#but “not voting” is still a vote and in this case they MADE IT WORSE guaranteed there will be MORE warcrimes murder dispossession genocide

[itsallpoliticsstupid]

The US Presidential Election 2024 - A mini Deep Dive into what went wrong for the Democrats

I would say this will be my last post on the US Presidential Election of 2024, but we all know it won't be.

I wanted to bring all my thoughts together as to what I perceive the biggest issues for the Democrats were, and how this needs to be rectified in 2028. Well, they won't listen to some random person on a Politics blog with *checks* 44 followers (oh hi, thanks for following), but this is my opinion.

And interestingly, it all starts with the sale of a certain social media platform.

October 2022 - Elon Musk buys Twitter

In my personal opinion the acquisition of Twitter was a major contributing factor to how the election was won. Elon Musk has never been quiet about his Political leanings being closer to the Conservative ideology and how he believed that it was wrong to silence those on the right for their views. So Trump et al. Going as far as to reinstate their accounts.

We all know that Twitter has now become a very toxic place. With extreme ideological views. I feel it was easy to use this platform to peddle a more Trump ideal for the election. It's still one of the biggest platforms out there, why wouldn't it be used to try and win an election. And without it, it would have made things significantly harder for the Republicans to reach a larger audience.

Anyway, this isn't just me twitter bashing. This is me actually analyzing what the situation is.

So back to what the Democrats did wrong.

Joe Biden confirms he will run for President

I believe the election was lost from the moment that Joe Biden made the decision to stand as President for a second term.

This is where everything fell apart, and set a tone for the remainder of the election. Joe Biden was not medically fit to run for the Presidency, and it had been so clear towards the end of his first term as President. You could see he was struggling in front of camera. Getting words wrong. Forgetting the most basic of things. It was a bad look for the Democrat's, and something that the Republican's could easily jump on.

It meant they could capitalize on it and make the Democrat's look like a party of weak leadership.

By the time he dropped out, Kamala Harris had approximately 100 days of campaigning. It wasn't enough. It didn't allow her to really put herself forward as an ideal candidate.

Which leads me to...

Kamala Harris - what did she stand for?

Outside of the right to healthcare/abortions I can't name what Kamala Harris stood for in this election. To me she was a status quo candidate at a time where American's needed assurances due to the increase in cost of living; terrible wars in the Middle East and Ukraine; and high levels of immigration.

Regardless of how bad Trump's policies were (and as we are seeing they are BAD) they were offering an alternative. One that people have been crying out for because they're struggling with the most basic things in their life.

Unfortunately the alternative is likely to make things significantly worse for the American people. But when somebody is saying they will lower costs for you, it's something you take at face value. Especially if you don't necessary understand the impact of raising tariffs or the removal of the affordable care act.

It's just sad that the Democrat campaign was so bad and didn't offer an alternative, it allowed this to happen.

Celebrity Endorsements

I was in two minds about what to put next. This or negative campaigning. But I think this one works.

Whilst Trump was backed by people like Elon Musk, I don't believe he had anywhere near the level of celebrity endorsements that Kamala had, and it very often doesn't work in a persons favor for a couple of reasons.

The first is I think there was a heavy reliance on people listening to their favorite celebrities when considering who to vote for. But in many cases, people will see an endorsement from Taylor Swift, or Misha Collins, or Bruce Springsteen and think 'well, what the hell do they know about what I am currently facing.' A lot of people will view celebrities as out of touch with the reality of today's world.

I'm not saying this is always the case. But that's what the average voter who has zero understanding of Politics will think. That somebody who has millions in the bank will never understand the struggles of having to hold down three jobs to feed your children, or pay your mortgage. And yes, there is a level of cognitive dissonance there because they don't think the same for Trump or Musk, but they seem them as a ruling elite who have the knowledge to make things better for the country. Not just a 'bleeding heart liberal' who just hates the right and has no business being in Politics.

I see the second that it took away from Kamala Harris as a candidate, and shielded a lot of the issues that she had. I think the endorsements worked for Obama because he had charisma. He offered something different. But for Harris, it was just a shield to show she had nothing.

And really, for the reasons above, it was a shield that didn't work as many people were turned off and inevitably chose not to vote.

Negative Campaigning

It never works. It's as simple as that. It never works.

And ultimately I feel that's what the Democrat campaign boiled down to. Being as negative as possible about the Republican's. About their views on abortion. About how many of them are Russian sympathisers. About Trump's health. And that always leaves people thinking 'they can't be that bad though.' And I think a lot of people got turned off by voting Democrat for that reason.

There is more. If I was to do more research I could continue for hours with this. Maybe I will come back with a part 2 when I have had more time to digest everything. But right now, these to me have been the biggest drivers behind the Democrat's losing the election.

And not the fact Kamala Harris was a woman like some people who like to believe.

It's time for the Democrats to stop burying their head in the sand and listen in time for the 2028 election.

[readandwriteclub]

Hamas-aligned Gazan-sympathetic individuals who were eligible to vote in the 2024 US Presidential election, who didn't vote for Harris -- because they oppose the US assistance to Israel and the insistence upon the "two State solution" that dates back to the PLA days -- well, they've given the election to Trump. Who cares? Well, Trump prefers the "one State solution" of letting Bibi do whatever he wants, however he wants, and with unrestricted US support. If you think that's a bad thing, congratulations, you're culpable anyway now and there's nothing you can do to change or atone for that. You had one chance to not fuck it up; and you fucked it up.

Imagine that I'm a Republican megadonor, and I'm saying thank you for doing what my hundreds of millions of dollars in a Super PAC couldn't -- actually swing the vote ratio for Trump.

"Thank you 🍉🍉"

[themousefromfantasyland]

I'm not even American but I need to vent.

I assure you Americans that elections and politics suck worldwide, and not just for you. Save from a few cases here and there, candidates are always either too old, too shady, or just too stupid.

But more than candidates, you are voting for their policies.

It's your duty to vote for the better or just the lesser evil policy among them.

The "two sides are equally awful" is seldom true and it's just a lie to excuse passivity.

You have a duty for your marginalized folks and yourself to make your society better or at least stop it from getting worse.

Biden has quite a interesting history of progressive policies done, while Donald Trump is just a convicted fellow, darling of white supremacy, and the god of religious freaks.

There's no place on Earth where these candidates are the same.

Even if your hate Biden based on his softness with the current Far-right government of Israel, Trump is cherished by Israel far-right, is deeply Islamophobic, and even use Palestinian as an insult. He will be even worse for Palestine.

You have to vote, you have to exercise your civic duties. The two parties aren't the same and saying that is just an excuse for passivity.

It won't fix the world I assure you. There will still be things to be one. You still will have to protest, to get involve with politics, to help good policy be made and set in motion. But just voting is the first, and most important step for it.

@ariel-seagull-wings @mask131 @thealmightyemprex @the-blue-fairie @princesssarisa

[fairuzfan]

I'm to the point where if I hear you're endorsing/voting for Kamala Harris and you're publicly getting mad at people for not voting for her, I'm not even going to listen what you have to say, you've made it clear you have to strong principles to guide your decisions beyond "what's worse for me personally?" I think Harris voters have no actual ideologies to live by, despite claiming they do, and I fundamentally don't respect them for it. It's one thing to be angry at people who won't vote for Harris, but it's another thing to pretend you're doing it because you have some sort of moral authority and not basing it off pure selfishness. You think that solidarity is posting about things and that's it. You refuse to make yourself uncomfortable, even momentarily. And you get mad at people who are willing to go through discomfort for the sake of others. You call them names, ans claim that THEY are the selfish ones in this scenario. You've given up on making a change in the world for the better, or maybe you were never interested in it. All of your arguments pale in comparison to reality, because Harris is actively funding a genocide. She has even refused to acknowledge a reality in which she does not fund that genocide. Has made such a thing clearer and clearer. All my problems here in the imperial core are secondary to that. I'm about to go through multiple personal issues that are made increasingly hard by political factors and I still think that's nothing in comparison to what Palestinians and Lebanese are going through overseas. You've placed yourselves as the ultimate victims in the world and to me it's laughable and completely out of touch with just how fucked everyone else is because of the imperial beast that is Amerikkka. And speak nothing of the way the victims of Amerikkkan imperialism on Turtle Island bear the brunt of societies' woes for your personal comfort and refusal to make any meaningful change. Not ev baby steps! You think trump is an accidental anomaly and not a product of a larger issue within white amerikkkan politics. Is it not shocking to you that so many people here are voting for trump so enthusiastically?

