#to others who have similarly suffered | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

metanarrates · 4 months

Text

I haven't seen a lot of coverage in the news about this, but my state has just advanced legislation on a bill that would criminalize trans bathroom use in publicly owned buildings. this could mean up to 6 months in jail and up to $1000 in fees for those convicted.

most alarming aspects of this bill:

-"publicly owned buildings" include airports, schools, libraries, government offices, some hospitals, and most terrifyingly AND explicitly within the bill, domestic violence shelters and rape crisis facilities. transgender people, who are estimated to be almost 4 times more likely to be victims of violent crimes than cisgender people, could become criminalized in the very spaces they seek out to shelter from abuse.

-on that note, the bill potentially threatens federal funding of already-underfunded domestic violence and sexual assault facilities. to recieve federal grants, facilities are required to follow nondiscrimination laws. this law could place the facilities in danger of losing the grants they rely on. this is severely going to impact victims' abilities to access critically needed services.

-the bill legally defines "sex" in a way that has a lot of potential impact across state legislature. according to the bill’s text, HB 257 would legally define a female as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is of the general type that functions in a way that could produce ova,” and a male as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is of the general type that functions to fertilize the ova of a female.” this could effectively end the state's legal recognition of trans people.

-the bill demands that trans people who DO use bathrooms in publicly owned buildings must have undergone both gender reassignment surgery and have had their birth certificate changed. this has several issues, obviously, but the biggest one I want to highlight is that this opens the door to potential genital inspection by law enforcement if someone is accused of being transgender in a bathroom. in addition to any other indignities suffered by being harassed by cops when trying to use the restroom, it is completely possible for law enforcement to now demand to see whether someone's genitals are in compliance with these laws. it's an unconscionable and humiliating invasion of privacy.

-the bill requires trans students to develop a "privacy plan" with their school in order to arrange access to unisex spaces. if unisex bathrooms are unavailable, the student can be granted access to a sex-designated space “through staggered scheduling or another policy provision that provides for temporary private access.”

-the bill allows the state’s attorney general to impose a fine of up to $10,000 per day on local governments that don’t enforce the bill. in essence, any government that isn't sufficiently committed to enforcing these draconian laws may face massive fines until they have reached the attorney general's standard of enforcement.

this is one of the most unbelievably severe anti-trans laws that have ever been proposed in the united states. it would effectively ban trans people from participating in public life, harm nearly every single victim of domestic violence and sexual assault who seeks services in the state, enforce criminality on random trans people in bathrooms, and open every single person who could be potentially accused of being trans up to a wave of harassment and discrimination from both private citizens and law enforcement. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that this law would literally force me and my transfemme fiancee to flee this state.

the law's been fast tracked to an insane degree through the legislature. similarly to the anti-dei bill currently making its way through, it's only been a week since it was introduced, and it's already passed the house, and is now up for vote in the senate. if it passes both sets of votes, the only thing left in its way is the governor's decision to veto.

please share this post. make as much noise as you can. if you live in utah, please call and email your district senator as soon as possible. it doesn't matter how late you see this. the bill is up for vote this week (1/23/24 at the time of writing) and we need to do whatever we physically can to protest its passing. we've already moved past the opportunity for public comment on the bill, but a few organizations have called for a rally at the capitol steps on thursday (1/25/24) at noon. if you are in the salt lake area or are able to make it there, please consider attending. wear a mask and bring a sign. we are stronger together.

#narrates #signal boost #please tag anyone you can think of with a large platform in this post. we need this to spread asap

5K notes · View notes

apollos-olives · 4 months

Note

hey! if you don't mind me asking(feel free to ignore this ask) what do actual palestinians think of hamas? I'm not asking to sow any discord or to "catch" you out, I'm asking purely out of curiosity. from where I'm from, people generally view hamas and the houthis positively (and by people i mean the vast Muslim majority of pro-palestine supporters) but i have seen than some Palestinians don't hold them in such a high regard. similarly some people supported the IRA whereas other irish people strongly were against them - so I'm wondering if this is a similar situation? again if this ask is uncomfortable for you to answer , don't feel obligated to

this ask is uncomfortable but i'll still answer because i think it's important.

we as palestinians are sick of getting asked about this. it's asked as though every palestinian somehow has the same opinion on hamas and that each singular palestinian can speak for the rest of the population, which is obviously not true. i don't know every palestinians' opinion on hamas and i cannot list every opinion out there because not all of us agree on one single thing. each palestinian has their own opinion on hamas and honestly, it doesn't matter. we are tired of this question. we don't care about hamas anymore. this shit isn't about hamas at this point. 30000+ palestinians are dead and people are STILL talking about hamas as if that's actually important and rather than protesting for a ceasefire or fighting for a free palestine.

my opinion on hamas is different than my friends' opinions on hamas. my opinion on hamas is different than my parents' opinion on hamas. my opinion on hamas is different than my palestinian mutuals' opinion on hamas. my opinion on hamas is different than a lot of other palestinians who are involved. palestinians who keep getting asked this are tired. we are so tired. i appreciate that you are asking in good faith, but we don't want to talk about hamas anymore. we want to have a free palestine. we want our children to stop dying. we want to return to our land.

my personal opinion is that i don't really care about them. i don't care for their policies or their political goals. i only support them because they are one of the largest and efficient groups who are trying to liberate palestine. many palestinians share this same opinion. they do not support hamas as a whole, but they still appreciate that hamas is trying to fight for a liberated palestine. we support their efforts for the fight against the occupation, but past that we do not care or do not support them outside of that. what they do as a political group isn't something that i'm interested in, because i'd much rather be focused on freeing and rebuilding palestine.

some palestinians hate hamas. my parents dislike them, but they won't criticize them for trying to fight against the occupation, because they know that hamas is one of the most powerful groups of resistance in palestine, and will not go against their efforts to try to help palestine. some palestinians love hamas. some palestinians don't care about hamas. every palestinian is different, but in the end it doesn't matter. hamas is fighting for the same goal as the rest of us. a free palestine.

@el-shab-hussein has a post on his own opinion on hamas that i think is worth the read.

in the end, it doesn't matter about what our opinions on hamas are. because hamas only exists because of israel. if israel didn't exist, hamas wouldn't exist. hamas is a large group working for the resistance and hamas isn't the reason of palestinians' suffering. israel is.

@fairuzfan says: "I know this was sent in good faith but it doesn't really matter what Palestinians opinions on hamas are because even before hamas existed 750,000 Palestinians were exiled and killed."

we suffered before hamas existed and we will continue to suffer as long as israel is in power. so again, it doesn't matter what palestinians' - or really anyone's - opinion is on hamas. what we should be focusing on is fighting for a ceasefire, fighting for a free palestine, and fighting for a free world.

#palestine #free palestine

5K notes · View notes

obsessivevoidkitten · 6 months

Text

Heroes To Villains

DILF Yandere Superheroes x Gender Neutral Superhero Reader CW: Noncon, imprisonment, minor violence, gratuitous amount of firearms, super powers, super soldiers, spitroasting, general yandere behavior, bratty reader Word Count: 3.8k (I am sorry this took a bit for me to get to, only took a few hours to write though. I hope you guys love it. Feel free to tip if you do~)

The city you were stationed in was under attack by some fairly destructive super villains. They were either traitors born of the same government program that had produced you and the other super soldiers you worked with or they were sent by another country to attack the retired super agents of your country. Though it was also possible they were a rogue foreigner with a vendetta. All the people making up your squad had been in the military and had made significant enemies.

Their goals did not really matter so much at the moment. It was more important that they were defeated before they caused any casualties.

There were two of them. One of them with an ability to lash out with streams of fire and smoke and another that could jump up really fast and high before slamming down and causing a large explosion on impact.

They were no match for you and your comrades. Red and Ace had handled much worse threats than these two with ease. Ace had been a top pilot before undergoing medical experimentation that left him with angel-like wings and the ability to shoot energy blasts from his hands. The man was like a living B-52. And Red was basically a human tank. Very little could so much as scratch his skin and he had tremendous physical strength.

Both of them had soared through the ranks and had distinguished themselves as competent generals in the last great war. Now they were retired and used their abilities as super soldiers to become heroes and protect the capital from the strange threats that had been unleashed during war time. Mostly the occasional villain. Sometimes a mutant animal.

You had just been a simple medic. Nothing too fancy, but you had hesitantly taken the opportunity to go through experiments that would allow you to heal others much more effectively and without the need for invasive surgery. Most of the super soldiers gained a unique ability and also became more resilient to damage and agile.

And you had gotten those perks too, but not to the degree as everyone else. Though you had gotten an extra ability that most people lacked. Hyper accurate aim with long distance weapons. But you also suffered a drawback when compared to your peers. You got exhausted easily, having very little stamina.

Who could forget the time you had saved the city by firing the railroad gun at the giant robot that used mutated biological components in its construction? Firing a 19,000 pound shell and obliterating an entire giant robot with one perfectly executed shot had been amazing.

You longed for that kind of usefulness again. But currently you were a bit bored, as a long range support unit you frequently hung back a bit. Red and Ace normally cleared everything up themselves without having need of your abilities.

Ace had plucked the hopper from the sky and injected him with a serum that would knock him out cold until he could be taken into custody where his abilities would be removed completely, if they could be. Red had similarly taken out the fire user who had discovered that his searing flames did little more than make Red sweat a bit.

They regrouped together before they started walking back to you, each carrying the limp weight of an unconscious enemy on their shoulders. It would be a few minutes before they got to the rendezvous.

You heard the gruff voice of Red on your comm line.

“We got em’ On our way back now.”

“Affirma-”

You were cut off by a sudden shift underground followed by a woman jumping up from the earth below you and punching you hard enough to launch you several feet.

There had been a third and they had split up to take you on individually.

As you fell through the air you took out your side arm and fired every round in rapid succession. Each one aimed for her heart. Each one hit their mark. But when you hit the ground you had smacked your head pretty hard and the world faded to black.

You woke up in a medical bed in the basement of your headquarters. You were quite dizzy and you felt like you were certainly going to vomit.

You held your hands to your head and your palms flashed.

Much better. If you hadn’t been knocked out you would have simply been able to heal whatever injuries you had sustained in a flash. Oh well you were better now.

Ace walked in to check on you right as you had been getting up. He burst into a smile at seeing you awake. His blue eyes full of joy.

“Hey runt! Glad to see that you’re getting up and about!”

“Who’s a runt!?”

He flexed his biceps to drive the point in.

“Red, get in here, The runt is up!”

