#love it when love makes people ignore their morals

[explodingfridge]

my family had, and continues to have, lots of issues, but one thing I think we managed to handle fairly well is the severe alcoholism on my mom’s side. Her dad smoked cigarettes and drank heavily for most of her childhood. When he died he’d been sober for 20 years, but we always talked about addiction as a fact of life. Substances are addictive. Sometimes you become addicted to them. It’s just a matter of brain chemistry and it doesn’t make you a bad person. No one ever thought less of him for having been an addict.

About five years ago now her mom - my grandma - went to the ER for a bladder issue and while she was there she went into withdrawals. No one knew she’d been drinking, and certainly not drinking heavily enough to have withdrawal symptoms. She spent a week in the ICU hallucinating and she could’ve died. She didn’t thankfully, but she’d basically pickled her brain and the damage was permanent. None of us ever sat there thinking “god what a loser”. Not a single one of us. All we were thinking about was if she was ok. How we could get her sober and how we could support her and make sure she was safe going forwards.

She spent several months in an inpatient facility recovering from the stress on her body from both the sudden detox and the bladder issues.

She was sober for a while, and then she relapsed. By this point she’d given my mom power of attorney and access to her bank accounts, so we could see she was buying booze. They spent nearly two years going back and forth, with my grandma on and off sober, and my mom reached a point where she said “look, i can’t force you to stop drinking. You should, for your own sake. we still love you and you call me if you need help.” Her grandkids continued to go to see her. My mom stopped by once a week or so to make sure she hadn’t keeled over or stopped eating. In the end, she worked herself into a state where she was basically living off Jim Bean, and when she called my mom for help she sounded so distressed. We spent our Christmas that year trying to get food and water into her and bundling her up in blankets and listening when she thought I was my mom, and when she thought she was back in her hometown.

Addiction is complicated. It’s hard. It’s the sort of thing that once it sinks it’s claws into you it never truly lets go. That doesn’t make you weak. It doesn’t make you evil. It doesn’t even make you a bad person. Those who tout the devils of addiction and claim it to be a moral failing are ignorant. They’re judgmental, and they refuse to learn and understand. Even if you never get sober, even if you relapse, it doesn’t make you a terrible person. People with addictions are just people, the same as the rest of us, with their flaws and their vices and their virtues. And you should treat them like people.

it's just really fucking frustrating that we live in a world where I grew up being trained to believe that addicts are unloveable. and then I became an addict and I was still told that addicts are unloveable. and I just have to deal with the fact that there are people out there who believe that I don't deserve love, or that my partner is brave for loving me, or that my family and friends are suffering just from me existing. and that's fine that's just the way it is

but then on top of that. I have to deal with tumblr users telling me (an addict!!!) that they hate addicts in a cool new way that I should be totally sympathetic towards. see, they had a family member who was the most evil person on the planet! and that family member was an addict! so they can't help the fact that they now want all addicts to die! they can't help it! blast them all.

[maxdibert]

Alright, let’s dive into the dumpster fire that the Marauders fandom has become last years and threw any sense of canon or character integrity out the window. Because let’s be real, the way this fandom has twisted the characters of the Marauders and the Death Eaters, all while turning Severus Snape into some one-note “creepy stalker,” is embarrassing. The fandom seems obsessed with scrubbing characters clean, romanticizing abusers, inventing tragic backstories for literal sociopaths, and piling up headcanons that turn a few lines in canon into fully fleshed-out, fanon-only OCs. And somehow, the only character who gets relentlessly dragged and demonized is Severus Snape—a character who has actual complexity and trauma. It’s hypocritical, classist, and downright gross.

Let’s start with Severus. Canon Snape is a guy who came from nothing: poor background, abusive father, dead-end town. He didn’t fit into the wizarding world, was relentlessly bullied by privileged Marauders, and still somehow managed to survive and make something of himself. But instead of acknowledging any of that, the fandom loves to reduce him to this “creepy obsessive” stereotype. People act like he spent every waking moment pining for Lily and never did anything else, as if that’s all his character is. Never mind the fact that he was actively trying to get out of a miserable life, or that he was, you know, bullied on a daily basis by James and Sirius, who had wealth, status, and freedom to do whatever they wanted. Nope, to the Marauders fandom, Snape is just the “weird stalker”—because acknowledging his struggles would mean admitting that their golden boys were actually kind of awful.

