#2 Stupid 2 Sanction

[carriesthewind]

Oh dear.

So as some of you may know, I love to point and laugh at bad legal arguments. And as fun as legal dumpster fires are when they are made by people who aren’t lawyers but think this whole “law” thing seems pretty simple, it’s even funnier when an actual, barred attorney is the person dumping gallons of kerosene into the dumpster.

And oh boy folks, do I have a fun ride for y’all today. Come with me on this journey, as we watch a lawyer climb into the dumpster and deliberately pour kerosene all over himself, while a judge holds a match over his head.

The court listener link is here, for those who want to grab a few bowls of popcorn and read along.

For those of you who don’t enjoy reading legal briefs for cases you aren’t involved with on your day off (I can’t relate), I will go through the highlights here. I will screenshot and/or paraphrase the relevant portion of the briefs, and include a brief explainer of what’s going on (and why it’s very bad, but also extremely funny). (Also, I’m not going to repeat this throughout the whole write-up, so for the record: any statements I make about how the law or legal system works is referring exclusively to the U.S. (And since this is a federal case, we are even more specifically looking at U.S. federal law.) Also, I don’t know how you could construe any of this to be legal advice, but just in case: none of this is, is intended to be, or should be taken as, legal advice.)

First, let’s get just a quick background on the case, to help us follow along. In brief, this is a civil tort suit for personal injury based on defendant’s (alleged) negligence. The plaintiff is suing the defendant (an airline), because he says that he was injured when a flight attendant struck his knee with a metal cart, and the airline was negligent in letting this happen. The airline filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that there is an international treaty that imposes a time bar for when these kind of cases can be brought against an airline, and the plaintiff filed this case too many years after the incident.

The fun begins when the plaintiff’s attorney filed an opposition to the motion to dismiss. (So far, a good and normal thing to do.) The opposition argues that the claim is not time-barred because 1) the time bar was tolled by the defendant’s bankruptcy proceedings (that is, the timer for the time limitation was paused when the defendant was in bankruptcy, and started again afterwords), and 2) the treaty’s time limit doesn’t apply to this case because the case was filed in state court before the state statute of limitations expired, and the state court has concurrent jurisdiction over this kind of case.

I’m struggling a bit to succinctly explain the second reason, and there’s a reason for that.

You see, the whole opposition reads a bit…oddly.

This is how the opposition begins its argument, and it’s…weird. The basic principle is...mostly correct here, but the actual standard is that when reviewing a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim (which is what the defendant filed) the court must draw all reasonable factual inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. But even then, you don’t just put that standard in your opposition. You cite to a case that lays out the standard.

Because that’s how courts and the law work. The courts don’t operate just based on vibes. They follow statutory law (laws made by legislature) and case law (the decisions made by courts interpreting what those laws mean). You don't just submit a filing saying, "here's what the law is," without citing some authority to demonstrate that the law is what you say (or are arguing) it is.

Again, this isn’t wrong (although I'm not sure what it means by new arguments?), but it’s weird! And part of the reason it’s weird is that it is irrelevant to the defendant’s motion to dismiss. The defendant filed a motion stating that based on the facts in the complaint, the plaintiff has not stated a claim based on which relief can be granted, because the complaint is time barred by a treaty. There is no reason for this language to be in the opposition. It’s almost like they just asked a chatbot what the legal standards are for a motion to dismiss for a failure to state a claim, and just copied the answer into their brief without bother to double-check it.

The opposition then cites a bunch of cases which it claims support its position. We will skip them for now, as the defendant will respond to those citations in its reply brief.

The last thing in the brief is the signature of the lawyer who submitted the brief affirming that everything in the brief is true and correct. An extremely normal - required, even! - thing to do. This will surely not cause any problems for him later.

The next relevant filing is the defendant’s reply brief. Again, the existence of a reply brief in response to an opposition is extremely normal. The contents of this brief are…less so.

Beg pardon?

Just to be clear, this is not normal. It is normal to argue that the plaintiff’s cases are not relevant, or they aren’t applicable to this case, or you disagree with the interpretations, or whatever. It is not normal for the cases to appear to not exist.

Some highlights from the brief:

Quick lesson in how to read U.S. case citations! The italicized (or underlined) part at the beginning is the name of the case. If it is a trial court case, the plaintiff is listed first and the defendant second; if the case has been appealed, the person who lost at the lower court level (the petitioner/appellant) will be listed first, and the person who won at the lower level (the respondent/appellee) will be listed second. There are extremely specific rules about which words in these names are abbreviated, and how they are abbreviated. Next, you list the volume number and name of the reporter (the place where the case is published), again abbreviated according to very specific rules, then the page number that the case starts on. If you are citing a case for a specific quote or proposition, you then put a comma after the beginning page number, and list the page number(s) on which the quote or language you are relying on is located (this is called a “pincite”). Finally, you put in parenthesis the name of the court (if needed)(and again, abbreviated according to extremely specific rules) and the year the case was decided.

So the plaintiff’s response cited to Zicherman, which they said was a case from 2008 that was decided by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the defendant was not able to find such a case. They were able to find a case with the same name (the same petitioner and respondent), but that case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996, and the lower court cases associated with that case weren’t in the 11th circuit either. (The United States Reports is the only official reporter for the U.S. Supreme Court, and only includes SCOTUS decisions, so it’s not necessary to include the name of the court before the year it was decided.)

Just to be clear. The defendant’s brief is saying: the plaintiff cited and extensively quoted from these cases, and neither the cases nor the quotations appear to exist. These “cases” were not ancillary citations in the plaintiff’s brief. They were the authority it relied upon to make its arguments.

This is as close a lawyer can come, at this point in the proceedings, to saying, “opposing counsel made up a bunch of fake cases to lie to the court and pretend the law is something different than it is.”

That, “Putting aside that here is no page 598 in Kaiser Steel,” is delightfully petty lawyer speak for, “you are wrong on every possible thing there is to be wrong about.”

By page 5, the defendant has resorted to just listing all of the (apparently) made up cases in a footnote:

(skipping the citations to support this proposition)

This is where I return to my struggle to explain the opposition’s second reason why the motion to dismiss should not be granted. I struggled to explain the argument, because they failed to explain why the argument they were making (that plaintiffs can bring lawsuits against airlines in state court, and the state court have specific statutes of limitations for general negligence claims) was relevant to the question of whether the plaintiff’s specific claim against the airline was time barred by the treaty. Because 1) this case is in federal court, not state court, and 2) federal law - including treaties - preempts state law. Again, it’s almost like plaintiff’s attorney just typed a question about the time bar into a chatbot or something, and the machine, which wasn’t able to reason or actually analyze the issues, saw a question about the time to bring a lawsuit and just wrote up an answer about the statute of limitations.

We also end with a nice little lawyerly version of “you fucked up and we are going to destroy you.” The relief requested in the defendant’s original motion to dismiss was:

In their reply to the opposition, however:

“The circumstances” in this case, being the apparent fabrication of entire cases. Because courts tend to take that pretty seriously.

And the court took it seriously indeed. The defendant’s reply was docketed on March 15th of this year. On April 11th:

AKA: you have one week (an extremely prompt time frame for federal court) to prove to me that you didn’t just make up these cases.

On April 12th, the plaintiff’s attorney requests more time because he’s on vacation:

The judge grants the motion, but adds in another case that he forgot to include in his first order.

On April 25th, the plaintiff’s attorney files the following:

(And he lists the cases, with one exception, which he says is an unpublished decision.)

But he says of all of the cases except two, that the opinions…

Which is…nonsense?

First of all: if you cited a case, you had to get it from somewhere. Even unpublished opinions, if you are citing them in a brief, you are citing them because you pulled them off of westlaw or whatever. Which means you have access to the case and can annex it for the court. (There are even formal rules for how you cite unpublished opinions! And those rules include citing to where you pulled the damn case from!)

Secondly: remember that long digression I went into about how to read case citations? Remember that bit about how you include the name of the reporter (the place the case was published)? Yes, cases are published. They are printed in physical books, and they are published online in databases (e.g. lexis or westlaw). If the specific online database you are looking in does not have the case, you look somewhere else. If you have a judge telling you to get them a copy of the case Or Else, you track down a physical copy of the reporter if you need to and scan the damn thing yourself. You - literally - can’t just not have a copy of the case! (Especially published federal circuit court opinions, which multiple of these cases are! Those aren’t hard to find!)

And what kind of “online database” doesn’t include the entire opinion anyway? I’ve literally never heard of a case research database that only included partial opinions, because that wouldn’t be useful.

Maybe if we look at the attached annexed copies of the cases, that might give us some answers.

...

My friends, these things are just bizarre. With two exceptions, they aren’t submitted in any sort of conventional format. Even if you’ve never seen a legal opinion before, I think you can see the difference if you just glance through the filings. They are located at Docket entry #29 on Court Listener (April 25, 2023). Compare Attachments 6 and 8 (the real cases submitted in conventional format) to the other cases. Turning to the contents of the cases:

In the first one, the factual background is that a passenger sued an airline, then the airline filed a motion to dismiss (on grounds unrelated to the treaty's time bar), then the airline went into bankruptcy, then the airline won the motion to dismiss, then the passenger appealed. And the court is now considering that appeal. But then the opinion starts talking about how the passenger was in arbitration, and it seems to be treating the passenger like he is the one who filed for bankruptcy? It’s hallucinatory, even before you get to the legal arguments. The “Court of Appeals” is making a ruling overruling the district court’s dismissal based on the time bar, but according to the factual background, the case wasn’t dismissed based on the time bar, but on entirely other grounds? Was there some other proceeding where the claim was dismissed as time barred, and it’s just not mentioned in the factual background? How? Why? What is happening? Also it says Congress enacted the treaty? But, no? That’s…that’s not how treaties work? I mean, Congress did ratify the treaty? But they didn’t unilaterally make it!

In the second case, there’s an extended discussion of which treaty applies to the appellants claims, which is bizarre because there are two relevant treaties, and one replaced the other before the conduct at issue, so only the new treaty applies? There isn’t any discussion of the issue beyond that basic principle, so there is no reason there should be multiple paragraphs in the opinion explaining it over and over? Also, it keeps referring to the appellant as the plaintiff, for some reason? And it includes this absolutely hallucinatory sentence:

…the only part this that makes sense is that the argument is without merit. I’m not going to discuss the actual merits of the legal arguments in the opinion, because they are so bizarre and disjointed that even trying to describe them would require a Pepe Silvia-sized conspiracy board. Like the previous case, both the facts and the legal posture of the case change constantly, with seemingly no rhyme or reason.

The third one…oh boy. First, large portions of the “opinion” are individual paragraphs with quotations around the whole paragraph. What’s happening there? As far as the content of the opinion itself - I can’t. I mean that, I literally can’t. What is being discussed seems to change from paragraph to paragraph, much of it contradicting. It makes the first case seem linear and rational by comparison. The court finds it doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over the defendant so dismisses the case based on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction? But also the defendant hasn’t contested jurisdiction? And also the court does hold that it has both subject matter and personal jurisdiction over the defendant? And then it denies the motion to dismiss the case? Also, at one point it cites itself?

…also, even if this was a real case, it doesn’t stand for the propositions the plaintiff cited it for in their opposition? I’m not going to go into the weeds (honestly it’s so hallucinatory I’m not sure I could if I tried), but, for example, the plaintiff’s reply brief states that the court held “that the plaintiff was not required to bring their claim in federal court.” The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is a federal court, and there is no discussion of any filings in state courts. The closest the “opinion” comes is with the statement, “Therefore, Petersen’s argument that the state courts of Washington have concurrent jurisdiction is unavailing.” (This statement appears to be completely disconnected from anything before or after it, so I am unsure what it is supposed to mean.)

Moving on, case number four is allegedly a decision by the Court of Appeals of Texas. It includes the following line:

Honestly, the plaintiff’s attorney best defense at this point is that he wasn’t intentionally trying to mislead the court, because if he was doing this on purpose, he would have edited the cases to make them slightly more believable. (Context in case you’ve lost track: these documents are supposed to be copies of the opinions he is citing. The screenshoted line makes it clear that what he is actually citing is, at best, someone else’s summary of an "opinion". It would be like if a teacher asked a student to photocopy a chapter of a book and bring it into class, and instead the student brought in a copy of the cliffs notes summary of that chapter. Except that the book doesn’t even exist.)

