#still profiting from slavery

[tomorrowusa]

A Conservative politician is making millions off of slavery 190 years after slavery was abolished in Britain and its territories.

Tory Richard Drax comes from a filthy rich family notorious for having established the model for slave-based sugar plantations in the Caribbean in the 1620s. Even by the standards of a slave-based economy, the record of the Drax family was appalling.

The Barbados plantation was worked by up to 327 slaves at a time, with the death rate for both adults and children high. Sir Hilary Beckles, chairman of the 20-state Caribbean Community’s (Caricom) Reparations Commission and vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies, estimates that as many 30,000 slaves died on the Drax plantations in Barbados and Jamaica over 200 years.

Thanks largely to their their ill-gained riches, the Drax family owns a 700 acre walled estate in Dorset which includes a deer park. And apparently they are getting even richer.

Despite threats to make Richard Drax pay reparations and seize his family’s plantation – described by one historian as a “killing field” of enslaved Africans – the government is now planning to pay market value for 21 hectares (about 15 football pitches) of his land for housing. The move has angered many Barbadians, especially those who say the Drax family played a pivotal role in the development of slavery-based sugar production and the Barbados slave code in the 17th century. This denied Black Africans basic human rights, including the right to life. Critics have called the planned deal an “atrocity” and said this is “one plantation that the government should not be paying a cent for”. Trevor Prescod, MP and chair of the Barbados National Taskforce on Reparations, said: “What a bad example this is. Reparations and Drax Hall are now top of the global agenda. How do we explain this to the world? “The government should not be entering into any [commercial] relationship with Richard Drax, especially as we are negotiating with him regarding reparations.”

It's baffling why the Barbadian government would enter into such a deal.

Drax, the MP for South Dorset, travelled to Barbados to meet prime minister Mia Mottley. It is understood he was asked to hand over all or a substantial part of Drax Hall plantation. If he refused, legal action would follow. Mottley’s spokesperson said the current Drax Hall purchase was not linked to reparations and the government “constantly acquires land through this process”. Mottley has pledged to build 10,000 new homes to meet demand on the island, where there are 20,000 applications for housing. A senior valuation surveyor said the market value for agricultural land with an alternative use for housing would be about Bds$150,000 (£60,000) an acre. At this price, the 21 hectares could net Drax Bds$8m (£3.2m). The land would be for 500 low- and middle-income family homes, which would be for sale.

I'd just grab the land and pay Drax a token £1 just so he legally can't claim he wasn't compensated at all for the transfer.

Barbados poet laureate Esther Phillips, who grew up next to Drax Hall, said the planned deal was an “atrocity” and a case of the victims’ descendants now compensating the descendant of the enslaver. “He should be giving us this land as reparations, not further enriching himself … at the expense of Barbadians. As Barbadians, we must speak out against this.”

And with the reported thousands of deaths during the 200+ years of slavery at the Drax plantation, how many people will be comfortable with the idea that their new home is built on what was essentially a forced labor camp which became a model for regional slavery? Isn't the Drax property on Barbados a large cemetery?

[thenwethrowitonthefire]

Our previous-prime-minister-now-head-of-navo currently keeps saying that we should prepare for war which might break out between now and the next 5 years.

[homiro]

It was okay before. It was okay when Bush was elected twice. Yes, more people will die again but when has that stopped happening especially in Muslim countries? It will be okay. It won't be good but it will be okay. Humanity has been fighting and killing each other for millennia. There was I think maybe less than month of peace since 1945.

Remember all the times it was hard and it was okay. Not good, the word really is 'okay'. Remember boarding schools and assimilation. Remember slavery. Remember segregation. Remember Emmett Till. Remember the Civil Rights Movements. Remember that the Native-American Self-determination Act only dates back to 1975. It will be okay. Take this time to reconnect with nature and spirituality. I'm not saying 'go to church' but by all means if that's your creed, go for it. It helps. Even if you're a minority or marginalised and that creed says you're going to hell, I know there are ways to see the original intentions of love and kindness. "Fazer o bem sem olhar a quem" (do good without caring to whom). But now more than ever it's a time to connect with nature and see that there's more than money and greed and the 1% that keep the 99% looking down. Fuck, find strength for an uprising in the power of connecting with nature and your ancestral roots. Even if you're white. White people were indigenous once and that's still in the genes and people forget that. It feels like most people are so removed from the natural ways of human existence that they don't remember anything anymore. Maybe that's why people are so tired and lost and the energy of the world feels so gloom and heavy.

Just some thoughts and more in the tags because I'm a goofy kinda weird tree hugger.

Take care of yourselves. Take care of others. Remember your ancestors. Read about history. Read about spirituality and how good it can be. Don't take my word for it, check Durkheim's theories on the importance of belief in well-being. It doesn't have to be Jesus. It can be that one tree you like to look at. It can be a rainy day or a sunny day. It can be the smell of coffee or something like that. I guess what I'm on about is that for it to be okay you need to find what makes it worthwhile for you.

It will be okay.

it will be okay.

[tashibum]

To Own, But Not To Share (I & II)

Part 3 Part 4

Chapter summary: Emperor Geta is buying a new sex slave. The auctioneer has a try before you buy scheme.

Emperor Geta x Female Reader

Warnings: SMUT, 18+, pure filth, dubcon, sex slaves, slavery, buying people, public sex, unprotected sex, creampie. One sided Caracalla/reader. 4.6k words. Read on AO3

(I only saw Gladiator 2 because of Pedro Pascal, but then became obsessed with Emperor Geta as soon as I saw him. Only had horny thought since then 😂)

The Auction

Watching the women before you be paraded out one by one terrified you. The auctioneer was as disgusting as the men in the crowd bidding. Through the bars of the cage you could see at least 100 men all there to see what sorts of slaves they could buy. Technically, your owners could use you for whatever they wanted, whether it be household chores or physical labour. But the auctioneer saw the crowd around him, and knew how to sell the women for the best profit. 

The first woman was brought out and stood still where she was placed. She was guided to turn around to show her body, then the auctioneer lifted up her threadbare toga to display her bare ass to the men. 

Her ass received a hard spank. “Not much jiggle, but you could fatten her up to your liking,” he explained. 

He then went down to kneel behind her. He pushed down on her back, encouraging her to arch it. With both his hands, he spread her cheeks apart. When he had savoured the view, he spat onto her hole. You saw the woman shiver at the sensation.

“Well would you look at that. A perfect puckered hole ready to be used,” the auctioneer teased. 

It was disgusting, but it was your life now. Your new owner would use you however he saw fit. 

The next girl was brought out. She was roughly pushed down onto her knees to kneel before the men. 

“Look at those lips,” he mused. The auctioneer pulled up his toga and presented his semi-hard cock. He handled his dick and bounced it against the poor woman’s lips, before forcing it inside.

You tried to look past the assault that was happening and into the crowd. Everyone moved forward to see the spectacle shown. The sunlight reflected on something and sent a beam of blinding light your way. Moving away from it, you squinted to try to find the source, and that was where you found the Emperor in his headdress. He was surrounded by men in armour, you supposed they were his guards. 

You knew you were going to be out next. And now you knew Emperor Geta would see you be defiled. The shame and embarrassment of someone of such aristocracy witnessing it, it made you want to curl up into a ball. But then the thought occurred that it might be a good thing. Out of all the men there to buy a slave, the Emperor would surely provide you with the best life. You would be fed and washed. You might even get a bed to sleep in. 

You pondered this as the highest bidder of the woman on the floor was now getting his dick sucked. 

“Would you like to continue with the purchase?” The auctioneer asked.

“Ah, yes,” the buyer replied, his hands grabbing his new slave’s greasy hair to force his cock further inside her mouth. 

You were next. Two men grabbed you by your arms to roughly guide you out of the cage towards the centre of the clearing. They were instructed to lift up your arms and remove your clothing.

The auctioneer stalked his way around your naked body slowly, checking you out. Your eyes searched for Emperor Geta’s, but not in the seductive way you imagined. Instead, you wanted someone to help you. The reality hit you hard that you were probably about to be raped, and would be for the rest of your life. 

“On all fours.” You were instructed, and slowly made your way down to rest your hands and knees on the cobbled brickwork. From this angle, the men could see your body from the side. Your breasts hanging, your bottom curved. 

The auctioneer went behind you and you heard him getting on his knees too, moving his tunic. Your eyes found Geta’s, and they stayed there as you were entered. You were not aroused, your sex had not produced anything to ease the intrusion. The pain from the friction made you drop your head. Your eyes now focused on your hands in front of you as you tried to ground yourself. 

“As you can see, she can handle a large cock,” the auctioneer boasted. 

Geta scoffed. He thought it was pathetic if the middle aged man truly thought he was well endowed. He knew he was bigger. 

“May I have a turn?” Geta asked, walking through the crowd towards you. The security team followed, but Geta made them stay with the crowd. 

The attack on you finally ended, and the man quickly withdrew himself from you. You winced at the sudden sharp friction. 

“Why, of-of course Emperor. It would be my pleasure,” the auctioneer stuttered and stood to the side.

“The pleasure will be mine,” he retorted and went to his knees. 

The most powerful man in Rome was directly behind your naked body, and you were extremely self-conscious about what he saw. The Emperors probably had maidens to keep their whores beautiful. They would be bathed, shaved and plucked to the leaders’ likings. 

You had not washed in weeks. 

The Emperor hiked up his long white tunic, now getting filth from the ground all over it, and stroked his cock to get fully erect. He then spat down onto it, stroked it to cover it all. You then heard him spit again. This time he spat into his hand and rubbed it over your entrance. He did not give you much, believing that you would be turned on by being with an Emperor. 

He collected your hair in his hand and yanked it. “Look at me,” he demanded. You knew better than to defy his orders. 

