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ravennm84 · 4 years ago

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The Inspector

I read a short story on AO3 a while back about a teacher or adult sending a letter to the Board of Governors about the teachers of the school and how terrible they were, and decided to write a story about the person who was assigned to look into the accusations. Got some salt and justice coming along. And I must say, this was very therapeutic to write. Warm-Fuzzies and please enjoy!!

Inspector Walters had a bad feeling about the Francois-Dupont College since the moment he’d received the assignment. The Board of Governors had been debating conducting an investigation on the school since one of the classes had been nicknamed “The Akuma Class” by social media and a few news sources. It became a necessity when a complaint had been filed by the Dupain-Cheng family about their daughter’s expulsion.

That complaint had surprised him. Only the Board of Governors had the power to expel a student after an investigation, and they hadn’t expelled the girl. The parents claimed that it was done on the same day as the accusations against the student, and was then retracted the following day. Again, something that only the Board of Governors had the power to do.

Looking over the incident report, the details were slim at best. Mlle. Dupain-Cheng was accused of cheating on a mock exam and the answer sheet was found in her backpack. When looking at the schedule, he saw that the mock exam had been taken the day before and the teacher only noticed that the answer sheet was missing after receiving the exams. A fact which bothered him a bit, but he’d seen a few scatterbrained teachers, as well as students make the mistake of not getting rid of the evidence. However, he also saw from her student records that she was one of the top students and always got high grades, so there was some doubt that she would have cheated.

The next thing was the accusation that she had pushed another student, Mlle. Lila Rossi down the stairs, injuring her right knee. However, there was no mention of an ambulance being called or even a trip to the nurse’s station. It was also suspect that there was no mention of other injuries that someone would have received after falling down stairs; no recorded cuts, bruises, or anything. So either Rossi had the most well placed fall that kept her from major injury, or she was lying.

The last part of the report was that Mlle. Dupain-Cheng had stolen a necklace from Mlle. Rossi and put it in her locker. Again, he was a bit skeptical considering that the same two girls had been involved with a separate incident on the same day. There was a picture of the locker, but Walters quickly noticed that there was no actual lock on the locker, something that he should be seeing since the Board had funded upgrades for lockers months ago. There was also no CCTV record attached to the incident report, meaning that the system was down and not reported, or the principal never checked them and only went by the word Mlle. Rossi.

Looking over the rest of the file, it was even more suspect when he saw that only Mlle. Dupain-Cheng’s parents had been called in. Mlle. Rossi’s contact, her mother, had been listed as “unavailable”. This was yet another thing that didn’t sit well with him. Following his gut, M. Walters set aside the Dupain-Cheng student file to look more closely at the Rossi student file.

Not five minutes in, he knew that things were not right. The disabilities she had listed in the current file were not consistent with the files from her previous schools, and there were no doctors notes to support them as being recently discovered ailments. He attempted to call the number listed on the current file, but it kept going straight to voicemail. Comparing the number to the previous files, he noticed that the number did not match.

Finding himself very unhappy with the incomplete file provided by Principal Damocles, he decided that he would have to go to the school in person the following morning and see for himself what was really going on.

~oOo~

First stop he made was to the principal’s office. M. Walters had not alerted him of the inspection so that the man would not have a chance to change or hide specific documents, he’d seen that happen more than once. What he had not expected was to see a grown man playing with dolls/action figures behind his desk. Damocles quickly straightened up, hiding the dolls in a drawer before scowling at him. “What is the meaning of this? You can’t simply barge into my office without-”

“Actually, M. Damocles, I can,” he interrupted, pulling out his identification. “Inspector Walters, I’m with the Board of Governors, looking into a recent complaint filed against the school.”

“Complaint? What complaint?” He asked, sputtering a bit in surprise.

“The expulsion of Mlle. Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” he glared at the man.

“Oh, that incident has already been handled.”

“Is that so? Then please, explain to me how the incident was handled.” Pulling out a chair, Walters flipped open his notepad and clicked open his pen. Some of his colleagues considered the whole pen and paper thing to be a little old-school at times, but it had its purpose. He waved a hand at Damocles to begin.

“Well, Mlle. Lila Rossi suffers from a rare disease that makes her lie uncontrollably when she is stressed-”

“I’m going to stop you right there, M. Damocles. We will get to the reason why you reinstated Mlle. Dupain-Cheng in a moment. First, I want you to go through everything on the day of the incident.”

“Oh, of-of course,” he was beginning to fidget. “I was sitting in my office when I heard screaming outside of my door. When I came outside, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was standing at the top of the stairs and Mlle. Lila Rossi was at the bottom of the stairs, crying that she had been pushed.” Walters wrote this down and waved a hand for him to continue. “M. Harpele and I brought her upstairs and wrapped the knee that was injured, and then contacted Mlle. Dupain-Cheng’s parents to talk about the incident, seeing as Mlle. Rossi had been badly injured.”

Walters finished writing that down before looking back up at Damocles. “And is that when you called an ambulance to look over Mlle. Rossi’s injury and check to make sure there were no other injuries?”

It was no surprise to him when Damocles mouth did an impersonation of a fish for a moment. “Well, um, no. I did not call an ambulance-”

“Then I can only imagine that you called the school nurse to your office to look her over and deem whether or not a trip to the hospital was necessary?”

Again, he began impersonating a fish. “I-I didn’t think it was- Mlle. Rossi claimed that she was fine and that only her knee was injured.”

“You just told me that you believed Mlle. Rossi was, and I quote ‘badly injured’, and yet she received no medical attention?” Walters hummed in a disbelieving manner as he looked down at his notepad and wrote down his thoughts. “That was quite irresponsible of you. I’ve read your personnel file and nowhere does it list that you have a medical background. Yet, you thought yourself qualified to treat and diagnose a girl that claimed to have been pushed down the stairs and could have underlying injuries, such as a concussion, broken bones, or internal bleeding?”

To his satisfaction, the principal began to sweat, but he was nowhere close to finished yet. “I can imagine that Mme. Rossi was upset when you called her to the school for the meeting with M. and Mme. Dupain-Cheng.” Just as he suspected, Damocles wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You have contacted Mme. Rossi about the incident, have you not?”

“Well, Mme. Rossi is an ambassador and is very busy-”

“Are you meaning to tell me that you failed to alert a parent that their child was injured while in your care?” When the principal looked away again, Walters glared before double clicking his pen and writing down more notes.Taking his time as he wrote to allow the man to sweat and worry about what was being written.

“We will return to your failure at contacting parents and guardians later. Now, tell me what you observed when you reviewed the CCTV footage of the stairs at the time of the incident.” Just as he suspected, the man became flustered and refused to meet his eyes. “Are you telling me that you did not, at any time, look over the footage to corroborate whether Mlle. Rossi was pushed or accidentally fell?”

Hesitating again. “I, um, thought it unnecessary. It was clear that she was pushed-”

“And you know that for fact, how, exactly?” He glared as he kept writing.

“As I said, Mlle. Dupain-Cheng was standing at the top of the stairs while Mlle. Rossi was at the bottom of the stairs, crying that she’d been pushed-”

“You also said, and I quote ‘I was sitting in my office when I heard screaming outside of my door’. Meaning that you did not actually see whether Mlle. Rossi was pushed or simply fell. Am I to understand that you believed one child over another without gathering evidence to prove or disprove the claim?”

Walters watched as the man’s parlor turned a pale green while muttering multiple failed excuses, which only served to anger him further. So far, Damocles had failed to show him, in any way, that he was qualified to run this school and had let an innocent girl suffer for his mistakes. “You are going to pull up that footage right now, and have it prepared for a meeting I will be setting up with Mme. Rossi later today. And not just the stairs, but the footage of the classroom to see exactly who stole the test answer sheet and the lockerroom to see if the accusations of Mlle. Dupain-Cheng stealing Mlle. Rossi’s property is at all valid. And allow me to make something very clear, you are already looking at being brought up on negligence and abuse of power, seeing as you expelled and reinstated a student, something that only the Board of Governors has the power to do. If I find out that the footage is somehow ‘missing’, I will have no choice but to assume that you have purposefully erased it to protect yourself and will have you brought before the Board by tomorrow morning. Am I clear?”

The man gave a shaky nod, as he immediately got on his computer and began pulling up the footage from that day.

Getting on his phone, Walters called the number that Mme. Rossi had listed in the previous files and it went straight through. He easily scheduled a meeting for later that day and hung up.“I will be sitting in on Mme. Bustier’s class for the rest of the day, until Mme. Rossi arrives at 1pm for our appointment. Have all the footage ready by then.” Without another word, Inspector Walters left the office and made his way down to the Akuma Classroom.

~oOo~

Lunch had finally come and Walters was anything but impressed by what he had seen. To her credit, Mme. Bustier had been polite and understanding towards his presence in the classroom and seemed to go about teaching as usual. She was also a very upbeat type of personality, something needed in a city plagued by akumas. But that was the extent of his compliments towards the teacher.

During the first half of the day, he witnessed the woman allow her students to become disorderly multiple times. Three of which stood out to him beyond the normal rowdy teenage energy that is normal for a classroom.

The first was how a boy in the front of the room kept flinching and curling into himself whenever another student, who just happened to be Mlle. Lila Rossi, touched him. She was sharing his desk in the front, sitting inappropriately close, clutching his arm in a possessive manor, and ignored him when he asked her to let him go or give him space. All this was done in full view of Mme. Bustier, and she did nothing.

During the literature lesson, they were studying Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mlle. Rossi interrupted and began telling a story about being a descendant of Vlad the Impaler. A complete falsehood since Vlad’s only child had been killed as an infant. This was a fact that the teacher should have corrected or told the girl to pay attention to the lesson, but she did nothing. Allowing the girl to prattle on for close to 15 minutes before returning to the lesson.

The worst though, was when Mlle. Rossi, made another scene when she began complaining about how her left knee was still hurting from when Marinette pushed her down the stairs. The other students proceeded to glare and speak harsh words about the girl. It was at this time that Mlle. Dupain-Cheng stood from her seat in the back and attempted to defend herself. Mme. Bustier did intervene this time, but she did not reprimanded the other students that were ganging up on the one girl. Instead, she reprimanded Marinette and told her that she was not setting a good example for the class. Then forced her to apologize to Lila for upsetting her. Blatant victim blaming, right in front of him, and the teacher had the nerve to smile at him as if to say that she had handled the situation.

Walters had written everything down, already deciding that he would need to call the Board at the first possible moment to alert them to the incompitent administrative practices of Damocles, as well as the toxic teaching methods of Bustier. It was now little wonder why this class had produced so many akumas. It was a miracle that there were any students left in the class that hadn’t been akumatized. But seeing as one student was clearly being bullied and the other was being sexually harassed, it likely wouldn’t be long.

He was just barely able to fit in the call and look over the CCTV footage before his meeting with Mme. Rossi in M. Damocles office. That had been interesting, to say the least. Before the meeting had even started, Mme. Rossi was voicing her worry about the amount of time that the school had been closed due to akuma attacks…

Once that had been cleared up, M. Damocles got to the matter at hand. Beginning with requesting information and doctors notes at her earliest convenience pertaining to her daughter’s injuries, disabilities, as well as requesting more information about her lying disease. Again, that had been a very interesting conversation that resulted in the woman yelling at Damocles in French and Italian about how incompetant he was and why hadn’t he gotten ahold of her sooner?

But the worst reaction came when Damocles told her about the day of the incident. They showed her the footage found of Lila, and yes it was Lila, stealing the answer sheet off of Mme. Bustier’s desk and then slip it into Marinette’s bag on her way back to her seat. Then the footage of Lila breaking into Marinette’s locker and planting the necklace. And finally, Lila smiling at Marinette before walking down the stairs and sitting on the ground before she started screaming.

