#and a vague awareness that criminals existed in some capacity

[tearlessrain]

for some reason I just randomly unlocked a childhood memory, which is that when I was very young I knew that it was dangerous to play with plastic bags/plastic wrap because they could suffocate me. but nobody ever explained how exactly that was likely to happen. so for a good portion of my early life I had an enduring fear that Ambiguous Criminals (in my mind all criminals looked like Jasper and Horus from the original animated 101 Dalmations except they wore zorro masks and carried bats, which isn't relevant but does add to the imagery here) would break into my room while I slept to carefully place a tiny piece of plastic wrap in my mouth that would precisely block my windpipe and kill me.

probably goes without saying that that did not happen.

[ashley-slashley]

Don't Talk To Strangers

Summary: "be aware of hidden dangers, and don't you go talking to strangers" - the beau brummels, don't talk to strangers (1965)

Rating: E/Explicit

Warnings: cussing, graphic imagery, violence

A/N: incomplete. i'll probably never come back to this, no offense

    Captain’s log. Stardate: supplemental.

    Per usual with my bullshit writing, my day shall be absurd and full of nonsense. As the price of most ride escort services are becoming quite ridiculously expensive, I’ve decided to start using the moderately priced Spree. I think that might’ve been a horrible idea. I haven’t been assaulted yet, but, I just really don’t like the vibes of the driver I have. It’d be absolutely absurd to just ask to be dropped off almost immediately from my trek to work just because the vibes of this man are absolutely rancid . At least I can pass the time by listening to my music and staring out the window, completely ignoring all the cameras adorning the interior of the car like it’s Guantanamo Bay or a maximum security federal prison. I haven’t listened to or paid attention to a word my driver, Kurt, has said. He doesn’t smell like a pile of decaying cadavers, though he looks like he’s trying to go for the David Gilmour in Pompeii (circa 1972) look with the greasiest hair to ever grace god’s green earth.

    From what I can tell with his music choice, it’s trash. He mentioned something about being the person behind it, and to promote this “Kurt’s World”. His logo looks like something a horror youtube personality would include on a list of disturbing art made by the mentally ill. My name may not be Ariel, but I don’t want to be part of his world in any capacity. There’s just something off about this guy, and it’s not him almost constantly promoting his brand. I believe I found what Norman Bates would be like if he was a gen z Uber driver, no idea about the incestuous undertones of Norman’s relationship with his mother with this dude though. Wouldn’t doubt it. As far as I know, I prefer Norman, at least he doesn’t look like he stepped out of a Hollister catalog from 2007, or a greasy myspace twink from the year of our lord 2007. Dude drives a Prius, for fuck’s sake. Of course he’s cringe worthy.

    Though my music is at max, I can still vaguely hear the eardrum slaughtering beat of whatever new age hip hop is oozing from the speakers like infected pus from a wound. Call me a music elitist and crucify me for this: whatever This dreadful noise is shouldn’t be classified as music. It should be classified as audio the CIA uses to torment war criminals and terrorists with in Guantanamo Bay. Not so ironic considering I’m in a Prius decorated with security cameras, tacky internet streamer lights, water bottles from an unrecognizable brand (possibly locally sourced), and a hydroflask with some elite gaming cult sticker plastered on it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised my driver looks like he spends 90% of his time in front of a screen, screaming at other players, and having a diet consisting of nacho Doritos, Mountain Dew, and microwavable chicken tenders. No, he’s not overweight - he’s a twig. I wonder what his metabolism is. This dude should be studied by Harvard or the CDC - “AREA MAN HAS THE MOST ABSURD METABOLISM IN EXISTENCE”. If I sound like I’m being too brutally cruel with my observations of this guy, uh, it could be far worse.

    Curiously, I looked up his social media handle. Of course he’s the type of gamer who screams and throws his controller across the room because someone said some typical xbox live chat insults from 2010. This man claimed he’s going to fuck some other player’s mom, sorry bro, from what I can gather, you get absolutely no pussy. If I’m being quite honest, he looks like he cries when he has an orgasm. Some women into S&M are into that as well, but, uh, I don’t think anyone in that community wants you. I would go further into my Freudian analysis of this dweeb, however, I don’t know what would be throwing the envelope into the Marianas Trench at this point. It’s not like he’s reading my internal monologue. Sure he shares his first name with one of the X-Men, but it’s not Professor Xavier. There’s an alternate universe where this dude’s a cult leader somewhere deep in the jungles of Cambodia, committing war crimes on a daily basis, with a bounty on his ass from the US government. A CIA assassin on a mission to terminate with extreme prejudice miles down the river.

[undertalethingies]

Judge and Jury

Set after a pacifist neutral ending. (Only Asgore is dead)

Not long after the queen returned, she called a meeting of all Asgore’s old employees. It made sense to, right? Gotta figure out who’s assigned to do what and who’s got tasks they weren’t supposed to chat about and all that jazz.

Sans very nearly didn’t come. But Tori knew he worked as a sentry, so if he didn’t show, she’d notice, and he really didn’t want them finally actually meeting to be marred by her disappointment at his work ethic.

...Or that was what he’d tell other people, if they asked. Truth was, Sans’ sense of duty ran a lot deeper than he let most people pick up on. He’d always cared deeply about the kingdom and the people in it. It was why he’d been chosen as Judge, actually. Because he had both the compassion to choose mercy when it was right and the resolve to fight when necessary.

He still didn’t know whether he’d made the right decision with the human, even though he knew both Asgore and Toriel would approve, if he explained.

Not that he could explain anything to Asgore, now. 

...Dammit, he missed the big guy. And the human would still have kept going even if Sans had fought them, sure. They had too much DT to do otherwise, but it didn’t stop him from feeling like even more of a useless shit than usual.

Anyway, the meeting. He went.

