#and i think being upset about the results of this election is actually an extremely normal reaponse

[future-crab]

.

[datesinredink]

Ranking the yandere rottmnt boys by how likely they are to kidnap their darling

Just a little crumb to keep myself from losing my mind while staring at google docs this late at night. Sorry if this is super bad, it's way later at night than I'm used to staying up and election night stressed me the hell out.

Donnie.

I have absolutely no doubts that he's going to at least try very very hard to kidnap you. And honestly, I doubt it would be too hard. He's a highly trained, mystic wielding, tech inventing, mutant ninja turtle. And on top of that, he's very fond of planning absolutely everything. And to finish it all off, I think it would be once in a blue moon that he actually treats his darling as an equal. He already thinks he's better than almost everyone, and when he gets obsessed, he has to make himself feel better about it somehow, so he decides to cope by thinking you need him instead of it being the other way around. As a result, he treats you a bit like a very glorified songbird, and songbirds.. well, aren't they usually put in cages anyway? You won't even care after a week or two of adjustment! (He will get upset if you aren't content with being kidnapped by then, by the way.)

2. Raph

The only reason Raph is behind Donnie on this list is because I think he would take longer to justify it to himself. He thinks you're fragile, that you need to be protected from the harsh world! I mean, he barely trusts his youngest brother, who is also a highly trained ninja, to do a simple mission on his own. How do you think he'll treat you after the obsession sets in properly? Not really as an equal, I'll tell you that. He's much nicer to you than Donnie would be, but he still doesn't respect you enough to let you handle yourself, even if that's not how he sees his behavior. At the same time though... isn't he supposed to be a hero? Do heroes kidnap their darlings? Or would this make him the dragon... In the end though, he'll decide that he's fine with being the dragon so long as he knows that the rest of the world won't be able to run their metaphorical (or maybe literal, depending on how unpopular you are in the area) pitchforks right through your heart.

3. Mikey

Mikey wouldn't just.. outright kidnap his darling, I think. I think it would start with a fun sleepover at the lair! Then he insists you stay just one more day! You're having so much fun, after all! Don't you wanna hang out with your best friend for a while longer? You agree, of course- him and his brothers have been nothing but nice to you ever since you met them, and their company is always a delight, so it's worth a shot, isn't it? Then suddenly, the weekend is over, and school's ready to chew you up again, so you do leave. Then it's finally the weekend again! You've heard of a fun game from your school friends, so you plan on trying it when you get home this afternoon- it's friday, after all- when you get a text from Mikey in the group chat with his brothers. He wants you to come over again- and, of course, you say "sure". Not like you can't just play the game on sunday, or when you go home saturday. The sleepover flies by, but you're a bit weary by the time you're pretty sure you're supposed to go home- but here's Mikey, and he's so sure that you promised you'd stay at the lair until sunday again! So, you give in. There's always next weekend, right...? I think you get the pattern, but eventually, he'll be keeping you at the lair 24/7, and you'll be rubbing at your weary eyes wondering how you got into this mess. Sometimes you can even see his brothers shoot you worried looks.

4. Leo

Leo would only kidnap his darling as a last resort, and I think it's because of two reasons. One, he's the brother who sees you closest to being an equal (Donnie and Raph constantly go against your personal autonomy and Mikey puts you on an extremely restricting pedestal), though to be fair, that's not a high bar to pass- and two he much prefers to have some sort of interesting conflict to be present because he finds it entertaining. His life is a weird, morally incorrect soap opera at this point, and he's the number one viewer. Kidnapping would only really happen with him if he thought you were either seriously leaving him (moving or getting into a serious relationship with someone else) or if the circumstances around him got too stressful and he needed something to cling to for any semblance of support outside his brothers (who, at that point, would probably also be super stressed). Think post movie, when the city is still recovering. Man, he was probably freaking out thinking that you might've died to the kraang.

[qqueenofhades]

do you think there's a considerable amount of (young) people refusing to vote for biden because of i/p, or do you think theyre just a loud minority? i cant really tell, myself

I have been keeping a fairly close eye on polls (at least the good high-quality large-sample ones, not the numerous trash ones which currently flood the sphere), actual voting results, and other empirical data that relies on non-social-media blathering. And while we will still need more data and see if anything changes, at this point I think we can presume that any electoral effect of the I/P situation is already baked into Biden's expected results and performances, and I honestly don't think there's much, if any, of a measurable effect.

I say this because first of all, one of the most recent high-quality, large-sample youth polls (I think it was YouGov, but I can't be sure) had precisely 0% of voters between 18-29 listing foreign policy as their top priority in 2024. There were other expected priorities: the environment, the economy, American democracy, abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, etc -- but not foreign policy. Now, caveat emptor about this being only the people who respond to polls, the fact that most polls have been largely junk this primary cycle (notably, they have way overestimated Trump's performance and way underestimated Biden's), and so forth. However, even in libertarian New Hampshire, which tends to wander more than the other solidly-blue presidential election New England states (as a number of them still have Republican governors), "ceasefire" only garnered 1% of all write-in votes, and Biden won commandingly despite not being on the ballot. In South Carolina, he just won 97% statewide, and even the Democrats who skipped the primary due to it not being particularly interesting or competitive (as compared to the highly competitive open primary in 2020) still generally say that they plan to vote for Biden in November. So overall, Biden is doing even better at this point in the primary cycle than he was in 2020, where Sanders' early wins in Iowa and NH were generating chatter about an upset. Once again, this is early and we are working with a limited sample size, but despite everything, I think we can posit that the "Democrats/Black people/Hispanics/young people won't vote for Biden because of xyz issue and therefore We Are All Doomed" thesis is at best, considerably overinflated and at worst, totally untrue.

Likewise, to be blunt: the loudest voices shouting about how they will never vote for Biden because of the Gaza situation either don't vote at all, only voted once in 2020 under extreme duress and haven't voted since, and otherwise aren't being taken into account either in polls (which are bad data because they are by nature experimental and speculative) or actual voting results (which reflect the way real people actually voted in elections). The reason the YouGov sample might not have pulled any voters between 18-29 listing foreign policy as their top priority very well could be because these people flat out don't vote and therefore won't pass any "likely" or "registered" voter screens, so despite all their yelling on social media, there's not been any actual impact. Now, this is not to say that there won't be; there has, for instance, been speculation that Biden might be hurt in states like Michigan, which have a large Arab-American population. Michigan is obviously one of the traditional Blue Firewall states that Hillary lost in 2016 and which Biden retook in 2020, and any electoral wobbling there would be ominous for his overall results. However, this is also reckoning without the fact that there is now a largish chunk of old-school GOP/independent voters who say they will not vote for Trump under any circumstances, with that number growing if he's explicitly convicted of a felony. Some of these voters might sit out, or vote for Biden, or maybe decide to vote for some stupid crackpot like RFK Jr., but the point is, if they do in fact not vote for Trump or even vote for Biden, that changes the electoral math.

Likewise: there are about 40,000 Arab-American voters in Michigan. Biden won the state by 154k votes, or 3.35%, in 2020. Even if every single one of those voters voted FOR Trump this time (which would be insane, but never mind), that alone would not be enough to flip the state from Biden, and that's reckoning without the votes that Trump will lose elsewhere. I've seen a few left-leaning publications such as the Guardian picking up the "will Biden's stance on Gaza hurt him in November" question, and the loud social media blabbermouths want to insist that it will because it makes them feel important, but at this point, I honestly don't see widespread electoral evidence of it, because, put bluntly: Democrats vote. Posturing social media "progressives" largely don't. Therefore for all the screaming they do, their views do not get incorporated into the actual results, which is a damn good thing for us.

So in short: No, as of right now, I don't think there is in fact a substantial anti-Biden protest vote, and the people threatening it the most were never going to vote for him anyway. This has gone on long enough that if it was going to flag up as a major thing, I think it would have. There will always be the idiots throwing away their vote on some stooge like Cornel West or Jill Stein (lol), but once again, these people were never going to vote for Biden in the first place and it is not necessarily the case that we need to put undue credence in their threats. Not that we can slack our vigilance, as we cannot and every single person who can vote blue in 2024 needs to fucking do so if they're interested in continuing to live in a democracy, but the situation is not apocalyptic, and yet again, the Online Leftists are far from the most reliable metric of how effective their screaming actually is. So, yeah.

