the talk of the wedding and even Kay had sniffed at her and said that she looked decent enough.

Not that she had to worry about fending off suitors. She and Cassian had spent a majority of the reception making out over by the bathrooms, making it 100% clear that she wasn’t interested in literally anything else. Kay only managed to catch Cassian a handful of times, most notably when Jyn was being forced to go dance with Shara and Cassian was sitting at their table, knocking back champagne.

“Oh, good!” Kay exclaimed enthusiastically, sitting down next to his friend. “A moment that you aren’t attached to Jyn! I can ask you how it’s going.”

Cassian just snorted. “You want to ask me how it’s going?”

“Ok, what I really wanted to tell you is that Kes and Shara clearly paid far too much for this buffet,” He held up a canapé. “You can tell that this isn’t even proper–”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Cassian held up a hand.

They were quiet for several moments as the music blared and they both watched the crowd of people dancing. Shara held Jyn’s hands, despite the other woman’s exasperation and swung her around the dance floor. Jyn Erso had her faults, sure, but indulging in her friends wasn’t one of them, Kay could admit that at least. He was surprised when he looked over and noticed the look on Cassian’s face. It was pure adoration. Bliss. It was like he was imagining the night that Kay had walked into the kitchen one morning to find the two of them dancing to some ridiculous dance pop song on the radio. They had laughed and grinded and Kay had backed away slowly, figuring that he would just eat breakfast later. Kay hesitated for a second, before he finally decided that months of this madness was certainly far enough.

He needed answers.

“Are you in love with Jyn?”

Cassian promptly choked on his champagne.

Kay hastily thumped him on the back. Cassian coughed and spluttered for a moment until eventually, he was able to breathe normally. “Jesus Christ, Kay,” he gasped. “Give a guy some warning.”

“You were surprised by my asking?”

But Cassian was shaking his head now, which of course just made it even more confusing!

“Cassian, I don’t understand. You seem incredibly satisfied with your relationship with Jyn Erso, to the point where it has lasted more than half a year. That is the longest you have ever been with anyone, at least since I have known you, yet you choke when I ask you whether you’re in love with her?”

“It’s a–” Cassian sighed. “Kay, it’s a hard question to answer.”

“How? Either you love her or you don’t.”

“It’s not that simple,” Cassian slumped back into his chair, placing his glass gingerly back onto the elaborately decorated table. “Kay, she’s incredible. I can honestly say I’ve never felt like this for anyone, which sounds ridiculously cheesy even though it’s true… but there’s still a lot we don’t know about each other,” He looked at him helplessly. “There’s some things in her past… some things I know she isn’t telling me about. I have my secrets too, but I’d share them with her if she asked. Her… she keeps things buried.”

Kay considered this for a moment.

“Have you asked her?”

“Asked her?”

“Well, it’s the most obvious solution to everything you are worrying about,” Kay just shrugged. “You say she won’t tell you these things about her, but have you actually asked?”

The night in the bathroom came vividly to mind. Jyn Erso might be a naturally closed off person, but she could open up to people who mattered. Cassian stared at him for so long, Kay almost thought he had broken his best friend somehow. Then suddenly, Cassian said in a slightly bemused voice,

“Excuse me, please… turns out I have to… uh… go somewhere.”

“By all means,” Kay waved a hand with a flourish.

By all accounts, he really shouldn’t have been encouraging it. Jyn Erso was a menace to society, they all knew that! But he’d never seen Cassian smile so much since he met her and for some inane reason… Kay encouraged him to launch himself across the dance floor, sweeping her up out of Shara’s grip and into his own.

[glittergummicandypeach]

Anti-Religion Group Wants Officer Disciplined After He Held Worship Services at Home

“Onward, Christian Soldiers” is more than a 19th-century hymn.

When Sabine Baring-Gould wrote this call to action for followers of Christ, little did he know the words would play out at a U.S. military installation in Germany.

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Over the weekend, Air Force Lt. Col. David McGraw apologized to the residents and fellow servicemen and women of Kelley Barracks at U. S. Army Garrison Stuttgart.

He didn’t say he was sorry because he broke the law, blared music too loudly or piled trash up on the sidewalks.

He issued an apology because he conducted Sunday worship services from his balcony while the world is in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. He wanted to offer ways for him and his neighbors to pray and worship together while secluded in their homes.

Most churches are prohibited from gathering because of social distancing guidelines, so McGraw did what he thought was appropriate and took matters into his own hands.

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For eight weeks, he led services from his apartment balcony overlooking a playground, according to The Christian Post.

The report went on to describe how the Military Religious Freedom Foundation became involved through complaints and wrote a letter asking the commander of the base to discipline the balcony preacher for spreading the Word of God.

Do you think McGraw's preaching was inappropriate?

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“His illicit actions in unconstitutionally proselytizing his particularly favored version of the Christian faith to an ABSOLUTELY CAPTIVE AUDIENCE at Kelley barracks on USAG Stuttgart viciously violate (1) the No Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution; (2) all applicable construing Federal caselaw; (3) a plethora of DoD and USAF Directives, Instructions, and Regulations; (4) the Core Values of the United States Army and Air Force; as well as, (5) the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ),” MRFF founder Michael Weinstein said in the letter.

He went on to say McGraw’s preaching was “literally ripping asunder the good order, morale, discipline, and unit cohesion of those DoD personnel under your command at USAG Stuttgart!”

The MRFF describes itself as an organization that champions the separation of church and state.

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In other words, it wants to squash the civil liberties of Christians in the military.

McGraw invited people to attend by leaving copies of song lyrics on the doorsteps of residents, and the service attendance was growing larger each week.

Obviously, it was well-received.

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People tend to be attracted to messages of encouragement.

In this time of crisis, people needed someone to step up to offer a calming solution.

McGraw did not violate any laws. In fact, his First Amendment rights might be getting trampled on in this situation.

The Constitution is clear: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

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The Founding Fathers did not specify or limit speech to the balcony of a barrack. Just because you’re irritated about what someone has to say doesn’t give you the right to take away their religious freedoms. McGraw is free to preach the gospel whenever he wants, and the historic document upholds that right.

He did not hold anyone hostage and force them to listen.