Seeing things like the weaponization of personal identity, like "Muslims for Harris," used so plainly is an insult to the ideas of internationalism that you all claim to follow. What use is solidarity with the victims of imperialism if you refuse to acknowledge the entirety of the imperial complex? That includes the democrats you hold so dear as well as the Republicans? What use is any of this if you only think for yourself?

You claim to be thinking of others, and that's why you vote for Harris... but what is so incomprehensible to me is the comfort in which you accept the inevitability of Palestinian deaths. Why are you so willing to accept that reality? Why are you comfortable with that reality? It shocks me and disgusts me in a way that I can not really describe. You lot argue and argue and argue, but in the end, the difference between you and me is that I refuse to engage in a reality where Palestinians must die in any case. You have yet to refuse that. In actuality, you all refuse the baby steps, the bare minimum, of refusal to engage in continuation of that reality. And because of that, I do not take you seriously, nor do I view you as being moral in your decision to sacrifice Palestinians.

[wilwheaton]

For some odd reason, moderator Jake Tapper told Trump in the beginning that he didn't need to answer the questions and that he could use the time however he wanted. Trump ran with that, essentially giving a rally speech whenever he had the floor and was unresponsive to the vast majority of the questions. He made faces and insulted Biden to his face, at one point calling him a criminal and a Manchurian candidate. If anyone had said 10 years ago that this would happen at a presidential debate they would have been laughed out of the room. After the debate when most of the country had turned off cable news or gone to bed, CNN aired its fact check. [...] Even had Joe Biden been at the top of his game, he would not have been able to parry all those lies and he shouldn't have been put in the role of being Donald Trump's fact checker. His choice was to either ignore the lies and let them stand so he could use his time to make his own case or spend the entire debate correcting the record. It was not a fair fight. It's obvious that Biden's terrible performance has caused panic among Democrats and liberal pundits and analysts. The calls for him to withdraw are loud and meaningful and it's going to be a very rough period in this campaign whatever happens. For me, this isn't really a question. As long as Donald Trump is on the ballot, I will vote for the Democratic nominee. If it's Biden or someone else, the calculation remains the same. Nothing is worse than another Trump administration and I suspect that at the end of the day Democratic voters will agree with that. So it's still a matter of those undecided voters in swing states, just like it was on Thursday morning.

CNN's debate was no fair fight

CNN, yet again, gave Trump a national stage to vomit an endless stream of unchecked lies, and today, CNN is telling itself and anyone who will listen that the network and its moderators did a great job. That’s just plainly false, and America is paying the price for their failure.

That doesn’t let Biden off the hook. Biden had a terrible night. He was so bad, it’s allowed the political press to completely ignore not just how much Trump lied, but what he lied about: January 6, all his indictments, his Covid response, and on and on. President Biden was a disaster, and his campaign should be at DefCon 1 to try and repair all the damage. I am terrified that his awful performance will obscure his surprisingly good record and leadership in the post-insurrection era, and give the political press an excuse to run with “Biden is old” in the face of Trump’s endless lies, his felony convictions, his pending trials, and all of his criminality. Someone at Salon said that Trump didn’t win, but Biden absolutely lost. I can’t argue with that, even if the facts are all on Biden’s side.

I’ve seen President Biden on TV today, and even last night after the debate, where he didn’t come across as an ancient dude who needs a walker on his way to some Matlock reruns. He looks and sounds like the SOTU Biden we all expected would show up last night. I have no idea why he was so awful for 99% of the debate (the campaign says he has a cold), and I have no idea why the guy who is showing up to speak to supporters today, and who delivered the SOTU didn’t show up last night to save America from Trump, again.

But we have to live with this reality now, and I hope like hell that the Biden campaign, the candidate, and the entire Democratic party apparatus scrambles like fucking crazy to get all hands on deck to fix this, and remind voters that

This isn’t about BIden vs. Trump. This is about America vs. Project 2025.

There will be no second debate where Biden can try to salvage something out of the wreckage of this one. Trump has everything to lose and nothing to gain. Trump will crow about how he won, and declare he has no reason to debate again, and he’s right. Biden had one shot and he absolutely blew it. The moderators did not help, but the campaign had to have known they wouldn’t, and it sure looks like they didn’t prepare Biden for what we all knew was coming. I don’t know how those same people stop the bleeding, and if they can’t, America and the world are in real, real trouble.

But we all have to remember that we have a choice to make in just a few months. Right now, and probably on election day, the choice is between Joe Biden and Democracy, or Donald Trump and Fascism. It’s stark, it’s clear, it’s binary, and I can not believe that it is even a question. I just hope that there are enough voters out there who will understand that we do have a choice. The options suck, but we do have a choice.

Please choose Democracy. Please choose America. Please choose the future world our children will inherit from us.

[hiveswap]

Summary of The Cat of The Year poll atrocities of 2023/2024

I'm sure that most people on this side of tumblr have seen the Jellie vs. Nefarious Anglerfish poll going around with like 60k votes at this point, and I'd really like clear up some of what happened since I was around for the whole thing.

Url blocked out for op's privacy. They have already left but don't look for it if you haven't seen it/don't harrass them if you already have.

1. The previous round (preparation)

I discovered the poll in its previous round, needless to say she beat Jort's ass severely. This was around the 3rd of january, meaning that this round finished before jellie's passing with only about 7k votes. Op did add their own piece of propaganda from their main:

...which was FINE. (except for stuff we'll see later) Of course running a poll while biased isn't ideal but I for one didn't even know they were the op until much later. I also added my own piece in a separate thread, and they didn't interact with it at all. There was no drama.

2. The Finale

Jellie unfortunately passed away right before the starting of this poll, which was the catalyst for what happened next. Op did exactly as last time and added a slightly more mean spirited encouragement to vote for the other contestant. This is the point where I believe that i fucked up personally.

I added this thinkpiece accusing op of associating all mcyters with Dream (who we all hate for the record) despite them not alluding to him at all. This is because tumblr has a history of disimissing all mcyters as... everything that dream was been accused of. Op did allude to not caring for mcyt. but they didn't say what i accused them of. This is important to point out because this reblog of mine is still being spread. Jellie was in the lead at the time, but not by the time i woke up next morning.

I won't be including anyone else's additions because I don't want to put blame on any specific person. Just felt like clearing up mine.

3. The Fuckening

Some time later op made this post to their personal blog:

which is insanely shitty because, as other people have pointed out, the "lame ass youtube cat" didn't die to inconvinience op or ruin their fun, and people would have probably voted for her anyway because jelly is universally beloved in the mcyt community. This isn't anti democratic. This post was added to the poll with a caption saying op should not be running this poll, and it took off. Op later went on to say that this was a joke:

This apology was not taken well by people, (including me) because "you were not meant to see it" isn't an apology and they still very much made fun of someone's pet dying. Safe to say this did not make the drama stop and only added fuel to the flame. I believe this was the point where the conversation of mcyt fans being unjustly sent hate to was reignited.

We should discuss that! it's a real thing that happens often and is equal to childish bullying. However, in this case, OP was the only one getting sent hate to my knowledge. The notes were mostly saturated by mcyt fans, and even now i can only find one or two hateful stance towards us under the whole 20k notes post.

4. Conclusions

Op posted a second apology to the catoftheyear blog to try and calm people down (i believe this is comprehensive and a lot better than the previous one) The blog was deactivated shortly after, so i only have my phone screenshots of it that i also added to the poll itself at some point:

(Edit) Here's proof that op did not write the justification they got criticised for, from the notes of the original poll:

This apology didn't get seen, or get accepted by enough people, so op made this statement on their personal:

Needless to say I am deeply dissapointed (and guilty) that it's come to this. Yes, op said tasteless things that made us all angry, but telling a human being to commit suicide is worse than being insensitive about a stranger's pet dying. Even after I posted about the blog being decatived i had someone come into my notes to wish that "they never find happiness" i mean wtf. This isn't like shipping where we can do whatever without the content creator's input. this is fucking harrowing and i can't imagine how i'd feel if this was done in my/my pet's name especially after losing them as recently as a week ago.