[oddmerit]

being called a genuine, actual cisphobe in 2014 by (most of) my closest friends bc i had the gall to reblog posts about how cis people perpetuate transphobia without stopping to think about how The Good Ones would feel about me lumping them together with other, more actively transphobic cis people (bc even allies can perpetuate transphobia!) makes me really hate that “the left hates me, a white man, for my immutable characteristics :(“ post. because:

1. a lot of the time they’re not referring to out-and-out “man i genuinely hate cis white men” talk, its “cis white men, even the Good Ones, still perpetuate and are complicit in racism and misogyny” that had a brusque tone because op was frustrated with someone specific, and the whole “wahhh they hate me cause im a white man!!” schtick is a smokescreen for “these people are making up racism and misogyny, some of which i participate in or agree with, to get mad at”

2. even if it IS direct hate? you just gotta learn to let it roll off you like water off a duck’s back and understand people are venting their frustration at being oppressed. i used to be extremely sensitive to that kind of stuff cause i was easily made upset by literally ANYTHING! but part of maturing is realizing that sometimes people giving you shit is not going to, like, physically hurt you. who cares if someone thinks less of you cause you’re white or a man or cis. people don’t have to be endlessly thankful for your generosity in order to be helped by you. you will feel a lot better about yourself and your capacity for helping others if you disabuse yourself of this notion and gain a sense of satisfaction from doing the right thing instead of external back-patting

there are better things to worry about than the person in a country with a history of us-backed coups saying “damn i dont care about yanks freaking out over cheeto man because the US is gonna fuck over my country regardless of the election results”. i thought we went over the whole “tone-policing is bad and if you stop supporting a social movement cause some people were superficially mean in your general direction then you were never really their ally anyways” thing in the early 2010s but i guess not

[decomposingbratzdoll]

Felt cute (extreme paranoia) , might delete later💗

Sorry for hysteriaposting about politics i'm just really worried , i did feel a bit narcissistic(??) writing this because i feel like its only talking about myself while everyone else has much more important struggles going on right now but i just feel like i had to say something and i'm extremely tired and it's kind of scary posting this for me idk </3

I don't know how to start this because I never make any text posts but I'm kind of panicking and need to voice my concerns and worries because of Trump winning the election. I first of all need to say my heart goes out to everyone who voted for Kamala, especially women , POC and queer people and I hope you can all get by and survive the next 4 years. I’m not American. I'm Slovak and currently living in the UK but I am (or now was) planning on going back to Slovakia after finishing my education since I already have multiple support systems and family over there.But now with Trump as president i’m scared that i won’t be able to do that anymore because Trump wants to withdraw from NATO which was basically the only thing keeping Putin from invading more countries especially smaller ones like Slovakia and some of my relatives live in Michalovce which is very close to the Ukraine border and im worried that when Trump withdraws from NATO and stops America from giving msupport and aid to Ukraine it will let Putin invade Slovensko freely too. 

I’m just really worried for my relatives in Michalovce and everywhere else in Slovakia . 

I’m scared that in the next 4 years I won't be able to go back to Slovakia , I don't want it to turn into a warzone. And it just really angers me and upsets me even more because there is nothing I could have done to prevent this; i’m not in America so i can’t vote there but i did try to spread the word to get people to vote but still there was nothing i could have done i just had to watch and now i’m scared my relatives and friends in Slovakia will have to suffer because of something i or they have no control over.And i know nothing has happened yet and who knows if he actually will end up withdrawing from NATO but the fact that it could happen and result in Slovakia and other countries end up being invaded like Ukraine the next 4 years terrifies me so much.

I don't know though this is just me ranting without really thinking and im only fuelled by an intense build up of worry and extreme anxiety , i could just be horrifically paranoid and anxious , i just feel like i needed to say something but ill get back to drawing my silly little pictures on the internet , thank you for reading this if you did.💗

[khalixvitae]

also your brain is wrinklier than the balls of a sweaty red neck florida man. you're so fucking based.

honestly i like to make light of the fact that rook was acquainted with vil via criticizing his play upfront, and the fact that they even became inseparable after, but i really think it says a lot about them. especially vil, in this case. about how vil values the cold and hard truth above all that is sugarcoated and brought to him via beating around the bush in a world where everyone is sucking up to him to get something out of it. like, what did rook have to gain in the moment? if anything, he would've been mauled by anyone else. but he did it out of genuine interest, in vil and helping him (even if his critique lacked tact in the delivery). that's what drew vil to rook. he was so unabashed in what he thought about a certain things flaws, but also so full of vigor and readiness to see it for all it's potential. he's exactly the type of person vil needs.

unwavering loyalty (the type that vil truly values) can also be seen through rook's election of neige in the vdc. i really do hate that it's portrayed as a betrayal. yes, i understand it would be to anyone else, especially given rook knows of vil's rivalry with neige. but obviously, rook and vil aren't conventional people. rook already stated very valid reasons for it; it wouldn't satisfy vil's ambition nor his need for the first place and perfection. it'd be hollow to him. most of all, vil would know he didn't deserve it because the performance itself wasn't the best he could give. why would he want an unjustified trophy? he would've continued striving for no. 1 in extremely damaging ways if rook did not choose neige and give him the reality check he needed. that's the type of reality check he wanted. that's what true friends do. holding each other to standards, encouraging improvement-- doing what's right, because it will do right by them in association. rook choosing vil in this context would be the truest betrayal to vil because rook knows it would go against all vil stands for. it would be the biggest betrayal to rook's wanting to help vil improve and blossom because it wouldn't do that. it'd drive him further into madness. rook pulled vil back before he could do that and that's real loyalty. making hard decisions for the betterment of your loved ones. i don't really remember much of chapter 5's ending, but i do remember vil also acknowledged all my prior points himself, and did realise the winning the VDC wouldn't have been the best for him in the long run.

i absolutely hate blind devotion. i hold my friends to moral codes because being too entrenched in unhealthy mindsets would leave you blindsided to what's truly beautiful and joyous in life and people, and i dont want to be the one to enable or exacerbate it. i expect them to do the same with me; tell me off, disagree with me, and give me a reality check when i need it, because i know ill appreciate it when that time has long gone and their wake up call was what got me back on the right track. that they cared about me enough that they wanted to help me change for better instead of just standing to the sidelines because to be loved is to be CHANGED.... (wails uncontrollably into pillow, shits, sharts, etc etc). my greatest goal in life is to be the best version of myself and to be loyal is to support what the truest part of me yearns for! improvement! that's why i expect that if i were to act up, my friends would have the courage in knowing that opposing whatever dumb idea i might have would ultimately mean the most to me! so when i say i get how vil must've felt during chapter 5 i really get it. sure he still would've been upset over his loss but i believe he understood the reality of the situation quite well, including rooks reasoning. he trusts rook because he knows rook can make the right call for him if need be, even if it results in such drastic consequences. he knows rook has his actual best interests in mind. he knows rook isn't one to lick vil's boots-- he'd bow before him and rise against him, all in vil's favour. that's why he was more determined than ever to get on the right track to strive towards complete perfection. he was upset but he knew it was transient and he'll have another chance at true success.

people also have to understand that brutally honest =/= cruel. brutally honest is just a term used by people who just want an excuse to be mean but he doesn't intend to be, so i can see how that term, when conflated with a character, can be warped to a different interpretation. yes, good intentions don't always equal good actions but he always means it for the betterment of others. you don't like his tone? tell him! he'll adjust the level of tact in which he delivers his speech but the content is more or less the same.

again, vil is also another one who drops a lot of subtle hints of vulnerability. of large deviations of who he is and how he operates.

god i am.. sgshn???!?!!!!!!! so desperately in love with him....!??? he's so deeply flawed but that doesn't make him a bad person. it makes him so real and raw and just. someone i could really sympathize with in real life, especially when i can relate to, or atleast understand many of his core themes and struggles. he's more complex than the other boys in the cast (not to say the others cannot have complexity) and it makes it all the better to pick him apart. yes i see god in your eyes babes please kiss me so hard my lips explode.

“He’d bow before him and rise against him, all in Vil’s favor” HOLY SHIT ANON THAT IS ?,, THE HARDEST LINE IVE EVER READ??? But I completely agree! Vil was less upset about the justified loss than he was about Neige winning ! He understood Rook’s reasoning and didn’t question it, but ofc he was irritated that his (one sided) mortal nemesis beat him. I agree that Vil is so insanely complex- that’s why he’s my favorite character to pick apart, and also why I feel the strongest connection to him. Tbh he’s one of the only characters I could see myself realistically befriending. His honesty and determination are super admirable imo, and we share some core values.

Also,,, I’m currently brainstorming ways for him to show his vulnerabilities, funnily enough hehe hoo

[ykoriana-imperatrix]

SDC Month - December 2022 - Monday #4

Last chance for a truly unpopular opinion in 2022?

One last time, the disclaimer everyone must be tired of reading by now: if you think there is even the smallest chance this post might upset you in any way, if not outright infuriate/offend you, please do what is best for yourself and avoid reading it. Have a nice day, and a nice remainder of 2022.

(Cut for content and some spoilers from The Chosen through Dragon Fire.)

Now, for our last maybe-genuinely-controversial-maybe-not statement of this year: Flama's feelings for Osidian were fully platonic.

And no, before I get accused of that, I am not saying this (just) based on her young age at the time of her death. Yes, she was only 9 (~10 in our years, though, in my opinion, there's hardly a huge difference in emotional maturity between a 9-year-old and a 10-year-old, so perhaps the difference is a moot point) when she died, but I am aware that is possible for someone that young to have (if only budding) romantic feelings for someone else. (Though it is also entirely plausible a child that age would have never experienced those, of course.)

In any case, this goes beyond the age aspect to me — I actually used to believe Flama feeling romantically towards Osidian was indeed the case, but over time, I started examining that belief more, and realised we have nothing resembling actual, solid evidence for it. Yes, we know it is definitely not uncommon for members of the House of the Masks to develop incestuous feelings for their kinsmen/kinswomen, but really, even in a House already predisposed towards incest, is every single Masks lord/lady going to potentially feel attraction towards every single one of their relatives? No, I don't think that is plausible in the slightest; attraction just does not work that way, in fiction or reality.

That said, there might be the tendency to consider that since Ykoriana canonically had romantic feelings for Kumatuya, perhaps their children's situation just parallels theirs, with Flama feeling unrequited romantic love for Osidian. (And just a side note: Osidian's feelings for Flama are not the ones under discussion here — I definitely think it extremely unlikely for his affection to have been anything but platonic, especially considering the 3-year age difference and resulting gap in emotional maturity and development. I have no doubt Osidian cared deeply about Flama as his little sister, just not in what you might call the usual Masks way, and I consider their bond as being made no less meaningful by that. Without going into too much of a tangent, it is a huge pet peeve of mine when platonic feelings are considered completely worthless compared to romantic ones — one can be appreciated without diminishing the other, I think, and all sorts of meaningful connections between humans, real or fictional, can exist.) In any case, yes, the reader might be tempted to compare Flama to Ykoriana in this regard, but here's the thing — no one in-universe ever makes the comparison. Ykoriana's POV, "Mothering Mask", is the chapter which provides the most information about Flama, and yet she does not compare her and Osidian to herself and Kumatuya once. Don’t you think she would have, if only in passing, had their situations actually been the same? Instead, the only comparison we do get is that of Carnelian and Osidian to Sardian and Kumatuya, and I feel like the omission is telling:

Before the election, Imago had told her that Osidian Nepheron had descended to the Forbidden Garden of the Yden with Suth's son, Carnelian. The parallels between their relationship and those of their fathers had disturbed her (...)

