#it's actual more of a legal/criminal justice term
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pls expand more on the rehabilitationist v abolitionist dispute comment!
as a preface of sorts: this post is written with marxist theory of criminology in mind, and i relate to many concepts that stem from it. i consider batman as a series to be one of the most politically inclined texts when it comes to superhero comics as a whole, so imo it is imperative that it introduces many different outlooks on the topic of jurisprudence. and it is an approach that used to be pretty popular.
btw. if anything is unclear in terms of theory –– ask.
okay so, to answer the question: there's so much that contributed to this stray thought, and i think i hinted at a lot of it before on this blog, but let me just dump some of my thoughts in a disorganized manner... (maybe one day i will write about it in a more coherent way):
batman as the title needs an actual genuine counterweight to bruce's worldview, one that does not target the no-kill rule. enough with the no-kill discourse, really, i think in many ways it's almost... a detail, and i think the fixation on that detail leads to watering down the whole dilemma. (especially that bruce did not always treat is as a complete dogma and i preferred it that way.) what is more interesting i believe, is that bruce is a rehabilitationist – despite his vigilante work, he is dedicated to the idea of the legal system being a viable solution to crime. and, what is even more important, in his mind, crime is equal to a moral failure. i talked about it at length in my post about eoc, but let me just copy the relevant fragment in here:
bruce, while obviously caring, is still bound by his belief in the legal system and deontological norms. he is benevolent, but he is also ultimately morally committed to the idea of a legal system and thus frames criminals as failing to meet these moral (legal-adjacent) standards (even when he recognizes it is a result of their circumstances). in other words, he might think that a criminal is a good person despite leading a life of crime.
and of course, criminals need to be "corrected" and rehabilitated in order to be able to function in society again. the deviant behavior has to be eliminated.
i don't doubt that at the time when it was introduced, bruce's rehabilitationist philosophy was a radical one when compared with the prevailing popularity of the concept of retributive justice. but in the year of our lord 2023? the view that you can simply "fix" the system by aiding it in some ways is not radical at all. the system in question was mostly built around sustaining that corruption as a goal. and there are (or used to be) some characters, like leslie, who are “vigilante-critical” (among others) because of that reason.
enter jay. jay is very much in a position that makes it clear that the law is not usually on the side of the poor and marginalized. of course, he is only an ~11 year old, so of course he has no language to express most of these worries; he probably does not know anything about the rehabilitationist vs retributive vs reperative justice in a theoretical sense anyway. i doubt he knows that abolition exists as a concept; he might be well-read, but probably not in these categories. but he has certain intuitions; intuitions that i already talked about in the earlier mentioned eoc post. and these intuitions are that crime does not define morality. he does not consider himself wrong for stealing; he is not conflicted about willis being a criminal and grieves him easily; there’s no word of him being resentful to dealers. he has his own idea of justice that seems to be very much affected by his trouble with authority, the intention behind the crime, and perceived harm (this is imo one of the reasons he takes issue with ma gunn specifically). i think this setup is something that could lead to him taking an abolitionist point of view later on, since he seems frustrated with the label of “crime.”
obviously, at this point, jason’s disinterest in crime as something to contempt is seen as a problem (both by the editorial and in-universe); a problem that has to be fixed. and within his tenure of robin, we see him “learning” to ascribe to bruce’s moral code; which makes sense, because he is a kid, and because he trusts bruce. and so, i think his perception in this period does shift to accommodate the rehabilitationist outlook.
the garzonas’ incident, jay’s growing cynicism at the end of his robin run, and the red hood era altogether might suggest that jason, disappointed in the limits of this approach actively takes to the retributive standpoint instead. it’s def true insofar that the writers are not politically educated enough to understand the nuance that (imo) should naturally arise in his storyline. for example: the particular caveat in garzonas’ case is the position of power that felipe occupies and that grants him immunity. bruce, naturally, looks for the ways to bring justice by exploring other legal paths to solve the issue. jay goes with it despite being visibly unhappy. and i think this gets us to the core of the issue which is power and the system– the fact that the system is simply built to make it difficult to incarnate the higher-ups. diplomatic immunity exists for a reason, sure, but the fact that it allows people to get away with wrong-doing is not a side-effect; it's the goal. and so, felipe garzonas cannot be deemed a criminal, but willis and even jay at age of 11 were. the pattern repeats when it comes to the joker, who later uses diplomatic immunity to exploit the role to continue fucking with bruce. so the issue is not that the system does not work. the issue is that the system was built not to work.
another tangent: of course, you may note that the concept of the separation of powers (the judge, the jury, and the executioner) that bruce is so fond of is supposed to remedy the problem of the abuse of power. and it is, without a doubt, something necessary within the democratic system. still, i believe jason quoting arendt explains why he doesn't care for it in the slightest; in the man who stopped laughing #8 jay says: “you familiar with hannah arendt’s concept of schreibtischtäter? desk murderers? it’s people who use the state to kill for them, so they don’t have to get their hands dirty. you should read up on it. i think you’d find it very relatable.” arendt's work emerged in a very specific context, but jay makes it into something more definitive; a trait of the penal system as a whole; you can bring as many people into the workings of the justice system as you want to; but ultimately, most of them will act in the interest of authority, without a second thought (this also explains why he considers that making decisions on who lives and dies yourself is better than blindly following the rule of law.) (<- btw it links very well with the idea of autonomy as a predisposition to be moral since you need it to be an active member of the society. anarchists such as wolff have written lots of that.)
i'd say all of this leads us to the point where jason has great potential to come to the conclusion that abolition is the way to go. the ones in power will not get punished within that framework anyway, and the ones at the "bottom" of the socioeconomic ladder remain victims of it. months, months ago i had anons arguing with me, saying that comicbook characters don't have to be so socially aware and that even people irl rarely are; and i am also willing to indulge the narrative and say that jason is terribly confused regarding it all for now, because of how his childhood went and as a result of his personal trauma. nevertheless, characters are often vessels for ideas, especially in titles like batman; and bruce, for example, is allowed to have a developed a sound ideology on jurisprudence. why not jason? especially that all the motivations are there; the setup is there too. that's just another great incentive to actually make use of his origin story.
an extra disclaimer is that abolition is not the answer to all and that it requires so many reforms on all levels... and i don't think jay would be satiated with the mere idea of restorative justice that usually accompanies it, because that still leaves us with the problem of those in power maintaining it and (in the fictional context) supervillains (who very often do occupy those spaces) prevailing... but you know. abolition is very compatible with general revolutionary principles. who says he can't kill in that name if retiring is not a way to go (though my preferred timeline would include retirement for jay at least for a while... but i digress!)
to conclude, i think it's a conflict much needed not just for the sake of any progression of batman in terms of philosophy, but also because the ways jason was initially introduced (even pre-crisis) suggested that he was supposed to grow to be critical of bruce even as robin, while being on good terms with him too. and that's definitely a kind of dispute that is much more productive and nuanced than just going back to the no-kill rule over and over and over again when the source of it is much more interesting.
i hope you got anything out of my rambling. i rest my case for now:)
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Ian Millhiser at Vox:
On Thursday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Trump v. United States, the case where former President Donald Trump claims that he is immune from prosecution for any “official acts” that he committed while in office.
It is, frankly, very difficult to care about this case or to spend mental energy teasing out what the justices may say in their opinions. That’s because Trump has already won.
Trump’s arguments in this case are exceedingly weak, and it is unlikely that even this Supreme Court, with its 6-3 Republican supermajority, will hold that Trump was allowed to do crimes while he was president. Trump’s immunity argument is so broad that his lawyer told a lower court that it would apply even if he ordered the military to kill one of his rivals. (Though Trump does concede that he could be prosecuted if he were first impeached and convicted.)
But this case was never actually about whether the Constitution allows a sitting president to avoid prosecution if he uses the powers of the presidency to commit crimes. Trump’s goal is not to win an improbable Supreme Court order holding that he can assassinate his political adversaries. It is to delay his criminal trial for attempting to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election for as long as possible — and ideally, from Trump’s perspective, until after the 2024 election.
And the Supreme Court has been his willing patsy.
As a general rule, federal courts only permit one court to have jurisdiction over a case at a time. So once Trump appealed trial Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling that, no, presidents are not allowed to do crimes, Chutkan lost her authority to move forward with Trump’s criminal trial until after that appeal was resolved.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith understands this problem as well as anyone, which is why he wanted the Supreme Court to bypass an intermediate appeals court and rule immediately on Trump’s immunity claim last December. The justices denied that request. After the appeals court ruled, they also denied Smith’s request to resolve the case on an much more expedited schedule.
[...]
The legal arguments in the Trump v. US case, explained in case anyone actually cares
Trump’s lawyers seek to blur the line between civil lawsuits — the president actually is immune from being sued for official actions taken while in office — and criminal prosecutions.
Under the Supreme Court’s precedents, all government officials, from a rookie beat cop all the way up to the president, enjoy some degree of immunity from federal lawsuits filed by private citizens. If you follow debates about police reform, you’ve no doubt heard the term “qualified immunity.” This is a legal doctrine that often allows police officers (and most other government officials) to avoid liability when they violate a private citizen’s rights.
