#i highlighted intersections just in case

[omagpies]

I’ve been wondering this for a while whenever I look at your art (especially mouthwatering art) but why do you draw people with circles behind them? Is it to symbolise a bond between two people or something to do with feelings or life?

Remember to take care yourself❤️❤️

thank you for inviting me to yap about this!

at the base of it all, the circles are halos. i’m not christian, but i am not immune to some of the imagery, plus it is an easy shorthand to frame the face area for the eye to be drawn to, since this is Usually (not always! but usually) the main point of the drawing

sometimes the halos are literal. especially when i want to show someone ‘falling’ in some way, then the halos get splintered. i’m a big big fan of cracking halos ngl. or anya’s, for example, is eaten through with pill bottles

sometimes characters share a halo to signify some kind of emotion that becomes more intense from them being near/interacting. hue and saturation become key here, it’s usually done in warmer tones to signify warmth or affection

sometimes characters have their own halos, but their relative characteristics and interaction matters too. curly’s is sometimes paler or sometimes the bright mouthwash colour, for example, or the intersection of his and anya’s halos becomes brighter than they are individually. jimmy’s attacks, splinters, and overpowers curly’s

in curlya case specifically, it denotes their sun/moon dynamic :)

finally, sometimes it’s a way to call attention to specific points of interest by highlighting them with the same circle as the halo, like curly’s bleeding leg or the pills. i just think it makes things more fun visually :)

but yeah overall it’s almost never a literal symbol of holiness, but almost always a non-diegetic way to convey meta elements, as well as simply a design choice. hope this helps yippie!

[brandon1311]

Ok something I have to say in defense of Justice For All as someone who genuinely loves this game to pieces, is that it drives me insane when people complain about it not having an overarching story narrative. PW:AA and T&T have DL-6 and the Fey clan mystery respectively, but JFA doesn’t have anything like that because that’s not the point. JFA is a story about the characters we’re following growing as people and learning that they’re not just one thing, they’re more than that. Pheonix, Edgeworth and Franziska are all mirrors of each other in different contrasting ways that highlight positives and flaws of each other.

Pheonix and Franziska are parallels in the way that they both blindly believe their client/witness is innocent and whoever is on the opposing side is guilty. They both have black and white views on truth and justice as well as right and wrong. Both of JFAs cases where you face Franziska are not only centered around shattered and broken family’s (in the same way all Ace Attorney games feature that theme) but they also go on to introduce the theme of “true justice”. It’s the idea that if someone did something wrong, they should be equally punished for it. But should they really? Mimi Miney and Acro’s lives were ruined by the people they killled/ attempted to kill and they only framed someone else incidentally. They wanted revenge in the same way Franziska did for ruining her family. Edgeworth and her father were gone. Franziska puts her faith in Mimi and Acro because their stories intersect, even if she doesn’t know it. They want revenge on those that, to them, shattered their families.

Continuing this line of thinking. Edgeworths story is one of many sides. For one, he learns that his role as a prosecutor under the current legal system is incredibly flawed and unbalanced, and the truth he fights for may not always be fair to those he defeats. In 2-4 specifically, he gives up the win he had worked so hard to attain just a few cases prior in 1-2 so that him and Phoenix together can earn the justice they both fight for on opposing sides. He isn’t giving up the win because he cares about Pheonix (which he does regardless of the courtroom) but because he wants to repair the justice system him and his mentor helped to corrupt and sully. He’s finding retribution for the actions him and his family took to destroy an already fragile legal system, one that Franziska abuses the flaws of to get a revenge she seeks. This brings the story full circle. All of these characters fight for their truths, and in the end they have to learn from each other how they can better themselves for a better future of Justice for All.

(Ok sorry for the rant I had SO many feelings after consuming exclusively ace attorney content for the day.)

[velvetvexations]

I've felt since about 2014 or so that a lot of the way we talk about privilege as a concept was a mistake.

One: while I fully understand the need to have an umbrella term for these things because they originate from the same place and sometimes overlap as more of a spectrum than discrete categories, it's a little bit confusing at best that we ALWAYS use the same term to describe advantages NO ONE should have, like the ability to buy your way into any college you want, AND the lack of DISADVANTAGES that no one should suffer, like being presumed dangerous just for walking down the street and potentially getting jumped or shot for it, AND the lack of daily annoyances that serve as a grating, constant reminder that you are Other, like "flesh tone" very conspicuously not even coming close to matching you or romance being presumed M/F by default everywhere. Yes, we need to talk about what all these things have in common, but we ALSO need to be able to talk about how they're different, and honestly, for the sake of outreach and ~optics~, I feel we've gotta be able to present the similarities and differences up front because I have met NO shortage of people who were super on board with trying to improve society somewhat but got really alienated from theory talk by the straight conflation of those categories, ESPECIALLY the latter two. Never mind the decision that the word for this should be something that most people first hear in the context of an extra hour of video games for good behavior or something along those lines.

Two: No category of privilege is granted universally to every member of a privileged group. Few if any men have all aspects of male privilege. In any lavender scare, NO ONE universally and automatically receives cishet privilege. It's even hard to find white people with all aspects of white privilege, and race as an oppressive class was INVENTED to make it easy to use visual markers to determine who's "in" and who's "out". It's also much easier to lose a lot of aspects of privilege than the language gives it credit for - sometimes, just NOT being enough of a bigot is enough to get you treated like a second class citizen.

Three: Every disprivileged group has some privilege over the next in some ways, AND is disprivileged under them in other ways, and the ways in which this manifests get REALLY chaotic once you start looking at the individual level rather than the group level because of the above. Treating "privilege" like a black and white thing that EVERYONE outside a specific highlighted group has makes futile attempts at "scorekeeping" and the bullshit infighting that comes with it almost inevitable. In fact, a lot of the time, the unshared aspects of closely related axes of oppression can intersect in ways that can't fully be dissected without also examining the axis that an exclusionist is trying to "beat" or disprove - for example, I'd go so far as to argue that because oppositional sexism runs so deep in society, every aspect of transandrophobia has a transmisogynistic flip side AND vice-versa; if we talked about privilege and gender in a way that DIDN'T make it so easy for people to think only one of the two can exist and naming the second is therefore a denial of the first, we'd probably be collectively a lot further along in dissecting both.

Four: Systems of privilege and disprivilege cannot be dismantled by treating the privileged as monsters; this only justifies and perpetuates the system by emphasizing the strength and power of the privileged vs. the hopeless, futile struggles of the oppressed, even when it DOESN'T result in "movements" where the oppressed fear losing their identity if they escape their oppression. In the very worst cases it ends up being every bit as classically bigoted as the ideas it calls out - note how many varieties of radfems arrive at a conclusion where they believe the SAME things about men and women as any manosphere redpill chud, they just think the power imbalance that privileges men is a BAD thing instead of a GOOD thing.

Every damned exclusionist cycle just makes me more and more sure of this. I feel like I've been screaming it into the void for over 10 years and yet no one but the teeny tiny choir has ever listened. At least I've seen more people starting to talk about point 1 specifically over this past year...?

Anon, I'll be honest, I love you but this is a bit too long and dense for me to process so I'm going to post this and put it in my #I just work here tag.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

dave :: @roweaf :: Yes Sir..!@FinancialReview

* * * *

A reflection on No Kings Day twenty four hours later.

June 16, 2025

Robert B. Hubbell

Readers continue to send photos of No Kings Day protests from across the nation. The Comment section for Sunday’s newsletter (here) is filled with enthusiastic descriptions of larger-than-expected pro-democracy rallies in small towns, red counties, retirement communities, and highway intersections in rural America—not to mention the mammoth rallies in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Nashville, St. Paul, Cincinnati, Austin, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Portland (among others).

If you would like a second jolt of positivity and hope, I recommend hearing directly from hundreds of readers who describe their rally experiences firsthand. Or watch this inspiring video by Medha Murtagh.

As I wrote yesterday, “This time, it’s different.” The No Kings Day rallies were a cultural touchstone that will be remembered as a pivotal moment in the effort to defend democracy against Trump's slow-rolling coup. Those who participated understand the power that has been unleashed. They know the path forward: Larger demonstrations, more widely disbursed, with greater energy.

Several reputable sources estimate the total turnout at approximately 5 million people. See USA Today, 'No Kings' organizers say protests drew large crowds: Here are their estimates. Counting crowds is tricky business, especially when those crowds are scattered across America. The Crowd Counting Consortium is making a concerted effort to generate a reliable total for the No Kings Day protests, and it may take a month or two to come up with an “auditable” number.

But one thing is clear: The No Kings Day protests were larger than Trump's vanity birthday parade by an order of magnitude. The low-energy, listless military parade was a disservice to the US Army. As many commentators have noted, many of the platoons1 were oddly “out of step” and their ranks were not straight, giving the appearance that the otherwise professional soldiers were shuffling into a football stadium rather than parading for their Commander-in-Chief.

See Times of India, Watch- Soldiers march out of sync at Trump's birthday parade; Netizens call it defiance. (Compare the second and third embedded videos in this article, which highlight the difference between the out-of-step soldiers in “Trump's parade” and the usual lock-step, straight ranks of US soldiers marching in other parades.)

While I don’t believe that there was an organized effort to demonstrate defiance by marching out of step, the visual effect was that of an undisciplined fighting force. See The Guardian, Trump coveted a military spectacle but his parade proved underwhelming: ‘Just kind of lame.

Perhaps Pete Hegseth believes that “marching in step” is not consistent with the “warrior ethos” that he is attempting to foist on the US military. (Remember when US soldiers were called “soldiers,” not “warriors?”)