And one could argue that perhaps Ykoriana finds that particular parallel too painful to make, because she does not wish to bring back traumatic/sorrowful memories by considering her past feelings for Kumatuya... but she mentions them earlier in the exact same chapter, and, as you’ll recall, had no apparent issue with bringing them up during The Chosen (”Ykoriana” chapter) or The Third God ("In the Underworld" chapter) either:

Only a girl when her father died, Kumatuya was the brother she loved.

'Thwarted love is the charioteer of vengeful deeds.'

‘I demanded this proof of love from your father, Nepheron. Though I had reason to hate all men, him I loved. (...)'

Sure, in “Mothering Mask”, she also recalls her past plans of potentially poisoning Flama's love for her brother:

Given enough time, Ykoriana would have been able to gently poison Flama's love for Nepheron.

But, in my opinion at least, you could read that very quote and consider that scenario while believing Flama's feelings platonic, and nothing would really change. Flama having a strong sibling bond (in the usual, platonic sense of the term) with Osidian is just as much a problem to Ykoriana, because it still means she intends to vote for him and not Molochite. (And you know, it is not impossible Ykoriana thought Flama's feelings for her brother could eventually become romantic, — as we can assume her own had — even if they were not so at the time, which could have made her all the more determined to create a rift between her children.)

The only other character who goes into any detail about Flama and Osidian's relationship is Osidian himself, and this is what he has to say in The Chosen ("Just One More Day" chapter):

Osidian nodded slowly. 'She murdered my sister, who would have been my wife.' 'That is rumoured—' 'That is a fact!' said Osidian, causing Carnelian to flinch. 'Flama promised to vote for me.' Carnelian caressed Osidian's jaw. 'I'm sorry.' 'We loved one another since we were children. When I am the Gods...'

Yes, Flama would have married Osidian were she still alive, but that means little, if anything, regarding their actual feelings; it is just the custom in the Masks, so I think we can hardly conclude anything from that particular tidbit of information. Do note Osidian does mention they had loved each other since they were children, which means their closeness was almost certainly not a recent development by the time Flama died. They were likely very young children when they first started bonding with one another, so that could be argued to make the possibility of romantic feelings even more unlikely, since while the idea of a 9-year-old having romantic feelings for a 12-year-old (just sticking with SDC years here; as we’ve discussed, the difference is small at these young ages) still has some plausibility, would you consider the same to be true back when they were, let's say, 3 and 6 respectively? And yes, I will concede that Flama's feelings could have started out as platonic and shifted into romantic ones later in life, but again, there's no real evidence of that to be found. Just like the passage regarding Ykoriana's intentions above, I think that "we loved one another" can still be read with the fully platonic interpretation in mind and nothing would change. Flama's death being a traumatic experience to Osidian and one that turned him even further against Ykoriana is consistent in terms of cause and consequences regardless of the nature of Flama's feelings.

And there you have it — the conclusion of the unpopular opinions project (for this specific SDC month, at least). Does this contradict your own views, or do you actually agree with me? Also, in relation to the project in general, would you enjoy seeing it make a return in 2023 (provided I have enough good ideas for it, that is), or would it be better to shelve it for a time?

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

"Tom Riddle effectively destroys the country from the inside out, which I believe was his true goal the entire time" (c) wait a second, so you think that he wasn't going to really take over or anything, just destroy the fuck out of w britain?

I have avoided this ask long enough.

I’ll start by saying that asking me about Tom Riddle is like staring down into a bottomless rabbit hole. We could travel down that path, but it is a dark and perilous journey, and by the end of it I will come out looking like the Mad Hatter.

It also requires a few prerequisites that you’re just going to accept as true (or else got off the crazy train here).

We know very little about Tom Riddle or Voldemort

What we do know of Tom Riddle comes to us from suspect sources

I’m just going to go out there and start with the basis that Tom is not crazy

Elaborating a little on number 1. We never actually see much of Tom Riddle or Voldemort directly. He’s a bit like Thanos in the MCU, or Palpatine in the first two movies of the Original Trilogy, he’s this looming threat that we pass by and glimpse every once in a while but never really get quality time with.

Generally, Voldemort makes an appearance in a moment of crisis.

He and Harry fight over the philosopher’s stone for Tom’s very survival. He and Harry fight over the diary for Tom’s very survival. He resurrects himself with Harry as a witness. We get those very strange dreams from Voldemort’s perspective (half of which we later learn are fabricated).

None of these really lend to our, or Harry’s for that matter, understanding of Tom Riddle. There’s too much going on, it usually happens far too fast, and there’s usually something Tom Riddle desperately wants or needs that eclipses all other concerns or else he has an audience.

This is part of the reason we get those Halfblood Prince pensieve lessons: Harry knows nothing of Tom Riddle and doesn’t understand him at all.

Which leads us, of course, to number 2, most of what we know about Tom Riddle comes from Dumbledore. I’ve talked about this before, so I won’t spend much time on it, but Dumbledore has a very clear agenda in relaying these memories to Harry. Dumbledore already has strong suspicions of what objects are horcruxes and where they’re located, he already has Snape as a very reliable agent to continue work when he’s gone, his job here is to convince Harry there is no path but suicide. And that involves portraying Tom Riddle as the most evil man who ever eviled, was born eviler than the antichrist, and will die eviler than the antichrist. 

Now, does this make Tom necessarily good or bad? No.

However, it does mean when Dumbledore tells us things like, “See, Harry, an impoverished child was upset when I lit all his belongings on fire! What a monster!” (especially given that, in a similar situation, Harry thought it was hilarious when Hagrid gave Dudley a permanent physical deformity and Harry was told he was an angel child) we should take it with a very large grain of salt.

Right, so, with all that backdrop what I’m getting at is that a) we can’t take Dumbledore at his word b) even if we could he could be wrong c) Harry doesn’t have the introspection to be able to figure himself when a or b is happening. I won’t elaborate on this last much, suffice to say that Harry’s world is very black and white, divided into the camps of those who personally like him and those who don’t.

So, why do I think Tom’s goal was not to rule the wizarding world but instead to destroy it?

A few things.

First, there are so many easier ways he could have ended up ruling the wizarding world. More, even when he effectively does rule the wizarding world in book seven, he takes very strange actions so that he’s never directly in power.

Second, I never really bought Tom’s racism. It’s too convenient and too contradictory with his backstory.

The second first, because we’re going out of order today. I’ve gone over this before, but I don’t believe Tom had minions early and I think he was effectively treated as a muggleborn (see here and here) until he took on the Voldemort persona many decades later. I’m hard pressed to believe someone as intelligent, angry, and proud as Tom Riddle would willingly believe and accept he was inferior to the likes of Abraxas Malfoy. More, even if he wished he was a halfblood, I think the evidence of him being muggleborn would be stacked too high against him to deny even to himself (and when he finds out it’s not true, he has maybe a month or so before he realized that he’s the bastard son of a squib). 

And it’s just so convenient. All the people with the power, with the money, who are itching for a cause against a threat that doesn’t really exist believe in blood purity. Ergo, Voldemort shows up suddenly espousing over the top blood purity rhetoric (rhetoric that directly clashes with his ��there is only power” philosophy at that). 

In other words, I think Tom Riddle gave himself a line that he knew would get him places very quickly.

And now for the first. For a guy who has had the entire country in the palm of his hands twice, one time taking it over in a bloodless coup, he’s really big on causing collateral damage and really small on actually doing the ruling thing.

The first wizarding war, Tom Riddle as Voldemort has the backing of the heirs of the most prestigious and wealthy noble houses save a select few. These are people with seats in the Wizengamot, which has a frightening control over the government itself (including the minister of magic). I imagine, in 1980 had Tom Riddle wanted to be elected as Minister of Magic, he would have been elected as Minister of Magic. If he wanted a friendly face in office then he probably could have made that happen to.

More than even this though, by this point, Tom had already won. By having control over the majority of the Wizengamot he owns the government. He’s done, it’s over, it’s finished, and many of the characters admit as much which is why Harry Potter was such a miracle. So why all the seemingly random, exceptionally pointless, terrorism? 

One answer is that Voldemort is crazy bananas. And sure, I guess we can go with that, except for someone insane he’s oddly effective and very consistent. 

I believe Tom was systematically destroying the very foundations of the country through its core aristocratic families. Within a few short years Tom decimates the Black family, it goes from having five heirs to none, and while some of this isn’t Tom’s fault he does take care of quite a few of them. He brands Lucius for life, while Lucius rises high in politics he never escapes the stigma of being a known Death Eater and in the end cannot escape the consequences for his actions. The Malfoy family is very nearly destroyed by the end of the series, had Draco died in the Fiendfyre. The LeStrange family, presumably decimated as well.

More, this is mostly me headcanoning, but I imagine Tom fuels an extremism that the Wizarding World had never contemplated. I imagine, previously, anti-muggleborn sentiment was probably fairly rampant among purebloods. Oh, some were very pro-muggleborn I’m sure, but I think most were fairly “eh” on the people and felt they were a drain on society (such as requiring constant funding for the obliviation department).

