Well, I think we survived.

 We still have one more family dinner left, but that one'll be at a restaurant and should be fairly simple. We have some family activities planned, which -- fortunately -- mostly don't require a lot of my emotional investment, so that should be okay too. On the whole, I'm coming into Black Friday (was yesterday Thursday?) feeling pretty good and ready to start watching some seasonal movies. 

Thanksgiving 2024

I'm actually grateful for a lot of things, particularly my family, but for today I'm just going to drop this here because it's seasonal.

Public Figure: Sunset

Name: Tanya Anne Griffin
Codename: Sunset
Age: 41
Appearance: A tall (6') heavyset, matronly woman with brown eyes and hair dyed some bright color, bright clothes that go with her hair, a pleasant smile. Or anyone else she wants to look like.
Job: Activist, social worker, museum administrator

Tanya Anne Griffin is pretty much the perfect stereotype of the pro-anomaly activist: a politically-active hippy Unitarian whose parents used to try to chat with the FBI agents who had taps on their phone during the Vietnam War. Until recently, her official job was as junior administrator for a museum, but at the moment she's wanted by the FBI for questioning and has gone missing until she "gets that sorted out", a course that caused her to send her son Iris to live with his father Jinx at the Saint Vincent School for Exception Youth in the interim.

As Sunset, Tanya is a shapeshifter who excels at mimicry, impersonation, and doing highly unlikely things with her flesh, bone, and skin. She is limited to a broadly humanoid configuration, but can increase or decrease her mass by about 25% and has some startlingly horrific combat forms that she keeps memorized for emergencies -- mainly to scare people, as she is generally opposed to violence. Given time and concentration, she can also use her shapechanging power to heal herself, effectively shifting damaged tissues back together. 

What really sets her abilities apart is that she can use them on other people, healing them or altering their appearances -- a set of abilities that she has used to cultivate connections with reliable allies on both sides of the law.

Student: Nightfox

Name: Faith Caitlyn Edwards
Nickname: Nightfox
Age: 17
Appearance: Variable, but always mammalian, feminine, and covered in black fur; usually humanoid with feline elements, as fully human bone structure with fur squicks some people out.
Notable Skills: Drawing, Painting, Fencing, Hunting, Movie Trivia, Campfire Cooking
Quirks: Likes fire(s), listens to classic country music, always has a sketchbook with her, bathes very regularly (worried about scent), wishes she could be normal

Faith Edwards was a small-town girl living a double life. In public she was the perfect little middle-schooler: good grades, active in her church's youth group and her school's cheerleading team, polite and helpful. At home, nothing she did was ever good enough, and her parents fought endlessly. (Her daddy was a roofer and construction worker whose main goal was to become a foreman so he could be the one ordering people around. Her mother was a homemaker and active in the church and the PTA, and always emphasized putting on a good face as an example to others.)  

She had just turned fourteen when she woke up covered in black fur. Her parents reacted predictably, with her mother trying to shave the fur from her face and demanding that Faith stay still, will you? while the girl was still struggling with her body's desire to completely transform. Her father burst into her room, drunk and flinging wild accusations about sinful behavior and judgements from God. Overwhelmed, Faith pushed her mother away and escaped through the bedroom window, fleeing into the scrublands outside town and becoming a menace to the local ranches as she struggled to learn how to keep herself fed and master her new abilities. (Her parents were never formally charged with anything, but Faith Caitlyn Edwards remains on the books as a Missing Persons case.) 

A year or so later, Nightfox was taken in by an elderly fellow Anomaly named Jake Wyrick, who helped her settle into her new life and eventually connected her with Saint Vincent's. She is now in her third year as a student there.

Villain: Terminator

Name: Olivia Newton Johnson
Alias: Terminator
Age: 22
Appearance: 6'2", broad-shouldered, athletic, favors full-body clothing, blue eyes, dark brown hair in a buzz cut.
Job: Anomaly-hunter for the CIA's DAAT program

Terminator is an alpha hound, authorized to hunt for anomalies on her own or lead teams of her fellow hounds as needed. Her ability as an Anomaly is to read people's auras, which gives her a very reliable way of spotting fellow anomalies at close range. To assist her with bringing them in, the Program provided experimental augments to replace her arms and legs, and armor to protect the rest of her. Fully kitted out, Terminator is well-armored and armed with a variety of advanced weaponry and sensors.  Her helmet and mask are shaped to resemble a gleaming steel skull.

