Hey folks! It's been a way fun run for me at XMM, but I've been hit by the triple-threat of a more demanding professional life, a livening social life, and a lack of motivation to hop on and RP in the hours that I have that do have free. I've peeked a little at the logs page and been happy to see things picking up for you all, though -- it definitely makes me feel a little less guilty about not having been around. :)

Regardless, what with the reboot and all I'll probably have no better chance to neatly wrap up and inconvenience people as little as possible with my departure, so better to do it now than start some storylines and then drop them off half-finished. So they'll all fade kind of into the black -- Dazzler heading into NPC status, given that she's an FC, Norah will continue on the New York political scene for a while NPC-like and then probably head down to D.C. to work for a lobby or a think tank, and Ryan will get a new job and move out to the exurbs so that his kid can have a backyard.

I'm happy to do wrap-up scenes if there's anybody that needs anything -- just leave a comment to that effect and I'll try to schedule that with you.

But I adore you all and we had some great times! I hope you all continue to be exceedingly awesome.

-Norah

Well, the transit strike may be over, but the anti-mutant fervor that spurred it is still going strong. Here is the transcript of an interview with Nancy Moyer of New York City Transit.

I wrote a post on a related subject back in June, writing out how I believe it would be idiotic to require mutant identification for air travel. Given the fact that air travel has always been more of a target and threat for terrorist activities, I'm pretty surprised that the idea is being floated first for the subway.

She says that Quik-ID is something they are absolutely considering, and states "knowing who is riding our subway cars and buses is absolutely fundamental to a start." The delays and inconvenience of using Quik-ID for a simple subway ride will dissuade many more transit customers than the intended group, first of all. Secondly, making a blood test routine is a good way to spread blood-borne pathogens. Third, it's plain and simply an appalling breach of individual liberty. The government or any government entity should not EVER have the right to demand your genetic information and, on the basis of what's contained there, change the rules or deny services available to other taxpaying citizens.

What has me really concerned is that if they go down this path they will quickly run into the problem of the sheer inconvenience of demanding a test for each passenger of each individual trip. And I can just see somebody getting the bright idea to just require a single blood test and then distribute a tag on your transit pass that says whether you are or aren't a mutant and have done with it. Hopefully even the transit authority is self-aware enough to recognize the dangers inherent in that, and the parallels with an unfortunate historical precedent. I have learned, however, not to depend on the historical awareness or intelligence of any bureaucrat.

I cannot emphasize enough what a horrible, horrible idea this is. There are other ways to deal with this problem. They could increase intelligent security, improve the structural strength and integrity of the subway tunnels (something that badly needs doing anyway), increase public awareness and education, assist in funding the Outreach effort (more on that later), or ANY number of things that does not involve intrusive, Big Brother-style measures. Feel free to share your ideas for alternate solutions in the comments.

In the meantime, though, these ideas and plans HAVE to be stopped in the bud before they turn into anything more concrete. Everybody, please start inundating the transit authority with letters, phone calls, and e-mails. I'm additionally planning on starting a petition for signatures -- if anybody is in the New York City area and wants to participate, please feel free to e-mail me and I'll arrange some meet-ups for people in the area to group together and do that. (There's safety in numbers, especially for those holding unpopular views.)

I'm not much one for demonstrations, personally -- they frequently invite more trouble than they're worth -- but if letters and phone calls and petitions don't move people on this issue, they may become necessary. But please, please, start calling and e-mailing and invite your friends to do the same. This is a HUGE issue for many mutants in New York who are just hanging on as it is, and it's the first step on a slippery slope that could land us in a very bad place, indeed.

(OOC: A reminder before we start out that Norah is constantly blogging in the background. She has continued mentioning Zenith and the Sanctuary Fund periodically and discussed whatever news comes up. Just because I don't write a post doesn't mean she doesn't. But here I am writing a post! I owe the outreach plot a post also, maybe, someday.)

The transportation strike is really starting to wear on me. I hate feeling like I'm spending three-quarters of my day just commuting. On the upside, I've been able to really break in a new pair of walking shoes. That's worth something.

It's not just the walking that gets to me, though. It's the strike itself. Never mind the poor timing (what with interrupting the Christmas retail season in an already-tanking economy, it's like they're /trying/ to put my favorite local stores out of business) and the traffic-clogged streets, what really irritates me is their reason for striking.

Yes. Mutants can be dangerous. We have established that fact again and again. It is frightening when a mutant goes out of control or attacks, and it is always tragic when people lose their lives.

However, we are talking about the New York public transportation system. These are the people who never stopped working in the aftermath of September 11th (though several lines had to be closed for repairs), who took pride in rallying together after Loki's spawn crashed into Grand Central and doing their best to cope with the flows of people. They can handle natural disaster. They can handle deliberate attack, and go to work every day knowing that they are a target for terrorism.

They can handle all that, but a mutant incident is cause for striking and massive disruption of New York's entire economy? What possibly could have been done to prevent that sort of thing, short of demanding a blood test from each and every passenger (I think I've blogged about what a disaster that would be before) and discriminating against all carriers of the x-gene?

Seriously, transit workers of New York. That incident was rough. I'm sorry for everybody involved. But there honestly isn't any better answer than to just suck it up, deal with it, and get back to work.

I'm on board with this! It sounds fun. All alts are open, and now I have FOUR: Norah, Ryan, Dazzler and Cal are now all fair game.

* Everyone who wants to play, post an OOC journal entry (much like this one) inviting RP challenges.

* Everyone else is then free to post RP challenges as comments on that entry.

* The more challenges you complete, the more you win.


Rules

* There are no time limits on challenges unless you decide to set one for extra fun.

* You can choose not to attempt any challenge. Remember, it is for fun.

* To count as completed, a challenge should be met in a normal scene or flashback, unless the person who sets the challenge decides to allow ficlets for it.

* Challenges can be silly or serious or downright scary. They can be as large or small a thing as you like.

So challenge me!