Order & Chaos

Zi/zir or they/them 30’s I post things that make me think, laugh, or smile. Currently obsessing over The Old Guard.

[goddamnshinyrock]

THE foundational horse girls. to me.

[thelawfulchaotic]

hi!! sorry if you've been asked this question before, but as someone who wants to be a lawyer, how do you deal with defending people that morally you really don't agree with? thanks!

I get a lot of versions of this question, and I answer it seriously every time, because it’s both important and not important at all. Anyone who asks respectfully gets my whole ass answer.

It’s just not really about that. My job isn’t about defending the idea of hurting someone else. It’s about stopping the state from inflicting further hurt, torture, pain. It’s about pushing back for some fairness against a monumentally stacked system. And it’s about stuff that’s normal human stuff that counts as crime for some reason.

Yeah, it’s hard to do a sex abuse case. Sometimes the images stick around and it bothers me. But honestly? Mostly those cases have real plausible theories of innocence or they’re cases that I will lose because the evidence is there, and the question is not whether the perpetrator will go to jail but how long.

Those cases are so rare, though. I get so much pointless bullshit. Felony of a teen taking mom’s car without permission. Two kids that try to break into a car and get so scared by the alarm that they run away. Trespassing on dad’s house because his new girlfriend wants you to stop coming around. It’s just human stuff, and the violence of the state is not necessary or helpful.

I also reject the idea of punishment completely. The state has a responsibility to stop people from hurting other people again. But inflicting pain doesn’t do it, we know this by now. So I argue for mercy and for real solutions to real problems. I’m here to build a future, not get caught up with doing violence to someone because of the past.

So yeah, sometimes it’s hard, but mostly my conscience is dead clear: I’m not responsible for the crime. The damage has been done. I want to start the healing process, and I want it for everyone involved. When that’s not possible, I just want to tell the authorities they don’t get to just Do What They Want.

The more I do this job, the more I am a genuine pacifist who is against violence in all forms, and actually I don’t see a contradiction between that and what I do for a living. State violence is a pervasive evil that tears apart families, communities, and countries, and it’s far more damaging and awful than any individual crime. The average prosecutor has more blood on their hands than a serial killer, but it’s invisible: people who died in jail, who froze to death on the street, who were shot in a drug deal. Their violence begets violence.

When I get blood on my hands, it’s because I put my hands over the wounds and try to stop the flow. I’m okay with it.

Also: people don’t ask doctors how they can stand to treat bad people. Why ask me?

[bemusedlybespectacled]

#i find people have such an inherent misunderstanding of the roles of defense attorneys (understandably but still)#in that most people i talk to seem to be envisioning me personally defending the right of people to commit crimes or that like. Crime Is#Good Actually#‘yeah this person did X but they should never face any consequences ever please and thank you judge’#(and people think this would WORK??? a different tangent on a lack of legal education and cop shows being awful etc)#meanwhile i am simply protecting people’s rights. yes even those people’s#idk i could write my own post but op Gets It and also a prosecutor just filed the DUMBEST motion ive ever seen and i need to respond to that#instead lmao (via @anixit26)

The number of people who respond to my post about how even the guiltiest person in the world deserves rights with "but not [crime I think makes you undeserving of rights]!" is truly insane. People really truly think that being accused of a crime makes you irredeemably evil and protecting the rights of those accused means you are also evil.

[greenheart-anon]

[naughtypiggy]

I should make some of these soon.

[raygun631]

Starbucks cares more about Fair trade coffee than it's workers.

[biomaterial]

new kind of guy dropped

[3liza]

he's unironically 100% correct and i will hear nothing against him

[crippled-peeper]

I got this extremely snotty angry reply to one of my gardening related posts once that was to the effect of “the only people who garden are wealthy because it’s entertainment and you don’t have to survive off it” from a communist catgirl anime icon haver and I just looked at my foodstamps-funded collection of garden vegetables in the back yard and fucking screamed at the top of my lungs

[moniquill]

Fellas, is to bourgeoisie to ::checks hand:: till the soil to grow food crops?

[cherryhatter-deactivated2015072]

KICK THE CAN!

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

To kick the can, reblog it. I wanna see how long this can go on for.

