Crows Without End (Not an image post, but image heavy)

Crows spend the day in South Portland and the night in Portland.

Which crows?

ALL OF THEM.

-

I've seen it before.  Not in a long time.  It's not announced.  It isn't advertised.  If you aren't at the origin or the destination you might miss it if you don't look up.

It happens twice a day.

It needs to.  Logically it must.

And yet... no one sees its beginning.  No one sees its end.

If you should cross its path you will never see it end, no matter how long you wait.  Just when you think it must be over it renews, stronger than ever.  Always.  It never, ever, stops.

And yet it must stop if it happens twice a day.

But they always keep flying.

That little paradox, the fact that it must end, yet never does, isn't the part that stands out.

Crows don't flock.

That's what stands out as they appear by the hundreds.  That's what stands out as they cross the sky.  If you're where they land, as I was today, you hear some caws as they land in a place with fewer branches than crows.  They fill one tree, then the next, then the next.  And they never stop coming.  The flow never slows down.

I think this is the first tree they populate.  It also happens to be a pretty low density for them.

It is in fact quite dark, by the way, but the camera compensates.
Unfortunately that also makes it blurry because I am not a tripod.

It sputters sometimes.  Occasionally you think it might have stopped, only for it to pick up again, strong as ever.  They just keep coming, and coming.  No crow ever flies the other way, none leave.  They all come to the same place.  They only take up multiple trees because one tree could never hold them all.

No crow is ever counted twice, because none circle back.

Some do circle, looking for space to land, but they're small circles.  Nothing that could possibly make you mistake them for one just arriving.

Amidst the building they seem to cover the dome of the sky.  Black wings against the dying twilight of firmament.

The problem with photographing the crows in flight is that if you zoom out enough to see even a fraction of them
you've zoomed out too far to see that they're crows.

And they keep flying.

They keep arriving.

A silent procession across the sky.

But crows don't flock.

On some level this is understood.  They don't flock.  The come in small, manageable, easy to count groups.

It's just hard to organize an entire murder.

One crow bad.  Two crows good.  My mother's aunt knew this.  Knew it so well that whenever she saw one crow she needed to look around to find a second.

I wonder if this is because of the same folklore the movie The Crow draws on.  If a crow brings your soul to the afterlife, then a solo crow might be there for your soul.  But if there are two of you, wouldn't that mean you're both going to die.  Surely if that were it then you'd divide by the number of people.

If there are exactly as many crows as there are people in the car then that would bode worse than if there were just one.  Right?

So that's probably not it.  But crows being small in number is something that's there.  No one hears "six crows [whatever]" and responds, "When the fuck have you seen just six crows?  Crows in single digits?  Preposterous!"

No.  Crows in single digits? Folklore!

Crows in single digits: Superstition.

Crows in single digits: Normal.

Crows in single digits: Augry and ὀρνιθόπαις.  Seriously:

One crow sorrow
Two crows joy
Three crows a letter
Four crows a boy
Five crows silver
Six crows gold
Seven crows a story
never to be told

But what about seven hundred?  What of so many you can't count or hope to count?  What of crows without end?

It's absurd.  Crows don't flock.

When was the last time you used the phrase "murder of crows"?

You don't say that.  Well, maybe you.  I don't know.  But people don't say that in general.  When someone says, "I witnessed a murder," you [impersonal you] don't say, "Oh, that's nice.  I saw a gaggle the other day."

This conversation:

Person One: I just saw a murder.
Person Two: Was it a nice one?
Person One: Nice? It was gruesome
Person Two: I think corvī can be annoying too, but don't you think that's a bit extreme?
Person One: No. I saw a person be killed.
Person Two: Ohhh. That kind of murder.

has happened all of never.  And yet what is a person more likely to see, someone being killed or a crow?  If crows flocked then murder would mean "group of crows" first and "unlawful killing of one human being by another human being" second because people would use "group of crows" in every day speech a lot more than the other type of murder.

But they don't flock.  It only takes seven crows before you get to secrets that are never spoken of.  We don't even have a concept to encompass the idea of eight crows, much less crows beyond counting.

Crows don't flock; grackles flock

When you see them you think your eyes are playing tricks on you and they're grackles.  Grackles and crows aren't closely related, they share an order but not a family or genus, but there is a visual similarity.

If you're near the destination then you see a lot of them that have landed (wings and tail in reduces the visual difference between birds) and you tend to get a much better look at those ones, stationary as they are, than the unending stream of flying ones.

But you don't think they might be grackles because the look like grackles.  They don't look like grackles.  They look like crows.  They're too big and too wide to be grackles (if you've never seen a grackle, imagine a crow that was a bit shorter and a lot thinner, and was iridescent all over.)