Meanwhile, the same people are out here bending over backward to make people like Barty Crouch Jr., Evan Rosier, and Regulus Black look like misunderstood anti-heroes. Let’s be clear: in canon, Barty Crouch Jr. was a straight-up torturer, Evan Rosier died laughing as he fought Aurors, and Regulus was a kid raised with a silver spoon who only started doubting Voldemort when he realized he’d been signed up as snake chow. But no, fanon has turned these guys into “tragic, complex Slytherins” who were “just trying to survive.” It’s like they’re desperate for some tortured prince narrative, so they invent personalities out of thin air to give us this dreamy aesthetic of sad, beautiful Death Eaters who “didn’t really want to be evil.” Apparently, actually following the text is too much to ask when you’ve got fanon fantasies to uphold.

Regulus Black, in particular, has become this absurd fanon martyr. In canon, Regulus was a kid indoctrinated into pureblood ideology, who joined the Death Eaters without much hesitation. Maybe he had a change of heart eventually, but it wasn’t out of some grand moral revelation; he just realized Voldemort’s loyalty was to himself alone. Yet, according to the current fandom, Regulus is some misunderstood hero who was only “pretending” to go along with Voldemort and was “forced” into his choices. They’ve built this tragic romance around a character who, in the actual books, doesn’t have even half this depth. This Regulus in fanon is practically an OC at this point, and people cling to this made-up version of him so hard that they’ll defend it like it’s canon. It’s hilarious, and it’s also just plain wrong.

And let’s talk about the Marauders themselves. In canon, James and Sirius were rich, spoiled brats who spent their school years bullying anyone who didn’t fit into their world. They were kids with every privilege, and they used it to torment people like Snape, who had nothing. But the Marauders’ fandom has turned them into these fluffy, “good-hearted” rebels who just made “a few mistakes.” I’m sorry, but nearly killing someone as a “prank” is a bit more than a mistake. Yet people will ignore that or wave it away as “boys will be boys” just to keep up the illusion that James and Sirius were lovable scamps. It’s maddening—and it’s also classist as hell. They erase all the ugly realities of the Marauders’ behavior and then turn around and judge Snape for being “obsessive” and “weird” when he was just trying to survive in a world stacked against him.

The classism in this fandom is so blatant it’s laughable. Snape is written off as creepy and unworthy of sympathy because he didn’t have a cushy upbringing or the social standing to make him likable. Meanwhile, characters like Barty and Regulus, who came from wealthy pureblood families, get excused and romanticized to no end. It’s like the fandom is saying, “Well, Snape deserved it because he was poor and awkward, but the rich kids? They’re just misunderstood.” It’s the kind of privilege blindness that makes you wonder if people actually read the books or if they’re just projecting their own biases onto the characters.

And let’s not forget the army of new OCs the Marauders fandom has invented just to justify this headcanon universe (Mary, Marlene, Dorcas, that that Pandora no one knows why suddenly appears here lol) You’ve got random “best friends” for Sirius, unnamed Slytherins who magically have no ties to pureblood supremacy, and love interests for Regulus who supposedly saw the “real” him. All these characters are based on nothing more than a few throwaway lines, yet people have fleshed them out to a level that they’re practically new characters in the universe. It’s like they need this entourage of made-up people to back up their version of the Marauders and Death Eaters because, without them, their headcanons would fall apart. And all of this, while they keep painting Snape as this creepy loner with no real friends or worth. The hypocrisy is unreal.

At the end of the day, the Marauders fandom has taken a bunch of characters with clear flaws and complexities and rewritten them into these sanitized, tortured souls while dumping all their scorn onto Snape. They’ll go out of their way to redeem a literal torturer like Barty Crouch Jr. or turn Regulus into some tragic hero, but they can’t bring themselves to even consider Snape’s trauma or the systematic abuse he endured. It’s all about maintaining this fantasy where their favorite characters are perfect and untouchable, even if it means twisting canon and ignoring the ugly truths about class, privilege, and abuse that is reflected into the story. And that, honestly, just makes the fandom look shallow, hypocritical, and completely disconnected from the reality.

[greenwitchfromthewoods]

staring at you. l Frankie “Catfish” Morales

Summary:  he saw her in a bar and then everything changed

Warnings:  fluff, slow burn, two people are looking for each other

A/N: I've had this idea in my head for a few days now. I hope for a few chapters. I don't know if anyone will read this... if that's you, good luck.

your feedback is very important to me and I thank you for all the reblogs, comments and likes. 🖤 sorry for all the mistakes

chapter 1.

The first time he saw her was at the bar where he was with Benny and Will. It was a nice Friday night. The place was full of people having fun, pleasant music mixed with the buzz of conversation and laughter, and Frankie was sitting at the bar slowly finishing his second beer.

The feeling that he was being watched didn’t leave him, so he raised his eyes and looked around. At first he thought that Will might be looking for him in the crowd, although he had clearly told him where he would be. 

And then, on the other side of the bar, he saw gentle eyes staring at him. For a moment he thought that she must have mistaken him for someone else. But when their eyes met, she smiled, and Frankie felt a pleasant tickle in his heart.

