#The arc of history bends toward justice

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

"It's gonna have to be a societal project, one that will probably outlast all of us. Sorry."

So. Even if it's not a problem that can be solved in our lifetimes, we still have to start doing something now, so it can be nudged for the better in future generations.

Any suggestions?

If your vision for the deradicalization of right-wing men begins and ends with "other men telling them that that's gross and to stop it" then I'm sorry, you do not understand how masculinity works.

"Men who hold patriarchal status" and "men who are feminists" are two groups who overlap less than you want them to. I'm sorry. That's not solely because men are so happy with patriarchal status that they don't want to risk it by policing misogyny/queerphobia/racism, It's because being misogynistic, queerphobic, and racist, end expressing other forms of toxic masculinity(and often abusively so) are part of how people establish and maintain patriarchal status. The men who have the ability to stop this via nothing but peer pressure are the very people who are doing it. That's by design. And engaging in feminist intervention is, in and of itself, usually the abrupt end of that status and its associated power to persuade misogynistic men.

Like, I have worked in blue collar jobs as a notably queer person. It was pretty much a constant deluge of verbal abuse. In my experience, most blue collar work environments are exploitative, abusive, and bigoted, and very gleefully so. On the occasions I have spoken up about someone saying something that was super fucking out of line (asking me which of the girls walking by was hottest. We were installing a portable classroom at a middle school), believe it or not, they completely failed to be shamed! Because nobody else on the crew gave a fuck. *I* was the weird one. They ghosted me. A full blown company ghosted me. I suddenly didn't have a job anymore because they just straightforwardly stopped telling me where the next job site was.

Like, this doesn't mean that it's your job to do it, but this vision you have of these big groups of men where everyone is on the fence and there is precisely one shit stirrer who can be shut down by a brave feminist man who can single handedly set the example for all these other guys...you are high. You are describing an "everybody clapped" level absurd scenario. Most of these truly virulent misogynistic guys either have zero friends, because, you know, our society is atomized to fuck, or they are in a group where the feminist guy is actually the weirdo who can be shut down and ostracized much, much easier than the misogynists, because there is no such thing as a man misogynists respect who stands up for women.

You might be saying "well, we're talking about longstanding personal relationships, actually. Like, they need to have to want to spend time with you and then, as a side effect, you can mind control them out of being a threat to us."

Problem with that being:

1: Many feminist men also have no friends, see the atomized society above.

2: Feminist men already stopped hanging out with men who make rape jokes because why the fuck would we want to spend time with them.

3: That isn't just because we respect women so hard. We are in many cases talking about men who are also deeply queerphobic, heirarchical, violent and abusive to other men. What initially drew me to feminism and women was a lack of heirarchical squabbling and constant bullying, and the ability to be openly queer. A lot of men who came to feminism did so because they knew that the patriarchy was not a place they would find success or acceptance. These are not the men who are gonna be able to change right wing minds.

4. Men do not view themselves as a monolith. There is no universal brotherhood of men. The actual meaning of the term "Fragile masculinity" is that men are constantly expected to prove that they are deserving of the status of being a member of their own gender. There are large swathes of men--including most of the men who you'd look to as examples of good, feminist men who you want to undertake this project--who are considered failed men, sissies, f****ts, soyboys, ect. They are. Not. Going. To. Convince. These. Men. Of. Jack. Shit. Much less successfully *shame* them. Jesus.

I know all of this sucks. I know it would be cool to be able to just point at a group and have them be responsible for the work. But nah. It's gonna have to be a societal project, one that will probably outlast all of us. Sorry. The thing you want these men to do is, absolutely, the morally correct thing to do. But presuming that it would be effective is, and once again I am so sorry about this, just ignorance of how these social groups function.

[cherryblossomshadow]

"moral arc of history" my fucking ass

[actual-sleeping-beauty]

Sos I though about being queer in Kentucky for five seconds on my drive home and now I want to cry. Or draft a Facebook post to try to get people to call their state reps. Or both.

Anyway if you live in Kentucky PLEASE call your state representative and ask them to vote NO on SB 150 AND HB 173!!!!

[slithymomerath]

“I am typing these words as June 2003 surges with Pride. What year is it now, as you read them? What has been won; what has been lost? I can’t see from here; I can’t predict. But I know this: You are experiencing the impact of what we in the movement take a stand on and fight for today. The present and past are the trajectory of the future. But the arc of history does not bend towards justice automatically—as the great Abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed, without struggle there is no progress . . .”

- Leslie Feinberg

[firstfullmoon]

In 1981, Israeli Mossad agents assassinated Palestinian Liberation Organization member, writer, and intellectual Majed Abu Sharar in his hotel room in Rome. Abu Sharar was a close friend of the Palestinian poet and writer Mahmoud Darwish. In 1984, in his collection A Siege for the Eulogies of the Sea (Hissar li-Mada’h el-Bahr), Darwish included the final version of his long elegy to his friend, “The Final Meeting in Rome.” This poem in particular is largely untranslatable in English. The untranslatability is not so much due to the technical demands of the surreal lyric’s transformation of song into an act of liberation. Instead, the untranslatability relates primarily to the question of audience. There remains little room in English to receive openly, unequivocally, the freedom song of Palestinians in its myriad forms.

