#abusing my poll privileges

[demento-mori]

i wanna play smth but im indecisive so, yet again, im leaving it up to the council.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

How to make enemies and repel people.

February 24, 2025

Robert B. Hubbell

Trump and Musk have turned the corner—in a bad way. There is a great scene in the motion picture Broadcast News where Holly Hunter tells Albert Brooks that she has “crossed a line” because she is starting to “repel people I am trying to attract.”

At town hall meetings across the nation, Republican representatives are learning the hard way that Trump and Musk are not the anti-hero crusaders they imagine themselves to be. See NYTimes, Republicans Face Angry Voters at Town Halls, Hinting at Broader Backlash. (Behind a paywall; out of gift subscriptions; please post a shared link if you can.) Instead, Trump and Musk personify the “mean-boss” bullies who are born into privilege and spend their time offending and alienating people without a clue they are doing so.

Musk’s weekend email demanding that government workers prepare five “bullets” of their accomplishments in the prior week or face termination was about as “un-self-aware” as it gets. Most people in America hate Elon Musk so badly that he is accomplishing something that Trump's eight-year run of criminality, insurrection, and racism could not do: Musk is causing people to turn on Trump. Political gravity is real, and Elon Musk is a gravitational wave of karma that is finally pulling Trump back to political accountability.

I am surprised how often readers respond to my references to Trump's negative poll numbers by saying, “Trump doesn’t care about polls.” Assuming that’s true (and I don’t believe it is), that’s not my point. Trump has been able to force the GOP into mass capitulation because his favorability ratings remain stubbornly flat despite his crime sprees, civil findings of sexual abuse, revelations of extramarital relationships while married to the current First Lady, and open courting of white supremacists.

If Trump's favorability declines, it means two things: (a) Trump is losing support among Independents (and Republicans lose) and (b) Republicans at the margin in Congress can take the risk of voting for the best interests of their constituents rather than the idiotic, self-destructive, revenge-driven agenda of Trump.

It matters that people are beginning to see Elon Musk as the evil billionaire hellbent on controlling the world who is portrayed as the instantly unlikable bad guy in every science fiction and spy-thriller movie. Musk is easy to hate. As hundreds of thousands of federal workers fear for their financial security, Musk wielded a bejeweled chainsaw on stage at the CPAC convention while MAGA acolytes laughed at the now-unemployed working-class Americans who are lying awake at night wondering how they will pay their mortgages.

It doesn’t get any crueler or more clueless than that. Read the room, Elon.

None of this suggests that Trump or Musk will stop their offensive, hateful abuse of the American people. But it does suggest that we can build a firewall in Congress to join the courts in slowing down Trump's revenge tour. And it should certainly give Democrats confidence that they can craft winning messages and coalitions in 2026 and 2028.

Musk’s email was so unpopular it ran into resistance within Trumpworld. Heads of various federal agencies, in including the FBI, Department of Defense, State Department, intelligence community, and judiciary told employees to ignore the email. See generally, The Hill, Agencies push back on Musk email, including FBI, Pentagon, State, Intel.

Two of the largest unions representing federal workers also advised employees to ignore the email and sent a response to the Office of Personnel Management stating that the request was “plainly unlawful.”

By overstepping in such a mean and petty way, Musk may have sparked a backlash that overturning the Constitution could not achieve.

The same resistance is appearing elsewhere. Trump threatened to pull all federal funding from Maine because it refused to adopt Trump's anti-transgedner policy in sports. See Portland Press Herald, Trump threatens to cut federal funding to Maine over transgender athlete policy

Governor Janet Mills of Maine sent a blistering response to Trump. See Governor Mills’ Statement on Notice of Investigation From U.S. Department of Education | Office of Governor Janet T. Mills.

Governor Mills writes, in part,

“No President – Republican or Democrat – can withhold Federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws, which I took an oath to uphold.

“Maine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last. Today, the President of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end? In America, the President is neither a King nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it – and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so.

Well said, Governor Mills! And nice work noting that Trump's threat to withhold funds violates the Constitution—something that is frequently overlooked in the back-and-forth political discussion.

To similar effect is the recent speech by Governor Pritzker of Illinois to the Illinois legislature regarding the state’s 2025 budget. The speech is worth watching in its entirety. The video is here: Gov. Pritzker delivers Illinois State of the State Address 2025. Governor Pritzker said, in part,

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it. [¶]

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Concluding Thoughts

I need to cut this newsletter short due to travel. I recommend reading the Comment section to Sunday’s newsletter, where readers posted responses to Musk’s “justify your existence” email. Sunday Comments open

I have been in correspondence with several readers over the weekend regarding the events of last Friday in the upper echelons of the military. Some commentators have referred to the broad-ranging replacement of top military leaders as a second coup by the Trump administration. I don’t disagree, although I feel less qualified to comment on military matters than general politics. I therefore urge everyone to read Heather Cox Richardson’s essay on the military terminations on Friday, here: February 22, 2025 - by Heather Cox Richardson. This is an important story, please read HCR’s take on the firings.

