#contradictions of control

[fishie-aziz]

“When the school’s organization becomes centered on managing and controlling, teachers and students take school less seriously. They fall into a ritual of teaching and learning that tends toward minimal standards and minimum effort. This sets off a vicious cycle. As students disengage from enthusiastic involvement in the learning process, administrators often see the disengagement as a control problem. They then increase their attention to managing students and teachers rather than supporting their instructional purpose.”

Linda McNeil, Contradictions of Control: School Structure and School Knowledge

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

At rest, your lungs wish to deflate, and your ribcage expands outwards.

[escargon]

I made a teacher oc omg. I almost never make fan characters so I hope yall like her!! She teaches "compassion" and swaps the three into each other's bodies to make them "better understand each other's hardships. This was a way to integrate goofy bodyswap shenanigans into their world that spiralled further and further away from her involvement but oh well hehe

Thank you @dhmis-autism for allowing me to bounce off ideas <3 <3

More about her under the cut!

Understanding and compassion can and do take many forms within the three of them, but she only sees one way to express it and it's through very theatrical gestures that don't come naturally to any one of them. Her song would be all about how you don't know what someone else is going through, and that anyone can be secretly struggling.

A great message but executed in a heavily-watched and high-pressure environment to share the "right kind of vulnerability," and when she's inevitably dissatisfied by the trio's subtle way of caring for each other the shoes come out and she forcibly makes them to tour the dark part of each other's minds, and experience the physical discomfort of being in a completely different body, insisting that it's "dishonest" to keep things hidden between "close friends"

She doesn't like long stretches where her students talk to each other without her "guidance", and she quickly loses patience and her temper if she feels they're not expressing their feelings or compassion towards one another "correctly." Due to the vulnerability she encourages, even the smallest of her insults are shocking and very personal, gathered through her guided tours of each others minds

I would want her to be voiced by Becky but overlayed with Vivienne Soan's voice when she yells. I think it's fun like that.

[ineffableteeth]

What would’ve happened to Crowley if Aziraphale “blew up his halo” while he was in the shop?

Would he get knocked out like Shax?

Actually that brings me to another question why wasn’t Shax discorporated?

[radifemsara]

How is it that a twelve year old girl is old enough to give birth to a living being when she is required to have parental approval to check out a book from her local library?

[erstwhilesparrow]

hey does it ever make you kind of crazy that post-reunion, c!owen introduces himself to us as owen agarci? agarci as in the name of the demon he shot in the chest during his trial? we know that's not c!owen's real last name -- he tells us so right then and there -- but i think it matters that of the last names he could have chosen for his lie, he took this one. his last name might have been the only thing he still carried with him of his family, of his past before the attack, and he refuses to use it or admit to it.

because it is an introduction, y'know? his narration, after the reunion, is a way of remaking himself in our eyes -- he is not the person we thought he was, so he needs to introduce himself again. and here, the thing he claims as his originating point, as the moment from his past he wants to carry around with him in something so fundamental as his name, is the moment he first killed a demon. this is the most important piece of his past. this, he is telling us, is where he comes from.

i think a lot about how we never actually see owen's parents. i don't even think we get their names? we get their voices in flashbacks over shots of empty fields and unpopulated streets. there is a kind of blankness to owen's past, or to what owen will reveal to us of his past, that forces us to take on faith that he is telling the truth when he talks about his own history. there is no one who could say otherwise; all the people who might have known him before he was a soldier and then a general are almost certainly dead.

it grants owen a fascinating degree of control over his own history. of course he can remake himself in this way, of course he can tell any story he wants of himself in this way; there's no one left to dispute his claims. in a way, he is his own origin -- as he tells us the story of his life, he is also creating that story. he came out of those woods with nothing but a bow on his back, no history, no one still living who could call to him by name. whatever life he lived before that point doesn't matter -- the thing that fundamentally made him the person who walked into town and demanded to join the army wasn't the life he lived with his parents, it was the violence he'd been exposed to and the violence he'd discovered himself willing and able to engage in. or so his story goes.

do you think when he woke up at the bottom of that elevator, memories wiped, nothing left to him of his past, there was some strange sense that he had done this before? do you think he rose up toward the light of the clearing above, empty-handed and alive, his entire life before this point a history waiting for him to tell it, and wondered why it felt familiar?

or maybe it's that he's refusing us. because following his turn during reunion, there's almost a sense that he has tighter control of the camera now. he addresses his 'voices' nearly antagonistically, wishing we/they would go away, responding and talking to us/them in a way that feels harsher than how he's addressed chat in the past. he's frustrated with us/them: why are you still here, i thought i was done with you. he accuses us/them of only pretending to care, of lingering not so much out of concern or any desire to do something as out of some morbid curiosity. there's a degree of access to him that we seem to have lost. it's as if he's finally certain that there is an audience, and what he's willing to show us shifts.

