#Justi-system

[mueritos]

I find it funny you post things about the wrong people becoming therapists yet you want to be a social worker and actively defend rapists and abusers 💀

CW: mentions of SA/cycles of abuse.

you must think you're really clever. the therapy industry has a huge amount of problems (like any other industry built on service to other humans, like the medical industry), and i think even the people who want to work within the therapy field (whether as a psychiatrist, a counselor, a therapist, a social worker, a sex therapist, etc) can still critique the many issues within it, mainly the racism, eurocentrinism, and the individualistic values that much of talk therapy promotes. I don't know where you got the second part of your statement, because not only is it widely inaccurate of what I was thinking of doing in social work, it also is just not a great idea to hold about people who work with people who do harm.

there are therapists/social workers who work exclusively with cops/law enforcement, and ethically those people CANNOT work with people who are victims of law enforcement or people who "break the law" (incarcerated folks). It just doesn't work, because if you work with both, it can create a conflict of interest. this is the same with people who work with victims of assault (SA or not). these therapists/etc who work with victims of assault/abuse CANNOT work with abusers. The same is vice versa, as in people who work with those who do serious harm cannot work with their victims.

I think your self righteousness is misplaced. You clearly have a lot of work to do in regards to removing your own feelings and judgement from the work that many therapists and social workers do. I don't know if you know this, but everyone (yes, even people who do serious harm) are deserving of basic human necessities, like oh i don't know. Housing, healthcare, or therapy. It is not my job as a future social worker to judge people, that is wickedly different from holding someone accountable. Judging is like sending someone to prison for 25 years, further removing them from the communities and resources that could generate accountability. Further, no one can hold anyone accountable unless said person consents to being held accountable. There are different procedures for whether they do or not. My job, as a future social worker, is to help people, because I believe all people deserve to ask for help and receive the help that they need.

Not sure if you know, but I'm against incarceration/punishment. I believe we hold punishment as the way to "teach people a lesson", but if you do not work with people and actively step in and disrupt cycles of trauma (housing crisis, hunger, substance abuse, interpersonal abuse, racism, ableism, etc), you will only find that people re-offend unless they are given the resources they need to be better. Yes, there are people who genuinely want to do harm, but harm does not exist in a vacuum, and if you are unwilling to acknowledge that, then I genuinely wish compassion to anyone who slips up around you and shows you that anyone is capable of any level of harm.

People who do serious harm are victims of the same cycle abuse as everyone else. You white knuckling your self righteous black and white morality is the reason why you cannot understand that even the worst kinds of people deserve the same access to care as victims of harm. You think that people who work with individuals who do harm as them defending them, when the reality is many of us with the brains built to do this kind of work want to stop this harm and correct abusive behavior. Unfortunately for you, people are capable of change. No one is asking you to like anyone or their actions (because I don't have to like the people I work with either, freak), but what people like me are asking you is to accept the fact that all people do harm, and when people are given the community and resources to, they can change for the better and recognize the serious harm they have caused.

Not everyone who goes into this work wants to aim their energy into the "socially acceptable" work. I think social justice morality and the sanitization of revolutionary politics has rotted our brains into believing that we must do and be the most "woke" person ever, channeling our energy into victims of harm. But what we fail to recognize through that is that some people would rather divest their energy into de-radicalization of fascists, or others want to put their energy into theory, others want to learn how to connect with the land and be sustainable, and others want to learn how to help others. And just like them, there are people who are willing enough to use their skills and compassion for conflict/resolution, accountability practices, and to help those who have harmed. Because, unfortunate for you, activists should NOT be juggling being the theorist, farmer, therapist, spiritualist, leader, mediator, protestor, rioter, etc and etc. Some people are simply built to put their energy into what they are good at. This doesn't mean that the farmer does not encourage the theorist to continue thinking and writing their theory. And I am sure the theorist, one who cannot farm and till, is grateful for the skills the farmer brings once dinner comes around.

it's funny really because I still am not sure about what I want my focus to be in social work, and for you to assume that I am "defending" abusers/rapists by thinking about working in extremely hostile, tense, and exhausting environments in the attempt to disrupt cycles of violence is me "defending" these individuals...it just reveals more about you than myself, anon. Many people already work with abusers/rapists (many of those therapists being victims of abuse/SA as well), so you may as well call the ones who are actually doing the work rn "defenders" of abuse. see how that bodes for you.

that's all I have to say.

[partisan-by-default]

Guilty Donald Trump warned Secret Service protection 'ends' if he's jailed

Justie Nicol, a former prosecutor and member of the American Civil Liberties Union, told Daily Express US that within jail, the Secret Service would no longer be authorized to protect him.

As she described what his potential prison experience might look like, she said: "For protection, besides the standard prison security measures, additional precautions like increased surveillance and possibly guards assigned specifically to him would be likely.

"Notably, once incarcerated, the Secret Service generally does not have jurisdiction inside the prison system; their protective duty technically ends with incarceration."

[travelingthief]

Zeus Devotions and Offerings

Learn About:

Clouds (what’s their part in the water cycle? How do you tell the difference between types of clouds?)

Weather (predominantly rain, wind, & thunder and lightning) (What causes these phenomena scientifically?)

The justice system

Eagles, hawks, and other birds

His myths and genealogy (there’s a lot there!)

His Roman counterpart, Jupiter

Political history in your country (or any country of interest)

Climate change and how you can help reduce it

Storms/Rain

Collect rainwater as an offering or for use in spells

(Safely) Watch a storm (I like to do so in my car)

If you can, safely offer shelter to those during storms (travelers, unhoused folks, or even stray cats/dogs!)

Participate in storm clean-ups

Splash in puddles/Dance in the rain

Thank Him for the rain and acknowledge how helpful it is for providing life to all of us

Take proper storm precautions, like buying enough food, having flashlights/candles on hand, and having non-electric ways to keep warm

Keep a rainy day fund

Spend rainy days with your [chosen] family

Meditate/fall asleep to rain sounds

Learn how to respond in the event someone is struck by lightning

Sky

Go cloud-gazing (try making up stories for the shapes you find!)

