#like i literally could not care less if you guys told me 'no stfu nobody likes your art or writing'

[the-woild-is-y-erster]

ok to all the people who have sent me asks and i havent answered them yet I SWEAR I APPRECIATE THEM BUT I HAVE BEEN SO SO BUSY TODAY I SWEAR ILL GET TO THEM

ok now with that out of the way i wrote A Sprace Thing and i wanna know if you guys wanna see it :) never posted any of my writing on here before so this should be fun if you guys want me to

[trensu]

Episode 49: The One with Too Much JGY and Not Enough Wangxian

Very little wangxiantics in this episode, guys, there’s like, VERY LITTLE wangxiantics

The fact that the show is bringing us down to breadcrumbs again is Homophobic 

But let’s get through this!

blah blah blah jgy acts all pathetic blah blah blah lxc engages jgy in a convo blah blah

lwj has to go in and be like, bro, please, don't talk to him

and wwx is like, yeah, you literally just told jc not to talk to him, follow your own advice dude 

lxc is like, hm, you make a good point...i shall continue talking to jgy regardless

jgy continues with his pity party speech and i continue not to care

BUT THEN LXC KNEELS DOWN TO SPEAK WITH JGY MORE INTIMATELY????

WTF LXC STOP THAT RIGHT NOW

lwj is like BRO

lxc is like I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING BRO

and i'm like DO YOU THO?

now he's going to question jgy and counting on him answering truthfully??

WHAT HAS HE DONE TO MAKE YOU THINK HE'LL DO ANYTHING BUT LIE, ZEWU JUN??

so we get a much less entertaining Q&A session accompanied by jgy's flashbacks 

(can we go back to lwj's drunken Q&A sesh? I’d much rather question drunk!lwj than sober!jgy)

the only point i had any actual sympathy was when jgy brings up qin su and her mom bc qin su and her mother deserved better

Ooh, lxc is getting super judgy about jgy killing jgs

This is where you draw the line, lxc?? c’mon.

i mean, judge him for how he did it, sure

there was no need to involve all those innocent women in the murder

but really, killing jgs was the only good act of public service jgy did

give credit where it's due, pal.

HELL YEAH IT'S BITCH-SLAP JGY TIME AGAIN

LOL EVEN WWX AND LWJ LOOK SURPRISED THAT LXC DID THAT

oh noooo lxc is asking about jzx and oh, wwx is PISSED

Wwx grabs the front of jgy's robes and hauls him up and yells in his face “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO? SAY IT!”

cue flashback scene to jgy tricking jzx 

AND NOW MY BRATTY SON IS YANKING THE FRONT OF JGY'S ROBES SCREAMING WHY? WHY? TELL ME WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DO IT??

HIS VOICE IS ALL CRACKED AND HOARSE AND HE'S CRYING 

I WANT TO WRAP HIM UP IN BLANKETS AND COZY THINGS AND PROTECT HIM FROM ALL THE BAD THINGS IN THE WORLD

jl collapses to his knees and my beautiful sunshine boy falls to his side and scoops him into his arms 

BC WWX LOVES HIS BRATTY NEPHEW AND GOD DAMN IT, JL DESERVES HUGS AND AFFECTION

oh jgy was about to touch jl's face and i was like DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE I WILL CUT THAT HAND OFF YOU

but then he pulled away bc i am very fearsome actually wwx was glaring at him 

and ofc jgy can't have people being sympathetic to anyone NOT him so he's like, what about me, huh? you never ask why I personally had to suffer!

Cue another flashback in which JGS IS A FUCKING DOUCHEBAG 

I HOPE HE ROTS IN ANCIENT FANTASY CHINA HELL

HALF OF THE PROBLEMS WERE A RESULT OF HIM NOT BEING ABLE TO KEEP IT IN HIS FUCKING PANTS

ROBES

WHATEVER

ugh i hate jgy too

he's essentially telling jin ling that oh, i killed your father bc your grandfather was scum of the earth

AS IF JZX AND JL DESERVED TO SUFFER FOR JGS'S SINS

FUCK YOU JGY

suddenly jgy takes my bratty son hostage!!

wwx shouts "JIN LING" as he jerks towards his only nephew

BUT IT'S TOO LATE, jgy already has that garrote AROUND JL'S NECK

WIPE THAT SMUG SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE SU SHE

I WILL END YOU

god i need to stop threatening people, i have no ability to back it up

lol jc is like WWX YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO TAKE ALL HIS WEAPONS AWAY!!

and wwx is like I DID! 

siblings always find time to bicker, even in dire situations

lwj tells them that jgy hid the garrote inside his body 

bc lwj is smart and observant

but ewwww, the idea of yanking that gold string out of a vein squicks the hell out of me

yuckyuckyuck it makes my skin crawl

jgy tightens the string around my bratty son's neck and everyone freaks out, obvs 

oh jc loves his nephew so much! he's all like, if you need a hostage take me instead and leave jin ling alone!!

JC IS A GREAT UNCLE, JC LOVES HIS FAMILY SO MUCH, JC DESERVES TO RECONCILE WITH HIS BROTHER AND HAVE A LOVING HAPPY FAMILY

jgy is like, nah bc of Reasons

then my sunshine boy is like, hey aren't you forgetting smth jgy? what about your loyal lackey here?

but ss is an idiot and is like, don't worry about me boss!

and jgy is all, cool thx lackey

now lxc and jgy do some more chitchat i don't care about

suddenly there is ominous knocking on the doors AND A WILD LAN SIZHUI APPEARS!!!

