#This is half actual analysis half conspiracy theory levels of 'but what if-'

[mari-lair]

Idk of u read the new chapter yet BUT these two panels look ODDLY similar...do u think teru and natsuhiko have similar powers or something?

I have a theory that is very out there, but since you asked my opinion...

Not only do I think there is similarity to their powers, I would go as far as to say Natsuhiko is part exorcist.

Exorcist blood has always been special. We see Teru open a gate between boundaries in chapter 70, and Yorimitsu used his blood to make a contract with No.6, so their blood has influence over the supernatural.

Natsuhiko is treated as a normal student, a living being: Everyone in Nene’s class can see him, he is part of class 2-D, and acts as if participating in the school festival is normal, unlike Sakura.

There is also this official art of him with a sword, which so far in the manga only exorcists have 'weapons'.

Natsuhiko does not exorcise supernaturals though, he lives with them, many of his quirks making him seem inhuman. And I personally don't think exorcists are fully human, they must have some supernatural blood in their lineage, some deep connection.

Minamotos are inclined to like supernaturals despite being tasked to eliminate them. Hanako is basically the personification of supernaturals to Kou but the young exorcist overall sees him as a friend, Tiara got attached to a Mokke, and even Yorimitsu, who had heavily implied there is something wrong with his emotional attachment, took a liking to No.6. He stayed with the demon on his death bed.

Humans also don’t have fangs, no matter how dramatic the manga paneling can get, only supernaturals and the Minamotos have fangs.

 Exorcists can eat monster's body parts without needing to make a contract, so while they have spiritual energy that is destructive to supernaturals, and resistance to their power, their body doesn't reject supernaturals and their influence.

Exorcists are built to give a lot of damage to supernaturals and protect humans, it is heavily implied their spiritual energy can’t hurt humans, but who can they hurt? Half humans, and themselves.

And Natsuhiko’s blood hurt supernaturals, not humans. Possibly himself too, since it is the first time he actually commented on how it's 'painful' to do this despite being thrown in deadly and hurtful situations a lot. (tho it could just be pain from the cut, I still find it strange he comments it's painful.)

He is influenced by rumors which is a supernatural trait, not a human one, and Minamotos are not affected by rumors.

...Or are they?

Since i’m already going wild, i’ll throw another out of pocket theory here: Teru does gain powers by rumor, that’s where his astronomical popularity comes from.

The other character we are told to be ‘the peak of beauty’ in this manga is Aoi, who was unnaturally beautiful since young, and attracted attention even as a toddler. While Teru seems isolated, not just from an ‘I'm not normal’ perspective.

But he got a popularity jump so big at some point that both boys and girls are interested, able to loudly proclaim their love, his beauty is so amazing it overshadows Aoi's, to the point, someone suggested they made a Teru pavilion. A pavilion that has a BIG line.

His beauty is the first thing we learn about Teru: His introduction is as a ‘handsome and dreamy boy’,  not as an exorcist or any of his main traits, because that’s what Nene, and most of the school, sees him as.

Such hypnotizing beauty mysteriously disappears outside school. He has no fans or stalkers on the streets, and absolutely no one that isn’t from school ever comments on his beauty. Which is not the case with Aoi. 

I know people have always been more respectful to Teru than to Aoi (misogyny is a bitch) but this is not just a change of approach caused by respect, Teru has no admirers at all in the city. Aoi is beautiful outside school too, people can’t help but stare and want her, it is a genuine problem she always had, but Teru, who should make everyone swoon regardless of gender or how weird he acts, is not worth even passing comments, he is treated as a normal guy outside school. A pretty boy, sure, but nothing special.

[ladyluscinia]

I know my last experience with a season ending on a note everyone hated and unanimously tore to fucking shreds for destroying the story on every level was... atypical. Lockdown. 6 month mass hysteria at minimum. Conspiracy theories that were, like, real things we had on camera. There was a Twitter wedding. Creative fervor that broke 100k fics on AO3.

Like. I know this is not a rational point of comparison and I'm not going to expect anything in my lifetime to match it 🤣

But.

If that was the highest high of post-season fandom engagement built on a cocktail of tasting everything you ever wanted AND the absolutely lethal levels of spite and swearing to eat showrunners' hearts in the marketplace, then whatever the fuck is going on after OFMD S2 is the opposite of that.

OFMD S1 was a huge fandom explosion. One silly little streaming show that had a gay kiss and then it skyrocketed. Fic numbers were soaring, high activity fic and meta engagement lasted for at least four months, it was constantly trending and flooding the dash... Like, fucking hell, over a year and a half after the immediate finale fervor it beat Stucky in the top ships bracket?!? To the point I was willing to give it what felt like due credit toward its potential as a future juggernaut ship. Not guaranteed, of course, but the potential was there.

In that context, new content should be a blow out party. Which it kinda was pulling off as it was airing, but looking back now? Not even quite a month later?

The effect of S2 on the fandom is like... a blip. Possibly over already.

New fic numbers started dropping off the moment the finale aired and have returned to deep hiatus levels. It's dropped off trending and streaming leaderboards... I'm very curious to see the first tumblr Week in Review since the finale, though we're still waiting due to the holiday.

Like, I've even popped on to scroll a few Izzy hater blogs that I know loved the finale out of morbid curiosity what they were up to, and I'm telling you... if I hadn't just watched the new season I'd think they were still over a year into hiatus. Saw some standard bitching about the izcourse / Edward takes (aka the one thing that kept them going all hiatus), they're currently passing around posts mocking one specific long OFMD version of TJLC I'm just hearing of, the same BTS gifsets everyone else is thrilled by... But barely any new meta or discussions. There's like 2 people posting actual analysis of S2 that's getting reblogged and they aren't even names I recognize from the hiatus. Nor is it particularly interesting to read. 🤷‍♀️

In July of 2022 I could pop onto a random OFMD blog and scroll through a dozen enthusiastic Stede or BlackBonnet metas about jacket colors or that moth from 1x07 or lighthouse symbolism or whatever. Now the new stuff has the same energy as posts from June 2023. It's borderline dead. And this is what it's like when there's an active campaign to engage fandom and Renew as a Crew?

(I will say fanartists are bringing some energy and there's some lovely pieces being passed around, which I do think the Renew as a Crew campaign is helping to boost?)

Even the hundreds of people saying it was a beautiful season and they loved it so much don't seem to be finding it a very engaging or inspiring season.

It's such a turn, like, what the fuck.

[crepes-suzette-373]

"Failure": The Defective Product

You know, the Vinsmoke boys use many different terms to say Sanji is a "failure", and in English it's all just translated as "failure" or "good for nothing" (or "dud" in some fan translation).

All of them, barring one, are actually varying ways to say "something that is [not right]". It's, to me, supportive of the theory that Sanji's brothers are just upset that he's different from them, and they're only acting the way they do because of, well, Judge being a horrible example for what is the proper way to behave.

There's 出来損ない (dekisokonai), that also happens to mean "defective product", "unfinished product", or "creations that are below standard level". Like for example, if a chair has no legs, or an electronic that exploded the moment you turn it on.

Or if I as an artist draw something really half-assed and it's a hot mess, that's also 出来損ない.

Yeah, when it refers to a person it usually just means someone who doesn't perform well in general, but in sci-fi stuff people also use it to speak of things like "defective clones" (which, you know, is relevant here).

That other one, 役立たず, doesn't have double meaning. It just means worth for nothing/useless. However, in that panel it's not entirely clear who's saying 役立たず. It could be Judge, for all I know, even though the official translation says "brother". The raw doesn't actually have any explicitly identifying terms. It just says "cheers to that useful good for nothing".

When it's clearly the brothers talking, it seems to be 出来損ない more often.

There's also 失敗作 shippaisaku, which is "failure" also in the same sense of "poorly made". For example, if I try to bake a cake and it comes out an inedible disaster, that would be a 失敗作. Or, a really terrible movie that everyone hates and just absolutely bombs at the box office, it's also 失敗作.

And what Yonji said is ochikobore 落ちこぼれ, which is something like "scraps/leftovers". Literally speaking, it can mean actual drops or spills, like if a container overflows and its contents then spilled over the sides. Or if you do wood turning and there's wood shavings all over the place, that's 落ちこぼれ.

It can be understood as "failure" in the sense of "not successful in the conventional/mainstream manner". For example, school dropouts, or "outcasts" like people who can't find jobs and such. Even just fringe/unusual crowds like "starving artists" can also be called 落ちこぼれ.

Again, it's all to me signs saying that what they meant was "Sanji is not like us and there's something wrong with him, and we don't like it". I mean, they all clearly have a warped sense of "normal", but I have hope that they're beginning to, you know, understand or accept that "different" is not "bad".

(I have other conspiracies related to the raid suit, but maybe next time, this one is just pure text analysis)

[mybrainproblems]

Will you be posting your spreadsheetnatural in total? With accompanying graph or pie charts? With commentary and analysis? Any idea of completion estimate? Your musings have been very very interesting so far. (And will the spreadsheet date include all seasons?)

Hello! Yes, I will be posting everything I end up with that is actually intelligible. I currently have three Excel workbooks with multiple sheets of compiled information. I already know I'm going to need at least one more to track ALL episodes and not just Dabb-written ones (which is where my interest started).

My hope is to have what I guess I'd call "initial findings" in the first half of 2022 but also I have a day job (booo) that is going to be taking up A LOT of my bandwidth from now until May 2022. In terms of charts, I'll probably have one or two Gantt charts (horrifying, I do them like 1-2x/yr and have to re-learn it every time) and maybe some really subjective pie charts about destiel content. It's really more of a timeline to draw conclusions from (hence the Gantt charts) based on overlapping timelines and bc of all the info I'm working with, spreadsheets are the easiest way to keep track so I can filter/organize. I'll definitely be posting a written summary of everything and note what is relatively factual vs what I think we can glean from info vs bullshit conspiracies that there's no way to prove but are fun to think about!

For the whole spreadsheetsnatual project, my main "interest" is in looking at late 2015 to present which would be mid-s11 through s15 aka when Dabb would have been tapped as co-showrunner even if it wasn't immediately announced. I've dug into his credits on spn going back to when he started as a writer in s4 and while it's typical for people on shows to work their way up the ladder the longer they stay (starting as writer working their way up through producer titles) he has a lot of higher level producer credits during mid/late Carver era. He'd already been around for a while at that point but it is noticeable compared to others. (But also I think there was a pretty big writer shake up during Carver era with ppl coming and going. I need to dig into that a bit more. Being a fandom newbie means a lot more legwork!)

Dabb really made his career on spn sticking around rather than leaving and working his way up through multiple shows like some other early-era folks. He seems to have had a really solid career on spn and would've been very entrenched in the system having been around since s4. This is purely speculation but having been around that long, I think he'd have had the clout to come in as co-showrunner and ask that the network do market research on making Dean canonically bi.

And thank you for taking an interest in the whole spreadsheetsnatural project! At its core it's just me having a bad case of apophenia and making connections about things that may not actually be connected but it sure is interesting to dig into! I love making bullshit conspiracy theories but being able to halfway justify them even if I know they're probably bullshit lol.

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

Tumblr took that one piece of information about goblins being antisemitic caricatures in some specific historical context and has just been running with it for like 5 years now and indiscriminately applying it to any gross or creepy character. Preschool level literary and artistic analysis mixed with a desperate need to look woke i guess but still 🙄

Yeah...it goes so far beyond that though, and it’s not just limited to fantasy although as someone who consumes mostly fantasy/sci fi and whose Tumblr fandom presence is mainly in those circles that’s a big part of what I see. It’s like people unconsciously picked up on the concept that Jewish people are the ethnic group most targeted for hate crimes in the U.S., but are also are a small group with sufficient internal diversity such that experiences within the group can vary wildly so you often won’t get huge amounts of pushback, and went culturally-Christian buckwild.

Like, just off the top of my head: my mother has been an LOTR fan since the 70s. My sister stayed up to listen to Evermore when it dropped despite having work the next morning. I’m one of four kids and three of us play Dungeons & Dragons regularly, and both of the D&D games I’m in regularly are at least half Jewish. None of these things are in any way inherently antisemitic, in my opinion, and many, many Jewish people like them.

Also I’ve seen like 20 times more discourse about goblins or Ferengi or making a character with green skin than about, say, Shakespeare and specifically The Merchant of Venice, or (with the caveat that I haven’t seen it), The Umbrella Academy. [note: I enjoy a lot of Shakespeare, who was antisemitic in a time when Jews were literally banned from Britain; I refuse to watch the Umbrella Academy because come the fuck on]. It’s almost like the things these people cancel are things they already didn’t like, or things people they don’t like enjoy, and ‘problematic’ ironically becomes a way to justify being a really hateful person while simultaneously making it much harder to address real-world bigotry because of alert fatigue. (see also the recent ‘crypto-terf’ blocklist for an example of that whole fucked up way of being). (also with the major caveat that the complex relationship between Jews and whiteness aside I am personally someone who looks white, a lot of the white people wringing their hands over goblins ignore or even defend biological essentialism regarding a tendency towards violence, or noble savage stereotypes in sci fi and fantasy which is...interesting.)

Some of it is preschool level literary analysis and Woke Points, sure, but I think a lot of people are just too chickenshit to address that antisemitism in history didn’t look like veiled references to goblins. It looked like their own white European ancestors kicking mine out of various countries and launching violent genocidal attacks. Sure, modern-day antisemitism sometimes takes the form of dogwhistles, but also like, the synagogue I went to when I lived in the midwest was vandalized with swastikas on the eve of Rosh Hashana, as was my local train and park when I lived in NYC, and the kol nidre appeal I heard in 2019 referenced that the cost of a security guard, after Tree of Life, is a significant expense. A lot of white Christians have the luxury of looking away from the obvious stuff, and boy, do they luxuriate in it.

My slightly wild theory, and believe me, I’m very aware of the irony in this, also goes back to my general belief that a lot of people really want to seem smart and they think this involves uncovering conspiracies, or focusing on ‘insidious’ secret bigotry. Of course, this means that they outright ignore the stuff in front of their faces; it’s why people will talk about goblins and Ferengi but not actual antisemitism [sidebar: did you know the ‘The American people are not intellectual, to put it mildly’ line came from an interview in which someone claimed the Jewish people perpetuated a ‘counter-holocaust’ against Germany?], similar to how people will happily reblog posts about those White Bitch Karens and feel woke never caring that they were written by white men. When wokeness is a competition, you need to feel like you have extra insight when the uncomfortable fact is bigotry in all its forms is usually much more obvious and blatant and when you’re not the target and when the perpetuator is a creator you like, it takes some actual strength of character and effort not to look away, let alone to address it. It doesn’t take that strength of character and effort to regurgitate tired talking points in yet another flaccid call-out post.

[ecto-american]

I was doing some research for a fanfiction, and remembered this line from Reality Trip, which got my criminal justice self all excited because of the implications. So have some analysis from a rambling autistic with a criminal justice degree.

“Daniel Fenton, in accordance with the Federal Anti-Ecto Control Act, Article 1, Section 1, Sub-section A, you're under arrest.”

Y'all, this is kinda wack? It means, on some level, there has been a federal judgment within the world of Danny Phantom that not only acknowledges that ghosts exist, but has an entire fucking act describing specifically the course of action in a sense. Lots of acts will kind of be this vague overarching thing with various random acts thrown into it, but the name along with the article one, section one subsection a dealio implies that this entire act focuses on ghosts. I say act and not law btw, because those terms are not necessarily synonyms.

Not only does this confirm that there are acts (at least one anyway) in Danny Phantom that specifically talk about ghosts, but kind of really and truly cements that the Guys in White are actually a federal government agency, rather than them simply acting as one but really being a private company of sorts or being some local state government program.

And with laws about ghosts, it means that legally, the government had to define what exactly a ghost is as well as their rights and lack of rights, and that they legally acknowledge, as a nation, that ghosts exists. While, of course, we don’t really ever get to see this act, and as far as I know, it’s literally Never talked about again, this scene means that this act applies to Danny. For a quick refresher, this happens after Danny is exposed, and so this act still applies to Danny despite him being outted as a half ghost. A scary sidenote is before this scene and line of dialogue, the agents told Danny that he was coming in for questioning and experiments.

So what might it possibly say? If there are any acts that we can potentially base what this act possibly would say, I would probably guess it’d be similar to the acts used for minorities within the United States. And I say these kinds of acts because they’re specifically acts that discriminate towards a group, and that have used various reasons to justify how they are not human, citizens or have any legal rights. If the agents’ lines were correct, these acts probably gave them justification for doing inhumanly cruel things to Danny.

