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#its just like. so easy to manipulate the evidence to look like jons just been like continually belittled for the past year plus
inklingofadream · 3 years
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Heads up, I have several questions/suggestions for the Eye's Anti-Martin spiels that won't fit in one ask box (if you don't mind), and I have a bad hand so it'll be slow-going. The first is: do you think the Eye could/would communicate the technicality that Martin stabbed Jon, landing him in his coma? Asking, cause I figure the chances are that it can't actually play the tape, because Jon literally begs him to do it and Martin's sobbing. So the Eye's like, "It's just too terrible to show! Sob!"
Second, Martin was the one behind s4's intervention, which directly interfered with Jon's food supply, so would the Eye possibly make it look like Martin was intentionally starving him? This would also be a big deal since it directly interferes with Jon's relationship with the Eye and kept Jon from his full Archive potential. Plus, it might communicate to the Eyevatars that Jon truly does/did want to be closer to the Eye.
Last, would the Eye make the others around Jon s2-4 look just as bad? Cause It probably wouldn’t even have to edit some interactions! And most of them (Georgie? Who's that? Eye've never heard of her!) were even supposed to be servants of the Eye/Jon’s subordinates (shameful!) Clearly, the Eye is the only one who has Jon’s back, anyone who questions this is as bad as his former friends, and Jon’s interactions must be monitored!
Aaaah, I can't believe I forgot to mention the stabbing!!! That's like. One of the big things! Like
Eye: Y'know how Jon was stabbed
Eyevatars: yes
Eye: guess who did it
Eyevatars: o_o
Eye: it was MARTIN!
Eyevatars: 0o0 nooooo we been knew!!!
The rest of the gang don't get as much play time as Martin, because they are neither romantic rivals nor in the same reality as Jon currently, but clips like Every time Daisy makes Jon bleed (his sad lil voice when she has a knife to his throat... lyk if u cri evry tiem, we must band together to protect this precious boy. Talking Basira thru shooting her WHILE Daisy's gnawing on his leg... so brave, so strong) (and what was martin doing? NOTHING, just LETTING our beloved archivist get nommed on!) When Jon's awake and this gets brought up his first reaction is very *John Mulaney voice* we know, but hey!
The intervention scene gets some creative editing so that all the times when Daisy and Melanie try to butt in and remind Basira that Daisy did kill people, etc., are gone, and it just sounds like everyone uncritically accepts that Daisy, whose many crimes you have just listened to, is like, yeah, I'm innocent here, Jon saved my life at great risk to his own but that's no reason to bother defending him. Melanie and I are going to yell at him to shut up, now listen to all the sad, shaky Archivist breaths. The bit about his rogue statements not being recorded bc he doesn't bother starting the tapes himself anymore comes up with the Eye like "I was trying to protect him from Them 🥺" Especially with the bits there and other times with Basira saying that if Jon can't get a handle on it she'll Kill Our Precious Archivist (even as Jon tries to explain that it's not that simple, he does need statements to like. live. and the paper ones are a bit like putting him on a bread and water diet. and he's doing his best)
S4 in general is GREAT for if you want to woobify Jon to your shiny new cult, especially if you cut out all the little bits of people defending him or being nice, and your audience accepts taking statements as an unquestioned good. If you cut out all the lil bits of chilling with Daisy and having ppl laugh at his jokes and everyone else's perspectives, it's really just like. Continuous Jon abuse. Jon gives EVERYTHING to these people, saving them from all kinds of other entities, trying to cut off fingers for them, successfully losing ribs, swimming in misery and all they ever do is yell at him. Look how terrible they are, you should all lovebomb Jon as soon as he's conscious
Georgie gets hit HARD with the villain stick too, because former romantic interest for Jon AND having some legitimate criticisms of her behavior (there's some v good meta about how she kind of sucks at the "cutting Jon out of her life" thing, ducking into his office to look for Melanie and not leaving when he tries to end the conversation, saying she wouldn't take him to therapy instead of staying neutral, bad-mouthing him to Martin. Poking around for confirmation that she made the right decision/trying to justify her decision, and in the process driving the knife a lil deeper for Jon). And she has terrible taste, dumping Jon and dating that awful Melanie who STABBED him (rip to Jon, do not love his stats on "percentage of acquaintances who have stabbed me")
Honestly, depending on how much independent access Jon has to the tapes, he might start to question his own memory. Like, if he knows that the intervention was caught on tape, but the version everyone else heard didn't have Daisy trying to reel Basira in, did that really happen? I don't think it'd be enough to truly shake his feelings for Martin, but he'd definitely start to question whether the prevailing opinion of "Jon wouldn't know a healthy relationship dynamic if it bit him on the nose" is more correct that he thought.
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dathen · 3 years
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you're quite right about this; I think the other thing that stands out to people is that Sasha was already on the "Gertrude was sharp, the Archives are disorganized for a reason, why?" thread, which Jon only got to like. I wanna say Season 2? you can correct me on that I'm sure. So she would've skipped a couple steps in the types of being manipulated, maybe got around to antagonizing Elias earlier. Which is interesting to think about!! (but wouldn't have saved her.)
Just to start, I don’t really see “person A has information person B doesn’t, so guesses the truth faster” is very strong evidence towards “Person A is more insightful and could avoid manipulation better.”  Jon had barely met Gertrude, and his only impression was “she doesn’t like me”--he came to the conclusion that she was incompetent from the massive mess he was left to deal with, but had nothing to contrast it against.  Meanwhile Sasha had met Gertrude enough for Gertrude to guess Sasha might be the next Archivist.  It’s even possible that with her expecting Sasha to be her successor, Gertrude dropped the purposeful “doddering old woman” act that she kept up (see: the persona she puts on as soon as Michael Shelley walks into the room in TMA 99). 
But!!  You reminded me of a little side ramble I’ve been wondering each time I hear “if [character] was the Archivist, they would have figured out [thing]”--I think that it’s harder to figure things out as the Archivist than as an assistant.  For one, the Archivist was getting the full brunt of Jonah’s custom-made misinformation, gaslighting, and manipulation, not to mention him lining up traumatize experience after traumatic experience just for them.  There’s also a very strongly-supported theory that the Beholding is “you who know all, but understand none”--that the deeper the Eye has its claws into someone, the harder it is for them to understand the big picture.  But theories aside, I honestly think that Sasha had just as much opportunity to look into her suspicions as an assistant as she would have as an Archivist.  I don’t think it’s coincidence that the most insightful character in the entire show by far is Martin.
Lastly, if Elias had promoted Sasha instead of Jon...I think he would have been in Sasha’s good graces!  He’s advancing her career, recognizing her talent!  The only reason she seemed to dislike him in canon is because he passed her over for promotion.  Jonah would have used a different approach with her than he did with Jon; I could see him leaning hard into a “only you are smart enough to save the world!  I will share this rare, secret information with you since you can be trusted with it!” approach.  For Jon, he leaned hard on Jon’s insecurity, but I think Sasha’s confidence and self-assurance would have been just as easy to exploit.
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thebluelemontree · 3 years
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We know Sansa has a connection to the Seven through her wishes, but do you think the same could be said of the Old Gods? Also, do you see magic in her future storyline like the rest of her siblings? Thank you!
Of course, she has a connection to the Old Gods too. GRRM confirmed all the Stark children are wargs, even if Sansa’s abilities didn’t have the chance to manifest at the same time as her siblings since she lost Lady so quickly. Skin changing was already inherently in her and still is. It’s just that the ability is dormant for the most part. The connection between Sansa and Lady never weakened either. I already wrote about this here a while back, and it may have to do with Lady’s bones and hide being interred in Winterfell. She still longs for her, dreams of her, and even feels her direwolf’s presence close by sometimes. I don’t think she’s aged-out (if that’s possible) of ever skin changing an animal since she’s still younger than Robb and Jon when they received their direwolf pups. 
Sansa was also bonding with the old blind dog on the Fingers, but their time together was also cut short. Dogs are the easiest to skin change according the Varamyr prologue, so in theory Sansa could have started to have “dog dreams” if she’d stayed in physical contact with the dog. Her time in the Vale has had her separated from animals, but that doesn’t mean it will always be so. There’s always the possibility of skin changing a bird like a falcon perhaps.  
And ya know, she does have a greenseer little brother that she was always close to that might be able to help her grow her magical side. Maybe even break in an animal for her to make it easier to slip into perhaps? That’s a thing.  
Slipping into Summer's skin had become as easy for him as slipping on a pair of breeches once had been, before his back was broken. Changing his own skin for a raven's night-black feathers had been harder, but not as hard as he had feared, not with these ravens. "A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth," Lord Brynden said, "but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one now, and fly." -- Bran III, ADWD.
I don’t see any evidence that the door is permanently shut on her skin changing something eventually. 
But if you mean does she have a connection to the Old Gods through prayer, the answer is yes too.
The night the bird had come from Winterfell, Eddard Stark had taken the girls to the castle godswood, an acre of elm and alder and black cottonwood overlooking the river. The heart tree there was a great oak, its ancient limbs overgrown with smokeberry vines; they knelt before it to offer their thanksgiving, as if it had been a weirwood. Sansa drifted to sleep as the moon rose, Arya several hours later, curling up in the grass under Ned's cloak. All through the dark hours he kept his vigil alone. When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon's breath surrounded the girls where they lay. "I dreamed of Bran," Sansa had whispered to him. "I saw him smiling." -- Eddard V, AGOT.
It might be something that Sansa dreams of her greenseer brother in the godswood after they’ve received word of Bran awakening from the coma where his own third-eye was opened by the three-eyed crow. If this scene isn’t a glimpse of the future in ADOS, I’ll eat my hat. 
Sansa is a person of faith who observes both her religions, albeit for a time she favored the aesthetics of her mother’s faith more than her father’s.  
She prayed in both the sept and the godswood for her father, unfortunately to no avail on that one. In the crisis of her captivity, she makes more space for the Old Gods in her religiosity.   
By the time she reached the godswood, the noises had faded to a faint rattle of steel and a distant shouting. Sansa pulled her cloak tighter. The air was rich with the smells of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought. There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes.
Sansa had favored her mother's gods over her father's. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli. Yet she could not deny that the godswood had a certain power too. Especially by night. Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me . . . -- Sansa II, ACOK.
I don’t think Sansa ever really turns away from her belief in the Seven to embrace the Old Gods as much as some claim. It’s the Seven she prays to during the Blackwater and the Mother she invokes when she sings for Sandor Clegane. She wants to light candles in the sept to ask the gods to protect Margaery and Loras. It’s more that she’s disillusioned with some of the earthly institutions and that causes a momentary flash of anger at the gods for (in her mind) never hearing her prayers. 
When she’s in the Eyrie, a place devoid of spiritual connection or comfort, Sansa feels the pain of loss of both her religions.
It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me. -- Sansa VII, ASOS.
Even the gods were silent. The Eyrie boasted a sept, but no septon; a godswood, but no heart tree. No prayers are answered here, she often thought, though some days she felt so lonely she had to try. -- Sansa II, AFFC.   
During this period of time, Sansa’s faith has taken a real beating from being manipulated and coerced into being a part of Littlefinger’s crimes. Cynicism and corruption appear to be winning for the time being as Littlefinger rises and succeeds in the Vale. The presence of spirituality in her inner dialogue has grown ever more faint and weary; however, as I’ve shown above, a restoration of faith is likely as she progresses toward Winterfell and reuniting with her siblings. Does that mean she will begin to embrace the Old Gods (and magic) and to let go of the Faith of the Seven? Maybe, we have to wait and see. Or it’s possible she expands her consciousness to accept more of both in her life. 
Martin is a lapsed Catholic and atheist himself, but he never treats Catelyn or Sansa’s religiosity with the Seven as a joke or as less than religions that have demonstrable magic attached to them. I think it helps to keep in mind GRRM’s position on the nature of the relationship between characters, religion, and magic:
“Well, the readers are certainly free to wonder about the validity of these religions, the truth of these religions, and the teachings of these religions. I'm a little leery of the word "true" — whether any of these religions are more true than others. I mean, look at the analogue of our real world. We have many religions too. Are some of them more true than others? I don't think any gods are likely to be showing up in Westeros, any more than they already do. We're not going to have one appearing, deus ex machina, to affect the outcomes of things, no matter how hard anyone prays. So the relation between the religions and the various magics that some people have here is something that the reader can try to puzzle out.”
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that-soft-earth · 3 years
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I’m up to MAG102 in my relisten, part way through Season 3, after Jon has been kidnapped by Nikola and found out a lot of stuff about the Unknowing. He knows that all the Entities have a ritual, and since Gertrude was trying to destroy the Archives, that’s probably the location of the Eye’s ritual. And he knows that he and his assistants are in a double bind, where helping Elias means helping the Eye, but resisting him, whether moving against him or simply by refusing to work, only leads to him making them suffer and bringing them back in line. They really have no way out. Here is one potential play Jon could make, though it’s massively risky and likely to fail, but it’s just a fun hypothetical. Jon says to Elias “I know what you’re doing. I know what your plan is.” and maybe let him sweat a bit (though you’re not going to get anything out of him that way cause he’s too good at mind games, but we like to see him suffer)
and then going along the lines of “All of the powers have rituals, so that means the Eye has one too, but I think I know what you want to do with it. You really are on our side, as much as you have horrible ways of going about it. Because the Entities feed on fear, and we’re most afraid of the unknown and unseen. Fear loses its power with understanding. You’re not just planning your ritual to serve the Eye - you’re trying to save the world from the Entities by unmasking them and breaking their power. And I’m in, even though I hate you. I’ll help with your ritual.” All of this, of course, just being lies. Just pretending to go along with Elias to find out more about the ritual and what Elias’ actual priorities are. And Elias would probably agree that the assistants shouldn’t be let in on the fact that Jon is working for him, because they’d never go along with it, so at least Jon doesn’t have to pretend to not hate Elias when someone else is present, and doesn’t lose the others’ trust entirely. And then Jon, once he figures out how to pass messages without Elias seeing, can reveal to the assistants that he’s now basically a double agent, and get them on board with him to take down Elias, because goddamn is he going to need help. Figuring out what he can and can’t see would be tough, too. Jon could fake evidence of another assassination plot, but would risk revealing his own motivations too. And Elias tends to wait until the last possible moment to act, so it wouldn’t be easy to test your theories. However, Jon is probably not powerful enough at this point to stop Elias looking inside his mind, or just Knowing something that exposes him, and if Elias figures out his game at any point it’ll be for nothing. Or just not being a good enough actor (yes Jonny is a very good actor but Jon Archivist probably isn’t) and Elias figuring out what he’s doing even without the Eye powers, just by being a very experienced Scheming Bastard. And even if he buys it, Elias would probably withhold as much as possible, as long as possible, out of caution. And, when you’re EXTREMELY TRAUMATISED FROM A BUNCH OF MORTAL PERIL, the complex thought functions of your brain are literally shut down, you are in no place to be putting together all those pieces and making complex plans. And Jon is more worried about the Unknowing and just hoping the Eye ritual will be far enough away that he doesn’t have to worry about it, not realising that he’s already on that path and needs to intervene soon. There’s no damn way I’d expect anyone to cope with that level of chronic dread and trauma with almost zero support and also be able to play a high risk double agent game against a Machiavellian clairvoyant whose powers they don’t even understand. Also, the Archives staff have been turned against each other by the events of the previous seasons. I don’t think Elias necessarily orchestrated that beat-by-beat since he can’t See the future, but obviously he did deliberately keep them fractured and distracted, so the times he intervened vs didn’t intervene with other Entities’ attacks was done with an eye to (haha) maximum disharmony, keeping the Archives crew divided and isolated. That’s my theory on why he picked Martin to work there - not because he knew exactly how things would play out, but just knowing that Martin had enough insecurities and personality clashes with the others to be a useful pawn to move in any direction, however things played out. He could probably have predicted Jon being annoyed and mean to Martin and then being guilty about it later once his assistants were being put in mortal peril. He probably had no idea they would both fall for each other, which did somewhat mitigate their total isolation, but actually just gave Elias another convenient way to manipulate Jon by putting Martin in danger. He basically planned the broad strokes of the whole thing, but also left plenty of manoeuvrability in the details. So uh... if you want to put yourself in Jon’s shoes, good luck with that. Hindsight, as they say...
