OOC: Character App
Your name/crazy internet handle/whatever: Jasper!
Personal journal: mind_the_tardis
Characters played (if applicable): None yet.
Character name: Luduan (real name John Bonehill).
Genre (TV/books/etc): Original character!
Fandom: The universe inside me head.
Canon point: Before the novel he is supposed to one day be part of. And maybe even the main pov character for! We'll see.
Programmed Possession: His black labrador, Nostradamus. Nos is dog-middle-aged. Nos is silly. Nos barks a lot and loves EVERYBODY. And food. He loves food. Oh, and tennis balls.
Abilities/Weaknesses: Lu has no abilities beyond the normal human baseline. He has a talent for reading people-their facial expressions, their body language, the way they speak-that gives him some insight into what they're thinking or feeling. It's nothing preternatural or even particularly unusual-it's part of his work to pay very careful attention to the clues people give him, both intentionally and unintentionally, on their inner state of mind. He's good at people-watching and observing and also good at doing it without *seeming like* he's doing it. No creepy staring or hyper-intentness. He pays attention, that's all, and he sets the stage so that people open themselves up a little more than they might normally. Lu also has a working knowledge of divining practices, both historical and contemporary, with a focus on tarot. As far as weaknesses? He's afraid of spiders and has poor-ish eyesight-he wears contacts for near-sightedness. He can see without them, he's just not 20/20. And he never wears glasses. Glasses are too geeky, thanks, they don't match the image.
Oh, and he also has extensive knowledge of Star Wars canon and everything surrounding the Alien films. He even has some basic fencing and broadsword-style swordfighting abilities, picked up from participation in the Society for Creative Anachronism and a lot of fanboying lightsaber duels. He knows a very, very little about rock climbing, courtesy of his boyfriend, Robert Franklin, too. Also, drugs, neopaganism, and body modification (particularly temporary piercing, including suspension-he knows a lot about them. Not that he'll go around telling people that at the drop of a hat.
Psychology/Personality: Lu's spent much of his life doing two things: rebelling and Looking for Something, in the way people look when they don't know what they're looking for. To the outside observer, it would likely look like he did more of the former than the latter, but that's not actually true. He's made some big mistakes in his life and been involved in scenes and activities that a lot of people would see as adolescent down-with-the-man or emotionally-disturbed self-harming-and, yes, there's been some of both in his life and his motivations-but he has been, for years, a searcher and a drifter. If you wanted to be dramatic about it, you could even say a pilgrim. The youngest kid and only guy in a family made up of a single mom and three sisters, estranged from his father, catching flack and losing friends for being gay in middle and high school, Lu's always felt, on the one hand, that he has to be who he is, and, on the other, that he's failing expectations of him. He was the "man of the family," but he was always the baby, unable to help as much as any of his sisters; he's made mistakes his siblings never have; his father died before Lu could establish any connection with him. He's always the one too late or too young or falling behind. To compensate, he tends to pretend to self-suffiiciency, to not ask for help when he might need it, to be confrontational and provocative regarding his differences (always dressing in black/Goth; never taking out his piercings; being overt and demonstrative when out on dates, if it looks like people watching disapprove of gay couples; never playing down or laughing off what he does for a living), and to be very quick to leap to the defense of anyone he cares about, be they family or loved ones (or even his dog). He'll get into a fight, fast and eagerly, if someone insults or hurts someone he cares about, or tries to victimize either those loved ones or himself-physical fights, including ones in which he's Very Much Outnumbered or Outgunned. This is also linked in with his awareness of his sexual identity-you never insinuate he's effeminate or a wimp, just because he's gay. He's neither, and he's damned touchy about it.
But back to the searching.
Lu doesn't, exactly, believe in metaphysics, even though, as a tarot reader, he works at what many people would consider fortunetelling for a living. Neither did he ever fully believe in any of the neopagan practices he took part in, or the other divining methods he's studied. He believes in them as a narrative people tell, a framework for trying to make sense of the world and to live within it. In that sense, to him, "magic" and symbolism are just as valid as science and the objective; they don't exclude each other, they complement. Or, perhaps more accurately, neither exists and both exist at the same time. Both mysticism and science seek to describe the universe, to predict it, and to control it. Science works well on a physical level and can also on a spiritual/emotional level; however, often, people need a little bit of "magic" to survive emotionally/spiritually, be it magic lightly disguised with science or magic presented outright as magic. Lu gives people magic when they need it, stories they can tell themselves and fit themselves into, and points them towards science (professional physicians and psychiatrists, for instance), when he thinks that's what they need instead or in addition to. He doesn't see anything wrong with this or anything contradictory. He's very careful to keep his readings from becoming dangerously, unethically prescriptive and specific and pays a lot of attention to his querents' emotional and mental states when reading.
He's done a lot of searching, himself, looking for meaning, for his own story, looking to achieve some kind of heightened awareness or experience something beyond and above the ordinary. He's explored neopaganism, roleplayed and LARPed, practiced temporary piercing, experimented widely and at length with any number of drugs associated with vision quests and spiritual enlightenment, gotten into suspension, associated and marked himself deliberately as a member of several fringe subcultures. He's taken some of these to the point of developing dependency and crashing and burning, hurting both himself and his family, and is now more careful when searching. He's beginning to understand that desperation isn't the way to go about trying to find meaning and a place in life, and that, when you're searching, you sometimes need someone there with you, to tell you if you're losing yourself or going too far. When your entire life becomes about trying to make things right *for yourself,* you can self-destruct, self-absorb, like a black hole, your view of the universe growing ever smaller and more self-focused, destroying yourself and pulling in those around you. So you need others to help you and others to care for. Lu's work lets him be, to a limited degree, the person there to help others; and his dog, Nos (and, recently, his boyfriend, Rob), have been those there to help him and to give him personal connections to care for.
Off the job, Lu is goofy, casual, and, when he can manage it, charming. He has a quick sense of humor, which can be sly and sideways, at times, and a very good eye for people. He's not shy and doesn't mind approaching or being around people he doesn't know, but he tends not to form lasting relationships-a quick conversation, some hanging out, a brief relationship, are the usual extent of his social contacts. If he feels the need to pry into other people's business (which he does, occasionally), he won't do so directly, but will use his cards to draw them out, through an impromptu reading; mostly, he lets people go, letting them hide or downplay whatever they choose to. Prying is only for people he thinks really need help and/or whom he really cares about. As mentioned earlier, he can be provocative and confrontational around people he dislikes or who visibly disapprove of him or those he cares about, and will provoke (though never directly initiate) fights. He's open-minded about practices and beliefs that differ from his own, except where he sees those practices and beliefs as dogmatic, close-minded, or harmful, to their holder or to others. He doesn't like people prying into his own life and will tend to get quiet and resort to Very Short Sentences if anyone tries to quiz him. There's no reason for people to hear about his problems. No one wants to hear about his old problems, that's the world's dullest topic.