Of course, Danny could be arrest for something totally different and not for some anti-ghost reasons. At this point in time, he’s still kind of half-loved, half-hated publicly as people are shown to still believe that he stole during the events of Control Freaks and the mayor incident of Public Enemies, but if he was under arrest for any of those crimes, the agents would have said that. And I refuse to believe this is an oversight of the writers, because they would have found any nitpicky thing and made it a funny situation where the agents went on and on and on about this endless list of crimes that the ghost boy has committed until Danny roundhouse kicked somebody. And no, it’s likely not because the Guys in White are only interested in Ghost Crimes. As federal officials, which they are confirmed to be, they would have arrested him for everything and have to basically fistfight the other government agencies investigating his Non Ghost Crimes.

So what exactly is he under arrest for? No clue obviously, and it’s hard to really even guess. Article 1, Section 1, Sub-section A for most acts are basically describing what the act’s going to be before it moves on to detail that. I think this is an oversight of the DP writers, lord knows we get enough of them, but it could also potentially highlight the Dumb factor of the Guys in White that we would see them sometimes exhibit, where instead of properly referencing the piece of legislation he’s under arrest for, they just blurt out the first section of that law.

And who wrote this act? It could be anybody, of course. Anybody within politics. It also begs the question as to exactly when this act was written and when it was put into effect. I’d wager it heavily depends on when the Guys in White came into effect, as they are clearly acting under these laws. Which begs the question: how many pieces of anti-ghost legislation are there? Who’s writing them? There’s potential that there are literally lawyers who are literally experts in ghost law. Keep in mind that in the beginning of the series, there was a lot of skepticism that ghosts even exist.

This honestly leads me to propose a new headcanon: The Guys in White are a very new government organization that spawned after the events of Public Enemies. To preface this and clarify, in order, the Guys in White appear in only five episodes: Million Dollar Ghost, Double Cross My Heart, Reality Trip, Eye for an Eye, and Livin’ Large.

Evidence to support this theory:

They only show up four episodes later in their first appearance in Million Dollar Ghost. Public Enemies seems to also be the first episode in the series that shows a massive onslaught of ghost attacks. I would guess that this is the ghostly event that probably spawned the act in question, which may have called for the organization of the Guys in White. Prior to this, ghosts were basically shown that they’re unconfirmed to exist on a public level. Even Jack, our lovable and excitable ghost hunter who’s been doing this since his college years admits in Mystery Meat that he’s never seen a ghost until that point. Jazz mentions that Harriet Chin in Bitter Reunions lost her job for writing an article about ghosts because she was laughed for writing about something that was more for “the national enquirer”, a conspiracy theory newspaper that nobody really takes seriously.

Why are they there during the events of Million Dollar Ghost anyway? If they’re a new organization, they may need that money or are cashing in on the publicity of the event to spread their name, or they’re just starting out and have no real clue where else to go. Only two of them even showed up anyway. The only other groups there are very small ghost hunting groups: literally two young adults on scooters, another set of young adults with a tiger fueled by anxiety and a van, and FentonWorks. And while they, out of all of them, clearly have the most advanced technology, they’re about on the same skill level as the other ghost hunters (getting captured and tricked and such just as easily). Danny even was just as “haha” about them as he was the other hunters who had showed up.

Their technology in Million Dollar ghost is nothing in comparison to the literal jetpacks and planes and four wheelers and armor they get several episodes later. Their funding increased when they proved ghosts exist and more ghostly events happened, and they likely proved their competence in some way. Especially when we see that they have been catching other ghosts (like Skulker in Double Cross My Heart and Lydia in Reality Trip) and gathering important information on ghostly artifacts (Reality Trip).

It would explain why they don’t really show up that often in the series, especially during major ghost events where they really should be there, such as the ghost king invasion of Reign Storm. They may have not secured the funding or manpower to really do anything just yet. Note that Reign Storm happened in between Million Dollar Ghost and Double Cross My Heart, which is almost a 20 episode gap. Their skills, knowledge, ability, technology and apparent funding jumped massively between these episodes, and it kind of stays about the same consistency for the rest of the show.

They really only seem to have one department, and they have really low employee numbers for a government agency. There’s no talk or implications or having multiple departments or anything, such as research or technology. Even during the SWAT invasion during Reality Trip, there’s only like twenty or so agents there. In Livin’ Large, there’s only about seven there, and two are the Agent K and O that we know. They play a lot of roles, from researching, questioning, gathering information, tracking down criminals, getting information from the Fenton’s lab, technology things in FentonWorks, etc. Of course, this is a staple for many law enforcement jobs where you have many tasks, but they seem to be playing the role of detective, computer analysis, and police officer at minimum given the wide variety of things we see them do. As somebody who’s worked in three situations where the company/program was very new, it’s incredibly common for a new company that’s still finding it’s groundings to have a very blurred job line. Or they’re heavily underfunded, but look at the goddamn jetpacks they get, look me in the eye and tell me they’re underfunded.

The lack of basic ghost information. In Livin’ Large, they want to destroy the Ghost Zone. It’s apparently very obvious that you Can’t Do That, but the Guys in White seem oblivious. While you can argue that they’re just fucking dumb, it may be more reasonable to assume that they simply just don’t know.

There’s no dialogue (that I can find) prior to Million Dollar Ghost to suggest they exist. There’s also no dialogue from Vlad, who would have known and been wary of such an organization had it been around for years, to suggest that they’ve been around a while. Jack, who also is open about how much he admires them, would have likely said something to. But I am willing to chalk this entire part up to simply poor writing.

“But Danny knew who the Guys in White were when they showed up in Million Dollar Ghost!” Yeah. He also knew who the other people were, and I heavily doubt that they’d be as big of a deal or name as the Official government branch. It’s very likely that they all introduced themselves when they showed up.

[there-must-be-a-lock]

Partying and Poker Faces

Criminal Minds x Supernatural

Word Count: ~3350

Warnings: Errbody gettin drunk. Terrible zamboni puns. 

A/N: No, seriously, it’s just random drunk conversations. They are ridiculous. It’s fun. Thanks to @stunudo​, @fookinghelljensensthighs​, @lastactiontricia​ and everybody else in the Slack chat who listened to me ramble and helped with Nutcracker jokes/Winchester band names. Hair clip scene inspired by this post. 

Part 6 of the Rockstar AU! 

-

-

The “Wayward Sons” World Tour: Pre-Tour Kickoff Party

. . .

“Okay, seriously though, my friend found all these pictures of them at Bonnaroo walking around with a girl with blue hair, right? So she did a side-by-side analysis and she swears it’s Harry Styles in a wig. Like, honest to god.” 

“Who’s Harry Styles?” Spencer asks, putting his book down and rubbing his eyes as he comes out of his reading trance.

“Only the love of my life,” Penelope tells him. 

“Penelope,” Emily interrupts. “You are not allowed to ask him if he’s really friends with Harry Styles.” 

Penelope deflates slightly. “But -”

JJ tells her, “You are definitely not allowed to ask if you can have Harry Styles’s phone number.” 

Penelope rolls her eyes. “Apparently there’s a whole group of crazies who think he and Sam are actually dating. There are conspiracy theories and everything.” 

“Let’s just outlaw the subject of Harry Styles altogether,” JJ says hurriedly. “Okay?” 

“Oh my God, I wouldn’t actually ask. Are you ready yet, Em?” 

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Emily replies, glaring at her reflection. She’s been trying to even out her wings for like half an hour now. “I look like a raccoon.” 

“So… normal then?” Spencer asks, with his cheekiest smile. 

“Uh oh, we’ve got Sassy Spence tonight,” JJ says. She grabs Emily’s arm to tug her away from the mirror. “You’re gorgeous. Let’s go.” 

“Forward, march!” Penelope orders. “To Suite 202!” 

. . . 

“So then Sammy asks if she’s his daughter,” Dean finishes. 

Hotch and Spencer laugh; it makes Hotch look about ten years younger. 

“What did she say?” Spencer asks, tucking his hair behind his ears again. With his legs crossed in his ratty Chucks, he looks too young to be drinking. 

“Just said ‘I’m his wife,’ ice cold, and walked away.”

“You should’ve seen the look on Sam’s face,” Cas adds. He settles down next to Dean, handing him a fresh drink and sitting close. For a moment Dean forgets that they’re allowed to be close, that he’s not in public any more, and then he puts an arm around Cas, smiling to himself. 

“What about you?” Dean asks. 

“I haven’t gotten starstruck since Kurt Cobain,” Hotch answers. “But you should ask Spencer what happened when he met David Byrne.” 

“Spencer, what happened when you met David Byrne?” Cas asks with a smirk. 

“Well… you know how Freud talked about seeing the Acropolis for the first time? The feeling of derealization?” 

“No,” Dean says, raising his eyebrows. “Should I?” 

“What you have to understand is that my mom was playing me the Talking Heads while I was in the womb,” Spencer continues earnestly. “Remain In Light, mostly, because it came out that year, but — anyway. Research shows —“

“David Byrne is his Acropolis,” Hotch translates. “He didn’t speak for almost two hours after they were introduced.” 

“And I get the feeling there aren’t many things that render him speechless,” Cas says dryly. 

. . .

“Hey there, hot stuff,” Penelope says, and she sits in the empty spot next to Derek on the couch. She almost kicks Spencer as she does so; he’s sitting on the floor in front of the couch, hunched over one of the acoustic guitars that everybody’s been passing around. 

“You know there’s another chair, right?” asks Sam, who’s sprawled out in one of the armchairs opposite their couch.   

“Trust me, it’s pointless,” Derek tells him. “He hates chairs.” 

“That’s not true,” Spencer says absent-mindedly, tucking his hair behind his ears. “I like the ones with wheels.” 

“Wait, you play keys, right?” Sam asks, watching Spencer pluck out a quick, dexterous open-tuned thing that Penelope is pretty sure he’s improvising. 

“And synths,” Spencer says, pushing his hair out of his eyes again. “But also… a little bit of everything, I guess.” 

“Guitar, bass, drums, violin, cello, saxophone, clarinet,” Derek rattles off proudly. “What else? There are some weird ones.” 

“Didgeridoo!” Penelope adds. 

“She calls it my didgeri-don’t,” Spencer says, and it’s true; it’s her least favorite instrument, which is unfortunate because it’s one of her favorite words.“And there are a few things I built, I guess, but haven’t really named yet.”

“That’s awesome,” Sam says, looking suitably impressed. 

“You need a goddamn haircut, Pretty Boy,” Derek says, as Spencer tries to get his hair out of his eyes again. 

“Don’t listen to him,” Sam tells Spencer, running a hand through the shampoo-commercial situation he has on his own head. “And don’t let my brother start in on you, either.” 

Penelope rummages in her purse for a second and pulls out a neon green butterfly clip. She combs some hair back from Spencer’s forehead, twists it, and secures it so that the butterfly is right on the crown of Spencer’s head.

“Thanks, that’s much better,” Spencer says, giving her a quick smile over his shoulder. Sam stifles a laugh. 

“Hey,” Derek says, in an undertone. “Got any more of those?” 

“I love the way your brain works,” Penelope stage-whispers back. She digs around until she has a whole handful of aggressively colorful glittery barrettes (some are shaped like flowers, some have pom-poms) and passes half to Derek. She leans down and starts to braid a little section of hair near Spencer’s temple. He doesn’t seem to notice. 

. . . 

“You’re new, aren’t you?” Hotch asks, as he starts mixing himself a drink. “I don’t think we met at the surprise show.” 

“Jack,” the kid says, with a sweet smile. He’s all fresh-faced and earnest. Hotch has concerns. 

“I’m Aaron, but everybody calls me Hotch,” he says. “What‘s your part in this whole circus?” 

“I’m their guitar tech,” he chirps. “Cas is my uncle, also. He’s the one who got me the job.” 

“Uh-huh. First tour?” 

He nods. “I’m excited! This is going to be great.”

Hotch has a feeling this is going to be trouble. 

Jack has a hand on the whiskey bottle when Hotch notices and asks, “How old are you?” 

“He’s twenty,” Charlie interrupts, snatching the bottle from Jack’s hand. “Down, boy.” 

Jack shrugs, not seeming particularly bothered, and wanders away with his soda. 

“Good to know,” Hotch says wryly. 

Charlie gives Hotch an apologetic look and says, “I feel like a spoilsport. Like, let the kid have some fun, right?”

“So you followed all the rules when you were his age?” 

“Well, no, not so much, although I wasn’t into drinking so much as… um. Mild felonies.” She wrinkles her nose expressively. “But I have strict orders from Cas. He might look like a teddy bear, but Cas can be scary.” 

“Felonies,” Hotch says, trying to keep a straight face. Charlie nods. 

“Hacking, mostly?” she says tentatively. “There was some… environmentally focused cyber-terrorism, I guess you’d call it.” 

“You should talk to Penelope, she used to do that sort of thing as well.” 

Charlie looks over dubiously at Penelope, who is pulling up the hem of Derek’s shirt and showing off his abs, Vanna White style, for Sam’s benefit. Sam looks shockingly unaffected, so odds are he is straight, in which case, Rossi owes Hotch some money.

“Really. She was actually contacted by the FBI, they wanted to hire her, but.” Hotch smiles at the way Charlie’s mouth falls open. “She has a whole… sordid history. They used to call her the Black Queen.” 

“Are you… what?” Charlie asks incredulously. 

“I know, it’s a ridiculous name, but —”

“No, that’s — I can’t believe it,” Charlie stutters. “Really?” 

Hotch raises an eyebrow. “Really. Does that mean something to you?” 

Charlie shakes her head, eyes wide. “You don’t understand, she’s a legend. She’s like a frakking rockstar.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“No, like an actual rockstar,” Charlie insists. “Not that you’re not a rockstar, I didn’t mean — holy crap.” 

“Would you like me to introduce you?” Hotch offers. 

Charlie goes pale. “I don’t — um.” 

“I think you’re the first person who has ever been intimidated by Penelope Garcia,” Hotch muses. 

Charlie does a quick shot of whiskey before nodding. “Okay, I think I’m ready.” 

. . . 

“I am so fuckin’ glad I don’t have to deal with this every night,” Bobby says gruffly, with an expansive gesture at everyone in the room and their varied levels of inebriation. “We’re too old for this shit. Don’t know how you still want to go out on the road.” 

“Of all the groups I’ve managed, believe it or not, this one’s the easiest.”

Bobby looks across the room to where JJ is passing around shots and Emily is talking everybody into a game of Truth or Dare, as a “bonding exercise.” Spencer is clinging to Morgan’s back like a gangly white Yoda; Morgan, who’s serenading Sam with “Wonderwall” (Sam is covering his ears and looking pained) doesn’t seem to notice his weight. 

“I don’t believe it, actually,” Bobby tells Rossi, who shrugs. 

“They take care of each other, really. No ego involved, with any of them, which is rare enough in this business.” Rossi pauses as Penelope shrieks; Hotch, who is standing between her and Charlie, looks vaguely alarmed, but nobody seems to be in any real danger. Rossi adds, “They may act like a bunch of assclowns sometimes, but they’re much smarter than they look. I told you, didn’t I?” 

“Fair enough,” Bobby says. He’d called Rossi on a whim, looking for an opener for Dean’s surprise show and hinting about “discretion” and “liberal types,” trying not to give too much away. He’d expected Rossi to put him in touch with a friend of a friend, or something. He didn’t expect this to work out so well.

Bobby’s not used to things working out well. It’s a nice change. 

“Good to see you again, anyway” Rossi says. “You’re coming out to a few more shows, right?” 

“Course. I’ll be around here and there.” 

“Bet you’ll miss them soon enough. I was bored stiff when I was retired,” Rossi says. 

“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to get those two through their teenage years,” Bobby grouches. “Just about put me in an early grave.” 

“They seem like good kids,” Rossi says. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since they were… how old?” 

Bobby can’t help but smile at that. “Yeah, they’ve got good heads on their shoulders. They grew up. Just in time, too. I kept tellin’ them, success is going to change things, but I don’t think they believed me. Idjits.” 

Rossi nods knowingly. “Cheers to success, then. And old friends.” 

“I’ll drink to that.” 

. . . 

“Pastor’s son, in the church,” Emily says. 

“Twins,” Dean replies smugly. 

“Nice.” Emily gives him a fist-bump. “Backstage during a performance of The Nutcracker.” 

“I’ll be very disappointed if there were no nut jokes.” 

Emily smirks. “Well, there were no actual nuts involved, but the fairy did, in fact, taste like sugar plums.” 