When I attended college, there was a man who stood on the corner and preached his version of the Gospel. His voice was loud, and students hurled harsh words as they laughed and mocked him. But he was practicing his freedom of speech.

Everyone is inconvenienced during the pandemic. There must be some give and take.

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If the worst thing there is to complain about is someone preaching about the salvation of Jesus Christ for 30 minutes a week, then hunker down and listen. The message of peace and love will never become outdated.

McGraw said he did not wish to offend anyone and is willing to move the worship service to another location.

He asked for forgiveness and another chance. He showed character and willingness to cooperate.

Although he is on foreign soil, he is an American officer protecting our way of life, our freedom and our Constitution.

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He needs to know that America has his back in this time of turmoil and confusion.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

This content was originally published here.

[dreams-for-the-apoplectic]

something i will probably never finish but like enough that im posting it anyway

Bro leans in the doorway of your room, 

(and you see him from your periphery: boxers loose on bony hips and patterned with hearts, no shirt, can of orange soda in hand with shades neatly tucked on the bridge of a strikingly crooked nose) 

and tells you, 

(over the sound of the fans, three, overclocked on some jury-rigged upgrades he threw together last year when the air conditioner went schizo cherry apeshit, just like now, again, for the second time this week spewing out mad fumes all grey-black and choked from its old, dusty vents) 

that you and he should just ollie outie of this midsummer popsicle stand and move somewhere the sun don’t actively to attempt murder you in the crispiest degree, KFC style. 

And you jokingly tell him sure, fuck it, anything is better than clawing my way up Fire Death Concrete Mountain aka Texas Mordor, clutching this bitchin’ ring of power and muttering all manner of rapturous obscenities and salacious innuendos for my precious. Sign me up Major Douchenozzle, I’ll shimmy my fine ass up this fabled air-conditioned igloo any day. 

A week later and you've packed your shit, grabbed your ticket, and are hopping the next flight to Vermont.

--

(four hours, fifty-one minutes, seven seconds, and Bro practically jumps off the plane hyperventilating when you touch down. you didn’t know how much he hated flying. you’ve never been on a plane before; if you didn’t know better, you’d think he hasn’t either. and if you quirk an eyebrow just over the rim of your aviators, and the side of your mouth makes a confused downturn for a second or two at just how fucking strange that that is, well, that was just a trick of the light, and the light is a dirty liar.)

He and you stick out like sore thumbs here 

(with Bro in a crumpled white polo and asshole jeans and dumb fucking anime shades, one hand in his pockets with an impassive, calculating kind of expression that you’re more used to than the panic, checking through tabs on Complete Bullshit for god knows what reason; you in the same shirt you wore yesterday, hair a meticulously crafted unkempt, posture slouching something awful as you bop right the fuck along to some sicknasty new bassline Jade dropped on you the night before, thinking of ways to remix it into this new beat you’ve been working on) 

among a crowd of home-grown New England faces haughty white and upturned and staring down at you and Bro like some trash that just rolled in from Doesn't Fucking Belong Here, USA.

(the luggage belt is moving so slow, so, so slow, it’s like watching a retarded crippled snail attempt a marathon against the goddamn salt shaker, and you wish you could just shake off the lingering, disdainful stares these people give the two of you, and you can, and you do)

(except you don't.)

--

You’re rolling through Montpelier an hour later, crammed up in the shotgun seat of an old, dirty, piece of shit pickup Bro apparently had nesting in the airport storage unit,

(it’s a rust hulk straight out of the early eighties, all torn up vinyl and engine rattling, with tacky, outdated bumper stickers on the back and a pine air freshener that does nothing to mask the smell of two-decade old cigarettes, and somehow you aren’t surprised this is his car because it is exactly how you imagined it.)

(you want to ask why he had a car in bumfuck, vermont and not in houston. you want to ask him if he even knows how to drive, but you hold your tongue nice and pretty and settle into the split vinyl seat cover)

moving past the city limits and into the countryside, over the state border and into New York. You give Bro the ‘what the fuck are we doing out here, man, is this the setup for a horror movie or some shit, because I’m not down to being the unwilling accomplice to some new echelon of fucked up smuppet snuff’ look, your fingers tapping in 4-4 on the dash, not really nervous so much as habitual. 

(he ruffles your hair with a smirking, mean kind of half-smile, all teeth and teasing and unnatural. you swat at him uselessly.)

And then the road is quiet, and the sky is misting grey. It’s all evergreen and shrubbery and dark soil here, and small towns by clear water: fishing ponds, creeks and rivers, and more wildlife roaming these secondhand backroads than you’ve ever seen in Texas. It starts to rain a bit, ghosting against the glass, and over the soft creak of the windshield wipers Bro asks you if you wanna put on some music, little man, heard you were working on a new track and can I get a sneak peak at that delirious biznasty? And fuck yeah you have, even if it isn’t quite done yet, and you plop your phone on the dashboard, and the drive is comfortable, 

(and you cannot shake this feeling that something is wrong.)

---

It isn’t an apartment, it’s a house in the goddamn woods; no, a fucking mansion in the goddamn woods, the design of it ripped straight from the personal architectural smutjournel of Frank Lloyd Wright, complete with white-foam waterfall and neo-American art deco pretension. Your mouth hangs open, and you know, you just fucking know a fly is about to buzz in that shit and set up a cozy little cottage, but you don’t care. This is straight wack, man.

(it looks vaguely familiar too, like something nostalgic stuck in your mental gears, cracked and rusted from disuse; something you saw once, a long time ago, in a place you can’t quite remember.)

Bro gestures you along along the concrete path, and you tell him no, wait, put the fucking brakes on Anime Goldilocks, what the fuck are we doing here, because this sure as shit can’t be where we’re living now, and I don’t wanna piss off the three bears. He pinches the bridge of his nose, and tells you in that deep southern mumble of his that, shit, kid, did you expect we’d just take a plane and end up in the same shitty apartment? And of course you didn’t

(even though you kind of did)

because that would be ridiculous, but-- you don’t know, you’ve been sharing a seven-hundred square foot living space with him for the past fifteen years. How are you supposed to react to a fucking mansion that just suddenly up and settled before you on delicate foundational popliteals and a stark-white concrete strapless all alluring and sultry? Just stand there stone-faced morose and stoic and fuck, that is exactly what you should be doing, isn’t it, because that was what he taught you, to

(stitch up the cuts slowly, careful with the needle and don’t fucking rush it, lil’ bro, even if they’re shallow you can’t just take it and jab that shit in, and for the love of god you gotta work on your dodge game, how the fuck do you expect not to get your ass served up sunnyside in a real fight?)

