#to be clear this is a good law

[doomdoomofdoom]

Thinking about how Germany passed their highly anticipated new trans law less than two weeks after weed became legal

[hellenhighwater]

wait, you're a lawyer? for real?

I got an associates in stage tech, a double BFA in Graphic Design and 3D Design, and then went to law school on full academic scholarship, booked twelve classes, fell asleep during the Bar Exam three times (but passed with flying colors before the curve), and the motion for my admission to practice (put forward by my brother, also a lawyer), started, "My sister has many issues, but the one before the Court today is that of her admission to the State Bar of Michigan."

And somehow yes, they do let me practice law.

[sualne]

kiss you in aroace, and we're both boys.

[dykealloy]

the catholic rejection of it all

[sesamestreep]

thomas blanky shouldn’t have been dying in the arctic, man. He should have been wearing a life is good t-shirt at a buffett concert.

[mochiajclayne]

Marineford Law is no question interesting to me because he pulled off a surprise, motherfucker moment and the timing was so good to the point that both pirates and marines least expected it.

Before I proceed with this self-indulgent lawlu meta post, I will go ahead and say that everything that happened between them in Marineford is a catalyst of establishing their connection later on in the future arcs. I am a firm believer that those feelings™️ started to truly bloom in Punk Hazard and went downhill in a good way in Dressrosa.

Long post ahead. Enjoy!

When I was rewatching Marineford arc, the part where Buggy was already carrying an unconscious and injured Luffy and Jimbei, their conversation sparked my interest.

Highlighting the bit where Buggy was confused about Law's verbal tic of using the suffix -ya in referring to anyone, overall doubting him, then asking for Law's name. Don't forget that Law is a little shit (affectionate) so he proceeded to ignore all of those questions to say this:

Interestingly enough, this part is tricky to translate. I found two translations that closely encapsulate what Law wanted to say here but mind you, and I will sound redundant about this with everything that has got to do with Trafalgar Law's speech patterns: he likes speaking in runarounds, purposely using terms with double meanings and connotations on them, and he's both reticent and cryptic. (I wouldn't say not to trust on his words but don't take them at face value.)

Law described his connection with Luffy as 悪縁 (akuen) which directly translates as evil destiny or connection.

Forgive me for a bit of sidetracking but the kanji used for akuen is the same with Robin's epithet which is "Demon Child" (akuma no ko). To further elaborate, 悪 (aku) means evil--both as intent and violating a moral code. It is also used to refer as the direct opposite of good.

Going back to 悪縁 (akuen), in true Law fashion, this word doesn't only mean evil destiny or connection. Depending on the context, it can also mean unfortunate love.

(It sounds tragic coming from him, isn't it? If your mind was blown after this part, no worries, I am too. This part gave me so much whiplash when I was researching about it.)

So, considering these two interpretations of 悪縁 (akuen), that begs the question, what is Law's connection with Luffy?

On surface-level, they are enemies as Law said so himself. They're rivals when it comes to One Piece. Their common ground, which is only known among people that Law trusts the most, is sharing the same secret name of D. However, I will take one step ahead and say that they both went through the same tragic fate of losing their loved ones, for being weak and powerless to protect them. They were both involved in circumstances where if they were capable enough, they could've saved the person they loved the most. Doomed by the narrative and subjected to trauma that breaks their heart and spirit should they be lesser men to handle such misery and grief. It is unfortunate, disastrous, and cursed to love fully knowing the fact that the other person could die like the ones before them but these two have the biggest heart.

Of course, Law will never say it directly. Thus, settling for 悪縁 (akuen).

It gets better. He did say 悪縁も縁 (akuen mo en) and 縁 (en) itself means fate or destiny (especially a mysterious force that binds two people together). Additionally, も (mo) is also a particle that is used for emphasis.

The implication, in turn, of what Law said to Buggy can be translated this way: Strawhat-ya and I (will) eventually be enemies, but an evil connection is (the futuristic possibility of Luffy becoming his enemy) is fate (that binds them).

Law made sure to emphasize that their "evil connection" is fate: specifically, that mysterious force brought them together and compelled him to be there, that he was meant to sail to Marineford, and help Luffy escape.

These two translations are the closest that I found to be accurate but it's still scratching the surface of what Law said:

This entire panel between Ivankov and Law makes it funnier because he clocked him IMMEDIATELY.

Ivankov asked if he's friends with Luffy to which he replied: no.

He also emphasized that that he doesn't have any obligation to help him but then went on to say this:

親切 (shinsetsu) means kind, generous, gentle, considerate. 不安 (fuan) refers to anxiety, uneasiness, worry, apprehension. These are surprisingly direct words but of course, Law had to go back and be cryptic again when he followed up with 理屈 (rikutsu), which could mean two things: theory, reason, logic or (unreasonable) argument, excuse.