However, when Diagon Alley starts getting blown up every other week, when muggleborns start being tortured and murdered, when purebloods who aren’t anti-muggleborn enough are being tortured and murdered, this starts wigging people out in a way they’ve never wigged out before.

By the time we get to Harry Potter’s canon, it is now only a minority that are anti-muggleborn, and they’re perceived as raving lunatics. Nobody wants to be grouped with these people. Which, just goes to show, how much Voldemort rattles the wizarding world in a very small amount of time.

Then there’s Deathly Hallows, rather than become minister himself Voldemort installs a puppet minister. He shows no signs of wishing to change this and instead does things like destroy the sorting hat (which again shakes the very foundations of the wizarding world as whta will we do if we don’t know who’s a Gryffindor anymore?!)

So, where is this ramble going?

Given the results we see, that more than any others it seems to be the purebloods and often Tom’s own followers that suffer colossal losses, I think Tom’s actions are, in part, a means of vengeance against the entire damn wizarding world (but especially the purebloods).

He makes fools of these people, brands them as his slaves, and has them participate in the most over the top ridiculous rituals (the cloaks, the masks, the entire theatrics of it feels like Tom got drunk one night and planned this whole thing out). He destroys them entirely, and better, enables them to completely destroy themselves and the country they believe they’re trying to save.

Basically, I think by the time the series begins Tom is fueled by a nihilist rage that knows no bounds. But dammit all, the wizarding world is going to burn.

[gyuluster]

txt as boyfriends

requested : yes, thank you @engenemoa-forever​!

words : 1.23k words

genre : fluff, just a lil suggestive but hella hella fluff, bitsa crack too

a/n : hi good evening thank you and sorry for writing this so late ))): i hope you and all u sexc mfs enjoy <3 special mention to @soobmint for helping out with this!! her ideas are too cute not to include <3

SOOBIN

this man would never stop thanking his luck stars that he’s dating you

a total lovebug - he is at his best when he’s in a relationship, so he just can’t stop smiling or simply be happy in your presence

is extremely shy so when you show him affection he has to hide himself so you can’t see him blushing like a churchboy

on the other hand, would always want to show you the love he’s too embarrassed to accept - would never be too proud or too shy to tell you how beautiful you look every morning or whispering sweet nothings to you in the night to help you sleep

would randomly cook meals in the night to show his commitment to you - even though he works extremely hard he would immediately take over the housework if he sees you tired

the PERFECT listener - you could rant about anything and everything for HOURS and he would not even fidget, listening intently to your problems

also gives insane advice so you always turn to him - basically your free therapist

endearments galore - “my love” is his utmost favourite 

dates always include romatic-lit dinners somewhere intimate, and always end with the two of you, hand-in-hand, looking at the stars in your home

in short, this man is wholly dependent on you - you become the beacon of his life, and are every way his missing puzzle piece 

YEONJUN

you both are fucking WILD

honestly no one even doubts the two of you are going out it’s literally so OBVIOUS

this goon is the most flirtatious little fucker known to man

WILL make you sososososososo flustered all the time 

he is so bloody shameless - like he would happily argue with another over how his girlfriend is the prettiest, and not someone else’s 

a lot of contact !!! so much contact on god!!!

HAS to have his arm around you all the time, perhaps the sneaky hand lingering on you all the time

ADORES to kiss you - honestly could kiss you all day, whether it be on your forehead, nose, lips, other places

would show you the whole world - spontaneous trips to either the streets of Paris or the mountains of South America, he’s ready to take you anywhere

y’all might not agree with me on this, but i don’t think he’d be jealous at all concerning you - in fact, he’s so confident in his abilities as a great-as-fuck boyfriend that he doesn’t mind you having boys as super close friends - he knows you’ll be in his arms by the end of the night

you are his only “darling” - his muse, and the love of his life

BEOMGYU

beomgyu as a boyfriend would be the best thing of your life yet the bane of your existence at the exact same time

constantly playfighting 

like you both are at each other’s NECKS at ever waking moment - whether that be over you purposefully taking the last chip to you threatening to burn his neighbourhood down

teasing!!! the teasing never stops!!! this man will have you blushing all the time - he loves seeing you flustered so he can make fun of you which then only gets you pissed

his head is ALWAYS on your shoulder - sometimes he just falls asleep when he’s a little tired and despite you tempted to toss his head off and into the wall, you let him rest upon you

the two of you don’t have particularly loving endearments - i mean, if y’all think “prick”, “dickhead” or “cumshot” is affectionate

a massive brat - either his way or the highway homie you’re gonna have to submit to his movie choices

KING of pouts — one of those bad boys being whipped out and that’s it you’re the victim of emotional manipulation

jealous !!!! this mans gets soooooo annoyed when other guys are bantering around with you — always results in you poking fun which then leads to him sulking in the corner

super late messages at night where he sends voice notes of him singing or playing the guitar which help you fall asleep

basically he’s a massive pain in the ass but it’s a pain you don’t really wanna get rid of

TAEHYUN

okay so this man is quite different from the others because he’s not instantly comfortable

it takes him time to truly mould into the idea of a relationship, but when he does it’s literally seventh heaven

the realest — he is the one who tells you the hard truths or any upsetting news he has — even so, you only want to hear it from him because he would never sugarcoat anything from anyone, least of all you

deeply emotional — his greatest wish is to see you happy and will go to great lengths to fulfil it whether it’s just going out to get your favourite snack or helping you through a more serious problem

HATES !!!! absolutely DETESTS to see you upset — if it’s anyone specific that’s it they’re getting their shit ROCKED

super observant !! this man picks up on how you’re feeling, whether you need help or simply want to be in his presence — either way, he senses and comforts you in the best way

LOVESSSS to sing to you — for him it’s one of the most intimate acts he can offer, so at any time when you both are alone, he will play with your hair as he sings a soft melody to you

is actually kinda clingy — once he’s most himself with you he always wants to hold your hand or at least be closer to you, even in certain public areas — it makes you MELT because it means he fully accepts and sees you as his own

basically, you could not live without this man — he is the epitome of collected, trustworthy and deeply affectionate goodness

HUENINGKAI

oh my goodness

hyuka would literally never stop screaming about you

some goon could be talking about the presidential elections and hyuka will still manage to slide you into the conversation — eventually someone will tell him to shut the fuck up (he won’t listen though)

HUGS GALORE !!! this man would never stop he NEEDS to have his arms around you or how will he survive ??!?!

is never too shy or proud to declare his undying love for you — one time he shouted it a little too loud and it resulted in him getting a warning from the neighbours

no barriers !!! this man would tell you EVERYTHING about his life it does not remotely matter how insignificant it is he will report it to you

spontaneous as fuck !! wanna go midnight shopping for instant noodles in your pjs?? travel to another city on a whim of a decision? hyuka’s the one you seek

super emotional — not like taehyuns, where it is more suppressed — his is an all out spectacle — if you guys have a fight, he WILL cry his eyes out

sleepovers ALWAYS have to include the both of you making pillow forts in your bedrooms while watching some fantasy adventure — you both end up sleeping in your creation

although you will grow up, hyuka is the man you can still be a child with and enjoy yourself

[ruby-whistler]

Alright curious anon here. All this is /dsmp /rp from here on out unless otherwise specified and is refering to characters. If i make any mistakes or am misinformed please let me know! So by the cat was nothing compared to mushroom henry i was meaning more toward the fact that the cow was killed as a punishment for something not worth or ok for it to be killed for at all and the fact that it belonged to tommy, wheareas the cat was killed more to annoy dream and belonged to tommy. (1/?)

alright then another lengthy reply, here i come! /lh /dsmp /rp

Dream also did not seem to mourn the cat much, shrugging it off with a "just more motivation to break out".

it was killed to hurt dream, not to "annoy him". it doesn't matter who it belonged to, c!dream was attached to it and it died, which had an effect on him and also further proved his point about attachments being weakness and caring getting you hurt, and it's still very sad.

you say that it was not ok at all to kill mooshroom henry, but the cat's death wasn't ok either, so i really don't see your point.

again, i disagree it was "nothing compared to" either way. i never meant to compare them in the first place, i was simply talking about the cat and c!dream so i don't see why it is in any way necessary to drag c!tommy and other dead pets into this. /nm

also, it isn't true he didn't mourn it. he is a very reserved person who doesn't show his feelings much, that's true, but the cat death still changed the way he acted afterwards, as well as the attempts he made to prevent it. he didn't "shrug it off", he yelled about it because he was understandably upset.

You mentioned that propganda was used to make dream seem like a tyrant, could you specify a bjt? Cus im a little confused srry /gen. Because the most i can remember from the lmanburg era at least is him being called a b'tch or other similar insults. You also mentioned how trauma responses can be differet which is true! I agree! Do you have any ideas to what caused dream the trauma?

wilbur would continuously make him out to be some sort of oppressive, tyrannical force, in front of his troops - a prime example of this being the lyrics of the l'manberg anthem itself and the l'manberg declaration of independence.

actually! here's a nice thread about l'manberg's establishment complete with links, timestamps and evidence :]

i also said in my previous post what could've possibly caused it, but since the character intentionally hides his emotions from the public, it would be difficult to see how things really affected him - which is why the way his spiral went is the majority of the evidence that would imply it, however it does make sense within the story as well with what i mentioned last time.

