#we should legally be allowed to commit murder

[withasideofshakespeare]

Disabled liberation means Richard III gets to Be Like That.

[drdemonprince]

I don't think I have it in me to be an abolitionist because I read that horrible story about the trans teen murdered in South Carolina and my knee jerk reaction is, those people should rot in jail, ideally forever, or worse. No matter how I look at it I can't make myself okay with the idea that you should be allowed to steal someone's life in such a horrible way and then just go back to enjoying your life. Some stuff is just too over the top evil.

You can have whatever emotions you want about that person's murderous actions, but the reality is that the carceral justice system is one of the largest sources of physical, emotional, and sexual torment for transgender people on this planet.

Transgender people are ten times more likely to be assaulted by a fellow inmate and five times more likely to be assaulted by a corrections officer, according to a National Center for Transgender Equality Report.

Within the prison system, transgender people are frequently denied gender-affirming medical care, and housed in populations that do not match their identity, which increases their odds of being beaten and sexually assaulted.

The alternative to being incorrectly housed with the wrong gendered population is that transgender people are also frequently held in solitary confinement instead, often for far longer periods on average than their non-transgender peers, contributing to them experiencing suicide ideation, self harm, acute physiological distress, a shrunk hippocampus, muscculoskeletal pain, chronic condition flare-ups, heart disease, reduced muscle tone, and numerous other proven effects of solitary confinement.

The prison system is also one of the largest sites of completely unmitigated COVID spread, among other illnesses, with over 640,000 cases being directly linked to prison exposure, according to the COVID prison project.

We know that number is rampantly under-estimated because prisoners, especially trans ones, are frequently denied medical care. And even basic, essential physical care. Just last year a 27-year-old Black man named Lason Butler was found dead in his cell, having perished of dehydration. He had been kept in a cell without running water for two weeks, where he rapidly lost 40 pounds before perishing. His body was covered in rat bites.

This kind of treatment is unacceptable for anyone, no matter who they are and what they have done, and I shouldn't have to explicitly connect the dots for you, but I will. One in six transgender people has been to prison, according to Lambda Legal. One in every TWO Black transgender people has been to prison. One in five Black men go to prison in America.

THIS is the fate you are consigning all these people to when you say that prisons must exist because there are really really bad people out in the world. We should all know by not that this is not how the carceral justice system works. Hate crime laws are under-utilized, according to Pro Publica, and result in few convictions. The people who commit transphobic acts of violence tend to be given softer sentences than the prisoners who resemble their victims.

We must always remember that the violent tools of the prison system will be used not against the people that we personally consider to be the most "deserving" of punishment, but rather against whomever the state considers to be its enemy or to be a disposable person.

You are not in control of the prison system and you cannot ensure it will be benevolent. You are not the police, the judge, the jury, or the corrections officers. By and large, the people who are in these roles are racist, transphobic, ableist, and victim-blaming, and they will use the power and violence of the system to terrorize people in poverty, Black people, trans people, "mad" people, intellectually disabled people, women, and everyone else that you might wish to protect from harm with a system of "punishment." Nevermind that incaraceration doesn't prevent future harm anyway.

You can't argue for incarceration as the tool of your revenge fantasies, you have to argue for it as the tool that it actually is. The purpose of a system is what it does. And the prison system's purpose has never been to protect or avenge vulnerable trans people. It has always been to beat them, sexually assault them, forcibly detransition them, render them unemployable, disconnect them from all community, neglect them, and unperson them.

[chasing-faith-and-fate]

So can we get a back story or info on the other clans and how there daily life is? Like do they struggle with mistreatment from there leaders or other higher-ups in the clan or other clans?

I guess I can give you some? It's not really important to the story so why not

Wisteria:

They're the oldest of the clans, originally from another territory with other clans who were way too aggressive which is what drove them away. Half the cats split off to become Brindleclan.

They're very much known to be outrageously kind, which current deputy Windshade really hates, he's looking to change the clan image when he becomes leader.

Despite this- the clan was the first to start culling any cats that simply didn't age as they should, or otherwise acted out of character (some cats may have not have been Taken, but just had other problems. The clan did not stop to think about that.)

Applestar is the first leader that hasn't had any of the original founders in her family tree. She's an outsider, but she's very liked, even by her more power hungry deputy.

She's mates with the healer, which is why she made it legal for them to have families and relationships, this wasn't allowed in Wisteriaclan before her.

Windshade is part of a polycule with Sparkclan cats, Weeddash and Airdazzle. It's very much a secret even tho it wouldn't be too frowned upon.

Wisteriaclan are very much of the mindset that you can overthrow any leader that the majority doesn't like. It's expected.

Brindle:

They were hit the hardest by takers, the creatures took ⅔ of their population, and they're still struggling to build it up again.

They did however go to many lengths to ensure they only threw actual Takers into the rift, the process of weeding them out took a long time.

The current generation of power holders are quite generous, offering help where their clan didn't provide it in the past. They aren't exactly happy to do it, but they're desperate for allies.

They have a pretty bad habit of power imbalance which leads to infighting and conflict between the cats.

They're currently (as of moon 34 in game) that have Takers among them.

If any clan falls to anything that's not Takers, it's probably gonna be Brindleclan. They're sadly very accident prone and have no fucking self preservation.

Robinfleck is plotting murder very often. Take that as you will.

Spark:

The Sparks (as they currently are) was formed by a group of rogues that found the two others. The clan didn't like many of the rules and so have their own system.

For example, the clans name changes with the leader. The leader is also always related in some ways to the previous one. This is the nepotism clan everyone.

Sparkclan never had issues with Takers, no one knew why, but the Sparks were and still are very very arrogant about this fact.

Chasingclan is an offshoot of Sparkclan, and despite what Sparkstar says, they have never gotten along since the separation.

As you may have noticed, a lot of Sparkclan cats have scars across the bridge of their nose. This was a mark of disrespect, an old tradition to make those who break the laws or speak out against the leader and their family get marked. Now it's a cosmetic thing some just ask for.

They're the least liked of all the clans by the other clans.

Their healer recently committed a crime that led to a kit dying and has been exiled. She is roaming around unpunished.

[quietwingsinthesky]

Hey i swear that i was not that rude ass anon but i am very curious would your "actual response" would've been? I ask because i think i had some honest misconceptions about "toxic ships" for a while and legitimately thought that it was a kind of soft support for irl toxicity.

oh, of course I can do that for you, anon. it just might get a little long.

so, what we're gonna do is set the stage with previous asshole anon's declaration: "u know incest is illegal disgusting and traumatizing". and we're going to assume that what they are actually saying here is "incest, which is a subject you have written about in your fanfic and posted online, sometimes seriously and sometimes purely for erotic purposes, is these things" and not that they are accusing me of committing incest in real life. because that would be an insane thing to accuse me of.

to start: yes, incest in real life is all of those things. the first breakdown of communication in this whole debate about "toxic ships" is that a whole lot of people seem incapable of realizing that someone can hold firm opinions about something in reality while also exploring the topic in taboo ways in fiction. i think incest is bad. i think murder is bad. i think bestiality is bad. i think uhhhh fuck what's another crime. arson. arson is bad. but my moral opposition to these things does not prevent me from writing about them.

"Kelly burned her best friend's house down. Wendy killed a man in an alleyway. Kit and Kat are twin sisters who make out." These are just words on a page. If they happened in real life, they would be morally wrong. But they aren't happening. I made them up.