I think this panel did a good job for translating it.

Law himself is providing Ivankov here the benefit of the doubt. To reiterate, Ivankov beats him to the punch which makes their entire interaction so funny.

Again, brilliant translation for directly calling out Law's bullshit. Lmao. Ivankov says 直感 (chokkan) here. It means intuition, instinct, hunch. Please take the next statement that I will say with a grain of salt but "instinctively moving your body" is usually associated with the context of being reckless to the point of directly exposing oneself to danger, consequences be damned, in order to protect someone.

Even Law himself acknowledged that he's not obligated to be there, so why?

Unfortunately, this is the elephant in the room that Law will never address. Several characters even made sure to point out that he helped Luffy two years ago and he purposely dodges that topic.

One thing I can guarantee is that Law never did it to get Luffy to agree for the alliance. Hell, he thought of the alliance after reuniting with Luffy! He adjusted his plans by then. Additionally, he never used the fact that he saved Luffy's life as his bargaining chip and leverage to get him on board the alliance.

Lastly, this is too much for saving a life on a whim, isn't it, Law?

[putterphubase]

I was asking Ai to bring this food to his dad. Can you take him there?

For sure.

See? Yu is such a good boy.

[vonehrenfest]

DCxDP: Dead guys stick together

(A Batman 138 fix-it)

After Bizarro becomes King of Hell he watches the mortal world and is distraught to find that his brother/best friend/sorta father-figure has been hurt very badly and is calling out for help.

Distraught, he goes to another lord of the netherworld who he's heard has access to a portal (and subjects a bit more compatible with the act of helping someone). He asks King Phantom would he please please help him protect his brother/friend, and if he does Bizarro will owe him a favor and leave his realm alone.

When the inferno had initially breached the Ghost Zone Danny had thought he was going to have to deal with f*cking Trigon again, but as it turns out that guy's been replaced and the new guy is pretty nice. After a brief cosmic battle and a clearing of misunderstandings, Danny agrees to Bizarro’s request.

While Gotham's vigilante civil war continues on its rooftops, Jason is in a cell. He is trembling, practically catatonic again, and losing his mind. He’s seeing the flaming figure of a knight on horseback appear from the shadowy far wall of his room, like some kind of fairytale nightmare version of Batman. It takes a while for Jason to realize he’s talking. 

“... part of the treaty between the King of Ghosts and King of Demons, Jason Todd: Prince of Demons has been granted special status and is henceforth a protected and honorary citizen of the Infinite Realms.” 

Nightmare-Bruce touches his flaming sword on Jason’s shoulder and the unearthly fire instantly engulfs him. Relief washes through Jason, and it’s so strong he nearly drops asleep.

Bruce is apologetic when everything’s over and he realizes the mistakes he’s made... but nothing really changes. (It is a relief to Bruce that no one died or was permanently injured, Jason's condition resolved itself somehow, and Bruce is normal now so really everything is fixed or at least it will be fixed.)

Just like when Jason first came back from the dead, Bruce's response makes him hurt deeper than the physical torture itself. Jason is the one who died but Bruce acts like the ghost. Singleminded, possessive, stuck in time and blind to it; bound to repeat the same cycles again and again. Jason is the ghost but he's died multiple times now, and maybe that's kind of like living and maybe that means he can move on. 

Dani and Bizarro become friends, and she gets Danny's friend Tucker to somehow set up a working Wi-Fi connection in hell so they can all play games together. (He’s not going to question it. Everything about Amity Park is abnormal. They helped him and they’re good to Bizarro, that’s all that matters.) 

Jason forges a fake identity for Dani. He might ask Babs to make a better one for her if she ever needs it but he doubts that's likely. He hasn’t had a living identity for years now after all, he’s an old hand at fake identities. Dani is delighted and starts attending school soon after. 

Danny has good friends, and as far as Jason can tell plenty of reliable mentors in the ghost world. You wouldn’t think it, but Jason’s less worried about Danny in his role as a little godling than in his civilian life. He’s got too much on his plate- too much power yet not enough to actually resolve his real issues. Not enough to protect himself where he’s vulnerable. 

The “Guys in White” that Danny likes to complain about are concerning. So is the fact that Danny’s lives with mad-scientist parents who are trying to hunt down his alternate identity. So is his ever grinding cold-war with the mayor of his town… And something else too that had been niggling at the back of Jason’s mind ever since he’d first gotten to talk to these kids. 

