To anyone who sees this, do your worst, give me Arcade Gannon drawing suggestions!

The Jester and The Courier: a wild wasteland love.

Chapter 2: Radioactive.

Myrtle got on her ranger gear, say for gear helmet and went down stairs. In the spare room handcuffed to the radiator was the crazy little red head dude, just…giggling to himself… 

“Any idea if the psycho is still in his system?” Gannon turned to Joshua, “no idea, psycho isn’t supposed to last that long…then again he might just be insane like Raul said” Joshua replied.

Myrtle approached the man and knelt down so she was eye-level with him, the man’s crazed grin fell from his face as soon as he saw her’s. It was no doubt due to the horrific scar across her left eye which was now completely cybernetic, that would scare the willies out of anybody.

…but…then he smiled again…

“You are something Cicero has never hallucinated before…a half-metal woman!” he gleefully giggled, “hmm, dilated pupils, erratic speech patterns, hallucinations…he may have severe mental trauma” she turned to the others “I think taking him to doc Usanagi for therapy might do him some good”.

“Where is Cicero? Why is he chained?...WHERE IS HIS JESTER’S CLOTHES!?” he squeaked and began to panic “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO POOR CICERO!?”, “ehey, ehey shhh, it’s ok buddy we didn’t do anything to you, we want to help you ok?” Myrtle hushed him “can you tell me what happened? Do you remember how you ended up naked and falling out of the sky?”

The red head…this Cicero guy…just looked at her weirdly and screamed “WHAT!?”, a water bottle was then flung at them “CAN HE STOP FUCKING SCREECHING!? I’am hungover and I’d like some peace and quiet!” Cass bellowed.

Myrtle turned to Ulysses “can you bring me some food and a bottle of water?”, “what for?”, “our friend here is so skinny he looks like he hasn't eaten a proper meal in weeks and I think the best way to get through to him is with kindness, not an interrogation” Myrtle replied.

Ulysses nodded and went into the kitchen to grab a plate of whatever Lily was making, “guys can I be alone with him?” Myrtle turned to Gannon and Graham, they nodded and left to go eat.

“so…Cicero, where are you from?”, the man hesitated “Cicero was from the Empire but he moved to Skyrim to be closer to his family”, “Empire? Sky-rim?” Myrtle pondered “I don’t know these places…they certainly ain't close to the Mojave or California” she mumbled. “Mo-ha-vee?...Cal-ee-forn-ya?...What are you talking about? What are those places?” Cicero wondered, “It’s where you are now bud, you are in Nevada, Southwestern Commonwealth of America, the Mojave desert, west of the NCR?” Myrtle pause “any of this dinging any bells up there?”

He stared at her blankly “no…but if Cicero is in a desert is it close to Hammerfell…the Alik’r?...or is it in Elsweyr?”, Myrtle blinked “no…you got me even more confused now”.

“What direction is this Sky-rim?”, “oh it is very, very far north” Cicero replied as he carefully observed the strange metal woman, her greenish-blue eye and metallic yellowish green one never wavering from his amber gaze, “north hmm? How far north? Like Uta or…?” she pondered, “U-ta?” Cicero wondered “Cicero has no idea about any of these places you say!” he snapped, he was getting agitated.

Myrtle sighed “look I’am sorry, I don’t mean to anger you I’am trying to help you find your way home” Myrtle said softly, Cicero calmed down a little as her words sounded ginuwine “ok…ok” he sighed.

Ulysses arrived with food: a plate of potato-bread toast, sunny side-up gecko eggs, brahmin sausages and cactus fruit jam.

She took the plate from him and sat it next to Cicero, “ok, I’am going to uncuff you and give you a fork…please…don’t stab me with it” she kindly asked him, Cicero had to hold back a pout…he wanted to stab someone…badly…

She got close enough to where Cicero could have easily jabbed it into her neck…but he needed to know more about just where in the void he was…and killing the only person wanting to help him would be like stabbing himself in the foot.

Cicero eyed the food on the plate…it…was weird…

“What is this?” he pondered as he poked at the strange eggs, “gecko eggs…have you never eaten one before?” Myrtle turned to him, Cicero cocked his head in confusion “nope…” he shrugged, “well their good eaten I say, I’ve had them plenty of times in my life” she shrugged and grinned “nothing is better in the morning like a cup of coffee and a plate of gecko eggs”.

“What's this coff-ee you speak of?” Cicero pondered, “it’s drink, it helps ya wake up in the morning, would you like a cup?”, Cicero thought about it for a moment “well when in the Empire do as the Impirals do” the thought to himself “yes, thank you” he nodded.

Myrtle left to get him some while Ulysses watched him, “so…Cicero…your name” Ulysses’s deep raspy voice rumbled “it sounds very…Legionary…” he mumbled.

Cicero eyed the strange man with a metal mouth “Cicero’s name is a perfectly normal Impiral’s name…what does it have to do with the military?”, “so your military is in league with Caesar?...oh dear…Myrtle was begging to like you…” he sighed.

That got Cicero on edge, what did he mean by that?...

“who…Who is this Ceasar you speak of?” he pondered, Ulysses cocked his head “don’t play dumb, he’s the leader…” he gave a small laugh “former…leader of the Legion”, Cicero looked even more confused.

“So…in this world there is no Tiber Septim?...no Empire?” Cicero’s head started to spin, if his very NATION didn’t exist here…then that would mean…

Myrtle came back with a cup of coffee “I made it with some brahmin milk and sweetened it with a little ant nectar, you look like somebody who wouldn’t like just straight black coffee…” Myrtle opened the door to see an alarming sight…

Ulysses knocked out and Cicero attempting to break out of his remaining handcuff using the fork but doing so badly that he was only hurting himself in the process.

“CHRIST ALMIGHTY!” Myrtle screamed as she set down the coffee on a dresser and ran over to Cicero, she smacked the fork out of his hand and restrained him “STOP, Stop, stop…what’s wrong?” she gazed into his panicked wild eyes, he was like a frightened animal.

Cicero headbutted her…but that only ended in him hurting himself…“don’t do that please…my skull is pure titanium and I doubt your old flesh and bone one can do much damage…now calm down before I make you calm down”.

“You won't take my soul daedra!” Cicero snarled at her and attempted to bite her, he managed to sink his teeth into her shoulder but then he felt a sharp pinch in his neck…then…he started to feel…relaxed.

“Ok, I’am gonna cuff you back to the radiator while you calm down ok buddy?” Myrtle said as she gently laid him back against the wall, thank GOD she had a needle of calm-x on her.

She checked on Ulysses who was waking up, “Hey S.Grant you ok pal?”, Ulysses groaned “little fucker…headbutted me…hard…ow”, Myrtle gave him a small pouch of healing powder “here go take a nap on the couch and heal up”.

“What of Crazy-Ass?” he grumbled, “calm-x, was gonna use it on myself to ease my jitters of hoover dam…but I think in the moment it was needed more on him” she sighed, “Myrt?” Ulysses looked at her with concern, “don’t” she glared at him “don’t worry about me and DON’T bring it up with the others…got it?”

He sighed  and they left the room.

Could you do companions reactions to a erewolf couriour

Awoooooooo, happy spooky month

TW: Blood

When the dust-up over Hoover Dam ended and New Vegas had settled into something resembling order, the courier booked themselves an appointment at Doctor Usanagi's clinic with a very clear set of instructions. Followers of the Apocalypse volunteers reported later that they had overheard them arguing with the doctor, telling her that they didn't care about the risks of the surgery, they wanted something "gone from their head." Of course, no one thought much of it until both the doctor and the courier turned up missing the next morning, leaving behind an impressive amount of blood, a brand-new hole in the clinic wall, and a note from Usanagi saying she was going back to the Boneyard immediately and not to come looking for her.

For three days the courier was gone, and New Vegas couldn't help speculating about what happened to them. Murdered by disgruntled Legionaries, or NCR Rangers, or Brotherhood Knights. Botched operation, and the doctor had fled. Patient had murdered the doctor, then fled. Mr. New Vegas kept bringing it up on the radio, interviewing anyone who'd so much as looked at the courier once in their lifetime, and some of the casinos began to start betting pools on the most likely odds.

The reality of the situation struck the courier's companion in the face on the third day, when they returned to the Lucky 38 after yet another fruitless search. The securitron elevator operator wasn't at its post, but its mangled frame lay on the floor of the presidential suite, wires torn all to hell and screen messy with static. The culprit lay asleep in the main bedroom, taking up most of the courier's king-sized bed. It was a massive, snoring creature, whuffing softly as it breathed. Its scarred rib cage rose and fell under coarse, sandy fur that grew long across its spine and soft around its eyes. Its long tail twitched, and its hubcap-sized paws curled and jolted with the chase of a dream.

There was barely time to take this new monster in, before it let out a whine and began to diminish. The hair receded, the spine shifted, the bed creaked as its occupant shrank, twisting in the sheets as claws became hands and feet. When the change was complete, there lay the decider of New Vegas' fate.

The courier opened their eyes, bleary and unfocused. "Hey," they said.

Arcade Gannon: "Ah, fuck." Arcade clung to the suite's door frame, plasma gun loose in his grip. "You're... you... you killed Usanagi, didn't you?"

"Actually, no." The courier pulled the sheets up more to cover their naked form. "She, um... see, I went in to get the bullet taken out, and... well, I thought a day before the full moon was going to be enough time, but I guess it wasn't. And I couldn't control myself that well, since it had been so long, but I don't... I don't remember... eating... her."

"Eating..." Arcade lowered his gun and wiped his forehead. "The bullet... full moon?"

"Yeah." The courier swallowed. "I, uh, used to do... this... more often. Until Goodsprings."

"Goodsprings," Arcade repeated faintly. He moved to sit down on the bed too, but he kept a good distance between himself and the courier. "Who... who did you eat?"

"Some Jackals. South of Primm. I thought you might find it ironic, actually."

"Primm?!?" Arcade's head whipped toward them. "You ran all the way out to Primm and back in three days?!?"

They shrugged. "Easier to do, when you're a wolf."

The two sat in awkward silence for a bit. Once Arcade gained control of his heart rate again, his eyes narrowed. The courier raised an eyebrow at him. "What are you thinking about?"

"This, obviously. Deciding whether to kill you or hide you."

The courier gathered the sheet around them and stood up. "Well, let me know either way. I need a shower."

Craig Boone: Boone cleared his dry throat. "If I shoot you, are you going to turn back into that... thing?"

"No," was the courier's tired answer. "But don't do it on the bed, you'll ruin the sheets."

That was enough to make Boone hesitate. He took his finger off the trigger of his rifle. "So you won't die."

"Probably not." The courier wrapped the sheet around themselves and stood to face him. "You've seen people shoot me before, Boone. How many times have I died?"

Boone frowned. "You know what I mean."

"I do." The courier pushed past him, headed for the bathroom. "And no. It'll hurt, I'll definitely bleed, but I won't die. You don't have the right equipment."

The NCR sniper followed them as they went to the sink, ran water over their dusty hands. When they were finished, he handed them a nearby towel and averted his eyes as they unwound the sheet.

"Tell me," he said.

The courier stepped into the shower and drew the curtain closed. "Ask Benny," they replied.

"Benny's gone."

"And you want me to tell you how to kill me?"

"Seems fair." Boone leaned against the bathroom wall. "You know how to kill me. In more ways than I originally thought, too."

The courier's reply was cross, but also exhausted. Like it came from the mouth of someone who had seen too much, yet not enough. "Get out, Boone. I'm not ready to die. Same as you, it seems."

Lily Bowen: Lily came and sat on the bed next to them. "Dearie, I think you might have a condition."

The courier chuckled. "I do, Grandma. Don't worry, though. I used to be pretty good at dealing with it, when I was still running packages on the regular for the Mojave Express."

Lily felt their forehead. "No fever," she pronounced. "Your Leo is asleep, but you are absolutely covered in dirt. Look, now we'll have to do laundry. Go wash up."

Her surrogate grandchild obeyed, and emerged from the suite's showers after a little while, fresh and clean. Lily had stripped the bed in the meantime, bundled its covers up and tossed them in the hamper for the securitron service staff to clean, and was finishing corner tucks to pull the new bedspread flat. She bade the courier sit on the finished bed, and she pulled up an armchair to face them.

