#Personal fall Arrest system

[frog76000]

I read PFAS as Personal Fall Arrest Systems was like "but those are good!" then I saw the parenthesis

been thinking about my OSHA training too much

Walz is a former school teacher, served in the army, and was very pro-active in getting progressive stuff passed in his legislature. Besides codifying abortion/IVF rights, see this list of his accomplishments. A solid pick.

[constructionsafetynetwork]

Innovative Fall Prevention Systems for Modern Construction

Innovative fall prevention systems for modern construction are transforming worksite safety. This article delves into the significance of these systems, their types, and the impact they have on construction safety standards. Understanding their role is vital in a sector where fall-related incidents remain a leading cause of injury. Understanding Innovative Fall Prevention Systems for Modern…

[stealthetrees]

So this is more of an AU of the fandom AU where the Coruscant Guard live in a shitty run down building that’s falling apart. But Commander Fox finds this unacceptable so he clears out a warehouse used for storage and builds a shiny new headquarters. The original building they fix up, but only the lobby, a couple offices, and the med bay so troopers on senate duty can stay there due to its proximity to the senate building. Their new building they can go nuts with, adding all sorts of stuff that they arnt allowed to have.

An entire room is filled with tv monitors so they can slice into security cameras around the planet and see everything. They get a nice rec room, an area for the engineers to play around with ideas, even an office for the medics to make you talk about your feelings. A server room is dedicated solely to storing and orgonizing blackmail collected on pretty much everyone worth mentioning on Coruscant.

But after one secret building, what’s another? Areas of strategic importance are carefully chosen and a new headquarters is established nearby. They are each given code names. The original building is still Headquarters, the new main building is the Barracks. The Office is where they run intelligence and investigations from. IT Department is next to the industrial district. The Kennals are much lower than some of their other buildings, a small station set up to monitor the rancor infestation (Thorn moves down there to become a cowboy after he “dies” on Scipio). The Lobby is set in the lower civilian levels as a way to help the people who arnt rich enough to bribe politicians into getting what they want. The Med Bay started as just somewhere for big surgeries, physical therapy and prosthetics, but which the “generous donations” they acquire it grows into a hospital for civilians as well, completely free, and they start hiring nat born doctors, surgeons and nurses while paying them well and proving a great work environment. Adding a therapist office helped a lot of troopers as well.

The system takes a long time to build and works perfectly. Until Fox figures out Palpatine is a Sith. It’s not actually world shattering news, but it does give him a panic attack after realizing Palpatine though Fox already knew, because he had threatened the chancellor with a slug thrower instead of a blaster. Through questions to his batch mates with Jedi generals he learns that Sith can influence people’s minds and decides that in order for the clone rights bill to pass Palpatine needs to die.

And die he does. The rest of the conservative senators are swayed by a mix of blackmail, bribes, and bomb threats. The bill does pass, and most of them are instantly arrested for sentient rights violations, assault, and various other crimes because government property can’t serve as a witness in a civilian court of law.

The timing of all this could not be worse, as two of Fox’s batch mates where on planet, Cody and Wolffe, and they loved to stick their noses in his business. Which means when a lot of Corries are injured in the fight with the senate guards and private security while trying to make arrests, Cody and Wolffe help get them back to Headquarters, because it’s much closer than the Barracks. But Headquarters has a very small med bay because so few troopers use it. So they are over crowded and run out of bacta.

Also Cody gets turned around in the hallway and discovers how bad the rest of the building is. So Fox has a choice to make. He grabs Cody and Wolffe and drags them outside and back to the GAR barracks while texting Thire and telling him he has an hour and a half to make Headquarters look lived in. Then Fox opens a one way comm line with every Corrie so they can keep the story straight as he answers his brothers questions.

Fox commits to the bit so hard they believe the Guard is suffering horribly from abuse and budget cuts while in reality they just steal money from what ever rich person they have the freshest blackmail from. He could just tell them all the illegal things he’s been up to, but Fox would rather die than tell someone more than they needed to know.

[nataliescatorccioapologist]

Let’s talk about one of the most underrated dynamics in Yellowjackets: Nat and Tai

Nat and Tai have such a troubled little sister/protective big sister dynamic that is not talked about enough.

Before the crash, there is clearly a lot of tension in Nat and Tai’s relationship. Their personalities clash a bit, as Tai is driven and ambitious while Nat is more reckless and directionless. Tai doesn’t understand Nat’s drug use and promiscuity and openly criticizes her for it. Tai is focused on the success of the team and she sees Nat and her behavior as an obstacle to this success.

However, I think there is some care behind her harsh statements. We can see her tough love approach towards Nat starting to develop. She wants Nat to get better, she just has a gruff way of showing it.

We see Tai begin to develop more of a softness for Nat after the crash. I think, as Tai begins to experience what it feels what it’s like to be in survival mode (and starts to lose control of herself) as Nat has been for most of her life, she begins to understand Nat and her coping mechanisms more.

Another important part of their dynamic is that they were the last two skeptics remaining in the Wilderness. When Natalie would challenge Lottie, Tai was often the first (and only) person to back her up. They are both grounded in pragmatism and logic.

Nat and Tai also have the shared experience of watching their partners “go the the dark side” (AKA join Lottie’s cult). Van and Travis are arguably some of Lottie’s most devoted followers towards the end of Season 2, and both Tai and Nat struggle to grapple with this and the rift it creates in their respective romantic relationships.

After they are rescued, Taissa manages to pick herself back up while Nat falls apart, and their little sister/big sister dynamic grows even more as a result. Tai pays for Nat’s rehab, tries to keep her away from Travis because she knows he’s bad for her, keeps pulling her back up and trying to keep her on her feet. I think it says a lot that Tai is the first person Nat thinks to call when she’s arrested.

And then, of course, there’s the scene where Tai defends her decision to pay for Nat’s rehab and continue to try to keep her clean. This scene breaks my heart and shows the caretaker role Taissa has taken on for Nat after the crash. She understands why Nat copes the way she does, and she knows that, unlike Shauna and herself, Nat doesn’t have a support system to rely on.

Even when Nat is being crowned as the new AQ I feel like you can see the concern on Tai’s face. Tai pledges her support of Nat’s new leadership, but you can tell she is also wary of the burden being placed on Nat, and how that might affect her.

Tai’s face is somber like she’s worried about her, but she gives Nat’s hand a small little squeeze of reassurance.

Anyways, I just love how Nat and Tai’s relationship transforms and grows over time. Tai has an empathy and care for Nat that the other survivors just don’t seem to have. I can’t wait to see more of their dynamic post-rescue as Tai struggles to keep Nat afloat and pick up the pieces after her toxic stints with Travis.

This has been way longer than I intended it to be, I’ll just leave y’all with this last clip of Nat giving petulant little sister vibes with Tai that I absolutely love…

[drdemonprince]

So that was the DNC. The young liberals, white feminists, and leftists-in-name only have gladly fallen in line behind Kamala Harris, because she makes them feel good, and because all they have wanted was to find sufficient reason to stop feeling bad and get back to brunch. They've abandoned Palestine, the same way they abandoned the immunocompromised and abolition of the police, because these and so many other left political movements were little more than fashion to them. They were never interested in seeing the destruction of a political system that many of them could, theoretically, make themselves comfortable inside. They just wanted to be seen as current and good.