I would like to note that for sapnap at least had reason to leave dream. Some examples off the top of my head are dream leading an angry fundy to sapnap's pets on purpose, resulting in some deaths, dream assisting tommy in burning down sapnap's effiel tower where he got engaged to karl, and dream giving tommy either mars or the other fish at the battle of the lake. Idk about george tho other then the whole mexican lmanburg/el rapids thing and decrowning him

c!sapnap was actually at fault for most of this, and it wasn't really ever betrayal on c!dream's part.

c!dream is a mediator and he wants to stop everyone's conflict - c!fundy was angry because of c!sapnap's actions, and hence it made more sense for c!dream to centre him on c!sapnap's animals instead of running around killing everyone's pets (at that time, all c!dream knew was c!sapnap did something really bad and c!fundy wanted beckerson / mars from him, which were also his and c!george's fish).

c!sapnap was an instigator, and in multiple conflicts during the time as well as before he'd align himself against c!dream. he isn't "loyal" per se, he causes chaos and the reason c!dream helped c!tommy was because, c!sapnap, again, killed his pet. the first l'manberg war and then the 16th are signs of the fact that c!dream and c!sapnap were willing to fight together in actual war, but these small conflicts where c!sapnap continuously picked fights weren't about personal loyalty, nor did they seem to affect their relationship at all.

c!george was never really hurt by c!dream either. the dethronement was him very obviously being a guilt-trippy drama queen, but, well, that's just the character. he had stolen the l'mantree while he was supposed to be the diplomatic figure of the greater smp, which is why c!dream was justified in - very politely, may i mention - taking the duties off of him (seeing as he was also trying to keep him safe and c!techno had already assassinated him once).

Im pretty sure i remember cc!sam stating that his character never canonically physically tortured dream during his subathon but take this with a grain of salt as i am looking for the clip currently. So to the best of my knowledge dream did not have a physical contact trigger during tommy's visit which! I rewatched the vod and dream actually was first to hit tommy and i can give you my full writing downs but 10/12 of the phy-

you never finished this point because you had to go do something, but i'll reply to what is here at the moment (i suggest writing these down before sending next time, or even writing them out wholly before sending a single one could help avoid stuff like this).

i am 95% sure that the reason cc!sam stated this was because people were suspicious he had already been doing what c!quackity was doing after - torture within the storyline itself is associated pretty much only with what c!quackity is doing, so that's what he meant, just to clear up confusion - the starvation or terrible conditions haven't been retconned, but it was direct torture (like c!quackity is doing) people were asking him about.

i never said c!dream had a physical contact trigger at all, i don't think he had that, though he probably will after the torture.

huh, ok, i'm gonna have to rewatch then, but i remember c!tommy punching c!dream a lot and him just telling him to stop and only punching back to get him to stop. trigger or not, getting hit isn't very pleasant, if you know what i mean.

You mentioned tommy stealing dream's armor unprovoked. Do you have the vod or a general idea of the time so i can find it? Like before lmanburg after another event so and so because if you do not have it i can find it but any help is appreciated.

i am pretty sure you can find the video on cc!tommy's channel! there are also recaps of the disc war on youtube :]

I wanna talk a little on why the Final Control Room was so messed up. For starters, with the way the room was designed. It was small, and had labeled, empty chests with each person's name on them as a mockery. The next reason is that its bascially a kill box.

It's fairly inescapble with the stairs being ones you have to jump up, slowing anyone who climbs them down. The final reason it is messed up is that it is shown to have caused every person who died in it trauma. With tommy there are several examples, the time he saw it with techno, the way he refuses to go near it, the exposure trauma, etc. Fundy also appears to have trauma, as when the Red Banquet executions began, it can be seen as him being afraid of dying last again.

It can Be thought as tubbo having trauma because he buries most of his issues and pretends to be ok. Moreover this event took at least one of each person's canon lives, making it the most canon lives lost EVER in a dream smp event. (This is not hate on any of the ccs btw i loved this scene and its one of my personal favorites). Plus the fact Eret's betrayal just literally happened, giving at least Tommy and Wilbur canonic trust issues.

i wouldn't call the chests mockery? it was a trap. people had traps on the smp before. it was a trap in the middle of war, supposed to end said war by killing them all at once rather than individually which would be a lot more bloody and difficult.

i agree c!tommy and other people might have post-war trauma, especially if they were young during the time, but i think that's because the final control room was "messed up", moreso because the war itself was. it all happened fairly instantly as well? i don't think c!fundy would be able to realize he was the last one standing within the two second before he wasn't.

it "can be thought" and it can be interpreted like that but besides c!tommy there isn't much evidence for them "all" being traumatized by the final control room. of course betrayal would spark trust issues, i understand that.

The probation was humiliating in my opinion because dream was Sending tommy anatgonizing messages through out the whole meeting, plus he had to write a review of his day every single day, which fundy mocked him for.

i mean, it was definitely a strike to his pride, but he was being extremely uncooperative so i don't really blame the other members of new l'manberg trying to teach him to listen for once? of course i know c!dream was riling him up, and that should definitely be considered. i don't think it would be as humiliating if c!tommy didn't make it, is what i'm saying.

for the tommy being toxic to fundy? At least for the examples you gave, to me personally they come acoross as either in a meta way being the cc's bantering or in canon being the characters having banter. If you can send the post with the clips so i can read the tone better that would be cool but if not i will try and find em.

no, these were all in canon. canon isn't only when c!tommy is being nice, it's also when he's being a jerk. /lh

the first one was him threatening c!fundy about kicking him out of l'manberg and undermining his self-worth, and the second one was him trying to get c!sapnap to vote for them via bullying c!fundy.

i found these from a transcript focusing on c!fundy's character, so i don't know exactly where the first one is from, but the second one i am pretty sure is from when the elections were starting with the whole cabinet battle deal and all of that.

there are other instances, and all of them are canon. his personality was never being nice or compassionate, so i'm not really surprised? he still cares about the people he cares about and is very brave, y'know. but this part of his personality is definitely a valid reason for people to dislike him.

I hope the exam went well :). Hope u have a great day! (Ps i think theres something called a submission box to send in pictures? Am not entirely sure sry)

it would've gone well but my work-speed is a tad too slow for the schooling system (considering i'm three years younger than my classmates,,, probably that's also a factor) so probably not despite the fact i knew everything and would've aced it if i only had more time. i did as well as i could so i'm not worried about it, but thanks!

i think you're thinking submissions. sadly, i tested it and it doesn't work on anons, so idk how you'd solve that, maybe make a burner account?

Curious anon here one point you may wanna include in the redemption essay is that c!tubbo or c!tommy do not necessarily have to forgive him. What's important is that he recognizes what he did was wrong (exile, beating tommy to death, manipulating them both, etc) and does his best to make amends. Hope this helps! Can't wait to see your essay

it's out, idk if you've seen it yet, and i think i included enough of that so hope it's all good! :)

the mcc update video is out if you are an mcc enjoyer. It's very neat, if you wanna check it out

yeah! i am a fellow mcc enjoyer, saw it already, thanks for telling me though, i'm really hype for today.

Allo curious anon here sorry if the lots of asks bother you. I was just curious if i could share an interesting post i saw today about c!dream :0 (not necessarily negative i think? More of a statement of an often-confused canon)

sure thing! i don't know what you mean by often-confused since, the entire fanbase is very confused always, and often selection bias plays into the perception from both sides, but sure :]

you also sent in a thing for the other anon who said they didn't know what c!dream did that bad; pretty sure they couldn't really be alerted since, not sure if they watch my blog that closely, but i'll summarize your points just in case and add some notes;

the repeated blowing up of l'manberg (in my mind that's largely a positive since i,, despise that country, but fair enough), revealed c!ranboo as a traitor (they seem to be friends so i also,, think that might've been planned between him and enderboo), sent ghostbur away (i don't think c!dream knew it was dangerous for him and wanted to actually hurt him, but idk), participated in fighting against c!sapnap when he killed people's pets (that's only negative against c!sapnap and didn't seem to hurt him much at all), and then the whole vault scene where he was allegedly planning to steal people's things (though saying he would & being stopped beforehand and doing it are two different things, frankly).

so i still agree with the other anon that a lot of the hurt he did "to the entire server" (he only negatively interacted with like,, a half of them) is exaggerated both by the characters and the fandom, but i guess that's a consequence of most people seeing him as a threat to everyone's happiness rather than a complex personality.

Also he was aware of the butcher army going to kill techno but only got involved because he saw an opportunity to get a favor. (As he knew in advance due to him telling techno to get a totem, watching from afar instead of interveing or manipulating tubbo out of it)

i don't understand this at all, i'm sorry. how do you know he only helped techno in order to get a favor? last i remember he was only doing it to protect and strengthen his alliance, and techno came up with the whole favor thing entirely on his own. you might've not watched techno's perspective or their prior interactions, idk, but this really is a misinterpretation in my eyes. /nm

sorry if that is overly dream negative i just wanted to let yall know cus you seemed unaware -curious anon

nah dw, i watch the smp and i watched all of these things happen so, wouldn't say unaware, but thanks.

[nothlits-archive]

Zoe lunarsystem13 / lunar_system13 / lemonscenteddaves / zazberry is a dangerous person.

Other names they may go by are Raven, Cassandra, Luna, and various other system member names but they primarily identify themself as Zoe or the Lunar System and frequently use the number 13 and blue and purple heart emojis as an identifier. As far as I know they are only active on tiktok now, but do have Twitter and Instagram accounts under the above usernames.

This isn't to get attention or to be petty about anything. I just want to be fully open about my experience and I want to be able to explain my feelings concisely in one place. The biggest reason I'm writing this is because I am scared that Zoe will do to other people what they did to me, because they've shown themself to be unrepentant. I attempted to bring things up with them privately when we were still on speaking terms and it resulted in gaslighting about past situations and a complete refusal to listen to or speak to me ending in uninstalling discord to avoid me.

Content warnings for abuse, gaslighting, disordered eating, hospitalization, drugs, alcohol, sexual harassment, cheating, mentions of death. 