The actual contents of the “opinion” are, as is now standard, absolutely bonkers. First, the court decides that it doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over Delta because “Delta did not purposefully avail itself of the benefits of conducting business in Texas.” This was despite the fact that the factual background already included that the appellant (sorry, the plaintiff, according to the “opinion”) flew on a Delta flight originating in Texas. Like, this is just wrong? It’s not even hallucinatory nonsense, it’s just facially incorrect legal analysis. Then the court starts discussing the treaty’s time bar, for some reason? Then it goes back to talking about personal jurisdiction, but now the trial court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the appellate court agrees with the trial court that it does have personal jurisdiction, even though this is the plaintiff’s appeal from the dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction and the court already ruled it didn’t have personal jurisdiction? And even though on page 1, the plaintiff was injured during a flight from Texas to California, now on page 7 she was injured on a flight from Shanghai to Texas? Also the trial court has gone back in time (again) to grant the motion to dismiss that it previously denied?

Also, I’ve been trying to avoid pointing out the wonky text of these submissions, but:

Everything ok there?

Case number five is similar enough to number four that it’s not worth repeating myself.

Thank god, cases six and eight, as noted above, are real cases, so I’m going to skip them. The defendant alleges that the cases do not stand for the propositions the plaintiff cited them for, and I’m going to assume that is true, given the rest of this nonsense.

Case number seven looks legitimate on the surface. But neither the defendant nor I could find the case through any legitimate search mechanisms. The defendant looked up the purported docket numbers on PACER and found completely different cases; I was able to find a case with the name “Miller v. United Airlines, Inc.,” but it was for a different Ms. Miller, it was a California state case (not a Second Circuit federal case), it was decided on a different year, and the substance of the case was entirely different from the alleged opinion filed with the court.

On top of that, this might be the most morally reprehensible fake citation of them all? Because it is about the crash of United Airlines Flight 585, a real plane crash. Everyone on board - 25 people in total - was killed. 

The individual cited in this fake court case was not one of them.

I cannot imagine conducting myself in such a way where I would have to explain to a judge that I made up a fake case exploiting a real tragedy because I couldn’t be bothered to do actual legal research.

Now, I know you all have figured out what’s going on by now. And I want you to know that if your instincts are saying, “it seems like the lawyer should have just fallen on his sword and confessed that he relied on ChatGPT to write his original brief, rather than digging himself further into this hole”? Your instincts are absolutely correct.

Because obviously, the court was having none of this b.s. On May 4th, the court issued an order, beginning with the following sentence:

That is one of the worst possible opening sentences you can see in an order by the court in a situation like this. The only thing worse is when judges start quoting classic literature. If I was Mr. Peter LoDuca, counsel for the plaintiff, I would already be shitting my pants.

“I gave you an opportunity to either clear things up or come clean. Now I’m going to give you an opportunity to show why I should only come down on you like a pile of brinks, instead of a whole building.”

We are getting dangerously close to “quoting classic lit” territory here.

If I learned that the judge in my case called up the clerk of a circuit court just to confirm how full of shit I was, I would leave the legal profession forever. Also, the judge is now also putting quotes around “opinion.” When judges start getting openly sarcastic in their briefs, that means very very bad things are about to happen to someone.

So I’m guessing the delay between this filing and the court order was because the judge’s clerk was tasked with running down every single one of the additional fake citations included in the "opinions", just to make this sure this order (and the upcoming pile of bricks) are as thorough as possible.

If you are following along with Dracula Daily, the vibe here is roughly the same as the May 19th entry where Dracula demands Jonathan Harker write and pre-date letters stating he has left the castle and is on the way home.

Also, hey, what’s that footnote?

Wait, what?

Folks, it appears we may have notary fraud, on top of everything else! Anybody have bingo?

So on May 25, one day before the deadline, Mr. LoDuca filed his response. And oh boy, I hope ya’ll are ready for this.

Hey, what’s the name of that other attorney, “Steven Schwartz”? Where have I seen that name before…

...I ran out of room for images on this post. So I'm going to have to leave this as an accidental cliffhanger. Part 2 to follow once I refresh my tea.

#ai bs #2 Stupid 2 Sanction

[fedoranon]

From the transcript of the June 8th hearing :

From LoDuca’s final statement, snipped:

I profusely apologize to the Court and to the defendants just for that act alone, aside from any inconvenience or extra work I may have done for them and for yourself.

From Schwartz’s final statement, snipped:

I would like to sincerely apologize to your Honor, to this Court, to my defendants, to my firm, to Mr. Corvino [representative from the Firm present, presumably their boss], to Mr. LoDuca.

From The Court’s response to Schwartz:

THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Schwartz. Mr. Schwartz, I realize this is a difficult moment for you, a difficult moment for Mr. LoDuca, and it's easy for something to slip one's mind. But I noticed that among those who you apologized to, one name was missing and that was Roberto Mata, your client.

This is everything to me. The judge just brings the matter right back to the forefront, that this case is Mata v. Avianca, not Cordon & Forsyth v. Loduca, not ChatGPT v. Schwartz, that there is a real case with a real victim whose case being trotted before all and sundry over this three ring circus that has nothing to do with the case.

The fact that neither of these men apologized to their client while apologizing to the defendants in their statements, that Schwartz had to be prompted to, like they fucking forgot what side they were sitting on, sure is something.

ETA obligatory: I’m not a lawyer but I do have a 1964 pocket legal dictionary that probably belonged to my stenographer great grandmother. Also her notary seal which I know better than to use thank.

#2 stupid 2 sanction #i need to fucking highlight this to keep straight whose lawyer belongs to whom #which is why i call this the clown car full of lawyers sometimes #they just keep coming out #idk the fact that they apologize to the defendants and not like the counsel for the defence/defendants is really saying something #like they forgot their were counsel for the plaintiff #still reading even tho i need to go shopping lmao

[nurgletwh]

…I guess you can’t add videos to reblogs of asks?? O.o

Anyhow, only because I am still fascinated that Procreate can just spit these out, a process video of the spoof poster I submitted to @carriesthewind for her 2 Stupid 2 Sanction series of posts. :-D

#art #my art #process video #spoof movie posters #2 stupid 2 sanction

[postapocalypticparenting]

Deep nerdery of the highest order, but I wholeheartedly endorse reading @carriesthewind’s ongoing coverage of the “ChatGPT case.” Even for non-lawyers (like yours truly) it’s clear and straightforward to follow. And OP always provides good context and background. Especially recommend for anyone who loves a good “technology used in a comically inappropriate way, and then biting the user directly in the ass” story.

#ai bs #2 stupid 2 sanction #would i hire op as a lawyer based solely on the competence displayed in their writing here? #honestly probably

[cometcrystal]

baaulpisms of rage from the 1st scorpy mario party stream

because i think they are funy

yoshi has no coins

that's not fair!!! NOT FAIR NOT FAIR!! GIVE ME COINS SO I CAN GET ANOTHER STAR

i hate donkey kong that brute

yoshi gonna win now (moaning noise)

NOOO YOSHI WANTS MORE COINS (yoshi whaaat sticker)

god dammit EVERYONE GETS SO MANY MORE COINS THAN ME :(

i hope my enemies fail.

I DONT GET ANY COINSSSS

YO WHERE IS HE WHERE'S THAT RAT (trog)

don't look at the screen (while he's in 1st)

i hate this stupid idiot. who sanctioned this race

(groaning in agony while giving coins to the koopa bank)

i hate not being in first :(

AW JUST TAKE YOUR FUCKIN TURN

EVERYONE TELL BOWSER TO HIT HER (holly)

NOOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

WHY DID I BUY THIS GAME

this [minigame] is emasculating

(while buying a star) this doesn't put me in 1st place so im still not happy

i hope i win

(wailing in agony as he lands on a red space)

OH NOOO I NEED TO WIN COINS

trog: that was stressful / baaulp: NO IT WASNT SHUT UP IM LOSING

NOOOOOO WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TURNS

NOOOO EVERYONE'S PULLING AHEAD OF MEEEE

i hate this i hate this SO much

YOSHI CRY....

trog: that's pretty good for me / baaulp: no. no it isnt. dont look

(after holly buys a pipe) NO. WHY DO THEY EVEN OFFER THAT

aaaugh just get the--WHY ARE YOU EVEN LOOKING AT THE MAP

(in the tone of a child throwing a tantrum) I'M IN LAST

(wailing in agony again as scorpy gets a star)

THIS IS THE FINAL TURN HOW AM I GONNA WIN???

im bringing this up in rtvs congress

bonus from part 2

i hope you get a septum piercing and a baboon rips it out

#rtvs #baaulp #radio tv solutions

[separatist-apologist]

Traitors Never Win

Summary: When Feyre Archeron's father promises she'll marry notorious crime boss Rhysand Moreno, Feyre will do anything to get out of the arrangement…including framing him for murder.

Rhysand isn't about to let her go so easily.

Read on AO3 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

In retrospect, the signs were all there. What were the odds the agent had the same name as her would-be fiance? Feyre hadn’t thought anything of it, even after she’d let him eat her out. It had been waking up at dawn, his arm draped over her, and a memory of Rhys jogging down the sidewalk after her weeks earlier.

He’d called her Feyre.

Not Sarah, like everyone–even Tamlin—did when they were in public. But Feyre. And for whatever reason, it had felt like a warning bell in her head that this man didn’t act very copish. He was chatty and didn’t seem overly concerned with rules. Casual in a way Tamlin never was. It was clear he had blood on his hands, but not in a sanctioned kind of way.

She just wanted to know. So Feyre had gone through his things until she found his laptop opened and unprotected…and the feed of his house running in the corner of his computer. She’d found the chats between himself and two people labeled only C and A documenting their progress keeping her sisters out of the loop while Rhys tracked her down.

She should have shot him. Feyre couldn’t stop thinking about it as they drove. He had her in handcuffs—because when he put her down in the driveway she’d slapped him so hard she’d busted his lip—and Feyre didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to take them off.

“You’re going to get caught,” Feyre taunted as Rhys drove, unconcerned and undeterred. 

His amusement annoyed her. “We’ll see,” was all he said in response. 

For a few hours, Feyre tried everything. She screamed at the top of her lungs and kicked at the dash until Rhys threatened to tie her up and throw her in the back. He sounded serious when he said it and Feyre believed he would do far worse if he felt like he had to. For a moment, she contemplated crashing the car and killing them both before she thought better of it.

With her luck, they’d both survive anyway. 

Feyre didn’t want to die. What she wanted was for all this to end in a way that made them all happy and so, as they began climbing into the mountains, Feyre decided a different tact.

“I’m sorry I framed you for my fathers murder,” she said, not sorry at all. It sounded petulant even to her ears.

Rhys arched a brow. “Liar.”

“You purchased me—”

“I purchased your fathers business,” Rhys interrupted, gripping the steering wheel so tightly the whites of his knuckles were showing. “How am I supposed to know if he told you or not? Most women in your position understand the life and the expectations that come with it.”

“No one ever asked if I wanted to marry you. Which I don’t, just so we’re clear,” Feyre told him, twisting her cuffed wrists resting in her lap. 

Rhys didn’t look moved. Still, Feyre had to keep trying.

“Look. What if I just—”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Rhys agreed, turning on his wipers as fog and a thin drizzle began to wash over them. “I won’t agree not to marry you in exchange for your terms. The only way out of this—for both of us— is marriage.”

Anger flared through her all over again. “I’m not marrying you!”

“You will,” he replied with more of that arrogance. “Or you would have shot me.”

“Are those my only options?” she demanded.

“I know you have no problems with murder, my darling. It should have been easy for you and yet here I am, and here you are.”

“You’re insane.”

Rhys only shrugged, allowing the pair to lapse into silence. Feyre didn’t know what else to say to him that might change his mind and so, maybe it was better to just try and understand him. If she could future out what made him tick, she could figure out how to beat him. Everyone had a weakness and that included Rhys. 

“Have you been looking for me the entire time?”

“Yes,” he agreed, his shoulders still tight. 

“To kill me?”

A sly smile spread against his face. “Not even close.”

He was absurd. Feyre didn’t believe for one minute that he’d spent the last five years chasing her simply because he wanted to be with her. No, this was punishment somehow. 

Though…last night hadn’t felt like a punishment. That didn’t mean anything. Last night he’d been another federal agent who wanted to touch her and not…himself. 

“What are you going to do to me?” she finally asked. 

“The same thing we’ve been doing,” Rhys replied with easy finality. “I’m not going to kill you, Feyre.”

“But you won’t let me go?”

“Where would you run to? Your sisters? The life before? All of that is over,” he said, gripping the wheel tightly against the winding road. “There is nothing to go back to.”

“Except you?”