“Yeah, okay, not bad,” Dean says. He clinks his beer bottle against hers and they drink. “On top of a zamboni.” 

“You mean zam-bone-y?” 

“Thank you! Sam rolled his eyes so hard I thought they were gonna fall out when I said that.” 

“The Roxy.”  

“Green room? C’mon,” Dean scoffs. “Amateur hour.” 

“Nope,” Emily says triumphantly. “In the crowd, during a Guns N Roses show.” 

“Okay, that’s fuckin’ awesome,” Dean laughs.

“It really was.” 

Dean’s eyes flick across the room, following Cas, who just deadpanned something that’s making Hotch double over with laughter. Dean’s eyes go crinkly at the corners as his smile gets even brighter — a full-on megawatt movie star smile — and his expression is so sweet and soft and utterly adoring that Emily melts a little bit. 

“Gross,” she says, elbowing Dean. He elbows her right back. 

“Shuddup,” he mutters. 

“No more twins for you,” Emily sing-songs. 

“Worth it,” Dean says firmly, and even she can’t think of anything snarky to say to that. 

. . . 

JJ can only understand about one in five of the words Penelope and Charlie are chattering to each other, so she gives up and leaves them to it. She’s slightly concerned they’re plotting to take over the world, or something. They don’t seem to notice her leaving. 

Dean and Emily are side by side on one of the couches, both slouching, with their feet up on the coffee table and beers resting on their stomachs, giggling about something as if they’ve been lifelong friends. The whole tableau is unexpected, but not in a bad way. 

There’s something about Dean that JJ just didn’t like, at first. It’s mostly that he’s too likable. In every interaction they’ve had, he’s been incredibly charismatic, warm, polite, funny… but it’s not him. 

JJ is an expert at getting people to trust her without ever showing her hand. She recognizes a bluff when she sees one. 

She’s been watching Dean, whenever he thinks she’s not paying attention. He lets his guard down, sometimes, when he’s with his brother or Cas, but there’s a well-disguised wall that goes up when he talks to anyone else. It’s defensive fortifications camouflaged as charm. 

Apparently Emily’s shoved through whatever wall Dean usually puts up when he’s around strangers. Emily can do that to a person, though. JJ knows that better than anybody. 

Emily’s clearly teasing him about something. He’s grinning, boyish and bashful and genuine, and JJ likes him a hell of a lot more, suddenly. 

She heads over to join them on their couch, sliding over the armrest to sprawl halfway over Emily’s lap and cuddle in close. 

“Are you two still playing Truth or Dare? This doesn’t look very daring.” 

“Debauchery pissing contest,” Emily informs her. 

Dean is watching her, and his walls are up again: pleasant smile slapped on his face, eyes calculating, playing it close to the chest until he figures her out. 

She raises an eyebrow and prompts him: “Well? Aren’t you going to ask me?” 

He looks suspicious, but he goes with it. “What’s the craziest place you’ve had sex?”

“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell,” JJ says primly, and for a second Dean’s actually thinking about taking her seriously. She rolls her eyes. “Kidding. Middle of a Guns N Roses show.” 

He looks confused for a second. Then Emily and JJ high-five, and Dean barks out a laugh. 

“I didn’t know you —” 

He hesitates. 

“Swing that way?” JJ supplies. 

“Yeah, that.”

“Most people don’t, and we’re gonna keep it that way. Understood?”

Dean seems surprised by the sudden sharp edge in her voice. “Gotcha.” 

“I used to think she was crazy for not coming out publicly,” Emily tells Dean, but she’s looking at JJ with a little half-smile on her face. “But now that people are starting to give a shit about us, sometimes I think she might’ve had the right idea.” 

“Don’t lie, you love being an ‘inspiration to the youth,’” JJ says, with mocking finger quotes. “And you’ve been disappointing your mom for years, she’s used to it. Mine would probably have a heart attack.” 

“Yeah, but the number of times I get that fucking ‘Does that mean you’re attracted to pans?’ bullshit, I swear to God…” 

Dean’s looking at JJ again, but this time it’s less calculating and more admiring. He nods slowly like something just started to make sense.  

“Helluva poker face,” he says approvingly.  

JJ grins. “Yours isn’t too bad either.” 

. . . 

“I gotta ask,” Spencer says, slurred and slow. “How’d you choose the band name? The Ceiling Fires?”

Sam shrugs. “It was a recurring dream that Dean and I both used to have.” 

“Weird image.” Spencer makes a face as he undoes one of the tiny braids Penelope left in his hair. “Not that — weird isn’t a bad thing. It’s memorable.”  

“Yeah, I guess so. Dean called it that as a joke, to start with, I think, but...” Sam rambles. He’s right at that point of drunk where words just keep rolling off his tongue. “Feels like a long time ago. I mean, I did not in a million years think we’d end up here.” 

“Linear time,” Spencer comments. 

Sam waits for him to finish the thought, but apparently that’s it. 

“Linear time,” he repeats agreeably. “It’s not just… time, though, you know? It’s the whole deal. Success, I guess. People listening.  Expecting you to look a certain way, or… I don’t fucking know.”

Spencer nods pensively, combing his fingers through his hair again. “We did a magazine photo shoot the other day and they wouldn’t let me wear any of my own clothes. I like my clothes. And people keep asking if I’m dating anybody.” 

“Yeah, I’ve been getting that question too.” Spencer doesn’t know the half of it. Sam laughs to himself, rubbing his forehead, and takes a big gulp of his drink. 

Spencer pulls out another barrette with a grimace. “I mean, why would anyone care if you’re dating… who was it? Harry Styles?” 

Sam chokes and spits whiskey everywhere. 

“Who —” he wheezes, and has to stop to cough. “Fucking — how did you know?” 

“Wait, really?” 

“What?” 

“Penelope said it was just a stupid rumor,” Spencer says. He’s squinting at Sam like he’s seeing double. 

“Shit.” The adrenaline rush is going a long way toward sobering Sam up. He shakes his head and tries to pull himself together. “Shit. I just… shit.” 

“Is that a big deal?” Spencer asks, with a mild sort of confusion. “Penelope made it sound like a joke. She called it a conspiracy theory.” 

Sam stares at him, open-mouthed, before dropping his head into his hands with a groan. “Yeah, let’s just keep calling it a conspiracy theory, okay? I already owe his publicist a fucking… fruit basket, or maybe just a lot of wine.” 

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t actually know who that is,” Spencer offers. Sam laughs weakly. “No, really, I won’t tell anybody. Even Penelope. Especially Penelope.” 

Sam studies him for a second. He looks earnest enough, in a boozy, unfocused way, but Sam’s learned the hard way that most people can’t be trusted. 

Still, worth a try. 

“If you could — yeah. Please? Just… please don’t tell anybody.” 

“Believe me,” Spencer says. “I know how it goes. If you let people see the things that matter…” He trails off, his eyes sliding to a point somewhere over Sam’s shoulder, and his voice gets unexpectedly clear and fierce. “People can be vicious. I wouldn’t give them a weapon like that.” 

Sam’s pretty sure he shouldn’t feel so reassured — Spencer still has a glittery butterfly clip sticking out from behind one ear — but he is, somehow. 

“Thanks,” he says quietly. 

Spencer shrugs, like it’s nothing, and settles the guitar in his lap again. “Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.”

“Oh hell no,” Sam grumbles, and throws a couch cushion at him.  

. . .

“Okay,” Hotch says decisively. “Everybody have their room keys?” 

“Aww! He’s like the world’s cutest drill sergeant,” Charlie says. Hotch scowls at her, but he has a feeling it’s not very intimidating. She just giggles.

“Rossi?” Hotch asks, looking around and doing a quick head count. 

“Went to bed an hour ago to listen to the latest episode of his fucking true crime podcast,” Emily says. 

Hotch frowns. “Without me? Sneaky bastard.” 

“Of all the weird fucking hobbies…” JJ mutters. “Hey, Morgan, is it my turn to be the jetpack?” 

“Fuck no. I am way too buzzed to be carrying any of you home tonight. You can walk.”

“I’m not sure I can, actually,” Spencer says morosely. He looks like a rag doll, sitting on the floor, propped up by the side of the couch. 

“Somebody come get Schroeder,” Dean mumbles, from where he’s curled up on the couch with his head in Cas’s lap. 

“We got this,” Penelope says determinedly. She grabs Spencer by the wrists and hauls him to his feet, and they lean against each other heavily, somehow managing to stay upright. 

Sam opens the door for them, smiling bemusedly as they all start to trail past: Morgan first, uncharacteristically wobbly on his feet; Emily and JJ, with their hands tucked into each other’s back pockets; Spencer and Penelope, staggering dangerously; and finally, Hotch bringing up the rear.

“Thanks,” he tells Sam, and waves at the others. “See you tomorrow.” 

Before the door closes behind him, Hotch hears Dean say, “It’s gonna be a fun tour.” 

.

.

.

[tinyshe]

The Great Reset Demands Firing All Unvaccinated Employees Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Story at-a-glance

The Great Reset has been called a conspiracy theory by many, despite specific plans published on the World Economic Forum (WEF) website and partnerships between the WEF and global organizations like the United Nations and World Health Organization

An investigative report asserts that the ongoing restructuring of processes that control food and data are upending traditional practices so private corporations have more control and influence than democratically elected government

A part of the Great Reset is a reset of the economy, including jobs. Many across the U.S. are facing unemployment if they do not choose to take a genetic therapy experiment in the form of a COVID-19 vaccine

Employees of six major hospitals in Cincinnati, Ohio, have filed a lawsuit, hoping to stop the mandated vaccine, which health experts are promoting with inconsistent messages, first claiming it does not stop community transmission; yet, requiring it for employment under the guise of preventing the spread of infection

Over the past year and a half, I’ve written many articles detailing the evidence supporting the claim that the COVID pandemic is a ruse to usher in a new system of global centralized governance by unelected leaders, the so-called Great Reset.

The recent release of the House Foreign Affairs Committee report1 entitled, “The Origins of COVID-19: An Investigation of the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” presented solid evidence that many of the “conspiracy theories” about the virus were in fact true. For example, using some intelligence reports and other public documents, the committee found that:2

“… we now believe it’s time to completely dismiss the wet market as the source of the outbreak. We also believe the preponderance of the evidence proves the virus did leak from the WIV and that it did so sometime before September 12, 2019.”

They presented evidence of genetic modification and wrote this:3

“This report also lays out ample evidence that researchers at the WIV, in conjunction with U.S. scientists and funded by both the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government and the U.S. government, were conducting gain of-function research on coronaviruses at the WIV …

In many instances, the scientists were successful in creating 'chimeric viruses' — or viruses created from the pieces of other viruses — that could infect human immune systems.

With dangerous research like this conducted at safety levels similar to a dentist’s office, a natural or genetically modified virus could have easily escaped the lab and infected the community.”

The idea of the Great Reset may feel like a conspiracy theory, especially if life as you know it where you live has not dramatically changed. You still go to work, buy food, go to the gym, go out to eat and attend events. There may be people wearing masks, and you may see or hear news reports about vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, but it hasn’t reached your employer and you may not be personally affected … yet.

But, make no mistake, unless we all do our part to peacefully protest the changes being planned, write to our legislatures, and talk to our neighbors and friends, what is happening in New York,4 France,5 Germany6 and Israel,7 will soon be knocking on your front door.

Does ‘Great Reset’ Sound Like a Conspiracy? It May Be Worse

An article titled, “Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy and Life Has Never Been Better” appeared in Forbes Magazine8 in November 2016. It was written by Ida Auken, a member of the Denmark Parliament9 and agenda contributor at the World Economic Forum (WEF).10

The article was frightening in the simplistic way it describes the dissolution of society as we know it. And, as time marches forward, we see more evidence of what the WEF has proposed as “perfect sense”11 coming true.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested in September 2020 what other world leaders have also promoted12 — that the COVID-19 virus, that has killed and devastated the health of many people, provided the world is an:13

"… opportunity for a reset ... our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to re-imagine economic systems that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality and climate change."

More than 20 world leaders came together to suggest, "At a time when COVID-19 has exploited our weaknesses and divisions, we must seize this opportunity and come together as a global community for peaceful cooperation that extends beyond this crisis."14 And while that sounds noble, altruistic and humanitarian, it is the plan for the future that is in stark contrast to the statement.

Ivan Wecke, a journalist from Open Democracy, did a deep dive into some of what lies behind the WEF’s Great Reset plan and found what he called something “almost as sinister hiding in plain sight. In fact, more sinister because it’s real and it’s happening now. And it involves things as fundamental as our food, our data and our vaccines.”15

Although Wecke discounts the plans of the Great Reset to abolish private property, use the virus to solve overpopulation and enslave the remainder of humanity as “nebulous and hard to pin down,” he goes on to illustrate in detail how the fundamental structure of the world that controls food and data, and ultimately humanity, is being upended and restructured so that private corporations have more control and influence than governments.

WEF Calls It ‘Stakeholder Capitalism’

It comes down to “stakeholder capitalism,” which are the magic words that Klaus Schwab, WEF chairman, has been promoting for decades, and is a central theme in the organization's Great Reset plan.16 The concept as Wecke describes it is to transform global capitalism, so corporations create value for stakeholders.17

These stakeholders can be consumers, employees, communities and others. This will be carried out through multi-stakeholder partnerships of governments and private-sector businesses across the globe. As he dug deeper into the concept, it became more apparent that this means giving corporations more power and taking that influence away from democratically elected institutions.

The initial plan was drafted after the 2008 economic crisis and included the vision that governments around the world would be only one influencer in a multi-stakeholder model. When he asked himself who would be the other nongovernmental stakeholders, Wecke only had to look at the WEF partners that meet each year in Davos, Switzerland.

These partners are some of the biggest companies in oil, food, technology and pharmaceuticals. In other words, the companies that could ultimately restructure society and control the supply chain are those that provide everyday necessities. These proposed concepts appear to have started taking shape in a strategic partnership agreement which the WEF signed with the United Nations in 2019.

Harris Gleckman, senior fellow at the Center for Governance and Sustainability from the University of Massachusetts18 calls this move an inroad to creating a place for corporations inside the United Nations.19

The WEF is using the concept of multi-stakeholders to change the current system that countries use today to work together. This multilateral system may not always be effective and may have too many layers of bureaucracy, but Wecke says it is “theoretically democratic because it brings together democratically elected leaders of countries to make decisions in the global arena.”20

Big Tech May Run the Roadmap for Digital Cooperation

What’s really happening here, though, is the move toward placing unelected stakeholders in positions of power does not deepen democracy but, rather, puts decision making in the hands of financially focused corporations. As Wecke points out, this will have real-world implications for how medications are distributed, food systems are organized and how Big Tech is governed.

Under a democratic rule of law, six corporations already control 90% of the news media consumed by Americans. Tech Startups calls this an “illusion of choice and objectivity.”21 How much more propaganda will be thrown in the face of consumers when Big Tech is monitoring and controlling Big Tech?

The year 2030 holds significance for the WEF’s vision22 which is to scale technology and facilitate “inclusive growth.” In the fall of 2021, the UN will bring together the Food Systems Summit to achieve sustainable development goals by 2030.23 Yet, Sofia Monsalve of FIAN International, a human rights organization focused on food and nutrition, told Wecke:24

“’Abandoning pesticides is not on the table. How come?’ asks Sofia Monsalve of FIAN International, a human rights organisation focused on food and nutrition.

'There is no discussion on land concentration or holding companies accountable for their environmental and labour abuses.’ This fits into a bigger picture Monsalve sees of large corporations, which dominate the food sector, being reluctant to fix the production system. ‘They just want to come up with new investment opportunities.’”

Wecke also dug into a long list of participants in the 2020 Roadmap For Digital Cooperation25 and found influencers included Microsoft, Google, Facebook and the WEF.26 The functions for the group appear to be vague, but if the group comes to fruition, it will be a decisive victory for those Big Tech companies that have been pushing to expand their power,27 are fighting antitrust rules28 and are facing accusations of tax evasion.29

The move by the UN and WEF has not gone unnoticed. A group of more than 170 civil organizations have signed an open letter30 detailing why they oppose the plan. At a time when stronger regulations are needed to protect consumers, it appears that the new UN digital roadmap may be seeking less.