I agree with the sense of alarm and urgency that everyone is raising over the firings. But I have spent some time over the weekend disagreeing with readers about one point: I have great faith in the men and women of the military to abide by their oath to defend the Constitution. Frankly, I feel much more comfortable with the 1.3 million Americans who have volunteered to serve their country than I do with the six members of the reactionary majority on the Supreme Court.

The military is representative of America. They are you and me. They look like America. They are America. And they are professionals who are loyal to the Constitution despite the handful of leaders at the top who live fantasy lives as heroes in first-person shooter video games.

Despite Hegseth’s efforts to corrupt the military, he might as well try to corrupt the American people. He can’t. Will some follow his lead? Certainly. But a million or more will not. Asking millions of men and women in the military to violate their oaths is the quickest way to dissolve military order and discipline.

To be clear. We should be alarmed by Hegseth’s moves with military leadership. But I believe in and trust the professionalism and patriotism of the 1.3 million Americans who serve their country—and us.

[Robert B. Hubbell]

[macontheweb]

Today, Australia is voting in a referendum on the Voice to Parliament: an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory body, enshrined in our constitution, that will give our First Nations peoples a say on policy that affects them. A Voice would be the first step in Australia reckoning with its history: a history which has so far ignored and silenced — often violently — the voices of the oldest living culture on the planet.

It is not lost on me that I am a non-indigenous person being asked —again — to weigh in on the future of indigenous Australians. I don’t take that lightly, nor am I sure whether a referendum is right for this. I would have felt perfectly comfortable with a Voice being enshrined without my input. Maybe that would have spared my indigenous friends the emotional toll of begging for political recognition.

But it is the way it is, so I’m voting Yes. I’m voting Yes on Wurundjeri land. Stolen land. Land where I live the kind of comfortable life out of reach for many indigenous Australians.

I’m voting Yes because it’s time for real reconciliation.

And I’m voting Yes because here hasn’t been a single argument from the No camp that I could square with doing the right thing. They say the Voice will divide Australia, but Australia is already divided. They say it will give indigenous Australians an unfair advantage. It won’t, but it will hopefully start undoing the years of unfair privilege white Australians have had in deciding their fate. The No camp has told us, “If you don’t know, vote no,” as if that’s an acceptable thing for our country’s civic discourse. As if the answer to not knowing is not to find out, not to ask questions, not to make an informed decision weighed by evidence.

They say indigenous Australians don’t want it. The polls say eighty percent of them do.

In all areas related to quality of life, non-indigenous Australians are leaps and bounds ahead of the people that lived on this land first. Indigenous Australians aren’t living as long as non-indigenous Australians. They are being incarcerated in disproportionate numbers. They don’t have the same access to high quality education. Domestic violence and sexual abuse rates are disproportionately higher in indigenous communities. The economy, housing, employment…the list goes on and on and on and the stats remain dire.

We are already living in a No world. It isn’t working.

It’s time for a change. I don’t know if we’ll get it. I’m fearful that we are too conservative and too selfish a nation to take this one small step, but I hope desperately when I wake up tomorrow we will have said, “Yes. Have a seat at the table. It’s long overdue.”

[radfemsiren]

I saw the polls and I know that it's mostly white people who fuck US up and it's all men who perpetuate misogyny, but on a personal level, can I say how I hate how TIMs behave about it?

#NotAllTIMs, two (100%) of my TIM mutuals are normal and at least two site-wide TIM celebrities are empathetic, but a lot of them (I hope plaidos dies) treat it like a joke occasion.

Fuckers going on like "well it sucks, but us was already fascist to the rest of the world, so american women being scared is very selfish and privileged uwu" all while several months ago they were yapping how awful it is that all candidates in UK are twanzfobic.

Yeah, political events are less important than 10 hours streak of posting about forcefem.

And yet all posts about possible consequences for your country start with "trans issues". I know that on tumblr it's primarily TIFs, but I am still so depressed that people are working their damn hardest to mitigate the only impact these chaos agents will feel (okay, a lot of them are allegedly in same-sex relationships, but they are still men).

I maintain that TIMs are no more dangerous than other moids and today I posted more TIM hate than I did ever, but I decided that all people with urls like "catgirlstalin" are definitely a high priority enemy.

Yea trans identified males are inherently no more dangerous than any other man, but the movement draws abusers and predators like moths to flame because there are no consequences for them being openly hatful and violent to women. Like priests or cops.

Yknow it’s bad when I was shocked when the guy that made the “demure” trend on TikTok was crying about women losing our abortion rights. “How could a woman push and labor you out of her for you to treat her this way?”

It was so shocking to me because I never heard a trans identified male be so openly supportive of women and feminism. If the trans movement acted like that and embraced women having boundaries, protected spaces, and liberation from patriarchy… the reaction from radical feminists would be completely different. They could be our allies and a testimony that expressions of femininity isn’t inherently woman, and that gender is an oppressive social construct that patriarchy enforces and uses to punish women.

