#TANKE Freude

[everiistence]

. i really do not appreciate how stressful school is sometimes ngl

[wiki-fight]

Let's just submit the 2 most recent on my Wikipedia mobile app...

Sigmund Freud and FGM-148 Javelin Anti-Tank Missile.

[mychlapci]

The bug net must be working because i haven't seen the Freud centipede so i'll offer this instead:

After the Iacon 5000 Sentinel actually does take D-16 and Orion with him and also whisks them away to make them his concubines because who could resist such lively pretty young things. Mabye cogless bots can't transform their panels away without a cogged bot tapping into their systems so he will be taking their virginity too

Sometime down the line they're both pregnant, not that they know because when they asked why they're throwing up Sentinel just told them not to worry their pretty little heads, they're just not used to the high quality fuel, and their baby bumps aren't really that noticeable yet

One day Sentinel is away on another "expedition" to the surface and the two of them are sick of being cooped up in Sentinel's chambers, so they decide to go on a walk and while their bodyguard is distracted they run into Darkwing, who recognises them despite the shiny paint, fancy jewelery and pretty dresses so they end up in sub-level 50 anyways and go to the surface to make Sentinel proud

when they run into Alpha Trion poor mama cat almost has an aneurysm when he realises not only do these little bots not have any cogs, two of them are also carrying while completely clueless and with frames that are not equipped for it. Mabye he gives Orion and D-16 t-cogs that give them bulkier frames to help with carrying and decides to go with them and save D-16 the effort of killing Sentinel because he will end that sucker himself. The old man's beastformer coding decided that these bots are his kits and he's going to protect them.

After that whole mess is over Alpha helps guide the newly named Optimus Prime and high lord protector Megatron through carrying and pass his experience to them. Those two are a little weirded out when Trion tells them to lick their bitties clean, but they're too relieved that the sparklings came out as a little silver truck and red tank that came from the times Sentinel made them "put on a show" to think about whether it's a universal cybertronian thing or a weird beastformer thing (it's a weird beastformer thing)

Just my delusional ramblings about old mama cat Trion being protective over pregnant Orion and D-16. Consider it a community barbeque with slightly fucked up origins hidden behind the rent lowering gunshots.

augh that's adorable... i think it's so cool that alpha trion has a beast mode actually.

mhmm those poor little things come to him beaten and battered and clearly pregnant, he cannot not get attached. i think it's so funny that in this scenario Alpha Trion survived Sentinel through sheer force of will. He had kitties at home!! pregnant kitties! D16 and Orion need a safe birth and a warm berth for their sparklings!!

[fredwkong]

Man, all of these finals just before Christmas are the worst! It makes me wonder what life would have been like if I dropped out of highschool? I wish I never went to uni, and had found another way to make money!

Unfortunately, there was some problem with the wishing system, but the genies are on the case just in time for midterms ;)

You stumble into your faculty adviser meeting, and a genie in a beanie and a tank top smirks up at you. You could have sworn your adviser looked more…buttoned-up, the last time you saw him. “Bro,” he drawls, “what’s with the threads?”

You open your mouth to protest. This isn’t your adviser, and you take pride in your button-ups and slacks! “Eh, y’know, bro,” you say, the words slurred and raspy, “just rolled out of bed.”

“That hole’s perfect, bro,” says the genie, gesturing to your armpit. “I can smell you from here.” He takes a sniff and bites his lip, fondling his crotch in his sweats.

You’re horrified, but when you look down, you see a threadbare T-shirt, a massive hole worn in the armpit with your thick pit hair spilling out. Suddenly, you’re a thick-chested tan hunk, dressed like a total bro!

But…isn’t that you? You remember dropping out of high school, instead of graduating with honours. You just wanted to chill out and get swole. Sure, you’ve never read any Freud, but you’re pretty sure you have a handle on anal retention from all the dicks you’ve ridden to make weed money.

Yeah, you remember now. College kids pay big bucks to have a dumb, musky dropout come take their loads, and you’re happy to oblige. You can’t really do the math, but you’re pretty sure being a slut makes you more money than any of these eggheads.

You raise your arms behind your head to show off your sweaty pit to your next client, who’s already pulled his cock out of his pants. “Wassup, bro,” you grunt, flexing.

Another wish fulfilled.

Got a wish you need twisted? Send an ask! Remember to say “I wish” so the genie hears exactly what you’re wishing for.

[maxwellatoms]

Do you have a favorite of your own characters? Or certain ones that you feel particularly connected to? I feel like creators tend to put bits of themselves into their characters--are any of them like that for you? Just wanna say your work is a huge inspiration to me and really helped shape my art and taste in media growing up, thanks for putting your work out into the world!!!

Theoretically, I love them all.

They're all a part of me in some way.

I've discovered over the years that I just can't handle characters I can't relate to. Most specifically, Billy, Mandy, and Grim are major facets of my personality. I purposefully related them to Freud's Id, Ego, and Superego, but they're all very specifically also a part of who I am. Billy is my fun-loving lust for freedom from schedules and consequences. Mandy is the part of me that realizes that Billy will destroy us all, so there must be structure. Grim is just trying to live his life. He wants to watch TV and pet cats, but life (unlife?) just won't give him a break. He's the viewpoint character to my Asperger's.

Irwin is the sad-sack/misguided hero redeemed, which is always a trope I love.

Eris is specifically the Discordian Eris, but also the extreme end of that Billy lust for freedom and the will of the RNG gods. (Good gravy -- my current BG3 playthrough)

Nergal is my love for Lovecraftian/Howardian Mesopotamian deities as has-beens.

Jeff the Spider (quite literally me at the time of his inception) was Too Nice, and therefore a sucker.

Hoss Delgado is the knowledge that if you gaze too long into the abyss... you end up with a chainsaw for a leg.

Then (because this is a collaboration) you've got characters who are primarily created by and representative of other people. For example, Fred Fredburger was created by C.H. Greenblatt. Sperg was created by Gord Zajac (as was Hoss, really). Boogey was created by Spencer Laudiero. All of these artists infused some piece of themselves into the character.

This is (IMO) where it gets fun. It's the ultimate Role Playing Game. It's childhood play made manifest. I've got my Luke Skywalker figure and you've got your Darth Vader figure and we've got two COBRA H.I.S.S. tanks and a Muffy from Battlestar Galactica and we're gonna hash this shit out.

Ideally, I think I'd want a "Simpsons World". A world where there are zero (or as close as possible) extraneous characters. Everyone represents something and everyone matters. I was so close with B&M. Fingers crossed I get there one day.

[asgoodeasgold]

Matthew Goode in a KNITTED tank top / vest /waistcoat / sleeveless jumper - Part 1/3

Yes, he has worn quite a few of these 😆. Just because I think it's super cute and fluffy and that's what's needed.

Needless to say, Matthew rocks this item of clothing! 🔥🔥

📷 My edits from (top left, clockwise) My Family and Other Animals (2005), Freud's Last Session (2023), A Murder is Announced (2005), Brideshead Revisited (2008), Birthmarked (2018).

[zvaigzdelasas]

In a year of hard fighting since taking delivery of its first 71 German-made Leopard 2 tanks, the Ukrainian army has lost—according to Oryx—at least 12 of the tanks.

But the losses aren’t the reason the army is struggling to generate combat-ready Leopard 2s. Many more Leopard 2s have been damaged than have been destroyed—and the Ukrainians are having real problems getting the damaged tanks fixed and returned to service.[...]

As many as 59 Leopard 2s in theory remain in Ukrainian service. But in reality, potentially dozens of the intact tanks are out of service for want of repairs. When German T.V. network NTV visited a Leopard 2A6 platoon this month, just one of the unit’s four tanks was combat-ready.