Firing the Unvaccinated Is the Start of the Great Job Reset

Finally, Wecke addresses the issue of global vaccine distribution.31 Instead of the World Health Organization, which is “the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system,”32 being responsible for vaccine access, another initiative was created called COVAX. According to the WHO, COVAX is co-led by the WHO, UNICEF, CEPI and GAVI.33

As a quick reminder, GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance) and CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) have strong ties with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the WEF and are connected with large pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, AstraZeneca and more.34

The influence these groups have on the global distribution of the COVID vaccine may have been best illustrated when South Africa and India requested a temporary lift on the rules governing intellectual property to increase manufacturing and distribution to developing countries. Wecke reports35 that although the WHO director-general publicly said that he backed a proposal, others in the COVAX initiative strongly opposed it, and it didn’t happen.

There appears to be enough vaccines available in industrialized nations for the WEF to support any and all employees being fired if they choose not to take the vaccine. The National File36 published a tweet the WEF made in May 2021 which said, “Get your COVID-19 jab — or you could face consequences from your employer #COVID19 #JobsReset21.”

Additionally, the WEF had posted an article37 on their website that made a variety of claims about the percentage of companies that would require employees to be vaccinated and juxtaposed mental health concerns and burnout through the pandemic with being unvaccinated in the article.

After intense backlash, the tweet was deleted and replaced with a question, “Will employees be required to get the COVID-19 vaccination?”38 The new post quickly filled with screen shots of the original post.

Two Cities Promising to Fire Employees

Even before the FDA announced their approval of the Pfizer vaccine,39 Cincinnati, Ohio, area hospital systems had announced that starting October 1, 2021, all health care workers and volunteers are required to be vaccinated. Among those participating in the vaccine mandate are the University of Cincinnati Health, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the Christ Hospital Health Network.40

Health care workers in Cincinnati have now filed a lawsuit against six of the hospital systems saying requiring vaccines for employment is unlawful and violates workers’ Constitutional rights. The lawsuit says, "When there was no vaccine, the workers had to go to work. They were heroes. Now that there is a vaccine, they have to get the vaccine or be fired. Now they are ‘zeros.’"41

April Hoskins is a lab assistant at St. Elizabeth Edgewood who has worked for 20 years in family practice and hospital oncology. She told a reporter from WLWT5,42 "You've trusted us this whole time to take care of these patients, unvaccinated, without the proper PPE. And now out of nowhere, you have to get it or you're going to be terminated? Like, something is wrong with that picture.”

August 23, 2021, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all public school teachers and staff would be required to have at least one dose of the vaccine by September 27, 2021, or they would no longer have a job. Not soon afterward, the United Federation of Teachers union issued a statement from union president Michael Mulgrew reiterating their desire and priority to keep the students and teachers safe. He went on to say:43

“While the city is asserting its legal authority to establish this mandate, there are many implementation details, including provisions for medical exceptions, that by law must be negotiated with the UFT and other unions, and if necessary, resolved by arbitration."

It Is Important to Point Out the Inconsistencies

This was the second announcement from de Blasio, who first mandated vaccinations for approximately 400,000 employees in the Department of Education, New York Police Department and the Fire Department of New York.44 In tandem with New York, California Long Beach Unified School District also announced mandatory vaccinations, as has Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot for all Chicago Public School employees by October 15, 2021.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy also announced mandatory vaccinations or twice-weekly testing requirements for all state employees, effective October 18. It is clear that as different states and municipalities add their own mandates, it’s essential to be aware of what is happening in your local and regional areas, as well as to speak up at public meetings and demand public hearings on the matter.

The mayor of Orland Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, describes an example of how decisions behind closed doors can have a different outcome than those in public.45 He also says what is happening now is about “our processes, Constitutionality and the rule of law.”

The inconsistencies from health experts are deafening. Even the World Health Organization advises people who are vaccinated to continue wearing masks due to the Delta variant because “vaccine alone won’t stop community transmission.”46 Simultaneously, the public is told that everyone needs the vaccine to prevent spread of the infection47 and if you have the vaccine, you can still spread the virus and put others at risk.48

Each person has a responsibility to speak up, share information and ensure that as people make up their minds about vaccination, vaccine passports, civil liberties and the right to free speech, they have all the information they need and not just what’s shared in mainstream media.

To that end, I encourage you to share my articles with your friends and family. As you know, they are removed from the website 48 hours after publication. Please copy and paste the information, with the sources, and share it!

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Round-Up Review: WandaVision (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review the Monday after the finale of WandaVision drops on Disney+, so if you haven’t yet seen the entire series don’t read on until you have.

So I was going to do a fully fleshed out review of the entire series of WandaVision, but just as I’m about to finish…Tumblr decides to freeze on me and I lose a day of work so I have now decided to work this review a different way and rather than giving a general reaction and going into a character analysis, I will be breaking it down into what I loved, what wasn’t there for me fully and where I feel we are going next.

General Reaction:

So I could of very easily gone through this series episode by episode...but based on the fact that not only was this a play-by-play mystery with a lot more questions than answers each week, but also as the series progressed, particularly after Evan Peters arrived at the end of episode 5, the fan-theories and potential spoilers almost made me not want to know what was going to happen because the theories were becoming so grand that the series could surely never live up to expectations, which is why I feel the director of the finalé stated that fans may be disappointed...because ultimately I don’t think the finalé did live up to expectations. But these were expectations built up as an culmination of fan-theories, comic-book insight and also MCU baiting.

By MCU baiting, I mean that the creatives of WandaVision decided to be creative, and possibly playful, by including several red herrings that went absolutely nowhere but were the main conspiracy theories driving the fan-speculations and fake spoilers throughout the latter half of the series.

Dottie...who was she? Nobody important. Evan Peters...was he Quicksilver? No. Was he Mephisto/Nightmare? No. Was he important? Not really. Monica’s mysterious engineer contact, a fan-favourite character? Not even a character from the comics, I think.

Now that’s not to say this series asked questions that weren’t answered satisfactorily, but a lot of them seemed to build up to what is to come rather than giving us all the answers in this series. Is that a good thing? Yes because I feel this will make this series more rewatchable than I feel it already is. I for one of re-watched each episode at least twice sometimes three times each week leading up to the next episode and having just seen the entire series as a whole product I can safely say that characters and elements from this series going forward may have call-backs to the events of this series which will make for clicks, more views and more plays.

Speaking of watchability, can we talk about how interesting it has been to watch half-hour scheduled programming for 9 weeks like the olden days, and the fact we can call television life before streaming “the olden days”?.

But honestly sitting down, for me on a Friday morning at 9:30am without fail, to watch what began as a 25–30-minute MCU sitcom before turning into a 30–40-minute MCU mystery every week harkened back to my childhood and coming back from school to watch my shows which only aired once a week at that time. Feige’s and the creatives in the MCU brought back that feeling of nostalgia for me which I never really expected from a comic-book property.

Speaking of classic televisual viewing, I really enjoyed the standard sitcom setup of this series. I knew of all the referenced shows going in like The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, The Brady Bunch, Malcolm in the Middle and Modern Family, but it was also nice to see some standard sitcom tropes seen in the majority of sitcoms utilized throughout. From Agatha posing as the nosey neighbour to the fashions of each sitcom era and even the fourth wall breaks both from Billy in the Halloween episode in a Malcolm in the Middle spoof to the following episode literally titled “Breaking the Fourth Wall”.

Also, I will say here that all those MCU “stans” who are complaining they didn’t get the big grand beginning of Phase 4 that was promised to us by Feige as “something different”, the guy’s mantra is to keep it simple and the finalé was hardcore Feige. “Something different” was the set up and delivery of this slice of the MCU and some fans are still moaning about that so some people are just never satisfied.

What I Loved

Scarlet Witch

Give Elizabeth Olsen awards for this season! Make gold rain down upon her! Honestly, I have loved Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff since her formal introduction in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but now we have formally been introduced to the Scarlet Witch she is not only the most powerful female if not character in the MCU but also the best character in the entire MCU to date.

Not only is this series personifying how an individual deals with their grief, but when you consider the fact that Wanda, who is by all accounts a 29 year old woman due to being blipped for 5 years, and has lost her parents at a young age, her twin brother at 25-26 so still a young age and then the first love of her life twice, first by her own hand and then by the Mad Titan so that initial sacrifice was for nothing, it’s just a lot to put on one individual with this level of raw power without expecting her to finally snap and create an alternate reality where everything is under her control.

The creation of her twins, who I will get into further down, was well done and, for want of a better word, organic for the series. But I did like how they showed the real-life struggle of not just having a new-born but having twins. Wanda is trying to maintain control of this world she has created as well as keep Vision in check, but also because the twins are seemingly not under her magical control, she must juggle maintaining the world and its people with being a new mother.

But the biggest crisis for Wanda comes in when Fietro shows up, I still do not believe she ever truly thought this was her dead brother resurrected. It wasn’t until he said “long lost brother” that he asked “Pietro?” and she spent the entire next episode interrogating him until the façade finally slipped and she decided he wasn’t.

After this, everything falls apart for her. Not only is her reality literally slipping with Vision at odds with her, the world constantly shifting between eras and her not understanding what is happening.

This is of course when she is confronted by Agatha Harkness who has not only taken her twins but also been fooling her by being “Nosy Neighbour Auntie Agnes” for this entire time when in reality she is a with from the days of the Salem Witch Trials who wants to understand Wanda’s true potential and then absorb all of her magic.

But when we got to see Wanda’s true potential as she went “Beast Mode” as the Scarlet Witch complete with stunning new outfit and crown, this levels the character up to that top spot in the MCU as the best and most powerful character.

I am excited to see where the Scarlet Witch’s potential will take her next.

WandaVision Love Story

I also really loved the fact that as well as a personification of dealing with Wanda’s grief, this series was truly a love story between Wanda and Vision.

From the first episode when we see them getting “married” and being that unusual suburban couple trying to fit in with seemingly everyday suburban life when the entire set-up is Wanda’s idyllic dream world.

As Darcy said to Vision, the love these two have is real. I did an entire post on why Scarlet Witch and Vision are the best MCU couple, and this series amplifies that. It becomes clear that these two are not actually married and in fact this Vision isn’t even the Vision we have seen developed through the movies, but he is a replication of Wanda’s true love and this is how she chooses to show it.

The fact they go through all of the typical newlywed couple goalposts of marriage, homemakers, kids, a dog, domestic disputes. It’s all there and feels so natural even though we are talking about the relationship a potential Nexus Being and a Synthezoid.

Their final goodbye in the series finale is honestly as heart-breaking as any love-lost in a tragic romance movie. Seriously how many more times is Wanda, and by extension the fans, supposed to say goodbye to Vision?

Agatha Harkness

I love Kathryn Hahn, this series has solidified that for me. Not only is this the first live-action appearance of Agatha Harkness but also the way in which she was modified from the comics is in a way that I would be annoyed with any other way if not for the fact that it was Kathryn Hahn playing her.

Now yes, fans of the comics knew “Agnes” was really Agatha Harkness from the casting announcement, but the actual reveal wasn’t epic because we already knew, it was epic because of the way it was revealed.

“Agatha All Along” has honestly become one of my new favourite songs, it is such a catchy tune, incorporates a couple of classic sitcom nods and is very memorable.

But also, even the fact that the final line of “…and I killed Sparky too” has become so memeable without overshadowing the overall song is such an impressive feat.

The Lopez’s not only capitalise on their Frozen success but also Kathryn Hahn gets to show her musical talents by singing the actual song…it was just incredible.

But yes, Agatha being a villain, as she has been in the comics but not on this scale, was a great decision for this series because Kathryn Hahn managed to inject her own brand of cynical dry comedy with echoes of Cate Blanchett’s Hela to create a fully rounded menacing villainous character.

Not only do we learn about her origins of how she can absorb magic by murdering her entire coven, mother included, but also that she elevates that by being able to steal any magic, even that of the powerful Scarlet Witch, truly makes this witch a threat within the magical realms of the MCU.

Even though she was defeated I am thrilled she didn’t die, she has simply been taken off the board for now but is still able to be put into play if and when she is needed again, maybe in Doctor Strange 2 maybe sooner, who knows?

Monica Rambeau

I have to say, I do not know much about Proton from the comics and genuinely though Maria Rambeau was a bigger character than she was, but considering they killed her off-screen during this series I don’t think she actually was.

I loved how the effects of the blip are still showing their repercussions as Monica returns after being victim to the blip and is immediately thrust into a chaotic post-blip world that echoes the real-world COVID-19 crisis I imagine.

From the start once outside of the Hex, Monica hits the ground running as both a SWORD operative and a self-assured hero trying to do the right thing by saving the town of Westview and Wanda while thwarting Hayward.

I really loved how her “Boss Lady” persona that Agent Woo grants her was very well realised because she did not take any nonsense from anyone. She got the Space Rover so she could attempt to re-enter the Hex, she attempted to reason with Wanda not once, not twice, but thrice.

And when the rover couldn’t penetrate the Hex, she decided to re-enter unprotected knowing what the barrier would potentially do to her physiology…and it did not disappoint.

Monica got powers, she got powers in a spectacular way. I loved how while she was physically struggling to break through the barrier, she could hear the voices of her nearest and dearest (archive footage from Captain Marvel) which spurred her on until she finally pulled herself together and became the superpowered individual she was always going to become.

But she didn’t stop there, not only did she try to once again confront Wanda who at this point was rather unhinged, but she didn’t take her threats lying down and instead tried to break into Agnes’ house before getting caught by Fietro.

However, once she worked out Fietro was really Ralph and was able to free him from Agatha’s control, she wasted no time in running off and making herself useful and just in time as she stopped Hayward from shooting the twins and assisted them in subduing the rogue SWORD agents.

As for Monica’s future, she has been drafted by that Skrull to join Nick Fury’s new team and may return to honour her late mother’s position as director of SWORD. All I know is her future is as bright and vibrant as the energy waves she can now see.

Twins

I love Wiccan and Speed so much, I love the Young Avengers so much, I love Wiccan and Hulkling’s relationship from the comics that is inevitably going to happen hopefully, but the fact this was the origins of all of that gave me everything.

Even before their birth, I loved how the pregnancy was making everything in the house go crazy. Some fans believe this was Wanda’s powers out of control due to pregnancy, I think this was actually Billy’s reality warping powers either acting from inside the womb or amplifying Wanda’s reality warping powers.

When the twins were in existence, I feel Wanda wasn’t prepared for what was going to happen. Billy and Tommy had their own minds and weren’t afraid to show them. Not only with finding Sparky but also with revealing their powers.

It’s fascinating as both these characters have the powers of either their mother or uncle, Billy has reality warping powers and Tommy has super speed. But while both got great chances to show them both in the Halloween episode and also in the series finale, I do believe we have only just scratched the surface of particularly Billy’s powers.

Of course they were always going to be lost at the end of the series, as they were in the comics when they were reabsorbed into Mephisto, in this instance they were seemingly deleted along with their father and the Hex…but then we hear them calling out to Wanda while she’s examining the Darkhold? Is this really them? Multiverse variants? What does all this mean? We need answers!

Darcy Lewis

I was thrilled when I heard Kat Dennings was not only returning to the MCU but being part of different characters’ stories rather than just Thor.

I loved how Darcy was on it from the start by firstly identifying that she and the other three scientists in recruitment didn’t share any common field so that meant SWORD had no idea what they were facing, but then being the one to identify the broadcast of WandaVision.

It did truly feel like we were watching Darcy be us while she was watching the series, seeing her get so invested in the hijinks and the plot twists was very relatable. Kat Dennings sold that relatability just as she does in every performance for me.

Then her fan-girling over the wider MCU, Kat Dennings is a fan of the MCU outside of her own appearances, so the fact she confirmed Vision did not get blipped but actually died and also had that moment in first meeting Monica was adorable.

Also, the fact that Darcy was the one who figured out not only that Monica’s cells were being re-written but also that Hayward had nefarious intentions with wanting to track down Vision, it just gave Darcy a purpose in the series and almost made her invaluable. Monica and Jimmy don’t have the backgrounds to be the “person in the chair” but Darcy does, and I was happy she finally got the chance to showcase it.

Even when she was taken into the Hex and temporarily became the Escape Artist, she was still Darcy in a way, then she became Vision’s source of information and road trip buddy before being left on the side-lines only to then return and help defeat Hayward.

What Didn’t Work:

Too Many Red Herrings

As I said this series and the series creatives had far too many red herrings planted to either fool us or tease us without any solid resolutions.

The biggest one is definitely “Fietro” who as it turns out isn’t Multiverse Quicksilver from the Fox X-Men movies but is instead an in-universe actor named Ralph Bohner who was enthralled by Agatha to play the part of her husband and be her spy and lackey.

