#and people are gonna blame her for it! I JUST KNOW IT!

[vaspider]

So, something happened last night that has been sitting heavily on my heart ever since. I'm not naming names for a reason, so don't ask. This is a clear example of something that's happened with increasing regularity.

When the Amsterdam attacks started happening last night, the first thing I thought of was a pair of my friends who had within the last 48h - I thought - been in Amsterdam to get married. (I got the place they traveled to wrong, bc it was late and I was tired, but that's not the point.) These friends are a Black frum Czech lesbian & her new wife, an in-progress convert who's seriously ill. I shared the CNN link on it & spoke with friends on a very small Discord server about how terrified I was that my friends had (again, I thought) narrowly missed being in the city while Jews were being advised to stay inside and, if they had to go out, to remove any visible symbols of their Jewishness.

Here's where I reach up and underline the word frum in that previous paragraph. Got it? Asking that friend to remove her visible signs of being Jewish is like asking her to go outside naked.

And here's the thing that's gonna stick with me for a long time: someone that I used to consider a longtime friend, who rarely, if ever, spoke on that server, popped up almost 4 hours after I was talking about how much this scared me about the relative safety of my friends to share a tweet containing the phrase Judeo-Nazis in order to contradict the CNN article and bring up what she apparently thought was the important part of the story:

"The Israelis started it," according to her & her "Judeo-Nazis" source.

That was what she thought was important to that story. Not that random fucking Jews are getting attacked on the streets of Amsterdam, not that I was relieved that my friends weren't in danger while still dealing with the fear and the shock of feeling they had been so close to it, but that I had to know, right away, that contrary to what CNN (and every other major news outlet talking about it) was reporting, this random person on Twitter referring to Israelis at a fucking soccer game and random visibly Jewish people of any nationality on the street in Amsterdam as Judeo-Nazis said that the Israelis fucking started it.

And like, no, they fucking didn't, but in context, the context in which I was speaking in a small group about my fear for two friends who weren't at the fucking soccer match but who I thought might be close to the danger, does that fucking matter? What does that have to do with "fuck, I think my friends were just there"?

Nothing. And yet - for some reason - that's the first thing that needed to be addressed in this person's mind.

A lot of Jews find our circles shrinking these days. Antisemitism is on the rise, and if we're not experiencing the direct slap in the face of people we thought were friends prioritizing "you know, the Jews started it" over anything else, we're watching people we thought better of make excuses for it, or tell us that we should gladly accept "our share" of the blame for the actions of a foreign government. (Yes, that has been said to me directly, recently.)

If I weren't so fucking stubborn, I would fold into myself & just keep company with the few and the trusted, a circle that gets smaller and smaller every day. But... I'm stubborn as hell. Maybe that'll fuck me over someday worse than it already has, I dunno.

I don't have a pithy closing for this. I'm just sad. It hurts to watch people that I used to trust vomit up shit like that tweet. It hurts that it's getting worse.

[netscapenavigator-official]

I’ve seen a few other perspectives that I also agree with, and I’m gonna go over them here:

#1 - No matter who we ran, we were gonna get fucked. Biden was unpopular, and he inherited an economy that, thanks to COVID, was going to inflate no matter what. I’ve seen a lot of people say that if Trump hadn’t flopped COVID, he probably could’ve snatched a second term in 2020. Then, we’d be in the position they are because, like Biden, there wouldn’t have been annything Trump could’ve done about post-COVID inflation. As a result, Trump would’ve been blamed for the post-COVID inflation, resulting in an overbearing Democrat win in 2024.

#2 - I tuned into a New Zealander’s “day after” live stream, and she said that the general consensus there was that Harris failed to separate herself from Biden enough, and I also agree with that (in hindsight). People didn’t like Biden. He was old, and he was a hold-over President. In 2020, he even promised that he’d only run for one term, then he’d step down to allow someone actually worthy to run. The only reason Biden was so well supported in 2020 was because people knew it wasn’t about supporting him. It was about defeating Trump. Despite his genuine economic improvements and strides in legislation for 2020-2022, people still blamed him for post-COVID inflation. Not to mention how much his name was tarnished after that debate and his refusal to speak highly of Palestine.

We know #2 is (at least partially) true because Harris initially led the polls. When she took over, people were excited! She was a young, progressive face running a campaign for hope, change, and doing things differently. Biden making the shocking and radical choice to step down made people assume that this was a major shift in ballsy-ness for Democrats (and thusly Harris). That’s why Obama won as a black man: He gave people hope of change, and it could’ve helped Harris win as a black woman, too. However, Harris made the same mistake as Clinton: She gave up her radical change campaign for a lukewarm centrist one that basically said “we’re gonna do what we were doing, except slightly different.” People didn’t want the same thing. They wanted change. And we know this because as Harris slowly trekked right, her polling numbers slowly fell back to Biden’s level. People stopped seeing her as the cool new future, and they started seeing her as Biden 2.0. People did not want Biden 2.0.

