#but not force it into enough of a crisis that the law can actually be challenged
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For anyone wondering what this has to do with the 14th Amendment, most famously known for its Equal Protection and Due Process clauses, the relevant part of section 4 of the amendment reads:
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, […] shall not be questioned.
It’s never been tried in court before because the debt ceiling has always been raised before it’s become a litigable issue* (even during the big controversies after the GFC), but it is widely regarded by legal experts that the plain text and original intent of the amendment would render the debt ceiling (at least in part) unconstitutional.
* In the United States, the Supreme Court isn’t allowed to issue rulings sua sponte (on its own initiative) and strike down whatever laws it wants whenever it wants, it has to wait for someone who has been injured by a law to file a lawsuit against the government.
There are some extraordinary measures that the Treasury Department can take on its own to get more money to tide things over, but at the scale that the US Federal Government works, the money from those runs out pretty quickly. Many of these measures have already been taken, and it’s that money that will run out here in the next couple weeks.
What may happen if this continues is that Biden will issue an executive order to the Treasury Department telling them to ignore the debt ceiling, using the various powers granted to the president by the Constitution to ensure that the government runs smoothly and meets its debts and obligations. Then someone will try to sue, and then the Courts will review the constitutionality of the debt ceiling.
If you or anyone you care about is relying on:
Food stamps/SNAP/EBT
SSI/SSDI/social security
a tax refund not yet received as of May 2023
a government employee salary
Medicaid
Medicare
Pell grants that have not yet been disbursed
Or anything else paid out by the US federal government—
You need to be aware of what's happening with the debt ceiling!
Because any or all of the items listed above might not be funded right away in June 2023.
The US government is increasingly looking like it will run out of money on or around June 1st, and no one has yet made the rules about which bills WILL get paid when that happens.
The usual way the gov stops this from happening is being blocked by Republicans who insist they won't let the problem be fixed until programs keeping people alive are cut. (They won't cut corporate subsidies though.)
You and people you care about could be impacted by this.
Please save back any money you can, fill your prescriptions now, and look up news about the debt ceiling.
#i speak#if republicans want to keep the debt ceiling as a negotiating tactic#it’s in their best interest to raise it at the last possible moment#to force the government to take crisis measures#but not force it into enough of a crisis that the law can actually be challenged#the government is here to help#this is an anti cleveland blog
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We’ve been chatting for about half an hour when Eloise lowers her voice to a whisper. Until now she’s been confidently talking through the ups and downs of being a 19-year-old woman in a world she finds unsteady.
She’s annoyed that, on TikTok, the advertisements she gets are keyrings with rape alarms and “stabby kitties” (a cat-shaped metal keychain with pointed ears sharp enough to cause damage), feels that modern feminism sometimes goes a bit too far, but having grown up in the age of nudes, she doesn’t really trust men. Which is unsurprising considering the story she tells me next.
“So a boy I know was asking a girl at his school for nudes,” she says, quietly. “And then when she refused, he threatened to rape her.” The boy was 14 and had recently posted an Andrew Tate video to his Instagram page, which was Eloise’s first encounter with the online influencer.
“It said stuff like how women are your property and that it doesn’t matter if women say they’ve been sexually assaulted; if you’re with them that’s your right. I didn’t like it,” she adds.
Tate has made several appearances in the headlines this week. On Tuesday, a Romanian court rejected his appeal to ease the ban on him leaving the country as a legal case against him – in which he’s charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women – continues. He denies all charges against him. The following day, Ipsos polling for King’s College London’s Policy Institute and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership found that one in five men aged 16-29 who have heard of Andrew Tate have a positive view of him.
Separately – or, arguably, perhaps not – another survey published in the same week underpinned a renewed focus on the attitudes and beliefs of Generation Z, this time from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The research asked just over 3,000 adults of varying ages – 50.6 per cent of whom were female – about their understanding of rape and serious sexual offences, and the law on consent, and drew troubling conclusions.
Overall, 74 per cent of people surveyed understood that it can still be rape if a victim doesn’t resist or fight back, but the number fell to just over half (53 per cent) of 18-24-year-olds who had the same understanding. Less than half of respondents from this age group recognised that victims might not report a sexual offence to police immediately, that being in a relationship or marriage doesn’t mean consent can be assumed, or that if a man has been drinking or taking drugs, he’s still responsible if he rapes someone. More than 70 per cent of over-65s recognised that even if no physical force is involved a person might not be free or able to consent to sex, compared to just 40 per cent of young people.
Previous generations have become used to hearing that rape myths and misconceptions continue to persist, but that’s precisely why this week’s grim trinity of headlines stings. “There tends to be a public assumption that things are generally always getting better,” says author and feminist campaigner Laura Bates. “Actually, views like these are incredibly widespread among young people.”
Bates regularly works with schools, talking to pupils who often tell her that “rape is a compliment”, that “it’s not rape if she likes it” or, “it’s your boyfriend, you have to have sex with him”.
She adds: “Attitude surveys have to be taken seriously because they are a real red flag that we’re going backwards – we’re seeing much more extreme and concerning misogynistic attitudes among the youngest generations than we are among the oldest. We have to face up to that and ask, why is that happening?”
Gen Z has never been neatly contained. Growing up as the first digital natives in the chokehold of crisis – climate, Covid, cost of living – has seen them praised for their social awareness, but disenfranchised and forgotten by politics. Their extremely online nature has given them unprecedented access to the world and other people – but, of course, that’s a double-edged sword.
“The internet has made everyone’s voices louder, but that means the most misogynistic people in the world are heard more too,” says Niya Clement-Hickson, a 26-year-old marketing designer from London. He says his generation has been “kind of ruined” by social media.
“You’d be surprised at just how many people around my age will argue that Andrew Tate is not as bad as he seems.”
When I spend an hour talking to 16-year-old Tate fan Manus from Ohio on TikTok, he says exactly that. He’s relatively timid and seems unsure of what he thinks at times, but came across Tate aged 12, being drawn to his motivational speeches, humour, and attitude towards making money. “[Tate] kinda showed me how people really are in reality,” he says. On Tate’s assertions that women are the property of men, he says those beliefs are simply from the Bible (though Manus himself is Muslim).
He maintains he’s never seen Tate speak violently about women, and when I send him leaked voicenote recordings of Tate saying that he enjoyed raping a woman, Manus is certain it’s fake “probably to make him look bad”. I ask for his views on feminism and he responds that feminists now want “superiority” and “more rights”. What rights exactly? “More rights in general,” he says, vaguely.
This opinion is not a rarity – there’s a pervasive idea circling comments sections and pub corners that the pendulum has “swung too far”. “Some of us warned that when you continue to suppress their identity by telling young boys that they are inherently toxic, they’ll start acting irrational,” one comment under an Andrew Tate post this week read. But it’s not just boys who hold this idea. Early last year, a survey from Ipsos UK and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London echoed this and some of Eloise’s views that feminism has gone too far. They found that 52 per cent of Gen Z and 53 per cent of millennials believe that we’re now discriminating against men. Less than half of Gen Z respondents said they defined themselves as a feminist.
Was it coincidence then, to see that shortly after the research was published in March 2023, the year of the girl was in full swing? A persistently pink summer was punctuated with girl dinners, #tradwives – modern women who believe in traditional gender roles – and stay-at-home girlfriends sharing their daily rituals on news feeds. New York magazine’s The Cut declared it “Woman in Retrograde” as the year came to a close; a cluster of reactionary elements to a significant demise of mainstream feminism.
This shift back to traditional behaviours is also present in younger men, says Niya. “A lot of guys feel that their role is all about providing money, being a protector. But they feel they deserve to get something out of the interaction. They just can’t deal with being told no.”
In terms of consent, does he hear attitudes that put women in danger? “Absolutely,” he replies. Niya didn’t learn about consent in school – “I don’t think it was ever talked about beyond ‘don’t have sex until you’re old enough’” – and thinks this is quite common for men of his age. For Maya, who’s 24 and neurodivergent, the line of consent is difficult to pinpoint and somewhat shaped by social media. There’s a “disconnect” from what she really wants – and is able to articulate – in the moment.
“I think that we do have less and less sex and more and more porn,” Niya adds. “And I think that once porn is your main and in some cases, only engagement with sex and women, then that is going to completely screw up how you see sex.”
Do all roads lead to porn? Probably. Clare McGlynn, who is a professor of law with particular expertise in sexual violence and online abuse, says: “We know that algorithms promote more extreme content, more hate – and many, many younger people, men and women, are getting this. Millions of people, as we speak, are watching mainstream online pornography that is racist, sexist, misogynist and violent in its content. Of course, it’s shaping attitudes and lives.”
“There’s certainly a pressure on young boys and men, for example, to be taking and sharing nudes – they’re part of a culture that is encouraging them to,” McGlynn explains. During a study, she looked at what material was presented on the homepage of popular sites – she found landing pages which were filled with sexually violent material. “So it’s also not them even actively choosing that material; we’re part of a culture that is grooming young men, teaching them expectations around sex – and asking them to accept and normalise it.”