Go parasailing

Travel on planes

Hot air balloon rides

Ask Him to bless your flights and travels

Go birdwatching

Ride a zipline

Fly kites

Learn cloud divination

Order and Justice

Keep up-to-date with local political happenings

Participate in your city/school council

Attend protests and advocate for equality  

Vote in local, state, and nationwide elections

Take breaks for yourself when learning about politics! That shit can be overwhelming!

Learn de-escalation methods

Join a debate team

Keep your schedule in order

Maintain a clean and orderly environment

Advocate for a greener future

Visit your state house

Leadership and Protection

Trust yourself to take on leadership roles

Build your self-confidence 

Be assertive in your boundaries 

(If you're able to) Work out and build muscle

Take proper measures to protect your home (locking the door and windows or a protection spell/jar!)

Take self-defense classes/martial arts/wrestling etc.

Make your own self-love affirmations 

Do things that make you feel powerful!

Understand your power. So many people are afraid of power because of negative connotations, but power can be used for good as well

Carry yourself with pride

Speak with conviction

Misc.

Support small businesses

Check the weather and dress appropriately (or pack emergency backup clothes if the fit is too good)

Carry an umbrella on you! And a spare if you can, to pass out to someone in need!

Wear grays and sky blues

Travel and see the world!

(Safely and sanitarily) collect bird feathers. Make sure you’re aware of which bird feathers are restricted from being collected

Show Him things you’re proud of!

Set attainable goals and make a plan to achieve them

Offer hospitality to every guest, even if you’re not thrilled to see them

Be a pleasant guest, even if you’re not thrilled to be there

Offerings

Feathers

Bull/swan/eagle imagery

Rainwater/snow water

Representation of lightning/storms (Paintings, trinkets, drawings, etc.)

Imagery of Scales of Justice

Voting stickers/Absentee ballot envelopes

Political mail for causes you support

Homework you put a good effort into and are proud of

Pictures of the sky/clouds

Bird figurines

Crown imagery/figurines

Lastly, it’s undeniable that Zeus has a long history of assaulting and mistreating women. Everyone has their beliefs on the matter and I think it is entirely possible to worship/work with a god while fully acknowledging the messy past. Furthermore, as I dive deeper into the history surrounding the myths I gain a better understanding of the factors surrounding Zeus’s philandering, like the synchronization of Gods and Goddesses across religions and how Zeus likely assimilated past male deities and the people of the time created the stories of his many affairs to explain this merging.

There’s no way to justify the raping by our human standards. That being said, I don’t think it’s cause to completely shut Him out. He is the King of the Gods, the Bringer of Life! Surely that is something to celebrate. 

With all that, some final acts that support women:

Believing victims

Donating/volunteering at women's shelters

Learning the signs of domestic abuse

Learning and acknowledging red flags in a partner

Talking to friends about any major red flags you’re concerned about with their partner

Advocating for women’s rights 

Learning about domestic abuse/rape/abortion services in your area

Hoping this is helpful to someone! I see very few posts for Zeus on here.

[justworthlessreblogs]

scattered thoughts on kirapika 2

part 2 of my great kirapika rant. this one is shorter but i'm still putting it under a read more

the series tries to argue that rio's sole motivation for going evil was jealously but i disagree (to an extent) because that is a 12 or 13 year old alone in an unfamiliar city without any support system (i mean. it's just straight up canon that he and ciel started to drift apart during this time, he doesn't really seem to have had as much of a bond with jean-pierre as ciel does, he probably didn't interact with anyone else, and i think it's pretty telling that at some point he started exclusively working on his stuff in their attic instead of jean-pierre's workshop). jealously was absolutely a factor, yes, but he was also incredibly isolated and emotionally vulnerable (something we know noir specifically preys on). mentioned this to my beta once and he said that noir sounds like a textbook cult leader

in the end, rio and ciel just feel very... incomplete, as characters. like they get setup for arcs that never happen, but the show insists that they did.

ciel: i've said this before, but to me ciel is the sort of character who needs a broken pedestal. because when we meet her, she's already got everything. she's perfect in every way. and then you start seeing the cracks, tiny little flaws that sneak through. because ciel *is* flawed. she's selfish, she's shortsighted, she's got a tendency to only think about herself. she can't comprehend why ichika's "simple" sweets have so much kirakiraru even though they're not as fancy as her sweets. and i love it. i was so hyped for seeing how her intro was going to turn out while watching her introductory arc, because they had so much to work with.

the problem with ciel as a character is that she needs a moment of reckoning, but she never gets it. she comes very, very close in 23, but it's immediately undercut by the fact that she isn't the one who gets herself out of her slump (it's rio and ichika who do) and she gets rewarded despite doing nothing to really earn the reward. ciel just wallows around, then rio makes the waffles and makes her feel better, but it's ciel who gets to become a cure? it's just... disappointing. things just fall into her lap, and others do the work for her, but she gets to reap the reward. when watching 23 for the first time i thought that it really felt like set up for *rio's* debut as a cure, and i still stand by that. it's the apex of his redemption arc, the episode where he gets his big emotional realization and resolves to become a better person. and while as previously mentioned they try to give ciel something like that, it falls flat because she never does any of the emotional work.

and then after 23 ciel is just... there. it feels like the writers don't really know what to do with her character arc since its primary focus is her relationship with her brother, but they just put him in a coma for 16 episodes. and so ciel just kinda Exists. none of her episodes during this stretch are all that interesting except for 26 and that's because she's got really good chemistry with bibury - but they don't even really take advantage of that, either, because bibury disappears from the plot again until 32 and remains in the background after that! the implication in 26 that ciel has developed a bit of a savior complex based on her interactions with bibury is really interesting too, but once again they don't really do anything with it after that. ciel offers bibury a home and that's about it.

