#I wish our two party system wasn't so fucking shitty

[uncleghostt]

this is kinda a shit take bc I'm pretty sure a lot of gay, lesbian, trans, immigrant, female, sick, disabled.. black, brown, incarcerated, Jewish, poor, unhoused, unemployed, (and so on) people are already suffering under Biden?? And things that he did (or didn't stop) are actively aggressing their suffering?

Look your Muslim or Palestinian friends in the eye right now and tell them how you are proudly voting for Biden and see how they react! Listen I definitely am going to vote, and definitely NOT voting for Trump, but liberals please stop acting like Biden isn't also causing suffering. It's privileged of you to say so. As a trans person in the US right now I've never felt more unsafe.

(and yes I know you are going to say "well at least he's not as bad as Trump!" and that's not the POINT, the point is that Biden is currently facilitating genocide at the moment and you guys sound tone deaf speaking over these communities and defending him.)

Have the guts to look them all in the eye and warn them first.

[thedoctor1002]

Idk, I never posted one of my fics here but guess I'll try ~

Also, English is not my first language so feel free to correct me QwQ

Fandom: Psycho-Pass -season 1- (is this still a thing?)

Characters: Kogami Shinya, Sasayama Mitsuru, OC

Prompt (it was in Italian, so I'll translate): write a story using three among these words: cloud, dusk, thunderstorm, storm, hull, bay, shelter, sail, night

Title: Log date: 2110/02/28 (Friday) 22:04

---

The lights of the bay flicker dynamically before your eyes.

They dance hypnotically, of the same cyan colour of your office’s walls, but with a whole different beat. They drink the red and white trails from the traffic, they shatter and multiply in the tears of an inclement rain. I know how much you hate it, you just can’t stand going on recon with an umbrella. On the other hand, I love it.

Rain brings us close together under the waterproof cloth and I manage to observe details that neon lights often hide from me: the precise way you part your hair, the last few drops of the jasmine perfume on your jacket, your long lashes. Shion thinks they’re fake. We always fight over it, can you believe me?

After all, you’ve never been the kind of woman to wear such frills. 

A notification arrives, the acid light of your impalpable PC breaks through the sacred dark from where you pretend you don’t see me. It digs your silhouette and paints you like a ghost on the huge windows of the Public Safety Bureau.

Your jet-black hair lay on your back like varnish pouring over the white silk of your blouse.

“Pulling an all-nighter, Inspector Matou?” I ask casually, exposed. With you, after all, I always am: you’re the only one that can shush my shitty jokes.

But this time you laugh slightly: nothing more than a spike, a trembling breath that shakes your ribs and lips.

“The forecasts say that the storm won’t stop until tomorrow morning,” you tell me, sitting at your desk, “also, I’ve been delaying this paperwork through all week, it's about time I get it done. Might as well do some overtime and get rid of it, don’t you think?”

“You’re such a workaholic.” I label you, realizing how lucky I am being allowed to do it: Ginoza, that prude, would have never let it slide “You should leave some for the rest of the precinct: make 'em earn their wages.”

A tired smile crosses your face as you tap your fingers on the keyboard. It’s so clear you’re trying to avoid my glance.

You used to look for it.

You looked for my eyes at briefings, in that discrete way that eventually shocked everyone. You looked for them among alleys, as soon as you heard a gunshot or the chocked sound of a fight.

And when you found me, it felt like a 7 miles free fall.

“How are the legs going?” I dare to ask. I see the hollow structure of your new shins below the hem of your pencil skirt. They swing a bit underneath the glass of your desk. You didn’t lose your damn tic, your right heel shakes like the needle of a sewing machine even when you seem calm.

You shrug and drink the bottom of an already empty glass of water.

I shouldn’t have asked. It breaks my heart, to see you like this.

You don’t give me an answer and massage the back of your knee with a sigh. Lately, I feel like you’re avoiding me.

You’re turning back into the one you were before: uncompromising, cold and distant. I wonder if the bunch of ingrates downstairs have been calling you Dobermann again. I wonder if you’re still as relentless.

You worry me: your stress level is getting darker and darker. You don’t want old Kasei to take issues with you, not again.

I can imagine how you must have felt, the night when this mess happened.

You most likely got pissed, if I do know you.

I mean, did they really think I got away on my own? I bet you never doubted me: no one knows an Enforcer better than its Inspector.