In person, Terminator is friendly and charming, looming over most people while actively engaging with their interests. It is only later that she will move on them, pressing for certain decisions or detaining them for addition to the program. Olivia applied to the CIA after graduating high school, and was delighted to be assigned to the DAAT program.

Her handler uses the callsign Falconer and frequently assists Terminator by setting up as a sniper. She also provides intelligence and can call in help if needed. Falconer has been criticized for treating Terminator too much like a partner and not enough like a hound, but the two women work well together and their record is impeccable.

StV: Student Discipline

Sarah hadn't come to break up a fight, but apparently this particular Friday morning had other ideas; the crashing, smashing sounds were unmistakable. The students had backed away from the confrontation, and one of them -- Chance -- nodded as she passed. "It's okay, Ms. Delacorte. Sphere's got 'em contained."

She nodded an acknowledgment but continued forward. Sphere -- whose real name was Henry Ritter -- would keep the fighting separate from the rest of the students, but she still needed to break it up. "Who is it?" she asked, touching another student on the shoulder. 

This one was Jacques Darrieux -- Star -- who frowned as he stepped aside. "Titan finally managed to insult Catapult, so now she's playing pinball with him while he's playing Whack-A-Mole with her."

That was going to be a problem. Titan was inhumanly strong and resistant to damage. Catapult wasn't, but her ability to control momentum and her skill at using it put them on a pretty level playing field. Sarah sighed. Likely she'd have students watching the video of this fight for some of her classes later on, but right now she needed to put a stop to it. Which was a problem, since she wasn't nearly strong enough to lay Titan out, and she couldn't talk Catapult down until the idiot quit swinging at her.

I shouldn't think of my student as an idiot, Sarah reminded herself. Even when he gets into a fight like this.

She reached the edge of the sphere just in time to see Titan move in for another punch at Catapult, who met it with a counter-punch that shuddered the sphere a couple of feet back behind her. Titan's impact on the far side immediately shuddered it forward again, and the floor underneath them dropped by a full foot as the damage tore up the floor, ceiling, and likely some load-bearing walls on the next floor down. 

"Sphere!" she shouted, looking around until she found Henry looking back at her. 

Drop it? he signed. 

She signed back. Drop it now.

The invisible sphere surrounding the two combatants disappeared, and the floor gave up and collapsed in on itself, taking both of them down with it. Damn it. Sarah leapt into the pit, landed on Titan's head with both feet, and kicked off again as Catapult swept up a barrage of debris and began pelting the larger student with it. "Knock it off!" 

Catapult took three steps back, then ceased her assault. Titan was still on his feet, but he was swaying and looked like he was about to collapse. On the edge of the cafeteria floor above, the new boy was watching raptly. 

She'd half-expected to find him at the middle of this, but no. Not this time. He was just... studying it. She turned her attention back to the students who'd been fighting. "James, Paula, both of you sit down now." She didn't usually pull out her Teacher Voice, the one she'd perfected on unruly second-graders in an earlier job that now seemed like another life. This time, though, it did the trick perfectly: they both sat, and suddenly the fight was over. "All right," she said slowly. "Somebody explain to me why there's a hole in the cafeteria floor."

StV: Clothing as Evidence

The clock on the computer screen said 3:01 AM when Dave opened the door for Dianna, who'd either taken time to pull on slacks and a blouse, or (more likely) was still wearing yesterday's outfit. "Okay," he said, "I was on call. Why are you still up?"

Dianna raised her eyebrows, but allowed herself a small smile as well. "How about I tell you once it works out?"

"Big secret, huh?" Dave stepped back as Dianna came into the room, and motioned towards the kitchen. "All right." He didn't mind Dianna keeping a secret or two; she was the auxiliary headmistress, after all, as well as a friend. "Kid's clothes are in the sink. They were absolutely soaked."

Dianna sighed and followed him across his living area, ignoring the scattered clothes and computer equipment. It wasn't that Dave didn't clean; it was just that he tended to do it in bursts, and with the latest security updates he was running behind. Dianna knew him well enough not to comment.

"Well," she said, looking down at the sink, "it's all very black."

Dave fished the jacket out and started going through the pockets. Dianna started to reach for the shirt, then paused. "That jacket still has a tag on it."

He turned the wet leather around. "It does."