"but justie, you said that ciel gets to define herself as a character! why are you complaining about how aimless she is?" and yeah that's fair, i did. but when i say that ciel gets define herself i mean that more in accomplishments. because ciel has a *lot* of accomplishments, to the point where it gets a little ridiculous. she's perfect at literally everything except sometimes she mixes up her idioms in japanese, and that's a character trait that shows up so little that i usually forget it even exists. and they don't do anything with this perfection, either, unlike yukari. ciel's perfect because she just is.

anyways. ciel kinda floats along for a while, and then 41 happens, and they try to tell me that ciel's grown and changed and become a really great person, except i don't buy it because she's still saying thoughtless stuff at the literal emotional climax. and it frustrates me, because i can see her potential character arc - but the writers refuse to commit to it. at the end of the show, ciel is the same exact person she was at the start, except now she's got fancy precure powers too.

rio: rio gets an incomplete arc more in the sense that he literally isn't around to complete it. i'll die on the hill that the coma was the worst thing the show could've done. because all of rio's development that he'd been getting vanishes after 23, and while 41 tries to develop him more it falls flat for me because in my opinion it's too little, too late. they waste his last chance for development on a generic "redeemed villain feels bad about what they did" plot, and they don't even have fun with it! as i've already mentioned in the other post after the coma rio just becomes kind of a shell of himself. a lot of interesting things set up during the first half of the series vanish because we only get to have one episode with him and they waste it on "oh i feel bad about my crimes" and they don't even do it well because just like ciel in 23 rio doesn't get to sort out his own shit. he's the one being framed, he's the one being targeted, he's the one who wanted to run away - but it's ciel who confronts elisio, because ciel is the precure and the precure has to be the one to confront the villain, and rio just stands there uselessly in the background even though his arc is supposed to be about how he's not useless and can measure up to his sister. the underlying message of the arc we do get is just. depressing. rio struggles, and struggles, and tries so fucking hard, but no matter what he does he's still second best to ciel. and for a show like precure, "you'll never be good enough so you should just give up and accept your place in the background" is really, really bleak. he needs a confidence arc the way ciel needs a broken pedestal arc, and he never gets it, and his really interesting dynamics with characters - ichika and yukari specifically - vanish into the wind, because the writers decided the coma was a better option instead of exploring them. in my opinion, 41 should have been episode 24, or 25, or somewhere in that range. because it feels like the behavior of both ciel and rio would fit a lot better there. patching up their relationship is the beginning, not the ending. there's still a lot of development to be done. you can't just tell me that everything's fine now.

i think cure parfait could've worked, but the way it happens in canon just is Not It

this one is tangentially related but i'm putting it in here anyways: i also think cure pekorin could've worked if we'd actually gotten some setup for it. like yeah 38 was an episode that happened and she gets focus in 7 as well but i feel like pekorin as a character just mostly exists in the background. and then suddenly bam she's a precure despite never really showing any drive to be one or do that sort of thing. even removing all my biases i still think that for the sake of the narrative alone rio would've been a much better fit because he already had that motivation and it would've been a nice cap on his redemption arc imo, but if pekorin was given actual setup and foreshadowing aside from getting a human form in 38 i think it would've gone a lot better

[qilaiavatar]

Meet the justiful policeman, who decided not to fight Qilai, but to join them!

Name: Shin Yoshiro (goes by last name)

Age: 24 (Born in 214 AG)

Gender: male

Bender: earthbender, metalbender

Sexual orientation: queer (questioning)

Enneatype: ISTJ 2w1

Traits: righteous, loyal, serious

Yoshiro is a police member, who is responsible for catching Yanlin. He grew up in Republic City, attended police academy since the very childhood and always wanted to spread justice. When he finds out about Qilai, he lets them go, as he finds himself supporting their ideas. Yoshiro decided not to join the team, instead becoming an only ally in the police and provoking changes within the system.

Fun facts!

Yoshiro loves animals and has a dog.

As a policeman, he got to keep his metalbending legal, although Yoshiro himself understands how absurd this rule is.

He kind of likes Yanlin and lets him escape every time. They establish a good relationship eventually...

[itookyoudown]

From nothing but time (hard time)!

Tim thinks there's nothing to say about it. Conversation (and action) over with the night. He’d be wrong. Raylan’s head and now shirtless shoulders and naked arms pop up by the side of Tim’s bed. He’s peeled off his shirt and stands there looking at Tim with a smile in his eyes.

“Tim, you want a taste of Kentucky?”

Tim rolls his eyes. And then he closes them. There’s no potential threat in the question. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that Raylan’s dick is hard again. Thus no way for the other man to weaponize it. Not yet. Tim’s still got another thirty to forty minutes before he might have to shove off an attempt for a second round.

“Think I’ve had my fill for the night,” Tim declines in a dry, disinterested tone. He knows now what the inside of Raylan’s mouth tastes like.

He hears something tinny open and close. Tim does peek to find out what that’s about. Raylan’s holding out the little box that he keeps his personal effects in. Letters. Snacks. Shit like that.

“They’re butter cake,” he whispers. Raylan is already holding out the tin for Tim to take one. As if he can’t imagine Tim saying no.

Tim squints at him. “You do know it’s candy you’re supposed to lure boys with if you’re looking to get your cock sucked. Cookies? Cakes? Now, this is what witches use as bait for kids they wanna cook up. Unless you're trying to eat me?”

A shit-eating grin stretches out Tim’s lips. God, he loves this. This is the kind of shit that gets him hard. Or it would have, if he hadn’t just shot off three minutes ago. “This is cultural appropriation, Raylan. You’re mixing up unseemly fornication with cannibalism.”

“Eat the fuckin’ cookie, Gutterson.”

Tim’s never had someone threaten him over baked goods before. He keeps his gaze pinned on Raylan’s face as he dips his fingers into the tin box that Raylan’s still holding out. Slow. Careful. He’s wary about this.

“Why you sharing your mama’s cookies?” he asks. 

There’s no afterglow in prison, but apparently, there are cookies. Tim shouldn’t take the cookie. For much the same reason he shouldn’t call Raylan Raylan.

There are stories about Raylan. There are so many stories about Raylan. While Tim thought most of them were bullshit…the more he gets to know Raylan, the more he believes there's more truth to them than lie. 

And one of those stories that might not be such a tall tale is that Raylan shanked a man for stealing one of the goodies his mother bought in on family day.

“I told her ‘bout you,” Raylan answers nice and easy and with absolute unbidden honesty, “and she told me to share.”

Un-fucking-believable. It’s true. Even murderers still love their mothers.

