here garden

kaladin and shallan have two ends of the 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' story within a corrupt system while dalinar realizes from his position as an embodiment of the system that corruption exists. there are good moments here and good themes, hope and perseverance and don't kill yourself etc. (neoliberal slop)

then we get moash and the parshmen are people reveal. the ambiguity of the moash storyline is what makes it compelling. if there wasn't a case to be made from both sides then it doesn't work. the audience needs to be with kaladin all the way through even as he helps and then ultimately betrays moash. parshmen slaves being full sentient beings is a slight subversion of a sort of house elf trope, but not unexpected. we have had rlain the whole time as a tease that things are not what they seem.

oathbringer is where it all comes together to get to the point where reality and fantasy are almost merging. humans conquered the continent and subjugated and exterminated the natives and their culture. your way of life, even if you can't abandon it was built on genocide and slave labor. can you still participate in that and consider yourself a good person?

and then RoW shows that Brandon isn't ready to write these books. he regresses back into fantasy, dropping the ball on the moral rolling stone that has been building momentum since minute one. all nuance is written out and it becomes a straightforward fight between good and evil.

the way odium and the fused were written means that any doylist critique can be given a watsonian answer.

q: should the land of the continent that was violently conquered be given back to its original inhabitants?

a: no because they worship an evil god.

q: when, if ever, is revolutionary violence justified?

a: never, he told his best friend to kill himself.

I explained very clearly to the manager my issue with the meat section not having the price tags listed, and they claimed it was only going to be for the meat, since meat is by weight, and the price of each item is printed on the packs of each item.

Sure. That’s how they get their foot in the door. Fast forward not even two weeks, and here we are:

Bar codes. No prices, no item descriptions. No price stickers on the individual items. Heck, not even the name of the item that is SUPPOSED to be there.

No. The only way to see the price is to scan it on your phone app, which is also recording what you looked at recently, as a way of gauging what you might be looking for in the future.

So here’s what we’re gonna do gang:

Every time you go into a store that has implemented these price-less tags:

Take 1-3 items up to the cash register. Ask the cashier for the price, or hit the price check item on the self checkout, which will likely call over the attendant.

Express that you didn’t actually want it, you just couldn’t see on the shelf how much it was.

POLITELY, AND WITH A THANK YOU FOR THE PRICE CONFIRMATION, Give the items to the cashier or attendant to put back.

When they inevitably try to push the app, politely decline. If pressed for why not, say you don’t want to have to carry your phone in-hand the whole time you are shopping in order to see how much things cost. (Not having cell service or data to use the app is NOT a valid excuse, as stores already often have complimentary WiFi AND more stores will provide WiFi rather than give up on this push for surveillance pricing)

If it’s a shelf-stable item, the cashier will have to set it aside, taking up room in their limited operating space, and eventually pass it off to someone to put in a holding area to put back later. If it’s a fridge/freezer item, it might have to get tossed due to food product sale regulations.

In either case, you are making it a pain in the ass for them to have these digital bar codes. Tie up the checkouts. Give the employees more busywork that the company has to pay them to do. Hurt their bottom line having to toss the pint of ice cream you carried around in your cart for 20 minutes before giving it back to the cashier.

I wanted to make a more detailed post and explain a bit further and all but. Long story short, I had sepsis and almost died. Surprise!

I started feeling pain in my leg, which had a intramedullary nail and three screws since 2019. They got infected at some point in the past year, I got them removed, but now with recovery I wanna help out to pay for my meds…

So my commissions now go for both my health and the old lady, because yes, she still needs meds and check ups, even if I haven’t been able to go cause walking is hard atm. The prices have gone up just a bit.

Link to my ko-fi!

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