(I hate Kylo Emo Ren with the fire of a billion suns so fair warning.)
The thing is that the Force shimmers around her like starlight but she’s not…quite a Jedi.
Her brother despises her and pretends she doesn’t exist because she is a living reminder of that “weakness” in him. He wants to claim his powerful legendary Skywalker bloodline.
Pfft. She thinks he’s full of bantha poodoo.
Now Uncle Luke really just sat her down one day and had a lovely long talk with her and he finally had this Eureka Moment™ due to Certain Observations that he has had about his buddy Han a long time ago.
Uncle Luke laughed his ass off for days.
She’s a crack shot and she’s got her father’s luck. She flies ships like nobody’s business but she gets that from both sides of the family tree so Dad and Ghost Grandad can be both proud.
(Yeah, she sees Grandpa Garbage Can skulking around. He’s more fun than one would think)
She picks up a name for herself because that’s what Dad did so she’s Billie Rogue to the galaxy. She’s a pirate. She can outfly, outshoot, outwit and outfox anybody. Slavers are a favorite target. She hates what they do to sentient beings with every fiber of her being.
The Force whispers to her and she listens with her heart and her soul and her gut and that is how she can walk out of any scrape.
In fact, the Force has whispered to Han all the days of his life. It kept him alive and got him out of impossible situations no one else could survive. It’s a gift that has passed on this daughter.
(His son ignores this willfully. It will be his doom and downfall in the end.)
Her best friend and co pilot is an Ewok. Mind you, people who underestimate the Ewok soon find out that Cute can be literally deadly.
Billie Rogue’s adventures are just beginning. In fact, there’s a little matter of finding herself a new ship to fly.
(The Falcon has too many painful memories now that Dad is gone. She wishes Rey the best with it.)
And there is going to be a Day of Reckoning with her foolish brother.
I wrote a short vaguely historical vaguely spooky ghost story about Jews and burial rites and I have to justify it existing so here it is.
“Are you the leader of the Jews?”
There was no good that ever came from that question. Rabbi Jacob stood in the doorway, one hand on the knob and the other on the frame, ready to yank it closed at a moment’s notice.
“Well, not all of the Jews.”
The man at the door made a frustrated little grunt. He was clad almost completely in dark grey clothing that seemed to fade into the shadows of the darkened street behind him. The collar of his coat was pulled up so high that it was impossible to make out more than a pair of sharp grey eyes beneath the brim of his hat, and the cloak he wore over the top of it concealed most of his body. There could be any number of guns, knives, or angry mobs hidden under there.
“But the ones in this town, yes? You are their priest, you lead prayers and weddings and so on?” the man said impatiently.
“Rabbi. Yes. I’m the rabbi, that’s correct.” Jacob said, stiffening his posture and assuming the most neutral expression he could manage. Being completely ignorant didn’t exclude someone from being completely dangerous–if anything, that heightened the risk. “What can I do for you?”
“Rabbi,” the man repeated, as if to seal it into his memory properly. One gloved hand squeezed the pommel of his walking stick. “And you preside over the funerals of your people, and perform the rites to send them to the next world?”
“Yyyyyes?” Jacob shifted his weight to his back foot, poised to slam the door in his face. This sounded unpleasantly like an opening for a death threat.
“To any of them, regardless of the sins they carried in life?” An eagerness entered the man’s voice.
“Of course. Though sin as a Jewish concept differs from the Christian…mm. Yes, of course.” The scholars of old might have debated the nature of the evil in men’s souls until the crack of dawn but Jacob had no intention of doing so at half-past midnight with a complete stranger.
The shadowed man took a half step forward and Jacob leaned back to maintain the distance between him. “What about a gentile?” the man pressed. “Would you tend to his corpse too?”
“Huh?”
“There is a man needing to be buried tonight who requires absolution. He is not a Jew, but a Jew’s prayers may be close enough for what is needed.”
“Um. It’s not usually a request I get.” Jacob tried to keep his voice calm and soothing. There was some kind of entrapment lingering in the conversation, he just knew it. That or a giant box of crazy that had managed to dress itself stylishly. Gentiles asking Jews intrusive but urgent questions never turned out well for their target–a day-long case of irritation was the best outcome the target could hope for.
The man’s hands pressed together as he completed the full step forward, making Jacob back up into the doorframe. Desperation was in his tone and Jacob was forced back over the threshold just to stay out of his grip “All I need is someone to accompany me to the cemetery to consecrate the body and pray for its soul. Barely an hour of your time. I cannot pay you with anything but my gratitude, but you will have it eternally.”
“And you came to me?”
The man sighed. Even the top hat seemed to slouch slightly as his body slumped. “I have asked every holy man in the city, Catholic and Protestant alike, and they have refused to come to the cemetery,“ he bemoaned. “The last one told me to visit you. Likely a ploy to make me leave faster, but you are all I have left.”
“What did this man do, that so many people refused him? Who was he?”
The man at the door hesitated. The sharp eyes vanished as his eyelids slid down, and then appeared a few moments later.
“Must you ask?” he said quietly. “Is it not enough that it is a corpse which can do no man harm any longer, and you will lose nothing but a half-night of sleep?”
The inside of Jacob’s head was ringing with warning bells like the frantic clanging of gongs announcing a fire. He swallowed and tried to ignore them.