As the Supreme Court held in Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982), “government officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
The purpose of this immunity is to protect government officials from the kind of liability that might deter them from performing their jobs well. Harlow argued that qualified immunity ensures that the stresses of litigation won’t divert “official energy from pressing public issues.” It prevents lawsuits from deterring “able citizens from acceptance of public office.” And the Court in Harlow also warned about “the danger that fear of being sued will ‘dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the most irresponsible [public officials], in the unflinching discharge of their duties.’”
Yet, while qualified immunity often prevents civil lawsuits against police and other government officials from moving forward, it’s never been understood as a shield against criminal prosecution. Just ask Derek Chauvin, the police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd.
The Supreme Court has also ruled that a short list of government officials — prosecutors, judges, and the president — have “absolute immunity” from civil suits. This is because people who hold these three jobs are unusually vulnerable to harassment suits filed by private litigants. Prosecutors perform duties that require them to antagonize potential litigants: criminal defendants. And judges’ duties necessarily require them to rule in favor of some parties and against others — who might then turn around and sue the judge.
[...]
The best defense of the Supreme Court’s behavior in this case
The Court’s decision to delay Trump’s trial for months, rather than expediting this case as Smith requested, cannot be defended.
That said, in an op-ed published in the New York Times shortly after the Supreme Court decided to delay Trump’s trial, University of Texas law professor Lee Kovarsky made the strongest possible argument for giving the justices at least some time to come up with a nuanced approach to the question of whether a former president is sometimes immune from criminal prosecution.
Trump, Kovarsky argues, should not be given immunity from prosecution for attempting to overturn an election. But he warns that “American democracy is entering a perilous period of extreme polarization — one in which less malfeasant presidents may face frivolous, politicized prosecutions when they leave office.”
For this reason, Kovarsky argues that “the Supreme Court should seize this opportunity to develop a narrow presidential immunity in criminal cases” that would prevent a future president from, say, prosecuting President Biden for the crime of being a Democrat.
The problem with this argument, however, is that even if the current Supreme Court could come up with a legal framework that would allow Smith’s prosecution of Trump to move forward, while also screening out any future case where a president was prosecuted for improper reasons, there’s no reason to think that a future Supreme Court would hew to this framework.
Kovarsky is arguing that the Court should use the Trump case to establish a precedent that can guide its future decisions. A precedent like Roe v. Wade. Or like Lemon v. Kurtzman. Or like Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Or like United States v. Miller. Or like any other precedent that this Supreme Court has tossed out after that decision fell out of favor with the Republican Party.
Donald Trump won the delay battle in Trump v. United States, even as the court hasn't issued a ruling yet on whether or not he has total presidential immunity.
#SCOTUS#Capitol Insurrection#Trump v. United States#Total Immunity#Donald Trump#Jack Smith#Tanya Chutkan
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If you’re thinking about sitting out the Presidential election because you’re unsatisfied with the major party options OR because you think you have principled philosophical reasons to not like Biden, please keep in mind what is at stake.
- Trump being in office again and having the power of the executive broadly (this is bad enough, also kind of my catch-all for things unlisted that you might think up)
- Trump seeking revenge, retribution, and repression of political freedoms of those who don’t support him, you can imagine for yourself how this might manifest, including through promoting political violence from his followers, which he hasn’t pledged to not allow
- Trump attacking the opposition party as part of his “revenge,” perhaps in ways that are more substantive than before, possibly through weaponizing the DOJ against political enemies
- Trump actually following through on his promise that in his first day in office that he would be a dictator, but only on day one, you can see him speak about this when he was on Fox News
- Trump attempting and/or succeeding at implementing Project 2025 (the playbook for a fascist takeover which, very oversimplified, looks to centralize political power in the hands of the executive)
- Trump possibly appointing two new Supreme Court justices, assuming the two older justices (Alito and Thomas) leave early to get replaced by ideologically similar judges, the history books will say we allowed him five Supreme Court appointments (three in his first term + two replacements)
- Trump possibly appointing more conservative justices across the lower courts, there are many vacancies at present (including on the U.S. District Courts), Trump appointed many judges on these lower courts in his first term after the Republican Senate prevented Obama from appointing any, arguably these were even worse for the longterm health of the country than the Supreme Court appointments
- Trump probably appoints an even crazier second Presidential cabinet filled with his allies (people who are subservient to his whims and support him fanatically, something like Giuliani as Attorney General or something, Vivek anywhere in his administration is scary)
- Trump pardoning himself from the majority of his crimes (unsure how many he can succeed with pardoning himself from, not a legal expert, IIRC he can’t pardon himself out of Georgia at least)
- Trump procuring 91 criminal charges across four separate cases (the Washington D.C. Jack Smith case, the Georgia election interference case, the classified documents case, the Stormy Daniels case), you can watch a quick recap here, this should immediately make him unqualified for public office
- Trump potentially using the Insurrection Act of 1807 which allows the President with very little oversight to order “U.S military and federalized national guard troops within the United States in particular circumstances, such as to suppress civil disorder, insurrection, or rebellion” (per Wikipedia), something which he may use as soon as his first day in office to support protests
- Trump pardoning some/all of his associates and acolytes that have helped him over the years, assuring that they’ll never face justice (Giuliani comes to mind, others who have been loyal, Gaetz will never face justice for unlawfully trafficking minors)
- Trump possibly working to free the January 6th participants, who he’s repeatedly labeled as “hostages,” as in freeing the people who tried to assist him in overthrowing the government, danced around it as recently as his 03/20 rally
Trump has also on multiple occasions had a “January 6th prison choir” at his rallies that perform live songs as recently as his 03/20 rally, this is ongoing (side note)
- Trump possibly getting full control of the federal government just like the 115th Congress (Trump winning the White House makes it very statistically likely even with an overperformance on our side that he also wins the Senate, the House is still a tossup, anybody’s game)
- Trump possibly trying to sign some sort of federal abortion ban, Trump prided himself on killing Roe vs Wade and then said it was up to the states, though privately, reports have come out that Trump is proposing a federal abortion ban to mirror those in various states
- Trump trying once again to build a border wall/trying to do other horrible things to “illegal” undocumented immigrants (he promised tighter border security + Republicans have been focusing a lot on immigration recently), called migrants “animals” at a 03/20 rally
- Trump promised a mass deportation of “illegal” undocumented immigrants, this is a pretty standard Republican talking point nowadays but still absolutely unacceptable
- Trump potentially using the military against foreign drug cartels in their own sovereign territory, something that was also promoted by fellow Republicans that ran in the primary
- Trump signing KOSA into law (a far right backed bill to “protect kids on the Internet”), which will also likely overturn Section 230 (very oversimplified, the law that states what happens on these platforms, say Tumblr, is not Tumblr’s responsibility, they can’t be sued as if they were a participant, if this was overturned, it would lead to severe content restrictions since now Tumblr, and others, can be sued for everything)
- Trump signing federal age restriction mandates similar to those that have been passed recently in several states (Texas and seven others, with more than a dozen states with similar bills in the legislature), making it so you have to provide identification to access pornographic material
- Trump pulling us out of various international agreements (among them the Paris Climate Accord, which he pulled out of in his first term, for example), the U.S. will never be trusted internationally again
- Trump pulling out of NATO (an important international strategic alliance we’ve had since the 1950s that has safeguarded our spot as the superpower of the world), something he teased repeatedly in his first term
- Trump threatening nuclear war or some similarly large military escalation when he tries to intimidate our perceived enemies about how vast our military capabilities are
- Trump possibly withholding aid from Ukraine/strongarming them to accept a peace deal which will mean they have to cede major territory to Putin (we’ve seen already that Trump is willing to strongarm Ukraine for political purposes, see his first impeachment trial, plus Trump says that he can end the war in less than a day, about the only way this is feasible is Ukraine ceding ground)
- Trump possibly ignoring the Palestine genocide in terms of offering any humanitarian assistance/allowing Israel to have their way unrestricted (you can criticize our President on Israel for very fair reasons but Trump would be significantly worse if your goal is to save Palestine)
- Trump possibly inflaming tensions with Iran (either intentionally by attacking first or indirectly through proxy via involvement vs Hamas or Hezbollah/support of Israel), a war that neither side needs
- Trump provoking tensions with China which may lead to a more substantive lapse in the relationship that won't help either of us (another trade war or unlikely on the ground war), the Republicans have been very rabid about China lately in their efforts to ban TikTok
- Trump potentially encouraging China to try to invade Taiwan like they've been posturing about for over half a century, sensing weakness from Trump or that he won't support Taiwan like the Americans had previously pledged
- Trump promised to reinstate the previous travel bans imposed on several Muslim-majority countries, something which originally happened in his first Presidential term
- Trump promises to promote oil drilling once again (he promised his first day in office when he's a dictator), possibly offshore fracking (judging by the position of the party), setting us behind in switching away from oil + harming the planet
- Trump probably slashes the subsidies for electric vehicles, setting us behind in switching over (optimistic outlooks say 10-15 years for electric vehicles once they've reached their full potential to phase out gas vehicles from the market), recently at a campaign event he spoke very negatively about them (the "bloodbath" speech)
- Trump promised a “100% tariff” on all vehicles that are imported by Chinese run factories that they’re building in Mexico, which is absolutely ludicrous in terms of a policy proposal
- Trump stating there will be a “bloodbath” at an 03/16 rally assuming he’s not elected President once again, when pushed back, Trump suggested he was talking about what will happen to the auto industry, though many think he was making some kind of veiled threat
- Trump promises to use the National Guard in major cities struggling with violent crime and problems with drugs, something that would be a significant overreach and very displacing for their populations
This list will be added to as more becomes available about what Trump plans to/is likely to do.