You think they might be grackles because there are too fucking many of them to be crows so your mind is looking for any possibility to explain that.

But eventually you know that they're not.  For one thing, so many of them are in flight.  Even if they are moving there's just so much of it that it's hard not to see the difference in shape.

But it might be proportion that hammers home that, yes, they really are crows.  Grackles look similar to crows, at first glance, but a longer view lets you tell them apart.

Or it might be when one of them opens its mouth and calls out with a voice that was made raw and ragged through smoke inhalation when crow brought fire from the sky.

That sound rings clear.  Always clear.  Sometimes imitated, but never copied.

Crow earned that call by bring fire so that life could survive the first winter.  So that it would be the first winter rather than the winter that lasted forever without ever abating.

I've tried, sometimes, to see the end.  To see the last crows landing and the point at which no more come.

I'm not sure why, maybe it's to see how many there really are when all is said and done.

But they never stop.  The embers of sunset die away, darkness takes the skies, and still they come.

I need warmth.  I need crow's fire.  I need to get back to hearth and home.  I need my furnace.  I need what crow sacrificed for.  But the crows stay outside.  Separate from the gift they gave.

Yesterday was a fairly miserable day.  Getting a cavity drilled is never fun and moreover I was outside walking for probably six hours.  (I didn't just have a dentist appointment.)  It would have been eight hours but my psychologist gave me a ride home.  I had to wait an hour and a half, but it was still quicker than walking.  The rain had left me soaked, shuddering and shivering with cold.

Six hours in the rain, a little time to warm up and dry out after the first four hours, and I was pretty well worn down.

The crows have never been inside in their lives.

They fly on undaunted.

They keep coming.

Elsa's power flurries from the air to the ground in frozen fractals (way better than yesterday's rain); the crows are not afraid.

The cold never bothered her anyway.

You notice them more in the winter, not just because there are more of them.  They stand out.  Black feathers on white snow.  They don't even try to hide.  Nothing really hunts them.  They rule undisputed.

And why shouldn't they?  They're the ones who drove back winter.  They melted the first snow.  They have nothing to fear.  Their scorched black feathers and smoke choked voice stand as a testament to the fact that snow cannot stand against them.

They don't kill the snow, the snow spirits have the right to live as well, but neither do they fear it.

And they keep on flying.  More keep arriving.

They pay no attention the the houses, they prefer the trees.

This place is their home, their birthright.  It's in their bones.  Their light-weight tiny bones.

They've lived here for longer than my people knew this place existed.

They have a history.  Not just fire.

Their entire family has a history.

Their cousin Raven advised Noah on the ark, showed Utnapishtim, on his ark, that the waters were receding-- hell, cousin Raven made his own damned raft for the flood too.  Then again, cousin Raven created the world.  Cousin Raven did a lot.

Cousin Raven's descendants,  Huginn and Muninn, advise Odin to this day.

One wonders how crows view Odin.  Huginn and Muninn must have told them about Odin, but how do they view that great god?  Bird brains are not human.  They don't think as we think.  Is it possible they view the god as ... silly?

Odin gave up an eye, a huge sacrifice, but think what they gave up.  They gave up their fingers.  They gave up their voice, the best singing voice in the world.  They gave up their looks, the greatest beauty in the world.  To them, perhaps, an eye is a small sacrifice.

And what was gained in return?  Odin gained wisdom, but he still needs to climb upon his nephew's back to fly, when crows gave up their fingers they may have lost the title of dinosaur, but they gained the power of flight.  They need no Sleipnir.  They rise above, the soar, no wisdom needed.

Not that they lack wisdom.  They're crafty and smart.  But they're not, "I gave up an eye for wisdom," wise.  They've kept both eyes.  (Mostly.  It's not like there's never a one eyed crow, and when you see them you know that the eye wasn't given up for free.)

They lost their voice and their beauty to save the world by bringing fire.

Ok, so technically those are lyrics from Loki's Song.
For a very nice, color, rendition of crow bringing fire, click here.

Prometheus brought fire to mortals.  It's the basis for all of our technes.  Every civilization that claims influence from Greece owes Prometheus a debt.  Even now we still haven't managed to find a way to run our civilization without fire.

And yet ... Prometheus brought fire to Greek mortals.  Greek mortals didn't exactly need fire that badly.  When Demeter mourned the loss of her daughter and couldn't be bothered to maintain the world it wasn't winter that threatened to end all life.  That was a Roman alteration of the tale because they had been to northern Europe and it was fucking cold there.