Did you know that there are 24 million millionaires in the United States? 24 Million. Millionaires. 24,000,000 millionaires. Up from 22 million in 2022. That's about 7.2% of the population. So much for "we are the 99%." There is a sizeable segment of this population that benefits from economic inequality and imperialism, increasingly so, as both the size of the lower class and the upper class expand.

Many millions of additional people have no interest in changing the U.S. political paradigm, because they have been propagandized to believe all compassion and competence fall away under "anarchy," or because they lack community in any meaningful sense and have no conception of how to act collectively. This is not their fault, but it means they act in ways counter to leftist organizing: calling the cops on people, refusing to show up for others, hoarding what property and wealth they do have, demanding that all acts of resistance be peaceful and brief, and pouring all of the political energies into exhorting others to vote (no matter how dyed blue or gerrymander red their districts are, no matter how genocidal, transphobic, and xenophobic all the options might be).

People think that participating in community is buying a $355 Chappel Roan ticket. The big voices for leftist organizing, supposedly, are individuals who market themselves as such on Instagram and TikTok in order to sell books, tarot decks, subscriptions, and workshops.

The sole method for social or political engagement that most people know of is making posts online, on an overblown advertising platform, and then complaining that they did not receive enough attention on their (monetized) posts. A person with shrewd social media instincts and a strong writerly voice can fake an entire political identity, professional connections, and expertise, and be followed by tens of thousands while doing nothing constructive in their day to day life or even being the person they claim to be. The more actively they post and generate revenue for Meta, the more lucrative their grift becomes for themselves and the more social power they accrue. Chasing power and profit for oneself is definitionally counter to leftist ideals. Even if they do not believe in electoralism, people like this produce endless content about the subject, because people follow it like it's sports. They're glorified entertainers, selling politically themed content, never taking themselves off the stage.

Challenge any of this and people will lash out at you, because you've attacked their cloth mother, and they're very lonely and afraid. The corporately-moderated semblance of connection is nearly all they ever get. You can't talk about sex, drugs, death, or any difficult human realities. If you don't present a disneyfied version of yourself you get accused or being a degenerate predator. If you don't participate at all, you must be apathetic, which is very bad, because having the wrong emotions or thoughts makes you evil.

The protests at the DNC were all either ill-conceived PSL honey traps leading dozens of 19-year-olds into arrest via Signal chat, or bloated 3-hour fundraising attempts miles away from the United Center and corralled by the police and Department of Justice marshalls and their collaborators. Everybody else is far away, enjoying brat colored cocktails and picking out demure tradwife clothing to disappear into for the fall. Dreaming of not having to worry anymore is akin to longing for death, and many liberal Americans have gladly embraced total obliteration.

It's not just conservatism that is a death cult. It's also the preservation of the nation-state. State-making obliterates whole cultures, languages, lands, traditions, and unique, person-to-person modes of relating. You get your food from a corporation or a government bureaucracy that does not know you and makes you fight for it, never from a person. This makes you forget that it's just persons, like the ones you know, like yourself, who do everything. It makes you cling to the state, and to normalcy, rather than speaking openly and messily to anybody else.

This is where it all begins and ends. The hope of a revolution rising up to somehow liberate Palestine was always a fantasy, the stuff of kid's movies. The truth is much darker, but more bearable, because it's real. We are very far from a dramatic political change. Most people aren't willing to even let a stranger into their homes to keep them sheltered. Did we really think they were going to rise up and put their body on the line to fight the state? Give up Starbucks and their PPO? Break the law? Lower their property value? Of course not. Get real.

And so, where do we start? By moving far, far away from the individualistic, capitalistic, clout-based avenues of political "participation" that do nothing but benefit people who present themselves as influential voices. By doing the small, slow, humble work of actual community building. Talking to your neighbors, feeding people, housing people, sacrificing something for others, driving a senior to the doctor, building a way outside of your own head.

We have to become more reliant upon one another and less moved by big personalities who will never know us or give a damn about us as people. Instagram pays me the more of you look at my posts and share them on their app. It pays every other high follower account you take political guidance from, too. You should be suspicious of me. And all the rest of them. You should place more trust in your friends, your neighbors, and the power of your own mind.

The way out of all this will not be easy. And it will not happen on here.

[lwjsbedtime]

I think a MDZS Psych AU would be hilarious. WWX's this super observant genius who remembers everything he sees and can easily guess people's true motives, but it only ever gets him into trouble.

First, YZY hates him for getting better grades than JC, then he's kicked out of LP for calling WC on his lies at a charity gala, effectively blackening the Jiang name. After leaving, he gets caught up in a plot to assassinate him, which leads to him testifying against the Wens in court - which leads to a new, intense interest in seeking justice for those who can't.

...Unfortunately, even this gets him in trouble. WWX's called in one too many tips to the local police station and now he's a suspect! Oh woe! Whatever is he to do?! They're going to lock him up and throw away the key!

LWJ, an up and coming officer with a decade long crush on WWX: Do not worry. I will speak with Uncle to clear your na-

WWX promptly decides to announce that he's psychic.

"Impossible!"

LQR...doesn't believe it. No one really believes it, but LXC takes the opportunity to hire WWX as a consultant for cases...

"...Otherwise not easily solved," he explains delicately, very subtly not winking at his brother who's also very subtly not eavesdropping on their conversation. "You would of course be working with Wangji."

WWX considers it for a moment: a well paying job that interests him, and he gets to bother LWJ all day? How could he possibly say no?

And so he doesn't. In fact, he agrees.

WWX and LWJ become partners. LWJ the dashing young police officer, WWX the spooky, scary crackpot-

"Do not insult yourself, Wei Ying," LWJ chastises.

WWX can't help but swoon. "So protective of my reputation LZ!"

"Mn."

LWJ has good reason to be protective - and of more than just WWX's reputation. Since becoming 'psychic', WWX's attracted a number of very vocal detractors who find his methods disrespectful - along with several enemies in high places who can't afford to have their secrets uncovered.

Thankfully, LZ is always there to keep him safe. And when LZ's busy, WN is willing to step in and help.

(WWX is somehow blind to both LWJ's boundless adoration, and the fact that he's essentially employed WN as a part-time bodyguard behind his back.)

Still, no system is perfect. While investigating the murder of a local debutante, WWX is captured by one of his enemies' lackeys - Jin Zixun.

"...Who?" he asks, drawing a blank.

Jin Zixun pokes his finger in WWX's face. "You-! Don't you remember everything? How can you pretend not to know me?!"

WWX blinks. He's sure he's never seen this person before in his life. But when he says as much, Jin Zixun looks fit to beat him.

Thankfully, before things can get too heated, LZ breaks into the warehouse they're keeping WWX in and rescues him. Is this another swooning moment? Of course! Any moment is a good swooning moment with LZ around.

"Mn," LWJ agrees, picking WWX up in a bridal carry (after arresting the bad guys, of course).

WWX laughs, hiding his cherry-red face in LWJ's neck.

"LZ!" he whines, batting his partner's chest. "Don't just agree with me! Think about my heart."

LWJ tilts WWX's chin back, so he can look him in the eyes as he says, "I think of nothing else."

WWX almost swoons for real. What an unexpected confession! Maybe he isn't as observant as he's given credit for?

"Ridiculous," LWJ denies, "You are very observant. Just not psychic."

WWX laughs so much he almost falls out of LWJ's arms. Thankfully, LWJ is stronger than he looks.