Looking around, he could see that not everyone had. Two of the Hotland guards had skipped, along with the Temmies. The latter might be for the best, in all honesty. Even Sans, who was probably the most informed monster in the Underground even before Asgore kicked it, had never been made aware what exactly the Tems did. The few cryptic hints they’d given him over the years had only made him want to know less.

The attendees included all of the Snowdin Guard (including him and Papyrus, the sentries), Undyne, two guards from hotland who he didn’t know all that well, Alphys, and a couple monsters from New home who served in administrative capacities.

Toriel made a speech about how, while she would be dismantling the Royal Guard, she had plans to keep many of them on the payroll as a police force, which shouldn’t be too big a change from their previous duties. (While the Royal Guard ostensibly existed to capture humans, they fell far too rarely for an entire force dedicated solely to capturing them to make sense, so they also acted as a disciplinary force)

Sans made plans to talk with Undyne about letting Papyrus into the new force, since he doubted she’d realize that this removed any reason to keep him off. (Papyrus was pretty much the ideal cop, in Sans’ opinion. Hard to be a criminal when he was so freakin’ nice)

Undyne would be remaining the Captain, apparently. Despite her actions in attempting to capture the human, she’d been acting for the good of her people, and so long as she didn’t let “the ends justify the means” act as an excuse for cruelty again, Tori had no issue with her.

Or that’s what she said, at least. Sans suspected that it was more because Tori didn’t know anyone well enough to appoint a captain who’d be better than Undyne, so she just didn’t bother.

Then she went through the administrators, having them explain their roles and their duties. She didn’t immediately change much there, probably wanting to get a feel for how the kingdom had changed in her absence first, which seemed reasonable.

She had a brief discussion with Alphys as well, and he got the sense that there was definitely more of that to come later. Toriel seemed like the type to expect regular reports from her Royal Scientist, and Sans wondered how long she’d be able to keep the DT experiments a secret with actual oversight.

Then came the part he’d been dreading, where Toriel turned to him.

“Forgive me, old friend, but I do not actually know all of the jobs you worked for Asgore?” There was nothing but polite curiosity in her tone, and he knew she probably wasn’t expecting him to say much more than “sentry”. He’d hinted a few times that his real role is a bit more than that, which was probably the only reason she was asking at all, but he knew she’d probably never guess his real role in her wildest dreams.

“eh, fair. i kinda do a lot,” he was being deliberately vague, unable to resist delaying this revelation for just a few extra moments. Alphys met his gaze, and he could tell she understood.

“Yes, but what, precisely?” Toriel asked, getting that glint in her eye he recognized from every parent he’d ever spoken to. Say what you will about people with kids, but they knew when you dodged a question. 

“well, i’m a sentry in snowdin, waterfall, and hotland,” He was, indeed, a sentry in all of those places. It wasn’t like he was lying, just… omitting a detail. Next to him, Papyrus narrowed his eyes slightly, because Papyrus could smell Sans fudging the truth from miles away at this point. He didn’t say anything, though, since he knew it was rude to talk out of turn in a meeting like this. (Sans had briefed him, beforehand, on the social niceties that would be involved)

Toriel just looked mildly startled, presumably thinking of the commute between regions, since he’d never really talked to her about his shortcuts. (He’d never really talked to anyone about his shortcuts, just used them and let them draw their own conclusions)

“You manned three stations? That seems like quite a lot,” Heh, she had no idea. 

“eh, i manage,” He could see from Tori’s face that she doubted that, but she was polite and didn't say so. 

“S-Sans,” Oh, great. Alphys was glaring at him the way she did when he was being an idiot, and he supposed that he kinda deserved it. No way Tori wasn’t gonna ask who the Judge was at some point, y’know? It wasn’t really a role the kingdom could do without.

“I-if. If you d-don’t tell her, she’ll, she’ll find it in the r-records and then it’ll b-be awkward,” Sans looked to the side.

“i mean, bold of you to assume i wouldn’t just doctor ‘em if i wanted it to be a secret,” Several people in the room looked mildly alarmed, and he wasn’t sure why. He was only implying he had the means to easily edit some of the most highly secured documents in the kingdom, after all. Lol. 

“Sans,” Alphys hissed. He knew she was being serious because she didn’t stutter on his name at all, and she only tended to forget to when she was totally pissed. Apparently this actually mattered to her, then. Or maybe she just didn’t want him to get caught in a lie the way she had been, which was a nice sentiment, if misplaced.

“yeah, ok. so i’m not just a sentry,” He admitted. Toriel’s eyebrows drew together into a slightly concerned expression.

“Sans, exactly how many jobs do you work?”

“well, if the sentries are all separate, that’s three. then there’s the semi illegal hotdog stand, but i do that at the hotland station, so i’m not really sure if it counts as its own thing. i also do comedy gigs at mettaton’s hotel sometimes, and then there’s, uh, the one alph was talking about,” His expression slid into something vaguely sheepish and he rubbed at the back of his skull with a gloved hand. He really didn’t want to talk about this, necessary as it may be.

“And what job would that be, Sans?” Toriel asked politely. She was being nice about it, but he could tell she was getting a bit annoyed at his evasion.

Sans placed his hands in his lap, looking her straight in the eye with a serious expression. He kept his tone serious, too, so she’d know he was telling the truth.

“I’m the Judge.” He ended his sentence with a period, even though he knew it wasn’t strictly proper. He’d always liked the finalty a period conveys.

Toriel’s eyes widened, along with Undyne’s. Sans had been pretty surprised when Asgore had said he didn’t want to disclose Sans’ identity to the Captain, but the late King had explained that, while he trusted her unconditionally, he knew Sans wanted to keep his role on the downlow, and Undyne wasn’t exactly chosen for her skills at subtlety.

Sans didn’t see even a speck of surprise in his brother’s expression, which filled him with pride. He’d never outright told Pap about his job, but he’d always been more perceptive than he let on, and Sans had been pretty sure he’d known. This basically confirmed it.

