#Also legality doesn't always equal morality

[arcadiabaytornado]

"Frank probably waited until Rachel was 18 to sleep with her -" The Frank sold hard drugs to teenagers, pulled a knife on Chloe, and bet on dog fights???? The grown man Frank who was hanging out with a teenage Chloe???? The Frank who admits Rachel was to young for him??? The Frank who was eyeing Rachel when she was fifteen??? That Frank????

Sometimes If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's just a duck.

[stolitzsings]

This is a sort of response to a post I've seen floating around, drawing parallels between the chains in Blitz’s trip that bind him to Stolas and the chains that bind Husk, Angel, and Fizz to Alastor, Valentino, and Mammon respectively. I'm not commenting on that post directly bc I avoid Discourse (tm) at all costs for the sake of my health, and I don’t want to get drawn into an unproductive argument that will mess with my anxiety for a week. I'm not trying to start a fight, just get my thoughts out on why I feel that comparison is inaccurate, and hopefully provide some helpful context and nuance.

So! Let's start with a few disclaimers! First of all, I'm not going to debate the moral purity of any of these characters. I just don't think it's an interesting or valuable critique. On a related note, I am not trying to excuse any of their behavior. I'm happy to admit that my favorite characters in this show have hurt people and are sometimes total assholes. Stolas treated Blitz very poorly at the beginning of their relationship, frequently pushed or even ignored boundaries, and was just kind of a dick about things. My objection to a direct comparison between Stolas and the other characters mentioned above isn't because I think Stolas hasn't done anything wrong; I just think that saying they're similar without further clarification or commentary ignores the nuance of the situation.

Read on below the cut, it's gonna be another long one folks!

Let's start by examining the "agreements" forged by Val, Mammon, and Alastor. I think it's important to note that, in their cases, the person they got to sign their contract could have been anyone. Husk and Angel could have been any sinners, Fizz could have been any imp. They aren't interested in them as people; they were only using them to gain more power for themselves. The only thing that matters to them is, "What can you do for me?" Angel and Fizz quite clearly become cogs in the machine of Val and Mammon's businesses, and Alastor only thinks of Husk as a tool to be leveraged in specific situations to further his own mysterious goals. Each of them has demonstrated to their subjugates that they own them, body and soul. They have signed legally and spiritually binding contracts that essentially surrender their autonomy to a more powerful demon.

Stolas and Blitz’s agreement is... not that. In the most literal sense, they don’t appear to have made any sort of binding deal. They just made a verbal agreement, which I sincerely doubt has anywhere near the force of a signed soul contract. Additionally, Stolas did not ask for and does not seem to want that sort of total control over Blitz. He very clearly does not view this as any sort of power exchange (which may actually be part of the issue, since it leaves him blind to Blitz’s discomfort with their class difference), he sees it as "favors for favors." While this agreement is inherently unbalanced due to Stolas's status, it's worth noting that they’re both putting something on the line here. The other three risk practically nothing (if the person bound to them fails they can always get a new one), but Stolas IS taking on a real risk by letting Blitz access the living world illegally using his book. Again, that doesn't make his actions right, and probably helped him to justify them, but it does set their relationship apart from the others.

In my opinion, some of Stolas's greatest flaws are his thoughtlessness and his ability to justify his own actions to himself. This manifests in the fact that he clearly doesn't see the ways in which their relationship is hurting Blitz. He convinced himself that this was just an equal exchange, and a continuation of the dynamic Blitz established in their first encounter as adults: "I fuck you, and you give me the book". As he becomes more aware of his feelings for Blitz, though (stay tuned for a deeper analysis of this progression later), he also begins to realize that Blitz isn't happy with this relationship. And this, as @masonshmason pointed out, is the central fact that separates Stolas and Blitz from the other relationships. Stolas did not realize- or chose to ignore- how he was hurting Blitz. Once he came to terms with it, though, he understood that he had to make things right. He specifically says this in "Just Look My Way"; "I will try to make amends/ For making you means to an end". None of the others could say this, because in their case, that was the POINT. Angel, Fizz, and Husk were ALWAYS a means to an end, intentionally trapped for that purpose.

We also need to talk about the CONTEXT of the scenes in which the chain imagery appears. For both Angel and Husk, the chain is at least semi-literal, a physical (and perhaps supernatural) manifestation of the way their souls are bound to an overlord. In "Two Minutes Notice," Fizz purposely CHOOSES to represent his relationship to Mammon as chains around his wrists. However, Blitz's scene is part of a drug trip after being forcibly dosed with hallucinogens. It does not exist in any literal sense, nor is it a representation of Blitz’s conscious, literal thoughts. What it DOES do is showcase Blitz’s deepest fears and his greatest flaws through symbolism and metaphor. Blitz is not literally afraid of being forced to wear a clown costume; he is afraid he'll never escape his past traumas or Fizz's shadow. THIS is the context in which Blitz sees himself being chained by Stolas: a bad trip all about his fear of intimacy and vulnerability.

Stolas appears in this trip as someone elevated high above him, something he's climbing towards, reaching for, even though it means being chained to him. It's directly preceded by his ex girlfriend and his former best friend berating him for how he pushes people away even though he hates being alone. Then Stolas directly asks him, "Are you afraid to love people, Blitzy?" Furthermore, the WAY in which he is framed is alluring, slightly hazy, golden and tempting. It couldn’t be further from the ugly, slime-covered past he's fleeing. It's a new start, a chance for something better that seems too good to be true. This trip is all about Blitz’s inability to be vulnerable with another person. The chain around his neck is a representation of the fact that, by getting closer to Stolas, he's giving Stolas the power to hurt him emotionally.

And man, there's a part of him that wants to give Stolas that power. At this critical moment, he's not baring his teeth in defiance or anger. He's blushing, just slightly, and he looks... nervous. Blitz's instinct, when things get too real, is to cut and run. Hurt them before they can hurt you. Abandon them before they have the chance to leave you. It’s how he tanked his relationship with Verosika. This is a manifestation of what might happen if he stays. This is the sort of trouble he can't fight his way out of.

This is the emotional climax of the scene. There are so many ways they could have gone with this if they wanted to represent Blitz being chained and trapped by his agreement with Stolas. If that was the fear--if that was the POINT--they could have had the chains wrap around him until he couldn't move, or glow white hot and burn into his skin, or a million other more direct metaphors. But the chains aren't the thing that hurts him. It's the feathers: the thing that's left behind after Stolas abandons him, sing-songing "you're going to die alone" right alongside two other people who he loved and who now want nothing to do with him.

Finally, let's look at Blitz’s reaction to this scene. It's a moment of revelation for him, in which he realizes he's pushing everyone away and starts to make an effort to change. It's why he's a bit more open with Moxxie in the next scene. The trip sequence ALSO inspires him to get closer to Stolas, indicating that the trip didn’t make him realize "I'm trapped and I need to get out of this" in the same way Fizz did. Rather, he realizes that he doesn't want Stolas to leave him like everyone else, and he wants to start feeling out what it would be like to deepen the connection between them. As I've mentioned in other posts, their kiss at the end of "truth seekers" represents a level of intimacy that we haven't seen before; it's teasing, affectionate, shows Blitz’s interest in making Stolas happy, and takes place in front of M&M, who have repeatedly teased him about their relationship before.

In summary, while the image of chains may have been invoked in all four of these relationships, they don’t necessarily mean the same thing across the board. Blitz and Stolas's relationship differs substantially from the others in its dynamic, and the context of their scene also sets it apart. It's important to look into the details and the nuance of their relationship to interpret what's going on under layers of trauma and unreliable narration.

[ephemerasnape]

Hello! We don't know each other at all but you appeared in my feed, and I am sorry but I can't let you say people "conflate" a child and a minor.

Please take into consideration I didn't turn on the anonymous setting, because I won't hide my position just like you won't hide yours (And it's always better to know who you're actually talking to). Also english isn't my first language so I hope you will understand what I'm saying.

A minor is a child for a reason. The law created the notion of minor because even if you're a teen, like 16-17 yo, you can get influenced. You can get manipulated. And you can not realise it. At 17yo you don't have the ability to properly defend yourself against adults.

What I mean is : Adults are socially superior. We're all taught as kids to respect them. Going against them is difficult for some teens. And they know that, which is why preserving kids' innocence and teaching them about the possible adults taking advantage of their youth is important. With an adult, in an intimate relationship, their consent will be biased.

Cause no adult should be attracted to a 15 yo. No adult should have a relationship with a minor, who's a child thank you very much, because their relationship will never be equal.

Picturing a 15yo with a 30yo man is sick. That's what it is. She didn't even finish to grow up, she doesn't even have a mind of her own. Did I also specify that the human brain ends developing at 25yo ?

That you have traumas you need to deal with, fine. This could be your way to interiorise what happened to you, to feel less lonely about it and I understand it. Or maybe you're still young, picturing yourself with Rookwood because you like his face and don't realise how wrong this is. You could still write age gap with another adult, some BDSM child play for example.

but a real 15yo???? with a 30yo man???? This is clearly hidden patriarchy, teaching you that the younger women are the more attractive they get, that youth is purity and men should own it and corrupt it. It's completely and utterly toxic.

Do you realise this really happened to people and that they struggle with it now that they are adults ? There is no romance in it. Only sickness.

This is the internet. I guess no one will stop you from ever writing what you write but you have to hear it isn't right.

Hello @mianeryh!

First I'd like to thank you for your very decent message, and for coming to me directly instead of hiding behind anonymous sniping.

A minor is a person under the age of 18. Child has a different connotation to most people.

As you can see there are multiple definitions of "child." In this context I am using the first one.

I'm not saying an adolescent is an adult - far from it! I'm just saying they are not a child in the way that people are using the term.

Sixteen is a common age to legally give sexual consent, drive a car, and in some places they even want to give sixteen-year-olds the vote.

Obviously, a sixteen year old is not a child. But that doesn't mean they are an adult either. They're in a weird in-between state called an adolescent or a teenager.