By then, another inspector from the Board of Governors had arrived to assist in the situation that he had reported during his earlier phone call and the students had returned from lunch. Walters requested Mme. Bustier to join them and to bring Lila along. When the girl entered the office and saw her furious mother and principal, she paled immediately and started lying.

Even when Walters, Damocles, and her mother tore apart every one of her lies, she kept trying to turn things around and make herself a victim. And to Walters’ horror, Damocles was actually buying her lies! It was at that moment that he decided that the man had no right being a school administrator and would be put on leave, pending the end of his investigation and the Board of Governors decision.

Bustier attempted to side with Lila as well, claiming that the girl suffered from a disease and shouldn’t be punished. Completely ignoring that Mme. Rossi told her that her daughter suffered no such ‘disease’. The other inspector, Marchand, looked on in disgust before pulling out his phone and calling the Board of Governors right there, relaying his support of Walters’ recommendation against Damocles and Bustier.

Walters took charge of the situation, forcing Damocles out of his chair to take his seat. “Mme. Rossi, as an inspector of the Board of Governors, I must ask if you fully understand the situations that your daughter has caused?”

The woman took a deep breath before slowly letting it out, all the while retaining a firm grip on her daughter’s arm after she had attempted to flee the room earlier. “If you would, please go over everything from the top.” The woman requested, her voice a bit hoarse after yelling at the principal, the teacher, and her daughter.

Giving the woman a sympathetic nod, he flipped open the notebook and went over his notes while Marchand kept Damocles and Bustier quiet and standing in a corner. “I have personally observed your daughter disrupting class, bullying a student named Marinette Dupain-Cheng, lying to her peers, leading them to also bully Mlle. Dupain-Cheng, and sexually harassing another student who verbally asked her to stop. We have video evidence of her committing theft, harassing the same student I witnessed her bullying, framing that student for assault, as well as framing that student of theft and cheating. All that, as well as your testimony of her lying to the school administration about different injuries and illnesses, fraud in regards to changing your contact information, and four months of truancy.

“At this point, the school has no choice but to suspend Lila, pending an investigation to be completed by the Board of Governors,” he said, handing her the paperwork to sign, which she did right away. “At the time the investigation is complete, she will have the opportunity to plead her case to the Board. However, I want to make it clear that, from what I have seen, it is very likely that your daughter will be expelled.”

To her credit, Mme. Rossi held her head high as she nodded and handed back their copies of the suspension papers. “I suspected as much. However, I do request that a meeting be scheduled with Mlle. Dupain-Cheng’s parents so that Lila may apologize in person. I also want her to apologize to the class and admit her lies to them so that there won’t be any backlash on that poor girl.”

Lila turned to her mother in a panic. “No, Mom! Please don’t make me-”

“YOUNG LADY, you are going to tell the class everything you lied about, apologize to that girl, and admit that you have been bullying her. Am I clear?” Walters was impressed that the girl simply nodded as she curled into herself before Mme. Rossi looked back to him. “I will not allow Lila to escape her punishment, that includes telling the truth to the people she has wronged.”

He nodded in understanding. “I’ll see about arranging a meeting. However, the suspension will be taking effect immediately, if you wish to have her confess to the class, I suggest doing so right now before school lets out.” Walters then turned to give the teacher a hard look that had her wilting under his gaze. “I’m sure Mme. Bustier would have no problem with that, I will also accompany you. M. Marchand, would you mind keeping an eye on M. Damocles?”

“Of course, I would like to word with him in private, myself.” He said, sending the man his own scathing look.

Mme. Bustier quietly escorted the Rossis and himself back to the classroom. The gym teacher, M. D’Argencourt had been watching over the class while Bustier had been in the meeting. Walters asked him to stay, and that they would only be there for a moment before turning to nod at the other teacher.

“Students, may I have your attention, please?” She waited a few seconds as the students put away what they were doing, likely hearing the tremor in the woman’s voice. “As you know, M. Walters, from the Board of Governors, has been sitting in with us today. It has been brought to my attention that one of our students has not been honest with us and has been causing a fair amount of trouble.”

Looking back at the girl and her mother, Mme. Rossi forced her daughter to step forward while keeping a hand on her shoulder. At first, she didn’t say anything. Then her mother leaned forward to whisper something in her ear, causing her to slump and tears to fall down her cheeks. “I-I lied, about everything. *sniffle* I don’t know any celebrities. I’ve never helped charities or been to Achu. *sniffle* I don’t have tinnitus, arthritis, or anything like that. I’m not Ladybug’s best friend and I’m not related to Vlad the Impaler. And-and…”

“And…” Mme Rossi said in a forceful tone, ignoring the stunned looks they were receiving from the class. Lila tucked her chin to her chest, muttering the rest of her confession under her breath. But her mother wasn’t going to allow that. “Speak up so everyone can hear you, unless you want to be grounded for twice as long with no allowance at all.”

The girl’s hands fisted at her side as she spoke loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “Marinette never bullied me. I-I bullied her. I told her that I would take her friends from her. I pl-planted the answer sheet in her bag. *sob* I put my necklace in-in her locker. She never pushed me down the stairs either, I faked it to get her expelled.”

“And why did you do all of this to that girl, Lila?” Her mother asked, making it clear that she had to answer.

“Be-because sh-she knew that I was lying *sob hiccup sob* and I wanted her gone.”

“And what do you have to say to Marinette?”

Lila lifted her chin, glaring dangerously at the girl sitting in the back. “Sorry,” she snapped.

Mme. Bustier looked up at the girl, giving her a kind smile. “And do you accept her apology, Marinette?”

That really pissed him off, that woman had no right to put that girl on the spot after Rossi had done everything in her power to ruin that girl’s life. Before she could say anything, Walters stepped in front of Bustier. “Marinette, you are under no obligation to accept her apology, that is completely up to you.” Waiting a moment he saw the absolute relief on the girl’s face before quietly shaking her head and settling back in her chair.

Walters then instructed M. D’Argencourt to continue with the class while he escorted Bustier back to the office while Mme. Rossi took her daughter home.

There was still a lot to do in this school, it was clear to him that the two educators, and he used that term loosely, needed to go. There was paperwork to fill out, more CCTV footage to go over, interviews with the students of Bustier’s class, and calls needed to be made to the Dupain-Chengs and the Agrestes about Lila Rossi and what she’d done to their children. The investigation literally had weeks of work to do, but it had to be done. But Walters knew, by the time they were done cleaning house, the students and school would be better off for it.

~oOo~ Four Weeks Later ~oOo~

Walters was working on the last of the paperwork having to do with the Francois-Dupont College debacle, greatly relieved that it was over.

Lila Rossi had been officially expelled after the investigation for bullying, harassment, theft, sexual harassment, cheating, destruction of property, fraud, and truancy. During her trial before the Board, the Dupain-Cheng family had been present and she had been forced to apologize to them for what she had done to her daughter. From her file, he saw that the Dupain-Chengs, as well as the Agreste family, had placed restraining orders on the girl. The Agreste family were also pressing charges for sexual harassment. Mme. Rossi had mentioned a reformatory school for delinquent children in Italy, stating that she had already enrolled her daughter, despite the outcome of the Board’s decision. He was glad that the woman was taking everything in stride and seemed to be doing the right thing.

The investigation into M. Damocles had uncovered even more skeletons than Walters had expected. Negligence and abuse of power, those were easily confirmed. They also uncovered proof of favoritism, taking bribes to ensure that certain students were not punished for offenses or that they passed their classes, despite failing grades. But the nail in the coffin was when Walters tracked down the money that was supposed to go to upgrading the lockers, Damocles had embezzled it to fund his vigilante superhero activities. He had officially been fired and blacklisted from ever working for the educational system or any branch of the government. The new principal was a vice principal from another school, well versed in bullying situations and had degrees in accounting as well as education. She would be going over all the books to see exactly how much money Damocles had embezzled over the years, so the Board of Governors would be able to sue for the proper amount of restitutions.

The issue of Mme. Bustier turned out to be an interesting matter. While looking into her qualifications, it had been revealed that her teaching license had been suspended before she had been hired by Damocles to teach at the school. Not trusting her file, Walters contacted her previous school and found out that they had fired her for much of the same reasons he had put her on leave. She had enabled bullies, blamed the victims, and pressured her “star pupil” to take on the work of a teaching assistant. When that same student complained and refused to help anymore, Bustier had told his parents that the boy was a troublemaker, refused to follow instruction, and was talking back. The boy had insisted on talking to the principal, who had cleared things up with the student and his parents. Bustier had been fired for her behavior and her license suspended until she completed anti-bullying classes, which she never attended. She simply applied to a new school, where the principal didn’t look too closely at her paperwork, and resumed her toxic teaching methods. Because of this; Bustier had been fired, blacklisted from ever teaching again, as well as arrested for teaching without a license.

The whole of Bustier’s class had been assigned counselling sessions for the foreseeable future until the toxic habits that the teacher had instilled in the class could be rectified. Though Walters was pleased to see that there seemed to be progress, as none of the students had been akumatized since the day he had gone to the school. A new record for time between akumatizations. The substitute that had been hired was stern, well versed in squashing bullying habits, but was sympathetic to the victims. That was what that class needed for the time until the Board could find a suitable, permanent replacement.

All in all, Walters felt that he had done his job with investigating the Dupain-Cheng expulsion, and was happy to hear that the girl was doing much better. Her record had been cleared, her grades were still at the top of the class, and she had given the Board a basket of baked goods on the day of Lila’s trial, which had been like eating little bites of heaven. She had even given him a custom notebook cover, that he was pretty sure she made herself, and a matching pen. It was a very kind gift, and might have thought it was a bribe if anyone else had given it to him, but he could tell that she was just grateful to him for listening to her and making her school life better.

That was the reason he enjoyed his job.

Taglist:

@7-sage-7 @fantasiame @seraphichana

@t1dwarrior-of-earth @ghostmaster83 @izang

@ulmban @plushbookworm @corabeth11

@ramos123 @darkened-flame @caffeinetheory

@iamblinkmarvelarmy @abrx2002 @cheshire5210

@delightfulcookiesrecipespizza @raiderofthelostbooks

@plz-excuse-my-inner-ravenclaw @chocolateherringtacofan

@city-of-all-tunas @aadnrsstar @kitten12113

@interobanginyourmom @pandacatxd @zoiechance

@nerd-nowandforever @jesussavedevenme

@the-smallest-kittenz @will-zeke-thomson @omgpercabethadrinette

@ironspiderstark @goblinwhoships @toodaloo-kangaroo

#bustier salt #lila salt #lila gets exposed #marinette deserves better #ml fic #mlbjustice #ml au #marinette dupain cheng

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rinthecompanion · 4 years ago

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This post is a response to this this tweet from this twitter thread. However, more than likely, if I’ve linked you back here, the argument has become redundant to me, and eventually some point in this will have my stance.

So, I never said you had to agree with the ship, but you guys cannot keep throwing out heavy terms without fully understanding what they mean, and what they insinuate. It’s slanderous and defamatory.

