#and that's the real issue with those three

[embervoices]

A very useful thread on Bluesky:

(There is a lot more. Rather than give you all the images, I've copied the full text below.)

Meredith Rose‬ ‪@mrose.ink‬ November 8, 2024

This is not going to be a repeat of 2016-2020. It will be better, it will be worse, but most of all it will be different. Here are things I want every single person to keep in mind as we head into round 2 of a Trump admin.

My credentials: I’m a queer female public interest attorney working on tech policy in DC. I’ve been doing this for a decade--longer than some, not as long as others. I had to navigate three different administrations, as well as Congress, regulatory agencies, courts, and the advocacy world.

FIRST: don’t let despair override your media literacy.

The left has grifters, just like every other movement. If you’re able and compelled to donate, give to orgs with established track records. Avoid giving to individuals, especially anyone who emerges overnight with a one-weird-trick “plan.”

The left is not immune to misinformation, and everyone—EVERYONE—falls for it sometimes, present company included. There is no shame in it. When (not if) it happens to you, you should acknowledge it; delete or retract the post to reduce the spread; and move on.

If a source consistently shares half-truths or outright misinformation, it is not trustworthy, no matter how much “their heart is in the right place.” Unfollow and move on.

Prediction, analysis, and reporting are three fundamentally different things. Learn to identify them for what they are. Reject attempts by amateur “analysts” to predict the future. They know as much as you do.

Real subject matter experts know and acknowledge their limits. They’re also (usually) hesitant to try and predict the future. The best frame their predictions in terms of a range of possible outcomes. Subject matter experts may also disagree with one another! It happens!

SECOND: What we know for sure about how the Trump, how he operates, and how that will impact the next four years.

Trump is a narcissist who avoids reading and doesn’t care about details. He cannot be persuaded by argument or logic; he’s moved mostly by flattery, and will agree with the last person who flattered him. He can and will upend his own administration’s work without warning, often by tweet.

As a result, most policy experts—even those "on his side"—dread him taking an interest in their field. Ask any Republican staffer who worked in Congress during the last administration, and most of them will confirm that their greatest fear was Trump tweeting about anything related to their work.

As such, people who are serious about their work will do everything to make it as invisible and boring-seeming as possible. This is the policy equivalent of defensive camouflage. Lots of “normie” work will continue in silence. (The lion’s share of tech policy ends up in this bucket.)

If you have a niche issue that you care about, now is a great time to donate to orgs that work on it. Lots of money will be funneled to big legacy orgs working on headline issues: ACLU, climate change orgs, etc. Consider sending your donations where they matter most: local, niche, established.

Trump runs his cabinet like the Apprentice. He thrives on chaos and making people compete for his approval. Not only does he not reward collaboration between his subordinates, he actively undermines it.

Moreover, everyone who works with him knows that they’re vulnerable to being thrown under the bus at a moment’s notice, for any reason (or for no reason at all). His cabinet is going to be scorpions in a bottle. They will not be able to coordinate, for good or ill.

One scorpion can still do a lot of horrific damage. But large scale inter-agency coordination is unlikely, particularly after the first few months, by which point he will likely (prediction warning!) have gone through a handful of cabinet secretaries already.

FINALLY: The view from inside civil society heading into 2025.

In 2016, Trump was a largely unknown quantity. The left and establishment right alike wasted a lot of time trying to read tea leaves and make sense of this guy, because he was completely outside the realm of what anyone had dealt with. That’s not happening now.

He did us a favor by broadcasting his plans in advance (aka Project 2025). Civil society has spent the last 2.5 years strategizing around it. We’re not starting off flat-footed.

The Biden admin did a good amount to future-proof its own achievements. Folks can speak to their own areas of expertise, but clean energy and CHIPS and Science Act (investing in domestic semiconductor production) have benefitted from huge sunk investments. That money’s not getting clawed back.

OVERALL TAKE-AWAYS:

It's going to suck. But civil society and the political left have some advantages we didn't have last time. We know him, we know his angles, and we know who he's bringing in--none of which we had in 2016.

We'll get through this. It will be grim, but we'll get through it.

