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horizon-verizon · 1 month ago

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Every time I see a post about "King Jon" being the rightful ruler, it makes me root for Young Griff to be the real deal even more—just to shatter the whole fantasy of Jon being the “secret prince.” Jon is a bastard; he has no legitimate claim over either "Aegon" or Daenerys. Even if Young Griff was real, he still wouldn’t have a solid claim to the throne because Rhaegar was effectively disinherited when Aerys named Viserys as his heir. That leaves Daenerys (unfortunately for the haters) as the only legitimate Targaryen with a real claim. But despite this, people still twist the argument, saying things like, “Well, the Mad King could’ve disinherited Rhaegar and named Viserys heir, but Rhaegar’s son would still come before Daenerys.” It’s such a reach. Another take I can’t stand is“the king’s word doesn’t matter after he’s dead.” Aerys proclaimed Viserys as his heir while he was still alive. This is the same argument used against Rhaenyra’s claim...

Another take I can’t stand is“the king’s word doesn’t matter after he’s dead.” Aerys proclaimed Viserys as his heir while he was still alive. This is the same argument used against Rhaenyra’s claim…

Pre-LyannaxRhaegar running off, in AWoIaF, Yandel notes that tensions at court between Rhaegar and Aerys (and their factions) was similar to what was described for what existed b/t Rhaenyra and Alicent and their parties. This was deliberate on GRRM's part, yes, and I see people using this fact to make the case about how there would be more support for Jon or FAegon over Dany, as Rhaegar, no matter what, was the firstborn. Symbolism and foreshadowing and all that, third time the charm or whatever.

ONE, Duncan the brown-haired prince was also the firstborn of his set of siblings...he gave up the throne entirely to stay married to Jenny of Oldstones. The verbiage is "abdicated". The guy didn't just "give it up", Aegon V, his father, continued to not grant him the title of Prince of Dragonstone when Duncan continued to refuse to put Jenny aside. Before that, it's made clear Aegon didn't want him married to a "commoner", so Duncan's title was always up to Aegon's will. After he abdicated, he was called the "Prince of Dragonflies", instead as a sort of mock, but again, he lost/gave up the entire position and all its privileges and rights.

His kids/line would be totally removed from any rights to the throne. Aegon V didn't want that, and he capitulated, so then Duncan got to have the girl AND be still a prince. Even if Aegon had died, Duncan married a common girl who was "crazy" and listened to short suspicious woman she claimed was a child of the forest, any kids they could have had wouldn't be popular and there'd be debate over how "legitimate" or how much "real" appropriate "blood" they'd have possibly to have rights to the throne...similar to how real-life European nobles defined a "bastard" by how the parents didn't have matching-enough statuses and not necessarily just them being unmarried (pre-1300s). That and the easy accusation of witchery and magic in that kid's "blood" or practice. This is a headcanon of mine, but I also think it's a good speculation as it brings up Westerosi perspective of class and magic.

Perhaps this means more that Duncan's choice of woman would be more why his hypothetical kids with her wouldn't be accepted or very much supported more than the fact that Aegon V persisted in not allowing Duncan to continue not being his heir...but even though Lyanna was definitly a "fit" bride for a Targ prince in character or rank, even an heir...well I already note why it would work below. Rhaegar's conduct in "kidnapping" a lord's betrothed daughter, impregnating and "spoiling" her, puts that child of Rhaelya in a similar boat to Duncan and Jenny's child, and Lyanna is a "savage" northern girl who isn't as much of a "proper" lady, either.

You might argue why Elia's marriage to Rhaegar makes no question--hypothetically if their kids had been alloowed to live--as to their kids' right to the throne despite how nonDornish Westerosi view Dornish people. It's because their marriage was Faith and state-sanctioned and arranged through the "proper" channels. No independent will involved there at all setting up the marriage on the actual couple's parts.

When you add what I say below, Aerys II having refused to acknowledge Rhaegar and his line as his heirs when those heirs don't even really exist or be a part of the succession definitely tips the scales in Dany's favor. Not FAegon either (again, below), DANY. Rhaegar inadvertedly, in another ironic layer, paved Dany's way to the throne.

TWO, Let's talk about Rhaenyra & Dany. Like Rhaenyra, Dany has actually practiced rule and had dragons. The relevant differences, however, bt Dany and Rhaenyra is that:

Rhaenyra had oaths from most lords as arranged by her father to solidify their loyalties to her so that his word does matter that much more, so yeah Dany does have a comparative vulnerability

Rhaenyra's lived in Westeros all her life and further strengthened those ties later on in a tour (proximity), people know her and she even was very popular amongst both nobles and peasants enough to have her own moniker

Dany has all the dragons or is the ONLY party with dragons in any any confrontation she'd be in, whereas Rhaenyra had dragons...but her rivals & brothers/the greens also had dragons...so Dany is better off there

A monarch's word post death does matter, but it also loses its authority the more material power the living has or can use against their intentions. This is true. That does not mean that the monarch's word doesn't give an edge to further legitmize why one should rule, esp when that person has a certain disadvantage or has an identity that tradition doesn't grant the right or ability to inherit certain leaderships, like being a woman or being a bastard. As we saw what happened with Edward III's death and William the Conqueror's claim including that of all Edward's other sons. He claimed that he had been chosen...and just like Dany, William had the arms to back up that claim. Why bother, bc he was an illegitmate scion of a relative, so he had to use something even other than arms and soldiers to legitmize why his rule be accepted.

The other possible candidates vying for the throne? I explain below why FAegon and Jon has critical issues for their abilites to amass support for themselves, passively or actively.

THREE, one issue is that ALL three people are also "foreigners" in their own way. Dany and FAegon, obvious, they grew up in Essos and were most active in Essos. Jon maybe Westerosi, but he's not only a bastard but also way more Stark in expected/traditional behavior AND he is a northerner. King's Landing and the rest of Westeros are Faith/Seven-worshipping Andal descendants with a lot of suspicion and disdain for northeners, who have been called "savage" several times througout Westerosi history. You can find many examples in F&B! And Jon is likely never leaving Ghost behind to rule anything--we saw how "southrons" saw and treated the direworlves when all the Stark kids went down with them...what more a completely white, red-eyed magical animal? He may be the closest thing to a "real" Westerosi...but he's a tree-worshipper...and the Faith wouldn't want a king who wouldn't convert as their ruler. (Dany, idk if she'd even "officially" be of the Faith I can't even see that for her, but neither do I really see her ruling Westeros nor do I see jon or FAegon doing this either bc of the possible results from the Long Night).

Not only that, he's Commander of the Night's Watch, a post most people find useless down south. Dany might be a foreign queen who devotes herself "too much" to freeing slaves as Jon works to provide shelter to the "savage" freefolk, but she has ruled as something closer to the position of a monarch they are familair with and respect. Over real (or believed-in) things and people. An entire city and not "just" a penal colony. And as to Jon, the entire Wall is understood as an unnecesaary drain of resources on the rest of the real bc it's up against creatures of fairytales. (I don't mean that the freefolk are unreal to the rest of Westeros, the city and giants and Others are.) They could think that he didn't really do much other than freeze, as they don't think there'd be much comparatively much to do. Their mistake, but one that could very well determine their outlook of the two. Now, why would I mention experience mattering bt Dany and Jon in the eyes of Westerosi lords? Because they are looking for stability and quick stability after the recent wat and the burgeoning tensions the Lannisters have fostered.

Barring that, another issue is that Jon is and always will be a bastard because the Doctrine of Exceptionalism was about sibling marriage as a privilege of the Targs, NOT polygamy! We have no evidence whatosever that bk!Lyanna and Rhaegar even eloped! To get that Doctrine, Jaehaerys had to work hard (or devise how others would in his stead but he and his council picked the perfect people), it didn't come in a year of peaceful negotiations! It came after Maegor's decimation or severe reduction of the Faith's Militant AND Jaehaerys' later careful manupulations (and the appointment of an amicable new High Septon). There has always been an implied but obvious agreement that the Targs would never have polygamy as a royal privilege, as we see the Targs never have polygamous partners after Maegor I. (Not polyamourous, polygamous...very two different things). Likewise, Rhaegar would first have to win against Aerys and then mess with the Faith and have the rules bent for him if he ever wanted to take Lyanna as his legal second wife if he ever wanted to, or secretly married her or wanted to later...but he died way before all that.

With FAegon, the story is that the Aegon who was murdered alongside his mother & sister was literally an infant or a toddler (I foregt which) when he was killed...who is around to confirm the claim that he is who he says he is? He can only succeed if Varys manages to get rid of possible competition, destabilize the current government by subterfuge and secret blood, and/or have the peasants (who can be easily swayed if there's a promise of support and food) show support and seem like they'd get active or disobeident to their overlords and those overlord's vassals. Again, he was raised in Essos and even if he was the actual Aegon, no one with the appropriate credit (to my memory) is at hand to say he shares the exact features or enough as that baby...bc people don't look like their baby selves often. Unlike Viserys II, who was taken to Essos at 8 or so and came back in just a few short years, FAegon spent way too much time in Essos to be seen as none other than a foreigner AND there's no way to confirm his claimed identity. Nor does he even have dragons! Which all runs the risk of inspiring even more and longer dissent and chaos and division bc people (nobles) would be divided further into camps of following him to use him, those against those people and most trying to stay out of it bc they literally just got out of the War of Five Kings.

And you may be able to argue that some part of Aegon's issue is the same for Jon--who will confirm Jon's being Rhaegar's bastard through Lyanna? But that would be easier than for Jon bc Ned took Jon in and others can easily come to the conclusion that it'd be the honor-loving Ned Stark who wouldn't offer his own nephew up to even his king and best friend. A weird sort of kin-slaying some might say maybe, but idk.

Other than that, unlike Dany, Aegon was told to be dead...and this rando kid claims to be a dead baby. Dany, all the realm knew, fled Westeros as a baby with Viserys and a knight that though is not in the mortal coil anymore was also accompanied by a Pentoshi merchant at some point...everyone knows where she is and that Barristan Selmy is with her. Robert the wanted to have her and her brother killed when he took over and was angry when they got away. Later, Robert's council took the news of her existence and rise seriously and Robert wanted her dead, which means the entire realm knew about her, and obviously her awakening the dragons confirms who she is. The fact that she woke dragons up once again, even tou many at court at first and still don't believe that she has. She has the foreigner Essosi woman who leads a Dorthaki "savage" hoard thing against her, but she has the Valyrian look, the legitimacy, and the DRAGONS to prove her lineage and identity. And she has the firepower, literally, to assure a more guaranteed victory apart from her Dothraki fighters. She is a much more comfortable choice for nobles to fight or fight behind the scenes for.

So regardless of Aerys' disinheriting Rhaegar's line...she still has a very good chance of getting a lot of support and much more than either man, genuine or not. At least from here.

I am not saying that the Dance did not set a dangerous precedent for her either and that there's still a good chance of Jon passively and involuntarily inspiring people to call for his being named king enough to raise arms or at least try to take Dany out secretly to make room for him--not FAegon, bc that identity is just too much of a hangup for him. But to say she'd have very little to none supporting and wanting her to rule in comparison to these two is simply weird and misleading.

#asoiaf asks to me #faegon #young griff #jon snow #asoiaf fandom #fandom critical #agot #asoiaf #westeros succession #westerosi history #defending Daenerys Stormborn Khaleesi Targaryen

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a-s-levynn · 2 months ago

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Alright gang, hold onto your hoods, masks, tassels and other accessories, because this is going to be stupid, but i need this right now.

This is not really a headcanon by any means, i just like throwing around random little ideas and run with them for a minute. I don't really have a set or solid headcanon beyond some minor details regarding lore, that were actually confirmed and conveyed by the collective at some point through an official channel.

This is going to be a looooong one so for everyone's sake, here is a cut

Also please excuse the typos, it's quite late and i need sleep so i can't review it right now.

I have to preface: please do not take this seriously at any point. This is just a fun little thought excercise on a random idea i had. I don't have a headcanon for these creatures being past vessels. It is just a fun little idea for a moment.

So i have no means to know how involved Vessel was with these creatures. It could have been a comission with detailed descriptions, but also could have been like "gimme 12 kewl creatures mate, cheers."

But i can't not see some aspects (presumed or visible) of Vessel reflected back. This was the first step of "hmm.. could there be something?" and then those artpieces came out with the creatures fighting, and we know that Sleep requires at least one vessel at all times to function as a deity. Because a god is hardly a god without at least one follower, merely an obscure idea people have either forgot or no longer care about. A powerless thought. But with followers?

That changes. But to have followers, said god needs a mouthpiece, that can make the connection between god and potentional follower. There needs to be someone who can understand the divine projection and able to convey it to the mundane ear. Someone who can lead a flock under the god's light. If this figurehead is an actual leader, a shepard, a priest or just someone random person who was pushed to the front, hardly matters.

