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#human rights act 1998
aphrodititi · 1 year
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Everyone remembers that the tories are trying to repeal the Human Rights act (1998) right? That isn't something that has been forgotten in the circus, has it? People do remember that they are trying to replace it with a "British Bill of Rights" which will prevent the UK courts from applying case law from the European Convention of Human Rights, make it much easier to deport people to places where they are likley to be tortured/killed and will effectivley neuter the statements of incompatability the courts can produce when parliament passes laws that don't comply with the human rights act? PLEASE SAY WE'VE NOT FORGOTTEN ABOUT THIS!?
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ladymazzy · 2 years
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A British bill of rights? This draconian plan is a rights removal bill
From the article:
'The Ministry of Justice has taken a hatchet to the single most powerful rights tool this country has ever had. Yet its press release announcing the bill suggests this is somehow good news for us all. Suspend your disbelief, but apparently “watering down” the Human Rights Act will in some way equate to an “expansion” of the right to freedom of expression. The MoJ cites journalists and their right to protect sources, suggesting this will be a valuable new protection. In fact, just a few months ago the journalist and former MP Chris Mullen relied on the Human Rights Act for precisely this purpose in an important press freedom case.
Believing that we are set to gain rights through this legislation requires serious mental acrobatics. The bill takes particular aim at “positive obligations”. These are the obligations that apply to public authorities and make it incumbent on them to take positive steps to protect people’s rights rather than merely restrain themselves from violating them. Positive rights are a vital tool that allows victims to hold the police accountable for serious failures in rape case investigations, for example, such as the appallingly mishandled case of the serial rapist John Worboys.
Repeated failings in the way that police and prosecution authorities investigate endemic violence against women has prompted a crisis of public confidence – yet Raab is now reducing victims’ rights to hold the authorities to account.
Positive obligations are also integral to the ability to secure effective public inquiries into deaths where the state may be responsible, such as the long-delayed Covid inquiry. It’s no coincidence, you might think, that the very politicians the Human Rights Act potentially holds to account might want to see it removed and replaced with this ersatz version.
If the government thinks that taking away the rights of ordinary people in this country with the stroke of a pen will be popular, it is mistaken. In a recent poll commissioned by Amnesty, almost three-quarters of respondents (73%) said they thought it was important to keep the Human Rights Act as a vital tool to hold the government to account when things go wrong. And by wrong, I mean terrible, avoidable disasters such as the Hillsborough tragedy, or the woeful handling of the Covid pandemic.
This is not just a domestic matter. Our poll showed that the horrors of Ukraine have highlighted the value of basic human rights to almost everyone in this country. Four out of five (79%) people said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had made it especially important that countries such as the UK uphold human rights, and almost two-thirds (65%) said they thought reducing human rights protections at home would negatively impact Britain’s ability to stand up for human rights on the global stage.
It gets worse. As the government has been warned repeatedly, any significant change to the Human Rights Act could constitute a breach of the Good Friday agreement, upsetting a delicate balance of peace.
Our government is increasingly resistant to legal scrutiny. After last week’s Rwanda refugee flight was halted, we witnessed the kind of bitter sniping about the European court of human rights that could have come straight from Viktor Orbán or Vladimir Putin. The UK is now throwing its toys out of the pram. Yet the European court of human rights in Strasbourg is an invaluable last resort to millions. Indeed, lawyers acting for British national PoWs who have been sentenced to death in Ukraine may turn to this court for recourse.'
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lilithism1848 · 6 months
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Atrocities US committed against AFRICA
In early 2017, the US began conducting drone strikes in Somalia against Al Shabab militants. An attack on July 16th killed 8 people.
In 1998, the US bombed the Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, killing one employee and wounding 11. It was the largest pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, producing medicine both for human and veterinary use. The US had acted on false evidence of a VX nerve agent from a single soil sample, and later used a false witness to cover for the attack. It was the only pharmaceutical factory in Africa not under US control.
In June 1982, with the help of CIA money and arms, Hissene Habre , dubbed Africa’s Pinochet, takes power in Chad. His secret police, use methods of torture including the burning the body of the detainee with incandescent objects, spraying gas into their eyes, ears and nose, forced swallowing of water, and forcing the mouths of detainees around the exhaust pipes of running cars. Habré’s government also periodically engaged in ethnic cleansing against groups such as the Sara, Hadjerai and the Zaghawa, killing and arresting group members en masse when it was perceived that their leaders posed a threat to the regime. Human Rights Watch claimed that Habre was responsible for thousands of killings. In 2001, while living in Senegal, he was almost tried for crimes committed by him in Chad. However, a court there blocked these proceedings. Then human rights people decided to pursue the case in Belgium, because some of Habre’s torture victims lived there. The U.S., in June 2003, told Belgium that it risked losing its status as host to NATO’s headquarters if it allowed such a legal proceeding to happen. So the result was that the law that allowed victims to file complaints in Belgium for atrocities committed abroad was repealed. However, two months later a new law was passed which made special provision for the continuation of the case against Habre. In May 2016 he was found guilty of human-rights abuses, including rape, sexual slavery and ordering the killing of 40,000 people, and sentenced to life in prison.
In the 1980s, Reagan maintains a close relationship with the Apartheid South african government, called constructive engagement, while secretly funding it in the hopes of creating a bulwark of anti-communism and preventing a marxist party from taking power, as happened in angola. Later on, in the wars against Apartheid in South Africa and Angola, in which cuban and anti-apartheid forces fought the white south african government, the US supplied south africa with nuclear weapons via Israel.
In 1975, Henry Kissinger launches a CIA-backed war in Angola, backing the brutal anti-communist leader of UNITAS, Jonas Savimbi, against Agostinho Neto and his Marxist-Leninst MPLA party, creating a civil war lasting for 30 years. The CIA financed a covert invasion via neighboring Zaire and a drive on the Angolan capital by the U.S. ally, South Africa. Congress continues to fund UNITAS, and their south-african apartheid allies until the late 1980s. By the end of the war, more than 500,000 people had died and over one million had been internally displaced.
In 1966, a CIA-backed military coup overthrows he widely popular Pan-Africanist and Marxist leader Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, inviting the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to take a lead role in managing the economy. With this reversal, accentuated by the expulsion of immigrants and a new willingness to negotiate with apartheid South Africa, Ghana lost a good deal of its stature in the eyes of African nationalists.
In 1965, a CIA-backed military coup installs Mobutu Sese Seko, described as the “archetypal African dictator” in Congo. The hated and repressive Mobutu exploits his desperately poor country for billions.
In 1962, a tip from a CIA spy in South Africa lead to the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, due to his pro-USSR leanings. This began his 27-year-long imprisonment.
In 1961, the CIA assists in the assassination of the democratically elected congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, throwing the country into years of turmoil. Before his assassination the CIA sent one of its scientists, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, to the Congo carrying “lethal biological material” intended for use in Lumumba’s assassination. This virus would have been able to produce a fatal disease indigenous to the Congo area of Africa and was transported in a diplomatic pouch.
In 1801, and again in 1815, the US aided Sweden in subjugating a series of coastal towns in North Africa, in the Barbary Wars. The stated reason was to crack down on pirates, but the wars destroyed the navies of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, and secured European and US shipping routes for goods and slaves in North Africa. US Representatives stated: “When we can appear in the Ports of the various Powers, or on the Coast, of Barbary, with Ships of such force as to convince those nations that We are able to protect our trade, and to compel them if necessary to keep faith with Us, then, and not before, We may probably secure a large share of the Meditn trade, which would largely and speedily compensate the U. S. for the Cost of a maritime force amply sufficient to keep all those Pirates in Awe, and also make it their interest to keep faith.” Thomas Jefferson echoed and carried out the war, saying that war was essential to securing markets along the Barbary Coast.
