#rethinking incarceration

[doomdoomofdoom]

Kamala Harris does want "transgender surgery on illegal aliens that are in prison", btw.

So since Trumpists are getting mad enough about the jokes to actually cite their sources, I thought I'd put the source out into my left extremist commie faggot echo chamber, too.

The claim originates from an ACLU questionnaire she filled out for her 2020 presidential candidacy, specifically this section:

She wasn't given a new questionnaire for 2024, and has stated that while her policy on some things may have changed, her values had not. (This most likely means she moved more to the center to appease larger demographics and cut corners to reach compromises. The basic politician stuff.)

It boils down to this: If you're in prison, whether for "illegal" immigration or other crimes, you rely on the state to provide you with necessary amenities, like food and health care. Her argument isn't "hell yeah everyone in prison should get sex changes for free". It's "gender affirming surgery is a necessary medical procedure. If you are in the states care while this becomes necessary, the state should provide it." If you're outraged by your tax money being used on this, consider the massive amount of people being incarcerated in for-profit prisons, on your dime. Then ask yourself if maybe a prison reform might be in order.

Worth noting: In 2015, while Attorney General, Kamala Harris actually argued against providing gender-affirming surgery to an incarcerated trans woman, claiming that HRT and psychotherapy were sufficiently covering her medical needs. She has since obviously changed her stance and assumed responsibility. (I would like to take this moment to remind my fellow left extremist commie faggots that "willingness to learn and rethink your views" is infinitely more valuable than "perfect from the start and unwilling to listen to anyone")

Also found in the source: This image of Kamala Harris participating in the 2019 San Francisco Pride Parade, wearing what I believe to be a sequin rainbow embroidered denim jacket.

I encourage you to read the provided CNN article and the answers to the ACLU questionnaire, as they give great insight into her values.

TLDR: Based.

[trans-axolotl]

Hi! I'm currently researching prison abolition, both for the sake of becoming better educated about it and because I plan to write a paper on it for class. Two questions for you:

First— what books/articles/videos/any other resources on the topic would you recommend? I've been doing some research on my own, but I'd love to have some more sources.

Second— what solutions do abolitionists offer for people who pose immediate threats? I'm struggling to find a solid answer on this. I know it's going to vary based on who you ask! Just looking for some possible answers. Mostly, I've seen this question answered by redirecting focus towards prevention of the circumstances that lead to this kind of behavior, and obviously that is important and should be the main focus, but I'm not sure what possible methods there are for people who already exist who are a threat to others' safety.

(I especially have a hard time with this question because I'm coming at it from an anarchist lens and I don't believe there should be any sort of carceral system or any governing power, but I don't know how this sort of problem can be dealt with without there being some sort of power structure).

If you don't have an answer for that second one, or just don't feel like answering, that's alright! Thanks for your time :))

Hi!

I'm going to list out a bunch of random resources--this is a very incomplete list, just with a few things that came to mind first.

Articles:

Journalism from currently incarcerated writers:

Prison Journalism Project

Scalawag Abolition Week

Marshall Prison Project

Prison Writing on Prison Abolition by empty cages collective and incarcerated workers organizing committee

Other articles:

Truthout's Road to Abolition

Reports/infographics/organizations:

Advancing Transgender Justice: Illuminating Trans Lives Behind and Beyond Bars By Vera Institute of Justice and Black and Pink

Critical Resistance.

SWOP behind Bars

HEARD

Books:

Change Everything by Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur

Disability Incarcerated by Liat Ben Moshe

We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba

Are Prisons Obsolete? By Angela Davis

The New Abolitionists edited by Joy James

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex by Eric Stanley & Nat Smith

Golden Gulag by Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement edited by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

In terms of your second question:

short answer, it cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution--any abolitionist future needs to have a wide variety of options for addressing harm that are able to actual address the particular circumstances of harm and meet the needs of the people in that particular context. Harm is an incredibly broad category that can differ so much depending on context. It feels difficult to just give one broad answer for "this is what we do about harm"--it seems necessary to have a different response to someone breaking into your house versus sexual violence versus bigoted physical violence and on and on and on.

Long answer: You're right that a lot of abolitionist thinking focuses on preventing harm and fundamentally changing a lot of the circumstances that are currently causing harm in people's lives. A lot also focusing on rethinking our ideas of safety, violence, harm, and crime, and untangling all the ways a carceral state has shaped our views on those concepts. (this article titled Reclaiming Safety by Mariame Kaba & Andrea J. Ritchie is an important read for thinking about how the concept of safety is constructed in our society). But all that being said, you're right that part of building an abolitionist future requires us to have a way to respond to harm when it does occur, because change doesn't happen overnight and we need those skills now. And these abolitionist responses to harm are something that are already happening now in so many ways in so many different communities and neighborhoods--a lot of people aren't just talking about it using the terminology of prison abolition. For me, it feels really important to start by thinking about what we're already doing and look for ways we can increase our own capacity to respond to harm and to care for our community.

I don't have all the answers, but I'm going to list out some examples of ways that people are already responding to harm without prisons. i don't necessarily think that all of these approaches are applicable to every situation or that they would be the ideal response in a future when we have more options, but i do just want to emphasize that there are things that people are trying right now:

making sure that someone who caused harm isn't able to be in positions of power in organizations/work/community spaces, and making people aware of the harm that was caused.

meeting the material needs of survivors of harm--mutual aid, getting access to housing, resources, etc.

de-escalation training, having people in community equipped to step in to situations where harm is being caused. (i know a few places where this is more-or-less organized--some neighborhoods where people have sort of a neighborhood watch thing going on so people know they can call that group instead of the cops if they need emergency support. )

building up things like peer respite and many other alternatives for supporting people through madness--i have a post discussing the question of alternatives to psych wards for people labeled a "danger to others."

directly intervening in situations where harm is being caused: physically showing up to keep each other safe

financial reparations

community accountability processes focused on creating accountability for bigoted violence, gender based violence, etc.

and a bunch more ideas--I'm not going to list out every possible thing I could think of here.

I'd really recommend reading Beyond Survival, which is a trying to answer some of these questions through looking at examples of things that are already working, and challenges the idea that transformative justice is just community accountability processes where everyone has to sit down at a table together to talk and the survivor just ends up retraumatized. (some authors in the anthology talk in depth about times in which that kind of process would actually increase danger to survivors, in fact.) They also make a lot of room to talk about the experience of being a survivor who has all these complex emotions and feelings towards whoever has caused us harm, and makes a lot of room for messy, complicated feelings of anger or desires for retributive harm.

Some of the examples of transformative justices responses that they share include a public letter campaign to address an abuser who was popular in movement spaces, community created research databases tracking racist violence and murders, community led murder investigations through different tactics including documentary filmmaking, family members stepping in to confront abusers and remove children from unsafe spaces, building up community first aid and medical knowledge to reduce the amount cops get called, a toolkit for transformative justice plans within youth spaces, community defense groups, including groups prepared to do physical defense, and so many more examples of things that people are trying.

I'll also link the creative interventions workbook, which is a really extensive toolkit for thinking of ways to respond to interpersonal violence.

A frequent criticism of prison abolition is that it's not practical--that our suggested responses to harm are impossible and could never work. And I can understand why people respond that way. It can be really frustrating to see people list out a lot of things that wouldn't work yet where you live because your neighbors are bigoted, or you're currently incarcerated, or you live in an inaccessible city with no in person community, etc. That anger feels meaningful, because it highlights just how fucked up it is that those barriers exist and that we don't have more options for community care right now. And at the same time, if we only try ideas based on what is currently practical, we end up just using the same existing frameworks to try to build a new world, and accept the current limits placed on us through the violence of prisons and policing. I think that abolition must be a little impractical to be effective--we need to be able to move beyond what is currently practical within the carceral apparatuses of state violence, and instead work to build in a way that dismantles what the state defines as realistic.

Last thing I'll say is that for me, it is so vital to always remember that prison abolition is a political movement centered in dismantling a white supremacist system that enacts antiblack racist violence on a gigantic scale. It's not just a buzzword to throw around to refer to anything, it's important to stay connected to what this actually about, learn about the radical history and lineage of Black prison abolitionists in the US, instead of misusing and extracting political resources without having reciprocity and solidarity. And also to stay connected to prison resistance movements right now--recognizing that the most important works of abolition are happening in these carceral spaces as we speak.

if any followers have other resources about prison abolition that they want to add on, feel free!