Honestly not only am I annoyed that Evan Peters was used for what was ultimately a boner joke, but also it does throw dirt into the wound as to the fact we may not be getting Mutants or the X-Men for a while yet in the MCU.

Then there’s Dottie...similarly to Fietro this could have been a smart way to bring Mutants into the MCU. While yes Dottie was believed to be Mephisto or a witch of some description, I was actually onboard with the idea that this was the MCU Emma Frost. It would have been poetic for Agatha Harkness to be working with Emma Frost to not only maintain her manipulation but also with Emma’s telepathic abilities but also potentially have Emma working as a double agent for the Hellfire Club who also want to harness the powers of the Scarlet Witch similarly to how they wanted to control the Phoenix Force.

Wanda in the MCU has already been compared to Jean Grey, so how about Scarlet Witch becoming the Black Queen of the Inner Circle?

Next, Ultron. A namedrop as many times as this deserves some sort of payoff. Ralph got his and it may have been disappointing but at least we got resolution. So why, when Ultron was named numerous times and we as fans even had Avengers: Age of Ultron being the next recommended watch for us at the end of every episode except the finale, did nothing come of it? If White Vision was voiced by James Spader I would have been happy.

Finally, there’s Monica’s engineer “guy”. We didn’t find out who this was because the contact Monica met with was an Air Force contact delivering the Space Rover, but who was the engineer who designed it? Why didn’t we meet him?

I personally feel this engineer is Reed Richards, there is obviously a rich history of space being connected to Reed’s origins as Mister Fantastic, we know the Fantastic Four are coming to the MCU, it would simply make sense to first introduce Reed as maybe a scientist for SWORD or Nick Fury’s team before bringing in the full team.

I know the other option is Hank Pym, but really if it was Pym then why couldn’t they just pay Michael Douglas for a cameo?

The Future of the MCU

So, what does WandaVision set up for the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Well, we know that this is the start of the Multiverse Arc that will continue with Spider-Man: No Way Home later this year and conclude with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness next year. It is confirmed that Scarlet Witch will show up in the latter of those two movies, but we have no idea what role she’ll serve in Spider-Man.

The other story this series sets up is Secret Invasion which will happen during the series of the same name starring Nick Fury and the Skrulls and also Captain Marvel 2 which will not only feature Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau but also the upcoming Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel. This puts three superpowered women in the same movie and possibly will be the nexus of the Secret Invasion storyline before the concluding movie being an Avengers level event.

Then there’s also Falcon and the Winter Soldier starting in a couple of weeks, that series will most likely connect to Black Widow due to including Yelena Belova but also because that was originally supposed to come out before WandaVision it is tough to see if it or any other upcoming series except for Secret Invasion will connect to this series.

And of course, there is the upcoming Young Avengers project, we have yet to get confirmation of if this will be a movie or a TV series but we know we are having the players put onto the board in Disney+ shows and MCU movies. We have Wiccan and Speed, we know we are getting Kate Bishop and America Chavez as well as already having Cassie Lang just recast for the upcoming Ant-Man 3 to hopefully finally become Stature, and while we have yet to get confirmation of Hulkling it is possible he will appear in Secret Invasion given the Kree-Skrull elements.

Overall, I rate this series a solid 9/10, this series gave me practically everything I wanted and there were many times particularly in the finale that I felt this was the best Marvel Television series. I still stand by the fact that I think it is but the red herrings of Fietro, Mephisto, Ultron and Monica’s “guy” meant I couldn’t call it a solid 10/10.

Regardless of that, I felt this series gave us something different in an MCU mystery, formally introducing witches into the MCU, the love story of Wanda and Vision was intoxicating, meeting Wiccan and Speed in the early years was glorious and honestly Wanda embracing her destiny and becoming the Scarlet Witch…if the entire series was at that level it would be a 10/10 across the board.

So that’s my Round-Up Review of WandaVision, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Marvel Reviews as well as other TV Reviews and posts.

[iwillgetridofyourangerforyou]

Update on my OPM Journey

An introduction to how I ended up here and what I’m looking for:

Season 1:

Like many of us here, I watched the first season of One-Punch Man when it arrived on Netflix around 2016. It was fun. I enjoyed the humor and the characters. Finished the few episodes that were available and went on with my life with the faint but idle hopes of another season. If you were to have asked me about OPM back then I probably would have said something about it being ‘a fun anime’, ‘worth watching’, ‘entertaining/amusing’, without much additional thought. Then, Season two came out. I was almost surprised that a second season actually came out, it had been so long. I wish I could explain to you how and why the second season hit me like it did, (the quality was not as compelling as the first for one) but that’s a story for another time. 

Season 2:

I was idly curious how the author would keep the concept of ‘a hero who can defeat any enemy in one punch’ fresh and interesting. Superhero franchises often suffer from the crushing pressure to continue to escalate threats indefinitely to always keep a hero’s journey relatable and interesting. When you’re faced with overpowered superheroes like Superman plots can become ridiculous fairly quickly. What I noticed watching through Season 2 (and then season 1 again and then season 2 again) was clear indications that this tired ‘treat escalation trope’ was not at all what the creators were leaning on. There were really powerful conversations and questions being presented by or through characters. Saitama’s conversation with King is one that stands out to me in particular:

I was floored. And suddenly my level of investment in this content went from 20% “eh, it’s fun, I’ll check for new episodes.” to “holy crap I neeed to figure how what is happening here this is f-ing amazing!” 

And so began my ongoing quest to figure out what ONE is trying to teach us through this story.

I started reading the manga. 

At first I fell easily into the habits of most half-invested fans, clinging to overused tropes, enticed by fan predictions that feel more like conspiracy theories now, generally ignoring some of the themes and ideas that more observant fans are able to uncover. I’m getting closer but I feel myself getting frustrated, there is more going on here that I’m not seeing. My internal predictions about what will happen in the manga as I read through were getting closer but I keep missing the mark so far on some areas that I felt blindsided. 

I need to re-evaluate how I’m looking at this. I need more information. 

I started reading the webcomic. 

The webcomic really helped clarify some things for me, it was de-convoluted and direct. It was like looking at the bones of the animal. I could see it’s joints, where it bends and where it’s rigid. You really start to get a sense of what this story is built for. The scenes and dialogue are poignant and every frame has a purpose.

Still, this wasn’t good enough for me. My research is not over. I keep mis-attributing things, and missing clues. Through this process I’ve been getting better at uncovering my own biases and learning how to separate them from my interpretation but my biases are a continual stumbling block. For one thing I don’t value all the characters or the lessons they have to teach, I find my lazy brain getting annoyed at some characters and hoping their voice in the story is minimized while hyper-laser focusing on other characters to the point that they become muddled images, grotesque self-projections, or over-complicated distractions. I need to get out of my head a bit, not forgetting my own biases, and I need to start seeing how ONE thinks, who he is as a person, what he values. 

I need fresh source material. 

So, I watched Mob Psycho 100. 

That gave me so much hope and optimism for what ONE has in store for his characters. I’d gotten used to authors who create characters for the purpose of their deaths. Who creates characters who are intended to be ‘terrible, awful, and no good’ to highlight how ‘amazing, sweet, and good’ other characters are. But that’s not what ONE seems to do (imo). It’s not that he doesn’t use characters to contrast other characters, but that’s what it is, a contrast more than a judgement. From my perspective ONE understands the importance of consequence, he values inter-dependency gratitude and accountability. 

That said, he shows that a character's actions have consequences. It’s not necessarily moral judgement against a person to say that if they make fraudulent claims they may be found out and shamed, or if they’re standoffish they’ll have trouble building connections, if they use power to manipulate and control people with fear they might lose people (especially if that power is taken away). The use of consequence seems to extend past a person’s choices and include the consequence of a person’s circumstance which may not actually limit a person in a meaningful way, but will impact how they’re able to achieve what they desire. There is a moment when Mob runs for student body president and he’s put a lot of additional work and practice into the speech he’s required to deliver, he stretches himself, but unlike other stories he doesn’t have a ‘surprising under-dog upsetting the establishment’ moment. His natural shyness, low charisma, and the lack of real public speaking experience result in him standing in stunned silence during his entire time slot.

He doesn’t win the vote. Similarly, Mob sets an ambitious goal to come in the top 10 people in a race, but as a consequence of being a naturally small kid who has only just begun actively trying to improve his body, he is unable to accomplish his goal. However, as a direct result of the effort and determination he’s put into his goal he does much better than he’d ever done before. 

I had no idea before watching MP100 how much ONE thinks about interdependence and now I have a new perspective on the tension between the hero associations and the heroes, the teams of heroes and their individual strength, how well a team works together or not and why seems to be a very important topic of exploration for ONE. There is a very powerful moment when Mob confronts some esper goons who are looting a store after the destruction of part of a city. When he confronts them he asks “could you guys manufacture this can? Could you actually grow the vegetables in this sandwich?” and concludes that thought with “You should realize that you’re only able to survive thanks to the help of others.” 

There is another powerful moment when Mob is being confronted by another bitter and disillusioned esper who tries to get Mob to tap into his negative emotions to increase his power. He tries to get Mob to despair in humanity as he has but Mob is able to turn the tables on the interaction with gratitude. By recognizing how fortunate he is and how many good people are near him he is able to pull himself (with a little help from Dimple and friends) out of despair. It’s a truly heartwarming moment and it leaves you really feeling bad for the antagonist in that situation. 

Conclusion for this post, (but not the conclusion of my research):

This is getting a bit long so I’ll conclude. Taking this dive has certainly given me some perspective and I have an overwhelming buffer of new OPM analysis that’s just waiting to be put to paper. I absolutely recognize that MP100 =/= OPM and ONE may indeed be exploring entirely different concepts. I don’t believe, however, that ONE’s values have changed much (although I’m sure they’re in constant development) and I’m grateful for the opportunity to see what he thinks about. I’m grateful for the time and effort he’s put into communicating and sharing his ideas though his comics. I still have a lot of personal biases to identify and overcome, that will be a constant struggle. However, part of the charm of my meta’s is that they do come from my own perspective. This little story is only a hint at some of the fish in the ocean of thoughts I’m swimming through trying desperately not to drown in as I open my big mouth to try to share with you all. (Welcome in, the water’s fine.)

[kitsunebishake]

Why Hríd is such an amazing character who just got done wrong during his “character arc” (SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE BOOK II AND FORGING BONDS)

WARMING: THIS IS JUST ONE LONG ASS LOVEMAIL POST FOR HRÍD

this was originally written as a thread on twitter but i’ll try my best to put it all here because someone asked for it some time ago

I’m putting it here because @chascah suggested i uploaded it here as well for those people who actually appreciate the icy boy

this is basically an analysis to most if not every quote from hríd, also adding some translations and little details from the japanese quotes (and some lore behind the whole idea of hríd’s new year alt)

let’s start then!

lemme start with the fact that hríd only appeared in 3 out of 13 chapters, yet is the character that caught my interest the most (funny because i already had a crush on alfonse, then i saw hríd and was like "oh, hello there")

hríd arrived like a half-dead yet somehow composed prince who somehow (x2) survived by himself in múspell for weeks (maybe even months, there's no exact timeline but it is canon that alfonse and the others spent some weeks in nifl, it probably also took them a while to navigate through múspell until loki arrived as ylgr)

he served as some kind of excuse to not put bruno too much with the main characters, practically a messenger only despite this guy being alive with burns and a broken sword (the crack on gjöll's blade hurts bc he couldve actually lost his sword and ended up defenseless in battle oof)

so, there was no really much use of his character other than being a magical solution for everything

he even helped unmask loki (though they never explain why hríd suspected of ylgr, we only know loki's own take)

btw, can we talk about the fact he probably outsmarted loki while the others weren't yet in múspell? he terrorized surtr's army and even outsmarted laegjarn and laevatein

and since he survived for so long i believe most of his wounds were made by surtr himself

they never really say whether he actually managed to kill surtr or not, but let's say yes just to add up on all of the things hríd does just in the story

at first glance it looks like he's doing nothing, but reading further into it and applying some logic

hríd's... he's pretty impressive for a prince so young

gotta also add how hríd appears less impulsive in japanese than in english

when "alfonse" blames him for being a traitor, hríd gets to the defensive immediately in english

in japanese, he's more in shock, probably because after all he's tried, he's being doubted by his allies (which shows a lot how much he cares about being perceived as perfect, something i'll get on to later if i have enough time)

I added this part in the middle of the whole thing because it was a different thread so excuse the sudden change of topic, kinda. It’s supposed to be from the last conversation in Book 2, where Fjorm tells Hríd she’s going to stay in Askr despite her “condition”.

"I understand your feelings, Sister. By all means, go. I will pray for your safety."

this is one of the quotes i'd like to put in that one hríd character thread i want to make

the feeling behind this quote got completely lost in translation, as there's no way to translate it properly

in japanese, hríd uses a pecular way of speech to refer to his sister here he says "... I get it. If that is what you wish, it's alright to go. I'll pray for your safety." the peculiar part, aside from hríds "..." is where he refers to fjorm, the "you"

hríd normally uses "kimi" to refer to people, which is like a more... gentle? way of speaking? men usually use it towards women bc they want to treat them nicely, and jps in general use it with people they don't know (it's that, or "anata" or "[name]-san")

yet here, hríd decides to use "omae" to refer to fjorm, which is more informal and even rude (specially for someone who normally uses "kimi", it means he wanted to express some kind of anger or frustration about fjorm's decision without saying it directly,,,,,,,,,,,,,which is very japanese to do so,,,,,, *looks into the distant "most japanese people i've known don't directly say 'no' and instead go 'hmmmmmm' '*very indirectly rejects*' and it's probably a fact*)

it feels like instead of being supportive, hríd just understood there was no way of convincing fjorm to stay with them

so he gave up and felt hurt by that

please protect hríd

Back to the rest of the analysis.

now let's talk about forging bonds, in the wiki there's only the opening part transcribed in japanese, the rest is only on english (i curse not having started playing 3 months earlier orz)

the first thing you can notice in the japanese version is how informal hríd is when he's stressed

while he speaks in an usually softer manner, here, he doesn't even greet ylgr and gunnthrá, he goes directly to "gunnthrá... ah, ylgr is here too" (he kinda does the same in the mainstory, where he just says “ah, fjorm, you’re okay... ylgr too :)”)

AND IMMEDIATELY, HIS NEXT TEXT IS HIM CALLING GUNNTHRÁ WITH "OMAE”

ALREADY DEEP INTO THE STRESS OF MÚSPELL INVADING THEM

this shows how easily stressed hríd gets and how much he lets his emotions dirve his attitude and actions (which makes sense with the part where he tells fjorm she should be the one wielding leiptr and not him, he's too emotional despite how much he tries not to be)

in these parts we also see some level of deattachment from gunnthrá, on english he goes "sister..." by the end of the opening conversation

in the jp, however, he stays silent, he doesn't even call her name

idk if it's just me overanalyzing it, but from my experience with animoo and vidya, it feels a little weird that he says nothing there, like he's thinking (this is probably foreshadowing hríd's inner feelings oof)

something that i particularily like about this event is that hríd seems so at ease when he's on the dreams, even in the english translation it seems like that he mentions it might be because he feels at ease with kiran but i feel like it also has to do with the fact they're just a dream, it's not the real world, there's nothing to worry in a world where there's no war

at least, that's the feeling his dialogues give me

the closest thing to that hríd is his lvl40 speech and ny hríd (who's happier)

the only quote where hríd mentions some type of concern for his mother btw

from here on it only gets worse when it comes to hríd, though

he speaks about the invasion and such he talks in a way that implies he's probably taking the role of a commander (same as how it is implied he trains the soldier, or that he trains with them, though since he's been training alone with fjorm for so long, it's most likely the former) aside from that, he's weighting on himself the responsibility of what happens to nifl and what happens to his family

and since he's doing so, here's when it comes the part of hríd not being able to care about himself

this young man is carrying a heavy weight, the hopes and dreams and lives of many innocent and PEACEFUL people who barely even know how to fight, on top of those of his loved ones

it doesn't seem like anyone asked him to, not even his mother or sisters

he just decided it on his own that he needed to be "the perfect prince/king" in order to "protect" them

/even if it costs him his life/

he prepared his sisters for that moment (which, might give an insight that hríd knew more than he says, but let's leave my conspiracy theories aside lol)

and to THAT PART, we can add this from the mainstory

in english, when he's rescued, he thanks them for doing so

but in the jp text he actually apologizes for it

not sure how to exactly translate it, but it's something along the lines of "my apologies...for having to be saved..."

idk you guys, but it sounds like what someone who just failed to commit suicide would say, instead of someone who's grateful to be alive

and it makes sense, with how obsessed hríd seems to be about "dying for his loved ones" despite it not being entirely necessary

i mean, look at that, he survived surtr and was aided by bruno as he escaped (probably? they never say what exactly happened, but since they're looking for hríd and not for bruno, it's most likely that they just found each other by accident)

and yes, even though he seems to calm down with those thoughts during the sequence, it is only a dream and we know he has no recolection of them

he forgets completely about that motivation to keep living, which leads him into further down the path of death  (whichinnorsemythologymightbecalledhríd,,,,,,orgjöll,,,ykow?)

im still not done, havent even gotten to his unit quotes lmao

hríd still did his best to survive for as long as he could, but it feels more like his strategic "i'm making time for fjorm and the askrans to make their moves" purely, out of the fact he didn't seem too happy to survive until he saw fjorm and ylgr

hat's all of hríd's quotes from that event, i can finally move on to his unit quotes

let's start with this one, luckily it is practically the same quote in both languages

this immediatelly counters any "hríd is boring" comment

though that is subjective, in my case what drove me even further into loving hríd was how different he was from usual characters related to ice

he might come off as cold sometimes, but it's purely because he's actually really dense/has a really bad sense of humor

in jp he tries to make an ice joke, but says "it's not suitable for him" (which is funny because in english he does have ice puns and i hate it)

1. he doesn't mention his mother 2. hríd blaming himself and being kinda gloomy part 1 

"I should have protected my people and sisters, I couldn't play that role... I can never forget that." 

this part hurts a lot (it's a little more poetic than the og one, i like it lol)

he could be talking about himself, about his sisters, his people, or all together, since the four of them have expressed desire for peace, and all four ended hurt by such thing

this part is scary, though it's not as much in english

NOT BECAUSE OF THE TRANSLATION, but because of his battle lines in eng (i'll get to that first and then come back to this one)

the most shockingly different skill trigger is the second one

the first one is exactly the same the third one in jp is "this is the last blow" (or smth like that) the fourth one is a little weird to translate (ice upon you works, but "freeze your life" sounds a little scary??)

