#(which is… not totally unreasonable actually. given the limited information she has

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

So, random thought… how many of the Madrigals know that Bruno left of his own free will?

'Cause I'm just thinking about the reactions of Mirabel's parents. When Mirabel talks about seeing cracks in the walls, her mother at first tries to put it off as just stress or something. And maybe she really believes that.

But then, when Mirabel starts getting too insistent that she really saw the walls start to crack and the candle go out, what does Julieta do? She brings up Bruno. The family taboo. “My brother Bruno lost his way in this family. I don't want the same for you.”

Now, this is an odd thing to bring up. Mirabel literally can't say a word about Bruno without everyone in the vicinity loudly talking about how nobody talks about him. It is a big deal that Julieta is referencing him in casual conversation like this.

And I'm convinced that the reason she does, is because she's panicking.

The one kid who she thought didn't get a gift (and who failed to get a gift the same night that Bruno mysteriously left the family) has suddenly started having visions of terrible things that haven’t happened yet. Nobody in the family seems to really know how the candle magic works— and Mirabel's case is unprecedented even in that context— so I don't think it would be that unreasonable for Julieta to wonder if there hasn't been some sort of power transference/replacement going on.

In a family where keeping up appearances is everything— and where there's no real privacy, thanks to Dolores— bringing up her brother is Julieta's way of trying to tell Mirabel “please keep quiet about it if you've suddenly developed future vision, I don't want you to end up like Bruno!”

And sure, maybe this is just because she remembers how Bruno was treated when he was around. But then, she also knows how Mirabel is being treated now. She knows how insecure she is about not having a gift, and how Abuela and the townsfolk seem to look down on her for it.

And the Madrigals have all been raised to view their gifts as tools that they are obligated to use to help the townsfolk. For Julieta to hear even a suggestion that her daughter may have a gift, and immediately shut it down like this, suggests that she thinks the consequences for revealing will be dire.

And she specifically references the fact that Bruno was 'lost', even though she has no reason whatsoever to believe that Mirabel is going to choose to leave the family.

And then there's Agustín, who hears that Bruno had a vision of the Casita collapsing and Mirabel being at the centre of it— a vision that he knows is almost certainly going to come true— and immediately insists that she hide it and not tell anyone.

Again, weird. Why would you not want your family to be informed of an oncoming catastrophe? Even if you have reason to believe that your daughter will be at the epicentre of it all, isn't that all the more reason to let your super-powered in-laws know, so they have a better chance of protecting her? And yet he's clearly way more terrified by the thought of the family finding out, than he is by the thought of Bruno's vision coming true.

His reaction doesn't really make sense in the context of "Bruno had scary visions and then chose to move out one day and cut contact because of how people treated him". Or even "Bruno saw this and it was so scary that he ran off one day".

But both Agustín and Julieta's reactions make perfect sense if they personally believe that Bruno was forced out by Abuela.

I mean, think about it from their perspective. It's the night of your daughter's gifting ceremony, and it's all gone horribly wrong. The two of your have probably spent the night in the nursery comforting a sobbing five year old. You may be able to hear (or Dolores may later tell you) that Abuela is arguing with Bruno— the creepy relative that everyone blames when Bad Things happen— about his prophecies.

And then the next day Bruno has vanished, mysteriously, and Abuela is insisting that nobody is allowed to talk about him.

I feel like you would at least wonder about what had happened, even if Abuela openly said that he left on his own (and we don't know if she even gave that much of an explanation). Especially since Bruno doesn't seem the type you'd expect to take off on a solo journey through the mountains.

And you would never get to talk about these fears, because "we don't talk about Bruno". Even in private, you'd be constantly aware of your eleven year old niece who can't help but listen in to everything you're saying. And having no outlet for these thoughts would probably only make them worse.

So, maybe you'd end up subtly encouraging your gifted children to not upset Abuela too much— make sure Isabella understands how important it is that she go along with things 'for the family', and that Luisa knows to make herself useful— and your one, not-gifted child, to try not to draw too much attention to that fact.

After all, you don't want another Bruno.

#encanto #encanto spoilers #encanto meta #i don't think abuela is aware of this btw #like from her perspective #We Don't Talk About Bruno #because bruno leaving unexpectedly probably brought back a lot of memories about losing her husband #and her specific way of dealing with that kind of trauma #is to close everything off in an attempt to shield the family from danger #and more consciously #she probably sees his leaving #at a time of family crisis #as some sort of betrayal #(which is… not totally unreasonable actually. given the limited information she has #like all she knows is that she asked him to look ahead to see what was going to happen #to their family #and whatever he saw was so fucking terrible #that he basically booked it and left the rest of them to fend for themselves) #but either way i think she would be horrified to know that her family #even just a few members #think that she actively threw him out #but then that's what you get for making open family communication Illegal

[cinnonym]

let it snow (i’ll keep you warm tonight)

For Day 1 - Snow/Cold of 12 Days of Supercorp @supercorpbb

Read on AO3

***

“You want to do what?”

Alex’s voice sounded about as doubtful as if Lena had told her that she planned to conjure a full-grown hurricane instead of a few harmless clouds. Director Henshaw limited himself to an incredulous look. Unreasonably incredulous, insultingly incredulous even, if Lena weren’t used to people underestimating her.

“It’s not that complicated, actually,” she said, in lieu of rolling her eyes. “I simply have to trigger nucleation manually, which, given the current temperatures, shouldn’t be a problem if enough INA bacteria is distributed in the troposphere – ”

“Yes, yes, I understand the nephology part,” Alex interrupted. There was an irritated twitch to her lips, as if Lena’s explanation had offended her in return.

Lena smoothed down her skirt, suppressing a smirk. “Then what is the problem, Agent Danvers? Naturally, I will only use harmless bacteria, saprophytes in fact. The quantity has been carefully calculated. You are welcome to read the measurement protocol, if you want.” She gestured at the files before her. “The risk is minimal, or else I wouldn’t be contemplating this. The DEO has nothing to worry about.”

“Okay. Let’s say we believe you.” Director Henshaw thumbed through a report, eyes scanning the pages before they settled on Lena again. “One thing remains unclear: why?”

Lena bit back a sigh. Of course this question had to come up, although she had hoped, against her better judgement, that it wouldn’t. But invading citizens’ privacy was probably part of Secret Agent 101.

She put on a little smile nonetheless, ignoring that the director’s expression remained unchanged in response.

“I’m sure meteorologists all over the world applaud this experiment. The advancement to science will be its own reward.”

“With all due respect, Ms Luthor,” Henshaw said, while Alex wrinkled her nose, as if to say ‘which is none, right now’, “If you expect us to give you the green light for covering National City in homemade natural snow, we’d like to know your reasons.”

Lena lifted an eyebrow. “With equal respect, director, I am not asking for permission. L-Corp is authorised by the city council to possess and manoeuvre drones over National City, and as for the nucleators, well. Our average air pollution lies at 90 US AQI; a few microgram of non-toxic bacteria should be the least of our worries.

“So, I will make it snow on Christmas, that is already decided. I’m just here to inform you about the possible fluctuations in your readings. Next to L-Corp’s own technology, I figured your sensors would be quickest to pick up changes in the air, and given your history of sometimes hasty action…”

Much to Lena’s gratification, Director Henshaw’s mask of a face finally started showing some cracks. The muscles in his jaw clenching, unclenching, and clenching again, he stepped back from the table where Lena’s lab reports lay spread out.

“We are keeping this city safe,” he said stiffly, “Sometimes quick action is required.”

Lena gifted him with her sweetest smile. “The city is safe. And I just want to make people happy.”

***

Alex waited for her in the corridor, leaning against the wall in an entirely unmilitary fashion. She straightened up when Lena closed the door behind her.

“Why are you really doing this?”

Lena smirked. Kara’s sister or not, she kind of liked Alex Danvers. The fire in her, the passion, the competitiveness which reminded Lena of herself. She shrugged.

“Is it so hard to believe that I’d simply like to have a white Christmas?”

“Uh, yes?” Alex gave her a wry look. “You don’t exactly strike me as the type to care for snow. Or weather in general.”

“And yet I understand more of nephology than you want to give me credit for.”

Alex’s gaze darkened. “You’re deflecting.”

That almost drew a laugh from Lena. It seemed Director Henshaw wasn’t the only one who had paid attention at agent school.

“You are good,” she admitted, pulling her coat closer around her as she headed for the door, Alex following her grudgingly. “But I’m still not going to tell you.”

Alex sighed. “Fine.” Then she brightened. “Hey, are you coming over for game night next Friday? Maybe Kara can worm your cloudy secret out – “

“No, don’t tell Kara!” Lena interrupted, then, when Alex’s eyebrows skyrocketed, hastened to add: “You know how she dislikes secrets…”

But it was too late. Alex’s eyes were already widening with comprehension, her jaw dropping with implication. Lena felt her cheeks go red despite herself.

“It was just a silly idea,” she murmured, ducking her head to escape Alex’s almost manic stare. “She just mentioned how much she missed the snowy winters in Midvale and I just…”

“Lena fucking Luthor,” Alex said slowly, effectively cutting through Lena’s rambling, “You better treat her well or else.”

Lena’s face was positively burning now, and she suddenly wished she’d never come here. But she couldn’t have risked Kara’s Christmas surprise being destroyed by the DEO overreacting to unusual cloud formation, and so here she stood, struggling not to squirm under Alex Danvers’ sternest glare.

“It’s not like that,” she said hurriedly. “We’re not – Well, she’s not – I mean, it’s not like she – “

Alex snorted. “It’s not like she won’t gift you her entire heart when you make it snow for her, and you know that.” Her eyes narrowed, but she was grinning now, and Lena felt her nervousness fade away like it had never existed in the first place.

“You really think so?” She asked, smiling slyly when Alex gasped.

“Oh, don’t play innocent now. You totally planned this! You charmed my sister into being your friend, and now you’ll charm her into being your girlfriend.”

Lena bit her lip. “Girlfriend is a big word…”

“And self-made snow is a big gesture,” Alex shrugged, then leaned close. “Look, obviously I cannot say with absolute certainty that Kara will react that way, but between the two of us: if she doesn’t propose to you right there and then, I just might.”

#supercorp #sc fanfic #sc #supercorp fanfiction #supergirl #snow #christmas #christmas fic #my writing #mini fic

[summerseeder27]

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[rutilation]

I’d comment that Phos’s complaint about the final level of their game being ridiculously hard is a metaphor for how their entire quest gets exponentially more difficult as it approaches its conclusion, but the blurb in the margins already points out that parallel, so I guess my observation is redundant.  The accursed little thing is stealing my thunder.

Click the read more if you want to see me read way too much into the art.

Before I get into gushing over the artwork, I want to go over some of my thoughts on the narrative side of things, so let’s get the most annoying part out of the way first and talk about Aechmea.