Though these things seem horrible, and might even make you feel hopeless, through the mobilization of voters, we’re stronger than we think we are, even at the sunset of democracy.
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what i want more than anything from a saw movie that would be new and exciting would be to talk about what jigsaw’s legacy has done to the people of the city.
saw’s always been partially a police procedural and it’s easy to understand why. cops have the guns and the legal framework to try and take down a serial killer. and it’s had very interesting conversations about what cops are actually like at their jobs, from the very start. but then we got to spiral and spiral tried to tell us what the first seven movies showed us (cops are only good at bullying vulnerable people and are cruel, self-righteous judgmental bastards who can’t save anyone). and then i wondered what other people dealing with jigsaw would look like. whether it’s, idk, a criminal organization or a gang or just a group of neighbors that’s banded together in fear, i want to see what other people do reacting to jigsaw. that’s actually one of the many reasons 3D compels me so badly in concept, because we talk about the survivors and how they feel, and what other people talk about when they talk about jigsaw.
do they live in fear of doing something wrong because then a creep will tie you to a bonkers contraption to mutilate or kill you in retaliation? do people see the worse victims, the murderers and the cops and the health insurance execs and the moneylenders, and see punitive justice done right? why the hell are so many people asking “but did you learn your lesson”? why is their society (and ours) so obsessed with trying to fit jigsaw’s horrific crimes into his own twisted and hypocritical ideological terms instead of just seeing it as what it is—a serial killing spree?
#@ chris rock if you’re out there. give me a call i’ll doctor your script for free#saw#saw franchise#jigsaw killer#john kramer#spiral from the book of saw#fandom
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The Hamas attack that killed at least 1,200 people in Israel last month presented its leaders with difficult decisions about how to both wage war in Gaza and free the hostages held there. But it also posed a longer-term dilemma in government circles that has received less attention so far: What should Israel do with the Palestinians suspected of perpetrating the mass killing?
Israel captured several hundred of these suspects on Oct. 7 and the days that followed the massacre. In other circumstances, Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who commit crimes in Israel would be tried in the country’s regular court system.
But experts say this case is almost unprecedented in its scope and severity, and it poses particularly vexing questions and complications for the legal system. So many that some officials are calling for the formation of a special judicial framework—possibly a military tribunal—where the suspects would stand trial.
The dilemmas span every stage of a legal process: How should the suspects be treated in detention until their trials, and who will represent them? Are Israel’s regular criminal courts adequate for the heinous nature of the crimes, or the sheer number of defendants? Why is the investigation so complicated, given the abundance of evidence? And should the sentencing options include the death penalty?
Hovering over all these are questions about the very purpose of the judicial system. How does it address the crimes committed against individual Israelis on Oct. 7 while also addressing the collective existential wound inflicted on Israeli society? Legal proceedings are supposed to give the victims a sense of justice, deter future crimes, and demonstrate the value of the rule of law more broadly to society. And in this case, “society” doesn’t just mean Israel. Given how the Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza have both captivated and polarized people around the world, the international community will no doubt watch the proceedings closely.
With these heightened stakes, there are risks even at this early stage; already, some people are raising concerns about the suspects’ prison conditions.
Hassan Jabareen, a human rights lawyer and the director of Adalah, an Israeli nongovernmental organization focusing on the rights of Arab citizens of Israel, has gathered testimonies from prisoners who “say they hear [other] Hamas prisoners screaming, yelling; we’ve heard about people being dragged on all fours, being humiliated.”
Jabareen said that some of the prisoners appeared to be bound while incarcerated, underfed, and held in overcrowded conditions. Human rights groups have raised concerns about torture in their interrogation as well as potential damage to due process.
Israel’s minister of national security, the ultranationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir, has actually boasted that the Hamas prisoners captured on Oct. 7 are being held in the “harshest possible conditions,” including “eight bound terrorists in a dark cell, iron beds, toilets that are a hole in the floor, and Hatikvah [the Israeli national anthem] playing constantly in the background.”
The government has amended the rules of detention following the attack through state-of-emergency mechanisms that allow it to skip Knesset approval. Suspects can now be held for a total of up to 90 days and denied a meeting with a lawyer for the same total amount of time.
The issue of legal representation is complicated by the fact that Israeli lawyers do not want to represent these detainees. The public defender’s office has said that it would not defend them, and Jabareen also declined, saying that Adalah’s focus is on Palestinian citizens of Israel. He explained in an interview that no lawyer wants to invite the public wrath that would likely come with working for the defendants; however, a court has appointed a private lawyer in at least one case, he said.
The question of representation will be just as critical in the trial phase. But there is a historical precedent, a comparison that seems intuitive in Israel these days: When Israel put Adolf Eichmann on trial in 1961, then too, no lawyer would represent him.
Eichmann was one of the main architects of the German genocide against European Jews during World War II. (Ben-Gvir and other Israelis, including news broadcasters, have been routinely referring to Hamas as a Nazi or Nazi-like group.) In Eichmann’s trial, the state was determined to demonstrate a legitimate legal process and thus approved foreign representation. Eichmann found a German attorney, and the Israeli state paid his fees.
The Israeli Public Defender’s Office—in addition to withholding representation—also stated that Hamas’s attack was so extreme that it should be adjudicated not under regular criminal proceedings, but through a special judicial framework “appropriate” to the circumstances.
Other public officials concurred. Simcha Rothman, the legislator from the far-right Religious Zionist Party who chairs Israel’s Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee, has publicly advocated for a “new infrastructure” to deal with “crimes against humanity, rape, and a barbaric massacre that criminal law cannot handle.” Yisrael Katz, an Israeli cabinet minister from the ruling Likud party, has called for a special military tribunal—which recalls the trials of alleged al Qaeda terrorists at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since Hamas’s attackers are as bad as Nazis, Katz argued, the military tribunal should apply laws designed in 1950 to try Nazi criminals in Israel and prevent genocide. Those laws do carry the death penalty.
A military tribunal would offer advantages for the prosecution. The evidence standards are lower, and defendants have fewer rights than those tried under civilian law; in the West Bank, these courts have close to a 100 percent conviction rate. This approach would also avoid exacerbating a long-running backlog problem in Israeli courts. Israel’s court system is particularly short-staffed at present, in part because the justice minister has refused to appoint new judges all year after his government failed to reengineer the judicial appointment committee to its liking.
Israel tries West Bank Palestinians in military courts, which are broadly criticized by international jurists and human rights advocates. In Israel itself, the military court system was phased out decades ago. But one case from 1972 that was heard before a military tribunal might have certain parallels to the case of the Hamas attackers. In May of that year, Kozo Okamoto, of the Japanese Red Army, and two other gunmen killed 26 people in a shooting spree at Ben Gurion Airport. The attack had been planned jointly by the Japanese Red Army and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Okamoto received a life sentence but was released in a prisoner exchange between the PFLP and Israel in 1985.
But several legal experts raised concerns about trying the Hamas suspects in a military tribunal. Yoav Sapir headed the public defender’s office for nearly a decade until 2021, and he is now on the faculty of law at Tel Aviv University; he is also active in the Israeli Law Professors’ Forum for Democracy, an ad hoc group that sprung up following the current government’s assault on the Israeli judiciary.
Sapir emphasized the importance of a legitimate process, particularly in the case of an ad hoc court. Guantanamo, he said, “was a bad experience in many ways. They didn’t have great legitimacy, and they weren’t effective. Lots of time passed, they got very little done … it was just a failure.” He favors trying the suspects in existing courts and adapting them if needed. If the district courts are overburdened, he said that additional judges could be provided from other courts.
Roy Schondorf, who served as Israel’s deputy attorney general for international law for nearly a decade, said it was crucial for the legal process to be seen by the world as proper and legitimate: “These legal proceedings are important first and foremost, of course, for victims and for doing justice. [But] there is also an international angle … the whole world will be watching.”
Although military tribunals can be legitimate, Schondorf said, they are often seen from the outside as less “institutionally independent,” while “for some in the international community, civil courts will have a greater perception of legitimacy.” Schondorf, who is now in private practice as the head of international dispute resolution with the Herzog law firm, noted that Eichmann was tried in the Jerusalem district court, albeit in a special hall with the presiding judge borrowed from the Supreme Court.
Once the Oct. 7 trials begin, the evidence itself will present further challenges. The area of the Hamas attacks was an active battleground for several days, and then a closed military zone—hindering the process of gathering forensic evidence. There is ample video evidence of what happened that day, from security cameras, the cell phone cameras of victims, and the body cameras of the Hamas militants themselves. Attorneys will have to pore over interrogation transcripts, confessions, and documents found on the militants—including attack plans.
But it’s not clear that individual perpetrators can be identified from the footage, and it will be hard to distinguish which people committed which gradations of crimes.
This is particularly problematic in the case of sexual crimes. It’s increasingly clear that women and children were sexually assaulted during the rampage. But in the chaotic aftermath of the attack, first responders failed in many cases to properly document the evidence. Since the victims of these alleged crimes are either dead or deeply traumatized, meeting the normal standards of evidence could prove difficult.
The death penalty question will inflame public debate further. In an emotional Knesset hearing last week, far-right politicians discussed a new bill (proposed earlier this year and revived now) advocating the death penalty for terrorists. Families of hostages protested the hearing bitterly, worried that the debate could endanger their family members being held by Hamas.
