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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 17, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

A year ago tonight, Georgia Representative John Lewis passed away from pancreatic cancer at 80 years old. As a young adult, Lewis was a “troublemaker,” breaking the laws of his state: the laws upholding racial segregation. He organized voting registration drives and in 1960 was one of the thirteen original Freedom Riders, white and Black students traveling together from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans to challenge segregation. “It was very violent. I thought I was going to die. I was left lying at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery unconscious,” Lewis later recalled.

An adherent of the philosophy of nonviolence, Lewis was beaten by mobs and arrested 24 times. As chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC—pronounced “snick”), he helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington where the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., told more than 200,000 people gathered at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial that he had a dream. Just 23 years old, Lewis spoke at the march. Two years later, as Lewis and 600 marchers hoping to register African American voters in Alabama stopped to pray at the end of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, mounted police troopers charged the marchers, beating them with clubs and bullwhips. They fractured Lewis’s skull.

To observers in 1965 reading the newspapers, Lewis was simply one of the lawbreaking protesters who were disrupting the “peace” of the South. But what seemed to be fruitless and dangerous protests were, in fact, changing minds. Shortly after the attack in Selma, President Lyndon Baines Johnson honored those changing ideas when he went on TV to support the marchers and call for Congress to pass a national voting rights bill. On August 6, 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act authorizing federal supervision of voter registration in districts where African Americans were historically underrepresented.

When Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, just 6.7 percent of Black voters in Mississippi were registered to vote. Two years later, almost 60% of them were. In 1986, those new Black voters helped to elect Lewis to Congress. He held the seat until he died, winning reelection 16 times.

Now, just a year after Representative Lewis’s death, the voting rights for which he fought are under greater threat than they have been since 1965. After the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision of the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act by taking away Department of Justice supervision of election changes in states with a history of racial discrimination, Republican-dominated state legislatures began to enact measures that would cut down on minority voting.

At Representative Lewis’s funeral, former President Barack Obama called for renewing the Voting Rights Act. "You want to honor John?” he said. “Let's honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for.” Instead, after the 2020 election, Republican-dominated legislatures ramped up their effort to skew the vote in their favor by limiting access to the ballot. As of mid-June 2021, 17 states had passed 28 laws making it harder to vote, while more bills continue to move forward.

Then, on July 1, by a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court handed down Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, saying that the state of Arizona did not violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act when it passed laws that limited ballot delivery to voters, family members, or caregivers, or when it required election officials to throw out ballots that voters had cast in the wrong precincts by accident.

The fact that voting restrictions affect racial or ethnic groups differently does not make them illegal, Justice Samuel Alito wrote. “The mere fact that there is some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote.”

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a blistering dissent, in which Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined. “If a single statute represents the best of America, it is the Voting Rights Act,” Kagan wrote, “It marries two great ideals: democracy and racial equality. And it dedicates our country to carrying them out.” She explained, “The Voting Rights Act is ambitious, in both goal and scope. When President Lyndon Johnson sent the bill to Congress, ten days after John Lewis led marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, he explained that it was “carefully drafted to meet its objective—the end of discrimination in voting in America.” It gave every citizen “the right to an equal opportunity to vote.”

“Much of the Voting Rights Act’s success lay in its capacity to meet ever-new forms of discrimination,” Kagan wrote. Those interested in suppressing the vote have always offered “a non-racial rationalization” even for laws that were purposefully discriminatory. Poll taxes, elaborate registration regulations, and early poll closings were all designed to limit who could vote but were defended as ways to prevent fraud and corruption, even when there was no evidence that fraud or corruption was a problem. Kagan noted that the Arizona law permitting the state to throw out ballots cast in the wrong precinct invalidated twice as many ballots cast by Indigenous Americans, Black Americans, and Hispanic Americans as by whites.

“The majority’s opinion mostly inhabits a law-free zone,” she wrote.

Congress has been slow to protect voting rights. Although it renewed the Voting Rights Act by an overwhelming majority in 2006, that impulse has disappeared. In March 2021, the House of Representatives passed the For the People Act on which Representative Lewis had worked, a sweeping measure that protects the right to vote, removes dark money from politics, and ends partisan gerrymandering. Republicans in the Senate killed the bill, and Democrats were unwilling to break the filibuster to pass it alone.

An attempt simply to restore the provision of the Voting Rights Act gutted in 2013 has not yet been introduced, although it has been named: the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Only one Republican, Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski, has signed on to the bill.

Yesterday, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Representative Joyce Beatty (D-OH), was arrested with eight other protesters in the Hart Senate Office Building for demanding legislation to protect voting rights.

After her arrest, Beatty tweeted: “You can arrest me. You can’t stop me. You can’t silence me.”

Last June, Representative Lewis told Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart that he was “inspired” by last summer’s peaceful protests in America and around the world against police violence. “It was so moving and so gratifying to see people from all over America and all over the world saying through their action, ‘I can do something. I can say something,’” Lewis told Capehart. “And they said something by marching and by speaking up and speaking out.”

Capehart asked Lewis “what he would say to people who feel as though they have already been giving it their all but nothing seems to change.” Lewis answered: “You must be able and prepared to give until you cannot give any more. We must use our time and our space on this little planet that we call Earth to make a lasting contribution, to leave it a little better than we found it, and now that need is greater than ever before.”

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair,” Lewis tweeted almost exactly a year before his death. “Do not become bitter or hostile. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. We will find a way to make a way out of no way.”

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Notes:

Capehart: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/10/john-lewis-black-lives-matter-protesters-give-until-you-cannot-give-any-more/

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2021-07-02/17-states-have-passed-restrictive-voting-laws-this-year-report-says

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #John Lewis #voter rights #history #racial equality

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raptured-night · 4 years

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Hello, I have two questions this time. Why do you think we can’t really compare Death Eaters to Nazis? Why can’t we really compare purism with racism? Oh and do you think Death Eaters are more like nowadays’ terrorists or not?

So, it's no secret that I have drawn attention to the issue of Death Eaters being treated as literal stand-ins for Nazis or blood purism as a literal example of racism. Importantly, there is a difference between acknowledging the ways that Death Eaters or blood purity might work as semi-functional allegories for the Nazis and their ideology, white supremacy, racism, etc., and treating fictional representations of invented prejudices as if they were comparable or on par with non-fictional Nazi ideology, white supremacy, or systemic racism.

An article for Medium makes this point very well:

Silent resisters and ‘I don’t really care about politics’ people deserve our contempt. But what makes those who filter life through fiction and historical revisionism worse is that they are performing a soggy simulacrum of political engagement.

As a woman of colour watching, all I can do here is amplify the call to step away from your bookshelf. Let go of The Ring. My humanity exists independently of whether I am good or bad, and regardless of where the invented-fictional-not-real Sorting Hat puts me.

Realise that people are in danger right now, with real world actions needed in response, and not just because you want to live out your dreams of being Katniss Everdeen.

The problem with discussing Harry Potter’s fictional examples of prejudice as if they were literal or completely comparable with real-life prejudices is that it does lead to an oversimplification of the reality of prejudice (whether white supremacy, racism, homophobia, transphobia --looking at you Jo-- or otherwise) and the very real people who experience these prejudices every day. The fantasy of being Harry Potter up against Umbridge or Voldemort in a YA series where the line between the good and bad guys is almost clearly denoted by the narrator is a far cry from the reality of what activism is or what living under oppression is like for many marginalized people.

I would argue that this is also a leading reason why the “social justice” (yes, in many cases I believe that deserves to be enclosed in dubious quotations) discourse in Harry Potter fandom trends more towards performative than it does sincere (one need only look at the defense posts for Rowling in response to real marginalized groups criticizing her for things ranging from her offensive representation of Asian people, Indigenous and Native peoples, or her failures in representing the lgbtq+ community particularly in light of her coming out as an open TERF and they can get an idea of how those “I’m an intersectional feminist/social justice ally and that’s why I read HP!” fans quickly shift gears to throw the bulk of their allyship behind Rowling instead) because when you spend all of your time debating fictional prejudices it’s much easier to detach oneself from the reality of non-fictional prejudice and its impact on real people.

Fiction has no stakes. There is a beginning, middle, and end. In Rowling’s fictional world, Harry Potter ends with Harry and “the side of light” the victor over her allegorical representation of evil and he gets his happily-ever-after in a world we are led to believe is at peace and made a better place. In the real world, decades after the fall of Hitler, there are still Nazis and white supremacists who believe in the glory of an Aryan/pure-white race and are responsible for acts of violence towards marginalized groups; even after the fall of the Confederacy in the U.S. we are still debating the removal of monuments erected in their honor (and the honor of former slave owners and colonialists like Christopher Columbus) while the nation continues mass protests over the systemic police brutality Black people and other people of color have long faced (not to mention the fact the KKK are still allowed to gather while the FBI conspired to destroy the Black Panther Party and discredit them as a dangerous extremist organization).

As a professor in literature, I’ve often argued that fiction can be a reflection of reality and vice versa. Indeed, it can be a subversive tool for social change and resistance (e.g. Harlem Renaissance) or be abused for the purposes of propaganda and misrepresentation (e.g. Jim Crow era racism in cartoons). So, I am not underscoring the influencing power of fiction but I do believe it is important that when attempting to apply fictional representations to real-world issues we do so with a certain awareness of the limitations of fiction. As I have already observed, there is an absence of real-world stakes for fiction. Fictional stories operate under a narrative structure that clearly delineates the course they will take, which is not the case for real life. In addition, the author’s own limitations can greatly affect the way their fiction may reflect certain non-fictional issues. Notably, a close reading of Harry Potter does reveal the way Rowling’s own transphobic prejudices influenced her writing, not least in the character of Rita Skeeter (but arguably even in her failed allegory for werewolves, which are supposed to reflect HIV prejudices, but she essentially presented us with two examples of werewolves that are either openly predatory towards children or accidentally predatory because they canonically can’t control themselves when their bodies undergo “transformations” that make them more dangerous and no surprise her most predatory example, Fenrir Greyback, seems to have embraced his transformation entirely versus Lupin who could be said to suffer more from body dysmorphia/shame).

Ultimately, fiction is often a reflection of our non-fictional reality but it is not always an exact reflection. It can be a simplification of a more complex reality; a funhouse mirror that distorts that reality entirely, or the mirror might be a bit cracked or smudged and only reflecting a partial image. Because fiction does have its limits (as do authors of fiction), writers have certain story-telling conventions on hand through which they can examine certain aspects of reality through a more vague fictional lens, such as metaphor, symbolism, and allegory. Thus, the Death Eaters can function on an allegorical level without being problematic where they cannot when we treat them as literal comparisons to Nazis or white supremacist groups (particularly when we show a greater capacity for empathy and outrage over Rowling’s fictional prejudice, to the extent we’ll willingly censor fictional slurs like Mudblood, than we do real-world examples of racism and racial microaggressions). As an allegory, Voldemort and his Death Eaters can stand in for quite a few examples of extremism and prejudice that provoke readers to reflect more on the issue of how prejudice is developed and how extremist hate-groups and organizations may be able to rise and gain traction. Likewise, blood prejudice looked at as a fictional allegory goes a lot further than when we treat it as a literal comparison to racism, wherein it becomes a lot more problematic.

I’ve discussed this before at length, along with others, and I will share some of those posts to give a better idea of some of the issues that arise when we try to argue that Voldemort was a literal comparison to Hitler, the Death Eaters were literal comparisons to Nazi, or that blood purity is a literal comparison to racism.

On the issue of blood prejudice as racism and Death Eaters as Nazis, per @idealistic-realism00.

On the issue of blood prejudice as racism, my own thoughts.

On the issue of Death Eaters and literal Nazi comparisons, per @deathdaydungeon and myself.

Finally, as I have already argued, the extent to which fiction can function as a reflection of non-fictional realities can be limited by the author’s own perceptions. In the above links, you will note that I and others have critiqued Rowling’s portrayal of prejudice quite thoroughly and identified many of the flaws inherent in her representations of what prejudice looks like in a real-world context. The very binary (i.e. good/bad, right/wrong, dark/light) way that she presents prejudice and the fact that her villains are always clearly delineated and more broadly rejected by the larger society undermines any idea of a realistic representation of prejudice as systemic (we could make a case for an effort being made but as her narrative fails to ever properly address prejudice as systemic in any sort of conclusive way when taken along with her epilogue one can argue her representation of systemic prejudice and its impact fell far short of the mark, intended or otherwise). In addition to that, the two most notable protagonists that are part of her marginalized class (i.e. Muggle-born) are two comfortably middle-class girls, one of whom is clearly meant to be white (i.e. Lily) and the other who is most widely associated with the white actress (Emma Watson) who played her for over a decade before Rowling even hinted to the possibility Hermione could also be read as Black due to the casting of Noma Dumezweni for Cursed Child.

Overall, Rowling is clearly heavily influenced by second-wave feminist thought (although I would personally characterize her as anti-feminist having read her recent “essay,” and I use the term loosely as it was primarily a polemic of TERF propaganda, defending her transphobia, and reexamined the Harry Potter series and her gender dichotomy in light of her thoughts on “womanhood”) and as far as we are willing to call her a feminist, she is a white feminist. As a result, the representation of prejudice in Harry Potter is a distorted reflection of reality through the lens of a white feminist whose own understanding of prejudice is limited. Others, such as @somuchanxietysolittletime and @ankkaneito have done well to point out inconsistencies with Rowling’s intended allegories and the way the Harry Potter series overall can be read as a colonialist fantasy. So, for all of these reasons, I don’t think we should attempt to make literal comparisons between Rowling’s fictional examples of prejudice to non-fictional prejudice or hate groups. The Death Eaters and Voldemort are better examined as more of a catch-all allegory for prejudice when taken to it’s most extreme. Aicha Marhfour makes an important point in her article when she observes:

Trump isn’t himself, or even Hitler. He is Lord Voldemort. He is Darth Vader, or Dolores Umbridge — a role sometimes shared by Betsy DeVos or Tomi Lahren, depending on who you’re talking to. Obama is Dumbledore, and Bernie Sanders is Dobby the goddamn house elf. Republicans are Slytherins, Democrats are Gryffindors.

The cost of making these literal comparisons between Voldemort or the Death Eaters to other forms of extremism, perceived evil, or hate is that we impose a fictional concept over a non-fictional reality and unintentionally strip the individual or individuals perpetrating real acts of prejudice or oppression of some of their accountability. I can appreciate how such associations may help some people cope and for the readers of the intended age category of Harry Potter (i.e. YA readers) it might even be a decent primer to understanding real-world issues. However, there comes a point where we must resist the impulse to draw these comparisons and go deeper. Let Voldemort and the Death Eaters exist as allegories but I think it is important we all listen to what many fans of color, Jewish fans, lgbtq+ fans, etc. are saying and stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by treating these fictional characters and their fictional prejudices as if they were just as real, just as impactful, and just as deserving of our empathy and outrage as the very real people who are living daily with very real prejudices --because they’re not equal and they shouldn’t be.

#anti-rowling #systemic racism #nazi mention: cw #white supremacy #godwins law #allegory #harry potter #harry potter meta

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arcticdementor · 3 years

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On June 2, 2020, a crowd of mostly white people arrived at a library parking lot in Bethesda, Maryland, to show solidarity with a Black Lives Matter rally. During the rally, one of the organizers had the crowd raise their hands and take a pledge to oppose racism. The attendees obeyed and repeated the pledge, many kneeling as though in prayer. A video of the event made its way around the internet, providing yet more evidence that America is experiencing a religious revival on the political left — and that the heart of this revival is the deification of group identity.

Until the last few years, identity politics — now commonly referred to as "wokeness" — has avoided serious scrutiny as a religious movement. Yet even before the Bethesda episode, political observers had an inkling of its religious character. Professor Elizabeth Corey's recollection of her experience at a 2017 conference addressing identity and the law offers one illuminating example. One of the presentations she described featured a call-and-response session that ended with an exhortation for political revolution. "I began to feel that I was not at an academic lecture at all," she wrote, "but at an Evangelical church with a charismatic pastor."

…

Scholars of religion tell us that the human person encounters the divine in two distinct ways: subjectively, as with matters of faith, and objectively, by performing rites in accordance with their faith.

The objective components of religious experience are those that onlookers can easily observe. They consist of what Wilfred Cantwell Smith calls "cumulative tradition" — the liturgies, processions, pilgrimages, public acts of penance, and other rites that faith communities celebrate. The behavior of the attendees during the Bethesda rally offers a useful illustration of such phenomena, as does the call-and-response session Corey described.

Within these cumulative traditions, people have personal encounters with religion. These encounters are subjective, in the sense that each person experiences the divine in a way that no outside observer can measure. Social scientists can record such encounters through interviews, but they can never experience them or reproduce them in their scholarship. Subjective religious experiences are very real, however, meaning that they cannot be dismissed simply because social-science methods cannot comprehend them. Gaining a full understanding of wokeness, therefore, requires an account of both its public rites and the subjective religious experiences of woke adherents.

We can begin our analysis of the emerging woke faith by probing its concept of the divine. Wokeness has an unconventional understanding of divinity that tends to disguise its religiosity from those accustomed to monotheism; in fact, the notion may not be fully recognized among its practitioners themselves. For the woke, identity is the source of divinity. Yet individuals are not divine on their own; they only participate in the divinity found in shared group identities.

Certain segments of wokeness also exhibit pantheistic traits in that they view the natural world as divine. For these adherents — particularly those who identify as vegan, green, and in some cases, indigenous — nature unmolested offers harmony within the individual and among the growing multiplicity of identities that make up humanity. For other segments of the woke community, human beings must adjust nature to render internal identities external. Gender re-assignment surgeries and hormone replacement or suppression regimens for transgender persons are among the most conspicuous examples.

…

What Wade describes is a central rite of passage into the woke framework. The transition typically begins with a person living an ordinary existence of production and consumption. Over time, the individual notices how this way of life is lonely and unfulfilling. Traditional authorities are hypocritical or incompetent. Nothing is as it appears. There is a sense of living in a "Cartesian nightmare" in which the world exists not because God created it, but because the devil — or what in traditional Gnostic texts is called the "demiurge" — did. It is only when the individual discovers a small collection of like-minded believers who have pierced the veil to see past the illusions of the world that he "awakens." Together, woke believers become a people apart from and above those who still labor in the corrupted world of appearances.

These like-minded groups of believers replace the un-woke families, neighborhoods, and religious communities in which the woke individual was raised. Scholars and activists call these voluntary communities "families of choice" — safe harbors for woke individuals who feel unsafe in a traditional family or community, often because of bullying or violence they experienced. Woke families of choice are grounded in the identities that woke individuals adopt. To share an identity with others after becoming woke is to subject one's personal identity to the rules governing that group, and in turn, to police those rules.

According to the woke creed of intersectionality, human beings are composed of not just one, but a multiplicity of identities, among which are race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, and sexual preference. In his book American Awakening, Joshua Mitchell classifies these various identities using the terms "innocent" and "guilty" in an effort to compare wokeness to a kind of decomposed version of Protestant Christianity. According to Mitchell's account, the guilty identity, or scapegoat — namely the white, heterosexual male — must be purged in order to restore and confirm the cleanliness of all other identity groups. He is the "transgressor," Mitchell explains. "All others — women, blacks, Hispanics, LGBTQ persons — have their sins of omission and commission covered over by scapegoating" this transgressor, just as the scapegoated Christ covered over the sins of all the descendants of Adam.