Ohh yo. Justie i’m glad you asked this one so I can ramble about it quite a bit. This fic’s popularity has always surprised me and I’m still floored by the folks that have reached out to tell me it was one of the fics that drew them into reading more Justified fanfiction or set sail the givenson ship for them.

This was written back in my early days of writing fanfiction for the very first time. I wanted to test out my comfort zone and also give back in some way to the fandom that had given me so much joy, so I hosted a mini prompt fest (Givensongiving) right here on tumblr and invited justies to send me prompts for givenson fics.

You can thank @sublightsleeper for prompting “involuntary arousal + prison sex, gimme that sweet sweet au sauce” and thus this fic was born.

It was hugely inspired by the prison scenes in Justified and other shows such as Oz, Orange is the New Black, and a lot of nonfiction books + documentaries I’ve read over the years about the USA prison system.

When I thought about how to put Raylan and Tim in a prison setting, I immediately went with the idea that they both ended up as inmates. I think I briefly considered the idea that they were both guards. Or even doing guard/inmate, but I didn’t really get any noncon or darkfic inspiration from the prompt. Besides, I did want to preserve the equal footing they have had on the show with each other and I was drawn to painting a friendly/comforting connection between them as they're locked up.

Once I knew I wanted to do inmate/inmate, there was zero question on HOW Raylan and Tim would end up in prison: they’d be there for murdering their fathers.

I can clearly remember thinking about how Raylan would have killed Arlo and had this thought: “what if Raylan killed Arlo with a baseball bat? That’d be hot…but also horrifying for him so let’s explore that”. It felt really fitting to me to have Raylan kill Arlo in such a “personal” way (close and personal and frantic and messy) and Tim to kill his father in an “impersonal” way (cold and distant with a gun and utilizing military tactics).

ANYWAYS. Sorry for all the background rambling onto rambling about this specific bit!

This whole exchange was really meant to highlight the different ways that Raylan and Tim have learned how to survive prison and the effect it’s had on their ability to make connections with others and how to navigate relationships.

Tim rolls his eyes. And then he closes them. There’s no potential threat in the question. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that Raylan’s dick is hard again. Thus no way for the other man to weaponize it. Not yet. Tim’s still got another thirty to forty minutes before he might have to shove off an attempt for a second round.

Prison has hardened Tim. He’s closed himself off behind a very high wall to protect both his emotions and also physically safeguard himself. He’s always looking out for an angle that someone might use to hurt him. In this case, when Tim worries about Raylan trying to initiate more sex, this is Tim being painfully aware that his cellmate could regard his agreement with consenting to sex this time as consenting to sex always. 

Earlier in this fic I implied that Tim is a survivor of incest & SA, so it was important to me that I circle around to that reveal again and have Tim anticipating this violence (and have him ready to defend himself)…but having him do it in a very Tim-like way. His casual acceptance of the possibility of it was really meant to highlight the horror of what’s happened to him in the past.

I also feel like the cold, factual, and slightly paranoid way that Tim reacts to Raylan in the immediate aftermath of their sexual encounter was a good contrast to Raylan’s more lighthearted approach as well. Tim hasn’t done as much time as Raylan and Tim got to live life a little before being locked up. And because of that I think Tim’s viewpoint of what they’ve done is more practical – he’s in prison and cut off from the outside world, he’s making due with what and who is available to him. He’s touch starved and knows it and so seeks friendly hands for a few minutes of respite without expecting anything beyond that.

“They’re butter cake,” he whispers. Raylan is already holding out the tin for Tim to take one. As if he can’t imagine Tim saying no.

You have no idea how long I spent researching “traditional kentucky desserts” and “popular kentucky desserts” before I settled on butter cake cookies lol. I really wanted it to be something simple but distinct, something that Frances would actually bake and she’d be able to take into prison for Raylan.

This was also, once again, Tim making implications about his past and being purposefully offensive about it because he likes to tell his little jokes as his primary coping mechanism.

Compared to Tim, it was my goal to make Raylan…I don’t want to call him soft, even though his behavior is obviously softer when you compare it to Tim’s. Raylan is still a very violent and angry man in this fic. His murder of Arlo sent him to prison and him assaulting and murdering other inmates has ensured he’ll be a lifer. He’s also still a smooth talker and likes to tell others what to do (hence him telling Tim to eat the fucking cookie).

However, I did want to draw attention to the fact that Raylan has spent more of his life inside of prison than outside of it. He went in while he was still a teenager. He’s never known the outside world in an adult way, so there’s absolutely a childish edge to him and a degree of innocence in the way he tries to grow closer to Tim.

And I did want to make it clear that despite Raylan’s charm and the fact that he’s over 40 years old in this, he’s emotionally underdeveloped and has a much more rosy view. He is very much experiencing A Big Crush on his new cellmate (and is over the moon that the newest boy on the block likes him best) and is treating their time together as if they’re “dating”. He’s also obeying his mama’s advice on how to treat Tim because yes this is also sneaky Raylan is a mama’s boy propaganda fic.

As an aside, I loved including Frances even if she’s in the background. It felt so good to write at least one AU where Frances survived Arlo even if that meant she lost Raylan to prison. She got to live!!

(author commentary ask game)

[magnuficent76]

🖊

Holy shit you on the inbox....... This is so awesome hello.

UHM um this is my oc her name is Melaine. She is a Normal Girl who is a Bug also

A doctor by profession, a biologist by heart, and a mutant through experimentation. Melaine T. Curatella was a renowed name in medicine, a part of one of the most famous families in the interplanetary system, until some horrid event lead her far outside the bounds of sanity... and now, who knows what she's after, using mutagenics and science horrifically in some far off planet? There's only speculation to be done.