OKAY BUT THE SECOND ONE ALONG WITH THE VOICE CLIP

IT KINDA SCARES ME A LITTLE FOR MY CUTE SWEET MOCHI BOY

it literally says "no mercy for the enemy"

IT'S LITERALLY SUGAR COATED, hríd went from a gentle giant to a merciless killer (who knows how many muspellians he's killed???) thanks to surtr and his fucking ass

hríd blaming himself and being gloomy part 2

the fact that he has not one, not two, not three, but about 5 to 6 lines that imply he's still dueling over everything that happened during the war is hurtful, he really can't forgive himself for that

he also sounds a little dead to me here (it’s one of the voiced quotes from his status page!)

which brings me back to the initial scary one

hríd is obsessed with earning his peace no matter what

and for that, he wants to get stronger

for that, he's willing to even perish, for everyone's sake

it's so sickening for me since i can kinda relate???? it reminds me a lot of the kind of wording they use for depression-themed japanese works, with the "peace" part and his willingness to just die anytime (which, is actually pretty normal for a warrior outside of FE. outside)

iT MAKES ME FEEL BAD BUT AT THE SAME TIME i kinda like he's written this way

AND EVEN WHEN HE'S LIKE THAT, hríd is still a gentle sweetheart who speaks so kindly you kinda forgets how merciless he is in the battlefield

like, the audio where he holds kiran's hands???? where he speaks about how the order of heroes saved nifl????? EVEN WHEN HE GETS STARTLED

he's always such a gentle and kind person

it makes me hate surtr even more because they didn't deserve this

hríd didn't deserve going through all of this fucking shit HE. DESERVED. HAPPINESS. AND PEACE.

then there's the ny hríd

he's an angel

a happy angel who makes me a little sad bc og hríd is not as happy

From here on everything was written like 2 weeks after the previous stuff :’) i’m sowwy

he's a resolute prince, he has the resolution of saving even at least one person,,,,,instead of being a "king", instead of being a "brother", or a "prince", he just wants to be "a hero",,,

hello, this is my opening statement of why ny hríd makes me cry with just existing

welcome

let us start with something that makes his quotes even better, particularily the previous quote and his lvl40 speech, which is the powerful meaning of this alt itself for a character such as hríd

in japan, new year used to be celebrated not at the end of the year, but at the end of winter, which is where geishun comes into the scheme, as it currently means "new years greetings" but in those old times, it was actually "welcoming spring" (or something along those lines i suck for precise translations)

and that's where our next quote comes into the picture

hríd speaks about nifl's winter, about how it practically symbolizes the nifleans' strength and will power

the alt itself is a more positive hríd, one who's willing to try his hardest for everyone, who doesn't regret his past, but looks into the future and has the purpose of being even better than before

of course, this hríd didn't suffer the same fate as the OG hríd, as he still has all 3 sisters (i want to believe ylgr was with them, just not shown bc of the lack of space for a sixth character) and now also 2 new allies to power their search for peace and strength to defend that peace

so, while our normal hríd is desparate to become stronger and suffers, this hríd is like his pole opposite, it's like the sun and the moon (too bad this hríd has no default special, sol would've fit him so well)

can we talk about how he feels so comfortable wearing the celebratory outfit?

the obi (the.....thing that acts as a belt) should be tied strongly enough so the hakama (the pants) doesnt fall down while he fights, yet he feels comfortable with it

i mean, it isn't as constrictive as a kimono as it doesn't prevent him from moving around freely, but he still shouldn't normally feel as comfortable with it as he is, he's never even worn something like that (it is implied, at least) yet he's loving it, isn't it adorable???

one time i joked about hríd being able to feel when winter is coming or when snow will start falling but

i think this quote pretty much confirmed it (YOU CAN'T SAY IT'S BECAUSE IT'S WARM, IT DOES SNOW IN ASKR WE'VE SEEN IT)

blessed boy munchs a whole fucking piece of mixed flour with FOUR HUNDRED GRAMS OF FUCKING SUGAR 

he's got a sweet tooth i know it, i know my people when i see them

it's just that he doesn't seem disgusted, and he also only mentions the mochi so we can assume he didn't drink sake or matcha with it

he ate the fucking thing alone and apparently liked it

we have a sweet angel, guys

i just think this quote is cute, he loves cold just as much as i love him

t HIS IS SUCH AN IMPROVEMENT FROM OUR NORMAL HRÍD HE'S SO POSITIVE AND DETERMINED I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

though in japanese, the last quote is a little more gloomy

im not entirely sure of how to properly translate it *looks at the jisho page of the kanji he cant understand* it's certainly a word

but it could be something like "to be in such a predicament from so early in the year... I'm unable to say it's pathetic..."

i???? imagine he says he "can't say it" because he's trying to be positive?????? or something along those lines, but saying it proves he's taking it way to the extreme

nasakenai can also be shameful or miserable, pitable, disgraceful stuff like that

i'm not sure how to describe this quote?

this time it's the english localisation that kinda throws me off, i don't understand what he's trying to say lmao

in japenese he's saying something about having been graced this early in the new year

7 years speaking english and i still can't break down complex phrases the only reason i've survived this long is through the power of deduction abilities

pray for me

u know hríd's damaged quotes in english are all grunts, right?

in japanese, this hríd has a peculiar quote i find adorable when he gets damaged

he says "as expected from you...!"

hE'S COMPLIMENTING HIS ENEMY, THIS IS THE SAME MAN WHO SAYS NO MERCY AS HE KILLS THE FOE

btw listening to his english quotes is so funny

he sounds so damn cool in japanese and in english he

he sounds like a fucking nerd

I THINK IM TAKING A LIKING TO HIS ENGLISH VOICE ACTING PURELY BECAUSE HE SOUNDS STUPID

compare this (JP) https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/1/12/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_SKILL_2_jp.wav

to this (ENG) https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/6/6a/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_SKILL_2.wav

it's the exact same quote by the two different VAs

HE SOUNDS LIKE A NERD IN THE ENGLISH VERSION I CAN'T

back to translations and analysis

i hate this one

his eng quote is more positive while the japanese one is something along the lines of "I was useless... I'm sorry..."

I

HATE

IT

look, say whatever you want, but hríd is such a sweet man

he cares for people and he tries his best to be the perfect prince everyone thinks he is

AND FOR HIS *MORE POSITIVE VERSION* TO SAY THIS AS HE IS DEFEATED IS JUST

WHAT DID HE DO TO U INTSYS TO MAKE HIM SUFFER THIS MUCH??

despite how "im so useless...!" his japanese version is

he way he says these two quotes sounds way more positive in japanese lmao it's the same translation, only that he's more "I'll repay you!!!!!!" in jp ( https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/3/34/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_MAP_3_jp.wav )

adorable

can’t use emojis on this pc so i’ll just leave the whole screenshot here

you see this quote here?

this is what it actually says

I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY CHANGED IT BUT I THINK IT'S CUTE BECAUSE I THINK HE DIDN'T JUST SWALLOW THE WHOLE MOCHI

HE ATE IT NORMALLY AND THINKS HE'S GOT SOME ON HIS CLOTHES BC PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT HIM LGHDSKLGSDFKS

why are u so cute aaaaaaa///////////

this is probably the translation of hríd's quotes i hate the most  in english it just...sounds so rude

in japanese it's more like "could you please tell me if i'm wearing these clothes wrong? i'll fix it fast"

he's trying to be respectful to the hoshidans sobs

THESE TWO QUOTES ARE SO DIFFERENT BUT SO EQUALLY ADORABLE AND POWERFUL

THIS 180~195CM OR SO MAN IS THE MOST ADORABLE PERSON IN THIS WHOLE PUTRID PLANET AND IM GOING TO TELL YOU WHY

first, this is my fave quote on english

he sounds so confused as to why people think the hoshidan clothes suit him

HE'S. NOT. AWARE. OF HOW FUCKING GOOD HE LOOKS.

TELL ME THAT'S NOT THE CUTEST SHIT EVER HE JUST DOESN'T GET IT

to make it more adorable, in japanese, the original quote is something like "I wonder what makes a type of clothing 'suit' you..."

HE'S GOING ALL PHYLOSOFICAL ON THAT SHIT probably because people keep telling him he looks good in that kind of clothing

this man's density is so powerful that he can't even begin to understand people find him attractive and that the attire literally makes him go from a 10 to a 1000000000000000000

he doesn't get it and he wants to know if it's really true so he goes out of his way TO ASK KIRAN

i love hríd so much he's so adorabl e

i want to give him a hug

with this i finish my thread for now

for now

hopefully we will get another alt for hríd and i can come back to spam about how adorable his quotes are

please stan hríd he's literally an angel

[absynthe--minded]

Voyager 4.23 Living Witness, Enterprise 2.02 Carbon Creek, and DS9 3.22 Explorers! I like those episodes :)

oooh I like this list so OKAY let’s start with Carbon Creek

Short Opinion: I will always love this episode because I remember watching it on its original airdate, but its quality is ehh, but I love it anyway.

Long Opinion: T’Mir is a wonderful character. Storn is great, too, and so is Mestral. I love how each of the three stranded Vulcans responds to rural America in different ways - T’Mir is indifferent and elitist until she’s suddenly yanked into empathy through an unexpected emotional connection, Storn wants to go home and has very little faith in humans to survive the coming centuries, and Mestral pulls an Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul and falls in love with a human woman and nopes out of his life. All of these responses are different, and all of them paint pictures of Vulcan culture. One of ENT’s great strengths was that it didn’t hesitate to pick apart the carefully constructed facade of Vulcan togetherness and calm, and honestly I think that’s showcased really well here. Also I love the whole “selling mundane future tech to past inventors” trope. Done to perfection in STIV, and featured here too, only as a touching character moment rather than a comedy beat.

Also I think this episode is interesting on a meta level because of what it says about T’Pol - whatever she might say about herself or her interests, she’s got human appreciation in the blood, and her attachment to T’Mir’s purse from 50s Pennsylvania says that even though she wants to stay a neutral unattached Vulcan observer there’s more going on in her heart. It foreshadows her later romance with Tripp nicely, and Mestral is foreshadowing too, of both Sarek and herself.

Final Thoughts: Aliens invented Velcro, you guys.

Living Witness:

Short Opinion: Damn, history really is complicated.

Long Opinion: This isn’t actually one of my favorite Voyager episodes, but it’s really cool to watch and I recommend it nonetheless. Voyager shone when it was tackling real-world issues that other Treks didn’t touch - the dangers of dogmatic thinking, depression and self-harm in the wake of tragedy, autonomy and the self and the development of adult consciousness, and (as featured here) how hard or easy it is to figure out what really happened in the past. Historical analysis is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle where half the box is missing and has been replaced by a totally different puzzle, and the end goal is to use the half-constructed object to write a several-thousand word essay about what the designer was feeling three weeks prior to its initial conception; watching Quarren struggle both with his desire to find out the truth and his fears for his culture is interesting for anyone remotely interested in the study of Earth’s past.

I like, too, the emphasis on truth that’s all through Star Trek but here especially. It doesn’t matter that the comforting fiction of the past kept two societies from violence, because their peace was made on a falsehood and it therefore won’t last. In our current era of fake news and manipulative pundits, we need that message more than ever.

I guess ultimately what I’m saying is that while I don’t enjoy “Living Witness” as an episode on its own merits I think it’s important, and I think people ought to watch it if they’re interested in science fiction tackling real-world issues.

Final Thought: What happened to this copy of the Doctor?? I kind of want fanfiction now.

Explorers:

Short Opinion: Suck it, Ancient Aliens.

Long Opinion: One of my personal pet peeves is the trivializing of (largely white American) insistence that No Human Could Have Ever Done Massive Past Thing. I’m thinking about stuff like “aliens built the pyramids”, “aliens built the Easter Island heads”, “aliens made the Nazca Lines”, etc. Just because you can’t see how it was done doesn’t mean some aliens did it. How would you feel if someone from one of those cultures looked at you and said “I don’t know how they made the Hoover Dam. Aliens must have done it”? Angry, probably, and annoyed, because it’s turning something that took a lot of work into a curiosity and a magnet for conspiracy theory.

So seeing a Trek episode actually about that really makes me happy. I love “Explorers”, I think it’s great. I love that it tackles both Sisko’s genuine enthusiasm for proving his adopted people can do the thing and the Cardassians’ refusal to believe that the Bajorans they dominated and appropriated from and tried to wipe out were ever capable of something they weren’t.

On a completely different note, I love that we first run into the idea of Kasidy Yates here. I love Kasidy to pieces. And I love Jake and Ben bonding, because their father/son relationship is SO GOOD and it’s so NICE to see a Starfleet commander be a real family man. I also love that their interests are so different but that Jake loves his dad and Ben doesn’t want to force Jake to be just like him. Ugh. Sisko is the best, you guys.

Final Thought: The Romulans and Pavel Chekov would have gotten along great.

[daveandtrev]

The 2020 Andre Johnson Sweepstakes League write-up

Friends of the Andre Johnson Sweepstakes League, welcome. I am pleased (no really, I am excited) to bring you a breakdown of the AJSL as it blessed our lives in the one-of-a-kind year of 2020. Below you will find a mix of analysis and lighthearted fun aimed at taking a first pass at what the heckfire happened this year from start to finish. We’ve got analysis on the draft, injuries and schedule plus some fun awards to give out. I won’t buffalo you any longer, lets get to it.

Draft Day Analysis

Draft day analysis interpretation: I tried to objectively pick the best teams based on my personal draft rankings (subjective draft rankings, objective draft analysis…sort of follows?). Here’s the methodology: I assigned a value to every player for above average play (in 0.25 increments). It’s essentially five tiers (+0.0 = starter, but could be replaced; +0.25 = contributing starter; +0.5 = solid starter; +0.75 = strong starter that will create a positional advantage; +1.0 = elite starter providing a distinct positional advantage). This all makes sense in my head, and it should make more sense when you look at the table. I then added up points for each team’s best possible starting lineup according to my points system and voila; Dave Stark’s handicapping of the AJSL.

A couple of notes:

·       Players are listed in the positions as there were drafted, with highest spend creating the starting lineup. For my points system, I subbed in bench players if they had a higher value than the starter.

·       I cheated on Christian McCaffrey’s value: he was a +1.25 in my book. Clearly the best player in the game with even higher upside than the traditional studs.