(̶̥̘͗̉̾̊͝ ̷̦̙̦͌͊̒́̍͛̀̀̈́́̚͘̕̚n̷̨̜̲͓̹̪͎̒͋́̊̎̐̍͌̆͘͝ͅͅͅ ̸̤̥̏́̌̑͒̈́̿́̃

̶̧̝͎̝͔͔̣̬͈̗̥̠̔̀͌̈́͆̒̇̋̋́̈́͐̈̚͝ ̷̡̛͕͚̰͉̦̼̤͍̘̝̹̮̩̈́̑̇̃̔͝͠ơ̷̡̧͔̘͇̖̫͉̳̳͖͇̰̻͗͛̿̋̾̏͘͝ ̸̨̧͈̱̫̩̲̦̭͖̿̃́̔͛̓̓͌̌͗̍̔̾͜ͅ

̷̢̮̮̠̠̬̖̙͈͋̍͛͆̔̈́̓̌̂̀͌̽͝͠ ̸̨̗̯̓͐̿̇͂͊̓́́̄̃̚͘͜͜.̷̲̙͓̮̮̬͓̈́̋͂͒̓̃͘͠͠)̸̧̖̪̦̥̪͙̫͍͙̩̻̺̩̒̌̈́͒͋͝ͅ

̵͛̓̈́̎̒́��̬̯̪

It isn’t our house anyway, he says, 

(and your mind slams on the brakes so hard you think you might flip this shit frontways, slam the roof on that motherfucker into the burning asphalt and skid off the edge of this brutal synapse fuckup.)

(you can’t remember what you were thinking. it’s blurry, and forgotten, and everything is normal again)

moving forward in long, atypical strides that you scramble to follow. The rain is still coming down, you realize, in a softer drizzle that dampens your shirt. Friend of mine lives here.

Holy shit, he has friends?

Yes, I have friends, you little shit, and you flinch when you realize you must have said that out loud. His arms flex, shoulder blades audibly popping with the contraction of muscle, and you flinch, and nothing happens. Her name is Roxy.

And shit, you guess that’s all there really is to say on the matter, because he doesn’t provide any further explanation and you sure as hell don’t ask. You duck under the porch roof and he raps a fat bar of knuckles on the door.

---

Roxy isn’t anything like you expect. 

You don’t know what you were expecting, actually, considering you’ve only just heard about her, but she is perky and kind-eyed and so fucking sincere that the saccharine emotional font of exuberant delight that straight up sparkles from her is making you real uncomfortable.

She hugged you.

She hugged you and you liked it.  

(and she hugged Bro too, made his spine go all weird fucking c-shaped wrongness as she crushes him against her chest, calls him Dirk like she fucking owns him.)

You’re ushered in as she turns on heel and sways away with a tipsy strut, sauced and sauntering and high stilettos tapping on the dark hardwood. She tells you to drop your things by the door, she can set each of you up with a room in a bit, and Dirk, honey, we have got so much catching up to do, I haven’ seen you and the lil’ guy in ages, and god yer both so fuckin’ tall I forgot about that bit,

(christ on the cross, she can speak at a mile a minute, accent a thickly laced New York staccato that matches Texas about as close to the intersection of nil and fuckall as you can get without running head-on into traffic.)

and Dirky, Dirkle, Dirk-a-licious, oh my god come here right now, I gotta show you this badass shit I‘ve been working on, it’s fuckin’ lit as hell, it has got switches and gizmos and all of the cool techy shit I know you swoon over, and you need to check out this code I wrote because you know I’m not about to trust anyone else to parse my sick lines, so come ooooooooooooon and there they go, Bro dragged stiff as cardboard across the floor by the hem of his fucking shirt. He gives you a side-eye look that says crosses somewhere between  ‘don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back’ and ‘help me.’

You shrug and flip him off and leave him to his fate. His death glare could kill a lesser man.

(holy shit.)

And then, quite suddenly, you are alone.

It’s not quiet, you notice - just a more subtle murmur than the scream of a city, made emptier without Roxy to fill up the room. Slow, churning movement below signals the languid rush of water as it tumbles beneath the floorboards and off the cliffside. Some woodland creature skitters in wet dirt beyond the window pane, which filters in ghost-grey light and shakes a bit when a particularly heavy set of raindrops hit. 

You shuffle about awkwardly, and glance around for a second,

(the interior is lavishly decorated, you notice. posh white starkness for fineass digs. sir asshole the stone swamp wizard sits plainly in the foyer, nested in arcane robes of the dimwitted and tacky. a cat is nuzzled up at the foot of some kind of bronzed vacuum. the whole place smells like perfume and vodka. it’s kind of intoxicating.)

before deciding the panicked, lingering gaze is kind of stupid, and waiting for Bro to come back like a pining factory girl in the nineteen-forties writing sappy missives to the brave boys in Okinawa was lame as shit, so you flop down on the couch, all loose, gangly puberty limbs and feigned indifference and the muted light of your phone glaring back at you. You pull open a pesterchum window, shoot a few messages to Harley,

(some off-the-cuff rap cooked slow on these sick fires, like just put some whip cream and a goddamn cherry on that shit and call it a sunday. you also make sure to attach a file for the new sbahj comic you’ve been working on. you’ve lovingly dubbed the new arc ‘the spaztastic furry hatesex maelstrom,’ and you hope know she’ll love it.)

and Egbert,

(and you admit, muddled up in tangents and similes that take forever just to get to the goddamn point, that you actually took his recommendation and stuck through the bitterly tasteless cinema assassination of the week. you even wrote a shitty review for it on one of your ironically maintained critic blogs, and send him a link)

(you won’t admit you laughed at groundhog day. he will never let you live it down. never.)

and Lalonde,

(who is on, surprisingly, because you know she has school right now, and fuck if the flighty broad doesn’t take every swat of the educational ass whooping with a snide, condescending seriousness that has a way of getting just under your skin. she wants to go to Harvard, or Cornell, or Oxford, because she is smarter than you, and John, and maybe not Jade but damn is she close.)

