Being more than a Simulacrum (Part 10)

[Link to part 1]

Place was on the verge of nodding off to sleep after hours of driving, so the CD had to be put on. It was part way though a line when it started

... in the house of detention.

Since she knew the song, and thus knew what was coming next, she thought it was fairly appropriate:

Well, I'm on my way;

Place tried to keep her head up and her eyes open. She wanted to keep Joannah company, which meant staying awake.

I don't know where I'm going.

A blink that almost put her to sleep.

I'm on my way;

It was really a pointless exercise, she was passed the point of being able to make conversation. She just wanted to be awake, even if she couldn't help.

I'm taking my time but I don't know where.

Maybe think about something? The ride so far, perhaps?

* * *

Introductions over, Place climbed into the cab of the semi. “Thanks again for doing this,” she said to the driver.

“As you-- sorry. As Kim would say, it's 'no big',” Joannah said.

There was a moment of silence, then Joannah said, “I'm glad to have company. The radio's busted, the CD player won't eject, and if I don't hear a human voice I tend to fall asleep, so if it weren't for you I'd be listening to the same CD on endless repeat for the seventeen hours from here to Calgary.

“I'll probably owe you a favor or two for letting me give you the ride.”

“Just remember that I'm getting off before the Canadian border,” Place said.

Joannah smiled. “I will.”

“What's the CD?” Place asked.

“Paul Simon, self titled,” Joannah said. “I love him, but the same 11 songs non-stop is . . .”

Obviously at a loss for words, Jonnah kept her eyes on the road and her left hand on the wheel, but gestured with her right as if she were trying to grasp for ideas. Finally she made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan.

“I can imagine,” Place said.

For a bit there was just the sound of the truck on the road.

“So what are you going to do in Montana?” Joannah asked.

“Introduce myself to my uncle and my cousin and hope that they take it well,” Place said.

“You think they will?”

Place shrugged. Then she realized that Joannah was keeping her sight so focused on the road that she probably didn't pick up on it. “They're Possibles,” she explained. “Strange is what we live.”

“What about other people? Do you think they'll have a problem with you because you're … you know?”

Place didn't immediately answer. For a moment her mind was blank, then she thought about the question in general. She hadn't done that in a while. It had been one of the first things she'd thought about when she woke up in Drakken's lair and Shego told her she was a clone, but since then she'd had other things on her mind.

Finding an identity of her own, thinking about the process that made her, trying to find a way to navigate knowing people who didn't know her thanks to Kim's memories, the desire to introduce herself to her family personally instead of letting them find out when the news broke that there was a Kim-clone.

“You don't have to answer if it's too personal,” Joannah offered.

“No, it's not that,” Place said. “I just … don't know.” She closed her eyes and cleared her mind. Where to start? “The last time Kim was cloned the clones were shoddy, not-quite-human, mindless, and vicious. It doesn't exactly set a good precedent for clone acceptance.

“But, on the other hand, I'm pretty much the same as a twin, and maybe people will realize that.

“The big thing that makes me different from everyone else is memories. I have Kim's, I still don't fully understand why.” Place snorted at herself. “Actually, I don't understand why at all. Trying to get answers on that is my next stop after Montana.

“Kim is so well known and connected that it's sure to make a huge difference that I'm a clone of Kim Possible, as opposed to just a clone of someone.

“I have no idea how people will react,” Place said. “You seem to have taken it well.”

“Well … Kim doesn't know this,” Joannah said, “but the reason that I reached out to Team Possible when I had that trouble was that Wade and I already knew each other.”

“Oh?” Place asked. She didn't actually know much of anything about Joannah, or what 'that trouble' was because it had apparently happened just a few months ago-- after Place's memories from Kim stopped.

“I used to work in genetics,” Joannah said. “I did cloning.”

Place had no idea what to say to that.

“Not people,” Joannah said with a tone and cadence Place associated with a feeling of, 'Oh crap, I just gave someone the completely wrong idea.' “I mostly worked with cephalopods, actually... but I've got enough experience not to be superstitious about clones or assume stereotypes from bad science fiction will be true.”

Place thought about that for a bit and then said, “Trucking seems a bit of a change of pace from cloning squid.”

“Primarily octopodes, in point of fact. And yes it is, I needed a change of pace.”