I hope no one from hermitcraft who is on here (let alone scar holy shit) learns about this like they did with previous lighthearted tournaments. If you truly respect the creators you claim to be a fan of as people, you do not tell people to kill themselves over them. And finally, let Jellie fucking rest, guys. she had a long, good life. I hope op can come back and also avoids behaving like this if they ever wish to do so. I'm angrier at mcytblr, though.

[sashayed]

I haven't said as much about electoral politics this year as I have in previous cycles, because I am exhausted like everyone else and have nothing new or helpful to add. That is still true, so caveat lector I guess lmao!!! Happy American Election Day Fellow Sufferers!!

I have been experiencing an internal backlash the last few years to my extremely Sorkinpilled D.C. private school upbringing -- my childhood spent as a kind of convent schoolgirl in the faith of The System Is Good If We All Participate, which of course has a uhhh let's say generously a minimal engagement with the ways in which many of us are by design shut out of participating. I don't think idealism is necessarily childish, but I think MY idealism certainly has childish qualities, an undergirding of 90s feel-goodism, of civic participation as a subtle ego stroke and of voting -- although I would never have consciously put it this way -- as a way to feel superior to people who don't vote.

Lately there has bubbled up in me a sludgy, adolescent fury at this whole stupid country that has made it very very hard to feel like I should do even the bare minimum. For these people? AMERICANS? The ones that not only want Donald Trump to be president but saw what happened the first time and were like, We love this, do it again but worse? Whatever, fuckos. "I hope you people get your dearest wish and it chews you to death slowly," I may have thought.

I have also thought: why is it so controversial to ask elected officials to stop funding a genocide? Why are we treating people who make that ask, who are watching the current administration directly fund death on a mass scale and objecting to that choice, as if they are being babies and just need to get over it? How are they supposed to get over it? Why is anybody over it?

Anyway all this means that I, a known chipper door-knocker and caller of congresspeople, have been pretty low-key this current cycle. I think that is OK. I don't want to make this a big dramatic confessional about how I didn't write enough postcards or whatever. We all get exhausted and this was my turn.

But it has also been an illuminating cycle in that it's made it clear to me how much at my big age I still want politics to make me feel good, and when they don't, I still have the urge to throw a lil tantrum about it! I can get very superior and intellectual about how right-wing operatives manipulate their voters emotionally WITHOUT EVEN NOTICING that I too have been manipulated, in my case into the feeling that nonparticipation is a kind of revolutionary act.* Just absolute "I threw it on the GROUND" logic happening inside my head. "Maybe if I don't vote I will be doing Quiet Quitting, which is uhhhhh anticapitalist." I'm not a part of your system!!!

Anyway, I am trying to have self-compassion about it, and one way for me to do that is to project my internal experience onto a theoretical reader. That would be you, my imaginary friend who clicked on this post for some reason even though you have already decided not to vote! I just want to tell you that I am more sympathetic to your point of view than I have ever been in my whole life, and I'm sorry I have historically been a glib, holier-than-thou asshole about it in ways that may actually have made you MORE resistant to civic participation.

And you're right: it doesn't make that big a difference whether I personally vote or not, or whether you do. But if there are hundreds of us, and I think there are, then each of those people individually do starts to matter.

I guess I would humbly request that you and I both pay attention to what people who need help are actually asking for. I would ask that we both notice who wins when we abdicate this single responsibility. I would remind us both that participating in the electoral process is not some kind of weird either-or with participating in decentralized community building and mutual aid, and the best people we know do both. Isn't it interesting that somehow, insidiously, without even consciously becoming aware of this belief, we have started to think that you can only do one or the other? Who is telling us that story? Who does it serve?

Anyway. I took the stupid 90 minute round trip to my polling place which was VERY hot for some reason and I stood in the stupid line and some babies waved at me and I cast my vote for Kamala Harris and I'm glad I did it in the same way I'm glad after I do the dishes or take a stupid shower. Doing work doesn't always feel like anything. I also saw a really wonderful small black and white dog that I thought was a cat on a leash. I would not have seen that dog if I hadn't gone to vote. So politics can still make you feel good!!!

*I mean all this analysis is cute and everything BUT ALSO i did switch antidepressants twice in the last year, an astonishingly grueling process that almost made me [affect the trout population]. Could these things be related? hmmmmmmm, don't understand the question, won't respond to it.

[anexperimentallife]

So you want leftist candidates? Here's how you get them:

First off, you have to understand that the far right didn't just wake up one day and say, "We should fuck up the country!" They have been OPENLY working for decades to fill literally every elected or appointed government position they could with Christian Dominionists and other right-wingers, and these folks show up to the polls EVERY SINGLE TIME.

When I was a kid in a far right church in the 1960s, they openly discussed how important is was to get their people into office who would help pass legislation to persecute/imprison/kill anyone who didn't follow their religion. If there's no one sufficiently right-wing running, they'll vote for whomever is closest, even if it gags them. And I cannot emphasize enough that they have long term goals that they are willing to take--and HAVE taken--generations to achieve.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade, for example, is a DIRECT RESULT of the decades-long effort by the far right to boost the most far-right-leaning candidates they could find. They've been talking for decades SPECIFICALLY about getting enough far right judges in SCOTUS to overturn Roe v. Wade. And these SCOTUS appointments are for LIFE, so these judges get to set policy for your GRANDCHILDREN.

So yes, the overturning of Roe v. Wade was only made possible because Trump was able to appoint three SCOTUS judges, in addition to all the other federal judges he appointed. Amd they're talking about going after same-sex marriage, minority rights, etc.

(Hell, the judge in charge of his secret documents case is one that he appointed--she has indefinitely postponed that case,by the way.)

And you don't think local school board elections are important? Have you not seen the news about all the anti-queer policies, and all the book-bannings? This, also, has a generational effect.

Meanwhile the left refuses to turn up to the polls because none of the candidates are pure enough. So guess why things are getting worse?

If the Left turned out for the most left-leaning candidate at EVERY SINGLE ELECTION, whether local or state or whatever, including primaries, we'd start seeing more leftist candidates. Yes, that means that if there's a choice between two extreme right wing candidates, you vote for the least extreme one.

I know I keep emphasizing that this is not just about POTUS, but POTUS does figure in, of course (among other things, who do you think appoints judges for congress to approve?).

So swallow this pill: Anything shitty Biden is doing, the shitgibbon will do MORE of.

"Not gonna vote Biden because he supports genocide, so I'd rather the guy win who ALSO supports genocide, wants Russia to invade more countries, thinks it's fine if China retakes Taiwan, wants a nationwide abortion ban, removal of civil rights for minorities, wants to overturn same-sex marriage (which the right-leaning majority in SCOTUS are already talking about), to cut back the role of congress in checking executive actions (including workarounds to avoid the need for congressional confirmation for presidential appointees), to remove federal employee protections so federal personnel can be replaced with Trump loyalists, and so on! That'll teach those Dems a lesson! THEN they'll be sorry. And fuck everyone the bad guys hurt, because I'll still be PURE. So what if top GOP officials want to actually NUKE Gaza?"

That's fucking kindergartner thinking.

Yes, Biden is a piece of shit, but I am not waxing at all hyperbolic when I say that a second orange shitgibbon term, with a far-right-majority SCOTUS--especially if the GOP manages majorities in both houses of congress--may be the end of what little is left of Democracy in the US. Not gonna argue about it, because I don't waste my time with petulant children.

Look at the GOP's plans for a Republican administration, and tell me you think it sounds better than another term of Biden. Hell, they've even set up online trainings and loyalty tests to narrow down potential federal hires to those who will commit to follow Trump without question.

I repeat: If you want more leftist candidates, if you want more worker power, if you want billionaires taxed, if you want to protect minorities and the queer community, you have to adopt the strategy that the right has used, educate yourself about what candidates stand for, and show up EVERY SINGLE TIME. Again, that includes primaries.