You heard his loud steps reverberate upstairs as he bounded towards the basement door and came rushing down.

“It’s been five days, we were beginning to really worry about you, squirt.”

He was smiling but you could tell his red eyes held a lot of concern in them. It seemed like there was something he wanted to say but didn’t know how.

“Well, no need to worry. I am not as fragile as a regular person. And I am fully healed now.”

“Yeah… but you weren’t hit by a normal person. And you aren’t as durable as most of us…”

That was Ace.

“Yeah, yeah, I will be more careful, okay? I know my limits. I don’t need a lecture. I took the enemy down and I am okay now so we don’t need to linger on it.”

Ace put his hand to his face and his wings quivered in annoyance as they often do when he tries to lecture you and you just won’t have it.

You rolled your eyes and finally Red spoke up.

“This isn’t the first time you have gotten hurt on the field. Even with precautions like staying back you still end up injured!”

“What’s your point? It's a battle, injuries happen. At least I can heal.”

Ugh, an Ace lecture you were used to. You didn’t need both of them nagging at you.

You rolled your eyes as Red continued.

“Have you ever considered… going into another career? You volunteer at the hospital… maybe you could do that full time?”

That did it.

“Excuse me? I wasn’t in any command position, but I was a trained soldier all the same! I think I can handle myself!”

You stormed away from them and went up the stairs, slamming the door behind you. Assholes. Who were they to tell you what you should consider doing? It was your life and if you wanted to use it fighting genetically enhanced monsters and super-criminals then that was your right to do so.

It would become evident in the future that this incident was where everything started to go wrong. Going forward in battle they always had at least one of them at your side whenever it was physically possible for them to do so.

When you were eventually still injured even with that precaution, even though it was minor, they pressured you again to quit being a hero. They thought maybe you just were too attached to them to leave so they even suggested that you could still be their medic but you would stay on at the base. You could even still operate the railroad rifle that could fire shells from miles away whenever a large foe approached the city.

But you wouldn’t have it. Fuck them. You told them that if you had to form a new squad in a new city then you would do so.

They frantically apologized immediately so they let it go.

It was unfathomable that they would ever allow you to do such a thing. Go off where they couldn’t protect you even a little? Where some inexperienced whelp of a leader would surely get you killed? Not a chance!

But neither could they allow you to remain a front line combatant. Not after the injuries and not with how easily you became fatigued when exerting yourself.

The solution was ugly, but it was what it was. You left them no other option for your own safety.

Though it would make them criminals themselves they had to do it for your own good. They had to keep you here with them where you would be safe and secure. They could turn the base’s AI defenses to keep you here and make sure that you were safe. They could also have it alert them through their comms if you there was any trouble while they were on a mission.

You were laying on your bed with your hands behind your head. You stared at your ceiling and contemplated all that you had been through. The war, seeing comrades on the battlefield ripped apart with no way to save them as they bled out in agony. You had to protect people from that in every way that you could, and if you did die on the battlefield then that was fine by you.

The intrusion of Red and Ace barging into your room out of nowhere pulled you from your thoughts and you regarded them both with a scowl.

“What NOW!? Can’t you guys at least knock? I mean seriousl-”

Ace cut you off with a hand gesture for silence before Red spoke up.

“Listen squirt… we decided something. We can’t allow you to join us on the field anymore…”

“Didn’t you just apologize for saying that after I threatened to leave? Whatever, I am out of here!”

You hopped up to gather your belongings and set out at once, the mere sight of the two heroes making you want to go on a rampage, but Red pushed you back onto the bed, then Ace picked up where Red had left off.

“Well that’s not all, runt. We also decided… you can’t leave here either…”

You started laughing. It had to be some kind of joke. But the tension that filled the room told you otherwise. You looked from Red to Ace and the empty expression from Ace and the guilty one from Red told you that they were deadly serious.

You grabbed your sidearm and launched yourself at Ace, you weaved past Red and twirled yo get behind Ace and held your arm around his neck with your gun aimed at his head. You didn’t speak a word, your intention clear.

There was no way you would be kept here.

You couldn’t go for Red as small arms fire would bounce off of him, but at point blank range Ace was toast. You backed out of the room, pulling Ace along with you. He cooperated fully. Even a pair of overprotective psychos didn’t want their brains blown out.

Out of nowhere a robotic arm emerged from one of the sockets in the walls. It seized your gun and then Ace flipped your positions with him behind you.

They had reprogrammed the defenses of the base to not allow you to have a weapon. These two were not former generals for nothing. They knew how their adversary, you, would react.

You slammed your foot down on Ace’s and smacked your head behind him to hit his nose. Such weak attacks did nothing to dislodge you from his ironclad grasp.

“Stop this childish behavior and just accept things. This is for your own good. If anything this little outburst has proven that you need to be protected because you certainly cannot control your emotions!”

Red was in front of you, still looking at you with that guilty expression.

“I’ll go get your weapons from your room.”

Ace and you watched in the doorway as Red got a sack and rummaged through every single inch of your private space to look for what was now contraband.

“Come on! If you are going to keep me here at least don’t go invading my privacy like this!”

Much to your embarrassment you actually cried a bit as the large man went through all your things.

He started by removing your pistols from your weapon’s display case. Your Beretta M9, your SIG Sauer P320, you… dear god no… not your baby, not your Magnum Research BFR!

You thrashed more as you saw him take that one.

Then he moved on to your bookshelf. He took out your religious text from the shelf.

“Hey, keep your grubby mitts off of that! It’s sacred!”

“Yeah, Red, don’t you think you should focus o-”

He opened it revealing that it had been cut out and housed one of your many sidearms.

“Of course,” Ace said flatly.

When Red finished with all your pistols he moved on to the ones mounted on your wall. Your Mauser M 98, your Browning BLR, and your little Marlin 70PSS.

The rest of the search was much the same. All but one had been found. Red had to get a second bag for them all. The ones in your desk, under your bed, and the one in your mattress.

Well at least they hadn’t found your most precious gun-child…

“Okay I think I got them all. Nowhere else to search. Be truthful, did I miss any?”

You wiped the tears out of your eyes and lied convincingly. You tried to look as defeated as you could.

“No”

Ace moved the two of you out of the way so Red could take your weaponry to the armory. As he started to leave the room he noticed his footsteps sounded odd in one place.

He pressed his large foot down in the spot a few times, narrowing his eyes.

Fuck.

He bent down and realized he could remove the floor board under the rug in that spot.

He found it, the bag unzipped and your M1 Garand joined the rest of your firearms.

“NOOOO!!! That one is my favorite! It PINGS when you use it!”

Now you were truly defeated, they had gotten every single one of them…

“Holy fuck, how many did you need??”

Ace joined in.

“Yeah that’s all a bit… much…”

“If your only offensive power came from guns then you would make sure to have one near you at all times in case of infiltration or emergencies…”

Ace sighed and let you return to your bed in peace. Or what peace could be had in your glorified prison.

Later in the evening they knocked on your door.

“Hey, we made your favorite food for dinner! And made your favorite dessert too…”

That was Red, you could hear the nervousness in his voice. He knew you would hate him now. You ignored them.

“Come on, don't be like this, you have to eat!”

And that was Ace, insisting that not complying with his psychopathic behavior was childish.

You opened the door and took the food tray. Both of them smiled.

“There, see? We can all still get along. We worked very hard on that meal for you!”

You were sure that they had, they were both skilled cooks. You stared at them expressionless and slammed the tray into their faces before slamming the door.

Ace looked furious but Red held him back.

“Come on Ace… they just need to adjust…”

But you refused to adjust. You ate only when they were out of the house. As the days went by you didn’t speak a single solitary word to either of them, you may as well have been a ghost.

Well… it would have been. Had you not been doing your best to make them the two most miserable men on the planet. You destroyed all the toilet paper, clogging every toilet in the base with it, you destroyed the fridge twice, you broke the TV, tore the couch, the robotic arms stopped you, of course, but you could manage to do a bit of damage each time before it stopped you.

Even Red was getting annoyed with your behavior.

They had both tried everything to get you to behave. Punishments ranging from not eating anything but flavorless oatmeal for days to being forced to sleep in a bed with one of them so they could make sure you didn’t cause any destruction while they slept.

Finally they had had enough, things could not continue on like this and it seemed like you may never open your eyes and see that they were just trying to keep you safe. Without them you’d have ran right into the jaws of danger.

They discussed it among themselves and had one more idea. You needed to feel loved in every possible way. They loved you so much after all, that’s what all this had been about, to protect you because they cared for you. But clearly they needed to step things up a notch or ten.

When they came home that day they barged into your room and grabbed you, taking you kicking and screaming into one of the many spare rooms the base had.

They had outfitted it with a huge bed, the walls painted your favorite color, fresh roses filled a heart shaped vase on the nightstand.

“Let go of me! What did you drag me here just to give me a newer bigger room? A prison is still a prison…”

“It’s going to be…” Red started.

“Our love… nest…” Ace finished, blush evident on his face.

“No thanks. Fucking weirdos.”

“Come on, sex is known to alleviate one’s mood!”

“Yeah, just give it a chance”

Ace smashed his lips into yours and kissed you deeply, you looked at him stunned.

They were serious… You wanted to wretch… Fervently you struggled, trying to get out of Red’s grip but he handed you off to Ace who wrapped his wing around you and led you to the bed.

They took your clothing off before moving on to your own. All of you had scars due to combat and training, and you had seen them nude in the showers before, but this was different. For the first time you felt vulnerable and scared under their combined gaze.

You covered your genitals but they each removed and held one arm so they could appreciate the view. “Come on, don’t be like that. Nothing we haven’t seen before,” Ace whispered as he spread your legs apart.

“Red, did you bring the lube?”

“Yeah, right here.”

Red opened a bottle and lathered both of their growing cocks so that they were drenched with the stuff and then pressed some to your hole and massaged it in. They had no intention of letting this be a painful experience for you. They wanted to show how much they cared about you.

You tried to clench. To close yourself off from them. But the probing fingers would not be denied. You squirmed uncomfortably at the sensation of cold lube being worked into you.

“Try to relax, it will be much better if you embrace us.”

“FUCK YO-”

Red cut you off with a kiss. You tried to bite his tongue but his tongue was no more vulnerable than the rest of his body.

Two sets of hand roamed and pet, and groped your body. Gently caressing you as Red made out with you. When they felt as if they had explored every part of your body they flipped you on to your belly, with Red on his knees in front of you. His crotch level with your face.