[visibun]

the oldest reblogs for this post that i can find are from january 2nd of 2013. this can has been getting kicked around tumblr for almost 13½ years now

[drtanner]

And yet somehow this is my first time kicking it!

[22drunkb]

Does the word realism have any meaning to you as an actor? No. When you say realism, I think of naturalism, and I think about natural acting. And when I think about natural acting, I think about natural behavior. And I think sometimes that destroys movies, you know? Because we don’t just want to see imitations of life. We want to see something that is beyond that. Cinema is not just about telling stories. Everybody clings to this. Telling stories, telling stories, telling stories! It’s about light. It’s about space. It’s about tone. It’s about color. It’s about people having experiences in front of you, where, if it’s transparent enough, they can experience it with you. You become them. They become you. That’s the communion. That’s the experience.

--Willem Dafoe summing up my feelings about the obsession with realism and an impoverished notion of "storytelling" in film in an interview with Matt Zoller Seitz

[teaboot]

Can I be honest with yall I don't want to hear SHIT against cishets at pride this year

[teaboot]

"But it's not FOR them!!!" The biggest military power in the world belongs to a christofascist nation overseen by a felon found guilty of 34 federal crimes and has greenlit a gestapo with more direct funding than the entire military of Canada for the purpose of ethnic cleansing. Let Hetero Jessica throw some biodegradable glitter at a municipal parade

[teaboot]

At this point if anyone is trying to exclude anyone benignly pro-queer from a pro-queer space I'm just going to assume you're a fed or something idk like something something destabilize the movement from within or whatever

[sconesfortea]

RIP Anthony Stewart Head (1954 - 2026)

[muttsandmustelidae]

From the Nashville Zoo’s fb page! Here’s the petition, please please please take a moment to add your name (even if you’re not from Nashville!). If you are from Tennessee, contact your representatives and make it clear that the people do not want this data center. This is an AZA accredited zoo which is home to several species of critically endangered animals, we NEED to protect it. Make your voice heard!

[muttsandmustelidae]

Because people will pay attention to cute animals, here are some of the critically endangered/endangered species housed at the Nashville Zoo!

The Amur Leopard and Clouded Leopard (which recently celebrated its 50th cub born at the zoo!)

The Sumatran Tiger

The Red Ruffed Lemur and Ring-Tailed Lemur

The Cotton-Top Tamarin and White-Cheeked Gibbon

The Colobus Monkey and De Brazza’s Monkey

And the Mexican Spider Monkey!

Look at them!!!! Look at them and fight like hell to save them!!!!

[kafk-a]

march moodboard

[depsidase]

[livingadagio]

You don't NEED an expensive wheel, a set of combs, a drum carder, or commercial dyes to spin wool or to process a fleece, guys. If you want them that's one thing, but they are not a requirement to get into spinning your own wool or processing fleeces yourself. I am a disabled spinner with literally no income who can only get tools and supplies very infrequently because of holiday gifts or people giving me free things, so trust me I would know.

You can spin wool on cheap or easy-to-DIY drop spindles, you can use cheap dog slicker brushes as hand carders, combs are literally just nails set into wood handles if you're up for DIY-ing, you can safely dye fiber with natural dyes from your yard or kitchen (which is what I do), etc.

There are plenty of cheap or even free ways to engage with spinning as a hobby. Do not let anyone try to tell you it's expensive to get into because you need this or that specific pricey tool or product, or because good quality fiber/fleeces are more expensive to buy and only lower quality fiber/fleeces are affordable—which is absolutely not true btw. All the cheap fleeces I've gotten have still been very nice quality fiber for making wearables with. You can even get nice quality fleeces for free sometimes if you make friends with shepherds online or irl who are trying to offload them because they have too many to deal with, or who have no desire to process and/or sell their fleeces themselves.

