#not a lesser of two evils

[bitchslapblastoids]

[dragonpyre]

I'd just love an au where Steph was Robin during the whole Red Hood ordeal. He picks a fight with her and she immediately goes "bro I just work here. I do not give a shit" and walks out

[verytiredbeaver]

When you tell the children of the future about the election in 2024, always have this image in your mind lol

[everwalldigan]

Do you think Bruce can’t stand to hug his children cause every time he does he remembers how it felt to hug his dead son to his chest and feel the blood on his cape and his arms hanging limply by his side instead of hugging him back

[vaguely-concerned]

how much have the crows actually been sanitized outside of the very narrow view you get of them both in place and in time in veilguard, and how much is caterina deliberately putting her most presentable and pr friendly foot forward because she needs HELP with both the grandson and the antaam situations and is already playing from a weakened overwhelmed position. is she going to show off all the dirty laundry the crows undeniably have in front of the people she's courting for an alliance? is rook going to be looking a gift crow in the beak too closely when help is offered, go digging through that laundry basket on their own initiative on principle, knowing what you might find further down in it isn't pretty and might still be sharp, while the world is burning? is it entirely coincidental that the people caterina picks to interact with you most is teia -- the youngest, most charismatic and notably most weirdly idealistic of the talons -- and viago -- who is perhaps none of these things naturally but is dependable and logical and sharp and also down so cataclysmically bad for teia that when she runs in shouting 'TEIA YES!!! >:D' he sighs with longsuffering resignation and goes '...viago also yes. I suppose. under duress, let the record note' and follows.

surely parts of how each house functions would be left largely up to the individual talons, right? as long as they produce crows capable of doing the job and keeping up with the competition, I doubt the first talon micromanages how they get there (...for good or ill. lots of dead fledglings buried under that laissez faire policy, probably). they're very far away from a monolithic structure, they're constantly competing merchant houses/families striving to gain the upper hand held in check by little except 'if enough of the other houses shake hands and gang up on us for pushing our luck we're fucked, so don't push it too far'. like I believe lucanis says at one point, even calling them an organization is stretching the definition to a breaking point in some ways lol this is fully herding cats territory. all this to say that in this game we spend most of our time in teia's house. andarateia cantori, of the firm genuine conviction recognized as mildly unhinged by all the other talons that the crows truly are her family, who loves them with her whole unstoppable foolhardy thinks-she-will-die-young-and-live-eternally-in-song-and-story heart for it. teia, who won't leave the cantori diamond even to go home to sleep because she doesn't want the fledglings to have to see the place empty. do I think the way teia cantori would run her house is indicative of the average experience of being trained as and living as a crow? no. obviously. why are people seeming to assume that so immediately? sometimes I do wonder if I'm going insane.

between that and the antaam situation -- which turns the romanticized image antiva already is eager to reach for with the crows (the same way european literary tradition through the ages sure LOVES a knight, no matter what knights were actually like when you had one kicking around in real life) into an effective and recognizable symbol of resistance from an outside force (at least these awful little guys are home grown in a way we're kind of proud of despite it all and also they are deeply inescapably cool)... perhaps indeed a symbol of resistance and freedom that momentarily covers for a multitude of sins. I don't think we need to draw definitive conclusions about what the crows are like universially, historically or in different contexts from what we see in veilguard. sort of like the british in the pop cultural understanding being 'the good guys' when we think about WW2, and the sheer ludicrousness of that characterization of the british empire seen in any other context or angle lmao. I DO think there are some genuine writerly '*handwaves established ugliness aside aggressively* just uuuuuh don't worry about it! not important right now! you can feel at least ok hanging out with the cool theater kids but with murder they're like. comparatively chill in this context it's fine and they're fun' going on too. and you know what. they are fun. invenci is unfortunately objectively right, but the crows are sooo much more fun. and in fiction land that trumps all. absolutely baffling writing choice when you read through to the political/ideological conclusion that's reached from it of course (sort of accidentally? I think???), but would it really be a bioware game without a few of those. it's how you know you're home (derogatory and affectionate)

in short there are writing problems by god are there real problems here. obviously. and it'd take smarter and more knowledgeable people than me to properly untangle all of that. glorifying organized crime is a time honoured tradition in fiction that perhaps... shouldn't be quite so much and is uh risky, you're always playing with fire there. but I frankly don't think the 'de-edgeifying' for lack of a better term is that much of an inescapable one or that it erases what we knew of the crows before, we're just getting the angle on them in one very specific time and place in history and with specific individuals involved setting the tone. eight little talons killing off most of the established leadership beforehand so it's mostly only teia and viago who get to keep their full power base (even caterina and the dellamortes takes some losses in the apparent death of lucanis before the start of the game) probably figures into that somewhere too lol

