There are normal people and then there's you.

I keep on trying to write this post, writing a lot of it, and then starting over.  I can't seem to get it right.

When I was little the two genders I knew about were entirely equal in my eyes, and without even realizing I was doing so I based a lot of things on the idea that they were entirely equal in everyone's eyes.  One of the various things this did was make me completely misinterpret a feature of language.

Things like, "gods and goddesses" "actors and actresses" "[almost any pair in which one of the words has an -ess/-esses suffix]" "gay and lesbian" (then the common term) "mankind and womankind" "firemen and -women" and so forth all, by definition, double count the female members of the group.  Even "he" and "she" the dictionary told me, was a pair of words where the first could include anyone and the second was "no boys allowed."

I thought this was terribly unfair.  Boys and girls were clearly entirely equal so why did girls always seem to get a special world?  If two people are the same and you just randomly give one of them more that's not nice.  To be clear I didn't think boys should be able to be actresses, I just thought that if girls were going to get a special word boys should too.

Now clothes, on the other hand... there the problem was clearly that everyone should be allowed to wear all the clothes and some jerks (all of society) were saying that there were special girls' clothes boys couldn't wear.  Everyone should be allowed to wear all the clothes.  Silly kids, Trix are for everyone.  At least I called that one right.

And my solution for the other problem would have actually worked too, but not for the reason I thought.  I started from the assumption that boys and girls were equal and thought equal and considered equal in all things and fucking equality, and then the unequal treatment seemed like it was mean to the group not getting a special word.

It never occurred to me that people could hear a word like "actor" which means "fucking person -genderless word here you assholes-- who acts" and assume it meant, "male actor" unless told otherwise.  Because actor, without any adjectives, must mean (and does mean) normal actor.  That's how language works.  And what's not normal about a female actor?

What's not normal about a female god?  Hera and Demeter and Persephone and Athena and Artemis and so forth are just as normal as Zeus and Poseidon and Hades and Ares and Apollo.

But if you don't start with the assumption that normal obviously includes the females in the group then there must be something not normal about a female god because the term "gods and goddesses" says, "divinities and female divinities."  Or, if we want to say the same root word, "normal gods and female gods."  That's how language works.  Separating it out that way marks female as abnormal.

It's like saying "people and women", except with another species.  (Ok, technically they can mate with humans to produce viable offspring but that's not important right now.)  Professions are worse because they're talking about the humans all around us.  Take the "who act" out of the words "actors and actresses" and you're very literally left with "people and women."  Because "actors and actresses" means "people who act and women who act."

There's a reason that there's a move away from words like "actress".  The word is bullshit.  It doesn't have to be.  If it were paired with a word that means "male person who acts" then there would be no problem with one that means "female person who acts" but since it's paired with a word that means "any person who acts" it means that there's something strange and different and so-weird-we-had-to-invent-a-word-for-it-when-the-alternative-gets-none about someone who acts being female.

There's one word for normal people, and another word for women.  When I was little I didn't get how insulting this was to women because I thought that women were obviously normal people (because they ARE normal people) and didn't consider that separating them out says that they're not.

The extent of "normal people and women" wasn't driven home until last year.  I knew that there were products marketed to all kids and girls, I might have realized that there were products marketed to people and women, but it took a picture of two books to really drive home that even when we do have two equal words, one for male and one for female, we still don't fucking use them.

The picture, which I saw on this post by Fred Clark but originally comes from this post at the Ms. Blog, is of two books.  One book is subtitled, "Just how big can a little girl dream?"  Next to it is a book that appears to be identical except for one thing: the main character is a boy instead of a girl.  Same author, same illustrator, same company, same style, same title except for the gendered name needing to be a boy's name instead of a girl's name.  Is it subtitled, "Just how big can a little boy dream?"  No.  It's, "Just how big can a little kid dream?"  One for kids, one for girls.

The opening paragraphs of Fred's post are a great summary of the phenomenon:

The Ms. Blog offers a collection of reader-submitted photos of products marketed to people and also to women. 

Not to men and to women, but to people — normal, legitimate, regular people, and to women — abnormal, subordinate, irregular not-quite people.