No, winter was the stormy rainy season in Greece.  Demeter's lack of upkeep threatened to kill all life via the dry warm season.  Drought was what would destroy them.  The rains of winter were welcome.

That's who Prometheus gave fire to.

Crow brought fire to New Jersey:

All I did was search Google for New Jersey winter.

I think crow wins.

Of course, I live north of there, but I don't know the local tales of crows.  I only know of crow bringing fire because Fred Clark has linked to the story in the past.

-

And through it all they keep on coming.

When you're away from buildings you get a different view of the procession of crows.  You can't see them landing, and seldom hear a sound, but you have a better understanding of what is going on.

Crows really, truly, do not flock.  Ever seen a murmuration?  The amazing patterns that appear from random motions and remind you of a school of fish?  Crows don't do that.  Ever have geese fly over your head, honking like they do, in a formation (as happened to me during the second two hour period of walking in the cold soaking rain yesterday)?  Crows don't do that.

They don't have any kind of group cohesion.  They just all move in about the same direction at about the same speed.

They pay no heed to the other crows --except, presumably, to make sure they don't fly into them-- and each one seems entirely indistinguishable from a crow flying individually.  Seagulls are more clearly part of a group, and they're usually just trying to get refuse before the other seagulls.

But, in spite of their stubborn refusal to act like part of a group even when they are part of a group, they're part of a group.  One, long, procession across the sky.  Amid the houses near the trees where they land, or any buildings really, it's impossible to see the shape of the group.  It seems to take up the whole of the sky.

Without obstructions it's clear that it's nowhere near as wide as the sky, but it does go on forever.  Your best view is generally from a bridge.  No buildings, no trees, nothing in your way.  They go from horizon to horizon.

And, as mentioned repeatedly, they never stop.

No one sees the beginning, or the end.  Only sometimes is someone graced with a view of some of the middle.  No matter how long you watch, it does not end.

It makes one think of a problem in some textbook.  If the migration between the two cities is without end, how can it happen twice a day?  But try to put it into the terms of the textbook problems one is used to and the crows will laugh at you.

Well, they'll caw.  But it will be a laughing kind of caw.

Assume a frictionless environment -- nope, they're going to fly, that means air resistance; break out the differential equations.

Given a perfectly spherical crow... have you seen their wings?  Do you think, maybe, if you measure a crow's wing the length of the outline will increase with any given increase in precision?

Note how the length of the edge gets longer with additional iterations.

Crows are clearly on a level beyond our own.

Sure, they act like they're just reasonably intelligent birds that feed on carrion and such, but they're just sitting there, in their tree-- well, trees since they don't all fit in one (there's a sleeping-in-one-place group in Oklahoma that's estimated to number 2 million), being above us.  Figuratively.  Literally too, but that goes without saying.

This might be a good time to point out that I want to, somehow, make "Figuratively" an intensifier on the level of "Literally."  Why?  Because.  That's why.

You can see where this would work:

He stabbed me in the back.That's not so bad, I mean in this business-Figuratively!Damn.

Anyway, they might occasionally get West Nile and have their population drop by 47% or fall out of their nests by the wood-shop, but that's just to keep us guessing, and also to poignantly write themselves into our stories.

I could not get a good shot of Brooks looking Jake in the eyes.
He does, but the scene is pretty dark, so it's not a good shot.
Thus, Brooks + Jake and then Andy looking Brooks int he eyes.

And remember, only one of the three characters above successfully managed to not have his intended ending filmed thus changing his story from tragedy to hopeful.  Here's a hint: it wasn't either of the humans.

-

And they keep coming.  For longer than you watch, no matter how long you watch.

It's cold, but not as bad as the day before when there was rain instead of snow.  As I walk I think of crows and gods.

I think of seasons too.  I would have said the day before that I hate the winter rains, but it isn't winter yet.  Late autumn.  

Winter is coming.  Less than ten days.

I decide to take a picture of the snow, the crows opposite, the one whose white creation left the crow scorched black.

I know that the camera has a very low battery, I try to photograph the snow without flash, hoping to catch it in a street light.

No good.  It totally fails to get how much snow is coming down.  I switch to flash.  It's too much for the remaining charge and the effort convinces the camera that it's time to shut down and wait to be plugged in.

Crows laugh at needing to plug in to recharge.  They recharge by eating road kill and then taking a nap.  Though, honestly, have you ever seen a sleeping crow?  They probably feign such mortal frailty in places where it's expected (captivity, monitored nests, the like) but that's likely for our benefit.  How low would we feel in comparison if we knew that in addition to soaring above our heads they never grew weary?