So many of us on the left would rather sit in the basement dreaming of some magical revolution that's going to fix everything, giving ourselves and others purity tests, and proudly announcing that we're... boycotting democracy by not voting(?), "because none of the candidates are a good choice."

Yeah, the left refusing to vote--or only voting in presidential elections--while the right turns up every time is exactly how we got here.

And you have to support the most left-leaning candidate even if it makes you gag, and even if "most left-leaning" means "not as openly fascist." This is the ONLY way you can be assured of candidates getting further to the left in the future. (Note that this means learning about your local candidates.)

"But voting won't fix--" I never said it was going to fix everything. There's no rule that if you vote, you can't volunteer with Food Not Bombs, or run for school board, or demonstrate, or circulate petitions. It takes more than voting, but voting has to be PART of our strategy.

You also have to accept that it may take decades to change course, and that you're not going to like every candidate you have to vote for.

The right didn't just magically get the orange shitgibbon into office overnight. It took decades of work. And if we want decent human beings in charge, we have to be willing to do the same.

[restlessmaknae]

crush into you // myung jaehyun

When you literally crush into Jaehyun on your way to an interview, the boy manages to spill iced coffee on your blouse. That's how you end up wearing his own blazer to the interview to cover up the spot, and the rest is history.

➳ Characters: uni student!Jaehyun x uni student!female reader/you

➳ Genre: meet cute, slice of life, uni au, fluff

➳ Words: 3k

➳ Warning: mentions of foods

➳ A/N: This story had the second most votes in my recent poll, so here it is. I'm really enjoying their comeback, so it was very easy to write a story about Jaehyun. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it! ❤️

➳ Taglist: @s00buwu, @dat-town

Your days were carefully planned out with written to-do lists, calendar apps filling up your phone, and multiple scenarios made up with every plan that you might have. Just like today when you were about to go to an assessment centre as part of a job interview: a 3-hour selection process with an hour of group work, an hour of one-on-one interview with the hiring manager alongside an HR specialist and an hour for individual tests. You planned out when to leave the flat, when to get on the bus, which bus to take in case you didn’t manage to get on the exact bus you wanted and when you could possibly leave your neighbourhood the latest in order to still get to the company in time.

Myung Jaehyun’s days, on the other hand, were a hot mess. He was frequently running late from classes, group work meet-ups and dance practices, high on adrenaline and energy drinks. No one blamed him because the moment he flashed a smile, it was game over for them. Taesan might have given him a bombastic side eye for such a comment, but it was rare that anyone really reprimanded Jaehyun for being a bit too hyper, a bit too all over the place and a bit of a kid at times.

So when you literally crushed into him as you turned a corner towards the company and he was running around with his iced coffee in hand, trying not to be late from a class, on his part, the collision wasn’t that unexpected.

On your part though, it totally was.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so so sorry,” the boy exclaimed first things first just at the same time as you started apologising to him, but when you felt an odd cold sensation around your abdominal area, you immediately looked down at your white blouse, your lips parting in disbelief.

“Oh nooo,” you pouted, looking at the brownish spot on your white blouse caused by his coffee, multiple scenarios crossing your head as to how to fix this. You didn’t have enough time to go back to your flat to change, you weren’t familiar with the area, so you didn’t know whether they had a clothes shop around, and you didn’t know whether trying to get the stain out would only make it worse and the spot more noticeable or not.

“Oh. My. Gosh. I’m so… very… sorry,” the stranger reacted more dramatically than you would have thought so, all wide eyes and exasperated expression tinting his otherwise boyish features, messy jet-black locks falling into his eyes. As opposed to your business casual style - white blouse with black cotton pants and high-heeled sandals -, he looked more like a sophisticated yet fashionable guy around campus with his burgundy sports shoes, leather pants, a simple white tee, a black blazer and multiple accessories crowning the look from rings on his fingers to necklaces gracing his skin. You couldn’t have looked any different at that moment.

“I’ll make it up, I promise. Are you in a hurry, are you heading somewhere?” He asked nevertheless, his puppy eyes also in contrast to his whole appearance.

“Well, yeah, I’m going for a job interview. I’ll have to be there in 15 minutes, and it’s still like a 5-minute walk from here.”

“Oh no, that’s not good,” he shook his head, and with the hand that didn’t hold the half-empty cup of the rest of his coffee, he scratched the back of his neck. He bit down on his lower lip, clearly in deep contemplation, and you were about to end this whole conversation when his actions made you freeze on the spot. In a whirlwind moment of events, he threw his cup into a nearby trash can, got a tissue out of his pocket to clean his hand that the coffee also spilled onto and slid the blazer off himself to reach it out to you. “Here, take this. It might be a bit big on you, but it will cover up the spot nicely, and I think it will go well with your outfit.”

“But…”

“Please, take it. I don’t really know what else to do right now, and you have a job interview in 15 minutes, and I’m terribly sorry, and I don’t want you to mess it up because of me. So it might be worth a try? I don’t know, I just…” The boy kept talking on and on, his voice cheery yet also filled with guilt, and seeing his puppy eyes shining with genuine care, you didn’t have the heart to say no. What could possibly go wrong about trying it on either way?

“I was about to say that it’s actually a pretty smart idea,” you pointed out as you reached out for the blazer, and the boy’s face lit up fully when you complimented him. He flashed you a wide, toothy grin, his smile pushing his lips closer to his eyes, so much that his eyes almost disappeared while he was smiling at you.

The boy even offered to hold your bag while you put the blazer on, and since it had two buttons on the bottom, it allowed you to fully cover up the spot as if it had never been there. He was right though, it was big on you, but oversized was in fashion these days, right?

“Oh my gosh, it really does fit you,” he pointed it out in a similarly excited manner as before, and you smiled back at him, forgetting for a moment why you had even been wearing his clothes. Just for a moment though, you were back to your planning self within a second.

“Thanks for your help, but I really need to go now. Would you give me your number, so I can give it back to you later on?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” he said as he fished his phone out of his pocket to exchange contacts with you. As you locked your screen after saving his number, you looked up at him, into his shining jet-black orbs, and for a moment, you didn’t know what to say. Gosh, your days were always so planned out, plan Bs and Cs tucked into your mind with every scenario that you could imagine, yet this, this was exactly the kind of thing you could not prepare yourself for. No wonder you were awfully unprepared for what to say.

Luckily, he was the one who woke up from his stupor first as he announced:

“Let me know how the interview goes. Good luck! You’ve got this!” He cheered you on as he threw his balled fists into the air, and off he went, the picture of his wide, toothy smile and his shining eyes difficult to forget even if you had more important things to concentrate on.

You agreed on meeting at a café a few days later. Those few days were enough for you to wash and dry clean the blazer, and to get a gift bag, so you could give it back to the boy (Jaehyun based on his KKT ID) in a presentable manner. You were supposed to be early for your agreed meet-up as you made your way to the café 10 minutes earlier, but you already found Jaehyun sitting at a corner table, scrolling through his phone and occasionally laughing out loud at whatever he was watching.

Jaehyun was not supposed to be early for your agreed meet-up, but given your well-prepared state the last time you had met, he started wondering where you could be at 15:15 when he had thrown himself into the café, totally panicked that you must have already been sitting there. Only to realise upon checking your messages with you that you had actually agreed on meeting at 15:30, meaning that he was actually 15 minutes early, not 15 minutes late. Not too bad for someone like him though.

So when you walked up to him and your voice dragged him out of his mindless scrolling, he flashed a wide smile at you, the one that had been engraved into your memories since your first encounter.

“Hey! Have you been waiting for a long time?” You inquired curiously as you hopped down on the chair on the opposite side of the table. Jaehyun let out a semi-embarrassed chuckle, one that made you furrow your eyebrows in question, although the smile was still playing on your lips.

“Well, that’s a funny story,” he started with a scratch on his neck before he continued with the story. “I thought… no, I was convinced that we were supposed to meet at 15:00, and so, I was fashionably late as usual. You know how I said that I’m usually late, but I’ll try my best to come on time. When I didn’t see you here at 15:15 when I got here, I checked our conversation on KKT, and it turns out we were supposed to meet at 15:30, so I was 15 minutes early.”