John Cutting‬ ‪@johncutting.bsky.social‬

Thanks Meredith. I really valued your analysis over the past few years, and I think this is a reasonable, actionable framework to think about the upcoming storm

Meredith Rose‬ ‪@mrose.ink‬

I really cannot overstate how much time was (necessarily) wasted in 2017 trying to figure out this guy and his influences. The fact that he's not only a known quantity, but ran the most over-studied administration in this nation's recent history, makes this a very different game.

John Cutting‬ ‪@johncutting.bsky.social‬

I bet we can weaponize his narcissism. Let's say some ghoul starts making progress with a mass deportation effort, if we start calling that ghoul that "shadow president" en masse, Trump would fire him in right away and appoint Hulk Hogan or something

‪Meredith Rose‬ ‪@mrose.ink‬

This is exactly why I don't think Musk will last very long. Trump is very clear that he's the only one in the room allowed to have an ego or any kind of brand name.

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

ae don't see the point in engaging in a fandom if you don't even really like the characters

like, yeah, folks get ford wrong, and they get mabel wrong too. but they also get stan wrong. like. a lot? just as much as they get ford wrong, even? is. is there a chance the only reason folks talk about ford's mischaracterization more is because he's made out to seem worse than he is and stan is made out to be flawless and people like flawlessness and perfection and more attracted to characters deemed as having no negative traits because they feel better projecting themselves onto said character

anyway, ae can't say anything on dipper cause ae don't even really know his character that well (was always more interested in the others unfortunately) so ae have no clue if like. folks are mischaracterizing the main character too

but the point is: you have a main cast of like four characters. maybe five, if you count bill. and three out of those four (maybe four out of those five, considering the. what would we call that. 'wet kitten'-ifing of bill, especially recently), a large chunk of the fandom violently mischaracterizes. do you get us here? like, it's one thing to throw some headcanons into the ring, tweak some bits of a character, etc.

what the fandom does with ford and stan is not that. ford is not ford, and stan is certainly not stan. and mabel? we all know how she's treated

aey don't want to say like. all the folks here are doing it for this reason. but ae'm willing to bet this is due to 1. not interacting with the actual material for a long while and 2. not being able to let go of the series due to nostalgia

and ae get that, ae do. it's hard to let things go that are important to you. but you're not the only one. gravity falls praises weirdness, the differences in beings. lots of folks are attached to the show due to this, especially neurodivergent or just generally outcast folks. it says you will find your place, where you will find community and safety. it says that things get messy, but they can always get better

1: erasing stan's mistakes and flaws and making him a perfect can-do-no-wrong was coerced into every bad thing he's ever done character fucks that up (and the stan in our head personally likes to have his gremlin shenanigans acknowledged). it means stan didn't have to work for his happy ending, he didn't have to better himself, he just had to sit and wait for ford to drop it in his lap. this means it is not equal. it's not fair to ford, if he's the only one that had to put effort into it (especially after the thirty years of being in a completely alien place??). this also becomes an issue when you take into account that a large amount of people still give stan all his canonical trauma. you are not your trauma, you are not responsible for it, but you do need to work with it. it can't get better by itself, you need to help it get to that point. and this is speaking as someone with ptsd. it will always be there, but you can ease the pain. thus, treating stan in this way yields the opposite meaning: he doesn't struggle with it. he doesn't make mistakes. he never lashes out because of the suffering as commonly occurs. he doesn't have to try. making him messy makes him real, and making him real means he can be used as a device to help those hurting to heal. his experiences are relatable for a lot: and thus making him have to work for his good ending instead of just waiting for it to fall into his hold is important. if he can do it, you can, too! you don't get that if he doesn't have to try