Yet wokeness involves a complicated system of ranks that do not break down easily into two, mutually exclusive categories. It's more useful to think of woke identities in caste terms, wherein the highest-caste identities are "clean" and lower-caste identities are increasingly "unclean." Unclean identities are those born into "privilege," while clean identities are those that suffer under oppressive cultural forces like whiteness, masculinity, heteronormativity, cisgenderism, Christianity, capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and even humanity (as in the presumption of human beings' superiority to the rest of the natural world). A person bearing all of these identities is maximally unclean, since he is thought to have experienced no suffering and only privilege. Those individuals bearing oppressed identities — including racial minorities, women, gays and lesbians, transgender persons, religious minorities, and indigenous people — are considered clean.

…

The key animating principle of wokeness is the collective struggle against the evil geist that inhabits the privileged, with the ultimate goal being the reversal of the advantages inherited by the privileged in favor of those who have suffered. The cleaner identities, by virtue of their cleanliness, have the standing to determine how the struggle is to proceed. The privileged, meanwhile, must atone for their unclean status by struggling alongside the clean. All must struggle, but the privileged must struggle most of all.

The primary means by which the privileged may join the struggle is through "allyship" — the subordination of their privileged identities to those who have historically endured the greatest suffering. For this reason, Mitchell is not quite right when he says there is no possibility of forgiveness in wokeness; it's just not the kind of Christian forgiveness that he and others recognize. Forgiveness for the woke comes from becoming a good ally. There is no absolution, however, as privilege is permanent. The privileged, therefore, are required to engage in constant, public acts of atonement.

The willfully privileged — those who refuse to struggle alongside the clean — remain unclean. The firmer their attachment to their privilege, the less clean they are. Whites who refuse to reckon with their privilege make up the majority of this lower caste, with the least clean among them being white supremacists — among which include neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, Proud Boys, and even devotees to right-wing conspiracies like QAnon — who revel in their privilege. These are the untouchables of the woke hierarchy. Due to their willful privilege, they are thought to deserve any hardships they suffer.

…

The afterlife for the woke is not one where the soul awaits the judgment of creation. Rather, like the pagan Romans, the woke find life after death through fama, or the renown due to a person who lived a glorious life. Similarly, fate for the woke seems to lie in the continued caste struggle. Yet whatever successes the woke might achieve, they are never complete, and are always subject to reaction. This makes the outlook of the woke a rather bleak one.

…

As theologian William Cavanaugh observes, the claim that there exist boundaries between religion and non-religion, and that these boundaries are "natural, eternal, fixed, and immutable," is a relatively new phenomenon that came about "with the rise of the modern state." "The new state's claim to a monopoly on violence, lawmaking, and public allegiance within a given territory," he continues, "depends upon either the absorption of the church into the state or the relegation of the church to an essentially private realm."

In the latter scenario, state actors profess indifference on matters of faith, provided the faithful make no effort to interfere with the use of state power. This is the stance the woke ostensibly push for in the public sphere, especially with regard to traditional religious faiths (more on that later). Yet as philosophy professor Francis Beckwith has argued, such an arrangement is arguably incoherent, as matters of faith place the faithful under obligations to act on their faith in the public realm. To demand privatization of faith, therefore, is to ban it outside of the human heart.

The second possibility Cavanaugh raises is equally dangerous. In this scenario, the state absorbs the church and uses its monopoly on violence to impose at least outward compliance with the religious tenets of that church. In America today, these tenets are increasingly the tenets of wokeness.

If wokeness is a religion, it is a civil religion, in the sense that it merges one's duty to the divine to that of the state. For proof, one need only examine how in recent years, in cities across the nation, woke protesters have torn down statues of the old American civil religion of the founders, Catholic saints, and soldiers, and demanded new ones be built in their place to honor the gods of the woke pantheon.

For the woke, the state is the central entity through which clean identities struggle not only for justice, but to secure patronage. Eric Voegelin's Political Religions offers a useful example of how a religious patronage system works. Here again, we depart from Western — and indeed, modern — monotheistic faiths to draw comparisons between wokeness and a much older, polytheistic tradition.

In ancient Egypt, according to Voegelin, temples of the lower gods were linked in a patronage network that held the different regions together. The pharaoh patronized the gods of these temples by offering local priests and aristocrats prestige, money, and power. In exchange, the priests and aristocrats pledged their loyalty to the pharaoh. While rival cults disliked having to compete for state patronage, they all agreed that the worst outcome would be for the pharaoh to reserve the patronage for his own god and put the local cults out of business. And so they agreed to the arrangement.

The woke patronage network functions in much the same way. Patronage in wokeness takes several forms, the cheapest of which is recognition, or the state's acknowledgment that certain identities are deserving of respect and deference. Bearers of clean identities look to the state for such recognition, typically in the form of a holiday, a public display, or a committee or hearing on matters of importance to woke identities. From there, they seek out more significant forms of patronage, including financial and political investments. Examples may include academic chairs or departments at colleges and universities, along with monetary compensation covering expenses like medical procedures and the restoration of property.

…

This arrangement is merely an updated version of the Egyptian patronage system Voegelin described: The different identities that populate the city receive state patronage as they supervise the diversity, equity, and inclusion of clean identities in the public sphere. Thus when Ibram Kendi — a historian and founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research — suggests establishing a department of anti-racism at the federal level, he is merely applying the logic of municipal governments on a larger scale.

To gain further leverage over the state, the woke frequently court influence in the corporate world. Such efforts date at least back to 2017, when Pepsi hoped to capitalize on Black Lives Matter protests by launching an advertisement featuring a short narrative of a self-satisfied consumer, played by supermodel Kendall Jenner, emerging from her private world to join a broader movement of individuals living out their own authentic identities. The participants depicted in the ad are unified in this endeavor through their attachment to global corporate brands — in this case, Pepsi — that support them in their efforts to win over the state's coercive power to work the will of the diverse identities united under wokeness.

…

Consultants like DiAngelo provide prestige for elite organizations seeking to adorn themselves with examples of their continued commitment to the moral issues of the day — in exchange for a fee, of course. Yet questions remain as to the efficacy of these arrangements. As Bonny Brooks argues in Arc Digital, "activism is now firmly near the top of many big-brand marketing agendas" because it "is a lot simpler to appropriate images of protest to sell soda than to ensure there are no exploitative practices in your supply chain." Helen Lewis of the Atlantic concurs, defining the "iron law of woke capitalism" to be that "[b]rands will gravitate toward low-cost, high-noise signals as a substitute for genuine reform, to ensure their survival."

…

Some universities are looking to ground higher education entirely in the tenets of wokeness. The University of Tulsa, for example, has recently sought to re-orient the university around the twin pillars of business and social justice while cutting the traditional core curriculum to the bone. Among those angry at the decision are many of the students. Meanwhile, Ivy League institutions have owned up to their history of systemic racism by making the appropriate hiring and funding decisions — all while vigorously defending themselves from lawsuits made on behalf of Asian Americans claiming systemic exclusion in their present-day admissions processes.

Wokeness is the opiate of the elites. None of the patronage directly benefits struggling communities; it simply moves funds from state institutions, global corporations, and universities to diversity, equity, and inclusion consultants. These consultants, in turn, serve as moral and spiritual alibis, helping to rehabilitate institutions' public image whenever issues of prejudice emerge. Paradigmatic cases can be found, as Matthew Continetti of the American Enterprise Institute has argued, at global corporations like Alphabet, which generously donates to social-justice organizations while opening an artificial-intelligence research center in China — despite the latter's horrifying record of human-rights abuses (often in service to these very corporations). Like the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, state entities, corporations, and academic institutions offer patronage to the woke gods in exchange for their loyalty. And like the priests in those old Egyptian temples, the consultants grant prestige and temporary absolution while keeping the money.

…

If states and public entities are increasingly patronizing woke identities and causes, are they also establishing wokeness as a government-sanctioned religion? In some respects, they surely are.

The Supreme Court case Lemon v. Kurtzman has set the standard for what qualifies as an unconstitutional establishment of religion in America since 1971. The Lemon test consists of three dictates: Laws must have a secular purpose, they must not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and they must not promote excessive government entanglement in religious matters.

If wokeness is indeed a religion, then efforts to establish its tenets through legal and regulatory frameworks clearly violate the Lemon test. State-sanctioned endorsements of woke identities advance the woke faith, as do municipal commissions tasked with promoting identity-based equity initiatives. Distribution of state money to woke identity groups and causes fosters government entanglement in religion. The hiring of diversity, equity, and inclusion administrators at public universities to oversee the representation of clean identities is akin to those universities hiring priests or rabbis to oversee their adherence to Catholicism or Judaism. In short, if the Supreme Court were to recognize wokeness as a religion, these state-sponsored patronage efforts would have to end.

This conclusion, of course, hinges on whether wokeness constitutes a religion for First Amendment purposes. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has never quite articulated a concrete definition of the term as used in the Constitution. Its earliest attempts included an 1890 description of religion as "one's views of his relations to his Creator, and to the obligations they impose of reverence for his being and character, and of obedience to his will" — a standard that confined religion to traditional monotheistic beliefs. The Court eventually abandoned the use of a belief in a creator as the hallmark of religion, declaring in the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins that the government may not "aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs." While this clarifies that a religion need not involve a creator, it offers little in the way of a distinction between religion and non-religious belief systems.

…

Such vague descriptions may not offer much to guide us, but given what the Court has deemed a religion in past cases, the legal classification of wokeness as a religion likely rests on firm ground. In the Torcaso case, for instance, the Court explicitly recognized both ethical culture and secular humanism — philosophies premised on non-spiritual moral traditions and the rejection of religious dogma — as being "[a]mong religions in this country." Even atheism qualifies for constitutional protection — at least under the amendment's Free Exercise Clause, which draws from the same mention of the term "religion" as the Establishment Clause. The bar for what legally qualifies as a religion is thus quite low. Given the deeply held and undoubtedly sincere nature of woke adherents' beliefs, along with the tenets of wokeness described above (the belief in the divinity of identity, the concept of the woke faith community, the Gnostic understanding of the world, notions of fate and the afterlife, and the moral code grounded in the struggle against oppression), one would be hard pressed to explain how wokeness is less deserving of the status than belief systems explicitly grounded in secularism.

…

If wokeness becomes a legally recognized religion in the United States, efforts by adherents to secure state patronage and enlist public entities in their struggle would violate constitutionally protected natural rights. Historically, such measures have provoked an organized political and legal response among disadvantaged faiths. And that is precisely where we may be headed.

Adherents to wokeness might object by noting that they oppose laws viewed as the product of church-state collusion — including laws that coerce prayer and scripture reading in schools, those that ban the teaching of evolution in schools, and those that mandate days of rest on the Sabbath — as well as displays of religious symbols on state property. This objection is not so much wrong as it is decades out of date.

…

With the decline of the old Judeo-Christian consensus, the woke have sought to establish themselves in the spaces left open by the success of secularization. But as their faith coalesces and their successes build, they are beginning to grow out of those spaces. It seems that at the very moment of its overcoming, the struggle is struggling with itself.

#national affairs #james m patterson

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msclaritea · 4 years

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Oct. 16, 2020, 4:30 PM CDT By April Glaser

“At Joe Biden’s town hall meeting on Thursday, Cedrick Humphrey, a young Black man from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, asked a question central to some of the most recent misinformation tactics at play in the election.

“Many people believe that the true swing demographic in this election will be Black voters under the age of 30, not because they’ll be voting for Trump, but because they won’t vote at all,” he said, adding that he shared this sentiment. “What do you have to say to young Black voters who see voting for you as further participation in a system that continuously fails to protect them?”

Biden answered by pointing to the importance of voting, and to the need to give Black Americans the means to amass wealth and improve access to education.

The question Humphrey posed to the former vice president and the Democratic presidential nominee is part of a broader trend unfolding in the final days before the election. Among all of the social media disinformation campaigns that have preyed on voters in the run-up to Nov. 3, one domestic-originated tactic has become particularly troubling. Some Black social media influencers as well as Black community groups on Facebook who are more progressive than Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, are targeting Black voters less by deceiving them and more by what experts describe as voter depression.

Voter depression isn’t about giving voters the wrong information that would keep them from making it to the polls, like discrediting mail-in ballots by disparaging the postal service.

Rather, with voter depression, the goal is to make people who would otherwise vote feel that there’s no reason to do so, stoking inaction and apathy.

This approach has been a particular challenge for the Biden campaign, while the same voter depression tactics aren’t being used as much on Republican voters, said Jacquelyn Mason, a senior investigative researcher at First Draft, a nonprofit that provides research and training for journalists.

“The absence of enthusiasm around a candidate can really contribute to interference in the form of voter depression,” Mason said. She added that since many progressive Black voters might not be excited about voting for Biden, it raises questions about what the point is of voting at all.

Memes and Micro-influencers

Earlier this month, an Instagram account with over 19,000 followers posted a video of a young Black man asking a series of questions: “Can we vote out systemic racism? Can we vote out police violence?,” before answering, “The obvious answer is no.”

“Don’t vote,” he concludes.

That video is one of thousands of posts in an increasingly popular genre of social media content aimed at discouraging Black people from casting their ballots this election cycle. One of the most prominent examples of voter depression has been the attacks on Harris and her prosecutorial record during her tenure as the district attorney of San Francisco and later the attorney general of California.

In one meme that went viral this month, a mosaic of people’s faces together formed a portrait of her. The meme received some of its most popular shares from accounts of Black conservative social media influencers. The mosaic claims to be a composite image made up of “all the black men she locked up and kept in prison past their release date for jail labor.” It's been shared over 23,000 times on Facebook with no warning next to it that indicates that the image isn’t actually what it claims to be: A closer look reveals the mosaic actually repeats the same faces over and over again.

These tactics started cropping up before the 2016 election with a clip that went viral of Hiliary Clinton where in a speech she referred to Black youth as “superpredators.” During that election, Russian operatives also ran thousands of fake social media accounts in the run-up targeting Black social media users on Facebook with ads based on their interest in “Martin Luther King Jr.,” “Black is beautiful” and the “African American Civil Rights Movement (1954-68).”

Many of those tactics have extended to the current election season. Just this month, Twitter banned a network of more than two dozen accounts of users pretending to be Black Trump supporters, but were in reality profiles created using stock images of Black people or images of Black people lifted from news stories and recycled to give a veneer of authenticity behind the fake accounts proclaiming allegiance to Trump. These accounts amassed hundreds of thousands of retweets and followers before Twitter removed them. While these examples aren’t explicitly voter depression tactics, they are part of a larger disinformation ecosystem that has focused on using Black identity as a way of manipulating the election.

But this election, many of the voter depression memes and posts circulating on social media aimed at dissuading Black people from voting in 2020 are not based on entirely false information.

What makes voter depression narratives so appealing and difficult to dislodge is that there can be “a grain of truth to them,” Mason said.

Voter depression targeting Black communities online are picking up momentum because, according to researchers, they’re coming from accounts people already have relationships with and appear to be authentic.

“Some of the tactics we worry a lot about and are seeing more of are from micro-influencers, like on Instagram Live,” said Jiore Craig, a vice president at GQR, a Democratic research firm, who advises campaigns on disinformation.

Micro-influencers engaged in voter depression may have as low as 10 to 30,000 followers and often speak to them directly to the camera, denigrating the value of voting.

“They are speaking to issues that present pathways to take what either candidate is saying about the voting process and saying instead, ‘Isn’t this just kind of BS?’ Planting the question is a part of the strategy,” Craig said.

“It’s a communication strategy, chipping away at what appears to be a preconceived belief. The name of the game in so many ways is about erosion of trust,” Craig said.

The end goal is to get their audience to then pose questions about the value of voting to their family or friend group––turning their audience into messengers and making the concept more legitimate.

Rebuilding Trust

Some Black advocacy groups are working to undo voter depression efforts with similar tactics, focusing on sharing relatable information from individuals voters trust.

One group leading this work is the political action committee run by the online racial justice organization Color of Change, which has for years conducted advocacy campaigns aimed at large social media platforms, like Facebook, where disinformation and hate speech flourish. This year the group is also working to engage Black voters who are most likely to be targeted by voter depression efforts, in part through a grassroots volunteer program where members are reaching out to friends and family to encourage them to plan their vote.

One of the ways the group is creating a narrative about the importance of voting is by talking about more local races in person and on social media, like district attorney seats, which are also on the ballot in many communities across the country.

“While many, especially irregular Black voters or voters who might be prone to not turn out to vote, might not see the importance of electing a president and the impact on their lives, we are having a conversation with them about the daily decisions that prosecutors make that are causing harm in black communities,” said Arisha Hatch, the vice president and chief of campaigns at Color of Change. “And when we engage in that conversation their mentality begins to shift.”

Greater accountability

In the past six months, Color of Change has been in multiple closed-door meetings with social media companies, like Facebook, Google and Twitter, to talk about what the companies need to do to ensure that their platforms aren’t being used to disenfranchise Black voters ahead of the 2020 election.

While those conversations have been useful––Facebook has promised to expand the definition of content it prohibits because it engages in voter suppression––Color of Change is calling for the company to enforce its policy changes consistently and transparently. NBC News reported in August that Facebook has given special exception to its rules against misinformation on conservative pages.

“The tech companies have a real responsibility in correcting some of the shifts we’re seeing about how information moves,” Hatch said. “That is not only influencing public policy but influencing a more polarized culture that just leads to more gridlock and more working-class people being left out of the American dream.”

#Black Voters #Black Lives Matter #BidenHarris #Petty4JoeBiden #Stop Falling For Voter Depression and Suppression

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aburns21ahsgov · 3 years

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POLITICAL INTEREST GROUPS AND PACS ASSESSMENT

1. CDT (Center for Democracy and Technology)

2. The CDT works to promote democratic values by shaping technology policy and architecture, with a focus on the rights of the individual.

The CDT wants to reform the The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). This act claims that government agencies do not need a warrant to search private information, such as stored email, documents in the cloud, or even the location information generated by mobile devices. The CDT wants to move forward and reform this act as they believe this is outdated and the time has come for ECPA to be reformed to ensure government agents must get a warrant before reading individuals’ private communications or tracking their movements

In 2020 the CDT joined The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and dozens technology advocacy groups in announcing the 2020 Civil Rights Principles for the Era of Big Data. These principles include ending high tech profiling, ensuring justice in automated decisions, preserving constitutional principles, ensuring that technology serves people historically subject to discrimination, defining responsible use of personal information and enhancing individual rights, and finally making systems transparent and accountable

In 2020 the CDT also testified before D.C. Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, highlighting surveillance technology. The statement by Mana Azarmi was mainly focused on how “unchecked and secret high tech policing may exacerbate existing racial inequality in our society, and has the potential to chill the exercise of First Amendment-protected speech, intrude on individual privacy, and cast entire communities under a cloak of suspicion” This statement mostly focused on people of color, and how the government could use technology to discriminate against them, which is unconstitutional: no person should be discriminated against.

The CDT also joined an “open letter” on Civil Society views of defending privacy while preventing criminal acts. This letter focused on how all forms of violence against children online and offline must be effectively eliminated. They gave solutions saying “Many effective measures to achieve that goal may be found outside of technology, ranging from public education and victim support to improved cross-border police cooperation.”

In a recent court case in Massachusetts (Commonwealth v. Mora), the court held that “warrantless, persistent surveillance outside of a home by means of a pole camera violates the Massachusetts State Constitution”, which was the position CDT, EFF, and the ACLU of Massachusetts took.

4. In July 2020, the DCT joined several members of the COS-DC coalition in urging Council members to support two amendments to the bill that would temporarily prohibit the DC government from using IMSI-catchers or biometric surveillance, including facial recognition technology. The CDT believes that in the hands of law enforcement, these technologies pose a significant threat to the civil rights and civil liberties of all District residents.

5. This interest group has two main offices: in Washington, D.C. and Brussels, Belgium. In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, many of the meetings are held online, including RightsCon. The goal of RightsCon was to “bring together business leaders, policy makers, general counsels, technologists, advocates, academics, government representatives, and journalists from around the world to tackle the most pressing issues at the intersection of human rights and technology”. RightsCon will happen again online from Monday June 7 to Friday June 11, 2021.