"The shirt is very new, too. So are the pants. No signs of wear at all."

"Oh, good. So he stole this whole outfit in order to break in to the school." He hung the jacket on the back of one his kitchen chairs. It might be stolen, but it at least deserved the chance to dry out. 

"I'd say so," Dianna said, running a quick hand over the cloth. "No wallet, no keys, no phone... nothing in the boots..." She paused then, set the clothing back down. "You said he called himself Lucian?"

Dave nodded. "Yeah. More importantly, he said he was looking for his sister: Sophia Antonius."

Dianna stopped. "And you're just mentioning this now?"

"I figured it could wait, since she's away." He yawned. "Sorry. Tired. Possibly not thinking straight."

Dianna made a thoughtful little hmmm noise. "Just a moment."

Dave had never been sensitive enough to actually feel it when Dianna reached out with her power,  but he knew that shift her in attention, that slight re-balancing of the way she stood. "Are you sure-- no, there he is. Sort of."

"Sort of?" asked Dave. Did he run? He'd thought the kid would stay the night, but maybe he'd misjudged. 

Dianna blinked twice, and was suddenly fully present in Dave's kitchen again. "He's a blank. Completely walled off. I can't read him at all; I can barely find him. And on that basis alone, I'm entirely prepared to believe that he's Sophia's brother."

"Oh," said Dave. It had occurred to him that the boy's arrival might cause some problems with -- or for -- Sophia, but he'd forgotten just how much the girl had not wanted any further contact with her family. It was coming back to him now, though: Team Dragon's return, Sophia's arrival with them, her explanation of the Preserve and of Imperia, the last colony of the Roman empire, where she'd been born. She didn't want to go back, she'd explained. She didn't want anything to do with her heritage, her city, and especially her family. He shook himself, trying rattle his thoughts into full wakefulness. "Yeah, that might be a problem."

Dianna tapped her lip. "You left him with Charles?"

Dave nodded. 

"Just a second, then," she said, and he watched her fade out again even though physically she was completely present. She was back a moment later. "Charles says he's still there, and snoring." 

"I'm not surprised," Dave admitted. "Relieved, but not surprised."

Dianna smiled at him, the sort of full expression that she only offered in private. "So, walk through this with me?"

"Sure."

"This child, Lucian, comes to the school looking for Sophia. He says he's her brother."

Dave nodded. "There's a definite physical resemblance."

Dianna tilted her head, considering that. "Assume, for the sake of argument, that it's true. He shows up, ready to break in, but Cloudburst finds him first. Only they don't fight, and somehow she tricks him into waiting in the girls shower while she goes to get you. Right?"

"I don't think she tricked him, exactly," Dave said. "Maneuvered, maybe. But I think he went along with her."

"So he wanted us to find him?" Dianna frowned. "That would be one way to infiltrate the school, I guess."

Dave shook his head. "I don't think so. I think he really meant to break in, look around, and leave unnoticed..." 

"Optimist," Dianna muttered. 

"But, well... Maria was quite taken with him. I think it's more that when his plan went awry and she took charge, he decided not fight it. Maria's cute; I wouldn't be surprised if he found her attractive, too."

"Attractive enough to let her put him in a shower and steal his clothes," Dianna said. "He's not shy, this one."

Dave chuckled. "No. He seemed wary, but not hostile, and he went along with me the same way I'd imagine he went along with Maria: curious, cautious, but not too worried. I think -- from some of the things he said -- that he expected this place to be much worse than it is. Honestly, I don't think he's going to be any kind of a problem until he decides to be one -- and I think that's most likely to happen when he finally meets up with Sophia."

"If we let him," Dianna said frostily. "We'll need to consult with her before that happens. Would you let Bridge know?"

 "Already done," Dave told her. He'd forgotten just how much of a problem this might be, but not that it might be a problem. "I'll send him a follow-up to emphasize how important it is."

"All right." Dianna shook her head. "I'll tell Jonathan what we know, and try to set up an interview between classes. Tomorrow is... Friday? All right. If I can't find an empty spot in the schedule, I'll have Sarah swing by and look him over, see what she thinks." She shook her head. "I keep telling myself that we've taken in more troubled, more dangerous students, but..."

"Yeah," answered Dave. "With that family, I worry about surprises."

StV: Electronic Reflections

Jinx? You're up? What's wrong?