But I can simplify all this jargon in a single word, a name: Majed. Majed’s name permeates the text of “The Final Meeting in Rome.” In a moment of genius, in the penultimate section of the text, Darwish explodes language with his friend’s name through an unexpected refrain—as if Darwish had been writing the previous pages for the sole purpose of arriving at this stanza: “Good morning, Majed, / good morning, / get up to recite Surat al-‘Aaed.”

In the Quran, there is no chapter, or Surah, titled al-‘Aaed—a word that means the returnee. Some may argue that one solution for translating the stanza would reside in changing Majed’s name to Ali, for example, so that the impact of the rhyme is maintained: Ali/the Surah of the returnee. But that is self-deluding. English, much as it likes to argue otherwise, still struggles to accept at least two major points about this linguistic construct in Arabic. The first is the beautiful, divine presence of the Quran to elegize a Palestinian martyr (irrespective of their religious affiliation, if any). The second is the Palestinian right of return, dead and alive.

Darwish stuns his audience by blurring the boundaries of blasphemy. He is not echoing a specific Quranic text. He elevates the Palestinian question to touch the moral arc that bends toward justice in the universe. He delivers a mystical experience no one objects to in Arabic. He invents a Surah in the Quran and attributes its title to his “friend, brother, and last love.” The entire Palestinian body in one named Majed. The entire human history of return in a Surah.

Among the poem’s memorable lines, there is this couplet: “As if I could protect my heart / from hope. My heart is ill.” This ailing heart arrives near the end of the poem and disseminates into Palestinian flesh. What Darwish manages to describe, in topical yet visionary manner, is astounding, precisely because the poem does not claim to see the future. Yet here we are, more than forty years later, and every word of the closing salvo that I have translated is true.

I took liberties with this last, translatable section of “The Final Meeting in Rome.” Since one aspect of the original untranslatability is in the name—Majed—I clearly see that today, Gaza is the untranslatable name in the poem.

[ridenwithbiden]

BIDEN IS THE BRIDGE

OBAMA

BIDEN

KAMALA

The Arc Of History Bends Towards Justice

[batboyblog]

You, no doubt, have seen that Missouri's AG has put out emergency rules that limit, and in effect ban, transition care in the state, effective April 27

First things first if you are trans in MO, I'm sorry this is happening to you no one else is gonna apologize so I will, I'm really fucking sorry.

two, don't panic, The ACLU and Lambda Legal declared together they're gonna fight this thing. But they need your help

IF YOU ARE TRANS IN MISSOURI! PLEASE CONTACT THE ACLU OR LAMBDA AT ONCE! THEY NEED YOUR STORY!

If you would be effected by these rules they need to hear from you AT ONCE, your story and how these rules will negatively impact your life will make up the basis of challenging (and overturning) these rules before they can take effect.

other groups to engage with on this, PRMO-Missouri, The National Center for Transgender Equality, HRC and of course PFLAG

Finally next year Attorney General Andrew Bailey will be up for election. Don't forget this, don't forgive this, stay fucking angry and bring your rage every day from today till you grind his transphobic ass into the dirt, EVERY DAY!

moments like this are scary, and they are painful, but they are calls to action. You may feel that it isn't fair, and it is not, but you are called to action to fight for your rights and the rights of others so in the future others will not have to. Do not stop do not give up, the arc of history is long but it does bend toward justice.

[wirewitchviolet]

That thing about 'the arc of history bending towards justice...'

I'm pretty sure I've gone on about this before, and I'm pretty sure I'm preaching to the choir, but I just had a well-intentioned acquaintance try to give an inspirational speech about American trans people's fears right now, and his heart was in the right place, but all his facts were wrong, in some really important ways. I feel like the perspective he has is the same one as... basically every decent person who isn't like, intimately familiar with WPATH, so please spread this around, and please if you only read one rambling history lesson from a trans person about the current state of things, make it this one.

So here's the big problem. Trans people get brought up in the mainstream media a LOT these days, but the framing is totally wrong. The impression people get is that there is presently a big push for new trans rights, where we want proper government recognition, and trans women in particular want to be able to use public women's restrooms, and play on girls-only sports teams, and a dozen other things. That is a lie you are being fed. These are all rights we ALREADY HAD, for decades. Possibly centuries depending what we're talking about specifically and where we're talking, even. The big issue right now is that a bunch of bigots just woke up one day about 10 years ago and decided that nothing else they were angling for was getting them anywhere with the general public, so hey let's make a boogieman out of this minority of a minority nobody knows the first thing about and act like all the horrors they're inflicting are just them enforcing some totally fictional status quo.

Speaking personally, I can say that The Trans Agenda in like 2014 was something like: 1- I'm gonna make a nice big pot of chili. 2- I'm gonna maybe replay some old video games from the '90s I haven't taken down off the shelf in a while. And OK maybe 3- It'd be cool if it weren't just the medical professionals who specifically specialize in trans stuff had enough of an education to know that when there's a difference in how a drug is going to effect men vs. women, it's for reasons directly tied to the levels of various hormones, or would at least trust their trans patients to know what we're talking about and not give us the wrong doses of things and maybe kill us as a result. And also like, treat us for regular things like broken arms (real example) without weirdly panicking about some prescription we're on they don't recognize.

