#and wrt the second one like that is important too it's just that firstly it's a very small field and secondly ik there are other ppl kind | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kachinnate · 3 years

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,,,,okay i know i just said i wasn’t going to talk about the deh movie but actually yeah imma talk about it for just a sec bc y’all actually make me legitimately distressed sajkfndsmjkgds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQ_A0H1otc i dont have the braincells to do a shot by shot analysis right now but here’s what we’re lookin at

under a readmore because ghhhhhhh

firstly, let me lead with this: yes, from what we know, there’s a lot of things wrong with this movie.

the worst, in my humble opinion, being the bts treatment of the (very few) actors of color, and the lack altogether of any production team members of color. that’s something that should be acknowledged, talked about, and fucking dug into especially at the current fucking period of time we’re living in. it’s unsurprising, but disgusting nonetheless, and it set this movie up for failure from the very beginning. i’m a white person so by no means so i feel inclined or like i have any authority in saying what one should feel wrt all of that, however i will say if there’s to be a boycott in not watching this movie, that should 100% be the reason why. it’s fully poc’s choice whether or not to forgive the production team or give this movie a chance for the irredeemable shit it did in regards to handling the movie’s production. the movie imo definitely doesn’t deserve their forgiveness, but again, that is not for me to say.

there’s some little things too that i can’t fully think of off the top of my head - like, the whole making larry connor’s stepdad thing fucking irks me, for example, but, like...... listen.

if you know me like at all, you know my favorite word is nuance.

so, i’m going to say it outright: the way you people are approaching this three minute trailer shows literally.... none?? no nuance ??? is it no-nuance november over here or ???? like i’m begging you i’m BEGGING YOU to put aside your pre-determined prejudices against this movie and like stop pretending to be a renowned film critic for ten seconds because it’s really not as outright fucking abysmal as you are saying!! and also it’s possible to have opinions that aren’t completely fucking polarized to one side because guess what, the deh movie? a piece of media! what is the shit y’all are constantly preaching about having the ability to consume media critically ? because you’re trying to cancel a fucking trailer based on the contents of the trailer alone !!!!! hello !!!!!!!!

media is bound to be problematic. if y’all were as quick to judge any movie as you did this one, guess what you wouldn’t be watching any movies like ever <3

anyway lets get into the parts that are probably going to get me cancelled lmao

ben platt - listen. LISTEN. listen i know he’s too old to be reprising evan we ALL know he’s too old to be reprising evan i’ve heard this same argument since the announcement was made we get it we all know. haha he’s a grandpa yes bestie ur so right ur so funny wow. i do agree that we should’ve maybe had a not-ben-platt evan moment but here’s some things to keep in mind: the arguments of “oooh ABF is right there !!!!!!” 1. who’s to say he was available? 2. the environment of a movie is so, SO much different than that of a musical -- as much as you wanna pretend you know everything from just a trailer, there’s no way of knowing what scenes were added that might’ve made the movie like.. idk possibly more intense story-wise not even COUNTING the fact that just inherently a movie set is different than a musical one? like yes ben platt might be just being used as a device but that’s probably not the sole and only reason. Also, if i see One (1) more comment about his FUCKING HAIR 😃 first of all it’s not that deep like... if you’re so distracted by an actor having their hair different that’s on you, but going as far as to call it bad or distracting or being like Vehemently a way about it? y’all i know it’s most likely not your intention but that is literally just ben platt’s natural fuckin ETHNICALLY JEWISH hair sajknfgkjds!!!! i’m not the first to make this point, but like dsjnfkjdsg!??! y’all are being so mean about it and for WHAT? again, maybe not intentional, but it reads as like high key Very antisemetic and you should.... maybe not 😳 be that way

connor. the thing about a trailer is that they don’t show you all the scenes because they want you to come see the movie. right? can we agree on that? all the connor scenes in the trailer had SEVERAL hard cuts, omitting a lot of the scene -- like the computer lab scene! we see the beginning of it, there’s a VERY obvious hard cut, and then he’s running out! in my opinion my first watch through of this trailer i had a very like “:// hmm all these actors feel a lil like dry”, but man oh man the comments ive seen about connor. holy shit guys. this boy gets 7 minutes of stage time in the actual musical, and the whole thing is we DON’T KNOW VERY MUCH ABOUT HIM. not to burst your bubble, and i by no means hate connor, i love me some good connor lives fics and stuff, but everything we write with connor being alive? that is !! speculation on our part !!!! those are headcanons and us using the little context we have!! connor doesn’t have any significant development IN THE SOURCE MATERIAL that is being adapted into a movie !!! you 1. can’t fully judge a character with already limited screentime in a 3 minute trailer, 2. can’t really call what connor has canonically in the musical as in depth character development !! what is his arc then !!!! he pushes evan, goes to the computer lab, has an outcast loner kid moment, gets upset, takes the letter, DIES. sorry stans, that’s just how it is !! and, AND, everything in between, all the idiosyncracies, that depends on the actor playing connor! speaking of, you know who the actor is playing connor in the movie? that’s right, colton ryan! so, i don’t know, maybe... have some trust in the process, in an actor who ALREADY has played connor on broadway???? and also trust that you will get more connor content then u are seeing from a 3 minute trailer!! dhgnijsdg and some of the comments on like his appearance specifically? like are you really made that he doesn’t have long hair?? they kept his nails and his rings but nahhh the hair was apparently a MUST HAVE (even though like.. not all connor actors on broadway always had/have long hair but w/e).. REGARDLESS. tldr on THAT , the movie would have to do a pretty shitty job if they want to take something from someone who doesn’t have much to begin with and i think y’all are being extremely harsh on this point

jared. honestly i’m a bit worried too about the like... name change, because it does have the potential to be taking out some representation, but... they did change the name to fit the actor’s ethnicity? it’s a really [hmm] topic because, again, from a trailer and from what we have been told we don’t KNOW a lot of the context, but i think it’s important to remember that uh.. jewish people aren’t just? always white ?? there’s a possibility they changed the last name to fit with the [ethnicity] while keeping him jewish?? ofc there’s the possibility that they Didn’t and ... again hm that’s its own thing altogether but just reiterates the point that you can’t knock a whole movie just based on the trailer. you can’t talk about things you know nothing about.

alana. same thing as before, you can’t.... completely bash a character based on a 3 minute trailer. there was discussion about how she seemed ‘shy’ when talking to evan, which like.. maybe she is but also that scene was them talking in a library like if u actually take notice of what’s happening in the scene jdskngsd though i do share the general consensus with many others that she won’t get a lot of screen-time but that’s neither here nor there 😔 moving on

scenes and the setting. one of the things i was most like.. tentative about in regards to a switch from a musical to a movie was how they were like... going to do certain scenes? naturally, a lot has to be different when we’re going from a minimal stage set to an entire movie with like.. settings. there are going to be new scenes because a movie lends to have like, physical places that aren’t just [evan’s bedroom] and [murphy kitchen] and [implied school]. so new scenes, new conversations, slightly different pacing.. this is all to be expected right like are y’all geneuinely surprised here or ........

there’s a lot we aren’t seeing yet because this is a TRAILER. again i already mentioned this re: connor but like... again, y’all are making some Claims that just... fucking outlandish. there are so many moments in the trailer that are very obvious Hard Cuts. you don’t have all the information yet. you are angry at a tiny fragment of something that is confusing you because you don’t have all the context. is there a chance that some of this shit is just genuinely Bad? yeah but you really cannot 100000% say it with your chest and gauge it without seeing the movie and understanding what that scene is in context. lowkey uhhh saw some jokes about the zoe scene in the car and :’))) ? jesus? christ????

concluding thoughts because my brain hurts but like. you don’t have to like the movie. you don’t have to WATCH the movie. like all media if you choose to consume the movie you should do so with some CRITICAL THOUGHT. but, just like the novel (and i do not want to have any discussions about that i don’t care if you think it’s good Or bad that’s not what this is about) you guys are going in this WANTING to believe it’s bad and completely polarizing your thoughts on what this is going to be. yeah, maybe there shouldn’t be a movie. i genuinely think we could’ve gone without. but it’s just a piece of media, it’s not a progression like all your (musical is good, novel is bad, MOVIE IS WORSE OH NO) posts are suggesting. they are all just. different pieces of media stemming from a source. at the end of the day it’s just a fucking movie. if you already hate it so much, guess what? you don’t have to watch it! you don’t have to put so much needless fucking hate into a 3 MINUTE TRAILER. you can stop being performative and dissing it for its poor treatment of POC while then going on to make fun of ben platt’s hair and just targeting a different group like! please !!!

i’m not trying to be a fuckin’ advocate for this movie because there’s so much opportunity for it to suck, i do Not have high hopes for it, and i’m not even really sure i want to watch it (i bought the novel when it came out and have yet to read it, and i’m sure the movie will like.. elicit very similar vibes from me lsdngjkdsg like im just not uhhh feeling it) but y’know what? watching the trailer did not bring forth the fucking onslaught of hatred in me that apparently has fuckin posessed all of y’all and like djnsgjksdg plagued my dashboard for this whole evening. don’t come into my inbox trying to like.. argue with me about this (preemptively im turning off anon because i like i Can’t lmao) this is just like... a rant i needed to get out of me real quick.