Ace was behind you on his knees between your legs, holding them still as he wedged himself closer to your entrance, until the tip of his cock was kissing it.

You couldn’t kick because he had control of your legs. You couldn’t punch because Red had your arms pinned. Now they just had to plug your bratty mouth and you wouldn’t have any means of protest. Verbal or otherwise.

They knew you’d try to bite so Red took your mouth, claiming it with his cock. You tried to move and turn away but once Ace sank his cock into your sensitive depths you gasped in surprise so Red took the chance to put his cock in your soft mouth. He did not go in balls deep, neither of them had yet. They wanted you to enjoy it. To relax. Not worry about being hurt or gagged.

Red humped into your mouth carefully and slowly while Ace did the same behind you.

“Damn, for someone so opposed to it you fit me so well.”

Then Ace added, “Your mouth feels amazing babe. He used his thumb to draw lazy circles into your arms where he held them down. He sighed in pleasure when he felt the pleasured moans Ace was coaxing out of you. Much to your dismay.

But you couldn’t deny that it felt nice. Your body relaxed, just a bit, as the men slowly bred a bit of the stress you had been under out of it.

Now that it seemed that you were enjoying yourself, even though reluctantly, Ace decided he could speed up just a bit, rolling his hips as his cock dug further into you.

Red was going a bit faster too now that you had acclimated and stopped trying to resist so hard. He let your arms go, sure that you had finally realized how silly fighting was. The large man stroked your cheek as he continued thrusting into those sweet lips.

Ace was the first to cum, his wings outstretching fully and deep voice gasping as his large nuts filled you with wave after wave of his seed. His large cock twitched inside of you, pushing you over the edge and into your own orgasm.

Feeling all your muffled cries of pleasure right in his prick caused Red to start cumming. He pulled out, not wanting to choke you on his copious amount of semen that he knew all super soldiers produced in spades, instead cumming all over your face.

Ace pulled out of you and was the first to speak.

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

You didn’t respond, you were still panting from the workout you had just received. You didn’t protest when Ace pulled you into his lap and held you with your head nestled into his chest. Your head laying right on his hawk tattoo. You didn’t protest when red scooted beside him and kissed you tenderly on the forehead. You even let them clean you up and feed you your favorite meal that they diligently cooked for you while you waited politely on the couch. They figured your resistance to them before was just because you had needs that weren’t getting met.

And from that day forward they knew that anytime you got too snarky or rebellious all they had to do was make time to fuck the brattiness out of you.

#yandere x reader #yandere boyfriends #male yanderes x reader #yandere men #yandere #yandere superheroes #gender neutral reader #male yanderes x gender neutral reader #My OCs #My OC Red #My OC Ace #Military Yandere

2K notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years

Text

The Geico STD story is the new McDonald's Hot Coffee story

Here’s a media literacy rule of thumb: any time you hear about how the courts have done something outrageous and absurd to some poor, long-suffering, gigantic, wildly profitable corporation…dig deeper. The canonical example is the “McDonald’s Hot Coffee Lawsuit” (aka Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants). You know, that time that an old lady got burned by her McDonald’s coffee and then sued for for $2.7 million?! Most people heard that story — and they heard it for a reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants

The Hot Coffee story was propaganda — specifically, it was propaganda for the idea that corporations should be shielded from legal liability when they maim or even kill the public through gross negligence. The real Hot Coffee story is a lot more complicated than the “lady gets millions because her coffee was too hot” tale that circulated widely.

One of the best explorations of the Hot Coffee story is Adam Conover’s excellent “Adam Ruins The Hot Coffee Story” video from 2016. In that episode, Conover explains what really happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9DXSCpcz9E

The coffee that burned Stella Liebeck in New Mexico in 1994 was served at 190°F. It caused third-degree burns that permanently disfigured Liebeck, required multiple skin grafts, and disabled her for two years. The surgery was so drastic that Liebeck lost 20% of her body-weight while she was recovering.

McDonald’s had a history of serving coffee that was dangerously hot. It had received 700 complaints about the matter, and had had to settle numerous claims from people who were horribly burned by its coffee. However, it declined to settle with Liebeck, who initially sought $20k to cover her medical expenses.

Denied a settlement, Liebeck sued. The jury did award $2.7m, but the judge clawed it back to $640k. Liebeck likely didn’t get that amount — she and McDonald’s reached a confidential settlement under threat of McDonald’s appealing.

So, the real story isn’t: “Old lady spills coffee and gets millions.”

It’s “McDonald’s ignores hundreds of dangerous incidents for years, then maims a customer for life and refuses to pay her medical bills or change its practices to avoid future incidents. A judge says she’s due a fraction of the jury award, but she doesn’t get it because McDonald’s uses its massive litigation war-chest to force her into a confidential settlement.”

So why did you hear so much about this story? And why was the moral of the story inevitably about how bloodsucking lawyers are victimizing poor l’il multinational corporations like Mickey Dees?

It was propaganda. The “bloodsucking lawyers preying on innocent corporations” story is a creation of the business lobby, which has, for decades, argued that it should be immune to legal consequences when it harms or kills the public. The cause of “tort reform” is, in actuality, a corporate charter of impunity.

It worked. Over the past four decades, corporations have steadily whittled away the public’s right to civil justice, no matter how egregiously a corporation behaves. The main mechanism for this was the expansion of binding arbitration, a 1920s-era law that initially allowed big companies to agree to have their contractual disputes worked out by a mediator, rather than going to court.

Since the 1980s, a series of Supreme Court decisions have steadily expanded binding arbitration, allowing corporations to add “arbitration waivers” to their terms of service, employment contracts and other non-negotiated boilerplates. Today, the mere act of removing some shrinkwrap or clicking a link can result in the permanent loss of your right to sue, no matter how badly a company treats you.

Instead, your grievances will be heard by a corporate arbitrator, a pretend judge who is paid by the company that wronged you. Your case must be heard in isolation, and not part of a class action. The proceedings are secret, and even if you win, you don’t set a precedent for others who are similarly wronged. It’s “a justice system just for corporations.”

http://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/we-now-have-a-justice-system-just-for-corporations

American corporations pushed the expansion of binding arbitration waivers as a get-out-of-court-free card, and for many years, it worked. Remember when Wells Fargo forged millions of its customers’ signatures to fraudulently open high-fee accounts in their names? The company argued that because the forged agreements included arbitration waivers, those customers couldn’t sue over the fraud:

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-ceo-of-wells-fargo-might-be-in-big-big-trouble/

Everybody got in on the act. If you’re a Pokemon Go player, you’re stuck in binding arbitration:

https://consumerist.com/2016/07/14/pokemon-go-strips-users-of-their-legal-rights-heres-how-to-opt-out/

Same with Airbnb customers:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2908/terms-of-service

Unsurprisingly, Trump loved binding arbitration. One of his first acts as president was to strip nursing home residents of the right to sue, which was great news for the nursing homes that murdered patients by abandoning them to covid:

https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/trump-administration-will-allow-nursing-homes-to-strip-residents-of-legal-rights/

(Older voters love the GOP, but it sure as hell doesn’t love them back.)

Forced arbitration wasn’t just a matter of civil justice — it was also a matter of economics. As Lina Khan and Deepak Gupta showed in their 2016 American Constitution Society paper “Arbitration As Wealth Transfer,” “Forced arbitration clauses are a form of wealth transfer to the rich”:

https://www.acslaw.org/issue_brief/briefs-landing/arbitration-as-wealth-transfer/

But the business leaders who bankrolled the forced arbitration epidemic were — characteristically — overconfident. It turns out that arbitration has weaknesses. It’s possible to do mass arbitration — to automate filing arbitration claims by thousands of corporate victims, which triggers hundreds of millions of dollars in arbitration fees, which the company is on the hook for, win or lose.

Uber was one of the first companies to discover this, when thousands of drivers brought arbitration claims at once. Not only would Uber have to pay for arbitrators in each case, but because arbitration decisions do not constitute precedents, it would have to argue each case, over and over again, even if it won. The company surrendered and paid drivers $146m:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/uber-sues-aaa-block-100-million-fees-politically-motivated-arbitration-2021-09-20/

This spooked Amazon, which amended its terms of service for Alexa to remove binding arbitration:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/02/arbitrary-arbitration/#petard

Law-tech firms like Fairshake created automation systems to enable mass arbitration filings at scale and on a budget:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/11/socialized-losses/#justice-restored

Something wonderful and wild started to happen. The companies that had argued for decades that binding arbitration was, well, binding, began to argue that arbitration waivers were unconstitutional, despite the precedents that they, themselves had bankrolled, at enormous expense.

The poster child of arbitration buyer’s remorse is Intuit, a company that has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-prep fees from the poorest Americans by tricking them into fake “Free File” products using dark patterns on its website.

Intuit is now facing arbitration at scale — more than 100,000 claims — and a court has ordered them to hire arbitrators to hear each and every one of them. After all it was Intuit — not its customers — who put the arbitration clauses in its terms of service, claiming that court cases were a bad way to resolve their disputes:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/11/socialized-losses/#justice-restored

Which brings me back to McDonald’s, hot coffee, and juicy stories about giant corporations being abused by the courts.

Have you heard about the Geico STD judgment? A woman caught an STD from her then-boyfriend when they had sex in his car. She won a judgment against him for $5.2m. Geico insures his car. A court has ordered Geico to pay that judgment.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/jackson-county-woman-says-she-222907031.html

But it’s more complicated than that!

It’s not a court that ordered Geico to pay the judgment — it’s an arbitrator. Geico is one of the companies that forces its customers into arbitration. Why would an insurance company want arbitrators to hear cases about its refusal to pay claims, rather than judges?

I mean, duh. Insurance companies have a long, dishonorable tradition of taking your premiums every month, then stranding you when you actually experience an “insured event,” arguing that the obscure, obfuscating language in their contract doesn’t cover your losses.

The real Geico STD story is this: Geico demanded that the case be heard by its arbitrator, who ruled against Geico, because Geico’s insurance terms did cover this event. Now, Geico is claiming that the arbitration it insisted upon “violates the company’s due process rights” and that its own arbitration agreement is unenforceable.

The case that’s being reported on isn’t about the $5.2m award for the STD. That happened way back in 2021. The case that’s in the news this week is a court telling Geico that when it forces its customers into arbitration, it has to abide by the arbitrator’s decision, even in those rare instances in which the arbitrator finds against the company who pays their fees.

But you wouldn’t know it from the coverage. All this stuff about arbitration is buried way down in the story. The headline is: $5.2m judgment for a venereal disease!