6. There are a lot of events hosted by the CDT that people can sign up for to talk about pressing issues relating to privacy and security including, The Future of Speech Online 2020, the Community Oversight of Surveillance, the European Data and Protection Conference, and many more.

7. The website was very organized with different areas of focus including, cybersecurity and standards, free expression, government surveillance, open internet, and privacy and data protection. There are many ways to get involved, and the CDT is very welcoming to all those who are interested in joining.

Super PAC

1. Internet Freedom Political Action Committee

2. I couldn’t find this super PAC’s statement.

3. No money was raised or spent.

*I found a couple super PAC’s relating to my issue, but none of them had any statements. None of them had raised any money or spent any money. I’ve spent about 30 minutes researching super PAC’s relating to my topic but still haven’t found anything. I will update this if I find any more relevant information :)

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hamsahands · 4 years

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In August 2014, I marched in Staten Island with Eric Garner's family and thousands of others. Eric Garner took his last breath with a cop's arm around his neck for selling a pack of cigarettes. George Floyd's last words were roughly the same as Eric Garner's. 6 years later I weep at the memory of sitting with Eric Garner's widow, Esau, after church. She told me she wanted justice. I affirmed her and said, 'All we ever wanted was to live.'

Freddie Gray and I have a mutual friend. I marched with Botham Jean's cousin. I have lost count of the number of marches, protests, and vigils I have attended. I could not tell you how many petitions I've signed, phone calls I've made, votes I've casted, hours I've volunteered, organizations I've worked for and donated to in an effort to manifest racial justice. The only response is the continued outright murder of black civilians and the white liberal shock at how this could happen in a country where anti black violence has been a pandemic since its inception.

All we ever wanted was to live

Well intentioned nonblack reader, you may be shocked by what happened to George Floyd. You may be genuinely upset even. But to be horrified is not enough. Your statuses, tears, and words of solidarity are not enough. If anything, being surprised is an insult to black trauma on a generational scale.

Either donate, volunteer, protest, divest, invest, have the tough conversation with your racist aunt or stop talking. Either educate yourself and commit to being antiracist or be complicit in the racism you inherently benefit from, regardless of how bad you feel. Stop asking black people to teach you about the racism they're overtly aware of, it is 2020 and your ignorance is insulting at this point. I am tired of tears and no action, if the majority of nonblack people put their bodies on the line for black lives white supremacy would have ended a while ago. The shock, indifference, unaccountability, guilt/tears, and defensiveness makes me want to burn everything to the ground and salt the earth.

All we ever wanted was to live

One summer in Philly police caught me and my partner at the time pissing in an alley. One of them slapped the phone out of my hand, slammed me over the hood of his car and reached his hand in my pocket to get my wallet so hard he ripped my shorts. They had us cuffed in the back of their car for 30 minutes, and after everything I was just grateful he didn't kill me.

Police have stopped my sister numerous times to the point when my father has come to her aid. They made him stand across the street one time while multiple officers interrogated his daughter. Police as a profession are the descendants of slave catchers. Do not ask me to like them when they keep killing us.

All we ever wanted was to live

They criticize the people of Minneapolis for looting. I wish the folks getting mad over Target would get just as angry at the legacy of anti black violence that has stained America since the first slave ships docked on its shores in 1619. Businesses are insured. Everything taken and burned can be replaced, George Floyd is never coming back. Commodities are protected more than communities, that is why looting is an act of resistance and a direct response to the state sanctioned murder of black people.

All we ever wanted was to live

I do not share images of black people being lynched. The banality of anti black violence has a long history in this country, from the enshrined theology of rape on the plantation, to picnics around black bodies hanging from trees to millions of views of digital lynchings. Do not be surprised when black people Nat Turner the neighborhood in response.

All we ever wanted was to live.

There is only so much we can take. The coronavirus pandemic has taken so much from me. Inequality has acted as a comorbidity, the virus is disproportionately killing poor black people across the country. The pandemic of anti black violence continues to traumatize me. To be black is to have your heart burnt with astonishment but broken with belief that yet another black person was murdered in the street like they weren't somebody's everything. It is a wound that cannot be healed, a rage that cannot be calmed, and tears that cannot be stopped.

All we ever wanted was to live.

- Isaiah DuPree, Queens NY

#so tired #black lives matter #black lives have value #black lives movement #black lives are important #black lives count #black lives fucking matter

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noctomania · 4 years

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As Someone Who Didn’t Vote For 10 Years: Your Vote Matters.

Hey. So, let’s chat. Or rather, hear me out.

I turned 18 in 2006. I did not vote until 2016. Bc even I saw through my apathy & prioritized trying to combat potential fascism. You can get an idea of how many elections one sits out of over a 10yr span here. It’s a lot & I should have done my part much sooner. Though I could say “well I was in college from 2007-2012 & &&” no. Not an excuse. I had time no doubt. I was just apathetic. I have reflections for those who continue to abstain from their right & duty to vote.

I remember my parents encouraging me to register to vote. I think it was part of applying for my license or something. I can’t remember if I ever registered with a party, but I think in TX in order to vote you have to be registered with a party. In any case, since I’ve been registered in the north I haven’t been part of a party bc I too felt the whole thing was a sham. I was still remembering the robbery that was Bush’s terms. TWO WHOLE TERMS. I remember seeing my mom cry when he won his first term. I remember hearing about all the awful shit he was doing as president from my dad & stepmom.

But I also remember thinking: “Why isn’t anyone doing anything?”

It can be incredibly disheartening & frustrating & downright angering to hear about atrocities without hearing about the forces fighting back. Death & Drama sells.

I wasn’t eligible to vote when bush was running. Then Obama came along & I was like “Great, surely my blue state I live in now is all for him & I don’t gotta bother - y'all got my order.”

Your. Vote. Matters.

Obama was an incredible victory. I will never allude to him ever being perfect bc he, just like every other president, has had to make tough decisions that do not always work out, or they make decisions you outright disagree with. He’s just part of the spectrum of what we’ve known, but he was the first Black president of a nation that was built & raised on destroying Native communities & enslaving Black people. That was & will remain significant. As you can imagine, during that time of not voting I also was not entirely involved in racial matters as much as I should have been despite what I was actively learning about in college. I sunk into apathy.

Apathy is a comfort not afforded to everyone. It is not an option for everyone as a means of survival. Were Black communities & of color to sink entirely into apathy they would be completely wiped out bc there are organized white supremacists who spend every waking hour trying to find new ways to attack in covert & not-so-covert ways - voter suppression, intimidation, manipulation, propaganda. Apathy is a privilege. A white privilege that even a kid raised on free lunches at school & hand-me-downs from neighbors could afford.

Your. Vote. Matters.

Let’s talk symbolism. “My refusal to vote is symbolic of my disgust with how this nation is run, how our elections are corrupt, to show my hatred of the electoral college, my vote doesn’t matter anyway bc ...”

You’re right. Your vote is symbolic. But not for what you think.

When you don’t vote, that is like not replying to a message. The nation poses a question to all voters: Who do you want to represent you? If you don’t reply to the email, your input isn’t counted at all. There is no footnote to say “I didn’t vote bc of such-and-such reason.” You might have been unconscious. You might have forgotten. You might have not cared. You might care very much.

But there is literally no job in the entire election process who’s responsibility is to sit in an office & contemplate why Jared in Oklahoma didn’t cast a vote.

“Gee, I sure hope Jared is ok. Is he mad at us? I guess he might want change...”

No. The way you show that you are not happy with how things are going is to vote. THAT is how you send the sentiment of “Hey so this isn’t great I’d like to try moving this way.” But we can’t really make progress without continuing to push. Even when things look like they’re going well (”Hey, we got a Black guy in office, we’re doing great with the racism stuff!”) you gotta keep pushing - which is why you need to be able to realize the ones you do vote for need to be criticized as well. Obviously, there will be myths & the ones about Obama probably hit a record tally on that with how angry a Black person as president made the racists in this country feel, but there are valid criticisms as well that should not be overlooked if we want to know how to push for a better tomorrow, or to avoid accidentally electing a new nightmare bc you aren’t getting immediate results from who you thought was going to change the world. It’s a lot to put on one president. It would take multiple terms, beyond 2, to really see a shift considering they may be combating an opposing congress or supreme court.

The only reason your vote matters is because it is symbolic. If we all had esp we wouldn’t need to vote. Writing on a form that looks different depending on where you are yet all cumulatively results in the tallying for ONE election is entirely symbolic. That’s not an argument against voting, it’s proof as to why you should vote. Symbolism is not without consequence. Look at every book-burning that has ever happened. Our ideas are symbolic until they are put into practice. Your vote is your idea. We can’t read your mind. And the government isn’t reading your blog being like “GiantD0ngB0ng really said it best when they said ‘Fuck politicians’. That really change our perspective on how we had been running this nation. You’re right GiantD0ngB0ng, you’re right.”

If we had elected Hillary after Obama, we wouldn’t be so fucking bad with corona bc she wouldn’t have dismembered the pandemic response Obama had built due to swine flu, we wouldn’t be nearly as worried about ACA, we would still absolutely have criticisms bc no matter Woman, Black, Hispanic, Immigrant, Trans, Disabled, Homeless, or any combination of intersection of minorities, nobody is perfect. Nobody knows all the answers. Thus a decentralized government model that will only remain anywhere near as such if we stop letting fascists & bad faith actors get power by using our symbolic vote to say no.

Most everyone HATES group projects. I certainly do. If any people enjoy them, there are still likely aspects of it that rub them the wrong way like having a partner that doesn’t contribute. Guess what.

Elections are group projects.

I believe it was EvelynFromTheInternets who made me realize that, & echoes much of the same sentiment I have written in this.

And at 5:55 she says: What Are You Going To Do On November 4th bc We Are Still Fighting For Suffrage. We have to keep pushing & working towards a better tomorrow, today. None of it will amount to much if people are not voting. You can campaign & fundraising & educate all you want. But if people don’t vote it’s all for nothing. You need both.

“ As of June 2020, the United States had the highest number of incarcerated individuals worldwide, with more than 2.12 million people in prison “ This is absolutely part of the bigger problem & yet another way people have been disheartened. It’s on purpose. They don’t want disenfranchised communities to be able to vote. So we - those of us who don’t have to wait in lines for hours, those of us who don’t face racial violence, those of us who can choose apathy & laziness for a decade with little to no personal consequence - must vote symbolically for them.

If you want your vote to mean something then vote for them. Vote for the people who are still ineligible to vote even though they aren’t in prison anymore. Vote for the people who despite working more than you do, harder than you do, for less than you do, still have to pay taxes & still denied the right to vote. Vote for the people who can’t vote bc police murdered them. Vote for the people who wait 10 hours in line to vote & are turned away when they finally get to the front of the line. Vote for those who don’t have the right to relinquish in the first place. Hell you can even vote for those who do vote anyway but have been misled by propaganda. Bc if you don’t, eventually we all will sink. You may be in the upper class of the titanic but in the end the whole ship is going down & you may just have the opportunity to slowly freeze out in the dark ocean on a lifeboat with all your rich strangers with the slim chance at survival rather than swallowed immediately by the sea like those who were locked in the lower levels to keep them from access to rescue.

At 7:24 Evelyn hits another really important part that I think drives my whole point home: as a Black woman her actual life, & those who share her experience, is on the line constantly in this country & much of this world. It is not entirely as symbolic to some people as it is to the more privileged populations.

Sure, your vote is symbolic, & sure you not voting is absolutely symbolic. But the only thing not voting is symbolic of is your apathy, your own privilege to choose that & think you’ll be fine & that it’s other people who need to “wake up”. No babe, it’s you. Wake up to the wider consequences of symbolic gestures.

Your vote matters whether it’s electoral college or popular vote. Your vote matters to getting closer to an admin that will enable popular vote as the determinant & eradicate the electoral college. Your vote matters whether you’re in a “blue” state or a “red” state or a battleground state. A state is only red or blue until it’s not. I come from TX I know about that shit. The only reason “battleground” states are a focus is bc they fluctuate more often than others, that doesn’t make others ineligible to change. Your vote matters bc you may be only a portion of the overall grade, but the overall grade affects everyone. It will impact others more harshly than you.

Your Vote Matters.

I want to add one last note: voting doesn’t happen once every 4 years, & it’s never JUST about president. If you don’t go vote at all, you are neglecting the more local stuff as well which is what affects the bigger elections. If all you do during a group project is read one line during the presentation in class, the grade will reflect you lack of effort elsewhere throughout the project. If I showed up & only voted for president & nothing else it would be for nothing. Racist & bigoted GOP will vote all red all the time up & down ballot. It’s not about age either. If your vote didn’t matter then they wouldn’t sink so much money & effort into trying to prevent people from doing it.

#vote #2020 #election #it matters #black lives matter #incarceration #prison #united states #obama #trump #clinton #biden #civic engagement #civic duty #suffrage #voting #fascism #democracy #symbolism

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auntynationalsblog · 4 years

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5 Netflix Films for the Week, set before the 21st c.

How’s quarantine going? Yeah, same here. But it’s Monday after all, and you still have over 150 hours to kill if you’re dealing with this quarantine via a week-by-week approach. I can help you kill around 8%, 12 of those hours. Here are five must-watch films set before the twenty-first century. Don’t watch them all at once, that’s lame.

No spoilers.

5. The Revenant (1823)

Main Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy

“Revenge is in the Creator's hands.”

Many of you will know of this film as the one which finally gave LDC his first Oscar, for Best Actor, at the 88th Academy Awards. Unfortunately, you would have stopped at that information and not bothered to watch the film. Released in 2015, the film is based on a novel of the same name. The definition of ‘Revenant’ is “a person who has returned, especially supposedly from the dead.” The story-line does not deviate from the title, as an American frontiersman named Hugh Glass is engulfed in a bear attack and is left for dead by his hunting crew. But he survives. And he’s fucking pissed. The novel is called The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge, and yeah, the film is pretty vengeful too. Interestingly, even though Hugh Glass was indeed a real person, and it is mostly believed that the film and novel are based on a story, there exist no writings from the man himself to verify the description of his story. His story was first published in a Philadelphia literary journal known as The Port Folio. Some say that it is no more than a legendary tale. Nevertheless, a brilliant film, don’t miss out.

4. Before Sunrise (1994)

Only Cast (LOL): Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy

“If there's any kind of magic in this world…it must be in the attempt of understanding someone.”

If you’re a fan of love stories/romantic films, and if you haven’t come across the Before Trilogy, I don’t know what kind of love stories you watch. Why is this film unique? In technical terms, it’s minimalist. In simple words, there’s no real plot. There’s no action or drama or horror. These two just walk and talk. Then they talk some more while walking, and when they’ve nothing to talk about, they just walk quietly. So why watch the film? For starters, it’s very peaceful and relaxing, unlike The Revenant, which is fucking intense. Secondly, the conversations in the film constitute some of the best dialogue-exchanges in the history of cinema. Their characters are very carefully crafted, as their varying perspectives on living and loving bring out some deep AF points throughout the film. It is a slow film no doubt, but I promise you that the blandness is worth it, and the ending is too nice. Don’t get bored, give the film some time and thank me later.

3. Django Unchained (1858)

Main Cast: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, and Leonardo DiCaprio

“Sold! To the man with the exceptional beard and his unexceptional nigga!”

Django Unchained is Tarantino’s highest-grossing film ever, for good reason. Although it has been criticized for historical inaccuracies, violence, and unprecedented high use of the N-word, Tarantino delivered one of the most dramatic and entertaining films from the era of plantation slavery. While the image above portrays Foxx, a slave, and LDC, a rich plantation owner, the highlight of the film was the German dentist-turned-bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz, played by Christoph Waltz. Waltz’s performance is impeccable, only matched by his portrayal of Standartenführer Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (also directed by Tarantino). While the film starts off with Dr. Schultz hunting for his bounties, it eventually goes on to become a rescue mission, where Django and Schultz look for the former’s estranged wife, Broomhilda von Shaft. TW; extreme cursing and racism. But the film is a work of art. In fact, Jamie Foxx has revealed that LDC was pretty uncomfortable on the set, as his character had to use extremely racial slurs. But boy, he pulled off that role brilliantly.

2. Zodiac (1969 - 1980s)

Main Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr.

“I wanna report a double murder. If you go one mile east on Columbus Parkway, to a public park, you'll find kids in a brown car. They were shot with a 9mm Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye.”

What happens when Iron Man, Hulk and Mysterio gang-up against one of America’s most notorious serial-killers? For now, I can only tell you that it was a pretty uneven contest. Based on a true story, this film depicts the useless San Francisco Police Department’s hunt for the Zodiac Killer, led by Dave Toschi (Ruffalo), and aided by political cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal) and crime reporter Paul Avery (Downey). In case you’re wondering if they’re fictional characters, they’re not. They became pretty famous while the Zodiac Killer was running havoc, and have multiple articles and Wikipedia pages dedicated to all three of them. The Zodiac Killer remains unidentified by the way, and the cases are still officially open. Why watch the film then? Because the mysteriousness of it will blow your mind. Note that the film is directed by David Fincher, the same guy who directed Seven, Fight Club, Gone Girl and Mindhunter, among many other murder mysteries and thrillers. Don’t be surprised if you spend the rest of the day investigating the case yourself, happens to the best of us.

Consolation Prize: The Irishman (1950s - 1970s)

Main (legendary) Cast: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci

“I work hard for them when I ain't stealing from them.”

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking how can a film with a cast of three actors who redefined cinema in the late twentieth century earn only a consolation prize on this list? The truth is, that such crime/mafia/gangster films, no matter how legendary the cast is, only appeal to a particular audience. A lot of film buffs who truly appreciate cinema and actors are simply not enticed by this genre, which is okay. Nevertheless, this film, which spans over 200 minutes, is one of Martin Scorsese’s best works, along with other mob movies like Goodfellas and The Departed. Based on a true story, it follows the adventures of ordinary truck driver-turned-assassin Frank ‘Irishman’ Sheeran (De Niro), who gets mixed up in some extraordinary business with mobster Russell Bufalino (Pesci), his Pennsylvania crime family and American labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino). The punchline of the film is “I heard you paint houses” - a mob code implying: I heard you murder people for money, the paint being the symbol of the blood that splatters when bullets are riddled into the target. Typical Scorsese, mesmerizing direction. The punchline is also the name of the novel the film is based on, in case you love reading about organized crime.

1. Dallas Buyers Club (1985)

Main Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto

“Sometimes, I feel I'm fighting for a life that I just ain't got the time to live. I want it all to mean something.”

On the day of the 86th Academy Awards, Facebook and Twitter erupted in outrage. LDC had not been awarded the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street, also known as The Film You Must Never Watch With Your Family. I merely asked every hot-tempered schmucks who posted that LDC had been snubbed, “Have you watched Dallas Buyers Club?” Either the answer was no, or the answer never came. The point being, Dallas Buyers Club is one of the best films ever made. Based on the true story of Ron Woodroof, a once homophobic, junkie cowboy diagnosed with AIDS, co-starring Jared Leto (who won best supporting actor) as Rayon, a fictional trans-woman with HIV, this film tells us an extraordinary tale of friendship, hope and empathy. When Ron discovers that the Federal Drug Administration has been systematically banning cheap drugs that can improve the condition of existing HIV-AIDS patients, he opens a ‘buyers club’, that enabled sick people to make drug purchases at lower prices. Things get more interesting with the role of Dr. Eve Saks, an AIDS doctor, who recognizes the villainous role of the state, but wants to remain within the ambit of the law. Ron’s character development might be the highlight of the film, as he transforms from a selfish, homophobic asshole to a dying man waging war against the American government, fighting for the healthcare of the underprivileged. Very few equally magnificent films have come out post Dallas Buyers Club. Don’t miss out.

