#elements of crime

[ferntern]

Sweaters

[glitter-stained]

In which I am perfectly normal about the Todd Family

One thing I really really love about the Todds (their og post-crisis introduction, not the flying todds or whatever bs recent comics have pushed through) is how they challenge us to question not only our classist prejudice and the way it frames our judgment, but also the moral weight we put behind concepts of abuse, neglect or crime.

Look. The Todds weren't "good parents". Maybe they used to be, when he was little; but there was a point after which Willis Todd didn't take care of his son because he simply was not there, and Catherine didn't take care of little Jason, instead parentifying him and putting an extraordinary pressure onto him as her caregiver. They both criminally neglected Jason and Catherine's death under Jason's care must have been pretty traumatic, after which he found himself completely abandoned.

But what does it mean to be a good parent? Is it to be a good person who is also a parent? Is it to be good at parenting skills? Is it to not abuse or neglect your children and provide enrichment and a good environment to grow in? Is it to try your best with what you have, and hope it's enough? Willis became a criminal because he needed money to feed his family and that landed him in jail, unable to care for Jason. Catherine, whether she died of overdose due to her substance use disorder or cancer or ODed as an attempt to self-medicate the cancer pains with heroin, was unable to care for Jason because of an illness (in the US, which has a horrifying medical system which is systematically violent to everyone but the ultra-rich) and had to rely on him for caregiving until her death. Does that mean they were bad people? Bad parents? Was Catherine a bad mom who tried her best, a good mom in an impossible situation, a good person who was neglectful and/or abusive but never wished to be? Does the concept of good parenting even make sense? Here's a secret about abuse: abusive parents very rarely wish to be. They often don't consider themselves so, explain their actions with justifications regarding their intent to give their child the weapons for a better life, or explain away the responsibility. But they're not wrong: if you're raised in a culture that tells you that beating your children is the way to help them get a better future, it's justified to blame and criticise the culture that told you this, and can you really be called a bad parent when you were only trying to help? Neglect is more frequent amongst the working class, and that statistics is neither a moral judgement nor a classist stereotype: it's merely the logical consequence of a system that fabricates scarcity. Of course you're not gonna feed your child if you don't have the money to feed them -and if you need to feed them and steal the money (or earn it by working as a gangster) to do so, it's a crime, and then you get caught and get sent to jail and can't feed your child anymore. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Jason, upon his introduction, is a stereotypical "bad boy", a young criminal, who steals and doesn't go to school. And tiny baby Jason, from his twelve years and three apple tall, sneers in the face of anticipated moral judgement and says fuck that you don't get to say that, I'm only doing what I need to survive and there's nothing wrong with it, I didn't have any other option that wasn't degrading and dehumanizing. And this is why I like Batman #408 so much: this character, who is so young and funny and cute and goddamn sweet, is introduced committing a crime against Batman; as an alternative to doing crime, Bruce puts him in a school/group home that teaches its students to do crime. How perfectly cool that is as an origin story? It's a literal school that makes criminals (and punishes you violently when you refuse to comply). Bruce was completely well-intentioned, he just wanted to help a wayward child, but when the system itself is fucked up, when the system is actively trying to produce crime, what option does Jason have but to escape again, and go right back to committing the same literal crime? And of course, Jason's trust in Batman-the system-the adults- is broken, to the point where he doesn't expect Batman to believe him and intervenes at the robbery himself.

So is Jason a criminal? Are the Todds neglectful? Yes. Does that make him a bad kid? Does that make them bad people? What about bad parents? How much easier is it to be a good parent, when you have the money to do so?

Anyway I love the Todd family I love the themes and critique they pose I love Ma'Gunn both as Batman's foil and Jason's introductory antagonist I wish Jason's Robin Run carried on exploring these themes I love you Catherine and Willis and Jason Todd I love you Batman #408.

[daisywords]

anyway my stance on "reading the classics" basically boils down to the fact that what is or is not defined as "a classic" is somewhat arbitrary, and therefore it makes no sense to treat "the classics" as some sort of uniform genre that you either like or dislike. Whether you liked Great Expectations has no bearing on whether you'll like 1984 or Rebecca or Pride and Prejudice or East of Eden or Frankenstein or Crime and Punishment. Because those are all vastly different books. "I don't want to read Classics; they're all boring and probably sexist or something." <<free yourself from the arbitrary category of "classic." It just means a lot of people liked the book. You might not. but you might. Treat it as an individual title.