Then again, I don't think an eighteen year old is really an adult. Hell, I still don't feel like an adult!

Regardless, in no way do I condone sexual activity or a relationships between an actual adult and an actual minor with more than a couple years between them. I am not young, but I myself was involved with a man who was 28 when I was 14, I met him in person when I was 16 and he was 30, and we had sex. I didn't feel like a victim at the time, but in retrospect I know I was.

I assume overall you are talking about my Victor Rookwood x MC fics and my Rookwood x Anne Sallow fic, but it seems you've made a lot of presumptions about them without reading them. In neither scenario have I presented the interactions as morally correct, wholesome, or even desirable. In the first scenario, the reader is MC, so you can be whatever age you want. No, I don't "age up" anything. If people want to age themselves up when imagining the scenario that's fine, but since it's fiction I don't see a problem. Nothing is presented in a positive light here.

If you'd read Devoutly, you'd know that romanticizing the relationship between Rookwood and Anne is the last thing I'm doing. I am presenting it as the nuanced, fucked up thing that it is. There is nothing glamourized there. Really. Please read it, because it's a very important fic to me.

There are two major points to be made here, and the fact that rarely are people actually glamourizing such relationships in their works is one of them. But even if you find a "Happily Ever After" scenario that involves rape or statutory rape or whatever, the important point is it's fiction.

What people write in a fictional context should not be presumed to represent what they want to happen, or what they support happening in real life. In the Harry Potter fandom, which I come from, fiction featuring underage characters involved with significantly older adults is common and rarely met with this kind of reaction. I am not sure when people became so moralistic about fiction.

Fiction is a place to explore our deepest, darkest fears and fantasies, and also to make things happen solely to be shocking or provocative (guilty as charged). We don't need an excuse more than "because I wanted to."

In the real world, I am (of course) very much against rape. I'm very much against sexually-exploitative relationships involving real people. I am even against eighteen-year-olds participating in pornography, the pornography industry in general. I could go on. In fact, I have spent much of my life being way too upset about these things, which is probably why I write a lot of fucked up stuff.

But even if you write fucked up stuff just because you enjoy doing so, it's not wrong. It doesn't make you a bad person. It's fiction.

The onus is on you, as a sensitive person, to avoid media that upsets you - it is not mine to avoid creating such media or to hide it from you, and I will not accept that responsibility.

As far as the patriarchy assertion goes - like it or not, I do believe that 95%+ of adult men would have sex with a sixteen year old girl if they wouldn't get in trouble for it. This is just my experience with men. Is it right? OF COURSE NOT! I hate that. Is it realistic though? Am I only allowed to write things that are aligned with my own values and the law as determined by any such government? There we disagree.

These are pixels on a screen - words on a page. No humans are involved. Even in its most gratuitous form, fiction is fiction. You can like it or dislike it - you do not have to embrace everything out there, but I do believe you should support my right to create it, and you should definitely not be assuming that someone's creative writing reflects their own values.

I hope this helps clear things up.

[dojae-huh]

Why SM "doesn't protect" its idols. An explanation from a corporate lawyer. Google translate again. (source)

Why "SM does nothing" or how to find the guilty in the real world.

From the point of view of a fan and fan feelings, of course, you want justice for Seunghan, because he did not deserve all the wave of hatred towards himself and "friends" who are ready to leak personal correspondence for the sake of profit, so you can always help and report hateful comments or support the guy who is being bullied for literally living a normal teenage life.

From another point of view, in situations like this, I always find it very funny to watch the wave of fan hatred towards agencies that allegedly "do nothing". Just today, I have come across several comments indignant at why SM does not punish haters/sasaengs/choose the right one. And as a corporate lawyer with a focus on litigation in a company from a related field, I also want to make my contribution. So, why do agencies "do nothing"?

Let's start with the basic legal concepts, the cornerstones, which everyone somehow forgets at such moments. An idol is an ordinary citizen of his country, the same individual with equal rights before the law, like his sasaeng or hater, like an ordinary office worker of the agency. SM is a legal entity. An ephemeral concept created by capitalism for the purpose of carrying out activities for the purpose of making a profit. Any entertainment agency is equal in its rights with an ordinary grocery store on your street, a restaurant or an entire dental clinic, which are also legal entities. Got it?

Now let's delve a little deeper into the boring story of how this situation actually looks. A hypothetical hater leaks personal photos and private correspondence of an idol on a social network. Who does this harm first of all? An individual. From a legal point of view, in this case alone, several completely different types of offense can be distinguished (which are provided for by the provisions of the Korean Law on the Protection of Personal Information, the Law on the Promotion of the Use of Information and Telecommunication Networks and the Protection of Information, articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Korea): violation of the secrecy of correspondence, violation of privacy, dissemination of information defaming the honor, dignity and business reputation of a citizen, causing moral harm, causing damages. And any citizen has the right to protect their rights under the law in two ways: within the framework of civil and within the framework of criminal proceedings.

How does it work?

Within the framework of civil proceedings, a citizen can apply to the court with a claim for recovery of damages that were caused to him in connection with the dissemination of information defaming his honor, dignity and business reputation. For example, now the whole country is discussing the personal life of an idol and his public image has fallen so low that advertisers have terminated contracts, demanding a penalty, because now their product is being boycotted because of this idol. These are the idol's losses. The idol can also demand moral damages for the moral suffering caused, because he was worried, did not sleep at night and generally fell ill due to the disclosure of personal information. And the idol also has the right to demand a public refutation of information that discredits his honor, dignity or business reputation, if the person who disseminated such information does not prove that it is true. It is unlikely to prove this when videos and photos of the idol are posted online, right? After the idol makes these demands, the court, taking into account the evidence in the case file, in accordance with the principles of reasonableness, adversarial proceedings, and based solely on its own conviction, will make a decision indicating whether the case file really contains evidence that confirms that the idol has suffered moral harm and material damage, and how much money the idol will receive from the hater as compensation.

What are the pitfalls here? There are many. The idol must first find out who is distributing this information. It is unlikely that anyone can file a lawsuit in court where the defendant will be listed as "Naver account owner *". Even if the idol sends a request to the office that owns the social network with a request to tell who the owner of the account is, no one will tell him anything, because this is personal data that is protected by law. What if the idol magically finds out the hater's personal data, but it turns out that he is a citizen of another country, permanently residing there? Well, good luck to a South Korean idol suing a hater from Brazil. This is just one hypothetical example, but when there are ten, a hundred, a thousand such haters? Litigation becomes impractical. If the hater does live in Korea, and miraculously the idol finds out his personal information in order to sue him, then a long process begins that cannot be resolved in one hearing. The number of hearings increases and the gap between their dates increases too, because the parties need to prepare documents that will prove their position, and the court has a schedule of hearings

review of cases, because there are thousands of court cases, an idol is not the only one: today there is a divorce, and tomorrow a dispute over construction. Therefore, when once a year some idol or entertainment company issues a press release that “the hater was punished in accordance with the court’s decision,” no one notices how the statements contain no information about the essence of the case or the date when it happened. Because the hater could have written a controversial comment a year, two, or three years ago.

Another option is criminal proceedings. Under South Korean law, such cases are considered exclusively at the request of a citizen, because this is a private law charge. That is, no one except an idol can go to the police and think that their statement will be accepted for consideration and a criminal case will be opened. The idol attaches to the statement all the information he has about the unidentified person - here they are, the blessed screenshots with insults that are sent to Kwanya 119 - and then… That's it. The idol can no longer do anything, because now only the police have the powers established by law: they will find out the personal data of the owners of social networks upon official requests (here, by the way, the idol will be able to get acquainted with the case materials, find out the details of the account owner and also go to court with a civil lawsuit!) and if suddenly this turns out to be a resident of Korea, then the investigators can quite happily initiate a criminal case, go and have a conversation with this person, offer to apologize to the idol in order to try to resolve the issue peacefully. Or otherwise, transfer the case to the prosecutor. The prosecutor will look at the materials collected by the investigators and decide whether there is enough evidence to charge in court. Insufficient - the case will be returned for further investigation and the consideration period will be delayed; sufficient - the prosecutor will go to court with the charges, where the situation will repeat itself. The court will again look at the case materials, listen to the parties and decide whether there is any violation in the person's actions and to what extent.

Notice how there is no agency anywhere in these chains? But it is all very simple. Because legally they are not a party to any of the above relationships. Yes, the artist who has a contract with the label is harmed and this affects the artist's image, because the idol on stage and the person behind him are inextricably linked, and this also directly affects the group, namely, what is legally called business reputation. But within the framework of legal concepts and the evidentiary process, there is a distinction between causing damage to the business reputation of a group, all rights to which belong to the agency, and damage to the honor, dignity and business reputation of an idol, that is, an ordinary citizen who, by law, must protect his rights himself, just as a sasaeng or hater, or an ordinary office worker would protect his rights… Therefore, most often agencies, understanding this entire chain that directly affects their profits, and also taking into account the incompetence of idols, whom the label raised almost from childhood, taking all the responsibilities of their independent life upon itself, create things like e-mail boxes or Kwanya 119, where they can send documents, which will then be reviewed through lawyers for the advisability of working with them. An agreement is concluded between the idols and the agencies or a power of attorney is issued, according to which agency representatives can file lawsuits on behalf of the idols, find out about the progress of the police case on their behalf. And agencies also write letters to social networks, forums or news portals demanding that they remove articles or comments that violate the law, but they do this in a claim procedure that does not oblige anyone, so a social network may well refuse a label if the article or comment complies with their site usage policy and does not violate the law. No entertainment agency has the right or authority to punish anyone, demand money outside of court, and even more so to find commentators from the Internet and threaten them with reprisals. Because here a completely different process of close attention from government agencies to the company itself and their activities, and not to their idols, begins. This is a labor-intensive process that most often does not bring any benefit, because it is impossible to disclose specific data about the case and the personal data of haters, and template statements that the agency will take measures in accordance with the law or that someone has already been punished will not benefit anyone, because they do not contain specifics and any confirmation for the public. Otherwise, every entertainment agency in Korea could issue statements every Saturday stating that five or six haters were punished in the previous week. Would there be any level of trust in such statements? Not to mention that no legal entity is required to disclose such information or report on their legal cases, and fans demand statements from labels simply… because they think everyone owes them something. Of course, some agencies issue such statements once in a while.

per quarter. But for people who understand the whole process, such statements are just empty replies.