He guided his cock to you with his free hand, and stared deep into your eyes as he pushed the tip inside. He was bigger than the previous intrusion, and you were still dry inside. Your mouth opened and your head turned to face ahead again.

“Look at me!” He fumed. When he had you locked in eye contact again, he pushed the rest of his length inside you.

“Gods,” you quietly exclaimed. 

Geta smirked. This wasn’t just him having sex with a slave. He was showing off his power to everyone in the audience. Reinforcing the image of a powerful leader to his subjects. 

His hands moved to your hips to help him thrust inside you at a steady pace. You bit your lip and nodded at him, a silent acknowledgment that you were fine with this, not that he would have cared if you didn’t. Once your body had grown accustomed to his girth, you could feel pleasure start to grow. The intense eye contact you shared made you throb. 

“Tight, isn’t she?” The auctioneer encouraged, reminding you that despite only seeing Geta, you were not alone. The Emperor shot him a stare, displeased with the interruption. 

He soon returned his eyes back to you. He looked gorgeous this close up. You got to see the makeup surrounding his needy eyes. You wanted to feel his lips on yours. You wanted him to rub his nose against your shoulders as he caressed you. 

You let out a moan and quickly brought a hand to your mouth to stifle it. 

“Let them hear you. Show them what their Emperor is capable of,” he boasted. For your own dignity, or what dignity you had left, you would try to stay quiet until he was finished. 

Selfishly, you wanted to touch him. From this position of him taking you from behind, your hands had to remain on the ground to keep you steady. 

“Lay down,” you quietly requested. You didn’t want everyone to hear you, especially when things could go badly. No one tells Emperors Geta or Caracalla what to do. He could have you killed for speaking to him. You had heard rumours of them killing people for lesser crimes.

His thrusts slowed to a standstill. For a moment you expected to be hit, but he smiled mischievously. You were making him appear desired and lusted over. 

He laid down with his feet nearest the audience, this way you would block him from view as you rode him. You moved the front of his long tunic to his waist as you hovered on top of him. Your body had now coated you with juices, letting him slip inside so easily. Not knowing if he wanted a slave to touch him, you kept your hands on your thighs, helping you bounce on top of him. 

“Lay back and let her do all the work. A smart move, Emperor,” the auctioneer praised. You could make him a lot of money if you pleased the Emperor, he could pay much more than the rest of the men there to buy. 

Emperor Geta shook his head against the bricks. This wasn’t about letting you do the hard work, this was about pleasure. He could tell you were getting off, and believed beautiful creatures such as yourself deserved orgasms. 

He began to thrust his hips up into you shallowly, only slightly, to help you on your way. 

You wanted to moan and beg him to fuck you harder, but you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. You had to remind yourself that no matter the pleasure he gave you, you were just another slave to him. 

Your hand grabbed your breast, needing more stimulation. Like he could read your mind, his hands slowly touched your thighs, then moved upwards to caress your hips, stomach and ribs before moving your hand away and holding your breasts. He squeezed them before moving to your nipples to hold them between his thumbs and pointer fingers. You expected him to pinch them hard, but he softly tugged on them, causing you no pain whatsoever. 

You leaned forward, resting your hands on his clothed torso. If you were alone with him, you would shimmy your shoulders, resulting in your breasts swaying side to side for him, but you could still see the auctioneer in your peripheral vision. 

“How much for her?” Geta asked, his eyes not leaving you, enjoying the feel of your breasts and welcoming cunt. 

“4000 sesterces,” the auctioneer offered. It was higher than the usual price of a slave, but he knew the Emperor could afford it. 

“She is worth more than that,” Geta complained. 

He was talking about buying you, you shouldn’t have taken it as a compliment, but you did. The Emperor liked you. You kept repeating it in your head. 

He likes me. He likes me. He likes me. 

It made you ride him harder. You grinded back and forth on his cock, desperate for one of you to cum. You wanted him to buy you, to take you back to the palace and keep you. His cock was angled perfectly inside you, as though Venus herself sculpted you both to fit perfectly together.

His hands left your breasts to caress your hips and waist. The metal of his rings scratched your skin as he moved them, but you didn’t care as long as his fingers touched you. The gesture could almost be seen as romantic under different circumstances. 

In the past, you had made yourself peak when rubbing yourself, but you were about to climax with neither you or him touching your nub. When being penetrated before, you derived no pleasure from it. But something about his cock was different. It was like he found parts of you no one ever had before. It made you want to chase the feeling. 

You rode him even harder, desperate for that elusive end. You felt it nearing and did not stop until it hit you. 

And it hit you hard. 

You had not climaxed in a long while, so maybe that was why it was so intense. Or maybe it was the Emperor’s glorious length. Your movements slowed to small grinds as your body convulsed on top of him. Your physical reaction on the outside matching what was happening inside. Your walls clenched around him. Tight, hot and wet. That, matched with seeing your body shake caused the Emperor to reach his peak too. 

You saw his face tensed in pleasure. You felt his load shoot inside you. None of the other plebeians could claim that. 

You moved off him to sit between his legs. His cock still throbbed against his belly until you saw it turn flaccid. If he was alone with you, he would order you to clean him up with your tongue, but he would wait until he had you all to himself for that. 

You pulled your knees to your chest to try to cover yourself now that the act was over. Between your legs, Geta could see his spend leaking out of you and onto the brick below. 

He turned his head to the auctioneer, “25,000 sesterces,” he offered. The Emperor would pay more if his offer was rejected. He’d pay anything to have you with him.

The man approached him and shook his hand, “We have a deal, my lord.” He had just made his entire projected profit from the whole batch of women he had from you. 

Geta stood up and made himself look presentable again. “Have her taken back. Make the maidens wash and feed her,” he directed. 

You were taken and placed in a carriage. They did not pick up your tatty toga, so you journeyed to the palace naked, the Emperor’s seed drying on your inner thighs. 

The Palace

You did not see him again when you entered the palace. You were in the slaves quarters, a large room filled with beds and dressing tables. You were given a simple toga upon entry, but told more lavish clothing awaited you. It was the first time being a slave you were given decent clothes. You were given soup and bread and ate it with the maids as none of the other women approached you. You assumed they were fellow sex slaves too. But you were puzzled as to why they would not introduce themselves to you. Surely they knew what you went through?

“Why are they all staring?” You asked.

“You are fresh meat. One more person to fight over the Emperors’ affections with.”

These other slaves saw you as competition. It made you wonder how nicely the Emperors treated their whores if they all wanted to be most favoured by them.

The next day you had two maidens bathe you in warm, soapy water. One of them focused on cleaning your hair and body, the other shaved and plucked hair from all over your body. It hurt, and you were terrified of the blade cutting you in your most intimate area, but this was how the Emperors wanted you. You had been told that you would join them today for your first day of work.

No matter how fancy and luxurious things were, this was your work. Your body had to look perfect as it was the only thing keeping you in the royal palace.

You quietly entered a grand hall filled with people. Over the other side you saw a large couch with the Emperors sat on it, surrounded by the slaves who wouldn’t give you the time of day. You found a chair by the door and sat down, thinking it would be for the best if they were not to see you. You didn’t want to cause tension, you would gladly let the other men and women shower them with touches if it meant it made your life easier. They might put on a show of acceptance in front of the Emperors, but in your quarters you feared segregation.

You kept looking up to see if anyone had spotted you, and in doing so, caught Geta’s gaze. You cursed yourself for not being more careful when stealing gazes their way. Geta pushed off the woman draped over him and gestured for you to come over.

“Come,” his voice bellowed out in the room. The woman who he pushed away did not seem happy, it made you nervous to make your way over there.

You wore a colourful dress made out of expensive fabric. Your hair had been combed and small braids had been added, tiny flowers placed precariously within the hairs.

He moved over slightly and patted a space between himself and the armrest for you to sit in. It was not a large space, you found yourself trying to shrink yourself to fit, bringing in your shoulders and crossing your legs tightly.

“There is no need for that,” Geta turned and said to you.

You realised that he wanted you to have to lean on him, practically sit on him. So you took on the role he wanted, you positioned yourself so your back rested on him, placed your head on his chest. His left hand held his wine, his right hand smoothed down your arm to your hand where his fingers traced patterns in your palm.

“So this is what you bought,” his brother noted from beside him. “25,000 sesterces is extortionate. You should have the auctioneer executed.”

“We are not short on money,” Geta argued back.

“She must be worth it,” Caracalla bickered.

“Worth every coin,” affirmed Geta.

He began to trace your neck with his nose, then his lips. His hot breath against your skin gave you goosebumps. It wasn’t long before he was placing wet kisses up and down the side of your neck. It was so sweet it made you forget your relationship with him was slave and master. You expected roughness and abuse from your owner, not kindness.

His kisses aroused you. You started to rub your thighs together for pleasure, wishing his hand would move from yours to beneath your dress.

“Can I kiss you?” You whispered for his ears only.

He took a firm hold on your chin and brought you forward towards him, his lips claiming yours. If he did this with all the women, you could see why they fought over his affections. He made you feel wanted and adored.

He tasted like the fruit wine he had been drinking, amplified when his tongue went to yours. With your eyes shut, you couldn’t see the looks of contempt coming from the other concubines, like you were advancing on their territory.

You pulled your lips away from his and held his face in your hands, stroking his jawline with your thumbs. “Please, I want you.”

You naively thought he would take you somewhere alone, so were taken back when he put his wine on the floor by is feet and pulled you on top of him, making you sit with your back pressed against his chest. You would have sex with him in front of all these people, you tried to calm yourself with the thought that they do this all the time and no one cares. Or at least, no one had the bravery to share their concerns with the Emperors for fear of death. He pulled your dress up at the back for access, but left the front of your dress to cover yourselves. He pulled up his knee-length toga and slapped his cock against your wet sex. He did not need any time to prepare; kissing you had made him erect.