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writingmochi · 5 months
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the future is not a straight line. it is filled with many crossroads. there must be a future that we can choose for ourselves. - kiyoko, akira (1988)
cast: jake ✗ fem.reader (featuring many other idols)
synopsis: as the world entered the middle of the 21st century, many things have changed for the better or for worse in the newly united korea peninsula: the preparation for the succession of the new conglomerates of the past decade, the uprising of deviant androids, and the new layer of life shield by walls of codes. in the middle of it, two beings are trying to understand each other and the situation of the world they live in; an unknown territory
genre: cyberpunk, cyber noir, psychological thriller, science fiction, dystopian future, politics and philosophies regarding artificial intelligence and humanity, romance, drama, angst, mature content (war and revolution, explicit smut)
based on: video game cyberpunk 2077 (2020) and detroit: become human (2018), anime serial experiments lain (1998), and tv show succession (2018-2023)
status: to be released
message from the moon: remember that this story is fiction and do be careful and read the warnings at the top. all the idols mentioned here are not what they are in real life.
in celebrating one of my muses' birthday, here is a series that i have been ideating for about a year now! i know it's very unconventional but i want to explore more of this genre, especially since i don't see it much in enhablr *thumbs up*
taglist? right here
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TEASER
project android | cyberspace advertisement | the rebellion
INTRODUCTION
united korea | from south seoul | from north seoul
cyberspace interactive
it's your chance to use cyberspace! want to know the databases and the characters more? come visit us! coming soon, 2024
THE STORY (tentative date and amount of parts; will always gonna be 3 acts but may divided into smaller parts)
act 1 (2024)
no matter where you go, everyone is connected- iwakura lain, serial experiments lain (1998)
warning(s): tba
act 2 (2024)
i am superior in many ways, but i would gladly give it up to be human - data, star trek: the next generation (1987-1994)
warning(s): tba
act 3 (2024)
man is an individual only because of his intangible memory. but memory cannot be defined, yet it defines mankind - puppet master, ghost in the shell (1995)
warning(s): tba
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taglist: @raeyunshm @endzii23 @fluffyywoo @camipendragon @hiqhkey @wccycc @cha0thicpisces @y4wnjunz @yeehawnana @beansworldsstuff @kimipxl @blurryriki @reallysmolrenjun (special tag for @ujunxverse as the very 1st supporter for this series XD)
© writingmochi on tumblr, 2021-2024. all rights reserved
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narklos · 2 months
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Half-Lore #1: Xen, The Nihilanth, and Race X
As promised, here's the first instalment in my deep dives into HL's worldbuilding! You all voted for this topic to go first- I'll work my way down from the list I made, but if there's anything you'd like to hear about, let me know. So, without further ado... have a gander at the wall of text under the cut. All images have descriptions!
Xen
Xen is what's known as a 'border world', a planet right on the edge of our understanding of space, and the primary subject of a lot of Black Mesa's research. The planet is also used as a teleport 'slingshot', according to Mossman in HL2, as its latent energy acts as a launching pad for whatever's being teleported.
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Crystals from Xen (the orange-yellow rocks found all around the planet) were able to facilitate early teleportation research, the likes of which made Black Mesa a hell of a lot of money. A sample of these Xen crystals was delivered by the G-Man to Black Mesa, at the behest of Administrator Breen. This was tested by Dr Gina Cross and found to be the purest sample they'd seen yet, and they were sent to the anti-mass spectrometer for testing immediately. At this point, the crystal was swapped out for a corrupted sample by the G-Man, therefore kicking off the Resonance Cascade.
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Xen is a hostile planet, home to quite a few dangerous creatures. However, it should be noted that nothing is native to Xen. Everything you encounter on Xen wasn't born there, but instead fled there. This is because they were escaping persecution on their respective homeworlds by the Combine. It's unknown whether this was the result of the Nihilanth teleporting them to the planet to act as its invading force, or mere coincidence that so many ended up there. Speaking of which...
The Nihilanth - In-Game Lore
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The Nihilanth is the last of its species, having fled the Combine's invasion of its home, and possible enslavement of its race. The Nihilanth was also implied to be a former slave itself. It oversees a vast slave colony of vortigaunts, who toil away in its factory. It's unknown what this factory was actually producing- in typical chunky 1998 fashion, a lot of it is just boxes with pretty textures. This is why the Vortigaunts all wear a green collar and chains in HL1.
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When Gordon inserted the corrupted Xen crystal into the anti-mass spectrometer, the resonance cascade allowed the Nihilanth to finally breach through to Earth and directly teleport its alien forces in. Again, it's not known whether the Nihilanth intended to take over Earth, or simply find another place to hide from the Combine, and was willing to do whatever necessary to secure it.
The Nihilanth was also not particularly fond of human scientists taking things from Xen for research purposes. In a level transition in HL:D, it'll say "Thieves, you are all thieves..."
When the Nihilanth was killed, the Combine took notice of Xen- and by extension, Earth. The resonance cascade had already shattered Earth's natural defenses to teleporting aliens, and so the Combine quickly swooped in to conquer Earth. That's the 7-Hour War, but we won't get into that here. The death of such a psychically powerful creature sent shockwaves throughout Xen. The vortigaunts were freed from its influence, however, leading to their tense alliance with the humans.
Curiously enough, it appears that the Nihilanth was actually aware of the G-Man, and his influence over Gordon. During level transitions, The Nihilanth makes repeated references to the G-Man deceiving Gordon, and that he "is not man." It's the first reference we have to G-Man explicitly being non-human, and also led to a lot of fan theories that the G-Man was actually part of the Nihilanth's race (though this is unlikely, as the Nihilanth is clearly referred to as 'the last).
The Nihilanth - An Interpretation
The Nihilanth is the most blunt piece of symbolism we get in Half-Life's story. The entire first game is an analogy for fighting against nihilism in an uncaring world that will constantly seek to break you down. Gordon is battling against forces completely outside of his control, trying to fix a mistake he didn't realise he was making, which was orchestrated by a man who's been manipulating him from the very beginning. It's a pretty grim tale. Gordon's reward for defeating his own nihilism is to be forced into another situation outside of his control- he quite literally does not have a say in it. He either takes a new deal, or is killed.
Gordon's defeat of his nihilism became a source of hope for the rebels 20 years on- despite being a single scientist in Black Mesa, facing impossible odds, he lived. That's why it's such a big deal when he comes back, and why the lambda symbol became synonymous with the rebels. Gordon is hope, the light in the darkness for so many nihilists who didn't believe they could do anything to fight back against the Combine. Gordon is a character to be projected on- this was explicit in the game's design. He doesn't have a personality, a voice- anything. He's the human spirit, and whenever you play through Half-Life, you're going on your own journey to defeat your inner nihilist. How cool is that?
What the hell is Race X?
Race X is a funny one. This is one of those "It'll be a cool idea, guys!" moments that never comes up again. In fact, it's pretty much agreed that Race X has been retconned entirely. Sorry, Pit Worm lovers.
They were essentially a group of aliens from beyond Xen, first featured in Opposing Force. Race X itself was entirely created by Gearbox (the studio behind Opposing Force and Blue Shift), rather than Valve. Even Marc Laidlaw said that he doesn't consider them canon. Yowch.
It's implied that Race X is more powerful than regular Xen creatures, as they actually have access to advanced weaponry and teleportation tech. They were discovered by chance, when a group of Black Mesa scientists accidentally teleported into their realm. Where this realm is located is pretty nebulous, if you'll pardon the pun. It's just... somewhere beyond Xen.
Their leader is the Gene Worm, whom they were clearing space for when they first teleported to Earth. The Gene Worm required a pretty sizeable portal to get to Earth- hence needing to clear space by force. Obviously, this doesn't happen. Adrian Shepard massacred them so thoroughly that they aren't even canon anymore.
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That's all for this instalment! If you got this far, thank you for reading! Here's a video of Gabe Newell pretending to be Ringo Starr as a prize.
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highball66 · 5 months
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I really like how much more consistent Leon is as a character. In the original games, he does an almost complete 180. How he acts in 2, 4, and 6 is drastically different, almost to the point that it feels like three different characters for each game (my guess is that at the time of 2 and 4, Capcom probably didn’t know what they wanted to do with his character. It wasn’t until 6 and onwards that they made him a bit more consistent). The change to Leon from RE2R and RE4R feels a bit more natural. He’s less innocent and naive in RE4R, but his core personality is still intact. He still has his quips, even though his humor has shifted into something more sarcastic and dry. He still cares about people and puts their safety before his own. He still feels like the same person. He’s more consistent with how he acts in later games and movies too. Even though he isn’t passively suicidal in RE4R (I don’t think), it’s clear that Raccoon City has heavily affected him. His trauma is already taking its toll. It’s believable that after years of going through hell after hell, he eventually reaches the point that we see in Vendetta. RE4R Leon feels so much more consistent with RE6 Leon and Vendetta Leon than the original RE4 Leon.
