#blame the people who ACTUALLY have power!

[probablyasocialecologist]

Many Democratic elites appear to have landed on a familiar tactic: blaming everyone’s favorite scapegoat, Big Woke. Everywhere you look, you’ll see someone—often, but not always, on CNN—railing against the far-left extremists that supposedly held the party’s mainstream faction in its vise-like grip in 2024. There’s just one problem with this: the campaign these insiders are describing bears virtually no resemblance to the actual campaign we all just suffered through. They have simply invented an alternate universe out of thin air.

[...]

The ugly truth for these people is that Kamala Harris ran as right-wing a campaign as any Democrat in living memory. She downplayed discussions of her race and gender. She bent over backward to welcome billionaires, corporate titans, and Republicans into the fold. She told Black men that one of her priorities for them was…crypto. She made her past as a prosecutor a cornerstone of her pitch. She bragged about owning a Glock and joked that she would shoot people who broke into her house. She stuffed the Democratic National Convention to the gills with cops and Border Patrol agents while crushing even the tiniest dissent over her support for the genocide in Gaza. She promised the most “lethal” military in the world. She was seemingly joined at the hip with Liz Cheney for weeks. She even praised Dick Cheney! It’s hard to think of what more she could have done to satisfy the people clamoring for her to pander to conservatives.

11 November 2024

[tealleaves4]

Can everyone just put their thinking caps on for a moment and open their minds a little?This isn't an attack AT ALL, this is a plea to everyone to start THINKING CRITICALLY and genuinely ASKING QUESTIONS about why society is collapsing. So many straight white cis dudes (and dudes in general) just actually HATE women and minorities and REFUSE to let them have any control because they think it means less control and power for them and frankly, they've just been RAISED to think competitively of literally everyone around them, including other men. Why would they want to give up the status quo when it still benefits them greatly in certain aspects? And before people start crying WOKE or SNOWFLAKE, etc. just STOP and LISTEN for a sec. NO, I'm not talking about all men, I'm talking about hateful and sexist men. If it doesn't apply to you and you are genuinely feminist and concerned for minorities, this obviously isn't about you. But if you think the shoe fits, please wear it, and seriously start thinking critically and ask yourself why so many women and people of color are upset right now. Maybe put yourself in THEIR shoes for a moment. We're TIRED of being controlled 24/7, TIRED of having our own bodies up for vote, not being allowed the same rights and privileges as straight white cis men, TIRED of still having to fight for 'rights' we supposedly gained in the Feminist and Civil Rights movements. Literally NOTHING has changed in the US in terms of attitudes towards women and minorities since this government's founding, because it was always based in white male-dominated Christian nationalism and capitalist control of the poor, besides straight up genocide and slavery. It literally is ALL ABOUT CONTROL, control of women's bodies, control of minorities, control of poor people's labor, etc. and who wants to give up control when they're the ones still in power? The right-wing ideology provides them comfort and a promise of continued power while still exploiting their labor (because let's face it, that's all capitalist governments want - warm bodies to exploit for profit). They don't realize even they are suffering because of the hateful ideology they themselves buy into, which oppresses literally EVERYONE, even men. We've dumbed down and white-washed education so much in this country that people have ZERO critical thinking skills whatsoever and ZERO ability to even think for themselves because they've been told since birth how and what to think. Patriarchy continues to reinforce these ideas, putting down men who aren't masculine enough, etc. People continue to vote against their own self-interests time and time again because they're constantly sold lies they blindly believe, and they can't even comprehend the consequences of their own actions because they were never taught basic anthropology, economics, or civics. We've unfortunately already lost our collective memory of how bad things were before the Feminist movement and the Civil Rights movement, and I don't think people, especially young people, can even comprehend just how bad things will continue to get. People need to WAKE UP from this capitalist, patriarchal nightmare dystopia and actually start cultivating COMPASSION for others, work towards solutions, and stop being so comfortable supporting the status quo. Because as long as y'all keep doing that, NOTHING gets better, for ANYONE. We won't be free until EVERYONE is free, and literally NOTHING changes if people are still BLINDLY supporting white-male capitalist (and fascist) ideologies without questioning anything critically. Again, not an attack on anyone AT ALL. You can't necessarily blame people that have been unfortunately RAISED that way for generations now. But when you know better, you should DO BETTER. And now is sure as fuck a good time to start.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Extremely ironic how the liberals on twitter talking about calling ICE on the undocumented family members of immigrants who didn't vote/voted third party/voted for trump because they blame them for Harris losing are accidentally demonstrating how little material difference there actually is for immigrants when it comes to a republican on democrat presidency.