Zoe and I dated for about two years from 2018-2020. We broke up in January 2020 and were on speaking terms until early May. We initially broke up amicably because I felt emotionally neglected and wanted to give Zoe the space they needed to work on some personal problems they'd been struggling with for some time by that point. We agreed they needed more time to themself and didn't have the energy to expend on both self betterment and a partner. I wanted to stay friends with them and stop letting myself get hurt by an absent partner. 

A few weeks after breaking up, Zoe and I got into an altercation where it came out that Zoe had, for the entire duration of our relationship, felt that I would never have been able to meet their needs emotionally no matter what I did and elected to never share this with me or end the relationship. They told me they would eventually just make up for my shortcomings by "getting another partner". Zoe and I were both polyamorous, but this is NOT how I practice polyamory and I didn't think it was how they practiced it either. This totally broke me. 

After this, Zoe blocked me on Twitter and discord. Without apologizing to me for anything, they began messaging every friend of mine they had contact info for, "apologizing" for hurting me and trying to spread a narrative that I was telling people the wrong information about them to make them look bad. Some of the people they messaged were people I did not talk to about my personal life and who had no idea that we had even fallen out. Some of them were my closest friends, who thankfully knew Zoe was full of shit and blocked them. They messaged my boyfriend and told him that they thought I'd only started dating him to get back at them for not reading my fanfiction, a claim that absolutely gutted me as it was never something on my mind and I would NEVER commit to a relationship for the sake of petty revenge over a fanfiction. 

I had to message them from a second Twitter account to ask them about what to do with all of their belongings I still had and tell them not to worry about returning mine. I also messaged them that way to explain that what they'd done and said had devastated me and to reprimand them for messaging my friends weird shit about our personal business. They initially completely ignored me for multiple days until I texted their phone and asked them to let me know if they'd read my message so that I could move on and stop worrying about it all. 

When they finally responded, it was with hostility and they only stopped slinging accusations about me when I told them I didn't see them as a bad person (a statement soon to change). We tentatively made up after they did one of their infamous 180s on me and apologized profusely to me, claiming they understood what they did was wrong now. Debatable.

This is where I think it's important to go into the content of our relationship. At the time of it all happening, I felt our relationship was healthy and stable. But red flags are hard to see when you're in it. 

Zoe is a highly manipulative and narcissistic person. If you look up covert narcissism, they fit the bill 100%. They lie intentionally and consistently in order to make themself look innocent. They gaslight people to play the victim. They repeatedly put me into positions where my only option was to comfort them while ignoring my own feelings. If I stood up for myself or got upset at their behavior, I was told I was being cold or they would throw a tantrum about how traumatized they are and how they can't help it. I entered into a second relationship about a year into ours. Zoe was fully aware of and initially supportive of this, but after some time, any time I would bring up my other partner, Zoe would dissolve into accusations that I was going to leave them, accusations that I was ignoring them for my other partner, complaints that because of their disabilities they weren't as good (a repeated subject for them, which I always, always reassured them was not the case and it never was): all of this in order to obtain comfort from me over the existence of someone else in my life. 

At one point, my boyfriend was considering moving out of his unhealthy home to live with a family member over an hour away from me and Zoe went off the rails to both of us, telling us it wasn't fair for us to be near each other in person if they couldn't be there, how they'd been dating me longer so it was their right to be with me first, how my boyfriend should have to stay where he was even though it was a bad environment for him. This was not a plan. It was a vaguely mentioned idea. Nothing ever came of it. Zoe apologized for this, but their possessive behavior never stopped. This interaction made me feel like an object, not a person they supposedly loved. 

Another time, after visiting me, Zoe began harassing me over needing to be able to house them so they could move down to be with me permanently. They expected this to happen in a matter of months. Zoe is disabled and cannot work and at the time did not receive any government assistance. I work in retail and at the time was living with a friend's family. I did not have my own place. I could not afford to singlehandedly support myself, let alone two people. I told Zoe this, and they told me that if I didn't figure it out they were going to die. This devastated me. I cried for hours because of how bad they were making me feel over something out of my control. I could barely type out responses to them besides asking them to stop and apologizing, but Zoe kept telling me that I was acting like I didn't care and was choosing to give up on them.

After this passed, they did what they always did and flipped to affection flooding me: "I'm so sorry baby, it's okay, you didn't do anything wrong at all, I love you so much and know you're trying so hard". 

This sort of on/off behavior was constant. I never knew what was real, or if I'd actually done something wrong, or if Zoe was going to go off on me over the slightest thing. I brought this up to them multiple times. A lot of the time it was met with "I can't help it." Other times, they would apologize and then continue the same behavior. 

I first started telling them I was feeling neglected in October 2019. Nothing changed. When we broke up in January 2020 they told me I never gave them the chance to change or fix anything. They then told me the problems I was having were inherent to their dissociative disorder so it wasn't their fault. They also told me that me breaking up with them made them feel like there was no reason to go on, presumably to make me feel guilty for ending a clearly toxic relationship where they clearly still weren't learning what they were doing was wrong. 

Zoe would frequently accuse me of things I hadn't done and then behave as if those accusations were true. Not limited to: agreeing to mod a discord server my boyfriend made just to keep them out of it on purpose (the link was shared publicly on Twitter where they followed both of us and the server was 3 hours old when they confronted me), abandoning them and not talking to them at all for a week when I was extremely busy every day (I spoke to them at length every single day that week and was not unreachable at any point), many many instances of only being with my boyfriend because I saw them as not good enough due to disability (never true, ever). This led to me never being able to understand my own behavior because Zoe always acted as if I was doing something wrong regardless of whether I was or not. I was guilt tripped a lot for things I didn't even do. I believe Zoe is delusional and genuinely believed these things to be true, but that doesn't change that it hurt and scarred me to be treated this way for so long.

Zoe lied to me about their whereabouts and health frequently. Zoe has DID and many physical health problems they haven't been properly diagnosed yet because of the complex nature of their symptoms. I will not deny Zoe is disabled mentally or physically. But they often used this as a way to get pity or to guilt trip me. Near the end of our relationship, they would disappear for sometimes 14+ hours at a time with no warning. Because of this, I stopped reaching out to them about my feelings or trying to talk to them about anything serious because I had developed a sort of learned helplessness. If I felt that my partner was unreachable, I would spare myself the pain of reaching out and being ignored. My mental health was very poor at this time and I was struggling with my pet being sick and nearly dying. Zoe would tell me they were just sleeping a lot. I knew they were sick and often slept long periods, so I didn't push it but I did keep to myself. They became angry at me for not reaching out to them and told me they couldn't be there for me if I didn't reach out to them and that I didn't want them around. It was a cycle, and I'll admit that I contributed to it, but I did it to protect myself. This is all important because one of Zoe's alters soon told me that Zoe had been lying to me about sleeping and was actually just trying to intentionally keep me from knowing what was really going on, which I won't share because it's not relevant. Finding out my partner was lying to me when they were already being very absent in my life was a hard thing to handle. 

Zoe would also go on to lie about intentionally not eating when they'd told it to me as being physically unable to keep food down because of their Celiac's and lying to me about the length of a serious decline in health that ultimately put them in the hospital. When my pet rabbit, who is like a human child to me, was on the verge of death, Zoe messaged me telling me they were scared they were about to die. When I told them bluntly that they needed to go to the hospital if they truly felt that way, they told me I hurt their feelings and that they didn't literally think they were dying and only said that to me so I'd tell them they weren't dying. While they knew I was in a crisis over potentially losing a pet I consider to be my main emotional support for nearly a decade. Their selfishness is truly limitless and if they think anyone or anything is infringing on their victimhood, they will do whatever they can to get pity and attention.

I cannot confirm that this is a lie, but I have my suspicions about it and it's a toxic situation regardless of whether lying comes into play or not. When Zoe visited me for the first time, they were determined to get and use my thc vape pen. In the past, Zoe told me that weed (and specifically thc) caused them to have seizures and so they did not use it anymore. Because I'd been fed this narrative of how scary the seizures were and how dangerous it was for them and how they couldn't have it anymore, I refused to give them my pen. When I realized how desperate they were, I even hid it. I had to go to work for a few hours one night while they stayed in my home (again, where I live with a friend's family). They became unstable and were essentially begging me to use the pen. I repeatedly said no, saying I wasn't going to be responsible for them having a seizure. They still kept pushing me. Eventually they moved on to threatening to drink alcohol in the house that did not belong to me. They threatened to walk to a liquor store (there isn't one within walking distance and they were all closed). They were unrelenting about the pen. Eventually I gave in because I loved them and they were hurting. They did not have a seizure. I know that now they smoke weed constantly. There's no real proof that they lied to me. It's possible they were misinformed or their health has changed. But they have a long record of lying to look like a victim, and it still stands that they guilt tripped me and cried to me and begged me to give them a substance they had told me would make them sick until I gave in to them. They have openly admitted to intentional automatic lying and see this as being to their benefit.

Despite claiming to be asexual now (they did not for the duration of our relationship), Zoe sexually harassed both my boyfriend and a close friend of mine who I won't name for their privacy. Zoe would send sexual messages to both and sent images and shared nsfw content with one of them without considering boundaries or discomfort of the recipient. They badly triggered my boyfriend and ruined their relationship with him by being predatory. I mention this because I don't want the label of asexual to make anyone think Zoe isn't fully capable of being sexually inappropriate with people. They have a short track record of it. After the incident with my boyfriend, Zoe told me that THEY felt like their heart was being broken and that my boyfriend had manipulated them by being triggered by Zoe's predation. They expected me to comfort them over this and I refused. The entire scenario was brought up to me vaguely with Zoe refusing to give details and trying to simultaneously act as if they were the worst person who'd ever existed and like they were the one being hurt and deserved pity and comfort for being inappropriate. Despite the polyamorous nature of our relationship, I do consider going behind my back to be sexual with my boyfriend to be cheating. Zoe has in the past been accused of cheating by their first ex. They maintain that they didn't, but knowing what I know now about their issues with boundaries, I'm not sure.