So that’s it folks. Make good use of your quarantine by immersing yourself in good quality cinema. I’ll come up with some more suggestions on films and TV shows soon enough. Till then, Netflix and Don’t Chill.

#netflix

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neurodiversenerd · 5 years

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How to Include Autistic Women in Your Feminism

Hey, given that this is an activist post, I might be mentioning certain issues that might be triggering to some. Check the tags and stay safe. Ily. ❤️

Ever since activist and feminist Audre Lorde devised intersectionality as a way of describing the experience of multiply-marginalized women, feminism has adapted to include women of color, trans women, queer women, disabled women and religious minority women. Although white, non-intersectional feminism is still pervasive and is the dominant ideology carried on by cishet white women, a significant portion of the feminist movement has embraced the identities and diversity among various groups of women.

Intersectionality allows for us to look at the various ways womanhood affects those experiencing it, instead of just slapping one catch all experience of femininity onto all women. It lets us understand that a woman of color, for example, has less amounts of racial privilege than a white woman and must deal with the burden of specific stereotypes around being a woman of color. Intersectional feminism centers the women with multiple identities, or “intersections,” that society considers unfavorable or marginalized.

However, with all the strides intersectional theory has made in social justice circles, the plight of Autistic women is largely ignored by even the most inclusive feminist circles.

Disabled women as a broader group are often lumped together, even though cognitively disabled, intellectually disabled and physically disabled women contend with incredibly different forms of ableism. Alternatively, the feminist movement also tends to cater to physically disabled women who often have more visibility (which, granted, isn’t a lot) and acceptance than those whose minds are thought to be lesser.

It’s common in the disabled community for people to justify their humanity by asserting their neurotypicality, while erasing and oppressing non-neurotypicals. The pro-Autistic movement itself is mostly made up of women, queer individuals and people of color, and yet somehow it always ends up headed by cis white men. In both feminism and Autistic advocacy, women (especially ones with multiple intersections) are ignored and pushed to the sidelines despite typically facing greater oppression than cis autistic men.

Thus, it’s important to make sure to be inclusive towards autistic women and GNC individuals in both feminism and disabled activism. Here are some ways that I’ve compiled on how to make your feminism both inclusive and accepting as a queer, Autistic feminist.

1. Mention Autistic Women and Bodily Autonomy

Women’s rights to their bodies are an important topic to discuss in feminism, but Autistic women deal with specific challenges in regard to consent and access to care and their bodies, so it’s important to bring up these issues in your discussions.

For starters, the court case Buck v. Bell still stands to this day. The case itself took place in the early 20th century during the eugenicist movement, and the court’s ruling allowed the forced sterilization of anyone labeled feebleminded. It’s legal for parents and guardians of the disabled to sign paper and sterilize anyone under their control regardless of whether the person in question consent to it even now. This is especially unsettling for women of color, who have historically been abused by eugenicist doctors. (See The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and the book Imbeciles for more information on these topics).

In the medical industry, there are also barriers Autistic women must deal with. Today, there are still ableist debates about whether Autistic and other disabled people deserve emergency medical treatment and organ transplants. Once again, this is especially bad for women of color who deal with medical abuse and malpractice committed against them in modern times.

The gist is, the most vulnerable Autistic women often don’t have the ability to consent to harmful and damaging procedures.

For transgender Autistic women, the burden is tenfold. Many Autistic trans people on social media have shared their stories about how people struggled to believe that they were trans because of their neurological difference. This makes transitional care and access much harder for GNC Autistic people and trans people, as their gender identity is viewed as a symptom.

2. Talk About Consent

Along with consent to medical procedures, there’s also the fact that Autistic women are particularly vulnerable to the whims of violence against women. Here are some ideas to mention when talking about consent.

First off, many Autistic women use alternative methods of communication. Neurotypical women can usually say an explicit ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ though they still face violence. For Autistic women who are nonverbal and communicate through AAC, in a victim blaming culture such as ours their hindered ability to consent can be used against them.

Through ABA therapy, Autistic women are also further taught that their ‘no’ doesn’t matter. True ABA therapy, created by Ivar Lovaas, is essentially legal conditioning. The aim of this psychological form of abuse is to train Autistic children into seeming more Neurotypical instead of embracing their unique neurology and changing their environment to fit their needs. These kids are taught to obey authority at all times, or else they’ll deal with the use of an aversiv e. This of course, discourages their active consent to a situation and puts Autistic women in a dangerous position.

If they are physically as well as cognitively disabled, they may not physically be able to resist or run from an attacker. In many cases, an incidence of assault is justified by the perpetrator claiming that the victim wouldn’t have had a consensual encounter otherwise because they are “ugly” or unworthy of a healthy relationship. Autistic women are often considered to be such..

Trans women and women of color, who are often assaulted more frequently than cis white, women are of course very vulnerable when it comes to this issue. As such, it’s vital to mention this at any discussion of consent.

3. Know that Toxic Femininity Affects Us More than Neurotypical Women

To preface this, I want to say that there’s nothing wrong with being feminine. I myself identify as a femme woman, out of my own personal fashion sense and aesthetic. I like being a feminine woman and wearing dresses and having long hair, though these also aren’t the only ways to be feminine, of course. Embracing femmeness does not mean that someone is servicing the patriarchy, and embracing androgyny and/or butchness also doesn’t mean said person has internalized misogyny. Everyone is entitled to the way they want to present, and feminism should be about uplifting how people choose to present themselves instead of putting down women they don’t think look “liberated” or “feminist” enough.

That being said, the patriarchy tends to enforce feminine roles on cis women and police the feminine expression of transwomen to make them “prove” they’re really trans and “sure” about being women. I like to call this “Toxic Femininity,” the way that women are pressured to conform to Eurocentric femininity regardless of how they actually want to present, but then oppressed for both their femmeness or their alternate presentation if they disregard the aforementioned. Either way, women can’t win.

Abiding by gender roles is exhausting for anyone, but for Autistic women who have limited energy to go into their daily activities and deal with sensory issues and neurotypicals. As such, gender presentation is often pretty low on our list of priorities. Autistic women are often unable to conform to society as our hindered social skills prevent us from perceiving these norms. It’s hard for us to fully conceptualize what’s acceptable and what’s not. As such, it takes extra effort for us to live up to Toxic Femininity.

With our sensory perception, certain clothes are uncomfortable for us and it’s sometimes a necessity to wear certain textures. Men’s clothing or androgynous clothing are often more comfortable, so it’s not uncommon to find us wearing those. As such, we are often labeled butch or non-femme regardless of how we actually identify our presentation. We are cast aside by Toxic Femininity.

This is of course, even more true for fat women, trans women, and physically disabled Autistic women, who’s bodies already don’t abide by the unattainability that Toxic Femininity forces us to live up to.

4. Downplay the Voice of Neurotypicals in Autistic Women’s Issues

Despite their position of being privileged oppressors of the Autistic community, most of our advocacy is done by parents and relatives of Autistic people who believe that they are more entitled to our community and voices. They are the “Autism moms” and those with blue puzzle piece signs in their backyards, constantly yelling over us.

Most of the Autism organizations are run by these people, who often don’t consult with Autistic people about the needs of our community. Even though most of them don’t think they hate Autistic people and may even share common goals with the community, they still oppress us because they’re centering the voices of the privileges instead of the voices that are affected no matter how supportive they are.

An Autistic inclusive feminist space means downplaying Neurotypical rhetoric, meaning stopping the use of hate symbols like puzzle pieces and functioning labels. Cut out the influence of ableist organizations and monitor the use of words like “retarded” in your space. This will be difficult in a pervasively ableist society, but it will be worth it in making a more united social justice movement.

It also means allowing Autistic people to have input in their own issues, and allowing them to reclaim their agency. Know that no matter how many Autistic people you know, if you’re Neurotypical, you will never truly experience being Autistic even if you know more about the condition.

5. Autistic Women Can Still be Racist, Homophobic, or Transphobic – Don’t Be Afraid to Let Them Know

There are usually 2 stereotypes Neurotypicals believe about us, and strangely enough, they’re complete opposites. We’re either hyperviolent, unfeeling school shooters to them or perfect innocent angels who never do anything wrong. Obviously, these are ableist because they assume that all Autistic people are the same, but most people tend to look at us as the latter stereotype because it’s more “politically correct” even though both viewpoints are hurtful in different ways.

As such, when Autistic people are genuinely oppressive, they aren’t held accountable. I’ve had interactions with homophobic Autistic people who accepted me for my Autism but not the fact that I was a girl who loved girls. I’ve met misogynist Autistic men who viewed me as an object and wouldn’t respect my boundaries and right to say ‘no’ to a relationship. As an Autistic white person, I myself hold institutional power over Autistic people of color and as such, am able to be racist.

Autistic people shouldn’t be given a free pass for their bigotry, and assuming that they should denies them their agency and oppresses others in that space.

Autistic women have a lot to contribute to feminism, and neurotypical women should allow them the opportunity to rise against their own oppression. Thanks for reading and for making your feminism inclusive –

Trust me, it means the world to us.

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beatrice-otter · 4 years

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Longfic Recs, part II

Yet more recs, mostly longfic

Something Like This (285755 words) by emmagrant01 Chapters: 47/47 Fandom: Check Please! (Webcomic) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eric Bittle/Jack Zimmermann, Eric Bittle/OMC, Kent Parson/Jack Zimmermann, Kent Parson/OMC, Alicia Zimmermann/Bob Zimmermann, Larissa "Lardo" Duan/Shitty Knight, OMC/OMC, Jack Zimmermann/OMC, Camilla Collins/Jack Zimmermann Characters: Jack Zimmermann, Eric Bittle, Shitty Knight, Larissa "Lardo" Duan, Original Characters, Adam "Holster" Birkholtz, Justin "Ransom" Oluransi, Taylor Whitton, Kent "Parse" Parson Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, canon-typical alcohol use, Angst, Demisexual Character, Slow Burn, Jack is oblivious, Bitty dates other guys, Anxiety, Jealousy, Coming Out, not hockey rpf but real teams and real people make appearances, Canon-Typical Drug Use, Happy Ending, Pining, so much horrible pining, and SMUT, so much smut omg, Fluffy Smut, Infidelity, Hockey, Not-totally-an-asshole Parse, flangst, really long fic, goes AU after sophomore year, Consensual Infidelity, You Can Play, a year in the life of Jack Zimmermann, Inspired by Real Events, The 2016 Orlando Shooting Series: Part 1 of Something Like This Summary:

Jack thought his first year in the NHL would be 100% about hockey, but the reality is so much more complicated. (AU where the Goodbye for the Summer comics didn’t happen, because I had already written 80K words of this. But just because it’s canon doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy long, angsty, get-together stories, amirite?)

Alternate summary, courtesy of Dracavia: What if Bad Bob didn't say anything at graduation?

of the nature of the wound (33936 words) by decinq Fandom: Check Please! (Webcomic) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Eric Bittle/Jack Zimmermann, Larissa "Lardo" Duan/Shitty Knight, Jamie Benn/Tyler Seguin, Jack Zimmermann & Kent Parson, Hockey Ensemble - Relationship Additional Tags: Jack Knew First, athletics and mental health, media relations, Closeted Character Series: Part 1 of the messes of men

Summary:

His first year in the NHL isn't easy, but Jack has spent his entire life playing through the hurt.

Pass It On (9241 words) by thefourthvine, knight_tracer Fandom:Hockey RPF Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin, Jamie Benn/Tyler Seguin Additional Tags: Podfic, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Podfic Length: 45-60 Minutes Summary:

Ninety percent of everyone's problems could be solved by a robot that just texted NO to hockey players on a regular basis. Unfortunately, Sidney didn't have a robot.

taken by the sea (100495 words) by notamagnet Chapters: 2/2 Fandom:Hockey RPF Rating: Explicit Warnings: Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews, Danny Briere/Claude Giroux, Duncan Keith/Brent Seabrook, Sidney Crosby/Original Male Character

Characters: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Marc-Andre Fleury, Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Jarome Iginla, Danny Briere, Claude Giroux, Colby Armstrong Additional Tags: Pittsburgh Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks

Summary: Sidney wasn't looking for love, he was just looking to play hockey again, but he found Ryan anyway. (Sidney Crosby/OMC)

All For One (121996 words) by ironychan Fandom:The Avengers (Marvel Movies),Captain America (Movies),Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov, Laura Kinney

Summary: While tracking down a weapons-smuggling operation in Florida, Steve Rogers stumbles across a dead body - HIS dead body. When he, Sam, and Natasha investigate, they discover a conspiracy bigger and more bizarre than anything HYDRA has thrown at them yet.

The Not-Christmas Not-Truce of 1944 (1416 words) by dropdeaddream Chapters: 1/1 Fandom:Captain America (Movies),Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Howling Commandos, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers Characters: A Cow Additional Tags: untimely off-screen animal death, Actual New Yorker Steve Rogers, Actual New Yorker James Barnes

Summary: Bucky stabs a man in the neck.

The cow moos.

Badgering the Lawyers (6053 words) by Shrewreadings Chapters: 1/1 Fandom:The Avengers (2012) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Clint Barton/Phil Coulson Characters: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner Additional Tags: Team, Original Character(s), Badgers Series: Part 1 of Badger-Verse Summary: All that’s unusual about the Tuesday is the badgers. Everything else is pretty normal for SHIELD.

Sure Movin' Down the Line (20173 words) by circ_bamboo Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe,The Avengers (Marvel Movies),Captain America (Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Maria Hill/Sam Wilson Characters: Sam Wilson (Marvel), Maria Hill, T'Challa, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Natasha Romanov Additional Tags: Canon Character of Color, Male Friendship, Latina Maria Hill, Race-related themes

Summary: Sam Wilson needs his wings fixed. Steve Rogers thinks he knows a guy who can do that, but as it turns out, Tony Stark didn't make the wings. He knows who did, though: T'Challa, the king of Wakanda and the genius behind the Wakandan Design Group. Sam, along with Rhodey and Maria Hill, goes to London to meet T'Challa . . . where unexpected dangers await them.

The Night Has Seen Your Mind (105030 words) by bomberqueen17 Chapters: 11/11 Fandom:Marvel Cinematic Universe,Captain America (Movies) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Clint Barton, Tony Stark, OCs Additional Tags: Memory Loss, Memory Alteration, Panic Attacks, Epistolary, Public Relations, Pining, Social Media, modern life adjustment, OT3, OT4, Selfies, self-redemption, Bucky Barnes Returns, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Natasha Feels, Protective Natasha, Steve Needs a Hug, Awesome Sam Wilson, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Ensemble Cast, close 3rd person POV, POV Alternating, winter widow - Freeform, Freebird - Freeform, Pop music, strong OCs, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Holds Himself At Gunpoint, bucky has opinions on rap

Series: Part 1 of Choice Is Not A Word A Bullet Knows

Summary: Steve and Sam return from a futile tour of the globe on the heels of the ghost of the Winter Soldier to find a pile of postcards with the names of confirmed-killed HYDRA agents waiting at Stark Tower: mission reports from the ghost to the only commanding officer he still feels he has. All of it is set to culminate in New York City... if Bucky can remember what he set up.

With some Clint/Natasha, Bucky/Natasha, Steve/Sam pining, a whole bunch of friendship dynamics, gratuitous pop culture references (Bucky is obsessed with pop music, as a coping strategy), slash, het, and a lot of cussing.

I Came to Win (13718 words) by Philyra Chapters: 1/1 Fandom:Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Pepper Potts, Melinda May, Christine Everhart, Maya Hansen, Maria Hill, Natasha Romanov, Victoria Hand, Carol Danvers, Bobbi Morse, Jessica Drew, Tony Stark, Nick Fury, Darcy Lewis, Betty Ross Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Hockey, Women Being Awesome, Female Friendship, Podfic Available Series: Part 1 of Get ready for it

Summary: Pepper Potts inherits a failing hockey team at 25. She builds her staff and team her way, screw what anyone else thinks. She wants a Stanley Cup.

Known Associates (294881 words) by thingswithwings Chapters: 9/9 Fandom:Marvel Cinematic Universe,The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/various OCs, Bruce Banner & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov (background), Tony Stark/Pepper Potts/James "Rhodey" Rhodes (background)

Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Peggy Carter, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson, Bruce Banner, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Arnie Roth, Pepper Potts, Tony Stark

Additional Tags: gender performance, queer 1940s Brooklyn, Fairy!Steve, femme!Steve, stevefeels, Union Organizing, Protests, Socialism, superhero ethics, queer ethics, queer friendships, queer communities, Found Family, collective action, Polyamory, Genderqueer Character, Pacifism, Makeup, Pretty Clothes, dressing up, Drawing, Portraiture, Military Kink, Food Kink, coming out stories, staying in stories, joyful sex work, degrading sex work, Homophobia, Heterosexism, Racism, gender essentialism, Femmephobia, Ableism, Racial slurs, LGBT slurs, Body Dysphoria, canon forced masculinization, non-consensual experimentation on people, Experimentation on Children, children in peril, child death (offscreen and brief), Eugenics, Police Brutality, criminalized homosexuality, military segregation, Canon character deaths, OC character deaths, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, everyone is queer because Steve, Steve Rogers: Cartoonist of the Revolution, Steve Rogers: power bottom, Steve Rogers' Fighting Queers, bad becomes worse-good becomes great-queer becomes superqueer

Summary: Steve Rogers isn't a self-made man.

Or, how a tough little Brooklyn fairy got turned into Captain America, and then turned back.

Brooklyn Boys (8332 words) by SleepsWithCoyotes Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe,Captain America (Movies),The Avengers (Marvel Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Jotunheim Beast, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Thor (Marvel), Friday (Marvel) Additional Tags: Gen or Pre-Slash, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant

Summary: The stray picks up a stray.

Orbit (35580 words) by Primarybufferpanel Chapters: 22/22 Fandom:Mad Max Series (Movies),Mad Max: Fury Road Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Furiosa/Max Rockatansky, Furiosa & Max Rockatansky Characters: Max Rockatansky, Furiosa (Mad Max), Cheedo the Fragile, Toast the Knowing, The Dag (Mad Max), Capable (Mad Max), The Vuvalini, The Ace (Mad Max), Keeper of the Seeds (Mad Max), Bolt the three-legged dog, Miss Giddy (Mad Max)

Additional Tags: Post-Movie(s), Max is not good at having Feels, Slow Burn, Boltcutters are the new symbol of the Citadel, Recovery, Healing, Past Rape/Non-con, Sexual Content, Miss Giddy is the tattoo artist of the Citadel, Keeper of the Seeds is Max's newest ghost, Worldbuilding, Forehead Touching

Summary: Max thought he'd never want to see the Citadel again. And yet here he is and he isn't sure why. Furiosa greets him like this was always the plan, like he is one of her scouts. She looks strong and healthy again, recovered from her wound. Perhaps that is what he came to see?

He tells himself: 'One day. Supplies and water and food'. And then 'Maybe a night rest'.

Three days later he drives away, determined not to return.

(Three months later the Citadel comes into sight again)

Wizardry By Consent (61991 words) by Sixthlight Chapters: 5/5 Fandom:Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Peter Grant/Thomas Nightingale Characters: Peter Grant, Thomas Nightingale, Cecelia Tyburn Thames, Abigail Kamara, Original Characters Additional Tags: Future Fic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, the Senior Officer Peter AU, also featuring, Lesley May - Freeform, Beverley Brook - Freeform, Molly - Freeform, and the rest of the Usual Suspects Series: Part 1 of The Senior Officer Peter AU

Summary: Fifteen years after a headless body was discovered in Covent Garden, Thomas Nightingale is still the last wizard in Britain, and Peter Grant, newly appointed Commander for Community Engagement in the Metropolitan Police Service, has just learned the truth about the existence of the Folly.

