[b]Spearmint:[/b] At some point the bed does get pulled back down from the wall, and the headboard can keep a beat you can curl your toes to. The shower is accessible with all the cases dragged away from it, and the dreadful heat can be relieved. It turns out you can settle a disagreement and still enjoy getting chewed out for it. One night, just one night before she has to move on. In the morning, it’s going to be people carrying real instruments on shoulder straps and slings that help her move. A leopard with a keytar slung over his back, a cheetah with a bass guitar. Catch the hep cats, slick? Still. Chaka’s organized, she’s got help, she’s got a backup and she’s got a cover. The instrument cases really do fade into invisibility when they’re being carried by a real band. After all, anyone who points them out might be volunteered into helping carry them. “Don’t take it personally, but I’m not going to say where we’re going when we go.” She tells Spearmint the morning after, before she has to be Green again. “I’m sure you’d find me if you really wanted to, anyway.” Her head’s telling her she’s being safe. Her heart’s telling her it’d be fun to get chased. “Think I figured out how to find you too, but I wouldn’t count on it.” She pulls Spearmint across the mattress and rolls her to face the wall, so she can hold her tight like a seatbelt and scratch her ribs. “Your playing’s rusty, I think you need to be more serious about your practicing. You getting enough in?” What was that? A cover to bluff about being able to find you later, an excuse if she can’t? A goad, to make you try to impress her? A genuine criticism made playfully? It would be so much easier to get a read on it if her claws didn’t feel so wonderful when she said it. Honestly though, it’d make sense if it were just true, considering this would be a first time without Blue, and all that entails. Would that have been enough to throw you? [Whether it’s true or not, Chaka’s saying this with the intent to fluster her, not to hurt her. There’s a risk of this coming off as a worse kind of negging because it’s based on information about Spearmint I don’t know yet - so I will reveal that whether the part about Spearmint is correct or not, the part about not finding her later is [i]absolutely because she is bluffing about knowing how to find her[/i]. She seriously doubts Spearmint would tell her if she asked, so she’s being a cat about it to avoid rejection.] [b]Crystal:[/b] Crystal’s asleep when she finishes, though the unicorn tried her hardest. When Pink finds her, the other side of the bed is still open for her place in it, and on the sheets has been placed a printed and hand-bound copy of a very old book that has been out of print for over a hundred years, but still circulates the internet in ancient .pdfs. The Anarchists Cookbook, signed with pink lipstick. [b]The Next Morning:[/b] The SES investigation starts back up again. Is it the same team working this job today, and if so, how do they approach it again? Like, physically, how do they physically approach getting back into position for this so they can get the information they’re owed. The Costa-Silva article goes live, now. Pope’s 12,000 word piece is thorough and devastating, cross referenced, cited, a mix of gumshoe on-the-ground investigation and the higher abstractions that result. The Anthropozine tends to favour the gonzo, but Pope’s Olympia work reads more like Michael Lewis at his best. This, this will help. He posts another article to the Anthropozine instead, for Red. It’s much shorter and much more personal. Here. [hider=The Lion, the Snitch and the Wardrobe] Isn’t it just the strangest thing? Remarkable. Here I was, all dressed up and ready to hang this man from a cross when I find all the heavy lifting has been done for me. What makes this so remarkable is that being there to see it happen only served to slow me down. I had to transition from the physical into the digital, if you’ll pardon my lateness for it, and it seems that by the time I’d kicked off my shoes to write… Well, now, how can I write an opinion piece when everyone already has an opinion that they’ve made up their mind on? If I am to say anything, then, it will have to be something I can only add from the experience of someone who was actually there. Do not mistake me for saying that I will contradict the evidence of so many eyewitness accounts and so many video recordings of the matter, for I cannot do that and will not attempt to try. There is nothing I can say that will teach you anything new about those moments you cannot better learn elsewhere, through their objective record. I can only add to the pool of collective knowledge by telling you more of what I know from before the cameras started recording, and of what happened later. To dispel some of the nastier rumours; No, I do not believe the Dragon