I also think Palestine played an important role in all this. I don’t think it was any of these three factors separately, but rather all of them working together. By refusing to support Palestine, Harris essentially sealed her fate. People thought she was the change they needed. The big thing people were mad at Biden for was his stance on Palestine. Whether they admit it or not, when Harris took over, people put in their heads that she would separate herself from Biden’s Palestine stance, like she had with his past. But when she refused to break away from Biden’s stance on Palestine, it immediately made younger voters realize that she was just Biden 2.0, and they didn’t want that. It felt like a rug pull, and it discouraged Gen Z.

Support for Palestine was a key to a door. A door that was preventing her from going further left and tapping into the same, younger, more radical voter base that Obama did. She worried that Gen Z’s “we won’t vote for you” rhetoric would cost her the election. She never even considered that sticking to her guns might result in silent (but angry) votes from those people. But to her, she needed more votes, and she couldn’t go further left. So what did she do? She went right. And as she did, her polling numbers declined. That discouraged the people who initially loved her when she first took over the campaign. And it didn’t entice centrist and republicans because, as OP said, why would they vote for the Diet Conservative when they can just vote for the full-fledged one?

I think the younger, Gen Z vote was crucial in 2020. I think it was also crucial in preventing the Red Wave in 2022. And I think it could’ve been crucial in this election for finally ridding this country of Trump and the MAGA Cult. But… Harris didn’t appeal to the young… so they didn’t show up for her. As Bernie said, she gave up on them. So they gave up on her. I, personally, don’t think the swing for Gen Z men is as bad as it’s being made out to be. I think it’s being inflated by the fact that a disproportionate amount of Zoomers simply didn’t vote because they felt like Harris was just Biden 2.0.

Will Democrats learn from this? I hope so, but I’m not holding my breath.

I especially hope (if there are future elections that mean anything) that we can cripple the GOP in the 2026 mid-terms to at least stop their rein of terror. I also hope that when 2028 comes around, more people learn from Harris’s moral betrayal and take the Primaries seriously, so we can send an overwhelming message to the DNC about the type of candidate we want.

I don’t know if these things will happen. I worry that the dismay we’re seeing from the left is a sign for future “what’s the point in voting” mindsets. However, I’m hopeful that, once the dust settles, the sorrow fades to drive, and it lights a fire under the asses of the American left, so we can successfully drag Democrats more left, no matter how much they claw, kick, and scream.

And before I close this post off, I’ve seen another post floating around Tumblr that’s akin to “‘Voting every four years is so tiring!’ Well you shouldn’t be voting just every four years, anyway.” And I agree. This election may have nailed the door shut, but every hammer has a dual-sided rear for a reason. The 2026 mid-terms and 2028 primaries could be CRUCIAL in not only stopping the GOP, but making sure we get a GOOD candidate who can take on Trump or Jance Dance Vance or whoever. People like to only screaming “VOTE!” for the presidential race, but it’s time we look elsewhere. The next mid-term and primaries are what we SHOULD be focusing on. They’re closer than you think. Don’t less this discourage you. Don’t let the future discourage you. In less than 2 years we CAN throw a wrench in this administration’s plans.

Also, P.S., in case anyone says it, in my personal opinion, a 2024 primary wouldn’t have saved us from this fate. Harris had the name. She had the Biden admin’s funds. She had a “hopeful change” campaign, at the start. She had the support, at the start. She had the experience as vice president. In my opinion, she absolutely would have been chosen if a 2024 primary would’ve happened. People loved her at first, remember, and she had far more DNC support, money, vp experience, and notoriety that any challenger could’ve mustered. Her stance as reigning Vice President would’ve done A LOT of work. She would have won a 2020 primary. It wasn’t her rise to candidacy that caused this. It was what she did after she got it.

I think there are some takeaways here, if we want to learn from this.

First: third-party voters were irrelevant. In no swing state did left-leaning third-party voters add up to enough to push Harris over.

Second: many progressive policies and politicians outperformed Harris.

Third: appealing to Republicans did not work.

It has never worked, in the US or in Europe, we've seen time and again that giving ground to right wing policies only legitimizes them and voters then prefer the original. For example, if you worry about immigration, and both sides are saying it's a problem, who do you trust more to handle it?

Fourth: polls were pretty accurate. There were months, years, really, of debate about polling being broken, which demographics were underrepresented, which were overrepresented, herding, hopes that they were overcorrecting for the last two misses on Trump, but they ended up closer than anybody wanted. Which also means that Biden would have lost by even worse.

Fifth: on the one hand, people should hopefully see this graphic and realize there's no minority to scapegoat:

On the other hand, I'm seeing a lot of people take it as a sign the country has simply shifted to the right in a huge, undeniable way that's depressing and ominous and feels hopeless. After all, Trump will win the popular vote by a lot, the first time a Republican has in decades.

However, this should be taken in conjunction with these numbers:

Now THIS is something that's open to further analysis and that can be worked with.

Why did so many Democrat voters not show up?

Here are some potential reasons for this, the truth most likely being a combination of at least several of them:

She's a Black-Indian woman. There's no denying the racism and misogyny among the US electorate, but given earlier polls where she was leading, I don't think this was the main or certainly only reason.

She was seen as too progressive/leftist. Again, by virtue of our racist, misogynistic electorate and our billionaire-owned media, Harris was seen as too extreme left by a lot of people, not just because of policies, but because inherently, her identity itself is extreme left to them. I personally don't think this was a crucial factor because, again, she had been leading when she was going stronger on the progressive messaging, other progressive policies and politicians outperformed her, and a lot of the people who think she's too extreme are Republicans who'd never vote for her. I just don't think it's a good enough reason for the millions of Democrats who didn't show.