This is McDonald’s Hot Coffee 2.0. Someone pitched this story, and the pitch emphasized the poor, downtrodden corporation (Geico is owned by Warren Buffet and has $32b in assets) — not the fact that Geico is reaping what it sowed. The real story here is: “Corporation seeks to replace civil justice system with a kangaroo court, and gets kicked by its own kangaroo.”

Incidentally, if you miss Adam Conover’s “Adam Ruins Everything” and you have a Netflix password, check out “The G-Word,” his incredible new show about regulatory competence and the deadly threats it holds at bay:

https://www.netflix.com/title/81037116

[Image ID: The Adam Ruins Everything title card for 'The Hot Coffee Case.' It is a split panel with Adam Conover on the left at a judge's bench, banging a gavel, and a confused Hamburgler on the right, in the witness box. They are separated by the center of the 'M' in the McDonald's 'Golden Arches' logo. Superimposed over this separator is the Geico lizard.]

#pluralistic

17K notes · View notes

krystal-kade · 3 months

Text

Emily

If Vivziepop wanted to write a REAL critique of Christianity (instead of a show misrepresenting and shitting on it) she would have made Emily the main character

A demon suffering at the hands of Christianity? It's fine, but boring

A seraphim who is a devout Christian suffering at the hands of Christianity because of the hypocritical nature of some extreme Christians? SO interesting.

I thought of this listening to "You Didn't Know" from Episode 6.

"Was talk of virtue just pretension? Was I too naive to expect you to heed the morals you're purveying?" and "If Angels can do whatever and remain in the sky. The rules are shades if gray when you don't do as you say" really made me realize how great if a premise this would be.

Emily is a fucking Seraphim. She's not just extremely Christian: She's an angel. She has a reason to be naive, she grew up in paradise. She genuinely believes everyone's good because that's all she's ever known. She's never experiences hardship, and neither has anyone around her. You know she'd be furious to find out about the exterminations: "Why are "innocent" people having to suffer." She'd want to help others live the wonderful life she's lived. She might help them as an angel, but I think it'd be even more interesting for her to become a fallen angel. Imagine. She lives her whole life a perfect Christian. A perfect angel. A by-the-book girl. A rule following, Bible following good person. She tries to help people from being slaughtered and gets sent to Hell. It doesn't matter how much of a Christian she was, because she went against those in charge of Heaven (similarly to how you can be a Christian, but are ostracized if you go against the Church). She would either get Heaven to change, and be invited back into Heaven, or she would work to create a better Hell as some sort of ruler. She has infinitely more motives than Charlie, and her naivety has more reason. She would know better how to help people become better people. Emily's journey from being a well respected and influential seraphim to a disowned and ostracized fallen angel would be so interesting to see, much more interesting than the mess we got with Charlie

#hazbin hotel critical #vivziepop critical #rewrite #hazbin hotel rewrite #emily hazbin hotel

621 notes · View notes

fangsandfeels · 6 months

Text

Got hit with more thoughts about spawns and Cazador...

...and naturally, I'm posting it here because I'm no longer a functional human being.

I remember the lingering question that Astarion seemingly being only one of the spawns using seduction to lure victims in. At least, there is no menition of other’s doing so, except for Petras. So, why is that? Why Astarion was the only one?

In my opinion, it stems from Cazador’s very particular choice of victims. In all these years, he acquired only seven spawns (except for the thousands of Turned nobody knew about), and almost all of them used to be accomplished or talented people:

- Violet, a beloved and talented songbird from Reithwin;

- Dalyria, a respected doctor working in the Parliament;

- Leon, a sorcerer (a spell modifiaction he came up with shows how good he is at his magic);

- Astarion, a magistrate with a promising future, centuries of life ahead of him, and a beauty worthy of a thousand paintings.

Following this tendency, we can assume that Yousen, Aurelia, and Petras also were similarly talented or good at something enough to attract Cazador’s attention and make him envious.

The bastard thinks very highly of himself. He calls himself the most intelligent and beautiful creature out there, and spends hours writing letters to other vampire lords, trying to convince them of his grandeur. He attempts to inflate his ego, making it finally big enough to overcompensate for his miserable inferiority complex, in any way he can: so, whenever he spies someone with a talent or potential, someone who might be better than him at anything, he snuffs them away, adds to his collection, and then breaks them over and over, making them believe that they’re nothing. He is the father who gives them purpose; they are his spawn who owe him everything; and everything they have belongs to him.

And maybe, aside from tortures, and humiliation, and gaslighting, and forcing “siblings” to hurt each other, he came up with one more way to break them - when he forces them to hunt, he forces them to use everything that made them special, loved, respected, and admired for the most gruesome things.

- Violet, previously a talented singer whose voice was fondly remembered up to Reithwin’s fall, using her voice to catch attention; using her image and charm to lure people into the palace to their death.

- Dalyria, picking her victims around apothecaries and temples that responded to the people's suffering by closing doors in their faces, seeking out refugees and ailing citizens low on coin, offering to help them, kindly inviting them to “her place” (if we take Karlach’s family as an example, finding a healer who would agree to help a less-than-wealthy family is quite a problem at the city).

- Leon, using his talents and magic to nab people from the street, to drag them to Cazador without a fight while knowing that he will never be able to use the same power against the bastard himself.

- Astarion, a previously sophisticated, proud, and beautiful elf, stripped of his dignity and pride, using his body to either seduce poor young and inexperienced souls (fulfilling their image of an ethereal and caring lover) or let himself be pawed at by drunkards and brothel-goers.

I don’t think any of Cazador’s choices were accidental. I don't think he had to roam the streets at night, looking for potential candidates; that he ever Turned any of them by chance.

They all caught his eye at some point, became an object of his obsession, and then fell victim to a scenario where they were confronted by a promise of salvation - and each time, it made Cazador giddy with excitement and a sense of self-importance. He took them away from the world because he could. He will twist and shape them to his whim because he can. And then, he will take everything from them, reducing them to miserable wretches because this is who they should be, compared to him.

They will belong under his heel, scared, helpless, and obedient, worshipping him and fearing him. Forever.

#baldur's gate 3 #astarion #bg3 astarion #bg3 dalyria #bg3 leon #bg3 aurelia #bg3 yousen #bg3 petras #bg3 violet #shit-hunter the diva

884 notes · View notes

silkscream · 7 months

Text

HEAVEN SURROUNDS US

ੈ✩ summary: gojo likes that you make him feel human. admittedly, he also likes that sometimes, you make him feel like a god. ੈ✩ warnings: smut (18+), fingering, unprotected sex, slight dacryphilia, begging, soft dom!gojo, kind of mean gojo lol, workplace relations, reader can see curses but that's it, gojo has a god complex, dirty talk, not proofread bc i do not give a fuck ੈ✩ wc: 3.1k ੈ✩ a/n: i am having intense gojo brainrot. i was thinking about 'i'm your man' by mitski the entire time i was writing this btw. ALSO I LITERALLY HAD A GRAPHIC AND DIVIDERS FOR THIS BUT EVERY TIME I INCLUDE THEM this shit doesn't show up in the tags. i've given up!

Gojo Satoru has the smell of death burned into his senses to the point of complete apathy. He’s sure that Shoko feels similarly, though as a healer and a doctor, she’s often only met with the aftermath – the quiet decaying, the dried blood.

Gojo has encountered it all. The stench, the last pleas for salvation, the battered and torn-apart limbs. Even when the dying beings are cursed spirits suffering from the carnage created beneath Gojo’s hands, sometimes he wonders if an angel is nearby that weeps for them.

He has held grief inside his core to use as a weapon ever since he lost Geto. Nothing fazes him anymore. After the tragedies of his late teens, Gojo chooses to devote himself to his students rather than ruminating in sanctimonious thought loops. Gojo Satoru knows he isn’t a god, but sometimes, when he levitates in the sky with blood on his hands, he certainly feels like one. It’s safe to say that he may be the closest thing to one in the world of Jujutsu sorcery. It’s nothing that he despises – he’s known since his powers took shape in the awkwardness of his child-body.

Gojo likes to think he isn’t as cruel and indifferent as a god should be because of how protective he is. The warmth he’s had in his heart for Megumi alone confirms this as such, and now for Yuuji. Despite toying with the idea of divinity, he likes to remember that he’s human.

You are the only thing that reminds him of this.

Ever since Gojo had laid his eyes on you, he figured you were a delicate thing. He’s not completely wrong – although you can see curses, you lack any techniques. After becoming an assistant at Jujutsu Tech, he had taken more than a liking to you, more than he would be willing to admit to anyone else. He also never thought that the girl who was so quick to sardonic banter with him would be so vulnerable.

When you’re underneath him, maybe he does consider himself a god, just for a second. And then he feels the silky touch of your skin and he can’t help but wish for a life of mundanity with you until the earth stops spinning.

He likes that he can feel how fast your heart is beating. He likes that you become so pliant just from having his hand on your thigh.

It’s not like he exploits the little affair you have. It’s not that he wants to exploit you either, but the power trip that surges through him when you preen to his touch feels better than winning any battle. It’s those big eyes of yours. It’s a miracle you had reciprocated your attraction to him – he doesn’t know what he’d do to any other man who happened to pursue you. The thought of that kind of violence doesn’t make him feel any guilt. He’d do it in a heartbeat if it meant that he could have you forever, unconditionally.

Within the few months you’ve been working at Jujutsu Tech, you learn a few things about Gojo Satoru. He has an incredible sweet tooth. He cares about his students. He likes the feeling of your fingers combing through his hair. Lives for it, even, but he could never tell you that.

That’s how you ended up here, you suppose. Writhing and wet and oh so obedient for him.

You like that a man that is worshipped by all enjoys worshipping you.

“Satoru,” you whisper. The sound of your voice makes him fucking melt.

God, it’s so much worse when you beg. Satoru wants to be gentle with you, careful, because he knows that if all of his morals were thrown out the window, he would devour you completely, leaving bruises in your wake. But he waits, titillatingly, smirking as his long fingers grasp the flesh above your hips.

“Please,” you whine. Your lower half bucks up into him, squirming just a little, but he grounds you with his large hands once again.

Satoru knows better than to toy with his prey, but the flush on your cheeks is so fucking cute that he wonders what you would look like with tears rolling down the soft blush of your skin.

“Be patient, baby,” he rasps. “Just like lookin’ at you.”

“You look at me all day.”

“Someone’s got quite the attitude.”