"Your Leo," she said, concerned. "Is he dangerous?"

"Um." The courier tucked their towel a little tighter and bit their lip. "She can be."

"For you, for others, or both?"

"Both."

Lily nodded. "We'll visit Doc Henry in Jacobstown. He can make you medication that will help."

The courier frowned. "Lily... I don't know if he can. I mean, we can certainly try, but it's not the same as schizophrenia."

"Get dressed, pumpkin." Lily patted her knees and stood up again. "It's a long trip."

"Yeah, it is." The courier sighed. "Fine. Let's go see what he and Calamity know about werewolves."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: Raul swallowed hard and took a step back, keeping his guns trained on them. "Hola, Six. And here I thought I'd seen everything."

"Easy." The courier held their hands up. "Human again. Not gonna hurt you."

"For now," Raul pointed out. "Later? Who knows. From what I've heard, you can't really tell where you stand, with naguals."

"It's not a conscious choice, viejo," the courier argued. "I'm not deciding, 'hmm, I think I'll morph into a beast today,' or anything like that. It just happens."

"Which makes you more dangerous, in my book," Raul shot back. "If you're not a nagual, qué eres?"

"I don't know." The courier slumped forward, put their head in their hands. "I'm tired, Raul. I just let out everything that's been pent-up in me for over a year. I feel like shit, and I definitely killed some people with my bare hands. People who probably deserved it, but still."

"Who did you kill?"

The courier didn't answer him. They just laid there, taking deep breaths, squeezing their eyes shut. "Quién?" Raul repeated, brandishing his pistols.

"Just shoot me," they mumbled. "Maybe it'll help you feel better. Maybe it'll help me feel better."

Raul leaned back against the wall and let his arms fall. He cursed, thumped his head against the room's cracked plaster, cast his eyes around the suite in disbelief. "Ruega por nosotros pecadores," he said. "You'll be the death of me, Six."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: Cass immediately emptied both barrels of her shotgun into the mattress, where the courier's head had been moments before. The courier cried out and grabbed their ears, hissing and writhing in pain.

Cass slid two more shells into her gun and pressed it to their heart. "Beast," she spat. "I've heard stories about things like you. Lost caravans, shredded brahmin, trails of blood, the whole shebang. You're one of the most dangerous things you can run into, on the Big Circle."

"You already knew that," the courier protested, grabbing weakly at the nose of her gun. "It's just that I'm usually dangerous on two legs, not four. What's the difference?"

"Every tribe I've ever met has some story about a giant 'yote that runs under a full moon, and how they used to feed it bighorners and dogs and even babies to keep it from slaughtering their villages. My own mother told me some of them." Cass' eyes were blazing with fury. "And here you are, walking among us like you're not a monster, pretending you're a person just so you can make out in the same way. Rolling in caps, fat as a brahmin baron, and a bloody fucking smile."

The courier's hands stilled. "That's not me. It's never been me. I've never attacked a caravan or eaten a baby or pretended to be something I'm not. Hell, I wouldn't even be here if a New Vegas dandy hadn't put a bullet in my head and made me a household name, Cass. Can you give me a fucking break?"

They stared each other down, neither willing to give in. Slowly, the courier tugged the shotgun away from their chest and sat up.

"Fine." Cass pulled the gun back and rested it against her shoulder. She put a hand on her hip. "Start talking, courier. And if you give me anything other than the straight truth, I'll blow your kneecaps off."

Veronica Santangelo: Veronica took a few steps back. Suddenly, her power fist seemed rather insufficient. "You're... I... how...?"

"Don't panic." The courier raised their head in alarm. Even this little movement seemed to be too much for them, and they fell back into mattress in exhaustion. "Ah, fuck."

Veronica's helpful instincts overrode her fear, and she was at their side in an instant. When she reached out to touch them, though, she hesitated. "You were just... that's impossible, Six."

"And here I am." The courier sighed and closed their eyes. "Poster child for impossibilities. They're pretty common, nowadays."

"Yeah, but not like this." Veronica gestured at their bruised body. "I mean, your bones, and the teeth, and the fur...!?"

She realized in that moment that the courier was very naked, and she quickly tossed a sheet over them. "Where are your clothes?!?"

"They weren't in Doctor Usanagi's clinic?"

"You mean those bits of cloth that were all over the floor? Well, I couldn't tell if they were yours or hers, given how shredded they were and how much blood was on them!"

"What about my Pip-Boy?"

Veronica clapped her hands to her forehead. "Oh my god, you killed the doctor. She put some faulty implant in you that turns you into a weird, mutated dog, and you killed the doctor. Is that what happened?"

"That is not at all what happened-"

"Then give me some kind of explanation that makes sense, Six, because I am this close to calling the rest of the securitrons up-"

"Okay, okay." The courier raised their head again and gave her a look of pure regret. "Fine. Do we have any toothpaste? My mouth tastes awful."

ED-E: ED-E scanned the courier a few times in quick succession. Elevated temperature, slightly-increased heart rate, contusions and scratches in line with others they had sustained over their Mojave wasteland adventures. Overall, they now looked no different from the other times they had laid in bed, recovering from the latest run-in with raiders or night stalkers - but there hadn't been a sensor error that might have accounted for how they'd transformed from a beast into a human. ED-E beeped the obvious question, from a safe distance.

"No," the courier answered, their voice muffled by the bedspread. "No, I'm not dying. Actively. Even if I feel like I might be."

That only earned them more beeps and blats. The courier groaned and flopped over onto their back. "No, I'm not sick. Or mutated. Or cur- cursed? ED-E, I'm fine. I'm just like this. Normally."

They sighed and closed their eyes again. "No, I know there's nothing 'normal' about it, and I know it's dangerous, for everyone on the Strip and me. I'm dealing with it, okay? That's why I went to Doctor Usanagi in the first place. It just didn't work out."

Even as a bot, ED-E could tell that the courier's spirits were as low as their energy. It ceased its wordless questioning and drifted closer. When they reached a hand up to pat its chassis, it leaned into the motion as if nuzzling a friend in pain.

"I'll figure something else out," the courier promised the bot. "Don't worry, ED-E."

Rex: Rex laid his ears back and tried not to look the courier in the eye. He whined when they sat up, curling his augmented spine and shrinking his frame to appear smaller. Well, as much as he could with robotic pieces, anyway.

"Oh, buddy." The courier rolled off the edge of the bed and hit the floor with a thump, taking the sheet with them. They wrapped it around themselves and reached a hand out, offering it to the German shepherd.

Rex sniffed their fingers carefully, then whined again. They smelled like themselves - like water and earth metals and the dust of nations - but there was something larger there, now. Something that Rex had sensed upon their first meeting and deferred to, now awake and burning like an uncontrollable grass fire.

"It's me," the courier reassured him. "It's okay. It's just me."

And Rex believed them, though the belief itself was an act of fear. He moved to lick their chin, and they ran their hands through his fur, grateful and magnanimous.

BONUS!

Benny Gecko: Benny stowed Maria in his jacket when he was certain the courier wasn't going to transform again. He crossed his arms and leaned on the suite's door frame. "So those Khans weren't just practicing a bit, when they said I'd need something special to take you down."

"Well, I don't know," the courier shot back, annoyed. "You tell me. You seem to have made out just fine, even if I didn't technically die."

Benny shrugged. "Like I said then, it wasn't personal. With you dead, we were made in the shade. Now, McMurphy said he had it all handled, but you shook off that bullet in the head like a brahmin baron shakes off caps in Gomorrah. What's your tale, nightingale?"

"My tale is that McMurphy was a cheap son of a bitch." The courier rolled back into the sheets. "Or he trusted the wrong gunsmith. It wasn't pure silver. Just plating."

"Huh." Benny smirked. "Did you figure that out before or after you ate the doc?"

"I didn't eat her."

"If you say so, cookie."

"I know what it looks like."

"Sure, sure."

The courier groaned. "You're not about to run off to the Van Graffs and rustle up something that will actually do me in, are you?"

"You've gotta know where the fire exits are in your casino, Six."

"Great." The courier bounced their head against the mattress in frustration. "So I've got you to worry about on top of all the gossip that's probably flying around. Fantastic."

"You can worry about me later, when you're all dolled up to go out on the town." Benny jerked his head toward the suite's shower.

The courier eyed him skeptically. "And why would I do that? I feel like absolute shit."

"Call it speaking from experience." Benny plucked a towel from a stack near the door and tossed it at the courier. "We either need to hit the road, or make the scene. New Vegas has questions, and you and I need to come up with answers, if we want to keep winning popularity contests around here."

"Ugh. Fine." The courier grabbed the towel and struggled to their feet. "Anywhere but the Gourmand."

Ulysses: Ulysses planted Old Glory's wooden base in the carpeting and studied the tired figure in the bed. "Always thought your records were wrong," he said. "Or altered, to make you a favorite."

"My records... oh, you mean my Mojave Express trip logs." The courier grimaced and shrugged. "It helps. I can go off-road more than most, and I haven't met any people who can outrun me when the change comes. But it's risky."

"You took that risk. Took it far and wide, with the moon above you and death in your teeth, in many forms." Ulysses bowed his head. "I understand now. Histories, old as the Mojave and older. Had I seen them sooner, things might have been different."

"I still don't know how I got through the Divide without it," the courier replied softly. "Or anything since Goodsprings, really. It's been so long since I could... since I felt..."

Ulysses let them feel the moment out in silence. He knew something about the words they fumbled for, the inability to describe a freedom lost and recovered. His knuckles relaxed around the staff he held, and he wondered if he'd crossed paths with them in their other form without realizing it, before their collision in the Mojave.

"Have you changed your mind about killing me?" the courier asked, eyeing the golden eagle that adorned the staff's head.

The other courier shook his head slightly. "The wasteland has already judged you. Our roads may run together, split, descend into the earth, but they will no longer be each other's end. What you are is what you have always been, even if I could not see it."

"You really didn't know?" The courier pulled the sheet around themselves and sat up, holding their head. A new scar was seared into their skull, atop the one from Goodsprings. "I mostly got by on anonymity and general indifference, but obviously someone figured it out. I thought maybe it was you who told Benny about me."

"No." Ulysses smiled under his mask. "But the leader of the Chairmen always did hold an eye for patterns."

It took a beat, but the courier eventually cracked a grin. "Ulysses. I'm touched. That was an actual joke."

Roxie: Roxie immediately squared up and growled, flashing her white teeth as the courier struggled to right themselves. They put a hand out as if trying to calm her, but the cyberdog snapped her jaw and snarled a louder warning.

"Okay, okay." The courier rolled off the far side of the bed and inched around it, moving slowly past the canine toward the suite's bathroom. Roxie turned and faced them as they moved, periodically sniffing the air between growls. Something in their scent that had hidden in the past was awake now, intertwining with their blood, sweat, and the dust of the Mojave. It was dangerous in an unknown way, and for the life that Roxie was protecting, she was afraid.

When the courier finished their shower, they stepped back into the suite's bedroom with a towel wrapped around their figure. Roxie set to barking, but this time the courier stood firm, unflinching. "I know you've got a litter coming," they said, between the cyberdog's barks. "And I know you don't understand me, really, but I promise you that I don't mean them any harm. It's okay, Roxie."

Roxie's barks petered out into whines, and eventually she stopped. When the courier moved to approach her she raised her lip, but she accepted their touch as they scratched around her ears.

Joshua Graham: Joshua Graham did not respond. Slowly, he raised the pistol from his side and flipped the safety off.

"Gonna shoot me?" the courier asked, watching the motion with a leisurely sweep of their brightening eyes.

"God willing," Graham said. "It would not do to ignore a warning from on high."

"A warning? Do tell."

"'Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing,'" Graham recited. "'But inwardly they are ravening wolves.' The Book of Matthew, chapter seven."

The courier grinned. "I've never known you to be so literal, Malpais. And I know you've ignored that warning before."

"I have," Graham agreed. "And the wasteland ran red. I will not do so again."

"You can't kill me." The courier's excitement softened, with a twinge of disappointment in their syllables. "Better people than you have tried, Graham. Hell, worse people than you have tried. You know where they are now."

"I need not succeed," the Burned Man admitted, looking down the barrel of his gun at them. "But to be given a task by the Lord and fail to even try would seal my fate. His judgment would be swift, cold."