On the job, Lu is Professional. He doesn't have a lot of money (really. At all.), and anything he can spare (and sometimes more), goes back into his business, including appearances/clothing. He wears romantic-Gothic-cut black suits while working, usually accented with one piece of jewelry (not counting the assortment of ear hardware)-something silver or with a bold, jeweled-toned stone (he's something of a jewelry whore-which amuses Rob, who occasionally gives him jewelry as gifts. This makes Lu flail a bit. Eee, gifts, awkward. But awesome?). He takes the reading entirely seriously, listening to and watching his querent sincerely, fully, and sympathetically. Any reading is always entirely about the querent, never about Lu, and he'll use questions and promptings to draw out their own thoughts on the cards, in addition to his own. Any information he learns in a reading, he will never bring up outside of a consultation (even for people he knows, and for "unofficial" readings, away from his business); if any querent seems in need of medical or psychiatric care, he will direct them to acquire it. He's extraordinarily conscientious about his work. He makes a point of keeping up on the psychic "scene" around DC-anyone new who opens up shop, he schedules an appointment with and susses out. Any "psychic" whom he decides is unethical or careless, he'll have nothing to do with, once he's labeled them as such; people who are good at the work, on the other hand, he respects and networks with. He's almost a vigilante about this. You don't hurt people on his turf with irresponsible reading. He'll read, off work, for his friends and loved ones if he thinks they need help making a decision or aren't looking at something about the situation or themselves clearly.
Lu loves animals. He has a not-so-secret love for dogs, in particular (AW, NOS), but will go for anything fluffy and cute. Part of this goes with the Goth subculture (there's a certain tendency to mix the treacly cute, like Hello Kitty, with the black and macabre), but most of it's just him. Animals! Are awesome. Everyone should have pets, and he's devoted to his. Nos is spectacular. If you get the man in a pet store and hand him, say, a bunny, he will turn all squishy and quiet and gentle. He's not so into anything non-mammalian, but birds can be pretty neat.
He still uses some drugs (he grows salvia) and would probably still suspend, if he could find someone he trusted to set him up-but these things don't dominate his life anymore. He hates it when people condemn a practice outright-it's all about finding the right balance, not about giving something up entirely and out-of-hand. He is, however, very careful about getting anyone else into the things he's into.
He's also a geek and unashamed of this fact. Geeks should not be ashamed of their geekery! He has nothing to hide. He loves Star Wars, reads Qui-gon/Obi-wan slash, owns a collector's replica of Qui-gon's lightsaber, and decorates with Aliens and Evil Dead movie posters. This is Perfectly Acceptable decor.
He objects to sleep and is a workaholic (though he doesn't make a show of this). He has no problem with chugging gamers' energy drinks all night to keep himself awake and will abuse the hell out of his body in order to get work done. Hey, it's nothing compared to what he's already done to it.
History: Lu was born John Bonehill, the youngest of four children. His mother and father were an optometrist and a private-practice general physician, respectively; they married when his mother was 30 and his father 36, and had their first child, John's sister Joan, a year later. His mother gave up her practice to bring up the children-Rebecca, his second sister, was born the next year and Dana, his third, two years after that. By this point, friction had sprung up between his mother and his father. Though she loved her children, John's mother was unhappy with playing the housewife and regretted giving up her career and practice; John's father had very little to do with any of the children and kept to his work, emotionally distant and detached, and awkward when he attempted to interact with the rest of the family-more and more the outsider in his own home. John was born just as this friction reached its peak, three years after Dana-he was, in some ways, a last-ditch attempt to bring the family together, for both parents to try to meet and resolve their differences over another child. It didn't work. His mother and father divorced when he was 2, after 7 years of marriage. Though his father paid child support right on time, this still left John's mother scrambling for work-by choice more than by any official arrangement, on the part of both the children and the parents, all four of the kids spent almost all of their time living with their mother, and she had to carry much of the daily burden of support. She found a job as an assistant in an optometrist's office, and John and his sisters, as they grew old enough to do so, all took part-time jobs of their own to help support the family.
John, being the baby, was often handed off to his sisters to take care of, once they were old enough to do so. He was always the youngest, the baby, the one who needed taking care of or who wasn't quite old enough to help the family out properly, and, even as an adult, as Lu, he still feels that. He was the only guy-he should have been the "man of the house," helping out his mother and his sisters, but his place in the family chronology prevented him from ever really doing so. On the other hand, this means he has a very strong bond with his sisters, particularly Dana, the next-youngest. His mother and sisters aren't just family; they're Family. They're (almost) the most important people in his life.
John's childhood went, despite the divorce and the financial difficulties of his family, pretty well. He and his siblings never managed to connect properly with their father, a distant, socially awkward, alien figure whom they saw most often when they were sick or checking in for their yearly physicals. In elementary school, he mingled well with the other kids, always performing average or above-average, as his interest dictated (never a devoted student, he had no problem, at any level of school, with doing the very bare minimum if the subject didn't interest him). He made some close friends, a group of three other boys who stayed friends all through elementary and into middle school, gaining and losing auxiliary members, but never losing any of the Core Four. They provided him with an escape from his sisters and mother, the watchful eyes of female Authority, and he spent most of his afternoons getting into trouble with them-or doing nothing much at all, playing video games and watching movies and biking around town, loitering and roughhousing. He played the role of the Quiet One, though he had a snide, sharp sense of humor and a good eye for people that made him "cool."