2: ford is a very neurodivergent-coded character. this does not mean he is canonically neurodivergent; it does, however, mean that when you demonize him, make his character worse than it is, it is very difficult to avoid spewing out ableism. saying x trait of ford is bad for y reason means you are bound to fall into a pit trap of hurting beings who don't deserve it. most folks think of autism, of course, but this also applies to a lot of other things. personality disorders, paranoia and anxiety, ocd, and a whole host of other things folks have no control over. he has a lot of hurt he was never able to process properly, and that adds to him being a messy character. this is good! he works hard to pry his life from his abuser, and he works even harder to better himself and get his happy ending with his family! and yet. the fandom does not acknowledge any of that. he is demonized for things stan does, too, and ae have never such horrific victim blaming as in the fandom. again, this hurts people. he is not irredeemable, and he is not responsible for what his manipulative abuser did to him. implying or outright saying he is harms beings that are trying to heal from similar experiences. furthermore: the emphasis on him being arrogant, having an ego. stop that. if he has a little bit of arrogance to him, so what? that's normal, that doesn't make him a bad guy. especially when folks dig so hard to find any scraps that prove this apparent trait of his. everything is scrutinized. learning to love yourself is important, and gaining a little bit of an ego is part of that. building confidence and pride in your accomplishments is good! being able to genuinely say you're cool or amazing or smart or beautiful or strong is good! building all of this up is an important part of healing, especially from trauma, and demonizing ford for it is actively working against this

pointing these things out isn't hating on stan or defending ford, either. the characters have personalities, and it's better in the end to let them keep them, as messy as they may be. stan has flaws, ford does too. but they're good people, they have good intentions, and they work to better themselves and repair relationships. they're not all the way there, yet, but they will be. you just won't get to see it (that's what fics and fan art and headcanons and discussions are for)

this turned out so much longer than ae meant it to be, but like. idk, needed to get our thoughts out ae guess

[pekoposting]

This is interesting! Particularly because it's a departure from the usual conclusions that hardcore Pekoyama fans usually make from this evidence. Which is...

Peko's biological parents are the Pekoyama clan

The typical interpretation goes something like this:

The Pekoyama clan is a band of renowned swordfighters. For whatever reason, they get in massive debt to the Kuzuryuu clan. The Kuzuryuu clan force them to repay these debts by taking their young heir, and training her to be a bodyguard for their own heir when he is born. We know the rest of the story.

The evidence for this is as follows (though keep in mind, I did not consider your interpretation when I was formulating this, so the evidence seemed more self-evident originally):

Pekoyama's name in the Japanese is spelt 辺古山 ペコ. Her family name, (辺古山) is spelt normally, in kanji. However, her first name is spelt in katakana, which as far as I can tell is the only of the three Japanese scripts not used to write Japanese names. Also it's literally just the first two phonetic sounds of her surname. Which gives the impression that her surname is real, and her first name is something carelessly made up on the fly because you have to call her something.

The fact that she has a family heirloom. Why would the Kuzuryuu clan know the family of an orphaned baby? As far as I know, people in Japan don't usually attach their family name when they're orphaning a child.

...Yeah, it was primarily based on the premise that out of the two contradictory pieces of information we get about Pekoyama's parents, the one at the end of Chapter 2 (that she was abandoned by them from birth) is the correct one.

Of course... there are still issues with this interpretation. Primarily, that Island Mode dialogue where she says she has memories of her parents being alive. The heirloom is a bit iffy, too. (Perhaps it's something the Kuzuryuu clan also took along with Pekoyama?)

The only excuse I can come up for the parents thing is that it is Pekoyama deliberately lying to make her childhood sound more normal. Because the closer she gets to telling the truth, the more questions Hinata will have, and she doesn't want that. That's not the point she's trying to convey anyways, so she goes with a simple lie to smooth it over so she can talk about her memories

There are issues with your interpretation too, namely that the Kuzuryuu clan risks giving Pekoyama an alternative motive through giving her actual parents, i.e. humanising her and possibly making her consider if there's other ways she can live. As we both know, Pekoyama's Island Mode ending implies that she is only so dedicated to her tool mindset because it's the only way she knows how to live.

Whilst I probably will come around to yours more as I let it sink into my brain, I'm going to be honest, I am still quite attached to the 'Pekoyama was stolen from the Pekoyama clan' interpretation, because I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and because those hardcore Pekoyama fans have also written about it.

One of my absolute favourite implementations of it is at the end of thewildwilds' already incredible fic [absolute zero.] where it's mentioned that upon taking baby Pekoyama, her parents cursed the Kuzuryuu clan by swearing that their child would ultimately cause the destruction of the clan. That's SO DELICIOUS

As you know, I am very much a fic writer. So much so that my opinion on ships is often determined by easy/fun they are to write. And there is a lot of potential things to explore in this interpretation that I've barely ever seen anyone cover beyond 100 word drabbles.