Palestine. There's a coalition of pro-Palestine people, not just Muslims and Arab Americans but leftists and other POC too, but numerically, their vote for third parties made no difference. Did enough shift to Trump or not show up at all? Certainly in Michigan they swung to the right, but would that have made a difference? Did they matter in other less tangible ways, e.g., a lot of the same active progressives who'd have been out campaigning simply voted quietly for Harris and left it at that? How much of a distraction was this for Dems, having to constantly address Gaza as opposed to putting forth their own policies, and did it contribute to the overall perception of them being incompetent and weak and bringing chaos when people were tired of it? I think Palestine did have an effect, but enough to swing it overall...?

Not being progressive enough. A lot of people will point to Palestine and immigration, the decision to campaign with Liz Cheney and Mark Cuban and court Republican moderates, stifling Walz, and various other shifts that abandoned the left for the center and then the left didn't show up while the center went for Republicans as they always do, but the left isn't that large. I think, if this one point is a factor, it's more that it was simply difficult for normal voters to show up when they didn't really know what the candidate stood for, aside from "more of the same" and "not Trump".

Biden. When you have a ton of people unhappy with where the country is going, including their biggest priority, the economy, being tied to an unpopular incumbent was going to be tough, especially when, as a Black-Indian woman, she would be judged as disloyal if she broke too much from him. Nevertheless... People were unhappy with him and his administration.

Ultimately, I think there's a lot to learn and I hope Dems will.

I think we're in for a tough time and we're going to need community and solidarity, not fighting among ourselves.

[cumbunnywitch]

I've seen at least one, but posts saying not to blame the people who didn't vote for Harris because whatever are fully in the wrong and they always will be.

You chose moral high grounding and purity culture over the possibility that our protests would work. You chose "she leaned too right in her campaign" over "Trump and the people who want to puppeteer him are going to get a lot of people killed." You chose the democrats being idiots over the republicans want a racist rapist.

You didn't choose? No, you had a choice. You used yours. If you chose not to vote because you wanted to use your non-vote as a voice to show the democrats that they have to win your vote, you're still going to get your face eaten by the leopards. They aren't going to hear you anyway.

Protests work on the left side of our shit-ass two party system because they at least pretend to care.

Here's just, off the top of my head, the things you decided were less important than telling the democratic party "No you have to be good enough":

Student Loan Forgiveness or Relief

Healthcare

Trans Rights

LGBTQIA Safety

Abortion rights

Palestine/Gaza

Ukraine

Industry Regulation(notice all those recalls on food lately?)

Cost of Living

Police Reform

Taxes

There's no such thing as a single-issue voter, not anymore. The right is diametrically opposed to making any of the above better for anyone, whether or not they voted for that shitstain, unless you're very rich, and very white, and a very straight man.

Honestly, if you voted for Jill Stein, at least you fucking voted. Her numbers won her absolutely nothing but at least you voted.

But no. "Don't vote for Harris because she's not good enough! She's running a campaign to secure moderate republicans!" Yea no fucking shit. That's what they've been doing for the last forever. Yea, it still sucks. But most moderate liberals who actually vote still struggle with that list up there. There's literally a democrat trans woman who just got voted in who wants to support Israel's genocidal campaign of murdering every Palestinian.

And you know what? If she sees that line, she might actually stop and think and move a little bit over to my perspective. Every conservative sees that line and immediately thinks "Yea kill the fuckin' brown people!" because they don't consider them fucking people.

If you didn't vote because you saw people saying Harris wasn't leftist enough, not liberal enough, she was a former prosecutor or the democrats haven't done enough for you in the last 4 years, you fell for the Russian psyop. You fell for the propaganda.

Does it suck that Harris wanted to court the swing states and their moderately conservative voting base over to vote for the first woman president? Yea, it's been a shitty idea for decades and they've been doing it for as long as I've been voting. Obama was the center-ist centerist ever, and he still got healthcare reform passed. He also drone striked a lot of people and gave banks billions of dollars when the financial sector faceplanted after trying to balance on a pin for the longest time.

I was gonna add a read-more or chop this up better but no. You get to read the whole thing. If you didn't vote, or you voted for trump, I want you gone. Unfollow me, block me, because you clearly either don't care enough to prevent our slide into authoritarianism and a fixed court for the next 60 years, or you actively hate me.

[bonesashesglass]

Okay the election tags are trending right now and I just have to say, stop doomscrolling. Looking at posts of people being bitter and hopeless and placing blame on each other without offering solutions or ways to help is not going help in any way.

Everyone’s acting like we’re gonna start digging our graves. I even saw one person say not to say anything negative about the incoming party to protect yourself. Which is just, the absolute worst possible way to react in this situation.

I saw people blaming gen z, I saw people blaming third party voters - for the love of God stop doing that. People who see that Harris and Biden are actively supporting and funding a genocide are not to blame for not voting for her. Gen Z should not be called conservatives and Nazis (as a whole, I’m fully aware that a lot gen z people are like that, but they’re a minority) when in reality they’re the ones that were doing the most for Palestine (student protests ring a bell?).

