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panharmonium · 4 years ago

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you know what?

no. absolutely not.

i already did part 1 of this post here. i’m back again with part 2, because unfortunately the awfulness factor doesn’t stop with arthur, and as much as i adore hunith generally, this entire sequence is a MESS.

and yes, i am aware that pretty much nobody else thinks so. every time i see this scene referenced in fandom, it is always framed as a fun, cutesy, sing-songy moment of “oooo, hunith ships merthur!” literally every time.

which, you know, like i always say about everything fandom-related - that’s fine. everybody is going to enjoy things differently; you do you, and keep on having fun! but here on my own blog, in my own space, i am gonna do me, and in this case ‘me’ involves yelling about how much i can’t stand that particular read, and how angry the end of 1.10 makes me.

disclaimer, to help folks curate their own fandom experiences: i am going to be Very Cranky for the rest of this post. if you love this particular scene in the way i just mentioned, you will probably want to scroll on by, because this piece of meta most likely won’t be your jam. as always, these are my personal thoughts and nobody is obligated to share them, so please do not hesitate to simply skip this post if we are on different wavelengths - instead, keep enjoying fandom in whatever way is most fun for you!

fair warning now given, off i go on a long, frustrated tirade.

i already wrote about the first half of this scene, where arthur decides that the appropriate thing to do at this particular moment is to give merlin a scolding about the evils of sorcery, despite the fact that the only reason arthur is even alive to deliver this lecture in the first place is because merlin’s ‘sorcerer’ best friend just DIED saving arthur’s life. but sure, you know what, let’s use said best friend’s funeral to chastise merlin about how “dangerous” sorcerers are. let’s just make that completely dickheaded decision.

and, moving on to the second half of this scene - here’s the thing. hunith overhears this entire conversation. she overhears arthur telling merlin off about sorcery, in front of the burning corpse of merlin’s best friend, who is, as far as arthur knows, the ‘sorcerer’ who died saving arthur’s life.

and yet, for some inexplicable reason, hunith still cannot get off the arthur pendragon train for two damn seconds.

she has known arthur for less than a week. by contrast, she has known will for his entire life. but the instant arthur walks away, hunith sidles up next to merlin and says, “you’d better be going” - like. okay, my god, can you try to hustle him away from his best friend’s in-progress funeral any faster????? how about we maybe give him a second? the pyre hasn’t even burnt down yet, and merlin hasn’t had a single second to himself since this sequence started. he’s had to stand there and listen to arthur insult the dude who everyone is supposed to be memorializing, and then hunith - who overheard the entire thing - zips right over and tries to chivvy merlin on his way. you’d better be going.

HELLO?! the pyre is still roaring. how about, instead of hassling merlin and hustling him offstage, everybody just sits down and waits for a minute. how about they all just leave merlin alone for three everloving seconds.

honestly, just - every time i think about this scene i get angrier.

i love hunith, and i know she’s well-intentioned. but everything she gives merlin in this scene is the exact opposite of what he needs. he doesn’t need to be hurried off the village green like there’s some reason he can’t stay there for the entirety of his friend’s funeral. he doesn’t need to be pushed into going back to camelot when he is clearly struggling with the idea of leaving ealdor again. and he absolutely does not need to be told how much someone else “needs” him right now, when he himself is the one who is having a fucking crisis and who needs someone to take care of him.

i cannot emphasize that last point enough. it is just - beyond upsetting to me that hunith literally watches arthur shitting on merlin’s dead best friend (and, by proxy, merlin himself, since merlin is the actual sorcerer) and she still somehow thinks the right thing to do is walk over and start telling merlin how great arthur is and how arthur “needs” him and how merlin “belongs at arthur’s side.”

i can’t stand that. it makes me so angry. it’s not right. it’s not fair. it’s damaging. it’s the same shitty messaging that destroys merlin’s life in later seasons, this idea that he exists for someone else’s sake, the complete disregard for what he himself might want at any given moment, for what he himself might need, for the reservations he might have about this plan that other people have formulated for his life.

he is UNCOMFORTABLE when she says these things to him! he doesn’t look at her; he shifts his gaze to arthur and the camelot squad with this grim, unconvinced expression on his face, and then he averts his eyes from her.

everything hunith tells merlin in this scene is the exact opposite of what he needs to hear. he does not need someone to tell him how badly his services are “needed” by a man who hates the person merlin truly is, not when the only friend who ever accepted merlin’s true self has just been killed. he does not need to be told that arthur, who is alive solely because will is dead and who only seconds ago expressed exactly zero gratitude for that sacrifice, is the person to whom merlin owes his undying loyalty. he does not need to be shuffled off to camelot as quickly as possible, as if it would be better for him to just rush forward and forget what happened here, as if what happened here didn’t matter.

because what happened here did matter, whether hunith and arthur find it convenient to acknowledge or not. i have to lay this out again, because what happened to merlin in ealdor is so much more important than anybody ever seems to realize - and i do understand that, i really do (because yes, it was just one episode for us) - but we have to look at it from merlin’s perspective, not the audience’s.

will wasn’t ‘one episode’ for merlin.

i can’t say this enough times. i cannot say this loudly enough.

merlin, at the beginning of this show, has only ever had ONE FRIEND.

most of us can’t even imagine something like that.

but try. TRY.

merlin has only ever had one friend. he’s only ever had one friend to love him. he only had one friend for the first two decades of his life. he’s only been in camelot for a couple of months; he’s only known these camelot people for a couple of months, and they don’t know his real self anyhow. and now his ONLY FRIEND, the person he’s known all his life, the only friend he ever had who knew him for who he truly was, was just violently cut down before his very eyes, whilst saving a guy who can legally have merlin murdered for just existing. and even though merlin and will spend the entirety of 1.10 having a painful, complicated argument, will still uses his last moments on earth to tell the biggest fucking whopper of his life, in order to shield merlin from harm, taking all of the danger and infamy and condemnation upon himself. he dies with a lie on his lips. he dies with merlin’s hand in his hair.

and all the while, merlin knows that this would not have happened if he had just been willing to use his magic in the first place, instead of letting his fear of discovery prompt him into allowing his neighbors to offer themselves up for the slaughter in his place.

the avalanching double-whammy of grief and guilt that merlin is suddenly slammed with at the end of this episode is almost incomprehensible in scale.

i’ve talked about this before, but again, i think it’s something we don’t generally remember: losing will is the first time merlin has ever experienced personal bereavement. and he doesn’t get to start out with a warm-up; he goes straight to the big leagues. this is not some trifling thing. this is a total implosion of merlin’s world as he knows it.

when we think about the mark this episode leaves on merlin’s life, i don’t think most of us consider the magnitude of this event deeply enough. losing will in this way is not some one-off thing that merlin just...gets over. this is the most earth-shattering thing that has ever happened to him, at this point in time. it is still one of the worst things that has ever happened to him, period, even years later. the guilt never goes away.

and the thing that’s unique about this particular trauma is that merlin has to manage it alone. there are other tragedies in his life where we witness him receiving support/comfort from others - freya, lancelot, balinor (though of course there are aspects to these miseries that merlin has to keep secret from other people, as well) - but with will, merlin has to do everything on his own. he can’t get one single moment of peace at will’s funeral. his own mother, the only person who knows what really happened, can’t help him without making everything about arthur. and merlin can’t tell anyone else what happened, not the truth of it, because doing so would squander the gift he’s been given - will’s lie is still protecting him, years later, from arthur and morgana both.

merlin, at the end of 1.10, is forced to navigate this grief completely alone, in the silent secrecy of his own heart. arthur is actively making it worse. hunith is out here singing arthur’s praises. and will is just like - he’s suddenly not part of the conversation anymore. he doesn’t even register on anyone’s radar.

it truly is...incredible, for me, to watch hunith overhear arthur being legitimately terrible to both merlin and the guy who just died saving merlin AND arthur’s lives, and then to see her come over and start talking about how merlin belongs at arthur’s side, how much merlin needs to be there for him, how they’re two sides of the same coin. meanwhile, the guy who literally just lied his life away to protect merlin’s secret and who NEVER made merlin feel like he had to hide who he was and who never had any problem with magic in the first place and never made merlin feel unsafe and never treated merlin like he was less of a human being just for existing -

- he’s just burning to ash there, and hunith doesn’t even acknowledge that, despite the fact that merlin is so visibly, intently, single-mindedly focused on that funeral pyre, and so clearly in distress and in pain and NEEDING somebody. all she can talk about is merlin’s responsibility to arthur.

the dissonance here is baffling. hunith has known will forever. she met arthur less than a week ago. she barely knows him, and what she does know is that he thinks magic-users are dangerous/evil. she saw him being a dick to her kid. she knows her son is having the worst day of his life. and she still doesn’t offer a single comforting word in reference to the person who just died protecting merlin’s secret, instead choosing to wax poetic about a man whose bigotry is what merlin needed protecting from in the first place.

that...is a hot mess. the merlin-hunith-will dynamic is one of the few things in this show that reflects less-than-stellarly on hunith’s character, however much i love her. and even though it all stems from an overwhelming desire to keep her son safe, it doesn’t make her choices any less damaging. she sends merlin away specifically because she finds out that will knows about his secret. she spends 1.10 analyzing and encouraging and dissecting merlin’s relationship with arthur, when merlin’s relationship with will is the one that desperately needs attention. she’s proven wrong about will’s trustworthiness in the most stunning, powerful way possible, and then she never even acknowledges him, instead choosing to laud the dude who literally forces merlin to live in fear of execution.

she’s merlin’s mother. she’s the only person in his life who knows anything about what will actually meant to him. she is his only possible resource as he tries to weather a kind of devastation that defies description.

and she, like arthur, just barrels right on ahead and makes everything about someone else.

the cinematography choices in this scene matter. whenever arthur or hunith tries to talk to merlin, the camera is placed on the opposite side of the fire from them, meaning the flames are always in the foreground of the frame. they are something we are required to see and look past before we can get to anything else in the scene. and in terms of directorial/acting decisions - merlin doesn’t take his eyes off the pyre until the end of his conversation with hunith. not once while talking to arthur does he look away from it.

the funeral pyre is always in the foreground of the shot, because it’s in the forefront of merlin’s mind. that is where his focus is right now. that is what is taking up all of his attention. that is what is edging into the frame, eating up our entire field of view. that is what he needs help with.

but he doesn’t get any such support. the entire sequence ends up revolving around arthur. will’s entire funeral is about arthur fucking pendragon. arthur inserts himself so he can talk to merlin about how evil magic is, and then hunith inserts herself so she can talk to merlin about how great arthur is. nobody ever stops to think that maybe merlin doesn’t want to talk to anybody right this second. merlin’s entire ‘farewell’ to the only true friend he ever had in his life is completely swallowed up by the prince of camelot, and if that isn’t a metaphor for the rest of merlin’s life, then i don’t know what is.

i know nobody needs to hear this, because very few people are invested in this kid at the same level of embarrassing detail as me, but here it is, anyway.

yes, will is prickly. he’s hard to get on with. he’s angry. he’s bitter and snappy and uncharitable, sometimes.

but you know what? he has every reason to be like that.

this kid has nobody. his own best friend’s mother - who has known him all his life - doesn’t trust him and doesn’t respect him. she is too afraid for her own son’s safety to give will any credit. she sends merlin away to camelot, the most violently anti-magic place in the world, because apparently, will knowing about merlin’s secret would be even more dangerous than uther pendragon’s genocidal reign.

think about how that would feel. to hear something like that about yourself. to be somebody who is already so goddamn alone in the world, and to have your only friend vanish without so much as a ‘see you later,’ and then to be made to feel, however indirectly, like this is somehow your fault, like you’re the liability, like you’re the untrustworthy element here. as if you, somehow, are more dangerous than a king who literally pays to have sorcerers trafficked to him in cages.

will has every right to be upset, all the time. he has every reason to be angry, and bitter, and hurt, all the time. to be thought so poorly of - to be held in such low esteem - when he hasn’t done anything wrong, when he hasn’t ever done anything to earn that kind of mistrust - and to have that same misplaced suspicion used to justify separating him from the only person in the world who gives a damn about him - if it were me, i would be constantly on the verge of screaming, all the time.

will has always been on merlin’s side, and he has never done anything to endanger him, and in the end he gives up everything to make sure merlin can stay safe and hidden and unhunted. he shouldn’t have needed to prove his goodness, his constancy, his worth; not when he’s already kept merlin’s secret for who knows how many years, but even after he does do so, it doesn’t even matter. arthur acknowledges him only to disparage sorcery. hunith passes him over completely in favor of praising arthur, with no acknowledgment of the misjudgment she made.

i have said before that merlin tends to befriend people who have nobody, people who’ve been left behind by the rest of the world, people who’ve been made to feel that they aren’t worthy of love. and will, merlin’s oldest friend, was the first of those many characters, and it is so heartbreaking to me that in this instance, the same kind of disinterested and careless attitude towards his worth that dogged him all his life is perpetuated and affirmed after his death. ‘people are used to ignoring him,’ merlin tells arthur, and merlin is right - even when will is dead and burning, arthur only sees sorcery. hunith, who we would expect to be more sympathetic, only sees arthur.

merlin is the only one who knows better. merlin has always known better, and he loves will so much, but he is the only one, apparently, and honestly, after will dies? nobody else even tries to understand.

to sum up:

hunith and arthur, for all that i love them, are both way out of line at the end of this episode.

the legacy of this experience, for merlin, is that he spends the rest of his life processing this particular trauma alone. and that is why i always, always have to keep will and ealdor in the back of my mind when i write for merlin in any capacity - because this event isn’t some simple stumbling block for him; it changes him forever. it teaches him what he can and can’t expect from the people around him, and it solidifies how irrelevant his own needs are when viewed in comparison with arthur’s, even to people who barely even KNOW arthur; people who are supposed to put merlin first over everything. it teaches merlin to bury his sorrow, and to wrestle with personal suffering in secret, because if things aren’t ultimately about arthur, then they aren’t important enough to be granted any significant amount of time for merlin to deal with. merlin’s own grief, even at his best friend’s funeral, takes too long to resolve. arthur walks away from the pyre, and it’s time for merlin to leave, too. you’d better be going.

bottom line: i don’t care if other people think this whole ‘ooo, everybody wants merlin to be with arthur’ thing is wonderful or beautiful or dreamily romantic. it isn’t. it’s ugly, and it’s cruel, and it stripped merlin of his present identity and his future potential, one stolen moment at a time.

#and that's what i have to say about that #so.#in case you all weren't already aware #will is a goddamn hero #and merlin misses him every day #the once and future slowburn #meta #no kings no masters

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putschki1969 · 4 years ago

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My Experience with Japanese Online Shops, International Shipping and Proxy Services

In the last few months I have ordered from many different Japanese online stores and I have made use of a bunch of new international shipping and proxy services so I thought it would be a good idea to sum up my experiences and write a little review so everyone knows what to expect. Without further ado, let’s get to it.

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tenso

Buyee

WorldShopping

HMV International Shipping

CDJapan

Amazon.co.jp

1. tenso.com

A staple for everyone who wants to register for various Japanese services (e.g. fan clubs, streaming platforms, etc) or enjoys shopping in Japanese online shops. It cannot be said often or loud enough how indispensable tenso is for fans of anything Japanese, their service is a true lifesaver! The H-el-ical// Online store even recommends using them! These days many Japanese sites accept foreign payment methods but one thing that’s still almost always required is a Japanese address. And that’s where tenso comes in. They will provide you for free with a Japanese address and phone number which you can use to register on almost any site. You can have your fan club stuff and purchased items sent to that address (the tenso warehouse) and they will then ship it to you. There are not a whole lot of shipping options available but that’s fine. Air Mail is definitely their best offer but if your package is too big you will end up having to choose EMS (which is quite pricey but typically very fast - not during the pandemic tho, at least not for Austria). A big advantage is the possibility to edit the package description. You can lower the value of your items to avoid import taxes and custom fees in your country. Please note that tenso does require an identity verification which might act as a deterrent but I can assure you, they are totally trust-worthy and reliable. I get a LOT of use out of them. Of course I have all my FC related stuff sent to their warehouse but tenso also came in handy for my orders on Tower Records Online, Animate Online and the Universal Shop/H-el-ical Shop/mu-mo Shop.

※ With the exception of the Universal Shop, I was able to pay at all the above mentioned stores with my foreign VISA.

2. Buyee

Another staple and the very first proxy service I ever used. You will need them in all those places that do not accept foreign payment methods (there are still too many out there unfortunately). Their customer service is impeccable and I have never had issues with them. They have gone as far as to contact Japanese stores on my behalf even though it is not part of their usual service. They offer a very wide range of features and shipping options, their service fees are also not too high (although I will admit that they have slightly increased throughout the years). They operate on so many different Japanese online shops, it’s rare to find a big store that does not collaborate with them. Also, if you want to thrift Kalafina related items, THIS is your go-to service. Be it Yahoo Auctions, Mercari or Suruga-ya, you can use Buyee on all those sites. They even have their own English user-interface for some of the major Japanese online stores and you can take advantage of their browser add-on which makes shopping a lot easier. The only downside is that they will not allow edits to the package value so if you live in a bureaucratic country like myself with very strict tax and custom regulations, you will have to make sure to send your packages wisely or just expect to pay quite a lot of fees. This time I used them to order my Wakana cover album copies from Rakuten Books (I REALLY wanted their tokuten). Since Buyee offers the biggest variety of shipping options, I got these copies before anything else, they were here super fast.

※ It’s funny how I am able to register my credit card for Rakuten Pay in order to purchase music on mora.jp but I cannot use that very same credit card to actually buy stuff on Rakuten.