She raised her drink as if she was making a silent toast, and he did the same, without taking their eyes off each other, they finished their drinks.

The decision was quick, but not quick enough. The urge to approach her was overwhelming, but when he finally lifted his ass off the bar stool, another woman approached her, whispered something in her ear, and she quickly stood up.

One last look, and she disappeared into the crowd of people.

The second time he saw her was a few days later, in a local store. And this time, the universe wasn’t on Frankie's side. 

His brain quickly registered a familiar face. After all, he had spent most of his last days thinking about this lovely stranger. 

He completely ignored Benny, who wanted to buy a beer for Saturday's match, and, leaving him the cart, he set off after his target.

His eyes were devouring her figure, and the girl must have sensed that someone was staring at her. She turned around and spotted him almost immediately. A beautiful and sincere smile appeared on her face, as if she had seen a long-lost friend.

Frankie smiled too. He moved towards her, bypassing a family with small children and an old couple arguing over laundry detergent. But this time he failed too.

The girl answered the phone, grabbed her shopping and quickly headed for the exit. Before she was out of sight she turned around and found his gaze. Frankie saw a sad smile on her face, her lips moving in a silent "I'm sorry."

And she disappeared again.

After a week he spotted her in the city, but before he could react the traffic lights at the intersection changed color and the driver behind him started honking, urging him to move.

"Fuck!" he hissed, slamming his hand on the steering wheel.

It wasn't even a game of cat and mouse. It was more like catching smoke and Frankie found himself looking for her among other people almost all the time. To no avail.

"Does she even exist?" Benny asked when he finally told him about her.

"Of course she does!" Frankie mumbled, scratching his head and pulling his baseball cap back on. "I don't even know her name, but I can't stop thinking about her."

He didn't know her name. He knew nothing about her. All he had was a few exchanged glances, a few smiles. It was next to nothing, but it seemed to Frankie that that should be enough to find her. Right?

And then fate dealt him a good card for a moment. Or maybe he himself contributed to it. He took the same chair again in the same bar. Now alert. His gaze wandered over the faces of the guests and each time he straightened up when the door opened. The first hour passed, and then the second. When doubt slowly started to creep over his skin, that's when he saw her.

She must have entered when he blinked, because Frankie couldn't find any other explanation for it. She was talking to some girl, but her eyes wandered around the place as if she was looking for someone. Him?

Now Frankie didn't wait anymore, didn't hesitate. He immediately headed towards her, afraid that she would slip away from him again. She noticed him the moment she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye, and her face lit up.

"Hi." was all he could manage.

"Hi." she replied, her voice sounding beautiful in his ears. "We should stop meeting like this."

"Yeah, a bit stressful." he laughed quietly.

He felt as if her eyes were devouring him and heat seeped into the back of his neck. No one had ever looked at him like that, it was even a little embarrassing.

Frankie wanted to say something, make a joke or ask if he could buy her a drink, but then a mischievous smile appeared on her lips.

In a second her hand was on the back of his neck as she pulled him closer. Her lips met his in a soft and sweet kiss. A few seconds during which his heart almost stopped beating.

When she pulled away from him she was still smiling.

"I had to, I'm sorry." she said.

"Jesus, don't apologize." he rasped in surprise. "I mean... We’ve already done this in my head." God! He would do anything for that smile. "Maybe I can buy you a drink?"

"I can't. I should probably go now..."

Something in her eyes changed, some small detail that Frankie noticed right away. He quickly pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket.

"Will you give me your number?"

She hesitated for a split second, but took his phone anyway.

"Just please don't give me the number of a mechanic or something." he snorted, and she shook her head. "Your real number?"

"Check."

She handed him the phone and Frankie dialed the number she had entered. A soft ring sounded in her purse. They both laughed.

"I'm Frankie, and you are?"

She gave him her name, and he repeated it quietly. It was a nice feeling, finally being able to name the being who had been living rent-free in his head for a long time.

He opened his mouth to say something when the phone in her purse rang again.

"Not me now," he joked, but she lifted her hand slightly and reached for her phone.

She was visibly worried as she read the message, and then looked around for her friend.

"I'll have to go now, Frankie." she said as she nodded to her friend “I wish I could stay longer, really.”

He could tell in her voice that she really meant it. He felt strangely sorry for her, he didn't know why.

"Maybe we could meet up?" he suggested.

"Will you text me?" she asked.

"Sure. If that's what you want..."

"Yes, please."

She squeezed his hand gently, smiled, and left.

☆☆☆☆

Thank you for your time.

[starmada4546]

Well, in the hours since posting this and it's subsequent migration to reddit, I've gotten some pretty decent responses, (And a lot of people who clearly just didn't read anything I wrote, but some good!), so I'm going to go over some of my points again for the people dozing in the back of the class.