For example... this means that Pekoyama is the only former RoD who could still have their parents alive. So... how would she cope with that? (I have some answers to that, but they're not precise, and this is getting long enough already.) NO ONE HAS EXPLORED HOW SHE'D INTERACT WITH HER BIO PARENTS AT ALL SOB. I may have to get over my natural reluctance to make OCs for this...

(This still could be explored under your interpretation, it's just that it's harder to pinpoint who her bio parents are, and those parents are less defined.)

In conclusion: what the hell even was this (MY POST NOT YOURS). There are several points I almost certainly forgot. Pekoytama.

Random tidbits about the Pekoyama Dojo

Peko was adopted by the Pekoyama Dojo

Peko reminiscence about her parents taking her to an old amusement park.

Because Peko was abandoned as a baby by her birth parents, it can be deduced all her memories regarding her parents is with her adoptive parents.

The only time she feels like smiling outside her Free Time Event, is when she is at an amusement park.

Because Peko was given the Pekoyama's family heirloom, and the obvious fact she bares the family name, you can infer that Peko's adoptive parents was from the Pekoyama Dojo on the Kuzuryus behalf.

Peko states that her dojo is not exactly a Kendo dojo. The fact that their family heirloom bears the symbol of the Kuzuryu clan mascot, the Pekoyamas were mostly likely a vassel family who served the Kuzuryus (I think the Japanese term is Kashin but don't quote me on that)

Peko's experiences at the Dojo

Just because it would be too much to screenshot, it's strongly implied that everything she did was a form of training. Peko can't take an activity at face value and see everything as a form of training. Examples include: Splitting watermelons, dropping coconuts, watching movies, going into haunted houses.

You could make the argument, because Peko was a 'tool', this was the justification to allow Peko to do normal activities.

Overall, Peko recalls only nice things about the dojo

As always, shout out to Peko's pet finch that probably hated her

Not canon in the slightest, but a moment from the manga

Mentions of Peko's childhood that may or may not be related to the dojo

[legionofpotatoes]

star wars outlaws

[xxplastic-cubexx]

From the same Storm mini-series 🥹

THE FAM 🥺

[boyfriendgideon]

as yr favorite local jason todd fan sometimes i get so fed up with the apparent inability of most dc comic writers to write a class conscious narrative about him.

and yes, i know that comics are a very ephemeral and constantly evolving and self-conflicting medium.

and yes, i know they’re a profit-driven art medium created in a capitalistic society, so there are very few times where comics are going to be created solely out of the desire to authentically and carefully and deliberately represent a character and take them from one emotional narrative place to another, because dc cares about profit and sometimes playing it safe is what sells.

and yes, i know comics and other forms of art reflect and recreate the society within which they were conceived as ideas, and so the dominant societal ideas about gender and race and class and so on are going to be recreated within comics (and/or will be responded to, if the writer is particularly societally conscious).

but jesus christ. you (the writer/writers) have a working class character who has been homeless, who has lost multiple parents, who has been in close proximity to someone struggling with addiction, who has had to steal to survive, who may have (depending on your reading of several different moments across different comics created by different people) been a victim of csa, who has clearly (subtextually) struggled with his mental health, who was a victim of a violent murder, and who has an entirely distinct and unique perspective on justice that has evolved based on his lived experiences.

and instead of delving into any of that, or examining the myriad of ways that classism in the writers’ room and the editors’ room and the readers’ heads affected jason’s character to make sure you’re writing him responsibly, or giving him a plotline where his views on what justice looks like are challenged by another working class character, or allowing him to demonstrate actual autonomy and agency in deciding what relationships he wants to have with people who he loves but sees as having failed him in different ways, or thinking carefully about what his having chosen an alias that once belonged to his murderer says about his decision-making and motivations, you keep him stuck in a loop of going by the red hood, addressing crime by occupying a position of relative power that perpetuates crime & harm rather than ever getting at the root causes, and seesawing between a) agreeing with his adoptive family entirely about fighting nonlethally in ways that are often inconsistent with his apparent motivations or b) disagreeing and experiencing unnecessarily brutal and violent reactions from his adoptive father as if that kind of violence isn’t the kind of thing he experienced as a child and something bruce himself is trying to prevent jason from perpetuating. because a comic with red hood, quips, high stakes, and familial drama sells.