So while I perfectly understand your point, we’ve been told and showm that Sesshomaru did not only NOT raise Rin in any capacity, but we’re shown that:

it’s Rin’s choice to follow him

and toward the end of the journey, where she dies again, Sesshomaru regrets ever bringing her along because her life, up until then, was not treated as preciously as it should’ve been. In fact, it’s not only arrogance on his part of his own power, but because truly, he does not help her in any real way UNLESS she calls out for his help

because Sesshormaru’s overall capacity to care for another person is not great at all. As simple as I could make it, he is selfish, but that’s the point of his story. That’s why there’s bigger meaning than romance in Kagura’s death, Rin’s second death, losing his arm by the Tessaiga, and literally every plot point he’s given to humble him — which we learn by Rin’s second death, was STILL not enough even DESPITE everything. That’s his flaw until he learns Toga’s real intentions with the swords, where he wasn’t given anything but the task to help Inuyasha.

So, besides knowing Rin as a child, explain to me where does the actual grooming take place? Or is that just a term being used because Rin’s only a child in your mind, and we just haven’t gotten backstory yet?

Because beside those two important characterizations to provide context; Sesshomaru doesn’t go out of his way to provide for Rin until the kimonos, which the idea of it doesn’t get sullied because they ended up romantic. It can for personal opinion (which you’re free to have), but it doesn’t because it can be explained with Kaede living humbly as a priestess, Rin literally having nothing coming to live in the village, his amends for always putting her life in danger, or just simple gifts with no obligation (which would make more sense since that was the nature of their companionship — never obligation but choice). There’s so many reasons before the conclusion of him expecting anything from her in return, especially any romantic or sexual interest in him.

Nonetheless, the interview tidbit of Sesshomaru struggling to pick out another kimono to match Rin’s likeliness is cute and get romanticized (which is normal if you ship them, even just as adults); but it also implies that he rarely sees her and that she’s always aging/growing considerably from the last time he actually does visit. Meaning, in the those three years Kagome was gone and the following handful of years that she stayed, he didn’t travel with her or keep in close contact (which makes sense if he and Kirinmaru were heading their underworld empires at the time).

(Nevertheless, if we’re going off that tidbit, then it’s Jaken that has to do the actual hunting and buying of fabrics LOL. Let’s be realistic, Sesshomaru is not going out of his way for menial things, even if it’s for Rin.)

Anyway, I feel like I don’t need to explain what child grooming is since it’s said so much, and I will always completely understand CSA survivors who just don’t like the idea of SessRin because Rin trusts Sesshomaru and now there’s a strong possibility that they’re romantically involved. I’m never void of my empathy to force them to feel either way about a fictional ship.

I also understand the harm of promoting art that suggests any romance while they were traveling together — and trust me, I can guarantee you that the MAJORITY thinks it’s weird, so don’t generalize everyone just because of select few; just as I won’t generalize people who don’t like the ship as anti’s who are harassing/trolling strangers every day because they think it’s a personality trait.

But nonetheless, because it’s misused so much, all we ask is stop using such heavy terms to describe a relationship when there’s plenty of evidence to disprove it. Child grooming is the act of creating an emotional bond with a child as an adult with the intention to abuse them, especially so, normalizing the idea of abuse so it’s seen as anything but.

Sesshomaru not only barely speaks to Rin despite traveling together, but he makes it no obligation to stick with him. Again, he doesn’t even give her food; and by the time the kimonos become a thing, they’re both leading separate lives.

The reason why shippers say it’s Rin’s choice is not because Rin is a child given the maturity to decide such things; they say that because Sesshomaru literally did not understand what her life meant, and because of his arrogance and ignorance, never goes out of his way to make important decisions concerning her life, which is the point of the “Sesshomaru in the Underworld” episode.

So, please tell me where the abuse (or even the slightest inkling of an intimate relationship) is when he barely has an interest besides “she should live,” or “a child shouldn’t have bruises and wounds,” when they first meet. In fact, where is the evidence of any abuse at all? It’s alright for the ship to make you uncomfortable and for you to not like it, but do NOT use terms that do NOT apply, especially when they insinuate something heinous. That’s my only grief.

Furthermore, my entire thread is directed to those who still find use for Rin’s ADULT body (that would be existing during Yashahime) and go out of their way to make even WORST insinuations with unsupported theories — such as killing her, trying to justify r*pe just because “it’s not her soul” in her body, etc etc. If that’s not what you got from that, but instead only paid attention to “SessRin hate,” then that’s on you.

#in reply

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alarawriting · 5 years ago

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Sleepless

I have strong opinions about Nancy Kress’ Beggars series. They are not positive opinions.

There was an experiment, to create children who would not need to sleep.

Some people think such an experiment would create supermen, geniuses who would, for some reason, be unaging. Logic says otherwise. Sleep performs a function.

If you were such a child who does not need to sleep, what would you be?

You do not sleep.

You do not dream, and lacking dreams, you lack superstition. You don’t believe things just because you’re told them or because there seems to be some correlation; you need cold hard evidence.

This does not make you a brilliant inventor or a hard-nosed business person. What it makes you is a victim of analysis paralysis. Without hard facts to back you up, you can’t guess what might be true. When there’s a controversy and there’s evidence on both sides, you don’t know what to believe. You don’t accept things as true just because your parents say them, so you’re lucky to be alive after all the times you burned yourself on a hot stove or stuck a fork in an electric socket or jumped off a building because you wanted to confirm that what people had told you would happen actually would.

You’re good at debunking. You’re brilliant at finding bugs in code. You can find the flaws in a scientific study, and your merciless lens turns on academic and corporate research alike. But you can’t make anything. You don’t believe in anything you can’t prove, so fiction falls flat for you – it’s unreal – and you’re not terribly empathic, because human emotions from other humans who aren’t you is a thing you can never empirically prove. You aren’t creative – you can’t come up with inventions, you can’t innovate a brilliant new coding algorithm or prove a mathematical theorem no one has ever done before. You’re just very, very good at finding the flaws in other people’s creative products.

The autistic community embraces you as one of their own, though technically you are not autistic; you are something else. Your parents, wealthy captains of industry, are disappointed; they expected you to use your extra time in a way they would appreciate. They didn’t expect someone rigid, unyielding, someone who would demand proof of everything and whose analyses could easily disprove all the lies they used to convince themselves they were good and deserving people. You end up becoming a socialist because all the evidence suggests that, of the many ways humans can organize the distribution of resources, it’s the one with the best track record of causing less misery than the alternatives. You mock people who confuse socialism and communism. You are not above trading on your parents’ names and money to have a public voice, and you’ve become famous for your ability to debunk bad science.

You will not revolutionize the world, but you have a third more time than other people and you were born with money (the experiment that created you was quite expensive). You contribute to the betterment of humanity, in your way.

After the first generation of your kind are created, there are no more; wealthy capitalist parents do not want socialist children who can only tear down flawed structures built by others and cannot build anything themselves. Your own children, for those of you who have them, may or may not share your mutation. Eventually your condition is classified as a disorder, after your parents’ wealth has mostly run out late into your lifetime and the world has forgotten they respected you once. Humanity goes back to ignoring you and listening to superstition and tribal beliefs… because the ability to derive a pattern from a very small amount of data is the root of both superstition and innovation, and innovation turns out to be too important to give up superstition.

You do not sleep. But sleep performs the important function of re-organizing the memories acquired during the day and correlating them with each other, prioritizing some and storing others away in cold storage or even deleting them. This function was too important to do without, so your brain was re-engineered to do it while you are awake.

This means you’re dreaming, in a way, all the time, while you’re wide awake. It makes you very creative, but very unfocused. Some of your cohort actively hallucinate, but you can all generally tell the difference between the dream-things you see or hear or feel and reality; it’s just that the dream-things are vivid enough to capture your attention, most of the time. It’s a good thing there are self-driving cars, because you probably are not safe to drive yourself.

You are not a hard-nosed business person. Some of your cohort do come up with brilliant ideas for business, and because you have rich parents, they are able to get those businesses started… but all of you are too unfocused, too distractible, too deep within your own creative minds to be good at following the bottom line. Most of the businesses either fail or get sold to other companies run by people who can actually do business, but don’t have great ideas. Most of you go into art of some kind. Writing, visual arts, comic books, music… a few do movie or film, but none of you are at your best in collaboration.

The ADHD community embraces you as one of their own, though technically you do not have ADHD; no human could maintain a tight focus when ghostly images and snippets of dream are constantly playing in their minds. Because your family is wealthy, you get a personal assistant who helps you with the paperwork parts of your artistic career, and you get a publicist when you’re still very young, and the fact that you don’t sleep means you make the news just by existing. So your artistic career is successful, and your work is well-known, but artists don’t generally get rich; you live off your parents’ money until you get sick of their snide condescension because the ability they paid millions of dollars to infuse you with has a downside that means you will never be what they wanted you to be. Then you downsize your life expectations by a lot and live modestly off your successful art career. It helps that you can be very prolific, because a third of your life has been given back to you for conscious activity.

Some of the children of your cohort inherit the ability. Some don’t. Parents tend to fawn on the grandchildren who are pure human, Sleepers rather then Sleepless, because they’re the ones who could possibly inherit business empires. That’s fine. You try your best to raise your children not to compete with one another on the basis of whether or not they sleep, but kids will be kids and not all of the siblings get along.

After the first generation of your kind are created, few others are made; most wealthy parents want a child who can be good in business rather than a child who can be a brilliant artist, but there are those who like the feather-in-cap of famous, respected children who will be known for their creativity, so a small trickle of kids like you are born every ten years or so. When it happens it generally makes the news. You reach out to those kids when they turn thirteen to offer them your knowledge and life experience. When you encounter parents who have tried to cut their children off from your community out of religious belief or misguided belief in their own ability to mold and shape children, you bring child abuse charges against them. You’re not good with the paperwork but you are good with influencing public opinion, and most of you still have assistants or interns who can handle the paper part.

You don’t regret what your parents gave you, even if they do. It’s a good life.

You do not sleep. Where other people have a third of their life where the energy hog that is consciousness is shut down, and therefore the body has more free energy to carry out tasks like growth and immune response, you don’t have that. Your consciousness is always on, always consuming 80% of the free energy your body has.

You’re thin. You can eat anything you want, but it burns off of you because your body needs so much energy. You are often tired. You can’t sleep to replenish your energy; you can rest, unmoving, but consciousness is still on even if you’re meditating or vegging out in front of the TV. When you get sick, you stay sick for a long time. You get sick a lot. It’s not enough to consider a chronic illness, but it drains you. It makes it hard for you to hold down jobs, because you don’t sleep but if you feel too miserable to go to work it’s just the same as if you slept through your alarm and never went in.

You have more time than chronically ill people; there are advantages to having 8 extra hours in a day. Most of you live off your parents’ money and do things like volunteering and activism when the work that needs doing are things like stuffing envelopes or reaching out to people on the phone, or you became independent contractors so you could make your own hours.

You take your vitamins, you eat healthy, you exercise when you have the strength for it. Maybe it helps a little bit; you can’t really tell, but it makes you feel like you’re doing something to improve your life.

Your parents sue the people who created you, because seriously, wasn’t “people who live an extra third of their day need more energy to survive” predictable? They lose, because they signed a lot of waivers. You didn’t sign any waivers, so some of you try suing, and win.

No more are created after your original cohort, largely due to the lawsuits; no one’s willing to make more of you. It’s just as well. You make the best of your life, but to be honest, you long to be able to sleep – to engage in a kind of rest where you aren’t bored, and your mind invents interesting stories to show you, and when you get up you actually feel rested and energetic? (People who sleep tell you that that second part doesn’t happen. You retort that that’s because they don’t sleep enough, and if you had the ability to sleep, you wouldn’t waste it by staying up late and waking up early!) You wish for that with all your heart, but you can’t have it, and you know it.