If you want someone to blame, blame the democrats. People have been saying for a year that they will not vote for them if they continue to support a genocide, and they chose to ignore it. They decided that their imperialist and genocidal agendas were more important than appealing to their base, and this is the result.

So let them know! Call! Write! Tweet! Get in their face and tell them that if they don’t start listening to their base and actually implementing progressive policies this will happen again! Now is our chance to force democrats into a corner, don’t waste it on pointing fingers at each other!

It’s okay to mourn, it’s okay be depressed for a little, but when it turns into this - into defeatism and bitterness and toxicity and turning against each other, when we need to stand undivided more than ever - that’s a problem. That’s when you need to stop doomscrolling, and take action.

We’re looking at four years of a Trump presidency and we’re not gonna survive if we act like this. TAKE ACTION! FIGHT! Spit in the eye of anyone that tries to take away your rights. Every single conservative law or legislature that’s proposed in the coming months needs to be met with loud opposition.

For the love of God - resist! It’s like Americans forgot the meaning of the word! If scrolling through these tags fills you with a sense of dread, then get out of them! They’re not good for anything and they’re not going to help!

We can fight this, and we will fight this. Organize and take action. Defeatism is not an option

[local-lamppost]

Initial thoughts cause it's 4am

Spoilers

First off, wow... it's really good. I've been saying that if season 2 is as good as season 1 Arcane would be my new favorite show and we are on track. Anyway, just gonna list stuff until I can process/rewatch a billion times

Mel lived! I was so certain that they would just kill her off, make that Ambessa's motive (give Jayce a reason to keep fighting the Undercity) but it's much more interesting keeping her involved in the narrative. Love her trying to bother understand and undermine her mother. Those Black Rose guys best not have hurt a hair on her perfect head.

Speaking of. What in the Utena are these Black Rose magic people? I love the look of their magic. I wonder how they can corrupt people. Is it a spell? Do they slip them something?

Love how the divide of Jayce and Viktor was done. Jayce betrayed Viktor's wishes of destroying the Hexcore. Last season, Viktor wanted to forget about using the core to save himself after Sky and begged Jayce to destroy it when the core wouldn't allow Viktor himself to do it. In Jayce's mind though, the core is the solution to Viktor's problems. He didn't know it killed Sky or that it can influence Viktor, but all Viktor can comprehend is that Jayce didn't trust him. Didn't keep his promise. And this is fresh off of Jayce's season 1 antics against the Undercity, so Viktor's faith in his partner was already shaken. Viktor's also comfortable in his mortality/death, even though he wants to prolong it like every other human, but Jayce can't fathom loosing Viktor-the man who saved his life and made his dreams reality.

(Side note: Am I a JayVik shipper? I never considered myself one, but after writing this...)

JINX HAS A KID! I love this choice. Give Jinx a kid so she is able to learn what Silco and Vi had to go through with her, that no matter how big or dangerous a scheme to take this child into account. The confrontation in ep 3 really showed what Jinx will have to consider now that this kid's decided to adopt her as an older sister or something. Especially nice detail of how Vi-who has always had to consider the kids in her life-immediately stops fighting and starts looking for ways to keep the kid safe.

I was wondering how Jinx would loose a finger and Caitlyn shooting it off to save Vi is just- The fact that the only way these two can show they care about Vi when it comes to each other is by hurting the other.

Sevika's new arm is fantastic. It's a peace offering from Jinx, but also a way for Jinx to feel better (it was something she could fix). The mechanics of it are really fun. It reminds me of Kite's weapon from HxH with how it didn't always work/give her what she wanted in the fight. I especially love the victory rockets and built in theme song.

Ambessa is so interesting. Between her character song to the introduction of just what she is fighting against, I am very intrigued. She reminds me of Cersei Lannister, except she loves her kids as more than just extensions of herself (as of what we've seen, but I think that'll stick). Her using Salo to establish herself-which also keeps Mel safe by distancing her-but also dropping him in order to prop up Cait at her first opportunity is such a clever move. She truly is the fox and the wolf, but she is above all a mama bear.

Not much to say about Heimerdinger or Ekko yet, but I am definitely curious to see what they do about the wild runes with Jayce. The three of them have a fun dynamic, what with Heimerdinger still being peeved about magic/being ousted, Ekko hating topside and having a new reason to do so with them poisoning his tree, and Jayce being recently seperated and divorced from both his partners.

Vi is an enforcer. I didn't know how they were gonna handle this, but they did it so well. Of course she wants to fix things for the people her sister hurt. She feels responsible. She can say she doesn't blame herself, but how true is that? Why else would she be wearing a badge if not for her guilt? She is desperate to do something right and being an enforcer seemed to be a way to make Cait happy, get her gauntlets (what she believes is necessary to make any kind of change), and be first in line in the hunt for Jinx. She says that her sister is dead, that Jinx is a desecration to Powder's memory, that they are not sisters but isn't it supposed to be 'nothing is going to change that'? How much of all this is just something Vi is telling herself to keep going? Cait is her motive right now, but after ep 3 I definitely see why she starts spiraling.

