#is so frustrating that i would get someone being like actually fuck voting

[alveolaraspergillosis]

imagine if the You Must Vote Kamala "Brat" Harris guys were half as invested in getting anyone ever at all to like. vote at their municipal election

[c-rowlesdraws]

browsing twitter for longer than a few minutes gives me radiation poisoning these days, and it’s worse in the evening, in the hours when the dark feelings creep in anyway. So even though I’m really apprehensive to talk politics on my art blog (I mean, if the backlash to a hyperbolic post I made about a famous youtuber is this bad, posting about politics would turn my activity page into a window to hell), I have to vent some of my feelings or that radiation damage will just keep getting quietly worse. And a fair number of people read this blog, and seem to like things that I create and say, so for what it’s worth, I want to say some things I hope people will think about.

Someone I really admire tweeted recently about how hopeless they feel. They said that after many years of fighting for social change, they had no fight left. They said they were too exhausted to vote in the upcoming US presidential election. And I tried to understand where they were coming from, because this is someone I look up to. But I can’t. I understand feeling burnt out. I feel nauseous and heartbroken and scared, thinking about the situation in Palestine and the situation in my country. I understand that it seems like there is no good leader to rally behind.

But I can’t tap out. I can’t give in to hopelessness and say, “I can’t choose. I’m tired and I’m done”. When a choice is between maintenance of an imperfect society with incremental steps towards better things, and cranking human misery and suffering enthusiastically up to 11, I’m going with the former. We are all tired every day. But voting is not physically difficult. Even if you are tired, you can do it. There is a day where you go to a building, and you fill in a bubble next to a name, and you go home. They even give you a sticker. I said voting isn’t hard, but actually, it’s very important to say that for a lot of people in the US, voting is hard to access, and for some groups, impossible. It is made difficult on purpose, by people—Republicans, it’s fucking always them, I don’t know why I’m using vague language—who want to disenfranchise as many people as they can. If voting was really a useless gesture, if it really meant nothing— they wouldn’t be working so damn hard to stop poor people and immigrants and prisoners and folks in general from being able to do it.

If you hate Biden, god, fine, whatever. But he is going to be the nominee of the political party made up of judges and politicians that, for the most part, believe that climate change is real and ought to be mitigated, that the US should not be turned into an evangelical christian theocracy, that firearms should be regulated, that businesses should be regulated, that healthcare should be more affordable and accessible, that people should be able to get safe abortions, that trans and all lgbt people deserve to live their lives, and that asylum-seekers shouldn’t be shredded by concertina wire trying to cross the border. The wheel of social change is huge and fucking heavy and sometimes it looks like it isn’t moving at all. But we can feel it move if we all push together.

I caught a Trump ad on the radio the other day and it was some of the scariest shit. “Trump will bring order to chaos,” it said. “He will ban travel from terrorist countries, and end the disastrous open-border policies allowing illegal migrants and deadly drugs like fentanyl to flood into our country.” The fucking anti-muslim travel ban. It’s back, baby. That was the exact phrasing: terrorist countries. If Biden’s foreign policy with regards to the Middle East is frustrating and despair-inducing already, Trump’s would be a catastrophe. The Republicans think Democrats are soft on terrorism. As much as anyone with a conscience is horrified by the US’s continued passivity with regards to Palestine, this motherfucker getting back in office would bring greater horror. I’m really sure about it. I don’t know what that part of the world will look like next fall, but I’m confident that if this dumb bloodthirsty motherfucker regains office, there would be absolutely no hope of public pressure swaying US foreign policy towards “less murder”. Protesting against war and genocide or for any progressive or civil rights cause would become even more dangerous. I still think about the woman who was run over by a car at the protest in 2017

…I’m rambling. I can’t help it. But I don’t want to just ramble unproductively. I should end this with something I hope makes sense to people snd can’t be easily dismissed, even if you already disagree with something I’ve said. I want to say how I genuinely feel.

I believe that imperfect activism is valuable, because it is better to show up and stand in solidarity with other people fighting for a more just world than to not show up at all. I believe all activism is in some way imperfect, because activists are people, and people are imperfect. That is to say, one middle-aged woman who showed up to a DC protest wearing a hand-crocheted pink pussy hat, who maybe hadn’t been to many (or any) protests before but who felt fired up about this one, was worth ten of the smug “real leftists” sneering about her on twitter. Maybe more than ten. Your own activism will be imperfect. But keep an open mind— to your own learning and to others’. Doing “the bare minimum” (and, ugh, what a discouraging phrase) is still doing. We have to encourage everyone who feels drawn to fighting for social good. We have to link arms with one another and be strong. Even if you think the person next to you is a lame-o liberal, if they believe that (for example) trans people deserve access to gender-affirming care and should not be smashed flat into fruit-by-the-foot and sent straight to hell, they are your comrade.

Be wary of people who self-identify as Cassandras and unheeded prophets, especially if their messages consistently emphasize how everything is garbage and the world can’t be saved. If someone is telling you that only they understand how uniquely horrible things are, that no progressive or leftist political philosophy is viable except for the specific one they adhere to, that no news or media sources are worthwhile or even trustworthy except for the small handful of ones they endorse… I won’t say to stop listening to them or following them, but I’d recommend listening to other people, too.

Do your own reading about issues that are important to you. Read many people’s words, watch videos, think about what you believe, and how those beliefs have changed over time, and stay open to being further changed. We are all constantly learning and shaping ourselves, and teaching, and being shaped by others. All of us are tired. But we can hold each other up.