“Runaway?! Have you lost your minds?” Sasayama?!”

Those were the first words you said when they rescued you. You spoke them way before cleansing your lungs from the rotten water of the river, way before asking Masaoka if you’d have ever got back to feeling your lower legs. They hurt like hell and you had to pull them around like sandbags.

“They got him” you panted, holding tight on your mentor’s coat “They took him away, I tell you!” The one that kidnapped him wasn’t a latent criminal. The Dominator didn’t activate, not even when they shot me. Please, believe me. Check on the log files, please.”

Crime coefficient: 0.

I know that bug still haunts you.

Cause, after all, it’s can’t be anything else: who on earth is that Makishima to fly under the Sibyl Sistem’s radar? Who can fool a network that knows your crimes before you do? And how is it possible that the silhouette that kneecapped you and threw you into a river could possibly be innocent?

You haven’t lost your mind, Inspector: the Dominator betrayed me, too.

Don’t think I don’t know how pitiful must have been, the next three days.

Makishima isn’t real. Forget it, it was just a delirium. You were in shock.

It was the trauma, dear. It was a breakdown. It was burnout syndrome.

You’d use some holiday, darling. Take a week. Take two. Go somewhere far, no, better: just stay at home. Go to therapy. Keep yourself busy, don’t think about it. Work. Also, don’t work: it wears you out!

They put you back on your feet in less than six hours, but nobody allowed you to join search parties. Heaven forbid your stress level getting any darker. Heaven forbid that yet another good Inspector gets demoted among those damn Enforcers. But, still, in the whole IT section, there wasn’t a single nerd that could get that night's logs. That's one funny thing, ain't it?

Woman, sometimes I wish your damn head wasn't that hard. I wish you didn't follow the Forensics to get a lift, so soon after the deed.

At least, you could have listened to Kogami. Shit, didn't you see how pale he was? You didn't even need the Dominator to read him, his stress level was mindblowing!

You should have believed him when he told you you didn't want to enter that alley. First off, it was already full of other detectives and analysts. I have no idea what kind of business you had to do in there. Second thing second, Kogami has an eye for certain matters. Do you think he didn't notice I’ve always been all over you? Not gonna lie, maybe I told him about you, once or twice.

But no, of course, you had to get in.

The software that taught you how to walk on those carbon stilts made you stand your ground and bark a "For fuck's sake, Shinya, move!" worthy of the Dobermann’s reputation. Even those who hadn't been called out made way.

But your new legs didn't hold you, when you saw what they had made of my corpse.

I'm sorry, Katsumi, I never wanted to upset you like that. 

You know how much I would have rather have a more heroic death. I don't know, like, in the middle of a shooting, saving the day. It would have been much classier, less tacky, less trash. I think I deserved it, that's all.

You stop typing and rub your temples. You shelter what’s left of your lipstick behind your hand. I wish I could kiss it off, instead of watching you consume it in a ruby red halo in the notch between your thumb and your index.

You lift your eyes only for Kogami, who’s passing by your office like a nurse in its night shift.

“So?” he asks in a whisper, putting more care in that question than I could have ever done. More than anybody could have ever done, because he’s the only one that gets you, right now. You two seem like the only ones who lost something.

You shake your head slowly, staring at the monitor and the dangerously high Crime Coefficient on the display.

“It's not working” you wail softly, misty-eyed. I can’t believe it, is it still you?

“They’re gonna kick me out anyway, if it doesn’t lower quickly” you continue, with that realism of yours. I used to call you a jinx for that but, at the end of the day, you always got our backs. “It’s for the best if I just resign. I’m gonna keep what's left of my dignity, at least.” 

The dark profile of my best friend looks through me, as he sits on the armchair next to mine. He would like to say something, a word of encouragement maybe, we all know it in this damn room, but numbers shut our mouths. 

“You could become an Enforcer” he proposes.

Goddammit, Shinya, did we work with the same person? Katsumi as an Enforcer?

And there you go, shaking your head. You hold your face in your hands and let your raven hair hide your visage. 

“Can you imagine me, following orders? I do know how to work, I can do it better than three-quarters of our colleagues and I’ve never had problems remarking it. They’d eat me alive if they had the chance. Dogs celebrate on the corpses of lions.”

“But lions remain lions and dogs stay dogs.” Kogami finishes, stealing my lines. 