“I’m your future, baby,” he reminded her. A horrific future in which she sat quietly in their house while he continued to terrorize their city. A future in which she had no say, had to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Feyre could wait him out. How long before the feds realized she was missing? 

“I guess you haven’t been indicted, then?”

Rhys laughed, reminding Feyre that he was truly beautiful. Nothing at all like she’d imagined, with his dark hair and sculpted features. He looked very late twenties, early thirties—still young, still attractive and if the night before was any indication, virile. She’d been picturing someone her fathers age—old, and with a string of dead wives behind him.

Not that it made Rhys any less insane, of course. 

“No, Feyre. They can’t indict me because this is one crime I didn’t commit.”

“But Tamlin said—”

“That everything hinged on your testimony?” he guessed, glancing over at her. “Yes, I’ve heard that before. What happens, my little love, when you can’t keep this act up anymore?”

“It’s not an act,” Feyre replied.

“Perjury is a crime, too,” Rhys reminded her. 

“Who cares about lying?”

“The feds will care,” Rhys replied, reasonable as ever. “Especially when they can’t convict me because you’re a liar. They’re going to be pissed you squandered their best chance at taking me down and you’ll become their sacrificial lamb.”

“Let me guess. Unless I marry you?”

“Smart girl,” he praised. 

“I could recant—”

“Back to jail for murder,” Rhys reminded her. It was easy to forget Feyre had actually killed her father. Somehow she’d divorced it from her mind, the actions belonging to someone who most certainly was not her. Right then, though, Feyre could remember picking up the cool metal of the bat and taking a swing. Her father had been facing his computer rather than her—he hadn’t seen it coming. 

His head had bounced off his keyboard with a sickening crunch. She knew, right then, if she didn’t keep going that she would pay for what she’d done. Though Feyre hadn’t cared about being punished. It had felt good to have her retribution, to repay him for the years of neglect. 

When she came back to the moment she found Rhys watching her. “I remember my first kill, too.”

“Was it your father?”

Rhys’s smile was soft. “My uncle, actually.”

“Why?”

“Well, he made a play for my fathers seat—that’s my official story.”

“But the truth?” Feyre questioned.

“I love my cousin,” he said quietly, eyes darkening in memory. “And my uncle did not.”

Oh. 

“So you’re, what, a man with a code?”

Rhys shrugged again. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

“Are you going to hurt me?” 

But Feyre already knew the answer to that. Maybe that was what had compelled her to let him in without the usual protocol being adhered to. And last night…fuck. This was a kidnapping—she hated him.

And she was attracted to him. 

It made him more dangerous than he already, especially now that he knew they shared this in common. She’d seen him naked, and she’d liked it. Had let him flip her over the bed and fuck her throat like…like a whore. Feyre had wanted to do more with him, had been thinking about him naked even as she opened his laptop. 

She was thinking about it right then even as the cabin emerged from the fog. It was remote—that was her first thought. There was no one for miles and only one road that had branched from the main one miles back. It was becoming apparent that the only way in or out was in a car and if she wanted to escape, she’d need to get his keys.

A problem, considering he had her in handcuffs. But if she could trick him into freeing her…let him believe she cared about him and would willingly marry him, Feyre could get unrestrained long enough to incapacitate him and escape. She didn’t know where she’d escape to, but that was future Feyre’s problem. Getting far away from him was the first step, though. 

Rhys was ever the gentleman, opening her door and helping her out only for Feyre to jam her elbow in his gut. 

“I hate you,” she reminded him.

“As long as you feel something for me.”

“Disgust? Loathing?”

“Arousal,” he replied, hoisting her up in the air for no other reason than he apparently wanted to touch her ass. “I can practically smell it on you.”

“You’re disgusting,” she retorted, jamming her elbow into his neck. Rhys hissed, but didn’t drop her as he led her into the house. 

“I’ll be eating that pussy by the end of the week. You’ll beg for my tongue.”

“Maybe it’s you who will beg,” she replied, thinking about holding a knife to his throat.

“Almost certainly,” Rhys practically purred. “Welcome home, baby.”

He dropped her to the wood floor in a heap, chuckling as he made his way through the warm living room toward the kitchen. 

“This isn’t my home.”

“Well, no. Our home is far nicer and closer to restaurants. But this could be your home for the holidays. I’ll teach you to ski.”

“You’re crazy.”

Rhys rolled his eyes, a glass of scotch in his hand. “This only ends in one of two ways for you and me, baby. I figure it’s better to choose my way than yours.”

“Your way is marriage, which means mine is—”

“Death,” he said, his voice roughening. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re planning, Feyre. You’ll leave with me as my wife or we won’t leave at all.”

“Because you’ll kill us both?” she accused.

“Because there are only so many places I can hide you before we’re found, and I’m not letting you go if we’re not married,” he bit back. 

And that was that. Feyre picked herself up off the floor so Rhys could offer her a drink, which she accepted, and a tour, which she had no choice but to participate in. The cabin was nice—four bedrooms plus Rhys’s office, a basement that looked decidedly haunted, and a hot tub out on the deck she had no interest in.

“Which room is mine?” she asked when he was finally done showing her the scope of her new prison. It was a stupid question and one Rhys answered with a broad grin. Her room was his room, and right then Feyre understood exactly how things were going to go down.

Or, she thought she did until she saw the outfits he’d brought out for her.

“This is see through,” she said, holding up the panels of fabric clearly meant to be some kind of outfit.

“Is it?” Rhys replied, clearly seeing her hand through the transparent fabric. 

“I’m not wearing it.”

“Even better,” she said with a grin before flopping to the bed. “That was my preference.”

Feyre tried to get into the bed wearing her jeans, but Rhys stopped her. “Pick.”

“You’re an animal,” she snapped, snatching the dress from the bed. “You can’t stockholm me into loving you.”

“You already love me,” Rhys informed her, so self assured that Feyre was momentarily taken aback. “You would have admitted it had you not found out who I am. I wonder where we’d be then, Feyre.”

“Hell,” she replied, stomach twisting at the thought, “because I would have killed us both.”

“It would be heaven, dying at your hands—”

“Oh, shut up,” she snapped, stalking for the attached bathroom. The sheer dress was exactly as bad as she’d imagined—she would have been better off naked. It was merely the illusion of privacy and what was worse was the knowledge that if she escaped, it would probably be in this. 

Feyre came back out to Rhys, arms crossed over her chest. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d gotten to her. Not when he was already so pleased with himself. She imagined Rhys thought he’d won—that he was about to get everything he wanted if he just waited a little longer.

Feyre held out her still cuffed wrists. “Please,” she forced herself to say. 

“Because you asked so nicely,” Rhys agreed, pulling the key from his pocket. It was a relief not to have the heavy, tight metal no longer twisting her delicate skin. Feyre forced herself into bed, trying desperately not to drink in the heady scent of him. Couldn’t he have been ugly, at least? His visual appeal didn’t help anything—Feyre couldn’t escape her attraction to him, which was muddling things, at least a little. 

She let him hold her until he fell asleep. Feyre feigned it, evening out her breathing and keeping her eyes closed. And for a little while, as she waited, Feyre tried to imagine a life like this. Would he always make her dress like a whore? Would she be another little trinket to him, a toy to amuse himself with before he discarded her for someone more interesting. For all her fathers flaws—and there were many—he was always faithful to their mother. But Feyre had grown up in the life and she knew that was the exception and not the rule.

Rhys was beautiful. She doubted she’d get that kind of fidelity from him. Deciding she wasn’t going to ask him any of her questions, Feyre instead slipped from his loosened grip, quickly pulled on her shoes, and began searching for car keys.

Feyre was jumpy—every creak, every rattle of the wind sent her crawling out of her skin until she couldn’t take it anymore. Stealing his coat, Feyre decided she’d take her chances and just make a run for it. 

The air was cold, seeping through Rhys’s warm jacket before the door was closed behind her. Feyre braced herself before taking the icy steps to the drive. His parked car taunted her and though it was tempting to damage the sleek, black body, Feyre didn’t have time.

She needed to put as much distance between herself and that man as she could before he woke up. Wishing she was stealthier, Feyre left the road for only a moment before realizing how slick and steep the sides were—she was likely to accidentally topple down an embankment and freeze to death.

She was likely to freeze to death anyway. There was no snow, no rain, but the wind was brutal and leftover liquid slipped into the cracks of her shoes until her feet were numb. The pure darkness around her did nothing to help. Every little sound was a predator coming to kill her. Feyre had assumed she could figure out her way back to the road, but after what felt like an eternity walking, she began to feel hopeless.

Scared, too.

What if she’d gone the wrong way and no one found her? Not even Rhys, who she knew would be out looking the minute he found her missing. Feyre took another step, slipping on a patch of unseen ice. Throwing her arms out to steady herself, she stumbled to the side and went tumbling to the side of the mountain they were on. Snow slipped through the openings in Rhys’s jacket and covered her face, muffling her panicked, desperate scream. 

Certain she was going to die, Feyre squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for freefall. Instead, her body slammed into the trunk of a pine tree, keeping her from going any further. She was trapped in a coffin made of ice and her lungs hurt every time she took a breath.

And still, she was alive.

Feyre swallowed, looking up at the swaying branches overhead. Okay. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing. All she had to do was—

“Feyre?!”

“Rhys,” she breathed, strangely relieved to see him. The darkness was minutely illuminated by the headlights of his car, and when she squinted upward, she could see the dark outline of him peering down.

“Feyre?!” he yelled again and too late, Feyre realized he couldn’t see her. 

“Rhys!” she called in return, the effort making her cough. It was enough, though—she heard him swear loudly before turning back for the car. She was so, so fucked and she knew it. Right then, though, Rhys was her salvation as he carefully made his way down after her. 

“Are you trying to put me in an early grave?” he asked once he reached her. By then, Feyre’s teeth were chattering so violently she couldn’t speak. All she could do was press her frigid cheek to his warm chest when he lifted her into his arms. Somehow he managed to get her back up that hillside and into the passenger seat of his car. 

He was angry judging by the tight set of his jaw and how roughly he gripped the steering wheel. And Feyre, for her part, was too exhausted to even try and do damage control. She merely let Rhys do whatever he felt was necessary, which included stripping them both of their clothes and piling blankets on top of them. She didn’t protest, either, when she felt the length of his warm body pressed against her spine.

“Just breathe,” Rhys murmured into her hair. “You’ll survive this.”

Feyre fell asleep like that and when she woke, she was sweaty and thirsty, but she was alive. Alone, too, judging from the lack of Rhys beside her. There were no laid out clothes and when she went looking for the sheer dresses he’d picked up for her, she found nothing but his clothes. Deciding on one of his shirts, Feyre pulled a long, black tee over her head before making her way to the main area of the cabin.

Rhys was waiting in a pair of charcoal slacks and a buttoned up, violet shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. He was texting on his phone, brows furrowed. 

“Eat,” he said without looking at her, gesturing toward a plate of eggs. Was he really not mad? Feyre tried to think of something to say to him before deciding that really, this was his fault. He’d kidnapped her, after all—did he not expect her to try and escape him? She wasn’t going to apologize for trying. 

Feyre did as she was told while Rhys largely ignored her, staring down at his phone reading whatever had him so captivated. He took her plate when she finished, sliding it into the sink before gesturing with two fingers for her to stand.

“You’re coming with me,” he said, his voice suggesting she do as he say. 

“Rhys—”

“You could have died,” he interrupted, his eyes burning with the same intensity as the stars in the sky. “You would have died if I’d woken any later. So get up, Feyre darling.”

“What are you going to do to me?” she asked him, arms crossed over her chest. 

“Get up, Feyre.”

“If you hurt me—”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he snarled, clearly offended. She believed him, thinking back to the night before when he’d carried her back to bed without a word. He hadn’t even protested when her frigid back touched his skin and Feyre knew she would have made him suffer alone beneath blankets had the situation been reversed. 

“But you’re going to do something?” she asked. His eyes sparkled. 

“Turn around,” he instructed. Feyre did, only to hear the clicking of the handcuffs. 

“Rhys—”

“Shhh,” he murmured, running his hands over her shoulders. “I won’t have you hitting me in the face.”

“But I can kick you?” she challenged as he poked her toward the hall.

“You could try,” he replied in that good natured way of his. Rhys took Feyre to his office, closing and locking the door behind him. Feyre halted, barefoot on the soft rug, until Rhys poked her in the spine again.

“Sit,” he said, nodding toward his chair behind his desk. It was awkward given this time her hands were cuffed behind her back. 

“What are you doing?”

