#just to preface i do NOT support trump

[y-a-w-p]

Elections stressing me out so much I'm genuinely considering becoming hyper religious and joining a convent in Northern France

[eddiezpaghetti]

The thing about Stranger Things being such a normie-ass mainstream show but being about outcasts is that you'll see a good ol' country boy in a John Deere cap and cowboy boots with a Stranger Things shirt, and...

Be honest with yourself, Dale. Your ass would not be in Hellfire. You'd be in the angry mob trying to kill kids.

[thealogie]

Gotta preface it with ‘I’m not from the US, so obviously don’t understand lots about how election results affect everyday life of people living there’. Also, if I suddenly, still being myself, became a US citizen with a right to vote, I can’t imagine voting for Trump. Saying all that, I don’t think labelling half of the country, tens of millions of people, genuinely evil is very productive or even mentally honest.

I am from the part of the world, which suffered from both republican and democrat US administrations, and lately most of the geopolitical games resulting in tons of blood, have been played, obviously, by democrats. I have to say that I find their utter hypocrisy deeply disgusting. At least your republicans, how I see it, don’t even mask being monsters, they say it like it is. When two negotiating sides state their goals outright, it is possible to come to an agreement at least marginally better than when one side is always being two(3,4,5)-faced, making a point to wrap their actual goals (if they even know them) in pretty words about democracy while double-crossing their negotiation partner even before the ink has dried.

I know that you’re from Iran and are aware of how deeply destructive US foreign policies can be, increasingly so since the start of this century. With one caveat that Trump seems to be especially hostile to Iran, and a democrat would’ve been marginally better when it comes to the US policy regarding Iran. It’s not the same for all parts of the world though, so we might not all be unbiased observers here.

I know that foreign policy doesn’t decide US elections, I only wrote this longwinded nonsense to say that maybe there are solid reasons for half of the US to prefer Trump and reject the democrats, like for the rest of the world there are reasons for either. Economic, political, whatever. Maybe liberals should look into these reasons before dismissing millions of people as genuinely evil, like Hillary did in her time. Idk about you, but when she called half of the country ‘deplorables’ or whatever, no one I know and no one I read (not from US) felt sympathetic. It just sounded incredibly entitled and delusional, and plain dumb. And it looks like since Hillary democrats haven’t learned or even attempted to learn anything, it’s still ‘half of our nation is broken and evil and we can’t do anything about it’. But it’s not how people work, in my opinion. Yes, they might not care about minorities first, they might care about themselves first, but doesn’t it mean that politicians should identify their problems and offer solutions? Isn’t it how it works? Dehumanazing Trump supporters will only radicalize them more, isn’t it what in fact happened, and how it always works with people in general?

Idk about life inside the US, like I said, but how I see it, the only ones to blame here are democrats and liberals in general. If people in the world, and I’m sure inside the US, will see that they finally start addressing the problems instead of hiding behind empty rhetoric, if the level of hypocrisy and delusional entitlement decreases at least to some degree, the support for right-wing populists will also decrease, I’m sure of it. Because most people are not ‘genuinely evil’, but they become embittered and cruel when their concerns are continuously dismissed, things start to fester resulting in ugly political outcomes. I mean, I know you know all this, sorry for being so boring and longwinded. It’s just that I usually like your takes (I came for MASH and stayed for the neighbors as well), including political ones, but here I got a bit of a whiplash, sorry.

I appreciate this thoughtful note. You don’t have to like my takes for us to be on friendly terms. And to be clear I do forever and always blame democrats and liberals for not energizing the people who agree with them.

But as you say you don’t live here and so there’s no way for me to convey to you without asking you to spend months reading right wing political accounts here and talking to people here that a sizable number of the people who support this man are genuinely bad people and want me and people like me out of this country.

This comes from hundreds of personal encounters over the past 8 years and spending the past three months reading dozens and dozens of pieces of reporting that are like “I went to talk to voters in a small town, here’s what they had to say.” And the things you hear are: purge this country of immigrants, make America a dominating force in the world again, get us back to traditional values where women are popping out babies…oh yeah and also the economy would be better under him.

Like idk what you want me to call sexist, homophobic, white supremacists but I think they are evil. And I think it used to be that the Republican Party was more polite about all of these beliefs so I could understand people being disaffected and voting for them for reasons other than hating other humans but now we’re just saying the quiet part out loud and there’s no plausible deniability

[dolce-cerise]

Greetings! You can call me either Dolce, Cerise, or Meringue! I don't mind which. Welcome to my blog!

(These are not our current designs, nor am I OP's current main sona. This picture is old)

(A link with our current designs will be posted at some point! Maybe…)

If I ever say something that causes even mild concern about my mental health, please let me know so I can provide context, I don't want anyone to worry about me for no reason.

----

Just to preface, if I do an rp with my sonas, all three of them will have different texts.

Cerise's text will look like this <-

Dolce's text will look like this <-

Meringue's text looks like this <-

And I'm just regular text.

----

Rules:

I am a minor(under 16), don't send me NSFW or Gore. You will be blocked. Suggestive stuff, it's a very blurred line with me. For now, I'll just say it's fine as long as it's not directed at me or any of my moots(minor or not. I don't want to make any of them uncomfortable), or my ocs(unless stated that it's okay).

No hating on anyone, I don't care how problematic they are. I will block you.

Leave me out of whatever drama is going around in my fandoms, i either could not care less, find it stupid, or don't want to be involved. This app is my safespace, and I want it free from all drama. If I'm in a problematic fandom, it's very likely that I have no idea since I don't pay attention to that stuff.

Don't attack me for my opinions or ships.

----

TSaMs AUs! (Asks and rps are always open!)

Celestial Witches au

Vampire au

Toon au(show name pending)

Casanova Candies au(candy shop au)

Siren au

NSP infection au

Celestial farmers au(ran by me and some moots)

Cannibal Dazzle au

Aus/stories unrelated to TSBS

My Security breach au

My Minecraft story/au

----

Other tags:

#Cerise Yapping <- Post tag

#Meringue Reblogs <- Reblog tag

Mootie Tags:

#🏵Ollie spotted!👁(Weirdcoregal35)

#🕯A Will-O-Wisp!🌳(WispCandle)

#🪣Bucket of Moony!🌙(MoonyBuckets)

----

D.N.I. list and boundaries under cut:

Boundaries:

This app is my safespace away from all the drama in my real life, and I don't want to have to deal with it here. Please don't involve me in anything involving any of my mutuals. They're my friends, and I'd rather not hear "oh [insert name]'s a horrible person! Stop interacting with them!" No. I'll make my decisions based on what I see for myself.

D.N.I LIST

Trump supporters, SolarNexus shippers(less of a dni, more keep your distance), and Anti-Palestine blogs as well.