One day Danny’s sister, Jazz asks to talk to him. He’s an adult she says. That’s true he replies. He’s capable of protecting himself and other people, she says. Well, he has the training and experience for it, he agrees. If things go wrong, would Jason let Danny or Dani stay with him- just until she becomes a legal adult? She asks. Jason’s... not the sort of person who should be taking kids in. Danny saved his life though. He won’t say no. He says of course.

Jason knew it. Everything about Amity Park is abnormal.

The town doesn’t technically exist- there are no maps that include it and even satellite imaging is corrupted where Danny describes his hometown is supposed to be. There are no references to it on the internet that couldn’t be referring to a totally different Amity Park elsewhere, and judging by the problems they occasionally had on gaming nights and the odd offhand remarks Danny and his friends sometimes made, it was looking extremely likely that all communications between Amity Park and the outside were being heavily censored. Before Jason knew it he had started a full-on investigation on the GIW, Mayor Vlad Masters, former Mayor Montez, and Axion Labs.

Hope and fear lodges itself in Danny’s chest. Jason’s an adult and he’s actually going to help.

[relaxxattack]

im getting really tired of all the most random bullshit bills being brought to the forefront of american politics… book bans, drag bans, and now tiktok bans? why are we letting people debate this shit when children are actively being shot up in schools? when the housing-cost-to-minimum-wage ratio is completely unlivable? what the fuck? why does this feel like we’re being toyed with and distracted? why is this suddenly happening now more than ever? i’m tired of it. i’m tired of the circus show that is american politics and i’m tired of living through historical events.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Becoming jewish because being a lawyer is too much work

[quasieli]

[Art by Baydews on Picrew, link to picrew can be found here. Image description: A digital bust icon of my character (he/him), set against a light pink background with an array of gold star scattered across it. He is a young, thin, tan complexion Elf trans man with shaggy black hair with a pink fringe and longer pieces that frame his face, one red and one blue eye, brown freckles, a short chin beard and a sharp toothed half smile. He is wearing a light blue button down with several buttons undone as well as a green scarf. End description.]

Making this fun new friend for a game that's starting up soon, been wanting to play a class I've never played before so going for Sorcerer (Clockwork Soul) for this dude. He comes from a long line of sorcerers who have honor and order running through their blood and will do anything to uphold what (they see to be) is right by any means necessary. And then his story is basically, he hates his pseudo-cop family, so he fucked off to become everything they didn't want him to be 💙

[heartofamanifestor]

I have such clear skin, so clear it sparkles at night. My skin is perfect and will never not be clear.

[daesungindistress]

Reminder that Seungri is a sex offender. Convicted and registered.

As some of you may be aware, Seungri was recently released from prison after serving a criminally short sentence of just 18 months for the commission of 9 crimes ranging from economic (financial) crimes, crimes of violence, and sex crimes.

That's right. Sex crimes.

In his sentencing hearing in August 2021, at the conclusion of the first trial in the Lower Military Court, just before he was whisked away to prison, the judge explained to Seungri that he would be subject to "registration of personal information related to sex crimes." See below:

This was not widely reported, or even given much attention, with most of the media's focus being on the 3-year prison term and accompanying fine related to gambling. (Surprisingly, it did make it into Soompi's coverage, but I've reached my image limit on this post so here's a link to the report instead.)

Side note: as expected, his stans did not discuss this openly (or at all), and even their big "trusted translator" accounts either glossed over it or omitted it from their translations altogether, so many of his international supporters were unaware.

In the second trial with the High Court (first appeal), in which Seungri pleaded guilty to all charges (except for habitual gambling which he appealed again, hoping to lower it to "occasional" gambling, a lesser charge... he was unsuccessful with that, by the way), the court granted him leniency, cutting his prison term in half and forgiving the nearly $1 million fine. A generous reduction in punishment simply for saying, "I'm guilty, I'm sorry, go easy on me."

At the time, I couldn't find any information on whether or not the registration requirement for sex crimes remained in place. Even after the Supreme Court finalized everything in May of last year, there seemed to be no mention of it.

Now, however, days after his release from prison and return to society, we finally have confirmation:

Required to register but exempted from disclosure. More on that below:

In short, Seungri is a registered sex offender required by law to submit (and keep current) his personal information to the authorities. He must also return each year to the local police station having jurisdiction over his home address and have updated mugshots photos taken -- once a year, every year, for the next 15 years. To put this into perspective, they'll be keeping tabs on him until he's in his late 40s.

So, yes, his information is registered. However, at the judge's discretion he was exempted from disclosure. This means his personal information (such as home address) will not be available, i.e., publicly searchable, on South Korea's online sex offender registry. Police will have access to this info. The public will not.