I don’t have a rousing call to action. Just the same things many people are already saying that I’ve felt encouraged by, in a grim sort of way: protest and donate when and where you can, support political candidates on the local and national stage who do support policies you agree with, who could do real good. It feels very hard right now to be hopeful. But we all have to live in whatever future comes eventually— so I think we have to still participate, and that means things like voting. We are all tired. But we have to keep going. There is, ultimately, no sitting out. People who opt out of voting still must live under the social climate and policies imposed by the person who gets elected, and who they endorse and empower and appoint, and who those people empower and appoint, and so on.

This post doesn’t have a good conclusion. I didn’t write it thinking about what would make for a satisfying structure in general. But if you read it, then thank you for reading.

[thedoubteriswise]

I keep seeing complaints that people responding against anti-voting propaganda content are being "condescending" and "patronizing" and therefore are hurting their own cause. to a certain extent, I understand the point being made; it's true that people don't respond well to being insulted or feeling like they're being insulted. I've made this point many times before myself. but some of the takes I'm seeing have me at the end of my fucking rope, so I'm just going to reiterate three points that are less about this specific conversation and more about political debates in general:

refusing to consider the meat of someone's valid argument purely because you don't like the tone they're taking while making it is shitty behavior, and it's a great way to end up with factually wrong opinions. we've had a whole conversation about this in recent years; it was pretty hard to miss.

saying or implying that someone is a bad person (or annoying, or cringey, or whatever) instead of addressing the meat of their argument is an ad hominem attack. it's a logical fallacy. there are plenty of times where it doesn't matter and it's not that deep, we can make jokes, fine. but when forming your actual real opinions, it's critical that you agree or disagree with an idea, not with the people who are having it.

I've seen plenty of posts that took a hostile tone. I've also seen plenty that didn't, yet were still described as being patronizing. at this point, I'm not sure how people can phrase their arguments without being accused of condescension, because part of the problem with this topic (and many others, to be fair) is that people who need to hear corrections to their own thinking have gotten extremely attached to a specific way of conceptualizing how american politics work that isn't reflective of reality, or have linked their identity to engaging with politics in a specific way that has been sold to them as "radical." we've got a lot of people more interested in maintaining a sense of identity or catering to their own moral scrupulosity than in getting real world results that would actually line up with their stated values.

I do think that some people's frustration in combating this comes out at condescension. that's unfortunate, and I agree that it can be counterproductive. but I think there is also a strong element of people hearing that their political strategy is ineffective, dangerous, and poorly considered, and experiencing that as an attack to their identity, moral beliefs, or in-group. this is an extremely common phenomenon; a great recent example of it is conservatives who resisted mask and vaccine requirements - the things they were saying and doing were materially harmful to themselves and others, but telling them that was attacking something they had folded into their identity, so they pushed back even as they personally suffered the consequences of that decision.

my point is, if you have a negative response to hearing that your choice not to vote and to keep publicly discouraging voting is irresponsible and going to have undesirable results, it might be because the person saying so is being a dick about it, or that they generally suck as a person. I truly can't dispute this, the world is full of assholes. But a) does that make their argument factually wrong? what evidence do you have of this? does it hold up against the point they're making? And b) are they really being a dick, or are they simply challenging something that feels personal to you?

[kojoty]

It's obviously a complex question and discussion and I'm certainly admitting to a level of blue-state privilege wherein my vote really only matters in so far as working towards getting funding for a third party, like green; not to mention the privilege of, being in such a blue swaddled state, my rights are not immediately at stake-- so I am including myself in this but.

I really, really, really, really wish people in blue states like Cali, new York, Illinois, etc-- heart of dem territory and the places where your rights are NOT at contest-- would sometimes shut the fuck up and listen to the extremely valid worries and fears and pleas of people in deep red states. I think saying 'it doesn't matter who is in office, they're basically two sides of the same coin', while true ideologically in the grand leftist scheme, it also does betray a certain level of handwaving to millions of Americans where who is in office DOES matter.

And I know this is the anti colonialism website, and so we don't really want to talk about domestic issues as much as foreign policies-- completely understandable given the current global conflict-- but consider America is a vile colonial project, that which we do to our domestic underclasses IS a colonial issue as well.

I am not going to say 'go vote!' because who am I, Hillary Clinton? But I guess I am trying to say... It is really frustrating as someone who does a lot of on-the-ground community resource work in his fairly privileged area and see how the difference in economic status between a democratic and a republican president really matters, and then come on here and see the ever present leftist issue of taking ideology over material. I cannot imagine the landscape of on the ground resource work in more impoverished areas.

(most Marxists in this website really obfuscate how much material work they actually do, and are, in fact, often pontificating on ideological castles in the sky, but that's another post)

The tldr here really is: the amount of deep red state southerners who are telling you with crystal clarity that someone like Harris in office is magnitudes safer than someone like Trump in office, and urging people in states where it matters to vote....... I mean. You don't have to listen to them (even though I think you should hear their perspective), but the least you could do is not completely ignore and shun the very real realities of millions of Americans who are with good reason scared shitless that one nominee will keep the liberal hegemony (also vile-- don't take this as me condoning it), and the other will systematically make their very existence illegal. That isn't to say it can't still happen-- roe v wade-- under a dem, but. You... You do realize that it does actually matter to some people in certain states whether the pres is red or blue, right? And that yes it sucks that we have to play by American rules to keep some folks safe but.