"I am so psychic!" he argues once he's caught his breath. "I'm getting a vision right now!"

"Oh?" LWJ's raised brow shows exactly how little he believes Wei Ying.

"It's true!" WWX says. "I see...! It's us! We're standing side by side and...we're getting married! We're gonna be together forever, er gege."

Heart in his throat, he looks up to find LWJ staring back at him with dark, hungry eyes.

"Mark your words," he says in a growl, and WWX gulps.

That day, LWJ becomes a little less sceptical of his new fiance's preternatural powers, and WWX becomes a firm believer in LWJ's physical prowess. 😉

----

Jin Zixun, some hours later, still handcuffed to a chair in the abandoned warehouse: Hello? I think you forgot me? ...Hello??

[gooeseyleo]

Tell me a bit more about your Alopex please

Ah, Alopex is not a part of the Gooseyleo AU (maybe I could do a cameo sometime!) but I shall share! buckle up boys, I got a lot to cover!

She was purchased from a fur farm as a kit, was taken to New York to her new owner, and was mutated when the oozquitoes were first released. She fled the only home she really knew, cuz yk, they didn't jive with the whole "house pet being a senient mutant all of a sudden" thing, and winds up in the Hidden City. There she falls in with the downtrodden/rougher side of life there, with only her wits to keep her alive. She is eventually taken in by Bruce, and becomes a member of the Masters of Barbarianism. Bruce raises her alongside his birthson Kai. They hate each other. Or rather, Kai hates her for taking Bruce's attention from him. ANYWAY, that's a bit of a can of worms to get into here, but here is Kai in all his angsty glory.

When she gets older, she decides she wants to strike out on her own (Gang life is surprisingly rigid) and Bruce allows her until it is his time to step down as leader. So she starts bounty hunting to support herself. Bounty hunters are a regulated service in the Hidden City, but there is also illegal bounty hunting. Alopex does both. Which is how she ends up kidnapping Leo.

Basically, the octopus dude from Bad Hair Day becomes a serious gang leader, evil hair and all, and he wants revenge on Leo for getting him arrested (and maybe some other stuff down the line happens lol). So Alopex takes the job, and completes it flawlessly. She's off to tuck away the extra cash when a very pissed off Raph stops her on the street and demands that she return his brother. Turns out, Raph is the Hidden City's newly appointed sheriff, and it would put Alopex out of legit work for good if the Council of Heads found out that she was illegally bounty hunting for crimelords. So with that leverage, she agrees to help Raph get Leo back.

Their banter is nonstop. Alopex proposes that sometimes the law is unjust and not all criminals are bad people, just people the messed up Hidden City system failed. She also recognizes that some people are genuinely bad, but they too "have to be" to survive. Raph is a bit goody two-shoes about it, citing his own rough homelife and how it led him to want to do right for others. Alopex admires his dedication to justice, but thinks him ultimately naive of what the Hidden City is really like and how it works. etc etc Growing up with the Masters taught her the definition of "right" tends to change in favor of whoever has the upper hand.

ANYWHO they sneak in and get Leo back, but are ultimately caught. Turns out, octopus man doesn't like Alopex reneging on their deal, and after a short discussion, orders to have her thrown from the several stories tall building.

Raph catches her. He catches her attention too. With Leo's reluctant help, they all escape and return home safe and sound. Alopex is bewildered by the caring family Raph returns to. Despite her charistmatic and foxy personality, she didn't really grow up in a loving home like Raph. Complicated and difficult, but loving nonetheless.

Very long story short, she returns to bounty hunting and Raph resumes his work. Raph continues partnering with her as sheriff from time to time. They naturally grow closer, much to Leo's frustration, have a mutual attraction, and ya know

love and stuff happens :3

[natalievoncatte]

Kara Zor El Danvers lived in a world of limitless sensation.

Thanks to her cousin, the world knew of her x-ray vision, but her eyesight went far beyond that. She could focus her attention and observe the mechanisms of the cell, or look skyward and see things so vast that they were invisible to the human eye. (She learned in her youth not to tell people that the entire solar system was, from time to time, engulfed in the digestive tract of a space whale so huge that its body was too big for humans to perceive) She could see colors lost to human vision and watch particles scatter off the atmosphere.

He sense of smell was beyond acute; had she the impulse, she could have tracked her family by scent. Her hearing was both gift and curse, as was her sense of taste, which she indulged with abandon thanks to her vastly more efficient digestive system and metabolism.

What most people never thought about was her touch. Kara could shake someone’s hand and read their fingerprint like braille. She was sensitive to the most minute changes in temperature or texture, and at times it could be just as overwhelming and overstimulating as her other senses. Kara learned to embrace it- she was a tactile girl from a race that disdained physical contact, even among lovers.

They had no idea what they were missing.

The first time Kara laid her hands on Lena Luthor was just after she’d arrested the fall of a multi-ton helicopter and dragged it from gravity’s grasp to bring it to rest on the roof of LuthorCorp. She’d checked the pilot first and…

Kara had eidetic memory. Perfect recall. It was another cursed gift, one born of the interaction of perfect healing with her alien brain. She would never forget seeing Lena for the first time. It was hers and hers alone.

Other humans could see Lena’s dark hair and soft pale skin, see the variation between her eyes, one a little more blue than green. They didn’t see what Kara saw; a thousand colors sparkling in those eyes like impossible gems, the heat bloom on her skin following the flush in her cheeks. The thundering of her heart in her chest beat a tempo in Kara’s ears, and then Kara touched her.

It was a simple gesture. No skin to skin, just a hand on Lena’s shoulder to steady her and ask her if she was okay, but beneath it Kara could sense her pulse and her body heat and was dimly aware of the electrical conduction of her nervous system.

It was heady, intoxicating. Even her scent- not the perfume covering it but the scent of *her*, her real scent, shot through with acidic fear, was intoxicating. Kara breathed it in and it exploded in her chest, making her feel a million miles tall.

The meeting was brief. Kara had to deal with annoying robots. There were always robots.

Later, Lena was there again and this time Kara was meeting her. Kara forgot that as she walked in with Kal… Clark. For those first few steps she wasn’t Supergirl or Cat Grant’s Assistant, she was herself, the person she only was around her closest friends who knew her secret. The one who walked tall, shoulders back, with nothing to hide.

Again, Lena was overwhelming. Kara was all but stunned by her, stammering and blushing. She didn’t know if there was love at first sight but first touch, just maybe. Lena’s hand was soft and warm, her grip firm, and Kara didn’t know why, then, that it sent such a jolt through her.

It was not the last time they touched.

Some thugs heaved Lena off her balcony, sending her screaming towards her death. Kara was there -she wouldn’t have had to hear it all over the phone- and caught her. It was a flawless rescue, scooping her from the air. Lena, terrified, clung to her for dear life.

Something happened on the way up. There was a brief, searing moment when Lena’s fear faded and she pressed in tight to her savior. Kara was acutely aware of the bare skin on the inside of Lena’s knee, the feeling of her soft calf against the back of her hand and the pull of Lena’s arms around her neck.

That night, Kara began to have feelings. Imaginings. Feeling silken smooth legs sliding under her palms, delicate hands clutched in hers, fingers laced. Wet skin slick on wet skin and clenching muscles, gossamer curls winding across her flesh in a symphony of pure feeling, hot breath on her skin. Teeth on her neck.