“Do tell.”

* * *

Place was pulled out of her reflection by familiar notes playing. “It couldn't have gone all the way around yet.”

“It hasn't,” Joannah said.

It took effort to process the sounds, realize they were different, and figure out what was going on, “Demo track on the 2004 CD?” Place asked.

“Yup,” Joannah said. “Which means that there are three songs that play twice every time the CD plays.”

Place nodded. She was too tired to think of the fact that Joannah couldn't see her nod.

She went back to thinking about the ride, so far. Where had she left off? Joannah telling about herself.

* * *

Joannah's story started off normally. Going through school, university, grad school, getting a starting job at a research lab, working her way up, specializing first in cephalopods in general, then in octopodes, and finally becoming the leader in the field of modifying them, cloning them, and cloning modified versions.

That was when things took a sharp turn. Villains started coming after her. They were mostly small time, sea-life themed ones that Kim, and thus Place, had never heard of but Joannah did have a story to tell about Dr. Dementor that had left Place laughing so hard she could barely breathe.

As more and more of her life became dealing with villains, Joannah found herself enjoying her work significantly less and dreaming of a clean break and a new life. She'd met Wade --online of course-- by now, and was thinking about asking him to help her start fresh. The last straw had been a low life named “The Double Barreled Nautilus.”

After that she'd just wanted out.

“I found a good home for Six-foot in a local aquarium, asked Wade to help me find a non-science job that would let me see more of the world --landscape, not cities and such-- because I'd spent so much time cooped up in a lab, and in six weeks I had my first trucking gig.”

“Makes sense,” Place had said. Then she'd thought for a moment about where Joannah had said she was going. Calgary, which was in.... “How do you like Alberta?”

“It's good, the north is mostly forest, which limits your views, but it's also got prairie in the south, the continental divide on the western border, and the steppe. So there's various stuff to see as you're driving through it.”

* * *

This time it was because the CD had cycled all the way though.

“I can see how this could get grating after a while.”

...when the radical priest
come to get me released

It felt to Place like all she did was blink.

… and spit on the ground
every time my name gets mentioned.

“It couldn't have... I was only … it was just a second,” Place stammered.

“It's the third time this has played since the last time you spoke.”

“Oh.”

Miles and songs blended together. It was impossible to concentrate on anything.

Darkness.

* * *

Joannah opened the door and said to the girl, “Found a motel, think you can walk in?”

The response was a murmured, “I would not give you false hope, on this strange and mournful day...”

Joannah closed the door and walked toward the office. She'd heard enough of the lyrics from Simon. She didn't need sleeping beauty's rendition. She'd have to carry the girl to the room, but there was no sense in doing that until she actually had the room.

* * *

“My friend needs a room,” Joannah said to the woman, maybe in her early twenties, at the desk.

“Your friend?”

“She's asleep in my truck.”

“And you don't need a room?”

“There's a bed in the back of a cab,” Joannah said, “Can I get her a room or not?”

The woman shrugged. “Yeah; cash or credit?”

“Cash,” Joannah said as she opened her wallet.

“For cash I need an ID,” the woman said.

“From her? She's asleep and I'm not about to--”

“No, no,” the woman said. “Yours is fine, I just need to photograph the ID so we have a record of who we did business with. With credit cards the information is all in the transaction so I don't need anything extra.”

* * *

Place woke up and was careful not to move or open her eyes. Habits kept from Kim's memories. Never tip your hand and let a potential enemy know you're conscious. Last she remembered she was in a truck and a Paul Simon CD was on endless repeat.

She definitely wasn't in the truck anymore. She seemed to be in a bed. She was still wearing her clothes, shoes included. There was a blanket over her.

No restraints.

She cautiously opened an eye and took a look.

Motel room.

She got out of the bed, walked to the window. The truck was in the parking lot.

She walked out to it, but wasn't sure what to do. Did she knock?

“I was wondering when you'd get up,” Joannah said from behind her. “I'm glad you didn't sleep too late, it might have put me behind.”

“Um...” At first Place wasn't sure where to start, then she decided to go for the obvious. “Why are we here?”

“I thought you could use a bed,” Joannah said. “Also, Marie, the woman who works the counter here, is a stunning chess player. But I didn't know that until after I woke up this morning and wanted someone to talk to.”

