#this has been an ongoing back and forth for years but has really ramped up since May given I'm not working

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

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[tchallasbabymama]

M’Baku’s Love- Chapter 10 (Finale)

Thanks for bearing with me on this journey, it’s been a good one. Here’s the last chapter, I hope y’all like it! Normally I would post on M’Baku Mondays, but I just couldn’t wait to share this ending with the like 5 people who read my stories. 

Don’t forget to check out my masterlist HERE to read my other stories. M’Baku fans, don’t fret, I have another M’Baku fic starting next week...well its an M’Baku x OC x T’Challa fic. That’s right, we’re going for a throuple. Check out the preview HERE. As always, let me know what y’all think and if you want to be tagged in any of my other stories.

CW: smut

Word count: 10,630

Monae fiddled with JJ’s collar as they stood on the tarmac waiting for the Talon to touch down. He loved seeing Uncle Challa’s “spaceship” and they regularly got to see him off and welcome him back. This time would be a little different though since he would be bringing M’Baku to meet his son for the first time. Monae’s nerves were shot and she vibrated with anticipation.

As the ship came into view a lump caught in Monae’s throat. She was about to see him again for the first time in years...he was about to meet their son. She could still barely process the fact that he was alive and almost needed to see it to believe it, but he was just a few moments away.

The Talon floated closer and closer to the ground and her palms grew sweaty when it finally made contact. 

JJ jumped up and down as the doors opened and he saw Okoye and Ayo exit the craft. He immediately went to go hug his aunties as he waited for his favorite uncle to come out. Pretty soon he emerged, alone, and JJ ran to him and jumped in his arms.

“Uncle Challa!”

“Igorila encinci, I’ve missed you! Are you being good for your mama?”

“Yes!” T’Challa raised an eyebrow and looked back to Monae who was steadily creeping closer. She nodded with a smile and T’Challa started tickling JJ, making him let loose the boisterous laugh he no doubt got from his father. 

Monae’s eyes travelled to the open door behind T’Challa and he noticed, giving her a soft smile. “He needs a minute.”

She nodded and looked down, twiddling her thumbs when JJ’s voice brought her out of her daze.

“Uncle Challa, who’s that?” he looked over the king’s shoulder and saw a large man hesitantly stepping through the Talon door and into the light. T’Challa set JJ down and turned to look at Monae, but her eyes were already raining tears down her face.

“That is my friend, M’Baku. Why don’t you say hi?”

M’Baku walked down the ramp and met the king on the ground, unable to take his eyes off the little boy in front of him. He looked just like a miniature version of him with a head full of locs. The pictures didn’t do him justice. 

JJ waved at the stranger and introduced himself, “Hi! I’m Jabari, but everyone calls me JJ. What’s your name?”

M’Baku’s eyes grew misty as his child smiled up at him. He cleared his throat and got down on one knee so he could be eye-level with JJ.

“My name is M’Baku, and I am-” he cut himself off, as he looked up and made eye contact with a crying Monae behind T’Challa. The king moved out of the way and gave the little family some privacy, joining his Dora near the car and trying not to be nosy and watch too intently. Monae took a step forward and that was all the permission he needed. He stood from the ground, and just as he did she threw her arms around him, crying into his chest. His head rested on top of hers as he cried and rocked her from side to side. 

“Mommy? What’s wrong?” M’Baku wiped Monae’s tears before she turned to their son and squatted down to his height.

“JJ, baby...remember how mommy told you your daddy died before you were born?”

He nodded his head silently with his brows furrowed.

“Well I was wrong...and Uncle Challa was nice enough to bring him here to us,” she looked to M’Baku and smiled, but he couldn’t take his eyes off his son. 

“You’re my dad?”

“Yes, you can call me ‘baba’ if you like.”

“Baba? What’s that mean?”

“It means ‘father’ in my language.”

“What language is that?”

“Xhosa.”

“Oh, like Umalume Challa.”

M’Baku smiled up at Monae, “He knows Xhosa?”

“T’Challa taught him some, he’s pretty good. He’s even teaching me a little bit.”

“Yeah, she’s a fast learner like me!”

“That’s right,” she tickled his sides and his infectious laughter rang out again, the most beautiful song M’Baku had ever heard. When he came down from his tickle high his eyes settled back on M’Baku.

“So if you weren’t dead where were you?”

“I do not know…”

“Baby, you remember the other day when people started appearing out of nowhere?” he nodded again, “That’s what happened to your baba.” 

He still didn’t really understand just what actually happened with those people, but knowing his baba had been one of them and wasn’t dead or just gone for no reason eased his mind. 

Both adults stood and Monae grabbed JJ’s hand as they walked back towards T’Challa, who was trying really hard to not seem like he was eavesdropping. JJ reached up and grabbed M’Baku’s hand and all the adults present struggled to keep their composure.

--------

 Every time the Wakandans came to town, they stopped by Monae’s house for dinner at least once, so the group split in two as they got in their cars to drive to Monae’s. Monae could hardly speak, so she was thankful that JJ was full of questions on the ride home.

“So do I have grandparents?”

“Yes, and my mama would love to meet you.”

“How is Ada?”

“Shaken up...she was also one of the Dusted.”

“The Dusted?” JJ asked.

“Yes, that is what we Jabari call the people who disappeared and reappeared.”

“I thought your name was M’Baku, not Jabari.”

M’Baku chuckled.

“It is, but I come from the Jabari people. In fact, I am the-”

Monae cleared her throat and subtly shook her head.

“-I am...excited for you to meet them.”

“What are they like?”

M’Baku and JJ went back and forth the entire ride home as Monae drove in a daze, her brain still trying to process being so close to M’Baku again. The drive only took about ten minutes and as they pulled up to the house M’Baku’s eyes scanned the neighborhood, taking it all in. He saw the colonizers walking their dogs by the old drunks outside the corner store, and he noticed the expensive cookie cutter townhouses right next to the smaller, old homes that had been there for decades. This was definitely not the Nashville Monae had told him about.

M’Baku couldn't help but smile as they walked into her house and he felt the same warmth and openness he felt in her apartment all those years ago. Monae headed straight for the kitchen to check on the vegetable gumbo she had going in the slow cooker all day while JJ pulled M’Baku into the living room with everyone else. Monae watched with a smile as JJ talked his baba’s ear off and showed him around, pointing out the pictures on the wall. M’Baku’s eyes wandered over the photos, but he was distracted by a loud “meow” and a paw on his pants leg.

“Juju, old friend.” He reached down to pet her and she moved away from his hand, choosing instead to go back the way she came.

“Don’t be sad, she does that sometimes,” JJ comforted his dad, whose jaw was hanging open in disbelief until he heard the tinkling of a bell. Sure enough, Juju trotted back in and dropped her favorite feather toy at M’Baku’s feet. “Hey, she likes you!”

The three of them played together for a couple minutes, all the while M’Baku kept an eye on Monae slowly pacing back and forth in the kitchen. JJ chased Juju off through the house and M’Baku took the moment to try to talk to Monae while everyone was preoccupied setting the table and securing the perimeter of the house. 

Monae stirred the gumbo and tried her best to calm her nerves, but the butterflies in her stomach weren’t going away any time soon. They weren’t helped by the heat that crept up against her back as a large shadow loomed over her. She turned around to face him and he tipped her chin up.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I...um, it’s already done.”

“You are nervous...why?”

“M’Baku,” she sighed, “I need you to understand that you died, or I thought you were dead. I mourned you. I buried you in my mind and visit on your deathiversary every year...but you crawled back out of that grave and it’s just hard for me to wrap my mind around.”

He nodded and placed a kiss on her forehead before moving back and giving her space. Monae cleared her throat and shook herself from her daze. She needed to get a handle on herself and fast.

“JJ, come wash your hands.”

The little boy came sprinting from the back room.

“No running inside,” Monae and T’Challa echoed each other and JJ slowed down, sheepishly walking the rest of the way to the stepstool at the kitchen sink. M’Baku helped him wash his hands as Monae filled their bowls with rice and gumbo. She grabbed a bottle of hot sauce from the counter and placed it in the middle of the table before sitting down at the head. 

“So, T, how’s Nakia?”

“She’s doing well. This pregnancy has been much easier on her than the first. In fact, she and the twins will be coming back with me next time.”

“Really?!” JJ was excited to see his play cousins, it had been months since the last time Hasina and Hasani visited. They were only a few months older than him, and the three of them were inseparable whenever they got together.

M’Baku sat back and watched their interactions, feeling slightly left out. He had missed so much of their lives. What was her pregnancy like? What were his first words? He just had to know. Right as he worked up the nerve to interrupt the ongoing conversation, JJ did it for him.

“Baba?” 

M’Baku was still so unused to hearing that name, however he already loved how it sounded. 

“Yes, JJ?”

“So what did it feel like when you got Dusted?”

Monae almost choked on her gumbo.

“JJ, let’s not-”

“I did not even know I had gone anywhere...it felt like no time had passed.”

“So you...you really think it’s been two months since we last saw each other?” Monae asked him.

“Yes, although I know now that is not the case,” he smiled at JJ who gave him a snaggletoothed smile right back. He turned to T’Challa, his face turning serious. “Thank you for looking after them, brother.”

“Any time, they are family. Isn’t that right igorila encinci?”

“Yes!”

Monae chuckled as she got up to bring out his favorite pineapple upside down cake she made late the night before. She disappeared into the kitchen as the others continued to talk amongst themselves.

“You call him ‘little gorilla’, eh?”

“Well yes, he is your son.”

“Do they call you the ‘Big Gorilla’ or something?”

“No, I am the Great Gorilla, ruler of the Jabari-”

“You’re a king, too?!”

“What?!” Monae yelled from the kitchen.

Okoye, Ayo, and T’Challa all made eye contact and decided it was a good time to leave.

“Well, we do not want to intrude so we will see you tomorrow,” Okoye rushed out.

“Monae, do you need any help cleaning up or anything before we leave?” Ayo added. 

“No thank you. Y’all get to the hotel safe, see you tomorrow.” She and JJ hugged the three of them and they took their leave. As soon as Monae closed the door behind them, JJ went right back to the previous conversation.

“So if you’re a king, that makes me a prince!”

“JJ, go upstairs and start getting ready for bed, I’ll be up soon.”

He sighed, but did what his mom told him, but before he made it all the way up the stairs he turned around and asked, “Is baba staying?”

Monae turned to look at M’Baku questioningly.

“If your mother will have me.”

“Please mommy!”

“No need for all that, I want him to stay too,” she laughed as her son ran back down the stairs to hug them both before going up to his room.

“So you want me to stay?”

Monae rolled her eyes. “You shouldn’t have told him he’s a prince, M’Baku.”

“Why not? He is a prince, he should know.”

The two of them cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher as they went back and forth.

“He’s too young, that’s why. I want him to have a normal life.”

“He is not a ‘normal’ boy, Monae, he is royalty. He is my heir.”

She knew he was right, but she just didn’t want to let go of the life she and JJ had that she knew now was about to  be turned on its head. She didn’t want to have the conversation that she knew they needed to have.

“Let’s put JJ to bed and then come back to this.”

M’Baku agreed and the two of them went upstairs to do just that. After JJ’s bath, M’Baku told him the story of how the Jabari found the mountains, and he was hanging on every word until sleep overtook him and he passed out around 8:30. 

Monae was almost moved to tears by their interaction, and she kept from sniffling as both adults crept out the room and back downstairs. She went straight to the wine rack and cracked open a merlot, pouring two generous glasses for the two of them. He grabbed her hand and led her to the couch, sitting down next to her and pulling her legs across his lap. She didn’t know what to do, her mind still hadn’t caught up with her body yet, but her body melted right into him.

“I know it has not been as long for me as it has for you...but I have missed you, Babygirl.”

M’Baku heard a sniffle and looked down at her as her body shook and tears escaped her eyes. He grabbed the wine glass from her and set both glasses on the coffee table in front of them before placing his arm around her and pulling her in tight. 

The next hour or so consisted of M’Baku consoling Monae as she released five years of grief she had been holding onto. After a while, she calmed down and they sat in silence before she tore herself away from his lap and took a deep breath. She looked into his eyes and he moved in for a kiss, but she pulled away at the last second. 

“So what now?” She asked and his eyebrows furrowed as she spoke. 

“What do you mean?”

“JJ...since he’s a prince and all.”

M’Baku took a sip of his previously untouched wine, prompting Monae to do the same. 

“He will need to come be with his people, Monae.”

“He has people here too, M’Baku. He has friends and a community here.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“Coparenting.”

“Coparenting?”

“Yes. I don’t want him to lose his home here or keep him from his home there...so lets let him have both.”

“I do not want you two halfway around the world-”

“And I don’t want him so far away from me, but parenthood involves sacrifice. Welcome to the club.”

“Then come with him.”

--------

“She is being unreasonable!” M’Baku sat on the couch in T’Challa’s office, complaining to the king and queen. He had stayed with Monae for only a weekend since he needed to get back to ruling his kingdom that was still restructuring after the return of the Dusted, but in that short time he was unable to convince her to let JJ live with his people. 

“I think she was being more than generous. I don’t even like when T’Challa takes the twins with him to America without me , I can’t imagine being without them for any longer than that.”

“Yes, but she could just move here! And at first she said we would split our time 50/50, now she wants to keep him during the school year and I get summers.”

“You’d prefer to disrupt the boy’s education?” the king chimed in.

“Oh please, we both know he would have a much better education here anyway.”

“True, but you’re asking Monae to uproot her whole life,” T’Challa added.

“M’Baku, you need to look at this like a parent, not like a chief. He’s just a little boy, he’s her little boy-”

“Our little boy.”

“For like five minutes. She’s been there for five years. She’s kissed his wounds and weathered temper tantrums. She pushed that boy out in the middle of her living room, she caught her own baby despite the fact that the midwife was right there. It’s just been the two of them since her aunt died...you can’t just expect her to give in so easily. You’re asking a lot of her.”

“Maybe if they both came to visit it would ease her mind a little,” T’Challa suggested.

“Could the two of you try to talk to her?”

“Absolutely not,” Nakia said as T’Challa shook his head.

“This is between the two of you, my friend.”

“Uncle Challa and Aunt Kiki are sitting this one out, sorry.” Nakia’s hands raised in surrender.

“Aunt Kiki?”

“I couldn’t let him be the only one with a nickname.”

M’Baku nodded as he mulled over their conversation in his head. He felt they were probably right, but he needed one more opinion.

When M’Baku made it back to Jabari land he went straight to his mother’s quarters to seek her advice. He found her in the middle of braiding her hair, and sat across from her as she worked.

“So how is my grandson? Did you bring me pictures?”

“Of course, mama,” he pulled up pictures of JJ on his beads, swiping through and smiling like a fool as he looked at his son. “He is well. He is so inquisitive and joyous...Monae has done a good job on her own.”

“Of course she has, I always liked that one.”

“I know,” M’Baku chuckled before his face fell.

“What is it?”

“It is Monae...she wants to coparent. She would have him during the school year and I would have him during their summer break.”

“That sounds pretty good to me.”

M’Baku sighed and hung his head.

“That is what the queen said.”

“Smart woman, our queen.”

“That she is...mama, I do not want to be apart from him so much, but Monae refuses to move here. I do not know what to do.”

“It sounds to me like you will be making a lot more trips to America then. She never said you could not see him, just that he stays in America with her. That does not have to exclude you.”

“I have duties here-”

“M’Baku we were gone for five years and the council ran things just fine, and before that you were gone for three months. I am not saying you should move there, just that your job is much more flexible than you realize.” 

Meanwhile, on the other side of Wakanda, the king decided to go back on his word just a little and texted Monae and asked her to call him when she had the chance. Later that night, his phone rang and he looked to see it was Monae calling. He checked to make sure he was alone in his quarters before answering. Thankfully, Nakia was down the hall putting the twins to bed while he worked on some last minute paperwork, or she’d have his head for this.

“Monae, I’m glad you called. How are you today?”

“I’d be much better if the city wasn’t breathing down our necks about this block party.”

“I’ll handle them, don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks T.”

“No problem.”

“So what’s up? It sounded important.”

“Yes, well, it is. I spent the earlier half of today listening to a certain chief bemoan his new custody arrangement.”

“You can’t talk me out of it. I don’t even want him gone during the summer, that was hard enough.”

“I wouldn’t dare. I would dare, however, to formally invite you to Wakanda. Come see it for yourself for a couple weeks, you might like it. If nothing else, it will ease your mind for when Jabari comes here by himself.”

“Me...come to Wakanda? What about my job?”

“Don’t worry about that, just worry about when you want to leave. We can have a jet there immediately if you wish.”

“Jazz is moving in on Saturday, how about next weekend?”

“Next weekend it is.”

“Can we keep this between us? I want to surprise him.”

T’Challa chuckled just as Nakia walked in the room, “It won’t be easy to keep from him.”

“Try your best.” She knew there was a good chance T’Challa would let it slip to M’Baku. Everyone knew the king was notoriously bad at keeping secrets.

He looked up and saw Nakia standing in front of him with her eyebrow raised and a hand on her hip, her belly protruding in her nightgown. He mouthed “Monae” and pointed to his phone. 

“You just couldn't help but meddle, eh?” She rolled her eyes.

“Is that Nakia? Hey Kiki girl, I miss you!” T’Challa moved the phone away from his ear before she blew his eardrums out. 

“Hey Nae! Is my husband meddling in your business?”

“Only a little, but it’s good. Thanks to him, I’ll be seeing you soon.”

“You're coming to Wakanda?! Oh thank Bast, now I don’t have to hear M’Baku-”

“It’s just for a couple weeks, sis,” Monae chuckled as Nakia deflated.

“Well that’s better than nothing.”

“Keep it between us though.”

“So you tell him?” Nakia laughed as her husband looked at her in faux offense. 

“It was his idea!” The ladies continued to laugh and talk as T’Challa’s grimace grew.

“Ok, well I know it’s late there, so see y'all in a couple weeks?”

“We’ll be here,” They ended the call and T’Challa looked to the queen, shrugging.

“I couldn’t help myself.”

Nakia laughed and crawled in bed next to her husband, both of them swiftly falling asleep after a long day of ruling a whole country. 

--------

JJ was super excited to ride in the Talon, never having seen the inside before, and even though Monae worked around Wakandan technology, she was just as much in awe of the futuristic aircraft as her son. Okoye made sure they were comfortable on their trip, but Monae’s anxiety almost got the best of her. There were times when she almost started hyperventilating, but then JJ’s bright smiling face brought her back out of it. She was leaving the country for the first time in her life and flying in a human spaceship to a formerly hidden African country with technology way more advanced than the rest of the world. If someone had told her ten years ago that this would be her life, she would’ve laughed in their face, yet here she was.

When Okoye called them to the front of the ship to watch them enter the dome, Monae’s heart almost beat out of her chest as they glided through the trees and into Wakanda. The city she saw before her blew her away, it was bigger and more beautiful than New York or Tokyo or any of those other big cities she’d seen or read about. The real life afrofuturism stunned her to silence, and it was only broken when JJ noticed the people waiting for them to land.

“Look, it’s Uncle Challa and Auntie Kiki and Auntie Shuri and Uncle Daka and Hasina and Hasani. Where’s baba? And who's that?”

“Baba isn't here, baby. We’re here to surprise him...and I think that’s T’Challa and Shuri’s mom.”

When the ship touched down and the doors opened, JJ ran out and tackled his play family in hugs and kisses. Monae carefully made her way down the stairs and joined the group, giving hugs all around.

“Long time no see, Nae!” The prince 

“How’s Oakland treating you?”

“Much worse now that I have left,” Shuri interjected, making N’Jadaka roll his eyes and mush her face. “Hey!”

“Oakland’s great, running just like before. You should come visit.”

“Only if you visit the Nashville Center.”

“Deal.”

Monae turned to see JJ walk up the one person there she didn’t know.

“Are you Uncle Challa and Auntie Shuri’s mom?”

Queen Mother chuckled and bent down closer to his level, “That I am. And you must be Jabari.”

“Or JJ!”

“Nice to meet you, JJ. My name is Ramonda.”

“Can I call you Auntie too?”

“Of course, you wouldn’t be the first,” she winked at the older prince and he smirked back. 

“Monae, dear, I’ve heard so much about you. All good things, of course. How are you?”

“Honestly, Queen Mother, I’m a little nervous to be here.”

“Trust me, you will love Wakanda. And you are family, call me Auntie.”

The group relocated to the domestic wing of the palace as the kids ran ahead and Queen Mother chatted with Monae. T’Challa showed them to their rooms, and allowed them time to get settled in before dinner in an hour.

Monae was nervous, she knew she would see M’Baku at dinner, and since T’Challa has a flair for the dramatic he had planned for her to get there a little late and make an entrance. Well, not a huge entrance, since it would be a small family dinner, but still. She fixed the collar on JJ’s shirt and then smoothed out the front of her purple dress that contrasted beautifully with her pink fade. She took a final breath before reaching for the door handle and being led down the hallway by the palace guards. They arrived at the double doors and Monae froze.

“Mommy?”

“Y-yes baby?”

“Are you ok?”

“I’m just a little nervous, that’s all.”

“Don’t be nervous, it’s just baba.”

His words echoed in her head as she thought back to their time together. It’s just M’Baku, she thought to herself before taking one last breath and opening the doors.

When M’Baku arrived he was confused to see the two extra place settings, and as the food was brought out his confusion only grew. When the doors opened and his eyes met Monae’s he felt his heart drop into his stomach. JJ ran to him and threw his arms around his neck and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Hi baba!”

“Hello,” M’Baku chuckled. “What are you two doing here?” He got up and went over to Monae, enclosing her in a hug.

“Someone had the idea that I should surprise you and come see Wakanda for myself. Maybe that way I’ll be less nervous about him coming out here.” Monae took in his traditional attire and tried not to make her infatuation so obvious, but she failed. He looked damn good in his chief furs.

“How long are you here for?”

“Just two weeks.”

“That is all the time I need.”

“For what?”

“To convince you to stay,” he winked and walked her to her seat, pulling it out for her as she fussed at him.

“I never said I was staying, I said we’re here to visit.”

“Tomato, potato,” M’Baku said as Monae almost spit out her drink and half of the table fell out in laughter. 

“I think you mean ‘tomayto, tomahto’ my G,” N’Jadaka corrected him with tears in his eyes from laughing so hard.

Monae grabbed M’Baku’s hand and squeezed it before he brought it to his lips for a kiss. She allowed it since she was slowly getting used to him again and he couldn’t be happier.

“So, Monae, how do you like your rooms?”

“They’re so nice! Mine alone is the size of my first floor at home, add in JJ’s and we have the whole house.”

“Wait until you sleep on the bed-”

“Wait, are you not staying with me?”

“Well I didn’t want to assume…”

“You two will always have a place with me. I can have your things moved while we eat, unless you would rather stay here.

Monae was apprehensive about the cold, but she had to remind herself why she was here. Everything was for JJ.

“Ok, we’ll stay with you.”

“Yay!” JJ cheered as a huge gap toothed smile appeared on M’Baku’s face.

--------

“I can’t believe you did this…”

Monae looked around JJ’s room and almost shed a tear. 

“I had it set up as soon as I learned I had a child. We can personalize it and change it however he wants, I have interior decorators lined up-”

“M’Baku, it’s perfect. I mean, look at him...look how happy he looks.”

JJ picked up a pretend sword and M’Baku beamed at the future warrior. Monae playfully rolled her eyes as they watched him play-fight with an imaginary assailant. 

“I will have to teach him how to fight for real one day, you know?”

Monae sighed, reminding herself yet again that this was all for JJ. “I know.”

“But you do not like it?”

“No, I don’t like the idea of my son running into battle,” Monae snipped before taking a second and centering herself. “I’m sorry, I’m just...I’m trying, ok?”

“I know. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome...so my room?”

“Yes, right next door here.”

He showed her the room and the view from her window stunned her speechless. She could see all of Wakanda.