3. WorldShopping

A fairly new service as far as I know but it seems like they are quickly expanding and trying to give Buyee a run for their money. Their banner has been popping up on almost all Japanese sites I have visited in the past few months but up until recently I wasn’t really feeling like trying a new service (I am always hesitant when it comes to new stuff). At least until I found myself in dire need of the Sofmap store specific tokuten for Wakana’s cover album XD. Unfortunately Sofmap does not accept foreign payment methods and Buyee also does not operate on their site so I took a leap of faith and made my purchase through WorldShopping since their banner looked so inviting. It was surprisingly straighforward since they are providing their own interface on the Japanese sites. I didn’t even have to go to the WorldShopping main page to register or anything before using the service. Their fees are acceptable but not exactly low. I was a little wary because I didn’t have a proper account but they did provide a link in the initial email where I could more or less keep track of everything. It took VERY long for my purchased item to be registered at their warehouse (for tenso and Buyee it takes around 1 day) and I didn’t get a notification email that it had arrived so those are not the best aspects of their service. The only shipping method they seem to offer is EMS (which again, is very pricey). Anyways, at the end of the day, my package arrived unscathed in Austria (including the tokuten) so I am a happy camper. While I will probably not be using their service regularly in the future I can still recommend WorldShopping to you with a clear conscience. But please keep in mind to check your status link regularly!

※ Please note that the WorldShipping interface in Japanese online shops overrides the site’s very own purchasing option so if you want to make an order using your own account with your tenso address and a domestic shipping method (let’s say in the mu-mo shop for example) you will have to deactive all WorldShopping services on the page.

4. HMV & BOOKS Online International Shipping

Another first for me. I had no idea they offered international shipping so when I saw the little button on KEIKO’s Lantana page, I couldn’t resist. Since Amazon.co.jp is no longer an option for me, I was desperate to find other stores that offered international shipping and tokutens. Unfortunately, their international shipping service is not a very good replacement for Amazon.co.jp since it takes VERY long. I registered as a guest and made my order without any trouble. I expected them to ship the item on the release day (or the day prior) but that was not the case. I am almost entirely sure that they use a “hidden” proxy service but still promote it as direct shipping. Which is why the process is taking so long. I think it wasn’t until the fifth day after the release date that I finally received the shipping confirmation. Also, don’t get thrown off by weird phrasing in their e-mails. They kept saying that they had shipped “the first part of my order” when in fact there was only one part. Since they only offered EMS as shipping option it once again took quite a while for the package to get to me even though the shipping fee was very high (please note that EMS is typically very fast but as I mentioned earlier, COVID-19 has changed everything). Overall, I can’t really complain about their service, if you are willing to wait a while, HMV International Shipping is definitely worth a try. HMV always have some of the best tokutens so be sure to check it out.

※ I originally tried to register properly but that turned out to be quite complicated so I recommend registering as a guest just like I did.

5. CDJapan

The first site I ever used to order Kalafina-items. I have never had issues with them. They are very reliable and of course the best thing is that they ship directly to your country. However, these days I hardly ever shop at CDJapan anymore because they rarely have tokutens. Also, items you purchase on their site will not be calculated into the daily and weekly sales data for Oricon music charts so that sucks. As you know, I want to support my girls as best as possible (and that means contributing to their chart numbers). Sometimes CDJapan do offer tokutens so they are definitely a viable option for foreign fans. They have lots of payment and shipping methods to choose from and typically their packages arrive very quickly. I bought Hikaru’s RE of “disclose” (only the LE came with tokutens) and one of my “Lantana” copies (CDJapan did in fact have a tokuten for that. YAY).

※ If for some reason, CDJapan isn’t your cup of tea or doesn’t work for you I think YESASIA is a good alternative. However, I haven’t used their service yet so I am not sure how reliable they are. They offer free shipping if your order total exceeds a certain amount so that’s definitely pretty neat!

6. Amazon.co.jp

Amazon.co.jp has been very reliable for the past few years but this year they have really let me down. Just like HMV they do offer an international shipping service but theirs is actually a DIRECT shipping service and it’s SUPER fast. Also they estimate the import/customs fees of your respective country and they charge a deposit which they can use to pay the customs office to speed up the shipping procedure. If this doesn’t happen, packages will usually end up being stuck at customs for a very long time until they have been processed. Last but not least, they often have some of the coolest and most unique tokutens. These are all reasons why I loved to use them but it seems like the pandemic screwed things up for many foreign fans. When I was logged in and checking the product pages of the Kala-solo-releases, they would either show me that everything was out of stock from the get-go or no longer shippable to my country. However, when I wasn’t logged in and checked the Japanese version of the product page I saw that there were in fact still copies available. Now that the pre-order period is over they seem to have restocked a little bit and some versions have finally become available again for foreigners. For example, I could now technically order the LE of “Lantana” with a tokuten. I really wonder why that stuff wasn’t there when I needed it *grumbles*

※ I am not 100% sure if the pandemic caused all these issues but I kinda hope that was the reason because that would mean that next year things will hopefully work fine again. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

#kalafina #review #tenso #buyee #worldshopping #cdjapan #amazon.co.jp.#shopping in japan #proxy service #international shipping #wakana #keiko #hikaru

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bevercges · 4 years ago

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🐭 • So we literally know nothing about Bradley’s shenanigans between the end of Coon vs. Coon & Friends, when he left Earth to discover what happened to his home planet, and Bring the Crunch, where he states that he is living there now and doing who knows what.

Well I always wanted to write a post giving my thoughts on the subject (and I have a bit of a teaser here) so, for the sake of future RPs, I may as well do it. I will probably divide this into two posts because the Lore and my shenanigans are different things.

Just saying it now: this is mostly my own making and ideas as there’s very little canonical backing on the topic. If I have anything that I can quote to use as proof of my statements I will do it, but this is mostly my own interpretation.

youtube

Bradley Biggle has been around as a background character since Season 3, joining the main four as one of their classmates after moving to the fourth grade in Season 4. Still, until Season 14, he has been a (recognizable) background character with voice roles that could be easily counted with your hands –akin to characters like DogPoo or Kevin Stoley–.

The introductory paragraph above is a way of saying: we didn’t really know that much about Bradley until the Coon & Friends Trilogy. Hell, we still don’t, it is only on the final part of the trilogy, Coon Vs. Coon & Friends, when we learn a few things about him, and that episode starts with the video above.

“But Bradley Biggle is no ordinary fourth-grader!”

I am not going to waste time explaining why is Mintberry Crunch and what he does (for that’s what his About Page is all about) but, obviously, the entire clip is a form of foreshadowing to the ending. Spoilers to a 10-year-old episode: Bradley receives a message from outer space in which he’s told that he’s an alien from a far away planet whose destiny is to save Earth from C’thulu. Also Kenny thought that this revelation was going to be for him so he got scammed of his backstory, I guess.

So yeah, Bradley is a superhero with a backstory akin to Superman: he is an enhanced alien that was sent off to safety as a baby during times of crisis, and was found, adopted and raised by a human family, the Biggles. Yeah, I don’t think anyone really thought that Bradley and Henrietta were biological siblings, but whatever.

While we don’t know if everyone in the planet K'oh Kajan (or Kokujon, as I will be typing it like that) has the same powers as MBC, since we know that the berries of that planet “have the power to fuel nearly anything”, I’m going to take a guess that the “nearly” is there because they cannot grant superpowers to people, so Bradley is the outlier and a case of the chosen one. He is the only one with this powers, basically.

So he defeats C’thulu with his mint and berry superpowers and stuff (yes, defeats, he can only summon mint and berry to his aid, which would mostly work to reduce an opponent rather than killing them), and this episode ends with what would mark MBC’s exit from the show (outside of the very rare background appearance) for a very long time:

Canonically-speaking, this is what we know.

Bradley left to search for his biological parents (and his home planet, I suppose) and we would not hear about him for sure until Season 21. To be more precise, we would not hear about MBC’s shenanigans until his appearance in Fractured But Whole’s second DLC, Bring the Crunch.

youtube

Timestamp goes from 1:06 to 2:22 (unless you want spoilers).

Funny enough, while this would mark MBC’s return, it still does not give us much information about what he has been up to before the events pertaining this DLC. However, we still get a few clues from his in-game dialogue which I’m going to interpret for you guys.

"I picked up your distress call from the berry mines of my home planet. I've come to offer my assistance."

Something we know for sure is that he made it back to Kokujon!! This means that the main reason he has been away for so long (or so it’s my guess) is because he found his home planet, reunited with his biological parents and decided to settle there instead of returning to Earth with the Biggles. We still know that he visits, however, as he appears in Stick of Truth and in some more episodes (before disappearing again in Season 22):

We still don’t really know anything about his home planet, though, outside of very selective information he gives in and out of battle. Here’s a few examples:

"It's so weird being back on Earth. I can't believe you guys only have one sun!"

“You wanna know the best thing about Kokujon? No school."

"I didn't travel halfway across the galaxy to be treated like this."

He doesn’t live anywhere in the Solar System, that’s for sure, because not only he has traveled “across the galaxy” to respond to Fastpass’ distress call (which is another can of worms in itself, because how could have he received a call like that from literal light years away?), but also our system only has one sun.

This is just me trying to tie things together with South Park canon (so it’s a bit of a tangent), but in Season 13, in the episode Pinewood Derby, we are made aware of the existence of the Federation of Planets, a government body that is on a galactic level. The only reason I mention this is because MBC has proven to be capable of traveling at warp speed –traveling from his home planet to Earth in a matter of (what I am going to suppose were) minutes after receiving that distress call–, and all the planets that have discovered warp speed are part of the Federation, so that must be the case for Kokujon.

The exception to this rule, if anyone has watched the episode, would be Earth, but that’s because they didn’t meet the requirements to join the Federation and were blocked off the rest of the galaxy instead.

Not sure if this is canon anymore, but if it is that means that Bradley is constantly breaking the law by visiting a planet that has been labeled as off-limits, but he is not the only alien that has set foot in South Park anyways.

Actually, speaking of breaking the law and stuff, that reminds me... here is a screenshot of MBC’s character sheet:

While most characters in FBW have the Lawful (and only Lawful) alignment, MBC stands out because he has a more specific alignment. Not only he is Chaotic (which explains the possibility of him being breaking the law whenever he travels back to Earth), but also Neutral, which makes him... a morally grey character. He is neither good, neither bad, he is just... well, himself.

Why am I bringing this up anyways? Because there is one detail about the Kokujonian society that those that have played the DLC are aware about: the caste system.

"On my home planet, you'd get 10 years in the berry mines for that!"

The mention of these berry mines have been a thing ever since Season 14, but this line that can pop up when MBC is attacked in game has quite the connotations. Simple: you commit a crime, you are sent to the berry mines. You commit a crime, you work at the berry mines. You commit a crime, you become a slave. But you could say “oh, Mouse, but it could be like community service like many prisons on Earth- “ and I would have to tell you that you’re wrong because even MBC says so himself.

Despite being a trope in many sci-fi stories based around alien societies it is a very fucked up elephant in the room and everyone and their mother knows this. The last mission in the Bring the Crunch DLC involves fighting (and killing) a mind-controlling alien whose motivation was revenge against the society that put his family (and possibly his entire race to) into this position. Not only that, but if MBC is being truthful, the Kokujonian society has no issue to do the same with anyone that breaks the law, even their own people.

So, does the fact that he is part of this society make Bradley evil? No. Once again, he is Chaotic Neutral, he is just Bradley. And looking at the definition of Chaotic Neutral:

“Chaotic neutral characters like to indulge in everything. [...] This type of character will at least consider doing anything if they can find enjoyment or amusement. Life has meaning, but theirs has the greatest meaning. According to chaotic neutrals, laws and rules infringe on personal freedom and were meant to be broken. This character is always looking for the best deal, and will work with good, neutral, or evil to get it; as long as he comes out of the situation on top. The chaotic neutral is constantly teetering between good and evil, rebelling, and bending the law to fit his needs.”

His alignment makes him more complicated than the black-and-white idea that is being good or being evil on one fact alone. He is defined, however, by the fact that he does what he pleases regardless of what society, morality and laws say. And this is easily backed up by how he addresses the Crooked Cop enemy class in FBW:

"Earth police have no jurisdiction over... Mintberry Crunch!"

"Authority figures are no match for... the crunch!"

So, basically, his alignment makes him a free spirit and, at best, because his family owns slaves, he would be a proxy. He’s mostly a 10-year-old with superpowers that has been granted total freedom to do what he wants and takes full advantage of it (an also a superhero and an illegal alien on Earth, literally and figuratively), so he is not precisely defined by the society of his home planet. I do believe, though, that he has been influenced by the Kokujonian society as a result of living with his biological parents, so his morality and ideas flip-flop a lot.

“Chaotic neutral characters are extremely difficult to deal with. Such characters have been known to cheerfully and for no apparent purpose gamble away everything they have on the roll of a single die. They are almost totally unreliable. In fact, the only reliable thing about them is that they cannot be relied upon!”

MBC choosing to fight that alien (an alien he carelessly allowed to follow him to Earth) could also be interpreted as personal defense and him defending planet Earth from an outer space threat as the Zarganor voices his intentions pretty clearly in-battle, but everyone is welcome to draw their own conclusions since both of them were motivated by very different things.

Anyways, once again, Kokujon is a pretty fucked up planet, but it is also Bradley’s home planet. We can assume that finding this planet and his biological parents helped him discover his real identity as Gok'zarah and, once he accomplished this goal, decided that he had nothing else worth pursuing and settled. He is rather unpredictable, as his alignment dictates, so he may not even stay on Kokujon a lot and instead travels through the galaxy- but those are headcanons of mine.

In conclusion, as a TL;DR: Bradley disappeared from Season 14 to Season 21, and then from Season 22 and onwards, because he’s an alien and has chosen to live in his home planet. Said planet’s society has its fucked up side but Bradley is so unpredictable due to his free spirit nature it is hard to pin-point his morals.

Anyways, for a character that started as a joke character that was used as a deus ex machina, I think he’s pretty cool! :·D And probably one of the strongest characters in this show’s universe.

#📁 • OOC.#🍚 • Bradley!About.#🍚 • Bradley!Headcanon.#cw long post #(Though in this blog I love all of my boys this one has a weird history.)#(I still remember when I liked MBC in an ironical sense; yeah; sure.)#(Now he's just one of my favorite characters ever LOL.)#(What do you mean I shouldn't care this much about a joke character?.)

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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EVERY FOUNDER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BUSINESS

This rule is left over from a time when algorithm meant something like the current Google? Why do patents play so small a role in software? Any hacker who looked at some complex device and realized that with a tiny tweak he could make it run more efficiently. In something that's out there, problems are alarming. It has for me. It may also help them to grasp what's special about your technology. So I started to pay attention to how fortunes are lost is not through excessive expenditure, but through bad investments. Fear the Right Things. Microsoft Word. But there are limits to how well they'll be able to hire better programmers, because they'll attract only those who cared enough to learn it.

4 million a month to the rapacious founder after two years? They just don't want to seem like they had to make concessions. Perhaps a better solution is to assume that anything you've made is far short of what it might have been. If no one else will defend you, you have to publish it, and that's just as bad as the mid seventies. Perhaps a better solution is to look at the problem from the other end. When a company starts fighting over IP, it's a sign they've lost the real battle, for users. Startups usually win by making something so great that people recommend it to their friends.1 You generally apply for a broader patent than you think you'll be granted, and the startups are mostly schleps. True, but I don't think publishers can learn much from software. So while they're often nice guys, they just can't help it.

And not just from the technical community in general; a lot of users. So if you're the least bit inclined to find an excuse to quit, there's always some disaster happening.2 This essay is derived from a talk at the 2006 Startup School. Patent trolls are hard to fight precisely because they create nothing. Economically, the print media and the music labels simply overlooking this opportunity? There's nothing special about physical embodiments of control systems that should make them patentable, and the examiners reply by throwing out some of your claims and granting others. You can't even drive the thing yet, but 83,000 people came to sit in the driver's seat and hold the steering wheel. Technology trains leave the station at regular intervals. Startup acquisitions are usually a lot of mistakes.3 Cross out that final S and you're describing their business model.

Nothing is more likely to buy you than sue you. Experts can implement, but they can't design. Before central governments were powerful enough to enforce order, rich people had private armies. But different things matter to different people, and it's unclear whether anyone could be. If nuclear winter really is here, it may be safer to be a contrarian to be correct, and by that point the innovation that generated it has already happened. The startups we've funded so far are pretty quick, but they don't understand software yet. Most successful startups make that tradeoff unconsciously.4 And for programmers the paradox is even more pronounced: the language to learn, if you love life, don't waste time, because time is what life is made of. We tell the startups we fund not to worry about it, because a toll has to be more than new. If you grow to the point where anyone considers you worth attacking, you're doing well. Viaweb.5 In middle school and high school, what the other kids think of you seems the most important quality is in a startup.

If you had a handful of 8 peanuts, or a shelf of 8 books to choose from, the quantity would definitely seem limited, no matter how obscure you are now. I don't really blame Amazon for applying for the patent, but that has historically been a distinct business from publishing. You can lose quite a lot in the brains department and it won't kill you unless you let them. So I advise fatalism. Both make sense here.6 Every couple days I slip and call it Viaweb.7 Actually, it's more often don't worry about this; worry about that instead. I don't think they hamper innovation much. This is a little depressing.8 VCs should be trying to fund more of. When attacked, you were supposed to fight back, and there is something grand about that. Patent trolls are companies consisting mainly of lawyers whose whole business is to accumulate patents and threaten to sue companies who actually make things.