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player-1 · 4 years
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Anyone who’s been in the TMA fandom (or those who understand the bare minimum of the story) know damn well that whatever was going on with Michael D. Stortion and Gabriel/Worker-of-Clay was not just a simple Avatar/Entity partnership. No, in the twisted timeline of the Spiral itself, the Armageddon arms-race pales in comparison to the romantic tragedy subplot those two had long before Jon and Martin were in the picture.
(This is also going to be a long one, and with some MAG 101 spoilers, so buckle on in...)
Here’s what I mean:
Gabriel (or in this case, Gabe) works with Neil Lagorio (Web aligned special-effects dude) in the mid 1900′s on their first movie The Labyrinth of the Minotaur. Unfortunately for him, Gabe quits in 1972 just as the movie was released. 
Not much is known of this time after 1972 up until the dreaded sculpting class in 2004. Speculation-wise, Gabriel might have been corrupted by the Flesh during his movie-making times or earlier before he came into contact with the Spiral.
Reasons: -The Spiral connects with the unraveling of reality, question one’s sanity and eventually “spiraling” into insanity. -The Flesh, in its literal sense, connects to the fear of people or animals being killed for meat; even the appearance of flesh/bone being twisted, bent, or butchered. But it can also connect on a emotional level, such as being viewed weaker than others, mostly relating to a person’s body image. That’s also the reason why the nature of his death is completely unlike the Spiral simply letting him fade out of reality. -Gabriel displays more Flesh-like qualities in his appearance and work up until the end of MAG 126. He doesn’t want people to judge him by appearance alone (even if his entire body is made up of clay) but he makes up for it with his unassuming personality and amazing talent. In a literal sense, he wants to mold himself into the kind of person that gets praised for his clay-making abilities, not just from his creations alone.  
[Enter The Distortion: Stage Left] Of course, while there’s no evidence on how, when or why the Distortion would target him specifically, but there is one thing. Compared to all the other Spiral avatars and fear-aligned creatures, they all used to be humans in the past. The Spiral by nature is to cast aside their humanity and submit to the nature of insanity. But since most of the Spiral avatars either faded out of existence or just refused to do anything ritual-wise, how was it supposed to create a new world if all they ever do is destroy? It adopts an artist, of course. There’s nothing more chaotic than the struggles of a budding sculptor such as himself. But while that may be a convincing argument for the Spiral to get Gabriel to join the Dark Side, there could be more to convince him that it’s worth following the unknowable being of delusions. Long story short, there was no reason for Gabriel to judge himself so poorly if he knew how to reshape the world to how he sees fit. it would convince him that, like the archangel he’s named after, he could show the world the coming future; twisting the laws of reality so that there’s no room to judge how something should be right or wrong, imaginary or real.  As if they were said from the Lord himself, Gabriel heard the Distortion’s tell him about a new world and finally found inspiration in them.
Then comes the sculpting class.  It’s worth noting that, even with the angel symbolism for Michael and Gabriel, it could be implied that Gabriel is also a goody-two-shoes Christian boy who regularly attends church, as evidence of Michael having knowledge about Mass in MAG 20, assisting the Flesh in driving Father Edwin to cannibalism (so the Flesh and Spiral have an interesting partnership, huh?).  Besides that, this is where Gabriel takes the spotlight. From Deborah’s point of view, he was a strange little man from the beginning; eyes always jutted out of his face, appearing right in someone’s personal space and disappearing just as fast, and of course, his works of clay. (Also a random headcanon just because: Gabriel may be afraid of water, either because his entire body being made of clay, and since you need water to help shape the material, he does not want to get it melded into his own flesh. Could also be the reason why he has short and greasy hair, cause he would practically melt into a puddle if he was unfortunate enough to get wet.) And apart from Deborah and her friends’ growing discomfort over Gabriel in general, he’s just vibing in the back of the class, trying to make a shape for the unknowable form of the Distortion. And the second Deborah inadvertently gives him a break from his artist’s block, he quite literally takes control of the class; switching over the biweekly schedule it was before into every week, and even manipulating the space of the classroom to further support his artistic needs. 
“Ray told us the lesson was ‘faces.’ I put my hand up to say that sculpting faces was probably a bit advanced for where we were in the course, but he shook his head, and said that we were… a lot more talented than we thought. He said the key was that faces were twisted. All faces were twisted on the inside, and all you had to do was reach into the deepest part of yourself and put that twisted on the outside of the clay, and as soon as you can scream you’ll have your own face staring back at you.”  (MAG 126)
This is also the key to the Spiral itself. With Gabriel’s assistance, he will be able to let the spiral to insanity move in reverse, create the physical manifestation of that fear instead of letting it collapse and destroy itself. And in that lesson as well, Gabriel finally creates a fitting image of the Distortion...A door, the physical entrance to insanity itself.
Then comes the final stretch in Sannikov Land, the nonexistent island that was said to exist between the years 2009 and 2011. And as Michael D. Stortion explains in MAG 101, was the perfect place for their ritual, The Great Twisting. After everything Gabriel had done to appease his good “friend”, The Distortion seemed extremely invested in the Worker of Clay at that point. Nevermind the fact that its telling Jon how its identity was stolen away from Michael Shelley by merging with the Distortion, but there’s more to this origin story.
“Michael was protective of the frail old woman he believed her to be. So… so delicate, so forgetful, yet gently wise. He cared for her. He trusted her. And she fed him to me. She made him to destroy our transcendence. And she did not hesitate.” “And it was me they sought to stop. Me and the others of It-Is-Not-What-It-Is. Our Great Twisting. The-Worker-of-Clay had laboured for decades on that contorted, impossible edifice of doors… and stairs… and falsehoods… and smiles. A thousand staring morsels stood, and not one of them believed themselves sane to look upon it. And in the centre, the door that would open to all the places that were never there, was me.“ “Perhaps I should have realised what was happening; seen those two lonely figures approaching me, but I cannot tell you the existential joys of truly… becoming. Of an entireness finally crossing the threshold into your self. So ecstatic was my completeness, I did not even hear my own door creak open.“ “Even sharper than the joy of becoming is the agony of being opened and remade. To have your who torn bloody from your what, and another crudely lashed into its place. To become Michael. And to do so at such a crucial point in our Twisting, in our becoming, well of course it destroyed it. The impossible altar collapsed. The-Worker-of-Clay tore out his veins to dissolve himself in crimson mud. The others of us were cast to all the places that aren’t; some have still not found their way out again...My very existence tied to my pointlessness. Wearing my failure as the very fabric of my being. Reduced once again to feeding on the unsuspecting and confused. That is who I am.“ (MAG 101)
Even if all of this was to explain how the Distortion became the being it is in the series, it’s easy to see how overjoyed it was during the ritual. All that the Spiral ever did was bring the sense of unreality and paranoia unto people for ages, only breaking down the mind until they eventually spiral into oblivion. It wanted to be something, it wanted to make something twisted and nonsensical from the world, to shape the world itself to the nature of insanity. And after all that time, no matter how many avatars it had in its control, Gabriel was the only one who began creating the ritual. Even if it was for an ulterior motive, The Distortion was pretty giddy as Gabriel worked for years on end to create the meaning of insanity; to create something that the Distortion saw as the perfect vessel for itself. And even as it was explaining it, with all these feelings of joy and ecstasy and very human thoughts and emotions, this was before it was forced to become Michael. So much for not being bound by human nature, huh? But it’s pretty ironic that, as the embodiment of delusions, insanity and lies, it never considered the idea of having an avatar that could make something out of that chaos. Even if the Distortion was explaining how Michael-not-Michael Shelley came into being, it also can be interpreted as Michael just yearning for his best Avatar so far.  So instead of “I’m going to tell you my entire backstory.”, it’s more like “I’m going to tell you how a nosy old woman and her idiotic assistant ruined my chances to be with my Avatar of the Decade who may or may not be my boyfriend.”
In conclusion, Gabriel AKA The Worker of Clay AKA Igor with an art degree became the Hands of the Spiral because the nonbinary embodiment of delusion (who is also a door) gave a miserable struggling artist a shot of self-confidence (and a shot out of the Flesh’s control), eventually becoming its #1 Boyfriend Avatar of all time, and is the only person that would make the “hates gender and existence itself” Distortion yearn for years after his tragic death.
Takes notes people, this is what peak performance looks like.
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hibibun · 4 years
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Smoke and Mirrors
Series: The Magnus Archives Pairing: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan Sims Summary: Elias offers to help Jon quit smoking. He doesn't particularly feel that strongly about it, but when presented with another incentive, Jon finds himself going along with it anyway. for jonelias week day 2 - manipulation & caretaking Notes/Warnings: Pre-Canon, Manipulation, Smoking, Dom/sub undertones AO3 CH1 - ?
It starts with a harmless, albeit likely patronizing, observation.
“That’s a nasty habit.”
Jon’s eyes flick up and away from the hand steadying his lighter, the smoke already starting to drift off the end of his cigarette. He’s used to such comments. Generally, people are even worse about it, go on about how he’s polluting the air and so on—hence, why he’s even on this side of the building, which has more or less been claimed by the other smokers at the Institute.
However, he’s pinned by the fact the words came from none other than Elias Bouchard, Head of the Magnus Institute and currently his boss’s boss. He finishes his inhale, carefully manages his exhale without it sputtering into the coughs his rapidly beating heart want him to make. Evidently, Elias doesn’t smoke or approve of it, which makes Jon wonder if he simply comes out here to make such comments.
“I’ve been meaning to quit,” Jon shares a bit defensively, though it has been a half-hearted thought with even more abysmal attempts. He’d never really been one to handle stress well and seemed to come back to it no matter how many days he’d managed to avoid lighting one. It doesn’t help that in general his attempts to find anything of use or lucidity at the Institute have only ended in fairy tales and irritation.
“I can help, if you’d like,” Elias offers and there’s something in his tone Jon can’t identify that makes him uneasy. Reminds him of why exactly the remark he’d made managed to bother him.
Lately, if Jon isn’t mistaken, Elias has taken an interest in him. In his arrogance, he would like to think it had something to do with his work, though the reality is it’s doubtful anything he’s done as a mere researcher would be enough to catch the attention of the head the Institute. No, the exchanges they have more rely on things expressed during his initial interview that he’d put out of his mind. Considering how busy the man usually is, he hadn’t been sure whether to chalk up the interlude between their meetings to be one of sudden disinterest, or if he had been actually dealing with other matters. It comes as a strange relief that the latter appears true, though as usual, he is uncertain as to why.
Either way, needlessly, Jon has impressions on the mind. And while he does not believe in the idea of changing yourself for approval, he also can’t deny that it would be an utter shame to lose this man’s attention over something as simple as a cigarette. Against his better judgment, though, ‘Would it really be such a bad thing if he quit?’ Jon wonders—the stick in his hand steadily wasting away to ash.
“How do you propose to help?”  
Wordlessly, Elias holds a hand out, expectant. Jon stares at his hand, then up at him.
“May I have the rest of what you have on you? I wouldn’t be so cruel as you force you cold turkey quit as it isn’t always safe, but I can help in moderation.”
Hesitantly, Jon digs in his pocket and drags the pack out. He places it in Elias’s waiting palm, trying to ignore the momentary brush of their fingers. Next, he asks him about his habits. About how many does he burn through a day and when, before carefully counting out how many he thinks he should have between now and the next time they meet.
“I cannot make you stop entirely, but I would be delighted if you manage some restraint. Tomorrow, if there are leftovers you refrained from smoking, I have a surprise in mind. If you cannot manage it, well, then there’s always next time, but this is a good starting point wouldn’t you say?” Elias asks rhetorically, and Jon feels strange looking at his smile. Intrigued at what he possibly thinks would be a worthwhile surprise. He licks his lips and lets himself have a puff before the whole thing burns out, using the excuse that he needs to exhale to look away from Elias and his odd smile.
“I’ll do my best I suppose, if you’re that serious about it.”
“Excellent,” he hears Elias say, but doesn’t look at him, fearing what he might see.
                                                               -
Of the seven handed back to him, there’s only one he has to give. Jon had almost used that one too—forever a victim to sleepless nights and itching for something that might put him at ease.
Still, Elias placates him and they repeat the same exchange. Jon hands him his new pack, unopened, and Elias counts out the next set he’s allowed. It’s difficult to read his expression again as while he had at least one to give, something about the exchange still leaves Jon feeling like he’s disappointed him. Elias doesn’t say as much, but it strikes him like it’s true anyway.
“While your progress is slower than I might have anticipated, I’m a man of my word.”
He digs through a drawer in his desk momentarily, before bringing out a stack of papers.  
Jon stares at it suspiciously, unsure how it is much of a surprise at all. It mostly just looks like… work.
“Feel free to read it here or take it with you. It’s a copy anyway, so you may do what you like with it, but I think it may be of some interest.”
After another moment of hesitation, Jon takes the stapled packet, glancing over the front to confirm it is indeed a statement. He must make a face as Elias laughs.
“I promise it isn’t another assignment. I just would like you to read it and maybe share your thoughts.”
His eyes are already wanting to skim over what it is that Elias would think is interesting to him. With a stiff politeness that was beginning to feel silly given their current arrangement, Jon nods shuffling the papers closer to his chest and stands.
“I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
Elias doesn’t betray another hint of what it might be and is suspiciously business like in his dismissal. Their meeting had hardly reflected that, but it isn’t something Jon intends to comment on. Whatever was going on, the answers might already be in his hands and with a bit of frustration, he knows he’ll have to wait until the evening to really dig into it. He can only hope next time he’ll garner some kind of understanding.  
                                                              -
He isn’t sure if he’s smoking because of what he read, or because he doesn’t want to see what else Elias has for him. Either way, by the time he’s crushed the butt of his last cigarette into the ashtray his stomach is swimming with a mixture of relief and regret. He’s lying a little when he says he doesn’t want to know more—it’s the whole reason he even started working at the Institute in the first place. A fact Elias apparently bothered to remember from his interview. It’s terrifying though, the reality it could be real and not simply a fabricated tale that has an easy to stomach explanation. Something he’s spent a long time trying to convince himself of, even while knowing himself the supernatural must exist.
Lying farther away on top of all those issues is the root of what started this all. He’s thoroughly swallowed his fear in smoke and will have no spare cigarettes to give tomorrow. It hasn’t done anything for how scared he feels, and worse he loathes the dread piling heavier at whatever signs of disappointment will be waiting on Elias’s face.
Or maybe, there won’t be anything there at all.
He still doesn’t know why Elias is doing all this, and he even admitted quitting won’t be easy.
It isn’t the first time he’s had a dream about the statements he’s investigated. Even if he steadfastly denies the claims and feels justified as he comes up with nothing for many of the cases assigned to him, certain instances in the investigation or in the initial tales themselves if the giver is a good storyteller are enough to get to him when he sleeps. He always feels a little silly for that in the morning—writing it off as an over active imagination and a life too focused on work.
Still, this dream surprises him for its sheer vividness compared to the others.
In front of him is a familiar parlor full of comfortable looking couches, some with hand-embroidered cushions, plants tastefully decorating its corners, and a vast amount of paintings taking up almost all the available space of the walls. He has never been in this room. Never seen it, but it’s nostalgic—the type of room you’d expect in a period piece drama or at a grandparents’ home.
The words filter in, and the scene shifts. There is a woman now seated at one of the settees, her gaze untrustingly glancing about the room. The room is empty otherwise, only with an entrance way into it from the front hall, and a side door leading to another part of the house.
The woman reaches for her purse, makes a move to open it before sighing and changing her mind.
She was running late. It was a bit odd, and I was starting to get a little antsy. I hate being in that room in general, but, well, it was hard to request waiting somewhere else politely. I mean the poor old woman was pretty much on her own—I just wanted to check in like I did every Tuesday afternoon, and then be on my way. Really there wasn’t anything wrong with it. When you got past the decorations… it was actually rather cozy.
Wildly, the woman twists around at the large family portrait hanging just behind her seat. There wasn’t anything particularly odd about it. A big family of six, stiff and bunched together, neither smiling nor frowning. Simply existing. Staring.
What I didn’t like was how narrow it was. How little space it felt like was actually in the room; and worse you… when you were in there by yourself, the pictures had a weird sense to them. I can’t explain it. It just felt like they were watching you.
She quickly looks away and takes a deep breath. Then, she stares directly ahead. Jon panics, feeling like she is now looking directly at him, but her expression quickly breaks down into anguish and terror. Fear clear across her face, she whips her head instead to the other side of the room now and fixates on a door there. Shakily, she raises and rushes toward it. The door hadn’t been there before, and the moment it closes, isn’t there at all.