I could provide links to the provisions of the law and Korean law textbooks for each action I described, and even translate them from Korean, but then this post would look more like a thesis on Korean procedural law, and I'm too lazy, so here's a short conclusion: are entertainment agencies obliged to do anything in such situations? According to the law, no, but they will do it anyway, because it affects their profits and the image of their artists, whom they want to keep for many years. How effective are the methods for solving these problems? Well, not as effectively as we would like, but this is a problem of the law and its enforcement, not entertainment agencies. Should fans report all this? The expression "a bad result is also a result" does not work here, so no, there is no point in this. But why agencies (don't) issue statements regarding scandals at a certain time and in certain wording is a question that needs to be decided not only by lawyers, but also by PR people and public relations specialists. However… this is a completely different story.

[immaterial-pearl]

This sounds insane but I went to a panel at a con about the worst yaois ever made (it was two hours long and i have never in my life read actual yaoi mangas despite my long time jokes about yaoi im sorry) and it was great except for the part where one of the hosts was pro death sentences unironically (I know how that sounds but I promise you she really highlighted this was part of her belief system).

BEFORE YOU ACCUSE ME OF DEFENDING RAPISTS I am a victim of rape, I am a victim of sexual assault, and yes, I wish my rapist and people who assaulted me died. But the goverment should not be able to kill them.

So here's a quick run down on why DEATH SENTENCE IS BAD EVEN IF THE CRIME COMMITTED WAS EXTREMELY BAD.

First we must admit that death sentence, if it should ever occur, it must only be given to people who are guilty of horrible crimes, yes? Let's go through the first list based on that assumption.

It's irreversable. In most cases we cannot be sure the crime was actually committed because we aren't omnipotent. Yes we can have extremely solid evidence, but on the off chance (and I repeat even if it's minimal), we should not kill innocent people. Imprisoning them, gives us a chance to give them back their freedom, even if we cannot give them back time.

The justice system is biased. Black inmates in the US are way more likely to be sentenced to death than white people convicted of the same crime. Black people are being killed for being black, not just for being guilty.

Law is not equal to morality. In the past, rape, one of the worst crimes a person can commit, has been defined in law, as an act of a man forcing a woman he is not married to, to have sex. As we know, rape can be marital, can be done by men to men and can be commited by women. Law is never equal to morality and is subject to change, ergo, we should not let something that biased to define who can and who cannot be killed.

On why capital punishment is bad in general, even if the person is objectively guilty.

The goverment should not have that kind of power. Law is not morality, but further than that, the goverment has its own agenda. We shouldn't let Real Life Rapist Donald Trump decide if a rapist should be killed or not. We shouldn't allow Believes Israel Should Get To Do Genocide Kamala Harris decide if a murder should be killed. You know, holocaust was legal, slavery was legal, raping your wife was legal, no goverment is innocent, and every life lost because of it should stain it entirely, like a drop of blood in water. The goverment should not kill people. The goverment is not an omnipotent entity that is always right, and death is final and undoable.

The justice system should not be a moral god, it should be utilitarian. Why would it be a moral god (insert any moral all knowing thing)? It's not omnipotent. It doesn't have solid morals because it's constructed out of prejudiced people following or not following prejudiced laws, which were decided by prejudiced people. Prison is for increasing safety and minimising harm. How does killing an imprisoned, powerless person minimise hurt? It doesn't. It's a way to 1. decrease cost (horrible reason to kill anyone really) 2. give finality to victims (I can empathise with this, but there are better ways to improve a victim's life, than murder, that also are not an eye for an eye murder).

Killing people is bad actually. No, really that's the easiest most basic argument. Every person deserves to live as long as they can, and as long as their life isn't a danger to other people. Isolating a person via prison, and working to undo their harm, via providing free healthcare, therapy, financial support and improving the safety of our society, is better than killing someone. A whole person, even if they are the scum of the earth. I can condone killing in situations where it isn't possible. But it is very possible if the subject is already in court.

[horizon-verizon]

Alicent provided House Targaryen with four healthy dragonriding Targaryens when the Targaryen bloodline was most vulnerable. In return, the least the Targaryens could do is allow her son to ascend the throne to allow House Hightower to have more power in exchange for them helping to create four healthy Targaryens. It’s really weird how Viserys referred to Aegon as Otto’s blood and Rhaenyra as his own blood when Aegon is also his child and therefore his blood.

The Hightowers behaved like any other family married into the royal family would, so I don’t get why they’re so hated. If Viserys didn’t want the Hightowers gaining more influence then he shouldn’t have married Alicent in the first place. It was stupid of him to expect one of the most powerful noble houses in Westeros to accept Targaryens of their blood just being spares instead of kings.

Disclaimer:

The parts about explaining feudalism is supposed to recontextualize how the hierarchy is not itself based on a good ethics system or fair/good morals, not to justify said hierarchy.

The system (unjustly) does not enforces nor expects the King to be equally sociopolitically or emotionally accountable to his Queen Consort.

................................................

A)

You make the mistake of thinking that in a feudal society/Westerosi/Andal culture, the King and his house are obligated to do anything for the Queen Consort except to:

not publicly humiliate her (and "humiliate" can look different according to the thing done) -- with Aegon IV, it was an exceptional situation since he targeted Naerys and Aemon simultaneously out of jealousy. As long as the King doesn't disinherit her children (if they are OLDER than his mistress' kids AND those mistress' kids ARE NOT legitimized) he is, by custom, not seen to be doing anything wrong

not deny her access to the appropriate clothing, shelter befitting her station, and food

take care of any child she brings forth

In feudal societies, the Queen Consort’s “job” is to provide heirs and like everyone else in the kingdom, she has to obey her husband’s orders. She is subject to him, she has no privileges or rights over him. 

The King/Monarch is always the legal/official/customary authority over literally everyone else. This is not a democracy nor an oligarchy. 

Therefore, it is actually Alicent who customarily should obey Viserys’ commands and declarations. That is her place in this hierarchy.

You may think this is unfair, but:

Alicent was definitely a victim of her father & Viserys, but she blames the wrong person for it (Rhaenyra) bc the answer is to totally buy into the sexist and authoritarian ideals against female sexuale and other sorts of autonomy--as Alicent fails into & chooses to perpetuate.

That is feudalism (the economic-socio-political system) AND absolute monarchy (the form of government). Again, she's fallen, then chooses, to sincerely buy into this system partially bc she has no choice but she also is much too inflexible to reflect on how she's essentially hurting herself and those around her or performing a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. That was the entire point! Alicen tis not unique, too, in how the patriarchal feudal system uses her up! Rhaenyra, Rhaenys, etc, too!

@rhaenyragendereuphoria states it quite simply HERE:

Feudalism is a system of servitude based on giving up your freedom in exchange of protection by a higher lord. It binds serfs to their lords, and lords to other lords all the way to the king. Yes, the whole “Protector of the Realm” is propaganda, but it’s what they believe the job of the king to be. They will give it to the strongest who can protect them from foreign invasions: and it’s hard to think of stronger than “family that literally owns dragons”. This fandom has feudal mentality completely upside down, thinking they loathe their subjugation because subjugation is an affront to freedom. Feudalism IS subjugation. What they loathe is to submit to a weakling. They despise (and hunt, and murder) the Free Folk, calling them “wildlings”, because they’d rather be free than be bound by feudal oaths of subjugation. Feudalism is the rule of “might makes right”. At its roots, it’s a military hierarchy of warlords who bind each others with feeble and fickle treaties until one of them decides to break them and attempt to conquer the others, and either wins or fails.

And in this POST:

However, no one is given rights in these societies, not even men - not the way we would define rights. Their idea of “right” is just as arbitrary as their idea of “freedom”. They are societies based on privileges, and privileges are always revocable, unlike rights.

Alicent has no independent “rights” apart from what I already listed above. At all. Especially since she isn't blood-related to Viserys. Rhaenyra has a birthright, but only once Viserys bestows it upon her. 

Alysanne was a Queen Consort, not a Queen Regnant. Visenya & Rhaenys had more law-changing power than Alysanne did while being Consorts and not Regnant Queens, but Aegon’s word was final and he was the Monarch.

And all these women were the sisters of the then-Kings as well as their wives. You’d think that they would have more say, but no. They were obey their husband-kings' final words by Andal/feudal/monarchial custom and law.

There is no contract where it says that Viserys owes Alicent or the Hightowers -- all of them his subjects -- anything except military protection. This is feudalist absolute monarchy as GRRM sets it up and models after the common set up of real life feudal monarchies.

B)

You:

Alicent provided House Targaryen with four healthy dragonriding Targaryens when the Targaryen bloodline was most vulnerable.

Already addressed what a Consort’s repeated purpose is. 

a.

And when was this dynasty “most vulnerable”? By all accounts, Viserys’ court and reign was prosperous and peaceful (expect with the Stepstones and towards the end of his reign with Rhaenyra, Alicent, and their kids of course -- but the Stepstones war didn’t affect the actual subjects [peasant or nobles] of Westeros too much to make huge differences in and the stuff with his personal family happened insularly):

Many consider the reign of King Viserys I to represent the apex of Targaryen power in Westeros. Beyond a doubt, there were more lords and princes claiming the blood of the dragon than at any period before or since. Though the Targaryens had continued their traditional practice of marrying brother to sister, uncle to niece, and cousin to cousin wherever possible, there had also been important matches outside the royal family, the fruit of which would play important roles in the war to come. There were more dragons than ever before as well, and several of the she-dragons were regularly producing clutches of eggs.