Like. Trump hasn't even been sworn in yet. He's made zero changes to any currently existent policies from the Biden administration. Biden is the one in power right now. And yet, under the current administration (one that campaigned heavily on opposing Trump's anti-immigration rhethoric) all it takes for you to get these people deported and ruin their lives forever is one call? 🤨

Even setting aside how much of a fascist mask-off moment this is, you're not exactly making a strong case for how voting for the Democrats again would have been in their best interest (besides "if you don't vote for them I'll calle ICE on your family and ruin their life forever", ig)

[arcanecor3]

Sister parallels.

Okay so, this is me trying my best to explain my view of the parallel between these 2 scenes

Firstly, a little thing to keep in mind is that in this parallel, s2 Cait represents s1 Vi and s2 Vi represents Powder 

A big fight just happened, s1’s was the Vander rescue mission and s2’s was find Jinx, and both ended up going wrong because of someone who was supposed to help (Powder; s2Vi). After everything goes down at the s1 warehouse, we see Vi screaming and she is angry (i’ll come back to that later), and then Powder shows up with the “my monkey bomb finally worked” line we all know, and on s2 we have Caitlyn being the angry one because Vi didn’t let her shoot.

a little parallel with the lines:

“you did this?”-s1vi to powder

“you stopped me”-s2cait to vi

“i was saving you”-powder to s1vi

“that was a kid! what if you missed?”- s2vi to cait

Now, both s1 Vi and s2 Cait are blinded by anger and grief, so even tho the other person (Powder; s2vi) is explaining themselves (in Powder’s case it wasn’t the greatest explanation, but she does states that it was an accident, and s2 Vi was being rational), they don’t really listen because of all the anger.

then, Vi slaps powder, making her fall, and that’s when Powder desperately asks: “why did you leave me?” to which Vi answers: “because you’re a jinx! do you hear me? mylo was right". Now on s2, basically the same thing happens, just in a different order: s2 Cait says: “I keep telling myself that you’re different. but you’re not. it’s her (Jinx’s) blood that runs in your veins”, then Vi asks her: “then why are you the one acting like her?” and Caitlyn hits vi, knocking her to the ground. AND IN S2 WE EVEN GET A SHOT OF ANGRY CAITLYN LOOKING AT VI CRYING, JUST LIKE S1 VI LOOKED ANGRY AT POWDER CRYING. LIKE HOW SICK AND TWISTED IS THAT.

Then both s1 Vi and s2 Cait walk away, leaving the other one crying alone on the floor. 

The thing is that crying is the exactly what we expect from Powder, since that’s how she was during the entire scene, because that’s how her character is. but not Vi. Because during the entire of the s2 scene vi wasn’t actually crying, in fact, Vi barely cries in the whole show, the only time we see her actually sobbing is during the bridge scene from s1e1, when she saw her dead parents. And since then, she has trained and fought to become a person who can protect those she loves. And even when everything goes down at the s1 warehouse, we only get to see her a glimpse of her crying before she tried to go back to powder, but she’s mainly angry, that’s the way Vi usually reacts to these situations. She gets angry. And she tries to do everything in her power to go after who hurt her/the people she loves.

But this s2 scene is different. She simply has nowhere to go. Once again, she lost everything. Her family? dead. you might argue there’s Jinx but as Vi herself said: “my sister is gone”. the last person she had was Caitlyn, and she left, and Vi now feels like she ruined everything again, because that’s how she is, she burdens herself with the guilt and blames herself. So when you see Vi just, on her knees, crying, it’s just so devastating when you think that she is like that because her life is essentially over. All there’s left to her is cry. Just like Powder in the end of s1e3, s2e3 Vi lost everyone.