Idk. The amount of 'leftists' on this site who paradoxically care far more about their ideological purity than the actual people who need actual material work done is... Well, that's not my leftism tbh. The amount of condescension I see levied at people daily on here. It's not just a bad look. It's Imo betraying to me that your politics are more about signpostibg and being right than actual community and human care and connection . And it happens! Ideology is a tantalizing thing. I have to constantly divorce myself from it and reintegrate into the ground. But you can't make policy out of air. You can make policy out of soil. You have to remind yourself of the faces and the beating hearts your ideology is addressing. Even if you're RIGHT are you giving the infoemation in a way that actually cares?

Idk. I don't wanna tone police. But there's a very deep seated and real classism and privilege issue within the online left that is...... Distasteful to say the least. Idc if you go vote. But the least you could do is not bully people who are more scared for policy changes that will actively affect them. It is not betraying fear and outrage at what is happening outside of these borders-- the atrocity in Gaza-- to also be scared of your own living conditions. One can balance both.

[rindecisions]

Stranger Tales Part 23

Read the rest on AO3

As much as Eddie tried to avoid it, the rest of the Corroded Coffin members wanted to hit up the mall. After what happened at the Hideout, and that stupid fucking fantasy, the last thing he wanted was to see Steve's perfect fucking face.

Every time they went to the mall together, it was the same. They hit up a couple music shops, a bookstore that also sold games, and then the food court. Gareth was usually the one roped into paying, as he was the only one with well-off parents and a summer job.

Typically, Eddie would meet them there ahead of time so he could get an eyeful of Steve in those shorts, but today, Eddie hoped with all his might that it was Steve's day off or something as they approached the food court.

To his dismay, the others ditched him shortly before they actually reached the food court. They wanted to check out a shop that had just opened, but only had a little time left before they had to leave. They rolled for it, and Eddie got the lowest number, leaving him in charge of getting the ice cream while they went to look at a new comic shop.

Eddie stood just outside the entrance of Scoops Ahoy. When he saw Steve go to the back room, he swallowed before entering, hoping that he could just go through Buckley.

༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒༒

Steve's nerves were on high alert as he watched every person that walked into the parlor. He'd never really noticed, but not many guys his own age came to get ice cream. It was mainly girls, children, and parents.

It ended up being a few hours before a guy his own age walked in and he nearly dropped the tub of mint chip ice cream he was carrying when he walked out of the back to see Eddie of all fucking people walking into the shop.

He all but threw the ice cream into the display freezer and rushed to the back, his heart racing. He knew he'd said that he'd try to hit on the next guy that walked in, but he'd expected it to be someone he'd never met or barely knew. Not the person who caused all of this to begin with.

"Cold feet?" Robin teased, peeking in the swinging door.

"I can't," Steve stated, shaking his head. "Not him. Anyone but him."

Robin quirked her brow. "I'll be right with you," she called to Eddie as she joined Steve in the back. "I thought he was the one you were actually interested in?"

"That's the problem," he hissed. "How can I... What if... No... I can't. I just can't. I take it back. I can't do this whole liking guys thing."

Robin laughed. "You can't just stop being bisexual."

"Watch me," he muttered.

"No, I'm not, because that's stupid. Now go out there and hit on your first guy. If it's Eddie, he might even be interested back."

"Why does that make it so much worse?"

"It doesn't. Now go," she urged, pointing toward the door.

"Mm-mm," Steve grunted, shaking his head. "I'm not moving until he's gone."

"Oh my god, you're being a toddler," she groaned. "I'll drag you out there myself if I have to."

"Try it," Steve taunted. "I'm not budging."

Robin's face fell, and she rubbed her temples in frustration.

Don't forget to vote ^-^

[fagsystem]

You know when you see a post that just. Really indicates so clearly none of these people have ever known anyone who is polyamorous nor bothered to learn anything about it.

There was a post about how they should legalise polyamorous marriages for all reasons, but also because they want to see what polyamorous divorces look like. Someone else reblogged with the image of Charlie Day next to that mail wall with the threads, captioning it with, "Divorce Lawyer."

Honestly, a bit funny.

But the notes are just... Filled with people who genuinely have no idea about anything to do with polyamory, who's only experience with polyamory is joking about it and making fun of Mormons.

Sure, joking about breakups happening like voting someone off the island is funny and all, but those jokes are all people know about it. It makes trying to exist as a polyamorous person so frustrating. Especially when it is jokes centred around our marriage inequality. If you are going to make jokes about something that majorly impactful to our lives, perhaps know the first fucking thing about polyamory.

I have never met someone who I have told I am polyamorous that did not know anyone else who was polyamorous who did not have assumptions built on these sorts of jokes. Especially in regards to explaining that no, I am not dating all of my partners' partners, and even if two of my partners are dating our relationships are separate. My relationship with each of them and theirs with each other have actually nothing to do with each other. It blows their minds and it is such a basic part of polyamory. The majority of the people I know are polyamorous, and none of them have any relationships where they date multiple partners as a sort of joint relationship.

People look at polyamory through such a monogamist lens that they do not actually seem to conceptualise it as multiple relationships that co-exist. Whenever I clarify that no, it is not a 'singular' relationship containing more than two people, I always get looked at like I have uprooted their entire worldview. This revelation is almost followed by enquiring how I do not get jealous.