To his surprise, the courier smiled. "You've been judged, Joshua. You told me so yourself, under a full hunter's moon, when my soul was screaming for release and you found me about to walk into the Virgin River. You told me what happened to you, and my hidden self lay quiet for the first time in months."

Graham's stance did not change. The courier sighed, resigned. "You saw something in me, then. Find it again now. What if I asked you to ignore the warning, as a friend?"

"Edward asked much of me, too," Graham replied. "As a friend. And he was nowhere near as dangerous as you, courier."

They were off the bed before he could fire, their motion obscured by the sheet they tossed upward. Three bullets tore through the fabric and the wall behind the bed, but none of them found their mark. Graham readied himself for an attack, spun to face the direction he was certain they'd gone, but all that remained of the desert wolf was a bloody footprint on the floor and the sound of their laughter in the casino's stairwell.

Follows-Chalk: "Hoi," Follows-Chalk replied weakly. "You never told me you could turn into a giant coyote."

"Well, I couldn't when I met you." The courier flexed their fingers and winced, as if every one of their joints were sore. "I thought I might not be able to at all, anymore, but Doctor Usanagi put everything back into place."

"The doctor?" Follows-Chalk looked back the way he had come.

"Yeah, Usanagi. Is she alright?"

Follows-Chalk shook his head. "Gey gonen. No one could find her. Everyone thinks she's dead, owslandr."

The courier's face fell. "Oh. I didn't... oh."

The scout's response was jarringly matter-of-fact. "You killed her?"

"I..." The courier twisted themselves up in the sheet, strangling the fabric with their bloody hands. "Maybe. I don't know."

Follows-Chalk hadn't know the missing woman well, but because the courier looked so troubled, he moved on to the bigger question. "What are you?"

The courier looked down at their stained fingers. "I don't know the name, anymore. I know there used to be one, but it's not in my head. Not since the bullet took it, and the rest of my past."

Slowly, Follows-Chalk sat on the bed, keeping a wide space between the two of them. "I've heard stories. People who change their shape, when night comes. Never met one, though. Do you eat anything... strange?"

"I'm not a card-carrying member of the White Glove Society, if that's what you're asking." The courier sighed. "Or I wasn't. Usanagi... I..."

"She left a note, owslandr. Went back to the yard of bones."

This seemed to bring the courier some relief. Their shoulders relaxed, and they slumped fully onto the bed again. "Then we'll go look for her once I'm rested up. You're one of the best trackers I know, Follows-Chalk. If anybody can find her, it's you. Us. I just need... a nap."

They were out cold before Follows-Chalk could respond. The Dead Horses scout could only marvel at the amount of trust they placed in him, snoring so peacefully after revealing something that marked them as a danger to any tribe in the wasteland.

He shook his head and stood. "Roo too nait, courier," he murmured fondly. "This is a strange world."

Waking Cloud: The warrior midwife of the Sorrows had gone very pale, but she held her clawed gauntlet steady as she surveyed the tired courier. "Tsagasee," she said, in the tone of a dismayed mother, "Was... did you... me suenoo-na?"

"Not your imagination," the courier assured her, rolling to fully face her and partially cover themselves with the sheet. "It's a long story."

"Story." Waking Cloud shook her head. "It is as the Ghost of She. A spirit lives in you, gives you its form. What creature did you kill and anger?"

"I... don't know." The courier hesitated, surprised at the Sorrows leader's willingness to accept what she had seen. "I don't remember. I don't remember anything much from before I was hired to carry the platinum chip. I thought that when I went to get the bullet out, it might... might... come back..."

They trailed off and began to cry. Tears streaked through the dirt on their cheeks, and the already smudged sheets gained a few damp places where they rubbed their eyes. "I don't know what happened, I don't know if the doctor... or anyone else... I didn't mean for this to happen!"

Waking Cloud's arm dropped to her side, and the gauntlet fell away. She joined the courier on the bed and pulled them close to her, stroked their head and murmured reassurances. "Paz, tsagasee. You are not alone."

"I... I..." The courier gathered themselves together and stilled, save for a few hiccups. "I want it... gone."

"Gone." Waking Cloud nodded. "Are you sure?"

"I am." The courier wiped their face with the sheet. "It might be who I used to be, but that's... that's not me anymore."

Waking Cloud stood and reclaimed her gauntlet. "Clean yourself. Get dressed."

"N-now?"

"Now." Waking Cloud handed them a towel from a nearby stack. "We must rejoin the Sorrows and consult White Bird, before we hunt your spirit. Prepare yourself."

Caesar: For once, the mighty Caesar was speechless. He stood frozen as the courier watched him, waiting for a response of any kind.

"Are you afraid?" they finally asked, rising without any care to cover their naked form.

"No," Caesar replied, a little too quickly. "Merely startled. I have seen strange things in my time abroad, but none like yourself."

"You don't need to lie to me." The courier grinned. The evidence of their true nature still clung to them, in the redness of their gums and the sharpness of their teeth. "Fear is the appropriate response."

"You assume too much," Caesar said stubbornly. "If I were a man who let fear govern my actions, we would not be standing in this room together."

"Another lie." The courier stretched leisurely, showing off their changed muscles and limbs. "Fear brought you here, Caesar. Fear drives us forward, beyond what we thought possible. Look at me, and what terror I might bring to those I prey upon. I should know the capabilities of the doomed."

Caesar cloaked himself in the assurance that had become second nature long ago. "Careful, courier. You forget your place."

"My place?" The courier laughed. "You may be a Son of Mars, but the god's children would have died all the same if a she-wolf hadn't taken pity on them. Don't try to raise yourself above me, Caesar. You didn't build this Rome. I did."

Caesar was shaking with rage. "I will see you dead for your insolence, dog. The might of the Legion will-"

"Will what? Destroy their fox heads and shoot their hounds? Nail me to a cross? Hunt me down in my own desert?" The courier's eyes gleamed dangerously. "No. You will do nothing. You will leave this room, and you will let me sleep here, untouched, while you rule this wasteland you longed for."

The two horns of the Legion's bull glared at each other for a moment. When Caesar said nothing else, the courier returned to the bed and rolled over, an act of dismissal if ever there was one. As Caesar made his way back to the elevator, he cursed his own decision to let the Followers of the Apocalypse leave New Vegas in peace.

Robert House: "I don't recall you disclosing the ability to turn into a giant wolf on the contract you and I signed, when we began working together," Robert House declared from the screen of the securitron he was currently operating.

"You didn't ask," the courier replied in a playfully venomous tone.

If House had seen any merit in rolling his eyes, he would have. "Maybe not in so many words, but you did fill out the standard public image disclosure form. Past scandals, pending criminal investigations, questionable proclivities and the like: Lycanthropy would fall under that category, by all definitions and assumptions."

The courier glanced at the securitron's weapons systems and raised an eyebrow. "So you did a complete background check on every courier you hired to carry your casino knickknacks, dug up information on six individuals from all corners of the wasteland who probably don't know their own birthdays, and you're telling me that you had no idea I was a werewolf?"

"There were a few stories of interest attached to your file," House admitted. "But nothing that stood out from the average wastelander with dangerous inclinations. New Vegas is drowning in mercenaries who claim to kill victims with their bare hands and teeth, and 'lone wolf' is practically a job description, nowadays. I don't put much stock in rumors."

The courier rose from the bed, let the sheet fall away from their naked body and stalked toward the casino's owner. House began to spin up the robot's minigun, but the courier merely grinned and jerked their head toward the dismantled securitron that already lay on the floor. "Don't trouble yourself, House," they said. "I know where your frail little body lies. I can be there much faster than you can send your robot army to manufacture bullets that will actually kill me. And if I wanted you dead, I would have torn you to pieces already."

They looked positively wild in the presidential suite's lighting, sinewy and feral in musculature and stance. The shadows grew jagged on their face, but they weren't deep enough to obscure the sharp canines in their taunting smile.

House released control of the securitron's minigun and let it wind down. "What is it you want from me?" he asked, trying his best to cover his momentary defeat with an air of confidence.

His latest employee looked the robot up and down. "I want to live. I want to look forward to full moons. I want to slip out of the city and run, climb the mountains and hunt bighorners. I want to sing like I was meant to, without worrying about someone trying to hunt me down, skin me, and mount my head on a wall. I am better than everyone outside this casino. And you're the only human alive who seems to understand the freedom and prison of that kind of power."

Yes Man: "Wow! You sure are full of surprises!" Yes Man remarked with his usual enthusiasm. The securitron still didn't have a pessimistic bolt on his chassis - or any of the robot chassis that he could now inhabit, as the Lucky 38's resident AI - but he did turn his screen to give the wrecked securitron on the floor a pointed look.

"Ah, yeah, sorry about that." The courier stretched. "I was tired, and he was in my way. I'm surprised you didn't send the rest of the army after me when I came up the elevator in wolf mode."

"Seeing as this isn't the first time you've disassembled the elevator securitron, I rewrote the concierge protocols in order to prevent future misunderstandings!" Yes Man replied brightly. "There should have been a system notification for another securitron being taken offline!"

"You mean there wasn't one?"

Yes Man checked the system administration files "That's odd! A notification was filed! I don't know how I missed it!"

The courier eyed the door that the robot had just come through. "Were you out and about?"

"I was! I went looking for you! Freeside, Westside, any-side and every-side!"

The courier melted back into the sheet a little bit. "Awww, Yes Man... you were worried about me?"

"I can assure you, worrying isn't part of my programming!"

"And yet..." The courier raised a knowing eyebrow. "Yes Man, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were developing a little conscience of your own in that circuitry. Good for you."

"I've never had a conscience before!" Though Yes Man's smiling face remained the same, the screen it was displayed on shone a little brighter. "How exciting!"

The courier teased him playfully. "Are you... blushing?!? You are, you're blushing!"

"You sure are something else, boss!" Yes Man replied. "Blushing is nowhere near as interesting as turning into a wolf, but you know exactly how to change the subject and avoid scrutiny! Truly amazing!"

Dog/God: The nightkin's gaze locked onto the courier's, and they stared each other down. Though he wasn't afraid, the mutant's chest was heaving, and the walls felt closer than ever.

"Dog," he managed to say.

The courier sighed and rose slowly into a sitting position. "And God. Yeah."

"You... too?"

"Sort of." The courier examined their nails, which were torn and caked around the edges with hardened blood. Their teeth, which flashed occasionally between their lips, looked wet with the same viscera.

"Whose voice?" the nightkin demanded of them.

The courier glanced up, toward something beyond the casino's cracked ceiling. "Plenilunium herself. The big bottle cap in the sky. When she calls me, I answer."

The Sierra Madre's most fearsome ghost didn't understand, of course, and so the courier washed away the blood and led the way up to the balcony of the Lucky 38. Their hands were cold on the railing, their clothes snapping in the brisk wind that always blew, but they stood as still as the nightkin and watched the sun descend from its throne.

The nightkin, who had spent so long in the mist of a forgotten oasis, drank the departing sunlight in with no complaint. There was no change to the city's own radiance, but slowly the ever-blinking lights and billboards began to cast their cheeriness farther into the growing dark. Stars ahead were few and far between in this constant glow, and even when the waning desert moon appeared, it barely caused a stir in the Strip's brilliance.

"Her," the courier said, pointing to it. "When she's full, I remember."

They didn't seem afraid. They took his hand, as if trying to impart the feeling into him, make sense of it with just a reassuring touch. He couldn't truly understand, he thought, though he did try. They were already mostly one, the courier and their second self. Not like him. But if they had found some peace with it, then maybe he could, too.

Dean Domino: Dean swirled the martini he'd demanded from the securitron in the cocktail lounge and regarded them with a raised eyebrow. "Pre-war folks would have paid good money to see that kind of a performance on the silver screen," he said. "But not in their boudoirs."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the courier said with a mischievous grin, rolling over onto their back. They let the sheet fall where it might, leaving little to the imagination in terms of their naked form. "You don't think anyone in New Vegas would shell out caps for a night with a werewolf?"

"Oh, of course there are some high rollers out there with a fondness for furs and teeth, but you wouldn't get anywhere near the same amount of fans as you would from starring in movies." Dean sipped his martini and made a face of disgust. "Especially after the scene you made at the clinic. Take it from an expert: Sometimes, fantasy is better than reality."