German Green Party politician Sebastian Schäfer went looking for answers, and found them in Lithuania, where German firms Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann run a workshop that fixes Leopard 2A6s and Strv 122s. Leopard 2A4s go to Poland for repairs. “Only a very small number of the main battle tanks delivered can still be used by Ukraine,” Schäfer reported.

There’s a shortage of spares at the front line and at the repair center. This should come as no surprise to close observers of Germany’s long military decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Desperate for parts and eager to fix their tanks themselves, the Ukrainians tend to remove parts from the most badly-damaged Leopard 2s before loading them onto trucks and trains for transport to Poland or Lithuania, Maj. Gen. Christian Freuding explained. [...]

But this cannibalization means the workers at the repairs centers have to fix battlefield damage and replace stripped parts. The repair centers aren’t just fixing tanks, they’re “rebuilding” them, Freuding said.[...]

Ukrainian defense planners meanwhile have chopped the 47th Brigade’s surviving Leopard 2A6s to the 21st Brigade, consolidating those tanks with the remaining Strv 122s in order to simplify their logistics.

And The Netherlands and Germany are beginning to deliver, presumably to the 33rd Brigade, 14 fresh Leopard 2A4s.

But the longer-term fix requires German industry to produce tank parts. Lots of them. And consistently.

Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here about the efficacy of flashy expensive military hardware in actual combat against a peer/near-peer competitor. Maybe not tho! [22 Jan 24]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"Marilyn Monroe was baptized by Aimée Semple McPherson, analyzed by Anna Freud, befriended by Carl Sandburg and Edith Sitwell, romanced (if you can call it that) by Jack and Bobby Kennedy, painted by Willem de Kooning, taught acting by Michael Chekhov and Lee Strasberg, photographed by Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. 

She managed—on the strength of limited dramatic talent and within a studio system that paid no attention to individual ambition—to work with some of the greatest directors in movie history: twice with John Huston, Billy Wilder, and Howard Hawks, and once each with George Cukor, Joseph Mankiewicz, and Laurence Olivier. 

She was the first Playboy centerfold and one of the first women to own her own production company; she was a nudist and a champion of free love long before these concepts emerged into the national consciousness. 

She maintained a deep association with the American military that, all on its own, lent her a mythic stature. When the Second World War broke out, she became both a teenage war bride and an actual Rosie the Riveter (long days spent working in the fuselage-varnishing room of the Radioplane plant in Burbank); her first cheesecake photographs were taken in the spirit of “morale boosters” for the boys overseas; her famous appearance in Korea—wriggling onstage in her purple sequined dress, popping her glorious platinum head out of the hatch of the camouflaged touring tank rolling her to the next appearance—remains the standard against which any American sex symbol sent to entertain the troops is measured. 

She was the first celebrity to talk openly about her childhood sexual abuse, a kind of admission that has become so common today that we hardly take notice of it. But to tell reporters in the 1950s that you had been raped as an 8-year-old—and to do so without shame, but rather with a justifiable sense of fury and vengeance—was a breathtaking act of self-assurance." 

From "Inventing Marilyn Monroe," by Caitlin Flanagan, in "The Atlantic," March 2013. (Photograph by Ed Feingersh.) 

[Follies Of God]

[just-a-little-moth]

I can't stop trying to read into the fact that 621's AC always explodes when you hit zero AP. You fall over and explode. Raven dies. She doesn't get out. She's gone.

Compare this to the fact that a bunch of AC pilots keep showing up to challenge you again and again, despite going down in the fight. G5 Iguazu being the biggest offender. Iguazu fights you 2-3 times depending on your playthrough. Chartreuse and King talk about the other ejecting when you take them out. So who does die (Lists are NOT complete/exhaustive)?

Die For Sure G4 Volta (Killed by The Wall) "Cinder" Carla (Killed by 621) G1 Michigan (Killed by 621/V.IV Rusty) Chatty Stick (Killed by 621 or V.I Freud) Walter (Killed by 621 after siding with Ayre, though Arquebus "Brain Fried" him first) V.IV Rusty (Killed by 621 after betraying Ayre) V.VI Maeterlinck (Killed by 621) G3 Wu Huahai (Killed by 621) V.VII Swinburne (Killed by 621, and is the VA of Lelouch Lamperouge, unless spared) V.V Hawkins (Killed by 621 and Middle Flatwell) V.VIII Pater (Killed by 621 and Middle Flatwell, or killed by 621 at AllMind's behest) Sula *ASSUMED* Every MT pilot, helicopter pilot, tank/artillery crew, tetrapod pilot, PCA pilot, PCA warship crew, the Strider crew, crew piloting The Wall, Every Doser encountered, multiple RaD pilots, Others? Confirmed Survivors Every pilot aside from 621 in the mission to fight the Ice Worm G5 Iguazu Chartruese King Ambiguous Raven Everyone else, including the Assumed KIA "Mob" NPCs above. So what does this tell us? Well, it tells us that the destruction of your AC/MT/ETC isn't a death sentence. Yet, 621, Our Raven, dies when her AP hits 0. Her AC falls over and explodes. Every other AC falls over, kneels down, or hunches over and bursts into flames. The wreck is still on the map. It's still loaded in. You can analyze them if you want to and have time to do so. In the Arena the enemy does the same.

Since the Arena and the ACs in missions are, essentially, every possible AC combination on display, there's no reason that 621's AC couldn't follow the same pattern. Which raises a question.

Can 621 leave her AC?

In the briefing cutscene after being captured by Arquebus we are essentially chest high in the water as it flows past us/we trudge forward. Ayre is telling us we need to escape. After some time we find the run down AC Walter, or the Overseers, left us.

This briefing cutscene can mean two things. Either 621 can leave her AC and move around on her own, or, she's being carried out by Overseer operatives in Arquebus (Which I've seen posited online).

We know from one of the introductory cutscenes that 621 is essentially a mummy with a "crown/halo" driving spikes into her brain. We know that her brain is "fried" which makes her a good hound candidate. There's no way to know how much mobility she's capable of, all we know is she's a brain-fried mummy who does everything she's asked to, only sometimes deciding who she obeys.

So we can't know conclusively whether 621 can leave her AC voluntarily or not.

What we can know, is that 621 and her exploding AC isn't special. EVERYTHING aside from enemy/Ally ACs explode when they hit AP 0. MTs explode. Helicopters explode. Artillery emplacements explode. The "Anti-AC" artillery/tanks explode. The PCA explodes. The Dosers explode. The BAWS Tetrapods explode. Everything that isn't a named character or main boss explodes and disappears.

(I admit the PCA warships are a bit funky in this lens, acting more like a "dead" AC than anything else.)

There aren't even lines from our Handler when we die. Ayre doesn't say anything. The only people who "talk to us" when we die, are our enemies, telling us we weren't the hot shit everyone said we were. Why do we hear them instead of our closest allies? The two people who dictate our life as a mercenary?

Instead we just explode like any ol' MT pilot.

In a way, the fact that 621 just explodes. The fact that she dies when she fails at a mission instead of being able to eject is tied to who she sees herself as and what she is.

Raven, 621, is an AC pilot. She gets the job done despite the odds. That's all she is. So if she can't get the job done, then she may as well be dead. Her only reason to exist is to follow the orders of Handler Walter or Ayre. She's a hound, a brain-fried dog, loyal to her masters over anything else, even taking her failure to the grave. What good is a dog who can't fetch?

[sexisdisgusting]

There is something so repulsive to me about when men get excited by the imagery of weapons / soldiers / army uniform / planes / tanks, etc.

I understand that this is the human nature that we have evolved for reasons and that it's irrational to hate because it was beneficial for us as a species. You know, the competition, the survival of the fittest and all that stuff.

Plus it's simply immature and unhealthy to go around hating every day.

But it's so fucking abhorrent to me.