“This view…”

“The best in all of Wakanda.”

She felt him close behind her and turned around, coming face to face with the Jabari chief.

“Better than yours?”

“No,” he smirked. “Let me show you.”

They checked in on JJ, who had already curled up with a storybook ready for bedtime.

M’Baku read to his son as his eyelids fell and he eventually drifted off to dreamland. The two adults snuck out of the room quietly and closed the door behind them, saying good night to the guards, before walking just a few doors down and entering the largest room Monae had ever seen. It sat on the corner of the palace, with a large balcony swooping around the side, looking out onto all of Wakanda. She could see even more of the beautiful country and maybe even past it to neighboring countries as well. 

“This is...wow.” 

“Sometimes I cannot believe it myself. Can I get you anything? Water, whiskey, tea?”

“Tea would be great actually,” she sat down on the couch as her eyes continued to wander around the space before they landed on his bookshelf.

“See anything you recognize?”

She got up to take a closer look and saw the books she gave him all those years ago, and a shy smile took over her face. She continued to browse his space, much like he did the first time she brought him to her place five years ago. 

“Is this you? You look just like him!” Monae stopped on a picture of a young M’Baku with his parents. JJ held a striking resemblance to young M’Baku just like how older M’Baku looked just like his father in the picture. “The Jabari must have strong genes...I thought my family all looked alike, y’all are something else. Let me guess, you look like your granddaddy, too?”

“I do, actually,” he chuckled as he handed her a cup of jasmine tea. “Have a seat, make yourself comfortable.” M’Baku disappeared into what Monae assumed was a closet and reemerged in a brown hoodie and sweatpants.

She kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs under her as she sat on the couch, sipping her tea.

“So…” she started.

“So?”

“So, I guess we should talk about JJ.”

“JJ is fine for now, let us talk about something else. Like why you are so nervous around me.”

“I’m not nervous-” he cut her off with a look. “Ok, fine, I’m nervous, but I don’t know why.”

“Monae,” he turned her jaw towards him so they could look into each other’s eyes, “I know this is hard for you, I do. And I am not asking for you to completely uproot your life for me, but I want to be with you again...even if we have to make it work across the world.”

“M’Baku, I-” her head dropped.

“Do not have to make a decision right now.”

“It’s not that, it’s just…”

“Is there someone else?”

“Wh- no! I barely have time for myself, much less anyone else. I mean, I’ve gone on dates, had a few hookups-”

“Please, spare me the details.”

“Right, sorry,” she cleared her throat. “Don’t you have some royal suitors lined up or something?”

He chuckled, “I did, until I met you. They had been trying to find a chieftess for me for years.”

“Chieftess?”

“Yes, my wife would be my chieftess.”

“And if we get back together…?”

“I told you I could give you a kingdom, Monae.”

She hadn’t noticed he’d moved closer until she felt his breath on her cheek. She turned to meet his face and their lips connected, making fireworks shoot all over Monae’s body. She pulled back and looked at him before she straddled his body and dove back in for more. Their tongues danced against each other as the kiss turned passionate and his hands explored her body. He let out a moan as his hands gripped her ass that had gotten bigger over time. Her waist was thicker and her breasts hung a little lower, and he loved every inch of her. She grinded into his lap as she sucked on his bottom lip and he let out another moan that sounded closer to a growl before pulling back.

“If you want me to stop-”

“Don’t stop.”

A fire burned behind his eyes as she pulled her dress over her head, revealing her body to him. His fingers traced over the stretch marks on her stomach and she shivered at his touch as his eyes raked up and down her naked form. When she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again, he stood with her in his hands and walked her to the bed, lightly placing her down in the middle.

“I have missed you so much Babygirl,” he said between kisses as she squeezed her legs tighter around him. She could feel his  dick hardening between his legs as she opened her legs wider to let him in. 

He kissed down her body until he reached her center, his lips ghosting over hers as he thanked Hanuman for bringing this woman back into his life before digging in like it was his last meal. Monae writhed on the bed as his tongue alternated between exploring her insides and licking her clit into submission. When his lips closed around her as he sloppily tongue kissed her entire pussy, she let out a deep moan that overwhelmed her emotionally and tears sprang from her eyes.

“Cum in my mouth.”

“Mm, yes.” her tears continued to pour out of her eyes as her body shook and tensed up before releasing a deluge onto his tongue. He didn’t stop either, he kept pushing her to her breaking point over and over again until he finally got tired and kissed his way back up her body.

“Are you ok?” he asked as he wiped her tears away.

“I’m ok,” she nodded.

“You are crying more than usual.”

“I just really missed you. It’s hard to explain how all this feels and the feelings are overwhelming as fuck...but I know I want this. I know I want you.”

He pecked her lips.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Monae, I am not just talking about sex-”

Her hands cupped his face and she pulled him into her so their foreheads rested against each other. “Neither am I.”

His thumb traced her bottom lip as he stared into her big brown eyes. Her hand made its way down his body and rested between his legs, rubbing along his thick, juicy dick that she missed oh so much. She grabbed the head and rubbed her thumb over his tip before running her fingernails up the leg of his sweatpants. She caught the bottom of his sweatshirt and pulled it up, prompting him to break their kiss and pull the hoodie over his head. His pants went next and she was met with the sight of his beautiful naked body.

He came back in for a kiss and she pulled his body over hers, opening herself to him again. He rested his forearm on the pillow next to her head and his other hand found its home under her knee, pulling her leg back even more as he leaned in to kiss her deeply.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear as he slowly pushed inside her, working his way in one inch at a time then pulling out and pushing in deeper with each thrust. Her relatively short nails marked up his back as he filled her in a way she hadn’t been filled in years. She felt emotions swirl in her chest and escape from her eyes and he kissed her tears away one by one.

Once he was fully seated inside her he stilled to compose himself, allowing her to feel all of him inside her. Her pussy squeezed him tight and she grinded up into him.

“Move, baby.”

His hips pulled back before rolling forward, pushing deep into her wetness as she cried out to the heavens. Every thrust brought their already intertwined bodies closer together and he looked down at her with love in his eyes as he played her body like a drum. Monae couldn’t handle all the feelings and eventually they boiled over and she snapped, cumming all over him and rolling them over so that she was on top. Her hips worked him like it was her job, and her hands clawed at his shoulders. She corkscrewed her hips as she leaned her body back away from him, exposing her breasts for him to play with. And that he did, taking them into his mouth and teasing her pebbled buds before covering her entire neck and chest in kisses and light nibbles as she got up on her tiptoes and pounded her hips down onto his pelvis. 

She felt the pressure rising in her lower abdomen and circled her hips, dragging her clit along his body and letting out a moan from deep within her soul as the pressure released. 

“Let me see that arch in your back,” he said with a slap to her asscheek. Monae hopped up and kneeled down next to him before leaning forward and dropping her top half to the bed, leaving her voluptuous ass in the air for him to do as he pleased.

“Good girl.” He came up behind her and entered her in one swift motion, grabbing her hips and thrusting into her with rhythmic abandon. 

“Yes! Yes!” was all she could say as she gripped the sheets in front of her and did her best to hold her ass up for him. He could tell she was struggling, so his hands came up under her hips and lifted them for her, making sure he got the correct angle to hit her spot. His grunts of passion mixed with her high pitched moans as he tore her apart to create a symphony in the large room, their voices echoing off the walls and out into the mountains. 

His hands slipped and her body slid to the bed, prompting him to lean over her body and pull her neck back for a sloppy kiss, tongues meeting each other before their lips did. He used his other hand to grip her ass tight after slapping it. 

“I feel you getting ready to cum again,” he whispered in her ear, “I am right there with you, Babygirl. Just tell me where you want it.”

“I-inside me. Please, Daddy.”

He flipped her over and plunged back inside, kissing her deeply as he dug into her. Monae’s nails found the same indents as before as he gave her all he had to give. Their foreheads connected as her walls contracted around him and his strokes faltered. 

“M’Baku!” she cried out as she exploded all over him again, kicking his orgasm into gear as he stared deep into her eyes and emptied himself into her. The two of them fought to catch their breath as they untangled and laid next to each other. As they came down she was finally able to find the words she had buried for so long.

“M’Baku?”

“Hm?” He turned to look at her with his arm folded behind his head and she curled up at his side.

“I love you too.”

He chuckled and kissed her nose, “I know, Babygirl.”

--------

The next day, M’Baku showed his family around to the other tribes, but of course he saved the best for last. The Jabari people welcomed Monae and JJ with open arms and a week later, they held a celebration in honor of the little prince. He loved the attention, but mostly he just liked getting to play with his Panther tribe cousins and the other Jabari kids. Several elders came up to Monae to ask questions about marriage, all of which she managed to dance around like an expert, but the questions about JJ’s crowning were a little harder for her to dodge. She had hoped they would be able to put it off some, but it didn’t seem as though the elders were too keen on waiting. After the feast was over and the two parents put JJ to bed, Monae finally spoke up.

“So...the elders…”

“Yes, they seem to like you

“Oh I know they like me, each one of them asked me at least twice when I’m marrying you.”

“When are you marrying me?”

 “M’Baku I-”

“No I am serious, Monae,” he cooed as he walked towards her. “Stay with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t.”

“That is not a good enough reason.”

“I have Jazz, and my job, and my friends.”

He grabbed her hands in his.

“Monae, Nakia did your job at the Oakland Center while living in Wakanda part time...travelling to see Jazz and your friends, or bringing them here even, would not be a problem. You are best friends with the king and queen, not to mention you yourself would be a chieftess...these problems are easily fixed, my love.”

Monae removed her hands from his and walked to the balcony, pulling the collar of her fur coat up to shield her from the elements. He followed after her and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his head on hers. 

“M’Baku, I’m not saying no...I’m saying I can’t just up and follow a man I was with for just two months to the other side of the world because he magically reappears in my life.”

“I am not just some man, Monae,” he turned her around to look at him, “I am Lord M’Baku the Great Gorilla, Chief of the Jabari. I am the father of your son. I am the man that you fell madly in love with in just two months. I do not want you to follow me, I want you to be with me...even on the other side of the world, if that is where your heart desires to be.”

“What would I even do here?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

“You could teach dance classes, or plan events, or whatever else might play to your skillset. You can even do nothing for the rest of your life if you want to-”

He was cut off by a nigga please glare from Monae.

“So basically, I can do whatever I want.”

“Yes.”

“And JJ? What will he do?”

“He will do everything Jabari children do. He will go to school, learn to fight, and when he is in his teens I will start preparing him to take over one day.”

“Teens?! Isn’t that too young still?”

“He will not be in charge then, think of it more as an apprenticeship.”

“Ok...this is a lot to take in, M’Baku. I’ll talk to JJ and see what he thinks.”

“But he is just a child.”

“And as his mom I want him to know that even though I have the final say, his voice gets to be heard.”

“You are a good mother.”

A tear came to her eye and she looked down, “Thank you.”

“If I absolutely had to accidentally abandon a child with anybody, I am glad it was you.”

They broke into laughter and he kissed her forehead.

“We will figure it out.”

The two of them fell asleep in each other’s arms, and when the next morning came Monae decided breakfast would be as good a time as any to gauge JJ’s reaction to their possible move.

M’Baku flipped the pancakes on the griddle as Monae sat at the table with JJ, both coloring away in his Blue’s Clues coloring book. They were so engrossed in their artwork that they barely even noticed him set the food down in front of them until he cleared his throat. They both looked at him and gave a sheepish grin, making M’Baku wonder how JJ could look so much like him yet so much like his mother at the same time. 

Monae made JJ’s plate and cut up his pancakes for him before digging into her own. The pancakes melted in her mouth and the eggs were perfect fluffy clouds. She had forgotten how good he was in the kitchen. “Mmm this is delicious.”

“Baba, you can really cook. You’re as good as mommy!”

The adults chuckled as M’Baku sat down and dug in, enjoying the fruits of his labor. After a few minutes of just scraping utensils silling the silence, Monae cleared her throat.

“So...JJ. How do you like it here?”

“It’s really cold, but it’s fun. I like the snowball fights.”

“You are very good at them,” M’Baku added.

“You are. So do you like it more than home?”

“No they’re both good, especially with Auntie Jazz there now.”

Monae had hoped for a clear cut answer, but it didn’t seem like she’d be getting one.

“Well what do you like about both places?” she asked.

“Here there’s baba and umakhulu and Hasani and Hasina and my aunts and uncles and rhinos and snow. Auntie Jazz is at home though, and so are my friends and Juju and the Center.”

Monae contemplated his words, still not coming to a concrete solution.

“JJ, how about you help me clean up the kitchen?” M’Baku asked after noticing the perplexed look stuck on Monae’s face.

“Ok!” JJ hopped down from his chair as M’Baku collected the plates from the table and brought them to the sink. Monae watched how the two of them interacted while they washed and dried the dishes. JJ and M’Baku had grown close in the time they had spent in Jabari land. She loved watching them laugh and goof off together, and every time she watched him read JJ a story at night, her heart felt full. When they finished washing dishes M’Baku sat back down at the table with Monae and grabbed her hand, bringing it to his lips for a kiss.

“Did that help with your decision making?”

“Not at all, he’s so diplomatic.” she groaned and put her head against the table.

M’Baku stifled a smile as he rubbed her back.

“Mommy, what’s wrong?”

“Just a little headache, baby.”

“JJ, what do you say I take you to a gorilla nest?”

Monae’s head popped up immediately, “Is that safe?!”

“Yes, the ones we will visit are used to being around humans.”

“I don’t know, M’Baku-”

“Come with us, it will ease your mind.”

Monae took a deep breath then nodded before the kimoyo beads she had been gifted upon arrival started to make noise. “It’s Jazz, I’m gonna take this in my room.” 

He nodded, knowing she needed to talk things out with her sister before she could make a decision. 

When Monae made it to her room, she answered the call and Jazz’s voice filled the room.

“Heyyyyyy!”

“Why are you awake? It’s like midnight.”

“You know I’m a night owl. So what’s up? Your text sounded like you were freaking out.”

“I am freaking out.”

“Why? The sex not as good as you remember or something?”

“No it’s definitely not that...he wants us to stay.”

“Ok...and the problem is?”

“My life is in Nashville, you’re there, my job is there, my friends are there. JJ’s friends are there.”

“He’ll make new friends. And didn’t you tell me you worked with the queen? In Oakland...on the other side of the world from her kingdom...that she ruled...while working in Oakland?”

“Ugh yes, you sound like M’Baku.”

“You got a smart babydaddy. One that I’m sure wouldn’t mind me coming to visit. It’ll be just like when I was at NYU.”

“I know, but you just moved in and now I’m abandoning you-”

“Sis, you’re not abandoning me. I. Will. Be. Fine.”

Monae took a deep breath.

“So what’s with all the excuses?”

“Huh?”

“You heard me. Why all the excuses, Nae?”

“I just want to do what’s right for JJ, but I don’t know what that is. He likes both places equally. I don’t want to uproot him, but I also don’t want to keep him from M’Baku and his side of the family.”

“All I’m hearing is that you’re too scared to make the decision you want to make. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you hiding behind JJ as an excuse knowing damn well he’s going to be more than fine wherever y’all go?”

“I...damn. You’re right.” Monae had exhausted all her excuses and felt defeated. She really was the only thing standing in their way. 

“Duh, so what are you gonna do about it?”

--------

The night before their departure, M’Baku and Monae did their usual routine of getting JJ ready for bed then retiring to his quarters for tea or something stronger. 

This time was a little different though, despite the red wine poured into two glasses. Monae was usually much more talkative, but this time she seemed to be in another world.

“Is everything ok, my love?”

“Hm? Oh yeah, just thinking.”

“About what?”

“About a lot of things, really. About JJ, work, my future...us.”

“What about us?”

“I know that being with you, I'd have certain responsibilities,” she paused as M’Baku nodded. “Like what?”

“Well I am not entirely sure. We are restructuring the way we run things here. I was gone for five years and the council had no problems stepping in and ruling in my absence. The flexibility will allow me to come to America more often to visit...I don’t think I can handle just seeing him for a couple months a year, but I can come to you.”

“Isn’t that against tradition?”

“Yes, but so is having a child out of wedlock and I do not see anyone complaining about that. In fact, the people love JJ...and you,” he grabbed her hand in his and intertwined their fingers.

“I’ve noticed,” Monae deadpanned, thinking back to all the questions about marriage the council threw her way. M’Baku chuckled as he read the frustration on her face.

“Tradition got thrown out the window as soon as the aliens arrived.”

“I bet,” Monae laughed before her face turned serious. “What was it like fighting aliens?”

“Terrifying. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw that day in battle,” he kissed her hand, “but the whole time I was praying to Hanuman that I could see your face again. When T’Challa told me how much time had passed, I was heartbroken. I just knew you had found somebody else...when you told me I had a son, my whole world changed. Now I have to raise my little boy in a world with terrifying aliens that I don’t understand and cannot explain to him.”

“I still can’t explain The Snap to him, maybe when he’s older I’ll have the words, but as for now I don't even understand it enough to answer him. He asked me the other day if you would get Dusted again...he’s worried about losing you and I can’t give him an answer because I’m worried about the same thing.”

“Is that what all this is about? Your hesitance?”

Monae burst into tears and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her in closer.

“It-it’s just that it could happen again at any moment. What if you’re gone for another five years? What if you never come back if there’s a next time?”

“Monae, it is over. The Titan is dead, the stones are gone, the gauntlet is gone...there will be no more Snaps. I cannot promise that something else equally preposterous will not happen instead, but that worry is gone now.”

She crawled into his lap and curled up into a ball as he stroked her back.

“So...no more aliens?”

“I cannot promise that...just no more Snaps.”

She nodded and rested her head in the crook of his neck, breathing him in and relaxing more with each inhale of his scent. 

She let out a sigh.

“Is something wrong, my love?”

“I just remembered we leave tomorrow.”

“Yes, I have been trying not to think about it.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know...but I won’t miss you long.”

M’Baku deflated.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she sat up and looked him in his sad eyes, “that it’s not fair for JJ to bounce between us. He needs a home that’s not split in half, and there’s more for him here than back in Nashville.”

“You are saying-”

“That we’re gonna go home tomorrow, pack our things, then come back in a week.”

A slow smile spread across M’Baku’s face as a tear came to his eye. Monae wiped it away as he kissed her all over her face before pulling back and staring into her eyes.

“I know you are coming back for JJ’s sake, but what does this mean for us?”

“It means that although JJ comes first, and is the main reason for this move...I can’t say that being closer to you had nothing to do with it. I’ve been alone for five years, I don’t want to be without you again.”

“I am sorry that I left you, Monae.”

“You had no choice, don’t be sorry.”

“I just hate that I missed out on so much. Pictures aren’t enough.”

“You’re here now. Yes you missed his birth and his first steps, but you’ll teach him how to shave and how to be a Jabari warrior. There will still be plenty of wounds to kiss and make better, baby. Plenty more ‘firsts’.”

“Mm. Would you ever consider having another child?”

“My answer used to be ‘hell no’, but that was before you came back. I could consider it...I think JJ would make a great big brother...maybe in another year or two?”

M’Baku’s smile was wider than ever and his eyes twinkled in the light as he looked at her, studying her features. Her big doe eyes always gave her emotions away, even behind her thick tortoiseshell frames. She had laid her heart out on the table for him and he almost couldn’t believe how quickly she seemed to change her mind. He wasn’t sure exactly how their conversation went, but he knew he had Jazz to thank for this. 

“That sounds perfect.”

The two of them stayed up all night discussing their future, emptying the bottle of wine around midnight, and falling asleep on the couch shortly after. The next morning, Monae was awakened by the sound of JJ knocking on the door. She opened her eyes to see they had somehow made it to the bed and smiled picturing him carrying her while she slept peacefully in his arms. M’Baku stirred next to her and stretched as she got up to answer the door.

“What’s up baby?” she asked him, still groggy and voice cracking as she adjusted M’Baku’s t-shirt she was sleeping in...that she also did not have on when she fell asleep.

“I’m hungry, it’s late.”

Monae looked at the time and her eyes nearly bugged out of her head, “How is it already 10:30?!”

M’Baku made breakfast again while Monae rushed to get herself and their son ready for their trip. When JJ started folding his clothes to pack in his suitcase, Monae stopped him, having forgotten that he didn’t know the plan yet. She noticed he was moving slow and looked a little sad.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

“I’m gonna miss it here.”

“You like being with your baba?”

He sniffled and a tear rolled down his cheek. It was at that moment that she knew she had made the right decision. 

“JJ...honey...mommy and baba have something to tell you,” she looked to M’Baku right as he walked in the door, filling the entire frame with his body. He sat on the bed on the other side of JJ and pulled him into his lap while Monae grabbed his little hands in hers.

“What is it?” he sniffled again as M’Baku wiped his tears.

“We’re going home today, but we’re coming back...we’re gonna move here to be with baba.”

JJ’s face lit up and he stopped crying. “Really?!”

“Yes, really,” M’Baku chuckled as he tickled his son, making his infectious laughter ring out once again.

“But what about Auntie Jazz?”

“It’ll be just like before, we can go visit her or she can come visit here.”

“But I thought you didn’t like the cold?”

Monae sighed as M’Baku stifled a laugh. “I don’t, but a Jabari man stole my heart and we made a little Jabari that belongs in the mountains with his people. I’ll adjust.”

“So...we’re really moving?” The hopeful look on his face made both his parents smile.

“Yes,” she laughed, “we’re really moving.”

“I have to tell Hasina and Hasani!” he jetted off to find his beads. They were programmed without most of the normal features so that he and his cousins could talk anytime they wanted to, and sure enough he immediately spilled the beans to the twins despite the fact that they would be seeing each other in an hour’s time. As they chatted, Monae and M’Baku grabbed the few things they would actually need for the week they would be gone and in no time flat, they were ready to go.

“Is that everything?” M’Baku asked as the family of three travelled to the small jet that would take them down to the palace. It was a gloomy, overcast day and the two parents tried to not let it affect their moods as JJ said goodbye to his grandma. Neither wanted to say goodbye, even though they both knew it was temporary. Any time apart felt like a lifetime.

“I think so, but we’ll be back so it’s fine.”

“I love hearing you say that,” he leaned in and kissed her.

They arrived at the palace and they were greeted by the royal family again, minus N’Jadaka who had gone back to Oakland a few days ago. 

The cousins immediately gravitated towards each other and started chatting away as the adults did the same.

“We heard from a couple little birdies that you’re moving here. What changed?” Nakia asked.

“I had to be sure...but I’m sure now.”

“Well dear, it seems you have made the right choice,” Ramonda motioned behind them and the two of them turned around to see the three kids play fighting. “I know M’Baku must be happier than a hippo in the Nile.”

“He is,” she beamed, “and honestly I am too. I was scared, but it’s like as soon as I said ‘I’ll stay’ my worries just disappeared. I knew it was the right thing to do.”

M’Baku, Shuri, and T’Challa joined them and the two men put their arms around their loves.

“Are you ready?” M’Baku whispered to her.

“Yes,” she giggled at his breath tickling her ear.

“Enough of that, she’ll be back in a week,” Shuri playfully ribbed them and everyone laughed.

“But that is so long-“

“Five years, M’Baku.”

He conceded with a kiss and the group meandered towards the jet where Okoye and Ayo already awaited them.

Monae and JJ turned and said their goodbyes, leaving M’Baku for last.

He knelt down to JJ’s level and pulled something from his pocket before placing it around JJ’s neck. It was a wood bead necklace with a small hand-carved  gorilla pendant.

“It’s just like yours!”

“That is right, igorila encinci.” 

JJ threw his arms around M’Baku’s neck and M’Baku hugged him tight. 

“I love you, baba.”

“I love you too, Jabari.” he held him close and a tear almost came to his eye at hearing those words for the very first time. 

“Do you love mommy?”

Both parents smiled as M’Baku stood to his full height, carrying a giggling JJ with him. 

