http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/facebook-n ... -1.3754796

Note: the photo itself may be disturbing, or NSFW depending on the W.

I have to agree with the people who are upset about this. Refusing to admit historical acts happened makes it more difficult to make sure they don't happen again... and, whether Facebook likes it or not, they're a major depository of the cultural memory now.

EDIT: The article has been updated - Facebook has changed their minds after a public outcry.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Happy birthday, Star Trek!

For your reading enjoyment, four stories on The Register:

• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/07 ... the_films/]Star Trek film theory: 50 years, 13 films, odds good, evens bad? Horta puckey!
  
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/07 ... _the_odds/]Forget Khan and Klingons, Star Trek's greatest trick was simply surviving
  
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/08 ... rns_fifty/]Star Trek's Enterprise turns 50 and still no sign of a warp drive. Sigh
  
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/08 ... ts_beyond/]Hello, Star Trek? 25th Century here: It's time to move on
  

San Antonio, Texas, USA
September 7th, 201612:34pm

The City of San Antonio.  Home of the Alamo.  The River City.

Others may turn their noses at the bustling urban center.  It has neither the same je ne sais quoi as New York or LA, but it also lacked a lot of the same problems that plagued those cities.

For Benjamin Rhodes, this place was Home.  Despite growing up so far away, it still resonated in him - in his bones it still felt like home.  Maybe it had something to do with over fourteen generations of family history on the very soil he stood on.  While he may be fond of other places, San Antonio will always call him back, like a gentle song on the wind.

That was why he was here now.  He could have gone any place else, but he wanted to establish his own roots irrevocably in the place he felt in his blood he'd do best in.

Although at the moment, he was starting to doubt his choice.

He held the letter back up to reread it again, as though not certain that he was in the right place.

Westfield Apartments.

Job as building managers.

Good pay and benefits.

Ample budget for repairs, upgrades, and maintenance.

But the look of this place belied the letter.  It was a wide, squat building - only two floors.  All painted white with streaks of dirt and mildew and broken windows.  The yard outside was a mess of scraggly weeds and the pavement was decades old.

"Well, at least we will be able to pay for the repairs."

Ben gave his brother, Jacob, an aghast look.  "Dude, I think the cost to restore this place is gonna be an order of magnitude greater than what Mr. Phantomhive had in mind."

"Then he should've looked at the place before he had us fix it up," he sniped back.

"I dunno.  That Sebastian guy looked WAAYYYY too sharp to me.  I think someone else fucked up here.  Well, wanna go see how bad it is?"

"Might as well, it is what we are here for after all."

"Hold on a sec," said Ben, putting a hand to his brother's shoulder, bringing him up short.

Jacob gave him a raised eyebrow, "Oooaky?"

"Don't look too hard, but this place has people in it.  We got squatters."

"Well, fuckle berries, this just gets better and better."

"Yeah, let's just back away for now and make some phone calls.  Police first and then Mr. Phantomhive."

Now, they're mainstream enough that a dependable way to figure out if your dice are honest or not merits a video on MSN.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ha ... -1.3748832
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Alright, I've had this idea kicking around for YEARS.  Almost a decade even!!!
I may have even mentioned it a few times on this board.

After all this time, I have decided that the only way to provide this story with the kind of scope that it truly deserves...  Is to make it into a semi-open writing project.

It works like this.

Every author is an SI.  You do not have to use your name or actual residence.

The Esteemed Lord Ciel Phantomhive and his ever-present butler, Sebastian, have purchased an apartment complex in your area.  You are to be the building manager for said apartment complex.  Why?  Because your knowledge of the fictional characters that will be staying there will give you an ample edge in how to deal with them.  You will be provided with budgets for maintenance and repairs, as well as other resources to help keep your tenants.... in line.

However, be warned that this is not some simple fix-fic fantasy.  The stakes are far higher than you can ever imagine...