By the time you’re in your forties, the activism of you and your cohort has gotten your condition declared a disability, and many of you have been campaigning for disability rights for years, since you recognize the similarities with your situation when people suffer fatigue disorders or other vague and amorphous conditions that make them tired all the time. So when some of your children are born as Sleepless, you’ve changed the world to make it easier for them to maximize their own capabilities, and they get a little more done than you were able to do. And really, isn’t that what we all want for our children?

You do not sleep, and it’s perfect. You were re-engineered for a faster metabolism so that you can supply enough energy to your body and brain for the extra hours of consciousness. Your brain was re-engineered so that you don’t need to go offline and have fifteen minutes of dreaming every hour and a half for eight hours; you just need to enter an optional, meditation-like rest state for one or two hours every five days or so to get the same results. You are every bit as creative and every bit as capable of focus and have every bit as much energy as the average Sleeper, but you have eight more hours a day to do it in (except for every five days, when you only get six or seven more hours. Still a huge advantage.)

Your parents are wealthy – no one who didn’t have millions of dollars to spend on a designer child was able to make their child a Sleepless – so there are no barriers to your success. You get your education completed early because you had extra time; you developed friendships with children older than you, because those were the ones who were awake later in the evening; you learned how to make use of solitude, and all but the most introverted of you can spend most of the daylight hours interacting with people and still get a lot done at night. Whether you choose to be a scientist, an inventor, an artist, or an entrepreneur, you do well. Your parents’ wealth and your fame for being born as an exotic designer child amplifies your ability to do whatever you want.

With so much success and so much extra time and so much experience socializing, most of you find relationships and have kids before you’re 30. Some of your kids have the trait, some don’t. You try, as best as you can, not to favor the Sleepless children over the Sleepers, but it’s hard not to be frustrated at the lack of productivity your Sleeper children have.

It’s when your cohort is in its 30’s and 40’s that you learn what you really bequeathed your Sleepless children, and what your parents bequeathed to you.

A faster metabolism burns out a body faster. In your 30’s you look 30 but the aches and pains and development of chronic illnesses like diabetes are accelerating faster than they do for Sleepers of equal socioeconomic status. In your 40’s the decline accelerates; you look 50 at 45, 60 at 50, 70 at 55.

Members of your cohort start dying of old age in your 50’s. You realize you aren’t going to make it to 65, and that your Sleepless children, already in their 30’s, have much less time than you or they or anyone thought they did. In the end, you didn’t get more time than anyone else; you just got to take it all at once instead of spreading it out over time.

Many of your parents are still alive, the excellent health care that the wealthy can afford keeping them going at 80-something. You’re rapidly catching up with them, and the best medical care in the world can’t stop it. Some of you rant at your parents, or sue the company that made you, but you don’t. How could anyone have known? It didn’t happen to animals in testing, but rat lives are so short to begin with, perhaps it disappeared into data noise. You know your parents only wanted the best for you, just like you only wanted the best for your children. You reconcile with your Sleeper children, who are a trifle embittered at what they see as the favoritism you showed their Sleepless siblings, because you’re dying and they still love you even if you weren’t the best parent you could have been. Your parents apologize to you, and you forgive them. Your Sleepless children visit you constantly, knowing that you are their future, that what’s happening to you is what lies ahead for them.

You’re 62 when you die, after many surgical interventions and a decade of the best prescription drugs money could buy. The creation of more like you is made illegal a year later, but not before every parent rich enough to do it has had a Sleepless child for the past six decades.

While so many of the wealthy are dealing with the impact of Sleepless shortened lifespans and how very many of the wealthy are affected by it, society finally passes laws that redistribute income in a way where very likely, no one in the future will be able to afford a designer child for several million dollars anyway, even if it hadn’t been made illegal. Out of so many personal tragedies, the standard of living rises and the general health and happiness of the population improves. If you were still alive, you might have considered that a positive legacy.

#nancy kress #response fic #libertarian science fiction is often not very good #alara gets salty about published novels

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coquetteblossom · 7 years ago

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Hi! I was just thinking about the V route today, and I realized that Yoosung's basically the biggest Rika stan ever: seriously, practically everything he says in regards to V and Rika has been said by Rika stans at one point or another. My question is: was that on purpose? Part of me doesn't think that it is, because it could simply be the writers taking his Rika worship to the logical conclusion, but I can't help but think that the similarities are eerie.

Really mild spoilers for Another Story.

… Oh my, nonnie. You’re asking the difficult questions here.

I’ve been trying to avoid getting in The Discourse regarding this particular topic because it’s a kind of negativity/toxicity that I don’t wish to feed, either by criticizing or by commenting. However, I will try to address this as neutrally and politely as I can while trying to skip the, uh, more controversial parts of the whole debate.

When you ask me if it was on purpose that Yoosung’s arguments mirror those of Rika apologists’, I suppose you mean to ask if Cheritz intentionally borrowed those fans’ arguments in order to include them in the game proper and offer criticism. If that’s so, then my answer is a clear and blunt no.

Cheritz takes feedback from the fandom and I’m quite sure they remain in touch with what we all want: They recognize the characters we love/hate, they are aware of the memes and sometimes even include them as a nod to the fandom, but no individual, or group of individuals, are important enough to be included in the narrative or to even influence the direction the story takes.

Now, it is not a coincidence that Yoosung and certain apologists have eerie parallels, because both have the same motivations and make the same mistakes when analyzing Rika.

Now, I’m not talking about Rika fans nor anything like that, she’s an incredible character and antagonist. I’m talking about the fans that are in denial about Rika’s crimes and mistakes, and are dead-set on reinterpreting canon in order to favor a particularly one-dimensional and flat-out wrong perception of Rika… Like Yoosung was, at one point.

Let’s mention the similarities:

Yoosung and certain apologies have already formed a favorable mindset regarding Rika for multiple reasons. In Yoosung’s case is how much Rika motivated him to become the person he is right now, while for certain apologists this might be because they identify with a confirmed mentally ill character and her plight, because they are attracted to Rika, because they agree with her worldview, because of empathy, or a combination of all.

This mindset is set in stone, and subsequently any new bit of information that they get either fits this mindset and it’s assimilated quickly, is bend to an impossible degree so it can fit as well (even if the original message gets lost) or it gets discarded and ignored, if so happens that said information doesn’t suit their needs. This phenomena is called confirmation bias and it’s surprisingly common everywhere.

When we (and I mean ALL of us) grow fond of a character, or a person our emotions are involved and not exactly the logical parts of our brains, so Yoosung and the apologists’ protective/in-denial mindset towards Rika is emotional, not logical, therefore you cannot make them change their minds with words and logic unless they themselves make the choice to stop feeling the emotions that encourage said fondness. Only an individual epiphany can stop this behavior.

Subsequently, when faced against a fact too big to ignore that absolutely proves them wrong about something deeply emotional for them… Things don’t exactly go down the logical way. When Yoosung said that “Maybe Rika had a good reason to harm V’s eyes” or when an apologist says that “Rika did not abuse V, because he pondered what it was like to be blind and she only gave him what he wanted”, they don’t say it because it’s a logical conclusion they believe in (odds are that in a different context both would agree that “there is no excuse to physically assault your partner”), but they say it because they are getting cornered and, since they are deeply emotionally involved in their mindset regarding Rika, they feel attacked and can, and will, resort to irrationality to push a point if there is no rational argument that can possibly back it up.

The use of an scapegoat, in this case V, in order to take off Rika’s shoulders the mantle of antagonist. If V takes the weight of all of Rika’s actions she will be free to avoid responsibility for her morally reprehensible actions. The fact is that some really shady stuff happened, and since these issues cannot be ignored (as they’d prefer), the only option is to pass the burden onto the next person most involved, and that is V. In order to do this, Yoosung and the apologists resort to what I described in Point 2: Accept the information that fits their mindset, bend the information that they can bend so that it is more in-line with what they want, and ignore any contradictory information that might disprove them… Sometimes even resorting to fictional possibilities in order to do so.

The difference between both sides, though, is that Yoosung eventually comes to learn and understand that Rika and V are unreliable narrators. That is, he managed to stop his emotions from clouding his judgement. He loved Rika, he was depressed about her unresolved death, and he channeled his grief by remaining in denial and blaming V. But eventually… Yoosung recognized that he couldn’t let his emotions blind him to what was happening right in front of him when the facts where so overwhelming. He realized that he cannot trust V when he says everything is his fault, and that he cannot trust Rika when she says everything is V’s fault, because they both give an unreliable account of the events.

Yoosung looked at the facts in the face, glanced at the evidence and, despite his grief, got the courage to accept Rika for who she was instead of idealizing his mental image of how he thought Rika should be.

I believe some folks can learn a thing or two from Yoosung.

#mystic messenger #i truly try to avoid the Discourse as much as I can but lmao.........#you cannot run you cannot hide #isis' asks #isis' anons #mm spoilers #mystic messenger spoilers #mysme spoilers #v route spoilers #mm analysis #mm discussion #long post

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ywhiterain · 7 years ago

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The Originals Did Fine Without Klaroline

You might be saying, WR, give @candyumbrella a rest and finish up your InoSaku or other lady centered meta that’s been requested. But. No.

Also. This is way more fun than reading about eating disorders for grad school.

First, here’s a claim:

So TO wasn’t created out of love for Klaus, really it was created FOR STEFAN at Klaus’s EXPENSE. Here’s the thing. This is a wilddddd as fuck claim. My personal interpretation is that The Originals was created because TVD was pretty successful for a CW show and The Original family was quite popular so Plec was like ‘Hey, execs, let’s expand our universe a la Arrow’ and considering that Arrow/Flash/Supergirl/Legends are all doing pretty well the execs were like ‘let’s give it a go’.

Evidence: there is money in expanded universes. See: DCU and MCU. $$$. Also, Universal. Arrowverse is doing pretty well, for the CW.

I could probably go further and look around and see what was officially said and done during the time. But I’m much too lazy and this is the least interesting part of her argument for me. I only bring it up to showcase how badly @candyumbrella makes her point. She simply claims that The Originals was made at Klaus’ expense because that matches her theory. But Ted Structure isn’t commonly accepted theory like Three Act Structure. For more on theory in fiction, watch Lindsay Ellis argue the power inherit in the three act structure for studying film.

For a theory as flimsy as the Ted Structure, she’s gonna need to do more groundwork than she’s done. I’m going to take her post, here if you want to read it, in order to explain why I think her argument as it stands is flimsy. Also, misogynistic.

To be clear: I’m not saying any of this was CONSCIOUS for Plec. I don’t think it was, at all. This is a neat trick on Candy’s part. You see, it’s really hard to argue about the unconscious. No one can completely discard everything Freud said - because how the fuck can disprove the psychosexual stages of development? It’s really hard to figure out what’s going on in an infant’s brain and to figure out how that impacts mental health in adulthood. We haven’t really figured that out yet. What current psychologists do, instead, is attempt to create a theory using something that is falsifiable. A hypothesis. Then this hypothesis is put into a larger framework.

Example: thoughts, feelings, and behaviors inform and influence one another is a theory in cognitive psychology. A hypothesis to test this theory is to set up an experiment where a group of people have their automatic thoughts (def: does what it does in the tin) through Socratic questioning over the course of a month or so and another group of people not go through the Socratic questioning. Do a pre-test/post test scale measuring people’s self esteem. If those in the Socratic group have more self esteem, it supports the underlining theory that guides all of cognitive psychology.

Here’s what it doesn’t do: prove that the cognitive view of psychology is correct. Contemporary social science proves nothing. We create theories with evidence. What we know now will likely be proven incomplete, as history has shown (example: Newton’s Laws have been modified by Einstein’s work).