Anyway, random philosopy minutes over, let's talk creatures.

So the base of my idea is that all the creatures we see are all previous vessels of Sleep. I'm not sure if we had confirmation on the fact that there were multiple vessel's before... well our Vessel, but in case of an age old god, i dare say it is a given.

Now it maybe isn't terribly far fetched to think that a specific god needs certain qualities for theit vessels to have. For both because they need to want a connection with this otherworldy being, otherwise they'd just go "nah, i'm good" and move on; on the other hand they might need to possess certain qualities for Sleep to actually be able to use them as a vessel for himself.

If it's only Sleep's will, power or consciousness that enters the vessel's body is entirely unimportant here. Whatever touches the vessel, it is changing the vessel.

If that change is only immaterial or material? Now that is important here for us. Immaterial change, as in mental state, beliefs, devotion, isolation, otherness, etc is a given. Any given vessel is in the service of an otherwordly being. It has to be in a certain mindset to do that, either willingly or not.

Physical change might not be a given, but for the sake of this argument, let's say it can happen. And the form of the change is defined and amplified by the traits of given vessel. If we have a divine power in any capacity entering a mundane body, it will have consequences. And it probably needs specific parameters to be funtional and functional in a way that allowes the most effectiveness.

Certain traits has to be there in acceptable levels.

Let's have an example:

Through the example of our Vessel, we know that you basically have to be sad, miserable and wanting to escape reality but also possess something that could be useful for geathering followers, to be potentially be worth reaching out to by Sleep. Now our boy Ves is truly miserable enough to check that box. He is also had very clear potential as a musician and music is usually the easiest way to pull in people.

How miserable said vessel has to be, and in what ways, that is the question. Different levels of different emotions could be distorted differently by Sleep's divinity. And that's my main argument here. Our Vessel seems to handle Sleep's shit quite well. Maybe he has the perfect statblock for being a vessel of this specific deity. He might be shit with any other. Maybe we have a match made in heaven situation here. The previous ones maybe were having a bit more aggression or been less proactive, or had less selfreflection or were more prone to despair. Ideas. Something. I have nothing with real substance here.

So creatures.

Just.. please, for the sake of the argument, presume that they dismorfed into their formes, because Sleep corrupted them in some way shape or form, by amplifying something in them.

Chokehold

Now look at this guy. He is fucking miserable. There is goo, blood, tar or whatever pouring out of his eyes and mouth. Who else cries a lot? Our Vessel. This thing also has 5 spikes on it's mask/head. The new logo of sleep token has 5 lines on top of the arch. [I still has this funky idea, that it's just the fucking O2 small logo -look at your textile wristbands y'all-, and our boi just put his goals onto his bands logo but that's a different story.]

Imagine if this creature was human once. It might have so desperately tried not to be alone that it fused with the current followers of Sleep geathered during their time. The four arms cling so strongly onto that axe. How desperate it must have been not to be left alone in Sleep's service for it. Maybe this vessel tried to clang to humanity so miserably that it completely lost even the resemblance to a human being.

Crying is.. a very obvious connection to current Vessel.

The Summoning

Now this guy.. he has the fur on the shoulders, just like our Vessel. Visual connection check. other than that, this thing is interesting. In the left arm, it hold an orb, suspiciously reminiscent of a holy incense burner. What if this guy was super pious. What if he took the mission of Sleep too far and too violent? That could explain the full armour and a machinegun for arm. There is a ripped jaw hanging from it.

What if at some point, this guy was fed up, got impatient with words and just tore out his own mouth? Actions are louder than words after all, aren't they? What if this vessel became an uncontrollable crusader.

Granite

I'll admit, i kinda stumped myself on thi one, but then it hit me in the face. "A heavy hand that won't stop turning." What if this vessel just simply was an overthinker. He had the armour, he had the double axes but that block of (let's presume) granite for a head is going to weigh him down. It's a metaphor, sure but we are talking exactly that here. But if your vessel is paralized by a headful of thoughts, that is not going to help you gain power, for sure.

Also cape - cloack visual connection to current Vessel.

Aqua Regia

This one, with the facelessness could be a very clear callback to our Vessel being faceless. Especially on the early photoshoots. Now this thing looks more like a priest with the robes and jewellery. What if it got greedy? Maybe their time as a vessel was successful in a monetary standpoint, that's why the visible abundance of riches.

Maybe the followers donated, or (just for the fun of it let's say it this way:) bought a shit ton of merch, just like us and instead of killing it into stagelights, a catwalk, stage hidraulics and new cloack fabric, this one fell victim to opulence and forgot it's mission.

Vore

First creature with visibly feminin features. Because nothing says Sleep's vessel's can only be men. Maybe the compatibility isn't as high but shit, if you are an old god, you gotta try having tits at some point, right? On a more serious note. Venomous serpent. It is way too clear. Snakes are associated with many things, in europe usually healing.

But our here friend has been shown to spew liquid from many orifices in the vore video. Now spitting venom (or blood) is said when someone is verbally conveying their anger towards someone. What if this vessel became so hateful, spitting so much venom that it literally became a venomous serpent?

We also had our Vessel talk shit about gods before so there is a connection.

Ascensionism

An other representation of the more feminin seeming creatures. Holding a gun, a trident, a piece of thread and something, yet again, looking like an incense burner. The gun speaks for itself. The thread -in the context of Sleep Token- also. So does the incense burner. Now the trident could be read a couple ways because it is a very versatile symbol, appearing in many cultures. But it is usually represents a triad of powers or multi-layered meanings.

In some cases even represents a force that can pierce illusions. And i have no way of figuring out which one could apply here, if there is any thought behind it at all. What i can see, is four arms holding four very different things. Yes you could tie them with meaning. The thread being a thread of fate, the gun bringing inevitability, the incense burner represents prayers, offerings towards god and the trident we established.

But it also could represent someone being pulled in to many directions, loosing their way, trying to do everything all at once. Keeping everything under control, because it could rise above all (cause it's levitating off the ground). What if this vessel was such a control freak that it just drove it inase? Or it just simply took on way to much responsibility and it broke it.

Do i even have to say what's the connection with our Vessel here...?

Are You Really Okay?

Again, a more faminin one. Very clear imagery of an incubated child. The interesting part is the umbilical cord going from the "mother" to the child, not the other way around. Who is the child? Their offspring? Someone elses? Thei inner child manifested? Does it even matter? I don't know. But this vessel very much seems to be keen on protecting it, there is even a sword.

Yeah the sword yould be used in many ways. But she is looking towards it. What if it is in contemplation. Contemplation over "is it worth picking up? what if it hurts the child?" Really doesn't matter if it is an inner child or not, going to battle of any kind is going to affect that child no matter what. But is it worth it?

The sword theme can be a connection to our Vessel, or just the contemplative "does it worth it" idea.

The Apparition

My guy, stripped to the bone. He finally has the six eyes, but for what, there is barely anything left. Is he overcompensating his frail fram with the giant hammer? Is he barely more than a skeleton because he offered himself to Sleep beyond reason? Let Sleep feed on his flesh and blood even? What of the hooves?

Hooves are an interesting one. Especially with the "let Sleep feed on him" thing. There is this thing with animals having cloven hooves having clean meat in the Bible. So a this could mean a vessel's meat is clean to consume for Sleep. Maybe not in a physical sense in every case but claiming a body made of flesh as your own could be seen as a form of consumption.

Visual connection to our Vessel - six eyes.

DYWTYLM

Guys. Guys. This one looks sooo much like the moon art. This thing is a round boi with tentacles coming out the underside. If we presume the TMBTE moon is Sleep then this vessel might just have been too week and when Sleep popped in he just when poof and moon shaped.

Imagine the misery that would bring. Would explain the crying. Also the attached mechanical parts, to just.. let it keep going.. but what for? Maybe the little knife is not for stab something else, but to give itself a way out when it get's way too much.

The connection to our Vessels here could be the feeling barely human.

Rain

This one here is not that subtle. Like, the three female heads are an actually well known simbolism in many culture in different ways. Either it is one creature or three separate bodies. What is interesting here is that the eyes are covered. There is three pairs of eyes but looking different directions. Looking back, straight on and forward.

Is this one pulled in all three directions? Does it see clearer because it is aware of what was, is and yet to be? Maybe this vessel was three vessels becomeing one to try to be better and that was it's downfall? Knowing too much? Seeing something they were not supposed to?

Connection is again, the three pairs of eyes.

Take Me Back To Eden

It's a freaking reaper angel. With an apple. Death is a recurring theme. Maybe this vessel just got too close. Maybe it challenged Sleep too much. Or maybe it started killing the followers as an offering.

Visual connection to current Vessel - facelessness

Euclid

Now this.. this one is interesting, because this looks the closest to being human and to Vessel specifically. Throw a hooded cloack on it, take off it's upper body clothes and you have our boy, more or less. Except it is holding out boy's head in his hand. I had this idea once that Vessel actually fails his own journey in TMBTE to allow his inner self to be free. That would kinda make sense with the imagery of his head being chopped off.

But there is also multiple mentions about letting go, stop breathing to be able to see past and be anew in the lyrics. Maybe this creature is what Vessel would have became if he kills his past self, instead of accepting it? Something to consider.

Visual connection - just look at it.

Vessel

And finally, our very own current Vessel. Surrounded by all the remains of the creatures. For the sake of the argument in this one specific post, the presumed past vessels. Has he bested them, as many like to think? Or has he accepted their faliures, recognised them as his own and rose above them? Aren't we on a journey of self reflection with Vessel through the trilogy after all? I have no way to know.

I don't really have anything to go with this whole post either. Just throwing around ideas. It is just some fun musing on a saturday evening. As i said, i don't really have headcanons. I just like playing with fun little ideas for a moment and then find something else to muse over. Please please please please please don't take this seriously at all.

I don't really like to separate just one supernatural storyline. I'm more into the mundane than the de facto supernatural lore. This was just something i ran with for a second. But all in all, here you go. My nonsense is on the dash once again.

Again please excuse the typos, it's quite late and i need sleep so i can't review it right now.

Random brainfry idea that was definitely written before somewhere: But what if the TMBTE creatures are the previous vessels, corrupted by Sleep's influence. What if Sleeps moves on every time the host is way too changed, to find a new host. And they fight [like on those few posters] because they think if there is only one of them left Sleep will see them worthy again and take them back. What if..

#sleep token #sleep token stuff

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ayejayque · 2 years ago

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The Effect of Intellectual Property Rights on the Pharma Industry

The case for patents The Pharma sector is regularly caught in the contest over whether the implementation of IPR or Intellectual Property Rights should be followed or whether the segment is for improving the well-being concerns of the underprivileged and the deprived, thus guaranteeing inexpensive drugs to the crowds. The Pharma sector spends huge sums of money on the R&D of new drugs. They are then estimated at rates that let them recover the investment as well as make revenues. Additionally, the current sociopolitical and legal thinking in the West is that since the Pharma sector spends a lot on R&D, they must be permitted to patent the drugs that they produce and also safeguard that other players cannot copy or make the same drugs. This is the basic legal position in most parts of the world. The idea is to incentivize and encourage the Pharma companies to come out with better drugs. This is to be done by patenting those creations and valuing them accordingly. The case contrary to patents In the third world, the governments insist that the Pharma companies can only patent the processes of manufacture of drugs and not the drug itself. Any rival can make the same standard medicines using a changed process thereby guaranteeing price impartiality due to the market competition. The rationale is that most of the Third World is poverty-stricken. They cannot pay for the tall prices of medicines when the majority of their people are poor and destitute and are in frantic requirement of lifesaving medicines at inexpensive prices. The Western Pharma majors have objected to this since they drop the monopoly over their medicines that are patented and in which they have financed considerable sums of money. With the opening up of many emerging countries to Western businesses in the 1990s, the many agreements under the WTO (World Trade Organization) like GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) obligatory for the signatory nations to pull to bits protectionist regimes and to let the medicines be patented for both processes and products. Discussing the issue Both sides of the debate and discussions are durable with valid points. The case for copyrights and their protection is strong because the Pharma majors invest in R&D with drug trials and the time to market is pretty long indeed. The emerging world also wants them addressed because they have not reached a stage where the public can have enough money for medication, which is excessively expensive. The wide spread of HIV (Human Immune Virus) among Third World countries is the most solid argument for leaving out the drugs to treat them from patenting and ensuring inexpensive access to the public for such drugs. We have a situation that has been created where there is an intense debate between patent supporters and their rivals. Neither side is willing to back down from their stated positions. This requires serious dialogue between them and the governments of the world. This would enable them to come out with stages in which both the Pharma businesses and their people win in the bargain. Probable ways to handle the issue Both parties must back down from brinkmanship. Pharma companies can cross-subsidize expensive medicines, particularly the ones that treat life-threatening ailments. They can also agree to a patent protection regime of five or ten years instead of very long-duration ones. There can be better collaboration between the Pharma companies so that they commence Pro Bono retailing by disparity pricing in their home nations and in the Third World. The latter can ask their local companies to finance more R&D and not just duplicate the medicines made in the West. This is the case in many Third World nations. They can also counterbalance some of the losses of the Western Pharma majors by taking off some of the costs and letting the underprivileged and the deprived profit in the process. End note Perhaps the most optimal solution would be from the Pharma sector itself which should price their medicines to benefit the underprivileged. Unless the third World governments make healthcare a right and guarantee that their pledge is not only in speeches but in reality, as well. The prevailing conditions in the hospitals need to drastically improve and the generics as well as patented drugs need to be affordable. This is the only way the fight between the stakeholders would be fixed. In the end, the Pharma sector is too important to be left alone to the whims and wishes of the market. There is a pressing need for all backers to realize strategies that would assist the deprived and the poor. Read the full article

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bestassignmentexp · 2 years ago

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Within the law, cases of potential contractual breaches are becoming more frequent. The translation is where students can have a lot of success. It's all about using your knowledge to translate what might not be natural in the English language and identifying the possible breaches in which a student may practice either settling or avoiding resolution if and when it comes to them

Proper Structure And Formatting When writing a law assignment, be sure to avoid any mistakes that might lead to an unsatisfactory grade. English language and structure are important when it comes to successful results manifested by clear, structured sentences. Furthermore, you need to show rigorous control over punctuation and spelling as these elements have a major impact on proceedings in school or work settings.