It felt weird, it felt wrong, it felt… predatory. Kara was scared of what she wanted, and how she wanted it- feral, with the wild abandon of an apex predator. Kryptonians were above such things. They were a race of stoic scientists who mastered and abandoned animal lusts and replaced them with cold technology Would she betray her heritage this way, too? She’d failed to keep Kal Kryptonian. What if she lost herself, too?

There were other touches. Soft hands on shoulders and lingering palms resting on arms. Lena hugged Kara and sheltered in her arms, drawing Kara around her like armor, and Kara let herself revel in it. She needed to protect Lena like she needed to breathe air.

Then came another. The Daxamite. The enemy, the lover, the jerk. He gave her touches too. Touches she was supposed to enjoy, supposed to want. Everyone told her so, even Alex who despised and suspected him at first.

She enjoyed it for what it was, and hated it for what it wasn’t.

Then he was gone and she was left again to longing. She tried to abandon the Danvers and Become Kryptonian, but she’d failed. Lena Luthor had gloriously corrupted her and she knew in the deepest hidden parts of her heart that whoever she was, she wasn’t the model Kryptonian youth, promised to the science council. She was Alex Danvers’s sister and Eliza Danvers’s daughter and Clark Kent’s cousin, losing herself in friendship and potstickers and guilt.

In the dark, Kara wept because she knew if she could change it all, if she could go back, save her world and her people, something of great value would be lost.

There was something between them, something terrible, something festering between every touch and it gnawed at Kara more and more with every lingering moment. Joy was shot through with terror when Lena would crowd in close to her, the pair of them giggling wine-drunk like the children they’d never been allowed to be. Children of tragedy, daughters of tarnished fathers, inheritors of legacies too heavy to carry alone.

More and more Lena and Kara let each other press close, each under the other’s shoulder, bearing the weight the weight as one. As one in every way except the one that mattered, until Kara’s heart hurt so much that she remembered those first days on Earth when she’d wished the green fireball had taken her pod too.

Then came the worst thing: the truth.

Kara wanted nothing more than to touch her, to feel skin on skin. She knew if she could hold Lena she could make it better, if she could come just shy of kissing the crown of her head and tell her how impossibly sorry she was that Lena would see, that she would feel and understand.

Instead there was only a wall of ice crusted with poison that shot red hot rancid agony through her veins, like a hot knife flensing her skin as her lungs crushed themselves. It felt like she was dying and she wanted it.

It felt like that the entire time. Every argument, every fight. Kara just wanted to scream. Scream at Lena at Mount Norquay with the ultimate weapon aimed at her heart, scream at her on balconies and rooftops and in fraught rescues where Lena shoved her away. Please just let me hold you one more time.

And then, one day, Lena came back. Kara was doing something meaningless -even with the world at stake she still had to write puff pieces for her asshole new boss- and was pacing around her apartment looking for the will to be human when it felt so pointless, and then she heard the staccato of Lena’s racing heart and pulled open her door.

It was explosive. Kara froze, stunned as if struck. It was like seeing Lena for the first time again, as she stood there with tear-wet cheeks in a winter coat with her arms and shoulders folded in fear, and Kara hated that she was afraid. She watched the invisible spectrum dance across Lena’s skin and was lost in her sea-sapphire eyes all over again and dared not even think the prayer on her tongue, a plea that came to her in Kryptonian first.

“I’m sorry,” Lena began, “I was wrong.”

Kara only heard the pain and knew she had to make it stop. Instinct drove her, the instinct she wasn’t supposed to answer. She embraced Lena with the utmost care, needing only to make it better, to make her precious Lena’s hurting stop.

Despite her photographic memory she would never recall who crossed the Rubicon. Maybe it was both of them at once. Lena touched Kara as she never had before, answering the intensity of Kara’s consuming attention in a way she’d always shied from before. Every flash of boldness from Lena drove Kara more feral and she sucked in a sharp breath as she left a hand print pressed in her door, thinking oh oh Rao I don’t want to hurt her, but if Lena was afraid she didn’t show it.

It all just sort of happened on instinct, like they both just knew what to do. Kara heaved her Lena into the air with a shocking display of strength, quivering with joy. Catching her wasn’t enough, she wanted to scoop Lena up and carry her off like a conquering hero, and she was, this was really happening.

They spoke only once, Kara asking the question. “Is this okay?”

“Yes.”

Kara exerted every ounce of control she had, schooling every movement, commanding every brush of her fingers and movement of her hands. She let herself drink the sensations, etching a record of every facet of these moments that would endure until the end of her days. She’d never felt as alive as when she felt Lena’s body arch under her hands and the buzz in her throat as she cried Kara’s name.

The humans called it becoming one flesh. Kara thought that was silly. Now, she understood.

Lena answered her tenfold, answering Kara’s burning questions with her hands and lips and teeth, almost shocking Kara with her intensity.

To her surprise it was the after she loved most, feeling Lena’s soft, delicate, vulnerable body cradled in her arms, and when Lena sobbed into her shoulder, Kara wept with her and murmured all the promises again and again and again.

Later, after struggles and losses and a strange sense that it was all finally over, the great battles won, the great miracles all performed, Kara formed the metal and crushed the gems into being with her own hands, and would never forget the trembling in Lena’s hands as she circled the bracelet around her wrist.

[simply-wlw-kpopstan]

7. Home

⚠️ Spoilers ahead, brief mention of suicide (implied in 1 sentence)

You got a message from yewon with everything you needed on Sunday. She even did more than you asked and hacked into the psychiatric visitor's list to get your name on there. She truly was a gifted hacker if she can do all of that without getting caught. Now what will you do when you get there?

First things first, call your aunt and explain everything that happened. Step two get a good lawyer so you can fight harin's sorry excuse of a family and get her out. Step 3 get your aunt to agree to let harin stay with you. Thinking it over, the hardest part would be step 2. You knew your aunt would let harin stay if you asked, she already knew a little about her since you accidentally slipped out you had a crush. What will happen when you see harin? What if she thinks you're there to take her home and you have to tell her that you can't? You shook your head and waved those thoughts away.

The day had arrived when You were going to visit harin for the first time and got nervous. At first glance it looks like a small hospital but once you actually look, you notice the barred windows. you realize how isolated it actually is when you don't hear a sound and it starts to feel eerie.

When you arrived at the doors, they were locked and you buzzed the intercom. A woman at a desk looked up from inside, smiled and the buzzer made a noise before her voice came through "hello, how can I help you?"

"I'm here to visit someone, my name is y/n y/l/n."

"hold on just a second. " a slight panic creeps up. Does she know? What if they arrest you for hacking into the system? "ah yes I found you. I see you're visiting a new patient here. I'll buzz you in and you have to fill out a form"

"alright." you took a deep breath of relief once the line cuts and the door buzzes open. You walk in and take care of the paperwork, once that was done she gives you a visitor's pass and asked you to wait until one of the nurses comes down to get you.

The big doors swing open and a middle aged woman walks up to the reception with a clipboard. "I swear things are getting worse up at 4. We got a biter." she sighed as she hands over the papers.

"isn't this the 3th attack this month?" the receptionist asks and the nurse nods, "they should up the dosage for those people. Can you please take that girl to visit so Eun? She's the newest arrival, she's on floor 1."

