#also i dont believe in democracy

[noirineverysense]

Claw's detective agency part eleven

masterlist

He had marched toward the office of a man who could do far worse than kill him without a plan. That was his first mistake.

His second was assuming the Professor would be alone. Like his designation states, he was a professor at a university. A professor of ethics of all things. He could have found people to work with, perhaps some staff or some post-grad students, no-one Claw thought should be worth worrying about if that man had managed to make friends.

Needless to say, he’d been surprised to find Rifle standing guard at the office door.

“Claw? What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same, Rifle. In fact, I demand it.”

Rifle barks out a laugh. “You don’t tell me shit about anything, even things I ought to know about and now you think you can ‘demand’ answers from me. I know you hate the Professor but you sure do sound a lot like him.”

“Fuck you.” Claw growls, surprising himself with the sudden venom in his voice.

“Touchy, are we?” Rifle’s lips purse and his voice is high and mocking. “But I don’t really care what you have it in for him. He told me he’ll tell me everything you hid from me if I work for him for a bit, which is a far better deal than you ever cut in for me.”

Claw lets out a heavy sigh. Perhaps part of this was his own doing. Still, he had hoped Rifle would have enough insight to not do something as dumb as this.

If anything, it proved him right. If telling Rifle even a bit about his past led to him going right back to the Professor, he was better off not knowing.

‘That’s not your decision to make!’ A voice that sounds like Talon yells in his mind. He ignores it.

“Rifle, you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. You always were as stupid as you are tall.”

Rifle roared and threw his six foot and then some self at him and after a brief scuffle, Talon was always the better fighter out of the two of them, Rifle muscled him into a chair and pulled out some rope. Seemed like the Professor had known he was coming.

That was unfortunate and unsurprising.

There was some dust on the rope that wraps around him, it was an odd grey colour. Though he isn't given much time to ponder over it.

“You thought you could spring on me Isaiah,” the familiar, patronising tone carried itself through the doorway from the hall. “The classic catch a suspect off guard and they’ll be more likely to talk? You have a small mind and that makes you a wonderful pet, but a terrible detective.”

Claw shivered at the voice as he watches the man who had haunted him for so long stroll easily into the room while he struggled against the rope, helpless, like a fly that could see the spider coming but was already caught in the web. Rifle stood by the door, he supposed he couldn’t bet on any help arriving. Not yet anyway.

He hadn’t been thinking straight when he came here alone. He could admit that much.

“I just wanted a friendly chat that’s all. Maybe over tea? I think we could leave the unpleasantness until after some earl grey.”

The professor smiles with teeth, “And I think I prefer a more direct approach.”

Then he grips the armrests of the chair Claw was tied to and leans in slowly until they were face to face.

“Now, what was it you wanted to ask?”

Claw grits his teeth but keeps his tone even. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where Pewtree is being held could you?”

His captor scoffed, his hands thrown in the air in an exaggerated gesture. Claw notices the same grey dust on them.

“Well, you always were forward weren’t you, Isaiah? But no, it’s a little too early for that. I’ve invested a little too much to see this undone.”

Then he laughs a little, “You might be surprised that I’m admitting I’m involved but I’m sure you’ve deduced that much in your little detective game so I won’t offend you by pretending.”

Somehow, he didn’t believe that the Professor was particularly concerned with offending him. He could tell the play though; you give some information to hide the rest. Not that Claw was in any position to demand any information at all.

Still, arrogance was his specialty.

“Investment, you say? A financial one, I presume. As the one who previously was in charge of your finances, I’d wager you wouldn’t be involved with anything as risky as this unless you were expecting big returns.”

“You speak as though you were anything more to me than a pet gone astray. Believe me Isaiah, you weren’t.”

He did believe it, maybe a younger him had believed he was more, they were more. But nothing a man should learn more than when to know his loyalties are misplaced.

Perhaps he knew the truth but believed he could have always left if he wanted, even if he still felt like he was being suffocated for that decision all these years later.

“You speak as though this doesn’t say far more about your character than it does about mine.”