Ironically, it makes me feel violent as some kind of counter-violence measure. Makes me want to castrate them all or something. (Freud would love this ask)

They should all go to the war and remove each other from the gene pool, preferably without touching anyone else. Maybe then we will achieve the world peace. 🙏

I must admit that even men liking sports and shooting games irks me a bit. I see that drive towards violence and domination and I start doubting their humanity. I start thinking to myself: "ah, another rabid dog that can't stay fucking put. must be euthanized".

i have nothing more to add to what you said, i agree entirely

everything men do is repulsive tbh

[dailyanarchistposts]

E.3 Can private property rights protect the environment?

Environmental issues have become increasingly important over the decades. When Murray Bookchin wrote his first works on our ecological problems in the 1950s, he was only one of a small band. Today, even right-wing politicians have to give at least some lip-service to environmental concerns while corporations are keen to present their green credentials to the general public (even if they do not, in fact, have any).

As such, there has been a significant change. This is better late than never, considering that the warnings made by the likes of Bookchin in the 1950s and 1960s have come true to a threateningly worrying degree. Sadly, eco-anarchist solutions are still ignored but that is unsurprising as they go to the heart of the ecological problem, namely domination within humanity as the precondition for the domination of nature and the workings of the capitalist economy. It is hardly likely that those who practice and benefit from that oppression and exploitation will admit that they are causing the problems! Hence the need to appear green in order to keep a fundamentally anti-green system going.

Of course, some right-wingers are totally opposed to ecological issues. They seriously seem to forget without a viable ecology, there would be no capitalism. Ayn Rand, for example, dismissed environmental concerns as being anti-human and had little problem with factory chimneys belching smoke into the atmosphere (her fondness for chimneys and skyscrapers would have have made Freud reach for his notepad). As Bob Black once noted, “Rand remarked that she worshipped smokestacks. For her … they not only stood for, they were the epitome of human accomplishment. She must have meant it since she was something of a human smokestack herself; she was a chain smoker, as were the other rationals in her entourage. In the end she abolished her own breathing: she died of lung cancer.” [“Smokestack Lightning,” Friendly Fire, p. 62] The fate of this guru of capitalism is a forewarning for our collective one if we ignore the environment and our impact on it.

The key to understanding why so many on the right are dismissive of ecological concerns is simply that ecology cannot be squeezed into their narrow individualistic property based politics. Ecology is about interconnectiveness, about change and interaction, about the sources of life and how we interact with them and they with us. Moreover, ecology is rooted in the quality of life and goes not automatically view quantity as the key factor. As such, the notion that more is better does not strike the ecologist as, in itself, a good thing. The idea that growth is good as such is the principle associated with cancer. Ecology also destroys the individualistic premise of capitalist economics. It exposes the myth that the market ensures everyone gets exactly what they want — for if you consume eco-friendly products but others do not then you are affected by their decisions as the environmental impact affects all. Equally, the notion that the solution to GM crops should letting “the market” decide fails to take into account that such crops spread into local eco-systems and contaminate whole areas (not to mention the issue of corporate power enclosing another part of the commons). The market “solution” in this case would result in everyone, to some degree, consuming GM crops eventually. None of this can be fitted into the capitalist ideology.

However, while vocal irrational anti-green perspectives lingers on in some sections of the right (particularly those funded by the heaviest polluters), other supporters of capitalism have considered the problems of ecological destruction in some degree. Some of this is, of course, simply greenwashing (i.e., using PR and advertising to present a green image while conducting business as usual). Some of it is funding think tanks which use green-sounding names, imagery and rhetoric to help pursue a decidedly anti-ecological practice and agenda. Some of is, to some degree, genuine. Al Gore’s campaign to make the world aware of the dangers of climate change is obviously sincere and important work (although it is fair to point out the lack of green policies being raised during his 2000 Presidential election campaign and the poverty of his proposed solutions and means of change). Nicholas Stern’s 2006 report on climate change produced for the UK government is another example and it gives an insight into the mentality of such environmentalists. The report did produce quite an impact (plus its dismissal by the usual suspects). The key reason for that was, undoubtedly, due to it placing a money sum on the dangers of environmental disruption. Such is capitalism — people and planet can go to the dogs, but any threat to profits must be acted upon. As the British PM at the time put it, any Climate Change Bill must be “fully compatible with the interests of businesses and consumers as well.” Which is ironic, as it is the power of money which is causing the bulk of the problems we face.

Which is what we will discuss here, namely whether private property can be used to solve our environmental problems. Liberal environmentalists base their case on capitalist markets aided with some form of state intervention. Neo-liberal and right-“libertarian” environmentalists base their case purely on capitalist markets and reject any role for the state bar that of defining and enforcing private property rights. Both, however, assume that capitalism will remain and tailor their policies around it. Anarchists question that particularly assumption particularly given, as we discussed in section E.1, the fundamental reason why capitalism cannot be green is its irrational “grow-or-die” dynamic. However, there are other aspects of the system which contribute to capitalism bringing ecological crisis sooner rather than later. These flow from the nature of private property and the market competition it produces (this discussion, we should stress, ignores such factors as economic power which will be addressed in section E.3.2).

The market itself causes ecological problems for two related reasons: externalities and the price mechanism. It is difficult making informed consumption decisions under capitalism because rather than provide enough information to make informed decisions, the market hinders the flow of relevant information and suppresses essential knowledge. This is particularly the case with environmental information and knowledge. Simply put, we have no way of knowing from a given price the ecological impact of the products we buy. One such area of suppressed information is that involving externalities. This is a commonly understood problem. The market actively rewards those companies which inflict externalities on society. This is the “routine and regular harms caused to others — workers, consumers, communities, the environment.” These are termed “externalities” in “the coolly technical jargon of economics” and the capitalist company is an “externalising machine” and it is “no exaggeration to say that the corporation’s built in compulsion to externalise its costs is at the root of many of the world’s social and environmental ills.” [Joel Bakan, The Corporation, p. 60 and p. 61]

The logic is simple, by externalising (imposing) costs on others (be it workers, customers or the planet) a firm can reduce its costs and make higher profits. Thus firms have a vested interest in producing externalities. To put it crudely, pollution pays while ecology costs. Every pound a business spends on environmental protections is one less in profits. As such, it makes economic sense to treat the environment like a dump and externalise costs by pumping raw industrial effluent into the atmosphere, rivers, and oceans. The social cost of so doing weighs little against the personal profits that result from inflicting diffuse losses onto the general public. Nor should we discount the pressure of market forces in this process. In order to survive on the market, firms may have to act in ways which, while profitable in the short-run, are harmful in the long term. For example, a family-owned farm may be forced to increase production using environmentally unsound means simply in order to avoid bankruptcy.

As well as economic incentives, the creation of externalities flows from the price mechanism itself. The first key issue, as green economist E. F. Schumacher stressed, is that the market is based on “total quantification at the expense of qualitative differences; for private enterprise is not concerned with what it produces but only what it gains from production.” This means that the “judgement of economics … is an extremely fragmentary judgement; out of the large number of aspects which in real life have to be seen and judged together before a decision can be taken, economics supplies only one — whether a thing yields a profit to those who undertake it or not.” [Small is Beautiful, p. 215 and p. 28] This leads to a simplistic decision making perspective:

“Everything becomes crystal clear after you have reduced reality to one — one only — of its thousand aspects. You know what to do — whatever produces profits; you know what to avoid — whatever reduces them or makes a loss. And there is at the same time a perfect measuring rod for the degree of success or failure. Let no-one befog the issue by asking whether a particular action is conducive to the wealth and well-being of society, whether it leads to moral, aesthetic, or cultural enrichment. Simply find out whether it pays.” [Op. Cit., p. 215]