In May, I finally decided to try to confront Zoe about the ways they'd hurt me. I brought it up to them in the context of wanting to make them aware of the ways their behaviors could hurt others going forward. Zoe has always been at least outwardly very about doing better and believing people about trauma and trying to fix your mistakes (yes, I realize how stupid I was to believe this now). I thought they would be open to listening to me so they could try to avoid hurting someone else the way I felt hurt. The way this conversation ended up going gutted me worse than anything else has with them. Worse than being told I'd never be good enough. Because it was like the person I knew was just completely gone and I didn't know them at all anymore. 

I brought up the on and off flipping behavior, the emotional manipulation, I provided a screencap of the conversation where they backed me into a corner about needing to figure out how to house them as an example. They responded by telling me I misunderstood the conversation and should've just apologized to them more and been nicer so they wouldn't feel like I didn't care (again, I'd been sobbing uncontrollably and could barely type responses which were mostly "stop", "I'm sorry"). Zoe refused to listen to me about my own trauma. They shut me down. The conversation ended with them telling me I was making them too angry and they'd be back later. They ignored me for four days and, I found out later, uninstalled discord completely to avoid having to read my messages. Instead of having a real-time conversation where we could actually hash things out and I could feel heard if not understood, I resorted to typing up all of my feelings in one message, telling them this was the last I'd be speaking to them because I couldn't keep torturing myself thinking we could be friends, and sent it. 

They replied to me via Twitter days later with a non-apology about how I just don't understand what it's like to have DID and telling me that they don't spend any time thinking about me or what they did to me because they are just so sick that they can't manage it.

This broke me, completely.

Figuring all of this out has been an ongoing process. I truly believed our relationship to be healthy until I began examining things while trying to heal, and realizing the wound just kept going deeper and deeper and deeper. It's been months now since we've spoken and I still can't process everything. I am constantly remembering more fucked up things they said or did to me or my friends. I don't feel like I need to document all of it, especially since it spans such a long time, I only need to give examples of repeated problem behaviors they have given no indication of changing. 

They are gaining a sizeable following on tiktok and that's what scares me. They are so manipulative and cruel and blind to other people's emotions or boundaries. They are self-important and refuse to be told that they're wrong about anything. They will do whatever they can in order to look blameless and innocent. They now claim an identity of self-actualization and I've seen a video where they try to posit that my life is "going poorly" because I don't believe in their religion and listen to a specific podcast about debunking pseudoscience. This is funnier than it is upsetting until you realize it's the same "your life sucks because you don't have the same belief system as me" argument Christians use constantly. Zoe made this statement knowing the trauma I went through regarding religion in childhood. So thanks for that one. It's minor comparatively but it's incredibly tone-deaf and a great example of their eagerness to seem like others are beneath them for arbitrary reasons. 

Zoe does not, as far as I know, have friends, really. All of mine dropped them once they realized what a manipulative person they are. But just knowing they are on a public platform worries me. I am an adult who has been severely traumatized repeatedly and I still fell into their trap. I don't want to think about what they could do if teens or otherwise more impressionable people came to be around them. They are big into social justice and try to seem harmless and allied with minorities to seem even less dangerous, but they absolutely are toxic and unable to acknowledge their wrongdoings in any real way. The last they told me, they were isolating themself to work on things. I don't know if this is true and I have no way of knowing.

I want to end this with self-accountability. I was not and am not perfect. When my relationship with Zoe began, I had just gotten out of an extremely traumatizing situation. I had acute severe dissociative episodes as well as hallucinations and very unstable mood in general as I was adjusting back to being in a safe(r) environment than I had been for the past year. I acted out and lashed out a lot. All of this was apologized for in the best way that I knew how and I have done my best to change my behavior going forward. I consider myself to be in a much better space now mentally. I am always willing to work on problem behavior as long as I'm made aware it exists. There are things I did wrong in this relationship, and I've thought a lot about it, questioning myself and catching myself in old ways of thinking to correct myself now in all of my relationships. I didn't write this to pretend like I did nothing wrong. I am not innocent. But not being innocent doesn't mean these things didn't happen to me, or that they couldn't happen to someone else if I don't at least try to warn people. 

Please don't message Zoe and definitely don't try to argue with them. Just don't engage with them. They've been given a chance to address their behavior maturely and they turned it down in favor of continuing to play the victim in public. Anyone trying to instigate anything with them is just going to give them more fuel to act that way. 

I have already been treated like a liar for some of this information or had people believe Zoe over me on whatever accusations they'd like to make about me. That's been damaging but there's nothing I can really do about it. I'm open to answering any questions but I'm also going to ask that if you do message me about this, please be civil about it. I'm putting myself in a vulnerable place by writing all of this and I am already scared of the outcome. But I routinely convince myself that I'm making things up because of the nature of being gaslit so much. So I needed a written record of that even if Zoe doesn't like it. 

If you read this, thank you. I've been internalizing a lot of things. Getting my experiences out somewhere concise will hopefully help my healing process. 

[evilelitest2]

Why did Biden win. We were doing so well at first how did we end up with this...

Well the short answer is, the progressives in 2020 acted exactly like Clinton’s camp did in 2020, and then got the same result.  A lot of Sanders voters were very upset about how Clinton in 2016 was very presumptive about demanding there vote, and refusing to make any effort to actually unify the power, and yet that was my experience of the Sanders camp in 2020

Like 2020 was going to be a difficult year for us anyways, Biden had a tone of advantages regardless of who ran against him. Former VP, decades of political experience, connections in the DNC, reputation as a team player, plus ease with the media.   Most importantly, he had the support of Obama. And to be clear, in many ways the left actually won from a policy perspective, i am reminded a great of how the Religious Right took over the Republican party.  Reagan was not there choice in 1980, but they were able to use him to get a lot of policies they wanted, and that has proven to be true for Biden, the democratic party has moved dramatically to the left in the last thee years

But even with that being said, the progressive made some pretty major mistakes, all across board.  And I think a lot of it boils down to what you said 

“We were doing so well at first”

Cause...we weren’t.  We just looked like we were because the first three states were no representative of the party as a whole.  

Ok lets talk through the mistakes the progressives made 

1) The first and foremost issue is that we made almost no effort to win over people who were already on our side.   We basically did the exact same thing Clinton did in 2016 where we basically tried to bully the party into getting onboard except unlike Clinton, we are only about 30% of the party, which doomed us.  And this just permeated the progressive movement across the board, the general tone of the left on social media was extremely condescending and focused mostly on finding enemies rather than allies.  But more importantly, this was literally Bernie Sander’s teams strategy, they tried to win with only 30% of the vote which was just a bad plan.  Like the entire plan of Sanders team was rather than do outreach just hope that the moderates are divided and so when they rallied (which was entirely predictable) he was crushed.  speaking of which 

2) Bernie Sanders should not have been the candidate, he should have run for a few months and then dropped out and endorsed Elizabeth Warren.  Beyond the fact that he is a 78 year old man who had a heart attack, the larger problem is that Sanders brought up the memories of the 2016 primary, and about 20% of the party was bitter towards him for that.  Now I think that is unfair and they should be bitter against Clinton instead, but politics aren’t fair.  The progressives should have given the larger left wing movement a whole new face, one with less controversy and a chance to appeal to people not already on our side.  Which leads to the larger problem

3) The centrists hoped to turn Elizabeth Warren and Sanders fans on each other and luckily the fans provided.  The treatment of Elizabeth Warren by the left was massive self inflicted injury, because she was making the correct choice to try to appeal to the moderates, knowing she couldn’t win with 30% of the vote.  Speaking of which

4) Making Medicare For All the Line in the Sand.  

Sanders campaign ran itself more as an effort to change minds and than actually win votes.  Sanders did an absolutely great job of getting people to become more open to M4A....while getting absolutely crushed on the issue of healthcare.  The thing is M4A was a terrible issue to make the keystone of progressiveness, because the majority of democrats opposed it. M4A isn't something that can be delivered in a single term that is something you want to get to over the course of a few elections, steadily expanding Medicare/Obamacare until everybody is included, the US is too decentralized to do otherwise.  Sanders did managed to get a lot of democrat's to change there mind, but that is only half the equation in politics. You also have to convince them that you are able to do it, Warren was right to try to triangulate, but by then it was already a line in the sand.

5) Wrong focus.  

Basically the democratic party has four groups who are in a period of transition 

The non white population which is becoming more democratic and more left wing

Young people who are becoming increasingly radical 

Working class Whites with no college degree who are increasingly moving to the right

Suburban middle class whites with college degrees, in particular women, moving to the left.  

A lot of the progressives have hyper focused on young people and white working class voters despite the fact that young people are unreliable votes and the WWC are largely lost to white nationalism already.  The left has a bad habit of romanticizing rural neo confederates because they are fixed on a very Soviet vision of the “working class” which really hurt them in the primary.  