(2 Side note: Her new best friend/drinking buddy is such a real one. They have a bender in the gutter together and now he's following her into and out of the enforcers. I wonder if he knew Vander? In any case, he is a delight.)

Cait and Vi kissed... CAIT AND VI KISSED! Then NOTHING HAPPENED AFTER! NOTHING! No immediate break up, nope.

So Cait. I love Cait and I am hyped for her arc this season. I am ready to fight tooth and nail for her. I am a Caitlyn defender. So what she's being manipulated into leading a military state due to her grief/unresolved anger/guilt/Ambessa being better at this than her, she looks amazing in her cape. It balances.

Seriously though, the writing for Cait especially is so solid. She is desperate to hold herself and her family together, to protect her city. She still wants to protect the innocent, to heal the Undercity, but her anger at a select few of those she wants to help is clouding the greater image for her. Vi seems to be acting as her better half, the side that cares for the innocent-the protector. Ambessa is the agressor, encouraging Cait to take drastic military action against the Undercity as a whole. Vi's disillusionment with Cait is due to the fact that Cait desire to heal, not harm, is what caused her to fall for Cait to begin with. To see more than some privileged topside enforcer, but a woman who genuinely cared and was willing to abandon her peaceful naivety to learn for the greater good of strangers.

I'll also point out that they separate when Cait starts blaming Vi for them loosing Jinx. Before, everyone but Cait put responsibility on Vi, she was supposed to be the one to help lighten the load and absolve some of the guilt. Now Cait is becoming another one of those who slam the blame on Vi. She changed. Why does everyone around VI change?

Can't wait for the next batch of episodes.

[emanonyourstruly]

Politics, Love, and Uneasiness

So elections happened and I am uncomfortable. Donald Trump is president and I, like many others, hate him. He is a sexist, racist, classist maniac. Politics is important to me. I know people say there is no right and wrong and everyone has a right to their opinion but I'm sorry, so many people are wrong. Twisted.

What is right is that people should be equal and there should be separation of religion and government which republicans have a hard time understanding. Gay people aren't hurting anyone. Immigrants aren't hurting anyone. Muslim people aren't hurting anyone. Black people aren't hurting anyone. Women should be able to choose whether or not they want to keep an already dead baby in them or not.

My girlfriend- who is not really my girlfriend but my ex but we still love each other bla bla don't judge me- didn't vote. To some degree, I feel responsible. I joked that what was I gonna do, force her? I already tried to stop her from being friends with a guy, who sold his ex's nudes without her permission, but she looked so lonely and pathetic and she went back to being friends with him anyway so I stopped trying to force my mindset on her. She told me I should have educated her and pushed her to vote. I told her that maybe I should have, but it was also not my responsibility. If she didn't vote that was her own choice. Maybe she didn't think that it was her problem. She is a rich Asian Christian girl anyway. She never had to work for anything in her life. I'm taking my disappointment and frustration out on her but can you blame me? I'm a poor brown Muslim girl.

And like I said, I am a poor brown Muslim girl. What will happen to me and my family in the future? I rely on a government grant to get through college and I was hoping my brother could go to college with the same grant. College is so insanely expensive it is UNFAIR. no one can defend the prices of colleges. Anyway,

Can someone tell me I'm not crazy for being upset with her when she keeps defending Trump and her dad for voting for Trump? How are you gay and not mad? That just wreaks of privilege. I bet her dad is happy as hell that he'll be getting a tax cut. I am so over this. governments are corrupt. What did I really expect?

I just have a big fear of the world ending and goddd pleaseeee someone tell me that we'll be ok. poor folk. people of color. tell me we will be ok.

This is my journal entry for now thanks for reading if anyone even is.

I'm out :3 with love!

[strawberry-shortcakey]

my defense of Caitlyn in wake of season 2

    Defending my wife rn 

    Lets get right into this mind you my spelling and punctuation are like non existent so yk

Starting off with the thing i feel people seem to not really understand is whats happening is shes being tugged in like 5 different directions struggling between her obligations to her family name the kiraman family is matriarchal this rests on her entirely she wants to maintain her mothers legacy yet theres the undeniable rage fueled by her mothers death and her feeling of failing all of piltover the feeling that if she had killed jinx before there wouldnt have been so many lives lost she feels ultimately responsible for everything in her life which makes that rage overpower her i mean most of the council civilians enforcers who she had been around her WHOLE LIFE. she feels all that weight in her heart and on her mind much like vi due to her trauma generalizes the people of piltover and enforcers cait blames zaunites and i feel its unfair to give vi a pass and not caitlyn shes trying to hold onto her morals she fights for avoiding innocents getting hurt until the memorial attack where it turns into more than an attack by jinx now an attack from multiples causing her to lose that part of her morals and the last pull is for vi caitlyn loves vi thats something i have never doubted for even a second i mean seriously she puts so much at stake for vi. People don't seem to see that her bringing vi before the council in season one couldve ended poorly for her it couldve reflected horribly onto her family if the council had decided not to hear her out. And on top of all of that shes trying to hold it together. We see her cry a few times but she doesnt ever really let it out i mean shes putting herself under that pressure part of her character has always been that she hates when things are just handed to her as we see in her scene with grayson when she gets upset at the mere idea of her parents paying off grayson to let her win and we confirm that stayed into adulthood when jayce offers her that job for him and shes offended at the mere idea and i feel part of her feels if she shows that pain shes in things are gonna be handed to her out of sheer pity something that would likely fuel her rage further and further.