[technofeudalism]

i'll be honest. i am feeling bitter today. wall of text coming.

i was going through the "Bernie Bro" tag earlier and sincerely thought about reblogging the most unhinged takes i could find from as far back as 2015 just to prove a point.

but after i started looking at them, i realized that almost all of the users are still active today and making pro-Joe Biden posts as early as this week and i couldn't do it. i don't want those problems.

however... i could not resist sharing a part of one. this is a post from the 2016 primaries. i am 100% not trying to dunk on anyone. i am just trying to show people who do not remember or were not around the conversations that were happening at the time. then maybe you will understand why people to the left of you get so frustrated.

this post is a total of 1,163 words. it is from a fandom blog. you may be asking: is this a story? shipping controversy? it's february 2016... perhaps an appeal on health care policy? here is the title:

and here is an excerpt:

here is the meme that caused the offense:

prefacing this by saying that Bernie has let me down greatly in the last couple of years, especially with Gaza. but that's not what this post is about. maybe another time. i have plenty of critical things to say. but this is genuinely mind blowing to me.

even putting aside the absurdity of it all - making a post about this in the middle of a presidential election where Donald Trump is running for the first time - research at the time and in recent years concluded that, while there were small groups of very online, red pill Sanders supporters that exist in almost every political space (a few of these guys later fell straight down the alt-right pipeline), they were never the majority or even close to being it.

despite the smears, this was not a real issue pervasive in Bernie's campaign. it was pointed out by a diverse group of journalists in 2016 and 2020 that it was an example of the media coaxing the middling progressive movement in the US to start knifing each other so that the Democrats could appoint their corporate-controlled candidate. they had Bill Clinton on CNN saying it!

and it worked. first it was Hillary, then it was Biden. as a bonus, it irreparably stained Bernie's reputation with some women who, understandably, were concerned about things they heard on CNN or MSNBC where this narrative was being pushed around the clock.

this post has over 1200 notes. not a ton. but i found plenty of others about other topics that had tens of thousands. most of them were also very silly. some actually had legitimate criticisms but they were few and far between. same trend i saw in 2024 after Biden dropped out. it feels like nothing has really changed in a decade. not for the better.

i am of the opinion that you cannot spend all of your time fighting ghosts while your opponent is punching you in the face. you will always lose. Bernie may have not beaten Trump - either time. but misogyny, sexism, racism and any other form of discrimination or hate will always be incompatible and will never have a place in a genuine socialist movement. you have to trust that we can hold individuals within our communities accountable for their actions and stay disciplined in our message. there is no other way out of this.

[charmcoin]

not a wrestling person but very curious abt what’s wrong with wwe. tell me abt the community discourse.

this is honestly a very difficult question to answer succinctly because there is a LOT that plays into the current public perception of wwe but i also think i should preface this by saying i personally don't have any beef with wwe and i like a lot of the talent that wrestles there! i just don't prefer their style of production which is why i watch aew regularly and would be sad if my favorite wrestlers signed with wwe. THAT BEING SAID

the two major wrestling promotions in the united states are wwe and aew. aew is a MUCH smaller promotion in comparison, it started in 2019 and very much markets itself as being by wrestling fans for wrestling fans whereas i feel wwe casts a wider net and tries to market itself to the public at large.

wwe Has seen competition in the past, namely by wcw in the late 90s during a period termed the "monday night wars" where both companies had shows (raw vs nitro) which aired at the same time on monday nights. both companies had different approaches to storytelling and different wrestlers, and people frequently compared how each program did on the day's television rankings to measure how their favorite company was doing. at the end of the day wcw failed, got bought out by wwe, and lived on as a separate brand for a couple years before being shuttered entirely in 2001.

when aew emerged in 2019, it was the first real competition wwe had seen in ~20 years, so a lot of people picked sides. some people are super loyal to one company over the other, and if a wrestler they like signs to the other company they get pissed off about it for a variety of reasons. wwe has come under fire in recent years because vince mcmahon (head of the company since forever) is a known sex pest who treats his workers like shit and aew has come under fire for continuing to employ sex pest trump supporters and for having an incompetent owner who can't manage his employees.

TL;DR it's a LOT of corporate politics for the most part and picking sides has been part of wrestling for forever. there are issues with how both companies are managed imo, but at the end of the day for me personally it comes down to personal preference. i just like aew better! And theyhave all my special guys so if i couldn't see them anymore i would get sad

[greatwyrmgold]

I've been playing a lot of CK2: After the End recently, so I decided to take a crack at my own take on a post-post-apocalyptic America. I'm not sure if I'll keep cracking at it long enough to make something cohesive enough to share, but I really like my Florida idea.

The first thing I need to preface this with: A running theme in my take is how people in future centuries conceptualize the legacy of the USA. A lot of its successor states use the USA as a source of legitimacy, as European/Mediterranean kingdoms did Rome, all the way to at least World War 1. (Both the Russian and Ottoman Empires claimed to be successors to Rome, until they stopped existing.)

The second thing is that this idea was that a lot of post-apocalyptic setting ideas have Florida (or at least a copyright-friendly version of Disney World) as a weird place where pop culture becomes religion in a really silly way. I didn't want to do that, but I did want to play off the trope by having some specific element of American culture be shockingly influential.

And third, the backstory for Florida has it first get wrecked unusually hard by the Tribulations (my placeholder name for "whatever caused the apocalypse") and then get repopulated by people either banished from or fleeing other parts of the East and Gulf Coast. So start with people who are suspicious of the old USA for failing to prevent the Tribulations, then add people who were aggrieved by various successors to the USA.

When this population looks for answers, they will be suspicious of conventional narratives, if not outright hostile. And where do people go for unconventional narratives about how the world works and why things happen? Conspiracy theorists. But most traditional conspiracy theories are ultimately supportive of at least some conventional power structures. Look at QAnon; they're big fans of the Republican Party and any government organs loyal to Trump.

So to satisfy all the emotional pressures at play, some of the old conspiracy theories need to turn inside out.

New Order Satanism

New Order Satanism, the religion of these post-apocalyptic Floridans, has a very Christian worldview. It's just a Christian worldview which disagrees on who the good and bad guys are.

The Three-Faced God is a callous demiurge figure, a creator-god with no care for humanity. Meanwhile, Lucifer becomes a Prometheus figure, a fallen angel who rejected God's commands and stole the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil for humanity.

Getting past the creation myth into more contemporary legends, a lot of conspiracy theory staples get inverted. This is particularly true of Satanic Panic urban legends; New Order Satanists use heavy metal and D&D sourcebooks and horror movie paraphernalia to commune with demons. But it can happen with anything; chemtrails are a byproduct of Lucifer's allies visiting Earth, the Moon landing was faked to fool God's servants, Marx is a major devotee of Lucifer.

This is where Florida's theme parks (briefly) enter the picture. Remember how Harry Potter was the subject of its own mini-satanic-panic in the oughts, before JKR started aligning herself with the religious right? Remember how the Universal Orlando Resort has a whole theme-area based on Harry Potter? That gets incorporated into the lore. The Wizarding World gets recast as an ancient temple to one of Lucifer's champions, alongside other pop culture figures at the Universal Studios theme parks, and also the nearby Disney theme parks.

Back to conspiracy theories. Anything too overtly sinister, like the Greys and bioweapon plagues and adrenochrome harvesting, can't be whitewashed into a pro-Lucifer worldview. (And some of it could be but isn't.) These are recast as tools of the Three-Faced God and its American servants, and serve pretty much the same role as they do in modern conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, the Jews were left in this group. New Order Satanists see Jews as the Three-Faced God's high priests and most zealous servants. There aren't a lot of great places to be Jewish in this America, but its Florida is among the worst.

...on a lighter note: The economy!

On one hand, as mentioned, the New Order Satanists revere Karl Marx as a devotee of Lucifer. On the other hand, the Three-Faced God claims loving money is the root of all evil, so a desire for wealth must be good.