“I love you and your mommy more than anything else in this world,” he said, looking into her eyes. He leaned in for a chaste kiss and she obliged, making JJ giggle at their display before Monae reached out and started tickling him, really giving him something to laugh about.

“We’ll see you in a week?”

“I will be here,” he kissed both of their foreheads before they walked up the stairs and onto the ship. 

T’Challa and Shuri came up on either side of M’Baku as he waved at them before the Talon shimmered out of view as it went through the dome. He let out a sigh and everyone could see the dopey smile lingering on his face.

“Someone’s happy,” Shuri nudged him in his side and it broke him from his daze.

“Very.” He turned to the king, “Thank you.”

“For the ship? It is no problem, really-”

“No, for sending me to Oakland. I hated the idea of going, but I never would have met Monae otherwise...so thank you for not letting me talk you out of it.”

“You were never going to talk me out of it...but you’re welcome.”

T’Challa clapped M’Baku on the shoulder as he turned to go inside with the rest of the family.

“You coming?” Shuri asked M’Baku.

“In just a moment.”

She nodded and followed behind her brother, leaving M’Baku alone, staring up at the sky.

“Hanuman, Ancestors,” he started, “thank you for blessing me with the air in my lungs and the blood in my veins. Thank you for allowing me to be in my child’s life. Thank you for leading me to Monae, and thank you for her choosing me over Damon. I have no words to express the depths of my gratitude, thank you just does not seem like enough...but that is all I have right now, so thank you, thank you, thank you. Please, keep them safe on this journey and bring them back to me.”

Just then, the clouds moved out of the way and the sun poked through for the first time all day.

“Glory to Hanuman,” M’Baku praised before he turned and walked back into the palace with a huge, goofy smile on his face, content in knowing his family would return to him soon.

The end.  

Taglist: @devnicolee, @maddeningmayhem, @theblulife

[ducktastic]

2020 Gameological Awards

Over on the Gameological Discord, we have an annual tradition of writing up our games of the year not as a ranked list but rather as answers to a series of prompts. Here are my personal choices for the year that was 2020.

Favorite Game of the Year

I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into Paradise Killer. I knew that I liked the vaporwave resort aesthetic from the game’s trailer and figured I was in for a Danganronpa-style murder mystery visual novel with an open-ended murder mystery at its core. Those assumptions were… half-right? The game definitely plays out like the exploration bits of Danganronpa set on the island from Myst but with far simpler puzzles. What I didn’t expect was to fall so deeply in love with the environment—its nooks and crannies, its millennia of lore, its brutalist overlap of idol worship, consumerism, and mass slaughter. It makes sense that the world of Paradise Killer is its strongest feature, since the cast of NPCs don’t really move around, leaving you alone with the world for the overwhelming majority of your experience as you bounce back and forth between digging around for clues and interrogating potential witnesses. And despite what the promo materials indicated, there IS a definitive solution to the crimes you’re brought in to investigate, the game just lets you make judgment based on whatever evidence you have at the time you’re ready to call it a day, so if you’re missing crucial evidence you might just make a compelling enough case for the wrong person and condemn them to eternal nonexistence. Am I happy with the truth at the end of the day? No, and neither is anybody else I’ve spoken to who completed the game, but we all were also completely enthralled the entire time and our dissatisfaction has less to do with the game and more to do with the ugly reality of humanity. I’ve always been of the mindset that “spoilers” are absolute garbage and that a story should be just as good whether you know the twist or not and any story that relies on surprising the audience with an unexpected reveal is not actually that good a story, but Paradise Killer is a game about piecing together your own version of events so I feel that it’s vital to the gameplay experience that people go in knowing as little as possible and gush all about it afterwards. Just trust me, if the game looks even remotely intriguing to you, go for it. I’ve had just as much fun talking about the game after I finished it with friends just getting started as I did actually solving its mysteries myself.

Best Single Player Game

I honestly missed out on the buzz for In Other Waters at launch, so I’m happy I had friends online talking it up as Black Friday sales were coming along. The minimal aesthetic of his underwater exploration game allows the focus to shift more naturally to the game’s stellar writing as a lone scientist goes off in search of her mentor and the secrets they were hiding on an alien world. It only took a few hours for me to become completely absorbed in this narrative and keep pushing forward into increasingly dangerous waters. In Other Waters might just be the best sci-fi story I experienced all year and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci-fi novels, regardless of their experience with video games.

Best Multiplayer Game

Look, we all know this year sucked. 2020 will absolutely be chronicled in history books as a fascinating and deeply depressing time in modern history where we all stayed inside by ourselves and missed our friends and family. It was lonely and it was bleak. Which is why it made my heart glow so much more warmly every time I got a letter from an honest-to-goodness real-life friend in Animal Crossing New Horizons. Knowing that they were playing the same game I was and hearing about their experiences and sending each other wacky hats or furniture, it lightened the days and made us feel that little bit more connected. Sure, when the game first launched we would actually take the time to visit one another’s islands, hang out, chat in real-time, and exchange gifts, but we all eventually got busy with Zoom calls, sourdough starters, and watching Birds of Prey twenty-two times. Still, sending letters was enough. It was and still is a touching little way to show that we’re here for one another, if not at the exact same time.

Favorite Ongoing Game

Zach Gage is one of my favorite game designers right now, and when I heard he was releasing a game called Good Sudoku I was sold sight unseen. The game as released was… fine. It’s sudoku and it’s pleasant, but it was also buggy and overheated my phone in a way I hadn’t seen since Ridiculous Fishing (also by Zach Gage) seven years ago. Thankfully, the most glaring bugs have been fixed and I can now enjoy popping in every day for some quick logic puzzle goodness. Daily ranked leaderboards keep me coming back again and again, the steady ramp of difficulty in the arcade and eternal modes means I can always chase the next dopamine rush of solving increasingly complex puzzles. It’s not a traditional “ongoing” game the way, say, Fortnite and Destiny are, but I’m happy to come back every day for sudoku goodness.

Didn't Click For Me

With Fortnite progressively losing me over the course of 2020, finalizing with my wholesale “never again” stance after Epic boss Tim Sweeney compared Fortnite demanding more money from Apple to the American Civil Rights movement (no, absolutely not), I dipped my toe into a number of new “battle pass”-style online arena types of games, and while Genshin Impact eventually got its hooks into me, Spellbreak absolutely did not. With graphics straight out of The Dragon Prince and the promise of a wide variety of magic combat skills to make your character your own, the game seemed awfully tempting, but my first few experiences were aimless and joyless, with no moment of clarity to make me understand why I should keep coming back. Maybe they’ll finesse the game some more in 2021, or a bunch of my friends will get hooked and lure me back, but for now I am a-okay deleting this waste of space on my Switch and PC.

"Oh Yeah, I Did Play That Didn't I?"

I remember being really excited for Murder By Numbers. Ace Attorney-style crime scene investigation visual novel with Picross puzzles for the evidence, art by the creators of Hatoful Boyfriend, and music by the composer of Ace Attorney itself?! Sounds like a dream come true. But the pixel-hunt nature of the crime scene investigations was more frustrating than fun, the picross puzzles were not particularly great, and the game came out literally a week before the entire world went into lockdown which makes it feel more like seven years ago than just earlier this year. I remember being marginally charmed by the game once it was in my hands, but as soon as my mind shifted to long-term self care, Murder By Numbers went from hot topic to cold case.

Most Unexpected Joy

I was looking forward to Fuser all year. As a dyed-in-the-wool DropMix stan, the prospect of a spiritual sequel to DropMix on all major digital platforms without any of the analogue components was tremendously exciting, and I knew I’d have a lot of fun making mixes by myself and posting them online for the world to hear. What I didn’t expect, however, was the online co-op mode to be such a blast! Up to four players take turns making 32 bars of mashups, starting with whatever the player before handed them and adding their own fingerprints on top. It sounds like it should just be a mess of cacophony, but every session I’ve played so far has been just the best dance party I’ve had all year, and everyone not currently in control of the decks (including an audience of spectators) can make special requests for what the DJ should spin and tap along with the beat to great super-sized emoji to show how much they’re enjoying the mix. Literally the only times my Apple Watch has ever warned me of my heightened heart rate have been the times I was positively bouncing in place rocking out to co-op freestyle play in Fuser.

Best Music

Only one video game this year had tunes that were so bumpable they were upgraded to my general “2020 jams” playlist alongside Jeff Rosenstock, Run the Jewels, and Phoebe Bridgers, and that game was Paradise Killer. 70% lo-fi chill beats to study/interrogate demons to, 20% gothic atmospheric bangers, 10% high-energy pop jazz, this soundtrack was just an absolute joy to swim around in both in and out of gameplay.

Favorite Game Encounter

It’s wild that in a landscape where games let me live out my wildest fantasies, the single moment that lit me up in a way that stood out to me more than any other was serving Neil the right drink in Coffee Talk. Over the course of the game, you serve a variety of hot drinks to humans, werewolves, vampires, orcs, and more, all while chatting with your customers and learning more about their lives and relationships. The most mysterious customer, though, is an alien life form who adopts the name Neil. They do not know what they want to drink and claim it doesn’t make a difference because they cannot taste it. Everybody else wants *something*. Neil is just ordering for the sake of fitting in and exploring the Earth experience. It’s only in the second playthrough that attentive baristas will figure out what to serve Neil, unlocking the “true” ending in the process. Seeing the typically stoic Neil actually emote when they tasted their special order drink? What an absolute treat that was.

Best Free DLC of the Year

It’s still only a couple of days old at the time I’m writing this, but Marvel’s Avengers just added Kate Bishop, aka Hawkeye, and THANK GOODNESS. Almost every character in the game at launch just smashed the endless waves of robot baddies with their fists and that looks exhausting and uncomfortable. Hawkeye (the game calls her Kate Bishop, but come on, she’s been Hawkeye in the comics for over 14 years, let’s show her some respect) uses A SWORD. FINALLY! Aside from that, I’m just having a blast shooting arrows all over the place. She and Ms Marvel are the most likable characters in the game so far, so I hope they keep adding more of the Young Avengers and Champions to the game, and if the recently announced slate of Marvel movies and tv shows are any indication (with America Chavez, Cassie Lang, and Riri Williams all coming soon to the MCU), that seems to be what Marvel is pushing for across all media

Most Accessible Game

Nintendo is, first and foremost, a toy company. They got their start in toys and cards long before video games was a thing, and they still do more tests to ensure their video game hardware is childproof than anybody else in the industry (remember how they made Switch cartridges “taste bad” so kids wouldn’t eat them?). This year, Nintendo got to rekindle some of their throwback, simplistic, toys-and-cards energy with Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics, a Switch collection of timeless family-friendly games like Chess, Mancala, and Backgammon, along with “toy” versions of sports like baseball, boxing, and tennis for a virtual parlor room of pleasant time-wasters. The games were all presented with charming li’l explainers from anthropomorphic board game figurines, and the ability to play quick sessions of Spider Solitaire on the touch screen while I binged The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix made Clubhouse Games one of my most-played titles of the year. Plus, local play during socially-distant friend hangs was an excellent way to make us feel like we were much closer than we were physically allowed to be as friends knocked each other’s block off in the “toy boxing” version of Rock’em Sock’em Robots.

"Waiting for Game-dot"

I get that everyone loves Disco Elysium. I saw it on everyone’s year-end lists last year. I finally bought it with an Epic Games Store coupon this year. This year was a long enough slog of depressing post-apocalyptic drudgery, I didn’t want to explore a whole nother one in my leisure time. I’ll get to it… someday.

Game That Made Me Think

Holovista was an iPhone game I played over the course of two or three days based on the recommendation of some trusted colleagues on Twitter and oh my goodness was I glad that I played it. What starts as a chill vaporwave photography game steadily progresses into an exploration of psychological trauma, relationships with friends and family, and the baggage we carry with us from our pasts. In this exceptionally hard year, I badly needed this story about spending time alone with your personal demons and finding your way back to the people who love and support you. Just like with Journey and Gone Home, I walked away from Holovista feeling a rekindled appreciation for the people in my life.

[theculturedmarxist]

Never in U.S. history has there been a moment like this: Trillion-dollar proposals are pouring forth from Capitol Hill in a mad bid to save the economy from the ravages of a pandemic.

On the other hand, 2008, when toxic mortgage assets made “bailout” a political buzzword, wasn’t so long ago.

Back then, Congress, to revive a financial system paralyzed by devastating mortgage losses, opened the nation’s wallet wide, passing a $700 billion bailout. The following year, as unemployment rose, credit froze and public coffers dried up, it kicked in $840 billion more in a stimulus bill designed to save and create jobs and jump-start consumer spending. Of course, these helicopter drops of taxpayer cash seemed ripe for waste and fraud, so we decided to track where the money went.

What we learned from dogging those massive efforts provides some important lessons for today’s crisis. Many of the proposals lawmakers put forth this week — a grab bag of rescues for affected industries, broad loan programs and cash payments — the U.S. tried not too long ago.

Here’s a key takeaway: The reason we can easily update you on the pitfalls of the 2008-09 bailout is … it never actually ended. (And guess who keeps updating ProPublica’s Bailout Tracker?) Massive interventions have a way of leaving a mark. The government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant mortgage finance entities, in 2008, and they remain in conservatorship. Tens of millions each month are still going out under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the bailout’s misleading moniker, through next year. (We’ll get back to what TARP ended up doing in a bit.)

So, while a crisis provoked by a rampaging global virus certainly looks a lot different from one caused by toxic mortgage assets, the proposed solutions already on the table really aren’t.

President Donald Trump’s marquee proposal, also embraced by some Democrats, is a $500 billion plan to send stimulus money to American taxpayers as soon as early April. But history shows that the much-anticipated cash relief might not come as fast, or end up as well targeted, as the Trump administration is promising.

The Bush administration tried a similar stimulus measure in February 2008 when it sent $600 tax rebate checks to middle-class workers, with additional money for parents with children. But workers didn’t get them for three to five months — much longer than the two to three weeks Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is currently promising.

When the checks did arrive, people didn’t run out and buy things. Most of the money was saved or used to pay down debt.

When President Barack Obama took over, he pitched a much larger, but ultimately insufficient stimulus package, designed around “shovel-ready” projects, safety net spending and investments in clean energy. Many people forget that the biggest item was a middle-class tax cut. But instead of sending checks, the administration chose to dribble the money out in paychecks at about $10 a week over two years, hoping that this way consumers would spend more of it. They didn’t.

There’s even more reason to believe that the proposed stimulus checks will be saved this time.

By definition, stimulus programs aim to get people to go out and spend, creating demand that creates jobs. But to slow the spread of the coronavirus, government officials are telling, and in some places ordering, people to stay home. Extra money would certainly help workers who’ve lost their jobs or seen their hours cut. It might even encourage people stuck at home to buy new laptops and TVs, helping foreign manufacturers and domestic warehouse workers and truckers. But as popular as tossing cash from helicopters might be, lack of money is not the reason people with jobs aren’t spending right now.

Economic studies have shown there may be more efficient ways to spend $500 billion to aid those in need, such as expanding food assistance, unemployment benefits and other safety net programs as well as incentives to stem the tide of layoffs.

One of the most effective programs from Obama’s stimulus package was a $50 billion fund to shore up state and local budgets, which has been credited with saving the jobs of more than 300,000 teachers and support staff. Sending money to local governments could help down the line as tax revenues plummet along with the economy.

The Trump administration and Congress could do something similar with private businesses now, encouraging them to pay their workers during shutdowns, as Honda has pledged to do.

One proposal floated in a recent Treasury Department memo obtained by The Washington Post is a program that would guarantee $300 billion in loans to help small businesses meet payroll for eight weeks.

But policymakers should also consider the success that Germany had during the last recession with a program known as “work sharing.”

The idea is that businesses will eventually need to ramp up again whenever this especially unpredictable crisis is over. Under work sharing, instead of laying workers off, employers reduce hours, and the government pays partial unemployment benefits to make up for lost wages. For some workplaces, such a program could also achieve the goal of social distancing or allow people a way to balance the new child care and teaching demands caused by school closures.

But according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, more than 20 states don’t offer work sharing programs.

There’s also a lesson from the bailout about what happens when Congress hands an administration broad authority without clear direction or restrictions.

One clear lasting legacy of the 2008-09 bailout is a chronically flawed mortgage modification program, one launched with the promise of saving millions of people from foreclosure, but characterized by ongoing chaos, lax enforcement of its rules and failure. The program was rolled out months after the Treasury Department had quickly pumped hundreds of billions into banks with few strings attached.

This happened because, with pressure to act quickly in 2008, Congress gave the Treasury Department broad discretion to essentially make things up as it went. That’s how — and why — even though the TARP was conceived as a giant program to buy up toxic mortgage assets, the government almost immediately abandoned that idea. Instead, the Treasury Departments of both Bush and Obama spun out an array of programs, successfully bailing out AIG, large banks and the auto industry — and only later launched a notably unsuccessful program for homeowners. (For a rundown of who paid the money back, see here.)

It’s the kind of freedom Trump’s Treasury Department appears to covet: Its recent proposal suggests giving it the authority to send $50 billion to the airlines and $150 billion to “other severely distressed sectors,” with the Treasury determining the “appropriate interest rate and other terms and conditions.”

The TARP had relatively robust oversight built in, and it’s an aspect that should be repeated, said Neil Barofsky, who served as the special inspector general for the TARP from 2008 to 2011.

“You cannot push out $1 trillion without scandal. There’s going to be crime, there’s going to be fraud,” he said. “But with strong and effective oversight, you can limit it.”

Not only did the TARP have Barofsky’s office, but there was also the Congressional Oversight Panel, which was headed by a Harvard professor named Elizabeth Warren. The SIGTARP, as Barofsky’s office was known, released scathing reports and brought criminal cases against bankers who’d lied on their bailout applications, while Warren’s panel publicly raked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner over the coals for being too generous to banks while doing far too little for ordinary people.

Whatever proposals are ultimately adopted, taxpayers should be able to see how the government is spending their money. In 2009, Obama’s stimulus package created an accountability and transparency board, requiring any entity that received contracts, grants or loans to file quarterly reports that were posted publicly on a government website.

Extending the idea to all federal spending was supported by people as far apart politically as then-Vice President Joe Biden and former Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who chaired the House oversight committee. Some provisions made it into law, but the larger effort failed to get traction, and the board and its website shut down in 2015. Perhaps it’s time to resurrect the idea. Without adequate testing, we may not know the full reach of COVID-19; but at least should be able to track the money spent to respond to the crisis it’s leaving behind.

[doom-dreaming]

The Sacred Flock: General Info and How To Join

I've been meaning to write this up for a while and I'm finally getting around to it. This is the definitive "about" guide for joining and writing in the Sacred Flock 'Verse, otherwise known as the Twins' Pet 'Verse or The Menagerie. It has a lot of names. So! Here are the answers to (mostly) all your questions!

1) What is the Sacred Flock 'Verse? You may have seen mentions of this around the Calypso corner of Tumblr and wondered what it was. It's a collaborative, relatively-open AU in which the Calypso Twins acquire and keep human pets as trophies and status symbols to reinforce their godhood.

If this sounds like something you might be into, click the readmore!

What this AU includes:

collars (bells and leashes optional)

branding

microchip tracking

cannibalism; Troy’s got monster mouth mods and Tyreen likes to get in on the action too, sometimes

What this AU does NOT include:

incest or pedophilia

marrying the twins

having children with the twins (both of them have had sterilization surgeries in this AU)

2) Sounds interesting, how would I join? There are two levels of involvement. The first level is simply contributing to the 'Verse! Suggest ideas, write something, interact with our posts, and you're in! Further down in this post I’ve listed some of the established canon of this ‘Verse, along with some tags you can explore to get a basic understanding of what you’d be working with.

The second level is our Discord server. To get into that, you must be:

at least 18 years of age

willing to remain active and contribute ideas to the 'Verse

at least semi-interested in the ongoing narrative

In addition, you should interact with our members (most of whom are listed below) outside of the server enough for us to get a feel for what you're like and how well you'd vibe with the rest of us. This includes submitting an RP "audition" to @clockworkrobotic (Kat) so they can meet your character. We don't have a lot of hard-set rules about characters, but the main thing we ask is that they be canon-compliant. Borderlands canon is pretty crazy, but think about the type of people the twins would want to have as pets and keep it realistic (no crazy powers, etc.)

The actual auditioning process involves a character interview and questionnaire that we set up, so if you're interested in auditioning, send a DM to me or Kat and we can provide more info about the setup of the server, aside from what’s written below.

3) The Discord server sounds cool, if I ended up in it, what could I expect? First and foremost, it is a kink server. Our focus is on pet kink and ownership and obedience. If you act up or get into a big enough argument with our twins, they will punish you accordingly. That's not to say you're not allowed to be soft and mushy and have fun, but we have lots of highly-specific channels for other flavors of twin-loving, so heed where everything should go and you'll be fine.

It is a private kink server and we ask that you be respectful of what people are choosing to share.

(Further note: our twins are played by real people and they really do their best to stick to canon characterization, which means they can be pretty villainous sometimes. Go figure. If you're very sensitive to discipline or the occasional sibling shouting match, the main RP may not be the best place for you. We want everyone to have fun and we know that tolerance levels and triggers vary from person to person. The twins will get mean because we (the mods) told them to be, given the understanding that this is a server about being owned by two fairly awful individuals.)

4) You still haven't scared me away yet! Is there any established Flock canon I need to include when I contribute? Yes! Our canon is constantly evolving, and the structure of the narrative outside of the server is quite a bit looser, but we do have established aspects for this AU. A good tag to check out (included at the end of this post) is '#flock worldbuilding.' Some main points include:

the twins' powers are a little tweaked. The leech ability is paired with a healing ability, and the twins can trade these powers back and forth at will

the twins and their pets (us) live in a large building known as the Holy Inner Compound, located near the Cathedral, so it's part of the same Dahl refinery, but the twins have renovated to make themselves some comfortable living quarters

in the center of the Holy Inner Compound is a huge garden. The twins discovered early-on that their healing was just as strong and just as reckless as their leeching, and a burst of siren energy created a beautiful tree that bears a strange fruit. The garden has grown ever since, housing all kinds of vegetables, fruits, and flowers both native and foreign. A pond of fresh water feeds small streams that meander throughout the garden. A good tag to look at is '#tsf: the oasis' (tagged below)

there is a conditioning process that new pets go through. It varies from pet to pet depending on personality and comfort level around the twins (they want you to trust them, ideally) and ends with a collaring ceremony, a public, live-streamed ritual that involves an official collaring and a reminder to the cultists that the Flock is to be treated with the same reverence as the Twin Gods

we focus heavily on the more religious potential of the COV, leaning into ritualism and ceremony; the twins are still streamers with huge personalities, we just ramp up the religious undertones the game didn’t really explore

we have a huge collection of animal pets (affectionately referred to as petpets) and if you want to see them, @glowydruglord did some adorable illustrations for us. Just check out the '#pet pets' tag on my blog to find them

I've started posting some supplementary material and will continue to do so for the next month or so. This includes:

maps of the compound (sketched floor plans and screenshots of my accurate-as-possible Sims build)

detailed information on the progression of the conditioning process

breakdowns of the different areas of the compound

overviews of the ceremonies and rituals used to induct new pets into the Flock

I think I covered the most important stuff, and you can check out the tags below (check them from inside my blog to get relevant results) to take a look at what this 'Verse has to offer. Most importantly, please interact with us if you want to be a part of this! We're all very friendly and me and @clockworkrobotic especially want to get to know the people who are contributing. We'll be happy to answer any questions or just chat!

Here are some of our most active members!

@afterthedreamer @bettersafethandicks @circiva @vialandmortar @cacklefrendly @vaulttouched @constantfantasymind

If you would like to interact with and contribute to this AU, please respect our guidelines. We have a wide range of personalities and preferences and we would ask that you be mindful of what that can entail. One person’s kink can be someone else’s trigger. If you have a question or concern, please ask us!