Of the three things asshole anon points to in order to attack me writing about fictional incest, two of them are poor grounds for morality and the third is an extremely good basis for morality but certainly isn't supporting their side of the argument.

Illegal: To start, fictional incest is not illegal. Fictional murder is not illegal. Fictional sex crimes are not illegal. We don't waste time prosecuting Walter White for creating meth because he's not a real guy. But incest is illegal. That's a good thing, under the current state of affairs, but also, I'd argue, a very poor way of deciding what is moral and what is not. Laws are not a god-given code of Good Boy Rules; they're a set of instructions created by fallible people for when the state is allowed to enforce violence, and this violence is not enforced the same for everyone. Often, in this debate, we point to the fact that by this same logic, queerness itself would have been immoral to portray, let alone to be, for as long as it was outlawed, and I find that's generally a powerful and easy way to emphasis how laws can be a poor standard for right and wrong. But I'd also like to add, what is legal is not always moral. Marital rape was legal for a very long time, but we know that's immoral. If incest was made perfectly legal tomorrow, it would still be immoral. So, clearly, what's right and wrong is not something we should rely on government authority to decide for us.

Disgust: So, how about disgust? Is that how we decide what's right and wrong, to partake in, to write about? If it was, then we'd say incest is disgusting, therefore it is immoral, and because portrayals of incest are disgusting, therefore they are immoral as well. But this very quickly falls apart. We clearly can't allow person-by-person disgust to decide what's okay, because I, personally, think kissing is gross, and under this framework, that would mean it'd be just fine for me to point at kissing couples in public and yell EW! FREAKS! That leaves societal wide disgust as the deciding factor in right-or-wrong, and that's a very dangerous beast to try and appease. After all, that joke about me calling couples freaks in public would be a lot less funny if my reaction was rooted in, let's say, society-wide bias against same-sex couples or interracial relationships. There is no arguing with the fact that incest is disgusting, but disgust cannot be the deciding factor in what we allow to happen, because disgust does not care about the whys or the hows, disgust only cares that what it sees is an affront that it will either destroy or hide, and both of those options put people in danger.

Traumatizing: Let's talk about that danger. Asshole anon's final point is where I agree with them. Incest is traumatizing, and that's why it's wrong. It's wrong because of the harm it causes, because someone is being abused and victimized by someone else. Our hypothetical victim of incest is a real person who suffered.

This is where it falls apart for asshole anon.

Because no one suffers from a portrayal of fictional incest. The actors in Game of Thrones are not actually related and are not in abusive relationships. The moms on pornhub are not actually doing doggy with their real sons. and the only person harmed in the making of the perks of being a wallflower was me, who was not warned of its contents and was triggered real fucking bad when i slammed into it.

That's why I get it, you know. I understand the response that a lot of people have to seeing fictional portrayals of real life abuse and pain is to flinch and to lash out at the creator. Especially here on the internet, where a lot of your fellow creators aren't big name writers or actors you'll never be able to touch, but just some guy with a blog who writes porn. There's a lot of hurt people here who never learned, maybe never had the opportunity yet to learn, how to let their initial defensive reactions pass over them before they hurt someone else. (And I say maybe never had the opportunity to learn because there's a lot of people in this "anti" movement who are really, really fucking young. That's heartbreaking for me, both that they've been hurt in a way that allows them to be swallowed up into this movement and that they're now in a community that exists under constant surveillance where one wrong move will get them harassed and hurt all over again.)

Someone's writing is not what hurt them, though. I won't deny that seeing something you're unprepared for can trigger you, but that's why proper tagging is so important and why we need to emphasize that when you go online or into a space like tumblr, you need to accept personal responsibility in that you may see things that make you feel like shit. Someone who ships incest does not inherently condone the abuse someone went through in real life, not unless they're a real shithead. They might be someone who went through a similar experience and find safety in fictional expressions of it, or they might not and they just find the taboo fun to play with. It's a conspiratorial line of thinking to believe otherwise: they're writing about X, so that they can convince everyone that Y is okay to do in real life. When people are hurt, they want to construct a narrative where the hurt is intentional and malicious, rather than them just randomly seeing a piece of art not meant for them and being affected negatively by it.

But, there are real people hurt intentionally and maliciously in this situation. Asshole anon proves that themself. I don't know who they are, they don't know who I am, but they thought that it was morally correct of them to come into my inbox and condescend to me about my writing being disgusting. That message is one of the nicer ones I've ever been sent over the years. And I'm not the only one who can attest to being sent death threats, or people telling me to kill myself, or people wishing that the things I write about would happen to me or to my family members in real life. I'm basically immune to that shit by now, I publish the most pathetic ones if I can come up with a halfway decent zinger of a response and delete the rest without thinking about it. But I'm basically a cockroach freak that spent its formative years in superwholock, I cannot be hurt by anything I get sent now because honestly? I probably received worse when I was twelve.

The only harm that matters is the harm done to real people, and this stupid fucking conflict about fiction has allowed a lot of people on this website to dehumanize anyone who disagrees with them to the point that they think it's not only fine but morally justified to tell them how they wish they would die.

So there's my take on it. Incest is bad because it hurts people. Fictional incest is fine because it doesn't hurt anyone. People who write about incest are not conspiring to support real life incest, because they are writing about fictional people who can't get hurt and if they're halfway decent, they know that real people getting hurt by incest is bad. Attacking people over writing fictional incest is bad because they are more real than anyone they ever write about will be; they can be hurt, the characters can't.

sorry. like i warned you, long. but i wanted to cover as much of what i could think of as i possibly could.

[luna-rainbow]

I recently saw what might be the single worst Bucky take I have ever seen in the comments of a Youtube video. Brace yourself.

This person was saying that mind control is like the "Nuremberg defense" - namely that a soldier was "just following orders" and should not be used for Bucky because all soldiers are obligated to refuse to follow immmoral orders and they should be held responsible for the consequences of not doing so.

Also. Mind control is a "get out of jail free" card for moral reponsibility and if you believe Bucky had no agency or choice you must also believe Steve forced him to stop being the Winter Soldier.

Is this not the wildest, craziest thing you have ever seen?

Sigh. Children will latch onto the latest shiny word they've learned and throw it around to defend their blorbo, which I'm going to assume in this case is one Anthony Stark again.

Firstly, not all soldiers who pleaded "superior order" ended up having that plea dismissed; some were acquitted based on the recognition that they did not know the legality of what they were ordered to do.

Digging into it, the Nuremberg defence was not about soldiers refusing to comply with "immoral" orders -- because it's hard to define "immoral". Is it immoral to blow up another human (soldier) or bring down a building for your country, for example. It's specifically around war crimes, and when the soldier is aware it is a war crime but carries it out anyway.

Assuming this argument was in the context of the Stark murders (almost always is), the first question is, was it plain murder, was it a war crime (killing of a civilian), or was it part of armed conflict?

In which case we must return to Bucky's identity and mental state at the time. The war had ended in 1945, but Bucky was never allowed to leave the war. He continued on as the Winter Soldier, and the name wasn't just there to be fancy. He was perpetually imprisoned in a war of Hydra's making, hence his encounter with the Starks was not, in his mind, a civilian meeting a civilian (hence, it's not the type of "murder" that gets trialled in civilian courts).

Secondly, the Starks were transporting the serum, the genesis of which was a military project. Stark himself is an arms dealer who works closely with the American military. Therefore, is he really a civilian during the time he was killed? While political assassinations is its own ethical kettle of fish, his execution could be seen as part of an armed conflict tactic between two opposing sides.

