#(( as I do research for this particular character and business management xD ))

[nameless-brand]

Labor unions amuse me. I don't know why. Maybe because we technically are in an adversarial relationship, but I'm in an even worse relationship with my fellow companies. Alas, hated all around. The fate of being beautiful and intelligent and stellar as me φ(。。*).

So American Labor Law is a wonderful fun mess to navigate. But they did get one thing right, and it's preventing companies from making their own internal unions: company unions / "yellow" unions. The company union in theory is supposed to do the job of independent trade unions, but since they are managed and paid by the company, it's obvious they won't do anything that would severely harm the company's profits or image. They rarely strike, undercut other unions in terms of wage, and will rarely countermand a company's unjust ruling. Not the type of union you want on your side if you are a worker.

There are proponents of company unions, stating that it gets worker grievances addressed faster and they have a closer relationship with the company and thus are able to contextualize things better. But in my opinion, the company union will always protect the company first. Much like trickle-down economics, company unions being for the worker are a lie.

Section 8(2)(a) of the National Labor Relations Act does not allow an employer "to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it." This forces unions to be independent trade unions in the States and technically prevents companies from influencing union affairs. Unfortunately, this also means I can't directly donate money or provides goods to a union to help support a strike.

But I own grocery stores and stationary stores in a good number of places. If my stores so happen to be selling products at cost that day... let's see February 22nd was the last time I did it - for National Walking the Dog Day while a strike is happening, that isn't really collusion, is it. :)

There's already a handful of Unions that have been made in several of my divisions. Given I haven't received a list of demands from them, I'm assuming this is more preventative - like if I decide to become another gluttony-obsessed pelican or something. Still irks me a little though, but I keep reminding myself that people don't live to work, they work to live.

Regardless, my competitors hate me because I pay well above industry standard and provide very good benefits. And their workers see it and either come over to me since they're tired of living paycheck to paycheck - or unionize to fight for better pay and benefits. My competitors can't undercut me as easily as a mom-n-pop shop because I control everything from the transportation to the farms to the production line; and when they are trying to resist a strike, I'll actually undercut their undercut anyway lol.

They either shape up - or leave and I buy their land using a shell company later. I almost always find room for the displaced workers. Eventually, these people are going to realize that shutting down because a union is forming/has formed (which is illegal by the way, but hard to directly prove) just benefits me in the end lol.

Anyway, happy National 529 Day.

[panharmonium]

#1When Will comes with Merlin to Camelot, he doesn't get to be his roommate and lives (and learns to be blacksmith) in Gwen's house. Why doesn't he live with Merlin, though? Oh, it's quite simple! Ours merry gang's first priority now is 'don't let Will and Uther meet, at any cost!' (Morgana, Gwen and Arthur're all on it, Merlin invented it) Or there would be epic BURN. No one is quite sure who and how will be set on fire at the end of their meeting, and it's the worst part. Every other threat b

this is truly the crack AU fic we deserve

and - i know i’m veering off slightly from the above premise, which was about merlin’s magic being revealed earlier, but - the comedic potential of a will lives!au where everybody thinks he can do magic and he very obviously cannot is limitless, especially if he’s maintaining the ruse precisely so merlin can stay hidden

merlin running around after him trying to surreptitiously make the right magical things happen on cue and will getting progressively closer and closer to strangling him for getting will mixed up in this business to begin with, though merlin always counters will’s moments of frustration with “why don’t you leave, then,” and will can’t say anything to that because he knows that merlin knows he would never

arthur being very reluctant and unwilling to resort to will’s “services” for a veritable AGE and then eventually at long last lowering himself so far as to admit that they might possibly, maybe need will’s particular brand of help on something, only he doesn’t want to admit that he’s resorting to magic, so he tiptoes around the subject like it’s a piece of spoilt cheese on his plate

arthur: we have come to...ask for...assistance.

will: with what

arthur: with...an issue

will: what sort of issue

arthur: a...special situation.  requiring a...a unique approach

will: what sort of approach

arthur, to will, whilst glaring directly at merlin, morgana, and gwen: it has been expressed to me numerous times by a number of insufferably solicitous people that perhaps on this occasion it would be prudent for us to...to make use of your...abilities

will: my what now

arthur: your...you know.  your...abnormalities.

will: ...mate you must think i won’t kill you because i saved your hide that one time

uther is on house arrest IT’S WHAT HE DESERVES XD XD XD

i’ve always been interested in the idea of how lancelot and will would get on, too!  lancelot would be charming and gracious as ever, i’m sure, though i think it might take will a little longer to warm up to him - i think will would like him on a personal level, but i do think he would shake his head at lancelot’s utter devotion to camelot/arthur/the knighthood, because to will that stuff is nonsense, and harmful nonsense at that.  but also i think that will respects people who don’t dissemble - lancelot is what he appears to be, and his ideals and his conduct are truly honorable in the most genuine way, and so i think they would like each other, ultimately.  will would appreciate lancelot’s depth of conviction, even if will is always going to be more skeptical of his dedication to the knighthood and the throne.  