There was absolutely not a point where some trans woman started petitioning the government or whatever to let her pee in a toilet with a little placard of a stick figure in a dress in front. We've just been doing that the whole time. Nobody's ever had a problem with that. You didn't know we were in there? OK. If I'm like at a restaurant and have to use the bathroom, I don't know how many of the other women in there have like, type O blood. I also don't care, and I think everyone would agree it was weird if I suddenly did care, and demand they post a guard out front asking to see driver's licenses. Just completely out of the blue some nutcases from the UK started foaming at the mouth and writing weird tabloid articles about their completely unfounded fears that... I don't even know. Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs might put on a wig and follow them into the bathroom, dose them with chloroform, and drag them to some basement dungeon through some series of secret passages or something.

This was based on literally nothing at all, to be clear. Like, people pushing for this went and did serious research for anything even anecdotal to back them up on this, and didn't actually find anything. Then they started walking into public restrooms with cameras throwing doors open on people and going "see? See? Some creep could totally do this if we don't ban trans people from using bathrooms!" And... somehow this got traction? I figure it's because coincidentally there was this whole other thing going where people were looking at how every building had equal numbers of men's and women's rooms and saying "you know, like, 90% of people who come in here are the same gender and we end up with really long lines, what if we just took the signs down and told everyone to just use whichever?" which... when it's happening at the same time Chicken Little is ranting and raving about the boogieman wearing a cheap wig, wires got crossed? And suddenly we've got waves of legislation passing all over about who's allowed to use what bathrooms with weird standards that'd involve like DNA tests to actually enforce properly. Absurd stuff.

Meanwhile, your average trans activist at the time was just like... sitting there eating a sandwich and going "huh, they're making a TV series based on Fargo? That's an odd thing to happen out of the blue. And yeah we started going "hey, what the hell?" when this stuff started passing because like... yeah that's what you do when you see an article in the local newspaper that says you can't go to the bathroom at work or whatever without swabbing your cheek and waiting for lab results for 3 weeks first or whatever.

Same deal with sports. Major sports organizations like the Olympics have been weirdly paranoid about men pretending to be women since 1950. And there have been, to the best of my ability to research... zero men who have actually done this. And while the weird standards used for this have been used to kick a good number of women out over the years, none of those women have been trans, for what that's worth. Really, the whole gender testing thing has only ever been used for horrifying stuff like forcing women to strip in front of random creeps, or let them do "invasive internal exams" and of course so many incidents where some woman who isn't white wins at something and people move the goalposts to in some way to get her specifically banned. You may be thinking, "wait didn't I just see a whole bunch of news coverage about someone getting banned after some gender testing thing? She was trans right?" No. You're thinking of Caster Semenya. She's a woman. A cis woman. F on her birth certificate, born with standard issue female genitals, has periods, all that. People are just being weird racists there and crossing the streams with random transphobia. That and just... half-reading stories and making stuff up.

To the best of my knowledge, the total count of trans athletes who have competed in the Olympics would actually be... three nonbinary people, who so far as I can tell all competed against people with the same gender they had on their birth certificates, nothing done medically, so, nobody should have any problem there. Caitlyn Jenner, who didn't come out as a woman until like... 40 years after competing, on the men's team, and Laurel Hubbard, the first and only trans woman to compete at the Olympics as a woman, who placed... dead last, flubbing all three of her lifts.

If we just look at sports in general, OK, there WAS one big famous where a trans woman wanted to compete in a major sporting event, was banned from it, took the organizers to court over it, and the eventual ruling was there was no reason at all she shouldn't be allowed to play against other women. Renée Richards. And this was all the way back in 1976. Nearly 50 years ago now.

And of course in more recent years, again, after a bunch of random bigots just completely out of the blue started losing their minds about trans people with no prompting and started lobbying for new laws banning us from all kinds of things nobody had had a problem with us doing forever, there was Mack Beggs, a trans guy, who was forced, by one of those aforementioned baffling reactionary new laws, to compete on his high school's girl's wrestling team. He didn't want to be there, they didn't want him to be there, but the law said hey, F on your birth certificate, we're classifying you as a girl despite how clearly wrong that is. And then there's been a bunch of other weird cases like that like one state banning trans girls from playing any sports with other girls which only affected one single girl in the entire state, who was playing lacrosse on a team that wouldn't have even existed if she hadn't personally organized it.

But the point here is, trans people aren't asking for anything here. We're just standing here, and people are flipping out and banning us from doing all these things without any prompting. And hell, I THINK this one got shot down in higher courts, but when Florida got the brain worms on this and started passing all the anti-trans legislation they could think of, they actually included a ban on us just standing there! The wording was something like (and I apologize that I can't find it, search engines are useless now), "if a child can potentially see someone who was assigned male at birth who is wearing women's clothes, it's considered sexual assault."