This means that key factors in decision making are, at best, undermined by the pressing need to make profits or, at worse, simply ignored as a handicap. So “in the market place, for practical reasons, innumerable qualitative distinctions which are of vital importance for man and society are suppressed; they are not allowed to surface. Thus the reign of quantity celebrates its greatest triumphs in ‘The Market.’” This feeds the drive to externalise costs, as it is “based on a definition of cost which excludes all ‘free goods,’ that is to say, the entire God-given environment, except for those parts of it that have been privately appropriated. This means that an activity can be economic although it plays hell with the environment, and that a competing activity, if at some cost it protects and conserves the environment, will be uneconomic.” To summarise: “it is inherent in the methodology of economics to ignore man’s dependence on the natural world.” [Op. Cit., p. 30 and p. 29]

Ultimately, should our decision-making be limited to a single criteria, namely whether it makes someone a profit? Should our environment be handed over to a system which bases itself on confusing efficient resource allocation with maximising profits in an economy marked by inequalities of wealth and, consequently, on unequal willingness and ability to pay? In other words, biodiversity, eco-system stability, clean water and air, and so forth only become legitimate social goals when the market places a price on them sufficient for a capitalist to make money from them. Such a system can only fail to achieve a green society simply because ecological concerns cannot be reduced to one criteria (“The discipline of economics achieves its formidable resolving power by transforming what might otherwise be considered qualitative matters into quantitative issues with a single metric and, as it were, a bottom line: profit or loss.” [James C. Scott, Seeing like a State, p. 346]). This is particularly the case when even economists admit that the market under-supplies public goods, of which a clean and aesthetically pleasing environment is the classic example. Markets may reflect, to some degree, individual consumer preferences distorted by income distribution but they are simply incapable of reflecting collective values (a clean environment and spectacular views are inherently collective goods and cannot be enclosed). As a result, capitalists will be unlikely to invest in such projects as they cannot make everyone who uses them pay for the privilege.

Then there is the tendency for the market to undermine and destroy practical and local knowledge on which truly ecological decisions need to be based. Indigenous groups, for example, have accumulated an enormous body of knowledge about local ecological conditions and species which are ignored in economic terms or eliminated by competition with those with economic power. Under markets, in other words, unarticulated knowledge of soil conditions and bio-diversity which have considerable value for long-term sustainability is usually lost when it meets agribusiness.

Practical knowledge, i.e. local and tacit knowledge which James C. Scott terms metis, is being destroyed and replaced “by standardised formulas legible from the centre” and this “is virtually inscribed in the activities of both the state and large-scale bureaucratic capitalism.” The “logic animating the project … is one of control and appropriation. Local knowledge, because it is dispersed and relatively autonomous, is all but unappropriable. The reduction or, more utopian still, the elimination of metis and the local control its entails are preconditions, in the case of the state, of administrative order and fiscal appropriation and, in the case of the large capitalism firm, of worker discipline and profit.” [Op. Cit., pp. 335–6] Green socialist John O’Neill provides a similar analysis:

“far from fostering the existence of practical and local knowledge, the spread of markets often appears to do the opposite: the growth of global markets is associated with the disappearance of knowledge that is local and practical, and the growth of abstract codifiable information … the market as a mode of co-ordination appears to foster forms of abstract codifiable knowledge … The knowledge of weak and marginal actors in markets, such as peasant and marginalised indigenous communities, tends to be lost to those who hold market power. The epistemic value of knowledge claims bear no direct relation to their market value. Local and often unarticulated knowledge of soil conditions and crop varieties that have considerable value for long-term sustainability of agriculture has no value in markets and hence is always liable to loss when it comes into contact with oil-based agricultural technologies of those who do have market power. The undermining of local practical knowledge in market economies has also been exacerbated by the global nature of both markets and large corporate actors who require knowledge that is transferable across different cultures and contexts and hence abstract and codifiable … Finally, the demand for commensurability and calculability runs against the defence of local and practical knowledge. This is not just a theoretical problem but one with real institutional embodiments. The market encourages a spirit of calculability … That spirit is the starting point for the algorithmic account of practical reason which requires explicit common measures for rational choice and fails to acknowledge the existence of choice founded upon practical judgement. More generally it is not amicable to forms of knowledge that are practical, local and uncodifiable.” [Markets, Deliberation and Environment, pp. 192–3]

Thus the market tends to replace traditional forms of agriculture and working practices (and the complex knowledge and expertises associated with both) with standardised techniques which aim to extract as much profit in the short-term as possible by concentrating power into the hands of management and their appointed experts. That they cannot even begin to comprehend the local conditions and practical knowledge and skills required to effectively use the resources available in a sustainable manner should go without saying. Unfortunately, the economic clout of big business is such that it can defeat traditional forms of knowledge in the short-term (the long-term effect of such exploitation is usually considered someone else’s problem).

So, given this analysis, it comes as no surprise to anarchists that private property has not protected the environment. In fact, it is one of the root causes of our ecological problems. Markets hide the ecological and health information necessary for environmentally sound decisions. Ultimately, environmental issues almost always involve value judgements and the market stops the possibility of producing a public dialogue in which these values can be discussed and enriched. Instead, it replaces this process by an aggregation of existing preferences (shaped by economic pressures and necessity) skewed in favour of this generation’s property owners. An individual’s interest, like that of the public as a whole, is not something which exists independently of the decision-making processes used but rather is something which is shaped by them. Atomistic processes focused on a simplistic criteria will produce simplistic decisions which have collectively irrational results. Collective decision making based on equal participation of all will produce decisions which reflect all the concerns of all affected in a process which will help produce empowered and educated individuals along with informed decisions.

Some disagree. For these the reason why there is environmental damage is not due to too much private property but because there is too little. This perspective derives from neo-classical and related economic theory and it argues that ecological harm occurs because environmental goods and bads are unpriced. They come free, in other words. This suggests that the best way to protect the environment is to privatise everything and to create markets in all areas of life. This perspective, needless to say, is entirely the opposite of the standard eco-anarchist one which argues that our environmental problems have their root in market mechanisms, private property and the behaviour they generate. As such, applying market norms even more rigorously and into areas of life that were previously protected from markets will tend to make ecological problems worse, not better.

As would be expected, the pro-property perspective is part of the wider turn to free(r) market capitalism since the 1970s. With the apparent success of Thatcherism and Reaganism (at least for the people who count under capitalism, i.e. the wealthy) and the fall of Stalinism in the Eastern Block, the 1980s and 1990s saw a period of capitalist triumphantism. This lead to an increase in market based solutions to every conceivable social problem, regardless of how inappropriate and/or insane the suggestions were. This applies to ecological issues as well. The publication of Free Market Environmentalism by Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal in 1991 saw ideas previously associated with the right-“libertarian” fringe become more mainstream and, significantly, supported by corporate interests and the think-tanks and politicians they fund.

Some see it as a deliberate plan to counteract a growing ecological movement which aims to change social, political and economic structures in order to get at the root cases of our environmental problems. Activist Sara Diamond suggested that ”[s]ome farsighted corporations are finding that the best ‘bulwark’ against ‘anti-corporation’ environmentalism is the creation and promotion of an alternative model called ‘free market environmentalism.’” [“Free Market Environmentalism,” Z Magazine, December 1991] Whatever the case, the net effect of this reliance on markets is to depoliticise environmental debates, to transform issues which involve values and affect many people into ones in which the property owner is given priority and where the criteria for decision making becomes one of profit and loss. It means, effectively, ending debates over why ecological destruction happens and what we should do about it and accepting the assumptions, institutions and social relationships of capitalism as a given as well as privatising yet more of the world and handing it over to capitalists. Little wonder it is being proposed as an alternative by corporations concerned about their green image. At the very least, it is fair to say that the corporations who punt free market environmentalism as an alternative paradigm for environmental policy making are not expecting to pay more by internalising their costs by so doing.

