#law of human existence

[postersbykeith]

[uncanny-tranny]

"Why does this thing exist, people are so lazy!"

Disabled people both exist, and also.... even if it's "laziness", "laziness" is not a sin. People should be able to do anything with any level of assistance. Just because the way you exist is the way that is "normal" doesn't mean that it is Right and Divine

[whetstonefires]

Oh yeah I recently had a moment of realization, which is that Lady Catherine's main underlying motive for pushing the Darcy/Anne marriage isn't actually her ideas about keeping property in the family etc, or her agreement with her late sister at all.

The number one reason she's so wedded to it is the same basic reason Mrs. Bennet is so eager to have Mr. Collins as a son-in-law.

Because while Rosings isn't entailed, which has allowed her to lady it over the demesne all this time on the strength of her daughter's status as heiress, property law is such that as soon as there's a man in the family--as soon as Anne weds--it will all belong to him.

And while she won't be forced to find other lodging or anything unless a truly dreadful groom winkles his way in, she'll no longer be the mistress of the place as she has been all this time, not even as much the mistress as she was before she was widowed, because that will be Anne's place now. She will be only the mother of the wife of the master of Rosings.

And there is not likely to be any great supply of fellows of sufficient distinction and lineage to meet her high standards, who will want Anne (whose main appeal is her property), who will also allow their mother-in-law to rule the roost.

Darcy is a known quantity, who doesn't especially want Rosings and can be relied upon to prioritize Pemberley. And he is very respectful of his honorable aunt. Lady Catherine makes it clear she believes her sway over him is considerably higher than it actually is, because he values his family so highly and hates a fuss, so she has always always gotten her way with him before.

If she could get Anne married to Darcy, then she could fulfill her maternal obligation to Anne, and her lineal obligations to the de Bourghs and the Fitzwilliams. Without having to give hardly anything up herself.

And it's really cool how it's set up like this! Because the fact that the system is rigged so a woman fulfilling her duties to family and society inherently obliterates any power base of her own is totally fucked up, and wanting to resist that is understandable and sympathetic.

But as is so often the case, the easiest way to resist or evade such compulsions and injustices is by finding a way to exploit other people, and gain your own security and independence by taking theirs away.

And so Lady Catherine, like Mrs. Bennet, is ultimately a tacky and appallingly selfish human being.

[furiousgoldfish]

abusive parents: in the 'real' world--

me: ah yes, because your house where you force children into submission is an imaginary land, devoid of reality, a fantasy place where nobody has experienced an actual real-life event, and you yourself have transported this place out of reality only for me to be able to experience this imaginary world where you are the god and decide whats real and what isn't, as well as what past events can be revisioned to your liking. Which one of us isn't living in the real world again.

[swordheld]

hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?

hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].

but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.

it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.

and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.

the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.

an emptiness, like you said.

but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.

you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.

he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.

but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.

how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.

the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.

think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.

i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.

but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one. wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.

as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛

[cerebraldischarge]

A few days ago there was a (now I know) decoy call. They called me on the phone saying I'm putting trash in the wrong place and I could end up getting fined.

I thought nothing of it, shook them off, but stopped putting the bags in the usual place.

Wednesday morning I went out to print out the visa documents I'm gonna need.

When I got back, I got another phone call saying they are at the door, and they wanna talk to me.

I thought it was still the trashcan situation, so I went down to talk to them.

They came in, and *then* told me it wasn't the trashcan thing, it was "something I ordered online". I was like okay, I order everything these days, from food to whatever.

Then they started talking about "suicide kits" and searched my room. They found the SN and took it away and took a bunch of pictures.

Then they reassured me that they won't bother me again and this won't affect the visa process because I was categorized as a witness.

Thursday morning they woke me up and called me in for questioning but I couldn't tell them anything they didn't already know, so I used it as an opportunity to "preach" about why aiding self-checkout shouldn't be illegal in the first place. I also told them that the store was a normal place for like food preservatives and such. Which is true, from what I've seen there.

If I didn't go, they would've hunted me down, so... Of course the part that this won't affect the visa application could be a lie, but I didn't want to risk it. I'm still learning about the situation. Not to mention trying to recover from the trauma. Holy fuck.