SO. tldr for now: have critical thought about shit you consume, there’s no ethical consumption under [the film industry], you can’t judge a movie entirely on its trailer, and y’all need to calm the fuck down

#garbage.txt #deh movie #ask to tag #irrelevant #bc this is lowkey a vent bc jfc #this isn't @ anyone btw this is just [in general mostly just from my dash] bc.. sighs #anyway im gonna refrain from making any more comment on this its just. frustrating.#edit: ok to rb

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kyidyl · 3 years

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Kyidyl Explains Bones - Part 3

Well, I had this halfway done and then TUMBLR ATE IT, so let me start again. UGH.

(These posts are collected under the KyidylBones tag. Do with that information what you will, lol.)

So what are we getting into today? Sex determination!

Ethical Note: I’m adding this bc not everyone who sees this post saw my post yesterday and this is important info, especially on Tumblr. Anthropologists of all stripes are well aware that sex and gender are extremely complicated. Trust me, we know. But we still do sex determination for a few reasons. First, because missing persons databases are arranged on a male/female binary, and if we’re comparing a set of remains to that database to identify the remains then we need that info. Second, demographic info for populations that have disappeared is important, even if those populations are historical. This might shock you (<--sarcasm), but written records are usually either lacking or inaccurate. Third, if we know the sex of the skeleton we can compare that to the grave goods and learn some interesting cultural things, including possibly being trans, because none of the signs of being trans survive physically in the skeleton. So I am going to be using male/female binary language, but it isn’t to exclude the wide variety of sexes and genders that don’t exist on that binary, it’s because it’s what I’ve got to work with. And if you have questions about this, feel free to ask, but please be respectful.

Alright, so there are some vocab words for today’s post and I had them all nicely written out in an easy to read paragraph, but it got eaten, so I’m just gonna present them in list fashion this time:

Characteristic - All physical markers of human variation exist on a spectrum because humans are varied and we invented the categories to begin with. If something is characteristic of, say, a male? It means that it is very, very distinctly male. It matches the stereotypical expectation of what you’d see in a male. It’s a standard for an obvious example of a given thing.

Landmark - A landmark on your bones is a feature of the bones that is always in the same place. We use this to help us identify a bone and to help us know what side it is on. IE, your lesser trochanter is a bump on your femur (thigh bone) that is on the inside towards the back. It’s always in that spot, so we know which direction it should face and ergo which side it would be on. Landmarks are unique to the bone in question.

Foramen - A hole on a bone. The big one in your skull that your spinal cord goes through is the foramen magnum and it literally means big hole. But there are a lot of little ones all over your skeleton so your nerves and blood vessels can do to your skeleton what the weirwood did to Bryden Rivers. I said what I said. ;)

Bilateral - Both sides. Humans have bilateral symmetry and so one side is symmetrical (externally and WRT your skeleton, but not always your organs.) to the other. You can split us down the middle and the two sides are basically the same.

Ok, so there’s another set of terms that you need to know, but I’m going to be copying and pasting this into every post going forward so I’m making it separate. Anyone who works with any kind of anatomy uses these terms to be very specific about the location of something on the body. They are:

Anterior/Posterior - Front and back respectively. I remember them because my mom used to say posterior when she didn’t want to say butt, and because A comes before P the way front comes before back. Sometimes people say dorsal and ventral, and I remember that because a dorsal fin is on a whale’s back.

Proximal/Distal - Near and far vertically in relationship to the center of your body. I remember it because one end of the bone is in close proximity to me and the other one is distant.

Medial/Lateral - Near and far horizontally in relationship to the center of your body. I remember it because medial is closer to the middle of my body, and lateral isn’t medial. Also, if you are reading left to right L comes before M and you’d get to a lateral body part before a medial one.

So, where to begin? How do we know what sex people were assigned at birth from just their skeleton? Let’s start with what everyone is most familiar with:

The Pelvis

The pelvis of an adult human is a really common thing for an archaeologist to find. And by the time we find it, it’s usually in three pieces (excluding your tailbone aka last vertebra). Your left and right hip bones, called the innominates, and your sacrum. Mind you, the pelvis is made up of a number of bones, but they all fuse in adulthood except these three (fun fact: I’m so used to using the individual names for them that I had to *google* the word innominate.), so this is what we usually find. If it’s a kid, they still survive well because they’re thick, heavy bones, but they aren’t fused. Another fun fact, the bumps of bone that you feel under your ass are called your ischium and I’m only telling you that because I think it’s a fun word to say. Your hop bones, like the actual entirety of the flat bladed part at the top, that’s called the Illium. I like that word too. Aaanyway, here’s a human pelvis:

(Source)

These are actual bone specimens in the top down view, both are women, but they are of different ethnic origin.

(Source)

This is a cast (IE, plastic), front view of a male pelvis.

You can see those 3 pieces I’m talking about. The only joint there that remains unfused is the sacroiliac joint, IE, where the two halves of the pelvis join the sacrum. However! You sacrum is technically a series of fused vertebrae and your spinal cord runs almost all the way to the very tip. There are some conditions which cause these not to fuse, or to not fuse properly, or to not properly encase the spinal cord and it causes all KINDS of issues. But anyway, yeah, your sacrum is a really tough hunk of bone because it carries a lot of weight. The bit in the front is called the pubic symphysis and, despite what certain tumblr posts would have you believe, having children does NOT leave a notch on the inner side of it from the muscle tearing away tiny chunks of the bone. In fact, it is hotly debated whether or not pregnancy leaves behind any skeletal evidence at all.

Alright, so basically speaking, females make da babies and males don’t, so the different equipment is differently shaped......

.....wait, no, that’s not right. Let’s back up. Male and female humans are differently proportioned and their center of gravity is, on average, different. This is the whole thing about men having upper body strength and women having thighs that can crush watermelons. This is on *average* (I will be saying a lot about averages in these posts.) true. And so the physics of the forces exerted on your bones is different. Males are top-heavy, and so their pelvis is shaped in response to their gate and muscle structure because the pelvis supports and distributes the weight of your entire body. And bipedalism means that the shape of the pelvis is very, very different depending on the weight distribution. These changes to the pelvis are really obvious, which is why we can tell from just a few bones whether or not a hominin was bipedal. It changes the *entire* body.

It is true though that the pelvis of a female is different than a male, because a female pelvis has to be able to support the weight of a developing child while still allowing the individual to walk. So the interaction of average size, a uterus, and the bipedal gate means that male and female pelvises are a different shape.

Here is a comparison:

(Source)

So firstly, that angle is called the sub-public angle, and because a females pelvis is wider and flatter than a male’s (when viewed from the front) it’s wider in the front. This also gives any babies more room. Secondly, you can see the difference in the tilt of the sacrum - in the female you can’t see the tailbone. This, again, is due to the confluence of weight distribution and the necessity of passing a baby’s head through that space. It would be a lot harder to push it out if you had a tailbone in the way. Lastly, you can see that the shape of the circle when you look top down and bottom up are different - wider on the woman because of the same reasons I’ve already mentioned. There is one more major difference between the male and female pelvis, and that’s the sciatic notch:

(Source)

Characteristic of male on the left, intermediate in the middle, and female on the right (and dang, she was young, too.). Thinner is male, wider is female. Usually you can fit your thumb in a female’s notch but barely or not at all in a male. I personally find the subpubic arch and the sciatic notch the easiest to use because, fun fact #2, those 3 sections are a bitch to hold together with your hands and that makes it hard to see the other shapes. The amount of sacrums and pelvic bones I’ve accidentally dropped while trying to determine sex....it’s a lot, ok? It’s a lot. I only have two hands and pelvises are big.

There are also several less obvious ways of determining sex from a skeleton, so you guys should definitely visit the source for the above image because they go into it deeper and there are several excellent images of public bones.

So how else do we determine sex? The next easiest way is from the skull, because the features are distinct and skulls survive well.