Thirdly, the Nuremberg defence fails when the soldier is aware they have been ordered to commit a war crime and nevertheless chooses to comply. Bucky didn't even know his own name, how does anyone expect him to know the Geneva Conventions (which, by the way, was ratified in 1949)? He was ordered, as a soldier, to kill an enemy scientist transporting a military load. He had no frame of reference to work out who he was, who Howard Stark was (Stark recognised him, there was no flicker of recognition when Stark called him "Sergeant Barnes"), the context of the assassination, let alone make any judgement about the morality of killing him.

Not to mention the most important point which is that Bucky himself was a prisoner of war tortured into obedience. In other words, even if he had awareness of the immorality, he was forced to commit the acts under duress (and not under superior orders). And that in itself forms its own legal defence.

I...don't even know what to say about the last paragraph apart from the fact that their brains have melted out of their ears.

Steve literally gave agency back to Bucky. He gave Bucky the choice of finishing the mission or choosing to believe him, and for the first time, the Winter Soldier disobeyed his order.

People will literally look at a scene of a guy not lifting up a finger to defend himself and say "WAAAAH HE FORCED HIS ASSAILANT TO ATTACK HIM." I just--

[unsolicited-opinions]

Woooooof.

I think Klein's criticisms of Israel, in this conversation, are clear-eyed, informed...and uncomfortable to swallow for those of us who want Israel to be a liberal democracy. I think we need to swallow them regardless.

I also think Klein's criticisms of Coates are on point.

Coates says openly that he did not seek to provide a nuanced, sophisticated, contextual take. His goal was always pure polemics.

That admission, that he did not even seek to be clear-eyed, should inform how people read Coates' on Israel.

Coates won't unconditionally condemn the events of 10/7/23. He rightly points out that Israeli governments haven't honestly worked towards peace in decades, but pointedly ignores the very same problem in Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. (This isn't whataboitism, it's pointing out a double standard.)

Coates legitimately focuses on Palestinian trauma, but refuses to acknowledge the impacts that suicide bombings had on any attempts at a peace processes.

He acknowledges that Hamas/Sinwar surely knew the 10/7/23 attack would have disastrous consequences for the Palestinian people, then denies that Hamas should take any responsibility for the consequences.

He ignores the decades when one side worked for peace and the other did not.

He compares, briefly, Palestinian violence to the Civil Rights movement in the US by calling the Civil Rights movement a "catalogue of violence towards black people," and he's right about that. That was the whole point.

The primary tactic of the Civil Rights movement activists was non-violence. This let the world see on their televisions that peaceful protesters were met with wildly disproportionate violence by the powers of white supremacy. It made absolutely clear that the violence was not only one-sided, but that the violence was in response to Americans only peacefully protesting for equal rights. This was a powerful illustration that the positions of the protesters were unambiguously ethical and moral. It made clear that the powers of white supremacy were violent, hateful, unethical, and morally evil. There was unambiguous right and unambiguous wrong.

Thought experiment: Imagine if Dr. King, instead of leading peaceful demonstrations, had led a slaughter of 1,200 unarmed Americans in 1963. Would the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 have been accomplished?

Imagine if Dr. King, instead of calling for legal equality, had called for the death of European-descended people around the globe and was willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of his followers to achieve this genocidal goal.

If these thought experiments sound absurd, consider that Hamas has repeatedly, explicitly called for the death of Jews everywhere. Consider that 10/7/23 planner and leader of Hamas in Gaza Yahya Sinwar was jailed for murdering 12 Palestinians. Consider that Sinwar is thrilled to sacrifice tens of thousands of Palestinian lives to further his explicitly genocidal goals.

Hamas is not the SCLC. Sinwar is not King. To suggest these movements have commonality is shameful. And Coates' greatest failing here is that he will not even allow these facts into the context of his narrative. He falsely claims that these circumstances are similarly unambiguous, but can only make that case by openly refusing the facts which don't suit his narrative.

(This is why I admire Klein. I think he's more interested in truth than in serving a narrative. That's why he's an effective critic of Israel.)

I am disappointed that Coates calls his work journalism at the same time he openly acknowledges it is pure polemics which pointedly, deliberately, consciously, willfully ignores atrocities committed against Israelis and ignores the explicitly, repeatedly expressed genocidal intent of Hamas. Coates can't make his case without excluding half the picture, so he admits that he omits half the picture. That's not journalism.

Coates is right to fault the Israelis for ceasing to work towards peace in the last couple decades. He is profoundly wrong and dishonest in his assertion that this is a unilateral failing. He is dishonest in his counterfactual denial of Palestinian agency.

Despite all this, the conversation is worth listening to.

I think the part which starts at 1 hour, 11 minutes, and 10 seconds is particularly worth considering. I appreciate that Coates hears Klein's point about what would happen if Israel pulled out of the West Bank without security guarantees, and that Coates acknowledges it as true.

(For myself, I think Israeli settlements in the West Bank should be evacuated. I think they should never have been built, and I find them ethically indefensible. I can't imagine how such a pullout could be made to practically work and how international powers would manage peacekeeping, but I think that should be the goal.)

Coates wants to hear more Palestinian voices. I do, too.

But in the same way that I don't want to hear a peep from @#&*ing Kahanists because their views are built on racist, morally indefensible foundations...I also don't want to see their mirror images in Palestine legitimized.

(Hey, if there are Palestinian voices you can recommend, please inbox me? I'd like to hear Palestinian voices which don't dehumanize/demonize Jews, which don't call for Israel to cease to exist, and which grapple with Palestinian failings as honestly as Klein grapples with Israeli failings.)

[matan4il]

The ICJ ruling went about as well as I was expecting. No call for a ceasefire and no ruling on whether the war is a case of genocide, but Israel still has to send in aid (which it was already doing) and try to contain civilian deaths. All in all it said nothing new, made no decisive decisions and it just feels like we're back where we started but now Israel has to send in a report in a month. What are your thoughts on the ruling?

Hi Nonnie! Thank you for this ask. Yes, it went just as we thought it was most likely to go, and the explicit decision on the case was never going to be given during the decision of the provisional measures. If it's okay, I wanna combine my answer to you with this ask as well:

I've seen a few people mention that the ICJ not calling for a ceasefire probably indicates that the judges don't think a genocide is occurring at all. After all, if they believe a genocide is actively going on, why would you allow the side committing it to continue the fight? Granted, I'm seeing both sides claiming the ruling to be a victory for them. So, who knows at this point what any of it means?

Okay, so my feeling about this is complex. I mean,

On the one hand, I very much acknowledge that this is the best resolution on the subject of the provisional measures that we could have gotten. Anon, you're right. If there was any indication of an actual genocide, the ICJ would have decided in favor of Israel having to stop its fighting in Gaza. There apparently is a precedent, the ICJ did issue a provisional measure deciding on the end of Russia's fighting in Ukraine, based on the convention for the prevention og genocide. So yes, there's no reason why the ICJ wouldn't do the same here if South Africa had a strong enough suggestion of a case.

The reason why I still don't feel great is that I think the very discussion is a perversion of justice. It's like... think of a situation where you know there can't be a just result, because the court is biased. Think of a scenario where a political rival of the government is put on trial for murder in North Korea, where the judges are known to serve the interests of the government. To not be executed would probably be considered the best possible result, but it's still wrong that such a biased trial exists, that someone would be put on trial for merely being a political opponent.