New Order Satanists don't have a single unitary state, so there's no universal rules for how their economy works. But in general, they provide universal access to the essentials of life (food, housing, pre-industrial healthcare) and have a market economy layered on top of that for everything else. And people are encouraged to accumulate wealth which inevitably leads to some degree of exploitation, but people can survive without submitting to an employer, so it's probably less bad there than it is in the Louisiana Commonwealth.

The New Order Satanists don't have a formal priesthood, but they do have a lot of preachers. Many of those preachers are of a kind with many modern conspiracy theory peddlers; they're much more likely to believe what they say, but they make sure to phrase it in a way that gets people to keep listening, and maybe make some donations while you're here.

Informal social hierarchies also tend to spring up around these preachers. It's generally accepted that if a preacher you listen to runs for office or favors a political proposal, you're supposed to support them. If you don't support their politics, then why are you listening to them?

These informal social hierarchies often clash with whatever formal political institutions exist in a given region. Barring the rise of a particularly charismatic preacher with a broadly-appealing spiel, no one has the power to get a large number of New Order Satanists to work together. Which isn't always bad, but it means that the New Order Satanists are geopolitically impotent. At the "present tense" of the setting, Florida is under occupation by one of the main USA successor "states".

But that doesn't mean New Order Satanism is going anywhere.

[pyropsychiccollector]

Shuichi Harem: Saihara Detective Agency, 1/5

Considering I ran 3 polls at once... It'll be interesting to pump these out. lol To make it fair to the winners of each poll, I'll spread out the posts - I'll do a Danganronpa first. Then Fate: Stay Night's winners (a 3-way tie, unbelievable. XD). Then Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. And I'll cycle through the harem members like that, keep the love spread around. n___n

So you won't see these collections "complete" for a while. Danganronpa has 5 girls to get through, Fate has 7 girls, and Rain Code has 7 girls. Why'd I give Shuichi a smaller harem? ... Personal preference. XD These are all ships that I support, mind you. Every single girl on those polls. I might not ship some girls as strongly, but I allow them. ... You'll know when I don't ship something period. I'll make a lot of noise about it. XD

This first one was... very borderline. I'm just very neutral about this one. It's not an unhealthy couple, so... I can't throw it out with the bathwater. She's a fan favorite, but she's not one of mine. Oh well. I felt like giving back to the community anyway. Never say I don't do nice things for you guys. (人◕ω◕)

This particular Danganronpa series will be... unique. Very different from the canon. I'll preface this by asserting that I've integrated V3's universe into the main Danganronpa universe; none of Chapter 6's "it's all fiction!" crap. (人◕ω◕)*** V3's Class as such is Class 79, and the Tragedy essentially happened in Class 78's second year as such. It's pretty much in line with canon, timeline-wise... That's just in case you guys needed a clarification on that. The other main clarification is that Junko didn't mess with this batch. There's a different Mastermind involved, and I won't spoil that too much. I will talk about their days at Hope's Peak, and the subsequent, er... games Class 79 are involved in.

Aren't Flashback Lights lovely? (人◕ω◕) Junko never put people through multiple Killing Games, screwing with their minds. Junko-chan was merciful. (人◕ω◕)

But enough fanfare~... Let's get right to it. (人◕ω◕)

The Beginning

So, first a little background~

By the time Class 79 arrived at Hope's Peak, the protests were ongoing. The Student Council was dead, and the Reserve Course was protesting for a little over half a year after that tragedy - before Class 79 showed up, anyway. The academy, more specifically the Steering Committee, wanted to save face. If they tried arranging for the police to come and arrest the offending Reserve Course students on trumped up charges, that would only bring the media further down on their heads. Better to let the ingrates parade around the front of the campus and make it a battle of attrition.

So what does the academy decide to do? Carry on business like usual. Twist Kizakura's arm to keep the recruitments coming. Eventually, sixteen students were scouted (or picked in a lottery, as is the yearly tradition with the Ultimate Lucky Student) to attend as the 79th Class. Kaede was scouted as the Ultimate Pianist, and boy did she feel honored to have Hope's Peak recognize her talents! She didn't think her hobby was on the same level as these other Ultimates...

... But Hope's Peak wasn't the glamorous paradise that they advertised it to be. Those riots outside the gates were unsettling to say the least, and her class had to be escorted onto the main campus to avoid any "accidents'! How crazy is that?! The Headmaster or faculty wouldn't even tell them what was going on!! Those Reserve students were so angry...! She'd even say they were murderous when they saw Class 79 get admitted onto the main campus...

Still... Kaede did what she could to adjust to her new life as an Ultimate. For those first few weeks, Class 79 didn't so much "bond" as collectively worry about the Reserve Course students. It's difficult to pretend life was normal with such ominous tension hanging in the air, day in and day out. For her part, Kaede stayed in the music room and played the piano repetitively to keep her mind off her anxieties. Their classes, if there were any, were pretty short and concise. And even so, Kaede didn't have to attend class. So long as they honed their talents, the students could do whatever they pleased, including ditch class.

So Kaede stuck to the music room as much as possible. Went down for meals and to rest in the dorms, but her priority was drowning herself in playing the piano. She didn't want to close her eyes to the world, bury her head in the sand... But what was she supposed to do? Hope's Peak wasn't giving them answers, the riots were growing worse by the day, and their senpai... all those upper classes... If the students weren't just plain eccentric and goofy, they were, frankly, suspicious... and Kaede had a bad feeling about them. There was just something... off... about Class 77-B.

Kaede couldn't ignore her own classmates forever, though. As tightly wound up as she was, the pianist did want to try reaching out to them... Or at least the nicer ones. Kaito was a chipper guy to be around, even if he could be a bit dense. Rantaro took some getting used to, but the guy had a number of stories to share about his adventures around the world, searching for his sisters. Tsumugi and Himiko were a bit... obsessed with anime/manga and magic, respectively, but Kaede could admit she wasn't much better with her piano. Angie was nice... but there was definitely some culture shock with that one. Who asked others to donate a pint of their blood like it was no big deal?! Who?!

Gonta was a big teddy bear. Tenko was overly excitable, and was a massive fangirl for Himiko. Kirumi was zealously polite and insisted on taking care of everyone, handling their needs... Ryoma was a bit closed off, but he was a chill guy to be around. Miu was... Miu. Kaede didn't hang around that chick too often. Korekiyo was as cordial and professional as Kirumi, and as widely travelled as Rantaro if not moreso... But something about the guy gave Kaede the heebie-jeebies, so she stayed away. Maki, like Ryoma, was closed off and wasn't telling any of them what her talent was. Kiibo-kun was pleasant to be around - apparently his father was a researcher at Hope's Peak, so he'd been there on campus longer than any of them... But Kiibo-kun's story was sad. Kaede felt so sorry for him, that he needed to replace his failing human body parts with robotic pieces... Kaede constantly made sure that he was alright, but it was clear that the pianist was overstaying her welcome a bit. At the very least, she was an overprotective mother hen.

... Kokichi was a little turd. Kaede would have preferred interacting with the nefarious prankster as little as possible, but unfortunately that wasn't possible. All because of who Kokichi hung around the most.