“You never mentioned that,” Says Tori, looking like she felt a bit betrayed but was trying to hide it.

“nothing personal, tor. i just, uh, strongly dislike talking about it,” Sans said, attempting to reassure her. It was the truth. Sans had always loathed people who used high status positions like Judge to get extra privileges or whatever, and he disliked the fear the Judge was regarded with even more. (He’d known the old Judge, and he’d seen the way the guy got treated by those around him. It wasn’t anything he wanted for himself)

Toriel looked mollified by his admission, meanwhile Undyne was still gaping like a fish because she knew both his stats and the things he’d done during his tenure as Judge, and was probably having difficulty reconciling the two seemingly conflicting accounts in her mind.

“I see. Well, we will certainly need to discuss this later, but perhaps it might be better to do so in private,” Wonderful. At least then he’d only be revealing the extremely personal information that had to do with his job to one person, rather than literally everyone employed by Asgore.

On that note, he was pretty sure that the news of him being the Judge would be all over the underground within hours of this meeting’s conclusion, so that was fun.

Man could he not wait for the reset.

[claudiadonovan]

Please write 70 paragraphs of meta about elizabeth and olive as characters

ok so first of all: i had multiple paragraphs of this typed up a couple days ago and then my computer crashed, so clearly the universe wants me to chill. but here i am, rewriting all the words to spite the universe, for I WILL NEVER KNOW CHILL. (disclaimer: this is largely incoherent, and the organization isn’t exactly thesis ready. tyfyt.)

anyway. let’s begin with something i’ve talked about at length before, because i do think it’s at least worth setting elizabeth’s narrative against the backdrop of the movie’s full scope—that is, elizabeth’s arc is the driving force of the movie. regardless of what the film is ostensibly about (at least in terms of marketing, for obvious reasons; it’s clear that everyone working on it knows better), what angela’s crafted is a love story. bill functions as a steady presence throughout, providing the technical framework (and the shoves that elizabeth needs in the direction of what she wants); olive certainly takes her own journey, but hers is a growth told largely in flashes; it is through elizabeth’s terror and conflict and indeed love that we see much of the movie unfold. all of those things are central to the conflicts we find and necessarily the heart of the movie’s resolution. there is a reason the film must end in the place it does, with elizabeth cracking open her heart and finding the means to build a bridge between them inside.

but i’m getting ahead of myself. (and, yes, rambling already. LISTEN, i was asked for 70 paragraphs, a lannister always pays her debts, etc. etc. you’ve been warned as to what lies beneath the cut!)

if you will let me set one final scene, before i move inside the universe of the movie: i saw professor marston for the first time at an advance screening. the theater wasn’t enormous, but it was completely packed. there were a couple moments in the opening bill/josette scene that drew a few chuckles, iirc, but the moment elizabeth spoke her first line, that entire theater came to life. and let me tell you: what a relief that that was my first experience with the movie, because clutching your leg and alternating between wheezing with laughter and delighted squealing draws a lot less attention if everyone around you is also in hysterics. the reaction both to “i know” and “i know that, too” was incomparable. it felt rare and wonderful, nevermind the fact that rebecca’s delivery remains impossible to oversell.

all of which is kind of beside the point, except that i will say i appreciate the in-universe acknowledgement that elizabeth is genuinely hilarious? BECAUSE SHE’S HILARIOUS. the fact is that angela, as she designed her (and rebecca, as she played her), allowed elizabeth to be SO MANY THINGS. there are a million ways that this could have (would have, lbr) gone wrong in literally anyone else’s hands, but one of those many ways is elizabeth herself. like, i think there’s a particular character cut-out for the combination of attributes that include controlling/ferocious/brisk/kind of a stubborn asshole, especially if you’re angling for the arc to conclude with a display of vulnerability. that sets off the WEE OOOH WEEE OOOH DO NOT TRUST WEE OOH alarms in my brain. but elizabeth is a million things, among them also funny, charming, pragmatic, and so utterly full of life. (i sort of figured “totally brilliant” went without saying.) she is never limited to one or two of these at a time, as they shift along some linear arc; there are moments that showcase particular aspects, but she is always the sum of all of her parts.

one of my very favorite moments, particularly in the way that it establishes both elizabeth/bill and, i think, to some degree the way that elizabeth interacts with the world, is the lie detector epiphany scene. one of the things about them is that they are able to shift very fluidly from “heated debate” to whatever the opposite of an argument looks like. which – i realize in that scene the lie detector was a Huge Deal, but there’s no sense of bill and elizabeth ever stagnating in their arguments; more often, they delight in them. they sharpen their wits and their knowledge against each other – it’s (a huge) part of what makes them work, and it’s also part of what makes them so damn extra. (olive’s utterly baffled face as she watches them that transforms slowly into an amused/fond/still-puzzled smile says all i want to say here.) the point is: they don’t require things like apologies from each other, particularly as a result of their exchanges. like, their arguments are more likely to lead to proposals than to pleas for forgiveness.

basically, i don’t think elizabeth has huge reserves of patience for other kinds of interactions; she spends much of her time with a person who always meets her halfway. anyone who can’t inevitably falls underfoot. she also thinks dropping things like “oh, and if you fuck my husband, i’ll kill you” into conversation during a first meeting with a student they’ve just brought on as an assistant is absolutely fine, especially since she doesn’t initially view them as on the same ~~~level. (not that she doesn’t mean to be hostile—and condescending—because obviously she has some self-awareness, but her casual, wry delivery of it is so very, very elizabeth. she gets a kick out of herself.) my other favorite thing is how much i do think she believes she’s offering some genuinely useful clarification as she carries on through that atrocious explanation of olive’s beauty—she gets it, it’s not olive’s fault, like any of those are reasonable things to say to another person. elizabeth’s answer to dealing with the emotions she was kind of pretending she didn’t have when she told bill it was fine to fuck olive? be a patronizing asshole! works every time!

but olive isn’t bill, and she’s not just gonna spring back from whatever that was, because literally what the fuck is wrong with this woman (i know, olive. i know). and it’s not like elizabeth doesn’t have the capacity for guilt; that’s the whole reason bill telling her she made olive cry finds them in the middle of the apology that unfolds. (let me side note here that bill gently leading elizabeth back onto the edge of some moral pathway with signs like “maybe be less of an asshole?” is one of my favorite things in the entire world.) which elizabeth begins delivering so perfectly awkwardly and vaguely sardonically that it’s hard to imagine anyone could even take it seriously? the way she ends the “i didn’t mean to insult you” with a smile that could physically not be less real—great, look, i did the apology, bye—really sums it up. and the exchange that follows—i’ve done nothing / no, i know, you’re right—is so peak elizabeth, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like she’s sitting there like, yes, i know, all i said was don’t fuck my husband, i didn’t say you already had. anyway, didn’t i say it wasn’t your fault? why do i even bother talking???? elizabeth, who manages to jump into apologies without any real willingness to make overt concessions about any wrongdoing. (an apology that leads them to a speakeasy is much more suited to her, really.)

as mentioned before, elizabeth really is a million things all at once, and she’s a mess of contradictions on top of that—see: completely fearless and deeply terrified, a woman who answers her husband’s admission of her own brilliance with “i know” but cannot accept that olive thinks she’s amazing. a lot of that, imo, stems from the fact that every time she walks into a room, she has to prove herself. so she brandishes her intelligence like a blade, for it is only with a sword to their throats that the men inside her circles (and outside, presumably) are willing to acknowledge her beyond her gender. and even then, no doubt there are many who dismiss the weapon for a toy, or suggest she cannot even hold it properly, so unprepared are they to change a lifetime of bullshit ideas that they craft their own false reality. and bill has known her his whole life; presumably, elizabeth was central to the foundation of his own ideas surrounding gender. he has had access to her brilliance at every turn.

olive is an anomaly. olive catches her off guard. all elizabeth has done is upset her, and yet olive says with conviction almost virulent that it is criminal that they will not give her a degree. but elizabeth still holds the sword in her hand, and so she swings it in defense, instead, in aggressive disbelief. because, of course, elizabeth’s never met anyone like olive.

but, of course, olive’s existence forces elizabeth to reconcile much more than just that. at least, sort of, though elizabeth’s pretty stubborn about closing her eyes and putting her fingers in her ears and waiting for them to go away. (ELIZABETH YOUR HUSBAND LITERALLY FINGERBANGED YOU WHILE YOU WERE BOTH WATCHING OLIVE SPANK A GIRL BUT SURE, YEAH, VERY MYSTERIOUS FEELINGS.) that she manages to frame the conceit of them all trying this thing out more like a research project than like, hi, i like you too? is almost too elizabeth to handle. that the second there is no denying this particular combination of sexual attraction and love—what else is the lie detector good for if not invariably forcing inarguable realities at them?—elizabeth retreats into sarcasm. “open emotional dialogue” isn’t exactly her forte of fortes, is kind of the point i’m making here. (the surprising moments of truth are always interesting, though. “i was afraid i’d always be in his shadow,” for instance, is a startlingly sincere moment of vulnerability, which i think is an important nod to the shift in her relationship to olive. i mean, obviously they started flirting way back in the speakeasy, but it’s inherently a given with that line that she sees them as existing on the same playing field. elizabeth, inviting other people onto her level? a miracle!)

here’s the thing; elizabeth is a disaster, and a revolutionary, and a realist. in an effort to achieve the goals she thinks she can (forcibly! with much effort!) achieve, she has already made concessions, things like: demand her goddamn doctorate due, but surrender her name. i think elizabeth has probably, pragmatically, already had to rearrange enough of herself and her life to fit into the crawl space that might, if she bends and scrapes and pushes hard enough, win her access to the other side—the things she wants, the vision she imagines. (a world she is as stubbornly committed to as she is her Opinions About Things.) bill has not had to make the same kinds of sacrifices, and so giving this thing up—this person up, this person they both love—is inconceivable to him. but elizabeth sees their love as something that has already bent her into the wrong shape; they have lost their jobs, an essential part of elizabeth’s future. bill demands their happiness be prioritized; elizabeth’s perspective isn’t half so black and white. since when can a woman simply have the things she wants?

one of the most interesting things elizabeth says, in the way that it sort of lays bare her character, is the whole: “they are right to shun us, and perhaps they are right to beat us. not because we fuck each other, but because we’re foolish enough to think we’re better than them.” which, a) obviously we have access to the amount of shame she keeps inside her, which is a lot, but b) this idea that elizabeth has always held herself a little aloof from the rest of the world, in terms of her own superiority complex, is v. real and v. interesting. and the idea that it’s that high ground that she feels come crashing down when they get caught is fascinating. like, only when the neighbors were suddenly able to exact judgment, to ruin the lives of their children, did she realize that she’d been pretending to see them from a tower above. that nothing she’d ever done—that no proof of her own intelligence—could change that, that it was her supposed disillusionment of their own superiority that had safeguarded their relationship in her head.

in the end, of course, she finds it is a loss she cannot bear. stubborn asshole that she is, one can only imagine how very long she would have spent miserable and steadfast about the decision were it not for bill’s prognosis. but with a little hand-holding from bill along the way, it’s elizabeth who finally chooses the thing that has brought her the most happiness, and who issues a damn apology like she means it. (and rebecca delivers a performance more than worthy of oscar buzz, dammit.)

WHICH BRINGS US BACK TO OLIVE. let’s start with the descriptors the movie provides for her, first from bill: beautiful, guileless, kind, pure of heart. and then, from elizabeth: an exceptional student, a quick study with a passion for learning, strong work ethic, keen mind, an unwavering moral compass, and a deeply instilled sense of justice. (obviously, a lot of those are re: academics, given it was from a letter of recommendation – a letter of recommendation for a student she and her husband have more or less just propositioned! iconic – and “an unwavering moral compass” is still a hilarious dig, but anyway.)

so obviously olive’s “beauty” is at the center of the film’s early conversations – this idea of asset vs. albatross plays a heavy role, and what it means as a quality that olive must manage and navigate. even though elizabeth acknowledges it as a detriment, it’s also basically the foundation of their first encounter—the way olive’s beauty has already invaded the space of elizabeth’s marriage, professionally speaking or otherwise. and it’s kind of interesting that it’s more or less the assumptions surrounding olive’s appearance and impressions that basically kickstart her interest in psychology in the first place – that she is so incredibly frustrated with her interactions with people (unlike elizabeth, she doesn’t walk a blade into every room she enters).

anyway, i’ve mentioned it before but it’s still one of my favorite things, and i do think it bears noting: olive’s investment in the marston/holloway duo begins with and is showcased in its beginning stages primarily via her admiration for elizabeth. in so many ways – both within the film’s universe and in meta terms – bill is the obvious choice here. young pretty ingénue ™ falls for charming intelligent attractive (male) professor ™ who is, as it happens, very clearly into her. all of which, of course, the movie (delightfully!) paves the way for, but by the time there’s more focus there they’ve also crystallized into people not done justice by those descriptors alone, particularly in olive’s case. the point: elizabeth being as compelling to olive as she is right from the beginning i think says a great deal about olive, who is utterly charmed by a woman so brazenly, indelicately brilliant.

i mean, honestly, here’s the thing: angela did a SHIT TON of research over the course of eight years about the marstons. that’s why it’s so easy to spot which decisions she made that were very active departures from likely history, like this one. honestly, as someone who truly could not give less of a shit about the “veracity” of the movie as it applies to the movie’s quality/worthwhileness/watchability, i definitely think it’s fascinating to consider in terms of the choices angela made—olive becoming a part of the family first as bill’s mistress in real life (note: not to suggest i’m wielding total historical fact, just at least one propagated history, and one that likely would have been developed by another director) vs. an olive whose initial attraction lands at the feet of elizabeth’s radicalism. an olive who is wooed by the ferociousness of elizabeth’s intellect! i ask again: WHO BUT ANGELA WOULD HAVE EVER WRITTEN THEIR STORY THIS WAY. (in case this needs clarifying: no, i do not in any way make this claim to make an “exclusive attraction” claim, i mean to make note of the particular choices that provided the early foundations for their relationship, narratively speaking; obviously, them all being in love with each other is quite literally the entire point of the film, wonder woman be damned.) (jk diana i love you!!!)

as a whole, olive’s relationship to feminism is super interesting and absolutely a thing i would have loved them to explore more (among, like, the other nine hours of things i want more content about). it’s also another part of the whole appearance vs. reality question as it applies to olive (i thought that you were just… / what? / i don’t know. not that.) and what a world that olive, too, is allowed to be so many things: a cult sorority pledge master, kind, just, raised in a convent; the daughter and niece of radical feminists, incredibly smart, the bravest person in the whole movie, etc. etc. (also, THE ONLY FUNCTIONING ADULT. but we’ll get there.) her “guilelessness” is complicated by her history, and even as we are presented with the possibility of naivete, the “observing olive” scene sort of dismisses that cut-out figure out of hand, by way of elizabeth. olive knows exactly what she’s doing; she has lived many years having to navigate precisely the right amount of eye contact to make with a boy, precisely the tone to select. that is practice, and experience. she both finds herself apologizing every other minute and is unwilling to be anyone’s doormat—accommodating, yes, generous, yes, but even as early as the elizabeth/bill/olive apology sequence, she by no means jumps at the chance to accept this vague gesture. she wears her emotions on her sleeve and finds herself the more powerful for it.

olive is absolutely searching at the beginning of the movie – for explanations, for answers, for the kind of life she wants to lead. (for, i think it’s safe to say, elizabeth’s respect—a much more arduous ask than her husband’s.) and the truly incredible thing about olive is that as soon as she experiences the thing that she wants, she knows herself well enough not only to know with absolute certainty that it is what she wants, but also to pursue the hell out of it. after their joint first time, olive literally has no doubt left in her; this makes her happier than anything else she has. “unwavering moral compass” or not (lmao), uh, what fiancé? because the truth is that olive’s heart is her conviction, not duty. if it’s right, she will feel it. and so she does.

olive’s connection to her emotions, to her convictions, to her awareness of what she wants—like, it’s honestly a superpower. emotional intelligence and academic intelligence? honestly, chill. she’s also kind of their guiding light, whether in the moment she steps out on that platform in the pseudo-wonder-woman outfit, thereby changing the conversation entirely, or the first time she kisses elizabeth and rearranges everybody’s headspace. she always casts light on the next step of the narrative, on a place often frightening but a place everybody else will end up by the next act, anyway. (elizabeth may expect people to meet her halfway in terms of words, but olive’s the one reaching out her hand at every turn, waiting for someone to take it. and olive is the one—in many ways—with everything to lose.)

olive takes most care of the children; olive is the one most often sending them off to school with lunches in hand; olive is the most capable at wrangling something edible out of the oven; let’s be honest, olive is definitely the only who can convince their 1930’s (etc) cars into motion when they’re feeling particularly stubborn; olive likely exchanges baked goods with the neighbors and shares small talk and offers the helpful advice only possible from someone who cares enough to be a good listener. olive makes friends. so i ask you: literally, how the fuck did elizabeth and bill ever live their lives without her?

elizabeth probably spends more time making snide comments about the neighbors than making friends with them; bill spends time working on manuscript #17 (and then, you know, the obvious), although i’m sure he can be wrangled out to offer some charm every now and again.