Dave Jenkins blinked at the computer screen. He wanted nothing more in this moment than to type up a quick alert and go back to bed. It was... he glanced at the corner of the screen... a little shy of three in the morning, and nobody in their right mind should be awake right now. Except for Charles. And Maria, though arguably she's never quite in her right mind during thunderstorms. And the new kid, though with any luck he's asleep by now. But this was Dianna, so...

You sitting down? he typed.

The icon rippled to indicate that she was typing, then stopped. He could almost see her hesitating over her keyboard. What happened now? she responded finally.

New arrival. Calls himself Lucian. LOOKS like he was breaking into the school (black clothes, face mask) but Maria caught him on the way in.

Which Maria?

Cloudburst. Stuffed him in the first-floor shower on the girls wing and told him to stay put. Then she took his clothes and came to get me.

There was a very long pause, long enough to make Dave wonder if Dianna had just gotten up from her desk to come see him in person. Then: ...Do I want to know how she managed that? 

Probably not. She says nothing happened, and I believe her. 

Jesus. Why don't we have her on one of the teams already?

I'd have to check her file. I think we were waiting for her to get better control over electricity.

Flag that for me, would you? She'll be more help using her brain like that than she ever will with powers. 

Dave made a note on the pad he kept beside the keyboard. He had half a dozen ways of keeping up with tasks electronically, but there was nothing that quite matched the satisfaction of crossing something off a list on a physical piece of paper. 

Dianna was typing again, so he waited. You've still got the kid's clothes? 

Dave hesitated for a moment, knowing what would come next, and then typed: Yes. 

Good. I'll be right down.

Student: Indigo

Name: Arabella Elizabeth Campbell
Codename: Indigo
Age: 15
Appearance: 5'9" with medium-dark brown skin, frizzy blue-black hair, and warm brown eyes
Notable Skills: Dance, Gymnastics, Parkour, Aikido, Computer Programming/Applications, Bass (upright or guitar), Singing, Math
Quirks: loves animals and children, touchy-feely, punctual, polite/formal with strangers, afraid of heights

Ara is starting her first year at school, and has tentatively agreed to start dating Iris. (She actually really likes him -- they've been friends for years -- she's just not sure about "the dating thing".) Her mother is Glimmer, and as a result of her background and her (somewhat precocious) control of her powers, she was offered a chance to try out for Team Phoenix. She turned it down, however, on the basis that even if she could control her powers she wasn't ready yet, socially or intellectually. 

As a student and the daughter of a faculty member, Ara is careful to keep her grades in the high Bs and low As. Her real love is physical exercise, followed by music; she has recently taken an interest in programming, and found that she really enjoys the sort of thought-organizing and troubleshooting that goes with it. 

Ara claimed the nickname/codename Indigo in grade school, owing to her blue-black hair. (Her hair becomes more blue, and with lighter-blue highlights, after time in the sun.) As Indigo, she can absorb energy from other people within about one hundred yards of her, using sight to target them. She can use this effect to weaken her targets and put them to sleep, and if she's targeting a fellow anomaly she can also use their energy to power a number of psychic abilities.

Student: Iris

Name: Sebastian Warren Jenkins (goes by Warren)
Nickname: Iris
Age: 15
Appearance: 5'9" with curly, light-brown hair (think Jew-fro) and a narrow face with a high forehead.
Notable Skills: Gardening, raising rabbits, crafts, protest safety, sabotage
Quirks: tries to bond by talking about social justice issues, doesn't really know how to relax, doesn't want to hurt anybody (ever), clumsy (grown a lot in the past two years), loves to dance but doesn't know how

Warren is the son of Jinx, and is in his first year at Saint Vincent's; he's still figuring out how to have a social life with his dad being part of the faculty. His mother is a well-known pro-Anomaly activist who goes by the name of Sunset and is currently wanted for questioning by the FBI; she sent him to live with his father while she "sorts things out" and they remain on good terms. 

While he can be a bit socially awkward -- he tends to rant about social justice and political topics given the slightest opening -- Warren has made some friends and is getting better about recognizing social expectations outside of his mother's circle. His understanding of politics is still somewhat crude and very black-and-white. He is currently dating Indigo -- also the child of a faculty member -- and is trying very hard not to fuck that up. 