It's important to be clear and precise in the structure of how you write. Also, choose the correct words to convey your thoughts. Use fewer words which will make you easier to read and understand. Each argument should lead into the next one logically so that there is no ambiguity with what happened first or last. The more structured your argument the more effective your advocacy.

A legal student may initially struggle with using complex legal language and overly confusing sentences that may sometimes seem overwhelming to someone who is new to the field. However, once you learn it and master it, it becomes a lot easier to use.

Students may use a lot of legal vocabulary, either to make their writing more catchy or to make their points stand out. However, it's not always wise to do so as it can actually hurt your paper or assignment’s meaning. Using simple language and avoiding highly technical legal terms can be more effective when you're trying to convey some sort of message.

Convincing Evidence In order for good legal writing, the essay should provide clear and convincing evidence. So a lot of pre-writing work must happen before you start to write so that the outcome is as satisfying as possible.

Make your stance clear from the onset, providing evidence and backs to support the claim. Be willing to share your thoughts with others while doing so. An argument should be solid. It shouldn't need to rely on loose reasoning and should showcase proof of a great point that is harder to dispel.

Use of References The sources that are most often used for legal argumentation are primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources are the ones directly related to an issue, whereas secondary ones offer insight into the topic.

A secondary source is information that was obtained from a primary source. Examples are statutes, reports, and legal publications. These are always better than the information from other sources that you would get from a Google search or Wikipedia page. It's important to verify your sources with reliable people in order to come up with accurate illustrations of how things work on the ground - law teachers encourage this type of research because it would provide more detailed and precise results for students.

It would be a waste of time to use secondary sources when primary sources are available. Students should use these only when they cannot find a primary source that they need and need to analyze them. Otherwise, students will quote inaccurate statements and have discussions that don't go anywhere in the paper.

#law assignment writing #law assignment writer #law assignment helper

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writing-with-olive · 4 years ago

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How to write essays fast

I've been writing a lot of papers, so that's what's on my mind.

So this mostly applies to your standard 5-paragraph paper, though it's fairly straightforward to adapt it to longer (or sometimes shorter) assignments.

One of the main things to note is that essays are VERY formulaic, so knowing the formula and being able to write down your ideas in a way that fit into the formula is probably the number one way to get stuff done fast. Because of that, most of what I’m covering is breaking down the formulas so they’re more accessable.

Also this got very long. If there’s anything you want me to expand on just let me know in the comments or send me an ask/DM and I’ll make another post that goes more in-depth about it.

Structure (I hate this step, so I’ve figured out how to do it very fast becuase it’s still important)

The first thing to consider is prewriting and structure. To start, there are two major paper structures I usually consider. The first goes

Introduction

Main point #1

Main point #2

Main point #3

Conclusion

This is good if you have a lot to say on the topic, or if it's something closer to a summary essay where there's not really an opposing side. In something where there are distinct sides, (or if you have less to say to support your own side), you may want something that looks like

Introduction

Main point #1

Main point #2

Why the other side is wrong

Conclusion

The "why the other side is wrong" side is involves thinking through the MOST credible arguments the other side might make, and methodically breaking them down to show how they don't work. The stronger the argument you choose, the more effective this is.

Since I personally hate prewriting with a passion, I usually do this step very fast and end up with an outline that looks like

Intro [insert thesis statement]

P1: [three word summary]

P2: [three word summary]

P3: [three word summary]

Conclusion

(thesis statement, introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion tips are all below the cut)

Usually, this is enough so when I look at my outline, I can see what I'm trying to focus on for each paragraph - and do so without straying from my main point.

For the prewriting, the main things to do are identify with basic structure of the two will serve your purposes better, and write a thesis statement that solidly supports your argument.

Thesis Statement

There are so many guides about creating thesis statements that are powerful, but I'm just going to quickly go over how to be fast about it.

The first thing to know is that a thesis statement is usually a complex sentence: it's your entire essay distilled down to a single line. The general formula I follow goes something like this:

"In their [media type] [name of specific piece], [creator's full name] explored/demonstrated/other verb [theme you're going to be arguing about] demonstrated/using/as evidenced/as shown by [example 1], [example 2], and [optional example 3]."

For example, a thesis statement that follows this format might go

“In his short film Job at Place, David Davidson explored the manifestations of human stupidity through the absurdity of the main character’s home, school, and office.”

Or, if you're writing a historical piece, it might look something like this:

"In [place/time period], [thing you're arguing was happening]: they had to/the conditions were such that/other thing to set up a list [example 1], [example 2], and [example 3]."

For example, a thesis statement that follows this format might go

“During the Tusken Invasion of 32nd century Tatooine, it was the lives of the children that were most affected, from their social development and connections with others to more personal struggles they didn’t yet have the tools to overcome.”

The examples you give are going to correlate to your paragraphs - example 1 is for body paragraph 1, and so on.

Introduction

I like to think of the introduction as a funnel that gets more and more specific.

First, write a broad statement that touches on whatever theme you’re referencing.

Job at Place is about human stupidity, so something like “while great minds have flourished throughout the ages, so have the not-so-great.”

Tatooine is about war, and about child development, so something like “children’s development has always been impacted by the state of the world around them.” or “war has many effects, many of which impact those not directly involved with the conflict.”

The idea is that it’s a broad statement that can almost be looked at like a universal truth.

Next, you’re going to go deeper - two sentences that narrow down the time and place you’re talking about specifically, and how that time and place fit into your universal statement.

The fourth sentence gets even more specific - introducing how the thesis sentence fits into your first three sentences.

Then the last line is your thesis statements.

Body Paragraphs

Your three main body paragraphs all follow the same formula. (I’ll get to the “why the other side is wrong” paragraph in a minute)

The first sentence you’re going to want is a topic sentence. For this, you’re going to want to look at the example you gave in your thesis statement that corresponds to this paragraph, and see how it relates to your central claim.

If we’re going with the Job at Place example from above, for the second paragraph, you might open with a line like:

“A striking characteristic of Davidson’s short film was the abnormality of the main character’s school, used to showcase exactly what happens when poor decisions get taken too far.”

Everything within the paragraph will then back up the claim you’re making in the topic sentence (which in turn is backing up your thesis).

For each paragraph, you’re probably going to want about three pieces of evidence, either in the form of direct quotes (plucking words directly from the source) or paraphrased quotes (summarizing what happened in your own words). The quote should be used to directly support your argument.

After each piece of evidence, you’re going to want about... twoish lines of analysis (this number can change as you need it to, but two lines is something solid to fall back to).

While analysis can take all kinds of forms, one pattern you can use if you’re stuck is

evidence sentence

what it means

how that meaning ties back into your main point

Following this pattern, a piece of analysis of Job at Place might look like:

“One of the first images of the private school is that it’s a tall spire with creaking stairs and loose floorboards. Despite this, the principal has eight personal cars parked outside on full display. While the first glimpse of the school might indicate that there is little money to care for the structural integrity, the notion is directly negated by the principal’s actions. By using these two images, Davidson demonstrates what can happen to the youth when those in power let greed carry them away.”

After you write your analysis, include some kind of transition phrase, and go onto the next piece of evidence.

The last line of your paragraph is going to transition into the next paragraph while also summing up the main point of what you talked about in the current one. (This line can also get moved down and tacked onto the beginning of the next paragraph, before the topic sentence, but I have found it tends to look less cohesive that way).

You might choose something like:

“While the school was a disaster in its own right, it wasn’t the only example of human folly.”

If you’re writing a “this is why the other side is wrong” you’re going to want to think about the MOST compelling arguments the other side could make. Take the top one (or two), and figure out ways to crack them apart using evidence from your source material.

In this case, your topic sentence might start off with something like

“While opponents might say [insert compelling counterargument], their reasoning breaks down when one takes into account the evidence.”

At this point, you’re going to follow the same formula as above. The main thing to keep in mind is that for the duration of this paragraph, your point is that the other side’s claim of X is wrong.

Conclusion!

If you know what you’re doing, this is actually the easiest part.

(wait, what??????)

The thing is, you NEVER want to introduce new ideas into your conclusion. Instead, you’re summarizing your main points.

The formula I follow per sentence is:

Thesis statement but reworded (you can change the sentence structure too)

Topic sentence for paragraph 2 or 3, but reworded (I’ll explain why you shouldn’t do the sentence for P1 in just a sec)

Topic sentence for paragraph 1 or 3 but reworded

Topic sentence for paragraph 1 or 2 but reworded

Wow sentence or question (i’ll get to this too)

The idea for the middle three sentences is you don’t want them to read as repetitive, so you’re going to mix up the order so it doesn’t match the order of the rest of the essay. This will help to keep it fresh.

The wow sentence is basically the last impression you get to make. I find it’s usually a good idea to go just a tad dramatic (it sounds dumb, but it has never failed me). If I can’t think of anything, a declarative statement on whatever major theme was being discussed throughout the essay usually does the trick.

Examples:

All of this shows that in the absence of friendships and platonic love, humanity will falter.

Fiction may seem far fetched now, but if the world falls into those same mistakes, it’s only a matter of time until it becomes a reality.

Art has existed for as long as humans have populated the earth; it’s not going away any time soon.

A lesson everyone must understand is the most powerful weapon isn’t anything physical or tangeable: it’s the ideas that exist in the minds of those who care.

(I told you they were going to be dramatic) A way I look at it is if you can’t imagine dropping the mic on the last line, it needs to be stronger (yes I found that plagiarized with not even a whisper of credit on Pinterest, but it works).

If you wrote a SOLID essay, consider ending with a question aimed at the reader (this will push your essay in the direction of either the positive or negative extreme: a strong essay will become stronger, a weak essay will become weaker). Questions can be a call to action or rhetorical as a means to drive home your final point. Becuase they’re more nuanced to the content of the essay, I don’t really have great examples to give you though (sorry).

Hopefully this is useful to at least some of you - good luck!

++++

Tagging:@candlemouse

If you want to be added to or removed from any of my taglists (found pinned to the top of my blog) just let me know :)

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saintbleeding · 1 year ago

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im just gonna talk about basira for a sec

I don’t, I don’t really know why I’m here. I mean, I know how I got here. All the decisions I made, until suddenly: yep, this is my life! But not the why. Not really. Does that make sense?

philosopher. comic. icon

Everyone seems to be having a much worse time of it than me, but I was meant to be the hostage. It’s amazing how much you can ignore when you keep your head in a book.

i have talked around this line before without talking about it, directly, but like. basira’s endless ability to curate information is so interesting and like... pretty unique? because even in georgie’s case, she simply isn’t getting the same uh. cognitive inputs. as everyone else. but in basira’s, she will blink, and take a breath, and turn her head away, and because she’s so convinced of her ability to shut something out, she will simply succeed. like. whoa

He always said, if you don’t like something, you accept it and you adapt, or you fight and you change it. Whining doesn’t help. I always tried to live like that. But I think sometimes you feel like you’re adapting, but it’s just denial.

ok this is also super interesting because. i would sorta disagree that it’s “just denial” in her case, because as i’ve just said like. she is pretty successful (arguments can of course be made that all that suppression is going to lead to deleterious effects for her that we don’t necessarily see or tease apart in canon). i’ve always really liked this mention of her dad too because it kinda illustrates the way that she, like anyone else, is a product of how she was raised/has lived and been treated (similar to how daisy (and trevor and julia, but that’s a separate post) learned violence as a language, jon learned to resent his own existence, martin learned he’s extraneous, tim is a big brother before he’s most other things, jonahlias learned that fear controls, etc, etc, etc). she was taught “get on with it” and she learned “get on with it”.