The Professor’s eyes narrow and there was a familar yet dangerous glint to them that Claw knew could only spell trouble.

“Still as insolent as ever. You forget your place. Though I am more than happy to remind you.”

He nods at Rifle and Claw’s brow furrow in confusion before his former friend steps in front of him with a hammer. A fucking hammer.

“If your legs don’t remind you of where you belong then you don’t need them.” The Professor’s smile is thin as he talks.

Rifle pulls up Claw’s pressed trouser leg before driving the hammer hard into where the brand was as if it was a nail, the pain was immediate and excruciating and Claw couldn’t bite back the scream.

Through the agony, he notices Rifle wincing when the bone shattered, well late sympathy was better than never he supposed.

The Professor starts to go on one of his long rants, Claw was aware that he was imagining himself more as a Shakespearian actor reciting a soliloquy for the pleasure of others than a man rambling to whoever was unfortunate enough to be nearby.

His head hung low, pain making him gasp and cough unable to catch his breath, but he refused his mind to shut. A skill that Talon might believe he didn’t possess was knowing when to shut up. Though there was a part of him that wanted to beg for help, he had a job to do. He needed to listen.

“-Tiger is an efficient worker even if he is an idiot, told the men to take everything they could find. The stolen loot is quite the-”

“Loot? Not Pewtree himself though?”

The professor stops talking and narrowed his eyes. Claw had got something and he wasn’t about to let go of his catch.

“And I suppose the painting of Argyll was a nice find, easy enough to get without entering the main halls.”

“What are you- ”

“Tiger is known for getting people to scrape gold out of old computer chips, yet the extensive gold and silver furnishings of the halls were remarkably untouched.”

The Professor grinds his teeth.

“They didn’t get in through the hallway, nor even through the door, did they? They went another way, that’s why they weren’t spotted. And this second passageway, would be a perfect place to store a kidnapping victim, wouldn’t it. You wouldn’t have to worry about transporting him out.”

The grey dust suddenly made sense. He can hear the click of information slotting together like a jigsaw.

The professor reaches for Claw, placing a hand on his neck as a warning. Claw’s heart races at the familiar gesture but continues regardless, “And if you left a singular person in charge of the victim, it was less likely that person would be caught because they wouldn’t leave the scene of the crime if no-one knew where it even was. Would be easy enough to sneak them in with the rest of the grunts and your business partner would be none the wiser.”

Claw made a show of humming in thought, “And this second passageway would be...” He could see veins bulging at the Professor’s temple. It was a satisfying sight even as the hand closed around his neck.

“Tell me Thomas, do you remember the fifth of November?”

The Professor snaps punching Claw in the jaw and Claw’s head whips back.

“How do you know that name?” The man growls out.

“Oh, that.” Claw answers boredly, head still tilted up to the white-tiled ceiling, quietly enjoying the other man finally losing his cool amidst the pain radiating from his chin.

“I looked through some files back when we worked together. I was keeping tabs on you too.”

He pulled his head forward, meeting the Professor’s eyes with a grin that made his chin hurt more, “Not such a bad detective, am I?”

The Professor roared and drove the hammer straight into Claw’s abdomen and bowled over with a grunt. The pain from his shattered leg seemed to intensify.

But through the pain, Claw knew he won.

[revindicatedbyhistory]

i think if those us liberals who are against any criticism of biden started advocating for mussolini style fascist dictatorship itd be more intellectually and morally honest of them tbh

[lwcina]

the fact that the us government can continue funding and arming a genocide despite massive public opposition really highlights how inherently non-democratic the united states is

[andromedasummer]

i ended up having a like. 30 minute conversation with some of those "freedom convoy" people. was at the bus stop. they were wearing trump hats. i ended up roped into the conversation because i was so taken aback at seeing one in public i was just. staring at it. ive never felt more depressed about someone elses life and beliefs than when i talked to them.