was attempting to kidnap our man the Governor. I have it on good authority her taste lies instead in the taking of fair maidens, as befits any dragon of proper stature, and a fair maiden the Governor most certainly is not. I think he would find any insinuation to be libelous to say the least. The statements put out by the Governor’s press office paint a terrifying picture of a frogmarch through the darkness and away from his embattled security service. While such may be true from the perspective of the Governor and I would dare not call him a liar for this account, I will tell you now that his escort never once left the confines of a crowd of witnesses. Missing from his version of events is that he was brought to heel not by a fear of his safety, but for the fear he had been recognized. The simple fact of the matter is that the Governor was caught acting suspiciously in a crowd he sought to belong in, and told on himself when he couldn’t. He, or at least his press office, claims at once he was prejudicially targeted and that he was outed by a random act of violence from the crowd. These two things cannot be simultaneously true. It is agreed that before the events the Governor’s disguise was not known, and we find no other accounts of violence at the event. The unflattering truth of the matter is that the Governor’s disguise was thwarted by his overt hatred, something the fabric of his costume was incapable of hiding, and such was the basis to target him regardless of his identity. If the Governor himself was the only source that needed clarification on this matter I would find it understandable as he is the one who benefits from people lacking a clear record of events. The most to lose from people having a genuinely clear understanding of what happened. What I find most disappointing is that I am also compelled to dispel the accounts of liberal allies who would otherwise condemn the Governor and everything he stands for, but will instead stand with him to defend him from the very people he endangers. To them I have to ask; What good are your principles if they would bring you into an alliance with Joseon? Did you not think it odd that, surrounded by witnesses, not one stood up to the physical defense of Governor Joseon against only a single aggressor, a young-seeming girl at that? A crowd with at least several wonderful and empathetic people I can personally account for. I should hope so, I was one of those people who made no motion in the Governor’s defense. I will drop my glib facade a moment and I pray that you will help me pick it back up in a moment, because I will need it back again. Thank you for allowing me to be so blunt as this; This man came into my house. This man brought his filth and his hatred and his evil into my home. How could you dare wring your hands about how he was told he would kill himself when this man has demonstrably, provably and gleefully created law that has led dozens to that end? Why? Because one is something tangible you can see, and the other so intellectually abstracted? That’s not a principled position, that’s moral incoherence. For many it is justified by how scared they are of violence and vigilantism, scared that this will lead to worse. I find this fascinating, because that remit, that order, must have been backdated months. The police have already been acting as if this were the case, and the withdrawal of legitimate state protection is what necessitates such vigilante protectionism in our spaces. If that is the nature of your fear then it is Governor Joseon and others like him that lit the petard that hoisted him today. We tried it another way, we tried an exercise of community and safety today, we had something that was truly ours. And at its shining moment, during the beautiful speech of the organizer who made this possible, I had my reverie interrupted by this man’s hateful, evil garbage spewing into my ear from the darkness. My one consolation was knowing that it was that very hatred in that place that would destroy him, and here instead I find some of you trying to make a martyr of him, as if he is entitled to the political power that he uses to persecute these very people. What defense do they have from him, outside these walls? The truth was what truly wounded him, and must be allowed to destroy him. That truth I do not need to elaborate on, because the Dragon herself said it so well, of which there is already an objective account. I can only say that her truth cannot be invalidated because it was delivered with a blow to the stomach or a hand held to the stuff of the neck. I will not mince my words: Get this man the fuck out of my house. Every suicide and murder due to this stochastic terrorism is the burning of a photo album that now never was. There is no money nor compensation that can ever make that whole, the only protection we are