You’re about to protest until you feel his knuckle brush against the peak of your clit, teasingly. A nasty grin spreads across his face as he grazes his fingertips along your slit, marveling at how wet you are when he’d barely touched you.

“So pretty for me,” he muses, mostly to himself.

“Should see how pretty I am when you’re inside me.”

Satoru scoffs. Despite being so human, you have quite the mouth, so much confidence in the way you move and speak that he often forgets how easy it would be to lose you. To break you. Though, of course, that privilege is for him and him only.

He kisses you to shut you up, but not nearly for long enough. You can’t even get your tongue inside his mouth. You whine pitifully as he pulls back.

“Poor baby,” he coos. “So on edge today. What’s got you so desperate like this, huh?”

“Just want you,” your voice is meek, which is an anomaly. The honey-sweet cadence of your words is barely above a whisper.

“You have me.” Unbeknownst to you, you always will, whether you tire of him or not.

He makes his point by circling the pad of his thumb to your clit while his other hand claws at your chest underneath your dress shirt. The sound of your gasp has him reeling already, has his cock rock-hard in his slacks.

“More,” you whimper. “S-Satoru, please.”

You’re surprised when you feel the palm of his hand over your mouth. You whine against his hand, soft gasps dissipating underneath his touch as your eyes roll back. You feel two fingers enter your sopping cunt and it renders you brainless, docile just how he likes you.

The rhythmic ministrations of his fingers touch upon the spot inside your core that makes your legs shake. You like being smothered by him despite your personality. You don’t even have to tell him – he knows already, he’s known ever since he noticed your reactions to him touching you casually during the working day.

The more you crave his touch, the more you become dependent on him, even when you don’t realize it. You always pride yourself on being an independent soul, refusing his insistence to pay for your meals, the way you express to him quietly that you want to be able to fight back one day. You could perfect a certain violence in between your fingers just like he can if you put your mind to it. But you have too much dignity to request his guidance as a mentor or teacher.

He thinks about it now as he touches you. The idea of him training you to use cursed techniques. The idea of him making you in his image, shaping you like he had created you himself.

If anyone truly knew the extent of how you are the object of Satoru’s affection, of his obsession, one would render him pathetic. But he knows he’s too powerful. He knows it’s easy to make you seem like the pathetic one. You’re already begging for his cock, after all.

“I‘m gonna… I’m–”

There’s a squelching sound when he retracts. His fingers are wet with your slick and you’re on the verge of tears when you feel the loss. You’re already falling apart without his touch. It doesn’t help when you watch him lick your wetness off of his own fingers.

“Why are you being so mean to me today?”

“‘m not,” Satoru purrs, licking a stripe from your collarbone to your earlobe. You try to kiss him since his face is so close to yours, but again, he restricts you. His long, slender fingers squeeze the base of your neck. “I could be a lot meaner to you, y’know. You’re lucky. This is mild compared to what I’ve thought about doing to you.”

“Wanna cum,” you whisper. You don’t even realize that there are tears falling because you’re too focused on Satoru. It isn’t fair, the way he’s toying with you. The moment he relinquishes his grip, just barely, you reach over to palm his cheek. He lets you pull the blindfold from his eyes.

“Dunno if I can let you. You’re being so greedy. Such a selfish fucking girl.” He pinches your nipple as he says it. His voice is smooth, dripping like honey, dulcet in the way his words manage to make your eyelashes flutter despite how filthy the subject matter is. He’d ruin you if he could. Perhaps, he’d ruined you the moment he touched you.

He’s touching your clit again, but not rhythmically. You feel a sense of loss every few seconds. He’s fucking teasing you now, but you’re smart enough to not snap at him despite how much you want to.

So you say his name instead. Like a hymn or a prayer. Like it’s the sweetest thing to come from your tongue. From the way your voice sounds, Satoru is convinced that his own name is a blessing just because it comes from your lips. He can’t get enough of it.

You make Satoru feel human, but the way you react to him at the moment makes him want to pretend he’s a god.

“S-Sat–Satoru. Oh.”

“You cryin’ already, baby? Thought you liked it when I played with you.”

His voice is low, raspy. Almost cruel.

Your brain is so foggy that it feels like he’s been doing this to you for hours. You can’t even form words, can’t bitch to him or dominate him the way you often attempt to. There’s a secret part of you, deep inside, that is unlocked by the way Satoru handles you. As much as he loves control, he still doesn’t know the extent of what you would let him do to you. How you wished he’d wrap a silk ribbon around your neck and collar you like a puppy. How you think you would do anything for him if he asked.

You don’t even know that he would do the exact same for you.

Now, you’re at your peak again. Your legs are wobbly, senses so heightened by the way he plays with your pussy that it takes you a few moments to notice that his cock is prodding against you, bare and pink and fucking leaking.

Maybe if you tell him you’re close, he’ll stop. You can’t stand the thought of it. So, naturally, you cry instead, and the sight makes him want to keep you for as long as he’s alive. Satoru would make sure nothing slights you, and that nothing out of his control could possibly vex you. This desire usually scares him. At the moment, it doesn’t. At the moment, he feels drunk with it.

He knows when you cum because he has you memorized. It’s a little death, truly, because when your legs tremble and your moans fade into a sharp gasp, Satoru knows for sure that your brain has turned to mush. Your body melts against his. Maybe you’d melt right into his mattress if he didn’t have more energy to play with you.

Gojo Satoru does not believe in a higher power, but he thinks that if one existed, one that was more powerful than him, he would thank them. He would thank them for you, the creation of you, the very essence of you living and breathing in the same wretched world as him. He thinks that maybe, just maybe, you were made just for him.

You recover in a succession of exhales. Blinking rapidly through blurry vision as you feel Satoru’s face nuzzling your neck, almost too domestic and sweet to bear. You had never thought of anything serious with him because of his reputation, but every time he has you like this, underneath him, you often wish that he would reassure you that he wants to keep you.

And he does. He is devoted to you in a way that feels holy. He just doesn’t know how to tell you that. Satoru hopes you can figure it out just from the way he touches you.

And maybe, like him, you’re just above human. An angel, he thinks. A set of wings would suit you.

“I– I– please–” you strain. You feel embarrassed from the tears, but Satoru cherishes you. He kisses and licks them right off your face.

“I know, baby. I won’t make you beg any more than you have,” he sneers.

You’re fucking doe-eyed, angelic when he enters you. Just the tip, for now, just so he can see how you react. It isn’t the first time but you are certainly acting the part from the way your whole face screws up. Your perfect mouth parts and he touches your bottom lip with his thumb.

You whimper like a wounded thing. Like you should be begging for mercy. He hasn’t dipped too far into his God-complex yet to coax that reaction for you.

And without a warning, he pushes himself into you completely, bottoming out. He groans at the feeling of your walls tightening around him. So warm. So fucking wet.

“Fucked you enough to mold the shape of your pussy to my cock, huh? Feels so fucking– fuck,” he exhales, rutting into you with eyes shut.

You whine his name, clutching at him, scraping your nails across his pale back. He loves the way you need him. He wouldn’t trade the feeling for anything else in the world.

Made for me. God made you for me.

You slur your words against his neck and his chest as he thrusts into you – cries of his name, of begging for more, of your usual expletives. He grins like a predator. He bends you in half and thinks briefly about breaking your limbs for the sake of his pleasure. (He doesn’t. You’re too delicate, too human.)

In reality, you’re sarcastic and sometimes brash. When Satoru has you writhing underneath him, you’re a little more shy. He wants to tease the desire from you, whatever filth that permeates in your brain.

“Tell me what you want.”

“Want– I want– aah!”

“Feels so good for you, I know. Use your words for me. I know you can,” Satoru taunts.

“Want you to make me cum on your cock. Please,” you beg. “Need it deeper, ‘Toru. Need you.”

“Need me, don’t you? Say it again so I can hear it.”

“Nngh– Need– Fuck, I can’t–”

He slows the speed of his thrusts and rubs the length of your jaw softly with his palm. His other hand rubs your clit gently, making your body spasm. He tucks the hair sticking to your forehead behind your ear so he can see all of you. You and your swollen mouth and glassy eyes.

“Don’t do that,” you whine.

“Do what, baby?”

“Teasing me like this. Wan’ it rough.”

“What else?” he breathes into your neck, palming your breast as he thrusts into you deeper.

“Want everything. Want it to hurt.”

And with that, he gives it to you. He gives you all of it.

You drape your arms around his body so that you’re closer than ever, both of your bodies ready to mesh into one if they could. Satoru pushes your legs up, knees bent and ankles near your ears, and he basks in the sound of your pathetic mewls.

“Such a good… fucking girl,” he groans. “‘m so close.”

“Me too,” you reply in a hushed tone. “Right– right there.”

Satoru has fucked you plenty of times. He’s called you a slut, a greedy whore – but he can’t bring himself to degrade you like that even though he knows you like it. You’re splayed out for him, limbs limp and grateful for his embrace. You’re too fucking precious for him.

You��re too dazed to think about the moral implications of your affair. It's a miracle you can't enter his mind so deeply when you're fucked out like this. Where his thoughts flash from lecherous to monstrous, yours are rendered sluggish. There’s almost nothing in your brain, save for him and his blue eyes and the feeling of his cock. It consumes the best of you. You welcome it with open arms.

Another kiss. It’s mostly Satoru working his tongue into your mouth and you dissolving under his tongue. He tastes so sweet, so fresh all the time. His lips are so fucking soft it drives you insane.

“Pleasemakemecum,” you cry out in a jagged mumble. “Please. Need it so bad. Please!”

He groans in response. You’re begging more than usual. You are frantic and desperate and welcoming his hand to shape you in his image.

The way he grinds into your cunt becomes more aggressive, which is easy for him. There’s no resistance – your pussy is so fucking wet for him in that way. The cloying heat in his pelvis spreads to the rest of his body, warmth enveloping him like hot water in a bath.

You whine his name again and it dissipates into his mouth.

“Cum with me, fuck, I can feel you–” he moans. Both of you reach your peak in the way he grasps your body, calloused hands worshipping the length of your waist until his fingertips bruise your thighs.

His hips stutter as he indulges in his pleasure. In the sound of your hushed whimpers. In the way your nails claw across his back.

Both of your labored breaths fill the silence. Even in the dark, you admire the brightness of his blue eyes. They could replace the divinity of the stars themselves, you muse.

Both of you are hazy, intoxicated on the touch of each others’ skin. You shiver in your skin. You’re only soothed when he buries his face into your neck, long limbs splayed over your smaller frame.