I agree! I think they had a pretty good idea of what they wanted with OG2 since that was the conception of his character and a lot of creativity went into that. They also had a lot of supplemental material too talking about his interests and his families, but most people don't really look at that anymore since it was from 1998. They were also sorta limited with the technology they had at that time too.
You're absolutely right about 4 though. They were trying to "reinvent" the franchise pretty much, and ended up focusing a hell of a lot more on action and making Leon seem badass than pretty much everything else. And this isn't me just shitting on the game or anything, I love the original 4, but I really disliked the writing specifically because none of the characters had any personality.
By the time we get to RE6, we've had several years and a few CGI movies to really flesh out this new direction for Leon-- looking at who he was in RE2 and what that would look like at the time of RE6. Capcom's writing got better and the stories were more character-focused and emotional as well.
And I absolutely adore the remake. They were able to perfectly bridge the gap between RE2 and RE4!Leon, especially now that they were able to show more of Leon's personality in RE2R as well. At his core, he's still the same guy who just wants to do right in the world, even though he feels like he's changed-- seemingly for the worst, or at least that's how Leon sees it, but I'd imagine he probably feels stripped of his humanity.
RE4R also put a lot of emphasis on his trauma and how that's affected him, like you mentioned. I also love how it's both shown and told. We hear Leon talk about it at the beginning to kinda establish what was going on, but we can also see it in his physical appearance and the way he interacts with people. The dark circles really stand out to me in that respect.
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sporesgalaxy · 11 months
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Real curious about trigun but I got three questions:
1) what's up with the Christian vibes?
2)the blond guys (plants???) have trans vibes, actual coding or just an accident? (fine either way just curious)
3) what's the plot? Space cowboys?
Anyways Millie is cool, (I once mistook the girl typically next to her for that guy from genshin impact)
1) Christian vibes are why I want to lock myself in a room for a month and emerge with a 3 hour video essay about Trigun very very badly right now.
Trigun spends a lot of time exploring Forgiveness, Mercy, and Redemption, which are famously also the themes of Jesus' wacky adventures in the New Testament.
But. You know how in the old testament there was like a bunch of Divine Wrath and stuff? And it feels really incongruent with the forgiveness in the New Testament sometimes. And also for many centuries Christians have cited God's divine acts of wrath as justification for incredible acts of cruelty against their fellow man? You know how that history of cruelty and punishment is, at this point, just as synonymous with Christianity as the Jesus Forgiveness stuff?
Well Trigun is about how the Jesus Forgiveness stuff is better. Not because Jesus said so but because of the enormous OBSERVABLE positive impact that forgiveness and redemption can have. Positive impact that wrath and retribution rob all parties involved of the chance to witness.
Trigun tells a story which demonstrates this in largely secular situations but underscores both the forgiveness and the wrath with divine imagery. And since both the forgiveness and the wrath are equally visually tied to the divine, symbols of divinity cannot be considered synonymous with perfection, unerring judgement, nor inherent rightness or goodness. Divinity becomes simply a symbol of power, and power is a double-edged sword as well. The power to do good is also the power to cause massive harm, and in many cases people will treat power pessimistically out of an understandable will for self-preservation.
But power is neither inherently good nor bad-- power ultimately reflects the flawed and fallible person weilding it. I could go on but this is really long so I'll stop lol :)
WAIT. Divinity = Power, Angels are the symbol of Divinity, Angels are messengers of God, Communication and connecting with others is emphasized, Communication = Power = Divinity ok I'll stop for real tee hee
2) I don't know if the trans coding was intentional, but HOLY SHIT is it THERE.
Most blatantly, Vash and Knives are Plants, and every other Plant we see is referred to as a woman/has female secondary sex characteristics.
Also Plants visually resemble angels, and it's common belief angels do not have gender like humans do since they are pure and holy beings. I couldn't quickly find a source for that, but I know that Alchemy has some emphasis on hermaphroditism as, like, the holier form. So I guess by that logic you could also say they're intersex but I'm veering off topic.
Thirdly in the 1998 anime they gave the child versions of Vash and Knives long hair that ended up being cut off in ways that symbolized important developments in their identities. Knives example is what I have on hand lol. It just smacks of transgenderism.
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3) DEEP SPACE PLANET FUTURE GUN ACTION!!!!
Wacky space cowboy Vash the Stampede roams the space desert planet where humans are barely hanging onto survival using the tech of their spacefaring ancestors! He can shoot with perfect accuracy, and is wanted for DESTROYING AN ENTIRE CITY, but is a staunch pacifist?! How odd!
What's Vash's deal? What happened that made humans unable to go back to space? Why'd they land on this desert planet that sucks to live on? Learn this and much more in TRIGUN!
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phoenix-downer · 6 months
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Just This Once (for Vash/Meryl Week 2023)
~2340 words. Vash/Meryl. Set post season 1 of Trigun Stampede, but draws elements from Trimax as well as the 1998 anime to inform some worldbuilding elements and Vash's motivations. Scars, Light Blood, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Fluff, Mutual Pining. For VashMeryl Week 2023 Day 1: Indirect Kiss.
Summary: Vash patches himself up after a fight and Meryl offers to help. In spite of vowing to never become romantically involved with anyone, he finds himself drawn to her all the same.
Just This Once
Vash was used to people acting like his body was a scientific curiosity, a freakshow, or something to be pitied thanks to all the scars. It was why he covered up and hid that he was an Independent whenever possible.
The stares, the looks of horror, the repulsion, the lack of understanding…he’d seen it all and then some. To the people of this planet, his body did things it wasn’t “supposed” to do, which made them freak out and reject him more often than not. And sticking to his way of life came at a cost. His face might look like he hadn’t aged a bit, but his body was a testament to the years he’d spent on Noman’s Land.
Yeah, he could heal himself like Nai did, but it didn’t feel right. It would be like forgetting all the things that had led to those injuries, those scars. And healing himself would drain his life when he’d rather use his abilities to help others.
He sighed and carefully dug the latest addition to his body out of his side: a bullet from yet another scared person who’d fired his gun prematurely. Rem thought he and Nai were angels sent by God to help humanity. Going by that copy of the Bible Nai had found in the ship, Vash guessed it wasn’t surprising that people tended to freak out when they saw him and Nai. Angels sure seemed like terrifying beings with way more wings than what humans were comfortable with.
He set the bloody bullet on the banged-up bedside table next to him and reached for the bandages he kept in his gear. He’d gotten used to patching himself up the old-fashioned way, and the process was rote and mechanical at this point.
But then his routine was interrupted by a knock on the dingy hotel room door. He hesitated. It was probably a friend because an enemy would’ve just barged in.
“Who is it?” he asked, just to be safe.
“Vash? Are you alright?”
Meryl. What was it about her that wormed its way beneath his defenses? Was it her dogged pursuit of the truth? Her determination to do the right thing, even when it cost her? How she hadn’t judged him when she’d stumbled upon him using his powers, just given him a look of awe and wonder when so many people would’ve stared at him in fear and revulsion and hatred?
Or was it because she’d rescued him back in July? He’d heard her voice calling out to him, and it had pulled him out of Nai’s illusion and snapped him back to his senses. Something about that, something about how weak and powerless she was in comparison to him and Nai and even Doctor Conrad, and yet had been the bravest of them all, staying and fighting for him every way she could despite the risk to her own life—
No. He’d vowed to himself years and years ago to never get involved in any romantic entanglements. That would only end in heartbreak, for him and for her.
“I’m fine,” he replied. “Just patching myself up after that fight earlier.”
“Can I come in?”
He hesitated. He didn’t want her to see him like this, but it would be nice to have someone help with stitching up the wound. He was such a baby about that kind of thing still, and it hurt like hell to do it himself. He’d done it countless times because he had to, but if Meryl was offering…
Plus, maybe this would get her to give up on trying for a romantic relationship with him. No woman would want to be with a freak like him. Seeing his body would repulse Meryl and keep her away. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about breaking her heart.