It's important to understand what's actually going on here, both because what's going on here is just plain terrifying, but also because there is this huge segment of the population who has this weird idea that people's rights only ever get better, there's just some weird arbitrary ratcheting where you have to take a number and get in line. Like, "hey, used to be only white men could vote, then eventually the Progress bar filled enough that we let white women start voting too. Then we had to wait for it to fill up again, hey, we're ending this whole segregation of black people thing. Gotta give it another 30 years or so to fill up, now hey, gay people can get married! Don't be impatient trans folks, you just need to stay in line and wait for it to fill again for your turn!"

That's not how anything has ever actually worked. It would frankly be absolutely insane if it actually did, but like, this is an idea people get in their heads because history textbooks really like to gloss over all the stuff that makes the country look pretty bad and promote this whole "stuff is just always getting better!" vibe. But no, sometimes, things just straight up get worse for people. Ten years ago I could go to the damn bathroom, I could have social media accounts, I could access all the medications I need to live, I could safely set foot in any given state in the country... at least if I kept some witnesses around at all times to verify I was not in fact hitting on my would-be murderer in any of the black states on this map.

The problem is NOT that with Trump in power, the pause button is getting hit on trans people climbing towards some state of finally getting to be regular people. We were (largely) already there, and there's been a huge push over the past decade to strip that away from us. And Trump plus the rest of the Republican party in general have made very specific promises to make that way worse real real soon, including several things that will straight up kill a ton of us.

Like, when I'm talking about losing access to necessary medical treatments, I'm not talking about "THE SURGERY" and magic pills that give you boobs or beards. A lot of trans people are trans because there's weird medical stuff that in addition to messing with what does and doesn't grow mess with things like whether your blood flows properly and whether various organs do what they should. Just one of those many things the average person doesn't know, because everything written about us is from deranged bigots making crap up.

[let-spretend]

hey !! very self indulgent fanfic here, wanted to insert reader into the game itself so lots of dialogue is directly pulled from chp 15. armageddon !! could be platonic if you squint ‘cause it’s pretty vague. still open to requests and criticisms.

liu kang x reader !!

"There is nowhere to run, Shang Tsung. Nowhere to hide." Liu Kang opens his arms, looking side to side. "We have banded together to rid all timelines of your evil. The threat you pose to them ends today." He points to the ground.

"Such certainty, Liu Kang. That this battle will end in your favor." Dark Shang Tsung only spits back with venom.

"It can end no other way. Because across all timelines, the arc of history bends toward justice."

"Does it? In this timeline, it bends toward me." Dark Shang Tsung's arms engulf into flames and he starts to swing his arms into a circular motion. Chanting, he shoots a beam of fire towards the sky. Slowly, a portal starts to rip open, lighting up the area. "Behold, Liu Kang, the hell I unleash upon you!" He motions his arm toward the portal and skulls start to pour out, creating a pathway. Dark versions of everyone start to come out, with Quan Chi leading the herd. Dark Shang Tsung and Liu Kang stare each other down, while Dark Shang Tsung's army starts to line up near him. He yells for them to charge, gesturing toward all of you. You start to run up the stairs, with the rest of Liu Kang's army also doing the same. You don't pay any attention to who you were fighting, just interacting with whoever decided to stand in your way. You push and kick your opponents into the green waste between the pyramid stairs.

"My godly might will strike you down." You turn your head to see a Li Mei in similar attire to Raiden. You get into a ready stance and are ready for anything she tries. You notice crackling occurring between her fingertips and you realize she was a version of someone's timeline's Raiden. You land the first punch, cornering her into a wall. Continuously you strike, pushing her down to the floor for enough time to escape. She falls with no intention of getting back up.

You sprint toward the stairs again, climbing up to one of the many platforms on the stairs. You see a flicker of green in the corner of your eye. Before you could act, a version of Syzoth punches you right in the face. You fall to the floor, clenching your cheek. You send a low kick, causing Reptile to meet you on the ground. You push yourself into the air and aim your feet toward Reptile's face. "How you like that, Syzoth?" You chuckle, imagining your timeline's Syzoth being defeated by your hands. Before she could respond, you lift her up from the ground and throw her across the platform. After this action, dozens of dark Shang Tsung's people come rushing towards you. You start to run, sucker punching a dark Kenshi along the way. You hear Sento clank to the ground as you turn the corner. You see an oncoming shadow but no people around. You clamor to the ground as a heavy weight jumps onto you. A person that appears to be Sub-Zero towers over you, ready to strike. You roll to your right and get up onto your knees. "So eager you had to jump onto me?" You banter. She sneers and sends icicles toward you. You crouch down and go for her feet. She acts quickly and jumps up, coming down with a kick. It lands on your stomach, you grunt in pain but punch her in the face as she lands. Blood paints her face as she attempts to wipe it off. Her stance now staggered, she summons an ice flail into her hands. She lunges toward you but you block, the flail breaking on impact. You suck in from the pain and cold it left. You slap her face and punch her in the stomach three times, sending her a couple feet in front of you. As she goes down with a thud, a Dark Sonya that has Kano's eye starts charging toward you. She kicks for your face and tries to slash your arm with her blade. You block all of her attempts and reply with a punch to her face. Her face swings back as her robotic eye releases a deadly beam. You hold her face away from yours and punch her with brute force. She cries in pain and falls.