He did not give you any time to prepare either, good thing you didn’t need it. His cock slid through your folds, nudging your clit, before finding its home inside you.

You let out a quiet gasp, not wanting to make a scene.

“There is no need to refrain. Everyone here knows what we’re doing,” he comforted, speaking into your ear. “Show them you were worth the money.”

You moved your legs to kneel on the couch, making it easier to bounce on him. To anyone who looked over it was obvious you were riding his dick. Maybe that was what the Emperors liked. They got off on others’ humiliation.

Unlike when you rode him before, this time his hand went under your dress to where your bodies met. He felt your entrance stretch around him, then moved north to your clit. With your wetness, he began to rub. Lightly at first, but then with pressure in little circles. You wondered which whore taught him that.

“Emperor, I-“

“Yes,” he cut you off. “Explode on me. Feel rich with the pleasure I give you.”

When your orgasm hit, you shuddered and his cock slipped out of you, leaving you clenching around nothing. His hand didn’t stop rubbing. Even when you closed your legs to take his hand away from the over-sensitive nub, he forced his hand back there to keep going.

With his hand coated in your slick, he gripped his cock and started to stroke himself. He must have already been near as he only had to work on himself for 20 seconds or so before he shot his load over his hand and the neat patch of hair on your mound. He brought his hand to your mouth, and you gladly cleaned it for him. Taking each finger into your mouth one by one, sucking them clean. If you really thought about it, him feeding you cum out of his hand should disgust you, but you would take any piece of him he offered you.

You turned and saw Caracalla smiling at you, impressed with the display.

“I want my go,” he expressed.

Geta looked at him silently. He knew exactly what his brother wanted, but did not want to grant it.

“What’s with the face brother? We share everything: Rome, the palace, power. You bought her with our money. We both own her. I want my turn!” he demanded.

Geta knew he had no real claim on you. He had nothing to argue back with, so begrudgingly had to let you go to him.

You didn’t want to though. You turned around on his lap to face him, your eyes pleading him to help you. He could see your hesitation and silently enjoyed it. He shared everything, he just wanted you for himself.

“It’s okay. Go,” he tried to comfort, but it did not give you any confidence.

You walked over to him on shaky legs before he grabbed you and pulled you onto his lap. His hands went under your dress all the way to your breasts to squeeze them. Unlike his brother, he was harsh. He pinched your nipples then used them to shake your breasts. He leaned up to reach your neck with his mouth, but instead of his brother’s gentle kisses, Caracalla scraped his teeth on your skin, biting down now and then.

You turned towards Geta, but he didn’t see you. His gaze was set forwards, breathing heavily with his hand gripping his chalice so hard his fingertips turned white. He could not help you, so you surrendered yourself to Caracalla’s wants.

His hands went into your dress and two fingers quickly made their way inside you. After a minute of pumping fingers, he withdrew his hand to inspect it.

“All that cream for me,” he noted.

You wanted to slap him and tell him that your arousal was not for him. It was his brother that created that inside you. He was merely feeling his brother’s leftovers.

You looked over at Geta, but his eyes were still locked forwards, as though he was trying his hardest to avoid what was happening next to him.

You were pushed down, his cock spearing into you, and you knew you had no choice but to fuck him. You started to slowly move, and when Caracalla was unsatisfied with your performance, he grounded his feet and began to thrust up into you.

You held onto the back of the couch for support and looked at Geta again. This time, he looked back at you with sorry eyes.

You hoped Caracalla would reach his peak quickly to end your torture, but he seemed to have good stamina.

“He needs you to cum,” Geta stated, looking away from you again.

That would be an impossible feat. Why did Caracalla care about your pleasure? Why didn’t he just use your hole for his satisfaction like every other slave owner would?

Caracalla smiled at you; it made you feel sick.

“You came for him, but you struggle with me! Am I not worthy?” He roared.

“Of course you are worthy, my Emperor,” you placated.

You could try to fake your peak, but what if he knew? Would he kill you for it?

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as he fucked you, giving Geta the chance to take ahold of your hand. He moved it to his mouth and gently kissed it. It was a kind gesture, but not helpful in your current predicament.

He placed your hand in one of his palms, and used his other hand to tap your palm. He did this, then looked at you, then looked at your crotch. At first you had no idea what he was insinuating. Then it clicked.

The motions he was doing on your hand. He wanted you to do it to your clit.

You unsteadily let go of the couch and led your other hand under your dress. Geta held your arm to keep you from slumping on his brother. He simply wanted you to tap for now. His tapping got faster, so yours did too. The tapping on your hand changed to slow circles. As two of your fingers circled your pearl, you were sure you were getting wetter because of it. Caracalla would think it was his doing, unaware of his brother’s silent communication with you.

Geta began to circle your palm so aggressively, you thought his fingernail would burrow into your skin. You rubbed your clit desperate to orgasm, and when it started, you let out a loud gasp to make sure Caracalla knew what was happening. Geta let go of your arm and your body fell forwards onto his brothers, further making him believe he had given you an intense climax.

Not giving yourself anytime to enjoy what Geta had given you, you got off him and went down onto your knees between his legs. You did not want him to shoot his seed inside you, he didn’t seem like the kind that would pull out and the thought of it made you wince.

You started to jerk his cock at a furious pace, desperate for this ordeal to be finally over. When he came, you directed his cock towards his belly, not to get any on you.

When he had finished, Geta took your arm and tugged you back to him, making you sit where you previously had been, between him and the armrest.

“Brother,” Caracalla started, “That was amazing. I thought she was going to stroke my cock clean off.”

Geta gave his brother a villainous smile as he normally would, but didn’t share his brother’s joy. He wrapped his arm over your shoulders, stroking your upper arm.

“Would you like some wine?” He asked, thinking it might relax you after what you had to do. You shook your head.

“Tea?” He offered. You were aware that if you kept declining him, it could be seen as rude, so you nodded and repeated tea to him. Tea would be easier to stomach than alcohol right now.

Geta raised his left hand and clicked twice to get the attention of a servant.

“Tea for the lady,” he requested, and a servant hurried off.

When they returned you sipped your tea and lamented on what your life had come to. Desiring one owner, and being repulsed by the other.

[the-daily-dreamer]

The targaryen ruled 130 years without dragons. And the most capable kings were all targaryen. After them it was a decline for the throne. Robert, joffrey, tommen, cercei were all sith ruler .

I see targ stans are investing in high quality air to fill their heads lol

But anyways. “The most capable kings were all targaryens”. You know who else were targaryens? The worst rulers of Westeros. Robert, Cersei, Joffrey, and Tommen aren’t even close to the worst kings and queen to rule. And bringing them up as evidence to show that the targaryens are good is so disingenuous.

Maegor the Cruel, Aegon the Unworthy, The Mad King Aerys, Rhaenyra (yes, I know that’s controversial), and Daenerys (yes, I know that’s even more controversial) are all far FAR worse than anyone you mentioned.

Maegor killed his wife and her entire family. He was a usurper (apparently it’s good when the targs you like do it lol), a kinslayer (also a thing only good when it’s targs you like doing it), raped and tortured many people, wiped out entire houses, killed any and everyone that he saw in any way as deserving, and created a huge war with the faith of the seven.

Aegon the unworthy was corrupt and lazy and legitimized his bastards leading to the blackfyre rebellions that led to endless bloodshed for 5 generations.

Aerys was so bad he had a rebellion staged against him that ended his family dynasty. He burned fathers and sons together. He tortured people and burned them alive. He abused and raped his wife when he would burn people alive. He wanted to kill the entire city of kings landing.

Rhaenyra (who like it or not went down in history as one of the worst rulers) known as maegor with teats taxed her people to starvation. She had daily executions. She had knights inquisitors hunt down and punish people.

Daenerys burnt down kings landing, was complicit in the rape and enslavement of hundreds, ruined city economies so badly slavery was a better option, then profited from said slavery, abandoned the people she conquered (no doubt ensuring they will be enslaved much more harshly after supporting her), raped a “free” slave that she admits still acted like a slave because that’s all she knew, oh yeah and again, SHE BURNT DOWN KINGS LANDING. And this is after the people you listed.

And this isn’t including non Targaryen rulers that ruined lives like the blackfyres. Or rulers that are bad but weirdly beloved like Aegon I who basically conquered people by threatening to kill them and everyone they loved, subjugating a country for hundreds of years.

The best rulers I admit were Targaryens. But that’s because they were the only rulers save for 4 people. Of those four, two were bad and two were incompetent. Not nearly the sadistic “mad” people I described above. And funnily enough, as soon as a Targaryen came back to power…things got worse again. Funny how that is.

Oh and by the way. Going with the histories of Westeros. Guess who is among the best rulers according to small folk Aegon II and Alicent. Seethe :)

[queeranarchism]

Maybe this is a 'water is wet' statement, but: putting the Holocaust on a pedestal where it can never be compared to anything else doesn't just serve zionism, it serves the individual agendas of a lot of colonialist powers too because it ensures that their history of atrocities is never compared to the Holocaust and remembered in the way that our culture remembers the Holocaust.

The transatlantic slave trade? The deliberate British Great hunger in Ireland? The deliberate British Famines in India? The Holodomor? The multiple acts of ethnic cleansing and mass murders committed by the Netherlands in Indonesia and its other colonies? Leopold II's reign of terror in Congo? And countless others.

All of these exist in the relatively ignored field of 'lesser evils' and aren't remembered and used as national moral anchors in the way the Holocaust is. They're not at the center of our collective memory because this one great horror takes center stage and it is deemed morally unacceptable to place other horrors near it. The only exception I can think of is the US, where thanks to the endless hard work of African Americans, slavery is sort of kinda almost recognized in the collective consciousness as a second great horror. But it's still second fiddle and disputed, and meanwhile in the European countries that engineered the transatlantic slave trade and profited from it, the space it takes in the collective consciousness is tiny.