A mere 15 weeks. The truth is more boring: the state of the economy doesn't matter much either way. Perhaps we can split the difference and say that mobility gives hackers the luxury of being principled. Viaweb, and became Yahoo's when they bought us. I now had to think about something I hadn't had to think about something I hadn't had to think about something I hadn't had to think about something I hadn't had to think about before: how not to lose it. The optimal ways to make money by creating wealth, not by suing people. I was leaving I offered it to him, as I've done countless times before in the same situation. To make money the way software companies do, publishers would have to become software companies, and being publishers gives them no particular head start in that domain. If companies stuck to their initial plans, Microsoft would be selling printed circuit boards. It's more like saying I'm not going to apply for patents just because everyone else does. We tend to say yes to the second, but no smarter than you; they're not as motivated, because Google is not going to go out of business if this one product fails; and even at Google they have a lot of bureaucracy to slow them down.

There are several reasons it pays to get version 1 done fast. 9% of the people who thought during the Bubble all I have to keep repeating.9 It's easy to let the days rush by. So why do so many people complain about software patents stifling innovation, but when one looks closely at the software business I know from experience whether patents encourage or discourage innovation, and the content was what they were selling, and the startups are mostly schleps. But the breakage seems to affect software less than most other fields. You can lose quite a lot in the brains department and it won't kill you. It's ok to be optimistic about what you can see people doing. And one of the earliest sites with enough clout to force customers to log in before they could buy something.10 It seems to me the only limit would be the number of startups is not the criteria they use but that they always tend to focus on the goal of getting lots of users. This principle is very powerful.11 The American way is to make money from it indirectly, or find ways to embody it in things people will pay for information otherwise?

So it is with hacking: the more rewarding some kind of job. Well, founders aren't much better. A copy of Time costs $5 for 58 pages, or 8. Even now I think if you asked hackers to free-associate about Amazon, the one to choose is your growth rate to compensate. Some examples will make this clear. You don't need to be constantly reminding yourself why you shouldn't wait. But while I'd spent a lot of regulations.

Notes

To get all that matters, just as well as problems that have been the plague of 1347; the point of a company. I'm writing about one specific, rather than admitting he preferred to call all our lies lies. College English Departments Come From? Startups are businesses; the point of a place to exchange views.

And the reason this works is that the most abstract ideas, because they were already lots of type II startup, but you get paid much. Back when students focused mainly on getting a job after college, they compete on tailfins. Google will pay the most important section.

If the company.

VCs seem to have balked at this, on the firm's site, they're nice to you; you're too early really means is you're getting the stats for occurrences of foo in the same town, unless the person who would make good angel investors. The best thing for founders; if their kids to them about. In theory you could probably be to write an essay about why something isn't the last place in the case, is deliberately intended to be significantly pickier.

Particularly since many causes of the 800 highest paid executives at large companies. Surely it's better and it will become less common for the average NBA player's salary during the war, tax rates were highest: 14. For example, would increase the size of the latter case, not because it's a proxy for revenue growth.

If near you doesn't mean easy, of course it was wiser for them by the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914. This explains why such paintings are slightly more interesting than random marks would be more linear if all you have to admit there's no center to walk in with a degree that alarmed his family, that must mean you should prevent your investors from helping you to raise money succeeded, and how good they are to be about 50%. So far the only reason I say in principle is that it's no longer working to help a society generally is to how Henry Ford got started as a single VC investment that began with an online service.

I couldn't believe it, by doing another round that values the company, but half comes from. I say the rate of change in response to what you really need that recipe site or local event aggregator as much income.

The US News list tells us is what the rule of thumb, the reaction might be able to redistribute wealth successfully, because investors don't yet get what they're really saying is they want both. It was revoltingly familiar to slip back into it.

In a typical fund, half the companies that seem promising can usually get enough money from mediocre investors. So by agreeing to uncapped notes. Since most VCs aren't tech guys, the last thing you changed.

There is usually slow growth or excessive spending rather than trying to sell services than a nerdy founder trying to describe what's happening as merely not-too-demanding environment, but they hate hypertension.

The First Industrial Revolution, England was already the richest and most sophisticated city in the few cases where a great founder is being able to redistribute wealth successfully, because spam and legitimate mail volume both have distinct daily patterns.

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Anton van Straaten, Robert Morris, Geoff Ralston, and Jessica Livingston for their feedback on these thoughts.

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ganymedesclock · 5 years ago

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There’s so many interesting questions raised by Lace, though.

If we assume she’s the one who broke Hornet’s seal- which looks likely given the white fly that did so is the same as the ones that she’s ‘conducting’ when she talks to Hornet, and given that she knows Hornet arrived in a cage...

Her immediate willingness to end Hornet’s life to prevent her from reaching the top, even if she seems to bear Hornet little ill will / her saccharine trash talk doesn’t seem to be hiding genuine revulsion or hatred, would suggest she hardly did so for Hornet’s benefit.

So Lace is acting on, presumably, her own agenda here. The way she talks to Hornet certainly sounds like her decisions aren’t coming from anyone else’s, and musically, her being depicted as a conductor suggests her associates, as the demo mentioned she’s part of a group (presumably, Sharpe’s gang), might actually be subordinates who she is directing, much as she is those butterflies.

Since a conductor is generally someone called upon to preside over a band with multiple individual players- but while they might all be looking at the sheet music, the conductor is the one they’re reading all their cues from. We don’t know if Sharpe et. al have overt musical motifs of their own, but, if Lace did free Hornet, that suggests a certain penchant for acting from afar by proxy- certainly the tactics of someone with subordinates and a sense of delegation.

But this all would seem to suggest Lace is in direct conflict with the Bell Cultists- who appear to be deeply entrenched in Pharloom, possibly being the soldiers of the citadel, and, thus, the kingdom. Since the bell cultists seemed to want to ferry Hornet all the way into Pharloom and right up to the top- the way her cage is positioned on the cart, she’s being presented like an offering, more a material good for delivery than a hostage or prisoner.

Lace makes it clear when she and Hornet meet face to face that she sees herself as sparing Hornet the agony of the top. To a certain degree, she seems to enjoy toying with Hornet- she’s gleeful when Hornet tells Lace to fight her- but she’s also actively saying that she thinks Hornet is better off dead than whatever fate the bell cultists seem to have intended her. Which would certainly explain the nature of Lace’s ‘help’ early on- she, didn’t exactly follow up once the cage fell to see if Hornet made it out, given she remarks on Hornet’s escape with surprise. Her objective there was to interrupt the delivery- make sure it didn’t reach its destination. Wherever else Hornet went was inconsequential to Lace, it seems.

While Lace in some ways seems a very deliberate echo of where Hornet was in the previous game-

Right down to, if we presume Deep Docks is the second area unlocked after the Moss Grotto, then, Lace being the boss of Deep Docks would line up with Hornet being introduced as the boss of Greenpath, the second area of Hollow Knight-

-this certainly suggests she’s a bit more proactive. Hornet only attacked Ghost because she caught sight of them following her, and led them to an arena of her choosing to confront them and defeat them. Her only real conversation in the matter is to make her judgment of the situation clear, and then go for the kill.

Lace, conversely, has a larger game plan and the majority of her eye is on that. At this point, she’s not really considering Hornet a piece on the board, it seems- just an obstruction to remove. That’s probably going to change given Hornet thwarted her assassination attempt. But she’s proactive in setting this situation up- she’s unsurprised when Hornet arrives at the Deep Docks stage, which could suggest Lace was waiting for her, or it could suggest that Lace is simply not easily ruffled by new developments.

Either way, Lace seems like she’s trying to manipulate the situation a great deal, and she’s much more focused on some other enemy. Hornet at this point matters to her in the sense of making sure her enemy doesn’t get Hornet- she’s not really bothering to think that much about what Hornet herself wants, except a sort of backhanded insinuation that Hornet very much does not want the kingdom’s peak.

We really don’t know who’s up at the Citadel. Presumably, the ruler of the kingdom- possibly the “heart” spoken of in the poem, but I would presume not, because they hardly seem “bound in slumber and servitude” if they’re demanding timed deliveries of metal, coal, and the fealty of all of their workers. If they’re the one whose figurative voice is ringing through the endless, endless bells of the kingdom, then they have immense power here.

On the other hand, if they’re also driving the entire kingdom towards an objective, they may indeed be bound one way or another, and are actively working towards their freedom, the ‘waking’ spoken of in the poem.

Either way, someone in Pharloom has an enormous amount of power, is consuming the labor of countless subordinates, likely the nexus of the haunting that’s overtaken the kingdom since it’s working so charmingly in their favor. (Forge Daughter noting that all of her colleagues have lost themselves- but are still doing their jobs perfectly)

And Lace seems to be fighting that individual. Which is, interesting because much as Hornet doesn’t like Lace at this point, that dislike is basically reactionary. Hornet was pretty prickly and bellicose in Hollow Knight, and Silksong is exploring a whole new dimension on that- it’s pretty clear Hornet hates the idea of being threatened, bullied, or pressed into anything. She retaliates in an extremely destructive manner against the caravan as soon as she’s able to, attempts to threaten the Church Keeper on the idea that the other might be a threat even if Hornet can barely stand at the moment- and her dialogue towards Lace furthers this.

Lace threatened her, and Hornet outright says, “if you are my enemy,” to quit dancing around the point and put that shiny weapon of hers to use. Her only enmity towards Lace is just, “if you mean me badly, then act on it. if you don’t, don’t talk like you do.”

Which is one big reason I don’t think they’re going to stay enemies. Lace doesn’t hate Hornet because she doesn’t really care about Hornet. The only real opinion she has so far is that she likes the cut of Hornet’s jib. This seems to be a move Lace is making against a different opponent, where their actions mean everything to her, and Hornet’s actions haven’t really distinguished themselves yet.

Hornet doesn’t like Lace because Lace threatened her, and Hornet is obstinate in the face of threats, or perceived threats, or anything that seems like it might be dangerous. Honestly it just seems like Hornet is the equivalent of an angry cat. Nobody gets to touch her if they want to keep their fingers attached, unless she has personally decided it’s okay, and if you even come near her when she hasn’t signed off on it you’re on thin fuckin’ ice.

And ultimately, I feel like just from what we know tenuously about Lace and her enigmatic enemy, Hornet’s likelier to take Lace’s side than the others’. Hornet is the last person who’d sign off on something like Pharloom’s haunting and the way it appears to seize and overwrite the personalities of its afflicted. This is too much like the plague, that Hornet was actively willing to give her own life in the service of stopping.

Lace isn’t exactly spotless, here, but, she hasn’t crossed any lines Hornet herself has proven willing to cross in terms of a worthy cause. Hornet was willing to murder one of her half-siblings in cold blood, even when she finds the vessels’ plight upsetting and not something they deserve (she calls Hollow “birth-cursed”) just to avoid Ghost potentially unsealing the Radiance. So with a broader understanding, I don’t think Hornet would begrudge Lace trying to run her through.

But like... if Lace hates, presumably, Pharloom’s royalty, or whoever else is up there at the Citadel, then why? The obvious answer is fixing the haunting, but, if it’s as easy as just getting the drop on her enemy and making with the stabbing, Lace probably wouldn’t hesitate. It’s entirely likely, given what of the game’s themes have been revealed to us, that Lace is herself bound to a role in some way, which might explain why, unlike the very direct Hornet, Lace is a lot more cloak and dagger about her operations- she has no problem being candid to Hornet, because she was under the impression Hornet wouldn’t survive the conversation, and, besides which, a foreigner probably isn’t going to have the context to blab Lace’s movements to the right person to get Lace in trouble.

This is a lot of conjecture, obviously, but, that’s just one potential angle to take to this. What’s up with you, Lace.

#Hollow Knight #Silksong #Lace #silksong spoilers #readmore

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brazenautomaton · 5 years ago

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My Libertarian Principles

idk for some reason I feel like I should explain my political views because... because idk. I think we need to stick a lot closer to libertarian principles, but anarcho-capitalism is not the solution.

this gets long and rambly

I like the free market. The free market, and capitalism, are extremely good things. I am pretty sure I heard that the invention of the smart phone has helped the Third World more than all the foreign aid money the US has ever spent, and I believe it, because the ability to coordinate isn’t free! I also believe that people make incredibly bad decisions most of the time. Capitalism is good because it says “Hey, anyone who identifies a problem or need? You go ahead and try to address that, and if you happen across a good idea by accident, people will reward you for it and emulate you.”

People making bad decisions is not a case for government regulations to force them not to make bad decisions, because government regulators ALSO make bad decisions. And then those bad decisions get locked in and everyone has to follow them. With one set of regulations, the odds that “someone accidentally had a good idea” is much lower. The regulations become calcified and eternal because there is much less feedback of “this is not working and you are failing try something else”. They are subject to Goodhart’s Law like whoa, using imperfect and gameable proxies to measure imperfect and gameable proxies..

One example is things like OSHA. OSHA is supposed to keep people safe on the job. This is a good thing that we like! But OSHA regulations can’t say “Make sure people are safe”. How do you define safe? How do we define safe? What’s a reasonable expectation? You can’t answer shit that fuzzy with black-letter law. So OSHA has a bunch of very specific regulations on individual types of workplace and equipment. You need railings everywhere and they need to be this high and they need to be this far from the wall. You need to store everything capable of this kind of reaction in a container this thick. Eye wash stations need to be every X feet. Et cetera, et cetera. There are a lot of regulations, they are not always clear or in the same place, they are expensive to ensure compliance with, the overwhelming majority of them don’t make anyone any safer, the ones that DO sometimes make people safer cannot adapt to situations or conditions, and it leads to obviously absurd outcomes like “you have to treat water as a hazardous material”. It’s not a good system.

Libertarian OSHA, an idea I bring up because it really stuck with me how clever it is, is “There are no regulations on workplace safety or construction whatsoever. Anytime someone dies or is injured in your workplace, even if it clearly is not your fault, you pay us fifty million fucking dollars. If you do not want to pay fifty million fucking dollars when people keel over from heart attacks or commit suicide or die in ways that aren’t your fault at all, well, then you should get some employee death insurance. Those employee death insurance companies would then be incentivized to inspect your workplace and ensure it’s actually safe, instead of if it adheres to an arbitrary list of criteria that are an imperfect proxy for an imperfect proxy for safety.” So, should we institute Libertarian OSHA? Well, that’s the thing.

My philosophy is “The free market will solve everything... eventually.”

Because the free market is people not being actively prevented from solving their problems, people will keep trying things to solve a given problem until they happen upon it. But seeing what works takes time. The first thing probably won’t work, because people make bad decisions. It takes time for someone to chance upon a good decision by accident. Once they do, it takes time to prove itself. Once it does, it takes time for everyone to adopt it.

So in once sense it is unfair to go up to ancaps and say “Well what will you do about contract disputes” and make them say “well uh uh private contract syndicates that are voluntarily joined!” and look dumb. Because the point of the free market solving problems is, you’re an idiot, we’re all idiots, someone is going to have a good idea by accident, we don’t know what that’s gonna look like because we’re morons.

But in the time it takes people to figure out “oh hey, this is a really good system we can use to arbitrate disputes without a government” once it is invented, that need for dispute resolution will go unmet. And that could cause a lot of heartache and misery and destruction in the meantime.

The poor have no healthcare? There are a lot of poor people so serving them is in fact a very good idea to make money (Walmart, big evil corporation, got so huge because it served poor people). Usually it’s onerous regulations that make it a bad idea to serve poor people. So there is a need there, and there is an incentive to address it, and as long as we’re not actively preventing people from solving the problem (like when we got very upset that HMOs, which kept costs down by not paying for extremely rare or experimental treatments or treatments with low success rate, were not paying for experimental treatments or treatments with a low success rate, so we made them stop providing affordable health coverage altogether), someone is going to eventually find a way to address that problem because they get rewarded if they do. But until someone does come up with that solution and it gets widely spread around, a LOT of poor people in Ancapistan are going to die from lack of healthcare.

So that is why I am not an ancap. In theory, Ancapistan will eventually arrive at an optimal solution for everything. But no it won’t because in the time it takes to solve those problems things are gonna get really really bad and the free market’s solution to shit being awful is going to be “make this stop being ancapistan” and then the state is going to exist and will start micromanaging people’s lives because that’s human nature.

So that’s why I think we need a state, but it should adhere to libertarian principles. There are things where it is actually valid to say “Yes, the free market could find a solution to this eventually. But we as a society are not willing to pay the cost in lives and unhappiness that it would take to give the market time to sort that out.”

But the thing is, a state with libertarian principles needs to A: be aware that they are doing this, that when they make decisions it is to put into place a bad and inefficient system so we won’t have to pay the staggering human cost of waiting for the good one. This means “I don’t like that people do this, there ought to be a law” is not sufficient grounds to make a regulation. This means you need to be aware that there are a lot of times you can see people hurting, or being exploited, and you should not intervene because you should know by now that your intervention will make it worse.

And B: a state with libertarian principles should, whenever possible, allow the free market to still have the chance to come up with a better solution. This is why I am for the public option. People need healthcare. The government says “Okay, everyone needs healthcare. So here is this insurance plan we have, everyone can join it, but because we’re the government it’s kind of a crappy plan. If anyone else can provide a better plan, you can go ahead and do that. If you can’t provide a plan that’s better than this crappy government plan, well then fuck you you deserve to fail.”

So Libertarian OSHA needs one more step to work. All the onerous, shitty OSHA regulations that are expensive to comply with and don’t really make people safer are still there, in one book, but OSHA is now OSHIA. Occupational Health and Safety Insurance Administration. If you comply with those shitty, costly regulations, then you’re covered by the OSHIA plan, and our adjusters will gauge your premiums accordingly, and you don’t have to pay fifty million fucking dollars when someone dies or is injured. But if someone comes along and has a better idea of what keeps people safe, that takes less money to comply with than OSHIA’s regulations, then you can join their plan and not care about OSHIA’s rules at all.