"You get to be killed by a megastar." You turn around to be met with a Shao Kahn dressed in Johnny's attire. You can't help but let a loud laugh escape your lips. He charges at you and you go flying, landing next to the defeated Sonya. He walks over slowly and you jump up and kick his stomach to keep him from coming any closer. He groans and you keep at it. Punching in any place open and finishing with a kick to the balls. He yells out in pain and topples over. "Learned that on from you, ironically." You retort. You hear a mix of low growling and yelling above you. It was Goro. He jumps off of the roof and lands next to you, making you almost fall over from the impact. He hurls his hammer into your face. Your face burns with pain and you clutch it instinctively. You thought your whole face was taken with the hammer. Goro tries to hit you again with his hammers but is stopped by a punch. He falls onto the stairs but kicks your aid back. You look up to see a Ninja Mime Cage being caught by more Cages. Johnny taps him on the shoulder. He jumps back up quickly and turns his head to the right to see why Johnny tapped his shoulder. Janet also taps him and he faces her. Johnny shouts and "Ms. Cage" does the same. Probably to hype themselves up. Ninja Mime smiles at their antics and also yells silently. You chuckle at the mime's attempt at yelling. He notices your laughter and sends you a wink, but is quickly interrupted by Goro. He swings his hammers toward the three of them and they all dodge. Johnny back kicks Goro in the balls while Ninja Mime flips in the air and kicks his calf. While he winces, Janet kicks him in the face, leading him closer to the ledge. Johnny sends a green blast from his hand hurling toward Goro. You don't remember your timeline's Johnny having powers. Ninja Mime tries to land a finishing kick but Goro grabs his leg. He bends it in an unnatural way, a crackle left his leg. Despite that, he does not make a sound. Although his face contorts in pain and distress. He is tossed by Goro into the green abyss. The Cage's both kick him onto the ledge, pushing him off politely with a send off. Johnny sends you a thumbs up but Janet gives you two. You smile and pick yourself up. You hear yelling behind you but don't bother to turn as another Dark version of Johnny starts to approach.

"You've clearly no sense of self-preservation." You sigh again. "I don't have time for this." You say, in a deadpan voice. Janet scoffs. "Oh, you will." You run towards her and she braces for some sort of attack. But all you do is push her to the floor and take off. "Ugh! Come back here, Y/N!!" You ignore her and run up the never-ending stairs. Your breathing was starting to become shallow. You try to drink your spit to somehow calm yourself and also give you hydration. But it obviously didn't help. You try to look down while running to keep you from seeing the amount of stairs left, knowing the consequences. But you stop, hearing many footsteps ahead of you. You look up to see 4 people. You scan their faces and they all seem familiar but you couldn’t quite place it. Before you could attack, you’re surprised by a weaponized fan.

“Allow me.” Kitana declares.

You happily oblige and let her slay the four in front of you. She ruthlessly slices off limbs and heads. One head with sunglasses on, rolls down in front of you. Weirdly, it felt like a taunt. You try not to think so deeply about it. "Thank you, Princess Kitana. Or.. maybe not a princess?" You say, with uncertainty. It was hard to keep track of everything and everyone. Kitana only chuckles. "You are too cute. Kitana is just fine and you're welcome. Now hurry. There's no time to waste." You were about to reply to her before she was tackled by some person. You were caught by surprise and your first instinct was to help her. You figure she was able to defend herself, but mostly it was the fact that you were being approached once again.

"Reptiloids are apex predators." She calmly says. This time it was a Reptiloid Sindel. You sigh and get into a ready stance. You don't even bother with a quip. Before Sindel could even attack, the ground starts to crackle with red lightning. You look around your surroundings for anything and your eyes land on a chain hanging from a pillar. You kick the pillar to push yourself toward the hanging chain. Sindel screams in pain from the lightning and a figure that looks like Kung Lao, lands. You could see that stupid hat from a mile away. Sindel falls to the floor with severe burns but the figure pays no attention. He removes his hat and cleanly slices the chain you were dangling from, in half. You fall to the floor but get a glimpse of his face. It was Raiden's. "Ew!" You exclaim, not being able to fathom that 'that' exists. He practically flies into you and your stomach burns from his lightning. You dodge his attacks from his hat and begin to punch once he puts it back on. Getting a closer look at the Kung Lao-Raiden mashup, your eyebrows furrow. You push him toward a torch and his clothes catch on fire. He screams and tries to put it out but falls off the pyramid, not realizing where he stood. "That was an abomination.." You breathe out, as you watch him flail to his death.

You jog up the stairs, tired, before noticing two figures. You look up to see Dark Shang Tsung and Quan Chi up at the top, staring down at you attempting to run up the stairs. You see Shang Tsung talking to Quan Chi but can't make out what he says from all the yelling around you. You keep running up the stair trying to catch up. They face each other and start to create a bubble of magic, mixed with orange and green. They both raise it into the sky and throw it into your direction. "Shit!" You dive onto the next platform, as you watch it pass by you and hit many others toward the bottom. Your body aches from the fall and fatigue. "Ugh.." You slowly start to pick yourself up try to continue up the stairs.