In middle school, life got harder for John. As he got older, he realized that he didn't just care for one of the boys in the Four as a friend-it was something different. He'd joined in the whole talking about girls and ogling and fantasizing routine with the rest of them, but it was just talk. It let him take part in the banter and remain accepted, no great sacrifice and no harm done. But time went on, and he couldn't ignore his attraction to Evan. Finally, one evening, after the other two guys had headed out and it was just Evan and John playing old-school TMNT: Turtles in Time in the basement at Evan's house, with Evan starting to nod off as they played, he leaned in and kissed Evan. It wasn't much-on the cheek, even, not on the lips-but definitely enough to wake Evan up and confuse the hell out of him. The awkwardness resulted in John leaving right after, heading home angry and ashamed and exhilarated and scared and hopeful and disappointed all at once. The next day, neither he nor Evan brought it up, and Evan began being awkward when John was around, not completely at ease-and vice-versa. Finally, one of the other guys must have asked Evan what was up, because soon all three of the others were awkward around John, and one of them confronted him on it, angry and disgusted. Soon word went around, and school went from a minimal inconvenience, getting in the way of important things like sleep and video games, to an ordeal. He fell out of the Four, not so much an organized push on their part as a defensive, thorny withdrawal on his, and spent the rest of middle and high school as the loner, the kid at the back of the classroom who's smart and decent-looking and witty but who dresses oddly and draws weird sketches in his notebooks, of bleeding hearts and Cthulhuian creatures and crucified kittens. This was when he first started getting into Goth subculture, very superficially, in the angsty teenager Hot-Topic-mall-Goth way.
His next-oldest sister, the one closest in age to him, Dana, picked up on his confusion and distress, while his other sisters were busy frowning at him and wondering why he'd suddenly turned into such a prickly, hostile, keeps-to-himself, wears-all-black, pseudo-edgy ass and his mother tried to talk to his father about it and to him, but never managed to find quite enough time around work and, after all, his grades were still fair, if not good, and he didn't seem to be doing drugs or anything too fringe. But back to Dana. She'd had her own hard time in high school-drawn to fringe culture not out of rejection, but rejected because she was drawn to fringe culture. As a young girl, she'd been drawn to fantasy and play and storywriting and the outdoors-as she got older, her interests turned in the "teen witch" direction, and she immersed herself in wicca, her own brand of feminism, and SCA and Renn Faire culture. After suffering the loner role in high school for a while, she pushed to make friends and find herself a community beyond school, in which she would be accepted, and managed to do this quite successfully, though not without a lot of hard work. Going to college helped-as a commuter student to a nearby university, this didn't prevent her from keeping in touch with John. When she saw him in distress similar to her own high school dilemma, she took an interest and managed to draw out what was wrong, long before he came out to the rest of his family (he would do that when he graduated from high school). To keep him busy and give him people to hang out with and things to do other than mope and withdrew further, she took him along with her to Renn Faires, conventions, SCA meetings, and coven rituals. He found the signs and symbols of these fringe cultural groups and locations grounding and fascinating, and enjoyed the ease of acceptance, particularly in regards to sexuality, that often accompanied these gatherings. He started going out on his own, without Dana, finding events that appealed to him to attend, and became further and more seriously involved in Goth subculture and in exploring divining, particularly tarot, which he first encountered at a Renn Faire with Dana. The more time he spent out on his own, the more he drifted towards the fringe of the fringe; this didn't go too far in high school, only veering into smoking (it looks bad-ass), drinking, and low-impact recreational drugs, including marijuana, but it would go further later in his life.
Near the end of his senior year, he got a tattoo on his upper right arm, symbolic of his birth sign and its tarot and elemental associations-an upright triangle/pyramid, fronted by a pair of scales balanced on the point of a sword. (When he goes into tarot professionally, as Luduan, he continues to use this combination symbol as his "calling card"-it appears on his business card and other business advertisements.) He also got several piercings in his right ear. Oh, and came out. To his immediate family, the people he was living with-which meant his two sisters who didn't yet know and his mother, leaving it to family osmosis for his father to hear. They all took it well-or, at least, calmly, though he's still, even today, not sure if his mother's actually okay with it or just talking the talk well.
He graduated with middling-fair grades and, after a year spent working retail (hooray) and searching for scholarships, went on to college-counter-cultural he might be, but he was still sensitive to the pressure from family and society to "do the right thing" and get a degree. Also, he wanted to get away from home, and college, supported partially by his parents and partially by scholarship, seemed like a nice alternative to actual I-have-to-work-for-a-living adulthood. At college, he was really properly away from his family for the first time in his life, and away from his high school acquaintances-able to fit himself into an entirely new group of people, with no preconceptions about him. He found a place in the campus' GLBT community and its geek and Goth subcultures, finding a place in the neopagan community, as well. He made friends, formed quick on-again-off-again there-and-gone relationships, and continued to read for his friends, to entertain others, and for a spare buck here and there. Meanwhile, he fell into an anthropology degree, as he racked up classes on cultural movements, gender studies, religions, and history-as well as a few on physics and astronomy. However, as time went on, without Dana there to watch him and occasionally pull him back, he went further and further fringe, seeking out neopagan groups that emphasized drug use, including psychedelics (peyote, ayahuasca, harmal/Syrian rue, other plants with DMT, salvia, mushrooms, acid/LSD, even ibogaine, any variety of entheogens). Despite a few bad trips and leaving himself vulnerable in situations that, sober, would have left him, at the least, uncomfortable, he kept coming back to these groups and began using on his own time, alone, especially when under emotional stress. During this time period, John took Luduan, the name of a Chinese mythical creature with the ability to sense truth, as his "craft name." He also got his ear project, in his left ear, during college.
Despite his growing dependency on drugs, John managed to graduate with a B.A. in anthropology, and promptly found himself without work. Uninterested in the careers that his degree made available to him and unwilling to alter his behavior and appearance to fit entry-level work, he drifted, intermittently employed, for a year, until Dana stepped in to save the day, again, hooking him up with a married couple she knew who owned and operated a New Age shop/divining service in Providence, RI. With the switch in location, Lu took the opportunity to change over to calling himself by his craft name regularly, and stopped using his birth name entirely, both given name and surname. He worked as an assistant to the couple-an older couple, very grounded and not part of any particular "scene," but devoted to their work-and learned a great deal about reading as a professional, including ethics and techniques for assessing a querent and running a business. Meanwhile, he continued to indulge in drug culture, taking weekends away from Rhode Island so he could travel to more active centers of Goth, neopaganism, and related subcultures, looking for those on the side, the experimenters. He finally found his way into body modification, specifically suspension, the practice of hanging oneself from hooks set into one's skin, and temporary piercing.