You have to understand; I know it sounds crazy, but it was the only thing that felt right at the moment. I-I think I knew the door wasn’t there before. I had been in that room a million times before, I knew pretty much every inch of it because it was so horrible to be there, but that’s why I had to go through it. I just wanted to get away from all those creepy eyes staring at me—
Jon cannot see inside the door—Trisha Wellen was unable to describe properly or in any coherent manner what was beyond that door. Just that it felt like she was stuck there for a very long time, until suddenly she wasn’t several days later. What terrifies Jon more though is the undeniable truth that he had been one of those eyes behind the paintings, and despite knowing everything in her statement did nothing.
It was a dream. Ms. Wellen was shaken, given her statement, but it and the follow up were enough to scare him, clearly. The fact she has been listed missing for a little over a year as well doesn’t help matters. There is nothing he could have done to help that woman as the event in question happened two years ago and it was just a dream.
He is out of cigarettes and feels cold.
                                                              -
“Why did you give me this?” Jon starts their conversation, by dropping the statement back on Elias’s desk, maybe a tad harsher than intended. He doesn’t address the actual reason for these meetings first, and based on Elias’s expression, he finds that awfully amusing.
“Now then, irritability usually doesn’t crop up until after a few days of deprivation. I know you’re better than that Jonathan,” Elias tilts the conversation in a different direction purposefully. Jon feels pinned under those eyes, accusing him of weakness in what the other knows is an unfair assessment.
“You know exactly what has me ‘irritable’,” Jon starts, his eyes flicking away again, but only to land on a series of portraits of the previous heads of the Institute. He shivers involuntarily remembering the words that brought him in here. When he can look at Elias again the man is still staring at him as if sizing him up. It’s difficult to tell whether the reaction he’s displaying is one that feels actually reasonable or whether he’s somehow failed whatever test this was supposed to be.
“Please, sit,” he directs, the words feeling more like a command than a polite suggestion. Once Jon is obedient in the matter, he continues speaking.
“Let’s try this again. How are you feeling this morning, Jon?”
“I’m fine, just…” he almost admits he’s unnerved, maybe worried, “confused. I haven’t ever seen a case like this. It’s jarring to see something that might be credible I suppose, but who knows? I certainly have no way to contact Ms. Wellen about it. I can only assume it has some truth to it because I can’t fathom another reason you’d show me it.”
The why still lingers heavy in his throat, but considering Elias’s reaction when he’d opened with that he isn’t sure he’ll get that answer. From the way he’s looking at him, it must be true though, as frightening as that reality feels to accept.
“Does it discourage you?”
Jon isn’t sure which aspect of their arrangement Elias is referring to with his question. He was never particularly dead set on quitting smoking to begin with, merely went along with it out of curiosity, and the vague notion that he knows it would be better for him. If he’s talking about what he came here to find, then that’s a more complex answer.
He isn’t discouraged, so much as sent back spiraling to things he doesn’t want to admit. All along, he’s known that these things exist in the world and that even if his own encounter felt so brief, he couldn’t be the only one to have an experience like it. Denying that for so long simply felt easier. Bearable.
“No, no I need to know… just surprised to see something that didn’t feel fabricated.”
“I told you it would be a surprise. If you’re still interested, I assure you there are more in the Institute if you look hard enough. For now though, let’s get you sorted out.” Seamlessly, Elias changes the subject once again and waits patiently for the same exchange they’ve been making. He clicks his tongue when Jon has nothing to offer him from yesterday, but dutifully counts out the amount, taking one less than he’d given the day before, which Jon does not comment on.
“I understand why you felt it necessary to use them all, given how shocking this must be, but if you do wish to stop, best not to make a habit of it.” He’s trapped again by Elias’s eyes and he tries to squash down the definite sensation he’s disappointed him. Why that matters so much should be the more alarming question, but instead Jon quietly pockets the box again and chooses his words carefully.
“If I have more questions… will you answer them if I can keep up with it? Or was this the only surprise you had?” Jon asks, tone just slightly bordering shaky.
“You’ll just have to find out.” Elias answers him all pleasant looking smiles once more. “I believe they’re looking for you down in research, and I have scheduling to work out, so that will be all for now.”
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statementends · 5 years
Text
Pulled Apart
Characters: Sasha, Jon, Elias, featuring Tim and... NotMartin
Pairings: None, Gen
Warnings: Non-canonical Character death, The Web, The Stranger, Brutal Pipe Murder mentioned. 
Summary: Sasha has spiders in her head, but controlling and manipulating her coworkers doesn’t mean she can’t look after them. 
AO3: Link
-
Keeping Jon on task wasn’t easy. Finding Gertrude had shook him. Sasha couldn’t blame him. After all they’d gone through finding his predecessor was the last straw. Still, she had a job to do, and Jon antagonizing Tim wasn’t going to get it done.
“He’s being a paranoid prat.” Tim grumbled.
“Yeah, but you know how Jon is. He’s not the type ready for an emergency.”
Tim laughed, a bit tense, a bit high. “Yeah. Worms and monsters.”
Sasha smiled at him encouragingly. They were friends after all. Comforting Tim wasn’t so hard, and it worked into the greater web so there was no harm in keeping the peace. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Good luck,” Tim sounded doubtful. She patted his shoulder.
Tim wasn’t who Jon needed to be afraid of.
“I’m heading out,” Martin….
No… Not Martin. She had to remind herself sometimes. She could only just remember him. A large man with a round face and kind eyes. The web inside her trapped the thoughts that the stranger tried to tug out of reality. She was determined to remember Martin. No one else would.
The stranger was thin and pointed and left briskly. He didn’t stay late. He didn’t make tea. He had a confident air and was unconcerned about everything.
She went to Jon’s office. Jon was worse than he had ever been. He knew there was something wrong, but couldn’t name it or know it. The spiders whispered and explained to her why that was so difficult for him. Why it would make things easier for her in the long run.
Controlling her co-workers for a greater plot, well… maybe it was evil. Maybe she was a monster, but she could make things easier for them. Kinder.
“Jon?” She asked softly.
He fumbled with his tape recorder quickly clicking it off.
“Sorry, yes, I was just… finishing up. Did you need something, Sasha?”
“I need you to go home Jon,” She said. “You slept here last night.”
He jolted. “How do you know that?”
“You’re in the same clothes as yesterday.” She pointed calmly at his rumpled shirt.
“I--I was working late.”
“And you need to leave Tim alone.”
“Tim?”
“He’s not doing well after what happened.”
“He’s been angry…”
“He’s been hurting,” Sasha corrected. “And he doesn’t know how to deal with what happened.”
Jon looked caught out. “Well… I don’t have any answers for him.”
“Jon, you don’t need to have answers.”
He looked at her sharply. “That-- yes I do. Yes I do. That’s why--I need to know. I found something. A letter in the rubbish bin--”
“Jon,” Sasha interrupted. “How can I prove to you we won’t hurt you?”
“I--I don’t think that you’ll--”
“I know you think one of us murdered Gertrude. Jon, I’m not going to ask you to trust me. I know that’s hard for you right now, but let me help you.”
“What were you doing when she was murdered?” His voice went low and… there was something behind it. Like a thread tugging her towards the web. But it wasn’t spiders on his tongue.
“I haven’t the foggiest. But if it helps I’ll find out.”
Jon’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry,” He mumbled. “I just… I can’t.”
“Here, I brought you some tea. Drink that and then go home. You’re exhausted.”
Jon gazed at the cup frustration welling. A memory. Maybe he could almost remember Martin.
“It would be Martin,” He had said to her.
-
He held an axe in his hands standing in front of the table.
“Jon!” She yelled. He gave her a vicious look and tried to bring the axe down. With no other choice she reached out and caught his wrist in a string. Jon shook. He was terrified now.
“You’re one of them.” He said. “You’re a… a spider. Just like--”
“I’m not going to hurt you Jon,” Sasha said. “I’m trying to save you. If you break that table you’ll release what’s holding that thing back.”
“It--it took Martin!” Jon shouted. “And you knew. You hid it.”
“I didn’t want you putting yourself in danger, Jon. I’m not your enemy.”
“You’re a monster.”
She winced. Takes one to know one probably wouldn’t be the best strategy in this case.
“I heard the tapes. He… I don’t remember him. I don’t recognise him. He sounded...so lost and I hated him. Why would I hate him?”
There were angry tears in his eyes.
“I don’t think you did,” Sasha said softly.
“He lied on his CV.” Jon went on. “I went to see his mother, about some lie he had written her about. She hadn’t seen him since… since Prentiss. She laughed and asked if we finally found out he was scamming us. I--it always drove me crazy his Latin translations. He didn’t seem to know how to format things properly, but he had never known, he was just trying to get by with a sick mother and I disliked him because I thought he should know better--and I don’t even remember him. Just… just the impression on a few cassette tapes.” He was babbling now. His arms were still strung up by her web holding up the axe.
“How long?” he asked suddenly.
“How long?”
“How long have you been one of them?”
Sasha sighed. “Since Prentiss.”
“How many people did we lose that day?” His voice broke a little. “Is Tim--?”
“Tim’s human. Just… angry and a bit broken. Jon, if I let you go will you put the axe down?”
“Is it yours? Did you bring it here so that it would--”
“No,” She shook her head. “I didn’t… we didn’t bring it here, and if you break it then the thing pretending to be Martin will be free to kill us all. Right now it’s trapped, tethered.”
“How can I trust you?”
“I’m still me, Jon.”
“Have you used your powers on me before?”
“Not until now. Will you let go of the axe, Jon?”
He nodded.
She let the threads fall.
He slammed the axe down hard on the table.
-
“Damn it.” The person living in the tunnels had somehow cut her off. NotMartin was trapped, but she was separated from Jon. “Hey, help me out,” She called to the spiders that had claimed the tunnels as their own. The spiders skittered to her and then proceeded down the tunnel in droves. She followed them. Her senses were messed up in the tunnels. There was no controlling the buried in its own domain.
She finally found the trapdoor back to the archives and lifted herself out. She heard metal hitting flesh coming from Jon’s office and ran to it. She was sure NotMartin had been trapped but--
Elias stood over the ruined body of a man holding a pipe. He was covered in blood.
“Ah,” he breathed heavily. “Sasha. Good. We should chat.” He threw the pipe aside and moved past her. “Quickly now, Jon’s going to come back any moment.”
“You--” Elias… had…
“The Mother of Puppets and I have an understanding. If you don’t want to break that understanding follow me to my office, now.”
She felt her own webs tugging. The Mother’s guidance. Damn. Damn it!
She followed Elias into his office. He threw his bloodied coat to the side. “Well, that could have gone better.”
“What are you? I thought…”
“The Web is very good about moving the players on the board. The Eye is good at knowing who the players are.” Elias said. “I know you’re here to make sure things continue on schedule. I don’t have a problem with that, but it will be hard to convince Jon of your loyalties knowing what you are now. He has a thing about spiders.”
“What’s Jon going to think when he sees that body in his office?” Sasha asked coldly.
“He’ll run. He’ll know it was me and think I want to kill him.”
“Won’t the police suspect him?”
“I’m not worried,” Elias shrugged. “Jon needs to go learn some lessons. We can keep the police at bay for a little while I’m sure. I know you’re going to help me Sasha, so I won’t ask.”
“I’m going to help my friends,” Sasha corrected. She felt it. Hate curling in her stomache because he must know he had to know about everything that had happened. He could have protected them from Prentiss properly. He could have saved Martin. He could have saved her. He had just watched.
“Control is the Web’s expertise. Not mine.” He plucked the thought from her head. “If the Distortion doesn’t keep him, Tim will be back soon. He’ll probably need some help.”
“That’s it?”
“Now we both know where we stand with one another. I think that’s enough for one evening. I need to--”
“Destroy evidence?”
“You’d be helpful in that, but I won’t ask you to do it.”
“Good.”
Sasha turned and walked out of the office. She went back downstairs to the archives just in time for Tim to burst through a door that had never been in the archives before. He panted looking behind him, terrified.
“No, no, Helen!?” He called out.
“Tim?”
“Sasha! Sasha we need to get out of here now, that--that Michael. It--oh… oh god.” He looked in through the open door of Jon’s office, seeing the corpse.
“He--I didn’t think… I thought he was getting better.” He stumbled over his words.
She hated getting tangled in someone else’s web. Elias had been setting things up for a long time though. She took Tim upstairs to the breakroom and called the police.
She was going to have a hard time convincing Jon to trust her. Right now she just needed to keep everyone left together.
“I’ll make you some tea,” She offered.
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brigettereyes · 3 years
Text
Technology and Society: Its Approaches
In today’s time, traditional media slowly feels like it’s being neglected. Yes, we still see it and use it but not as often as we did before. We are so used to seeing or hearing it that we overlook it sometimes. Traditional media includes radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, and the like. These types of media have become “usual”. When the digital age came and began in the second half of the 20th century, as computer technology slowly started infiltrating different industries and then shifted into public use, we became dependent on this new media. Digital media brought such easy and fast access to anything we might need. Anytime you use your computer or cellphone, opening the web and such applications, you’re consuming digital media. Digital media might come in the form of videos, articles, advertisements, music, podcasts, video games, or social media. Digital media quickly replaced the traditional media in a blink of an eye. 
New Media: A Critical Introduction, a book by Martin Lister, Jon Dovey, Seth Giddings, Iain Grant, and Kieran Kelly discusses a comprehensive introduction to the culture, history, technologies and theories of new media. The book considers the ways in which 'new media' really are new, assesses the claims that a media and technological revolution has taken place and formulates new ways for media studies to respond to new technologies.In the book, it explains the four (4) main outcomes of the shift towards digital media. Firstly, media texts become de-linked from particular media. A perfect example for this is how we have e-books now compared to the traditional books we have. Before, we needed to bring an actual and physical copy of books to school but nowadays, we have the PDF copy of books. Another example is how we easily watch movies on our phones and how we can easily post photographs online. The second outcome of digitalization is that information can be compressed and fitted into very small spaces or even accessed remotely. And it’s true. We have hard drives and USB sticks as our physical devices. We also have “drives” and “clouds” which can be accessed online and can also store large amounts of data, just as USBs and hard drives do. Thirdly, the access to data can be very fast and also not have to be linear. This is also very evident in today’s time. We can just open our computers and/or our cellphones and open the web, go to Google, and search for anything we want to know. No matter how simple it is, we always go to Google and search for it just to make sure. Lastly, the fourth outcome of digitalization is that data can be manipulated in ways unimaginable in the analogue media age. A perfect example for this is very apparent in the Philippines. Fake news has been a problem in our country and how we’re easily manipulated by this kind of news. Through these four (4) outcomes, we can definitely see how the digital age affected us, positively or negatively. The digital age also introduced the technological aspect of media. 
This coming of the digital media age also came with a lot of approaches and theories to the study of it. Many scientists, theorists, and other professionals had each of their explanations based on their understanding and experiences with the new wave of media that has been brought to us. And as we tackle this new age, these approaches discuss the relationship between the technology and society aspect. The first approach is instrumentalism. Instrumentalism considers technology as neutral. Instrumentalism views technology as a tool or a device and nothing else. Technology can only be judged by its efficiency. It cannot be assessed on moral, political, or technical terms because it is seen as a neutral device. Technology is seen as a device that people utilize. Nothing more, nothing  less. Technology can be there but the one who uses it, may it be in a good or bad way, gives such definition to technology. Based on my own understanding, the users of technology can define technology based on their usage and the outcomes of it. Therefore, technology really is neutral. It can only be given a meaning or importance once it is used by a person. It’s just a tool that is present and ready to use but it is up to us if we use it in the right way or the other way around. I remember when cell phones were first introduced and are still new to everyone, its only features are calling and texting someone as fast and as soon as possible. So cell phones, as a device of technology, are there for us to use it to call or text someone. But when we use it to text someone to cheat on an exam or to prank call somebody, we give it an inappropriate use of technology. 
Another approach is substantivism. Substantivism argues that technology influences how society develops and impacts our culture and social structure, and political systems. It claims that the technology has its own path and that people have little influence over how these political systems, culture and social structure will be impacted. Technology is a force that determines what our society will be like. The technology has its own values which can be good or bad which people cannot control and the technology itself will determine how it will be used. It seems like substantivism, in simple terms, believes that technology has the power to define us as a society. Technology can create a human being in which technology dictates how he/she should be and how he/she must think. This is very noticeable in this generation where social media has taken over us. These days, social media allows us to look at our “idols” and see how they live their lives. Unfortunately, one of the bad outcomes that social media has brought to us is that we have “filters” in our posts. Most of the time, what you see on your news feed is not 100% true. This is where the substantivism approach will be exemplified. Scrolling through these social media feeds feels like we are dictated on how we should live our lives as well and how it can really impact our identity.