(she doesn’t respond either, though, so you cast the thought away and send her some custom made memes deep fried in a hundred layers of crystalline  jpeg illegibility and wait, fuck, holy shit)

and then someone is standing over you, peering with an appraising interest, like they’re looking at a slab of beef splayed out dumb on the chopping block. And you don’t flinch, you really don’t, even though you’re about five seconds away from flipping this shit backwards and kicking dust up as you run for the hills. 

You can tell this girl is nasty. She is stygian lips and white-blonde hair and violet eyes that politely inform you that this is indeed the fucking slaughterhouse, that you guessed it right, and you’re about to get served up with a side of collard greens and barbecue sauce.

So of course the first words out of your mouth are 'sup, Rose.

Wait, wh

(you see her past the glow of a verdant sun, because even a double universe killing superbomb can't outshine her. cascading orange silk stitch wrapped in a star-shimmering supernova of violet eyes and pallid skin. it's like a goddamn angel come from the heaven; a smirk beneath the hood and fire in her belly. she is the fucking sun now, and nothing can even fucking compare.)

at.

(what the fuck.)

What the fuck.

(what the actual fuck dude.)

Do I know you? Her voice is just dripping contempt.

And you don't fucking know her. She isn't here. Rose is a billion lightyears off in the gay space commune, deep encoded digital vaporware that went out of style twelve fucking years ago. She is a string of chat logs and embarrassing Fruedian slips that didn't happen, no, Rose, you don't have undercover mother-lust. 

And she is here.

You've never even seen her picture, but you know. You know far beneath the skin, something deeper than blood or bone or anything else seething something above that spiritual core. You know on a fucked kind of metaphysical. It's self-evident. It cannot help but make itself true.

Uh.

Shit.

Shit dude fucking say something. She’s just standing there, and the downward curvature of those lips is about to break out of the spatial plane and into some hyper paranoid fourth dimension. You guess she has a right to be weary. Your gangly ass is seated firmly in her territory.

[rrrawrf-writes]

continued from this. time to lie about being in a church that promotes honesty and integrity in all your doings!

“Have a seat, Sergeant Archer.”

Obediently, Rhiot dropped into the only one available, an uncomfortable wooden chair that he couldn’t have slouched in if he tried. He clasped his hands in his lap and stared at the Codes Administration Officer’s nameplate:  CLAUDE LEON.

Claude’s seat was a much more comfortable affair, a high-backed, pleather office chair. He already had a file on the near-empty desk between them, and he opened it once Rhiot had taken his seat.

“We’ll try to make this quick, sergeant,” Claude said, in a brisk voice. He smiled at Rhiot, who tried to make an effort at smiling back. It was difficult: Claude’s expression was obviously forced, and half of Rhiot’s mind was back with Loula, waiting anxiously outside on a leash, in the hands of Mercado, who’d been decent enough to wait with her while Rhiot got this over with.

Mercado had even offered to link up with him. He’d said no - Mercy was a great woman, but he knew all too well how curious she got, and while she would keep her mouth shut with any strangers, everyone else in NovRed would know exactly what happened between him and Claude as soon as they got back to the complex.

“Sergeant Archer, you were raised by your grandparents, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In Nauvoo, Illinois?”

“Yes, sir.” Rhiot glanced down at his hands, at the faded white scar on the side of his wrist. Loula started chewing on the slack in her leash, attempting to relieve some of Rhiot’s anxiety. It worked, for the moment.

Officer Leon glanced back down at the file. “You were brought here late, at age sixteen? Before the religious exemption order, sergeant, you attended worship services for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormon church.”

Rhiot nodded. He glanced up after a moment of silence to see Claude staring at him, and simply looked back. Was there something else Claude wanted him to say? Was he supposed to jump up and salute the flag on the wall, professing a severance of any ties to Mormonism?

Loula showed him a memory of street dogs she’d encountered before, bristling and stiff-legged with their tails in the air. Rhiot stifled a smile; she was right. Claude was posturing, just in a human way.

After several more wordless seconds, Claude hmmed to himself. “Services for the Mormon church are traditionally held on Sundays, is that right?”

“I believe that is still the current practice, sir.”

“And when was the last time you attended one of these services?”

Rhiot wasn’t a good liar. Mercado was, though, so he pretended to be her and said, “The Sunday before the exemption began, sir.”

Claude’s eyebrows rose. Rhiot bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. Was that believable enough? He couldn’t admit to even one service after the exemption began - that would be enough to put him in detention.

Of course, if Claude could read minds, or smell lies, or if he had found the book after all, or had Rhiot followed one Sunday -

Loula whined and pushed calm at him.

“You haven’t been to your church once in the last three years?” Claude said. Rhiot forced himself to nod. “There have been several people who had difficulty adjusting to the exemption order, sergeant.”

“Sir,” Rhiot started, trying his level best to hold onto the calm assurance Loula was radiating at him, and project it into his voice. “Sir, the - the services were mostly just to make my grandparents happy. Before the, uh, the exemption order, I could get most Sundays off for religious observance, and it gave me a way to spend time with them.”

“I see.” Claude made a note in the file. “So you only ever attended to make your grandparents happy? They were your legal guardians, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Rhiot said, to both questions.

Claude eyed him, head tilted slightly to the side. “Only to make your grandparents happy?”

Rhiot hesitated. His hands clenched around each other, before he could start chewing on his knuckles. “Officer - Officer Leon, it was - what I was raised in, sir. But I couldn’t attend during my first training deployment, sir, so after that - after I came back, I...”

“You lost the faith.” It was a sly comment, one that made Rhiot’s hands spasm even tighter around each other. He locked his jaw on a reflexive denial - he believed, he did, but he didn’t, he couldn’t -

“I didn’t want to disappoint my grandparents,” Rhiot forced out. It was probably the most honest thing he had said yet.