During his first year of work in Rhode Island, his father died of sudden heart failure. Lu had never made peace with his relationship with his father, which had always remained distant and awkward and uncomprehending on both sides; he wasn't even sure anyone had ever told his dad that he'd come out. The two of them had certainly never talked about it. His father's death left him with a lot of unresolved issues and unanswered questions, and now he'd never be able to work those out properly, face to face. He blew off the funeral, failing to show up, which left him in hot water with his sisters (his mother left him alone about it); he solved this problem by ignoring their phone calls. In the weeks that followed, his drug habit skyrocketed, leaving him useless at work (when he decided to show up), and he sought out every opportunity he could to suspend, without leaving his body any time to heal between suspensions. Finally, he ran out of people he trusted who were willing to carry out the suspension, and turned to anyone he could find. One night, he had the procedure carried out by people who were just as high as he was, and when the poorly-placed hooks ripped out of his skin and he began losing blood, they panicked and left him, semi-conscious, to bleed out. Fortunately, everyone at the gathering wasn't quite as far gone as Lu or the suspension "artists," and he was found, bleeding, unconscious, and in shock, and dropped at a local ER-no one at the scene had known him, and no one stayed with him, afraid of questions being asked. When he regained consciousness, his family was there, and doctors, and he was in pretty damned bad shape, stitches all up and down his back. The gear used hadn't been clean, and he had to stay in the hospital to deal with infection and complications, though he eventually recovered. In the meantime, his family continued to visit him, mostly to stand about and seem lost or puzzled or yell at him and condemn him or alternate between the two. Dana blamed herself, for introducing him to the subcultures in the first place, and she blamed him for abusing them. He spent a lot of time thinking, because there's not much else to do in the hospital, reading (in the book sense), reading (in the cards sense, for others in the hospital, to pass the time), and trying to fix the gaps he'd managed to wedge between himself and his family. By the time he got out, he'd healed things over, mostly, with Dana, at least; and he'd also discovered that dogs were pretty awesome-the hospital brought therapy dogs through the wards, occasionally.
Once he was out, the first thing he did was get himself a dog, a black labrador that he called Nostradamus. The second thing he did was find a city without much of a scene and away from his family, and move there. He wanted to make a start for himself, properly, finally, and make the parts of his life that he valued work for him, without hurting him or other people. DC seemed a pretty dull straight-laced type of place, not too close to his family and not ridiculously, rebelliously far away, so he went there.
He's spent four years establishing a reading practice, in a not-very-good section of the city, hurting for money almost the entire time but determined to make it work. Things are finally looking up-he's beginning to bring in clients from all across the city-including people like Robert Franklin, a DC museum/art lawyer who'd never been read before and scheduled a reading with Lu thinking he was Chinese (Rob's convinced that Chinese mysticism, the I Ching, feng shui, etc., is the real deal). Despite Lu's turning out to be disappointingly Caucasian, Rob was fascinated by the reading (and by Lu, who by this point was managing a balance of counter-culture and professionalism) and kept coming back. Eventually, the two of them angled into dating, after much dancing around, and have been developing a relationship that, to their mutual surprise, keeps strengthening, despite their differences.
He'll come into Taxon right after a pivotal conversation with Rob.
First Person Sample: "Hey! Rob! You'll never guess what I found today. You know that gaming place in Chantilly? I took you there to look for Mythos corebooks-you remember, the ones with the "octopus ogre" on the covers? Cthulhu, my man, he's called Cthulhu. Well, I was in, and they had a Star Wars deck. A tarot deck, Rob, not CCG. Uh, collectible card game. I've been waiting for an official deck for years-the amateur decks are all the epitome of fail, believe me, I've looked. The art's by Drew Struzan-Struzan-hells, he did the posters. The movie posters. Okay, he did the Indy posters, that'll help you. And they've kept the Rider-Waite imagery! These aren't cheap stuff, like that craptacular Giger deck, they didn't slap some remainder cover art on some cards and go yeah, tarot, have fun, basement dwellers, the cropping isn't even on, but you're freaks and geeks, you won't give a good goddamn. I hate that deck. But this is the real deal. Leia's on the Five of Pentacles-homeless and seeking shelter, come on, remember that primer I gave you? Bells, I'll get you remembering one day. Oh, and it's not pentacles-it's systems. Sabers, systems, ships, and Force. The Force. Jabba's the Devil. Aw, look at this-Obi-wan's the Hanged Man. Original-trilogy Obi, it goes without saying. That's-and Yoda's the Hermit. Dur. . . . Are we still on for this evening? We have to be on for this evening. I have to read someone with these, and my clients will think I'm . . . a few cards short of a deck if I use these. I just said that. I hate puns. Do you hate puns? I hate puns. I'm punning. I should hang up. Catch you this evening. May the Force be with youuuuuuu. Love."
Third Person Sample:
"So," Rob begins, after they've both settled in at one of the flimsy metal tables tucked away at the back of the pizza-and-gelato shop. "I'm psychic."
Lu raises an eyebrow at his boyfriend as he takes a bite of his first slice of pizza. "You're psychic."
"I am." Rob leans forward on one elbow, grinning, holding his own slice in one hand. "I predict that you have something to show me, and that I will not know which Ace goes with which Pentagon or how many midi-chlorians it takes to make a Jedi."
Lu chokes on his first bite, and it's a moment and a long swallow of Coke before he can speak again, incredulous. "Midi-chlorians. You know midi-chlorians? Aw, Rob. You watched them? No shit?"
"Yeah. I did. After you took me to that comm-"
"Con," Lu corrects automatically and then gives Rob an oh-come-on-yes-you-got-me look when Rob smirks. Rob may not know his Dark Side from his Light, but he does know what a convention is.
"After you took me to that con, thank you, and everyone there was talking in Greek, including you, I thought it was about time I did my homework."
"You suffered through the prequels. For me. Robert M. Franklin, I am not worthy." Lu puts down his slice of pizza, takes Rob's free hand in the least greasy of his, and places a courtly kiss on Rob's fingers with theatrical poise.
"Lu . . ." He has that expression Lu loves, pleased and discomfited at once, the shy embarrassment of someone receiving a compliment in front of an audience.
"Hm?"
"They were terrible, Lu. You actually like those films?"
Lu snorts, and gives Rob's hand a squeeze before letting him have it back. "Hells. It's a loyalty thing, Rob. You lie back and think of Alderaan."
"Alderaan."
"Yep."
". . . Is that another reference?"
Lu snorts and fishes his newest tarot deck from his black messenger bag, sitting on the floor by his chair. "Alderaan, Alderaan, wherefore art thou Alderaan. I think it's on the Ten of Systems . . ."