The Netherlands has over 70 World War 2 museums. It is yet to open its first museum about slavery and has no museums dedicated to it's other colonial atrocities. The budget of the national World War 2 commemoration is 35 times larger than that of the national slavery commemoration. Holocaust education is important, but something is out of whack here. And it's easy to see why colonial powers don't want to change that.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

I go to concerts and events all the time and women use the men’s room no problem when their tiny restrooms overflow. The only time I ever noticed anyone complain was when a drunk women stumbled into a men’s room after a concert in Las Vegas. The men’s room was full of redneck assholes with southern accents, cowboy hats and boots. They immediately surrounded her and began harassing her with vile comments and graphic descriptions of how they were going to gang rape her. Security had to intervene to save her from those MAGA assholes. So much much for those country boys being good Christians. In New England nobody blinks an eye when women use the men’s room and if anyone started saying shit like that to woman they would have gotten the shit kicked out of their redneck asses.

Years ago history books would talk about regional peculiarities like Yankee Ingenuity and Southern Hospitality. I have spent a fair amount of time in the south, I have friends and family there, and in better times even owned property there. Let me tell you that Southern Hospitality is a myth. Unless you’re in a big city or a theme park or some other big tourist attraction, and you don’t have a southern drawl you’re going to be treated like Bin Laden showing up at Ground Zero. The rich modern day Confederates are the most elitist and bigoted people alive. The poor are some of the meanest, rudest, angriest, most hostile, and least Christian people you could ever meet.

Now that’s a blanket statement and obviously everyone doesn’t fit into that stereotype. There are plenty of normal people but very few of them will ever speak up for fear of the way they will be treated. This has been going on since the early days of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700’s. It isn’t something that can be blamed on The Southern Strategy, Nixon, Reagan, Fox News, the Tea Party, or the MAGA movement.

The North industrialized and modernized everything including banking, transportation, industry, and food crop agriculture. The rich southern Planter Class, the Aristocracy, relied on King Cotton, tobacco, and slavery. None of which was profitable or sustainable. The Planter Aristocracy soon became deeply indebted to northern banks and were at risk of losing their land, property livelihoods, and social standing. When the North and West started pressuring the South to end slavery and pay their bills the Southern

Planter elite decided to secede from the Union of States. They thought it was win-win, they could keep their slaves, escape their debt, and simply trade their cash crops with Europe. Well the Europeans switched to Egypt, India, and the Caribbean for their cotton and to a lesser extent tobacco. Only a handful of wealthy elites in each states could afford slaves in any quantity beyond one. The hillbilly rednecks were propagandized into believing they were defending their way of life and states rights against Northern (and western) Aggression. The west was populated by immigrant farmers who couldn’t afford slaves and came from countries where slavery was banned, never existed, and was condemned by European religious groups.

Long story short the United States, aka the Union or the North, had the food crops, the population, the transportation, the industry, the schools, the banks/money, and virtually every other advantage. The Confederacy was built on lies and propaganda spread by the upper class. They had nothing but bitterness and resent at the North and West that they still have to this day. Treating women and marginalized people with disrespect is ingrained into their DNA and so tightly wound into their societal fabric it may never come out. Even their LGBT community is racist AF. Now their were good people in the South, called Unionists, who didn’t agree with slavery, secession, or the Planter Aristocracy and many of them moved North and some even joined the US Army to fight against the Confederacy. Ironically some of them remained in the Army softer the Civil War ended and took part in the “Indian” Wars, after which they returned to the South as military heroes with their disloyalty to the Confederacy forgiven.

A scorpion can not change its nature. And people who have been propagandized since the 1700’s by the wealthy elite can’t be expected to change their “traditions” overnight. Thanks to Republican oligarchs a disproportionate percentage of Southerners and rural people blame modern Democrats, who are now mainly in the Northeast and the West Coast as they were during the Civil War, for all their problems.

They’ll never understand that the modern Republicans and oligarchs are holding them hostage and denying them jobs, education, unions, prosperity, and healthcare. They have been conditioned to for two centuries to blame outsiders for their problems while supporting their oligarch oppressors. Denigrating women, people of color, and marginalized groups is a sadly a rite of passage for the majority in the Old Confederacy. They’re like the people of Eastern Europe who have been holding grudges for so long they don’t even remember why they they are collectively doing it. They need to be deprogrammed from that Confederate mindset first and then deprogrammed from the Republican/MAGA mindset but that’s not likely to happen anytime soon if at all. We’d have to win back the White House, the Congress, the SCOTUS, and the state legislatures first. Then we’d have to utterly smash the Republican Party and ban the oligarchs and their dark money from politics. Following that Herculean talk we’d have to invest heavily in public education across the South and rural West and return it to modern standards from the plundered mess the oligarchs and their privatized schools have created.

A second civil war may be looming and they are propping for it. Invariably they will lose for the same reasons they did the first time but it will be far more costly and have lingering effects that may never be reconciled. It won’t be a regional war like the first time but rather a bloody mess like the war in Northern Ireland with terror bombings and revenge killings. No single community will be safe. Sometimes I think we’d be better off letting Texas and Florida secede and take Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana with them. The remainder of the MAGAts would flock there and shoot themselves into third world status. The rest of the US would keep the military, the nukes, planes, ships, tanks, and all Federal property. There are blue areas in the sunbelt but as a whole I can’t see those states being reformed. Texas is a cancer since it’s been under Republican rule and Florida is pathetically imitating them. The in between states, with the exception of some blue cities are virtually third world states and as backwards as can be.

I mean no offense to the good people of the red states. My issue is with the Republican misrule over those areas and the backwards brainwashing they have subjected their citizens to. I feel deeply for the Democrats and other decent people there. But history has taught us time and again that unless a majority of the people want change it is impossible to force democracy on them. The Republican oligarchs have spent billions of dollars since the 1960’s to reshape this country and to maintain that Confederate mindset in the South. That’s not something that can be undone by electing a Democratic president and a handful of charismatic congressmen and women.

[apas-95]

Couldnt it be argued that the US is still a slave republic? Domestically, there is slave labor through the prison system, human and labor trafficking, and only a few decades ago, if at that, systems such as convict leasing, share cropping, and debt peonage. Internationally, there is also the fact that for conflict minerals, coffee, chocolate, and other commodities, a portion if not the majority of it is sourced from slave labor.

The use of slavery in and of itself doesn't constitute the slave-society stage of production. Slavery continues to exist under feudalism and capitalism, but not as the driving force of society as in the ancient slave republics. Politically, in the modern USA, it is the bourgeoisie that are in power; and economically, it is the exploitation of waged labour (much of it overseas) that is the basis of production.

Further, slaves in the US are owned either by the state, in state prisons, and leased to private companies; or owned by large companies directly in private prisons. The individual or smallholder ownership of slaves was done away with in the USA's previous civil war: carried out between the industrial haute-bourgeois of the developed north, and the agricultural petty gentry of the southern hinterland. Slaves in the US today are the exclusive property of the bourgeoisie, through their corporations or bourgeois state.

While large amounts of raw materials are sourced through slave labour, as are agricultural goods, slave labour in the broadest sense is not applicable to industrial production of the type required by modern capitalism - if for nothing else than reasons of profitability. The slave labourer is effectively themselves human capital, part of the machinery bought wholesale - while they still effectively carry out labour, they fundamentally do not produce surplus value in the same manner as a wage-worker; it is necessary for their food and other reproductive labour to be given to them without cost, in the same way one carries out maintenance on equipment - whereas a wage-worker is only purchased and employed as capital for the duration of the workday, and then is responsible for their own food, housing, and reproductive labour. The principal exception to the use of slave labour in industrial production (which already has an exceedingly high fixed-capital cost compared to agriculture) is in the historical case of fascism, where primitive accumulation and war industry led to conditions favourable to industrial slave labour, which was carried out en-masse by e.g. German industrial syndicates using concentration camp labourers.

While the earlier USA, as a settler nation, made heavy use of both slavery and primitive accumulation, this was necessarily a historically-contingent process, one carried out by the European empires precisely because the Americas had not been 'brought up to' the level of social contradiction they had. Slavery's profitability necessarily fell as the USA industrialised, and remains now only in certain key industries like agriculture and military production. Historically, again, the movement to make slavery a profitable general venture in the era of capitalism is the fascist movement, which attempts generally to replace the proletariat at large by mobilising the higher strata upwards, into petty-bourgeois smallholders (e.g. wehrbauern), converting the middle strata into slaves, and exterminating the lower strata - a movement that fundamentally requires both large swathes of cleared land as well as mass depopulation, due to the lower population density such an essentially backwards mode of production can support. Ultimately, it is a project doomed to failure, due to the impossibility of turning back history - but one the bourgeoisie are inevitably driven to attempt when capitalism starts nearing the end of its profitability.

In the USA, historically, the exploitation of indigenous nations and external colonies has provided a source of profit and primitive accumulation that has rendered a genuine fascist movement effectively unnecessary, despite the middle-class yearning for it, but these systems are themselves drying up, and the US, while not a slave republic, will soon start attempting to fashion itself into one by carving up its population.

I hope this has answered your question, thank you for writing in!

[kanagenwrites]

So. Tuesday sucked.

We've all had a chance to come down from the "what the fuck" of it all, and we're starting to see the usual circular firing squad. Lots of lib centrists are doing everything they can to throw trans people, minorities, and basically anyone who isn't a finance bro under the bus, as is (very tiresome) tradition after both victories and defeats in the Democratic Party. I will be 42 years old in a few months, so this is far from the first time I've seen it, and sadly, I'm sure it won't be the last. To the lib centrists and those carrying water for them: This never works. Please stop trying it. Trans issues were not a major motivator; I'll get into that below. Sit down, kids, it's time for Auntie Kana's Fireside Dialectics.