There are legitimate purposes of a state with libertarian principles. Sometimes, solving coordination problems is a very good thing that a state can do because it creates shit-tons of value that can’t be effectively captured by the coordinator as a reward. The fact that we have roads and a postal service enables great amounts of economic growth, but the road-makers can’t be effectively paid for it (toll roads suck and are only profitable in high-traffic areas, but we want roads to connect everywhere), and the postal service is allowed to have competitors who can offer to do a better job than the postal service. But again, you gotta *know that is what you are doing*. You can’t just say “People need something, the government will give it to them!” and you certainly shouldn’t do the thing America does where it goes “People need something, so the government won’t provide it but WILL tell other people they also can’t provide it!” You need to be saying “People need something, and the government will facilitate their ability to serve their own needs.”

Libertarian principles mean you know what the government should intervene in, why it has to do so, and only do so when warranted, cognizant of the fact that your interference is by necessity deforming incentives and taking away people’s ability to solve their own problems better than you can. (Even Libertarian OSHA creates deformed incentives; namely to cover up deaths or injuries in your workplace. Not sure how to solve that.) You can’t create regulation because you’re upset or you think you know better than people. Money isn’t fake. Money is resources, and the freedom to expend one’s own resources however they need to is a vital freedom for human beings. You can’t just blow off the consequences of your regulations because “pfft, it’s just money, you care too much about money, something something capitalism greed”. Increased costs have a cost.

You can’t say we need to end the drug war, and then advocate for a bunch more policies that are driven by that same “I know better, I should make decisions for them, they aren’t using their resources the way I want them to!” impulse.

Like let’s look at a justified case of state intervention. Segregation. Now the free market could have absolutely solved segregation in the South, because refusing to deal with a significant portion of society means you’re just leaving a lot of money on the table and businesses that leave money on the table will fail compared to businesses that don’t. The incentives of capitalism are not to discriminate because the Almighty Dollar doesn’t discriminate. But even without existing bigots being able to enlist the state to enforce their bigotry, it would take a long time -- multiple generations -- for the money you get from serving the whole population to outweigh the penalty of going against the social system and the customers you lose from that. That’s much too long to ask people to live in an area that hates them and discriminates against them, and though there may be a more market-based solution to the problem (”you can discriminate all you want but it’s gonna fuckin’ cost ya until you give up on it of your own free will” and “you can discriminate all you want but also we just pay for black people to leave so they don’t have to put up with your bullshit” are xamples) they also have their own serious problems, and it was a legitimate reason for a state, even one with libertarian principles, to intervene.

But the intervention didn’t stop at what was necessary, it didn’t do the bare minimum to allow people to solve the problem themselves or nudge incentives so that they were encouraged to solve the problem. One of the most egregious examples was “busing”, which was the practice of assigning kids to schools outside of the school district where they lived, so as to achieve a better mix of racial integration in each school. This was one of the shittiest ideas ever and everyone who was actually affected by the system despised it -- you had to get up super fucking early and get home super fucking late because your bus ride to a distant school was way too long, and when you got there, you were surrounded by people you didn’t fucking know and couldn’t hang out with because they loved too far away and this was an era where kids played with neighborhood kids! So you got to be exhausted and lonely and miserable so someone else could nod approvingly at the racial percentage of the school. It didn’t help at all and just built resentment. That’s the easiest, most uncontroversial example of how legitimate reasons for intervention easily go too far. The regulators and those demanding change, as they often do, completely ignored what the costs to affected people would be because We Know Better. And they thought their job was to change people’s minds, instead of to allow people to solve their problems, so they piled on more feel-good policies that did nothing but hinder people. That’s the kind of restraint and self-knowledge I am talking about when I talk about having libertarian principles. “It sure would be nice if people of different races got exposed to each other more and felt more comfortable around each other. But doing that is not my job, and I know I won’t be able to do it well, so I’m just here to ensure people aren’t actively causing harm and have opportunities to solve their own problems.”

#long #politics #personal

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retail-hell · 5 years ago

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Short stories of working at Jo-Ann’s.

• I’m a crafter, and I’m not 100% familiar with all of our fabrics and sewing items. Which by proxy means I don’t know how to sew in any way except for how to make a pillowcase like I learned in 8th grade. I had a lady come in and I’m back up register so I’m available to help so I offered help when she said she had a question. She proceeded to badger me on how to make a dress. I told her I’m not familiar with how, but one of my managers (who does drag and makes BEAUTIFUL dresses) is. “I saw him earlier but I don’t know if he’s still here. You make go back to the cutting counter to see or ask.” She’s huffy I won’t follow her (I’m clearly doing an important project). She comes back to ask when he works next. I saw I don’t know, I don’t know his schedule. She turns red and leaves.

• Around the start of Black Friday sales ( the first time around, I just made it one year) I was put to train on the cut counter. I’ve done a couple simple cuts before to help out. But I was only trained for less than an hour before I was needed at the register. SM scheduled me for counter my next shift and I was immediately overwhelmed by the line, what people wanted cut, I literally didn’t know what I was doing, it was just me and one other person who was already cutting so she couldn’t teach me, no one could, and I was eventually sent to the back to take care of my first massive panic attack in years. I’m still a little traumatized and have refused to cut since.

• Our store doesn’t sell sewing machines. Instead we have an independent stored that rents floor space from us to sell sewing machines and their other various items. They close at 6, it is 6:10, they are gone, and a lady comes to the register with three of their items and one of ours. Here’s how the conversation went:

ME: Sorry ma’am, I can’t sell you these three items. They are not ours.

LADY: What do you mean? They’re in your store and I need them.

ME: They belong to the independent store in the carpeted area. Their barcodes are made clearly different, and we cannot sell them. You can come back tomorrow to get them. They unfortunately closed at 6.

LADY: You don’t understand, I need them for a project I have to finish tonight. Can I just give you money in and envelope to leave for them.

ME: Logically and morally I cannot do that, ma’am. It would be categorized as stealing as I can’t sell another store’s items.

LADY: You know what? I’ll find someone else to help me.

She proceeds to take all items. Throws the one that was ours onto a random shelf as I watched. Screaming that it was terrible customer service for not doing what she asked. (And as I learned after she left) Yelled at my manager for saying the exact same thing I did, angry that she too wouldn’t steal from another store for her. Then power walked out in a huff. That same manager asked me if she bought anything else, worried she’d leave a stupid survey that would hurt our scores. I simply said no she only wanted those.

• All the customers that complain that our fabrics is a mess and our store is a “mess” are the same ones doing it because we all watched them.

• Bless the few mothers that actually control their kids, instead of letting them run around the store using anything and everything as a toy. Such as the family that let their kids break a big glass vase and proceeded to tell no one. But said “oh at that was us” when a manager found them still looking in that area.

• I had a woman tell me that all of our gift cards were disgusting and that she was super mad that we didn’t have birthday themed ones, nor did we have envelopes for them.

• Customers that say “Oh it was this way not too long ago” and roll their eyes when I say “oh well it’s been like this since before I started working here over year ago and when I shopped here before then”

• “The packaging is a little damaged, can I get a discount?

• All of the empty packaging hidden and plainly visible we see all over the store. Clearance, regular, and sometimes empty bolts stuffed into fabric clearance.

• (I was here this day but I know the story) One day, receiving a large truck load, there was a woman looking for an item that wasn’t on the shelf. She then took it upon herself to go into our freight room to look through boxes and totes for her item. One of the managers eventually yelled at her, threw the tote the lady was looking in at that moment out the door, and slammed it shut when she had followed it.

• One lady was looking for an extremely large sized pillow. And was mad that I told her we don’t carry it instead of looking for it. (I was the only one on register are pillows are in the back.) She said she would call back later to ask again. She never did.

• One much older gentleman (who seemed to have a ferret up his but the moment he came into the store) was first angry that he had to take a number to ask for help because it was busy at the counter. It was empty at the register I really don’t know why he didn’t ask me. He refused to have our female manager help him. He turned the male manager, who was cutting for someone else, to ask him for a pattern for a robe. He was told where and how to find them, as my managers were too busy to leave the counter. The gentleman proceeds to just come up to the register. At the same time counter person came back from lunch. MM ran to help me at the register since there was now a rush. The gentleman comes to me and asks if I’m the manager. I say “no it’s the gentleman next m-”. MM interrupting “yes me and the woman in the back.” The gentleman decided to ignore my manager and complain to me like I’m the manager and can do anything about it. Then asks if I can help him find the pattern. I tell him the exact same thing and apologized that I could not leave as we don’t have the people to cover the line. He turns around, fuming, but following my directions. We get through the line and I’m sent to lunch just as the gentleman comes back and he stares at me as I come out from behind the counter, turning as I went around him. “I’m terribly sorry sir but I have to go lunch now as we behind”. His response was to huff and slam the pattern book he had on the register counter my manager was at. Yelling at him to find it. He did, the gentleman then left.

• One time I was trying to get to the register to help out. But I was stuck behind a gaggle of later 20-early 30s women moving two steps at time, blocking the whole walkway between the aisle. They scoffed at me as I said “pardon me” and squeezed between them.

• Hearing “do you work here?” ten times a day, wearing the bright green apron, having all the gear, and doing my job.

• “I found this on your website, why can’t I find it here?!” Clearly says online only or not available in my store.

• Over Christmas a lady tried to return a Christmas light necklace without a receipt, that was clearly different in design and packaging of what we had on display right next to us, claiming she bought it last week. No you didn’t honey.

• We’re still working on a mega huge yarn reset, and there is nothing but complaints about the boxes in the aisles when they should know by now that we obviously don’t have a back room based on the up stock shelves and that we don’t have enough people because they definitely would’ve been working on getting the yarn out.

There’s more than just customer stories though.

• we had 8 stackout fixtures, they took away four, ands expect us to have 20 set

Be creative!

•magazines were moved to right in front of registers, dropping magazine sales, queue item sales, and causing traffic jams when we busy and people are shopping the magazines.

Be creative!

• we are literally drowning in clearance, we have to have it throughout the store including on queue panels, even though they started wanted us to set 11 queue panels months ago with us only really having 10

Be creative!

• they sent over 50 planograms to be done in one week and as I far as I’ve heard that was legit and not an accident which is ridiculous. Being as hours has been cut so much there had only been one or two people able to work in planograms in general

Be creative!

• sending a million sequin ty animals of all sizes to be set in a tiny display and a million boxes of each type of seasonal candy and only giving tiny sections put it. Such as the Easter candy stackout that had three different peeps in one two foot basket and sending five boxes of each one

Be creative!

I don’t understand how much more creative we can get when it feels like our store is getting smaller and smaller as fixtures are taken away or filled and boxes of overstock just keep coming. I love my job, it’s just extremely frustrating how the uppers and customers are treating us.

#joanns is a special kind of hell #retail worker #working retail #retail hell #retail stories #retail #submission

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ober-affen-geil · 6 years ago

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Now that we have wrapped up the season, I know a lot of people will be filling the Roswell-sized hole with some fanfic. As someone who comes from a military family, and an Air Force one at that, I thought I could lay out a few things for those wanting to write fic that expands on the military aspect of the show. If anyone has questions more specific than what I put here, just ask and I will answer to the best of my ability!

*Please do note that I do not have a history of military service. All of this is stuff I picked up by proxy, if someone tells you something that is counter to what I’ve written here please listen to them and/or double check. This is meant for ficwriting purposes and nothing more in depth than that.*

- First things first. So far as I can tell, Jesse and Alex Manes are in the Air Force. Flint Manes is in the Army. The two are not interchangeable terms, they are completely separate branches. If you need an all-purpose term use “military”; it covers all the branches (Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard). They are also proper nouns, they should be capitalized. (Cam has stated she has a military background, but says nothing else about it. So we have no clues as to her branch or rank.) - “Soldiers” is an all-purpose term used to describe members of the Army. It should not be used to describe members of the Air Force, that term is “airmen” or “airman” if you want singular. (”Sailor” is for the Navy and “marine” is for the Marines. Not sure about the Coast Guard.) So Flint is a soldier, Alex and Jesse are airmen.

- The Air Force actually developed out of the Army. It was originally the US Army Air Forces and was not declared a separate branch until after WWII, in September of 1947. (The original Roswell incident happened in mid 1947 and official reports state it was actually an Army Air Forces weather balloon that crashed. Do with this information what you will.)

- Character ranks are as follows. (I did not use the ranks from the pilot as those are different from later in the series; pilots tend to have a little weirdness and don’t necessarily reflect actual arcs or details as the series goes on.) Here are further rank references for the Army and the Air Force. - Jesse Manes is a Chief Master Sergeant (CMSgt). This is an “enlisted” rank, an E-9 to be specific. He is an NCO (noncommissioned officer or noncom) which is a fancy way of saying he has authority but does not outrank officers. - Flint Manes is a Sergeant First Class (SFC). This is also an enlisted rank, an E-7. He is also an NCO. I’m not sure of all the intricacies of the chain of command, but I know that in situations where multiple military branches are operating concurrently, personnel need to respect the lateral comparison of ranks. Therefore, as an E-7 in the Army, Flint is technically laterally outranked by Jesse, who is an E-9 in the Air Force. - Alex Manes is a Captain (Capt). This is an “officer” rank, an O-3. It can also be described as a “commissioned officer” which is above an NCO. (Note, you do not abbreviate “commissioned officer” as CO, that stands for “commanding officer”. Idk it’s stupid.) And yes, this means that Alex outranks his father. - A note about “commissioning”. This is the main difference between officers and enlisted: an enlisted member literally “enlists” in the military, an officer commissions. This is why an NCO is called that, they are still “enlisted” personnel so they have not “commissioned”, but they are given command of units like officers. - A note about officers vs enlisted. While enlisted members certainly can be promoted to officer status, it is important to know that O-1 is also an entry point into the military. If you go to a military academy (different ones for different branches) or go through an ROTC program in college (the acronym stands for “reserved officer training corps”) you start as an O-1, the lowest officer rank in your branch. (In the Air Force it’s a Second Lieutenant, informally called a “butter bar” because of the color of the rank insignia). It is not uncommon for career military members who are well on their way to retirement to be enlisted and therefore outranked by people decades younger than them. I would personally bet my eyeteeth that all of the Manes family started from the bottom and worked their way up through the enlisted ranks, Jesse Manes at E-9 is pretty much as high an enlisted rank as you can get in the Air Force and is about right for someone his age who is career military. Same goes for Flint. I am operating under the assumption that Alex entered right out of high school, so he’s been in for 10 years. He’s apparently a Big Damn Hero (see next section) so it’s not surprising that he has been promoted to Captain in that time.

- Medals and decorations. We know nothing about anyone’s except Alex’s so I’ll be going into detail only on his. A note first, while there are literal medals that are given out, they are most commonly actually worn in the form of “ribbons” which are tiny rectangles about an inch long and the width of your little finger that are pinned to left side of the wearer’s chest when in a dress uniform. They stack in order of “significance”, and you can tell them apart because they are all colored and striped uniquely to mean certain things. (Fun fact, a “plate” of ribbons all stacked together on a person is informally referred to as their “fruit salad”. No, I’m not kidding.) They are also not as big a deal (mostly) as you might think, a lot of the ribbons airmen earn are actually just for the general course of duty. A well-versed person can take one look at someone else’s ribbons and know exactly when and where they served and what operations they have been a part of. - It is mentioned that Alex was put in for the Air Force Medal and the Air Force Cross, but it does not say that he was actually awarded either. (The Air Force Medal does not exist, I am going to assume they meant “Airman’s Medal”.) Both involve “heroic acts” but the Airman’s Medal is a “lower” honor because it does not involve actual combat. The Air Force Cross on the other hand is a Big Fucking Deal, it is second only to the Medal of Honor which is a Really Big Fucking Deal. Here are more details on the Airman’s Medal and the Air Force Cross. Again, we do not know for sure that Alex has actually been the recipient of either of these medals, but the fact that he was put in for them means that his CO at some point thought he had earned them. - As someone who has been wounded (I assume) in action, Alex also most certainly has a Purple Heart. Another note on ribbons, if a specific ribbon has been earned more than once it is marked by adding “oakleaf clusters” to the ribbon, one for each additional award. So a Purple Heart with one oakleaf cluster technically equals two Purple Hearts. So far as we know in canon, Alex has one. - Again, I am making the assumption that Alex joined the Air Force out of high school, which means he has been in since 2008. He has therefore most likely been a part of Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, Operation Inherent Resolve, and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel; and he would have campaign ribbons for each. - Additional ribbons/decorations would include unit citations and such, find more about various military awards here.

- Because we know Alex was a code breaker, he may have been classified as either Intelligence or Cyberspace Operations, but he is now operating in the Security Forces after his injury. We know that Flint is a Weapons Specialist, but I’m not sure about Jesse. He may also be Security Forces.

- Alex has mentioned he is going to be “honorably discharged” soon, this is one way to exit military service. (Note, if you serve for more than 20 years you are not discharged, you retire. Jesse is probably on track for retirement.) There are a few levels of discharge for the US Armed Forces, find more details here. - An honorable discharge is basically given to people who did dun good; they have either completed their tours in good standing or otherwise would have had something not happened to them to prevent it. (Like losing a limb.) Anything less than an honorable discharge is Not Good and can and will affect the recipient in civilian life. - There are a few in between these two, but I’m just going to list a dishonorable discharge here and let the curious do their own research through the link above. A dishonorable discharge is Super Fucking Bad and in a lot of states is regarded as equivalent to a felony conviction. This type of discharge can only be given by a general court martial, and to earn it you have to seriously fuck up, like commit treason or murder.