“Ok... um, how far along are we?”

“It'll probably still be morning when I drop you off.”

* * *

“Thanks again,” Place said as she got out of the truck.

“I owe you for--”

“Whatever Kim did for you is--”

“For fixing my radio,” Joannah said.

“Oh,” Place said. She felt bad about cutting Joannah off. “I'm not going to act humble, because that was a huge deal, but it was as much for me as it was for you.

“You can beat us with wires,” Place said quoting track 7, “you can beat us with chains, but it's nothing compared to listening to the same eleven songs a hundred thousand times in a row.”

“Well, I'm the one who will be in this truck from here on out,” Joannah said, “So whatever your motives, I feel like I owe you.”

“I feel like I owe whoever abandoned that Chevy on the side of the road,” Place said. “I can do a lot of things, but I can't repair a radio without parts.”

Joannah just laughed, “Thanks regardless. Good luck with your family.”

“Ditto, and good luck with the rest of the journey.”

* * *

A robot horse was acting every bit as wild as the least trained mustang in existence. Joss was standing with her back to Place, pretty much all Place could see of her was her dark red hair.

“Still haven't gotten the bugs out of Old Tornado?” Place asked.

“Kim?” Joss asked, turning around.

Place was glad to see that Joss had taken up fashion of her own, instead of copying Kim and Ron's mission clothes. The flannel shirt and well worn jeans suited her.

“No, not Kim,” Place said. “My name is Leela Place Possible, and I'm a clone of Kim.”

Uncle Slim had come out of the barn, and said, “Maybe we should go in the house and talk.”

Place nodded. Slim used a remote to power down Old Tornado, Joss vaulted over the paddock fence, and all three walked toward the house.

-

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[Kim Possible Index]

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Originally I was going to have a lot more story in this chapter (it was going to continue until Place left her uncle's ranch) but the ride ended up taking more words than I anticipated so this seemed like a good place to break.

The family we choose

I've written various things here talking about good and, unfortunately, more often bad things about my family.  The people who I love unconditionally mostly because if I had conditions most members would have failed them long ago.

I started writing about them and the preamble threatened to take over the post.  The short version is that while I never would have abandoned them, if I'd had a choice going in I would have opted out of my screwed up family.

It is a disturbing fact that my depression, something that has held me back at every turn and screwed up my life in ways beyond counting, probably protected me by insulating me from the toxic environment I grew up in.  There were things that did leave lasting effects, scars I still carry, and a lot of it was very bad at the time but placed in context most of the terrible was fairly ho-hum because depression made everything suck anyway.

Eeyore never really has things get him down.  Eeyore is already on the ground so there is no down to go.  No matter how bad things might have seemed at the time, it all blended together like that.

And I kept to myself.  I was never outgoing, never good at making friends, never much of a human contact kind of person.

For the longest time the family I was born into and stuck with was the whole of my world as far as human contact went.

But eventually I went off to college, which was technically a university that contained colleges, and quite by accident I started to form relationships.

I still kept to myself, I didn't see the people outside of school, but in the same way that I lived with my family, I schooled with this other group.  They started to become a part of my life.

I was a math major, no minor.  I earned a degree as a math major, no minor.  But all the time I was taking electives with this other group.  Nothing wrong with the math majors, there's a big crossover between math and classics students in fact, and the two tend to mesh well, but I was taking math because that was my major, that was my plan; I was taking classics for no reason I could put a finger on.

I liked the classes, I liked the teachers, I liked the students.  I liked being there, with them.

I earned a minor without even trying, and when I went to apply for the minor I had earned I was told it wouldn't take much more to make myself a double major.

I did that and kept finding reasons to stay.  To have the same people in my life in the same way.

I would oversimplify if I said that the only reason I stayed was the connections I was making with others in classics, but I would be lying if I said the desire to be there in those classes with those people wasn't part of the reasons that I stayed for so much longer than I ever needed to.

I haven't graduated, in spite of having earned two degrees that I simply need to ask for, but classics is gone now, the only reason to stay is something that I need to do for myself for closure.  This coming school year will be my last, assuming I can find a way to pay for it.  I'll graduate and put the tragedy of USM behind me.