Lastly, social constructivism is like the opposite of substantivism. As substantivism discusses that technology somehow influences the society, social constructivism studies that human action or the society shapes technology. Technological outcomes are socially-mediated. To add, non-technological factors are also to be considered in helping understand the impact that technology may have in our lives. Based on my understanding, we as a society also determine technology. We also give definition to technology and how it must work. An example I can think of is how scientists, engineers, and people in general continue to improve and find other ways on how we can use technology. 
These approaches have the basis of discussing media theories and such topics. It has also been helpful for us to read and understand because we can then realize how much technology in the digital age has affected us in ways we don’t even notice. 
REFERENCES:
What is Digital Media? All you need to know about new media. Maryville Online. (2020, March 4). https://online.maryville.edu/blog/what-is-digital-media/.
Lister, M., Dovey, J., Giddings, S., Grant, I., & Kelly, K. (2010). New Media: A Critical Introduction. Routledge. 
Siapera, E. (2018). Understanding New Media (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications . 
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kiss-my-freckle · 6 years
Text
Rederina Rewatch: Vanessa Cruz
"Our ghost has a face." 
                   “Our ghost has a name.”
I decided to skip over to 2x18 in my Rederina rewatch because Vanessa’s hire somehow makes sense to me now. This post will include dialogues from other episodes, as well as dialogues that pertain to my memory wipe theory - since I believe Red’s shooting was the “truth” Krilov took from Liz two years ago. 
2x17.
It’s important I start here, since 2x18 runs fluid. 
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I don’t know if this is my birthday.
This is her birthday. Red celebrates and mourns at the same time. 
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How’d you find me? If I can, they can. They flagged you leaving Dresden. Your passports are burned.
Tom burns the passports that are burned. Ressler put a flag on all of Tom’s aliases earlier in the episode, but Major was talking about the Germans. 
Reminiscent of Red burning his burned identities during his war against Kate. 
And those are the charred remains of 16 false identities that Kate has somehow compromised.
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Ressler put a flag on all of Tom’s aliases -
You know, not everyone’s so anxious to leave. Put a flag on Tom, all his known aliases - he hasn’t left.
His deleted scene after their Wing Yee dinner -
Looks like Tom’s in a little bit of trouble and he’s gonna bring that trouble to you, so ... be careful. 
Reminiscent of Red’s scene in 5x8 -
I believe Tom Keen is once again entangled in some nasty business, and I worry he may be involving Elizabeth.
Tom hits her doorstep. He wants his passports from evidence.
2x18.
I couldn’t come up with a theory as to why Red hired Vanessa Cruz. Her skill-set is framing people, which Red is more than capable of doing since he’s the one who created Edgar Legate. Rederina changes the view and offers a purpose. 
Red after looking through Liz’s birthday photos. Tom after burning his burned passports. 
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Turning myself in to save you saved me. And not because the Judge let me go. I’ve been running since I was 14. It’s all I’ve known. And in that moment when the Judge let me go, I thought, “maybe there’s a world where I don’t have to run, where I could just - ”
Our Red has been running for 30 years. 
Red: I understand what it’s like to be drawn to something that is unhealthy to a part of yourself that you are afraid of. But I want you to remember what your life really was with him, and imagine all that it could be without him. Liz: I don’t have to imagine. Red: Good. Because I have a case.
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Red is close to tears in this scene and desperate to get his hooks into Vanessa Cruz. Putting Red’s words into context since that’s his entire reason for handing Liz this case - hiring Vanessa Cruz. 
Remove the replies, and this is what it looks like:
I want you to remember what your life really was with him, and imagine all that it could be without him. Because I plan to hire Vanessa Cruz. 
This is coming straight from him looking over her birthday photos. 
Vanessa Cruz and Katarina Rostova. 
Two women with many names.  Vanessa's relationship to Abby sells it even more. 
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Vanessa’s husband was framed -
Thrown off a bridge to keep him from blowing the whistle. That’s when you framed him, which is why she framed you.
Ressler: Why would I feel bad for them? They’re criminals. Liz: According to Reddington, they’re innocent - Framed after months, sometimes years of planning by a woman with a deep-seated hatred for the 1%. She doesn’t just take their money, she takes their reputations, their freedom, sometimes their lives.
Ressler: Drew Roberts. He was one of Cruz’s victims. He worked at Oakside Investments. Aram: And? Ressler: That was the firm that employed Cruz’s dead husband. Aram, I might have an idea what this is all about.
Ressler: It’s not about money. It’s about revenge.
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Onto Red, from 1x9 -
Ressler: So, what’s it all about then, the Blacklist? Revenge? Red: Oh, revenge is too easy and over so quickly. I would hope for more than that. 
Our Red was framed himself, from 5x20 - 
Similar to Cruz’s husband planning to blow the whistle, our Red planned to take down the Cabal. 
Jennifer: So, you’re saying you were framed? Red: I’m saying a perfectly plausible narrative was created. Jennifer: By some shadow government called the Cabal. Red: And anyone close to a target of theirs becomes a target themselves. Jennifer: Family. Red: Especially family.              (Unless given up for adoption to Sam)
Abandonment, a long-standing issue with Liz. Parallel of a faked suicide. 
Hernandez: They found her folded clothing at Rockaway Beach. They never found a body, but I know she was dead. She’d never abandon me.
Red: Two months later, she went to Cape May and left her clothes on the beach, walked into the ocean and was never seen again.
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Liz: Do you think she’s dead? Katarina? I know they say she committed suicide, but there was a man, Anton Velov. He was a Colonel in the Spetsnaz. He said she might still be alive. Dom: I never heard from Katarina after she left for America. What really happened to her - I think there are some people who want to keep ­that information a secret. And I think they will do whatever is necessary even now to keep it that way.
Same was said of Katarina. By Jon Bokenkamp. 
Is Katarina really dead? I don’t know how to answer that. Is she really dead? She really walked off into the water and was never found. So there’s that. I don’t know. I don’t know how to answer that anymore. I’m sorry. 
Vanessa’s ghost references. 
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Conway: Over 278 people lost everything because of some ghost. Aram: The detectives and the lawyers may not have found anything conclusive on their own, but if you put the photos they found together - our ghost has a face.
Liz: Our ghost has a name - Vanessa Cruz. 
Red was referred to as a ghost many times throughout. Specific in 4x2 when he shoots Kaplan. 
“And I will never be set free as long as I’m a ghost that you can’t see”
So was Liz in 5x9.
I think uh, she was -       A ghost. Life’s full of ’em.
Opposite with men. 
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Hernandez: Some women make the same mistakes with men over and over again.
Vanessa’s husband was framed.
Katarina: It wasn’t your fault. He was a bad man. 
Red: Men like Tom don’t change. 
Cooper: I wonder what his angle is. Liz: Sir? Cooper: Reddington. Why give us this case? What’s his interest in this Cruz woman?
Kaplan: Mrs. Cruz, my employer is a longtime admirer of yours. He understands your gambit has run its course. The FBI knows what you’re up to. They’re looking for you now, which means you have one of two choices - Run and hide, or accept his help.
The only thing Vanessa has that our Red doesn’t, is her gender. Not so easy to seduce and betray both genders since he’s no longer Katarina Rostova. I believe Vanessa’s hire has everything to do with Red’s framing by the Cabal. She has no problem in the seduction and betrayal department. 
To the future. 
I don’t think it’s about revenge with Vanessa’s hire. I think it’s about clearing Red’s name. Her know-how goes deep. That expertise could help on the opposite side of the frame. Especially since she figured out her husband’s enough to seek vengeance. Her being wanted was the only reason Katarina had to “die” in the first place. As long as she continued to exist, Liz would be hunted and killed. 
Tom and the Cabal. 
Red took Hobbs’ vote in 2x17.
Red: Well, maybe you didn’t save mankind from an untimely death, but someday you may be able to spare me from one.
2x18.
Hobbs: I’ve been quietly lobbying on your behalf.
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Tom sounds like Connolly in 2x19.
Connolly: I appreciate your loyalty to Agent Keen, Harold, but you have to admit there’s a possibility she’s being completely manipulated by Reddington. What if the reason he chose her in the first place is because he wanted to get his hands on this thing? What if that’s the real reason he turned himself in? All this talk about some personal connection between Reddington and Keen, why he chose her, some shared history - what if Reddington doesn’t care about Agent Keen and it’s all been a manipulation?
2x18.
Tom: You know, I’m no worse than your buddy Reddington. Liz: He’s not my buddy. And you are worse. Tom: You don’t get it. Even after all this time, Reddington Is dangerous, and he is playing you.
Interesting since Red traced the Orea bombing back to the Harbormaster trial, where Connolly allowed Tom to walk on all charges - including those committed on behalf of Berlin.
Scene cut.
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From Tom trying to pin the passorts on Berlin to the Diector going off about Hobbs' betrayal.
Tom: Do you think it’s possible for uh - someone like me to start over, to become something else?
The Director: Reddington did not make you! We made you!
Tom: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I can’t. Not about this.
The Director: We put you in the game, and you betray us? You betray me? I treated you like family. I supported you.
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The Fulcrum.
Hobbs: Listen to me, Red. The Fulcrum - If you have it, if you can prove you have it, do it now. Your life depends on it.
Red: This is simply about me trying to survive. I’m perfectly happy to put you in touch with someone who deals in shelf corporations, but I need the Fulcrum.
Tom: Reddington. I’ve been thinking about what you said - about needing to tell you the truth. So I’m gonna tell you the truth. The passports - the passports came from Reddington. Liz, there’s more.
Dembe: Agent Keen wants to meet regarding the Fulcrum.
Liz: Here. This is all you wanted. Now you have it. I just want this to stop. I want it all to stop, right now. Take it!
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Lying to Liz about the passports was easy since they came from Red’s trusted forger in Warsaw. Hard to disprove that. The fact that one of them is for his Keen alias and Red hired him to enter her life, even more. Claiming Red issued the passports would’ve been enough. “Liz, there’s more.”
In 2x19 -
Liz: I thought you’d be gone. Tom: That was the plan. Then I thought maybe if I stayed, I’d have a shot at a normal life.
Rederina fits into Vanessa Cruz’s episode. If I’m right about the memory wipe and Vanessa’s reason for hire, then I suspect both will return in S6.
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sxpiosexualx · 6 years
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What bothers me a lot about dorito fans claiming her “kween” and “the rightful ruler” is that she never do an actual job as a queen? I never saw her holding a paper and a quill, all she does is ride drogon and yell “dracarys”. Tell me again how is the “queen”. At least Cersei did her job!
Exactly, Cersei may not be the best candidate but she does know a thing or two about ruling, although she’s definitely straying from that after her whole wildfire act. Still, it irks me to see Dany stans say she deserves the Iron Throne. You could argue that it wouldn’t matter considering the past rulers we’ve seen managed to keep the realm considerably stable with the help of their counsel but wouldn’t that further reinforce the notion that Dany does not know a thing about ruling by herself? Even Joffrey faced backlash from the people in S2E06, the only difference is he didn’t have the dragons to intimidate people to think twice. What makes her worthy of the throne then? Her gentle heart? Tommen had a gentle heart, he still managed to be manipulated and lost the one thing that mattered to him, driving him to suicide in the process.
Speaking of Tommen, let’s examine the exchange he had with Tywin:
Tommen: “Wisdom makes a good king.”
Tywin: “Yes, but what is Wisdom? […] A wise king knows what he knows and what he doesn’t. You’re young. A wise young king listens to his counselors and heeds their advice until he comes of age. And the wisest kings continue to listen to them long afterwards.”
Preceding the exchange in S4E07 above, Tommen explores ideas of holiness, justness, and strength before finally concluding that “Wisdom makes a good king.” So let’s dissect this further:
Could Daenerys be considered as holy? This could be shot down with one quote; “Do you know what kept me standing, through all those years in exile? Faith. Not in any God, not in myths and legends. In myself. In Daenerys Targaryen.” We never see her attempt at praying, and in this speech she gives Jon in S7E03, she mentions that she places faith in herself above the Gods. I’m not sure about you, but that line in particular screams hubris(defined as extreme pride and arrogance shown by a character that ultimately brings about his downfall).
Is Daenerys just? I believe we’ve been expected to see her that way, yes. She did in fact abolish slavery, no? However interestingly enough, if you examine her methods, she rules as an absolute monarch. As a person in such position of power, what you say is law. And we see Daenerys practice this time and time again, burning and crucifying potentially innocent men in Mereen for example. So, I assume Daenerys truly believes what she’s doing is just, but we’re also given the exchange between her and Ser Barristan Selmy in S5E02 to ponder upon, “the mad king gave his enemies the justice he thought they deserved, and each time it made him feel powerful and right, until the very end.” Ironically enough, Daenerys insists she’s not her father preceding that exchange, and Ser Barristan goes on to mention that he “murdered sons in front of their fathers,” something we see her do in Eastwatch(S7E05).
Does Daenerys wield strength? Considering she has dragons at her command, yes(arguably). But in what world does having dragons make you the most deserving candidate to sit on the Iron Throne? The Westeros that saw a Targaryen dynasty that was only able to hold their rule because of the fear their dragons commanded? Would that make a satisfying conclusion to the story? A restoration of a dynasty that faced rebellions time and time again? Who dares challenge the authority of the mother of dragons? Observe what Tywin says about Robert Baratheon and his strength in S4E07, “a man who thinks that winning and ruling are the same thing.” This is the main problem with Daenerys, she conquers easily with the help of her army and her dragons, but she has no talent for issuing any reform. And when you conquer a place through war, you shift the power dynamics creating chaos. At least Littlefinger knew that reform must come after chaos, and he plans ahead unlike Daenerys who refuses to even give thought to an heir.
Alright, I hear you, none of that matters as much as long as she’s wise - as Tywin had pointed out, “A wise young king listens to his counselors and heeds their advice until he comes of age. And the wisest kings continue to listen to them long afterwards.” But does she? We see her attempt to in Mereen, but she still resorts to the harsh measures she deems as just, despite it being what her counsel advices her against. We see her do this again with Tyrion in season 7, even questioning his loyalty(and Varys’) as soon as his plans fail. Not only is she not the wisest, she also is impressionable - she listens to Jon over her actual counsel in which path to take, and she favour’s Olenna Tyrell’s advice in being a dragon over what Tyrion tells her, and again, she refuses to reason with Tyrion and decides to burn the Tarlys alive. In other words, she places herself above the Gods, does what she thinks is just, and has the power to silence those who question her authority with her dragons, leaving very little room for her counsel to reason with her. This is why the exchange between Tyrion and Varys in season 7 was so important: these two are already starting to see her for who she really is, instead of the propped up version that was sold to them by her blind supporters.
But who else could be a contender, seeing as no one else(still living)’s arc revolves around their quest for the Iron Throne? Well, the Iron Throne is an ugly thing and I for one hope it no longer exists at the end of the series but since we’re on this topic, who did we just discover is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne? Jon. 
The show has made a point to withhold that from us up to this point, just as J*nerys was starting to sail. Why? Because he now contends everything she’s worked for, everything she believes she’s entitled to. This is why I believe Daenerys’ arc serves as a foil to Jon’s instead of cinematic parallels meant to establish an otherwise poorly executed romance.
We see both these characters rise to power but there are stark differences in place. Daenerys feels entitled and rises up due to her name(and her dragons which also link in with her lineage), meanwhile Jon finds himself in positions of power because the people elect him, he doesn’t try to claim his right, he has no right. We’re meant to notice how fundamentally different these two are.
Let’s examine Varys’ speech from season 5:
“The Seven Kingdoms need someone stronger than Tommen but gentler than Stannis. A monarch who could intimidate the High Lords and inspire the people. A ruler loved by millions, with a powerful army, and the right family name.”
Jon is certainly stronger than Tommen, evident in him being referred to as “the greatest swordsman who ever walked,” by Ramsay in S6E09. He is definitely gentler than Stannis, showing Alys Kastark and Ned Umber mercy in S7E01. He’s gotten enough support from the Northern Lords and have inspired them enough to name him King in the North, surely an army would follow too. But what does he lack then? The right family name. And how can he get that? By also achieving what he’s always wanted: to be a Stark. Cue Sansa.