He has one or two questions.

Like Ephraim and Menasheh (2921 words) by Starlightify Chapters: 1/1 Fandom:DCU Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jonathan Kent/Martha Kent Characters: Jonathan Kent, Martha Kent, Clark Kent Additional Tags: Alien Biology, Trans Character, Autism, Disabled Character, neurodivergent character, Parent-Child Relationship, Jewish Character, martha and jonathan kent's adventures in raising a space baby Series: Part 1 of repairing the world

Summary: There's not exactly a manual on how to raise a space baby. Martha and Jonathan do the best they can.

All the Roofs of Uncertainty (70065 words) by Kieron_ODuibhir Chapters: 12/12 Fandom:Batman (Comics),Batman - All Media Types,DCU Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Leslie Thompkins, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne Characters: Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Wally West, Leslie Thompkins, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Sasha | Scarlet

Additional Tags: Brothers, Blood, Reconciliation, Red Hood - Freeform, Nightwing - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, You were always the Golden Boy, appearances by Superman and Impulse II, cameos by Static and Bulleteer, Everybody loves Dick Grayson, Angst, Rage, you made a choice, parenting, Wally West is the worst combat therapist, also featuring cameo by Shazam!, Families of Choice, Alfred and Leslie taught Bruce how to be a parent, which might explain a lot, gratuitous canon, Now with added Batman, now with possibly too much Batman, what even is an antihero anyway?, insufferable big brother jason todd, the girls are sadly only in the epilogue

Summary: For all the blood on his hands, Red Hood was never just a villain. And Nightwing never gives up on family, not for good.

(Or: The one where Dick bleeds a lot and Jason argues with everybody.)

In all your wanderings (16073 words) by MirandaTam Chapters: 11/11 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types,Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn, Padmé Amidala, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Mace Windu, Darth Maul, Dooku (Star Wars) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Slavery, Jedi Shmi, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, that's the plan at least, Shmi is the best jedi tbh Series: Part 1 of Jedi Shmi AU

Summary: Passion, yet serenity.

Shmi leaves Tatooine with Anakin and goes to the Jedi Temple.

Hindsight is Not Perfect (61864 words) by DAsObiQuiet Chapters: 13/13 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types,Star Wars Prequel Trilogy,Star Wars Original Trilogy Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, onesided - Relationship Characters: Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Shmi Skywalker, Watto (Star Wars), Qui-Gon Jinn, Padmé Amidala, Yoda, Siri Tachi, Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Finis Valorum, Panaka (Star Wars), Mace Windu

Additional Tags: Time Travel, Fix-It of Sorts, Time Travel Fix-It, Redemption, Well he tries Series: Part 1 of Force of Many Sights

Summary: Paved with good intentions or not, the road back from Hell is a difficult, slippery slope for those who choose to walk it as Anakin has. Now he has to face the consequences of his choices, avoid suspicion of everyone from the Jedi Council to Palpatine and try to prevent the future from turning out as badly Before all while somehow finding a way to balance the Force... again!

have you heard (42166 words) by peradi Chapters: 8/8 Fandom:Star Wars - All Media Types,Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey Characters: Poe Dameron, Finn, Phasma, Hux, Kylo Ren, Stormtroopers, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Rey, Han Solo, Snoke Additional Tags: stories, Revolution, The First Order Sucks, stormtroopers - Freeform, Propaganda, finn is the patron saint of revolution, fn-2187 was a storm trooper Series: Part 1 of once there was Summary: "I heard FN-2187 was a Stormtrooper."

Finn sparks a revolution.

Fundamental Force Carriers (87796 words) by tanarill Chapters: 13/13 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types,Star Wars Prequel Trilogy,Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types,Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker & Yoda

Characters: Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Son (Clone Wars), The Father (Clone Wars), Yoda, Mace Windu, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Padmé Amidala, CT-7567 | Rex, CT-5597 | Jesse, CT-6116 | Kix, Aang (Star Wars), OMC, OFC, Jocasta Nu, Quinlan Vos, Asajj Ventress, Pong Krell, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Plo Koon, R2-D2, Dooku | Darth Tyranus, Grievous | Qymaen jai Sheelal, CC-2224 | Cody, Saesee Tiin, Oppo Rancisis, Adi Gallia, Even Piell, Han Solo, Kit Fisto, Agen Kolar, Shaak Ti

Additional Tags: Time Travel, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fix-It, Time Travel Fix-It, Lightsabers, Meditation, Feels, Training, Jedi Training, Lightsaber Battles, The Force, The Dark Side of the Force, BAMF!Anakin, Clones, News Media, Mental Health Issues, Therapy, Mathematics, Quantum Mechanics

Series: Part 1 of Probability Matrices

Summary: The Sith Lord Darth Vader lived his life. He probably didn't live it well, but he lived it as well as he knew how. At the end there, he'd even managed to woman up and kill Sidious. But he was dying, and at peace with the past.

The past wasn't at peace with him.

Brooklyn Boys (8332 words) by SleepsWithCoyotes Chapters: 1/1 Fandom:Marvel Cinematic Universe,Captain America (Movies),The Avengers (Marvel Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Jotunheim Beast, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Thor (Marvel), Friday (Marvel) Additional Tags: Gen or Pre-Slash, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant

Summary: The stray picks up a stray.

4 Minute Window (24127 words) by Speranza Chapters: 1/1 Fandom:Captain America (Movies),Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers Characters: Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Peggy Carter Additional Tags: Surveillance, It's Like Grand Central Station In Here, Brooklyn Boys, Power Couple, People Are Sick of Conceptual Art Series: Part 1 of 4 Minute Window

Summary: "Look, if they catch me," Bucky muttered, "they're either going to kill me or they're going to put me in a box with a little window and—Steve, I can't."

This, You Protect (64326 words) by owlet Chapters: 33/33 Fandom:Captain America (Movies),Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark, Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Pepper Potts, Clint Barton Additional Tags: Humor, I hope humor anyway, cursing, Protection, Strong feelings about coffee, slightly off-canon, Steve is sassy, sam is sassy, Bucky is sassy, Everyone has their sassy pants on, just accept that grilled cheese is the perfect food, old people are Team Bucky Series: Part 1 of Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail

Summary: The mission resets abruptly, from objective: kill to objective: protect

Ain't No Grave (Can Keep My Body Down) (107076 words) by spitandvinegar Chapters: 10/10 Fandom:Captain America - All Media Types,Marvel Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark, Clint Barton, Phil Coulson, Original Characters, Pepper Potts, Matt Murdock, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Claire Temple

Additional Tags: Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Drug Abuse, Homelessness, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Catholic Steve Rogers, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Artist Steve Rogers, Identity Issues, POV Alternating, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, because I am a desert pony that runs as wild and free as the wind, Period Typical Attitudes, Masturbation, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, original kid characters, a coupla goddamn kids, Pinkberry, Past Rape/Non-con

Series: Part 2 of Ain't No Grave

Summary: It's six in the morning, and Steve is heading out on a run when he nearly trips over a bouquet of sunflowers on the front steps of his brownstone.

For a second paranoia takes over, and he kicks the flowers a little, waiting for them to explode. They don't. They also came with a card, which he picks up. The front of the card has a tasteful picture of the Brooklyn bridge at sunset. It's very nice and sedate, like the kind of card you would buy to give to your boss. On the inside someone has written a short message in big, shaky block letters.

I AM SORRY FOR SHOOTING YOU.

Steve sits down hard on the steps.

Don't Stop Believing (205901 words) by kianspo Chapters: 11/11 Fandom:Star Trek (2009),Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock, Christopher Pike/Spock, Spock/Nyota Uhura Additional Tags: Action/Adventure, First Time, Angst, Drama, Ensemble Cast, Slow Burn, Enemies to Friends to Lovers Series: Part 2 of Don't Stop Believing

Summary: The story follows Spock from his own days as a cadet at Starfleet Academy to the ‘present day’ when he’s Kirk’s first officer and the Enterprise is on its five-year mission. Essentially, the story of Spock’s first real love followed by the story of him finding the love of his life. Ad astra per aspera.

Kal'i'farr heh T'naehm (11198 words) by sixbeforelunch Chapters: 1/1 Fandom:Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character Characters: Original Vulcan Character(s) Additional Tags: Vulcan, Vulcan Culture, Alien Culture, Pon Farr, Marriage, The Dominion War - Freeform, world building, action takes place over a single day, tight focus, tight 3rd person POV, Ordinary People, Little Brothers, Big Sisters, architecture nerds, linguistics nerds, Sherlock Holmes fans, Clans, alien ceremonies, Arranged Marriage, Alien Food, Food, Cooking, Telepathy, Mental bonds, Telepathic Bonds, Parents and Children, Communication, no canon characters Series: Part 1 of Pi'maat Summary: A meditation on marriage and war, from a Vulcan perspective, on the eve of the Dominion War.

Stubborn Mouths: Humans In Translation (62940 words) by Hannah Chapters: 23/23 Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak Characters: Julian Bashir, Elim Garak, Jadzia Dax, Odo (Star Trek), Kira Nerys, Quark (Star Trek), Miles O'Brien, Keiko O'Brien, Benjamin Sisko, Minor Characters

Additional Tags: Disability, Disabled Character of Color, Autism, Canon Character of Color, Neurodiversity, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Alien Cultural Differences, Judaism, Jews In Space, exploring replicator limitations, Literary References & Allusions, Neko Case - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autistic Character

Summary: If you’re sending yourself out to the edge of civilization, people expect it to be done for fame and glory – but then, Julian Bashir has never been what’s expected of him. He’s quite happy to agree with the reasons other people provide, because he isn’t sharing the private whys and wherefores when people are more than happy to fill in the gaps themselves. There are other, better things to worry about, work to be done and friends to be made – possibly even a lover, if he’s lucky…

...all while fighting to maintain his worth, and remain exactly who he’s always been.

A Bit Too Much Good Work (96074 words) by a_t_rain Chapters: 25/25 Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Rish/Byerly Vorrutyer Characters: Byerly Vorrutyer, Rish, Ivan Vorpatril, Alys Vorpatril, Tej Arqua Vorpatril, Donna Vorrutyer | Dono Vorrutyer Additional Tags: Politics, Case Fic, Class Issues, Book: Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, Imperial Security, Spies & Secret Agents, Cultural Differences

Summary: Behind the scenes of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, Byerly grapples with bomb threats, Council of Counts politics, fallout from a previous case, and the difficulty of maintaining a romance when one's profession blurs the lines between lovers, colleagues, witnesses, and suspects.

Rise Up (2711 words) by hollimichele Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Sleepy Hollow (TV), Hamilton - Miranda Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Ichabod Crane, Abbie Mills (Sleepy Hollow), Alexander Hamilton Additional Tags: RPF, sort of? technically? Series: Part 1 of Don't Be Shocked When Your Hist'ry Book Mentions Me Summary: “I call bullshit,” Abbie said, ten steps into the secret crypt beneath Trinity Church.

Honor Among Thieves (225021 words) by Bracketyjack Chapters: 8/8 Fandom:Honor Harrington Series - David Weber Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Additional Tags: Alternative Universe - Canon Divergence Summary: An Alternative Honorverse Novel.

I know the extended story-arc is one of the great glories of the Honorverse, but haven't you ever, ploughing through the latest best-selling doorstop, wanted radically to short-circuit the whole thing, and see those morally defective, small-souled Manticoran aristocrats taken down hard? And all Detweilers and Kolokoltsovs whatsoever fed to a vengeful passel of treecats, with BBQ sauce? I know I have ...

Going Native (151814 words) by Rap541 Chapters: 67/67 Fandom:Battlestar Galactica (2003),Star Trek: The Next Generation Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Characters: Felix Gaeta, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, Lee "Apollo" Adama, Anastasia "Dee" Dualla, William Adama, Laura Roslin, Jean-Luc Picard, Saul Tigh, William Riker, Beverly Crusher, Worf (Star Trek:TNG/DS9), Reginald Barclay Additional Tags: Crossover, Fix-It Summary: What do you do when you're a lost Starfleet officer in the Beta Quadrant? You blend in and hope for the best.

Digging for the Bones by Paganaidd (203178 words) by Paganaidd Chapters: 62/62 Fandom:Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Characters: Severus Snape, Harry Potter Additional Tags: Severitus, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Panic Attack, Depression

Summary: Rather than allowing Harry to stay at Diagon Alley after he blew up Aunt Marge, the Ministry sends Harry back to the Dursleys. Harry returns to school after a terrible summer, to find that he's not the only one with this kind of secret. A student has been killed by his family. New screening measures are put into place by the Ministry: Every student must be given a medical exam and interview to look for child abuse. With Dumbledore facing an inquiry, Snape is entrusted with the task of making sure EVERYONE receives one.

The first chapter contains a character death and the whole story is quite dark. It begins at the beginning of Prisoner of Azkaban and is AU thereafter. Also note: this story is a "Snape is Harry's biological dad" story. This is not supposed to be the central theme of the story, but people have gotten annoyed that I didn't tell them at the beginning. D.S.S. Requirement by esama (30k) Harry Potter AU/Stargate The Dumbledore's Army use the Room of the Requirement to get themselves a spaceship.

The Best Revenge (and it's sequel) by Arsinoe de Blassenville, 213k and 108k Harry Potter AU. Yes, the old Snape retrieves Harry from the Dursleys formula. I just had to write one. Everything changes, because the best revenge is living well. T for Mentor Snape's occasional naughty language. Supportive Minerva.

There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe (77571 words) by Shoshanah-ben-hohim Chapters: 5/5 Fandom: Hockey RPF Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin Characters: Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Mario Lemieux, Sergei Gonchar Additional Tags: Ensemble Cast, Kid Fic, Original Character(s), Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, St. Louis Blues, New York Rangers, Columbus Blue Jackets, 2018 Winter Olympics, Homophobia, Xenophobia, Child Neglect, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mutual Pining Series: Part 1 of There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe

Summary: Amidst rising political tensions between Russia and NATO countries, the KHL and NHL failed to renew their labor agreement this summer. Due to the failed agreement and intense political pressure at home, the Russian NHL players do not return to the NHL.

By March, Geno has played almost a season in Russia, and accepts this is his new reality, no matter how much he misses Sid – until he finds the first child. This sets him and everyone he involves down a dangerous path of international intrigue. Flightless Birds by RedandGreen, 94k words Hockey RPF genderbender Sid's hair is a thing. It's her thing, and she's always a girl even when she's a hockey player. (tw: sexual assault)

Fastening One Heart to Every Falling Thing (51519 words) by thefourthvine Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Hockey RPF Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin, Evgeni Malkin/Alexander Ovechkin Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulbond, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Spacetoaster, Podfic Available, No Miracle Cure

Summary: Geno can't. Sidney won't.

To Bear is to Conquer Our Fate (106365 words) by Shem Chapters: 34/34 Fandom:Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen ating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Kitty Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy Characters: Kitty Bennet, Fitzwilliam Darcy Summary: The day after the Netherfield Ball, a simple walk through the countryside has wide reaching consequences for Mr Darcy and a certain young lady from Longbourn.

The Brighton Effect (74644 words) by Shem Chapters: 29/29 Fandom: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen ating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Catherine Bennet/Other(s), Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jane Bennet/Charles Bingley Series: Part 1 of The Effect Summary: Kitty's chance to go to Brighton with Lydia may just change everyone's fate

Fair Winds and Homeward Sail (49011 words) by Ione Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Persuasion - Jane Austen Rating: Not Rated Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Admiral Croft/Sophia Croft, Anne Elliot/Frederick Wentworth Characters: Sophia Croft, Anne Elliot, Admiral Croft, Frederick Wentworth, Louisa Musgrove, Lady Russell, Mary Musgrove, Charles Musgrove, Captain Harville Additional Tags: The Royal Navy, References to Jane Austen, Regency Summary: Sophia Wentworth was devoted to her brothers before she found happiness. Then she wanted the same for Frederick . . .

Lydia, still (2719 words) by tree Chapters: 4/4 Fandom: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, Star Trek: The Next Generation Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Lydia Bennet, Data (Star Trek), Jean-Luc Picard Additional Tags: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Epistolary, Holodecks/Holosuites, I Don't Even Know Summary: Rocks fall. Everyone dies.

Except Lydia.

Square Peg in a Round Hole, or Junior Year of High School, Revised, A Clones Tale (42497 words) by MarbleGlove Chapters: 13/13 Fandom:Highlander: The Series,Stargate SG-1 Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Methos, Clone Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, Teal'c, General Hammond, Jack O'Neill Additional Tags: post Fragile Balance, Crossover Series: Part 1 of A Square Peg in a Round Hole Summary: Methos was just spending a year as a high school teacher; Jake O'Neil was just trying to be someone other than Jack O'Neill; neither are simple individuals.

Change Is Only The Beginning (78449 words) by ivorygates Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Stargate SG-1 Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jack O'Neill/Danielle Jackson Characters: Jack O'Neill, Danielle Jackson, Charlie Kawalsky, Ra (SG-1), Skaara (SG-1), Sha're (SG-1), Catherine Langford Additional Tags: Stargate the Movie AU, Girl!Daniel Summary: The One Where: Catherine Langford hired the wrong archaeologist for Project Giza, Dani Jackson joins a lesbian rock band, Jack isn't quite sure what he wants, and Gary Meyers gets a makeover.

AKA: Ivory Writes A Harlequin Romance...

Warning: incipient babies.

Said the Joker to the Thief (41898 words) by ivorygates, greenbirds Chapters: 1/1 Fandom:Stargate SG-1,NCIS ating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Series: Part 1 of Joker'verse Summary: If this isn't the absolute worst Monday Gibbs has ever experienced, it's certainly in the top ten.

And do my spiriting gently (1478 words) by thinlizzy2 Chapters: 1/1 Fandom:The Tempest - Shakespeare ating: General Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death Characters: Ariel, Prospero, Miranda Summary: All is not as it seems on Prospero's island, but that is no coincidence. The island is Ariel's domain, and zie is the one who shapes the reality there.

World Ain't Ready (185796 words) by idiopathicsmile Chapters: 16/16 Fandom: Les Misérables - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire, background Courfeyrac/Jean Prouvaire - Relationship Characters: Grantaire (Les Misérables), Enjolras (Les Misérables), Éponine Thénardier, Jean "Jehan" Prouvaire, Courfeyrac (Les Misérables), Bahorel (Les Misérables), Marius Pontmercy, Cosette Fauchelevent, Joly (Les Misérables), Bossuet Laigle, Musichetta (Les Misérables) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - High School Summary: Enjolras presses his lips together. He already looks pained, and Grantaire hasn't even opened his mouth yet. That's got to be a record, even for them.

"I need a favor," he says at last.

"With what?" says Grantaire. "Ooh, are you forming a cult? Can I join? I'd be awesome at cults, I just know it." He ticks off his qualifications on his fingers. "I love chanting, I look great in robes—"

(High school AU. Grantaire the disaffected stoner is pulled into a cause bigger than himself. Or: in which there are pretend boyfriends for great justice.)

Admit Me, Chorus to This History (35091 words) by Morgyn Leri Chapters: 4/4 Fandom: 15th Century CE RPF,Henry V - Shakespeare Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Henry V of England/Blanche Stretton (OFC) Characters: Henry V of England, Henry IV of England, Thomas Beaufort, Henry Scroop, Katherine of Valois, John of Lancaster: Duke of Bedford, Humphrey of Lancaster: Duke of Gloucester, Blanche Stretton (OFC), James Stretton (OMC), Robert of Stretton (OMC) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, GFY, Don’t copy to another site Series: Part 1 of Mistress to Queen

Summary: An alternate history or alternate reality, if you will, wherein what some might call a romance is played out between a prince whose passions are power and war and a girl who wants nothing so much as family.