His codename Iris comes primarily from the fact that his eyes change colors with his moods; but when his eyes go black, he is also capable of hypnotizing anyone who meets his gaze, and sucking thoughts and memories out of their minds. This is a horrifying experience for everyone involved, and can result in genuine mental damage to his victims (lost memories, alterations in personality, inability to concentrate, nervous tics, etc.) so Warren has been extremely cautious about practicing with it and learning to control it.

Oomph

Okay, interesting week. Much as I've enjoyed filling the blog with characters for the last month or so, I'd like to go back to posting personal thoughts or little bits of fiction. And since it's my blog, I get to do that. 

Not today, though. One disadvantage of doing this whole Self Care thing is that I'm actually going to bed at more sensible hours and making sure I get a solid seven or eight hours of sleep. (Last night's dreams? Secondborn and I had ducked into this weird, maze-like theme park in search of a restroom. There restrooms were on a car on a roller coaster. Like, you sat down, pulled a privacy cover over so only your head was showing, and did your business while the whole thing went through its course. Which, in the waking world, seems like the worst idea ever, but when you're desperate enough you'll try anything.) 

(I've dreamed of that place before, too.)

So anyway, getting a full night's sleep cuts into my Write At Night time, plus we had a few evening activities this week that further reduced my available time and energy, plus our ERP (financial business) system at work has been acting up since late last Friday. 

It's been a busy week. 

We might have the software issue sorted out; I'll find out today. 

Wishing you all a lovely day and plenty of rest.

Public Figure: Adam McGrath

Name: Adam Edwin McGrath
Codename: N/A
Age: 46
Appearance: Tall, muscular, neatly-dressed man salt-and-pepper hair, clean shaven; 6'2"
Job: Genetics Researcher for The McGrath Institute and advocate for human-Anomaly unity

Adam McGrath is one of the top researchers into Anomalous biology and an outspoken advocate for peace and unity between Anomalies and regular human beings. Despite periodic accusations and tabloid articles, he appears to be an ordinary human himself, albeit one of considerable intellect and education, and as such is a highly controversial figure in certain quarters. 

In addition to its research, the McGrath Institute operates a small hospital for Anomalies whose changes have created medical issues for them; the facilities there include purpose-built chambers for Anomalies who can no longer breathe air, or whose presence is inherently dangerous to other people. The Institute is sustained by an anonymous endowment supplemented with a mix of public donations and federal funding, and its scientists are thus much more at liberty to publish their findings without fear of financial reprisals than those of some other organizations.

Student: Star

Name: Jacques Alain Darrieux
Codename: Star
Age: 18
Appearance: White hair, white skin, pink eyes (albino) 5'11, rangy build.
Notable Skills: Hiking, wilderness survival, naturalist, hydrology and forestry, driving, computers
Quirks: wears very thick glasses; loves board games, card games, and TTRPGs; dislikes exercise; loves swimming and diving; wants a pet cat

Jacques is a student with a goal: he wants to get a position guiding big corporations towards renewable, sustainable practices and conservation of natural resources. He is a determined student and consummate outsdoorsman, with a strong love of nature which he is happy to share with anybody who's interested. He is not opposed to hunting, fishing, logging, and other use of natural resources, but would like to see it done responsibly and has participated in a half-dozen protests to this end. 

His power as an Anomaly is relatively simple: he burns. At low levels, he simply gives off visible light and/or heat -- he can emphasize one or the other, but can't produce either one without a bit of the other. At higher levels of power his aura becomes blinding and searing hot, producing an incredibly destructive ball of plasma around him. Current testing suggests that if he pushes his power too far it could result in a nuclear blast capable of leveling a city (and killing him in the process). At present Star has no way to target or direct his power, so he generally limits himself to minor effects like providing light or warming up cold rooms.

Faculty: Anacrusis

Name: Lauren Ann Hilcourt
Codename: Anacrusis
Age: 28
Appearance: 5'2" with curly red hair, pale skin, freckles, blue eyes
Job: teaches music and art and assists with dance

Ms. Hilcourt isn't an anomaly at all, but one of her first classes at the school decided that she needed a codename anyway (since all the other teachers had one), and after some brainstorming they came up with Anacrusis. She is very committed to seeing her students grow and thrive, and firm in her conviction that art and music are necessary parts of that. In addition to her classes, she does individual tutoring and helps Ms. Campbell with the introductory dance classes.