Why a I getting into theory about psychology? Because that’s Candy’s trick. We can’t prove or disprove what Plec’s unconscious motives are. If she said that Plec created The Originals to prop up Stefan than disproving that would be easy: just ask why Plec developed The Originals.

Unconsciousness, and by that Candy means implicate bias, is really tricky to study. It’s there. We can, say, conduct a study’s looking at how people of color and women are perceived and treated in an experimental study. But our conclusions are going to be more general like: people do perceive Black faces as more threatening than White ones using this criteria. We’re no going to be able to say exactly how or why this happens except in context of broader theory developed by the likes of bell hooks.

In short: creating academic theory to explain a phenomena is a lot of work. And Candy isn’t even doing the really easy shit like I did in the beginning of this post.

Stefan’s endgame shows she’d gone off him by the end of TVD, but this was years before that, when he was still fundamentally her highest priority. Stefan saved the world. He got to molest Elena’s hair. Lexi was waiting for him after death. The very last scene is him finally getting his beloved big brother to come home to him and hug him. I think that’s a pretty neat ending for a secondary main character.

Do you agree with my interpretation? Maybe. Maybe not. But my subjective interpretation demolishes her argument because my view of the ending supports that Plec loved Stefan and gave him a hero’s ending. In order to account for my interpretation of her Universal Theory of TV, Candy’s gotta account for it somehow.

And the block to admitting Caroline as Klaus’s Robin was rooted in respect for Stefan’s opinion and values, and resistance to Klaus’s values superseding them in any way. Tell me, again, how TVD bends to Klaus’ point of view?

They went for Klayley first, but then backed off and kept it platonic. It was a one night stand between two people who didn’t really like each other but had fun bantering. It produced a baby. Klaus and Hayley then spent four seasons getting to know each other, learning to care about each other, and learning how to parent Hope properly. Klaus and Hayley’s parents failed them, they are doing their damnest no to fail Hope. That is Klaus and Hayley’s story. Don’t agree? Tell me why. Use the text to argue, like this:

3x01, Hayley is cured from the curse Klaus put her under. For three months, Hayley wasn’t able to be with her daughter. Klaus put his need for revenge over Hope’s need for her mother. Hayley is enraged - not just because she was cursed - but because Klaus betrayed the understanding they had: they would do better for Hope. She turns around, and sees Hope walking. She missed Hope’s first steps. Klaus took that from her. This scene showcases the themes of parenthood and trust that run between Hayley and Klaus’ story.

They tried Klamille but the Tobin-block of Klaroline made it lukewarm and unthreatening—it fails all the Tobin Rules—which is why so many people who resent KC are willing to co-ship Klamille, even if Cami isn’t their fave girl Uh. Wow. No. I found Klaus/Cami serviceable enough but worried about Cami’s agency not being addressed as Klaus manipulated her and pushed her at Marcel. The turning point was Cami using the code she built with her dead twin brother to figure out how Klaus has been abusing her and frees herself. My favorite Klaus/Cami moment is when she’s trying to make the choice about becoming a vampire or not - she knew who she was as a human. She wasn’t sure who she would be as a vampire.

Look, the text failed Cami, I think, by killing her. But Cami consistently had moments of agency and her own story to tell. Her brother being cursed and murdered defined her professional choice to be a counselor - she wanted to help fix trauma. She wanted to fix herself and how much it hurt not to have her brother around. She was drawn to Klaus because she was drawn to toxic people. Her brother seemingly murdered innocent people for no reason, Klaus is a monster who murders people for the pettiest of reasons. Maybe she finding Klaus’ humanity will help her find her brother’s. It did. He was cursed against his will.

I liked this story. I feel like The Originals lost a lot when Cami died. Her knowledge and perspective about trauma added to a story that’s ultimately about generations of abuse.

Not everyone had this reaction Many people hated Cami or didn’t care. But why is their reaction more important than mine in determining TV magic?

though legit the only block people have against KC is that it didn’t start in the pilot and they think Caroline is too ~lowly to be that important, LOL Uh. No. I think Klaus’ random interest in Caroline was a knock on the writing of his character. Caroline’s beautiful reaction in season three WHAT THE FLYING FUCK was fantastic. I don’t think Klaus and Caroline were a bad ship because Klaus is too good for Caroline - I think it’s a badly constructed ship because I have no idea why the fuck either of them are drawn to each other. These days, I’ve developed a fond distaste for them because Klaus’ thirst has become hilarious to me. I’m here for Klaus crushing an indifferent Caroline. It’s not the story I wanted from them, but I’ll take what I can get.

My block for K/C is my feminism and taste for well narratives that work in context of the story being told. Caroline is way more important to me as a character than Klaus, who I only started liking as a character in his own right because of his fumbling love for Hope. I was here for Caroline with her tone deaf reaction to Elena’s grief in the pilot. She was a character who made an impression by her merits alone, and not because he was a threat to my favorite.

My personal interpenetration of Klaus and Caroline debunks Candy’s entire thesis of why some people are cold on the ship.

Consider what significance the ship must’ve had in the writing room—and how large it must’ve loomed over everyone there—that a writer would tweet something like this upon leaving the show. He’s finally ALLOWED to say he loves Klaroline. LBR they knew on some level it was the key. Plec just didn’t want it to be true, and she didn’t love Klaus enough to admit it.

Or his tweet about Klaus/Caroline was made in context of a light hearted letter. The use of hashtag here significance he was speaking in jest. He may be rooting for Klaus/Caroline - doesn’t mean he thinks he was seriously silenced.

And that’s why TO has faded so much over the years. Because it was a show that didn’t love its Ted ENOUGH We’re getting another season. I just. What. Explain the metrics of fail/success please.

Even much the shipping for Klamille and Klayley is a reaction to Klaroline on some level–a huge chunk of it is “At least she’s not Caroline/At least she keeps Caroline from getting Klaus”

Naw. Before I was a full on shipper, I still appericated Klaus/Cami because there was effort. I got why Klaus was drawn to her and Cami him in the text (her way of thinking caught him by surprise and validated his humanity; she had a psychological need to see his humanity because of the circumstances surrounding the death of her brother) as opposed to my fanwank for Klaus/Caroline (she looks like Rebekah; her untreated trauma related to Damon makes it hard for her to separate abuse and love).

It’s what led to Jackson being killed off so early, whereas if the writers had felt him as a romantic foil for Klaus then that story would’ve gone on and on

Uh. The show I watched had a Jackson/Hayley/Elijah triangle. Klaus’ main reaction to it all was to tease Hayley about banging his big brother/wanting to see them both happy as they grew closer. Also Jackson helped protect his precious Hope.

It’s why TO has increasingly sacrificed Klaus and Marcel and Davina to the Original Family. Which is why they had such a lovely reunion when Davina came back to life. OH WAIT.

CORRECT instincts in initially sidelining Bex and Elijah ASAP Claire Holt didn’t want to be a series regular. They still brought up Rebekah all the fucking time and brought up a body hopping plot. I would agree that Elijah’s arc was poor in season four - but I would argue that it was uneven or poor for everyone in in season four, save Vincent. My belief is being because the writers were trying to condense a 22 episode arc into half the time. But maybe them just not loving their Ted was the reason. You decide, audience of mine.

Bex and Elijah drag Klaus down because they’re dull, uninspired flops.

Elijah is the main reason Klaus wasn’t killed in season two because everyone loved Daniel’s portrayal. Elijah is a fan favorite. Rebekah leaving in the show was meet with a whole lot of sadness from my corner of fandom. Elijah and Rebekah are flops to Candy. Not to everyone.

What’s the plot development that did let him disregard his siblings’s safety? The Krossover in S7. Because briefly, he got his Tobin back again. The crossover, where Klaus showed that he’d grown beyond his selfish desire to have Stefan’s complete devotion and loyalty by a) saving Stefan’s life and getting his big sister to help, b) showing concern for his suicidal devotion to Damon, c) wishing him well. In response, Stefan helped save Klaus’ life and actually opened up to Klaus in a way we haven’t seen him do since the 20s by speaking openly about his feelings for Caroline. Look, Caroline and Klaus had a moment. I think it was pretty good. Because it built on the themes in Klaus’ character arc. Klaus got good moments with his vampire babes in Mystic Falls because he’d grown enough as a person to treat them as people instead of objects.

This is great news for Klaus/Caroline. But it was good for Klaus’s character and his relationship with Stefan too. Despite everything he put Stefan through, there was a sense that Stefan was warming back up to him.

Strategically speaking the wisest commercial decision for her would’ve been to concede Caroline to Klaus’s spinoff– The fuck does Caroline want with Klaus and the family who has terrorized her and the people she loves the most in world? Shoving Caroline onto The Originals just so Klaus could get the girl he wanted would be treating Caroline as a prop way more than we ever got in TVD.

Look at all the conversation around Gossip Girl, at the 10-year anniversary of its premiere. The main thing people remember about that show are Chuck/Blair and Dan being GG. What people remember about The Office is Jim and Pam. What people remember about Cheers is Sam and Diane.

What people remember about Buffy is that it was a breakout genres show embracing feminist themes. What people remember about Avatar is fantastic world building and characterization. What people remember about Xena is delightful camp and lesbian. What people remember about Dawson’s creek is Dawson’s cryface:

Gossip Girl is much derided, not because of endgames themselves, but abuse apology, a plot twist so bad it’s hilarious, misogyny in general.

Plec could’ve had one show driven by a Humanity Tobin and another driven by Vampire Tobin, done and done

Except, the story that Plec wanted to tell was about Klaus and the Original Family. And that’s no crime. Five seasons for a spin off show on the CW is a pretty good mark of success in my opinion.

#the originals #tor meta #klaus mikaelson #caroline's way too good for klaus #i mean #come on #what #tvd meta #JAKE GETTING INTO CASSIE: THE POINT OF ANIMORPHS #ted structure monkey magic

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gyrlversion · 6 years ago

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R Kelly is booked on TEN counts of sex abuse involving underage girls

R Kelly is scheduled to appear in court for a bail hearing on Saturday morning after having been indicted and booked on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sex abuse.

The R&B singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, surrendered on Friday night at the 1st District Chicago police station, hours after the Cook County State’s Attorney office issued a no bail warrant for his arrest.

In a booking photo released by the Chicago Police Department early Saturday, Kelly can be seen wearing a basic black hooded sweatshirt and an exhausted expression.

Kelly arrived at the station in a large black van with tinted windows at around 8pm CST. He exited the vehicle wearing a puffy blue coat, entered the station house, was handcuffed and led away.

The 52-year-old did not respond as reporters shouted questions, including ‘Are you innocent?’ and ‘How do you explain the video?’

In response to a question about what he had to say ‘to the black women of Chicago,’ Kelly’s attorney shot back: ‘That’s an offensive question.’

R Kelly has surrendered to police in Chicago after a warrant was issued for his arrest on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. The R&B singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, is pictured in a booking photo released by the Chicago Police Department on Saturday morning

Kelly arrived in a black van at the 1st District Chicago police station around 8pm CT

Robert Sylvester Kelly, 52, is seen surrendering to police in Chicago on Friday night

The singer did not respond as reporters shouted questions at him

R Kelly turns himself in at 1st District police headquarters in Chicago on Friday night

Kelly was led inside the station, handcuffed by police, and led away for booking

Following Kelly’s arrest, his attorney Steve Greenberg addressed reporters outside the station.

He said that several of the charges are ‘double jeopardy’ because they ‘involve the same girl’ that Kelly was acquitted of producing child pornography with in 2008.

Greenberg went on to say that all of the accusations against Kelly, including those in the recent documentary Surviving R Kelly, are false.