it doesn’t matter if it keeps jason trapped, torn between an unanswered moral and philosophical question, a collection of identities that no longer fit him, and a family that accepts him circumstantially. it doesn’t matter if jason’s characterization is so utterly inconsistent that the only way to mesh it together is to piece different aspects of different titles and plotlines together like a jigsaw. it doesn’t matter if you do a disservice to his character, because in the end you don’t want to transform him or even understand him deeply enough to identify what makes him compelling and focus on that.

and i love jason!!!!! i love him. and i think about the stories we could have, if quality and art and doing justice to the character were prioritized as much as selling a title and having a dark and brooding batfam member besides bruce just to be the black sheep character are prioritized. and i just get a little sad.

[bunnyboy-juice]

spent the first hour and change at work deleting some old files and am having a grand ol time laughing at myself for not realizing i was a lesbian sooner

[selamat-linting]

resignation letter is the most potent painkiller. i love you resignation letter i love you one month notice <3

[helpimstuckinafandom]

JUSTICE FOR DAVINA CLAIRE I'M SO FUCKING SERIOUS FUCK OFF OH MY FUCKING GOD

[thefirstknife]

can we please. go one (1) week without the PVP obsessed people going off about how PVP is the only thing that matters in the game. im so very tired. "PVE people are probably about to find out that PVE can't carry the game because PVP is ruined and we're all gonna quit and play better games" please just can they shut up and go already instead of threatening us with a good time they never follow through on??

I saw that stuff as well, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's incredibly disingenuous and deliberately incendiary to cause more people to bitch about the game being doomed or whatever.

They are constantly using "steam numbers" to show that this is the lowest population count that Destiny 2 ever had and how that's proof that the game is being ruined and dying, that pvp bros and content creators are more important than we think they are, that Bungie needs to make Destiny 3 (yes, that is unironically stuff that people are saying) and other really incredibly tiring things.

Not to mention the vitriol towards the devs. Every time they bitch, more and more people show up in the comments saying awful shit about devs and how they are lazy, they don't work, they don't care, they are bad at development and so on. This is what eventually fuels harassment.

These "steam numbers" are disingenuous because they are taken out of context and they strip all other external reasons from the "low player count."

Is there a low player count? Yes! That is correct. Even when we account for console players, it's still low.

This is nothing new. This is a constant trend. Last month of the season ALWAYS has low numbers. People finished their story and their pinnacle grind and their seals and are doing other things.

More under for length:

Is this the lowest it's been so far? It seems to be, though the final month on steam charts isn't over so we can't fully tell yet, but it seems to be one of the lowest. However, there's been similar numbers before during seasonal end. It's quite literally nothing new. We go through this every season, except this season it's slightly lower than usual.

Why is that? Well, the chart Aztecross put to prove there's not many people playing happened on a Monday before the final Tuesday reset of the final week of the season. Yeah bro, very few people have things left to do in the season. They're not bothering. Unlike you, other people have other hobbies and games to play. I haven't played in days, I only got on on Saturday to finish my King's Fall seal and that took 10 minutes. This is what I mean by "disingenuous." It's a cheap bait tactic. Find the lowest number and ship it for cheap outrage engagement.

Others are constantly also posting the cummulative steam chart for every month of Destiny since the game came to steam and they're pointing out that we have lowest numbers now. Which is, again, posted for cheap outrage. They look at the number and see it's low and their conclusion is "game is dying." They don't care about the trend (every season end is "dying"), they don't care about external reasons (other game releases), they don't care about overall how some seasons are just weaker and have less interest (not the first time), they don't care about anything.

They just want people to be mad enough to harass the devs. Because like, what do they think is going to happen when they spend 2 months blogging to hundreds of thousands of people about the game being ruined by evil devs who don't do their job? When they constantly talk about how everything in the game is bad, pvp is bad, pve is boring and easy, story is bad, seasons are bad, events made for fun are bad, small community event is bad. What's going to happen is thousands of people are going to harass the devs. That's what going to happen.

I took the "steam numbers" chart that people are throwing around and I went into it in-depth to explain what the numbers mean and add context to them. You can see it here. It's a big image but you can zoom in and explore. It makes more sense when you see it separated by seasons; you can CLEARLY see the main trend of "low population at season end."

