living on a latte and a prayer

I don’t think Andrew’s meds in tfc and trk are that far fetched.

The lovely @korakos has said that Andrew’s meds was the plot point that required the most suspension of disbelief (and def not the yakuza using a sports team as a front, thats literally happened in US Hockey). And while it’s true theres really not a med out there that does what Andrew’s meds are written to do, there are some that come…kinda close.

Several antidepressants cause withdrawal. Not to the extent that Andrew’s meds do, but it does happen and it can be pretty severe.

If someone has bipolar disorder, antidepressants can induce mania.

Knowing the things I know about the American carceral system, the pharmaceutical industry, and the medical autonomy of teenagers, I don’t think it’s that far fetched that a court “expert” said that Andrew needed a high dose of antidepressants and it kicked him into mania. Usually mania sticks around once you come off the drugs, BUT I could also reasonably believe that they put him on an experimental drug, a newer drug, or a drug that just really didn’t mix well with Andrew in particular and didn’t really come up with a clear plan to help him if it hurt him. The justice system and psychiatric care in this country sucks, and if Andrew had an apathetic judge and an apathetic parole officer, they probably wouldn’t give a shit about one troubled foster kid not liking his meds.

Do Andrew’s meds fit any drug that currently exists on the market or did in 2004? No. But like. Could Nora make up a drug, say they put Andrew on it, and then eventually took it off the market because of how much it increased the risk of mania, suicide, and violent outbursts? Heck yeah. There’s definitely drugs that have had their approval revoked because they induced neuropsychiatric symptoms.

Also have you seen outside?? I think if the current US government found a drug that made us all manic and happy and complacent they’d put it in our tap water. It’s unfortunately not that surprising that they’d try it on tiny teen criminals first.

All this to say, I felt physically ill over the weekend, pulled my empty Cymbalta bottle out of the cupboard last night, realized I ran out midway through filling my med organizer last week and forgot to open up another bottle. When I woke up this morning I had clearly slept much better and felt pretty much fixed. And one of my immediate (aftg brain rot so strong) thoughts was damn I felt like the way Nora described Andrew.

My strongest evidence lies in the Browning cameo. Jean should not really be a material witness in Nathan Wesninski’s trial. He even says this. And Browning, instead of shedding more light on the situation says “I guess we’ll see, wont we?” I am certain that Browning has made the connection between Neil and Jean and the Moriyamas. because he would be an absolute idiot otherwise. Why?

Quite simply, too many people know!!! Three people can keep a secret only if two of them are dead!!! And there is evidence everywhere if you start looking.

There’s too many connections back to Riko. Browning has made the connection between Neil’s appearance and Evermore. We already knew this. This book we learned: Riko met with Lola and there were witnesses. Riko was FAR too visibly and vocally pleased about what happened to Andrew. Aaron’s trial mention was very small, but gave us a ton of information, and I bet Browning is starting to look into how Drake got to Andrew in the first place. Proust should be dead, the Moriyamas cleaned that up, but that is now ALSO a red flag.

Jeremy, Cat, and Laila all know for a fact that Riko hurt Kevin and Jean. The rest of Trojans are also starting to get hints about how culty the Ravens were. They heard Jean call him the master and then immediately after, saw the Ravens try to kill Andrew and Neil.

The reporters are starting to make the same connections. Why did BOTH the Moreau and the Wesninski families send their kids to Tetsuji?

Neil told the FBI Elodie Moreau was dead. So why is there a manhunt looking for her?

Too many Ravens have killed themselves. Complete exy outsiders (Cody’s mom) are starting to get suspicious about the suicides. We the audience, Jean, Neil, and at least Andrew all know for a fact two of the suicides are cover ups. It’s not a stretch to assume more Ravens were killed for clean up and made to look like a suicide. The fact that all three of the players who went after Neil and Andrew are now dead is sus.