And it is a tragedy; the story of a great university with students, staff, and faculty that were peerless and, logically, had no reason to be at a low prestige underfunded public school but had administrators who were incompetent, maliciously lacking in scruples, or both.

I didn't go to USM because I knew that it had somehow managed to acquire people it could never afford if they were paid what they were worth.  I didn't know that students who came from Harvard (yes, fucking Harvard) would comment on how much better the teaching was at USM.

I went because it was close by, within my price range, and accepted me.

And, essentially, I rolled a natural twenty in doing so (assuming I got the reference right.)

Now we've gained notoriety. The classicist from from Homeland Security (we are everywhere) talked about how the reception she got in DC had changed in recent years from not recognizing the name but assuming USM must be good (it comes from the land of Bates, Bowdoin, Colby) to being, "Isn't that the place that fired all its teachers?"

Now we seem determined to destroy everything that made ourselves good.

But what I found at USM was an incredible group and what I found in the classics department, without realizing it, was a second family.

A family that I had chosen without even realizing it.  They became a part of me, and I've spent almost a third of my life being around them.

In some of my deepest depression in high school I just shut down.  In some of my deepest depression in college Jeanine Uzzi* pulled me through I think without even really trying or knowing that it was what she was doing.  She did know that I had depression, she did know that I struggled, but the fact of the matter was that she probably would have been as compassionate and helpful if she didn't.

And so it was that I ended up forming a group that wasn't exactly friends, and in many ways more like family, by choosing, and choosing, and choosing again, to immerse myself in the classics program at USM.

Every year there was a school year end get-together and barbecue.  Being without a car I only managed to make it to two before.  Last year, and three years ago.  I had forgotten that they alternated between Peter's** house, which meant that I was pleasantly surprised when I realized it was in walking distance.  Google says 40 minutes on foot.  I didn't time it.

With Peter retired and Jeanine illegally laid off without cause, classics at USM is dead.  But we got together, most people had alcohol, I had root beer.  There were cookies.  There were chips.  There was meat as well as vegetarian options.

I got to see a future president of the United States on a unicycle (she was in a parade on a much more impressive unicycle in front of the current president of the United States..)  Also stilts.  A little bit of pogo stick.  She's multi-talented.  Obama has never seen her on stilts, so there!  I win.

Anyway, it was time well spent with people I've formed a connection with that, again, isn't exactly friendship.  It really is like family, and going to the get together is like seeing family you haven't in a while, catching up, and hanging out.

Also discussion of vampires, zombies, evolution, dogs, the fact that naked mole rats don't get cancer (which, seriously: awesome), cats, trebuchets, ballistas, (how is it possible that Google Chrome doesn't know how to spell either of those words?  They're basic fucking English and I depend on my spell checker because spelling has never been my strong suit what kind of witless provincial hacks do you think we are, Google Chrome, that you think we will never need to say "trebuchet" or "ballista") Doctor Who, Douglas Adams, various experiences of Paris, surf lessons for people with disabilities (I had to get clarification: mental and physical disabilities, all are welcome), the importance of therapeutic dogs, how while people starting a revolution by pulling out gladiuses would be perfectly acceptable, people starting a revolution by pulling out their "gladiuses" would be a serious breach of all forms of etiquette (I said something and then remembered the double meaning and had to quickly clarify for fear that I might be misunderstood as the most obsecene and inadvisable form of "sexual revolution" ever conceived of), the state of Latin teaching in the state, that type of jellyfish that avoids dying of old age by becoming a larva again and starting life over (repeat as necessary, avoid getting eaten to attain immortality) children in movies, how the increasing use of CGI that has to be planned out in detail is probably changing the way accidents lead to greatness in movies (Jaws would never have been nearly so good if they'd been able to make the shark animatronic work, Indiana Jones wouldn't have been as memorable if Harrison Ford hadn't had dysentery for the sword fight,) Maleficent, and what it would have been like to be in the castle after the entrance was turned into a maze of iron spikes, job offers and housing arrangements, and, you know, stuff.

Good times.

The family I have chosen for myself had a reunion today, is what I'm saying.