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of my followers are significantly younger than me. (Imagine that, an audience that skews young on Tumblr.) A lot of you folks probably haven't been following politics for very long, and you've been able to participate in them for even less time than that. For some of you this is probably your first election as an adult, and it kinda feels like everything blew up in your face, doesn't it? I was about your age for 2000, when the election was nakedly stolen by George W. Bush, and not much older for 2004, when despite his disastrous presidency Bush the Younger rode a wave of 9/11-brained racism to the last popular vote victory the GOP had prior to (likely) this year. So I get it. I really do.

If you're living in the USA you have probably had a subpar education in politics and civics. This is largely by design - education is horrendously underfunded and there is a sustained attack on the ability of teachers to even discuss things like the Civil Rights Movement, the legacy of slavery in the United States, the genocide this country was founded on, and so on and so forth. Economic education isn't much better; you very likely got a short lecture on basic supply and demand and an argument-from-authority that "socialism doesn't work." All this combines to leave a lot of folks totally baffled as to how something like this election happens.

But it's pretty simple. It's just material conditions. That's it. What the media isn't telling you (because there's no profit in it, and the media is nothing but a clickbait engine when they aren't open propagandists) is that there has been a massive anti-incumbent wave of elections across the world. How massive? Japan's LDP, which has held power almost uninterrupted since the establishment of Japan's postwar democracy, managed to lose their recent election.

And why are material conditions so shitty? That's a complicated question, but a lot of it is the fact that we had a lengthy period of low inflation followed by a period of extremely high inflation due to the absolutely botched response to the Covid-19 pandemic. A bag of Doritos used to be 2.50, and now it's like 6 bucks. That's worse than all the inflation (and naked price-gouging, because there's a lot of that going on too) I experienced in my life prior to 2020, squeezed into the space of a year or two. This smacks everyone in the face every time they buy groceries, and while the government and the Federal Reserve were doing everything they could to manage inflation (and understand what a big deal it is for me, the anarcho-communist, to say that the US actually did an extremely fucking good job of doing it, because every other country on Earth had it worse than we did), they did fuck all to actually improve the material conditions people were experiencing. Wages were not keeping up with the cost of living, and price-gouging wasn't being dealt with.

Remember the 600 bucks Joe Biden still owes you? The American electorate sure the fuck does. Invisible backrooms liberal wonkery does not connect, regardless of whether it works or not, but going back on a promise? People remember that shit.

It's a rare incumbent that could win in an environment like this, especially when tied to a track record of doing exactly fucking nothing to actually help people from the perspective of the vast majority of the population. Kamala Harris was not that incumbent. She was a singularly uninspiring candidate who failed to connect with voters so thoroughly that she was on track to lose her home state in the 2020 Democratic primary. Nobody liked her (except a few very eager and very loud fans in the K-Hive), and speaking as someone who lives in California, I am not surprised she ate shit. She was a terrible choice for VP and a terrible choice of successor for Biden, but because Biden('s handlers) insisted on pretending he wasn't obviously declining before our very eyes, Harris, a singularly uninspiring candidate, had three months to build and run a campaign.

And it was still weirdly close.

Now, there's two possibilities: Either she actually ran an amazing campaign and it's incredible that it was even this close, or Trump is just so loathsome that even in a massively anti-incumbent environment he didn't bring anyone new to the table. Given that Trump is on-track to receive less votes this time than he did in 2020, and how many of those votes seem to have been cast for Trump and no one else down-ballot, I think it's more of the latter than the former. Trump brought the usual suspects, while Kamala successfully drove away voters that even Joe fucking Biden and Hillary fucking Clinton were able to bring home. Not on the left, not in minority demographics, but across the board. After all, if things are horrible and you're being promised that "nothing will fundamentally change," (literally an early-presidency quote from Joe Biden, whose agenda Kamala Harris 100% aligned herself with) and keeping in mind that the average American voter is not nearly so plugged into the minutiae and the day to day of politics (as evinced by the sudden peak in google searched for "Did Joe Biden drop out?" on Tuesday), why the fuck would you bother to vote?

Hopefully you have a better idea how we got here now. The question, of course, is where do we go from here? I will probably continue posting about this from time to time, especially if there's interest, but my advice is this:

We are still here. We will be here tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and so on. Plan accordingly.

Things will get fucked up. Things will always get fucked up. That is the nature of things no matter who is running the government. Plan accordingly.

Organize. Develop parallel structures of power and assistance, because the government is likely going to be even more useless to directly assist you than it already was. Our greatest strength is each other, and our ability to care for and help one another.

I have been here before. You will be here again. It always feels like it's the worst thing ever to happen. That never really goes away, but your ability to deal with it, to plan around it, to endure it, and to rise up again on the other side of it and say "No, fuck you" is entirely under your control and within your capabilities. And you will get better at it as you do it. And you are not doing it alone. None of us are.

Do not give up. Do not surrender. This isn't the end, or the beginning of the end, or even the end of the beginning: it just is.

Now go watch a video of a cat doing something cute, or read some smut, or whatever gives you joy. You can't take care of others unless you take care of yourself. That's General Order #1: Take care of yourself.

Solidarity, y'all.

[scarletskiesinthepaths]

Levi’s Childhood: “Bad Boy”, The Underground, Kuchel, and Kenny—What Are the Implications?

Content Warning: Discussion of rape, sexual abuse, and sex trafficking

“Bad Boy” makes it even more explicitly clear that the Underground was no place for a child. From the “Bad Boy” panels alone, it is evident that Levi likely had constant people preying on him at all times—especially before he awakened his Ackerman powers. All these men Levi encounters here had no issue beating a child to (near) death or selling him into sexual slavery. Similar to the way it is portrayed in the “A Choice with No Regrets” storyline, the Underground is also described by Levi as “hopelessly dirty” with “rotten air”. 

It is significant to note here that Levi was well-known for being a prostitute’s son; all of those men were aware of Levi’s relation to Kuchel, even before Levi himself made it clear. They wanted to traffic him for that reason. In terms of speculation, it is very believable and even highly probable that Levi experienced sexual assault and rape before he awakened. Having grown up in a brothel with his mom, and now further seeing how common sex trafficking in the Underground was and also Levi’s infamy for being a prostitute’s son—there is no doubt that Levi was exposed to extreme levels of sexual violence regularly, whether it be him being witness to it, him experiencing the direct threat of it such as in “Bad Boy,” or him experiencing the actual act. The trauma of this is impossible to overstate. It seems the most likely, however, that Levi has had direct personal experience with the act itself, as men would have likely continued visiting “Olympia” after she died (and before Kenny appeared), and upon discovering she was no longer a viable option to have sex with, some of those men would have set their sights on Levi, who was a helpless child in the process of starving to death. 

The men in “Bad Boy” spoke about Levi as if he was born strictly to live a life of sexual slavery, referring to him as a “whore’s child” and discussing how they’d be able to profit from making him do the same job as his mother, saying he may have “inherited her talents”. Levi had probably heard this sort of language used in his presence before. As such, it would not be surprising if Levi had learned to expect this sort of treatment, as if he was placed in the world solely to suffer. Levi would have sought out a reason for this—why must he constantly be subjected to suffering? Is it because there is something wrong with him? If that’s the case, what specifically is wrong with him? It is important to consider as well that Levi’s entire sense of identity at this point was wrapped up in being the son of a prostitute and being raised by a serial killer, who may or may not have been his father. 

The violence Levi was subjected to in “Bad Boy,” such as having his head repeatedly smashed against the ground with a fist, would have most certainly resulted in his death, or at the very least, permanent brain damage, had Levi’s powers not awakened in that moment. However, what’s notable to me during all of this is the absence of Kenny’s presence. This indicates that Kenny would leave Levi alone in the Underground for significant enough periods of time that Levi still had the opportunity to find himself in situations of extreme danger, situations such that would have resulted in his death. Given what we know about Levi’s childhood from Kenny’s recollection of it in the main series, Kenny would subject Levi to fights against fully grown men in order to develop Levi’s combat skills and likely prompt his awakening. It is also clear in these “Bad Boy” panels that Levi already knew how to fight, given the way he initially tried to protect himself from being beaten by all those men. He was, however, helpless in protecting himself, given the deep disadvantage he had from being a child, as well as being faced against multiple opponents. Levi’s combat skills after his awakening also demonstrated he already had significant training. The responsible thing for an adult in Kenny’s position would have been to, not teach Levi how to fight, but remove him from the environment that necessitated that knowledge in the first place.

Needless to say, this practice was cruel and immensely abusive. The amount of psychological damage and self-worth issues this would undoubtedly cause Levi are immeasurable. It was Kenny’s responsibility to protect Levi’s childhood innocence, but it is because of Kenny’s actions (and inactions) that Levi was placed in a position of having to kill multiple men as a young child. Kenny may have saved Levi from the imminent death of starvation, but his abuse and abandonment ultimately caused Levi more harm than good in the long-run; he taught and exposed Levi to a life of violence. Indeed, Kenny wanted Levi to be a force for violence. That is all he ever modeled for Levi and desired from him, even though he had the capability of sparing Levi from such experiences. However, it speaks to Levi’s innate goodness that he still loved Kenny after all he was made to suffer by him and even forgave Kenny by the end.

The awakening of Levi’s powers demonstrated to Levi the idea that he was an agent of destruction and a monster. Recall back to the moment during the “Uprising” arc when a man accuses Levi of being such and Levi simply responds, “Maybe I am”. Levi’s awakening was described by Levi as a form of dissociation, as if he was not fully aware of what he was doing. Consider his words here: “I didn’t think it was strange that something had happened to me at the time. The pain in my head disappeared and I felt calm, as if my head was submerged in water. And the idea of what to do came to mind. But I just followed the instinct and acted accordingly.” And yet, Levi likely blames himself for the brutality of which he killed his attackers, despite acting in self-defense and having no other recourse. It was an answer to his question: what is wrong with him? He must be a monster. Being forced into such a situation as a child would instill this view in Levi that he was born into his life only to bring suffering to others. That is why he suffers in turn.