Villain: Bloodhound

Name: Janelle Aida Wilson
Alias: Bloodhound
Age: 17
Appearance: 5'7", bald, dark skinned, muscular. She favors long coats and loose pants, with either boots or sandals, and wears gloves to hide her claws.
Job: Anomaly-hunter for the CIA's DAAT program

Bloodhound is an Alpha Hound employed by the DAAT program, meaning that she is one of the few hounds considered trustworthy enough to operate without her handler present, or even lead a team of other hounds if the situation calls for it. Her handler operates under the callsign Hearne, and Bloodhound has no qualms about calling him in if she needs additional support, information, or resources. They stay in contact via a set of implanted communicators. 

As a hunter, Bloodhound's record is excellent; she is credited with successfully locating over two dozen targets. She hunts by scent; her sense of smell is discriminating enough that she can distinguish anomolous scents from those of ordinary humans -- though she does have the occasional false positive, from things like medical side-effects. Her initial powers included her sense of smell, enhanced physical endurance -- she can exert herself for hours without tiring or injuring herself -- and incredibly strong and sharp claws and teeth. Prior to being taken in by the program, she was constantly shredding her gums and the insides of her cheeks, as well as shoes, tools, furniture...

DAAT provided her with subdermal armor, a reinforced skeletal system, and a treatment to toughen the inside of her mouth so that her own teeth would no longer injure her. Later treatments increased her strength with artificial muscle mass. She is strong and fast and heals relatively quickly, but not inhumanly so.

Bloodhound entered the program at the same time as Gaunt, and the two of them were friends and rivals throughout their time in training. When Gaunt -- then called Greyhound -- broke out of the program, her reluctant admiration for him turned to full-blown rage; she would like nothing better than to capture him and return him to the program for rehabilitation. She has never quite forgiven herself for failing to report some of the things he told her before his escape, and if her rage contains any element of jealousy she refuses to admit it even to herself.

Student: Cloudburst

Name: Maria Daniela Ortez
Nickname: Cloudburst
Age: 17
Appearance: 5'2", straight black hair, medium-brown skin, round face and build, petite
Notable Skills: swimming, bicycling, electronics, music, sailing, skiing, surfing
Quirks: Loves K-pop and K-dramas, amateur singer, has no filter and says exactly what she's thinking, enjoys banter, very Catholic

Maria Ortez first discovered her powers when she saved her brother from drowning in a riptide -- but nearly electrocuted him in the process. Her parents were supportive, but once word got around her school the social situation became fraught; they started looking for alternatives, and the Saint Vincent School was happy to accept Maria into its ranks. She stays quiet in class, but earns straight As on her tests, papers, and projects. She has a number of casual friends at the school, but nobody with whom she's extremely close.

(Her mother is a programmer and her father is a graphic artist; she is their only child, and they dote on her and come to visit the school regularly.)

Maria has the power to control water and electricity. ("Don't ask me what the connection is; I don't know.") She can't create either one, but she can absorb and store them for later use, up to a point. ("Don't ask me where the water goes. I don't know that either.") Her control over electricity is limited, and she mostly uses it to shock people, fry electronics, or create equally simple effects. Her control over water is considerably more refined. Her favorite way of absorbing water is to stand outside during a rainstorm.

Villain: Bloodrose

Name: Shannon Mary McWilliams, but she never uses it anymore
Alias: Bloodrose
Age: 19
Appearance: 5'6", blonde hair, green eyes; demeanor varies from casual/tomboy (jeans, t-shirt, boots) off-duty to punk (leather jacket, spiked hair, face paint and/or mask) when pulling a job.
Job: None at present; supports herself via robbery and odd jobs (bodyguard, leg-breaker, arsonist) for known criminals

Shannon McWilliams' powers first manifested when she was twelve. Convinced that she had somehow fallen from grace and was in desperate need of correction and salvation, her deeply-evangelical parents had her sent off to a "halfway house" to try to cure her of her sins. As with many such programs, the environment there was extremely abusive on multiple levels, and when she finally escaped Shannon left behind her name, her faith, her morals, and any trust in other people... along with a number of corpses.

Bloodrose can summon spirit forms that manifest as demons that emerge from her mouth. The more effort she puts into their creation, the stronger they get. She has been known to summon up to six at a time, or to concentrate her efforts into a single, super-powerful manifestation. Bloodrose is scrupulous about keeping her bargains, and ruthless with anyone who breaks theirs. She will work with other people, but refuses to be put in charge of anyone else. She neither has nor wants personal relationships; if she has to deal with someone else, it's going to be strictly business.