“Oh my gosh,” you couldn’t hold back your laughter as you were listening to his explanation, and the way he told the story made everything ten times funnier. He used wide hand gestures while speaking, and he played with his tone to deliver the parts of the story even more clearly. The boy laughed at himself too, so it didn’t feel weird laughing at his antics, something so unlike yours.

After pulling yourself together, you gave him the bag with the clean blazer, yet, he insisted that you shouldn’t have cleaned it yourself and bought a gift bag for him in which you delivered it. Hearing that, you insisted that crushing into him was partly your fault, and he did save you from having to sit though the 3-hour selection process with a visible coffee-stain on your blouse, so this was the least you could do. Plus, even though you didn’t say it out loud, you found it cute how he had asked about your interview afterwards on KKT (what position it was for, what company it was and how it went), and how delighted he had been when you had told him that you think you had done well. He had sent some encouraging memes in return (like the kid with his balled fists and a determined face), and just the thought that pretty much a stranger like him could be so happy and cheer you on eased your frazzled nerves post-interview.

You ordered your drinks while he was asking about your days and how you had been since you had last met. That’s when your phone buzzed, and seeing the company’s name on the screen that you had interviewed for, you immediately reached for it. Swiftly, you unlocked your screen and opened the message, only to let out a little bit of a squeal when you saw that you had gotten in.

“Oh my god, what is it?” Jaehyun asked, and his confusion was written all over his features when you looked up from your phone.

“I’ve got the internship! I’ve got in!”

Immediately, the boy’s features softened, and his lips pulled into a genuine, wide smile that could outdo the sun, his jet-black orbs twinkling with joy.

“Wow, congrats! That’s so cool!” He beamed, practically as excited as you, and clapped his hands enthusiastically. You could see from the corner of your eyes that you got some stares from the people nearby, but you couldn’t care less in your state. Finally, you landed an internship offer! “It’s totally the blazer’s doing though,” Jaehyun added cheekily, his smile turning into a crooked, almost cocky one.

“Yeah, totally, me and your emotional support blazer against the world,” you replied in a similarly teasing tone, and let out a laugh at the same time as the boy did. Gosh, who would have thought that you would meet him for the first time on the day you interviewed for the company, and you would meet him again when you were notified of your result?

Maybe he was really your lucky charm.

“You gotta celebrate though. Let’s order cake! I think I saw some cakes on the menu, and before you object, it’s on me,” the boy announced matter-of-factly, and grabbed a menu from a nearby empty table. You shook your head, seeing his pumped up state, since you couldn’t believe that he was so supportive of you. After all, you had barely met a week ago, and still, he acted as if you had always known each other, and it warmed your heart.

In the end, you did order some cakes (and you let Jaehyun pay for them), and while you were munching on them, you talked… and talked… and talked some more since it seemed that you could never run out of things to share. First and foremost, Jaehyun always had a story to share - mostly chaotic, yet partly cute ones -, and even if he didn’t, he always asked about your side, and it was just so easy to talk to him. Usually, you needed some time to open up to people, but he made talking to him feel so easy, so light, so comfortable.

Your favourite was when he insisted that he looked like a wolf, and pouted when you agreed with all his friends who said that he looked more like a puppy. When you added that if not a puppy, you saw him as a bunny, he perked up because that was the first time he heard about it. Never have you ever thought that a boy like him could get so specific about the animal he resembled, but you let him talk about it all he wanted to see those eyes shining so bright, to see that smile stretching so wide.

You packed up only when the waitress came by to tell you that you were nearing closing hours, and if that wasn’t a sign that you did lose track of time beside him, you had no idea what could indicate it more that beside him, you wanted to stop time, not wait for it to go by faster.

You had one crush in your whole life, and that had been when you had been 12, and the new kid had entered your class, and he had sat beside you. Said kid had turned out to be a total nutcase when he had opened his mouth, and you had officially dropped your crush 3 weeks into the new school year, and ever since then, you had never felt butterflies in your stomach, let alone declare your love for someone.

Until him.

Jaehyun had too many crushes in his life to count. His heart was just as erratic as his life, and it’s not that he was playing with others’ feelings, it’s more like he had too much love and joy to give others, but they didn’t always appreciate it. He fell in love easily, only to have his heart broken even more easily because his crushes had never liked him back.

Until you.

At first, you didn’t know if he felt the same way because he seemed so casual, you found it hard to believe that he could see you as more than a friend.

At first, he didn’t know if you felt the same way because you seemed so cool, so put together, he found it hard to believe that you could see him as more than a friend with his very different (and very chaotic) self.

Then, you started picking up on the signs: the way he showed you his dance practice routines to ask for your opinion when it was just the two of you at the dance studio he attended; the way he was ever so oblivious to the barista girl at a café because he only had eyes for you; the way he always asked about your day on KKT and sent memes to match your mood; the way he remembered every little thing - the date of your first 1-on-1 with your manager during your internship or when you would go to the dentist - despite telling you that his memory was terrible, and when he sent you photos of clothes that he thought you would like when he was shopping.

Then, he started picking up on the signs: the way you always gave him a detailed feedback on his choreographies when he asked you to even though you said you didn’t know anything about dance; the way you totally didn’t want to acknowledge that a guy was trying to flirt with you when you went to the cinema together and said that you were with Jaehyun as if to signal that there was no room for anyone else (his heart did a thing there, he couldn’t lie); the way you always knew what to say when he doubted himself or he was under the weather and sent him songs to make him feel better; the way you remembered every little thing - his favourite colour, the brand of his favourite snack and the plushies he wanted to win in the arcade game -, and how you kept bringing up his emotional support blazer because this was your little joke, this was your little thing.

No wonder this was how he confessed: buying you the exact same blazer in your size, and saying that you could think of it as your own emotional support blazer from now on or a couple item, you could choose.

And you would be foolish not to choose the latter.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story of mine! Let me know what you think!

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for BOYNEXTDOOR or for other artists, consider signing up for my taglist here.

Hope you have a lovely day/night! Take care! ❤️

[nekropsii]

People in the Cronus v. Vriska debate will also completely ignore that Cronus. Really wants to kill people. He just says that. No obfuscation included.

He doesn’t even have any excuse for it. Vriska killing people makes sense because she grew up on Alternia and had to feed her Lusus. Cronus just wants to kill people because he wants to do murder-eugenics and is really fucking mad murder-eugenics isn’t legal and does in fact have social consequences. Cronus just wants to kill disabled people for being disabled and not get in trouble for it. He explicitly says he wishes culling “meant what it should have” on Beforus.

Vriska was born and raised on Alternia, and that’s not her fault. It is, in fact, an entirely new level of fucking deranged to want Alternian laws to be real. Growing up in a system where killing people deemed below you is okay is different from wishing you lived in a system where killing people deemed below you is okay, because growing up there inherently means that that is already normal to you, while wishing that was the case inherently means it is not normal to you, you just want more harm to befall specific out groups (the lower class, the disabled, etc.) and to hurt more people in more violent ways.

People also love to casually ignore that Cronus is a grown adult. Like, sure, he’s 19, and 19 years old is pretty young in the grand scheme of things, but he is still a grown ass man who knows better. Him knowing better and simply not caring is literally a major part of his character. He is a grown ass man who can make his own legal decisions and live on his own. He can pay taxes. He could buy a house. He could invest in the stock market. In some countries, he can legally drink. He can drive. He can drink and drive. He can go die in the military. He’s grown. He’s a grown ass man. Vriska is 13. That is a child. Like, a CHILD child. Vriska is a middle school child. This is the difference between a middle schooler and a college student. Think of how mentally developed you were at 13. You weren’t even done with puberty yet. You’re not even done growing at that age. Cronus can fucking vote. He can go to adult prison. If you spotted a kid Vriska’s age out roaming the street with no guardian in sight, you’d probably be worried.

A major part of Cronus’s character is that he is a terrible person by choice, willingly, knowingly, and does not care. He is making a decision. Him being shitty and awful is a conscious choice he is making. He knows he is hurting people, and he knows what he is doing is terrible, and he does not care. Cronus knows that trying to bang children 6 years his junior is bad. He doesn’t care. He knows he is abusing Mituna, he calls it abuse, and he knows abuse is bad. He doesn’t care. He knows sex crimes are bad. He doesn’t care. He’s too entitled to care about anyone but himself and his own gratification.