Shuichi Saihara... Poor guy had more self-confidence issues than Kaede did. As the Ultimate Lucky Student, Shuichi didn't feel like he belonged at the academy. Because even his luck... seemed to be a rare occurrence. It wasn't as obnoxious as Nagito-senpai's, or as attention-grabbing as Makoto-senpai's. Kaede isn't even sure how she could describe it; things just go Shuichi's way, but not in an obvious manner. Like, he'll drop something and not realize it... But he'll find it pretty quick, once he's realized the item's gone. And it's more than just finding stuff he's misplaced - Shuichi himself admits that his "luck" has proven helpful to his Uncle's private detective agency. Whenever he investigates, he'll find the truth... But sometimes, solving the case doesn't lead to a happy ending. Kaede can tell it's not just self-confidence issues; Shuichi carries some scars with him, buried deep down.

Maybe that's why that jerkwad Kokichi hangs around Shuichi so much. He can tell the Lucky Student is lying about how he's really feeling... But instead of prying the truth out of him like a normal person would do, Kokichi drags Shuichi around on "playdates" and other frivolous outings (a lot of the time in the middle of the night...!), pretending everything's hunky-dory. ... Kaede doesn't like it, but she's not so cruel as to pick at old wounds, as much as she'd rather help Shuichi get over past tragedies... So in a way, perhaps Kokichi isn't completely off-track... It still grates at Kaede to even admit that privately, though.

So Kaede goes a roundabout way of helping out her new friend. She approaches Kyoko-senpai and asks her to take Shuichi on as... an apprentice. It's a tall order, and Kyoko-senpai is barely more approachable than Maki about... anything... Senpai insists that she doesn't have the time to take on a pupil - much less someone who's turned his back on detective work out of "shame"... Kaede doesn't understand that Kyoko has a hard time considering this favor because Shuichi is pretty much in her father's shoes, and Kyoko doesn't know how to make him reconsider... Much less feel like it's her place to force a career onto Shuichi.

But once Kaede drags him over to meet Kyoko, the luckster can see the lilac-haired girl embodies the spirit of a "true" detective... Cold, clinical, detached... And yet there's something about her that stirs Shuichi's own "detective spirit" up. Something along the lines that... he doesn't want Kyoko to be alone, to completely commit her soul to the career and throw away her humanity. Shuichi believes it's arrogant of him to assume he knows anything about this, that he has any right to dictate how Kyoko should live... But he can't help thinking that he's right... Because he holds shame for not satisfactorily resolving every single case up until now, and he believes Kyoko should keep in mind they are investigating people. That people have rights, that they shouldn't just ignore people's feelings... Yes, it's a conflict of interest. Yes, his Uncle has cautioned him to be more detached like Kyoko is... But Shuichi just can't. Restraining his emotions hurts. Most cases deal with peoples' lives - perhaps not always life-or-death, but finding missing people or lost pets... That's still dealing with peoples' lives. Shuichi feels if he closed off his emotions... he would cross way too many lines. All for the sake of finding "the truth". ... And he just can't do that.

Kyoko winds up taking Shuichi on as a trial run... And while his rampant emotions and outbursts are annoying for Kyoko to deal with, Shuichi may have a... point. About detaching yourself too much. On a number of cases, too much detachment made Kyoko too blind before it was too late... And while Shuichi wasn't able to resolve the cases in the manner he would have preferred, he still tried... And yes, it's annoying to keep Shuichi from falling apart after particularly distressing cases, but there's something about the boy that makes Kyoko keep him around. Perhaps part of it is keeping him from abandoning the profession like her father... But another part of it is that like Makoto, Shuichi keeps her grounded. Wrestling with emotions isn't Kyoko's idea of a good time... But she needs to at least do the bare minimum, if she doesn't want to bottle everything up and vent on her friends... What few friends she has left...

Life at Hope's Peak carries on for a few months, for Class 79... Kaede finds a stable routine in bonding with Shuichi, their classmates, and some of their senpai from the 78th Class... Kaede likes to think Shuichi becomes one of her best friends. And his apprenticeship with Kyoko has done wonders for Shuichi... Still critically low self-esteem, but he's coming to accept that despite being a "Lucky Student", he can be more than the title the academy bequeathed to him.

... Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to last. Eventually the Reserve Course peaked with their riots and stormed the main campus... And whilst planning an escape, Class 79... all got knocked out.

The Hazy Middle

Before Kaede, Shuichi, and Class 79 know it... 5 years pass them by. They literally aren't aware of it, being forced into "loops" that last a few weeks before starting over again and again... Their memories "tweaked" with every loop. Killings keep happening until there's only one or two left, or until a few of them beat the "Mastermind", and they start over again.

Kaede remains the Pianist of the group... But by now, Shuichi is the "Ultimate Detective". That's been the reality for several years now. Class 79 aren't aware they have a Lucky Student. Though he does his best to help solve the Killing Games, sometimes Shuichi is made the victim or even rarer times made the killer... Class 79 does not know about the loops. They keep living on in these Killing Games, forced to distrust each other and try to survive. Learning about each other again and again... Sometimes pushed into corners and being twisted into perverted versions of their natural selves...

Kaede doesn't know about the loops. And yet pretty consistently, she draws close to Shuichi almost every time. Old instincts kicking in, passionate feelings resurfacing~...

It took a year or two, going through these Killing Games... But once it started, once Kaede began to express romantic feelings for her best friend... The same phenomenon kept cropping up in subsequent loops. They endure this hellish torture of seeing their friends distrust each other, of wondering if they'll survive the Killing Game... Shuichi tries so hard to pin down the Mastermind. But sometimes he'll focus on saving Kaede and everyone he holds dear... Sometimes he forsakes that ultimate objective of unveiling the Mastermind... He doesn't completely understand why, but deep down Shuichi understands that before Class 79 came along... He was an empty shell. He understands that in his efforts to protect everything he loved... he lost it all. And it keeps happening again and again and again. Shuichi takes it hard when he can't protect people, and this carries over many loops. His past, even though he doesn't remember it all, leaks into his present self... And as a result, the Shuichi of the "here and now" is a very tired, very uncertain man... A man that isn't so sure he has the right to call himself a detective.

But just as the loops affect Shuichi, so do they affect Kaede. She sees the pain Shuichi holds, deep inside... And every loop she tries to be the inspiring best friend/assistant that Shuichi so desperately needs. It's not his fault these murders keep happening, and he's not some "sham" of a detective for not stopping crimes before they happen. They're... only human.

Kaede's often the first to be there for Shuichi, throughout the loops. Sooner or later there are other girls who gravitate towards the detective... And Kaede must accept there's others who hold Shuichi dear in their hearts. ... Even if she can have a jealous streak in her. Still, it must be said that because of their bond, Kaede stopped contemplating murder long ago... Doesn't even cross her mind as loops reset and she forgets everything. Monokuma makes it clear the trials are rigged in the survivors' favor... So even if she were to try murdering the Mastermind, it probably won't work out how she hopes it would. So Kaede doesn't even entertain the thought.

Because her friends need her. ... Shuichi needs her. They learn about each other again and again... Sometimes this bonding will even feel familiar to the Pianist... But it's why she keeps going for the detective, isn't it? Because having him as a friend feels right... He won't betray her. Not by choice.

The Killing Games result in a close bond between Kaede and Shuichi... But their relationship never really goes anywhere so long as the loops keep occurring. They fall in love again and again... But that love doesn't deepen. ... Not on the surface...

The Ending... or a new Beginning...?

Everything must come to an end, eventually... Even Killing Games. Class 79 will be saved... But the cost is steep. Their memories are messed up across five years, constant memory suppression and restoration... The human mind can only take so much.