“Yeah,” he finally said, “but I have to warn you, it’s not a pretty sight—”
The door opened, and Meryl was standing there, wearing a tanktop and sweatpants, her hair damp. Her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open as she took in his scar-riddled torso. The telltale look of horror and revulsion was written all over her face.
Vash chuckled darkly. This was working out exactly as he wanted it to. He would be an object of pity and loathing to Meryl now, but not of attraction or worse, love. “See? What did I tell you?”
She clasped a hand over her mouth, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Oh Vash…I had no idea…”
“Sticking to my ideals comes at a cost,” he said, wincing as he pressed the bandage against the bloody wound.
She rushed over, the door slamming behind her. “Here, let me help,” she said as she sat on the bed next to him, her gentle hands taking over. He tried to ignore how nice it felt when her fingers brushed against his, how good and healing her touch was on his injured side as she carefully cleaned the wound.
“How’d you get so good at this? Were you a doctor in another life?” he asked, half joking, half serious. If he could act like this was just her being good at patching people up in general and had nothing to do with him, then he could pretend his reaction to her had nothing to do with her.
If he couldn’t fool himself, he could at least try to fool her.
“My father’s a doctor, actually,” was Meryl’s reply. She reached for the needle and thread he’d set out. “I always kind of blew him off when he tried to get me to learn more than just basic first aid because I wanted to be a reporter instead, but after July…well, I took his advice a lot more seriously.”
Her lips pulled into a taut line and her eyes were hard. Vash’s heart felt heavy. She still blamed herself for Roberto’s death, didn’t she?
“And your mom?” Vash asked, trying to get her mind off of that.
“She’s my hometown’s schoolteacher…and sheriff.” Meryl carefully threaded the needle and examined his wound as if she were calculating how much thread would be needed to stitch him up.
“So that’s why you’re so tough.” Vash regretted the words as soon as he said them. He was supposed to push her away, not flirt with her.
Meryl chuckled. “Hardly. I was so sheltered, so naive. My family’s status protected me and my town was peaceful. I knew how to shoot a gun and how to handle basic first aid, sure, my parents made sure of that. But I never really had to use those skills until I became a reporter.”
“You don’t have to live like this, you know. You could go back home and live out your days peacefully with your family.” It was an option Vash didn’t have so long as Nai was alive, and he envied Meryl for it.
“What kind of person would I be if I knew what was happening on this planet and did nothing about it?” she said. She smiled ruefully. “I know I’m small and weak compared to the people you’re up against, but I can’t just stand by and do nothing. It wouldn’t be right.”
Vash just stared at her. She said she was small and weak, and yet she had more courage and inner strength in a single moment than most people do in an entire lifetime. Rescuing him back in July was proof enough of that.
“Hold still, this is going to hurt,” she said, and he braced himself. A moment later the needle pierced his skin, and he winced and bit his lip, clutching the old faded blanket on the bed.
Meryl worked quickly and methodically, sewing together the torn skin as if she were simply repairing a ripped jacket or mending a hole in a pair of pants. The blood and the scars all over his body hardly seemed to faze her now. When she was done, she carefully wrapped fresh bandages around the wound. He avoided her eyes because he was worried she’d see just how vulnerable this was making him feel. Touched and taken care of instead of shot at and slapped, punched and pierced, hated and harassed.
She was getting under his skin more than he cared to admit. Was he that starved for love and physical affection?
“If you’d like…I can come in tomorrow morning to put on fresh bandages,” she said softly, her hand lingering on his chest. “I know it’s tricky to change out bandages like these by yourself. Plus I want to make sure the wound doesn’t get infected as it heals.”
What should he say? No? But then who else would do it? Wolfwood’s body did that quick healing thing thanks to his experimentation, so Vash wasn’t sure if he knew how to help patch someone up the normal way, and Milly he didn’t feel comfortable enough around yet to ask for this kind of thing. She was a nice girl, sure, but—
I want it to be Meryl, don’t I? The insight cut through his meandering thoughts like a bullet grazing past his head. This was going down a dangerous path, but a part of him was tempted to say forget it all. Forget it all and let me have just a few decades with someone who cares about me and who I…who I…
“Thank you Meryl, that would be nice,” he said. Meryl was just one person in a long line of people he cared about. That was all. And saying no would hurt her feelings and leave him with the issue of “who else can I ask to do this.”
Still, he couldn’t let her get too close. Nai already despised her in a way that made Vash fear for her life. Despised her the way he despised Rem and Luida for “taking my brother away from me.” So he had to keep her at arm’s length. He had to.
Meryl smiled.
He didn’t want to.
She ducked her head, her cheeks flushing as she tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “Vash, if you don’t mind, there’s one more thing I’d like to do before I go back to my room.”
“What’s that?” he asked, the possibilities raging through his mind right now not at all things he should be saying out loud.
“Oh, just a silly little thing humans do to make an injury feel better. I can’t say it does anything from a medical standpoint, unless we’re counting placebo effects of course, but it’s good for the heart.”
“Oh, um, sure—”
She leaned close and gently kissed the bandages covering the wound. He froze. Sure, it was an indirect kiss because she’d kissed the bandages instead of his actual skin, but still. She’d kissed him. Meryl had looked at his body, horrible and grotesque and littered with scars and old wounds, and thought it deserved to be kissed. And even though her kiss was chaste and sweet, it still felt pretty damn good.
Shit. This was bad. This was really, really bad. He was gonna fall for her at this rate. No, that was a lie. He already had. He had fallen for her ages ago and had just been deceiving himself about it ever since.
And what was worse was that she had feelings for him too. How was he supposed to keep her safe now? She wasn’t gonna leave on her own, and he didn’t want to break her heart to get her to leave. But if Nai suspected just how deep his feelings for her ran, if Nai ever found out—
Meryl leaned back. “There, to make it feel better,” she said softly. She smiled at him again, then stood and carefully cleaned up the supplies they’d used to patch him up.
He was silent. She had no idea how much better he felt. Better and worse at the same time. He couldn’t enjoy what had happened this evening because the fear that Nai would hurt her was always there, lurking at the back of his mind. The fear he would outlive her screamed at him not to get involved. But he already was involved. There was no putting that cat back in the bag, and tonight made that very clear.
“Goodnight, Vash,” Meryl said at last. She was at the door now with her hand on the handle, and she seemed a little wistful.
“Goodnight, Meryl.” He could manage that, at least.
Silence settled over the room for a few moments, then at last she said, “I know you’re probably self-conscious about how you look, but I don’t think you should be. Those scars just show the lengths you’ve gone to save people. They’re nothing to be ashamed of.”
So his plan had backfired on him harder than he could’ve ever imagined. Meryl, instead of being repulsed by him, was more drawn to him than ever. He was more drawn to her too. She accepted him as he was instead of treating him like he was some repulsive monster. It was hard not to be drawn to someone like that after everything he’d been through.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said at last, allowing himself a small smile. “Thank you.”
She returned the smile, and with that, she was gone.
Vash leaned back against the bed and sighed. He was both relieved he was alone and wished she’d stayed. What a mess. He wasn’t sure how he was gonna get himself out of this one.
Well, he could worry about that tomorrow. For one night at least he’d let himself enjoy whatever it was that was happening between him and Meryl. The plotting and scheming about how best to keep his distance and protect her could come in the morning. Right now he was injured and vulnerable and just for tonight, just this once, he wanted to enjoy a little comfort from someone who loved and accepted him as he was.
Would that really be so wrong?
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do you know any anime that is as well-written as revolutionary girl utena or princess tutu? They’re both so good and so well-written that everything seems to pale in comparison and I was wondering if you knew any other anime that were similar in terms of being well-written. It’s ok if there aren’t as many similar themes
love your and vinelle’s works by the way!! Especially loving seventh seal, how I learned to stop worrying and love the bacchanals, and for the love of Alice. I feel like for the love of Alice is going to escalate quickly lol with edward being as edward as he is
Thanks for the praise! Look, @therealvinelle, praise.