Originally from Promethea, came to Pandora with a mission to help everyone who needed medical assistance, eventually ended up setting up her own hospital for the same purpose (free healthcare W). She is surprisingly rarely ever attacked simply because she is nice to people and as it turns out, even the worst of mercenaries would rather not die because of an unaddressed broken bone. Do not mistake this kindness for tolerance however, because she's more than capable enough to defend herself should a threat arise (Trust me scalpel stabs are Way Worse than regular stabs). Extremely competent in what she does to a scary degree, often being called "the Angel of the Wastes" for it. She could probably rearrange someone's entire skeleton if she was up to it. Deep down she has a lot of pent upanger because of how everything in this planet just is so exploited, so ignored, how everyone is clearly struggling but can't do anything about it because of the ideals that are perpetuated. She hates hates hates hates it so bad and she WANTS to do something too but, where is she even supposed to start right ? Well, "not letting everyone die constantly because of turf wars and meaningless violence" is probably a start.

Gets really passionate about everything really fast. Once she decides she likes or supports something, it would take hell freezing over to make her change her mind. This stubborness and resilience is what allows her to keep moving even throughout the most awful of situations, even in the face of the worst of adversity, she will come out on top covered in blood and permanently changed but she will stand by her extremely strict set of morals or so fucking help me. Melaine has a bad tendency to overlook special case scenarios because of this as well because she really dislikes the idea of being wrong about anything, which is how she feels after you tell her that things aren't just forever set in stone. Probabilities and other such interference don't matter to her, because only one version of every situation exists in her mind. This severely limits her ability to navigate new situations because she doesn't have the proper equipment to understand them, and it frustrates her beyond belief, so she does anything and everything to classify it as something she's already familiar with. Nothing else matters but my understanding of it, my classification, my experience, MY method. This woman would rather spend 5 years on the same argument than admit she maybe miscalculated. Totally not taking after her mom <3

After everything goes down in the story, she has to escape everything and ends up crashing back on her home planet, which is ironic for her giving she said she'd never go back under any circumstances, but I think the circumstance of "My husband is possibly dead and a company wants to take me + our 2 young kids out too just for being associated with him" is kind of a special case. This does not make her feel hopeless as much as it just makes her ANGRY. Injustice runs loose everywhere, with the worst people you've ever seen having most of the power and thus perpetuating it, while you're just getting kicked down over and over after climbing the ladder. It's humiliating, it's awful, and it makes her so fucking mad. This kickstarts her descent into madness and obsession after the concept of justice, something she herself has to do, because clearly nobody else knows how to. No one else knows justice how she does, and therefore, she must be the one to instill it.

Has been fascinated by insects and other arthropods ever since she begun to talk. Most namely, the Praying Mantis. If left to her own devices she would infodump about bugs for days at a time. Their exoskeletons and surprisingly tough claws and their big stupid eyes just captivate her, to a point where almost everything she owns has a mantis pin. This fixation takes a weirder turn later in the story as she attempts to BECOME a mutant version of one, often using several chemicals and other substances on herself to achieve what she considers "the perfect predator form". She's very normal about it and she would never perform any particularly unethical experiments to achieve such a goal. She is not doing it for any nefarious reasons (like say, especialized murder) and would never awaken cannibalistic urges within herself after all that. Don't worry about it !👍

Lookit her <3

Despite it all, she loves a lot. She is enamored by the beauty of life and understanding it is only her goal because of how much she appreciates every little detail of it as well. She loves helping people and she loves her husband and she just wants to keep loving things but unfortunately the world wants to make her Insane Constantly.

[willowmckinley]

For the ask game... 22

Thank you, Justie.

22. describe your writing process from scratch to finish.

Oh, what a doozy! But a fun one, haha. Typically it starts with an image in my head, usually a concept or a scene. Take, for example, "The Opposite Of." That started as the idea "RaylanxBoyd" if Boyd had left Harlan with Raylan.

I open a word document and take as many notes for the idea as I can, problem solving/working out plot as I can. I jot down some scenes I want to write or might fit well with the story.

Then I start with one scene and take it as far as I can. For "The Opposite Of" the first scene, I think, was their stupid little wedding in front of that stupid little gazebo that I'm obsessed with. So I write as much of that scene as I can, then go back and write what kind of scenarios or events would lead up to it.

After, I write out the next scene. I like to write in chronological order, because often I don't know what will happen until I know what causes it to happen, trying to focus on "if, then" for a lot of my plotting. I try to write transitions as they come up, because they help me figure out what flow and pacing I want, and I've discovered transitions really help with that.

I edit as I write, meaning I like to really craft sentences as I put them to page, saving less editing for later. If a sentence or word or detail is really catching me, I'll make a note of it to come back to, but I prefer to instead work on another fic if I really get caught by a scene or a character motivation.

When I do get caught, I set it aside, and usually go over the scene or character motivation before bed. I have really bad insomnia anyway, so it helps me to have something to focus on so I don't drive myself crazy, haha. Plus, without the pressure of turning ideas into sentences, I usually figure it out, even if it takes me a few nights of this, working on other stories in the meantime.

I will switch between scenes if one catches my attention, but I try to finish whole thoughts before moving on, making notes of other ideas and plots and themes to put in my fic.

By now, the fic is really shaping up to be something. At this point, I'm reviewing for themes and continuity. I go back to earlier paragraphs and see if I can add any good foreshadowing or narrative through-lines. I see if anything I wrote by now has answered a question posed in another scene, whether for me or for the reader.

Finally, I do my last edits. Now is the time to catch typos, missing words, incomplete sentences, and awkwardness. If I'm lucky, I'll have a chance to myself to read it aloud to see if it sounds natural. If I don't, I usually post without it, haha.

Then, I read my fic on AO3, and catch even more mistakes, haha.

I think that's it? I really am happy to have found a writing system that works for me, haha.

[cringefaecompilation]

Okay hard agree re:Ashton and long term relationships.

And in any case love isn’t going to make Ashton soft. They’ve had a support system for all these months with the Hells and they still don’t know what to do with it for better or worse. He could end this campaign and stick to Fearne or Orym or Dorian or all three or whoever the fuck but we’ve seen who they are… and it’s not a particularly domestic fantasy.

yeah, and it's not to say that any long-term relationship with him would be unhealthy but it's not how he works! he's not the type to dramatically confess his love to someone or propose or anything! but that doesn't make them a cute little shy thing that needs to be pushed into a relationship either. he's blunt as a brick, extremely standoffish, and outright terrified to show intimate emotions. that sort of person does not lend to a domestic lifestyle.

keep in mind the strong implications that their first "relationship" was with justi and even then we don't know the full extent of it. was it a one-night-stand? a crush that never fulfilled itself? did she reject them? either way he doesn't seem like he's eager to go back to dating. and no, flirting with someone they just met for two lines does not count.