[thesongthesoulsings]

[butchdykekondraki]

if theres one thing about us its that we'll make sonas that are vaguely human but only if you squint

[butchriptide]

genuinely really frustrating that people will like. choose to accept the age mistake made in assassin as canon for deathbringer when it actively contradicts older material. like. sorry idk if this is me being unfair here but genuinely like. why would you think it's intentional when deathbringer is described in main series as maybe a year or two older than glory at most, and can canonically not be any older than 9 due to stated timeline facts in the main series.

like. I get not liking glorybringer, i really do. no ship is for everyone. hell, even if assassin specifically makes you feel weird about it, so be it, to each their own. i can undertsnad that too. and yes, the glorybringer fans who think the age gap are canon are also in the wrong. they're being really gross, i don't think it's necessary to disclaim that, that feels given, but like... that only comes to my point still of like, i really don't understand taking a spin-off as canon over the main series. i don't really understand prioritizing later content as canon as opposed to the main work over spin-off as canon. why should a spin-off take jurisdiction just cuz it's newer? i feel like the older the canon is, the more likely it is the newer stuff will make mistakes. to me, in the case of a contradiction, the main series should be taken to? a spin-off is meant to supplement the main series, so shouldn't it only supplement canon that doesn't contradict?

like also, i get being frustrated it isn't fixed, but also. like. i obviously have not worked with a publisher before, but if I was writing for fucking scholastic books, no matter how well fucking beloved my series was, I don't know if I could risk being like "hey. can you pull my books from shelves and e-stores for me so that I can edit one line?" Like. I really don't think there's any reality in which I can make a corporation agree to that kind of thing, no matter what that one line may fuck up about my main story. like it's not even the only mistake she makes in the winglets. she calls deathbringer a rainwing in the flip book, but we're not hailing that as canon in retrospect, right? I don't know. I think it's unfair to presume that she's choosing not to fix it as opposed to it being an improbable to downright impossible thing to ask of a publisher. like yes tui is an incredibly successful author but i really don't know if we can presume she has that much actual sway on her publisher.

it's just really exhausting as a deathbringer enjoyer to feel like if I want to talk about and enjoy his character, and yes, that includes context given in the assassin winglet once you ignore the timeline error, i feel like I constantlyyy have to be saying "yes I think the timeline error is an error. no i don't think deathbringer is 13." like. every time i bring him up. i'm a riptide fan I'm used to it but also it's sooooo tiring to go into a character tag for a guy i like and be swamped with hatred for him and it's so much worse for deathbringer than riptide because in the deathbringer tag I have to deal with being actively accused of excusing gross shit for liking him instead of people just saying that my blorbo is boring.

[lilac-gold]

you know what i want to see? headspace bosses showdown. they all fight each other. whoever wins gets hero.

[theshadowrealmitself]

Story where the character is like Saiki in that they do everything they can to be as unassuming as possible to get by unnoticed, but people still flock to them

And it turns out that they belong to a secret magic world where they’re well known on that side (not just a singular psychic like Saiki), and they have rivals waiting for them to fuck up in some way, so they’re trying so hard to not accidentally reveal the magic world or anything, but. people are just drawn to them. they can’t escape.

[v2is-baby]

Do you think v1 and v2 knew each other before hell? And if so what do you think their relationship was like?

I doubt they actually met because V2 prototype wasn't a thing while V1 was still relevant and being tested. Once the war was over and the money invested in the first prototype became a problem, the company just stopped spending much time in V1, keeping it dormant, deactivated while simultaneously used to prepare their next project, V2. Surely maaaany things were taken from the first V model and adapted to the new one.

There was probably a lot of pressure set upon the company's engineers and robotic specialists to take as much advantage from V1 for V2's design. We cannot afford new, innovate ideas, just copy what we have and program it differently. Go for a cheaper, less warfare oriented technology, people need protection, not a weapon. Cannot sell this thing otherwise.

Considering V2's meant to accomplish a different function, it was programmed and tested several times. Since it's function is to protect, a good machine needs a flawless, unquestionable, integration of Asimov's laws, a flawless execution and a flawless calculation of priorities. Variables must always aim to what's best for a person's sake. V2 was surely learning a lot, especially morality, creativity at decision making, among other things such as fixing one or two things in their body. And well, people talked, commented about V1 and how V2 was designed around it. Being meant to serve people made it a good listener. It loved to listen, to learn, to surpass the expectations.

Comments such as "V2 performs identically to V1 in combat but doesn't know how to exploit it's durability" (of course it doesn't know, V2 fights like V1) may have been a common critique to hear for the second prototype. The machine probably never had the chance to see their predecessor, however it knew it had to prove it's worth to be considered good enough to salvage the company.