"And just which fantasies did you ruin by trying to make them a reality, Dean Domino?"

Dean smiled. "You already know that story. You played a prominent role in it. I want to know what your plan is, now that you're a big star in the slasher genre."

The courier drew the sheet up around them, suddenly self-conscious. "Become less of a star. I might look hard to kill - and I am, obviously - but I'd rather not be run out of town."

"Give it a few years, and some other grisly murder will take over public memory," Dean offered wryly. "Or decades, if your physiology is anything like mine. And start wearing something more befitting the owner of a casino. The rabble might talk less, if you don't run around looking like a gutter urchin."

"Hard to blend in, if you don't dress down," the courier muttered, rising from the bed.

"Blend in?!?" Dean sputtered, exasperated. "Perish the thought, courier."

Christine Royce: Christine, who was still ill at ease with the voice of the starlet she'd been given, nevertheless let out a horrified squeak at the courier's transformation. She backed against the wall, reaching an arm out for some kind of purchase to hold herself up.

The courier watched her silently, eyes wide with concern. They didn't move or speak until she caught her breath again. "I'm sorry," they said, seemingly aware of how useless the sentiment was. "I didn't mean... I know it's..."

Christine began to gesture and sign furiously like she always did when surprised, pointing at the courier's shoulders, their feet, miming the growth in size and a pair of long ears with wild incredulity. The courier couldn't help but laugh when she used her fingers to indicate fangs. "I- sorry, I just- I know, I know, it's been-"

"Monster!" Christine blurted suddenly, giving up on her own silence under the circumstances.

The courier, startled, looked hurt. "Not- I'm... monster?"

"I- I don't know what to call you." Christine panted and gripped the room's door frame so tightly that her knuckles blanched. "You're not who you said you were. Who you're pretending to be. I saw the clinic, I saw all the... the blood... oh, god."

Her knees gave out, and she sank to the floor, chest heaving. The courier let her breathe, lowered themselves back onto the mattress as their face fell.

"I didn't do this," they said, finally finding the words. "It wasn't... it wasn't a choice. I thought Doctor Usanagi might... help. But she couldn't, so I'm stuck like this. Forever."

Christine's hand went to her mouth, to the scars that radiated outward from her lips, left by the Big Empty's unfeeling scalpels. Another scar split her forehead, ran up into the hair that was only just beginning to grow again.

"Who?" she asked. Even that one word felt wrong to utter, given the past days' events and her new vocal cords, but she owed them that much.

The courier smiled halfheartedly. "Gonna hunt them down, Knight? Track them through the desert and kill them the way we killed Elijah? Let it be. You and I have to live with what we've become all the same."

Can't believe I drew arcade gannon naked

'A Kinda Fairytale' series - Cassandra Gannon

---

Wicked Ugly Bad (#1)

Scarlett Riding is NOT an ugly stepsister. Cinderella is the evil one in the family and Letty is determined to prove it. Unfortunately, that’s kinda hard to do from behind bars. After the debacle at the ball, Letty and her sister Dru were dragged off to the Wicked, Ugly and Bad Mental Health Treatment Center and Maximum Security Prison. While Cindy’s planning her dream wedding, her two stepsisters are being forced to endure life in the dreariest dungeon in the land.

Luckily, Letty has a plan to change that unhappy ending. If she can just get to Prince Charming and prove the glass slipper doesn’t fit Cinderella’s foot, she can reclaim her life. In order to do that, though, she needs to convince The Big Bad Wolf to lend a hand in organizing a jailbreak.

Marrok Wolf isn’t sure what to make of the idealistic redhead in his group therapy sessions. With fifty counts of Badness on his criminal record, Marrok’s used to being surrounded by crooks and scumbags. Scarlett wants to lecture him about equal rights for trolls! When the little do-gooder comes up with an elaborate plan to break their entire “share circle” out of prison, though, Marrok is certainly willing to go along with the plot. And not just because he wants to see her naked. The woman may not be wicked, ugly, or Bad, but she’s definitely the only one who can save him.

Together with a wicked witch, a timid bridge ogre, an evil prince, and other villains straight out of a storybook, Scarlett and Marrok are about to make sure that Baddies finally have a happily ever after.

“Baby, I don’t even know how to be gentle.” He said honestly. “If I were a Good guy, I really would walk away and leave you. Since I’m not going to do that, you should be the one to leave. I want you very, very much and I’ll cheat if that’s what it takes to keep you for myself.”

She tilted her head. “If you’re so wholly Bad, why are you warning me about it?”

“Because,” he held up their connected palms, “you’re the only one who holds my hand.”

---

Seducing the Sheriff of Nottingham (#5)

Ten years ago she was sent to the Wicked Ugly and Bad Prison for murdering the Sheriff of Nottingham. One small problem: She didn’t do it! Now, magic is sending the former Good girl back in time to set things right.

Marion’s embraced her Badness, this time around. She’ll get revenge on her selfish ex-boyfriend, Robin Hood, make Nottingham pay for all the ways they screwed her over, and save the handsome, gargoyle sheriff from his real killer.

…And while she’s at it, she’ll seduce that brooding man and claim her real happily ever after!

“I’ve also been considering my earlier worries about your reputation and it occurs to me I was thinking about it all wrong. If you’re me… what’s the downside in publically compromising you?”

“Well,” Marion drawled out, suddenly seeing his grand plan. “If you ruin a Maid, you have to marry her. It’s only gentlemanly.”

“Exactly. So, I think I’m going to ruin you. Thoroughly. Then, all the noble idiots will stay away. No one else will come riding to your rescue, duchess. You’ll be stuck with just me.” He smirked at his own genius. “Once you’re a fallen woman… I’ll be the only one who can catch you.”

---

I NEED To Talk About Robbie In Tears Of The Kingdom

*Spoilers for both Tears of the Kingdom, Breath of the Wild and Age of Calamity. *

So I’ve been playing Tears of the Kingdom for the past month because of course I would. It’s only my most anticipated game of 2023 and the sequel to one of my favourite Zelda games in the franchise after all. Well, most anticipated game of 2023 that doesn’t feature one of the best Spider-Man suits as a central mechanic at least! And you know, I’ve been having a dam good time with Tears of the Kingdom. Running around Hyrule, sending Koroks into space, helping my bro Sidon save Zora’s Domain from Sludge, helping my daughter Riju fend of some zombies, kicking the ass of a giant ice worm with my new son Tulin and helping Yunoboo and the Gorons get over there new addiction to crystal meth. Also building a new home outside Terry Town because I leave my old home in Hateno Village for a few years and suddenly the place is infested with Mushrooms! But umm, there’s one thing I haven’t been able to get over yet. One teeny tiny insignificant thing I NEED to talk to about someone. And that is well, umm… WHY THE FUCK IS MY MAN ROBBIE GETTING THE SHORT END OF THE STICK IN THIS GAME!?!?!

Okay so some of you might not know what the hell I’m talking about so let me give you some backstory. In Breath of the Wild released SIX YEARS AGO HOLY SHIT I FEEL OLD we meet two Shekia scientists who were both around 100 years prior to the games events before Calamity Gannon came and did to Hryule what Star Wars fans did to George Lucas’s sanity and absolutely decimate it! The first of these is Purah who in an attempt to turn herself into her much better Tears of the Kingdom six years early decided to experiment on herself with de-aging technology but ended up de-aging herself to much and turned herself into a loli and now she lives in the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab with her man slave Symin where she’s also able to reactivate the camera on your Shekia Slate because it was 2017 and everyone wanted to post there shitty selfies on the Hyrule Version of Instagram. Meanwhile Robbie doesn’t get off that lucky and is still an old man who looks like he’s going to keel over and die at any moment if you were to swing a Deku Leaf in front of him and I’m convinced he’s only managed to stay alive for all these years because of the power of determination after playing Undertale like once and seeing how effective it is. He also now spends his time hanging around the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab and hangs around a wired talking robot who spits out admittedly one of the best armour sets in the game and some ugly woman named Jerrin. The most significant thing Robbie does this whole game is ask you to strip naked.

Now let’s talk about Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity which is both a sequel to the original Hyrule Warriors where you slaughter the entire population of the United States masquerading as Zelda enemies and also a semi prequel to the events of Breath of the Wild 100 years ago when two of the best Zelda characters of Urbosa and Mipha were still alive. It’s also in this game we see Purah and Robbie and what they looked like before old age and lolification hit. Purah a very pretty woman who looks to be in her 20’s probably and Robbie? Holy shit! Robbie looks handsome! This ladies and gentlemen is Robbie at his peak. Handsome, active, has fun and the best part is that he and Purah are even playable in this game as DLC. Not as separate characters but rather as one character and they both work together. AND Robbie is carrying on him a pair of badass dual chainsaws to fight of Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas’s clone army. Ash Williams? Fuck him! THIS is Robbie (and Purah’s there two I guess.) Objectively speaking the best version of Robbie in this series is the one in the semi non cannon crossover with the franchise I’m pretty sure was originally made a social experiment to show why throwing more bodies at the problem is morally wrong and doesn’t work unless the person playing it really does think that Dynasty Warriors game are just mindless button mashers which THEY ARE NOT and if you need me to prove that further you un-cultured shits, go play Fire Emblem Warriors! That game alone proves my point that these games require more thought from the player than…

Now we move on to the latest game in the Legend of Zelda series, Tears of da Kingdom. In this game we see Purah again and that the de-aging has worn off and she is started to get older and in her current state, oh boy Purah in her current state! I mean, what can I say about Tears of the Kingdom Purah that hasn’t been said already!? She’s beautiful! She’s gorgeous! There is a dam good reason a good 90% of the Zelda community likely wants to fuck Purah and have her have there babies! Now what about Robbie? Surely after her own experience Purah is going to give her old pal Robbie that technology and de-age himself to get him close to his Age of Calamity de… NOPE! Robbie is STILL stuck as an old man who looks like he’s going to crumble and turn to dust. Considering his friendship with Hyrules Next Top Model you think he’s get a break and be blessed with the same immortal life Purah has. The worst part is that after a certain point he will leave Lookout Landing to go back to Purah’s old lab in Hateno. Alone. No one to keep him company like in Breath of the Wild. Nothing to do after you complete the Purah Pad upgrade side adventure. The poor guys probably going to spending the rest of his life as a hermit whose entertainment is laughing at grown men on Hryule Twitter cry about the most insignificant shit like the skin colour of a fictional character. UNLESS Purah still has that technology hidden someone in her old lab. Maybe… Maybe THAT’S the REAL reason Robbie is in her old lab! To use her de-aging technology on himself! He doesn’t care if the process takes 100 years, he will do it!... Right? Unless he’s gotten to the point where his memory will start to deteriorate. He will forget who Link is, who Purah is, who he is. He… he’s not there to save himself. He’s there to die. Forgetful and forgotten. *Sigh.* Poor Robbie. This game’s done the guy dirty. This game needed to give the fandom someone to simp over but in doing so, they neglected poor old Robbie. Nintendo clearly hates Robbie and only Team Ninja give a shit about him.

*Sigh.* I’m sorry, I’ve made myself sad. I think maybe I should just get back to building my new house. Make it my dream location to live in. Maybe I’ll even adopt Riju and Tulin as my own kids and have them see Sidon and Yunobo as there new uncles. Maybe even try to find a way to use Age of Calamities time travel shenanigans to bring a still alive Mipha to my time so that we can start a family… What’s that? You say Tullin already has a farther and mother who are still alive and healthy? *Dresses up in the Yiga Clan armour set.* Not for much longer! Glory to the Yiga Clan and Master Kohga bitches!