I notice the slight trembling of your finger, as you tap your touchpad to send that last confirm.

In a few moments, the system will have your resignation registered. Your profile won’t unlock your Dominator anymore and in a few days time, just enough for you to collect your belongings, you won’t even manage to enter the office.

Who’s gonna explain to old Kasei that there's more of your stuff here than in your apartment?

I’d ask you what do you plan on doing with your life, but tonight’s decision seems definitely brave enough to call it a day.

I look at the tabs you open in your browser, they mirror in the windows behind you.

Air travel.

Argentina, Cuba, States, New Zealand, Germany, Kenya. You go around the world in 80 seconds flat, you multiply your chances and spread them all through the air in front of you, in a complex diagram that doesn’t lead anywhere.

I never wanted to take you away from your home, you don’t deserve this. 

You cover your eyes with a hand and use the other one to pick a random selection from your atlas.

Greece.

“Well, at least it’s on the sea.” you wrap up, condensing in a handful of words the only satisfaction you can find in starting a brand new life.

You two stare at the transparent screenshot of your flight, the countdown on the web page seems way too joyful.

“It’s so exciting, Katsumi Matou! Check-in your luggage. Your journey will begin in: 06 days: 17 hours: 34 minutes: 21 seconds”

20.

19.

18.

Seconds pass by, in complete silence.

“Do you think it would be a burden to him?” you ask Shinya, “Do you think he’d understand?”

Who would have guessed that a cynic one like yourself could believe in the afterlife? I wish I were here to ask you. I wish we could have spoken about life, death, sex, about things long gone and things yet to be.

His hand squeezes yours gently, as he looks at you in the eye, hoping to stop the train to Paranoidland from setting off.

“It’s not your fault” he reassures you as he can: the both of you wouldn’t make the average person’s empathy.

But he’s right, though, it really isn’t: I know you’ve done anything you could. It’s always been like that.

“Maybe I owe him” you draft “Even if they don’t believe in Makishima, maybe one day I could have proved he exists.”

The teal of your Psycho-Pass would suit you wonderfully, if it wasn’t a description of your mental health.

What could you possibly do in these conditions? You’d have ended up in a cubicle, filing loss and theft reports. You would have never made it to the dossiers, surely not to those of such a controversial case. Making you end up in a study room would have been my final bullshit. I’m happy with your choice, really. I would have loved visiting Europe someday.

“Don’t talk nonsense.” Kogami rebukes you, externalizing what I’ve been thinking all along: “I’m going to look out for your man: your team has already given way too much. I’m gonna find him, Matou, cold case or not.”

You nod, but it’s clear you don’t believe him. I can read through you, you’re a terrible liar.

I don’t think you don’t trust him, most likely you’ve done the math and figured that working on an independent case is far too difficult for an Inspector, let alone for an Enforcer.

And there it is, my fall. After an exhausting chase, you finally look into my eyes, even though -according to Shinya- you’re most likely staring at the void.

Despite being used to such races, believe me, I’ve missed you.

“I’m just so sorry.” you finally whisper, giving me a bitter smile. 

Try and stop me, Ginoza, tell me once again how inappropriate it is: I don’t mind anymore. I get up and I don’t hesitate while holding you and leaving a kiss on your hair, shamelessly.

“I’m going to grab some coffee” I announce, walking backwards to the door like a shrimp, just to look at my dearest friends a bit longer. “I’d get you one, but I’m short on coins. Maybe next time.”

“See you, Inspector.”, Kogami greets you, leaving alongside me.

“Be good.” you wave back, as we were all to meet again tomorrow.

Walking through the dark alley, I can hear an excerpt from our last conversation through the opaque glass of your office.

“You’re jerk, Sasayama!”

I can hear you laughing out loud, through the crackly recording. You laughed at my gall, with that warm, strong, sweet voice of yours, mocking me. Admit it: mine, after all, were the only compliments that could make you blush.

It’s incredible how we managed to joke even inside a car that was taking us on a crime scene. To an external eye, we might have looked disrespectful. Truth is I’ve always feared death so much I just had to laugh at the reaper.

“Oh, come on, what would it take? Come with me to the Precinct’s New Year’s dinner, the 17th is around the corner!” I kept annoying you, as you were too busy driving to mind my dumb flirt attempts. I still can’t get how we never had an accident. “Be good, Katsumi, give me a joy to live for!”