Vriska is a 13 year old anti-hero who literally gets groomed and is shown to only be Like That because she is extremely traumatized and her experience of living on Alternia has made it so her guard is up 24/7. She literally cannot put the metaphorical swords down. She thinks it’s the only thing keeping her alive.

Cronus does not have an excuse.

That is, like… The Point.

The point is that he sucks and is irredeemable. He doesn’t have a single quality that makes standing around him worthwhile. He’s a relentless, unapologetic abuser. He just doesn’t care. He’s the most entitled man to ever live. He sees people as punching bags and sex toys, and any time this notion is rejected or faces even the slightest pushback, he freaks the fuck out about it.

And the point with Vriska is that she is complicated, and a child. A really, really traumatized, really, really scared child.

I don’t know, I think there’s a party here that is objectively worse.

… And - hear me out! - I think… I think it’s the adult sex predator… And not the child.

[qqueenofhades]

I completely understand if you don’t feel comfortable answering this, but my mind is spiraling out of control and you’re the only person I know with the level of knowledge to where I can feel comfortable asking this without getting some form of “bla bla we live in a safe state don’t worry.”

I’m sincerely wondering if I need to be making plans to leave the country in the event of November bringing the most horrible of outcomes despite our best efforts (and yes I’m planning to vote blue in everything I can); as a AFAB in CA?

I know about project 2025. I’m terrified. Forgive my pop culture reference, but I feel like a version of Princess Zelda staring down a barrel of possible doom while everyone around me is like “nah that future you literally had a nightmare about where they made it illegal for a woman to have a bank account without a guy co-signing it and took the money from everyone who didn’t comply by a certain date isn’t even a possibility!”

I’m just confused about my life and am trying to take it day by day, and exercising every right while I still have it to prevent this outcome, but it feels weird making plans and retirement accounts and just general Setting Up Adult Life And Future Things™️……while wondering if I even have a future in this place at all and I’m just making it harder to escape if need be.

I’m sorry I’m rambling, and I guess I don’t know what I’m asking since no one has a crystal ball.

But I guess, it’s stuff like how much can the feds effect state’s policies? Is it possible for them to immediately block international travel for all women practically upon inauguration? How much time would I even have to gtfo if the worst begins?

Bc honestly this whole thing feels like the lead in to a very nasty chapter of a history book, and even though I have hope we’ll have another blue tsunami, it can be hard to try and figure things out when it feels like there’s barely any historical precedent for any of it.

Welp. Okay. First of all, I am giving you a comforting hug, I am walking with you to your favorite coffee shop, I am paying for your favorite beverage and also a baked goodie of your choice, and we are sitting down in a corner where we can talk honestly. So that's where I want you to imagine us having this conversation.

To start with, yes, I completely understand this feeling of utter, paralyzing doom, where I am trying to go about my daily life and make plans for my career and carry out daily tasks and Be Responsible while there's still just this total void beyond the end of the year, the utter impossibility of knowing if we will have dodged an absolutely massive bullet and finally be safe (since if Trump loses again he is 100% going to jail in the next four years) or, well. You know. That is a very hard way to live, when you're wondering if anything is going to matter and you can't see beyond that black cloud of fear on the horizon. It sucks you down and tells you that nothing is worth doing now in case it just gets so much worse. I am not going to tell you not to feel that. We all do. We are all scared. That in and of itself is a perfectly normal way to feel.

However, there are things you can do both now and if (I repeat, if) God absolutely forbid, the worst was to happen (again). First of all, we have already lived through a Trump presidency once. It was terrible and scary and awful and demoralizing as fuck, but we can do it again if we absolutely Goddamn fucking have to (once, again, God forbid). Second, you are currently about as safe as you could be in California. Newsom has proven himself to be smart, tough, able to run rings around Republicans, and unwilling to comply with their stupid performative-cruelty directives. He's not a saint or a magician, but you don't need that; you need a shrewd politician able to fight back, and he has proven himself willing and capable of doing that. So as long as he is governor, you're going to be more safe than not, and I'd also like to ask all the shrieking Online Leftists if, should the shit go down, they would rather live in a state with a Democratic governor who will fight Trump 2.0 every step of the way, or a Republican governor who will just roll over and obey. (But that would destroy their BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME talking point, so you know.)

Next of all, even if the Republicans are doing their best impression, America in 2024 isn't Germany in 1934. There are different tools, different ways to fight back, and different awarenesses/social media/visibility factors. I also need everyone to remember that just as Biden can't just sign an executive order and fix everything everywhere, Trump can't just sign an executive order and fuck everything everywhere, just like that with no more discussion ever. He tried that last time, it generally didn't work, and trust me, at least this time nobody is sleeping on the danger he poses. His candidacy in 2016 was dismissed as a long-shot joke that nobody took seriously until it was too late, and for better or worse, people aren't doing that this time. He will be sued instantly, incredibly, and repeatedly with everything his band of wannabe fascists try, and since we have had four years of Biden fixing the courts from where Trump trashed them, that does mean something. There is no scenario where even if he does issue some outrageous order against women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, etc (which to be clear, I'm sure he would try) it would just be carried out completely, immediately, and with no feasible way to stop it. Evil is evil, but it is also stupid, clueless, determined to hurt people just for the hell of it without any regard for what is possible or which will be allowed, and there's a lot more grey area in there than just "Trump says something terrible and it's instantly done, the end."

Once again, I'm not going to say that the worst-case scenario is not possible, but I don't think it's likely, and even if that does happen, there are ways for us to survive and fight back (again). Nobody wants it and it should not have to be asked of us due to the utter collapse of the social, civic, political, and intellectual fabric of this country thanks to the TrumpCult, but once again... these people are so loud and dangerous and cruel and stupid because they are in the minority. Etc. etc. polls are garbage, but we did just have an interesting piece of empirical data from the Iowa caucuses. Trump -- in one of the whitest, most rural, most conservative, most religious, most Trump-loving states in the country -- struggled to break 50%. Almost half of a rabid Republican fully-Trumpized electorate, among the diehards sufficiently motivated to get out and caucus in extreme freezing weather, voted for someone else (Haley and DeSantis took about 20% apiece). Now, no, we don't know how that will translate to the general election, and if registered Republicans will flock back to the nominee even if it's Trump, but as almost half of Haley voters said they would vote for Biden if it was a Biden-Trump matchup in the general, there is some sense that Trump is an aberration to their otherwise ironclad party loyalty. Now, Republicans are the fucking worst and nobody should be relying on them to save us; we still need to get out and vote for Democrats with all our might. But Trump is no longer barn-burningly popular even in core Trump heartland, and it'll be interesting to see how things go in future primaries.

My point is: I know the feeling that evil is awful and unstoppable and all-powerful, and will crush our lives and our futures no matter what we do to resist it. I really, really do. But Trump is a terrible candidate, he's running literally only to keep himself out of a long, long prison sentence, and if he had crushed the Iowa caucuses regardless, we might be having a different conversation. However, we need to remember that it is possible, again (God forbid) in the worst scenario, to resist, to live, and to win. Everyone who is motivated to work for a better world will still be here. Everyone who can help you and all of us will still be here. And there are more of us than there are of them. Yes, I do understand the feeling that we need to have contingency plans in place, I do absolutely know that it could get very bad, and all that (as you say, nobody has a crystal ball). But for now, I want you to take a deep breath, try to take this day by day, and remember that this is not a crushing and inevitable future that will sweep over you and destroy you without you (or any other person of good will) having a say in the matter. You still have agency, you still have the ability to protect yourself, and you still have others who will protect you in turn. You're not alone. The bad guys want you to think that, because when you're isolated and terrorized, you're easier to pick off and/or recruit into their cult. But you're not.

In conclusion: "What are we holding onto, Sam?"

