Working on the Bechdel-Wallace Test

The sites I come for distraction inspiration served up a higher order of ‘man in a machine’ type pictures this past week.  Ironmany and Mech-Wars type battle suits abide in artist’s minds these days.  Or there’s some sort of powered armor confluence.

You don’t know this, but often times when I’m inspired by some subject I latch on to it locally, think about it a lot, worldbuild a bit or a lot, and then serve up a tangent to you.  Recall that Honga thing a few weeks back?

“Wouldn’t they just send a Re-Train For memo?”

“An RTFM was the first thing they tried.”

Corporal Jilla Sanchez was supposed to be trained—supposed to be getting trained.  Gunnery Sergeant Mary Wittenhauer was reluctant to do so.

Wittenhauer’s day started early at 4:53, seven minutes before her alarm normally went off.  With nearly 14 years in she still loathed mornings.

Shit.  Sometimes it’s hard to get something like this packed up and loaded for the road.  Maybe I’ll steal time and wirds at lunch.
—
I forgot I’d left this abandoned on Friday.  It’s abandonment surprises me as well since Friday played out like I should have written more.
Let’s see if I can pick up where I left off.  Or begin again.

“It’s fucked up is what it is.”  Corporal Jilla Sanchez whispered across the table like she was continuing a conversation and not starting one.

After a moment, Corporal Nicki S. Pastovich pretended to end that same conversation.  “We’re Marines now.  “Fucked up” is our middle name.”

Sanchez flipped several pages of the 3-ring binder hoping to find a clue, but only finding frustration in navigating the rings and the holes and the whole paper thing.  “Fine.  But this,” Sanchez stretches a page to the extent of it’s tether and waves it back and forth like she’s jump starting a hummingbird, “this is for sure some bullshit.”

Nods up and down the table confirm her statement.

“How do they expect us to operate a Pa-PA without any real training?”

“You don’t thing reading the operating doc is real training?”

“No, I don’t.  But this shit ain’t no doc.  It’s a book or a manual or a binder someone called it.  We may as well be training with rocks and sticks.  The only time I’ve seen paper was when I got married.

Day 282/283