I do. That is a part of life. I get jealous of my friends' friends too. I just process those emotions on my own time, and communicate if these emotions are stemming from specific behaviours of theirs. (Such as, for example, them not making time to speak with me but making time to speak with other partners.)

It is not that the question of how to manage jealousy that really bothers me (it does bother me though), but the idea that it would not exist if you frame polyamory from the point of view of it being a single relationship with multiple people. It just speaks to how these people have never even begun to learn the first thing about polyamory. It is not as though there are not people who's relationships function like that, but it is that it is the hardest form of polyamory to maintain. You need to have good communication so everyone is on the same page about everyone's relationship with everyone else all at the same time. A and B's relationship, A and C's relationship, B and C's relationship, and any more is all one relationship. That is so much harder than all of those relationships being their own separate ones co-existing. If A and B have a problem, it is also a problem with A and C and B and C and whoever else there is.

Yet so many people are just functioning under the mindset that that is what polyamory is, and the idea that it not being one relationship (as in, like monogamy) that has multiple people in it is so confusing and hard to understand is just. What right do you have to be joking about our marriage inequality if you don't even know what you're joking about?

[froggy-horror-picture-show]

my gay and hiv+ labour mp got kicked out for being pro-ceasefire, pro-trans, and not besties with starmer. he's been replaced by a labour candidate who's a former pro-gambling lobbyist, in a constituency with huge gambling problems

so on some level i would like to vote green next week. i think they're less shitty than this guy, and labour usually wins by a large amount

but. they only really win by a large amount because this is the gay village of the city, and our old mp was gay. labour usually gets 50% of the vote, with the tories getting 35ish%. which means that if enough people get pissed off with this labour guy and vote for someone else, the guy in charge of the Literal Gay And Trans Haven Of The City could be a fucking conservative. and i think that's bad!!!!!

none of this is gonna change what'll happen on a large scale. labour is gonna win pretty much hands down lol

but equally this is a frustrating choice. do i vote for someone who i think would actively endanger the poor and unhoused people in my neighborhood, or vote for someone who i think wouldn't, but then accidentally get a bigger monster in? i've seen people encouraging others to vote for who they actually want, as it won't change the results nationally- and i agree, but it Could change things significantly regionally

[phantomwritr]

The Road Trip (4/?)

The second part of their journey to Milan mostly passed in silence. “Look, we’re just going to have to try and get through this together. You asked me along, so the least you can do is pretend you actually want this,” Lewis said, without taking his eyes off the road.

“Not by choice,” Max bit out.

“What do you mean, not by choice?”

“My PR-team pretty much forced me into this. And for some reason I don’t understand, Christian helped them. I didn’t want this, but they said if I didn’t convince you, the nicest and kindest driver on the grid, voted unanimously by fans, to come with me on this stupid road trip, my reputation would be fucked. So yes, I’m taking advantage of your perceived kindness. Please kindly drop me off at the nearest gas station so the whole world will know how much we hate each other.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t hate you. I respect you. And honestly I didn’t expect the great Max Verstappen to care about what people think. You always seem to go through life like you don’t give a care in the world—it’s a luxury I could never afford and I envy you for that, but it only motivates me to fight harder to get back in your rear-view mirrors. Or preferably, to see you in mine. If you want to show the world they’re right about us, then fine, I’ll drop you off at the next petrol station. But isn’t it the great strength of champions not to give up when the going gets tough? Isn’t this where champions persevere through sheer grit and determination? Who knows. Perhaps you’ll be surprised.”

Max stared ahead and blinked. “Is this where your whole Still I Rise-shtick comes from? Do you just give everyone who takes advantage of your kindness a pep talk?”

“It’s part of it, yes. But my motto—not a gimmick— is about much more than that. And no, I don’t give everyone a pep talk, but if you think I’m unfamiliar with people taking advantage of me, you don’t know me very well,” Lewis said, the only sign of any frustration being that he gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter.

“Fine, whatever. Let’s just keep this show on the road,” Max acquiesced before going back to staring out the window.

“Glad to see you’ve decided to give it a chance. Want to do another round of those glovebox questions?”

Max shrugged. “Fine, yeah. Uhm, welcome to another round of Glovebox Questions. I guess. Oh, this one’s fun. Can you say three nice things about your travel companion?”

Lewis carefully swerved around someone as he stamped even harder on the gas. “Three?” Max nodded, half turning so he could see the expression on Lewis’ face.

“Well, you’re a great and consistent racer…er…” Lewis tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he racked his brain for something else to say. They nearly swerved onto the lane next to them, but Lewis course-corrected before any harm could befall them or anyone else.

“You’re loyal to your friends and family, which is really admirable…er…one more…” Lewis said as Max arched an eyebrow. “Is it that hard to say something nice about me?”

“It is if you are trying to say something meaningful. I mean, you’re skilled, determined, loyal, good with kids from what I’ve heard. How much more do you want me to stroke your ego?”

Max blanched and Lewis chuckled, his pearl-white teeth shining as he winked at the camera. “That’s…four,” Max said, a nervous chuckle escaping him. “Or six. I forgot to count.”

Silence fell over them like a blanket until Max cleared his throat. “All right, I guess it’s my turn to stroke your ego then.”

“So long as it’s just my ego you’re stroking,” Lewis joked, his lips curling upwards. Max did his best to disguise his chuckle with a cough. “If you want me to be nice to you, you shouldn’t torture me like this.”