What appears clear from the survey conducted by the CPS is a dangerous lack of understanding of what constitutes a crime. “I do lectures on criminal law and I’ve had students come up to me afterwards and say that they didn’t know they had been sexually assaulted or raped,” McGlynn adds.
Laura Bates says that we’re in the midst of a “crisis of sexual violence among young people”.
“Deeply misogynistic misinformation is being spread to young people online at a rate that most people just have absolutely no idea about,” she says. “And there is a massive knock-on effect.
“Some will look at these surveys and go, well, what does attitude matter? But you have to draw a connection between these really worrying attitudes about rape and the fact that nearly 80 per cent of young people told Ofsted inspectors recently that sexual assault is normal and common in their friendship groups.”
So what can be done? More responsibility and accountability from social media companies, says Bates. Tate’s content – some of which reportedly shows him attempting to beat a woman with a belt; she later hides behind a locked door – has been viewed more than 11 billion times on TikTok, she says, adding: “That’s more than the population of the planet.” Last year, advocacy group HOPE found that more 16-17-year-old boys had watched Tate’s content than had heard of Rishi Sunak. “I think it’s really important that the government supports high quality, age-appropriate sex and relationships education,” she adds.
Actively listening to and engaging with boys – as seen in initiatives like the state of New York’s Starting the Conversation campaign – is also important. Boys must have a safe and judgement-free environment to express themselves: the more their experiences of rape culture are internalised, the more difficult they are to see.
The Online Safety Bill, which was enacted in October last year, she says, was a missed opportunity for change. While it asks for more transparency on social media platforms and imposes sanctions for those not following the act, along with criminalising cyberflashing and sending unsolicited nude images, “it went 250 pages without mentioning women and girls once, until campaigners changed that”, Bates says.
“It’s so much more effective to focus on prevention of radicalisation than trying to unpick it once it’s happened,” she says. “Young people really are prepared to listen and prepared to change their minds, it’s just a shame this isn’t happening in every school.”
“It does make me worried about how safe the world is going to be,” says Eloise, who will begin her twenties in the summer. “What if people really start thinking that women are property again?” Then, she’s quiet again. “I really hope it can change.”
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Janet lives au my beloved, I love the difference in the Janet lives vs the Jack lives au :)
Happy holidays! :D
thanks, happy holidays to you too!!!
also aughgh right??? there is so much to ponder wrt janet our collective beloved janet... i think often about this. like. his issues with jack would both shrink and grow because on the one hand jack is no longer actively around to do shit to feed into tim's many complexes. on the other hand, he now has jack up on the Perfect Dad pedestal in his mind because he's dead. can't criticize your dead dad that's fucked up and horrible. right?
and on the other hand. man. so lets posit he has a better relationship with janet than he would with jack (because janet is a better parent than jack, and let's be real, that isn't really a high bar. but given jack's... everything, i just kinda really get the vibe that he left most of the actual parenting to janet). now at first you'd think this is solely a good thing! ...but can you imagine how much more agonized tim is about having to lie to his beloved mommy???? all the time??? he's even more torn between The Mission and his filial piety this time around!!! augh!!!
like all those times jack didnt notice tim hiding bruises with makeup ? if janet's around it is sooo possible that tim steals HER makeup for this specifically at least once and She. Notices. deeply possible that she puts together "tim showing up with mysterious injuries he keeps trying to hide and also lying to me about it" with "tim getting closer with dick grayson and bruce wayne while i was away" and deduces that she doesn't know WHAT they've gotten her little baby boy into, but she IS going to kill those guys. tim keeps insisting that they're very nice to him but that really isn't helping anything. but just the entire concept of janet actually paying attention to tim's injuries - noticing if he steals her makeup!!! - or paying attention to things like. *checks notes* one of his classmates being SHOT DEAD at their SCHOOL ???? hey jack how did you not even check on him once after this. whats wrong with you. i just wanna talk jack
so i think she'd find out tim's robin way faster than jack. he probably would agonize about wanting her to know but The Mission and the need for secrecy, etc. but notably, when she finds out, i don't think she'd force him to quit - she'd really really want him to, because this is so dangerous and he's her baby and she doesn't want him to get hurt!!! but if he pushed back and tried to explain his side of it, she'd actually be willing to at least hear him out (unlike jack).
but also. not to be predictable but. i think it would be really funny if at some point during this drama kon-el shows up on the front doorstep looking for robin, and eavesdrops just enough to understand that janet knows now. because. hear me out. this is how we once again arrive at tim walking into his own house and home and just balking because kon is at the kitchen table hanging out with his mother. mom why the heck are you giving superboy my oreos!!!!
(also, calling back a little to the concept of baby kon somehow befriending janet, but. very specific vision in my mind of "janet lives past identity crisis too au" where at some point baby kon mentions to tim in her earshot that hes never had a mom and wonders whats it like?? and she doesnt say anything but this strikes her to the heart. several years down the line when timkon are established at some point she's like conner sweetie i know a long time back you said you don't have a mother, and i understand that completely and don't mean to try and take any place in your life you don't want me in, but if you ever would like to have a mother-in-law… and tim is just like. MOM. ARE YOU TRYING TO PROPOSE TO KON FOR ME??? THIS IS SO CRINGE. UGH MOM STOP)
#answers#watterbotleop#theres just a lot to prawnder about janet drake 🤔💭🦐#tim#timkon#janet drake#janet lives au
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Ipcha Mistabra
In the Talmud, in Tractate Bava Metzia, Abaye and R. Pappa, two 4th century Babylonian rabbis, got into an argument. And like many arguments in the Talmud, what they disagreed about was which of two earlier authorities held differing opinions on a matter of Jewish law. You could see it either one of two ways – say you have an argument with your brother, for example, about a disagreement that went on years ago between your great aunt and your great uncle. You say it was your great-uncle that loved the Red Sox and your great-aunt who loved the Yankees, but your brother says it was the other way around (she loved the Red Sox) – and then he throws in the fact that Ted Williams was a better baseball player than Joe DiMaggio, now you have a full-blown rabbinic kerfuffle.
Getting back to the case of Abaye and R. Pappa, they were attempting to establish the basis for determining a fair market price for olive oil, which was a precious commodity in the ancient near east. It turns out that olive oil was sold filtered, no sediments were supposed to be in it; and the authorities carefully watched the seller’s and the purchaser’s assumptions about how much of this excess material got through the process anyway, got mixed in, and they’d establish the price based on their divergent assumptions.
So after Abaye lays out his reasoning, lines up which side took which role in the argument, R. Pappa turns around and says “You’ve got it totally backwards - how they argued it out,” and he offers an 180-degree differing explanation about who (more than a century earlier) took which position and what was motivating them.
"Ipcha Mistabra" – the Talmud says. It’s Aramaic for “Things can be understood the other way around.” It’s the Talmud’s way of saying, hey, you might think that, here, this is the logic behind a certain dispute, but guess what! I’m going to illustrate an opposing, maybe counterintuitive, way of looking at the disagreement. You can see it from a different angle entirely.
Ipcha Mistabra
An editorial writer in Haaretz on August 1st this past summer (Haaretz being a totally secular newspaper) used the term to make his point. He suggested that in political circles we should all be asking what may be counterintuitive, even shocking – about why Netanyahu would assassinate the political leader of Hamas in Tehran, if the guy was a key player in negotiating a diplomatic solution to the hostage crisis and ending the war? (Keep in mind this was before the assassination of Nasrallah and the Hezbollah decapitations in Beirut!) The guy who got killed, Ismail Haniyeh, was a bad guy, for sure, but do you assassinate one of their chief negotiators? At the time, most commentators just drew the conclusion that Israel may have overshot its goals, made a tactical blunder. But the same writer went against the grain, by suggesting that Netanyahu intended it, he did it deliberately – he “outsourced” a tenet of Israeli escalation domination strategy to Iran – by calling its bluff – letting Iran figure out at what level – it would decide to retaliate. The reasoning for this, he continued, is that the Israeli prime minister actually wanted Iran to bear the risk of confronting the US. Force Iran to think about a larger war it can’t control by upping the stakes for itself and its proxies and sucking America into it. And, at the same time, the Israeli prime minister would divert attention away from the war in Gaza!
But I’m not bringing this up to get into politics, we have enough of that. See, what I’m curious about is this way of thinking – going with what’s counterintuitive that’s happening right in front of us. We’re often so sure about how things have reached the stage they’re in right now – but just suppose we pause to ask an alternative set of questions? In the dazzling novel Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, a young woman from East Berlin falls in love with an older married man from the “other” side, only a year or so before Germany is reunited. As the wall falls, her reality and her fantasies disintegrate, better yet, are subsumed within a new mental mapping – and all that remains of a long, illicit affair is a ritual they go on performing whenever they part company (in Erpenbeck’s words): “When they leave a place together, he holds out her coat, she slips into it front-wise, briefly holds him in her arms, then slips it off and puts it on the right way.”