“Hmm.” Another note in the file. Claude said, “So, it must have been something of a... relief, we’ll say, when the exemption came out? A good excuse to stop pretending you care about an outdated, incorrect religion?”

Rhiot opened his mouth with every intention of agreeing - but he couldn’t force it to come out. Claude glanced up at him, clearly waiting an answer, so Rhiot gave one short, sharp nod of his head.

Claude wrote something else down. Rhiot resisted the urge to lean forward and try to see his file past the nameplate. “And yet, Sergeant Archer, you were gone from the complex for five hours, according to the times we logged from your microchip. And the Sunday before that, you left for four hours and thirty-three minutes. You did not leave the first Sunday of this month, but you were also logged as having left for the three prior.”

Rhiot bit down on his tongue. Claude set down a paper he had been looking at, clearly a list of times, and arched his eyebrows again at Rhiot. “This pattern has continued since the exemption order, Sergeant Archer. Would you care to explain?”

Calm, Loula insisted. Rhiot swallowed. He could be calm. He could lie. Claude wouldn’t be able to tell the difference - people were awful at being able to tell when someone was lying. That was fact.

“I still try to see my grandparents, sir,” Rhiot said, after a long moment. Too long a moment. “Sundays are - are usually slow for my team, so Captain Dixon has me run some errands while I’m out, and I can see my grandparents once they’re done with - with the meetings.”

Claude considered him for a few seconds, interlacing his fingers on top of the fire. “You’re very close with them, I see.”

“Yes, sir,” Rhiot murmured.

“And what do your grandparents think of the exemption order, sergeant?”

That was a low question, one that made Rhiot and Loula both bristle. Looking for dissension in a soldier was one thing - but trying to sniff it out from Rhiot’s own family?

Stiffly, Rhiot said, “They understand that I must follow my duty, sir. My grandparents wouldn’t encourage me, or anyone else, to disobey -”

With a thin, amused smiled, Claude said, “Relax, soldier. This is about you, not any of your relatives. My jurisdiction does not reach so far.”

Rhiot stared at him, unable to take Claude’s words at face value. Codes’ jurisdiction was everywhere. Sure, maybe Administration Officer Claude Leon was only in charge of sniffing out disloyalty and disobedience in the military - but he only had to say a word to a civilian office, and Rhiot’s grandparents would be under investigation.

Claude cleared his throat. “Sergeant Archer, you are aware of the punishment for being found in direct violation of Codes order 6658?”

Rhiot nodded and murmured the next in what seemed to be an endless string of yes, sirs. After an expectant look from Claude, he added, “Detention, sir, usually for two months to a year.”

Nodding, Claude added, “You wouldn’t be granted the privilege of seeing your grandparents, Archer. Or your dog.”

Rhiot’s hands curled into fists. “I understand, sir.”

“I’m sure you do.” Claude watched him from underneath hooded eyes. After several seconds crawled by, Officer Leon sighed and straightened in his seat, scratching one more thing at the end of Rhiot’s file, and then closing it.

“You will be under intermittent observation for the time being, sergeant,” Claude decided. “I hope you understand that this is not, of course, a direct attack on the question of your loyalty. We merely wish to ensure that our soldiers keep their minds focused on the needs of the State.”

He gave Rhiot another thin, sharp smile. Rhiot forced himself to meet the other man’s eyes, and nodded.

“Of course, sir. I understand.”

Another moment, where Rhiot refused to let himself look away, even though all he wanted to do was crawl underneath a rock with Loula, and never come out. Finally, Claude nodded back.

“You’re dismissed, sergeant. Thank you for your time.”

[mitchbeck]