[idrisofficial]

drop some kilia and/or seren lore

whoa okay there is very little so you’ll have to bear with me as i make shit up as i go. i feel bad for the two of them, they never really took off or integrated into the story, but they kind of exist in my brain anyways.

killia came from a family who got rich off of a bunch of illegal shit. usually the income came from taking part in organized crime (wooo idrisian mafia), but pretty much anything substantial that made them discreet but solid money they would take up. so killia grew up wealthy, but of a low social class and therefore extremely unlike any of the other wealthy characters.

he was also exposed to a lot of anti-government sentiment by proxy when he was young. his parents had little personal opinion on the government and were mostly negligent in their parenting. but the proximity to illegality lent itself to dissent, and killia absorbed what was around him like a sponge. as he grew up, he became increasingly outspoken; this posed a huge problem for his parents, who couldn’t give less of a shit about political justice, but were endangered by their child drawing attention to himself. so when killia was sent to reform school, which basically fucks you over for life in idris, his parents just left him to rot. obviously this only fueled killia’s sedition, and within reform school he was able to meet likeminded people, i.e. rowen and evander. this is tangential, but i like to say that killia and rowen dated for a few months while they were there before the experience made them realize they were both gay. anyways. he was super important in r&e’s plan to burn the whole prison school down, and after they did he just kind of stuck around with them. he’s known them for about a decade now and they’re all really close friends. killia is much more bookish and sensitive than either rowen or evander, but he’s also really damn passionate and dedicated to the cause. he’d go down fighting.

i know even less about seren than i do about killia whoa!

seren grew up in a small, isolated community of adherents to idris’s Ancient Religion which is currently unnamed and undefined. i know extremely little about the religion’s practices or history, but followers of it in present idris are an extreme minority who are shunned by society. the fringes of people left who still live according to it are mostly concentrated in communities like the one seren grew up in, secluded in the mountains or forests.

seren speaks very little and gets a lot done. he’s still an avid believer in Ancient Religion and practices on his own, but after suffering extreme mental illness and childhood trauma because of the community’s isolation, he made the decision to leave for idris’s capital halcyon city at about 17.

living in the capital was also very traumatic at first. he had no experiences or skills suited to an urban setting, and his mental illness and fear of persecution prevented him from integrating. he met killia purely by chance, whom he did not trust at all at first, but after killia invited him to stay and heal with him for a time, they grew a lot closer (wink wink). their relationship is complicated but very tender, and they bring out the best in each other. seren is sharp and insightful and challenges killia with perspectives so far from anything he’s ever considered. killia is imaginative and knowledgeable and encourages seren to find joy and love.

to put it bluntly, seren still has no idea what he wants out of life, but working to take down the system that has taken so much from him and his people gives him a practical purpose and somewhere to put his values for the time being. he doesn’t care about the rebellion at heart nearly as much as killia does, but killia is kind of all he has, and his devotion is worth a lot to him. seren would hate to die for the revolution, but he doesn’t have the healthiest relationship with death either; if he can’t live among better circumstances anyways, he’d rather die in service of justice than inevitably by his own hand.

that was super fucking dark! really, most of that was a psychoanalysis of seren’s blackest qualities. he doesn’t seem all that depressing even the majority of the time, just quiet. he keeps busy. he’s solution-oriented. he’s a fantastic asset to the revolution even if he doesn’t live and breathe its ideals, because he’s highly unassuming (great for stealth) and very practical. seren will do basically anything the revolution needs him to, though he’s hesitant to resort to direct violence in any capacity. he’s much better friends with evander than he is rowen. he also has somewhat of an affinity for alya, because his religion is essentially a derivative of hers. but mostly he’s pretty asocial.

[carousel-of-souls]

Gotham New Orleans Backstory: Bane

Warnings: violence, corrupt justice systems, maybe body horror

Bane is Mexican/Black, specifically Dominican but since that is his father’s side and he wasn’t raised by the man, not to mention loathes him, Bane doesn’t consider that a part of his identity culturally speaking at least.

He was born in Santa Prisca, in Peña Duro, made to take on his father’s life sentence. His most vivid memories there are if his mother, she often sang to him. She talked a lot about God and Heaven, looking back Bane can recognize she was having some less than healthy ideations talking about dying and being in heaven so much. Before he was old enough to fully comprehend the permanence of his situation he wanted to be a musician. She taught him to read and write before she died but only Spanish.

The guards didn’t treat her well anyways but when they caught her doing what they thought was trying to organize an escape for Bane, really she was smuggling in a teddy bear, they killed her.

He had to watch while the guards beat his mother, this time they left her with a severe concussion without medical attention. It took a few days for her to die. He was made to dispose of her body himself by dragging it to the nearby cliff and throwing it into the ocean.

They cut the teddy bear open to make sure nothing was hidden inside and then let Bane keep it, out of total indifference not out of kindness.

He didn’t touch the bear for a long time. He was furious that his mother had “gotten herself killed” over something so useless and ridiculous and sentimental. He did find it useful when he had things that needed to be hidden but he didn’t form a real emotional attachment to Osito for a long time.

Thoug there were a lot of awful inmates most of the real tyranny in Peña Duro came from the guards.

Before he was in real fighting shape Bane was a biter. A lot of people found that out the hard way.

He didn’t have many people he could trust but he did have a few. He learned to read and write in English from an old priest, Bane resented the man for still believing that if heaven was real humans deserved to be in it, philosophical differences aside that was the closest Bane has been with anyone since his mother.

Bane read a lot and meditated and got himself in shape to defend himself when he needed to, without using his teeth.

When the priest died Bane got his stuff. In that was a small radio. He didn’t think much of it until he turned it on, intending to tinker with it and possibly contact someone on the outside, and he heard a song his mother used to sing (Amor Eterno). That’s the first time he cried since she died.

He hid the radio in Osito and if he hadn’t had that he wouldn’t have survived the amount of solitary he got put in when he got strong enough to kill anyone who messed with him, which turned out to be a lot of people.