[essercipertuttienonperse]

was listening to a podcast and the author being interviewed was a gay man and he was saying that in this new era of constant online surveillance there's a lot of emphasis on politicians' "authenticity" and a lot of outrage when it comes up that they said something in their off duty time that's not as progressive as their "public" politics/views are but he said he actually doesn't care at all about what they say in private, (I'm paraphrasing here) bc an homophobic joke in private is very different from a public speech instigating hate or laws reinforcing discrimination and he said "I don't want authentic politicians, I want responsible ones".

idk I just thought it was an interesting statement

[rrcenic]

sorry for posting so much about the neil gaiman thing im very opinionated but heres my general take on neil gaiman (TW FOR S/A AND SU1C1D3!!!!)

good omens fandom please read this. yall need it

i wanna start with: believe victims. it might not be as bad as it was claimed to be bc the reporter was an anti bdsm terf who considers all bdsm 🍇 (including the bdsm w neil), but there was still clearly manipulation, weaponized power imbalance, and dubious consent. even if it wasnt s/a, it was fucked up. neil did some fucked up things

while we dont know if he actually s/ad those women, neil gaiman is clearly flawed

ive seen time and time again that his fans (specifically the good omens fandom) can get so viciously defensive of him that they refuse to see any flaws he has

as someone who was ruthlessly attacked because of neil, i hesitate to give him the benefit of the doub

when i had just turned 13, id just gotten on tumblr. i was thrilled that good omens season 2 was coming out. i was even more thrilled to see neil gaiman on tumblr. so i sent him an ask where i asked if crowley and aziraphale would kiss. i get why that was annoying. he probably got those asks all the time. but i worded it respectfully, and i was genuinely unaware that he was annoyed by this question

he responded to my ask with a multi paragraph callout post talking about how sick of this question he was. harsh, but not necessarily nefarious

the response wasnt the problem. it was that i got so many hate comments and death threats and people telling me i didnt deserve joy and i was ruining neils life and so many fucking anon "kys" asks that i had to quit tumblr. i tried to apologize to neil, i sent him countless apology asks where i begged him to ask people to stop cyber bullying me, but he never responded. it took years before i was able to communicate to him all the hate id received. his response was a basic "sorry for the miscommunication" and that he wished there was a way to convey tone on the internet (someone said "there is! tonetags!!" and he responded with "i dont like those"). the SAME COMMUNITY who told me to kms was suddenly saying "oh neil your such a saint" (THE TERM SAINT WAS USED MULTIPLE TIMES!!!!!) and "this poor ignorant child"

i was a kid and i was bullied off the internet and neil didnt respond to my pleas for forgiveness for almost 2 years. i was also in the most unstable time of my life. i was EXTREMELY suicidal. people telling me to kms deeply affected me

plus he reblogs a ton of "vote blue no matter who" stuff. i dont agree w that statement but i think its okay for people to say if they actively support palestine. but neil gaiman doesnt post about palestine ever other than reblogging posts that say "sure maybe the stuff in palestine is bad but if you dont support biden 100% democracy will crumble!!!" also im pretty sure he never apologized for some older zionist posts

ive seen a lot of stuff where people are saying "hey shhh its okay i see good omens fans getting sad bc of the stuff with neil but its ok!! youre still a good person even if you ignore this issue!!" and like. huh??? i dont think ignoring it makes you evil but its certainly fucked up to not be critical of the media you consume. pretending nothings going on is immature. you all sound like jk rowling fans smh

his general attitude towards fans makes me uncomfortable. ive seen people bare their souls in his asks (all of them start with something along the lines of "oh sir mister gaiman sir i am nothing but a disgusting peon compared to you you saved my life id die for you!!!") and he gives rude cold responses. i mean of course he gets annoyed and of course he gets spam but no one is forcing him to respond to asks. he doesnt seem to care very much??? this doesnt make him a bad person ofcourse but it does give me the ick

summary: even if he didnt s/a those women his fans need to grow up. he is not a pure perfect person. he might not be evil but he makes some extremely damaging choices. hes not a saint and never has been. at the end of the day, hes a rich cishet white man

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

i love the incorrect quotes, but i dont agree with your political views. if its not much, could you explain why ur so anti bjp?(thats what i assume anyway)

You know, I actually think that the memes and the quotes are sort of a natural extension of our political views. I'll explain but it might get a little long. Stay with me here.