-

* Buy her book, learn about the wondrous world of profanity-laden prejudice-filled Roman poetry and know that this stuff that would make a rapper blush is history.  Fucking history?  Fucking-in-detail history.  I wish I could do an affiliate link so that I too could profit from you buying her book, but Amazon dumped me and they're the only program I was ever in.

Seriously, buy her book.

Know that this is probably the only time I will ever recommend something that contains pervasive blatant homophobia and misogyny.

It is unfortunate (and contributes to present prejudice) that the way Julius Caesar was insulted was to say that he takes it up the ass thereby implying that taking it up the ass is a somehow denigrating thing.  It is, however, important to that we understand that classical poetry could be about that sort of shit.  Catullus has never been out of print.  Throughout history people have been reading this, but we tend to end up with sanitized garbage instead of proper historical profanity.

If you want to understand the past, you have to be willing face the occasional use of dirty words and the frequent, nigh unending, use of obscene concepts.  You also have to face a lot of bullshit bigotry.  Because the people of days gone by were every bit as much prejudiced assholes as we are today.  Hopefully more-so.  If it's not more-so then that means we've made a stunning lack of progress in the past two thousand years.

But, then again, we did invent racism in that time, which didn't used to be a thing, so it might not be that surprising if there's been little progress.

** Peter is the world's foremost expert on Roman aqueducts.  It is possible that you've seen him on Nova, or National Geographic, or one of those things.  It's also possible that, like me, you've missed those episodes.

It never stops (on the terrorist attack last night)

There's a reason I don't follow the news.  It isn't just that I can't take the constant barrage of bad news, it's that I can't take the fact that no one, ever, seems to give a shit.

Or, when they do, everyone else makes such a show of not giving a shit about them giving a shit that they're effectively silenced no matter what they do or how dedicated they are (see: Occupy Wall Street.)

I have known people who are able to weather the twin forces of pervasive evil and pervasive apathy that cause the news to spiral me into depression, inaction, and curling up into a ball.  I have known activists.  I have known people who are instigators, organizers, and agitators, one in particular comes to mind.

I don't know how they do it.  I don't know how they can manage to keep on going when they work so hard and so long and yet constantly be reminded that it never, ever stops.

Sometimes, though, the news breaks in on me even though I keep it out.  I am in and of the world, after all, I can hardly avoid the whole of it.

And so, via Fred Clark, I learned about the terrorist attack that happened in Charleston last night.

In some ways the worst part isn't what happened.  That, in itself, is terrible and horrifying.  How could nine people being killed in an act of terrorism not be the worst part?

Because it won't stop at nine.  It will happen again, and again, and again.  It won't stop.  It never stops.

It never stops because when a white person strikes out against black people, say by walking into a church with important ties to the entire history of the black community in the area and shooting a bunch of people, we, as a culture, don't give a shit.

This kind of terrorism is the kind that we, as a culture, are ok with.  We don't even call it terrorism.  We deny it a name and in so doing act like there isn't a problem, and because we refuse to recognize that there is a problem we don't look for solutions.  Because we don't look for solutions we don't find them, and if they are found for us we don't implement them.

And because we don't solve the problem that we refuse to acknowledge, it will happen again, and again, and again.  Ad infinitum.

And that's the worst part.  What's worse than nine people being murdered in an act of terrorism?  The fact that it will not, under any plausible circumstances, stop at nine.

It never, ever, stops.

And that's why I don't follow the news.

I don't know what it is that allows some people to perpetually fight a battle they know they can't win while immersing themselves in news that reminds them that we have made so much less progress than most people pretend we have, but whatever it is, I don't have it.

God's Home Town: The Divine Feminine

So, in the post here where I talked about the setting, I completely forgot about this idea.

I'm not sure why but I like the idea of God, who is Christian God because Jesus is his/her/its son, having at least two different aspects represented in different ways.

Male aspect, with which most people in town are most familiar, is a booming voice from the sky.  Any Fire and Brimstone(TM) comes from him, though mostly he's the generic nice God of pop culture, though he is concerned with sin and is judgmental.  Probably less forgiving than Jesus.

If I have stuff like the burning bush, that would be the genderless aspect of God and I don't really have a personality worked out for that yet.

Feminine aspect represents herself as a human being who generally limits herself to doing things human beings can do, and (as a result) some people don't even realize that she isn't human.

