Chalk Revelations

Rolin and Co. do not give a fuck about optics when it comes to the writing of this show. They do not care about fandom tantrums or backlash, or anything else, when it comes to the writing of this show.

Rolin said he and AMC are prepared for people to drop the show. That was not a bluff. He talked about this all the way back after Season 1.

For Rolin, he is adapting the books, first and foremost. He is looking at the story, first and foremost.

And in that adaptation, they will make changes for things they think work better in a visual medium, and so that some characters who got sidelined in the books will be more active and have fuller/more connected character arcs (Louis, Daniel).

But as I said before the season started, people really have to take off the rose-colored glasses regarding what this show will or will not do going forward. Because if you really think they won't do something just because of optics, well...

The show will do it. It was always going to do it. Because, for Rolin and this particular adaptation, the characters' arcs and story clearly come first, above all else.

And none of those things have been changed just because Louis' race, or Armand's race, or Daniel's age are different from their counterparts in the books. Those things were always about adding things to the characters -- more layers, more depth, etc. But it never fundamentally changed them into completely different characters vis-à-vis their book counterparts.

Again, Louis was made a pimp to keep his character as one who exploited other people for profit, just like his book counterpart had been.

These things have all clearly been long thought about and planned when it comes to the broad strokes of where the characters are going, story arc-wise.

So yes, some things are going to happen, and were always going to happen. And the race and age changes were never going to change those things that are coming.

* * * * *

And as a side note? I think much of the surprise about all of this comes from people being used to dealing with shows that do care about "fan engagement" when it comes to their writing. I think many people thought that if they were just loud enough (or bullied enough, including bullying the writer's room right off Twitter), the show would totally do the things they wanted it to do.

And are now utterly confused that that tactic didn't work, and it is looking more and more like the show is going to do the things some have been screaming for four years that it better not do.

And that anyone who kept saying the show was very much going to do those things was not saying so because it was something they wished, or were being racist, ageist, or anything else; we just had a clear reading of the story and the signals the show was sending about where it was going with all of this.

So yeah, it's all coming; it was always going to come to this, and there is no way to stop any of it.

And there never was.

And, as I've said, if fandom had been a different place, maybe nuanced discussions about all of this could have happened about it all before now.

Oh well.

In the scene where Smoke teaches the young girl how to negotiate, they're standing in front of of a cafe. The shot of them negotiating is framed so that you see a sign in the cafe window advertising a Ham and Eggs breakfast - in other words, a full meal - for 25 cents. The editing makes sure to put that sign back into frame whenever the question of the value of money arises in their discussion.

Smoke offers her 10 cents a minute and asks if that works for her. She says yes. He says no, it does not and tells her to negotiate higher. The 25 cent sign is framed in the shot when he tells her no, reminding us *why* it's not a good value.

She comes back with 50 cents - which the sign has informed us is the cost of *two* meals. Smoke tells her that's too much and counters with 20, which is just under a full meal but we now know that's a fairly respectable price because we just got the high/low contrast of 10 being too little and 50 being too much.

The negotiation ends with her getting 20 cents per minute and we now know 1) 25 cents is the cost of a filling meal in this environment 2) This girl only needs to do five minutes of work to be able to feed herself for a over day (20 cents per minute times five is a dollar, which is four meals) 3) Smoke has the kind of money to throw around that over a day's worth of food for someone can be to him - as it is to our modern eyes - mere pocket change and 4) Smoke's the kind of person who can both be a violent gangster but also care about teaching this girl how to look out for herself so that one day maybe she too can throw over a day's worth of food around like pocket change.

Combined with 5) you can now use that 25 cents = a meal to do the math every other time money gets mentioned in the movie to understand just how much cash the Smoke Stack boys are dealing with.

I just want to catch spelling errors and accidental double spaces and repeated phrases and whenever I use the wrong too/to or affect/effect and shit. But no. They've shoved AI up the ass of every grammar checking software out there and now they all fucking suck and make the most random, obnoxious, nonsensical suggestions.