Well, my friend, you've come to the right place. Caveat that the shows I'll list vary wildly in genre and expected audience. All are extremely well written but ah... some have more violence than others.
But if you could handle the rape, incest, assault, and so much more of Utena I think you can handle it.
Though I will note, a good number of these are bleak/have rape, violence, etc.
For the uninitiated, shojou are shows traditionally aimed at female audiences and shonen are shows traditionally aimed at male audiences. They tend to have distinct styles.
If I list a year in parentheses, it's because there's more than one version and that's the version you should watch.
The Rose of Versailles: shojou historical drama, following a fictional female royal guard raised as a man to Marie Antoinette, follows Marie Antoinette's reign and the leading up to the revolution.
Berserk (1997): shonen tragedy, in a medieval quasi Europe, Guts joins a band of mercenaries.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes (1981): space opera, a war between two equally powered states has been raging for 150 years. Now, with the rising of two prominent generals, the balance is starting to shift. About politics, the futility of war, and pacifism.
The Glass Mask (1984): shojou drama, a thirteen-year-old girl runs away from home to pursue acting, showing great talent, but at great risk to her own physical and mental wellbeing as she obsessively pursues her career.
Shiki: horror/thriller, a mysterious family moves into a rural village in Japan and the townspeople begin dying of a mysterious illness.
Cardcaptor Sakura (1998): mahou shojou (magical girl), ten-year-old Sakura happens upon mysterious items called the Clow Cards and must find a way to recapture them all and harness their powers.
Land of the Lustrous: sci-fi/post-apocalyptic, in the distant future, humanity has morphed into something else, and a jewel person named Phosphyllite makes a journey of personal discovery.
The Slayers (1995): adventure/action/comedy, Lina Inverse is a powerful mage with an eye out for gold, due to a fight she was never supposed to win, she finds herself pursued by gods and demons with the fate of the world at stake.
Kino's Journey (2003): absurdism, Kino visits a series of surreal towns for only three nights each.
Casshern Sins: sci-fi/post-apoctolyptic, after the end of the world, robots are all that remain and are slowly falling apart. An android named Casshern is said to be the cause.
Mononoke: thriller/character study, the mysterious medicine seller in the Edo era of Japan seeks out Mononoke in order to destroy them. To do so, he must learn both their form and their truth.
Steins;Gate: thriller/sci-fi, a group of social rejects build a time machine in their apartment, this triggers a series of catestrophic futures that must be undone.
Wolf's Rain: sci-fi/post-apocalyptic, in a dying world a group of wolves race to find the gates to paradise
Gunslinger Girl (2003): thriller/crime, an organization in Italy treats dying young girls with no connections to become cyborg soldiers. The show looks at the impacts of this on the girls and their handlers.
Now and Then, Here and There: sci-fi/post-apocalyptic, a boy named Shu finds himself transported to a futuristic world in which a madman reigns as king. There, he finds his pacifism tested as well as his faith in humanity.
The Irresponsible Captain Tylor: sci-fi/comedy, in the future Captain Justy Ueki Tylor finds himself captain of a broken down ship, it's unclear whether he's a genius, an idiot savant, or simply the world's luckiest madman.
Chaika the Coffin Princess: fantasy, in a fantasy world where a great war has just ended, two former mercenaries find themselves employed by the late emperor's daughter, who is seeking to find the pieces of her father's body in order to give him a burial.
Psycho-Pass: thriller/sci-fi, this is minority report but an anime. A young woman joins an organization in which criminals are sent to hunt down criminals, as it is a world in which crime is automatically detected before it can occur.
Fate/Zero: fantasy/action/tragedy, in the city of Fuyuki a great battle royale happens where mages summon figures of legend and history to battle on their behalf for the ultimate prize of the holy grail.
From the New World: sci-fi/post-apocalyptic, in the distant future psychic abilities developed. A group of children grow up in a rigidly controlled society and slowly learn the truth behind the world they live in.
Spice and Wolf: fantasy, a traveling merchant in quasi medieval Europe meets a pagan god looking to travel North given the spread of Christianity.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica: mahou shojou satire, a satire of classical magical girl shows, follows a young girl Madoka who has the chance to become a magical girl in return for a miraculous wish.
Black Lagoon: crime, a young Japanese businessman finds himself kidnapped by pirates, his life turned upside down, and becomes a pirate himself.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: sci-fi/post-apocalyptic, a young boy named Shinji is summoned by his father, head of a government organization, to fight apocalyptic monsters.
Fractale: sci-fi/post-apocalyptic, in a future where all humans interface with technology, a young boy meets a runaway priestess and the strange hologram traveling with her.
The Heroic Legend of Arslan (either version): the versions have differences but both are good, follows a quasi-Persian story about a prince who finds himself in a power struggle.
Magic Knight: Rayearth: mahou shojou (magical girl), a group of three girls find themselves transported to a magical girl where they must save the Pillar. However, not all is as it seems.
Samurai 7: sci-fi/historical, The Seven Samurai retold in a futuristic setting. The priestess of a village sets out in order to hire samurai to protect her village from bandits.
Goblin Slayer: fantasy, a priestess joins an adventure guild but finds her expectations and sense of safety dashed on her first misson: what was supposed to be a simple task of slaying goblins. She ends up joining forces with a man known only as the Goblin Slayer.
Megalobox (season 1): sci-fi/sports, a young man living in the poor part of the city enters into a boxing tournament in which he is almost certainly guaranteed to lose. There is a second season, and while it had good parts, I consider it much weaker than the first.
Vinland Saga: historical/action, it's the 11th century and Denmark is at war with England, a young man from Iceland finds himself in a Danish mercenary group all so that he might kill the man who killed his father. (I have admittedly not seen season 2 yet, so I can't speak to that.)
Captain Harlock (1978): sci-fi/adventure, the pacing's very different from modern animes but is a great anime about love, sacrifice, the brutality of war, the degradation of society, and more. Captain Harlock, a dissident and outlaw turned pirate, finds himself the only one standing in the way of an alien invasion.
Akagi: tension, a young man starts in on gambling through mahjong and slowly seeks higher and higher stakes
Kaiji: tension, a young man sinks down into the pit known as gambling and begins bartering his life away for higher and higher stakes just for that one chance to claw his way out of poverty
Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues: Focuses on the character Tonegawa and Ootsuki from Kaiji, but it's worth watching Akagi first as well. Deals with the hilarious ridiculousness of being a mobster who must please a psychopath
Lupin the Third: Part 1 (1971): A very 1960's feeling spy/action show revolving around the exploits of a phantom thief and his colleagues and enemies. Great art, music, characters and interactions, and the episodes are all extremely engaging.
Lupin the Third: Part 2 (1975): A great follow-up to Lupin the Third: Part 1 on an international scene.
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aphrodititi · 1 year
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By the way, the Human Rights Act 1998 is the weakest possible form of judicial review for human rights. It can't strike down conflicting legislation, it can just make a strongly worded statement about it. That statement does have massive political clout but there is no legal obligation for the government to do as the court says. The tories are really going mask off with their authoritarianism with how much they despise the Human Rights Act. They can't stand any form of criticism of the social Horrors they want to commit.
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your JCS costuming is bad and you should feel bad
this easter, I’m going to talk about one of my favorite musicals, Jesus Christ Superstar, and how everyone keeps FUCKING UP THE COSTUMING, because costuming is 1) important to conveying character information in a musical with no spoken dialogue, and 2) really easy to make horrifically antisemitic! especially in a musical where the least sympathetic antagonists are Jewish, so we’re already starting off on the back foot where antisemitism is concerned!
part 1: how people keep fucking up the costuming
for the uninitiated, I have a whole-ass slide show about the basic points of JCS. because it’s a rock opera with modern language and characterizations that focus more on the humanity of the characters than their divinity, it is very easy to transpose it to basically any setting and any conflict a theater has costumes for.
AND THIS IS WHERE THE FUCKUPS OCCUR. and by “fuckups” I mean “antisemitism so awful I’m putting it behind a cut because what the actual fuck, guys.”
did you know there’s a version of JCS where the apostles are Jews and the Sanhedrin are Nazis? THERE IS.