The Skull

In my opinion the easiest landmark to use on a skull for sex determination is the jaw. There are several features of the jaw that can be used here - and, mind you, when determining sex we measure every small and large sex-linked feature according to a scale and then average it all out. We never look at any single thing (although sometimes the individual has something so characteristic that you can’t help it. The individual in my position has a brow like a neanderthal, so it was pretty obvious.). Anyway, there are several features here but the easiest is to look at the shape of the lateral distal posterior portion of the jaw. It’s called the masseteric tuberosity. Basically, it’s a little bit of bone that sticks out of the back of your jaw. It’s one of the attachment points of the masseter aka chewing muscles attach. Because males have stronger muscles pulling on that part of the jaw and exerting more force, it flares out further for them when you look at it from the front, like this:

(Source)

It’s that sticky-outy thing thing that I circled in red. Here is an example of the same thing on females:

(Source)

Female jaws are rounder, and so that bit is less defined, flares out less, and is not as sharp as it is on males. And this is a reminder that these measures aren’t absolutes - humans have a lot of variance in them. The female asian and the male on the right both have somewhat atypical structures, while the female european and the two other males have a very characteristic structure.

The two other easiest to identify are the shape of the brown line and the shape of the chin (the mental protuberance). Here is an image of the comparison:

(Source: Pinterest, but this images are from the Human Bone Manual text that I use and I used this image so I wouldn’t have to make my own. :P)

You can see in the profile that the female skull has a higher, more vertical forehead with less pronounced brow ridges. If you look, you can also see that her chin protrudes less in profile, and is softer and less pronounced in the frontal view. The angle under her teeth is less severe.

So these three things, the chin, the brow, and the jaw, are the easiest to identify the most likely to be characteristic of the sex of the individual. But, if you compare the images I’ve used here you’ll also notice that there are other differences in the skull. Females have more of a slope to the bottom of their jaw, the bump on the back of their heads (the occipital protuberance) tends to be far less pronounced; and this is the case for all muscle attachments generally speaking. On average, males are more easily able to build muscle mass and are larger, and so their muscles pull harder on their skeletons and create larger muscle attachments. The round, blunt thing to the right of the back of the jaw that sticks out from the skull (the mastoid process), is also at a different angle and is larger in males. This is another case of the muscles being bigger and stronger - the mastoid process is where several of your jaw and neck muscles attach.

There you have it, then. The easiest ways to tell the sex of a skeleton. :)

This post has been approved by Gage the science doggo:

#science #anthropology #skeletons #human remains #human skeletons #education #KyidylBones #archaeology #bioarchaeology #humans #bones #human bones

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laventadorn · 4 years

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Part 1/2 I was wondering if you had any ideas/headcanons wrt Eileen/Tobias? JK doesn't really go into how they met, but given the little info he gives us its pretty clear the type of marriage they had. But, I was wondering why Tobias acted the way he did. Not that he needs a reason, but I love backstories. Do u have one for the Snapes? Personally, I sawa bit of parallel with how Seamus described how his muggle dad didn't know his mom was a which until after the wedding. I can sort of see...

I wrote one for my first HP fic, in fact! Heavily influenced by Jane Austen lmao

I would change some aspects of this now, but this was the version I dug up from my Ancient Writings:

(readmore, y u no work)

Eileen’s parents’ marriage was arranged, as many pure-blood marriages are. The Princes were a very old, distinguished line, but impoverished, while her mother’s family was relatively new, in a pure-blood sense, but wealthy. Her parents set up the marriage with Mr. Prince, who was rather older than their daughter, but she agreed to it. However, within a short time she was unhappy, since her husband, raised to frugality, was rather miserly and she was spendthrift; and being younger, she wanted to do a great many things that it was not in his temperament to agree to. When Eileen was about five or six, her mother ran away, abandoning her child and her marriage, eloping to Europe with a lover. Her husband was so humiliated and enraged that he forbade anyone in the household to speak her name ever again. He destroyed all evidence of her existence in the house—the possessions she had left behind, the paintings they’d had commissioned, even renouncing her personal house-elf. Even when he learned, three years later, that she’d died in conditions of poverty and hardship, it didn’t soften him toward her; instead, he only believed she had got what she deserved.

When Eileen was seven, he remarried, this time to a widow, one of the Blacks, who had endured a childless marriage of some fifteen years until her husband was killed rather stupidly trying to learn how to ride a dragon. She had no wealth, but Mr. Prince still had his wife’s fortune, and Mrs. Black’s impeccable bloodline meant more to him in any case. She and Mr. Prince were rather meant for each other, however: both were nip-farthings, both joyless and cruel, and both rigidly traditional. They believed in duty, propriety, and unstinting obedience from their children.

Mrs. Black, now Mrs. Prince, thought worse of the former Mrs. Prince than even her husband did. To her, a woman’s infidelity was the worst of vile sins, and she pitied her new husband for having married such a filthy whore. She was sorry that the former Mrs. Prince had left behind a little girl, since naturally the daughter of such a whore would turn out just like her.

But Mrs. Prince was determined to do her duty by Eileen. She raised her to be a proper pure-blood wife—dutiful, obedient, graceful and silent. She beat into her the importance of propriety, telling Eileen how vital it was that she give no one any cause to say how like her mother she was, however much she would surely have the same sort of base, wicked urges as that slut. She also impressed upon Eileen the necessity of marrying into a pure-blood family of stature, since her mother was a fine example of the rubbish that rose to the surface of bad blood.

Within a few short years, the new Mrs. Prince had rewarded her second husband with twin sons. These boys had the benefit firstly of being boys, always a plus in pure-blood families, as well as the added bonus of not having a piece of trash for a mother. The practice of favoring the sons over the daughters was standard in pure-blood families, but the sins of Eileen’s mother worsened her lot. Nothing Eileen ever did was right enough or good enough or proper enough in the eyes of her family; and at school she had no friends, since the pure-blood daughters of Slytherin were fully aware of her mother’s story and had been forbidden from associating with her. Eileen was not pretty, and her home life was too miserable to make her good enough company to compensate for her other defects. Her father pretended she did not exist, her brothers teased and tormented her, and her stepmother ruled her whole life with a fist of iron.

Eileen retreated into her schoolwork, into books and knowledge. In second year she did make one friend, a Ravenclaw named Constance Marlowe. Constance was a very tranquil person. Her mother was Muggle-born, and she would tell Eileen about her Muggle grandparents. Eileen had never met Muggles. Her father and stepfather loathed them, but they loathed Eileen, too, and loved her brothers and the pure-blood families who treated Eileen as if their cruelty was simply preempting every nasty thing they suspected she would ever do.

Then in fifth year, while visiting the sea shore on summer holiday, Constance drowned. Eileen went to her funeral, to which many of Constance’s Muggle relatives had come. They looked like regular people, although they dressed funny. After that, Eileen hated the ocean, but realized that Muggles were capable of human thought and speech, which her family had always led her to believe they weren’t.

When school ended, she returned to live at her father’s house, since pure-blood women of her family’s stature did not get jobs; they got married. But with Eileen’s reputation, her looks, and her father’s desire to spend as little money on her dowry as possible, she received no offers. Her blood was not even decent enough, balanced as it was by her mother’s betrayal. So for more than ten years, Eileen lived in her father’s home, a companion to her stepmother, an object of mockery to her brothers and the children they went on to have.

By the time she was thirty, everyone, even she, was certain she would never marry. Her stepmother even came to relax her restrictions, since she had kept Eileen wrapped so tightly out of a duty to maidenly propriety. A thin, unattractive thirty-year-old witch was not likely to be prey to any lascivious attentions or whims. Uncaring now of the reputation she had so viciously guarded, Mrs. Prince let Eileen out of the house for longer periods of time … although she might not have, had she known Eileen was visiting Muggle haunts.

On one of these jaunts, when she was about thirty-one, Eileen met Tobias. She had gone, in fact, to the seaside town where Constance drowned, perhaps out of a morbid desire to torture herself. He was there, too, trying to get away from his life for a bit, since he’d just gotten divorced.

He had married young when his girlfriend got pregnant unexpectedly. He’d done his duty by her, quitting school and going to work at the mill, but a few months before the day he met Eileen, his wife had sat him down and said she’d fallen in love with some other bloke, but she wanted to do right by Tobias because he’d always done right by her. She and he weren’t in love, hadn’t been since the very early days, even if they’d rubbed along together easily enough, and he said as long as he could keep seeing his girl, they’d be all right. So they divorced amicably, and she married the other bloke, who was a bit older and balding and sort of fat, but a jolly sort, which Tobias had to admit he was not. Lorraine’s new husband looked a bit like Santa Claus to Tobias, and he knew his daughter would like her step-father, if she didn’t already. And although as a young man he’d agreed to the marriage of necessity and had never really been bitter about it, happy enough with his wife and daughter for company, he had wanted more from his life than he’d wound up with at thirty-five: divorced, uneducated, in a dreary, pointless job.