CANTLON'S CORNER: THE XL CENTER STILL HAS LIFE

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - Apparently, the XL Center has more lives than any feline could ask for. Prior to Thursday’s night’s monthly CRDA meeting, it's Executive Director, Michael W. Freimuth, executive director of the Capital Region Development Authority, confirmed that Governor Ned Lamont supports additional funding for downtown Hartford’s XL Center. The dollar amount being discussed is in the neighborhood of up to $30 million — in each of the next two years, in the two-year budget cycle. While sounding the most hopeful tone in almost two years, Freimuth was not planning a victory dance just yet, and he wouldn’t place a final price tag on the proposal. “It’s in that ballpark ($20-$30M) there are a lot of hurdles we have to go through. This is going to take some time. It's not getting done next week. We have to have it first go to the finance committee for review. Once it, or if it goes through to the General Assembly then it has to be approved and put in the budget. Then as a capital budget item would have to go through the bond commission. Anyone of these is a big hurdle, but with the Democrats in control, I would think it should pass the first two steps. The Bonding Commission, I know is going to be the biggest hurdle of them all,” Freimuth, who said the number may fall somewhere between $20 to $30 million, said. He has the Hartford delegation, but other major cities and towns in the state have not been as receptive to the plan, and with just over a month left in the legislative session, a full court press is on. Freimuth also confirmed that the lone bidder to last years RFP process where they sought an outside entity to buy the building, Oak Street Realty LLC of Chicago, has been formally rejected by the CRDA and the RFP closed out. “The money and the terms were just too much for us. They wanted a guarantee regardless of the building’s performance over 20 years and at 7.5% of either the $250 or $125 (million). It wasn’t a deal that would fly.” That doesn’t end the concept of “public-private partnership.” The formula dynamic is now public, meaning government money, but hopes that a private component would emerge to unload and shift a vast majority, or all, of the financial burden of the arena from state taxpayers in the future. “We have had some interested parties approach us and they are just talks, nothing more than that. They are more interested in the revenue-side rather than the operational, the sponsorships, merchandise, and all the revenue streams we have projected going forward in a new (refurbished) XL Center. "This is just a framework and the public portion is going to be required to get this project going, and we’ll have this funding to allow us to keep the building alive, performing, and keeping after repairs and maintenance which never stops,” Freimuth stated. He relayed from a recent vacation trip to Italy a funny, satirical anecdote regarding the XL Center. “My wife and I and our friends went to an outdoor amphitheater to see a play. This place is 2,500 years old It predates the birth of Christ by about 500 years. "The Greek engineers of the time built a 30 mile aqueduct to bring water because its so hot outside there and brought water from the mountain top all the way to the grotto and there is not one mechanical piece involved in any of it, as it was built in part of the structure (the building). It still is functioning. "I was able to put my hands in that water and splash my face with it. The XL Center has so many moving mechanical pieces, so many that are worn out and outdated, it's literally a daily exercise to keep up with the issues that crop up.” The XL Center hasn’t had hot water in who knows how long. Maybe the state should find a way to consult with the Greeks. Although the Greeks might be stumped by all the zoning laws, permit processes and certainly the cost of a union laborer would be far superior to that of a slave laborer. The CRDA still has $40 million parked for the acquisition of the atrium and the bridge between them and Northland on the purchase price might expand to Texas, which has reached a critical point after two-plus years of failed negotiations. “We're still far apart and no consensus has been reached on that matter,” Freimuth stated. The question was raised if an eminent domain could be used to buy out the surrounding area. “First, we have an approved vote to acquire the atrium. To execute (eminent domain) we require a vote of the CRDA board first. I really can’t comment much further, but a decision on this is likely sooner, rather than later,” said Freimuth regarding the thorny issue that a plus and negative side. Another positive is that the new chiller system project is close to hitting the streets for a formal RFP. “We have all the pieces in place now to seek an RFP to select a CM (Construction Manager) for the project. It took a little longer than we wanted, but we had an important issue come up that had to be addressed, and we have done so, and now we seek the contractors we'll need to complete this phase,” said Bob Saint, the CRDA Construction Director. That hiccup was regarding the developing of an emergency access and stairways where the chiller will be placed in the northwest corner of the building that was required under state fire code since the building is state operated and city-owned and are governed under state fire codes. “Part of what is involved in a chiller system contains chemicals, and if something should ever go wrong there has to be an exit from the area. It came up late in the process and fire codes and building codes have changed since the building was first built. So an egress, stairway, and exits had to be built to come into compliance” said Saint. The exact cost of the price for all of this is apparently something that Saint cannot divulge, but it's expected to be multiple millions of dollars. “Because we are about to go into an RFP in about two weeks, so we can’t discuss those numbers publicly," he said. "(The multiple millions in cost) would be fair to say and remember we are also part of a much larger endeavor with the building and we have work in that budget and the overall end product of a new rebuilt arena.” When asked however about a time frame to get this project done, that Saint was able to share. “I think three to four months is about the right to put all the pieces in place. You also want a timetable that gives you the latitude to handle any contingencies that may arise.” The goal is to build the system in the building as the season is ongoing and once completed to switch over from the old chiller to the new chiller after next season in 2020. “That is our optimal position because we don’t want to disrupt things during a season (for the Wolf Pack, UCONN hockey or UCONN basketball) because a switchover takes about two weeks. To do this you have to see how the systems merge in transfer and if a problem should arise you want a good time frame to make any corrections that may be needed. Now if there is something wrong with the old system, that would require us to switch over earlier we'll evaluate it at that time and look to address it should it occur, but this timetable I think will best serve the need to handle our needs in the present and the future.” Is their daylight at the end of this long laborious nearly six-year adventure? This might be the breakthrough, but hopes have been dashed before. Read the full article

[monkeypretzel]

M is for Mike and Mother

A Father’s Day fic about Mother’s Day starring my favorite Gay Space Dads and their robot children. This is longer than I usually write, so apologies, but I want to get it up first and figure out how to code it on AO3 later.

EeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeee…

“Joel?” Mike mumbled into the small puddle of drool on his pillow. “D’you hear that?”

“No.” As far as Joel was concerned, it was too early on a weekend morning to accept reality.

“The smoke detector is going off again.”

“What day is it?”

“What does that have to do with the smoke detector going off?”

Joel’s sigh emanated from the bottom of his stomach and took its time to exit his body. He blindly reached for his glasses and perched them crookedly on his nose as he glanced at the clock.

“It’s 6:48 on Mother’s Day morning. It’s for you.”

“Oh Christ – not again!” Mike rubbed his face, smearing the cooling drool over his slight stubble. The distant sounds of robot squabbling could be heard through the air vent.

“Better get up. They’ll be here pounding on the door in a few minutes anyway by the sound of it.”

“If they insist on celebrating Mother’s Day for me, shouldn’t you be letting me sleep in?”

“You have far more experience with kitchen fires than I do,” Joel answered, yawning.

“Fine, fine,” Mike grumbled, levering himself up with a groan and grabbing a pair of sweatpants to pull on. “But your ass better be down in the kitchen by seven or I’m sending them up here to make a mess.”

A trail of pink glitter sparkled down the hall from Crow’s room to the stairs as Mike made his way to the kitchen, the continued screech of the alarm ringing in he ears.

“Crow, you do this every time! Why can’t you make toast without burning it?” Tom asked, exasperated, as Mike stepped into the room. “You don’t see me burning the cereal!” Cambot hovered in the corner, looking as bored as a spherical hovering robot could look.

“Fine! You make the toast! And I have to pour the cereal anyway for you!” Crow snapped back.

“I would do it if my arms worked!”

“Morning, guys,” Mike said as he flipped the switch to turn the exhaust fan on. He stepped over to the sink to open the window above it for good measure. The smoke detector was ear-splittingly loud and Mike felt his headache gathering at his temples.

“What was that you said, Mike, I can’t hear you,” Servo complained.

With a practiced move, Mike stretched up on tippy-toes and pressed the kill button on the alarm. A blessed silence settled for all of three seconds before Tom and Crow started fighting again. Mike glanced over to the counter where the toaster, or more accurately the toast inside it, smoldered. A multi-colored cereal lay scattered about both the counter and the floor, and milk dripped slowly down from a smallish spill to join a smaller puddle on the tile floor.

“So, guys, if you were hungry, why didn’t you knock on our door to wake us up to get you breakfast?” Mike asked, sitting down on a chair that was miraculously cereal and milk free.

“Mike, you big dummy, we’re not going to eat this! It’s for you, for Mother’s Day!” Crow said.

“Crow! We’re supposed to be giving him a gift. Don’t call him a dummy or he won’t like it!” Tom scolded as he turned to Mike. “Anyway, Happy Mother’s Day, Mike!”

“Well, I appreciate the thought, but we’ve been over this before. I’m not your mother.”