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(yes, that’s Lin Manuel Miranda in his freshman year of college. I do not think he had any creative input on this play, since freshmen typically don’t, but BIG OOF)
did you know that a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AND PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTION did a version where the apostles (minus Judas) are black people and the Sanhedrin are the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (South African Neo Nazis who thought apartheid was too nice)? THERE IS, IT’S THE NYACK 1998 PRODUCTION.
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FUCKING YIKES.
did you know there’s a version where the apostles are Occupy Wall Street and the Sanhedrin are literally EVIL BANKERS PLOTTING EVERYTHING FROM THEIR SECRET ILLUMINATI HEADQUARTERS? IT’S THE 2012 LONDON ARENA VERSION AND IT’S GOT SPORTY SPICE IN IT.
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WHAT. THE FUCK.
like, you get why that’s bad, right? like, why it’s bad to have the Jewish leaders be ACTUAL LITERAL NAZIS or A SHADOWY CONSPIRACY CONTROLLING EVERYTHING? 
HOW DO YOU FUCK UP THIS HARD?
part 2: why these fuckups are not just antisemitic but also harmful to the narrative
now, I can vaguely understand the line of reasoning. vaguely. the sanhedrin are the first antagonists we see, and they have an intimidating opening song with a contrabass, and their opening song is “this jesus must die.” very spooky! must be because they are the worst villains!
but being The Worst Villains is actually not their narrative purpose.
so, in the course of the plot, we have three major forces acting at any given time:
the apostles, who are fighting against the oppressive Roman government. everyone has different takes on strategy (simon the zealot wants a literal war, judas is more concerned with PR, mary magdalene doesn’t really care about the cause so much as she cares about jesus as a person), but they all are clustered around Jesus and Jesus’ teachings.
the sanhedrin, who dislike the oppressive Roman government but keep the peace and quell dissent because the alternative is the Romans killing everyone, including them. KEEP THIS BIT IN MIND WE WILL BE RETURNING TO THIS.
the oppressive roman government, represented by pilate. pilate is a guy who’s in over his head: he’s the governor of judea, so in theory he’s the guy in charge, but really he is one small cog in the roman bureaucracy. he’s sandwiched between common people (who understandably hate him) and his superiors, who will sack him (or worse) if he fucks up. this is why he ends up caving and killing jesus at the end: he goes with what the system demands (execution) rather than doing the right thing (...not execution).
the important point here is that the overall oppressive government is NOT the sanhedrin. it’s the romans. that is explicit from the text as early as the first fucking song. at no point does anyone say “oh and by the way, let’s also fuck up the sanhedrin.” the sanhedrin are, AT WORST, reluctant collaborators with the roman government.
putting aside how very, very easy it is for your costume choices to be antisemitic just by setting alone, it also makes the story way harder to follow and undermines the central narrative.
1. the sanhedrin and the romans are DIFFERENT FORCES and so should be GIVEN DIFFERENT COSTUMES. if you costume the sanhedrin too closely to the romans, it makes it harder to understand who is who.
2. the point of the sanhedrin’s plotline is that they arrest jesus because they are afraid of retribution from the romans if they don’t. they literally have a whole fucking song about that (incidentally, the same song with the scary deep contrabass!):
I see bad things arising. The crowd crown him king, which the Romans would ban. I see blood and destruction, Our elimination because of one man. Blood and destruction because of one man. [...]
Fools, you have no perception! The stakes we are gambling are frighteningly high! We must crush him completely, So like John before him, this Jesus must die.
if they’re gleefully collaborating with the romans because they have identical beliefs and goals, the song makes no sense. “we’re totally cool with the romans but are also afraid they’ll kill us if we’re too noisy” is completely nonsensical. 
let me repeat this for absolute clarity: if your sanhedrin, by virtue of costuming or characterization, are portrayed as bad as or worse than the romans, then you have fucked up.
3. if the sanhedrin are the ones in power, then judas betraying jesus also makes no sense. judas is established from the very first song to be a respectability politics guy who’s extremely concerned about PR (alternative lyrics in parentheses):
Listen, Jesus, do you care for your race? Don't you see we must keep in our place? We are occupied! Have you forgotten how put down we are? I am frightened by the crowd (/And our conquerers object) For we are getting much too loud (/To another noisy sect) And they'll crush us if we go too far If they go too far.
Listen, Jesus, to the warning I give. Please remember that I want us to live. But it's sad to see our chances weakening with every hour.
The alternate lyrics are more clearly about judas being afraid of being killed by the romans, but the original lyrics have the same meaning: we can’t get too noisy or else the romans will kill us for opposing them.
why does judas sell out jesus to the sanhedrin? because the sanhedrin are also respectability politics people concerned about PR. judas’ progression goes from “maybe if I just explain it to jesus, he’ll tone down the rhetoric” to “if he doesn’t stop immediately, we’re all going to fucking die, and I don’t want to die.” he goes to the sanhedrin because, at that point in the plot, THEIR GOALS ALIGN.
and like, JCS is not a particularly narratively opaque musical. there aren’t a lot of metaphors or ambiguous language. quite literally every named character except maybe peter has at least one song if not multiple songs that are like “THIS IS MY MOTIVATION AND MY PLACE IN THE STORYLINE.” like the only thing that could make it clearer is for everyone to carry around a sign like “I REPRESENT VIOLENT POLITICAL ZEALOTRY THAT HAS ABANDONED COMPASSION” or “THIS SONG HAS THE SAME TUNE AS THE ONE BEFORE IT BECAUSE OF PARALLELISM.”
to fuck up this badly, you have to be actively trying to ignore that.
part 3: how to not fuck up the costuming
I do firmly believe that productions of JCS should be as topical and political as possible, because its appeal to me is as a dissection of social movements rather than a straight retelling of the bible. obviously, by doing so you’re like to run afoul of problematic implications in some way or another, but to minimize that, here’s a nice rule of thumb: whoever you’re casting jesus/the apostles and the romans as, put the sanhedrin in the middle. 
are you doing a contemporary political commentary where the apostles are modern leftists? the sanhedrin aren’t conservatives or alt-righters: that’s the romans. the sanhedrin are the moderate establishment democrats.
[edited this bit because I remembered my history wrong, eesh]
are you doing some kind of weird mashup with 1776 the musical? the sanhedrin aren’t the british. they’re not even american loyalists. they’re john dickinson.
at the bare minimum, you need to understand what the narrative purpose of the sanhedrin are in the show. they are not there to be the Romans But With Weird Costumes. they are not there to be The Man Behind The Man. they are there to be the establishment/moderates caught in the middle between an oppressive occupying force and a revolution.
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fairy-crocodile · 10 months
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Dan Wootton has just confirmed ITV made it compulsory not to criticize the Sussexes.
Just think about this: a journalist is told he can continue working only if he offers favourable coverage of two tax-funded public figures.
This is illegal because it is in violation of the Article 10 of the Human Rights Act of 1998.
Burn in hell ITV. I hope the fire is extra hot
Second: I would have to stop any negative commentary about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Again, that was a non-negotiable for me, given within two months I would break the story of Megxit and all the ramifications that followed for the Royal Family
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Apple fucked us on right to repair (again)
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Today (September 22), I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. Tonight, I'll be in person at LA's Book Soup for the launch of Justin C Key's "The World Wasn’t Ready for You." On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.
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Right to repair has no cannier, more dedicated adversary than Apple, a company whose most innovative work is dreaming up new ways to sneakily sabotage electronics repair while claiming to be a caring environmental steward, a lie that covers up the mountains of e-waste that Apple dooms our descendants to wade through.
Why does Apple hate repair so much? It's not that they want to poison our water and bodies with microplastics; it's not that they want to hasten the day our coastal cities drown; it's not that they relish the human misery that accompanies every gram of conflict mineral. They aren't sadists. They're merely sociopathically greedy.
Tim Cook laid it out for his investors: when people can repair their devices, they don't buy new ones. When people don't buy new devices, Apple doesn't sell them new devices. It's that's simple:
https://www.inverse.com/article/52189-tim-cook-says-apple-faces-2-key-problems-in-surprising-shareholder-letter
So Apple does everything it can to monopolize repair. Not just because this lets the company gouge you on routine service, but because it lets them decide when your phone is beyond repair, so they can offer you a trade-in, ensuring both that you buy a new device and that the device you buy is another Apple.
