Prison gangs grew out of the government’s experiments with new forms of control. Within prison, mass incarceration meant a cracking down on prison organizing, and gangs emerged in the vacuum created by the loss of more political entities. The severe abjection of California's prison system generated illicit organizations that used violence and unsanctioned capitalism to enjoy a measure of power and control. This internecine violence also claimed the lives of several leading prison organizers in California, particularly in the late 1970s but also as recently as 2015, when former San Quentin Six defendant Hugo Pinell was murdered in New Folsom prison. In California, this led politicians to build Pelican Bay supermax prison. Like in Texas, California prison officials governed through racism: they presumed gang status through racial identification and used the pretext of gang policing to structure racist lock-downs and other reprisals. Guards also staged “gladiator fights,” battles by racial/ gang groups, a macabre practice Christian Parenti dubbed the “Balkans in a box.”
The way that I’m brainrotting over a DCxDP crossover with a Danny who’s a vengeful villain rn
Like, let’s just say that the GiW finally get into contact with the JL. They need help neutralizing a threat, you see, and they’re on their last limb trying to keep civilians safe.
They have video evidence! They have studies to back their claims! The JL have to help them!
Unfortunately, the JL believe them. They join a fight against Danny, and defeat him due to being far more experienced than he is. Danny is locked away and experimented on by the GiW.
That would CHANGE a person. Your heroes turning against you and seeing you as a monster, being experimented on for who knows how long, not knowing if your friends and family are safe.
Danny gets out due to a simple mistake on the GiW’s part; having Blüdhaven as part of their transport route.
Of course the trucks were attacked, they’re government property!
So now, whoever decided to raid the government transport trucks (the Penguin or something) has a ton of experimental weapons with no idea how they work, and a heavily traumatized teenager.
Danny knows how they work. Danny can be useful! They won’t throw him out if he’s useful! And so, now Danny is working for the Penguin, altering the ectoplasm weapons to make them work on humans.
It’s a good deal for both parties. Danny gets to neurotically imprint on the Penguin like a small baby animal, and the Penguin gets a brilliant mind who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals.
But eventually, Danny finds out what happened to his family in his absence.
Jazz is in Arkham. Not as a psychologist, but as a “patient.” Apparently, she snapped and completely destroyed the house, leveled a few blocks of Amity Park, and conducted organized attacks on government bases (mostly GiW) for months.
Sam and Tucker helped her, eventually splitting once Jazz was captured. Sam travels to areas of extreme pollution, completely overgrowing them with her plant powers. Currently she’s in the Amazon rainforest, engaging in an ongoing feud with logging companies. Sam is winning.
Tucker faked his death, and Danny has no idea where he is. He only knows that the death wasn’t real because of a code that the three of them made together, just in case.
Ellie’s trapped in the Infinite Realms. Danny had a failsafe in place so that if she was ever cornered by the GiW, she would be sent to her haunt in the GZ. However, with the portal destroyed, she can’t come back. Danny just hopes she’s okay.
His parents are now top GiW scientists. They’re traveling the country giving speeches. They’re working on a battery powered by ectoplasm, but apparently started “having difficulties” around the same time that Danny escaped.
None of it is fair. None of it is right.
The Justice League destroyed his life, the lives of his friends, and they’re doing as good as ever. The GiW is respected, and his parents are happily working away for them.
Danny takes up some of his more experimental weapons and breaks Jazz out of Arkham. She’s a little different now, colder and more quiet, but she still loves him all the same. It’s an unimaginable comfort to him to see his sister again.
He can’t use his powers anymore. He’s so used to associating them with pain that even transforming into his ghost form is enough to take him down for hours.
However, he understands ectoplasm more than anyone else in the world. He knows how to use it in virtually everything; how it can become a weapon, how it can be used as a supplemental ingredient in poisons and nerve agents, how it can twist and distort the mind if applied correctly.
He doesn’t care what happens to him. He’s going to take down the GiW, and destroy the lives of the JL members who helped lock him away, just as they did to him.
I've managed to curate my small misogyny-free space both online and in real life, and now I'm no longer used to misogyny, it's no longer normal to me. So when I accidentally glimpse it, I'm not desensitized to it, I'm always shocked and unbelieving.
If I notice a m*n talking about a woman like she's 'just some ***' I'm immediately aware that this is in fact a demonic creature who needs to be burned. If I see anyone using a slur against women or pretending women are at fault for any of the world's issues, the hair on my neck stands up at the unbelievable amount of hatred.
Anyone implying that women should be in any way controlled, punished, forced to do anything against their will or dedicate their lives to anyone but themselves, is preposterous and villainous to me, I'm at loss that someone could even think that way about a half of the human population who are creators and administrators of life.
I know I am in a bubble, but it feels different knowing deeply in your heart that all of this is not normal, that casual or normalized hatred against women is absolutely insane, that it's sharp and painful and dehumanizing at every turn. It's insane to realize that women just have to live like this, believing all of that is normal, that I once lived like this, wondering what was wrong with me and why I couldn't just be what everyone was expecting me to.