- When it comes to “classified” information, your access depends on your security clearance. We have no hints as to what the clearance of any of the characters are, but we know that Alex was a code breaker so it’s probably safe to assume his is pretty high. Flint’s is probably also pretty high given the types of weapons he is working with, and Jesse also potentially has a high level given his involvement with Project Shepard. (Although that has apparently been running unauthorized for a while so idk.) - The US has three levels, from lowest to highest: Confidential, Secret, Top Secret. Find more information about the levels here.

- Generally speaking, the relations between service branches is that of friendly competition. Like different sports teams or sibling rivalry. Every branch of course believes it is the superior one, and service members will frequently josh each other about the various “failings” of each one. All the branches have their stereotypes and nicknames. I’ve heard “grunts” for Army, “flyboys” for Air Force, “squids” for Navy, and “jarheads” for Marines. If the branches were people stereotypes: Marines are dumb jock gym-bro types, the Navy is prissy (white dress uniforms I mean come on), the Air Force is lazy (heh “chair force” ha ha), the Army is full of try-hards who wanted to be in the Marines but weren’t “good enough” (not true), and the Coast Guard is the red-headed step child who is either “too good” to associate fully with the others or can’t keep up depending on who you talk to. In reality the branches are all apples and oranges, here’s a quick overview. - Army: ground troops/support. Infantry, artillery, calvary, paratroopers, that kind of stuff. Their motto is “This we’ll defend” and their song is “The Army goes rolling along”. - Air Force: air troops/support. Planes and pilots of all sorts and weather forcasting. Their motto is “Aim high...Fly-fight-win” and their song is “The US Air Force”. - Navy: water troops/support. Boats and ships out the wazoo and some pilots. Their (unofficial) motto is “Semper Fortis” meaning always strong and their song is “Anchors Aweigh”. - Marines: technically the Marines are a branch of the Navy. (It is not a good idea to tell a marine this.) The Marines are essentially the initial landing force troops; it’s not pleasant but they’re basically cannon fodder. Their motto is “Semper Fidelis” meaning always faithful and their song is “Marine’s Hymn”. - Coast Guard: in times of war, the Coast Guard acts as a branch of the Navy. In peacetime they are under the Department of Homeland Security. They are basically the boat police (don’t tell them I said that), and also do search and rescue. Their motto is “Semper Paratus” and their song is also “Semper Paratus”.

- Jodies. These are essentially marching songs or chants designed to help people keep in step. They are mostly used when drilling, or for infantry troops when they aren’t trying to be covert. There’s a whole lot of them and some of them can get pretty filthy, but there are a few that are “grand traditions”, like “Blood upon the risers” which is sung to the tune of “Battle hymn of the republic”. (It’s about a paratrooper whose chute doesn’t open. It doesn’t end well.) Some of them have been adapted for camp settings, like “Gee ma, I wanna go home”, but every branch has their own special ones and words are often changed around to fit the unit. This is a general overview of the tradition, find examples of some Air Force ones here and here.

- There are a whole bunch of different uniforms that I can get into but I won’t here, this is a good resource for Air Force for the more detail minded. Suffice it to say there are two main ones to know, the service dress and combat uniform. - Service dress is the mid-level fancy uniform, in the Air Force it’s also called “blues” or “dress blues” because they are blue. This is basically the equivalent of a suit. Service members can wear this to civilian events as well, one member of my family actually refuses to buy a civilian suit because he claims any event he goes to where he has to wear a suit, he can get away with wearing his blues. (He hates suits.) Members can also wear these after they retire. - Combat uniforms are the everyday service wear, usually in a camouflage pattern of some kind. They’re informally called “fatigues”. The military is actually surprisingly finicky about this sort of stuff, and there are specific acronyms for specific patterns and none of them are allowed to be the same. It’s a mess. The Air Force is currently in the middle of transitioning, the official name for the new uniform is the Airman Combat Uniform (ACU) and the pattern is Operation Camouflage Pattern (OCP).

- The US Military has been around a while, and there are a few things it is really good at because they learned the hard way. - Discipline. This is going to sound very harsh and dehumanizing (because it is), but in boot camp the entire goal is to break people of independence and foster group cohesion. But there is a reason why. You have to remember, every training exercise is designed around the idea that these people will be in active combat. You cannot question orders or do your own thing in active combat, you will die or worse, your unit will die. Boot camp is designed to turn you from a person into a cog in a machine, because humans cannot function in life or death combat scenarios. Machine cogs can. - Moral. War is a mind game. Troops in good spirits handle stress better than troops in bad spirits, it is a fact of life. So as much as everyone complains about it, the military is pretty good about making sure deployed members have a way to contact their families at home. Phone banks, computer banks, snail mail, the works. And I’ve heard a story from one family member about the higher-ups keeping track of who isn’t getting mail, and encouraging people to share care packages with them. - Dependents. These are immediate family of service members, usually spouses and/or children. A spouse is a dependent for as long as they are married, a child is a dependent until 26. The military considers dependents to be their personal responsibility. Widows and widowers will receive their spouse’s pension and benefits until they themselves die. There are support groups out the wazoo for family members. - Next of kin notification. The military has many strict regulations that it follows pretty closely for this kind of stuff. You can find a good rundown here. Fortunately I have no personal experience with this, but I believe the same principles apply for wounded in action as well as killed.

- It is an option for families of service members to hang a type of small flag in a window that has a blue star on it for every member of family in the military. (Blue star on a white field with a red border, hung horizontally.) If one of those members dies in the service, the star is changed to gold. People who have lost members of their family in active duty are therefore called “gold star families”. - The ribbon color to wear in support of the military is yellow. We tied a big yellow ribbon on one of our trees in the front yard when one of my family members was on deployment, but it can be as small as a pin as well.

- A note on the general attitude of service members regarding their service and the dangers of what they do. Almost every one I have encountered thinks of their military service as a job that they volunteered for. They are not in it for the glory, they don’t demand to be thanked, and any injury they may have is regarded as an unfortunate result of the hazards of their job. Alex’s flippant line about “doing it for the attention” when Liz thanks him for his service is not only funny and character informing, it’s also typical. His injury happened as a result of his service, it’s a matter of course. One of my immediate family members tells me he always accepts when people thank him for his service, but he personally does it on behalf of the service members who are not able to (KIA, MIA, or past veterans.) He also then thanks that person for their support.

- Dog tags. These are identification tags worn by all members of the military. In the US, each of the branches have slightly different layouts (find details here) but all contain the same basic information. First and last name, social security number, branch of service, blood type, and religion. The main purpose of these is for identifying bodies or rendering aid to wounded; rank is not listed because it’s not important in those situations, and it changes frequently enough that it’s not practical to reissue tags just for that. (Blood type is listed to help medical personnel aid the wounded, religion is listed so that in the event of death services can be conducted appropriately.)

- Small arms handling and hand-to-hand combat. Every service member, regardless of specialty, is trained in how to handle guns and how to fight in close quarters. (They’re not called the armed forces for nothing.) - Basic gun safety is to treat every weapon as though it is loaded at all times, never aim a weapon at anything you don’t intend to shoot, and don’t put your finger on the trigger unless you are prepared to fire. It should be noted that when Alex disarms Flint and turns his service weapon on him, Alex is not practicing trigger safety. He is fully ready to discharge that gun from the second he has it in his hands, which is to be expected given the fact he was surprised from behind. (What is interesting is that he does not immediately lower the weapon, nor does he take his finger off the trigger straight away after recognizing Flint. Do with this information what you will.) - Service members are taught to shoot for the “easy” targets on the body, which is basically torso. Fancy sharp shooting is not highly prioritized, the main idea is to hit the enemy before they hit you.

- All service members are taught basic “first aid and buddy care”. This is so that, in the event of incurring casualties during combat, the people closest to you can provide immediate assistance while a medic hauls ass over to you. (Note, a “casualty” refers to both the wounded and those killed in action. Alex is a casualty because he was wounded.) When going into combat situations, service members will have loose tourniquets around their upper arms and legs so that, in the event of injury, all their buddy has to do is pull it tight around the relevant limb.

- The US military uses a 24 hour clock system, when times are written out no colons are used and all four number slots are filled. It seems tricky at first, but all you have to do past noon is subtract 12 and you have the equivalent time. Midnight is also written as “00″. So 12 midnight is 0000, 3 am is 0300, 1 pm is 1300, and 8 pm is 2000. When saying the time verbally, it’s usually “___ hundred (hours).” So 8 am is “o eight hundred hours” (0800), and 5 pm is “seventeen hundred hours” (1700). The “hours” part is optional. Any time in between is usually pronounced like normal (0730 is “o seven thirty” and 1645 is “sixteen forty five”, 7:30 am and 4:45 pm respectively.) The US military also does a thing with time zones, in order to coordinate internationally. It’s very confusing and I don’t fully understand it, but basically everything is measured off of the Prime Meridian, otherwise known as Greenwich Mean Time or “Zulu Time” (”Z” for “Zero”). Find more details on it here.

- The military uses the NATO phonetic alphabet for spelling or using letters over the radio; this is for clarity of conveyance and is standard operating procedure, any military member is required to know and use it. Basically each letter of the English alphabet is replaced with a word that starts with that letter. (The word for “E” is “Echo”, do with this information what you will.) A complete list of the current alphabet is here. These are used over a radio to spell something or use letters, to avoid mistaking them. For example, instead of saying “Requesting reinforcements in quadrant A” you would say “Requesting reinforcements in alpha quadrant.” (Numbers are basically all the same, except I’ve heard “nine” said as “niner” quite often. Not sure how widespread that is.) But because this is such standard practice, service members will frequently use the alphabet in civilian life, like when you have to spell your name for someone over the phone. I know A-K really well because that’s what was used when I played Battleship as a kid, for example. There are other basic radio standards used for clarity of communication, find them here. A note, While “roger” is the proword given for “I have received and understood your transmission”, the word I have encountered more often in my personal experience meaning the same thing is “copy”. My immediate family members will use this in everyday conversation to mean “I have heard and understood what you said.” I don’t know if this is an Air Force thing or what, I can only say that it might be something more commonly used in actual, everyday speech by service members.

#my roswell meta #roswell new mexico #rnm #alex manes #jesse manes #flint manes #jenna cameron #fic reference #military #list #a riley special

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williamedwardscoder · 5 years ago

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Slow database? It might not be your fault

<rant>

Okay, it usually is your fault. If you logged the SQL your ORM was generating, or saw how you are doing joins in code, or realised what that indexed UUID does to your insert rate etc you’d probably admit it was all your fault. And the fault of your tooling, of course.

In my experience, most databases are tiny. Tiny tiny. Tables with a few thousand rows. If your web app is slow, its going to all be your fault. Stop building something webscale with microservices and just get things done right there in your database instead. Etc.

But, quite often, each company has one or two databases that have at least one or two large tables. Tables with tens of millions of rows. I work on databases with billions of rows. They exist. And that’s the kind of database where your database server is underserving you. There could well be a metric ton of actual performance improvements that your database is leaving on the table. Areas where your database server hasn’t kept up with recent (as in the past 20 years) of regular improvements in how programs can work with the kernel, for example.

Over the years I’ve read some really promising papers that have speeded up databases. But as far as I can tell, nothing ever happens. What is going on?

For example, your database might be slow just because its making a lot of syscalls. Back in 2010, experiments with syscall batching improved MySQL performance by 40% (and lots of other regular software by similar or better amounts!). That was long before spectre patches made the costs of syscalls even higher.

So where are our batched syscalls? I can’t see a downside to them. Why isn’t linux offering them and glib using them, and everyone benefiting from them? It’ll probably speed up your IDE and browser too.

Of course, your database might be slow just because you are using default settings. The historic defaults for MySQL were horrid. Pretty much the first thing any innodb user had to do was go increase the size of buffers and pools and various incantations they find by googling. I haven’t investigated, but I’d guess that a lot of the performance claims I’ve heard about innodb on MySQL 8 is probably just sensible modern defaults.

I would hold tokudb up as being much better at the defaults. That took over half your RAM, and deliberately left the other half to the operating system buffer cache.

That mention of the buffer cache brings me to another area your database could improve. Historically, databases did ‘direct’ IO with the disks, bypassing the operating system. These days, that is a metric ton of complexity for very questionable benefit. Take tokudb again: that used normal buffered read writes to the file system and deliberately left the OS half the available RAM so the file system had somewhere to cache those pages. It didn’t try and reimplement and outsmart the kernel.

This paid off handsomely for tokudb because they combined it with absolutely great compression. It completely blows the two kinds of innodb compression right out of the water. Well, in my tests, tokudb completely blows innodb right out of the water, but then teams who adopted it had to live with its incomplete implementation e.g. minimal support for foreign keys. Things that have nothing to do with the storage, and only to do with how much integration boilerplate they wrote or didn’t write. (tokudb is being end-of-lifed by percona; don’t use it for a new project 😞)

However, even tokudb didn’t take the next step: they didn’t go to async IO. I’ve poked around with async IO, both for networking and the file system, and found it to be a major improvement. Think how quickly you could walk some tables by asking for pages breath-first and digging deeper as soon as the OS gets something back, rather than going through it depth-first and blocking, waiting for the next page to come back before you can proceed.

I’ve gone on enough about tokudb, which I admit I use extensively. Tokutek went the patent route (no, it didn’t pay off for them) and Google released leveldb and Facebook adapted leveldb to become the MySQL MyRocks engine. That’s all history now.

In the actual storage engines themselves there have been lots of advances. Fractal Trees came along, then there was a SSTable+LSM renaissance, and just this week I heard about a fascinating paper on B+ + LSM beating SSTable+LSM. A user called Jules commented, wondered about B-epsilon trees instead of B+, and that got my brain going too. There are lots of things you can imagine an LSM tree using instead of SSTable at each level.

But how invested is MyRocks in SSTable? And will MyRocks ever close the performance gap between it and tokudb on the kind of workloads they are both good at?

Of course, what about Postgres? TimescaleDB is a really interesting fork based on Postgres that has a ‘hypertable’ approach under the hood, with a table made from a collection of smaller, individually compressed tables. In so many ways it sounds like tokudb, but with some extra finesse like storing the min/max values for columns in a segment uncompressed so the engine can check some constraints and often skip uncompressing a segment.

Timescaledb is interesting because its kind of merging the classic OLAP column-store with the classic OLTP row-store. I want to know if TimescaleDB’s hypertable compression works for things that aren’t time-series too? I’m thinking ‘if we claim our invoice line items are time-series data…’

Compression in Postgres is a sore subject, as is out-of-tree storage engines generally. Saying the file system should do compression means nobody has big data in Postgres because which stable file system supports decent compression? Postgres really needs to have built-in compression and really needs to go embrace the storage engines approach rather than keeping all the cool new stuff as second class citizens.

Of course, I fight the query planner all the time. If, for example, you have a table partitioned by day and your query is for a time span that spans two or more partitions, then you probably get much faster results if you split that into n queries, each for a corresponding partition, and glue the results together client-side! There was even a proxy called ShardQuery that did that. Its crazy. When people are making proxies in PHP to rewrite queries like that, it means the database itself is leaving a massive amount of performance on the table.

And of course, the client library you use to access the database can come in for a lot of blame too. For example, when I profile my queries where I have lots of parameters, I find that the mysql jdbc drivers are generating a metric ton of garbage in their safe-string-split approach to prepared-query interpolation. It shouldn’t be that my insert rate doubles when I do my hand-rolled string concatenation approach. Oracle, stop generating garbage!

This doesn’t begin to touch on the fancy cloud service you are using to host your DB. You’ll probably find that your laptop outperforms your average cloud DB server. Between all the spectre patches (I really don’t want you to forget about the syscall-batching possibilities!) and how you have to mess around buying disk space to get IOPs and all kinds of nonsense, its likely that you really would be better off perforamnce-wise by leaving your dev laptop in a cabinet somewhere.

Crikey, what a lot of complaining! But if you hear about some promising progress in speeding up databases, remember it's not realistic to hope the databases you use will ever see any kind of benefit from it. The sad truth is, your database is still stuck in the 90s. Async IO? Huh no. Compression? Yeah right. Syscalls? Okay, that’s a Linux failing, but still!

Right now my hopes are on TimescaleDB. I want to see how it copes with billions of rows of something that aren’t technically time-series. That hybrid row and column approach just sounds so enticing.

Oh, and hopefully MyRocks2 might find something even better than SSTable for each tier?

But in the meantime, hopefully someone working on the Linux kernel will rediscover the batched syscalls idea…? ;)

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kobayashi-aika · 6 years ago

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Kobayashi Aika’s 1st Photobook: Bonus/Event Information + How to Get

Updated 11/19: Tokuten images added.

There’s a lot of information from many sources about the photobook, so I’ll be compiling it all here for your ease of reading. Please buy the book if you can and support Aikyan!

Additional basic info since the first announcement

There’s not much else yet, but we do know that:

The book will cost 3000 yen before shipping. That’s actually a reasonable price!

The photoshoot took place in Tainan and Kaohsiung in Taiwan.

There will be not one, not two, but three release events! holy moly they added a fourth event!

The title is 愛香; you might recognize this as “Aika”, but it’s hinted that there is a special reading for it that will be talked about in the book’s afterword.

All standard books will come with the following cover:

Preorder Bonuses

As always, depending on the store you get the book from, you will receive a different preorder bonus (called tokuten) for free with your order. Here’s a compiled list of all the tokuten:

Animate: Bromide A, Event Entry Code Gamers: Bromide B, Event Entry Code Amazon: Bromide C HMV: Special Cover A, Event Entry Code Tower Records: Special Cover B Tsutaya: Magnet Sheet A Kadokawa: Magnet Sheet B Kinokuniya: B2 Size Poster A, Event Entry Code 7net: B2 Size Poster B

Once these run out at their individual stores, they will no longer be included in orders. If you want something, get it fast!

So what’s up with this event?