General plot is as follows:

Plot Arc 1
Arrivals
The Yggdrasil/Nidhog system has crashed, locking the entire multiverse down into stasis and creating  a new universe where everything is being dumped - The Metacontinuity.  But can our SI-Heroes help stymie the encroaching chaos so the Goddess can repair the damage?

Plot Arc 2
Crisis on Infinite Earths
Heroes, villains, and everything in between are appearing in Metacontinuity in rapid succession.  Nations are established and epic wars are fought.  But can peace be attained with so much chaos?

Plot Arc 3
Good News Bad News
It seems that things are looking up.  Metacontinuity is stabilizing, but signs of a deeper concern are lurking in the background.  Villainous elements have been mysteriously disappearing and that cannot be an actual good thing.

Plot Arc 4
Apocolypse Everywhere
Salem, Kyubey, and the rest of her minions trigger an apocalyptic event that winds up triggering apocalypse scenarios throughout the multiverse.  Can this systematic annihilation of all life in all universes be stopped?

After Story - Tales of the Metacontinuity
Short stories or series about life in the Metacontinuity after the 'Matastability'.

More details:
The basic idea is that you can bring in some of your favorite characters.  However, 'Duplicates' aren't allowed - if an Author calls dibs on a certain character, then that must be honored by the others.  However, alternate versions are allowed, such as American Dub Sailor Moon and Japanese Manga Sailor Moon.  Or, for another example, Harmony Gold version Rick Hunter, or the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross version: Hikaru Ichijyo.

Your charges are not going to be content for the most part.  They are going to be upset, and rightfully so.  It is up to you, the Author/Avatar-SI, to quell their concerns and keep people from hurting each other in general.  If you can also keep them from causing too much collateral damage, the our boss, Lord Phantomhive, would greatly appreciate it.

Lord Phantomhive is assisting the cause at the indulgence of the Daimakaicho, Mistress Hild.  Given severity of the situation, Heaven and Hell are setting aside their differences to make sure we all get out of this in one piece - Hell is simply in charge of this part of the operation because professional graft tends to get things done much faster in our world.  Therefore, we are not beholden to the Demonic cause, nor to the Heavenly one as we are actually working for both parties in mutual cooperation.  That said, let's not go out of our way to displease Hild or the Almighty.

The Goddess Relief Network will be on speed dial to handle most issues.  If things get far too out of hand, however, their Demonic counterparts will gladly step in while the Goddesses will work to minimize the collateral damages.

Finally, anything and everything is fair game.  Even Warhammer 40k is open....  Just not until Arc 3 or 4, please.  As we progress through the arcs, the scope will change and shift from simply just characters arriving in our midst to entire worlds and empires showing up in our universe.  Yes, this will be incredibly messy, and that is entirely the point!

As things go along, our Author/Avatar-SIs will become more than simple 'apartment managers'.  Our lot is to be leaders of heroes.  Will you rise to the challenge?  Will you retreat?  Or will you fall, be it noble or ignoble?

The choice is yours.

So, who's in?  Think anyone else would be interested?  Refer 'em!  Ideally, I'd like to get at least two or four more writers involved in this.

Even if you're not interested in joining up, I'd love to hear ideas and concerns.

Here's a list of settings I'd love to see characters from:

Tenchi Muyo
Sailor Moon 
Nanoha
RWBY
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Full Metal Panic!
Full Metal Alchemist
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
A Certain Scientific Index
Bakemonogatari/Nisemonogatari
Utawarerumono
Katanagatari
Kill la Kill
Trigun
Outlaw Star
Cowboy Bebop

Firefly
Stargate
Halo
Destiny
Star Trek
Star Wars
Metroid
Studio Ghibli
Final Fantasy (all games)
Portal
Bioshock
Dishonored
Lord of the Rings
Super Mario Bros.
Star Fox
Forgotten Realms

And pretty much anything else you guys can think of.  

Well?