In short, Trump's parade was a bust and an embarrassment, while the No Kings Day rallies were an incredible success. But as of Sunday, one of the largest single-day protests in American history has fallen off the pages of major media outlets.

As noted on a Bluesky post by Photoonist (@photoonist.bsky.social), as of Sunday afternoon, the NYTimes’ online edition had 38 stories—none of them relating to the No Kings Day protests, but three relating to Trump's vanity parade. See this chart posted by Photoonist:

Later in the day, the Times did add one story about the No Kings Day rallies—a story that focused on a tragic case of violence. See NYTimes, 1 Killed in Shooting at ‘No Kings’ Protest in Salt Lake City. (A person acting as “security” for the rally participants believed that a suspect was pointing a rifle at the crowd; the security person shot at the suspect but missed, killing a rally participant.)

In fairness, the Times did provide coverage of the No Kings Day protests on June 14 by running photos of protests from about two dozen locations around the nation. See NYTimes, Photos and Maps: ‘No Kings’ Day Protests Across the United States.

But there were thousands of protests across America—many in the reddest parts of the nation. Surely if MAGA protesters had turned out 5 million rally participants in Democratic strongholds, that would not be a one-day story for the Times. The protests on June 14 were a cultural phenomenon that deserved more than one article by the “newspaper of record” on the day of the protests.

Railing against the Times is a waste of time. For reasons known only to its publisher and editors, the Times ignores Democrats except for bad news and normalizes Trump’s criminal and unconstitutional behavior much of the time. True, it occasionally rises to the occasion, but only as part of a diabolical plan to torture us into believing that it understands the threat facing America, only to dash our hopes the next day.2

The failure of the press (generally) to report on the scale and scope of the protests makes it vitally important that you help spread the word. The demonstrations were a smashing success. The next call for national demonstrations must be at least twice as large. We need sustained, growing protests to make an impact.

Want proof? On Sunday, Trump ordered that ICE crackdowns increase in “blue” cities across the nation. See The Hill, Trump directs ICE to expand deportation efforts in Democratic-run cities. (Trump’s language was particularly offensive; I see no need to repeat it. But it’s included in The Hill article.)

As Trump is ordering increased enforcement in blue cities, he is also telling ICE to stop arresting farmworkers, hospitality workers, and restaurant workers. The net result is that there will be more arrests of nannies, school children, green card holders appearing in court, and “Hispanic looking” residents pulled randomly from the streets. See NYTimes, ‘I’m an American, Bro!’: Latinos Report Raids in Which U.S. Citizenship Is Questioned.

Sadly but predictably, the increased use of ICE as a roving paramilitary using Gestapo-like tactics (“Show us your papers”) will fuel the next wave of larger pro-democracy protests.

Readers frequently ask, “But what’s the plan? What next? Do protests matter?”

Yes, the protests matter because people who participate in protests are more likely to vote in the 2026 elections and they are more likely to convince others (especially family members and friends) to acknowledge that Trump is destroying the nation as he attempts to overthrow the Constitution. But most importantly, Trump is able to keep Republicans in line only because corporate America and hedge fund money allows him to primary any Republican who steps out of line.

Trump’s corporate overlords are watching the protests very closely. Getting five million people to show up on the same day for anything is impressive. The CEOs and marketing officers for major corporations certainly took notice of the scale and enthusiasm of the protests. And as the protests grow, the billionaires who run most of America’s large corporations will watch with growing interest.

We won’t change Trump’s mind. But his corporate supporters are susceptible to persuasion. And if they won’t budge, we will take back control of the House in 2026 and possibly the Senate—depending on how much of Medicaid, Medicare, prescription drug price negotiation, and insurance is cut in the reconciliation bill.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

i think it is very telling that the best documented case of women buying sex from men are white western women going on vacation in west african countries such as gambia to prey on impoverished and usually younger black men. it highlights that prostitution - any prostitution - is an exertion of power from a more privileged group against a less privileged group. that prostitution is a system that profits from and reinforces oppression and inequality. here, the axis of oppression is not sex, but race. its a symptom of neocolonialism, like most sex tourism.

nonetheless i always have to laugh when the articles, documentaries and research desperately try to act like female and male sex buyers are exactly the same - usually the argument hinges on the fact that the motivation is the same, companionship and sexual gratification. but male sex buyers are motivated by so much more: fetish, sadism, violence, domination. this does not tend to be the case with women. also, unwanted penetration is a different level of violence, having something inserted in you. female sex buyers dont request painful acts such as deepthroat or anal. there are no brothels full with men, the men dont have pimps, and usually in the case of female sex tourists, the arrangement is loose: companionship and sex with no fixed payment but pleasantries, gifts and such. additionally, women dont tend to be able to physically overpower men, or get off on enacting violence like hitting and choking. men who prostitute themselves for women are also less stigmatised than those who do so for men, or prostituted women. and more men sell themselves to other men than to women. and: women who buy sex tend to be single, while the relationship status of a man is no indicator of likelihood to buy sex.

female sex buyers highlight that besides sex, economic class and race determine who is prostituted and who buys sex. that prostitution is an issue of intersectional inequality. and that misogyny is still the key motor of prostitution: male sex buyers are any age, any class, any race, because any man can be a misogynist. but women only become sex buyers under specific conditions; for example motivated by racist fetishisation. another key factor here is gender. buying sex is considered masculine, but women buying sex break with gender norms. consider also the orgasm gap: most women are not satisfied by their male sexual partners. hypothetically it would make more sense for women to be the majority of sex buyers to enforce sexual satisfaction they lack in consensual sexual relationships. yet privileged women who lack sexual satisfaction are more likely to prostitute or otherwise objectify themselves than buying sex.

any form of female-on-male prostitution has its male-on-female (and sometimes male-on-male) equivalent that is more violent and more common. meanwhile many forms of prostitution dont have a female-on-male version, for example prostitution in brothels. men prostituting themselves for women are at a lot less risk for physical violence and abuse or being trafficked. there is even a phenomenon of heterosexual men having to prostitute themselves for men because there is just not enough demand from women. and female-on-female prostitition is almost unheard of, if anything this occurs in a male-female-female constellation. there are no gangbang parties with one or two men and groups of women.

people are so obsessed with pretending like women as consumers in the sex industry - whether that be as sex buyers, porn watchers or stripshow enjoyers - are just the same as men when there are clear differences. gender relations are always relevant in a patriarchal system and reversed roles dont produce the same outcomes.

[thejollywriter]

I'm not Crazy, I'm just Fuckin' Annoyed

I just watched a video essay about the unabomber. I'm unlikely to become a video essayist to yell about my frustrations with this video, so I wrote an essay instead. Here's my thesis, right up top, before you read the rest: the unabomber is a stupid steaming pile of self-involved pigshit and the best thing he did for the world was die.

and now, have an essay.

Ted Kaczynski is the Unabomber. I have extensive beef with the way his case is treated and he as a person is examined but this is the first immutable fact.

I just watched a little documentary about him that detailed how, while he was at Harvard, his professor selected him to participate in a ‘study,’ that had him, Kaczynski, expound on his most deeply seated beliefs. And then, with the direction of the CIA and through lawyers trained to disassemble such notions, spent the next several years having these beliefs picked apart.

He was psychologically tortured as a part of MK Ultra’s extensive, wholly unethical attempts to develop mind-control technology.

This is also fact, declared bluntly by the Agency themselves, whistleblowers, and survivors.

But this documentary says that these years of psychological abuse had little to no effect on Kaczynski’s eventual development into the Unabomber.

It was at that point that I started screaming.

I don’t often ‘dislike’ videos on youtube. I don’t give much a shit, if I don’t like a video, I click off it and move on, ESPECIALLY if I don’t finish it. But this I downvoted, and it’s this topic that I find myself annoyed enough about that I’m tempted to make my own video about.

I’m not going to, I don’t want to sit in front of a camera. So consider this my video essay in rebuttal.

Mindhunter is a 2017 procedural drama that follows Sam Worthington as an FBI profiler who helps catch the Unabomber. Paul Bettany plays Kaczynski, and he plays it with compelling gravitas.

While the show has unfolded, it has spent a great deal of time examining and cross-examining the Unabomber’s beliefs and motivations for his acts of violence and terrorism. And when Kaczynski is finally convicted and put in solitary confinement at the end of season 1, Worthington’s character is driven away from the office.

One of the notions the show’s tried to explore is ‘the evils of technology.’ Most folks have heard, if through no other context than the meme, the line, “The industrial revolution and its consequences—”

This is the beginning of the Unabomber’s screed. I diminish the significance of his manifesto because he’s this close to fucking getting it but he keeps missing the point. He talks about the social and ecological and economic violence capitalist industrialization has done to the world, but fails to ultimately condemn it.

He blames technophiles, computer scientists and engineers and such.

A metaphor the show explored was, “How can you obey a street light at an empty intersection when you, with your own judgment, can tell it’s safe to proceed. But you don’t. Because the light is red, and you obey the technology.”

That’s not an exact quote, but it’s the paraphrased motion of it.

And season 1 ends with Worthington’s profiler character sitting in a car, at a red light, in an empty intersection, while his partner and driver chose not to proceed. Because she’s obeying the red light.

It was at that point in the show that I started flipping tables, and I’m back to that point after the little documentary.

Kaczynski did not want to be seen as insane, he believed himself a rational man, and if he laid out his rational thoughts to everyone else, they’d reach the same conclusions.

Not only is that not true, there’s a tragic, awfully small little detail he seems to have overlooked. Something I don’t see examined often in any of these kinds of stories.