Analysts say the hearing was mainly posturing on the part of the politicians. For one thing, Israel has an interest in keeping prisoners alive for future hostage deals. Also, the death penalty already exists in Israeli law—both in the laws developed for Nazi crimes or treason, and in the military courts still operating in the West Bank—though it has not been used in decades. A special military tribunal would operate under British mandate-era colonial laws that include death penalty as well.
Eichmann was sentenced to death in late 1961 and executed a few months later. But since then, the state has avoided requesting the death penalty. Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres (then the transportation minister) favored it for Okamoto in 1972, calling the killing of 26 people a “genocide,” according to the state archive summary, but he was overruled. So far, the Hamas fighters are not expected to be charged with genocide under Israel’s 1950 laws. In other words, while the death penalty option exists, it has long fallen out of legal and social norms.
Sapir, the former head of the public defender’s office, pointed out that the Israeli security agencies have opposed the death penalty for years, for good reason. He cited studies that show the death penalty rarely deters criminals or terrorists and risks turning them into martyrs.
“It very much troubles me that they’re talking about this now, and often from people seeking political capital,” he said, referring to certain politicians. Sapir said the death penalty would likely be unconstitutional in Israel, since it could violate human rights legislation passed in the 1990s, long after Eichmann was executed.
But most of all, Sapir emphasized, “If, God forbid, political leaders [seek the death penalty], there are moral and legal reasons to avoid it, like most democratic countries, including the international tribunals dealing with crimes against humanity.”
There’s another issue that should concern Israelis: High profile trials can quickly devolve into spectacle, with performative speeches from prosecutors and political manifestos from defendants. Okamoto used his tribunal as a platform for his ideology about the proletariat’s revolution against the bourgeoisie. Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti became a symbol of resistance by raising his hands in victory at the opening of his trial in 2002. Jabareen, the human rights lawyer, said the trial of Hamas suspects could showcase arguments that Israelis don’t want to hear.
“What [Hamas] did is terrible—it’s a war crime—but they can explain about their lives, people living under closure of Gaza, the Israeli occupation … growing up under wars with Israel,” he said.
For these reasons, Jabareen believes that the Hamas attackers might not stand trial at all. Israel could just hold them for a long time—possibly under the Unlawful Combatants’ Law, which allows for lengthy, renewable detention—until they are either forgotten or bargained away.
But Sapir argued that Israel should not miss the opportunity to recommit itself to the rule of law, even in these extreme circumstances.
“Israel has a legitimate interest in putting these people on trial … we’re a state under rule of law and must stay that way,” Sapir said. “Even if there’s no empathy for people who committed these atrocities, we have to maintain the rules in order to protect ourselves, to protect our character as a state under the rule of law.”
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Why do people think the referrals change anything? Other than irresponsible media coverage ofc. The justice dept is ALREADY ON THE CASE. These referrals don’t make it any more, or any less, likely that he’ll be charged, they’re just the required work product of the committee.
Plenty of people who aren't online all the time and who don't pay attention to politics every moment of the day have probably tuned out the Jan 6 committee a while ago. Hearing that it has now made actual criminal referrals does re-engage those people and make them aware that the case has progressed to that end. Their feelings about that probably more or less align with their existing partisan sentiments, but still.
That might not change the actual behind-the-scenes logistics, but it is important in terms of public perception and outright labeling Trump a federal criminal for his role in Jan 6 (which again, is different from the treason involved at Mar-a-Lago). It also gives the DOJ an explicit template of the exact set of charges that Trump is now congressionally recommended to be prosecuted on, and raises questions if those recommendations aren't followed. Jack Smith, the recently appointed special counsel, has been working the Mar-a-Lago case. This is a different incoming legal framework and DOES instruct the DOJ basically what to do with it. So while they were working on Jan 6 prosecutions of the Proud Boys and other rank-and-file offenders, this gives them explicit go-ahead, at least in terms of public cover and checks and balances, to expand that to Trump.
Aside from that, there are obviously many people, on both the right and left, cosmically committed to misunderstanding and misrepresenting this whole process at every turn, and who have been founts of bad-faith information all along. They, obviously, should not be listened to. But even aside from them, this is a monumental, if symbolic, step, and shouldn't necessarily be discounted just because politically plugged in and generally liberal people "knew it was probably coming all along." As I note often, we are not the only ones in this milieu, and just because the referrals are the "required work product of the committee" doesn't mean they aren't also very important.
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personal spoiler window is now over. send me questions about VesalBlood, especially ALTERNE
I'll also include a few answers that assume you've caught up to chapter 5 below the break. no direct plot spoilers, but it's all stuff copied from my personal notes that, to some extent, informs the events of the story
general cultural information
cigarettes aren't smoked outside of the Kreuzhafen Union unless they're exports, and they're much more rarely smoked outside of the military. they're illegal in the Solis and technically illegal in Kishar, but the latter plays loose with their own laws. they don't actually contain tobacco, but a sort of pseudo-nicotine slurry that flakes like asbestos
"contractor" refers to any corporate conglomerate that operates a colony/city/settlement/station in technically unclaimed territory. on planets like Irra, where claiming territory would be diplomatically unwise, contractors affiliate directly with a government for protection. if these affiliations expire, they become "grey contractors" and are no longer legally recognised
a grey contractor settlement can still be a caravanserai, depending on how things shake out. the Solis, off-paper, maintains plenty of connections with grey contractors that are technically unaffiliated
Kreuzhafen cities often have paper lanterns in them. they're cheap and often electric, but they're associated with several of the major faiths practiced in their territory, so governmental bodies often distribute them as a sign of good will
when written as a proper noun, Justice doesn't refer to one deity. Justice is the english equivalent (none of these characters are speaking English, mind you) of the term used by several folk religions to refer to the mansion in which beneficial deities are included. Meilin says "by grace of Justice" or anything similar, it's basically "thank heaven"
Justice isn't a concrete thing. while some folk faiths hold a more specific devotion to the deities they consider to be their patrons, it's not uncommon to find a more transactory and secular relation with the divine. which ones are "canon"? it depends on who's answering prayers. do they actually exist? it depends on who you ask
day and night are always measured according to the time on Kishar. every culture has a different explanation for why this is, but the end result is that nearly every planet with orbital solar reflectors is tuned to create a rhythm similar to Kishar days. because Irra can't have them (or anything in permanent orbit), it periodically drifts into having "dark days" and "bright nights"
deserting, whether it be from your family, your company, your caste, or the military, is an absolute taboo. in the best of cases, expect social exile, but in cases where deserting is actually criminal, expect death
"rebellion against the unjust" is culturally approved, but never actually occurs within Kreuzhafen. during trade union disputes and civil uprisings, the exact nature of unrest is kept under wraps. in events where it cannot be suppressed, the unrest is violently settled and then co-opted as "having come to a peaceful solution" (see: the adoption of blackblade armaments)
family and names
when influential families in the Kreuzhafen Union marry, unless it is explicitly agreed to be an absorption rather than a merger, their names are amended into a string. the most influential of the families is listed first, with all other names often abbreviated out when not required
in cases where two families share a name, it is an absorption by default. there are three or so notable exceptions, but this is more of a symbolic gesture, as the smaller family is still considered part of the larger. in such exceptions, the names are followed by a number for brevity
in cases where two families do not merge or absorb from a marriage (common occurrence when scions who aren't family heads marry), the children take the names of each family in order of birth, in descending order of influence. in cases where only one child is born, only the most influential family can lay claim to them
family names hold power in the Union, albeit to a lesser extent than in places with more direct nobility. bastard children of influential families are considered orphans, which also means they find themselves born without a social caste. unless they are adopted, they will never receive a family name and will default to the labour caste
almost none of the aforementioned rules apply to the average person and their family. the average person thinks the overly long names of upper class scions are strange, uptight, and obnoxious
linguistic flavour
english is not spoken. german is not spoken. no modern languages are spoken. it's kind of a high gothic situation, where you are expected to understand that the written language is, at the best of times, something that sounds kind of similar to an unwritten conlang
curiously, everyone does still say "fuck" as written. that one had staying power.
the linguistic differences between factions often cause problems in communication, but because both the Divine Solis and the Kishar speak in a set of "preserved" languages with authorities in charge of ensuring they don't drift, it's never impossible to find some sort of lingua franca
the Kreuzhafen territories speak untold many languages with five major languages being most prominent. dialects cause some issues, but the existence of the weavenet and general education does a lot to ensure that most citizens are at least bilingual
in communications between the Union and the Divine Solis, it's often striking to the former how much the latter sounds like "a character in a historical drama"
sexuality, gender, and romantic norms
depending on where you live, the social norms around homosexuality and gender vary significantly
all genders, sexualities, and most ages (that can do their job) are welcome in the military. if it doesn't interfere with your work, they'll happily enlist you. individual biases do, of course, apply. it's a bit of a neoliberal authoritarian nightmare
while diversity is generally accepted (conditionally) in Kreuzhafen, there's an undeniable tone of unseriousness among the upper classes around relationships that don't further their families. it's fine to take a lover of the same sex, so long as you're still planning on having children or marrying someone strategically advantageous
for scions who can't take motions to merge or absorb families, gay marriages are usually fine, provided you aren't too public about it. scions in general are seen as kind of embarrassing if they aren't placed in an important position (ie becoming a vessel to a family's pygmalion or managing a branch of a company), so this is also true of any marriage at all
monogamy isn't strictly enforced, besides for family reasons or religious ones. some faiths exalt polygamy, while others warn against it. to simplify a long ramble about that, the answer is "sometimes it's fine"
pilotkillers
a "pilotkiller" is a colloquial term used in the Union military to refer to an undetectable mechanical implant placed against the hearts of pilots during their promotion physicals. when tripped, they damage the pilot's heart beyond repair, resulting in their immediate death — regardless of whether their circulatory system is currently attached to a jackal or pygmalion
not all recruits actually receive them. all recruits undergo a sedated physical, along with a basic course of surgery, but the looming threat of pilotkillers is more effective than expending the resources to produce one for every fielded pilot. because of this, desertion rates are remarkably low
the Divine Solis has their own version of a pilotkiller, but despite being grouped into the same category, it operates entirely differently. as a bio-implant, its active effects resemble a nerve agent. there are no Solis pilots or vessels without this implant
shuttles and stations
you cannot travel from one territory to another. even before 102EC, the lines between factions are drawn too solidly. the closest solution is to arrange a trip to Irra, then travel from one contractor city to another. this is only really viable for citizens of Irra, as checkpoints would turn away IDs from opposing factions
shuttle stations work like train stations with military security that launch you into space on giant shuttleramps. don't think too much about it.