The surviving members of Class 79... eventually end up in comas. There's no way to "ease" them into getting their memories back... At some point the dam will break and they'll get it all back anyway. So Future Foundation helps restore their memories... and their minds and bodies just shutdown as a self-defense mechanism from getting so much back at once.

It's not really known how much time passes... Weeks... Months... Years...?

Eventually, however, Class 79 will wake up once more. They'll need therapy to cope with so many "loops" of killing, being killed, seeing their friends dying... The survivors of Class 79 do not have an easy road ahead of them.

But if Kaede and Shuichi are among that number of people in the long, arduous process of healing... Perhaps someday they'll come to grips with their unstable past. Just maybe, they'll be able to live in a world that came back from the brink of disaster...

Perhaps they won't get a "grip" at all. 5 years of "Killing Games" isn't something that you can just... overcome. Pretend they never happened. What they do learn to do, however, is to bear that pain of the past and find immense relief that it's all over. Reconnecting with the rest of the world is... difficult. Shuichi, Kaede, and the rest of the Class 79 survivors almost expect to wake back up in the academy and to endure more "games"...

But as the months and years go by in their new lives... They accept the true finality. The Killing Games are over. ... But they are rather clingy to one another. The constant bombardment of their friends dying... They need constant reminders and proof that they're alive, no matter how far apart they may be.

Kaede tries to go with a professional career as a Pianist... But all that time of not really "progressing", of being stuck as a high school freshman, the bittersweet feelings being around a piano evokes... Kaede has a piano in her home that the Future Foundation graciously gave to her, but that's it. She can't bring herself to play professionally.

... Because if she carried on with such a career, she could never be sure of how Shuichi is doing. Kaede would worry herself sick about all her classmates if she carried on alone... So she helped Shuichi to form a new detective agency in a cozy town far removed from the big, bustling cities. She's not so much a detective herself, more like a secretary...

It's not glamorous. It's not "elite". Kaede never cared for any of that crap. She thought that when she accepted Hope's Peak invitation that she might grow to like the famous reputation of the academy and enjoy a rich, lavish lifestyle... Instead, she attended that academy at such a turbulent time. When it was rife with corruption. She and her friends were robbed of a normal high school life... And here they are now, years later, with the world getting back into a sense of "normalcy". Kaede came to the understanding that being rich or famous or elite... It wasn't for her.

No, Kaede would rather have a fulfilling lifestyle of helping others. Of supporting the man she loves. She doesn't mind one bit being in a quieter town, of their agency taking on much less serious cases than murder... It's frankly a relief to not have to deal with such heavy incidents. Such cases will sometimes roll in... But there's more of a variety now. And Shuichi isn't alone in puzzling out these cases, he's got a few capable assistants... Kaede might be a little jealous as she's "just" a secretary... But to be fair, Kirumi and Maki are pretty qualified in different aspects...

At least Tenko empathizes with Kaede. ... And even though Miu is hired on as the tech whiz, Kaede believes herself more "useful" to Shuichi overall than that pervert. Really~! Kaede just "loves" working with these other girls so much~... Why does Shuichi hafta be "popular" like this? Kaede wants to know. ... For science. ... And to keep any others from traipsing in here where they don't belong... Miu is enough of a handful, thank you very much. (人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)

[oll13v3r]

Welcome......

My name is Sebastian or Oliver, and I use he/him pronouns!

I make art sometimes but for convenience, it's on my art blog.

My reblog are in fact not tagged because I don't have the energy to do so. I try to tag trigger warnings, but I often forget to tag things such a ships. Just keep that in mind! It's very disorganized here

I am a self shipper/yumeshipper and I post a lot of stuff about that!! It's usually not very serious for me, so doubles are 100% welcome here!!

My blogs:

@oll13v3rdoesart - art blog!! Only art related stuff is posted there

@ladybugsandsunflowerseeds - oc/comic blog! Please check this out, I love this project so much and would like some attention on it.

@ask-oliver-the-demonom - obey me oc blog!!

Before you interact, here are some rules I'd like to preface!

Don't sexualize me or my characters!!

Here are things that will immediately result in a block. This includes homophobia, transphobia, racism, Trump supporters, sexual content, gore (without asking), GoFundMe's randomly and off topic, or really deep vents.

PLEASE GIVE ME ASKS IM BEGGING ON MY HANDS AND KNEES

Also dms are open to moots and followers if yall wanna talk to me!! I won't be able to start a conversation by myself, though.

[chokovit]

I'm gonna rant and vent

I'm gonna rant and vent about people I consider my brethren, my comrades, and my peers. I'm 100% not interested in debating or arguing with anyone at all so don't expect that if you message me.

I fucking hate election year. Every 4 years it's the same god damn song and dance and every other election it's worse and worse. And I'm not talking about some shitty pat ourselves on the back, circle jerking feel good about yourself garbage where I preach to the choir and we all sing "Yeah I feel that way too!"

I'm talking about Leftists, specifically, American Leftists (as I am American this will be therefore be from the point of view of one and my grievances will henceforth be specifically about "AMERICAN" Leftists so foh with your "That's an american centric view" shit).

I'm gonna preface what I'm about to say by stating the obvious. I am a leftist. Whether you fucking like it or not, whether you agree with me being one or not, I am. I don't hate leftists, as hard as this rant will make that easy to believe. I'm just very bothered by trends I see among them. They bother me because, unlike conservatives, I actually want leftists to "win". I actually want us to succeed. But in case your world view is black and white to the point you need me spelling it out for you, yes I am a leftist, I agree with leftists, and I am absolutely repulsed by Conservatism.

Now let me get into the meat and potatoes of what I want to bitch about. Basically, in the past, whenever I saw people bemoan that leftists are largely signal virtuing, morally uptight, jerkasses I thought of it as nothing more than the typically reactionary pant shitting rhetoric we've come to expect from Right-Wing discourse. And to be fair, back than, in the early-mid 2010s it probably was. But now? I don't fucking know anymore, it really does seem like at the very least a worryingly large amount of leftists think they're a part of some clique or social group and don't understand both the implications and power of their own standing. Particularly and most especially when it comes to voting. Let me tell you something, something really fucking important. You have nothing, you are nobody, and you are mostly powerless to do anything at all...EXCEPT for one thing, and that's voting. Yes, you can call your senator and congressperson but even thats only really gonna work if your congressperson or senator is one that'll even consider your interests. Do you think people in Lauren Boebert's district feel confident calling her to complain about trans issues? Yeah no. Every single fucking vote, every single god damn one matters and you can fuck off with your "both parties are the same" and "voting doesn't matter" bullshit. One party is waging a culture war on our entire nation, one party wants to make sure you're following a rigid social hierarchy, one party wants to turn Christianity into state law, one party wants to drape everything in repugnant Christian Nationalism and it's not Democrats.

