#ally coalition

[truman-blackk]

x

[rawliverandcigarettes]

honestly, re: my last reblog, but it's so funny to me how unbearably annoying humans in mass effect are, like you guys!!!!! calm down!!! you JUST arrived!!! maybe take in your surroundings for 5 seconds before declaring you should be treated like the most special princesses of all and have all the advantages ever without any drawback and be recognized as the supreme leaders who have all the clarity and drive and righteousness to solve everything and be the victims of everyone's envy and meanness and the ultimate heroes who will save everyone in spite of themselves...... 😔😔😔

[wolkemesser]

[mtg-art-daily]

Allied Strategies

Each commander looked at the others and wondered who would be first to break the alliance.

Artist: Paolo Parente

[tayfabe75]

December 19, 2022: Matty joins Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, Weyes Blood, Jack Antonoff, and Trey Anastasio to perform a live cover of Nico's 'These Days' at the 8th Ally Coalition Talent Show at the NYU Skirball Center in New York, New York. (source)

[annieisshehuman]

St. Vincent performing for Ally coalition talent show

19/12/23

📷 by @ pawprints777 on Instagram

[thisblogisforprivatenotes]

Reading about fucking conservative freaks using "judeo-christian values" to justify their bigoted policies towards queer kids in the education system

[eternal--returned]

Lana del Rey (ft. Jack Antonoff) ֍ Hey Blue Baby (Live at The Ally Coalition Talent Show) (2018)

Hey blue baby Put that Hank Williams on It's your little blue baby Callin' for her favorite song Get out that whiskey Pour it right quickly Put them hallway lights on I hope one day you can remember Our love before it all went wrong

But the only stars we saw were in the sky Not the boulevard And the only thing we wanted was to be free And the only girl you had eyes for played downtown At the local bar That was me She was me

Do what you have to do Just know your baby's back here waiting Just know she thinks you're really cool

[sentimental-boulder]

wintering live debut by jack and matty on 35mm film @ the ally coalition talent show, december 2022

[countessrivers]

Not to start talking about aussie politics, but you can't say that you support women and victims and totally aren't a bunch of morally corrupt, grubby, misogynistic assholes and a failure as a political party who think women are lying about being raped, while um...treating brittany higgins the way you're treating her.

[iwanthermidnightz]

This is one of my favorite songs ever 😍

[whetstonefires]

i mean, the goal of this kind of person in this kind of position is creating attrition at the moderate end of the pool, so that the serious bigots start to look bad for acting like that, and the overton window moves. this is a very specific kind of publicity stunt.

it's not actually about being acceptable to the bigots, it's about being acceptable to ignorant and narrow-minded people without any active hostility toward your demographic, who gain additional perspective from watching this play out, and five years later think this sort of acting out about your presence is clearly ridiculous.

the people who don't care very much either way about most issues are the largest demographic, and in many ways much more important than the real enemy--more dangerous, if indifferent, and more valuable.

at influencing them, this approach is very effective! it does however simultaneously get the reactionaries worked up, so. fingers crossed.

Regardless of how you feel about Sarah McBride and her response to the unhinged way bigots are reacting to her both on The Hill and in the public (Twitter is a fucking cesspool)

It's proof that respectability politics is dead and I would argue has never been alive or at least in any way effective.

Sarah McBride is one the most respectable and mainstream trans women on this planet. She plays by all their rules. Her politics are as down the middle neoliberal of American politics as it gets. Her opinions are uncontroversial to the majority of Americans (including her staunch support for Israel, something I know leftists, myself included, don't want to hear, but it's true). Her affect is calm and collected. Her ability to pass and he effort in things like voice training is evident.

She has done everything possible to make cis people comfortable with her existence.

And they still fucking hate her guts.

She's basically the Pete Buttigieg of trans women. And just like with former Mayor Pete, she's being denigrated constantly by the worst people and her silence or turning the other cheek has done nothing to help these people see her humanity, because they never will.

Like Kwame Ture said, In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience.

You can't make a human appeal to someone who doesn't respect your humanity. You can't get respect from someone who will never respect you.

All you're doing is setting yourself up to be a helpless martyr who liberals can pity when you're dead. We have to fight while we're still here. My one goal is to be an actual trans elder, to show the world we are here, we have always been here, and we will always be here. I can't do that if I just lay down and accept my fate.

You don't respect your way out of bigotry. The most you will ever get is "you're one of the good ones"

[tayfabe75]

December 19, 2022: Jack Antonoff and Matty share a funny moment on stage at The Ally Coalition Talent Show in New York, NY. (source)

[headspace-hotel]

USAmericans

Read the Project 2025 manifesto RIGHT NOW

It's MUCH worse than y'all have been hearing

There is so much here you'll have to look at it for yourself, but the climate policy alone is nightmare fuel.

The republican coalition wants to essentially end funding for green energy, dramatically promote and expand fossil fuel industries, and eliminate funding and regulations in all sectors promoting climate change mitigation. Task forces and offices related to clean energy and lowering carbon emissions will be eliminated and replaced with offices for promoting fossil fuels.