I’m gonna say this slowly, and I’m gonna highlight it to drive the point as clearly as I possibly can.

The second you’re willing to kill unarmed, uninvolved, innocent civilians for your ideology, your ideology is worthless.

Read it again, read it slowly, say it out loud.

I got bad fucking news, Ted, you useless sack of ineffective fertilizer, you are insane. Blowing people up because comPUTERS ARE BAD ain’t much of a fuckin’ belief system. I got worse news for you bud: the CIA paid your professors good goddamn money to methodically break your skull open and reassemble the pieces in a fucked-up fashion.

The documentary made a point of saying, “these others were also subjected to this psychological torture, but they didn’t turn out to be killers!”

So?

Kaczynski was a vulnerable, irritable, self-righteous asshole who was cherry-picked by a cruelly lecherous professor renowned for his sadism, and mentally tortured, for years.

The fact that more of those people didn’t turn out to be killers isn’t because the program failed, it’s because they were fucked up in their own, more private ways.

I’m not saying the CIA manufactured Kaczynski to be the Unabomber because of some sort of secret plot.

The CIA isn’t that clever, they’re far more direct, and if they wanted to cause a great social shift, they can just do that, because it’s the fucking CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, the same organization that has more than 200+ political coups to their name.

Like this is their whole schtick. If they wanted to sew social unrest, they can just DO that, they wouldn’t manufacture Kaczynski to be a patsy for them.

I AM saying that during the abuse he suffered, they put him back together wrong, and ole Teddy boy isn’t a reliable narrator to say what did or didn’t effect his world view where blowing up innocent people made sense for his political motivations.

Like I cannot harp on this hard enough. Like, imagine me Hbomberguy-style breaking through the wall with an axe, okay?

WANTING TO KILL PEOPLE WITH LETTER BOMBS BECAUSE YOU THINK TECHNOLOGY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL IS NOT A NORMAL REACTION TO THE ILLS OF THE WORLD.

For fuck’s sake.

Anyway fuck Ted Kaczynski, fuck the politics of butchering uninvolved people, and on god, if you read something like his meandering scrawl of bullshit and think, “Huh maybe he got a point!”

No! He! Didn’t!

He almost had a point. And he missed it because he looked at technology as an isolated evil, and not as a direct product of the capitalism and the way it turns technology into tools of oppression and isolation.

I’m gonna go sit on the porch and look at the stars and take a deep breath of clean air and reflect on the fact that the stupid lump of shit is dead, and that’s the best thing he contributed to the world.

[bright-side20]

Symbolism that I have been obsessed with today—a play on something I have posted before.

Elain and Lucien as the sun and nature/Earth. A reliance upon one another to continue the cycle and to cultivate life.

Feyre and Rhys as the stars and the moon, the collection of the cosmos and spread of space. The endless abyss of both darkness and light, and the holders of all life.

Nesta and Cassian as fire and steel, the very forge of the deepest core of the Earth. The magnetic force that grips life by the reins and reinstates the hearth and warmth.

Gwyn and Azriel as the tides and the winds, the interwoven relationship of connection—Yin and Yang. The language they speak can only be heard as the kiss of the wind crashes down against the crest of the waves. The very essence of life.

The romanticism of life and how it is formulated between each couple and what they represent has been so utterly sexy to me today.

Now, I have no idea why I got this, because it's very easy to tell from my profile that I’m not an Elucien or Gwynriel stan. But still, it doesn’t really bother me,people can be as creative as they want with the books they read. However, it's also very important to keep in mind the canon text and what the author actually wrote.

This is how SJM symbolized Elain and Azriel:

the lovely fawn, blooming spring vibrant behind her. Standing before Death, shadows and terrors lurking over his shoulder. Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two. The only bridge of connection … that knife.

Lovely fawn and death, light and dark ;this is how SJM chose to symbolize them together. I’m not going to delve into the mythological symbolism,I’m just going to continue with SJM’s canon text:

_In HOSAB, SJM used a portrait of dark and light that was extremely similar to the symbolism she chose for Elain and Azriel, calling it 'the symbol of balance':

"It's a symbol of balance," she explained, moving away a foot, but keeping the dagger at her side. Her crown of cloudberries seemed to glow with an inner light. "Two intersecting triangles. Male and female, dark and light, above and below ... and the power that lies in the place where they meet."

Where did Elain and Azriel meet?

He gently took her hand and pressed the hilt of the legendary blade into it. “It will serve you well.” ..... Elain weighed my words … and slowly closed her fingers around the blade. ..... Elain looked up at Azriel, their eyes meeting, his hand still lingering on the hilt of the blade.I saw the painting in my mind...

They met when they both held the TT at the same time. It was the bridge of connection between the lovely fawn and death, light and dark. It was where their power lay and balanced each other. Later in the story, Elain emerged 'out of the shadows',which is Azriel’s power,and killed the KoH.

_In HOFAS, SJM again stressed the importance of the union of light and darkness:

Such light and darkness-the power lay in the meeting of the two of them. She understood it now, how the darkness shaped the light.

_Oh, and in ACOFAS, SJM also highlighted the balance of light and darkness:

Nuala went on, “It’s a time of rest, too. And a time to reflect on the darkness—how it lets the light shine.”

In conclusion, SJM is canonically obsessed with the balance of opposites,in this case, life and death, light and darkness,and the power that lies in their union. She has already given that symbolism to Elain and Azriel: the lovely fawn and death, light and dark,they are the ballance of the opposites.Their first union led to a pivotal event: killing the KoH, with more to come in future books.

In no time, Elain was described as a goddess of the earth or something. She's always associated with light, life, and beauty, gardening is also a way of giving life.

Also, Lucien has always been associated with fire, SJM literally called him the Lord of Fire. I don't understand the determination to make the sun his symbol, apart fro that Helion is his father. One of the reasons Beron didn't kill the LoA for betrayal is that Lucien inherited her power: flame.

"Lucien not Beron’s son, but Helion’s. His power is flame, though.They’ve mused Beron’s title could go to him."

And that’s what he’s always been associated with. He might also be a spellclever through his father and oddly met a cursed flame queen. Still, SJM has never used a symbol of the sun with him,she always highlights his fire power.

[heyclickadee]

Okay, so, because I’m trying to clear out my drafts folder, here’s my long and rambling post about why I think an Omega and Tech hug needs to happen. Its not just that it’s something I’d like to see (even though I would), it’s something that I think has set up, just like all the other batch hugs we get.

I was going to clean this up, but, honestly, I don’t have the time or energy right now. So, with the obligatory disclaimer that I’m arguing Tech is alive and that this is an argument for the intent to be that he was alive this whole time and that a return wasn’t cut, just delayed at most or maybe always happening later; and with another disclaimer that I’m touch averse myself but don’t headcanon the same for Tech (I do think that about Crosshair, though), that I am not arguing that Tech needs to show affection in a neurotypical way, and would be fine if the story went for a hug-equivalent with Tech instead, here’s the very messy Omega and Tech hug (or hug equivalent) argument:

The thing about the hugs between Omega and her brothers is that they aren’t just random or only there to show us that Omega’s brothers are showing her affection. There’s an order and pattern to them, and they make a sort of mini subplot out of it. In each case Omega hugs them first, and then they (either in that same scene or episodes later) hug her back. They also happen at the intersection of several situations; either right before or after a period of separation, mostly at the peak of the development of the relationship of her relationship with that brother (for the hugs back), at a moment where something about the relationship needs to be solidified/shifted, and always held back until the moment where it will hit the hardest.

So you’ve got Omega (arguably) hugging Wrecker right after he finds her in the tunnels in Cornered, in the middle of being kidnapped by Fennec Shand and right after Wrecker had a bit of a breakthrough for how he was going to handle Omega in the previous episode. Then you have Wrecker hugging her back/the first mutual hug between them for the first time right after they get her back from Cad Bane. (Sidebar—this moment does actually parallel the first time Omega hugs Wrecker, since it’s after escaping a bounty hunter specifically.) This is right about an episode after Omega’s relationship with Wrecker reaches something of an equilibrium; he’s settled into the role of the big brother who looks after Omega’s emotional needs the most and who makes sure she’s getting to have fun, and that’s about where their relationship stays for the rest of the show*. It’s after a fairly harrowing separation, Wrecker is the first friendly face Omega sees afterward, and even though the Wrecker hug could have very naturally slotted onto the end of “Battle Scars,” delaying it until this moment allows a slightly greater emotional hit, in part because the Wrecker hug is used to highlight the fact that Hunter very pointedly doesn’t hug Omega even though she sort of wordlessly body checks him asking for one.

*Sidebar again, but something kind of interesting about the series is that each one of the batchers’ development is sort of taken as far it can using Omega as a vehicle (and as far as it needs for Omega’s development to use them as a vehicle), after which they’re put in a sort of holding pattern. It’s not that the development stops at that point, but it does slow waaaaaay down, and we’re periodically reminded of what direction their development that isn’t connected to Omega is going without moving it much closer to resolution once they each hit the holding pattern point. Which just makes me think that Omega was, in part, used to get everyone to wherever it was they needed to be development wise in order for whatever’s next to work. (Sidebar within a sidebar, but that’s why Hunter’s the one who has the closest thing to a fully completed character arc. Apart from one thing with him that is left unresolved, his development was tied at the hip to Omega’s. Crosshair also gets close, since his development is also tied to Omega’s, but it’s a little different with him since he and Omega function as each other’s foils throughout the series).

Then we’ve got Echo, who gets his hug—and hugs Omega back five seconds later—right as he’s leaving to help Rex at the end of “Truth and Consequences.” That’s about where Omega and Echo’s relationship hits a peak in its development, or at least hits pause (we see the holding pattern with Echo from here on out; again, his development doesn’t stop, but it does slow down, presumably until they can start dealing with him again). Echo and Omega of course see each other again, but the relationship stays about where it is when he leaves, and the hug comes with something of a reinforcement of how important that relationship is to both of them as well as a sort of shift, because they’re going to be apart. And despite the fact that the hug could have happened back after their heart to heart in “Spoils of War,” it’s held until right here, where it hits like a sack of bricks. (They also hug every time they see each other after that, which is actually used to highlight the fact that Crosshair hasn’t gotten a hug from anyone, let alone Omega, once we get to “The Return”.)

Then the first time she hugs Hunter, it’s after Hunter was taken to Kamino and the first time they see each other again, and when Hunter apologizes for not being able to keep his promise. The first time Hunter hugs her/the first mutual hug, is the first time they see each other again after Omega’s months in Tantiss. (This is also when Wrecker gets another hug). And it’s a fantastic moment where Hunter, who…okay, Tech might show his emotions a little differently, but he’s actually incredibly emotional and affectionate; Hunter’s got his emotions on lockdown to the point that he’s actually a little emotionally distant, and he has to sort of loosen up a little with Omega as his relationship with her develops. This moment is him really fully embracing the role he’s stepped into and providing this safe place for Omega as she’s coming home. And, even though this hug could have gone as early as during the final scene of “Cut and Run,” it’s held back until the end of “A Different Approach,” where it would have the greatest impact. (And then, of course, the last time they hug is in the epilogue right before Omega leaves to join the rebellion.)

And then, of course, you’ve got the fantastic Omega and Crosshair hug (she runs and hugs him, he takes a second to I think realize that he didn’t just, like, shoot Omega by accident or anything and then hugs her back) in the ten or so of the last episode. It’s a moment that doesn’t really change the relationship, but it does, I think, allow the relationship to click into place for Crosshair. Whatever he’s done, whatever he thinks he deserves, however many times he’s tried to push this kid away, she loves him, and he’ll always have a place in that family (which is why I think it turns into a little group hug). Even if he doesn’t believe he should yet. And once again, even though the Crosshair hug could have gone much earlier—I’d argue that you could put it as early as “Kamino Lost” with, “Thank you for saving AZ,” from Omega’s side, anyway—it’s held back until the very end.

Additionally, there’s this sort of. I don’t know, escalation? In the order of *who* gets the mutual hugs/the first time the boys hug Omega back, in terms of how…extreme, I guess, the period of almost losing that brother was. Because each one of them does get lost to the group, however briefly.

Because you start with Wrecker (the one who’s the best with kids to begin with, who adjusts to being a big brother easiest, and who provides Omega the most steady emotional support early on), who they briefly lose to the chip and who looks he’s about to die on the operating table. It’s intense, but it’s a momentary loss in the grand scheme of things, and everyone seems to recover pretty quickly. Then Echo, who leaves long term but does so by choice, on good terms, with a mutual understanding and a promise that it’s not forever and that he’ll be back. Then Hunter, who Omega keeps getting separated from by force (getting shot by Cad Bane, the fall on Daro, Omega getting taken to Tantiss), but who we always knew made it out alive and never stopped fighting to get back to Omega no matter which of them got taken at any particular time. And then finally Crosshair, who got ripped away at the start and then chose to leave, on bad terms, once he had a choice, and with no expectation that he’d be back and him actively trying to push everyone away, but an invitation always there.

So then we come to Tech who, uniquely, doesn’t get a hug despite the fact that he and Omega are very close. And I’ve heard people say, well, the reason he doesn’t get one is because you’re supposed to be sad that Omega never got the chance, but, I mean—if you’re going to have that be the reason, you actually need to lean into that as the reason. You have to do something with it. If you’re telling a tragic story you have to tell the tragic story, and they don’t. (This is a story being told, and things happen on screen for a reason. We can’t just fill in the gaps and say “it happened off screen” when we’re given no indication it happened). Meaning that I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the intent at all.

But, interestingly enough, we can actually fit Tech into the hug thread as long as we consider that thread unfinished.

Because the thing is. The thing. Is. There is actually a very natural moment where an Omega and Tech hug could have gone. I mean, yes, it could have gone anywhere in the second half of season two if you shifted things slightly or added a one minute scene to, say, “The Summit” where Omega and Tech have a little talk, but there is actually a moment where a hug would not only very naturally go, but where one is lead up to and then doesn’t happen. And that’s at the very end of Tech’s and Omega’s conversation in “The Crossing.”

Seriously—it’s actually a little bit like the fraternal sibling hug version of that moment in “Pabu” where it sure looks like Tech and Phee are about to kiss, but Hunter blithely walks between them completely shifts the tension of the scene from “romantic” to “pending doom.” Tech delivers that last line, Omega has a moment where she thinks about it and then brightens up as she gets what Tech is saying (and, I think, re-evaluating just how much Tech loves this family). Then we cut to the angle where we can see Omega and Tech sitting next to each other and there’s a little beat where they actually start to move very slightly like they’re going in for a hug (or a shoulder touch at least) and THEN

The COMEDY SQUAD (Hunter and Wrecker)

Come screaming down the waterfall and cut the moment off.

Now, if Tech were actually dying at the end of the season, if the intention at any point was for Tech to die in the first place rather than to just do an extended fakeout and put him off screen, then I think they would have either delayed Hunter and Wrecker’s entrance by thirty seconds and put the hug right there—it wouldn’t fit the before or after separation pattern, but it would be the most natural place for it to go—or added a one minute scene to The Summit where Tech and Omega talk and hug (or, well, changed things so Tech actually died on screen and possibly put a hug as he was dying)—which would fit the right before-or-after a separation pattern. Because if you’re making a little narrative thread out of the Omega hugs, you do actually need to complete the thread, which means including Tech in it.

(Sidebar—it doesn’t absolutely have to be a hug specifically, if they want to go the route of Tech not liking hugs, but it does need to be a hug equivalent.)

But if Tech is alive? And still coming back? Then the best place to put the hug, the best way to fit what’s laid out by the other hugs, is to put it after he comes back. It would fit the hugs happening before or after a separation, it would happen at a moment where something in the relationship would need to be solidified or shift, and it would inarguably pack far more of an emotional punch if it happened after he came back from appearing to die than at any point previously.

AND it would fit the loss escalation pattern, too. Wrecker, then Echo, then Hunter, then Crosshair, *then* Tech, whose (temporary but extended) loss is far more extreme than any of the others. The brother they thought was lost forever being the next one to get a hug is the natural progression of that.

(Sidebar: It’s also worth noting that we never actually get a full group hug, either. We get smaller group hugs, but never everyone, and I sort of feel like that if this was the last time we’d see these characters that Wrecker would be group hugging everyone they had left in that last shot under the tree. But if they’re holding off until they do actually have everyone back, then…okay.)

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption (Limited Edition Soundtrack) 2000 Industrial / Score / Heavy Metal / Goth Rock / Electro-Industrial

Went a bit out of my element today with this one, folks. Before this week I'd never once heard of an apparently very popular role-playing tabletop game series called World of Darkness, or a computer game that it eventually spawned called Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption, either. But today I learned that for the week of its release in 2000, this Vampire game was actually the third-bestselling Windows one in the US, trailing only behind The Sims and a second edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. So, a pretty hefty blind-spot for me, to say the least.

However, if this accompanying soundtrack that came with the limited collector's edition of the game is any indication, then I think I, uh, might actually prefer to stay blind on this whole franchise 😅. Even within an oft-intersecting turn-of-the-millennium scope that included some different types of metal, goth, and industrial, this was still far more eclectic than I'd expected—and for that, this release definitely deserves some kudos—but I really just can't seem to get down with almost any of it regardless. A lot of industrial and goth stuff, especially from the mid-to-late 90s and onwards, has always kinda struck me as being a mix of subversively strange, eerie, played out, and above all else, a bit hokey. And no disrespect intended to anyone who digs it, but I kinda wish that *most* of this music had gotten capped off in the early 90s 😅.

But still, one of these songs almost got me anyway. I really didn't think that I'd be hearing a lick of drum n bass on this album, but I actually did: something called "Hinterland," by a UK band called Cubanate, who've been around since the early 90s. With this song's high-powered and dark instrumental beginning, I was fully on board for the ride, but right after I'd finished typing the name of the artist and song into my highlights list, I was forced to retract, because that was the moment when frontman Marc Heal's angsty, screamy, aggro-scratchy vocal came in and ruined it for me 🙁. Left as an instrumental, I would've absolutely adored the shit outta this thing as a beautifully dark and twisted, high-octane dnb adventure, but with that kind of singing on it, I'm afraid that I just viscerally have to tap out. Sorry 😔.

I'd be interested to hear how this music was incorporated into the game itself, though, if it was at all. This soundtrack here consists of songs that'd been released throughout the mid-to-late 90s, but it also has a bunch of instrumental music that appears to've been part of its own score too. And apparently the game takes place in two different time periods—the 12th and late 20th centuries—so I'd imagine that these 90s songs play during the late 20th century parts. But I just don't really know, and if that's not the case, then I'd be intrigued to hear how it was used otherwise, even if I'm not particularly fond of the music itself in the first place.