“Oh, just shut up and answer the question, Max. Or do you also fail to perform when your engineer tells you a joke?”

Toto wanted to grab Christian by the collar and scream at him as they watched the livestream. Do you see what I mean now?!

[velvetvexations]

a lot of my frustrations about trans discourse right now lie in the fact that we've created these categories dependent on people's psychological understanding of their gender, which i dont see as unimportant, especially on an interpersonal level. but to me it's just rlly obvious gender identity is not a good predictor of how someone is going to be treated socially or politically. i think the political consequences of being a certain gender r not going to be automatically assigned to someone when they identify as that gender, but as they begin to become that gender not just psychologically, but socially and biologically too.

but it's become increasingly difficult to talk about. to some ppl if i think that men (who dont know im trans) sexually harassing me is misogynistic then im misgendering myself. that is fucking bonkers to me.

i am genuinely very concerned about how we r going to protect this community if we cant even get real about the material circumstances that threaten us in the first place.

thoughts?

It's like I was saying the other day, transradfems believe gender identity is as solid and real as TERFs believe gender based on sex to be, which is just as incorrect. If you're a trans man, damn the details, you're a man, and if you're a trans woman transphobes will hate you the same way they would any cis woman rather than the men they perceive us to be.

It's...actually kinna pathetic? It feels like getting misgendered at school and deciding they just hate you because they're so jealous of what a great woman you are, except it's thirty year olds who think voting is a sucker's bet.

[obxologies]

𝘈𝘯𝘵𝘪-𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘰  𝘚𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘩 𝘊𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘯

warnings: mentions of cheating, underage drinking & drug use, reader is kind of toxic

requested?: no

author's note: this is more based on the pre-chorus. voting for snow on the beach will be posted in a bit.

Sarah stood by the keg with Kiara and JJ. JJ's arm was thrown around Kiara's shoulder as he told them about how John B and him went surfing earlier that morning, but Sarah wasn't particularly listening nor was she interested. Her focus was on y/n across the beach talking to some touron chick.

"Sarah, will you please stop torturing yourself, and have some fun tonight?" Kiara groaned looking over at Sarah.

"Who the hell is that girl she's talking to?" Sarah crossed her arms over chest.

"Some touron from Connecticut." JJ answered. "She met her at The Wreck yesterday."

"Hm." Sarah tightened her jaw and her grip around her plastic cup.

"You okay?" Kiara placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"No, actually. I'm not." Sarah said taking a deep breath. "I'll be right back." She said dropping her cup in the trash and storming over to the direction of y/n and the touron.

"Uh, Sarah, are sure that's a good idea?" Kiara called out, but Sarah ignored her and continued on her way.

"Hey, can I talk to you?" Sarah interrupted the touron's story making her glare at her.

"What?" y/n looked at her confused.

"I need to talk to you, now." Sarah stated.

"Excuse you, we're having a conversation." The touron slid in between Sarah and y/n.

"Was I talking to you?" Sarah retorted shoving her out of the way. "I need to talk to you." She repeated growing more annoyed.

"Okay." y/n looked at her weirdly.

They walked away from the touron, heading closer to the side of the road. Sarah stopped and turned back to y/n with a glare.

"What the hell was that, Sare?" y/n threw her hands up.

"Are you serious?" Sarah spat. "You've been flirting with girls right in my face for the past week. What happened to not being ready for a relationship?"

y/n looked down at her feet choking down a hard swallow. She kept her mouth shut not having an excuse.

"Huh?" Sarah looked at her expectantly. "Because two weeks ago you told me you weren't ready for a relationship and now you're flirting with a new skank every chance you get."

"I'm not ready for a relationship." y/n said.

"I understand that." Sarah stated. "What I don't understand is why you told me you loved me, but you couldn't be in relationship right now and then I find out you slept with some girl at the bonfire three days ago."

"You heard about that?" y/n frowned.

"Yeah, I did." Sarah said bluntly. "So what the hell is going on?"

"I'm not looking for a relationship, Sarah. That's true." y/n tried to reach for her hand, but Sarah stepped back. The two held a heated stare in silence. "You said you would wait until I was ready."

"That's not the problem." Sarah huffed frustrated. "You said you loved me. You don't tell someone you love them and then go sleep with some chick and flirt with another right in front of their face."

"I'm sorry." y/n said as her eyes started to swell with tears.

"You're always fucking sorry." Sarah said starting to cry as well. "I can't take this anymore. It's draining."

"I know." y/n nodded with a shaky breath.

"Why? Why are you doing this to me?" Sarah questioned. "You said you loved me. Did you mean it?"

"Yes, of course I did." y/n nodded quickly. "I love you. I love you so much, Sarah."

"Then why are you treating me like this?" Sarah asked. "You don't do that to someone you love."

"I don't know, okay. I just," y/n struggled to find what to say. "I just don't know how to do relationships."

"Then I can't wait for you." Sarah said swallowing back a cry. "I love you, but I'm not doing this." She shook her head.

"Sarah..." y/n stared at her. Her lips parted as if she was about to speak, but nothing slipped past them.

"I'll see you around." Sarah nodded kissing her cheek. She moved past y/n heading back to JJ and Kiara with a feeling of pain and relief.