This perception of an inner monstrosity in Levi is furthered by what the man in the glasses tells him directly after this: “Stop doing things that will make your mother in heaven sad!” Levi’s impression of Kuchel, his mother, was the one thing that brought him comfort in his life. He remembered her “elegant” posture. With these man’s words, even that one comfort was lost to Levi. Now the thought of his mother would instead be associated with the idea that she would view him as bad—that she would have seen his “murderous” actions and would cast judgment on him. This is completely incorrect, of course. The only reason Levi even awakened his strength was because he was protecting his mom’s image from the cruel words the men were speaking against her. Levi was severely beaten to near death, all because he loved his mom essentially. Think of the tragedy of that; Levi was directly punished for loving someone. This further demonstrates that innate goodness in Levi—how he continues to love and care about others, despite the immense suffering it’s brought him over and over. To further the tragedy of all this, it is evident that Levi still views his mother with fondness, in spite of the belief that she would hate him. Levi purposely seeks out the brothel in which he grew up with her, undoubtedly filled with countless awful and traumatic memories, in order to feel closer to her presence.

After Levi’s awakening, Levi soon after finds himself in yet another fight, and it is this moment that Levi watches as Kenny walks away and abandons him forever. Levi thought Kenny wanted him to become strong. He thought his strength would earn him Kenny’s acceptance, but instead, he was met with his rejection. If Kenny still didn’t love him even after becoming strong, that once again proved to Levi that there was something deeply wrong with him. Similar to the way Levi would come to associate his strength as the thing responsible for making him a “killer” and ruining his mother’s perception of him, Levi would likely form the association that his physical strength led directly to Kenny abandoning him. Moreover, what was the purpose of his strength? Levi did not want to use it to bring suffering to others. 

Levi discovered on his own that his strength could be used to help others—to protect. This is incredibly significant because Levi was literally taught the opposite his whole life: that it made him a monster, that its only purpose was for saving himself and bringing death and destruction—he was taught even that that’s something he should desire. Somehow, despite all that, Levi still found a way to use his strength for the benefit of others. Although, this highlights a further tragedy in Levi. As demonstrated earlier, Levi was taught that it was the normal state of the world, the status quo, for him to be abused; he learned that this treatment of him was, not only happening because it was something he was somehow meant for, but also happening because he was some abnormal monster. Levi desiring to use his strength for others does not negate Levi’s own negative perception of himself. All of the events in Levi’s childhood taught Levi that he had no worth, and that is indeed the way we see Levi treat himself throughout the entire series. 

Levi never once defends himself against people’s cruel words against him. Think back to the way Mikasa said it was Levi’s fault that they had lost Eren in the “Female Titan” arc directly after Levi had lost his entire squad; think of the way Levi accepts Dieter’s words against him and Erwin about being “devoid of humanity” in the aftermath of the Female Titan’s attack; think of how Levi accepts the negative way the people of Trost and the merchants were speaking against him; and as mentioned earlier, think of the way Levi accepts being called a monster during “Uprising”. Levi directly refers to himself as “abnormal” as well during that same arc. There are countless more examples of this. Levi fights during the Battle of Heaven and Earth, despite being grievously injured already. It is because of this that he ultimately ends up in a wheelchair. Levi fights for other people to the complete detriment of himself. That is pure selflessness. Levi treats himself as completely devoid of worth, despite seeing so much worth in others. As such, Levi dedicates everything he has, even if it would result in severe damage to himself; he views himself as expendable. It is clear too that Levi views himself as unclean from all the blood he has on his hands and all the filth he was surrounded by growing up. It was his “dirty” hands after all that killed all those men and led to his mom’s teacup breaking at the end of "Bad Boy"; a sign of his inner badness. 

[quixoticanarchy]

Finished reading Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara and he does a good job showing how the cobalt supply chain is inextricable from incredible human suffering, near-slavery, rampant exploitation, environmental devastation, and child labor. And it’s very clear that no promise a tech or battery manufacturer makes that their supply chain is clean means literally anything bc industrially and artisanally mined cobalt are mixed into the same supply untraceably. And the book also covers the fact that cobalt supplies are finite and when the DRC’s cobalt is exhausted the industry will move elsewhere, rinse and repeat, and the people in the Congo will be left with the ongoing and unremediated -maybe irremediable - damage. All of this so that we can have smartphones, electric vehicles, iPads, electric scooters, almost anything with a rechargeable battery.

It’s also clear that the tech and battery industries are interested in good PR and making empty statements about human rights when they should be taking responsibility for the working conditions of small-scale miners (and minors) dying at the bottom of their supply chains. What Kara doesn’t really address is the demand side of this equation, not just the demand by companies whose products use cobalt-containing batteries but also the consumers sustaining that demand, who buy every new smartphone and eagerly pin their hopes on electric vehicles to let us keep our car-dependent world without the fossil fuel guilt. The book takes it for granted that cobalt will be required in high quantities for consumer electronics and for “green” tech, and to some extent this is true - as in, none of those demands or uses will cease overnight and in the meantime we should worry about how to address industrial and business practices and government corruption in order to treat Congolese miners as human beings.

But it feels incomplete without also asking questions like: should that demand continue? Can it? Do we need this many devices? What costs are acceptable? Can we really have our cake (smartphones, EVs, etc) and eat it too (slavery-free, non-exploitative supply chains that don’t kill the people at the bottom and lay waste to the environment)? What if - as the book would seem to suggest - we really cannot? If one goal of the book is for people to realize what conditions underlie the extraction of cobalt, what action is then incumbent upon us? Personal consumer choice will not undo all this harm, but it is a necessary step in rethinking or attempting other ways to live. Is it a right to have a smartphone, a new one every year or two, if it comes at the price of other people’s human rights? At what point do we say that it is not an acceptable cost that the extractive industries are perpetuating neocolonialism and near-slavery in order that we should have comfortable lives?

We know we have to stop relying on fossil fuels or we’ll burn down the planet (to a greater degree than is already locked in) but the “green energy transition” is not clean at all. Capitalism seeks the lowest price for labor and the highest profits; obviously these extractive relationships owe a lot of their horror to being conducted in a capitalist milieu. But even thinking about, say, a socialist world instead, if it aspires to still provide smartphones and electric vehicles en masse and maintain the comforts and conveniences of the “Western” lifestyle then we would still be relying on massive amounts of resource extraction with no guarantee of less suffering. The devices are themselves part of the problem. The demand for them and the extent to which “modern” life in “developed” countries relies upon them is part of the problem. It is unsustainable. It is built on blood and it makes a mockery of purported values of dignity, equality, and human rights. The lives of Congolese cobalt miners are tied to how we in the “developed” or colonizer countries live and consume. I do not think their lives will change substantially unless ours do.

[atopvisenyashill]

Worst thing dany did? I’m a little torn. My gut would have me jump to the execution of mmd but I’m not sold. I’m also tempted to consider her agreeing to take a cut of profits from slavery or agreeing to allow those people to be tortured. Other things she did wrong seem more like inexperience and things that were results of her imperfect but not wrong actions. Burning someone alive is pretty cruel, but dumping burning oil and tar is also something Jon and the other boys at the wall do, and I think Dany believed she might die in that fire as well—kind of like a moment of if I am wrong may I suffer the same fate moment. I guess her intent doesn’t really matter in the assessment but I think I’m a bit swayed by the fact that in that moment her world had fallen apart twice over and she also had suffered a miscarriage versus her comparative safety and stability when making seemingly cruel decisions in Meereen

Ya i go back and forth too.

The thing with Mirri is that Dany is well aware that what happens is not Mirri’s fault and that’s a bit of a pattern with Dany - she lets her anger run away with her & she does some heinous shit because of that. I don't think Mirri was purposefully trying to kill Drogo and Rhaego. They specifically don't listen to her advice-

His eyes were fixed on distant brown hills, the reins loose in his hands. Beneath his painted vest, a plaster of fig leaves and caked blue mud covered the wound on his breast. The herbwomen had made it for him. Mirri Maz Duur's poultice had itched and burned, and he had torn it off six days ago, cursing her for a maegi. The mud plaster was more soothing, and the herbwomen made him poppy wine as well. He'd been drinking it heavily these past three days; when it was not poppy wine, it was fermented mare's milk or pepper beer.

He takes her poultice off with his dirty hands and she puts a soothing - but likely not antibacterial - poultice on it instead.

Mirri Maz Duur studied Drogo, her face still and dead. "The wound has festered."

That's not a woman who is purposefully trying to get one over on Dany. That's a woman who is frustrated that her patient is not doing what she told him to do while her life hangs in the balance. Mirri warns Dany not to come in the tent, Jorah brings her in anyway, and Dany recognizes that this was Jorah's fault. The very first "if i look back I am lost" comes during this moment-

Ser Jorah had killed her son, Dany knew. He had done what he did for love and loyalty, yet he had carried her into a place no living man should go and fed her baby to the darkness. He knew it too; the grey face, the hollow eyes, the limp. "The shadows have touched you too, Ser Jorah," she told him. The knight made no reply. Dany turned to the godswife. "You warned me that only death could pay for life. I thought you meant the horse." "No," Mirri Maz Duur said. "That was a lie you told yourself. You knew the price." Had she? Had she? If I look back I am lost.

This is why I think it's kinda crazy when people make her "if i look back i am lost" into some sort of powerful rallying cry of justice or feminism or whatever. It's a rationalization. Instead of confronting the fact that Drogo got himself killed and that Dany understood very well the consequences of the magic she asked MMD to do, she buries it, and burns Mirri alive. I get she just had a miscarriage. I get she's young and upset. But Mirri is nothing but good to her and dies for it.