Wicked Ugly Bad, by Cassandra Gannon

Wicked Ugly Bad by Cassandra Gannon

“ Once Upon a Time… Scarlett Riding is NOT an ugly stepsister. Cinderella is the evil one in the family and Letty is determined to prove it. Unfortunately, that’s kinda hard to do from behind bars. After the debacle at the ball, Letty and her sister Dru were dragged off to the Wicked, Ugly and Bad Mental Health Treatment Center and Maximum Security Prison. While Cindy’s planning her dream wedding, her two stepsisters are being forced to endure life in the dreariest dungeon in the land. Luckily, Letty has a plan to change that unhappy ending. If she can just get to Prince Charming and prove the glass slipper doesn’t fit Cinderella’s foot, she can reclaim her life. In order to do that, though, she needs to convince The Big Bad Wolf to lend a hand in organizing a jailbreak. Marrok Wolf isn’t sure what to make of the idealistic redhead in his group therapy sessions. With fifty counts of Badness on his criminal record, Marrok’s used to being surrounded by crooks and scumbags. Scarlett wants to lecture him about equal rights for trolls! When the little do-gooder comes up with an elaborate plan to break their entire “share circle” out of prison, though, Marrok is certainly willing to go along with the plot. And not just because he wants to see her naked. The woman may not be wicked, ugly, or Bad, but she’s definitely the only one who can save him. Together with a wicked witch, a timid bridge ogre, an evil prince, and other villains straight out of a storybook, Scarlett and Marrok are about to make sure that Baddies finally have a happily ever after. “

Does it count as a slow burn if it's been less than 15000 words I dunno anyway here be the shagging chapter.

"Arcade Gannon, you're extremely drunk."

That he's saying it aloud seems to confirm the validity of the statement. Good.

Boone looks up briefly from his compulsive scribbling. It seems backwards somehow that he's sitting here with the drink while Boone is writing, but he can't entirely think of why. Tomorrow Arcade's problem.

Tomorrow along with the hangover and scavenging for survival and getting to one of the people they're meant to be rescuing. He giggles, tenderly adjusts the angle of his new glasses. They're utterly priceless, at least until he gets back to the Old Mormon Fort and can grab one of the three pairs he's put by for emergencies.

"What are you doing?"

There is a definite moment during which Boone has decided not to answer, but then he does. "Letter for my wife."

"Oh. Uhh, sorry about her...I can't, you know, take too many more emotional shocks before falling asleep. The-" he frowns abruptly, feels at his neck to see if the collar is still there. It is. "The thing thing. Enough for one day."

Compiling a list of the variables causing him to have hit this level of coherency would take long enough he'd be sober before finishing. Never mind.

"That thing," Boone says, sharply enough to break his pencil between words. He takes out a knife and starts whittling a fresh point. "Don't ask about the thing."

"Understood." He is absolutely dying to know what science involves making targets glow, but that's not Brotherhood or Legion business and it might not even be his. Much as he wants to find out. Man has a right to secrets.

He shuts up and just watches for a while. The scratch of pencil lead. The way Boone's frowning over the letters, a hint of pink tongue at the corner of his mouth, so profoundly earnest. The slight glisten on one side of his jumpsuit, catching the light-

oh. Oh! Fuck.

"I was crying on your shoulder earlier." The whole chain of memories pops up obediently, now he's looking for it.

"Don't worry about it."

"I-", Arcade starts, and promptly stops, because he was going to say he's sorry now but that might be misconstrued as rude, and why can't he offload some of this eighteen-caret vocabulary right now except making his mouth say it sounds difficult. "So you don't mind."

"In your position I'd have beaten my brains out against a Legion tentpost ages back. You're pretty coherent for a prisoner of war."

Now isn't that rich, being told he's coherent by...why is he thinking like this? That's Enclave talk, isn't it?

He firmly shoves that whole line of thought into a box and locks it away. "I should shut up and go to sleep now."

"Probably," Boone agrees. He folds the letter up, tucks it in a pocket. "I'll wake you when I can't stay awake any more."

"A watch? Do we really need one?"

"I'd rather not risk it."

It's either argue or go to sleep. He falls asleep trying to decide.

***

"Wake up before I pass out."

A return to the land of the living. Not as rough as it could have been, he's drunk so much water in ecstatic indifference to lurking radiation. Rads can be cured, dehydration can't.

He returns to the sink for more and turns around to find Boone already out, small and vulnerable the way people are when they sleep. Dragging the mattresses from the cells into this kitchen had been a good idea, there's a double layer to sleep on, another to sit on.

Compared to the life he was living, sustenance on sufferance and a guard every moment, this is the lap of luxury. Even the slave collar-

he feels the harsh metal against his throat again and shudders, returning sobriety hitting hard. This is not normal. This is not a state to get used to. He deserves better than this, as does Boone.

For a moment he considers crawling right back into a bottle, but they don't have an infinite supply and besides, Boone's trusting his life here. Best keep steady hands.

Old world poetry marching through his skull. Center cannot hold. If he has to get to terms with what's been happening to him, he will fall apart right here in this kitchen.

Focus, Gannon. Focus.

Boone turns over in his sleep, emits a soft snore, and it's silly to say that does it when it's the weight of death pressing down on them, attraction formed out of raw aching need, spending the most stressful hours of his life wrapped up in concern for the life before him; and something turns over and now he's in love. Or at least lust. His body, fed and watered and rested, is absolutely desperate for release.

A jumpsuit's not ideal for this sort of activity. Arcade removes it, adjusts his position to be able to see the entryway and Boone both, the other man's body gently rising and falling with each breath. The rhythm of it is steady, reassuring, makes for a fine counterpoint to his own meditative movements.

If an enemy comes in now, his senses are on high alert. Listening, seeing, it's an acceptable risk.

Boone isn't asking for this.

Boone doesn't need to know. They're keeping enough secrets from each other, he can have one more.

The crescent-shaped scar trailing down past the ear, normally covered by the beret. Rounded curve under the ribcage, a callus on the forefinger of indeterminate origin, every small detail whispering him on as he pulls and pulls and comes-

- the whoop of pleasure as he does so, clutching the butt of the holorifle for support, is tremendously unintentional.

Boone opens one eye, fixes his squarely.

"Huh. Nice to know you're human like the rest of us."

Sitting naked and covered in cum is so far past any reasonable course of denial or explanation, truth will have to serve. "I do find you very attractive, but we seemed to have enough to deal with without me dumping that on your head."

"...how about you give me a handjob, and we'll call it quits."

There are so many more extravagant ways to show a man a good time, but- this is Craig Boone. No surprise if he likes to keep it simple.

Arcade wipes himself off, ruining the lining of a poorly made fedora in the process, and crawls over to strip his lover.

(Can you say lover, etymologically, before actually committing the act? Never mind, it's bound to be a moot point shortly.)

He struggles to get the jumpsuit off- it's tight and Boone isn't helping much, limp with exhaustion- doesn't give him much to work with here. They might not get very far.

Nevertheless, it's incumbent on him to make the attempt.

Arcade teases the soft uninterested cock into a slightly more pliable form, careful application of fingertips that have touched more than their share of yielding flesh. Back and forth, back and forth, the hold is blessedly familiar after the holorifle grip and rightly so.

Still not getting very far. He lies down, tests a quick light lick along the shaft for a sounding before putting his mouth to work.

Boone twitches beneath him, shifts his weight, like the whole world turning over just for him. "Thought you'd just do it quick, not massage and swallowing thrown in."

Arcade doesn't hurry his investigation, the gentle play of tongue and lips, before withdrawing to reply. "Do you want me to argue or get you off?"

Boone does the thing he does best and shuts up.

He does quicken the pace after that, though- manipulation here, delicate squeezing there, minimizing the exploratory touches he would quite like to linger over- and it really is much too soon, when the warm rush hits his mouth.

Normally he would swallow, but the act ends in an anti-climatic puddle of spit and less attractive flavors, drooled out into a rusted tin can. "Tastes like cloud. No offense."

"None taken." Boone does, actually, sound relaxed now. He's unconscious in seconds.

Arcade clambers back into his jumpsuit and covers Boone best he can, before picking up the holorifle to keep a proper watch this time.

Everything that's stewing between them right now, he's not even sure this will change the dynamic between them. Death is the only thing more intimate than sex.

In the Sierra Madre hell, though, it's nice to have one thing to simply feel good over.

I Like to Watch | True Crime Television

by Don Hall

Traveling to Kansas for Christmas during a raging pandemic was a balancing act between stupid, reckless, and necessary.

Dana and I struggled with the decision. We spent Christmas last year at the casino I was working at and Joe came out from Chicago to play. I had to work, Dana and Kelli got a room at the West, and we FaceTimed with my family. It was weird. I had never, in my life, worked on Christmas Day. With a few notable exceptions, I had rarely spent Christmas Day apart from my family.

A couple of factors came in play when making the decision to travel to Kansas during a pandemic as the odds of contracting the virus increased by the day. 

First, my dad is in precarious health. A cancer in his marrow has been sitting quietly for years and is always a threat. In the past year, he has suffered kidney failure and is on dialysis three times a week. The idea that I would miss his last Christmas for almost any reason was horrifying.

Second, my sister's youngest son died this past April. We flew up and helped her for a week but this was the first Christmas she was to endure while still grieving. 

Yet there was this virus.

We decided that, if we were diligent about our masks and social distancing even within homes in Kansas, stay with my sister (who is a high school government teacher and has been online for months now), and make sure we were COVID-free before the trip, we were willing to take the risk.

It was worth it. As of this writing no one has the virus in my immediate family so we did our job and the trip was wonderful.

My sister, anticipating that Dana and I would be picky about what television we watched, binged on her favorite genre, True Crime. Turns out, Dana and I are just fine with True Crime, so we spent more than a normal amount of time watching salacious documentaries and dramatic recreations demonstrating the ugly face of human beings during a holiday known for its celebration of the best faces.

‌On the morning of July 13, 2011, 32-year-old Rebecca Zahau was found hanging naked and bound from her wealthy boyfriend’s Coronado mansion. Authorities were quick to rule the death a suicide, but strange clues found at the scene — including an eerie message scrawled in black paint on a nearby door — convinced her family that she had died by someone else’s hand.

When college-age men began showing up dead in bodies of water across the country, many of the deaths initially appeared to be accidental drownings. But a team of retired NYPD detectives led by veteran Detective Kevin Gannon believe there may be a more sinister explanation for the deaths after noticing in nearly all the cases smiley face graffiti has been found near the body.

In the dead of the night, eight people were shot “execution-style” in a brutal family massacre that left a small rural Ohio town reeling and questioning who could have carried out the cold-blooded murder of an entire family. For more than two years, they were no answers until a shocking series of arrests of another prominent family in Piketon suggested a possible growing feud between two families, who had once been close friends.

This stuff is grisly, man.

My mom and I used to have a disagreement about the nature of man. She believed that we are essentially good creatures who get seduced by the dark side. I believe that one afternoon spent with a two-year old tells the opposite tale. Children, when left alone, tend to be greedy, self-centered, narcissistic, violent. Adults are merely children who have learned to lie better about these innate impulses.

Spend a few hours watching true crime documentaries (and a few more hours watching public outrage videos) and its easy to see which narrative is more accurate.

One of the most erroneous concepts to follow these types of stories is that someone who murders his wife and kids, shoots up a school, kills her co-worker and stuffs pieces of the body in mason jars to be distributed through a gruesome Etsy store are insane. That these outliers are mentally ill.

I disagree. If horrifying behavior against our fellow humans is an indicator of mental illness, then we're all batshit crazy. Like the antiracism argument, if everyone white is racist regardless of actions or intent, then the term racist has no meaning (or at least no bearing on societal solutions). If everyone is nuts, then nuts is the default.

"That guy who got some trim and shot his wife in the head to get the comic book insurance is not normal" is a cop-out that lets the rest of us off the hook and creates a zone of denial surrounding our own behavior. These people aren't crazy, they simply thought they could get away with it like when you pilfered the stapler from your workplace or used your phone to take a covert photo of your sexy co-worker so you could go jack off to it in the stall of the McDonald's bathroom.

True Crime is not so much a genre of how terrible some people can be. It is a genre that acts as the mirror to society as it is rather than as we hope it is.

Traveling to Kansas during a global pandemic was insane. For all our justifications and precautions, we made the trip because we thought we could get away with it consequence-free, no more and no less.

Given that no one in my family throughout the holiday is suffering from COVID symptoms, we got away with it.

i just saw arcade gannon butt ass naked w his dick and balls out on my dash how are u guys doing

The Jester and The Courier: a wild wasteland love.

Chapter 1 (p2): Breathing in the Chemicals.

(Sorry had to split this into 2 parts, computer crashed while writing)

“Pair of queens” Cass smiled as she laid her cards on the table, “3 kings” Boone grinned as he laid his hand down, “Royal Flush!” Raul proudly announced as he took all the winnings, Gannon just dropped his hand of random junk cards and drank his beer “I’am never playing poker with you lot again”.