[killervibe]

Lux et Veritas

Chapter 1: Cisco and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Read Prologue here 

Everything was always immaculate here, Cisco thought. How the walls and floors were shining white and polished. The state of the art equipment expensive in a way that had him skittish to touch the first few weeks, afraid of being scolded for using them.

He never was.

The people around him were too busy to take his notice, in their white coats and pencil skirts with heels bustling around him, all doing their jobs, just like Cisco was doing his. And how nice, he thought, getting to do this for real, some day.

Cisco was busy scribbling his signature on the papers, finalizing his last report after the data entry he finished. The lab was near empty, and he glanced around it, committing all the details to memory. He had taken to this lab from the very moment he had been assigned to the department, it had served well this summer as a quiet safe space, a home away from home.

Immersed in his paperwork, Cisco missed the mechanic swish of the automated glass door sliding open, not realizing he had company until he felt a hand on his shoulder. He smiled up at his supervisor, The Dr. Wells. It’s been three months and he still couldn’t believe it.

“Well, it’s three-thirty. You’re done. How does it feel?”

Cisco let go of his pen and sighed wistfully. “Honestly, Sir. Kinda down. I really like it here.”

“I’m glad. You were excellent to work with. I’ve already drafted a glowing recommendation for wherever you choose to pursue your higher education.”

A flush came to his face, and Cisco glanced aside, shy from the praise. 

“Thank you, Dr. Wells.”

“No, thank you. Where are you wanting to go to school?”

Cisco opened his mouth to reply when Tess Morgan sidled up to Dr. Wells’s side.

He wrapped an arm around his wife’s waist and she clucked her tongue. “Don’t stress him, Harrison. He still has plenty of time to decide.”

“Well, my girlfriend and I were always planning for an Ivy,” Cisco said. “But I’d also take MIT or Caltech.”

“Engineering, I hope.”

“Yessir.”

Cisco stood up, unclipping his ID. School started tomorrow. Somehow swapping his Star Labs keycard for his old library pass was kind of depressing.

He looked down at it, his laminated card, the serial number they gave him. The picture he had taken on his first day, how he was pretty sure he blinked and yet it still turned out better than any framed Picture Day photograph hanging on the walls at home.

He felt important here. Like he belonged, like someone finally (finally) looked at him and went Yes, you. We like you. You’re good.

Cisco knew he was good, in the back of his mind, front of his mind, whatever. His GPA said so. His report cards said so. Barry said so (Hartley didn't, but who cared about him). Caitlin used to say so. He felt he was good.

Cisco hoped he was good, but was he really? Enough?

Probably not. And still, this taste of a dream, of his future that he so desperately wants to live now already is enough to motivate him to work harder to get it again. Permanently, next time. With his own lab and a desk with his name on it. A degree, a couple of them, with his name in latin script hanging nearby next to a window.

Hold your horses, he told himself. He needed to graduate high school first.

Cisco gave up his ID, handing it to Dr. Wells.

Dr. Wells looked down at the badge, but didn’t say anything for a while.

Tess grinned, “Oh stop with the suspense, look how sad the boy is, just tell him already.”

“What?” Cisco asked, looking back and forth between the scientist and his wife, unfollowing.

“The thing is, Mr. Ramon,” Dr. Wells began, returning the ID, “I’m not sure I want this back. Because the truth is, I’ve grown quite fond of you. And Tess and I were wondering if you’d like to continue shadowing at Star Labs during the Fall. Say, twice a week after school?”

Cisco’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor. “You want me to stay?!”

“We’d love to have you, Cisco,” Tess finished, beaming. “What do you say?”

“—I’d have to ask my parents,” he said immediately, and he winced at how juvenile that sounded but was relieved to see the two nod in agreement, “But that would be the best thing I’ve heard all summer.”

“Come back sometime next week, schedule an appointment and we can discuss contracts with a legal consultant, and a guardian of course.”

“Thank you so much!”

Dr. Wells shook his head, shooing him out. “Go. Enjoy your last day of summer vacation.”

~.~

Cisco was on cloud nine when he parked Dante’s car in the guest garage of Caitlin’s estate, bouncing on his heels in the elevator.

He fired off a quick text to tell her he made it in, then bounded for her library where he knew she would be memorizing the course outlines for tomorrow’s schedule. He creeped up behind her where she was reading silently at her desk, still a little off guard at all the tin-foil silver in her hair.

He covered her eyes, kissing her cheek and she dropped her pen. “Guess who?” he murmured.

Cisco removed his hands and she turned her head over her shoulder. “Hi.” Her eyes shined bright and soft, blinking at him with easy cheer. He couldn’t keep it in any longer, the news near busting inside him as he rubbed up and down her bare arms excitedly.

“Guess who’s boyfriend just got offered a Fall placement at Star Labs?”

Caitlin gaped, turning around. “Mine?”

“Yours! And Dr. Wells said he already wrote me a letter of recommendation for college!”

Caitlin squeezed his hand. “That’s amazing, oh my gosh! You deserve it!”

He shared her smile, pulling her up from the chair, and turning on the lights. Why she kept herself hidden in the dark alcove with only a window was beyond him when her house was equipped with the best green energy efficient systems on the market.

Her words spread a warmth in his chest and he wanted to believe them, but still, doubt creeped into his mind. His fingers skimmed over her dark wooden desk, focusing on rearranging her gel pens.

“Do you think so, really? All I was doing was writing notes and doing small lab assignments.”

Caitlin folded her arms, raising an eyebrow. “Stop selling yourself so short. You’re the smartest person I know.”

He looked up at her. "You're not just saying that because I'm your boyfriend so you kinda have to, but really, secretly, like deep down next your dark chocolate obsession you think Lily Stein the smartest?"

Caitlin laughed, swatting his arm like that would smack the silliness out of his head. "I am not obsessed with dark chocolate!"

"Sure you're not," he countered, eyes crinkling when she pressed a kiss to his cheek to distract him from checking her waste paper basket to prove his point.

"Lily's intelligent. Hartley's sharp. But you're my favourite smartypants," she said.

Cisco smirked a little, “You think Hartley got the same offer? Bet he didn’t.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes at Cisco’s ongoing battle with his nemesis, choosing not to comment. “We should celebrate.”

“We should,” he enthused, offering her his arm. She took it, looking at him expectantly. “How about dinner?”

~.~

After food, Cisco took Caitlin to the little dessert shop that overlooked the river. They shared cheesecake and Sprite, clinking each other’s forks.

Caitlin kept looking over at the water, quiet.

She’d been like that, lately, off and on. Like she'd fall into moods where she was afraid to talk.

“Is everything okay?”

She took a moment to respond, scraping cheesecake off the plate. “Fine.”

He gave her a look. Maybe there were things that changed between them. But Cisco will never lose the skill of knowing when she lied. And Caitlin knew that too.

“I’m just—Worried. About school.”

“You love school.”

“I love learning,” she corrected, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t love CC High. Not anymore.”

“That’s fair.”

“I’ve been dreaming about this year since middle school. Starting it with you and applying to college. I’ve wanted to be a doctor for so long. What if I don’t get into a good school?”

Cisco held his tongue. There was zero chance that Caitlin would be rejected from any university, and, to be frank, there was nothing her mother’s money couldn’t buy. She was a shoo in, has been since Freshman year to all the good schools. And even if she weren't a phenomenal student, legacy alone would admit Caitlin into every college her mother’s research was affiliated with.

He thought about Tess Morgan, and echoed her sentiment. “Isn’t it a little early?”

Caitlin looked out at the water again.

He wondered if her mother was pressuring her. He wouldn't be surprised, school was ramping up soon and with that came a tremendous amount of stress after years of all talk. Maybe Dr. T had finally laid down the law, and it was daunting. Cisco assumed it would be, considering the pressure he put on himself, and he didn't even have anyone counting on him to make it. At least, not until he met the Wells family, and their encouragement had never been coercive. Maybe coercive wasn't the right word. Caitlin's mom was...Intense.

“...Is this about Star Labs? Because I can put in a good word about you with Dr. Wells or help you find—“

He watched Caitlin’s face fall, rushing to deny it. “No, no no. It’s not that. I promise. I don’t mind. You don’t have to do that. I just—I left such a mess.”

Cisco reflected on the past year. She was not wrong. But it was not all her fault.

She gave him a sad smile, “I just wish things didn’t have to change.”

Cisco frowned, sensing she was talking about something a little beyond high school. “They don’t. You’re my forever, Caitlin. Nothing has to change, I’m right here.”

She blinked back tears, shrugging. “I just miss...” she went to her locket. The one she’s never taken off since the funeral. The one with his picture in it, hiding under her dad’s.

His face softened as it clicked. He should've known.

He took her hand, kissing it softly.

“I know.”

~.~

Cisco had a Pop-Tart hanging out of his mouth as he dumped all of his things into his old school bag. He ran a brush through his hair a few times, threw on a light jean jacket, and slung the bag over his shoulder. He bit off another gooey piece before banging on the bathroom door.

“Dante, dios!” he shouted over the loud rush of water. He’s been in there for half an hour already.

“The bathroom! I have to go!”

His mom’s voice called from downstairs. “Deja entrar a tu hermano!”

He rattled on the doorknob, but it was locked. He swore under his breath again, checking his watch. “Dude!”

“Bro, calm down, what the fuck,” Dante groused, unlocking the door with a towel around his waist. The steam went billowing out and Cisco almost choked on the intensity of the deodorant spray.

He pushed past Dante, muttering, going for his toothbrush. He paused before sticking it in his mouth with the toothpaste. “Aren’t you late? Don’t you have an 8:30 class?”

His brother rolled his eyes. “Chill. I’m skipping.”

Cisco’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head, spitting into the sink.

“You’re skipping?”

Dante rolled his eyes. “Oh my god, you’re such a nerd. It’s not like high school, dumbass. Everyone skips class in college.”

“Is it recorded?”

“No.”

“Do you have friends in your class to take notes from?”

“No.”

“Are you going to work on another class instead?”

“No. I’m going to watch Netflix then probably take another nap before practice with the band.”

Cisco ran his hand through his nicely done hair. “Dante, I don’t understand you.”

Dante walked across the hall to their shared room, pulling on clothes.

“Don’t worry about it. Have a nice day at school. Kiss all the teacher’s asses for me.”

Cisco pulled himself together, breathing in deeply, reminding himself that he loved his brother and wasn’t allowed to smack him while he glared.

“Can I use your car?” he gritted between his teeth as Dante shuffled his hair some, ruining it altogether.

Dante waved him off. “I don’t use that crap anymore. It might as well be yours.”

He was already texting Caitlin that he was coming to pick her up, his eyes glued to his phone as he walked out the front door when his mother pulled him back by the strap of his backpack.

She kissed both his cheeks, pushing a sandwich into his hands. “Don’t break that attendance record. Give Caitlin a kiss for me.”

“Si,” he replied, waving goodbye at his little sister shrieking his name before he jogged down the apartment steps, not bothering to wait for the elevator.

Why’d his place always have to be so hectic?

~.~

Caitlin kissed him after she slammed the car door close, buckling in her seatbelt, grumbling under her breath.

"Mom troubles?"

"Just drive."

Cisco looked in the rearview mirror as he put the Toyota in reverse.

It was windy in a nice crisp September morning way, and Caitlin rolled down the window.

“You look cute,” he said as he drove off her estate.

Caitlin shrugged, “I wear a blazer every first day. It’s tradition.”

“I’ve noticed.”

It fell quiet. Caitlin wasn’t much of a morning person, and it was the first day of the scariest school year they’d face yet. There was too much going on in their minds for riveting conversations.

Cisco took a swig of water at a red light ten minutes later, stuck in the morning rush hour. He swished it in his mouth then swallowed.

“So I was thinking—”

“I was wondering—”

They both stopped.

“You go first,” Caitlin said.

“I was thinking that maybe you should talk to Barry before the bell. Just to get a fresh start. I can come with you.”

Caitlin curled her fingers around her designer bag, some big brand fashion company with lots of consonants like X and Z’s that Cisco could never remember.

“I don’t want to."

Cisco frowned. “But why? Barry isn’t mad at you, Caitlin. He just wants you to come back. He’s our best friend.”

She put her hand on his arm.

“You’re my best friend. You’re the only one I need.”

“So what, I’m stuck in the middle now? Homeroom to lunch with Barry, fourth period to final bell with you? How is that fair?”

“Actually,” she said. “I was thinking maybe we don’t make that big of a deal of it? Like, do people even need to know that we’re together again? Look what happened last time.”

Cisco narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like where this was going. “Caitlin. Everybody loves you. Nobody really loves me. This has already been established after what happened in April. Why does it matter anymore?”

She hesitated, tapping her fingers against the arm rest, leaning her head against the window. “I don’t want you to be a target again.”

“I don’t care,” Cisco said. “It’s just high school crap. I’m hoping we all got it out of our systems junior year. I haven’t kissed you in the hallway for how many months?”

Caitlin smiled down at her lap. “Six.”

Cisco made a disgruntled noise. “Six and a half, actually, but who’s counting?”

“Not me,” she lied.

They shared a glance.

“That’s too long. I’m not letting shitty people with nothing better to do stop me and neither should you.”

“Okay.”

She leaned over and kissed him quickly, then told him the light was green.

~.~

They had four classes together, but not homeroom, so Caitlin and Cisco split ways early on in the morning.

The bell rang, and Professor Stein cleared his throat.

“Welcome students to a bright academic year ahead!”

The class groaned, and Cisco shared an amused glance with Iris.

She leaned in, “Why does he say that every year?”

Cisco grimaced. “Fourth time’s the charm?”

Professor Stein told everyone to settle down as he took attendance, handed out the dozens of photocopied papers that needed their parents’ signatures and read the announcements. Soon enough, the bell rang, and they all got up to get to their first classes of the day.

Iris strapped her messenger bag over her shoulder. She wasn’t in the science stream, so this would be their only time together until humanities and AP English, which they didn’t have today.  

“See you at lunch?”

“Yeah,” he said, then thought of something. “Can you keep an eye out for Caitlin? I’m just—Not sure what she’s thinking she’s going to do.”

“You mean with Lexi.”

He quirked an eyebrow. Students were starting to come in, so Cisco hurried out, grabbing Iris by the hand as the hallways started to flood. “You don’t like her either.”

Iris laughed callously, and they walked to their lockers. “Hell no.”

“Oh thank god,” he breathed, trying to keep up with her quick pace. “I just don’t understand why she won't try to fix things. You haven’t said anything to her, have you? You two aren't fighting?”

Cisco watched Iris hang her coat up. “No,” she said. “Fighting? We're not even talking. Don’t get me wrong. I was pissed last year. What she did was awful.”

He felt the need to defend her, when he knew he probably shouldn’t. Iris must’ve saw the look on his face and rolled her eyes.

“No need to get all Caitlin Snow protection squad on me. I don’t hold grudges like that. I came to the funeral, didn’t I?”

Patty and Linda showed up, tugging Iris away. “Hey, gotta jet, but I’ll try, okay? I’ll do some digging for you. Shawna’s pretty easy to squeeze.”

Cisco wanted to thank her, but she was too far gone, giggling with her friends.

He sighed, standing in the middle of the hall. Without even a second longer to breathe, Jake Puckett barged into him. “Watch it, mosquito.”

“We’re back to that, Jake? Really?” Cisco yelled after him, still getting jostled as the crowd of students thickened in the tight corridor.

Puckett continued his taunting. “You look like a girl. Why don’t you get a haircut?”

“Maybe my girl likes it long dipshit,” he shot back. “Not like you’d know what that’s like.”

That sent Cisco flying into the lockers.

“I deserved that one,” he muttered to himself, trying not to wince at the way the metal hinges dug into his back. He dropped his folder when he hit the wall, his green permission slips about emergency contact information and school behavioural contracts now getting stepped on by careless idiots he called classmates.

He darted between people in the crowd to get them back, annoyed that nobody cared to help him. Then, annoyed that he expected this shit to change now that he was a Senior in the first place.

Just one more year. One more year, Cisco uttered under his breath like a mantra, falling into his ethics class’ front row seat just on time.

Their teacher started sprouting some stupid idea about going around and introducing themselves, as if everybody hasn’t already known each other since elementary.

“Hi? Um, my name is Brie Larvan. And I want to be a beekeeper.”

Cisco rubbed his temples, his mantra intensified.

~.~

By lunch, Cisco was waiting by Caitlin’s locker.

He saw her walk out of history with Lexi and Shawna. She paused at seeing him, her eyes going a little wide.

“Cisco, what are you doing?” she said, looking nervously at Lexi and Shawna, who had their arms crossed with identical bitch faces.

“Lunch?”

“Like, disappear mosquito. She doesn’t want lunch with you.”

Caitlin frowned, opening her locker. She put a new textbook into a top shelf and grabbed her lunch box. “We don't call my boyfriend that. Yes, I do want lunch with him.”

She took Cisco’s hand, and he rose an eyebrow at Shawna, a smidge too smug.

“Sorry ladies, later.”

"Your boyfriend?"  Shawna repeated, jaw dropping open.

Lexi gasped. “Caity!”

He felt her tension just by the way she held his hand. “I’ll see you in class, I’m still sitting next to you in art, just like we promised, right?”

Lexi’s smile looked a little off kilter. “Of course. Right. See you there, then. Have fun with...Cisco.”

Cisco, who had been trying to look anywhere but Lexi, eventually met her gaze.

She gave him a look, sucking lipstick off her teeth. It sent a chill down his spine, and he had forgotten (really, no, he hasn't, he really hasn't) how much he hated her.

She arched an eyebrow high in the air, like she was challenging him to acknowledge her. But Cisco didn't play her games.

He pulled Caitlin away, lacing their fingers together.

~.~

Cisco let Caitlin drag him far from Barry’s table without putting up a fight. In fact, they weren’t even eating in the cafeteria. They sat in the courtyard, watching the soccer team tryouts as Caitlin opened her packed box from her chef.

It was a nice day. Caitlin really did look gorgeous in her burgundy blazer and pleated skirt. It suited her, that classy uniform chic, and for the first time a thought occurred to him that struck odd. Caitlin belonged in a private school. One with 4.0 cut-offs, loads of legacy families, and a hundred thousand dollars for tuition. Dr. T letting her daughter stay in Central City to go to public school was a bit weird. She didn’t really belong here.

Cisco picked at dandelions as they talked, wondering why the grass was so unkept.

About twenty minutes in, Caitlin gave him a sly look.

Cisco looked up from his lunch, knowing that expression all too well. “If you’re going to kiss me, please let me finish my chicken first or else I never will, and I’m really hungry.”

She ignored him completely, prying the plastic container out of his hands. “Hey missy, I said I wasn’t— Mmmph!”

He missed this. He missed her. This Caitlin. His Caitlin.

It was like all the darkness swarming underneath her surface dissipated, and her true light was shining through.

He laughed as she climbed into his lap to kiss him more. They could get demerit points for this, and that heightened the sense of thrill. If they got caught it would be so worth it.

A shrill whistle pierced through the air and the two sprang apart. There was a foul on the soccer field.

“Still hungry?” she smirked with mirth, wiping the rest of her smudged lip gloss off.  

He played with her silvery hair. “Um, yes,” he flirted, catching Caitlin’s heated gaze. “Famished.”

“Good thing I’m here then,” she murmured.

“Yes,” he agreed, inching closer. “Very good,” and slipped his tongue in her mouth.

They made out until the bell.

~.~  

Outside was beautiful and peaceful. Cisco started to understand why Caitlin brought him out there.

“Oh my god, Caitlin! Over here!” Lisa shouted at the door, gesturing wildly at her to come back into the side entrance of school. “Hi Cisco!”

“Hey Lisa.”

Lisa Snart. She was something else, that one. Cute, in a dumb like a rock kind of way.

Maybe that was mean.

Lexi appeared over Lisa’s shoulder. "Come on, Caitlin! We’re going to be late!”

He got up with a sigh, and gave his girlfriend a hand. She took it, hers slender and soft in his, and didn’t let go.

They began walking towards Caitlin’s new posse.

“Why are they so possessive? It’s unnerving,” he couldn’t help but blurt out.

“It’s not me. It’s you. They think—”

“I know what they think,” he snapped, cross. As did everybody, no doubt. Cisco kicked at a littered soda can. “Tell them I didn’t.”

“I tried! They won’t believe me!”

“Then ditch them. It’s not that hard.”

She turned to him sympathetically, kissing him one last time.

“I can’t, Cisco. They’re my friends. I like them.” She untangled their fingers.

“No, you don’t.”

“I do,” she insisted. “Stop saying things as if you’re me. I’m me. If they’re my friends then I’m not lying and you have to understand that.”

Cisco felt properly chastened. He took a step back, quiet. “Okay.”

“Thank you. I’ll see you later.”

Lisa and Lexi took to each of Caitlin’s sides, linking their arms together. Only Lisa looked back.

~.~

“Where were you? You dipped lunch. Iris said you’d be there.”

It was the second to last period of the day, and it just had to be gym, didn’t it?

Cisco ducked at the incoming fire of dodgeballs. “Yeah, sorry. Caitlin wanted to eat outside.”

A ball rolled to a stop beside him. He picked it up and chucked it, barely getting it past the midline.

The one class he and Barry weren’t good at. So what.

“You mean she didn’t want to eat with me.”

Cisco stopped, looking around. His team was going to lose no matter what.

“I think she’s just really embarrassed. Give her some time.”  

“Time?” Barry exclaimed, nearly getting hit in the face. “It’s been almost half a year! I miss her so bad. She’s in my geography class and she sat next to Bad Luck Becky instead of me.”

“Dude, watch out!”

“Huh?” Barry spun around in the wrong direction, and Cisco cringed as Barry got hit in the back by Woodworth, officially out.

Cisco followed him to the bench, not caring to even pretend he was playing anymore.

“What’s her deal?”

Cisco wrung his hands. “I don’t know. Her dad, I think. It shook her hard, and we weren’t there for her.”

Barry’s fingers were calming on his shoulder, unlike Dante’s, and different from Armando’s.

“Don’t beat yourself up about that. She pushed us away.”

It was easy for Barry to say that. Barry the best friend, their happy third wheel. It wasn’t the same for Cisco. Cisco, who had offered to pick Caitlin up when she fell down the slide in the first grade, who she had won the regional science fair with in grade 3, who she first told when they were ten that her dad was sick, really sick, and I really need a hug.

Barry was always there and supportive and the best friend, but he had Iris. Before him came Cisco and Caitlin. They were a duo, a package deal, each other’s forever.

Even if she pushed him away, even if she hurt him. She never meant to, just as hurt and twice as lonely.

“She needed me and I wasn’t there until it was too late. Now she doesn’t know who to trust.”

Barry reached for his water bottle, taking a long sip.

“So she trusts LaRoche? She knows what she did to you, doesn’t she?”

It was humiliating just thinking about it.

Cisco shook his head. “She only knows that I tutored her for the SATs.”

Three thumps on the back was what it took for Barry to stop coughing, spluttering water everywhere.

“You need to tell Caitlin. ”

“No. Drop it. And don’t tell Iris either.”

“But—”

Coach Adam’s bullhorn blew sharply, interrupting them both.

“— Allen! Back on the court! Don’t make me give you another C!”

~.~

The last class of the day was math with Professor Stein. Cisco had it with Caitlin, and they sat in the front row, scribbling notes furiously to keep up with their teacher’s enthusiastic ramblings. When the final bell rang, Professor Stein called them both to stay behind.

“I’ve got something for my 4.0 lovebirds.”

He leaned behind his desk for two thick envelopes and deposited one in each one's hands.

Caitlin tore hers open quickly, curiosity getting to the best of her. A stack of viewbooks from prestigious schools were freshly pressed, smelling like new paper.

“Straight from the guidance counsellor's office. They’re not yet out on rotation, you see, but I figured my overachieving students wanted a first peak.”