Neil Josten is capitol U, capitol T, capitol S Up To Something. He didn’t tell Andrew or Kevin he went to California. Each of his television appearances were calculated as hell and seemed to imply that Andrew might know a little bit about Neil’s plotting (since he and Renee played into it), but Kevin for sure doesn’t. Every time Jean has seen Neil since Riko’s death, he has been in peak chaos mode and his moves are incredibly calculated. Sure, Neil is an instigator, but we’re seeing bits of Nathaniel (the only part of Neil Jean has truly known) peek through here. We are not seeing the Neil that loves exy so much Ichirou knows he can distract Neil with it. We’re seeing crime savvy mob prince Nathaniel. Even Jeremy notes it when he says Neil’s smile is so unsettling he has to move away from the computer. The Foxes are not the ones making Nathaniel come out. Neil is playing chess with someone. We’re seeing the parts of Neil that exist in the universe where The Moriyamas killed Andrew as a warning. Why?

On that note, Neil and Stuart said that them being in California together was suspicious so the FBI would come question them, but Stuart had two tables full of people with him. We know the FBI has let Stuart and his team move around before, so the dance with the FBI in tsc might have been staged.

When Stuart was let into the country by the FBI and he stormed the Wesninski mansion, he was supposed to take Nathan alive. Why???? Why did the FBI want him to build a case against himself?? When he saw Neil was alive, he didn’t hesitate and shot Nathan dead. He must have kept tabs on Neil. Neil, the child Mary and Nathan were really never supposed to have. He watched his nephew fall in love with the Foxes. He must have known Neil would be much easier to convince to turn on the Moriyamas.

Neil is so blasé about Ichirou knowing about Andrew that even Jean makes a note of it. We have been in that boy’s head and Neil has never and will never be blasé about Andrew’s safety.

Of the three of them, Jean is the weakest link in the Moriyama secret. He has almost spilled the beans several times. He almost slipped a mention of the deal to Browning. Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead, and Nora would not have made a point to say that this is the ONLY draft where Jean survived so she wanted to explore what it looked like when he lived if she was just going to kill him off.

Putting Jean, Cat, Laila and Jeremy in a protected building until the end of the school year is SUS. PIC. IOUS.

Which, speaking of Laila, literally RIGHT before we get the Browning cameo, a point is made that Laila’s father/family knows someone in every alphabet agency. If Ichirou has people in the FBI, so does Laila. She has her family look into what’s going on. After the Ravens fans burned her house down, the Dermotts might be in on this too.

One of the last lines Nora gives us to contemplate between books is Neil’s care free “the rules have changed”. In tsc, this is followed by a mention of Neil’s deal with Ichirou. In tgr, it very pointedly is not.

If the FBI is smart, they have to surprise the weakest link somewhere where both his hesitation or the truth will damn the Moriyamas. I am almost certain Jean is going to be called to testify at “Nathan’s” trial and be surprised by a Moriyama question on the stand. If this is the case, Neil has to know the plan or Jean will not say anything. If Neil knows the next move, and he is sitting in the courtroom when the question comes, Jean will answer truthfully. I expect Andrew and Kevin to also be there, and I expect Kevin to lose it and Andrew to have some level of surprise, but not all. Neil will not tell him something that puts him in danger.

But if Stuart or the FBI or whomever has offered Neil a chance to take out the Moriyamas and make sure Kevin and Jean and Andrew are safe, Neil Josten is going to take it. Neil told Ichirou that Riko would be his downfall. He just didn’t tell Ichirou that it was already too late.

Okay, let's say that these people mentioned *do* deserve to die, just for the sake of argument.

Who gets to decide that they do? Who actually genuinely has the right to make the final decision, specifically?

Is it the judge? Is it the lawmakers? It can't be you. It can't be a case by case basis where you get input, this is being carried out by the state.

Do you trust those people to never ever get it wrong? Do you trust the state?

If you do trust them, you aren't paying attention to literally anything that has ever happened in this or any country.

If you don't trust them, you must shift your stance to oppose the death penalty because a circumstance where an innocent person is killed is unacceptable.

Peeling back the curtain, yeah, my personal feelings are that there *are* people who should stop being alive. I don't think that's a good thought for me to have, but I have it.