[caesarandthecity]

The First Photo After a Year and Seven Months in Prison

The first photo after a year and seven months in prison feels different. The world after a year and seven months in prison feels different. Even though I kept up with the outside world through TV and newspapers, the world outside isn’t the same. After a year and seven months, when I was released from prison, I didn’t know who had arrived, who had left. I didn’t know what was new, what was old, what was trending. Honestly, I still don’t know, even after eight months of freedom.

It feels like I was frozen in time while the whole world kept turning. People, of course, continued with their lives, while I was stuck there, in prison. The feeling of being smaller, of being lesser than everyone else, gnawed at me and left deep scars until I had to fight and confront myself. I had to rethink everything I knew about prison. Not everyone sees it the same way, but I needed to find some kind of beauty in that experience, because I lived it so intensely that it had to mean something.

In the early days, I thought I was going to lose my mind, that I was going to lose everything. So, I had to start working on myself. I began developing myself personally. I read every book on personal growth I could find. I took every online course I could. I re-learned high school material. I understood that the most important thing about being in prison was what I was going to do with it, and I decided that I was going to make the best of it.

I did yoga naked in a cell. I danced naked in a cell. I made friends, told jokes until late at night, laughed until my stomach hurt. I cried many times. I slept hungry, woke up thirsty. My privacy was ripped away, exposed, shattered. I was diminished, dehumanized. I fought for rights and realized, most of the time, it wasn’t worth it. I translated documents in Portuguese, English, Spanish, and French. I worked on immigration cases. I wrote every day. I taught classes. I exercised. I did and lived the best I could in that situation.

I think that’s why I don’t feel ashamed to say I was in prison, that I was incarcerated. Because sometimes people don’t see it the same way, and that’s okay. As I tell everyone, prison was the worst and the best lesson of my life.

[picturejasper20]

Redemption arcs and restorative justice in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Season 2 A analysis

(Taken from my thread on twitter and explained in more detail in here) In this post i'm going to talk about one of the main themes of MGADD Season 2 A, which is, as the title says, redemption arcs and restorative justice. I'm going to analyse different episodes that tackle this theme and how they are followed up in the rest of this part of the season.

Spoilers down below

One of the big themes in MGADD Season 2 A is the idea of how people who are ¨villains¨ have a lot more in them and the reason why they became evil is more complicated than it seems. Also how they have the capacity to regret their past actions and change for the better.

Restorative justice is a whole complex topic, but to put it in simple words: It has to do with the criminal rethinking their past actions and doing something to make amends with the person or people they hurt. It's less about punishment and more about what can the person do to fix their bad decisions and be pushed to be better in the future.

While redemption arcs and restorative justice aren't that rare to find in Disney TVA animated series and other animated shows, emphasis on this theme in superhero animated series is a lot more rare to find in my personal experience.

In superhero shows the line between who is good and bad is very clear. The heroes are good and the villains are evil. Villains are evil because they chose to be or they ¨were born that way¨. The possibility of redemption and rehabilitation is often seen as naive, and at times mocked at. Punishment and incarceration is seen as preferable over rehabilitation in these type of shows.

That's not to say that redemption arcs don't exist in superhero shows, but it is more rare and the idea that villains are just evil is what gets pushed the most.

Quick Whip/ Zekiyah

In MGADD, this idea is being to put into question in Season 2 episode 4 ¨Ride or Die¨ in which Lunella caughts a well known criminal known as ¨Quick Whip¨. Lunella reports to SHIELD that she is going to take Quick Whip there by using a sub train.

While they are on the train, the power goes out for a moment and Lady Bullseye shows up with her followers, looking for Quickwhip, who used to work for her. Lady Bullseye doesn't allow people to ¨get out¨ from her criminal group, explaining why she is here since Quickwhip left it.

Lunella is forced to work together with Quickwhip to power up the train and get away from Lady Bullseye. For a good part of the episode Lunella considers that Quickwhip is only a villain and that's what she would always be.

However, in a moment they are hiding from the Diabolical Darts, Lunella learns that Quickwhip's real name is Zekiyah and that she used to be a person who only dreamed of starting a bakery and spent hours every day to study how to make pastry. Once she came to New Work, it was too expensive for her to afford a place and soon she was on the streets.

Lady Bullseye took advantage of Zekiyah's difficult situation and persuade her into joining her crime group. Zekiyah became pretty good at stealing but over time she realized how she strayed away from the path she originally set up for her. She left the Diabolical Darts and has been in the run ever since.

Seeing that Zekiyah had more going on that she assumed, Lunella thinks there has to be other way for her to be more than just a ¨street rat¨ and teams up with Zekiyah to take down Lady Bullseye and her followers. When she is about to give Zekiyah to SHIELD, she talks about how she wants to help everyone, included those who happened to fall in a bad path and asks to try something different this time.

By the end of the episode Lunella reconsiders her views about crime and such and decides to open a program that could help villains who regret their past actions and want to make things right. She gives Zekiyah (Quick Whip) a change to work in a bakery like she wanted originally when she came to New York.

Kid Kree

In episode five ¨Kid Kree¨, the one following ¨Ride or Die¨ we are introduced to a new character ¨Kid Kree/Marvin¨, who is original from the MGADD comics. He is a kree teenager that was sent by his father, Pad-Varr, to capture a superhero to prove his worth as warrior after not reaching the expectations on his homeworld planet.

Lunella meets Marvin at his first day at school. During gym class she notices that Marvin shares similar interests in science and math like she does. Overtime the two develop a close friendship over sharing interests and views of seeing the world, happy to find someone else that they can be their ¨nerd¨ selfs with. Lunella because she didn't know much kids from her age that we into same stuff like she is and Marvin since he feels like he can be himself around Lunella.

In meantime Lunella and Marvin continue to fight each other as Moon Girl and Kid Kree, without knowing each other's identity. They have a bit of rivarly, with Lunella trying to come up with new ways to outsmart ¨Kid Kree¨. During one of those fights Moon Girl defeats Kid Kree and he accidentally drops his communicator, the one his father usually contacts him with. Lunella takes and tries to hack into it. She discovers an video recording of Marvin talking about his mission on Earth and revealing that he is Kid Kree when he takes his helmet off.

Lunella gets angry at this and, without thinking too much of the implications, she ends up answering a call from Pad-Varr and tells him that she has defeated Marvin, making Pad-Varr clearly upset.

When Marvin comes to eat dinner at Lafayette's home, Lunella tells to Marvin that she knows about him being Kid Kree by giving him his communicator and adds that she has called his father. This makes Marvin scared and the Lafayettes ask him why he is worried about his own father.

Marvin explains isn't happy at being a warrior and it is forced by his father to be something that he is not. His father doesn't approve of Marvin's preference for science, making their relationship pretty strained. In general Marvin doesn't feel comfortable with being himself on his planet nor with his father. He thought that Lunella was someone who understood him but he is sad that apparently this wasn't the case. He lefts the house upon hearing that Pad-Varr's ship is coming to get him.

Lunella goes after Marvin and apologizes to him for jumping to conclusions about his true intentions. Pad-Varr orders Marvin to catch Moon Girl and Devil, which he does, but moments after he traps his father and later Lunella and Devil helped Kid Kree with standing up to him.

Kid Kree expresses to his father that he doesn't want to be a warrior and he is into science instead. Pad-Varr reconsiders this and praises Marvin for his gadgets, telling him that they could be useful for the Kree Empire. Lunella and Marvin remain as friends and keep in contact with each other.

Marvin appears in other episodes like ¨In The Heist¨ and ¨Dancing by Myself¨ where he helps Lunella in different ways and their friendship continues to develop. While Marvin is stil working for the Kree empire, it is likely that he will turn around, like he does in the comics.

With Kid Kree's case, Lunella realized what Marvin was going through and inspired him to stand up against his father to be himself. She made the error of doing some rushed decisions when she found out that he was Kid Kree and apologized for it, both staying as close friends so far.