Personal journal: mind_the_tardis
Characters played (if applicable): None yet.
Character name: Luduan (real name John Bonehill).
Genre (TV/books/etc): Original character!
Fandom: The universe inside me head.
Canon point: Before the novel he is supposed to one day be part of. And maybe even the main pov character for! We'll see.
Programmed Possession: His black labrador, Nostradamus. Nos is dog-middle-aged. Nos is silly. Nos barks a lot and loves EVERYBODY. And food. He loves food. Oh, and tennis balls.
Abilities/Weaknesses: Lu has no abilities beyond the normal human baseline. He has a talent for reading people-their facial expressions, their body language, the way they speak-that gives him some insight into what they're thinking or feeling. It's nothing preternatural or even particularly unusual-it's part of his work to pay very careful attention to the clues people give him, both intentionally and unintentionally, on their inner state of mind. He's good at people-watching and observing and also good at doing it without *seeming like* he's doing it. No creepy staring or hyper-intentness. He pays attention, that's all, and he sets the stage so that people open themselves up a little more than they might normally. Lu also has a working knowledge of divining practices, both historical and contemporary, with a focus on tarot. As far as weaknesses? He's afraid of spiders and has poor-ish eyesight-he wears contacts for near-sightedness. He can see without them, he's just not 20/20. And he never wears glasses. Glasses are too geeky, thanks, they don't match the image.
Oh, and he also has extensive knowledge of Star Wars canon and everything surrounding the Alien films. He even has some basic fencing and broadsword-style swordfighting abilities, picked up from participation in the Society for Creative Anachronism and a lot of fanboying lightsaber duels. He knows a very, very little about rock climbing, courtesy of his boyfriend, Robert Franklin, too. Also, drugs, neopaganism, and body modification (particularly temporary piercing, including suspension-he knows a lot about them. Not that he'll go around telling people that at the drop of a hat.
Psychology/Personality: Lu's spent much of his life doing two things: rebelling and Looking for Something, in the way people look when they don't know what they're looking for. To the outside observer, it would likely look like he did more of the former than the latter, but that's not actually true. He's made some big mistakes in his life and been involved in scenes and activities that a lot of people would see as adolescent down-with-the-man or emotionally-disturbed self-harming-and, yes, there's been some of both in his life and his motivations-but he has been, for years, a searcher and a drifter. If you wanted to be dramatic about it, you could even say a pilgrim. The youngest kid and only guy in a family made up of a single mom and three sisters, estranged from his father, catching flack and losing friends for being gay in middle and high school, Lu's always felt, on the one hand, that he has to be who he is, and, on the other, that he's failing expectations of him. He was the "man of the family," but he was always the baby, unable to help as much as any of his sisters; he's made mistakes his siblings never have; his father died before Lu could establish any connection with him. He's always the one too late or too young or falling behind. To compensate, he tends to pretend to self-suffiiciency, to not ask for help when he might need it, to be confrontational and provocative regarding his differences (always dressing in black/Goth; never taking out his piercings; being overt and demonstrative when out on dates, if it looks like people watching disapprove of gay couples; never playing down or laughing off what he does for a living), and to be very quick to leap to the defense of anyone he cares about, be they family or loved ones (or even his dog). He'll get into a fight, fast and eagerly, if someone insults or hurts someone he cares about, or tries to victimize either those loved ones or himself-physical fights, including ones in which he's Very Much Outnumbered or Outgunned. This is also linked in with his awareness of his sexual identity-you never insinuate he's effeminate or a wimp, just because he's gay. He's neither, and he's damned touchy about it.
But back to the searching.
Lu doesn't, exactly, believe in metaphysics, even though, as a tarot reader, he works at what many people would consider fortunetelling for a living. Neither did he ever fully believe in any of the neopagan practices he took part in, or the other divining methods he's studied. He believes in them as a narrative people tell, a framework for trying to make sense of the world and to live within it. In that sense, to him, "magic" and symbolism are just as valid as science and the objective; they don't exclude each other, they complement. Or, perhaps more accurately, neither exists and both exist at the same time. Both mysticism and science seek to describe the universe, to predict it, and to control it. Science works well on a physical level and can also on a spiritual/emotional level; however, often, people need a little bit of "magic" to survive emotionally/spiritually, be it magic lightly disguised with science or magic presented outright as magic. Lu gives people magic when they need it, stories they can tell themselves and fit themselves into, and points them towards science (professional physicians and psychiatrists, for instance), when he thinks that's what they need instead or in addition to. He doesn't see anything wrong with this or anything contradictory. He's very careful to keep his readings from becoming dangerously, unethically prescriptive and specific and pays a lot of attention to his querents' emotional and mental states when reading.
He's done a lot of searching, himself, looking for meaning, for his own story, looking to achieve some kind of heightened awareness or experience something beyond and above the ordinary. He's explored neopaganism, roleplayed and LARPed, practiced temporary piercing, experimented widely and at length with any number of drugs associated with vision quests and spiritual enlightenment, gotten into suspension, associated and marked himself deliberately as a member of several fringe subcultures. He's taken some of these to the point of developing dependency and crashing and burning, hurting both himself and his family, and is now more careful when searching. He's beginning to understand that desperation isn't the way to go about trying to find meaning and a place in life, and that, when you're searching, you sometimes need someone there with you, to tell you if you're losing yourself or going too far. When your entire life becomes about trying to make things right *for yourself,* you can self-destruct, self-absorb, like a black hole, your view of the universe growing ever smaller and more self-focused, destroying yourself and pulling in those around you. So you need others to help you and others to care for. Lu's work lets him be, to a limited degree, the person there to help others; and his dog, Nos (and, recently, his boyfriend, Rob), have been those there to help him and to give him personal connections to care for.
Off the job, Lu is goofy, casual, and, when he can manage it, charming. He has a quick sense of humor, which can be sly and sideways, at times, and a very good eye for people. He's not shy and doesn't mind approaching or being around people he doesn't know, but he tends not to form lasting relationships-a quick conversation, some hanging out, a brief relationship, are the usual extent of his social contacts. If he feels the need to pry into other people's business (which he does, occasionally), he won't do so directly, but will use his cards to draw them out, through an impromptu reading; mostly, he lets people go, letting them hide or downplay whatever they choose to. Prying is only for people he thinks really need help and/or whom he really cares about. As mentioned earlier, he can be provocative and confrontational around people he dislikes or who visibly disapprove of him or those he cares about, and will provoke (though never directly initiate) fights. He's open-minded about practices and beliefs that differ from his own, except where he sees those practices and beliefs as dogmatic, close-minded, or harmful, to their holder or to others. He doesn't like people prying into his own life and will tend to get quiet and resort to Very Short Sentences if anyone tries to quiz him. There's no reason for people to hear about his problems. No one wants to hear about his old problems, that's the world's dullest topic.