I’ve heard that in the original Japanese, it’s clear that he’s referring to Cairngorm.  What’s interesting here is that he said this line when it seemed for a moment that Kongou was about to release the Lunarians.  But now that it’s clear it won’t happen, I wonder whether or not he’ll actually say what was on his mind.  In any case, I can’t wait to see more of his ugly mug next chapter.  Yay.

This chapter has sparked a bit of discourse regarding the earth gems, so I might as well chime in.  While I agree that the earth gems’ reaction isn’t unreasonable given the circumstances and the limited information at their disposal, it’s still not really the best reaction they could have had.  Regardless of their interpretation of Phos, the truth of the matter is that the version of Phos that the other gems feel the need to shatter, tie down, cage, and then shatter again is less of a threat to Kongou than the one they let walk around freely in chapter 58.  Just because what they’re doing is understandable, doesn’t mean that what they’re doing is right, and I don’t think that this pattern of shooting first and asking questions later is a good road for them to collectively go down.

And on the subject of Euclase, to reiterate what I’ve said before: they give me the willies not because I think their actions are totally unreasonable, (though said actions do tend to be on the more militant side of what could be considered reasonable, don’t they?)  Rather, a lot of the bad vibes I get from them are because of the menacing manner with which Ichikawa sometimes frames them, in addition to Padparadscha’s seemingly less-than-charitable opinion of them.

I’ve been curious for a while now about how Rutile would react after Padparadscha outright rejected them.  Looks like they’ve just doubled down on their obsessiveness, to the point of doing a stellar Onryō impression.  Really, the quickest way to ruin a relationship in this story is to either take someone for granted, or to be possessive/controlling.  Phos has some issues with the former, but a number of the other characters have a strong case of the latter, case in point being Rutile here.

I’m guessing that this implicitly confirms that the human particle is indeed in Phos’s eye?  I doubt that Kongou’s human sensors would go off due to Phos being merely metaphorically human.  I’ve also seen people posit that the reason Kongou can’t release the Lunarians is because his one-way ticket to nirvana only works on less sentient life forms.  (@rinboz has a good analysis that touches on this topic, btw.)  I think the chapter confirms this interpretation based on Phos’s mysteriously disappearing cage.  And that dovetails nicely into my thoughts on the art of this chapter…

Because the imagery of the cage coming to life, flowering, and vanishing in a breeze of petals is *chef’s kiss* gorgeous.

The scene starts off in gray and black, and the panels have a cluttered, claustrophobic feeling to them from the grain of the wood and the shadowy, looming architecture.  But once Kongou begins his prayer attempt, the panels start to become more spacious, those grays and blacks giving way to sleek monochrome.  Finally, this changes to stark white with minimal linework and virtually no shading.  The only other time I can recall Ichikawa using this blank, simplified style in hnk was when we saw a brief flashback of Phos as a child.  (For a given value of “child,” we are on arrested development island after all.)  

The way the cage seemingly transformed back into an earlier phase of its existence before vanishing reminds me of how Shiro went back to being a dog for a few moments before he left.  So, it seems that Kongou’s attempt worked just fine on a wooden cage—i.e, a plant—but none of the sentient beings present could actually be affected.  

Once he fails, the shroud of grey once again falls over the scene, black arches closing in.  And yet when the “camera” turns to Phos, their greyscale body is surrounded by white, as if the pure vision they had just seen is still haunting them.

I’m just in awe of how perfectly the environment here mirrors Phos’s emotional state.  Their heavy bondage flies away in a flurry of petals just as they’re getting their hopes up, and in the moment that those hopes are dashed, the rain of blades that shatter them are represented as black bars caging their mangled body.  Have I said before that Ichikawa is an absolute master of visual metaphor?  Because she is.

I was so fond of the art, as a matter of fact, that I reread the chapter several times and kind of.  Stared at it for a couple hours.  Here’s some interesting things I noticed.

In chapter 71, Cinnabar’s mercury globules were gone, but now they’re back.  Were they gone before because Cinnabar had just unloaded a bunch of mercury the previous chapter, or could there be some other reason?  Also in regards to Cinnabar, they’re present while Phos confronts Kongou, just barely visible on the far left—note the floating mercury.

But at no point does Ichikawa let us see their face or what they think of all this—more on this in a moment.

Bort doesn’t seem to be wearing powder on their left leg.  It’s the same leg that Phos shattered, and as far as we know, that’s the only time they’ve ever been broken, so maybe they’re leaving that leg bare as a reminder?  That seems like the sort of samurai-esque thing Bort would do.

Everyone’s started wearing gloves.  Before, the gems with a <9 hardness would only wear gloves if they anticipated having to touch someone or something with a different hardness level, (or in Cinnabar’s case, if they didn’t want to contaminate the things they touch.)  But in this chapter, everyone’s wearing gloves the whole time.  There are two possibilities that come to mind for me.  One is that since the earth gems have to anticipate fighting other gems instead of cloud-people, they have to worry about abrasions to their hands while fighting, and are thus patrolling with gloves.  The other possibility is that since Cinnabar has been fully (?) integrated into the group again, everyone has to be careful of what they touch, and they’ve taken to wearing gloves to lessen the risk of being contaminated by mercury.

Peridot and Sphene aren’t wearing gloves while patrolling in chapter 69, even though the earth gems were definitely counting on fighting the gems on the moon sooner or later, which makes me think it’s more likely that Cinnabar is the reason everyone’s wearing gloves.  Maybe it went something like this: up until the night raid, Cinnabar hadn’t been living with the other gems despite the fact that they must have been engaging with them.  But after the night raid, they start living with the others in the school, thus necessitating the gloves.

Once the sleep deprivation started kicking in I found myself engaging in the potentially meaningless venture of counting swords, gems, and who had swords and who didn’t in the second half of the chapter.  I may have found a couple of interesting things, so get your tinfoil hats ready.

On this page, we see all the earth gems sans Jade and Euclase, and of those gems, Sphene, Cinnabar, Obsidian, and Red Beryl are unarmed.  My first observation is that one of the gems who was unarmed grabbed a sword from somewhere and threw it at Phos.  There are only seven swords on this page, but—not counting Rutile’s scalpels—there are eight swords on the ground on the final page. 

Which begs the question: who threw the mystery sword?  We can rule out Jade or Euclase; they were standing in front of Phos and it’s clear from the positions of the blades on the ground that they were all thrown from behind.  Best-case scenario is that Sphene simply set their sword aside while checking the cage and grabbed it again off-panel.  Worst-case scenario would be if Cinnabar was the one who chucked the eighth sword at Phos.  I’m just gonna hope that they’re too frail to pick up a sword in the first place; please don’t dash my hopes Ichikawa.

Speaking of which, on the penultimate page, there are eight lines piercing Phos—one for each sword on the last page.  This makes me wonder: did Bort not attack Phos here?  Their whip is seemingly unrepresented in the stylized depiction of the weapons that shattered Phos, and it’s not entirely clear from the last page whether they used it or not.  Then again, Rutile’s scalpels are on the ground on the last page but absent from the previous page, so maybe I’m reading too deeply into it.  But the fact that Ichikawa was careful enough to have the number of swords match the number of black lines makes it a possibility worth keeping in mind.

This is what happens when I’m assigned to read The Tedious Misadventures of Tristan and Isolde.  I start procrastinating by going all True Crime over who exactly murdered Phos.  Anyway, see you guys next month when we find out whether the earth gems were nice enough to put Phos back together or if they just chucked the pieces out to sea.

#houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous

[orangedodge]

Instead of flooding my blog with a deluge KH posts, I figured I'd do just one in-depth one about the end reveal.  

At least until the next trailer comes out, and my inner nine year old breaks out once again.

So despite Nomura's limitations as a writer, and his occasional technical naivete, I've always been a bit surprised that he's never really given his due as a director. He has good storytelling instincts, and can be skilled at framing information on screen to highlight what he wants, while making his audience ignore what he doesn't want them to pay attention to. His team can also cut a trailer very well. The 2.8 trailers were masterful at presenting actual spoilers, but framed within an artificial context that hid their meaning, and led to the audience anticipating story beats that did not actually exist. The respective natures of Aced and Gula as people, in particular, was something he was highly successful at concealing.

E3 trailer spoilers below the cut

The first E3 trailer drop, which I think we're calling the "Frozen" trailer, reminds me a lot of what he did last time, with those 2.8 trailers. The reveal at the end, and it's implication that Aqua is now evil, is driven by two lines,

SORA - "I wont let her fall to darkness"

and

AQUA - "You're too late"

The combination is framed to suggest that it's specifically too late for Aqua, but as these lines occur in two entirely different scenes, and this structure is unlikely to be preserved in the actual game, the thematic bridge they create is an artificial one. It's unknown what the full context of each scene actually is, particularly the latter scene with Mickey, Aqua, and Riku. Instead, Aqua's lines are being set up with by potentially false context by Sora.

What actually happens in that scene? I think the position of landmarks, and the continuity in way the scene is lit, is sufficient to establish that it most likely takes place within the same span of time as the previous trailer's Riku and Mickey scene, in which Riku's Way to Dawn Keyblade was broken.

By combining the two Riku scenes, I would posit that the chain of events is as follows: Riku and Mickey arrive at the Dark Margin > Aqua attacks them in her new shadow form > Mickey is disarmed, and Riku's Keyblade broken > Aqua stops fighting and reveals herself > Aqua picks up Mickey's Keyblade.

If the line "This Keyblade..." is native to that scene, and not something that was simply placed out of context in the trailer to create false context (a trick Nomura used with Phantom Aqua's dialogue in the 2.8 trailers), then it could be possible that she didn't recognize her opponents until she saw that Keyblade. Either way, I believe it's likely that she fought them until they were both disarmed, whereupon she stopped, and revealed herself to them.

Two things grabbed my attention,

Is breaking Way to Dawn, the Keyblade with one of Xehanort's creepy time-travel spy eyes (that we've been warned about), actually an inherently aggressive act? She appears to have been completely shrouded/cloaked in darkness, if not actually invisible (if that was a Red Eyes effect Mickey was under), when she arrived. Assuming that the two Riku clips are in fact one continuous scene, than it seems as though she didn't let them see her until that Keyblade was out of the way.

Why pick up Mickey's Keyblade? It was established ages ago that a Keyblade can't be stolen from its wielder, so unless that's being retconned, I don't see why she'd benefit from picking it up unless to demonstrate to them that she's still capable of doing so. And that's being done in a state where she's not just possessed by darkness, but seems to have been totally transformed into it. The only precedents I can think of for that are Anti-Sora and Ansem. Anti-Sora didn't have access to Keyblades, and Ansem could only wield one through Riku's body (and presumably Riku’s heart, since he lost his access to the Keyblade once he cast that away).