The Beyonder

In episode ¨Wish Tar¨ the Beyonder shows up again to visit Lunella by showing up from the Wish Tar machine James got from Coney Island. He doesn't understand why Lunella is being hostile towards him, which leads to Lunella and Casey to remind him of the times he messed up with them.

The Beyonder explains to the girls that he has been reflecting since the events from ¨The Great Beyonder¨, when he and Lunella spent days stuck on Molecular Man's destroyed planet and worked together to escape. He also started to see Lunella as a sort of friend after that episode. He wants to makes things right with Lunella but she asks him to leave before he makes things worse.

Later Lunella finds out that a wish she had asked for the Wishtar machine has been granted. Both her and Casey get suspicious about this event and go back to Roll With It to check the machine. It turns out that Beyonder is the one that granted the wish. He tells them that he ¨wants to be a good friend¨ for Lunella by making her wishes become true. Lunella sees the benefit of the wishes and decides to give it a try.

In this episode we see Beyonder using his powers to help Lunella, or at least to be a ¨good friend¨. He has good intentions of be someone better than he was in previous appearances. The problem is that this power goes up to Lunella's head, who ends up taking advantage of Beyonder's good intentions and they have a falling out with him disappearing after Lunella lashes out at him.

While Beyonder had good intentions, his approach wasn't the best since he still has yet to understand how human friendship works. Granting all Lunella's wishes just lead to her take advantage of it and not so much appreciate what Beyonder was trying to do.

From Lunella's part, some of her reactions are understandable since Beyonder did some bad things to her in more than one occasion. In spite of being on friendlier terms after ¨The Great Beyonder¨ she was still angry at him for the things he did in the past. However, as mentioned earlier, the way she used him and lashed out at him was pretty dirty considering that this time Beyonder was trying to be good.

In contrast to Kid Kree, Lunella and Beyonder's friendship took a bad turn and Lunella would have to find a way to apologize to Beyonder for how she lashed out at him. Beyonder has still growing to do, but the fact that he was trying to use his powers to be nice was a good start.

Other episodes worth of mentioning that continue this theme more or less are ¨The Devil You Know¨ and ¨Dog Day Mid-Afternoon¨.

In The Devil You Know Devil joins a group of sidekicks called the ABC that feel mistreated or underappreciated by their heroes-owners. Near the end of the episode it is shown that the conflict was a miscommunication problem and that, in fact, the heroes love their sidekicks.

In the Dog Day Mid-Afternoon Lunella jumps to the wrong conclusions about the dog alien Pops adopts (later named Franklin) being a villain. Later Franklin reveals that he is a space hero and he was on an undercover mision to find the real villain who was stealing dogs using a powerful dog wistle. Lunella and Franklin team up and work together to defeat the main antagonist.

Molecular Man's return.

All this development in Lunella's character in this arc has a conclusion in ¨The Molecular Level¨ when Molecular Man shows up in Lafayette's house and attacks Lunella and her family since Lunella is ¨someone Beyonder cares about¨.

Molecular Man was introduced in ¨The Great Beyonder¨ as someone who suffered the loss of his planet, becoming a wasteland, thanks to the Beyonder's antics. He wants to get revenge on Beyonder for what he did to his planet, being the reason of why Lunella and Beyonder are stuck in that place for days.

He destroys a good part of Lunella's house through ¨The Molecular Level¨ and endangers the Lafayettes. When Lunella finally finds her suit she is able to fight back and defeat him, leaving his body broken.

When she is about to give him the final blow she is reminded of how Molecular Man lost everything to the meteor shower thanks to Beyonder and feels sorry for him. She understands that he went through a lot and gets why he was so angry.

Molecular Man sees Lunella's compasion and says that he is really sorry for attacking her and her family. He admits that he let himself be destroyed by his desire to make others feel his own pain and anger.

Lunella gives him a piece of her self repairing suit so he is able to heal himself and get his powers back. Molecular Man thanks Lunella for understanding and uses his molecular abilities to repair Lafayette's home and heal Pops's broken arm. He promises himself to use his powers to rebuilt his planet from scratch and leaves, saying goodbye to Lunella.

¨The Molecular Level¨ serves as a good conclusion for this part of Lunella's arc in this half of the season. She has grown enough to understand that sometimes people are driven to do bad things for certain reasons. The world is often more complex than it seems to be and there aren't just ¨good¨ and ¨bad¨ guys. She applies the lessons she learned with Molecular Man by showing she gets what he went through and inspires him to use his powers to heal in the future.

[transbookoftheday]

Undoing Suicidism: A Trans, Queer, Crip Approach to Rethinking (Assisted) Suicide by Alexandre Baril

In Undoing Suicidism, Alexandre Baril argues that suicidal people are oppressed by what he calls structural suicidism, a hidden oppression that, until now, has been unnamed and under-theorized. Each year, suicidism and its preventionist script and strategies reproduce violence and cause additional harm and death among suicidal people through forms of criminalization, incarceration, discrimination, stigmatization, and pathologization. This is particularly true for marginalized groups experiencing multiple oppressions, including queer, trans, disabled, or Mad people.

Undoing Suicidism questions the belief that the best way to help suicidal people is through the logic of prevention. Alexandre Baril presents the thought-provoking argument that supporting assisted suicide for suicidal people could better prevent unnecessary deaths. Offering a new queercrip model of (assisted) suicide, he invites us to imagine what could happen if we started thinking about (assisted) suicide from an anti-suicidist and intersectional framework.

Baril provides a radical reconceptualization of (assisted) suicide and invaluable reflections for academics, activists, practitioners, and policymakers.

[evesaintyves]

trick or treat 👻🎃❤️

thank you @whinlatter 💕

you get a snippet of my shitty first draft of the Beasts tribute fic i started. for non-whinlatters, Beasts is her absolutely astonishing Ginny & the Weasley family fic that follows her postwar seventh year at Hogwarts, intertwined with glimpses of her development as a child & teenager, and there's a brief mention of a care facility where recipients of the Dementor's kiss live out the rest of their lives. Highly recommend this fic - it's just such a rich portrayal of the whole Weasley family, the fraught rebuilding process after the war, and Ginny's emotional & intellectual life.

tw: illness, death, and very unpleasant hospital stuff

this idea of what happens to people after they've been kissed by a dementor really spoke to me for a few reasons - i couldn't help but think about some of the things i've seen in my professional life. i work in a healthcare specialty i can't really name without potentially doxing myself (it's a small world) and early in my career i occasionally participated in testing to determine death by neurologic criteria - essentially, flat lines on an eeg, which is a really terrible thing to see if you know what you're looking at. it's a difficult thing to even comprehend, especially for a parent - that a child who was splashing in the pool a few hours ago, now seemingly asleep, will not wake up, is damaged so profoundly that they they will never take another unassisted breath. i also regularly worked with people who were incarcerated in the state prison system. it taught me a lot about - let's keep it short and just say inhumanity: in the american healthcare system and especially where it intersects with the criminal justice system, and, unfortunately, in some of my colleagues and the way they cared for their incarcerated patients.

in my current role i work with a lot of patients who just aren't going to get better, who are entirely dependent on caregivers to keep them alive and maintain their quality of life. and it is - i hope you'll understand when i say this i say it as someone who is devoted and privileged to do it - often difficult and demoralizing work. for families and for staff.

my youngest sister was one of these people: she suffered a hemorrhage in infancy which resulted in serious damage to her brain. she never spoke, walked, fed or bathed herself. it was difficult to know what she understood, perceived, felt, wanted. she was a beautiful, calm, sweet-natured child who was easy to love; not every family in our position is so fortunate. it was also easy for us to project on her an interior life that may or may not have really been there, which was a great comfort to my mother. but her daily care needs were enormous, taxing, frustrating, and her inevitable deterioration and death were devastating to witness.

obviously i don't really want to equate people with brain injuries and whatever other special needs with people in the hp universe who no longer have souls - that's part of the reason i've struggled with this fic. there are a lot of potentially-unanswerable questions about the humanity and interiority of victims of soul-removal in this fictional context, but i think the only responsible practice for a clinician working with such patients would be to assume that they still feel, experience, and need what any other person who cannot care for themselves would. including not just nutrition, hygiene, etc. but also company and touch and positive regard. and that whatever crime, even atrocity, they might have committed is irrelevant to my duty to them as a caregiver. but that is easier to say than to do, consistently, every day, at home or in a medical facility, and i know from experience that it won't always happen that way.

anyway, if for some reason you have read this far, here's an excerpt from the story, complete with first-draft placeholders where i decided to rethink some dumb on-the-nose character names, lol. it needs to be rewritten from scratch, honestly. it's set at the end of GoF, when Madame Pomfrey is tasked with removing the house-elf Winky from Barty Crouch, Jr.'s side after he has received the kiss, and I've decided for the purposes of this silly little fic that she has experience in the care facility where he'll end up.

working title is My Beautiful Dead Friends.