Just came across this on Pottermore, and thought some here would be interested:

Quote:The three eBooks will be released on 6 September – just in time for a
new term at Hogwarts – and each explores a different Hogwarts-related
theme.
Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide
dives into the nooks and crannies of the beloved wizarding school
itself, unfurling everything from details about the Hogwarts ghosts, to
what happens when the Sorting Hat can’t decide on a student’s house.
Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists
explores the darker roots of the wizarding world. You’ll learn more
about the troubles that faced the Ministry of Magic, the horrors of
Azkaban prison and enjoy an entirely new original piece of writing by
J.K. Rowling on Horace Slughorn.
Finally, in Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies,
Pottermore celebrates the colourful staff of Hogwarts. There’s more to
discover about Care of Magical Creatures teacher Silvanus Kettleburn, as
well as another new piece of writing from J.K. Rowling on Minerva
McGonagall, and her involvement in the second wizarding war.

On the one hand, it tell's a lot - but it's trying to show something else underneath it. Foreshadow something else. Set up the tragedy at the end. (We had that gun in the very first section of the story, a long time ago)

I'm curious about what comes across, but not even sure how to describe what it is.

---

It hurt to walk. Stabs and jabs ran through my legs, bolting up my back. My panting breath accompanied each step, forcing myself to keep moving. I’d done it before.

I could do it again. No big deal.

One foot in front of the other. Step by step.

Tapping that memory tapped everything that came with it. The hunger the dread, the desperation.

The image of that man, tired grey eyes fixed on the brown bags I carried. The sensation of his hands grasping at my jacket, reaching for the rations, begging, attacking, pleading. A pang bites deep and I’m just so hungry and so is everyone else and I can’t stand the idea of being so hungry and I want him to just fuck off and leave me alone so it just happens. A panic flash.

My arms swing. I hear the crack of a man’s temple and feel the shock run up my arm. The body drops dead to the ground with a meaty thump, pink blood trickling from his nose. One last breath rattles through the lips and then…

Nothing.

I killed him. Dead as disco in one shot. Either the concrete or the hurley, it didn’t matter. One of them did it for him. One moment there and starving, pleading, the next, dead and nothing. Stilled. Face down on the concrete. Glass eyes stared at their own reflection as my soul chilled, the realisation settling in like winter frost.

Cold and slow, clinging on in the shadow. A sensation bigger than my mind, but concentrated in my body, rippling through every muscle and leaving me sick. Not quite regret. I don’t regret surviving. Not quite joy. I amn’t glad I killed him.

Just ambivilant.

I killed him.

I did that.

In the dark, that’s who I am. That wouldn’t go away. He wouldn’t get up. I could beg. I could plead. Nothing would happen. The body stayed dead. I couldn’t rewind, take it back, take a second to think better of it. We wouldn’t have a moment to scuffle, grasp, punch, posture a little, to think better of it like sensible human beings, to try and talk it out and figure out an answer like human beings are fucking supposed to. He had his reason too.

Think about it. Desperation isn’t choosy about who it makes friends with.

His children might’ve been hungry. He might’ve been robbed. The hunger bit him too. It bit deep and he saw me wounded and thought it’d be easy prey, someone young, some prick who might’ve just robbed four rations, and neither of us really wanted it to end up the way it did.

But it did.

He died. The body lay there until someone who cared cleaned up. His kids went hungry. I went fucking home and didn’t sleep for a week, dreading the sight of those dead eyes staring back at me.

Watching.

The eyes of the world on my, glassed and dead. As if everyone could know, could mock me silently for breaking the ultimate taboo, dead ears never hearing me say sorry, I really didn’t meant for that to happen.

He died.

And I lived with that.

Maybe you guessed already, but, I just didn’t want you to think of me like that, not at the start when you were just getting to know me. So I lied a little and let the story sit unfinished.

Something changed. Something warped. Some wire got crossed. Not by my Power, but before that, right in that moment with that hurley in my hand and hunger in my belly.

Something dangerous.

Something terrifying

It happened again with the ring of a steel fire extinguisher hitting bone, or going in to that fight in the street with a knife in my hand, ready to use it.

On some level, Sophia had the ugly measure of me. She could see me in the dark and she liked what she saw.