We are reminded that the North is wary of outsiders, especially Targaryens, “A Targaryen cannot be trusted.” - Lord Royce, (S7E02). They are too traumatised by Targaryen rule at this point that the only logical decision to maintain their support and reinforce Jon’s Northern side is if he takes the Stark name via a political marriage with Sansa. Say what you want about eggon tamale, he was raised by Ned Stark, Stark blood flows in him, and he’s lived an observed how to rule in Winterfell via being around Robb all these years. The show may have downplayed his ability to practice politics but he speaks like a true Northerner and it’s made apparent in the books during his exchange with Stannis of just how much he knows of the North and its people.
But even if you’d like to view this purely based on the show, Sansa is the perfect match for him. She has learnt from the best political players - Cersei, Margaery, and Littlefinger - while Jon is better known as the “military man.” You can see me explore why Sansa would make a better Queen than Daenerys here: https://sxpiosexualx.tumblr.com/post/165837328667/who-would-make-a-better-queen 
Say what you want about Jonsa, it makes the most sense. Jon is a good bet as king, but he would not be as nearly as successful without Sansa by his side. This is why the show spent so much time developing their dynamic(even if it wasn’t necessarily romantic though the tropes are heavily suggested and weaved into those scenes), to show us how effective their rule would be if they ruled together. It translates on screen even through the deliberate set design of the hall: Jon and Sansa sit on an equal level with their small table or counsel of Lords, allowing for there to be easy discussion. Unlike the throne we see Daenerys sit on at Dragonstone - a larger than life throne propped up and meant to intimidate those who enter the hall.
Finally, I’ll leave you with a criticism GRRM made on the Lord of the Rings:
 “Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?” – (GRRM on Tolkein)
So again, I believe the best bet on who should rule at the end of the series, be it the entire 7 Kingdoms or just the North, would be JonSa. After all, the story did begin with the Starks, and I’d much rather see a restoration of a house who’s downfall was brought upon being honourable, than the restoration of a dynasty who’s demise was largely brought upon their own doing.
Thank you for the ask anon! x
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tessatechaitea · 6 years
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Doomsday’s Cock #1
Why is Rorschach on the cover of Doomsday's Cock #1?
Uh oh. Trump fans are going to be upset about this comic book. Of course, they'll pretend they're upset about comics making any kind of political commentary. But they're really just upset that the story portrays a world falling apart because the president is an obvious Trumpian disaster.
News reports indicate that Veidt's plan was exposed as The Great Lie. He's now considered a terrorist being hunted by everybody. It was Rorschach's journal that exposed the truth, a journal which disappeared not long after. I guess Rorschach did survive somehow and decided to get back to journaling. And then there he is. Rorschach has survived, reappearing to comment on how the world has gone to shit so that comic book Fanboys everywhere can fuck themselves silly.
Oh wait. Scratch that. They're more likely to rage about pandering until their heads explode.
Rorscach recruits the Marionette for some secret mission he's on. I don't remember The Marionette but I'm sure it was some villain that Rorschach nearly killed. They have three hours to find Doctor Manhattan since America has launched their nuclear missiles. The world is about to end which probably means The New 52 is about to begin. For some reason. It'll all be explained in time! Probably. I mean, it'll probably be the way Doctor Manhattan saves the world. Or something. Before leaving prison, The Marionette and Rorschach pick up The Marionette's husband, the Mime. They're the perfect team to catch Doctor Manhattan! She'll pull Jon's strings and he'll trap him in an invisible box. Even a fucking omnipotent blue naked guy can't defend against that. It turns out Rorscach is working with Ozymandias to find Doctor Manhattan to save their world. But when Ozymandias last saw Doctor Manhattan, he was leaving the Watchmen Universe to find one less complicated to live in. Or to find one that was fairly complicated and fuck it all up so that it didn't seem, at first glance, complicated at all. But like every continuity reboot, it was actually way more complicated than if things had been left alone. The issue ends with Clark having a nightmare about his prom night. I'm not sure if the scariest part of the dream was when his parents were killed in the traffic accident or when he saw Pete dancing. Lois wakes up and he tells her, "I don't think I've ever had one." Oh, um, the one refers to a nightmare. I didn't want to change the quote and I didn't want to add more dialogue. Instead I decided to write all of this extraneous and awkward crap. The night Superman has the nightmare is probably the night Doctor Manhattan arrived and changed the past because he didn't want to have to learn seventy years of DC history to understand the world he was now living in. The issue ends with a few lines from the poem, "Ozymandias," because why not? That's a pretty easy quote pull! Especially because it mentioned aliens and appeared after the Superman scene! Doomsday's Cock #1 Rating: It was huge.
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shewholovestoread · 7 years
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will you pls update your cersie and sansa meta?? x
I’ve already written one meta about Cersie and Sansa which you can read here.
Having seen all of Season 7, I have to say I am even more convinced that the final showdown must be between Sansa and Cersie for a number of reasons.
Rest of it under the cut:
First off, there are parallels, both Sansa and Cersie are usually overlooked and underestimated by those around them. Dany doesn’t suffer from this because of her dragons, but neither of these two women have that luxury. They are both ordinary (and I use that term very loosely) women who have nothing but their wits to keep them alive. They have had to become smart in order to survive. Cersie had to do it because she was stuck in a love-less marriage with Robert, a man who never really had any ambition to be king and was therefore not as careful as one might have been had they cared about the position. Cersie also knew what had happened to Rhaegar’s wife and children and would not let that happen to herself or her children. In the earlier seasons, her entire focus is on the survival of her family and all her actions lead to that. Sansa, on the other hand, had to learn because her very survival depended on it. She had no alternatives, no protectors, no one to speak up for her.
There was something else that struck me as I was starting this meta, in a way, Cersie was a surrogate mother to Sansa. It makes sense, Sansa was twelve when she went to KL and her mother did not accompany the two young girls, which in itself if quite strange. And before Ned lost his head, Cersie made herself into a mother figure for Sansa. Sansa looked up to her and admired her, wanted to be like her. After Ned’s death, Sansa’s life became a living nightmare but, in a weird way, she still had Cersie who would occasionally advise her, in a way a mother would (albeit it was often harshly delivered, but that did not lessen the importance of the advice itself). It was Cersie who told Sansa that she could try to love Joffrey, implying that he was already a monster and even Cersie could not always control him. In her most formative years, it wasn’t Ned or Catelyn who were with Sansa, it was Cersie. I’ve also stated that, in those early years, she did care for Sansa, in her own twisted way. This gives Sansa an insight into the kind of women she really is which is why there is a part of Sansa that does admire her, because she’s survived where other, more able players have not.
Game of Thrones has been setting up Tyrion as a master strategist and this season just served to illustrate that that reputation may have been premature. He pledged to serve Dany and help her become queen of the Seven Kingdoms and was outmaneuvered time and again by Cersie. In the beginning when Dany’s war council were going over plans of taking KL, it seemed like a great plan, using Westerosi forces to take KL and the Unsullied to take Casterly Rock but while he was feeling smug, he forgot that he was dealing with Cersie. Cersie who learned from her father who was indeed a great strategist. Even at the end, she played both her brothers, especially Tyrion. That entire conversation is a very finely staged performance on Cersie’s part. Every action and word was carefully chosen. When she placed her hand on her stomach, it felt so out-of-character for her. This is Tyrion, she doesn’t trust him, she doesn’t even like him but she does have him figured out. She knew that he did genuinely love Tommen and Myrcella and he does regret that they died. Here’s another thing to consider, Tyrion does have a blindspot where his family is concerned. He hates his sister but she is his sister, there will always be a part of him that sees her through the lenses of a younger brother. Cersie has no such concerns, she would burn the world down and happily watch it burn.
Which brings us to Sansa. We spent the entire season worried sick over whether Sansa would indeed betray her family. Of course, the makers never gave any proof to set up that betrayal but that’s besides the point. If Tyrion was Cersie adversary, LF was Sansa’s. As we found out at the end, Sansa’s problems from the beginning were the handiwork of LF, if not for him Robert would not have come North and would not have betrothed Sansa and Joffrey. The Starks would have stayed home, healthy and whole. But LF’s hunger for power got the entire plot going. He then betrayed Ned and then used and abused Sansa. Sansa suffered some of the worst abuse at the hand of the Boltons and that match was arranged by none other than LF. Like Tyrion (and mind you I love him) LF also has too high an opinion of himself, he’s started believing his own publicity. Throughout this season, he tried to sow the seeds to dissent, first between Jon and Sansa and then between Sansa and Arya. And it would have worked except all season, LF was telling Sansa to think about the bigger picture, to view everyone with suspicion and always play out scenarios in her head so that nothing ever surprises her. This was great advice, except LF thought that for some reason, he was exempt from all these scenarios. Killing him would have been easy but to do so without losing the support of the Knights of the Vale, that was going to be exceedingly tricky. That scene where LF finally meets his end, that too is very carefully constructed, it’s the Knights of Vale who line the Great Hall with Lord Royce present, who already didn’t like him very much but couldn’t openly oppose him for fear of Sweet Robin. She sets him up perfectly, so much so that he never sees it coming.
So Season 7 saw both Cersie and Sansa outplay men who thought themselves to be smarter than the women they were trying to manipulate..
It also set them up in contrast to each other. In Season 6, Cersie burned down the Sept with all those people inside, not to mention all the collateral damage. Whereas Sansa was more worried whether they had enough food to make sure that everyone would be fed and they could take in refugees when the fight against the WW really came. She takes a personal interest when she really doesn’t need to and her people see this. This is evident when Arya comes to Winterfell and the two sentries don’t want to bother Lady Sansa, not because they’re scared but because, in a strange way, they’re protective of her.
Season 7 has so far established 3 main groups, Dany and her quest for the IT, Cersie and her quest for who-knows-what and the North that just wants its own independence and also survive both the WW and Cersie. I’ve stated multiple times that I don’t see Jon retain his crown in Season 8 which makes Sansa the QitN. Jaime recently left Cersie and rode North to fight against the WW and while there he will join Sansa and not Dany. Dany burned his men alive, he doesn’t like her and he doesn’t trust her. Jaime redemption arc started when he was paired with Brienne and tasked with getting the Stark girls safely delivered to their family. Plus he knows Sansa, he knew her father and mother and while he may not have liked them very much, I believe he does respect them. I personally can’t wait for him to meet Sansa and see the capable woman that she’s grown into. Jaime is often blinded by his love for Cersie but he’s starting to see that most of it may have been one-sided. When it is time to make a final choice as to who he will support, I believe he will pick Sansa, simply because she’s the better candidate. The fight against the WW will end with the elimination of one of the groups and I don’t believe it will be the Starks. They’re the protagonists of the series. I believe that Cersie will make it out alive as well with Dany sacrificing herself in the fight against the WW.
In the Starks vs Cersie battle, there will be one key difference from the BotB, Jon will seek out and heed Sansa’s counsel when it comes to how best deal with Cersie.
Anyway, that’s what I think and this post got way longer than I thought it would, but I hope it makes sense.
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turtle-paced · 7 years
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GoT Re-Watch: Fine-Toothed Comb Edition
Moving right along, this is where most of the plots for season six actually start...
...so to speak.
6.02 - Home
This episode has a previously on. It concludes at 1:45, and includes a reminder of Balon, Yara, Bran, and the Karstarks.
(3:55) Our first look at Max von Sydow as Bloodraven, not that he’s easy to see given how badly this set is lit. It’s almost as bad as the House of Black and White. But it is quite atmospheric.
(4:10) But no time to process, we’re promptly launched into flashbackville.
(4:28) And Bran’s first line in a season is an incredibly clunky bit of exposition. “That’s my father.” Yes, thank you, Bran, we got that from the guy who just said “Give him another go, Ned,” and we understand that a flashback is a possibility here because of the blatant magic and general atmosphere.
(4:34) Oh, look, they’re drawing parallels between Ned and Jon.
(4:59) Poor, poor, Bran. “Stop showing off!” and “Lyanna!” are followed by “my aunt Lyanna.” Don’t repeat yourself, show, go to “my father never talked about her,” because that is the most important bit of information we get here. We can see the sibling dynamics.
(5:46) Thus begins the “whodunnit” mystery of Hodor’s disability, which cannot exist in the story without justification. There must a reason given on screen for why Hodor differs from ‘the norm;’ his very disability must justify its existence.
(6:10) And in “please, a little longer,” we see some of the best characterisation of Bran the show has ever done, which is followed up on in the scene. At last we get the sense that one of the Stark kids has positive feelings about Winterfell and their family. That’s the thing about the hyperfocus on vengeance; we don’t get a sense that something good was lost. Yes, I’m aware that it’s crumbs of characterisation, but it’s more than Bran gets at pretty much any other point.
(7:58) Hodor wasn’t always Hodor! He could talk, and fight - if this was presented as in-verse ableism this would be fine, but instead it reads to me as the writers forgetting that Hodor has been a valuable member of Team Bran as he is.
(8:50) Buck up, Meera! Bran needs you to be cheerful! Stop staring out over the snowy expanse where you were forced to mercy kill your brother, put up uncomplainingly with the cold and the boredom and the feeling of uselessness, a male character needs your emotional support.
(9:17) Cut to the Wall here, where Ser Alliser takes thirty seconds to reiterate the basic ultimatum we heard in the previously-on.
(10:16) It takes just shy of a full minute of screen time for the mutineers to start beating down the door. Go go go, they said. A shock a minute, they said.
(11:01) Deaths: 1. Tormund kills a Watchman.
(11:17) Deaths: 2. Wun Wun kills a Watchman.
(11:28) And after an episode of buildup, the mutineers throw down their weapons after thirty seconds of actual conflict. Yep. That’s a few scenes totally wasted.
(11:56) Gosh I feel sorry for the kid playing Olly. Only line he gets all season is “AAAAAAAAAAA” as he makes a screaming charge at Tormund.
(12:52) Tormund’s immediate “we gotta burn this body” makes sense.
(13:08) More evidence to show that the writers just didn’t get the body-shaming involved in the walk of shame. The point was to make Cersei unattractive.
(13:27) This also shows that the smallfolk of King’s Landing consider the incest charges definite and…don’t really care, inasmuch as it can be rolled uncontroversially into a standup comedy routine?
(14:09) Deaths: 3. Frankengregor kills a man with a terrible act.
(14:19) Cersei pulling at loose threads in her outfit is part of the directors and costumers trying to show her loss of status. But here’s the thing, even if it’s a good idea to focus on this for a second, once again we’re killing time. We don’t have the shot of Cersei pulling out the thread and then Frankengregor comes in, Cersei pulls out the thread, she fiddles with it for five seconds, and then Frankengregor comes in. The writers feel they have so little material, they are forced to show characters standing around adjusting their clothes!
(14:56) Ditto this. We don’t start with Cersei pulling out the thread and setting off to the funeral with Frankengregor in tow, we need to see her crossing the floor, and walking down the stairs, and then getting accosted. This is reaching Birdemic levels of padding.
We’re fifteen minutes into the episode and we have evidence of padding both macro (the unnecessarily drawn-out “conflict” at Castle Black that adds nothing except an episode’s worth of scenes) and micro (shots of Cersei walking that are a few seconds too long each).
(15:09) We see Lannister guards (note the lions on the lead guard’s shoulders) and hear that the order for Cersei to remain in the Red Keep comes from Tommen, interestingly enough. At this point, Tommen I don’t think is supposed to be totally under the High Sparrow’s sway. If this order did ultimately originate from the High Sparrow (who tends to send his own men to do things, but then again, getting Tommen to do it also fits with the manipulative aspect of his modus operandi) there’s no arc to what happens with politics in King’s Landing. The High Sparrow starts in such control of Tommen that he can get him to bar his own mother from her daughter’s funeral, and continues on in a similar vein.
(16:05) Wait, what? Tommen thinks Cersei killed Trystane? That would be a murder totally out of character for show!Cersei, who seriously only uses violence when she feels she needs to in order to defend herself and her children. (Not kidding, go back through her actions all series - all of book!Cersei’s utterly gratuitous violence has been edited out.) Even the septsplosion was framed as Cersei being backed into a corner, as we’ll see later. She’s got careless with collateral and the sanctioning of violence since Joffrey’s death (arming the Faith, her dead-or-alive hunt for Tyrion), but nevertheless, her direct and specific employment of violence has always been for her defence or that of her children. Not even revenge for her children.