He got chucked into the temple like the football lol

NOW WEN NING IS HERE! HE’S COVERED WITH RESENTFUL ENERGY, CARRYING BAXIA LIKE A BADASS

Dude, for real, wn looks so cool here

letting the tip of the saber scrape ominously against the stone ground and walking with slow measured steps

and baxia is freaking glowing

nhs calls him "brother" but i'm pretty sure he knows it's not nmj and just said it to freak jgy out

wwx ofc recognizes wen ning

AHHHHHH WWX IS DOING HIS EERIE WHISTLE AGAIN, I LOVE IT WHEN HE DOES THAT

SO COOL, WWX, SO COOL!!

his brow is all furrowed when he sees wn is not reacting and he starts to whistle more earnestly

wwx: what's happening? why is wn not listening to me? could it be...?

cut to lwj, looking all serious bc hey, this is actually a serious situation 

lwj: he is possessed by the blade spirit

wn roars and vaults over the distance between him and jgy with baxia raised high and it looks freaking AWESOME

lol we get a quick shot here of nhs panicking and ducking behind su she

jgy lets go of the gold string around jl's neck to flee from wn which gives wwx an opening

Wwx dives forward and wraps himself around jin ling

Then he twirls them to the side away from incoming baxia and crashes them both to the ground where they're safe

as this is happening, lwj sees his opening and draws bichen

we get a quick moment where wwx and jc are both fussing over jl, it’s super sweet!

AND THEN WE GET A SHOT OF JGY'S DISEMBODIED ARM 

THE CAMERA STARTS TO TILT UPWARDS 

WE SEE THE HEM OF LWJ'S PRISTINE WHITE ROBES FRAMED BY BICHEN 

BICHEN HAS RIVULETS OF BLOOD STREAMING DOWN THE BLADE

THE CAMERA CONTINUES TO TILT UPWARD UNTIL WE SEE LWJ STANDING TALL, FACE GRIM AND SERIOUS AND JUST OVERALL HOLDING HIMSELF IN AN IMPOSING BADASS WAY

wwx is looking at him like HOLY SHIT LWJ

Which is a totally reasonable reaction bc holy shit lwj

HA, now jgy only has one arm

I may not be able to follow up on my threats but it is gratifying to see lwj follow through for me lololol

gross, ss is all begging for medicine to help jgy

stfu ss, nobody likes either of you two

wn's blow struck the ground and cracked it before so now he's back up doing his steady creepy walk to finish what he was going to do

lwj's brow furrows and he sits himself down, cross-legged and summons his guqin

lol i love how he summons his instrument tbh

he just wooshes his flowy sleeves and his guqin glitters into existence

it looks very Magical Girl and i appreciate that

someone needs to draw lwj in a Magical Girl outfit IMMEDIATELY

lxc gets his flute out and our lan bros do a duet to chill out the angry sword spirit

LOL WEN NING JUST STEPS ON JGY'S CHOPPED OFF ARM

DO IT AGAIN WN 😆😆😆

let me just say, i'm really enjoying watching jgy and ss cower away from the oncoming wen ning

but oh noo! jl calls out for his evil uncle and draws wn's attention and wn tries to attack him

i guess baxia senses jgy's blood on jl's robes or smth? Idk, doesn’t matter

wwx tries to do some sort of spell to stop wn but it doesn't work and in a fit of panic he yells out “WEN QIONGLIN!”

thankfully this snaps wn out of it enough that he stops baxia like, one inch from my bratty son's face

the lan bros are still doing their Magic Music thing and wn is trying to reign in baxia but baxia's pissed off so everyone’s struggling 

wwx starts his whistling again and it's rattling Plot Device 3

lxc tries to stop wwx but lwj shakes his head at his brother like no, back off

wwx turns to look at lwj, lwj meets his eyes and gives him a single solemn nod

AND WWX SMILES AT HIM BC HIS SOULMATE BELIEVES IN HIS ABILITIES AND TRUSTS HIM!!!

this is the first legit proper wangxiantic moment in the whole episode, what the heck

GIVE ME MORE WANGXIAN AND LESS JGY, PLZ & THX

jc: wei wuxian!!

wwx turns to see his brother and jc FLINGS THE DEMON FLUTE AT WWX bc apparently he's been carrying chenqing around THIS WHOLE TIME??

wwx nods to him (and omg jc is helping him, this is good, this is a step in the right direction!!) and brings chenqing to his lips

we get a shot of lwj staring at wwx as wwx starts to play 

and the background music starts to get SUPER INTENSE and EXCITING as wwx plays

CHENQING STARTS TO OOZE THAT SMOKY RESENTFUL MAGIC STUFF

we get a shot of JC watching wwx play and this is the softest we've seen him look at his brother since he came back from the dead

he's looking at him like it's finally hitting him that wwx is back, his big brother is alive and here and protecting him and jin ling bc that's what family is supposed to do