i agree that will would never allow anyone to knight him.  he’s not here for that.  will is Plain Folk right down to his marrow, and proud to be so.  he’s not interested in serving any lord; he’s here for his common neighbors.

uhhhhh in short - this is the best au in general, aha; i am here for it!!!!  probably the only thing i would ever even consider changing if i were to expand on this scenario is that i wouldn’t necessarily have will choosing the forge as a career (though granted, i think will could figure smithing out just fine; he’s clever enough to manage whatever he wants to put his hands to) - but we actually have canonical evidence that will already has a trade :D  (which is a thing i expect absolutely no one to know, obviously, and i am actually deeply embarrassed to even admit that i know, because it indicates that yes, i have in fact been this in-depth about researching this character - )

but anyway, i am sure that he is not formally trained and hasn’t entered a guild or anything like that; those opportunities don’t exist where he lives and he’s too poor to afford the entry fee even if they did - but will definitely supplements his agricultural pursuits with carpentry.  

his house in ealdor is overflowing with hewn timber, and you can see a half-finished piece of some precisely carved project or other on the workbench to the left of merlin:

he has a grindstone in his house, as well as a shaving horse, which is a bench/clamp device specific to woodworking:

and almost every time we see him come out of his house, he’s got woodworking tools in hand (mallet, chisel, etc):

so!  will is a woodwright!  albeit probably a half-trained one, who learned, i would assume, from his father, before his father got snatched up by the army (all guesses, of course, but reasonable ones, i think.)

HOWEVER......i am NEVER going to turn down a smith!will AU, because a) that’s just badass, and b) he could hang out with elyan and gwen, and c) it would be shockingly easy to find appropriate gifs and images to illustrate your universe, because obviously joe dempsie also played gendry in game of thrones and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

that’s one heck of a look, ok

[prixmiumarchive]

Don’t Hug Me I’m Confused

Disclaimer: The following post contains some personal critique of certain fandom patterns and habits that I personally find strange, don’t relate to, or don’t enjoy. However, this post really isn’t that deep in those areas, and so while I’m not talking about kink at all, just kind of consider this a sort of KINKTOMATO disclaimer. What you enjoy and how you enjoy it is not my business, and your art and cosplays are things that a) seem to be of high quality and b) I could not actually accomplish so kudos to you for doing it even if it’s not my thing in its expression. You do you, and I’ll do me, and I’m not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. This is just a personal blog post / semi-review that I’m tagging in case anyone else who has watched dhmis wants to read it. This post may likely come across as pretty “anti-shipping,” but rest assured that I probably ship some weird stuff in other fandoms so I’m not judging you, or whatever.

Nursing a headache better and responding to a text, I was reminded of the existence of a weird web series on YouTube that, apparently, was released over the course of several years. The first installment of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared was shown to me by a former friend sometime after its release many years ago now. Naturally, I was pretty unsettled by it at the time in a sort of nervous-laughter, later-haunted-nightmares sort of way. However, at the time and with its sole initial video being around, the way I processed the video and its purpose was quite different from the way I process it now. I had seen that there were a couple more videos over the years, but I had never actually managed to watch the little series to its sixth installment because at some point I got disturbed ever time and quit. However, in a state of resolve and slightly greater desensitization, I finally finished it up. And I’m strangely satisfied and intrigued, particularly after watching a couple of commentary videos about it.

Rather than rehashing someone else’s explanation, I’ll simply refer to The Film Theorists two videos on the subject. I think that this YouTube channel sometimes gets a lot of raised eyebrows and bad press for reaching really hard to get shock-value, click-bait-y ~dark theories~ out of benign or extremely popular media. I haven’t really consumed their other material, so I can’t speak to that, but I can say that the two videos on DHMIS are not reaching for even more darkness and edge. Rather, they seem to be well-researched, well-reasoned explanations for what is otherwise a strangely difficult work of art to process. I say “work of art” not terribly lightly nor terribly dogmatically because I really don’t know what else to make of something that intrigues, bothers, pleases, disturbs, and fascinates me that is intended to communicate something even if that something is the particular sense of unease I am describing.

As is my custom when I don’t really know what to do with feelings about a particular work of fiction, I opened a tab to AO3 to see if fanfiction exists for that “fandom” to see if a quantifiable fandom is actually there. To my surprise, DHMIS actually had over 100 fics. So, I scrolled through the first couple of pages to see what they tended to be about or whatever. I had no particular craving or desire to read fic about this at the moment; I just wanted to know what the environment was like. And what I found was really, really deeply not what I expected.