And while that is horrible, that's not even what this post is about.

I decided to write this post after learning that "cis" is apparently social justice porn.  That's one of the nicer descriptions of the term I've heard.  It's also hate speech, doncha know?

For anyone who doesn't know, cis and trans are Latin prefixes that between them form a complete set.  Anything that is not trans is by definition cis.  Anything that is not cis is by definition trans.  If you're not transgender you must be cisgender because that's what the word elements "trans" and "cis" mean.  If you're not transsexual you must by definition be cissexual.  If you're a woman who isn't a transwoman you must be a ciswoman.  If you're a man who isn't a transman you must be a cisman.

Like I said, it's a complete set.  If you have all things that are trans and all things that are cis you have ALL THE THINGS.  This doesn't even have to do with gender; it's just what the prefixes mean.  So when they prefixes are applied to gender, everyone has to be one or the other.

Now we don't always use both prefixes because, for example, we're generally not concerned with gressions.  Gressions isn't even a word.  We're only concerned with gressions that cross some boundary: transgressions.  If we cared about gressions that don't cross boundaries they'd be cisgressions.  Sort of like how we use inter- a lot more than intra-.

But if we're talking about people then if we don't use both words we end up with the same problem as "people and women."  We end up with our very language saying we have normal, legitimate, regular people, and abnormal, subordinate, irregular not-quite people.  If we have "women and transwomen" then we're saying that there are normal, legitimate, regular women, and abnormal, subordinate, irregular not-quite women.  Or, as some people would have it, not at all women.

That's why we need the prefix cis to be there.  Most of the time we're going to be talking about women and it won't fucking matter if they're cis or trans and so there will be no prefix.  But when it does matter we can't have the words be "women and transwomen" because then that means we're not talking about transwomen when we're talking about women.  It has to be "ciswomen and transwomen" otherwise our very language makes us assholes.  It hurts people.

But there are people who are fighting to make sure that cis doesn't get used.

And it's not just that.

Genderqueer people exist, whether others like it or not.  Whether others admit it or not.  The alternative term is genderconforming.  But if you use that some people will think you're evil or you've gone too far or you're a bigot against them because "conforming" is a dirty word.  Why, liquid conforms to its container and this house conforms to the building codes and people generally conform to the laws.  See, it's HIDEOUS!  Clearly the alternative to genderqueer is just plain NORMAL and there's no need for any word for it.

Or so the argument goes.

Genderfluid people exist.  The alternative would be genderstable/genderstatic or something like that I suppose.  I've not heard it used.

We have people and people of color.

And at this point I want to stop for a moment and point something out.  Sometimes a word is created or popularized by the out-group because people in the in-group are seen as so strange they need some special to distinguish them from normal.  I'm betting "actress" was an example of this.  Some guy wanted a way to be clear he wasn't talking about a normal actor but a female one.

Sometimes it's created or popularized by the in-group because it's needed.

The reason for the adjective pair "gay and lesbian" (now largely replaced by the nouns "lesbians and gay men" which makes clear that gay women are not being excluded from gay people) was that the Sapphic term needed to be used because otherwise gay women got left the fuck out.  They're included by definition in "gay" unless there's some male only modifier, but being included by definition doesn't translate into being included in reality.  It's perfectly possible to have an event for gay people and then to say, when lesbians show up, "Well I didn't mean womenfolk, stay out."

Plenty of people would prefer never to think of people of color, or genderfluid people, or genderqueer people, or transpeople, or any people but those like themselves who they consider normal and default and whatnot.  So they're not popularizing the idea that there's one word for normal people and another for the abnormal, subordinate, irregular not-quite people.

What they often are trying to do is make sure there isn't a word for them.  And if there isn't a word for them then that means that they're the normal people.  They don't need any special word, they're just folks.  Which means that either there is no specialized term at all in which case it's impossible to talk about, say, genderqueer people in particular Or that there's a division of normal people and then those other people.

And I swear there are five thousand more examples, which I wanted to come back to after that asside, but I'm pretty much out of time so I have to cut to the conclusion.

But the point is: it's not just one group.  Whatever you are, if you aren't at the intersection of all forms of privileged approved socially supported things, there's normal people... and then there's you.