But distant growling could be heard from around the corner. Just as you start to catch your breath, three dark clones of Mileena charge toward you with sai in their hands. The two in the back stay in a standby position, while the Mileena in red attire attacks. You grab her arms and make them cross, using her left hand with the sai to puncture her right shoulder. You twirl her to make her face her copies. You use her body to block their advances, also using her arms to attack them. You slice the neck of the Mileena in yellow. You stab the side of one in blue and stab her again but with both sai in the stomach. You kick the Mileena in your hands and take the sai out of hers. You stab her in the chest but have no time to take them back out, as another Mileena charges. You block, but she swipes you off the ground, flipping her sai to face your eyes. You catch her arms and use all your strength to keep her away. She tries to push harder with her body weight but you turn her arms inward, gouging her eyes out with the sai. Her blood flings onto your face as you push her off of you. You stood up quickly, looking at the scene. You were breathing heavily, scared of what could’ve happened. "Fuck..” You just stare at Mileena’s lifeless body. A little bit of payback for Kenshi's eyes.

"Hurry Y/N! You are almost there!" You look up to see a very ethereal-looking Shang Tsung cheering you on, with a version of Quan Chi by his side. But they are both blasted with a green force, which seemed to be sucking their souls out. You watched as their bodies were being ripped away from their skeletons, the flesh sploshing onto the floor.

Dark Shang Tsung was on his knee, supporting himself. You start to run up the pyramid stairs again, angry, but interrupted by a different Quan Chi body slamming you to the floor. You let out a grunt, landing on your arms. "I don't have time for all these distractions.." You state. You waste no time and punch his stomach. Blood sputters out of his mouth from the sudden blunt force. You take a small knife from his belt and decide it was now yours. You swipe for his neck and push in deep, and glide the knife across. Blood spews out and you are drenched in it. "Ugh.." You lightly push him and topples onto the floor. Now you have his and Mileena's blood on your face. You sigh as you start to run, trying to find the stairs again. You hold your new knife tightly, ready for any attack. But instead you find Liu Kang on the stairs, fighting off some foes. He kicks them off and notices you climbing up the stairs. He turns his body and attention towards you. "It's only a little further, Y/N. Follow me." He lingers a little, sort of assessing you. He slightly furrows his brows but gestures for you to follow, which you do.

You both reach the top where Dark Shang Tsung and Quan Chi seemed like they were waiting for you to arrive. You pocket your small knife and form your hands into fists. You looked over at Liu Kang to see him with barely any injuries and effortlessly vibrant. You try to cover up the fact that you were heaving from just climbing all those stairs and the fact that you were admiring him at a time like this.

"Your defenses have failed, Shang Tsung. This is over." Liu kang instructed, while tilting his head slightly.

"I do not think so." Shang Tsung delivers a simple, yet defying answer.

"Realize, sorcerer, that you've brought this on yourself. Avarice and ego have again proved your undoing. We have no choice but to eradicate you." You had to be completely honest, you have no idea what avarice meant but you only nodded in agreement with Liu Kang. You note in your head to start using that Word-A-Day calendar from Johnny...

"It is you who will be eradicated. You and your followers." Shang Tsung's eyes linger on you when he mentions Liu Kang's followers. "And once you are dead, all timelines will be mine." He starts to run toward you and you react the same. You throw a punch but he dodges and extends his claws out. He raises his arms and scratches your chest. You grimace in pain but don't stop for it. You aim a kick to his face and follow with another one. He blocks them all and pushes you and kicks you in the head. You get dizzy and fall to the floor. You try to get back up, knowing Liu Kang needs your assistance. But you couldn't. You slump to the floor, trying to fight the urge to close your eyes. You try and focus on the sounds of grunting and punches being exchanged. You hear Liu Kang's high pitched yells and fire leaving his hands. You cannot stay on the floor any longer. You ignore the gnawing pain in your head and shake it. Your eyes open right as Quan Chi releases a beam in the form of a snake attack Liu Kang. It entraps him and tangles him so he cannot move. Your face contorts that into a scared one, but you take a deep breath.

You try not to seem nervous to your enemies and hold your expression blank. You slowly start to approach the two. "Your position is precarious." Quan Chi states, with a bit of enthusiasm laced within it. "To survive, you must submit." He stops walking and forms his hand into a tight fist. Shang Tsung approaches you, slowly. "Yes. The question you must ask is: if Liu Kang couldn't finish us, how possibly could you?" You didn't say anything, only replying with a solemn facial expression.

Shang Tsung jumps up and tries to land a kick onto your face but you slide and make him miss. He swiftly turns back and punches you consecutively. Every blow hurt, but reminds you that you needed to win, not just for you, but also for Liu Kang and the Realms. You block and grab onto his arm. You throw him onto the ground and start to do the same. Just punch the shit out of him. He cries out in pain but uses his feet to kick you off of him. He extends his claws again and swings in whatever directions he could think of. "Two can play that game." You pull out your small knife and pierce his lower stomach area. He instinctively clutches his wound and you take that opportunity to bash his head onto the ground. He stops moving, but you could tell he was still breathing.