[silentreigns]

The staniels's excuse is that "Stroll didn't accept blame for the incident, so Daniel's frustration is justified." I'm sorry, but what the everliving fuck? You guys give Yuki so much grief that is based on racist stereotypes for being "too hotheaded," "too aggressive," "too emotional." Yet Daniel's flop ass punted Yuki out of the race in Mexico '22, didn't accept responsibility and actually tried to blame Yuki for it, then to add salt to the wound, everyone voted Daniel driver of the day for ending someone else's race. Yuki didn't go to the media and start cursing Daniel and calling him names despite Daniel not taking responsibility AND even directly blaming YUKI.

Hell, even compare Yuki and Daniel's interviews today. Yuki wasn't to blame for his incident either, yet you see him, likely to avoid the attacks against him, visibly pause and take several seconds to compose himself and his thoughts before answering. And you bet if he would have said "I'm pissed, fuck this, fuck him" the same way Daniel immediately did, that he would have been crucified by both the media and fans.

Sorry for the rant, but frankly I've been sick of that overgrown, petulant manchild and the stans so desperate to defend him that they'll harass anything and anyone to do so for years now.

I get anon I'm still salty about Mexico 2022. But that was when his sympathy shtick was working with the general public so I am not surprised by how much people were cheering for that.

Lance said in a post race interview that it was a concertina effect and didn't use any negative words. Meanwhile PR merchant can say "fuck that guy" and everyone is eating it up. Like everyone was saying how he should be off the grid during Japan for a racing incident (that was mostly his fault), now mfs are rooting for him? Just because they don't like Lance? And also the amount of ableist and derogatory comments people say about Lance is very alarming.

Could you imagine how people would react if Yuki told KMag to go fuck himself? It would be "oh Yuki has too many temper tantrums and needs to control his emotions"

[juliens-bakery]

hi sorry this is so long ! this question may seem out of the blue, apologies, but why are so many boygenius fans on here, like, shameless liberals who won't tolerate any criticism of Biden? to be clear I'm not talking about your blog, I scanned it and it was so refreshing to see someone actually critical of the Dems and their instrumental role in the genocide. like, I see popular blogs in the fandom making aggressive posts that are basically “you HAVE to vote blue” and *yet, crucially*, they haven't reblogged anything actually critical of Biden? it seems the only time they talk about politics is to proselytise about how you HAVE to vote blue despite the *genocide*, and nothing negative about the actual policies, just scolding anyone to the left of them and saying hey biden's actually not that bad domestically !

i'm a POC boygenius fan from the global south and it's just something I've been observing keenly knowing that the external policies of that country will always hang over my head like a looming threat, whether blue or red is in power internally. and when young voters in that country do, for once, take cognizance of the devastation enacted on *our* countries by their govs, these liberals crawl out of the woodwork to scold them, then go back to posting about the latest julien-lucy sighting or whatever. it's surreal to see.

again, sorry for the unprompted rant, it's just been eating at me for so long and this blog just seems like one in the fandom that I can still trust. I just needed to get this off my chest. i fell in love with bg in 2020 I'll go back to streaming them now <3.

hi! thank you for this ask, it's been very thought-provoking for me, and i really do appreciate the trust. and no worries about the length, i'm about to one-up this shit.

it is a little hard for me to answer this question fairly. for one, the boygenius-sphere has changed a LOT since i started here (7 years! it's a long time!), and so a lot of my mutuals that i've had since are no longer here (shoutout @remembermydog though, we still here <3) and a bunch of new people have come through. so i'm really not as plugged in with the broader fandom space as i used to be, and i don't really follow a ton of new blogs these days, so i can't really say that i've seen everything that you've seen for myself.

that being said, even if i've had less ability to share your experiences, i do think what you're saying has a lot of truth to it. the obvious thought is that boygenius fans are disproportionately white, which naturally lends itself to that sort of optimism about the extant systems of power. fundamentally, i think, it is very difficult for a white person in that country to reconcile themselves with the idea that the extant systems of power were always bad to begin with and have never been fit for purpose, b/c they've always worked well enough for them. like, there's no innate moral value with being white or not, but it's not the most surprising correlation either. (and yes, i'm aware that boygenius fans are also disproportionately queer women, which counterbalances that optimism to a very real degree).

the frustrating thing is that there are so many people who refuse to even entertain the idea that some people have a moral line over which they will not cross. and i do think that there can be a moral obligation to do an unpleasant distasteful or "bad" thing in order to achieve better ends. but there's always balance between the depth of the wrong and the value of the ends. and everyone has to decide for themselves where that balance lies for them. if i was american, i don't think i would vote this year, for a bunch of reasons. i don't think i would begrudge anyone voting for biden, especially if they thought that trump would send even more bombs (although frankly i have no fucking idea what trump would do). i've voted for trudeau in years when i really didn't want to because of the voting patterns of my particular district. i am about to be an extension of the canadian legal system, which has inflicted incredible amounts of harm to indigenous people and many others.

voting for biden and not voting for biden are both moral compromises. the only question is: how much blood are you willing to get on your hands as you fight for a better world? everyone's line is different (and not everyone's line is acceptable). i think i'd be more comfortable with not voting, because i think joe biden is among the very guiltiest people for this genocide. so maybe i don't want to support and reinforce that guy! and fundamentally, a party that wins elections has much less incentive to change. and the thoughtless and condescending dismissal of these ideas that really infuriates me. so i am really sorry that your experiences of this space have been tainted in this way. there are lots of good and thoughtful people, and these years have been the most fulfilling period of my internet life. but it's a space full of people on the internet just like any other, and so i don't really think it's uniquely bad, but neither is it uniquely good. i've made a nice little space for myself, and i really hope you can find that too <3.

thanks for the ask. there were a lot of things i needed to get off my chest.