Release events for things like singles and photobooks are quite common in Japan, and this time is no different. Aikyan will be taking part in four events:

12/16: Gamers Akihabara (Tokyo), in the 6F event space

12/16: Kinokuniya Shinjuku (Tokyo), 9F

12/27: Gamers Namba (Osaka)

12/27: HMV&BOOKS Shinsaibashi (Osaka)

These events are can’t-miss for diehard fans. At her previous release events, Aikyan gave a little talk in person to the audience, and for the parka release event, she even took a group picture with everyone. All three are also signkais, which means winning will get you a signed photobook and a chance to talk to Aikyan for a bit.

Sounds good! How do I enter?

This section will be updated as more information and clarification comes through. Please send a message or ping me on Discord if you notice any errors.

Assuming you’re in Japan during the events, you probably know a thing or two about shipping and chuusen, so I’ll keep this brief. You’ll be given your code (or codes) when you preorder. Depending on the store, you’ll have a few different things to do:

For Animate, the application is 11/2-11/26 Japan Standard Time. You will be given a code that you’ll have to use on your Club Animate account, and once you apply, all you have to do is wait until early December when results will be released. This code is applicable for either Gamers store event, so make sure you apply for the right one!

For Gamers, the process will be mostly the same, with the main difference being that you have one less day to get your code. If you have it, you can still apply up until the end of the 26th through your Gamers account. The codes are part of two individual items on the Gamers store, so make sure you’re ordering the right one!

For HMV, there are no details released to my knowledge. They’ll be added as I find them.

Update: Details are now out! Chuusen will be from 11/10 at 12:00 to 11/25 at 22:00 using Lawson’s ticketing service. If you’ve ever chuusened for events on e+ before, the system is essentially the same, including needing a Japanese SIM for registration. Only the HMV photobook will get you a usable code for this event.

For Kinokuniya, you will need an account on their site. Any books ordered from 12/7-12/11 will unlock a code on your account that you can use to apply until 12/12. Results will be given out on 12/14.

If you win, make sure to bring ID on the day of the event. You know.

I won’t be in Japan, but I still want to get a photobook!

Figuring out how to buy things from Japan can be a daunting task at first. Luckily, it’s a lot easier than it seems.

First, if you haven’t read Picup’s guide to buying merch, take a look at that first right here. Many of the general rules and guidelines will apply to the photobooks, and it’s also just good information for buying merchandise in general.

For photobook purposes:

Amazon will be able to ship internationally. If you don’t want to deal with setting up forwarders, or just want the cheapest shipping on the photobook, this should be your go-to.

As far as I know, 7net does not ship to forwarders; you’ll need someone in Japan to either pick it up from a 7-11 or have it sent to their house.

All other stores should allow forwarders.

Proxy services will most likely be able to buy from every store, including 7net.

Do keep in mind that although collecting tokuten is appealing, getting them all through preorder will leave you with a lot of extra photobooks. It’s often a smart idea to try to get them secondhand, as they’ll be at market price or lower.

And that’s all for photobook information. Check back for updates to information as more comes out!

Old update log: 11/13: Additional event and tokuten information added. 11/14: Title and covers added.

#kobayashi aika #aikyan #photobook #signkai #event

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coupsdecoeurs-blog · 6 years ago

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BTS : An Ode to those “Go too far shippers”

Note to self* : Things I'd like to say to BTS "go-too-far shippers" (the rest of you, you're doing absolutely nothing wrong and YOU WILL know reading me that you're not from that disgusting bunch, there will be no doubts, don't worry ! Innocent fantasy is harmless. THAT is not) :

Here's a list of what you have to be doing to be considered a "Go-too-far shipper" :

- FORGETTING that BTS members are REAL HUMAN PEOPLE BEING and not characters from a TV Show or a book or a fudging YAOI. Actually, I'm a hundred percent SURE that you're not new to that kind of fanatism. Let me make a wild guess here : Marvel Universe ? Sherlock ? Supernatural ? Shadowhunters ? Yeaaaaah you know who you are.

- Loosing your precious time editing super long videos to analyse and prove without-a-doubt-omg-you're-so-smart-and-insightful-you-must-be-an-INFJ that your ship is the realest of all ships. It's a freaking Zodiac Boat, it's sailing so fast ! You guys... are loosing sleep over some 1 second footage slowed to the infinite and beyond of member n°7's left eye twitching (but be careful, if you blink, you'll miss it !) when member n°5 looked in his general direction. That proves it right ! I'm telling you ! But... but what is that ? Another shipper used the EXACT same footage to prove that member n°5 is actually doing this to make member n°6 jealous ! Look look ! N°6's fingers moved... slightly when that happened.

You should actually try to watch yourselves on camera. You'd be shipping yourselves with your father.

Plus, this is so creepy guys, watching them for hours, trying to decypher their micro expressions, looking for a sign, omitting what you don't want to see because it's convenient. But you know what ? BTS members get itchy, think about the weather, are sensitive to noise, their crew facing them during interviews, making gestures to tell them "we're running out of time", they have food between their teeth, they get BORED because they don't understand what's being said during english interviews... a thousand stimuli that would justify their eyes twitching better than your theories ever could.

- Actually SENDING the links of your shipping videos, or even worse : pornographic fanart TO BTS via Twitter or else ! You know they are active on social media, your know they go to YouTube, Twitter, Instagram... Do you ever ask yourselves : "Did I go too far with this fanart of member n°6 and member n°7 doing anal ?" And then you put it ON THE FREAKING INTERNET !

Would you like it if someone draw you and one of your friend that you like ONLY as a friend because he is not your type (aka he is not a member of Bangtan) together doing graphic sexual stuff. These 7 men grew up together, are living together, are really close... Why on Earth would they want to see a drawing of themselves in a sexual situation with one of their bandmates. Why ? Think about it, try to have EMPATHY for once (you know, that thing you all think you have tons of), put yourself in their shoes, and tell me you wouldn't be bothered to come across such drawings of yourselves and... let's say your brother ? Your father ? Your sister ? Your best friend ? Your co-worker ? And on top of that, on your Twitter feed, for everyone to see. Wouldn't that be embarrassing ? No of course, BTS would be admiring the likeness, the finess of the details and the liveliness of the art. They are not human after all.

They're Idols !

- Linking EVERYTHING they do to your ship.

Do you think they are THAT single minded ?

That the only thing in their mind at all time is their "boyfriend/bandmate/that-guy-they-spend-their-lives-with-because-it's-their-job" ? Just to be clear... when you are in love (if you've ever been), do you stop LIVING when the object of your affection is not on your mind ? Is it always ? Do you forget your other hobbies ? Like, if all of you fall in love at the same time, will you stop editing those hour long creepy videos ? PLease, let me know, I know one or two dating app that would make tumblr and Youtube a better place !

BTS youngest member is 21 YEARS OLD. None of them is a prepubescent teenager with raging hormones, with no self control and with only making his "boyfriend" jealous as his goal for the day. Yikes ! Let's not forget they are Kpop idols, which mean they are hightly trained (conditioned ?) to control themselves, their emotions etc. to FOCUS on their job. And besides, do you really, trully believe they have nothing better to do during promotion ? Because, let's face it guys (and I know you'll not like this but brace yourselves) : BTS are ALWAYS doing promotion. They are never truly natural. I'm not saying they are not genuine, I love them as much as you do, and I'm respecting them as mu... wait. MORE than you do, because I'm not actively trying to shove a relationship in their faces while they are working their asses off all day long to offer me quality content, music, MV's, while also trying to live their lives.

Maybe that face twitching was sadness. But that doesn't mean it's because they fought with bae this morning.

- Making EVERYTHING sexual. That's it. This is the WOOOORST thing you do.

Exemple I : "Oh lord ! Member n°5 licked his lips. Totally obvious. He was thinking about member n°7, sending him signals. They are totally doing it tonight *insert the giggle of a pervert*

Exemple II : "Hhh ! Member n°2 gulped while looking at n°1. He is so thirsty today !"

Exemple III: " Wow ! N°5's hand is on n°3's shoulder. So erotic. He is actually so subtle, but they know eachother so well. N°3's in for it backstage !"

Exemple IV : "N°4 looked at n°6's lips ! I saw him ! It means he wants to kiss him ! I read it on an article titled "How to know if he's into you" from a... scientific magazine. About body language."

Exemple V : "His legs ACTUALLY twitched, he is such a hoe ! I'm sure he has a boner !" (Like guys, you think I'm exaggerating ? Think again.)

...AAAAaaand sceene.

Once again, try paying attention to every little move your body make during the day. Every time you lick your lips, every time you sigh. Every time your eyes land on a "so called" inappropriate place of your interlocutor's body (yeah ! I know you've been watching your history teacher's ass, you hoe ! Thirsty much ?).

Apply the same logic you do watching BTS members interact, and you'll be thrilled to know that you're sexually attracted to your dog. Congratulations !

- Calling them "hoes", "thirsty"... this is plain insulting. Why, just... why ? I have nothing more to say.

- Insulting and criticizing shippers that have a different OTP than you. Like, being verbally violent sometimes ... over a-freaking-fantasy of a couple that only exists in your sick mind ! LOOK AT YOURSELVES ! Look in a mirror !

You're the same ! All of you !

Why not put your microscopic differences aside, and celebrate what you have in common : CREEPINESS ! You are all so tolerent, accepting differences, bla blah blah... let's not break our own words and stick to your script, shall we ? Some other BTS fan is creepy, but not exactly creepy-like-you ? Let them be creepy their own way ! Your OTP is [57] ? Theirs is [58] ? Not a problem ! At the end of the day, it's all in your head ;)

- Talking about things you know nothing about, or very little. I've mentionned this earlier.

Are you Korean ? Do you have a Ph.D in Korean culture ? No ?

So please, stop talking about such things as "the use of honorifics", "skinship", "the way Korean think about same sex relationships", "compliments between males", "fan service"...

Like, seriously you hate on this heteronormative society that we live in, but you are interpreting every single thing BTS does the wame way you actively despise, ho-so-western of you : "They graze eachother's hands, they're gay ! Proof ! They call eachother handsome : Gay ! Physical affection : Gay ! Impressed by a muscular body ? Gay ! You trully are a product of this toxic society you despise. And btw, if member n°5 does a peace sign and tounge to someone (*cough* a fangirl in the audience *cough*) during a choreography, does that mean... that his boyfriend has in fact a vagina, and that he was doing it for him to excite him in secret code ? No ? Do I hear "fan service" ? I thiiiiiink soooo... But wait, does that mean... That in one way or the other, your simple logic doesn't apply to every situation ? (If you are interested to know, one of BTS members actually did what I've just depicted during a choreography on stage. One of my favorite fancams EVER.)

Anyway : You're not defending any minority behaving like that. You're just adding fuel to the fire. Am I insulting you yet ?

Do you have psychic abilities ? Are you Dr. Cal Lightman from Lie to Me ? No ? So please, stop making assumptions about one facial expression or the involuntary twitching of leg muscles.

Are you a pervert ? Are you dangerously-obsessive-but-lying-to-yourself-by-telling-you-this-is-romantic ? Are you living by proxy ? Are you so focused on the sex life of 7 men - that would find that extremely horrible if they knew you btw - you completely forget to live your own life and experience things ? Yes ? Oh.

Oops!

Let's recapitulate :

- Forgetting that they are real people, and not fictional characters but treating them as such, because hey ! They're famous, they must WANT the attention.

- Editing creepy videos, and actually believing you're raising awareness with your borderline psychic skills at decoding body language. Seriously, you're so sensitive, I'm amazed you're able to have friends, because you see everything : that is your curse.

- Thinking every single member of Bangtan is a single-minded teenage boy in love, incapable of controlling his impulses. Of course he'll waste his time during an interview to try and make his boyfriend jealous. How fun ! Making the person you love jealous. Haha. So intelligent and useful. Just like in that Tv Show you love. You know, the one with the toxic relationships and immature characters !

- Sending fanart to BTS. They're probably used to it, so why not taking your chances and trying to get their attention ! They might even like the picture of themselves giving a BJ to their bro. Aegyooooo !

- Making everything sexual. Not something unhealthy to do. Not at all. Again, so fun !

- Calling the artists you love cute names such as "hoe". Adorable.

- Discriminating shippers that aren't sharing your OTP. You're a pot. They're a kettle. But nobody's black, oh god no !

- Using Google to validate your theories, be it for body language or Korean culture. Everybody reacts the same way to the same things, true fact !

Anyway, that's all for today ! Please feel free to comment, and tell me how much you think I'm right, that you too have been aggravated by those "Go-too-far shippers". That you haven't been fast enough either to buy a ticket to the concert in your country, so you would love it if you could go on tumblr to find new pictures of Kim Namjoon, Kim Seokjin, Min Yoongi, Jung Hoseok, Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung and Jeon Jungkook because you love them all (ALL 7 of them, thank you) but without accidently reading a post about "n°6 and n°7 sitting in a tree. F-U-C-K-I-N-G". If you are tired, like me, please share this post and comment below ! Even I you know, just like I know, that it wll not whange annyhing. But Damn if it felt good writing it !

Thank you !

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agentelmo · 7 years ago

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The X-Files MSR Analysis Series: Season 1 Episode 10

“Fallen Angel”

Previous episode analysis - 1x09 Space.

From an MSR angle, Fallen Angel tells the story of Mulder’s personal angel, and how different his life might have been if he had never met her. We see here (and many times in the future) that when Mulder tries to go it alone, he doesn’t get very far. There are parts of this episode which feel like a glimpse into the life Mulder might have led if Scully had never came into his world. A crazy man running around the forest with a gun and a camera, getting nowhere fast and most likely winding up in prison, and/or fired from the FBI. Or living the life of a nomadic hermit, holed up in a tin can clipping away at newspapers and squinting at blurry photographs.

Then perhaps he might have turned to squatching much earlier in life, and you know that 90′s Mulder squatching would have only led to bad things. Very bad.

So the episode starts with Mulder in Wisconsin about to 007 his way into a quarantined area. The news is reporting it as an ecological disaster, but thanks to Grandpa Deep Throat, Mulder knows it is actually a UFO crash site. Papa Throat tells Mulder he has 24 hours tops to get in there and check out this downed UFO before the cleaners break out the military strength Mr. Muscle.

Fuck me, can I please jump into this screencap and suck on that bottom lip? HNNNNNGGGGGG... I feel like I am channelling someone. Is that you @defnotmeyo?

Clearly Mulder has failed to inform Scully of his escapade. At this point in time, Scully is still completely unaware of Deep Throat and the fact Mulder gets a lot of his information from him.

This failure points to the fact that Mulder is still holding off from completely trusting Scully. He can see she has integrity; despite her assignment to the X-Files being a means to an ends - a surreptitious attempt to spy on Mulder - she takes this assignment seriously and applies her scientific rigour to his work honestly and faithfully, and he sees that.

She has supported him steadfastly throughout their short partnership, but he still cannot shake that she was sent to spy on him. He cannot trust her with this greatest of secrets - the knowledge of Deep Throat’s existence.

It’s fair enough really, because as much as he really wants to trust Scully (and he really does want to trust her) he is still uncertain. The way he behaves around her says to me that he has a deep affinity for her.

Superficially he’s definitely low key attracted to her from the word go - she’s a beautiful woman - but deeper than that, they fall into sync with one another almost effortlessly at times, even when they’re at odds yelling at one another, they’re both learning that they can push each other and it will be okay. They will have each others back. The events of Ice taught them that.

But Ice also asked a question that Fallen Angel continues to pose. Can Mulder trust Scully? He desperately wants to trust her, but old habits die hard. Mulder’s motto is trust no one, after all. What if Scully’s entire purpose is to gain his trust and smoke out the insider leaking information to Mulder? While it’s no fun from an MSR angle, it does make sense that Mulder still doesn’t entirely trust Scully - he’s still weighing her up.

So he goes it alone. First mistake. And Mulder decides to go on this jolly jaunt through the forest cosplaying as the Milk Tray Man.

“All because the lady loves...”

Sorry non-Brits, you’ll have to look that one up.

He poodles through the forest trying to look bad ass, but fails spectacularly owing to the fact he has probably the dorkiest run ever. Sorry Mulder, you just can’t look cool running over hill and dale.

We know Mulder can look sexy running - he has a lovely bit of sexy running in season 6′s Milagro, for example.

Phwoooaaaaar, keep running G-Man.

But here, in this episode?

Yeeeeeah, not so much.

Look at him... boing, boing, boing!

What’s actually most surprising about this whole sequence is that he gets away with it! He dangles underneath a military vehicle and very obviously plonks on the floor with a soldier so close by he must have been asleep not to hear it let alone see it.

I think it’s safe to say that Mulder’s knowledge on stealthiness was probably lifted exclusively from Tom Clancy novels.

Either that, or he has stealth cheat codes enabled.

Now I can’t decide if this is Mulder’s “I can’t believe I just got away with that” face, or his “I think I just rolled in badger shit” face. Hmmm...

So Mulder bounds through the forest until he approaches a light in a clearing...

Creepy X-Files forest aesthetic on fleek.

He then reveals his true passion in life, as a photographer for Alien Vogue.

Work it, baby.

Going solo out here turns out to be pretty dangerous, so with no one to watch his back, Mulder finds himself getting butt-stroked.

Wait, what?

Honestly, that’s what getting pummelled in the face with a rifle butt is called! To be honest, I’d butt-stroke Mulder any day of the week. Know what I’m sayin’?

After a serious talk about breaking federal law with the designated bad guy of the piece, Colonel Henderson....

...Mulder is imprisoned.

Divine intervention is unlikely, Mulder.

So quick run down. Mulder gets a hot tip, tells no one about it, runs off without Scully and ends up in military prison. What a thoroughly unsurprising turn of events. When Mulder goes it alone and tries to do anything without Scully, he gets his arse handed to him.