Ipcha Mistabra
I can remember, when I was a child, I used to walk down this (what I thought was a) long hall and peer behind the thin glass of a mirror on the wall, to see if there was something there looking through it – back at me.
Getting to the Truth is more than simply arguing the other side of a debate (that’s hard enough, standing in someone else’s shoes); sometimes it’s looking at the obverse of what we think we know – for everything we commonly think of as true and solid – there may be, in fact, something more unsettling to it.
At the end of July, it was reported that William Calley died in a hospice in California. For those of you born long after the Vietnam War, Mr. Calley was synonymous with the My Lai massacre, the mass murder of a village filled with defenseless women and children, although in so many ways his conviction told us something more. It stood in for a senseless war fought by Americans for a regime that was terrible and corrupt – a war that our society eventually came to realize it should have no part in. It unmasked a larger issue: that something in our own society was rotten, had failed, and we needed to look ourselves in the mirror. Coincidentally, the same day that it was reported that Calley died, it was also reported that a Palestinian prisoner was abused in the crudest way by Israeli soldiers, and were it not for a whistle-blower, there was a likelihood that others would get away with this abhorrent behavior, and, in fact, probably already have. And yet, there were loud protests in Israel by people who think it’s somehow unfair to accuse prison guards who, after all, are put in charge of the worst of the worst.
Ipcha Mistabra
What do these moments mean for our hopes and illusions in a larger sense? How do they speak to our commitments to one another, to making a better world? Can we, in these Days of Awesome, marshal the fortitude to peer behind the hell-scape of the kibbutzim that were devastated on October 7th, the charred remains of homes, the wreckage of a dance festival? Is there a way to see behind the mirror – or maybe it’s for this very reason that we cover the mirrors in a house of mourning? And then there’s the cruelty to the hostages that keeps us looking away.
Ipcha Mistabra
Have you read Percival Everett’s great literary invention, called James? It takes Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and turns it around, so that we explore, we come to know what’s behind the opaque figure of a slave, however benevolent, the character of Jim is in the original famous book. In Everett’s telling, that same Black human being, invested with dignity and chutzpah is brazen enough to steal… a pencil! He’s hidden it away deep in his pocket, because if he’s caught with it, he’s liable to get hung. The pencil is more valuable than anything else – and in Everett’s words, he writes “himself into being.” In fact, James’ supple use of language is his character’s animating force – he’s not just intelligent, but he’s a human being with his own desires and imagination. What you get is there’s another side to Twain’s story. And, I’d also go so far as to say that Huckleberry Finn in each telling of the story is a child who’s a tabula rasa – he’s malleable, sympathetic, not yet formed, our humanity without the artifice of race, that reflects what could someday be true of all of us. But in the meantime, it’s James who comes into focus in this new telling.
Ipcha Mistabra
The same pattern of obfuscation-and-recovery holds true for Viet Than Nguyen, the writer of the wonderful novel from a few years ago, The Sympathizer, but who also wrote a scholarly nonfiction work entitled Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and The Memory of War. He calls attention to the design of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, its shiny black granite surface, as bringing not just the names of those lost American soldiers front and center, but, we, the viewers, see ourselves observing it. The wall provokes anxiety – there’s a mirror effect – and suddenly we are implicated; and it subverts the patriotic American framing of this war being our tragedy. We’re looking away! We’re omitting the memories of millions of dead Vietnamese, after all. He calls it a “disremembering”.
I was talking to a rabbi in my community about this, and he told me that he and his wife had taken a trip to Vietnam this past spring. He said that he was hoping naively, as a Jew living at a time when our own prospects for tomorrow are in question, to understand how and to what extent the Vietnamese have come to terms with the past and embraced a different future... But in wishing to see things all “repaired”, he very well could have been disremembering too. I wonder how the Vietnamese will write “themselves into being” again?
So we know right now we’re standing at a crossroads in modern Jewish history. It’ll take decades to sort it all out: what we in the Jewish world should want, whom it is we think we serve, whom we fail to serve, and the memories that cloud our vision. There’s that mirror we hold up, as does Sarah in Genesis 21, with the opening line:
ויהוה פקד את־שרה כאשר אמר ויעש יהוה לשרה כאשר דבר
It’s translated “G-d remembered Sarah just like God had said,” but it’s more than remembering – the verb פקד means “G-d performed an accounting, (as if there was something yet owed).” And the commentator Malbim explains that although G-d had predicted the birth of a child in Sarah’s old age, to her it was – until this point – lacking in credibility, unresolved – what with her passive husband yielding to her jealousy, nonchalantly leaving Hagar with her toddler out in the cold, the family in turmoil. After all, Sarah famously laughs out loud, she finds G-d’s prediction funny, even a bit disturbing. In this troubled Torah narrative, amidst her doubts, the future hangs in the balance.
Nachman of Bratslav teaches that when we are despairing, at odds with the people around us, we can become like a blank slate, a book that’s empty – Every one of us can be like “a human being,” שאין לו ספר. There’s nothing in the book – it’s vanished! An empty Torah scroll! So, he says, we begin, this is where we find ourselves, at this place of no place, but we still have this blazing desire in our hearts, a yearning to learn! Maybe we forgot something?
And how does Nachman set it up? He says it’s like this: that somewhere out there in the world there are two tzaddikim, two righteous people, they’re conversing with one another, however – the only thing is – they’re walking along on two separate paths, this one tzaddik over here on this side of the world and this other tzaddik miles and miles away. Maybe it’s a bit like being online? But he goes on to say that this one tzaddik over here poses a question and the other one over there offers an answer, a way to figure it out. A question and an answer, but again – it’s just speech, our voices, often cacophonous, nothing more than that – but they can add up. It’s the vibrations that unite, and they can produce the purest Sound, the Voice of G-d. And it’s this Voice that ultimately connects one to the other, Nachman says – it’s this Voice that then gets written down as a ספר זכרון, we call the Book of Remembrance. We remember!
We may have during a long, hard year forgotten something about ourselves, what we really stand up for. It’s possible. We may have, on the arduous path – amidst our arguments, our public statements, our gatherings in solidarity or in protest – lost track of who we are, where we can vibrate with the Truth – where the Truth of humanity is. James Baldwin said it: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Ipcha Mistabra
Things can sometimes be explained the other way around, in a way we have as yet not fathomed, or refuse to see. We may never have expected it, we may never have imagined an entirely different future, or maybe we disremembered it all along! – but somehow, in seeing things differently, it might yet help us to get at the Truth.
On this Yom Kippur, may we loosen the shackles of ideology, slacken just a little bit the cords of fear and recrimination and sanctimony, and help our adversaries, our neighbors, even the ones we love who’ve hidden their faces from us at times – to write ourselves “into being”. May we all be written and sealed for a year that gives us new life and hope and, G-d-willing, a focus on peace.
Amen.
#ipcha mistabra#high holidays#rosh hashanah#yom kippur#caeldan's own#jews#i am jewish#jewish#jewish history#jew#judaism#jewblr#jewish antizionism#jewish tumblr#jumblr#drash#talmud#chag sameach#shana tova#i/p tw#free gaza#free palestine#happy 5785#rosh hashanah 5785
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Eothiriel have twins?!
I kind of want Éomer and Lothíriel in the TGH verse to eventually have twins. This probably won't end up in the actual fic, so I suppose it's post-canon, but hear me out.
Per canon, Éomer has "at least one son," Elfwine, who is the heir to the throne, but this does not preclude him having other children, including one born a mere 20 minutes later!
Having identical twin sons can open the door to a world of dramatic possibilities, including:
--slender and fragile Lothíriel carrying a twin pregnancy is all sorts of whump-compatible, and leads to an Éomer mad with worry. Twin pregnancies are often more miserable than singleton pregnancies, and also more high-risk.
--Lothíriel declaring that she bore an heir and a spare at once, which is more than anyone asked of her, and she's never doing this again.
--poor Hafrith, the lady in waiting who was forced to give up an illegitimate child and decided never to marry (there will be a whole subplot about this) will be involved in childcare by necessity, and will become a loving aunt.
--the absolute chaos that will be wreaked in a royal court when there are two almost identical humans, but one of them is the heir to the throne, while the other is not. Everyone is always horrified of mixing them up, because this can cause a crisis of succession. The twins take full advantage of this once they become old enough, you can be sure of that.
--competitive wrangling between the twins, the fact that they're incredibly close, but also worlds apart because of a quirk of timing and law
What do you think?
@konartiste @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras @emmanuellececchi @celeluwhenfics
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There are not enough Mpreg Parent Akeshu fics
I must admit, I'm a bit disappointed.
it's not like there's zero. There are some, but not nearly enough or I'm not looking in the right tags.
There's especially HUGE missed potential that not enough people utilize.
I've seen wholesome Akiren as a parent. Seems everyone is in agreement he'd be the chillest, awesomest, father.
But what about Akechi?