“Teaching you a lesson,” he murmured, eyeing her with appreciation. “I have a few calls I need to sit in on and I clearly can’t leave you alone while I work. So you’ll sit here with me and keep me company until I’m done.”

“You’d let me hear all your dirty secrets?” she taunted, her tone implying she would absolutely tell a federal agent if she escaped.

Rhys didn’t take the bait. “My wife ought to know where our money comes from.”

“I’m not—”

“You are,” he replied with a finality she didn’t bother arguing with. “Now spread your legs.”

“No.”

Rhys stared at her for a moment, head cocked like a predator assessing his prey. Feyre was certain she could outlast him, ignoring the bolt of arousal that had snaked up her spine the moment she realized what he wanted.

He wasn’t a serious man, she decided. He was wanted, on the run with a literal hostage and he wanted her to spread her legs? Not tie her up in his dungeon and withhold food or water until she broke…he wanted to eat her out.

The phone rang, causing them both to start. Rhys pressed a finger to his lips in a demand of silence, before pushing the speaker button. 

“Go,” he said in that dark, rich voice of his.

“Boss, there’s been some shit—”

Rhys muted himself, only half listening as he murmured, “Spread your legs, Feyre, or I’m going to sit you on my cock for the next three hours.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she hissed as Rhys began to sink to his knees.

“Wouldn’t I?” he murmured, grabbing her knees and wrenching them open. She was wearing only a shirt—everything else was soaked from the night before and Rhys had obnoxiously not provided any undergarments. He could see everything…though she’d already shown him two nights before.

Rhys leaned behind him, pulling his phone closer so he could hit the button and say, “Where is he now?”

“Dead.”

“Good. Tell me the rest,” he replied, clearly paying attention to the conversation in a way Feyre wasn’t. Then he was muting himself once again, pushing her thigh wide, and lowering his head.

“Rhys—”

“Shhh,” he murmured again. “I’m working, my love.”

She couldn’t focus on anything—not even kicking him in the face. He was so ridiculous, so beautiful, and he was on his knees trailing kisses up one of her bare thighs.

“How many—” Feyre took a breath when she felt her lips graze her pussy. “How many laundromats do you own?”

“We own,” he replied, the idiot. “Just four. I prefer car washes, personally. There is a little more overhead but it’s easier to…well. Easier to operate, let's just say.”

“Oh,” she whispered, not responding to what he’d said at all. Rhys was teasing her, his tongue just barely touching her clit before darting away back for her thigh. She didn’t notice him reach behind him for the button, though she did hear him speak.

“Kill him.”

“Kill who?” she asked. Rhys merely licked at her again, perhaps hoping to distract her. It worked for a moment—Feyre arched her hips closer, wishing he’d just get on with it. 

“Needy,” he praised, dipping a finger into her slick pussy. “You’ll sit nicely in my lap.”

“Tell me who you want killed,” she repeated.

Rhys sucked at her, drawing a soft moan from her lips. “Hybern.”

“Who?”

“You don’t need to worry—”

“You said what was yours was mine,” she reminded him, twisting her lower half away from his mouth. She could punish him too it seemed, because Rhys looked up at her with frustration, a lock of his dark hair flopping into his eyes.

“A rival,” he finally said, easing her back in front of him. “Your fathers death opened a power vacuum I can’t close because the feds are always watching. He’s encroaching and I’m tired of it.”

“So you’ll kill him?” she questioned.

Rhys licked her again, toying with her. “I’d do worse if I could get away with it. Death is easy.”

“Is that the kind of man you are?”

Their eyes met. “Yes.”

Did that bother her? Strangely, she found it didn’t. Feyre let her knees fall wider and Rhys groaned as he pulled her closer to his face. 

“I should have done this last night,” he whispered, his breath warm against her pussy. “You wouldn’t have left.”

“I would have,” she lied, unsure if that was true or not. 

“It's my fault,” he murmured before taking yet another taste of her. “And I can’t forgive myself for any of it.”

She had the sense he wasn’t just talking about the night before. Feyre had always assumed Rhys must hate her—that he wanted her dead. He should have. Any reasonable person would. And yet right then, Rhys’s violet gaze found hers and she saw the anguish hiding just behind his cool amusement. 

She felt pity. That was a mistake, to empathize with this man. One minute she’d be reassuring him he’d done nothing wrong and the next she’d have a wedding band on her finger as she drove their children to soccer practice.

Feyre could feel it, that tug toward fate. For one moment, Feyre knew the future that stretched before her—but it wasn’t in her nature to accept things blindly. If she was going to be his wife, she’d run toward it kicking and screaming.

Later, she decided. The kicking could come after he finished licking her.

Though Rhys very quickly tired of his little game. Deciding he’d sufficiently worked her up, if the way she was writing against his face was any indication, Rhys stood, revealing his own erection pushed tight against his pants. 

She watched through half lidded eyes as he undid the button with his strong hands, admiring the veins snaking up his arms. 

Rhys kicked them off, revealing mountains crowned with stars over his knees. “I swore I’d never kneel before anyone,” Rhys told her, sliding a finger into the waistband of his briefs. “But I’d kneel for you, darling.”

“You’re pathetic,” she breathed, transfixed on his now freed cock. It was exactly how she remembered—thick and long, the size of him demanding she look at him. Touch him. Taste him. Feyre could still remember her desperation to take him in her mouth and the pleasure she’d felt when he’d come.

“Up,” he told her, ignoring her insults. Feyre didn’t budge, legs still draped over the arms of the chair. That was no problem for Rhys, though—he merely lifted her up and sat himself down against the leather while ignoring the damp spot she’d left behind. 

“Be my good girl,” he murmured against her neck. “Keep your legs open.” “Rhys—” “Open your legs, baby," he repeated in that soft, seductive voice of his.

She did, gasping when the blunt head of his cock stabbed her entrance. “Rhys,” she whispered, twisting in his lap as he wrapped his arms tight around her.

“You can take me,” he insisted, though Feyre didn’t think that was true. Rhys pushed her down just enough to take the first few inches while Feyre cried out, squeezing herself around him so tightly she didn’t think he could wedge the rest of him into her.

Behind her, Feyre could feel Rhys’s heart pounding through the shirt he still wore. “That’s a good girl,” he praised before sinking his teeth into her shoulder. “Take the rest.”

“It’s too much,” she whined, though in truth it was easier to adjust than she expected. Rhys must have felt her relax because he was back to impaling her with a few more inches, and then more still, until Feyre swore she could feel him in her lungs. 

“Now sit,” he said, swearing softly when she squeezed herself tight around him.

“Sit?”

“Keep my cock warm while I work,” he replied, scooting his chair forward. The rocking motion made them both moan, though once he was close enough to his computer, Rhys went still again. It was torture to just sit there, aroused and needy from his teasing tongue and yet when Feyre tried to grind herself against him, Rhys swatted at her exposed pussy lightly.

“Don’t move.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll fuck that bratty mouth until you can’t even whisper,” he replied. 

She wished, though she didn’t say. Feyre did try, too. She tried to sit still and pay attention to his conversations, the emails he wrote, the payroll software he used. She saw a message from his associate A—Azriel, she learned—and a long complaint about a woman named Gwyn who’d pointed a shotgun at his face and fired before he’d had a chance to say a word.

Rhys had chuckled when he read it, like the whole thing amused him.

But underneath it all, Feyre was distracted by his pulse hammering in his cock and the way his hand would occasionally drift up her thigh to tease her clit before dropping it again. She could never quite get comfortable, could never ease herself out of her desperate arousal. He kept her on edge while he himself did nothing except hold himself inside her.

How long could a man keep an erection, she wondered? How long could this man? Longer than most she supposed. Rhys took two more calls, leaning back so the angle changed and shifting just enough that Feyre had to swallow more than one whimper. His fingers teased and touched, feeling the place their bodies joined over and over. It was like he couldn’t help himself.

“Rhys,” she whispered when the call ended, twisting in his lap. “Let me go.”

“I can’t,” he admitted, arching his neck. “I need to fuck you.”

“Rhys,” she warned, but he was too quick. Shoving aside the things on his desk so his phone and mouse and keyboard all clattered to the floor, Rhys had her lying against the wood with his cock still buried inside her.

He pushed up her shirt, exposing her breasts before slowly pulling himself out. Feyre tried to arch up, forcing him out of her entirely, but Rhys was more  practiced than most men. He didn’t flinch, slamming himself to the hilt back inside her body.

“Sneaky,” he praised. “I should spank you.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she panted, arousal sparking bright and hot. 

“I would dare,” he disagreed, wrapping one of his broad hands loosely around her throat. “The things I want to do to you…”

Maybe she didn’t want him to finish that sentence. She wanted to know about his fantasies, though. Rhys was so liberal with his praise, his thoughts, his desires. After years with Tamlin, it was strange to get an answer to her questions. Tamlin kept it all to himself—even asking him how he’d enjoyed the sex only ever earned her a murmured, “it was good.”

“You’re so fucking wet,” Rhys whispered, thrusting again. “So tight.”

Feyre couldn’t help the whimper that escaped her, arching into him as he brought himself lower. Rhys’s teeth grazed her throat, pressing a sucking, bruising kiss against her throat. 

“You’re mine,” he told her, his next thrust punishing in its intensity. “Say it.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

His grip on her throat tightened. “Say it,” he warned, restricting her air just enough to make her want him more. She wished he’d just shut up and kiss her.

Feyre tried to turn her face but Rhys squeezed tighter still, hips pistoning into her with an unrelenting intensity. Feyre was drowning in pleasure and Rhys must have been able to feel it. His other hand was between her legs, teasing and touching her swollen clit until Feyre was clenching her teeth, desperate to stave off her orgasm. 

“Say it!”

Feyre came so violently she felt her spine crack as she arched off the desk. “You’re mine,” she heard herself babbling, forgetting what, exactly, he wanted to hear. Rhys groaned, his own rhythm stuttering before he pushed deeper and deeper, all but rutting into her as he chased his own pleasure.

She swore she felt him come, though maybe it was just the illusion of it. She certain felt the wetness of his come slip from her body as Rhys held himself still, chest heaving.

“I am yours,” he swore, his voice soft and low. “I always have been. I’ve been waiting for you—all five years with no one but you.”

“You’re insane,” she whispered with too much affection. His was merely the afterglow of her orgasm that made her soft and sweet. 

Rhys withdrew himself, fingers pushing his own spend back into her body. What did Feyre care? She was on birth control, determined not to have a child until the whole ordeal was over. If she even wanted children—she’d never been certain of that.

So lost in her thoughts, Feyre didn’t notice Rhys sinking back to his knees. Not until he pulled her to the edge of his desk.

“The day isn’t over,” he said, sliding his fingers through the mess. “And neither am I.”

Feyre merely laid her head back. 

Good.

#feysand #feyre archeron #rhysand #is rhys a sane man? #no but you didnt come here for healthy depictions of relationships #you came to watch one man spiral out of control and i have provided that to you #free of charge youre welcome (dont tell your therapist)

[the-meta-tron]

The Book of Lies: A Good Omens Theory

One of the thoughts I’ve had since watching and re-watching Good Omens Season 2 were all the references to the Book of Life. In the very first episode, Michael threatens that anyone involved with Gabriel’s disappearance will suffer extreme sanctions, aka the Book of Life.

Daniel 12:1: At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.

Later that episode, we see Crowley and Beelzebub discuss the extreme sanctions:

BEELZEBUB: According to what I’m hearing, on a grapevine that obviously doesn’t exist, upstairs is seriously troubled by Gabriel’s disappearance. I’m hearing that anybody they find involved in this affair will be dealt with.

CROWLEY: How?

BEELZEBUB: Extreme Sanctions

CROWLEY: That isn’t actually a thing. That’s just something we used to joke about to frighten the cherubs.

BEELZEBUB: No, it exists! Extreme sanctions. Anyone found involved in Gabriel’s disappearance will be erased from the Book of Life. They won’t just be gone, they will never have existed.

This of course is the thing that pushes Crowley to help Aziraphale with Gabriel, to protect him from being caught helping.

Despite being a fairly serious threat, it isn’t brought up until episode six, again by Michael.

MICHAEL I am authorized to remove the name of anyone who helped Gabriel from the Book of Life. You will never have existed, Aziraphale. I am the Supreme Archangel.

URIEL: Duty officer.

MICHAEL: And I-

METATRON: Excuse me, I’m sorry. I must interrupt you there. Um... Oh, and I’ve brought over a coffee.

MICHAEL (not recognizing him): I don’t believe I asked for any interruptions.

METATRON: I couldn’t help it. You’re talking utter balderdash. I mean, complete piffle. You don’t have the authority to do anything like that.