[...]

The reign of the Young King, as the commons called him upon his ascent, was peaceful and prosperous. His Grace’s open-handedness was legendary, and the Red Keep became a place of song and splendor. King Viserys and Queen Aemma hosted many a feast and tourney, and lavished gold, offices, and honors on their favorites.

(“A Question of Succession”)

b.

If you mean Viserys having a girl as his only scion, I must remind you that:

the Targs had dragons (more dragons than ever and Aegon I/Visenya/Rhaenys, conquered Westeros with only 3)

there were no mentioned, burgeoning signs of rebellion against Rhaenyra until Alicent and Otto started to make waves (post by @theblackqveen)

While this is in the text:

Though Princess Rhaenyra had been proclaimed her father’s successor, there were many in the realm, at court and beyond it, who still hoped that Viserys might father a male heir, for the Young King was not yet thirty.

After Viserys makes it clear that he won’t change his mind, it gets more settled, and again, we hear absolutely no mention of any real attempt to prepare against Rhaenyra except from the greens.

I wrote a 2 posts on HotD Alicent and Book!Alicent’s foolishness and narcissism.

c.

THIS is what GRRM says about laws of succession:

There are no clear cut answers, either in Westeros or in real medieval history. Things were often decided on a case by case basis. A case might set a precedent for later cases… but as often as not, the precedents conflicted as much as the claims.

In fact, if you look at medieval history, conflicting claims were the cause of three quarters of the wars.

[...]

The medieval world was governed by men, not by laws. You could even make a case that the lords preferred the laws to be vague and contradictory, since that gave them more power. In a tangle like the Hornwood case, ultimately the lord would decide... and if some of the more powerful claimants did not like the decision, it might come down to force of arms.The bottom line, I suppose, is that inheritance was decided as much by politics as by laws. In Westeros and in medieval Europe both.

Still, if Alicent really is all about just following the rules and being “good”, the she would follow her husband’s order and not antagonize or contradict Rhaenyra. Because part of her Westerosi/Andal customs is that the King/Monarch is paramount and their word is law.

She hypocritically doesn’t follow the law to such a particualr "degree" or whatever that she ends up going against the authoritarian regime's ideals of King's rule and all that for her own stake...mostly unconciously.

So really, she’s about power and misogyny, since she chooses to still make her rapist son King and reap the rewards from his ascendance (who’d follow along for her and her house’s interests more than Rhaenyra would). In the show, she goes after Rhaenyra for presumably sleeping with a man not her husband....while she gives up her feet to fulfill Larys' sexual titillation in exchange for information. So Rhaenyra's sleeping with another man in a consensual setting is wrong, but somehow Alicent allowing herself to be used (she is Queen Consort, she can definitely order Larys around) and silencing one of her son's victims is okay? Both of these things that support sexual abuse? In the book, she turns against Rhaenyra when Rhaenyra is 10, and we can see the implication that they began to actually fight ever since then, so Alicent antagonizes a 10 year old. At the tourney where Daemon comes back in the book, there were Essosi people who witnessed the tension between the two.

And why does she do all that? Because she wants to empower herself, her son, and disempower Rhaenyra. At the same time, Alicent fosters an environment where this is justified.

This is why she is hated. Book!her tries to use Rhaenyra having extramarital sex as pretext for deposing her, yet she is the one going against the King’s word when it is obvious he doesn’t give three shits.

@theroguewyrm answers this ASK where the asker breaks down more of Alicent’s hypocrisy:

[...] Alicent as she has constantly held Rhaenyra accountable for having illegitimate relations with men but when it comes to her she can do it as she cloaks it under the hood of duty. The hypocrisy was also shown when Alicent tolerates every single sexual crime committed by her son in the premises of the Red Keep and outside. If it is benefitting her then she’ll permit them, she’ll stay quiet, but will simultaneously use Rhaenyra’s affair with Harwin to vilify her.

C)

You: 

It’s really weird how Viserys referred to Aegon as Otto’s blood and Rhaenyra as his own blood when Aegon is also his child and therefore his blood.

That’s because he distrusts Otto and knows Otto wants his grandkids/these green boys to inherit the throne. Otto went so far as to continue to demand/suggest Viserys change the order of succession several times until Viserys dismissed him:

The amity between Her Grace and her stepdaughter had proved short- lived, for both Rhaenyra and Alicent aspired to be the first lady of the realm...and though the queen had given the king not one but two male heirs, Viserys had done nothing to change the order of succession. The Princess of Dragonstone remained his acknowledged heir, with half the lords of Westeros sworn to defend her rights.

[...]

The matter had been decided, so far as King Viserys was concerned; it was not an issue His Grace cared to revisit. Still, questions persisted, not the least from Queen Alicent herself. Loudest amongst her supporters was her father, Ser Otto Hightower, Hand of the King. Pushed too far on the matter, in 109 AC Viserys stripped Ser Otto of his chain of office and named in his place the taciturn Lord of Harrenhal, Lyonel Strong. “This Hand will not hector me,” His Grace proclaimed.

(“A Question of Succession”)

Viserys was being a bad dad here, I agree. Otto was also stupid as fuck for this. Both him and Alicent. And when it comes to feudalism, the personal and the political are one and the same often. Viserys never learned, I think, to separate himself from kingship because the position and society doesn’t allow for this metaphysical existence, or for it to be practiced seriously and without consequences.

And these are the details of Rhaenyra’s naming-as-heir:

Disregarding the precedents set by King Jaehaerys in 92 and the Great Council in 101, Viserys declared his daughter, Rhaenyra, to be his rightful heir, and named her Princess of Dragonstone. In a lavish ceremony at King’s Landing, hundreds of lords did obeisance to the Realm’s Delight as she sat at her father’s feet at the base of the Iron Throne, swearing to honor and defend her right of succession.

(“A Question of Succession”)

Now from a more pragmatic standpoint, these lords already gave their oaths to Rhaenyra. To go back on it, while maybe welcome to some lords, would also diminish Viserys’ monarchial word’s value because of how huge the chnages are, and how he seems (publicly) to value oaths in general. 

While Tyland Lannister says that he never took oaths, oaths are still very seriously taken and regarded generally in this society (or like to think of themselves as doing so).

Viserys was a bad dad. Doesn't make what Alicent did excusable.

D)

a.

You:

The Hightowers behaved like any other family married into the royal family would, so I don’t get why they’re so hated.

We’re talking about the greens, here, not the Hightowers. Two, though related, separate entities for now.

The greens (Alicent, Otto, Aegon, Aemond, Daeron [Helaena is not a real player]) are hated because they are misogynists turned up 11, with an over-inflated sense of their own male privilege. It causes them to maim, rape, cause genocide, attempt assassination against Rhaenyra, even disregard and turn against each other. And at last, make a 10 year old watch as his mother is eaten alive by a dragon. 

Even with universal misogyny, I doubt that most other noblemen/individuals would be as murderous, stupid and audacious as these specific people.

BTW, you slipped. Aegon, Ameond, Helaena, and Daeron and the kids from Aegon/Helaena are all Targs. Not Hightowers.

b.

You:

If Viserys didn’t want the Hightowers gaining more influence then he shouldn’t have married Alicent in the first place. It was stupid of him to expect one of the most powerful noble houses in Westeros to accept Targaryens of their blood just being spares instead of kings.  

Here’s the text:

Though Princess Rhaenyra had been proclaimed her father’s successor, there were many in the realm, at court and beyond it, who still hoped that Viserys might father a male heir, for the Young King was not yet thirty. Grand Maester Runciter was the first to urge His Grace to remarry, even suggesting a suitable choice: the Lady Laena Velaryon, who had just turned twelve.

(“A Question of Succession”)

We understand through this and through real life feudal politics that a king/Monarch was expected to have as many kids as possible so that in the event one or some die, the others could take their place.

The moment that Otto allowed Alicent to marry Viserys after Rhaenyra had been heir for 2 years, all of Alicent’s kids would have been “spares”. This would be true if Rhaenyra was male. 

Alicent and Otto both signed up for this.

However, Rhaenyra is female, so Otto got greedy. It is only the thought that Viserys would automatically change heirs that Otto even contemplated it would be an easy thing to have Alicent’s kids as Viserys’ heirs because he thought Viserys would pass her over.

Take a look at the sociopolitical patterns. This is always the deal for second wives/Queen Consorts. If the monarch had kids from a first marriage , those kids are always before the ones in the second because they came first/are older.

Viserys makes Rhaenyra continue to be his heir and treats her like he would his male heir in that her siblings remain the “spares” they would be if she were male. thereby putting into practice equal primogentiure.

Otto has been with Viserys as his hand for years.....why did he not anticipate something like this?

[crevanille]

Just Some Random Thoughts....

You ever have those days where seeing/hearing/reading one thing leads you down the rabbit hole of a million and one other thoughts that, no matter what you do, won't leave?

Yeah, that was me these last couple of days.

I won't go into too much detail seeing as I'm both not sure how interesting philosophy is to other people and all this is more off the cuff than any structured discourse on my part.

But, basically, the gist of it comes down to things like....

'If we haven't succeeded in fully normalizing things like gender and race equality yet, then I'm not at all surprised we haven't that we are getting push back on things like LGBTQ+ or trans right'.... to say nothing of consang relationships between consenting adults or anyone further afield of that.

I mean, it's easy to talk about 'freedom and equality for all', 'universal human rights' or 'free speech', but...

I honestly don't think we value those things as a species nearly as highly as we claim to.

