what are your thoughts about krycek's kill in sleepless?
i think i made some kind of small post about this like a month ago but i'm going to get more into it now that you've sent me an ask about it specifically. unleashing the beast.
ok so i don't know if this is like. #controversial or whatever but i don't actually think he was faking his reaction to killing augustus cole! i do think that was baby's first murder.
in the LSG media x-files podcast, one of the hosts points out that, at the end of sleepless, krycek kind of has no choice but to kill cole. cole wants to die, and was going to die either way (he was clearly planning to jump off the ledge of the vehicle yard building before being confronted by mulder)--but he knows that mulder isn't going to do it, so he puts it on krycek by manipulating him into seeing the gun where the bible was. there's obviously no way for krycek to fake that, it's external. so if he thinks that his partner is about to get shot, what does he do? if he wasn't a spy, he'd do what he's supposed to do according to what they teach you at the FBI, which is to shoot cole (the hostile suspect) before he can shoot mulder (the LEO). he is a spy, but he still has to do what he's supposed to do, because if he doesn't, it'll blow his cover.
the conversation between krycek and the cigarette-smoking man in ascension makes it pretty obvious that krycek is like. at this point, basically an errand boy. a foot soldier AT MOST. the cigarette-smoking man tells krycek, among other things, that he "has no rights, only orders to be carried out," and that if he has problems with that, they'll "make other arrangements," which is like. very obviously a threat that krycek seems disquieted by, placing him in what is probably a relatively low position in the syndicate's hierarchy. he's a mole, someone who watches and passes along information--not the kind of operative that assassinates people.
we get basically nothing on krycek in terms of backstory/what he was doing before being introduced into the story (which in almost all cases i think is a plus) but to be honest i don't think there would have been any reason for him to have killed anybody before cole. krycek mentions in ascension that the cigarette-smoking man "had" him do something--we infer that this is related to the death of duane barry at the least, if not also what happened to the tram operator at skyland mountain--so we know that he wasn't doing that of his own accord, he was receiving orders. we see him doing the same thing in anasazi (before the cigarette-smoking man decides he's a loose end that needs to be tied), except now he seems to be being specifically ordered to carry out hits; likely because somebody, somewhere, saw what he did in ascension and decided that he could handle it. i don't believe that that was always his job, and i definitely don't think that it was anywhere NEAR his job during the period of time he was assigned to be mulder's partner. the confrontation the end of sleepless puts him in the position to kill someone when he wasn't intended to be, and he does it, and after they realize he can do it, he's put in positions where he has to do it more. if it helps the government cover up the fact that they've been doing fucked up experiments on people, that's an added bonus.
part of this can be attributed to nicholas lea being a good actor, obviously, but i think when it comes to determining this sort of thing, it's physical reactions that tend to sell it. at the end of the scene, right before the cut to mulder finding out his file's been stolen from the car, there's the shot of mulder and krycek leaning over cole's body in the vehicle yard building. it's the most well-lit part of the scene, and there's a long shot focusing on the bible lying at cole's side where he'd dropped it as he fell. it's pretty zoomed in, since the focus is on the book, but both mulder and krycek are partially visible in-shot. mulder, who we know has killed people before, doesn't enjoy it but is familiar with it, is very sober and still; krycek's hand is shaking so hard it's changing the reflections on the face of his wristwatch.
so yeah, i do think augustus cole was the first time he ever killed anyone, and i think his hesitations and reactions were real. frankly i think most of his reactions to things regarding the case were real; he might be part of the alien cover-up conspiracy but i feel like maybe that doesn't prepare you for war veterans that can kill people with their minds. i guess it's the sort of thing where it's like. he COULD have been faking it? "it" being the fear and anxiety and immediate shock of killing a person for the first time. even though i think the emotions that you must be experiencing after you kill someone for the first time, especially if you didn't necessarily want to do it--residual fear, sick adrenaline, some kind of fucked up relief--would be pretty difficult to fake, particularly if you're trying to fool one of the best psychologists in the bureau, i don't doubt that he could have gotten away with faking it if he'd had to. but i just think it's a little more interesting if he didn't
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No paywall version here.