[3liza]

i do actually think adding a Tumblr content label for AI generated images would be useful for everyone, wouldn't fuck up anyone's day that actually wanted to post or look at ai pics, and I doubt the corpos that are paying tumblr for ai dataset feeding would care either. maybe it's just the verification process putting more stress on the already-failing content checking infrastructure that's the holdup. it's not like labeling something "mature" or "drugs" or something you can just look at and see whether it is or not, unless they made it a fully community-based vote they would be showing increasingly-realistic AI slop to moderators and asking them to determine whether they were AI or not to trigger the label and I don't think it's possible. we're already at a point where the average gen alpha doesn't know the difference between "Photoshop" and "AI" and uses the terms interchangeably. edit: and, I forgot to add but meant to, we are already at a point where grizzled old fake picture-spotters like myself cannot always 100% accurately determine if something is AI. the realism gap is going to close almost completely within a year for anyone using generative software that has current updates and a prompter that is careful about picking which output to post. the realism gap is already closed for careful prompters, anyone who gets lucky and doesn't get weird hands or text, and any image which is of subject matter niche enough to fly under most people's radars.

the label could be phrased to accommodate this, as in, "XXXX out of XXXX users (let's say enough reports trigger a voting mechanism, idk) believe this media is AI-generated, photoshopped, or otherwise tampered with" but who knows how helpful it would actually be.

they did some research a while back on the effect of knowing photos of women had been retouched in Photoshop on the audience's self-image. they found that contrary to expectations, Photoshop labels made the test subjects feel worse about their own self image than they did when shown Photoshopped images of models that did not have a disclaimer on them. I've been mulling that one over for a while now. and since this is the dipshit idiot moron website no this last anecdote is not me saying "labeling fake media is useless", I still think fake media should be labeled. it just raises questions about the assumed benefits of the labeling. "knowing a picture is fake" is not a benefit that needs to be tested in the case of, for example, fake historical photographs.

[intheholler]

i’ve seen a lot of people (namely on TikTok) driving through Appalachian towns just showing off the place and all of the comments are along the lines of “well they vote red this is what they get” and it's been pissing me off but I can't put words to it. like yes it's classicism but there's something else i can't put my finger on it and wanted to put that phenomenon out there to see what others think

i feel like i know what you're talking about and its a very indignant feeling.

this prompted me to have a conversation with my wife about this, and she kind of summed up what i was also having a hard time putting into words:

people just want to be better than other people.

like, until we grow the fuck up and realize we aren't the main character, we want to be better than everyone else because it feels good, and it's easy.

specifically where appalachia is concerned:

people come to the hollers to film their poverty porn and make shitty comments because they want to separate themselves from us Bad Poor People. we aren't the Right Kind Of Poor, so they can feel good about themselves and relieve themselves of social responsibility.

in this case, it becomes easy to dismiss us and our struggles because we "voted this way" (even tho chances are we did not)

because in so doing, they can other us as The Bad People.

Good People Like Them don't have to help The Bad People Like Us, and they don't have to feel guilty about--at the absolute least--not makin it worse on us with their bullshit, because we're just Bad and that's that.

we don't deserve their help because we 'brought it on ourselves,' so it becomes a personal failure/shortcoming of ours instead of the actionable issue of systemic disenfrachisement that it is, and which could help us fight if they really cared.

so, yeah, it feels to me like a blend of classism + some internalized superiority. they feel this superiority over us because of the very stereotypes they perpetuate (such as this massive region being an exclusively maga-country monolith, in this case) which has given them a gross complex.

i still didn't articulate that well but i hope it made sense.

what about y'all? appalachia residents and non-residents invited to answer

[akutasoda]

hey can i request something for bungou stray dogs

The reader is a lawyer, with the ability to expand the domain of higuruma (jujutsu kaisen).

If you don't know the character the domain expansion. Deadly Sentence: Manifests a small courtroom dominance surrounded by guillotines where he and his opponent are placed on podiums, facing each other. Anyone inside it is simply forced To follow your rules. Violence is not permitted on the domain and anyone attempting to get involved will be returned to the podium. Inside the courtroom, the judge floats behind higuruma, who acts As a promoter. The higuruma opponent and the defendant and the judge know everything about everyone within the domain. Higuruma does not receive any information from the judge, only evidence that the shikigami submits. For deliberation. The evidence is not conclusive and the defendant is not informed of what is inside.While within the domain, the defendant is put on trial by the judge and the verdict depends only on the arguments they present with higuruma. The defendant's objective is to dispel all doubts and obtain a pronouncement of innocence from the judge. Both the defendant and the prosecution have only one chance to make a statement before the judge issues the verdict. The defendant has three options: silence, confession and denial. After that, higuruma has a chance to offer his rebuttal based on the evidence he received. All of these rules must be explained in accordance with a binding vote on the domain.

A guilty verdict could result in the confiscation of your skill

It also has a hammer, and a versatile weapon that can change its proportions to emulate different weapons, such as a hammer, bat, hook and sledgehammer among other tools. In the case of the death penalty, The hammer turns into the executioner's sword

With the characters chuuya, dazai, ranpo, kunikida and fyodor

the decisive scales tip in your favour

synopsis - your ability made you quite the huge conversation, but no one knew you better than your partner

includes - dazai, kunikida, ranpo, chuuya, fyodor

warnings - gn!reader, reader is a lawyer, fluff, slight crack/angst, mentions of a death sentence, wc - 1.4k

a/n: hello! i did know the character but it's been a while since i read the manga so this was a very nice reminder! also loved this request

there was quite the vast range of abilities out in the world. all occupied by people from various walks of life and those people either used them in their benefits, used them for worse intentions and those who never used them. you were one who used it to progress in your life, when it manifested it became pretty clear what it was suited towards.

your overall intelect combined with your ability, very quickly landed you a job as a lawyer and very soon your career exploded. many either feared or admired your feats, but nonetheless you built up a reputation making you quite the popular subject around the world.

earning a title of being the greatest lawyer in the world. however the darker side to your ability caused some issues. it very quickly became classed under a dangerous ability, this was due to the fact that if found guilty your ability easily removed the ability of the person should they possess one and you were capable of issuing death sentences with no outside interference.

so it made sense that governments soon sought you out for negotiation, and wether or not you would fully accept their proposition you would eventually find a middle ground to ensure you faved as little backlash as possible, mainly from those that feared your ability.

but despite your titles and reputation, at the end of the day you were still human. you still had a life outside of your job, a private life that people had no chance to get an inkling into. and in that life, why wouldn't you be allowed a partner? one that may or not be quite the fan of your ability and yourself as a whole.

osamu dazai ★↷

dazai had first heard of you at the very beginning of your career. he found himself enamoured by the possibility of auch an ability, often wondering how his ability would work against yours. and meeting you in person, most likely by you being brought in for a mission, he found himself in awe of you as a person.

as stated before, he always wondered how his ability could counteract yours - in short the only effect he could have is if he was touching you when you activated it, he wouldn't be taken inside the dimension.

but apart from that, he did find it more scary. he would never admit that but your ability brought about different concepts of control and being able to take away things in the blink of an eye that made him more wary of it.

although there was the logical part of it which made him not only admire you but that aspect of your ability. he did find shikigami unsettling, may it be the sticthed eyes or its appearance as a whole.

but in total, he did subtly brag at first that you two were official. he would feel a sense of pride everytime you finished a trial, he just adored you as a whole.

doppo kunikida ★↷

kunikida had first heard of you, again, during the first appearance of you in news. he found your whole persona interesting and did find you slightly terrifying. whether it was the ability or yourself particularly, he would never elaborate.

he respected your ability, and you especially when you first met. he found it curious but never pried to muchh on details. he very quickly came to understand just how much you actually played a role in the trials, causing him to admire you quite a bit.

he didn't particularly like knowing you very freely could be able to issue death sentences, but he trusted that you were responsible and understood the weight that would hang upon making those decisions. never liked shikigami.

overall, respected your ability and never wanted to be the defendant. he buried that curiosity upon hearing about the consequences you could issue. he always felt proud when you finished a trial.

ranpo edogawa ★↷

ranpo first heard of you when your very first trial made the news. your ability fascinated him and he wanted to know the ins and outs of it as much as he could. and once he figured some out, he realised that you were equally as impressive due to your actual skills as a lawyer.

from the moment he had met you personally, he practically challenged you asking to go against your ability to test his skills. you were both aware he couldn't but he still tried. he would later come to insist on becoming a so called 'jury' and you hadn't the heart to tell him he couldn't do that yet.