If the language supports the idea that maybe you are normal after all, then there's someone fighting against it saying that while it may be ok to label you* it's totally not ok for there to be a label that applies to people not like you because that would apply to them and that's fucking hate speech or turning actual social justice into social justice porn or whatever it takes to make sure that instead of there being a pair of words for "people like you" and "people not like you" the only two words are the ones for "normal people" and "people like you" thus demonstrating at a linguistic level that they're normal and you're a freak.

-

* And only may be ok.  There will be people who think that it should be physically impossible to talk about people like you because why should there be a word for something as wrong as you.

Why does everyone remember the bread crumbs?

The trail of bread crumbs didn't work.  It was the pebbles that worked.  The smooth polished pebbles that gleamed in the moonlight.  But then they got taken out again before the pebble supply could be restocked and used bread crumbs as a substitute which failed because the birds came and ate the bread crumbs.

Which is why you shouldn't feed the pigeons: it encourages them to help witches eat small children.

I tend to favor radical honesty

Watch movies, read books and you'll find that a lot of problems and such are because people didn't just tell the truth.  Imagine, for example:

Jake: They asked me what they could offer you to get you to leave Home Tree and I told them the truth: nothing.  So they've decided to use force instead and they're coming here right now!

-

Amy: I didn't fight Lucy Diamond and live to tell about it.  I had a minor standoff with her and then stupidly let her get away.  There was no fighting involved.

-

Jack: Pitch lured me into a trap, captured babytooth, and kept me occupied until it was too late but there is some good news: I found out where he's keeping the little tooth fairies.  We can set them free.

-

Romeo: Tybalt, you haven't heard about the wedding yet, but we're related now.  Kinsmen can't duel.  Sorry.

Juliet: Dad... I can't get married to Count Paris because I'm already married.  If you really want to disown me for marrying without your permission... I guess you have to, but don't disown me for not marrying Paris.  I can't.  It's illegal.

-

Hamlet: The reason that I've been acting strangely is that I've been investigating my father's death.  There were indications it wasn't natural but I knew if people realized I suspected they'd try to hide all the evidence.  My uncle just confessed to killing my father.  That means he's not a king but a traitor.  I hereby banish him.

(The only reason Hamlet didn't kill him there and then, you'll recall, was that his uncle confessed to God and Hamlet didn't want to send his father's murderer on a one way trip to Heaven.  Banishment allows the uncle to become a sinner again.)

-

Jack: Your father's blood, the blood that runs through your veins, is needed to lift the curse.  The fact that we know that and you don't is the only advantage we have over the ghost-pirate-things.  Whatever you do, don't let them know who you are.

[Next movie:]

Elizabeth: The reason I feel so bad is that I killed Jack and it turns out being a murderer comes with a lot of guilt.

-

Simba: I exiled myself because the only reason Mufasa died was he had to save me after I was playing somewhere I shouldn't have been.  He had to run through a stampede to save me and that's how he died.  I've always felt that I was responsible for my father's death and I couldn't live at home with the shame of it.

-

Brutus: In public everyone acts like they love you but in private a lot of people are worried that you're becoming a king.  If you don't back off on your ambition you'll lose the support of the people and there will be a revolution.  If there is one you know that I support the will of the people even over friendship.  So please, old friend, tone it down a bit.

-

Tiresias: Remember the guy you killed at the crossroads when you were running away from Delphi?  That was the previous king.  Ask anyone and you'll find he was on the road to Delphi at the same time you were on the road from it.  The person who said there were two attackers instead of one was lying to make himself look less bad.  The good news is that if you go into self imposed exile now you should be able to have a happy life.  If you stick around trying to investigate further it will destroy you and your entire family and any chance Thebes has of knowing peace in the next three generations.

-

Odysseus: Ok, crew, see this bag?  It's magic.  As long as it stays closed only favorable winds will blow and we'll be home in no time flat.

[Or if he didn't do that:]

Odysseus: I just learned that if we stop on the isle of the sun and eat the cattle there we'll all be killed.  So lets not do that.