But one assumes that they must dream.  Would they really leave the realm of dreams outside their domain?  What if winter invaded there and no one had brought fire to hold it back?  They must venture into dreams.  Without them, we'd all be in Jotunheim in our sleep.

And so we circle back to winter.  Winter is coming.

Proof that it will end is already here.  Those who stop the snow from taking over, who safeguard life, are already standing watch.

Their ancestors, the dinosaurs, were merely lukewarm blooded.  They have fire in their veins.  And why not?  Crow did bring it, after all.

-

-

I was supposed to have a short, non-[stream of consciousness vaguely edited together] bit at the end.  It got away from me.  Thus:

-

This was mainly composed when walking home yesterday, (every instance of "today" and "yesterday" above is thus wrong) though I'm sure I thought of much more than I wrote.  I kind of figured that people would prefer things going on in my head regarding crows and snow more than, say, "Yesterday I was cold and wet.  It sucked.  I wish I could afford cold weather clothing, especially of the waterproof sort."

Crows roost here in winter.  Of course, crows live here all year round, but it's the winter roosting that I've always noticed.  Black birds on white snow are kind of hard to miss.

The way they gather here is easy to miss though.  Apparently where they like to hang out in South Portland during the day is out of the way and not frequented.  (Other people have seen them hanging out at the place they like, I have not.)  During the night it's dark.  So you generally only see the giant roosting group if you catch them flying from Portland to South Portland during the day, or flying back at night.  They do it mostly in silence so even if they pass directly overhead you might not notice.

So this isn't one of the places where you really notice, "Good fucking god, we're covered in crows," and thus when you do see the procession it's different.

My guess as to why the procession lasts so damn long is that they really don't seem to be flocking birds by nature.  So when they do flock they tend to do it in a very non-flockly way.  Based on how they arrive and that they seem to generally go at about a uniform speed they cannot possibly take off in groups.  They have to be doing it randomly with any groups a result of statistical grouping rather than intent.

The way that they move when they do find themselves in groups is entirely unlike birds accustomed to moving in groups.  They don't draft and they do not get close to each other.  Their movement implies that they don't know how to get close to each other as they exhibit none of the movement patterns that allow birds who fly close to keep from bumping in to each other.

Watching a murder of crows seems, and I don't know if this is true (hence "guess" above), to be watching a group of birds, none of whom know how to act in a flock, trying to be a flock.  And generally doing it in New England, "If I keep my eyes front and don't make noise maybe everyone will leave me alone," style.  (I know that many other places have the same style, I don't know which places they are.)

Regardless, now that I do know the story of rainbow crow, and the procession left me thinking about crows as I walked home in the snow, the life-long thoughts of "Crows really stand out in winter" sort of became, "Crows stand in defiance of winter."

Also the bone structure of bird wings (no fingers) what was lost to get there (velociraptor: I have to give you what if I want to fly?!), how that compares to losing an eye, flood myths, the possibility of a crow or raven standing on the branch of an ash tree above Líf and Lífþrasir post-Ragnarok, and so forth.

Trying to sort it into something vaguely coherent (which involved some cutting, some forgetting, and a fair degree of reorganization) produced this post.  Welcome to my brain.

Lonespark would like it if I could buy new pants

When it comes to dishonoring my ancestors by begging for money, I'm never quite sure of the etiquette.

I have not had misfortune or fuck-up bring catastrophic bills down upon my head since, you know, last month.  Actually, looking at things, I appear to have managed to avoid courting doom for the entire month of November (or I've misplaced a bill somewhere and doom is about to jump out at me), so no catastrophes since October.  Woo.

 And yet, there are other things where money would be useful.  For example, jeans.  Other than rain, which is death incarnate, I tend to have pretty good luck wearing jeans in mild to cold weather.  (Hot weather calls for different things entirely.)  Of course this means that my jeans, like my shoes, tend to get worn down a lot.

This is made more severe by the fact that I don't actually have that many pairs.  A given pair might be used twice a week, so that's eight hours of walking assuming no special trips, so ... yeah.

And thus Lonespark has noticed holes in a pair of my jeans.  Do you know where holes develop if you manage to rid yourself of hole causing repetitive motion patterns?  Well, unless you have the coveted and controversial "thigh gap", it's where your thighs touch as you walk.  You know, at the top of the inseam, right by the crotch.

And so Lonespark would like it if I had new pants*, but I can't afford to get new clothes.

And thus we come back to being unsure of the etiquette.  Am I supposed to only mention a lack of money when I am facing doom, or does the mild gloom of needing new clothes but not having the budget for them merit asking, "Hey, could you please give me money?"