So eun? Right. That was harin's name before she got adopted. That family really stripped her from everything didn't they? " ofcours." she turns to you with a smile and motioned to follow her" Come along. Sorry It took so long. It's been a hectic day." you quickly follow after her as the doors begin to close again. "You're the first visitor for her, we didn't think anyone would come since there aren't any emergency contacts mentioned in her file."

"It's complicated but I'm taking care of it. She had a family but they abandoned her recently. "

The nurse smiled broadly. " I'm glad she still has you then. Being here can take a toll on a person the first few days, it's important that she knows she's not alone in this. "

" I've told her that before. No matter what happens she'll always have me. "

"I don't mean to be rude but what is your relationship to her? Are you family?"

"I Uhm I'm a friend."

"hmm, a friend." she smiled, "or perhaps you're more? It's okay. Love is love, you can't help who you fall for." you smiled at her words and were thankfully she didn't ask anything else, "well here we are. She normally has roommates but they are all participating in classes at the moment so you have some alone time for the next 2 hours."

You thanked her for everything and stood in front of harin's door. You try to control your emotions before you walk in, she doesn't need to see you emotional while she's going through all of this. She needs a shoulder to lean on and you will be that for her. You walk inside the room and see her sleeping, she looks peaceful and you're debating on letting her rest or waking her up. Before you can decide harin shifts around in bed and opens her eyes, looking straight at you with a little frown. "hi there." you spoke softly

"Why do I always dream about you being here?" her voice cracks and you saw the tears well up in her eyes, "It's not fair, please go away." she turns around and faces away from you.

"harin this isn't a dream," you walk around her bed and squated down so you'd be face to face with her, "i'm really here." you tug a hair strand behind her ear and she just stares at you with teary eyes. "i'm here harin. This is real love. I promise you."

She loses the battle and a few tears slip down as she cups your face with one hand and traces her thumb in circles, "H-How did you find me?"

"does that matter?" you lean into her touch and kissed the palm of her hand. "I'm sorry that it took so long but I'll get you out of here, I promise. I'm already working on-"

"don't" she pulls her hand back and shifts to sit up in bed. "this is what I deserve"

"what? No. You don't deserve this." you shook your head and sat down on the edge of her bed.

"I do. I've hurt so many people and never even cared about anything but myself. I deserve to be in here. I deserve what happened to me. "

You wondered if she knew about what happened after the fire. What her 'family' did. You took her hand in yours and started to play with the bracelet you had given her, she's still wearing it. " do you know about your-"

"that they disowned me? Yes. When I woke up I asked to call my grandma but they told me there weren't any contacts and that's when I knew." she sighed.

"you still want me to believe you deserve that? You don't. I'm working on this, I'll get you out and you can stay with me. I'll expose them for what they did. How they treated you and-"

"don't. Let me stay."

"what ? You- you want to stay here?" to say you were shocked was an understatement, you would've guessed she would want to get out immediately.

"yes. I don't want you to go against them. They have too much power, you don't stand a chance against them. Just let me work on myself in here, I'll prove to everyone I can change. When I get discharged we can go out on our first date. I'll have that fresh start I wanted with you."

"are you sure? I already have an amazing lawyer who's looking into things. I can get you out of here, you can still work on yourself without being here."

"there are professionals here that can help me. I know you want to help me but this is what I want. This is my shot at redemption."

"alright. If this is what you want I'll support you. I'll visit as much as possible. Once you have your schedule we can work out which days I visit."

"that works for me." she smiles, "I'm really sorry I dragged you into this. I asked my grandmother if she could get you into baekyeon and in my class. If I just left it at that one meeting you woul-."

"Harin, don't. In the end I made the decision to go didn't I? I don't regret anything because if you didn't ask your grandmother we never would've had a chance together."

"I can't argue with you if you put it that way." she pouted.

"then don't argue with me." you smile and you leaned in until your eyes caught the sight of medication and then the overdose popped into your head making you pull back.

"what? What's wrong" she frowned and followed your gaze, "Oh." she looks down as she catches on to your thoughts. "they give us these pills in the morning. I guess it's to keep us calm? We don't have to take them but they write it down if you don't so they can see who actually needs them and who doesn't."

"were you actually planning to...." you couldn't get it over your lips but you didn't have to, she knew.

"I don't know. I want to say that I knew how much to take but I didn't. It was all pure luck. I don't really want to think about what could've happened, to be honest."

"that's okay, at least for now. I do want to talk about it but only when you're ready."

She nodded and tugged at your hand, "can I get that kiss now?" She asked as she looked down at your lips.

"you don't have to ask" you smiled and leaned in for that much awaited kiss. The moment your lips touched everything felt right again, she was here in your grasp and nothing else matters but that. "just so you know. Once you're discharged from this place you're coming home with me. My aunt and her lawyer are taking care of all the legal stuff."

"so we'd be living together?" She smiled.

"well, my aunt will be there in the beginning so she can get to know you and once she knows she can leave us alone she'll take off again. That were the conditions."

"I look forward to the baby pictures and all the stories." she teased.

"I was a cute baby for your information! But she does have some stories that I'm already dreading." you thought over all the embarrassing moments of your childhood she could tell. "maybe don't ask her in the first few weeks I'm begging you."

"hmm, you'll have to keep my mind off of it then." she smirked.

"Oh I'm sure I'll find a way to keep you busy." you smile, "I did want to ask you about what you want me to call you. Do you want to keep harin or change it back to so eun? Or maybe you can get a new name?"

"harin is fine. So eun is my past, I can't go back to that and if I change my name again my-- they will win. I don't want to give them that satisfaction." her expression changed from sad to determined really quickly once she said that. "they might have disowned me and are revoking the adoption but they can't change my name."

"what about your last name?"

"maybe I can mix my names? How does So Harin sound?"

"perfect." you kiss her hand and she smiles. You look around the room and it feels so empty, "so, what do you usually do around here?"

She chuckled at your attempt of normal conversation, " at the moment I usually talk with a bunch of doctors and psychiatrist so they know what type of therapy I need. They're all nice which makes talking about what I did worse. "

"Well, I'll sneak in a book next time." you wink and she laughs.

"I can have books. This isn't a prison where you need to smuggle stuff in. I am getting my own room soon though. Apparently they want to take me to a different floor, one with more people my age and stuff."

"as long as you don't fall in love with someone else I'm okay with it."

"Oh so you'll ask the staff to relocate me if I do?" She clocked an eyebrow.

"are you saying you'll find someone else?" you fired back.

"nobody would compare to you. You've seen me at my highest and lowest, enjoy it 'cause that' s for your eyes only. No one has seen me the way you have."

"I kind of like the thought of that if I'm being honest."

You stayed until visiting hours were over and promised you'd be back soon. True to your word you made regular visits after harin got her schedule and after a few months of good behavior on harin's part you could go out for a few hours. You mostly took walks in the nearby forest and did have some little make-out sessions in more secluded area's. Eventhough you had planned some cute little picnics harin refused to call it a date, she already planned out what she wanted to do with you when she was discharged and that was going to be your first official date. You didn't mind to call these picnics dates but since harin was so stubborn you agreed to calling them hangouts, as long as you were with her you were fine with anything.

It took a year for her to be discharged from the place. You had gotten yourself a drivers license and borrowed a car from your aunt to Suprise her. She didn't know you got one and were planning this for months but you'd do anything for her. You're leaning against the hood of the car when she walks outside. She stops and takes a second to close her eyes and bask in the sunlight, you can't help but stare at her and fall even more in love.