I think she probably wears low cost, highly worn clothes and resemble stereotypical wardrobe department poor-person/street person.  (Which makes a kind of sense because she doesn't maintain a residence.)

Also, she does stuff she's not, strictly speaking, supposed to do:

*Person heads into Hell to lead a trapped group of soul freeers out through an entrance only Person knows about*

Person: You jerks getting trapped ended my family's long tradi-*
Person: *shocked* God?
*the Divine Feminine is one of the soul freers with a group of semi-rescued souls*
Divine Feminine: *waves* Hi.
Person: If you wanted souls to get out of Hell, couldn't you just, you know, will it?
*Divine Feminine gives Person a look*
Person: *groan of understanding tone* Ineffable.

Person: Why do you need my help to get out?
Divine Feminine: I don't; they do. *pointing to others*
Person: You're God, couldn't you-
Divine Feminine: Oh yeah, use my powers and let all of Hell know that I've violated our treaty.  That'll go over great.
Person: Sarcasm.
Divine Feminine: Quite
Person: Blasphemy at you and a pox on your house.

*Person begins leading the group out of Hell*

-

* Generations long tradition of never taking sides or in any way getting involved in divine politics.  The family has a long tradition of apolitical existence in which the town's oddities are exploited for personal gain and only personal gain.  Breaking people out of Hell is a strict no-no.

Bike ride to the dentist

I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead

I just need some place where I can lay my head

"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"

He just grinned and shook my hand, "no" was all he said

-The Band

-

I hadn't been able to make it to my originally scheduled cleaning because I woke up in the morning and spent several hours dead.  I seriously have no idea how zombies do it because whenever I'm dead destroying civilization is way more effort than I could possibly put in.

Beyond the obvious desire to keep my teeth, which both the cleaning and the checking help with, I wanted the appointment because there was this weird ... thing on one of my teeth.  A sort of sharpish ridge where there really shouldn't be one.  it was a tooth that had been fixed, so I was worried that maybe part of a filling had come out or something.

It wasn't bothering me, besides worrying about what it could mean, and while it was the sharpest thing in my mouth it wasn't like it was going to cut my tongue.  But it was worrying me and it was weird and I wanted a professional to look at it and do something about it.

So we come to my appointment today.  I thought it was for tomorrow.  Oops.

So, they called to say I could come in early, I called back to say I'd be late but would be there.  It meant taking my bike.  My bike that hasn't seen use in a decade or so.

I inflated the tires (third pump I found worked) and headed out.  If all went well I should be ten minutes or less late.  First problem was roadwork.  There wasn't enough space to ride a bike.

Then the tires began losing air.  At least, I think that's what happened.  We'll get back to that.

So, passed the road work, semi-flat tires.

I haven't ridden a bike in a very long time.  I completely forgot that it requires the use of muscles that serve no purposed in the non-bike-riding world.

The state of the gears didn't help either.  The pedal gear could shift from medium to high difficulty-high reward, I have no idea what the fuck the rear ones were doing.  They only responded a little and there was no way to make them work properly.  The chain kept slipping.  Not off the gears, just failing to work right and ... slipping.  Like the experience of shifting gears without the gear shift to justify the turbulent moments where your peddling is for naught motion-wise

I missed I left turn I should have made.  God only knows how much that lengthened my trip.

It started raining.

I took a left turn I shouldn't have.  My body was spent before that point.  I was exhausted, I was dehydrated,  I hadn't eaten (but had, thankfully, remembered my medication.)

Already I had prayed various things that started with the word "please" at this point what followed had largely become meaningless.  "Please.  Please.   Please.  Please..."  Times beyond counting.

I found the road the dentist was on.  The very end of the road.  Good news: it meant that I knew which way to turn.  Bad news: it meant I had gone literally as far in the wrong direction as it was possible to go and still find the road.  Not figuratively, literally.  Literally-literally.

I my glasses were rained up and fogged up.  I had no coat.  I had to frequently take breaks from riding even on level ground.  When I got inside I was soaked and exhausted.

Also, I was finally in view of a clock.  I should have been ten minutes late.  I was 45 minutes late.  Of course I missed my appointment.  They had an opening in an hour and a half.  I just collapsed in a chair in the waiting room.