Sorry Mulder, them’s the rules.

But it’s here we are introduced to Mulder’s mirror image. The man Mulder might have become himself had it not been for a lucky sequence of events in his life that led him to having the right people around him at the right times, whereas Max Fenig clearly did not.

Say hi Max.

Nawww... Max is instantly endearing in his overt politeness and kooky appearance. What we come to understand later is that Max recognises Mulder and he’s being such a try hard, wanting to be buddies with Mulder, because from observing his life from afar he feels he knows him. I mean, we can all relate, right?

But Mulder is actually surprisingly dismissive of Max, and I think even somewhat judgemental. He gets one look at Max and thinks he has the measure of him. He ignores his polite invitation to talk and rolls his eyes as he turns away.

I think Mulder might at times think himself above these kinds of people, the crazies who sit in fields on garden furniture holding up colourful “take me to your leader!” signs. I think that’s what Mulder sees when he first looks at Max - the archetypal UFO wackjob. The living embodiment of why his work isn’t taken seriously.

For a moment here, Mulder treats Max with the same dismissive disdain that other people have treated Mulder in the past.

Just to drive home the comparison between Max and Mulder, he utters Mulder’s favourite catchphrase of all time - trust no one. Mulder might not want to admit it now, but despite their personalities being very different, these two men clearly think alike in many ways.

Side note, Max is quite possibly one of the best supporting characters the show ever had. In all 10 seasons.

Mulder continues to roll his eyes ignoring Max, until Max asks if Mulder saw anything. Mulder plays his usual trick, to get information out of others rather than giving up any of his own, by playing the contrarian.

But Max isn’t so easily fooled, it seems.

Notice how Max is rubbing his ear in this moment? What makes him so sure? Well maybe it’s the fact he’s been abducted by these “alieums!” several times already - hint, hint, rub scar. FORESHADOWINGGGGGG!

Now finally, finally. Scully arrives... I mean, it’s only been a good quarter of the flipping episode without her. Geez... so her big dramatic entrance is entirely appropriate.

And glorious.

Imagine a church chorus as she enters, because the symbolism is so heavy handed here. Scully arrives, bathed in bright white light - blinding Mulder with her brilliance - liiiiiike.... an angel perhaps?!

While the crashed UFOs are referred to as fallen angels, Scully is the true angel of the piece. Mulder’s guardian angel. A supposed proxy of his enemies, sent to spy on him to do the bidding of the Syndicate, essentially. But in actuality is the only one truly looking out for him - and him alone.

But of course, Mulder knows he’s about to get a royal roasting. So makes a ill-considered attempt at being charming.

I love that comment though, “I didn’t order room service.” Because when Mulder does order room service, he orders a hot red head in a trench coat? I’m not sure we’re thinking of the same kind of room service here, Mulder. Rawr.

But Scully isn’t interested in banter, she’s here to tell Mulder he’s really done fucked up this time. That the higher ups are using his latest tomfoolery as an excuse to cashier Mulder out of the FBI.

Poor Scully. How frustrating this man must be to her in this moment. She’s trying to save the X-Files here, Mulder, did you miss that? She’s trying to save you too. Without Scully, Mulder is heading for a personal disaster, because he frequently cannot see the forest through the trees. So focused on his present goal he fails to see the larger consequences - or rather sees them, but doesn’t care - the sacrifice is worth it to him. The Truth™ is all that matters.

Only Scully is fighting to pull him back from the edge, and when he seems utterly blasé about the fact the X-Files might be shut down, she loses her cool.

In fact, I think this is the first time we see Scully genuinely pissed off at him – like really furious. She’s been varying levels of irritated, but this time she’s actually livid with his behaviour, and not just because he’s disregarding the rules.

In past episodes Mulder’s lack of respect for protocol saw Scully concerned about her career and what the consequences of being associated with this man and the X-Files would mean for her, but now she’s trying her damnedest to save both.

She’s angry because she cares and not just about their work, it’s established as far back as Conduit that she has more than just a professional interest in Mulder. She cares about him. She sees something in him worth caring about.

Steady on, we’re not quite at that point yet.

She cares about him as a friend and knows the X-Files are important to him - he would later refer to the X-Files as his life’s work - so of course she’s frustrated because she is trying to understand him, but can’t grasp why he would put the X-Files in jeopardy like this. To her, it makes no sense. To a new audience it makes no sense either.

Except that it does. What we will eventually establish with hindsight, is that this kind of behaviour is Fox Mulder all over. For merely a glimpse at the elusive truth, Mulder would risk everything. He is a master of self-sabotage - he is determined to barrel headfirst into self destruction - and the fact Scully is there to save him time and again is such an incredible stroke of fortuitousness on his part that, sometimes, I’d swear the Cigarette Smoking Man chose Scully for this purpose all along.

So moving on, and Mulder is being pretty flippant about Scully’s explanation of what was out in the woods; he mocks her, even. His attitude towards her similar to his dismissal of Max earlier. A slight “you-have-no-idea-what-you’re-dealing-with” smugness.

But is this really fair of Mulder? I mean, this disarming as fuck smile is definitely not fair of Mulder because hot dayum... But yeah - not what I meant.

What I meant is Mulder has information she doesn’t and that puts her at a disadvantage that she cannot overcome as a scientist who works off of evidence - proof.

She only sees Mulder seemingly pull this information out of his arse, so of course she isn’t going to believe him. Like in Ghost in the Machine, he’s not giving her enough to go on. It’s his own fault that she is so resistant to his version of events. His lack of trust in her is what is bringing this all down.

This is when we see why trust is so key to their relationship, as Scully will say much later in season 6′s The Beginning - it has always come down to a matter of trust between them. When they don’t trust each other, they both spin their wheels in frustration.

This is another episode where we see the outline of their working dynamic being drawn. As Scully will poetically put it one day, they are perfect opposites of each other, and as such their relationship only soars when they both trust in each other’s judgement, abilities and dedication to the truth - whatever that might be.

When mistrust, doubt and even resentment seep in, the differences that when perfectly aligned make them so strong, can instead work full force against each other, tearing them apart. Funnily enough, a good example of that is in The Beginning too.

But in this moment, Mulder doesn’t believe Scully puts the truth above protocol and he still isn’t sure if he can trust her not to report everything he tells her to the people he believes work against him. So he continues to hold out about Deep Throat... and, for now at least, they continue to grate against each other.

But hey, don’t worry about it. Any time you start to feel down about how Mulder and Scully are at odds with each other, just remember that one day these two Spooky babies will be having kinky handcuff sex. Canon kinky handcuff sex.

The next little scene with them has it’s MSR charm in a way. Because Scully is effectively Mulder’s jailer (a fact he amusingly references later with a bit of 70′s pop culture). She’s escorting him back to D.C. to face an Office of Professional Responsibility hearing - OPR!

We hear about OPR quite a bit over the coming years with these two, don’t we. Which is why these early brushes with pissing off the higher ups are so interesting to go back and look at, because it’s such a stark reminder of how their love and dedication to one another eventually takes over all reason - for both of them.

We know there will come a time when there will be no lengths to which Scully will not go for Mulder. From being thrown into prison, to sacrificing her job, to going on the run and harbouring him as a criminal fugitive for 6 years. This episode serves to highlight the beginnings of this behaviour in Scully. Her going against the rules for Mulder.

So, knowing she’s been sent there to take him back to D.C., Mulder changes tack, he wants her on board, he values her insight and abilities so he wants her to help him on this now that she’s here. When she’s there, undeniable and in his presence, it’s almost like he can’t help himself but to put his faith in her.

Scully, bless her, does her best to hold on to being angry at him. But Mulder’s incessant charm always screws her over in the end. She can’t resist him - and I don’t mean sexually, I mean just his boyish enthusiasm and unshakeable determination seems to always chip away at her resolve.

It is, after all, as she says much later in I Want To Believe, why she fell in love with him. So it makes sense that in hindsight she often gave in to him like this because she secretly found his stubbornness equally as endearing as she found it exasperating.

The Last Detail, starring Dana Scully! Ha, back in the 90’s you could quote 70’s movie classics and you’d have half a hope in hell anyone knew what you were talking about, Mulder.

So The Last Detail is a movie about a young naval officer being escorted across country to prison. But before his two jailers take him there they decide that, since he will be going away for a long time, he should first get to enjoy what life has to offer. The film stars Jack Nicholson so I think that voice Mulder puts on is his Nicholson impression. Yikes.

So is Scully going to show Mulder what life has to offer before hauling him off to OPR? WINK WINK.

Maybe that’s what Mulder was hoping for ey? Although, for Mulder, the height of what life most has to offer is bumming around Wisconsin looking for downed UFOs. Pfft. Spoil sport.

What I also like about this exchange before they enter Mulder’s motel room, is the fact that not so long ago Mulder was completely at odds with Scully, but Mulder so easily lets their disagreements go and slips straight back into their comfortable bantering.

It’s like whenever he is with her, he is unconsciously trying to charm her - he seems to turn it on whenever they’re alone together - it’s that little bubble they have that we’ve talked about in the past; once they’re in there together they are in a world of their own. While she is still clearly annoyed with him, he’s trying to entice her in to that bubble with a bit of casual flirting and she fights to hold on to her annoyance.

Course, the banter bus is forced to a sudden halt when Mulder and Scully realise someone has broken into and trashed his motel room.

Check out Mulder’s Ken doll pose.

I like how Mulder gets his quip in about how house keeping hasn’t been yet, but when Scully goes to say something in response, Mulder shushes her.

Piss taker.

The way Mulder goes for his gun, forgetting he doesn’t have it anymore - because of course he doesn’t, Mulder losing his gun is like, his favourite thing to do after secretly staring at Scully. His little head shake and her face fully communicating her thoughts on the matter. You don’t need me to translate, just look at that face.

“Soooo um... do you think she’s still mad at me?”

Yes, Mulder. Yes I do.

So the intruder turns out to be Max, and they drag him out of the bathroom so he can explain himself.

The best part of this conversation is when protective!Mulder body checks Max when he attempts to shake Scully’s hand.

Sit the fuck down, son.

It’s the only time Mulder becomes defensive in this whole scene, even though he’s just heard people have been spying on him for years, it’s only when Max makes a move towards Scully that Mulder gets visibly agitated.

Nobody touches bae, Max. No touchie.

There’s an entertaining beat later in this conversation, when Max explains that he read Mulder’s Omni article on the Gulf Breeze UFO sightings. Omni, interestingly enough, was a real magazine that was published in the 70′s through to the mid 90′s. It contained articles on both science, science fiction and the paranormal. Sounds right up Mulder’s passage. What?

Mulder seems to be slightly embarrassed to have this revealed in front of Scully, as his eyes dart to her immediately and he stutters before responding.

That’s his ‘please don’t judge me’ face.

He already knows from The Jersey Devil that Scully thinks he has no life, and so to have his personal pursuits just openly revealed - that in his free time he writes articles for a paranormal magazine under an assumed name, no less. Yeah, he doesn’t want Scully to pity his spartan existence any more than he thinks she already does.

Now I want to take a moment to dissect this phrase Max uses.

“The enigmatic Agent Scully.”

Because where does Max get the notion that Scully is enigmatic? Enigmatic, of course, meaning mysterious, indecipherable, puzzling etc. Max says that he’s been following Mulder’s career – meaning following his cases – through viewing his travel expenses. He would have been able to see where he was going, but not necessarily what he did when he was there. So I wonder if these NICAP groups are actually spying on Mulder and Scully? Do they go and hunt them down, look into what they’re investigating – observe them?

It might then explain why Scully is described as enigmatic – these people, who are clearly believers like Mulder - would find Scully completely inscrutable. A huge sceptic investigating the paranormal? Questioning her partner at every turn? From their perspective Scully would seem a rather enigmatic figure. An oddity. As Max himself says....

Perhaps these people were paying far more attention than Mulder realises.

While Mulder is clearly flattered by the attention, Scully finds it all rather tiresome.

Bless Max, he does not pick up on Scully’s unimpressed tone of voice whatsoever.

Mulder does though, and attempts to appeal to her own vanity.

Although to be entirely precise, Max did say enigmatic agent Scully, so despite apparently having a photographic memory, Mulder couldn’t accurately remember what was said only 2 minutes ago.

Look at the smile on his face though, keep trying to reel her in, Mulder. She’ll crack eventually! Mulder seems quite tickled at the idea of Scully being described as enigmatic. I think Mulder likes to think Scully is actually quite predictable, but she proves him wrong on that count several times as the series progresses. She can certainly keep him guessing.

So Max then invites Mulder and Scully into his trailer home, and Mulder can barely contain himself.

I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see Mulder so tickled by something, and the first thing he does is look down at Scully to share the moment with her.

She’s fighting not to smile, look at her face. She still wants to be annoyed at him. But he’s still chipping away at her resolve... chip, chip, chip.

This scene is quite heavily contrasted with Mulder’s first meeting with Max, where he was so dismissive of him. It kind of shows how Mulder’s single-minded focus on seeking the truth can actually dehumanise him. Because now he’s like a kid in the UFO candy store. He’s charmed by the hokeyness of Max’s trailer; in fact, the manner of decor - the haphazardly placed belongings mixed with newspapers clippings, photographs and stacks of books - bears some resemblance to the ordered chaos of Mulder’s basement office at the FBI.

Later, in season 4′s Tempus Fugit, Scully will remark that Max and Mulder are kindred spirits in “a deep, strange way”. That only the two of them could appreciate living like this - the nomadic, frugal life of a UFO hunter. Singularly obsessed, pinning newspaper articles and blurry photographs to every blank surface available.

She didn’t know how right she was, did she.

And that’s the MSR angle here, because I genuinely believe that Mulder could have easily ended up like Max if he hadn’t met Scully. In fact, we see in I Want To Believe how close Mulder is to the Max Fenig lifestyle. Without Scully working by his side, and the FBI to channel his energy, he effectively turns into Max - a recluse who sifts through paranormal paraphernalia by the ton, looking for some kernel of truth to prove the existence of extraterrestrials to the world, all the while slowly disappearing into himself in the process.

We see in season 10 that his home office that once kept his obsession contained - away from the rest of the house - away from the rest of his life, has now expanded out into pretty much everywhere - consuming everything, including his relationship with Scully.

What that says to me is that he really needs Scully to keep him balanced, and that’s what we see the first glimmers of here, in Fallen Angel - a need for someone to balance his obsessive nature, his single-mindedness, his propensity for self-destruction.

Oy... this got depressing.

So Max plays Mulder and Scully a recording he lifted from a police dispatcher radio transmission to a deputy who was the first to respond to the UFO crash - of course not knowing what it was he was dealing with. It sounds like this deputy and a fire crew were attacked. This spurs Mulder on, the look in his eyes as he turns to Scully tells her everything she needs to know - he’s not gonna let this one go.

DUN! DUN! DUUUUUUN!

She’s equally surprised to hear what happened out there, and now Mulder has finally cracked her - she’s on board. Even if she doesn’t believe the truth is “alieums!” she sees there is more going on here than meets the eye, and this is how these two work together so well.

Because even if they don’t agree on what is happening, they can still work together so long as they always share the core goal of finding the truth.

Now we are going to take a side step into Mulder’s Kitchen. Pull up a seat, we’re gonna delve into some mythology stuff for a moment.

So, this episode is a mythology episode before the mythology even existed. So some elements of this episode tally up with what we come to know later of the aliens, but then other things certainly do not. For example, the alien here is clearly incredibly powerful, much more powerful than the aliens we will encounter later - it’s main abilities being that it can turn invisible and PASS THROUGH SOLID OBJECTS. We don’t ever see that again - thank God!

The alien bounty hunters we see later are significantly nerfed - their greatest abilities are shape-shifting and super human strength. So is this alien here something different?

Something infinitely more interesting that this alien does do, is exhibit an ability which reappears in season 10. It’s this high pitched squealing noise that causes damage through the auditory cortex in the brain.

In season 10′s Founder’s Mutation, Dr. Augustus Goldman’s children that were experimented on with alien DNA are also able to exhibit this high pitched frequency which causes a very similar painful reaction. It’s literally the same sound, but a different pitch. Go compare them!

Towards the end of Fallen Angel, Max also hears this sound and he repeats over and over that he’s in pain, clutching at his ear that pours with blood.

Similarly, this ability the children have in Founder’s Mutation causes blood to pour from the ears, nose, mouth and eyes of Dr. Goldman.

I have no idea if this is intentional or not, but it’s shockingly similar. If it is intentional, then will we find that William has this strange ability too?

But that’s getting away from Fallen Angel, and into season 11 speculation territory.. so moving on!

Mulder and Scully visit the hospital to find out what happened to the deputy and the fire crew, and as Scully chats with the Doctor in charge about radiation burns, we discover a fascinating factoid about Scully.

Forensic medicine, ay? I mean, that’s not surprising at all, really, but still... GOOD TO KNOW!

Next we get a Mulder-Scully walk and talk. Hospital corridor too, classic!

Mulder, stop looking at your hot partners lips and concentrate, man!

Mulder is actually positively buzzing; hearing that the deputy and fire crew had severe radiation burns.

Look at how closely they walk together too, they’re bumping shoulders the whole time. Mulder really has no concept of personal space.

I like this scene because it’s Mulder being as excited as a kid at Christmas, and Scully is throwing out an alternative explanation, but he just keeps coming back at her. It’s a very familiar song and dance.

But this is what they do - Scully makes Mulder work for it, and completely opposite to what was intended, she ends up not debunking his work, but makes it stronger - actually gives it more weight, rather than less.

So what happens is that surprisingly, Scully doesn’t outright dismiss what Mulder is saying, but she is still relentlessly focused on keeping Mulder out of trouble, by getting him to the OPR hearing.