Minerva saw the whole horrible thing and it was all over her face, what it had done to her. Poppy has never seen it happen, and neither had [supervisor], which seemed to irritate him; he'd read about it in books. The soul emits a colourless glow as it exits, he said, visible for an instant before it is consumed. For some time in the eighteenth century the Kiss was performed in public, on a platform raised above Diagon Alley. People would bring their children. There were woodcuts depicting the moment, dementors in swirling curlicues, the bound hands and dark mouth of the convicted, and the soul, represented as a star or sometimes a tiny naked man, caught in the moment of transit. It was striking how carefully, how delicately, the little soul was etched, with lines of light coming off it. Even the soul of a murderer, a beautiful shining thing. Minerva had marched Barty to the infirmary dozens of times in his schooldays. Sometimes because Horace wasn't fond of the long walk, nor of standing up to his own students, but often because it was one of her Gryffindors who'd done it to him. He was there all the time, hexed, cursed, punched in the face. It seemed, at first, simply the lot of the delicate-featured son of the head of law enforcement to be regularly trounced. He gave at least as good as he got and sometimes there'd be an entire queue of students behind him covered in boils, missing or extra limbs, pinching their nostrils to stop the bats from flapping out. Barty might chuckle through a mouth of blood while she saw to him, or he might writhe and moan as if in agony; Poppy had a suspicion that it depended on whether there was a Hogmeade weekend or an exam coming up. It wasn't only the usual interhouse skirmishes with Barty—Once, he limped to the hospital wing on his own, so badly beaten she had to put him out for a while and repair his perforated intestines with dozens of tiny movements of the tip of her wand. When he came to, she asked him what had happened, who had done this. He grinned at her with half his teeth gone. "Jusht the cosht of doing businesh, Madame," he said. Bubbles of red on his lips as he spoke. She found out later from Filius that he'd scammed a bunch of Ravenclaws into a sort of pyramid scheme, buying and reselling junk from Zonko's to each other. She was sure he didn't need the money: his robes were clasped with real-silver fasteners in the shapes of snakes. His mother came to take him home for the weekend after that one. He pressed the side of his face into the bosom of her robes and sobbed pitifully while Poppy left them to it behind a screen. On his way out the door, later, he waved to her, like, see you soon! Now he looks content, drowsy, like he's just had a meal. It was always hard to square the faces of the Kissed with what they'd done. Barty could almost be his seventh-year self, resting in the lull of a potion—though he might have already been a murderer by then, she realised. His hands, which had once aimed waves of pain so brutal they'd evicted poor Alice and Frank Longbottom from their own minds, are laced together at rest on his stomach. His thumbnail picks occasionally at the wand-callus on his forefinger. Some unlucky trainee healer will be alarmed by that one day. The Kissed do those little things. Their eyes follow you, sometimes, across the room. They smack their lips when they swallow the bubblemint-flavoured nutrition potion. They sit up in bed. "Look—he's doing it—I've told you—" Llanzo's mother had once cried, summoning the whole staff to come and see. She was tickling Llanzo's ribs with her fingers, and his lips had pulled back, his chest was jerking with spasms of laughter, no sound but a sort of clicking in his throat. "It's a reflex," [supervisor] told her. Llanzo's younger brother slumped in his bedside chair and stared sourly at his mother. She got angry, understandably, and shouted a bit before storming out.

"A rat will make a rhythmic sound if you tickle its belly," [supervisor] told Poppy in private. "You can call it laughter, if you like."

Llanzo was the only one who ever got visitors. He'd been accused of leading a nine-year-old witch away from her parents at Gray's beach and leaving her face-down, strangled, in the shallow mud of the Thames. His mother had given an alibi, which wasn't enough to keep him from being arrested, and he'd been shipped off to Azkaban to be held pending trial. As they'd approached the jagged rocks of the island he'd broken his bonds somehow and heaved himself over the side of the boat. Escape, suicide, or just some motiveless panic, it wasn't clear, but when they'd caught him and hauled him onshore the Dementors had fallen on him at once. He was seventeen, on his summer holidays. Lying in bed on the ward a year later he still looked like a child. Poppy wasn't sentimental, as a rule, but at the end of shift after those visits she'd sometimes have to have a little cry in the car park before she apparated home. "If you ask me I think she's on to something," Catherine told her once, in low tones, eyes on [supervisor]'s office door. "I've seen things. The way they look up at you. You can leave them on the pot for an hour, they won't do a thing, then as soon as they're back on the bed, haven't even had time to get a nappy out—" she made a squelching sound in her cheek. "Pure spite, I swear."

His mother came back the following week, brother in tow, and sat with him reading from Quidditch Through the Ages, turning the book to show him the moving illustrations. Sometimes his gaze moved to land on them and sometimes it didn't. "He was a Chaser," she told Catherine, who'd come to give him a bath. "Fast as anything. His Dad and I were both hopeless on a broom, but he's—" She swallowed hard. Llanzo was smiling faintly, as he often did when he got his bath. His breath came in soft vocal sounds that were almost sighs. "—he's my superstar," she finished. When they left, she made his brother say goodbye to him. Poppy was scrubbing up at the bedside sink to do his skin integrity assessment. Llanzo's brother gripped his hand, and leaned down as if to kiss him on the cheek. "Fucking die," he whispered, lips almost touching Llanzo's motionless face.

[writhe]

Nobody should have to choose between life incarcerated and death? Is death not potentially the path of least harm? Is the act of providing choice not ethical? Is a life incarcerated not simply a drawn-out death sentence? What would be your ideal scenario for violent criminals? Serial killers and the like?

nobody should have to live a life incarcerated. do you genuinely think that prisons prevent people from being harmed? that they prevent serial killers? that they don’t harm people & their communities further? that cops keep us safe? do you genuinely think that the people who suffer the worst from the cruelty of the prison industrial complex are people who have, for example, committed mass murders (who i also don’t think should be executed by the state)?

incarceration is an inherent violation of autonomy and choice. purposefully making someone’s life so unlivable that they might theoretically choose death isn’t a mercy, it’s just another form of state violence (& i’d also argue if there were a precedent for this hypothetical we’d get into eugenicist territory very quickly)

why does this discussion not make you rethink your thoughts on the the inhumanity & cruelty of prisons?

why do you fundamentally trust that it would ever (or has ever been) safe for the state to determine who lives & who dies?

[fierceawakening]

Thinking some more about society and punishment and prison.

PI’ve mentioned before that I work in a homeless shelter, that I generally really like the women here and think they get a bum deal from life and it’s good to assist them, etc. most of them are kind and friendly people, though I do notice they tend to be stressed and can get angry or fight at times. Maybe mental health, maybe just being in shelter absolutely sucks, I dunno, I don’t really blame them though of course I try to persuade them to find solutions that don’t disrupt or endanger others or themselves.

So I wanted to bring this up just because… I think people realize that people like this exist, but don’t always have people like this in mind when they talk about systems they dislike.

R has a history of incarceration, I don’t know what for much less have opinions on whether it’s deserved. But I know about it because when she met with me she was calling them to get medical records, as she suffered lasting/disabling injuries in a car accident some years back. She was very rude to them, insisting that they should have the records when they said they weren’t sure how old the records might be and getting belligerent when they recommended she come back in for a new initial appointment since they couldn’t find anything.