So... that’s it? This Chekov’s gun, this ability of Michael’s (and Heaven) to remove anyone from existing past or present is just a bunch of bullshit? Was it all just a contrived and poorly-written plot device to get Crowley to quickly make up with and help Aziraphale in the first episode and then this scene in episode six is the clumsy way of resolving the loose thread?

It is possible, but I’d like to operate under the assumption that there is a different story happening here than the one initially presented to us. I could very well be wrong. But this is just a theory.

So I’m going to make a couple of possible conclusions based on what is presented two us in these two scenes.

The Book of Life can erase people from existence but Michael doesn’t have the authority to do so, and was bullshitting the entire time.

The Book of Life can’t erase people from existence and Michael knows that and was bullshitting OR doesn’t know that (and was probably still bullshitting).

I don’t think that the first conclusion is true, either, and simply because if Heaven did have the ability to erase anyone from existence or modify reality on such a grand scale, why have they never done it before? You could argue maybe they have and nobody knows because of the whole existence-erasure. But I would argue that even if that were the case, why would they use it in some secret, unknown situations and not in the situations we see play out on screen where erasing certain people from existence would actually be useful?

Take season one, for example. The whole triumphant ending of the last episode was that Crowley and Aziraphale tricked Heaven and Hell by swapping bodies so they could avoid execution. Why, if hiding an Archangel is sufficient for extreme sanctions like being un-written, is stopping the apocalypse not? Do we really think if Gabriel “shut your stupid mouth and die already” the Supreme Archangel had the ability to erase Aziraphale and Crowley from existence, he wouldn’t do it? If anyone in Heaven had the power to erase Aziraphale and Crowley from existence, they would have done it already.

One could argue maybe also Gabriel/the Supreme Archangel doesn’t have the authority, but then who does? The Metatron? Then why didn’t he let Michael erase Aziraphale from existence (or do it himself) instead of manipulating a loose canon like Aziraphale to come back to Heaven? If the whole point of splitting Crowley and Aziraphale up is to stop them from averting the Second Coming, again, why not just delete them if Heaven has the power to do that?

And going back to The Beginning, if Heaven really could erase any being from existence, even demons, why did they not just do that instead of having them all fall down? Why not just erase Gabriel when he nah’d the apocalypse instead of wiping his memories and demoting him, if Heaven didn’t want him to become an indication of an institutional issue? That would have prevented him from being a problem and retroactively undone his nah.

So, in conclusion: I believe the Book of Life can’t erase people from existence and someone was telling a lie before that piece of information trickled down to Crowley.

But it does raise the question, what does the Book of Life do?

Some might argue that the rules of world-building in Good Omens doesn’t have to follow scripture exactly, except they really like to.

According to the Virtual Jewish Library:

BOOK OF LIFE, or perhaps more correctly BOOK OF THE LIVING (Heb. סֵפֶר חַיִּים, Sefer Ḥayyim), a heavenly book in which the names of the righteous are inscribed. The expression "Book of Life" appears only once in the Bible, in Psalms 69: 29 (28), "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous," but a close parallel is found in Isaiah 4:3, which speaks of a list of those destined (literally "written") for life in Jerusalem. The erasure of a sinner's name from such a register is equivalent to death (cf. Ps. 69: 29, and the plea of Moses, Ex. 32:32–33).

In the Mishnah (Avot 3:17), R. Akiva speaks in detailed terms of the heavenly ledger in which all man's actions are written down until the inevitable day of reckoning comes. On the basis of the above-mentioned reference to the Book of Life in Psalms, however, or, according to another amora, of the plea of Moses, the Talmud states "three books are opened in heaven on Rosh Ha-Shanah, one for the thoroughly wicked, one for the thoroughly righteous, and one for the intermediate. The thoroughly righteous are forthwith inscribed in the Book of Life, the thoroughly wicked in the Book of Death, while the fate of the intermediate is suspended until the Day of Atonement" (RH 16b).

So getting erased from the Book of Life doesn’t mean you won’t exist anymore. It just means that you aren’t on God’s nice list anymore. The Book of Life is for those who are good and righteous, Book of Death is for those who are evil and wicked, and the people who aren’t wholly either exist in some kind of intermediate limbo waiting for future judgement. It’s the exact same structure that we see for the construction of Heaven vs Hell vs Earth.

Remember how we were talking about the Second Coming being the big set-up for the next season? Well, fun fact, the Book of Life also makes an appearance in Revelations from the Christian New Testament:

Revelations 20:12: And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

Revelations 20:15: And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

So if being erased from the Book of Life means being cast out of Heaven into a lake of fire, aka Falling, why do Beelzebub and Crowley care? They did that already. Crowley wasn’t that bothered by the concept of extreme sanctions until Beelzebub brought up the Book of Life. It means something to them. Maybe because they know what it really does?

Now admittedly I’m not 100% sure that this works with Beelzebub because they seemed pretty convinced that Michael was telling the truth in their conversation with Crowley. But that entire conversation was hiding a lot, because we learn later on that Beelzebub was after Gabriel the entire time to protect him.Their desperation wasn’t selfish self-preservation, but saving the one they loved.

Gabriel was told that he would remain an angel, but his memories of his time as Gabriel would be erased. As if after his memories were erased, he would no longer be Gabriel, just a 38th-class angel. Then, when he put his memories in the fly, Heaven couldn’t find them anywhere or find Gabriel at all. All Gabriel had done was store his memories in something from Beelzebub (something from Hell, from The Book of Death) and take an elevator to Earth, but to Heaven he basically disappeared. When Beelzebub described what happened to Gabriel, they said that he vanished. There seems to be a strong connection with Gabriel’s amnesia and his absence from Heaven, for Heaven to not know where he was once he forgot who he was. Remember, they only “found” him because of Crowley and Aziraphale’s miracle drawing their attention. And they only actually found him after Crowley realized where Gabriel stored his memories and Beelzebub returned them.

The Book of Life is more than just a list of names of people, it’s a record of their works. This sort of stems from the Mesopotamian belief that the gods kept records of mankind’s actions and destiny. In Good Omens Season 2, there’s a lot of emphasis on people’s memories. Gabriel’s missing ones are the focus of most of the plot, but we get important flashbacks woven in with the story in present day, Crowley and Aziraphale even make references to their past events in the current day.

A lot of people have also pointed out how Crowley seems to be suffering from his own subtle amnesia. He doesn’t seem to recognize Aziraphale in Eden when we saw them meet before the Big Bang. He doesn’t remember Saraquel but she remembers him and their nebula work. He knows he helped create the stars but not that he was responsible for Banging Out the Big Bang and Letting There Be Light. Later on, he doesn’t remember the specifics of the gravitational rules he helped write and was once geeking out over. He remembers fighting the war, but he doesn’t remember doing it alongside Furfur. In short, I think it’s very possible when angels fall, they forget things. Maybe not everything, but certain details. They forgot their good works. Crowley didn’t remember what he did very clearly, except for the thoughts and feelings that led to his fall. (I admittedly have no explanation for how this can be true and how Crowley can ‘remember’ Heaven’s password but so many other things seem to match up. Maybe Heaven’s passwords just suck).

Once Gabriel lost (hid) his memories, he seemed to disappear from existence to Heaven and Hell (something further perpetuated by Crowley and Aziraphale’s joint miracle). Even Crowley and Aziraphale hiding Gabriel altered the memories of other characters, like Uriel and Michael, who could barely remember even meeting Jim once they got back to Heaven. Forgetting and erasing/hiding seem to be parallels to one another, if not basically the same thing.

So to go back to my previous question: What does the Book of Life do? It’s a record Heaven keeps of “good” people and the “good” works they did. Erasing them completely from the Book of Life may not erase who they are and what they did, but it would erase the record and more importantly their memories of who they are and what they did (at least for Angels and Demons). It wouldn’t retroactively re-write the universe, but it would take away someone’s sense of identity and their existence. And if that person were an Angel, they would probably also Fall.

Which, to me, sounds like a pretty good reason for both Beelzebub and Crowley to be worried for their respective angels, right? They may know that Heaven isn’t threatening to literally un-write them from existence, but that their angel is in danger of suffering some kind of cruel and terrible fate where they forget fundamental aspects of who they are (maybe even the person they love?). Which is a different way of erasing someone than what Michael was threatening, but still fairly awful. Crowley, after learning about the Book of Life being involved, only cared about Aziraphale, which admittedly doesn’t mean much since he usually does that. But also, Michael only threatened to erase Aziraphale for his role in everything, not Crowley.

Maybe that’s because Crowley has already been erased?

It’s interesting how the show refuses to tell us anything about who the demons were before they fell. Particularly Crowley, who’s angelic name purposefully is a large hanging question mark. It could be because Gaiman doesn’t want to commit to a certain angel for Crowley to have been, or it’s intentionally vague because the whole point of Crowley’s character is that he isn’t an angel anymore. But it’s also interesting to think the reason why it hasn’t been said is because it can’t be said. From a metaphorical standpoint, Crowley’s name from when he was an Angel has already been blotted out.

Who whole idea of “existing” with Angels and Demons reminds me of this weird response Neil Gaiman gave one time:

The angel Lucifer doesn’t exist anymore. Now there’s just Satan, the Adversary. Like whatever made Lucifer an angel was erased, and Satan is what remains.

It doesn’t fit everything perfectly and there are still a lot of pieces of the plot regarding the Book of Life that I still don’t entirely understand. But I feel like I’m onto something with the themes that memory is linked to identity/existence and how that is linked to Falling, and that the ability of the Book of Life as it is explained to us by Michael (and Beelzebub) in the show is misleading in some way.

Anyway, this is just a theory I came up with while reading some other theories about season 2, and it’s all in good fun so please don’t take it too seriously.

#good omens #good omens spoilers #good omens theory #good omens meta #good omens season 2 #gos2 spoilers #ineffable husbands #ineffable bureaucracy #book of life #amnesiac crowley

[batterknowsbetter]

I would like to draw your attention to the kind of information surge that Ukrainians have to live in:

1. a photo of a two-year-old child killed by a russian missile.

2. Jim Cummings praising zvyagintsev's films.

My sister tells me that people from the West always divide cinema and war. But I want the only thing that westerners will divided is russia.

I want to talk about zvyagintsev in a little more detail. In 2022, he gave an interview to anton dolin (this is the clown that Ridley Scott said fuck you). This interview perfectly illustrates how the so-called intellectual elite of russia is completely detached from the russian people, illustrates the terrible naivety, criminal blindness and stupidity of these people. For example, zvyagintsev says that the russians who remained in russia are hostages (oh, poor people, we from Ukraine can help with something). The mantra about the hostages is so deeply rooted in the consciousness of the so-called liberal russians. It protects them from the realization that their fellow citizens have turned into animals begging for blood. Then he says that you need to let this war into yourself (remembers Bucha and starts to cry. Ten points for acting) to accept the conflict and the words that a person tells you, because one day she will understand that she was wrong. He says that "it is not necessary to multiply the war, conflicting with people who support the war, it is necessary to listen to them." The great peacemakers, the russians, who do not want to multiply the war around them, have been turning a blind eye to theave been turning a blind eye to the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Ukrainian territory, to the torture chambers and the sentences imposed on Crimean Tatars for eight years.

Then he asks: "Why didn't we react when we bombed Syria? Well, because it is far. And Ukraine is close and Ukrainians are close to us." That is, when Russia was razing Aleppo to the ground, it was okay, because you didn't have to pay for it, but when Ukraine was attacked and sanctions were imposed, it became inconvenient to keep silent. Remember, Syrian, the russian director does not care that his country bombed your cities, because you are not a neighboring country.

"I cannot agree with people who say that we should forget and ignore russian culture, people sitting in bomb shelters cannot think otherwise, but it will all pass." It will all pass. This cynical phrase just cracked me up.

"I don't understand to whom culture is to blame, to whom Rachmaninoff and our cinema are to blame." In front of all countries where you are your culture is used as a marker of conquest. How are the Pushkin monuments in Syria? How is the Mariupol theater is closed with a banner with Russian writers and Ukrainian artists that you want to own? Your culture is a cancer, it comes first and only death follows.

"We have nothing else to do but make movies." What about raising money for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, supporting the Ukrainian army, so that the war ends soon and Ukraine wins? No? Well, okay.

A russian director who shoots his new movie in Europe has the opportunity to do so, all he has to do is say I am against the war and all doors are open for you. Whereas some Ukrainian artists do not physically have this opportunity. At the moment, there are no Ukrainian films at Cannes, but there is a russian film. Who is to blame for a culture that shouts into a loudspeaker, trying to drown out the victim?