How fucked up is that?

Looking forward, I could see my final destination. It’d happen in a flash – a moment’s panic with my back against the wall.

Trapped by time.

Trapped by circumstance.

Another bloody case of Skitter syndrome.

Alright. I can deal with that. Can I?

I think you’re laughing.

You’re right too. Really, being sober, one option remain.

Salvation sat in the bay, lit up with shining searchlights reaching for the heavens screaming join the Protectorate you fucking gobshite rather than take the retarded edgelord route.

Get your shit together and go.

But when you look out over the black water of the bay and see that rig sitting there, light up as paragon of a steel Christmas tree, glimmering with manicured hope and feel nothing but sick?

You think of being hollowed out.

Being stuffed with a marketer’s branding.

Being ground against the media schedule; look good, keep up the image, be the shining paragon of hero for all the little kiddies, now, go stop Lung. Of having to work with Sophia and treat her like human being. Being close to people who might figure out my dirty little secret.

What would you do? With all that churning in your head, turning the anxious screws.

That’s not for me.

That’s fucking terrifying.

What sane person wants to be a celebrity? A celebrity with a chance of death and dismemberment every Thursday night. Bugs. Bombs. Behemoth. The Protectorate regrets to inform you parent/guardian/parole officer that your son/daughter/ward has been burned/crushed/eaten by a.....

Standing in the drizzle, I saw my reflection in a pool of water on the footpath. This is who I want to be. Who, or what that is I don’t know but it feels right, right down through my bones. Fast, swift, striking, moving. Riding my Power like a motorcycle. Given time and practice, that’s what I’d be.

Almost soaring. Free. Happy.

That’s the heart of it, I think. Maybe you can understand?

Maybe that’s it.

I had the advantage nobody else did. A little extra perspective to sober me up. The Protectorate isn’t really about just stopping villains, is it? That’s just the justification the world sees to hide the truth.

What was that WoG about Damsel of Distress? How the local office kept the power and television subscription going in her little lair, in the hope it’d keep her calm, and maybe give her the space to turn around. To keep her safe until she sorted herself out, no matter how fucked up she was.

Parahumans are all wounded in some way. By the things that gave us our powers, or the things that happened before that.

Yeah, I said ‘us’. I’m one of the tomatoes too. With the Power in my head and every broken Faustian pact thing that comes with it.

I think that’s the answer.

So long as I kept myself out of situations that triggered that little Serengheti mode, I’d be fine in the short term. It’d carry me through for the next few weeks until I cleared my head and got my legs working and tried to train and practice.

Until I could check in to the asylum with the nerve to say ‘This is who I want to be,” and the skill to match.

Or Leviathan.

And whatever happened after that.

Heal up. Practice up. It’s not my freedom being lost, just the emotion of pride. Work up the nerve to sign my life away on that dotted line. Because that might just save my neck from something worse.

Because I can go in on my terms, rather than theirs. I had control of when I joined.

That’s my plan.

Thanks Sophia. You kept me from going to a really retarded place.

--
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/space ... -1.3744151]Explosion destroys SpaceX rocket during test

EDIT: CBC video analysis has been incorporated into the main article.

TL;DR: A Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the test pad, taking the AMOS-6 communications satellite with it. (The launch was scheduled for this weekend.) No reports of injuries.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Good afternoon, folks.  I've working up a page for the Teraverse for the All The Tropes wiki  (separate from that for The Secret Return of Alex Mack), and I thought I might throw what I've dashed down so far up here on the forums for suggestions and additions as I write it.  I've only barely begun to search through the stories for information on sources, and I haven't even given serious thought to the trope list yet, and I'm hoping there will be stuff that's obvious to other people that I can include.  Also, what with the Teraverse writers and readers here in the forum, I'm sure someone has a favorite quote which will work for the top of the article.

Oh, and Batzulger, can I snag that image you created for the Teraverse Wikia to use on ATT?

Anyway, here's the (very fragmentary) start to the page I've got: