That’s My Emotional Support Yaoi

After three years I finally decided to give Monster March its own sideblog. Which is @monstermarchevent!

"Something I've learned while in law school is about the social construction of crime. I work in a legal clinic on wage theft cases, where employers have "improperly paid" workers by not paying, paying below min wage, withholding overtime, paid sick time, etc.

Most theft is wage theft. Meaning, the dollar value of stolen wages is greater than the value, each year, of all burglaries + robberies, shoplifting, auto theft, combined. Yet, wage theft is not a crime."

Below this tweet is an image comparing the cost of robbery, auto theft, burglary, larceny and wage theft in billions. Robbery only hits 0.34 billion, auto theft 3.8 billion, burglary 4.1 billion, larceny 5.3 billion, and wage theft accounts for greater than 19 billion dollars. The data is sourced from the FBI and EPF.

"If you steal $100 from your employer, you will get arrested. If you call the police because your paycheck is $100 light, the police will tell you to file a complaint with the AG, and the AG will settle the case for between $50 and $200.

(That's actually not true, because AG's only take on big cases where thousands of dollars are at stake, but they will settle big cases by typically requiring the employer to properly pay what is owed. No jail, no criminal record.)

If the AG doesn't want to take the case, it will give you a Private Right of Action to sue the employer in civil court for what you are owed, plus damages. It can take a 6 to 18 months to win at trial, and months or years to collect on the judgement if you win.

This is what we mean when we say crime is socially constructed. Not all social harms are criminalized. Not all actors committing social harm are criminalized.

I settled a case for $27k for three clients last year. We spent a MONTH negotiating the non-disclosure agreement because the employer stated if all his employees sued him and settled like this, he would go BANKRUPT. His business model DEPENDED on wage theft.

These employers go on to hold elected office. 45 famously used wage theft to improve his finances on construction projects, leaving a trail of victims in his wake. Some sued and he had to pay them. Others didn't have resources to pursue multi-year litigation + got nothing."

Then the user responds to someone else asking a question.

The question:

"Can you explain this reasoning? Why expanding criminal liability is a bad idea? For whom?"

The user replies:

"What should we do about it? Criminalize employers or decriminalize theft or something else?

Wage theft shows that we believe restitution is important. Giving the money back is important. Currently, AG keeps track of bad actors and will increase future penalties for bad actors.

It also shows when harm is committed, we don't have to lock someone in a cage or label them a felon, both of which destroy years of life even after the sentence is over. We can demand restitution instead of punishment.

It also shows how ridiculous the label "high crime neighborhood" is. And the arbitrary and racist response of police surveillance in HCN. Because we defined it that way.

Consider the social construction of murder:

The people committing the most harm aren't in jail, don't live in high crime neighborhoods. And "black people commit more crime" is true only because of how we have defined crimes, and how we then surveil their community in response to find more crimes.

There are so many orgs trying to address harm and create accountability within community + without incarceration. We call ourselves prison abolitionists.

Just a few: @ byp100, @ survivepunishNY, @ justicehealing, @ DeeperThanWater, @ BlackAndPinkBos and @ BlmBoston"

Married the love of my life at 50.

Got my Class A CDL at 59.

You've got time.

AU-gust: 13 Cults + 15 Deamons + 26 Soul-bound.

I changed 15th prompt 'Forth Wall Broken' to Joker prompt 'Deamons'.

Alt title: "Cultist Madara tries to offer himself as a virgin sacrifice to Kaguya but accidentally summons the wrong demon" AU, LOL.

Okay, so it’s definitely a modern AU. Madara lost his entire family in a tragic accident (maybe a war?). Drowned in guilt and depression, he gets groomed by Zetsu into joining a Kaguya cult. Zetsu paints Kaguya as the ultimate savior of lost souls, promising a world of eternal peace with no more meaningless death.

Madara becomes super devoted. So when Zetsu tells him that his sacrifice will bring Kaguya into the mortal realm for real, Madara instantly agrees and the ritual begins. Except... things go terribly wrong. Madara was supposed to focus ONLY on Kaguya, but right at the last second, he thinks of his family and wishes to see them one last time. BOOM. Instead of Kaguya, he accidentally summons Tobirama—the White Demon, Demon of the Dead.

In this AU, Tobi is a fallen angel, and Hashirama is the Angel of Life. Hashi had to banish Tobi because Tobi tried to drag his fallen brothers (Kawarama and Itama) up to Heaven by sacrificing human souls/other angels' Grace.

Madara thoroughly intrigues Tobirama. So Tobi offers a pact: he’ll revive ONE family member in exchange for Madara’s soul. Madara chooses Izuna, effectively soul-binding himself to Tobirama.

Meanwhile, Zetsu is LIVID. Turns out he orchestrated Madara’s entire tragic life from the start because Madara is basically a half-demon descendant of Kaguya with super potent blood for the ritual.

Has a fic ever absolutely devastated you to the point you can’t form a coherent thought? That’s okay! That’s where picture comments come in! Here’s how!

Now, bear in mind that I’m struggling to put into the words many of the concepts discussed here. So sorry in advance if some parts feel nonsensical...! And as a disclaimer: my knowledge is mainly acquired as an interest and hobby – it does not hold water as actual, completely accurate information of a historical period. It’s my interpretation, my fantasy of sorts. First things first, song inspiration: Vilma Jää – Manalan mailla  (if you know Finnish and like to read these, you might see the connection  lol) Kauno’s story in nutshell: Kauno is a nobleman knight, who suffered a mortal wound to his neck when he was pinned in combat and stabbed between his armour plates. By all logic he should’ve succumbed to such a wound, but he was rescued and nursed back to health. The nuns who took care of him did not have high hopes for the feverish nobleman to make it through, and yet eventually he woke up in perfect health and spirit. Kauno remembers little of the time from sickbed but has clear memory of vivid dreams of birds… Visually Kauno’s pose is heavy nod towards Botticelli’s painting ‘Birth of Venus’. I’ve always associated this piece with rebirth and beauty, both which are at the heart of Kauno’s character. His name quite literally means ‘beauty’ and rest we’ll get to…! So now, the most complex part is to acknowledge the co-existence of Christianity and folk religion in Finland during Middle ages. While it’s hard to point out how folk religion exactly died (I’m not read enough on the topic), there are still letters to be found from church officials pointing out that some of the folk religion or the traditions persisted even till late medieval period and to renaissance. This period of time where beliefs melded and changed is something I’m extremely interested to depict. Now, religion facts: There are quite a few nods towards Christianity here, the number seven motif with the birds, rebirth etc. However, the story revolves even further to folk religion’s concept of lintukoto (birds’ home). It was believed to be a physical place just outside the edge of the world, where birds went during winter. Everything was small in lintukoto to accommodate birds and sometimes souls could wander there. Notable is that lintukoto is _not_ heaven/afterlife in folk religion, but rather it seems one might get lost there by accident? Terns: I thought terns are great way of marrying both religious imageries together. They dive almost completely into the water and rise anew, signifying Kauno’s almost rebirth-like experience. There also rather many hymns describing angels and dead loved ones visiting earth as birds! And lastly, they are also bird that are more typically seen in southern Finland, as a reference towards lintukoto being to the south of the world’s edge. Armour: Yep, that’s Kauno himself! Kauno is showing his neck, which has only the scar left from the combat, but he’s also gripping at the sinking armour at the same spot.