Another thing to consider with these numbers is the scheduling pattern. Shadowkeep released in October, Beyond Light released in November after a delay. October-November are usually months with a lot of other game releases and holidays. In 2019 and 2020, Bungie had an expansion themselves to cover that time. In 2021, there was no expansion in Oct-Nov; and that was the last time the game had the lowest population record ever. WHAT A SURPRISE. In this period, if Destiny doesn't have an expansion, people move on to play other games!!!! WOW! We have the technology to decipher the low numbers!

It's important to also note that back in 2021, that was the first time a game was delayed properly and significantly, so the year was without an expansion and there was a lull in Oct-Nov period. However, at that time, it was the first time this schedule happened and people generally didn't know how will it go. We were also kept in the dark about the seasonal story end (the infamous When Is Exorcism incident) so people had to keep coming back. Now, we're in the same situation; no new expansion in Oct-Nov, seasonal lull, nothing is happening. However, now, we know how this goes. People know how this schedule works AND we're not dealing with an extended season. We know when this season ends and there's nothing to wait for. People are more comfortable taking a break. So there's less people in Oct-Nov 2022 than there were in the previous lowest point, Oct-Nov 2021. It's almost as if there are reasons for this that go beyond "game is obviously dying."

These people also seem to be incapable of understanding that some players just... stop playing. For no specific reason. The game isn't dying, some people just lose interest. Content creators are especially guilty of this, because THEY can't stop playing, because they tied their income to a single live service game. To them, quitting the game is losing a job. Curious, maybe that influences their views about the game and about burnout and taking breaks and the quality of the content?

They simultaneously want Bungie to drop FOMO and reduce burnout, but they ALSO want for there to never be "content droughts." Which one is it? Because these two things cannot both be gone. If you want less FOMO and less burnout, then there will be less content. If you want more content, then you have to get on that burnout grindset.

It's the end of the god damn season. Yeah, nothing is happening. Yeah, fewer people are playing. Players finished their grind in the Destiny mines and are doing other things before the new season drops. Stop catastrophising it for cheap outrage bait. You not being able to take a break and having to keep making new content even when the season is ending and there no new content is your problem. Not Bungie's, not the other players'.

Bungie is not going to force their devs to crunch 80 hours per week so you can have brand new content every Tuesday that no regular player can catch up with. As it currently is, I want MORE downtime. I want seasons to be 4 months and to have less time and more downtime to catch up with stuff. Imagine the outrage though. Genuinely, society if these people would actually deliver on their promise and leave. Someone else will take your place, bro.

Also, as a final note before a dissertation in the tags: these pvp mains are weak. They whine about only having 2 new maps in 2 years. Gambit got -2 new maps. Like, literally we had 6 maps and now we have 4. LMAO. Crucible has a total of 24 maps and 8+ modes, constant updates, Iron Banner rework, multiple Trials reworks, incoming competitive rework, Crucible labs, three different sets of armour, prestige weapon loot, three different seals, entire twabs dedicated just to it. And they whine about not enough attention for the Crucible?

It's getting more attention than any other core playlist. Their problem is that they're not the ones being catered to. An update doesn't count if it doesn't satisfy mister Crucible Main #37. Fuck everyone else I guess! They are the most entitled selfish childish little pricks I've ever seen. They do not deserve Bungie talking the players at all.

[mcybree]

man I wanna get in fh related fandom discourse but in like a quiet way where we all go around and directly share notes with one another. maybe a power point presentation is involved

[sampilled]

i am aware that when people talk about straightbaiting they are literally just joking but also

That is literally just what happens when the woman is chubby or has a job in a male dominated field or it is an interracial couple.

[steviescrystals]

i will never shut up about how much i hate the college system in the us and the way it’s all about money because i genuinely love learning and i miss being in school so fucking bad but i simply cannot afford the education i want

[drop--pop--candy]

you ever have a group discussion in english that makes everything make sense

[arolesbianism]

I need to make a new pmd story right now or I'll explode

[nomairuins]

wed have 11 if we 1. assumed i did go to preschool and 2. count 9th (which could be argued. i was their at least halfsies but it got cut off) 10 (less arguable. i dont think this counts) and 11 (This does not count .)