Unfortunately the majority of them don’t behave this way time and time again, and ally themselves with misogyny and the rest of the oppressor class in a show of male solidarity :/

[theg-h-o-s-tontheshore]

First Random Writing Dump

CW: mentions of self harm and emotional abuse

As decreed by the poll, most of ya’ll seem fine with a little bit of word vomit, and since I have some time, I’m just gonna spew a bit of my thoughts on my version of Charlie so far. It won’t be much, just a jumbled list of rough ideas. I don’t know how set I am with these, but here goes:

- They may or may not be renamed

- They use they/them pronouns but don’t correct people who misgender them; they find gender to be an odd concept, and they can’t quite grasp why people care so much about it

- They know a lot about human history but have not personally interacted with many people beyond what is necessary (until later)

- Their capacity to empathize with the plight of humans comes from guilt, their mother, who is still going to be Lilith… maybe…., a horrific chance encounter, and their relationship with V (gotta pick a name for her lol)

- Still, growing up in a privileged position largely removed from the sinners’ reality while being surrounded by reminders that these people invited suffering through their own wickedness has given them this sense of innate superiority; they are semi-aware of the fact that their elitist mindset exists and is not…great…but they prefer to bury it under toxic positivity and pretend it’s not an issue

- They have been trained to fight (heaven and hell are still basically at war, after all), but they’ve never had a real battle, and they’ve certainly never killed anyone before; the weight of dealing death terrifies and paralyzes them

- They are aware of what they are, and they deeply fear what they are capable of

- They are not very well acquainted with their demonic form, and they’d rather not be; it’s often triggered by ugly feelings they don’t want to confront

- Yeah, they’ve got some things going on deep down. Beneath the sunshine and rainbows and genuinely good intentions, there’s this raw, wriggling darkness, gnawing on their insides like maggots; they don’t know why

- Spoilers: it’s the manipulation and emotional abuse Lucifer subjected them to as well as the resentment harbored against both parents for deciding to bring a child into a realm meant as an eternal torture chamber for evil people; they don’t consciously recognize the abuse they experienced because of strategic subtly, gaslighting, and isolation from other experiences. Both they and Lilith know something about Lucifer is off, and it creates this eerie, underlying fear that permeates every interaction, yet neither of them know how bad it actually is; Also Lilith likes to make excuses just like: “Oh, don’t be like that. He’s just doing whatever coz he loves you :)”

- Their warring sides will come to a head; the anger inside them will boil over, and they will be a terror

- Lucifer cuts them off after a falling out that occurs because of the hotel proposal; they will only be accepted back once they’ve “come to their senses”

- Charlie and Alastor have a weird relationship; they’ve got this yin-yang, mirrored image thing going on; they:

1. Are both biracial and are torn between different worlds

2. Have distanced themselves from one (their blackness. Yeah, Charlie is technically half black. But it’s a little more about their relation to the whole of humanity for them), but while one is actively trying to seek it out, the other has been conditioned to avoid it

3. Are performers (which will play a role in discussions of identity, y’know, what it means to perform an aspect of identity; what is whiteness vs blackness; queerness vs heteronormative ideals; how we generally define them and individually express them. But it’s also just “hey, we both like doing a thing. Oh, wow. Neat.”)

4. Have a volatile amount of anger that makes them violently lash out

5. Have strictly opposing yet similarly extreme moral principles

this will also be present in their designs (they have opposing coloration: blue vs red, white on black vs black on white, etc.); then there’s the wolf vs deer thing… I feel like I’d need a separate post to go through all that. I feel like this is already a lot lol

- They kinda feel conflicted about being friends with Al because he allows them to cut loose a bit and have fun, and they weirdly enough have a bit in common….but like…. dude ate people…..uhhhhhhh (does that make them a bad person if they like a literal murderer?), but then they think “I’m not supposed to judge. I’m supposed to help (and I’m totally fine….right….?). Meanwhile, V’s just like, “No, babe, please judge”

- They don’t like absolute silence, and they don’t like being alone; it allows their mind to wander into dangerous places; since Alastor is a literal radio that spits out music and static constantly, they sometimes just seek him out when their thoughts are too loud. Like, he just becomes a sentient noise machine for them basically

- Charlie’s got a habit of chewing on things when they’re nervous—pens, the inside of their cheek, their nails—coz dog (or….wolf….dragon….thingy); it’s usually harmless, but when they feel especially bad, they bite themselves (sometimes they bite the stuffing out of pillows as a substitute); when they start to more aggressively gnaw on their nails, V usually tries to guide their hand away

- They hide under the bed when they are feeling particularly miserable and anxious

There’s a lot more crap brewing, and I didn’t go into as much detail as I could have…. But I think that’s enough for maybe the week idk. If anyone’s at all curious, I might make another post about V or something.

Leave thoughts in the notes if you wanna!

[web-novel-polls]

WN Women Bonus Polls #4: Priest

[Propaganda below] - Spoilers Warning!

Feng Xiaoshu/Princess Jing’an from Lord Seventh

"How could a good-for-nothing hedonist like me be a match for a heroine like her? Don't be silly, Your Majesty." - Jing Beiyuan, Lord Seventh (Tumblr)

Submission: i love the kind of woman that can kick my ass 

Differences between FXS in Lord Seventh & Word of Honor (she’s wildly different lol)

Gu Xiang from Faraway Wanderers / TYK

Submission: She's purple and she's dumb as rocks and i love her 

Lang Qiao from Mo Du / Silent Reading

[No propaganda submitted]

Carrd Link

Lin Jingshu from Can Ci Pin / Imperfections

[No Propaganda Submitted] 

Carrd Link

Liu Qianqiao from Faraway Wanderers

Submission: someone please tell Liu Qianqiao to drоp her ungrateful man and also that im frеe on thursday night and would like to hаng out. on thursday night, when im frеe. 