“Mike and mother both start with the letter ‘M’, and that’s good enough for me! Besides, who else do we have since you told us we couldn’t give anything to Grandma Pearl for Mother’s Day?”

“For the last time, Tom, Pearl isn’t your Grandma. I don’t even know where she is!”

“She’s in Qatar,” Crow piped up.

“Like I said, I don’t even know where Pearl is, and I don’t want to find out, either.” Mike shuddered slightly. “And I don’t want you or Tom trying to find her, either.” Mike stopped to think. “Crow, whatever happened to your mother? You did pack her when we were coming back to Earth, right?”

“I had her until someone, Mike,  put their case of rice on top of the box she was in, Mike, when we moved from Milwaukee to here, Mike. So it looks like you’re my mother now.”

Mike shifted uncomfortably. “Crow, how many times do I have to say it? I’m not your mother!”

Over in the corner, Cambot blurped warningly.

Crow stared at Mike for a minute, then his bowling pin started to wobble, and he sniffed loudly a few times.

“Crow, you called me Dad just last night! How can I be your mother if I’m your Dad?” Mike futilely tried to reason with the gold bot. Suddenly a loud cry pierced the short lived quiet, but it wasn’t from Crow.

“Jo-el! Jooooooooooooooooooel! Mike doesn’t love us anymore!” Tom bawled, as he turned and started to hover out of the kitchen, only run smack into Joel’s midsection as he entered.

“Ooof,” Joel grunted. “Tom, what’s wrong, honey?” he asked as he gathered the bot into his arms. “Of course Mike loves you! He took good care of you while I couldn’t, right?” The little red bot was still wailing inconsolably.

“Mm-mm-mm-mMike doesn’t want to be our mother! We worked so hard on his Mother’s Day gift, and he doesn’t want it! He doesn’t want us!” Crow accused. “Well, I don’t need you to be my mother! I’ll rebuild my old mother. I can rebuild her; I have the technology! I can make her better than she was. Better, faster, stronger...”

“Crow, I didn’t mean it like that!” Mike tried desperately to explain as he felt Joel’s frown of disapproval. “It’s just that I’m a man! Men can’t be mothers!”

“Way to reinforce outdated gender stereotypes, Mike,” Tom sniffled.

“It’s not a gender stereotype! It’s a biological fact!”

“C’mon guys, you know Mike says stupid things all the time without meaning to,” Joel said.

“Yeah, I’m pretty – hey!” Mike scowled.

Joel sat Tom down in his booster seat, grabbed a handful of paper towels from the counter, and wiped up the spilled milk and cereal off the counter and floor. “Maybe you guys should think about taking Mike out for breakfast on Mother’s Day sometime,” he suggested. He grabbed the now-cooled toast and attempted to scrape off the char, setting it down on a plate. Crow immediately grabbed for it. Joel raised an eyebrow.

“What? I like it dark!”

“Crow, it’s all black.”

“Good!” answered Crow defiantly, taking a big bite and chewing, and chewing, and chewing.

“Let’s go to Pannekoeken Huis! It’s been a long time since we’ve been there!” Tom said.

“It’s only been a few months, and no,” Mike answered.

“Why not?” Crow said, spraying crumbs.

“One, because it’s always crowded, and today would be twice as bad -”

Tom whined, “But I like pannekoeken!”

“- then you have to sit and wait an hour and a half for that fucking pancake -”

Crow dropped his toast as Tom’s dome went wide. “Mike said ‘fuck’! Joel, Mike said ‘fuck’!”

“Does that mean we can say it now?” begged Tom.

“No!” Joel exclaimed. “Mike, you know better than to use that language in front of the bots!” From the corner came a distinct electronic snerk.

“But Billie says it all the time!” Crow argued.

“Billie is a grown up.”

“Are you sure?”

Joel sighed. “Did you guys wanna give your gift to Mike?”

“I’m not sure now.”

“Crow! Be nice!”

“Oh, all right,” grumbled Crow as he got up and walked over to the counter. He picked up a lumpy package wrapped in old newspaper and plopped it on the table in front of Mike.

“There’s a card too! Don’t forget the card, Crow!” Tom reminded him.

“Is this the card?” Joel said, picking it up from the counter as a shower of pink glitter fell. Gingerly he set it back down. “Let’s let Mike open his gift first, then we’ll give him the card, okay?”

Mike picked up the package. “Nice wrapping job,” he said, turning it over is his hands looking for a place to start unwrapping. Failing to find any, he just ripped off the top. A cylinder emerged from the packaging, made from popsicle sticks painted in pink and purple and glued unevenly to what Mike guessed was the empty frozen orange juice can the bots had asked for a few weeks back. Covering the ostensible front of the can were wobbly letters spelling out “#1 Mom” in alternating red and gold glitter glue.

“Thank you Tom, thank you Crow,” Mike said mechanically, then he paused. “Um...what is – I mean, what should I use this for?”

“It’s for your pencils. It’s a pencil holder. The rest of the class made these as flower pots, but Crow and I convinced Miss Johnson to make you this instead. She agreed after we told her how you kill pretty much any plant you touch,” Tom explained.

Mike opened his mouth to argue, but a glare from Joel stopped him. “Well, that was very thoughtful of you two, and as soon as I find some pencils, I’ll be sure to put them in here.”

“Now give him our card, Joel,” Crow said. Joel obliged and carefully put the folded piece of yellow construction paper on the discarded newspaper in front of Mike. The front bore a crayon drawing of a man with an over-sized head wearing tan pants and what he guessed was supposed to be a plaid shirt, with the criss-crossed red and blue lines. The man was holding what looked like a pan with thick black crayon curls arising from it. Above his head was “Happy Mother’s Day” in pink glitter which also decorated the floor underneath his comically huge feet as well as his pants. Mike frowned slightly, anticipating the smart-ass verse about his clumsiness that he guessed would greet him inside the card.

Mike opened the card to another cascade of glitter and started reading. His eyes grew wide and the hard line of his mouth soft as he finished scanning the page. The card drooped toward the table as Mike looked down and blinked rapidly several times.

“May I?” asked Joel quietly. Mike handed the card over, heedless of the drizzle of glitter falling on his t-shirt.