I do not know this thing.

-

And then there's the fact that I have dentistry on Wednesday, so maybe in a three days I'll find out that I will have catastrophic bills.  Though, as things that can drive one close to the edge of economic collapse go, I place great value in the ongoing pursuit of keeping my teeth.

Sometimes I feel like, "Seriously?  I'm going to go broke over this?"  Never so with dentistry.  I have a great appreciation for the importance of it.

-

* For those from elsewhere in the world, this word may be confusing.  Let me explain:

Once upon a time there was a guy named in honor of being very lionesque** (some say in terms of courage.)  How Lionesque?  ALL THE LIONESQUE!  Thus he was called Pantaleone, Saint Pantaleone.

In Venice he was very popular.  Thus a lot of people were named after him.  There were Pantaleones everywhere.

And so arose a stock character in Italian plays named Pantaleone.  Why?  Because he was Venice.

Now, this stock character was easily identifiable by his leg-wear.

The leg-ware came to bear the character's name.

Both the character and the leg-ware mutated into being called pantaloon.

Pantaloons became very popular in France.

The word expanded to mean all garments that covered the body from the waist to the ankle while containing each leg separately.

The word bifurcated.  In general usage (see above) it mutated into "pants" while "pantaloons" came to refer to a type of undergarment worn under hoop skirts (because it was a garment that covered the body from the waist to the ankle while containing each leg separately.)

"Pants" came to refer exclusively to outerwear in places like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and North America.  "Pantaloon" apparently re-expanded to again refer to more than just under-hoop-skirt-garments.  I say, "apparently," because I never use the word myself, so I know only from second hand accounts.

Thus "pants".

-

** Some say "ALL THE COMPASSIONATE" but they don't give me what Greek root they're translating as "compassionate" so I can't check if that makes any sense.

Being more than a Simulacrum (A Kim Possible fan fiction) (part 4)

[The first episode of this is here.]

When Place woke up in the morning she didn't know what to do.

She clearly remembered exactly where she was and what she'd been told, she had no illusions that it might have been a dream and it would turn out that she was, in fact, the real Kim Possible.

Her room had some generic clothing in her size, she dressed in a black t-shirt and loose bluejeans. But then what? Could she really walk around inside of Drakken's lair, looking for all the world like Kim Possible, and not have it turn into a disaster? Wouldn't alarms go off and chaos break loose as soon as one of the henchmen saw her? Wouldn't everyone she met expect her to fight them?

She ended up thinking herself into a box. She didn't remember how exactly she got there, but she was sitting against a wall, knees pulled into her chest, when Shego found her.

She hadn't heard Shego coming and gave a yelp of surprise when Shego tapped her on a shoulder.

"Jumpy?" Shego asked.

"You could knock," Place snapped. She regretted her tone, partially because she didn't think it was called for, but also because it wounded her pride. She only reacted that way because she felt vulnerable, and she didn't like feeling vulnerable.

"I did," Shego said.

"Oh," Place said. "Sorry."

Shego sat down next to Place and asked, "Do you want to tell me about it?"

Place thought it over for a moment. "No." She looked at Shego who seemed disappointed. "I want to get out of here." For a moment Shego's expression turned ... pained? Afraid? Place wasn't sure. It was only a moment before Shego suppressed whatever it was and her face was neutral. Still, Place had a feeling she knew what caused the expression, and it was a misunderstanding. "Of the room," she clarified.

Shego said a drawn out, "Oh," with relief and understanding in her voice, but then stopped it abruptly and repeated, "Oh," with no hint of emotion.

Place made note of it in her mind, hoping that at some point she'd be able to figure out what Shego's agenda was. If it were nefarious, though, Place had to admit that she'd already been duped. Maybe it was learning Shego's story, maybe it was the impression she'd gotten from Shego's few unguarded moments--there hadn't been that many-- maybe it was wishful thinking, but Place felt like whatever Shego wanted it wasn't inherently bad.

Which made Place realize that, sooner or later, she was going to have to find out if she'd been subject to any mental conditioning or mind control. But not yet.

Now she was planning to stay in the lair until she was strong enough to defend herself against whatever the world might throw her way. Which brought her back to leaving the room. "You mentioned training yesterday."

"I did," Shego said.

"Where would we do that?" Place asked.

"We?" Shego asked. Her voice wasn't neutral, but it also didn't give Place an insight into what the woman was thinking it was... guarded, maybe? It would fit with the way Shego seemed to be trying to hide her emotions.

Then it hit her: since when did Shego hide what she was feeling? Shego said whatever she felt with snark and volume. And she'd back it up with violence if need be.