Goro "I had a bad childhood, no father figure, Mom passed away when I was young leaving me to grow up in either Foster Homes or the closest living relatives the Social Worker could track down. Who took me in but didn't want me. so I grew up to mask my true nature by being polite on the outside and a celebrity to get some form of positive attention, and I tracked down my deadbeat father who I'm going to ruin the life and career of out of spite and vengeance, for me and my late Mother." Akechi.
The man has childhood baggage, who knows how many young children he's interacted with as an adult. So his experience would range from "limited" to "none existent"
If one of these boys wouldn't take to being a parent well immediately, it would be Akechi. Like, the man is having an external crisis, he's not okay.
"I am the LAST person that should be a father. Do I look like fatherly material to you? I can't even recall the last time I interacted or made eye contact with an infant. Maybe I never did! I can do research and read books, I'm good at researching, I'm going to read the books no matter what but that can only help so much. I know what not to do, from my childhood. I'm going to try my best to do the exact opposite of what Shido did, but no parent is perfect, I could still screw the kid up! Not to mention I'm still processing the fact that MY RIVAL HAS A FUCKING FULLY FUNCTIONING UTERUS.
I knocked up my Rival
I knocked up the man I once shot in the head
I knocked---holy hell what have I done?
I've never been interested in Women, so I never thought I'd have to worry about accidentally planting a little me inside someone. Do you realize how many women I have turned down?
So here I was, thinking I'd be safe. That obviously nothing would come from indulging in a night of passion with my frustrating, Idiotic sexy, alluring, Rival.
But once again, you are just full of surprises apparently in the internal organs sense too because you can carry children and now both of us are unironically FUCKED."
"I'm not going to force this on you, I just thought you deserved to know. If you don't want to we can--"
"Pfft, HAHAHAHA. You say that like it's an actual option. Do I need to remind you what my upbringing was like? I'm not repeating the same mistakes, I'm not leaving. Granted you are obviously in a better financial situation and have a proper support group unlike my Mother. But if I decide to leave now, or stay but run later down the line, what's stopping our child from living in a constant internal state of guilt and loneliness, which will eventually evolve into anger and spite and once they're of age to move out, make it their mission to hunt me down and enter a false work alliance so they can gain my trust enough to eventually betray and torture me. Or just flat out kill me. And You know what? I wouldn't blame them! I'd kill me too if I could. I can't let that happen, I refuse to put a child with my D.N.A. through what I went through. So we are moving in and getting married (oh my god, I have to move in and marry my Rival) Because that's what Japanese family laws all encourage. And I'm going to internally pray and wish that I don't somehow manage to fuck up an innocent being that belongs to us, even though I have no idea what I am doing. Did I mention I have zero experience with babies and children?"
Point is, parentGoro! Has so much potential and it should be a crime that there are so little fics exploring that.
#persona 5 royal#persona 5#goro akechi#akiren#ren amamiya#akira kurusu#akeshu#shuake#ren x akechi#fanfic writers away!#ao3 writers where you at?#calling all Akeshu/Shuake writers!#mpreg fic#reluctant parent#new parent#Akeshu child
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Drawing compilation of my babiiies rambles under the cut!
Ruvyn is an elf/vampire hybrid. His mother is an elf from an aristocratic and rather conservative family, she is married to another noble elf but was in love with a vampire, Ruvyn's father. He was chased away by Ruvyn's grandmother when she learned of her daughter's pregnancy, and they hid his vampire side by passing him off as her father-in-law's son.
His grandmother feared that his bastardy would become known and reflect on the image of their family, she has always been very strict with him, which explains why he left the family home as soon as he could. Despite that, he still haven't fully overcome his trauma and struggle to refuse his grandmother's orders out of survival instinct.
Out of pure contradiction, he got into music and has done quite well. He spends most of his nights between concerts and parties, which allows him to excuse his rather nocturnal life cycle by nature.
He still keeps in touch with his mother, not understanding why she remains under the thumb of her grandmother and does not seek to join his father. However, his mother remains attached to her family and her husband and does not want to cause more problems. In addition, she and her husband had a son, Ruvyn's half-brother who is therefore considered his little brother.
The latter does not like Ruvyn, but the hybrid does not hold it against him, suspecting that it is a consequence of his education by his grandmother. In fact, he hopes that time will help him understand the reasons of his elder.
===
Werewolves are quite frowned upon in their world, cited as unstable, which is why Dagan is someone silent and relatively discreet despite his stature. He has always done his best to keep the jobs he had access to, often until his condition became a problem. Werewolves have two lupine forms, a partial and a complete one. They take their partial form every night of a full moon. It still allows them to speak but their behavior and appearance are closer to that of an animal. On the other hand, when they are exposed directly to the light of the full moon, they take a complete form that makes them almost entierly animal, and often causes them to cause damage because of the animal instinct taking over in a stressful environment.
It was because of a crisis of this kind that Dagan lost his last job, and came across Ruvyn whom he had helped earlier in the day. Ruvyn's family having forced him to take a bodyguard to preserve his origins, he decided to hire the werewolf to obey without giving them satisfaction.
The two get along more than one might think, and Dagan has actually become attached to his employer. Being very loyal by nature, he quickly worries about him, and is one of the few people with whom he dares to raise his voice to put him back in his place when they are not in public.
Normally, werewolves only transform at the full moon, but there are some moonstones that force them to transform when they are close enough to it.
Ruvyn had a collar developed that he, in very specific circumstances (ie, Dag' is not in a state to win a fight and risks dying) can use to make him reach his partial form He can choose at any time to open the collar so that it comes off and falls to the ground and Dagan takes human form again, it is for this control that the greatest accepted the creation of the collar Dagan does not like this solution at all but he recognizes that it has saved their lives several times already
In return, he also asked Ruvyn to bite him. This way, the latter has more power over him in terms of hypnosis, and can much more easily calm him down, mainly in the post-transformation state. This works a little when he is transformed, but much less because his attention is much harder to keep, especially in noisy/agitated environments.
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Biden’s approach to foreign policy is so so frustrating, because while I think he takes the right stance on most issues but his actions on those same issues are so wrong and half-assed.
Ends US presence in Afghanistan: the war there is unpopular, withdrawal is probably the right choice, however he does it in the most sudden and disorganised way possible, fails to predict the country’s more or less immediate fall to the Taliban and transformation into a nightmare of human rights abuses and humanitarian crisis.
Russia invades Ukraine: condemns invasion, imposes sanctions and sends aid. However sanctions are full of holes and ultimately don’t do enough to staunch Russian military procurement, aid is pretty much always in too small amounts wand forces Kyiv to beg for months for crucial systems like tanks, artillery, aircraft, air defense and long range precision weapons, when he eventually caves in and they arrive it’s always too late to make the difference they could have had. Constantly and seemingly eagerly broadcasts that he’s terrified by Russian nuclear blackmail which emboldens Putin to keep doubling down. Gets cucked by Republican sabotage. War drags out and keeps getting bloodier and bloodier with more and worse Russian atrocities when it could have long been over or never even started if he’d taken a stronger stance to begin with.
Venezuela starts saber rattling and threatening to invade Guyana: condemns, starts subtly broadcasting that US is considering intervention by organising small-scale exercise with Guyana. However fails to unequivocally state that US will definitely oppose Maduro, months later he starts saber rattling and trying his luck again. US has nothing to lose by putting its foot down and staying the Venezuelan aggression won’t be tolerated, relations with Venezuela are already poor and the country is too weak to threaten the US, but despite this the prospect of this becoming yet another flashpoint still lingers.
Gaza crisis: takes reasonable stance that Israel has the right to retaliate and rescue hostages following g 10/7 terror attack. When it becomes apparent that Israel is failing to comply with laws of war and is deliberately exacerbating dire humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, does actually criticise Netanyahu, but consistently undercuts himself with actual actions, such as leaping to Israel’s defense yesterday against Iranian retaliatory attack when it’s Israel that provoked it through a brazen embassy strike. This way, despite publicly criticising Israeli conduct, essentially rubber stamps the idea that Netanyahu can do what he wants no matter how outrageous and still count on Western support. Any actual criticism of Israel’s provocative conduct in the region and atrocious humanitarian record is constantly overshadowed by parroting “Israel has the right to defend itself!” as if that’s the only consideration that really matters in all this. As a result the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues and reflexive US support of Israel continues to be an albatross around the West’s neck.
I think the history books will attribute the current descent into global chaos to Biden’s weakness, and if the US does lose its status as the guarantor of and guardian of the global political order I think it will all end up being laid at his feet.
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If we’re talking about the Iron Throne, then ALL male claimants must be exhausted before a woman can inherit the throne. So a king’s brother would inherit before a king’s daughter. When Aegon III’s sons Daeron I and Baelor I died childless, they were succeeded by their uncle, Aegon III’s brother, Viserys II, despite Aegon III having three daughters.
Aegon II’s stans are truly delusional, y’all really think Aemond would let Jaehaera be the heir ???
