#You're working with the government at that point

[pinkrangerv]

Let's also note the first two there:

In conception, a large gametic cell ('egg') joins with a small gametic cell ('sperm') and then divides into four cells. This division is when we know conception is successful.

At literally no point do four microscopic cells have testes or ovaries, because physics takes issue with this.

In other words: Any attempt to enforce the anti-trans executive order will meet a simple litmus test of reality--what's written on paper doesn't fucking exist.

Now, it's possible to attempt to define 'male' and 'female' as 'at birth, has X reproductive organs'...except for the folks with both, only half a set, or none. And you'll notice that means that 'male' and 'female' are therefore SOCIAL categories--which holds up, because the category 'intersex', which claims to be about gametic production...doesn't cover people who have no gametic production, but ovaries or testes and other physical attributes, but does cover someone with large gametic cell production but a micropenis, or large gametic cell production but PCOS and thus a beard. (Listed cases are based off AFAB folks, just because I'm more familiar with that type; those who are AMAB have their own variations.)

So these orders aren't just illegal. They're not how words, medicine, biology, psychology, or physics work--which means that now this will very, very clearly be illegal.

Bear in mind: People will try to hurt you based on it. You're gonna have to defend yourselves. And the courts may rule it 'legal' for a while. But this means that now we have logical, objective reasons for saying 'there is a rule of law; that rule of law is modifiable and our current best attempt at government; this is NOT allowable under that rule; should we need violence, we can reset to rule of law and thus avoid the Reign of Terror\Stalin\some other dystopian nightmare'.

In other words: We may be able to avoid some bloodshed, and that's a good thing. So consider: How much do you want to disobey? What are you willing to suffer? Someone else may be in a better position to be a test case or martyr--but you may be in a position to contribute to making them look stupid (which en masse tends to sap their morale), or to screw with paperwork, or just write emails to your Congresscritters saying 'hey, there's no cost analysis here, exactly HOW much of my hard-earned money is paying for this totally pointless effort? Do we not have libraries, roads, or other ACTUALLY useful work to do? You know, at MY employment, we don't let people shit around on company time...'.

Go figure out what you're willing to do, and then see how you can use this to do some good. Remember: If you can't do anything else, you can at least make it clear that the response to a Nazi is to point and laugh. And you can probably do a lot more when you've gotten some minor victories under your belt. What can YOU do to make a Nazi regret being born?

Executive orders do not change the Constitution or laws passed in Congress.

Push back. Use your voice. Stay engaged.

DO NOT SUBMIT IN ADVANCE.

There are more of us than them.

[technofeudalism]

i wouldn't wish it on anyone in any way, shape or form, but all i can think about when i see those "attend your local council meetings" as a response to what's happening is someone from the wrong suburb going and raising their voice too high, only to find themselves under arrest for public disturbance.

please use reasonable caution when taking this advice. the reason that most leftists suggest that your organization stem from grassroots, community-based recruiting is because when you reach a certain point in a fascist society, going to school board meetings isn't going to solve the problem. you need friends. you need allies.

i'm not suggesting you don't get involved. you should. but this advice is dangerous and quite literally fails to understand the gravity of the situation. not a single person in this country can say with a straight face that there is going to be another presidential election with 100% confidence.

do you really think that your presence on the local school board is going to matter when the Department of Education is gone and only teachers who agree to spread fascist state propaganda are working in classrooms?

once more with feeling: it is important to get involved in local issues and politics, all the way down to the school board level. i am not discouraging anyone from doing that.

but if you let your guard down, if you don't pay attention to how things are developing around you, if you don't have the right support networks, if you don't have the adequate gauge on when you're in a hostile situation, if you don't have your finger on the pulse of what Donald Trump is doing right now, then you should think real, real hard about what government building you're about to walk into and start saying things that he wouldn't agree with. do it anyway. fuck that asshole. but pick your battles. right place, right time. because you may not get many opportunities. that is where we are whether you like it or not.

[xf-cases-solved]

today we are sitting in our office at 6 in the morning thinking about...

that scene in "squeeze" that everyone knows by heart, where mulder asks scully, "do you think i'm spooky?" and it's very cute and weirdly sexually charged like all of their interactions are, but also that scene is really important to their character development actually??