Hail Mary (191627 words) by galaxysoup Chapters: 23/23 Fandom:Supernatural Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Mary Winchester, Castiel, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Missouri Moseley, Jody Mills, Ephraim (Supernatural), Joshua (Supernatural), Malachi (Supernatural), Theo (Supernatural), Crowley (Supernatural), Ezekiel | Gadreel, Cain (Supernatural), Tara (Supernatural: First Born), Garth Fitzgerald IV, Charlie Bradbury, Dorothy Baum, Muriel (Supernatural), Jim Murphy, Ellen Harvelle, Jo Harvelle, Tamara (Supernatural), Isaac (Supernatural), Kevin Tran, Linda Tran, Rufus Turner, Deanna Campbell, Victor Henriksen, Caleb (Supernatural), Annie Hawkins, Bartholomew (Supernatural), Original Characters, Bela Talbot, Hannah (Supernatural)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Mary Winchester, BAMF Castiel, POV Mary Winchester, Human Castiel, Male-Female Friendship, Post-Episode: s09e03 I'm No Angel, Angst, Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Castiel, Canon-Typical Violence, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Sick Castiel, Minor Character Death, Apocalypse Series: Part 1 of Hail Mary-verse

Summary:Take one newly human ex-angel on the run from Heaven. Combine with one mysteriously resurrected and increasingly pissed off Mary Winchester. Add overtones of Apocalypse. Shake well.

she's gotta be strong to fight them (25476 words) by stars_inthe_sky Chapters: 7/7 Fandom:Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,Terminator - All Media Types,Terminator (Movies),The Terminator (1984),Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence Characters: Savannah Weaver, Sarah Connor, Lauren Fields, Sydney Fields, James Ellison, Martin Bedell, Jesse Flores, Original Characters, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s) Additional Tags: Families of Choice, Unconventional Families, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Episode: s02e22 Born to Run, Training, Survival Training, Bechdel Test Pass, Apocalypse, Pre-Apocalypse, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Canon

Series: Part 1 of tell me where your strength lies

Summary: Sarah rises and hugs her so tightly that Savannah’s wet towel soaks through her sweater. “What did you mean, before, I saved your life?” Savannah asks, voice muffled by Sarah’s shoulder. “I didn’t do anything.”

After “Born to Run,” they’re just a kid without a mom and a mom without a kid. But a storm is still coming. (First in a series)

Through An Open Window (75068 words) by LMA Chapters: 34/34 Fandom: Babylon 5 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Valen (Jeffrey Sinclair)/Catherine Sakai, Sinclair & Delenn Characters: Valen (Jeffrey Sinclair), Catherine Sakai, Delenn, Draal, Zathras, Kosh Summary: Recounts the story of Jeffrey Sinclair's early years as Valen and his reunion with his fiancee Catherine Sakai; Delenn learns what happened to her friend by using the Great Machine. Originally published in 1996.

(The sequel is Summoned) Legend by ShayneT (100k words) Buffy/Star Trek TNG Summary: Trapped by an alien collector, Lieutenant Commander Data discovers an early 21st century android excavated from the ruins of Sunnydale and a capsule containing the frozen body of one of the Eugenic wars most notorious figures...Buffy Summers.

#fanfiction #fic rec #fanfic

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arcticdementor · 4 years

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But police violence, and Trump’s daily assaults on the presidential competence standard, are only part of the disaster. On the other side of the political aisle, among self-described liberals, we’re watching an intellectual revolution. It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.

The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation. They are counting on the guilt-ridden, self-flagellating nature of traditional American progressives, who will not stand up for themselves, and will walk to the Razor voluntarily.

They’ve conned organization after organization into empowering panels to search out thoughtcrime, and it’s established now that anything can be an offense, from a UCLA professor placed under investigation for reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” out loud to a data scientist fired* from a research firm for — get this — retweeting an academic study suggesting nonviolent protests may be more politically effective than violent ones!

Now, this madness is coming for journalism. Beginning on Friday, June 5th, a series of controversies rocked the media. By my count, at least eight news organizations dealt with internal uprisings (it was likely more). Most involved groups of reporters and staffers demanding the firing or reprimand of colleagues who’d made politically “problematic” editorial or social media decisions.

…

In the most discussed incident, Times editorial page editor James Bennet was ousted for green-lighting an anti-protest editorial by Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton entitled, “Send in the troops.”

I’m no fan of Cotton, but as was the case with Michael Moore’s documentary and many other controversial speech episodes, it’s not clear that many of the people angriest about the piece in question even read it. In classic Times fashion, the paper has already scrubbed a mistake they made misreporting what their own editorial said, in an article about Bennet’s ouster.

…

As Cotton points out in the piece, he was advancing a view arguably held by a majority of the country. A Morning Consult poll showed 58% of Americans either strongly or somewhat supported the idea of “calling in the U.S. military to supplement city police forces.” That survey included 40% of self-described “liberals” and 37% of African-Americans. To declare a point of view held by that many people not only not worthy of discussion, but so toxic that publication of it without even necessarily agreeing requires dismissal, is a dramatic reversal for a newspaper that long cast itself as the national paper of record.

Incidentally, that same poll cited by Cotton showed that 73% of Americans described protecting property as “very important,” while an additional 16% considered it “somewhat important.” This means the Philadelphia Inquirer editor was fired for running a headline – “Buildings matter, too” – that the poll said expressed a view held by 89% of the population, including 64% of African-Americans.

…

The main thing accomplished by removing those types of editorials from newspapers — apart from scaring the hell out of editors — is to shield readers from knowledge of what a major segment of American society is thinking.

It also guarantees that opinion writers and editors alike will shape views to avoid upsetting colleagues, which means that instead of hearing what our differences are and how we might address those issues, newspaper readers will instead be presented with page after page of people professing to agree with one another. That’s not agitation, that’s misinformation.

The instinct to shield audiences from views or facts deemed politically uncomfortable has been in evidence since Trump became a national phenomenon. We saw it when reporters told audiences Hillary Clinton’s small crowds were a “wholly intentional” campaign decision. I listened to colleagues that summer of 2016 talk about ignoring poll results, or anecdotes about Hillary’s troubled campaign, on the grounds that doing otherwise might “help Trump” (or, worse, be perceived that way).

…

All these episodes sent a signal to everyone in a business already shedding jobs at an extraordinary rate that failure to toe certain editorial lines can and will result in the loss of your job. Perhaps additionally, you could face a public shaming campaign in which you will be denounced as a racist and rendered unemployable.

…

Even people who try to keep up with protest goals find themselves denounced the moment they fail to submit to some new tenet of ever-evolving doctrine, via a surprisingly consistent stream of retorts: fuck you, shut up, send money, do better, check yourself, I’m tired and racist.

…

Each passing day sees more scenes that recall something closer to cult religion than politics. White protesters in Floyd’s Houston hometown kneeling and praying to black residents for “forgiveness… for years and years of racism” are one thing, but what are we to make of white police in Cary, North Carolina, kneeling and washing the feet of Black pastors? What about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer kneeling while dressed in “African kente cloth scarves”?

There is symbolism here that goes beyond frustration with police or even with racism: these are orgiastic, quasi-religious, and most of all, deeply weird scenes, and the press is too paralyzed to wonder at it. In a business where the first job requirement was once the willingness to ask tough questions, we’ve become afraid to ask obvious ones.

On CNN, Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender was asked a hypothetical question about a future without police: “What if in the middle of the night, my home is broken into? Who do I call?” When Bender, who is white, answered, “I know that comes from a place of privilege,” questions popped to mind. Does privilege mean one should let someone break into one’s home, or that one shouldn’t ask that hypothetical question? (I was genuinely confused). In any other situation, a media person pounces on a provocative response to dig out its meaning, but an increasingly long list of words and topics are deemed too dangerous to discuss.

The media in the last four years has devolved into a succession of moral manias. We are told the Most Important Thing Ever is happening for days or weeks at a time, until subjects are abruptly dropped and forgotten, but the tone of warlike emergency remains: from James Comey’s firing, to the deification of Robert Mueller, to the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, to the democracy-imperiling threat to intelligence “whistleblowers,” all those interminable months of Ukrainegate hearings (while Covid-19 advanced), to fury at the death wish of lockdown violators, to the sudden reversal on that same issue, etc.

It’s been learned in these episodes we may freely misreport reality, so long as the political goal is righteous. It was okay to publish the now-discredited Steele dossier, because Trump is scum. MSNBC could put Michael Avenatti on live TV to air a gang rape allegation without vetting, because who cared about Brett Kavanaugh – except press airing of that wild story ended up being a crucial factor in convincing key swing voter Maine Senator Susan Collins the anti-Kavanaugh campaign was a political hit job (the allegation illustrated, “why the presumption of innocence is so important,” she said). Reporters who were anxious to prevent Kavanaugh’s appointment, in other words, ended up helping it happen through overzealousness.

…

The traditional view of the press was never based on some contrived, mathematical notion of “balance,” i.e. five paragraphs of Republicans for every five paragraphs of Democrats. The ideal instead was that we showed you everything we could see, good and bad, ugly and not, trusting that a better-informed public would make better decisions. This vision of media stressed accuracy, truth, and trust in the reader’s judgment as the routes to positive social change.

For all our infamous failings, journalists once had some toughness to them. We were supposed to be willing to go to jail for sources we might not even like, and fly off to war zones or disaster areas without question when editors asked. It was also once considered a virtue to flout the disapproval of colleagues to fight for stories we believed in (Watergate, for instance).

Today no one with a salary will stand up for colleagues like Lee Fang. Our brave truth-tellers make great shows of shaking fists at our parody president, but not one of them will talk honestly about the fear running through their own newsrooms. People depend on us to tell them what we see, not what we think. What good are we if we’re afraid to do it?

#matt taibbi #journalism in action #new progressive orthodoxy #unofficial official religion #great awokening #purging the heretics and unbelievers #freeze peach is not just an ice cream flavor

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mwolf0epsilon · 5 years

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DBH Human AU - Info

After days of trying to organize this massive AU, I've finally done it. Ladies and gentleman, I give you my DBH Human AU which is perhaps the angstiest and heaviest of my AUs!

I'll advise caution as the themes are...Pretty fucking dark and revolve around a ton of different kinds of abuse, including domestic violence, sexual abuse, trans-erasure, rape and more. With that in mind, read at your own peril!

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--Plot--

Over the last couple of years the rate of missing teenagers has increased dramatically in Detroit. These teenagers are mostly abuse victims coming from very difficult family situations, failure of the adoption system, a botched educational system, and quite a few instances of racial and religious tension that lead to exposure to violence of varying degrees.

The story follows a group of 5 teens and 1 child who've banded together as they escape this sort of abuse, following signs and clues left behind by other previous victims who've joined forces and formed a nomadic group called Jericho. A group composed of runaway teens and children, who live completely on the move and never settle for too long in the same place (with the exception of a few members of the group).

Their main traveling system?

Freighter trains.

Nothing is as it seems however, and three members of the group have attracted the attention of not only the police, but if a very shady company as well...

Things might take quite the turn for the worse, but for now all the group can do is pray and follow the train tracks.

--Cast--

DPD: The precinct has archived all of the missing persons cases related to Jericho, it's the disappearences of three young boys however, that calls into action a proper investigation.

Captain Jeoffrey Fowler - The captain of the DPD, Fowler is in charge of not only everyone in the precinct, but also has to make difficult decisions when certain high profile cases show up. He has faith in his officers, and especially Hank who he hopes can solve the current case he was assigned, and get back to his former glory. There seems to be an ongoing despute between him and the captain of the SWAT team, Allen, over a particular officer's work ethic, as well as the nature of all of the missing person case files.

Lieutenant Hank Anderson - A bitter old cop whose career has been practically cast aside after his son Cole's death. Armed with an acute intuition, a somewhat jaded perception of the world around him, and a massive saint bernard named Sumo, Hank has taken on the case to end all cases: Find three missing brothers who've recently run away from an orphanage overseen by the ever watchful Amanda Stern. Something tells him, however, that he's bitten off more than he can chew, and that this case is much more than it seems.

Detective Gavin Reed - A newly graduated rookie from the academy, Gavin is an ornery young man with an aggressive streak and a few self-esteem issues. He's been looking into Hank's case without permission, in the hopes that he might be able to find something the older cop hasn't already. Despite his hardened shell and angry disposition, the missing persons cases seem to mean something to him, and Gavin is as stubborn as he is dedicated to figuring out what the pattern is that links all of the missing teenagers and children together.

Officer Tina Chen - Gavin's partner and another newly graduated rookie, Tina is a lady of very few words but a great listener and perceptive to boot. She's been helping Gavin look into Hank's case clandestinely. While this would seem like something unfitting of her standards and morals, she has her reasons to help her partner, particularly to find someone she knew who went missing two years prior to her graduation.

Detective Ben Collins - One of the more experienced detectives in the DPD, Ben is an old friend of Hank's and Is currently working on a case relating to shady black market sales. He has joined forces with Hank on a few instances, due to the sensitive nature of both of their cases. Ben is one of many officers who despises Perkins, and he has been keeping tabs due to some very worrying complaints coming in recently.

Officer Chris Miller - Ben's partner and a new father, Chris is a kind man and the previous officer to work on missing persons cases. He had to ask Fowler to be removed from said cases after the number of children and teenagers going missing began to grow. He has given all of the info he had collected to Hank, and has proven himself to be a great help with the case.

Captain Allen - The captain of the SWAT team, Allen has been in the force long enough to know when certain cases seem dodgy. Hank's case, as well as the multiple missing children and teenagers cases, seem to concern him greatly as he has a feeling there might be more to the three missing orphans than what anyone currently knows. He seems to be highly suspicious of Perkins,but many of his warnings over these concerns have gone unheard.

Officer Richard Perkins - A corrupt, mysoginistic and racist cop that cares more about furthering his career than to serve and protect the civilians of Detroit. With little to no remorse, and capable of holding a mighty grudge, Perkins has set his sights on grade-A student Markus Manfred and has done everything in his power to put the mixed-race teenager behind bars for no particular reason other than thinking "his kind" are nothing but thugs, drug addicts and thieves. His constant harassment has led to Markus running away and Leo requesting multiple restraining orders to keep the man well away from the Manfred household. He's currently under evaluation by the DPD, Which of course has turned his unwarranted grudge against Markus into a blood feud. He will stop at nothing until he has the youngest Manfred boy in his grimy clutches.

Stern's House of Second Chances: A high profile orphanage that takes in and reabilitates difficult cases within the adoption system. The orphanage is run and owned by Amanda Stern and seems to be allied to Cypherlife, a shady company that has more than mental healing in mind...

Amanda Stern - The owner and overseer of Stern's House of Second Chances, Amanda Stern was Elijah Kamski's mentor before she quit her job as a professor and set her sights on a personal project that she claimed to be for the bettering of the human condition, but that proved to be too immoral even for someone as ambitious and enigmatic as Kamski. Obsessed with mental disorders, traumas, behavioral patterns and how they affected a person Amanda hoped that, in allowing Cypherlife to study and perform experimental treatments on the children residing at the orphanage, that she would be helping enhance both the medical field and the science behind psychology studies. This ultimately failed as Cypherlife had more than medicine in mind when they began to subject the children and teenagers to cruel tests and social experiments. She was the one who requested the DPD to look for the missing Dechart boys, but she did not predict Hank would look too deep into the case. All she knows is that she needs to get those three boys and get rid of the evidence before the happenings at the orphanage are exposed.

Connor "Eights" Dechart - The oldest of three brothers, Connor is a traumatized young man who's lived in Stern's House of Second Chances for most of his childhood. Having witnessed the violent death of his parents, and been subjected to experimental hypnotherapy treatment by specialists at the orphanage to deal with his trauma, Connor's memories are a confusing mess and not always reliable, but he knows for sure not all is as it seems and that something nefarious is going on behind closed doors. Having only just turned 18, Connor decides to trust his instincts and runs away with his siblings in the hopes of escaping whatever it is that's going on at the orphanage. Connor is a clever young man who's very perceptive but who's trauma has led to him becoming emotionally unattached to the world around him. His main priority is his and his younger siblings's safety. He doesn't trust Kara and Markus when he first joins forces with them, but grows to appreciate them and even consider them friends as they all search for Jericho.

Shawn "Sixes" Dechart - Connor's twin. The more emotional of the brothers, Shawn is an angry young man who has a lot of insecurity that lead to him living a very sheltered life at the orphanage. Unwilling to take risks, and often searching for guidance through Amanda, Shawn immediately dismissed Connor's concerns as being delusions and paranoia but, after witnessing something odd one night, he began to doubt his initial judgement of his brother's perception of the world and even went along with the escape plan. Equally as clever as Connor, but sensitive and over-emotional, Shawn is often considered the troublemaker of the three brothers.

Newton "Nines" Dechart - The twins's younger brother, Newton is a highly functioning autistic 16 year old boy. Often keeping his nose buried in a book, Newton loses track of time very easily, but can't help notice the littlest of things that just seem off-putting to him. He has a vague idea that something just isn't right with Stern's House of Second Chances, despite it being his home for a tremendous portion of his life, but he can't quite put into words what bothers him… He thinks highly of his older brothers and trusts their judgement wholeheartedly, although he'll more often side with Connor due to Shawn letting his volatile emotions get the better of him.

The Manfred Household: Home to Carl Manfred and his two boys, as well as Carl's caretaker, the Manfred household is faced with a lot of drama after a corrupt officer becomes hell-bent in ruining their lives.

Carl Manfred - Once a successful artist, painter, and figurehead of the Neo-Symbolism movement, Carl is a wise and patient man who's eccentricities have led to an interesting and awe-inspiring life. Before his accident Carl never really thought about settling down and starting a family, as he didn't consider himself to be father material. While he did acknowledge his firstborn, Leo, Carl never met him until he was 16, opting for paying child-support while the mother raised him instead. This was not the case for his second born, Markus, who was thrust into his care unexpectedly. Having just suffered his accident, Carl was initially very reluctant to care for a young child, as he did not feel like he was capable of supporting a growing child while trying to adjust to his newly acquired disability. With a little bit of encouragement from his closest friends, Carl reluctantly took charge and became a full time father to the young boy whose mother he couldn't even recall. As the years went by and Markus grew, Carl became quite fond of the boy and felt more confident around children. When Leo's mother passed away, however, Carl welcomed his eldest son into his home and realized that the distance he'd put between himself and his firstborn had led to an extremely shaky and strained relationship. Unsure how to mend the gap, Carl acted more strict around the 20 year old, while he treated Markus more lovingly. This only worsened their bond and even turned his sons against each other for three years. It took a lot of work to gain Leo's trust and for Carl to finally open himself up to his estranged son. This all changes when Markus got into trouble with the police for no other reason than the color of his skin. The three grew closer in adversity but, after a terrible car crash caused by sabotage, Carl ended up hospitalized in a coma. He's currently under the care of his caretaker and nurse, Matthew, and is regularly visited by Leo who talks to him in an effort to try to get his father to wake up.

Matthew the Caretaker - Matthew is a young man who has always aspired to do good in the world. As someone who doesn't let life get him down, Matthew is a patient and level headed person with a mix of interests such as chess, art, ballet, opera and more. This greatly helped him connect with Carl when he was first assigned as his caretaker and nurse after the accident. Having been around for a good portion of Markus's life and Leo's integration into the family dynamic, Matthew is quite accustomed to the Manfred family drama by now, and will often get involved with the Manfred boys when he knows they could use a little extra help. The day of the car crash was his one day off, and Matthew feels immensely guilt for not being there to help when it happened. He tried to do his best with tending to Markus while he was getting used to his prosthetic legs, and kept a closer eye on Leo, who was also doing poorly at the time, but his attention remains focused primarily on Carl's needs, so it's no surprise he couldn't stop Markus from running away.