Wiki Link

Manman from Itinerant Doctor / Youyi

Submission: *waves around adoption papers*

Youyi Carrd Link 

Su Qingluan from Lord Seventh

[No propaganda submitted]

Wei Chengxiang from Tai Sui

Submission: 

Wei Chengxiang is one of the most important characters in Tai Sui. She's the impoverished foil to the rich kid protagonist, and she becomes one of his most important friends. She grows up to travel the world, joining the most downtrodden, powerless people on her continent and helping fight for them to have a better life.  She dresses like a boy as a child in order to work factory jobs, and once she's grown up, she continues to dress in "men's clothes" despite living as a woman. She trades sassy backtalk with one of the most terrifying people in history. She has kickass gambling-themed cultivation powers. She gives her friends handmade embroidered new years gifts. She has a permanent magic wound on her face in the shape of a tear track. She goes on a revenge quest and succeeds! She kills the people that hurt her loved ones and eventually contributes to the downfall of the entire societal system that abused her.  She goes from impoverished orphan to founder of a rebuilt nation, and she never once stops being wise as hell and cool as hell in that time, even when she's facing unfathomable odds. I love her. 

Zhao Qindan from Tai Sui

Submission: 

Zhao Qindan is a smart, generally talented rich girl that grows up extremely sheltered as a result of her family's power. When she's introduced, she's very much the naive rich girl archetype. Then, as a young adult, she's almost forced into a heinous arranged marriage, and the main character has to step in to save her. She's suddenly thrown into the real world in the aftermath as she flees her family, and she's utterly unprepared to deal with this.  But! Over the next nine years, once out from her family's thumb, Zhao Qindan grows up into an intellectual powerhouse. She takes up the cause of the poor and downtrodden, and she learns about the system of sexism that drove her to her own desperate situation (the arranged marriage). She becomes a renowned debater and public intellectual, and she later begins to write for one of the continent's first newspapers. She eventually becomes one of the most respected reporters on the entire continent, shaping public opinion near-single-handedly, and she helps dismantle the social systems that led to both her family's unfair privileges and her near-miss forced marriage.  She lives for two hundred years and never marries, reaching old age as an internationally beloved and respected author. She's unbelievably cool. Dandan ILY.

[best-element-poll]

Round 2 and onwards poll bracket!!!

i want 1v1's because they're more exciting. this is going to take a year.

all matchups are decided through rng

(vanadium and francium are here because im abusing my privileges, i need 32 elements to make this bracket anyways lolll...)

[funkii-fox]

Should I block the French Guy?

This mf has the audacity to pretend to agree that AI “art” is wrong, then STILL is using AI to generate images of his ocs. I posted the quote of Araki condemning AI “art” and this fucking guy has the audacity to like it, even tho I had him in mind while posting it.

I was like “yk, I havent seen this guy’s story in a while because it’s 100% hateful, maybe I should check to see if he still does.” The most recent one I could find was from September 8th in a highlight abt ocs, but that’s not to say he hasn’t used it since and just didn’t save it to highlight. Make of that what you will, but I choose to believe he’s still using AI. I remember once I even had a convo telling him to stop using AI, but bro just went “ok” and still used AI BRUH🗿

But guess what else I saw: he likes Jimmy 😭😭😭 this was 100% expected tho. He once changed his pfp to Curly and i was like “your ass is NOT Curly ur Jimmy bro.” He posted 3 whole stories abt the community judging ppl that like Jimmy. He compared it to how ppl like DIO and said its bc he has pretty privilege and not Jimmy and thats why ppl judge them. I won’t lie; yes, most ppl like DIO bc hes pretty and charming, but at least he has some types of redeeming qualities. Jimmy is just 100% asshole. Every scene you see of him is he’s being a jerk or a fuck up that says “i can fix this” but actually can’t. Mouthwashing is SO un-nuanced in the way you’re supposed to hate Jimmy, it’s amazing rlly. We’re not even shown much of his personal life or other aspects of his personality; unlike other antagonists like Kira or Diavolo.

Now, am I gonna throw rocks at your window for liking Jimmy? No. Do what you want. But, i will psychoanalyze you and conclude that you like him either for the abusive dynamic or you like him bc he’s like you. This guy 110% likes Jimmy bc he’s relatable.

Simply looking at it face value right now, the way this guy is so OBSESSED with other people is insane. 90% of my conversations w this guy has been bruja arianna, snerufu, antis, women who make self insert ocs, or his arch nemesis Fay that he just can’t stop stalking. It reminds me of how Jimmy was obsessed and jealous of Curly’s success. He is also negative all the time. Even when making a joke, the punchline is always someone else or a cheap horny joke that comes across as a 7th grader. It reminds me of how Jimmy HAD to take Curly saying “i want more in life” the wrong way. It even manifests in the way bro had Curly as his pfp; because he wants to be like Curly.