Firstly, I want to say that I think this way of perceiving politics is so fundamentally wrong.

"Anti-BJP", "Pro-BJP", "Anti-Congress", "pro-congress" etc etc. This isn't a cricket match where you're rooting for your favourite team. Politicians, as a general rule, are a bunch of liars. They lie to gain power and control. It's OUR duty, as CITIZENS, to keep them accountable and in their lane so they actually do their goddamn jobs. That's how the democracy is supposed to work. If they don't do their job properly, you vote them out of the seat. They work for us, and not the other way around.

In India, we grow up with this idea of not questioning your elders. Papa ne keh diya, bas keh diya. As children our natural instinct of curiosity and inquisitiveness is stifled. We go to schools and the same pattern follows. Don't question the authority. Keep your head down and colour inside the lines. We internalise this lesson to colossal degrees. Is it any wonder that we all struggle with critical thinking? If you're spoonfed "the correct answer" your entire life, you never learn to find if what you were told is correct or not. This exact thing is used by all politicians across the entire political spectrum. They use our learned behaviour of deferring to authority and never questioning power against us. The leader of the country becomes the patriarch. Papa ne keh diya, bas keh diya.

I have various issues with various political parties in India, in fact. I have no love lost for any of them. I don't exactly believe in unconditional loyalty to politicians.

Since you brought up the BJP, let's talk about that. My biggest issue with them is their politics of communal hatred. All they keep yapping about is hindu-muslim this and hindu-muslim that. For what? They could spend their time talking about actual issues but the low-hanging fruit of stoking communal hatred is easier to grab onto. Remember when the British did the same thing? It was bad then and it's bad now. All this unrest just to get votes. Imagine fucking up the mind of an entire nation like this and then demanding to be praised for it.

Their foundational roots are from the RSS and that entire organisation's existence is just insane to me. It's even more insane that they managed to go from a fringe ideology to becoming mainstream. "Hindu rashtra", it seems. Who even wants that? WHY do they want that? Is it such a bad fate to live in peace and harmony with other religions? A lot of their talking points are about how much they hate the islamic nations and how those are horrible and then they want to turn around and do the same thing?!? Is the hypocrisy not clear? So what if other countries are religious states? Why can't we try to be different? Maybe I'M the stupid one for thinking all humans are the same that we should treat everyone the same. Who knows.

There are also a bunch of other issues that the BJP has racked up during their rule. The demonetisation disaster, mismanagement of government funds to create public infrastructure, letting the interests of billionaire business ruin PROTECTED FOREST AREAS for mining coal that they didn't even need, introducing and passing HORRIBLE bills through the parliament without any thought or discussion, literally ignoring the plight of people dying in riots, CORRUPTION, destroying the public sector and letting for-profit capitalists free reign in a country which has practically no proper labour laws, aiding in creating a historical record of INCOME INEQUALITY that is higher than it was during the fucking colonial era, fucking up the press even more somehow to the point where they control all of the media houses.

This is not even scratching the surface. I could keep going.

My issue is not whether people vote for the BJP or not. Even if you like the BJP, my issue is that people seem willing to turn a blind eye to all the issues with the government and not even hold them accountable for it.

Vote for whoever you want. My only request is to keep your government accountable. Keep the power in check. The politicians should be SCARED of the citizens fury if they do something wrong. They shouldn't be free to do whatever and get off scot free.

That's our political stance, really. It's Pro-Exercise-Your-Democratic-Rights-As-Citizen.

We will always encourage others to be wary of people with too much power.

Now coming back to why I said the memes reflect our political stance, it's because it's obvious to see why we happen to be willing to risk being a little critical of a literary text. You have to be a little transgressive, in a sense. Perfect obedience and perfect reverence stifles people from engaging with something to their full potential.