[void-galaxy-shenanigans]

Controversial (United States) opinion that shouldn’t be controversial, from someone that lives in the USA

on the Freedom of Speech amendment (USA):

“freedom of speech” protects your right to stand up to the government, to protest in ways that could otherwise be outlawed (such as burning the country flag or posting about what they’re doing wrong on social media).

“freedom of speech” does not mean you will be pardoned for every crime that involved you speaking about something unrelated to government protest.

“freedom of speech” does not mean that there won’t be consequences from your fellow citizens if you choose to use that ‘freedom’ to harm others.

it does not mean that you have the right to verbally abuse, verbally harass, threaten, or use your words in a hate crime against someone (especially under protected statuses, like gender identity, sexual/romantic orientation, race, etc.).

it does not mean that you can tell fellow voters you hope their queer/trans children die or get assaulted if they don’t want to vote for Biden, or Trump, or whomever*.

(* this has actually happened to our adoptive ren E (they/them) repeatedly about our little brother Q (he/they). yes, admitting they don’t like Biden due to the shit he’s allowing, doing, encouraging, etc. has actually gotten these kinds of comments...from democrat/“liberal” Biden supporters, of all people. they told ren E that they hope Q dies.)

it does NOT mean you can say whatever you want about everything, forever. it protects your speech against the government only.

so no, freedom of speech does not prevent you from being arrested for hate crime, harassment, abuse, etc.

no, it does not protect you from being kicked out of a business after verbally harassing/abusing or sexually harassing an employee (or many employees).

no, it does not protect you from fellow citizens counter-protesting or from them telling you that you are factually incorrect.

no, it does not protect you from legal repercussions if you use your online presence to bully, harass, abuse, etc. other people, or if you doxx people, or if you threaten someone or their child.

Freedom of Speech is part of Freedom to Protest. they go hand in hand.

you have the right to say ‘hey I don’t like the government doing [insert atrocity here (Palestine, Iraq, etc.)] / passing [insert a law or policy that hurts people]’.

you do not have the freedom to say ‘fuck you and your whole culture/country/gender/identity/etc.’ to another person.

I don’t expect this to go far but I wanted to say it...somewhere. and here is the best bet because FB would lose its mind & the algorithm might bite my ass if I openly call Palestine an atrocity or call out...anything, really. they repress content like this.

(Facebook is very anti free speech (/srs), funny enough (/sarcastic, frustrated); it suppresses pro Palestine content but doesn’t remove the most hateful bullshit spread all over its platform...and pro Palestine is, in fact, speaking up against the government.)

you (general/nbh) should be more angry about Facebook and TikTok and Twitter suppressing anti government anything (pro Palestine, pro LGBT+ progress, ‘we should actually fund schools’, etc.). you (general/nbh) should be less angry about laws that protect people from harm.

that is all.

(this was inspired by USA newspaper lash-back on Scotland’s new anti hate crime law. maybe the law isn’t perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction, & it is not an infringement on freedom of speech.)

(incase this breaks containment: hateful replies, reblogs, asks, etc. will be blocked)

~Nico (he/they)

[qqueenofhades]

hey i just wanted to say i really enjoy your posts. i'm a 30-something who works in reproductive health care in pennsylvania, and while i often feel pretty bad about our government, i still think voting is essential.

i get really frustrated with a lot of the people around me who seem to almost delight in being fatalistic. dems just might be able to secure a majority in our state house which, along with a pro-choice governor, means we could finally secure some protection for abortion access instead of just constantly praying the gop doesn't reach a veto-proof majority. and when i share this with my friends i either get silence or, literal quote, "that would be absolutely incredible and by absolutely incredible i mean in keeping with the barest sliver of hope for the future but i guess it's a low bar" and it's like????? hey fuck you???

anyways, i like how you balance optimism and pragmatism and seem like someone who doesn't just want to smoke week, play mariokart, and talk about how every candidate sucks.

Thanks, this means a lot to me. I have been cavilling in the lonely Tumblr wilderness about elections, voting, the necessity to do it, the toxic and useless "Progressive Online Leftist" culture, why you need to support Democrats, and so forth ever since at least 2016. As you might expect, this has not always gone down well, but I am stubborn.

Also: yes, this election wasn't a blue wave, but yet again, I'm astonished at how fast the goalposts changed, and suddenly the best midterm results for an incumbent president in recent history were Actually Bad. The almost universally-expected Republican red tsunami didn't happen at all, and while they may scrape out the House in a tight race (let's hope not the Senate too), that is hardly the barn-busting result that everyone was crowing about. Their craziest and most dangerous candidates, in the places where they had the chance to do a lot of damage, almost universally lost. Democrats even made pickups in places where they weren't expected. They held their own and made it exponentially more likely that we can stagger into 2024 without going full fascism, and that is important.

I know the nihilist millennial/Gen Z culture tends to make everything as bad as it can be at all times (and don't get me wrong, it is indeed very bad), but just being Edgelord Darko at all times to show how cool and cynical you are... eh, it just doesn't appeal to me, it never has, it never fixes anything, and is as much a self-serving fantasy as the Republicans' Big Lie. In both cases, it conveniently excuses the person from having to do anything to actually help the world and the state of things, if everything is already fucked anyway, and I'm definitely not cool with that.