“You could always ask Shion, you know? You always give her more attention, after all.”

I hear the subtle sound of the wheels stopping, the parking brake cracking and it’s like Ogishima’s outskirts appear before my eyes, in that same January night. That place gave me goosebumps, but I would have hated if you understood it.

“Here we are” you announced, with still a bit of resentment in your voice. You unlocked the passenger’s door and I remember I left your Dominator in the car’s trunk: I didn’t want you to follow me. Not that time.

“You scare me when you pay so much attention” you commented, noticing how serious I got “will you tell me why are you insisting so much to keep on searching? Kogami got the guy. Tomorrow we go, we arrest him and it's thank you, next.”

My answer has been recorded as a distant and muffled noise, but I still can trace it: “He’s not the one, I tell you. I have another suspect, but I need a more solid base. And you’re staying, Inspector.”

“Staying?! You’ve gone crazy!” you laughed, locking the corporate sedan behind you “If something were to happen to you, or worse if you didn’t come back, Kasei would…”

“I said you’re staying: it’s dangerous.”

“Sasayama, our work is dangerous,” you replied, contemptuous, understanding that clearly among the gear I brought I didn’t count yours and going back to the car to get it “One more risk won’t make a difference: if I have to drop dead, it can either be here, at home or god knows where.”

“Will you join me for the precinct’s dinner, though?”

And here is a sequence that the voice recorder surely can’t have grasped, but that I could remember even in a thousand years. You cast an outraged glance over me from above the trunk’s door, panting through a half-smile. You shook your head, tucking your hair behind your ear. And finally, after refusing my invitations since 17th November, during lunch break, you smiled shrugging.

“Deal, come on, just make way” you sighed, as your heels echoed on the wet concrete “Still, you’re a jerk.”

“I recorded it: you have no excu-”

The audio file interrupts.

End of recording.

[evilelitest2]

Why has political shit gotten so damn extreme like I know Obama wasn't even great but the economy did improve somewhat with him in why the hell did everyone just go absolutely insane this year politically like what is the source of this madness like literally why

That is a very good question, in fact I am doing a whole series right now called 100 Days of Trump where I try explain WTF happened via media, but yes, America has kinda gone insane and at the risk of massive simplification I am boiling it down to 7 core reasons, think 7 sins  

1) Ronald Fucking Reagan, aka Trump 1.0.  Basically Reagan’s entire presidency was either  “Horrible policies that won’t come back to bite us until decades later” or “refusing to reform the system”.  Like, in terms of how the US works administratively, we haven’t reformed since the 80s, we are the most powerful nation in the world with an administrative system from the bloody 70s. LIke I can’t reiterate this enough, America hasn’t had a proper reform for almost 40 years, which btw was also tore of France and Russia right before the revolutions.  Like the Us goverment as an institution hasn’t been patched for ages, it is outdated, underfunded, administratively backwards and mismanaged and that all boils down to Reagan’s policy of massively cutting taxes.  Without money, goverment cannot function and so all of the things goverment is suppose to do aren’t working right.  People without welfare or a social safety net are far more likely to become radical.  When a country has A giant wealth gap, very little welfare, no healthcare, a shitty education system, a shrinking middle classes, and stagnant wages, the country is unstable, that is just how it goes.  All of those things Republicans like to cut aren’t just good because it is nice to not have children die, it also make the country more stable.  If somebody has a decent job, fine education, good standard of living, and a safety net, then they are far less likely to be attracted to radical politics.  But thanks to Reagan we have been spending 36 years cutting the very things that keep the country stable.  Also under Reagan we saw massive money in politics and the start of corporate media.

Also Reagan plus CLinton (who was the democratic Reagan good job) started NAFTA and the Free Trade movement which is great for corporations but terribel for the American worker.  Free trade only works if you combine it with good welfare and public education and the US had neither, cause we wouldn’t want to tax the rich.  Also infrastructure has stagnated, really all over America shit is falling apart because our leaders haven’t been doing their bloody jobs for 4 decades.  