he loved your ability, all aspects. mainly the logical side that would come from you but there was something about some people in the domain knowing everything that reminded him slightly of him. although in his opinion your ability could do without shikigami.

would always try and find a way on watching your trials. for the trial and to admire you at work. would always subtly brag about the fact that 'the greatest lawyer' and 'the greatest detective' were official. you two were truly a match.

chuuya nakahara ★↷

chuuya had only heard of you upon joining the port mafia. he would come to hear mori constantly figuring out what to do if you ever had a port mafia member on trial. although in his opinion he found your ability rather cool, scary but cool. he definitely wouldn't mind learning more about it.

and he didn't hesitate to ask questions when he first met you, which most likely was by coincidence. he admired every detail, even though some sent a chill through his spine. he definitely understood how doomed the port mafia members would be on trial with against you.

he did find it scary how easy you could remove people's abilities and or issue a death sentence. but nothing creeped him out more than shikigami.

that being said, you most likely wouldn't find out about his affiliation until right before he asked you out. you knew it was wrong in so many ways for someone in your position to go out with a mafia executive but it was your personal life. no one could actually stop you.

chuuya also thought it was in best interest to not mention who he was actually with for multiple reasons. but he admired you and your ability very much, and did enjoy hearing about your trials.

fyodor dostoevsky ★↷

fyodor had first heard of you, yet again, when you first started making headlines across the world. he despised your ability. he hated the idea of a single individual such as yourself technically being the sole decider of people's fates. although the more he learnt about it and eventually when he met you, it turned into more of a curious subject for him.

and when he eventually met you, it started quite the interesting relations. your ability became more and more curious to him, he wanted to know wo the ins and outs and finding out just how crucial you were for it to actually work well, it transferred that curiosity onto you as a whole.

he loved the fact you could rid people of their abilities - afterall he wanted rid of them as a whole, he also morbidly loved the fact you could issue a death sentence. personally he loved shikigami, it acted as the judge and he admired how it worked and what it symbolises.

he sometimes thinks about trying to ask you if he could actually try and go against you in your trials but ultimately decides against it. he ends up being quite thankful that your relationship with him provides somewhat of a protection for him. despite how wrong it was for you to be dating someone like him.

he would love to find a way to actually observe your trials. but overall did come to admire your ability and you. and he came to actually not despise it so much, maybe that was due to it be good to help with his plans or the fact that he actually started caring about you. who knows.

[bonefall]

Anything planned for Whitetail? She’s bland in canon but I do love her

BB!Whitetail is so... I want to study her.

To begin with, she was an apprentice during the WindClan Massacre.

(Her mentor was not Onewhisker btw, he was too young)

She had two siblings, Graypaw and Blackpaw.

Graypaw was killed that night. Their mother, Sorrelcharm, probably also died.

Suddenly being thrust from her home and losing half of her family messed with her. Obviously. Who wouldn't feel this way

She has a perpetual sense of waiting for the "other shoe to drop." Like no home is truly safe, and it's a matter of time before the next big move.

Unfortunately... she's not totally wrong. Blackfur was either killed by TigerClan or a mine collapse. They were forced onto the Great Journey. Mudclaw's Civil War resulted in a raging inferno across the moor. Whitetail gets commended for how reliable and even-headed she is in the face of disaster, but it's because her mind is expecting the worst case scenario ALL the time.

Her personality is intense and orderly, only kept back by the fact she's a hopeless romantic.

PROFOUND sense of whimsy. She gives off a chilling air of seriousness, which stops people from discovering that she can be a real mush.

(Girlie galloping through the moor who whips off-course, as if she caught a glimpse of prey in her eye, only to have taken a short detour to crash through a puffy dandelion.)

When they all got to the lake, she had a brief fling with Onestar. She liked a lot about him-- his new status, yes, but also that when they were together they were just having fun. It was easy.

But... he didn't want it to continue romantically. He turned cold one day when the subject of kits came up.

They broke the unofficial relationship off unofficially, but a short while later he spoke to her again to arrange an honor siring.

He wanted to raise his kittens alone. Whitetail was willing to help him do that, as long as it could be known that she sired them. And that if the kittens wanted to know her-- they could do so.

But still, she didn't understand why he'd turned so suddenly. Not until much, much later.

But before then, she ended up developing an unlikely bond with Brushblaze.

Probably because they'd both been turned down by Onestar, funny enough. They were talking smack one day about failed relationships and it kinda clicked.

Whitetail: "Like idk, was it something I said? Am I the problem"

Brushblaze: "no, you're fine. He's the problem."

Voted WindClan's Most Intimidating Couple, between Whitetail's aura and Brushblaze's resting bitchface

They have two kittens together; Smokehaze and Galerunner. Around the time of their birth, Heathertail decided she wanted to take Whitetail up on the offer that had existed since she was born.

Brushblaze was a personal friend of hers for a long time, she wanted to know Whitetail, and she would like to experience what it's like to be a sister.

Sadly, Brushblaze didn't live to see his kittens become warriors, but Whitetail did.

Whitetail's BIGGEST personal failure interpersonally was, sadly, Breezepaw.

They were an awful match. Every wreckless action he took would badly set off her anxiety, which expressed as her snapping at him.

No matter how hard she tried to have patience with him, or how many times she scolded him to be more careful, it never ever worked.

On his end, the more visibly upset Whitetail became with him, the worse it made his fear of rejection. He was driven to do more and more dangerous acts to prove himself, which only served to make his mentor worse.

But ultimately, Whitetail was the mentor in this situation. She really tried, but she failed him as a teacher. They don't have the close bond that most apprentice/mentor relationships do, and Breezepelt only got lonelier.

For a while, Breeze felt like Brushblaze was "against him" for falling for his terrible mentor. It made it easy to reject his friend's advice when he said stuff like, "don't join the strange cult in the woods" and "this darktail bloke's a bit funny"

I think Whitetail has come a long way and is a much wiser person now than she was while she was Breezepelt's mentor... but.

She's cordial and accepting of Breezepelt now because it's what Brushblaze would have wanted. She doesn't trust him.

In fact she feels right about this. In her mind;

"Breezepelt needs to feel like part of the Clan, it's what Brushblaze would have wanted. Everyone deserves to feel safe, and more than that, this is the best way to neutralize him. When he's making soup and raising kittens, he's not hurting anyone... but he's had more chances than anyone here. Yeah I was harsh on him when he was a child, but he's made plenty of bad choices as an adult. I'm not being cruel or holding a grudge to keep him at a distance from Galepaw and Smokepaw... I'm being realistic. Brushblaze died to rescue him. I'm not going to lose more family to be nice."

This hurts Breezepelt... but it's fair. He tries not to think about it too much. He's learned the hard way that the people who will never like you anyway matter MUCH less than the people who love you.

I also don't really see a need to kill Whitetail off yet, because she makes a really good elder imo. She's practical but still likes to have fun, and is capable of giving really good analysis.

[caustic-cola]

Waiting in line to vote and thinking about witchlight again. I bet Frost was kind of a tool when he and Gricko met each other. Being up on a cold mountain training for the majority of your life, being told that the collective is more important than the individual (I'm taking some liberties here) and that your abilities put you on a higher plane of understanding than others, only to leave after earning the highest honor possible-- presumably to apply your talents in noble ways, maybe in crisis aid or bureaucracy.

He probably thought he was hot shit when he stumbled across Gricko dangling from that trap in the jungle (is that real canon? I'm choosing to believe it is). And I imagine he was pretty miffed when Gricko turned to leave before he did. Like, I'm better than you, you should be the one asking to stay together, not me. When they began traveling together, I'm sure any barbed comments made by Frost flew right over Gricko's head-- or at least, he pretended that was the case.

Over the years, Frost mellowed out. The real world probably humbled him: He has one really amazing skill, sure, but he's not great at talking. I'd imagine he was even worse before he started traveling with company.

Frost had a pretty messed up go of things, and we've seen that he was a pretty bratty kid even before he was taken from his home. Plus, he was what, 20, 21 when he left Yulong? He had a lot of growing to do, still, and he was probably in denial about that. I dunno, it just seems like it makes sense.