#Ukraine #russia ukraine war #russia is a terrorist state #andrey zvyagintsev #jim cummings #films

[bropunzeling]

"he has to be tough, he has to roll with the punches, he can't let other people in! even with the sex positions it comes up! (but if u want more discussion about that u gotta ask about that one :))"

i would like to know

well if you insist :)

so obviously upon embarking on this fic one of the things i had to think about (which so often comes up in any fic with more than one sex scene) is the age old question of: how do i write several different sex scenes without them seeming repetitive? this is because i hate a sex scene that feels tacked on or superfluous or just - not important! not done with care! not here for plot or character development! i can't do unto others what i dislike.

this especially got challenging once (a) i decided to focus exclusively on heat sex as opposed to other kinds of sex, since that prioritizes one type of sex act and (b) i decided to set the personal challenge to not write any kissing until at least 2/3rds of the way through (which stems directly from seeing how you in home by now and becs in head above water both executed some really great "oh they're kissing - oh shit they've been fucking for tens of thousands of words and haven't kissed" moments, and me going like, well EYE wanna do that)

so in going into figuring out how i was going to do the sex scenes - and specifically the sex scenes with leon - i was like well, i know it's gotta have knotting, and i know there can't be kissing, what else do i need to know. and then when i was writing the first sex scene, i got to this bit:

“Fuck,” Leon says. He flexes his fingers slightly, stretching Matthew out. Matthew collapses to his elbows, biting at the meat of his forearm. “Look at you.” Don’t, Matthew wants to retort. At least he's not on his back. He doesn’t want Leon to be able to see his face. To see how stupid the heat is making him, how much he likes this. Even so, he’s not sure the lack of eye contact makes things that much better. He can still feel Leon looking at him, skin prickling up and down his spine from the intensity of Leon’s gaze.

and i was like ohhhhhhhh. that was what i needed to know. even when he's getting fucked within an inch of his life, matthew doesn't want leon to see him :)

so THEN it became a game of figuring out how they could have sex that (a) felt new and different while also (b) never letting them fuck (and ESPECIALLY not matthew getting knotted) while they were face to face up to and until the last partnered sex scene. you have matthew tucking his face into leon's shoulder! fucking against the door! matthew always flipping himself onto his hands and knees! matthew blowing leon so leon isn't looking at him wanting leon, it's leon wanting matthew instead! the other thing i did was a slow escalation of location - hotel room (neither of their space) - oilers heat room (leon's space, but in a very clinical/league sanctioned way) - leon's living room (leon's space, but like, sometimes you're just horny!) - leon's bedroom (uh-oh).

(i should also mention poor, poor josh, my poor entirely made-up dude, who really deserved better. in that sequence, he and matthew do fuck face to face, and of course matthew reacts incredibly badly afterwards and is a dick. again - he can't stand being seen when he's vulnerable like that.)

and then of course in the last sequence, they have sex like they've had it before, and it's a lot, and matthew's making leon go crazy by talking about thinking about him during heat (no wonder leon thinks matthew could be into him! no wonder he's trying), but again, it's like how it's been before. only the next time, once matthew's revealed that, once he's shown that he keeps thinking about leon despite trying so hard not to, despite telling leon that he didn't need him (lies), we finally can have the moment where leon kisses him, and matthew lets himself be kissed. lets himself be looked at. lets himself be scented.

and then matthew fucks it all up :)

(also this is why one of my favorite lines in the "matthew is in the swamp of his own misery" segments is this one:

It’s not even that he wants Leon to fuck him, to knot him, even though he does. It’s that he wants Leon’s voice, his attention. For Leon to see Matthew, just as he is.

you're in trouble now, rat boy!)

EDITING TO NOTE that also the reconciliation happens at matthew's place bc it is the first time matthew truly lets him in and yes i DID think about that one (for once)!

#ask meme #omega matthew

[granulesofsand]

🗝️🏷️ active RAMCOA and risky choices

Today (not by the time y’all see this) is a double holiday, Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s was already a double-whammy: church-sanctioned torture and big bucks trafficking day.

We’ve gotten a couple weird messages from our family — normal enough cutesy Valentine texts with mismatched emojis and numbers where they don’t belong. They keep calling our phone and we’re avoiding picking up.

Which reminded us what exactly happens every year on these holidays.

So we are doing Something Stupid again. We are going to check the places they usually use, and we are going to attempt to disrupt the activities.

Because there is a new generation of children who have just been brought into the group. (They’re not babies, but they are all single digits.)

I don’t remember what those squares are called, but that’s what I’m going off of. Where one column is ‘A: abuse is occurring’ and another is ‘B: abuse is not occurring’, and then there are rows for ‘1: we find them’ and ‘2: we don’t find them’.

Ideally, we get to B2, where we don’t find them because abuse is not occurring. However, if we don’t look, we won’t know which square we might have landed on.

I don’t know what they’d be doing if it were B1, maybe if they met up in the woods to make glitter glue cards? Irrelevant.

I have a few ideas of what to do if it’s A1, we find them and abuse is occurring, and I literally do not care about the risks because if someone could have prevented even one of our Big Bad traumas, I would have wanted them to do anything to make that happen.

Honestly, we’re probably going to have to assume that if we didn’t find them, abuse was occurring, but still better to look. We have turned off location services and removed the trackers (big ass Apple brand, they’re the size of a quarter and would be very difficult to hide on a person without them knowing if any were worried about having their own hidden tracker), we’ve told our therapist and we’re texting a friend where we’re going.

This is unlikely to kill us. It would take us catching them to face real consequences, and we have enough of us to ground and not tell on ourselves or join up with the group. Enough of us are okay with the danger to do it.

I feel like an idiot in my blacks and hiking boots, and I already regret misplacing our gloves. Hopefully that’ll be the worst of it, and we will prevent just this one thing.

#ramcoa #tw ramcoa #ec did #hc did #tw trafficking #tw child abuse

[antlerx-art]

GOOD OMENS 2 EPISODE 6 REACTION - CONTAINS SPOILERS‼️

THE EVERY IS IN THIS EPISODE. YES I’LL KEEP CALLING IT THAT UNTIL IT HAPPENS. IM GOING INSANE.

starting it 👍🏻

aziraphale you’re standing a little too dangerously in that circle remember last time

“you’re not welcome here” DEEP VOICE OOOOOH pity crowley isn’t here to hear it my guy would’ve fainted

HIS ANGEL OUTFIT 💀THE WAY HES RUNNING

yes maggie ROAST her 🙏

“i’ve spent my life being scared of things” 😭

“BRAVER THAN ANYONE I KNOW”YEEEAHHH MY LESBIANS

shax don’t hurt maggie don’t you even THINK of hurting maggie or nina

“my god you lot are pathetic” LOUDERRR GO MAGGIEEE GOOOOO

no wait why can they get in

MAGGIEEEEEEE WHAT HAVE YOU DONEEEE

hehe aziraphale is “perfectly prepared to take defensive action” 😼

“STAY BACK 😠” OHHHH WOW

“you can all leave now, and nobody will be hurt” SO BADASS YEAHHHHHH

rip eric

lol there’s no miracle apparently michael and uriel just can’t notice crowley

noooooo muriel is lonely :(

also crowley comparing angels to bees and aziraphale feeling lonely when he realized he’s an “angel that goes along with heaven as far as he can” in ep 2 is making heaven look like some sort of hivemind and it’s really cool, it also explains why aziraphale is a bit uncomfortable with not having someone to report to after becoming free

CROWLEY WAS AN IMPORTANT ANGELLLLLLL I KNEW IT OHHH MY GOD I THOUGHT IT WAS A STUPID THEORY BUT IT SEEMS TRUE?

aziraphale using the way he discorporated in s1 to discorporate other demons hehe silly

i was about to say that demons can’t possibly be that stupid but aziraphale is reading my mind i guess

AND HE DOESNT HAVE ANOTHER PLAN!

“amen” okay??

gabriel saying nah???? to heaven winning?????

crowley is so doctor who right now

“ARMAGEDDON THE SEQUEL THATS A NAH” 😭 IS THIS WHAT HE WAS PUNISHED FOR??

aziraphale MENTIONING THE FIRE???????

NOOO IT’S TRAUMATIC FOR HIM ☹️

they had a TRIAL?

saraqael knows it’s crowley AND KNEW HIM AS AN ANGEL WHAAAT

“severe measures” no aziraphale you have to say extreme sanctions

“CROWLEY’S EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANGEL”

shax stop making fun of my angel

THE METATRON AT THE TRIAL

UHH why doesn’t gabriel give a fuck about this

“GUYS ENOUGH”? OH MY

“one prince of heaven cast into the outer darkness” DO YOU MEAN. DO YOU MEAN CROWLEY? WAS HE A PRINCE OF HEAVEN????????

junior recoding angel😭 HES ONE CLASS UNDER M U R I E L

crowley’s little punch on their shoulder HES A NICE GUYYY OH HES SO CBBSBDBBD

gabriel is so casual about the trial?? like he just got fired but he didn’t like the job anyway

aziraphale what are you doing

IS HE GOING TO BECOME BIBLICALLY ACCURATE?

THE HALOOOOOO

HE STARTED THE WAR

“YOU WOT?”

just kidding no war apparently

and why is the box full now?????

THE FLYYYYYY that’s what he was writing

BEELZEBUB INVOLVED I K N E W IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT

HEHEEHEHEHHEHE INEFFABLE BUREAUCRACY

yayyy memories are back

SEASON ONE???????

OH GOD THIS SHIP IS REAL?

arma bloody geddon

ahh and they’re too tired to fight so they agreed to just refuse to do it i guess?

and gabe then went to aziraphale’s bookshop because he was the first one to go against armageddon

A PROPOSAL TO MAKE

yes that’s what i thought

i can’t believe gabriel has a deal with beelzebub this fandom keeps winning this season truly is a shipper’s dream

THE SCENEEEEE from the trailer

he actually goes there just to look at the statue for hours💀

THEY WERE AT THE PUB!!! i keep predicting

romantic ineffable bureaucracy date if they *every* before aziracrow i’ll be dead on the floor laughing

GABE PUT THEIR SONG ON

FINGERS TOUCHING

“it’s bigger on the inside” CAN BRITISH PEOPLE STOP. BEING. BRITISH. (jk i love y’all keep making these silly shows🫶🏻)

ROOOOMANCEEEEEE THE WAY THEY LOOK AT EACH OTHER

HES BACK!

if they kiss istg

“SILLY SILLY ANGEL”

HANDS HOLDING???? WHY IS EVERYONE CONFESSING BEFORE AZIRACROW WAKE UPPPPPP

WHY DID IT TAKE YOU GUYS 6000 YEARS AND INEFFABLE BUREAUCRACY MADE IT IN?? SOME MONTHS?

“you will speak one at a time” yummmmy

ALPHA CENTAURY THEY ALWAYS WANTED TO GO THERE

still cant believe they’re canon

THATS THE METATRON

NINA AND MAGGIE TELLING CROWLEY TO CONFESS OOOOOH YESSSS

NINA CALLED MAGGIE ANGEL

ah i suppose the metatron offered aziraphale to be some sort of archangel but hes gonna decline because he wants to be with crowley

ITS ABOUT TO HAPPENNNNNN

no aziraphale HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?????

yeah as i said

AZIRAPHALE HOW CAN YOU STILL THINK THIS I THOUGHT YOU HAD SOME BIGGER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

CROWLEY’S CONFESSION IM NOT OKAY

“oh crowley nothing lasts forever” shut. up.

CROWLEY PUTTING THE GLASSES BACK ON AS A SHEILD

YOU GUYS WERE SUPPOSED TO DINE AT THE RITZ AZIRAPHALE YOURE RUINING EVERYTHING

“i need you!” THEN STAY YOU DUMBASS

NO NIGHTINGALE? STOP IM ABOUT TO THROW UP

WE COULD’VE BEEN US

THE EVERY

THE EVERY OH GOD

THE FUCKING EVERY HAPPENED OH MY GOD BUT ITS SO SAD WHYYYYYYYYY

THIS IS WHY I DIDNT WANT IT TO BE IN THE LAST EPISODE AND EVEN LESS IN THE LAST SCENE I NEED HELP

“I FORGIVE YOU” / “DONT BOTHER”

NEIL GAIMAN PAY MY THERAPY BILLS

aziraphale touching his lips.