Odysseus: Ok I've talked to the ghost of Tiresias and he says that if we avoid eating the cattle on the Island of the sun we'll be home very soon, but if we don't then we'll be shipwrecked and you'll all die while I'll have to be some god's sex toy for seven years.  So, seriously, let's not eat those cattle.

Odysseus: I have once again been told that if we eat the cattle of the sun you'll all die and I'll be a sex slave for seven years, so please let's all agree that no matter how hungry we get we don't eat those fucking cattle.

[For the record, if not for the crew eating the cattle of the sun, which Odysseus didn't warn them not to do until they were within hearing distance, Odysseus and the crew of his one remaining ship would have made it home safely before the suitors even invaded Odysseus' home.]

-

Loki: If you kidnap my children and treat them all like shit I'm totes going to turn on you and bring about the end of the world so DON'T KIDNAP MY FUCKING CHILDREN!  Seriously, what the hell are you thinking?  How many times have I saved your lives?

[Ok, Loki probably didn't see that one coming, but at some point someone should have mentioned that maybe pissing off the god who has allies on both sides of the eternal conflict and an ability to pull off anything is not the best idea.  Plus Loki is the mother of Odin's horse so Odin has to wonder if maybe some time when he rides into battle the horse will come to a dead stop, send him flying to land flat on his face, and then abandon him on account of what Odin did to the horse's siblings.]

The Aesir: Hi really nice wolf who we've kidnapped and raised.  Even though you've always been so nice to us we're kind of afraid of you because you just get bigger and bigger and bigger and never stop growing and your size is scary.  Do you think you could maybe go on a diet?  Please.  *puppy dog eyes*  For us?

[At the very least it's better than skipping straight to: let's lie to him, involuntarily restrain him, and make sure he'll be our mortal enemy until the end of time.]

-

Edward: I promised I'd tell you the truth, so here it is: I'm not actually human.  I'm a nigh immortal hemophagic being who is trapped in the form of a 17 year old since that's when I made the transition from human to this species.  It's why I'm so cold and my eyes aren't a consistent color.  I'll tell you more when we have more time but for now the two important things are these: First, the blood I drink isn't human.  I'm no more a threat to ordinary people than someone who eats steak.  Second, for reasons that are so complex I can't get into them now, but I will absolutely fill you in on when we have time, it is vitally important that the fact I'm different from the human students be kept secret.

-

Roger Ferris: I promised I would never lie to you, but I've been ordered not to tell you the truth about what I know about him.  I begged to be allowed to tell you the truth, but the orders still stand.  So please don't ask me about him.

[The worst part of that movie though was the treatment of Omar Sadiki.  It's not that they used him without his knowledge which would be bad enough, it's that they set him up in a position where he'd be in mortal danger and then didn't bother to protect him.  There is no legitimate reason that Sadiki should have died in the movie.]

-

Flynn: I didn't steal the crown alone and I just saw my two partners on the shore.  They've tracked me down and if I don't give the crown back to them they might do some very bad things.

-

Cinderella: Would you still be attracted to me if I were a serving girl working in the dirt all day?  Because I am.  I'm only allowed to keep these clothes until midnight.

-

Tony: Pepper, I'm dying.  That's why I'm giving away so much of my stuff.  That's what I'm reviving the expo.  When I'm gone I want to have had some kind of positive legacy.  Which means I also want the company in good hands.  That's why I'm giving it to you.  You've always been better at that sort of thing than me anyway.

-

Nick: You've been frozen for decades.  We considered making a fake hospital room that resembled your time and easing you into the present day but we decided that just telling you the truth was better.

-

[Different movie:]

Nick: Shield answers to a council which is short sighted and likes the idea of bigger and more devastating weapons, so we've been ordered to create weapons of mass destruction but I personally believe that our problems can be solved without resorting to mass murder and if you all can work together to stop Loki and his coming army it will prove that we don't need these weapons, we need teams of people who can distinguish between the enemy and the innocent in a way no nuclear bomb ever will.

-

Obi-Wan: Your father didn't die, as such.  His soul was destroyed.  You must always beware the Dark Side because even if you turn to it with the best of intentions it will destroy all of the goodness within you until there's nothing left but a an evil husk that used to be you.  That's what happened to your father.  Darth Vader was once your father, but now there's nothing of your father left but a few memories and his DNA.