But that’s when the parallel ends, because it’s when Powder was in that desperate state that silco came, and even though his character divides opinions, you can’t deny that he took care of and loved Powder (who became Jinx).

Vi doesn’t have anyone to come and save her, to wipe away her tears like she had done so many times before for Caitlyn and before that for Powder. She is alone.

thank you to whoever read this entire thing for contributing to my arcane obsession, and shoutout to my amazing friend who helped me put this together @crzytoogetherr 🥰🥰

[identityflawed]

to every single arcane fan on the planet who is pissed at caitlyn for her actions in s2 act 1, please listen to me:

you are right to be pissed, that’s kind of the point, but hating her means you have to hate… like every other character. grief is a powerful factor in almost all of arcane and the motives of every character are based in something they’ve lost: whether it’s family, ideals, reputation, land, etc, they’re all dealing with loss and that causes them to act in morally-challenging ways. because that’s what grief does. a loss unthinkable causes actions unthinkable.

caitlyn joins the grief club a bit later than your other main characters, jinx and vi. but unlike jinx and vi, we actually see cait’s actions fresh off the block. the time cuts in act 1 only showed the clean-cut effects of losing their parents on the bridge, and then the new jinx and vi that occurred after the five (?) year time-skip after the explosion in the warehouse. you don’t see them when they’re full of raw grief and terror and illogical actions. you don’t see how severely vi was beaten in prison, how she must’ve lashed out in response to being taken away from her sister, how she continuously made the situation worse for herself because she felt like she deserved it, that she should’ve fought harder, been a better leader and a better sister. we don’t see jinx’s mental breakdowns afterwards, we don’t see how silco grooms her, how he uses her for his literal and emotional goals, how she’s shattered and how she pushes people away because of her own mistakes… but we’re seeing it with caitlyn, we’re seeing the rawness that comes with all of it, and we’re seeing how that impacts the narrative and other characters. people who haven’t grieved don’t seem to understand that it is like containing a storm, and you cannot do it by yourself, all of the time, and sometimes it gets out to other people if they press hard enough.

arcane is very cyclical in the way that all characters follow the same path, over and over again. caitlyn and jinx are following narrative paths, especially when you compare ambessa to silco. i do wonder if jinx knows that silco stabbed vander, that he was the one who ruined everything, hired the goons to jump them and scared her into dropping their haul from jayce’s workshop, etc. i wonder if the reason she continues to spiral is because she doesn’t know, and if caitlyn will get the same treatment with ambessa’s betrayals and her hand in the attack on the memorial.

whatever the case, you cannot defend jinx and hate caitlyn. they are not the same, i understand, but they are both products of massive grief that they blame themselves heavily for.

back to the idea of grief being a storm, because the most common gripe i see with caitlyn is how she promised vi she wouldn’t change, and then changed within a day. this isn’t… this is not an unreasonable course of action from caitlyn, given the situation and how she’s feeling. she is like… at most, a couple weeks out after her mother’s death. it is still an incredibly fresh wound, and she is sort of hinging her entire self-worth and identity on her ability to make the shot that resolves this feeling inside of her. she doesn’t get to make that shot, and fresh off of that miss, that realization that the fight is going to be prolonged and that vi is not as unattached to jinx as she says she is…

both of them made strange promises in that tunnel that they didn’t quite keep. how can you blame vi or caitlyn for picking their family over the girl they met less than a month ago? isha was a wildcard in that fight, but they both knew that caitlyn wouldn’t actually miss the shot. vi didn’t flinch when caitlyn shot 2 inches behind her, vi didn’t flinch when cait shot the gun out of isha’s hand, or the finger from jinx’s, etc, etc. it wasn’t about missing, it was the realization for vi that she can’t just cut herself off from her sister (especially when there’s signs that powder is still in there), that it is much easier said than done. and for cait, it was the realization that vi is not with her. that vi never changed.

that’s kind of the issue. vi didn’t want caitlyn to change, but caitlyn wanted vi to change, and they’re both in situations that demand change and stagnancy, respectively. see what i’m saying? does any of this make sense?