A few things that turned out like I thought

·       The running QBs outside of Lamar (Dak, Kyler, Russ, and DeShaun all avg 22.0+ fantasy pts/gm and sit top 7 at QB)

·       The QBs at +0.0 (Baker, Carr, Danny Dimes, Kirk Cousins, and Jimmy G basically ride the merry-go-round from one bye week fill-in to the next. Tannehill and Cousins maybe qualify as +0.25 players now, but neither averages over 20+ pts/gm)

·       Jonathan Taylor +0.0 (His value has been everywhere this year. Marlon Mack was the only reason I had him ranked this low. When Mack went down I pegged him for +0.75 with the possibility to go +1.0…and then nothing materialized until late into the year)

·       Devin Singletary +0.0 (Started hearing whispers of Zack Moss splitting carries + Josh Allen hogs goal line rushes)

A few places where I was dead wrong

·       Stefon Diggs +0.0 (Turns out, Josh Allen actually got better - +10% Completion % in 2020)

·       Josh Allen +0.5 (Averaging 24.7 pts/gm which would have been the QB2 overall last year by almost 3 pts/gm. Currently QB4)

·       Kyler Murray +0.75 (Not nearly high enough on him. Averaging 26.5 pts/gm as the QB1 overall. Playing at a +1.0 level)

·       DK Metcalf +0.25 (Seattle hired their lead chef to work full time)

·       Lamar Jackson +1.0, Mark Andrews +0.75 (Uhhh, why is this team broken?)

·       Kenyan Drake +0.75 (Beware the extravagant 8 game sample size that says someone is a world-beater)

·       Zach Ertz +0.75 (Is this the cliff year at 30 years old? How did Tony G catch 83 balls at age 37?)

·       Aaron Rod Gers +0.25 (Yeah he’s a +0.75 guy now…should have known that drafting the backup QB would light a fire under Aaron: we’ve only seen this from Alex Smith and Joe Flacco in 2 of the last 3 years…Wait, why hasn’t this applied to Wentz yet?)

·       Davante Adams +0.75 (Good golly, A-Aron’s resurgence means Davante is almost on +1.25 level when he is healthy)

·       Keenan Allen +0.25 (This was all about Tyrod…then we found out that Justin Herbert was interning specifically for Keenan Allen and the Chargers med staff decided to euthanize Tyrod)

·       TJ Hockenson +0.0 (2nd year leap puts him at TE3 overall. $20 player next year?)

·       Chris Herndon +0.0 (When you read too many draft articles, you begin to believe that an Adam Gase coached player might actually become an average contributor at his position…ha!)

Injury-ruined seasons

·       Saquon, Michael Thomas +1 (Biggest team-killers to date by far)

·       CMC at +1.25 (Still overall #1 when he plays)

·       Dak at +0.75 (Was playing like a true +1 on par with Mahomes before going down)

·       Zeke at +1 (Dak died and then Dallas decided to start “Gucci DiNucci”…yeah that didn’t go well)

·       OBJ +0.5 (Traded to Cristian’s team where he put up a combined 3.5 fantasy pts in 2 games started)

·       Courtland Sutton +0.25 (After space-cadeting Sutton’s auction bid, we got our “Ball don’t lie” moment a few weeks later. Trevor is shrugging as he reads this.)

 Great, let’s move on. Luck, imagined as either dice rolls or Luck Dragons depending on who you talk to, plays a pretty big part in fantasy success every year. Too many injuries? See you next year. Tough schedule? Hope for a good tiebreaker and maybe you can sneak into the playoffs with the #4 spot. These are probably the most talked about facets of the game since they are beyond our control and create the classic “if only I didn’t have that injury back in high school, i’d have crushed you guys” cop-out that we’ve all heard for years. Let’s see who really has a case to be upset, shall we?

Let’s start with one of my favorites – every team’s record if we played in a league where the top 6 scores secured a win each week (in lieu of head to head matchups). This is a much more “fair” look at how your team performed on a weekly basis when you throw out the schedule which is always a subject of scrutiny, consternation, and conspiracy theories each season.

There you have it. Good news is, the top 5 in our league standings would be the exact same top 5 if we played the other way. The schedule hasn’t defrauded anyone of a 2020 playoff spot. Bad news is, the bottom of this list is mildly shocking. Cristian has struggled all year for wins and this shows that his team hasn’t been half bad – but he has essentially lost out on 4 wins due to schedule. Yikes. Phil on the other hand was in playoff contention up until week 12, whereas his team has the fewest expected wins in the league….Of course for those with conspiratorial thoughts, you’ll notice the Stark brothers combine for +7 “lucky” wins due to schedule. Of course the Stark wife had to bite the bullet to make it look fair (-2 “lucky” wins). I’ll let everyone digest that and make their own judgments. (Where is that clause in the constitution involving starting a new league without the commish? This is evidence!)

The next “luck metric” that dominates our chat conversation and generally elicits “I got screwed, feel bad for me” self-pity arguments would be games lost to injury. Everyone knows it sucks and everyone experiences it to some degree every year. And if you play long enough, you will get hit by the double ACL tear/broken collarbone/never-healing ankle injury to all of your star players and be left at a severe disadvantage. It’s gonna be okay Sport, put on a brave face and hit the waiver wire. Come back next year and clap secretly at 3pm on Monday when Schefty tweets the next guy’s RB1 season-ender. (After the large exhale that it didn’t happen to your RB1 of course.) Ending rant, just know that if you experienced the injury season from hell, the rest of the league knows that it’s part of the fantasy business and are very relieved that it didn’t happen to them. Empathy runs high, sympathy runs low. (And I just removed my ability to ever complain publicly about my team’s injuries by writing this now.)

After all the talk has subsided, let’s check facts. First table: mid-game injuries. These are games where players play a much reduced role and typically produce dreadful fantasy finishes. There’s a bit of subjectivity here (if a player plays 3 quarters and gets hurt, I don’t count that as a mid game injury. But if he plays ½ or less of his normal playing time, it would count.) I also add mid-game benching to QBs because they fit the description as fantasy wreckers due to an unforeseen cutback in playing time. Here is the Commissioner’s official list:

Congrats on that title Jason, I know you were hoping for it. Just know, you weren’t THAT far ahead of the rest of us. Mon and Trevor on the other hand can only blame poor performance on their season’s disappointments (or better yet, the schedule!)

So I buried the lead a bit on Mr. Montgomery here, because the next table should give him his share of justice on 2020 injuries.

So the above list is missed games + mid-game injuries for drafted starters and traded players updated through week 13 (except for those with season long injuries – I went ahead and added week 14 there). Jason, there’s your proof. Nobody deserves to bellyache more than you, friend. 19 of those games were from QBs (Dak/Jimmy G) which added to a smattering of missed games from the rest of the roster (Godwin 4, Ridley 3, Aaron Jones 2). I haven’t tracked this before, but I imagine that this year was significantly worse than others (more soft tissue injuries and COVID positives were the biggest culprits.) The hope is that 2021 gives us a bit of a reprieve here.

Before we conclude, I recognize that there is a portion of the audience who prefers the entertainment value of this yearly endeavor, so I’m going to do my best to hand out a few fun awards. Without further ado, the 2020 AJSL Dundees (this award style hasn’t possibly been overdone, right?)

Dundee to The Scorned Lover: Mr. Jordan Swavely on behalf of Henry Ruggs.

While I wrote this tribute in his farewell on the group chat, it bears repeating: 7 pts or less scored by Ruggs in 6 straight games, starts him again for a 7th week and only a 50 yard bomb on the last play of the game saves Ruggs from another 3 point performance. Totaling the points for those 7 starts, Ruggs scored 36 points for a 5.1 average. Ruggs averaged 3.4 targets/gm in these contests. You do you, Swave. Go and get your man.

Dundee for the Best Team Name: Mr. Greg Poelman, ShlongBarry Sanders

Any reference including a dong and our beloved college town is going to score high on both the Dude and Nostalgia scales. Plus a Barry Sanders nod, we like that.

Dundee for the Best Team Picture: Mrs. Monica Stark on behalf of Presidential Security

Any time you can get combine Greg Poelman and The Donald in Photoshop and it doesn’t even look that fake, you have my attention and affection. And now you have a Dundee to go along with it. Well done.

Honorable mention: Monica’s Team, Bring Out Your Dead

Golden Tickets to the Winning Waiver Warriors: Mr. Scooter Nelson, James Robinson; Mr. Blake Grundy, Justin Herbert; Mr. Jack Holmer, Justin Jefferson

Since everyone is bidding for the “winning lottery tickets” of the waiver pool, we’re going to give out Golden Tickets to those that struck waiver wire gold this season. Scooter milked 11 starts out of Robinson who averaged 17.6 pts/gm during that span. Robinson has been the RB4 overall since the week 2 pickup. Grundy picked up Herbert for week 3 and never looked back, banking 10 starts at 22.5 pts/gm (He’s the QB7 in that time frame). Holmer nabbed Jefferson before Week 4 and was rewarded with the WR4 from that point on. Impressively he only benched him once, refusing to play him against his beloved Bears. This is the dream of every late Tuesday night and you guys reaped the spoils. Well done, gents.

Dundee to the Wounded Wavier Warriors: Mr. Phil Stark, Devonta Freeman; Mr. Jack Holmer, Darrell Henderson; Mr. Trevor Allison, Nyheim Hines

Big money, No whammy. That’s the goal. Of course more times than not, the reality is…more like this. Phil emptied out the pocketbook early on in the season after the Saquon injury to grab his replacement with a winning bid of $78 on Devonta (next highest bid: $15). Devonta responded with five games played, two of which resulted in 1 point showings. Then he followed Saquon to IR and Soape picked up the true workhorse of the Giants backfield in Wayne Gallman, who hasn’t pickup up less than 10 points in six straight games. Ouch. It took $54 to secure the rights to Darrell Henderson after week 2, seemingly the new Rams lead RB. Unfortunately Jack’s faith manifested at the wrong times: 5 starts of Henderson yielded 6.3 pts/gm, while Henderson’s two strong games (18.5 and 20.3 pts) were enjoyed on Holmer’s bench. Not fun. $46 was the bid that beat out 7 other bidders after week 1 for Nyheim Hines’s services, after which Trevor was rewarded with 5 straight games of 8 points or less. After cutting him loose over the bye week, Hines busted out for four double digit games in six tries, music no doubt to Trevor’s ears. A Dundee for your troubles, boys.

The “Fantasy Football Was A Lot More Fun Last Year” Dundee: Mr. Cristian Driver

For every obvious reason. Where did that championship belt get to?

Dundee for a Fun and Easy Season: Mr. David Stark

Injuries, COVID surprises, bad schedules, underperformance? Didn’t seem that big of a deal to me.

Dundee for Most Attempts to Defeat a Hornet’s Nest: Mr. Jason Montgomery

Similar to our favorite Office handyman Nate, Jason was tasked with eliminating the danger of his crumbling fantasy season created by the aforementioned injury bug. Both hailing from the historically-rich metropolis of “La Philadelphia”, what ensued after Jason’s 4-0 start pairs Nate and Jason together even further. Jason utilized a league-high 20 unique waiver pickups that entered the starting lineup this season. Results were bleak; the fast start was followed by a 2-7 record that signaled victory to the opposition. Maybe try the bow and arrow next time?

Receiver Corps Dundee of Excellence: Mr. Joel Soape

It only took 3 name changes to figure out which WR was needed (Red Solo Kupp -> Mike’d Up -> The Adams Bomb) , but Soape finally landed on the right guy for the job by calling on Davante Adams and his 22.1 pts/gm this year (easily the WR1 in this metric). Somehow Corey Davis (left for dead after last year) has had a career resuscitation on this team as well, dropping a 30 burger in week 12. The Receiver Corps salutes your dedication to their fraternity, Mr. Soape.

That’s all for now guys. Full disclosure, I have another 1k-2k words written that takes a deep dive into each of our performances at 1) waiver pickups, 2) positional scoring, and 3) sit/start decisions. Maybe this would be most helpful for a post-season article as it encompasses your overall strategy and ability to aid your team’s output. Look for that at some point in the future. For now, I hope you enjoyed this meaty entrée. Thanks for another great season and allowing me to bring you another fun recap, everyone!

[dailynewswebsite]

Is belief in God a delusion?

Hassan Saleh/Unsplash, FAL

Because the pandemic raged in April, churchgoers in Ohio defied warnings to not congregate. Some argued that their faith conferred them immunity from COVID-19. In a single memorable CNN clip, a girl insisted she wouldn’t catch the virus as a result of she was “lined in Jesus’ blood”.

Some weeks later, the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker commented on the hazards of evangelical spiritual perception within the coronavirus period. Writing on Fb, he stated: “Perception in an afterlife is a malignant delusion, because it devalues precise lives and discourages motion that might make them longer, safer, and happier.”

Pinker, in fact, just isn’t the primary to attach – or equate – faith with delusion. The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins might be probably the most well-known up to date proponent of this view, which has mental roots courting again a minimum of to political theorist Karl Marx and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. In his guide The God Delusion, Dawkins argued that spiritual religion is “persistent false perception held within the face of sturdy contradictory proof”, and thus delusional.

Was Dawkins proper? Many have critiqued his arguments on philosophical and theological grounds. However the relationship between his thesis and the dominant psychiatric conception of delusion is much less usually thought of:

Delusion: A false perception based mostly on incorrect inference about exterior actuality that’s firmly held regardless of what nearly everybody else believes and regardless of what constitutes incontrovertible and apparent proof or proof on the contrary. The idea just isn’t ordinarily accepted by different members of the individual’s tradition or subculture (i.e., it isn’t an article of spiritual religion).

This definition is from the American Psychiatric Affiliation’s (APA) “Diagnostic and Statistical Guide of Psychological Issues” – sometimes called the “bible” of psychiatry. The definition is well-known however controversial, and people who assume perception in God is delusional might take difficulty with the ultimate clause. Dawkins, for his half, approvingly quoted the author Robert M Pirsig’s statement that “when one individual suffers from a delusion, it’s referred to as madness. When many individuals endure from a delusion it’s referred to as Faith”.

So, is the excellence between madness and faith a mere semantic quibble? In a brand new paper, we overview analysis that examines relationships – and distinctions – between faith and delusion.

Penis theft and pathology

The APA’s definition of delusion excludes beliefs which might be extensively accepted. This drives a seemingly arbitrary wedge between remoted circumstances of clearly pathological perception and circumstances the place beliefs with the identical content material have cultural help.

Think about the case of an Australian man who believed his penis had been stolen and changed with another person’s. The person had lower his penis and poured boiling water on it, and was shocked that these acts had been painful. It is a clear case of delusion, as the assumption is fake, and this sort of perception is nearly remarkable in Australia.

However beliefs in genital theft do have some cultural acceptance in different elements of the world. Certainly, epidemics of such beliefs – so-called “penis panics” – have been documented in varied international locations. Ought to a perception stop to be a delusion as soon as extensively adopted? That’s what the APA’s definition of delusion appears to indicate.

And this deal with shared perception seems to produce other shocking implications. For instance, whereas the APA’s definition of delusion might exclude followers of widespread religions, the founders of those self same religions might not get a cross till they entice a neighborhood of followers, at which level the subculture exemption comes into impact.

Tradition and medical judgement

So there are actually controversial penalties of judging a perception by its recognition. However we argue that the APA’s clause about tradition is clinically invaluable. In any case, a definition of delusion that pathologizes many of the world’s individuals can be clinically nugatory.

Cautious consideration to cultural judgements may help clinicians distinguish beliefs that require psychiatric remedy from these that don’t. Think about a younger Bengali lady’s perception that her husband had been possessed by an invisible non secular creature referred to as a jinn. Beliefs about jinn possession are widespread in some Muslim communities. On this case, the treating psychiatrists (in Australia) had been aided by a Muslim Bengali caseworker who suggested about cultural elements impacting the affected person’s presentation.

As well as, the APA’s emphasis on cultural acceptance is in step with a rising consciousness of the social operate of beliefs. By means of our beliefs we don’t simply mannequin the world round us – we mould it to our functions. Our beliefs mark us out as members of sure social teams, serving to us to safe belief and cooperation.

Can a perception be delusional when it promotes social cohesion? Kevin Bluer/Unsplash, FAL

Certainly, steadfast endorsement of some clearly false propositions – such because the declare that the group which attended the 2017 presidential inauguration of Donald Trump was the most important in US historical past – could also be equal to ritual physique piercing or firewalking: a sign of group dedication that’s credible to others exactly as a result of it’s arduous to maintain.