[Ok, it's not true, but Obi-Wan thinks it is.]

-

Yoda: I'm Yoda, but before I train you I want to get to know you first.  Would you come to my house for tea?

[But in Yoda speak.  "Come to my house for tea, will you?" and whatnot.]

-

Yoda: I don't think you're ready, and if I'm right then going to face Vader will turn you to the dark side which would mean that YOU would end up a tool of the Emperor working against everything your friends have fought and suffered for.

[But in Yoda speak.]

-

JT: I'm related to a big time criminal.  He won't talk to me, but I bet he would set you up with a job.  You might have heard of him: Jack Schmidt.

-

Inara: I want to stay, but more than that I want you to want me to stay.  So do you want me to stay?  Because if not I'm leaving.

-

Westley: *Takes off mask* Hi, Buttercup.  I've been trying to get money for marriage by working on a pirate ship but I'm somewhat concerned about the fact that you've become engaged since I sailed away.

-

Red Queen: If you turn off the security systems it'll release monsters.  Don't believe me?  Look at this security footage.

-

And so on.

Snarky Twilight: I'm a freak? / Also the problem with imprinting on an egg.

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings, here and here.]

[This would be from Chapter 9: Theory, bold parts are directly from the book.]

Bella: My mind doesn't work right? I'm a freak?
Edward: I hear voices in my mind and you're worried that you're the freak.
Bella: Thank you so much for appropriating my insecurities and doing it in the most condescending way possible.
Edward: It's what I'm here for.
Bella: You're holding something back.
Edward: Like what?
Bella: I don't know. You're the one holding it back. *pause* But you know more about not being able to read minds than you're telling me.
Edward: You can't just stick to the narrative, can you?
Bella: What do you know?
Edward: Why should I-
Bella: WHAT?
Edward: Ok. Fine. Your dad has the same thing going on, just not as strong as you. I can only hear his thoughts a little.
Bella: So it's probably a hereditary thing which isn't that strange but you were going to let me go on thinking that I was the only one on earth who had it thus giving the impression that I was a freakish freaky freak and driving my self esteem through the floor?
Edward: I want you isolated.
*pause*
Edward: There are only two ways this relationship will end. Either I'll murder you, which I'm well practiced at, or I'll force you to leave everyone and everything you love. In the first case it's better if people aren't wondering what happened to you. In the second it's better if you don't have any strong relationships. In either case if I can convince you that you are an oddity unlike any other human being and in so doing make you cut yourself off from the rest of humanity things work out better for me.
*pause*
Edward: So, yes, I would love for you to think you're a freak. If we can also mix in some depression, some self loathing, and a general distaste for the rest of humanity then everything will be perfect for me.
Bella:...right.
Edward: I mean it'll suck for you. But that's the plan: Make your life so generally horrible that I'm the only source of joy in it. Then you'll need me like a drug. It'll be nothing like a loving relationship, but the chemical dependency that will force you to stay with me suits my purposes just fine. After all, there's nothing about you as a person I like, I just keep you around for the smell.

----

[This isn't from any part in particular.  Consider it Snarky Twilight Apocrypha]

Jacob: Bella, you absitively posolutely can't become a vampire yet.
Bella: Why not?
Jacob: Female vampires can't have children and one of your eggs is my soulmate.

*After Bella has a baby*

Jacob: Wrong egg, keep trying.

[Snarky Twilight Index]

A Murderer on the Jordan

[Originally posted at Slacktivist and The Slacktiverse.]
[A thing worth noting is that much of the water supply to the Jordan River has been diverted.  For this scene, or the scene in Left Behind on which it is based, to take place something would need to happen that would completely change the way the Jordan River is.  Hence the mention of a bizarre and unnecessary public works project.]
[Also, spoiler alert, Cameron is trans* in this story.  I meant to have the reveal be at the end of World War III but I wasn't following Slacktivist when that happened.]

“I’m not the one who should be afraid just now, ma'am,” Michael said. “I have twice within the last 48 hours fired this weapon into the heads of people I’ve believed were enemies of God.”