[crystalpallette]

*person who only draws ringo voice* i need to draw ringo more

[clustxr]

hi y'all. i know i don't make a lot of original posts here. however, on may 31st, i watched as my friends and peers were brutalized at the hands of cops from departments across california.

edit 6/12/24: students for justice in palestine at uc santa cruz has published a press release. it is easily the best way to understand what happened that night. please take a few minutes to read it.

uc santa cruz police made a statewide call for mutual aid in order to disband the gaza solidarity encampment located at the main entrance of the campus - initially established at the quarry in the center of campus on may 1, it moved to the entrance on may 20 in solidarity with the UAW strike. on tuesday, may 28, protesters barricaded the main entrance, cutting off the primary way of getting on campus; though the western entrance to UCSC was left unblocked (except for a few hours on tuesday), the main entrance remained obstructed until the raid began late on thursday night. this road blockage is what admin cited as the reason for the raid, along with "campus safety" and "academic freedom".

it's important to note that prior to blocking the road, students had been encamped for 28 days, and had been holding peaceful, law-abiding rallies since october. nothing worked. months of following the guidelines that admin had set, and of course student voices were dismissed and ignored by chancellor cynthia larive and cpevc lori kletzer (the latter of whom, by the way, showed up at 6 am "walking her dog" and smiled while watching her students get suffocated and beaten). the escalation would never have happened if student demands had been met at the very beginning.

hundreds of cops in riot gear from as far out as uc davis showed up to abuse students. over 115 arrests were made, including 3 ucsc professors, transported off by buses that were fifteen years past their intended end-of-use date and had also been servicing the campus prior. is this "campus safety"? is this "academic freedom"?

from just before midnight until approximately 9am on friday, cops kettled, suffocated, shoved, yanked, beat, and bruised students. one got a battery charge for writhing and bumping a cop after another slammed him in the head with a baton. another had a bag placed over their head, leading to suffocation, vomiting, and loss of consciousness. at least two protesters were confirmed to go to the ER that morning; many more have had to seek medical attention for lasting injuries.

arrestees were given a 14-day campus ban, including those who live on-campus (functionally evicting them & preventing access to their belongings), not to mention subjected to horrifyingly inhumane conditions:

you can find more information on various instagram accounts such as ucscsjp, ucscdivest, fjpucsc, ucsc_encampment, & jawsucsc. there's plenty of other organizations and people posting about this, too. please, don't let ucsc brush this under the rug. demand amnesty for the arrestees and protesters. contact any ucsc admin you can find. the uc has been utilizing police brutality to repress student voices across their institution, with ucla and uc irvine also being victims of this violence. do not let them get away with it.

free palestine, from the river to the sea. if seeing this violence sickens you, remember that this is not even a fraction of what the people of palestine have been enduring for decades. we will not let the university silence us, no matter what.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Noam Chomsky on "Lesser Evilism"

“There’s another word for lesser evilism. It’s called rationality. Lesser evilism is not an illusion, it’s a rational position. But you don’t stop with lesser evilism. You begin with it, to prevent the worst, and then you go on to deal with the fundamental roots of what’s wrong, even with the lesser evils.” [color emphasis added] —Noam Chomsky | Scheer Intelligence podcast | Jan. 17, 2020

Chomsky further explains why it is a rational decision to vote for the lesser to two evils:

"Even if there’s core, deep problems with the institutions, there still are choices between alternatives, which matter a lot. Small differences in a system with enormous power translate into huge effects. Meanwhile, you don’t stop with a lesser evilism; you continue to try to organize and develop the mass popular movements, which will block the worst and change the institutions. All of these things can go on at once. But the simple question of what button do you push on a particular day? That is a decision, and that matters. It’s not the whole story, by any means. It’s a small part of the story, but it matters.” [color emphasis added] ——Noam Chomsky | Scheer Intelligence podcast | Jan. 17, 2020

We witnessed how "small differences in a system with enormous power translate into huge effects" in the first Trump administration, as evidenced by how Trump's decision to stack the Supreme Court with far-right justices has resulted in Roe v. Wade being overturned, the Voting Rights Act being weakened, and the Bruen decision further weakening the nation's ability to control guns.

And Trump did all that damage just in his first term, when he still had "adults" in his administration willing to rein him in.

Imagine what changes to our nation Trump could make with only sycophants in his administration who want to implement Project 2025, just for starters.

Noam Chomsky's message is important to remember as we approach the 2024 election. If you are on the left and choose to sit out the election or vote for a third party because you view Biden as a "lesser evil," you are wittingly or unwittingly supporting the "greater evil" that is Trump. We learned that the hard way in 2016. Please don't let history repeat itself. Our nation could not survive a Trump dictatorship.