[funkle420]

Don't fucking blame Palestinians and the people who support them for this. Don't blame people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for a genocide-loving centrist for this. Even if all of them voted for Harris it wouldn't have changed the outcome.

The blame you put on the people belongs on HARRIS for refusing to explicitly promise an end to weapons and money to Israel, and end to America's enthusiastic support of the genocide. She refused to listen to the bipartisan majority of Americans who want an end to the genocide! This is not democracy, there is no choice and the people don't have enough leverage over our president if every single election is a choice between the rapid end of the world and a slightly slower end of the world.

[worstloki]

there is a difference between being born to a throne, maliciously vying for a throne, stealing a throne, and having a throne thrust upon you when you are already in the midst of an identity crisis. And I fear Loki's place in the line of succession has people unable to differentiate between any of these

[alarajrogers]

I feel we could get a lot of traction with billboards in red states saying "Learn the secrets they don't want you to know!" Include a web site. Then the web site, using conspiracy theory type language, explains to you that "dark forces" in bed with "enemy agents" and "wealthy elites" are trying to control the government, explain to them how they are doing it... and don't name names until you get to the end. Never say Republican, just name specific people who happen to be Republicans. Talk about how these forces control the media.

Also, specifically call out how these forces want you to blame the Jews rather than them. Ask them if they thought of Jews when they thought of wealthy elites, and explain that is exactly what the elites want you to think, so you pick on your Jewish dentist and not the actual billionnaires who secretly rule the world, who are of many different religions.

Similarly, do something similar with migrants. Migrants come to this country and take your job... because they'll do it for so little, because they can't come in legally so they can't protest being underpaid, and your bosses pocket the difference! When people have a way to come in legally, that doesn't happen. So instead of cracking down on migrants, crack down on the companies that employ them, and give them a means to legally enter the country -- so they'll be safe to report on gang activity and employers in food service using practices that contaminate the food, without fearing being deported. And so they won't be getting under-the-table wages that no American can or would want to beat.

But you present all this the same way the conspiracy theorists do. "It just makes sense." "Do the research, you'll see the truth!" And then you give them links to credible sources. And you have explanations of how the US government works and "how people who hate ordinary Americans exploit the system to get power and make sure it's used to make your life worse!" And everything is like fourth grade reading level.

A lot of people, once they get to the names, will snort and call it misinformation because you're calling out Their Tribe. But other people will go, huh, maybe there's something to this... And because everything you're saying is actually true, any independent research confirms it. And now you have a counter to QAnon, who don't know they are leftists, who think they are conservatives who believe in small government and low taxes, but you've just presented most of the Democrats' policy points as being palatable to those beliefs.

the lesson I'm taking away from this election is not that the Democrats need to become more left wing or more right wing but moreso that they need to find a way to cater their rhetoric towards people who genuinly have no idea what is going on. the target audience for every speech and political appearance should be someone who doesn't know what the three branches of government are because they were drawing a Cool S during high school civics

[alicentflorent]

I didn’t sit here for years tryna stay calm and silent while listening to your bad takes on gale (who grew up oppressed, in poverty and then witnessed his entire district getting wiped out then rightly went to fight in the rebellion because it was his inlg chance of tearing down the system the wanted him and his family dead) being a “terrorist war criminal who is single handedly responsible for killing innocent people including prim and who is the REAL villain of the hunger games” just for y’all to turn and start stanning and defending actual facist dictator and child trafficker Coriolanus Snow because you saw a young hot version of him.

[astralleywright]

the assumption that Imogen (and previously Ashton) never recieved any assistance from the gods because they didn't pray "correctly" is interesting to me. is there some specific procedure for acceptable prayer in Exandria? if you don't do it right is it like texting the wrong number and the Gods just don't get the message? or are they just putting cries for help that don't follow their formatting and content guidelines at the bottom of the pile lmao

[thetrashthatsmilesback]

i watched a compilation of other youtubers complaining about DnP, and when the complaints weren't just "the phandom is annoying," they boiled down to:

DnP are both nice but are aloof/weird/insert other trait that makes talking to them at gatherings difficult.