I'm sorry to say that if you enjoy the memes and the quotes, you are also being a little transgressive like us. You're also questioning the authority of a religion to an extent. Perhaps our political leanings aren't as different as you might believe.

-Mod S

[callimara]

Ok, I have a lot of things to say. Am I am the only one who is getting so fucking tired to see white queers and right-winger politicians weaponize queer identities to justify the whole genocid3 everytime someone who is queer/leftist/i-dont-fucking-know demands a ceasefire?

I can't truly understand and believe it. Yes, I know that an amount of extremist Muslims would despise me because of me being a bisexual and trans man, but for the love of god, does that justifies the assassination of newborns, children, teenagers, woman and etc? Sorry for worrying about the innocent ones who are going through all this unnecessary suffering, I guess.

Sorry for the long ask and the venting, seeing latinamerican right-winger dudes talking about this + queer people makes me so angry. Hope you're alright!

Thanks so much for bringing this up because pinkwashing is a very real thing and is part of Israeli propaganda. It's meant to dehumanize and paint Palestinians as backwards, bigoted monsters that don't deserve sympathy.

For anyone who doesn't know what pinkwashing is, here is the definition:

"Pinkwashing, also known as rainbow-washing, is the strategy of promoting LGBT rights protections as evidence of liberalism and democracy, especially to distract from or legitimize violence against other countries or communities."

And tbh, it's such an outlandish argument that if you apply it to any other situation, it would be completely unacceptable.

For example, if it's the USA that's being indiscriminately bombarded and having civilians massacred on a large scale on the daily without any aid or access to basic needs, and you said that it's completely okay and that they deserved to be bombed and massacred because of the existence of the conservative south who are notoriously homophobic, you'd sound like a genocidal maniac.

But because it's Muslims and the Middle East, it's so far away and stigmatized that people in the west are more willing to go along with it.

"But there are lots of LGBTQ people living in the US!" Yea, well, LGBTQ Palestinians exist too. Do they not matter?

No matter how you slice it, it's Free Palestine.

[fipindustries]

By the way, you are not a liberal shill. You are someone who tries to say and do the right things but does not necessarily beleive violent revolution is the first immediate solution to every social issue.

yeah that basically means im ronald reagan, right?

in reality im being sarcastic when i say “im a liberal shill”, im making fun of the fact that this is how communists would see me because i believe that contracts between employer and employee need not to be necessarily exploitative, that it is possible to enter as an employer on a big company reasonably uncoherced and this not being necessarily a harmful power dynamic that needs to be stopped. i do believe that markets solve very well for certain sectors of the economy and that there should be a hard limit for how much should the state interfeer in our lives, even if that means granting us certain negative freedoms that allow us to harm ourselves and each other to some degree. (emphasis on to some degree). i think modern democracies can actually be very effective in regulating and curtailing the evils of capitalism, is just that the people are stupid and they want capitalism to go rampant, but if the day of tomorrow the people wanted to ennact socialist policies all they would need to do is vote. is just that the majority of people generally dont want that.

and also i dont think violent revolution is the first or second or third solution, and frankly at this point im almost becoming skeptical of the idea of it being even the final solution. given the sheer scale of the military power that goberments can wield today i think the times where "the people's army" or any other guerrilla group could take down an authoritarian goberment are far behind. the only way for those to go away is for the revolutionaries to have enough of the military on their side (incredibly unlikely), funding from foreign entities that provide them with resources, training and weapons, (usually not super effective) or simply let the authoritarian regime collapse on their own due to their selfsabotaging incompetence and then for the people to pick up the ruins and try to rebuild something better afterwards.