Yes, as of writing this, over 72 million Americans voted for Trump. All of them are ignorant, shortsighted, and selfish at best, and bigoted, traitorous, and just straight up evil at worst. Without those votes, no matter how badly the democratic party screwed the pooch, Trump would not have won. I do not say this to excuse those people. All of those people should be held accountable for their behavior. However, as cynical of an assumption as it may be, one can no longer view American politics through the lens of all the voters trying to elect the candidate that's the best for everyone. Such a lens is an outdated relic of an era in which the evils of politics were done behind smiling masks, and the oppression was done behind closed doors instead of at the top of every media headline in the nation. If there is one thing that this election has made crystal clear, it is that Americans have become more concerned with their own wallets and kitchen tables than with the lives of their neighbors. The problem is that even through that framing, the Democratic party should easily sweep any logical voter, and yet they didn't. Progressivism and class consciousness is the answer to economic anxiety, and yet it was completely ignored by the democrats in this election, and the price for that is what we're seeing now, because the Democrats allowed themselves to be made into the establishment, and allowed the republicans to sell themselves as anti-establishment, regardless of the fact that both are the establishment, and neither wishes to be against the establishment, merely to mold it to their liking.

The fact of the matter is, no matter how evil Trump is, he will always have support. That is his brand. He has famously self-proclaimed that he could commit murder in broad daylight and not lose a single vote, and if there is one thing Trump has ever been correct about, it's that. The Democrats must, must count on the Alt-Right turning up to vote in force for the conservative candidate, and from the numbers they've been doing, the Democrats can't rely on the moderate vote to carry them through that. Hell, it doesn't seem like the Democrats can rely on the moderate vote at all. The DNC has no further right to drift, and yet they keep trying anyway, dropping their supporters from the left to be subsumed by the right, because deep down, they are not aligned with the left. This does not necessarily apply to every registered Democrat everywhere, but the party as a whole has historically only taken up progressive causes when they either see an opportunity to claim moral victory over conservatives. They do not truly care for progressivism, or at least they haven't for many years. They put up a black woman for president and say, "See? Our candidate is two minorities in one! Isn't this what you care about?" No! I'd love to have a black woman in the white house as much as anyone else, but the democrats have fallen so out of touch that I must believe that they genuinely think that "diverse" candidates is enough to guarantee a progressive vote. They saw Obama win two consecutive terms and chalked it up to his skin color, which is absolutely it's own form of racism, by the way. They tried to test this hypothesis in 2016 in Hilary Clinton, another historically unlikable candidate, with no real progressive policy and all her messaging being about her gender and not particularly her competence of fitness for office, while simultaneously dicking over the largest progressive movement in recent history, and they got burned. And the lesson they took from this? It wasn't making sure their candidate reflects the voters wishes, it wasn't learning to message on policy and confidence as I discussed earlier, and it certainly wasn't to not alienate progressive voters. It was "We didn't reach the moderate conservative enough. Clearly, we just didn't reach the moderate wing of the republican party like we should have. Obviously, we must have won the progressive vote, so the problem lies in the center."

It's not merely the entitlement they feel to the progressive vote, it's the fact that they can't conceive of the fact that they didn't get it. Even the moderate wing of the conservative party was never going to vote for a woman, much less a black woman. Meanwhile, there were millions of votes the democrats were counting on, and yet they didn't receive, because they didn't bother actually trying to get them! They felt entitled to the progressive vote. They felt entitled to the black vote. They felt entitled to the queer vote, the Hispanic vote, the female vote, the Arab vote, the sheer entitlement in this party is sickening. The fact of the matter is that they simply can't conceive of a world in which the white moderate does not decide who sits in the Oval Office, and fundamentally, they are against any attempt to change that, because the world in which the white moderate is the deciding vote is the world in which they keep their power. The world wherein the white moderate is the deciding vote is the world wherein they must confront none of their inner biases, because if they are not receiving the votes they feel entitled to, then they must be wrong on a fundamental level. That world is comfortable and familiar to them, it plays by the rules they expect and like, it requires no reexamination, reflection, or introspection. Any acknowledgement that progressives, or POC, or the LGBT+ community are voting blocks that could win them elections if focused on is an acknowledgement that the white moderate is only the deciding vote in the tenuous world order they have constructed, and any attempt to convince Democrats that they need to enfranchise these groups, break up gerrymandered districts, or just Actually Put Some Fucking Effort Into Anyone Else is doomed to failure because of it.