That's why I tend to come at this as being her worst moment, even if it doesn't have quite the level of destruction as sacking Astapor or torturing the wineseller and his daughters. Those are like, colossaly bad decisions but they're ones she's making on a political level. This one is all personal and all the more cruel for it to me.

[elfgirlcraftworks]

Let America Be America Again

By Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That’s made America the land it has become.

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,

And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came

To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?

Surely not me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we’ve dreamed

And all the songs we’ve sung

And all the hopes we’ve held

And all the flags we’ve hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

[teaforthotxxx]

Thinking of Wolfstar and how I sound like a freak trying to explain how

This

Became this

Like I would love to explain how around 2014, there was a sudden rise and resurrection second coming of christ our lord saviour Wolfstar. And, we fancasted so hard that almost 10 years later, we’re still stuck on this. And how most of the hp queer fandom started to latch onto these characters cause there was no other representation and these two started it all.

In the wake of she-who-shall-not-be-named spitting in our trans brothers and sisters’ faces, more of the hp fandom has retreated to the Marauders Era (a completely fanon lore with POCs and Queer people). That somehow this fanon non-profit lore had a better understanding of the world than canon and redeemed Slytherins by showing how inter-generational trauma affected them. By showing us that Bellatrix Lestrange was only a pawn in the Black family’s game. That Narcissa and Regulus were only doing what they had to do to survive. Sirius’ madness was not just for eccentric reasons.

This fandom highlighted the treatment of house elves. Talked about slavery. Talked about Queen Dame Lily EVANS’ childhood!! She wasn’t just a plot device to redeem Severus Snape. She was the muggle voice in the group. She was the witch that was outcasted by her muggle sister because she believed in magic. She was minority in two worlds. She was the Marauders’ friend. She wasn’t a prude or a damsel to be saved. She wasn’t just Harry’s mother. She was one of the brightest witches of her time. Harry inherited her WIT, her perseverance, her defiance, her pride, unrelenting nature. Harry Potter inherited more than her eyes. He inherited her ability to thrive in the face of trauma.

Joanne could have never given this to us. I don’t think any one person could give us this. This was a collection of rewritten lore from people who loved the universe it created but wished to be seen. And, I love my sometimes problematic and inconsistent little fandom.

How do I not sound insane doing this?

[suffarustuffaru]

why the emilia camp thinks otto is their most threatening member 👍

i see some people being confused on why the emilia camp collectively seems to agree that otto is the biggest threat there for some reason and like. yeah. i get it.

but let me explain real quick why i think it makes sense for the emilia camp to think that :O !!

otto though is disarming because. well okay look at him he doesnt look threatening at all. he has the looks and personality of a wet cat. hes whiny. hes cringe fail. he gets stressed out with paperwork. he looks like you could just smack him around like a bug. he HAS been smacked around like a bug. but that makes him unpredictable because apart from roswaal, he is the Most Amoral one there. you can expect roswaal to be trying some shit, but youd never know when to expect otto is planning something. his moral compass is just “does this benefit me or my loved ones in some way? if not, then its gonna be gone 🥺”.

sure, he does nice things sometimes out of the goodness of his heart. he genuinely means well a lot of the time.

but also then you read the shit hes thinking in his internal dialogue and its like.

“should i go save some girl i dont even know from bandits??? hmm lemme think for a couple minutes. im the only one that can help rn… some guy claiming to be her dad is begging me to help his daughter, but also hes kind of annoying… but i dont even live in this city so why should i help… or Care. actually. but i feel kinda bad about this girl… but also this is gonna put me and my profits in danger… but if i reject helping then im forever gonna be known as the guy who abandoned them and then i wont be able to make any sales in this city anymore :<<<< ……anyway im gonna help them then lol im so smart.” and then he gets captured by the exact same bandits anyway so hes like “well okay now me and this girl might be sold into slavery so i might as well save both of us or ill feel bad ☝️☝️”

(yes. yes this is genuinely ottos thought process if you read through the Otto's Bittersweet Peddling Log side story.)

except all the back and forth Calculation he does in his head Stays In His Head and doesnt match up with his outward appearance most of the time. which means that sometimes his words dont match up with his actions. “dont be surprised if i leave at the first sign of danger,” he says, right after risking his life and writing a suicide note over a dude hes known for like four days. “ahah thanks for giving me a vacation to see my family…” he says, damn well knowing he cant go back home yet otherwise he’ll get sniped by assassins. “im gonna give you some of my own money bounty money to help you BUT BUT BUT DONT THINK THAT IM NICE OR ANYTHING I NEED MOST OF THE MONEY FOR REPAIRS OK YOU CAN ONLY HAVE A BIT :<<<“

this also means that whenever otto says or does something Particularly Questionable, all his friends are still kinda blindsided by it because otherwise otto seems Mostly Fine in comparison to whatever the hell everyone else has going on. hes just a wet pathetic cat of a guy ahah. theres nothing more going on with h—

“if everyone in vollachia dies but rem and natsuki-san live, then we’ve won. if everyone in vollachia lives but rem and natsuki-san die, then we’ve lost.”

um otto can you repeat that. what the fuck did you just say.

otto looks Mostly Normal, Just Stressed Out or Somewhat Chilling the vast majority of the time, and then he whacks you over the head with a steel chair. like can you imagine being garfiel and learning that this pathetic rag of a man is actually pretty brave when it counts. youre like “oh cool lol we kinda beat each others asses and i was Annoyed but now that thats all over i got some newfound respect for you!!” and then you read through his diary and hes got a suicide note in there, which is like. okay fine whatever hes kind of a clown just like my New Captain lol but hes dedicated to his friends, ill give him that. and then a year later you find your now brother figure (whos also lowkey highkey an alcoholic) with a broken hand after punching a wall because he couldnt do his Lets Abandon 50 Million People Plan and youre just sitting there going

and okay dont get me wrong—subaru is Batshit Crazy. in Multiple Incomprehensible Ways. if the emilia camp (or Anyone. At All.) knew about all the shit hes done and been through with rbd, subaru would INSTANTLY be skyrocketing up the Most Threatening People list. but at the same time subarus less threatening than otto in the sense that subarus Always going to want to do good. hes Always going to want to save everyone. hes Extremely forgiving, on top of that. he goes along picking up friends everywhere he goes in his own Incomprehensible Unhinged Way and hes fond of All of them.

otto? yeah his opinion of you could shift on a dime and you could end up in his personal shit list unless youre one of the *checks list* *clears throat* maybe like ten people he cares about. and even if youre on the I Care About You! :) list, he could still get pissed enough at you to, i dont know, punch a wall over you? and spiral into obsession? and even if hes not upset at you hes still gonna mansplain manipulate malewife his way to his goals <33

and yeah of course subaru is also Mansplain Manipulate and Gaslight Gatekeep but at least he has way more good intentions AND his attitude about it is gonna be like "sorry :<<< i just gotta do this for your sake :<<<<<< :((( haha dont worry about it". subaru would never ever want to do anything big to hurt his loved ones (except for rbd). while otto doesnt even bat an eye. everyone can be manipulated if he has to. he goes down his list of Things I Need To Do and goes "yeah that had to be done. oh well. anyway i got more shit to do (like maybe kill a toddler lol)"

also lets talk about roswaal's perspective really quick. post-arc 4 hes like "well subaru-kun is always gonna want to save everyone and hes doing a pretty good job of things in general so whatever lol. i can still keep him in check by killing everyone if even one of his friends dies :)". so its like. YEAH subarus an Unhinged Wildcard. roswaal knows that. but right now subaru is more predictable and also again, roswaal knows he can keep subaru in check by making subaru have to reset if roswaal really needs to.

but otto? yeah ottos second in line for being an Unhinged Wildcard. but whats even worse is that otto is Basically Subaru but More Calculating and with a moral backbone thats Near Nonexistent. roswaal was genuinely concerned for otto in arc 8 for once and there was still Literally No Stopping Otto from being a stubborn little shit whos hell bent on all the maladjusted insane mentalities hes got floating around in his head, half of which he doesnt even say out loud, and all of which he thinks is Completely Right and that theres Nothing Wrong with what hes doing.

and also otto being underestimated and Not In The Tome was a big help as to how subaru got the win over roswaal in arc 4 👍and then otto Continues to try keeping an eye on roswaal after arc 4, to the point of getting roswaal's tome and actively trying to investigate roswaal's actions, so roswaal is Very Aware that otto is. a bit of a threat. roswaal of course is smarter and more powerful than otto though, but that still doesnt change the fact that otto is still capable of being a threat if roswaal doesnt Also kind of keep an eye on otto back. because roswaal kind of lost to otto already in arc 4!!

but okay, on top of all of this, no one knows the full extent of whats going on with otto, not even roswaal (though he has his Suspicions), and most definitely not subaru yet (whos Still a bit of an otto apologist anyway), and otto is already a bit menacing even without knowing All of that. and the rest of the emilia camp are already a bit more lenient with roswaal (as hes seemingly chilled out after arc 4 + they all need him still). that, and you can easily Expect roswaal post-arc 4 to be suspicious and Probably up to something. you wont know what it is, but you wont Exactly be surprised when it happens.

and also roswaal isnt publicly batshit crazy like otto is. otto of course isnt as Openly Weird as subaru, but otto is still Openly Unhinged and Pathetic. just look at him declaring julius and anastasia, HIS CAMP'S ALLIES, as enemies right to their faces alsdfjlsdjfl.

and with subaru, there is Zero doubt in the emilia camp's minds that subaru wants the best for them and everyone around them.