They want to LOG NATIONAL FORESTS TO "THIN" THE TREES TO STOP WILDFIRES.

THEY WANT TO FORCE OREGON AND CALIFORNIA TO LOG THEIR NATIONAL FORESTS AND TREAT THEM AS FOR TIMBER PRODUCTION

There are specific provisions in Project 2025 to essentially destroy the Endangered Species Act, causing it to defer to the rights of "economic development" and "private property." The plan includes delisting gray wolves, cutting the budget so that a "triage" system is used to determine which species will get protection, removing funding for research, removing experts and specialists from the decision-making process, and preventing "experimental" populations of animals from being established.

This is so much worse than I expected it to be and there's much more past that: They want to deregulate pesticides and remove much of the EPA's ability to regulate pollutants as well.

Also included in the manifesto is that we should

withdraw from nuclear weapons nonproliferation agreements, build more nuclear weapons, and resume nuclear weapons testing

The manifesto comprehensively outlines the scorched-earth elimination of abortion access, down to ensuring doctors aren't even trained to perform abortions. There are plans in here to disrupt abortion access GLOBALLY, not just domestically.

Not only that,the Republicans plan on reframing family planning programs around "fertility awareness" and "holistic family planning."

I can't even describe it all. I'm trying to give screenshots of the most important things but there's so much.

The foreign policy is a nightmare. They plan to push fossil fuels onto the Global South and promote the development of fossil fuel industry in the "developing world."

It is aggressive and antagonistic towards other nations, strongly pro-military, proposing that we INCREASE (!!!!!) defense spending, improve public opinion of the military and military recruitment, and increase the power to fund new weapons technology.

Just read the Department of Defense section. It's about greatly increasing and strengthening the military-industrial complex, collaborating more closely with weapons manufacturers, removing regulatory barriers to arming our allies and to inventing new military weapons, and recruiting more people into the military. They include provisions to develop AI technology for surveillance. And of course, continuing to support Israel is in there.

Elsewhere it proposes interfering in foreign countries with creepy pro-USA propaganda campaigns, even establishing international educational programs where faculty have to pledge to promote USA interests.

There's a line in here about getting rid of PBS because SESAME STREET is LEFTIST for God's sake.

HOW are people claiming democrats have the same policies. I feel like i'm losing my mind.

[satanicspinosaurus]

This keeps popping on my dash, so I wanted to jump in and say that as an ace dude, I don't really see Astarion as a-spec. I think his story rhyme with a lot of our experiences, and obviously it's not like there is a gay-test so we can know for sure. But one thing I'd like to point out is, Astarion showing aesthetic attraction is a poor marker for being allo. Aesthetic attraction (finding certain types of people beautiful, like shockingly beautiful) is one of the things I heard a-spec folks point at to for "why it takes so damn long to figure out you are ace" commonly. I'd actually say it's more common for aces to get a particular flavor of very verbal about their aesthetic attraction than allos. Like this kind of over-the-top romantic-tinged, but weirdly specific thing. (One sapphic Ace I knew described seeing a woman once as 'an existential crisis, because I was on the bus, but she was so beautiful the only logical thing was to scream like a malformed bird, but also that would be rude, so I mostly had a break down quietly in my seat about how beautiful she was'. I have heard a variation of this dozens of times in ace groups, usaully with frantic hand gestures. I have also done the gay version myself so. No judgement.)

Personally, Astarion reads to me as someone who has (a lot of) natal sexual attraction. He's fucking on his grave because he's reclaiming something. He's grabbing your ass (that free-cam moved me towards allo a lot) during his figure it out phase. There's some hints of intrinsic attraction he's trying to dig for *under* all the sex abuse. Which, doesn't read as a sex-favorable a-spec person trying to remember if he likes this thing or not.

Asexuality is little to no sexual attraction. Astarion reads as more of having the world's worst ratio of good : bad sexual experiences, to the point that he ends up in the same space as us at times.

In response to Ace-Astarion:

I think Astarion is likely a very sexual person, actually. There is admittance that he finds you attractive ("you're a vision!"), that he found your experiences together meaningful ("that's the problem"), and that he thinks sex is fun and enjoyable.

Saying "I don't want you to see me in terms of sex" doesn't mean "I don't like sex." It means: I am more than sex. I am more than what Cazador made me, which is the whole point of his story. He is elated when he finds someone who "wants" him for who he is, not who he was made to be.

It is, of course, possible that Astarion is on the asexuality spectrum. He may only want sex with people he cares for, but he is most definitely not sex-repulsed or sex-avoidant. He initiates while in the most vulnerable of situations (confessing his love, choosing his future), so it is clear that it is something he wants.

Considering his sexual trauma and disassociation during strictly sexual experiences (the drow twins), it is most likely that he only enjoys sex with those he loves, but we must be mindful that trauma does not create sexuality/orientation.

People can headcanon whatever - obviously - and it is an RPG fantasy, so like, if your Astarion is ace then that's great. But I don't think he was written that way, and I don't think it's cool to pressure the fandom into thinking he is.