most cargo does not leave Irra. cargo should not travel through Irra. the reason stated on paper is that Irra predators could escape the planet, which would pose an enormous invasive species risk. the loophole to this, in cases where someone would have to stop on Irra before travelling to their final destination, is arranging an orbital shipper to hold their cargo before transferring it off to a second shipper en route to their final destination
security checkpoints for entering Irra and other disputed territories are notably light. leaving the territories, especially ones on Irra, involves a lengthy screening. every trader has a tragic story of someone they knew who tried to leave Irra, got caught up in a multi-month screening, and still had to forfeit the majority of their legal cargo
pre-102EC, these security screenings could be largely circumvented by simply not attempting to move any cargo from the planetside. a pilot (or vessel) badge for the destination territory would expedite things significantly
the power of names and other occultics
multiple systems of magic, sorcery, mysticism, and other such things are believed and practised in different locales
in many belief systems, secular and otherwise, the power of names is held to be that of binding. to grant something your name is to open your first point of weakness, becoming a knowable and vulnerable thing
although it's not clear if this is the reason, one popular theory suggests that the use of terms like "ferrous humor" in fleshcrafting and necrosurgery might stem from an early belief in the field that something's nature could be wholly altered through its name
the term "rose" in fleshcraft refers to any fractal pattern of ideas, identity, or belief. a concept that cascades in and out of itself is a rose. referring to something as a rose is a way of acknowledging that its complexities extend beyond what you could measure, but that you still require it for the purpose it could serve
fleshcraft and necrosurgery are pseudosciences that work. this is a weird distinction. they're not exactly magic, as they are certainly knowable, but there seems to be no distinct origin point of their study, and thus any lost knowledge is assumed lost forever. their truths seem to evade all but those who do not seek them
nobody actually knows how pygmalions, necromatrices, and similar fleshthings work. anyone who claims to understand them has never worked with them
to generalise very broadly, the Union believes in the divine alchemy of flesh, the Solis believe in the divine blessing of flesh, and Kishar believes in the divine coexistence of flesh
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Curious as to what you think of the resurgence of click bait articles claiming Percy has been taken out of Wednesday season 2? Went to do a quick check on him on Google and it was the top results again after a blissful period of silence.
Also I love your mood boards <3
I think everything should always be reviewed with a critical eye, within context, and as a whole.
I think it’s worth noting that there was a “blissful period of silence.” Slow periods of gossip like to be filled with more gossip. I feel like these days “X male actor caught in accusation scandal” is low hanging fruit.
It’s very easy to get the gullible riled up and angry, as we’ve witnessed with PHW antis.
We also see that in short succession, we also saw Trump lose a second defamation case against E. Jean Carrol AND Danny Masterson just got 30 years for his rape trial.
I don’t specifically think it was a concerted effort by this particular gossip rag to write about all them together, but I think they can see what will get a lot of clicks given the current social climate.
I will say that the Daily Mail article had the most decisive language to date in terms of outright saying he was kicked off. But they still did CYA later on by specifying that a) Netflix hasn’t confirmed this and b) it was a “close family friend” who “told” them. The latter also gave me pause because it’s different that the normal go to “insider.”
Both the decisive language and different “source” did more to make the story seem credible, but it’s still all sleight of hand mind tricks. In context, additionally, the Daily Mail is also a bigger gossip rag than the rando, smaller gossip sites.
IMO, Daily Mail can be more aggressive in their language because they’re bigger and probably have a more robust legal department. They can flirt closer with libel than other sources simply because they have money. Money is intimidating and a shield, they can say things with more confidence even if they know it’s all bullshit.
I wouldn’t be surprised, nor would I blame anyone, if people were more worried about this article than the others.
I would not worry at this point, because despite the more aggressive language, it still has the pitfalls of the nobody sites such as Poptingz or whatever.
It’s a gossip site, it’s bread and butter are clicks and getting people talking. I think there’s an expectation that it’s not a reliable source, legally most of them are categorized as “Entertainment” vs News. There’s no money in being ethical, factual, or writing the truth.
Why now? The accusations are almost a year old and PHW hasn’t been arrested nor is there a hint of a police report. There is documented evidence of the accusers retracting and clarifying that PHW hasn’t done anything criminal to them personally, only that they heard or speculate that he did something criminal to others. It would be strange IMO to drop him now, rather than earlier when the fervor was at an all-time high AND before the accusers incriminated themselves and tossed away any shred of credibility they might have had.
I think Netflix has enough problems right now, they don’t need to get a reputation of not standing by their talent when there is such poor, unsubstantiated evidence. It would also set a precedent that all a competing actor needs to do is create a sock account and accuse someone of malfeasance.
These idiots on twitter and tumblr were believing accounts with no name or real PFP, screenshots that could easily be faked and also showed no criminal intent, and the accusers bragged about “canceling” someone across MULTIPLE social media sites.
I would be hard pressed to believe that any reasonable company would see loud idiots on twitter and Insta as a bellwether for real life sentiment.
The idiots stick to their safe space of social media rather than real life for a reason. These people don’t actually care about women, victims, or justice. They simply see an easy and trendy way to take the moral high ground to justify being their worst selves.
They basically want a pat on the back for being gullible, telling someone to kill themselves, and falling face first into fascism (which is what arresting someone with no evidence is).
They can only do this on social media. I would bet money that no one in their real life is aware of their beliefs or what they’ve said to people online.
Overall, I think the only time we should be really worried is if any NEW accusations AND actual, substantiated evidence are brought forth, AND an actual police report was made, followed up by charges from the Crown.
Otherwise, it’s just recycling the same bullshit and stirring the pot.
Glad you like the moodboards! Thanks for liking and reblogging.
I do respond to asks, so feel free to put in a request. I just can't guarantee a time frame. lol
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major spoilers for t&b s2 cour 2, don’t open if you haven’t watched it all the way through, but
cour 2 handles yuri’s trauma in an extremely off-putting (and frankly? disrespectful) way
what the actual fuck was that ending for yuri. and no, i don’t mean this on a “the writers took the story in a direction that i don’t like so i’m mad” kind of way, but in a “they took the cheap way out. they hurt this character unnecessarily, so many times, and for what? for a nonsensical character assassination that doesn’t resolve anything” kind of way.
Let me explain, using Jinx from Arcane as an example to really clarify why I’m so upset at this writing choice. Both Yuri and Jinx are heavily traumatized characters, and neither seem to “get a break” from the writers in terms of the scenarios they’re put through. The difference, as I see it, is that Jinx’s trauma is an inevitable byproduct of the system she grew up in---aka it’s not difficult to imagine that there are many Zaunite kids suffering through similar trauma by virtue of the horrible living conditions they are in + Piltover’s oppressive system. And Arcane, at its core, is a tragedy, meant to lament the INESCAPABLE reality of life in Zaun, of how such trauma is more the norm than the exception, with Jinx being the most extreme example of this. So it’s narratively sound for Jinx to lose everything in the end, for her to engage in that last act of destruction against Piltover and her own sense of self, because she has known no other life besides this. Do I want Jinx to be happy? Absolutely. But I can understand the direction that the writers are going in, and even though I personally wouldn’t have written Jinx into a downwards spiral, it makes sense within the themes of the story.
T&B, on the other hand, has had “healing through togetherness” as a central theme from day 1. The message that gets hammered into the audience is to learn how to open up to others, how to trust, how to coexist, how to heal even when systemic problems seem insurmountable, how to help others and have hope---that was Barnaby’s whole fucking arc in s1. We’ve seen people like Barnaby and Ryan go through trauma but make it through by relying on others, because those support systems EXIST in that universe. Even the capitalism in Sternbild seems super. . .”nice?” Like, the corporations that control the schedules and daily activities of our protagonists generally have pretty sensible and accommodating bosses (e.g. Lloyd). There are “bad eggs” like Maverick, and as s 2 has shown us, continued discrimination against NEXT, but they’re either portrayed as individual bad faith actors or broader problems that can be resolved using a plot device like Little Aurora.