AND IF I CAN’T HAVE WANGXIANTICS, I WILL ACCEPT YUNMENG BROS TIME AS RECOMPENSE

oooh, Plot Device 3 starts to zoom around and we get a fun bit of camera work so it seems like we're seeing everything from Plot Device 3's perspective

which is kind of adorable for some reason???

it's just zipping along and it sees wwx and wwx guides its attention to where wn is struggling to control baxia

wwx starts to walk, getting both baxia and Plot Device 3 to follow him further into the temple

lwj sees this happening and whooshes away his guqin and follows bc he's always going to follow wwx obvs

WWX IS SO AWESOME, I LOVE WATCHING HIM WORK

EVERYBODY IS STARING AT HIM IN AWE AS THEY SHOULD BE BC MY SUNSHINE BOY IS SKILLED AS HECK

he manages to get baxia into the coffin with nmj before he starts coughing up blood 

But before we can freak out about that, nhs scream in the background 

so everyone runs to check out what's happening there

nhs is all SS WHY'D YOU TRY TO KILL ME OMG MY LEG IS ALL CUT UP NOW, EVERYTHING IS AWFUL, HELP HELP

and ss is like BUT I DIDN'T, HE'S LYING!!!

lol baxia just leaps out of the coffin buries itself in ss's chest

AND THAT’S IT FOR SU SHE

good fucking riddance

But also baxia is nmj's saber

DID IT HEAR NHS AND BE LIKE, NO I CAN'T LET MY MASTER'S BELOVED LITTLE BROTHER GET HURT BY THIS USELESS NOBODY???

BAXIAAAAAA

WHAT A GOOD SABER YOU ARE *CRIES*

wwx starts up his demon flute again even tho baxia seems much more chill now that it has finally killed someone 

But let's watch wwx be a badass on the flute anyway

look at my sunshine boy go! 

look at him corral all that resentful energy!

love my sunshine boy

baxia is finally subdued and wwx lays it and Plot Device 3 in the coffin with nmj

he covers the coffin using some of his wicked awesome red magic stuff

but it's taking a lot out of him i guess bc he stumbles back and lwj is right there to catch him 

bc they're soulmates and they love each other 

aND GOD THE WAY THEY LOOK AT EACH OTHER HERE

JUST, UGH

EVERY TIME THEY LOOK AT EACH OTHER MY HEART GETS PALPITATIONS

And this is the only other wangxiantic moment in this episode, wtf show

cut to the next scene, everyone's patching up wounds and whatever

lol we can hear nhs whining like a baby bc omg it hurts it hurts, lxc be more gentle

and lxc is like, chill bro it's just a stab wound

nhs is like JUST a stab wound?? r u kidding me, i'm DYING!!

Which is exactly how i would react to a stab wound lol

now lxc is with jgy and he's like jgy if you do ONE more bad thing, i will definitely finally punish you mercilessly

then he starts checking out his armless shoulder bc lxc really is too good and not all that bright apparently

lol when wwx sees lxc tending to jgy's wounds and his face is like ugh i can't believe this guy

AND THIS IS WHEN WE GET THAT AMAZING AWESOME SHOT OF NHS'S FACE GOING ALL SERIOUS AND, LIKE, VENOMOUS

WE ONLY SEE PART OF HIS FACE, THE OTHER PART COVERED BY LXC'S OUT OF FOCUS FACE

AND NHS GLOWERS AT JGY

oh, my poor sunshine boy is wincing and holding a cloth to his STILL SLUGGISHLY BLEEDING NECK WOUND

SOMEBODY GIVE MY SUNSHINE BOY MEDICINE 

TAKE WHATEVER LXC GAVE TO JGY AND GIVE IT TO MY SUNSHINE BOY STAT

lsz is watching him very intently bc he's figuring out some things about himself and wwx that LWJ DIDN'T HAVE THE GOOD GRACE TO EXPLAIN TO EITHER OF THEM YET

lwj ofc has got his eyes glued on wwx bc, i mean, what else is there worth looking at in the Temple of Doom?

And i guess this counts as a wangxiantic too bc lsz is basically wangxian’s love child anyway!

lxc has the gall to ask nhs to hand him the medicine bottle to tend to FUCKING JGY'S (AKA HIS BIG BROTHER’S MURDERER) WOUNDS

GOD JUST LET JGY BLEED OUT AND DIE ALREADY

nhs is like sure! grabs the medicine bottle and hides it in his robes 

he makes a whole show out of rooting around in his robes to ‘find’ it and lxc goes to him to grab it or whatever so his back is turned to jgy

AND NHS, THAT CLEVER CLEVER BOY, USES THIS CHANCE

he makes a show of looking over lxc's shoulder and shouts LXC LOOK OUT!!

lxc grabs his sword and whirls around and stabs it right into jgy

and nhs is all stuttery and nervously saying how omg he saw jgy reach behind him and he thought he was gonna do something awful so he panicked

Then jgy finally sees nhs AND THAT'S WHERE THE EPISODE ENDS

So another episode with way too much plot stuff, yuck

I mean, we only got 3 actual wangxian moments?? 

What is that about, huh? THAT’S NOT EVERY GAY RIGHTS OF YOU, SHOW!