Recalling things he’d read or meditating only did so much, hearing voices besides his own is largely what kept him sane. He had to keep it low so it wouldn’t be discovered and taken away so he would listen through Osito’s chest, the music muffled by stuffing.

Being in solitary so often made him determined to get out of Peña Duro. He faked his death and was thrown into the ocean. He swam for a long time before sneaking onto a freighter that was headed to Gotham.

Once in Gotham he didn’t really have any plans. He was hiding in the sewers just to be safe so he wasn’t found by anyone who wanted him back at Peña Duro. He ran into Killer Croc and Clayface who live down there and they offered for him to live with them after seeing him a few times. They technically live in an abandoned part of the train system but the only way in anymore is through the sewers. They use the platform as a common area and some old traincars as bedrooms.

Bane started hearing about Batman from his new roommates. They had been kind enough to take him in so he didn’t appreciate them being trifled with.

He knew from living in Peña Duro that those who enforce “justice” only do it for themselves or their class and not for people who needed it. Being around the city the image of the Batman was everywhere to Bane, being shoved in his face. He had only heard stories about him from the rogues’ point of view. When Bane saw that Batman was working with the police that confirmed to him he was masquerading as the people’s hero while upholding the status quo. That feeling festered for a while and Bane felt like rebelling against Batman and the city.

He set some bombs around the city, to get Batman’s attention. But by putting one in the botanical garden he got Ivy’s attention instead.

Before he could set them off she found him and they fought. He was losing so he did what he used to do with opponents stronger than him and he bit Ivy’s throat out. Not knowing that she’s not mortal or that she isn’t made of flesh and blood.

Harley and Ivy were not sexually active with eachother at this point so Ivy wasn’t minding the levels of toxic/poisonous plant matter in her body. She’d only had to make her mouth safe for kissing. So Bane bit a sizeable chunk out of her throat and held it in his mouth because not spitting it out, he’d learned, made people unsettled and more easily beaten. But then of course all the poison in her body as well as her rejuvenation serum started interacting with him.

It’s a potent life giving substance but was also very deadly so it immediately started invading Bane’s blood to travel to old wounds to heal them. It blinded him and made his vision better than it was before. It cleared his airways more than they had been in years before sending him into anaphylaxis. It stopped his heart and started it over and over. The substance was chasing after itself in his body, rapidly doing and un-doing a lot of damage.

Bane was convulsing on the ground when Batman arrived and Ivy was about to kill him when Batman started fighting her to stop her. The only thing that got her to back off was Batman blowing her arm off with weed killer grenades he has specifically for emergencies with her.

Batman knew that Bane was about to blow up parts of the city but he wasn’t going to let him stay in that agonizing state that would probably go on forever.

Batman didn’t know Hugo Strange’s eviler doings at this time but he did know he had been doing experiments with Ivy’s DNA he’d gotten during her times in Arkham, and was the only one who could possibly do something.

Bane was left with Hugo Strange who fiddled with Ivy’s serum trying to make something to get it to stabilize within Bane. Messing with the serum removed it’s ability to regenerate itself infinitely like it does in Ivy’s body. Hugo just called it Venom because he needed something to label the project with and it was the first thing that came to mind. Hugo figured out a formula to get Ivy’s serum to stabilize in Bane and hooked him up to a way for it to pump through his system properly. Ivy’s serum was originally made to grow and rejuvenate plants hence Bane’s altered size and strength.

Now Bane has been stuck in Arkham for the past few years because Hugo is the only one who knows how to make Venom and he keeps that information locked away to have Bane under his control.

Bane figures Hugo won’t be in power forever and he’s fine to wait. When he gets out he wants to get revenge on Batman. He doesn’t see him as malevolent anymore but he does think he needs to be punished for his negligence.

Additional info:

He likes tea

Deep down he still dreams about another life where he could’ve been a musician.

[gusty-wind]

Atty. Tom Renz: “The COVID-19 Murder for Money Scheme in the Hospitals… Have Been Carried Out by Fake Doctors and Nurses”

By Jim Hoft May. 6, 2023 5:20 pm357 

On Saturday, anti-corruption attorney Thomas Renz in Ohio made headlines by suggesting that fake doctors and nurses may have been behind the COVID-19 murder-for-money scheme in hospitals.

“DEVELOPING: This is the most important developing story in the country. The COVID-19 murder for money scheme in the hospitals appears, in many cases, to have been carried out by fake doctors and nurses,” Renz wrote on Twitter.

I will have MAJOR news on this from Renz Law and https://t.co/IDxPWXBko5 on this soon.

— Tom Renz (@RenzTom) May 6, 2023

His statement follows the arrest of over two dozen people by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in connection with a plan to sell fake nursing degrees and transcripts from legitimate institutions.

“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) and our law enforcement partners launched a multi-state coordinated law enforcement action to apprehend individuals engaged in a scheme to sell false and fraudulent nursing degree diplomas and transcripts,” according to the news release.

“The enforcement action resulted in the execution of search warrants in Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Florida, and 25 individuals being charged for their involvement in the fraud scheme.”

“The alleged scheme involved the selling of fake and fraudulent nursing degree diplomas and transcripts obtained from accredited Florida-based nursing schools to aspiring Registered Nurse (RN) and Licensed Practical/Vocational Nurse (LPN/VN) candidates. The individuals who acquired the bogus nursing credentials used them to qualify to sit for the national nursing board exam. Upon successful completion of the board exam, the nursing applicants became eligible to obtain licensure in various states to work as an RN or a LPN/VN. Once licensed, the individuals were then able to obtain employment in the health care field.”

More than 7,600 fraudulent nursing degrees were granted by three nursing schools in South Florida. These institutions were Siena College in Broward County, Palm Beach School of Nursing in Palm Beach County, and Sacred Heart International Institute in Broward County. These schools are now closed.

According to DOJ, each defendant faces up to 20 years in prison.

“Not only is this a public safety concern, it also tarnishes the reputation of nurses who actually complete the demanding clinical and course work required to obtain their professional licenses and employment,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Markenzy Lapointe, who added that “a fraud scheme like this erodes public trust in our health care system.”