Viserys came back from a traumatic loss of most of his family from a succession crisis over male vs female and it had already been established by external parties outside of Viserys' control that made would precede women, which he decided, yes, to respond to be supporting as to not risk another succession crisis. Annoying, but kinda understandable. He was named heir/king bc there was no legitimate Targ male left at all as you say, there was no other option. Maegor killed Aenys' son Aegon to get the throne after Visenya helped him by getting him back to Westeros as soon as possible and gathering his forces/supporters. He attempted to "exhaust" the male line bc....
Maegor's situation was different from Viserys (II) bc Maegor and Aenys were just one generation removed from when their parents set up the kingdoms they were to rule and so they were still at the stage where they set up specific precedents and laws for the rest of the realm through will and resource and careful planning. The Targs hadn't established their own House law (c. 19th century-ish rules that govern a royal family or dynasty in matters of eligibility for succession to a throne, membership in a dynasty, exercise of a regency, or entitlement to dynastic rank, titles and styles) in regards to their monarchy yet bc there was no solid precedent and they wanted to make sure their dynasty would adapt enough to survive. The transfer of power and candidacy for rulership was still one of those things to really be solidified--would the Targs go agnatic primogeniture, Westerosi male-preference style (cognatic) primogeniture, absolute primogeniture. they could very well have chosen to have uncle go before sons if those sons weren't ideal for rulership and thus either focus more on voluntary designation of an heir.
However, back to Aegon, Aegon definitely would not choose Jaehaera if they are going to be faithful...he didn't even do what MAegor did when he installed Aerea as his heir apparent until he actuall got a son. Aegon gleefully was looking for a wife in Cassandra Baratheon, instead, despite his burnt out/burnt body....
So let's hope that's kept in and incorporated somehow.
#asoiaf asks to me#maegor i#viserys ii#character comparison#cassnadra baratheon#jaehaera targaryen#aegon ii#aegon ii's characterization#fire and blood characters#westerois history#the targaryens#westeros succession#book vs tv comparison#fire and blood#hotd#asoiaf
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Some lore stuffs + how her story ends
This is kinda all over the place bc I don't have a coherent idea but I just need to write it all down before I forget
How Jia was bit was on a hot ass day and she basically fell asleep on a spider and gained powers unknowingly
Doesn't find out for maybe a week
Has a weird dream one night where she basically meets a deity in her dream and the exchange was literally like
"You, Jialin Chen, now bear the powers to protect this la-"
"Uhm yea no thanks, pass 😬"
"WHAT?"
And then a comedic exchange occurs between mortal and god haha! Until the deity was like ENOUGH this is your DESTINY you will bear it whether you like it or NOT 👹 so Jia's kinda like alright fine damn 🙄 but obviously we all know how she really feels abt the whole situation (she hates it bc of issues) but anyways
The reason why it took a whole week is cause uhmmm plot hole lelel or smth the deity can't actually interfere directly with the world
EITHER WAY this is basically spoilers for endgame but it's not like I'll ever make a coherent plot bc I'm too lazy and dum but basically
The deity of Jia's universe is border on obsessive with creating a story line and destiny and heroes and stuff like that and ofc it has to be perfect (bc ofc it has to be, totally not cliche or anything)
Anyways this obsession makes them interfere TOO much with Jia's universe because if the deity was never this obsessed
Jia probably would've gotten over her issues (bc she's meets someone to help her copeeee 😋😋 cougjocughcgpuccough)
But bc the deity is an unreasonable shithead, they're literally the root of every problem:
They're responsible for Jia's split soul because of how abrupt her duties were suddenly forced on her
Bc of the split soul problem, it nearly upsets the world balance that could've been very bad for the universe! (the day she had lost the plot and had a existential crisis breakdown I think I posted it here but basically on that day she was flickering between both before Lin took control)
-> the logic is rlly,,, idk nonsensical for this bc what I thought as world making is that you can't have two souls in control at once and it goes again natural laws so it nearly ficked up her world cause it AINT SUPOSE TO HAPPEN ITS NEVA SUPOSE TO HAPPENNN but moving on
So then Lin switches in place of Jia and the world balance is briefly restored YAYY 🎉 everything is fine‼️
❌ WRONG ❌
Cause now Lin went and 'broke up' (idk it wasn't rlly a break up bc she never said 'lets break up' but she kinda did go 'we aren't meant for each other 🖕' and dipped) with hb so NOW HES GOING THRU IT and the rest of her friends back at spider society are like ???? What the??? Fuck???
Lin does manage to spend a few days or more at the hq cause technically she is still Jia but just
Different
But everyone's kinda weirded out cause she's Serious™ now and even Miguel's kinda like wattafack 🧍 plus the fact she has long white hair that spawned out of nowhere so they kinda piece some form of logic together that she's a different Jia
Anyways some time passes and one day an especially big anomaly is warned abt in Jia's (still Lin) universe which is bizarre cause they're not usually this big but it's all because of that STOOPID FUKASS deity GOING AROUND FUKIN THINGS UP and somehow created this ridiculously bad threat as a 'enemy' for the 'hero of their story' to defeat
The biggest problem with the anomaly is that while it doesn't really like, belong in Jia's universe, it doesn't belong in any OTHER universe either BECAUSE THAT DEITY BOUGHT IT UP OUTTA NOWHERE BC THEYRE PSYCHO I need to stop hating on characters that I literally made anyways
So HQ can't exactly deal with it like they usually do but they can try to offer assistance at least
Obviously for obvious (cliche) reasons CERTAIN PEOPLE are gonna be there cause yknow they still care abt Jia even tho she's changed (to Lin momentarily)
Battle occurs blah blah I'm not good with action scenes and things are looking a littttlee bleak for Lin and Co and all the sudden Lin receives a bad injury that nearly knocks her unconscious but thru her ringing ears and muted background noise she hears SOMEBODDYYY CALLING HER NAAMMEEE (god I really wonder who)
Because her state of unclarity from the Blunt Force Head Trauma makes things a little weird, the fine line between Jia and Lin also becomes a little muddled and the Jia that's been hiding behind Lin can hear his voice and it quite literally brings her out of that dark room in her mind to control again so TLDR Jia is back again instead of Lin
Reunion happens for maybe 3 minutes tops before shit hits the fan again and suddenly the deity has teared through time space fabric out of anger to speak directly to them mortal little earthlings on the ground because they're a little bitch
All because they thought Lin was the true protagonist they've been searching for all along and now 'that insolent fool' (hobie) has ruined everything (he does no wrong)'
But suddenly because the deity is in direct contact with the mortal world, they're like wait 🤨 you're not from this universe and sees other things also not from this universe and goes on a tangent about how they don't need to rebuild a 'story' anymore and can just find another 'story' to pilot (TLDR AGAIN: local deity discovers universe theft and wants to ditch this universe cause Jia's spiderman story wasn't perfect and now wants to find another universe to force to become their 'perfect story')
Obviously spider people are like 😨😨😨 UHMMM NO TF UR NOTTT so they start retreating (as they should tbh) and Jia's like helping to round up people to gtfo of her universe before some batshit deity absorbs them or smth
Atp bits of her universe is already crumbling and disintegrating because the deity is already trashing it because it's worthless and imperfect now (ngl me when art 😭😭)
So now it's the last of the people to go back thru the portals and its Jia and Hb :)) (y'all should know what's coming next)
Truthfully, Jia wants to so so badly go thru the portal to stay with the rest of them but she knows that there was the possibility of her connection with the deity of her world and her as a creation from the said deity
So she says goodbyes
Pushes him thru
And throws in her watch before it closes properly so the FUCK ASS DEITY CANT GET ANY KIND OF CONNECTION TO THE MULTIVERSE
And thus it concludes her coming of age plot because she found the proper courage to do what was right in all senses and came to terms with her spider girl identity
Even though she had so much she wanted to do with the rest of them was what she had thought while the thread of her universe on the multiverse crumbled into nothingness
ANYWAYS THE REAL CONCLUSION IS THE DEITY IS THE REAL ANOMALY THEIR OBSESSION DROVE THEM INTO AN ANOMALY AND INTERFERING WITH THE LIVING WORLD but thats kinda what happens when you've been living for centuries, you kinda go a little nuts
Anyways thanks for this long and incredibly messy read, don't kill me ✌️ peaces
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PICK FIVE TROPES!
10-Minute Retirement
In the middle of a crisis, calamity, or sheer unadulterated apocalypse, something terrible happens (but not, typically, any more terrible than happens in any given episode) and The Hero completely and utterly gives up. Common lines that go with the phenomenon are "I'm too old for this," "I can't do it," "There is nothing I can do," "The best thing to do is to get out of here," or "Somebody else can." May even be the follow-up to a Heroic BSoD or Villainous BSoD, which is similar but involuntary. After some kind of epiphany, often accompanied by a "No More Holding Back" Speech, the character comes out of retirement and announces that they are back on the job, typically followed by the show's equivalent of a Foe-Tossing Charge — anything from actual foe-tossing to kicking butt in the school spelling bee. (See also Look What I Can Do Now!, which is similar but involves a character leaving and returning much badder than before.) Sometimes, the hero tries to pass the mantle down to another person, only for them to abuse their newfound power and force the hero to replace their supposed successor.