Leo Manfred - Carl's eldest son and a product of a brief fling with a younger fan, Leo is a troubled young man with a lot of internalized issues that have followed him throughout his entire life. Between trying to prove himself to the world, and trying to balance what little money he made on his own to afford his T treatment, Leo never wanted to accept the child-support money his father gave him out of pride. When his mother fell ill, however, Leo stopped using it to fund his education and instead began using it to try to help his mom recover. The worse she got, the more he'd spend, until eventually the money just wasn't enough to combat the amounting medical bills. When his mother died, a 16 year old Leo had no other option but to go live with the father he'd never met. He initially resented both Carl and Markus for living in the lap of luxury while he and his mother were left to rot, but eventually he acclimated to life with his remaining family and grew closer to them. When the accident happened, a 27 year old Leo was incredibly distraught by what befell both his father and younger brother, and he once again tried to do his best to help. A little after he turned 28, he began to work a few odd jobs, but a month after Markus's 19th birthday he had to go to the hospital after he got jumped in an alleyway and stabbed. When Markus ran away, Leo began to fall into a downward spiral, but he's tried to remain strong for Carl's sake. He has no idea where Markus has gone but he hopes his brother has at least managed to escape the cop that started all of their problems.

Markus Manfred - Carl's youngest son and product of a one night stand with an unnamed woman, Markus is an athletic and highly talented young man with a lot of ambition and heart. Having never met his mother and been raised entirely by Carl, Markus is his father's son and shares multiple interests with Carl. Having come from a background of privilege, however, has left Markus somewhat naive and sheltered, which has always concerned his father to no end. Markus himself only realized things weren't exactly golden when his older brother came to live at the mansion. Initially despising one another, Leo and Markus's relationship was downright hostile for a good part of three years, up until some very difficult events brought them together. When Markus turned 18, he was a victim of racial profiling and harassed by a police officer for weeks on end until things took a turn for the worse. One afternoon while returning home from classes, he was chased down by the same cop, and was badly beaten for "resisting arrest". When Markus later tried to take action against the unfair treatment, he began receiving death threats. He didn't think anything would happen, until one afternoon he went out for a drive with Carl. The two were rushed to the hospital after their car crashed, due to the breaks having been cut, and while Carl ended up falling into a coma, Markus was seriously injured. Even during recovery (in which Markus had to adjust to having both legs amputated, losing sight and hearing on his right side, and painful and disfiguring scarring all over his body) the death threats kept coming. On his 19th birthday, when he'd fully adjusted to his prosthetics, another incident occurred where Leo was attacked, and a guilt ridden Markus decided he needed to disappear so as to keep his family safe. He's been on the run ever since, and his search for Jericho has led him to meet quite the interesting cast of characters, including the Dechart brothers and the Williams girls, who he's joined forces with to find Jericho.

The Williams Household: Home of Todd Williams and the disguised prison of Kara and Alice Williams. Nothing is as good as it seems.

Todd Williams - A deadbeat taxi-driver with a grudge against his ex-wife and an addiction to several different stimulants, Todd is an ill-tempered individual with a violent streak. After his sister passed away, Todd took in his young niece Kara who he initially treated well. Eventually, as he got himself tangled up with the wrong kind of people, Todd became unemployed and ended up doing odd jobs around the neighborhood to pay the bills and sustain his many addictions. He began to abuse Kara soon after, and ended up impregnating her in the process. To save face, he hid all evidence of their familial ties and forcefully married his niece to make it appear as though everything was normal. As the years went by, Todd's abuse only got worse and Kara's life of forced servitude and motherhood only made her crave freedom more and more.

Kara Williams - After her mother passed away from cancer, a young 13 year old Kara ended up in her uncle Todd's custody as her sole living relative. Initially treated lovingly, Kara was completely caught off guard when her uncle began to change due to his downward spiral into a life of drug-dealing and dependency. Experiencing Todd's abuse and hateful nature soon shaped the once boisterous and cheery Kara into a shy and submissive girl, which only made things worse after she eventually became pregnant with his child. Powerless against her uncle, Kara was forced to become his wife and have the baby as a way to feign normalcy as well as substitute the family Todd had previously driven away due to his bad habits. While she resented Todd and all he had done to her, including pulling her out of school and forever tainting her idea of a family, Kara was always a loving mother to her daughter. When she turned 19 and Alice turned 6, she managed to run away while Todd suffered an overdose. She has since been on the run in search of a better place to restart her life from the ground up. She meets Connor's tiny group and Markus completely by accident while searching for Jericho. She's the one to suggest they band together to find the elusive group.

Alice Williams - Kara's 6 year old daughter, Alice may be a result of sexual abuse but her mother loves her more than anything in the world. A very quiet, shy, and intelligent little girl, Alice has only ever known a broken home but, with Kara's quick thinking and wits, both girls have managed to get out of their disguised prison and have been living on the run. Life is uncertain, but Alice tries to keep a brave face, if only to help reassure her mother in the face of adversity.

The Chapman Household: A known ally of Jericho's situated in Canada, this small family is known for helping those in dire need.

Rose Chapman - A kind-hearted and family oriented woman who has helped many runaway kids along their journey. A firm believer that everyone deserves a second chance, especially if they came from very difficult and dangerous situations. A lot of the youngsters she has helped in the past have gone to live at her brother's farm, while others have gone under the radar. Some maintain contact with her. She is Josh's and Lucy's aunty from their mother's side and has been trying to win custody over them ever since her sister passed away, since she knew their father was an unstable individual. She's been searching for them ever since she found out they ran away, and hopes they'll make it to Canada without much issue.

Adam Chapman - Rose's son and Josh and Lucy's younger cousin, Adam is a young boy with a very nervous disposition. He means well, but his fear that his mother might get in trouble by helping hide runaway kids usually causes him to be outwardly hostile towards their temporary guests. He was distraught when he found out his cousins went missing, and has been helping his mother search for them.

The Phillips Household: The humble beginnings of a family destined for disaster.

John Phillips - A workaholic and often absent father, John is a man who worked his entire life to get where he is and who's become a bit of an idealist and show-off as a result. In his youth he and Caroline had been high school sweethearts before both parted ways to pursue the life they had always wanted for themselves. Years later, the two reunited and got married, with John accepting the twins as if they were his own kids. After Emma was born, John became less present in the kids' lives, which left them completely under Caroline's care. Obsessed with climbing up the social ladder and with furthering his career, John supported Caroline's old fashioned ways as a means to create the idyllic and perfect picket fence family dynamic he wanted to convey to the world. This ultimately ended in failure when a tormented and disconsolate Simon ran away, and when Daniel attempted suicide. John has since taken a step back from work to recollect his thoughts and try to fix the mess he'd let happen.

Caroline Phillips - An old fashioned and a recovering alcoholic, Caroline is a woman who was pushed around all her life and shaped to be the perfect american housewife. When she was younger, Caroline had dreams of becoming more than a stay-at-home wife. She'd wanted to be a teacher, or even a doctor at one point. These dreams were thoroughly beaten out of her by her ex-husband, a belligerent asshole who'd married her after she'd gotten pregnant. Shaped into a bitter and angry woman by her abusive relationship, Caroline eventually divorced the man who'd ruined her life but did not come out of the marriage unscathed. She married her highschool sweetheart and started her life anew, but began to put a lot of pressure on the twins so they wouldn't be anything like their biological father. When her eldest daughter came out as trans, however, Caroline was furious. She couldn't accept Simon for who he was, having wanted him to be the perfect daughter and role model for her youngest daughter, and did everything in her power to force Simon to remain a perfect young girl. After Simon was assaulted at school by a bully, Caroline blamed him for "instigating the attack with all of the nonsensical spheal of being a boy". This argument encouraged Simon to run away, and inevitably caused Daniel to deteriorate and attempt to take his own life. Caroline has since been forced to seek help, while John tries to fix the lasting damage she caused their children.

Emma Phillips - The sweet and loving younger sister, Emma had to stand and watch as her family was ripped apart by the lasting effects of abuse and from prolonged absence and ignorance. She was the apple of her mother's eye and as such often used as an excuse for the twins to behave, least their behaviour affect Emma in anyway. This ultimately became an excuse for Caroline to continuously reject and force Simon into a role he did not want and, subsequently, created a distance between Simon and Emma. She was much closer to Daniel as a result. After Simon ran away, Emma could see Daniel wasn't ok despite his best attempts to hide his depression from his littlest sister. Emma was the one who found Daniel when he attempted to take his own life. The event has left her traumatized and fearful.

Daniel Phillips - The older of the Phillips twins, Daniel is a tragic example of someone who couldn't choose between his own morals and his familial obligations until it was too late. Once upon a time, Daniel and Simon had been close as any set of twins is bound to be. They had been the result of another relationship of their mother's before she married John and, as a result, there was always a lot of pressure put upon them to be good despite their biological father having been a deadbeat asshole. Daniel, having been the protective older brother, had taken it upon himself to shoulder that pressure because he knew Simon already had a lot on his plate. Doing as his mother always told him, and doing his best to please his workaholic and show off of a father, Daniel's relationship with his twin deteriorated as the years went by, his parent's old fashioned views taking their toll on his moral compass. Unable to understand Simon's plight, and being too scared to go against his parents' wishes, Daniel rejected his twin whenever Simon plead for help. It was his job as the oldest to be the example, a role model for their little sister Emma. He had to make his parents happy, and taking Simon's side wouldn't make them happy. As he watched his twin deteriorated, however, Daniel was left guilt ridden and depressed. He knew he'd failed as a brother, but he didn't want to crack under the pressure and make things worse. So, despite knowing his parents were wrong, Daniel did nothing to ease his brother's heavy heart. It was when Simon ran away that Daniel finally lost control of everything in his life. In the span of a few days, the eldest Phillips twin's life became a complete train wreck which led him to attempt suicide as an escape. He's currently hospitalized and under watch while in a catatonic state.

Jericho: A group of runaway teenagers and children that live a nomadic life. They follow the train tracks wherever they may take them, and sometimes get on freighter trains clandestinely, where they seek shelter and a few supplies stolen from crates.

Silvia Phillips/"Simon of Jericho" - The younger of the Phillips twins, Simon was one of Jericho's founding members and has always been the go to person when runaway children are involved. Like most of the teenagers in Jericho, Simon's story is filled with tragedy and abuse. Ever since he was a young child, Simon knew he'd been born in the wrong body. No matter how much his mother tried to bring out the perfect daughter she'd always wanted, Simon just didn't feel like he fit in that role, nor that he could ever feel comfortable in his own skin as long as she tried to shape him into something he clearly wasn't. As he and Daniel grew older and apart, Simon tried to open up about his concerns with his family. This failed tremendously however. Rejected by his mother's old fashioned views, his father's overall dismissal of anything non-work related, and his brother's compliance to his parents' demands, Simon felt lost and alone even at home. The laughing stock of his community, Simon lived a life of pure misery due to being treated like a freak by his peers, and was basically left to fend for himself as his brother got more absorbed into the family life and his growing depression. Simon felt like there wasn't anything he could ever do to change his life for the better, and his tormentors fed off that negativity. After he was sexually assaulted at school by the class bully, and subsequently discovered he was pregnant due to the attack, he tried to once again reach out to his family in a desperate attempt to get the help he needed. The following argument with his mother is what drove him to run away, after cutting his hair, binding his chest and stealing some of his brother's clothes. He abandoned his old life and name, and is now only known as Simon of Jericho. The protector and caretaker of children.

Riley "North" Kelly - There are a lot of stories about pretty girls, all looks and no brain, getting pulled from college earlier to pursue careers as models. Then there are stories like Riley Kelly's. Riley was a young girl born in poverty and who never had anything yet gave a lot to those around her. Forced to prostitute herself to earn money for her family, she was always bitter that she'd never accomplished any of her life goals, such as getting a degree or living stable. When the money wasn't enough, Riley ended up on the streets, abandoned and unwanted due to just being "another mouth to feed". Ever the resourceful and clever 18 year old girl, however, Riley took what she could by pickpocketing and doing some dodgy work here and there, before leaving the city entirely to search for Jericho. Her old name was all but forgotten as she headed North, and eventually she became a sort of legend within the group that readily took her in. She is one of the best hunters and fighters in Jericho, and has taken on several apprentices.

Josh Sawyers - The son of a highly religious and traditionalist priest, Josh's early childhood had been nothing if not a nightmare. He lost his mother after his younger sister was born, and practically raised her himself despite their age gap being very minute. Josh was always known to be a very clever and curious boy, as well as a pacifist at heart, three traits that his father didn't seem to like too much considering his old fashioned views of manhood. Often punished for the smallest of inconveniences, or beaten for being too wimpy, Josh had only ever known abuse and hate despite the hypocrite preaching of love and tolerance that his father spewed every Sunday to the rest of the community. When his sister Lucy turned 17, and Josh himself turned 20, the two ran away from their abusive household to escape their father. Their final goal is to reach their aunt Rose's house that is all the way in Canada, but until they get there they remain with Jericho who took them in when no one else would. Josh serves as a teacher to the children of Jericho, as well as the head of inventory due to his meticulous organization skills. His attentive nature and overall knowledge is very useful for the group.

Lucy Sawyers - Josh's younger sister and the daughter of a belligerent preacher, Lucy is a brilliant young woman that, despite her blindness, has the most accurate perception out of everyone in Jericho. She has a talent for tending to other's medical needs, and her calm disposition is rather soothing. She is the primary "doctor" in Jericho, alongside Simon, Shaolin Being and Rupert.

Cornelius Ortiz/"The Shaolin Being" - A young man with a knack for mysticism, spiritual healing as well as physical healing, the Shaolin Being is a heavily scarred victim of domestic abuse, as well as one of the longest standing missing child case in the DPD's records. While his real name is confidential, the one his kidnapper gave him was all but discarded after Shaolin couldn't take much more of the abuse he received daily. After murdering the thief and drug addict, Carlos Ortiz, who took him from his biological family several years ago, Shaolin renamed himself and left in search of safe haven where he could pray to the divine deities he'd come to worship as a means of escaping the suffering he'd been put through under Ortiz. He has a vast knowledge of healing herbs, home remedies and meditation rituals which, while unusual, are actually quite beneficial to Jericho. Shaolin Being is seen as a kind older brother and healer, but one shouldn't underestimate someone who is very skilled with a knife.

Tracy "Echo" Rose - A victim of sex trafficking, Echo was once a young girl named Tracy Rose who was kidnapped from her hometown and sold to a sex club alongside many other young girls like herself. Once a naive and complacent victim, she began to hope for a better life after meeting and befriending another girl that worked at the club. At 17, she killed and strangled a patron of the club after she witnessed him beat another girl to death, and then she found the courage to flee with her lover. She's been with Jericho ever since, under the protection of North.

Stacy "Ripple" Blaire - Like Echo, Ripple is also a victim of sex trafficking. However, unlike her lover, Ripple was unfortunately forced to work at the club by her own father. She had lived her entire life under his control, degraded and incapable of standing up for herself after years of conditioning. This all changes when she met Echo, who slowly brought out the fight she'd hidden within her all along. After the two fled, they joined Jericho and became North's apprentices.

Rupert Travis - The orphaned son of a farmer, Rupert was always considered to be a little off by the rest of the community he lived in. He didn't like people too much, preferring to be in the company of the farm animals he helped his father tend to, and he had a rather odd fixation with birds. Often shunned by his peers, Rupert didn't have any friends during his childhood and seemed to grow accustomed to the loneliness that followed him everywhere he went. After a fire claimed the life of his father and the property they lived in, Rupert ended up on the streets. Homeless and unwanted, Rupert opted with isolating himself from the world, living on his lonesome in the woods. As the years went by, he became a sort of urban legend: A crazy young man who trains pigeons to do his bidding. The stories aren't entirely wrong, except the part about cults and blood sacrifices. He has no idea where those came from. He's one of Jericho's suppliers, since living independently from the rest of the world has given him plenty of time to hone his hunting, gathering and farming skills. He also serves as an emergency medic for more seriously injured group members.

Ralph Vladimary - Ralph is a mystery all on his own. Having been found living alone in an abandoned cabin in the woods, it's obvious from the scars and his overall behaviour and unpredictable mood swings that something absolutely horrible happened to him in the past, but Ralph has never opened up about it. A very reserved and easily frightened young man, Ralph doesn't do well in crowds and doesn't join Jericho in their travels because he's easy to overwhelm. Instead he continues to reside in the woods in his little cabin, receiving help from Rupert when he sets off on his own away from the group to check on his many camps and crops. Suffering from several mental disorders makes it hard for Ralph to get by on his own, but there are very few people he trusts so he manages out of sheer willpower and perhaps a little bit of spite towards those who think he's bound to fail. As reserved and difficult as he may be, Ralph would do anything for his friends, and is actually quite good at growing food and medicinal herbs. He's another one of Jericho's top suppliers as a result, although it's advised to send someone he likes to get the supplies.

The Jerrys/The Bosch Quintuplets - The sons of an old Canadian Navy Captain, Jeremiah, Jerome, Jeremy, Jerard and Jeronim, otherwise known as the Jerrys, are a set of happy-go-lucky quintuplets who are considered outliers of Jericho, as they wound up missing by pure accident. The unfortunate series of events that lead them to where they are now, are rather ironic, as the nautical theme loving Jerrys fell overboard and ended up getting washed away. How they survived is beyond anyone, considering the harsh temperatures of Detroit in winter, but they somehow managed to only sustain a few injuries from frostbite and still march on with a smile on their face. They hope to get back to Canada to their father one day, but for now they remain with Jericho, adamant to help the group members find a place to call home.

Luther - The first person to befriend Kara and Alice on their travels, after both ended up at Zlatko's mansion by mistake. Luther is a rather tall and intimidating young man, but at heart he is a gentle giant who means well. An amnesiac, he was forced to be Zlatko's slave and main enforcer from a young age, and has no memory of who he was before he was purchased. He is also the co-leader of the Creatures gang, whom he calls his found family. Luther helped Kara and Alice escape, and later rejoined her with his group after she joined forces with Connor and Markus.

The Creatures/Luther's Gang - Former slaves of Zlatko Andromikov, Luther's gang is comprised by a series of teenagers who grew up bound to servitude and a life of cruelty. Many bare terrible scars, others were born with birth defects, but they are all bound to each other by loyalty and one commonality: They were unwanted by their kin before they found a family in each other. Their spokesperson/leader is a very tall and muscular young woman who is covered in multiple scars, and who only speaks Russian. Despite her terrifying appearance she's a teddy bear at heart and is considered the older sister of Luther's group.

The Founder: The DPD and Amanda aren't the only ones following the Dechart missing case. Someone else in a higher place is watching...

Elijah Kamski - An enigmatic man and the original founder of Cypherlife, Elijah Kamski is a man of many secrets. When he originally founded Cypherlife his goal was to enhance human lives through specialized and experimental treatment of neural and psychological disorders. It's unknown why he left, but rumours say that he was betrayed by a group of very ambitious staff members in the company.

"Chloe" - Elijah Kamski's equally enigmatic secretary, not much is really known about Chloe, not even her real name. A highly intelligent and resourceful woman, she seems to have a lot of contacts within the city limits. Some question how such a beautiful recognizable young lady can get around unnoticed when she can captivate everyone whenever she's on screen with her boss.

Zlatko's trafficking ring: Jericho has many enemies that mean them harm. The worst of the bunch are those who wish to prey on them and turn them into merchandising.

Zlatko Andromikov - The leader of a child trafficking circuit, Zlatko is a cruel man who has ruined the lives of countless youths that have mistakenly gone to him for help in their times of dire need. Known well in the black market for his "quality merchandising" and many "services", Zlatko has multiple eyes and ears around Detroit who spread his lies of promised safety and new beginnings. He, like Amanda and Perkins, has loose ends to tie with two particular members of Jericho.