(clearly not enough for Prying Neighbor to call his name when she walks in their damn house, though. I WILL SAY, while i’m here and because i can, the biggest moment of discontinuity in this entire movie is Prying Neighbor shouting elizabeth’s name next after olive’s. OLIVE, yes, checks out, she’s home and available and friendliest most of the time. BUT WHY ELIZABETH??? WHEN WOULD ELIZABETH EVER BE HOME ON A WORK DAY??? BILL IS THE ONLY OTHER PERSON IN THE HOUSE WHO WOULD USUALLY BE HANGING AROUND. I CANNOT MAKE THIS MAKE SENSE. i mean, i’ve since headcanoned that they’re always making fun of the fact that she literally cannot get into her brain that it’s elizabeth with the regular job and not bill, but i’m just saying.) 

anyway, returning from that tangent: i think the exchange about happiness in the final hospital scene provides an interesting echo to elizabeth’s earlier “love – it doesn’t matter” (are you happy? / does it matter?), which is fairly heart-shattering from someone who’s been certain of and willing to pursue happiness throughout the course of the whole movie. but it’s also an incredibly valid question: it’s not as if “happiness” was in the calculus when elizabeth told her to leave, either. what does happiness actually mean to them? (the brief shots of them without OLIVE are! fucking! brilliant! angela’s ability to make that tiny bed look empty without olive in it was a stroke of genius.)

and, of course, “does it matter?” is the question the movie answers resoundingly in the affirmative. in the end, it’s olive’s choice that decides how the film will end. it’s olive who gets to say “no,” who gets to dictate the terms. it’s olive with all the leverage. it’s olive who decides if she will meet elizabeth halfway. it’s olive with elizabeth’s heart in her hands. it’s olive who deserves a new goddamn stove, you assholes.

in the end, it’s olive who has the capacity to shape their future, and shape it she does. for decades to come.

[inkariasacademyworld]

The Trafficking Of Persons (Prevention, Protection And Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018

Human Trafficking in India

The most current available data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) indicate that there were more than 8,000 reported cases of human trafficking across India in 2016.

West Bengal (having porous borders with Bangladesh and Nepal) has become a human trafficking hub as it registered more than one-third of the total number of victims in 2016.

India is a source, transit as well as a consumer country in South-East Asian human-trafficking industry.

​

2.1 Steps Taken To Combat Human Trafficking

India ratified the UNTOC in 2011.

The Government of India applies the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013, as well as Section 370 and 370A IPC provides stringent punishment for human trafficking; trafficking of children for exploitation in any form including physical exploitation; or any form of sexual exploitation, slavery, servitude or the forced removal of organs.

Apart from this, there many other laws and provisions that protect people from exploitation, like-

Article 23 (1) of Indian Constitution prohibits Trafficking in Human and forced labour,

The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 (ITPA) for prevention of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation.

Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976,

Protection of Children from Sexual offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation, etc.

Lok Sabha has recently passed the Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018.

​

What is human trafficking?

United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) defines Trafficking in Persons as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

Human trafficking is a crime against the person because of the violation of the victim's right to movement through coercion and because of their commercial exploitation. It is the third largest organized crime in the world.

​

What increases vulnerability to human trafficking?

Political Instability: It creates unstable conditions in which people may live in constant fear with limited options for survival or earning a living. o It may also lead to forced migration leading to homelessness, unemployment, and other deprivations of which traffickers may take advantage.

Poverty: Traffickers specifically target poor and marginalized communities to offer vulnerable individuals false opportunities to improve their circumstances. Parents are often forced to sell their children due to poverty.

Gender Inequality: makes women more vulnerable to recruitment by traffickers.

Addictions: Traffickers use substance dependency and addiction to keep control of the trafficked person. Some traffickers purposely supply drugs to vulnerable people to break down their resistance and coerce them into forced labour or sex.

Mental Health: People with mental health issues face a variety of challenges including isolation, diminished capacity to consent or offer informed consent, and limited ability to assess risk and detect ill-intentions. Traffickers are skilled in detecting these vulnerabilities and manipulating them to their advantage.

Online Vulnerability: Traffickers maintain an online presence to lure vulnerable adults and children with the goal of meeting them in person, to take and circulate explicit photos, and to coerce an individual to comply with their demands.

​

2.2. Salient Features of the Anti-trafficking Bill, 2018

A National Anti-Trafficking Bureau (NATB) will be established for coordinating, monitoring and surveillance of trafficking cases. It will also deal with crimes having inter-state ramifications.

Anti-Trafficking Relief and Rehabilitation Committees to be established at the national, state, and district levels.

These Committees will be responsible for:

(i) providing compensation to victims,

(ii) repatriation of victims, and

(iii) re-integration of victims in society, among others.

State Anti-Trafficking Officers: He will be responsible for: (i) follow up action under the Bill, as per the instructions of the State Anti-Trafficking Committee, and (ii) providing relief and rehabilitation services. The state government will also appoint a Police Nodal Officer at the state and district levels.

Anti-Trafficking Units: ATUs will deal with the prevention, rescue, and protection of victims and witnesses, and for the investigation and prosecution of trafficking offences. In districts where an ATU is not functional, this responsibility will be taken up by the local police station.

Protection and rehabilitation: It requires the central or state government to set up Protection Homes. These would provide shelter, food, counselling, and medical services to victims.

Designated courts will be established in each district to provide time-bound (within an year) judgement. The bill also provides penalties for various offences.

​

Analysis

The bill provides a robust policy framework which ties together the approaches of prevention, rescue and rehabilitation and also introduced the concept of ‘aggravated forms of trafficking’ such as begging, child-bearing, administering hormones, etc.

The bill provides protection to witness as well as confidentiality through in-camera proceedings, video-conferencing etc along with a provision for time-bound trial.