So is Aqua currently fallen to darkness? Almost definitely, unless this is just Phantom Aqua messing with Mickey, or a physical manifestation of an impression she left behind when she lived there, or the result of some unique circumstance like Aqua-removed-her-Heart-from-her-body or Aqua's-looking-for-Ven-in-the-realm-of-sleep that that would render her condition a temporary side effect.

Is she 'norted? It seems probable, but I'm not one-hundred per cent sure that it actually follows from what's been shown. Xehanort's never shown the ability to discorporate into dark fog or become invisible, I mean, and it seems like that would be a fairly useful ability to make use of if he had it. It seems not unreasonable to assume that it's therefore an ability newly unique to Aqua, and not something connected to a 'norting. I'm going to leave the changers to her hair aside because it's appeared that shade before (for example, in the daylight Wayfinder sequence at the start of the 0.2 trailer), and I'm not sure how much of the color change is being influenced by the lighting conditions, or even if the lighting is finished. The eyes seem like a big give away that she's 13th 'nort, as we've only ever seen glowing amber eyes in humans with Xehanort's vessels... but we don't actually know why he has those traits in the first place.

It could be nothing of consequence, just a unique aspect of his character design that made an easy shorthand for showing who he was possessing. Or it could be that amber eyes are actually meant to represent something in this setting (connection to Heartless?), and what specifically that is just hasn't come up yet, except as through the brothers and sisters 'nort. So it's possible that her eyes don't really mean what we assume they do, and it's just a fun way to use the trailer to mess with us.

(And because this series is so weird, it may also be worth remembering that incomplete beings have been shown to take physical forms influenced by the expectations of the people viewing them. Think Xion's magic flippy-floppy hood, or Aqua perceiving Ansem as Terra. So depending on what the meaning of Aqua's shadow form actually is, the way she appears to Mickey might not be what she actually looks like, as opposed to just the material consequence of how he expects her to look, reflected back upon his own reality. I... ugh. This series is something else.)

(There's also a possible exception to the only-'norts-have-glowing-eyes rule with Terra, who did have glowing amber eyes before he was 'norted, but portions of those cut scenes may now be apocryphal)

But even if Aqua is 'norted, does it automatically follow that she's now an evil puppet of the arch villain’s? I'm going to just throw this out there, and give a hard no. Could be! She could be evil now, she could even be a boss fight and a resulting fetch quest to fix her Wayfinder to bring her back to normal, or be a recurring super boss introduced to give the heroes someone more threatening to fight than Vexen and Marluxia, or anything else. But it's not absolutely necessary and it's a truly strange assumption to make, given past experiences with 'norts and people consumed by darkness.

Riku was 'norted for... really the entirety of the first three games in one way or another, and after a few initial close calls, he got his second wind, and was fine. Vanitas and Braig both seem to do whatever they want; it just so happens that they want to be evil, but I don't think Xehanort has ever shown any supernatural capacity—resorting instead to threats and possible torture—to modify their behavior if they wander off to undermine him. Terra is... well his body has been possessed for decades now, but also obviously is not being controlled in any meaningful way, unless Xehanort actually planned to choke himself and get whipped in the face by chains. Axel also didn't seem to have any problems with just throwing Xehanort out, when he was a heartless shell that theoretically had compromised means of resisting a takeover.  

So Xehanort is clearly not always in complete control of his vessels, other than Young Xeno (himself), Ansem (his own literal heart), and maybe Xemnas (some proportion of his own heart in Terra’s empty body), who could all be unique exceptions. And even the vessels that have been with him the longest have habit of doing as they please. I should find it strange should Aqua be the absolute only exception in the series. And thinking on it, all that's really said of the final confrontation is that you have 13 seekers and 7 guardians... but there's not really a rule that they have to form two opposed teams and stick to them no matter what.

To just fly off into blind speculation though, what I'm personally leaning towards is the possibility that Aqua has just become a part of the realm of darkness. That Mickey is “too late” to reach her before a point of no return, and now she just cannot leave. She doesn't sound particularly angry, or upset to see him. It sounds like she's just stating a fact, or just speaking with resignation. Mickey and Riku, in the clip where Way to Dawn is shown broken, also do not seem as defeated as one might expect them to if they had experienced complete and total failure. They seem pretty sure of themselves, whatever has happened.

I'm hesitant to add this in, given my own bias, but it actually seems not unlike they're saying goodbye. Perhaps just letting go of something, if they've failed and are moving on, or if Riku is just saying goodbye to the chapter of his life represented within Way to Dawn. Or they could be getting ready to split up.  

I've seen a lot of speculation, that I think rings true, that Disney would prefer for Mickey to not be involved in the final fight, whacking recognizable humans in the face with a sword-like weapon. The rumor's line of reasoning follows that he needs to be swapped out for someone else, and Aqua seems like the most fitting possibility. Maybe literally? One stays, so another can go? Thematically, she took on Terra's punishment for him, trapping her there in the first place. Mickey taking it on for her, so she can leave, would be a fitting continuation. And it seems to be what he wants. Edgy, traumatized, Mickey Mouse is a weird concept to introduce to a story, but it almost pulls it off where his trauma re: Aqua is concerned. This is clearly meant to be the great unhealed wound in his life, and to not just free his friend, but take her place in the underworld for a while is one way to help him patch it.

#video games #kingdom hearts #aqua #why do i do this to myself

[newedenhq]

RAFAEL MORALES \ SWITCH \ 34

PERSONALITY

Anxious is probably the first word to come to mind for anyone who just met Rafael. He stresses a lot about most things and can’t make a decision without worrying about whether or not it was the right one for the better part of the day. Most of it stems from him wanting to do right by everyone but also wanting to do the right thing objectively – something that barely ever works out. He gets lost in his own head a lot, trying to figure out what’s right and wrong and often gets overwhelmed that way. The only time Rafael is actually cool and collected is when he’s at work. When he enters the office, he gets to slip on the costume of a calm mental health professional and forgets his own concerns for a little while. Whether it’s the reminiscence of his past life of a Dominant or just the fact that he can fully focus on someone else rather than get lost in his own mind for a while, he’s not sure but it works out in his favor. At heart, he’s a very sensitive person who wants to help more than anything but often struggles to find the right way to do that within the restrains set for him by society.

BIOGRAPHY

Rafael was born into a loving family with very, very liberal worldviews. His parents, a switch and a submissive, were both big supporters of free love – and free anything, really. From a young age, it was taught to his siblings and him that nobody was better than anyone else just because of their mark and that they had to fight for this notion. Even so, it had always seemed pretty obvious what Rafael would turn out to be. He’d never been a loudmouth, never pushed to have the lead or step into the spotlight. Following came to him easier than leading did and any decision he was faced with led to a near meltdown. While his parents, artists at heart, tried to instill some sort of artistic talent in him, it never stuck. He dealt with the piano classes they tried to enthuse him for and could follow instructions but never picked up the passion his parents had hoped they could share as a family. Academics, on the other hand, came easy to Rafael. He excelled in school, showing special talent in science. His parents, while still a little bummed out about his lack of interest in the arts, supported their son and so, piano classes were replaced with chess and science fairs. Science was logical, science was something he could understand and find comfort in when the rest of the world usually just exhausted him. By the time testing came around, everyone who’d known Rafael was sure they’d know the outcome. Nothing had changed about his demeanor and he accepted back the results from the widely smiling nurse with ease – only to nearly drop the sheet of paper when he read the word Dominant. Everyone, but most of all Rafael, were in shock. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t have a dominant bone in his body and the prospect of having to make decisions for someone else when he could barely even figure out what color of socks to wear in the morning was positively terrifying. Still, everyone around him seemed to have a newfound and, as far as he knew, totally unreasonable amount of respect and trust in him. For Rafael, it didn’t change much. He stuck with school, continued earning good grades and gave the few friends he had minor orders every two weeks to not end up in jail. A massive appeal, he could not see. When it came to graduation, Rafael had earned himself a scholarship to Yale and used the opportunity to move away from home and to the east coast. As much as he loved his family, he knew he would get too complacent if he stayed too long and the idea of never building even the semblance of a life for himself wasn’t an appealing one. Pre-med was everything he’d hoped for. It combined his interest for science and the need to help that he’d always carried with him. The very need that had made him and his entire family so sure he’d turn out to be submissive. For the next eight years, Rafael threw his all into his studies and looking back, those were easily the best years of his life. He got to spend every day doing something he loved, got to learn, and was forced to socialize to some extend which, admittedly, did wonders for his own mental health. During his residency, Rafael found he was most interested in psychiatry – a fact that mildly surprised him. He’d always thought himself to work in surgery, perhaps. Somewhere that didn’t include a lot of contact with patients and yet, as he worked in the field, he found himself settling in ways he hadn’t before. Where his brain usually did overtime over-thinking his own worries, focusing on those of someone else allowed him to relax. To focus. To get out of his head. And when someone left with at least a slightly better outlook on life, he felt a sense of accomplishment he hadn’t known. So with this new information in mind, Rafael set out to specialize in psychiatry. It was around the same time that he entered his first serious relationship. He’d dabbled in dating in college and was a hopeless romantic at heart but given his constantly nervous state, his awkwardness and the fact that he was a shoddy Dominant at best, it never went far. Around this time, though, he finally found two people who could see past all of that. It was a slow progression and Rafael still wouldn’t be able to put his finger on when friendship between him and them turned into something more but one morning as he made scrambled eggs for them while they set the table and made coffee he suddenly realized that they’d long left the label ‘friends’ behind – and that it was far less scary than he’d ever imagined. With his degree in his pocket, Rafael worked at the hospital he’d done his residency in for a year before a former fellow classmate from Yale contacted him. The two of them had been good friends back in school and had kept loosely in touch since graduation. She was looking to start her own practice but didn’t want to do it alone – and she’d thought of Rafael as a potential partner. After a lot of thinking and wondering and stressing, Rafael finally agreed and moved to New Eden to build a joint practice with his friend. Not only did this give him the opportunity to continue building his own life – it also meant he could finally move in with his partners rather than limit their relationship to weekend visits. So all in all, Rafael’s life was surprisingly perfect for a while. Perhaps that should have concerned him (Murphy’s Law and all) but at the time, he was too excited about all the good things happening in his life. That was until one fateful day almost two years ago. He’d been sick for a while and after his GP hadn’t been sure what was causing it, he’d drawn some blood to get a better idea. A few hours later, he’d gotten something against the infection he’d caught and his whole life turned upside down. It was a whirlwind and Rafael spent much of it in such a state of panic that he doesn’t remember half of it. At the end of the day, it turned out his blood test all those years ago had been wrong. He wasn’t a Dominant after all. And still, he wasn’t what he’d thought as a child either. A Switch. Raf wasn’t stupid, he knew what this meant or could mean, anyway. The next few days, after paperwork had been filed and the tattoo on his wrist had been corrected, were spent at home, pacing the floor and hiding under the cover one after the other. His entire life as he’d known it, as he’d come to accept it despite it not feeling quite right, had been tossed over. It was work that drew him out of it in the end. While there had been talk of having his license revoked, of him not possibly being able to handle the kind of work he’d been doing for years already, his partner had vouched for him. She was the one who pointed out he’d been doing just fine until now and had a whole cupboard of files of happy patients to show for it. She was the one who continued to believe in him. And so, Rafael slowly came out of hiding and pieced together what was left of his life. He’d lost plenty of more traditional and most of his Dominant patients who refused to get help from someone like him. But some had stayed. And new ones came, Switches and Submissives who trusted him more now than they had before. Unfortunately, while work went strong, his private life did not. His partners and him tried to make it work, they really did. But the new circumstances led to fights more than anything else. Where there’d been playful discussions of who’s get to do the claiming before, there were tense and stilted conversations about how this was going to work now. Their dynamic had been turned on this head and the fear of the government thinking he might still do some dominating in their relationship eventually led to them falling apart. Since then, it’s been two years and Rafael is doing his best to continue living his life. His story has turned him into somewhat of a poster child of switch rights: the well liked and trusted Switch who manages to hold exactly the kind of job they all say he couldn’t and excels at it. Rafael for one wants no part of that. He never asked to be an example for anything and hates being in any kind of spotlight. All he wants to do is to continue helping people – on a small scale, not the big scale the movements sometimes try to push him towards.