this is episode three, and with the understanding that these two are unhinged and kind of speedrun the whole "i would die for you, you're everything to me, you jump i jump, etc" thing, ostensibly they're still getting to know one another, and, more importantly, mulder's still trying to gauge if scully is hashtag legit. like, his gut tells him that, yes, for some reason the fates aligned and made it so the shadow government fucked up real bad and actually sent him an ally instead of an enemy (and also she's not hard on the eyes either, just sayin'), and also she held a security operative at gunpoint for him just one episode earlier, so i think by this point he does genuinely trust that she doesn't have a secret agenda

what he is LESS certain of, however, is whether or not she is going to want to stick around once she fully understands just what a fucking bummer it is to be fox fucking mulder, resident hoover building loser. like she is this literal genius agent and medical doctor, who's professional and hot and kind, and she could easily have an extremely promising career ahead of her, and he doesn't think she understands just how detrimental it is for her to go all in with him. and this case, with these by-the-book buddies of hers, is the first time they are really facing that issue head on

going back to the aforementioned scene, mulder is testing her. through that whole bit, he's testing her. ("why didn't they ask me about the case?" "bc they're my friends and they're more comfortable with me" "why would i make them uncomfortable?" "bc of your reputation" "rEpUtAtIoN?? who has a reputation???") like he is trying SO hard to get her to stop talking around the issue and just say "they think you're a fucking freak, mulder," which ofc she won't, which is why, when she gives him the perfect set up with, "they think your theories are..." he IMMEDIATELY swoops in and asks, "spooky?"

and then he looks her in the eye and asks, "do you think i'm spooky?"

and he says it in his joking tone, but i fully believe that there is a genuineness there. he already knows before talking to colton and his cronies how the conversation is going to go, and he doesn't care, bc he doesn't care about their opinions, but he DOES care about her opinion, and i think that scares him. i think it's been a very, very long time since he last gave a shit about what someone thought of him, and he's extremely uncomfortable. i think that's why he goes so hard just seconds later with the straight faced "aliens are actually grey" thing with colton. he doesn't do it to taunt colton, or for his own amusement, but bc he wants to show scully flat out, "this is what they think of me, and this is how i am going to act in response. can you handle it? can you handle being a social pariah? or do you think i'm spooky?"

the theme comes up repeatedly in this episode, actually. he outright admits to being territorial over her, but in the same breath gives her permission to work on the case with colton instead of him, bc he KNOWS what a shit meal she's been served by the fbi, pairing them up together, but then she's like, "hmmm, idk, i think you must know more than you're saying and i wanna know what it is," and he is so delighted, bc not only does it mean that she's really committed to finding the truth, not just closing the case as fast as possible, but it also means that she's choosing him over them, and that N E V E R happens

but later in the episode he also makes the remark about how in thirty years she'll be "head of the bureau," which is another peek into his mind grapes, showing us that he's still very stuck on this idea that working with colton & friends is going to make her suddenly come to the realization of "oh wait, what am i DOING with this loser??" he's afraid of that happening, and he's afraid about the fact that he's afraid of it in the first place, and bc this is mulder and scully we're talking about, and neither of them are physically capable of saying what they're feeling, he just keeps making jokes and quips and being a dick to colton (who deserves it, but still), bc the alternative is admitting to scully, "hey, i really like your company and would kind of really very much like it if you didn't leave me for the cool kids agents," and he's not going to do that. not just bc of the vulnerability aspect, but bc he would view it as selfish, bc he fully believes that being stuck with him is bad for her (lol i wonder if that will become a theme throughout the entire series ha ha)

but anyway, turns out his worries are unfounded, bc it turns out scully will take being mrs. spooky over climbing the career ladder any day

"do you think i'm spooky?"

"no, i think you're a fucking nerd, now shut up get me my own desk. if we push them together we can play battleship, and then later we can get to know each other carnally"

or something

they're in love, your honor

this is only episode THREE

unhinged

[hadesoftheladies]

Chat, Will Men Save Us From Patriarchy?

time to respond to ghost bloggers who respond to my posts and block me.

@ ray-moo

Patriarchy is not an entity in itself. It is a name that describes male people, culture and behaviour. Men ARE patriarchy. Even when we say that patriarchy grooms men and boys, what we are really describing (albeit somewhat inefficiently) is other men and boys socializing men and boys to be misogynistic. Patriarchy is the name of a social dynamic. Men create patriarchy. Men are the patriarchs that in turn create more patriarchs.

It is not mere "complicity" and this kind of talk is what inspired me to make my post in the first place. There is no government mandate for men to beat up their wives or exploit their mothers. Rape is a deliberate, personal choice. There is no law that forces men's hands against women and girls. Men do that all on their own or are encouraged to do that by male peers, peers that mostly exist on the same economic level as they do. All wealthy men do is exploit pre-existing sentiments among already existing misogynists. The men in government don't need to encourage men to be violent. They only need make sure the violence is manageable for them.

Men are not middle management of patriarchy. They are the beginning, the fuel and the endpoint.