As she was talking with him, Eileen realized she wanted more than anything to get away from her family. She realized how purely she hated them, as if the hatred ran through her blood. She decided to scandalize them utterly: packed up her marriage chest and ran away, to live with Tobias without marrying him, hoping to drive her father and step-mother both to an apoplectic fit, but at least one or the other if she could manage it.

So she and Tobias simply lived together for a while, until Eileen got pregnant. She had been guarding against this, but the magical world had an old wives’ tale that wizarding babies wanted to be born so badly that sometimes, you couldn’t stop them. When she told Tobias, he wanted to get married, and although she didn’t really, she didn’t want her child to suffer the ignominy of being the bastard of a whore. So they were married, very quietly, only Tobias’ ex-wife in attendance with her family. Not wanting to give birth to a daughter that would live the life she’d had, Eileen mixed a very Dark potion to ensure the birth of a son.

So Severus was born. She put an ad in the Daily Prophet, hoping her family would see it, in case it would give them an aneurism.

Before Severus was born, but when she was close to due, Tobias asked her if the baby would have magic. Eileen said, “It is likely, but he may not.”

“What happens if he doesn’t?” Tobias asked.

Eileen shrugged. “Then he doesn’t.” She wanted her son to be a wizard, but she was no longer in the magical world; a Squib child would not matter to her now. She had brothers; she was not even the end of the line.

It was impossible to tell if babies had magic, so for several years after Severus’ birth it was a moot issue. Eileen continued to work spells, because Tobias said he didn’t mind, he actually thought it was pretty interesting. And then one day when Severus was about four or five, he worked magic, and out of nowhere Tobias blew up at the pair of them. Eileen was so shocked she actually flinched away, because although she knew Tobias had a temper, he’d never turned it on her. Severus burst into tears. And then Eileen pulled herself together and reacted, rage and hatred boiling up out of her through her wand, and she turned it on her husband, the way she’d always wanted to do to her brothers, her father, her step-mother, the children at school, and she blasted him across the room and into the bookshelf.

Severus screamed. Eileen stood frozen, looking at Tobias’ unconscious body slumped under an array of books. She blasted them off him and found he was bleeding from cuts all over his front. She hastily flooed them all to St. Mungo’s, where he was swiftly patched up. Although the Healers gave her funny looks, they did nothing to her because she was a witch and he was only a Muggle, and there weren’t legal protections in those days for the Muggle spouses of wizards and witches.

Tobias wasn’t the same after that. Eileen didn’t know whether it was the shock of her turning her magic on him, or Severus’ own magic manifesting, or even the trip to St. Mungo’s, because his face as he looked around the hospital as they left had been haunted. After that, he began to drink more. Although he’d always had a few on the weekends and even more on holidays, he was soon never seen without a drink in his hand or the scent of alcohol on his breath. He wouldn’t tell Eileen what was wrong, and it was impossible to get anything from the mind of a drunk person; even trying it made one disoriented.

She expected him to leave them; expected to wake up one morning and find him gone, but for some reason he never did. They settled into a life where Tobias would go for days avoiding her and Severus, hardly speaking to them when sober, muttering when inebriated, with occasional outbursts of temper that Eileen would sometimes curtail, but at others simply weather out. As a young child Severus was at first frightened, then hurt, and once he grew older, resentful.

Once, when Severus was about seven, she did wake up in the middle of the night and find Tobias in Severus’ room, watching him sleep. Tobias was just drunk enough to be honest. He looked up at her with haunted eyes and said, “Do you hate that I can’t do it?”

“Do what?” she asked, bewildered.

“What you can do. What he can do. Do you hate me because I can’t?”

Eileen just stared at him. “Is that why you act like this?” He didn’t say anything, just looked back at Severus. “No, I don’t hate you. That would be like hating the sky because it’s blue.”

When he spoke, she almost didn’t hear him. “Sometimes I hate you, though. Both of you.”

It took Eileen much longer than it should have to understand what Tobias was really telling her: that he hated them for being able to do something he never would. He hated them for having the power of magic when he was only a Muggle. That look on his face in St. Mungo’s had been shock at an entire world he’d never guessed existed; and now that he knew of it, he also knew he would only ever be on the outside looking in.

But she had not understood this in time. She resented his drinking; he resented her powers; they resented each other’s resentment. And at the heart of it, they came to hate the other for a second chance that had turned to ash, just as the first chance had.

Eventually Eileen realized that the same barrier that stood between her and Tobias had blocked him off from Severus, and she simply quit trying to bridge it. She drew Severus into the circle of her magic, eschewing any acknowledgment of the non-magical world he was half a part of. She had always meant Tobias to show him that part, and now Tobias would not. She taught Severus about his magical bloodline, the House of their family’s allegiance, the world he would enter once he was old enough, the powers he would wield. Although she punished him if he looked in her books without her permission, she taught him hexes and curses and spells that would get him respected among his Slytherin peers, that would receive him the notice of families he would need to impress in order to gain entrance into the society that should have been his—both of theirs, had her life gone much differently. She raised him more as she had been raised, in a manner typical for pure-blood daughters: with strictness and not much indulgence, because she’d loathed the men her brothers had become, alternately indulged and ruthlessly punished as they had been, as the beloved sons of two cruel, cold-hearted people.

In teaching Severus about the world she had left, sending him off into the future he ought to have, Eileen realized she had never been happy in the world of magic. She had known the truth of that, lived it all her life, but never articulated it to herself. But she was not happy in the Muggle world, either; she did not understand it, couldn’t navigate it. It was too vast and unfamiliar for her even to know where to start. As she prepared Severus for Hogwarts, Eileen realized the only time she had been anything close to happy was in that seaside town when she had met Tobias, and she had believed, for a handful of days, that the future would be different from the past.

But it hadn’t been. Now Tobias was gone, and only Severus was left. And even though she had tried her hardest to make it otherwise, she realized that Severus was just as out-of-place as she had ever been; she, the daughter of a whore, the pure-blood wife of a Muggle with a wizard for a son. Severus was the child of two people whose lives had been wasted for them by others; sent as hardly more than a baby into the world of pure-blood politics with such a tiny arsenal of anything they would see as promise, in love with a naïve Muggle-born Gryffindor. If Severus wanted the Muggle-born, he would cut all his chances of entering good society; and if he got the Muggle-born, he would find himself in the midst of people who regarded his magic with jealousy and suspicion.

That was the true curse of the half-blood, she thought. You were always trapped between worlds that didn’t know how to claim you.

*Snape doesn’t have those uncles anymore cuz they died off somehow, and he doesn’t have contact with his dad’s first family. He doesn’t strike me as someone who has a large extended family he pals around with, although I’m sure they exist. I have 1 jillion cousins I know absolutely nothing about, not even their names.

#laventadorn's adventures in writing stuff

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sinesalvatorem · 6 years

Text

One of the things I managed to convey to a bunch of people yesterday is -

The reason I usually dominate every social environment I’m in is because it doesn’t feel safe not to. Because, if I let my attention slip for even a second, the natural state of all social groups is to converge on plotting to hurt me, and I have to always always always be navigating that all the time.

This leads to me having crazy amounts of social modeling overhead all the time. Like, at one point I was talking to @metagorgon on one side of a room while some other people on the other side of the room were talking to them, and even though I was “““ignoring””” the other side of the room to focus on the conversation I was engaged in, I was tracking their conversation well enough to be internally making puns related to them. And, when I mentioned that, Pastel was basically like - how the fuck?

And, well, how the fuck is that I’m not allowed to turn it off. If there are people anywhere in my environment, they are very salient threats and their natural course tends toward hating me. Because, well, I’m a faggot - that bit isn’t surprising. But the important thing is that it is in fact possible to exist nearby to people who are naturally inclined to despise you if they never get upset for any reason whatsoever, because then they don’t have any aggression to take out on you, so I have to make sure that everyone in my vicinity is at the very least not annoyed as a minimum survival condition 110% of the time.

Additionally, I just directly value other people having a good time. Part of this is ridiculously high affective empathy, which means that other people having a good time basically translates into me having a good time, because the membrane between my emotions and the emotions of a group is very permeable. (Both ways, unfortunately, which is why I have to at a minimum perform cheerfulness even when I’m otherwise operating in low-energy mode.) And part of this is just, like, wanting good things for people? Like, the same impulse that leads me to want to help strangers that I’ll never see and never get to do an empathy key-exchange with.