What was his violation of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes? Well, we knew he had been charged with distributing some form of illegally filmed sexual material, also known as hidden camera footage or molka. It was described as being a photo of women, in bed, naked -- and, importantly, photographed from behind, which raises the question of consent.

Seungri admitted in 2019 to sharing something in a group chatroom, as there was chat evidence of this that could not be disputed. However, he challenged the notion that he'd taken the photo himself, claiming he'd received it from someone else. He later took it a step further and disputed the nature of the photo altogether by trying to pass it off as a "business advertisement" sent to him in a "spam text message" from an employee of an adult entertainment business. For publicity purposes.

The court rejected his excuse explanation for the photo and deemed him guilty of distributing illegally filmed footage. But as for who took the photo, whether it was Seungri or someone else, the court's decision didn't seem especially clear to me... until now, thanks to JTBC recently reporting details from the ruling:

The KKT chat log, made public in 2019, did not support Seungri's claim. The testimony of other members of the chat, when questioned in court about the photo they received from Seungri, did not support it either.

So much for his fans' stubborn insistence that he "wasn't in the molka chats." Thanks to the chat evidence, court docs from Jung Joonyoung's ruling, and Seungri's own admission in an interview with Chosun Ilbo, we've known for years that Seungri not only knew about his friends' molka habits but received such things from them directly and even reacted to them with amusement (laughter). Now, with the detailed results of Seungri's court proceedings before us, we can be certain that he took part in the practice too.

[friendbreakfast]

people will see one (1) bad horror indie project be done with a newly public domain character and become strongly against the concept of Things Being Free And Available For People To Make Art With, as if bad horror projects with STILL COPYRIGHTED CHARACTERS wasnt already a thing the internet is saturated with

[spaceshipkat]

.

[childofaura]

All right, it seems like I’ve got a lot of understanding and rational people who responded to my earlier inquiry about making a Claire criticism post. So I’m gonna go ahead and do it, since this is something that’s sat in my mind every time a new installment of the ToA series came out.

SO BIG DISCLAIMER BECAUSE I WANT EVERYONE TO READ THIS BEFORE ANYONE GETS MAD AT ME:

THIS IS ALL MY SUBJECTIVE OPINION. I MIGHT BE PHRASING THIS POST LIKE IT’S AN ABSOLUTE, BUT IT’S NOT, IT’S ALL ISSUES I PERSONALLY FEEL WITH CLAIRE’S CHARACTER. SO IF YOU LIKE CLAIRE, THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL ATTACK OR ME TELLING YOU YOU’RE WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING/CAN’T LIKE CLAIRE.

Now that I think I’ve got that out of the way, I wanna jump into the actual post of why I’ve never really liked Claire’s character.

If we’re being really really REALLY honest... I think the issue is mostly based off of “The writers didn’t know how to write Claire”. I’ve felt like every character in Trollhunters (specifically Trollhunters, we don’t talk about 3Below and while Wizards was pretty positive overall, that was also a lot of hit or miss, and that series plays even more into why I don’t like Claire) was executed pretty well to fulfill their roles as characters or to be compelling and pretty easy to grasp their personalities.

Except Claire.

Personality issues:

Her character’s inconsistent and flip-flops. To start off, her intro in the series is just “pretty girl that Jim likes”. We get the promising sense that she has some non-conforming interests at first, as she’s advertising try-outs for the play, but that’s just lifted from the Trollhunters book and we never see any interest in theater arts from Claire ever again after that. Her hair (and I’m sorry but I hate her hair with all the stupid hairclips in the front, it’s so distracting and it looks dumb) with the streak in it and the skull shirt she wears makes you assume she’s somewhat rebellious, maybe kind of punk, but she’s a straight-A trouble-free student who’s apparently popular with everyone, and helps her mom out with campaigning for her political career. There’s really nothing to her personality that shows itself consistently, besides the Papa Skull interest.

And then there’s how badly her character and personality was executed at first; When Steve’s about to beat up Jim, she tries to step in but gets shoved back. Great! She has a sense of right and wrong and she’ll stand up for others. But then later on, she scolds Jim for the crime of... standing up for himself? Which sends a really bad message that she’d have rather had Jim publicly humiliate himself and/or possibly get beat up. Then later she’s willing to go to a Papa Skull concert with the same guy who shoved her. That’s incredibly weak character right there.