For example, in the UK, even though there's no general 'right to free speech' in British law, the right to 'freely express yourself' is protected, at least since 1998. Kinda crazy to me growing up here in the US, but then... looking into a little more, a lot of the censorship can and will be deployed in the name of the 'public good'. You can imagine the number of loophole abuse scenarios that can come up with vague logic like 'corrupting public morals/peace' and all that but there you go. Of course, you also have cases like the race related stuff going on with the anti-immigration riots rocking the country since earlier this month and the disinformation about the suspect who committed the attack that sparked them, which itself was more of a symptom of some way bigger underlying issues... but my point is, you do have instances where censorship tactics have sound reasoning, at least on the surface and in specific cases...

The major questions then, I think, would be, 'In what circumstances, specifically, and in what way?'

Again, loophole abuse abounds, like the UK police cracking down on more than they should as far as what I would consider 'free speech' as an American. But again, the UK doesn't actually have free speech rights.

All that being said, and even though there are cases where censorship is deployed, it ranks 23 out of 180 countries according data collected by 'Reporters Without Borders'.

Contrast that with here in the US where the freedom of speech is legally protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution and even ranking in the top 10 for countries whose citizens value free speech (at around 78 according to the the free speech index, iirc).

However, free speech here in the US has always been a slippery slope.

For one, you have the fact that, up until just after and even to this day to some degree, the concept of 'protected free speech' only really applied to anything passed by federal/national law, which meant that local and state laws were free to censor the crap out of you if they so wished. Of course, these attitudes changed after the Civil War where any form of governmental censorship was looked at with more scrutiny. Of course, I'd argue that Americans more generally don't really trust the government to begin with and never really have.

But I digress.

So, more recent cases of heavy censorship include the so called 'Red Scare' of the 1950's to pretty much any moral panic movement in the history of ever where slogans like 'think of the kids' comes to mind.

This is best exemplified in the 1973 Supreme Court case of 'Miller v. California' which ruled the First Amendment does 'not' protect speech/expressions that could be considered 'obscene'.

Not only that, but free speech protections do not extend to corporations, just those under the law. So yeah, say you have a view that supports Palestine(NOT Hamas. I really hate that people conflate the two) or expresses views that criticize the Israeli government and those views gets known... Censorship out the ass and you could very well lose your job.

So, even though we in the US rank high on lists that value free speech and have said rights protected under the law... in practice, we do a crappier job about upholding those values than a country that has no such rights in their law code.... ranking at 55 out of 180 countries in the same 2024 'Reporters Without Borders' index.

More recent examples include the Pro-Palestine protests at the DNC and the recent rejection to even allow a Palestinian-American to speak at the DNC even though they let the family member of one of the hostages Hamas too... giving only hte Israeli perspective on the issue.

My points here, are just like in the case of the 'Red Scare' of the 50's and the obvious loophole abuse of precedents like 'Miller v. California' where you can just call something obscene and therefore censor it with some nice sounding but logically fragile reasoning, then it's no wonder we haven't moved very far on the path to normalizing things that really should have been non-issues literally hundreds of years ago seeing as gay, trans, and consang relationships have been around for as long as human civilization has.

Even worse is the tendency to pendulum on some of these issues... Periods of time where such behavior was seen as unequivocally 'normal'.

If anything, we've swung too far in the other direction where the only real and 'acceptable' response is to react negatively.... which is not helped by our collective tendency to be reactive rather than proactive.

... And that's not even getting into stuff like 'human rights'.

Anyway, sorry. I just... had some thoughts and this is where they took me and I didn't want them stuck in my head....

[seonghwasblr-moved]

aw cute you only post anons that agree with you. guess i couldn't have expected better.

anyway sometimes we have to be adults and face down things that may gross us out or be morally reprehensible to form real, grounded opinions on them. i didn't want to watch it based on what i heard but i did because i couldn't form an opinion based on other people's out of context screenshots and not once did it cross any lines into pedophilic content. people were blowing it out if proportion.

the point is the world doesn't revolve around twitter discourse and it's highly unlikely they knew anything about the author's behaviour before turning on the show. also "the way they talk about it"??? only woozi praised it. soobin said he watched it and wouldn't recommend it. mingi just said he watched it recently without giving his opinion. calling yourself a fan and then jumping at the chance to attack him over something that's been exposed as a bunch of lies is so shitty. please learn some critical thinking skills and stop hurling "pedophile" at people as if it isn't an actual legal accusation that has WORLDS of trauma bound up in it. actual victims deserve better than your wilful ignorance

Please tell me where I called the idols pedofiles. I only called the author of anime/manga a pedofile. I would NEVER call someone a pedofile for watching/reading an anime. All I said was I find it problematic that you would talk about a show like this to your fans, when you know a big part of them are probably underage. I also never said any of them praised the show. I said, Soobin said it was disturbing and didn't recommend it, and that from that, I understand that he understood how problematic the show is. I don't know where you understood that I attacked anyone, but okay. I can be a fan of someone and still criticize them, when I don't agree with their behavior or similar. I also explicitly said, that I didn't know the context of the Mingi mention, and therefore I didn't want to explicitly state any opinion on that.

I don't think "being an adult and facing things that may gross us out" includes watching a show with weird undertones, but okay. To me it is enough to read about the show, understand the criticism and then form an opinion. Each to their own I guess.

I'm not sure why my opinion matters so much to you, but I hope you understand what I'm saying.

Again, I don't believe that what you consume of media always equals your morals. I do however believe, that when you talk about the media you consume, you also open up for other people to critize it and you for watching it.

Also to make it clear, once again, I would never call an idol a pedofile for this. I'm not sure where you got that idea, but please let me know, so I can change the wording of it. I wouldn't want others to get the same misunderstanding.

[pulchrasilva]

What's an anti-anti? Or an anti for that matter

Oh my friend I am so sorry to introduce you to the shitpile that is antishipping discourse

Anti is short for "antishipper", which is someone who believes certain types of ships are immoral and nobody should ship them or engage with media about them. Exactly what types of ships that includes varies (because morality will always be vague at best and you can't meaningfully categorise anything into "always good" and "always bad"), but people usually take issue with incest, ships involving one or more minors, age gaps, etc.

I consider myself a proshipper/"anti-anti" purely because I think this kind of discourse is extremely inane and potentially harmful.

Antis tend to say "problematic" ships "normalise" harmful dynamics in real life, ignoring that exploring these ideas in fiction is a safe way of engaging with darker topics and sometimes people do so to process personal trauma. Personally I've found that reading fanfiction about dark topics made me wayy more emotionally prepared to handle discussion of them in real life.

And, as I said, it's nearly impossible to draw a solid line between what should be allowed and what shouldn't be allowed. Age of consent is an arbitrary number that's chosen because legally you need a strict number if you're going to enforce the law, but a person 1 year older and 1 year younger than the age of consent aren't actually that much different. Plus the law varies from country to country, but antis tend to choose the US age of 18 because the US dominates the internet. Age-gaps between two non-minor characters get even more blurry!! And let's not forget that a ship between two men is way more likely to be flagged as pedophilia than a ship between a man and a woman. Imo if you can't make a concrete rule about it there's no point in making a rule at all.

Plus it's fiction, and not even mainstream fiction, so it's hardly gonna cause any significant shift in real life culture. These ships get criticised to hell and back in fan spaces and people get properly harassed over it, but there are plenty of professional writers portraying these things in well known media and don't get much flack for it at all - because it's way easier to tear down a fan, your equal, than a creator. It seems to me that the problem isn't really "normalising" these behaviours, because if that was the case mainstream media would be a much bigger contributor than fandom

For some reason, toxic/abusive ships are less commonly criticised despite being objectively harmful to the characters involved, and incest is the one people hate the most despite it being (imo) the one least likely to cause actual harm to the characters. Also depictions of rape and sexual abuse are usually considered off limits but you rarely get the same criticism of, say, depictions of murder. The sexual aspect of the topic seems more important than the actual harm.

AND THEN there's the fact that antis generally only argue against the ships that make them personally feel uncomfortable. Different people have different boundaries for what they consider too far, and I lose my shit every time I see antis shipping something I know other antis claim is the devil. And often the whole thing gets coopted by someone who doesn't like people shipping characters A and B because they ship B and C. ("You can't ship these unrelated characters because they're sibling-coded which makes the ship basically incest" is something I've seen a truly bonkers amount of times)

So yeah. That's the whole mess. Like I said I dont really care about whether or not antis follow me? I'm proship purely because I don't think this is a conversation that needs to be had at all. Like who cares But, go wild, romanticise the hell out of the most repulsive things!! It's nobody else's business but yours. But if I see a mutual who followed me first reblogging "any proshippers who follow me should explode and die teehee ^-^" ONE MORE TIME I might actually explode

[thatforgottenbasilisk]

something about shattered glass

(Ao3 link)

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Prompts: Obscure Dads Week 1 Day 6 (Kurogiri), Bad Things Happen Bingo (Restraining Bolt)

@badthingshappenbingo @daddecember

Words: 1557

Rating: T

Summary:

Kurogiri remembers his dreams perfectly. He also knows exactly when he is dreaming, and when he is awake. They are always the same: a conversation with a boy who is eternally seventeen.

Kurogiri sometimes wonders if it's unusual for him to be aware of when he's dreaming.

He's heard idle talk of "lucid dreaming," only in passing, in inane small talk that people make around the bar. They say it's about knowing when you're dreaming, and being able to influence your environment within the dream- but he's never known a time when he hasn't been aware of when he's dreaming and when he isn't. Maybe that's another thing that he should write off as another oddity caused by his unknown past, or "unusual" quirk.

He also has the same dream every night, with little variation. Is that unusual too, he wonders? Do others have different dreams? How do they keep track?

It's nothing too pressing, of course, and there's no use dwelling on it. It's an interesting question, something neutral that takes up his thoughts when there's nothing else to do.

He supposes that dreams are always odd, no matter who's having them. Maybe his own are that much more so, due to the circumstances around his brain and memories and everything. Amnesia may cause changes in dreams, changes in brain operation, personality, he knows this. The Doctor told him that when he awoke for the first time in his memory.