there's something really lovely and horrifying about a lot of the more scripted sections of owen's pov after the reunion. how it shows us things only he knows (the knife in his hotbar for much of his dinner conversation with guts, the beat where he grabs his backpack and reaches for a weapon when it seems like ayngel is about to recognize him, the interaction with puddy in the second clearing when he visits with krow), but we are nevertheless shut out of his interiority as he starts talking less to others, starts favouring third-person camera shots and narration where he gets to step out of the moment and talk to us directly. you can even think about the 'scripted by owengejuicetv' segments after each kill as signalling this: he has such visible direct control of the story we get to know now. he is the one who gets to tell this story, who gets to move the pieces on the board. here's what happened, he says to us. this is how it went. this is what i do and who i am and here are the parts that mattered. do you ever think about how rasbi's ending wasn't streamed from her pov? do you ever think about how the only witnesses to rasbi's death were rasbi herself, and owen?

[gunpowder-gemini]

i've figured out the my writing process is to write in a non-stop stream of consciousness and then go through and weed out all the unnecessary world-building i've rambled about for paragraphs so the story is actually readable and, y'know, a story and not an in depth manual on my headcanons on how various things in the world work that occasionally breaks out into plot.

[arbor-tristis]

The symbolism of Hawk wanting his clothes folded during sex.........he can never lose himself completely......he always has to be mindful..... because when the hookup is over and he has to put his clothes back on........ and leave....... He made sure nobody would be able to tell what he has been up to.......... So he was never able to let himself go and rip and throw his clothes across the room in passion........ because he is never able to stop Thinking.....about the way he is perceived.............by People...........he is always so cautious..........so hyperaware........so methodical.......even through unshakeable desire........Hawkins Fuller

[thequeenofmyownscreen]

Something that struck me when Marisha was describing Laudna's thoughts as she held Bor'Dor, and was the one who could decide between life and death (since he had already failed 2 death saving throws) :

"Laudna is barely present right now. The only thing that is flashing through her head is Bor’Dor’s words about knowing true pain. That look of someone who knows true pain.

It's as if her life was flashing before her eyes, but it’s all of the trauma that she’s experiencing between losing Imogen, and the solstice, and losing her friends, and watching so many people die, and then being hung on the tree. Death upon death upon death.

Feeling so helpless and so out of control, here recently. In this moment, she has control. She has regained a sense of control and nothing is going to stand in her way."

Laudna has flashes of the violence brought upon her, before the adventure (her first death hanging at the Sun Tree), and the trauma of the battle of the solstice, losing Imogen, etc. BUT she didn't reference AT ALL her second death, at the hands of Otohan Thull, the very leader of the Ruby Vanguard Bor'Dor aligned with.

This isn't vengeance for being killed. It's punishment for the broken trust and to attempt to stop the general cycle of violence brought upon Bell's Hells.

[zvaigzdelasas]

I've got a pretty shocking revelation about the political valence of Google Maps & the feasibility of making a territorial map that satisfies everyone

[decamarks]

So how do you feel about the Ultrakill arg revealing that Hell is a living, sentient being?

HEHEHEE i actually kinda suspected it already!! the only piece that i was off about was that i specifically thought it was more that hell was being controlled by the terminals as a hivemind—but i WAS still right about those guys being sentient. either way it makes sense and it's a very cute diegetic explanation for some otherwise distinctly video game-y stuff, which i ALWAYS appreciate in any game.

[everlastiingiimmortals]

for someone who gets so easily overwhelmed by physical stimuli, why would Ratio wear fingerless gloves, if texture is something that can frequently squick him out?

to him, the answer is honestly quite simple, as much as it is contradictory as well. it's personal, intimate. to be perceived is to be known, and he would rather know the thing he touches than not. he is someone with nothing to hide, so why should he put up any barrier between himself and what he makes contact with? if he doesn't like something, that's not a problem. he can tolerate it, or at least make his displeasure known.

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

When did Edward get his branch line? My friend says 1923. I saw somewhere that it was 1945, it might have even been here on your blog. What is canon? 

- A Former Anon

Welcome to non-lurkerdom, Former Anon! Pull up a chair. Get yourself a profile pic. Stay a while.

*strokes chin philosophically* What is canon, indeed...

First, let's stipulate that we're talking RWS. I don't actually think TVS contradicts anything I have to say here but its weird-ass chronology certainly doesn't help so let's pretty much set it aside.