“I should fuckin’ marry you,” he breathes into your skin.

“What was that?” you raise a brow.

He clears his throat. Despite the daze, he’s able to give you one of his signature cocky grins. Something flashes in his blue eyes, you think.

“I think I wanna keep you.”

If he was god, you were his seraphim, he’s decided. He almost tells this to you, out loud, because your big eyes drink him in. He knows better.

“You have me,” you reply softly, echoing him from earlier in the night. The way he smiles reminds you of the sun.

Gojo Satoru knows it’s an affirmation from you, maybe even pillow talk. But he knows that sentiment to be truer than anything he’s ever known. He is yours and you are his.

For now, you don’t know the half of it. Maybe someday you will.

#gojo smut #gojo satoru smut #gojo satoru x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x you #gojo x reader #jjk smut #jjk

895 notes · View notes

llyfrenfys · 10 months

Text

I'd like to preface this with that this is a screenshot of a post I saw a few days ago in the #welsh tag and that the OP has since deleted this post, but the sentiment is something I'd like to address since I see a lot of parallels with this kind of thinking in other contexts, such as in LGBTQIA+ rights conversations.

So, the most obvious elephant in the room is the idea that Welsh is super widely spoken in Wales now and that it isn't in as much danger as other Celtic languages. This idea is wishful thinking at best and erases the very real danger that Welsh is in and that it could be lost just as easily as Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Cornish (which is related to Welsh) actually did die out and has had to be revived. To make a metaphor out of this, we classify languages on a scale of non-threatened to endangered in a similar way to how we classify species.

Here are the statuses of Welsh and Irish as of 2010 (above) and the statuses of Lions and Tigers (below).

On paper tigers are more 'in danger' than lions. But that does not mean that lions are suddenly not in danger at all. The little bracket above CR, EN and VU labels all of these classifications as threatened. It isn't (and definitely shouldn't) be a competition of 'who is most in danger' because you do not want the thing you care about (whether it be a species or a language) to be in danger.

To come back to the original screenshot "they* [Welsh speakers] have always had the means and the ways because the English didn't beat or slaughter them for speaking it"- on the most basic of levels, this is just incorrect. The Welsh Not was a wooden token hung around schoolchildren's necks if they spoke Welsh in school. If someone else spoke Welsh the Not would be hung around their neck. At the end of the school day, whoever was wearing the Not would be beaten and caned by their teachers. I needn't go into much detail but there have been concerted efforts to beat Welsh out of schoolchildren. With the lions vs tigers metaphor, making the claim Welsh speakers have never been beaten for speaking Welsh because they always had the means and ways, while Irish speakers were beaten and never had the means or ways is like claiming poachers have never shot lions, only tigers. Bottom line is, lions and tigers are both victim to poaching and both species have suffered as a result. Similarly, Welsh and Irish have both suffered language loss and both need conservation efforts in order to survive.

(*sidenote- the consistent use of 'them' and 'they' in the original post is definitely indicative of a 'us vs them' sentiment which is a deeply unhelpful attitude to have when it comes to endangered languages and the Celtic languages in particular)

I see parallels with LGBTQIA+ rights in this situation. When equal marriage came in for gay and lesbian couples in the UK in 2014, many allies began to act like gay rights had now been achieved and that gay issues had been done, they're solved. Except, they really weren't (and aren't). Progress has been made in Wales and undeniably Welsh is doing the best out of the living Celtic languages. But that doesn't mean Welsh has been saved or that full equality for Welsh speakers has been achieved. It very much hasn't. The sentiment of the post in the screenshot is not conducive to helping Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Putting down Welsh speakers and erasing Welsh-language history will not save Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Pretending Welsh has had it easy in some kind of lap of luxury is a deeply harmful and bogus claim.

I'll address the tags under the cut as this post is getting long.

To address the tags, personal feelings ≠ an accurate reading of a situation. Nor is it praxis, for that matter. Why is pride in Welsh different/less good than pride in Irish? Is it the assumed proximity to England? If so, that's a terrible claim to make. Not only that, but Scotland is also next to England- does that make pride in Scottish Gaelic the same as pride in Welsh according to this metric? It's a ludicrous thing to say and deeply insensitive to the needs of Scottish Gaelic and Welsh speakers, who cannot help any current or former proximity to England.

Additionally, proximity to England ≠ worse. I know it's a popular internet joke to hate on England because of English attempts to eradicate the Celtic languages, but when the joke becomes praxis, it does not help. England ≠ a place devoid of Celtic languages either. Many English counties near the Welsh border actually have communities of Welsh speakers, such as Oswestry (Croesoswallt) in Shropshire. Cornwall is also home to many speakers of revived Cornish. It does a disservice to Celtic speakers in England to insinuate that proximity to England taints or corrupts them somehow. This is how ethnonationalism starts and we ain't about that.

And "#it feels a little.... blehhhhh you were seen as sophisticated and english enough and you assimilated however the Irish and the Scots? #brutish animals that need to be culled". So, this is arguably one of the worst things to say about a Celtic language- or any threatened language in general. First of all, the 'you were seen as' - 'you' is very telling. The switch from 'them', 'they' to 'you' indicates that this sentiment is aimed at Welsh speakers directly. This was likely a subconscious thing that OP wasn't thinking about when they wrote this. But it does indicate unhealthy feelings of jealousy and bitterness unfairly directed at Welsh speakers, who are also struggling. This righteous anger at the decline of Irish and Scottish Gaelic would be better directed at efforts to help promote those languages- some useful things to get involved with are LearnGaelic, similar to DysguCymraeg but for Scottish Gaelic or supporting channels such as Irish channel TG4 by watching their programmes.

The idea that Welsh speakers were or are 'sophisticated and english enough' is insulting and carries with it a lot of baggage of how any of these assumptions came about. Welsh speakers were definitely not seen as sophisticated. Where Welsh was 'tolerated', it was treated as a curiosity, a relic of a bygone age. Classic museification which all Celtic languages and cultures suffer from as well. Welsh was not tolerated in any legal sense since 1535- with English becoming the only valid administrative language and the language of Welsh courts after England annexed Wales into its Kingdom. Monolingual Welsh speakers suddenly had no access to any legal representation, unless they learned English. This is no voluntary assimilation- it is an act of survival for many speakers of minoritised languages to 'assimilate' into the dominant culture, or else risk losing access to legal security and other kinds of infrastructure. You need only ask any non-native English speaker living in an Anglophone country what that process is like. Welsh people did not see English incursion as an opportunity to become 'sophisticated and english enough', they had to assimilate in order to survive.

The "Irish and the Scots? #brutish animals that need to be culled" is also painfully misrepresenting a very complex social and political process that unfolded over the span of hundreds of years. The phrasing itself of 'brutish animals that need to be culled' speaks to righteous anger at the damage done to these languages and cultures, but it reinforces negative stereotypes about the Irish and Scots themselves. It also is more complicated than a simple English hatred of anything non-Anglo, since the English conception of particularly the Irish changed a lot over the centuries. It was (and still is) rarely consistent with itself. See: the enemy is both strong and weak. The very earliest Celticists were by and large, Anglos or French.

Ernest Renan (1823-1892) for example, was an early French Celticist who published La Poésie des races celtiques (Poetry of the Celtic Races- English translation) in which he says:

"... we must search for the explanation of the chief features of the Celtic character. It has all the failings, and all the good qualities, of the solitary man; at once proud and timid, strong in feeling and feeble in action, at home free and unreserved, to the outside world awkward and embarrassed. It distrusts the foreigner, because it sees in him a being more refined than itself, who abuses its simplicity. Indifferent to the admiration of others, it asks only one thing, that it should be left to itself. It is before all else a domestic race, fitted for family life and fireside joys. In no other race has the bond of blood been stronger, or has it created more duties, or attached man to his fellow with so much breadth and depth"

Yeah. This guy (unsurprisingly) was a white supremacist. Note that this sentiment is being applied to all people considered Celtic by Renan- Irish, Welsh, Breton, Scottish, Cornish, Manx etc. None unscathed by the celtophobia of the day. In this period, Celticity was romanticised (yet disparaged at the same time). It is less 'brutish animals' and more 'archaic, time-frozen peoples' in this period. Of course, 'brutish animals' attitudes towards Celticity did still exist, but it is disingenuous to act as if it was this attitude alone which drove English celtophobia. Like many things, it is always more complicated and never clear cut as it might seem.

I'll bring this to a close shortly, but returning to OP's suggestion that the Welsh assimilated and the Scots and Irish did not, is also incorrect in that some Scots did have to assimilate to survive as well. The Statutes of Iona (1609) required Scottish Gaelic speaking Highland chiefs to send their sons away to be educated in Scots and/or English in Protestant schools. Many did as the statutes required, which led to further language loss in the Highlands of Scottish Gaelic. These are acts of survival- and not ones always taken willingly.

This has been a long post but it's one which I felt I wanted to address. There's no need for infighting between speakers of Celtic languages over who has it worse. There isn't any answer to that question, nor is it a good use of time or energy. All in all, the Celtic languages have suffered greatly over the years and its only just now that some of them are turning a corner. If you care about these languages, put your energy into something good. Only through active work will these languages be saved for generations to come.

#long post #lukes originals #cymraeg #gaelige #gaidhlig #Irish #Welsh #Scottish Gaelic #politik #not dictionary related #Celticist #Celtic Studies #This took a lot of energy to write so if you found this post useful please consider reblogging

1K notes · View notes

connanro · 4 months

Text

quick reference post for tmagp artists because i'm a violinist and Suffer Every Day

the bow:

the bow hold:

there are two main schools of violin bow holding--this article goes into more detail if you're interested--but the general shape is pretty consistent. the thumb and middle finger oppose each other and are where the main weight of the bow is held; other fingers are for balance and direction. the wrist is generally above the bow itself when playing closer to the frog, level in the middle, and lowered near the tip. note the lines below:

(pictured: nicola benedetti, midori, gil shaham, and nicola benedetti) the angle of the arm changes depending on how the violin is positioned and what string is being played.

the violin:

adult performers all use full-sized violins, which have 36 cm (14 inch) bodies.

the violin hold:

the violin is ALWAYS held on the LEFT SIDE. it doesn't matter what your dominant hand is, it still goes ON THE LEFT. this is because the violinist's natural habitat is the orchestra, where they must sit close to other violinists while playing. it prevents stabbing accidents. trust me.

the instrument is held underneath the chin--sometimes with the additional support of a shoulder pad, as you can see in the fourth picture--and away from the centre of the body. note that the instrument looks bigger in the first two pictures (with midori) than it does in the third and fourth (with augustin hadelich and gil shaham). the instrument is the same size; the performers are not. note also that the position of the left hand varies radically in all the pictures i've shown.

you'll sometimes see performers who have a cloth under their chin, like the second midori picture. this has been more common in the past six or so years--i don't use one myself, but it can help prevent irritating the skin on your neck (because when you spend 4+ hours a day rubbing your delicate neck skin on wood, it adds up). whether or not a performer uses a shoulder pad depends both on the length of their neck and personal preference. i have a long neck and consequently have a custom chinrest AND a tall shoulder rest; my professor, who is built similarly to me, uses an extra tall custom chinrest and no shoulder pad.

most importantly: violinists traditionally make really weird faces when we play.