It was a long time ago, now; about fifteen years since Sensei found him, presumably saved him from some sort of awful conditions- he'd never asked about his past, even when he'd had the chance to. He's curious, of course, though not nearly to the extent that he sometimes thinks that he should be. He's been content where he is, serving drinks in his bar and raising Tomura into a good successor for Sensei's empire.

He doesn't think it's anything less than a fair trade, for him to serve the man who saved his life. He doesn't mind the work, and he is proud of some of the things that Tomura has grown to accomplish in his life now that he's grown up.

He thinks he used to hate it, though; something in him used to scream at the very idea of working for a villain, though he hasn't got the faintest idea why. He thinks that whatever incident caused the amnesia may have also had an effect on his moral compass- or perhaps that change has come with circumstance.

Something still irks him about doing the dirty work himself, though; he's rarely asked to dispose of anything untoward, but on the occasion that he is, he's always much more reluctant to comply. It's like something older than himself is fighting the very idea, like some other person inside of him is so violently against it that it affects the rest of his reasoning so heavily. No, no, he mans his bar and cares for his ward, anything other than that is... outside of his job description, shall he say.

At the moment, though, he merely provides transportation for Tomura and his operations, which he isn't nearly as opposed to as Sensei's, possibly because he views Tomura as being in his care, still, even though he is now a legal adult.

Kurogiri isn't doing any of that at the moment, though. He finishes wiping down the counter, and arranges the barstools on top of it, the same as he does every night; he looks over the room, making sure he hasn't missed anything, and flips the lights off. He's sure that Tomura is still wide awake in his room, but that's nothing of concern at the moment. He gets himself ready for bed, and merely raps on Tomura's bedroom door to remind him that it is getting late and time does, indeed, still pass when he plays his games.

---

He is standing in a plain white room. In front of him is an equally white table, with two steaming mugs in front of the two chairs sitting opposite each other. He sits in the one on his right; the one on the left is already occupied.

"Shirakumo." He nods at the boy sitting across from him in the other chair, reaching out for the mug in front of him. He seems much calmer than he used to be, when they'd first met within this realm of sleep.

"Kurogiri." Shirakumo nods back, but does not make eye contact. He rarely does, now, this quiet avoidance having come with the calmness hard-won from time. Still, Kurogiri is glad that they are no longer coming to blows; his days are exciting enough, he does not need more conflict in his dreams.

"Any interesting crimes today?" Shirakumo asks with no small amount of venom, and Kurogiri knows that tonight will not be one of the pleasant nights. Sometimes, on occasion, he and Shirakumo have been able to get along; they haven't done so since before Tomura's USJ attack, but they did, once. He suspects that Shirakumo holds a grudge over his participation in that.

"Only if you count unlicensed quirk use. I threw some brawlers out of my bar, otherwise, no. Today has been quiet."

Shirakumo brings his mug to his lips, and says nothing. Kurogiri does the same.

It's tea, this time. Oolong. One of the few varieties that he dislikes. He suspects that it may have been Shirakumo's preferred variety.

"He's older than I was. He's older than I ever got to be. Why..." Shirakumo trails off, not sure in what he wants to ask other than "why?" He still isn't looking at Kurogiri, eyes trained on a random point to the side.

"Why was he so lucky?"

"No. I know he wasn't. Why am I still... why was I ever your equal? You spoke to me as a fellow adult, when nobody else did, even in life- you know what you are. You will always be older than me, always growing and changing, and I will always be the same."

Kurogiri puts his mug down. He'd been holding it for its warmth, but the question demands his full attention. It demands empty hands.

"Because you did not deserve this. To be me. I did not deserve to lose my memory, to wake up with only the knowledge that something had been done to me, but you had it worse. You did not deserve to die."

"I'm not dead. My body is alive. You would know."

"Yet you are as static as a ghost. You are aware of what I live through, what I do, and yet you can do nothing about it. You cannot even make me aware of your presence until I am asleep. I am sorry, Shirakumo, but though you may not be dead, you are as good as."

Shirakumo holds still, eerily so. He appears to be contemplating his answer, turning it over in his head. Finally, he asks, "Do you know? Do you know what you are?"

Kurogiri sighs, softly, and replies, "An experiment gone wrong, I think. An accident. I was found like this- "

"No you weren't."

It's not like Shirakumo to interrupt. He didn't do it even back in the beginning, when he was angry and grieving for himself and everyone else he didn't know the fates of. He would choose not to listen, of course, but never did he interrupt.

"I remember what you don't, Kurogiri. I should have asked you years ago, if you remembered, but I guess I'd just assumed that you did. I'm... I don't think I should tell you. Now that I know."

Kurogiri is quietly confused. Just what could be so bad that Shirakumo feels the need to hide it from him?

"Very well. I was not found like this, then. Am I to assume that the Doctor had a hand in me, then? Sensei, perhaps?"

Shirakumo traces the edge of his mug with a finger, mulling over the questions. "... Yes. They did. I won't go into detail about it."

"... It does no good to dwell on the past."

"It doesn't, you're right."

"Still. I feel this information will be useful in the future. For Tomura."

Shirakumo's head darts up, looking Kurogiri in the eyes for the first time in a very long while. "Just what are you planning on doing? Why would he benefit from this?"

"It is always good to know who to trust, and who not to. He is as close to a son as any can get, Shirakumo. I will not put him in danger that can be avoided."

---

Kurogiri sits bolt upright in his bed, the dream having come to a sudden and unceremonious end.

The clock still shows the time as being in the early hours of the morning, when neither he nor Tomura would normally be awake just yet. That's quite alright, in his opinion- it gives him enough time to prepare.

He knows that Sensei and the Doctor are planning something to do with Tomura. It has to do with encouraging him to kidnap one of the students in the UA Sports Festival, though he doubts that any particular student matters more than another.

He does not think that he wants this plan to come to pass.

It will be difficult, of course, to convince Tomura to abandon Sensei; more difficult still to hide the both of them. He will try it, though, because though Tomura is not technically his own, he is in all the ways that matter.

[greatwyrmgold]

I just want to vent about my dad on a website I know he doesn't use. (He's a Reddit/Facebook man.)

These are two texts from our D&D group's groupchat. In it, Dad reacts to finding out that WotC hired the literal Pinkertons to intimidate someone who got sold the wrong trading cards by criticizing the guy who the Pinkertons intimidated.

This is typical for my dad. When these tales of corporate misdeeds happen, Dad always defends the corporations. If they are not breaking the law, he takes that as evidence that they're in the right. If they are breaking the law, he tries to downplay the severity of the crime. He's a corporate bootlicker, and I don't think he realizes it.

This bootlicking is a bit ironic, since my dad is a "Don't Tread on Me" libertarian. Well, if you asked he'd say he had disagreements with the Libertarian party, but he's never explained exactly what those disagreements are. Which is actually pretty similar to his relationship with the Republican party; Dad will say he holds Democrats and Republicans in equal disdain, but he's complained long and often about Democrats with their gun control and Obamacare and taxes. By contrast, the worst thing he's said about Donald Trump is that he doesn't protect gun rights.

Now, I don't think Dad actually agrees with the alt-right. He's voiced support for minority rights and stuff, even if it's in a milquetoast "We've basically achieved equality, and also the government shouldn't stop businesses from discriminating because the free market will put them out of business" way. But when he talks about politics, he doesn't complain about conservatives. He complains about liberals.

And he talks about politics a lot. My dad might espouse disinterest in the country's political parties, but he has strong opinions about politics. His political discussions, which he made sure to include me and my brother in, are a big part of why I care about politics as much as I do—and to his credit, he encouraged us to think for ourselves instead of just following his politics. I too was a dumbass libertarian for a while, but when I was presented with new evidence, I could change my mind.

But, well. Having a politically-opinionated dad, while being politically-opinionated in the opposite direction is a bit of a problem. And in case you didn't pick up from the way I described my dad defending WotC and also have not noticed any other political post I've made on this blog, I am firmly opposed to capitalism in general and capitalists fucking over employees (or other individuals who annoy them) in specific. So there's a bit of tension there. And I don't know what to do with it.

So far, I've mostly tried to avoid it. That's successful most of the time, but not all the time. Everything is political; even if my dad wasn't the kind of guy who talks with his kids about the president's health care policy or California gun control, politics would come up sooner or later. The friend in the group chat wasn't trying to be political; he just relayed an interesting news story relevant to the group's shared interests. But corporate malfeasance is a political issue, whether you want it to be or not. Politics are gonna come up.

I guess I could argue with him, point out that WotC's actions are morally bankrupt, no matter how legal they are. Question why making a video about some cards that you bought is grounds for getting goons sent to your house. Hell, maybe I should do that, push back against shitty political ideas. But what would the result of that be? I'd get mad, my dad would get mad, neither of us would change our minds, and it's not like the rest of the group would care.

For now, I guess I'm venting my frustrations on Tumblr. I hope that's a healthy outlet.

[anamericangirl]

lol no because that's you once again assuming legality equals morality. So you must think slavery and racial segregation are ok because at one point they were legal and if it's not true that some people are inferior to others based on their skin color alone and that it's ok for people to own other people it would never have been legal. But it was. So that means it's true. Right?

That’s what you’re assuming as well though, you’re forgetting that your examples are also legality . Drunk driving, mask mandates, those are legalities.

We are indeed arguing about laws. You bringing up slavery to try and corner people into “you can’t argue that it’s okay because it’s legal” when that’s not what I’m arguing. I’m saying that your logic is that the right to bodily autonomy must trump in every case in order for it to be true but your own argument doesn’t follow that rule either. The right to life isn’t always deemed as more important than bodily autonomy. That’s just a fact. We see that because abortions have been performed nationwide because of people seeming the right to bodily autonomy more important. We see people being denied organs even when the person carrying healthy organs is already dead, life is not deemed more important in those cases either.

You can argue that a lot of people think abortion was moral , you can also argue that a lot of laws in place are in fact immoral. It doesn’t change the fact that your logic is inconsistent when it comes to demanding that the right to bodily autonomy must be true in every case when your own argument doesn’t follow that either.