Second: you might be thinking of a time way back—like, way back—when I cited 1948. That was what TTTE Wiki said in 2020, and I hadn't read all of RWS in order so I trusted it. However, I don't think there was ever any canon basis for this date specifically—and I think the Wiki editors realized it too, since that fact has long since been scrubbed from the site. It's still not a bad choice, though; just way too specific to be called canon.

Third, and tl;dr: As far as I can tell, you could say anywhere between... 1923 and 1965 and still be canon-compliant?? Yeah, that's right, a spread of forty-plus years. It's actually kind of incredible to me that the window is that wide open but there you are.

Now, it is extremely common for fanworks to have Edward "get his branch line" in the early 1920s, like after TTRE or TTTE. But I don't think that's a good reading. Technically it's not incorrect but it doesn't harmonize well with what we see him doing in canon throughout the FC1 era—which, again and again and again, is main line work.

The confusion here, I think, is that as early as Thomas the Tank Engine (set 1925) Wellsworth is referred to "Edward's station" (and in this book Edward even refers to it as "home").

But! All these references, from here and throughout the next 10+ books in the series, only mean for sure that Edward is resident shunter/banker there. We don't actually have a clear reference to "Edward's branch line" until Main Line Engines (1965).

Yeah, you can argue this is splitting hairs I guess? But, the thing is, Edward as a sort of main line utility/rescue engine as well as Wellsworth station pilot makes far better sense of what the heck he's doing in the FC1-era stories. During all this time, we don't even have a confirmed sighting of him on the Brendam branch. No, not even throughout all the Edward the Blue Engine (1952) stories. (Personally I imagine his accident in "Cows" took place on the branch but, fact is, it's entirely ambiguous.) A non-exhaustive list of what we do see him doing in the FC1 era includes: "odd jobs" at the Big Station, filling in for Henry when Henry fails on his passenger train, picking up goods at Tidmouth harbour, dropping whatever the hell he usually does to help out in the aftermath of the big engines' strike, being on hand at what Rev. Awdry identified as Vicarstown to shunt Gordon prior to the Ditch Incident, etc., etc.

The first time he's confirmed to ever set a wheel on the branch line is when we find that he's timetabled on the evening Tidmouth-Brendam "fast" in MLE. Which, as mentioned, is actually the same book we find out that "Edward's branch line" is, like, a Thing. So, a reading that makes the answer to your question "1964/5, right before Awdry started writing, when Edward and BoCo were assigned to manage the line together" is actually perfectly plausible (*small voice* and kinda cute. This would also mean that, even as BoCo is being trialled, the enthusiasts' train was also part of a trial period to decide whether Edward should be in charge of the line's passenger work... and that's certainly a Take. an unprecedented Take i believe, but a valid one.)

For my money, though, the most plausible year is 1952. After the "Old Iron" overhaul.

Lemme end with what I think is the most probable timeline for Edward's Sodor career. I'm not gonna break out all my canon citations coz this post is already ungodly long for such a simple ask... but feel free to ask for the receipts for anything in this timeline:

1915-1920 — pretty much the main line engine. especially as the other wartime loans are sent home. probably in charge of the express (which existed in a lighter and probably less tightly-timed form than we know it from Gordon's day).

1921-1922 — as the railway manages to acquire a motley collection of big, new, powerful, and extremely volatile engines—largely troubled prototypes—Edward is knocked down the roster to eventually being "the spare." since "these big engines" are "always going wrong," especially during this crazy period, that actually keeps him plenty busy until, well... things start to settle down. FC1 clearly doesn't feel the need to reassign Edward right away (anticipating, correctly, more instances of Confusion and Delay at Vicarstown, where it's nice to be able to shout "Find another engine!" and not have the answer be "... there's only Thomas??"). but before he does Edward turns on the puppy dog eyes and his new driver proves that Ed could be really valuable as station pilot at Wellsworth...

1923-WWII — Edward is based at Wellsworth to manage the depot, shuttle some goods to and from Tidmouth, and bank trains as needed. i'm gonna guess that he's often tapped at crazy hours when FC1 has what i am sure were his roughly-biannual clandestine "business meetings" where he either obtains or deploys blackmail in order to drive his devilish bargains. but Edward also remains a main line pinch-hitter, and does odd jobs all over the place until...

WWII — sometime during or after the war, another engine replaces Edward on banking duties (the goods trains at the time having gotten significantly heavier). Edward is assigned a couple of main line "Locals" each day while still fulfilling the rest of his old utility role

1948 — the clay pits at Brendam are opened. Edward makes a lot of the deliveries required for them to set up shop. he also meets Bill and Ben when they arrive. his ability to keep the new engines (roughly) in line is a powerful pull factor in getting him down the branch line more often, though his role doesn't officially change yet.