Neighborhood and continuity

Within the case of spiritual beliefs, there’s sometimes a social payoff to those psychological contortions – a spread of proof helps the function of faith in social bonding. However the prevailing psychiatric view is that delusions are idiosyncratic, alienating and stigmatising, representing a dysfunction within the potential to barter social alliances.

So what distinguishes wholesome spiritual beliefs – and maybe beliefs in conspiracy theories – from delusions could also be partly a matter of whether or not or not the assumption strengthens neighborhood bonds. If sustaining a perception impairs your day by day functioning and disrupts your social relationships, then your perception is extra prone to depend as a delusion.

However, distinctions between wholesome and pathological spiritual beliefs are unlikely to be sharp. As an alternative, the rising image is of continuity between spiritual cognition and cognition related to psychological problems.

Our intention right here is neither to demonise, nor to defend, spiritual perception. Whereas faith is a supply of solace and luxury for tens of millions, specific spiritual beliefs could be “malignant” in Pinker’s sense – devaluing and damaging mortal lives. And, sadly, malignant beliefs which might be shared by the numerous are way more harmful than these shared by the few.

Ryan McKay receives funding from the Cogito Basis, the British Academy and the John Templeton Basis.

Robert Ross receives funding from the John Templeton Basis and the Australian Analysis Council.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion/ via https://growthnews.in

[the-desolated-quill]

The God Complex - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Oh great! Another Toby Whithouse episode! They’re always good for a giggle!

I’ve always felt Whithouse was the obvious candidate to take over from Moffat as opposed to Chris Chibnall. Granted not everything he writes is amazing, but he always maintains a decent level of quality and he seems to have a good handle as to what makes Doctor Who such a unique show. I absolutely adored School Reunion and while The Vampires Of Venice was a tad flawed, it was still hugely entertaining due to its camp silliness. The God Complex is very much in the same vein as Vampires. Although problems do crop up toward the end, it’s still very enjoyable overall.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive at a hotel, only to discover it’s not a hotel at all. It’s a prison made to look like a hotel with other ‘guests’ trapped inside, their worst fears hidden behind every door and a hungry Minotaur roaming the corridors. Bit like a hotel I stayed at in Rome during a school trip.

Now of course the advertisements describe the rooms as containing their worst fears, but I do hope Whithouse didn’t actually intend this to be scary. Because if he did, he may have fallen short by a few... light-years. See the thing about fears that are personal to you is that only you find them scary. Everyone else just finds them either tame or just plain hilarious, especially if it’s something weird like a gym teacher or a man in a gorilla suit clutching some toilet roll, both of which appear in the episode and both of which are hysterically funny. So I’m assuming that Whithouse was going more for surreal rather than scary. And yeah, it works. It works really well. If Whithouse was going for surreal, this is definitely surreal. The hotel is a great setting and it does lend itself to some very weird imagery, like the dining room full of ventriloquist dummies. A lot of it feels very reminiscent of Stephen King. The most obvious is The Shining with perhaps a little bit of It thrown in for good measure. Not very original granted, but it’s executed very well. And I did like the Minotaur. Okay the design is a bit crap, but the use of fisheye lens and inventive camera angles help to make it somewhat threatening.

Let’s talk about the characters, starting with my favourite. Rita, played by Amara Karan. Having had to put up with obnoxious plot device in a mini-skirt Amy for what feels like two ice ages rather than series, you can imagine I was very excited when the Doctor offered to take Rita with him in the TARDIS when all this was over. A woman that’s not defined by her physical attractiveness or her importance to the Doctor and is actually a fully realised character in her own right? Whithouse, please, remind me what that’s like! It’s been such a long time!

Needless to say, I really liked Rita. She’s funny, really smart, she’s got a good head on her shoulders, and is able to keep her cool while everyone else is losing their’s. I particularly liked the exploration of her faith. She believes the hotel is actually Jahannam, the Muslim version of Hell, and I liked how she’s able to take it all in her stride. She’s confused as to why she’s been sent to ‘Jahannam’, believing she has lived a good and moral life, but remains steadfast that everything will be explained and that she will get out of this somehow. Plus it’s just nice to have a Muslim woman on Doctor Who. I certainly would love to see a Muslim woman become the Doctor’s companion. I was utterly heartbroken when she died, although I suppose I should have seen it coming. I thought Amara Karan gave a really good performance and would have  fit in really well with Matt Smith’s Doctor. I feel she would have provided a nice rational counterbalance for him. I especially liked her calm rejection of the Doctor’s all mighty saviour mentality.

I could have done without the stereotyping though. When Rita opens the door to her room, her worst fear is revealed to be her strict dad berating her for getting a B in mathematics.

Really Whithouse? 

In fact this episode contains a lot of stereotyping now that I’m thinking about it. I mean look at Howie. Bespectacled nerd with a stutter who blogs about conspiracy theories, likes Star Trek and is afraid of talking to girls. Joe doesn’t escape this either. He’s a gambler and we know this because he wears a horseshoe pin on his tie and dice cufflinks. It just feels really lazy on Whithouse’s part.

The other character I liked was Gibbis, played by David Walliams. Now this surprised me because David Walliams worked with Matt Lucas in the sketch show Little Britain, which I’ve always thought was about as funny as passing a kidney stone. They also worked together on the short lived mockumentary series Come Fly With Me, which was quite possibly one of the worst comedies I’ve ever sat through in my life. In fact I still vividly remember that Christmas. My family and I staring open-mouthed at the telly watching David Walliams and Matt Lucas in yellowface singing a really offensive, mock Chinese song about Martin Clunes. I actually consider it an insult to my backside that I had to sit through that deeply racist pile of dreck and to this day I still don’t know what possessed the BBC into thinking that was in any way appropriate. To cut a long story short, I don’t like Walliams or Lucas very much. What can I say? I have a thing against talentless hacks thinking casual racism is funny. It’s a quirk of mine. But yeah, I really liked Gibbis. It’s a great idea. A race of aliens that have survived by sucking up to their invaders and oppressors. It lends itself to some really funny moments (their national anthem is ‘Glory To... Insert Name Here.’ LOL), I liked how Gibbis’ cowardice is used to pit the characters against one another, and as much as I’m loath to admit it, I thought David Walliams did a good job in the role. Well I suppose even a broken clock is right twice a day (unless it’s digital of course).

As I said, I do mostly like the episode. It’s very surreal and engaging. Silly but entertainingly so. It’s just a shame the whole thing had to go a bit tits up at the end.

So the Doctor works out that the Minotaur isn’t actually feeding on fear, but on faith, and that the reason the TARDIS was drawn there was because of Amy’s faith in the Doctor. Okay, not a bad idea. It’s certainly a good way to explore their relationship and how Amy has never really grown up, as demonstrated when the Doctor talks to her and he sees her as young Amelia. The problem is the whole faith aspect isn’t done very well. For instance, I can see Amy having faith in the Doctor, Rita having faith in Allah and Joe having faith in luck, but Howie’s faith in conspiracy theories? That’s a bit of a stretch. And what about Rory? He’s repeatedly shown the fire exit because apparently he doesn’t have any faith in anything.

BOLLOCKS

Everyone has faith in something.

And then there’s the resolution. If Amy’s faith in the Doctor is so strong, would a two minute monologue really be enough to break it? It feels very similar to a moment in The Curse Of Fenric where the Seventh Doctor had to break his companion Ace’s faith in him, but the reason that worked was because it was genuinely shocking and uncomfortable to watch. He coldly attacked parts of Ace’s self esteem and made her feel like little more than a piece on a chessboard. Here it just feels a bit pathetic and half-arsed in comparison. Also you never get the sense that the Doctor and Amy’s relationship has actually changed once her faith has been ‘broken’. They’re still laughing and smiling like they normally do. With Seven and Ace, while he does apologise and explain why he did it, you get the sense that their once close relationship is slightly more fragile now going forward.

But one thing that puzzles me especially (and this is in no way Whithouse’s fault) is why is Amy’s faith in the Doctor so strong considering everything that’s happened. Would Amy’s faith really be that unshakeable after the Doctor failed to save her daughter? Or when he coldly left her alternative self to die in The Girl Who Waited? 

Which brings me to this. Remember in my previous review when I said I had a problem with how The Girl Who Waited was resolved, but it wouldn’t become apparent until now? Well this is it. Wouldn’t it make so much more sense if Amy and Rory left after that episode rather than this one? The God Complex is really jarring at the beginning because the three leads are getting along, but surely after what happened in the previous episode there would be some tension between them. Can they actually trust the Doctor after everything that’s happened? So I have a really hard time buying that Amy would still have faith in the Doctor. Or at least that her faith would be as strong as they’re claiming it is. I would much rather have seen Amy and Rory take some initiative and choose to leave the TARDIS of their own accord because of what the Doctor did rather than having them get unceremoniously dumped for the weakest and most patronising of reasons. He’s worried they’re going to get killed if they stay with him. Well big whoop! Get over yourself! Yes it’s dangerous travelling with him, but his companions are well aware of that. They want to travel through time and space because it’s cool, not because they’re too stupid to know better. If Amy and Rory want to take the risk, that’s their choice. By stripping them of that choice, the Doctor is basically treating Amy like the child he just encouraged her to grow up from and leave behind a few minutes ago.

The God Complex was never going to be special. I realise that. But it was still a decent enough story that was both imaginative and enjoyable to watch. It’s just such a shame that ending had to spoil it.

[ladystylestores]

A $350 “anti-5G” device is just a 128MB USB stick, teardown finds

Enlarge / The 5GBioShield, a USB stick that allegedly protects you from 5G and other radio signals.

Believers of 5G conspiracy theories have apparently been buying a $350 anti-5G USB key that—not surprisingly—appears to just be a regular USB stick with only 128MB of storage.

As noted by the BBC today, the “5GBioShield” USB stick “was recommended by a member of Glastonbury Town Council’s 5G Advisory Committee, which has called for an inquiry into 5G.” The company that sells 5GBioShield claims it “is the result of the most advanced technology currently available for balancing and prevention of the devastating effects caused by non-natural electric waves, particularly (but not limited to) 5G, for all biological life forms.”

The product’s website charges £283 for a single 5GBioShield, which converts to nearly $350. That’s what it costs to get “protection for your home and family, thanks to the wearable holographic nano-layer catalyser, which can be worn or placed near to a smartphone or any other electrical, radiation or EMF emitting device.”

“The 5GBioShield makes it possible, thanks to a uniquely applied process of quantum nano-layer technology, to balance the imbalanced electric oscillations arising from all electric fog induced by all devices such as: laptops, cordless phones, wlan, tablets, etc.,” the company says, adding that the USB stick “brings balance into the field at the atomic and cellular level restoring balanced effects to all harmful (ionized and non-ionized) radiation.”

The USB stick apparently doesn’t need to be plugged in to anything to work its magic. “It is always ON and working—that’s why we used quantum nano-layer technology,” the company says in an FAQ.

But the device allegedly produces a wider field of protection when it is plugged in. To answer the question of whether the stick needs to be “charged regularly,” the FAQ says, “No—the input charge only expands the field effect from 4m radius to 20m + radius when plugged into an USB wall charger or a computer.”

Fortunately, you can use 5GBioShield without disabling your Wi-Fi. The USB key doesn’t block Wi-Fi signals, the company says. Instead, the product “transmutes” the signals and “harmonizes all harmful frequencies into life affirming frequencies.”

Teardown confirms: It’s just a USB stick

But what does the 5GBioShield actually consist of? The BBC pointed to a recent teardown by security company Pen Test Partners, which found that the device is just a USB stick with 128MB of storage. The company wrote:

When plugged in to our test machine we may have missed the bubble of “quantum holographic catalyzer technology” appearing.

The stick comes loaded with a 25 page PDF version of the material from 5GBioShield’s website. It included a Q&A of distances for the “bubble” and how to know if it is working. It’s an “always on” system apparently, is always working, powered or not, so no visual checks needed.

A review of the stick’s properties revealed nothing more than what you’d expect from a regular 128MB USB key. We weren’t even sure that 128s are still in production!

Ultimately, “the 5G BioShield is nothing more than a £5 USB key with a sticker on it,” the people at Pen Test wrote. “Whether or not the sticker provides £300 worth of quantum holographic catalyzer technology we’ll leave you to decide.”

Pen Test Partners said that “trading standards bodies should investigate this product,” and that is apparently now happening. “London Trading Standards has since told the BBC it has launched a probe,” the BBC article said.

Here’s a look at images from the 5GBioShield website and the teardown performed by Pen Test Partners:

The anti-5G USB sticks are sold singly or in a pack of three at a slight discount.

5GBioShield’s website shows how the product can change your “aura radiation.”

5GBioShield

A less technical explanation for how 5GBioShield works.

5GBioShield

5GBioShield apparently surrounds your whole house in a healthy aura.

5GBioShield

Here’s the 5GBioShield tested by Pen Test Partners.

Another shot of the 5GBioShield from Pen Test Partners.

Pen Test Partners peeled off this sticker but didn’t find anything unusual underneath.

Teardown confirms: It’s just a USB stick.

Company says research too sensitive to disclose

How will the company defend itself? BioShield Distribution Director Anna Grochowalska told the BBC, “We are in possession of a great deal of technical information, with plenty of back-up historical research,” and “we are not authorized to fully disclose all this sensitive information to third parties, for obvious reasons.”

Grochowalska also disputed the analysis that the USB stick is worth just £5:

“In regard to the costs analysis your research has produced, I believe that the lack of in-depth information will not drive you to the exact computation of our expenses and production costs, including the cost of IP [intellectual property rights], and so on,” she said.

“It is therefore hard to take your evaluation seriously, since you have evidently not researched the background facts in any meaningful way.”

One person who does take 5GBioShield claims seriously is Toby Hall, one of the members of the Glastonbury Town Council’s 5G Advisory Committee. Hall told the BBC that he “felt a ‘calmer’ feel to the home” when using 5GBioShield. Hall said “he had no regrets about buying it and since plugging it in had felt beneficial effects, including being able to sleep through the night and having more dreams,” the BBC wrote.

Hall also “thought the company might be able to develop a system that could offer protection to the whole town of Glastonbury against the effects of radiation from electromagnetic fields,” according to the BBC.

Anti-5G conspiracy theories recently expanded to include claims that the cellular technology spreads coronavirus, leading to loons burning cell towers. As Ars Science Editor John Timmer explained in a previous story, “Radiofrequency radiation is relatively low energy, and it can’t break chemical bonds. Like the nearby microwave frequencies, it can heat tissues. But we’re not aware of any mechanisms beyond heating by which radiation at these wavelengths can damage human tissue. And… there’s no evidence at the population level that indicates that radiation from these sources poses any sort of risk.”

5GBioShield “normalized my energy”

The 5GBioShield website contains a list of testimonials from people who allegedly exist and are using the product to cure all sorts of health problems. “Thank you soo much !!! After just three days of the BioShield in my house, my brain fog and fatigue are gone, and I feel like I have 100% more energy,” a testimonial from “Edward” said.

“I don’t know if it is a placebo effect or not, but I have a growing feeling of well being that comes directly from my instinctual survival drive deep in my belly center,” Jim wrote.

Although the product maker says the device works without being plugged in, some of its users seem to think otherwise. “One minute and a half after I plugged it [in], I felt something wrong disappeared in the air,” Daniela wrote.

Chris, who called 5GBioShield an “incredible product,” is quoted as saying, “I noticed my field reaching coherence and eliminating the frantic energy. Most importantly it has enabled me to access a higher vibration and help the pineal gland. I am more intentional, and in touch with others on a non verbal level. Where I live there is wifi and 4-g everywhere, and your bio shield is making it bearable. All of you who have developed this have done an incalculable service to humanity.”

Trust Dr D

Someone identified only as “Dr D” claims to be a medical doctor and said they “put one USB device under my pillow, expecting nothing to happen.” But later, Dr D reported feeling “a strange ‘tingling’ feeling… I suspect the USB device has in some way normalized my energy to be as it should, and not negative or harmful.”

5GBioShield can also help dogs sleep in later, apparently. Cathy, who reports having “severe electro sensitivity,” plugged the USB stick into her laptop before going to bed and said, “The next morning the dog I was looking after only woke when I appeared at 10am, instead of between 6 and 7, and he was still sleepy. This has never happened in the 7 years I’ve known him.”

Cathy herself was profoundly affected by the 5GBioShield, saying that the product restructured reality itself. “The first night just before going to sleep I felt an increasingly deep sense of relaxation as if I was sinking down into something,” Cathy wrote. “As this went deeper I experienced the understanding that reality was being restructured at a very deep level.”

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