"Most revolutions" is the key phrase here. One one hand, feminism is not "most revolutions" because patriarchy isn't "most oppressions." Women under patriarchy are in a unique position because their oppression is primarily domestic/intimate/interpersonal. Not only that, but unlike say, a worker's strike in India, women make up HALF THE GLOBAL POPULATION. Women across the globe have pretty much IDENTICAL experiences. That is, in a twisted sort of way, an advantage many other marginalized groups do not have. Feminism is heavily policed because female backlash on a large scale can become very inconvenient for all facets of economy.

On the other hand, it's not that I think you're wrong about how revolutions work, I just think you're mistaken about your assessment of patriarchy: mainly, you think that it is working class men and women against bourgeoise men who perpetuate brutal patriarchy for their own economic gain. Which is false.

Yes, we do need class solidarity, but not as lower-middle class men and women, but as WOMEN. Women are the oppressed class in patriarchy, and men are the oppressor class in patriarchy. The interests and needs of both classes transcend economic class and culture, which is why killing all the rich white men may do great service to everybody everywhere, but misogynists will continue to misogynist post-funerary rites.

I'm personally not convinced that male allyship is what's going to turn the tide, here. It will be useful, yes, and in some cases, it's been deeply necessary, but 1. I don't see why men cannot receive feminist/non-patriarchal community with other men and 2. I don't think a lack of male allyship is what's holding feminism back.

What's holding women back is a lack of female solidarity. What keeps men in power is an overwhelming presence of male class solidarity. It's not merely money. It's not merely judicial power. It's class consciousness.

Women have the numbers to change the world, but our solidarity lies with everyone and everything else but ourselves. For feminism to get to a point where women can kill men in self-defense or use violence in any meaningful way, and still be protected will take female solidarity, not male mercy. For women's liberation to become a serious force, women must hold to each other fiercely, despite any odds men stack against us.

I get this sentiment chiefly from history. In history, the most successful advocates (not merely the loudest or most passionate) for women's rights were women. Sure, you had a positive male figurehead here and there, and a smattering of allies, but it was MAJORITY women marching, women protesting, women organizing and strategizing.

No one knows the oppressor better than the oppressed, after all.

So I'm NOT saying that feminism would do better to ignore young men. What I am saying is that we'll make faster progress if we can, as women, band together to disrupt male hegemony in places of influence. Female solidarity is the priority, while rehabilitating men is an often expensive and wasteful endeavour that just serves to distract and even disempower female solidarity for the most part.

Just like the working class can only depend on themselves and not the rich for their freedom, so women can only depend on themselves and not men for freedom. It's that simple.

Okay, but have you considered that men don't respect us regardless of our actions? Many women adhere to your definition of respectability. Many? I'd say countless! But that hasn't made a difference. You're really proving my point for me.

Also, this is still "being nice=feminist praxis." If a man truly disagreed with male supremacist ideology, he wouldn't need any woman to justify that for him because allies have spines and actual moral fibre. People don't stop being Nazis because a black/Jewish person was nice to them. The alternative to patriarchy for men is not fucking participating in it. The alternative to observing Nazism is not observing Nazism. Men are the only ones that can "create" that alternative for themselves by choosing it.

Additionally, what radfem solutions are bone-headed and overzealous? Not wearing make-up and contributing to the predatory and exploitative beauty industry (which is also anti-capitalist action)? Refusing to fuel the estate of a man at the expense of ourselves (as in 4B)? Focusing on organizations and grassroots efforts that empower impoverished girls and women to educate and sustain themselves independent of abusive men? Marching and petitioning? Advocating for laws that uphold our rights? What? Come on, tell me. Is it refusing to participate in the exploitative institution of marriage or refusing to birth another member of the male class (of which the last two are not even the most defining forms of activism in radical feminism)? Because pretty much every other successful activist group does at least HALF these things, but when activist strategies are made to be particular to women, suddenly it's not doing much of anything? Interesting.

If these are overzealous, I wonder what you think of the lengths the status quo has gone to enforce the subjugation of women and girls.

You guys can't even criticize radical feminism well because you STILL don't understand it. You don't engage with it's history or theory outside of reactionaries online but then have the self-importance to lecture us on what "you think" we're doing wrong and what "you think" is really holding women back. You don't even understand women's conditions outside of androcentrism, even in your political analyses. It's trolling at worst and bad criticism at best.

Most critics still can't criticize actual radical feminism because they refuse to familiarize themselves with anything regarding it.

hey @odiabonecessario , you don't know a single thing about radical feminism and you should probably fix that before purporting to "agree" with it. this may come as a shock to you, but women's rage and anger is DEEPLY integral to women's class consciousness, as it is wherever consciousness-raising is needed for class action. just because men don't benefit from women's rage doesn't mean it's purposeless. providing space to be angry provides women space to acknowledge their suffering and inspires them, believe it or not, to take action in their own lives. this is significant, because, remember, patriarchy is interpersonal. by allowing herself to hate her oppressors, she is free of deifying them. she is free to invest in herself. "misandry" is an important sub-set of radical feminist culture, but it is still only a sub-set. recognizing that men are the root (where radical feminism gets its name) of the systemic suffering, psychological alienation and societal violence is part of consciousness-raising. one must recognize their oppression and who is doing the oppressing to successfully organize for liberation. y'all just continuously refuse to apply any basic political framework to the plight of women because at the heart of all this throat-clearing about radfems, you still refuse to acknowledge systemic male violence and the reality of female oppression.

god, i miss when critics did their damn homework

[megpie71]

The first rule of government: it takes time. The second rule of government: if you're wanting to do it quickly, it's going to take even longer.