HEADCANONS

It was during his one main relationship that Rafael really experienced what dominating could feel like. None of the mandatory little things he’d done before to avoid fines could match up to that. He didn’t realize back then, but did also experience what submission could feel like during that time. His girlfriend, a “fellow” Dominant was who taught him everything he now knows about how to dominate and following her instructions definitely gave him a similar high as giving them to their boyfriend did. He does sometimes miss these highs as they managed to clear his constantly overwhelmed brain in a way little else has managed since, but since the relationship ended he wouldn’t want to be off V even if he had the choice. The only positive experiences he had were with them and having to dominate or even submit to someone he doesn’t know as well as he did them seems daunting at best.

Raf volunteers at the local community center for a few hours every week as a counselor. He already probably works too much at his office but he knows there’s plenty of people who don’t have insurance or can’t visit him for other reasons so he wants to try and be there for those too.

He’s an insomniac and lies awake worrying about the state of the world or other things he really has no say in a lot of the time. Usually he’ll start reading at some point and then drag himself to the office when the sun comes up. Realistically and in his heart he knows he should be getting help for that and the anxiety that causes him such stress but he simply doesn’t have the time with all the work he loads onto his plate and he’s also much better at taking care of other people than of himself.

More than anything, Raf wants a family for himself – a relationship, children, a golden retriever for all he cares (although he’s much more of a cat person himself). He does however think it’s highly unlikely that this is actually going to happen since evidence suggests he’s incredibly hard to date, so he mostly tries to ignore this dream and stays married to work.

#taken #switch

[thecounterplan]

What the United 3411 Incident is Really About

by Brice Ezell

If you've followed the news at all in the past week, a recap of the events of United Express flight 3411 is unnecessary. For those who limit their news intake or even avoid the news – in this political climate, not an unreasonable move as far as stress and mental health are concerned – here's a recap: 3411, a plane leaving Chicago's O'Hare Airport for a short-haul flight to Louisville, Kentucky, was overbooked the day of its departure, Sunday 9 April. Overbooking is problem enough for paying customers, but in the case of 3411 there was an additional complication. United had several employees that needed to be on the plane, as they had to work on a flight in Louisville the next day.

With the flight being overbooked, United offered to give a night's stay in a hotel plus $400 USD to any customer willing to give up their seat. When no one took that offer, United upped the offer to $800. No one was enticed by that, a clearly considerable sum that likely outweighed the cost of the original plane ticket. According to some reports, United ended up offering $1000. When no one accepted these cash incentives, United randomly selected four passengers to be removed from the plane to accommodate the United staffers that needed to be in Louisville the next day. Three left the plane, undoubtedly frustrated, but without making much of a scene. The fourth, one Dr. David Dao, a practicing physician, refused to leave on the grounds that (a) he paid for his seat and (b) he needed to be at the hospital the next day to tend to patients. Despite the reasonability of those claims, United called the airport police on Dao, who was physically yanked out of his seat and dragged off the plane, leaving him bloodied.

Since then, United has faced a hailstorm of media criticism, and with good reason. As it turns out, using state-sanctioned violence to take from someone a service he had paid for makes for bad PR. It didn't help that the official Twitter statement by Oscar Munoz, the CEO of United, sounded like it was drafted by a corporate jargon bot, like horse_ebooks attempting to give an apology. United presumably compensated Dao and the other individuals removed from the plane, and in a surprisingly classy move, the airline did later refund all passengers on the plane the price of their ticket. Yet in examining how this thoroughly terrible event came to pass, it doesn't take long to figure out that this is but a single manifestation of a much larger problem, and that United could have saved itself a lot of grief by acting sensibly.

Before getting to the crux of what 3411 represents, there is one particularly bad argument that is worth addressing right out of the gate. I've seen it crop up across social media, but one grating iteration of it appears in the post called "I Know You're Mad at United but… (Thoughts from a Pilot Life about Flight 3411)", by Angelia J. Griffin. An early paragraph in Griffin's post features this confession, "If a federal law enforcement officer asks me to exit a plane, no matter how royally pissed off I am, I’m going to do it and then seek other means of legal reimbursement. True story."

This kind of argument is popular any time there is an instance of accused (or even likely) abuse of power by a law enforcement officer. "If only that unarmed black man who wasn't doing anything wrong at all simply did exactly what the officer told him, he would still be alive today!" This mindset is a curious thing to exist in America, a country founded on rebellion from the government that’s also home to the most guns per capita by a long shot – almost one gun per American (skip to page 47 of that PDF). Thee "if an officer says, you do" mentality is a whisper away from total fascism, if not an outright capitulation to it. I know that in the era of Donald Trump it's popular to bandy the word "fascism" about the minute something bad happens, but I do not use the term lightly here.

Just so it is crystal clear: a badge and a gun do not prima facie put an officer in the right. The presence of a badge does not mean that everything an officer says or does is correct. Asserting the high standing of the law does not negate the fact that many officers of the law fail to uphold their obligations to the law, and in some cases even abuse the law. Respectfully questioning an officer, or standing your ground when you know you are within your rights, does not make you a criminal or a degenerate. It makes you a human being, one that does not let the mere presence of power take away your dignity. Griffin's tone in her piece turns her seemingly "I don't want to cause any trouble" point into something closer to, "Shut up and obey orders when you're told." I and I don't think most Americans want to live in a society where that is the default response to authority figures.

Dao was not in the wrong for insisting that he needed to tend to patients the next day. I'm willing to bet that his reason for needing to be in Louisville the was better than most of the others' on board.

While the initial response to Dao's injuries was widespread sympathy and outrage, it wasn't long before a certain disingenuous brand of argumentation reared its head in opposition to the outrage. Basically, it boils down to this: "But the rules!" United Airlines, like all airlines, has each passenger sign a contract of carriage with each ticket – though, of course, most passengers click "I accept" on this contract without ever actually reading it. One stipulation of most if not all contracts of carriage is that airlines can in fact deny boarding to paying customers, given a particular set of circumstances. This brief primer by USA Today illustrates some of the myriad reasons why one might be denied entrance to a plane even after she has bought a ticket. (The article also notes that a contract of carriage runs up to 37,000 words.)

Descriptively, the "play by the rules" argument is valuable, for it reminds airport passengers of just how much legal scaffolding exists for the process of air travel. United and the other major airline carriers have their asses covered, and the minute you cry foul, they will let you know of that. Given that most customers don't have time to parse through 37,000+ words of text every time they need to buy a plane ticket, it is good to know what stipulations come in the contract of carriage.

As a claim against Dao's sympathizers, however, the "play by the rules" argument – espoused by Griffin and many others – is nothing more than pedantry. Yes, it is true that airlines have contracts of carriage that come with certain rules. Yes, it is true that people should be better informed about these things. But the fact that rules exist isn't the substance of the matter for those angry about what happened on 3411. In the battle of Single Paying Customer versus Giant Corporate Airline With Its Army of Lawyers and Whatnot, everyone knows that the latter will always win out, even if slight concessions are granted. The outrage isn't that rules exist at all; it's that the rules set by the airlines are fundamentally unjust and result in pernicious outcomes like 3411's.

It is first of all worth noting that the "rules are rules" line of reasoning might not even exonerate United in the case of 3411. As many have already observed, there is a distinction in contracts of carriage between being denied boarding and being refused transport. The former is what the "rules are rules" crowd is leaning on: if a plane is overbooked or there are airline employees in need of transportation, it is true that passengers can be denied boarding. However, being denied transport – that is, an airline's refusal to fly a customer to his destination after she has boarded the airline – is a different situation. Were Dao denied boarding prior to getting on the plane, legally United would have been in the clear, but since Dao was violently removed from the plane having already been boarded and seated, United's legal footing is a lot less sure. There is ambiguity in the contract of carriage on the line between "denied boarding" and "refusal of transport," but in contract law, ambiguity in a contract stipulation works against whoever drafted the contract – in this case, United.

United also promised federal regulators in 2014 that all ticketed passengers were guaranteed seats, but unsurprisingly a "promise" from a large corporation without any legal apparatus behind holds as much water as the notion of Southwest Airlines being a budget carrier.

Furthermore, there is a practical consideration in the case of 3411. Given that the flight was full of paying customers and the airline did have a need to send employees to Louisville for work the next day, the easy solution would have been to rent a car for the four employees and have them drive to Louisville, a four and a half hour trip which would have put them in Louisville with time enough for sleep. Airline employee's unions do require certain standards of accommodation for employees, and considering that I am unaware of them I might be speaking out of turn here. But on the surface, at least, this solution would have met the airline's need of getting its employees to their next work location without depriving paying customers of their seats.

But suppose United was legally in the clear, and that at best Dao would get a tiny settlement in going after the airline through legal means. I'm not one to elevate late night talk show hosts as beacons of reason, Jimmy Kimmel made an excellent point in his televised remarks on 3411: in no other industry would customers tolerate the policy of overbooking. Imagine, Kimmel suggests, going to an Applebee's and after having ordered your food, you are removed for other paying customers who wanted to sit down. Applebee's would be out of business in a heartbeat. (That is, unless people really love riblets.) Yet for some reason, with airlines overbooking comes with the cost of soaring through the skies. No federal or state law prohibits overbooking.