GO AFTER HIMMMMMMMMMM YOU IDIOT

i hate this

i need a moment

SO.

i know that in cinema the middle part is usually the sad part so since this show is a three season thing i was already considering the possibility of a sad ending for s2

BUT IT DID NOT. HAVE TO BE THIS SAD.

i have to say it did feel quiet gentle and romantic compared to season one, BUT THIS ENDING. THS FUCKING ENDING???? THIS COULDVE BEEN SO PERFECT WHY DID THE METATRON SHOW UP WHY DID AZIRAPHALE ACCEPT

neil i’m in your walls IM UNDER YOUR BED

AND WHAT IF WE DONT GET A SEASON THREE?

good omens and ofmd both ending with them separated this is too much why can’t gay people be happy

and when i had seen the every i couldn’t wait to see the contentx BUT OHHH I ALREADY MISS THE TIME WHEN I WAS CLUELESS I DIDNT NEED THIS CONTEXT

crowley i’m with you btw aziraphale needs to do the apology dance a million times

alright i’m rambling bye everyone i’m gonna go stare at the wall for seven hours

tagging @neil-gaiman but this time it’s to send him my therapy bills not the reaction ❤️

#stede and aziraphale both abandoning their loved ones at the end you guys are such idiots #good omens #HUUUUUGE GOS2 SPOILERS #gos2 spoilers #gos2spoilers #gos2 #good omens season 2 #good omens 2 #good omens season two #good omens season two spoilers #good omens season 2 spoilers #good omens 2 reaction #gos2 reaction #spoilers #i can’t do it i can’t believe i have to wait for another season to see them happy

[carriesthewind]

Good evening everyone! As I said in an answer to a previous ask, there wasn't a public call-in line to listen to the Show Cause Hearing in Mata v Avianca (the ChatGBT lawyer case) today.

However, while we are waiting for a transcript of the hearing (because there was a court reporter! yay!) and a written decision by the judge, we did get this absolutely anxiety-inducing live tweet of the hearing:

(Caveat: this thread was not an official transcript of the hearing and should not be taken as such. It is possible the actual events and statements made in the hearing differ significantly from this report - i.e., take this with a grain of salt and reserve final judgement for the actual transcript.)

I'll put the full thread with some (light) commentary below the cut.* But the overall impression I am left with is that the judge seems to feel this pair of attorneys are treating their duty of candor toward the tribunal with the same seriousness with which they are treating their duty of competence to their clients. (And in this case, that's a very bad thing.)

*The full thread except for a soon-to-follow part 2 because I ran out of space for images again.

(All of the following screenshots are from the above tweet thread by Inner City Press @ innercitypress on twitter, made on June 8, 2023.)

Normally I would overlook that "you, personally," but in this case, you really get the feeling that the judge is concerned that LoDuca might just start talking about what Schwartz did again.

Establishing LoDuca's base of knowledge - he should know how to look up cases and check if they are real; he should know what a real case looks like.

The March 1 submission was the plaintiff's opposition to the motion to dismiss, where they first cited the fake cases.

How bad this answer is depends, I think, on LoDuca's wording here. Best case scenario, his statement about Schwartz was a specific statement about what inquiry was reasonable for him to do under the circumstances (which - for that first filing - I think is actually a reasonable argument. You don't expect your colleague to just make up cases). Worst case, this reads like him trying to wiggle out of his obligations. I will withhold judgement until I see the official transcript.

Rule 11, by the way, refers to Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 11(b) states:

(If you remember the Order to Show Cause, we are dealing with a Rule 11(b)(2) issue here. Rule 11(c) allows the court to impose sanctions for violations of Rule 11(b))

Oh no, bad answer. (If anyone reading this is good at photoshop, I cannot express how badly I want a version of the "this sign can't stop me because I can't read" meme with the sign being the quote from defendant's reply where they say, "The undersigned has not been able to locate this case by caption or citation, nor any case bearing any resemblance to it.")

Oh that is not a good way of characterizing those orders. (Those were the orders, remember, where the Court said, "By April 18, 2022, Peter LoDuca, counsel of record for plaintiff, shall file an affidavit annexing copies of the following cases cited in his submission to this Court: as set forth herein. Failure to comply will result in dismissal of the action pursuant to Rule 41 (b), Fed. R. Civ. P.")

I would simply perish on the spot.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention in my original attempted summary of "Varghese" - the first paragraph states that it is a wrongful death suit by the widow of the passenger. Then the second paragraph states that the passenger was denied boarding on a flight due to overbooking and thus missed his connecting flight and therefore incurred additional expenses. The case was such nonsense that I legitimately forgot about that inconsistency by the time I got to the end.

Your honor I plead "2 stupid 2 sanction."

(I believe the "different fonts" is in reference to the April 25 affidavit, in which the case names - and some of the surrounding text - are in a different font from most of the text in the affidavit. It seems like this is because they may have been copied straight from ChatGPT. See e.g., #3 below. It's hard to tell just based on this twitter thread, though.)

A short and simple answer! You did it!

"I have all the answers I need" is not a good sentence in this context.

Very genuinely: shorter is better here. At least I don't think he hurt himself with that statement.

Judge Castel: How do you conduct legal research?

Schwartz: I research cases.

Judge Castel: Do you read them?

Schwartz: Well, I may have once upon a time, but after hearing you ask that question in this context, I have decided to retire from the practice of law forever and also possibly sink into the ground and die. Also, by answering "yes," here, I just realized that I'm either admitting that I read the cases I submitted and therefore must have known they were fake, or else I just possibly committed perjury. Oh shit oh fuck.

Oh god I'm cringing myself into a pretzel just reading this.

Hey, by the way? You can actually use google (esp. google scholar) to do legal research. (It's not a good tool and you will miss things, but it will do in a pinch.) But. Um. If you know that...why didn't you double check your cases at very least on google when you were told they seemed to be made up?

So, once again, I am going to withhold judgement until I see the actual transcript. That said, if Schwartz did say this, I would like to compare it briefly to a part of the chat transcript he provided to the court. Here is the first question asked about the Montreal Convention in the provided transcript:

"analysis"

Oh god. I can't even provide commentary on this one. I hope this is worse than the actual transcript will prove to be. I'm reading through my fingers like I'm watching a horror movie.

"Misperception" (or "misconception") doesn't work once you have evidence that should cause you to doubt - like not being able to find a case that was supposedly published in the Federal fucking Reporter.

This is overshooting "2 stupid 2 sanction" into "too stupid to function."* You either looked for "Varghese" or you didn't. If you looked for "Varghese," it is not credible that you continued to have a good faith assumption that ChatGPT couldn't lie. If you didn't look up "Varghese," you just lied to the Court under oath.

*Just to be clear: for an ordinary person, this would be a very understandable lack of knowledge issue. A lawyer has no excuse not to know this.

Judge Castel: Mr. Schwartz, I think you have the fucking audacity to try to lie to me to my face in my fucking courtroom.

Honestly at this point I'm surprised he could still talk. I think screaming, "I'm melting, I'm melting!" as he vanished into steam, leaving his crumpled suit behind, would be an appropriate response.

NO.

Oh no, oh honey.

Ok. Two options here (again, assuming he actually fucking said "They said they couldn't find them," in response to the Court asking, "When Avianca said you cited non existent cases?"):

Schwartz is once again trying to purposefully downplay what the defendant's reply brief actually said and dodge responsibility.

Schwartz honestly, truly believes that when the defendant filed a reply containing the line, "The undersigned has not been able to locate this case by caption or citation, nor any case bearing any resemblance to it," they were just asking for assistance with their legal research?!??!

I honestly don't know which is worse.

Oh no....

Oh man, I haven't gone over it here yet, but I think that "I looked up the judge" is a panicked attempt at bringing up a talking point the Professional Responsibility Lawyers raised in their memorandum of law. (Again, I'm giving this reading of his response with the caveat that it is based only on this thread, not the official transcript, which might read very differently and contain different/more info.) The Professional Responsibility attorneys noted in a footnote that two of the judges listed in the "opinion," including the "author," were actual 11th circuit judges, and the other is an actual 5th circuit judge. My read of this footnote was as an extra little detail tossed in by the Professional Responsibility attorneys to try to dress up their argument that the "opinions" had various "indicia of authenticity."

But here's the problem. If Schwartz is telling the truth - if he was reading carefully and critically enough that he bothered to look up the judge (why would you do that if you didn't think the case might be fake?!) there is no way he could have missed that the case was gibberish. Again, if this is really what he said at the hearing, he either lied in the hearing, or he must have know the "opinions" were bogus when he gave them to LoDuca to file.

"Did it cross your mind" - if the court actually said this, oh my god.

Hey, that's the point that I made in my original post(s)!

This whole thing about the "+h" to "th" with the notary date is from the recent affidavits filed on 6/6/23, you can read them about them if you want, I'll be honest, I don't really care as much about the notary stuff so I'm going to skip it for the moment.

....and I've run out of space for images again. Part II to follow shortly!

#ai bs #2 Stupid 2 Sanction

[fedoranon]

I AM BACK FROM SHOPPING AND BACK INTO LIVEBLOGGING! (Long as hell so there’s a cut before the first direct quote.)

Also obligatory: I’m not a lawyer but I do have a 1964 pocket legal dictionary that probably belonged to my stenographer great grandmother. Also her notary seal which I know better than to use thank.

The difference between how the Court reacts to Ms. Foti’s [representing LoDuca] concluding remarks vs. Mr. Minkoff & Mr. Maulsby [representing the Firm and Schwartz together] is night and day, hard to sum up in quotes or screenshots. Posting the link again, I’m starting on page 48 of 64.

Basically, Ms. Foti gets to deliver her whole statement without interruption, summarizing LoDuca’s side of things and citing a particularly favorable case where a lawyer did not get sanctioned for relying on the work of a colleague in good faith that contained falsehoods. The Judge says “thank you” and calls for Minkoff or his colleague.

Immediately the interruptions start.

Minkoff wants to trade off with Maulsby, his colleague, Judge says that’s unusual.

MR. MINKOFF: Actually, your Honor, I don't necessarily agree. I have divided arguments up before in other courts. If your Honor doesn't want us to do that, give me a moment to speak --

THE COURT: It would be customary to ask to do that. MR. MINKOFF: I am asking. THE COURT: Now you're asking that I'm granting it. The point is, you ask. MR. MINKOFF: Yes. THE COURT: Then I grant it. You don't presume. MR. MINKOFF: I apologize.

Like a misbehaving toddler. Treating Minkoff like he did Schwartz and LoDuca, who have seriously misbehaved in this court and are having the fear of God and Early Retirement put into them. I need to go back and finish the June 6th filings yet, there’s so, so much [I’m pretty sure Schwartz represents that he didn’t use ChatGPT to do any writing but I’m pretty sure this transcript points to the Judge believing he did], but I wonder what the hell is in there that pissed the Judge off so much already?

Anyway, he gets going pretty good for a couple pages here. I don’t find it as compelling as Ms. Foti’s statement, personally, but she has somewhat relevant case law and that always helps. It seems like Maulsby is going to do the actual arguing that they don’t meet the standard that LoDuca and Schwartz’s lawyers agree on, this “subjective bad faith” or I’d call it “intentionality” standard. Minkoff’s main thing is that this was new technology, it’s a known fact that lawyers are old and not hip with new technology and couldn’t have known ChatGPT isn’t a super search engine that has access to paid databases despite the fact that NO online search engine has access to all case law and, I cannot emphasize this enough, CHAT is in the TITLE [and also again I’m fairly sure Schwartz also used it to write for him].

Then Minkoff makes the Cardinal Sin of ascribing the Judge’s motive, or basically saying why he’s done what he did (WRT having this hearing), which my dad always emphasized that you must NEVER EVER DO in any circumstances but especially in a court room.

MR. MINKOFF:  [...] Now, this Court has done its job of warning the public about these risks, warning the profession about these risks. THE COURT: That's not my job, and I didn't set out to do that. MR. MINKOFF: I understand that it's not your job as a judge to do it, but you did it. THE COURT: That was not intended as a warning. That was intended as an order to show cause to bring these respondents before the Court to answer for their actions and nothing more. MR. MINKOFF: I understand that, your Honor. But whether your Honor intended it or not, the effect is what I said, which is that the public is now on notice of this problem, which my client was not on notice of and did not know about at the time. Now, just as AI teaches itself, now it is up to lawyers to learn about these dangers.

There’s a certain intelligence in writing to addressing your conclusion to your perception of the audience’s mind state, but I think this is a reach. ~The Judge is just trying to warn us of the dangers.~ Nah, fam, sanctions are on the line for a reason. This isn’t a SLAPP, it’s Judge who knows the law and how lawyers are supposed to behave.