On the job, Lu is Professional. He doesn't have a lot of money (really. At all.), and anything he can spare (and sometimes more), goes back into his business, including appearances/clothing. He wears romantic-Gothic-cut black suits while working, usually accented with one piece of jewelry (not counting the assortment of ear hardware)-something silver or with a bold, jeweled-toned stone (he's something of a jewelry whore-which amuses Rob, who occasionally gives him jewelry as gifts. This makes Lu flail a bit. Eee, gifts, awkward. But awesome?). He takes the reading entirely seriously, listening to and watching his querent sincerely, fully, and sympathetically. Any reading is always entirely about the querent, never about Lu, and he'll use questions and promptings to draw out their own thoughts on the cards, in addition to his own. Any information he learns in a reading, he will never bring up outside of a consultation (even for people he knows, and for "unofficial" readings, away from his business); if any querent seems in need of medical or psychiatric care, he will direct them to acquire it. He's extraordinarily conscientious about his work. He makes a point of keeping up on the psychic "scene" around DC-anyone new who opens up shop, he schedules an appointment with and susses out. Any "psychic" whom he decides is unethical or careless, he'll have nothing to do with, once he's labeled them as such; people who are good at the work, on the other hand, he respects and networks with. He's almost a vigilante about this. You don't hurt people on his turf with irresponsible reading. He'll read, off work, for his friends and loved ones if he thinks they need help making a decision or aren't looking at something about the situation or themselves clearly.
Lu loves animals. He has a not-so-secret love for dogs, in particular (AW, NOS), but will go for anything fluffy and cute. Part of this goes with the Goth subculture (there's a certain tendency to mix the treacly cute, like Hello Kitty, with the black and macabre), but most of it's just him. Animals! Are awesome. Everyone should have pets, and he's devoted to his. Nos is spectacular. If you get the man in a pet store and hand him, say, a bunny, he will turn all squishy and quiet and gentle. He's not so into anything non-mammalian, but birds can be pretty neat.
He still uses some drugs (he grows salvia) and would probably still suspend, if he could find someone he trusted to set him up-but these things don't dominate his life anymore. He hates it when people condemn a practice outright-it's all about finding the right balance, not about giving something up entirely and out-of-hand. He is, however, very careful about getting anyone else into the things he's into.
He's also a geek and unashamed of this fact. Geeks should not be ashamed of their geekery! He has nothing to hide. He loves Star Wars, reads Qui-gon/Obi-wan slash, owns a collector's replica of Qui-gon's lightsaber, and decorates with Aliens and Evil Dead movie posters. This is Perfectly Acceptable decor.
He objects to sleep and is a workaholic (though he doesn't make a show of this). He has no problem with chugging gamers' energy drinks all night to keep himself awake and will abuse the hell out of his body in order to get work done. Hey, it's nothing compared to what he's already done to it.
History: Lu was born John Bonehill, the youngest of four children. His mother and father were an optometrist and a private-practice general physician, respectively; they married when his mother was 30 and his father 36, and had their first child, John's sister Joan, a year later. His mother gave up her practice to bring up the children-Rebecca, his second sister, was born the next year and Dana, his third, two years after that. By this point, friction had sprung up between his mother and his father. Though she loved her children, John's mother was unhappy with playing the housewife and regretted giving up her career and practice; John's father had very little to do with any of the children and kept to his work, emotionally distant and detached, and awkward when he attempted to interact with the rest of the family-more and more the outsider in his own home. John was born just as this friction reached its peak, three years after Dana-he was, in some ways, a last-ditch attempt to bring the family together, for both parents to try to meet and resolve their differences over another child. It didn't work. His mother and father divorced when he was 2, after 7 years of marriage. Though his father paid child support right on time, this still left John's mother scrambling for work-by choice more than by any official arrangement, on the part of both the children and the parents, all four of the kids spent almost all of their time living with their mother, and she had to carry much of the daily burden of support. She found a job as an assistant in an optometrist's office, and John and his sisters, as they grew old enough to do so, all took part-time jobs of their own to help support the family.
John, being the baby, was often handed off to his sisters to take care of, once they were old enough to do so. He was always the youngest, the baby, the one who needed taking care of or who wasn't quite old enough to help the family out properly, and, even as an adult, as Lu, he still feels that. He was the only guy-he should have been the "man of the house," helping out his mother and his sisters, but his place in the family chronology prevented him from ever really doing so. On the other hand, this means he has a very strong bond with his sisters, particularly Dana, the next-youngest. His mother and sisters aren't just family; they're Family. They're (almost) the most important people in his life.
John's childhood went, despite the divorce and the financial difficulties of his family, pretty well. He and his siblings never managed to connect properly with their father, a distant, socially awkward, alien figure whom they saw most often when they were sick or checking in for their yearly physicals. In elementary school, he mingled well with the other kids, always performing average or above-average, as his interest dictated (never a devoted student, he had no problem, at any level of school, with doing the very bare minimum if the subject didn't interest him). He made some close friends, a group of three other boys who stayed friends all through elementary and into middle school, gaining and losing auxiliary members, but never losing any of the Core Four. They provided him with an escape from his sisters and mother, the watchful eyes of female Authority, and he spent most of his afternoons getting into trouble with them-or doing nothing much at all, playing video games and watching movies and biking around town, loitering and roughhousing. He played the role of the Quiet One, though he had a snide, sharp sense of humor and a good eye for people that made him "cool."