Lily smiled and laughed “I’am glad my little pumpkin’s friends are having fun” as Ulysses and Joshua helped her in the kitchen to make fried gecko steak sandwiches.

Rex playfully chased Ed-E around the living room, “Myrtle’s been gone for a while Booney…maybe we should go check on her” Cass looked to the sniper as she sipped her whisky, “yhea your right Cass, I’ll go and-” the door suddenly flung open…

“GANNON, JOSH, GUYS I NEED HELP!” Myrtle screeched as she rushed inside…carrying the naked body of some random dude…

“WHOA JESU-” Arcade started but was swiftly glared at by Joshua, “what the heck is going on, who’s the naked dude?” Cass gasped, “I ain’t got the foggiest idea, he literally dropped out of the sky on me, Gannon, Graham hurry he aint breathing!” Myrtle snapped.

Myrtle draped the body onto the couch, Gannon and Josuha immediately got to work. “Myrt we are gonna need some psycho to restart his heart” Gannon said as he took the man’s pulse, “I’ll hold him still so he won't hurt himself when he awakens” Joshua  nodded as he carefully held the man, Myrtle took out a syringe of psycho and injected it into the man…

He woke up screaming his head off and laughing like a nut, he headbutted poor Joshua and grabbed for a syringe to stab Gannon when Myrtle tackled him in a choke hold…

“Yo yo yo easy little buddy, just calm down”, the crazy bastard instead stabbed the syringe of med-x into her neck as he flailed about, “ok, ok I think it’s nap time for you” she said as she tightened her grip. Slowly he started to stop flailing…till he stopped and slumped back to being unconscious again.

“Well that was fucking stupid, he’s obviously a raider or someother culo loco” Raul gawked as Cass helped up Joshua and Boone checked Gannon to see if he had gotten hurt, “you don’t know if he’s a raider, he might have just had a bad reaction to psycho” Myrtle said as she dislodged the syringe from her jugular.

“You said something about this wack-job falling from the sky on you?” Boone grumbled, “yep, he came zooming out of the stratosphere at me like a damn rocket”, “I’am surprised he ain’t dead from impact” Gannon mumbled.

Josua left to clean up his face-bandages, his nose had bled under them “well when he wakes up we will have to see what to do about him” he herumfed.

Ulysses and Raul scrounged around for extra clothes for the guy to wear, cant have a dude with his wang-jangeler hanging out on the couch, “Myrt are you ok?...” Ganon looked to his friend worriedly, “yeah I’am fine, it ain’t the first time I’ve both been stabbed and on drugs before” she then promptly passed out.

When she awoke she heard laughing…but not her friends laughing…

A high-pitched crazed laugh that bellowed and giggled…the laughter of a mad man… 

Ulysses walked into her room “You NEED to deal with this, YOU brought it here YOU deal with it…”

ok cosplay list for fanime. or at least what im sure of:

- Poe Dameron (full day/tros or tlj ver)

- Naked Snake (full day/olive darb ver)

maybe (ordered by highest to lowest chance):

- rhys (tftbl ver/pre-helios fall)

- timothy lawrence (bl3 ver)

- arcade gannon (F:NV)

- maccready (probably not i dont feel like working on him any more)

- otacon (mgs1 ver)

23 Yoga Styles, Decoded

Today, there are so many teachers and styles of yoga, the odds of finding one you like are as likely as finding a pizza shop in New York. Whether you want to sweat, unwind or get in touch with your inner light, there’s a yoga class to suit you. Before you make a decision, try a few styles and a few different teachers, since each instructor has an individual focus and personality.

Here, we look at a variety of styles, from ashtanga to yin, so you know what to expect and can find the right class for you.

ASHTANGA

This physically demanding practice is made up of six strenuous sequences of poses. All classes follow a set sequence of postures with students starting in the primary series and working through each series as progress is made.

It’s helpful to start with a slower-paced style and learn the poses before you begin an ashtanga practice. You can’t flow within the sequence if you don’t know what down dog is.

What to Expect: Expect to flow rapidly from pose to pose with your breath in this physical practice.

Who it’s For: Cardio junkies; driven students who want a workout.

Insider Info: The practice was created to focus the energy of teenage boys in India.

DHARMA YOGA

Started by Sri Dharma Mittra in New York in the 1970s, this practice is made of up several series of flowing sequences aimed at enabling prana — life force — to flow through the spinal column and permeate all areas of the body. The practice incorporates philosophical teachings that emphasize “good health, a clear mind and kind heart.”

What to Expect: A physical practice meant to prepare the body for seated meditation.

Who it’s For: Students interested in self-realization or knowledge of the True Self.

Insider Info: Dharma Mittra created the Master Yoga Chart of 908 Postures after photographing himself in 1,300 yoga poses. You’ll find the chart in all styles of studios as a teaching and inspirational tool.

FORREST YOGA

Created by Ana Forrest, this challenging practice in a room heated to 85°F uses long holds to help students go deeper into poses and intense sequences to awaken the senses. The physical practice is used to cleanse the emotional and mental clutter in the hopes students “carry a transformative experience off the mat and into daily life.”

What to Expect: To sweat and shake while holding poses as well as lots of core work.

Who it’s For: Students who want a strong physical and emotional practice.

Insider Info: Forrest established her eponymous style of yoga to cure the ails of modern society from carpal tunnel to addiction.

HATHA

Hatha, one of the six original branches of yoga, is a generic term that refers to any type of yoga that teaches physical postures. It encompasses most of modern, Western yoga. Today, it tends to mean a gentle yoga class.

What to Expect: To feel more relaxed.

Who it’s For: Beginners, students dealing with or recovering from an injury and yogis looking to complement more strenuous exercise.

Insider Info: Because hatha is such a general term, students may want to ask the teacher for more information about what a specific class is like.

HOT YOGA

This broad label covers most yoga classes that deviate from the Bikram — the same sequence of 26 poses practiced in 105°F room — but are still taught in a heated room.

What to Expect: To sweat.

Who it’s For: Students who want to leave a puddle on the floor.

Insider Info: Because it’s become a generic term, check with the teacher for more information about the class. Is it a flowing-style class or does it focus on longer holds?

IYENGAR

Named for the popular Indian guru, B.K.S. Iyengar, this meticulous style emphasizes precise alignment, deep stretching and holding poses longer than in other classes. Students are encouraged to explore the mind-body connection, learn breathing techniques and focus on the spiritual as well as the physical.

What to Expect: Because of the focus on alignment, expect to use lots of props — belts, blocks and bolsters to get into the pose.

Who it’s For: Newbies, students dealing with or recovering from injuries and the detail-oriented and methodical natured.

Insider Info: Credited with popularizing yoga in the west, B.K.S. Iyengar died in 2014 at the age of 95. His devotees included Annette Bening, Aldous Huxley and Donna Karan.

READ MORE > YES, YOU SHOULD TRY GOAT YOGA

JIVAMUKTI

Created by Sharon Gannon and David Life in the 1980s, this fast-moving, flowing style of yoga includes breathwork, chanting and philosophy in an “unapologetically spiritual” practice.

What to Expect: Expect flowing sequences, a theme for every class, chanting, spiritual references, eclectic music, breathwork and meditation.

Who it’s For: Students looking for a physically and spiritually intense practice.

Insider Info: Jivamukti focuses on the principle of ahimsa or non-harming and nonviolence, and classes often explore veganism and issues of animal rights and activism.

KUNDALINI

Kundalini refers to the energy of the root chakra, which surrounds your lower spine. Kundalini practitioners believe this energy must be stimulated to achieve self-realization, so the yoga practice concentrates on postures, breathwork, chanting and meditation to release that energy.

What to Expect: Lots of chanting, breathwork and core work around your abs and spine. It’s mainly a seated practice.

Who it’s For: Those seeking a more spiritual experience.

Insider Info: Instructors often wear flowing, white robes and head wraps, but students aren’t obligated to adopt this style of dress.

RESTORATIVE

Restorative yoga classes use lots of props — blankets, blocks, straps and pillows — to support the body so students can settle into poses for a longer period of time. This allows the muscles to open and stretch in a more passive way.

What to Expect: Expect dim lighting, slow movement, more time in fewer poses and a completely relaxed mindset.

Who it’s For: Everyone. It’s a great complement to more active classes and other forms of exercise. Restorative yoga is a great stress reliever. And the postures are simple enough for beginners and offer enough loosening that advanced practitioners can benefit as well.

Insider Info: Students have been known to fall asleep in restorative classes.

SIVANANDA

This gentle style came to the United States in the late 1950s and was part of yoga’s first wave of popularity. Sivananda is based on five principles: proper exercise, breathing, relaxation, diet and meditation.

What to Expect: After breathwork, the class moves through slow-paced sun salutations, a flowing series of postures often used to warm up the body, and focuses on mastering 12basic postures.

Who it’s For: Anyone who wants to take it easy and focus on flexibility and relaxation.

Insider Info: A vegetarian diet is encouraged.

VINYASA

Vinyasa is the Sanskrit word for flow, and, like hatha, the term has become an umbrella term for fluid-movement classes in which the poses are linked together by your inhales and exhales.

Generally, vinyasa tends to be a more vigorous style, but there’s a lot of room for interpretation and no two classes are alike. Some will be heated, others won’t be. Some will include music, some won’t. Some will focus more on breath, others will emphasize movement or meditation.

What to Expect: Continuous movement from one posture to the next.

Who it’s For: All yogis, which may be why it’s one of the most popular styles of yoga in the United States. Just find the level, teacher and studio that’s right for you.

Insider Info: Some studios call these classes flow, dynamic yoga or vinyasa. Because there is room for interpretation, the instructor’s personality comes through, so it may take a few classes to find a teacher who’s right for you.

YIN

This gentle, slow-moving practice targets the deep connective tissue through long-held poses. These more passive postures are primarily practiced on the floor for 3–5 minutes and up to 10 minutes. The goal is to increase flexibility, let go of tension in overworked joints, relax and learn the basics of meditation while in the postures.

What to Expect: To move through few postures but take longer in them.

Who it’s For: Almost anyone. It’s great for those who want a more meditative, gentle practice, and it can be complementary to dynamic (yang style) practices or high-intensity athletics.

Insider Info: The meditative stillness can be challenging for some personalities.

UNCONVENTIONAL AND HYBRID STYLES OF YOGA

Down dog with your pooch? Warrior II on a paddleboard? Tree pose set to Michael Jackson? doga, SUP yoga and disco yoga are just a few of the hybrid styles of yoga that have evolved with yoga’s popularity. Here are a few unconventional types of yoga popping up:

ACROYOGA

These partner yoga classes involve using one person as a base and another using that base to “fly.” The practice blends yoga, acrobatics and performance.

ANTIGRAVITY YOGA

Also known as aerial yoga, traditional yoga poses and acrobatics are combined and practiced in a silk hammock suspended from the ceiling.

CHAIR YOGA

Modifying yoga postures with a chair makes the practice accessible to those with mobility issues. These classes are commonly available at senior centers.

DISCO YOGA

This blend of vinyasa yoga and freestyle dance is practiced with music by a live DJ.

DOGA

You, your mat and man’s best friend, doga includes stretching for you and your furry friend.

LAUGHTER YOGA

The practice doesn’t include much asana, the physical postures. Instead, you’ll focus on breathing, simple stretches and laughing to reduce stress and release feel-good hormones.

MARTIAL ARTS YOGA

Also known as Budokon, these classes combine martial arts and yoga. Both practices aim to release stress, discipline the mind and increase awareness so they blend together better than one might think.

NAKED YOGA

Yoga in the buff promises that students will confront vulnerabilities and body issues and increase confidence and body acceptance.

SUP YOGA

Practicing on a stand-up paddleboard (SUP) started in Hawaii and has since made its way inland to lakes and rivers around the country.

THAI YOGA MASSAGE

This partner-style yoga involves one person moving and adjusting the other into various poses with a focus on pressure points found in traditional Chinese medicine.

YOGALATES

Just like it sounds, Yogalates blends yoga and Pilates.