After about I don’t know a month of not coming back in, she came back to see me, demanding that she have several pillows to sleep. I let her know that the usual procedure of someone needs special bedding is to see the doctors who visit here twice weekly and have them sign paperwork attesting to the need, and that she could do that in the morning. If it’s approved, which it probably will be in a matter of days, then she can bring however many pillows it says. (I wrote four, after asking repeatedly which limbs and joints were affected so I could argue she needs to support each.)

She didn’t like that, but she can’t go to see her GP sooner so she agreed to do that. I filled out the paperwork for her and marked specifically where she needed a doc to sign. Told her 9am, that I have afternoon Saturday shifts and she could drop it by as soon as I get in and I’d send it on immediately. Etc.

Well. 1am rolls around (I happened to be awake and getting into bed) and one of the security staff says in chat that R told her her accommodation was approved and that she can bring in a whole set of sheets and wash them herself. My boss, not having looked in the notes from 8pm, was like “she needs to go see Fierce about that first.”

Argh.

…My point is not “this person went behind my back so she deserves punishment grrrrrr grrrrr.”

She did go behind my back, and that’s annoying, but I clearly explained and the súper has my back. It’s fine.

But my point/question is: how does the new system handle stuff like this, where people don’t really appear to rethink this kind of behavior? Do we just shrug and take it, or is there a point at which we punish it, just so that consequences happen?

That’s the thing I feel like people are persistently not addressing. That some people really do seem to have a pattern of acting this way, and it’s not clear that being patient or friendly to them is likely to convince them to stop. At least not unless you’re unfailingly kind for syc( a length of time they really stop and think.

Which is time not everyone actually has.

[mariacallous]

In this episode, host Vanda Felbab-Brown talks with RAND researchers Beau Kilmer and Roland Neil about U.S. domestic law enforcement responses to the fentanyl crisis. Kilmer and Neil highlight a decline in drug arrests, particularly for cannabis, in the United States, but note a surge in fentanyl-related seizures. They also discuss various alternatives to incarceration for specific drug-related crimes, including police-led deflection programs, and they cast skepticism on new punitive approaches, such as drug-induced homicide laws.

[a-queer-seminarian]

The police depict activists like Tort as “outside agitators” and criminals to alienate them from us. But “criminals” are our fellow image bearers of the divine, as Dominique DuBois Gilliard reminds us in Rethinking Incarceration.

[mtsu4u]

“The way the United States approaches prison tourism re-inscribes the kind of politics that support mass incarceration,” said Jill McCorkel, a professor of criminology at Villanova University. “It turns human suffering into a spectacle.” 

--

Robert S., an incarcerated man at SCI Chester, said he doesn’t have a problem with prison museums, but organizers should make sure that people have an understanding of the effect on the people who were housed there. “The museum is for amusement, but this was someone's pain,” he said. “This was someone's struggle. This was someone's life. It wasn't amusement to them.”

[kaibutsushidousha]

Witch, Picture, and Red-Eyed Girl (Sagrada Reset 2) - Chapter 3: The nameless woman (part 2)

[INDEX]

The same day - 11 AM

A bus left the Nanasaka Middle School station, silently running downtown. Asai Kei was looking outside the window, not watching out for anything specific. But he was thinking.

If he lets Oka Eri get away with her plan, she'll become an enemy of the bureau, but in exchange, the witch will be guaranteed to escape.

If he stops her, she'll remain an ordinary middle schooler on paper, but the witch will stay arrested. She will die alone in that small room.

Should he choose Oka Eri or the witch? The choice was simple. And neither option was a future Kei wanted.

He needed a completely different solution. A future where both the witch is freed and Oka Eri doesn't become an enemy of the Bureau. That was the only possible happy ending.

(How difficult it is to take the witch out of her room? It shouldn't be that hard. Murase can power through all abilities, doors, and walls to reach the witch. But there would be no point. That would only transfer Oka Eri's role to Murase.)

The witch was confined by a hallway surrounded by two doors. The doors were locked shut by an ability. But those were not the real obstacle.

The Bureau doesn't want the witch to leave the organization's hands. That fact was the biggest problem. Anything he could do to help the witch escape would be defying them.

The Bureau was not that big an organization. It only had one office in the city hall, one in the police station, and a few more spread throughout the city. But the organizations' power was absolute.

The Bureau manages all abilities in Sakurada. Practically every ability in the city is within their network, and for every incident that happens, they request help from the people with the most appropriate abilities. They can solve basically any problem by having tens of thousands of abilities at their disposal.

No Sakurada citizen should oppose the Bureau.

An individual outwitting the Bureau is a precedent that can't be allowed to be set, not to mention it was difficult to do anything against them, to begin with. The miraculously stable city of Sakurada depends on the Bureau to exist harmoniously with its countless abilities. The Bureau represents the very law concerning abilities, and Sakurada can't function without it. The lawmaking organization needs to transcend every individual.

Knowing that, he still intended to take the witch out of her building. He would defy the Bureau's decision while minimizing the consequences. That's the thought that makes the difficulty level skyrocket.

(The only saving grace here is...)

He remembered the events of two years before. The one time he defied the Bureau.

(The only saving grace here is that the Bureau is a rational and realistic organization. They're not trying to enact justice, and they're obviously not trying to enact evil either. Their judgment is never emotionally-informed. So they can't ignore the need to solve the incident, but they can ignore the need to punish the culprit. Depending on how things go, they'll want to erase all evidence and pretend the incident never happened. If our crime and our punishment were to become evidence, they would thoroughly erase it. That's the goal. Make the Bureau itself erase our tracks. That's the best solution.)

Rethinking the situation from this perspective, it didn't look all that bad. The witch's escape is not a crime the Bureau can't press charges against. They can't let the public know that the witch exists. The people can't know that they took away a woman's name and incarcerated her for 28 years. If the witch escapes by her power alone, the Bureau will prioritize covering up the incident over finding the culprit. If they fear Future Sight being misused, they must have thorough countermeasures against it, but it was hard to picture them going after the witch just to deliver her punishment.

Naturally, the witch can't escape by her power alone.

Someone needed to intervene in some way. But the focus is on how minimal the intervention needs to be.

(I just need to cleverly distribute responsibility.)

The fewer people defying the Bureau to take the witch out of the building, the better. Two of them were already guaranteed to take the fall. The first is the witch herself. If she let herself be taken away knowing that it would happen, it's because she wanted it to happen. This problem has no solution. The second is Sasano Hiroyuki. He is going to take the witch and defect with her.

(But those two alone aren't enough. I need another ability to open the two ability-locked doors. Someone will be roped in. I need more people cooperating, preferably in a way that makes them minimally responsible.)

He came up with one method.

Back at the beach, when he returned from the photograph world, he looked at his feet and confirmed something. His footprints were cut off at the point he entered the photo. And the position he returned into the real world was moved the same amount of steps he walked inside the photo.

(That's exploitable. If I get a photo with the right conditions, I can take the witch away from the room. All I need is a picture of both doors open. Ideally, I'd like photos of all routes within the building. We can make the witch leave the building through the photos.)

With Haruki and Murase's help, it was possible to obtain those photos without the Bureau knowing.

(Still, I shouldn't be dragging them into this. If I execute my current plan, I'll be getting 3 people involved other than the witch. The two of them plus Oka Eri. Even if we don't antagonize the Bureau head-on, and we can erase our tracks, it's still too dangerous to help the witch escape.)

The completely opposite option was also available. Kei could choose not to concern himself with the witch's escape. He even believed that was the right thing to do.

He thought her circumstances were unfortunate and that she deserved to be saved, but did she deserve it enough to necessitate Murase's and Haruki's involvement? Should he put them at risk? Murase and Haruki were above the witch on Kei's priority list. He didn't second-guess. If someone must be sacrificed to rescue the witch, then be it Oka Eri. She was taking the witch away from the Bureau of her own will.

(But knowing this, I'm sure I'll still carry out my plan. I'll falter and make the wrong choice.)

In his heart of hearts, Kei wasn't doing it for Oka Eri, much less for Sasano and the witch. He wasn't trying to help others. This wasn't about any beautiful emotion like that. Kei hated the way he was. When he sees the possibility of everyone being saved, he can't help but reach out for it.