‘I think all the women are lying, yes. This has become, ‘Hey I can say R. Kelly did something.’ Boom,’ the lawyer said. ”Oh I met R Kelly once, he looked at me the wrong way.’ Boom, money.’

Greenberg also blasted celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti, who said last week that he had turned over to prosecutors damning video evidence of Kelly performing sex acts on a 14-year-old girl.

‘I haven’t seen Avenatti’s tape,’ Greenberg said. ‘I wonder why [prosecutor] Kim Foxx isn’t investigating him for disseminating child porn and watching child porn, which I’m sure he’s done many times.’

Avenatti blasted back minutes later on Twitter: ‘Steve Greenberg is exactly what R Kelly deserves. Happy to be living rent free in this guy’s head.’

Singer R Kelly’s attorney Steve Greenberg denied the charges against his client, telling reporters that ‘all the women are lying’

Upon news of his arrest, some of Kelly’s accusers spoke out to express their gratitude.

‘When I first heard the news, I started crying because it was tears of joy,’ Asante McGee told WSB-TV in Atlanta.

She appeared in the Surviving R Kelly docuseries, in which she accused the singer of holding her in a Georgia home and abusing her six years ago – allegations that are unrelated to the criminal charges Kelly faces in Chicago.

‘To know that we finally got an indictment after two decades, after him getting away with the allegations, it was a joyous moment for me,’ McGee said. ‘Just knowing the things that he was doing to those young girls was really sickening.’

Kelly will appear in bond court on Saturday and then be formally arraigned on March 8, according to court records.

Records obtained by DailyMail.com reveal that most of the counts Kelly was charged with on Friday involved girls who were between the ages of 13 and 16 at the time.

The fourth, who claims that she was assaulted by Kelly in 2003, was over the age of 18 at the time of the alleged offense.

In a statement, Kelly’s attorney said the singer is ‘shell-shocked’ by the sex abuse charges.

Kelly has previously denied all allegations of assault and abuse through his lawyer.

Aggravated criminal sexual abuse is a Class 2 felony with a sentencing range of 3-7 years in prison. He faces up to 70 years behind bars if convicted.

These new charges come one week after the emergence of a rape tape that allegedly features Kelly and a minor.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx spoke about the charges at a brief press conference on Friday.

She went through the charges related to each of the four victims, using only initials to identify the women.

Got him: The incidents allegedly took place between 1998 and 2010, and is unclear if the grand jury is done hearing testimony and evidence in the case (Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx at a press conference on Friday)

Back to court: R Kelly (above at his 2008 trial) has been charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office

First was H.W., who was under the age of 17 between the dates of May 26, 1998 and May 25, 1999.

Kelly is charged with four counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for the alleged offenses involving that victim.

Those include an instance of ‘contact between Robert Kelly’s penis and H.W’s sex organ,’ an instance where the contact was with ‘H.W’s mouth’ and when ‘Robert Kelly touched his penis to H.W’s breast.’

The fourth count stems from the claim that ‘Robert Kelly touched his mouth to H.W’s breast.’

R.L. was involved in an incident which occurred between September 26, 1998 and September 25, 2001 when she was a minor.

That alleged incident resulted in two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse – one for ‘contact between Robert Kelly’s penis and R.L’s sex organ’ one for contact with her ‘mouth.’

The third victim L.C. was of the age of consent on February 18, 2003.

‘A grand jury returned an indictment of one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse based on the transmission of semen by Robert Kelly upon any part of the body of the victim for the purpose of sexual gratification during the course of the underlying forcible felony of Attempt Criminal Sexual Assault,’ said Foxx.

The fourth and final victim was identified as J.P., and the incidents she was involved in led to the final three sexual abuse charges against Kelly.

Those incidents took place between May 1, 2009 and January 31, 2010, and the victim was under the age of 17.

In that case there was ‘contact between Robert Kelly’s penis and J.P’s sex organ,’ ‘moth’ and ‘the transmission of semen by Robert Kelly.’

Foxx had made a very public plea for accusers to come forward last month, and there could be more charges to come.

This comes just one day after the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office announced that Jussie Smollett had been indicted by a grand jury on a single charge of disorderly conduct for falsifying a police report in a suspected hate hoax.

Illinois is just one of the states where there is an open investigation into Kelly.

Lawyers for the Southern District of New York have also been meeting with alleged victims as well as agents from the IRS and FBI while the Department of Homeland Security has also opened up a probe.

The alleged rape tape was submitted to the State’s Attorney’s Office last week by Michael Avenatti.

At the time, Avenatti said that he believed it showed Kelly and an underage minor whose age he guessed to be 14.

CNN then watched the tape as well, despite the fact that it is a federal crime to watch child pornography.

When asked if either party might be investigated for these actions, an FBI spokesperson declined to comment.

R Kelly has been charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving several victims including minors. He is seen above performing in 2016

This all comes in the wake of the Lifetime series Surviving R Kelly.

The six-part docuseries ended on a devastating note, with the parents of one of the young women who had run away with Kelly seen throwing rocks at his studio windows trying to get the attention of their daughter.

When they called Chicago police however, the members of law enforcement were not able to legally enter the property.

Kelly had yet to be hit with any criminal charges in the wake of the docuseries until Friday.

His manager however found himself in trouble with the law days after the series premired.

A police report filed in Georgia reveals that Don Russell texted and called Timothy Savage, the father of one of the alleged victims, to say it ‘would be best for him and his family if the documentary does not air.’

Russell later said that he and Kelly might have to release information that would destroy Savage, his family and his business.

Savage and his wife Jonelyn have been trying for years to get back their daughter Jocelyn, who ran off to be with Kelly shortly after meeting him backstage at a concert when she was only 17.

They believe that she is being held captive but the singer, but both Kelly and Jocelyn deny this is the case.

The report states that Savage called police shortly after 5am on the day of the incident.

The responding officer then arrived at the house before 5.45am, which is when Russell called Savage on the phone.

Savage was then able to put the phone on speaker so that the officer could hear everything that was being said by Russell.

‘Don says several times that Timothy is providing Lifetime with false information, and that is he continues supporting the documentary that they (R Kelly / Don) would be forced to release information disproving Don,’ reads the report.

‘Don advised Timothy that the information would ruin him, his reputation, business and family, because it would show him a liar.’

This is actually the second time one of the singer’s managers has threatened Savage, who previously filed a police report against James Mason.

There is now an outstanding warrant for Mason after he failed to respond to police when they asked to question him about the ‘threats’ he made to Savage.

The Savages first spoke out in an interview with BuzzFeed on in 2017 which contained worrying allegations that Kelly had been holding a handful of young women in cult like conditions and effectively treating them as his sexual slaves for years.

Some former members of his entourage vouched for their concern. Three separate women said they were all forced to subscribe to his rules.

They said they were told when to eat, bathe, sleep and had to perform sexual acts on one another which the singer then recorded.

Savage’s mother recalled painstakingly how she was present when her daughter met the singer as an aspiring musician herself after being invited backstage to a concert in 2015.

It’s not clear exactly when Jocelyn went to live with Kelly but her family say they have not seen her since December 2017. ‘It was as if she was brainwashed. [She] looked like a prisoner — it was horrible,’ her mother said.

The mother-of-three boasted about meeting the star again in January 2016. On Facebook, she posed with Jocelyn and the star along with one other women, telling friends how they were ‘in the studio’.

In her BuzzFeed interview, she said she thought it would be ‘fine’ for her daughter to spend time with the star if she was there to watch over her.

Jocelyn’s father Timothy believes she is suffering Stockholm Syndrome, a condition which sees hostages grow to love their captors.

The family contacted police after their daughter fled to live with the singer and told officers how he was running a ‘cult’.

Police visited the home where they said she was but it was empty. They then tracked her down in Chicago but she said she was fine and wanted to be left alone by her family.

Cheryl Mack, Kitti Jones, and Asante McGee – all former members of Kelly’s entourage – described in detail the sort of treatment endured by young women who find themselves pulled into the singer’s orbit.

A representative for Kelly spoke out at the time about the claims, saying the singer ‘unequivocally denies’ them and said he will ‘work diligently and forcibly to pursue his accusers and to clear his name’.

Earlier, Mack, Jones, and McGee said there are at least six women living in properties rented by the R&B star in Chicago and Atlanta. The ‘guest houses’ where the women are kept are near his home in suburban Atlanta, and his apartment at Trump Tower in Chicago.

‘You have to ask for food. You have to ask to go use the bathroom… [Kelly] is a master at mind control… He is a puppet master,’ Mack, who worked as the singer’s assistant, told the website.

The women, who said the ‘babies’ – as the girls are referred to – are required to call Kelly ‘Daddy’, then ran through a list of people they believe were living either at one of the performer’s properties in Atlanta or his Chicago recording studio last summer.

The first woman mentioned in the article was a 31-year-old ‘den mother’, who is reportedly responsible for ‘training newcomers on how Kelly liked to be pleasured sexually’.

The ‘den mother’ ‘had been best friends since high school’ with the person who was allegedly in the videotape that led to Kelly standing trial on child pornography charges in 2008.

Mack said many of the young women are sucked in by the singer because they think: ‘This is R. Kelly, I’m going to live a lavish lifestyle’.

In addition to the aforementioned control Kelly has, he allegedly demands the women ask his permission before leaving a room, are forced to wear jogging suits in public in order to keep their figures hidden, have their phones taken and are given new ones that are only allowed to be used to contact him or others approved by him, and have to deal with a ‘burly’ SUV driver parked outside his properties.

Both Mack and Jones said that if any of the women break the ‘rules’, Kelly ‘punishes them physically and verbally’. Jones recounted a time she angered Kelly by ‘being too friendly’ with the male cashier.

‘I got trapped. I had people telling me I was an idiot. But it took me a long time to realize they were right, and I’m talking now because I hope I can help some of these other girls,’ said Jones.

McGee added: ‘R. Kelly is the sweetest person you will ever want to meet. But Robert is the devil.’

The post R Kelly is booked on TEN counts of sex abuse involving underage girls appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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nicholemhearn · 6 years ago

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Winning Isn’t Everything

“You, sir, under historic scrutiny, were proven innocent.” Donald Trump to Brett Kavanaugh, Oct. 8, 2018

“The President addressed the comments back during the campaign. We feel strongly that the people of the country also addressed that when they elected Donald Trump president.” Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Donald Trump’s taped comments bragging about groping women, Dec. 7, 2017

“The White House response is that he’s not going to release his tax returns. We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care. They voted for him.” Kellyanne Conway, Jan. 22, 2017

——

Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, the Trump administration is trying to persuade its audience of a deeply pernicious version of “might makes right:” that a political victory counts as moral vindication. The case at hand is the idea that now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation by the Senate somehow disproves the allegations of sexual assault against him. Trump was unusually explicit about this on Monday, but expect to hear variations of it from him, other members of his administration, and the talking-points-reciting apologists in Congress and elsewhere for a long time to come.

No one actually, consciously believes that a political victory can prove the victor innocent of charges that were under dispute at the time. In any dispute about whom to elect or appoint to a public office, many different issues are in play and the decision-makers (voters, senators, etc.) might decide that a particular charge is true, or probably true, and yet outweighed by other considerations. Or the decision-makers might think the charge is false and be wrong about that, since the election or the confirmation hearing wasn’t a criminal trial and didn’t involve the careful presentation of all the evidence. (And even a not-guilty verdict at a criminal trial doesn’t prove innocence; it only says that proof beyond a reasonable doubt hasn’t been provided to the satisfaction of these jurors and/or this judge.) Stated generally, there’s surely nothing controversial about any of this. Treating an election or a confirmation vote as proof of innocence is an updated version of the superstition associated with trial by combat: If I were guilty, the gods wouldn’t have let me win.