“Oh wow,” Caitlin replied, already looking into the Harvard one. “These have the updated statistics.”

“Of course, my dear.”

Cisco leafed through the schools in his selection, pausing at MIT, eyes lingering on rolling green hills of its campus.

Professor Stein pointed at Cisco. “And how was your internship at Star Labs?”

“The greatest. They want me to continue twice after school.”

“Really now? That’s quite remarkable.”

“Isn’t it?” Caitlin smiled, proud of him. Cisco blushed. “I told him so.”

There was a knock at the door, and Shawna appeared. “Caitlin we need you right now. It’s an emergency.”

Caitlin looked to Cisco.

“I thought I was driving you home. We could look at these together.”

“We really need you, Caity. Becky’s crying. I can drive you home.”

“Tomorrow,” Caitlin promised, squeezing his shoulder, then thanked Professor Stein again for the viewbooks.

Cisco tugged on her blazer for a goodbye kiss, reluctant to let her go. She leaned in, her fingers delicate on his face, smiling against his lips.

Shawna stomped a little, rolling her eyes, “Can we go?”

“One minute,” Caitlin said, looking into his eyes. “We’ll go over our favourite schools tomorrow?”

He raised an eyebrow, the corners of his mouth quirking upwards. “It’s a date.”

She grabbed her bag and the envelope, then followed Shawna out the door.

Cisco watched Caitlin scurry after Shawna, who was stomping away in her spiked combat boots.

“I’m glad that whatever squabble you two had seems to be put behind you.”

Cisco turned to their teacher, unashamed that he witnessed him smitten.

“Me too.”

Professor Stein had always been perceptive and easily approachable. Cisco had gone to him in times of trouble in the past four years plenty.

Cisco sat on a desk as Professor Stein tidied up, reflecting. “Sir, how do you help someone through grief?”

His teacher took off his glasses, cleaning them with the edge of his shirt before he responded. “This is about the passing of Dr. Snow?”

Everyone knew. He supposed they had to, not only because Caitlin’s dad had been an active donor and contributor to the restructuring of Central City High’s science stream, but because Cisco guessed it was required for her teachers to take special attention.

“She’s just not the same.”

“She won’t be,” he advised, firm yet gentle. “She lost one of the most important figures in her life.”

The only figure, Cisco thought bitterly, thinking about Dr. T’s suspicious absence in Caitlin’s life. It always made him scratch his head, how two people who lived in the same house could avoid and ignore each other for so long.

If Cisco could avoid Dante, he would.

Maybe it was a matter of the size of the house.

“I want to be there for her, but sometimes I feel like she’s pushing me away. Do I give her that space? Should I be persistent? Love is hard,” Cisco groaned after his monologue, flopping against the row of desks as if he were in a therapist’s office, not his math class. His teacher chuckled at him.

“Ah, but is your affection for Miss Snow difficult to muster? It takes effort for you to demonstrate your care?”

“No,” Cisco protested. “No, that’s easy.”

Professor Stein tapped on his shoes, asking him to get them off the desks.

Cisco's legs swung over the side obediently, and he sat back up.

Professor Stein tilted his head, and Cisco was alarmed to realize how his favourite teacher’s hair was beginning to grey. 

Maybe that’s what made him stand out. After teaching as a professor and publishing his books, he came back to a high school to teach kids because he cared about them. Cisco didn't think he could do that. Lily was really lucky to have him as a dad.

“I know you love her Mr. Ramon. Patience is virtue. You’re astute for a young man of your age. Show her that love the best you can.”

That sounded about right.

“Yessir.”

“Now go home, enjoy those viewbooks.”

Cisco tucked the envelope under his arm, and took his advice.

~.~

Cisco was leafing through the glossy pages of Duke’s viewbook at the kitchen table, trying to concentrate through the constant keyboard banging leaking through the adjacent wall. He wasn’t allowed to ask Dante to be quiet, not even when he had to study and it was one of his pet peeves.

Don’t disturb him, Mama would always say, but his keyboard had an ear jack? Cisco had bought Dante a good quality headset a year and a half ago, thinking it would be a great gift to them both. 

Dante didn’t use them, Cisco bet the wrapping was still on the box, buried somewhere in their closet considering he’s never seen them and it’s not like their room was very big. So who was the one really being unnecessarily disturbed? 

How their neighbours haven't come pounding on their front door yet begging for silence was a mystery to him.

He was just getting into the gritty details of the application requirements when Rosita peered up at him on her tiptoes. Her ten little fingers gripped the table, eyes barely making it past the edge as she pushed herself up to see what Cisco was looking at.

“What are you doing?”

“Leyendo,” he said absentmindedly, showing her the bright graphs. She didn’t reply, and he looked down, how she had zero reaction, then forgot she was still fuzzy on verbs. Forgot that she couldn’t even read yet.

“Reading,” he translated. “For college. See? This is in North Carolina.”

“You’re leaving?” her voice wobbles, thick with hurt. “Like ‘Mando?”

Armando’s been gone at Cleveland State for two years, majoring in business. Cisco’s surprised sometimes that Ro even remembers their oldest brother.

“Not right away. But next year, yeah.”

Cisco didn’t see the big deal. He felt Rosita was pretty lucky, getting the apartment practically to herself. Cisco would have loved to be left alone growing up, not constantly stuck rubbing shoulders with the six people crammed into their three bedroom apartment with nowhere to breathe. But Caitlin and Barry both said growing up as an only child was lonely, wishing for siblings. Cisco wouldn’t know.

“Why?”

“Because I want to go to school, like the one you’re going to start tomorrow,” he explained. He glanced down at the entrance requirements and chuckled at his own analogy. “Except this isn’t kindergarten.”

There was just enough room for Rosita to squeeze onto his seat. He patted the space, and she climbed up with a little "oof” until their thighs were pressed together.

He read to her what was on the page just to keep her busy. It was the pictures she was interested in anyways.

“Where’s Mama?” he asked after a while. They had moved on from Duke to Stanford. Their dad still wasn’t home from work either, but he wouldn’t be, he usually wasn’t at this time.

Rosita shrugged her shoulders and Cisco rolled his eyes at himself, wondering why he expected the five year old of the house to have all the answers.

He slid off the chair, noticing the way she was droopy, her messy black curly hair spilling against the table as she leaned her head against it. 

“Did you have a snack?”

She rolled her head from side to side with a whine. Cisco took that for a no.

He pulled out a fruit roll-up from the kitchen, ignoring Caitlin’s voice in the back of his head warning about high fructose.

After seeing to it that she’s good with opening the wrapper, Cisco knocked loudly on the doorframe of his and Dante’s room. “Where’s Mama?”

Dante kept playing, ignoring him. Cisco marched right over to the outlet and unplugged the keyboard.

“Hey!”

“Yo Beethoven. Were you supposed to be taking care of Rosita? Because I came home to her climbing the curtains, Dante.”

His brother waved him off, “She’s fine.”

“She was hungry.”

Dante glanced up at the clock on the wall.

“Mama went grocery shopping. We’re going to have dinner soon anyways.”

“Not for another few hours, I wasn’t supposed to be home this early. You can’t leave her alone like that she’s too young, and Mama expects us watch her!”

Dante banged his fist against the quiet keys, and Cisco had to keep a straight face at how that looked. “Stop fucking lecturing me, I’m older than you!”

“By a year,” Cisco scoffed. “Don’t go on about being 18 if you won’t even act like an adult.”

“Yeah, because you want to be an adult so bad, Cisco, don’t you? It’s just a number it doesn’t make you older.”

Not for the first time, Cisco found himself missing Armando. Things were easier with Dante when he was around, how he was practical like Dante yet level-minded like himself.

The door slammed loud behind him, frustrated. Dante was Dante. What was he to do? At least he got his car.

Cisco took his stack of books to the living room, wiping off Rosita’s sticky fingerprints from off the Stanford cover and got really interested in Harvard’s crimson booklet.

By dinner, he was excited, sprouting out campus facts as his dad asked to pass the bowl of vegetables.

Rosita kicked her legs in her seat beside him, happily munching away on the roast beef.

“Dude, just. Shut up,” Dante said with his mouth full after Cisco went on a, self-admitting, spiel about Stanford’s aeronautics engineering program.

Cisco narrowed his eyes, defending himself. “I have to apply by November for early admissions. That's two months away. We're talking about my future here.”

His mom and dad shared a look, one Cisco couldn’t decipher. He put his fork down, sensing dread.

“What? I told you, my SAT scores are really high. Maybe not Harvard okay, but MIT, UPenn, I think I have a real shot.”

It went quiet, it was uncomfortable and Cisco felt nervous, like he was the butt of a big joke.

“What?”

“Get that Ivy League crap out of your head, we can’t afford it.”

His mother gasped, hitting his father’s arm.

Cisco looked to Dante, who had his glass paused halfway to his lips.

“What Papa means is we know you talk big plans with tu novia, but where will the money for that come from?”

The words were faint, Cisco feeling a rush in his ears as his mind began to race, trying to compute. "Mama, I don't understand.”

“Those schools sound very expensive, Cisco.”

This couldn’t be happening, he pushed his plate away, sick to his stomach.  “Two years ago you said you had money put away for me.”

“That was before Dante changed his mind about CCU music. And it was never going to be enough for what you’re talking about. We were already tight with Armando’s tuition.”

Dante coughed, nearly choking on the food, startled. “Mama,” he gaped, after a giant swallow of water. “¿Su dinero?”

“He is older, Cisco,” his dad replied, and it was condescending, felt cold like ice down Cisco’s back. “If you want a fancy college you’ll need a job, maybe two. You might have good grades for CC High, but for a full scholarship where everyone is smart? Be realistic, Mijo.”

Cisco’s eyes were stinging, blurring as the weight of their words washed over him, and he was so unprepared, so unbalanced to hear that news, it knocked him over, and now he felt like was going to drown.

"You don't think I'm good enough?"

"That's not what we're saying," his mother corrected, "But we do believe your aspirations are out of tune."

Out of tune. Giving all his college money away to his ungrateful brother, permitting him to Netflix in his room under the guise of studying composition, was out of tune.

He stood up abruptly, not able to stomach any more.

“You used my money on Dante? Dante? Who doesn’t even show up for school? Have I not been clear since I was twelve how much I wanted this?”  

Rosita burst into tears at the volume of his voice, covering her ears. His mother ran to Rosita.

It wasn’t Rosita’s fault. It wasn’t. She was just a child. She was little, but somehow the way his mother ran to her and picked her up adoringly, soothing her whimpering was the last straw, twisting something in Cisco until it bent and snapped.

“You care for everyone in this house but me!”

“Francisco.”

“It’s true!” he cried, and maybe it wasn't, but his world was imploding, and this wasn't his fault, Cisco didn't do anything to deserve this.

He swiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his jean jacket, furious, “You never listen, you never care, you don’t know anything about what I want or am going through, even when I say it. It’s all about Dante or Rosita. You didn’t even care that I was chosen for Star Labs’ internship, how big of an accomplishment that was for me. Or that Caitlin’s papa died!”

“You were at Star Labs?” his father questioned, sliding his glasses up his nose. “Dante did you know this?”

His mother tore her gaze from his sister, stunned. “Dr. Snow?”

Even his parents were out of tune with each other. Out of tune, they said about him going to an Ivy, about becoming an engineer, he still processing it, outraged. Cisco wanted to throw up.

Dante spoke up. “Papa of course I knew he wouldn’t shut up about it. He was gone every day.”

Dante was defending him for once, probably guilty, and he should be, Cisco thought, but that wasn't enough.

He was on a roll, unable to stop yelling, “Armando got everything he wanted! Dante gets anything he asks for, no questions! A motorcycle, he goes and you're all oh, sure Dante, here you go, only pay half. Then he says, Haha surprise, I want to go to college after all, and so you go sure, let us deplete our youngest son's college funds!"

Even Rosita quieted, staring at Cisco.

"What?" she said, voice full of innocence.

His face crumpled, but he refused to break in front of them. "I worked so damn hard, and I get nothing?”

“It is not nothing,” his father scolded in Spanish. “CCU is a fine school, Francisco. You are just prejudiced. Caitlin is a fine girl, but her privilege has gone to your head.”

“That’s not true,” Cisco snapped back, switching languages smoothly. “This has nothing to do with Caitlin. Mama, tell him.”

She lowered her gaze, fussing again with Rosita’s plate, without replying.

His parents’ quietness was all the confirmation Cisco needed. A dark chuckle, more like a huff from a pushed out exhale escaped him, and he shook his head.  

“Unbelievable,” he muttered under his breath, looking at the faces of his family. He didn’t even want to be here anymore.

“Well, since I got your attention,” he spat, “I was offered a placement at Star Labs for the Fall for after school. I need a parent to sign the contract with me.”

“¿Se paga?” Is it paid? Mama said.

After all that.

Cisco choked on his answer, already imagining what they were going to say. “No.”

“You’ll have to choose then, what you want more.”

Was this what it felt like? To see his entire future hanging by a thin, loose, unravelling thread? Cisco shouldn’t have to choose. Star Labs was his ticket out of here. Out of this mess, the one outstanding point on his application which would give him those scholarships, that admission.

But his parents didn't understand, and they won't.

And that's what was worse. It was not the lack of money, or that they gave it to Dante (even though that cut deep, and Cisco wasn't quite sure it was something he could ever forgive). He knew that they weren't wealthy, that they were four kids and still not even in a house. But they made it work for their children, set up this illusion, this fake fantasy land Cisco had been living in for years and watched him entangle himself deeply there, plant roots in it, and still never bothered to come clean and correct him.

They watched him grow up and fall in love with math and science--and Caitlin, and get his glowing letters from his teachers and still think the idea of him going away to one of the country's best schools was silly. Childish, like one of Rosita's make believe stories.

How could they see him, see what he's willing to sacrifice, how hard he'll work, has worked, and still be so confident that Cisco was wasting his time?

“I’m going to sleepover at Barry’s,” Cisco announced, too upset to look them in the eye. Too angry to wait and listen to their reply. To be given permission to leave.

They were way past granting him permission to do things anymore, in his books.

Dante tried to pull him back when he passed by, uttered his name, but Cisco pushed, shoving his brother out of his path with a hard glare, poisoned with fiery pain, daring him to say another word.

He didn't wait for the elevator of the building to make it to their floor, just ran down the spiralling steps, all at once, and fled.

~.~

Cisco called Caitlin twice but it went to voicemail. He banged his head against the steering wheel in the humid, sticky old car with the rusted paint and broken AC, keys still in the engine, motor running, stalled in the apartment parking lot, and cried loud ugly sobs.

~.~

Dr. Allen didn’t question why he had to double his pancake recipe in the morning, just ruffled Cisco’s hair and called him and Barry sluggers, and for that Cisco was grateful.

Cisco parted ways with Barry on the Allen's front steps, after he got pulled in for a hug. 

"We'll look at options, okay? Jobs and stuff." Barry cracked a smile. "Maybe we can wait tables together."

"You'd do that for me?" Cisco, asked, pleasantly surprised.

Barry nodded. "I could use some extra cash, to take Iris out and stuff. You want to walk to her house with me?"

Cisco nodded to the Toyota. "Nah, I told Caitlin I'd pick her up this year now that I have the car. I'll see you in school."  

~.~

Cisco sat in his driver's seat, tapping his fingers against the dashboard, still dreary, exhausted, and weighed down, but, hopeful to see the one person who would be sure to make him feel better.

Minutes clocked by and his hope turned to worry, and he wrestled with the idea of unbuckling his seatbelt to see what was wrong.

Because something was wrong. Caitlin was late. And she's never been late in all the years that he knew her.  

She was late and so he was just as relieved as surprised when Dr. T knocked on his window, after walking briskly down her house's long driveway.

He rolled it down, frowning. “Is Caitlin sick?”

“She already left with her driver,” she informed. “She made it clear that she didn’t want to see you.”

It was like being dunked in cold water.

“What?”

“Get to school, Francisco.”

Cisco grabbed his phone in the glove compartment, about to call her, not above believing Carla Tannhauser pulling a fast one on him (she never did exactly like him, but this would've been cruel) when the text came through.

❤ Caitlin ❤ : We're breaking up.

[rafaelthompson]

The New Normal of Café Reopenings: Northeast—Part Three

In New York and Maine, two coffee companies prepare for a long journey ahead.

BY MARK VAN STREEFKERK BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE

Cover photo courtesy of Colleen Anunu

The state of New York has more confirmed cases of COVID-19 to date than any country outside the United States. The stringent guidelines necessary to operate a café in New York have led to impactful change for Gimme! Coffee. Meanwhile, in the less affected state of Maine, Bard Coffee has implemented its own safety measures while official guidelines are more relaxed. In part three of our ongoing series about reopening, or operating at higher capacities, during COVID-19, we’re taking a look at these two Northeast cafés, and what the future means to them. Make sure to check out our report on West Coast cafés here, and Southwest cafés here.

New York-based Gimme! Coffee closed all seven of its locations on March 25, and have since reopened one, following strict guidelines put forth by state and city officials. Photo courtesy of Colleen Anunu.

As the pandemic ramped up in the state of New York, Gimme! closed all seven of its locations on March 25, including permanently closing their two locations in New York City. They retained a team of 20 employees, nearly all of whom opted to be paid a Tompkins County living wage before securing funds from the Paycheck Protection Program. They brought their attention to their upstate stores, and took a hard look at how to restructure the company to emerge stronger than before. Sixty-five percent of Gimme!’s pre-COVID revenue was from retail. They moved the focus to their roastery, wholesale, and online sales. They have since reopened one location, their MLK Street shop in Ithaca, the site of the original roastery and cupping lab. 

Chief operating officer Claire Christensen explains that companies in New York are required to have a business safety plan. The safety plan template they received was seven pages long, included reducing workplace occupancy to 50%, and extensive logging. “The one [thing about the plan] I think is most interesting is we have to keep a list of everyone who comes within the personal space of one of our employees. If someone comes to pick up a delivery and they’re on the other side of a table or barrier, totally fine. If they violate the rules and come into our space, we have to keep track of who they are so if our city needs to do a contact and trace, they’ll have a full list of absolutely everyone that anyone came into contact with,” she says.

At their open location, workers wear masks, are “standing behind four layers of plexiglass,” and have contactless transactions. The café is “completely flipped around,” Claire says. “We put all the shelving out on the front, the delivery driver uses a separate door. We rearranged the grinders, we put the plexiglass up everywhere, and we told our equipment and facilities folks to install that like they mean it to stay.” 

Reopening another location for takeout only could happen sometime in the summer, but interim CEO Colleen Anunu is wary about a potential recession and would rather act cautiously, not wanting to draw employees away from the stability of unemployment. “I think the dine-in coffee service is not going to be the same, and we are about a year away from offering coffee dine-in services. There’s a lot of innovation and iteration that needs to happen in the next 12 months, but I feel strongly that we’re going to be able to weather that storm,” she says.

Colleen points out that Gimme! was in the process of making big changes already; COVID-19 just put them on the fast track. They say, “We’re building a stronger company by trying to innovate during this time so that we can have more employee equity. We can build a social impact model, we can have a bigger impact on our community rather than just focusing on fixing issues in retail, we need to be a stronger company overall.”

Bard’s priority is to keep their staff safe, and are happy to continue as a takeout-only café for the foreseeable future. Pictured is barista Zoe Levine-Sporer. Photo by Brittany Paolino. 

In Portland, Maine, Bard Coffee closed on March 18, and reopened two weeks ago. Brittany Paolino, Bard’s director of operations, says the only official guidance they received is to do takeout only. “I believe any of the cafés that are open right now are operating more stringently than we’re being told to. Right now we could be open with people coming inside, they just can’t sit. … The only guideline we’ve gotten is that we can do takeout only and that’s it,” Brittany says. “A lot of the cafés that have reopened or stayed open have automatically moved to contactless ordering, picking up, all of that.” 

Since reopening a few weeks ago, Bard Coffee’s walk-up order and pick-up windows have been a huge success. Pictured: Paige Auber, barista, and Amanda Pond, customer. Photo by Taylor Gonzales. 

When they reopened, Bard converted two of their windows into walk-up order and pickup stations. Only open five days their first week, they soon had the numbers to justify staying open everyday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Bard has been able to rehire half of their staff, who wear masks on shift. They also adapted to selling bulk drinks like half-gallons of cold brew and lattes. So far, their sales on an average day are down about 20% from their pre-COVID revenue. 

When thinking toward the future, Brittany says, “At this point, we don’t see any need to allow people to come back in [the café]. About 50% of customers are walking up with masks on, and 50% are not and don’t even seem to really care. In order to keep our baristas as safe as possible, we’re going to keep doing this as long as we can, and we’re still not really sure what those triggers are for moving to our next phase.”

Stay tuned for our next report on the reopening of cafés across the U.S.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mark Van Streefkerk is Barista Magazine’s social media content developer and a frequent contributor. He is also a freelance writer, social media manager, and novelist based out of Seattle. If Mark isn’t writing, he’s probably biking to his favorite vegan restaurant. Find out more on his website.

The post The New Normal of Café Reopenings: Northeast—Part Three appeared first on Barista Magazine Online.