Even IF Trump could make his words into law immediately (he can't; it has to go through congress. Executive orders need to be administrative actions in order to be successful) it will take time for the administrative people to figure out how to implement things. This is why even when a law is passed, it doesn't go into effect right away - you need the administrative apparatus set up to handle it.

So: even for the few of Trump's executive orders which were purely administrative, they're not going to start being properly implemented until at least a month down the track; not going to be fully enforced for about three months; and the laws and legal frameworks around these things haven't altered in the least, so they're not going to be able to prosecute people for being in breach for well over a year at best, if not longer. This can't really be altered, because it's a matter of logistics - people need to be briefed, people need to have the new policy and how it affects their job explained to them, issues caused by this need to be dealt with and so on.

(Also, although they didn't realise it, the Trump administration have got rid of about 50% of their human resources staff - i.e. hiring and firing - by getting rid of the people in charge of diversity and equity staffing. So that's slowed down their hiring and firing by a massive amount, and I would fully expect to see cases lining up in the courts for inappropriate dismissal in no time flat).

Trump knows this, even if he doesn't accept it (he's a former CEO; he's too used to saying "jump" and having people ask "how high" on their way up). This is part of the reason they've thrown so very much into the first few days of their regime - they're creating panic and confusion, in an effort to cover up the fact that actually, they can't do much in the very short term. Nobody can. Not even the most efficient, knowledgeable and competent government can achieve much in the way of major changes before about three months into their first term.

(And of course, all of this is assuming a co-operative administrative apparatus, as well. Given Trump was outright aggressively disagreeable toward the US public service the last time he was in power, I strongly suspect at this point every single public service stalling tactic known to humanity has been quietly and irrevocably brought into use at every single level of federal government bureaucracy. You don't want the little people mad at you - there are a lot of them, and together they have more power than you'd think. Oh, and replacing them doesn't work, because you lose all the people who know how to do things like switching on the lights, disabling the alarm systems first thing in the morning, getting the coffee maker to work, switching on the heating and cooling and so on).

Listen to me. Listen very carefully:

They are trying to wear you out.

They are trying to wear you out, and they own most major social media now, along with many major media outlets. The disinformation machine is cranking along. You are going to have to slow the fuck down and read things before you help them wear out other people, too.

So you just saw a post about a real scary bill, hunh? Republicans want to make it a capital offense to pet dogs and repeal The Sky Is Blue Act of 1793, declaring the new official color of the sky to be squant? Damn, that sounds scary.

Let's go look up this fictitious "Make The Sky Squant Again Act" on GovTracker* & on the official legislative tracker on congress.gov!

Well, let's see... GovTracker estimates it has a 1% chance of even getting out of committee and a 0% chance of being enacted, while congress.gov says this bill has 2 cosponsors who have been in the House and combined total of less than a month. The bill doesn't have any actual text, and it was referred to 5 different committees.

That fictitious bill and a hundred others like it are quite literally not worth your time, and more than that, continuing to wring your hands about it and tell other people about the scary scary squant sky bill only does their work for them. It scares people, it makes them spend time and energy on it, and it wears them out. It is a legislative Gish Gallop, meant to throw so many things at people that we can't keep up.

Even calling or messaging your Rep in this case means their staffer has to waste time responding to you and letting you know that Representative Buttzonheads definitely won't support making petting dogs a capital offense, a thing that will never, ever happen regardless.

Staying engaged in this environment is going to require protecting your heart and protecting your energy, yes, but also protecting the energy of others. This is why WWII propaganda posters also included ones taking people to task for spreading panicky rumors and undermining morale.

Do you know why most observant Jews don't eat chicken and dairy together, even though the ban is on red meat and dairy together bc you're not supposed to cook the calf in the milk of its mother?** It's not because we think that chicken might secretly lactate or Just Because. It's because the rabbis decided that if I'm sitting out in public and eating turkey and cheese together, someone might glance at the turkey and mistake it for red meat and think, "oh, well, I know that Spider is a good Jew, there must have been a change, or maybe I can just justify it to myself that if Spider does it, it must be permissible to bend the rules just that much." And I would then be accidentally leading my fellow Jew astray. We are responsible for being even more careful for the sake of others than we are for ourselves.