GEAR UP FOR YOUR NEXT YOGA SESSION

> Women’s Yoga Tops > Women’s Yoga Pants > Women’s Yoga Bras > All Women’s Yoga & Studio Gear

[Read More ...] http://blog.myfitnesspal.com/23-yoga-styles-decoded/

I apologize for the multitude of photos, but I am very passionate and angry about this topic and as an advertising major, I have the opportunity to change the way women are portrayed and represented in the modern media. Above are just a few of the thousands of advertisments for brands we know and use. Brands for years have taken advantage of the obsession with women and used that to their advantage in order to attract consumers and make sales. The hyper-sexualization of women in the media makes me angry, it disgusts me, and it awful to look at. In Women Worldwide: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Women, Janet Lee and Susan Shaw make it clear how women are continuously exploited with their legs spread, mouths open, half naked, or “inviting” to men. Women for a very long time have been the center of body shaming, sexualization, and abuse. Stuff like this might not happen nearly as often or as aggressively, but it is still happening today and it is hidden more than ever. Evening news channels often use younger, white women with and young white men to deliver news because that is when the majority of people watch it. If audiences find the people on television to be more attractive, they'll often times be more inclined to pay attention and keep watching it which helps their ratings. The entire mass communications industry has really taken advantage of women and has continued to lack representation for years. The thing that frustrates me the most is that these outlets and brands know what they are doing. They know their ads are inappropriate, sexualized, and disgusting, but they don’t care because it is profit over people, always. 

-Kameryn Gannon

Dave King did a lot of complaining when he was here last week. Complaining about Sports Direct. About Mark Warburton. About the Takeover Panel verdict. About having to come here so often, although unicorns have been spotted more times at Ibrox in the two years he’s been on the board.

He complained about everything, it seemed to me, but the standards of the Scottish press.

They are just fine and dandy, all except Keith Jackson who did his own complaining after King left him out of the Magic Circle (Jerk) when it came to his big interview.

window._ttf = window._ttf || []; _ttf.push({ pid : 43792 ,lang : "en" ,slot : '.content .article-content > p,.teadsNative' ,format : "inread" ,mobile : false ,minSlot : 2 ,components : { skip: {delay : 0}} ,mutable : true ,css : "margin: 0px 0px 20px;" }); (function (d) { var js, s = d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; js = d.createElement('script'); js.async = true; js.src = '//cdn.teads.tv/media/format.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(js, s); })(window.document);

Let’s pause for a moment to have a laugh at Keith’s expense. Apologies to him in advance, because I did feel bad for him the other day when he was tweeting his displeasure. (No, really!) He was right to be miffed at being left out, and he was right to have a swipe at King’s claim that Warburton was thin-skinned when he was adopting such harsh measures against the few journalists who dared to question his commitment to the club.

Make no mistake, Jackson is one of those guys. In recent months, and towards the end of Warburton’s tenure Jackson asked some pointed questions and attempted to deal with some of the all-too-obvious contradictions in the South African tax crooks so-called plans.

He deserves credit for it; he arrived late to the party, but he at least showed up.

And for that, he was punished. Punished by a man who probably wouldn’t even be at Ibrox but for Jackson and his newspaper. I give him credit for asking the questions he did lately; if he’d asked them sooner the club might be in better condition, but that’s a debate for another day. Jackson has been loyal to the King regime. They’ve treated him like a dime-store hooker. Used him, abused him, and dropped him off in the rough part of town without bus fare.

That’s what these people do. Knowing that, and seeing this coming, doesn’t make it any less abysmal of them. So yes, I felt bad for him this week. Perhaps him and some of the other journalists who were excluded could get together a wee concert part of their own.

Protest outside Ibrox, that kind of thing. “We Deserve Better.”

I’m fairly sure there are banners saying that lying about somewhere.

Or, and this is a radical suggestion, I know, they could use their exclusion in a positive way.

If the regime doesn’t want you inside the tent then stand outside, unbutton your fly and aim. Their little concert party could actually do the job for once, and really dig into this guy’s comments and stupid boasts. They could speed up his departure.

In the meantime, seeing what’s happened to them, Michael Gannon is taking no such chances. His piece on King today – Dave King: Pragmatist – drips of sycophancy and spinmeister sweat. Honestly, it was a naked plea not to be kicked out of the family bed. Anyone who read the piece without a sick bucket handy … well, you must have been all puked-out. That kind of weekend, was it? Because otherwise it was pretty hard to stomach.

King still has his media apologists; they were out in force this week, having been fed their lines.

They trotted them out like good little boys and girls.

Today was the turn of Gannon and an old friend of this site and the Bampots; Gordon Smith, the man who went to work for Craig Whyte and was  the last person in the country, save for Jim Traynor, to realise he was in the employ of a crook. You have to hand it these people; they claim to love their club but Holy Hell, have they sang the praises of some right dodgy folk whilst in the process.

Even the headline of Smith’s piece is enough to give you the dry boak, or at least make you laugh uncontrollably; “Hats off to Rangers chairman Dave King for his honest utterings” it reads, and I promise you, I did not make that up.

King has had a bad month. He replaced his manager, but the Bampots would not let up. His choice has been revealed as having had a single interview (if that; there’s a lot of dubiety about it) lasting a half hour. King himself never spoke to him once during the “exhaustive and extensive” search.

The hunt for a Director of Football – supposed to take place before the manager was appointed, let’s not forget – was put aside and won’t now commence until the close season; laughable, but what we’ve come to expect from the club.

Add to that, the commencement of court proceedings launched by Sports Direct, the Big Tax Case appearing at the Supreme Court and the farrago over the accounts … March was a pretty tough month for Dodgy Dave King, and no wonder he told his pet hacks he didn’t want to spend quite so much time here in the future.

And things are worse than they look; there is some speculation – hardening into fact – that the unaudited six monthly accounts the club released to such media fanfare contained an even darker fact than that they actually reported a loss and not a profit as the hacks were at such pains to suggest.

If, as some internet reports say, King really did declare the £2 million plus “soft loan” in those figures as “income” then the club ended a six month accounting period where they had season ticket money and all those home cup ties with a £3 million loss …

This isn’t impossible, by the way. It’s the beauty of unaudited accounts; you can put any old smash in there and pretend it’s real and there’s nothing anyone can do. Those accounts were released for media consumption only, as we head towards the March deadline for the SFA to submit its UEFA licenses.

King is like a juggler trying to keep 100 balls in the air at once.

You can admire his command of the press and his ability to fool the dumber elements of the Sevco support, but if just one of those balls hits the floor the party is over.

In April he has to make the offer to the rest of the shareholders, as laid down in the Takeover Panel Appeal verdict; he says he might contest that. Either he doesn’t understand how it works – it was an appeal hearing; there’s no contesting it – or it’s another lie to buy him time and con a gullible media.

His manager will face a proper baptism of fire at Hampden, which will set up one Hell of a battle between Caixinha and the board over the close season. Ashley will continue with his litigation, in spite of King’s plea for a deal … April is stepping up to be a month far worse than this was.

Will King still be Sevco chairman at the end of it? I don’t think so, but if I had a vote in it I would, of course, love him to stay on.

The entertainment this guy provides is wonderful stuff and so long as he runs the Ibrox operation they will remain a shambles.