And yet the repeated use of this kind of might-makes-right argument by the Trump administration doesn’t strike their audience as jarringly absurd. It resonates, and lends itself to easy repetition. Why?

Part of the answer, of course, is simply that this is the kind of thing Trump does, and does well. Big, absurd lies have their own value as demonstrations of power. The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent has been emphasizing since Sean Spicer’s term-opening lies about inaugural crowd size that the administration relies on a strategy of clouding the existence of a shared reality based on shared facts (remember Conway’s “alternative facts” or Rudy Giuliani’s repeated variations on Pontius Pilate’s shrugging question, “What is truth?”), with the effect of solidifying the Republican base’s resistance to any evidence of wrongdoing. That such nonsense “triggers the libs” is a bonus.

But some nonsense works better than others, and this nonsense both rhymes with some truths and rests on a very widespread kind of mistaken belief.

Trial by combat was an absurd method for discovering the truth, except insofar as the participants believed in it and guilty parties therefore didn’t see it through. I have no view on how widespread such belief was, but in at least some eras it probably resulted in better-than-random outcomes: The innocent were more likely than the guilty to use it, and half the time or so they were therefore acquitted. But its social value probably survived the loss of the associated superstition, and that value was to settle the matter. The ability to reach a conclusion is a key virtue in a legal system; the endless spiral of the blood feud can be replaced with a procedure that people can coordinate around as an end point.

The prohibition on double jeopardy in criminal trials provides a modern kind of closure and conclusion. The important doctrine of res judicata does the same in civil trials, preventing the same dispute from getting refought over and over again by losing parties seeking out new courts. There’s a real value to these rules, and res judicata has been metaphorically extended beyond the courtroom with the increased adoption of the word “relitigate” in political contexts — always as something that one should not do.

The metaphorical extension has something to be said for it. Max Weber cautioned us against treating political disputes — including war — as an excuse to assign guilt or to wallow in old feuds. “Everything else is unworthy and will enact its own retribution… Every new document that comes to light after decades have passed will revive undignified quarrels and stir up all the hatred and anger once more…”

He wrote these words while the Treaty of Versailles was being negotiated, and their warning not to compound the injury of loss with the insult of punishment looks wise in that context. The end of the next World War, though, teaches us that this wisdom has limits, and sometimes guilt is very important to determine indeed. And if this is true for wars — which, like trials, must be allowed to really conclude — it’s that much more true for ordinary political life that just always goes on happening.

The inchoate idea that election results reveal some kind of truth that can’t be revisited finds explicit defense in Rousseau: The losers of a vote learn that they were mistaken even about what they themselves wanted. But it neither began nor ended with him; the saying vox populi, vox Dei is well over a thousand years old. And when we remember that ancient Greek democracies relied on lottery rather than election (which was considered the tool of aristocrats), and that introducing an element of chance has a traditional association with a moment of letting the gods decide for us, we can see something similar to the superstition of the trial by combat at work.

There is an upsurge of interest in selection by lottery in contemporary political theory. I don’t really know what to think about that overall, but the part of it that appeals to me is that we don’t think about random chance the way the ancients did. Maybe we’d have a harder time mistaking the outcome of a coin flip for the vox Dei.

What I hope is that we can instead learn to see elections, referenda, confirmations, and similar moments in politics as just moments: contingent, filled with accident and chance, settling one question for the moment — who will take office? — but not drawing a curtain over the disagreements that preceded it. In a particularly important passage of his essay “Realism and Moralism in Political Theory” the late Bernard Williams wrote:

“A very important reason for thinking in terms of the political is that a political decision — the conclusion of a political deliberation which brings all sorts of considerations, considerations of principle along with others, to one focus of decision — is that such a decision does not in itself announce that the other party was morally wrong or, indeed, wrong at all. What it immediately announces is that they have lost.” This is precisely the victor’s modesty that was absent in, for example, Trump’s remarks on Kavanaugh. The opponents of Kavanaugh’s confirmation have lost. And that’s all that we should say for sure. Does it follow that relitigation can continue forever in politics, that there can be no closure? Not quite. We’re never done arguing about the political past: What caused this era of economic growth or that of slowdown? Was the war entered into too slowly, teaching us the dangers of appeasement, or too rashly, teaching us the dangers of warmongering? What groups have suffered which injustices that call for remedies today? Those questions of historical interpretation are always with us in current politics, and should be.

But in the normal course of healthy politics, criminal charges shouldn’t hang over everyone’s head. The urge to criminalize ordinary political disagreement is another species of the toxic belief that the democratic people naturally forms a united whole, a belief that the Founders struggled with in the era of the Alien and Sedition Acts but gradually overcame with the development of permanent party competition. Such ordinary political disagreement should normally be forward-looking: what each party proposes to do, informed by historical judgments about what programs have worked well in the past.

The problem is that preventing the criminalization of ordinary political disagreement must not be a barrier to the prosecution of actual criminal activity, whether it be sexual assault or tax evasion or perjury or the obstruction of justice. Nor may it interfere with retrospective judgments of misconduct in office of the sort that rightly generate impeachments, such as violations of the emoluments clauses of the Constitution. The idea that ordinary politics does not include the threat of criminal prosecution rests on the background thought that ordinary politicians are not credibly chargeable with criminal activity or abuse of office for such aims as personal enrichment. Matters are necessarily different when when procedural victors may also be, in their personal capacities, guilty of crimes. In such cases the reason for provisional settlement in ordinary political disagreement doesn’t apply (we’re not criminalizing disagreement); neither does the reason for provisional settlement after a trial apply (the question at hand hasn’t ever been squarely addressed by a competent body; it hasn’t been litigated the first time.) The reasons for provisional settlement provided by either trials or ordinary political disagreement don’t apply

Of course, claims that elections or procedures have stood in the place of vox Dei are that much more absurd when elections are won through technically legitimate rules that nonetheless endorse the second-place candidate in terms of vox populi, or when confirmations are provided by senators who represent a much less than a popular majority of the country as a whole. I believe they are absurd in any case — a nomination by a popular-majority president followed by confirmation by a popular-majority Senate still would not stand for vox Dei and would not constitute proof of innocence — but the absurdity is multiplied when what has taken place is really the equivalent of a series of coin tosses.

The boundaries to draw here are matters of judgment, not of bright-line rules. There is a genuine danger of procedural victors engaging in prosecutorial overreach to punish those who have only lost, and to create a veneer of criminal prosecutability to cover for it. But still, procedure is not substance, politics is not law or morality, and victory is not vindication. When the winners treat winning as res judicata, when the powerful proclaim that their gained-by-the-flip-of-a-coin power constitutes judgment from the heavens of their innocence, when they treat their might as making right, then we know we’re being lied to.

——

Jacob T. Levy is Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory and Director of the Yan P. Lin Centre for the Study of Freedom and Global Orders in the Ancient and Modern Worlds at McGill University; author of Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom and scholarly articles including, most recently,”Contra Politanism” and “Political Libertarianism;” and a Niskanen Center Senior Fellow and Advisory Board Member.

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natashabaker86 · 7 years ago

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Is Vaping Safe: What You Need to Know

The question of whether or not vaping is safe has been re-actualized recently, with numerous studies confirming that there are no significant short-term or long-term health hazards that can be linked to e-cigarette use. The public perception is also slowly changing – in 2015, nearly 37% of US survey respondents answered that vaping is a safer alternative to smoking, which is a marked improvement from 2011, when that percentage was only 11.5%.

Still, misleading research and clickbaity news headlines are muddying the waters, creating a perception that using e-cigarettes is not as safe as harm reduction advocates make it out to be.

Here’s just handful of headlines that brought vaping safety to question in 2017:

‘Teens Use E-Cigarettes for ‘Dripping, Study Says’

and…

‘Vaping: The Latest Scourge In Drug Abuse’

and even…

‘Man’s Face Blown Up After E-Cigarette Explodes While He’s Smoking It’

It’s not difficult to see how that type of reporting could affect the public opinion, creating barriers for people who could benefit the most if they decided to switch to electronic cigarettes.

Although these bombastic headlines seem to be subsiding in the last few months, they did real damage over the course of the year. They’ve gotten people to question vaping safety and planted that little annoying question inside everyone’s head: ‘Is vaping safe enough for me to go for it?’

What Do Scientists Have To Say About Vaping Safety?

The short answer?

Vaping is relatively safe, at least in the short-term, which was confirmed by numerous studies in recent years. In fact, the Cochrane Library, a non-profit that looks at reliable studies, issued their E-cigarette Report in 2016, which concluded that there are no noticeable short-term adverse effects associated with vaping.

As for long-term health effects of vaping, we are now getting the results of the first studies designed to examine them. The findings of a recent 3.5 year-long study concluded that vaping is unlikely to cause a significant amount of damage to the human body – no damage to the lungs, heart, or other organs was found even in test subjects who heavily vaped.

Regardless of these positive results, a puzzle remains: are we really aiming for a 100% vaping safety? Is that even the right question we should be asking?

The Importance of Placing Vaping Safety In the Right Context

Talking about vaping safety is pretty pointless without the right benchmark. What we should all be interested in is whether or not vaping is safer when compared to smoking. None of us would ever recommend vaping to a non-smoker so why take the question out of context in the first place?

Certainly, vaping is not without risks – inhaling anything other than air was not something our lungs were designed to do. But, does vaping kill? Here’s a challenge for you: go to Google and try to find information about someone whose death can be attributed to regular, common sense vaping.

Guess what? You won’t find it. However, google ‘woman struck by meteorite’ and you will find this article from the 1950s about a woman who was minding her own business in the comforts of her home before being injured by a rock from outer space.

Caption: As things stand right now, this is more likely than death by vaping – at least it happened in the past.

Are Vaping Devices Safe To Use?

In the last couple of years, we’ve seen some horrendous images of people’s close encounters with exploding batteries. Note the term – exploding batteries, not exploding e-cigarettes. There’s no such thing as a ‘vape explosion’, as these incidents are dubbed in the media. The only part of an e-cigarette that even has the potential to explode is the battery.

But, guess what – those same batteries are powering your laptops, smartphones, shavers, and tons of other things. Are you afraid of them, too?

All devices that use batteries should be handled with relative care, and vaping gear is no different. Carrying loose batteries in your pocket is a recipe for disaster. So is improper charging, using mechanical mods while still ignorant about how they work, or exposing the batteries to the elements. Just don’t do it. If in doubt, ask questions or, better yet, visit your local vape shop. When it comes to devices, the question is not is vaping safe; it’s what are you doing to make it safe.

E-Juice Ingredients Safety: PG, VG, Flavorings, and Nicotine

Although the above-mentioned studies clearly answer the question of vaping safety, taking a look at the safety of all the moving parts involved in it is still needed, for thoroughness’ sake.

Propylene Glycol – scientists have long ago determined that PG is relatively safe, even in its aerosol form, which is confirmed by several independent studies. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) did a study in relation to theatrical fog machines (which use PG) and found that PG doesn’t impair lung function or cause asthma. It does, however, act as a mild irritant of the upper respiratory system in some cases.

Vegetable Glycerin – another base liquid used in almost all e-juices juices, VG can also act as a mild irritant, but only in very high quantities. Same as PG, it can cause dry throat and increased thirst, both of which can be resolved by drinking a lot of fluids, especially in your early vaping days. Although further inhalation studies are needed, VG is safely used in inhalants.