Absurdly Sharp Blade
An absurdly sharp blade is a bladed weapon with Absurd Cutting Power because it's just that damn sharp. No magic, technology, superpowers, or other type of Applied Phlebotinum required to slice and dice to your heart's content. Such things may have been involved in the production of the blade, but when in use, its cutting power comes from its pure physical sharpness alone. Blades like these almost always result in a Clean Cut — in fact, about the only thing they can't cut is a similarly sharp weapon; lesser weapons, of course, will be sliced, diced and Jullienne fried. Expect to hear some Audible Sharpness (Audible Gleam optional) whenever one of these blades is in use. Frequently used in single stroke battles. Be very afraid if an Absurdly Sharp Blade is in the hands of a swordsman with Implausible Fencing Powers; luckily, the Inverse Law of Sharpness and Accuracy usually ensures that it isn't.
Friend to All Children
Describing an adult character as being fond of and having a soft spot for children is an automatic Pet the Dog since Children Are Innocent with bonus points if the kids like the character back. (Double bonus points if the character is normally a hard-ass around adults) Characters who don't like kids are usually villains or anti-heroic. Note that this trope doesn't apply if it is a disguise put on to avoid suspicion for something else entirely... This is mainly a trait of the Gentle Giant, the Emotional Bruiser, All-Loving Hero, and a requirement for Purity Personifiednote unless Pure Is Not Good is in play, and a redeeming trait for many antiheroes and jerks. Overlaps with Wouldn't Hurt a Child, as characters who fit this trope not only refuse to injure children, but would go out of their way to protect children if it was necessary. If the character in question is also a child, Gods help you if you're dumb enough to harm a child in the presence of someone with this character trait. They will not forgive you, ever. (Though, this trope is a trait of many deities, so you may not get that help and may suffer even more for it in the next life.)
Unstoppable Rage
One of the worst things you can ever do with a hero is to do something that gets them well and truly furious, because rage makes good guys unbeatable. They will go into a frenzy and become stronger, faster, braver, more agile and more indestructible than they've ever been, and they will annihilate you. This holds particularly true if the character in question is generally meek and feeble. Often indicated with Angry Eyebrows in animation. Caution must be employed by the character, since such tantrums can sometimes lead to a Heroic BSoD.
Traumatic Superpower Awakenin
When a character has latent powers or potential, there are three standard ways to unlock it: hit puberty, find a mentor to train them, or just have something really, really bad happen to them. Any form of trauma, physical or mental, can do the trick, but emotional blows are the most prevalent. The death of a loved one is especially common.
Severe trauma tends to release inhibitions that keep hidden potential in check. Strong emotions, most especially rage, work best. As such, the form of the awakening tends to be violent, even, in extreme cases, explosive.
With superpowers, once the bottle is opened, it can't be sealed again. The awakened one will typically need to seek training to control their new powers, so that their every emotional outburst won't trigger a new disaster. A period of How Do I Shot Web? will follow, and learning to control one's emotions or face inner demons is typical.
₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊ TAGGED BY: @moonsromance <3 ₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊ TAGGING: u with the face
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[RERUN] Crisis on Infinite Earths, issue 3: “Oblivion Upon Us” (The Purge: Multiverse Edition)
PREVIOUSLY ON…
The Multiverse is disintegrating at an alarming rate, being heralded by a being known as Pariah. A being known as the Monitor and his assistant Harbinger have gathered 15 super beings from across the multiverse to guard 5 pillars that he says will save what’s left. Meanwhile, he has gathered the last survivor of Earth-3 (Alexander Luthor, who went from infant to adolescent in a matter of hours), making 4 of 6 characters made specifically for the series accounted for.
The fifth we have heard as he shanghai'd one of the Monitor’s champions (Psycho Pirate) and has compromised Harbinger.
Meanwhile, Pariah has appeared on Earth-1 as the wave of white that spelled the doom of so many universes approaches.
Caught up? Good, cuz the cast is about to more than triple in size (and is only going to get bigger as the series progresses). If you would like to read this issue, it (along with the rest of the series) has been collected in graphic novel form and is available (or can be ordered) at your favorite comic shop, bookstore, or online retailer…or on Read Comic Online.
[I want to note that I’m not going to explain who everyone that appears is unless they’re important to the plot. There are just too many and I’d like to finish this before the next DC Cinematic reboot begins]
That all being said, let’s continue…
The Monitor studies Alexander Luthor (still rapidly aging, now a teen) Alex is composed of matter and antimatter (and didn’t explode? Someone tell Mr. Scott that ye can change the laws of physics!)
…no doubt due to his journey from Earth-3 to Earth-1. Harbinger slips away to inform the Big Bad. Psycho-Pirate tells him that Harbinger’s loyalties are conflicted and offers to use his powers to fix that. The Big Bad refuses, saying that Harbinger will eventually do his bidding and kill the Monitor.
We then visit the 30th century, where the Flash has been living after being framed for murder (long story that I’m not telling now). He sees the wall of white that’s threatening the universe and decided to return to his own time to warn everyone (not sure what good that will do)
…but as Batman, the Outsiders, and the Teen Titans witness the Flash’s return, he is enveloped in a strange energy and teleported away.
For whatever reason, we switch to the cybernetic super villain Brainiac, who is in space and sees the wave of white. That’s it. Kinda pointless, actually.
Next we go to Markovia during WW2 (I’m assuming Earth-1, as Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company is among those in attendance) Blue Beetle’s trying to guard the pillar while Dr. Polaris and (Markovian native) Geo-Force are busy fighting Nazis. (Geo-Force because he feels obligated to defend his homeland over 20 years before he was born, and Dr. Polaris because it means he can murder people and no one will care) Easy Company and the Losers (the WW2 strike team, not the guys in the 2010 movie) investigate the pillar…
…but the wave of white comes in and envelops the Losers, disintegrating them! Then come the shadows. They take out Easy Company’s “Flower” (I don’t know his actual name as I never read any Sgt. Rock comics)
…and attempt to do so to Blue Beetle, but Beetle’s mystical scarab (why a tech hero has a mystical artifact, I don’t know) saves him, but his shoulder is trashed. Monitor sends him home (that’s two down, including Psycho Pirate)
Meanwhile, at the Planet of the Apes Great Disaster, Solovar has been injured enough to be sent home as well (make that three)
We now switch to the fourth pillar in Earth-1′s Old West (why aren’t there pillars on any other Earth?), where we see the heroes from DC’s western titles: Bat Lash (no relation), Jonah Hex, Johnny Thunder, Scalphunter, and Nighthawk. Joining them are Psimon, Cyborg, Green Lantern John Stewart, and Firebrand. The shadows arrive shortly after, and John’s ring dies due to the Central battery going kaboom back in issue 2.
Nighthawk retreats, only to run into the white wave.
Meanwhile, at the Monitor’s satellite, the Monitor is ready to start Phase 2 of his plan.
…just in time for Harbinger to kill him!
WILL the Monitor’s machines save the rest of the multiverse?
WHO is the being behind this multiversal massacre?
WHY are the machines only on Earth-1? ARE the other universes not important to the writers?
These questions and more will be answered in the next issue!
#dc comics#crisis on infinite earths#dc multiverse#the flash#blue beetle#sgt rock#the losers#geo force#dr. polaris#bat lash#jonah hex#johnny thunder#psimon#green lantern#firebrand#fan colored glasses#i hate reruns
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Hello. I apologize if this message is unwanted and I want to warn that it contains mentions of suicide. So if you’re not in the headspace, maybe stop here. Also please don’t feel pressured to post this if you don’t want to!
I just wanted to thank you for all of your hard work and art. Especially when it comes to the creation and execution of Strawberry.
I’m a Crisis Counselor and have been for five years now. I wear a lot of hats in the mental healthcare and social work world, but my primary job is to help people who are suicidal or who have just attempted suicide.
However, one of the drawbacks of this is that there are times when we can tell that suicide is inevitable in a person we work with and there is nothing we can do. After a point, a choice has been made due the the insurmountable amount of trauma held in that person’s life, and if someone knows the garbage system enough, they can skirt around it. Sure, in some places you can force hospitalization to keep someone safe temporarily, but this doesn’t always work and isn’t always ethical. Also unlike most US states, in my state the laws heavily value client autonomy in most cases, which I think is overall a very good thing. Pushing anyone to do anything that they aren’t comfortable with is rarely, if ever, going to help them in the long run. However, this can lead to feelings of helplessness when you feel like you can’t protect clients from themselves or the terrible situations they’re going through. And we do lose people. Good people, who we grow attached to.
Caring deeply about someone that you’ve just met and barely know so much and then watching them die is traumatizing. And it happens more often than we like to admit. Sometimes you pour as much into yourself as you can into another person, and it doesn’t matter. You couldn’t be what they needed and now they’re gone. You think about them forever. You remember every single person. And though it’s not about you, it never was, it still hurts very much.