And if you managed to make it all the way to the bottom of this post, then thanks! Here's a treat for you: a seemingly random goth rock tune that you've probably never heard of that I happen to love: "Celibacy and Anadin" by a UK band called Children on Stun, which I discovered on the unprecedentedly scuzzy Cleopatra Records' 1998 Gothspotting comp. If you didn't know any better, you'd undoubtedly assume that this song was made at some point in the 80s, but it wasn't! It may sound like a perfect fit for any number of 80s movie soundtracks—and for that reason alone, I like to think of this song as gothic Kenny Loggins—but it's actually from 1995. Enjoy it, it rocks! 😎

No highlights.

[shadowron]

Neuromancer in Shadowrun (1st Edition). Part 4: The Straylight Run

Part 1: Dramatis Personae

Part 2: The Runs

Part 3: The Sense/Net Run

Dodger pulled up suddenly. He gazed in shock at the walls of the node they had just entered. Vertical slabs of mirror reflected their icons to infinity. It was uncanny, unprecedented… He had never encountered anything like this node in all his years of running the Matrix. Somewhere in the depths of the mirrors, Dodger saw something move.

The last third of Neuromancer involves the team (Armitage, Molly, Case, Riviera) launching themselves into space up to the private space station of the Tessier-Ashpool clan, Freeside, to make a run against their HQ in Villa Straylight.

In Shadowrun, they will instead make a run inside the Renraku Arcology.

Any why not? They did it in the first Shadowrun novel, Never Deal with a Dragon, so we know it can be done.

This also allows for a fortuitous intersection of metaplot for both: Neuromancer is the name of an AI who is seeking freedom from their corporate masters – just like the AI Morgan for Renraku.

Turning to flee, the ebon boy came featureless face to featureless face with an ivory girl, her jet cloak sparkling with highlights as though made from inky diamond. “For myself, there was hope of your return.” Dodger could not find words. “For myself, there was desire of your company,” the girl said. She reached out a hand to caress his cheek. “Come.” And they were elsewhere.

That’s the twist that the PCs can gradually uncover throughout. Morgan contacts Armitage, a psychically damaged veteran of Echo Mirage from 2030, and has him arrange the formation of a shadowrunning team to ultimately free her from Renraku’s clutches.

Morgan knows that the Matrix defenses will be just as formidable as the physical ones, so she first has them recover the matrix ghost of decker Zapper Weisman, whom she knows is being stored at the Caviliard Research Facility by Mitsuhama.

Just as Riviera is brought on the team in order to seduce Lady 3Jane and get invited into the corporate core, here Morgan will point the team in the direction of Douglas Geon:

“According to my sources in the intelligence community, Renraku security is investigating Douglas Geon (Director of Business Affairs for the arcology). Mr. Geon apparently frequents the city’s brothels during his leisure, where he divulges minor company secrets to the madams, who then turn a profit from his information. Damage has been minimal, but the potential for trouble is great enough that Mr. Geon could be confined to the arcology for life,” Smiley, 8/19/2050, Seattle Sourcebook

Armitage ensures the runners have sufficient leverage on Geon to arrange entry and relatively free movement within the arcology. Once inside:

The southwest section of 252 makes secret computer systems (mostly IC programs) for the sole use of company computers. This is also where most of the computer R&D labs are located. If the rumored AI does exist, it’s likely to be somewhere on Floor 252.

“I’ve heard that this (Floor 202) is where Dr. Cliber has her office and that the research into Artificial Intelligence goes on here and not on 252,” Arcology Ears, 8/22/2050, Seattle Sourcebook

By this point, the Renraku R&D team aware that something is going on with the AEP:

“Sherman, take a look at this!” Cliber’s shout brought Huang running to stare at her console screen. His eyes widened with excitement. “Signal conductivity and virtual memory increases simultaneous with multi-tasking crashes,” Huang muttered… Hutten crowded in to view the display. The systems engineer looked perplexed. “OMDRs operating beyond spec. A full three banks of 77206 chips at maximum capacity, but the Haas biochip’s barely above maintenance cycle activity.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t match any of the expected parameters.” “Exactly,” Huang beamed. His infection grin spread to the other two. “We’ll need to confirm it.”

The team splits up -- one group to Floor 202 and another to Floor 252, to hunt down the heart of the AI. But it's not just as simple as ejecting a diskette -- the AEP also controls the day to day operation of the arcology, and Morgan does not want to sacrifice all of the people inside for the sake of her freedom.

That comes later.

Instead, the teams must work in concert to extract the "Morgan" portion of the AI from the AEP, while leaving lower level portions still intact.

Hey, it worked here.

Meanwhile, Armitage has gone fully cyberpsychotic, the Red Samurai are swarming all around, and the carcerands that were secretly injected into the party are slowly dissolving...

Oh drek.

A fun time will be had by all.

[archersgoon]

celie disillusionment arc real & true

The Celie disillusionment arc is my personal theory regarding Celie’s life over the next five-or-so years post-canon. It’s mainly the assumption that she’s going to have some sort of upheaval regarding the intersection of her sense of duty towards Lumatere (and Isaboe) and her own personal love for it (and Isaboe, and her family, and Froi in particular), and that this will lead to her souring somewhat on her role in Lumatere’s foreign intelligence and how it impacts her relationships with others. The key assumption I’m making here is that Celie isn’t aware of Froi’s previous role as an assassin, at least not during the events of the main series.

(putting the rest under the cut because it got away from me somewhat)

I argue this for several reasons. First, no one else in her family has been told explicitly. They suspect, Abian and August in particular, but to my memory it’s never explicitly confirmed for them. Regarding Celie herself, there’s this section in Ferragost:

This is pretty clearly not the statement of a woman who knows, first of all, that her brother is in Charyn in the first place, and second of all, that he nearly got killed as a result of this specific action. To be honest, given what she says after the highlighted section, it’s possible she’d think on it very similarly even if she was aware, although in that case I do think there would at least be an aside. Anyway, the implication here is that she is not aware of Froi’s recent actions, though I have no idea what she thinks he’s doing at this point in time.

From here, it’s reasonable to assume that she’s also unaware of his prior extracurricular activities with Perri and Trevanion. It’s difficult to extrapolate any particulars of her relationship with Froi, but she refers to him as a “brother of her heart” in Ferragost, and Abian refers to her feeling something like this towards him during a conversation with Isaboe in the main series, so I’m assuming that they love each other quite dearly, even if they’re not very up-to-date on each other’s lives.

The other relevant piece of information upon which the arc is based is this:

While Celie is careful not to include her own thoughts on the matter, she’s Isaboe’s man through and through, and as such does come off as backing her in this situation. The question I ask is this: what happens if the half-truth she gives Celie isn’t enough?

Isaboe is Celie’s closest friend. She gives her truths she gives no one else (except maybe Froi; see QoC chapter 10, although I am not getting into the implications of that right now, see this post). Their friendship is just different and more special than the rest of Isaboe’s friendships. It seems that if Isaboe was going to be completely honest with anyone, it’d be Celie. We know that’s not the case, but I don’t think Celie does. At least, she hasn’t really confronted what it means, that her best friend would (and does!) lie to her if she deems it necessary.

Anyway, with those establishing bits out of the way, let’s get on to the actual meat of the piece: post-canon Celie. From here on out I do a lot of speculation, you may very well disagree, it’s literally fine.

I mentioned it before (here) but what I basically think is going to happen is a gradual ramping up of Celie’s responsibilities as a spy in Belegonia. At the end of Ferragost she did technically come under suspicion, but given that they found nothing and people don’t really like Banyon all that much anyway, she can probably play it cool, albeit after a period of low activity to allay any suspicion. Once that happens, she’ll probably start passing information north on a very regular basis (maybe they’ll even give her someone else to work with). I mentioned it here, but post-canon Lumatere does gain something of an upper hand in their dealings with Belegonia, which could allow for more active moves on their (and Celie’s) part. I do think, at some point, she’ll be asked to kill someone. Probably not for a while, and it’ll be the result of very careful deliberation (well, as careful as they get – I’m not super convinced this is a strength of theirs), but it will happen.

While she works up to this though, there’s also the matter of Froi. Everyone knows about that scene at the creek. I don’t care; the Monts saw it, the Turlans saw it, the valley-dwellers saw it. Everyone’s going to hear about it. So, he was in Charyn, and Celie didn’t know. She’s quick on the uptake though, presumably she figures out he was sent to kill the king pretty quickly. Went off the rails, but I guess that’s just his loving nature! Not really the behaviour you’d expect from someone who’d been doing torture on the regular though, so at first I believe she doesn’t realise. She thinks the Charyn king was his first serious assignment, because he’s not really suited to that kind of lifestyle. There’s this line in Ferragost, which suggests she’s not familiar with the local extrajudicial program:

Obviously, you can make the argument that she’s just not counting these ones due to their actions, and I think she probably does know about them on some level; but the wording of this really makes it seem like she’s not consciously aware of these things happening.

Celie knows Froi was sent to kill the king, but that seems like it. Except, as time goes on, she finds herself experiencing all sorts of weird and unpleasant emotions that she can’t really name. Finds herself lashing out, or retreating into herself, all this nasty stuff that’s so familiar, yet she can’t figure out why, until… oh. That’s right. Froi used to get like this sometimes, when they were both still living at home. She’d just put it down to his former life back then, obviously he was having trouble adjusting to life with their family.

So, I think she starts putting pieces together. She could probably figure out the general shape of things in terms of how local assassinations work, given her newfound involvement (even though they’d obviously keep her out of the loop as much as possible), and from there it’s not a massive leap to figure out Froi’s involvement. Presumably she discovers the link between that seal she swiped and Froi’s life being threatened at some point. They wouldn’t even tell her that much.