We met from me shitting on bruja arianna. My criticism came from logic and a want to make change in the community, but it’s clear now that his criticism comes from hate and insecurity. He’s so passionate about hate, i think it’s the only thing he’s passionate about. He’s not even passionate enough about his own ocs to draw them himself. He’s so hateful he makes fun of women in the fandom for damn near anything they do, as if millions of ppl don’t also see him as a woman and as if he never lived as a woman. Then he hides all of his edginess as “im French lol we’re just angry :p” be so serious

His only other characteristic is being hypocritical. This guy “doesn’t deserve hate” but is constantly negative all the time. This guys gets upset at shit on a screen just to search it up more. This guy HATES bruja arianna for mocking trans men, yet all his male ocs are “androgynous” no mf they look like girls.

Chat, I don’t care anymore about being stalked. I’m stronger now. I have better things to worry about now that I have a life. I don’t care if he talks a lot of shit nor do I care if he “exposes” me for some made up bs. He can have a tantrum all he wants; i have better things to care about

Poll whether I should block him under the cut.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

alright time to write an essay detailing whatever yaoi has done to my girl nancy wheeler. so like, even when it comes to yaoi shippers nancy has had stonathan, harringrove, AND steddie over four seasons with steddie already having massive popularity + the other shippers, wheras thankfully eleven only has to deal with byler shippers when it comes to the victimization. but not to diminish eleven any more because she has def gone through it in fandom, im going to get into nancy's stuff: you will notice all three ships she supposedly gets in the way of (ignoring jargyle because the shippers are chill in my experience) involve steve harrington, AKA the most popular character if i had to guess and the white boy of the month. see, they were dating at one point in s1 and s2. the breakup was messy. like he kinda was complicit in her slutshaming at one point and didnt let her grieve her dead best friend properly and she ambiguously (as in nobody can fucking decide when the break up was) cheated on him so yeah. messy. mutually. if not more on steve's side given he was a bit of an asshole in s1-2 but gets better. yadda yadda fast forward to harringrove in particular, AKA steve x the guy who attacked a black child and abused his younger sibling (and im not attacking anyone thats just. what happened). basically 90% of them try to convince people nancy is abusive for the two arguments that occurred and is a slut and privileged (never mind steve being probably the most well off member of the main cast + hes a white guy in the 80s) blah blah blah. also ironic they call her abusive OFTEN when billy (one half of harringrove) kinda like threatens his sister max and breaks her things and otherwise abuses her Often. but yeah. they hate her for breaking his heart. they hate her for getting in the wya of their ship possibly. they hate her in general. add that to the general fandom misogyny and suddenly a large number of people are writing essays about how much they hate her and how she's a piece of shit, actually. fast forward to s4 and steddie and a new problem arises: steddie shippers keep flooding her character and ship tags with primarily steddie. so now your options regarding her are mlm ships and mlm shippers shitting on her. also keep in mind there is now more content for half of that ship, a guy who shows up for an hour and dies in the same season, than nancy, a mc. and if you like nancy ships like jancy or ronance, too bad those tags are flooded as well. as in someone did analytics in august for ronance i think and at one point the majority of main pairings in the ronance ao3 tags itself was steddie. either way both ships usually end up as side ships or bait into a steddie centric fic or tumblr post. or nancy ends up third wheeling and getting them together. as a nice bonus (not really) recently steddie shippers have decided that they too hate nancy and have entire posts and common plots (i have seen tumblr ficlets/hc's and people discussing this as a common trope for steddie fics on ao3) about how nancy was a horrible person who damaged steve's self esteem and ability to be in a relationship or something from a break up, as if the relationship wasnt mutually harmful and compounded by nancy's whole dead best and possibly only friend thing. and whoops for ships like ronance that isnt allowed either because steve's friend isn't allowed to interact with his ex despite the fact that said friend literally said he was an ass in the s1-2 timeline. all of this making it impossible to find any positive content without it being interrupted for a character who, if i remember correctly, has almost as much screentime as eleven (and eleven at least has popular fan content and other ships that dont somehow loop around to byler/mike). and whats worse is that while canon doesnt have yaoi victimization it does have heteronormative bullshit in which she is forced into a love triangle with the same guys TWO TIMES. she literally cant win so let her win a poll maybe also sorry this is super fucking long <3

Whoooo Nancy

[whoishotteranimepolls]

The state of my inbox, requests, the queue and four-way poll updates

Please quit spamming my inbox. If you would like to add to the discourse regarding anything on the blog. For instance the one piece art style debate or why does Gojo keep losing? Please comment or reblog don't spam my inbox because at the moment there's so much junk in it relating to the discourse that I struggle to find the request for the polls I'm supposed to make. So while I sort through all the junk. I'm not making the polls so that's just going to delay the request opening back up even longer.