[batsbirdsandspeedstersohmy]

Tw politics rant.

I am so frustrated at everyone being like how the fuck can you support Biden. He supports genocide. I can not vote for him. Am not voting they are both so bad.

Look at how he talks he is clearly losing it.

BITCH WHAT DO YOU THINK TRUMP GOING TO GO WALK OVER AND BE LIKE HEY STOP THIS WAR AND DONT WE NOT GOING TO LET YOU KILL ANYONE ELSE OR WE KILL YOU?????

Trump's going to make it so much worse. Like Biden isn't doing a great job okay but like he trying to get a peaceful thing to happen. He trying to get it to stop even if he not doing a good job.

Biden has speech problems we know this. He isn't great at the debate he has trouble getting words out right.

So do I

Look at the good things his administration is trying to do.

He is working on putting protections in for us queers he has tooken down a lot of Trump's don't say gay stuff.

He is FUVKING TRYING TO MAKE IT SO YOU CAN FILES YOUR TAXES WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY A CORPORATION !!! FO YALL KNOW HOW BIG THAT IS???? he going against one of the biggest people who line politicians pockets to make it so the American people are scared of doing their taxes wrong and getting in jail. So they pay TurboTax to do it for them.

When really the big companies are the ones who are doing things wrong and getting away with no paying enough.

HE WAS TALKING ABOUT GETTING THE RAILROAD SYSTEM RUNNING UP AGAIN. AND YOU KNOW WHEN THEY WHEN ON STRIKE AND EVERYONE EAS LIKE DUDE ACTUALLY MADE THEM GO BACK TO WORK.

BUT HE ENDED UP HELPING THEM GET A DEAL FASTER THEN THE UNION'S PREDICTED IT WOULD BE.

BIDEN IS A UNION MAN AND WE NEED TO BRING THAT SHIT BACK.

ALSO IT DOESNT JUST MEAN HIM IT MEANS HIS WHOLE TEAM AND THE PEOPLE HE PUTS AROUND HIM. he will actually listen to people and professional who knows things. Trump for hell doesn't he puts yes man next to him and does whatever he can to get money in his pocket and companies.

How is this a question. Protesting by not voting is just giving more votes to trump and a lot of us are not going to live through that.

If y'all want someone better then we should get behind someone in the beginning and push for them to have a chance and become the Democrat candidate. You have to be starting that shit really early. Don't be saying now how bad he is and we should have someone else.

Right now it is him and Trump. Who do you want out of those two to be in control?

Weather you like it or not it's one of those two so who?????

Cause for me it is a very clear answer. Be a fucking grown up and live with the reality. If you don't vote your giving more of a chance to trump.

You think his followers aren't going to vote for him???? They tried to take over the Capital by force last time. You think they not going to vote????

While y'all are dreaming about a better world others are actively making it worse. So either do something to make it better or at least do the minimum and let people into office who are not making it worse and trying to do some good.

Send money where you can to GoFundMes or organizations to help people who are dying. Call/email your representatives and say you need to do better. Tell them their lose your vote don't tell us on social media. But do vote blue. Cause Red is just going to make things worse and help burn everything to the ground. Tell those in power your give money to the other side if they don't do better. Lie to them. Even if you won't give money to anyone. Lie to them make them actually feel like they need to do better. If you really want to show your hate tell them that they are losing money/votes thus power if they don't do better. That actually get them to listen. Don't just decide to not vote and then get the wrose people in power then cry about how life is unfair.

Life is unfair go do something to help then.

[rdng1230]

There’s something uniquely frustrating about the state of American politics right now where I feel like democrats are critiquing people for being too far left on certain issues, when the policies those people are actually advocating for are a majority opinion by a large margin. Like a ceasefire in palestine has twice the approval rating Biden has? How am I the unreasonable one? I get it we do have to continue voting because this is what we have right now. But arguably the presidents biggest job is foreign policy. What’s happening in Gaza is the biggest foreign policy issue Biden has faced in his presidency, (second only to maybe the pullout of Afghanistan which was also a huge clusterfuck) and he has utterly failed. Not only was he barely able to obtain a less than week long ceasefire that wasn’t even honored, he has completely gone around congress and approved BILLIONS more in military aid to Israel. His OWN STAFF are quitting/protesting in droves at how he’s handled this.

I can’t be the only one concerned that the Democratic party’s best man for the role of “guy leading the biggest military and the biggest diplomatic corps in the world” is someone breaking federal, constitutional, and international law to further a policy 2/3rds of the nation disagrees with.

no matter what Biden only gets one more term, what is the presidential future of this party? Because from where I sit that future needs to come a whole lot sooner, and in the form of someone who actually will fight for the policy position most Americans (not most democrats, most Americans) believe in.

I get it that trump is a huge threat, I get that trump would be even worse for the people of Gaza, but I am scratching my head as to how having a candidate who advocates for a hugely popular policy position is going to hurt that candidates chances? Like we saw how the pro choice playbook payed off extremely well for the democrats on a domestic policy level. Because safe and legal abortion is actually a hugely popular policy! So why is this not the case when it comes to presidential elections and foreign policy issues? This ain’t the general, it’s the primaries people, so why are we cool with having a candidate with a demonstrated track record of being fucking horrible at the biggest constitutional duty he has, when we could be auditioning other candidates who you know, aren’t war criminals. Just a thought.