Phil is nice but Dan's a Bitch who Doesn't Let Phil Talk To Other People (which... Phil is a grown ass man but okay. Maybe he just doesn't want to talk to you but whatever, sure.)

DnP are nice but they queerbait (ig now they're the ultimate queerbaiters since they own a house together lmfao)

DnP are nice but Phil is nicer and Dan is hotter (which,,, I honestly don't know why these clips were included but I'm going to take it as "They're both nice but Dan is more aloof" which is funny because that's a character trait he's said he has for years and as a fellow aloof bitch its very funny to me when people complain about it lmfaooooo)

I'm ngl, the amount of people who were in the compilation just because of the Phandom, or who's complaints boiled down to "DnP are both very nice but very awkward/aloof/stick to themselves" makes me think that they're generally nice and other people just don't understand that not everyone likes talking all the time lmfao

[zenosanalytic]

95% of this is good, but I'd argue with the summation. Despite sucking in every other way and generally being trash people, Biden and the Dem leadership legit did or tried to do allot of good lefty stuff over the last 4 years(big stimulus to get us out of pandemic recession rather than austerity leading to a tight labor market and increasing wages, protecting union drives, backing up unions during strikes, debt forgiveness, abortion and contraception protections, getting us out of Afghanistan) that either got ignored or misrepresented by the press(for instance: the press blamed the stimulus for inflation rather than pandemic-related supply issues followed by price-gouging). Of course they ALSO blew up allot of the goodwill from that by supporting Israel's genocide in Gaza.

I'd say it's less that the Dems WANT to hand power to Republican fascists, than that party leaders spend most of their time talking to richer(and so more conservative) Dems, and so end up running campaigns focused on THEM instead of their actual voters. To a certain extent, tho, that amounts to the same thing: wanting to have more conservative voters, and a more conservative coalition, than they do. We certainly shouldn't discount the role of Republican vote-suppression in this result(I've seen estimates that their killing of mail-in voting in most states alone accounted for ~5mil less Dem voters), but the main cause is the idiotic idea that conservative campaigns=safer campaigns which arguablysomaya pillories so well here.

And of course: the same people in the party and the press who told them to run right are already using the loss they caused to argue the Dems need to be more conservative and stop fighting against racism, misogyny, labor-exploitation, immigrant-persecution, and the oppression of queer and trans people.

[dayurno]

those r all so funny im guffawing helpp 😭😭 they’re all gonna die 💔

transmigrator riko transmigrator neil and transmigrator nora sakavic (she’s neil’s fbi agent)

[wonder-worker]

"The feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist being appointed as the day upon which the coronation of the king [Edward V] would take place without fail, all both hoped for and expected a season of prosperity for the kingdom."

-Excerpt from the Croyland Continuator / David Horspool, Richard III: A Ruler and Reputation

Even though Edward IV’s death was unexpected, after twelve years of peace there need not have been too much of a sense of foreboding about the succession. The great dynastic wound from which the Wars of the Roses had grown had not so much been healed as cauterized by the extinction of the House of Lancaster. There was no rush for London, as had happened in earlier, disputed successions. The royal party didn’t set out from Ludlow for ten days after hearing the news of Edward IV’s death, while Richard took his time, too. And the new king had [his mother the dowager queen and] two uncles to support him: his mother’s brother, the sophisticated, cultured, highly experienced Earl Rivers; and his father’s, the loyal and reliable Duke of Gloucester, to whom Edward IV had entrusted unprecedented power and vital military command.