Right now I'm kind of debating on whether or not I need to just shut off ask completely because some people are abusing the privilege. Because at the moment there is more stuff in my inbox than when I originally closed the request. Plus most of it isn't even poll request anymore. It's random questions about are certain cartoons going to be allowed and crap about the one piece and Gojo debates

Again, I do this blog for fun. I run this blog by myself and I have a job and a life outside of it. And I want to get through this batch of requests Because I know next time I open up the request box there will be a lot more variety since I have almost triple the follower count. And that means less one piece for all the people that complain because the queue is about 80% one piece and their requests are about 50% one piece. However, I'm not adding new one piece polls to the queue at the moment so that ratio might change

So the person who suggested character cooldowns that just isn't feasible because I got one piece polls that have been in the queue since January. Because I just hit shuffle on the queue a couple times to make sure there isn't going to be too many one piece polls everyday before the polls start posting. Because depending on how many polls post each day you're going to get at least 2 to 4 one piece poll everyday at least for the foreseeable future I am trying to add more variety But with the state of the queue and the request box this is what we're getting until I can open it up again.

On to the topic of four-way polls, I know I've got a bunch of questions about them

For future reference, when it comes to four-way polls, it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission because I don't think this person even bothered to ask. They just sent in the request and I already had all the photos so I was more willing to say yes. But if it's ridiculous and I have to hunt down four photos specifically for one poll because it's super niche characters, I'm probably going to say no. But if I already have all the photos saved because I've done polls for the characters before I'm more likely to say yes. Or maybe you send in the photos. But finding the photos is the hardest part of making the polls. So far there's only been four four-way polls requested so far. Still not done. Going through the request box there could be more.

So if you want to try to get me to do five and six way polls by just sending it in and hoping for the best. Maybe you'll catch me in a good mood but I might say no. As long as everyone understands that anything more than three, no guarantee it will be made you are welcome to try

I hope this made sense. It kind of was a bit of a rant But hopefully this clarifies a lot of the questions and issues that have been brought up the past couple of days

[rigginsstreet]

I honestly would love to see how many Billy haters, who say the scene where he grabs Max's wrist is a red flag for abuse, are only children? Cuz my oldest brother used to shoot me with a BB gun and more, I also was not the nicest back but despite that back then I thought he was the coolest person (he's boring now tho lol) and it would have been the worst thing in the world if I would have lost him. I was reading some of tags on that poll and I'm like I feel like you guys didn't grow up with anyone?? Shit I watched 4 year old twins try murder each other today, the way Billy treats Max seems kind of mild really.

last christmas my uncle was telling a story about how he chased my other uncle around with a knife and someone got HIM in trouble lmfao like.... siblings are fucking crazy. ESPECIALLY bitches growing up in the 70s/80s???? that shit was a war zone and everyone was like 'welp just another tuesday'

also the fact max felt comfortable enough to be sarcastic around billy in the first place and was caught off guard by the grab shows it had never happened prior. he saw a potentially harmful situation for the both of them and was on edge. does that make it right? no. but that was the headspace he was in and he reacted. tbh max's reaction was too much cuz anyone grabs my wrist im like the fuck do you think you are doing. but im also an older sibling and not a younger so i have pretty privilege and never had to worry about such things

[mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess]

Can't be all perks

Warnings: heavy angst!!

I listened to this whilst writing

Thank you to everyone who voted on the who-to-kill poll! We're nearing the end of my Xue Yang writing era <3

Enjoy!!

Being a sect heir comes with many perks. The most obvious is, of course, financial freedom. The money. If you're the son of a sect leader, even if it's a smaller sect, cash racks in and you have nearly unlimited access to it.

Ouyang Zizhen has never been a frivolous spender, though - well, if you don't count his propensity for books, that is. He does have a large, diverse library of literature of all kinds, from all lands that merchants sell from, and he has no qualms adding more to it whenever the chance arises. He loves to read nearly as much as he loves to write.

That's another thing he splurges on - writing brushes and fine quality paper. He always argues that the quality of his stories should be reflected in the medium they are written in - a bit of an arrogant assessment considering most of his stories are... adult commissions, to put it elegantly, but this has historically been the only way for his father to be convinced that his son's hobby shouldn't be done away with in favor of something else, "more useful".

Well, to Zizhen, writing is very useful. Not only does he make some extra cash of his own on the side (that he doesn't have to account to anybody for, unlike his sect money), but it also makes him happy. He likes creating worlds, characters and convoluted situations to put them in. It's like mentally playing with dolls - or at least that's what Jingyi says, and Zizhen agrees.

The second best perk of being a sect heir is the fact that, with some exceptions, he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to. He can even use the guise of "furthering sect relations" to travel to his heart's content, visiting his friends in Gusu, or even taking the trip to Lanling to gossip with Jin Ling.

He's been enjoying this perk a lot more than usual now that the days are longer and the weather has warmed up. The discussion conference is next month, which means his father is particularly busy setting up his long list of insufferable complaints, so Zizhen is free to roam the land for a few more weeks until his old man remembers about him.

Zizhen doesn't mind this one bit. He gets to visit high mountain peaks and beautiful cliffs overlooking the sea, fairs and festivals, faraway places he's only ever read about.

The third perk of being a sect heir is that he gets to help people sometimes only using his status. As annoying as his father can be, sect leader Ouyang has managed to gain quite a bit of a name after he sealed some advantageous trade deals and doing away with unnecessary expenditures (bless his new advisors!) - so now people respect his name more than they ever used to. In fact, after Zizhen's lectures in Gusu, he himself has encouraged his father take in more people to turn into disciples and set out for more frequent night hunts in the area. People needed help, and if the Ouyang sect could provide it, benefits on both sides would come pouring in.