[ask-artsy-oncie]

♡ Happy Family ♡

Loved the concept of them having a steam baby together, and the movie had such good use of color, so I wanted to draw them as an opportunity to try new things with my coloring!

[tennessoui]

Firstly, I need you to you know that don’t let me lose you to the rising tide has me weeping over the concept of unconditional love. Like it’s so interesting to me because I was rereading weeding out wildfires, and you really tease at this idea of “obiwan would forgive anakin anything” and in the context of that fic that felt so dark…like Anakin would murder his lover and he’d still forgive him, Obiwan has a massive blind spot, etc.

But the tone in this…idk, it’s just immaculate. Because I don’t know if I would say that Obiwan has forgiven him necessarily, but he still loves him. I went to catholic school for years, was raised Christian, and it’s always this concept that God loves unconditionally. (And then it get complicated in Catholicism because of moral sins and hell and purgatory existing etc etc) but you’ve just— you single handedly, in the space of that last chapter, brought me back to being 5 years old and believing in unconditional love and it’s just beautiful. (Complicated bc Vader, but beautiful.) reading this fic was truly a religious experience

Aw this is great because it is also one of my favorite flavors of Obikin at the moment: where obi-wan would forgive anakin for anything that he could do, wrong or right, on purpose or accidental, and anakin Has Feelings About That (Mostly Love In Return)

by the end of rising tide, obi-wan hasn’t really gotten around to addressing or coming to terms with any of the stuff that has happened in the fic, post-waking up. all he is sure of is that anakin is Vader and Vader is anakin which means that he is already forgiven—or if not forgiven, then not abandoned. still loved, still treasured, still missed.

Obi-Wan is going to bend his moral code for that boy and feel guilt and feel anger when he has the time to really process everything (and importantly, process it with anakin next to him) like everything anakin did as Vader, what happened on meyset, the war, what Obi-wan did by killing that soldier, etc etc

so I agree the forgiveness bit is a bit more complicated because these are very real crimes and choices anakin made and committed and that would need reckoning. But I think this Obi-wan would look at that as a side quest to the main undertaking which is Take Care of Him, and for the both of them their loneliest nights are behind them now

[sakiyaki-sashimi]

@lanternsandlightmares @sillystringstar how’re ur sideblogs coming along :333 when ur finished with them we can start the story, but no rush!!

[mtonino]

The Element of Crime (1984) Lars Von Trier

[dragonsinthedarkness]

In ep.IV they show us this embrace, this beautiful, beautiful and painful scene. Those few seconds hold such a deep meaning…and yet in that moment we do not know ANYTHING about it. So what? Is one supposed to see it and then go on with the show and forget about it, putting it in a corner of their mind with all those “you will understand later” things? Because that’s what happened, the first time I watched this season I completely forgot about it. And that’s such a WASTE! Pretty much all of the Flint/Miranda’s scenes in the first season are a waste, in a way. Please do not misunderstand me, I think those scenes are really amazing and I also think that the timing of the “great revelation” was perfect, I wouldn’t have liked it so much had it come before, and exactly for these reasons I’m saying that those wonderful scenes are “wasted”. Because a lot of those get lost in the first watch, since one can’t understand the importance of them still and so doesn’t even give them the right amount of attention they would deserve. Of course the mystery was intriguing, and something sounded pretty strange since the beginning, but still…STILL. Almost all of the scenes about the two of them or about Miranda kill me on rewatch, knowing their whole story. But that’s the thing, you have to rewatch it to get the complete beauty of them. And I think that’s a shame, because people who like the show but are not obsessed with it as I am would probably never rewatch it, but maybe, if they had remembered or rewatched at least those scenes, there would be one more chance for them to be as obsessed as I am with it.

Really, how beautiful this hug was? An “It’s over” kind of hug, but with a double meaning. It’s over like we put an end to part of our misery, venting our anger on the responsible for it, but also, it’s over like our old existences are over, and we will never be the same persons we used to be ever again. Which is pretty much what happens with every revenge (I’m not judging though). I just love it so much, I wish I had been able to see all of that since the first time I saw it.