I don’t think I have ever encountered a character in any media that captures that feeling the way that Strawberry does. Her journal entries and the way she reacts to player choices in Berrywitched just hit so close to home in ways that I find it difficult to describe. She also shows in the one endings, however, that it’s worth while to care, even if you don’t help everyone. Even if you only help one person.
I know this message is bleak. We actually do have more success that failures. If my work didn’t help anyone I wouldn’t be doing it because the system is terrible. But I really wanted to thank you for creating a character that means so much to me. I’m very much anticipating your new projects and I hope you have love, light, and success in your future!
Aw gee reading this made me so emotional…! Thank you so much for taking the time to share this with me. Strawberry is a character who really means a lot to me so knowing that there’s people out there who understand and empathize with her really touches my heart. Thank you for doing all that you do <33
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Three simple Questions.
1-- WHY isn't anyone in the Press reporting on Trump's Sentencing today? He is in fact a convicted felon, found guilty on 34 counts of fraud? And today was supposed to be the day. 7-11-2024. July 11th.
More to the point, Ex Post Facto (after the fact) laws are NOT Constitutional and never have been. NO recent "Supreme Court" decision CAN overturn even one of Trump's guilty counts without creating Ex Post Facto law. That's not how it works: new laws and new rulings take effect that day and go forward.
So, is the Press so deeply paid for that even Snopes is bought out and lying and throwing softballs on Trump's behalf? What the fuck is going on and why is Trump's sentence not reported when EVERY felon's sentencing IS usually reported in the most smug manner imaginable?
2-- Elon Musk aside, why IS Trump still stupid enough to say whatever the fuck he feels on Twitter/x, whenever, and then think nobody's listening? To get to the point, Trump admitted on that platform that he still has firearms. Which is a no-no for convicted felons. And which might make Trump either a National Security risk or a homicide risk, pick one.
3-- And why do the so-called "decent people" of the Democratic Party in Washington, D.C. simply refuse to have a spine on one damned fool thing ever? So you "can't" use the 25th Amendment, force the issue until Joe is Stubborn PASSES a Cognitive Impairment Test, and make Kamala Harris President Pro Tempore? So you "can't" just TELL America at a Press Conference that Trump's Former Staff and Major Supporters are ALL behind Project 2025, because delegating responsibilities, that's been a thing for so-called "conservatives" since Reagan? So you "can't" convince an angry Mark Zuckerberg to come back and run for the White House with Kamala Harris in any capacity? So you "can't" make an immediate decision ever and "can't" do what it takes to save society until voters go postal and revolt against every toxic, back-biting Press Meme that gets shoved down your gullet, the way the whole "losing all of Congress" thing was in 2022? Really? You creaky ship of cowards just has to go along with EVERY RENTED PIECE OF JUNK INFO THE PAID-FOR PRESS VOMITS AT YOU BECAUSE CEOs ARE SOOO FUCKING BORED?? REALLY?
I'd strangle some of you myself, but I'm not sure you even breathe much lately. I'm not sure, some of you have a pulse. You're so passive I'm not sure if you're alive or capable of knowing what the fuck a crisis is. Because you've ran us all OUT OF FUCKING TIME. ENTIRELY. No, listen to me, it takes time to actually put the President Pro Tempore (Kamala Harris) in charge and it takes time to cough up new Presidential candidates and it takes time to wage a pre-emptive counter coup-d-etat against the Trumps and their Psycho Idiot 28 Percent. It takes time to actually get the deeds done and enough people moving to get it done.
But nooo, it sure as shit looks like you WANT us all to lose and WANT American society to DIE, worse than every last English tea-swilling little knock-kneed bitch ever. What is your problem?
#US politics#tactics#or lack of tactics#democrats#DC Democrats being weird#reporting Trump's Sentencing#versus dogpiling a sitting President#among other public acts of depravity#what even is this world?
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The system is failing the mentally ill population across the nation. As a mentally ill person, I was incarcerated and abused, neglected, and also excessive force was used against me and I suffer from mental illness.There could come a time in your very own life where you are in crisis and are having episodes trying the best you can to survive with your mental illness out in society, out in public. You may act out and lash out at law-enforcement being that you may be delusional. This occurs all the time in public with law-enforcement. It happens in public. No one understands what a mentally ill person goes through with his life of mental illness. There are occasions and instances where we may become psychotic with episodes because we are unmedicated or other crisis and stresses that causes us not to be not in control of our mental health. The system has failed us because there is nothing in place to be proactive and provide the correct support and response that we need. There is not enough social workers trained professionals in law-enforcement to deal with the crisis that we have now. Incarceration while being mentally ill is very dangerous to the mentally ill person. I know this for a fact. I think once a person has been established as someone who suffers from mental illness in their community. There should be a red flag. Whenever a call comes in that this person is in crisis again. The place where it all goes wrong is communication and keeping record of who is mentally ill in the community. When consecutive calls are made on a mentally ill person it seems like that they have become a nuisance to the public. so the law enforcement becomes your enemy and wants to see you locked up for good because you have committed so many disturbances out in the public. They wanted to give me 2 to 10 years for spitting on the officer which  I would have never done in my right mind. But I went through incarceration and a stressful probation. I had to pay fines and complete community service when I am mentally ill. Plus from the abuse I suffered in the county it caused permanent damage to my spine and I was expected to complete community service. By the grace of God, I made it out without having to be re-incarcerated for revoking my probation. But I made it. There are a lot of things I would like to talk about while being incarcerated. I have ideas in my head to revamp the system the way it is right now. The status quo has to go. abuse, neglect should and remain held accountable to those who provide actually nothing at all to help the mentally ill while incarcerated. They do very little to correct the problem with the person that is on the ground in crisis. Their solution, the system, is to incarcerate and convict. And with that comes abuse suffering and neglect to a degree that blows my mind. I can’t believe that I have to discuss this issue in this day and age but this exist. You may be schizophrenic and new to your diagnosis and there are a lot of things you need to examine that’s going on in the media with mentally ill people stay abreast to everything that’s going on because it could happen to you, because it happened to me,. When all I needed was help. God help this mess.
#kingofkingsschizo#compassionatereminders#schizophrénie#incarceration#crises#mental illness#with: nami#nami#where are you#episode#criminal justice system#follow
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Pro-overhaul protest showed the right's strengths - and the government's weakness
Likud voters want gov't to focus on declining economy, Haredi parties want draft exemption law, religious Zionist voters want continued judicial reform. Can PM satisfy them all?
HAVIV RETTIF FUR, 29 APRIL 2023 4:14PM
Thursday's protest in support of the government's judicial overhaul was big enough.
Whether it was around 100,00, as opponents claimed, or 600,000, as organisers said, is less significant. (Most estimates put the figure at some 200,00.) It was big enough.
Enough to send a message that there was a real and mobilised base of support for the government's prioritising of its efforts to remake the judiciary.
Enough to grant Justice Minister Yariv Levin a respectable backdrop for a speech that blamed the judiciary for many of the country's ills and demanded that the battle over the judiciary remain at the top of the government's agenda.
Enough to make the point to the other side that the right also knows how to bring out its supporters.
It was a show of strength.
But it was also a show of weakness, a signal of Netanyahu's great challenge going forward.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin attends a rally in support of the government's planned judicial overhaul outside the Knesset in Jerusalem, April 27, 2023 (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)
The economy, stupid
At first glance, the Netanyahu government seems very stable - that special sort of stability enjoyed by coalition governments with low polling numbers, propped up by the simple calculus that no member of the coalition wants to face the voters at their angriest.
One Thursday poll for the Maariv news site found Netanyahu's coalition down 14 seats from its current 64, with Likud itself responsible for nine of those lost seats, dropping from 32 to 23.
No poll is really trustworthy in this political moment. The usual caveats are in force: Different methodologies, pollsters' prejudices and so on. But it's also not clear what voters actually mean when they tell a pollster they've changed their minds. If the Maariv poll is to be believed, nearly a third of Likud's voters in the last election appear to have shifted their votes to Benny Gantz's National Unity, which swelled to six seats more than Likud itself. Even if the numbers are right and the polling methods accurate, do those answers signify a real and resilient shift or a momentary explosion of frustration that won't survive till Election Day?
These are important questions, but they don't help Netanyahu. His problem is not one poll but all of them, including those by right-wing pollsters identified with Likud. For example, a mid-April poll by one-time Netanyahu confidant Shlomo Filber gave the coalition seven more seats than Maariv, or 57. But that's still seven below the current Knesset. And Filber found Itamar Ben Gvir's Otzma Yehudit faction hovering perilously close to the 3.25 percent vote threshold for falling out of Knesset altogether.
In other words, the decline is real.
And numerous polls offer insight into its reasons. Half the electorate is angry at the government over its judicial shakeup plans. But what's driving anywhere from seven to 14 Knesset seats' worth of voters away from Likud and other coalition parties? What's driving right-wing voters to join the center-left in polls showing the government's unfavorability rating reaching into the high sixties?