It's the same principle here. We need to really be careful about the information we are spreading and check things past reading a news site. Is it true? Is it relevant? Is it meaningful? Is the news site one I recognize? Can I find meaningful independent corroboration on another site, which is to say, if I find an article about it on a second site, is it just quoting or rephrasing this site?

Yeah, that is a lot. But that's how we keep them from using us to lead our fellows astray.

*GovTracker is an independent site. They explain their methodology in their About section.

**I cannot say enough how I am not at this time interested in going on a Jewish Side Quest About Dietary Laws on this post. Usually, I love it, but hold off this time, please, y'all. Let's stay on target this once.

[hootshooch]

Hey, I loved your post on Ulder Ravenguard as he's depicted in Murder in Baldur's Gate. I've been wanting to play MiBG for the lore but haven't had the opportunity yet. Can I bug you for some lore? Apologies in advance for my weird hyperfixation atm.

I'm basically trying to picture the implications of Bhaal's return on the city's government, and how that ties into where we are in BG3.

I don't know if you have any information on Torlin Silvershield, but he was at one point the Grand Duke according to his wiki page, and one of the characters who could become Bhaal's chosen. The problem is, Abdel Adrian and Ulder Ravenguard are also listed as Grand Duke on their wiki pages, and I have no clue how that timeline worked (or if the wiki canon follows an internal consistency vs applying that title to all potential grand dukes).

I'm guessing Torlin replaced Gorion's Ward after Returning Day, leaving Ulder Ravenguard to replace him after he was abducted in 'Dead in Thay'? Or does BG3 erase Silvershield entirely?

Yeah of course!! You're not bugging me at all, I LOVE talking about this stuff :-)

The campaign begins with Grand Duke Abdel Adrian (Gorion's Ward) being attacked publicly in The Wide by Viekang (the only other living "first gen" Bhaalspawn). One of them dies in the duel, causing the other to turn into The Slayer before being killed by the player character(s) (or poison, if you somehow manage to save Abdel). Whoever dies FIRST is wholly dependant on what the DM rolls during their fight and whether or not the player(s) intervene. But no matter what happens, Gorion's Ward and Viekang both WILL die.

This ushers in the resurrection of Bhaal. Throughout the rest of the campaign, Bhaal (now able to influence the material plane) steadily compels the three main antagonists (Ulder Ravenguard, Duke Torlin Silvershield, and Rilsa Rael) into doing increasingly corrupt and violent things until one of them his declared his Chosen during the Feast of the Moon at the end of the campaign. These things range from petty theft, blackmail, stealing hands off of statues, deporting immigrant workers from the city, forcing poorer citizens to dress in accordance to their social class under threat of arrest, arson, violent prison breaks, kidnapping and killing teenagers for ransom, planting explosives in government buildings, brutalizing peaceful protesters, and ordering the mass execution of hundreds of people.

The "canon" Chosen of Bhaal ends up being Torlin Silvershield (before he's quickly defeated and becomes a wight in the Dead in Thay campaign); but in MiBG itself, all three of them are equally possible candidates.

Whichever candidate becomes his Chosen is dependant on how many points they get on "Bhaal's Favor Track" - essentially, if the player(s) don't successfully intervene with their less-than-noble affairs throughout the course of the game, they'll get one point in Bhaal's favor. Whoever has the most points at the end becomes Bhaal's Chosen. Alternatively, a player character can also become Bhaal's Chosen if none of the other candidates are available or there's otherwise some special circumstance in the campaign that warrants that happening (which is what happens to my Dark Urge in my personal version of the story).

Prior to the death of Gorion's Ward, Torlin Silvershield was a Duke on the Council of Four, while Ulder Ravengard was the Marshal of the Flaming Fist. After Gorion's Ward dies, the seat for the Grand Duke is left vacant and much of the conflict in MiBG surrounds multiple characters scrambling to get elected for the position (including Torlin and Ulder) while The Guild stirs conflict in the Lower City in response to the increasingly oppressive laws being passed by the Parliament of Peers.

Descent into Avernus canonized Ulder getting elected as Grand Duke. Torlin might take it upon himself to ACT as Grand Duke in the absence of an official one, but he never actually gets elected at any point (the wiki is just wrong about that one). I don't think the game ever mentions Torlin by name anywhere, but it DOES mention Rilsa Rael in a letter from Keene:

This means that Rilsa IS still alive and a current Kingpin in The Guild, so she (probably) didn't move down too far on Bhaal's hypothetical Favor Track.

I think the implication is either that Torlin is taken to Thay immediately after he's defeated and Bhaal had always intended for him to be disposable or he was never truly Bhaal's Chosen to begin with (the Dark Urge becoming his Chosen in his place) and that was a rumor spread by people who witnessed the attack of "Bhaal's Chosen" during the fete or something.