Joel read:

We wish you Happy Mother’s Day

From your two most favorite bots

We know you’re not a mom per se

But you’re the only one we’ve got

That’s why we’re asking you today

And we hope you won’t be mad,

Since we think you’re somewhat okay

Will you be our own Mom-Dad?

Joel laid the card down on the newspaper, and gently put a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Tommy, Crow – you guys did a really good job. I’m very proud of you.”

Mike found his voice, but his head was still tilted down toward the table. “Uh, that was really nice, guys. Really nice. Thank you. Really.”

Tom and Crow looked skeptical. “You’re not just saying you like it?” doubted Crow.

“No, I really like it. You two went to a lot of trouble for me.” Mike’s voice uncharacteristically cracked a bit on the final phrase.

“Crow only wrote the words. I came up with most of the rhymes,” Tom boasted.

“Hey! I’m the one who thought to rhyme ‘dickweed’ with ‘thick Swede’, but you said it wouldn’t work ‘cause Mike’s Danish!” Crow complained.

Joel spoke up. “You know, it’s gonna be a beautiful day today, and it’s been a long winter. How’s about we skip church just this once and go to Lake Calhoun? We can get some sandwiches, maybe some fried chicken, and have a picnic. Spend some family time together.”

Crow cheered, while Tom asked eagerly, “Can we rent a paddle boat too?”

“We’ll see...sound good to you, Mike?”

Mike finally looked up; his eyes were slightly more moist than usual. He cleared his throat and nodded. “Sounds good. Actually,” he said, breaking out into a grin, “I can’t think of a better way to spend the day.”

“It’s settled, then. You two spinach chins head upstairs and pick out what you want to wear today. Mike and I will be up in a few minutes to help you get dressed.”

“I don’t need any help!” Crow protested.

“Crow, last week you got yourself into a triple jock lock,” Mike reminded him.

“I don’t know why I just can’t go commando. You do it all the time.”

“I do not.” Mike said firmly. “At least not anymore.”

Joel raised an eyebrow. Mike shrugged. “Well, how often did you do laundry on the Satellite?”

“More often than you, apparently.” He turned to the bots. “Upstairs, and then we’ll get you guys a little breakfast. Growing robots need more than burnt toast.”

As soon as the robots disappeared, Mike picked up the pencil holder, stood up and walked over to Joel. “Did they ever surprise you like this?”

Joel smiled. “Somewhere along the way they found out what Father’s Day was; I think it was the second year I was up there. They made a bunch of posters with pictures they cut out of magazines and catalogs. I held it together in front of them, but later? I cried like a little girl in my cabin. I think that’s when it finally sunk in that I had a family just as real as any human one – and that I was a Dad.”

Mike looked down at the misshapen gaudy cylinder in his hands. “It’s kind of artistic in its own way, isn’t it?”

Joel put an arm around Mike’s waist. “It is, Mom-Dad.”

Mike chuckled. “You know, if they really want to go to Pannekoeken Huis, I think I could put up with it for once.”

Joel screwed up his face. “Ugh, no way.  I hate those fuckin’ pancakes.”

[tsuki-sennin]

EarthBound – Episode 35: Stoic Chief

We’re back with more EarthBound! I probably would’ve done commentary on the TRG playthrough of Mario Party 7 but... I just didn’t. For some reason... Shut up.

Also, spoilers, I guess...

>The “St-oic Club”... huh.

>He never heard of the ever amazing Myna bird either? Huh...

>A museum for this land called Scaraba too? Man, Summers really does have it all.

>Emile lived in two of the shittiest educational systems in the U.S., Florida and Arizona. If his story in Super Luigi Galaxy is true, his school was so ghetto he once went on a field trip to Wal-Mart. That’s amazing.

>We’re here in Toto, friends! We’re not in Kansas anymore!

>Thank you, random Jamaican man for letting us go to the fancy Club Stoic!

>DAD, IT’S BEEN A WEEK BUT IT FEELS LIKE A YEAR!

>Oh, Tony... hey there, Tony. I guess you want to know my name then? Well then, my name is Yoshikage Kira. I'm 33 years old. My house is in the northeast section of Morioh, where all the villas are, and I am not married. I work as an employee for the Kame Yu department stores, and I get home every day by 8 PM at the latest. I don't smoke, but I occasionally drink. I'm in bed by 11 PM, and make sure I get eight hours of sleep, no matter what. After having a glass of warm milk and doing about twenty minutes of stretches before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning. Just like a baby, I wake up without any fatigue or stress in the morning. I was told there were no issues at my last check-up. I'm trying to explain that I'm a person who wishes to live a very quiet life. I take care not to trouble myself with any enemies, like winning and losing, that would cause me to lose sleep at night. That is how I deal with society, and I know that is what brings me happiness. Although, if I were to fight I wouldn't lose to anyone.

>In all seriousness though, Bob, Ed, Otis, and Jesus Christ, Tony is awesome.

>Is that even a trumpet? Are you from the Hoenn Region?

>...ooh, poor captain man... maybe we can help him by going to that strange Stoic Club to see if his wife will leave Club Stoic to do her Magic cakes again.

>Mad Taxi 2! Featuring four new drivers, and more Pizza Hut stuff! Just as Pizza Hut supports Zero’s Rebellion in Code Geass, they support our Crazy Taxi drivers!

>Welcome to Club Stoic, the Stoic Club. AKA Tumblr’s “smart” side! Featuring hipster douchebags, commies (also, a reference to that mother game by Emile that I really appreciate), people clearly bored out of their skull yet sticking around anyway, people wanting to eat cake and talk extensively about self-identity, people calling out bullshit yet exploiting it for gain anyway, and Mr. T is confusedly serving water! And he pity the fool who don’t like water!

>And here with the pretty face is the Magic cake lady! Hey, your husband’s pretty worried about you. Get back to your cart! Your Neo-Freudian thinking is outdated anyway! 

>...I see Pokey has taken his vacation here too.

>The Mad Taxi is awkwardly ramming into the lady, likely to stop her from serving a child her funky cake! Hopefully the Poo that comes after will be easy to deal with!

>(I only make the best transitions, thank you very much!)