(16:25) Here we learn that the High Sparrow told Tommen that Cersei would not be allowed in the sept. So we see the High Sparrow is issuing veiled ultimatums to the king, which he is heeding. That is the starting point of his influence this season.
We also see that the writers don’t know jack about atonement rituals and can’t agree on the High Sparrow’s rationale. As we see from a later episode, one of the things the High Sparrow supposedly wants is Cersei back in her patriarchy-approved box of sexless widow- and motherhood. This would logically include Cersei taking part in official religious ceremonies to farewell her late daughter. He should want her in that sept. But the High Sparrow does not act consistently in and of himself; he acts consistently only to make other characters suffer. He’s the diabolus ex machina of the King’s Landing storyline.
(17:11) Tommen is very sad that he’s a weak king, unable to defend his womenfolk.
(17:40) They’re being very vague about what Margaery’s actually being imprisoned for. They’re talking about “crimes” but it’s crime, singular, that of perjury. The only possible holdup here is Loras; obviously, if he’s not lying about not being gay, Margaery couldn’t be lying when she said he wasn’t gay. If this was the train of thought made apparent in the episode, that Margaery’s conviction rests on Loras’ conviction, and so the High Sparrow feels a confession from Loras would make the whole thing much safer politically, I’d be a lot more forgiving. It is not. Instead the High Sparrow is on a fishing expedition for more of Margaery’s “crimes.” With the queen of Westeros and the heir to Highgarden in his cells.
(17:51) That said, I think Tommen’s actor is doing a great job in this scene. Just look at his chin wobble when Jaime dismisses him, and the way he obviously doesn’t know what to do. Again. After a discussion about how ineffectual he is.
(18:10) And sometimes, aided in no small measure by Jonathan Pryce, the scripting for the High Sparrow is actually good. “I fear a great many things. The Father, the Mother, the Warrior…” Conspicuously not on the list - the Stranger, the king, Jaime. The High Sparrow fears judgment in the next life more than anything temporal, so keep on trying to intimidate him, Kingslayer, knock yourself out. And it continues the pattern of clever conversational tricks to assert and maintain dominance that he used so effectively with Cersei. Jaime, being Jaime, doesn’t get this, and the High Sparrow actually has to bring out the mooks before he does.
(18:45) If Cersei atoned for her sin (how convenient that the High Sparrow didn’t tell Jaime that the sin she atoned for was adultery with Lancel!), why is she not allowed in the sept?
(18:57) Oh, Jaime. Are you sure this is the guy to be confessing sins to? Looks to me like Mr “I’m Definitely Scared Of Stuff And Things” just gave you enough rope to hang yourself with. Metaphorically, of course, since they’d use a sword to execute Jaime.
Jaime here refers to his murder of Alton Lannister back in season two, so it’s not like the writers are incapable of going back and checking their own work to maintain internal consistency…they just don’t do it if it’s inconvenient. Note also that Jaime confessed to kinslaying. I think there’s some sort of taboo against that...
(19:36) Then we go careering into a plothole. Again, Jaime just confessed to kinslaying, as well as to helping Tyrion escape. A whole bunch of Sparrows just came out of the woodwork on conversational cue, obviously able to hear this entire conversation. They’ve been there for a while, too, since they’ve surrounded the entrances to this space. Multiple witnesses just heard Jaime confess to a pair of very serious crimes, but the writers haven’t noticed in their rush to scream HYPOCRITE! at the High Sparrow. The High Sparrow ordering Jaime’s immediate arrest would not be unreasonable or out of character. Indeed, failing to do so is not consistent with the zealous true believer determined to cleanse King’s Landing of corruption (and he arrested Margaery for the non-gendered, non-sexual crime of perjury, so viewers should note that those non-sexual crimes are just less of a priority for him, rather than a non-priority). But the High Sparrow arresting Jaime throws a massive spanner in the works, so, uh, I guess there’s a religious holiday from arresting people in this scene.
Alternatively, we can count this failure to follow through as foreshadowing for the non-reaction to Cersei’s choosing violence.
(20:33) Good shot of Cersei looking over the city to the Sept of Baelor.
(21:08) Cersei drinks: 1.
(21:50) “I should have executed them. I should have torn down the sept onto the High Sparrow’s head before I let them do that to you.” So. This is what Tommen should have done. The constant discussions of Tommen as a weak king, plus the treatment of Doran Martell, back this up. The appropriate response here is violence…but what’s appropriate for Tommen to do in defence of Cersei is somehow not appropriate for Cersei to do in defence of Tommen.
(22:10) The emotional music playing as Tommen states his desire to be strong, I.e. To be able to solve his political problems with violence, is another thing on the pile of “strength = ability to kill.” We’ll be seeing that again and again this season, more than we have in previous seasons. It’s played as a mother-son bonding moment, about Tommen’s desire for strength via mass murder.
(22:30) Cut to Meereen here.
(22:46) Varys shakes his head at Tyrion, indicating that he shouldn’t drink.
(22:48) And what do you know! Varys is a eunuch: 1. Under thirty seconds between the cut to Meereen and a joke about Varys being mutilated as a boy. Yes, he said this in front of Grey Worm.
(23:00) Ugh, this makes me uncomfortable. Tyrion says, to Grey Worm, that Tyrion makes eunuch jokes and Varys makes dwarf jokes. Varys denies (accurately) that he makes dwarf jokes. Tyrion says that Varys thinks them. And that makes it all okay to continue making eunuch jokes in front of Grey Worm. Varys himself, it must be noted, doesn’t look very happy about this exchange, as he sighs and changes the subject. If this sort of obviously inappropriate behaviour was called out or tied into Tyrion’s ongoing alcoholism (which is depicted much less well than it was last season), I could deal with it. As it is, this makes me cringe.
(23:19) Tyrion drinks: 1.
(23:21) Magical resetting plotline! Everything accomplished offscreen last season has been rolled back so Tyrion can re-accomplish it this season.
(23:54) “I drink and I know things.” Tyrion Lannister’s character stagnation in six words. Jaime did it faster.
(24:43) This scene could have gone perfectly legitimate dramatic directions. Peter Dinklage is playing Tyrion as slightly drunk, the decision to go unchain the dragons is clearly not supposed to be a very sensible one - when I first saw this, I honestly thought this scene was supposed to be telling us that Tyrion’s drinking was impairing his ability to make political decisions. Oh how disappointed I was.
(24:46) Tyrion drinks: 2.
(26:19) I’m reserving judgment on a chunk of Tyrion-the-dragontamer scene, as his not getting immediately roasted and eaten by the dragons might serve as foreshadowing for Tyrion the dragonrider. And Peter Dinklage is getting across some of Tyrion’s childhood quite effectively.
(28:54) Yet again, Arya’s been hit in the face with a stick.
(29:08) And yet again, nobody but nobody even bats an eyelid at this vicious beating.
(29:28) For some mysterious reason, being beaten repeatedly isn’t helping Arya improve with her staff skills. It’s like being deprived of a sense, deprived of food, and beaten repeatedly is more like a torture technique than an educational technique. It’s also the same bloody scene as last episode.
(29:39) Only with more Jaqen at the end. And again, I like that we hear Jaqen before we see him. Still, this episode’s scene and last episode’s scene should have been one scene.
(30:54) Oooh, a Karstark! Now they’re trying to adapt the Northern storyline, right? Right?
(31:27) I wouldn’t be all that surprised if this is an extremely condensed, out-of-place version of things that will happen in TWoW. The basic sequence of “Ramsay wants to attack Castle Black to kill Jon, Roose says no, Ramsay murders him” seems plausible enough.
(31:36) “The Umbers, the Manderlys, and the Karstarks command more forces than all the other houses combined.” Ow, the book knowledge, it hurts. Ditto the knowledge of how the Manderlys and Umbers will subsequently be depicted. It’s also more of GoT’s “biggest army wins” approach to tactics, which has become super noticeable since they went off-book. What also goes unmentioned is that “yay! We might be able to get a slight majority in Northern support!” isn’t a great strategic position. What happens if you lose the Manderlys, huh?
(32:12) Oh, hey. Roose has an alternative heir. He’s toast. Doesn’t matter which “he.”
(32:50) Deaths: 4. Ramsay murders Roose. More kinslaying! Right in front of a peer! I think there’s some sort of taboo about this, but darn it, I can’t be sure.
(33:39) Yes. Show!Roose has been “poisoned by our enemies.” All two of them. Four if you count Brienne and Pod as well. Anyway, going back to the idea that this might be the basic sequence of events in TWoW. If it is, I am absolutely certain that Ramsay will pin the blame on the many enemies of the Boltons hanging out in Winterfell itself.
(33:51) Confirmation that Karstark gives no fucks about the kinslaying and treachery that just happened in front of him. Remember, as Roose said just seconds before he died, nobody likes a mad dog. If you act like a mad dog, you’ll be treated like a mad dog. Right you are, Roose!
(34:25) We cut to Lady Walda here. She’s doing well to be up and about, given she just gave birth what, half an hour ago max? It is already blatantly apparent that Ramsay means to kill her.
(35:18) This is the point where Ramsay has led Walda into the kennels. Timer on, because this is incredibly drawn out. For shocks.
(36:26) “I am Lord Bolton.” Guys, I dunno, do you think Ramsay might be about to set his dogs on his stepmother and brother? This is also the point where Walda gets it and starts begging.
(37:15) And cut! Timer off. Almost three minutes to kill off Walda, which is three times as much as it took to kill off Roose. Because having a woman and child eaten alive by dogs is good TV! Setting dogs on people - it’s bad when Ramsay does it. Deaths: 5, 6. Walda and unnamed baby Bolton, killed by Ramsay.
(37:33) I do like that Brienne told Sansa that Arya was alive, and last Brienne saw, well. It’s very late in the game to be showing us that the Stark kids care about each other.
(38:09) “I should have gone with you while I had the chance.” “It was a difficult choice, my lady.” Oh, fuck off, writers, even at that point Sansa had little to no agency. That conversation took place in an inn surrounded by Littlefinger and his people. (In the Vale it would have been a different story. Literally.) I hate that Sansa had no agency, and I hate the writers pretending that she did when she didn’t.
(38:40) You shouldn’t be lighting fires, it’s not safe? Hey Theon, you know what’s also not safe? Hanging around in the snow overnight in insufficient clothing. It carries a risk of freezing to death.
(38:53) Just like I was happy over scraps of characterisastion given to Bran, I’m happy about the scraps of characterisation Sansa gets here. She’s keeping it together, she’s planning to use her words to change someone’s mind, she’s trying to comfort Theon, she’s got a plan he can use. Yay!
(39:20) “I can’t ever make amends to your family for the things I’ve done,” says Theon.
(39:36) “I would have taken you all the way to the Wall,” says Theon, because he knows that Sansa’s got to take the Ring to the Wall and he’s too vulnerable to its corruption - wait.
So to recap, Theon can’t possibly make amends to the Starks, and because of this he nicks off to go help Yara before he’s even gotten Sansa to her intended destination. Well, if it’s futile trying to make amends, I guess there’s no point even trying. Good luck in the snow without either winter gear or the inclination to start fires for warmth, Theon! On the upside, Alfie Allen is doing his thing and doing it very well. It’s nice that they gave him material that wasn’t repetitive torture scenes with Ramsay!
(40:12) Cut to…*squints* Pyke? It sounds like Pyke.
(40:20) The Glovers have retaken Deepwood Motte. Oh man. Didn’t some guy, uh, whatshisname, help with that in the books? Whatshisname’s book accomplishments didn’t even get rolled back for other characters to re-accomplish them, he never got to accomplish them at all.
(40:46) Damn skippy they’d want to hang on to their invaded territory for more pinecones and rocks. Here’s where we start seeing that Yara’s based on Victarion far more than Asha. Asha appreciates the value of pinecones and rocks vis a vis the current Ironborn economic situation.
(41:10) That said, I do like Yara calling out Balon for what’s got to be the silliest military plan of the series.
(41:41) Balon just confirms twice in quick succession that he considers Yara his heir.
(41:59) Balon’s crossing a rickety wooden bridge in a massive storm. He’s toast. Even before Euron shows up I don’t fancy Balon’s chances.
(42:34) As a rule, someone dramatically pulling back their hood works best when you can actually see their face better afterwards. This has not happened in this case. But, thanks to the dialogue, I at least know that this man is Balon’s brother! Thank you, better-sounding exposition!
(43:10) This is…not that bad, I think? At least the book line comes in the context of Euron’s irreligiosity. That said, if they cut back on some of the padding earlier in the episode, they would easily have had enough time to write this dialogue so it doesn’t rush to hit the very dramatic book line.
(43:44) Wait, what? If Euron cut out the tongues of all the witnesses, how did Balon hear about this incident? It’s not like there are many literate Ironborn out there, as we see with Wex.
(44:04) This bit is worse in hindsight, though. These are trippy villain lines for a villain who works with trippy magic. Show!Euron has shown no signs of supernatural powers, but he’s kept the lines more or less the same.
(44:08) Deaths: 7. Balon, killed by Euron.
(45:27) The law is clear, I guess. So clear that Yara, treated as the heir apparent for years, did not know the law. Kingsmoot it is! Rather than arising out of Aeron’s characterisation and consistently developed culture, now the Kingsmoot gets its turn as a diabolus ex machina.
(46:34) And here’s where under-explanation kicks in! Why on earth does Davos think that Melisandre could possibly revive Jon Snow? He’s got zero connection to Beric Dondarrion, the only show example of resurrection thus far. Hell, Davos could broach this topic by referring to Mel’s warp to the Riverlands to establish that he at least got a full report afterwards. As it is, this comes out of a clear blue sky. Also unexplained in this scene is why Davos is so eager to resurrect Jon. It’s not like there aren’t reasons. Just say “he’s the best person born this side of the Wall to manage the wildlings, without him it’s going to fall apart.” There we go. Explained. Doesn’t happen. It’s just sort of evident that of course they’d want Jon back ‘cause he’s a main character.
(47:11) Instead, Davos’ dialogue establishes that he has no clue about Beric and Thoros, and walked in with zero clue whatsoever. The train of thought appears to have been “well, Melisandre can do magic, why not ask if she can bring someone back from the dead?”
(47:49) You’d think Melisandre’s confession of undergoing messiah crisis might lead Davos to ask a few questions, about her previous messiah Whatshisname, and also maybe his daughter, Can’tquiteremember.
(48:02) Didn’t mention it last time this topic came up, but no, book!Davos is moderately faithful at least. He’s got comfort from religion in the books. I wouldn’t necessarily call him devout or pious, but he does seem to believe. And it is part of the pattern where the show turns “good” religious characters into nonbelievers. We’re going to see a fair bit of “religion is stupid and/or evil” this season too.
(48:17) Again, why is Davos asking Melisandre for a miracle? In show continuity they’ve been nothing but hostile to each other.
(48:46) Abs & pecs: 1. Given that Jon’s currently a corpse with mincemeat for a stomach, I feel safe in saying this was not meant to be sexy, and the focus on his torso is more to show the blood and wounds.
(49:00) Corpse-washing a la the House of Black and White. Just as inefficient as they are, too.
(51:55) The music builds up dramatically, but we all know Jon’s only going to come back to life once everyone’s turned away. That’s just how it works.
(53:26) Davos is the last one left in the room, and I’m still wondering why Jon’s resurrection means so much to him. Underexplained, especially since Davos is a practical soul who’s always distrusted magic.
(53:59) Oh, hey, Jon! Did you enjoy your nap?
Game of Numbers S06E02
Deaths: 7. Tormund, Wun Wun, and Gregor Clegane kill one extra each. Ramsay kills Roose, Walda and his unnamed brother. Euron kills Balon.
Boobs: 0.
Abs & pecs: 1.
Too cold for nudity this episode, not cold enough to light a fire.
Tyrion drinks: 2.
Cersei drinks: 1.
Varys is a eunuch: 1.
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theinvinciblenoob · 5 years
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It was the best of years, it was the worst of years, it was the wokest of years, it was the most problematic of years, it was the year of AI, it was the year of scooters, it was the year of Big Tech triumph, it was the year of Big Tech scandals, it was the year of Musk’s disgrace, it was the year of Tesla’s redemption, it was the year of shitcoin justice, it was definitely not the year of AR or VR, it was the dumbest timeline, it was the spring of stanning, it was the winter of wtf.