And I don't trust the fucking state, or myself, or judge, or a panel of people, or ANYONE to be able to, with ZERO false positives, make that determination. No one, no one, NO ONE has the right to make that call because no one can always get it right.

So I oppose the death penalty even though, yeah, my gut reaction is that certain people who have severely harmed others and will do so again should be killed. But the death penalty is wrong. For even a single innocent person to die is a moral failing, an unacceptable loss. There is not and never will be a way to administer that fairly and perfectly.

Lethal injection protocols with three drugs (which is most of them) are designed to give the appearance of a clean medical death without suffering. The truth is:

Many states use midazolam as their first drug to “induce sedation.” Midazolam is not physically capable of maintaining unconscious deep enough to overcome agonizing pain! It also has a “ceiling effect” meaning that it literally cannot do any more after a certain point, as it bonds to GABA receptors(?) and you only have so many! Despite many doctors testifying, briefing, and submitting affidavits to this effect, the Supreme Court ruled it was okay.

Why was it okay? Well, the inmates had to demonstrate that they would definitely be tortured to death and then they have to propose in detail an alternative method of execution (what???). But they don’t have that evidence because the second drug is a paralytic that acts to ensure that the body cannot move no matter what pain it’s in. It literally only gives the appearance of a peaceful sleep without really doing anything to help the execution.

Both the second and third drug are horrendously painful.

The huge overdose of drugs introduces chemicals of the wrong pH into the bloodstream. This balances quickly but not before an extremely acidic or caustic fluid goes through the lungs. Most inmates lungs in autopsies after executions are filled with fluid and froth and show signs of struggles to breathe. Literally the drugs dissolve their lung tissue and drown them while they are conscious (because midazolam does not keep them unconscious) and paralyzed.

Placing IVs frequently goes wrong because medical professionals rarely participate, this being wildly against the Hippocratic oath. This results in drug delivery constantly going wrong, creating huge blister-like bubbles full of drugs in people’s joints or muscles.

Drug companies refuse to supply medications, meaning prisons use huge cash transactions with dubious compounding pharmacies whose names are kept secret by special state laws or just on the black market. Or they lie when they buy the drugs.

Independent reviews are nonexistent. Reviews are often prohibited by those same secrecy laws, which many states have specifically to protect the fiascos that are state executions.

If I were ever sentenced to death, I would opt for firing squad. Fastest. Probably least painful. And it’s a horrible look for the correctional center. Let them live with the guilt personally.

"From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored—indeed, I have struggled—along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor.

Rather than continue to coddle the Court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.

It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies. The basic question—does the system accurately and consistently determine which defendants "deserve" to die?—cannot be answered in the affirmative.

It is not simply that this Court has allowed vague aggravating circumstances to be employed, see, for example, Arave v. Creech (1993), relevant mitigating evidence to be disregarded, see, for example, Johnson v. Texas, (1993), and vital judicial review to be blocked, see, for example, Coleman v. Thompson, (1991).

The system intrinsically abuses poor people.

A little while later...

Shane + hockey being fun

Heated Rivalry - Season 1

There’s such recency bias in fandom. As an author you post something, get a few reactions, and then it goes off into the bin. As a reader you check the tags, see what’s new, and move on. But a lot of old stuff is really good. It’s just sitting there, gathering dust, waiting for someone to take a peek.

So go on. Treat yourself.

as always the human immune system is not beating the "overactive HOA that explodes the whole subdivision bc someone put up a basketball hoop in their driveway" allegations

I really hate that it can just be looking around and go "hmmm I don't like the cut of this guy's jib" and the guy is YOUR OWN BLOOD

I was also reminded recently about the eyes having "immune privilege" meaning your immune system isn't really supposed to Go There bc your eyeball tissue is so delicate that inflammation and higher temperatures would destroy the tissue. so your body is just like. "don't look over there. nothing to be concerned about. nothing to see here" about. your eyes. to prevent your immune system from EXPLODING THE SUBDIVISION

That's when the symptoms started? No. I've had years of pain, hormonal changes and an abnormal period. I was finally diagnosed after switching to a gyno who actually listened to me.