As with market fundamentalism in general, private property based environmentalism appears to offer solutions simply because it fails to take into account the reality of any actual capitalist system. The notion that all we have to do is let markets work ignores the fact that any theoretical claim for the welfare superiority of free-market outcomes falls when we look at any real capitalist market. Once we introduce, say, economic power, imperfect competition, public goods, externalities or asymmetric information then the market quickly becomes a god with feet of clay. This is what we will explore in the rest of this section while the next section will discuss a specific example of how laissez-faire capitalism cannot be ecological as proved by one of its most fervent ideologues. Overall, anarchists feel we have a good case on why is unlikely that private property can protect the environment.

[nobodyatall6]

Rings, Part 4

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

“I’m a weak man.”

“That’s an interesting way of pronouncing ‘serial adulterer’.”

Don found some balled up socks on the floor and chucked them at Nina, who dodged easily.

“Shut up. This is serious.”

“Why do you want to marry her anyway? She seems like a drip to me.”

“I love her.”

Nina cocked her head and squinted at him, considering.

“I think I do believe you,” she said after a moment. “But only because you love anyone who lets you put your tongue in their mouth.”

He looked around for more socks to throw at her, but there wasn’t anything within arm’s reach.

“But that doesn’t mean you have to marry her,” Nina continued. “Is it the money? You gonna quit the hospital and become a house husband in that big haunted mansion?”

That thought honestly hadn’t occurred to Don. In fairness, almost nothing about After had occurred to him. He never really made a habit of thinking beyond the present moment.

“It just…seemed like the thing to do,” he muttered, finally.

Years ago he had taken Nina to a carnival, because that seemed like the sort of thing people do, taking their girl to the fun fair and winning her a big stuffed bear or something. But he hadn’t been able to ring the bell on the test-your-strength machine. He had been embarrassed, but she had taken the mallet from him and told him it wasn’t about strength, it was about accuracy. The closer you hit to the middle of the button, the higher you go.

CLANG! Straight to the center. Right in the heart. She hit it every time.

“But I mean, christ. Monday? That’s soon.”

“I didn’t know about that part when I proposed,” he grumbled. “I thought it would take, like, ages. People take months to even set a date. Pick out, fuckin’…table settings. Rich people especially.”

“Ohhh, I see now,” Nina said, arching her back languidly over the arm of the couch. Don watched her tank top wrinkle over the curves of her body. No matter how many times she did that, it was still sexy.

“You thought you’d end up in a perpetually-engaged, wedding-planning limbo where you wouldn’t have to make any decisions, would keep her happy by saying yes to everything she wanted, and could just keep things the way they were for ages.”

“But you didn’t count on the power of Daddy’s old-country Catholicism and now you’re getting married in two days and you’re panicking because everything is supposed to change and you can’t even stop yourself from boning your cleaner.”

CLANG! Straight to the center. Right in the heart. She hit it every time.

He did his best to snort derisively. “Oh, piss off, Sigmund Freud. You’re just jealous that I found someone who isn’t you.”

She smirked and rolled off the couch. “I have no reason to be jealous when it comes to you, Don Lothario.”

“You’ll never change.”

[dalt0nyc0]

Sr. Ávila Season One Analysis

Word Count: 5,971

Warnings: There is a brief mention of necro and n0nc0n and a reference to suic1de, which is part of the plot. This section has a content warning, so you can skip past it!

Ávila season one starts with Roberto  Ávila being already in the hitmen field. I will begin from Roberto’s childhood, at least what is known from Season One, and go from there. As a disclaimer, I am also going by what the English subtitles provided by HBO themselves have translated the show as. I know the Spanish dialogue may be slightly different for localization purposes; however, I am going by the English subtitles as I don't speak Spanish. I will post almost all the clips I mention or reference to my Tumblr blog, @Nachocheesevarga, for those interested. With all that out of the way, let's get started. Not much is shared about Roberto’s childhood in the entire series, regardless of season one. Yet here are things known about Roberto.

 Roberto’s family is clouded in mystery, and there isn’t enough information given, but what is known is that he has a father and a mother. His mother will be brought up in my discussion on season three, as no information is known of her in season one. Roberto’s father seems to have respiratory issues, which an oxygen tank can see. He is seen smoking a cigarette, so it is to be assumed he most likely had gotten it from a long-time nicotine addiction. His father is also in a wheelchair however, this wasn’t always the case. In episode eleven, titled Freud and Ghosts, we get to see the first glimpse of Roberto’s father. His father is supposedly the one who got Roberto to kill first. This is because a man named Robledo shot his father, which is presumably why he is using a wheelchair and not able-bodied. Roberto claims his first kill was because of his father. His killer had his father's voice and drove him to murder Robledo with a baseball bat. The show later on contradicts this statement but I will get to that when I write my analysis on season three. Roberto claims he killed Robledo because “...he showed me in the worst possible way that my dad wasn’t immortal” (Freud and Ghosts 20:00-23:59). Roberto’s father had already paid for the hit so Roberto had gone to return the money which is how he met Moreira which there offered him a job. Once again the show later on has a different contrasting point on if this is all true, but I will mention that once we cross that bridge. Given that Roberto has been in the hitmen business for 15 years, it is assumed that 15 years ago, he killed Robledo, marking that as when Moreira hired him. Before I move on past Roberto’s biological family, I have to talk about Roberto’s sister. I don’t think this was anything more than a one-liner; however, as I am doing this analysis, it is crucial to mention it. In episode nine, titled The Child and the Spiderweb, there is a brief mention of a sister aspiring from a joke. Roberto and the man who works at the scrap yard speak and have playful banter. After this, he mentions that Roberto needs to tell his sister that he is coming over later. This sister is never once brought up again in the entire four seasons. I am chalking this up to be a one-liner, and since it was so early in the show, they didn’t think much about it. However, as it was mentioned, I had to at least talk about it. Next, I will discuss Roberto’s child Emiliano and his wife Maria. 

Roberto and Maria’s meeting is talked about in season two so I will stick to season one only for now. Maria is forty years old confirmed in episode one titled Surprise Party. The episode confirms Maria is forty years old, starting season one. Roberto is confirmed to also be in his forties. While his age isn’t specified, it can be assumed that he is either exactly forty or in his very early forties. I think it’s more plausible that he is also forty, just a couple of months older than Maria. The Priest is who mentions this, stating that Roberto is already forty and should take the job as the Don (A Lousy Job 4:30). Emiliano is confirmed to be seventeen as well in episode six, Reliquaries and Vampires. This means that the youngest, Roberto and Maria had Emiliano when Maria was 23, and Roberto was at least 23, if not a few years older. Maria and Roberto’s marriage date is unknown. However, the day they got married was on August 11th, confirmed in episode thirteen, titled A Child's Gaze. Now, we will look at Roberto’s earlier life. 

Roberto joined the hitman agency when he was at least twenty-five. This would make Emiliano two years old when Roberto started working for Moreira. However, Roberto worked as a police officer before his job as a hitman. In Mexico, the age to become a police officer is 18-35. This can mean that Roberto may have joined the police academy as soon as he graduated and left the police around when Emiliano was born or before Emiliano was two. Roberto worked on the police force with a man named Bermudez. Bermudez, in an altercation shown in a flashback, shot Roberto in the hand, leaving Roberto with a scar on one of his hands (A Lousy Job). Roberto, in this same episode, also seems to struggle with PTSD due to these experiences in the police force. He has a flashback while sleeping and can be seen thrashing in his sleep. He wakes up, and his hands end up on Maria’s neck. Maria isn’t freaking out, only worried about Maria, which has the undertone that this is something that has happened a few times, at least to the extent that Maria is not freaked out by what happens. She instantly calms down Maria holds him gently and tells him that it’s alright (A Lousy Job 33:00). This episode also showcases Roberto showing symptoms of a panic attack as well and when he is tasked with killing Bermudez he is visibly shaky and sweating. Roberto, as mentioned, joined the Hitmen agency around the time he was 25. He tells Ybarra that he is broke and doesn’t have a job at the moment and that is why he is joining the agency. Roberto seemed to initially join the agency because he needed money with a very young child to support and a wife (By the Book). 