But at least Daisy’s coming. I mean, I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But, she’s solid. She’s a… a fixed point, and if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing, relative to her.

she said this. im not gonna comment but like. basira did very much say this. im just. she said this

I guess, I guess we’re all just gonna have to do what we can, and see what comes out the other side.

also yeah as has been said this is such an interesting parallel to martin’s pragmatism bc like. she says this and then this is literally exactly what she does. bwoah

NAH U KNOW WHAT YEAH. I GOT. A THING. HANG ON

#she's so well written she's SO well performed. sorry (lying)#saint meta #we are on basira lockdown this evening

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nat-20s · 4 years ago

Text

for @jonmartinweek day 8! (which I definitely realized was happening and for sure did not forget lmao). The prompt was free day/au, so I picked my own theme of “pets”. The last few fics have been pretty loaded, so please enjoy some pure post canon (literal and figurative) fluff

~*~

“I can’t believe I married a dog person.”

They weren’t even supposed to be in the shelter. They had made no plans to visit a shelter. However, as Jon has been learning over the course of the past couple years, a Martin not under duress and given free time outside will inevitably end up trying to befriend any living nonhuman creature in the immediate vicinity.

“I’m not a dog person.”

“The lapful of beagle puppy would indicate otherwise.”

“Just because I appreciate the company of a very good boy, yes you are, doesn’t mean I’m a dog person. Dog person implies I have a preference. I like cats equally as much as I like dogs. Unlike some of us, my heart is open to all manner of furry friends.”

“I don’t...hate dogs.”

“Uh-huh. Is that why you won’t pet Rufio here?”

“He’s nippy, I don’t trust him. And it’s just that dogs are A Lot. I find most of them a bit overwhelming. And needy.”

“Pff, that’s no excuse. You’ve been best friends with overwhelming, and you married needy.”

Martin lets out a distracted giggle as Rufio finally gets in a lick on his face. Okay, maybe it is a pretty adorable sight, but that’s hardly sufficient enough evidence to actually let such an energetic ball of fluff into their home. Still, it’s enough to convince Jon to sit down next to them, and give Rufio a very tentative scritch behind the ears. “I think we both qualify as the needy one in our relationship.”

“Pretty sure that’s called codependency. What would our therapist say?”

“She’d probably say that’s a bit harsh. And that we still need to work on our separation anxiety.”

“Hey, you know what helps with separation anxiety?”

“No.”

“A dog!”

“No!”

They get a dog. Their flat is decently sized and they both have steady incomes and enough free time between them to take proper care of her. They don’t get Rufio, but instead a 7 year old mutt named Daffodil who is, admittedly, the most gentle and sweet creature Jon’s ever met. They also get a cat, a rambunctious 2 year old tabby named Jack (“We can change the name.” “Jon! How dare you! Jack responds to his name, clearly he likes it!”) who had already decided Daffodil was his mom, and they couldn’t possibly bear not adopting them together.

~*~

“You know, we could get a tarantula.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m serious! They’re not, like, evil in this universe, and some of them have cutest little pink toesie woesies.”

“You’re not serious, you’re being a bastard, and I hate you.”

Martin wraps his arms around Jon’s waist and presses a kiss to the side of his face, which Jon gives a half-hearted swat at, because, again, the man’s being a bastard. Stubbornly ignoring Jon’s pout, Martin presses his cheek to the top of Jon’s head, cheerfully replying, “I’m fine with that, as long as you promise to hate me for the rest of our lives.”

“Well, I certainly can’t make that promise. I won’t even hate you ten seconds from now. I suppose you’ll have to settle for love instead.”

“Hmm. Deal.”

“We’re still not getting a fucking tarantula.”

They do not get a tarantula. Their home remains admirably spider free.

~*~

Martin’s gasp is loud enough to echo, and Jon can feel him begin to vibrate next to him. The excitement is perplexing at first, they’ve been to this bookstore dozens of times, and it’s never elicited this sort of response. Then Jon looks over to the front counter, where a medium-sized cage and a “For adoption” sign have been put on display. With a wild, jubilant glee, Martin asks, “Sonja! Are those baby. Dumbo. Rats?!”

“Sure are! I’ve got a friend who’s a breeder, I take it you’re interested?”

“Yes, absolutely, 100%, we’re getting two immediately.”

“Well…”

Martin snaps his head over to look at Jon with a look of betrayal the likes of which Jon hasn’t seen since the panopticon. “Jonathan, no!”

“Um.”

“You can not tell me you you don’t like rats! Dumbo rats especially!”

“I…”

Ticking off on his fingers, Martin lists, “They’re adorable, they’re smart, they’re cleanly, they’re extremely empathetic, they’re tickilish, which is stupidly cute, they can be trained to use a litter box and do tricks, they’re snuggly and playful and perfect! They’re all the good parts of dogs combined with the best parts of cats in one tiny portable package! Look at their little ears, that are like that because of a slight difference in skull shape that has no negative health effects! Plus, we can set them up in the project room, since Captain Jack isn’t allowed in there anyway. How can you dislike rats?”

“I don’t know! They just sort of..freak me out. Or not all of them, just their feet. I don’t like their little man hands.”

Martin throws his arms in the air, proclaiming, “Their little man hands are one of their best qualities! Look, Jon, are you genuinely afraid of them, or just slightly discomfited?”

“I would say mediumly discomfited. This isn’t like spiders.”

“Cool. ‘Cause in that case, we’re getting the light tan one and the solid white one, their names shall be Peaches and Cream, and you will love them as much as you love our dog and cat children.”

“That’s a rather bold claim.”

“It’s an accurate one. You’ll see.”

Within a week, Jon is transporting Peaches ��n’ Cream in the pocket of his hoodie, and he can feel Martin’s smug aura from two rooms away. Damn him.

~*~

“Did you know snakes don’t have an amygdala?”

“Okay? You didn’t have to bring me to a reptile store to tell me that.”

“I didn’t bring you to a reptile store to tell you that. I brought you to a reptile store because I want to hold a cornsnake.”

Jon rolls his eyes, but the fondness in his voice somewhat undercuts it. “Of course you do.”

Martin makes a scaly acquaintance in less than two minutes, and as the snake coils around his fingers, he continues, “Anyway, if they don’t have amygladas, do they feel fear in a way similar to us, or is it only a recognition of threats and instinctual response?”

“Martin, my love, I have no idea. Is this going somewhere? It’s fine if not, I’m just checking in.”

“Yes. Because if they don’t feel fear, I’m getting this snake and naming her Georgie.”

That makes Jon let out a sharp bark of laugh, and, for a moment, he’s able to reminisce without any pain. “You know, I think she’d actually love that? She also had a proclivity for all creatures great and small. And a terrible sense of humor.”

“Wow, you really have a type, huh. Also hey! My sense of humor is fantastic! It always makes my husband laugh, and he has very exacting standards.”

“Liar. Your husband finds joy with you at the slightest provocation, no good sense of humor needed.”

“Hmm. He is a bit of a softie, isn’t he? Which is why he’ll let me get this snake.”

“He most certainly will not.”

“But….look at her….”

“It’s not a matter of how cute she is, dear. It’s a matter of you made us get pet rats less than a month ago, there’s absolutely no way you’re going to be able to feed mice to a snake.”

Martin looks at the cornsnake, looks at Jon, looks back, and his shoulders slump. With a wince, he asks, “Maybe frozen mice won’t be too bad?”

“What if she’s picky?”

“...There are species of snake that only eat bugs.”

“Cornsnakes aren’t one of them.”

Waving over an assistant, Martin puts the cornsnake back with a defeated, “Fine. When you’re right, you’re right.”

Jon doesn’t particularly feel like he’s won an argument. In fact, he’s a bit disappointed himself, he always liked snakes. Big fan of reptiles in general, actually, which is probably what drives him to say, “Lizards don’t usually eat mice.”

That’s how they walk out of the store with three leopard geckos.

~*~

Jon’s helping Martin set up the gecko tank in what can now be affectionately called a zoo when all of the sudden it strikes him. Some of the animals in their home right now have life spans of 10-20 years, and never once had the necessary longevity of care come up as a reason to protest against them. Jon had felt so at ease with the concept of a future that he hadn’t even thought about it, hadn’t been steeling himself for the other shoe to drop. He’s stopped having bated breath every time something good happens, instead taking reassurance in a sense of permanence that he wasn’t sure he’d ever feel again. Martin must hear his breath hitch, because he immediately stops what he’s doing to take Jon’s hand into his own. “Something wrong, love?”

Jon shakes his head. “No, nothing. I suppose I’m realizing that we have time, don’t we?”

Martin must know exactly what he means, the weight behind the words, because he brings Jon’s hand to his lips and says, “Yes. Yes, we really, really do.”

#jonmartinweek2021 #jonmartin #jon sims #martin blackwood #tma #post canon #THIS IS JUST ME PROJECTING ON MARTIN FOR 1500 WORDS LMAO #also to anyone that spots the song lyric: :3 #also also the leopard geckos names are kirk spock and bones #or as jon calls them #captain first officer and CMO

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lostinthewiind · 4 years ago

Note

Can I request a Tsukishima Kei x reader where they make up after an argument please 💜 also are there any prompt lists that you like and we can look through? If no, that’s cool too!

Make-Ups Instead of Break-Ups

A/N: I’ve never really used any prompt lists before, so I don’t have any ones in particular that I can direct you to, unfortunately. However, I’ll write pretty much anything so if you find a prompt from some random list and want me to write it, just send it my way! If anyone is unsure, just shoot me a private message or an anon ask and I’ll try my best to answer ASAP! (Btw, thanks for requesting! Tsukki is one of my fav Haikyuu characters and I just LOVE writing for him)

Characters: Tsukishima Kei

Rating: PG

Warnings: some arguing, in case that isn’t your jam, but other than that it’s pretty family-friendly

Biting your tongue, you drew in a few deep breaths from your nose, trying your hardest not to let any of the harsh words that you’d surely regret later spring forth from your mouth.

Across from you, standing with his arms crossed and an irritatingly smug look plastered across his face, Tsukki waited for you to either give in to your anger or storm off; those were the only two ways you knew how to handle arguments with him, even though neither one of them ever seemed to do you any good.

Even though this disagreement had sprouted from something as simple as Tsukki being late without sending you a courtesy text or call to let you know, your current boiling blood originated more from the series of things you had been bottling up inside for the past month or so.

At first, you had thought it was nothing more than a run-of-the-mill rough patch, but as time went on and things gradually got worse, you actually started to believe that your relationship had run its course. Ignored texts, missed phone calls, dry conversations, and the like had you ready to burst at the seam, and today, that seam had finally gave way.

“I just don’t understand why it’s so hard for you to be considerate,” you said in an attempt to remain composed but still convey how you were really feeling. You knew that if you never brought up the issues, Tsukki wouldn’t either, and then things would just be left to simmer and eventually, boil over. So, the confrontation was left up to you.

“Practice ran long.” He huffed. “I don’t know what you expect me to do about that.”

You shook your head, your irritation growing as he seemingly refused to acknowledge the point you were trying to make. “I never said I was mad about practice running long. I understand that things happen. What I’m trying to tell you is that it would be nice for you to let me know so that I’m not standing around waiting for thirty minutes, thinking you stood me up.”

“I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal.” He threw his hands into the air for effect.

You rolled your eyes. “It’s a big deal because if you had told me you were running late instead of just leaving me in the dark, we wouldn’t be arguing right now.”

“We wouldn’t be arguing right now if you didn’t insisit on overreacting about every little thing.”

And there it was. The words that finally pushed you over the edge. The breaking point.

“Do you even want to be with me anymore?!” you shouted, definitely louder than you had intended. “Because it certainly doesn’t seem like it, and if that’s the case then please just be honest with me because I can’t keep doing this.”

For the first time since you had met him, Tsukki was speechless. No snarky remark, no annoying facial expression, no nonchalant shrug. Nothing. The tall blonde boy was completely taken aback by your sudden outburst.

This time, it was your turn to cross your arms over your chest and wait for a response. When none came, you scoffed.

“You don’t even care enough to say something when I’m talking about breaking up?” You were actually shocked. Sure, Tsukki was bad with emotions on the best of days, but this was a whole new low that you hadn’t been expecting. “Nothing?”