Well fuck. Cameron had been enjoying the surrealism of traveling by boat on the Jordan River. She'd been to the region before the bizarre and unnecessary public works project that had turned the trickle into a navigable waterway.

The entire thing had been a pleasant dreamlike journey. Now she had a fundamentalist murderer pointing a gun at her. An ordinary murderer she might have had better luck working with, but since she'd transitioned she didn't think she could make it passed fundamentalist muster. Even if she convinced this person she wasn't an enemy of God now, what would happen if he noticed some tell indicating that her body wasn't exactly cis.

Cameron was getting used to hiding that, but she knew from experience in other areas that the pressure of having her life hang in the balance tended to make her too nervous to remember, much less cover, all of the pertinent details.

"Ok, I have questions."

"I'll be the one asking the questions."

"On what did you base the determination they were enemies of God? Why does God need you to defend him? Wouldn't your time be better spent with more terrestrial human affairs? Has it ever occurred to you that, as a murderer, you might yourself be an enemy of God?" Cameron walked as she spoke. Hoping that the questions would keep Michael's mind occupied enough that he wouldn't fire.

He was sputtering with outrage when she reached her destination: the edge of the ship. At least he wasn't shooting.

Cameron didn't know how deep the man made river was, so she jumped overboard when she would have preferred to dive. A shot rang out. Cameron didn't let herself stop to even think whether or not she had been hit. She just put the adrenaline to use getting away.

When she was confident she was safe, and able to tell that she hadn't been shot, she thanked someone (she wasn't sure if it should be God or the manufacturer) that her phone was waterproof, and placed a call.

She didn't like having to rely on the other side, but she didn't know who the local authorities were, while they would, and she did know that even the Antichrist wasn't a fan of murderers. In general at any rate. Murderers who worked for him were another matter entirely.

Princess Story, Part 2

[Part 1 here]

A caravan approached the palace by the sea from the agrarian kingdom war loomed with.  Several identical closed carriages so that none might know which housed the envoy.

Inside one of the carriages the princess of the agrarian kingdom tried to look through the curtains to see the outside.

"Don't," her brother said.

"Why not?"

"You know why not."

She spoke the reason in monotone, having heard it more times than she thought could possibly be necessary: "Because every assassin hired by war mongerers on both sides would like nothing more than to kill us before we reach the safety of the palace."

"It's serious," her brother said.

"Deadly serious," she replied in monotone.

"And it's just mongers.  Only one "er" in it."

"It doesn't make any sense," she said, suddenly animated.

"The spelling?" her brother asked confused.

"No, the war."

"Since when do wars make sense?"

"That's not what I mean.  Why would both sides want war?"

"The same reason they always do," her brother said, suddenly sounding tired. "The ones on our side think we'll win.  The ones on their side think they'll win."

"But they can't all win; they have to know that."

"They do, they're just convinced they're each right.  The Earl of Dunich thinks he can conquer the lands of the Duke of Falsome.  Meanwhile the Duke of Falsome is convinced when the dust settles he'll be the new ruler of Dunich.  It's that way all across the borderlands."

"I know but... but if I were thinking of going to war with someone and I found out that they wanted to go to war with me that would give me pause."

"And you'd be smarter than eighty percent of the nobles.  So what?  You don't have to be smart to start a war."

"It just doesn't make sense."

"We've been following court politics since we could speak..."

In unison the two said, "It never makes sense."

There was a pause during which only the wheels of the carriage and the hoof beats of horses could be heard.

Then the princess said to her brother, "Let's talk about something that doesn't involve death."

"Like what?"

"You're getting married."

"Let's stick with the death.  Have you considered that-"

"No, seriously, you haven't told me how you feel about it yet."

"Getting married to someone I've never met in a kingdom I've never seen because a bunch of nobles decided to create no less than 76 casus belli and show no signs of stopping... It's just what I always wanted."

"Everyone says she's beautiful."

"I don't even know her name."

"So what?  If you don't like each other then you can get a concubine and she can get a concubinus.  Or concubines and concubini.  Why stop at just one?"

"If I weren't being forced into a marriage, I could get a wife whom I liked."