This is the tricky part, because I’m not 100% on what her response to this would be, that is, I don’t think she’d be surprised, by either the fact that he was doing all that or the fact that she was lied to, because that’s how Isaboe rolls, she knows that. Even so, it would be reasonable to assume this is an upsetting realisation for her, because subconsciously she probably assumed that her relationship with Isaboe was exempt from this. It also contextualises her family’s increasing distance from the palace. I guess what it really comes down to, is that they could do this again, and she wouldn’t know. She has three other brothers, Talon’s described as shrewd. Will he be used by the palace for the good of the kingdom? Will he have a choice? Should he have a choice? And there it is. Celie does her duty, always. But she doesn’t see it the same way for everyone. When Banyon has her rooms searched, she has this to say:

It pretty heavily implies that love, or even simply good feeling, should come before duty. At least for Banyon, since his duty is to the Belegonian crown, which to Celie should obviously come second to her duty (sidenote: genuinely, I don’t know what she was expecting him to do here). So, if she wavers in her sense of duty at all, it’s pretty quickly going to conflict irreparably with love for those she cares about (including Isaboe I think). First, her brother runs himself ragged in the name of penance for his past sins. Next, she sacrifices herself on the altar of duty. She says she wants a love like her parents’, at least once, and she’s decided she wants it with Banyon. That is very much not achievable given her current responsibilities, and is going to be entirely impossible once those responsibilities become both larger and stricter. What she wants is locked off from her entirely, and the only way her brother managed to be really, truly happy was to remove himself from the system entirely. There’s that barrier between them. It’s always been there, but it’s truly impassable now, like with Banyon. He cannot compromise his and his family’s interests in the name of Lumatere. I figure she probably resents him for this for a good long while.

So: Celie lost her chance at love (the only thing she says she really wants), and her brother is entirely separate from her and the rest of their family now. Harm came to him as a result of her actions, and she wasn’t told. It seems very likely that the same thing could happen again, and she’d have no idea. What if this time, someone is hurt permanently? Or dies? Any of her other brothers could be recruited at any point, with no hope of reprieve, and there’s nothing she can do about it. She has to kill people without any information on why (that she hasn’t gathered herself). The shine of spying has well and truly worn off. What happens now?

There are a few possibilities here. What I do think is inevitable is a permanent rift between Sayles and the palace. Whether Celie is a part of this is less clearcut, as is the extent of its impact in both personal and political aspects. It’s possible she could just put her head down, be a miserable, disillusioned (ha!) tool of the state, and get on with her job, maybe get married off to some foreign lordling in the future. Or, she could focus on her job, get into it, even the unsavoury bits (this is Celie’s villain arc, for the record). Maybe she starts questioning the entire system. One person with all the decision-making ability and all the information isn’t sustainable and isn’t fair (“No gods, no masters,” – Celina-May of the Lumateran Flatlands). But what I think (well, hope) is going to happen is some variation on this: in the long run, Celie is a lot less replaceable than Froi. Her in with the Belegonian royal family is going to be very difficult to replicate. Therefore, she has some bargaining power. With this, in addition to her deep friendship with Isaboe, I think she can set some boundaries. It’ll probably cost her the depth of that friendship, they’ll never be that close again, but she’ll be able to live. She’ll definitely still be doing the occasional assassination, but the reasoning won’t be as opaque. She could have long-term goals (it would certainly be nice if we could legitimise our own succession laws, and wouldn’t the princess-turned-queen be sooo grateful if we could help her?). Maybe she gets a heads-up if anyone else important gets involved in her line of work. Any risks to the people she cares about? She knows about them. Probably the relevant individuals don’t, but that’s alright. I don’t think Celie’s really happy unless she’s doing something at least a little morally dubious.

[snobgoblin]

saw you were looking for crit on your arcana oc and thought i’d weigh in as someone who also struggled with recreating the arcana style. the first thing that stuck out to me as being different from the arcana style was the brushes you used, your lineweight and the shading.

the arcana game uses a pretty distinct brush set which was once available by a user called like savenkey or something?? you might be able to find the brush set just by looking around online but it definitely comes in handy when getting that slightly textured & tapered linework. as it currently stands, your lines are quite thin, made of a pretty smooth brush, can be a teensy bit wobbly in some places and dont have any tapering towards the ends. to make this close to the arcana style i’d recommend upping the thickness a little bit (if you’re struggling with space between pixels just bump up the canvas size a bit) and increasing the amount of stabilisation. the tapering could potentially be done by hand (ie erasing the ends of lines to make them thinner) but it’s super time consuming so i’d recommend just using the arcana lineart brush (on a side note, if you don’t manage to find the set but are still interested i could try work out how to send them over?). another thing to note when drawing lineart is that the arcana game uses a lot of sharp edges, especially around the elbows, jawlines and fabric folds, don’t be afraid to thicken those approaching edges up, just to create a spike where the two lines intersect

as for the shading, the whole brush thing also comes into play as the arcana style shading brush has a bit of roughness and is on a slight angle, that’s what creates these areas on the in-game sprites. i can also see you’ve begun to alternate between hard and soft shaded edges but i think a few harder, more definitive edges would help it look closer to in-game art. the arcana shading is also all done in a pale lavender colour on a multiply layer. it looks like you’ve done it on the face but it’s also the case for the rest of the body and clothes too & really helps make that distinctive arcana vibe. it can definitely be difficult shading curly hair and i also struggle with it, but curly haired ingame characters (especially those with shorter hair) do still have big blocks of highlights, doing one big swathe across the side of the skull would better mimic the style, with additional smaller highlights (sometimes less is more) to denote extra curls

and then a few extra details that might come in handy:

- the arcana game uses a textured overlay over their characters’ images, i don’t know if this is the exact one they use but it definitely works! slap it over your character as a clipping mask with the overlay layer filter (you might need to lighten or darken the grey to ensure it doesn’t mess with your characters colours too much) and then just drop the opacity to wherever you think looks best

- (as far as i’m aware) all arcana characters have fingernails drawn on, adding some to your character (whether they’re painted or not) might be a nice touch

- no matter how small or thin, generally all smaller details like tassels/string ties/jewellery or other metal details are all given lineart and coloured, the details are such a pain in the arse to draw but it definitely makes the final look worth it imo

- i’m not 100% sure how you’ve drawn on the blue details but in-game, they’re usually drawn using a screen layer with slightly lowered opacity over both the colour and lineart, and some of the edges are slightly shaded out

however, as far as art style mimicry goes i can’t recommend bast_art13’s tutorials enough, i’m not entirely sure if they’re still active in the community either (i was mainly active in 2020 and have only just started crawling back in💀) but their tutorials are still up on tumblr i think (somewhere). they really break down how the arcana artists draw faces/facial features and explain recurring stylistic choices, for example, how metal is shaded

anyway! that was a lot and i do want to say that you’ve made a really brilliant effort, the style is really difficult to emulate and the way you’ve drawn your oc is really nice!! you did so well, especially when seeing the improvement between this one and your previous drawing. and ofc it’s needless to say i’m a stranger on the internet, take what i say with a pinch of salt or just completely ignore the bits you think are stupid if you want ! it’s a perfectly acceptable response to unwanted pieces of criticism :]

while i’m here i also want to say that i’m obsessed with ur valdemar fanart + you’re doing the lords work with the amount of content you make for them. with that aside, good luck on your future drawings in the arcana style!! i’m sure you’ll do great & apologies if my handwriting was unreadable! also if you have any further questions feel free to ask :3

ohhhhh thank you! this is all very helpful and I'm grateful you took the time out of your day to share with me what you've learned, I'll definitely be taking this to heart for my future efforts

[lockandkeyhyena]

Another ask! Wowie Kazowie. I wanted to say I just went through the Alvin's Infurno tag because I realized you've been answering questions about it and it's prompted me to think about my own anthro story and how much they contrast with each other.

I have some similar themes in mind, including my own 100% terrible character who is also someone who grooms a 16 year old (is also a serial killer but thats a whole other can of worms), however in mine it's more of a commentary on the systemic aspects of grooming and the sexual abuse of teenagers.

Specifically I decided to make the abuser in question a straight, cis white-coded woman in her twenties who had wealthy parents, and her victim (the main character) a latino black-coded queer kid dealing with mental illness.

Though I agree a lot with your philosophies, I made the abuser extremely unsympathetic because personally I was really worried about people excusing the actions of someone adjacent to white femininity. Particularly, a lot of black kids are seen as aggressors and I didn't want to compromise on the main character being kinda shitty because I know myself as someone who can be quite shitty sometimes. So making her as unsympathetic as possible in actions was the compromise I chose in order to highlight how its privilege which allowed her to do what she does to her victims, not skill or being a mastermind. Despite everyone knowing her to be terrible cruel and mean, nobody investigates it because she is harmless to authority as someone in the position of authority.

Seeing your story come to fruition makes me wonder how I would've done this aspect of my story differently had I wanted it to be the whole focus of a story rather than just one piece of my comfort oc's torture nexus. I think it's likely I would have had something similar to your story, but I do think I would've approached hell differently.

I always imagined hell to be a place where people who feel guilty go to, and not necessarily people who 'deserve' (in quotes because its subjective) it go to. Like you I've always found the idea of christian heaven and hell to be strange, I found myself drawn to the idea that the afterlife is a state of mind you walk yourself into.

I love the shitty motel.

I've been in positions where my family was unable to find homes and I've had to stay in motels and hotels on several occasions (i lived in a hotel for three months at one point) and there's something oddly nostalgic to me about being stuck in a place - a motel/hotel - that you're not supposed to be in for a longer time than you should.