She starts to show some more positive character when after getting mad at Jim for trashing the house, she puts two and two together and realizes something’s off, but then she just... sneaks into his house like a weirdo, even though nothing about her character suggests that she’d do something like that and she has no real reason besides “Jim wasn’t straightforward about the party”; it’s not something a normal person would do or what SHE would do given her current character development. And then this one’s a smaller gripe, but I hated her scoff in Wizards when the tournament was going on and the guards didn’t let her in, she goes “Ugh, boys’ club!”. UH HELLO, YOU IDIOT. THERE WERE FEMALE GUARDS CLEARLY EMPLOYED IN ARTHUR’S SERVICE. HELL, THE GUARD THAT BULLAR ATE WAS A FEMALE GUARD. GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE AND STOP PRETENDING LIKE YOU’RE BEING SLIGHTED BECAUSE YOU’RE A GIRL. YOU WERE CONSIDERED A CIVILIAN TRYING TO ENTER A TOURNAMENT FOR TRAINED KNIGHTS.

Now past all the character inconsistencies in those first thirteen-ish episodes, the second issue I have with Claire’s character is that she teeters pretty dangerously into Mary Sue territory. Everyone (I was almost gonna say “who isn’t a major villain” but EVEN MORGANA ends up liking her. So MOSTLY everyone) who isn’t a main antagonist ends up liking Claire in some way. Steve the bully? Tries to date her. Mary, whom she said she wasn’t really close friends with? Is friends with her and even has her number. Freaking VENDEL, the grumpiest character in the show, only has to hear her talk in Troll and he immediately likes her without her having to earn his trust (which also she just... never uses Troll again. Sure is convenient that she learned to speak fluent Troll just for one scene and one character to like her). Morgana takes a liking to her. Compare that to how hard Jim had to work to gain the trust of others: His bond with Draal, learning to prove himself to Vendel, engaging with Nomura in prison and befriending her. She too easily assimilates with other characters; I’d have less issues if she had to work like Jim did, but the only time she does is with NotEnrique.

Skills and abilities don’t feel earned or consistent:

And then the whole thing with her powers and her physical abilities. It was never explained in the show how she actually obtained innate magic powers not connected to the Shadow Staff itself (And no, if you have to explain it on Twitter as a writer, that’s not good writing, that’s forcing your audience to play detective). She’s just all of a sudden doing awfully-convenient high-level magic in the first two episodes (or maybe three, whenever she created that shadow-cover for Jim and the others to escape.) without explaining HOW she had got those powers, and then she performs it perfectly whenever the plot needs it (She’s literally shown to be more powerful than Merlin, how stupid is that?). Remember in the movie where everyone was like “Oh no Claire, don’t use your powers because it could hurt you!” and she does anyways and she faints for like three seconds and then has no other physical repercussions? Or how she’s somehow MORE capable than Jim when it comes to fighting, like how in the Chinese Trollmarket she manages to swipe one of the other troll’s weapons, which has an entirely different weight and size to her shadow staff and probably required extensive training, and she just uses it flawlessly to fight? The only times Claire really fails are when the plot calls for it.

Plot can’t happen without her:

And finally, she hijacks the plot constantly, more than her character should, and has more importance placed on her role in the story than anyone else. Even Blinky. She even took over the plot for Wizards, which was supposed to be Douxie’s story and Douxie’s character-focus. The poor guy took a backseat to his own story because the plot relied on Claire to move forward, literally nothing could be done without her. And I mentioned it before but even though Douxie’s character still managed to get enough development, it was hardly enough because Claire hogged up so much screen-time focusing on HER and HER magic development and HER relationship with Morgana over Douxie and HIS magic development and HIS relationship with Merlin.

And also the fact that it’s Claire who ends up either saving the day or taking priority over the others. Who was the one who defeated Morgana in Trollhunters? Claire. Who brought Jim back to life as a human, despite the fact that even Merlin stated it was impossible for him to make Jim a human again? Claire. Who was it that Jim made sure to establish his relationship with, but not anyone else? CLAIRE. That ending in the movie where he doesn’t seem to care about his relationship with Blinky, Draal, Strickler, etc, but oh we’ve GOTTA have his girlfriend!

Overall, even typing this, I don’t think it’s her fault even though I hate her character; it’s the writers’ fault for doing such a sloppy and inconsistent job because she’s boiled down to just a “girl empowerment”. Because in the book, Claire Fontaine is AWESOME. She’s a Scot descended from a warrior lineage which actually explains why she has weapon capabilities, she’s explained that she’s not really a “popular girl” but she’s super confident in herself and doesn’t really care what others think, and that’s what Jim finds charming about her, and she rips Steve a new one after hearing that he’s just trying to charm her to piss off Jim.

But Claire Nunez is a mess of a poorly executed character. And again, I blame the writers because I think Claire could have been great if they knew what they were doing with her and made her balanced.