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[hughmccabe]

4 Essential SEO Strategies You Need to Focus on This Year “What should I focus on this year?” This is a question that I have been hearing a lot since 2019 kicked off. I’ve been going back and forth on what the right answer to that question is, which is also why this article is being published in March and not January. Already this year, so many new ideas, arguments, and hypotheses have been thrown out into the ether for discussion, and I wanted to see how some of those unfolded before I made the final call on which way to direct people this year. I take this seriously because SEO is such a slow burn. I always want to make sure I steer people in a positive direction based on real-world experience and data. That’s the practical side of me. The other side always wants to throw out-of-the-box ideas out into the world to get folks to start thinking a little bit differently about how they approach organic search within their organizations (which is mainly based on my 15-year gut instinct in the field). Below are what I believe is a balance between those two sides. 1. On-SERP SEO (Or Whatever You Want to Call It) Rand Fishkin gave an interesting talk at BrightonSEO back in September on what he believes is the future of search: “On-SERP SEO.” Fishkin presented some staggering data that shows the decline of mobile and organic clicks and the rise of “no-click” searches. He then released a study about paid and organic clicks and their relation to no-click searches (see blog post here). The data is thought-provoking – but also somewhat disturbing. It shows the general decline of both paid and SEO clicks in favor of users getting their answers on the actual SERP and not your site (with the content Google is appropriating from your site might I add). So that sucks. While I am never a fan of immediately adopting someone else’s ideas until proven over a period of time, it’s really hard to ignore the points and the data the Fishkin has presented. Getting more visibility on the SERPs to gain more real estate is not a new concept, but this is the first time in the history of SEO where someone has put a name to it and made it an actionable practice. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t really know, and who really cares? The point is that getting creative and thinking differently about how you approach your SEO campaigns is becoming more important when it comes to your presence in the SERPs. Fishkin talks about anything and everything you could do, which unfortunately means that SEO professionals will inevitably try to do all of these things regardless if it makes sense for them – simply because Fishkin suggested it. My take? Try and keep it as simple as possible. Don’t try to boil the ocean. Everyone should be targeting answer boxes (more on that below). If you have brick and mortar locations, spend time in Google My Business, manage your locations, and ensure your NAP information is consistent. If you’re a retail brand, sync up your organic efforts with your paid/PLA keyword to see where you convert well and increase your visibility for your traditional organic listings. Make video content. If you are a publisher, use AMP. If you aren’t a publisher try AMP on your blog/articles. Leverage and control the knowledge graph for your brand. Run a local business? Use Google Posts. Use the Twitter carousel to your advantage. Talk to influencers and get them to promote your brand. If you can’t win organically for bigger keywords, look at what sites are winning for those terms and see if you can buy ads on those sites. You guys get my point. Don’t just think about how your users see your brand on your site, think of how they see you in the SERPs. 2. Write Articles/Blog Posts That Answer Questions & Solve Customer Problems I’ll let the collective sighs and groans dissipate for a moment before I move into this one. Yes, this is not news. But it is so, so important today. Taking the points I made above about the rise of no-click searches, answer boxes are the number 1 culprit for this. Google is appropriating your content into their interface and answering people’s questions without them having to go to your site. That’s the world we live in now. And it’s probably only going to get worse. All that said, it isn’t all doom and gloom. This obvious strategy is one that you should ramp up to prepare for our new future. To prove why you should do this, and that it actually does work and affect the bottom line, I want to talk about a small business I’ve been working with for several years. They developed a blog based on asking and answering questions and saw tremendous results after 12 months. Below you will see a chart that represents a local business in New York City that came to me asking what they could do to increase organic visibility with the hope of bringing in new sales. The goal was traffic and rankings and not revenue at first, that happened to just be a happy byproduct of the effort. We went through everything they could talk about, all of the questions they could answer and to their credit, they dove right in and started creating this content with both images and video content to support. We began this effort in January 2018. Here is how that strategy panned out for them: 4 Essential SEO Strategies You Need to Focus on This Year As you can see above, we saw 160 percent in growth in sessions, 166 percent growth in users, and a 93 percent increase in goal completions due mostly to this effort. Out of all organic sessions driving traffic and revenue, 63 percent of it came from the blog and drove an incremental 300,000 in 2018 for a small business. In 2019 they are already up 10 percent in both sessions and goal completions due to the blog strategy. I’ll take it. Regardless of how large or small your business is, do this. 3. The Technical Health of Your Site In 2018, folks finally realized the technical foundation of your site is important. While many of us in-the-weeds SEO professionals have been preaching this for years (it’s always nice to bask in the warm glow of being right), the best part was being able to have serious conversations around this topic with the majority of customers last year. See Anyone's Analytics Account, in Real Time. You can literally see real-time sales and conversion data for any website, and which campaigns drove that traffic. Start your free trial today. Start Now ADVERTISEMENT Listen to me folks: Regardless of how great your content and brand is, you will never reach your full organic potential if your sites foundation is crap. My advice to everyone is to get a legit auditing tool like DeepCrawl (disclosure: they are a partner, but I’ve been using them forever, so no bias here) and make sure you are monitoring and fixing technical issues on your site. You will perform better. Believe me. Common issues to look out for: Page Speed: Much bigger factor than it used to be. Mobile-Friendliness: This is how Google judges your site now. Duplicate Content/Elements: Don’t compete with yourself. JavaScript/Rendering Issues: If you use JavaScript and have a gut feeling you have indexation issues, you should look into a prerender software or dynamic rendering. Index Bloat: Are you controlling parametered, search result and paginated pages correctly? Check to see how many pages are in the index in Google Search Console and if you can focus your footprint. Google doesn’t care about the quantity of pages in the index, they care about quality. Don’t let them get lost in a fog of random pages on your site. Overbearing Security: Make sure Google isn’t hitting a wall when it’s simply trying to crawl your site. If you run your site through Screaming Frog or DeepCrawl and halfway through it starts throwing 429 errors, you might be a little too stingy on the security. This is another instance where I can go on and on. Just be aware that the crawlability and performance of your site from a technical standpoint has become an increasingly larger factor and should be an ongoing part of your day-to-day SEO strategy. 4. Don’t Obsess over Voice Search If voice search is a “big” part of your 2019 SEO strategy, stop it. Now, you can Google articles that I have written recently and webinars I have hosted which state my belief that voice search was already going to be a much larger thing for search. Sorry, everyone. I was wrong. For now. By now I had expected some type of reporting on voice search at least from Google and we haven’t gotten it. I have customers asking me all the time, “how can I win at voice search?” and the simple truth is, you can’t, or at least you can’t prove to me or anyone that you are winning because there is no way to report on it. I have sat through many presentations over the last year with agencies and consultants who have come up with really great ways for people to say, “this is how you win at voice search”, but the problem is it’s all total bullsh!t because there is no way to prove it. Until we have a universal way or dataset that we all agree on that shows what users are actually searching for on their home assistants and apply some form of MSV/value to that query, it’s all pontification. Yesterday, I was having a conversation with a few folks about this and some really cool and interesting points came up that had been heard at a conference regarding voice search, but one in particular stuck with me: “People can speak 5 times faster than they can write.” That’s a powerful statement because that would lead one to believe that voice search should be 5 times faster than traditional search. Fair statement, no? A counterpoint came up however that actually made even more sense than the previous one: “Yes, but they can’t listen 5 times faster than they can read.” This one really blew my mind because it is so true. When you think about the delivery mechanism of voice search, the logic is totally flawed. Our search bars are confined spaces that keep searches to a certain length (this isn’t something Google has determined, it’s just how people search, short, to the point phrases…most of the time). People who search using voice tend to use a more stream-of-consciousness method, which I don’t think anyone really thought of for this application. This is probably why we haven’t seen any real reporting around it. That and because I truly believe more people are asking their home assistants what the weather is versus how to make an octopus costume as the commercials imply (i.e., most voice “searches” are actually voice “commands”, which is must less valuable to a marketer in my opinion at this juncture). Regardless, the point made above that folks cannot listen five times faster than they can read really resonated with me because when you think about it, it’s much easer to scroll through results visually than it is listening to them read aloud. Think about it. If you are looking for the best Mexican restaurant near you, it’s a lot easier and quicker to scroll through reviews visually than it is to have a voice assistant dictate them to you. Maybe that’s SEO’s reprieve, who knows? The main issue is that voice search is a distraction for most companies right now. Shiny object syndrome is the most widespread plague of the SEO community and this is one of the shiniest objects that has come down the road in recent years. Most sites have a lot of basic things they have to address before they even come near a concept like voice search (see strategies listed above). While voice search will become an important part of search in the next few years, you shouldn’t be focusing on it right now – even if your site is the most SEO-sound site on the web. Focus on making your site technically sound, create content that helps your customers, and focus maybe 5 percent of your efforts on something like voice search. At the end of the day, you can prove the effectiveness of the first two to your bosses while you can’t prove you’re winning at voice search to anyone. So if you have made that one of your Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) this year, you’re screwed. Try Something New This Year Everything above is approachable to anyone with a website. There are no excuses to not try some new things. 2019 is going to be a big year for search experts who approach the practice with new ideas and passion. Will you be one of them? Resource: https://ift.tt/2XHpo0K https://ift.tt/2SPTkUM

[socialjusticeartshare]

No Paper Trail: Migrant Children Secretly Held in Hampton Inn Hotels Before Expulsion from U.S.

Under a shocking new Trump administration policy, hundreds of people who came to the United States seeking asylum were secretly held in hotels for days on end before being expelled from the country, often with little or no paper trail. 

This includes more than 200 unaccompanied immigrant children — including babies and toddlers — who were taken to hotels near the Texas-Mexico border by a private contractor for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “The Trump administration has been just basically expelling them without due process and without any paper trail,” says Zenén Jaimes Pérez, advocacy director for the Texas Civil Rights Project, which helped uncover the abuse. We also speak with Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Under a shocking new Trump administration policy, hundreds of people who came to the United States seeking asylum were secretly held in hotels for days on end before being expelled from the country, often with little or no paper trail. Between April and the end of June, more than 200 unaccompanied immigrant children — including babies and toddlers — were held in hotels, then removed.

A private contractor for ICE — that’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement — took the children to three Hampton Inn hotels in Arizona and near the Texas-Mexico border. ICE paid MVM, Inc. to transport and monitor the children. The same company previously held separated immigrant children in squalid conditions in empty office buildings.

As Hurricane Hanna threatened South Texas this weekend, many children held at the hotel were moved to different locations, though it’s not clear where. And then, last night, on Monday night, the ACLU and the Texas Civil Rights Project and their co-counsel successfully sued to stop the expulsion of 17 people detained in the Hampton Inn hotel. Officials agreed instead to transfer them to the custody of ORR— that’s the Office of Refugee Resettlement, where they were supposed to be held.

All of this comes after members of the Texas Civil Rights Project went to the Hampton Inn hotel in McAllen last week and attempted to offer legal help to people detained there. In this video, you can see and hear attorney Andrew Udelsman as he is getting off an elevator on the fourth floor, confronted by men who refuse to identify themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 1: Can we see your badges, sir?

ANDREW UDELSMAN: Sorry?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Sir, you can’t come here. You can’t be here.

ANDREW UDELSMAN: Can I ask who you are?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 3: Can I ask who you are, sir?

ANDREW UDELSMAN: Soy abogado, estoy aquí para ayudar.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Get out!

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 3: Outside.

ANDREW UDELSMAN: ¡Si necesita ayuda —

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Get him out! Get him out!

ANDREW UDELSMAN: — digame su nombre!

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Get him out!

ANDREW UDELSMAN: ¡Dígame su nombre si necesita ayuda!

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Hey, if you’re smart, you’re going to get out.

ANDREW UDELSMAN: If you’re detained, give me your name!

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Get out, if you’re smart! Get out!

ANDREW UDELSMAN: Who are you? Who are you?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Don’t worry about who we are!

ANDREW UDELSMAN: Who are you? Are you police?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Don’t worry about who we are.

ANDREW UDELSMAN: Are you police?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 4: You need to get out.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Get out! Get out! Get out! Now!

ANDREW UDELSMAN: Are you police?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Don’t worry about who we are!

ANDREW UDELSMAN: Are you police?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Get out!

AMY GOODMAN: An attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project yelling to people and to children, “Are you being detained? Do you want to yell to me your name?” as he’s being thrown out by security.

For more, we go to McAllen, where we’re joined by Zenén Jaimes Pérez, advocacy director for the Texas Civil Rights Project, part of the team that uncovered this new Trump administration policy.

Zenén, it’s great to have you back with us. You were right there in the hotel on the fourth floor. Can you explain how you came to learn ICE was secretly holding children in hotels like these?

ZENÉN JAIMES PÉREZ: Hi. Yes. Good morning. Glad to be here.

So, part of what we’re seeing here with the video — right? — with Andy bravely stepping forward and basically taking abuse by these unnamed guards when we were there, is that for many weeks now, especially since the CDC order that effectively the Trump administration used to end asylum, we’ve known that folks who have been coming in through the border to legally seek asylum, including unaccompanied children, that instead of going through the process that is spelled out by law, the Trump administration has been just basically expelling them — right? — without due process and without any paper trail — in effect, basically violating their due process. So, for the last couple of weeks, we’ve known that the number of children who have been under the custody of the federal government in the Office of Refugee Resettlement has decreased over the course of the pandemic.

And so, in that time, in June, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of one of the children that was expelled. And through her experience and working with her, we came to find out that she was held in a hotel. And that sort of set off for us a period of investigation to try to find: Well, what did she mean, right? What do you mean that you’re in a hotel? If you’re an unaccompanied child, that was never supposed to have happened to you in the first place.

And so, after a couple of weeks of investigation and working with the Associated Press, which broke the story last Tuesday, we were actually able to uncover that the Hampton Inn hotel in McAllen, Texas, was being used to house and detain individuals, including unaccompanied children, but also other asylum seekers, including other family units, before they were expelled from the country.

And it’s important to sort of note the distinction between expulsion versus deportation, because under deportation, which is a legal process, there is a paper trail, right? There’s a way for us to be able to track what is going on and try to do some legal intervention. But under expulsion, under Title 42 of the CDC order, what’s happening is that the administration is basically just apprehending people, holding them at black sites, either like this Hampton Inn hotel or other hotels across the country, or, quite frankly, maybe moving now to other government prisons, before they’re just summarily expelled, disappeared basically from the country, and it becomes almost impossible for groups like us, other immigration attorneys or other human rights advocates to try to even find individuals to try to start some type of legal process on their behalf.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Zenén Jaimes Pérez, I wanted to ask you, this — we often hear in the United States talk of the Black Belt South, those portions of the United States that were — still overwhelmingly African American. Really, the area of McAllen, South Texas, the Rio Grande Valley is the Brown Belt of the United States, where counties and cities are 80%, 90% Latino, with Latino elected officials. What is your understanding of what the local officials know, if anything, about what’s going on here with the federal agencies?

ZENÉN JAIMES PÉREZ: Yeah. So, once sort of everything became viral on Thursday, we quickly came to find out that the city of McAllen, from what they’ve told us, that they really didn’t have any knowledge of what was going on at the Hampton Inn hotel.

But this is part of the wider picture — right? — the things that we’re seeing in Portland, which DHS agents, including Border Patrol agents — where, you know, Portland is not on the border — they are disappearing folks, protesters, right? The thing that’s happening, though, at the border in the Rio Grande Valley, in El Paso and in Arizona is that the heavy militarization because of DHS over the last 20 years have already — have been experienced by the community here for decades — right? — hypermilitarization, unaccountable federal agents that are basically shooting individuals with impunity. There’s been numerous deaths of children and other individuals in ICE and also Border Patrol detention facilities here. Border wall construction is ongoing and even ramping up in the middle of the pandemic. And there have been this type of hypermilitarization on Brown communities here at the border for decades and decades and decades.

And so, what we saw on Thursday was also an outcrop of that. And unfortunately, this is definitely something that is being imposed under the national security apparatus coming to Washington, D.C., with no regard to the communities that have actually been here and live here and have been undergoing this militarization for decades.

AMY GOODMAN: Zenén, I wanted to get your response to the Hilton company, which owns Hampton Inn brand. They said, “Our policy has always been that hotels should not be used as detention centers or for detaining individuals. We expect all Hilton properties to reject business that would use a hotel in this way.” Your response? And what are you demanding of them?

ZENÉN JAIMES PÉREZ: Yeah, you know, definitely. On Friday, we had that statement from the Hilton company, but we also saw that in the statement they say that they were no longer detaining individuals at that Hampton Inn hotel. But when we went on Saturday, we definitely found still families there that were waving at us from the window, right? And so, we definitely knew that they had to — and on Monday, we saw the Hilton company actually update their statement to clarify what was actually going on. And so, we know that this sort of back-and-forth is happening and that there is definitely accountability that the Hilton company needs to have, because it definitely happened under their noses, right? It happened not just in the valley, but also in — as you mentioned, in Arizona and in other locations. So, definitely, there’s some more oversight and accountability that needs to happen there.

But the wider point, I think, here is that these black sites that are being operated by the DHS, whether they’re at a Hilton, Ritz-Carlton or even one of the government prisons that we already have a network of along the border — the wider picture here is that there is no oversight, no accountability to what’s going on. So, we could have families and other detained folks here in our community still, and there would almost be no way for us to find out, unless we do a big investigation like we just did to uncover one site. So, if this is what it takes to uncover one location and try to stop the illegal expulsion of just 17 individuals — which, you know, we know that there were more than 17 in there, so we’re still actively looking for those other individuals who were moved this weekend under the cover of a hurricane. So, if this is all happening with no oversight, we can only just kind of imagine what other black sites and what other secrecy is being operated by DHS along the border.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re calling for a congressional investigation, so you don’t have to imagine?

ZENÉN JAIMES PÉREZ: Exactly, yes. So, this is the type of oversight that we need, right? We need people to start asking questions, like how many people have been expelled, how many unaccompanied minors, where are these locations, and why isn’t there access to legal counsel at these areas. And so, before we start — we can’t intervene on behalf of individuals unless we know the full picture. And unfortunately, right now the administration has been using the COVID pandemic to basically create a cloud of secrecy over their asylum process and asylum — illegal asylum policies here at the border. And we really need to shine a light on that.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you mentioned the hurricane, and we want to stay at the Texas-Mexico border to look at what’s happened to asylum seekers in the Mexican city of Matamoros, just across from Brownsville, Texas, one of the largest refugee camps, that houses more than a thousand asylum seekers, including newborns and elderly people, told to evacuate overnight when the river next to it, the Rio Grande, started to rise and flood their tents. Rain from Hurricane Hanna has continued to devastate the area. These are people who have been waiting for months for court dates under a U.S. immigration policy informally known as “Remain in Mexico.”

For more, we’re joined by Sister Norma Pimentel. She is executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.

Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you describe what happened last night and what people need to know?

SISTER NORMA PIMENTEL: Thank you. Yes. We have been very concerned for the almost 2,000 individual refugees that are waiting there in Matamoros —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Sister Norma —

SISTER NORMA PIMENTEL: — and seeing that the river is growing. Yes?

AMY GOODMAN: Keep going. Yes, Sister.

SISTER NORMA PIMENTEL: We just want to make sure that they’re safe. And together with the authorities of Matamoros, the immigration in Mexico, we are trying to work with the families to move them to a safer space. And because they’re afraid, they’re afraid that — of what is happening to them, and not wanting to leave the area. We continue to just monitor the river, and we’re prepared to move them to a safer space this morning or throughout this day.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Sister Norma, in terms of how the United States — we’re hearing all the attention placed on the storm in the U.S., very little on the impact on Mexico, right across the border.

SISTER NORMA PIMENTEL: Well, we see the families in Mexico. I mean, all the border is being affected on both sides of the U.S. and the Mexican border, and there’s a lot of extensive flooding in both sides. And so, we’ve already seen how the river, they’re letting the — water is being released from along the river areas to release all the flooding that is happening in Reynosa and other cities. Already the river has gone over and covered a lot of areas, and so we were afraid that this is happening also in Matamoros. And so, we’re trying to do our best to assist the families and help the Mexican authorities that are concerned for the safety of the families.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Josué Cornejo, Honduran asylum seeker, who’s been forcibly living at the Matamoros encampment with his family for a year due to Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.

JOSUÉ CORNEJO: [translated] There were some very difficult days and nights, two long, sleepless nights. The rain has passed, but it’s now headed to the mountains. What are the consequences of that? The Rio Grande flows from up there. The most dangerous part could come if the river floods. The camp is right next to the river. There is no protection for us if the river overflows.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Josué describing what’s happening there. Can you compare the U.S. response to Mexico’s, Sister Norma?

SISTER NORMA PIMENTEL: Well, I wish that the U.S. can see the danger that these families are exposed to, and that they are allowed to enter the United States and be safe in an area here in the U.S., so we can take care of them as they go through their asylum process, because it’s not safe for them to be there in that area.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, you wrote a piece in The Washington Post, Sister Norma, that “Covid-19 has come to our migrant camp. It makes ending the MPPpolicy even more urgent.” In these last 30 seconds, explain how hard COVID has hit there.

SISTER NORMA PIMENTEL: Well, we are doing our best to control the spread of COVID, and measures are being taken to make sure it doesn’t. We’re thankful that we can do that. But they are truly at the need to move them out of there and allow them to enter the country, the United States. It’s the right way to do it, and I wish that that happened.

AMY GOODMAN: And we’ll link to your piece. MPP is that “Remain in Mexico” program. Sister Norma Pimentel, I want to thank you for being with us, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. And thank you to Zenén Jaimes Pérez, the advocacy director for the Texas Civil Rights Project. We will continue to follow what’s happened to these disappeared children and adults.

That does it for our broadcast. If you want to sign up for our Democracy Now! daily newsletter, you can go to democracynow.org or text the word “democracynow” to the number 66866. That’s “democracynow,” one word.

Democracy Now!, produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Libby Rainey, Nermeen Shaikh, Carla Wills, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Stay safe. Save lives Wear a mask.

[sciencespies]

Acquisition in state of confusion: Questions loom on the role of the Space Development Agency

https://sciencespies.com/space/acquisition-in-state-of-confusion-questions-loom-on-the-role-of-the-space-development-agency/

Acquisition in state of confusion: Questions loom on the role of the Space Development Agency

The U.S. Space Force is just beginning to organize as a new branch of the armed forces and its leaders face a daunting to-do list. High on that list is figuring out the management of space acquisitions.

Congress in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act created a new position of assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration to oversee Space Force procurements. But Congress is leaving it up to Air Force and Space Force leaders to come up with a plan for how this assistant secretary will create a cohesive enterprise that brings together existing organizations — notably the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), the Space Rapid Capabilities Office and the Space Development Agency.

Any type of acquisition reshuffle at DoD can get messy really fast. This one will be no exception, especially because the Space Development Agency (SDA) currently operates independently from the Space Force. Whereas SMC and Space RCO already are under the Space Force, SDA is a Pentagon agency that reports to the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

Congress said SDA must move to the Space Force by 2022 — but left it up to DoD and the services to work out the details.

Between now and whenever it joins the Space Force, SDA will move forward with programs that were planned before the space service was stood up. It will build large constellations of networked satellites in low Earth orbit to detect missiles and track enemy targets. The Pentagon requested nearly $340 million for SDA operations and technology development in 2021. According to the agency’s long-term projections, it will seek as much as $6 billion over the next five years to ramp up satellite procurements and launch them into orbit.

Former SDA director Fred Kennedy said the agency is in a tough spot despite the support it gets from DoD. In remarks Acquisition in state of confusion earlier this month at the SmallSat Symposium in California, he reminded the audience that SDA was created to accelerate innovation and was given authority to circumvent the traditional acquisition process. If SDA is merged with the Space Force bureaucracy, Kennedy said, the agency’s original goal of disrupting military space is unlikely to be achieved. He called the congressional mandate to consolidate SDA under the Space Force the equivalent of “giving SpaceX to Lockheed.”

One of the benefits of having a Space Force is greater advocacy for funding than there would be if the Air Force was left in charge of space, Kennedy said. The problem is that there is still “rampant confusion regarding what we are going to buy and how we are going to buy it.”

Another looming issue for SDA is how it will work with the Missile Defense Agency, which also reports to the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

SDA’s planned constellation of missile-tracking satellites — also known as space sensor layer — is being designed to detect hypersonic glide vehicles, an emerging threat DoD says is not detectable by the current U.S. missile defense shield. But Congress last year said it did not want SDA to lead that effort and gave MDA $108 million to start the space sensor layer.

In the 2021 budget proposal, the Pentagon is moving the space sensor layer funding to SDA. But it’s an open question whether Congress will go along this time, or move the money right back to MDA.

Tom Karako, missile defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the back and forth with the space sensor layer just adds to the uncertainty about what exactly SDA will be doing.

“This is the administration’s second attempt to move space sensors to SDA,” he said. Congress, however, has been insistent that hypersonic missile defense is more closely aligned with MDA’s expertise tracking ballistic missiles.

SDA’s current director, Derek Tournear, was asked at the SmallSat Symposium how the agency intends to work with MDA and with the Space Force.

Tournear said MDA is a partner, not a rival, when it comes to the space sensor layer. With regard to the Space Force, he said SMC is focused on current programs and customers and not on disruptive technology. “That’s where SDA comes in,” said Tournear. “All organizations serve a unique function … We work really closely together.”

Air Force and Space Force officials said discussions are ongoing in the Pentagon on the way forward for SDA. They will provide answers to Congress in a report due March 31.

Sandra Erwin covers military space for SpaceNews. She is a veteran national security journalist and former editor of National Defense magazine.

“On National Security” appears in every issue of SpaceNews magazine. This column ran in the Feb. 24, 2020 issue.

#Space

[terryblount]

Control Review

Remedy Games hasn’t made that many games in the past 20+ years the developer has been around, but each time that they do release one it’s been pretty special.  While this is the studio that brought you the original Max Payne games, Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and now Control… each of these games has brought something new to the table.  Whether it was the new gameplay mechanics of bullet-time or Alan Wake’s flashlight, things have always been somewhat interesting when it comes to the gameplay mechanics of Remedy games.  Control is no different, it certainly stands out from other products that Remedy has released over the years, but also feels very familiar to their most recent offerings in Alan Wake and Quantum Break.

It’s the kind of weird that you’ve come to expect from the developer

Remedy has established themselves as the developers that make weird, stylish games.  This has done well with the last two aforementioned series’.  They jumped into the world of FMV in their games, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.  Control is definitely another one of these.  It’s a weird mess of a story that places you in the shoes of a young woman who finds herself in a place called the Oldest House, which happens to be a hidden building in the middle of New York City where a supernatural threat of the Hiss looms. You become the new Director of a group called the Federal Bureau of Control and can wield a supernatural firearm called the Service Weapon which is your main source of gameplay as it is a third person shooter.  The Hiss are everywhere in the Oldest House and they have the ability to take over and possess the other agents in the building.  The story winds and turns with a little bit more about who you are and why you are there, but it really stays fairly mysterious up until the credits roll.