[reverentwormpriest]

everyone in this show couldve saved a lot of time if they just called will graham the f slur to his face

[odaka-asuka]

“A group project? Awesome! I wonder what they’re all like!”

「 In Kamiyama High, met through a mandatory group writing assignment, 6 kids from different walks of school life eventually grow to befriend each other over their shared love of mystery and crime (In whatever form that takes!) 」

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Fan Unit: CIPHER: Elements of Crime

~ After they solve mysteries around their school together to feed their writing project, they realize it’s awful fun to crack codes together! When Renji steals a case file from his detective father’s office and see the state of the victims, the teens all abruptly realize how important it is to actually solve a mystery…

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“The Class Clown” - CASE FILE

Name: Okada Asuka

Age: 16

Sex/Gender: Any

Birthday: March 27th

Notable Relationships: Friend of all

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@miyamoto-yuri

@inoue-misaki

@tsukumo-tsubasa

@nakamura-renji

@utsugi-kyusaku

[sacredwhores]

Lars von Trier - The Element of Crime (1984)

[yinyuedijun]

I'll be honest I don't really care one way or the other about TB/FF, I am totally neutral on the matter. but I cannot believe hoyoverse set up the spiciest chemistry with Kafka ever and are not coming thru with it..... HELLO??

[helloeverything123]

What a night we had with this album last night! And in 1991.

[darling-stardust]

I'm writing a one-shot for Kelsey and Trudy rn and I had a thought, so I am putting my peachyville prediction out there now.

I want to trust Tucker. Really, I do, but I can't. I think he is with the group of people behind terrorizing the town, and before it even became what we know of the Peachyville Horror, human Trudy knew. It's what he does in the basement and when she needs to leave the house in the middle of the day.

And because she knew, Tucker got scared and either killed her, made a story that she went "upstate" or something, created robot Trudy to disguise his action to not raise suspicion, and is hiding this until the last minute

OR.

Trudy was not killed but was said to have "gone away", Tucker was working on a robot Trudy the whole time to not raise suspicion, and she is somewhere being held captive as a future sacrifice to further the horrors and leave robot trudy to still fulfill her wifely and motherly duties while she is gone, but she isn't perfect enough yet to make the lie possible and that is why the robot Trudys keep getting dumped.

Okay, thoughts???

[zyra-7]

Characters of my original book:

DARK FLAMES

Zelda Vance

"Why is everyone in this kingdom so goddamn stupid?"

"Me? I'm just chaos personified."

Elina Vance

"TMI, I can kill you and make it look like an accident."

"Everything would have burnt if I had stayed.."

Cain Rykar

"Apparently, according to that Vance, I have 'behavior issues'. Bullshit."

"The ocean doesn't like being restrained."

Silver Ruiz

"Don't be dramatic. The other Vance called me a drama queen! Can you believe it!?"

"Life is more fun if you just let the wind carry you.."

Jasper Walton

"If you don't want a sarcastic answer, then don't ask a stupid question."

"Stop grinning Zelda. We're at a crime scene!"

Craig Rykar

"Well, they're both hot."

"It's been so long since I laughed like this.."

Azalea Frenaz

"Darling I'm the Queen. Well, future Queen but still a Queen."

"Life is short. Smile while you still have teeth."

Solana Khaizo

"I may be heartless, but you're naive, sister."

"I was there for you, yet... You left.."

SO THERE'S MY CHARACTERS AESTHETICS!!!

[sakiyaki-sashimi]

CIPHER IS POPPING OFF THATS SO INSANE?!?!?! Like I’m getting followers that don’t even follow on main, I’m getting anons that already ship my OC (Renji x Ritsu/Renjitsu for the win!!!!) I have friends that already treat Renji like a blorbo, I’ve already posted on the sideblog 50 times, and I have 6 people already majorly in the AU, soon to be 7 and maybe even eventually 8!!!

Thank u so much for the CIPHER love 🩷🩷 maybe cipher isn’t about the elements of crime but the friends we made along the way /j