The next episode is THE LAST and we’re definitely getting wangxiantics there and i will definitely cry about it

Return to Masterpost

[arabellaflynn]

How could I possibly not know my attachment style until I was a teenager, you ask? Well, mainly because I had nobody to get that attached to. My mother likes to tell people the story of my first steps. I was sitting on her lap one day at a family gathering, while she was chatting with the other adults, and I let it be known that I wanted a toy that was across the room. Nobody could be arsed to get it for me, or even walk over there and crouch beside it to encourage me to go get it myself. Eventually, I got tired of squalling, squirmed free, and toddled over to get it on my own. No stumbling, no falling; I just walked over, plopped down, and focused on my toy to the exclusion of all else. She thinks this is an adorable story. It would be if it were a case of 'took our eyes off the baby for two seconds and look what happened'. It was not. This was my mother's parenting technique through my entire childhood: Whenever the baby wanted something inconvenient, ignore her until she took care of herself. She's not a sociopath -- she was good with food, water, shelter, clothes, school, making sure I didn't just drop dead, etc. But any level of psychosocial interaction beyond what a pet might need was inconsistent at best. The most praise I ever got was when I was "independent", i.e., didn't bug her for shit. Dad followed Mom's lead, and to be brutally honest, the two of them were actually an improvement over the families they'd come from. Unsurprisingly, my mother and I got along increasingly poorly as I grew up. By the time I was a teenager, I could articulate the feeling that she wasn't listening to me when I complained, but it didn't do me any good. She could parrot back the words I'd just said, it just didn't appear to mean anything to her. At some point she'd just snap and shout, "What do you want me to do about it?" The actual answer was, "sympathize and comfort me," but by that point I'd been without it for so long I didn't know that was an option. I'd try to think up some practical solutions, find none, sullenly admit the answer was, "Nothing, I guess," and retreat to my room. As far as I can tell, she considered this to be her winning the fight. There wasn't anyone outside the family for me to get attached to, either. I didn't have a best friend as a kid. I didn't know this; there was a girl in my grade whose mother hung out with my mother, and I was informed that she was my best friend. In retrospect, she didn't like me much and wished I'd go away, but she had been ordered to play with me. Her mother was the kind of woman who enforced the 'no squirming while I do your hair' rule by clonking her on the head with the hairbrush, so I'm not surprised she did it. When I was eight-ish, I bought a set of those 'best friend' necklackes that are each one half of a heart. She flat refused to wear hers. I don't recall my mother having much reaction to this; I may not have bothered to tell her. Mainly what this taught me was that my affection was a goddamn nuisance, and if I wanted to make 'friends' I should probably not say anything about it. They would be, at best, confused. I got innumerable more lessons in same throughout grade school. I tried berating myself into not caring so much, but that didn't work very well, so I took the compromise position of never talking about it. I still have favorite people, I just generally keep it to myself. I can be glad to see someone without making them take time out of their day to deal with it. It was not until I was a freshman in high school that I met other humans who consistently acted like they fucking liked me. I still see people complaining that online socializing isn't "real" socializing, and I say a hearty FUCK YOU!, because without the internet (or at least crappy 14.4 mbps modems) I would not have had any friends ever, least of all at a time in my life where I was becoming increasingly stressed and despondent. My school district set up an online BBS that was ostensibly for "homework help", although I don't think I ever saw a single post in that forum. What we actually used it for was play-by-post role-playing games. A couple of guys set up a Star Trek game, and I wanted to join, so I sat down to read the background docs. I found them woefully inadequate. I was even less diplomatic as a teenager than I am now, so I wrote the guy who posted them and went, "You call that tech?" and he wrote back, "You think you can do better, you do it." I owned all of the published technical manuals for the various Trek series at that point, and I did in fact think I could do better, so I did. Bizarrely enough, this made us friends. Nerd lyfe, yo. I ended up fairly close with the two guys who ran the game, and with a girl they knew, all three from a neighboring high school in the district. I handled this very poorly. I had no idea how to cope with people who actually cared about my mental and emotional well-being. It had nothing to do with how they were behaving; they did successfully transmit the feeling that they cared about me, very much. I just didn't trust my read of the situation, at all. I felt as though I were on a tightrope the entire time, wondering how much they would tolerate from me before they snapped and admitted I was demanding too much attention, and told me to sod off. This was not their view of the situation at all; they uniformly thought my parents were horrible, and probably wished they could do more to get me away from them. By this point I had started having what in hindsight were clearly uncontrollable panic attacks, which my parents responded to by ignoring them. Literally -- I can clearly remember sitting at one of the computer in the living room, sobbing hysterically while I typed at one of said friends in a chat window, both parents within sight of this and having absolutely no discernible reaction whatsoever. I took to doing this more and more, dumping my irrational, incomprehensible feelings out into text, because for some reason they all put up with it. I always expected that one day they would just tell me to STFU, but they never did. One of the guys in the group had two sisters and therefore some idea of what you do about crying women, which was mainly hug them until they fixed themselves. He was very patient, and eventually became my first real 'best friend', a thing that surprised only me. When I was around seventeen, I was badly broken by the realization that he cared about me in a way that my own family did not, and that if push ever came to shove, my family could go fuck themselves, because I'd side with him. I remember sitting in the front seat of his car very late one night, babbling uncontrollably at him about this epiphany. I have no idea what he made of this, but he did continue to talk to me for several years afterwards, so it apparently wasn't anything bad. I still deeply mistrust the instinct that says someone is aiming to be that kind of friend to me. It is rare, and I try not to let myself want that too much, because it gets me into trouble. It involves a kind of emotional intimacy that other people view as inherently romantic -- I don't, and I cannot for the life of me comprehend why other people do, but it provokes a lot of jealousy in the wrong situation. Losing friends is bad to begin with, but that one is especially ruinous for me. From my point of view, it means I have to give up a connection to another human being because a third party has arbitrarily decreed I don't get to have it. The jealous SO unilaterally declares we're in a competition I don't want or understand, and I automatically lose. It scares me on a par with what I think normal people would feel at the prospect that their sibling had married a crazy person and would never speak to them again. The reward has to be pretty big for me to take the risk. This specific thing is the other reason (aside from a general lack of spoons and extroverted emotional energy) that I have decided I do not do closed monogamous relationships. There are seriously people who consider that kind of friendship to be 'emotional infidelity'. You can't see me right now, but if I were rolling my eyes any harder I'd risk retinal detachment. If this counts as cheating in a monogamous relationship, then clearly I am not natively monogamous, and I should not be in those. I really need that kind of emotional scaffolding, in various degrees from multiple people, to provide stability in my life, and I have no family capable of providing it. Any partner who told me, "you're too close to that other person, give it up or this relationship is over," would be immediately and permanently broken up with. from Blogger http://ift.tt/2yMkyFE via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!