Flavorings – all flavorings used in e-juices are food-grade, which means that they are used in food preparation and that you probably eat them every single day. However, very little research has been done in this area and it’s difficult to determine whether those same flavorings are safe for long-term inhalation. For example, flavorings used for cinnamon, spearmint, mint, cherry, and almond are known irritants (according to Yale University researchers). That said, this has not been proven in studies involving vaping. At this point, there’s a possibility that these flavorings could cause mild irritation, but that’s not certain. If you have any concerns about flavorings, vaping pure base with nicotine is always an option.

Nicotine – it’s becoming more and more obvious that nicotine has gotten a bad rep due to its association with smoking. Numerous studies have confirmed that it’s about as dangerous as caffeine. Nicotine can be used safely in reasonable concentrations (up to 36 mg) and the only consequence (if any) will be mild stimulation. The worst case scenario is that you overdose on nicotine, which would cause nausea, dizziness, headaches, and other mild symptoms, which are easily solved by simply taking a vape break. British Heart Association notes that nicotine doesn’t pose a significant health threat, meaning that it doesn’t cause cancer, heart disease, or other diseases. However, they do warn that people with pre-existing heart conditions should avoid it as it temporarily raises the heart rate.

The Alleged Toxicity of Vaping Debunked

Anti-vaping studies have been popping up occasionally for years now, but there’s one that did more damage than all others combined. It was the spark that lit the powder keg, since it was picked up by numerous media outlets, which lead to an immediate condemnation of the entire community. That study was done by Portland State University researchers and it was titled ‘Hidden Formaldehyde in E-Cigarette Aerosols’.

Catchy title, right?

It has everything – a dangerous cancer-inducing substance, strange-sounding words, and an implication that it was all somehow hidden from vapers, as if the industry conspired to poison everyone. The media ate it up and regurgitated it in even more vicious forms.

The study itself was debunked numerous times by health experts concentrating on vaping, such as Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos and Dr. Michael Siegel. While e-cigarettes can indeed produce formaldehyde, this happens under conditions that no vaper would intentionally recreate – by overheating the device and burning the wicking material. Once treated to one of these nasty-tasting hits, no vaper would endeavor to repeat the experience.

The next big hit for e-cig opponents was the alleged harmfulness of what they’ve named ‘second-hand vapor’. A lot of news sites picked up a story about how ‘second-hand vapor’ impairs indoor air quality.

Luckily, a recent study by the Center for Disease Control thoroughly disproves the theory that vaping can harm people who just happen to be in the same room as vapers. The goal of the CDC’s study was to measure the Occupational Exposure Level (OEL) to certain chemicals in a vape shop. The results clearly show that levels of VOCs, formaldehyde, flavorings, and PG, are well-below NIOSH permissible levels – in fact, levels for some were so low they were not even quantifiable, which makes them perfectly safe for humans.

Caption: Graph showing levels of Diacetyl and Acetyl Propionyl in a vape shop. – redo graph

Dr. Farsalinos went on record after one vape-positive study that concerned volatile organic compounds (VOCs), saying that it demonstrates that there are more VOCs in the air that people expel from their lungs than are formed with the use of an e-cigarette.

Is Vaping Safe for Vapers and People Around Them?

So far, all evidence points to vaping being safe for vapers and innocent bystanders who happen to find themselves engulfed in a cloud of sweet-smelling vapor. That said, further studies are definitely needed in this area because we still can answer ‘is vaping safe’ with a resounding, unequivocal YES, which is a dream of every hardcore vaper. Whatever the results of those studies turn out to be, they will certainly help the vaping industry set a new standard, either by continuing to use safe vaping ingredients and insisting on them across the board, or by finding alternatives that do not pose a health hazard to vapers.

The post Is Vaping Safe: What You Need to Know appeared first on Vaping Daily.

from Smoking News https://vapingdaily.com/blog/is-vaping-safe/

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kindergarchy · 8 years ago

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Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

It was a balmy weekday night and the two of us were sitting by the rooftop pool. We talked about death, about Singapore, where to go next in life. He said that he does not believe in anything but would like to believe that his grandmother is at some safe place beyond this planet. “It makes it easier,” he stared into the abyss. I do not deny that. Religions, make-beliefs: They make life easier. How could they not? Everything else is fleeting in life. But I still call majority of them a delusion… Something comforting that you cannot prove or disprove. Do I call these beliefs false? No, but it does not make them any truer. I’m simply not ruling out any possibilities. I’m just saying I don’t know. My reasoning is simple: To blindly believe despite the absence of evidence (except some inconsistent afterlife stories told by near-death survivors and holy books whose truth value is deemed to be inherent, ie it declares itself to be true that’s why it must be true) seems to me like an insult to human mental faculties. Why don’t I simply reject all religions or Gods proposed by them? Because absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. Maybe I’ll drive myself at a different conclusion as I dig deeper. But now I’m saying that I don’t know. Despite this explanation, I’m aware that this confession that simply acknowledges my not knowing would offend some even in this era.

If you can’t move past any discomfort possibly caused by that first paragraph, you can give this book a skip. If you find yourself at the other side of the spectrum, there lies another challenge. A big chunk of the first part of the book is spent on emphasizing the key difference between bogus spirituality and legit aka scientifically-backed spirituality. I think it is a tad overdone but I can understand the necessity. In the world where spirituality gains a difficult reputation in the science and/or atheist communities, there is a need to go an extra mile in order to gain credibility before presenting your arguments and their supporting evidence. And yet despite his effort, many still dismiss Harris’ attempt to illustrate the benefits of keeping in touch with your spirituality.

Not all religions are made equal: this statement makes its echoes at the beginning of the book. It’s not a secret that Sam Harris loathes Abrahamic religions almost equally, but mostly he criticizes the doctrines promoted by them. Many would consider his criticism offensive and loaded with prejudice, but I personally think his assessments are fair practice at gaining a deeper understanding on major religions. Putting all religions under the safe blanket of “all religions necessarily teach the same good things” or making a sweeping generalization like “the religions are peaceful, it’s the people that cause trouble” - I think, is an oversimplification. It seems harmless to make this assumption, but in reality the resulting damage can be significant.

I have long argued that confusion about the unity of religions is an artifact of language. Religion is a term like sports: Some sports are peaceful but spectacularly dangerous (“free solo” rock climbing); some are safer but synonymous with violence (mixed martial arts); and some entail little more risk of injury than standing in the shower (bowling). To speak of sports as a generic activity makes it impossible to discuss what athletes actually do or the physical attributes required to do it. What do all sports have in common apart from breathing? Not much. The term religion is hardly more useful.

The same could be said of spirituality. The esoteric doctrines found within every religious tradition are not all derived from the same insights. Nor are they equally empirical, logical, parsimonious, or wise. They don’t always point to the same underlying reality - and when they do, they don’t do it equally well. Nor are all these teachings equally suited for export beyond the cultures that first conceived them.

Making distinctions of this kind, however, is deeply unfashionable in intellectual circles. In my experience, people do not want to hear that Islam supports violence in a way that Jainism doesn’t, or that Buddhism offers a truly sophisticated, empirical approach to understanding the human mind, whereas Christianity presents an almost perfect impediment to such understanding. In many circles, to make invidious comparisons of this kind is to stand convicted of bigotry.

The common ground between religions, according to him, is that they are “addressing the same reality”. They provide views of “consciousness and the cosmos that is available to the human mind.” But when we look deeper, their paths start to diverge. The main difference is religions’ views on self transcendence: Abrahamic religions are dualistic whereas Eastern ones are not. When you “become one” with God, depending on which school of faith you adhere to, you are either enlightened or bound to be exiled. The idea of self-transcendence is one of the major focuses of the latter part of this book.

This difference has also allowed the author to cherry-pick “useful” elements of Buddhism practices, and honestly I could say that his approach to spirituality is the closest to mine at the moment. I believe that a clarity of mind will have a profound impact on quality of life, and that you can separate spirituality and religion. The former has been repeatedly proven empirically over the years, the latter is more of a personal attempt at having a better shot at well-being in life without the forced “truths” some religions require their true followers to wholly believe in.

He starts out by pointing out that the majority of sources for happiness are impermanent. Either they are impermanent in their existence - relationships fail, money comes and goes, recreational substances wear off - or in the duration of happiness derived from attaining them. People often cite possessions and material beings as major sources of happiness, and yet we know that we all have this human tendency to get bored at the speed of lightning. This is a widely known truth, and it’s discomforting. Spirituality, according to Sam Harris, provides an excellent alternative to attaining a healthier state of mind in the way that: 1) It does not depend on external factors, and hence 2) It is more stable and less fleeting. A comparison with stoicism crossed my mind upon reading this part.

Our minds are all we have. They are all we have ever had. And they are all we can offer others.

Being a neuroscientist, his approach is refreshing in a sense that he seems pretty committed to his venture into the glimpse of self-transcendence - which is often neglected even by those who believe in this experience, including me. He often travels halfway through the world to spend time with the gurus, which has helped his self-transcendence-related practices.

His occupational background means the gurus and their practices (even, as we read further into the book, his fellow scientist) are not exempt from close scrutiny. Being aware that the spirituality world is prone to abuse (the scheme of enlightenment programs that begs you for more and more money as you become closer to reach the final stage of enlightenment is not an alien concept, at least in this part of world that I’m living), Harris does not hesitate to reveal the dark side of enlightenment. He is also constantly critical of the various methods, pointing out the shortfalls and recognizing the fact that there are no perfect gurus or methods, only better ones (spoiler: Dzongchen is one of his favorites). Fortunately, according to him, the impossibility of attaining perfect enlightenment does not translate to futility - we can reap the benefits even just by trying.

Lastly, Harris talks about substance use. He mentions that the use of certain substances, in particular psychedelics, is ethically neutral - I am of the same opinion. He believes that it can show (not tell) you things you otherwise are unable to see/feel/experience, but it can also send you to a bottomless pit of despair. Unprecedented magic vs a full-blown, terror-filled psychosis. Their huge benefits do not mean that everybody should try them:

I have two daughters who will one day take drugs. Of course, I will do everything in my power to see that they choose their drugs wisely, but a life lived entirely without drugs is neither foreseeable nor, I think, desirable. I hope they someday enjoy a morning cup of tea or coffee as much as I do. If they drink alcohol as adults, as they probably will, I will encourage them to do it safely. If they choose to smoke marijuana, I will urge moderation. Tobacco should be shunned, and I will do everything within the bounds of decent parenting to steer them away from it. Needless to say, if I knew that either of my daughters would eventually develop a fondness for methamphetamine or heroin, I might never sleep again. But if they don’t try a psychedelic like psilocybin or LSD at least once in their adult lives, I will wonder whether they had missed one of the most important rites of passage a human being can experience.

I highly recommend the book, I think the topic of spirituality is never an easy one and often emotionally loaded. To glimpse it through the eyes of a rather wise neuroscientist helps make it a detailed and precise introduction to spirituality, detached but not cold. It is not a sin to want to believe in something more than the physical world - but it is better to do it in a way that is further from a comforting illusion. It is true that some negative emotions are often our brain’s way to tell us to solve problems or deal with certain situations, but we can try proceed to go for the solution without being accompanied by the unpleasant reminder. My friend might have to come to terms with his grandmother’s death, but he does not have to trick himself into believing that she is in a safer place now. Sam Harris might say that she simply ceases to be. Call me lazy or cowardly or skeptical or trying to play it safe, but for me it remains unchanged that I simply do not know.

PS: I also recommend this article from Big Think: http://bigthink.com/robby-berman/4-things-you-can-do-to-cheer-up-according-to-neuroscience

#waking up #sam harris #religion #spirituality

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