Less Linear than you’ve seen from Remedy in the past

Control is a little bit less linear than other Remedy games.  There’s a massive, multi-level map to explore, with numerous NPC characters to meet, side quests to tackle, blocked passages, and loot to uncover.  There are some aspects of a Metroid-vania style game here, but they are light.  There are Security Doors which require key cards and some areas can’t be accessed without having specific powers, but it never feels not obvious what you need to do.  Most of the stuff that is locked behind abilities really does just add more color to the world.  While the key cards are usually story items that you’ll get in a fairly linear fashion.  The video gamey bits are what keep you pushing forward in Control, but it’s also an incredibly stylish game with a dark weirdness to it.  The imagery, sounds, and general presentation and mysterious story pull you in immediately as we found ourselves really wanting to learn about this world.  Unfortunately, everything does stay pretty vague in Control.  After watching the credits roll, I thought it was definitely worth the time spent, but I did feel a little unfulfilled in so much being left to collectible files that you can read or FMV videos that you can watch along your journey.

Shooting and abilities give the combat some variety

Control is a third person shooter, but it’s not just a shooter.  There are plenty of abilities to learn as the Director.  Your supernatural abilities allow you to stabilize objects of power which you can then draw abilities from.  You’ll learn things like double jumps, levitation, telekinesis, and others which allow you to fight different types of enemies or reach different areas of the map.  Control is far-less linear than Remedy’s previous games.  There is the main path of the story, which you can really barrel down if you want.  But, there’s also a good bit of side content in this game.  Some of the side content is actually much more interesting than the actual main path and you’ll really miss some cool stuff if you don’t explore this world.  For example, the Hiss are the major threat in the game.  But, there are also others which a scientist is researching in an area called the Pit.  You don’t need to visit the Pit to beat Control, but if you do you’ll get treated to a massive boss fight against a giant mold monster. It’s stuff like this that make Control tough to digest.  Some of this side content is definitely must see, but putting off of the main path does make it unlikely that many will encounter it.  The rewards, whether on the main path or when exploring is points and materials to upgrade your character and weapons.

These points will funnel into your different abilities, making the stronger across the course of the game.  As you spend your trait points you will unlock more mod slots for your weapons and personal buffs.  The combat in Control is a mix between third person shooter and an ability focused game.  You’ll definitely be shooting your fair share of enemies, but you can also upgrade your different abilities to use a telekinetic push melee or unlock the ability to pick up and hurl items with your mind.  You can summon items around you as a shield, or levitate over the battlefield while raining down abilities or bullets.  The combat is varied and putting all of the abilities together really make it stand out.  This really doesn’t start clicking until you’re pretty deep into Control though.  The early parts are certainly more bullet-based, while the latter stages are focused on your powerful abilities or juggling back and forth between the two.  As enemies get tougher you’ll manage your ammunition in Service Weapon and your energy to use abilities.  I found myself in familiar patterns again and again.  Since there is no reload and everything runs off of a charge in Control, it always basically felt like I was shooting until I need to recharge the weapon and then using my abilities until the energy ran out.  By the time that energy ran out I was swapping back to the service weapon to repeat the process.  That coupled with dodging and levitating mechanics gave the combat a nice rhythm.  Control on the Xbox One did feel kind of like a PC game that was ported to consoles.  The aiming and targeting felt a bit rigid and not quite as smooth as some other third person shooters or action games.  Control does feature some incredible destruction physics in combat and in exploration phases.  The destruction makes all of your powers and abilities feel real and have a lasting impact on the world around you.

Main path story missions, side content, challenges, and agency missions… there is no shortage of things to do

Control is kind of structured in a unique way for a single player experience.  There are your aforementioned story and side mission content, but there are random missions where you’re given objectives that must be completed in a certain amount of time. They feel almost like a “daily challenge” that you’ll find in a multiplayer game.  There are challenges that can be tackled for rewards as well.  Kill a certain number of enemies without dying in a certain part of the Oldest House, and you’ll reward you.  Control definitely takes some of the engaging content from multiplayer games in terms of challenges and introduces them in a way that makes sense for a single player game.  The rewards are upgrade points and materials that will allow you to craft personal mods, weapon mods, and different weapon forms for the Service Weapon.

The Service Weapon does start out as a pistol, but it can evolve into multiple things.  While the actual size and shape of it changes only slightly, the firing mechanics and bullets that come out of it differ drastically from a beam to a burst rifle, or shotgun.  So long as you’re spending points on upgrading the weapon you’ll have no shortage of ways to kill enemies.  You can equip two of the weapon forms at once, and then outfit the weapon with up to three different mods which give you various buffs that compliment your playstyle.  There’s no shortage of these progression and upgrade items Control.  In fact, there’s actually quite a lot of loot in the game if you’re looking for it. There is a nice ramp of progression in the game from start to finish where the abilities that you learn and weapons you are using definitely make you feel more powerful in the end game than you did when you were bumbling around the halls of the Oldest House trying to piece together why you are there in the first place.

We played it on the “world’s most powerful console” and it was kind of a mess

Control is definitely a stunner when it comes to visuals and presentation, but on a technical level on the Xbox One X the game really feels like its pushing the console to its limits.  Taking away from the fun at times were smaller things like the map not loading when trying to pull it up until waiting for 15-20 seconds.  This in itself makes navigating the world more of a chore than it has to be.  Then there’s fast travel and loading into a new control point.  These points are effectively the checkpoints in the game and when you reach one or rest at one you’ll respawn from there if you happen to die.  Each and every single time I loaded into a new control point there was significant frame rate drops and slow down that was visible on screen on the Xbox One X.  It’s became pretty disappointing as the game got harder because it was a stark contrast from the rest of the game.  That’s not to say that Control didn’t chug at other spots.  Put too many enemies on the screen and the Xbox One X just felt like it was overloaded with the enemy counts and the ongoing effects.  It didn’t take away from my experience too much, but it’s definitely noticeable in a game as stylish as Control.

Anyone that liked or loved the Quantum Break or Alan Wake games will most certainly enjoy Control.  Remedy has certainly embraced their artistic sides for this game, taking more risks with their story telling than their last couple of games and doubling down on their penchant for including live actors as a story telling device.  If you’re not quite sure what to expect, it’s a dark, twisted, weird world full of things that don’t make any sense.   At times this feels ok, and refreshing that you don’t quite know where it’s going to end up, but it can be a little disappointing.  One thing’s for sure, it’s definitely a hell of a ride from start to finish.

The Verdict

Control is definitely Remedy’s best game since Alan Wake.  The sheer variety in the gameplay and fantastic presentation go a long way in making this an enjoyable experience.  The weird story and setting does a great job of setting the hook at the onset, but the payoff was a little underwhelming.

Control Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[junker-town]

10 moments that made LSU-Florida so heated, including 2 from 2017’s game

This series just keeps ramping up.

The LSU Tigers beat the No. 21 Florida Gators this Saturday in Gainesville, the 64th meeting between the two. This series has been around for a while, but the rivalry has gone to new heights recently, and it’s all thanks to a lot of moments accumulating over the last 11 years.

1. In 2006, the “jump pass” was born.

Florida scheduled LSU for homecoming, even though the spread for this top-10 battle was dead even. Senior quarterback Chris Leak was the starter during Urban Meyer’s Year 2, but the Gators had a unique weapon in freshman quarterback Tim Tebow.

He was used mostly as a situational runner on short yardage and goal-line downs, but his first career TD pass, to tight end Tate Casey, was on this jump pass, a throwback play from the 1990s:

"In practice, when we were running it with our defense," Tebow told SB Nation via phone interview, "I just actually caught the ball, ran it to the line of scrimmage, jumped up, and all the linebackers went up, and Tate was open, so Coach was kind of like, ‘Well, that might actually work!’"

How the actual play ended up during the game was a bit different than practice that week, though.

"They snap me the ball, and I see Tate get grabbed right off the line of scrimmage," Tebow told SB Nation. "So I get to the line of scrimmage, and I jump and I try to buy a little time, and you can see me kind of double clutch it. Finally he gets off the jam, and I kind of give it a lot of air and throw it in the back of the end zone, and he’s able to make a good play."

2. 2007’s game had a heated buildup.

Tebow took over Meyer’s offense as a sophomore in 2007. LSU fans got ahold of Tebow’s phone number and bombarded it.

"Honestly, it just put a little fuel to the fire," Tebow recalled. "All the death threats toward my family and friends and stuff was a little much, but honestly it was just fuel to the fire and I was just so focused."

The calls started on Tuesday, and Tebow eventually turned off the phone. According to the Associated Press, he had to listen to each text and voicemail before being able to delete it.

When the Gators took a 10-0 lead, the QB taunted LSU fans with a phone gesture:

"It was not planned at all," Tebow said. "When I got to the end zone and I looked up right in front of the student section, and there were like 30,000 people giving me the bird, it was just instinct. Most of them had probably been calling me earlier that week, so it was just a little friendly reminder, saying, hey."

3. And then 2007’s game was an epic classic.

Florida was up 24-14 at the start of the fourth quarter, but LSU scored two unanswered touchdowns in the fourth. The last was the game-winner, thanks to a LSU’s fifth fourth-down conversion, which set up a Jacob Hester touchdown.

4. In 2010, LSU beat Florida on the wackiest fake field goal ever.

Even though I witnessed this play in person, I still can’t believe it was pulled off. Florida came in at No. 14 with a loss, and LSU was undefeated at No. 12. The Gators pulled within three with 3:21 left. On the next LSU drive, the Tigers managed to get to the Florida 36 and then faced fourth-and-3.

The Tigers lined up to kick a field goal, then did the unthinkable — holder Derek Helton flipped the ball over his shoulder to kicker Josh Jasper, who picked up the bouncing ball and got the first down.

The play was reviewed and stood as a legal lateral. The conversion set up a 33-29 LSU victory.

5. In 2013, former LSU head coach Les Miles went on a glorious “hammer-and-nail” rant.

In 2012, Florida won a ground-and-pound, 14-6 victory. The next year, LSU won, 17-6, in Death Valley.

A reporter asked Miles about a contrast between the two games — how LSU had gone from being the nail to being the hammer. Miles didn’t like that:

Here’s what happens. Two very quality teams take the field and compete like a son of a bitch for victory. You know what? It’s not a hammer and a nail relationship. It’s an opportunity for an opponent to be equal, and to raise their level of play in such a fashion that they win. And that’s how this thing works, that in fact you respect the opponent, and he’s not the hammer, and he’s not the frickin’ nail, OK? He’s the opponent. You understand?

I’m just letting you know, I resent that. I resent the fact that suddenly, we were nailed. You got it? I mean honest to Pete’s. Shit, we’re a pretty good team last year. I thought we played like a son of a bitch in that statement. I felt differently than the nail, so you know.

6. In 2015, LSU converted a fake field goal ... again.

In the fourth quarter with 10 minutes left, LSU was faced with a fourth-and-13, and LSU’s Trent Domingue lined up for a field goal. Domingue ran around the left end for a touchdown to give his team a 35-28 lead, which was the final score.

7. In 2016, Hurricane Matthew brought things to new heights.

The bad blood got started after Florida, which was set to host LSU, postponed the game due to safety concerns from the impending threat of Hurricane Matthew.

Then came weeks of public, ugly, back-and-forth, open feuding between the programs, and Florida being accused by media members of “being scared” to play LSU. Finally, the game was rescheduled to Nov. 19 at LSU, with 2017’s game changing locations in return.

There was a pregame scuffle, which a Florida DB later said he caused on purpose ...

Fight breaks out between #LSU-Florida players. Leonard Fournette and a Florida assistant coach shove each other. http://pic.twitter.com/wFZwyW1nU7

— Joshua Thornton (@JoshuaThornton_) November 19, 2016

... and the Gators defeated the Tigers, 16-10. The win was sealed on a goal-line stand:

Florida played LSU’s hype rap song in the locker room afterward.

“[Florida players] got some guts; they got some pride,” Florida’s Jim McElwain said postgame. “They were called out. And you know what amazes me? People call people out when there’s actual tragedy happening. Unbelievable to me.”

Things haven’t exactly lightened up since then. LSU’s spring game was canceled from its stadium due to lightning, aaaand:

#SafetyFirst

— Gators Football (@GatorsFB) April 23, 2017

8. Florida named LSU as 2017’s homecoming opponent.

This added even more fuel to the fire:

Me, LSU fan Out loud: "I really don't get why UF is being so petty about this. I don't really care, they aren't our rival." Internally: http://pic.twitter.com/X7FcujqSyp

— PodKATT (@valleyshook) July 6, 2017

9. During the ‘17 game, there was a BAND CONTROVERSY.

Florida played “I Won’t Back Down” after the third quarter to honor Gainesville native Tom Petty. It made for an awesome scene at the Swamp:

Crowd rocks to Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” Very, very cool. http://pic.twitter.com/f93LTJl2fZ

— Thomas Goldkamp (@ThomasGoldkamp) October 7, 2017

The LSU band apparently played while the Petty tribute was ongoing. This made some Florida fans really mad:

A couple of UF fans were super hot about the LSU band playing at the start of the 4th quarter. #TomPetty #doesntwanttobackdown http://pic.twitter.com/TkeOTM1VtC

— Michael Cauble (@MichaelCauble) October 8, 2017

The LSU band’s explanation:

Clarification on the 3-4th quarter situation last night. As is customary and tradition for LSU for every game over several decades, at the end of the 3rd quarter Tiger Band always plays Pregame/Touchdown for LSU. The plan was for LSU to honor their decades-old tradition while Florida honored their singing tradition simultaneously. Then right after LSU finished their Pregame, a tribute was to ensue. To help facilitate this, the LSU band started their Pregame tradition early with :10 seconds remaining in the 3rd quarter. At no time was it the intentions of Tiger Band to disrespect or interrupt a tribute of someone we consider a musical icon and apologize to anyone thinking this was the case.

10. LSU won, and the Tigers clapped back at UF’s coach.

During the Matthew rescheduling saga of 2016, Florida was accused in some circles of playing politics with the hurricane to avoid playing LSU. After the Gators won on the last play, McElwain was unsparing in criticizing LSU.

Jim McElwain: "It just shocks me that someone would question the Gators. The way I look at it (LSU) got what they deserve."

— Nick de la Torre (@NickdelaTorreGC) November 19, 2016

Well, this time, LSU won. Running back Derrius Guice hit back:

Did we get what we deserved this year coach? @CoachMcElwain #greatgame

— 5⃣ (@DhaSickest) October 8, 2017

So did long snapper Blake Ferguson:

If I remember correctly... http://pic.twitter.com/uLNNll5iuN

— Blake Ferguson (@bferguson50) October 7, 2017

And tight end Jamal Pettigrew:

"The way I look at it they got what they deserved and it should have been worse" that's what they coach said last year, tables turned! ‍♂️

— 80 (@_jamal80) October 7, 2017

And, in a video roast, punter Zach Von Rosenberg, with Ferguson’s help:

W. #LSUvsFLA http://pic.twitter.com/TyDvUmb6Ep

— Zach Von Rosenberg (@ZVR09) October 7, 2017

Can’t wait for 2018.

[everettwilkinson]

SCOOP: Freedom Caucus to file petition TODAY to bring up clean Obamacare repeal — RUCKER on Trump, DAWSEY and HULSE on Trump/McConnell — PLAYBOOK ON THE ROAD winners

Happy Friday! FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — SOMETHING PRESIDENT TRUMP WILL LIKE. The conservative House Freedom Caucus will file a petition today to try to force Speaker Paul Ryan to bring up a so-called “clean Obamacare repeal” bill. The legislation passed the House and Senate in the past — it repeals Obamacare after a two-year transition period. (It failed the Senate this year.) If the discharge petition — which will get filed during today’s pro-forma session — gets 218 signatures, it will force a floor vote. The Freedom Caucus and conservative outside groups will try to ramp up lots of pressure to force people to sign on. Expect Trump — itchy for victory, and frustrated with Republican leaders on health care — to weigh in. He’s close with some members of the Freedom Caucus.

US WEEKLY: SPICER WANTS ON SNL — “An insider reveals in the new issue of Us Weekly that the New York-born political aide ‘is angling’ to appear on Saturday Night Live. ‘He is asking people about getting on — it was his idea!’ … But now he’s ready to get in on the joke. ‘He asked someone he knows that is close to a cast member to help him,’ explains the insider. ‘Yes, he criticized SNL before, but he’s changed his tune. He wants to make a cameo!'” http://usm.ag/2uMOMCl

Story Continued Below

**SUBSCRIBE to Playbook: http://politi.co/2lQswbh

WHAT PRESIDENT TRUMP SAID YESTERDAY …

— HERE’S WHEN WE MAY ASK HIM IF MCCONNELL SHOULD STEP DOWN: “If he doesn’t get repeal and replace done, if he doesn’t get taxes done — meaning cuts and reform — and if he doesn’t get a very easy one to get done, infrastructure — if he doesn’t get them done, then you can ask me that question.” Note from us: None of this is easy. Especially not with the artificial deadlines the administration has put on him.

— OPIOID CRISIS IS A NATIONAL EMERGENCY: “It is a serious problem, the likes of which we have never had. You know, when I was growing up they had the LSD and they had certain generations of drugs. There’s never been anything like what’s happened to this country over the last four or five years.”

— HE’S CLOSE TO A DECISION ON TROOP LEVELS IN AFGHANISTAN: “It’s a very big decision for me. I took over a mess, and we’re going to make it a lot less messy. But that has been a place — 17 years — our longest war, I read in one of your columns. And, frankly, it’s going to be a decision that’s going to be made very soon.”

— BANNING TRANSGENDER SOLDIERS WAS A “FAVOR” TO THE PENTAGON: “As you know, it’s been a very complicated issue for the military. It’s been a very confusing issue for the military. And I think I’m doing the military a great favor.”

— THANK YOU TO PUTIN FOR EXPELLING U.S. DIPLOMATS: “I want to thank him because we’re trying to cut down on payroll. And as far as I’m concerned, I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll. There’s no real reason for them to go back.” Note: Putin didn’t fire them from the State Department. He just expelled them from Russia. We imagine the payroll hasn’t really changed.

JOHN HEFFERN, principal deputy assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (@AmbHeffern): “The State and inter-agency community is thinking about our colleagues in Moscow and Consulates as they prepare for difficult weeks ahead.”

NAHAL TOOSI and MADELINE CONWAY: “A senior U.S. diplomat serving overseas called Trump’s remarks ‘outrageous’ and said it could lead more State Department staffers to head for the exits. ‘This is so incredibly demoralizing and disrespectful to people serving their country in harm’s way,’ the diplomat said. … ‘THANK Putin?’ another bewildered State Department official responded. ‘I don’t have words that are printable to describe my reaction.’” http://politi.co/2vVnVbI

— TRUMP’S THINKING ON INFRASTRUCTURE: “I’m not sure that we will bring [Democrats] in. I mean, maybe we’ll bring them in, maybe not. I think the infrastructure bill will be bipartisan. In fact, frankly, it may have more support from the Democrats. I want a very strong infrastructure bill.”

FASCINATING — NOT ONE QUESTION on two major issues Trump will have to confront in the next two months: the looming government shutdown and lifting the nation’s borrowing cap.

— NYT rundown of Trump’s back-and-forth with the press http://nyti.ms/2vsAAQV … Video of his whole 20-minute presser with the pool http://bit.ly/2vLcymI … His other 7-min. press availability yesterday http://bit.ly/2uw3n5R

PHIL RUCKER in Bedminster: “‘When you put this guy in a cage and think you’re controlling him, things like this happen’”: “Midway through President Trump’s second media availability in a single afternoon here Thursday, his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, held up a sign signaling to the boss that it was time to drop the curtain on the show. ‘One more question,’ it read. The president either did not see her plea or opted to disregard it, because he kept answering questions — for 20 minutes straight, after having already fielded them for seven minutes in the earlier session. This was Trump in his element: At his luxurious private golf club here in Bedminster, the cameras trained on him, his vice president and national security advisers looking on admiringly, he parried queries — at times even gleefully — like a tennis player.

“Engaging with people — journalists, advisers, friends and even foes — is Trump’s lifeblood. His Oval Office has felt like a busy train station, with people breezing in and out to share a juicy tidbit or to solicit the president’s opinion on a pressing issue or to chew over something in the news. He likes to watch cable television news shows with other people, sometimes only through the phone. … ‘This is what General Kelly will learn very quickly, which is when you put this guy in a cage and think you’re controlling him, things like this happen,’ said one Trump confidant, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. … Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said Trump in recent days has been restless to share his thoughts on what she termed ‘one of the juiciest, newsiest periods of his presidency.’” http://wapo.st/2vp6mzM

ATTN. TRUMP: Mattis gets a tour of Amazon HQ with Jeff Bezos. http://dailym.ai/2uLVkkP

CARL HULSE on the TRUMP/MCCONNELL feud: “Mr. McConnell’s original point was that the president was still learning how things work in Washington. By publicly berating the man who should be his most indispensable ally on Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump may have affirmed Mr. McConnell’s point.” http://nyti.ms/2wOr0au

JOSH DAWSEY, “Behind the Trump-McConnell feud: The president ratcheted up his feud with the Senate majority leader, signaling again that he’s willing to sacrifice the appearance of unity to get what he wants”: “Increasingly, these people say, the president is prepared to cast himself as an outsider — and Congress as an ‘insider’ Washington institution. He has reminded advisers his poll numbers are higher than Congress’ and that he ran against Washington — and wants bills to sign — and will blast his own party if he doesn’t get them. … McConnell’s advisers have been amazed at the president’s unwillingness to sell the health care bill publicly, his lack of policy knowledge, his seemingly unending appetite for chaos and his inability to control warring factions of aides, who complicate delicate negotiations by saying different things to different people.

“The two men have talked from time to time on the phone, but the conversations have often been brief, and Trump often disregards McConnell’s advice. McConnell has told people after meeting with Trump in the White House that it is difficult to keep the president on topic and that he wanders around verbally in a way that McConnell — a man who does not see the purpose in unnecessary words — doesn’t understand.” http://politi.co/2vsrHqM

****** A message from the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): If you know only one fact about rising drug costs, know this one: drug makers set prices for prescription drugs. To help manage nearly double-digit price increases, employers, unions and government programs use PBMs to negotiate lower net prices to help curb costs for employers and patients. Learn more at affordableprescriptiondrugs.org ******

PACIFIC DAILY NEWS (Guam newspaper) — “‘Don’t look at the flash or fireball’ — Guam Homeland Security releases fact sheet in light of North Korea threats”: “The advice includes tips such as: ‘Do not look at the flash or fireball — It can blind you’ and ‘Take cover behind anything that might offer protection.’

“‘Lie flat on the ground and cover your head. If the explosion is some distance away, it could take 30 seconds or more for the blast wave to hit,’ the sheet states. Homeland Security says residents should prepare an emergency supply kit and a family emergency plan. During an imminent missile threat, authorities recommend taking cover as quickly as possible under a concrete structure or below ground after an attack warning is issued. People should also avoid going outside for at least 24 hours to avoid any possible radioactive material, unless otherwise told by authorities.” http://bit.ly/2hQCqrS … The fact sheet http://bit.ly/2vVm1Zb

HILL PROBES — “Trump’s longtime secretary scrutinized by Russia investigators,” by ABC’s Benjamin Siegel: “Congressional investigators want to question President Donald Trump’s longtime personal secretary as part of their ongoing probe into a controversial meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, ABC News has learned.