It was, in short, a year tailor-made for The Jons, an annual award celebrating tech’s more dubious achievers, named, in an awe-inspiring fit of humility, after myself. So let’s get to it! With very little further ado, I give you: the third annual Jon Awards for Dubious Technical Achievement!
(The Jons 2015) (The Jons 2016) (The Jons 2017)
THE FEET AND LEGS AND TORSO OF CLAY AWARD FOR SUDDEN REGRESSION TO THE MEAN
To Elon Musk, who in the past year went from (in many eyes) “messiah who could do no wrong” to “man who has paid a $20 million fine and stepped down as chairman in order to settle with the SEC regarding allegations of tweeted fraud; been sued for very publicly accusing a stranger of pedophilia with no evidence; feuded with Azealia Banks; been roundly criticized for the conditions in Tesla’s factories; and been pilloried (though also, and to my mind more accurately, tentatively praised) for his new Boring Tunnel.” Don’t have heroes, kids.
THE BUT ON THE OTHER HAND THERE ARE ALL THOSE SHINY NEW ELECTRIC CARS AWARD FOR ATTEMPTED DOOMSAYING
Surprisingly, despite the previous award, this one goes to the herds of bears who spent much of the year claiming that Tesla’s imminent doom and bankruptcy would become obvious and indisputable any day now. The roars of the bears seem to have grown much quieter of late, probably because the Model 3’s production rate has rocketed from 1,000 per week at the start of the year to 1,000 per day of late. No mean feat on the part of Tesla employees.
THE YES BUT THE DIFFERENCE IS THE RUSSIANS KNOW IT’S DISINFORMATION AWARD FOR BAD OPSEC
To Donald Trump, who apparently continues to use an insecure iPhone which the Chinese and Russians listen in on. The good news? Officials have “confidence he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities.” Put less diplomatically, the President of the United States doesn’t pay enough attention to briefings to have any important secrets to share. Nothing to worry about there! Trump responded by tweeting a denial, saying he only had a “seldom used government cell phone” … from the iOS Twitter app.
THE YOU MUST ADMIT I WAS AT LEAST RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING BEING DIFFERENT NOW AWARD FOR BUBBLY BITCOIN PREDICTIONS
It’s too easy and obvious to give this award to John McAfee, who I suspect of actually angling for a Jon year after year. And as a believer that cryptocurrencies have long-term importance, I’m not going to award anyone for their less-outlandish-than-McAfee medium-term beliefs. So this award goes to Bitcoin uberbull Tom Lee, who claimed Bitcoin would end the year at $15,000 … in the second half of November. There’s a point you almost have to admire; the point at which hype becomes delusion.
THE SURE BUT IT’S A MORE CONNECTED KIND OF MISERY, EXPLOITATION, AND DISINFORMATION AWARD FOR DESTROYING THE GLOBAL VILLAGE IN ORDER TO SAVE IT
Not to Mark Zuckerberg, actually, whose company has, in its zeal for connecting the world, and its belief that this is always and automatically a good thing, amplified genocide, provided a platform for manipulation and disinformation which may have helped tip the Brexit referendum, and 2016 presidential election (both of which were admittedly so close that there were probably dozens of aspects which “helped tip” them) and is increasingly widely viewed as a significant net negative for the world thanks to its business model of incentivizing “engagement” above all else. He’d be a worthy recipient, but this goes to Sheryl Sandberg, for epitomizing Facebook leadership’s thin-skinned tunnel vision wherein they automatically suspect anyone who criticizes Facebook of having a bad-faith ulterior motive, when she “asked Facebook’s communications staff to research George Soros’s financial interests in the wake of his high-profile attacks on tech companies.”
THE PICK A HORSE ANY HORSE BUT LOOK JUST ONE HORSE AWARD FOR OXYMORONISM IN THE FACE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
To everyone — especially journalists and media executives — who thinks that the big social-media companies are too powerful and that tech companies should exercise more control over the dissemination of public speech, and/or to everyone who says that the big social-media companies shouldn’t ever censor while being perfectly aware that they are already exercising control over the dissemination of public speech via their timeline algorithms. There are many, many copies of this particular award to go around.
(Note that there are at least two intellectually consistent approaches here: one is to be explicitly supportive of social media companies moderating speech; another is to favor non-algorithmic, non-amplifying, non-optimized-for-engagement, strict-chronological feeds)
THE COMETH THE HOUR, COMETH THE SPECTACULARLY OUT-OF-TOUCH COVEN OF CLUELESS OLD WHITE MEN AWARD FOR REMINDING US THAT SOMETIMES THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE
To the members of the United States Congress, both houses, for making Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai seem cuddly, friendly, wise, warm, human, plugged-in, and in-touch with the common man and woman, by comparison with their unbelievably clueless question. Who can forget “Senator, we sell ads,” and/or “Congressman, iPhone is made by a different company”?
THE STREET FINDS ITS OWN DISUSES FOR THINGS AWARD FOR BOOTLEG URBAN RENEWAL
To Lime, Bird, and the other scooter companies whose products have spent the year being thrown by the dozen into Lake Merritt in the heart of Oakland, presumably with the collective intent of turning that empty water into reclaimed land, just as downtown San Francisco is built on the carcasses of sailing ships from the 49er gold rush.
THE OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ TRONC TRONC TRONC AWARD FOR FINALLY GETTING THAT THE JOKE WAS ON THEM
To Tribune Publishing, until recently known as Tronc, for reminding us of their unbelievably terrible name when they finally — finally! — decided to abandon it in favor of something not risible. A small silver second-place award goes to Oath, the owner of TechCrunch, for thereby rising to the top of the “Worst Media Company Name” rankings.
THE SOMETIMES NOTHING IS A REAL COOL HAND AWARD FOR DOING NOTHING BECAUSE NOTHING WAS NECESSARY
To Twitter, who, when noted far-right wacko Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter’s NYC building after she was permanently banned by them for hate speech, responded by — brilliantly — doing nothing at all. They did not ask the police to remove her. They did not press charges. They ignored her completely. And Loomer went from “she will not remove the handcuffs until CEO Jack Dorsey reinstates her account” to “After several hours of complaining about the cold, Loomer eventually requested to be removed from the door.”
THE COME ON NOW DON’T BE EVIL WAS A LONG TIME AGO AWARD FOR REDEFINING GOOGLEY
To Google, obviously, for being forced to come to terms with what sure looks from the outside like a culture of pervasive sexual harassment by a massive employee walkout in the same year its plans for a new censorship-friendly China search engine leaked. Look not for the trigram in thy brother’s eye, etc.
THE CENTRAL CASTING MAD SCIENTIST AWARD FOR BRINGING US THE DYSTOPIA WE DESERVE
To He Jiankui, the self-funded doctor who apparently brought us the world’s first two human babies genetically edited via CRISPR, without letting anything like an ethics review board, a well-considered benefit/risk ratio, the pre-existence of well-established less-dangerous ways to achieve the allegedly desired result, or anything else stand in his way. But then, if he had, that wouldn’t really have captured the 2018zeitgeist, would it?
THE WHAT ARE THE NEW RUULES AWARD FOR MAKING NICOTINE MORALLY AMBIGUOUS AGAIN
To Juul, which has made a ridiculous boatload of money and more importantly made a lot of people seem very silly as they moral-panic about vaping as if it is the same as smoking, and others seem just as silly as they moral-panic about that moral panic as if vaping has been guaranteed on stone tablets to have no deleterious side effects at all. Where is the nuanced middle? Ah, let’s not kid ourselves, it’s 2018, no one cares about the nuanced middle any more. Bring on the outrage!
THE LISTEN UP YOUNG WHIPPERSNAPPER I WAS THE CEO OF A CYBERSECURITY FIRM AND THE PRESIDENT’S CYBERSECURITY ADVISOR I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW AWARD FOR NOT ACTUALLY KNOWING ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT HOW TO CYBER THE CYBER. CYBER!
To Rudy Giuliani, who really was the CEO of a cybersecurity firm (Cyber!) and really was the president’s cybersecurity advisor (Cyber! Cyber!) and yet, as shown by his bewildering yet hilarious accusations that one of his tweets was sabotaged by Twitter, does not actually understand the Internet at all. Or, we may presume, the cyber. Cyber!
THE LOOK WE’RE ONLY A $30B COMPANY HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KEEP TRACK OF ALL THESE LITTLE DETAILS AWARD FOR FORCING PEOPLE TO INTERACT WITH OTHERS NEARBY
To Ericsson, who accidentally disabled phone service for hours for tens of millions of people around the globe because it failed to renew a (presumably TLS) software certificate used by its switching services ahead of its expiry. You can get those for free and automatically these days, btw. Never mind the cyber (Cyber!) attackers; it’s malingering incompetence that will get us all in the end. Speaking of which …
THE WHO COULD POSSIBLY HAVE IMAGINED THAT SUCH A THING WOULD HAPPEN OR IF IT DID THAT WE WOULD RESPOND TO IT IN ALL THE WORST POSSIBLE WAYS AWARD FOR A REPERTOIRE OF PANICKED FLAILING INEPTITUDE WORTHY OF ARTHUR DENT
To the authorities at Gatwick university, who first shut down one of the busiest airports in Europe for almost a day and a half during the pre-Christmas rush because there were reports of drones seen over its runways; then said they couldn’t possibly shoot down those drones for fear the stray bullets might harm someone; then conceded the possibility that there were no drones at all (though it seems like there probably were); then arrested a couple who turned out to be completely innocent; then reopened the airport with no resolution but that of the installation of an expensive new anti-drone system and the discovery of a single, untraced, damaged drone. This dithering paralysis raises many terrifying questions. I have two in particular. One: the people in charge of Gatwick — again, one of Europe’s biggest and busiest airports — never done any threat modelling / scenario analysis / contingency planning at all? And two: how many minutes-rather-than-hours would this shutdown have lasted if it had happened at a major airport in, say, Texas, before the bullet-ridden carcasses of the drones in question were dragged off the runway? I guess we’ll never know. But it gives me a certain dubious pleasure to bequeath to Gatwick, an airport I have known and disliked for many years, this year’s Jon of Jons.
Congratulations, of a sort, to all the winners of the Jons! All recipients shall receive a bobblehead of myself made up as a Blue Man, as per the image on this post, which will doubtless become coveted and increasingly valuable collectibles. (And needless to say sometime next year they will become redeemable for JonCoin.) And, of course, all winners shall be remembered by posterity forevermore.
1Bobbleheads shall only be distributed if and when available and convenient. The eventual existence of said bobbleheads is not guaranteed or indeed even particularly likely. Not valid on days named after Norse or Roman gods. All rights reserved, especially those rights about which we have reservations.
via TechCrunch
0 notes
williamsjoan · 5 years
Text
It’s the Jons 2018!
It was the best of years, it was the worst of years, it was the wokest of years, it was the most problematic of years, it was the year of AI, it was the year of scooters, it was the year of Big Tech triumph, it was the year of Big Tech scandals, it was the year of Musk’s disgrace, it was the year of Tesla’s redemption, it was the year of shitcoin justice, it was definitely not the year of AR or VR, it was the dumbest timeline, it was the spring of stanning, it was the winter of wtf.
It was, in short, a year tailor-made for The Jons, an annual award celebrating tech’s more dubious achievers, named, in an awe-inspiring fit of humility, after myself. So let’s get to it! With very little further ado, I give you: the third annual Jon Awards for Dubious Technical Achievement!
(The Jons 2015) (The Jons 2016) (The Jons 2017)
THE FEET AND LEGS AND TORSO OF CLAY AWARD FOR SUDDEN REGRESSION TO THE MEAN
To Elon Musk, who in the past year went from (in many eyes) “messiah who could do no wrong” to “man who has paid a $20 million fine and stepped down as chairman in order to settle with the SEC regarding allegations of tweeted fraud; been sued for very publicly accusing a stranger of pedophilia with no evidence; feuded with Azealia Banks; been roundly criticized for the conditions in Tesla’s factories; and been pilloried (though also, and to my mind more accurately, tentatively praised) for his new Boring Tunnel.” Don’t have heroes, kids.
THE BUT ON THE OTHER HAND THERE ARE ALL THOSE SHINY NEW ELECTRIC CARS AWARD FOR ATTEMPTED DOOMSAYING
Surprisingly, despite the previous award, this one goes to the herds of bears who spent much of the year claiming that Tesla’s imminent doom and bankruptcy would become obvious and indisputable any day now. The roars of the bears seem to have grown much quieter of late, probably because the Model 3’s production rate has rocketed from 1,000 per week at the start of the year to 1,000 per day of late. No mean feat on the part of Tesla employees.
THE YES BUT THE DIFFERENCE IS THE RUSSIANS KNOW IT’S DISINFORMATION AWARD FOR BAD OPSEC
To Donald Trump, who apparently continues to use an insecure iPhone which the Chinese and Russians listen in on. The good news? Officials have “confidence he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities.” Put less diplomatically, the President of the United States doesn’t pay enough attention to briefings to have any important secrets to share. Nothing to worry about there! Trump responded by tweeting a denial, saying he only had a “seldom used government cell phone” … from the iOS Twitter app.
THE YOU MUST ADMIT I WAS AT LEAST RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING BEING DIFFERENT NOW AWARD FOR BUBBLY BITCOIN PREDICTIONS
It’s too easy and obvious to give this award to John McAfee, who I suspect of actually angling for a Jon year after year. And as a believer that cryptocurrencies have long-term importance, I’m not going to award anyone for their less-outlandish-than-McAfee medium-term beliefs. So this award goes to Bitcoin uberbull Tom Lee, who claimed Bitcoin would end the year at $15,000 … in the second half of November. There’s a point you almost have to admire; the point at which hype becomes delusion.
THE SURE BUT IT’S A MORE CONNECTED KIND OF MISERY, EXPLOITATION, AND DISINFORMATION AWARD FOR DESTROYING THE GLOBAL VILLAGE IN ORDER TO SAVE IT
Not to Mark Zuckerberg, actually, whose company has, in its zeal for connecting the world, and its belief that this is always and automatically a good thing, amplified genocide, provided a platform for manipulation and disinformation which may have helped tip the Brexit referendum, and 2016 presidential election (both of which were admittedly so close that there were probably dozens of aspects which “helped tip” them) and is increasingly widely viewed as a significant net negative for the world thanks to its business model of incentivizing “engagement” above all else. He’d be a worthy recipient, but this goes to Sheryl Sandberg, for epitomizing Facebook leadership’s thin-skinned tunnel vision wherein they automatically suspect anyone who criticizes Facebook of having a bad-faith ulterior motive, when she “asked Facebook’s communications staff to research George Soros’s financial interests in the wake of his high-profile attacks on tech companies.”
THE PICK A HORSE ANY HORSE BUT LOOK JUST ONE HORSE AWARD FOR OXYMORONISM IN THE FACE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
To everyone — especially journalists and media executives — who thinks that the big social-media companies are too powerful and that tech companies should exercise more control over the dissemination of public speech, and/or to everyone who says that the big social-media companies shouldn’t ever censor while being perfectly aware that they are already exercising control over the dissemination of public speech via their timeline algorithms. There are many, many copies of this particular award to go around.
(Note that there are at least two intellectually consistent approaches here: one is to be explicitly supportive of social media companies moderating speech; another is to favor non-algorithmic, non-amplifying, non-optimized-for-engagement, strict-chronological feeds)
THE COMETH THE HOUR, COMETH THE SPECTACULARLY OUT-OF-TOUCH COVEN OF CLUELESS OLD WHITE MEN AWARD FOR REMINDING US THAT SOMETIMES THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE
To the members of the United States Congress, both houses, for making Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai seem cuddly, friendly, wise, warm, human, plugged-in, and in-touch with the common man and woman, by comparison with their unbelievably clueless question. Who can forget “Senator, we sell ads,” and/or “Congressman, iPhone is made by a different company”?
THE STREET FINDS ITS OWN DISUSES FOR THINGS AWARD FOR BOOTLEG URBAN RENEWAL
To Lime, Bird, and the other scooter companies whose products have spent the year being thrown by the dozen into Lake Merritt in the heart of Oakland, presumably with the collective intent of turning that empty water into reclaimed land, just as downtown San Francisco is built on the carcasses of sailing ships from the 49er gold rush.
THE OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ TRONC TRONC TRONC AWARD FOR FINALLY GETTING THAT THE JOKE WAS ON THEM
To Tribune Publishing, until recently known as Tronc, for reminding us of their unbelievably terrible name when they finally — finally! — decided to abandon it in favor of something not risible. A small silver second-place award goes to Oath, the owner of TechCrunch, for thereby rising to the top of the “Worst Media Company Name” rankings.