[flatandsassy]

Oh hey I never actually posted my first essay outline from this term. Emily says she likes them but heaven forbid I just like, send them to Emily. Plus this one has the best jokes and is entitled “who would win in a fight between head of state immunity and jus cogens norms?” because that is a burning question we all have.

So the question we’ve got going today is “who would win in a fight between head of state immunity and jus cogens norms?” and folks I am here today to defend the status fucking quo. Hold on, you say, I thought you were supposed to argue something contentious? Look, number one, the status quo is five minutes old, do you know how hard it was to find sources that were written after all the case law I’m relying on was established? Number two, everyone is leaving the goddamn ICC because they’re morons who think there’s a conflict between customary international law being like “hey don’t arrest presidents of other countries when they visit you” and the ICC being like “please arrest war criminals we don’t care if they’re presidents” which there ISN’T, did you even READ the Rome Statute before you signed up for this, because HEY YOU SIGNED UP FOR THIS yes I will fight you even on Bashir JUST TRY ME (fun fact like a month after writing this outline I was reading the Rome Statute for fun and discovered an article that totally proved me wrong on this so my now official position is ‘The ICC was 100% within its rights to indict Bashir but its member states have zero legal obligation to arrest him. Which. WHY IS THAT A SITUATION THAT IS ALLOWED BY THE ROME STATUTE. WHO WROTE THIS.) And three, it seems like all of academia has its panties in a knot about the Arrest Warrant Case and I have had a deep abiding love for the Arrest Warrant Case ever since I first learned about it and yes maybe it contradicts basically all the other jurisprudence about this and yes maybe the ICJ somehow got confused and mixed up head of state immunity and minister of foreign affairs immunity? But I spent all goddamn day trying to come up with a good legal reason why it’s a good decision despite all that because I will not ever give Belgium the satisfaction of saying it was justified in getting mixed up in the Congo again and honestly I’m pretty fucking pleased with the logic I came up with. So yeah. Status quo, which is neatly summarized in a flow chart I made at 6am on no sleep, is actually great, and it’s actually contentious to say that. LET’S GET STARTED.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Imagine you’re the president of a country, and you go on a trip to improve relations with your neighbour or negotiate a trade deal or represent your country at some international forum or just, you know, do presidenty things. But you get off the plane and you are arrested and thrown in jail. So now you have two problems: one, you can’t do presidenty things if you’re in jail, and like even if you’re about to go to a country and they call you up and are like “hey we’re for sure gonna throw you in jail if you turn up here” that still means you can’t do presidenty things there which sucks, and two, all the folks back home are like hey, didn’t we have a president? Wasn’t that president the one we picked ourselves which we have the right to do? So like, they’re getting pretty pissed.

According to international law this is the WORST THING THAT CAN HAPPEN TO A COUNTRY. Which, fair enough, that sounds pretty shitty. So the solution is that if you are president (or some other kind of head of state), NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO ARREST YOU NO MATTER WHAT (aka head of state immunity). And that’s been the case for forever and everybody agrees and you will get in SO MUCH TROUBLE if you arrest a president. You will get in slightly less trouble if you arrest diplomats or foreign ministers (lol or not wtf ICJ) but the LITERAL WORST is if a president is arrested. Oh right this is also because the head of state is the manifest legal existence of the state, which sounds like some made up bullshit but if you buy into it, arresting a president is basically the same as arresting a country, and you are super not allowed to arrest countries because that’s just nonsense.

But in the last like, 20ish? Years? There have been more and more people who are like you know what actually I CAN think of things that are worse for a country than having their president thrown in jail. Like, idk, genocide? Look it up man I hear it’s super bad for you.

But there are still lots of people who are like, nah bro you don’t understand, the entire world is built on this system with countries and each country gets to do its own thing and stay out of everyone else’s business and if we don’t stick to this system it’s going to collapse into a giant mess of everyone conquering everyone, we FOR REALS need to not fuck with sovereignty.