And part of the valuing other people having a good time thing is feeling a sense of responsibility for all the potential mes of the world? Because I feel like someone needs to be flying the plane at all times to ensure that people don’t just start ripping each other apart. Sort of like when I was with my mother she used to ensure that people around me weren’t going to hurt me and I could relax, but when I was at school I was without a saviour.

(Oh, yes, my blog url is partly a reference to the fact that I have PTSD hyperawareness All The Time Always.)

But, if I trusted that someone like my mother existed around me, I’d be great. I’d be so relaxed. I could turn off my hyper-vigilance ever and just turn the responsibility of safety over to someone else. But I don’t trust anyone to ever be both as competent as me at making sure things are OK, and also aligned enough with my values to make sure things are going OK for me.

However, failing that, I feel the need to step in and do it for both myself and others? Like, to ensure that an environment exists in which no one is about to be attacked. And, just as importantly, where no one feels like they’re about to be attacked. So I track if anyone seems like they might be upset or anxious or drained or otherwise not doing well, and try to identify how I can bring them back to a baseline of security, sometimes by just dropping everything else to find an opportunity to ask them what they need.

Anyway, this is all the nice noble bullshit about why I’m doing this. Here are the failure modes:

Firstly, remember how I never let go of the steering wheel because I don’t trust that anyone else is aligned enough with my goals to actually keep me safe? Well, even though my goals wrt making sure everyone is OK are altruistic goals, they aren’t selfless goals per se. I’m doing this for everyone on a naive do-unto-others model.

But sometimes they don’t want me to be steering the social environment interminably toward safety. Sometimes they have other goals, and they’d like to prioritise them over feeling good, but I can tend to run roughshod over them. Because, well, I’m on that tier-2 Maslow shit where everything is Not Getting Murdered all the time, and I need to steer everything around me as far away from potential for anyone being murdered as possible.

So sometimes people are spending time around me and they’re having a great time and they’re annoyed because they don’t want to be having a great time. They want to be exploring ideas, or having arguments, or purposefully pushing their limits, or otherwise doing things that might be risky relative to a goal of them feeling perfectly comfortable all the time. And I... don’t know how to stop?

Like, sometimes I literally just leave when I realise this is the case, because expending the amount of energy needed to restrain myself from doing this is more exhausting than even doing it. Keeping 10 people happy? Psh, no problem. Not bending the universe toward keeping those people happy? Help, what do. I genuinely want to respect that preference for a different social environment, because I value people getting what they actually want. But I just can’t. Let. Go. Or I die, or someone else dies, or there’s otherwise Bad Shit that I could have prevented.

Secondly, and relatedly, I don’t know how to handle the preferences of people who directly value being in a social environment that isn’t being managed/tended/gardened in real time. Because I see that they’re anxious, and want to pull a social lever to make the thing that’s making them upset go away, and then realise that the thing making them upset is that I have my hands on the levers.

And I am maybe just fundamentally incompatible with this kind of person? Because usually what’s going on is that we’re traumatised in opposite directions. I am accustomed to the universe being inherently hostile to my life, and that the way I had to oppose it was to build the power to reshape the couple meters around me everywhere I step into social flourishing.

Meanwhile, the type of people who hate it when the social environment is being warped are usually people whose threat model is social predators warping their environment to make them less safe. And this totally makes sense, and being freaked out by me is a reasonable response to that. I feel like, if they understood what I’m doing and why they’d be less afraid...

...But the fundamentally important thing is that they have no obligation not to be afraid. It just means we probably need some distance between us because, as much as I genuinely feel sorry for this, I am not actually going to stop protecting myself, even if the process of me doing so makes them feel unsafe. I’m willing to talk to them and learn what they’d need from me in order to feel safe, and I’m willing to avoid them, but I’m not willing to let go of my protection.

Thirdly, I don’t know how to cope with losing my powers. This is what happened to me on LSD both times that I took high enough doses to actually be impaired. Like, when I didn’t have the power to be continuously scanning the room and parsing all the moods and be totally confident no one wished me harm, I straight up couldn’t figure out how to ask anyone for anything. A charger, company, anything.

And I have learned helplessness for not having these powers protecting me all the time because I deep, deep in my gut believe that the universe is hostile to my existence. And, if it notices me without me having the power to fight back, it will squish me. So I need to hide away from everyone until I regain my power levels.

But this also means I have bad coping mechanisms for mental impairment. Like, this is an impairment I deal with so infrequently that I don’t have workarounds for it. It’s like when my non-dyslexic friends are sometimes really intoxicated and lose the ability to read and Freak Out because they don’t know how to handle that. And I’m like... Welcome to me while slightly tired? The world won’t actually fall apart if you can’t read, because look at me, I’m too gay to read and I’m just fine.

Likewise, other people are like... “Why don’t you just ask people for a charger?” and I’m like “How do I know if I’m even mildly inconveniencing them and need to do emotional labour to make it OK?” and they’re like “...Did you know you’re allowed to exist without doing emotional labour?“ and I’m like “Citation FUCKING needed, buddy.”

And that is maybe the first thing I should work on.

#tragic backstory #socialising #how to speak alison

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izzyovercoffee · 7 years

Text

Mereel, Besany, consent, and polite confrontations

Because fandom doesn’t always know how to look past the “ladies’ man trope” and see the external forces impressing upon a moment that the characters, themselves, would be aware of and acting upon.

Fandom also has a hard time understanding Besany as a character, and as a result finds difficulty grasping what she does, exactly.

But also because fandom has the (very, incredibly backwards) incorrect impression that Mereel is the type of man incapable of accepting no for an answer ... when the narrative shows us that he is the far opposite. Mereel is the type of person to go out of his way to ensure the other person is comfortable enough to say no and feel free to walk away.

And ... because this is so long ... I’m going to make multiple posts. So.

Part One: Where the hell are my clothes?

One of the more apparent scenes that sticks out in fandom’s mind wrt Mereel is the one with Besany. This is also one of my favorite scenes across all of the books, because of how clearly it defines both Mereel and Besany in the moment, shows how their personalities (and their professional strengths) come up to engage in a moment that goes so quick it’s nigh impossible to catch everything that happened on first reading.

Mostly, I love spy novels and stories to do with espionage, and both Mereel and Besany operate in the field of very high-profile espionage (albeit the risk levels and repercussions of their successes are very, very different). ARC Null-7, Lieutenant Mereel, is tasked with the more glamorized spy life that is usually associated with large-scale militarized conflict ... but Agent Besany Wennen operates in the field of Republic Internal Affairs, and Corporate Espionage, with the backing of the Republic Treasury.

Her skills, and the way she processes/reacts to things, are often overlooked, undermined, or overshadowed either by who she’s playing off against (in this case, Mereel), or by narrative inconsistencies.

We’re gonna go piece by piece through that first encounter so you can see how Mereel first:

tests boundaries

uses humor and flirtatious charm to diffuse tension

notes where the boundaries are, and

doesn’t cross them again

We’re also going to address the things people tend to miss about Republic Treasury Agent Besany Wennen:

Sharp attention to detail

the Friend/Foe assessment and why that’s relevant

what her job actually is

Let’s begin.

[Besany] wasn’t even aware of someone walking behind her. But a hand touched her shoulder, and she gasped. Guilt made her spin around to find she was staring into the reflective riot visor of one of the CSF cops.

Her stomach churned. Oh no no no—

“Agent Wennen,” he said. The accent was familiar. “Long time no see.”

But she didn’t know him, she was sure.

--- Republic Commando: True Colors, pp 37

Here we have the very very first 1 to 1 moment. For context, before this passage, Besany had been talking to the CSF officers at a checkpoint, and had noted that there are protesters outside her workplace. A different officer (not Mereel in disguise) offered to escort her through the crowd of protesters, but she refused.

She was very absorbed in her thoughts, ruminating about helping Skirata’s people and giving them unbridled security access which tread some very blurry legal lines --- to the point that she didn’t realize someone was following until he got within arm’s reach.

So. We have Mereel touch her shoulder, and Besany’s reaction is immediate: gasp (startle response), spin around (startle response), internal monologue that we can assume reflects on her expression.

All three point to an exaggerated startle response from a single touch on her shoulder --- something, I’m going to point out, usually flags that the person in question is under some kind of stress. It’s also an indicator of high vigilance (technically a good thing for Besany, since her job alone is dangerous, and then the added danger of assisting Skirata’s clan and getting involved).

