Yuletide reveal, recs, etc.

[rivkat]

My Yuletide story was Anna to the Infinite Power, Divergence to Infinity.

A couple of other things:

Mutant Rights, Marvel arguing that X-Men are monsters and not humans for tax purposes.

Sweet Eureka episodic goodness, Pterosaurs for All.

Haven, Duke Ex Machina, equally sweet in its own way.

The Middleman, The Infernal Celibacy Rededication. Roxy

Comments

[evalangui]

Huh. I know it's only a legal argument but it feels to me like arguing mutants aren't human is going exactly against the message of the stories and it kinda annoys me the people in charge of it are trying to do that. The part of me that enjoys lawyer shows thinks it's neat, of course, but I can't help but think what implications it might have if there turned to really be any mutants, like, would classifying mutant dolls as non-human have any effect if there were *real* mutants? Legally speaking?

[rivkat]

I agree! And the producers of the show shared that feeling that all was not right.

[cellia]

Ooo the Radiolab was interesting.

Questions I'm still left with: why are dolls taxed more than toys, no really? I wished they actually figured that out. (It feels like there might be some sexism there?)

Also, is there really this semantic legal fuzziness of "human?"

And, though I know "human" was being used as a stand-in concept, philosophically I'd argue that any being of human-level sentience should get what we call human rights. ie what about Spock?

And all Marvel heroes? Like, even Iron Man? Captain America doesn't count as human? Hawkeye? This seems a weird judgment for having taken 10 years to decide on.

[rivkat]

I'm tempted to look up the ruling, but I'm just a bit too busy just now.

[marfisa]

Wasn't this specific case just about X-Men action figures? I remember reading about it when the story originally broke several years ago, which I think was around the time of the last(?) X-Men movie and before the release of any of the really successful Avengers movies such as the Iron Man ones (much less this summer's Captain America and Thor). So the X-Men figures were probably the main action figures Marvel was producing back then, if they were making any other ones at all.

[cellia]

Yeah this might be show being unclear... but at about 14:30 they say the judge ruled that "all Marvel heroes, not just the X-men, are not human." Maybe at the time all Marvel was making just making X-men and powered people like Spidey though?