In middle school, life got harder for John. As he got older, he realized that he didn't just care for one of the boys in the Four as a friend-it was something different. He'd joined in the whole talking about girls and ogling and fantasizing routine with the rest of them, but it was just talk. It let him take part in the banter and remain accepted, no great sacrifice and no harm done. But time went on, and he couldn't ignore his attraction to Evan. Finally, one evening, after the other two guys had headed out and it was just Evan and John playing old-school TMNT: Turtles in Time in the basement at Evan's house, with Evan starting to nod off as they played, he leaned in and kissed Evan. It wasn't much-on the cheek, even, not on the lips-but definitely enough to wake Evan up and confuse the hell out of him. The awkwardness resulted in John leaving right after, heading home angry and ashamed and exhilarated and scared and hopeful and disappointed all at once. The next day, neither he nor Evan brought it up, and Evan began being awkward when John was around, not completely at ease-and vice-versa. Finally, one of the other guys must have asked Evan what was up, because soon all three of the others were awkward around John, and one of them confronted him on it, angry and disgusted. Soon word went around, and school went from a minimal inconvenience, getting in the way of important things like sleep and video games, to an ordeal. He fell out of the Four, not so much an organized push on their part as a defensive, thorny withdrawal on his, and spent the rest of middle and high school as the loner, the kid at the back of the classroom who's smart and decent-looking and witty but who dresses oddly and draws weird sketches in his notebooks, of bleeding hearts and Cthulhuian creatures and crucified kittens. This was when he first started getting into Goth subculture, very superficially, in the angsty teenager Hot-Topic-mall-Goth way.
His next-oldest sister, the one closest in age to him, Dana, picked up on his confusion and distress, while his other sisters were busy frowning at him and wondering why he'd suddenly turned into such a prickly, hostile, keeps-to-himself, wears-all-black, pseudo-edgy ass and his mother tried to talk to his father about it and to him, but never managed to find quite enough time around work and, after all, his grades were still fair, if not good, and he didn't seem to be doing drugs or anything too fringe. But back to Dana. She'd had her own hard time in high school-drawn to fringe culture not out of rejection, but rejected because she was drawn to fringe culture. As a young girl, she'd been drawn to fantasy and play and storywriting and the outdoors-as she got older, her interests turned in the "teen witch" direction, and she immersed herself in wicca, her own brand of feminism, and SCA and Renn Faire culture. After suffering the loner role in high school for a while, she pushed to make friends and find herself a community beyond school, in which she would be accepted, and managed to do this quite successfully, though not without a lot of hard work. Going to college helped-as a commuter student to a nearby university, this didn't prevent her from keeping in touch with John. When she saw him in distress similar to her own high school dilemma, she took an interest and managed to draw out what was wrong, long before he came out to the rest of his family (he would do that when he graduated from high school). To keep him busy and give him people to hang out with and things to do other than mope and withdrew further, she took him along with her to Renn Faires, conventions, SCA meetings, and coven rituals. He found the signs and symbols of these fringe cultural groups and locations grounding and fascinating, and enjoyed the ease of acceptance, particularly in regards to sexuality, that often accompanied these gatherings. He started going out on his own, without Dana, finding events that appealed to him to attend, and became further and more seriously involved in Goth subculture and in exploring divining, particularly tarot, which he first encountered at a Renn Faire with Dana. The more time he spent out on his own, the more he drifted towards the fringe of the fringe; this didn't go too far in high school, only veering into smoking (it looks bad-ass), drinking, and low-impact recreational drugs, including marijuana, but it would go further later in his life.
Near the end of his senior year, he got a tattoo on his upper right arm, symbolic of his birth sign and its tarot and elemental associations-an upright triangle/pyramid, fronted by a pair of scales balanced on the point of a sword. (When he goes into tarot professionally, as Luduan, he continues to use this combination symbol as his "calling card"-it appears on his business card and other business advertisements.) He also got several piercings in his right ear. Oh, and came out. To his immediate family, the people he was living with-which meant his two sisters who didn't yet know and his mother, leaving it to family osmosis for his father to hear. They all took it well-or, at least, calmly, though he's still, even today, not sure if his mother's actually okay with it or just talking the talk well.
He graduated with middling-fair grades and, after a year spent working retail (hooray) and searching for scholarships, went on to college-counter-cultural he might be, but he was still sensitive to the pressure from family and society to "do the right thing" and get a degree. Also, he wanted to get away from home, and college, supported partially by his parents and partially by scholarship, seemed like a nice alternative to actual I-have-to-work-for-a-living adulthood. At college, he was really properly away from his family for the first time in his life, and away from his high school acquaintances-able to fit himself into an entirely new group of people, with no preconceptions about him. He found a place in the campus' GLBT community and its geek and Goth subcultures, finding a place in the neopagan community, as well. He made friends, formed quick on-again-off-again there-and-gone relationships, and continued to read for his friends, to entertain others, and for a spare buck here and there. Meanwhile, he fell into an anthropology degree, as he racked up classes on cultural movements, gender studies, religions, and history-as well as a few on physics and astronomy. However, as time went on, without Dana there to watch him and occasionally pull him back, he went further and further fringe, seeking out neopagan groups that emphasized drug use, including psychedelics (peyote, ayahuasca, harmal/Syrian rue, other plants with DMT, salvia, mushrooms, acid/LSD, even ibogaine, any variety of entheogens). Despite a few bad trips and leaving himself vulnerable in situations that, sober, would have left him, at the least, uncomfortable, he kept coming back to these groups and began using on his own time, alone, especially when under emotional stress. During this time period, John took Luduan, the name of a Chinese mythical creature with the ability to sense truth, as his "craft name." He also got his ear project, in his left ear, during college.
Despite his growing dependency on drugs, John managed to graduate with a B.A. in anthropology, and promptly found himself without work. Uninterested in the careers that his degree made available to him and unwilling to alter his behavior and appearance to fit entry-level work, he drifted, intermittently employed, for a year, until Dana stepped in to save the day, again, hooking him up with a married couple she knew who owned and operated a New Age shop/divining service in Providence, RI. With the switch in location, Lu took the opportunity to change over to calling himself by his craft name regularly, and stopped using his birth name entirely, both given name and surname. He worked as an assistant to the couple-an older couple, very grounded and not part of any particular "scene," but devoted to their work-and learned a great deal about reading as a professional, including ethics and techniques for assessing a querent and running a business. Meanwhile, he continued to indulge in drug culture, taking weekends away from Rhode Island so he could travel to more active centers of Goth, neopaganism, and related subcultures, looking for those on the side, the experimenters. He finally found his way into body modification, specifically suspension, the practice of hanging oneself from hooks set into one's skin, and temporary piercing.