You watched the anger wash away from your boyfriend’s face, his shoulders slumping and his eyes softening. But still, he didn’t say a word; because he didn’t want to or he didn’t know what to say, you weren’t sure . . . but in that moment, his silence spoke volumes.

“Then I guess that’s it.” The words physically hurt to say, but you knew it needed to be done.

Then, without warning, Tsukki turned and walked out of your room. You felt your heart shred to pieces as you watched his retreating figure, and when he turned the corner and disappeared out of sight, your stomach began to twist itself into tight, uncomfortable knots.

You waited until you heard the front door open and close before you allowed yourself to cry, but it never happened. When you heard the faint sound of rummaging in the other room, your curiosity got the better of you. Slowly, you ventured into the living room where Tsukki had dropped his volleyball bag upon arriving. Leaning against the wall, you watched him dig through the bag frantically.

“What are you doing?” you asked. Completely dumbfounded at the way he seemed totally unaffected by your words.

Finally, he stilled, his hand clamped around whatever it was he had been looking for. You watched his chest rise and fall as he drew in deep breaths, and when he turned to face you, you were surprised to see tears in his eyes.

Standing to his full height, which towered above you, he approached you carefully, almost like you were a stray dog, and he held out a small, wrapped box toward you.

Your eyes shifted from him to the box, unsure of what was happening.

“This is for you,” he said, and when you still looked puzzled, he elaborated. “For your birthday next month. I didn’t know what to get you, so I’ve been asking the guys for help . . . which was probably a horrible idea, now that I think about it. Practice didn’t run late today. I was picking this up. I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going to be late.”

Suddenly, you felt like the biggest idiot in the entire world. Even though you felt like you didn’t deserve any sort of gift at all, you took the box from Tsukki’s hand because every second that you didn’t, he looked more and more worried you were going to completely reject him.

“What about all the other times?” you inquired, hoping he had an explanations for that as well. “You’ve been so distant.”

“Yeah . . . I was hoping you hadn’t noticed any of that. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do for your birthday without being too obvious about it and I think I got a little too inside my own head.” He nervously scratched the back of his neck. “I was worried if I opened my mouth, I would let something slip. I felt like I was going to be like Hinata and just say whatever I was thinking . . . it was a horrible feeling.”

You chuckled softly at that. “Why didn’t you just ask me what I wanted for my birthday? Seems that would have saved us a lot of trouble.”

“Nishinoya said girls like to be surprised,” he answered. “Apparently it’s more . . . romantic.”

You quirked an eyebrow up at him and smirked. “And you listened to him?”

He hung his head. “Not my proudest moment.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me all of this before? Why wait until I was ready to end it all?”

Tsukki shrugged. “. . . stubborn . . .” he muttered, barely even audible.

“What was that?” You leaned in closer.

“I’m stubborn!” He admitted, the tears gone from his eyes now and his expression one of humiliated acknowledgement. “I’m a hard-headed jerk who messed up!”

You smiled warmly before handing the box back to Tsukki. His eyes widened at the gesture, convinced you were rejecting him and the gift.

“Give it to me on my actual birthday,” you told him before he could spiral too much. “And next time, just talk to me instead of being all shady.”

Tsukki’s mood lifted as he took the box back into his hands once again. “Does this mean . . .?” His eyes were filled with hope; a wondrous look that you rarely saw on his face. You almost wanted to pull out your phone and take a photo.

“Since you came prepared with a gift and a solid explanation, I forgive you.” You wrapped your arms around his torso and hugged him tight. “But if you ever go silent on me again or forget to tell me when you’re running late, I will shove my foot so far up-”

Tsukki quickly hugged you back, pressing your face into his t-shirt and promptly shushing you before you could get the rest of your threat out. “I promise I’ll do better,” he whispered before pressing a chaste kiss to the top of your head. “And I promise I’ll never listen to the guys ever again.”

#haikyuu #lostinthewiind #fanfiction #tsukki #tsukishima #tsukishima kei #tsukki x reader #reader #x reader #reader insert #argument #making up #requested #volleyball #anime

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mitigatedchaos · 4 years ago

Text

On Having “Whiteness”

(~2,200 words, 11 minutes)

Summary: A metaphysics of “Whiteness” has overtaken actual sociology in the Democrats’ popular consciousness - blinding them to racial interventions that might actually work and taking them off the table of political discussion.

-★★★-

Donald Moss - On Having Whiteness, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (emphasis mine)

Whiteness is a condition one first acquires and then one has—a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. The condition is foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world. Parasitic Whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples. Once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate. Effective treatment consists of a combination of psychic and social-historical interventions. Such interventions can reasonably aim only to reshape Whiteness’s infiltrated appetites—to reduce their intensity, redistribute their aims, and occasionally turn those aims toward the work of reparation. When remembered and represented, the ravages wreaked by the chronic condition can function either as warning (“never again”) or as temptation (“great again”). Memorialization alone, therefore, is no guarantee against regression. There is not yet a permanent cure.

So both @arcticdementor [here] and @samueldays have linked me to this allegedly “peer-reviewed” article. The Federalist has a bit more context, but it doesn’t really make the situation better.

Race Theory Problems

Obviously, this is a work of sloppy thinking. The categorization of “white supremacy culture” or “whiteness” used by people like this is vague handwaving that describes being bad at management as “white supremacy culture,” and which in general labels universal human problems, like organizations being resource-constrained, or people being impatient, as somehow uniquely “white.”

But this sort of article is really what I mean when I say that social justice’s approach to “whiteness” is about “spiritual contamination.”

Samueldays called it “the ‘I’m not touching you’ of inciting race war,” and I may cover more of his response to it later. Suffice it to say, it has the same general kind of problems as “stolen land” arguments (where an entire present population’s living area becomes undefined), unbounded “reparations” arguments where no amount of transfers by the designated oppressor are considered to clear the debt, and so on.

This is exactly the sort of material that conservatives are seeking to remove government funding for and prohibit from use in employment training. This is the kind of material that the Trump Anti-CRT executive order prohibiting racial scapegoating was meant to cover.

Race Theory Definitions

This kind of stuff is, of course, not really defensible, so usually at this point people will argue that 1), “that’s not real critical race theory,” and then 2), “it’s just a few weirdos.” For those, I would say...

1) If it’s not real “Critical Race Theory,” then what is it?

We can’t measure or disprove Moss’s proposed “Whiteness,” and this malevolent psychic entity said to “deform” white people obviously isn’t based on a comparison with other human populations or historical periods. When it comes to “insatiable” appetites, one study argued that the Mongol invasions killed so many people that it showed up in the carbon record.

At best, it’s sloppy race science as practiced by an amateur, like twitter users idly speculating whether whites have ‘oppressor epigenetics’ - but with the veneer of official status. And it has similar risks to proposing that there is such a thing as biologically-inherited class enemy status, and other collective intergenerational justice logic.

Presumably, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association is intended as a journal of science, or at least serious scholarship, and not of bad racist poetry with no rhyme or meter.

Moss provides a relatively pure example of whatever-this-is. I need to know what it’s called, so we can get rid of it.

Race Theory Prohibitions

2) If it’s just the product of a few race-obssessed weirdos, then it won’t hurt to get rid of it. So get rid of it.

The actual text [PDF] of the Trump Anti-CRT order does not ban teaching about the Trail of Tears, or Jim Crow, and so on, and both of those topics were taught in school before this recent wave of whatever-this-is was popularized.

Trump’s order banned teaching that any race is inherently guilty or evil due to the actions of their ancestors, and the level of resistance to this has been bizarre.

These teachings don’t seem to provide gains in relatively objective metrics like underrepresented minority test scores (or at least that’s not something I’ve seen - and the continued opposition to standardized tests suggests proponents do not expect it to), so it’s unclear just what of value is going to be lost here.

Collateral Damage

Samueldays wrote,

Because right now the conservatives talking about "critical race theory" as they fire in the direction of Moss et al. are very important in preventing another race war and you have a moral duty to help them aim, not throw smoke for Moss.

Right now Conservatives are assessing just how much stuff they’re going to have to rip out to make “standardized tests are racist” and “it’s impossible to be racist to white people” stop. While this may not be the message that Liberals are intending to send, it is the message that many people are receiving. (I discuss problems with both, and some alternatives to handle them better, in another post.)

Liberals need to get out in front of this. Sooner is better.

If Conservatives think that they have to gut hostile work environment law in order to avoid their children being taught that they’re permanently morally contaminated by their race, and Liberals have no means to actually close race gaps within a 4-8 year period (and right now it’s slim pickings on that front), Conservatives are just going to gut hostile work environment law.

Aether

From their perspective, why not?

Everything in the world is only six degrees of separation from something racist. Anything in the world can be tied to something racist. (So can anyone.)

But nowhere in this pervasive atmosphere of tying things to racism are there solutions. There are guesses based on correlations. Proposals. But usually when you reach out to grab them, to really get a grip on whether it’s correlation or causation, they dissolve in your hands. The few that do have any solidity to them are moderate in their success (such as Heckman’s involvement in the Reach Up & Learn study in Jamaica) - and don’t appear to be based on the same style of thinking as shown by Moss and others.

It isn’t just that trying to turn combating an invisible, non-measurable, unfalsifiable, parasitic psychic force into an actual political program would inevitably be oppressive and totalitarian. It isn’t just that articles like Moss’s are an in-kind donation to the 2024 DeSantis Presidential campaign for that very reason.

It isn’t just that unfalsifiable Metaphysics of Whiteness content like White Privilege Theory has been found to lower sympathy for the poor, and that present diversity training doesn’t work...

Race Content Crowding

This stuff is crowding out legitimate scholarship. I don’t just mean in terms of funding, tenure track positions, or high-flying magazine coverage - all limited by their nature. I mean among the base. I have been interrogating Democrats on Twitter for months, and not a single one has been able to cite a strongly-demonstrated intervention that’s being held back, or even a past one that was conclusively demonstrated to be effective. They can often recite a list of racial grievances on cue.

Tucker Carlson could run boomer_update.exe on a list of every educational failure since the 1970s, and they would be reduced to sputtering accusations of racism against people who increasingly don’t care. He could do this tomorrow. The only thing that prevents this is Tucker Carlson’s conscience.

I discovered the Reach Up & Learn program through Glenn Loury - described as a ‘conservative.’ Scott Alexander, attacked by the New York Times crew, brought some success with multivitamins to my attention. When I first heard about the Perry Preschool program, I believe it was from someone well to the right of him.

About the only one brought to my attention by the Democratic establishment constellation proper was lead removal, and the gains on that are probably getting tapped out. The frame it was proposed in was not Critical Race Theorist, as this was likely in 2012.

As it stands, I’m more likely to find something that works from someone the New York Times would disapprove of than someone they wouldn’t. Or, as Wesley Yang wrote,

Reality has been contrarian for a while.

Succeed Early

Even if we suppose that Conservatives are inherently racist, Liberals have a duty to support interventions that work. In fact, the more that Conservatives are a seething, undifferentiated mass of uniform racial hatred, the more important it is that Liberals stick to racial interventions that work, because nobody else is going to fix the problem if Liberals get it wrong.

It isn’t just a matter of resources per year. It’s also a matter of time.

From Heckman’s website,

Although Perry did not produce long-run gains in IQ, it did create lasting improvements in character skills [...] which consequently improved a number of labor market outcomes and health behaviors as well as reduced criminal activity.

Even if we propose an unlimited amount of funding (which is not the case), people and politicians only have a limited amount of time and attention each year. Newspapers only publish so many issues with so many pages each week. Television programs only cover so many hours for so many viewers each day. Even the dedicated can only read so many books in a year.

Even though the Perry intervention was imperfect, and the sample size was not as large as desirable, every second Democrat I talked to should have been able to answer the question “can you name an effective intervention?” with “what about Perry Preschool?”

Every year that we have entire cottage industries working on and popularizing contentious, ineffective, and backlash-provoking Metaphysics of Whiteness content, based on oversimplified oppressor/oppressed binaries, or theories in which power is held collectively by races as monolithic blobs (rather than modelling power as a network of relations between individuals, in which an individual of any background might be destroyed by the racialized relations in their environment), is another year we haven’t spent that energy on finding or implementing something that actually works.

This isn’t just an individual failure by Democrat voters, who typically have day jobs to focus on - it is a failure by the institutions who are supposed to inform and guide them. This institutional failure likely contributed to the popularization of Metaphysics of Whiteness content in the first place.

Okay, now what?

Donald Moss is a crackpot. Metaphysics of Whiteness content is unfalsifiable. The idea that there is a psychic parasite of “Whiteness” is not a legitimate field of study; it’s parasociology. The idea that “a sense of urgency” is “white supremacy culture” isn’t much better. [1]

We already tried isolating this content to obscure corners of academia, where individuals with high racial attachment could write about it. It leaked out.