1952 — post-overhaul, Edward is assigned to the morning and evening Tidmouth-Brendam fast trains. so from here on he's on the branch line daily and thus, given his long experience at Brendam and especially at Wellsworth, is considered to be in charge of the line

1959 — despite his new role as a branch line engine, Edward is not completely relieved of all his main line utility work (in particular, please take note of Edward carting Rheneas around, the type of job to soon become very Caledonian-coded) until both Donald and Douglas are purchased. this frees Edward up to take on more branch line goods

1965 — BoCo is acquired and takes over Edward's share of the branch line goods work, which leaves Edward free for the ever-increasing special trains (stuff like excursions or wedding trains or other charters, which are frequent during the summer and holiday seasons). of course, while both are pretty happy with their usual jobs (the magazines established that BoCo doesn't really care for passenger work, and i find that harmonizes well with his appearances in canon/basis history so i accept it as canon) they do swap timetables sometimes for a change of pace

aaaand then we get to the Christopher Awdry era, where Nothing Ever Changes, and the TVS era, where Time is Meaningless, so i suppose that's that forever. cheers! (she said, with slight sarcasm)

[true-blue-sonic]

What is even the point of Silver living in the future? It’s not his future anymore and he has no friends or family there. There’s nothing for him there. Now that he has precognition he should just live in Sonic’s time and get visions of disasters. 

Seriously there’s no point in his future or time travel. We’ll never see it, Silver only cares about the state of it and he can only go to Sonic’s time anyway.

I find this an interesting question myself. The best answer I can give as to why Silver keeps returning to the future is that him being from the future is "his thing", just like how having PK is "his thing". It's just something very much intertwined with his character; basically every bio he has makes mention of it, for example. But I also agree with the notion that him being from the future opens up some issues. I've seen statements that it is difficult to make Silver relevant if he must travel to the past every time, for example, which I don't disagree with (but for me, the same could then be said about Blaze and the Sol Dimension or Knuckles and the Master Emerald). Adding to that, I do not believe we know for certain if its state is generally 'destroyed' or 'saved' and if Silver grew up in a destroyed world (said in multiple bios) or a good one (I'd argue that is implied in Rivals 1, with Eggman Nega almost certainly having stolen the camera from someone else and Onyx Island being both a paradise and having developed industry on it that I do not believe Angel Island currently has). Furthermore, the Rivals games are also not very consistent to me about if the future has actually gotten rewritten or not (but it tentatively seems to lean that way, since Silver says at the end of Rivals 2 he hopes the new future is a happy one), and we legit just do not know how its alleged destruction goes. Does Silver indeed intervene before something bad can happen, or does the future actively turn bad before his very eyes and he goes back in time to undo that again? I am truly not certain if there's ever been a clear-cut answer from a credible source, though I am pretty sure there's multiple conflicting explanations from non-credible ones... but that really doesn't help make things clear. And lastly, we also do not know what he has in his own era when it comes to friends and family, nor is it ever clearly shown or said how he time-travels in any game other than '06. With all that combined I can see why having him return again and again gets... well, confusing, haha!

In that regard, I also feel there is merit in the idea of him just staying for good in the past. His friends are there, it's consistently where the action happens anyway, and Team Sonic Racing indeed hints at him having a sense of precognition. The Japanese version actually dives into it more, with Silver asking himself at the very end when Eggman's battleship is going down if that is what was causing his bad/nagging feelings. Considering he was necessary there to help carry people and racecars off it to safety, it does imply to me that that scene might have intended to show it as a genuine skill of his. Shame the English version cuts that moment out entirely. So yeah, the point of Silver being in the future is, to the best of my explanations, legit just the fact that's how he has been conceptualised, making it "his thing". But it does cause confusions for me, because of how much there is not clearly explained and all the contradictory information out there from non-game sources. I think having Silver stay in the past for good could make for a nice move on Sega's part, assuming it is within his own decisions (so not forced by A ThingTM that is entirely unexplained to us and removes all his agency, for example). I think it'd be a nice resolution for Silver to see his heart lays in the past, and he can still protect his own world from there too!

[cephalog0d]

Me: I'm not going to keep reading Gotham War as it releases, I'll just wait until it's over and just get angry once at the end instead of being angry every week.

Also me: *does not do that, keeps reading the garbage fire, keeps getting angry*

[muninnhuginn]

having to make myself just pull back a second and go for "simplest explanation that fits all the facts and isn't accidentally inferring beyond the facts we do have".