But then the first guys come back and they’re like nah bro YOU don’t understand, yes this whole immunity thing is important and has been around forever, but you know what else is important and has been around forever (by “important and has been around forever” I mean “customary international law”)? Rules like DON’T COMMIT GENOCIDE DON’T VIOLATE THE GENEVA CONVENTION DON’T TORTURE PEOPLE ETC. those are called jus cogens norms and following them trumps EVERYTHING.

So we’ve got these two groups of people staring each other down and it’s like, maybe we could find a way to throw people in jail for committing atrocities *without* having the entire global order collapse? Maybe under certain circumstances we COULD arrest presidents for violating jus cogens norms and if we’re reasonable about it nobody will freak out and we’ll all be okay. Just saying.

Let’s go see if we can find some rules about this.

HAVE YOU BEEN FIRED YET Y/N

Okay this time imagine that you’re not a president of a country, but you USED to be president of a country. And you show up in some other country and they’re like “dude, you did some fucked up shit when you were president, we are arresting your ass.” On one hand, you no longer do presidenty things, you no longer represent your populace, and you are no longer the state incarnate. In that sense you are now just regular joe war criminal.

But on the other hand, flashback to when you WERE president, and you’re trying to do your thing but you keep thinking like, “if I do this thing will people from another country arrest my ass the moment I’m done being president?” which is basically that other country getting all up in your business just by threatening to arrest your ass which isn’t cool (and is also incentive to become PRESIDENT FOR LIFE which we’ll talk about later). Also maybe you’re not the state incarnate now (the flashback has ended), but you were the state incarnate when you did that fucked up shit so it’s basically like the state did that and you can’t arrest the state!

Anyways this is what happened to Pinochet who used to be a dictator in Chile and did so much fucked up shit oh my god and so when he showed up in the UK the Brits arrested his ass. They actually did it on behalf of Spain? Which, what? Not important, the point is that a bunch of old dudes got together and were like “can we arrest his ass? Like if he were still president we wouldn’t go near him but the rule is ‘no arresting presidents’ and he is no longer president.” And then they arrested his ass.

This also happened to Yerodia who was minister of foreign affairs (yes I know that’s not a head of state but if it applies to a foreign minister it extra applies to a president) for the Congo and WHILE HE WAS STILL IN THAT JOB Belgium was like “dude stop telling everyone to commit genocide, now we’re gonna arrest your ass.” And the Congo was like “what the fuck” and went and told the ICJ and the ICJ went to Belgium and was like “PUT THAT THING BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM OR SO HELP ME” (to be clear they hadn’t actually arrested him yet, they’d just issued the warrant, so they didn’t have to put him back, they just had to cancel the warrant. Also probably it’s not nice to call him a thing, but one, that’s what the quote is, and two, I’m reasonably certain he called Tutsis cockroaches at some point so I don’t feel that bad). Basically the ICJ was like “dude you gotta wait until he’s done being in office” and Belgium was like “actually it’s been a while and he’s not in office anymore, can we arrest him now?” and the ICJ was like, “did you decide to arrest him while he was still in office?” and Belgium was like “maybe….” And the ICJ was like “goddamnit Belgium you signed the Vienna Convention on Foreign Relations you know better than this”

(Also side note from me because I cannot talk about this case without ranting a little bit: Dear Belgium, NOBODY EVER WANTS YOU ANYWHERE NEAR THE CONGO’S SOVEREIGNTY EVER AGAIN I KNOW YOU ARE TRYING TO HELP BUT YOU ARE ACTUALLY JUST BEING NEOCOLONIALIST AND GROSS YOU ALREADY FUCKED UP THIS COUNTRY ONCE PLEASE STOP TRYING TO HELP AND GO SIT IN A CORNER).

So to conclude, if you’ve been fired from being president, you are fair game.

DID YOU SIGN UP FOR THIS Y/N

Look I don’t get why this is so hard. Because head of state immunity is all about protecting the state, if the state is like “you know what we’re gonna take a pass on that immunity thing” then you DON’T HAVE IMMUNITY. (This is a lie, it’s so hard because it is frankly mind-boggling what counts as legal consent but something something Kirgis I don’t feel bad for you)

Level one (easy mode, aka stfu Kenyatta): the Rome Statute has a bit in it that’s like “we don’t give a fuck if you’re head of state” like it’s right in there. Which is not really surprising because the alternative would be “go ahead and be PRESIDENT FOR LIFE you can avoid jail and score! You get to keep being president in the meantime.” So if you ratified the Rome Statute, you ratified the bit that says that it’s cool for the ICC to prosecute heads of state, so WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED WHEN THE ICC ARRESTS YOUR ASS???

Level two (fine print mode, aka stfu Milosevic): Okay you didn’t sign up for the ICC. Fair enough. Quick question, though, did you sign up for the UN? Hells yes you did everyone signs up for the UN! Well friend, you may notice that the UN Security Council rules your ass now and can do whatever the fuck it wants in the name of peace and security using a nifty little thing called Chapter VII. So if they decide that your country needs to be subjected to a special international tribunal and they set it up through Chapter VII, you agreed to that because you ratified the UN Charter which says you agree to anything that happens through Chapter VII. Like I know it’s not super explicit but it *is* legitimate, that *is* what you signed, it’s nothing personal (probably). You signed away your sovereignty when you agreed that the UNSC could do whatever it wanted, and what they wanted was your immunity so hand it over.