Also note that Besany Wennen makes it clear, internally, that she does not know him. Recall, briefly, that back during Triple Zero Besany was able to ID Ordo-in-disguise-as-Corr as Ordo, when she had only met Ordo once (twice?) prior to his infiltration --- and had given no prior indication that she ever suspected the switch. Her ability to discern people, to go so far as to tell clones apart with next to no additional information, is some of the sharpest of any of the characters across the novels.

It’s also necessary to note that a touch to the shoulder is something that people tend to do when the other person they’re trying to speak to doesn’t realize they’re there. Nothing in the moment gives us the impression that it was anything more than to physically get her attention (again, it’s noted someone was following her, but it’s presented in a way that had Besany not been distracted, she would have noticed being followed).

Second thing to note is that Mereel is not in standard issue clone ARC armor. Mereel to Besany, and to everyone else in the vicinity (note that they are in public area with pedestrian traffic) looks like a CSF riot cop.

“Why is that important?” you might ask. Three reasons:

sets the precedent on how Mereel is allowed to approach Besany without drawing undue attention to them

how he’s allowed to speak to her and what they can actually speak about

if anyone is monitoring her, will not bring the kind of suspicion on Besany that absolutely would be placed on her if he was in GAR clone armor

What follows is:

“You have the advantage, Officer.” Men hit on her a lot less than most people imagined. She knew she was striking, but she also knew that she was a daunting prospect because of it. Even Ordo—hugely confident, recklessly unafraid—treated her warily. Her good looks were a curse most of the time. “What can I do for you?”

The cop stood with his fists on his hips. He didn’t look like he was going to draw his weapon.

--- Republic Commando: True Colors, pp 37-38

Everything about this moment points to a rising tension:

Besany knows from personal experience that people do not just approach her on the street (don’t get stuck on the reason, pay attention to the fact that a stranger’s cold approach is framed as a red flag)

She immediately sizes him up, from the riot gear to ID him, and then to his hands to see if she’s under attack

How is this relevant?

Well, for one, Besany (for whatever reason) has “officer may draw his weapon on me” at the top of her checklist. It’s glossed over quickly here, but Besany notes this specific potential action.

Someone who has never had to think about responding to a hostile officer with a weapon would not be aware enough to note if a cop intended to draw their weapon on them or not --- especially if they trust cops and have no reason to expect they would ever respond violently without clear cause.

Noting that he doesn’t look like he’s going to draw his weapon also means that if he intended to draw his weapon, she is prepared to respond in some way. Not necessarily aggressively (it’s made very clear she’s a civilian and a non-violent one), but all the same she is prepared to respond.

Secondly, it’s relevant because Mereel, if he is any good at his job, will have noted that she’s now:

tense

anxious, possibly fearful

checking to see if he intends to accost her

will respond accordingly to the very next thing he says, so he better pick his words very carefully

“But that’s a lot to take in in such a short time, Izzy. Don’t you think you’re reading too much into the details?”

Well, firstly, any conversation in which Kal Skirata is present and working to find a person’s weakness, is always contingent on the most minute details --- details exactly like these, so no. The narrative already sets the precedence that details matter.

Secondly, IF it were any other two people (not including Kal), then idk, maybe. But, these are not any two people --- it is a brief, tense engagement between two very detail oriented people who operate in espionage.

To rephrase: This is a conversation between two trained spies.

“Besany isn’t a spy, though?” Well, actually ...

Quick digression, but necessary. You can skip down to the next break (”How does Mereel respond”) if you don’t want a recap on how and why Besany Wennen is, to put it simply, a spy.

Triple Zero specifically defines her job as corporate espionage with her acting as a spy for the Republic central government. It is VERY easy to miss and confuse because we are never given her POV, we don’t even know what she was doing there, or why she was there --- it was assumed she had always worked in the administrative position Ordo encountered her in.

It was only when she literally goes to interrogate the target and gets pulled up in the crosshairs, and then shot by Etain, that it’s revealed she’s:

undercover for the government

planted in that specific office to

investigate personally the discrepancies noticed by the Republic Treasury

which includes gathering information (gathering intel), and

moving on suspicious individuals employed by the Republic

Also important to note: she’s not scared after she’s been shot. She actually IDs Ordo, which should not have been possible, and THEN SHE THREATENS HIM. All while severely injured on the ground.

These are not the actions of an untrained government paper pusher. I need this to be absolutely clear. A general accountant will not have the gettse to look down the barrel of a live weapon that already shot her once and insult, then threaten, a person who she knows (she makes it absolutely clear in that moment that she knows) has every intention (and possibly the power) to execute her on the spot.

An untrained accountant will not have known to say “You’ll be in a lot of shit if you kill me, and my Agency will hunt you down for it.”

She may have barreled right into Skirata’s investigation, but also note that Skirata’s clan also barreled right into hers --- she was not far from discovering the terrorist plot on her own, and she had far fewer resources and way less knowledge on her side.

So. In light of the above, is Besany a spy? Yes, because there’s many different kinds of espionage. Her’s is just far less glamorous, and is mostly focused on enforcing government regulations and civil service.

And no ... she’s not on Mereel’s level, it’s true ... but her work is still dangerous, and she has to be good at reading people to be good at her job. She’s also clearly prepared to be shot in the chest point blank, and not be fazed by it.

So, how does Mereel respond to Besany’s clear and obvious distress?

“Well, I know I’m not quite as unforgettable as my brother, but I thought you’d at least say, Hi, Mereel, how are things?”

“Oh. Oh.” Mereel: one of Ordo’s five Null ARC brothers, Lieutenant Mereel. Besany’s gut lurched in a different way, and she didn’t bother to hide her relief. “I’m sorry, Mereel. Out of context ...”

"So you didn’t recognize me with my clothes on, then?” A couple of passersby turned to stare. He chuckled to himself. “I mean, the armor. Makes a guy look different. Anyway, what kind of covert operator would I be if I was that easy to spot? Come on, can’t stand here getting funny looks all night. Walk this way and I’ll make it worth your while.”

--- Republic Commando: True Colors, pp 37-38

So. I know this moment always sticks out in people’s minds. I will break down the quote to more easily dissect the moment, but I also need the full moment here for my next comment.

“This!” people often say to themselves with fervor, “THIS is how we know that Mereel is a womanizer!”

To which I reply ...no, not really. I mean, yes, he’s very flirtatious and charming, we can see that without a shadow of a doubt. But this isn’t a confirmation that he’s a womanizer ... this is a confirmation that Mereel is excellent at his job.

Mereel is a fucking genius. I might be am definitely biased but damn.

And to use this line just as a confirmation he’s a “womanizer” is to ... ignore everything skillful about this moment, and about Mereel in general. And it’s so easy to miss it, but you’re doing a disservice to Mereel.

Listen. Mereel is a solo covert operator. A spy. Part of his job is to get close with a target (or targets), infiltrate their organization, and either dismantle them from the inside, or turn the leader to whatever side they need them to be aligned to. Often Mereel has to do this alone, without any immediate backup, and work with some very, very dangerous people.

What Mereel is doing, here, is diffusing a tense situation with a disarming charm, framed as a self-deprecating joke.

“How is it tense?” Look at Besany’s exaggerated startle response. She’s flighty, alarmed, visibly panicked --- in a place where there are notable passersby, not far from a place packed with protesters and CSF riot cops, whose uniform Mereel is currently wearing.

What would the average citizen walking by remember in that moment? A lone, terrified woman cornered by a riot cop not far from a protest.

And he’s fully aware they have an audience. He’s working with multiple handicaps in this moment, but look at how skillfully he navigates them:

“Well, I know I’m not quite as unforgettable as my brother, but I thought you’d at least say, Hi, Mereel, how are things?”

“Well, I know I’m not quite as unforgettable as my brother .... ”

He IDENTIFIES himself to her immediately by relation and name.

This is huge, not just in the world of espionage: it’s a clear sign that he trusts her, entrusts his identity with her, and is also making clear the connection they have between each other. It acts as a way for her to recognize him as not a threat, and related to someone she trusts, and therefore can trust him in turn.

And he does so in a way that the audience they’ve attracted can discern that they know each other, and that she is not in any immediate danger.

The other thing people miss is that he’s also making fun of himself.

“I’m not quite as unforgettable as my brother” is a type of self-deprecating humor. Self-deprecating humor operates a little like physically disarming one’s self. It’s a verbal signal that he is not a threat, and is inviting her to laugh at him with him. It is an invitation to let her guard down around him --- and it works.