Getting back to the point, yes, the fact that 72 million Americans voted for Donald J. Trump is a disgrace, and every single one of them should be held accountable for the blood that is about to be spilled. But at the end of the day, this is a trolley problem. The Democrats had the ability to avert the trolley, and they fucked that up spectacularly. The man who tied the people to the tracks and set the trolley to run over them is a monster, but his actions are counted upon either way, and so too are Trump's. This debate isn't about the ethics of Alt-Right conservatism. If you've made it this far into this essay, I can reasonably assume you already agree with me that it holds no moral merit worth consideration. It is about the fact that the Democratic party allowed this to happen, and must be held accountable for their actions. Going along with "Vote Blue No Matter Who!" is not a strategy that works. Progressives cannot call upon the party loyalty that conservatives have, in part because progressivism requires the brainpower to analyze the issues and discover the problems, while conservatives typically wait for a strongman to point at something for them to get angry at, but mostly in truth because the Democrats have not delivered like the Republicans have.

Sure, the Republicans don't deliver on a good economy, or fixing the issues they claim to care about, but what they do deliver on is what they stake their campaigns on, and it's bigotry. Say what you will, but when a conservative votes for Trump, they can be confident that Trump will continue to be racist, sexist, and anti-LGBT while in office, and he will make policy accordingly. He will lock migrant children in cages and appoint justices to overturn Roe v. Wade and tear gas progressive protesters. Those are things he said he was going to do whether directly or euphemistically, and he delivered.

Democrats say they will pack the court, and they don't. They say they will codify abortion, and by and large they don't. They talk about a $15 an hour minimum wage, they talk about Medicare and student debt relief and while some of these things have gotten done on a state by state basis, or gained a little ground here and there, walking out of a Democratic presidency, we have the same supreme court, the same minimum wage, arguably worse medical care, and only a sliver of the required student debt relief. I understand that the Biden administration has been fighting rabid obstructionists every step of the way, but at the end of the day, Trump was fighting obstruction during his presidency as well, and yet he still damaged the country to it's core, and now he has free reign of all three branches of government. After being ignored, abused, and seeing almost none of their policy passed, how could a progressive genuinely support the democrats on any systemic level? I got in the dirt to support Harris, and I do genuinely think not voting was a morally reprehensible thing for this election, because progressives should be fighting fascism more than we should care about our honor, but I can at least say I understand.

I can't do solutions yet. Maybe eventually, but right now I'm not sure there is any form of solution. The Democrats have proven themselves historically unable to learn the lessons of failure, and the Fascists have complete control of the government. Pretty much the only solution I can think of at this point is "Hope the democrats are still around in four years, hope our elections are fair enough for them to matter, and hope that maybe, finally this lesson has sunk in, but that's a lot of maybes for a country that we can only imagine right now. There's a lot of ground to lose, and nothing to defend it.

I do want to say this, though, since somebody commented on it to me. I wasn't kidding about the gun thing. If there's any irony to be had here, gun rights will likely be protected for the foreseeable future, because the gun lobby is here to stay, apparently. After Biden's term is up, I would not expect the already limited protections Leftists have had from law enforcement to apply at all. It's unfortunate, (And I Am Definitely Not Advocating For Political Violence Do Not Mistake Me,) but the only protection we are likely to have for the future is ourselves and each other. If you can feel comfortable owning and carrying a firearm, (and there is no shame if you can't) I would highly suggest learning to do so if at all possible. Hate crimes tend not to happen when the Nazis think that their targets can defend themselves; fascists are not known for courage. Even if you never have to use it, and I hope and pray to god nobody does, the fact that they know it's a possibility may save lives in and of itself. Even if you can't do that, I highly suggest something, be it pepper spray, a taser, or a blade, especially if you are a woman. I'd expect to see an increase in physical assaults and rapes over the next couple of years, and if I can protect anyone with my advice, I feel I am obligated to.

Kamala Harris deserved to lose.

That’s a controversial statement, so let me get something out of the way right out the gate: I am not a Trump supporter. I fucking hate Trump’s racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, fascist guts, and I will until the day I die. I voted for Harris, I volunteered for her campaign and several other local campaigns in my area. I did everything a politically active person should do to participate in our democracy.

And yet I, and anyone who was paying attention knew how this election was going to go ahead of time, for one very simple reason. What were Kamala Harris’s policy positions? What did she actually run on? What did she say she was going to do differently? Building a million homes for working-class people who have had their salaries so undercutted by inflation and price hikes that they can no longer afford the kind of long term saving required for that? Increase child tax credits when grocery prices are so high that nobody can afford another mouth to feed? Raising taxes on billionaires? She’s the Vice President of the current administration, why are they not already being taxed? And furthermore, where is that tax money going? Clearly not Medicare for All, or Student Debt Relief, or anything that could actually constitute benefits for the average citizen.