Yes, each side got some things it wanted and lost some stuff (SA got the ICJ to ignore its abuse of the genocide convention, and got some provisional measures when legally the whole case should have been thrown out, while Israel got the fact that the provisional measure to stop the fighting, the only one the ICJ could grant that has real weight and impact, was not issued), but at the end of the day, Hamas celebrated the decision. Because it understands that even if no practical change comes from the ICJ's decision, it's another step in its war, which it runs parallel to its terrorism, to delegitimize Israel's very existence in the global public's mind. And on the most basic level, if an antisemitic, genocidal terrorist organization is happy with the ICJ's decision, I find it hard to be.

I hope this kind of explains why, even though I'm aware that the result was the best one we could get, it's still awful. To go back to how judge Aharon Barak, the survivor of an actual genocide, put it, the whole trial was like judging Able for Cain murdering him. Hamas should be put on trial. Hamas should be called out on, and persecuted for its genocidal intents and actions against Jews around the world. Hamas should be put on trial for crimes against world peace when it intentionally started a war against Israel. Hamas should be put on trial for war crimes perpetrated against its own Palestinian population when it has killed them intentionally, and intentionally put them in harm's way, to get killed in the fighting, when it used them as human shields. And anything less than that is a perversion of justice.

Thank you both, like I said, I do hope this helps. Take care!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[nontacitare]

Mastermindery

I can't stop thinking about all the "masterminds" running around in the episode "Mastermind" and the implications for the legal system in Hell. The accused or self-proclaimed masterminds are Blitz, Andrealphus, Stolas, and Satan, but Vassago, Striker, and Stella clearly have their own plots and goals as well.

And I was fascinated by the legal proceedings. There are clearly laws and a penal system in Hell, but no Bill of Rights or concept of innocent until proven guilty. Among the crimes are using the Grimoire in an unauthorized manner, a Guardian allowing the Grimoire to be used by another, unauthorized travel to Earth, behavior on Earth that puts Hell in danger, sexual assault (especially of a Goetia), and murder (especially of a Goetia, especially by an Imp.)

The actual crime which both Blitz and Stolas committed was the misuse of the Grimoire. But Andrealphus didn't lead with that, instead just listing that as one of many crimes committed by Blitz. Andrealphus' goal was to gain Stolas' position and holdings, and there were very few ways he could lose. Either Blitz would be executed, which would not only hurt but weaken Stolas significantly, forcing the Goetia to reassign his responsibilities, which Andrealphus would likely gain, or Stolas would take the blame for Blitz, meaning Stolas would either be executed or exiled, with Andrealphus most likely gaining Stolas' duties as well as control of heiress Octavia. If the court believed Striker's testimony, then there was the bonus of clearing Stella of suspicion of the attempted murder of Stolas (a crime she actually committed.) Ultimately ice dude didn't really care about the Grimoire; it was just a way to get his foot in the door.

The only way Andrealphus could have lost is the only way Stolas could have won. If Blitz had said, "Oh, you mean that book thingy always floating around my boyfriend like a demented stalker? Never touched it. Looks real boring. IMP's business plan is based off of this completely legally registered Asmodean crystal which lets me travel to Earth. That's not a crime, right Ozzy? And sexual assault? Dude's a natural born teleporter. How would that work exactly? I'm a threat to humans, not Goetia." That would call into question all of Andrealphus' charges, and both Blitz and Stolas might have walked free.

Of course, since Blitz was not actually the mastermind he was accused of being, he unintentionally threw Stolas under the bus almost immediately. He sealed Stolas' fate by saying the Guardian of the Grimoire let him use it, and then his own by saying he could totally kill a Goetian prince if he wanted to, "but I would never do that."

Because Satan did very much care about the Grimoire, and very much cared about Imps trying to assassinate Goetia, or even having the ability to do so. (And Striker really should not trust that promise of immunity for a second.)

So the only way Blitz could win was for Stolas to falsely claim to be the mastermind behind it all. The prince's ploy worked because it fed into everyone's expectations. 1) Imps able to kill Goetia? Concocting master plans? Ha. As if. And if a Goetia were actually behind everything, there was no reason to fear an imp uprising. 2) It tracks for a Goetia prince to try to find ways to rule Earth. It really, really tracks. We the audience know Stolas would never do that, but the court wouldn't. As for the other charges, no one believed the sexual assault thing, and wouldn't unless Stolas confirmed it, and half the court already suspected that either Stella or Andrealphus were behind the attempt on Stolas life. There was just no proof.

Side note - while certainly evil, Stella's plan to kill her husband wasn't actually stupid. Her goals had nothing to do with Stolas' money; she wanted full custody of Octavia and revenge on Stolas, and as long as Octavia never found out it would have actually worked. It was Andrealphus who would get nothing, since Stolas' position would pass on to his daughter. Ice dude had to be the one to discredit him to take his position.

In the end, Stolas as sacrificial lamb gave almost everyone what they wanted. Blitz was released as a "dutiful imp," Andrealphus got the power he sought, Stella got custody of Octavia, and Satan got a pawn to use against the Goetia.

And this is what makes Satan the real mastermind, as he claimed. That bit about Stolas laying his head on the block and Satan saying, "Uh, what are you doing?" wasn't just a joke or Stolas not reading the room. The chains dragged him forward. There was a drum beat. The headsman's axe did rise. That was a mock execution. Satan was telling ALL the Goetia, "I can order any one of your deaths whenever I want to. So stop trying to take over Earth every few centuries and remember to obey your betters." But by sparing Stolas, he was doing the Goetia family and especially Stolas a solid, by showing he was also their protector. And by making Stolas' banishment only 100 years, he was also letting Andrealphus know who was really in charge.

I have other thoughts, but this is too long already. All in all, though, a fantastic episode.

[navree]

I'm constantly baffled how many writers seem to overlook and mischaracterize Jason when he has arguably the most potential of all the Batkids, or at least the Robins! Like, so much can be built upon wrt his life as an impoverished youth and how that informs his perception of vigilantism, law enforcement, drug abuse, etc. Hell, his resurrection itself is something he had over the rest of the Batfamily for the longest time, before everyone else got a take a turn and it became so overused that Jason's own trauma became a footnote. Alas, most people at DC just treat him as the "Angsty Bad Boy™️" who doesn't play nice with the other kids. He's so wasted, Jason Todd deserves better.

I've always felt that if you're going to try and write a finite narrative out of Jason's story (as opposed to comics) then at some point he should quit vigilantism. His entire adult life has been solely about that and, as someone who for a long time was most famous for dying, he should get the opportunity to live, especially for himself. BUT, so long as he remains a vigilante, he offers a really interesting perspective on vigilantism that you don't really see anywhere else.

Jason, like some of the people I feel have the most reason to be in this life in Batman media (such as Bruce and Dick), has experience being a victim of criminal behavior, yes, but he also has the experience of being on the other side of the window. He knows the criminal element intimately, and from a young age. His father was a low-level criminal, it got him sent to jail and eventually murdered while in jail; Jason grew up in a low-income neighborhood that has been by and large overlooked by Gotham and that allows criminal behavior to breed there to the point where the name Crime Alley no longer refers to a singular event (the murders of the Waynes) but all the other issues there; Jason himself has committed criminal acts when weighing the option between obeying the law and ensuring his own survival. He has a different perspective on criminality and law enforcement and outside enforcement of legal codes than anyone in his life, because he's lived on both sides of the lines and they've both had profound effects on him and should shape how he views the world differently than other people he knows.