Besany’s reaction to it is incredible: relief, and then an apology. He is so effective at knowing exactly what she needed to hear to relax, and then gave it to her, while also masterfully responding to the people watching them in the same line.

Also, Mereel is the one who startled her, so technically he should be the one apologizing --- yet his humor is so contagious that she does, in fact, allow her guard to not just drop but plummet to the center of Coruscant and bridge a connection with him immediately, and apologize when she shouldn’t have to.

And then ... what does he do with that apology?

“I’m sorry, Mereel. Out of context ...”

“So you didn’t recognize me with my clothes on, then?” A couple of passersby turned to stare. He chuckled to himself.

He gently rebuffs it, with another joke further flagging himself as a victim of his own apparent easily forgettable quality.

And not only does he rebuff it, he’s also inviting their audience in to engage with the joke and respond. He has effectively disarmed himself twice, flagged himself as harmless, to everyone in the vicinity.

There’s so many layers to this.

Most people, that I’ve seen, have taken it completely at face value. “THAT’S how you know he gets around!” But it’s ... not that at all.

The biggest thing about this line is how most people tend to completely miss the fact that he is directly responding to the wording of her apology. His flirtatious suggestion is taking the “out of context” that she says, and gently turns it into a euphemism that takes them out of context. It’s meta, lmao.

And by doing that ... they also miss, completely, the nuance of her response. While Mereel is masterful at playing with words and phrasing, Besany is masterful at addressing a situation indirectly, and she’s doing so in a way he understands.

So, when she says, “Out of context,” multiple meanings are conveyed:

she didn’t recognize him in his disguise (out of context)

she thought he was a cop (in context)

she’s out in public in a place she didn’t expect to meet (out of context)

she wasn’t expecting to be contacted in person (in context)

All of this can be inferred in the build-up to this moment: her preoccupation with Ordo (and the rest of the clan) to the point of distraction, the way she sizes up the riot cop in the breadth of a few seconds, the way she readies herself to respond to an escalation, her immediate and obvious, clear, relief upon learning who he is, and the exact words she uses: “out of context.”

It’s not a natural phrase to use in the common person’s conversation ... but, it is an appropriate one to use when one needs to allude to the fact that there’s both an in-context and and out-context to the situation at hand, one that cannot be addressed in present company.

And Mereel ...

“I’m sorry, Mereel. Out of context ...”

“So you didn’t recognize me with my clothes on, then?” A couple of passersby turned to stare. He chuckled to himself. “I mean, the armor. Makes a guy look different. Anyway, what kind of covert operator would I be if I was that easy to spot? Come on, can’t stand here getting funny looks all night. Walk this way and I’ll make it worth your while.”

Mereel takes her “Out of context,” and immediately addresses both her apology and some concerns she has:

he acknowledges he looks very different from when they last met (both in and out of context)

he rebuffs the apology by explaining he’s not meant to be recognizable (in and out context)

The fact is, he’s skilled enough to know how to pick the right disguise to be hard to spot (riot cop during a protest both conceals his identity behind the visor and allows him to disappear into the sea of uniforms, literally making him indistinguishable from the scenery), and he’s aware he’s not recognizable.

The fact is, he’s effectively saying You don’t have to apologize, it was a joke; I’m not supposed to be recognizable and I definitely wasn’t expecting you to recognize me.

And, on top of that, as I’ve said before: he’s invited their audience into their joke --- and he laughs to himself about it. He genuinely finds the situation funny, and he finds his own joke funny. Look at this nerd, laughing at his own jokes.

It’s also, again, a self-deprecating joke. He’s once more alluding to the first part of the interaction where he’s admitting that he’s easily forgettable --- but this time, he’s positioning himself to be objectified, as opposed to just forgotten. It is, again, a way to verbally cue himself as non-threatening, to everyone in the vicinity --- it’s also a subtle way to acknowledge that they have an audience.

The line just doesn’t work as a one hit wonder of womanizing confirmation because he’s specifically playing off of an earlier theme (she didn’t recognize him), and responding directly to her comment. Had she said something else, the line just wouldn’t work --- and it wouldn’t be funny.

To rephrase: he’s catering his response to maximize de-escalating the situation on multiple fronts, while also taking the position of “don’t be afraid of me, I’m virtually harmless.”

And further ... he’s also handing power over to Besany.

“What do you mean, Izzy?”

Let’s go over what he’s done so far:

he identified himself by name and association

he’s arranged for them to meet in public

he’s called attention to their audience, reminding Besany that people are watching them

he met her apology with an inferred apology

he joked, twice, in a way that deflates his own ego and importance

he phrases the reason he came to meet her as a request, instead of a demand

Identifying himself by name and association is always regarded as a potentially dangerous thing to do, in their world of covert ops. It doesn’t matter that Mereel most likely trusts Besany, it is still handing over to her what little of his autonomy he has for her to use against him, should she choose to do so, and trusting that she won’t.

The next bullet point is another thing people miss. They’re currently in public, in an area that has pedestrian traffic, not far from an area where there are more CSF nearby.

Shortly after this conversation, it’s noted that Mereel knows where she lives. Note that Besany does not actually know that he knows, in this exact second.

But even though he knows where she lives ... he picked a place where:

they have many witnesses

she’s within shouting/running distance of CSF to assist her if she needs

he’s called attention to her that they have an audience

And then he ... politely asks her to walk with him.

“Come on, can’t stand here getting funny looks all night. Walk this way and I’ll make it worth your while.”

But it’s more than just asking her to walk with him --- he’s indicating that he has information to discuss with her that cannot be shared with the people who may overhear it. And it’s all implicit in the phrasing. I’ll make it worth your while is a euphemism, to be certain --- but it plays off the expectation of their audience who has noticed them and can hear him: that he’s hitting on her because they have history between each other, nothing to see here folks.

But the meaning hidden within the request is clear to Besany: he has some things to tell her that he can’t discuss with their audience in hearing.

AND HERE’S THE THING THAT GETS ME:

Besany, in this moment, has the power to decline his invitation.

Not only can she decline his invitation, but if she does choose to say no, he has to walk away. He doesn’t have a choice, lest he cause a scene.

Yes, he is still in CSF uniform. He might be able to arrest her --- but that will cause a scene, because they have witnesses that he’s already called attention to and given material to bite him in the ass with ... and Besany is familiar with the CSF tasked with guarding the building she works in, and they’re only a short distance away. Take into consideration also that a person like Mereel does not put in all the above effort to then cause a scene and ruin it. That’s like ... the opposite of the goal.

Mereel’s modus operandi is literally finesse. It’s insulting to think he would resort to anything less, frankly.

So, again. To reiterate: Mereel and Besany are specifically in a place where Besany can say no and walk away.

I need to be very clear here, because this seems to be a thing that is obscured somehow when it comes to Mereel.

Mereel specifically chose to approach her in a public place. He assuages her fears and acknowledges her apology, even giving an unnecessary explanation in return. Then he frames his request as a yes or no question, and positions Besany in such a way that she has all the power to decline his invitation and he has no power to stop her from walking away.

This moment, this conversation, could not be more focused on Besany’s comfort.

And I know, she is in a tough situation, and a no here is a dangerous rejection because of how she is entangled with Kal’s clan ... but I also need it to be understood that Mereel has gone above and beyond courtesy in a way that has not been done (and will not again be done by anyone else).

There is literally nothing stopping Mereel from simply showing up at her apartment, or showing up at her workplace, or accosting her when she’s in a less busy, less open, less trafficked street.

Instead of doing that, he still chooses a place that gives her the most opportunity to leave him with a no. SAFELY.

But people, even reading this scene, still somehow misinterpret him as someone incapable, or having an issue, with accepting no for an answer. And a big part of that, I think, is because they fixate on what he says, but not the why, or the how, or the where --- or the who.

Mereel is also in a tough situation --- he clearly wants to extend courtesy to Besany. He even greets her by her title right at the start.

“Agent Wennen,” he said. The accent was familiar. “Long time no see.”

--- Republic Commando: True Colors, pp 37

“Agent Wennen” instead of Besany. It’s a clear, immediate, sign of respect while at the same time letting her know that he knows her. He is respectful, not using her first name even though he knows it. “Agent Wennen” is another verbal cue, it is inserting professional space between them.

He is, in every. single. way. possible. in every feasible way he can, extending as much professional courtesy and implied space that he can possibly offer to her, with them still being trapped in their shared situation. This is, quite literally, out of his way.

A person like this does not set up this kind of meeting to then have a hard time accepting no for an answer. That’s ... literally the antithesis to all of the effort involved in this conversation. That kind of thinking employs no logic to understanding his character.