Level three (spirit mode, aka stfu Taylor): So, say the UNSC set up a tribunal for your country but for reasons beyond comprehension they didn’t Chapter VII that shit. Is that your hail mary pass? NOPE nice try though. The court might not be a Chapter VII court but it was set up by the UN which means it was established in the SPIRIT of Article I, which is the most vague-ass fluff article ever and I find it HILARIOUS that this was a real argument used.  Also they were like “okay they didn’t say chapter VII but they said we could arrest your ass and they still have the powers of chapter VII” which is probably a better argument I guess? Why the fuck wasn’t the special tribunal for sierra leone established under Chapter VII

Level four (hard mode, aka stfu al-Bashir): So Sudan didn’t sign the Rome Statute. And there hasn’t been a special tribunal set up for it. Does that mean it hasn’t actually consented to having its immunity waived? HECK NO IT’S STILL A UN MEMBER. I read an article that was specifically dedicated to being like “waaaah the ICC doesn’t have jurisdictionnnnn” and it pissed me off so let’s deal with this shit. This dude was all “the ICC isn’t a UN body” like come the fuck on, the flag is blue and has olive branches for a reason. maybe it’s not directly part of it but it was still built out of the UN and still has direct links. And by direct links I mean THE SECURITY COUNCIL HAS THE AUTHORITY TO REFER CASES TO THE ICC. So that’s a pretty big link. Oh also THAT IS HOW AL-BASHIR GOT INDICTED. And when the security council does that, you know how they do it? CHAPTER FUCKING SEVEN. Like it is well established by this point that by signing the UN Charter, you are signing up to give up whatever sovereignty the security council sees fit, so take your pacta tertiis and shove it up your ass. Also just on a practical note this is the only mechanism we have to combat the PRESIDENT FOR LIFE phenomenon and personally I’m in favour of NOT letting genocidal maniacs run shit for the rest of forever so I’d really appreciate it if everyone could shut up about how awkward it is when al-Bashir comes to visit because he’s supposed to be under arrest, and instead maybe idk ARREST THE GENOCIDAL MANIAC WHO CAME TO VISIT.

You know when I see it all laid out like this I find it really amazing that the primary body of the United Nations, which is a statist organization if there ever was one, really has the power to shake down other member states for their sovereignty like a bully looking for lunch money. How is everyone okay with this? Oh wait they’re not that’s why this essay is contentious. Welp for once I’m on the side of the P5 screwing everyone over, because they have good reasons here.

So, to sum up: if you’re no longer in power, you’re fair game. If we can twist your membership to various things into something that looks like consent, you’re fair game.

JUS COGENS AKA DID YOU FUCK SHIT UP REALLY REALLY BAD Y/Y

Okay let’s just quick get through the first part of this analysis, which is just “nobody gives a fuck if you only did regular bad guy stuff.” This essay is about jus cogens, which isn’t like “don’t murder” levels of bad so much as it’s like “don’t wipe out and/or enslave an entire culture” levels of bad. So if this is obvious because nobody cares otherwise, why is there a special section about it?

Not only does nobody care if you only reached mediocrity in your path to supervillainy, also we can’t really do anything about it. Your head of state immunity has got you covered, hypothetical president who killed twelve people for reasons that had nothing to do with conflict or their ethnicity!

So why doesn’t it protect you if you committed jus cogens crimes? Are these like special magical crimes where we’re just like “man that is so much worse than losing head of state immunity, therefore you lose your head of state immunity?” Honestly kind of yes, but that’s such annoying analysis. Let’s go back to Pinochet for a second here.

So remember those old dudes who were like “should we throw this dude in jail now that he’s not president?” They weren’t just like “yeah it’s fine because he’s not president” because for a while they were like “he was president when he did those things so he should still have immunity for them.”  But finally they were like, “you know what? No. If you’re violating jus cogens, you’re not a president committing supercrimes, you’re a supercriminal who has been given WAY too much power.” Like it’s contrary to the nature of the state to violate jus cogens, so if you do it you are no longer the state incarnate. I know it’s still a little magical woo-woo these extra bad crimes are special because they’re extra bad, but I actually really like this framing.

It also goes really well with principles from the Nuremburg tribunal, which declared that international crimes are committed by people (I’m pretty sure it said men but you know it was the 40’s), not abstract entities (aka States) and we can only fight these crimes if we can punish individuals. Which. Yep.

So, idk, let’s try doing an application? To that theoretical case we’re talking about that doesn’t exist? Hmmmm.