"And they called me the Chosen one." He looks down at your work but looks to you smiling. You were tired but still super happy Liu Kang complimented your efforts. "Thank you, Liu Kang. Should I..?" He places a hand on your shoulder. "You have done more than enough, Y/N. Please, permit me to end this." He lightly squeezes before letting go and again lingering to take a look at you. You look back with an honest face. He blinks and turns away. He begins to swing his arms and sand starts to fall out of his hands. Dark Shang Tsung and Quan Chi slowly start to fade away into sand, then blown by the wind.

"May that be last we see of you." Liu Kang sends the sand off, watching it fade away.

The ground beneath you starts to shake and soon cracks. Liu Kang looked equally as puzzled but you still ask him. "What's going on?" He looks over at you, then back to the few specks of sand. "The timeline! Without Shang Tsung to hold it together, it's falling apart!" His eyebrows furrow as looks at you but he shakes his head, looking at the ground. "You must return to your timeline before this one collapses." His arms engulf into flames and it surrounds you. "Thank you for your aid and presence, Y/N. May we one day meet again.." Before you could process his words, his warm flames start to hug you. "Wait, Liu Kang! I've got so many things to-!" Everything around you turns into white and you're scared for what's to come. Was he going to restart the timeline? Or did he only remove you out of there? You had so many questions and everything had moved by so fast. You could only hope that he would come see you again.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trudy Ring at The Advocate:

A federal court has permanently blocked Florida from enforcing its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors and restrictions on the care for trans adults.

���Transgender opponents are of course free to hold their beliefs,” Judge Robert Hinkle of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida wrote in his ruling, issued Tuesday. “But they are not free to discriminate against transgender individuals just for being transgender. In time, discrimination against transgender individuals will diminish, just as racism and misogyny have diminished. To paraphrase a civil-rights advocate from an earlier time, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. “In the meantime, the federal courts have a role to play in upholding the Constitution and laws. The State of Florida can regulate as needed but cannot flatly deny transgender individuals safe and effective medical treatment — treatment with medications routinely provided to others with the state’s full approval so long as the purpose is not to support the patient’s transgender identity.” Hinkle also asserted, “Gender identity is real.” He had temporarily blocked the law last year. When hearing the case in December, he had ripped into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for spreading lies about trans care for young people.

[...]

His ruling in the case of Doe v. Ladapo found that Florida Senate Bill 254 and the related Boards of Medicine rules were motivated by disapproval of transgender people and violate the equal protection rights of transgender individuals and parents of transgender minors in Florida. Florida was the first state to pass a law restricting access to health care for transgender adults. The ban on this care for minors was first enacted in March 2023 through the adoption of rules by the Florida Board of Medicine and Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine, at the urging of DeSantis, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, and the Florida Department of Health. SB 254, which was passed by the legislature, signed by the governor, and took effect in May 2023, wrote the ban into state law, subject to a narrow continued-use exception for minors who had started treatment before the ban. SB 254 also created felony criminal and civil penalties for Florida medical providers. Later, SB 254 added severe restrictions that effectively blocked access to essential medical care for trans adults and minors who would be eligible for the continued-use exception, including requiring that care be provided exclusively by physicians, barring telehealth, and requiring patients to complete unique, onerous, and misleading consent forms.

[...] DeSantis has vowed to appeal the ruling. “Through their elected representatives, the people of Florida acted to protect children in this state, and the Court was wrong to override their wishes,” said a statement from his office, as quoted by the Associated Press. “As we’ve seen here in Florida, the United Kingdom, and across Europe, there is no quality evidence to support the chemical and physical mutilation of children. These procedures do permanent, life-altering damage to children, and history will look back on this fad in horror.”

In Doe v. Ladapo, Judge Robert Hinkle permanently blocks Florida SB254 from taking effect. SB254 was a law that banned gender-affirming care for trans minors and put significant restrictions on gender-affirming care for trans adults. A win for common sense!

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Federal judge overturns Florida’s gender-affirming care ban in historic victory for trans rights

[etirabys]

"it's 20xx, why are people still doing __" elicits powerful dislike in me. Unlike bad arguments that still have some logical substance, "it's 20xx" is undisguised eradication drive. "The people who disagree with me on this issue should simply vanish as the arc of history bends towards justice. I'm impatient they're still around, having opinions that require evidence or persuasion to change, instead of going extinct on the schedule I desire". I find it thoughtless and dehumanizing.

Also, obviously, completely agnostic of the value of the argument. Your most despised enemy could say it in the same tone, if they thought the tide was with them.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

That quote from Vincent Van Gogh (about not giving up hope that the world can get better)

Got me thinking about that oft-quoted, re-quoted, passed-along line:

The arc of the Moral Universe is long, but it bends toward Justice.

I first heard that line from Barack Obama, on the campaign trail (I think he was quoting M.L.K. Jr., who was quoting someone else). My first thought was: "Yes. Good."