"will you finally tell me where we're going tonight?" you smile as she walks up to you.

"no. Not yet." she wraps her arms around your neck and pulls you close, "hi there." she smiles.

"hi gorgeous." you smile and kiss her, "you ready to leave"

"yes. as Nice as everyone was, I'm ready to start my new life with you." she looks around and frowns, "where's your aunt? Isn't she driving us home?"

Home. You could get used to hearing her say that. "actually," you grab the keys from your back pocket and dangle them in front of her face, "i'm driving. I wanted to be able to pick you up when the time came so I got my drivers licence. Now you can be my passenger princess."

"You're amazing." she smiled and gave you a peck on the lips before pulling back and putting her bag in the trunk with you scolding her for doing it herself. "i'm a big girl i can put it away myself."

You hummed and got in the car together, "are you ready to meet my aunt tonight?" you ask as you pull out the parking lot and drove home.

"I'm nervous but knowing you, you've already told her a lot about me." she smirked as she leaned her head against the headrest while looking at you, "you look really attractive driving."

" whatever is going on in that head, stop those thoughts. I'm driving." you throw a quick glance to see her smile. You took a hand off the steering wheel and placed it on her thigh, "we have all the time in the world now. No need to rush."

"I'm happy you said that because as long as your aunt's home we're not doing anything." she laughed at your small pout.

"define anything. Does it include-"

"nope. Stop those thoughts you're driving." she smiled and you loved how relaxed she looked. For the first time ever you saw her posture falter a little bit, she's just leaning against the window but the harin from a year ago would still have a straight back and a straight face while looking out the window. She's looking at the scenery with a content smile and you're happy she chose to stay and work on herself. it couldn't have been an easy decision to make when she heard you talking about getting her out but she stayed and it worked.

She was finally showing who she was, the girl that she had pushed back all those years. The person you saw when everyone else saw a mean powerful heiress. She was excited in showing people she had changed. jaeun had agreed to meeting up with the both of you in a few weeks, suji hadn't really answered but jaeun had mentioned she'd get her to join. It was an important step for harin to face the people she hurt and to try to make amends with who was willing to listen. she prepared for the worst when she asked you to contact them, not expecting them to agree and now she was looking forward to the meeting. You hated to remind her there was a chance they wouldn't except her apology but she said she was ready for it.

Once you got home you took harin's bags to the spare bedroom, sadly also one of the conditions of your aunt. You did compromise that you could sleep in the same room for the first few nights. As you were walking to her bedroom with some drinks you hear a thud from her room. "What was that? are you okay?" you ran into her room to see her laying down on the bed with a smile.

"yes don't worry. It's just this bed is so comfy compared to the bed I had." she sighed as she stretched out. You laid down next to her and she immediately cuddled into you, laying her head on your chest with a leg thrown over yours.

"I love you" you said as you ran your fingers up and down her back.

"I love you too." she leaned up a little and planted a kiss on your lips, "it's about time I said it isn't it?"

You chuckled, "you wrote it down, that also counts."

"no, not for the first time."

In the end everything worked out for the both of you. You went on your first date and harin got to talk with jaeun and suji. It took some time but the both of them saw how much she had changed, how much she regrets what she did and eventually forgave her. Harin occasionally woke up from nightmares and you always took a walk around the block when that happened. You'd sit down on the couch with hot chocolate and some TV show playing in the background as she talked about her dreams. There were a lot of things that she still had to overcome from her childhood, some things she wouldn't and it would be hard.

In the end harin knew she had a home with you and your aunt. Come to think of it She might be your aunts favorite since she calls her more than you but you didn't mind. It's about time harin felt the love of a parental figure, to have them care about her without any expectations. You slept in separate rooms when your aunt was home most of the time but once she left harin always ended up in your bed. Things slowed down and as the both of you settled into this new life you couldn't wait to see what the future had in store for you two.

masterlist

This is the end of this story🫣 thank you to everyone for reading, sharing and liking❤️ special thanks to @iwendix (I know Suprise mention😁) for reacting on the posts and leaving those comments. They really helped me come back to the story to finish it.

[kittycatcomander]

AU where SBI are villains, and Kristin is the villain wrangler making sure all the kids who get counseling in her office get a chance to meet who ever they want, even if they’re wanted dead by the hero commission.

Cue meet-cute(?) between Kristin and Phil, where she spends weeks tracking down the infamous “ Crowfather, killer of heroes and hater of the system” because some little kid wanted see him, and she stands tall and totally not terrified (/s) on a rooftop waiting for him.

And Phil is faced with this woman who spent hours and hours researching his routines not to arrest him but to let a little kid meet him, and he just falls for her.

So they exchange numbers, and everytime from there on out when Kristin has a kid who wants to meet The Blade or Orpheus or Nemesis she just casually shoots THE TOP VILLAIN a message, internally screaming, while Phil is kicking his feet on the air like a stereotypical teenager everytime his phone dings with a personalized ringtone.

Hero!Dream: I have finally confronted you, doer of evil! Today, our fight will be legend-

Crowfather!Phil: wait pause mate- OMG ITS HER 🥰🥰

Hero!Dream: wait wha-

Technoblade: I’ll take it from here

And so begins her getting really casual about the fact she personally texts the top villain.

I’m imagining some side stuff where she meets Tommy, a sidekick in desperate need of help (which she’s happy to provide), and a few others who’s relationship evolves with her over time.

Kirstin when first meeting the Blade: hooooooly smokes this guy is Dangerous, but if the kid wants to meet him… I’ll be prepared

Techno: uhhhhhh (struggling to interact with the receptionist, holds kids and swings them around gently like planes, lets them win fake fights)

Kristin: ok wait he’s like seven shaking puppies built like a brick house

She and Phil talk more and more as the arrangement continues, about everything and eventually life, and things shift from there. The first time that a villain tries hurting one of the kids also shifts their relationship…. especially since Kristin handles it as efficiently as she does.

There’s more, but in this AU I imagine Kristin to have a super dangerous power of her own (unregistered because teehee) that motivated her to work with troubled youth in need of help and kids working with a limited lifespan. I want her to be OP but just friendly and downplaying her ability since she was never in a situation to use it to the full extant.

Also there’d obviously be a CrimeBoys plot and adoption of Tommy into the family (bye bye Dream) which leads to her getting invited over to like. Family dinners and stuff, where the interactions are all completely cute and normal but undercut by her perspective reminding her of crimes they’ve all committed. Like-

“Phil, who had the most beautiful eyes but hands stained with the blood of approximately 3,791 people, passed her the salad with a bright smile. His son(?) continued the story of how he met a new friend. Kristin wasn’t sure if the story was in or out of masks, and she was scared to ask at this point.”

I especially want her to and Phil to reflect the two main approaches to changing the world, where you could either completely destroy the system in place (villains, anarchy) and forcefully restart, or you could tackle an issue at its lowest (if the world is full of corrupt people, change the people from a young age)

[beautiful-basque-country]

In September 2001, the Guardia Civil entered the house of Unai Romano's parents - where he lived - in the middle of the night. He was accused of being an ETA memeber, arrested, and brought to the Guardia Civil headquarters in Gasteiz.