No my argument is about what is the truth regardless of what the law is. I'm trying to explain to you that just because the law deems something one way or another does not make that true. I'm bringing up those other laws to make a point that's going over your head. There are a lot of laws in this country. But let's pretend for the sake of argument there are only 100.

Now let's say each of these laws is the interaction between two people. 99 of these laws dictate that Person A must stop whatever they are doing as soon there is a threat of harm to person B. One of those laws says Person A can do whatever they want regardless of what happens to Person B. So if you understand what that means, that means there 99 cases where Person A was limited with what they could do with their body when Person B was in risk of harm and there was only one case where Person B's life and well being suddenly is less important. That doesn't make consistent sense. Why does Person A have to be careful of Person B in any case if the right to bodily autonomy is greater than the right to life? The law has made an inconsistent error. Either they made a mistake with the first 99 laws, or they made a mistake with the 100th one.

My argument isn't inconsistent. My argument is the law is inconsistent. If you consider all laws regarding human interaction, you can see that the law prohibits people from intentionally harming others. Why is that? Is is because the right people have to live comes before the right we have to do whatever we want? That foundation is a basic groundwork underlying all our laws. Person A's right to swing their fist stops when it meets Person B's face. Abortion is the only time where government disregarded the underlying principle of literally every other law regarding human interaction. Which does not mean bodily autonomy is now the most important right, it means the law completely ignored a precedent set from the time our country was formed. My argument is not inconsistent because even though abortion was made legal, the principle of the right to life being the most important is the theme in every other law. If bodily autonomy was the most important that would be the theme surrounding every other law regarding human interaction. But it's not.

So when I make my argument and you just come back with "yeah but abortion is legal so you're debunked!!!!" you just show you don't understand my argument even a little bit.

If all you want to focus on is whether or not at one point the court ignored the principle guiding laws between human interaction that deemed of all rights the right to life is the most important to pretend that there is one time where bodily autonomy is the most important to make abortion legal? Then yeah. They did. But that's not an argument. That's just what happened. But my bad I thought we were having a discussion about why abortion should or not be legal. Not what the current legal decision was.

So if that's all you care about then yes you're right. The court made an error in judgment and ruled against a truth recognized throughout our country's entire history when they wrongly decided that in abortion the right to life doesn't matter.

[collymore]

Utterly disgusting and quite thoroughly, revoltingly sick!

By Stanley Collymore

Purposely mixing your supposedly known biological father's sperm with your own, to ensure that your partner gets pregnant, posing an obvious possibility, that you basically either knew, or effectively suspected that at best, you possibly have a low sperm count, or are crucially, literally azoospermiac is very reprehensible. And any genuinely, moral individual will fully recognize that as the case.

Seemingly, however, Britain is now so thoroughly morally and simply discernibly debased, that clearly even High Court judges are essentially a crucial element undoubtedly of this sick debauchery! For obviously what else can one call it when evidently a senior UK judge, literally sickeningly in his ruling naturally condones this undoubtedly, nakedly unequivocally debased concept - having asininely ruled in this bloke's favour that him having naturally, registered himself crucially but quite dubiously as the biological father of this undeniably very unfortunate child, he basically distinctly then doesn't have to take a DNA test to ascertain and legally unquestionably ascertain that he's specifically, the putative biological father, of this distinctive child, and simply, not its bastard half brother.

(C) Stanley V. Collymore 15 February 2024.

Author's Remarks: Conduct and universal general behaviour quite characteristic of and wholly epitomizing the utmost decadence of broken Britain and quite llkemindedly so the routine behavioural patterns of the American Deep South!

Not in the very least different from the quite obsessive and utterly delusional, incestuously inbred notion firmly and deeply ingrained itself, within Britain's purportedly monarchical and likewise other equally so, distinctly hereditary families, and has obviously, distinctly and rather literally been the case for generations; and which, consequently to all sentient and intelligent persons, but quite obviously not to this odious hereditary bunch and their undeniably evidently fawning and unquestionably categorically brownnosing, distinctly sycophantic acolytes, categorically in their individual and equally collective sick minds determine, and effectively generally likewise also, consolidates what they simply and essentially very passionately, but clearly pathetically, regard as treasured "royal" blood! Just how insanely can anyone get!

Amidst all this, and from my own very personal perspective, all such persons would both individually and collectively automatically and constructively simply become appropriate fuel, considering the human detritus that they distinctly and undoubtedly are, evidently for our power stations; no different essentially from their detrital kind serving that very same useful purpose, requisite to the same requirements, circa the 1930s and middle 1940s quite discernibly of Auschwitz, Dachau, Belsen Bergen and other such, rather discernibly, relevant and indubitably, commendable power utilities.

Meanwhile, and quite significantly so, from my own personal perspective, all those who're asininely castigating the respective local authority of this vilely odious threesome, of quite decadent reprobates, for taking them to court, are either seriously need their heads obviously examining or are actually themselves unquestionably, actually carbon copies of these undoubtedly intensely very immoral, lowlife scum; significantly, simply not really all that hard to correctly guess or accurately ascertain in Brexit Britain and equally quite significantly bastardized Britain; truly in which innumerable numbers of this country's lowlife scum aping the monarchy and hereditary, effectively basically distinctly breed each other incestuously or specifically obviously haven't the foggiest notion who their biological parents are!

The council acted because the matter became a benefits issue - just as to discerning minds it was always going to be as such individuals rarely work and quite vaingloriously but delightedly love being maintained ongoingly at the expense of the hardworking workers, who conscientiously pay their taxes. Inevitably, and simply not in the least bit surprising, this couple has split and now they're all of them, granddad and effectively the  putative biological father are all claiming benefits as the "parents" of that child. And therefore, quite unsurprisingly from you caustic scum having a go at the council simply for sensibly going to court to get the requisite clarification naturally on this matter, you're up in arms because the action of this council, fearfully struck a raw nerve with yourselves! Hasn't it?

What discernibly odious scum you self-evidently are; actually allowed to procreate and accordingly infest the entirety of decent humanity with your puerile carnality!

[gameofthronedd]

Susan, I've seen ostensibly “progressive feminist women” say the most heinous, disgusting things about Rhaenyra and her sons in a way that I'm absolutely convinced they believe the same things about real women as well. You don't get to spew endless vitriol about natural children and sex outside marriage, advocate for male primogeniture, obsess over Catholic imagery, and praise dutiful and obedient daughters/wives online all the time and then pretend that doesn't indicate what you view about real women, it doesn't work like that. Regurgitating conservative and far-right talking points but frame it as leftism or feminism is a pattern we have seen before.

It's just so transparently misogynistic who people, including allegedly liberal women, view as deserving of love, especially since they always forgive fictional and real men for things they'd never forgive real or fictional women for. Do you realize there are STILL countries where inheritance laws remain strongly biased against women and daughters & sons don't have equal inheritance ? Where children born outside of marriage faces persecution, degradation, discrimination and are denied legal documents such as birth certificates and citizenship ? Where unmarried mothers are socially ostracized and rejected by their families, or worse ?

Now, would you believe it, but BOTH "sides" are completely able, willing and DO say heinous shit in either direction. Self-identifying feminists, too. People attack Rhaenyra and attack Alicent and are awful all around. It's not one side alone perpetuating misogynistic and shitty views. And not just towards characters either. People are awful to each other. I'm not that big on engaging with fandom discourse - Tumblr is the only place I really do it - because there's some batshit crazy people out there on all sides and I personally don't understand losing my shit over fictional characters.

That's my issue, overall, with fandom discourse; people getting on their high horses and trying to prove how morally good they are, despite everyone and both "teams" being capable of having and expressing morally shitty takes. Team Green fans attack Rhaenyra, Team Black fans attack Alicent. Factionalism at the end of the day is going to produce biases and people are going to put their blinkers on and pretend like the source of morally unsound opinions is solely the other side. But the truth is that everyone is an individual and regardless of who you support you are going to have opinions that upset others and you are always going to be capable of having an opinion that is morally "bad" or questionable in someone else's eyes, regardless of how morally righteous you feel.

Point being, no team is morally "righteous", especially in terms of fandom behaviour. Being on HOTD twt, especially, I see the most vile and heinous shit being hurled BOTH ways. No team is better than the other. End of.

It's really ironic, for example, that those that claim moral high-ground and righteousness by being Team Black also engage in misogynistic bullshit with 0 self awareness. Victim-blaming, hoping Alicent gets SA'd, sexualising Rhaenyra whilst she's literally enduring a traumatic labour, strange af behaviour surrounding Daemon & Rhaenyra etc. No one is blameless.

Maybe some people actually believe the stuff about natural birth and male primogeniture but from a personal stance and from what I can assume about others who analyse Alicent & the Greens, it's moreso just that: ANALYSIS. The ability to seperate ones own views and the context of the media/literature is how I conduct my interrogations of characters and events. I have my own views but if I'm objectively trying to consider a character and events of the world, applying my own views isn't going to help me understand character actions or why things happen the way they do because these characters aren't 21st century feminists.

Does everyone obsessing over Daemyra believe that incest is good? Hopefully not. Does everyone obsessing over Daemon think that murder and DA and grooming is good? Hopefully also no. Do people who like Viserys - being a relatively popular character - think that marital r*pe is acceptable or that child brides are a good thing? Also hopefully not. Fandom discourse has so many of these contradictory points. People will ride so hard on the Daemyra ship train and point out how incest is normal because it's Targaryens (despite knowing how wrong incest is irl) and argue consistently that there was no grooming or problematic undertones to the Daemyra situation (despite knowing, hopefully, that there are some seriously sus undertones to the relationship).

So my point is this: there are always going to be contradictions and excuses made so that you seem morally righteous. And, again, both "teams" are guilty of this. Contradictions between what is acceptable in-universe and irl especially.