In the first instance, it makes sense why airlines overbook flights. Air travel, even when an airline has economies of scale, is an expensive enterprise, and all airlines have the financial prerogative to ensure that every seat is filled. Any unfilled seat represents wasted space and lost revenue. Hedging on the possibility that some travelers won't make the flight for which they've bought a ticket – which given the expense of a plane ticket strikes me as a low possibility – air carriers overbook flights such that if a seat becomes empty, a passenger on the wait list can board, and the airline is then ensured of its revenue. I am thinking in the aside of that last sentence that most travelers wouldn't outright skip a flight; I am aware there are other reasons to miss flights, including the not insubstantial number of people who miss flights due to TSA security delays. However, I have yet to see compelling statistical data that shows that missed flights pose such a profit problem for airlines that the practice of overbooking becomes necessary.

It is incumbent upon airlines to prove the financial need for overbooking. Even with the practice of overbooking in place, airlines remain almost systemically unprofitable, and it is implausible that missed flights by some customers would constitute absolute financial ruin for air carriers, above and beyond the harms caused by the already problematic standard operating procedures in the industry. But logical scrutiny and good business are not correlated, so for the time being it appears that the outrage over 3411 will fizzle out in the short term, and airlines will go back to doing whatever they want in the long term because they know air travel is a necessity in a globalized business world.

The fact that airlines know that necessity has in large part enabled the industry to become anything but the free market many would like to think it is. Alex Pareene puts it directly and astutely in the title of his article “Airlines Can Treat You Like Garbage Because They are an Oligopoly.” An oligopoly (think “oligarch”) is a market controlled by a few core players, in this case the “Big Four” of commercial American aviation: American, United, Delta, and Southwest. 

Central to an oligopoly is the limitation of competition, and in the aviation game, there is little of it. If you go on Kayak or any airfare aggregator like it, you’ll find that with few exceptions, most airlines stay within a predictable cost range for their flights. For example, I can fly to New York City from Austin round-trip -- if I buy well in advance -- for around $200-$250, and in most cases I can have my choice of American, United, or Delta. (As for Southwest: see my previous comment about it being definitely not cheap.) I could go to a budget airline like Spirit (or Frontier if I was heading west), but those airlines are only deceptively cheap. The budget flights on those airlines usually only exist for select airports, and even for those fares that are comparatively lower than those of the Big Four there is a well-known nickel-and-diming that occurs after the initial ticket purchase. (For reasons that remain opaque to me, it costs more on Frontier and Spirit to bring a carry-on bag -- which the major carriers don’t charge for -- than it is to check a bag.) This may seem odd on face: wouldn’t each member of the Big Four want to stake out the most competitive rates, thereby ensuring that they draw more customers?

Well, as it turns out, no. The Big Four appear quite happy with the sky oligopoly. (Skoligopoly?) As Pareene puts it,

This is called oligopoly, and, for airline shareholders, this is great! It truly is a new golden age of aviation, for people who fly in private jets but own stock in airlines. For the rest of us, this is most of why flying sucks now (the rest of it is the ever-expanding and largely incompetent security state), and also why United is not that worried about you sharing that video of a man being brutally dragged off their plane. They are not embarrassed, and you will not embarrass them. Airlines feel no need to perform the dance of corporate penitence. If you’ve chosen to fly somewhere, it’s probably because you don’t have a good alternative to flying...

What does United care if the internet is mad at it? The airlines divvied up the sky between themselves, and if you live or work in United territory, at some point you’ll face the real “choice” offered to consumers in a post-consolidation industry: flying with them, flying a more time-consuming and circuitous route with some other, probably equally horrible airline (if such a route is available), or not flying anywhere. Do you need to get from Fargo to Denver in a hurry? Congratulations, you are now a United customer.

So long as each airline can generate profit and earn regional advantage in certain places, these companies have no incentive to compete for the purpose of lowering prices. The utter hilarity of the “trickle-down” notion of profit-seeking is also illustrated by the airline oligopoly. Writing for Vox, Alex Abad-Santos points out,

Flights are still expensive, even though the cost of jet fuel, a reason commonly cited by airlines for raising prices and adding fees, has gone down — in 2016, jet fuel prices were a third of what they were in 2014, but ticket prices didn’t decrease in kind. It’s cheaper for airlines to operate now than it was a few years ago, but they haven’t passed any savings on to customers.

To boil it down to its essence: United, along with the three other members of the Big Four controls the skies. Who cares what passengers want? What power do they have against the airlines?

In response to the outrage following 3411, many in the “rules are rules” crowd also touted the classic “hit ‘em with your wallet!” line of reasoning. “If you don’t like it, don’t give your money to United! That will show them what their customers prioritize, and if enough people do it United will change its behavior.” This argument is predicated on the notion that the airline industry resembles anything like a free market, and that airlines are responsive to customer inputs in the way a market competitor theoretically would be. But since the skies are ruled by just four airlines, corporations like United don’t have to care about customers in the way a business freely competing with others would. Many have touted the heavy airline deregulation instigated under the Carter administration in the late 1970s -- prior to that, airlines were highly regulated by the government -- as an example of giving choice and lower prices to the consumer, thereby making air travel more democratic. In seeing the corporate merger-driven oligopoly that now controls the air, I cannot help but think of the classic line from the film No Country for Old Men, a question I think well applies to more than one stipulation of United’s contract of carriage: “If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”

This is the heart of the matter when it comes to 3411. The anger following Dao’s horrible mistreatment is not about what the rules are, but rather why the rules are, why the airlines are in such a place that they can treat customers in this way. The airlines are able to implement policies like their overbooking practices because there is no regulation that forbids it -- or, seemingly, even tempers it -- and there is no means by which customers can hold these companies to account. This compounds the initial frustration of 3411 further: it’s not just that airlines behave in a way anathema to good customer relations, but they also have no incentive to change. 

Some will instinctively backpedal at the slightest hint of regulation, suggesting that deregulation led to lower fares and greater choice for consumers when shopping for plane tickets. Given the increasingly non-competitive airline marketplace, one wonders how competition will be fostered by the status quo. But more importantly, knee-jerk anti-regulation relies on a fundamental misunderstanding of coercion. Matt Bruenig writes,

What’s amusing about libertarians and laissez-faire people (and the loose way certain economists talk) is that they will describe my choice to pay rent as non-coerced and voluntary while describing my choice to pay income taxes as coerced and involuntary. But there is no neutral construction of “coercion” that would ever support such a distinction. As [Robert] Hale aptly demonstrates, coercion occurs when there are “background constraints on the universe of socially available choices from which an individual might ‘freely’ choose.”...

...When we talk about the economy, we are not arguing about whether we want coercion. We are arguing about what coercion we’d like.

The same holds true for airlines. There will always be rules for flying on a commercial airliner, and customers should know those rules. But wanting a different set of rules isn’t tantamount to a new imposition of coercion; instead, it’s a question of how coercion ought to function in an airline-to-customer transaction. Looking at how United’s overbooking policies -- which are similar if not the same to the other contracts of carriage in the Big Four -- resulted in Dao being yanked out of his seat and bloodied in the process, I think it’s high time those rules be reconsidered. So long as things stay the same, let’s not pretend that the air is just another competitive marketplace.

In thinking on 3411 and all the follies of American capitalism it represents, I've come up with what I call the Greenspan Rule, the name of which is inspired by this classic observation of Noam Chomsky's, which he delivered in response to one of former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan’s characteristic panegyrics on the free market. The Greenspan principle is simple: if you hear a businessman, CEO, corporation, or pro-corporate politician singing the praises of the free market, you can almost be certain that the market they envision is anything but free. 

Some further reading on Chomsky's response to Greenspan's claims about the virtues of the free market can be found here. See specifically the section "Saint Greenspan and the transistor."

#United Airlines #United #Flight 3411 #economics #airlines #David Dao #airline industry

[ftkrotec]

The Devastation of "M"

Disclaimer:  The statistics that I provide are based on articles and accounts that I have come across over the past five years.  I have not confirmed all of the figures and do not have citations for most of them. Further, I have rounded them off for ease and reference.  However, some simple research through the various organizations that specialize in mental health (i.e. NIMH, NAMI, etc) will confirm that the statistics above are more or less accurate.  Further, as I mentioned in my previous post on similar issues, I do not claim to be an expert or educated in this area. I am just providing my own insight into these issues and provide some personal experiences.  Speaking of these personal experiences, the accounts I reference below are based on my personal observations experiences with individuals, with whom I am intimately familiar (myself included), suffering from some of these conditions.  As to not betray any confidence nor violate anyone’s privacy, I have taken the liberty of altering some information including names and inconsequential facts or details. Since my sample is limited, these accounts are not likely an accurate representation of the millions who suffer from mental health conditions of varying types and severities.  Nevertheless, I know that my experiences are unlikely unique and I intend to share those experiences with the hope that it helps people better understand these conditions and, maybe even, help someone seek out the help that they so desperately need.

Imagine there is an illness, or more accurately a collection of conditions and disorders.  Let’s call it “M.” Imagine that over the next 12 months, one in every five people will suffer symptoms of M.  Imagine that one in four of those suffering have or will develop a substance abuse problem. Imagine 60% of those diagnosed with M are, for one reason or another, unable to get treatment of any kind.  Imagine that teenagers and young adults are not only more susceptible to M, but also more likely to add to M's fatality totals. Imagine that uncontrollable factors like one's sex and race correlate with even lower rates of treatment of M symptoms.  Would you consider that a problem worth our collective attention? Do you think that something should be done about this M? What if I told you that sufferers of M live 30% shorter lives? Well, M is real. The above statistics reflect the prevalence of Mental Health Disorders here in America.

Before discussing anything further, we are in need of definitions.  So, what is "mental health?" According to WHO, mental health is "a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community."  It is important to note that the simple lack or absence of a disorder does not, by itself, mean one has positive mental health. I would also imagine that this is the case for the inverse as well, but that is not relevant to my discussion today.  What is relevant is understanding the importance of mental health. The definition, itself, is like a checklist of the benefits of mental health. Mental health brings an understanding of our own abilities and keeps us rooted in the realities of life.  It allows us to cope with stress, rather than crumbling under its weight. It ensures that we remain productive and fruitful, rather than ineffective and wasteful. It, also, enables our participation and contribution to our own communities. Though not an exhaustive list of benefits, it is easy to see why maintaining mental health is important.

Now that we know what Mental Health is, what is M?  That is, what is a Mental Health Disorder? Well, the simplest definition is any disorder affecting mood, thinking, or behavior.  So, this would include well-known conditions like Depression and Schizophrenia, as well as, more obscure conditions like Apotemnophilia and Capgras Syndrome.  Regardless of the condition, these disorders are quite prevalent. Further, given the low numbers of those who receive treatment for their conditions, it is not unreasonable to assume that there may be unidentified people living with these conditions, suggesting that the true statistics may even be higher than that 20%.  Regardless, even at 20%, the laws of statistics would suggest that, even if you are luckily enough to be in the majority of people without a diagnosable condition, someone close to you is suffering from one, be it family, friend, colleague, teammate, etc. As such, chances are that one or more Mental Health Conditions will affect or have affected each and every one of our lives.