Well, shit

I went to bed early last night so I wouldn't freak out waiting for the election results to come in (and, well, also because I was just freaking exhausted). I woke up this morning to the headline that Trump -- probably the least qualified candidate for public office in America -- has somehow managed to be reelected. 

And I'd say something like, "Oh God, another four years of this shit," but he's not coming in cold this time. He's got all the architects of Project 25 around him, all the Christian Nationalists and Fascist grifters with their plans to convert the country from an aspiring (if not always successful) pluralistic democracy to their own private country club/police state. They're going to do their absolute best to make sure that not only can they do all the horrible things they want and get away with it, but also that in four years we're not going to be able to vote them back out. Oh, it may still look like a democracy, and I've no doubt there will be elections; but those will mainly be for show, and all the legal and structural bulwarks designed to keep any one group from amassing too much power will be weakened, ignored, or simply removed. 

No, this four years is going to be a lot worse than the last. They're going to hit the ground running. And they're going to hit the country hard.

And I keep saying "they" because Trump is really just the tip of the iceberg. All he wants out of this is to be able to hurt anybody he wants to hurt without ever facing the possibility of being hurt himself. He doesn't have some grand vision for the country or some ultimate goal in mind; he just wants to confirm that he's special, that he's better, that he's above. Trump was never the cause of all this, for all that he pushed it along; he was the inevitable outcome of forty years of Republican policy and political planning, engineered mainly by the world's oligarch class and enabled by the institutions that they own. 

It's going to get ugly. Not for everybody all at once -- they'll go after the easy targets first -- but it's going to get ugly. Trump told us exactly what he was going to do, and now he's going to do it. Project 25 was right there, written almost entirely by people associated with his staff, and now they're going to follow through with it. 

It's also going to get weird. RFK jr. in charge of public health, planning to ban vaccines and Flouride in water? (Seriously, when was the last time you heard conspiracy theories about Flouride in the water? 1979? 1983?) News sources making editorial decisions based on the whims of their super-rich owners, or their investors' desire to stay on the government's good side? Elon Musk reorganizing the very government that basically keeps his companies in business? Ted Cruz somehow still in office? It's going to be surreal. 

Hang onto your hats folk, and start looking at mutual support networks. We're all going to need a lot of help to get through this, and the only people we have are each other.

And if you just can't escape despair? Be Eowyn, not Denethor.

Election Day

Yeah, it's election day. Secondborn has no school today -- ostensibly so that the eighteen-year-olds can vote, but I suspect actually because a fair number of schools are also polling places and the school district is worried about violence. And rightly so, given that no small part of the right wing is currently busy convincing itself that the election will have been stolen by Democrats -- unless their would-be dictator actually wins, of course -- and gleefully preparing for violence in response. 

I'm planning to keep my head down and only glance at social media sparingly. I don't think I'll be able to resist the urge entirely, but I also don't think we'll have a clear winner until at least tomorrow, and maybe not even by the end of the week. The folks responsible for running the election -- as opposed to the grifters and political operatives trying to manipulate it -- are going to want to have their facts line up as well as possible before making any pronouncements.

All in all, this is a good time to practice self-care: limit your doom-scrolling, make sure you're eating food and hydrating, get up and move around, do things -- non-political things -- to distract yourself. (Indiana Jones moves, for example, are famously apolitical.) I'd urge you to vote if you haven't already, but I doubt you need to hear it from me; if you're like the rest of us, every bit of media you consume has been inundated for weeks with the message that you need to get out there and vote. You know your conscience, and you're going to do what you think is best. Take good care of yourself while you do it.

Slowly Recovering

Woke up from a dream in which I was simultaneously helping Secondborn out with some perfectly ridiculous challenges (gathering treasure off a ledge while hanging by one hand from a metal beam above it, so I could use the other hand to pull a switch and let a small platform swing down for him to stand on) and helping him line up the elements of the video game in which those challenges were taking place. It was a weird contrast; the whole hanging-from-a-beam and leaping-across-ledges sequence was intensely first-person, while the meta- elements were much more abstract -- for example, each possible monster or opponent in the game was represented by a card from a standard deck of playing cards; you assembled a "full deck" by defeating everything the game had to offer. (I guess maybe the Jokers were optional random encounters? I don't know.) 