#detroit: become human #detroit become human #detroit: bh #dbh #Human AU #WARNING: EXTREMELY SENSITIVE TOPICS #CAUTION IS ADVISED

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watching-pictures-move · 5 years

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Movie Review | The Stray Cat Rock Series (Hasebe & Fujita, 1970-71)

A surprisingly consistent series, frequently unpredictable and always stylish and entertaining. The first entry, Delinquent Girl Boss, might be the best summation of the their strengths, striking a tough, edgy tone yet proving surprisingly tender in its depiction of the camaraderie among its characters, members of an all-girl gang and other societal outcasts. The plot follows the gang as they band together to protect their friend who gets in trouble with another gang after his friend refuses to throw a boxing match. The proceedings are as raucous as the title suggests, lent extra swagger by the brash performance by Akiko Wada as a leather-clad biker who takes up with the gang as well as groovy scoring courtesy of various rock acts (a series fixture), yet when the conclusion arrives, it’s surprisingly deeply felt.

The ending also suggests that this might not be a series in the traditional sense, which quickly becomes clear when the second film, Wild Jumbo, switches to a completely different set of characters, only some of whom are played by returning cast members Meiko Kaji and Tatsuya Fuji. This is probably the most slight of the films, as two thirds of the movie consist of our characters goofing around on a beach in loosely connected vignettes and almost play-acting as soldiers or police, parodying the establishment that wants no part of them (although the stash of antique weapons they find makes some of this “acting” uneasily authentic). The third act brings some welcome focus to the proceedings, as the characters decide to rob a religious organization. The heist does not go as planned, and the film ends on a grim note in stark contrast to the lighthearted tone of the earlier sections.

The series frequently casts its characters in opposition to the establishment and ugly nationalistic sentiments, and nowhere is this dynamic clearest as in Sex Hunter, the misleadingly titled third installment which has our heroes standing up to racially motivated violence after a rival gang starts targeting mixed-race individuals. As always, even when pairing our heroes with a morally righteous mission, the series finds emotional complications and throws in a surprisingly moving subplot about a supporting character coming to terms with her identity. This is the strongest of the entries, and also the one that serves as the clearest testament to Meiko Kaji’s star power. While the first film was arguably led by Akiko Wada and the second was an ensemble piece, this is the first one where Kaji really dominates the proceedings, wresting control of the action with her steely demeanour while producing moments of real poignancy. She even sings a duet with Rikiya Yasuoka in a moving scene that’s one of the film’s best. Let it also be said that while Kaji has one of the best stares in the movies, she also has one of the most underrated smiles. If that sounds like I’m crushing on Kaji, so be it and judge not that ye not be judged.

The fourth film, Machine Animal, has the girls helping a draft dodger escape the country by offloading enough LSD to buy him passage on an outbound ship. It continues to position the characters more as actual gang members rather than stylishly dressed pals who get into knife fights (which is mostly the case with the first movie) while still finding ways to earn our sympathies. It’s comparatively slight and feels closer in quality to the second than to the first and third, but still finds moments of unexpected poetry. The final film, Beat ‘71, returns to the level of relative quality as the first and third films and ends things on a relatively high note. It has Kaji wrongly framed for a murder, leading her comrades to face off against the forces of the culprit’s father, a mayoral candidate trying to maintain the facade of respectability by any means necessary, legality be damned. It has the most political conviction of any of the movies, and situates the climax in a mine dressed up for shooting westerns, which gives the action a nice sense of finality. That being said, one of the promo images promises a scene of Kaji and friends in too cute cowgirl outfits, so if that’s your reason for watching the movie (and I won’t judge), be warned that it never materializes. No matter, for the rest of us, these movies and their improvisational energy, off-the-cuff action filmmaking, deeply felt sense of camaraderie and smuggled in notes of visual poetry, are a real treat.

#film #movie review #stray cat rock: delinquent girl boss #stray cat rock: wild jumbo #stray cat rock: sex hunter #stray cat rock: machine animal #stray cat rock: beat '71 #yasuharu hasebe #toshiya fujita #stray cat rock

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berniesrevolution · 6 years

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Marxists have long understood that the workplace is the primary strategic site of class struggle, and that class struggle is essential for cohering a radicalized working-class majority with the capacity and will to overthrow capitalism in favor of socialism. At the same time, Marxists recognize our moral responsibility to oppose — and the strategic necessity to fight — all forms of exploitation and oppression.

In the United States today, a revitalized socialist Left is giving these questions of strategy new importance and prompting people across the political spectrum to more clearly articulate a position toward the respective roles of race and class in their politics.

On one part of that spectrum, as Briahna Gray writes in The Intercept, Democratic Senator Kamala Harris targets the Left’s supposed “class reductionism”; on another, socialists debate if and how the fundamental Marxist insight of class centrality can be used to formulate strategies to fight racial and gender oppression. In a recent review of Asad Haider’s book Mistaken Identity, Melissa Naschek writes that Haider rightly points to the ways in which “the ideology and rhetoric of ‘identity’ has been used as a weapon against the working class.” But while Marxists must defend class politics from both the radical and mainstream variants of what Gray in her piece calls “race reductionism,” fights for universalist class-wide demands and fights against particular racial oppressions are not mutually exclusive (as Naschek’s piece seems to imply). Indeed, in order for the socialist project to succeed, socialists must link these struggles together.

Both Gray and Naschek refer to the 1966 “Freedom Budget for All Americans,” a project championed by black socialists and Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin, and A. Philip Randolph. We also find the Freedom Budget to be a good touchstone for considering these questions. We draw three important lessons from it and from recent debates about the role of struggles against oppression in the socialist movement. First, fights against racial oppression and social oppressions generally — for immigrant rights, abortion rights, an end to police brutality, etc. — are not a distraction from the socialist project. They are essential to it. Second, purportedly “race-blind” demands — such as Medicare or All, a federal jobs guarantee, and fully-funded public education — are in fact essential elements of any program to combat both the effects and the causes of racism. And finally, these universal class demands provide vehicles for building the mass, multiracial working-class movement needed to end both exploitation and oppression.

FIGHTING OPPRESSION HEAD-ON

Democratic socialists must grasp the importance of struggles against particular oppressions — including deportations, racist police violence, mass incarceration, and abortion restrictions — as part of, not in conflict with, the process of building a socialist movement.

In order to consolidate the victories over Jim Crow and legal segregation, for example, Civil Rights leaders knew that they needed to build on them by connecting the fight for racial justice with a fight for economic justice based on universal economic demands. But this extension of their fight into so-called “race-blind” demands does not imply that they dropped their struggle for racial justice. Rather, these struggles were intimately linked.

In more recent history, workplace fights have openly and directly linked racial justice demands and universal economic demands. In 2012, the Chicago Teachers’ Union strike highlighted the fight for racial justice as part of its broader working-class push for better schools and better working conditions. In their current push toward a strike, the United Teachers of Los Angeles have put forward a similar message. Earlier this year in Oklahoma, teachers on strike explicitly connected their universal and redistributive demands to the fight against mass incarceration, carrying signs reading “Schools Not Jails.” And, just weeks ago, millions saw the power of workers to directly combat racism thanks to a viral video recorded by Indianapolis welder Antoine Dangerfield. In the video, scores of Latino workers walk out of a UPS warehouse to protest racist treatment by their manager — and succeeded in getting that manager fired.

On an electoral level, the popular campaigns of politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have shown how a focus on broad working-class issues like health care, education, and jobs can be effectively combined with more specific demands like abolishing ICE or ending cash bail. Houston DSA member Franklin Bynum, who is running for a judgeship there, has made ending cash bail and fighting racist sentencing a core part of his campaign. In an interview in Jacobin he explains that racism and poverty “maintain each other in the sense that, for instance, you have neighborhoods segregated by race, certain ones are targeted by police, people there are marked with criminal records, which drives them further into poverty and so on.” Meanwhile, the resources spent on excessive policing could be spent instead to lift people out of poverty and make much of the carceral apparatus obsolete. Finally, DSA member Jovanka Beckles’s campaign for California state assembly demands universal solutions like housing, healthcare, and education while also standing up for immigrants and offering ambitious reforms to the state’s criminal justice system.

FIGHTING OPPRESSION THROUGH REDISTRIBUTION

In “Beware the Race Reductionist” Gray takes aim at the now-familiar argument that while financial reforms or Medicare for All or a federal jobs guarantee might be broadly beneficial, their framing as “race-blind” policies for the whole working class ignores or even harms specifically oppressed groups in society.

This argument is perhaps best encapsulated by a now-famous Hillary Clinton quip from 2016: “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow, would that end racism? Would that end sexism? Would that end discrimination against the LGBT community? Would that make people feel more welcoming to immigrants overnight?” The series of questions was one of many centrist attacks on Bernie Sanders’s campaign. Later that year, Representative Jim Clyburn claimed that tuition-free public college would harm historically black institutions, and by extension black people. As Gray puts it, this “attack on progressivism under the pretext of anti-bigotry” implies that “if a policy doesn’t resolve racism ‘first,’ it’s at worst racist, and at best not worth pursuing.”

But as Gray makes clear, because of the lasting material effects of slavery, segregation, and racial domination in the United States, black people would actually benefit more than their white counterparts from redistributive programs. Black people have more student debt than any other demographic group and are forced to drop out of college for financial reasons at much higher rates — something that a federal tuition-free public college and university program would directly address. The 2008 financial crisis devastated the fortunes of black people by wiping out 40 percent of black wealth. It is therefore misguided, as Gray argues, to cast financial reform as incidental or unrelated to the interests of black people. Finally, black and Latinx people remain uninsured at far higher rates than whites, even after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Citing the demand for universal health care in the Movement for Black Lives platform, Gray writes that healthcare is an “existential” issue for African Americans. In this case, the reason healthcare is “not perceived as a ‘person of color issue’ is a matter of marketing, not substance.”

In fact, as Gray argues by quoting Touré Reed, “the principal beneficiaries of universal policies would be poor and working class people who would disproportionately be black and brown… Dismissing such policies on the grounds that they aren’t addressing systemic racism is a sleight of hand.”

FIGHTING OPPRESSION WITH A MASS MOVEMENT

In their book A Freedom Budget For All Americans, Paul Le Blanc and Michael Yates recount how Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin, and A. Philip Randolph sought to link the struggles for racial and economic equality within a comprehensive program they call “The Strategy.” Though we don’t share the “realignment” goal of transforming the Democratic Party advocated by Rustin and Randolph, the Freedom Budget demonstrates a compelling approach to linking race and class in an organic and strategic manner. To quote Le Blanc and Yates:

The consciousness and momentum of this crusade against the Jim Crow system could stand as a preliminary stage for confronting the other aspects of institutional racism, which would require a more fundamental social and economic transformation.

This transformation could only be realized effectively by attacking racism’s underlying economic roots, which in turn could only be done effectively by developing a broader program for economic justice: decent jobs, housing, education, and health care for all, as a matter of right. Though such a program would be initiated by blacks, it would be powerfully relevant to a majority of whites. The resulting interracial coalition for economic justice would have the dual function of eliminating the roots of institutional racism and creating an atmosphere of idealism and common struggle that would help to further push back various forms of individual racism. If there was abundance and a decent life for every person, then the fearful competition for scarce resources, an essential breeding ground and one of the material bases of racism, would be eliminated, and this would strengthen the sense of interracial solidarity generated through the shared struggle for a better life for all people.

One way to restate ‘The Strategy’ is to note that it projected (1) a mass struggle against segregation and second-class citizenship; and (2) tackling issues of economic justice, channeling the struggle against the Jim Crow system into an even more massive struggle (through a coming together of the anti-racist and labor movements) for jobs for all, an end to poverty, and democratic regulation of the economy, which would involve a transition from capitalism to socialism.

The Freedom Budget represented a radical reform agenda, demanding, as Randolph wrote, “that in this, the richest and most productive society ever known to man, the scourge of poverty can and must be abolished.” For socialists like Rustin, Randolph, and King, the Budget represented a practical agenda pointing beyond capitalism. That is why the Freedom Budget was not directed exclusively at fighting the racial oppression of black people, but rather sought to build a multiracial working-class movement for comprehensive social transformation.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #the call #bernie sanders #alexandria ocasio cortez #DSA #Democratic Socialists of America #race and class #working class #intersectionality #democratic socialism #socialism

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theoreticalliving · 6 years

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Posing Questions in Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You

Necessary spoilers below

Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You will likely be compared to Jordan Peele’s Get Out as the must-see satire/horror story of contemporary (Black) American life this year. Certainly both films have in common, beyond their genre bonafides, rumination on the commodification and labor of Black life and the compromises upwardly-mobile Black men make under White supremacist racial capitalism. Yet whereas Get Out was more invested in the psychic labor Blackness does for Whites and only obliquely alluded to the politics of labor, Sorry to Bother You directly attacks the question of (Black) inequality and labor struggles under racial capitalism. Yet while a politics of labor is what is most immediately attractive about the film, I think ultimately the film shows that the resistance that comes from a labor politics is wholly insufficient for actually challenging racial capitalism, and in this may be directly addressing pertinent questions on the Left.

Drawing on the film criticism ofFrank Wilderson, he argues that power to pose the question is the greatest power of all” (viiii), and that in the 60’s and 70’s a series of Black filmmakers did precisely that, motivated by the Black Power movement, Watts Rebellion, and Black Liberation Army to directly address the possibilities and costs of Black people on the move towards freedom. Certainly Riley could be seen to be motivated by contemporary concerns in the questions the film poses. Only a couple fantastical twists truly separate his Oakland from the nightmarish caste society of the Bay Area. He also depicts a vibrant political movement of union organizers, black-clad anarchists and DIY-artists, and the requisite police violence and repression they confront. Yet Wilderson also argues that there is a difference between the question of the Worker—alienated by labor yet positioned within civil society—and the question of the Slave whose exclusion forms the very possibility of the world—while the Slave labors they are fundamentally defined by their openness to gratuitous violence, fungibility, and natal alienation. Where the Worker wants to overthrow capital, the Slave wants to destroy the world itself, and it is only the “ruse of analogy” that depicts the question of the Slave as the same as the question of the Worker.

So despite Cassius’s presence as a Black man, alongside other Black co-workers, much of the film poses the question of the Worker. Cassius is forced to sell his labor to survive, he feels alienated from any potential life possibilities—see his constant concerns about who will remember him—and survival under capitalism forces him to become estranged from his loves ones and culture, to adopt the eponymous White Voice that sells access and power to the world. Then there is the mega-company and capitalist villain of the movie WorryFree, who force workers into lifetime contracts in return for food and shelter. Within the movie itself this is critiqued as a return to slavery, yet curiously most of the workers depicted are White. We should also remember from Wilderson that while the Slave performs labor they are not defined by it. Slavery itself was not a contract but pure violence and extraction. It is also striking that we see repeated signs that complete families can join WorryFree, as it at least points to the maintenance of a family structure under extreme labor exploitation that was not true of slavery. So while WorryFree is the satirical endgame of the Worker’s alienation and exploitation under capitalism, it is not the same as being a Slave.

Why does this matter politically? Because within the film a politics of labor organized around the Worker ultimately appears wholly inadequate to the problem of racial capitalism. The organizer Squeeze attempts to form a union at Cassius’s telemarketing company Regal Wave, and the conflict of the film initially comes from Cassius being a scab and betraying his fellow workers. Yet there is never a culmination to this union plot line: we do not see the moment of victory, one of the activists who strikes Cassius with a soda can sells out to get her own TV endorsements, and at the (pseudo) end of the film Cassius plans to go back to work at the company. The character who would be the viewer’s locus of Leftist identification, the Asian-American Squeeze, appears competent but equally as interested in his sexual pursuit of Detroit than meaningfully challenging capital. There are repeated scenes of workers striking outside the premise, but they appear cyclical, another example of labor spinning its wheels without purpose or catalyst to a qualitatively different stage of struggle.

This is where the twist of the film occurs (one I was not prepared for at all) and swerves towards the position of the Slave and the radicality borne from the question of the Slave. WorryFree is literally turning humans into horse-humans, or equi-sapians, to replace its own workforce with the promise of being stronger, more productive, and more obedient. While again equi-sapians are made for the purpose of labor, that is not how they are defined for the viewer. Their being is open to gratuitous violence, as we first see one screaming in pain and begging for help, they are fungible in that they cross the threshold of both the Human and Blackness, and there is an implied degree of natal alienation or at least exaggerated and aberrant sexuality (through the jock of the benefits of having a horse penis). Yet where the equi-sapians appear as victims initially, in the climax of the film they appear as themselves the subjects of politics through the only action that could be meaningfully possible, the rejection and destruction of racial capitalism. As the strikers attempt to keep out the scabs, only to be violently beaten down by the police, it is the equi-sapians—freed by a changed-of-heart Cassius—who appear to fight off the police with their enhanced strength. Not a workers strike but the specter of a Slave revolt is what appears as a decisive blow against capital. While the scene ends with a declaration of solidarity between the workings and the equi-sapians, there is a striking difference of capacity between them.

This is reinforced through the bait-and-switch ending. Cassius, who initially appeared to have harmlessly snorted coke, did actually take the equi-sapian drug and begins to transform. The film cuts off here and goes to credits, yet cuts again to WorryFree CEO Steve Lift’s house, where the newly equi-sapian Cassius appears leading an army(?) of his fellow equi-sapians to invade the house, where the film then cuts to credits without showing the implied violence against the CEO after his door is broken down. Perhaps they do find a cure, or perhaps they merely kill the CEO. Yet whereas the Regal Wave strike stayed at the workplace and was ineffectual until the appearance of the equi-sapians, it is the equi-sapians who charge directly into the lair of capital, as embodied by the CEO.

I find another similarity here to the climax of Get Out, where the main character must also violently confront his White captors and literally kill them. Both films tarry with depicting Fanonian violence of overcoming White supremacist racial capitalism. This is not a gratuitous violence, as critics of Fanon often allege he endorsed, but simply the reversal of the violence imposed on the main characters. As oppression is maintained by the pure force of violence, its inversion is necessarily a violent upheaval. I don’t think its a coincidence that the revolt of the equi-sapians raises both the specter of the Slave revolt—as the creation of “complete disorder” as Fanon and Wilderson puts it—and of a revolt against the Human itself, as the originary differentiation that separates (White) Man from his others and opens the zone of fungibility that the Slave occupies. In some ways the equi-sapians are more Black than the actual Black characters we see on the screen, as both open to the gratuitous violence of the Slave but also enacting a gratuitous freedom that is more often associated with the eruption of Blackness on screen, as in 70’s films such as Bush Mama or The Spook Who Came in from the Cold, depictions of Black revolutionaries in movement.

This is all to say that while it is easy to see an insightful critique of contemporary capitalism in the film and a rumination on struggle against it—as prominent these days from post-Occupy activists to the DSA and Sandernistas—the question of the Worker is not what actually motivates radical change. It is the question of the Slave and the ensemble of gratuitous violence, gratuitous freedom, and complete disorder that portray the briefest glimmer of revolutionary change. It is the question not of anti-capitalism but of anti-Blackness and the end of the world.

A last note, certainly compared to Get Out’s well-oiled machine of cringe comedy and suspenseful horror, Riley has made a much more uneven film. The satire ranges from directly on the nose to overly broad, the romantic story between Cassius and Detroit mostly does not actually develop or change, and is used to reflect more on Cassius’s developments than Detroit. Detroit’s plot line is a satire of the art world that feels done before (though also a sign that Detroit has less room to critique Cassius than she admits). While certainly the Bechdel test is not the end all/be all of ethical film criticism, it is noticeable that the film fails it. A stinging, genre-infused satire for Black women remains to be made.

#film #sorry to bother you #criticism #leftism #afropessimism

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