Jason's vigilantism, and honestly even how he deals with stuff during his crime lord era, should be motivated by at once knowing that issues don't pop up out of nowhere and that even criminals have interiority, but also a deeper understanding than most as to how the actions of criminals affects not just innocent bystanders but innocents in their own lives. It's a unique perspective that not only enriches Jason as a character but can also provide some pretty thought-provoking conversation about vigilantism and Batman's role in the world and even the concept of extra-legal justice we find in most superhero comics in general that DC could honestly use.

Like yeah, ok, I did find Stephen's monologue about his role as a doctor being that of a healer at the end of the General Strange arc in this year's Doctor Strange hokey, but the way a superhero's personal life informs their actions as a hero is an interesting concept that only gets shallow explorations most of the time, and Batman media could really use it in more depth given how shallow people's understanding of Batman is (Batman's a capitalist Batman's a fascist Batman beats up the mentally ill Batman victimizes the poor, dear God shut up).

And when it comes to Jason's death, it is pretty obvious that, when it comes to the Batfam, DC is trying to recapture that feeling that came with A Death in the Family every time they kill a character off, to try and tap into what made Jason's death such a big thing. But the problem is that they fundamentally do not understand why Jason's death was so big.

For one, and the most shallow reason for it, Jason's death wasn't just death. At the tail end of a series of difficult issues for him, like finding out his dad was murdered in prison and Bruce lied about it, to the debacle with Felipe Garzonas, to Bruce benching him as Robin (which, given that Dick being benched ended with him no longer being Robin and leaving Wayne Manor, it's reasonable to infer that a formerly homeless kid who experienced a significant amount of trauma due to that homelessness would start to worry that no Robin=no longer being able to live with Bruce and having to live on the streets again), Jason ends up trying to find his mother. And when he finds her, this adult woman, who he should be able to trust, if only because she's a grown woman and he's fifteen, deliberately leads him into a trap with someone he is deeply aware is dangerous, points a gun at his head, and tells him that what's about to happen is his fault while he tries and fails to fight his way out of what he knows is going to be a really bad set of minutes. Honestly, more people need to read ADitF, because the sequence of events is a lot more horrifying than pop culture remembers it. Jason is already beaten into the ground by Joker's henchmen before the Joker gets started on him (while Sheila stands back and watches, God) and by the time it's done, half of Joker's suit is colored red instead of purple to represent blood and everyone in that warehouse thinks that Jason is already dead. And then he gets blown up. Jason's death resonated so much not just because of the fact that it happened, and that Bruce felt upset about it, but also because what happened to him was horrifyingly brutal and to date remains one of the truly most sadistic things the Joker has ever done.

For two, Jason's death had an impact because it was meant to stick. Unlike Bruce getting lost in time or Damian getting stabbed, where it was pretty clear that the characters were not going to stay dead, and then by the time you get to Dick and whoever else has died recently, where the audience (and the characters) have no reason to believe that this will be permanent, Jason's death was meant to be the end of the story. Due to Starlin's hatred of Jason as a character (which is weird) and DC in general wanting to move away from kid sidekicks at the time, Jason was supposed to die and then stay dead forever; there's a reason why the saying was "nobody stays dead in comics except for Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes, and Uncle Ben", because he was meant to, you know, stay dead. It hits because the audience itself, along with Bruce and Dick and Alfred and Barbara and everyone else in Jason and Robin's life, thought that this was the last we would see of Jason Todd alive and that he would never come back ever again. It's also why his resurrection packs so much more of a punch than anyone else's either, both in universe and out of universe.

For three, Jason's death was greatly helped by the meta-narrative in a way that nobody else's has been. Because, the eighties was a period of a lot of change for DC, and especially for Batman due to the popularity of The Killing Joke (which wasn't even supposed to be canon, yet by the time Jason died Barbara was already confirmed in canon to be paralyzed and therefore have the events of that book take place) and especially The Dark Knight Returns. Which means that the eighties was when people started writing darker Batman stories, and they kept going from there, and the characterization got darker along with it (seriously, read something from the early eighties and then something from, like, the 2010s, the difference is insane) as Batman slowly just because a darker and more sullen character. And because that change coincided with Jason dying, and there was an initial attempt to push a sort of "Jason's murder is turning Bruce into a crazy person" message to really show audiences how badly Bruce was dealing with the situation, it creates this sort of in-universe progression where Jason's murder fundamentally altered Bruce in a way that has, so far, proven utterly irreversible.

It's not just that Bruce's son was murdered and that he's had to deal with the grief and trauma of that loss, it's that the grief and trauma of that lost basically completely shattered Bruce and he is never going to be able to put himself back together again. He is never going to return to who he was before Jason died even though the initial hurt has literally been reversed because Jason was resurrected and subsequently re-entered his life. Jason's death was so calamitous, so monumentally awful, that it changed who Bruce was as a person in a way that can never be undone or reversed, and most of the people in his life these days don't even know what Bruce was like before, while the people who do know just have to live with the fact that Bruce as he was then is as dead as Jason was (this fic by @damianbugs really gets to the unique tragedy of the whole thing so go read that). None of the other Batfam deaths have that, not even Stephanie's, which was also meant to be permanent before it got retconned, and so they don't hit as hard because they not only don't have much impact on the audience, they don't even have much impact on Bruce as a character, certainly not anywhere near that Jason's did in both intensity and longlasting effect.

The problem is that DC didn't really didn't expect Under the Red Hood to be as popular as it was, so they kept Jason around without really knowing what to do with him or having any plan for him, which is a choice we're still feeling the consequences of today in that they both still don't really know what to do with him and really resent him for it, along with his longterm popularity in all of his iterations. And fandom itself likes to just hew to tropes with no basis in canon whatsoever based on the shallowest understanding of all characters, including Jason, so that's not even helping matters much, and why I stick to my own bubble.

[sburbian-sage]

So I brought up with my coplayers, the idea of weekly D&D games? You know, could be fun, give us something to de-stress with.

They were kinda on board, but... well they're all trolls, and they're more familiar with FLARP, and said we should play that instead...

Is it just me though, or is FLARP like, a nonsense game??? It seems super dangerous, and I can't tell if it's roleplay-heavy, or more like a video game?

I guess it's kinda like Sburb in that way... Which, uh, kinda gets away from the point of this being stress relief. You know, somehow, my idea of us all sitting cozily around a table, eating snacks and cracking jokes, seems to have been subverted into essentially playing *another* live-action game where you need to act as a specific class and leverage nonsense abilities. Don't I get enough of that already...?

But hey, I can roll with the punches, I wanna at least *try* it. So yeah, any advice or tips? Have you ever played it?

Oh man. I'm all for cultural sensitivity, but only Alternia could produce a game like FLARP. It's somehow simultaneously "your rural cousin who doesn't know what a gameboy is takes rapturous joy in throwing rocks at roadkill because that's his only hobby when he's not plowing the field or learning how to read (he is 15)" and "this FPS/superhero movie was directly paid for by the government, enjoy uncritically and join the military now to die in WWIII". And that's putting aside that on Alternia "let's play FLARP" can either be a friendly engagement between friends or a socially acceptable pretense for murdering someone and jacking all of their shit.

But then again, maybe I'm the one that needs to live a little. I've never played FLARP, or at least I don't remember having played it (I do remember the severe head trauma, but not anything leading up to it), but I do have a scan of the FLARP handbook, and enough familiarity with "actual play" to understand the social conventions and playerbase. So if you wanna commit to this, listen up.

Standard TRPG stuff. Establish lines and veils and other safety tools, be a fan of the players, respect the Clouder as a fellow player. Don't be a killer GM who tries to "win", but don't hand out victories like candy because the game isn't fun without legitimate stakes. This is my advice by the way. The closest the book comes to this is "as the Clouder, the players are all your bitches, but keep in mind that they outnumber you and the only thing sating their bloodlust is 1) you running a good game 2) you're not worth much XP".