afforded is eviction. Eviction from a space he would see razed, even as he longs to be a part of it. The coward would commit arson upon my home, a home he is scared to share in, and the man who must live in the fire has no sympathy for the man who is afraid of it. I apologize for that. If you will forgive me for getting so heated around the fire metaphors, and help me pick my glib facade back up again? I think it’s more comfortable for us both if I am to mantle myself in it for what I am about to say. I won’t overstay my welcome further than this. I share in your fears of escalating violence and understand why you would condemn this, I promise you that. I wish such a matter were as simple as refuting violence altogether before it can escalate. But you cannot prevent an explosion of pressure by plugging the holes from which it vents. You cannot condemn the leaks. You must instead shut off the boiling. Anyone who condemns the violence against the Governor today misses the point. No, it is not enough to condemn the Governor in the same breath and call for order on both sides. One side holds one of the most powerful men in public office with a professional security team, on the other was an angry girl with costume wings. There is no equivalency here. To condemn the girl is to condemn the whistle of a kettle without removing the kettle from the heat. It is to fail to understand that the heat is the source of the noise since the heat itself is silent until it creates a symptom we find unpleasant. We must address the cause of this unpleasant symptom, to silence it is to fail to be warned. It is to fail to understand that for the kettle to start whistling, it has to have already been boiling in silence for a long time. We must ask how we remove the vessel of Aevum from the heat before there is a far worse spillover. To stand with the Governor is to stand with the explosion I fear may be coming. [/hider] [b]Sophie:[/b] Oxytoxin: Blood Oxytoxin: That was obviously you Oxytoxin: You’re not a fucking android like an android so if it looked like you it was you so don’t even try Oxytoxin: Do you need a place to lie low? Okay, she must really like you like, [i]really[/i] like you because otherwise she’d be ghosting you harder than she’s ghosted anyone in her life. She barely let you into her place when she was scared of [i]her[/i] getting seen. Oxytoxin: Just tell me you’re okay [b]The Exhibition:[/b] Eli’s still going to be covering it, other people too. Pope rotates out, 3V migrates into the hotel party space, and now the human guests are going to be coming to ogle. The crowds will be thicker, there’ll be more tension - albeit well meaning. Consider it a change in atmosphere from people vibing at home to inviting friends over. Strictly speaking nobody needs to be here for it. The interesting thing that will happen is in the late afternoon, at around 5pm, just at the close of business hours before the weekend. Would anyone enjoy being here though, to see the remaining exhibits, to see the change in atmosphere from the space, to hang out with Eli while they monitor how their prediction turns out? Actually. You know what? The transhuman exhibits focused on thus far, for obvious reasons, have been the biological ones, the furries. There are also cyborg exhibits here like Odysseus. With Blue gone, this might be a great grounds to start looking for contacts to fill her missing skillset with, someone who might have both the talent and the inclination to solve the problems that Blue was needed to solve. If that’s something November is interested in starting on, tell me what she’s looking for, and who’s doing the looking, and I can tell you who she finds. If you use a 1 contact spend, [i]you[/i] can tell [i]me[/i] who she finds. Oh! One last thing: [b]Pink:[/b] Monk’s exhibit stands empty, since she’s, you know, on Thrones now. Crystal will not think of this or suggest it to you, so if this idea occurs to you it is yours alone to pitch it; What would you do to fill in that slot? How do you sell Crystal on taking Monk’s place in the gallery, especially on a day when there will be critical outside observers now, judging the acceptability of transhumans? [You can write Crystal’s side of the conversation up until she has to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, you know her voice well enough and think it’ll make a tighter scene. Crystal is privately supportive but publicly risk averse, positive about anything to do with Pink’s happiness or artistic pursuit but insanely fearful of an untested Pink in a public demonstration - and she hasn’t even seen the dining room yet. She is also aware that Pink is werewolfing and doesn’t trust her to be a sound judge of her own mind - she just doesn’t want to make Pink feel bad about that.] [... Actually, if the problem is werewolfing, Sophie’s texting Red right now.]