I agree with the point about deciding who is deserving of love, especially when it comes to men. To bring up Daemon again. He has a legion of supporters who like him for being some angsty bad boy who is also a 🥺 malewife 🥺 yet it seems a lot of supporters blatantly ignore his instances of misogyny. They will rail on and on about the patriarchy in-universe and how awful the Green men are, yet there's little application of such critique to the men on Team Black.

To compare two equally morally bad situations. Alicent and Dyana, Rhaenyra and Daemon. Different contexts, I know, but they are similar in that one character is in the wrong (Daemon and Alicent) and they are both scenes that didn't exist in F&B. Fandom response, however, has been wildly different. Alicent is considered to be wrong and awful and an agent of the patriarchy. No one questions the presence of this scene. Daemon's scene, on the other hand, recieves a lot of hate for simply existing in the first place. Fans rush to say Daemon would never do that, that the writers hate him and are villainising him. A lot of Daemon thinks have expressed upset over the scene because "he wouldn't do that".

Neither scene was in the book. A scene where the woman is the perpetrator of a bad action isn't considered out of place and the woman in question recieves a crap load of hate for it. Yet a scene where the male is the perpetrator is seen as an action taken to vilify the man and the man is Innocent by Bad Writing. Alicent could do anything and she would recieve far more hate at the hands of women (and men, ofc) than anything Daemon gets.

I think Alicent and Daemon are in relatively similar position when it comes to fandom opinion. Team Green largely hates Daemon, Team Black largely hates Alicent. The situations are, of course, different, but I'd say that they're both at the forefront of the "this person is a MONSTER" arguments. And I think there's much to be interrogated about fandom reaction and gender. For example, I feel that Daemon gets away with a lot more because he's the Hot Bad Boy love interest. He can murder people, including his own wife, and repeatedly call women whores all he likes. He's just Daemon the Rogue Malewife, isn't he cute? Alicent, meanwhile, acts like a relatively normal woman for the given context and is treated like she's some supervillain plucked right out of a Marvel movie.

Anyway, my point is that it's a very big, complex and interesting topic to discuss. Gender in literature and media, and irl, is a big topic and it's difficult to just boil it down neatly into something simplified. Especially when it comes to a show like HOTD, where we are watching characters in a medieval-esque setting but watching through a contemporary lens of analysis.

My personal opinion is that you can analyse or consume it how you like. Other people will analyse and consume how they like.

I personally believe it's completely possible to have nuance and to be able to signpost when you're considering a character in-universe and when you're applying contemporary values to the piece of media. I, for one, wouldn't want to BE Alicent, nor do I necessarily agree with everything she's done, BUT I find her interesting as a character and I enjoy watching her on screen (Olivia does a fantastic job) and trying to understand why she behaves the way she does. The SAME is said of Rhaenyra. I wouldn't want to be her but I enjoy understanding her despite not always agreeing with what she does.

I'll boil my personal take on this whole thing to this: I literally just enjoy understanding characters. That's it. I have my opinions on actions taken by characters and my own moral stance on whether it is good/bad etc. But I find personal enjoyment in understanding why characters act the way they do. That's it.

I don't engage with HOTD/GOT/ASOIAF to find characters I agree with all the time based on my own values because then I'd have like one or two characters I like/enjoy. Heck, with HOTD my own values come into conflict with the overarching story aka I don't support absolute monarchy 🤷🏻‍♀️ My overall stance on the Dance is that neither Aegon nor Rhaenyra should be ruler and ideally the throne should be melted down and made into cutlery for the smallfolk 🙏🏻🥰

And, yes, yes I am aware, anon 😃

[moon-mountain]

It isn’t normal to 1:1 copy someone’s photo without their permission or even credit then display it at a gallery and make profit of it unless you were an asshole. Then again a lot of artists can be assholes.

Hi there anon, I promise you, artists using photo references is very normal and it's not copying. In the situation you're referring to, there's clearly an artistic style there that's been developed over time. If it was a case of -artist drew a grid and then reproduced everything in the photo exactly, down to the random stuff in the background- then yeah, you'd have an argument for copying. In this case, the artist chose to specifically focus on the movement and emotion of the cats - we're not seeing random stuff in the background, all the extra shadows, the poor lighting, even most of the cats faces, that are in the photo. These are all elements of what makes the painting transformative, and the use of the photo essentially a pose reference. Also for the record, displaying art in a gallery definitely does NOT always equal making a profit lmao, but that's somewhat besides the point.

Okay now, I want to be clear here since text doesn't really convey tone: what I'm about to write here is something I genuinely want you to think about, and not some kind of gotcha or attack. But here's something to consider that hopefully might be relatable to situations you've engaged with. Based on you being on Tumblr and possibly even being a follower of mine, I'm guessing you probably interact with fandom, specifically, fanart. Most of the fanart you is going to have used references, likely from the show or whatever else the fanart is based on. Is this wrong? What if the artist decides to open up an online shop or go to a convention and sell prints, buttons etc of their fanart? What if they do commissions or have a patreon? Is it wrong that they are making money from art that used references that weren't photographs taken with their own two hands? I and many other people would say no, these artists are just as entitled to find ways to receive compensation for their time, efforts, and talent as any other worker is. There's an argument to be made about intellectual property, sure, and I acknowledge that there's definitely a bit of a gray area there, especially legally. But laws do not equal morals, and I believe that anything that can be considered a transformative work has the right to not only exist but also be potentially profitable. We live under the boot of capitalism and everyone's gotta eat.

And sure, there are even more traditionally minded artists who will make arguments that fanart isn't Proper Art or whatever, but like, even the old masters were essentially making bible fanart when they were getting commissioned to make religious art for churches and whatnot. At the end of the day, art does not and cannot exist in a vacuum. All art is inspired by the things that the artist encounters in their life, including other people's ideas, lives, and perspectives, other works of art and literature, and so on.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

From someone who teaches AP US History:

If you are confused as to why so many Americans are defending the confederate flag, monuments, and statues right now, I put together a quick Q&A, with questions from a hypothetical person with misconceptions and answers from my perspective as an AP U.S. History Teacher:

Q: What did the Confederacy stand for?

A: Rather than interpreting, let's go directly to the words of the Confederacy's Vice President, Alexander Stephens. In his "Cornerstone Speech" on March 21, 1861, he stated "The Constitution... rested upon the equality of races. This was an error. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

Q: But people keep saying heritage, not hate! They think the purpose of the flags and monuments are to honor confederate soldiers, right?

A: The vast majority of confederate flags flying over government buildings in the south were first put up in the 1960's during the Civil Rights Movement. So for the first hundred years after the Civil War ended, while relatives of those who fought in it were still alive, the confederate flag wasn't much of a symbol at all. But when Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis were marching on Washington to get the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965) passed, leaders in the south felt compelled to fly confederate flags and put up monuments to honor people who had no living family members and had fought in a war that ended a century ago. Their purpose in doing this was to exhibit their displeasure with black people fighting for basic human rights that were guaranteed to them in the 14th and 15th Amendments but being withheld by racist policies and practices.

Q: But if we take down confederate statues and monuments, how will we teach about and remember the past?

A: Monuments and statues pose little educational relevance, whereas museums, the rightful place for Confederate paraphernalia, can provide more educational opportunities for citizens to learn about our country's history. The Civil War is important to learn about, and will always loom large in social studies curriculum. Removing monuments from public places and putting them in museums also allows us to avoid celebrating and honoring people who believed that tens of millions of black Americans should be legal property.

Q: But what if the Confederate flag symbol means something different to me?

A: Individuals aren't able to change the meaning of symbols that have been defined by history. When I hang a Bucs flag outside my house, to me, the Bucs might represent the best team in the NFL, but to the outside world, they represent an awful NFL team. I can't change that meaning for everyone who drives by my house because it has been established for the whole world to see. If a Confederate flag stands for generic rebellion or southern pride to you, your personal interpretation forfeits any meaning once you display it publicly, as its meaning takes on the meaning it earned when a failed regime killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in an attempt to destroy America and keep black people enslaved forever.

Q: But my uncle posted a meme that said the Civil War/Confederacy was about state's rights and not slavery?

A: "A state's right to what?" - John Green

Q: Everyone is offended about everything these days. Should we take everything down that offends anyone?

A: The Confederacy literally existed to go against the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the idea that black people are human beings that deserve to live freely. If that doesn't upset or offend you, you are un-American.

Q: Taking these down goes against the First Amendment and freedom of speech, right?

A: No. Anyone can do whatever they want on their private property, on their social media, etc. Taking these down in public, or having private corporations like NASCAR ban them on their properties, has literally nothing to do with the Bill of Rights.

Q: How can people claim to be patriotic while supporting a flag that stood for a group of insurgent failures who tried to permanently destroy America and killed 300,000 Americans in the process?

A: No clue.

Q: So if I made a confederate flag my profile picture, or put a confederate bumper sticker on my car, what am I declaring to my friends, family, and the world?

A: That you support the Confederacy. To recap, the Confederacy stands for: slavery, white supremacy, treason, failure, and a desire to permanently destroy Selective history as it supports white supremacy.

It’s no accident that:

You learned about Helen Keller instead of W.E.B, DuBois

You learned about the Watts and L.A. Riots, but not Tulsa or Wilmington.

You learned that George Washington’s dentures were made from wood, rather than the teeth from slaves.

You learned about black ghettos, but not about Black Wall Street.

You learned about the New Deal, but not “red lining.”

You learned about Tommie Smith’s fist in the air at the 1968 Olympics, but not that he was sent home the next day and stripped of his medals.

You learned about “black crime,” but white criminals were never lumped together and discussed in terms of their race.

You learned about “states rights” as the cause of the Civil War, but not that slavery was mentioned 80 times in the articles of secession.

"Privilege is having history rewritten so that you don’t have to acknowledge uncomfortable facts.

Racism is perpetuated by people who refuse to learn or acknowledge this reality.

You have a choice."

- Jim Golden