It seeks to build the capacity of victims by providing capital, infrastructure, education and skill development to empower them to access justice and to prevent further trafficking. This will be accomplished and strengthened through the intelligence apparatus to improve the collection, collation and dissemination of operational intelligence.

However, there still remain certain issues that need to be rectified, like-

It has not been sent to the standing committee as demanded by many.

It is also believed that it is just rehash of existing laws as section 370 of IPC still exists. The creation of several anti-trafficking bureaucratic bodies will create confusion in the enforcement of these laws.

Various vague phrases and provisions like “any propaganda material that promotes trafficking of person or exploitation of a trafficked person in any manner” provides scope for wider interpretations which may have impact on freedom of speech and expression.

​

Recommended Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking by Human Rights Council of the UN

Promotion and protection of human rights. Anti-trafficking measures should not adversely affect the human rights and dignity of persons and, in particular, the rights of those who have been trafficked, migrants, internally displaced persons, refugees and asylum-seekers.

Identification of trafficked persons and traffickers. A failure to identify a trafficked person correctly is likely to result in a further denial of that person’s rights.

Effective and realistic anti-trafficking strategies must be based on accurate and current information, experience and analysis.

There is an urgent need to harmonize legal definitions, procedures and cooperation at the national and regional levels in accordance with international standards through an adequate legal framework.

An adequate law enforcement response to trafficking is dependent on the cooperation of trafficked persons and other witnesses. Law enforcement officials must also be sensitized to the paramount requirement of ensuring the safety of trafficked persons.

Appropriate protection and support should be extended to all trafficked persons without discrimination.

Strategies aimed at preventing trafficking should take into account root causes like addressing issues like inequality, poverty and all forms of discrimination and prejudice.

Child victims of trafficking should be provided with appropriate assistance and protection and full account should be taken of their special rights and needs.

To overcome the problem of lack of awareness about right to remedies among the victims of trafficking, legal and other material assistance should be provided to trafficked persons to enable them to realize their right to adequate and appropriate remedies.

States, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations are responsible for the actions of those working under their authority and are therefore under an obligation to take effective measures to prevent their nationals and employees from engaging in trafficking and related exploitation.

International, multilateral and bilateral cooperation can play an important role in combating trafficking activities. Such cooperation is particularly critical between countries involved in different stages of the trafficking cycle.

No accurate data on their exact number: though 68th round of NSSO survey for employment and unemployment indicate 3.9 Million, unofficial numbers may be higher.

No legal framework currently recognizing their rights: Though India has two laws which address the concerns of domestic workers and in a circuitous way regard them as ‘workers’ which include Unorganized Workers Social Security Act, 2008 and the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, neither of these identifies workers as rights bearing workers.

Indifferent attitude of State governments towards domestic workers: states have failed to include domestic workers in their respective schedules of employment.

Vast Sector and still not considered an economic activity: In purview of labour laws the work of domestic workers is not termed as a work- cooking, cleaning, babysitting, etc. are not recognized as work by state. They don’t have access to basic social security benefits including Maternity leaves, Pension and insurance.

It has also been criticised for not being in accordance with the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Council.

The provisions without safeguards could result in harassment of transgenders. The use of phrases such as ‘administration of hormones’ in the Bill can be used to target transgender persons, since many of them take hormones during their process of gender affirmation.

Certain provisions such as confiscation of property will hurt those sex workers which are voluntarily involved in the job. The Bill promotes “rescue raids” by the police and institutionalisation of victims in the name of rehabilitation.

[transienturl]

Here's an 1800 word analogy about the internet infrastructure in your house, for some reason:

All of the computers and phones and other internet-connected devices in your house are like homes and businesses in some sleepy backwater of a magical wizarding world where homes and businesses sometimes appear, disappear, or get up on two legs and move around at any random time. (It's called IP world, for some reason.)

Your home router is the post office of this sleepy backwater, and the postmaster's job is not a particularly easy one. What he does, if you have DHCP enabled on your router, is whenever he gets word that a new house has shown up, he assigns it a new street address in his handbook. Sure, the street addresses aren't physically in order, but as long as you keep a table of which house is actually located where, the mail gets there just fine. These are local IP addresses. (They often look like "192.168.1.6" in the-actual-internet land.)

Our sleepy backwater is connected to the rest of the world by a railway line, which the mayor of our house pays by the month to keep us connected. Most areas only have a few potential railway lines to extend into their neighborhood, or even only one. Some of these are huge (like Comcast Railways), while others serve small local areas (like VTel, who only serves the far-off lands of the Vermont region), but all of them interconnect at huge, complicated railway yards. Us small-town dwellers usually don't have to worry about the particulars; we just assume any railway can connect at reasonable speed to any other railway thanks to their incredibly smart postmasters. These are, of course, internet service providers, or ISPs, and the railyards where they physically link up are called Internet exchange points, or IXPs.

Of course, if anyone in our sleepy backwater wants to send a letter to another resident of our sleepy backwater, they don't need to use the railway: the postmaster will just pass the message along directly. Like, if two neighbors are playing correspondence chess, they need not involve the railway and its comparatively large delays in letter-sending. But this is uncommon, since let's face it: our sleepy backwater is pretty boring, and if we need to send a really big package to someone in the same neighborhood, we can just drive it over in a truck. These are, respectively, local LAN gaming, and putting files on a flash drive to transfer them.

Usually, though, we want to send and receive letters from the big cities. How about questioning the great library of Google, or requesting the news from the New York Times? How will our mail get to them? In fact, to whom do we address the letter?

Just like in our sleepy backwater, far-off homes and businesses of IP world are constantly vanishing and appearing and changing addresses. (It just happens when you have a lot of wizards.) And libraries like Google have multiple branches, each with the same information, to spread out the flood of letters their hardworking scribes must reply to every day. And so the central post office network of IP world keeps a carefully synchronized system of handbooks matching address numbers to places where people might want to send a letter. This is the DNS system ("domain name system" in the actual internet; let's say it's "delivery number-synchronizing system" in IP world.)