For two days, he was tortured to get more presumed member names out of him. Here's how Unai recently recalled the abuse he was subjected to:

Another question session, more questions. And they started throwing different practices into the mix, one called "the elevator", that consisted in standing up, go down to a deep squat, standing up, up and down, questions, do you know this person? no, you're hit, up and down again. They also threatened me with electrodes. I remember I got them on my testicles, penis, my earlobe. It wasn't a very high intensity, my fear of what it could be was bigger. They kept mixing methods: [choking] bag, electrodes, the infamous elevator, and beatings. There came a moment when I was physically exhausted and when I was on the verge of losing consciousness and fall to the geound they reanimated me and started all over again. But I reached a state I couldn't go on anymore, and they sit me down on a chair; and started telling me they had arrested my mother. I refused to believe it, how can they arrest a 70y/o woman? They were saying this at a distance, pretending they were talking on the phone with the officers of the Gasteiz reservoir, and between guardia civiles, screaming: we're torturing your mother, we're making her go through the elevator, while I kept sitting down on the chair. One of them came to me from behind and told me she has died and it stopped there. I refused to believe, I refused, but I was kept there for a while until they brought me down to my cell [forced to stand up there]. Due to the beatings they gave me, my head begin to swell, so much that I had a hard time at keeping my eyes open, I had to do this gesture continously to keep them open. My face and head burnt, everything was very swollen. So I decided I had to sit, until I heard somebody opened the spyhole and although I got up very quickly and tried to cover it up, he saw me, entered and slapped me hard.

He was left like this :

After enduring all this, Unai Romano was absolved.

He started a crusade to get some justice and has brought his case to the Human Rights Court after the Spanish justice failed him. The judge considered Unai wasn't subjected to torture.

That judge is the current Minister of Justice of Spain, Fernando Grande-Marlaska. Member of a presumed progressive government.

Also, a presumed progressive newspaper like El País, wondered in 2006 - Unai's case had happened 5 years before - if there was torture in Euskadi or was ETA-supporting propaganda.

ONU and the Committe for the Prevention of Torture have expressed in several occasions their concern regarding torture in EH and the total lack of investigation by the Spanish justice system.

There are tens of people in prison due to what they said while being tortured.

Unai, just like many other torture survivors, is still fighting, court after court.

[liver-f4ilure]

Academy Maniacs Article Translated

NOTE: I may have missed a part but this is the whole article.

———

ISSUES: KONKURENTl calendar dated January 28, 2013

"Good-natured boy."

The defendant in the case of "hammer throwers" asked for freedom

Author: ANGELINA SALOMATOVA

The Irkutsk Regional Court received the criminal case against Artyom Anufriev and Nikita Lytkin, who, according to the investigators' version, were operating in Irkutsk Akademgorodok from the fall of 2010 to the spring of 2011, killing six people and attempting to kill eight others, on August 13 last year. According to the Code of Criminal Procedure, the term of detention of the defendants, who have been in Irkutsk SIZO-1 since their arrest on April 5 last year, expires six months after the case is filed with the court, on February 13.

However, according to the court, by that time the case cannot be considered on its merits: it took the prosecution six months just to announce the evidence collected in 49 volumes. At the hearing on Wednesday, January 23, the lawyers started presenting evidence, having summoned the first witnesses and experts to the court. Also ahead is the debate of the parties and the final decision. In this regard, the judge put the issue of extending the period of detention on the table. The defendants, who have already been behind bars for almost two years, as it turned out, are not averse to being free. After a short break in the session, which took Artyom Anufriev to communicate with his lawyers, he asked the court to change the measure of restraint to a custodial release.

"All the fears of the investigation about my being on the outside are groundless. I will not be able to influence the course of the investigation in any way, I will not be able to put pressure on witnesses, I will not be able to destroy evidence either. I have places of study, work, residence, at least I had them. I ask to appoint a measure of restraint not involving imprisonment," said Anufriev. The lawyer supported the position of the defendant: "He is socially adapted, as he has a mother, with whom he lived and can continue to live, he does not intend to hide. In addition, he really can not influence the course of the investigation, as all the evidence is already in court, the judicial investigation is coming to an end".

The mother of Nikita Lytkin did not insist on changing the measure of restraint, leaving the decision "at the discretion of the court", but said that her son had long and deeply repented of the crimes committed and, in her opinion, "is not dangerous to society". Despite the defense's arguments, the court decided to extend the detention for three months, until May 13.

"The defendants are accused of particularly serious crimes against the person, committed over a long period of time. Each of the incriminated acts is punishable by imprisonment for a long period of time, including up to life imprisonment. In selecting a measure of restraint, the court took into account that, being at liberty, they could continue criminal activity and escape from the investigation. These circumstances have not fallen away and have not changed," the judge read out the ruling.

A new stage of the judicial investigation, during which evidence will be presented by the defense side, began at the hearing on Wednesday. Among the first lawyers invited an expert on information systems to the court, with the help of whom they found out the subtleties of data exchange in social networks, in particular "VKontakte", in which, according to the investigation, the defendant Anufriev kept extremist correspondence with acquaintances. According to the expert, the correspondence history stored on the server of the social network could theoretically be changed, which Artem Anufriev himself did not know anything about, and therefore, the information seized from the storage can not be evidence in the case.

—

Artyom Anufriev also denies that he was involved in a vicious correspondence, claiming that he gave the password to his social network page to one of his acquaintances, who left compromising messages on his behalf. The court has yet to sort out the evidence; the unique network IP address from which the defendant accessed the Internet may be used to identify the user of the social network. In addition, Anufriev, who chose the policy of denial of guilt, in his defense stated that in the protocol of on-site testimony, held on April 11, 2011, there is a signature made on his behalf by another person. At the request of the state prosecutor, a handwriting examination was appointed, which was entrusted to the Irkutsk Laboratory of Forensic Expertise.

Recall that at the first stages of the investigation, Artyom Anufriev and Nikita Lytkin fully admitted guilt in committing a series of crimes. However, during the judicial investigation, the first refused to testify and said that he had incriminated himself under torture and threats of investigators "with trouble in the detention center". Since then, the defense lines of Anufriev and Lytkin have been divided. The side of the senior defendant, Anufriev, who is charged with, among other things, involving the minor Lytkin in particularly serious crimes, insists that the defendant could not have been the organizer and ideological inspirer of the extremist community, as the prosecution believes.

In order to prove this, the lawyers called to court a woman who knows Artyom Anufriev "from diapers". The witness, who spoke first on the defense side, said that Artyom Anufriev's mother was a close friend of her own mother and the long family friendship allows her to characterize the defendant. "Artyom is a good-natured boy, polite, I have never heard a bad word from him," the witness said. - He is enthusiastic and capable. In character, soft, kind, driven. They had a boy who was always organizing something - basketball, tennis. Unless you called Artyom and invited him, he wouldn't go. They had a music group; when the organizer left town, the group broke up. Artyom's mother offered to create a new group, but he couldn't because he doesn't have organizational skills.

The witness testimony, according to the defense, should refute the prosecution's thesis that Artyom was the brains and inspiration, while Nikita was the executor. The woman also said that Anufriev's mother did not approve of his friendship with Lytykin. "She believed that this young man does not do anything, badly influences Artyom, interferes with his studies. Always tried to stop their friendship," the witness stated. The court has yet to assess the arguments of the defense. The hearing will continue next week. After reviewing the evidence of both sides, the court will consider possible motions to supplement the judicial investigation, after which the debate of the parties will begin and the judge will make a final decision.

