Logs:If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Heather, Leo
In Absentia	2022-03-02 "I will watch the end in real time. Hashtag slowmopocalypse."
Location <BOM> Common Room - Bom Lodge
The common room's rustic-lodge feel has been somewhat mitigated by the modern amenities inside its sturdy wooden walls. It has comfortable couches, several chairs, a refrigerator (stocked with snacks and drinks!), a pool table, a pinball machine (METALLICA!), an assortment of books, a television -- with several game systems! -- and a splendid view out the windows (when their lacy yellow curtains are drawn open) for the rest of the island. The pale wood floors have been covered in places -- by a pair of soft thick blue rugs, by a large squishy pair of beanbags that stand in front of the stone fireplace. There's also a board up on the wall, half corkboard, half whiteboard, with a variety of community notes (and occasional insults) to other Brotherhood members. Large doors on the right-hand side lead off to the kitchen and dining room. In the back of the room, the council room's heavy oak door bears solid locks that are almost never actually barred. A short hall adjacent to the council room's door leads to a trio of multi-stalled bathrooms; these might once have been marked with the typical man-woman-handicapped signs, but someone has given them new plaques on the door; a stick figure with horns and a long tail, one with wings. One -- the large single-user toilet -- has instead been given a helmet and a cape. The arrival of evening has brought a precipitous drop in temperature from the mild springlike warmth of earlier afternoon. The common room has not yet caught up to this fact; the windows are still thrown open wide, letting in a brisk chill and occasional moth. Leo is just slinking in from the kitchen -- considerably warmer with the largest of the stove ranges turned on -- a bowl of richly winey-smelling chicken stew in hand. In just jeans and a diagonally color-blocked button down he is shivering in short order, setting his bowl aside so that he can start pushing the windows shut. Who knows how long Dusk has been flopped across one of the beanbags here, sunglasses pushed up into his shaggy hair and laptop in front of him. Long enough that he's blinking up, startled, when Leo comes in, and when he speaks there's a faintly disused croak in his voice. "-- shit, thanks. Think work's got me kind of --" A brief frown crosses his face. "-- boiled frog seems like exactly backwards." One of his wings is stretching out, spearing a blanket from off the couch on one claw and pulling it back to drape over himself. A swift figure moves through the common room, restocking some of the snacks and drinks kept in the refrigerator. While she is paused in her movement, there is less blur to her sihouette. Her heavy purple sweater, multi-coloured star tights are her main defence against the chill of the evening, less relevant now that she is back inside. She lifts her goggles up from her eyes to rub at them lightly, and then over her cheeks to warm them up while her recorder plays. "What has you becoming a frozen frog?" Leo pushes the last window closed with a whump and returns to scoop up his bowl. He drifts toward the fridge, offering Heather a nod of thanks for refreshing it. "Does too much work mean you have managed to avoid the rest of the internet?" Dinner and Dr Pepper in hand, he is moving to find an armchair to carefully set himself down into. "It is a good day for keeping far away from -- everything." "I ditched social media today somewhere in the middle of all the speculation about nuclear war. If we've all been killed by now I don't want to know about it." Dusk is slowly levering himself up by his wings, shifting to sit upright on the squashy beanbag. "-- oh, just doing the boring-ass work that actually pays me. Fucking with the Registry has yet to pay my rent." "The media should pay you. We generate news and they sell it," says Heather with a couple of quick nods. "I have been doing a doomscroll. A consequence of too much time. I will watch the end in real time. Hashtag slowmopocalypse." She sits cross-legged on the floor with a grape soda gripped in both hands. "I would allow you the bliss of ignorance, though." "No new developments on the nuclear apocalypse front," Leo informs Dusk, "though some people are shoehorning their hatred of us into their nuclear war discussions. Complaining there are safeguards on using nukes but none if, say, I wanted to end human life." His brows have furrowed as he contemplates this. "I don't think anyone understands the work that would go into custom tailoring that kind of thing. Maybe that doesn't reassure them