I actually got in earlier.  Someone was willing to take the later opening and let me have their time.

My teeth are fine.  The weird thing was apparently nothing to worry about, but it has been leveled out to get rid of weirdness.

I said that I'd get back to the tires on the bike.  On the way back they were well filled and stayed that way.  How?  I don't know.  Charitable bike fixing ninja, perhaps.

Of course, if my bike should ever reach the point it no longer functions as a bike, I do have a back up bike that doesn't work either.

How I would do it: Star Wars (the first one)

First off, casting.  A bunch of white guys and one woman isn't exactly what I'd call representative.

We should fix that.

Han Solo gets to be a woman.  C3PO and R2D2 (yes, someone did play R2) will have undefined gender and can thus be played by anyone.  Luke, Obi Wan, Vader, and Tarkin all remain male.  Leia remains female.

The Empire is made of space Nazis, they can stay white dudes.

[Added]

While not genocidal (the Death Star is akin to dropping a nuke; they've made no efforts to exterminate anyone) the Empire uses Nazi motifs too much for me to be comfortable casting, you know, people the Nazis tried to exterminate as Imperials.  Hence them staying white.

But Firedrake is definitely right about women.  Women can be Nazis.  Women were Nazis; women are neo-Nazis.  Star Wars is in a very different setting, there's no reason to assume sexism and there's already enough evil without it.  The Empire can be non-sexist evil.  Thus the Imperials should include as many women as men.

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The Rebellion, the people in Mos Eisley, and so forth, are not made of space Nazis.  The human extras in these places are split 50-50 male appearing female appearing (though androgynous people would be nice too) and the aliens where equivalent gender is apparent have the same split.  In these places (looking at rebels in canon) there would be a sizable representation of aliens.  (The Rebellion is supposed to be inclusive, so it should visibly include different people.)

Ok, that's casting.

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Epic movies now are allowed to have epic length.  Star Wars ran at almost exactly two hours.  The Fellowship of the Ring ran 57 minutes longer than Star Wars.

Added length allows for added depth.  More Owen and Beru, for example.  Also, rather than leaving their charred remains laying out in the light, bury them or cremate them (properly.)

The Death Star weakness makes no sense BUT if there were rebel infiltrators on the Death Star then it could make sense.  They've taken this exhaust port, quietly removed all of the safety measures, made a few modifications, and managed to get a straight line to the core.  Presumably they do it slowly and without raising suspicions.  Presumably it involved areas where you'd be checked for, you know, explosives, so they couldn't detonate it themselves.

It could even make the trench scene make sense.  If the saboteurs were only able to disable the defenses in a single area (approach vector for getting into the trench) then you'd need to stay low or be targeted by everything and definitely killed.  Why was it so distant from the target?  Even with the other safety features on the vent shafts (the ones the saboteurs disabled on the special one) the Empire still knew better than to leave the damn things unguarded and so the saboteurs had to settle for an approach vector at a distance.

Also, the "initiating firing sequence" thing.  It doesn't make sense either.  They know how long it takes to get in position, they should charge on the way so it's ready when they get there.

If, on the other hand, the firing was delayed because they had to repair sabotage, that makes some sense.

I'd have an explanation for why it came out of hyperspace on the wrong side of the planet and thus needed to circle.  For example: the jump of something that large is particularly taxing and leaves all defenses powered down so coming in close to potential planetary defenses or within range of fast but heavy hitting ships would be a bad idea, thus the trip around the planet.

This could be stated during the mission briefing on the Death Star.

Leia never mourns Alderaan.  What the fuck?  I don't pretend to know how people mourn in a galaxy far, far away (and certainly not how they did it a long time ago in said galaxy) but have her light some candles, say a prayer... something.

Blowing Alderaan up seems bullshit and stupid even by Imperial standards.  If it were pointed out that it was known to harbor rebels and hide behind its no weapons policy when called on it, then it would be an effective demonstration.  It would show that the post-Senate Empire wouldn't let bullshit stop it from holding rebel harborers accountable, even popular, traditionally immune from punishment planets were at risk, and the disproportionate nature of blowing up a fucking planet for allowing rebels safe haven (while not directly opposing the Empire) would encourage other planets to crack down hard on rebels for fear that if they didn't get rid of the rebels on their planet they'd be blown up too.