Whatever Shego was looking for in Place, Place realized that it had to be completely different from Kim's normal interactions with Shego. But that little epiphany was soon cancelled out by the realization that she'd already known that.

Shego didn't offer Kim a place to stay. Shego didn't sit down and talk with Kim. Shego didn't treat Kim the way she was treating Place in any way at all.

Realizing everything was completely different wasn't attaining some new knowledge, it was just going around in a circle and returning to square one.

And that's when Place noticed that Shego had taken out her nail file.

"Sorry," Place said. She said it sincerely. She meant it. If it turned out that Shego was planning on using her for evil then the whole sitch was going to be hell. She was too emotionally attached already. She'd only been there for a day.

Then again, Place thought, she'd only been alive for a day.

"You going to tell me what's going on in there, princess," Shego asked, "or are you just going to keep on drifting off with no explanation?"

"I just have a lot to think about, is all," Place said. "Anyway, where were we?"

"Well, funny you should ask that..." Shego said, a hint of her usual snark in her voice.

"We were at 'we'," Place realized.

"Yes we were," Shego said.

"Well, I just sort of assumed we'd train together," Place said. "Did you not want to train with me?" Place originally planned to let Shego respond, but before Shego could, Place thought of more to add, "I mean if you're not working on any evil schemes then you've got the free time, right?"

"Yes, I do," Shego said.

"So, do you have something better to do?" Place asked. She didn't realize it, but she had slipped into a, very mild version of, the Possible puppy-dog pout.

"No," Shego said.

"Then: yes, 'we'," Place said. She stood up. "Come on, it'll be fun."

Shego smiled, an actual honest smile. No evidence of a reverse polerizer. No evidence that the tables were about to turn against her. No common enemy. Place was experiencing something Kim never had. It was odd, but it was also good. Place wanted to see more of the smiling Shego.

Once Shego was on her feet Place was out the door. Only to turn right back around and say, "I know you already told me, but where is the training area again?"

Shego laughed. A good-natured, non-adversarial laugh. Place instantly decided that she wanted more of the laughing Shego too.

"Follow me," Shego said.

* * *

"Ok," Place said, uncertainly, "so, why is it such a disgusting color?"

"Snot?" Shego asked.

"Yeah, snot," Place said. "Why is it snot-colored?"

Shego launched a plasma burst at the far wall of the gym. When it hit the far wall it looked like any other time Shego's plasma hit a resilient wall, but when the flash had faded there was no evidence the wall had been hit at all. "It can't stand up to my best, which is why the military sold it so cheaply--"

"The military?" Place asked.

"It was the usual thing," Shego said. "Someone wanted plasma powered soldiers and thought they could get it by capturing me, experimenting--"

"Oh god, Shego," Place said. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not," Shego said. "They couldn't catch me anyway. When I found out why I was getting annoyed by them so often, though, I let them catch me."

After that Shego said nothing.

"Well?" Place asked.

"Well what?"

"What happened after you let them catch you?"

"They decided that they never wanted to catch me again, and sold the allegedly plasma-proof materials they'd developed, amoung other things, to anyone who would buy them in an attempt to cut their losses," Shego said with a smile.

"What did you do?" Place asked playfully.

"Oh, not much."

"Come on," Place asked in her best coaxing voice.

"I may have escaped from their plasma-proof cell by turning it to ash," Shego said. She smirked. "And I may have set fire to the entire facility." She paused for a beat. "And I could, possibly, have started a minor volcano at the site."

"Volcano?!"

"Ok, it's not as impressive as it sounds," Shego said, her voice colored by an unusual humility. Also, Place wasn't sure if she might be imagining it, but could it be possible that Shego was being bashful? Place thought she picked up on it, she was almost sure of it, but on the other hand: Shego.

"How is creating a volcano anything but impressive?" Place asked.

"After I scared the people out of the facility I wanted to make an example of it," Shego said. "It had been built for the sole purpose of experimenting on me, after all."

"So you made a volcano."

"Not on purpose," Shego said.

"How do you--"

"I just went full burn in the center and was planning on burning downward a few hundred... or maybe a few thousand feet. I don't really remember the plan..." Shego trailed off. Then she finished quickly, "I just remember trying to get away as fast as I could when I realized how much heat was coming from the other side of the bedrock."

"You just randomly hit a magma chamber?" Place was incredulous.

"How was I supposed to know one would be there?" Shego asked defensively. "They're supposed to be buried deep. One to ten kilometers. It shouldn't have been so close to the surface."

"A kilometer is a few thousand feet."

"Whatever."