"What do you think should be the priority of the government?" a Channel 12 poll asked last week. It asked respondents to choose between just two options: The looming "economic crisis" - rising food and gas prices, inflation, etc. - and the "judicial reform."
Nearly three-quarters, 74%, said the economy and just 19% wanted the judicial reform - a whopping 55-point gap.
And when Likud voters were pulled from the larger sample, the gap was almost as huge: 69% economy, 27% judicial reform - a 42-point gap.
None of this is new. In late October, in the run-up to Election Day, a Channel 12 poll gave voters a list of issues and asked them to pick the one that should be "the main issue the parties should take care of the day after the next government is formed."
Reforming the judiciary came fourth, with just 7% placing it at the top. First place was "personal security" (37%), followed by "housing prices" (28%) and "the education system" (8%).
This doesn't mean judicial reform isn't important to right-wing voters, only that it's deemed less urgent than other issues.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir at a rally in support of the government's planned judicial overhaul outside the Knesset in Jerusalem on April 27, 2023. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)
It matters, then, that the government has very publicly neglected nearly every other issue in the four months since the coalition was formed. Entire ministries and vital agencies - welfare, labor, the National Insurance Institute - are still without chief executives. Dozens of important decisions are waiting in the Justice Ministry for minister Yariv Levin's signature, unable to move forward because his attention is elsewhere.
With less than a month to the deadline for passing a state budget, the budget bill has barely been dealt with in the Knesset. It's now advancing with major and long-promised reforms, including a streamlining of important regulations that Netanyahu promised in the election campaign would dramatically lower the cost of living, which have been removed. The government and the Knesset simply don't have the time or political bandwidth to deal with them before the budget deadline.
Housing prices are rising. Food prices are rising. Inflation is now at 5%, a 15-year high.
The fixed price of basic milk, which is set by the government, is slated to rise a whopping 16% on May 1. Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich has blamed the rise on the previous government and sought to find ways to cut the increase in half to just 8%. But he made the demand this week, barely three days before the increase will go into force.
"The finance minister had three month to prepare," complained one Agriculture Ministry official to the religious-Zionist website Kipa. "At the last minute, he wants to do it by fiat."
Everything that depends on the cost of milk - cheese, yogurt, ice cream - will soon see similar cost increases.
And on the right, no one seems to be seriously addressing the problem.
File. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Finance Betzalel Smotrich give a press conference at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem on January 11, 2023 (Oliver Fitoussi/Flash90)
"Between the judicial reform, the draft law [to exempt Haredim from military service] and the debates over the speeches at Memorial Day ceremonies, the government has managed to neglect the cost of living," accuses one prominent column - in Israel Hayom, Netanyahu's most supportive Hebrew-language newspaper.
The column doesn't mine words, and captures some of the tension at the heart of the coalition: "There are funds for increasing the stipends of yeshiva students, but not enough to fulfil one of the [Netanyahu's] most prominent promises - free education from 0 to 3."
The point isn't simply that the coalition is saddled with a global economic slowdown, but that its own internal makeup makes its unable to deal seriously with the crisis.
Lifting Israel's onerous import restrictions could help reduce the cost hikes, but it won't happen in the coming budget. Meanwhile, the government's promises to the Haredi parties are preventing it from taking other measures that might help, such as adding competition to the state kashrut monopoly, a key cause of Israel's relatively high cost of dairy production. Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich's slashing of a tax on sugary drinks last month at the behest of Haredi politicians cost the state NIS 800 million ($220 million) in immediate revenues and billions added to healthcare outlays in the future. And it's no populism or prejudice to note that the vast stipend increases to Haredi communities helped transform last year's balanced budget into this year's looming deficit.
The coalition, in other words, is entering a period of economic turbulence trapped in a strait-jacket of its own making. It has spent too much of its bandwidth and political capital on a single policy issue at the expense of nearly everything else. It can't now advance the kind of deregulation stepds and spending cuts that might bring down consumer prices in a sustained way.
The government is now being held together by these very failures and by the coalition members' fear of the growing frustration among its own electorate.
Ultra-orthodox Jews block a road during a protest against the ultra-Orthodox draft bill, outside the city of Bnei Brak, February 9, 2022 (Flash90)
The tipping point
Yet if the government doesn't get its act together, this stability is unlikely to last. Israeli coalitions have a funny way of unravelling unexpectedly. Declining poll numbers are a stabilising force for a coalition - right up to the moment when they're not. It only takes one coalition party concluding that the government is irredeemably floundering, that it won't be able to turn things around and that it's therefore in it's political interest to jump ship and position itself as a critic of the flailing coalition. Everything then unravels very quickly.
The last days of an Israeli coalition are a kind of prisoner's dilemma: The mere suspicion that someone else is planning to jump first could trigger a race for the door. That basic dynamic is what brought down the last government. A handful of right-wing coalition lawmakers concluded that the government's internal tensions were not going to be resolved, that stability was not in the cards, and that therefore their only path to political rehabilitation lay in being the ones who bring it down.
If Netanyahu can't stop the bleeding in the polls or the price increases at the supermarket, how long before Itamar Ben Gvir or Bezalel Smotrich conclude that it's better to face the voter as a critic of a feckless government than as participants in its failure?
The audience
All of which brings us back to Thursday's protest.
The protest was many things to many different parties.
Levin and other judicial-reform diehards saw it as a warning to Netanyahu, who they've long suspected would buckle under the strain of opposition protests. Their message is blunt: This is where the base is. You disappoint us at your political peril.
Netanyahu himself, who staff and party apparatus helped organize the event, sent a message to the other members of his coalition: This is still a viable alliance and the first jump ship will be the one betraying this now-mobilized public.
Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government gathered in Sderot on April 20, 2023 (AP/Tsafrir Abayov)
It was , too, a message to the opposition: We can draw crowds just like you. The reform is paused, not cancelled. Once the state budget is passed and the government stabilized, the judicial fight will return, and this time we'll be in the streets just as much as you. Or as the right-wing author Gadi Taub out it in his address to the protestors, "We won a mandate to push through this reform and then they tried to suppress it by force. Those weren't protests, they were a coup...But they pushed us to find each other, to unite around a goal, and to be more determined for next time. This is the start of a new campaign in this struggle."
But perhaps the most important message was in what was missing from the protest.
As many observers noted, most of the demonstrators were religious Zionists and so-called "Haredi-Zionist"," voters for the far-right factions of Religious Zionism: Voters for Smotrich and Ben Gvir. The Haredi community and Likud's non-religious base were conspicuously underrepresented.
Three months ago, the Hardei parties Shas and United Torah Judaism were at the forefront of the reform demanding the passage of a 61-vote override of High Court decisions.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker AMir Ohana (right) celebrate with Emunah Cohen, winner of the international Bible Quiz, April 26, 2023. (Haim Zach/GPO)
When their own power and their community's special privileges suddenly became central to the anti-overhaul protests, they quickly retreated from the fight.
Haredi politicians no longer speak in eager terms of the reform itself. They are focused laser-like on their most urgent priority: Passing a draft law confirming their community's exemption from military service - and doing so quickly, before the government destabilises or anti-Haredi sentiment leaks too deep into Likud's own voter base, as polls suggest might already be happening at the margins.
As one headline from pro-Netanyahu newspaper Israel Hayom blared on April 18, "Talks break up over draft law that could topple the government. Passing a draft law, Shas, UTJ and Netanyahu all understand, could easily set the nation's streets aflame once more, and it's not clear the protesters would hail solely from the opposition.
The government, the Haredi parties now fear, may already be a lame duck.
Likud voters, meanwhile, are frustrated that the great ideological battles being waged by the coalition are happening seemingly at their expense. Inflation and the price of milk worry them; everything else, they've been telling pollsters for a month now, can simply wait.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara at the 75th anniversary Independence Day ceremony, held at Mount Herzi, Jerusalem on April 25, 2023. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
Where does all that put Netanyahu? The Haredi parties want a draft law desperately, their desperation a function of growing uncertainty that the coalition will survive for much longer. Levin and the government's religious-Zionist wing - the majority of Thursday's protesters - want the judicial reform advanced urgently and are convinced Netanyahu is trying to retreat. Likud's own base is desperate to see serious action on rising food and gasoline prices.
Four months ago, most Israelis told pollsters they supported some for of judicial reform. The government squandered that broad agreement and the trust required to act on it with astonishing speed and efficiency. It neglected a deteriorating economic situation and a rising terror wave and now finds itself struggling to show it's own shrinking and frustrated base that can deliver for them.
Netanyahu, beset on all sides by these incompatible priorities, must find a path through the mire. Allies are watching carefully for signs that they should bolt. The coalition's long-term viability is questioned even in loyal right-wing newspapers. Thursday's protest in Jerusalem was an impressive demonstration of popular support for the judicial reform, but simultaneously a showcasing of all the gaps and anxieties that risk the coalition apart.
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