Next topic is her being willing to kill isha if it meant killing jinx. Now i understand the shock of this how it feels “out of character for her” but it really isnt yes she has been openly against the idea of people getting hit in the crossfire but in her mind its 1 innocent for multiple innocents including her own mother. she also isnt the first character to directly or indirectly result in a child's death and she didnt even succeed so yk but anyway every single councilor is responsible for countless deaths of undercity children and families heimerdinger honestly the most responsible because yk like 200 years of  ignoring the undercity and can i also just mention vis switch up on her opinion season one jayce kills a kid when fighting at the shimmer lab and vi has the mentality “you did what needed to be done one life for like 100” yet when caitlyn finds herself in that same mindset vis all “whats wrong with you you're evil now” so uh yeah not an attack on vi just trying to expand on it throughout this i will make comparisons on how we excuse vi but attack caitlyn and why i think thats really telling of how people see her as a character only there for caitvi romance plot!! But anyway caitlyn had every fucking right in that moment mind you she also was running on adrenaline something that i feel a lot of people don't understand in that moment its often impulse you do the first thing to come to mind she was just fighting off sevika shes in that do or die mindset its kill jinx or people die people also don't understand how deep caits trauma around jinx runs we don't know what she was put through during the time between her abduction and the like final scene of season 1 also just yk the entire show. jinx is her personal trauma.

Now onto the caitvi argument in the tunnels lets loop back to the state of mind she was in shes pumped on adrenaline rage and fear. She feels a deep sense of betrayal much like jinx does when vi “picks cait over her” its that feeling of “oh so you care more about someone who deeply hurt me and a random kid than me.” that only fuels her rage/pain that is making her less and less of her core values. caitlyn gets on the defensive she makes a generalization Something once again we see vi do to caitlyn earlier with the oil and water speech which no doubt left a hole in caits heart something that will stick with her dare i even say that plays a part in why she no longer sees zaun and pilover as two sides of the same coin the person who helped her learn something so crucial suddenly saying “actually we are different piltover is all the same you're all horrible. We can never get along, you are not an exception” which no doubt shattered that view and helped cement the separation in her mind. The key difference is that vi didnt get physical cait pushed her and hit her with the rifle but like i said she's on the defense. Also ive seen people saying “oh well cait knows how shes traumatized by enforcers” to caitlyn that trauma is equal to the trauma of what jinx has done to her and honestly it is caitlyn has lost almost everything to this for the sake of what started off as her dreams of justice her need to prove herself has been what she feels like is the sole cause of the  downfall of piltover. Which is why i truly believe caitlyn is still herself that the development to her character logical and her actions fully explainable and defendable 

And thats all ive got for now lmk if i should cover more!! And i will be adding as arc 2 and 3 release!

[ariesbloodstone]

I know buck was weirded out by the fact that tommy and abby was engaged. I mean who wouldnt? That's a crazy twist. But I got a feeling that buck was bothered by it because tommy had hurt abby. Almost like he still care about her and feel protective over her and angry at tommy for hurting her. I know he loved her and maybe still care about her, but that just seem weird to me. At the restaurant scene when tommy said he was engaged and almost married a women, buck looked surprised seems understanding about it. When tommy said abby took a himbo half her age, buck just responded by saying she maybe did that to get tommy out of her system. He didnt even mad at tommy and seems to be on his side. But when tommy said it was abby clark and buck realised who it was, he got shocked which is understable. And then he told maddie. And said that tommy led abby on and hurt her. And buck thought he knew tommy and never thought tommy would be that cruel. But he only feel that way when he found out the women was abby. So I wonder if he would react the same way if the women wasnt abby? Based on his reaction before tommy mention her name he doesnt seem to care about it. I dont know. To me it looks like he still care about abby which is ok but like he cares more about her than tommy when he is actually dating tommy in the present. I dont know maybe I'm wrong but I just feel weird about it. Actually all the scenes was weird in this episode.

I really dont like buck flirting with that women in the restaurant. I mean tommy was there and watching. Its so rude. And then the convo about women and abby. And then the scene with maddie and josh. Another thing thats weird to me. Why buck was so suprised and hurt on abby's behave for what tommy did? I know what tommy did is not right, but tommy used to be a closeted gay men when he was younger. We all know that and so does buck. He was probably spend most of his life being in the closet than out. Which means he probably had girlfriends in the past and hook up with guys in secret. Like most all closeted gays do at the time?. I mean I know this is 2024 but buck is not a teenager. He's young but not that young. He's what, 30, 33? I'm 30 and even I know how hard it was for the gays in the past. A lot of them hiding in the closet meaning they maybe had girlfriends and even wife. Even I know and understand why they had to do that. And buck doesnt and got angry about it? And what the hell about that speech about post glee stuff. I know a lot of people like it but its not my favourite. It just seems cheezy and frankly unnecesarry because a man at buck's age should've known all that stuff already.