Oh, how much they loved people when V2 achieved little things by itself, by utilizing its creativity and highly adaptive program. The nice comments were nice, but it always knew that, deep down, people were still comparing it to V1. And V2 never understood why V1 was such a great comparison point besides similarities in their designs.

When they finally met, it turned out V2 was better at so many things except one. A flaw that didn't come from themself, but from their creators. Because they adapted all possible aspects from V1 to V2, except one.

Something V2 would never be able to change because it wasn't it's own incapability but a limitation by design. And that's just so unfair.

And to apply salt to the injury, they're retrocompatible.

Wouldn't that fill you with resentment?

[news4dzhozhar]

Leahy Law Fact Sheet - United States Department of State

Leahy Law Fact Sheet - United States Department of State

1. What is the Leahy law?

The term “Leahy law” refers to two statutory provisions prohibiting the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights (GVHR). One statutory provision applies to the State Department and the other applies to the Department of Defense. The State Department Leahy law was made permanent under section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, 22 U.S.C. 2378d. The U.S. government considers torture, extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearance, and rape under color of law as GVHRs when implementing the Leahy law. Incidents are examined on a fact-specific basis. The State Department Leahy law includes an exception permitting resumption of assistance to a unit if the Secretary of State determines and reports to Congress that the government of the country is taking effective steps to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice.

The DoD Leahy law is similar to the State Leahy law. Since 1999, Congress included the DoD Leahy law in its annual appropriations act. The DoD Leahy law is now permanent in Section 362 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code. It requires that DoD-appropriated funds may not be used for any training, equipment, or other assistance for a foreign security force unit if the Secretary of Defense has credible information that such unit has committed a GVHR. The law allows for two exceptions to this restriction. The first in cases where the Secretary of Defense (after consultation with the Secretary of State) determines that the government of that country has taken all necessary corrective steps. This first exception is also known as “remediation.” A second exception exists if U.S. equipment or other assistance is necessary to assist in disaster relief operations or other humanitarian or national security emergencies.

2. How is the law implemented?

In cases where an entire unit is designated to receive assistance, the Department of State vets the unit and the unit’s commander. When an individual security force member is nominated for U.S. assistance, the Department vets that individual as well as his or her unit. Vetting begins in the unit’s home country, where the U.S. embassy conducts consular, political, and other security and human rights checks. Most often, an additional review is conducted by analysts at the Department of State in Washington, D.C. The State Department evaluates and assesses available information about the human rights records of the unit and the individual, reviewing a full spectrum of open source and classified records.

When assessing whether information is credible, the following factors should be considered weighing both the credibility of a source and the veracity of an allegation:

Past accuracy and reliability of the reporting source as well as original source, if known;

How the source obtained the information (e.g., personal knowledge obtained by a witness, witness interviews collected by a non-governmental organization (NGO), descriptions collected from government records, etc.);

Known political agenda of a source (both reporting source and/or original source, if known) which might lead to bias in reporting;

Corroborative information to confirm part or all of the allegation;

Information that contradicts part or all of the allegation;

History of unit and known patterns of abuse/professional behavior;

Level of detail of the GVHR allegation, including detail in identification of the GVHR, perpetrator (or link to an operational unit), and victim.

3. Can assistance be reinstated to units previously found ineligible for assistance?

Yes. Consistent with the exception under both Leahy laws, the Departments of State and Defense have adopted a joint policy on remediation that outlines a process for resuming DoD- and State-funded assistance to foreign security force units that are ineligible for assistance under the Leahy laws. This can occur when the Secretaries of Defense and State determine that the government of that country has taken, or is taking, effective measures to bring those responsible to justice. Such measures may include impartial and thorough investigations; credible judicial or administrative adjudications; and appropriate and proportional sentencing.

[marcusrobertobaq]

Why androids showing human emotions and doing "empathetic" acts with humans ain't deviancy:

Cuz they're programmed to do it, some in a more detailed way than others.

I hope this post was helpful. Have a awful nice monday

[wolfgirlfloof]

do you think sankta can link empathy with the aggeloi. they're the same software running on different hardware, so they get in range and their bluetooth automatically connects and everyone loses their minds. the snobby fanatics lose their faith and fall into despair as they realize they aren't divinely chosen if these mindless beasts also have the same blessing. meanwhile everyone else is like holy shit i can talk to this dog

[everysongineverykey]

some guy commented on my narrator + toriel fic saying "well the narrator's done some questionable stuff once or twice but he's not the one who let SIX children DIE just to SPITE her ex-husband" lmaoooo bro did you even play undertale? you can just say you have no reading comprehension it's okay