If possible, he wished he could always achieve God's miracles. Perfect outcomes where everyone wins. But Kei's powers fall short of the ideal. He can't accomplish any goals without exploiting other people's powers.

Oka Eri said she wanted to prove his weakness.

This wasn't necessary. Kei always considered himself weak. He did two years ago and he does now.

The bus arrived at the stop. He got off his chair and left the bus. The door closed behind him and the bus took off again.

Kei took out his phone.

He called the number that appeared on his screen pre-Reset. A man picked up the call and said hello.

"Hello. My name is Asai Kei."

Hearing Kei's name, Sasano Hiroyuki let out a tired, desolate sigh through the phone.

After a 10-minute-long conversation with Sasano, Kei understood the big picture of the situation.

He had already remembered how to use his ability. Oka Eri used her ability on him again for a different effect. She made Sasano believe that he need to mail all photographs taken with her ability to Oka Eri since the Bureau found out about them.

Oka Eri (or the Bureau member backing her) changed priorities. Stealing his photos became more important than taking away his ability. That was a lucky outcome for Kei. He could unravel this memory manipulation with a conversation. The background of her narrative was so unnatural that Sasano undid the memory manipulation on his own with just a simple explanation of how her ability worked.

After that, Kei got to the reason why he called.

"I know about the plan you share with the nameless woman. But I won't let Oka Eri shoulder all the responsibility for it."

Kei told him that he entered the photo sent to him, met the witch there, and heard about their reencounter.

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.", Sasano said.

(Who is he apologizing to? What is he apologizing about?)

"Then are giving up on seeing her again?"

It was a cruel question. Not only that, it was an unnecessary question. Kei noticed himself more upset than he expected.

What was he so upset about? That they were using Oka Eri as their sacrificial pawn. No matter what their reasons were, he couldn't approve of their methods. But he understood the psychology behind their choices. There was nothing else they could do. And Oka Eri was intending to take the witch out of her building regardless. She was part of the problem.

Kei realized he was still unsatisfied with his own decision.

(Why do I have to involve Haruki and Murase in something like this? Why can't I think of a better method? One where everyone wins?)

Kei was simply lashing out at him.

"Sorry, I can't.", Sasano answered clearly.

"Why?"

"I want to see her again. I can't give up no matter what."

His answer was simple and beautiful. That alone made it convincing.

"Do you have any method in mind for that?"

"I can't think of any. I'll just go to her building and see what happens.", he spoke after a long pause.

(They won't let the witch out no matter how earnestly Sasano asks for it. If it was this easy, the witch would have suggested that.)

"I can help you.", Kei said.

Sasano gasped surprised.

"Why?"

"I promised her once."

When she first brought him to her building.

“Boy, will you wish for my end to be a happy one?”, asked the witch.

“Of course, I will.”, answered Kei.

(Was that a promise? I don't know. It doesn't matter.)

"Thank you.", said Sasano.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The two promised to meet at Sasano's house at 5 PM and hung up.

And then Kei called Haruki Misora and Murase Youka.

He told them everything in excruciating detail. About the witch, about Oka Eri, and about his goal. He thought the chances of Murase refusing to cooperate were low. She still saw the Bureau as an enemy. In addition, she still felt she needed to uphold the bet she lost to Kei a month prior. The one that made her suffer so much that it added a new restriction to her ability. Meanwhile, Haruki was practically guaranteed to never disagree with Kei.

The two did, in fact, agree. Murase was enraged, although also slightly frightened, to learn about the witch's living circumstances. Haruki only answered with a plain "Understood". Kei knew that's how they'd respond. Impossible choices aren't choices. What he did was no different from coercion. The result is set in stone the moment the options are presented.

Kei loitered around the town until it was time to meet Sasano. He had lunch at a fast-food place, then went to a bookstore, then a CD shop. That was how he spent this time of this day pre-Reset.

He felt like leaving to go meet someone completely unrelated to the current incident. The first candidate he had in mind was a girl who could often be found napping with cats in a shrine, but he gave up on seeing her because Nonoo Seika's favorite cream puffs were sold out.

He considered going to Nakano Tomoki's house, but that would have been too time-consuming. Tomoki was more perceptive than he looked, so if they talked on the phone, Tomoki would be tactful enough to avoid hard topics. That was a great thing, but not what Kei wanted.

Ultimately, Kei sat alone on a bench, lost in thought. Was there really no way to achieve his goal without Haruki and Murase's help? It wasn't 100% confirmed to be impossible. But he couldn't come up with a better method. He would have to get someone's help. Kei acknowledged that imagining how not to do so was an escapist train of thought.

Now that it's decided they'll get involved, he needed to think about how to best employ them. Kei spent the rest of his time thinking about all possible problems that could occur that night and how to solve them.

A little past 4 PM, he got together with Haruki and Murase. They chose this time for no reason other than it's after Murase's supplementary classes are over.

"Everything is always so sudden with you.", said Murase.

Kei didn't mind her upset tone because she was always like that. He thanked Murase and Haruki for the parts they would play that night. Murase's ability was extremely useful. It could become a crutch.

They took the bus to Sasano's house.

If he could, he would have explained to them how dangerous it was to oppose the Bureau and asked them to quit. But doing so would be too irresponsible. He shouldn't have called them if he didn't want them involved. He didn't believe he was able to change what they would do. That would be just an excuse. A valid excuse, but an unnecessary one.

At 4:30 PM, the sun was still tall in the sky.

Under the blue sky, the bus proceeded to the outskirts of Sakurada.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sasano was standing by the stop when they got off the bus. He had a dispirited smile. Trying and failing to hide his strong shock. After all, the plan that was guaranteed to him for almost 30 years was falling apart.

After quick greetings, Sasano brought Kei, Murase, and Haruki to his house. Neither of the four had much to talk about. Haruki was not a talker in general and Murase is not the kind to be cordial to people she just met. Sasano's only words were "Sorry for what I did."

After getting to the same tatami room as last time, Kei opened his mouth.

"I'll explain tonight's plan."

Their approach was simple. He had already told Haruki and Murase about it.

They infiltrate the building, Sasano photographs the witch's escape route, and they Reset. That's why Murase's participation was necessary. Her ability can cancel the effects of the Reset. She can cross to the post-Reset world along with what's she wearing: her clothes, hat, and the contents of her pockets.

If everything goes right, Kei will be erasing the fact they invaded the building, but Murase will still have a photo of the escape route. All they needed to do next is to send the photo to the witch. By moving inside the photo, she can escape the room.

The only problem is the existence of an impossible photo. That makes it possible for the Bureau to piece together Haruki and Murase's involvement. It was best to assume there was nothing they couldn't find out if they put their hearts into the investigation.

They currently had no countermeasures to this problem. However, they would be able to contact the witch if she escaped her room. Meaning they could learn about future threats. Best-case scenario, she could give them a method that didn't step on the Bureau's toes, but that would be still dangerous.

"Any questions?", Kei asked.

"How are we giving her the photo?", asked Murase.

"I have something in mind. I think I can make it work."

"What are you going to do?"

"Use the right ability for the job."

"Whose ability? What does it do?"

(Sigh. It'd be dishonest to keep her in the dark when I'm the one who asked for help.)

"I'll use her own ability. She'll call me to her building."

He visited the witch's room pre-Reset. It's already proven that Kei can enter the building if she wishes for it. He didn't have to go through a body check then.

Murase gave Kei a doubting glare.

"Why would she call you?"

"Because I'll ask her to."

"When? Doing it tonight is pointless. It'll get Reset."

"In a future that'll never come."

The witch sees the future. And only she can change it.

Without the witch's invitation, Kei will once again invade the building by force and tell the witch the whole plan. If the witch sees that future, she'll call Kei in advance. Consequently, she avoids the future where Kei breaks into her room.

"Basically, we'll create a fake future to keep the witch informed."

A fake future, a future designed to be avoided.

Murase was speechless for a moment.

"Is that even possible?"

"Good question. But judging from what I know, I don't see why it wouldn't be."

The witch explained her ability:

ーWell, a simulation that doesn’t take my ability into account, that is.