Like D&D, FLARP can be surprisingly versatile in the games it can run. You can run FLARP cooperatively or divide into competitive teams. You can also run campaigns that focus on intrigue. However, like D&D, it's also mostly about killing things. So don't expect good results if your ideal TRPG experience is "cozy and conflict-free emotional story about queer people gardening" or whatever. It's an actual game.

I know I said "establish boundaries" earlier, but I'm enunciating right now that FLARP can be lethal. I'm not trying to insinuate that your Troll coplayers are going to go into automatic blood orgy mode as soon as the game starts. All I'm saying is, muscle memory can be a bitch, and if I'm going to play paintball with military veterans who have own landmines and stuff, it might be a good idea to double-check the guns to make sure they aren't loaded with live ammo.

Don't go in with a solid idea of what character you wanna play. All of your stats are randomly rolled, and your two highest stats determine which class you get to play as. It's honest-rolls, baby, and like honest rolls they can provide uneven results. The Boy Skylark class sucks, but their endgame potential is unreal.

There are homebrew rules for point-buy attribute determination, as well as picking whatever class you want, but if you ask to use them your coplayers are legally allowed to wedgie you. Casually bring them up and insinuate that it might be a good idea, maybe.

Clear out a large area for play. One or five square miles at least. When the campaign hatches, the monsters will need space to propagate.

Don't rob yourself of the fun. Alchemize some low-tier beginner equipment, and don't use your Classpect abilities. The game is balanced around players not being gods. There are homebrew "epic campaign" rules, but it gets really stupid really fast. If your Troll coplayers can use psionics, either ask them not to use them, or allow your human players to use certain Title powers to "balance" it out.

Related note, classes can only use certain types of weapons which may not correspond to your Kind Abstratus. Normally using a non-Kind weapon ensures you don't get damage bonuses (and it applies damage penalties if it's a "real" weapon), but FLARP uses its own damage calculations based on class, level, and stats when you're playing it. You might think it's weird that SBURB seemingly respects FLARP as its own independent game type and will suspend its own damage calculations while playing it. Don't think about it too much. Also don't think about how the Boy Skylark is just the Page in all but name.

If you don't maintain strict time records, you won't have fun, your game will suck, and I'll kill you.

Happy FLARPing. And if it doesn't work out, try pilling them on another game. D&D won't work, FLARPing basically does all the same stuff D&D does, except D&D is for babies and FLARP is EXTREME ROLEPLAYING. Maybe try VtM. Or if there's a jadeblood among your team who thinks roleplaying as vampires is culturally insensitive, try Mage. Try to emphasize that you can do things in the realm of imagination that can't be faithfully done live-action.

[immaterial-pearl]

This sounds insane but I went to a panel at a con about the worst yaois ever made (it was two hours long and i have never in my life read actual yaoi mangas despite my long time jokes about yaoi im sorry) and it was great except for the part where one of the hosts was pro death sentences unironically (I know how that sounds but I promise you she really highlighted this was part of her belief system).

BEFORE YOU ACCUSE ME OF DEFENDING RAPISTS I am a victim of rape, I am a victim of sexual assault, and yes, I wish my rapist and people who assaulted me died. But the goverment should not be able to kill them.

So here's a quick run down on why DEATH SENTENCE IS BAD EVEN IF THE CRIME COMMITTED WAS EXTREMELY BAD.

First we must admit that death sentence, if it should ever occur, it must only be given to people who are guilty of horrible crimes, yes? Let's go through the first list based on that assumption.

It's irreversable. In most cases we cannot be sure the crime was actually committed because we aren't omnipotent. Yes we can have extremely solid evidence, but on the off chance (and I repeat even if it's minimal), we should not kill innocent people. Imprisoning them, gives us a chance to give them back their freedom, even if we cannot give them back time.

The justice system is biased. Black inmates in the US are way more likely to be sentenced to death than white people convicted of the same crime. Black people are being killed for being black, not just for being guilty.

Law is not equal to morality. In the past, rape, one of the worst crimes a person can commit, has been defined in law, as an act of a man forcing a woman he is not married to, to have sex. As we know, rape can be marital, can be done by men to men and can be commited by women. Law is never equal to morality and is subject to change, ergo, we should not let something that biased to define who can and who cannot be killed.

On why capital punishment is bad in general, even if the person is objectively guilty.

The goverment should not have that kind of power. Law is not morality, but further than that, the goverment has its own agenda. We shouldn't let Real Life Rapist Donald Trump decide if a rapist should be killed or not. We shouldn't allow Believes Israel Should Get To Do Genocide Kamala Harris decide if a murder should be killed. You know, holocaust was legal, slavery was legal, raping your wife was legal, no goverment is innocent, and every life lost because of it should stain it entirely, like a drop of blood in water. The goverment should not kill people. The goverment is not an omnipotent entity that is always right, and death is final and undoable.

The justice system should not be a moral god, it should be utilitarian. Why would it be a moral god (insert any moral all knowing thing)? It's not omnipotent. It doesn't have solid morals because it's constructed out of prejudiced people following or not following prejudiced laws, which were decided by prejudiced people. Prison is for increasing safety and minimising harm. How does killing an imprisoned, powerless person minimise hurt? It doesn't. It's a way to 1. decrease cost (horrible reason to kill anyone really) 2. give finality to victims (I can empathise with this, but there are better ways to improve a victim's life, than murder, that also are not an eye for an eye murder).

Killing people is bad actually. No, really that's the easiest most basic argument. Every person deserves to live as long as they can, and as long as their life isn't a danger to other people. Isolating a person via prison, and working to undo their harm, via providing free healthcare, therapy, financial support and improving the safety of our society, is better than killing someone. A whole person, even if they are the scum of the earth. I can condone killing in situations where it isn't possible. But it is very possible if the subject is already in court.

[panthera-tigris-venenata]

What is their go-to drink order?

First of, let's assume everyone is of legal drinking age, whatever that might be.

It's sixteen. If Ben can be a High King at sixteen, he can bloody well drink. I'm not taking criticism on that one.

Unsurprisingly though, Ben has never had as much as a champagne.

And Jane is stuck drinking kiddie fake-champagnes well into her twenties.

Now Audrey? Oh well. Her favourite is rosè, champagne, Skinny Bitch (vodka & soda) and Pink Gin & Tonic. If you pick an aesthetic, you bloody commit to it.

If she's doing shots with the pirates, she gets vodka, because Audrey post Queen of Mean is that bitch and fears no god. She could also do silver tequila.

Chad can't hold his liquor. He just can't. He has one (1) cider//Frisko and is crying. Audrey is suffering.

Anthony Tremaine gets some fancy brandy or whiskey on rocks. Again, Aesthetic, duh. Once he got this for Ginny Gothel and died a little inside when she declared that it doesn't taste any good and proceeded to pour Cola into it. Guess who learned to never ever do this the hard way.

Harriet Hook. Uuh. She has Problems. We know that, right?

On the Isle, she usually drinks Energy drinks with vodka, because she needs to stay awake, duh. Also rum, 'cos pirates, and red wine, 'cos Aesthetic.

If it's before noon, she gets a Mimosa, so she can feel fancy. Also espresso with vodka. Gin & Tonic.

Basically, you name it, chances are Harriet Hook has drunk it at least once.

She'd just like to forget and not feel, savvy??