With the definitions out of the way, I can now focus on what led me to write this post.

Recently, I found myself listening to someone talking.  This individual is a first responder and recently had a run in with a pretty gruesome death.  This conversation seemingly triggered an emotional response and she demonstrated the anxiety that I have seen coincide with my previous experiences with PTSD.  I found myself surprised by this. Not because she was likely suffering from a Mental Health Condition, but because of the lack of attention and concern she, and her friends that she was sharing with, had for her symptoms.  As she went on, I was, further, alarmed for the seemingly lack of support provided by her employer, especially considering the trauma that is, for lack of a better word, more commonplace than in other occupations. Playing Devil’s Advocate on behalf of the employer, this lack of support may have been due to her refusal to request or avail herself to services and options that the employer does have in place.  Nevertheless, it appeared to me she was not seeking and had not received any help with her apparent PTSD. As a third party to this conversation, I did not probe or inquire further. Perhaps I should have, but then again, was it my place to hijack her attempts to share her experiences with her loved ones? I don’t know. But, I did not.

That experience led me to ask some questions to myself  not only about my own Mental Health but also how we, as a society, handle Mental Health Issues.  It also led me to seek out answers concerning Mental Health, answers to questions that I could not answer myself.  Further, it motivated me to compose this post and to share some personal experiences of my own struggles with and my experiences in witnessing others struggle with some Mental Health Conditions.  As I mentioned above in the disclaimer, I am not an expert on this and my experiences are admittedly limited. However, my hope is that my words lead someone or perhaps several someones to ask themselves questions and seek answers about Mental Health, much like the first responder’s story did for me.

My first real experiences with Mental Health Conditions came in High School. Unaware at the time, I had a classmate, well probably more than just one, who was desperately struggling with Depression.  I can look back now and see the evidence was clear as day. The withdrawal from her friends and other relationships and sudden and drastic shift in his attitude and interests should have been glaring signs to her friends, family, teachers, and even classmates, like myself.  However, I am sure, much like myself, most if not all of them rationalized these signs as something else, like a it being “just a phase,” or just did not know any better and, therefore, did not notice these signs. If her life were a Hollywood movie, something would have happened, which we would have taught us all a valuable lesson about Mental Health and she would get the help she needed with the help of her friends and family.  However, that is not what happened. Though she, unlike many others with similar struggles, found a way through her struggles, eventually sought out the help she needed, and, now years later, she appears to be living a much healthier life, I cannot help but wonder how different her life could have been if she got the help she clearly needed back in high school. Nevertheless, that experience helped me understand the importance of being aware of the signs and how seeking help can improve one’s life.

Several years later, I got a much closer look at how Depression can affect someone.  A close friend of mine had a hard time coping with the effects of Depression. His depression led him to struggle with self-harm and thoughts of suicide.  Unlike my previous experience, my proximity to him and his struggles were very enlightening. Further, it taught me many things about Depression and how to deal with it as a friend and loved one of the one struggling with it.  Of the many things I learned, the hardest for me was taking care of myself. Seeing his struggles, I could not help, but do everything I could to help him. However, this just led me to neglecting my own needs and my own life. I found myself so concerned with “abandoning” him, that my school life and work life began to suffer.  Not only was this obviously unhealthy and bad for me, but also I found myself doing more harm than good to his Mental Health. I learned that I was actually adding to his anxiety as he began to notice my issues and to blame himself for them. Further, as my neglect of my needs worsened, my ability to be supportive of him also worsened, as my patience and willingness to listen to his problems and concerns began to run out.  So, I had to find a balance in how I was living my life, in order to be the friend that he needed. Looking back, it still surprises me how much easier things got once I found that balance.

Not long after that experience, I had my first encounter with someone’s struggles with PTSD.  I had a close friend who was quite a bit older than me and chose to enlist in the military. In all honesty, he was likely driven more by a sense of rebellion than a sense of civic duty to do so, but he took the opportunity head on.  His experience in the military was mostly good. He had a few bad experiences due to some toxic masculinity, but overall he enjoyed his experience and made the most of it. I had always seen him as emotionally strong and he was always there for me growing up.  So much so, I idolized him for his strength and will. However, having will-power and strength does not make you immune to a Mental Health Condition. During one of his deployments, his unit was attacked and he lost several friends. This experience weighed on him.  To this day, he still struggles with PTSD stemming from the deployment. I have also learned that there he suffered a history of depression and battled eating disorders, not to mentioned survived sexual abuse, all ocurring before he enlisted that I never knew about. All of these things came to a head in the years following that deployment.  Living miles away in another state and without the connection we once had, I watched him, fueled by a desire to escape and forget, turn to drugs and alcohol. However, as many of us know, substance abuse is not a solution and it just developed into another problem, another struggle, addiction. To witness someone I admire so much and thought to be invincible, falling to such a low was a very scary and humbling experience for me.  It was a strong dose of reality for me, learning two things. One, we all wear masks and, to a certain extent, hide our feelings. Just because someone looks fine and healthy, there is no telling the demons and the struggles lying just below the surface. And second, we are all human and Mental Health is important for each and every one of us. As such, we can all find ourselves struggling with something sometimes.

This leads me to speak with my own issues and my experiences with Depression.  Several years ago, I found myself struggling with Depression. In all reality, I may have been dealing with it for longer, but it was then when it became apparent to me.  From my previous exposure to Depression, I knew its symptoms. However, I quickly found that, like many things in life, knowing something is not the same as experiencing it.  For me, I first noticed the lack of energy. I have never been what one might call “active” or even “energetic.” In fact, I was always a bit lazy and would often actively avoid activity.  However, this was a lot more than that. It wasn’t that I did not want to do something, it was more of an inability or a distinct lack of impetus to do even small and simple tasks. There would be days that I would just literally lay in bed all day, missing school and/or work.  Hell, I would not get up to eat or drink, or even use the bathroom.

Seemingly paired with the energy symptoms was the sleep disturbances.  As anyone who has suffered a disruption to their sleep cycle or has a sleep disorder can attest, the seemingly contradictory mix of inability to fall asleep and oversleeping will interfere with everything in your life.  The hours of sleeplessness from the insomnia leaves you tired and less responsive, inherently affecting your performance at work and school. Meanwhile the intermittent oversleeping obviously interferes with your timeliness and attendance at work, school, and even social activities.  Further, they also combine to frustrate your day-to-day activities and schedules. For example, my eating habits had to drastically shift, while experiencing these symptoms, from sleeping through meals and having a “fourth” mealtime because I was awake for an additional 6 or 7 hours.

Soon after this and probably coupled with the frustrations of those symptoms, I started developing the more apparent emotional symptoms.  I started to find myself irritable and tense, which inevitably led to frustratingly angry outbursts over meaningless things and, even, more restlessness exacerbating the sleep issues I was already  having. Further, the sadness and the lows also became apparent. For those you haven’t suffered from the lows associated with Depression and other similar conditions, it can be difficult to understand this sadness.  It's more than just feeling down or unhappy. It carries with it an existential feeling of dread and despair. It isn’t something that requires some “cheering up” or can be overcome with simple laughter. The feeling is deeper and almost sourceless.  As you sink into this fathomless darkness, it isn't that you cannot see a way back to the light, it is that there isn’t one. This dread much like the other symptoms quickly leads to more symptoms.

As I felt lost in this abyss, I quickly found myself losing interest and pleasure in the things I most enjoyed.  For those of you who do not know me, I am a cinephile, a lover of films and the theater experience. During episodes of Depression, I lost any desire to watch films, even the films that I love to watch over and over again lost their appeal.  I am also an avid gamer, but even those mildly addictive escapes from reality had no pull on my interest. Even when doing these hobbies, I would find myself distracted and just going through the motions. My favorite things provide me with no comfort or release.  Even my social interactions would suffer. Being distracted and not engaged when socializing with friends and even losing any interest or enjoyment of our more basic desires and needs.

Last but certainly not least for me, came the feelings of worthlessness or guilt.  I found myself stuck in my own head fixating on my failures and finding ways to blame myself for anything and everything.  These feelings just lead to even less enjoyment of activities, more despair, more sleep issues, and less energy. All of these things just compound and build upon you until you start to kind of feel numb.  Nothing really matters or means anything anymore, a feeling of pure apathy, which, at least for me, leads to a desire to feel anything. Joy, sadness, and even pain. It is here where things feel the most hopeless.  Even though it is here where I witness others turn to substance abuse, self-harm, and other destructive habits, I have found that this is often the stage where I find myself the most safe. Here at the bottom of the abyss, I know things cannot get much worse.  Though I know many never find their way out of this abyss, I find that hitting this bottom serves as a bit of a trigger forcing me to go the only way I can go back up.

The happiness and euphoria of feeling again and beginning to enjoy activities again begins to feel you with seemingly endless hope.  However, this hope is a honey trap. For as many times I have ridden this wave to restore myself to a healthy and positive Mental Health statutes, I have just as many times slipped and fallen down the slide back to the abyss.  It is at this stage that things I feel are the most dangerous. Because when I slip back into the abyss, I find myself pondering two things. These two things occupy my mind for virtually every waking moment. Those two things are:  Was this fall always inevitable? and What was the point of making the climb?  When at the top, it is easy to say “No” and find a reason for the climb.  But when that despair and hopelessness returns, my mind’s answers to those questions quickly become “Yes” and  “There isn’t one.” It is then when I feel completely subsumed by the deepest and darkest darkness.

Because I am both very introverted and very introspective, I often seek out answers on my own.  “Seeking out others is uncomfortable and I know no one knows me like I do, so why would I share my questions and thoughts.  Besides, others have their own stuff to deal with.” It is this internal dialog that often keeps me from reaching out and speaking about my feelings.  Also, growing up as a male in 1990’s America certainly didn’t dissuade this kind of thinking. Hell, I struggle admitting to myself that there might be a problem.  However, I have learned that this darkness can become very overwhelming very quickly, as there is no outlet or venting of these feelings if you refuse to seek help.

Much like I learned when trying to help my friend with his Depression, I learned that I need to take steps to take care of myself.  For me and for many, the first step to taking care of yourself is to ask for help. Finding someone who will listen and be supportive of me during my slides, while at the bottom, and especially during the climb.  However, I know that I cannot stop there. Even at the top, I must take steps, continue to work on being healthy, and being willing to seek help. For me, even though I am currently in a healthy state, I know that Depression and the threat of the abyss will always be something I struggle with.  The struggle in remembering that “maybe the fall was inevitable.” However, when I do, I know I need to find a way to remind myself or, better yet, find someone who will help remind me that there is always a point to making the climb, you just have to find it. At least, that is the way I see it.