Yes, yes it sucks that we can only pick from the two. No, no voting third party is not an option, we do not get the privilege of living in a country with a multi-party system. The DNC and the RNC both respectively own the two whole halves of the media industry in the United States, and no I'm not making that up. As cool and based as you think you look here on tumblr preaching about how we'll all vote for some super sick Ultra-Commie Socialist Dream party it's not going to happen. How many people will be inspired by you organizing on tumblr? in public even? on campus? Do you know the statistics you'd need? 2020 had an election turn out of 154 MILLION people! over 81 Million of them voted for Biden, and 74 Million of them voted for Trump! Now let's do a hypothetical, and lets be god damn realistic about it okay? REALISTICALLY, you and your lefty friends will never, ever, in all your attempts and rhetoric and debate, will ever be able to convince a MAGA Trump supporter from 2020 to vote for the Green Party. It will. Not. Happen. So that 74 Million? That stays, you get none of that. But, you could probably convince Progressives and Liberals who voted for Biden to do so (you know, if you actually want to shut the fuck up for 10 seconds and stop crying about how much you claim you hate them so all your friends nod and clap at you for being a super cool edgy leftist). So okay, let's be REALLY optimistic, let's say you convince like 20 million of those people who would've voted for Biden to vote for you, lets be even more optimistic and say you started with a base of 2 million people. I want you to keep this in mind that 2 Million people alone would be a record for the green party. In 2020 they had a popular vote of 406,000, literally less than half a million. But I digress. You're at 22 Million people, now lets consider people who didn't vote in 2020. That's 80 Million people, but, BUT, that's not a big pool of 80 million for you to grab from. We need to consider statistics first. Out of that 80 Million only roughly 30% of them didn't vote specifically because they either were undecided or didn't like the candidates. Therefore your actual pool of candidates interested in voting for you is 56 Million people. If you were only able to convince 20 million Biden voters, chances are you'd convince even less undecided voters. Realistically you should only get a hairs fraction of voters but, I'm trying to make a point here so lets say you get the largest share of Undecided Voters, somehow you're just super cool and based and you convince 30 million to vote for you. Not you have 54 Million votes. Congratulations, you have made US History by being the most voted for third party in the history of the US. You have beaten the previous record set by Jo Jorgensen in 2020 by a whopping 52 Million Votes (yes, really, that's the most a third party has ACTUALLY ever gotten before, just shy of 2 million votes). Despite your epic feel good win, the Orange piece of shit running against you, who has been galvanizing his base and everyone from the most fervant of maga's to your needle dick co-worker you kind of get along with despite voting republican for "fiscal" reasons, has surpassed his previous record by a little bit, he only really pooled in about a million more....which is 75 Million voters. Which is over 20 million people more than you.

Now I get it, I hear you barkin' big dog, we don't decide elections on popular vote, it's decided on the Electoral College. My point here is showing you how unfeasible third parties really truly are. This isn't a movie, this isn't like someone's gonna make some grand speech and everyone claps and comes to their senses and all of a sudden votes for "the right candidate". No, for a party that's NOT Libertarian to get even 10 million people to vote for them would be a historical precedent. And you don't need me to tell you that 10 million people is not nearly enough people spread across 50 states to make up for the electorate you'd need to win an election.

So why is this important? Why is it important we vote against republicans instead of voting for whatever helps us sleep at night, makes us feel good, and makes us look super "in" with our buddies online? Uh, because republicans will continue to do the things they're doing so long as they see it as a means to make themselves electable. Sure, some people say "well it's not MY fault it's the dems faults for not being GOOD enough for me to vote for them" and to that I say pbbbbth, you fucking KNOW better. You KNOW better, because you're a leftist, how dangerous fascism is, how bad and poisonous and terrible Traditionalism is. Consider this, another hypothetical okay? Everyone is so disgusted by the perils of conservatism they unite, as they did in 2020, to vote against them. They do it again in 2024, They do it again in 2028, and a 4th time in 2032. You've now had two full term presidents in the United States, will that make the conservatives go away? no. But will it swing the pendulum back? Yes! YES IT WILL! Politicians only give a shit about one thing and thats GETTING ELECTED. And if those mother fuckers start to realize that conservatism is an UNWINNABLE position, than they will, at the least, begin to abandon Conservatism as a platform for their party.

At the moment, that's NOT what's happening. Instead, we have Conservatives emboldened by 40 years of Reagan Rhetoric slowly shifting the pendulum ever more right. They've been doing it for 4 god damn decades okay, and you think 1 term from a dem president is going to start shifting it back? Fuck. The Fuck. Off. Dems are, from a global perspective, a centre-right party. When and if they do anything to "shift" the pendulum left, it's going to be shifted less to the left and more toward the "centre". Right now THAT IS WHAT YOU WANT!!!! YOU WANT THAT!!! HAVING THE PENDULUM FARTHER AWAY FROM THE RIGHT IS A /GOOD/ THING BECAUSE RIGHT NOW ITS DANGEROUSLY FAR TO THE RIGHT.

This shit doesn't make me liberal, this shit makes me pragmatic. I DONT. LIKE. CONSERVATIVES. I'm guessing if you've read this far /YOU/ probably don't either (or at least you claim to). But I don't hate them because they're rhetoric is bad, because they act like bigots or say mean/offensive things. I hate them because I genuinely hate their ideology, I hate their beliefs, I think everything they want for you and me and society at large is a fucking POISON to us as a modern, progressive society. And that's for obvious reason, they don't WANT us to be a modern, progressive society. If you've hated conservatives this entire time because of any "shocking" or "apalling" things you've seen or heard from them or that MSNBC or your lefty friends have shown you (including me) than I'm sorry but you're hating them for the wrong reasons. I mean, not that it isn't valid to hate someone for being a dick head. But your repulsion, your disgust should run deeper than that. You should be terrified and stop at nothing to want to crush Conservative ideology from the grip it has on American society. The vast majority of conservatives want to kill you, do you understand that? Whether that's because of their bigoted views, or because of LITERALLY CENTURY LONG WORTH OF PROPAGANDA AGAINST LEFTIST AND SOCIALIST VALUES they see you as a threat and want you dead. As much as they point and ridicule "libs" and "liberals" like you do, the liberals will be fine. It's YOU who won't be, it's YOU who should be hating them the most. And from what I see, you don't. Because if leftists truly felt threatened by conservatism they'd be stopping at nothing to rid it from our system. Instead, Leftists are more concerned with policing themselves, more concerned with having some super cool "hot take" on whoever the current president is. Leftists are more comfortable being the edgy outcasts, and if they're successful, they're not outcasts anymore. Fuck that. I haven't claimed leftism my entire life since I was 13 (I'm 30 now) just cuz I wanted to be edgy, and different. I didn't want to "look smart" and prove some "moral superiority" over people. You can do that shit with literally any political ideology. I claimed Leftism as my political ideology because it is, to me, the most pragmatic to ending universal suffering. And with that, I want leftism as an ideology to prevail and succeed. Not remain in the fucking shadows, ever caught on the side-lines of a worsening tug-o-war between Liberals and Fascists.

And most importantly of all, I want this to succeed, it NEEDS to succeed. And to do that we MUST unify, divide, and conquer. Yes, that means at least for a while we have to unify with Liberals. Our battle right now should be with the scourge of Fascism. The Soviet's didn't turn their guns mid-way through fighting the Nazi's cuz "erm actually the Allies are cringe too" no, they fucking united against a common, worse enemy. In fact, let me dive into the Nazi's cuz there's an interesting tid bit here. The Weimar republic, pre-Nazi rise, was composed of like 3 "left" wing parties. Needless to say by US standards all 3 of these parties would be considered left of Democrats but I digress. The refusal of all 3 of these parties to unite and caucus together created fractions in the political system of Germany at the time. This made it way fucking easier for the Nazi's to come in and sweep things up afterwards. There's many reasons WHY they were fractured, but those are beside the point of what I am trying to say here. It's like, that one part from Sun Tzu's Art Of War that people actually remember: "Divide and Conquer" with political division, the Nazi's easily just swept in and destroyed them. Do not forget, Fascism is an inherently authoritarian ideology. It is therefore organized and demands rigid conformity. If we do not unite, we will be easier to break apart and fall victim to it's clutches.