“You say he wasn’t Jewish?”
“He was not…much of anything. He felt God had no interest in him, and returned a lack of interest in kind. Perhaps if he had been more attentive he wouldn’t lie in a pauper’s grave…or perhaps he would have not changed a whit.” The man’s voice was bitter and the sharp eyes briefly looked away from Jacob, to Jacob’s deep relief.
“Who was this man, to you?” he asked.
“Close. I would prefer to say no more. Please, rabbi. It must be done, and it must be tonight.”
Seminary did not prepare me for this, Jacob thought, and then thought again. There is absolutely something in the Talmud about this and I’ve just forgotten it, because I’m an idiot and I’m half asleep and there is a goy on my doorstep asking me to go out to the cemetery with him at midnight to bury a man whose name he won’t tell me.
“Look, I’ll need someone to help dig the grave.”
“Of course.”
“And a coffin. A plain pine box. And I’ll need to get my supplies from the–”
“But you’ll do it?” said the man excitedly, standing up even taller. “And do it tonight, before the cock crows?”
Jacob held up his hands to keep the man from getting even further into his personal space. “Fine. Yes. Give me half an hour and a lazy rooster.”
The cloak almost seem to inflate as the man gasped for joy. He grabbed Jacob’s hands and shook both with enthusiasm, sending Jacob stumbling. “Thank God for you, my good rabbit! Whatever God there is, thank God for you!”
The man ran off into the shadowed streets and was out of sight almost immediately.
Jacob’s hands slowly fell back to his side as he mumbled, “Rabbi,” to the darkness.
My wife is going to kill me if whatever’s at the cemetery doesn’t.
Federal employees missed their first paycheck last week; from here on
in, every milestone dramatically exacerbates the pain of the shutdown: a
halt to aviation as TSA screeners quit en masse, civil cases stall in
federal courts, 38 million hungry Americans denied food stamps and 10%
of food sales in the US vanishing; deals expiring with the landlords of
40,000 low income households; then 2.2 million more households are
imperiled; landlords renting to federal agencies will go without rent
but won’t be able to evict federal tenants, triggering mortgage and debt
defaults; prison guards go from today’s skeleton crew to near-total
absenteeism; city buses stop running as Federal Transport Agency
payments dry up; drugs fall out of the FDA pipeline, denying medication
to ill and dying people; and of course, every IPO is stalled (and maybe
DOA) for so long as the shutdown continues.
All this to keep a racist promise to build a useless wall.
Motherboard’s blockbuster story
about mobile carriers selling your realtime location data into a
marketplace where bounty hunters and other villains can buy it for just a
few dollars has triggered an urgent, national conversation about the
fact that, in the year since the first stories about this emerged, the
carriers have not only failed to live up to their promises to put a stop
to it, but seem to have made it even worse.
So naturally, the Congressional committee that oversees the FCC – which
regulates the carriers – wants to be briefed on this so that they can
do their job, serve the American people, and get this situation under
control.
But to do that, they need to hear from Ajit Pai, the former Verizon
executive whom Donald Trump installed as Chairman of the FCC. And Pai
says he’s staying in his office with his giant novelty Reese’s mug, and
Congress can go fuck themselves, because there’s a shutdown on, and this
isn’t “a threat to safety.”
What’s more, the FCC committee that has been investigating this issue
has stopped all work, because again, having the location of every US
cellular phone owner being tracked in realtime and sold for a few
dollars to any scumbag with a credit card “is not a threat to safety.”
If you told me that in 2019 the government would have been shutdown for over 20 days because of the wall funding AND that Clemson not only won the Championship BUT the President of the United States would serve them McDonalds, Wendys. Burger King and Pizza Hut…I would not have believed you. Its straight up, like an article from theonion
Imagine winning the championship and you’re invited to the white house only to walk into the room to find cold fast food had been served. I mean COME ON
They’ve got fine china and this poor guy is struggling to pick up a piece of pizza with…tongs. THEY DIDN’T EVEN TAKE ANYTHING OUT OF THE BOX
At the same time this is sad, disrespectful and trashy but like…I find it hilarious that this even happened.
EDIT: I CAN’T BREATHE THEY PUT THE PACKETS OF SAUCES IN THESE FANCY DISHES
his big brag for this one was he “paid for all the food himself” because the white house cooks are furloughed (because of him you know) but are you telling me that this dude who is supposedly a billionaire couldnt afford to pay a few chefs for the night? my dude that is fucked
Is The Onion still in business because the world is one major shitpost already. What are they gonna do? Write real news?
apparently Whoopi Goldberg headcanons that 1.) Guinan is Jean Luc Picard’s distant ancestor and 2.) she and Q used to hook up
which suggests the possibility that Q is Picard’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, who decided to introduce himself to his grandson by putting him on trial for the crimes of all humanity, and that’s why he’s Like That
I just rewatched the series and I know two things about Guinan for sure:
1) she and Q are absolutely exes, and
2) Q is scared shitless of her because she’s something powerful. When he flashes himself and Picard into Ten Forward, she lifts both hands to strike and he recoils into the bulkhead and starts shrilly demanding that Picard rid the ship of her that instant. She is not afraid of him at all, not even the small, healthy amount that Picard is.
the face of an unfathomly ancient and powerful grandma who knows all about the mean pranks you’ve been playing on her grandson