... [Richard of Gloucester] had achieved his goal by a mixture of luck and ruthlessness, and if he made it appear, or even believed himself, that destiny played a part, this only made him a man in step with his times. Modern historians have no time for destiny, but sometimes the more ‘structuralist’ interpretations of the events surrounding the usurpation can come close to it. When we read that ‘the chances of preserving an unchallenged succession were . . . weakened by the estrangement of many of the rank-and-file nobility from . . . high politics, which was partly a consequence of the Wars of the Roses and partly of Edward IV’s own policies’, it is hard not to conclude that an unforeseeable turn of events is being recast as a predictable one. But without one overriding factor – the actions of Richard, Duke of Gloucester after he took the decision to make himself King Richard III – none of this could have happened. That is, when the same author concedes ‘Nor can we discount Richard’s own forceful character’, he is pitching it rather low*.

Edward IV had not left behind a factional fault line waiting to be shaken apart. Richard of Gloucester’s decision to usurp was a political earthquake that could not have been forecast on 9 April, when Edward died. After all, Simon Stallworth did not even anticipate it on 21 June, the day before Richard went public. We should be wary of allowing hindsight to give us more clairvoyance than the well-informed contemporary who had no idea ‘what schall happyne’. This is not to argue that Richard’s will alone allowed him to take the Crown. Clearly, the circumstances of a minority, the existence of powerful magnates with access to private forces, and the reasonably recent examples of resorts to violence and deposition of kings, made Richard’s path a more conceivable one. But Richard’s own tactics, his arrest of Rivers, Vaughan and Grey, the rounding up of Hastings and the bishops, relied on surprise. If men as close as these to the workings of high politics at a delicate juncture had no inkling of what might happen, the least historians can do is to reflect that uncertainty [...].

(*The author who Horspool is referencing and disagreeing with is Charles Ross)

[cassianandfenrysaremyboyos]

I'm sorry but this just pisses me off (Not Hunt obviously, but Bryce)

Bryce rant incoming which you can just ignore and I'll probably delete later

But Bryce just puts all the blame on the Asteri. And yes ultimately they are to blame in the larger sense of things. But Bryce plays a direct role in leading them down the path that results in Hunt, Ruhn and Baxian being caught. It was her need to find out Danika's secrets with no thought to the consequences, her idea to go to the Eternal City. And she takes NO personal responsibility for it at all!

Hunt is blaming himself for everything that's happened. Even when it's not his fault at all. When we're in his pov he's constantly drowning in guilt, thinking about how he should of done more, he should of tried harder, he should of been better, how it's all his fault this happened and that his friends suffered.

And then Bryce does none of that. When we're in her pov she doesn't really show any major guilt. I can't think of any times when she blames herself like Hunt does. And I'm not saying she should be wracked with guilt. But a normal person, a good person, will usually feel bad and will feel guilty and blame themselves to some degree when something bad happens and people they care about are hurt, regardless of how big or small they're involvement is, or even if they're not at fault at all, case in point Hunt being wracked with guilt even when it's not his fault.

And to make it worse she acknowledges that Hunt warned them, warned her. But that she disregarded it and would of done it no matter what.

And then she has the audicity to say she doesn't regret it. And she thought they were on the same page. ON THE SAME PAGE!!?? Hunt made it clear in hosab that he didn't want to go down this road again, that he didn't want to get involved. YOU just didn't listen Bryce. And yeah Hunt's an adult, he can make his own decisions and he could of said no and not gone. But of course, OF COURSE!! he wasn't going to let Bryce go down that road alone, because he loves her, and doesn't want anything to happen to her, and wants to protect, so of course he would never desert her. But that doesn't mean he wanted to do it!

For Bryce to be that unaware of Hunt's feelings, when he explicitly stated them. For her to be that disconnected from her mate's feelings that she's surprised that he wasn't really on board is kinda unfathomable to me. Just that complete lack of awareness really does make her look quite selfish/self centered.

Anyway sorry, this post is a mess but I just had to vent

And then when Hunt mentions the consequences he and his friends faced, Bryce makes it about her pain. She's hurt that Hunt mentioned that they suffered. And the worst part is, Hunt then regret's it, he regrets saying something that hurts Bryce, because he cares about her and feelings. And she does not consider his feelings to the same degree

It just pisses me off

[eisthenameofme]

kind of hard to take a lot of the people claiming to be antifascist anarchists seriously when a solid chunk of them seem to think not wanting the state to exist means they are no longer in the reality where it currently exists.