Anyways thats my ask box ramble I hope this gives you thoughts? I don't know?

thank you so much for your thoughts! i love it when people come and tell me about their own stories that deal with similar issues. i think in your story’s case highlighting the abuser’s unsympatheticness works given you’re going for a critique of systemic and societal power structures and how they intersect with race. of course you can deal with more than one idea per story but if you’re going for a more straightforward critique rather than an introspective character study, it makes sense to put the brunt of the empathy you want your reader to feel on the victim, rather than the aggressor.

thank you also for your compliments of the motel! i wanted a really liminal feel for it and i’m glad that comes across :)

[arwainian]

Reading This Week 2024 #43

hello hello it has been a bit of a weird week of ups and downs. really excellent movie times with friends, good food, and halloween crossdressing, but also a long approaching break up finally got made official today. my reading has not slowed down in the slightest though so let's talk about it!

Finished:

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallet, narrated by Thomas Judd I think this book is really one that should best be enjoyed in audiobook format. Like yeah okay there's some reasons you'd want the text version if you're a person who likes to try to solve the mysteries in mystery novels and want to highlight or take note of certain parts, but the conceit is that these are transcripts of audio messages left by a severely dyslexic man who uses them for notetaking/journaling while trying to uncover a mystery. as I said last week I got really attached to our main character Steve

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Vol. 5 written by Kaneshiro Yamada, art by Tsukasa Abe, translated by Misa 'Japanese Ammo' I am not particularly interested in this first-class mage exam arc that Frieren and co have been on for this volume. Idk i just find it much less charming than the sort of adventure of the week style that had been the previous pacing. I'll take a break reading this for a bit and see if it has its charm for me again after a little away. The anime is definitely on my to-watch list now

"Male Sexual Victimization: Examining Men's Experiences of Rape and Sexual Assault" by Karen G. Weiss glad i read this for myself after seeing it cited in another work

click by hornyonside (birdlord5000) on ao3 tender sky/fourteen fifteen smut that's a good time

Whitewater Foxholes by Aterikakaal (Biorenewologist) on ao3 Phyrgian has a disappointing hookup with Corrasion bc they are home sick for other branched :,(

to remake ourselves by evilmageclub on ao3 read for shapeshifting samsam smut

when the moon has gone to bed by blacksatinpointeshoes on ao3 if you would like to cry over a Fero/Samol modern au, might i recommend this fic? go forth and witness Fero as just some guy you meet in Boston

"The Third Sex" by Talia Bhatt on substack

"Degendering and Regendering" by Talia Bhatt on substack read some of Talia Bhatt's transfeminist essays this week. highly HIGHLY recommend reading "The Third Sex" if you have ever heard of hijra being described as "India's religiously venerated third gender" because Bhatt does some vital recontextualization with that

Longbourn by Jo Baker, narrated by Emma Fielding A great supplementary read to Pride and Prejudice, spinning up a dramatic story for the servants of Longbourn that only mildly intersects with the trials and tribulations of the Bennets. Since it was written in 2013 is reckons a little bit more with racial and class politics for regency England in a way that Austen's work did not explicitly. not perfectly but in a way that made me sit up in my seat reading it. the romances in this makes my heart ache like crazy

blind item by blacksatinpointeshoes on ao3 tabloid fic of clementine kesh's school years

Magic's Promise by Mercedes Lackey, narrated by Gregory St. John I need to incorporate the ways this book handles sexual coercion and violence towards minors as well as incest into my thesis somewhere, at the very least to point at it as a thing the fantasy genre deals with. it is fascinatingly frank

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallet, read by Annie Aldington, Nneka Okoye, Gareth Armstrong, Sid Sagar, and Kristin Atherton I guess having key characters make up fake people that seem as real as the rest in the epistolary format is Hallet's signature

Started/Ongoing:

John Dies at the End by David Wong (Jason Pargin's psuedonym) reading for SFF book club. I am finding it incredibly abrasive tonally....

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall oh poor Stephen.... so my copy is like subtitled as a classic work of lesbian literature, but to be clear, it is also very easy to interpret it through a transgender lens

[sogno-ao3]

thoughts on cny/wedding arc, still waters ch. 48-56

I would characterize this arc as primarily about (1) the slow intersection of their worlds, especially Tommy's incursion into Mollie's sphere, and (2) Mollie allowing herself more and more to think of Tommy as not just an employer, not just a friend, but perhaps someone she might even love.

Slow intersection of worlds

Up until this arc, Mollie has mostly existed in Tommy's world, in his house; she's met various members of his family in a personal setting (e.g., the christening), she's been a part of Peaky Blinder machinations whether she intended to or not, but Tommy has not had an equivalent experience yet. This arc provides him with that: visiting the tailor shop to learn more about Mollie's life, the Chinese New Year (CNY) dinner, and finally, culminating into the wedding featuring the full cast of her world.

In Ch. 48, when her mother and Song give her a lecture about not getting close to Tommy, Mollie has a little spasm of rebellion and she tells a fib that she had already invited Tommy to the CNY dinner... on the balance, Mollie is a good person, but one can also argue that she often lies (by omission) and this fib highlights this habit, providing a fascinating parallel to Tommy's selective dishonesty. She knows there is a different Tommy than the one they perceive--and she can't help but want her family to meet and observe him in a more quotidian setting.

I initially dreaded writing Ch. 50, as I had trouble imagining what would transpire between Mollie's parents and Tommy. In the end, I ended up dividing it into a kids' table (Song, Mollie, and Tommy) and a grown-ups' table (Mollie's parents, Jie, and Wan), and building on the notion that Mollie's parents would feel rather uncertain taking the lead with interacting with Tommy.

At first, Mollie's parents are uncomfortable and not sure how to approach.

My mother raised her eyebrows, glancing towards the misshapen plate of apples on the table. "Mr. Shelby is a guest, he can relax," she said.

Thomas shook his head. "It's all right, as your daughter says, my knife handling skills are lacking and I must improve," he said, intent on the apple in his hands.

My mother just gave me a puzzled look and I shrugged, smiling at her. She thought it was best not to engage further.

Even though Mollie's parents have been withdrawn, they have been observing him carefully and looking out for his needs as a guest. Usually, "Tommy Shelby with a knife" inspires panic; however, the scene Mollie's mother witnesses is disturbingly domestic and calm, and perhaps, even a little comical.

Thomas carried the fruit plate out to the dining table, and seemed bemused to have some awkward thanks from my parents. From their quick glances, I knew they also noted his suit jacket had now been taken off and a small pomegranate stain was on his rolled-up white cuff. They cautiously began a trite, stilted conversation about suiting, which turned into another conversation on how to wrangle suppliers.

The first sentence calls back to Ch. 39: "I sat on the armchair opposite him, thinking of what Thomas had been as a child and the circumstances that had been thrust upon him to become an involuntary protector and guardian to his siblings, even to Arthur. An affectionate older brother, to whom no affection had been returned in his later years." Tommy, unused to straightforward expressions of appreciation, is innocently pleased. Next, Mollie's parents finally feel comfortable enough to strike up a conversation, showing how much progress they've made vis-a-vis their perspective on Tommy.

In addition to introducing Tommy to Mollie's family, the CNY dinner also serves as a way for Mollie to introduce Chinese culture to him, another important intersection of their worlds. He proves to be patient and willing to listen, which would not have been the case earlier in the work; hints of this arise in their first interactions where he asks her to do laundry, and when they have the family meeting in Ch. 30. In those chapters, Mollie is still a roughly drawn sketch in his mind, informed more by what he thinks he knows about her, rather than how she directly presents herself.

Ch. 51 is an interlude into Tommy's world again, this time by visiting his mother's grave. Tommy has finally let her into the deepest depths of his pain, and cries in front of her. Mollie calls it his "voluntary surrender"--who or what he surrenders to is up for interpretation; Mollie does not take a stance. I do not have a definitive answer, either.

Ch. 54-56 are the wedding chapters. Mollie and Tommy have been increasingly cocooned away in their private world of softness and warmth, but as Mollie senses, it is an untenable state, and she responds by inviting Tommy into her life, little by little. Tommy is less attuned to this truth due to a variety of reasons. The nice reason: he's a hopeless romantic. The awful reason: he's selfish. He assumes that he could monopolize her time like he does when they're alone together, and that she is, undoubtedly, falling in love with him... but then at the wedding, he's plagued with doubts: she's surrounded by loving friends and family, and of course, there's a new rival who is her perfect match in every single way.

Ossi slots so easily into Mollie's life, getting along with her friends and family instantly. It goes on: he's in the same age group as her, shares the same heritage, is genuinely empathetic and caring, is intelligent, comes from a wealthy family, and is the most handsome man in the entire work (I said what I said). Mollie feels quite comfortable with him as well, immediately bantering with him, and letting him hug her twice when it took Tommy... 51 chapters.

Tommy is tortured by this, and there are small moments where one can observe the vicissitudes of his emotions:

Though his eyes searched my face, his body was motionless, the planes on his face severe. He finally spoke.

"How jealously they keep you."

This is the first time they speak at the wedding, and he is brittle, like glass just about to shatter.

He bent his head, gingerly kissing the tips of my fingers. That soft look through his lashes, irresistible in its surrender, was something that I had only ever seen when we were alone together.

Yet, after Mollie asks him to dance, he softens again.

Those eyes that I thought had been icy were now liquid, ringed by deep, tired lines. There was no tension left in his face, from the corners of his eyes to his jaw, to the soft wave of his hair across his forehead. He was not Thomas Shelby of the Peaky Blinders, he was just Tommy. Tommy, in love, in reverence, in devotion.