We need to get this stuff out of the popular consciousness to make room for stuff that might actually work. The best way to do that may be to cut off the source. Since Donald Moss is a crackpot, perhaps it’s time we started treating him, and everyone else like him, as what they are.

People involved in Metaphysics of Whiteness content, like Donald Moss, need to be (figuratively) grabbed by the shoulder, and firmly, but politely, told to stop. Society has been recklessly handing out race-colored glasses to the general population since around 2014, resulting in a rise in amateur race science, of which both right-wing Twitter users memeing about Italians and Metaphysics of Whiteness participants like Moss are examples. If they do not stop, they must be stripped of institutional authority. Metaphysics of Whiteness content is unfalsifiable and we should not be certifying it.

If institutions refuse to reduce the authority of Metaphysics of Whiteness practitioners, those institutions must have their accreditation penalized, and their government funding reduced or eliminated, just as if they insisted on producing study after study on magic or ESP which failed to yield results. If they do not comply, they must be replaced.

It’s possible that Metaphysics of Whiteness content might have had some obscure, niche function in terms of the exploration of the idea space.

However, as it has displaced popular knowledge of interventions that might work, and the attention given to them in the political system, Liberals should seek to surgically remove it, at the very least until some more effective interventions see the political light of day.

If not, Conservatives will attempt to remove it with a bludgeon. "They described an entire race as ‘voracious, insatiable, and perverse,’ and here’s the citation for the exact page where they did that,” is perfect material with which to abolish entire departments.

-★★★-

[1] If we go a bit farther out, scholars of “Decolonization” argue that the field is wholly unconcerned with “settler futurity,” a phrase not much less ominous than describing “whiteness” as “incurable.” It seems that their entire job should be to answer the very difficult questions they have decided not to.

#racepol #american racepol #critical race theory #social justice #racial justice #longpost #flagpost #black lives matter

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toucan-rede · 3 years ago

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Ok, Theory

Ok so in the webcomic Aurora, the “main” character Kendal is an entirely new uncategoriseable entity, a god’s incarnation that survived the god leaving it and developed its own mind and personality.

Now the god that this happens to is the hero god of the city Vash and, like the Ancient Greek Eros or Nike is named after his domain. So what we know about Vash is that he cut his teeth in this god business by defending his city from and defeating the storm god Tynan, the way he does this is explained here with an in universe telling of the story. What we know is that an alien metal and jewel was worked into an incarnation of Vash at a thematically appropriate moment and became an extremely effective power up, enabling Vash to defeat the hitherto undefeated Tynan.

Now how this works in the world built magic system of Aurora is really interesting. So in Aurora it appears they're are two (or eight depending on how you count it) fundamental substances of magic, the elements and soul energy, now we know where elemental magic comes from as a central piece of lore in the main storyline so far has been about the ancient war between the elementals and a Void Dragon and how the elementals died defeating this Void Dragon and their bodies meshed together supplying the materials as the world, but the elements still count, and can be persuaded to act, as one body essentially unique to the other elements and so because they belonged to a living entity with a soul can exist in two states, the material element and a sort of potential/soul element held in other materials or channeled by mages to enact elemental effects.

Now soul energy is something very different and despite the excessive amount of time I've spent explaining the elements, is what we’re focusing on here. Soul energy is what living things are “made of” being literally the material of souls, now I could be wrong but from I can figure out everything alive contains and in someway uses soul energy, and soul energy has a connection with other soul constructs allowing for an in any capacity uniform group of living things to develop a larger social soul that becomes a god. Vash for instance is a city of people and so through the interaction of their soul energy, construction of early incarnations, and people assigning these incarnations personality or motivations became the hero god the city imagined, as the god itself is made up of the whole cities population who once saw incarnation interpreted them a certain way and influenced some of their aspect. Basically, because the god is their domain how they are viewed by the creatures in their domain effects their personality and most comfortable form.

So what does this really have to do with Kendal. Well if Vash’s sword was constructed from an alien metal, a solid substance, which issomething almost impossible to make without an elemental, after Vash worked his soul energy into like soul shaper monks do with human prosthetics, which would more than likely work some of this starmetal soul energy into his own soul lattice. Then its likely that Kendal’s soul is made of what little of soul star metal was in the solid material of the meteor. And it’s not just background lore magic systems backing this up.

In the series of pages telling the mythical story of Vash’s Sword we find out that it’s being told through the framing device of the smith god who forged it, to a similar style god to Vash of the Fire influenced race of Ignans. Now while why they're talking and what this incredibly effective smith who uses the arcs and emotional journeys of the wielders of his weapons in his smithing process is doing with a god of fire and fire people directly related to one of our adventuring party is incredibly plot important and personally intriguing, there is something else I wanted to focus on here.

In these panels Tahraim appears to be talking about Dainix, a character Kendal is currently imprisoned with and who are jelling suspiciously well. Now we can see that Tahraim is using his Xanatos gambit forging technique of social engineering to forge out a weapon and fighter for Caliban (probably to fight the fire demon from Dainix’s backstory (who is probably another elemental emissary for Fire (like two other characters currently being heavily associated star metal soul Kendall (I see you Red, with each subsequent layer of brackets I get closer to the truth, witness as my bracketry grows)))) and describing some of the forging fires he’s using fo this weapon (who is probably Dainix, if not definitely)calls one of them “the divine blade”, referring to Vash’s starmetal sword currently held by Kendal, but the blade its self is isnt world shaking, its been around for millennia and everyone is very familiar with its power and prowess as a sword because Vash is an incredibly well known god. But that’s only as a sword, and we know Kendal is world shaking after his discussion with Ilia here where he is told explicitly that the gods fear what he represents but respect the fact that he is an incredibly powerful being with all the strength and ability of a godly incarnation but with no responsibilities of upholding a domain or the limits of staying within they’re domains range. And so the theoretical soul that is Kendal in this incarnation must be made of whatever remainder of star metal soul is left from the solid star metal in the sword. That had been given the shape and properties of a human/incarnation soul by being weaved into and by Vash and then had the Vash soul ripped apart from they’re shared incarnation leaving the star metal soul to have to develop as its own being in this body

And if all you wanted is proof of this theory you can honestly stop reading here. So far this is dense and a lot and I wanna run through some stuff with this head cannon to nerd out. So if you don't wanna have to read anymore, my argument for this theory is basically through

Kendal being the star metal soul can provide a reason for, guess plot dent instead of plot hole? when Vash takes Kendal to where he is being held by the Collector. The reason this could be a plot dent is that one of the working theories for why Kendal exists can be found in the Sentinels. Essentially building sized stone statues animated by a god semi incarnating in them, its hard to explain so if your interested read here (Also read the comic, it’s really, really good. Like really good. If you get into the extra lore on the website and then scroll through Red’s Aurora Tumblr answers you get to appreciate how truly spectacular her worldbuilding and magic systems are. I mean clearly they’re cohesive and well thought out enough that just off of the magic system you could make a (if I don't say so myself) well reasoned prediction for a major character reveal.) the theory being that because these Sentinels can develop these echoes after being un-possessed by a god over time, the unique way Vash was taken out of his incarnation without dis-corporating it that the body developed a similar echo and is now ambient soul energy drawn into the empty body. However, this wouldn't make sense with Vash taking Kendal to the Collector’s hideaway in his sleep, as if Kendal is made of ambient soul energy he has no actual connection with Vash’s soul and so Vash shouldn't be able to bring him to the crystal he is being held in. But, if Kendal is in fact the star metal soul then he would still have that connection with Vash, as they are the same soul but different parts made of different materials, and so ca operate separately whilst still being so intricately connected.

On one final note, there is one character that already seems to know all this, Tahraim. That Kendal in everyway is the weapon he forged, that they're is a capacity for new elements and therefore different soul energies, that Erin has been possessed by the Void Dragon, and that the Collector has revived life, who has taken Alinua as an emissary, and is using this information not for his own divine or dastardly machinations but on commission. Which is A) a potential threat if Tahraim turns out to be a tad more amoral than he first appears, working as effectively for the next customer instead of esoterically guiding events for the cause of good and B) show cases an incredible mesh of world building and character work with gods being influenced by how their perceived and a god perceived and heralded as an unachievably proficient smith knowing more than any other character or entity we’ve ever seen before and doing exactly what is necessary to forge his commissioned weapons into the most powerful and effective instruments they can be almost only because of how in the magic system some gods are made from ideals and interpretations instead of groups of living things and actually fits the way they are most commonly perceived

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mrrow-of-laughter · 3 years ago

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so i saw something was happening and didn’t wanna miss out

Buddy no one is excusing genocide. I never said that the Kingdom people were excused of committing genocide on Duscur nor did I say that they are free of the wrongdoing. I said that it happened because Lambert was killed by TWSITD and it wouldn’t have happened otherwise i.e cause and effect. Because prior, Faerghus and Duscur did have good relations. So to make it clear: Kingdom people commiting genocide on Duscur as a result of their King’s murder is bad and wrong AND Genocide was due to an assasination of the King commited by TWSITD for the future Emperor’s benefit. If you don’t think these two arguments/claims can coexist, I don’t know what to tell you.

it was, in fact, done so they could destabilize the kingdom for a future takeover. even if that is the case though, i’d like to know how edelgard is responsible for that. she was like... 13 or 14. i’m not sure where this argument started but i fail to see how it’s relevant to “edelgard bad”.

I saw the post and I think it’s absolute horseshit. Just because Edelgard takes Kronya (which doesn’t matter and feels like a deflection on your end) doesn’t mean she doesn’t take Flayn. As the quote says “Bring me the two women and step away”, which means she was okay with kidnapping Flayn. Also there’s some Flame Emperror soliders, I think it’s very telling that Edelgard had a hand in this.

admittedly, raxis makes a lot of assumptions, but so do you. she has nothing to gain from kidnapping flayn at all. if you have an argument to the contrary, i’d love to hear it. i don’t at all see how kidnapping flayn would benefit her in any way. she could have been trying to kidnap her, and she also could’ve just been trying to get her away. we don’t know. also, they’re literally classmates, i think if she wanted to kidnap her super bad, she would’ve had many other better opportunities.

She was aware of what exactly was happening during Remire if this conversation is anything to go by and considering you don’t go to Remire until the end of the month, she did nothing to descalate the situation and just let it happen so that she could use it to her advantage. And it matters in this case because she knew who was responsible, what exactly was going on and just let it happen.

that’s also a lot of assumptions. she says in every route that she would’ve stopped them had she known. i don’t see why she would lie about that, because she’s in her disguise and again, has nothing to gain from lying. that, and i always thought the conversation with hubert was about something that happened a longer time ago, not something that was like, actively happening, judging from the way he says everything. keep in mind that at this point, the villagers were just behaving “strange”, they weren’t going on killing rampages, so there’s no reason for hubert to talk about it like some grand tragedy they couldn’t prevent in the past.