Harry prefers rum and dislikes wine. He just has the vibes. Unless it's mulled wine which smells way better.

Uma also orders rum. She, however, really likes Pina Colada, but she won't order it herself, (because tough pirate Captain can't enjoy sugary long drinks, duh).

Don't worry though, Gil gets it for her every time he is getting them drinks.

Uma also doesn't pay for her own drinks, like, ever.

Gil likes ciders the best, even over beer, for which his father and brothers ridicule him. He doesn't care, though. He will also do shots of rum with the rest of the pirates.

CJ doesn't drink.

She has seen her family's hungovers and decided she is not doing thaz, thank you. She also dislikes the idea of losing the already poor control over her mind any more. It might not look like it, but CJ is a bit of a control freak.

Freddie Facilier drinks only when someone buys the drink for her. In which case, she'd choose a Chupito, a sweet shot with rum, lime liquor and cocktail cherry.

Celia Facilier doesn't drink and good for her.

Dizzy Tremaine is not allowed to drink. She doesn't particularly wish to, though.

Ginny Gothel mostly drinks wine, and if there is more fancy option available, she'll get Calvados (fancy apple liquor. It's good.) She is also not opposed to drinking Harriet's Red Bull with vodka though.

Claudine Frollo (once adopted by the Hooks). She also has problems, which, in this case, manifests as getting her drinks as vile as possible.

Campari Orange, as bitter as her soul. She can also pass it for an orange juice if she wanted. She's a hypocrite. (Campari Orange is legit good though). On similar note, Skinny Bitch, without the lime. She will do shots of pure vodka and drink Slammed-Tequila (shot of Tequila & shot of Sprite & ice), which is the most vile substance I have ever tasted. It feels like kerosene.

...Mal can't drink. I'm not taking criticism on that.

Evie and Carlos can do shots of pure vodka. Evie likes champagne more, though. She also has a vendetta against red wine, which was her mother's drink of choice, because it looks like blood, duh. Oh, and Aperol Spritz! (She and Audrey should be allowed to gossip and/or plan murder over a glass of Aperol. Ginny too. They'd vibe.)

Technically, Jay and Jade aren't allowed to drink for their own safety. Not because they'd drink too much, but because they insist on taking their usual Anything-but-the-pavement route no matter what.

One time, after some shots of Tequila, they convinced Audrey to go with them. She almost broke her neck, which might be because she refused to take off her high heels.

[mariacallous]

An Army spy operating at the heart of the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland probably cost more lives than he saved, a report has found.

Operation Kenova investigated the agent known as Stakeknife.

It said speculation he had saved hundreds of lives was wrong; it was more likely between high single figures and low double figures.

It found the security forces failed to prevent some murders to try to protect their agents in the IRA.

But, the report pointed out that it was the IRA leadership that had "commissioned and sanctioned" the actions of its so-called internal security unit - of which Stakeknife was a member - and "committed brutal acts of torture and murder".

The £40m investigation took seven years to examine the activities of Stakeknife, who was Belfast man Freddie Scappaticci.

The interim report called for apologies from the UK government and Irish republican leadership on behalf of the IRA.

Lawyer Kevin Winters, who represents the families of 12 victims, said the report was "a damning indictment of the state".

"The staggering takeaway message is that the state could have intervened to save lives," he said.

"We are left with the horrendous conclusion that both state and the IRA were co-conspirators in the murder of its citizens."

The report's author, senior police officer Jon Boutcher, highlighted many failings of the security forces and the UK government, but acknowledged they were acting in an extremely stressful and violent environment.

Multiple murders

Operation Kenova linked Stakeknife to at least 14 murders and 15 abduction incidents.

Despite it being widely known that Scappaticci was Stakeknife, the Kenova Report did not officially confirm that. A further, more detailed report is due to be published by the Kenova team later this year.

However, the interim report said Stakeknife was "undoubtedly a valuable asset" to the security forces who "provided high-quality intelligence about PIRA [Provisional IRA] at considerable risk to himself".

The 208-page report added: "Albeit that his intelligence was not always passed on or acted upon and if more of it had been, he could not have remained in place as long as he did."

Mr Boutcher, who is now chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), said claims Stakeknife saved hundreds of lives were based on "unreliable and speculative" assessments.

Mr Boutcher said murders that could, and should, have been prevented were allowed to take place with the knowledge of the security forces.

'You were not mad'

"Morality and legality of agents doing any harm - with the knowledge of the state - is something that we would never, ever allow today," he said.

Mr Boutcher also referred to the decision not to confirm Stakeknife's identity in his report.

"Stakeknife's identity has been exposed to Kenova, subject to confidentiality which I remain bound by and I cannot make his name public without official authority," he said.

So far the government has refused to give such authority.

But Mr Boutcher added that in his view this position was "no longer tenable" and he expected the "government to authorise Kenova to confirm Stakeknife's identity in the final report".

Referring to Stakeknife's victims, Mr Boutcher said many of them had endured "endless delays, setbacks and unfulfilled promises in their search for the truth".

He said his report confirmed what many families had suspected - patterns of state intervention and non-intervention in the torture and murder of people accused of being state agents during the Troubles.

"You were not mad. This was happening and this should not have happened," Mr Boutcher told them.

[shadowmaat]

The Jedi were evil all along!

I debated replying to the thread I saw condemning the Jedi as "rigid" and implying they weren't that different from the Sith, but I would have been the only voice of dissent and given that one of the replies was from a Red Hat Cultist veering off on a frothy anti-Obama rant, I figured it was safer to just make my own post.

Look, no one is saying the Jedi are perfect, but they sure as fuck aren't evil, either. If you're basing your entire opinion on the thoughts and experiences of one individual then your view is incredibly flawed and you should maybe think outside the narrow hole you've dug for yourself.

From what I can tell, some of the worst critics of the Jedi seem to be fans of Anakin Skywalker. Or at least a carefully curated version of Anakin who was a perpetual victim and never did anything wrong. It seems to boil down to "if the Jedi had just let Anakin be openly married to Padmè, nothing bad would have happened!" Which is... certainly a take.

The one argument I see trumpeted over and over (and over) again is that the Jedi prohibition against "attachment" is terrible and wrong and makes them no better than the Sith. This hinges almost entirely on the idea that "attachment" is the same thing as "love."

It isn't. Fans have spent decades explaining why it isn't only to have their reasoning mostly ignored in favor of the more angsty/tragic idea that the Jedi were forbidden to love. 🙄

"Attachment," IMO, can best be summed up as a literal interpretation of this ever-popular gif:

[img: Rosa from Brooklyn 99. She's holding a small yellow lab puppy as she says, "I've only had Arlo for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this room and then myself."]

Anakin has, admittedly, "had" Padmè for three years instead of a day and a half, but when he thought she was going to die, he killed everyone in the Temple, then killed her, and then continued on a murderous rampage for the next 19 years or so.

"Attachment" is dangerous for anyone, but especially for someone like Anakin, who has additional powers at his command, rigorous training in how to use them, and three years experience as a war leader.

Personally, I also have questions about whether or not marriage is actually forbidden among the Jedi or if Anakin just assumed it was because "attachment." I can see it not being a common thing, and I can also understand a relationship coming under scrutiny to insure that it's a healthy form of love that won't interfere with a Jedi's ability to do their job, but it wouldn't surprise me if Anakin never looked into it because it would mean "sharing" Padmè with others.