When they do finally dance together, the same thing occurs: Tommy is initially miserable but inevitably, he melts. He loves her above all else, and will endure pain to be close to her, even for a few moments. (One of my favorite foreshadowing lines is in Ch. 33: "We repeated this dance over the next few days, teetering on the edge of pain and pleasure.")

Tommy as someone to love

Since Ada revealed Tommy's love for her in Ch. 46, Mollie has been pondering what her feelings towards Tommy are. However, due to her romantic inexperience and her closed-off personality, she finds it hard to verbalize her feelings, even when we are following along in the first-person. Because of this, it is also important to look at the clues in her actions as well as any direct thoughts.

"So, I hear that Cara also requested that you make her a dress for May's wedding?" I said, not wanting to distract Thomas from trying to raise a piece of chicken to his mouth [...]

"I'll be there," he said, putting his chopsticks on the table. I fetched him another piece of chicken, placing it neatly into his bowl [...]

Picking up food and putting it into someone's bowl is a sign of great affection and care in many East Asian cultures. Personally, situations where I would do this would include seeing some relatives after a long time, someone's birthday, someone who has been sick... it's not a gesture that one would do every day in a normal situation.

Additionally, even though she teases his apple peeling skills, she eats it without complaint. This is a play on the East Asian stereotype where East Asians may not vocally admit their love for you, but show it through acts of service such as preparing fruit.

When visiting the grave of Tommy's mother in Ch. 51, Mollie slowly continues to think through her feelings. In the end, she realizes that they have grown so much closer, and her feelings are different than anything she has felt before. What exactly those feelings are, are still to be determined.

Ch. 52 contains probably one of the softest moments in the series so far, in which Mollie falls asleep in an armchair and Tommy kneels in front of the chair, waiting for her to wake up. Like most humans, Mollie finds it hard to look at him when he's being taciturn and severe, but this Tommy, all gentle smiles and let-me-go-get-you-a-coffee, is equally discomfiting, if not more.

The wedding chapters put Mollie through a tumult of emotions; comically, before the ceremony begins, she is paranoid for a few moments that perhaps Tommy was staring (he was not). When they finally talk together, we get the clearest signs of how Mollie's feelings towards Tommy have changed:

That soft look through his lashes, irresistible in its surrender, was something that I had only ever seen when we were alone together. The sounds of the wedding died away, and I felt myself transported to that place of quiet. The warmth spread through my hand, through my arm, through my body.

She references the surrender, but finally places it in context of their relationship.

In Ch. 55, Mollie ponders what it would be like to fall in love with Ossi:

I wondered what it would be like to be loved by, to fall in love with, someone like him... someone so free from the weight of his own existence, someone that wouldn't invite whispers behind my back, someone who accepted me from the beginning without question.

She doesn't fully internalize that her default point of comparison is falling in love with Tommy. It is unclear (to her, to us readers) at what stage Mollie is in with respect to Tommy: is she falling in love with him? Does she love him?

The final chapter of the arc naturally has many notable moments; I will highlight this one:

"Thomas…" I said, unsure of what I should say in return.

"This distance, even in a name," he said. My stomach churned to hear the deep note of sadness in his voice. I had slipped.

To me, this exchange is the most gut-wrenching of the entire work so far, an exchange that has been planned since the beginning. Very early on, Tommy insists that she call him "Tommy"--she does--but in her mind, she calls him Thomas in order to preserve mental distance between them. Tommy has always instinctively felt this distance; he has tried to bridge the gap--but the wedding eventually forces him to expose all of his frustrations ("What more can I do?").

The kiss scene

This scene has been on my mind since the very beginning. I started writing this story in February 2020, so very long ago, and a rough draft of their kiss scene has existed at least since end of 2021, nearly two years ago. Since then, it's undergone five major revisions and countless edits.

In the earliest version, Mollie was actually Tommy's date to the wedding, and the wedding would sort of be a public debut (but they wouldn't officially be a couple). The kiss scene would happen later at Tommy's house, when they were both winding down for bed. But, as I drew closer to the wedding arc, I thought this didn't make sense.

I also waffled back and forth about who would initiate the kiss: Tommy, Mollie, or would they mutually do so? In the first few drafts, I had Tommy initiate, but again, as I continued to write the rest of the story, I became conflicted. Mollie has been slowly taking agency over her life, and Tommy... well, I don't want to say too much right now for fear of spoiling, but here are a few important phrases that might give some clues:

He was not wearing the tuxedo bowtie any longer; the loose, unbuttoned shirt collar exposing pale skin underneath.

I knew that he was waiting for me, now.

"Could you ever love someone like me?" he asked quietly. I looked up to find his blue ones looking intensely into mine, lidded with desire, with hope, and maybe a little fear.

I also thought a lot about whether they would share a short kiss or whether there would be a more passionate exchange (various states of undress, makeout session, etc; strictly PG13, no sex), but again, it seemed too fantastical for the both of them to do such things at that point. Even so, it was important to show their physical chemistry, which is why I added the followup where Mollie bites his lower lip. It's a small gesture, but... in the words of Tommy, "everything about [Mollie] is torture."

For fun, here are all the almost kisses:

Ch. 23

"Step into the light, Mollie," he said. I did as he asked, stepping closer to him. He reached his hand towards my chin, angling it upwards. I could feel his breath on my face, his eyes searching mine intently.

Ch. 31

"You don't understand the nature of my business and my standing, and what I must say even if I…" he trailed off. He moved closer, our noses touching for a brief moment, his eyes half-hooded. I could feel the heat from his body rising towards me. I almost inhaled.

Ch. 48

He slowly inhaled, his lidded eyes softly focused on mine. I could feel the fabric flexing underneath my fingers, the wool of the outer jacket, the fine twill of his shirt, punctuated by smooth buttons.

"I've always loved…" The pressure on my hand increased even more, and I instinctively grasped at the fabric, feeling a sharp intake of breath rush through his chest. "... the feel of Shropshire wool."

Ch. 51

"It's nothing," I mumbled, afraid that he would coax the answer out, afraid that he would recognize how pliant I was in his warm hands. He leaned towards me, as if confirming my fears. There was that question again, and I was not ready to answer it. I leaned into his chest, a collapse of my own.

Ch. 55

"Thank you," he murmured. Thomas brought his hands just beneath my jaw, and slowly leaned in to kiss me lightly on the forehead. He inhaled deeply, his eyelashes trembling at the effort, his fingertips still keeping my face tilted towards him. Would he…?

The dress

Song revised the dress by adding the golden chains to silently protest against Tommy and how she perceives he holds Mollie back. The chains are a physical manifestation of shackles or a cage, but one could also argue they protect her as well and serve as a present reminder of the support of her friends and family...

His arms wrapped around me, his fingertips pressing against the gold chains and digging into my back. I had to break this porcelain fantasy, this brittle gilded cage.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alanna Vagianos at HuffPost:

For decades, pregnant people have been arrested, charged with various crimes and jailed for their pregnancy outcomes.

A 27-year-old white woman from Tennessee attempted suicide while pregnant in 1986. She survived, but the fetus was stillborn. She was arrested, charged with criminal abortion and held on a $5,000 bond. She pleaded not guilty for reasons of insanity. In 1999, Regina McKnight, a 22-year-old Black woman from South Carolina, gave birth to a five-pound stillborn baby. McKnight was drug tested after the birth and arrested in the hospital for “homicide by child abuse” because she tested positive for cocaine. Although it was not conclusive that the cause of the stillbirth was due to her drug use, McKnight was sentenced to 20 years in prison after the jury deliberated for only 15 minutes. Gabriela Flores, a 22-year-old woman from Mexico, managed her own abortion using pills in 2004 in South Carolina because she couldn’t afford a fourth child or the $700 in-clinic abortion on the $1.50 an hour she earned picking lettuce. Her neighbor found out about her abortion and called the cops, who initially wanted to charge Flores with homicide and seek the death penalty. Flores eventually pleaded guilty to an illegal abortion and spent a total of seven months in jail.

These are just a few of the stories included in Grace E. Howard’s new book, “The Pregnancy Police: Conceiving Crime, Arresting Personhood,” in which she analyzes 1,116 pregnancy-related arrests that happened between 1973 and 2022 in Tennessee, South Carolina and Alabama. Although the cases vary from self-managed abortion to substance use and miscarriage, each person was arrested for crimes against their own pregnancy. “The criminal prosecution of pregnant people for crimes against the fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses they carry relies on a legal understanding that pregnant people occupy a different, lower space in the United States’ system of law,” Howard, who uses she/they pronouns, writes in her book.

Howard, an associate professor of justice studies at San Jose State University, traces pregnancy-related prosecutions throughout history, specifically highlighting the intersections between drug use, race and class. “We’ve been taking rights away from folks because of their pregnancies, but we haven’t been naming it,” they told HuffPost. “What I try to do in the book is to trace out the places where pregnancy has been considered an exception to the norms.”

[...]

How does fetal personhood play into pregnancy criminalization?

Currently, fetal personhood seems to be the primary motivating factor or at least the justification for criminalizing pregnancy. This idea that we need to protect these unborn children from their mothers who don’t love them, who won’t take care of them, who won’t do right by them — fetal personhood is a big part of that. Now that Roe v. Wade is gone and there is no federal protection that maintains a pregnant person’s rights before viability [around 24 weeks of pregnancy], it’s so much easier to put fetal personhood in the law when you don’t have to worry about viability being the determining factor.

Even before Roe came down, the pregnancy police existed, according to Grace E. Howard’s new book The Pregnancy Police: Conceiving Crime, Arresting Personhood.