Ybarra, in this same episode, is also revealed to be Emilaino’s Godfather and is also the closest person Roberto had. Episode two, By the Book, has some of the most insightful information about Ybarra. Ybarra has been in the business for over twenty years, meaning he has been in the company five years longer than Roberto has. He was also Roberto’s mentor when he learned the ropes. Ybarra is revealed to have an eye problem, causing him to kill the wrong person. Ybarra claimed to have been all over the city and not a single doctor saw anything wrong with his eye (Surprise Party). This is later on in the series, so for those who are aware of what happens, I firmly believe the apostles had planned this and done something to Ybarra’s vision, which led to the mistake that pushed Roberto to kill Ybarra. Killing Ybarra is the first part in which we see Roberto’s mental health slip. When he is told to kill Ybarra, he fights it. Yet when he goes to the Priest, the Priest eggs Roberto into killing him. He also encourages Roberto to take the role of the Don. This pressure makes Roberto murder Ybarra for the rule he broke. Yet in episode one, Surprise Party, Ivan defends Ybarra’s mistake and tries to reason with Moreira on sparing Ybarra. This causes Moreira to snap at Ivan and remind him why they have rules. This is one of the more exciting points because it gets into the next section, the funeral parlor members. 

Ivan was Moreira’s right-hand man. He was working there before both Ybarra and Roberto. Ivan’s relationship with Moreira is fascinating as Moreira was only in the first few episodes. However, it is clear that his death had a massive impact on Ivan. When Ivan finds Moreira’s suicide, he kisses him on the mouth. He is also seen in that episode snorting Moreira’s ashes. Whatever the relationship the two had, it was intense. Ivan becomes much more colder after this. He shows Roberto certain things but is also very reclusive about everything. He cares for the business and clarifies that Roberto is not above that. Roberto may be the Don but he is in no way above the organization. Ivan helps keep things running smoothly. He kills Roberto’s mistress, Maggie, who he is cheating on with Maria. He tortures Emilaino to find out how it will affect the organization. He threatens to put a stop to Maria in case she digs too far and Roberto quickly puts an end to the idea. Ivan is one of the most dangerous characters in the show because he stops at nothing to put the crime organization first. Ana is the mortuary cosmetologist for the funeral home business. She is close with Ivan to some extent. She is reticent in season one. She rarely speaks unless spoken to; when she does, it’s only a few words. Ana is focused on her work and loves to make people remember who they were when they were alive. 

Next, I will be talking about Maggie. Maggie is who Roberto sees while he has his double life. Roberto uses sex as a coping mechanism. When things are stressful at work, and he's had a bad day, he can roughly fuck her. She is more of a vessel for Roberto, who can use her for sex when he is too overwhelmed. It’s not entirely clear when the affair started, but for a good part of Roberto’s life, he is faithful. When mentioned about whoring by Ybarra, Roberto quickly dismisses it by saying he has a wife. Roberto at some point, got into a relationship with Maggie. The affair had been going on for at least six months, as six months ago, Roberto gave Maggie the bracelet (Neither Borge’s nor God). This episode means it’s assumed that the moment he gave her the bracelet, the two officially started seeing each other and went from courting to starting their commitment to being friends with benefits. In episode one, it is also confirmed that Maggie is only thirty years old, a decade younger than Roberto and Maria. Roberto uses sex as a coping mechanism, and when Maggie mentions Maria and says she will tell her about their affair, Roberto is hostile. He threatens to hurt Maggie if she dares to touch and interfere with his family life. When Ivan kills Maggie, Roberto is distraught. He seems to show real emotions as benign distraught and calling her dozens of times. In episode six, Reliquaries and Vampires, Maria wants to engage in sex and asks Roberto as she thinks it might help her feel better, yet Roberto is too focused on Maggie’s whereabouts. He says he's too tired from work and leaves Maria alone. Later on in episode seven, titled To Kill an Immortal, Roberto and Maria engage in sex. It’s rough, and it is something he would have done with Maggie. While the sex scene plays out, Roberto imagines it as Maggie instead of Maria. He is rough with Maria, and afterward, Maria mentions they haven’t done anything that rough in ages. Maria and Roberto seemed to have an okay bedroom life. There were two scenes showcasing their bedroom life. It appears that Roberto uses sex as a coping mechanism and uses Maggie as an outlet for his rage. Roberto, later on in the show, continues these unhealthy trends of using sex as a coping mechanism, and it seems to be one of his most exciting vices. While on the topic of vices, Roberto is seen participating in a dog fight and betting on a dog, and while it is only seen in one episode, the act of violently participating and watching a dog getting torn to shreds when Maggie wasn’t available for him to have sex with is a point to mention.

Now, I wanna dwell on Sanchez. Sanchez is one of the most exciting characters in the show because of his fall from grace. In season one he starts as being very competent. He knows what to do and how to poke the hornet's nest. He can piss off Roberto just by simply being there, and he can pin out Emiliano as being a suspect very quickly. He applies pressure to Emiliano and causes Emiliano to mess up his story by mentioning how the girl is probably already dead. He also is the one who leaks Roberto’s affair with Maggie to Maria. He caused a ripple effect, and out of all the people to have caused Roberto to falter, Sanchez is one of the top characters in this category. Sanchez in A Child's Gaze, Sanchez has been bought out and becomes one of Roberto’s lap dogs after Roberto murders his partner on the police force. He is using a man on the inside of the Mexican police force and using it to his advantage. Since Emiliano is mentioned in Sanchez’s section, I wanna focus on Emiliano. 

Emiliano is one of the more tragic characters as he longs for his father's approval and doesn’t have the proper guidance. Emilinao is seventeen years old. He seems to be a loner in the earlier episodes before he meets Ismael. He is seen getting made fun of and bullied. He sits alone at lunch. Emilino kicked the dog in episode two, By the Book. This was the first episode in which Emiliano clearly needed support. He needed a crutch of support for his anger issues that stemmed from Roberto. He needed a healthy outlet, but Maria’s own anxiety and fear hindered her from being that crutch Emiliano needed. Roberto is too concerned with Ybarra and the offer of becoming the next Don, which leaves him useless in his son's pleas for help. Emiliano was struggling, and he didn’t get that support. After Emiliano cuts a student's ankle with a box cutter, he is kicked out and forced to go to a rougher “delinquent” high school. This is where he meets Ismael. Yet Emiliano does get a talk from Roberto, which looks pretty heartfelt. He explained to Emiliano that holding in your anger can be dangerous. He also assures his son things will be okay. Roberto, for a split second, was human. Emiliano needed that. Yet Emiliano begins to fall into a darker path. Ismael helps him kill “the Beast” so he can date Juliana. Juliana is only playing with Emiliano, and after some pushback from Ismael, Emiliano murders her with a wooden stake. Content warning for the next section, I will be talking about the fictional rape that happens in this show. There will also be a brief mention of attempted suicide. Be warned and move to the next paragraph to avoid this. Stay safe. Emiliano reveals to Ismael that he raped Juliana after he killed her. This is one of the darkest aspects of the first season. This rape is something so dark that doesn’t have much else attached to it other than Emiliano does show to have remorse. He is seen breaking down when he tells Ismael and sobs into his jacket. I think while what Emiliano did was sickening and terrible, he needed serious help. Maria will be mentioned next, but the way she was of no help to Emiliano, and Roberto is so far away in his hitmen's work they leave Emiliano to drown. While his actions may be irredeemable, it is essential to look at how they stem. Emiliano needed to see an actual therapist and get real help when he was showing violent tendencies, but his mental health was neglected. Later on in the show, Emiliano attempts to kill himself. This isn’t a ploy for attention. Emiliano is in severe mental distress. He was abused and tortured by Ivan while being blindfolded. Maria calls Emiliano a monster like Roberto. He is deemed and cast out by his mother. Roberto isn’t much help either, as he and Maria fight, and it causes even more trauma to Emiliano. Emiliano ends up slitting his wrists, attempting to kill himself. Maria found him staring up at the ceiling, waiting to die. This is one of the heartbreaking moments. Maria accuses Roberto of being the reason and trying to get Emiliano to kill himself. Although Emiliano says, he’s alive because of his father. I take this as Roberto saving Emiliano from prison, which is why he says this. Roberto asks Doctor Montes to look after Emiliano. Doctor Montes explains to Roberto that Emiliano did try to end his life, and he wanted to die. He needed reassurance from his father. Montes mentions that Roberto needs to tuck him into bed, leave a light on, and ensure he knows he is safe. Roberto quickly failed Emiliano out of everyone else in his life. He needed that comfort and to feel protected and he didn’t have that. Emiliano dies not from Ismael but from Ivan. Ivan presses down, snaps Emilianos neck and lies to Roberto. This is the foundation of distrust Ivan and Roberto stand on. Emiliano died tragically and was dragged into this crime of life due to not having a support pillar around him.