Even if marriage wasn't allowed as a whole formal, legalized thing it doesn't mean Jedi can't form relationships. It would, as usual with the Jedi, be about balance. Can someone balance their personal relationship with their commitments to the Order? Can they set their loved one aside to do what must be done? Or will they drop everything to immediately rush to their loved one's side regardless of the risk to others?

We all know what Anakin would do; we've seen it with our own eyes.

The point is, condemning the entire Jedi Order because they didn't give Anakin everything he wanted, when he wanted it, and without question is a little bit of a stretch. Plus, all jokes about his inability to keep a secret aside, it isn't as if he ever went to them to discuss things.

"Well, he didn't think he could trust them because they hated him!" Uh, no, they decidedly didn't hate him, he just believed they did. It all hinges on his beliefs, not reality. And while you could certainly blame Palpatine for reinforcing his beliefs that the Jedi can't be trusted and that everyone hates/is jealous of him, it isn't as if Palps made that up out of thin air: he built on the seeds already within Anakin.

"That's because the Jedi-" No. Insecurities are rarely rational, and while you can argue that the Jedi "didn't do enough" to help Anakin, there are a few salient points to remember:

Anakin isn't the only Jedi in the Order; they have thousands of people to consider.

You have to know there's a problem in order to help.

The person has to be willing to accept that help in order for things to change.

The last two points also apply to those who would condemn Obi-Wan in particular. He has to KNOW a problem exists and then he has to talk his way around to try and get Anakin to accept his help. I know from personal experience just how heartbreakingly difficult it is to help a loved one when they won't admit there's a problem or they won't listen to your advice.

I can think of a lot of ideas that would be fun to experiment with in terms of making changes to the Jedi Order, but most of them involve adding more distance from the Senate and none of them are about catering to the specific (perceived) needs of one Jedi.

[rametarin]

"Being healthy is ableist!" (sarcasm)

Really not on board with the idea disability should be considered a political class. We are RAPIDLY approaching an era where even something like dyscalcula or dyslexia could have some sort of corrective genetic therapy to prevent that happening and unfuck our fuckable mental states.

The problem with treating the disabled as a class and a social group is it gets very absurd to talk about them and medicine. The only reason being para- or quadraplegic is considered when they talk about the disabled as a class and group, is because we don't have any means to fix it via surgery to restore ability.

And then they politice what ability is and what is normal in the first place. Yes, it IS normal to be born with 32 teeth, yes it IS normal to be born with ten fingers and ten toes, yes it IS abnormal and can be the fault of disease that such things are disrupted. And I don't think it should be comparable to eugenics to say that's somehow how it;'s supposed to be.

If we thought of ability as something that does have normal hereditary biological parameters, and that is normal, and not the cause of anomalous genetic mutations that are causing problem problems, then imagining certain things as stuff that could be cured just means that having the ability to fix those should be a priority we have.

And our biggest impediments to having affordable healthcare to do it hinges on 1.) The realization of the science within viable physical possibility 2.) The cost.

We WILL eventually have genome therapy that could probably reprogram our brains and nervous system and our ocular system to unfuck our vision and give us freedom from ever needing contact lenses or glasses again. It'll be affordable, if the free market is allowed to get involved, and society will never have to pay exorbinant, prohibitive costs again. Nor will their ridiculous costs justify the necessity of the state monopolizing the medicine for absurd pricing.

But some would have us believe even speaking about disability as a thing to cure is tantamount to thinkig about solving, "the race problem" in a white majority society, by bleaching the skin of minorities. Which is just so patently fucking absurd. That thinking about how to prevent and eliminate mental problems is somehow genocide.

Think about it. These daffy motherfuckers think the very concept of not having babies if it'd result in someone with down syndrome is "genocidal" and "eugenicist," But... somehow, destroying a zygote or a fetus isn't murder. Preventing people being born with disabilities is genocide, but destroying a fetus a hair before viability from the womb? Not murder or death. How the fuck do you even square that away without insisting people and things don't exist in a material world, just in the abstract? You can commit genocide just by preventing disability in a conceptual class of people that DON'T YET EXIST AS HUMANS, but you can't kill an organism that'll grow into sapience and individuality in a span of weeks.

I could kind of understand if they were extremist pro-lifers where even preventing the IDEA of a person being alive was a form of murder, but no. These are supposedly pro choice people, and consider it the right of whomever has a uterus. Yet, somehow, the choice to NOT have a child with a disability is genocide.. on an entity that it isn't murder to kill it.

tl;dr: I hate the imagining of disability as a class, and the only reason it has traction is because the people that wholly believe in classes and legal/social representation and the obligation of the states to do things on the basis of class, find the disabled convenient. And I can't wait until medical science at all levels and all kinds is able to cheaply restore or create ability in individuals, thereby removing them from being considered disabled.

If wanting people to be healthy and autonymous and independent is genocide, then holy shit.

[darkmaga-returns]

Vienna Anschluss 1938—a very warm welcome from Austrians.

Every so often, a POV or analysis arises that demands to be further examined and read by reasonable people trying to understand why certain events are happening that on the surface seem illogical. This essay was published by RT and provides no indication of its prior publication elsewhere. The full title as published: “Serbia’s deputy PM: Why the West has been twisting history since WW2: Since the end of WWII, there’s been a campaign to criminalize the Soviet Union, its descendants and partners.” Given how Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has taken to describing how Hitler was able to marshal most European nations to his cause and other prewar machinations, IMO the POV offered by Mr. Vulin is important for understanding the past and present, and for Russia how to develop a realistic denazification plan. The essay:

Historical revisionism began as soon as the Second World War had ended. Both the Serbs and Russians were involved in this process and allowed history to be reinterpreted in front of their eyes. We had once believed that evil wouldn’t repeat itself if we acted like “gentlemen” and graciously turned a blind eye to the actions of our neighbors, compatriots, and allies during WWII. Even today, we often talk about “Nazi Germany.”

But this is not true. There was no “Nazi Germany” – it was simply Germany. You won’t find Wehrmacht stamps with the word “Nazism” written on them; the decisions to execute Serbs, Russians, and Jews weren’t made in the offices of the Nazi Party – they were made by regular German officials; the German state was not called “Nazi Germany” but was referred to according to the Constitution and laws; and Hitler was not a “Nazi dictator” but a legitimately elected representative of the vast majority of the German people.

And so, whenever we talk about “Nazi Germany” or “fascist Italy,” we allow people whose ancestors had committed those atrocities to convince us that the crimes had been committed by someone else. Seven million German soldiers fought on the Eastern Front – and how many of them were members of the Nazi Party? Seven million German citizens consciously, voluntarily, and legally killed Russians, Serbs, Jews, and the Roma, since the ruling ideology of the German state called these individuals ‘subhuman’ and decided that they should be annihilated.

The first Soviet soldiers were killed by Western allies not decades after the war – they died in 1944 near Niš, when the US Air Force strafed a Soviet Army vehicle column. Several years ago, we erected a monument as a reminder of this forgotten tragedy for which no one ever apologized. Even then, the message was already clear.

Are you aware that this year, Russia will not be able to take part in the main events on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz? Is there a greater insult to common sense, historical truth, and the memory of all those murdered at Auschwitz than the fact that the liberating nation has not been invited to the commemorative event simply because Russia’s policy is currently “unpleasant” to the Polish leadership?

This is why historical revisionism occurs, and why Russians and Serbs are labeled as criminal, genocidal peoples.

WWII revisionism and preparations for future conflicts started as soon as victory over Germany had been achieved; it didn’t take long for the world to forget that this victory came at the cost of tens of millions of Soviet lives.