It struck me as I was sort of reviewing all this in my mind during the process of waking up that a lot of the physical challenges would have been... maybe not easy, but pretty matter-of-fact stuff in my youth. Nowadays, of course, hanging by one hand from a beam while doing something else with the other hand? I could manage it for a moment... maybe... at best. 

And it's not just because I've gotten older. I'm still unpacking a lot of this, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that a lot of it was because my former job just kind of... ground me down. Not obviously, and not even maliciously, but it just wore me down until all I really wanted to do was curl in on myself so I could stop being unhappy. Making some new local friends and being part of one the world's most epic D&D games helped pull me out of that, but changing jobs was what really did it. And frankly, for a long while there changing jobs didn't seem possible, because my job title ("web designer") wasn't actually something I did or could do, and what I could do and was doing was in no way reflected in my job title or official responsibilities (or my pay, but that's its own special three-page rant). 

It's weird not to feel trapped.

I mean, no it isn't, or it shouldn't be, but after nearly a decade of that bullshit it still feels weird. I don't trust it. I feel like I'm doing a much shittier job than my co-workers seem to think I'm doing, and I don't even know what a sensible metric would look like anymore. Being in what was, in retrospect, a pretty shitty job even if I was pretty good at it, well... it messed with my head. It messed with my health. Hell, it messed with my marriage and my parenting. It was a shitty situation and I'm glad to be out of it, and if you're sitting around on a Sunday night filled with a sense of dread about having to go to work in the morning, then I want you to stop telling yourself that your job is "really not that bad" and go find something you actually enjoy showing up for, or at least something that's enough of a change that you can approach it with some kind of equanimity. Because your job? It is that bad. It's bad enough that you dread going back to it.

I hit a point a couple of weeks ago where my whole system basically crashed. Like, I was sleeping fourteen hours a day -- I couldn't help it -- and my immune system just absolutely bottomed out, so every weird little occasionally-recurring health issue that I've acquired over the last decade or more all set in at once, and my ability to focus -- on anything -- was just gone. (That's part of why the last chunk of blog entries have been characters from Saint Vincent's School; not only do I need to have them prepared before I launch into a writing project, but I literally can't launch into the writing project itself yet. The energy and the focus just aren't there.) I'm coming back out of it, slowly, but it honestly felt like all the burnout I've developed over the last twelve years just hit me all at once.

...And then Daylight Savings Time came along again, but I digress. Honestly, my sleep schedule is weird enough right now that I'm not sure if my body will even notice that. 

My New Year's resolution -- which I'm setting for myself, right now, here at the beginning of November, because fuck arbitrary calendar dates for this shit -- is to get back to myself. I used to have a sense of humor; I'm slowly getting it back, but I want to be making more jokes, laughing more, saying stupid shit without being self-conscious about it. I used to be athletic; I'm not ever going to get back to my fifteen- or seventeen-year-old youth and fitness, but I'd like to slim down and at least feel sexy again. I'd like to be able to climb things without getting winded. I'd like to take up some kind of martial arts again, time permitting. One of the great gifts that the World's Most Epic D&D Campaign gave me was that it got me going on my writing again, and I'd like to keep moving forward with that. I don't have any interest in taking up running again, but I'd like for it to at least be an option. 

I'd like to be doing more than just getting through the day again, and I'm starting to believe that might be possible.

Faculty: Jinx

Name: David Anthony Jenkins
Codename: Jinx
Age: 43
Appearance: Tall, lean, gray-haired man, frequently unshaven or with a goatee
Job: teaches computers and technology, maintains the school's network and security, sponsors the photography club

Mr. Jenkins is a friendly, affable man with shoulder-length gray hair, frequently unshaven and sometimes sporting a goatee. He teaches computer science, programming, and related topics, and has a hobbyist's interest in photography. He's also the school's primary IT officer, assisted by Mr. Henderson for networking and security issues, and by a helpdesk team composed of interested students to handle basic troubleshooting and reporting. 

Jinx is honestly more of a nickname than a codename, as Mr. Jenkins is a more recent addition to the faculty and was never part of the original team (or any other teams, for that matter). He has the ability to adjust his eyesight out of the visible range and into either infrared or ultraviolet, a power which he has described as "niche" and "mostly useless". He is close friends with Ms. Salvatore and Wolfman Bob, and has a son (Iris) from a previous marriage.