I got into spinning with a cheap $10 drop spindle that was just a rough, round piece of wood stuck on a dowel rod. That was all I used for my entire first year of this hobby, and it worked perfectly fine. I still primarily use my drop spindles now even though I have two wheels (thanks to gifts from people). They're convenient to use anywhere, they're what I'm used to using, and when you are used to using spindles they are not really any slower than using a wheel. Wheels are not "better" than spindles, they're just pricier lol

Also, speaking of gifts, when people in fiber arts hobbies tell you that you can get a lot of stuff for free from older people looking to pass their stuff on or from people looking to de-stash, we mean it. I got an entire set of very nice wooden knitting needles (my very first set of needles) and a bunch of nice natural fiber yarn more expensive than I could ever hope to afford for FREE from someone I know from tumblr who wanted to de-stash. I've had shepherd friends I made online offer me free fleeces that they didn't have a use for. Gifting really does happen if you put the energy into looking for and making connections in your hobby of choice.

Fiber arts guilds and classes for fiber art hobbies will often have people looking to get new folks into their hobbies or shove off some old supplies taking up space in their house onto someone new. If you are in a place that has a local fiber arts guild (look it up and see if you do, you might be surprised) they probably also have equipment you can use—drum carders, spinning wheels, looms, etc.

Nobody is lying to you by saying fiber art hobbies can be done affordably, and that they can even produce affordable supplies for your other fiber hobbies (in the case of spinning, which my original post was about). It's the truth. Fiber arts are pretty affordable to get into compared to many other hobbies. There is a lot of available help to be found both in person and online to get into them. Beyond acquiring the very basics needed to do the hobby, they are really only as expensive as you make them.

[owlspinningyarns]

the best resource for getting started in spinning as well as continuing in handspinning is the community. you will learn so much and we love to answer questions, often with infodumps.

[batsandboba]

@munnchausenzip i can't lie, it goes hard (x) (x)

[womanguy]

you should get a second evening for reading fan fiction. And you should get an extra day in the week to do arts and crafts.

[drememoto]

“One more thing, sir. You told me you couldn’t possibly have been at the crime scene at that time on account of your alibi, that being that you were at home playing your PlayStation 3. Now, forgive me, but if that’s true, I just gotta ask– how could you have been playing your PS3 if the PS3 has no games?”

[giantkillerjack]

“Why, Lieutenant, the PS3 is backwards compatible with many PS2 games. I was simply playing one of my many PS2 games at the time of the murder. Surely you are at least familiar with Kingdom Hearts? I’d be happy to show you my save file if it would put your mind at ease.”

[drememoto]

“Ah, gee. Kingdom Hearts… Yeah, that one’s a classic. one of the best ones, even. My wife loves that little Sora guy. No, I agree. You’re right, sir. I should’a thought of that. Well, I’ll get outta your hair, then. — Oh, one more thing…

I just remembered something you might find a little interesting. See, you’ve got one of those black models. With the top-loading tray. And those PS3 models are backwards compatible. … but only for PS1 games. Kingdom Hearts wasn’t on the PS1, though, was it? …”

[giantkillerjack]

“Oh… yes, how very… observant of you, Lieutenant. Well, I… suppose I must have been mistaken. My memory of that dreadful night - it’s all jumbled, you see. It must have been one of my other games from my PS1 library. Spyro, perhaps. Or– yes, now I remember. It was Final Fantasy 7 - the character of Cloud is in both that game and in Kingdom Hearts. I must have simply gotten my wires crossed. How silly of me.”

[drememoto]

“All right, then. That explains it. Well, have a good night, then.  … Oh, uh… I figure I oughta let you know … we did have your memory card searched. We didn’t see Final Fantasy VII on there. Must’ve been a glitch or something. Might wanna get that checked.”

[giantkillerjack]

“Now, see here, Columbo, perhaps if you were spending more time looking for actual clues, rather than harping on my gaming habits, you might have caught the real killer by now!

If you have anything more to say to me, you can kindly say it to my lawyer.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I have a Twitch stream scheduled for noon, and I do not care to keep my followers waiting. Good day, sir.”

[drememoto]

“Certainly, sir, I’ll be outta your way now. Oh, – gee. Gosh, I nearly forgot. I figured I’d mention. We did get one lead. On the murder, sir.

We determined from Mr. Elbertson’s autopsy that he was repeatedly beaten in the back of the head with a small, blunt object. No bigger than about 157 mm longways. Likely a, uh … analog gamepad of some kind. Dualshock, that’s what the lab boys told me. You got any idea what sorta console uses those? I only ask ‘cause you seem to know about these sorta things. What with you being– well, being a gamer.”