During his first year of work in Rhode Island, his father died of sudden heart failure. Lu had never made peace with his relationship with his father, which had always remained distant and awkward and uncomprehending on both sides; he wasn't even sure anyone had ever told his dad that he'd come out. The two of them had certainly never talked about it. His father's death left him with a lot of unresolved issues and unanswered questions, and now he'd never be able to work those out properly, face to face. He blew off the funeral, failing to show up, which left him in hot water with his sisters (his mother left him alone about it); he solved this problem by ignoring their phone calls. In the weeks that followed, his drug habit skyrocketed, leaving him useless at work (when he decided to show up), and he sought out every opportunity he could to suspend, without leaving his body any time to heal between suspensions. Finally, he ran out of people he trusted who were willing to carry out the suspension, and turned to anyone he could find. One night, he had the procedure carried out by people who were just as high as he was, and when the poorly-placed hooks ripped out of his skin and he began losing blood, they panicked and left him, semi-conscious, to bleed out. Fortunately, everyone at the gathering wasn't quite as far gone as Lu or the suspension "artists," and he was found, bleeding, unconscious, and in shock, and dropped at a local ER-no one at the scene had known him, and no one stayed with him, afraid of questions being asked. When he regained consciousness, his family was there, and doctors, and he was in pretty damned bad shape, stitches all up and down his back. The gear used hadn't been clean, and he had to stay in the hospital to deal with infection and complications, though he eventually recovered. In the meantime, his family continued to visit him, mostly to stand about and seem lost or puzzled or yell at him and condemn him or alternate between the two. Dana blamed herself, for introducing him to the subcultures in the first place, and she blamed him for abusing them. He spent a lot of time thinking, because there's not much else to do in the hospital, reading (in the book sense), reading (in the cards sense, for others in the hospital, to pass the time), and trying to fix the gaps he'd managed to wedge between himself and his family. By the time he got out, he'd healed things over, mostly, with Dana, at least; and he'd also discovered that dogs were pretty awesome-the hospital brought therapy dogs through the wards, occasionally.
Once he was out, the first thing he did was get himself a dog, a black labrador that he called Nostradamus. The second thing he did was find a city without much of a scene and away from his family, and move there. He wanted to make a start for himself, properly, finally, and make the parts of his life that he valued work for him, without hurting him or other people. DC seemed a pretty dull straight-laced type of place, not too close to his family and not ridiculously, rebelliously far away, so he went there.
He's spent four years establishing a reading practice, in a not-very-good section of the city, hurting for money almost the entire time but determined to make it work. Things are finally looking up-he's beginning to bring in clients from all across the city-including people like Robert Franklin, a DC museum/art lawyer who'd never been read before and scheduled a reading with Lu thinking he was Chinese (Rob's convinced that Chinese mysticism, the I Ching, feng shui, etc., is the real deal). Despite Lu's turning out to be disappointingly Caucasian, Rob was fascinated by the reading (and by Lu, who by this point was managing a balance of counter-culture and professionalism) and kept coming back. Eventually, the two of them angled into dating, after much dancing around, and have been developing a relationship that, to their mutual surprise, keeps strengthening, despite their differences.
He'll come into Taxon right after a pivotal conversation with Rob.
First Person Sample: "Hey! Rob! You'll never guess what I found today. You know that gaming place in Chantilly? I took you there to look for Mythos corebooks-you remember, the ones with the "octopus ogre" on the covers? Cthulhu, my man, he's called Cthulhu. Well, I was in, and they had a Star Wars deck. A tarot deck, Rob, not CCG. Uh, collectible card game. I've been waiting for an official deck for years-the amateur decks are all the epitome of fail, believe me, I've looked. The art's by Drew Struzan-Struzan-hells, he did the posters. The movie posters. Okay, he did the Indy posters, that'll help you. And they've kept the Rider-Waite imagery! These aren't cheap stuff, like that craptacular Giger deck, they didn't slap some remainder cover art on some cards and go yeah, tarot, have fun, basement dwellers, the cropping isn't even on, but you're freaks and geeks, you won't give a good goddamn. I hate that deck. But this is the real deal. Leia's on the Five of Pentacles-homeless and seeking shelter, come on, remember that primer I gave you? Bells, I'll get you remembering one day. Oh, and it's not pentacles-it's systems. Sabers, systems, ships, and Force. The Force. Jabba's the Devil. Aw, look at this-Obi-wan's the Hanged Man. Original-trilogy Obi, it goes without saying. That's-and Yoda's the Hermit. Dur. . . . Are we still on for this evening? We have to be on for this evening. I have to read someone with these, and my clients will think I'm . . . a few cards short of a deck if I use these. I just said that. I hate puns. Do you hate puns? I hate puns. I'm punning. I should hang up. Catch you this evening. May the Force be with youuuuuuu. Love."
Third Person Sample:
"So," Rob begins, after they've both settled in at one of the flimsy metal tables tucked away at the back of the pizza-and-gelato shop. "I'm psychic."
Lu raises an eyebrow at his boyfriend as he takes a bite of his first slice of pizza. "You're psychic."
"I am." Rob leans forward on one elbow, grinning, holding his own slice in one hand. "I predict that you have something to show me, and that I will not know which Ace goes with which Pentagon or how many midi-chlorians it takes to make a Jedi."
Lu chokes on his first bite, and it's a moment and a long swallow of Coke before he can speak again, incredulous. "Midi-chlorians. You know midi-chlorians? Aw, Rob. You watched them? No shit?"
"Yeah. I did. After you took me to that comm-"
"Con," Lu corrects automatically and then gives Rob an oh-come-on-yes-you-got-me look when Rob smirks. Rob may not know his Dark Side from his Light, but he does know what a convention is.
"After you took me to that con, thank you, and everyone there was talking in Greek, including you, I thought it was about time I did my homework."
"You suffered through the prequels. For me. Robert M. Franklin, I am not worthy." Lu puts down his slice of pizza, takes Rob's free hand in the least greasy of his, and places a courtly kiss on Rob's fingers with theatrical poise.
"Lu . . ." He has that expression Lu loves, pleased and discomfited at once, the shy embarrassment of someone receiving a compliment in front of an audience.
"Hm?"
"They were terrible, Lu. You actually like those films?"
Lu snorts, and gives Rob's hand a squeeze before letting him have it back. "Hells. It's a loyalty thing, Rob. You lie back and think of Alderaan."
"Alderaan."
"Yep."
". . . Is that another reference?"
Lu snorts and fishes his newest tarot deck from his black messenger bag, sitting on the floor by his chair. "Alderaan, Alderaan, wherefore art thou Alderaan. I think it's on the Ten of Systems . . ."