Finally, and lastly, I think this last part just comes from our horrible education system in the US. I understand many people probably didn't take Civics in high school, to those people I am sorry. As there's no way you could get how our system works because the system itself failed to educate you. If you did take civics in high school, or god forbid college, than you fucking know better. YOU! WILL NOT! CHANGE ANYTHING! IN A MEASLY 4! FUCKING! YEARS!

I know what we want, I know because I share a lot of the same values as you, even if I don't share your methods. I also know them because I've been reading you people post about them for the better part of like 15 years! NOTHING YOU WANT TO SEE IN GOVERNMENT, NONE OF THE CHANGES YOU WANT TO SEE HAPPEN! NONE OF THEM ARE GONNA HAPPEN IN ONE PRESIDENCY! Need I remind you that the current state of affairs has been shifted to the Right over a process that has taken FOURTY! FUCKING! YEARS!? and you think somehow that you'll just come in with some super cool epic revolutionary spirit and change shit in a couple years? That's not realistic! IT's just! NOT! But that doesn't mean we CANT change things. Yes, it does mean we have to change things slowly, it DOES mean we have to play the long game. But guess what, the Conservatives have been playing the long game since that shit bag Reagan leaked poisonous venom from his gunshot wound in DC. In fact they've probably been doing it longer, from 1965.

You wanna know if things can get worse? You already know the answer to that, yes. Yes things can get worse. Yes a society can advance forward, only to move backward. This literal exact fucking thing happened once in modern history, and it took 3 major super powers to defeat it.

Leftism isn't a fucking club, it's not a circle jerk for all of us to feel good about ourselves for being intellectuals and morally upright people. It's a fucking political ideology, that's it. It's not one of your fandoms. So no, you don't need to spend all the energy spent arguing with and debating with every other leftist and YES I know how that sounds coming from me. As much as this rant will have you assume otherwise I don't really spend much time debating other leftists. Mostly because a good chunk of leftists are way too reactionary to give me a charitable and honest platform. Anyone you disagree with is a fascist. And yes I've ACTUALLY had people call me this before. You dilute the term, you HELP the fascists this way. Fascism is a very specific evil, it's not just people who disagree with you. Sometimes, you will feel uncomfortable about the views other leftists have. That's normal. That doesn't mean they're "Liberal" or "Fascists". Again, this isn't a little pow wow where we sit around and agree with each other and get super psyched together about our favorite piece of political theory, and than if someone says something we disagree with we just kick them out of the circle. That's not how that works. That's not how any functional political movement succeeds. Right now, you and I have ZERO seats at the table, we don't exist on the grand political spectrum, as much as the GOP tries to fear monger that we do. So yes, we will have to unify sometimes with people we don't like. We will have to agree to disagree and come together for a common enemy.

I know this will change literally nobody's mind but I just really needed to get all of these thoughts out. I want them out and I want people to read them so that they can at least SEE the perspective of leftists outside their fucking echo chamber. Our division is NOT conducive to our success. We are going to /FAIL/ because the pendulum will keep going to the right. It'll fail cuz we are more concerned about making a choice that makes us feel morally vindicated than one that is pragmatic. I have nothing else to say anymore. Fuck Americans. Fuck all of them. Fuck all the American Conservatives. Fuck all the American Liberals. Fuck all the American Leftists. And Fuck all the undecided pieces of shit who couldn't decide whether or not they want to vote against fascism or let it slip on in. Fuck all of you, you uneducated, feel-good, self-satisfying, non-communitarian, individualistic, pigs of society. I sincerely wish I was born in literally any other country because at least than I wouldn't have to deal with being around some of the most inane, vapid, superficial fucking human beings on the planet. American Society is a god damn joke. Only above Israel. And that's not a bar you should be proud of.

[auncerra]

Want to know what dating apps for somebody trans is? Despite prefacing in your bio you don’t stand for bigotry and any birth classification of sex/sex organs don’t equate to gender -

It’s brazen statements from people who can’t even string together a sentence articulately like “‘Funny that…Trump made that illegal…saying “your” a girl’” - oh yes, that was only today’s, by the way. Firstly, it’s “you’re” so off the bat. Secondly, gender identity isn’t “illegal”. Thirdly, a bigot fascist that sexually assaults women doesn’t have a claim over my body my intimately understood identity - and yes that includes being not saying I am a girl, and far more than that (not diminutively to those denoting and connoting themselves as girls) and neither do you. I’m not on dating apps to date or much of anything else, if anything it feels like a cultural experience and experiment in just how brazen and just how far some are willing to go and apps are willing to abet behavior and words like this. Apps don’t do anything to address it, but obviously since you elected a terrorist into office shuttering nationwide support systems you fail to see the trend here. The people that felt animosity or “curiosity” and fetishization towards me for my sex/gender only amplify those same fighting words unprovoked in cases like these. Their bigotry shines for them.

And to the person I’ve waited now going on two years to hear from, you are just as complicit in that even if you don’t spew the same hateful rhetoric. You are just as complicit in being a hypocritical, trans-exclusionary fucking bigot. Enjoy your vaginal intercourse.

[in-sightjournal]

Ask A Genius 1180: Rick's Note!

*Interview conducted in November, 2024.* Rick Rosner: Just a note: if you want, I can provide a general preface that, for the past several months, 85 to 92% of my tweets have been political. I’m deeply concerned about the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency. The election is tight, and I’m doing what I can through tweets to dissuade voters from supporting Trump. If that doesn’t work,…

[weepingfireflies]

Freedom is Inevitable 

I want to preface this by stating in no uncertain terms that Biden’s statements and actions are unforgivable. He has caused the death of hundreds, if not thousands, of people by his constant and unwavering support of Israel’s war crimes and Obama’s bombings of the Middle East.

I will not shed a single tear when he dies. 

However, freedom comes slowly, but it will come. I’ve seen many people framing elections as a judgment on what kind of nation we have been, are, and will be. If Biden is elected, we lose the fight to free Palestine. If Trump is elected, we lose so much more. 

But it’s not true. The fight is not over because there's a setback. Politicians are rarely deserving of respect, but the freedom we are fighting for is. 

The idea we have to nominate Biden as the democratic candidate in the first place is untrue - contact and support those you think should run against him, vote in the primaries for someone else, and show support for a 2024 Democratic Presidential Debate to showcase other candidates. 

If he wins the nomination, let him know that we do not support Israel’s genocide, and we will not be quiet. We may vote for him because he is a step toward progress where Trump is not, but we will not stop at him. He may end up being a necessary stepping stone, but he is not at the end of our path. We will go further.

The main question is not whether or not we have to vote for Biden in the 2024 presidential election. So much more needs to be done before, during, and after Presidential elections - vote in lower elections/at midterms. Protest. Petition. Donate. Protect and enshrine rights for everyone, and if we fail once, do not stop until we succeed.

Just because the options are bad now does not mean they always will be. We can make a world where we don’t have to weigh the sins of our leaders every four years, but we have to be willing to try, to keep moving forward as fast as we can.  Refusing to take a step because it is small only helps the people we are fighting against, but we need to keep taking them, even if it seems impossible. Stop giving up because “there are only two bad options,” and “well, we voted for the lesser evil, so we’re done.” Freedom comes slowly, but it will come, and people like Joe Biden will be crushed under its wheels. 