much." "Man, I've seen people wedge their personal bigotries into discussing their favorite web frameworks so no level of reach surprises me anymore." Dusk has been settling comfortably back on a wing but here he props himself up higher, brows raising as he looks to Leo. "Is that actually a thing you could do, though? Just, hey, baby, wanna kill all the humans?" His tone is not quite casual enough for this reference to be glib. "That'd be a really slomopocalypse." Heather's eyebrows raise for a moment, before her expression turns back to the usual neutrality before she replies. "Are they concerned about mutant web applications?" And then, to Leo, "Ending human life does seem like a large project. And not one that would attract volunteers for clinical trials." "They should be concerned," Leo replies earnestly, "look who's on the other side of the screen." He has been looking at Dusk with this statement, but drops his eyes to his bowl when questioned on his capabilities. The slow bite of food he takes does not quite paper over the length of his silence. "There's a lot of things I could do," he finally replies, cautious, "and it's not as though humans have been making a great case against it lately. If I made all my decisions based on how terrible people have been, though --" He presses his lips briefly together. "Well. It hasn't historically been my metric." "Pfft, he has people lining up to get virus'd by him daily. If he ever decided to try out something new and deadly --" A faint shiver ripples through Dusk's wings. "What is your metric? I'm pretty sure if I had to deal with a tenth of the crap you do every day I'd have flipped that my shit long ago." Heather fiddles with the tab of the can for a few moments and then takes a drink. Her goggled gaze turns to Leo again. "Agreed. I would have at least given those who were being terrible digestive problems. It takes a great deal of restraint to not go around slapping people, and you can be more subtle. I am unsure I could maintain your patience." At first Leo just shakes his head, hunching slightly over his bowl. "I don't..." he falters, brow scrunching up. "How do you all decide who you're going to -- what you're going to... " His hand flutters vaguely in the air. "You all do so much. I feel like I could be helping instead of just -- freeloading here. Everything out there keeps getting worse and worse." "Freeloading? Man, as many lives as you've saved I feel like you've earned a free ride just about anywhere." There's a considerable hesitation before Dusk continues. "Though I'd bet Mystique wouldn't say no if you were offering --" The brief pause here is accompanied by a slight tightening of Dusk's wings. "... help." "If it were not for you, I think I would have mutated a fast spreading version of the virus in me." Heather pauses a moment, and then corrects. "Faster." She shakes her head, "Services rendered. I am not sure how we decide. Collectively determine what would strategically dissuade those in power? Or by what's funniest? I liked the pig powers registrations. But if you wished to do extra credit helping, you would have impact on the former." Leo's shoulders tighten shortly after Dusk's wings do. His eyes lower to the floor in front of him, fingers fidgeting with the stem of his spoon. "I don't know whether I can make a hilarious virus," he replies, slightly wry. "But strategic dissuasion I could probably manage." "That just makes me think some kinda zombie plague except instead of undead it turns everyone into clowns. Though --" Dusk hasn't quite lost his tension but he is perking up, here, "any virus could be hilarious if you give it to the right people. Imagine Stephen Miller dying of ebola and tell me you don't laugh." Heather nods a couple of times quickly, and cups her chin in her hand as she considers that. "Turning Stephen Miller into a clown would be ineffective. Most other diseases would have comedic value for him, however." She considers a moment longer before adding, "Though a virus that caused anyone who did a fascism to defecate themselves publicly would serve both purposes. Unfortunately, diseases do not seem to have a sense of political theory or comedic timing." "I think. Turning anyone into a clown is a bit beyond my reach. Zombies, though..." Leo looks thoughtful for perhaps a bit longer than is comfortable for this topic. "Well. Maybe I'll let the rest of you decide what strategically humorous diseases are." "Is that a real thing you could --" Dusk's eyes have gone a little bit wider, some of the color leeching out of his face. "Maybe I'm happier not knowing. I'm sure we'll be --" His fangs briefly press down against his lower lip. "lucky. to have you on our team."