Whom she defies and bad mouths and still faces no reprecussions with the exception of Cornelia. I know your argument is that she uses the church to defy him well then what’s stopping Thales from doing an investigation on the matter specifically in the forest? He did it for Cornelia in Arianrhod why couldn’t he do it for Kronya and Solon? What is he? An idiot? It’s almost like he doesn’t care or maybe he can’t do anything about it cause he doesn’t have the power. Almost like he’s her puppet.

because kronya and solon are completely disposable pawns. both have already been revealed as members of the agarthans, while thales and cornelia are still in disguise and holding positions of power. tomas was someone with moderate influence i guess, but he and monica were mostly random people and when solon and kronya disguised as them, they essentially were meant to be the men on the inside, your average joes someone would never suspect, while thales and cornelia hold positions of significant power - arundel is the regent of the empire and cornelia is the faerghus court mage. we already know thales and solon only used kronya as a means to an end - who’s to say solon isn’t the same? kronya did her job and killed jeralt, therefore solon was fine with sacrificing her. solon tried to get rid of the vessel of sothis, and he miserably failed. that’s all the relevant info thales needs to say “yeah, whatever”. the reason he got mad over cornelia was because she was an essential part of them maintaining a foothold in the politics of fodlan, which neither solon nor kronya were. he doesn’t care because edelgard killing kronya and solon means absolutely nothing to their grander plans.

i’ll put your last point, if you can call it that, here with this. i’m gonna double down and say that yes, actually, thales giving orders to edelgard and hubert is in fact a solid argument for why he’s their boss and not the other way round. now, i’m not gonna sit here and say he phrases them as requests because it’s some kinda intimidation tactic, that’s way too far into speculation territory for me, but he does, in fact, phrase his orders as requests. it’s literally flat out stated.

but wait, i have more. did you know this line is mistranslated? i can’t really grab a source right now, but you can ask anyone who speaks japanese, or you can literally just throw it into google translate. if i find where i first read it, i’ll link it, but in case you think i’m just making things up, i’m not - it’s enough of a big deal for the wiki to have a note there that corrects the mistranslation. basically it has the exact opposite meaning. my question is, why would edelgard then have to trick the agarthans if she is in fact their boss? from the original quote, if anything, it sounds like cornelia thought they were controlling her. if they were her puppets, there would be no need to trick them, because they’d just obey her.

as for the badmouthing - you think that the agarthans would just be totally okay with their supposed puppetmaster wanting to eradicate them? thales knows about her hatred for them - if nothing else, she outright says as much in the scene, so he has to know by that point. i don’t understand what means she would have of controlling them, because she’s made it completely clear she does not want to see them reach their “salvation”. say this is true and she was ordering them around - what’s stopping them from rebelling against her? they have extremely advanced technology. they literally have massive robots. if she really is their puppetmaster and has all the control over them, then explain why they’re fine with her outright saying she will destroy them, despite that directly clashing with their plans (obviously) and obeying her - and don’t say it’s because they don’t have the military or political power, because they do. so again, i don’t see what leverage she has over them. like you said, they’re not stupid. if they thought their supposed leader was going to go against their plans which have spanned across centuries, they would’ve done something. the only reason why they would entertain her musings about wanting to destroy them and not act at all is if they were sure she wouldn’t pull anything, which is only really possible if they have enough control over her.

that also answers the question you asked - why does thales get mad over cornelia but not solon? not only is cornelia very important to thales and the agarthans, but also because of that importance, this is edelgard showing she actually means business when she kills her. up until then, she didn’t do much aside from the occasional remark and taking out pawns that they had little use for anyway - something thales lets her get away with because it has no impact on the greater picture. but cornelia was extremely important and edelgard knows that - it’s an “oh shit” moment for thales because up to that point he thought edelgard was all bark and no bite. her taking action against one of their major actors disproves that. this is why he retaliates - he wants to show her that if she actually strays from their plans, there will be consequences.

#edelgard critical #edelgard discourse #edelgard positive

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unpopularly-opinionated · 4 years ago

Link

I don’t play WoW but I used to play Overwatch and Diablo and this touches on just the general issues that are inside of Activision Blizzard right now regarding the major decline of World of Warcraft and how they’re losing to Final Fantasy XIV, how if the latest WoW expansion or Overwatch 2 flop as they’re projected to do then Blizzard’s most definitely going to pivot almost entirely to mobile games, and how the differences in age demographics are actually dividing the company into multiple camps.

It’s important to note two things: 1) this could be fake but also 2) the link came from Grummz, a former team lead on WoW and producer on Diablo II and Starcraft. It still could be fake despite this, but if he’s sharing it then I feel like there’s at least some measure of truth in this.

Transcription below in case this gets deleted and/or you don’t wanna click the link. Warning, it’s fairly long.

“I’m dropping this here after getting chewed out for three hours over shit the chewee did at work so fuck it. Assume larp and let me vent.”

>Shadowlands is a shitshow. Critical response, Player drop off and just about every engagement metric outside of cash shop have been catastrophic. No higher up expected this because of their “we are too big to fail, if we built it they will come” mentality. They refuse to accept their focus on the world being a begrudged mechanic to funnel players to raiding is not appealing to the player base at large because it appeals to them. They have spent the last 4 months trying to course correct but there is no solid direction and the response to 9.1 has only made things worse.

>Sylvanas is planned to replace the Arbiter despite so many people in the company and god knows how many online saying this would be a total replication of Kerrigans storyline in Starcraft 2 that killed none competitive interest in the brand entirely and you can only go “no, no they WILL like it eventually” for so many real world years before its time to change course. Thus far that has not happened.

>The elephant in the room is FFXIV. To the people in charge they are acting like this came out of nowhere and don’t even seem to understand why its drawing players away in their tens of thousands. We have all tried to highlight things it is doing that are clearly appealing to an mmo audience and not, in my opinion, focussing more on mobile game style retention traps to keep MAU users and habit forming personalities logging in. Its not that they don’t care. They just seem so pig headed and digging their heels in with their fingers in their ears thinking all the problems will go away because WoW is “too big to fail”, there will never be real competition and “they will keep coming back”. But they aren’t coming back anymore. Not in the numbers they used to.

>The people making the spending choices know this. The new model for WoW is market the hell out of a expansion pack for a huge quarter then use 6 month lock ins to pad numbers for the quarters after that. Even if corona had not happened 9.1 still would have been dropping after the initial 6 month subs expired to “keep the chain holding”.

>The mood in the company is tense but also very much “its just a rough transition period”. Activision has been pushing hard for Blizzard to release more regular product and to generate more income per user. As far as i know this is going to be a transition over the next 5 years to a much larger mobile/tablet gaming focus. By all accounts not just WoW but Overwatch was intended to be the moneymaker in the interim but once again someone had the bright idea to kill a game casual players loved on the alter of e-sports hoping for another Brood War. From what i hear the “told you so’s” were loud and a lot of people walked beyond Kaplan.

>The sentiment that was shared quietly in private but being spoken more often is simply that the leadership at Blizzard are not bad people, nor incompetent people but people who had to fill seats left when the old guard jumped ship wether they were suited for it or not. Brack is a genuinely good man out of his depth, Ion is a fantastic raid designer put in charge of designing a virtual world he has no interest or real ideas for and so on. They have been taking form the roles they excel at to be put in positions where they get to do far less of that purely because there is nobody left with the experience to do so and the trickle down is a lack of concrete direction, ambition and focus.

>2021 has seen the playerbase, media and gaming at large “turn” on WoW to a degree i don’t think the leads in their “positivity dojo” bubble considered possible. Its gone from people going “This is how Blizz needs to fix WoW!” to “WoW is no longer salvageable, time for greener pastures” and i think on some level this was never considered as a possibility so there have never been any major plans beyond the usual “try and minimise player drop off by arranging releases around competitors launching updates/products”. The official forums being filled with talk of FFXIV and worse “why do we actually pay a sub?” hasn’t helped.

>There have been some testing the waters lately from certain higher ups if we can remove the line “No King Rules Forever”. Read into that what you will.

>There are still arguments going on about the Kael’thas Voice actor shitshow. I don’t know much about it but i know its heated, wouldn’t be the first time a knee jerk reaction only seemed to generate bad press. We lost a noticeable amount of pvp engagement after the Swifty thing.

>The Preach interview was treated as a disaster and there was talk of more strongly vetting interviewers for “bad actors” and only engaging with a list of questions Blizzard provides. Some pointed out that could just be used to create some form of Fireside Chat akin to the FFXIV “Live letters” but that fell on deaf ears.

>The two sentiments right now among the team are either “we really need a win” or “theres a dedicated cabal of internet trolls out to kill WoW”. Right now we are crunching hard to get 9.2 ready to wrap up the jailors storyline so we can get an expansion out early 2022. If that doesn’t happen there are talks of major shakeups coming down from Activision that have been threatened for a few years now. Its an all hands on deck feeling thats been around to some degree since the “Is this an out of season April Fools Joke” Blizzcon. A make or break deadline is coming closer and things like Diablo 4 were not planned before then. Blizzard needs a significant win not just in initial profit but consumer goodwill. Nobody likes working at what the public now seems to see as “the bad guy” of the mmo industry.

>This has also made new hires decline. Not significantly but the “you WANT Blizzard on your resume” line doesn’t seem to have the appeal it used to. This has lead to more hiring via friend of a friend, to some rumblings about nepotism, and people severely lacking in experience “because they get great twitter optics”.

>On the topic of Twitter we are not being told to “disengage” from it. Multiple employees like Nervig and Holisky publicly attacking paying customers because they got too heated and couldn’t keep quiet is bad press that could have been avoided. A email reminder has gone around more than once lately stating “if you are not customer relations you should not be representing the company to customers, especially if you cannot remain professional”.

>Lastly the biggest elephant in the room is “yo’ boy” Asmongold. The newer hires cannot stand him. They have used terms like “toxic masculinity” and “dogwhistles to dangerous males” while some of the oldest crowd still remaining have called him “based” or “telling it like it is” which has lead to friction to put it mildly. People are told not to talk about him and the recent FFXIV stuff only made it all worse. The idea that an outside element can have such an effect on the product genuinely upsets people. Like Zach is engaging in some malicious act of cyberwarfare. Many of us have point out the now famous quotes by Naoki Yoshida about understanding that players will drift and we need to make something worth coming back to because they want to but some people for lack of a better word see out customers -or “consumers” as they refer to them nowadays- as some kind of antagonistic relationship where the goal is not being an entertainer putting on a show for a crowd but some kind of game hunter trying to trap a large, profitable kill. I wish i could blame Activision but this is a sentiment from more of the younger crowd than the “tech boomers”. Which personal opinion is probably why so many folks like Metzen and Morheim left.

>Before you ask, yes the topic of “wokeness” has shown up in group talks. Its not all some grand sjw conspiracy, people really do want to feel welcome and represented. However the “we need everything veto’ed by people not working on it to see if its inoffensive and bland enough” rubs some of us the wrong way. Like anything in life you can take something too far and lose sight of the core ideals and with everything gone on since Blitzchung it feels like people are forming little factions to pull people in different directions to decide “What Blizzards identity is now” and how to appeal to new players. There has been some drop offs with “go woke go broke” as the only answer in the survey when unsubbing but honestly we are losing subs in unforseen numbers anyway and still making more money than ever through cash shop “heavy users” so it honestly doesn’t make an impact.

>All in all things are rough right now. Blizzard doesn’t have the love of the customers anymore, is no longer treated as an industry giant and while D4,D2R and Immortal aren’t going to kill Diablo even if they fail the sentiment for World of Warcraft and Overwatch 2 are a lot more tense and stressful. The phrase “it might be good to brush up on your mobile development portfolio if we get another underperformer” has been doing the rounds a lot. If Shadowlands continues its stark decline and Overwatch 2 is looking to underperform like its current projections suggest i think the Blizzard of a few years from now will be imitating King a lot more than trying to learn any lessons from Square Enix’s mmo division.

#random #video games #Blizzard #Activision #WoW #World of Warcraft #Diablo #Overwatch #Starcraft #Activision Blizzard

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wevegottogetaway · 4 years ago

Text

I love you

First I love yous...do I need to say more? Anyway, please don’t hesitate to reach out for anything, whether that be comments, requests, feedback or just to have a chat! Happy reading xx

It’s been three days of utter pandemonium ripping through your brain in complete disarray. Three days of pent up stress storming through your mind as you ran like a headless chicken to try and find a handle on a situation that frankly, you didn’t give a rat’s ass about.

It all started when your boss had called you in his office, his signature tyrant-resting face on, solid frown drafting his features in a look of severity. Well, this can’t be good, you’d immediately thought once you took a hesitant seat across his desk. You’d hoped for a benign reason behind the sudden meeting, and that the scowl on his face was merely a residual of some other trouble that had absolutely nothing to do with you.

Your prayers had fallen on deaf ears however, as the summoning proved to be a twenty minutes angry diatribe about how one of your most recent client had expressed their wish to withdraw from their deal and de facto, the company. Though it hadn’t been your fault per se, your boss didn’t have any reservations about reminding you of your supposed responsibility to keep your clients sated and on the company’s leash. He’d given you three days to fix it after that. Three days to persuade the client not to pull out of the deal, or you risked some serious downgrading if not redundancy.

You’d called Harry for support the minute you got home and spent the whole evening brainstorming the craziest ideas to him. He’d listened patiently, holding your hand on the table as you both indulged in the Thai take-out he’d picked up on his way over. That first night, you’d barely slept as you laid in his strong arms, back to his chest. Your reeling mind had still been trying to conjure up any sort of plan that would help you out of this chaos; but for each switch of the glowing red digits on your alarm clock, your hopes had dwindled some.

You hadn’t known then, but Harry couldn’t find rest either as he spooned you against him. You two hadn’t been dating long, several months at best, but already your distress was unbearable to him and every bone in his body ached to do something to help you. This feeling of powerlessness was crawling out of his skin and swimming around like a shark amidst his prevalent thoughts of support, admiration and love. Because, while he’d shown you the first and conveyed the second countless times in the past, the third had yet to tumble out of his lips, despite the confession burning their flesh a bit stronger every day.

What really had had his mind reeling though, was knowing that maybe, just maybe, he had the power to make this situation go away; and for each switch of the glowing red digits on your alarm clock, his hopes grew some.