It seems like buck had build up a perfect image of tommy in his mind. His first impression of tommy is that he's so cool and feel threatened by him which turn out to be a crush. And he look up to tommy and admired him which is cute and all. But then he saw this flaw of tommy and he got dissapointed. I think he should know that not everyone is perfect not even tommy. But its not good to have that kind of high expectation to anyone, even your own partner. They gonna have flaws and weakness.

Making buck asking tommy to move in after all that knowledge about abby and gay history is another weird move. How come he got that idea after all that. Another thing to blame the writers about. Not to mention making tommy feels like that is the end of their relationship. He could have just said it was too soon which it is. It is too soon and clearly tommy is not ready for it. A lot of couple survive through that. Its not a marriage proposal. Most doesnt work out after a rejection of proposal but this is not it. They could've work it out. Its like the writers in ep 5 is totally different from ep 6. I have read a lot of fanfiction that are a lot better than this mess of storyline.

[sadlittlecountess]

found this on twitter. and this isn’t funny. I don’t see a moment of rage and misogyny being meme worthy. and what’s worse, is that this cesspool of a fandom is going eat it up. A lot of fanatics are going to eat this up, say vile shit about a nuanced female character, and I’m dreading it.

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

Why do you think the tides have slightly turned from "Elia deserves better than Rhaegar" to shipping her and Rhaegar together? Like what is the psychology behind these people because I've seen some of them like/reblog anti Rhaegar posts while also shipping Rhaegar x Elia at the same time.

hey anon! my thoughts are a bit messy, but i’ve done my best to explain them coherently :)

so, rhaegar was the best man anyone could have when elia was alive, and most people want the best for their favs. he was considered the most handsome, didn’t have a bad personality, and he was crown prince—meaning elia was almost queen, which is often seen as the greatest role a woman can have. the narrative also treats rhaegar as a beautiful, tragic, haunting figure, and elia actually had this very aesthetically pleasing man all to herself at one point! she was married to him, had children with him, and her life was so close to perfect! but rhaegar just had to go and ruin it. 😠

for many elia stans, if rhaegar hadn’t fallen in love with another woman (they want him to have been a completely different character), then everything would’ve been perfect, and elia would’ve had the best, most desirable life. however, that’s not what happened—elia met a very tragic end, and as a result, these stans feel double the bitterness. because of this bitterness, they blame rhaegar for everything (even though it’s not logical to do so), but he’s just too ‘perfect’ to let go of. so, for years these stans have made rhaegar revolve around elia, filling his tag with posts about her out of bitterness. so, i do believe that this obsession with rhaegar x elia has always been there, but i think it’s become a more favorable stance on the elia stan side of the fandom because of a mix of reasons.

plus, rhaegar is one of the few canon relationships we know elia had, since she’s not much of a character. because of this, and the fact that most people don’t like to stray too far from canon, most elia stans are forced to focus on rhaegar, which has created an echo chamber. basically, if a sentiment about elia and rhaegar’s relationship becomes popular, then the whole elia stan side of the fandom will likely regurgitate the sentiment. (also, this desire to stick close to canon is likely why the elia x arthur ship was so popular. while it’s a total crack ship, it had good aesthetics, and since elia and arthur at least knew each other, it allowed the stans to create their perfect fanfiction whilst sticking it to rhaegar. but remember, elia was actually married to rhaegar and had children with him, so while arthur is cool, rhaegar was always ‘top dog,’ meaning arthur would never be able to match up to rhaegar to most elia stans. also, the arthur x elia crack ship is likely her second most popular ship, which just shows how little elia stans have to work with, so they’re always forced to eventually return back to rhaegar for a lot of things.)

however, even if the elia x rhaegar ship gains more popularity, these stans will never stop hating rhaegar because he wasn’t ‘perfect’—and he wasn’t perfect because he didn’t love elia. plus, rhaegar loving another woman and supposedly kidnapping her is what began the war that led to elia’s tragic death. that’s bitterness times 1000. and while i don’t actually blame rhaegar for the war, i do think that this is how an elia stan sees it. i also don’t view rhaegar’s complex relationship with elia as a bad thing—it’s actually a very realistic take on an arranged marriage between two decent people. but most elia stans will never be able to get over the fact that they almost had everything, which is why many have it out for lyanna, as they consider her a thief who ruined their ‘perfection.’

tbh, that might be why so many elia stans are so obsessed with the idea that rhaegar only got with lyanna because of the prophecy—they don’t want to believe that rhaegar actually loved a different woman and not their perfect self insert elia. that’s a bit mean of me… but i don’t know what else one would call the ‘elia’ elia stans have created.

now that i’ve laid all those thoughts out, i’ll try to explain why the tides seem to be turning… i think it may have something to do with the ‘targaryens are all evil and bad’ sentiment losing popularity. i think this shift has occurred due to a mix of factors, such as years of fandom fights and fandom cycles leading to the targs being more liked now than before. it helps that canon doesn’t actually condemn the targs/favors them quite a bit, and the influx of new targ fans from HOTD has also contributed. this combination of reasons seems to have shifted the way the mainstream fandom discusses all the targaryen characters, including rhaegar. so, with this shift, it’s only natural that some elia stans/elia x rhaegar shippers—who’ve always been there—are using this opportunity to push their agenda. while these stans still hate rhaegar and see him as the bad guy, they just can’t let go of him. and as the mainstream fandom moves away from the anti targaryen sentiment, these smaller corners of the fandom, which tend to be echo chambers, are also affected, which has therefore led to a rise in rhaegar x elia shippers and the ‘shifting tide’ that you’ve also noticed.