I think still, if I can make a small space without this hate present in it, without anyone or anything implying we should be anything but free, anything but full complete human beings with absolute control over our lives, then we can strengthen and grow these spaces, and get more women in, have more women experience what life is like when hatred is removed. There is hope for women.
I created a top secret science experiment and the government tried to steal it. However, the agent who was assigned to track me down had the code name was Uranus and I refused to take him seriously.
Could we please all keep in mind that the concept of "The Jews In General, or A Specific Type Of Jew, Controls Education, Government, Media, and/or Banking", is a longstanding antisemitic trope?
And most of all, that it is false??
No, a marginalized group does not also control education, the government, the media, and/or banking?
No, Jews do not secretly control these things and just pretend to be marginalized? No, Jews have not secretly been accumulating power since the Holocaust, granted by too-generous gentiles, out of pity?
No, it isn't better if you just mean a specific subgroup or kind of Jews. It's still specifically Jews.
It's like when people who hate trans/queer people are fine with rich white cis gay men. So they think it's not bigoted to blame "people with blue hair and pronouns" for the downfall of society.
We all know this means, "I only see some of you as human like me. You have to speak and act a certain way to count. Everyone in your group has to pass a test to get into the Good group."
Doesn't work.
Sure, it gives them plausible deniability to the people who matter to them. But everyone else can see exactly how they feel.
We've all known for years that it's bad to think of a marginalized group as having some "good ones." Rein it the heck in, please.
Because YES, all of those examples are ones I've seen implied, or stated outright, over and over, within the progressive community. This month alone.
Surgeon general of Florida, Joseph Ladapo: “media has clearly demonstrated that it is impossible to report accurately on something if you're also taking money from that same something.”🤔
What if Danny voluntarily Admitted himself to Arkham Asylum as a patient?
"Patient #10304-M, also known as, for his safety and security, Janus D. Astrophel. Voluntarily Admitted himself to Arkham Asylum on [date is scratched off with a thick, green ink], having arrived in a rather critical and vulnerable position, both physical and mental."
Rumors often spread quickly in Arkham. After all, not much better things to do when you're locked up and deemed either crazy, dangerous or even both in the eyes of Gotham. So it wasn't a surprise when news spread like wildfire amongst inmates and patients inside those dreadful halls.
A new addition had joined the ranks of the madhouse. Voluntarily at that. Likely the youngest patient to roam these halls for a non-Gothamite at least. After all, no native Gothamite would willingly put themselves in such hell.
The newbie went by Janus Astrophel. Kid seemed anything but normal. Seemed like he'd fit in well with Gotham's brand of sickness after a bit. Then again, kid looks as fragile as a twig. Almost as skinny as Crane, creepy as him too. Gives off Freeze vibes though, oddly enough, with hints of Dent.
[Those types of comments were quickly picked up by the aforementioned rogues. Rather than start a scene, they took interest immediately after hearing more words of the newcomer.]
Astrophel's a meta, just from the collar he adorns on his neck. Seemed modified as well. Didn't look like the standard ones the super-powered rogues commonly wore. Nobody knew what power he had. Seemed like it helped him more than anything though.
[Some inmates recalled when Astrophel first arrived. Didn't have a collar the first day. Kid could barely stand and was bleeding profusely. Next day, kid looked better, wearing the collar everyone associates with him now. Some think it's like Freeze's suit in a way. No one said a word bout it after receiving a cold glare]
Thing was, it ain't just the collar or how sickly he seemed that caught people's eyes.
Scars. Kid's littered with them. Some managed to glimpse a multitude of what looks like surgery scars [vivisected was often echoed, especially from Quinn and Nygma], and others looked like he was zapped by lightning [Litchenberg Scars around the chest specifically]. Kid even wore some stitches where his joints were [Frankenstein was an insult for a brief moment before Dent flipped a coin and shit them up]. Some would've mistaken him for some sort of zombie, like Grundy, had it not been for the fact people had seen him breathe and bleed... Albeit, it was a toxic green rather than crimson red.
Rather discerning as it held a resemblance to certain Demon Head's waters...
Kid didn't talk much. He was polite and friendly, sure. Some of the rogues took a shine to him. He seemed scared, though, not that anybody blamed him. Arkham was filled with rogues who earned their titles and infamy for a reason. But he wasn't scared of others... No. Crane said the kid held a certain look of fear...
Astrophel was afraid of himself... Everyone can't help but wonder why.