P.S.  I know that it is my hubris to think that anybody reads my posts.  Nevertheless, if you have read this and you are experiencing any of this, or, perhaps, you find yourself on the slide, in the abyss, or on the climb, please talk to somebody, you do not have to do it alone.  There are so many resources available for those willing to look for them. If you need help finding one, PM me and I will help you find one. I know it can feel like there is nobody willing to listen or nobody who cares, but I assure you that there is and they do.  I am one of them.

[mrsteveecook]

my boss has strict kitchen rules, how to escape an exit interview, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My boss has strict rules about the office kitchen

I am curious about proper break room etiquette. We an office of about 11 people and a break room with no seating. Our kitchen is equipped with a refrigerator, microwave, toaster oven, sink, pantry, hot plate, flatware, and dishes, so most people bring lunch from home or buy frozen, prepared meals to eat at our desks.

At what point should the kitchen be spotless? The majority of my coworkers thoroughly clean the kitchen after they finish their meals, but our boss seems to feel that this should be done before or during the meal. If she finds a slice of carrot in the sink or a small puddle of mustard on the counter, she’ll call everyone in from eating and demand to know who did it. Often it’s not even the person who made the mess who cleans it up, but just someone who wants to return to finishing their lunch within the allotted break time. If it matters, most of us are hourly, so we’re not getting paid while eating. Is it generally okay to clean up after the meal, providing people actually do it?

Also, is it unprofessional to use disposable/used containers? I am on a limited budget, so I mostly bring leftovers from home. Over the years, I’ve had my good reusable containers go missing, so I often re-use sour cream or yogurt containers to bring my leftovers. I never microwave these and I always wash my containers well, but if my boss sees them in the dish drainer, she chucks them, claiming that they’re “dirty and unprofessional.” Is this true? If it makes any difference, our office is not client-facing so nobody sees my containers except my coworkers.

It sounds like your boss has some weird hang-ups about the kitchen. Your containers should be fine, and if she knows that you intend to reuse them, it’s really obnoxious for her to throw them out. By definition, if you’ve washed them, they’re not “dirty.” As for saying they’re “unprofessional” … I mean, I wouldn’t serve a meal to clients in a sour cream container, but it’s really no one’s business that you bring your lunch in them.

As for whether to clean the kitchen before or after meals, it’s not totally unreasonable to ask people not to leave a mess in the sink or on the counter before they start eating. It’s not great for someone else to come in to prepare their own lunch and have to work around that. Ultimately this one comes down to office culture — and it sounds like your boss is saying the rule there is to wipe down the sink and counter before you start eating, which isn’t unreasonable. (It might feel more unreasonable in the context of her larger kitchen hang-ups, though, since of course now you’re seeing everything through the lens of her recycled container hatred.)

2. How do I escape an exit interview with my terrible boss?

Unfortunately, my manager is a bad one and completely ignored any of the (constructive) feedack I gave in the last year. For these reasons, I recently decided to take an internal transfer in my (huge) company. When I informed him of my decision and was asked for the reasons, I was pretty honest — I gave him a couple of examples that bugged me in the last few months. Despite having read this blog, I could not see any harm in this at the time: He already knew I was pretty unhappy, my feedback was delivered calmly and professionally, and I had discussed those examples with him previously, when I still thought things might improve.

So I thought that was it. Instead, I was dragged into another meeting the following day, where he started to argue about those situations, explaining why he did everything right, and calling my decision to leave “extreme.” His tone was, as always, very professional, the message not so much. At the end of this meeting, he told me he was going to set up another meeting for us and my team lead (an intermediate layer between us who deals with day-to-day issues and has no real power) to further discuss my feedback. I told him that I was skeptical that this was a good idea and asked him not to do this. I had already discussed the main issues with both of them several times, and all these discussions are emotionally draining for me.

The following day he told me, “I know you do not want this meeting, but I will schedule it regardless.” Due to the way he delivered it, this felt like a declaration of war. It is not in line with our culture to just force feedback. I do not want this meeting and am afraid of being pressured to say things I do not want to say. I do not want the situation to escalate any further either, though.

What are my options? I could escalate it to my grand-boss, who values me and may stop this, but that would probably burn the bridge with my direct manager. Or I could just go there and smile and say nothing meaningful regardless of how much pressure is used, which my boss will definitely see through. I am afraid the situation is not salvageable at this point, and I should have listened to the “do not give even remotely honest feedback when leaving a bad manager” advice.

Try this first: “I appreciate that you’re interested in more feedback, but I genuinely don’t have any more to give, and my decision to move on is a final one. I don’t think this meeting makes sense as I have nothing else to offer, and I’d rather use my remaining time to focus on transitioning my work.”

But if that doesn’t work, then go to the meeting and give him nothing. Don’t be drawn into a discussion you don’t want to be in. Hold firm by saying things like “I really don’t have anything else I can offer that would be useful” and “I’ve given you all the feedback I have and can’t think of anything else to discuss.” You can also say, “Why don’t we use this time to discuss (transition items X, Y, and Z)?” In fact, if you do a little prep work on the transition ahead of time, you could ideally come ready with some high-priority topics related to transitioning your work, and might be able to distract him with those.

Ultimately, though, you don’t need to let yourself get pressured into things you don’t want to say. You can cheerfully insist you don’t have any other feedback to give and are excited to move into your new position for reasons unrelated to him. He’s not giving you truth serum! If you’re determined to get out of there without saying anything substantive, you can do that.

3. How should I handle starting to cover my hair at work?

I’ve been in the process of converting to Judaism for more than a year and I’m getting ready to finish that up. One thing I’ve been considering doing for quite some time is wearing a tichel (a scarf to cover my hair).

How do I approach this change at work? In a perfect world, it wouldn’t make a difference, but it feels specious to pretend that there isn’t a particular context and baggage around Jewish women covering their hair. I’m openly queer and vocally lefty and my coworkers and I are close enough that I don’t think their assessment of me will radically change.

Should I just show up wearing one and not comment? Should I give my supervisor a heads-up that this is something I’m considering? Am I just deeply overthinking this and it’s not that serious?

I don’t know that you’re overthinking it exactly — it’s a visible change that can carry big messages with it. But you definitely don’t need to give your manager a heads-up about it (particularly since you don’t want to sound as if you’re asking for her input or approval in any way). If you have a fairly close relationship with her, I could see mentioning it the way you might mention another big or interesting decision you were considering (“I’m starting to think about buying a house” or “Jane and I are talking about going to Spain this summer” or “I’ve started to study in preparation for converting to Judaism”) — in other words, the way you might share something significant going on in your life (if you do that with her; some manager/employee relationships are like that and some aren’t). But it’s not a heads-up that you need to give her or anyone else. It’s completely fine to just start doing it whenever you want to.

4. Why can’t I ask managers for their references?

I’ve been asked for references by prospective employers. It’s a usual part of the hiring process. Seems reasonable. But I’ve always wondered how employers would respond if the I asked for references for my prospective new manager.

I want to ask for references from people who have worked for this manager in the past. I’ve never had the nerve to do it. But why not? Why wouldn’t I want to know more about this person?

You can — you just don’t call it that, because of the conventions around this stuff. But if you get a job offer, you can absolutely say, “Would it be possible for me to set up a phone call or two with members of the team, to learn more about their experience with the organization?” (In fact, the more senior you get, the more common it is for employers to proactively include these conversations as an official part of the hiring process.)

5. Explaining why I didn’t job search for a few months after being laid off

I am currently searching for a new job after being downsized at the beginning of fourth quarter last year. I took a couple of months at the holidays and did not do much in terms of job searching, partly because I enjoyed having time off and having been a hiring manager before, I know most corporations don’t do a lot of hiring in the fourth quarter. I am now having some phone interviews and everyone has asked why I have not worked in the last several months. Does it look bad that I decided to take that time off or should I come up with a different explanation?

It shouldn’t look bad, but some interviewers are weird about hearing that you were just hanging around doing nothing, even though taking a few months off is hardly a shocking sin. Because of that, though, I’d frame it this way: “I took some time off to handle some family projects (or personal projects you wanted to get done, or projects around the house) and think about what I wanted to do next, and now I’m excited to get back to work.”

You may also like:

should we stop stocking the office kitchen if people won’t keep it clean?

why should I have to help clean the office kitchen when I never use it?

how can I stop people from stealing my food in the office fridge?

my boss has strict kitchen rules, how to escape an exit interview, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

from Ask a Manager https://ift.tt/2O06Tjt

[nancyedimick]

American bloggers criticizing American company threatened by French lawyer citing French law

Many copyright owners, when they see what appears to be online infringement of their works, send cease-and-desist letters that threaten a lawsuit if the material isn’t taken down. But some copyright owners don’t give alleged infringers an opportunity to avoid liability by stopping; instead, they just demand payment.

This may be legally justified: If the poster really is infringing, then he has violated the owners’ rights and is subject to a lawsuit for damages whether or not he takes down the material. These damages can often include statutory damages of $750 to $30,000, or up to $150,000 if the infringement is willful, or down to $200 if it’s innocent. But many people think such demands are unethical, especially when the poster has a good fair-use defense but might lack the money to litigate it.

Matthew Chan runs ExtortionLetterInfo, which criticizes companies that send such letters, and especially Getty Images:

ExtortionLetterInfo.com (ELI) is dedicated to reporting information and providing commentary on Getty Images (and other stock photo) Settlement Demand Letters. ELI is a privately-owned and privately-managed website. Every effort is made to provide factual information and professional opinions regarding Getty Images’ (and the respective companies’) “practice” of issuing “Settlement Letters” that we consider “legalized extortion”.

As Lead Contributors of this website, we believe what they are doing is technically legal but ethically and morally questionable. “The Letter” bullies and preys upon the legal ignorance of the letter recipients. This website attempts to discover, report, and comment on the facts in a civil and orderly way. This website also provides assistance in defending unaware and unintended victims of this Letter.

You can agree or disagree with the opinions that this expresses — but under U.S. law, these are constitutionally protected opinions, and not the basis for a libel lawsuit. Though “extortion” is the name of a crime, in this context it’s clear that “extortion” is actually being used to express moral condemnation. Indeed, in Greenbelt Cooperative Pub. Ass’n v. Bresler (1970), the Supreme Court so held in a case involving someone accusing a business of “blackmail”:

It is simply impossible to believe that a reader who reached the word “blackmail” in either article would not have understood exactly what was meant: it was Bresler’s public and wholly legal negotiating proposals that were being criticized. No reader could have thought that either the speakers at the meetings or the newspaper articles reporting their words were charging Bresler with the commission of a criminal offense. On the contrary, even the most careless reader must have perceived that the word was no more than rhetorical hyperbole, a vigorous epithet used by those who considered Bresler’s negotiating position extremely unreasonable.