So why the fuck would the writers deny Yuri the possibility of an ending where he can take accountability within a system that has allowed other criminals to tdo the same without dying (e.g. Virgil and co in The Rising, Origami’s friend from s1)? Why the fuck would the writers find it any more difficult to write a narrative where Yuri learns to heal and trust others again when they’ve done that with other characters before?
And some ppl may respond with, “Oh but Yuri has a different personality---he responded to his trauma differently than Barnaby and so he has difficulties trusting others and doing the right thing besides cosplaying as Lunatic.” And they would be 100% wrong, because we’ve SEEN Yuri take meaningful steps to enact his sense of virtue and justice without being Lunatic. AKA AS A JUDGE. Although he’s the Director in s2, we’ve seen him, both in s1 and the manga, hand out fair sentences for those who come before the courts. We’ve seen him be swayed by Kotetsu’s generosity and goodwill towards Sternbild’s citizens, and help him get out of legal trouble by reducing his fines/imposing a lighter sentence because he empathizes with the act of saving people’s lives. So he’s perfectly capable of enacting his values in a non-harmful way. And cour 2 has also shown us the kindness he is capable of, how he took meaningful steps to not be a vigilante, to try and ignore his father’s presence, to help out the heroes to the best of his ability, to lovingly care for his mother, to wipe away the tears of someone who blamed herself for his mother’s death, even though she was a victim herself---what was all that for, then, if his fate was to die as an unknown, unremembered, not even given a second thought after our two main characters watch him die?
I was already extremely put off by Kotetsu’s and Barnaby’s responses to Yuri opening up about his abusive father. Kotetsu’s response seemed more like “Oh sorry about the horrible things that your father did to you and your mother, but I’m different,” rather than a response of genuine empathy (Kotetsu himself regretted saying what he said immediately afterwards, so I don’t think I’m reading what’s not there for this). And Barnaby didn’t even fucking say anything meaningful, even though he should be the one who has a better understanding of what trauma can do to a person by virtue of his own experiences.
Watching Yuri blame himself, grapple with the fragment of an abusive father who he’s projected his own pain onto (and who never will apologize, because he died attempting to harm his own son), weep on the bloodstained spot where his mother was fucking shot in the head---the writers re-traumatized Yuri like this, and for what? So that people can still walk around thinking Mr. Legend was an infallible man? So that Yuri’s traumatic past is shared with two people who responded like assholes even though they’ve been characterized up until this point as perceptive and emotionally intelligent when the time calls for it? So that Yuri’s act of revenge against the people who killed his mother is still seen as one of Lunatic’s acts, rather than the (not necessarily justified, but completely understandable) rage of a human being who has had everything taken away from him?
Yuri was a victim of his father and never had the opportunity to get help---it would have shown Kotetsu and Barnaby’s strength of character if they had managed to help redeem Yuri somehow. But no, we had to have Yuri “feel useful” after years of emotional, physical, and psychological torment by being a human shield and committing suicide. It felt so exploitative of his character development in cour 2 and threw away everything that the series had been building up in terms of its theming. And everyone just walks away for dinner, laughing? No self-reflection, no question on the kind of life Yuri must have lived, the secrets he must have kept in that double-role as judge and Lunatic? It’s all just sunshine and rainbows because “the baddies are gone!” And it makes me feel sick.
That’s why I’m so upset---sure, I would have been upset if Yuri had died in any narrative sense, but this felt so egregious and disrespectful to everything he represented, to all the tenderness and humanity he displayed in cour 2. I know maybe I’m overreacting but honestly, this felt like a slap in the face, and i don’t think I’ll ever really continue with T&B if they make a 3rd season, if this is how it treats its characters.
#tiger and bunny season 2#tiger and bunny season 2 spoilers#yuri petrov#im so fucking done#did they forget how to write their own show or something#i just#oh my fucking god#tiger and bunny#i feel like this went from a solid 7-8 show to a zero real fucking quick#everyone laughing and walking off into the sunset felt so forced with all this context in mind#kotetsu t kaburagi#barnaby brooks jr#i need a break from this im gonna go cry now
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Different Types of Indifferent Violence
Wondering what violence is may seem superfluous, especially when viewers can see all definitions in practice they’d like by choosing any random streaming service episode. Everyone may be aware the term involves action that leads to something broken ranging from bones to furniture. But noting just who and what is involved may offer a bit of context to everyone sick of bloodshed. That’s almost everyone.
As always, liberalism is precisely inverted. Flipping over life is not just limited to thinking government stimulates the economy: there’s a body count, as well. The view that combat must be de-escalated disregards demons who keep taking it up.
The only way woke proselytizers could get more objectionable is by getting what they want. Very tolerant adherents desire to give much of Israel to its lunatic attackers. Meanwhile, they’re horrified by replying to said attacks on life itself. If there’s a purer example of screwed-up thinking, they haven’t found it yet despite dedicated efforts.
Deranged leftists are furious at the measured response to getting in the way of Hamas rockets. The terror squad didn’t kill more people only because they don’t possess the technology to fire missiles. Anti-Semites think Israel must have denied it to them.
Targeting fiends who hide in hospitals might get messy. It’s not that tricky to determine who’s responsible for those capable of reasoning and decency, which leaves out the left. A nation attacked for the crime of minding its own business does everything they can to minimize casualties from those who try to maximize them. Oh, and the latter slaughter innocents while the Middle East’s sole republic takes aim at perpetrators. It can’t get clearer.
The most enlightened reiterate war is bad as they do all they can to keep it existing. Armed battling is the poverty of international affairs. Everyone feels bad about collateral damage while the levelheaded know it can never be eliminated. Decreeing that it’s entirely possible to avoid innocent casualties is as oblivious as believing stores will stay open after shoplifting is legalized.
Everything’s backward in the minds of those who led us there. Classifying words as action epitomizes that charming totally incorrect manner of theirs. Israel’s American enemies are particularly offended by noting obvious truths, as they run counter to their preciously-guarded narrative. If Democrats truly oppose violence, they should keep cities from descending into live recreations of Batman movies before the titular character arrives.
Getting upset over nothing can get worse in what’s almost a feat. Social justice warriors don’t wage war against actual injustice. Sensible modern thinkers act like misgendering is an assault as they shrug away the Hamas branch of Planned Parenthood committing very late-term procedures. Changing from a man into a woman is as real Gaza Strip residents who support peaceful coexistence.
Purveyors of laxity should ponder what would happen in Gaza to a man who decides he’s not one. In America, we just stop drinking your appalling beer. Language is violence while violence isn’t in these advanced times. You may have noticed the outlook is exactly screwed up. Unhinged zealotry may not be a sign of acceptance.
Principles can be applied at any level, unfortunately. Academic dolts who perceive Hamas as freedom fighters also by pure coincidence treat criminality as the inevitable reaction to poverty. Never mind that collectivism’s enthusiasts cause the very brokenness they condemn. Struggling Americans who can’t afford crazy extravagances like items have compassionate confiscators to thank.
An unwillingness to differentiate between types of violence serves as a lame attempt to conceal moral cravenness. Practitioners are cagey about if they really think they’re above it all or root for the villain. A robber who shoots a victim and the cop who shoots back are engaging in precisely different types of violence that backers of defunding cops refuse to discern. In fact, the person enforcing laws is treated as a racist oppressor by those who want the state to have absolute authority.
Violence is indifferent. Indifferently denouncing violence shows a lack of sophistication from alleged experts. Active force is much like guns, which can be used to either inflict evil or interdict against it. Take, say, a parliamentary republic dropping brutality upon fiends who did so to them first. Israel’s disparagers hate devices as much as they do the notion that there’s one Jewish nation on Earth.
We live in Tom Wolfe’s world. it turns out his fiction was predictive. His nonfictional subjects exhibit such a perfectly twisted take on logic that they couldn’t mock themselves even if they were capable of introspection.
Self-righteousness aimed at the country defending from marauders makes the sides clear for anyone confused. Malicious clatter from campuses and maniacal rallies only sounds like a parody. Alleged backers of underdogs rabidly cheer against Israel. They pre-empt those who mock them.
Ghastly allies of terror drives couldn’t define themselves better. They’re not even trying. You’ve undoubtedly grown tired of attempting to determine whether the inability to distinguish between types of aggression constitutes blatant ignorance or ghastly devotion to diabolical causes. Inadvertently revealing they side with villains is the closest they’ll get to honesty.
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can i just say that i'm not really a big fan of what they're doing with frank right now? i know that this is essentially trying to revamp the punisher bc of alt-right scum, but this isn't a long-term solution and maybe a better way to handle this is to stop writing copaganda and american militarism and imperialism as good things in frank's comics. like, frank was meant to be a antithesis to superheroes and a call-out to the american government during the vietnam war, as well as cops. he's not a superhero; he's a serial killer who gets grouped with the vigilantes, which nobody acknowledges in comics. i like frank, but i wish they would stop letting cis white guys write him bc it's always this macho-male libertarian fantasy instead of an actual look of how the criminal justice system has failed and the entirety of consequences that frank's actions have, with police brutality and war on drugs being a thing.
also fuck you, garth ennis.
i'm in no way a frank reader and most of the knowledge i have about him is from @donesparce & @godvmurdock so i have half-no idea what most of this is referring to past the bits that sometimes intersect with daredevil comics but i've heard truly terrible thing about this run which i am inclined to believe because it intersects very tightly with the current daredevil run which is also hot shit.
i've known the very essence of 'the punisher' has been wrapped up in alt-right stuff particularly only because of last year's up in that flag with the blue stripe cause they sometimes also featured the punisher symbol and it's like, good hearing that the writers have been actively trying to move away from that but marvel does genuinely have a problem with copganda. even in daredevil where half the point of the story and matt as a character is to point out the failings in the american legal system, a lot of the time (not very recent but very prevalent pre-bendis) they're writing matt in the daredevil suit to be perfectly compliant with the police even as a vigilante. it's unfortunately and genuinely no surprise to me that it's even worse for punisher runs because holy fuck should frank be a more head-on jab at the system as an actual murderer.
honestly i think it's funny that an anon in my inbox has a better view on punisher comics than actual fucking writers LMAO
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Allies of former President Donald J. Trump and officials who served in his administration are planning ways to restrict abortion rights if he returns to power that would go far beyond proposals for a national ban or the laws enacted in conservative states across the country.