And the fact that it appears so effortless is another shining example as to how Mereel is just that fucking good at his job..

That he offers her some incentive to walk with him is just that: it’s an incentive. But he limits the appeal of the incentive in such a way that she can still consider it as not that important --- and also not divine anything important from his request, so that everyone in question remains (relatively) safe.

To rephrase: Besany doesn’t learn anything new about them in their conversation and can safely walk, and Mereel extends every courtesy to her without endangering anyone but himself.

And, the funny thing is ... he goes through all this effort, puts in all this finesse, arranges everything to make sure she’s COMFORTABLE, and she ............... doesn’t even think about it. lmao

“Okay.” And there she was again, just dropping everything and wandering off to do the bidding of a black ops unit. This wasn’t how the Treasury investigation team worked. She had rules. “Can I ask—”

“Ordo’s fine and sends his best wishes. He’s doing a little job with Kal’buir at the moment.” ....

--- Republic Commando: True Colors, pp 38

She’s just like “yeah ok let’s go, but also ... I got questions.”

In a way, she’s both agreeing to go for a walk, but she’s also returning his courtesy --- “Can I ask” is a way for her to politely impose terms on their engagement, setting up rules for their conversation. It’s not an empty yes, it’s a yes that comes with limitations.

And Mereel, just as he’s done before, graciously responds to her rules of engagement --- going, once more, above and beyond in their following conversation to answer her questions and give her everything that she requires, without endangering her, him, or anyone else.

But this is already long enough, so I’ll get to that in the next part.

#Besany Wennen #Mereel Skirata #Republic Commando #RepComm #Agent Wennen #izzy talks repcomm #meta #meta: repcomm #fair warning this is like over 4100 words so click read more at your own risk #meta: Besany #meta: Mereel #the fact that people think Mereel is someone who has a hard time accepting no for an answer is really ... disconcerting tbh #bc Mereel; of all the characters in the novels; goes OUT OF HIS WAY to make other people comfortable #he goes OUT OF HIS WAY to give Besany Wennen the opportunity to safely say no to him #when he literally does not have to #and yet people still interpret that as him have problems with boundaries?#that he would somehow have problems with consent?#and it's just not the case ... but i admit it is easy to miss #so hopefully this helps people ... unmiss that #meta series: polite confrontations

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analyticsindiam · 5 years

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In Conversation With CRIF’s Atrideb Basu & How He Scaled Data & Analytics Practice In India

CRIF is an Italian company, based out of Bologna and caters to more than 6K banks and financial institutions across 30+ countries globally. In India, CRIF has two broad arms – one is the 100% subsidiary (called CRIF Solutions India) – which focuses on consulting, analytics and products and the other is the credit bureau where it has major ownership (CRIF Highmark) – which focuses on multiple services on retail and commercial side. In 2015, CRIF set up the Centre of Excellence (CoE) for analytics and decision engine which provides solutions and services that covers the entire customer lifecycle — risk assessment, marketing, acquisition, customer management and collections.Today the 85-strong analytics arm, headquartered in Pune is a one-stop-shop for all data and analytics related needs for the BFSI and telecom sector across Asia and the Middle East. AIM caught up with Atrideb Basu, Senior Vice President – Consulting & Products, Asia & Middle East who set up the analytics practice in India to understand how he put in place people, process and technology at CRIF India. Basu also talks about the rapid growth of analytics practice and consulting that supports several regions, localization of analytics in India and scaling the team from 10 to 85 in a span of few years. Read the full transcript of the interview to find out more: Analytics India Magazine: Can you tell us about your role in India and how has the journey been so far? Atrideb Basu: It’s been a fantastic roller coaster ride. I am sure my boss hired me because I drive a Punto (that’s when you really think what are the odds). When I joined in 2015 – the concept of building an analytics unit in India was new to CRIF – so we had to first convince within the company that we can develop a team in India to deliver – and then grow from there. CRIF has been historically very strong in credit bureau scorecard development, we understood this relatively quickly and added our own punch on the top of that. Think of it as a paneer pizza and implemented it in Dubai and India. From there, we never really looked back. We scaled rapidly from 0 to 85 resources in 4 years and have achieved more than €3 million as revenues in the region. AIM: Can you tell us about your vision and how you set up the CoE in India wrt approach and technology? AB: We started with a small team and tested certain aspects. We were successful. Then we scaled up a bit and tested some more. Luckily, it was also OK. Then I think the momentum just catches up. The key aspect remains that you focus on the basics like problem solving and execution and have fun with the extended team. But there are a few things which we did were important. We didn’t want everyone to think alike – so we hired folks with diverse background with experience in policy, risk scorecards, marketing scorecards, fraud, collections and then in specific products like personal loans, credit cards, two-wheelers, business loans, affordable housing etc so that we can bring diverse experiences together. This helped in two important ways – firstly resource engagement was a given as everyone is doing something new and secondly – our thoughts were naturally out of the box. Everyone pitched in with their ideas to solve something and created a slightly differentiated offering Another example is that by design we do not separate the delivery team and the pre-sales team. Typically, if you see in most consulting organisations, the delivery team and the pre-sales team are separated. The same guy who is building the solution is also the same person who’s pitching the technical content to the client which allows them to connect better and simplify the problem. The last is being technology agnostic. So, to us, it does not matter if we need to use any statistical language – like SAS/Python/R to solve a problem. The team has worked very hard in this area. AIM: What are the kind of analytics products tailored for India? AB: There are multiple products/solutions of course. When a company like CRIF opens a Centre of Excellence in India – it brings a full suite of its global expertise – sees what can be relevant – what needs to be localised – and then does it. The objective is to always keep the solutions simple and relevant – despite the multiple complexities that might have gone into development. The first thing we did is to enhance the scores on the bureau platform – both for consumer and SMEs – on the fundamentals of stability and precision – as anything else might be disastrous. We spend a considerable amount of time (more than 12 months) to develop these solutions and tested it with multiple players – so that we were sure it adds value. We are committed to do many more things on the bureau data itself – creating open-box consulting solutions, bringing in specialised scores to allow better underwriting, and more importantly, changing the mindset of our customers where we are consultants that solves business problems by “developing strategies and not just a team that gives a score”. The second aspect we work towards is customised solutions. This helps in multiple ways. One, it allows the customer to have a solution on a population that it is focused towards (so solves the right data issue) and two, it creates a more focused algorithm that gives the customer a competitive advantage over other players ( for example it can help you underwrite a segment that most of the other players will not). The third aspect we focus on is working directly with clients on their data: be it optimisation of policy, development of bespoke scorecards (application or behavioral or collection scorecards), optimising the right loan amount to be given, deciding on the right way for deciding on cut-offs, whom and when to cross-sell and then finally presenting all this to their board to a faster internal approval. AIM: Of late there has been a rise in alternate data utilised by fintechs for P2P lending. Can you share your thoughts on this trend and how is this set to grow? AB: Of course. Having more data leads to the first degree of competitive advantage (eg. new to credit customers) and then using it effectively should lead to the second (which also means storing the data properly). But the banks will accelerate to catch up and we will reach a stage – where the delta comes out – “what is the real advantage that alternate data can give over and above tradition underwriting data” — I mean we really would not trust if someone told us 5 years ago that the higher the ratio of # of selfies vs other camera shots, higher is the 90+ days past due likelihood. But today, we may not reject this outright — and will try to empirically test it out and see if we can justify this by some psychometric traits. So, yes, the possibilities have expanded, and it is exciting. Second is the mindset of empirics over experience. If someone does not believe this (and for sure there will be plenty), please look at some examples like Leontief paradox – where empirical studies can overrule proven theories. The point is – create a blind testing facility, fail multiple times, and fail very fast, and then the iterations towards a new logic/path/way is faster. This is the only way we grow now with the proliferation of technology and data. The only caveat is that this needs to be managed in a profitable way😊. AIM: Can you talk about CRIF’s role in Regulatory Analytics and how you are delivering a comprehensive approach to clients? AB: CRIF is very strong globally in Basel2 and IFRS9 projects. As I had mentioned earlier, this unit is set-up to bring the full global expertise to India and IFRS9 is no exception. We have started working on IFRS9 in Philippines, Indonesia and Lebanon and soon will work in India too. We focus very sharply on the expected loss computations in this space and been successful in lowering the ECL% for the banks while increasing the robustness of the methodology. I can openly say, it is very difficult to compete with this methodology – so once we start deploying this in the market – and players ready to adopt something new — it will be disruptive. Read the full article

#CRIFAtridebBasu #CRIFHighMarkleadingcreditbureau #CRIFIndia #CRIFIndiacreditbureau

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