Because Murder in Baldur's Gate wasn't written with BG3 in mind, some of the information just outright isn't accurate anymore (like Ulder being described as childless and never married, for example). So imo anything that isn't mentioned in the game is up to your interpretation.

EDIT: I already explained this in a reblog, but for anyone who sees this without the addition, Torlin is NOT the "canon" Chosen of Bhaal (at least not across the board). The Forgotten Realms wiki just took a paragraph from Dead in Thay out of context. If you're gonna use the fandom wiki to find information, check whatever source books it cites first.

[vampire-superstar]

Good Morning to Everyone Except:

People who know how to spell Mephistopheles without reference or autocorrect

People who know how to pronounce Mephistopheles

People who chose Mephistopheles as a romantic option

Toxic Mammon Stans

All Belphie stans

Lucifer Stans who spell it 'Lucy' instead of 'Luci'

Diavolo haters.

Simeon Haters. He's literally the biggest green flag wtf you hating

Anyone who finished the first game

Anyone caught up on the second game

People who write GN!MC and just make them their oc

People who complain about Male MC

Anyone with a spouse who hates Obey Me

Morning Everyone else ❤️💅💕🍒

[jaedoesart]

Stickmin Space Resort but it's a tycoon game...

[thebreakfastgenie]

One of my college friends lost an internship that would have likely become a job offer in 2017 hiring freeze. I was aware of the recession, which started before I was a teenager but continued into my early teens. My family did okay because my parents both worked for public schools.

I am very aware of Trump's shutdown and I'm bracing for it to happen again. I'm finishing a masters degree in a field that relies a lot of public funding and I want to get a government job when I graduate. This was very far down the list, but it's one of a million reasons my life would better if Harris, who I voted for, had won.

I don't expect everyone to think it's funny to see people who hate the federal government and voted for the guy who wants to gut it be affected by that guy's hiring freeze. I think it's funny in a "fuck around and find out" way. It's fine if you don't. That doesn't mean my actions are determined by my ability to get some dark humor out of this.

Healthcare is tied to employment, but there are others to get it (which you can thank Democrats for). I was specifically contrasting the people crying about their job offers with someone who might lose Medicaid coverage. There's a difference between not being able to get any job and not getting a specific job you thought you were getting. Yes the job search is very hard and those people may face a period of unemployment but it's not the same as not being able get healthcare. A specific job that makes accessing things that should be human rights easier is not equivalent to the rights themselves. Most of the people who lost job offers to the hiring freeze will not instantly lose healthcare, food, and housing, and if they're complaining about the job itself and not any of those things they're probably in that majority. I thought I had made this abundantly clear by now, but I have nothing but strong feelings of sympathy for and anger on behalf of people who are affected by this hiring freeze who did not vote for Trump. I don't feel that way about Trump voters, but I also don't have it in me to point at laugh at someone losing healthcare no matter the circumstances.

I know we're all used to meeting young people who are unaware of things, but please don't make assumptions about me based on my age. I have a bachelor's degree in government and studied the periods of American politics you're referring to in some of my classes. It's possible to be aware of things you did not live through or lived through as a child. My paternal grandparents lived through the Great Depression as children, on a farm in Indiana and in a small mill town in rural Maine respectively.

Hard times are here, harder times are coming. You say in your tags "we're all in this together." Well, I'm not. I'm not "in this" with the people who chose this. My heart and my principles extend far enough to not want them to die from Medicaid cuts but they don't extend that far. I'm in this with the people who tried to stop and the people who didn't get a say.

I do actually care marginally about the guy in that reddit screenshot who voted for Trump and is now worried that he might lose his medicaid funding because I did not fucking stutter when I said healthcare is a human right but the people losing their internships and job offers to the hiring freeze are straight up hilarious.

[xenon-demon]

also. tell me more about your Kas!Eddie please 🙏

ohhhhh Lui gravity is the AU that has just. grabbed me in its jaws and will not let go. I think about it CONSTANTLY and I don't think that will stop anytime soon. I've got a few asks about this one though so I'll START with talking about What's Going On In Hawkins circa the start of the fic. If you would like to know more about The Boy, Kas!Steve, then may I direct your attention to this post :D

So Eddie and Steve swap places right before the final fight, because Steve is injured at that point and Eddie isn't (and they figure staying at Eddie's trailer will be less dangerous that going to the Creel House). Everything else from that point proceeds as in canon; the bats get in, Steve dies, Max dies temporarily and the four gates connect and drive a massive rift through Hawkins.