[heavenbarnes]

So i just want to vent actually but you won‘t believe what happened today? Like i was at the verge of tears! so i had this Art class today and the topic‘s Graffiti and we had to make some sketch about something that interests/angers us (also something about democracy idk) and me and some other guys wanted to do something about free palestine. BUT THEN MY ART TEACHER JUST STRAIGHT UP DIDNT ALLOWED US TO WRITE/CREATE ANYTHING ABOUT PALESTINE as our work gets shown in an art gallery. And i just wanted to make a statement with my art and maybe help those poor kids but no!

like actually i dont frigging care who started this conflict- all i care about is that these children get the fuck out of a bomben place and don‘t burn to death.

what even is the point in creating something then

actually i am gonna ignore the statement of my Teacher and just do it like- what is she gonna do??

thanks for letting me vent- also your older!boyfriend simon is incredibly 🤌🏼✨

-🕯️

what do they say? art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed?

ask you art teacher is they had this much of an issue with “guernica” by picasso? or his “the charnel house” if that shouldn’t have been made? even if they had issues with kanso’s works?

your art teacher is in the wrong fucking profession if they wish to stop people making anti-war statements through art

they’re in the wrong profession if they think they have the ability to control the kind of art someone makes, in general

[jakob-wulf]

How Wizarding Britain needs Purebloods

Now I'm not quite sure how to do this, but this is a long olde rant about the Harry Potter universe. -A few Hogwarts Legacy spoilers below Now, as we know there are 28 main 'pureblood' houses and they are heavily important to the stability of British magical society, from the Ollivander's being the main producers and sellers of Wands, to the Malfoy's government funding. Pure blood families have always been essential to wizarding society, but with rapid depopulation of Wizardkind after the two world wars, the war with Grindelwald and Voldemort they are in a huge population deficit and power struggle. Unlike muggle Britain the wizarding counterpart put no financial incentive to repopulate causing a collapse in trade, supply lines and forcing nearly all graduating students to work for the ministry if their families did not own prior business to survive. But pureblood families are needed to maintain this order, hence why they had so much power during voldemorts era and the 1990's. The Malfoy family funded government departments, the Fawley, Crouch, Avery and Nott families worked in high standing departments and contributed to law and funding of public spending, for instance, st mungos and Hogwarts. Also every family head had a seat in the wizengamot contributing to the management of government and the legal system, Or contributed in development of technology via spellcraft, or potioneering. The loss of pureblood or noble families means a loss in financial stability for the Ministry of Magic, as they do not have the ability to print new money in times of crisis, that being in the power of goblinkind. Additionally the loss of culture, history and familial techniques, like the loss of parseltongue with the Gaunts. if a group were to unleash a dozen Basilisk in London, without the Gaunts there would be mass casualties on muggle and wizarding side. Now I'm not saying the purebloods dont have their own flaws, on a ethical level the extremists have it wrong but also from a side where they want to preserve magic and keep it strong in magical families, they should as it is part of their history and culture, most of the adults from the 90's during harrys time, saw the atom bomb and cold war, how they could be the next to be rounded up and killed. It would terrify anyone, but I repeat, I do not agree with their ideals. just without the complex movement of noble and pureblood families supporting the Ministry of Magic the entirety of wizarding Britain would crumble under the financial weight and become forced to break the statute of secrecy to trade in muggle money to stay alive.

We can also see a clear view of corruption and ineptitude within the Ministry where political power can be hoarded by select few and with no way to elect ministers a democracy could easily become a dictatorship. As shown by Fudge using the power of the Government Run Paper to slander a literal child without legal consequence or how Barty Crouch sent Sirius to Azkaban without trial or due process. circling back to the Daily Prophet, there is no competing news paper to allow free thought or speech only gossip or eccentric magazines like Witch Weekly or The Quibbler. Forcing from children to elderly to believe that anything they say is true. Example: All of Rita Skeeta's articles.

Returning to The loss of culture and history, the Hogwarts Legacy game is a good indicator via Ominis Gaunt that old wizarding families will have secrets like the location of Salazar Slytherins scriptorium, the chamber of secrets, the lost knowledge of ancient magic or the existence of golden snidgets. Though some is kept alive via portraits through destruction of family lines or dwellings of pureblood families I.E. Rookwood Castle/Isadora Morganachs portrait, there is a loss of essential history, culture and folk knowledge in wizarding society. In Conclusion, With the rapid depopulation of Wizarding Britain and the annihilation of Pureblood families over generations of inbreeding, war and extremist ideology blinding them. The Ministry of Magic and Wizarding Britain will rapidly crumble without a method to maintain a standard of living, financial stability, law and morals, essential services or adequate supply lines. Resulting in political and cultural collapse forcing a break in the statute of secrecy to cling to Muggle Britain's struggling system and welfare state to allow future magical generations to recover. Thank you for reading and bearing with my Tumblr ineptitude.