A major part of the fandom seems to be something called “p/adlock” shipping which I’m censoring so that I’m not picking on someone’s OTP. Again, disclaimer, not judging, simply commenting. It seems to be shipping the Sketch Pad from the first installment with the Clock from the second. I really don’t know where people came up with this or why it seems to be so passionate, but I am not here to judge. It just seems like it is strangely misaimed and sort of misses the central themes of whatever the hell is going on in DHMIS. Even if I’m not sure what is going on, I’m pretty sure that it is not a romantic love story, subtextually or otherwise. Of course, there’s shipping in everything. Before you get mad at me, let me also say that it reminds me of another fandom I’m involved in in which I am one of the weird maybe-missing-the-point shippers, so I’ll get back to that.

Perhaps one of the reasons that this is such an interesting experience for me is that I feel like I’m experiencing my discovery of this fandom much the way those who discover the Portal fandom and poke around not knowing what to expect must do. I came looking for commentary or elaboration on the universe that seems to have been established in these little shorts. Instead, I find shipping that I cannot really find the thread for at all. Now, of course, I would argue that I do find subtext and reasoning and so on in Portal fandom and “chelley” (Chell/Wheatley) shipping. I also find reasons to believe that Wheatley being in a humanoid or android form makes sense in some cases. I don’t see why there are humanoid forms of already anthropomorphic set pieces and characters in DHMIS. See the above videos for a theory I’ve pretty much bought into, I think, that these characters represent props or animations or such anyway while only Red Guy, Yellow Guy, and Duck are real characters/people/performers. (I realize they have names, maybe.)

Anyway, digressing a bit from the strange experience of seeing how a subset of fandom that is really transforming the original work (again - kudos even if not my thing, I think) being the majority when you don’t really get it from the other side of it, I also want to comment on how worth-it I found finally finishing DHMIS. It went from what felt like a strange, occasionally darkly humorous, occasionally dark-dark-dark exercise in internet meme-y nihilism to something that became so much more. Initially, watching the first couple of episodes, it felt like something that existed that sort of titillate and affirm that particular vein of teenage, edgy, oppositional defiance-y, XD-random, I wear black as it is the color of my soul, I have fantasy colored hair despite it not being goth because I like color secretly and because it bothers some conservative people, I’m angry at societal structures that have failed me and am determined to throw all the babies out with all the bathwater because I’m so angry frustration. Now, I still relate to a handful of those things. If my life allowed for it I would be a pink-hair-but-wearing-all-black kind of person some of the time. However, I find that the depth of that particular soft-laughter rage that comes with being a teenager with the experiences to develop it sort of off-putting as someone who has both been-there and has become a teacher in my adult life. I see myself in it, but I also see things that I hate both on their own merits and that I hate in the form of hating it for a person who has to go through it or go through the steps to have gotten there. In the end, though, I found that DHMIS was less late night Cartoon Network programming is the pinnacle of artistic expression and more some kind of play on nostalgia, capitalism, anxiety, power structures, creativity and its opponents, institutionalized violence, and even, maybe, the meat-packing and commercial food industries. In a way, watching it all the way through sort of felt like going through a fast-motion montage of going from being a sort of disturbed teenager to being an adult on the other side of it with a whole other set of frustrations and anxieties that can still be found in the same sort of imagery. It felt like growing up in a weird way.

Still in episodes I had seen before, I remarked to mentioned texting friend that Red Guy was my favorite when she indicated that she was watching a bit of it. I wasn’t even sure why, but in particular his reactions to the clock in the second episode really sold me. All of the characters had strange reactions to a lot of things, but his deadpan, monotone confusion, and the way in which he complies to this-might-as-well-happen sorts of circumstances until he cracks in the end and has some kind of epiphany really resonated with me. Then, I realized, it was because he was, in fact, that avatar of the adult in this situation, and that is its own kind of mind-blow because initially one does not really conceive of these characters as anything but ageless muppets. Which is its own layer of unsettling. In any case, I am really impressed with this little series. Whether or not the “film theory” is right, I feel more satisfied in the end. However, I would really recommend those videos because it totally flipped my perspective on the ending of DHMIS from “there’s no hope and not escape from this hell” or, possibly, “you might escape hell but you’re dooming someone else to replace you,” to something entirely and much more hopeful bout the drudgery of a creatively inclined adult trying to slog through the obstacles and soul-drains that our present societal pressures place on us. I really hope I figure it out in the end like Red Guy.

One final, mostly off-topic note: upon a glance, I think that maybe that film theories youtube channel is, perhaps, more genuine in its efforts to dissect internet memes than in the clickbait it produces for blockbuster movies. But then again, in a a world dictated by ad revenue, whatcha gonna do?

Given that our focuses on what we like about the series seem to be wildly different, I doubt that I’ll be hard-joining the DHMIS fandom for the most part. I enjoyed some of the content in the tag, and if you’re reading from outside it, you might check it out.

If you like or hard-relate to Red Guy and enjoy scifi (Doctor Who, The Expanse), other web series (Carmilla), or other common fandom stuff (superhero shows, DC/Marvel, select anime), you might consider messaging or following me. I’d love to talk about Red Guy with someone who kinda gets it, but again I’m not really interested in shipping in this fandom.

If you read this far, thanks and have a lovely day!