[protect-namine]

the thing about venti is that he doesn't embody freedom so much as he nurtures it. venti is who he is today because the people taught him to love and he returned that tenfold. the people were the first to teach him autonomy and freedom, and his response is to protect that ideal

I just really love mondstadt's relationship with their "absentee" archon a lot. there's something almost poetic about how just by being themselves, they sort of "created" their own god. a wind wisp became their archon by observing and living with them (ofc I'm oversimplifying it)

as described in freedom sworn, it's the anemo archon who actually takes on his region's characteristics, not the other way around. it is not that mondstadt is the nation of freedom because of venti, but that venti is the god of freedom because of mondstadt. and now you have that same archon asking what I will argue is actually the best quote of genshin, "what is freedom when demanded of you by a god?"

[fromtheseventhhell]

Every time I see people talk about Sansa and Arya's relationship as "just sisters being sisters" I think about that one girl on TikTok who was basically stalking her sister who went no-contact and kept responding to comments criticizing her with "it's just a sister thing, you wouldn't get it". Like! Being shitty to someone isn't okay just cause you're related to them. Personally thinking a certain behavior is normal/harmless does not mean the person affected by it feels the same way! Arya being mocked and having self-esteem issues is referenced often throughout the story, all the way into ADwD. How people read that (jk I know you guys don't actually read her chapters) and think their issues will magically disappear is beyond me. "Stark sisters lover" but the only time you talk about them is when you're centering Sansa and her feelings 🤨

[spacedlexi]

so often i see people try to downplay violet and minervas relationship like it wasnt Real enough or was some Inferior Romance that her relationship with clementine could Never compare to, and i find it so annoying and boring

she LOVED minerva!! and its okay that she did!! she was her first love!! childhood best friends turned girlfriends!! seeing her being so heartbroken and miserable about what happened to minnie, how deeply and desperately she missed her, hugging that bed frame so pathetically. but clementine makes her CARE again. makes her LOVE again. slowly violet becomes comfortable with the idea of opening her heart up to people again, after trying so hard not to because the pain of losing people she cared about was too much to bear (especially when she blamed herself for them being gone)

then she learns minnie didnt die. shes falling in love with clem while grappling with the fact that minnie might still be out there??

then she meets minnie in the woods. but minnie has changed just like she has. theyre both different people now. and slowly violet is forced to come to terms with the fact that the person she loved so deeply isnt that person anymore??

violet at the beginning mourning minerva and blaming herself, to shooting her to save clems life. she LOVED minerva once, but she doesnt like the person she is now. and shes not gonna let her hurt anyone else she cares about. shes done mourning her by the time they get to the bridge, only crying out for tenn

like idk i just find their relationship evolution to be so interesting and sad as shit. the fact that they once loved each other so much and it has now come to this?? but violet makes her choice and she Chooses clementine, because she admires and loves clementine, probably similar to the way she used to admire and love minerva if the way she talked about her is any indication

i just think "i never thought i would ever feel this way again" is way more interesting than "wow minnie Never made me feel like This"

[swallowtail-ageha]

I think someone should study the fact that all of the moral issues people have with coleen hoover are just the modern day version of "this erotic literature will corrupt our pure women!"

[memento-morri-writes]

I've been thinking a lot about how Rook's reunion with his former mentor, Zara, is going to go, and since I can't predict what the DM is going to have her do or say, I can only dwell on what I know is going to happen. Which happens to include taking off the illusion ring that's been hiding his injuries from her. So have a snippet of the description I have planned for that moment:

tw for description of (mostly healed) injuries

He hesitates, twisting a ring on his finger. Looking at it more closely, she can tell it’s very finely crafted, and must have been very expensive. A large emerald is set into the band. Rook sighs, and pulls the ring off his finger in one quick motion.  Immediately she’s struck by the difference in his appearance as the illusion melts away. He looks awful. His warm, healthy skin fades to a dull and sickly grey. There’s huge bags under his deeply sunken eyes, and his cheeks are hollowed, as though they have been carved out by an overeager sculptor. He looks like he’s recently risen from the grave.  While he was thin before, now she can see his ribs under the skin, and his collarbones are exaggeratedly pronounce. Thin white lines left by dozens upon dozens of recently healed cuts are scattered across his body. On top of that, faded bruises cover most of his visible skin, a mottled mosaic of purple and yellow. They’re clearly days, maybe weeks old, and she can only begin to imagine what they must have looked like when fresh. Bandages are barely visible under his shirt, wrapping around his back, hinting at even more injuries.

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

i'm going to he so fucking insufferae about theatre btw. just started my job at the theatre, with which i'm already obsessed bc their plays and stuff are just plain brilliant i could go on rants for hours and boy am i gonna know these plays by heart once i've sat through one half a dozen times. AND i joined a theatre class at school. with four other people but. i'm so incredibly motivated. i NEED. anyway it's tumblr y'all know i regularly go full obsessed nerd on things i am a Freak when it comes to these things and BOY is it gonna be Bad with the theatre