“Health care fraud is nothing new to South Florida, as many scammers see this as a way to earn easy, though illegal, money, “said acting Special Agent in Charge Chad Yarbrough, FBI Miami. “What is disturbing about this investigation is that there are over 7,600 people around the country with fraudulent nursing credentials who are potentially in critical health care roles treating patients. Were it not for the diligence and hard work of the investigators on this case, the extent of this fraud may not have been discovered.”

“The alleged selling and purchasing of nursing diplomas and transcripts to willing but unqualified individuals is a crime that potentially endangers the health and safety of patients and insults the honorable profession of nursing,” said Special Agent in Charge Omar Pérez Aybar of Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG). “In coordination with our law enforcement partners, HHS-OIG continues to aggressively investigate bad actors who so brazenly disregard the well-being of others in order to enrich themselves fraudulently.”

Recall, DOJ charged 18 people including doctors in massive Covid healthcare fraud takedowns last month.

“The Department of Justice today announced criminal charges against 18 defendants in nine federal districts across the United States for their alleged participation in various fraud schemes involving health care services that exploited the COVID-19 pandemic and allegedly resulted in over $490 million in COVID-19 related false billings to federal programs and theft from federally funded pandemic programs,” DOJ said in a news release.

NBC reported:

One California doctor, Anthony Hao Dinh, was charged with allegedly submitting around $230 million in fraudulent claims to the federal Health Resources and Services Administration’s Covid-19 Uninsured Program.

Dinh, who practices in Orange County, was the country’s second-highest biller to that program, according to the DOJ. The program aimed to provide uninsured patients with access to Covid testing and treatment, but it stopped operating last year due to a lack of funding.

Dinh allegedly used more than $100 million of fraud proceeds for high-risk options trading.

Dinh and two other individuals are also charged with allegedly submitting more than 70 fraudulent loan applications that obtained more than $3 million under the federal Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program.

Another defendant in California, lab owner Lourdes Navarro, is accused of submitting more than $358 million in false claims for lab testing to Medicare, which is the federal health insurance program for senior citizens, to HRSA and to a private insurance company.

Navarro’s lab performed Covid screening tests for nursing homes and schools, and allegedly increased its reimbursements by adding claims for respiratory pathogen panel tests that providers and facility administrators did not order.

A doctor and marketer in Florida were charged with allegedly purchasing Medicare beneficiary identification numbers and shipping tests to beneficiaries who did not request them.

That resulted in $8.4 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, the DOJ said.

Other cases involved the alleged manufacture and distribution of fake Covid vaccine record cards.

[ukrfeminism]

2 minute read

Ministers will have a veto on the transfer of transgender prisoners to women’s jails under plans to be announced by Brandon Lewis, the justice secretary.

Lewis will unveil measures to bolster the protection of female prisoners in his speech to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on Tuesday.

They will introduce greater oversight for ministers on where transgender prisoners serve their sentences, making it harder for biologically male inmates to be housed in female jails. It is understood that ministers will be given the power to remove transgender prisoners from jails. Transfers are currently decided by a transgender case board.

Ministry of Justice statistics show that there were 197 transgender prisoners last year, up from 163 pre-pandemic. Of those, 157 are in male prisons, with 40 in female jails. All but five of the transgender prisoners in women’s jails reported their legal gender as male.

While there has not been a substantiated assault by transgender prisoners in the female estate since 2019, ministers have been keen to reassure women in custody that they are safe from attack by biologically male prisoners.

The High Court last year rejected a legal challenge by a former female prisoner who said her human rights were violated by being forced to be in the same prison as transgender women prisoners with convictions for sexual or violent offences against women.

Since then the Ministry of Justice has been working on measures to better protect female prisoners who are uncomfortable sharing a prison with transgender inmates.

Lewis is expected to use his conference speech to set out plans for “a more robust risk assessment, greater oversight of who is going to which prison and what that means for the women’s estate”, a government source said.

This is expected to include a policy that will require ministers to sign off on every transfer of a biologically male offender to a female prison. This will apply to transgender prisoners with male genitalia who self-identify as a woman.

Giving ministers a veto on all transfers will mean they share responsibility if a transgender prisoner attacks a female inmate, or is attacked by a male inmate after a transfer request is rejected.

It signals a growing tendency by the Ministry of Justice to give ministers greater oversight in the criminal justice system. Dominic Raab, the former justice secretary, introduced a ministerial veto for the transfer of inmates to open prisons and was also planning to give ministers a say on whether violent offenders are released following a recommendation by the Parole Board.

The announcement suggests that the government under Liz Truss is keen to tackle transgender issues. During the Conservative leadership campaign she promised to stop funding police forces that spent money on “identity politics”.

Suella Braverman, the home secretary, condemned Sussex police for telling social media users they could be committing a hate crime if they “misgendered” a transexual woman convicted of paedophile offences. Braverman spoke out after the force warned Twitter users who highlighted the fact that Sally Ann Dixon, who abused seven children, committed the offences while she was a man called John.

[babyawacs]

‎@harvard @yale @life @pontifex @ekd @bbc_whys @oxforduni .@oxford_uni .@harvardlife .@doescie nce .@princeton .@energy .@us_stratcom @llnl  #reframed as selfserving as burnedchild it may sound : you should not let incompetence deform the living beings and then justi fy it with stigmas. letalone fortheir own bonusmalus and system shitball causes ‎ can harvard and other competent ivy grade psychology exclude cert ain stigmas at which points of the complete package a human being is e s p e c i a l l y whenthe game is fringe quell exclusion with s huffled stigmas ‎itis not bits of traits itis allofit  in a meld why thereisno pocketbook psychology but certain things exclude other things after which package traits letalone whichothers ‎

‎@harvard @yale @life @pontifex @ekd @bbc_whys @oxforduni .@oxford_uni .@harvardlife .@doescience .@princeton .@energy .@us_stratcom @llnl #reframed as selfserving as burnedchild it may sound : you should not let incompetence deform the living beings and then justify it with stigmas. letalone fortheir own bonusmalus and system shitball causes can harvard and other competent ivy grade psychology…