The future the witch sees doesn't include her ability. Including it would cause a paradox loop. Imagine the witch learns that A will suffer an accident and warns him in advance, preventing the accident. This erases the future where A suffers the accident. If the simulation covered this far, the witch would be unable to learn that A will suffer an accident. She'd be unable to tell him about it, and consequently, A suffers the accident. And if the simulation covered this far, the loop would never end.

That's why the future the witch sees doesn't include her ability. A will suffer an accident. This simple fact is all she can know. If she tells A about the accident, the future changes. In short, the witch doesn't see the upcoming future, she sees the future that would come if she didn't use her ability. Kei can exploit this future to send her information.

But it was true that they didn't have enough evidence to be positive that was how it worked.

"If that doesn't work, we Reset and find another way.", said Kei.

There was a plan B. It would take a lot of cumbersome setup steps, but he could ask a friend to make his voice reach the witch's ears and no one else's. But he wanted to involve the fewest people possible.

"Well, as long it's possible.", said Murase.

Her thoughts continued as Haruki's words.

"And consequently, you'll meet her and give her the photos. Is that it?"

"That is it."

"Is that not dangerous?"

(Absolutely, it is.)

The witch was going to escape the building soon after meeting Kei. He was going to be the first suspect. That much was certain and inevitable.

"It's as dangerous for me as it is for any of us. Interacting with the witch is a danger in itself."

"But you still want to take her out, right, Kei?"

"Yeah. I won't back down. I'm surprisingly stubborn.", said Kei.

"I know.", answered Haruki.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

After that, Kei ran multiple tests on Sasano's ability.

He measured the time it took for the polaroid to spit out the photo after the shutter click and checked how damaged a photo needed to be to activate the ability. He scratched pictures, ripped just a tip, re-ripped a photo that was already used for the ability once, etc. Murase ripped a photo with her power to erase abilities, and also canceled the ability from inside the photo.

The group debated countermeasures for delicate problems that could occur until 8 PM, when they got in Sasano's car. They were scheduled to invade a Bureau building at 09:15.

Sasano in the driver's seat, Murase in the passenger seat, and Kei and Haruki in the back seat. It had gotten quite dark outside. The streets in this part of town didn't have much traffic.

"Why did it have to be 09:15?", asked Murase with her eyes on the road.

(Right, I didn't explain that part.)

"That's around the time Oka Eri will be invading the building."

To be more precise, Oka Eri would reach the witch at 09:18.

"We'll make the invasion look like a search for her."

"Why?"

"Because Oka Eri's invasion is already guaranteed to work."

(This part must be in the witch's prediction. I don't know how but Oka Eri will reach the witch at 09:18. If she's guaranteed to succeed, that's something we can exploit.)

"Well, I wasn't expecting that.", said Murase.

"Expecting what?"

"I thought you'd try to stop Oka Eri at an earlier stage."

"Why?"

"If she doesn't get to go to the building, that's one less person involved in these events."

"You're completely right."

Oka Eri wasn't necessary. With Murase's ability, it was highly likely they would be able to reach the witch and get the photos they wanted.

"But our likelihood of success will increase with Oka Eri around."

Oka Eri was moving toward her goal while Haruki and Murase were doing him a favor. Putting the two sides on the scale, it's obvious protecting Haruki and Murase is the greater priority.

Nonetheless, Oka Eri was the safest person in this scenario. Her invasion would be erased by the Reset. Unlike Haruki and Murase, she wouldn't leave a trace in the form of a photograph.

"Sure.", answered Murase Youka. Nothing more was said.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sure.", answered Murase Youka. Nothing more was said.

She had no complaints about Asai's plan.

(Not that I can say anything about Oka Eri after my own actions last month, but she's being stupid. I can't find any need or value in keeping only her in a special safe space. Still, his answer is too cold for my taste. Asai is being too impartial. I have a bad feeling about this.)

She was a little scared of defying the Bureau. In her inner thoughts, she mocked herself.

(Look where I got from intending to defeat the Bureau alone last month. My will to confront the Bureau was probably a lie. I never had this sort of courage. I just had so much I was dissatisfied about and couldn't process or accept. I was so lost with no idea of what was the right thing to do that I had to keep myself together with this impossible claim that I'd beat the Bureau. It was all lies. Asai and Tsushima probably figured out the lies. Only I was in the dark about them.)

If she really cared about fighting the Bureau, she would have been more efficient about it. She had no need to lead herself astray with the MacGuffin's unrealistic rumors. She insisted she would fight the Bureau someday while secretly wishing this someday would never come.

Her stubborn pride made her fall for her own lies and never look back. And once she crossed the line, Asai Kei stopped her.

She was glad to have been stopped. Murase doesn't know much about the Bureau. But she is afraid of it. Maybe she's scared because she doesn't know. Or perhaps it being an adult organization is enough of a reason for a high schooler to fear it.

Sasano's car approached its destination. The clock kept ticking. They'd be infiltrating a Bureau building in less than an hour.

(I'll save a woman confined by the Bureau. It's the right thing to do. Simple as that. A lot more respectable than my random lashing out and brainless claims that I'd defeat the Bureau last month. I genuinely want to help. But that doesn't make it any less scary.)

Murase shifted her gaze to Asai and Haruki in the back seat.

They were talking about fireworks. About his fondness for the splashing sound of a water bucket being emptied. About his fear of playing with sparklers while wearing sandals because the fire always falls on his feet. She sighed at the disconnect between their talk and the situation. Asai asked what was Murase's favorite type of fireworks and she answered the Catherine wheel. She didn't know quite well why she chose that. She didn't particularly think the Catherine wheel was all that above the competition. In fact, she didn't remember ever seeing one live.

"Why is she nameless?", Murase asked.

She asked Asai but the answer came from Sasano in the driver's seat. In hindsight, he was the right person to ask. He was far more informed about it.

"28 years ago, the Bureau stopped acknowledging her as a human being. They decided to deny her of everything that made her a unique individual.", said Sasano in a surprisingly calm tone. "That's because her ability is too powerful. That ability split the Bureau into two groups. The ones who wanted her to be the Bureau's absolute ruler and the ones who wanted to use her ability to take over the Bureau themselves. A really dumb story if you ask me. But 28 years ago there was a major conflict between those two factions."

The Bureau split in half.

Murase didn't understand the exact implications of this, but she knew it was something that couldn't be allowed in Sakurada.

"She can see the future. She knew all along she'd be the center of a conflict. She even found a way to resolve it.", continued Sasano.

"Is that why she discarded her name?", Kei asked from the back seat.

Sasano slowly nodded.

"Losing her name was a symbolic act. What matters is that she forsake her individuality and became just a tool. She isolated herself in a confined room, withheld all of her opinions, and never saw people again. She chose to be a mechanical, impartial system."

She did it to become a system and nothing else.

She stopped being human 28 years ago.

"The greatest ability ever can't be used for personal gain. She couldn't be allowed a will. The only way to form our Bureau was for her to become an emotionless system."

Murase looked outside the window. The night was dark. Only one pair of red tail lamps could be seen far ahead.

(It's so hard to relate to such an unrealistic story.)

Sasano looked straight ahead, presumably in the direction of the witch's building.

"I want to retrieve the witch's humanity, no matter what it takes. I want to look her in the eye and call her by her name.", he said.

Murase nodded to no one in particular.

It was a necessary thing to do.

[authorfrannyj]

Nyla and Kane undoubtedly have a love unlike no other.

At twenty two, Nyla has had her fair of heartbreak in life. Growing up the trauma she experienced has left her with mental instabilities. Now life so far has been a game she vowed to win. Beautiful and hardworking with a secret kinky side, Nyla was used to the rush and excitement that living a double life provided a chance encounter with Kane that made her rethink it all.

Kane is a twenty seven black man with so much potential and Nyla sees it. Although he’s incarcerated, the physical boundary of jail cell is no match for the chemistry and love connection the two developed. As soon as Kane is released from prison, not only does the two love birds relationship take off like a rocket but it quickly comes crashing when Nyla’s secrets slowly start coming out and the trust is tainted.

Will Nyla and Kane be able to bounce back in the love zone like nothing never happened or will they allow their challenges to ruin their bond FOREVER?