[glamfellens]

i dont give a fuck about the coronation because i dont believe a democracy can be a true democracy while a constitutional monarchy exists but also its my birthday the same week and thats obviously more important

[communist-hatsunemiku]

i have a genuine question, im not american and i dont really know your politics other than currently its trump vs biden but like. what are americans supposed to do this election?

cause afaik your system is basically a 2 party system at this point, not because other parties cant be elected but because not enough people vote for them to make votes worth being cast for them. like if you vote green youre tossing your vote out.

if biden is horrible, and trump is comically horrible, and no other parties can safely be voted for, then what are people supposed to do in the election? feel free to delete this or whatever but im just genuinely curious because from an outsiders view biden does *seem* like the lesser evil (dont get me wrong hes still evil), but also if you suggest voting blue then thats also apparently wrong

I'm probably not the best person to answer this, but I'll give it a shot.

The entire two party system in the US is an illusion, it's this facade they keep up to make people think we are a democracy. One of the two-party systems main functions, to me, is keeping people convinced that we can vote our way to any real systemic change. That voting is the only *real* way things should change, and this idea is so incredibly damaging to getting people to actually do something other than checking a box every four years. These fuckers in charge are banking on people believing in this system, fully buying into it is playing directly into their hands.

Direct action, collective action is what is going to create meaningful, substantial change. The protests in support of Palestine are an example, people blocking ships transporting weapons, people superglueing their hands to pavement to stop the macys parade, people attacking and vandalizing weapons manufacturer's facilities, flooding government offices with phone calls so that the phone doesnt stop ringing. These are just a few examples that are infinitely more meaningful than someone screeching "vote blue no matter who". And I'm really just pulling on recent events, I'm sure there is someone who can elaborate on what true direct action really looks like and lay it out more clearly.

I don't think me writing in Hatsune Miku on my ballot is like, radical or actually going to do anything. My conscience however forbids me from voting for someone who has consistently shown again and again that everything he says is a lie, everything he does is in service of capitalism and fascism, and everything he represents is everything I hate about this country. Joe Biden is a rabid dog who needs to be beaten to death with a stick, and frankly he's getting off easy with that in my opinion.

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

some usamericans on this website when you say anything critical about the usa will straight up say „this is an AMERICAN website if you dont like AMERICA get off the website“ like that isnt exactly the kind of nationalism and hegemonial thinking that they are being attacked for by many 😭 and im not talking about die hard americans either i have seen this from liberal and leftleaning blogs… a lot of „progressive“ usamericans have not unpacked their usamerican socialisation, they think since they are team #blacklivesmatter and criticise colonialism they have overcome the U S A thinking but they really havent. also this whole outside cat discourse like usamericans really struggling to prove the moral high ground they believe to have even though despite the usa being the #ruler of the modern world there is close to no social security, the health system is fucked up, gun violence is a huge issue, some states still have the death penalty, us corporations are not even attempted to be regulated because #freedom, us democracy is essentially a farce, ETC ETC and they come at you with the „oh my god europeans have outside cats“ 😭 listen you will never hear me praise the european union or any government really, or western european influence/thinking/imperialism etc, but i wish usamericans would shut up about any other countries. except maybe canada.

[demoisverysexy]

So right now on twitter a bunch of Tankies are trying to argue that Project 2025 isnt that bad because democrats are themselves trying to make it happen, or that it will happen during a democrat controlled government as easily as it will during a republican controlled government. And listen, never let me be the one to argue that democrats are super duper effective (though they are more effective than people give them credit for, they just suck at messaging and are too arrogant to pursue populism), but seeing this has made me wonder what tankies are even on right now. What delusional fantasy world are they living in.