“Rhona Graff, a senior vice president at the Trump Organization who has worked at Trump Tower for nearly 30 years, has acted as a gatekeeper to Trump. She remains a point of contact for the sprawling universe of Trump associates, politicians, reporters and others seeking Trump’s time and attention, even now that he’s in the White House.” http://abcn.ws/2vpKtAB

SCOOP — “Manafort switching legal team as feds crank up heat on him,” by Josh Dawsey: “Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is changing his attorneys as a federal investigation heats up into his financial transactions, according to people familiar with the matter. Manafort’s case will now be handled by Miller and Chevalier, a boutique firm in Washington that specializes in complicated financial crimes among other issues, these people said. A spokesman confirmed the change. … Kevin Downing, a former senior Department of Justice official known for his work representing clients and firms facing complex financial investigations, will be working on the case. … Manafort is cutting ties with WilmerHale, the firm that has represented him in the matter so far. His former lawyer there, Reg Brown, led the congressional investigations practice.” http://politi.co/2uMhlQA

BOOMERANG — “Breitbart’s war on McMaster bites Bannon,” by Tara Palmeri: “The attacks on McMaster have put Bannon in an especially awkward position with his new boss, retired Marine general John Kelly, who has been increasingly defensive of McMaster, a longtime friend and fellow general, according to interviews with 10 administration officials and people close to the White House. McMaster, who pushed Bannon off the National Security Council principals’ committee, hasn’t spoken to Bannon in weeks, one senior administration official said.” http://politi.co/2uuRb9q

DEPARTURE LOUNGE — “Four Top Cybersecurity Officials Are Leaving U.S. Government,” by Kevin Collier in his BuzzFeed debut: “Four senior cybersecurity officials are stepping down from their U.S. government positions, raising concerns that an exodus of top leaders may make the federal government more vulnerable to hacking. Two of those resigning – Sean Kelley, the chief information security officer for the Environmental Protection Agency, and Richard Staropoli, the chief information officer for the Department of Homeland Security – had been in their jobs for just a few months. The other two, Rob Foster, the Navy’s chief information officer, and Dave DeVries, the director of information security and privacy at the Office of Personnel Management, are departing agencies for which computer security is a top priority.” http://bzfd.it/2voYHBu

LATE-NIGHT BEST – “Weekend Update: Anthony Scaramucci FaceTimes the Show (Bill Hader)” — 3-min. video http://bit.ly/2uMqfgL

TRUMP’S FRIDAY — THE PRESIDENT is participating in a workforce and apprenticeship discussion at his country club in New Jersey and he will meet with U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

PHOTO DU JOUR: President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence speak with reporters before a security briefing at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., on Aug. 10. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

HOT DOC — “Here’s the Memo That Blew Up the NSC: Fired White House staffer argued ‘deep state’ attacked Trump administration because the president represents a threat to cultural Marxist memes, globalists, and bankers,” by Foreign Policy’s Jana Winter and Elias Groll: “The author of the memo, Rich Higgins, who was in the strategic planning office at the NSC, was among those recently pushed out. … In the meantime, however, the memo had been working its way through the Trump White House. Among those who received the memo, according to two sources, was Donald Trump Jr. … [who] gave the memo to his father, who gushed over it, according to sources. In a comedy of errors, Trump later learned from Sean Hannity, the Fox News host and close friend of the president, that the memo’s author had been fired. Trump was ‘furious,’ the senior administration official said. ‘He is still furious.’” http://atfp.co/2uuM6xO

A BREAK IN PRECEDENT — SEUNG MIN KIM: “White House vs. Democrats in tense standoff over judge picks”: “Trump’s judicial nominees are ignoring key Senate Democrats as they vie for lifetime appointments to the bench — a break from longstanding practice that diminishes the minority’s power to provide a check against ideologically extreme judges. The brewing tension between the White House and the Senate over filling an unusually high number of judicial vacancies is impeding the pace at which Trump installs lifetime appointees to the federal bench — so far one of the president’s few major victories, with his legislative agenda largely stymied in Congress.” http://politi.co/2vL6Hhe

ANOTHER VIEW — “Rep. Rohrabacher wades into Google’s firing of controversial memo’s author,” by L.A. Times’ Sarah D. Wire: “Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) took Google to task Thursday for firing a male employee, James Demore, who circulated a memo within the company arguing women are biologically incapable of doing a man’s job in Silicon Valley.

“The 3,000-word memo that’s caused a hubbub among one of California’s more prominent industries and across the country contends men fundamentally have a higher drive for status than women and says the company has a bias toward liberal thought over conservative thought. It states that the company’s diversity initiatives should be replaced with ‘ideological diversity’ policies. Rohrabacher joined the conversation, saying on Twitter he’s troubled by the firing. He tweeted: ‘You shouldn’t lose your job for telling the truth!’ and ‘The mistreatment of conservatives and libertarians by tech monopolies is a civil rights issue.’” http://lat.ms/2wOtpSN

IVANKA INC. — “Ivanka Trump Brand to Open NY Store in Second Stab at Retail,” by Bloomberg’s Lindsey Rupp and Taylor Cromwell: “The first daughter’s brand will open a store in Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, according to signage in the building. The location is slated to debut later this year, giving the tourists who throng to the site a chance to buy Ivanka Trump merchandise. It’s unclear what products will be sold at the store or when exactly it will open: A sign promised a fall 2017 debut, but representatives for the brand declined to give specifics. The shop would represent Ivanka Trump’s second foray into branded stores. She previously opened a fine jewelry boutique on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 2007, before moving to the SoHo neighborhood in 2011. That location shut down in 2015.” https://bloom.bg/2uMdAu9

–“Kushner fined for late financial report,” by McClatchy’s Anita Kumar and Ben Wieder: “Jared Kushner, who has spent months divesting pieces of his vast business empire to serve in the White House, was slapped with a fine by the Office of Government Ethics for late reporting of a financial transaction, according to a newly released document. Another 17 White House staffers … filed their required personal financial disclosure statements late, according to data compiled by American Bridge 21st Century … Reince Priebus … was four days late. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was 23 days late. And Omarosa Manigault … received a 32-day extension but still missed her deadline by eight days. … Under federal law, when those who are required to file financial disclosure statements are more than 30 days late doing so they must pay a fine of $200, payable to the U.S. Treasury.” http://bit.ly/2vsrvYA

MARK PRESTON talks to GEORGE SHULTZ — “The wise man Trump should listen to” http://cnn.it/2uvZhL1

****** A message from the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): Pharmacy benefit managers negotiate the lowest net price for prescriptions on behalf of employers and other health care purchasers; however, the list price – the important starting point for those negotiations — continues to rise, at a rate of nearly ten percent in 2016 alone. Increased competition, faster reviews of generics and biosimilars and ending anti-competitive practices can also bring down the cost of medications for patients. Learn more at affordableprescriptiondrugs.org ******

MEDIAWATCH — “CNN severs ties with Jeffrey Lord,” by CNN’s Brian Stelter: “CNN severed ties with Jeffrey Lord on Thursday, hours after he ignited controversy by tweeting the words ‘Sieg Heil!’ at a prominent liberal activist. ‘Nazi salutes are indefensible,’ a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. ‘Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network.’ Lord said his tweet was misunderstood. He said he was mocking fascists, not acting like one. ‘I love CNN, but I feel they are caving to bullies here,’ he said in a telephone interview shortly after the network’s decision was announced.” http://cnnmon.ie/2voGtQB

FUTURE OF NEWS — FOR BEN SMITH — “BuzzFeed News’ Twitter Live Daily Morning Show to Debut in September,” by Variety’s Todd Spangler: “Here comes a social-media-spiked version of ‘Good Morning America’ for millennials: BuzzFeed News will bow its morning show — live-streamed daily on Twitter — on Sept. 25. The weekday show, ‘AM to DM,’ will run 8-9 a.m. ET on the Twitter account of @BuzzFeedNews. The program will be hosted by Saeed Jones, BuzzFeed News’ executive editor of culture and BuzzFeed Books editor Isaac Fitzgerald. The show will be produced by Cindy Vanegas-Gesuale, a veteran of Fox Business Network, CNN and Huffington Post.

“‘AM to DM’ will follow a traditional morning-show format, delivering the day’s top stories from staff reporters providing news and commentary on politics, social issues, technology, business and entertainment. But it will have some unique twists, given the nature of the medium: The show will feature ‘everyday Twitter heroes’ who have captured the spotlight and focus on what people are saying on Twitter live, as it happens during the broadcast. Also planned are regular segments with guest ‘newsmakers and notables’ discussing current trends, personalities — and the best jokes from the twittersphere.” http://bit.ly/2wOqTMm

PLAYBOOK ON THE ROAD — Thanks to everyone who sent us photos of themselves reading Playbook during your travels this month! Robb Watters: “Reading it in Simi Greece!” Pic http://politi.co/2vLby1X … Steve Clemons of The Atlantic: “Reading Politico Playbook on the aboriginal art floor of the Alice Springs, Australia airport! Alice Springs, of course, is the destination city made famous by the acclaimed film, ‘Priscilla: Queen of the Desert’” http://politi.co/2uwl05y … Robert Allbritton: “From your Publisher – 6 time zones west of you … on The Big Island. Nice and relaxing” http://politi.co/2vV8Ck1 … Ben Chang: “Greetings from Montana! Was able to pull up Playbook at this spot in Glacier National Park…” http://politi.co/2uuAxXJ … Shannon Gacke and Ben Mordechai: “Habari from Zanzibar, Tanzania! We’ve made sure to read Playbook every time we’ve had wifi for our past two months in Tanzania!” http://politi.co/2vsRS0r

—See the whole slideshow with the rest of the entries, including Brian O. Walsh in Venice and other readers in Germany, Vietnam, Ballycastle, Northern Ireland, Paradise Valley, Ariz., on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Island Lake near Duluth, Minn., and Pinconning, Michigan http://politi.co/2vLby1X

–REMINDER: THE GRAND PRIZE: Participating Playbookers will automatically be entered into a drawing to win a signed cartoon by POLITICO’s Pulitzer winning cartoonist Matt Wuerker. Email photos to Daniel at daniel@politico.com. Or, Tweet them to @playbookplus with the hashtag #PlaybookLoyal. We’ll feature the best five pictures every Friday in August.

SPOTTED: Andy Surabian, a deputy to Steve Bannon; Steven Cheung, a former UFC executive and current White House communications aide; and Jack Hunter, editor of Rare.us at the DC Improv yesterday with legendary WWE announcer Jim Ross.

SUNDAY SO FAR — ABC’s “This Week”: Martha Raddatz reports live from the frontlines of the nuclear threat in Seoul … Anthony Scaramucci. Panel: Alex Castellanos, Matthew Dowd, and Cokie Roberts.

— CNN’s “State of the Union”: James Clapper. Panel: Nina Turner … Michael Caputo … Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) … Bill Kristol

— NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Kara Swisher. Panel: Helene Cooper, Rich Lowry, Joy Reid, Amy Walter

— CBS’ “Face the Nation”: Leon Panetta … San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Gary, Indiana Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, and Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu. Political panel: Molly Ball, Mike Duffy, Ed O’Keefe and Ramesh Ponnuru … Discussion on North Korea: David Ignatius and Michael Morell

— “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Panel: Newt Gingrich, Donna Edwards, Tom Rogan, Marie Harf

–CNN’s “Inside Politics” with John King: Michael Shear, Margaret Talev, Karoun Demirjian, Manu Raju

TRANSITIONS — Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has been named chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association. … The Network Branded Prepaid Card Association has named Ben Jackson as their new COO. He most recently spent eight years at Mercator Advisory Group. … Anna McEntee has left Fox News to join Rep. Virginia Foxx’s (R-N.C.) office as her communications director. … Tom Strong-Grinsell, formerly of the Clinton campaign, will now be assistant to Fred Hochberg, formerly the chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank.

BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Wood Foster, onetime chair of the Minnesota State Bar Association (hat tip: stepdaughter Maggie Severns, who was on time) … Politico’s Farnaz Mansouri … Politico Europe’s Jan Cienski … (was Tuesday): George Paul Tzamaras, senior director of comms for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, turned 57

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: NYT opinion columnist Charles Blow is 47. He’s celebrating “in New Orleans, in my home state of Louisiana, at the National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention.” A fun fact about Charles: “My tiny hometown, Gibsland, La., is the place where Bonnie and Clyde were killed. Fewer than 1,000 people live there, but they have two Bonnie and Clyde ‘museums’ (I use that there very loosely), and each year on the anniversary of killings, there is a ‘festival’ in the center of town, complete with a mock shootout.” Read his Playbook Plus Q&A: http://politi.co/2wA4fYM

BIRTHDAYS: David Brooks is 56 … David Rubenstein is 68 … Rob O’Donnell, founder of 38 Paces and Obama WH alum … Politico’s Toby Eckert and Michael Roberts … Bush 43 admin alum Jim Wilkinson, now chairman and CEO of TrailRunner International … Pamela Lynne Sorensen … Chris Berry, SVP at iHeartMedia … CNN WH producer Liz Landers… Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) is 59 … Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) is 62 (h/t Matt Brooks) … Fred Smith, CEO and founder of FedEx, is 73 … DCCC’s Brian Krebs … Mollyann Brodie … Mark Chou … Greg Michaelidis, founder and director of the Security Awareness Lab and a DHS alum (h/t Todd Breasseale) … Ilana Drimmer, booker for “Meet the Press” (h/ts Betsy Fischer Martin and Olivia Petersen) … Marissa Secreto, COS to Steve Case at Revolution … Alex Siciliano, comms director for Sen. Gardner … Meghan Dubyak, Georgetown spox and AVP for comms …. WaPo’s Lyndsey Layton … Alli Adams …

… CNN’s Rachel Smolkin and Waffa Munayyer … Chad VonLuehrte, co-founder and partner at Harbinger, is 38 … Kedrin Simms Brachman is 4-0 … Jackie Norris … Chris Lisi, strategic comms consultant, adjunct at GWU, former Hill staffer, celebrating with Vince and the kids (h/ts Jon Haber) … Emily Akhtarzandi, The Atlantic’s DC head of media and managing director of AtlanticLIVE, celebrating by relaxing on the north coast beaches of Egypt (h/t Patrick Garrigan) … Jamie Bennett is 24 … Philip Scranage … Yelena Shuster … Kimberly Scott … Kimberly Burns … former Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.) is 68 … Pete Larkin is 54 … Jillian Gates … Drew Trojanowski … Drew Davidsen … Pamitha Weerasinghe … John Kohler … Chris Berry … Shelley Epstein … Thad Huguley … John Files … Sam Myers Jr., senior director for partnerships and development at Huge … Tom Miller … Melissa Silverstein … Albert Morales … Connie Hutchison (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) … Sara Ginzberg … Kimberly Scott … Hulk Hogan is 64 … Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is 67 … actress Viola Davis is 52 (h/ts AP)

****** A message from the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): The high prices that drug makers set for prescription drugs can put financial strain on patients, employers, unions and others who provide health care coverage to more than 50 percent of Americans. Pharmacy benefit managers negotiate the lowest net price for prescriptions on behalf of employers, unions and government programs. But, as list prices – the starting point for those negotiations — continue their nearly double-digit increases, the effects ripple throughout the system. The key to ensuring greater access and affordability lies in fostering greater competition. Facilitating faster reviews of generics and biosimilars, identifying off-patent drugs with little or no generic competition, and ending anti-competitive practices that keep safe, effective alternatives out of the market are also key to abating rising drug costs for patients. Learn more at affordableprescriptiondrugs.org ******

SUBSCRIBE to the Playbook family: POLITICO Playbook http://politi.co/1M75UbX … New York Playbook http://politi.co/1ON8bqW … Florida Playbook http://politi.co/1OypFe9 … New Jersey Playbook http://politi.co/1HLKltF … Massachusetts Playbook http://politi.co/1Nhtq5v … Illinois Playbook http://politi.co/1N7u5sb … California Playbook http://politi.co/2bLvcPl … Brussels Playbook http://politi.co/1FZeLcw … All our political and policy tipsheets http://politi.co/1M75UbX

Original Source link

from CapitalistHQ.com https://capitalisthq.com/scoop-freedom-caucus-to-file-petition-today-to-bring-up-clean-obamacare-repeal-rucker-on-trump-dawsey-and-hulse-on-trumpmcconnell-playbook-on-the-road-winners/

[vernicle]

They tested a seat so people with disabilities could ride a camel. Here's how it went.

[ad_1]

On edge of the Sahara Dunes, a few miles outdoors of the Moroccan city of Merzouga, a camel named Omalise looks to suspect a thing is up.

On her back again is a cumbersome contraption — a tall cloth seat held in spot by metallic piping and tied down with a tangle of unfamiliar straps.

Picture by Eric March through Moroccan Accessibility Vacation.

It will not hurt, but it can be not her standard saddle, and it can be absolutely not weighty sufficient to be a rider. Unclear what the attentive crowd of fast chattering people all around her wishes her to do, she attempts to stand up.

In just milliseconds, 3 trainers hustle over to coax the bewildered camel back again to the ground.

"Of study course, correct now, the camel is a bit uncomfortable with the problem, but she’ll get used to it," claims Mbark, Omalise's handler, by a translator. Mbark has lived semi-nomadically all around the pack animals his full daily life. For the earlier 12 many years, he is labored in the country's booming tourism field, facilitating camel excursions for site visitors who want an up-close-and-individual introduction to the desert.

Right now, he is paying out his evening making ready his impatient camel to give travellers with disabilities the opportunity to practical experience the variety of Hollywood epic-deserving trek by the desert sands they envision when they desire of his residence region.

Driving a camel has extended been out of reach for vacationers who deficiency full mobility, but Moroccan Accessibility Vacation (MAT) hopes to transform that with the advent of a custom made saddle that mimics the motion of a wheelchair on the animal's back again.

The seat is the brainchild of Erik Neufeld and Jeremy Schmidt, who bought the tour company in 2016 with the purpose of delivering their disabled consumers accessibility to the country's full vary of historic sites, restaurants, marketplaces, and purely natural points of interest.

Finding a client on to a camel and over the dunes (a "basic Morocco" practical experience, according to the pair) is a problem that has perplexed them from working day one — and one they imagine they're last but not least having close to solving.

Omalise. Picture by Eric March through Moroccan Accessibility Vacation.

"There ended up other elements of Morocco wherever we ended up like, 'Yeah, we can see how this will get the job done accessibility-clever,' but the desert, that was continuously, 'How do we make this get the job done?'" Neufeld points out.

In a few weeks, a colleague from Japanese Europe who scientific studies the results of equipment on a person's body is coming to exam the saddle. To put together for her go to, Neufeld volunteered to be the saddle's initial human guinea pig.

In an energy to meet the deadline, Neufeld, an plane mechanic by education, is doing work furiously with Mbark, a community welder, and Schmidt, a physical therapist by education to make absolutely sure it can support a disabled rider without discomforting or harming accommodating animals like Omalise.

An early phase edition of the seat. Image by Erik Neufeld.

"We have Moroccans, Us citizens, Japanese Europeans all doing work alongside one another to make it probable for somebody to practical experience the desert in a special way," he claims.

For the approximated one billion men and women around the world residing with a disability, touring the world is bit by bit starting to be much easier.

Beginning in 2014, the United Nations Planet Tourism Firm started holding conferences on accessible journey, setting up a established of guidelines and goals for nations to make their iconic sites far more hospitable for disabled travellers.

In locations like substantially of Morocco, wherever accessible infrastructure usually coexists with historic structures, narrow streets, and impassable staircases, organizations like MAT get the job done to fill in the gaps.

"If we promote a thing as accessible, men and women have sure anticipations of what that is," Neufeld claims. The company designs itineraries for its consumers to optimize the sum they can complete independently — and organizes transportation and lodging all around their unique physical wants.

The camel chair is an ambitious phase outside of MAT's standard knowledge. The centerpiece of the device is an articulating seat that adjusts with the rider's body. Moveable armrests letting for simplified transfer concerning wheelchair and seat, and a custom made frame enables the rider to slide neatly into a classic saddle.

Eventually, Neufeld and Schmidt hope to make the chair obtainable to Moroccan young children with disabilities as properly as their tourist consumers, letting quite a few to practical experience the Sahara for the initial time.

Nevertheless, it can be a get the job done in progress.

On a next attempt, Neufeld attempts to hoist himself into the saddle from a elevated platform.

In a hurry to climb aboard, the platform guidelines below his weight and Omalise, spooked by the action, stands up again.

Picture by Eric March through Moroccan Accessibility Vacation.

Right after wrestling her down, Mbark and his staff get the job done to tranquil the anxious camel, tying her at the knee to prevent additional surprises.

"If [Neufeld] falls, no one cares, but if our client falls, which is a more substantial difficulty," Schmidt notes, wryly.

Just before acquiring MAT, Jane Romm, a instructor from New York, was skeptical of getting any type of structured tour of Morocco.

Like quite a few independent vacationers, she prefers location her own timetable to touring on a established guided itinerary.

Since her husband was diagnosed with numerous sclerosis, she and her family members have ongoing to journey the earth, establishing new techniques together the way.

"My sons and I, we’re like a properly-oiled machine the way we tackle the wheelchair," Nevertheless, her husband's declining mobility made checking out the North African region on their own a challenging considered.

Eventually, owning a experienced physical therapist on team at MAT, and a driver who refused to go away her husband in the van when, even paying out an evening working from restaurant to restaurant making an attempt to find an accessible restroom — verified the value of a excursion developed all around their particular wants.

Jane Romm (C) and family members in Morocco. Image by Jane Romm.

"We seemed at just about every other and ended up like, 'Why didn’t we at any time do this in advance of?" she points out. "What is mistaken with us? Why are we attempting to conquer the earth ourselves?'"

On his third endeavor to exam the chair, Neufeld last but not least slides from the platform into the seat. The handlers launch the ropes and Omalise stands on cue.

As she trots nonchalantly together the sand, Neufeld rocks back again and forth in the seat, attempting not to have interaction the muscle tissues in his core — simulating the opportunity outcome of the ride on a client who lacks upper body toughness.

Picture by Eric March through Moroccan Accessibility Vacation.

He sways unsteadily, like an fatigued club-goer who's experienced one far too quite a few, as Mbark and crew place him from beneath. It truly is difficult to observe. But he finishes the ride without slipping.

For Neufeld, the exam operate was a "wild cocktail of exhilaration blended with some stress" — a promising start, however a harrowing one.

"In quite a few techniques you could review it to remaining on a roller coaster," he claims.

In the meantime, Mbark, observing from the ground, ongoing to noodle on future modifications.

"Because we have a new saddle in this article, it is incredibly frequent with new saddles that they really do not have good equilibrium," he points out. "The moment we figure out the equilibrium problems, it will get the job done great."

The crew hopes that incorporating far more ballast to stabilize the seat, though creating its metallic frame much less rigid and far more adaptable to the fluid motion of the camel, will steady the chair.

Right after an exhausting hour of screening, Omalise sets off towards residence on her own, as Mbark speeds off together a diverse route on his bike.

Neufeld, in the meantime, ideas to make some modifications in the morning. Until finally then, he will proceed risking his own body to make absolutely sure the job remains on timetable.

For all those who are living overseas, touring to Morocco is not an important practical experience, and it can be unquestionably not one obtainable to absolutely everyone with a disability.

For all those blessed sufficient to get the opportunity — Schmidt and Neufeld are doing work to offer far far more than accessibility ramps and bars on the bathroom for vacationers to a spot they experience fortunate to connect with residence.

"To go see the desert, to go see the ocean, to see the mountains [in the U.S.], you are chatting about numerous days and aircraft journeys," Schmidt claims. "In this article you can do it all in the very same week."

Driving a camel could not be a thing most men and women need to have to do. But daily life is far more than things you need to have to do. So, sure, a few hrs bopping all around the desert is not essentially likely to make or break anyone's daily life. But for vacationers with disabilities, a doing work accessible saddle could open up the earth just a little bit wider.

With a little luck, the camels will find out to see it that way far too.

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