(ray chen and gil shaham)

if you need more reference photos, look up A SPECIFIC VIOLINIST and use those. you can also find SO many live performances on youtube if video is helpful!

#the magnus protocol #tmagp #violin #violinist #art reference #conpost #sorry but i saw a(n otherwise gorgeous) fanart where the violin was held. on the right side. and i nearly cried

562 notes · View notes

brucewaynehater101 · 29 days

Note

Okay but Tim dragging Bruce to galas because he refuses to suffer alone and introducing Bruce to people that he meets through him being CEO or Jack and Janet’s acquaintances and eventually migrating towards the other parents who are all bragging about their kids and subtly starts bragging about Bruce and somehow no one says anything but the kids are all just looking at Bruce who’s standing slightly behind Tim similarly to how they’re standing slightly behind their own parents so confused because that is a grown man. That is Brucie Wayne. Their parents talk about him all the time? Is the boy in front of him just stuck with permanent baby face?

A kid, more than slightly confused what the hell is going on, asks Tim about his face wash routine. Perhaps the parent of Brucie Wayne, who looks younger than him, has some secret rich person trick. Tim responds with some very in-depth routine (thanks to Janet Drake), but nothing that would hint at why Tim's face looks so youthful.

The other parents, who look down on himbo Brucie Wayne, understand it as just weird rich people habits (like ofc Tim needs to be the parent in this situation. Have you seen how often Brucie falls, makes social errors, and says the most ridiculous things?).

It's an unspoken rule not to tell Brucie Wayne that he is being parented by Tim Drake. If you want to get any favors from WE, you can not insult Tim Drake's son either. That himbo might not understand what you're saying, but Tim Drake will find out what you said about Bruce.

It's adorable to imagine Tim at a gala gushing over his son at any person who will listen.

#dc comics #tim drake #dc universe #bruce wayne #dc au #tim drake acting as bruce's parent

334 notes · View notes

theoutcastrogue · 7 months

Text

Cartoon depictions of the homeless increasingly reflect the hostility of today’s political leaders toward people on the streets. We’ve gone from images of charming hobos with bindles to zombies taking over cities. If you consume any news at all, you’ve probably noticed that the United States is pathologically cruel to its homeless citizens. This May, the brutal killing of Jordan Neely—who was strangled to death, at the age of 30, simply because he was unhoused and shouting on the Manhattan subway—captured the national spotlight, but it was just one of many such cases of unprovoked violence. In January, two cops reportedly kidnapped a homeless man in Hialeah, Florida, drove him to an “isolated and dark location,” and beat him unconscious. That same month, art dealer Shannon Collier Gwin faced battery charges after he sprayed a homeless woman with a hose outside his San Francisco gallery, barking “Move! Move!” at her. (Predictably, Gwin got a lenient plea deal of just 35 hours of community service.) Elsewhere in the city, homeless San Franciscans have been attacked with chemical bear spray on at least eight occasions. Other assaults have been more impersonal but no less vicious. On July 14, the city of Houston abruptly closed its only public cooling center in the downtown area, potentially condemning anyone without shelter to suffer heatstroke in 90-degree weather. Among the property-owning class, the phenomenon of hostile architecture—sidewalks with spikes that stab anyone who tries to sleep, benches with iron bars, and the like—has become de rigueur. The widespread callousness and lack of compassion are both infuriating and hard to comprehend. How on Earth, we might ask, did things get this bad? [...]

Looking back at older cartoons, one of the things that stands out immediately is the absence of negative attitudes toward the homeless. In fact, during the Golden Age of animation, creators seemed to have had a real affinity for the poor and unhoused, often placing their most iconic characters in that role. There’s a wonderful 1948 Warner Bros. short called “Riff Raffy Daffy,” in which Daffy Duck is looking for a place to sleep—first on a park bench, then a trash can, and finally a furniture display in a shop window—and has to dodge the harassment of the police, as represented by Porky Pig in a little blue uniform. (Literally, the cop is a pig!) Or, in the 1950 cartoon “Homeless Hare,” Bugs Bunny’s rabbit hole is destroyed by a new construction project, leading him to unleash his usual slapstick mayhem against the developers until they put it back. In these cartoons, homelessness is something inflicted on people by outside forces—gentrification and the real estate business, in Bugs’ case—and something which can be successfully resisted. Even Disney cast a homeless dog as a romantic lead in 1955’s Lady and the Tramp, contrasting Lady’s sheltered naivety with Tramp’s superior knowledge of the world. The title invokes the memory of Charlie Chaplin’s “Tramp” films, which similarly brought dignity and humanity to the role of a homeless man. (Bugs Bunny, too, takes inspiration from Chaplin, and multiple Warner animators have drawn him as the Tramp.) In 1961, Hanna-Barbera’s profoundly underrated Top Cat followed the adventures of a gang of wisecracking Manhattan alley cats, who, like Daffy, are always outwitting a meddling policeman. At worst, classic cartoons may trivialize the suffering and danger associated with homelessness—there’s a certain recurring image of the carefree hobo carrying a bindle, which paints the whole subject in a romanticized light—but the homeless themselves are rarely disparaged or made the butt of the joke. Quite the opposite.

It took a few years, but cartoons caught up to the Reaganite turn. In episodes from the ’90s and early 2000s, there’s a palpable shift in the way homeless characters appear compared to earlier decades. The perspective is different: we’re now seeing them through the eyes of comfortably housed characters, rather than their own. Often they don’t even get proper names. [...] This trajectory leads us, perhaps inevitably, to SpongeBob SquarePants. [..] Squidward gets accused of stealing a dime by his comically greedy boss, Mr. Krabs, and quits his job in a fit of outrage. We then flash forward to see Squidward, now bedraggled and unshaven, living in a cardboard box on the street and begging for change. [...] Mercifully, the ever-cheerful SpongeBob gives Squidward a place to stay—but the moment he’s safely off the street, Squidward turns from a sympathetic victim of circumstance into a lazy, entitled freeloader, straight out of a Reagan speech. He makes no effort to find work and loafs around SpongeBob’s house for ages. [...] Eventually, an exasperated SpongeBob writes “GET A JOB” in his alphabet soup, before shoving him (bed and all) back to work at the Krusty Krab. [...] Worst of all, though, the episode suggests that homelessness can be solved on an individual basis if the people in question simply stop being lazy and “GET A JOB.” This is the biggest myth of all. In 2021, a statistical analysis by the University of Chicago found that 53 percent of people in homeless shelters, and 40.4 percent of unsheltered people, do have jobs. The problem is that their wages are too low, and rents are too high. According to statistics from the same year, it’s impossible for someone working a full-time, minimum-wage job to afford a single-bedroom apartment in 93 percent of U.S. counties, and there are no states in which someone can rent a two-bedroom space on the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. In other words, homelessness has little or nothing to do with personal responsibility, or lack thereof. It’s a consequence of large-scale economic decisions made by landlords and bosses. [...]

— Alex Skopic

#Alex Skopic #theory #the ramblin' rover

839 notes · View notes

metanarrates · 3 months

Text

ugh anthy is so good. nearly every single other story I've seen about a Mysterious and Tragic teenage girl has failed in some way either because the writer forgot to give the character complexity and an internal life, or because the tragic things in her life were far too aestheticized to have real teeth. anthy succeeds as a character largely because the whole story is dedicated to deconstructing an aestheticized view of her & her suffering, and also showing how that aestheticized view dehumanizes her and denies her agency. she is not a harmless victim or a beautifully agonized one - she is a teenage girl who is reacting in realistic, complex ways to a lifetime of crushing systemic abuses. and similarly, every teenage girl around her is also reacting in complex ways to their own suffering under patriarchy.

depiction of sad teenage girls often posit their pain as a natural phenomenon, something that is just intrinsic to girlhood. adding a layer of mystique onto them just further serves to obfuscate the sources of teen girl suffering. instead, teenage girl pain becomes palatable. consumable, even. #aesthetic. these depictions are unthreatening because, by their nature, they cannot depict societal issues in a way that would demand a restructuring of society. we can posit a familial tragedy but not a tragedy of the family structure. we can lament a beautifully mentally ill sufferer but not the systems of wellness and community that failed her. et cetera. nothing can ever hold up an uncomfortable mirror, only a flattering one.

revolutionary girl utena directly says that that idea is bullshit and that its teenage girls are suffering as a direct result of entrenched systematic oppression. and in that uncomfortable honesty, it's able to be WAY more authentically hopeful with its sad teenage girls. anthy is able to finally walk out of the society that trapped her and live freely of the image that was constructed around her! she can be a flawed human girl who is still going to be happy with her girlfriend! her victimhood is not eternal and does not mean she can never find happiness! A TEEN GIRL DOES NOT HAVE TO STAY IN A COFFIN IN ORDER TO DESERVE COMPASSION!!!!

#narrates #rgu #my chat and i have been discussing the virgin suicides (ive never seen the movie but apparently its quite influential in some spheres)#and it just makes me think about how much i loathe most depictions of Suffering Girlhood TM #shut up about girlhood shut up about girlhood!!!!!!! watch rgu. suffering is not just a Girlhood Condition.