But on second thought, I realized: "Hey! Wait-a-Minute! The arc of History bends toward Justice because individual people reach out and pull it toward justice!

It takes so long because a) each of us only have a little bit of power, and it takes a lot of people a lot of time, working together to make change, and b) not everyone agrees on which direction Justice goes.

But the fact that societies do tend to get more just for more people is evidence that humans are mostly kind. And it's worth it to have hope, and believing that your reach, and your little tug is worth it.

[sentinelleblr]

The press is refusing (or failing) to understand that American politics is engaged in a major transition. Over the last eight years, Trump rode a wave of reactionary anger and resentment that emerged in response to the election of our first Black president. Trump employed the politics of fear and grievance to propel his personal pursuit of power and money. In the process, Americans lost personal liberties and rights that were hard-won over the prior 75 years. With the endorsement and nomination of Kamala Harris, Democrats have reclaimed control over the arc of history as it bends towards justice. They know they can defeat Trump. They are no longer fearful or anxious. Instead, they see Trump for the bumbling, incoherent, small, pathetic, insecure man that he is.

Democrats see the path to victory, recognize their power, and have risen to the moment. That is no honeymoon—it is a movement. Every media outlet that runs a story about the “honeymoon” period coming to an end is exposing its own ignorance to the seismic shift that has rocked American politics over the last three weeks.

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Maybe it's just that I have exquisite taste in followers and only follow people with exquisite taste, but in 2023 I see lots of Elementary and posts about how great it was and BBC Sherlock only comes up as a punchline. The arc of history truly bends towards justice.

[ilikereadingactually]

Rakesfall

Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera

i'm honestly not sure where to begin with this book, except that i really liked it, and also i had a glitch in the NetGalley app halfway through and thought it had disappeared, so i read two other books in between. the many layers of this story would have fallen together a little easier for me if i had read the whole thing consecutively, so i'm looking forward to an enlightening reread at some point! but i also think, as Molly Templeton pointed out in this great column, that i can't possibly understand everything happening in this book, and i'm not meant to. i don't have the necessary cultural context about Sri Lanka, but i can ride along and thoroughly enjoy myself, and i can learn!

i really dig a lot of what i do understand that's going on in this book though; the layered, looping structure is really exciting, and the way Chandrasekera weaves speculative elements into so many different settings—iterations of the past and the future and the even farther future—is unique each time, with some connecting elements that carry you through from one story to the next. and there's so much incredibly striking imagery, visuals that are going to stay with me for a long time. my reading experience of this book was weirdly drawn out through my own ineptitude with the app, but i would keep reading about Annelid and Leveret through so many more of their strange lifetimes.

the deets

how i read it: as i said, i had a weird experience of this one in the NetGalley app, but as always i'm delighted to have the access.

try this if you: love to float on a book like floating on the ocean and maybe go down rabbit holes afterward, dig reincarnation stories, or are into things that span huge swaths of time and wander all over the speculative genres!

some bits i really liked: i have so many more screenshots than i could possibly include here but this is a selection of things that made me gasp

We know another year has passed when the new year birds hoot in the background. Leveret and Annelid will grow older, too. This is that kind of show. There are only two kinds of show: the kind where people grow older and the kind where they don't. We, the fandom, love the first kind best. We love this show so much.

___

I am reborn, but not in a womb; I pass into this life midstride, walking on the street. I stumble, trip over myself, nearly faceplant. I am in media res, trying to swallow what for a moment seemed to choke in my throat. Is that true, or had I forgotten myself until this moment?

___

I voted for him myself, in the parliamentary election earlier this month where sixty people died. I voted for peace, even though peace seems like the kind of science fiction that posits a future utopia, sleek and bald and rational, without satisfactory explanation of how we get to there from here, this convoluted, bloody, tainted here, except by appealing to our better natures at critical moments, a long arc bending toward justice. It seems like science fiction, wrapped in a pulp cover.

___

Be anything other than a man, I tell my younger self now through the akashic record; be a mother of witches. My parents didn't want the devil in me out. She was already almost out; that was the problem. No, they wanted her sealed, stitched in tight. My unhealing wound.

___

I love, the Rake whispers like thunder, rattling her bones. I forgive. Embi stares at them. "You...forgive. I've left you trapped in a foreign poetic regime for ten thousand years. It should have been otherwise." There is no other wisdom, the Rake says. "You don't have to protect me," Embi says. "If protecting the world means that I need to be sacrificed, I'm ready. It took me a while to get ready, but I'm ready." You are the world, the Rake says. There is no difference.

___

The difference is that stories have endings, and histories understand that nothing ever ends. The difference is that stories are made and histories are told.

___

You and I are a we right here and now, whether we like it or not.

pub date: June 18, 2024! Go read it!

[opencommunion]

call me a catholic but I think “christian views of sexuality/gender are extremely diverse and changeable and the arcs of our histories will bend toward justice if we continue to struggle for it” is a much more actionable stance than “christianity is pro-lgbt at its core and if everyone gets back to basics and reads the bible better they’ll realize that”