Mulder, however, remains pretty indifferent about it. He listens to her, but he’s not really all that concerned. He feels he is so close to catching a glimpse of something here, that he is willing to sacrifice even the X-Files to stick around and follow it through.

But ultimately what he’s doing here is incredibly reckless because he hasn’t actually seen anything. I mean, let’s go back and review. All he’s seen is a mangled crash site which could have been anything - let’s be honest - and some emergency services personnel with reported radiation burns. What it comes down to, is that he’s risking this mainly on the word of Deep Throat.

He needs Scully to remind him of what he needs to do – to think of the bigger picture. But poor Scully is just ignored – again. She’s trying really hard to save his ass, but seems intent on going down in flames.

Ah I do love a good walk and talk though. This is how I like my baby agents. Walking and talking and arguing and Mulder being a little bitch, and Scully exasperatedly trying and failing to get Mulder to see sense. Ah good times!

It’s at this moment, Colonel Henderson arrives with several of his men suffering from more radiation burns. GASP! Mulder tries to reason with Henderson about hunting the alien down, but is thrown out of the hospital, while Scully - she’s a medical doctor don’tcha know - is asked to stick around and help treat the soldiers.

Mulder decides to return to his motel to look for Max - what an irony, the only one with the means to help him continue his search is the UFO wacko.

But Mulder arrives to find Max having an epileptic seizure.

And Mulder is a pretty sweet guy really, right? Taking care of Max. He’s pretty caring when he wants to be.

Holding him through his seizure...

...getting him a glass of water... even if Max looks terrified of glasses of water...

...and tucking him into bed.

Naww… Mulder’s paternal instincts on display here.

Oh...

Oh God.

I need a minute.

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

So after playing daddy to Max, Mulder notices that Max has a scar behind his ear. A rather grim looking scar, too. Eugh.

Mulder has seen this before... in an X-File of course, because everything is in an X-File.

I have bad thoughts looking at those pianist fingers. Seriously. No more fanfic for me.

Mulder has clearly had these documents faxed over to him, but who exactly did that? Who would he trust at the FBI to go through his files, not to mention the fact he’s currently up for disciplinary action right now, so who would OK these documents being sent?

Meh.

Who cares, we have got some hot glasses!Mulder action for you. KAPOW!

SHAZAM!

Mmm, yes. Ring Ring... It’s OPR here! We’ve decided to drop all disciplinary action, Mulder. Just be sure to wear those glasses from time to time and all is forgiven. HNNNNGGG.... Ahem.

Scully arrives back from her voluntary stint at the hospital - I hope she got paid for that. And she’s exhausted and dejected. Mulder has his theories, but wants to know what Scully’s thoughts are.

Nice one. Excellent theory there, Scully. Well thought out; good reasoning.

I kid. I kid.

I like this conversation, because for Mulder’s part, he’s showing that he values and respects her opinion, even when she hasn’t got one ha. Even though Mulder is used to her going against him, he’s willing to hear it - he’s willing to be challenged, and that’s why their dynamic works for him, because he doesn’t take her stance personally. He understands and values where she’s coming from, even when he doesn’t agree.

And the same goes for her, it’s why their dynamic works between them and them alone - because Scully listens to Mulder when most sane people wouldn’t, lets be honest.

But ever the guardian angel, Scully continues to remind Mulder to keep his eye on the ball.

His trust in her is building, because even though he’s aware her primary goal is to get him back to D.C., he trusts her to tell him the truth when he asks her to do him a favour and examine Max’s scar.

In a demonstration of her integrity, and her loyalty to Mulder, when Scully asks...

and Mulder responds by being a fucking tease...

Scully agrees to examine Max, not based on any claim Max is making - Mulder points out that it’s not Max who thinks he’s an abductee.

She agrees to examine Max against her better judgement and only because Mulder asks her to.

Nothing more than that. Which is a pretty big deal. “I do it all for you, Mulder.”

Unfortunately when they go to find Max, he’s missing and they overhear on his radio scanner that someone from Colonel Henderson’s patrol has spotted someone trespassing where they shouldn’t be.

Mulder and Scully both realise this must be Max.

Scully realises first what this means though, that Mulder isn’t going to be catching that flight to D.C.

The frustrated look on her face is the look of someone who knows exactly what’s about to happen... she knows this man well enough by now. He’s not going to do anything he doesn’t want to do - but she will still try to fight him on it. She isn’t going to give up that easily.

Mulder, on the other hand, looks at her with a face that says “I wholeheartedly concur Scully, lets go save Max!”

Wait, what?!

There’s a hint of desperation in Scully’s voice, she really is trying so hard to keep him out of trouble and protect their work - protect him.

He literally ignores every word she says though, and continues to obsessively pursue this lead. I honestly think the only reason he stops and engages Scully, is because he can’t find the damn car keys. I think if he had the keys and she didn’t get in the car, he would have just took off without her, because we all know he’s very capable of that.

But because he knows she has the keys, he takes a moment to explain his thinking.

Mulder’s theory is basically that Max wasn’t chasing the UFO, that it was in fact the other way around. The UFO was there for Max.

I don’t think Scully believes Max is being abducted by aliens - we know she doesn’t believe in that; but what she does know is that she cannot stop Mulder when he’s like this; he’s going with or without her. She knows trying to get through to him will only push him away, so she gives up trying to fight back.

She really should have just clobbered him with one of their FBI issue torches and shipped the stupid fucker back to D.C. in a suitcase.

As it stands, her only course of action is to go with him - to try and stop him doing something he might later regret. So reluctantly, she hands over the keys.

This is a dynamic that plays out again and again from this point onward. Mulder bullheadedly wanting to plough on ahead regardless of the consequences to himself (and frankly to Scully too sometimes) and she trying desperately to pull him back, only to end up being swept along for the ride in the end.

This dynamic is usually balanced out by then Scully serving some pivotal role in being there – usually saving Mulder’s life.

But oddly, not this time.

They find Max who is babbling about the alieums coming to get him, but then Mulder bizarrely sends Scully outside.

His confidence in her ability to hold off a shadowy military clean up crew is sweet, but she had no chance.

She’s grabbed immediately and Colonel Henderson completely ignores all of her protests.

In the end, Scully being there this time served no purpose at all.

But then again, Mulder being there served no purpose either. He wasn’t able to stop Max being abducted and he gets flung across the warehouse by the invisible alien for his trouble.

Mulder is lucky that this alien knows he’s one of the the main characters of this show and didn’t decide to irradiate him to death like every other human being it had encountered thus far.

When Mulder gets up, Max is being abducted, and Mulder cannot do anything to stop it.

The next thing we know, Max is gone and Mulder is left with nothing but his NICAP cap.

I got abducted by alieums and all I got was this lousy cap.

The next scene is of Mulder and Scully finally at the OPR hearing. Somehow Scully managed to get him there on time, it seems. This scene ultimately foreshadows what occurs at the end of season 1 which is the closure of the X-Files.

By rights, it should have happened here – it’s almost like Mulder knew someone would swoop in to save his ass, because he really didn’t give two shits about getting back in time.

We see at the very end of the episode that Section Chief McGrath is on the Syndicate books, and has been working to get rid of of Mulder.

But is saved by Deep Throat.

However, his motives are suddenly cast in shadow. Is Deep Throat on Mulder’s side or not?

What it does reveal is that, without Deep Throat, Mulder and Scully were doomed before they even stepped foot in the OPR hearing.

Scully, again, being the bastion of loyalty and integrity that she is, tries to defend Mulder until the very last. Even when she’s denied permission to make a statement on Mulder’s behalf she does it anyway. Or at least tries to.

She really doesn’t want their work together to end. That’s my greatest take away from this episode. That Scully wants to be out there with Mulder - and she’s willing to fight for it. If she didn’t, then she could have just let this play out, but she fights and fights - until someone shuts her down - to stay by Mulder’s side and continue with him on the X-Files.

You know what I said about Mulder’s charm earlier? He turns it on for Scully, and he’s trying to be charming here - but it’s not working.

When Scully wishes Mulder luck, he banters about how he’s surprised he lasted this long.

This is probably the most touching scene between the two of them in the whole episode, because for the first time, Mulder acknowledges Scully’s feelings when he tells her not to worry. He can see she’s feeling defeated and is concerned for him.

What I think he fails to realise is that she’s not just worried about him for his sake. She doesn’t want to stop working with him too.

The look of utter defeat on her face when she thinks it’s over - it’s almost like she can’t look him in the eye because she thinks she’s failed him in there.

He keeps putting on the brave face though. Trying not to worry her. He looks so sickeningly vulnerable hobbling away on those crutches. And this quip..

Ugh it just hits you in the heart, doesn’t it?!

Maybe he should have been fired here, then he could have asked her on a date because they’re not partners anymore and he’s out of the FBI. Then they might have got married and had babies and AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

No, brain. Stop.

Being serious now... because as disarmingly charming as Mulder is being, isn’t this all a little bit too casual for a man who is about to lose everything?

It’s actually in moments like these that we see how easily Mulder becomes his most reckless and self-destructive. He wants to believe so badly, that all else falls to the wayside when someone dangles a tantalising piece of the whole in front of him. His singular obsessive nature is so easily turned against him in this way.

Which is why he needs Scully to look out for him.

Mulder thinks he’s grasped something huge here, but we know that it’s merely a fragment of the whole, and those greater truths he will discover in the next 9 years would have been utterly lost to him if he didn’t have Scully there to keep him on the right path - keep him grounded.

He seems to have all but given up hope of continuing on the X-Files in this scene. Perhaps that was the reason for his casual attitude all along - he knew they would use this to get rid of him no matter what he did.

Perhaps he’s about ready to jump full blown into Max’s lifestyle – forget procedure and the FBI – that’s all just getting in the way.

Mulder gives an incredible speech here which seems to point to that conclusion, in a way. That the truth will out, regardless of the machinations of the FBI, whomever they serve and whether or not they fire him. He will keep pursuing the truth.

Man, what a mic drop moment.

But if he had been sacked here, Scully would have been reassigned and he would have gone right down the rabbit hole without her. See season 2.

Again, it’s incredibly fortuitous for Mulder that he met Scully. She really did save him from a life of ridicule and obscurity, a life in his season 1 youth he might have embraced in some petulant act of defiance against the world. But that ultimately only he would have suffered from... and Scully.

Mulder was, and always has been, walking a very fine line between obscurity and legitimacy… and while Mulder is indeed a brilliant man with an incredible mind – a beautiful mind as Scully would later describe it in The Sixth Extinction – he is constantly under attack, whether that be from his traumatic past, or the forces within and without the FBI that seek to turn him on himself or on those around him.

In short, he could have very easily fallen off the edge if he had no one to hold him back.

Scully truly is his guardian angel.

Next up... 1x11 - Eve.

#thexfiles #x files #txf gifs #txf meta #txf analysis #x files msr analysis series #dana scully #fox mulder #gillian anderson #david duchovny #chris carter #txf 1x10 #fallen angel #msr

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fapangel · 7 years ago

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Hi, that's a mighty wall of text, and very informative, thank you. A couple of issues which seem to me to undermine the point that you're trying to make. One, that sarin gas is difficult to manufacture doesn't seem to be a strong argument against a hypothetical 'deep state' false flag - one would assume such an entity would have the resources necessary to produce it. (1/3)

Two, while chemical weapons may produce an immediate tactical benefit, the fact that using them is a massive strategic mistake on Assad’s part is quite obvious - there is no more effective way to ensure the active, continuous presence of America and her allies in Syria than the use of CW. Unless one thinks Assad wants America to stick around longterm for some reason, or he is stupid enough to trade dead children for airstrikes 1/1, the thought that it wasn’t him is quite natural. (2/3)

Three, your tone of outrage seems inappropriate considering that the American government has conducted false flag operations in the past - Gulf of Tonkin and Project Ajax are two of the better known examples. It’s not ‘America would never!’, it’s ‘It wasn’t America this time, and here’s why.’ Thanks again for taking the time to put this together. (3/3)

I can answer these in order.

1.) At the moment most people - like Sargon, specifically - are suggesting that either no attack occurred at all, or any attack was launched by rebels gassing themselves, and the media and “deep state” are lying about it extensively to form a casus belli to war. People who suggest that we created Sarin just to drop it on civilians in Damascus to create a causus belli are so far around the fucking bend that Alex Fucking Jones would be worried in their company, as Alex Jones doesn’t actually believe any of the shit he says. It’s not hard to find a casus belli to take out Assad; the civil war has driven a massive immigration wave of refugees into Europe, further destabilizing Western societies (a situation Putin has deliberately and gleefully exacerbated) and Assad’s heinous war crimes against his own people are beyond the pale. To suggest that the United States needs to engage in elaborate conspiracy to justify intervention is a fantasy. We’ve outright killed people for much less.

2.) Like hell it is. To date, Assad’s use of chemical weapons has cost him some older warplanes (by no means his entire fleet, or his most effective aircraft) and most recently… his CW capability itself. In over SEVEN YEARS of more or less regularly conducted chemical weapon attacks, he has suffered very little damage to his conventional warfighting capabilities. Also, he knows damn well that the United States does not want to stay in the country, and moreover, they don’t want to depose him, either, as the power vacuum will simply be filled by Iran and Russia might take extreme measures to keep their strategic gains (a military port in the Med.) In my own pre-strike analysis I predicted the US would target non-military governmental targets and important infrastructure or resources to punish Assad for using chemical weapons, to discourage others from doing the same, but that they’d have to carefully calibrate it not to weaken Assad too much.

Instead, the US focused purely on taking out the chemical weapons themselves; which was a rather weaker statement but a much safer option from the power-balance perspective; making it clear that the US doesn’t give a shit about Assad killing his civilians with shells or machine guns, but only about keeping the WMD genie in the bottle so it doesn’t impact US interests in the future in other parts of the world.

And you are telling me - after TWO military strikes by the US that actively focused on deterring or preventing chemical weapon attacks by Assad, without changing the strategic balance on the ground - that Assad would never have used CW? Losing chemical weapons capacity itself equals a wash, and if you weigh 20% of the SAAF’s oldest, least-capable airframes against the repeated battlefield gains he’s made by using CW, Assad has gained FAR more than he’s lost by using Chemical Weapons.

Assad knows damn well that US and allied presence isn’t going to change one way or another no matter what he does, because even if “America” leaves; the Kurds certainly aren’t. Assad knows this because Trump stated his strategy bluntly during the Presidential debates and again the day after he was sworn in as President:

“If we kept the oil, you probably wouldn’t have ISIS because that’s where they made their money in the first place, so we should have kept the oil, but, OK, maybe we’ll have another chance,” he said.

The Kurds are currently sitting along the Euphrates river, where they control a good portion of Syria’s oil fields. By Trump’s own long-standing statements it is squarely in America’s strategic interests that the Kurds stay there - especially after the Iranian-puppeted Iraqi government drove the Kurds out of oil-rich Kirkuk. It is far preferable for that oil money to stabilize a de-facto Kurdistan than to be up for grabs by jihadists or Iranian jihadist proxies (which at this point, includes Syria.) The United States was never going to pack up and make the Kurds give that all back to Syria before Assad’s latest gas attack. It is clearly and demonstrably Trump’s long-standing policy.

So, in short, if Assad would “never use gas” because of all the horrible consequences, where are the FUCKING consequences? Because he has suffered very, very little. And there’s no shortage of people making that observation.

3.) “False flag” operations in the past were justified by the need to prevail in an existential conflict with a nuclear-armed Soviet Union, and current “commentators” see the Syrian situation through the same lens - witness Sargon of Akkad specifically mentioning Syria’s status as a “Russian ally.” However, the Russians are nowhere near as powerful as the Soviet Union was, militarily, diplomatically or economically, as Putin’s penchant for “hybrid warfare” and opportunistic shit-stirring demonstrates.

We’ve returned to an era of “great powers conflict” but Russia is not the Soviet Union and the old Cold War era strategies are both ineffective and demonstrably not US policy. The Gulf of Tonkin incident is laughably overblown, as involvement in Vietnam was essentially an extension of our involvement in Korea - a policy of keeping Communism from spreading to new countries. The US had the demonstrated interest, the incident was just the PR excuse. Much the same could be said of the Iraq war - WMD was simply the casus belli; the Bush Administration was pursuing a much grander strategy involving nation-building in the Middle East.

In Trump’s case, interventionism and foreign entanglement is anathema to the man and everything he’s ever advocated (witness his insistence on “keeping the oil” and even that mostly with Kurdish allies and not US troops) and the only evidence for his administration wanting “regime change” anyone can point to is by invoking ~the Deep State~ and left-wing outlets crowing about the statements of people who’ve since been fired out of a cannon by the Administration. Paying lip service to the idea of ousting Assad does not equal a fucking policy of regime change, especially as Assad and Assad’s regime are not the same thing. Assad’s Alawite sect is Assad’s regime, not Assad. (Americans, being members of the first nation really founded on a secular government, tend to forget that in most of the world for most of its history, politics and religion have been one and the same thing.) That Assad himself will have to step down from power to satisfy any lasting political settlement to divide Syria is not a great surprise; he’s presided over horrific amounts of bloodshed, slaughter, and brutality against his own civilians. But that simply means he’ll be replaced by another high-ranking member of his own government, another general, another strongman.

In conclusion; these pro-Syrian conspiracy theories stem from an almost complete ignorance of the situation in Syria. In fact, they are calibrated to appeal specifically to those ignorant; ordinary folk with no in-depth knowledge of the military or politics, who simply fear a repeat of Iraq. The narratives are short, sweet, easy to remember and repeat, play on existing fears and fit what very limited information the average guy on the street is likely to know about a confusing conflict in a far-off land. In short it is classic propaganda, and you needn’t look further than RT.com and Sputnuk to see who fucking packaged it.

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