http://ift.tt/2ojoogO

**Just got this long interview brought to my attention. As this is the most recent installment I'm posting the body here. For the previous parts, follow the link at the bottom of the page this is sourced from. The whole thing is dizzying & at times contrary to itself but - decide for yourself** In our last interview, we agreed to not post any more Sean Gannon interviews as long as they did not retaliate against our source Sean Gannon in any way. They have not honored that. Not only has he been Relieved of Duty, stripped of his badge, gun, and even personal civilian License To Carry, they are going further. They cannot do this permanently and officially Terminate him unless they prove misconduct. They have convened an Internal Affairs hearing for this purpose on Monday, January 9th, 3:00pm at Boston Police Headquarters, 1199 Tremont Street. We have a new interview that we believe will change their minds. Sean Gannon Interview Part XIV Sean Gannon: I’m going to start off with some little-known facts. I trained at the same martial arts school as the Boston Bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev for YEARS. I also spent years as a member of BRIC (Boston Regional Intelligence Center). Here is an old article from a conspiracy website entitled “Six Degrees of Sean Gannon” http://carriemath.blogspot.com/2014/01/six-degrees-of-sean-gannon.html describing some of the events that went down and the connection I had to them. It concludes with “Knowing Sean Gannon will lead to death 5 out of 6 times.” It’s one of those conspiracy theories that actually happens to be somewhat true … except they’re WAY underestimating the body count. I’m going to lay out some little known (so far) facts here. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was an FBI asset. He was an FBI asset for a LONG time. Those times he got thrown out of the Cambridge mosque for being “too radical”? He was a “Mosque Crawler” – one of those FBI informants that pretend to be a radical so he can wrap up real Muslims in FBI stings with 20-year sentences. The people of that mosque were the good Muslims, people that just wanted to be good Americans, a better life for their children, and to not make more problems for their Muslim brothers. They tossed him out on his ass. They also probably suspected he was an informant as well. Did it ever sound strange to anyone that Russia explicitly warned us he was a terrorist upon his return to the US, but somehow the message got “misplaced.” It wasn’t “misplaced” we’re the ones that SENT him over there to act like a radical in the first place. Some say the Russians are paranoid. Well, it’s not paranoia when they really ARE out to get you. I don’t know enough about Russian regional politics to know exactly what he was doing over there, but I can assure you it wasn’t for the benefit of the Russians. After many years of struggle and sacrifice, Putin had finally managed to establish a degree of peace between Chechens and Russians, Muslims and Christians. Tamerlan was there to undermine that, and who was going to suffer? Innocent Russians dead in terrorist attacks and the good Muslims who would be blamed for what the pawns were doing. In Dagestan, Tamerlan formed a friendship with another young Muslim named William Plotnikov. They had very similar backgrounds, both had fled the former Soviet Union, both were elite amateur boxers in North America, both (allegedly) were devout Muslims and had a lot of other things in common. There were a lot of things that made Tamerlan identify with Plotnikov. Plotnikov was then killed in a shootout between police and militants in Dagestan. Two days later Tamerlan returned to the US. This is when the REAL radicalization of Tamerlan took place. I saw the difference in his face and manner as soon as he got back to the gym. He had always taken his prayer breaks in the gym before (we never had to wonder what direction Mecca was) but now they had a special intensity. He had grown a big beard to impress the radicals overseas, but it grew even bigger now that he actually meant it. Muslim brotherhood is a very real thing. Betraying your fellow Muslims is one of the worst things a Muslim can do. It’s actually the number one way the FBI and Israelis get you guys every time. Once you have betrayed your people in the smallest way, you are now a marked man for life if they ever release that information. Your family, your friends, your own mother will disown you. That means THEY now own you, body and soul. Tamerlan’s only way out now was murderous martyrdom. And he was going to take as many people with him as possible. I want to take a minute to explain who MY Muslims are. Boston is a diverse, fairly international city. With all the elite colleges like Harvard and MIT around here, out of the ten wealthiest men in the world, sometimes six of them have sons in Boston. King Bhumibol of Thailand (may His Majesty rest in peace) was born here while his father studied medicine at Harvard. The sons of the most wealthy and powerful families in the world come here, many of them Muslim, and do their thing for four years. You’ve got to understand, for many incoming Muslims, just the way women dress in America is like us going to a topless beach in France for the first time. Alcohol may be an illegal drug where they come from, so them going to a club in Boston would be like us having our bartender serve hash brownies and lines of cocaine … and our bartender is naked. When they have to go back home after four years, they’ll have a party that’s more like a funeral. But they usually leave with fond memories of our city. If they stay, they often end up concluding that the Prophet banned booze for a reason and quit drinking, but they’re still just fun cool guys to hang out with. I’m going to quote one of my Muslims, “I fast for Ramadan, I don’t eat pork, I pray, I look out for my fellow Muslims and I quit drinking. The only thing I can’t quit is hot girls in yoga pants.” Those are my Muslims. You’re a little wary of the psycho Muslims, but once you go out partying and chasing women with these guys, you’re like, “He’s OK, he’s just here to have a good time and make a better life for his family.” Tamerlan had previously passed that test. His radicalization happened later … but not the way people think it did. A little more on my Muslims in Boston. They’re not all rich kids from foreign countries, they’re also the small-business owners, the cab drivers, and many of the hard working regular guys and family men that make America great. I also do a lot of wrestling and martial arts, so I know a lot of great guys like coach Muzzafar “Moose” Abdurakmanov (former Uzbekistan National Champion), Sobhan “Soap” Namvar (former Iranian Juniors freestyle champ, beat the current Olympic Gold Medalist twice), Mohammed Hadifi and hot middleweight Muay Thai prospect Hussein Ilsadek. All really solid guys. I’ve even made friends with a couple of Nation of Islam Muslims … no easy feat for a pasty white cop like myself. I did it by being a straight shooter, honorable, honest guy in all my dealings, and they respected that, as I respected the role so many of them played as hard working, clean living, salt of the earth types that helped keep their communities together … even if neither of us agreed with all of each other’s beliefs. Also, men like Captain “Hadji” Hussein of the Boston Police Department. His nickname is not the racial slur, it predates it by many years, it’s based on the lovable friend from the old Johnny Quest cartoon and the title bestowed on devout Muslims who have completed The Hajj to Mecca. That name has a special meaning within this organization. For decades, whether he was your Sergeant, your Lieutenant, or your Captain, if you got a tough, dirty, dangerous assignment, you would tremulously ask, “Who is the boss?” And if someone answered, “It’s Hadji” you would breathe a sigh of relief and say, “It’s gonna be OK, Hadji is in charge.” He’s one of those guys where big problems become small ones, and small ones just go away. He’s like oil over troubled waters, he can solve problems that cause riots in other cities with 15-minute conversations. And when one of the military reservists in our organization get’s activated, he gets an obligatory email from Hadji saying, “Hey, hey, you better be careful if you be shooting at MY people!” He genuinely feels Muslim brotherhood, and he wants every soldier going overseas to remember that not all Muslims are our enemies, that there is a good Muslim at home that he respects, and that there are good Muslims everywhere that should be treated with respect. He doesn’t beat you over the head with it, he leads by example and then makes his point with wit and humor. He’s smooth like that. Now back to Tamerlan’s murderous martyrdom rampage – He wasn’t a real radical before, he BECAME radicalized by the way the FBI used him. The “Fast and the Furious” scandal from the ATF was such a big deal because it killed innocent Mexican nationals and cops. This will be MUCH bigger news here, because this time the blowback on their failed operation killed American nationals and American cops. It wasn’t just MIT/Somerville Police Officer Sean Collier that got murdered, it was also Boston Police Officer Dennis Simmonds. He got hit with one of the bombs chasing the suspects through Watertown. He eventually recovered enough to go back to work, but died of a sudden brain aneurysm a year later (almost to the day). Some people say “Boston Police are so brave.” Not really, we just have a great system. If we die in the line of duty, our kids get our pension as if they were us, something to take care of them the rest of their lives, like we were still there. They even get our jobs (automatically at the top of the Civil Service list). There is almost no downside to dying as a Boston Police officer. However, Dennis died young, before he had a chance to have any kids, so he didn’t get this. He does, however, have nieces and nephews, and they should never want for anything the rest of their lives. And the Federal Government, the ones that caused this fiasco, are the ones that should pay for it. Officer Sean Collier was in a similar situation. As are the civilian victims, Krystle M. Campbell and Boston University student Lu Lingzi. 8-year-old Martin Richard William didn’t even live long enough to have nieces and nephews, but his sister, brother and parents should never want for anything. That family should be made whole somehow. The good people that were maimed should be made whole (as much as we can) and not just by charitable donations, but by the same Federal government responsible for it. And we’re going to have to make things right with China in some way for getting their national (Lu Lingzi) killed with this operation. Kirik Jenness: Jesus. And they killed two cops? SG: It actually looks like it may have been more than two … this operation was going on a long time. It isn’t as well documented, and I’m still working on it, but if you kill a cop anywhere near MY city, it’s ME that’s honor bound to go after you. And I will not stop until you are brought to justice. And by the way, three of the guys intimately involved in the murders of Officer Sean Collier and Officer Dennis Simmonds are still walking free today, protected by the FBI. They’re not in some secret cell somewhere either, they’re walking free, still committing crimes, still a menace, and still a threat to kill more cops. KJ: Jesus! How did you find all this out? SG: Like I said, I was THERE when all this stuff was going down, I knew all these guys, am a decorated 20-year veteran of Law Enforcement, a member of MENSA, and was assigned to Boston Regional Intelligence as well, where you tend to learn a lot of stuff. It was all funny from the beginning, there were a lot of clues, stuff that didn’t add up, and stuff I couldn’t put together till later. Nothing I could prove … until now. What brought it all together is when I was doing some whistleblowing on some (in comparsion) lesser police misconduct. I referred to having “a lot of dirt on a lot of people” and some other specific things (will explain in another interview) and, being who I am, they panicked. KJ: What tipped you off? SG: When I went to the FBI with allegations of serious police misconduct, they inexplicably reported my “confidential” interview to the target of the investigation and have cooperated in a full court press to silence the whistleblower. They haven’t reported a witness to the target like that since the days of disgraced FBI Agent John “Zip” Connolly and Whitey Bulger. Luckily, I’m a Dick Lehr/Gerard O’Neill fan, so I figured it out quick. KJ: That’s really messed up! SG: Yes it is. It’s about the worst thing you can do in Law Enforcement. It means witnesses can’t come forward anymore because they can’t have faith in you to protect them, that you’ve lost all your street cred and that you’ve jeopardized your entire ability to be effective at your job. Nobody will talk to you anymore because nobody can trust you. I’m going to put it in starker terms: In any warrior society, honor is an integral to your existence. It’s especially important for Warrior Protector’s like Law Enforcement, because if you can’t protect your witnesses, you can’t protect anything. There is a STAIN on the honor of the FBI right now. It began when they set up witnesses for hits with Whitey Bulger, and good agents doing good work for decades had succeeded in wiping most of it away. And now all that work is gone and it’s right back on. KJ: Isn’t it dangerous to call out the FBI like that? There is no easy time for a cop. SG: I’ll be fine. I actually like fighting even more than I like women … and I LOVE women! I decided I was ready to go to prison for my principles a long time ago, and there are few people better equipped to handle it than me. Is it dangerous? Yes it is. I’ve done a lot of dangerous things in my life, but this is by far the most dangerous. And most necessary. They are the most powerful Law Enforcement agency in history, and if they want to hurt you they can. I’m gambling that the good men in the FBI outnumber the bad, that it’s just a few bad apples, and that the good men will prevail. They can act out to silence the whistleblower, but they’ll still have the same systemic issues until they address them. I’m hoping someday the FBI will come to appreciate that what I did was for the good of the organization, and for Law Enforcement everywhere. Also, we have evidence that they’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid the upper echelons of the FBI, including FBI Director James Comey and their congressional oversight. Stuff that goes directly to the highest levels. I’m trying to avoid talking about certain topics here because it might affect good people that don’t deserve to be hurt or National Security. I will if I have to, but that is an absolute last resort, and I’m praying they don’t make it necessary with their ham-handed attempts at intimidation and retaliation. Retaliation from any party will lead to further information being dropped, and I won’t be so circumspect in the future. And it’s already encrypted at Wikileaks, and in the hands of people that will release it immediately if anything happens to me, even an arrest on a trumped up charge. And this stuff gets even more messed up. KJ: it’s not messed up already? SG: It gets substantially more messed up. This was just a warning shot. I mostly just want to be left alone by all the people messing with me right now. If they back off, I’ll back off. But it better be quick, because more stuff is dropping soon, and it’s much, much worse. KJ: Worse than this? SG: Yes. Much worse. KJ: Can you prove the things you’ve already said today? SG: Yes. It’s been documented in meticulous detail by award-winning journalist Michele McPhee, a veteran of the Boston Herald, Boston Globe, New York Daily News, Channel 5, ABC and current host of the radio show Afternoon Drive. It’s all been compiled in her new book Maximum Harm and will be a six-part documentary on the History Channel. Today, I talked mostly about the well-documented stuff in her book, but the new stuff we’ve got is MUCH worse (a lot of it based on some extraordinary work by the great Bruce Gellerman of WBUR) and we’ll be adding that to the documentary. KJ: Why didn’t she put it all in the book? SG: She wanted to, but she had a sketchy near death experience and decided it was safer to publish what she had, and do the rest later. Plenty here for more than one book anyway. I highly recommend that anyone that wants the REAL story of what happened with the Marathon Bombing to buy her book, it will blow your mind, and teach you a lot about how the world really works. And tell Joe Rogan, “Looks like you were right after all.” KJ: This is a little different from the movie. SG: It is. That is also one side of things. Mark Wahlberg is a brilliant creative mind on top of his acting abilities, but if you want to know what’s really going on behind the scenes in Boston, you’re going to have to go to someone like me first. And people like me are few and far between. That would actually make a great sequel, Wahlbeg’s character doing a little detective work and figuring out all the things going on behind the scenes in the first movie, and then bringing the additional cop killers and people pulling the strings to justice. Post Script – Thanks to all the people from so many unexpected quarters that reached out to help during this thing. And thanks to Anon for reaching out too. I wish I could have engaged you more, but I’m working very hard to do the Martin Luther King/Ghandi non-violence strategy – take a moral stand, speak the truth, and let your enemies make themselves look bad by the things they do to you. And anyone that has seen me fight knows that I’m willing to take a beating to get the win. You guys tend to wreck s***, which wouldn’t be in accordance with these principles. The other problem is that you’re a mixed bag, a motley crew, a real rogue’s gallery, some great guys, and some not so great guys. And many of your guys are too soft to do their own time, and roll on your fellow Anon quickly under pressure. Worse, they become way too enthusiastic about it (a common problem with certain kinds of informants), they act like they’re Junior G-Men playing Cops And Robbers instead of playing with people’s lives. No matter how much you like someone’s internet persona, never give clues to your real identity if you’re doing dirt together. You’re riddled with informants, and it’s dangerous to even talk to you guys because sometimes I might as well be talking to the bad guys direct. More on this at another time, you can thank me later. Here is a website with a few articles discussing the discrepancies over the years: whowhatwhy.org/2015/04/09/was-tamerlan-tsarnaev-an-fbi-informant-odds-say-its-possible/ whowhatwhy.org/2015/04/25/the-unexplained-connection-between-the-fbi-and-two-muslim-friends-killed-by-law-enforcement/ whowhatwhy.org/2016/05/11/tamerlan-tsarnaevs-immigration-records-reveal-fbi-bombshell/ whowhatwhy.org/2016/06/26/classic-whowhatwhy-tamerlan-tsarnaev-double-agent-recruited-fbi/ These were all first-page Google hits for me, but if you want more diverse sources, I recommend googling the obvious questions yourself and seeing what you turn up. It’s surprising. However, most leads tend to go suddenly and inexplicably dead in weird ways. And sometimes, literally. Here is a list of the House Judiciary Committee which oversees the FBI. Most of them are good and honorable people that were prevented from finding out the full scope of this fiasco by rogue elements within the FBI. They need to know the truth now so they can put an end to this, and put those three remaining cop killers behind bars. Please contact them and ask them to look into this, especially if you’re in their district. 114th Congress Majority Bob Goodlatte, Virginia, Chairman (113th) Jim Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin Lamar S. Smith, Texas Steve Chabot, Ohio Darrell Issa, California Randy Forbes, Virginia Steve King, Iowa Trent Franks, Arizona Louie Gohmert, Texas Jim Jordan, Ohio Ted Poe, Texas Jason Chaffetz, Utah Tom Marino, Pennsylvania Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Mark Amodei, Nevada Raúl Labrador, Idaho Blake Farenthold, Texas Doug Collins, Georgia Ron DeSantis, Florida Mimi Walters, California Ken Buck, Colorado John Ratcliffe, Texas Dave Trott, Michigan Mike Bishop, Michigan Minority John Conyers, Michigan, Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler, New York Zoe Lofgren, California Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas Steve Cohen, Tennessee Hank Johnson, Georgia Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico Judy Chu, California Ted Deutch, Florida Luis Gutierrez, Illinois Karen Bass, California Cedric Richmond, Louisiana Suzan DelBene, Washington Hakeem Jeffries, New York David Cicilline, Rhode Island Scott Peters, California