Zizhen has always been like that - so very aware of his privileged position in the world and seeking to use that privilege to help the less fortunate. He knows the way the world works, has seen it firsthand in his many travels. The rich and powerful live in a world of their own, unwilling, or at the very least unaware, that, in fact they share that world with everybody else.

Zizhen has seen it all - the beatings, the abuse, the mockery. And so he swore to himself he is never going to be an accomplice to that. If there's anybody that can help, it's those that have the means to - politically, financially, through cultivation. And he's one of those people. He wants to be.

So, he doesn't regret this. It would be hypocritical of him to. In a way, he's always expected it would happen like this - because being a sect heir doesn't only have perks.

There are perils too.

He takes in a deep breath, and tries to sit properly against the tree, feeling the soft caress of the moss against the nape of his neck. It makes him smile, how he's never appreciated it before.

The wound in his stomach seeps blood over his ornate robes much like the nearby river seeps water down tall rocks, crystalline in the faint moonlight. He wonders if his blood glistens like that in the diffuse lighting, like fireflies dancing on top of a lake...

He smiles again. He really can't help being poetic, can he? Whatever could be poetic about somebody dying alone, in a forest far away from home, after allowing himself to believe a sob story about people needing help nobody else had bothered to provide?

Zizhen has always believed the world is full of good people, and so he has forgotten that there are bad people out there too. Bad people that hate him without having ever met him, people that want him dead just because of his name or the conditions he was born in. People that don't know how much good he has done, or the plans he has to reform his sect and help those that nobody has ever paid attention to. How much he disagrees with his father, though he loves him, how much he wishes that the name he carries will only be associated with kindness.

Zizhen doesn't regret this, no. He doesn't regret standing up for that young lady in the streets just now - those thugs were so much stronger than her, and they would have taken her away and hurt her had Zizhen not intervened. Who knows what horrors she would have had to endure had he not charged at her assailants?

It's better that it's him and not her, right? ...right?

There was no way for him to know who they were and what vendetta they had with his father. He would have still defended that young lady even if he knew, no doubt about it - but he would have tried to hide his face or conceal his identity in some way.

But he didn't, and it's too late for that now. At least the young lady managed to run away. Now that he thinks about it, Zizhen's dying a hero. An unsung, nameless hero, but a hero nevertheless.

He wonders if anyone will notice he's gone. They're used to him being away for long periods of time, so they probably won't. Father is busy with his sect business, mother is... not around. He doesn't have any siblings... his friends are all busy, living their lives in their own homes and sects... It will be a while before anyone realizes Zizhen has been gone for too long, and even more so until they find his body.

Or whatever will be left of him. There are many animals living in this forest, the moment they pick up on his scent, they'll probably...

Zizhen feels tears slide down his face. He really wishes he wasn't alone right now... He's always tried so hard to make friends and keep them close just so he wouldn't feel so lost and abandoned all the time. He always wrote everyone letters and invited them over and shared his passions with them - tried so fucking hard to surround himself with the love he always felt he was missing.

But such is life - the more you chase something, the further away it gets.

It shouldn't be so cold, it's the middle of summer. But Zizhen feels chills climbing up his spine, and a muted terror settles into his bones. He's going to die, he's really going to die, any moment now. He's going to die without having ever fallen in love, without having had a family, without having achieved anything at all. He's going to die and there will be nothing left of him in the world, nobody will remember he even existed in a few dozen years.

He won't ever get to see his father again, his home, his friends, he's won't ever get to finish all the books he's collected, he won't ever get to live again.

He wishes he could scream, but it all hurts too much, and his body feels numb and distant, his vision blurry at the edges. He thinks he almost sees them, his family, his friends, running through the foliage to find him, to hold him in his last moments.

But he knows that's not true. Nobody is coming for him. Nobody but death.

But there is something Zizhen doesn't realize, not as his eyes turn glassy and opaque, not as his chest stills and his heart stops beneath his ribcage. Not even as the tears and the blood dry, not even as, despite his last thoughts, his loved ones rush to look for him and break down in tears when they find him.

He doesn't realize he'll always live on, in the stories he has written, in the world he has created, his soul weaved into every word, his voice laid down in dozens upon dozens of pages.

Because, really, artists never truly die,and they're never truly forgotten either. There will always be something keeping them tethered to the world, something delicate and beautiful, something that will live on beyond them, beyond time - something love-shaped.