450 notes · View notes

bioethicists · 11 months

Note

beer killed my father . he had a disease which destroyed his body and strained his relationships with his wife, his friends, and his children. Alcohol destroys everything it touches, theres a reason you see so many liquor stores in poor neighborhoods. don’t be fucking obtuse. Prohibition obviously doesn’t work, but I wish alcohol was taxed higher. And i want the CEO of Heineken on the guillotine right after Jeff Bezos.

before anything, i want to let you know that i am incredibly sorry about your father. alcohol has decimated entire generations of my family, played a crucial role in the neglectful family structure i spent the first 19 years of my life suffering under, + played a minor but not insignificant role in my brother's death. i would never undermine or dismiss that in anyone.

i used to feel very similarly to you, in large part because my mother is a recovering alcoholic who raised me to believe that alcohol is a magic poison which turns people into monsters + i, being her child, probably inherited a disease which would also turn me into a monster if i chose to drink. it's a deeply painful + understandable response to the pain that alcohol can cause.

my first question is, does alcohol really "destroy everything it touches"? are there not millions of people who engage with alcohol, in varying degrees of recreational use, who experience minimal or no negative impacts? or do you believe that everyone who drinks alcohol in any capacity is experiencing severe destruction in their lives as a result? does the existence of people for whom alcohol enriches their lives (or is a neutral presence) at all invalidate your experience, or your father's?

my second question is, you've identified that there are 'so many liquor stores in poor neighborhoods' (i would add there is a lot of alcohol in rich neighborhoods, just distributed in less stigmatized ways, like boutique wineries + fancy bars), do you think that companies are strategically attempting to create alcohol dependencies among poor people, or do you think that poverty creates the pain, hopelessness, + desperation which can fuel an alcohol habit (which is then exacerbated by intergenerational trauma + community alcohol culture).

i feel no allegiance to liquor companies- they absolutely do make the bulk of their profits off of people who are drinking in a way that is destroying their lives (unsure if i trust the exact scope of the research in that link but i trust the gist). however, liquor companies love the disease model, because it exempts them from responsibility. if alcoholism is truly a genetic disease, then liquor companies, bars, package stores hold no fault in the development of destructive drinking habits + community norms (natasha Schüll discusses this in her book about gambling addiction)- the people were already sick + would be getting it somewhere else, anyway, right? but as you have correctly identified, liquor companies help create the structures which turn alcohol use into an accessible + normalized mode of self-destruction.

my third question is, will taxing liquor help the real problem? yes, it reduces alcohol consumption, but does it reduce addiction? or does it make cheapskates like me say "i'm not fucking paying for that" while individuals who consume alcohol compulsively either eat the cost or turn to more illicit ways of obtaining alcohol. or, rephrased, is the problem that alcohol is too accessible? is alcohol a magical poison which turns 'normal' people into 'alcoholics'? alternatively, is alcoholism a genetic condition, unrelated to any outside circumstances, which is triggered by drinking?

or: is alcoholism one of many ways in which people who are experiencing hopelessness, pain, grief, poverty, trauma, etc use to numb themselves, harm themselves, + make life feel more bearable? at this point, i do believe there is at least a temperament factor which makes people more likely to use substances over other forms of escape (hence why my brother used substances while i turned to anorexia + do not struggle with substance use). are we actually addressing the problem if we make it more expensive (thus, mind you, further impoverishing people with alcohol addictions!)? or are we shifting the pain these people are experiencing to either other avenues (opioids, other drugs, totally different ways of coping which are often just as destructive) or an unregulated, underground alcohol market.

the way you are viewing alcohol, alcohol is a unique substance which is manufacturing or feeding illness in people in order to make them behave in ways which destroy their lives + the lives of others. the way i am viewing it, alcohol is a presence which can fill a void that is being created in people's lives as a response to structural, communal, or social suffering. when alcohol is painted as the cause of this pain, we are able to look the other way from a which world is structured to cause an immense amount of people to suffer needlessly. at the same time, the common sense observation that many of us engage with alcohol in ways which do not destroy our lives, as well as the knowledge that prohibition does not work, prevents the erasure of alcohol from public or private life.

who benefits from the belief that alcohol is a uniquely corrupting substance? what lessons did we actually learn from prohibition- is trying to do it to a lesser degree (make alcohol less accessible) actually going to do anything? when the price of opioids went up due to dea crackdowns, did people stop buying opioids or did the market flood with cheap + deadly fentanyl? is the problem that people are drinking or that they are suffering?

#substance use #harm reduction #drugs //#alcohol //#death //

1K notes · View notes

moony-2001 · 6 months

Text

The real-world impact of Lore Olympus

i.e. do your research Rachel

Trigger warning: racism, fetishization, appropriation, mentions of SA

Long post ahead

A while ago, someone told me that Lore Olympus was just a silly little comic written out of boredom. That it was made to be "funny". They told me that "[I] can't hope [for] an extremely [well-written] story when it was just made with the intention to make something goofy" and that if Rachel actually wanted to make something serious like I had, she would write a book and not a comic.

At the time of this exchange, it was past 1 a.m. and I was exhausted. I did not want to argue with this person and it simply wasn't worth my time or energy in the moment.

But looking back at that (mostly one-sided) interaction, I can't help but think that there is so much wrong with that point of view. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion about Lore Olympus, whether good or bad. But Lore Olympus isn't just some silly little nothing comic about nothing important. It is a comic that actively appropriates and erases Greek Culture. It is a comic that has no respect for the actual stories that have been passed down over thousands of years whether by word of mouth or written text. It is a comic that perpetuates a false narrative and harmful stereotypes about characters or certain groups of people. So, no, it's not just a silly little comic.

Incorrect information

Here’s an example of what I mean:

When I was doing research for my post about the 10 year time skip, I looked up Leuce to reconfirm the little information I knew about her. Wanna guess the first thing that popped up about her?

A Lore Olympus Wiki article.

Okay. How about Minthe? Hundreds of pictures of her from Lore Olympus and a LO Wiki article as one of the top 3 results. Both character are horribly represented in LO and unfortunately there isn’t really any documented stories or records that can refute how LO paints them. Because of this, other characters in Greek Mythology like Leuce and Minthe, whose stories have little to no documentation, stand to suffer the most harm from deliberate misrepresentation on Rachel’s part.

Of course well-known and better documented figures in Greek mythology face slander as well. What about Thetis or Leto? How about Apollo? All of their portrayals in LO are HORRIBLE. I have seen people online absolutely drag them to filth not because they're upset about how the character is portrayed compared to their mythological counterpart, but because they have no knowledge of how they are actually portrayed outside of LO. They just assume that's how the characters are. Similarly, people who have either very little or no prior knowledge of Greek Mythology and Culture would look at the comic and go "Yep, sounds legit. It must be true." and go about thinking that what is portrayed in LO is accurate to what was transcribed thousands of years ago.

Creative interpretations and racism/fetishization within LO

Don’t get me wrong. Creative interpretations and artistic liberties can be great. When they’re done tastefully. I personally think if done correctly, a Greek myth spun in a modern way has the potential be very good. But that's not what we were given.

Characters like Minthe, Leuce, and Thetis (all nymphs btw) are portrayed as trashy tramps who put out and are used as a foil sabotage Persephone and/or her relationship with Hades. Compare that to Greek Mythology where in the Iliad, Thetis is very well-respected by the gods, particularly Hera. Unfortunately, other similar characters like satrys (and basically any character that isn’t a god) are usually portrayed as a low-class POC that can be easily exploited, manipulated, or used as a temporary villain/lover/pawn to “get back” at Persephone, our white-coded protagonist who can do no wrong.

Additionally, there is a clear race/class bias against characters like nymphs in LO. We see many cases scattered throughout the comic of gods like Hera or Aphrodite referring to nymphs as "trash" or "low class" or the idea that nymphs do not belong with gods being heavily implied if not outright said. I cannot tell you how often I've seen Minthe be called some variant of "cheap" by the readers of LO. Even Persephone (who created the flower nymphs) treats them with such disrespect. She frequently calls them some variant of "stupid" or "simple" like saying how they're not the sharpest crayons in the box even though she's the one WHO MADE THEM. However, it's so odd not really to note that nymphs like Echo, Amphitrite, or Psyche (who was previously disguised as a nymph) are not discriminated against. This is because they are liked or trusted by the gods they are around and ergo are often portrayed as the "good ones", which is a disgusting mindset to have.

We also see the fetishization of nymphs in the comic that is disturbingly similar to the fetishization of women who are Black, Asian, or Latina. It is a known fact that Hades has a flower nymph fetish. Not only is this implied in the comic, but Rachel stated it outright in an old Patreon post. Nymphs are also generally treated as sex-symbols, disposable, and as a lesser-than. Zeus frequently displays this behavior by abandoning nymphs he knocked up in the mortal realm.

For example, when Persephone finds out Apollo is dating Daphne, she isn't upset he's dating her friend. She's upset he's dating a flower nymph, beings that are generally considered to be "rare", "dumb", and objects of sexual desire. Ew.

Even on the Lore Olympus website (loreolympians.com) nymphs are regarded as "beautiful", "desirable", and "very exotic". And when they're not described in a sexual manner they're say it with me now regarded as "low class" or "workers" for some kind of god/goddess.

Final thoughts

So not only is the characterization of characters like Minthe or Thetis harmful to Greek culture and the stories that are so ingrained in their society, but it is also perpetuating harmful stereotypes about people of color and women who are confident in their sexuality.

Of course, the characters within Greek Mythology had their own issues. Zeus was a serial rapist, many of the goddesses deemed to be "feminist" by today's standards were actually horribly misogynistic looking at you Athena. But 1. that's just how things were back then (but that does not make it right) and 2. all of the good, the bad, and the ugly is still there in Greek Mythology. They're not denying how fucked up it is, but they're also not changing their history to better fit their own narrative or the narrative of the modern world. It exists, it happened, but now it is studied and called out by historians.

Rachel, on the other hand, is doing exactly that. She is actively changing the Greek's cultural history to better fit her fic's narrative. She is constantly sweeping things under the rug or going "No this is how it ACTUALLY happened". Lore Olympus is marketed as a "feminist retelling" yet somehow, it takes allllll the ugly parts from Greek Mythology (rape, incest, problematic age gaps, dubious consent, etc.), mixes it with a majority of the issues we have in the modern world (white feminism, rape-apologists/rape culture, grooming, fetishization of certain minority groups, etc.) and then amplifies the concoction to 20. Lore Olympus cannot be a "progressive, feminist, retelling" and also have characters that are morally apprehensive/come straight from the ancient myths. It does not work. In fact, IMO it makes all the problems from both eras worse.

News flash: actual cultures that are still thriving today are not your toys. They are not "made up". They matter. Do better.

#anti lore olympus #lore olympus #anti lo persephone #anti lo #lore olympus criticism #lore olympus critical #lo critic #lo critical #unpopular lo #unpopular lore olympus #appropriation #greek mythology #if anyone who is actually Greek wants to comment on this or share their thoughts please feel free #I'm not Greek but I have a deep love for mythology/Greek culture so this is just my take on things

606 notes · View notes