And then I saw this post from a twitter tankie that made me realize something: its not just that theyre delusional. Theyre pro fascist.

So let's break this down, shall we?

First, this post is playing into leftists (rightful, correct) hatred of the US. Any leftism worth its salt should at least challenge the United States as an institution, and work towards its eradication as a state in the long run (and the eradication of all states, obviously). But this is not a unique trait to leftists: fascists also hate the US. How else would you explain their slogans (Make America Great Again) or the actions they take when they have power (dismantling the regulatory state, persecuting minorities, eliminating secular governance and education, "patriotic education"). Their goal is to destroy the US as well, but to the fascist, liberalism as a whole must be eradicated, including the parts leftists agree with.

This raises the question, then, of why someone who claims to be a leftist would argue that either liberalism is the same as fascism, or worse than fascism, and that rather than helping liberals fight fascists, leftists should just let liberals lose to fascists.

Those are the tactics of a fascist! First, to argue that the crimes of liberalism are the same as or worse than the crimes of fascism (something that is provably false), and therefore, it doesnt matter whether fascists have control, because dont you hate the US anyway? And if you help liberals youre fighting against your own interests anyhow.

In order to argue this, you would have to ignore the ways in which leftists are unprepared for the collapse of the US. You have to ignore the many people who would be hurt by the collapse of the US (minorities, of course). And, I think, you either have to not care about progressive ideals outside of wanting the US to fall, or maybe only care about economic progressivism. Though given that they are arguing against fighting republican fascists, I think they dont even care about that either. In my opinion, ai think that tankies on some level believe that republican fascism is closer to what they want than liberal democracy.

I think its high time the left ended its love affair with tankies. Sure, it was fun while it lasted, we had fun with the soviet aesthetics and all that jazz, but its time lefties recognize that tankies dont share their goals, and cant recognize that even a flawed liberal democracy puts them in a better position to achieve their goals of ending capitalism than red fascism ever will.

[hiraya-rawr]

thinking abt the inazuma quests and i think traveller’s reluctance to help during the vision hunt decree is bc before they went to inazuma there was the “we will be reunited” quest where the abyss sibling told them not to find them until their journey’s over, even though the traveller was so willing to drop teyvat and leave with their abyss sibling that very second. i think that encounter rattled them so much that they became more laser focused in just getting to the end goal and not the journey itself (something yoimiya commented on when she said that the traveller looked tired lately)

also also!! i believe it was brought up that bc the vision hunt decree only affected a small percentage of the population, it was hard to drum up support from the average person about something that didnt affect them which is why the state of inazuma got so bad (at least thats my interpretation)

im also an Ayaka Defender bc i will die on the hill that she was NOT a manipulative person and there was only so much that she could do as a person of her position bc outright defying the shogun would have tanked the yashiro commission/kamisato clan’s reputation and put them in danger. also i think she def would have let the traveller go if they still declined to help even after seeing the effects of the vision hunt decree (but then at that point there would be no story also very callous on traveller’s part bc as previous anon mentioned, they also have friends who are vision holders)

agdjshdlhdjs im so sorry abt the long message!! i have a lot of feelings abt the inazuma archon quests and while i do admit there are flaws in the writing, i think a lot of ppl dont realize how complex of a situation being entrenched in politics and war can be. anyways ty for reading my brainrot and i hope u have a good day 💕

this is so well said!! especially ayaka's part. the traveller was one of the only people she could think of to help and she did what she can to get them to help, not that she manipulated them—

and i totally agree! inazuma made me feel things and i actually made a whole rant about it back then, i remember not posting it because it was breaching sensitive topics on politics and puppet democracy things 😅 i think hoyoverse did well to compress such a turbulent scenario into a short archon quest. this was a whole war with different sides we were suddenly in and just wow

anyway i wouldnt want to make this any longer but thank you for sending in your thoughts <33 you summarized what i hoped to say aaaah