Discussing which demographics are “responsible” for electing Trump is a fucking stupid discussion, and anyone engaging in it should feel absolutely fucking ashamed at buying into more crap that the oligarchs put up to divide us. Except for a few exceptions, the demographics were coin-flip toss ups. What happened was that Kamala Harris lost 15 million votes. Not to Trump, but to apathy. Trump got 3 million less votes than he did in 2020, and still won, because people didn’t vote for Harris. The battle was in voter turnout, like we always knew it would be, and the Democratic Party lost it. Why?

Because Kamala Harris ran, like Biden did, on being the anti-Trump. And regardless of whether or not you think that the Democrats are responsible for current woes, (and I do not,) that's not a winning strategy when the "Anti-Trump" is the one in power. Being the Anti-Trump isn't a policy position. It's not a solution to anyone's issues. It's merely a hope that people think Trump is worse, and as we've seen, regardless of whether or not it should, that does not win elections. When gas prices or grocery bills are so expensive people can barely afford to survive, saying "Well, those will be worse under Trump," is not a solution. It does not provide confidence that she has plans to fix the issues. It is a shrug of the shoulders, and a dismissal, and that's why so many people stayed home.

In 2020, when the problems could be blamed on Trump without any sort of understanding of the complex issues that caused the problems, because Trump was simply the one in power and The President's Job Is To Fix Everything, so being Anti-Trump worked. When Democrats have been in the white house for four years, and people feel like the problems still aren't fixed, they lose confidence that the democrats will fix the problem, so they don't vote.

When food prices are spiking, you don't say, "The other guy will make it worse," because that's what any candidate would say, and it's not particularly different than just purely mudslinging, and its a claim that Trump will deny vehemently, so you can't win that argument. What you need to say is "I'll subsidize agriculture," or, "I'll increase the accessibility and power of food assistance programs." Regardless of whether or not those things would actually work, what they are is some kind of solid plan to actually fix the fucking problem. It's said that people don't vote on policy, and that's true a lot of the time, or at least more than it should be, but people do vote on confidence, and having policy of any kind builds that confidence. Regardless of what you think of Trump, the man has plenty of plans to implement policy. It's terrible, awful, nation destroying policy, but that's getting into the details and the facts, and that's where the voters' eyes glaze over and they stop listening to you. The fact that Trump has plans to change the status quo and Harris does not is how she lost this election.

When the status quo is untenable, people will vote for whatever breaks it, and that wasn't Harris.

It also doesn't help that Harris has pretty much refused to significantly differentiate herself from Joe Biden, who has plenty of his own problems, and again, is the status quo. Joe Biden refused to step aside and relegate himself to being a single term president because of his personal pride, and the Democrats absolutely refused to consider not backing him until he was forced to step aside when his problematic degradation was put on full display for the entire country to see and mock. Then, instead of holding an actual primary, where voters could choose who they wanted to see on the Democratic ticket, they decided to simply coronate Kamala Harris, a historically unpopular candidate with historically low approval ratings, and force anyone who was against Trump to rally behind a candidate they didn't choose and statistically speaking don't like. Is it any wonder that her ticket hemorrhaged 15 million votes from 2020? That's before getting into her incredibly strange choices during her campaign, from again having essentially no policy positions, to picking a Tim Walz, who while being imo a good person, is from an entirely blue state and not a swing state, and has neither experience running against serious mainline GOP candidates, nor any real nationwide appeal beyond his personality, and we've already established that vibes don't turn out voters.

Kamala Harris, and on a larger scale the Democratic Party, deserved to lose this election because they have almost entirely abandoned any sense of being the progressive option. They've completely abandoned the progressive wing of their party, because who else are they going to vote for? Trump?

I don't like being the guy who says, "Harris hasn't earned the votes," because if you didn't vote, fuck you, you're nearly as culpable in this as the MAGAts, but is it any wonder why progressives are abandoning the democrats? After being ignored, fucked over time after time for nearly a decade at this point, literally screaming and begging for people to care about genocide, fascism, and the literal end of the world and getting a pat on the head and a vote sticker, what the fuck else did anyone expect? Harris cozied up with Liz Cheney and tried to court the votes of a few thousand moderate republicans, while tens of millions of progressive votes were expected, and then you're all trying to to blame them when those votes don't come? Shame, shame on you, ye moderate democrats who'd rather get into bed with the center-right than any kind of progressive, you get what you fucking deserve.

Normally, I'd laugh at establishment democrats fucking around and finding out, but this time, it's not just them finding out, it's the whole of America finding out with them. I don't really have any advice, because I'm just as shattered as anyone else. Hunker down, spend time with your loved ones, and maybe learn how to use a gun in case some neo-nazi decides to try to hate-crime you. I'm hoping that the Democrats learn their lessons from this, but honestly at this point, I'm not sure they're capable of learning, if there'll even be a democratic party to speak of come 2028. Right now, I'm gonna go stare at the election results and feel my faith in humanity crack a little bit more.