By default, each railway provides along with its service an address at which one can inquire about this information. I can, for example, send a letter to the Comcast office asking what address the library of Google is at, and they will reply that 216.58.217.46 should work nicely, and I can then address my letter to the library to 216.58.217.46, and through Comcast's and others' train networks, it should get there. This extra mail is necessary, of course, because tomorrow that address may change, because wizards. And when it does change, one of the wizards must send a letter to notify one of the central DNS offices, and that office must notify the other DNS offices, and so on and so forth until the office I use is updated as well.

Now, most houses use the DNS office recommended by their postman, and most postmen use the DNS office recommended by their railway company, which works fine for the most part. Some, however, choose other DNS offices. Reasons may include the railways' offices' reputation for phoning it in and dilly-dallying; the potentially undesirable business practice of targeting advertising flyers based on which addresses people look up on the DNS system; and the practice some use of simply sending back advertising in lieu of "that doesn't seem to exist" letters when there's nothing in their books for the requested mail destination. In any case, there are plenty of reputable, fast, privacy-focused DNS offices on the network, some with memorable numbers like 1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8, 9.9.9.9, etc. And some offer additional services like refusing to look up addresses for criminal enterprise or child-unfriendly service. These can be implemented either on a per-home basis (by simply choosing to use them rather than the postman's recommendation) or on a per-neighborhood basis (by having the postman recommend them to everyone).

(Occasionally, this does break things, however: some railroads use special addresses in their DNS offices to send administrative mail directly to the railroad; if a town has trouble with the mail system, it is important to remember to switch back to the railroad's expected configuration.)

Now, we have mentioned privacy in DNS mail; however, no matter what DNS office one uses, where their mail goes is obviously known by the railroad, and this is not necessarily or generally desirable. Furthermore, the contents of one's mail is by default discernible by any passing snoop! In reverse order, the solutions to this are:

Encryption, which works just as one would expect. Through a particular exchange of enchanted messages with the desired recipient, one can produce a cipher key that only the recipient can decode, ensuring the mail looks like gibberish to anyone else. (With a sufficient application of magic, this can be overcome, but it is fairly easy to strengthen the cipher to the point where all the magic in the world would take significant time to break it). This encryption is generally viewed as best practice for any new business receiving mail, and obviously one should never send payment details or personal information without its presence. This is HTTPS encryption, which should be indicated by your web browser with a lock icon.

And second, a VPN (virtual private network). This goes one step further by also obscuring from the railway the intended recipient of the mail, which along with encrypted DNS makes them completely unaware of your mailing habits. This works by addressing your mail to the proper intended recipient, then enciphering the entire thing and sending it addressed to a reputable processing center, who will decrypt the cipher and send it on its way as originally intended. This is useful when one is traveling, and wants to send important information via a particularly shady-seeming post office, or perhaps to make one's mail seem like it is coming from and/or should be replied to at a certain city different from one's own. Naturally, one must trust their VPN processing center not to be spying on them, as all of their data flows through that location.

Changing gears, let's talk about speed. Or rather, and often more importantly, capacity. The actual time it takes to send a letter does vary significantly, often due to conditions in the global rail network out of our control, but for the most part it's not much of a concern to most people unless it becomes egregiously bad. Some isolated communities that can't have railroads hooked up have slow mail via balloon, though. This is ping, usually measured in milliseconds in the real internet (and the balloon thing is satellite internet).

Capacity, however, is important to basically everyone. Every wizard loves to watch flipbooks, and businesses like Netflips have made them readily available on-demand. And all of those flipbook pages take up a ton of room in a mailcar. Different regions of the world have different prices for the same mail-capacity-per-day, due mostly to the different kinds of rail infrastructure and the number of railways competing for the same business.

Residential railway connections are usually paid for primarily based on their capacity to bring mail into a neighborhood, not the other way around. This generally makes sense: most high-volume mail is produced by business and goes to consumers, not the other way around. And many railroad configurations can by nature be configured to be more effective in one direction than the other. Some, however, are symmetrical, and thus have identical capacity in both directions; optical mail, which magically converts messages to laser beams, is the gold standard and is slowly becoming more common and less expensive. But for the most part, neighborhood mayors sign their railroad contrast without much awareness of their capacity to send high volumes of mail, unless one of their residents demands such service.

A pipe is only as fast as its most restrictive section, however, and while the rail line into one's neighborhood is in most working-as-designed cases the bottleneck, this may not be true. First of all, the mail is only delivered as fast as the postman, and as rail lines upgrade, the postman may become the limiting factor. If a house is on the main street (i.e. wired), then any even vaguely modern mail truck should be able to keep the best railways from being clogged with mail, but once the postman has to fly to far-off houses (wifi), all bets are off. (I could make another elaborate analogy to explain the different specs of WiFi networks, which would involve multiple helipads and ranges of altitudes to prevent in-air mailman collisions, but we'll leave that for another day.)

In addition to that and the capacity of the mail's source, though, it is possible for the limiting factor in the delivery of a package to be the interconnections between the railways themselves. Remember how earlier I said, "we just assume any railway can connect at reasonable speed to any other railway?" Of course that doesn't always hold up in practice. And as railways' links to neighborhoods get higher and higher capacities, it becomes increasingly difficult and expensive to make the railyards hold up during busy times.

In the end, diagnosing a bottleneck in the mail effectively generally consists of flooding one branch at a time with mail to determine the limiting factor. Buying a new mail truck, of course, will do no good if the railway line is damaged, nor will negotiating for bigger railcars; conversely, if the skyway is flooded with mail-copters, only changing skyways or more efficient sky use will help.