Your earlier utterance of the client’s name had been ringing through his mind in faint recognition, an itch starting to fester at his fingertips. Dialing a phone number was all it could take. A couple choice words and if he played his cards right, the deal would be back on the table. He’d known interfering was arguably a bad idea, and truthfully he’d always made a point of honor not to use his connections to serve ulterior motives (his or anyone else’s), but how was he supposed to do nothing when the person that caused you trouble was in fact a friend of a friend that might reevaluate their stance if he pitched in with a bit of charm and compelling words? How was he supposed to stay idle, watch you dissolve in an anxious mess, if he wasn’t as powerless as he thought?

So he didn’t.

He’d originally planned on keeping you in the loop, but you’d been gone by the time his forest green eyes had fluttered back to consciousness the next morning. After a quick shower, a large mug of the coffee you’d left for him before running back to work, and locking your apartment with the spare key you’d given him a couple weeks back, he’d pulled out his phone. Two minutes was all it took for his friend to pass him your client’s number and without hesitation, he’d launched the call and brought his phone to his ear.

It took a bit longer than a couple of minutes for that conversation to take effect, but eventually his words hit their target. After all, his lovely nature could pierce through the most robust walls and stubborn minds. He didn’t even have to put on the charm that much, instead drawing earnest sentiments about your impeccable skills and rambling about how there was no better person to keep their account safe in the business. He’d gnawed at his lips the whole time, desperate to pull through but still scared to fail you somehow. You’d already been let down by the client and your boss, you certainly didn’t need your boyfriend added to the list.

The call had ended with their promise to reassess and consider your undeniable abilities in the equation, yet the next day you were once again convoked to your boss’ office with a snarly bark of your name. Puzzlement washed over you as you speed-walked after him. Why was he still so resentful with you when you’d gotten the client to reenter the contract?

Another twenty minutes of intense scolding provided you with that answer. With a disdainful gaze puncturing your poise, your boss told you that while your job was no longer on the line, you’d been given a firm warning about using your boyfriend as negotiator for the company’s dealings.

How he knew when you yourself weren’t aware of the fact, you didn’t know. In retrospect, your talk with the client had been suspiciously easy for someone who’d made their will to ditch the company crystal clear. You’d merely laid out your arguments, expecting resistance and some pushing, but were only met with a squinted look and cautious acceptance. Now you know your case had already been pleaded once, by the man who was taking more and more space for himself inside the chambers of your heart.

You didn’t quite know how to feel about it; didn’t know if you should be mad or grateful. You were specifically stunned because you knew it was out of character for Harry. Your boyfriend was the most generous being you’d ever met, but humility was even more so a prevailing layer of his beautiful nature. You certainly didn’t expect it, didn’t wish for it to happen again because you were always adamant not to ever use anyone for their assets. Yet there was a tingling, a mixture of discomfort and gratefulness, sloshing in the pit of your stomach.

This whole thing was a mind-fuckery of emotions you were too tired to process.

What you did feel though, was the pure frustration at your boss’ hypocrisy. You both knew he didn’t really care how you’d gotten the deal back, just that you did, but his intolerable disposition wouldn’t allow him to applaud your efforts and move on.

Wanting to put this all mess behind you, you bit back the retorts that you craved to force down his throat, simply nodded through his chastising charade, and leaped to your feet as soon as the dismissing words left his stupid trap.

Now that you’re making your way inside your home, your nose is hit by a waft of delicious aromas traveling from the kitchen. Your mind is still fuzzy with every trouble and startling revelation that transpired in the past three days, but as your eyes settle on your apron-clad boyfriend, you take a moment to appreciate the sight of his soft figure stirring the content of what must be a pan on the gas. His back is facing you, but you can hear the gentle humming under his breath, as he hasn’t registered your arrival yet.

After another minute of whistling, he finally twists around and his eyes almost pop out of their socket when they find your timid stance a couple feet away. "Jesus, pet, didn’t know you were home yet," he chuckles softly before taking in your somewhat moony features. Your expression is hard to pinpoint, your delicate traits blank of any emotions yet your eyes have the same sparkle that greets him every morning and every night when he pulls you for a deep kiss in his warm embrace. "Everythin’ okay, love?"

The query snaps you out of your semblance of trance, your head looking down to the floor to gather your wits before you level your gaze back to his. "Yeah it is. Umm, my boss called me in again today," your bite your lip, not knowing how to navigate the conversation. In all honesty, you just want to be done with the whole thing, would rather spend an evening full of cuddles and potentially mind-blowing sex, but you know this ought to be acknowledged.

"Oh," his brows pull together with the same confusion you’d experienced when your boss ushered you to his office. "Did he thank you for the big save?"

"Not exactly," you clear your throat bracing yourself and Harry’s face tenses at the realization about where this is going. "My job is safe and I’m still working on the account," hie loosens up in relief, but your next words have him stiffen right back up in alarm. "But I got a warning for a certain someone’s involvement in the company’s operations. Apparently, my boyfriend called the client on my behalf and forgot to clue me in…"

Your voice is calm and doesn’t carry any reproachful tone, but Harry’s pulse is suddenly speeding with dread regardless. The fact that he could have lost you your jobs is the only thing registering in his frenzied mind, as he sets the dish towel from his shoulder down on the counter and steps closer to you. His eyes are bouncing off yours in a frantic back and forth, as he gulps his remorse down. Before you can appease him with reassuring words, and show your lack of anger, he launches in an apologetic rant, enclosing both your hands between his palms.

"M’so sorry, love. I didn’t mean to put you in a bad position. Fuck I just- I kept thinkin’ I could help since your client was a friend of a friend. And, the more I thought about it, the more I kept thinking 'I can’t do nothin’. Cause I hate seein’ you in pain an’ I really want to be here fo’ you and I know this was probably the wrong way to go about it, but damn y/n, I couldn’t stand doin’ nothing, m’sorry-"

"I love you."

The words come fast but distinct, airy but firm, not an ounce of doubt laced through their utterance. An eerie silence permeate the small space surrounding them, as Harry tries to find his own words back. It took three of them to steal all of his, but in his defense they were the ones he’d been dying to hear and to deliver himself. His eyes are wide, blinking in total surprise. He’d expected irritation, disappointment perhaps, maybe even anger, but definitely not the sweetest words he’s been keeping at the forefront of his mind. "I- you do?"

You still have that wondrous look on your face, but this time a bright smile enlivens your features, "I really do." You take your hands out of his grip to hold onto his wrists and pull him closer to you. You have to look up since he towers over you but you’ve always liked that about your relationship; the way he always seems to dwarf you in his embraces, whether because of his height or his bear-paw hands. "I mean, don’t that again," you let out a soft laugh, "but I know why you did it, and I love you for it."

Harry smiles rivals your own now, as your hands smooth up his arms to clasp at the nape of his neck, "plus, my boss is a jerk anyway so, who cares?" You pull him in a loving kiss then and his arms wrap themselves around your shoulders in a tight lock. His lips are as soft as ever between your own, and you detect the faintest taste of pepper and other exotic herbs lingering on their edge, from his cooking endeavors. He’s always been one to have a taste or two while he’s working, whether that be in the kitchen or other rooms…and regardless, you always like it when you get your share from his supple lips.

He feels slightly distracted against your mouth though, his technique not as ravishing as it usually is. and before you can wonder why, he’s pulling an inch away from your swollen lips, hurriedly whispering your tender confession back to you as though the words couldn’t be out of his mouth and into your heart fast enough, "I love you too, pet. So much." His hands are cajoling your face, thumbs drawing soothing circles across your cheeks, and his beaming smile is melting your heart in a goo of pleasure after all the strain it suffered in the past couple of days.

"Fuck, c’mere, don’t ever wanna stop kissing you," Harry mutters against your lips before diving in for a real mind-bending, soul-shaking, tantalizing kiss this time. Just like that, all your worries and sorrow evaporate into thin air, only to be replaced by an intoxicating pink loving brume. You two definitely spend the most perfect evening with lots of cuddles and endless mind-blowing lovemaking. Screw everything else.

➪ Masterlist

#Harry Styles #harry styles one shot #harry styles writing #harry styles fluff #harry styles imagine #creative writing #reader insert #Harry fic #harry styles fanfic #love #romance #first i love you

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antoine-roquentin · 4 years ago

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The court set standards on when and how jurors can be subjected to background checks by prosecutors and established a process for challenging those investigations if discrimination is suspected. The justices also called for a judicial conference on jury selection -- which means the ruling could eventually result in even more much-needed reform to that process.

It’s a rare and commendable decision to re-examine the longstanding, difficult questions about how to eliminate discrimination in jury selection.

Katherine Carter, public information officer for the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, which handled Andujar's case, told me they're still reviewing the ruling.

"We believe the assistant prosecutor who tried the case acted in good faith based on the caselaw at the time" and "we do not believe that the prosecutor acted with any racial bias," Carter said. "We respect the ruling of the court and will apply it during retrial and any other cases going forward."

The undisputed facts about the proceedings make a pretty compelling case, on their own, that at least some implicit bias was at play.

One of the prospective jurors at Andujar’s trial was F.G., a Black man from Newark who worked for the East Orange Department of Public Works.

F.G. mentioned two family members who were cops. He’d grown up in a neighborhood with a lot of crime, and some of his friends had sold drugs. Crime victims also were part of his circles, including two cousins that were murdered, and a friend who was robbed at gunpoint.

“I think it just come[s] with the territory,” F.G. said.

F.G. stressed that he stayed away from criminal activity, the court said. He stated that he believed the judicial system was generally effective.

Prosecutors challenged F.G. for cause – meaning they argued he couldn’t be impartial or wouldn’t follow court instructions. They said his friends and background “draw into question whether he respects the criminal justice system,” according to the opinion.

Defense attorneys responded that F.G.’s story was typical for certain neighborhoods. The state’s position was “untenable” because it excludes too many people from places like Newark from serving on juries, Andujar’s counsel said.

The lower court rejected the prosecutors argument, saying there was no basis to dismiss F.G. for cause.

That's when the prosecution took a turn.

County attorneys ran a criminal history check on F.G., and found an open municipal court warrant for simple assault (which includes attempting to physically harm another person, and physically threatening someone).

Prosecutors then contacted the city fugitive squad to have F.G. arrested before the next day of jury selection. When that didn’t pan out, they told the judge they were going to lock F.G. up during the next court date, and they renewed their for-cause challenge. The court ultimately arranged to excuse F.G. and have him arrested outside the other jurors' view.

After all that, the charges against F.G. were dropped two months later. It also bears noting that an outstanding warrant doesn’t actually bar someone from jury service in New Jersey.

On appeal, the Supreme Court noted that the “practice of running background checks on prospective jurors raises a question of first impression.”

Prosecutor's said it’s “extremely rare” for them to investigate jurors’ criminal records. But there are indications that the practice is more common than one might imagine.

I asked attorney Dennis Drasco, a member of Lum, Drasco & Positan in New Jersey, about the prevalence of the practice. Drasco has served on multiple panels and commissions to study and improve jury selection for over a decade, both with the state judiciary and with the American Bar Association.

"The problem is that a lot people don't even realize the effect of certain practices," Drasco said. The court's ruling as to implicit bias "is a wake up call" that the problematic practice exists, he said.

The Supreme Court in Andujar’s case said it couldn't question “the State’s good-faith belief that it had the authority to run the background check.” Even defense counsel didn’t formally object when the government moved to arrest F.G. -- a prospective juror who wouldn't have been arrested otherwise -- as an apparent means of excluding him from the pool. (Defense attorneys did put concerns on the record that prosecutors singled out a juror for a background check, and that the move implicated constitutional due process concerns.)

The deference to the prosecutors' move by the court and opposing counsel suggests the practice isn't entirely uncommon, and the high court’s review of case law also shows the practice is at least generally accepted.

Iowa allows prosecutors to conduct background checks on jurors for good cause, and with a court order. At least six states allow it if prosecutors also disclose the information to defense attorneys. Just as many states, at least seven, “impose no such limits on the prosecution,” the court said.

New Jersey’s new rules require court permission before checking a juror's criminal history – and a “reasonable, individualized, good-faith” reason to believe it might reveal pertinent information that may not be uncovered by jury questionnaires or voir dire. Certain explanations will be considered presumptively invalid, the court said, including checking jurors' backgrounds simply because they express a distrust of law enforcement or lived in a high-crime neighborhood. And, if prosecutors move to strike a juror based on the results, the defense can still challenge that strike as discriminatory.

It’s a solid start, and the court clearly believes there’s more work to be done.

to summarize, a black guy showed up for jury duty and said yeah, he knew people who sold drugs cause he lived in a poor neighbourhood. prosecutors tried to strike him but defense noted that if we struck everybody who knew drug dealers from juries, we’d be ending up with racially biased juries. prosecution then ran a background check and came up with something minor to arrest him with when he showed up for jury duty. the new jersey supreme court ended up calling out the prosecutor’s conduct, although only verbally, but more importantly used it as grounds to give the defendant in that case a new trial.

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