[infinityinakiss]

michael: we can't use the elevator, it's guarded. there's no way we can make it past that many men.

beatrice : hold my cloak.

*ave maria plays while she plows through 20 guards by herself*

[hells1nfern0]

Everyone whos saying they pulled a 5 hour long bait and switch on people just for the hl2vrai trailer. It wasn't just a bit for that it was so much more than that. Everyone is switching on a dime calling it such a good joke or staying stuck mad and pissy about it. Genuinely it was a fun stream. It was something the RTVS team clearly had a lot of fun making, they put 3 years of work and planning into it. There is more to them than HLVRAI. They never directly said it would be HL2VRAI.

But honestly though. I can't blame them for teasing it as such. If YOU put 3 years of effort into something would you allow it to just get ignored by everyone because it isn't what everyone cares about you for. Or would you want to make sure all the people started liking you for it initially would see how you grew.

BrBaVRAI was the same thing that HLVRAI was supposed to be. A fun stream with friends.

It isn't just for you man. It's supposed to be something fun and if you genuinely threw a shitfit about it or if you gave up on it called it unfunny, mid, or even bad. Only to turn around once you got what you Wanted.

You do not deserve what the RTVS crew will make.

You do not deserve HL2VRAI

EDIT: Honestly I don't care about most of the shit people are upset about. Yeah its fine for them to troll you they're known for that. Don't treat their work like it was always shit up until the point they gave you the shit you were waiting for. Just because you wanted a Twix doesnt mean a Snickers doesn't taste just as sweet. They aren't morally bad people for a prank that upset you.

[skitskatdacat63]

.

[bumblingbabooshka]

write to me

[popstart]

why is like every single gwuncaner insanely misogynistic and racist to courtney like their life depends on it.

like if you're bawling your eyes out about a fictional teenager that just so happens to be a woc being abusive then turning around and closing your eyes when the white guy she abused (was in a pretty mutually toxic relationship with) is similar amounts of fucking weird to two different girls get your priorities checked.

like honest to god i could not care less what characters other people on the internet like to play dolls with and imagine kissing i just think its in super poor taste to say omfg i fucking hate courtney total drama shes (insert weird racially charged language. insert comparing real human beings who like a fictional character to insects and saying you want to kill them) ok man. what. get help.

dislike or like whatever you want HONESTLY. I DO NOT CARE. im not 12 years old and i could not care less if you prefer a different fucking made up scenario where fictional characters kiss. at the end of the day literally 0 of this ship war fucking matters i promise you, i just want a similar energy back and not combination misogyny and racism fuled remarks towards the liking of a FICTIONAL FUCKING CHARACTER. THAT DID ZERO THINGS TO ANY REAL LIFE FUCKING PERSON.

Harassment of any real life fucking person about anything that they like in fiction is way more harmful than whatever happened in fiction that theyre defending. LOL!

[fictionadventurer]

An underrated benefit of love triangles is that they allow you to have a love story where the ending isn't immediately obvious. In your standard romance, the two leads meet, and then it's just a matter of time until they hit the plot beats that lead to the happily ever after. But the love triangle gives you two plotlines! Two different dynamics! Two valid directions for the plot to veer that will still lead to a romantic happy ending without that ending being a foregone conclusion.

The main character can grow and change in multiple different ways because there are two men on equal standing with her, who can have an influence on her in different ways, giving her multiple different lenses to help her understand who she is and who she really wants to be. When it's done right, the story will be satisfying no matter what the endgame is, because the point is going along on the journey and seeing who the characters become. And the great thing is that you don't know who they'll become because there are two valid options, so the entire story can be surprising, which is so refreshing when so many love stories are so predictable.

[lesbians4armand]

sooo funny how a year or so ago i was fervently defending the darkling on here who is truly the staple of a YA villain where the villain isn’t even that wrong and now? well im just a full blown tommy shelby stan. it seems that fiction truly is fiction. evil men will stay evil idk. i still love them. morality is whatever. yes i will defend tommy too wdym he killed innocents and was the worst possible husband imaginable.

[maxdibert]

Hi! Could you tell me your top 5 least favorite Harry Potter characters and why?

My 5 most hated characters in Harry Potter are:

5 - Molly Weasley: I can’t stand this woman. I can’t stand how she acts like a morally superior, pure-blood yet holds endless prejudices, especially (and mostly) toward other, younger women. I don’t like her tradwife vibe, and I don’t like how overbearing and suffocating she is. Seriously, in real life, I’d feel the urge to tell her off—she’s that typical annoying woman who doesn’t know where the boundaries are.