THANK GOD I NEED FEWER SOURCES FOR THIS SECTION

Okay so here’s what bugs me about all of this. That framing that I just talked about that I really like? As a reminder (yes it was ten lines ago) it basically is like ‘you don’t get head of state immunity for jus cogens crimes because they’re default personal rather than state actions.” Which is great! But my question is this: that logic basically implies that there should NEVER be any immunity for jus cogens violations? Which is not the jurisprudence (I am still only 83% sure I’m using that word correctly I should check that) we’re dealing with today. Here is a chart that is less cool than my original chart but simpler and more likely to be included in my actual paper:

                      International Court          Universal Jurisdiciton

Current HoS  |     No Immunity         |           No Immunity

 Former HoS |     No Immunity         |          IMMUNITY

Which is weird, right? If Yerodia violated jus cogens norms, it shouldn’t matter that he had immunity, it shouldn’t matter that he was still in office, it shouldn’t matter that it was Belgium trying his ass instead of an international tribunal, because according to the logic of the Pinochet decision, he wasn’t acting in the capacity of his office when he said those godawful things. The logic they used wasn’t “it’s okay because he’s no longer a head of state,” it was “he NEVER WAS head of state in the context of the actions we’re talking about.” Which raises the question of “why you gotta be such a little bitch and still say you would never arrest him if he was still a head of state?” and like, I’m not sure if the ICJ took this into consideration (and if they did and came to different conclusions my whole essay is fucked LOL) but assuming we’re aiming for a unified worldview on when it is and isn’t okay to violate immunity (which I mean, *I* am, at least) then Yerodia similarly wasn’t acting as Minister of Foreign Affairs when he got all genocidal. So why couldn’t Belgium arrest his ass as ordinary joe war criminal? Er. Ordinary joe genocidaire. Joenocidaire? Stop.

So if you look at that “rules” stuff we went over in far too much detail earlier, you will note that “you weren’t really head of state” is only one justification used. The other one is “you waived your immunity even if you didn’t mean to.” And if you are like me, you might spend a whole afternoon being like “who gives a fuck whether or not you waived your immunity when we’ve decided in the Pinochet case that you never had it?” and in that case you, like me, would be WRONG. I mean one, from a practical standpoint, we don’t have to establish that what you did was violate jus cogens if you’ve waived immunity, which is nice. We just have to make a tenuous connection to ANY PART of the UN Charter and then presumably prove that prosecuting would be in the interests of peace and security. Which is not that hard. But the cooler thing, that I wish I had more buildup to because it’s really the point of everything, is that these two justifications actually serve different purposes. “what are you talking about, they are both justifications for ignore head of state immunity, that’s the same purpose” to which I say GOD LET ME FINISH MY THOUGHT.

If we’re going with the “you never had immunity” argument, that is, yes, a justification for you to be prosecuted, and it’s a good one. BUT I would say that it is NOT also a justification for depriving a country of its head of state. This is a reason for head of state immunity WAY back at the beginning of everything, and even if you decide that someone is too evil to get away with what they did, it doesn’t erase the practical harm of a bunch of people being like “hey so that guy is our president???? Can we please have him back?????”

And yes I can hear you screaming “But that’s true no matter what when you’re prosecuting a current head of state!!!!!!11!” which YES. I KNOW. CHILL. But if it’s an international court, you asked for it. I think it’s safe to assume that if you consent in whatever fucked up way we assume you’re consenting when you signed up for the UN, if we can read that as “sure you can arrest our current head of state in the name of peace and security” you recognize that doing so is going to deprive you of your head of state. Surely we don’t have to spell that out for you.

But there’s just no way to pull that shit under universal jurisdiction. Nobody anywhere even implicitly is like “we trust Belgium to decide unilaterally when we need to be deprived of our head of state for the sake of global peace and security.” Which legally means you can’t do it, and also the reason that nobody would ever do that is the practical reason why it makes sense to let international courts do this but not countries: Belgium may well have an ulterior motive (like, idk, they somehow magically forgot that decolonization happened?) whereas any international tribunal is (in theory! And that’s what we’re talking about here!) impartial and isn’t gonna deprive a country of its president for funsies.

So to sum that up, the nullification of immunity by virtue of jus cogens violations is a sufficient condition to prosecute *former* heads of state, which is why it was cool to arrest Pinochet. But it’s not sufficient to justify depriving a country of its current head of state without their (vaguely implied) consent, which is why it wasn’t cool to arrest Yerodia (okay fine it’s not sufficient to justify depriving a country of any major member of government GOD Belgium if you were going to fuck up this badly could you have at least issued an arrest warrant for the president of DRC instead?????))

This actually raises an interesting question about like, states that can’t be said to have consented to *anything* not even the UN. If the president of Kosovo goes on a wild rampage Pinochet style, we can’t actually be like “too bad, you secretly consented to an international court that didn’t even exist yet throwing you in jail!” because they could be like “we haven’t consented to shit just try us” so if that happens I guess we’d have to wait until they were out of power. Which is annoying but what can ya do. Probably argue that Kosovo isn’t a State, and then shit gets really messy because then it’s Serbia’s UN membership that would count? But wow that’s going to make a lot of people really angry to say that Kosovo *consented* to UN control by virtue of its separation from Serbia not being recognized. Like. Ouch. Also if you aren’t a State how can you have a head of state? Shit’s complicated, man.

So to conclude, if your question (my question) is “who would win in a fight between the jus cogens norms and the immunity norms” the answer is jus cogens norms. Immunity only takes it when the level of sovereignty violation we’re talking is literally one country trying to oust the leader of another country. And I think that’s the way it should be, because that’s about the point where I’m like “okay maybe if we do that the whole conception of sovereign states is circling the drain.” Anything less than that, though, and I am down with whatever moronic justifications we can try to use to throw bad guys in jail. Yay!