[loominggaia]

Anonymous asked: Worst dad poll: At least Darshan meant well. Like yeah he's kind of an idiot but he was just trying to give his family a better life. Same could be said for Sebastian and Ojio. Ekwame was just old and lazy. Can't really blame him for marrying a teenager if that's normal in his culture. No excuses for Foster and Vingvar though their genuinely bad fathers. I voted for Vingvar because at least Foster put food on the table and didn't cheat on his wife AFAIK. /my two cents

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randomhedgehog asked: In regards to the Worst Dad Poll, I feel like Foster or Ekwame is the only real option. Sebastion and Ojio both loved/love their families alot. Knowing Sebastions background, I'm willing to give him a pass on the Hoarding. Likewise, Ohio gets a pass on the Workaholicism since he was literally raised in Workaholic City where if he wasn't, he and his family would be in deep trouble. And! He's unlearning the Trans/Homophobia that's been shoved in his ear since his conception! He definitely scores points for that! Vingevar is literally just, there ig? His wrongdoings seem pretty average compared to Foster and Ekwame. Darshaan was trying to give Isaac the life he never got! Growing up a Child Soldier probably doesn't make you a cautious adult, either. Foster is a product of his environment, but that still doesn't excuse how he treated Evan, Abigail and Sofia! Not to mention he literally owned slaves. If someone thinks of a redeeming quality that he has, I'm waiting to hear it. Ekwame literally married a teenager. And impregnated said Teenager. I know we all hate Moswen, but I feel so bad for her thinking of what happened. Speaking of Moswen- Ekwame didn't even notice she was abusing Lukas and Jelani!!!! And If he did, then that's even worse!

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Anonymous asked: I think Ojio is a good dad actually! At least he was in that one story (can't remember the title rn sorry)

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These are all such great and thoughtful points to consider! I'm seeing good arguments on all sides!

In regards to Ekwame, @randomhedgehog raised an interesting question: did he even know about Moswen abusing his kids? The narrative says he barely acknowledged his sons' existence, and Moswen was very good at hiding her abuse. Still, he would have to be pretty damn dense (or perhaps senile) not to notice how scared they acted around their own mother, not to mention all the injuries they must have had. Moswen insults his intelligence a lot, so I think it's likely that he genuinely didn't realize what she was doing to them. However, even if he did know, something tells me he wouldn't care that much anyway. He would view it as good old fashioned corporal punishment and nothing more.

Anon also brought up a great point about the morality of marrying a teenager when he was raised in a culture that sees no harm in that. I think if Ekwame was a smarter, more empathetic man, he would be able to see how miserable Moswen was and refuse to marry her. But we get the impression that he doesn't think very hard about anything, and doesn't really view women and children as fully-realized people. This guy's misogynistic culture was really working against him, but I think half of the problem is just his own mental laziness.

He's not exactly malicious, he's just...kind of a dumb, privileged guy who bumbles through life and doesn't care about much beyond his own comfort. For this reason, I personally side with @randomhedgehog on this. I think he a bad father, a bad husband, and a pretty crummy person in general. Not because he's mean per se, but because he's so damn selfish and apathetic. Although not as overt as Moswen's abuse, his neglect still had a profound negative effect on his family.

Now, Foster...Anon brought up a good point about him staying faithful to his wife and consistently putting food on the table. That's true! He may have been a raging jerk, but to his credit, he worked hard and he never let his family go without. Evan actually brings this up in one story. He had enough sense not to physically harm his wife or kids, even at his drunkest, so the guy must have had some kind of love for them. He even has a few heartfelt moments with Evan in "Monster by Moonlight" after Evan's health improved. So, he's not totally incapable of warmth.

Foster strikes me as a guy who was totally sabotaged by his upbringing. If his own parents weren't so dysfunctional, I feel like he'd actually be a pretty good dad. Unfortunately his family tree was riddled with problems like alcoholism, incest, and poverty among other things, and this really worked against Foster. He was not strong enough to overcome his demons, and he didn't really have access to therapy or anything to help him out. All he had to turn to was a shitty, bigoted religion that just reinforced his bad behaviors. He never stood a chance.

I'm not saying I give Foster a pass for his abuse--because I don't. He clearly knew the difference between right and wrong, and he chose to do wrong by his family. I'm just saying that between him and Ekwame, I think I would choose Ekwame as the worse father. Ekwame wasn't mean to his kids like Foster was, but only because he didn't care enough to spend even a shred of emotional energy on them. Foster was mean because he cared, he just had no idea how to express things like fear or anger properly, so it came out as verbal abuse.

As for Vingevar, yes, it was awful of him to cheat on his pregnant wife and abandon his family for some side chick. Imagine how his kids must have felt when he disappeared! On the other hand, there are two sides of every story, and Vingevar hasn't appeared in person to tell his side yet. We know how aggressive Oggsa is, and there may be a whole other facet to this situation we don't yet know about. For this reason, I will hold my judgment on Vingevar until more is revealed.

I do agree that Darshaan, Ojio, and Sebastian all meant well and did the best they could with what they had. Maybe they weren't perfect, maybe they made some mistakes, but I don't believe for a second that these men meant their kids harm at any point. I think their worst crimes were just being misguided or not thinking things through very well.

I love to hear all these takes, it really gets me thinking!

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Read the Series

[fnvminorcharacterpoll]

FNV Minor Character Poll - Round 2-B, Day 1

Left: Daisy Whitman, former Enclave pilot. —"I heard the Legion doesn't care for women, but as long as they stay out of my way, I'll get along just fine with them."

Right: Raquel, master-at-arms for the Boomers at Nellis AFB. —Mother Pearl's instructions are clear. You can move freely around Nellis, and artillery spotters have orders not to fire on you. These are extraordinary privileges. Don't abuse them."

Designated cheerleaders were not available for this match-up.

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