I get why people keep saying this (and other versions of it like "Use Adobe alternatives" and "Use Google product alternatives."). But here's the problem: I do not create in isolation. Even my own 100% personal projects are getting sent to other people whether it's editors or printers or beta readers and unless every single person in that train is using the same products, things can get wonky.

Libre Office and Word handle formatting differently on the back end, which can completely break documents if you move them back and forth between the two. So if I write in Libre Office but my beta readers are still using Word, when I send them a manuscript for review there's a good chance things won't look right and my beta reader will not actually be reviewing what I sent them.

:| :| :|

Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.

So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.

But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.

It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?

So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:

Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.

And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.

So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".

So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.

My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.

Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.

Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.

Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).

Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues

According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.

Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.

For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.

Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life

Aaand a close-up:

HEY HI HELLO THIS ONE'S MY FAVORITE

Too often, Democracy is presented to us as the boring, moderate option, only chosen by conformists and the indecisive masses. I am here to tell you:

Democracy is not Moderate. Democracy is Radical.

Democracy is the last major political ideology to insist that legitimacy rises from the many and not the few.

Every other system - no matter how it dresses itself up - rests on the same grim foundation: that power must be concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite. Sometimes it is in the hands of The Party's Politburo, sometimes it's the Guardian Mullahs, sometimes a Noble Bloodline, sometimes it's the President-for-Life and his pathetic cadre of sycophants.

It doesn't matter what ideology props up Tyranny. The labels differ, but the structure is identical - a small group decides, and the rest of us obey. Strip away the slogans and you find the same contempt underneath: a profound distrust of humanity as a whole.

And that is how it has always been - in most places, and for most of human history. But Democracy is the rejection of that structure at its root.

Democracy is not tidy. It is not efficient. It is not comforting. It is a stubborn, defiant insistence that ordinary people - in all their conflicted ignorance, prejudice, generosity, and brilliance - are entitled to govern themselves. Not because they are perfect, but because they are human.

It assumes that the people are not livestock to be managed, nor children to be shielded from dangerous thoughts, but moral agents capable of judgment, disagreement, and correction.

There is nothing moderate about that.

And that is why Democracy and Freedom of Expression are inseparable. A system that depends on the people’s consent must allow the people to speak - to argue, to offend, to be wrong, to be foolish, to be alarming. Either you trust the people or you do not.

Democracy cannot survive on curated truths and sanitized discourse. It requires exposure to bad ideas so that better ones can defeat them in the open. It requires citizens who can hear something repulsive and reject it for themselves.

Authoritarian systems have no need for Freedom of Expression. They do not require educated citizens, only compliant ones. They do not need critical thinking, only discipline. Speech is dangerous to them precisely because it invites comparison, skepticism, and refusal. So the Authoritarians of all colors regulate it - not for any public good, but for their own survival.

Here in America, Democracy is strained. The public sometimes chooses poorly. Demagogues rise. Falsehood spreads. But the system is showing its cracks precisely because it allows us to see them.

The answer to bad democratic outcomes is not to abandon democracy - it is to defend it more fiercely. A system that permits error is the only system that permits correction.

I know that the temptation, in moments of fear and frustration, is to reach for guardians - to wish for someone stronger, smarter, cleaner to take the wheel so that you do not have to confront it yourself. That temptation is ancient, but it has always led to the same place: The surrender of voice. The criminalization of dissent. The quiet suffocation of truth.

Democracy asks something harder of us. It asks us to believe that people, together, can learn - can improve. That exposure to ideas does not inevitably corrupt. That sunlight does more good than silence. That freedom - including the freedom to create and consume shocking, offensive, unsettling ideas - is not a threat to legitimacy, but its foundation.

Democracy is not easy and it is not perfect. Democracy rejects the fantasy that some flawless leader will come along to save us. It does not falsely promise us good outcomes every time.

In this case, accurately assessing their comfort levels might feel like underestimating themselves. But it's necessary to not overexert and avoid further burnout.

—

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