[anneangel]

Javert is as tragic as the title of the book suggests, a miserable.

He may even be the main antagonist, in the sense of opposing the centric character (Jean Valjean), but he is certainly not a villain.

He is obsessed with fulfilling his duty and in a tireless pursuit of justice. He does not believe in Jean Valjean's redemption and his obsession with persecuting him is related to his rigid worldview based on his personal experience and inflexible principles, related to his past, where he was born into a dysfunctional family. He firmly believes in the idea that a bad person is bad forever. He sees his role as Inspector as a fight against crime and injustice.

He doesn't pursue Jean Valjean because he's a villain, he pursues him because he believes Jean is a criminal, who violated his parole, and therefore deserves to be sent back to the prison system.

He was just a man who believed he was doing the right thing, following the law. He believed that people chose to be miserable and that they got what they deserved for choosing to be "vagabonds." He looked at himself and took pleasure in thinking; I came from a dysfunctional home and I still do what is right, so if others don't do it, it's because they don't want to and will never change.

But then he finds himself at a crossroads after Jean Valjean spares his life: "the law says I must arrest this man. But my conscience says I owe him a life debt."

For the first time he contemplates that "law" and "justice" do not always go together. It would be "legal under the law" to arrest Jean, but it would not be "morally just". It's a conflict between legality versus morality.

So poor Javert still faces the deconstruction of his beliefs: “he thought that good and evil were very different things and that an ex-convict could only be bad while a police officer could only be good”, when he realizes that reality not obeys that extreme and that a prisoner can be good (or that it is possible to change and become good), just as a law enforcement officer can become corrupt.

Faced with so many things that he firmly believed falling apart, showing erroneous beliefs of live, he chooses to kill himself rather than live with such unrest. So, basically he commits suicide because he was saved by Jean Valjean, and he couldn't stand that fact.

It really must have been scary to discover that he has spent his life following beliefs that suddenly deteriorate in front of him. It's sad that in the face of this "scare" he chose to kill himself.

The character promotes a very pertinent reflection, and leads us to reconsider the way we look at people who are typically stigmatized by society. Victor Hugo is never trying to say that bad people are good deep down, nothing like that; After all, there is the character Mr. Thénardier to prove this. What he is saying is that we cannot make it an absolute rule that all people who commit crimes were and will be bad forever. Because by establishing that they are, a stigma is created that can be unfair for those who, like Jean, tried to change their lives.

It is also necessary to remember that at no point does Hugo say that Jean Valjen was right in stealing the bread, but rather that the penalty imposed on him was disproportionate to the crime committed. In the end, we read that Javert kills himself because he cannot bear the idea that Jean, an ex-prisoner, can go from darkness to light. While he, by following the law, committed an injustice.

He thinks that Jean, even though he was a former prisoner, managed to go to a place above him morally, while he, who was such an inflexible agent of the law, saw himself as someone tough who didn't understand the factor of redemption as an element capable of rescue the soul of someone who once made a mistake.

Honestly, I like the character and understand the powerful reflection he brings to us. But at the same time, I'm sad that he killed himself. He could have chosen other paths, but ultimately he was so desolate that he saw no other options.

[desmon1995]

Ajax: From Toxic Masculinity to Defiant Resistance – A Character Study

I never realized just how much of an impact Ajax left on *The Warriors* until I really dove into the series. Ajax is one of the most memorable characters in the original film, embodying toxic masculinity in a way that's hard to miss. From bullying Cowboy, making crass comments about women, and throwing out homophobic slurs, he's abrasive, aggressive, and power-hungry. His few redeeming moments, like defending Cowboy from the Furies, quickly vanish when he falls for a honey trap set by a female cop, leading to his arrest and brutal beating. What’s fascinating is how the adaptation in the concept album reinterprets Ajax while staying true to the spirit of the character. Turning Ajax into a woman could've gone wrong, but Davis and Lin-Manuel Miranda managed to preserve her fire while making her complex and sympathetic. Female Ajax still has a short fuse and runs her mouth, but her aggression is often protective, aimed at shielding the weaker members of the crew. She's the unspoken second-in-command after Swan, earning genuine respect from characters like Fox. Her dynamic with Swan is nuanced—there’s rivalry but also mutual respect. She doesn’t blindly follow orders and openly questions the wisdom of running from the summit, showing early signs of resistance. Her breaking point comes after the harrowing encounter with the Turnbulls, where she nearly snaps. The brilliance of her arc is in how the album frames her anger—not as something to be suppressed but as a survival tool. This comes to a head during the Furies fight, where she leads the charge, encouraging the girls to stop running and fight back. The beast within is unleashed, setting the stage for her tragic encounter with Barnes, played by James Remar, the original Ajax—a stroke of casting genius. Barnes is the embodiment of institutional abuse, a corrupt cop preying on vulnerable women. Some critics didn’t like this change, but it’s grounded in harsh reality. Studies show police abuse against sex workers is alarmingly common ([source](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9365085/)). Barnes wields his badge like a weapon, making him more dangerous than any gang. Ajax’s decision to swing at Barnes isn’t just personal—it’s symbolic. After a night of running and suppressing who she is, she takes a stand, knowing the system will never punish him. The tragedy is that she pays the price while he walks free, a dark reflection of her movie counterpart’s arrest but with deeper stakes. Her final act of defiance resonates because she fights back when no one else can or will. The song gives her the last word, even as the cops taunt her—a fitting tribute to someone who refuses to be silenced. In today’s climate, Ajax feels more relevant than ever. Her evolution from a cautionary tale of toxic masculinity to a symbol of resistance hits hard. With more people fed up with bending the knee, she’s become a figure of rebellion with teeth—a fierce reminder that sometimes, you have to swing back.

[captainx-camino]

It's such a weird perspective seeing people who watched Renfield treat Rebecca's wounds and protect her after she arrested him without question and proceeded to berate him in his apartment because like

On the surface level, people take that as a sweet gesture on Renfield's part, showing how sweet and caring of a person he really is

But in reality, he's not showing what a caring and sweet person he is...he's showing that despite being mistreated and blamed for something that isn't his fault, he's been conditioned to believe that he still has to be the one to service the people in his life.

We also see this behavior when Rebecca reacts violently to Renfield's sarcastic joke, in which, despite Rebecca's response to the situation clearly being the one that was out of line, Renfield is the one to instantly try to defuse the situation and apologize.

Like, I'm not trying to say you can't get what you get out of their interactions. Lord knows I'm not one to talk about that. And yes, I'm aware the situation is clearly dramatized for comedic effect, but like...

It's just so jaw dropping to me to see people miss this so often and not see (or rather ever acknowledge) the way Renfield falls right back in with someone else who is quite abusive and aggressive themself, to the point where Renfield actually feels the need to point out their tendency towards anger as a response to situations.

It's a very raw and real thing as someone who himself went straight from an abusive parent into an abusive relationship as a teenager living on his own. (Not my current partner obviously. They're wonderful and have been a huge support system in my healing journey. I can't thank him enough for that, honestly.)

Anyway, I just don't think it's brought up enough how real it is that Renfield so easily falls right back into a destructive situation with the literal next person he tries to build any sort of relationship with and I think it's a really important detail to his growth as a person to not only see it, but to see that he eventually starts to recognize that behavior in this new connection and learn to call it out.