4 - Remus Lupin: Zero sympathy for a man almost forty who got a 24-year-old girl pregnant and then abandoned her. Remus Lupin is a coward and a piece of trash, a bullying accomplice who keeps his head down regarding his own actions and needs a 17-year-old to teach him a lesson in manhood. I really wish Tonks had left him and taken off with Teddy to get as far away as possible from that pathetic excuse for a person.

3 - Dumbledore: Starting with the fact that the entire problem of the story basically stems from his irresponsibility with Tom Riddle, which already showed that he was a terrible teacher. He only shows concern for students who can serve his purposes or suck up to him, and his involvement throughout the story shows a moral stance I find nauseating. I mean, he’s a guy who has the nerve to lecture his former students who “chose the wrong path,” but when those same students were under his care, he constantly neglected and rejected them just because they didn’t belong to a certain house. He had the audacity to call Severus Snape “miserable” when it was Dumbledore himself who allowed Snape to be bullied and almost killed without lifting a finger to stop it or punish the bullies. This same Dumbledore scolds Draco Malfoy for not trusting him when from Draco’s first day at Hogwarts, all he saw from the old man was favoritism toward a certain house and certain students, completely ignoring the rest. Honestly, I’d have banned him from teaching. There’s a lot said about Snape as a teacher, but Dumbledore was responsible for everything, allowed terrible things to happen, and turned his back on many vulnerable children and teenagers. Then he acted all surprised when they ended up in bad places. Screw him, hypocritical old man.

2 - Ginny Weasley: The “I’m not like other girls,” the “shut up, Hermione, you don’t know anything about Quidditch,” the “everyone look at me, I hex people, I’m one of the boys, I’m not vain but I’m hot, but I’m not prissy,” the “I make fun of girls who are pretty, flirty, and feminine because I’m a textbook pick-me girl” who is shoved into the end of the series. She’s a character who didn’t matter at all throughout the story; she’s barely mentioned in some books, but suddenly she’s Harry’s love interest because J.K. Rowling needed all her characters to end up married with 468749284 kids, and Harry needed to be part of the Weasley family. So, they had to do something. Ginny is a terrible character, going from irrelevant to some sort of Mary Sue who even the Slytherins drool over and who, of course, is not a “typical girl” because being a “typical girl” in Rowling’s world is somehow the original sin. So, she’s great at sports, hexes people, pulls pranks because she’s so cool, uh uh uh, she’s not like the others, uh uh uh, but she has internalized misogyny that you can smell from here to China. Honestly, someone should have slapped her for being so damn stupid.

1 - James Potter: There’s nothing I haven’t already said about James Potter. He’s a character who really grinds my gears because they try to sell him as some kind of hero, but he was just a spoiled rich kid who decided to torment a poor, vulnerable boy simply because that boy was friends with his crush. He used his social power and status to get away with all the crap he pulled, attacked in groups, lied to his girlfriend saying he’d stopped bullying people when he really hadn’t, and when he was supposed to be locked up in a house with his wife and son, he was off fooling around with his best friend. James Potter was an ass, and defending him is defending classism, elitism, and whitewashing social classes. I’m not going to explain why.

[mossy-covered-bones]

You mean you can watch something without becoming immediately obsessed with the characters and symbolism?

[martyrbat]

every day mcr fans prove to be the worst people alive huh

[judyalvqrez]

the way people are once again removing all the nuance and moral greyness and complexity out of the last of us, but especially joel miller’s character is kinda concerning lol

[asinglegrainofsandv2]

Do I like proshippers? No not especially. Do I read works in fandoms/ dynamics that make me uncomfortable? No. When I see something I don’t like, I either scroll past or add the offending tag/ relationship into excluded tags like everyone else because fandom is a space for EVERYONE. Who the fuck cares what other people write/read.

Stop putting DNI on your tags and stop bringing shipping discourse into AO3

AO3 hid the story and asked OP to remove the tag (the fanfic is not even removed) due to the inflammatory tag. That's deserved. AO3 is not a social media for people to fight over ship and chronically online discourse. It's a library. If people keep bringing DNI and discourse into AO3 it'll make the place toxic for writers and reader.

What are you trying to accomplish with putting DNI? Do you think people actually care about DNI? No, it's just making you looking like an asshole doing this

Also AO3 was founded by a Wincest and Thorki shipper. Astolat made AO3 because FF net and other sites keep purging nsfw fanfic. AO3 is literally made for problematique shipper that op don't like.

Then OP doing this? For what? People want to enjoy reading their fanfic not seeing DNI and online discourse on AO3. I hate using the word virtue signaling as it's often used to demean progress but this is what a real virtue signaling looks like ����🤦‍♀️

(I bet op wrote more inflammatory tags on their fic other than 'proshitter DNI get a life' because it take a lot to get your story hidden or removed)