This also played a big part in why Sanders didn’t win the black vote, despite a lot of progressive policies being quite popular among the African American community.  There is a certain element of the socialist left who seem to think that white nationalists are lost souls who can saved through historical materialism (to be clear, sanders himself doesn’t seem to hold these views)  This isn’t helped by some of these people talking about voting for Trump out of spite.  Speaking of which 

6) The progressives need to clean house.  The last two years have just been a never ending train of toxicity coming out of the left, especially Sanders stans.  Now when it comes to talking to Sander fans in the real world, they always seem nice and reasonable, so I am pretty sure this is a minority who happen to be overly present online, but this isn’t a fully isolated problem, the left has a very bad habit of valuing auto cannibalism and performative politics over results and it has been pretty ugly.  I have spent the last few years basically being attacked by people who I thought were on my side because my politics were very slightly different and because I think harassment is bad even when its done by people with socialist avatars.  A lot of leftist communities have happily embraced Gamergate tactics just with a left wing ideology and that backfires on us (see also what happened with Natalie Wynn).  Harassing journalists, deliberately spreading conspiracy theories, and attacking allies isn’t just a crime, it is a mistake. Sander's faction is majority people who want America to move to the left, but it is so reflectively opposed to any form of self criticism that it has also become infested with grifters, bad actors, conspiracy theorists, nuts, rightist in sheep clothing, opportunists, wanna be celebrates, and abusers looking for a cause to justify there toxicity. They aren't just bad people on there own, they actively hurt the movement while claiming to guide it.

7) LIke Clinton did in 2016, the progressive got pretty insular and didn’t realize how out of touch we were.  Biden was pretty popular with most of the democratic party and we never really made an effort to understand why.  A lot of sanders fans think that the primary was faked because they have made no attempt to understand the change. The Sanders camp was really bad at this, especially towards Warren voters.  It was probably also a bad idea to equivocate the democratic party with the Republicans, that earned a lot of ill will from the voters in the democratic party, you know....the people you need to vote for you

8) We didn’t focus on Biden.  The fact is, Biden was the main threat from the start, but the progressives focused far more energy on Mayor Pete, Harris, Gillibrand and even Bloomberg, people who were far smaller threats.  Frankly, we should have been encouraging these people,  in order to keep the centrist divided.  Sanders fans should have celebrated when Mayor Pete won Iowa, he couldn't possibly win the primary but if he lasted longer that would have taken votes away from Biden. You can't win elections without trying to understand who you are running against.

9) Finally, we had too many unsavory allies, who we should have never associated with.  Chapo House, Red Scare, Max blumenthal, Caleb Maupin, Jimmy Dore, The Young Turks, Peter Coffin and the larger “Dirtbag Left” movement is and always has been a toxic mess of bigotry and abuse, and they taint the movement as a whole.  Even those who aren’t just the alt right wearing Marx masks still have this problem of viewing “liberals” as a greater threat than the literal neo Nazis.  And anybody who is like “identity politics are just a distraction from the real issues” is basically a giant weakness in the movement.  

now there are a bunch of other factors that were not the fault of the left and would have effected us regardless, but the left made a lot of mistakes this time around.  And instead of dealing with it, a lot of the Far Left have just retreated into fantasy rather than deal with why they lost. Losing an election sucks, but you learn from your mistakes and you move on.

[omfgtrump]

The Don Gets The Boot

FUCK YEAH!!!

ABOUT TIME!!!

Americans have voted in the first female Vice President. A mixed race Black Indian whose mother was an immigrant. Now that’s the idea of America!!!

Yes, The Don gets the boot, but how many Republicans will remain boot-lickers? Seems like Lindsey Graham has his tongue stuck to the bottom of The Don’s shoe. Congratulations Lindsey, in a unanimous vote, you win the “Sycophant of the Decade Award.”

Mittens Romney, whose occasional expression of dismay over The Don’s actions, took off the Mittens and took The Don to task. But honestly, I’m tired of hearing that Mittens shows courage and independence. Crawling out of your bunker every few months to venture your dissent only to slink back in to hiding leaves me cold. Where is your voice on The Don’s atrocious handling of the pandemic? Umm, thought so. I guess that makes sense, as you are the one who thought it was okay to tie your dog, like a piece of luggage, to the top of the car, and believed he was having fun. That takes a lot of denial and wishful thinking.

Many are shocked that The Don decided to tell the American people that he won before all the votes were counted.  Really?

Let’s examine the reasons why he thought won.

It was unfair that pollsters were counting votes after election day, even though the ballots were cast before or on election day.

He didn’t understand that you can’t choose which states to count votes.

He didn’t think it was legal for people from rat-infested cities like Baltimore to vote. So unfair, so unfair.

There are so many more Red states then Blue ones. If he has more Red M&M’s than blue ones, red wins, right?

Millions of people dressed up as other people and voted twice. The Don said: We have evidence of this. A detailed report will be coming out soon. QAnon is working on it as I speak.

Putin promised me that I would win.

There is evidence that at least 5 million dead people voted, and since Joe Biden is practically dead, they felt closer to him and voted for him. You’ve seen the “Walking Dead,” that stuff is real.

Most importantly: I never lose, so this is all fake news.

Frankly, anyone who understands The Don’s pathology, his malignant narcissism, could have written his ludicrous rant. Translated, it goes: I am The Don, I control the world; if it doesn’t go the way I render it, there is something wrong with the world as there is never anything wrong with me. That’s why I win, win, win; and never lose.

His response to the results of the election are identical to his response to the pandemic. “This can’t be happening because I didn’t deem it to be.” Once again we witness The Don’s delusional process at work, hoping if he repeats over and over that the election is illegal, rigged, a fraud, a conspiracy against the greatest president who ever lived; and that it is he, who is democracy greatest defender.

The next 74 days will be like no other transition of power in this country. Anyone believing The Don will go lightly into the night is living in their own alternative reality. Everything he has done and said before tells us that he will do whatever he can to burn the house down. The chances that he can accept defeat graciously are zero! It is not in his DNA. The Don’s entire life is predicated on destroying others in order to avoid losing: losing exposes his underlying smallness and the humiliation it brings is intolerable. He will do anything and say anything to twist reality so he doesn’t have to experience this. Up until this point in his life, he has miraculously escaped every situation that could have confronted him with his true self. He will never accept defeat and when he eventually leaves the White House (willingly?) to start Trump TV, he will turn his rage toward Joe Biden, just like he did to Barack Obama. He will continue to be a force in politics and continue to stoke fear and resentment and seek revenge on those who have usurped his power because that is the only way he can protect himself from connecting to his smallness. The good news is that those of us who do not want to ever hear from him again won’t have to because he no longer will be president. However, his desire to remain relevant to his supporters will make him a real force in Republican politics and he will have no qualms inciting people to violence. Maybe his first guest will be Steve Bannon, who recently called for the beheading of Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Yes, The Don has lost; and the country, for a few moments, can exhale. Millions took to the streets in celebration. Church bells rang out in Paris like they did after the Germans surrendered; in London, there were fireworks. The perpetual state of anxiety that many Americans were thrust into for four years has been mitigated, though pharmaceutical companies are probably upset as profits may decline because fewer people will renew their prescriptions for anti-depressants and Xanax.

The Don made democracy fray at its seams, but the people pushed back. Democracy prevailed. Enough of us felt that another four years would catapult us into an autocracy. It is remarkable that nearly 150 million people voted during a pandemic.

It is also remarkable that 70 million people voted for a man who separated children from their parents, supported White Supremacists, banned Muslims, called Mexicans rapists, is a vowed sexual predator (Access Hollywood tape), was impeached (remember that), is in Putin’s pocket and did nothing when he was given high level intelligence information that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill Americans, paid no taxes, covered for the Saudi Prince who murdered a Washington Post reporter and attacked science promulgating an alternative reality (with the heinous silence and collusion of Republicans) that the coronavirus is about to take a hike, when we are being ravaged and setting records for infections with 1,000 people dying every day.

Experts are saying that by the time Biden takes the reigns that there could more than 200,000 cases a day and increasing death tolls. It didn’t have to be that way, and the task before Biden and Kamala is enormous. Long after The Don is gone, our country will be paying the price for his incompetence, indecency, and heinous disregard for human life. Rather than being closer to a point where would are containing the spread, we are heading in to a very dark winter that will take a much longer time to come out of. The economic costs will be graver than necessary and tens of millions of people will continue to struggle with existential issues of food and housing insecurity. As for The Don, he will seek refuge cheating at golf and not give one iota of thought to the suffering of the American people.

For people of color, members of the LGBQT community, Muslims, immigrants and other marginalized groups, there is relief that his malignant man has been banished and hope that Biden and Kamala Harris’s policies will embrace, protect and uplift them. But these communities also see the numbers of Americans who voted for a vengeful, carnival barker who has deceived them into believing he is speaking for them, that he cares about them. Despite all they have seen and heard, his capacity to stoke fear, resentment and divisiveness allowed them to cast their ballot for a White Supremacist, a man totally void of empathy and morality.  What message does this communicate to these communities? What does this say about America and its capacity to move forward and embrace equity and inclusion?

It galls me when I hear pundits create moral equivalents between the Right and the Left’s extremism and the need for people to come together. I am all for coming together; this country will have a hard time surviving if we don’t. But the Right in this country (which at this point is the Republican Party) has been stoking racial animus, creating obstacles to voting, promulgating abhorrent and dangerous conspiracy theories, stoking violence by White Supremacists groups, and working against equity and inclusion for years. The violence at Charlottesville did not have good people on both sides. Torch-bearing White Supremacist and Nazi groups chanting anti-Semitic tropes are not the same as people fighting for racial and social justice. The oppressed fighting back is not the same as the oppressor asserting itself. Fighting for social justice shouldn’t even be a movement: it should just be. But as sobering as it is, this is America.

But America is also the place where a Black Indian Woman with an immigrant mother can become vice president. Let’s hope that that the part of us that could make that happen is the part that moves us forward during these challenging times.

P.S

I had planned to end this blog with the defeat of The Don, but given the way this transition is going to go down, I thought I would stick around and wait until he actually leaves the oval office and Biden is sworn in. Hold on to your seats!

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