"Two and a half years ago, when I was asked to help write the most authoritative report on climate change in the United States, I hesitated...
In the end, I said yes, but reluctantly. Frankly, I was sick of admonishing people about how bad things could get. Scientists have raised the alarm over and over again, and still the temperature rises. Extreme events like heat waves, floods and droughts are becoming more severe and frequent, exactly as we predicted they would. We were proved right. It didn’t seem to matter.
Our report, which was released on Tuesday, contains more dire warnings. There are plenty of new reasons for despair. Thanks to recent scientific advances, we can now link climate change to specific extreme weather disasters, and we have a better understanding of how the feedback loops in the climate system can make warming even worse. We can also now more confidently forecast catastrophic outcomes if global emissions continue on their current trajectory.
But to me, the most surprising new finding in the Fifth National Climate Assessment is this: There has been genuine progress, too.
I’m used to mind-boggling numbers, and there are many of them in this report. Human beings have put about 1.6 trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution — more than the weight of every living thing on Earth combined. But as we wrote the report, I learned other, even more mind-boggling numbers. In the last decade, the cost of wind energy has declined by 70 percent and solar has declined 90 percent. Renewables now make up 80 percent of new electricity generation capacity. Our country’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling, even as our G.D.P. and population grow.
In the report, we were tasked with projecting future climate change. We showed what the United States would look like if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius. It wasn’t a pretty picture: more heat waves, more uncomfortably hot nights, more downpours, more droughts. If greenhouse emissions continue to rise, we could reach that point in the next couple of decades. If they fall a little, maybe we can stave it off until the middle of the century. But our findings also offered a glimmer of hope: If emissions fall dramatically, as the report suggested they could, we may never reach 2 degrees Celsius at all.
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[Note: She's talking about the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, which despite the names were the two biggest climate packages passed in US history. And their passage in mid 2022 was a big turning point: that's when, for the first time in decades, a lot of scientists started looking at the numbers - esp the ones that would come from the IRA's funding - and said "Wait, holy shit, we have an actual chance."]
And while the report stresses the urgency of limiting warming to prevent terrible risks, it has a new message, too: We can do this. We now know how to make the dramatic emissions cuts we’d need to limit warming, and it’s very possible to do this in a way that’s sustainable, healthy and fair.
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-via New York Times. Opinion essay by leading climate scientist Kate Marvel. November 18, 2023.
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no grave can hold my body down, i'll crawl home to her.
simon really meant it, every bit of it, he’d come back to you somehow. he would find his way back to you. wether it was walking through the front door quietly not to wake you up in the middle of the night or cold in a coffin. he’d rather have you hold his dead body than not to have you touch his skin ever again.
that’s what simon was thinking about as his ear ringed so loud he couldn’t focus on his surroundings. he looked up at the sky, so blue it almost didn’t feel right. why so blue when so much blood was being shed?
he occasionally would feel the ground he was laying on tremble, maybe a hand grenade, maybe a body falling next to his. the smell of gunpowder filled his covered nostrils and he could feel his lungs collapsing on themselves from the thickness of the air he was breathing. his eyes weren’t doing good either, filled with dust and sand from the dry earth.
it took him a few more seconds to focus his eyes on something, something that possibly wasn’t moving, his head spinning each time he tried to sit up. something was weighting on his legs, holding him down. he struggled to raise his torso and groaned at the sight of a large body blocking him. he let himself fall back down.
he was ready to go, a sharp pain to his side telling him he wouldn’t last long alone. he’d been through worse, way worse, the scar provided by the meat hook was proof of that, but something was telling him this was as bad. he was ready to go.
the only thing he could think about in his last moments was you. he thought he could see glimpses of you, maybe your hair in the corner of his eyes or he’d hear your laugh as another fire shooting started. his eyes searched for you frantically. he wanted to tell you to leave immediately, scream it at the top of his lungs, but his voice was caught in his throat and you weren’t really there. his mind just playing cruel tricks on him.
your name was repeated like a mantra in his head, repeating it so many times it almost lost a meaning. almost. a prayer, a chant. he sure needed to pray, for you.
he had been shelving the thought that tormented him for months. he wanted to go and confess his sins, he almost felt the need, his palms itching with haste anytime he thought about it. years had passed since the last time he had set foot in a church, so many that he had almost forgotten the reason for the visit. the ghosts of the past never abandon you, especially if they are people you love, especially if they are family, the innocent. its always the innocent who pay the highest price.