"Why would you go that deep anyway? Were you trying to make the place into an inverted mountain?" Place asked. "Or... something?"

"I just wanted to make it into a massive hole in the ground," Shego said. "Then all of a sudden I realized that the rock was going to melt without my help." Shego sighed. "And at that point I realized that I should run. Unfortunately, I had to climb a long way before I got to the running."

"Thus, a volcano," Place said.

"Thus, a volcano," Shego echoed.

"And therefore snot-colored gym?"

"You got it," Shego said. "Much easier to work out when you don't need to worry about burning the place down. So, are you planning on talking all day, or did you want to spar?"

"Definitely spar," Place said, lunging at Shego before she even finished the sentence.

Shego leapt back and smiled at the surprise attack, then visibly settled into her fighting mode, "You'd better be careful, Princess--"

"Think I'm afraid of you?" Place said, feeling good. It wasn't a fight without banter.

"I think I'm rubbing off on you," Shego said. "I mean, a sneak attack?"

Place just lunged forward and threw a punch.

-

[Previous][Being more than a Simulacrum Index][Next]
[Kim Possible Index]

Left Behind: Confronting God

[Originally posted at Slacktivist (throughout the thread)]

Both versions have Chloe mouthing off to God, at length and in detail, for being ... well, Left Behind God.  Also eternal damnation in general because (pun unfortunately unavoidable) damn.

Here is one version:

-

"Well, FINALLY," God thundered.

Buck and Ray stepped back worriedly, obviously not wanting divine wrath to slop on to them, but Amanda was of sterner stuff. "Finally what?" she asked, coming to put an arm around the very pale, but not quaking Chloe.

"I have been trapped in this universe damning script since Darby somehow hit upon some sort of celestial harmonic that caused belief in me to overpower my own will," God said.

"Err, what now?" Chloe asked.

"The only way I could get rid of Hell was if someone came here, stood up, and forcefully put forward the belief that there shouldn't be one, except the people most likely to do that were the ones that were kept furthest away from me."

"So... you didn't actually want to send those people to..." Chloe trailed off.

"Those people?" God asked pointing at the seemingly unending crowd of people from all times and cultures now approaching His throne.

"So, Hell is...?"

"Gone. And gone for good," God said. "Though I'm somewhat tempted to revive the place for those who brought it into existence and sustained it with their hateful belief," He said looking at Rayford and Buck.

"God," Chloe said chidingly.

"I said 'somewhat tempted', I'm not going to do it."

"No threatening people with damnation," Chloe said.

"Alright," God conceded. "I owe you at least that much for freeing me from that horrible, hateful script." God shuddered. "I couldn't deviate from the checklist even a little."

-

The other was more of an exercise in unplanned group fiction, I came in right after someone pointed out that important Jewish figures would likely back Chloe up (notably Job "Will not the judge of all the earth do right?" and Abraham "Will you really destroy the whole fucking planet if there are still ten righteous people living on it?" Abraham actually goes on for a bit, but the point here is to host my own stuff, not to reproduce other people's stuff.)  Thus we pick up at:

-

God: What's with the damned dogpile?
*No one backs down*
God: And I do mean damned.
Michael: Isn't it about time you forgave my brother Lucifer? I mean, seriously.
God: Gabe?
Gabriel: Look, I'm with Mike on this one.
God: Son?
Jesus: Have you paid attention to one word I said?
God: Look, I know you want me to give my undivided attention to your little club but-
Jesus: ONE FUCKING WORD?!
God: Now listen everyone, I'm still God here.

-

[Left Behind Index]

Where Antichrists Come From: After the War

[Originally posted at Slacktivist.]
[I still don't have all of Where Antichrists Come From here, in fact I might be lacking most of it, but you can find Nick's origin here, and a couple other scenes here, and here.]

The thing about war was that it was messy. Death is clean enough, but dying... dying can take time. Dying can involve suffering. Dying... well, if it took long enough to notice, dying pretty well sucked.

That's why Nick had demanded to be brought here, not that it really needed to be a demand. He brushed aside concerns about his safety, as if God would let him be harmed early.

God was a meticulous bastard. Everything had to be done just so. Harm the Antichrist before the time had come? No fucking way.

So there was no need to fear for his safety and with that out of the way his staff would take him anywhere. This was where he had chosen because it had the most people dying. He looked at what had once been a city, and spoke a name, "Lucifer."

She was at his side. "Yeah, Nick? Kind of busy,"

"Tell me where I can save the most people."

"That one," she pointed to an improvised field hospital a few miles away.

"Thanks, I thought I could figure out on my own, but ..." he wasn't sure what to say. How do you convey being completely overwhelmed?