From there, Hawkins basically descends into a semi-apocalyptic nightmare. The rift from the end of season 4 has caused major structural damage all over town, many buildings have been destroyed and lots of people have either evacuated or had to move into a local motel that's been converted into emergency housing for the people of Hawkins (that's where the Munsons are now staying). On top of that, the rift has basically destroyed the structural integrity between the Upside Down and our world; while the rift itself is not really a functional gate, there are a bunch of smaller gates randomly opening up around town now. More and more of them show up as time goes on. Some are small (think like the tree Nancy goes through in S1), some are much bigger (think bigger than Eddie's trailer roof gate), and most of them tend to fluctuate a bit in size/fade in and out of existence. This means that some creatures from the Upside Down are starting to bleed through these gates and end up in Hawkins looking for food.

The government, realizing everything went to shit the moment the rift opened up, rolls into Hawkins about 3-4 days after the "earthquake" saying they're here to "help with the relief efforts". (For those keeping score at home, yes this is after Team Russia & Team Cali have arrived back in Hawkins.) The official government cover story is along the lines of "hey, remember when HNL got shut down a few years back after that tragic chemical leak incident? Well, we've just discovered that a Rogue Individual (Brenner) was secretly dumping toxic chemicals and experimental materials into the local wilderness/burying them underground instead of disposing of them properly. This is the cause of the geological weirdness and mutated wildlife that some people are reporting. Everyone should leave Hawkins immediately if they can, and comply with any and all government orders if they can't". Not everyone believes this, of course, but the truth is so much more insane that most of town is at least willing to go along with it - and that's not counting the people who just up and leave because Hawkins is so super duper cursed at this point.

The main things the government is doing are:

regular patrols around the border of town and known gate hotspots, to catch and kill any UD creatures before they're spotted by civilians

nighttime curfew; you shouldn't be out after sundown unless you are going Directly from wherever you were during the day (i.e. your job) back to your home. you're not gonna get ARRESTED but the military will absolutely Escort You back to your house lmao

urging citizens to stay the fuck away from any weird sightings and report them to the armed forces as soon as possible, so the military can handle it

and yeah, they kind of are helping with the relief efforts in that they're making sure food and other important supplies are still getting into hawkins and making sure the recently-homeless have somewhere to stay, but they're doing the bare minimum really asfjknjvkdan

Essentially, as of the start of the fic (approx. a month after the rift opens up/the end of S4) the situation is this: Eleven and the Party know that in order to fix this, they have to defeat Vecna first and THEN close up any existing gates/the rift. (They also have a strong hunch that the Upside Down is Like That due to Vecna's influence.) The government officials in charge of the Hawkins occupation Do Not Believe That Is The Solution, and instead spend a lot of time wasting Eleven's time and energy by forcing her to close up gates as they appear. Between that and the fact the Party can't just storm into the Upside Down to get Vecna without a solid plan and probably armed back up, they're all feeling kind of hopeless about how to actually fix this. Especially since tensions are rising in Hawkins by the day, and the gate/monster sightings are only getting more and more frequent...

Send me an ask about my WIPs!

[tvmblrsillyman]

this fucking form has been haunting my brain for a few days now. got 0 time so i fuckinhgdfhjk did a quickie w/ the help of pixmix since thats the engine that im the most familiar w/ that would get close enough w/ the effect i want

[medicinemane]

Really really don't get why so many people seem to have this burning hatred for Ukraine where they'll just... bring them up randomly purely to drag them through the mud and it's like... ok... but... do you actually know a single thing about Ukraine or what's been happening there?

Do you for instance remember when a major dam was destroyed by russia causing massive ecological damage?

Like I'm dead serious here, can you tell me a single thing that's happened in Ukraine in the last 2 years? Can you in any way demonstrate any basic understanding of the situation?

Cause if not... why do you think you should have an opinion on it, especially if your opinion is gonna be how awful people getting bombed are?

Just legit bothers me and... even more so bothers me the number of smart and caring people I see doing this. Basically I'm not even trying to be rude here, I'm trying to remind you to pay attention and remember that not everything you read on the internet is true, a tumblr post isn't a source unless they're giving you a reputable source

Cause like me? I can go track you down articles about the Nova Kakhovka dam being destroyed, and I can talk about all the reason why it's pretty clear that russia destroyed it

Can you do the same for me? Can you back up your claim about Ukraine with something concrete?

In many ways I'm not even asking you to support Ukraine, I get we have a limit to how much we can focus on, it's ok if you focus on your cause and I focus on mine and... both of us giving our undivided attention, maybe we both make some small impact on the world

What I'm asking is you don't be an asshole for no reason. You don't need to throw Ukraine under the bus. Don't you think your cause stands up on it's own two feet?