THE SOMETIMES NOTHING IS A REAL COOL HAND AWARD FOR DOING NOTHING BECAUSE NOTHING WAS NECESSARY
To Twitter, who, when noted far-right wacko Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter’s NYC building after she was permanently banned by them for hate speech, responded by — brilliantly — doing nothing at all. They did not ask the police to remove her. They did not press charges. They ignored her completely. And Loomer went from “she will not remove the handcuffs until CEO Jack Dorsey reinstates her account” to “After several hours of complaining about the cold, Loomer eventually requested to be removed from the door.”
THE COME ON NOW DON’T BE EVIL WAS A LONG TIME AGO AWARD FOR REDEFINING GOOGLEY
To Google, obviously, for being forced to come to terms with what sure looks from the outside like a culture of pervasive sexual harassment by a massive employee walkout in the same year its plans for a new censorship-friendly China search engine leaked. Look not for the trigram in thy brother’s eye, etc.
THE CENTRAL CASTING MAD SCIENTIST AWARD FOR BRINGING US THE DYSTOPIA WE DESERVE
To He Jiankui, the self-funded doctor who apparently brought us the world’s first two human babies genetically edited via CRISPR, without letting anything like an ethics review board, a well-considered benefit/risk ratio, the pre-existence of well-established less-dangerous ways to achieve the allegedly desired result, or anything else stand in his way. But then, if he had, that wouldn’t really have captured the 2018zeitgeist, would it?
THE WHAT ARE THE NEW RUULES AWARD FOR MAKING NICOTINE MORALLY AMBIGUOUS AGAIN
To Juul, which has made a ridiculous boatload of money and more importantly made a lot of people seem very silly as they moral-panic about vaping as if it is the same as smoking, and others seem just as silly as they moral-panic about that moral panic as if vaping has been guaranteed on stone tablets to have no deleterious side effects at all. Where is the nuanced middle? Ah, let’s not kid ourselves, it’s 2018, no one cares about the nuanced middle any more. Bring on the outrage!
THE LISTEN UP YOUNG WHIPPERSNAPPER I WAS THE CEO OF A CYBERSECURITY FIRM AND THE PRESIDENT’S CYBERSECURITY ADVISOR I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW AWARD FOR NOT ACTUALLY KNOWING ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT HOW TO CYBER THE CYBER. CYBER!
To Rudy Giuliani, who really was the CEO of a cybersecurity firm (Cyber!) and really was the president’s cybersecurity advisor (Cyber! Cyber!) and yet, as shown by his bewildering yet hilarious accusations that one of his tweets was sabotaged by Twitter, does not actually understand the Internet at all. Or, we may presume, the cyber. Cyber!
THE LOOK WE’RE ONLY A $30B COMPANY HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KEEP TRACK OF ALL THESE LITTLE DETAILS AWARD FOR FORCING PEOPLE TO INTERACT WITH OTHERS NEARBY
To Ericsson, who accidentally disabled phone service for hours for tens of millions of people around the globe because it failed to renew a (presumably TLS) software certificate used by its switching services ahead of its expiry. You can get those for free and automatically these days, btw. Never mind the cyber (Cyber!) attackers; it’s malingering incompetence that will get us all in the end. Speaking of which …
THE WHO COULD POSSIBLY HAVE IMAGINED THAT SUCH A THING WOULD HAPPEN OR IF IT DID THAT WE WOULD RESPOND TO IT IN ALL THE WORST POSSIBLE WAYS AWARD FOR A REPERTOIRE OF PANICKED FLAILING INEPTITUDE WORTHY OF ARTHUR DENT
To the authorities at Gatwick university, who first shut down one of the busiest airports in Europe for almost a day and a half during the pre-Christmas rush because there were reports of drones seen over its runways; then said they couldn’t possibly shoot down those drones for fear the stray bullets might harm someone; then conceded the possibility that there were no drones at all (though it seems like there probably were); then arrested a couple who turned out to be completely innocent; then reopened the airport with no resolution but that of the installation of an expensive new anti-drone system and the discovery of a single, untraced, damaged drone. This dithering paralysis raises many terrifying questions. I have two in particular. One: the people in charge of Gatwick — again, one of Europe’s biggest and busiest airports — never done any threat modelling / scenario analysis / contingency planning at all? And two: how many minutes-rather-than-hours would this shutdown have lasted if it had happened at a major airport in, say, Texas, before the bullet-ridden carcasses of the drones in question were dragged off the runway? I guess we’ll never know. But it gives me a certain dubious pleasure to bequeath to Gatwick, an airport I have known and disliked for many years, this year’s Jon of Jons.
Congratulations, of a sort, to all the winners of the Jons! All recipients shall receive a bobblehead of myself made up as a Blue Man, as per the image on this post, which will doubtless become coveted and increasingly valuable collectibles. (And needless to say sometime next year they will become redeemable for JonCoin.) And, of course, all winners shall be remembered by posterity forevermore.
1Bobbleheads shall only be distributed if and when available and convenient. The eventual existence of said bobbleheads is not guaranteed or indeed even particularly likely. Not valid on days named after Norse or Roman gods. All rights reserved, especially those rights about which we have reservations.
It’s the Jons 2018! published first on https://timloewe.tumblr.com/
0 notes
fmservers · 5 years
Text
It’s the Jons 2018!
It was the best of years, it was the worst of years, it was the wokest of years, it was the most problematic of years, it was the year of AI, it was the year of scooters, it was the year of Big Tech triumph, it was the year of Big Tech scandals, it was the year of Musk’s disgrace, it was the year of Tesla’s redemption, it was the year of shitcoin justice, it was definitely not the year of AR or VR, it was the dumbest timeline, it was the spring of stanning, it was the winter of wtf.
It was, in short, a year tailor-made for The Jons, an annual award celebrating tech’s more dubious achievers, named, in an awe-inspiring fit of humility, after myself. So let’s get to it! With very little further ado, I give you: the third annual Jon Awards for Dubious Technical Achievement!
(The Jons 2015) (The Jons 2016) (The Jons 2017)
THE FEET AND LEGS AND TORSO OF CLAY AWARD FOR SUDDEN REGRESSION TO THE MEAN
To Elon Musk, who in the past year went from (in many eyes) “messiah who could do no wrong” to “man who has paid a $20 million fine and stepped down as chairman in order to settle with the SEC regarding allegations of tweeted fraud; been sued for very publicly accusing a stranger of pedophilia with no evidence; feuded with Azealia Banks; been roundly criticized for the conditions in Tesla’s factories; and been pilloried (though also, and to my mind more accurately, tentatively praised) for his new Boring Tunnel.” Don’t have heroes, kids.
THE BUT ON THE OTHER HAND THERE ARE ALL THOSE SHINY NEW ELECTRIC CARS AWARD FOR ATTEMPTED DOOMSAYING
Surprisingly, despite the previous award, this one goes to the herds of bears who spent much of the year claiming that Tesla’s imminent doom and bankruptcy would become obvious and indisputable any day now. The roars of the bears seem to have grown much quieter of late, probably because the Model 3’s production rate has rocketed from 1,000 per week at the start of the year to 1,000 per day of late. No mean feat on the part of Tesla employees.
THE YES BUT THE DIFFERENCE IS THE RUSSIANS KNOW IT’S DISINFORMATION AWARD FOR BAD OPSEC
To Donald Trump, who apparently continues to use an insecure iPhone which the Chinese and Russians listen in on. The good news? Officials have “confidence he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities.” Put less diplomatically, the President of the United States doesn’t pay enough attention to briefings to have any important secrets to share. Nothing to worry about there! Trump responded by tweeting a denial, saying he only had a “seldom used government cell phone” … from the iOS Twitter app.
THE YOU MUST ADMIT I WAS AT LEAST RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING BEING DIFFERENT NOW AWARD FOR BUBBLY BITCOIN PREDICTIONS
It’s too easy and obvious to give this award to John McAfee, who I suspect of actually angling for a Jon year after year. And as a believer that cryptocurrencies have long-term importance, I’m not going to award anyone for their less-outlandish-than-McAfee medium-term beliefs. So this award goes to Bitcoin uberbull Tom Lee, who claimed Bitcoin would end the year at $15,000 … in the second half of November. There’s a point you almost have to admire; the point at which hype becomes delusion.
THE SURE BUT IT’S A MORE CONNECTED KIND OF MISERY, EXPLOITATION, AND DISINFORMATION AWARD FOR DESTROYING THE GLOBAL VILLAGE IN ORDER TO SAVE IT
Not to Mark Zuckerberg, actually, whose company has, in its zeal for connecting the world, and its belief that this is always and automatically a good thing, amplified genocide, provided a platform for manipulation and disinformation which may have helped tip the Brexit referendum, and 2016 presidential election (both of which were admittedly so close that there were probably dozens of aspects which “helped tip” them) and is increasingly widely viewed as a significant net negative for the world thanks to its business model of incentivizing “engagement” above all else. He’d be a worthy recipient, but this goes to Sheryl Sandberg, for epitomizing Facebook leadership’s thin-skinned tunnel vision wherein they automatically suspect anyone who criticizes Facebook of having a bad-faith ulterior motive, when she “asked Facebook’s communications staff to research George Soros’s financial interests in the wake of his high-profile attacks on tech companies.”
THE PICK A HORSE ANY HORSE BUT LOOK JUST ONE HORSE AWARD FOR OXYMORONISM IN THE FACE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
To everyone — especially journalists and media executives — who thinks that the big social-media companies are too powerful and that tech companies should exercise more control over the dissemination of public speech, and/or to everyone who says that the big social-media companies shouldn’t ever censor while being perfectly aware that they are already exercising control over the dissemination of public speech via their timeline algorithms. There are many, many copies of this particular award to go around.
(Note that there are at least two intellectually consistent approaches here: one is to be explicitly supportive of social media companies moderating speech; another is to favor non-algorithmic, non-amplifying, non-optimized-for-engagement, strict-chronological feeds)
THE COMETH THE HOUR, COMETH THE SPECTACULARLY OUT-OF-TOUCH COVEN OF CLUELESS OLD WHITE MEN AWARD FOR REMINDING US THAT SOMETIMES THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE
To the members of the United States Congress, both houses, for making Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai seem cuddly, friendly, wise, warm, human, plugged-in, and in-touch with the common man and woman, by comparison with their unbelievably clueless question. Who can forget “Senator, we sell ads,” and/or “Congressman, iPhone is made by a different company”?
THE STREET FINDS ITS OWN DISUSES FOR THINGS AWARD FOR BOOTLEG URBAN RENEWAL
To Lime, Bird, and the other scooter companies whose products have spent the year being thrown by the dozen into Lake Merritt in the heart of Oakland, presumably with the collective intent of turning that empty water into reclaimed land, just as downtown San Francisco is built on the carcasses of sailing ships from the 49er gold rush.
THE OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ TRONC TRONC TRONC AWARD FOR FINALLY GETTING THAT THE JOKE WAS ON THEM
To Tribune Publishing, until recently known as Tronc, for reminding us of their unbelievably terrible name when they finally — finally! — decided to abandon it in favor of something not risible. A small silver second-place award goes to Oath, the owner of TechCrunch, for thereby rising to the top of the “Worst Media Company Name” rankings.
THE SOMETIMES NOTHING IS A REAL COOL HAND AWARD FOR DOING NOTHING BECAUSE NOTHING WAS NECESSARY
To Twitter, who, when noted far-right wacko Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter’s NYC building after she was permanently banned by them for hate speech, responded by — brilliantly — doing nothing at all. They did not ask the police to remove her. They did not press charges. They ignored her completely. And Loomer went from “she will not remove the handcuffs until CEO Jack Dorsey reinstates her account” to “After several hours of complaining about the cold, Loomer eventually requested to be removed from the door.”
THE COME ON NOW DON’T BE EVIL WAS A LONG TIME AGO AWARD FOR REDEFINING GOOGLEY
To Google, obviously, for being forced to come to terms with what sure looks from the outside like a culture of pervasive sexual harassment by a massive employee walkout in the same year its plans for a new censorship-friendly China search engine leaked. Look not for the trigram in thy brother’s eye, etc.
THE CENTRAL CASTING MAD SCIENTIST AWARD FOR BRINGING US THE DYSTOPIA WE DESERVE
To He Jiankui, the self-funded doctor who apparently brought us the world’s first two human babies genetically edited via CRISPR, without letting anything like an ethics review board, a well-considered benefit/risk ratio, the pre-existence of well-established less-dangerous ways to achieve the allegedly desired result, or anything else stand in his way. But then, if he had, that wouldn’t really have captured the 2018zeitgeist, would it?
THE WHAT ARE THE NEW RUULES AWARD FOR MAKING NICOTINE MORALLY AMBIGUOUS AGAIN
To Juul, which has made a ridiculous boatload of money and more importantly made a lot of people seem very silly as they moral-panic about vaping as if it is the same as smoking, and others seem just as silly as they moral-panic about that moral panic as if vaping has been guaranteed on stone tablets to have no deleterious side effects at all. Where is the nuanced middle? Ah, let’s not kid ourselves, it’s 2018, no one cares about the nuanced middle any more. Bring on the outrage!
THE LISTEN UP YOUNG WHIPPERSNAPPER I WAS THE CEO OF A CYBERSECURITY FIRM AND THE PRESIDENT’S CYBERSECURITY ADVISOR I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW AWARD FOR NOT ACTUALLY KNOWING ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT HOW TO CYBER THE CYBER. CYBER!
To Rudy Giuliani, who really was the CEO of a cybersecurity firm (Cyber!) and really was the president’s cybersecurity advisor (Cyber! Cyber!) and yet, as shown by his bewildering yet hilarious accusations that one of his tweets was sabotaged by Twitter, does not actually understand the Internet at all. Or, we may presume, the cyber. Cyber!
THE LOOK WE’RE ONLY A $30B COMPANY HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KEEP TRACK OF ALL THESE LITTLE DETAILS AWARD FOR FORCING PEOPLE TO INTERACT WITH OTHERS NEARBY
To Ericsson, who accidentally disabled phone service for hours for tens of millions of people around the globe because it failed to renew a (presumably TLS) software certificate used by its switching services ahead of its expiry. You can get those for free and automatically these days, btw. Never mind the cyber (Cyber!) attackers; it’s malingering incompetence that will get us all in the end. Speaking of which …
THE WHO COULD POSSIBLY HAVE IMAGINED THAT SUCH A THING WOULD HAPPEN OR IF IT DID THAT WE WOULD RESPOND TO IT IN ALL THE WORST POSSIBLE WAYS AWARD FOR A REPERTOIRE OF PANICKED FLAILING INEPTITUDE WORTHY OF ARTHUR DENT
To the authorities at Gatwick university, who first shut down one of the busiest airports in Europe for almost a day and a half during the pre-Christmas rush because there were reports of drones seen over its runways; then said they couldn’t possibly shoot down those drones for fear the stray bullets might harm someone; then conceded the possibility that there were no drones at all (though it seems like there probably were); then arrested a couple who turned out to be completely innocent; then reopened the airport with no resolution but that of the installation of an expensive new anti-drone system and the discovery of a single, untraced, damaged drone. This dithering paralysis raises many terrifying questions. I have two in particular. One: the people in charge of Gatwick — again, one of Europe’s biggest and busiest airports — never done any threat modelling / scenario analysis / contingency planning at all? And two: how many minutes-rather-than-hours would this shutdown have lasted if it had happened at a major airport in, say, Texas, before the bullet-ridden carcasses of the drones in question were dragged off the runway? I guess we’ll never know. But it gives me a certain dubious pleasure to bequeath to Gatwick, an airport I have known and disliked for many years, this year’s Jon of Jons.
Congratulations, of a sort, to all the winners of the Jons! All recipients shall receive a bobblehead of myself made up as a Blue Man, as per the image on this post, which will doubtless become coveted and increasingly valuable collectibles. (And needless to say sometime next year they will become redeemable for JonCoin.) And, of course, all winners shall be remembered by posterity forevermore.
1Bobbleheads shall only be distributed if and when available and convenient. The eventual existence of said bobbleheads is not guaranteed or indeed even particularly likely. Not valid on days named after Norse or Roman gods. All rights reserved, especially those rights about which we have reservations.
Via Jon Evans https://techcrunch.com
0 notes