The very same logic would apply to Chan’s labeling Getty Images’ actions as “extortion.”

That’s why I was surprised to see this letter, sent by French lawyer Vanessa Bouchara — representing Getty Images France — to Matthew Chan. (Similar letters were apparently sent to various other critics of Getty Images.)

Sir,

I am the legal adviser of the company GETTY IMAGES.

The company GETTY IMAGES is the biggest global database. Its main activity is the supply, development and worldwide distribution of online images, videos and music under which many communication professionals made use.

Indeed, it enjoys an established reputation both domestically and internationally. However, my client found many comments which seriously jeopardize its practice on your web site www.extortionletterinfo.com …..

Indeed, the combination of the words «GETTY IMAGES» and «extortion» or «arnaque» (fraud) on the search engine Google bring us directly to your web site.

Furthermore, the regularity of the methods and of the proceedings used by our client had also been questioned, which have been described as «legalized extortion» and «Extortion Letter Scheme».

Please find bellow some of the litigious statements [quoting, among other things, the Mission Statement I quoted above -EV].

According to the judgment given by the First Civil Division of the French Supreme Court on the 12th of July 2012, this is particularly intolerable and reprehensible.

Those acts of gross disparagement seriously damage GETTY IMAGES’ image.

This article discredits the services offered by my client. Moreover, it calls into question its seriousness and honesty by accusing it, in a totally unfunded manner, to be the author of dubious proceedings.

According to a judgment given by the Commercial Division of the French Supreme Court on the 15th of December 2009, disparagement is to discredit someone by spreading criticisms and malicious information about it or its business methods.

Moreover, on the 5th of June 2002, the Paris District Court ruled that interactions between web users on discussion forums which comments obviously contain fraud imputations and questionable practices exceed the limits of the liberty of expression. Indeed, it reaches denigration which impair the honor and do not respect the dignity to whom it is directed.

Thus, as the registrant of the web site in question, you are responsible for the information disclosed on it, notably regarding their reliability, veracity or completeness.

Under the judgment given by the First Civil Division of the French Supreme Court on the 5th of July 2006, you shall observed the most elementary prudence concerning the content of the comments disclosed.

Yet, in this case, those statements have undeniably exceeded the right to criticize.

Furthermore, those statements incite to violate GETTY IMAGES’ rights, which is particularly intolerable.

As a result you shall withdraw every indication disparaging my client on your website.

If you do not comply with this letter of formal notice within 8 days from the date of its receipt and, in any case, before the 27th of December, I had been instructed to initiate all appropriate action against you.

We truly hope we will not go that far, and that we will quickly manage to settle this matter.

Pursuant to our professional rules, we are available to discuss this case with your usual adviser.

This is pretty striking: Chan, after all, was an American blogger criticizing an American company (Getty Images), even if this by implication may have carried over to its French branch. Now a French lawyer is threatening him — and others — in reliance on French law. One target, Zyra.info, seems to have taken down its materials based on a letter from the same lawyer, though I have not seen that particular letter.

Our readers know that I’m a pugnacious fellow when it comes to things like this. (So, I get the sense, is Chan, and I say that as high praise.) I’m getting excited. Foreign law in American courts! SPEECH Act! (That’s the federal statute that provides that foreign libel judgments are generally unenforceable in U.S. courts unless they would have been consistent with the First Amendment if they had been rendered by a U.S. court.)

But Getty Images just ruined it all for me. When I e-mailed Vanessa Bouchara for her comment, she got back to me to say that she’d respond Monday, but then didn’t respond further. When I e-mailed Getty Images, I got this response:

Dear Eugene,

Your inquiry to Ms Bouchara of CABINET BOUCHARA – Avocats has been brought to Getty Images’ attention and we wanted to provide the below statement from Getty Images:

Cabinet Bouchara was retained as our outside counsel in France, having previously been granted limited permission to act on Getty Images’ behalf in this region only. The firm were under no means sanctioned to contact sites outside of this jurisdiction, including in North America, however it has come to our attention that this has in fact unfortunately occurred.

This practice has been ceased immediately and we apologize for the error.

Kind regards, …

Spoilsports. No, I mean, good to hear. Really.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/01/10/american-bloggers-criticizing-american-company-threatened-by-french-lawyer-citing-french-law/

[wolfandpravato]

American bloggers criticizing American company threatened by French lawyer citing French law

Many copyright owners, when they see what appears to be online infringement of their works, send cease-and-desist letters that threaten a lawsuit if the material isn’t taken down. But some copyright owners don’t give alleged infringers an opportunity to avoid liability by stopping; instead, they just demand payment.

This may be legally justified: If the poster really is infringing, then he has violated the owners’ rights and is subject to a lawsuit for damages whether or not he takes down the material. These damages can often include statutory damages of $750 to $30,000, or up to $150,000 if the infringement is willful, or down to $200 if it’s innocent. But many people think such demands are unethical, especially when the poster has a good fair-use defense but might lack the money to litigate it.

Matthew Chan runs ExtortionLetterInfo, which criticizes companies that send such letters, and especially Getty Images:

ExtortionLetterInfo.com (ELI) is dedicated to reporting information and providing commentary on Getty Images (and other stock photo) Settlement Demand Letters. ELI is a privately-owned and privately-managed website. Every effort is made to provide factual information and professional opinions regarding Getty Images’ (and the respective companies’) “practice” of issuing “Settlement Letters” that we consider “legalized extortion”.

As Lead Contributors of this website, we believe what they are doing is technically legal but ethically and morally questionable. “The Letter” bullies and preys upon the legal ignorance of the letter recipients. This website attempts to discover, report, and comment on the facts in a civil and orderly way. This website also provides assistance in defending unaware and unintended victims of this Letter.

You can agree or disagree with the opinions that this expresses — but under U.S. law, these are constitutionally protected opinions, and not the basis for a libel lawsuit. Though “extortion” is the name of a crime, in this context it’s clear that “extortion” is actually being used to express moral condemnation. Indeed, in Greenbelt Cooperative Pub. Ass’n v. Bresler (1970), the Supreme Court so held in a case involving someone accusing a business of “blackmail”:

It is simply impossible to believe that a reader who reached the word “blackmail” in either article would not have understood exactly what was meant: it was Bresler’s public and wholly legal negotiating proposals that were being criticized. No reader could have thought that either the speakers at the meetings or the newspaper articles reporting their words were charging Bresler with the commission of a criminal offense. On the contrary, even the most careless reader must have perceived that the word was no more than rhetorical hyperbole, a vigorous epithet used by those who considered Bresler’s negotiating position extremely unreasonable.

The very same logic would apply to Chan’s labeling Getty Images’ actions as “extortion.”

That’s why I was surprised to see this letter, sent by French lawyer Vanessa Bouchara — representing Getty Images France — to Matthew Chan. (Similar letters were apparently sent to various other critics of Getty Images.)

Sir,

I am the legal adviser of the company GETTY IMAGES.

The company GETTY IMAGES is the biggest global database. Its main activity is the supply, development and worldwide distribution of online images, videos and music under which many communication professionals made use.

Indeed, it enjoys an established reputation both domestically and internationally. However, my client found many comments which seriously jeopardize its practice on your web site www.extortionletterinfo.com …..

Indeed, the combination of the words «GETTY IMAGES» and «extortion» or «arnaque» (fraud) on the search engine Google bring us directly to your web site.

Furthermore, the regularity of the methods and of the proceedings used by our client had also been questioned, which have been described as «legalized extortion» and «Extortion Letter Scheme».

Please find bellow some of the litigious statements [quoting, among other things, the Mission Statement I quoted above -EV].

According to the judgment given by the First Civil Division of the French Supreme Court on the 12th of July 2012, this is particularly intolerable and reprehensible.

Those acts of gross disparagement seriously damage GETTY IMAGES’ image.

This article discredits the services offered by my client. Moreover, it calls into question its seriousness and honesty by accusing it, in a totally unfunded manner, to be the author of dubious proceedings.

According to a judgment given by the Commercial Division of the French Supreme Court on the 15th of December 2009, disparagement is to discredit someone by spreading criticisms and malicious information about it or its business methods.

Moreover, on the 5th of June 2002, the Paris District Court ruled that interactions between web users on discussion forums which comments obviously contain fraud imputations and questionable practices exceed the limits of the liberty of expression. Indeed, it reaches denigration which impair the honor and do not respect the dignity to whom it is directed.

Thus, as the registrant of the web site in question, you are responsible for the information disclosed on it, notably regarding their reliability, veracity or completeness.

Under the judgment given by the First Civil Division of the French Supreme Court on the 5th of July 2006, you shall observed the most elementary prudence concerning the content of the comments disclosed.

Yet, in this case, those statements have undeniably exceeded the right to criticize.

Furthermore, those statements incite to violate GETTY IMAGES’ rights, which is particularly intolerable.

As a result you shall withdraw every indication disparaging my client on your website.

If you do not comply with this letter of formal notice within 8 days from the date of its receipt and, in any case, before the 27th of December, I had been instructed to initiate all appropriate action against you.

We truly hope we will not go that far, and that we will quickly manage to settle this matter.

Pursuant to our professional rules, we are available to discuss this case with your usual adviser.

This is pretty striking: Chan, after all, was an American blogger criticizing an American company (Getty Images), even if this by implication may have carried over to its French branch. Now a French lawyer is threatening him — and others — in reliance on French law. One target, Zyra.info, seems to have taken down its materials based on a letter from the same lawyer, though I have not seen that particular letter.

Our readers know that I’m a pugnacious fellow when it comes to things like this. (So, I get the sense, is Chan, and I say that as high praise.) I’m getting excited. Foreign law in American courts! SPEECH Act! (That’s the federal statute that provides that foreign libel judgments are generally unenforceable in U.S. courts unless they would have been consistent with the First Amendment if they had been rendered by a U.S. court.)

But Getty Images just ruined it all for me. When I e-mailed Vanessa Bouchara for her comment, she got back to me to say that she’d respond Monday, but then didn’t respond further. When I e-mailed Getty Images, I got this response:

Dear Eugene,

Your inquiry to Ms Bouchara of CABINET BOUCHARA – Avocats has been brought to Getty Images’ attention and we wanted to provide the below statement from Getty Images:

Cabinet Bouchara was retained as our outside counsel in France, having previously been granted limited permission to act on Getty Images’ behalf in this region only. The firm were under no means sanctioned to contact sites outside of this jurisdiction, including in North America, however it has come to our attention that this has in fact unfortunately occurred.

This practice has been ceased immediately and we apologize for the error.

Kind regards, …

Spoilsports. No, I mean, good to hear. Really.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/01/10/american-bloggers-criticizing-american-company-threatened-by-french-lawyer-citing-french-law/

#Law #Lawyer