4x00 "Walking Back to Houston"

[DavidG]

The extras for this one are concealed in the internets.

Here's one: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/moon-guard/Zaiyia/advanced

Zaiyia definitely looks like a character Hafidha would create.

And I notice that Zaiyia's latest "recent activity" is dated August 2. Somebody was playing her only a couple of weeks ago - and Hafs was at last word still locked away in Idlewood. And, if "Donation" is to be believed, she didn't get any WoW time when Chaz asked her to look up the recipients of Daphne's organs.

Veddy interestink ...

I think we were hitting keys in parallel. Not only was it accessed this month, before that it was last accessed in late March 2009, Hafs went off the Grid in May, 2009.

[DavidG]

"We'll decide together," Chaz promises.

"Pinky swear?"

Chaz holds his right hand up. Hafs links it.

After a moment, Daphne does, too.

Hafidha whispered, "You promised."

Chaz let his empty gun hand curl into her hair. Brady watched the braids dent under his grip, and looked down. The Glock in his hand felt like a feather. "I know, Wabbit. I know. I'm sorry."

The two contexts aren't quite perfect matches, Unicorn Evils is about not letting Bug win, Walking Back to Houston is about not letting on to Reyes, or worse, Celentano, quite what Chaz and Hafs in concert are capable of, but there's considerable overlap, and Walking Back to Houston fits into the episode sequence a bare month before Not Alone/Unicorn Evils

But still, pinky swear.

And now Chaz and Hafs are the only two who know.

[DavidG]

"Those Houston players would come to Dallas and play that ace-king, but they’d always end up against a pair of aces. That’s why we call that hand ‘Walking back to Houston."
From http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/walking_back_to_houston_ace_king_in_texas_holdem/

Looks like Hafs was holding Aces. Anyone want to bet James Vlasak grew up in Houston?

[Elizabeth Bear]

Looks like Hafs was holding Aces.

In fact? A pair of aces.

Somebody gets a gold star.

[Edmund Schweppe]

The extras for this one are concealed in the internets.

Here's one: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/moon-guard/Zaiyia/advanced

Zaiyia definitely looks like a character Hafidha would create.

And I notice that Zaiyia's latest "recent activity" is dated August 2. Somebody was playing her only a couple of weeks ago - and Hafs was at last word still locked away in Idlewood. And, if "Donation" is to be believed, she didn't get any WoW time when Chaz asked her to look up the recipients of Daphne's organs.

Veddy interestink ...

I think we were hitting keys in parallel. Not only was it accessed this month, before that it was last accessed in late March 2009,

And guess what? "Walking Back to Houston" is dated March 2009.

Hafs went off the Grid in May, 2009.

And into Idlewood shortly thereafter.

[tylik]

And Donation is undated, but probably early June-ish.

So its possible that a lot has happened in these months.

For all that the circumstances are often pretty awful, Hafs' rehabilitation seems to be trudging along. Even without DBS she's able to function when she is motivated enough - I doubt she could keep it together on her own as things stand, but Chaz is a pretty effective check on her, and being able to help and to do things, is clearly motivating for her. Maybe this becomes an official part of her therapy? Maybe she goes for electrode implantation? (I'd like to see more of her folks... because they're another part of this story.)

[Edmund Schweppe]

Huh. Chaz and Hafidha first did their power-merge bit on April 13, 2009, in "Jellybeans".¹ But "Walking Back to Houston" is dated March, 2009. I wonder if that's an typo², or if the events in WBtH were stretched out over a month or so?

¹We can pinpoint the date because it's the same day Reyes gave him the picture of Adeline Villette in "Ghost", about which Chaz blogged.
²In which case, the PTB should check to see if Duane the incompetent copyeditor has slipped back into the office.

[Lioness]

I loved this episode for altogether too many shiny reasons. Now I have to read it again.

[jeffy]

Really enjoyed the episode. Nicely done, Ms. Polk.

[nebula]

Lovely job. Made me smile and then be wistful. I hadn't realised how much I had missed scenes like that.

[DavidG]

Lovely job. Made me smile and then be wistful. I hadn't realised how much I had missed scenes like that.

This.

[jeffy]

Re-read this yesterday from the ebook and this passage jumped out at me:

Hafidha sets some searchbots to trawl for businesses in the area that sell a particular brand of barber scissors while she references records from seven different school boards, looking for disciplinary records involving forced hair cutting in 1991. She's reading about a gang of football players who overpowered a punk and hacked off his acid green liberty spikes. It's not a match for the profile, which indicates that the victim would have been female. But the mohawk story distracts her, because it's probably confirmation of a legend she knows from back in the FIDOnet days.

Because since the episode aired, this story about Mitt Romney made the news:

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

This is the candidate who's apparently leading in the  polls at the moment. WTF.