There are so many tactics Apple gets to use to sabotage repair. For example, Apple engraves microscopic Apple logos on the subassemblies in its devices. This allows the company to enlist US Customs to seize and destroy refurbished parts that are harvested from dead phones by workers in the Pacific Rim:
https://repair.eu/news/apple-uses-trademark-law-to-strengthen-its-monopoly-on-repair/
Of course, the easiest way to prevent harvested components from entering the parts stream is to destroy as many old devices as possible. That's why Apple's so-called "recycling" program shreds any devices you turn over to them. When you trade in your old iPhone at an Apple Store, it is converted into immortal e-waste (no other major recycling program does this). The logic is straightforward: no parts, no repairs:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks
Shredding parts and cooking up bogus trademark claims is just for starters, though. For Apple, the true anti-repair innovation comes from the most pernicious US tech law: Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
DMCA 1201 is an "anti-circumvention" law. It bans the distribution of any tool that bypasses "an effective means of access control." That's all very abstract, but here's what it means: if a manufacturer sticks some Digital Rights Management (DRM) in its device, then anything you want to do that involves removing that DRM is now illegal – even if the thing itself is perfectly legal.
When Congress passed this stupid law in 1998, it had a very limited blast radius. Computers were still pretty expensive and DRM use was limited to a few narrow categories. In 1998, DMCA 1201 was mostly used to prevent you from de-regionalizing your DVD player to watch discs that had been released overseas but not in your own country.
But as we warned back then, computers were only going to get smaller and cheaper, and eventually, it would only cost manufacturers pennies to wrap their products – or even subassemblies in their products – in DRM. Congress was putting a gun on the mantelpiece in Act I, and it was bound to go off in Act III.
Welcome to Act III.
Today, it costs about a quarter to add a system-on-a-chip to even the tiniest parts. These SOCs can run DRM. Here's how that DRM works: when you put a new part in a device, the SOC and the device's main controller communicate with one another. They perform a cryptographic protocol: the part says, "Here's my serial number," and then the main controller prompts the user to enter a manufacturer-supplied secret code, and the master controller sends a signed version of this to the part, and the part and the system then recognize each other.
This process has many names, but because it was first used in the automotive sector, it's widely known as VIN-Locking (VIN stands for "vehicle identification number," the unique number given to every car by its manufacturer). VIN-locking is used by automakers to block independent mechanics from repairing your car; even if they use the manufacturer's own parts, the parts and the engine will refuse to work together until the manufacturer's rep keys in the unlock code:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon
VIN locking is everywhere. It's how John Deere stops farmers from fixing their own tractors – something farmers have done literally since tractors were invented:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/
It's in ventilators. Like mobile phones, ventilators are a grotesquely monopolized sector, controlled by a single company Medtronic, whose biggest claim to fame is effecting the world's largest tax inversion in order to manufacture the appearance that it is an Irish company and therefore largely untaxable. Medtronic used the resulting windfall to gobble up most of its competitors.
During lockdown, as hospitals scrambled to keep their desperately needed supply of ventilators running, Medtronic's VIN-locking became a lethal impediment. Med-techs who used donor parts from one ventilator to keep another running – say, transplanting a screen – couldn't get the device to recognize the part because all the world's civilian aircraft were grounded, meaning Medtronic's technicians couldn't swan into their hospitals to type in the unlock code and charge them hundreds of dollars.
The saving grace was an anonymous, former Medtronic repair tech, who built pirate boxes to generate unlock codes, using any housing they could lay hands on to use as a case: guitar pedals, clock radios, etc. This tech shipped these gadgets around the world, observing strict anonymity, because Article 6 of the EUCD also bans circumvention:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#medtronic-again
Of course, Apple is a huge fan of VIN-locking. In phones, VIN-locking is usually called "serializing" or "parts-pairing," but it's the same thing: a tiny subassembly gets its own microcontroller whose sole purpose is to prevent independent repair technicians from fixing your gadget. Parts-pairing lets Apple block repairs even when the technician uses new, Apple parts – but it also lets Apple block refurb parts and third party parts.
For many years, Apple was the senior partner and leading voice in blocking state Right to Repair bills, which it killed by the dozen, leading a coalition of monopolists, from Wahl (who boobytrap their hair-clippers with springs that cause their heads irreversibly decompose if you try to sharpen them at home) to John Deere (who reinvented tenant farming by making farmers tenants of their tractors, rather than their land).
But Apple's opposition to repair eventually became a problem for the company. It's bad optics, and both Apple customers and Apple employees are volubly displeased with the company's ecocidal conduct. But of course, Apple's management and shareholders hate repair and want to block it as much as possible.
But Apple knows how to Think Differently. It came up with a way to eat its cake and have it, too. The company embarked on a program of visibly support right to repair, while working behind the scenes to sabotage it.
Last year, Apple announced a repair program. It was hilarious. If you wanted to swap your phone's battery, all you had to do was let Apple put a $1200 hold on your credit card, and then wait while the company shipped you 80 pounds' worth of specialized tools, packed in two special Pelican cases:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/
Then, you swapped your battery, but you weren't done! After your battery was installed, you had to conference in an authorized Apple tech who would tell you what code to type into a laptop you tethered to the phone in order to pair it with your phone. Then all you had to do was lug those two 40-pound Pelican cases to a shipping depot and wait for Apple to take the hold off your card (less the $120 in parts and fees).
By contrast, independent repair outfits like iFixit will sell you all the tools you need to do your own battery swap – including the battery! for $32. The whole kit fits in a padded envelope:
https://www.ifixit.com/products/iphone-x-replacement-battery
But while Apple was able to make a showy announcement of its repair program and then hide the malicious compliance inside those giant Pelican cases, sabotaging right to repair legislation is a lot harder.
Not that they didn't try. When New York State passed the first general electronics right-to-repair bill in the country, someone convinced New York Governor Kathy Hochul to neuter it with last-minute modifications:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/weakened-right-to-repair-bill-is-signed-into-law-by-new-yorks-governor/
But that kind of trick only works once. When California's right to repair bill was introduced, it was clear that it was gonna pass. Rather than get run over by that train, Apple got on board, supporting the legislation, which passed unanimously:
https://www.ifixit.com/News/79902/apples-u-turn-tech-giant-finally-backs-repair-in-california
But Apple got the last laugh. Because while California's bill contains many useful clauses for the independent repair shops that keep your gadgets out of a landfill, it's a state law, and DMCA 1201 is federal. A state law can't simply legalize the conduct federal law prohibits. California's right to repair bill is a banger, but it has a weak spot: parts-pairing, the scourge of repair techs:
https://www.ifixit.com/News/69320/how-parts-pairing-kills-independent-repair
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Every generation of Apple devices does more parts-pairing than the previous one, and the current models are so infested with paired parts as to be effectively unrepairable, except by Apple. It's so bad that iFixit has dropped its repairability score for the iPhone 14 from a 7 ("recommend") to a 4 (do not recommend):
https://www.ifixit.com/News/82493/we-are-retroactively-dropping-the-iphones-repairability-score-en
Parts-pairing is bullshit, and Apple are scum for using it, but they're hardly unique. Parts-pairing is at the core of the fuckery of inkjet printer companies, who use it to fence out third-party ink, so they can charge $9,600/gallon for ink that pennies to make:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer
Parts-pairing is also rampant in powered wheelchairs, a heavily monopolized sector whose predatory conduct is jaw-droppingly depraved:
https://uspirgedfund.org/reports/usp/stranded
But if turning phones into e-waste to eke out another billion-dollar stock buyback is indefensible, stranding people with disabilities for months at a time while they await repairs is so obviously wicked that the conscience recoils. That's why it was so great when Colorado passed the nation's first wheelchair right to repair bill last year:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair
California actually just passed two right to repair bills; the other one was SB-271, which mirrors Colorado's HB22-1031:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB271
This is big! It's momentum! It's a start!