Maria is the next person that Roberto fails. I think she has one of the most tragic stories. Maria develops anxiety in episode one. She is overwhelmed, and on the day she turns forty, Roberto has planned a surprise party for her, inviting over their friends. Maria is overcome with fear after having a rough day passes out. When she wakes up, Roberto is next to her, comforting her. His love for Maria seems strong, and he calls her loving names, like a princess, as he prepares her an excellent breakfast. Maria, however becomes more and more unwell in the episodes. In episode two, Roberto asks Maria to walk with him after he sees how stressed she is over Emiliano. The gesture is sweet and caring, but Maria declines his offer. This is the same episode where the two are not cuddling in bed. Roberto lays alone on his side of the bed and curls up alone. It is the beginning of the ending for the two. Roberto does try to reach out to Maria but she persists that she is okay. The most exciting thing is how Roberto shows concern yet never acts on it. He is worried about her. He mentions it to the Priest and Ivan, but he refuses to give any push. Roberto will be gentle with her and ask if she has gone out today, and Maria will say no and say she plans to go out tomorrow. Roberto is concerned but also doesn’t act on that. He is too busy with being the Don, and Maria falls deeper into her depressive episode and is consumed by anxiety about the outside world. What they do in the show is interesting because they use television as Maria’s fixation. 

The television isn’t just a source of entertainment but a way for her to still be connected to the world. Maria uses media and the TV as a way for her to get lost away from the real world. Outside of the TV, she has a neglectful husband and a son who is unstable and getting into fights. Inside the TV, she can use it as an escape mechanism and can watch shows that make her laugh or cooking shows. This spirals from her having a panic attack and fainting at her surprise party to not going out for weeks. The television became her connection to other people. Multiple times during multiple episodes, Maria is seen breaking down and crying on the floor, isolated and without her family. They have no food in the pantry or fridge because Maria hasn’t been able to go grocery shopping. When Roberto gives up on trying to get Maria's help, he passively ignores her, with the two facing away from each other.  Finally, their television service is shut off due to an issue with the autopayment not working. Maria is without the one thing helping her dissociate from reality. She panics and begins to search through the whole house and finds Roberto’s wad of cash shoved in one of his jackets. Maria ends up leaving the house to pay for the bill in person, but while there, due to the overestimation and anxiety, she breaks down and throws a trash can, attacking the clerk at the desk. That night Maria is quiet as Roberto goes to comfort her after Emilaino leaves to his room. Maria and Roberto begin to argue once she reveals she found the money. Roberto mentions that he had won it gambling on Emiliano’s birthday when he lied and said he was working. This is untrue, something Maria sees as Roberto never gambled and hasn’t in a long time. This is true as Roberto appears to gamble only in one episode throughout the show, and he does so at a dogfight. 

Roberto encourages Maria to see Doctor Montes and Maria ends up agreeing. In episode eight, titled God's Whims, it is revealed Maria had seen a therapist in the past due to having postpartum depression when she had Emiliano. When Doctor Montes finally sees Maria, he is working under Roberto, focusing on making Roberto look good. He gaslights Maria into believing Roberto and trusting him again. I think how Maria is revealed to be manipulated over and over again in this show is something so profoundly tragic. When Detective Sanchez arrives to tell Maria about Emiliano’s potential involvement in the murder of  Juliana. Sanchez then decides to poke the hornet's nest and reveals the bracelet Roberto gave to Maria was originally for Maggie. This throws Maria into a spiral as she slaps Roberto across the face and locks herself in their bedroom. Roberto tries to reason with her but Maria has no trust in Roberto anymore. He never told Maria about Ybarra’s death, which further puts a wedge in the couple. Roberto is sleeping on the couch, and Maria is deeply hurt.

Maria and Roberto repair their relationship somewhat when Emiliano nearly ends his life. The two reconcile at their house once Emiliano returns home from the hospital. While this should be something sweet, it is cut short when Roberto realizes Ismael is still alive. He requests that Maria go to her sister's house while they sort this out. Maria is hesitant and after a bit of pushback, she reluctantly agrees to go. As Emiliano and Roberto leave, Maria is left alone. As she gets in the car, it is revealed Ismael has been waiting for her. Maria instantly panics and reaches to take her prescribed medicine for her anxiety and panic attacks but isn’t able to. After following Ismael’s instructions, he stabs her with a tranquilizer, paralyzing her body temporarily. She is a limp doll, and Ismael decides to torture her. He first takes her to a food court, where he reveals everything. He tells Maria who Roberto is and how the funeral home is a front for the hitman business. Maria is horrified and can be seen with tears in her eyes as she is faced with the realization that the man she has been married to for over fifteen years has lied to her. Next, Ismael takes Maria to a soccer game. This game is filled with people cheering and hollering, which causes Maria distress. Her anxiety is at an all-time high with the realization that her husband has been hiding his true identity, and with her being in front of a crowd of hundreds, it is her own personal hell. When Ismael leaves to go to the bathroom she makes a break for it. She slowly begins to stumble as best as she can away from Ismael. Onlookers question her stumbling but when she sees Ismael in the corner of her eye, she begins to panic, running into the streets. There, a car accidentally hits her, leaving Maria with amnesia and unable to remember anything. When Roberto gets the call, he gets to the hospital as fast as he can, and when he sees her, Roberto decides to be genuine. He admits to his entire life. It is one of the few times Roberto seems genuine about anything. Yet there it is revealed Maria doesn’t remember who Roberto is. Roberto is distraught and hurt as he curls up with Maria holding her throughout the night. 

When Maria can go home Roberto has Doctor Montes help look after her so she can regain back her memory. Maria instantly recognizes Emiliano's photo but cannot piece together who Roberto is. She becomes volatile and smashes a picture frame over Doctor Montes’ head, claiming that she will always be able to recognize her son. The next most significant moment is when Maria discovers Emiliano’s corpse posed as if he hung himself in their garage. Maria is panicked and frantic screaming at Montes and Roberto. Roberto tries to reassure her that Emiliano is sick and he killed himself, but Maria quickly grabs the gun next to her. While it is off-screen, it is revealed Maria shot Roberto and shot Montes in his left arm; thankfully, Montes is right-handed, unlike Roberto. Roberto tells the priest Maria has gone crazy and explains how he murdered Ismael. For this season, that is where Maria is left. She was deemed crazy and unstable, and living in a designated home, the trauma she went through and hurt wiped away as she seems to have a clean slate now. Now, with all these characters and episode-by-episode synopsizes out of the way, I want to talk about Roberto.