"We've always known that we might have to marry for political reasons.  Royals don't get to marry for love."

"Mom and dad did."

"Mom and dad married in the middle of thirty years of unprecedented peace and prosperity.  They got lucky."

"I wish I could-" the carriage stopped.  "Either we're here or the caravan has been taken hostage by bandits."

"I prefer a fight to sitting in here where we can't see anything," the princess said.  She motioned to the door, "Shall we?"  Her brother nodded, and they got out.

[Previous][Princess Story Index][Next]
[Original Work]

Law and Order seems designed to make people depressed.

[rape, murder, you have been warned.]

There's a reason that I don't like Law and Order, a reason I don't usually watch it.  For some reason I made an exception today and it was a huge mistake.

The story is this:

Two rich families are about to create a merger through marriage.  Because if you're rich that's what marriage is for.  The youngest child of one of the families is raped and murdered.

First there is an attempt to frame the limo driver.

Then it comes up that the sons of the family that doesn't include the victims committed (statutory) rape by having sex with the victim.  They're suspected.

Then it comes up that the member of the victims family getting married had a fight with the victim.  Before she can even be suspected the whole family comes in, says she did it, but it's her medications to blame and tries to plea for a much reduced sentence at a mental hospital.

Then investigation shows she didn't do it and it turns out that her mother did it.

See, rich family secrets.  They never could live with the shame of their daughter getting pregnant at 14 and so treated their granddaughter as their daughter, keeping her away from their daughter (I think boarding school might have been involved) for much of her life.  Having her daughter stolen from her might have contributed to the bride to be's need to be on medication.

So the mother convinced the daughter that she killed her own daughter.  This was so the mother would never be suspected of murder.  And why the murder?  Before daughter was getting married she decided to tell her daughter the truth of their relationship.  Mother/grandmother didn't want that getting out because shame and so killed her.

Then comes the other family, the family of the groom who is having sex with someone else and isn't at all concerned about the marriage as a marriage because it's a merger.

They claim they witnessed everything, it's dumped as self defense and everyone gets away with everything.

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I'm going to take a moment of "What the fuck?" here.

Take the parents of the groom's family at their words.  Get it in writing first.  Explain that there's a problem where people say one thing in the station and something else in the courtroom and get them to sign sworn statements that they witnessed the killing.  They're not asking for any kind of immunity so don't give it to them.

Take them to court for obstruction of justice and taking part in multiple framings.

When the limo driver was being framed they did what the people framing him wanted them to do and kept quiet even though they claim to have seen the murder and known he was innocent.

When their own sons were suspects (they don't deny their sons committed rape, by the way) they did what the murderer wanted them to do and kept quiet.

When the bride was being framed by her mother they knew that she was innocent but refused to say anything.  Why?  They said it themselves: they wanted to help killer.

If they didn't see the killing then they're trying to cover up a murder by making it look like self defense.  If they did see the killing then they were participants in two separate attempts to frame innocent people.  Either way they're trying to help a killer get away with it.  That, in itself, is illegal.

They should go to jail.

Their sons undeniably committed statutory rape.  They should go to jail.

The person who framed the limo driver should go to jail.  I came in late enough that I'm not sure who it was.

The murderer, matriarch of the bride's family, tried to frame her daughter to the point of telling her daughter and her husband that she saw the daughter do it and convincing the daughter to confess.  That's enough to send her to jail.  Add to that, in a separate trial because the murder and framing were separate acts, that she committed murder and she should go to jail with two sentences.

If people buy that it was self defense then she still has to go to jail because framing someone a killing you committed is illegal even if the killing itself was legal.  But the only reason that people would buy that it was self defense is if they believed the first people I mentioned who by the time of her trial should be in jail for covering up the very killing they claim is self defense.

They should go down first.  Of everyone who actually committed a crime, they're the only ones to confess.  They admitted to knowing who did it and refusing to tell until that person was already a suspect thus participating in two separate attempts to frame innocent people.

Which means that the guy who pulled the DAs off the case was wrong, they're not impeccable witnesses.  Who is going to believe someone who is in prison for covering up (twice!) the very crime they're testifying about?