But it can't be the end. When Bill Clinton signed DMCA 1201 into law 25 years ago, he loaded a gun and put it on the nation's mantlepiece and now it's Act III and we're all getting sprayed with bullets. Everything from ovens to insulin pumps, thermostats to lightbulbs, has used DMCA 1201 to limit repair, modification and improvement.
Congress needs to rid us of this scourge, to let us bring back all the benefits of interoperability. I explain how this all came to be – and what we should do about it – in my new Verso Books title, The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently
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Image: Mitch Barrie (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daytona_Skeleton_AR-15_completed_rifle_%2817551907724%29.jpg
CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
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guys, ain't no mountain high enough being in Muriel's play list like...dude...
maybe its the little kid who grew up with a sick mom in me but...
I'll be really disappointed if there isn't a scene in s3 where Maggie is bringing over Muriel a little welcome to earth care-package that has some records in it (obviously!)
(Maybe its also an excuse for Nina and her to go check up on Crowley who is holed up in the loft can't confirm or deny.)
Then they start playing the Tammi and Marvin record and they're all laughing and dancing and Crowley hears it from upstairs where he's been moping for hours, he comes down all grumpy like 'what the hell are you all doing😠'
Muriel turns off the record instantly and before Maggie and Muriel can start apologizing Nina jumps in,
'Marvin and I are getting our act together right Marvin?'
Muriel nervously but still giggly is like 'right Tammi.'
Maggie and Nina hand Muriel a hair brush and toss Crowley a candle stick or something and she says 'in fact, we were just looking for another beautiful backup dancer!' she says as she puts the needle back on, (she's started to grow fond of records, a little fonder of people too.)
and Crowley scoffs of course, the silly humans and the silly little angel trying to make him feel better so silly.
but its the lyrics, he never stood a chance.
"Aint no mountain high, aint no valley low, aint no river wide enough baby!' Muriel mouths all the Marvin bits trying to emulate a rock star, Nina and Maggie and cheering and fawning, Crowley rolls his eyes, (no sunglasses to be seen might I add)
"If you need me call me, no matter where you are! No matter how far!" Nina mouths as she dances towards Crowley, he can't help but give a smidge of a smile.
"Don't worry baby!"
"Just call my name,' Maggie mouths as she nudges Crowley towards the middle of the room where the sun is shining from the windows, out of the shadows, 'I'll be there in a hurry you don't have to worry!"
"Cause baby there ain't no mountain high enough! Ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough!" they start really singing, doing a goofy little choreograph dance, (ha! there's two god!) raising and waving their hand and singing into their play microphones.
Crowley is swaying half-assed at first and he can't help but get caught up in the fun, what does he have to lose by being silly in front of these silly creatures?
"To keep me from getting to you babe!" They all point at Crowley, he bowls over with tears he's laughing so hard.
"Oh no darling! No wind no rain!" Crowley takes Muriel and spins them around the shop, they laugh so loud its a squeal.
"Oh winters cold can't stop me baby!" Maggie and Nina sing to each other, spinning around themselves. "No no baby!"
"Cause you are my love!" they're all arm in arm dancing through the shop, "If you're ever in trouble I'll be there on the double, just send for me oh baby!"
Muriel holds their pretend mic up to Crowley, "My love is alive, right down in my heart, although we are miles apart!" Crowley can't help the few little tears that escape through the joy.
Crowley holds his up to Muriel's, "If you ever need a helping hand I'll be there on the double just as fast as I can!"
They hold out there hand to Crowley and they spin like a ring around.
The chorus starts again and they all continue to dance so badly they fall into each other in an embrace.
So free, so safe in this warm happy place Aziraphale made on earth, the sun shines brightly through the skylight and the place is filled with so much love and laughter and peace you can almost feel Aziraphale sitting in his arm chair, just watching them smiling on, like somehow everything is going to be okay.
Anyways yeah you guys remember that 1998 movie Stepmom by Chris Columbus? yeaaaah...
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trixicbean · 2 years
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Today (11.09.2022) in Edinburgh a woman was arrested for holding this sign.
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This is no longer a democracy. This is a fascist dictatorship. Three days of completely biased homages and fanatical worship of the Queen twenty-four hours a day in the press and one person voices a peaceful objection and she is arrested.
Human Rights Act (1998) Article 10:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers."
Freedom of Speech is a legal right in the UK but it will be taken away with the planned (now temporarily paused during the handover) Tory reforms to repeal the Human Rights Act. This country is in a fast descent into fascism and, make no mistake, the Queen's death is their perfect disguise to help. Stay aware and spread awareness.
That arrest should never have happened.
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Kaiju Week in Review (June 25-July 8, 2023)
I picked a bad time to skip a week lol
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Ultraman Blazar, the 35th entry in the Ultra Series, has made the scene. Episode 1 throws us right into a battle between humanity and a space monster. Blazar's the pushy type, all but forcing Gento to transform, but he doesn't speak Japanese—just yowls. For now, that makes him the show's central mystery. The show's defense team, SKaRD, won't actually form until the next episode, at which point we should have a better sense of it. But I'm intrigued so far.
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Free streaming TV service Pluto TV has added a Godzilla channel. It boasts, or should soon boast, all of the Japanese Godzilla films minus King Kong vs. Godzilla and Shin Godzilla, plus Rodan, all the Mothra movies, The War of the Gargantuas, Godzilla (1998), and Godzilla: The Series. A Blu-ray.com user has composed a detailed rundown of the versions of the films used—short version, nothing we haven't seen before apart from a few small changes.
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I got to see Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken before its official June 30 release date thanks to Regal's Monday Mystery Movie series. I guess I didn't retain much memory of the trailer, because it surprised me how early in the film the title character first grew into a kaiju. I can't give it an especially enthusiastic recommendation—comparisons to Luca and Turning Red are inevitable and don't flatter Ruby at all. But I get a kick out of seeing kaiju in such alien territory as a hyperactive animated kids' movie, and they continue to show off their flexibility as metaphors (Ruby is plainly neurodivergent). 7 outta 10.
Nimona dropped on Netflix the same day, and that's one anyone reading this column should sprint to watch. It saves its kaiju for the third act, and I've held off on posting much about that part of the story yet, but trust me, Ishiro Honda would be proud.
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After years of lackluster Gorgo home video releases, Vinegar Syndrome seems poised to finally do it right in 4K Ultra HD. (If you're like me and don't have a way to watch such discs yet, don't worry, it comes with a Blu-ray.) New scan, new audio commentary, special features both new and old, and a killer cover. For those unfamiliar with the company, note that this release is "only available on [the Vinegar Syndrome] website and at select indie retailers. Absolutely no major retailers will be stocking them."
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Every episode of Chibi Godzilla Raids Again is now subtitled, a fine excuse to get acquainted with one of the Reiwa era's biggest surprises. No stakes, no budget, just a bunch of Toho's biggest stars acting like a bunch of fools.
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There's always more Godzilla toy news than this column can hope to cover, but a few highlights:
Bandai's ever-expanding Movie Monster Series will release Gamera 1965, Gyaos 1967, and Battra larva later this month. The defunct Daiei Kaiju Series last offered a Showa Gamera in 2006, and never covered any of his foes from that era; here's hoping Gyaos is the first of many.
Hiya Toys now has the license to produce figures from the Toho Godzilla films, not just the Monsterverse.
Super7 will be selling ReAction figures of Godzilla chomping some helpless people on a subway train at San Diego Comic Con. They just get it (and hopefully the many of us who aren't going will have some way of getting it that doesn't involve scalpers).
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The new unit in Godzilla Battle Line is Monster X/Keizer Ghidorah. The former evolves into the latter after his first death. Keizer is a heavy hitter with a twist: he regains 20% of his health with every defeated foe. Great against swarms, but you don't see too many of those these days.
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Believe it or not (many are still in denial), but Pacific Rim turns 10 on Wednesday. Thankfully, per this Tweet from director Guillermo del Toro, the effective start of the Kaiju Renaissance (and one of my all-time favorite films) won't go unrecognized on its first big anniversary. I'm guessing a cast reunion?
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More translations from Noah Oskow await on Toho Kingdom, these a collection of synopses of early versions of Godzilla vs. Mothra, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, and Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla from the Toho DVDs. Much of this has been translated in greater detail already, but the later drafts are interesting.
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