Maulsby refers back to their previously filed papers a lot more than Minkoff and Foti, and I’ll admit this is the type of law work that goes over my head a lot. I’m related to lawyers, stenographers, and notaries, and I’ve answered phones a few times but I’m not trained in this kind of thing and I don’t pretend I am. It feels a bit tedious though, like maybe he loses his place a few times? I can catch that he’s citing several cases where sanctions were imposed, and saying that this case isn’t like that. 

He goes on about the “bad faith” and “knowledge” elements in a way that honestly sounds a bit written by ChatGPT himself. Very vague, repetitious, I don’t like his style and the Judge doesn’t either:

THE COURT: Let's not reiterate -- you are both from the same firm. You are partners? MR. MAULSBY: Yes. THE COURT: I have granted you the opportunity to supplement Mr. Minkoff's arguments. Please try to refrain from reiterating his arguments. If you have something new to say, I'm all ears. MR. MAULSBY: Understand. I will.

"If you have something NEW to say” AKA this is why I didn’t want to let you talk in the first place. The Judge loses all patience at this point:

THE COURT: I think this point has been made. MR. MAULSBY: The firm has taken appropriate remedial measures -- THE COURT: I think that point was made also. Your firm put on a CLE for the firm. Is that right? MR. MAULSBY: That's one of them, Judge THE COURT: I heard from the principal of the firm. Is this something that's in the record that you are going to tell me, or is this something not in the record? MR. MAULSBY: I'm summing the record, your Honor. THE COURT: This is something in the record. MR. MAULSBY: Yes. THE COURT: What is it in the record and tell me where I find it. MR. MAULSBY: I'm sorry. THE COURT: Tell me where I find what you are about to tell me in the record. MR. MAULSBY: Mr. Corvino's declaration talked about the remedial measures. THE COURT: I read it. MR. MAULSBY: I may not be understanding the question. I'm sorry. THE COURT: I have Mr. Corvino's declaration. I have heard from him. I'm all ears if you have something new you want to say. But reiterating your written submissions is not particularly helpful. MR. MAULSBY: That's fine, your Honor.

[A CLE is the continued learning hours that lawyers need to do if they want to continue to be barred.]

AND THEN HE JUST CONTINUES ON. IDK maybe he skipped a paragraph but he just goes “The point I’m trying to make is” and keeps going like more of the same. I’m not sure why he feels the need to “sum up” the record -- this isn’t a jury trial and these aren’t closing statements on the case, he’s here to present evidence and argue why sanctions shouldn’t be imposed.

Unless he doesn’t think the Judge read all those submissions two days ago, which. In this case? After all the false fucking cases he had his clerk run down? Sure, Jan.

Next IS one of the few points where they argue on behalf of the Firm well, although I think the best argument for them is the “We get out of the way and let our lawyers do their job” type statement Corvino made.

He’s arguing that the sanctions would be unduly punitive because sanctions are supposed to be a “deterrent message” but in Minkoff’s section the Judge already said “That's not my job, and I didn't set out to do that.“ That was about warning the public, not warning these lawyers but the point remains: the Judge isn’t here to warn the lawyers, he’s here “ to bring these respondents before the Court to answer for their actions and nothing more”.

The Judge has some closing comments, first thanking everyone for coming, then:

I want to make an important observation. It's not fair to pick apart people's words, but I'll just note that, repeatedly, this has been described as a mistake. And framing this as a mistake, I understand why it's framed that way, and the mistake is to have submitted the brief on March 1 that cited nonexistent cases.

But that's not what this is all about. [...] I doubt we would be here today if the narrative ended there. There was a reply brief filed by Avianca. The record will reflect whether that brief put Mr. Schwartz and Mr. LoDuca on actual notice that their cases were nonexistent. There was an order from the Court on April 11 calling upon Mr. LoDuca, not a law firm, not an entity, not the plaintiff, Mr. LoDuca to submit copies of the cases. We know how Mr. LoDuca responded to that. We know how Mr. Schwartz prepared the response. We know what they submitted and what they said about it. We know a lot more now. But this case is not just about the March 1 submission. It's what happened thereafter is an important part and an essential part of that narrative.

And then he marks the affadavit as Exhibit 1 and adjourns the hearing.

If I’m Schwartz walking out of this hearing, I’m terrified. The Judge was not pleased with the presentations by his team, ascribing the Court’s motives and being unnecessarily repetitive.

If I’m LoDuca walking out of this hearing, I’m feeling a bit less shaky? But I personally wouldn’t make any bets. His best defense is that he didn’t do due diligence, and as a lawyer you have an obligation to your clients and the court to do just that.

If I’m Corvino, I’m wondering if no news is good news, as it were. The Judge didn’t have questions for him, the lawyers hardly mentioned the Firm as a whole in their presentations, maybe they’re really just there because they happen to be these idiots’ employers? Their best defense is also not knowing anything, but not being familiar with the case makes it a lot more credible.

If I’m Mata, I’m probably gonna sue these guys for my medical bills pending how the retrial goes. Assuming he can bring this again once the dust settles, but I don’t see why this wouldn’t be a mistrial or otherwise dismissed without prejudice? I believe is the term.

If I’m the defendants or their counsel, I’m laughing my ass off at this while also being fucking pissed that what should have been an open and shut case is being dragged out like this. What a waste of time. Why wouldn’t you at least skim what you’re presenting. gods above.

So yeah. Let me know if y’all see what I do vis a vis the Judge not being happy with Schwartz’s lawyers and why.

#2 stupid 2 sanction #I should note that i'm not a lawyer i just have lawyers and stenographers in the family #including the remnants of a law library in the house #so like. I can look up the technical terms but when you get into citing specific cases it all goes over my head #I saw someone point out that it's relatively simple to get temporarily admitted to this court esp if you work with someone who's already #barred there so like. Loduca gotta be kicking himself that he didn't just wash his hands of all this. #also idk why the firm is sharing counsel with schwartz instead of loduca when schwartz was the one who did the dubiou #s action. unless its about when they were called to show cause? #idk idk not a lawyer not a paralegal etc.

[snovyda]

One more thing that pisses me off right now (among so many others) is the way Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are acting as if they have ANY moral high ground.

Let me remind you that seven months after russia's brutal, illegal and unjustified invasion of Georgia (Sakartvelo) filled with war crimes, Obama announced his "russian reset" policy.

Here is Hillary Clinton resetting things with the fascist horse that is Sergey Lavrov:

And here is Obama being buddies with russian then-president dmitriy medvedev, two years after that invasion

This paved the way for russia to commit further atrocities. Because they were only rewarded for them. Russia's later actions in Syria went completely unpunished, and their invasion on Ukraine in 2014 had barely any reaction except for some sanctions that mostly worked just on paper.

You are neck deep in blood. So much blood. Just like your German BFF Angela Merkel, who rewarded russia for its invasion of Ukraine with a shiny Nord Stream 2 pipeline, while also doing everything possible to restrain Ukraine's efforts to defend itself.

I am sick and tired of people (including here on this website) pretty much idolizing these stupid greedy bastards.

#russia must burn #politics #barack obama #hillary clinton #angela merkel

[tomorrowusa]

In addition to being the dictator party and the abortion police party, the GOP is becoming the "kill the gays" party.

In a little-noticed Oct. 8 speech in Uganda, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) urged that nation to stand behind its new Anti-Homosexuality Act, which includes the death penalty. Walberg’s remarks came at Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast. His trip to attend the event was paid for by the secretive U.S. group behind the National Prayer Breakfast, congressional filings show. As the keynote speaker of the Entebbe event, Walberg advised Uganda to “stand firm” on the new law. Walberg can be seen in video of the event listening to, endorsing, and associating himself with the remarks of other speakers. Speakers called LGBTQ+ advocates “a force from the bottom of Hell” and urged government officials to adopt “Christocracy” over democracy. Walberg explicitly encouraged Uganda’s leaders to resist opposition to the law from the U.S., the UN, and other global institutions. His audience included President Yoweri Museveni, who signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act into law in May. Museveni afterwards said Walberg’s presence showed his people that there were Americans who “think like us.” Walberg justified his Uganda trip as related to his official duties in part because of his role as co-chair of the Feb. 2 U.S. National Prayer Breakfast.

Yep, Rep. Walberg went on a junket (taxpayer financed?) to the most homophobic country in Sub-Saharan Africa just to "pray" at breakfast — presumably for the death of gays. And he got to do so alongside the country's longtime authoritarian president.

Yoweri Museveni has been mis-leading his country since 26 January 1986 – the same day the Chicago Bears won Super Bowl XX. He's one of those corrupt de facto presidents for life who plague a number of countries in Africa. It's natural that Republicans would gravitate towards such a figure.

[L]ast year’s Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast also served as a rally to resist international pressure for LGBTQ+ rights. The latest version of the Anti-Homosexuality bill, commonly known as the “Kill the Gays Bill,” was introduced shortly afterwards. The law provides penalties of lengthy prison sentences and even execution for “aggravated homosexuality,” including “serial offenses.” Even advocating for LGBTQ+ rights can mean years behind bars under the new law. Just attempting to engage in same-sex conduct can draw a sentence of ten years. According to Human Rights Watch, Ugandan rights groups have seen a spike in anti-LGBTQ discrimination and persecution since the bill’s introduction. Advocates in Uganda report government crackdowns on rights organizations and, since the law was enacted in May, hundreds of individual acts of violence, discrimination, and even evictions. As recently as Dec. 11, the Biden administration reiterated its demand that Uganda repeal the law and stop its official persecution. The White House cited U.S. visa restrictions and sanctions of Ugandan officials. The U.S. has suggested further economic consequences may follow.

Walberg seemed to imply that he's not on the side of the United States of America. Well, that's not unusual of House Republicans.

Referring to himself and the Ugandans there as “we,” Walberg asked, “Whose side do we wanna be on? God’s side. Not the World Bank, not the United States of America, necessarily, not the UN. God’s side.”

Somebody should ask Rep. Walberg if he's going to introduce a "Kill the Gays Bill" in the US House. Knowing how self-hating the Log Cabin Republicans are, they'd probably lobby in favor of such a bill.

A fascist mindset permeates the Republican Party. If you support the continuation of democracy in this country, Vote Blue No Matter Who. People who claim that both parties are the same are either stupid or too lazy to pay attention.

#lgbtq+ #us house of representatives #mi-05 #republicans #tim walberg #house republicans #homophobia #christocracy #“kill the gays bill” #uganda #persecution of gays #yoweri museveni #national prayer breakfast #lgbtq rights #vote blue no matter who #election 2024

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Ha, Germany is nothing. People in France are literally outraged when they don't have their government overreach.

Case in point, Pierre Palmade : Famous french actor is rushed to the hospital in critical condition after being in a car crash, drugged out of his mind, with 2 more people (his dealers I think ?) inside the car, who fled the scene and were arrested shortly after. iirc, a few days later, someone anonymously comes forward and claims Palmade showed him CP at a party. I'm not sure those claims were ever proven, it stopped getting media attention before reaching a conclusion and I never followed up.

What was the debate centered about ? In one sentence, "Why didn't the government do more to prevent this ?"

So a man took drugs (already illegal), drove under the influence of said drugs (very illegal !), and then crashed his car into another (even more illegal !), and the public's response was... that it wasn't illegal enough. Let that sink in. So of course the government didn't miss this opportunity and is talking about reinforcing sanctions for DUIs, and increased police budget.

I have so many examples of behavior like this. One time I mentioned the story of magnet fishing in France (guy fishes old ww2 landmines, alerts no one (already illegal), and then takes them home to proudly expose them (even more illegal), and thus contaminates his whole home & car, and his whole family has to be treated for phosphorus poisoning. Government sees very illegal thing and decides to shadow-ban magnet fishing, which now requires permission from the département, something that they have absolutely no reason to give and therefore never do), in a room full of seemingly not completely stupid people, and everyone looked at me like I was crazy and wanted to blow everyone up with land mines. The most sympathetic opinion from the ensuing debate was "That should definitely require a license of some sort, maybe like a driver's license where you need to do it with a certified professional for 20 or 30 hours". Great, so this popular hobby where you throw a magnet tied to a rope into a river, where the biggest thing you'll probably pull out is a stolen bike, should now be illegal unless you spend thousands of euros on a piece of paper that changes absolutely nothing ? Yeah that's a normal position to hold.

Jesus. That's next level brainrot. How do they cope with people being allowed access to the air outside without needing a license and 20 hours of breathing training under a government certified expert? Seems like something that would cause them great anxiety.