Behind the scenes, specific anti-abortion plans being proposed by Mr. Trump’s allies are sweeping and legally sophisticated. Some of their proposals would rely on enforcing the Comstock Act, a long-dormant law from 1873, to criminalize the shipping of any materials used in an abortion — including abortion pills, which account for the majority of abortions in America.
“We don’t need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books,” said Jonathan F. Mitchell, the legal force behind a 2021 Texas law that found a way to effectively ban abortion in the state before Roe v. Wade was overturned. “There’s a smorgasbord of options.”
Mr. Mitchell, who represented Mr. Trump in arguments before the Supreme Court over whether the former president could appear on the ballot in Colorado, indicated that anti-abortion strategists had purposefully been quiet about their more advanced plans, given the political liability the issue has become for Republicans.
“I hope he doesn’t know about the existence of Comstock, because I just don’t want him to shoot off his mouth,” Mr. Mitchell said of Mr. Trump. “I think the pro-life groups should keep their mouths shut as much as possible until the election.”
The New York Times reported on Friday that Mr. Trump had told advisers and allies that he liked the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban but that he wanted to wait until the Republican primary contest was over to publicly discuss his views.
But among the people thinking most seriously about actual abortion policy should he win the election, very different plans are underway.
Mr. Trump’s idea is not yet a concrete proposal, and the anti-abortion lawyers and strategists within his own orbit already have plans in the works that toughen abortion policies using other avenues. They are not waiting for Mr. Trump to pursue turning his discussions about what he ultimately will say about abortion after the G.O.P. primary into reality, especially because they know a 16-week ban is all but certain to never pass Congress and become law. Instead, they are working much faster, and much more sharply, to exceed their anti-abortion successes in the Trump presidency.
In their view, their plans seem more achievable and more far-reaching than a ban like Mr. Trump floated, which might have a political impact but not as much of a material one. A 16-week ban would affect only a small fraction of abortions, given that nearly 94 percent happen in the first trimester, before 13 weeks of pregnancy.
It is easier to think of abortion restrictions in terms of a single ban, but the reality is more complex: Abortion policy is filled with intricate regulatory details and plays out in the far reaches of the federal bureaucracy, with a host of officials well beyond the president. Mr. Trump is personally disengaged from these efforts and considers any discussions of more hard-line policy to be politically inconvenient. Anti-abortion strategists are nevertheless putting themselves in position to steer actual abortion policy as they did in his first term.
In policy documents, private conversations and interviews, the plans described by former Trump administration officials, allies and supporters propose circumventing Congress and leveraging the regulatory powers of federal institutions, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Justice and the National Institutes of Health.
The effect would be to create a second Trump administration that would attack abortion rights and abortion access from a variety of angles and could be stopped only by courts that the first Trump administration had already stacked with conservative judges.
“He had the most pro-life administration in history and adopted the most pro-life policies of any administration in history,” said Roger Severino, a leader of anti-abortion efforts in Health and Human Services during the Trump administration. “That track record is the best evidence, I think, you could have of what a second term might look like if Trump wins.”
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Bsd rant (manga spoilers!)
I love how characters from BSD are written. They all have their flaws unique to them, but what’s very interesting that captivates me is how the characters view the world.
First, our beloved *clap clap* protagonist. We do not talk about the frankly horrible headmaster who did all that shit “for his own good”. I wouldn’t want to touch that with a bargepole. From what most of us can gather, Atsushi pursues justice because of the headmaster’s “one with no redeeming values as yrself have no right to live” teaching which has been drilled into him for a long time. That’s the main motivation for him, which is why the Hunting Dogs arc gave him a pretty big blow because they’re criminals now. WTF? *Tiger boy’s internal confusion*
But justice is also a very thin line you set by yourself. Look at Tachihara after he realizes his justice clearly fucked him over because he chose being a HD when attacking the Black Lizard. This is exactly why I’m excited for what Teruko will reveal to Atsushi in the latest chapter – will it challenge his view on justice? What will he choose to do?
Next will be Lucy, because I’m sorta shit at analyzing and they’re more obvious. Lucy is angry at the world and those around her in a way that’s “why is the world unfair? Why just me and no one else?” Reminds me of Q a lot. She’s mad and frustrated at the world for the terrible experiences in her life – it’s like walking out on the streets and noticing that nobody carries the emotional baggage she has, and the pot of bitterness boil over. Her life hadn’t gotten much better despite being away from her personal hell and Lucy is then in the Guild, a criminal organization that seems to want her ability more than they want her. It makes sense for her to feel a sense of unfairness in her situation.
Pushkin is similar to Lucy in thinking the world is unfair. However, he uses his weak ability as an excuse to commit crimes, seeing it as revenge to people who are stronger and more powerful in terms of ability, social standing, or influence. Pushkin believes that the world will overlook his crimes as reimbursement for his weakness. It’s a very twisted way of thinking, and the manga/anime managed to show a lot about his personality and motivations despite being a minor antagonist.
Tanizaki is incredibly easy to read. He’s literally said out loud that Naomi is a god-like existence to him as far as he’s concerned. His entire life revolves around his darling little sister – so much that Tanizaki wouldn’t mind if the world were to burn as long as his sister is happy and well. I hate their canon interaction (It makes no sense) but Junichirou is my favourite character because of his obsession and passion which is influenced by his real-life counterpart. I find it incredibly fascinating that people will go to great lengths for what they believe – weird, I know.
This little theory is something I thought about recently, because I love stories that overlap with reality – reason number 1 Harry Potter and Percy Jackson fascinated me that much.
What if abilities used to exist, but thanks to the rat writing in the book, abilities were erased, the past present and future got rewritten because the book needs a plot? So practically everything about abilities were rewritten and the characters went on their respective ways if abilities never existed – like if Chuuya didn’t have his ability, he’d have been a regular boy in a regular home since main reason he was roped into mafia life was because of the experiments and the Sheep. Dazai would still be neck-deep in crime. Fukuzawa might still be an assassin and Mori could be an actual legal doctor. Yosano be growing up normally doing whatever career she wants (since she was originally candy shop girl). Atsushi might have a better life in the orphanage and live a decent life… The possibilities are endless.
__The end :D
#tanizaki junichirou#bsd headcanons#bungou stray dogs#lucy maud montgomery#alexander pushkin#chuuya nakahara#atsushi nakajima#the book#anime#fan theory#manga spoliers
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Everyone, please welcome Charlene Allen to Rich in Color! We're excited to have her here to talk about her novel, PLAY THE GAME, which came out earlier this year:
Play the Game by Charlene Allen
Katherine Tegan Books
In the game of life, sometimes other people hold all the controls. Or so it seems to VZ. Four months have passed since his best friend Ed was killed by a white man in a Brooklyn parking lot.
When Singer, the man who killed Ed, is found dead in the same spot where Ed was murdered, all signs point to Jack, VZ’s other best friend, as the prime suspect.
VZ’s determined to complete the video game Ed never finished and figure out who actually killed Singer. With help from Diamond, the girl he’s crushing on at work, VZ falls into Ed’s quirky gameiverse. As the police close in on Jack, the game starts to uncover details that could lead to the truth about the murder.
Can VZ honor Ed and help Jack before it’s too late?
And now, on to the interview:
Thank you for joining us, Charlene! Please take a moment to introduce yourself.
Hey! I’m Charlene Allen. In addition to being a writer, I’m a mom to an awesome son and a quirky dog, I’m a life-partner, and I’m an activist working to end mass incarceration. Play the Game is my debut novel.
In PLAY THE GAME, VZ and his friendships with Ed and Jack are at the heart of what drives the plot. Can you tell us a little more about the three of them?
VZ, Ed and Jack are the kind of friends that grow up together because their parents are close, so they are always at each other’s houses. They’re more like cousins than friends. They know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, most embarrassing haircuts. Everything! And they’re all very different from each other. Jack’s all about the swagger, VZ ‘s into keeping it mellow, and Ed’s a proud gamer geek.
What other characters play important roles in PLAY THE GAME? What can you tell us about them?
The two other main characters in Play the Game are Chela and Diamond. Chela is VZ’s best school buddy, so a friend that exists entirely outside the triangle he, Ed and Jack form. Chela helps VZ with the mystery he has to solve to keep Jack out of trouble. But she doesn’t coddle him. When he gets in his feelings about Ed and Jack, she calls him on it and helps him see things more objectively. Diamond is VZ’s love interest. She’s taken, in a relationship with a guy they both work with, but there’s real romantic tension between her and VZ and neither one of them is able to ignore it.