[spacegay-official]

Alright, not to cause discourse or anything, but… I’m gonna cause discourse.

What happened in Ohio and Virginia yesterday is a great example of why voting in local and state elections is incredibly important. Those decisions affect you more directly than any federal election will.

The rest of this post is about Biden and the Democratic Party on a federal level.

To preface: I am not suggesting you shouldn’t vote. I am certainly not suggesting you should vote Republican. I plan to vote next year in the federal election regardless. This is just me asking y’all to be honest with yourselves about what’s going on in this country right now.

@fierceawakening you’re right. We are not in a fantasy world.

And in our non-fantasy world, things have gotten exponentially worse for trans people, women, and people of color under Biden. These balls began rolling under Trump, yes, but Biden and federal Democrats had plenty of opportunity to stop that ball rolling and chose not to.

In our non-fantasy world, we don’t have a fascist strongman at the head of the executive branch, but we do have a person who is doing absolutely nothing to stop the rise of fascism in this country, which isn’t any better.

In our non-fantasy world, Biden openly questioned death toll numbers in Palestine, openly and uncritically supports Israel, and is continuing to aid Israel in their genocide of the Palestinian people.

Yes, punishing ourselves with another term of Trump because of white liberal guilt won’t save anyone in Gaza, but it is irresponsible and wholly delusional to think that voting for Biden will.

This situation should radicalize you. This situation should make you want to demand better of our political institutions. Things can be different. We just have to do something about it.

I will be the first to admit I don’t have a solution. I don’t know what the answer to this is. But unless we see a major, radical, fundamental change to things soon, it will not matter which party is in office.

Please vote in your local elections. The results of those are going to impact you personally far more than any federal election will. And vote in federal elections if that’s what you want to do. You have the right to, and no one can stop you from exercising it. Just do not fall into the trap of not being critical of the candidates available to you. The DNC has proven time and time and time again that they do not care about you or anyone else in this country. They’re just better than Republicans at making it palatable.

Some good news

[arinning]

So this thing about Irene.

There’s a scandal going around about Irene that is gaining a lot of traction and I have a LOT of thoughts about it that I want to share. This is all just my opinion, none of it is facts and I hope it gets others just thinking about things as well. I feel like there are so many sides to this and the issue is a lot more complex than ‘oh, she’s just rude’ and it speaks on the industry as a whole, the Korean entertainment industry in particular. 

I want to preface this by saying I am a fan of Red Velvet and have been since debut. Irene has always been one of my favorite members, but I’ll try to be as unbiased as I can here. 

I also spent a year living in Korea recently so I have a better understanding of Korean culture than I used to. The biggest thing I learned while living there is that it’s all about appearances. This is a key theme for what I’m about to discuss. 

So a bunch of industry staff members are coming out and sharing stories and experiences about Irene’s rude behavior towards staff members. It all started with that vet editor’s post, which a lot of people have been critical of. I want to address this part first. 

This editor is incredibly smart and is exacting revenge on Irene perfectly. This is a person who was proven to work with Irene in the past, so I can only imagine that after having positive experiences with her before, being attacked like that was even more shocking than we’re imagining already. This editor probably had some trust established with Irene already because of past experiences of working with her positively. I understand where the editor is coming from when they say Irene abused her power, because as someone who is rich, successful, and beautiful, she does wield a lot of power in Korean society. If another staff member tried to pull the same behavior, they would lose their job or be heavily scolded by their boss. They wouldn’t dream of doing something like that. Scoldings and personal attacks are just part of the job in Korea (I know because I’ve received them before from bosses who were condescending towards me and when I asked them to not speak to me that way, their reasoning was ‘but I’m upset’. It’s common). Irene ranting, or scolding, this editor is not so uncommon in Korean work cultures, and the descriptions of other staff members being ‘used’ to her behavior and treatment of them doesn’t surprise me or shock me. I’m more shocked that someone actually spoke up about it, because that can come back on them hard. Who wants to hire an editor with a loose tongue? Who else will they expose? It’s ‘bad business’ in their eyes, not justice. It’s all about appearances. 

The only reason this editor is speaking up is because they have seniority, which is about the only thing that trumps appearances in Korea. If you’re a sunbae, then you have the authority, and rarely will people go against you whether you’re right or completely wrong (I experienced this with an old manager who refused to go against the director even if what she was doing to us was completely wrong). This is the only reason I can reason out that this editor would speak up about it, which answers the question of “why now?” that a lot of netizens are asking. It’s now because this editor has enough seniority to still book jobs. 

The reason I say this editor is incredibly smart is because they have assumed the power in this situation. Irene ranted at this editor because she knew at the time that she could get away with it because of her status. She didn’t anticipate that this editor would share this publicly because usually that means the editor wouldn’t have a job afterwards. However, this editor is a vet, and would probably still get jobs regardless if others hadn’t spoken out against Irene as well. 

Now this is where it gets interesting, because this editor has ‘recordings’ of the actual rant that they have yet to release. Whether they actually do have it recorded or not, I have no idea, but it was the perfect way to get Irene to confess to it herself. It’s better to jump the gun, expose yourself and be ‘remorseful’ than to wait to be exposed and have the apology seem forced. This *looks* better for Irene, but it also ensures that she exposes herself. Editor’s skin is saved. If the editor doesn’t actually have any recordings of the rant, well played. If they do, however, then they’re waiting to release it to keep the issue relevant and give a platform for others to come out about Irene on. This editor has all the power, since Irene is now reacting to whatever this editor does. They have Irene’s (now fragile) image in the palm of their hand, and it’s kind of amazing to witness a staff member take control of a situation like that. Good for them. 

Anonymous accounts are coming out now, and whether they’re true or not, I don’t really care. Idols go through a lot so explosions like this are bound to happen. There’s a lot of stress and pressure on idols who get scrutinized for everything and have their lives controlled by the public essentially, so am I surprised or appalled that she took it out on someone? Absolutely not. It happens, we’re human. That’s the kicker though: idol appearances. It’s all about appearances again, and idols are portrayed as completely perfect beings who can do no wrong. So, when they do something that just about everyone has done at least once or twice in their lifetimes, it’s blown out of proportion because we put these celebrities on a pedestal, or at least Korea does. A toe out of line and it’s the end of the world. 

My conclusion is that Irene is simply a diva, and so what if she is? Divas are celebrated in the west for their attitudes and fortitude. Why not in the east too? Why does Irene being a human with both positive *and negative* traits have to be enough for Red Velvet to pull out of an ambassador role for an upcoming festival and cancel their fan event? It’s ridiculous if you ask me. To think Irene, or any idol for that matter, is a perfect little angel is unreasonable. This shouldn’t even be a scandal. Korea has a different mentality towards their celebrities though, and I doubt that’s changing anytime soon. This editor was able to manipulate that mentality to their benefit though, and I applaud them for it. If anything, this editor will get what they want out of it, which is Irene watching who she treats rudely in the future. She’s got a reputation now, which means she has to watch herself from now on. Like I’ve said many times already, it’s all about appearances. 

Will I stop supporting Irene and Red Velvet? Of course not, I’ll continue supporting them. Irene having human flaws doesn’t bother me, and the accounts defending tell me she isn’t just some raging biatch that runs around and yells at every person who crosses her path. 

Just some thought foods for ya :)