And again I'm not Ukrainian, I don't know as well as someone there, though... I spare you a lot of the stuff that crosses my dash because I don't want to burn people out with horrible stuff, but please understand it's worse than you probably think

So no, not Ukrainian, but I'll tell you why I'm still worth listening to: I've followed this every day since the invasion began. I keep my ear to the ground. I do know a fair bit and again can back what I have to say up

Anyway, my plea is to just not be a dick to people for no reason. The correct number of bombed civilians is zero, that's my stance

[divinekangaroo]

ugh cleaning up my emails---

god i hate insurance companies

they really really really really really are just fucking gamblers playing in their own fucking casinos

[whumpfish]

PSA:

I keep my activism mostly on other blogs so that this one is all whump, writing, and chronic pain/illness focused. I don't have a huge dni at the top of my page because I am trying to keep this blog on topic.

But apparently, it needs to be said: I do not want to interact with people who try to justify genocide/promote that shit. I also do not want to interact with people so rotten that they claim to want entire families to suffer trauma and suicide because they want to be 2cool and the most activistest 4evar and make the pointiest point with zero critical thinking or base knowledge.

I am old for this site. I was born in 1984. So a lot of people in the latter category don't have this memory. I'm trying to be cognizant of that. But I grew up hearing "Gays deserve to get AIDS and die, it's what they get for living that lifestyle."

And y'all might not want to hear this, but "Veterans deserve to get PTSD and commit suicide, it's what they get for living that lifestyle" has the same energy. You still are so zealously ignorant in your ahistorical hate and your dedication to not understanding the underlying issues that you want not just individuals but everyone in their lives to suffer trauma and death.

Combat PTSD does not happen in a vacuum. Suicide does not happen in a vacuum. It leaves scars on entire families for generations that last forever. I cannot believe I have to say this. My entire, very antiwar family has suffered the ripple effects of combat PTSD (my very gentle and antiwar uncle was drafted during Vietnam and has night terrors to this day), and suicide (my oldest uncle had bipolar I like me and died of it before I was born).

Entire gulfs opened between my family and our faith. Between generations. Between individuals. I had a hard time engaging with a lot of my family for a long time because subconsciously they were afraid, because nobody knew how to talk to Sam either once the bipolar hit critical mass and look how that turned out. They didn't even notice it was there, the traumatic response of withdrawal was that automatic. We still don't know how to talk to my uncle about the shit he saw, so we don't. It feels considerate, but also not, because I never liked being apart from my family over silence on anything, and I don't know how he feels because we don't ask, and it's this vicious circle under the surface that never goes away. And he never had a choice, just like me, just like my bipolar uncle I never got to meet.

If you think that draftees, and people who wanted to go to college without the crushing student debt they see their peers suffering, and people who were straight up lied to--because recruiters will say literally anything to get warm bodies in the door, they will lie about access to medicine, they will lie about where you're going, they will lie about what your job will be--and their entire families deserve trauma and death for the actions of governments and military-industrial complexes... fuck you. Just. Fuck you.

Family annihilation as punishment for one person getting crossways of a predatory government was supposed to have ended a couple hundred years ago.

[franeridan]

I was thinking about marineford and tbh I sorta get why garp would insist asl became marines, there's this thought going around that even if he'd been a marine ace would have been executed anyway for being roger's son but during marineford it's made pretty public that garp saved him and raised him and no one did anything about it? tom was executed for building rogers's ship before roger even became pirate king and garp could go against the government to protect his son and then refuse to fight in the war to stop his execution and no one told him anything, maybe being a marine does give you immunity after all

[girlcalledwhatsername]

USAmerican here. So we have something called the electoral college in the US. Which means people's votes aren't counted individually. Depending on what state you live in, your vote is worth more than other people. States like Nebraska and Wyoming have more votes than states like Maryland or Vermont despite having a far lower population. Those states have conservative majorities and those conservative majorities have more votes than people in liberal (not even leftist) areas. So elections aren't about convincing people in your state to vote, it's about convincing guys in Nebraska. Those guys in Nebraska want a conservative candidate. So the only hope of getting them to not vote conservative is for them to vote for a conservative democrat. Until this system changes, it is not possible to get a liberal much less leftist candidate in major elections. The elections literally do not matter unless you live in a few specific states.

Okay I had heard so much about electoral colleges and gerrymandering but it was never explained this plainly, thanks for sharing that! I thought it's referring to constituencies as usually happens with general elections. So there's the electoral college which means every vote isn't equal, and then the vote from there is just the "popular vote" and isn't the final deciding factor? So it's rigged twice over to not give much of a choice to the citizens, I had been wondering about those write-in votes all this time, and wondering that if voting really is the topmost important thing to get people to do then why aren't more people putting forward Bernie as a big candidate when they get people to vote instead of insisting they vote democratic, but it's making more sense now. And so is everyone who rightly said you can't keep reforming such a system it actually needs to be gone.