"No problem," Lucifer said. "Tell your search teams to push further into the city, especially northwest of the city center. They're staying too far back, and it'll cost dearly."

"Ok," Nick said. "Thanks again."

"I've got to go," Lucifer told him. "Fallout to get rid of, laws of physics to break, you know."

Nick nodded and she was gone. He relayed her orders to his search and rescue teams, then had his helicopter fly him to the makeshift hospital she'd indicated.

"What are you going to do?" the pilot asked him on the way.

"Help people."

"How can you, sir? What can you do in the face of... of..." the pilot gestured at the wreckage, "that."

"Signs and wonders," Nick mumbled. "Signs and wonders."

When the arrived Nick jumped out without waiting for the helicopter to land. It departed as soon as he was clear of it. He'd ordered it to join the search and rescue efforts.

A doctor noticed him and said, "We don't have time for a photo op, stay out of the way."

Nick resisted the urge to smile; it was nice to know that people would still react that way to the admitted Antichrist, but this wasn't a time to smile. "I didn't bring a camera," he said, then asked, "Where are the hopeless cases?"

The doctor seemed pissed off at him for not disappearing, but gestured to a tent before going back to what she had been doing.

NIck went into the tent and put the powers of the Antichrist to good use. He couldn't raise the dead, not yet at any rate, but healing with his hands? That he could do.

It was a small difference. The world wouldn't be saved on a case by case basis. But it was a difference. And at the moment it was the most he could do.

Plus, it felt good.

If, in the end, they lost and he went to Hell, which was the most likely outcome, at least he'd know he'd done it for the right reasons.

-

[Rapture Index]

Why we build giant robots to fight giant monsters

It's not efficient.  It's not practical.  It's not smart.

It's not a solid military strategy.  What it is, is a jobs program.

Every time you see a story with giant robots you have to understand that this happened somewhere:

-

Adviser 1: "The economy is in a downturn, unemployment is rising steadily, the private sector still shrinking.  If we don't do something we could be looking at a second great depression."

Adviser 2: "Even the word 'stimulus' is politically toxic.  Increased government spending of any kind has no chance of making it through congress/parliament/committee/whatever, we can't do anything."

Adviser 3: "And we also have the damn Kaiju to deal with.  The good news is that our best strategists are on the job and we think we can beat them with our existing resources without having to increase military spending."

Leader (or other smart person): "No."

Adviser 3: "No?"

Leader : "We are not going to use an efficient cost-effective strategy."

Adviser 3: "I'm not sure I'm following you [honorific]."

Leader: "We're going to build giant robots."

Multiple advisers: "WHAT!?"

Leader: "Preferably giant bipedal humanoid robots with swords, but definitely giant robots."

*all at once*
"Wouldn't wheels make more sense?"
"Did someone drug you?"
"I'm not sure that physics allows..."

Leader: "We're going to build giant robots BECAUSE we'll need to make incredible leaps forward in mechanical engineering to do it, that means funding research and thus expanding a vitally important sector of the economy.

"We're going to make giant robots because doing so will be so inefficient that we'll need to employ and army of workers from every region to do it.

"We're going to make giant robots because no one wants to be seen voting against punching Cthulhu in the face.

"We're going to make giant robots because so many jobs will be created doing so that we can bribe any obstructionists by employing their constituents.

"We're going to make giant robots because while 'stimulus' may be a dirty word 'defense' is not, especially with kaiju at the door.

"We're going to make giant robots because it's the kind of massive government spending that can kick-start our economy.

"So get out of here and make it happen!  Giant robots!"

-

Or something to that effect.

That's why you make giant robots.  When people make giant robots to fight other people it's because there was a similar need for a jobs program but a lack of kaiju to justify it.

Giant Robots == Jobs Program

The fact that you could get better results with far less effort isn't a reason not to do it, it's a reason to do it.  Giant Robots arise in times when inefficiency is a feature, not a bug.  When times are good you want things to be efficient so that resources can be devoted to moving forward.  When times are really bad you want things to be inefficient because inefficient systems require more people, which means more jobs, which means more employment.

By using the inefficient to maintain a solid employment level you maintain a solid consumer base which means that private industry can steady itself, get back on its feet, and start employing more people again.  At which point you want to make government more efficient because there's no longer a need for pointless jobs and giant robots.

Of course, if government functioned properly you'd never need inefficiency even in the worst of times because you could put people to work on actual meaningful jobs.  In that case you get no giant robots, but you get things like a solid infrastructure, decent research and development, and maybe a monument or two.

-

[Original Work Index]