[They later see a glimpse as to why after he saw Joker for the first time. Least to say, Quinn called dibs even though others would like to say otherwise]
i think what most people fail to understand is that theres no fucking way that israel intelligence community wouldnt know about the attack that happened. they have spies literally everywhere and theyre frighteningly good at their job, just look at some cases of them stealing data from other countries and you will see. so the most likely scenario in my head is that israeli government decided to let the attack happen, let the people die, bc of the greater good of forcing more oppression onto palestinians and deeming any of the activists as terrorists. now they can say "look its not our fault!!! we're doing this for the security of the country, not just israelis, and our laws and legislations are only to control the terrorism" which is a big fat lie.
people need to understand that when oppression gets too suffocating radical groups are born. this is why there are alt right muslim extremists in europe, bc theyre being actively oppressed. but what they do benefits the government (as in, they can now point at the extremists and claim all muslims/middle easterns are like this). so in the end, theres a high chance that the recent hamas attack will benefit the genocide of the palestinian—a truly ironic tragedy, the acts of which we (the middle easterns) already know from memory.
my heart goes out to all of my palestinian siblings. i hope the nightmarish genocidal machine of israel finally dies, and that you can experience peace in the end 🇵🇸
On thing about Mondstadt’s government that bothers me is that everybody boils it down to just the Knights on one side, and the Church on the other. Which, sure, they’re what we know the most about…
But it completely ignores the ‘Community Representative’. Considering their signature is one of three needed to (legally) make use of the Holy Lyre, alongside the Grandmaster and the Seneschal, they must be pretty damn important. So assuming they have equal power to those positions, which are at the head of the Knights and the Church respectively, what actually is that power? Presumably it’s an elected position (the title is that of a ‘representative’, plus I would be severely disappointed if there wasn’t even a hint of democracy in the Nation of Freedom), but is there a structure under it similar to the Knights and Church? Is there a completely separate civilian, secular government that for some reason just barely comes up? If it is elected, how is that handled? If both Grandmaster Varka and the Seneschal are on expedition, does that mean they hold more authority than Acting Grandmaster Jean and whoever is Acting Seneschal (assuming an acting-title’s authority, though still above everything else below the proper-title, is still considered secondary to that of said proper-title)? But if so, why hasn’t it come up? Or is it just some guy elected to act as a more expedient alternative to something like a full referendum?
God, I have an education in history and political science that is just begging for some damn answers!
I mean, I don't have an education in those things and am not real good at working those things out myself, so I don't know that I can provide you too much useful commentary here. XD;; But while I'd love if Mondstadt did have some democracy, I... am pretty convinced that it's a theocracy, actually. The Knights and the Church (which tbh seems to exist under the overall umbrella of the Ordo, given that Jean says in her voiceline about Barbara that "the order also manages the Church") fulfill pretty much all the governmental functions we actually see happening at all, including the whole thing in Jean's quest where Charles expects tax forms from her.
I'll admit I also lean that way because I read into Mondstadt as a whole (its history but also our introduction to it, where Amber initially nabs us for unauthorized entry and then there's a whole early section about gliding regulations) a theme of humans repeatedly being given freedom, and gradually rebuilding restrictions upon themselves. Which I don't think is entirely a bad thing, in that I do think communities generally function better with organization and administration and such, but, like, Mondstadt has gone all the way into tyranny before and could again. Mondstadt building itself an increasingly restrictive theocracy feeds into the theme I like drawing from it, so of course that's the reading I tend towards! But, still, that's where I'm at about it.
(I draw a lot of my read of this national theme from the line, "Mondstadt is the City of Freedom, but unchecked freedom without any kind of rules only invites chaos and anxiety," in Jean's character details, and I haven't seen anyone else talk about it, ever, so it's entirely possible this is actually character brainrot I'm projecting onto the city as a whole. I'm fine with that.)
Presumably there is a further government apparatus, but I tend to believe it's probably under the higher authority of the Ordo. Maybe with checks and balances, maybe not (exactly how I arrange the setup for fic where it's needed is specific to individual fic, because the openness of canon leaves the kind of room that makes it easiest to go with what works for the plot). "Community Representative" on its own is very vague; looking at the line where it actually appears, it's talking about the Holy Lyre in the context of the Ludi Harpastrum, so it could even be a role specific to the yearly organization of that particular festival! That said, it does sound a bit more like it's a regular thing, and given my presumption of theocracy above, I think this:
Or is it just some guy elected to act as a more expedient alternative to something like a full referendum?
honestly is the most likely possibility. It would make sense given Mondstadt's ethos and history--you have a representative of the community to sign off on certain decisions (hopefully elected, as you said, but who knows exactly how it happens), like that one about the Lyre, to show that the people agree. Possibly it's a triangle with the Grand Master at the top and the Seneschal (given the above "manages the Church" line) and Community Representative as equals who have input but not ultimate power on the next level down, possibly they both exist largely to rubberstamp the Grand Master and Seneshal's decisions, possibly it's an area-of-authority divide. Regardless of the exact divisions, Jean does seem to have some fairly unilateral powers in the areas of domestic defense and peacekeeping, but that's... something you do want the head of your military-and-police order to have, generally, so who knows how broad her powers actually are to act without the Seneschal and Representative's approval in other areas. The game is, as always, frustratingly uninformative.
Anyway, tl;dr: my personal reading of Mondstadt tends to render the Community Representative as relatively unimportant, despite the equal billing in that quest, because over and over again in quests and lore and voicelines we don't see anything but "the Ordo handles things," and Mondstadt honestly makes most sense to me as a theocratic city-state. I think they're more likely a representative "voice" in the government than a significant power, and I don't think they represent any significant "third branch" other than possibly, given Mondstadt's history, a symbolic reminder that its people have toppled tyrants before and can do so again.