And Tarkin could say all of this in a menacing evil monologue, which would really make you understand how much of a game changer the Death Star is.

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Honestly, rebellion on the Death Star could probably be a movie in itself, and the added time would only allow for so much of that, but it would be nice to see some of it because I refuse to believe that a population that large has no one who opposes mass murder.

Presumably most of them thought the station would be a deterrent, not actually used, and definitely not on a planet like Alderaan.

Which is to say, rebel agents should be only part of the people fighting against the loyalists on the Death Star.

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I don't remember, did they say that they were giving Luke a ship because they needed them all in the sky and were short on pilots?  Because they should.  They should also have an explanation for why (e.g. a barracks at their last base was destroyed, really anything that would kill pilots while leaving the ships intact.)

Also, in some of the scenes that were cut, a friend from back home is featured (Biggs.)  He turns out to be a rebel pilot and the two are reunited when Luke comes to Yavin 4  He could vouch for Luke's piloting skill to help get him in a ship.

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And that, sort of, concludes it.  Star Wars is a simple story simply told so it doesn't need any huge changes.

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And, for those paying attention, yes, I did say that I'd try to have a Kim Possible decon post yesterday which is still not here today.  Sorry.

More on finances

If I were keeping schedules these days then tomorrow would be my regular reminder that I have a donate button (top right-hand corner of the blog) and benefit if you use it.  I'd also talk about the history of the month (no one knows where the name comes from, Ovid gives to explanations, the ides were yesterday.)

However, I've not been doing a good job of keeping to a schedule and there's something related to my finances that I wanted to talk about, so why wait?

A long time ago I came up against a situation where I needed a lot of money (about four thousand dollars) and I needed it right at that moment.  The alternative would have been very bad, especially mental-health-wise.  Not that it would have annihilated my brain or anything, but the healthy state of my mind these days never would have had a chance to even come about.

So I did something that I never thought I'd do: I got into credit card debt.  Heavily.

I've always been a big fan of living within your means because once you get into a hole it's hard as hell to get out.  A huge part of the reason we have perpetual poverty is that a lot of people don't have enough means to be able to live within them.  But I got lucky, I started in the middle class I live in my family's home, I got food stamps and SSI without the usual hoops.  I thought I could live within my means.

But this thing happened and I couldn't, so I made a gamble.  I bet that if I used a credit card to pay the $4,000 I needed there and there, I could survive devoting $100 dollars a month to it in perpetuity (in theory it would be paid off eventually, in practice usury takes forever to go away.)

The gamble paid off.  Things had been on the verge of tipping into a nigh unbreakable downward spiral and drowning in depression.  I was able to avoid that; I was able to get help.  Eventually the help even worked and, with a few exceptions, I am now like a mentally healthy person provided I have my meds.

But $4,000 in high interest debt has been hanging over my head ever since then.  I don't think I ever talked about this before.  I find it embarrassing, even shameful.

This past semester I had to drop out of almost everything (good news: the one class I stayed in I passed, A-) and my therapist recommended and supported me applying for a medical withdrawal which would give me a bit of a refund.  I was expecting a pittance, but it actually refunded everything paid for the classes I withdrew from.

I had dreams of finally getting out from under my $4,000 dollar burden.  It, wasn't actually enough though.

Payments have to go through and stuff, but I think it's going to drop to $2,000.  That's a lot better, but I had such hopes for escaping the usury.

Next month is, I think, when Social Securty starts deducting another $70 a month from what they pay me after dropping me $200 from what I actually need.  I have, at least, a temporary fix for the $200, but no idea how to cope with the $70.  If I'd been able to completely eliminate the debt on that card I wouldn't have to pay it every month which would cover the $70 with money to spare.  As is, not so much.

I've basically spent all of my available money paying down debt, which means that I have nothing to do for present expenses.  Of course, they're easy enough to pay by adding to the debt I was trying to eliminate.

Present expenses include $250 for the house, an upcoming dentist appointment (usually $200), and student loan payments because withdrawal from classes means that I won't be a full time student again until next semester, that's IF I get the money to go.

And that's what's on my mind at the moment.  Now I'm going to try to do a Kim Possible post.