‘i wonder what she’s doing now, who’s gonna knock on her door and tell her im gone.’ he thought. ‘hopefully price. he’s the one with tact and the most considerate. he’ll help her when i’m gone, keep an eye on her.’
the sweet smell of your hair replaced for a moment the one of blood and gunpowder, your laughter still echoing in his ears. he pictured your sweet face and big innocent eyes looking up at him.
“promise me something?”
“mhm?” he hummed, surprised you were still up. his hand hadn’t stopped caressing your hair since you laid down on his chest, your hand resting on his collarbone as your ear listened to his calm heartbeat. “yeah, anything.”
“promise me you’ll always come back.” you whispered in the dark room. “promise me, simon.”
he nodded, taken aback by your request. you weren’t the fondest of his job, he knew it, he hated to concern you like he did.
“yes.”
“promise.” you urged. “please.”
he bent his head down and kissed the top of yours, his arm sliding down your back and drawing you closer by your waist. “i will, love. i’ll always come back to you.”
you sighed, the knot of thoughts in your worried head began to untie. “mh.”
“better now?” he softly asked. his voice was hoarse from his constant shouting orders at the obstreperous recruits. you gave a short nod. “i mean it.”
he groaned as he managed to get the body off of himself, struggling to get on his knees.
fucks sake, he couldn’t let you live with him gone like this. it was selfish of him to leave you in such an abrupt way, really. he tried to push away the image of you opening the door to find price with a carton box filled with simons stuff from the barracks with the balaclava and skull mask on top and your knees hitting the floor before he could even say anything.
his legs didn’t feel like they could hold his weight up, he immediately fell to his knees as he heard another rapid fire too near him for his liking. his gun was long gone, he had to manage to survive alone, again.
“crawlin’ it is.” he breathed as he started to drag his tired body with the strength of his arms alone. you had always praised his strength: he could lift you with one arm alone, you loved to be held and hold on to his arm anywhere and at anytime. that was the main reason he always pushed for more while training, and the motivation your sweet compliments always gave him now were gonna save his life. he made a mental note to kiss and hold you a little longer and tighter if he ever made it home alive.
he could see the building his team was supposed to meet up in case things got bad. it looked so far away that it was alarmingly close. maybe it was just his messed up vision, a mirage, but he could swear he saw you from a window looking at him, urgently motioning him to come.
he brought the thick balaclava above his nose so he could breathe better and as enemy gunfire continued to flow, he kept his head low as he moved dead bodies from his way.
he could hear your voice calling for him and he wanted to call you for you back, but the noises of the battlefield were hurrying him to get to the safe zone first.
he stumbled by the door as he brought himself up, one hand stabilizing him as he held on to the doorframe as the other went to press on his wound.
“lt!” johnnys voice called before he rushed to help him. “ye cheeky bastard, i told them not to leave yet, to wait for ye.”
“gaz saw you get shot.” price swung simon’s arm over his shoulder in order to help him to the nearest table, where he laid down.
“he saw that right.” simon bit the inside of his cheek as price inspected his wound, pressing on it. “is he a‘ight?”
“he’s fine, hit his head but had his helmet on, he’s getting checked out by the medics.” price informed him as simon winced at the sharp pain. “there’s at least two bullets in here, didn’t pass through, stuck.”
“just take ‘em the fuck out.” simon groaned. “how’s it lookin’?”
“you’ll live.” price patted his shoulder in comfort before he went to call a medic.
“we really thought we’d lost ye there, lt.” johnny’s face was glowing with sweat and blood, the black war paint smudged messily all around his face and his mohawk dusted.
“helicopter’s leaving in thirty, boys!” price’s baritone voice called from the other room.
simon scoffed, sighing and closing his eyes, finally letting himself relax as your figure started to fade from the corner of the room where it’d been standing, silently looking at him. “won’t lose me, can’t wait to go home, johnny.”
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