[drmorrisbrown]

Behind Bars No More: The Movement Toward Fairer Sentencing

The United States criminal justice system has long been criticized for its harsh sentencing policies, which have contributed to an overcrowded prison system and significant disparities in the treatment of individuals based on race, economic status, and minor criminal histories. In recent years, there has been a growing movement toward fairer sentencing, driven by advocacy, policy reform, and public awareness efforts to create a more just and equitable system.

Rethinking Mandatory Minimums

One of the core components of the push for fairer sentencing is the reassessment of mandatory minimum sentences. These are fixed sentences imposed on specific crimes, typically drug offenses, without allowing judges to consider the circumstances of the case or the individual's background. Critics argue that mandatory minimums remove judicial discretion, apply a one-size-fits-all approach to justice, and disproportionately impact minority communities.

Recent reforms have focused on reducing or eliminating mandatory minimums for certain non-violent offenses, allowing judges more freedom to apply sentences that truly fit the individual circumstances of each case. This shift recognizes the importance of context and the potential for rehabilitation, aiming to reduce recidivism by providing appropriate, individualized sentences.

Addressing Racial Disparities

The movement toward fairer sentencing also includes addressing the significant racial disparities within the criminal justice system. Statistics show that African Americans and Latinos are more likely to be sentenced to prison and receive longer sentences compared to their white counterparts for similar crimes. This disparity is partly due to systemic biases and the disproportionate impact of policies like the War on Drugs on communities of color.

Efforts to rectify these disparities include reviewing and revising sentencing guidelines and enhancing training for law enforcement and judicial personnel on cultural competence and implicit bias. Additionally, some jurisdictions are implementing racial impact statements as a part of sentencing reform to understand better how certain policies might affect different communities.

Expanding Alternatives to Incarceration

Another key aspect of the movement toward fairer sentencing is the expansion of alternatives to incarceration. For non-violent offenders, particularly those with drug addiction issues, options such as treatment programs, community service, and probation can provide more appropriate and productive means of justice. These alternatives reduce the number of people in prison, focus on rehabilitation, and reduce the likelihood of re-offense.

Programs emphasizing restorative justice, which seeks to repair the harm caused by criminal behavior through reconciliation with victims and the community, are also gaining traction. These programs often involve mediated meetings between victims and offenders, community service, and other rehabilitation measures to address the root causes of criminal behavior.

The Role of Advocacy and Activism

Advocacy groups and activists are pivotal in pushing for fairer sentencing laws. Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Sentencing Project are at the forefront of this movement, working to raise awareness, influence policy, and provide legal support to those affected by unfair sentencing practices. These organizations also help mobilize grassroots support and advocate for legislative changes at the state and federal levels.

Public education campaigns are critical in changing perceptions about crime and punishment, particularly around drug-related offenses, which have historically been met with punitive rather than rehabilitative responses. By informing the public about the benefits of fairer sentencing practices, advocates can generate the political will necessary to sustain reform efforts.

Legislative Reforms and Challenges

The path toward legislative reform is complex and fraught with challenges. Lawmakers must balance public safety concerns with the need for justice and equity. However, recent years have seen significant progress with bipartisan support for sentencing reform legislation at the federal and state levels.

The First Step Act, which was passed in 2018, is an example of such reform at the federal level. It reduced mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug offenses and gave judges greater discretion. Despite these advances, ongoing advocacy is needed to ensure the implementation of these policies and address any unintended consequences.

Looking Ahead: Continuing the Push for Change

As the movement toward fairer sentencing continues, monitoring the outcomes of implemented reforms and making adjustments as needed is essential. This includes ongoing research into the effectiveness of alternative sentencing programs and continuous efforts to address any new disparities that may arise.

The movement toward fairer sentencing is about reforming policies and shifting societal attitudes towards justice and rehabilitation. By focusing on fairness, rehabilitation, and the reintegration of offenders back into society, the criminal justice system can more effectively serve its foundational purpose of enhancing public safety while upholding the principles of justice and equality.

[abolition-subject-guide]

Rethinking Incarceration

Victoria Law writes a riveting piece explaining what abolition is and what it looks like in action. Law also shares insight into pivotal abolitionist movements. The page also links a speech by Angela Davis to further provide the reader with more resources to continue their research.

Law, Victoria. “Rethinking Incarceration.” Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, 2022, www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news-and-ideas/rethinking-incarceration. 

[rethinkrx]

Your Quick Guide to Obtaining a Medical Marijuana Card in Roanoke, VA  

As interest in alternative medicine grows, so does the acceptance and use of medicinal cannabis. The process of obtaining a medical marijuana card in Roanoke, VA, has never been more straightforward, thanks to services like Rethink-Rx. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to get the cheapest and most reliable medical marijuana card in Roanoke, VA.

The Growing Acceptance of Medical Marijuana

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 147 million people, nearly 2.5% of the global population, consume marijuana annually. In the United States alone, approximately 22.2 million Americans aged 12 or older reported using cannabis in 2014, with 8.4% using it in the previous month.

Support for legalizing cannabis has significantly increased, especially for the medical use of cannabis. A Gallup poll from October 2016 indicated that 60% of Americans believe cannabis should be legalized. Additionally, a Quinnipiac University poll found that 87% of American voters think U.S. Veterans Administration doctors should be allowed to prescribe marijuana to veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Currently, 38 states in the U.S. have approved cannabis for medicinal use, reflecting its growing acceptance. Despite some lingering controversy, medicinal cannabis represents a revival of a historically significant plant now reemerging in modern healthcare. The FDA is actively reviewing public data regarding the safety, uses and risks of medicinal cannabis, showing the evolving landscape of its use.

The Benefits of Obtaining a Medical Marijuana Card in Roanoke, VA

Obtaining a medical marijuana card in Roanoke, VA, provides numerous benefits. For those fed up with traditional health solutions, medicinal cannabis is a breath of fresh air - a potent, plant-based remedy that's simple to use. The process is designed to be simple, efficient, and supportive, ensuring patients can quickly access the needed treatment.

How to Get Your Medical Marijuana Card in Roanoke, VA

Rethink-Rx has streamlined the process of obtaining a medical marijuana card in Roanoke, VA, making it accessible and hassle-free. By offering easy online appointments with cannabis healthcare specialists, you no longer need to leave the comfort of your home to be evaluated and certified for medical cannabis in Virginia. Here's how you can get started:

Select an Appointment Time: Choose a convenient time for your consultation. Rethink-Rx offers flexible online scheduling to accommodate your needs.

Complete Some Forms: Fill out the necessary forms that we send using your phone or computer. This step is straightforward and ensures your information is ready for the consultation.

Talk with a Doctor: Have a secure telehealth appointment with a board-certified doctor. During this consultation, discuss your medical history and reasons for seeking a medical marijuana card. If approved, you'll receive your medical certificate via email immediately.

Once you have your medical marijuana card, you can start purchasing products at dispensaries without waiting. For those needing a physical card for purposes other than dispensary use, such as employment, Rethink-Rx can assist with that as well.

The Broader Impact and Future of Medical Marijuana

President Biden's recent statement on marijuana reform emphasizes the need to end the incarceration of individuals for marijuana possession, highlighting the disproportionate impact on Black and brown communities. This action aims to alleviate barriers in employment, housing, and education faced by thousands with federal marijuana possession convictions.

Why Choose Rethink-Rx for Your Medical Marijuana Card in Roanoke, VA

When you need a medical marijuana card in Roanoke, VA, Rethink-Rx is the trusted guide that's got your back. They take the tedium out of documentation, letting you swiftly access the papers you need, and get on with your life. From the get-go, Rethink-Rx's board-certified doctors aim to make alternative medicine feel attainable, rather than overwhelming. With their expertise and warmth, you'll find the path to wellness much clearer.

Take the First Step Today

Ready to explore the benefits of medicinal cannabis? Schedule your appointment with Rethink-Rx and take the first step towards obtaining your medical marijuana card in Roanoke, VA. Trust in their expertise and support to guide you through the process, ensuring you can access the treatment you need with ease.

For more information about Medical Marijuana Card In Leesburg and Virginia Medical Marijuanas Card Cost please visit:- ReThink-RX