2) The war on Terror.  Like I know it doesn’t feel this way, but we have been at war for 16 years now, a long bloody costly war which….hasn’t really come to anything.  We killed Bin Laden and it didn’t seem to do anything, we invaded Iraq over a false pretense, we have spent Trillions of dollars and nothing ever seems to get better only worse and there doesn’t seem to be a way out.  When people get frustrated and feel like they have been lied too by those in power, they turn to extreme solutions, particularly if said solution is simple, because they want to believe these things can be ended simply rather than address a complicated reality (cause again we cut education for 40 years)

For that matter, also the War on Drugs when it comes to dumb expensive harmful wars that don’t ever effect anything other than increasingly militarizing the police department.  

3) The Crash.  You are right, the economy did improve after Obama and the country is so much stronger than it was after 2008, but most of that economic growth came in the urban areas not the rural and while better it is still really shit for about 50% of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck.   The fact that the Crash was caused by Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush’ own incompetent policies and NOBODY was punished for it is still galling, that Wall Street and the banks fucked over the economy for their own personal gain and basically got off scot free for it is really infuriating, and the things that got us into this mess….haven’t really been changed.  Cause money in politics 

4) Money in politics, our political class is an absolute joke.  The fact is that the rich and the corporate wield absurd amounts of influence in American politics and there doesn’t really seem to be anything the people of the US can do about it, its just a nightmare.  There are thousands of easy obvious solutions to problems in the US which could be solved and….they aren’t, because some rich asshole makes more problem by that problem existing or doesn’t want to pay taxes 

5) An outdated political structure, the actual political system of the US is a mess, it doesn’t work as intended and is designed so that the useless shits who are currently in power stay in power while doing as little as possible.  Look at things like the Two Party System, the Primary System, the Electoral College, the structure of the Senate, First Past the Post Voting, Gerrymandering, the Filibuster, the makeup of the Supreme Court, or the military industrial complex and tell me that any of that shit makes sense, its a nightmare, it needs reform and nobody is going to do it because anybody who actually wins using these broken terrible rules they are incentives  to not fix them, because after all…they won that way.  People feel quite rightly that they have very little say over what their goverment does and the last 16 years in particular have just been that on open display to everyone . LIke everybody knows that the War on Terror and the War on Drugs don’t work, but nobody stops it because the political system disincentives politicians from actually solving problems.  

6) Racism……racism, like…..racism.  The US is a deeply racist country, the Civil Rights movement wasn’t very long ago and there is a segment of this population who really wish that  the Civil Rights movement never happened.  To them, the fact that a black man was in office for 8 years, a black man named Barrack Hussein Obama, scared and enraged them, almost as much as the knowledge that thanks to Latino immigration the US is becoming less and less white.  To people who have thoroughly internalized the racial caste system, the knowledge that they might not have the automatic power and privilege that comes with being white in the US scares them, and Obama’s existence is living proof to how much the country is changing.  Combine that with a growing self confident and  assertive new civil rights movement in Black Lives matter and a lot of racists fear that the power that comes with being white in this country might be stripped from them . There was an interesting study where white people believed the number of Blacks and Latinos were at 20% and 25% respectively, when in reality it is 14% and 17%, there is a racist backlash to the thought of a changing nation.  This happens all the time btw, much of  most violent  racism always comes not when a group is so small it is almost unnoticeable, or when the group is large enough to defend itself, but when that group is large enough to establish themselves but not large enough to defend themselves.  

7) Finally it must be said, a polarized nation makes a lot of money for a lot of people, and by a lot of people I of course mean Rupert Murdoch.  A lot of core Trump supporters would actually like the Democratic party based on certain principles, wellfare most notably, but they can’t see it that way, they are constantly being riled up by the Right Wing media machine, and this is true to a lesser extent on the left and center.  Outrage and fear makes money, and ever since the US News Media have been corporately owned (thanks Reagan…thanks a lot) there is a whole industry based on peddling to humanity lowest urges and encouraging their worse behavior.  Cause here is the thing, Fox News makes money when it depicts Obama as a secret terrorist Socialist Communist hoping to kill all the whites.  If the US went to war with Iran, Fox New’s investors would cheer because that makes more money it is simply more profitably to have a divided nation than a united one.  I mean think about how the Gun industry’s main selling point i “Fuck those liberals” you buy a gun as much to piss off the imagined liberal boogie men as you do for other reasons, and this is true to a lesser degree to the left.  

TLDR: America has been adopting a “Kick the can down the road” approach and in 2016 the road has been blocked by a giant mountain of cans and we crashed the car.