Roberto is one of the last characters I have decided to discuss because I have so much to say about him. As mentioned before, at the very beginning, Roberto joined the police academy, most likely right out of high school. Roberto was groomed into becoming a hitman and into becoming a don. I will talk about this more in-depth in seasons three and four, but it is something so important to me. His own father insinuates that Roberto is to kill Robledo. While Roberto does offer first, it doesn’t make sense why Roberto would offer this, assuming this is around the time he just left the police force. I think he does it because he looks up to his father. Roberto’s father isn’t talked about nearly enough, but Roberto claims that was the first time he was ever killed. He murdered someone because of his father, and when Roberto murders Robledo, it is so violent. He somehow got him into the trunk of his car and relentlessly bashes Robledo with a bat. When the camera next shows Roberto, he is soaked in blood, and his hands are shaking as he lights up a cigarette and dissociates. This is highly similar to Emiliano killing Juliana, covered in blood and shaking, dissociating. Roberto wasn’t always this way, and what made him this way was something shrouded in mystery and only seen in small slivers.

Roberto killing Ybarra was the first foundational stone of Roberto losing everything and would be the kickstarting point for him in his long fall from grace and descent into madness. Ybarra was more than a teacher to Roberto this is the man who was Emiliano’s Godfather and close family friend. Maria was allowed to meet and personally know Ybarra. He attended her fortieth surprise birthday party. Ybarra was close to Roberto, and whether or not that was a problem for the organization or not, they wanted to test Roberto to see if he was capable of killing someone he cared about. Roberto doesn’t deal with any trauma or grief he has. This is a recurring thing in the show where if Roberto is stressed or needs an outlet, he turns to sex.

HBO, while not ever being one to shy away from sexual content, makes it abundantly clear that Roberto uses sex as a coping mechanism. When he has to kill Ybarra, and when he does, he instantly turns to Maggie to fuck and have rough sex with. His facial expression isn’t one of love or compassion but one of anger. He uses Maggie. Roberto, in my opinion, never loved Maggie, but he loved what she stood for. Maggie was Roberto’s personal sex doll and was everything his fake life represented. Maggie is the door that stands between who Roberto is and who he pretends to be. He uses Maggie when he needs to release tension from what is happening. She is young, flirty, and cunning, a dangerous combination that Roberto soon realizes. Maggie does have feelings for Roberto. She wants Roberto to skip Maria’s party so the two can have a night together. She disregards Maria as the woman being cheated on and views her as an opponent. If she can’t have Roberto, then neither should Maria. When Maggie goes ‘missing,’ Roberto is increasingly distraught and irritable, and I think it’s because he realizes that what he had for the last six months is gone. The outlet he had for sex and the outlet that was his escape and a personification of his double life is gone. Roberto imagines while he is having sex with Maria that it is Maggie in her place. This sex is rough, and when Maria tries to take off the bracelet that was once Maggie's, he tells Maria to keep it on. He wants Maria to be just for a night, that same personification that Maggie was. A way for him to relieve his stress. Roberto and Maria’s sex life is something dying. When Maria implies that a night of love with Roberto might make her feel better, he instantly brushes it off because he is concerned about Maggie. He jeopardizes their sex life for Maggie. Roberto does love Maria but he is also a hypocrite.

Roberto and Maria have an interesting dynamic because Roberto will say some of the most breathtaking, heartwarming comments about her, and yet he still cheats. I am very biased as Maria is one of my favorite characters in the show so the way I feel so strongly about how poorly she is treated. Roberto refuses to do good pushback with Maria. He is so clearly concerned about her when she faints and, in the next scene, brings her a beautiful tray of fruits from the party and he calls her princess. He does love her. Yet when Maria refuses to see a doctor, Roberto doesn’t have much else to say and leaves Maria to deal with it on her own. Roberto gets so hyperfocused and swept up in the new position as a don, one he isn’t even sure he wants to take, that he shuts out Emiliano and Maria. 

Roberto says, “And if something were to happen to her, anything, I would burn the world to the ground” (That Day). When Ivan pushes the idea of needing to take care of Maria if she becomes a problem Roberto instantly shuts it down, and he does multiple other times. Roberto loves Maria, but he is so focused on the double life he is living that he hurts and lies to Maria. He has lied to Maria for fifteen years and started cheating at least six months ago. Roberto is also distraught that killing can be an inherited trait. He talks about this multiple times with the Priest, and the Priest instantly shuts down the idea. Roberto treats the Priest's words very highly. He acts as a venting system for Roberto and it is something deeply personal to Roberto to have this outlet. Maria even mentioned that Roberto started sounding like the pope with optimism when she finally left the house. The Priest is someone intertwined with Roberto, and I wanna say more, but that gets into other seasons’ territories. However, when Roberto shares the most intimate details of his life, it is always with the Priest. 

Roberto also has an interesting dynamic with Emiliano. Emiliano’s death leaves Roberto forever changed, and when he sees his son is dead, he is clearly pained. He doesn’t blame Ivan or Ana for what has happened. He is quiet, and I think it is another structure to Roberto that is being torn down. His son was taken away from him by who he thought was Ismael. Roberto trusts Ivan and has no clue about the horrors and lengths that Ivan will go through to keep the business running.

Roberto’s trauma isn’t something dwelled on much in the show, but it is a leading cause of his downfall and his spiral into insanity. He struggles with PTSD flashbacks from being shot in his right hand by his police partner. In a few months, Roberto loses his best friend, son, and the life he once knew. His wife no longer recognizes who he is and is deemed crazy after she shoots Roberto and Montes. He is alienated, and now all he has is the organization, as revealed, Ismael placed multiple hits on Roberto. I think this is clearly where we, as the audience, see that Roberto’s mental health is slipping. He isn’t sleeping much, and the role of the Don is taking a toll on him. Now, he has to face this new chapter of his life without his wife or his son.

Now, the last thing I want to do is quickly go through facts about characters that are known in the show:

Maria is 40

Roberto is at least 40, revealed by the Priest

Maria likes to garden and has roses she takes care of. There are also plants all over the Ávila household.

Roberto likes to do puzzles and has a shed in the backyard where he does them.

In the Ávila household, on their fridge, there is a Pumbaa magnet from the movie The Lion King, confirming that the movie exists in the world and Emiliano liked it as a kid or someone in the family did enough for there to be a magnet of him on the fridge.

Emiliano plays the guitar and claims Roberto isn’t supportive of him.

Emiliano is 17.

Ismael is 18.

Roberto has a scar on his right hand from getting shot by his old police partner.

Roberto was a former police officer

Roberto likes ice cream

Ivan likes ice cream, and his favorite flavor is Rum Raisin 

Maria had postpartum depression after she gave birth to Emiliano

Ybarra is Emiliano’s Godfather 

Brad Pitt canonically exists in the universe 

The show starts in Spring 

Ismael and Maria both have birthdays in the spring 

Roberto and Maria were married on August 11th.

Ana’s phone is orange, Ivan’s red, and Roberto’s silver.

Maria has a sister

Maria’s sister is named Alice.

Emiliano doesn’t remember what Alice looks like.

Roberto makes Maria special sandwiches after sex.

The main ingredient of the sandwiches is butter.

Ismael was 4 when Roberto killed his father/

Roberto doesn’t like “shrinks” and is very hostile to the concept of seeing a therapist.

Roberto smokes weed and cigarettes

Emiliano smokes weed and cigarettes 

 Roberto's father was shot in the leg and is no longer able-bodied.

Roberto and Maggie started their affair at least 6 months ago.

Ivan has insomnia

Roberto never talks to strangers

Roberto doesn't have any social media

Facebook is a canon social media in the universe

Roberto suffers from PTSD from being in the police force.

Maggie is 30

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