How have your experiences as a lawyer and advocate influenced your writing for PLAY THE GAME?
My experience as a lawyer helped me see up close and personally how ineffective and inequitable our criminal legal system can be. That led me to do work to try to transform the system and find alternative approaches to conflict and harm; approaches that exist outside the system. All of that features in Play the Game, as VZ begins to understand how the system works, and takes on the question of what he and his friends can do to find a better way.
Restorative justice is an important part of PLAY THE GAME. What are some common misconceptions people have about restorative justice?
Great question and one that’s tough to answer quickly. I think “RJ” is becoming a buzz term and with that comes a lot of misconceptions. Often, people think of a restorative approach as anything that involves talking or is non-punitive. So, a school might have a restorative approach that involves all the parties in a situation having a conversation, but then if everything isn’t quickly resolved they resort to suspension or other forms of punishment. In that example, “RJ” is being used as a step inside of a larger existing system which, to me, defeats the purpose. To adopt a restorative approach is to involve community and engage with methods of accountability that don’t exist in most systems. It’s a culture shift, so it requires time and dedication to implement.
What's something you're particularly proud of in PLAY THE GAME?
I love that I was able to weave a lot of different elements together; the actual game that readers get to play in the book, the friendship story and mystery, the love story, and the RJ. It was my goal to write a book in which tough things happen, but the book is still a fun read because it captures the spirit of young people who lean into their friendships, abandon themselves to the throes of first love, and live their way into healing and self-discovery.
Now that PLAY THE GAME is in readers' hands, what is up next for you?
I’m finishing my next YA novel which should come out in the fall of ‘24. I’m excited because it’s completely different from Play the Game, but I think equally adventurous. It’s about a girl who’s digging up family secrets and figuring out where she belongs in the world.
And to close us out, what young adult books by BIPOC authors are you looking forward to reading this year?
I’ve just started The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes, which is a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to finishing. I’m also looking forward to Ain’t Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds and Jayson Griffin. And, though I’m not sure if it’s technically YA, I’m excited to read Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi.
Charlene Allen works with community organizations to heal trauma and fight injustice, especially the beast called mass incarceration. She received her MFA from The New School, her JD from Northeastern University, and her BA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She lives in Brooklyn with her fabulous family and their very silly dog. Play the Game is her debut novel. You can visit her at www.charleneallen.com.
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Voyage of Discovery: Hegel and his philosophical work [Part II]
“One cannot speak of an injustice of nature in the unequal distribution of possessions and resources, for nature is not free and is therefore neither just nor unjust.”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831) published „Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts. Naturrecht und
Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse“ in 1821.
In the preface he describes the idea of justice, the term of right and it's realization. The concepts of free will and freedom are interlinked to underline the theory, that the free will can only realize itself in a (reasonable) legal system.
Hegel defines “right” [Recht] as the existence of the free will in the world (PR §29). So a philosophy of right is necessarily a philosophy of freedom that seeks to comprehend freedom actualized in how we relate to each other and construct social and political institutions.
“Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.”
During the last few years I have repeatedly come across Hegel and his dialectics.
In the philosophy class we dealt with his dialectics in order to better comprehend Marx's understanding of history and historical materialism.
To quote Lenin: "It is impossible completely to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic."
However, their approaches differ in certain respects, especially in their differing versions of the relation between consciousness and life.
While Hegel formulates, that consciousness determines life, Marx, on the contrary, states "(...) life determines consciousness".
So this is not only a central question of cognitive ability from an ontological point of view, but to truly understand the hierarchical opposition or relation of consciousness to the human being, vice versa.
When I was devouring Schopenhauer three years ago,
I often thought of Hegel, who was giving his lectures at the same time, which were attended far more frequently.
When I was dealing with the biography of the poet Hölderlin,
I found out that Hegel, Schelling and Hölderlin shared a room in the Tübinger Stift. Imaging how these three high spirits inspired and strengthened each other.
During my studies I encountered Hegel again in the philosophy of law and in criminal law. The spark jumped with the statement, that the criminal must be be honoured as a reasonable man, because
„Denn in seiner [des Verbrechers] als eines Vernünftigen Handlung liegt, daß sie etwas Allgemeines, daß durch sie ein Gesetz aufgestellt ist, das er in ihr für sich anerkannt hat, unter
welches er also als unter sein Recht subsumiert werden darf."
In brief: The "reasonable" criminal is breaking a rule, but at the same time, he is forming a new, possible right.
„Daß die Strafe darin als sein eigenes Recht enthaltend angesehen wird, darin wird der Verbrecher als Vernünftiges geehrt. – Diese Ehre wird ihm nicht zuteil, wenn aus seiner Tat selbst
nicht der Begriff und der Maßstab seiner Strafe genommen wird; – ebensowenig auch, wenn er
nur als schädliches Tier betrachtet wird, das unschädlich zu machen sei, oder in den Zwecken
der Abschreckung und Besserung.“
Speaking of crime as an "evil" and punishment as a form of compensating "evil" falls too short and tempts to focus too much on the intention of the criminal and thus leads to "recharge" the punishment morally and psychologically, which has no fruitful function.
Again for better understanding:
It is not the criminal who can question the law, but only
Society that recognizes infringement as a new right. It therefore requires one clarification that the (new) law set by the criminal does not apply if it should not be recognised.
Penal Theories are deffining penalty purposes, aspects of justice (cf. ius talionis "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth") and are also considering the soundness of mind and how crimes can be prevented.
Hegel was a representative of Absolute Penal Theories like Kant, both advocated death penalty [!] and the central aspect "restoring justice", could not explain, why penalty is needed.
Also the Absolute Penal Theory is forbidding considerations of utility and meaning of the punishment (e.g. therapeutic offers),
explaining this view with incompatible with the "dignity and freedom of men".
Continues in the second part.
#philosophy#epistemology#ontology#dialectic thinking#dialectic method#Hegelian dialectic#georg wilhelm friedrich hegel#Hegel#antiquarian book#19th century literature#reading
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Hey wonderful Minnie!
Your ask re Twitter people being awful about Bucky reminded me that last week I was researching manslaughter in English law (for reasons of an "Endeavour" fic I'm writing ;-) ) and ended up following a rabbit hole to the defense (found in US law as well) of "automatism" which immediately made me think of him. Here is an extract from the Wikipedia page:-
"In the U.S., People v Huey Newton (1970) 8 CA3d 359 holds that unconsciousness, when not self-induced (say, as by voluntary intoxication), is a complete defence to a criminal act even though the defendant's acts seem very goal-oriented... [T]he reflexive activity or unconsciousness need not cause physical collapse: it can exist where the subject physically acts in fact, but is not at the time conscious of acting (cf some European continental jurisdictions classify conduct resulting from automatism under the rubric of unconsciousness). In R. v. Cogdon (1950), unreported but noted in Morris, Somnambulistic Homicide: Ghosts, Spiders and North Koreans (1951) 5 Res Judicatae 29, the defendant struck her daughter on the head with an axe while sleepwalking and dreaming about North Koreans. Her movements were not voluntary, so she was acquitted. This interpretation of automatism is consistent with Lord Denning's dicta in Bratty v Attorney-General for Northern Ireland (1963) AC 386, at 409:
No act is punishable if it is done involuntarily: and an involuntary act in this context – some people nowadays prefer to speak of it as 'automatism' – means an act which is done by the muscles without any control by the mind, such as a spasm, a reflex action or a convulsion; or an act done by a person who is not conscious of what he is doing, such as an act done whilst suffering from a concussion or whilst sleepwalking.""
In other words, Bucky isn't just not morally responsible for what Hydra made the Winter Soldier do, he legally has a complete defence and *did not do what the Winter Soldier was made to do*. Any outcome of a trial that doesn't end with his total exoneration is a massive miscarriage of justice, and my goodness it's frustrating that the MCU doesn't seem to know that, let alone a lot of the fans. :-( The films postulate the existence of that degree of mind control; they should darn well go to the proper logical conclusion.
And Gods, poor Bucky. Essentially he has the memories of committing crimes he did not commit. Which fucking *sucks* and is ridiculously unfair, and like you said he needs and deserves proper therapy that helps him grapple with those memories and accept his own innocence. There were some things I did love about tfatws, but they got this so drastically, tearingly wrong. :-(
Hello my darling!! ❤️ This is such an incredible ask, thank you SO much for this. I had never heard of 'automatism' in this sense I think, but this makes complete sense, and clearly applies to Bucky's situation. And what's more, his lack of 'control of the mind' was not just due to a naturally occurring defect of his body or an unfortunate accident; it was purposely inflicted on him. Purposely and violently and mercilessly. The fact that, as you said, the films postulate the existence of that degree of mind control and yet they still insist on victim blaming Bucky at every possible turn is just mindboggling and incredibly frustrating.
And don’t even get me started about what you said about Bucky consciously having to live with the memories of the crimes he didn’t consciously commit. That just takes the horrors he’s had to live through and still has to try and come to terms with on a daily basis to a new and uniquely painful level. The way they wrote and developed his story is utterly tragic, and now the MCU refuses to take responsibility for it. It’s just… very very sad. (Also, I totally agreed with what you said about Sam’s characterization re: Bucky’s trauma in TFATWS in the tags to that ask of mine you reblogged. They really didn’t do Sam or his trauma justice either and the ableism is blatant and terrible)
Anyways, thank you again for being completely correct, and for once again showing why these characters ought to be written by people who actually care about them.
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