otto though? yeah he also wants whats best for the camp. he Cares about them, he really does. but hes so obviously Questionable by the time you get to arc 8 to the point where the entire rest of the camp starts eyeing him like this:

theres also the fact that ottos dp allows him to have eyes and ears Everywhere so long as he doesnt overuse it. that paired with his Intelligence, Stubbornness, and Lack of Morals or self-awareness/sometimes guilt/regret over his actions is dangerous. theres a reason why gluttony if subaru decided to flood The Entire Surrounding Area Around Otto. the flood took away the potential army otto couldve made out of the animals and allies otto had in the city, and once you do that, whats otto going to do against someone like shaula? all of ottos power regarding his People Skills and Animal DP was stripped away.

but if that Isnt stripped away... well honestly otto can do whatever the hell he wants the moment he figures out a solid plan to try and get what he wants. his biggest ability at the core of what makes him dangerous is his ability to quite Literally be in the background. so long as hes underestimated, so long as he still has secrets, no ones gonna know the full extent of his bullshit!! you cant stop him if you dont even realize what hes going to do, and hes Good at doing that!!

and if gluttonybaru hadnt taken out otto, subaru would be skyrocketing right to the top of ottos shit list after subaru literally just killed All of ottos (and previously subarus.) loved ones. otto wouldnt stop until he figured out how to destroy subaru. its to the point where im pretty sure if otto had to choose between destroying half the world vs kill gluttonybaru once and for all, otto would certainly choose one of those options in a Heartbeat.

anyway. if youre an emilia camp member, and you see the dude whos in charge of the Vast Majority of the factions political affairs, the guy who you Know is very intelligent and competent and determined when it counts, say shit like "if everyone dies in this entire country i wouldnt even give a single flying fuck as long as our friends get back safe and sound :) it would be such a loss if the entire country lived but our friends didnt :<<<" OF COURSE I WOULD BE LIKE YEAH THAT GUY IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ONE HERE. HE HAS THE SKILLS AND THE MOTIVATION TO BACK UP THAT STATEMENT AND I WONT EVEN KNOW WHEN ITD HAPPEN. he also has the Mental Instability to back that up too, given the amount of times he spends drinking and Raging and Being Terribly Anxious over Every Little Thing.

youll be sweating buckets being wary of otto while ottos casually standing there with his wet cat looks and a knife in your back.

and otto has, for the most part, some of the most normal trauma compared to a bunch of people in this cast (not to discount ottos trauma and pain or anything but its true lajdsfls sorry otto. but also im not sorry because arc 5 was partially on you T^T). he doesnt have rbd, he doesnt have some weird family drama bullshit going on like the astreas or emilias family or the segmunts, he hasnt been erased by gluttony, etc etc. but hes still like this. if you put him in subarus position and gave him rbd, he would get even worse than he already is.

yeah so anyway thats my quick rambley psa about why i think it makes sense that the emilia camp's voted otto as the most threatening one there 👍

but the fact that we (the audience) (or at least some of us!!) keep questioning why the hell the emilia camp thinks otto is the biggest threat there is means that otto's funny silly guy image is. Kind of Working??? just a little bit.

because. granted. of course i think subaru is easily the most threatening person there with both His Flavor of Insanity and rbd. subaru is an eldritch horror in every single way. but at the same time - hes an eldritch horror who thinks friendship is the best magic of all T^TT !!! he FORGIVES PEOPLE WHO'VE KILLED AND TORTURED HIM. hes not threatening in this sense - the fact that hes kind of just way too nice in this sense!!! granted yes, he IS abusing rbd and Terrifying and Threatening in a multitude of ways, but i'd rather take my chances with mainbaru over main otto right now HAH T^TT at least subaru will apologize and start bawling his eyes out if he stabs some random innocent civilian and stranger in the gut for Some Necessary Reason!! otto would feel a bit bad and then completely Eradicate that feeling of guilt with "i had to do it. it was them or me so no regrets <3".

because otto..................... yeah otto is the Worlds Most Pathetic Yandere to his whole camp.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

So in the same way that Gun Control doesn't make sense because murder is already illegal, a Porn Ban doesn't make sense because it's already illegal to subject people to kidnapping, trafficking, rape, and coercion to sign consent forms?

So does the argument also go that, just as the freedom to own guns reduces the likelihood of gun-related crimes because criminals fear getting shot by armed victims or bystanders, the freedom to produce porn reduces the likelihood of criminals disguising their operation as a legitimate business?

Banning the porn industry would drive it into the black market, where it could no longer serve as cover for the black market of sexual slavery.

Sexual slavery continues as a black market one way or the other, but we still ban slavery anyway, and I would hope such a ban must reduce the prevalence of sexual slavery.

Would the legitimate industry of buying and selling guns, or any other machine, serve as easily as a cover for buying and selling human beings?

But if we didn't outright ban the porn industry, what's the simplest, least invasive way for the government to regulate the porn industry for the purpose of ensuring women aren't being essentially enslaved under the cover of a legitimate business?

Though even if we recognize that contracts can be signed under coercion, should that be a concern aimed only at porn studios?

Not that I can think of other industries with such incentives to coerce contracts... outside of perhaps human medical experiments, but I have a hard time imagining that has the same potential to be a wide-spread problem. (It must be easier to throw together a profitable porn shoot than a rigorous study into the side-effects of some drug.)

As for protecting adults against using porn or deciding to get into the porn industry, perhaps THOSE are matters for culture and community and personal responsibility, NOT for law.

I think people should not look to the law to protect themselves from their own bad decisions, but only from OTHER people's bad decisions.

And when you look into using the law to protect OTHER people from their own bad decisions, the conversation has moved into the dangerous realm of forced institutionalization at the discretion of the government.

So in the same way that Gun Control doesn't make sense because murder is already illegal, a Porn Ban doesn't make sense because it's already illegal to subject people to kidnapping, trafficking, rape, and coercion to sign consent forms?

Yes.

So does the argument also go that, just as the freedom to own guns reduces the likelihood of gun-related crimes because criminals fear getting shot by armed victims or bystanders, the freedom to produce porn reduces the likelihood of criminals disguising their operation as a legitimate business?

Yes, but that's beside the point. Porn, it its core, is no different from any other kind of media. It's just more explicit. Media is always covered under free speech, because media is the expression of an idea. Even if that idea is "MILFs should get dicked down by BBC" it's still an idea. When you ban porn, you're stifling a specific kind of speech. Just like all gun control is infringement, even "common sense" gun control, a porn ban would violate both the first amendment and the ideals of free speech.

Banning the porn industry would drive it into the black market, where it could no longer serve as cover for the black market of sexual slavery. Sexual slavery continues as a black market one way or the other, but we still ban slavery anyway, and I would hope such a ban must reduce the prevalence of sexual slavery.

Porn =/= sexual slavery. Even if the majority of porn stars were being forced into it (spoilers: they're not) that still wouldn't make porn itself slavery. The same way the prevalence of chattel slavery among black people in the 19th century US didn't make all black laborers slaves. The same way guns being used to commit murders don't make all guns murder weapons by default. Definitions matter.

But if we didn't outright ban the porn industry, what's the simplest, least invasive way for the government to regulate the porn industry for the purpose of ensuring women aren't being essentially enslaved under the cover of a legitimate business?

The same way any other crime is dealt with: investigate and make arrests if a crime is found. It's not perfect, and criminals and victims will slip through the cracks, but that's true for every crime. You can't have perfect safety without sacrificing your rights and freedoms. It's a very delicate balance that can, by its nature, never truly be perfected. All we can do is err on the side of not giving up our rights to a government that has proven conclusively it will never give them back and will take a mile when we give them an inch.

Though even if we recognize that contracts can be signed under coercion, should that be a concern aimed only at porn studios? Not that I can think of other industries with such incentives to coerce contracts... outside of perhaps human medical experiments, but I have a hard time imagining that has the same potential to be a wide-spread problem. (It must be easier to throw together a profitable porn shoot than a rigorous study into the side-effects of some drug.)

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. I want to say something about what constitutes coercion. Because there's a huge difference between "I'm being forced against my will to sign this contract and participate in an activity" and "I need the money so I'm going to do something I normally wouldn't even consider". The former is absolutely immoral and illegal. But the latter...not so much. It's a shitty situation, but saying that financial needs are, by default, coercion echoes the communist talking points about capitalism being slavery because people need to work to survive. And that's nonsense. People always need to do unpleasant things in order to survive. That's just a fact of existence. If someone signs an contract to shoot a video, shoots the video, then doesn't get paid, yeah that's wrong, but that's not coercion and it's already illegal. But if someone signs a contract to shoot a video, shoots the video, gets paid, and then is ashamed of what they did to earn money...I sympathize, but they still chose to do what they did and they got paid. Sorry, but regret is not coercion anymore than regret is rape. And again, the presence of abuse in an industry is no excuse to ban the industry. There are farms and construction companies that hire illegals to work for well below the minimum wage, but no one suggest banning farming or construction.

But like I said, I'm not sure what your point is here, so if this doesn't address it, send me another ask about it and I'll do my best.

As for protecting adults against using porn or deciding to get into the porn industry, perhaps THOSE are matters for culture and community and personal responsibility, NOT for law. I think people should not look to the law to protect themselves from their own bad decisions, but only from OTHER people's bad decisions. And when you look into using the law to protect OTHER people from their own bad decisions, the conversation has moved into the dangerous realm of forced institutionalization at the discretion of the government.

This we definitely agree on. I think there needs to be more awareness of the potential dangers of porn. Both in consuming it too much or at too young an age, or participating in making it. I think there needs to be more studies done and I think, as a culture, we need to stop treating sex as a commodity. Especially when it comes to young people. But all of that is something that needs to happen from the ground up, not the top down. All banning porn does is invite the government to regulate even more of our lives and hand over the entire porn industry to criminals, as evidenced by what happened during prohibition. And I consider both of those things to be more dangerous than porn ever could be.