___________ Norm Chomsky image source (before edits/ quote)

[jaepuppy]

I can't believe some of y'all "voted with your conscience" trump into office twice in my lifetime.

[whereserpentswalk]

You're an adventurer. You've done some things in the name of good, you consider yourself a good person. You're a good person. But you're worried, worried you're going to be hurt, worried you can't save everyone. You're just a small human with a sword and armor, and you're going up agasint wyverns, and ghouls and vampires and the like. Because of this, a demon comes to you to talk.

The demon says he can help. He knows you know he's evil. But he's far from the worst evil in the mulitverse. If you had to choose between him and a tyrant dragon, or between him and an evil lich, you'd choose him every single time. He tells you he can give you the power to stop these things, if you just pledge yourself to him, you won't have to do much, just let him help you.

And for awhile you have his power. You fight with a firey sword and eldrich armor. With him, you save people you could never save before, and slain evils you never could have. There are some sacrifices, he tells you to do things, small inconsequential things, little rituals that don't mean much to you. This is fine, it's normal, adventurers have done this before.

As time goes on your demon tells you there are certain people who you can't fight, they're his freinds, and you consider that pretty ok. They can't be that bad if he works with you. This is normal and ok. Your skin is turning pale, and your eyes are changing color, but that's normal and excusable, you just tell people your family if further north then they're really from and they think you've always been like this.

You start to have freinds who stay away from you, they say your going down the wrong path. But they're the real evil ones, you need this power to do good, they're basically telling you that you shouldn't be doing good. You know your demon is evil, you're just making a sacrifice for the greater good. You're dressing more like someone who follows him now, but it's good quality armor and clothing so you don't mind. Sometimes there are people who he tells you that you can't save or can't help, you feel bad about it, really bad, but you tell yourself that there's no saving them anyway, the alternative would be not having the power to save them. This is normal and ok.

Eventually he starts telling you that you need to kill things for him. You assume they're people who need to he killed, and don't think about it often. This demon may be a demon but he's done so much good for you, his enemies can't be good people. He takes you to his realm a lot to show you off, to show how good you've been, you honestly feel kind of proud. You're too pale to pass as human now, and your eyes are a deep red, even your teeth are getting sharper, you just say your from an uncommon race when people ask. None of your old freinds talk to you. You know you have to be doing good, if this were wrong there would be a lot of evil you'd have to face in yourself.

You've relocated to the demon's plane now to live with him. He sends you out to other realms to kill people for him, you don't have time to ask who they are, he even let's you consume the blood of the people who you kill, it makes you feel good when you do. When you're not wearing the armor gives you, he just has you wear a loincloth and jewels. He pets your head sometimes and it feels good, and he shows you off to the other demons and you feel nice and pretty. He'll carve little symbols into your white skin, and has you wear a little color for him, this is normal, you're happy to serve him. He does what he wants with your body, but you feel ok about it, you don't have to worry about moral choices anymore, your demon always tells you what's the right decision, and all you have to do is go along with it.

[gyrrakavian]

The quickest path to true evil is to forget what evil is.

In all of our lives, there will be moments when there are only bad options to choose from. The easiest path is to make excuses. to say the least evil option is good. The more you say it, the more you believe it. And before you know it… You don't see it as evil anymore. You stop looking for other options.

-- Arthur J. Arthur, El Goonish Shive

[thegothicalice]

Night sky 🌌 Dress Unique Vintage, harness Disturbia, boots Koi Footwear, choker by Lesser of 2 Evils.

[theconcealedweapon]

"Everything is so expensive. I can't believe people want four more years of this."

Everything is expensive because of capitalism. That's how capitalism works. Rich people do whatever they can to get richer, which is often at the expense of the livelihoods of everyone else.

This happens with a Democratic president because unfortunately, even though they're supposedly the progressive party, they're still supportive of capitalism.

But Trump would be so much worse. Someone who's bad and has to pretend to be good in order to maintain support can do good things if enough pressure is put on them. But Trump supporters openly brag about how hateful they are. They openly brag about hurting others. They openly brag about refusing to care about other people's struggles. Trump doesn't even have to pretend to care about people because his supporters like him hateful.

[galaxynajma]

Inspired by their morning routines

Shidou’s

Kaiser’s

[henry-bones]

Well, I just woke up and the first thing I ended up doing was finding a fun song cover by a YouTuber, only to then find out that they deleted their channel a while ago due to some sort of drama that I couldn’t find any details on, which led me to a rabbithole of seeing other YouTubers who had crazy drama, which just made me depressed/pissed off, and then got into a political rant with my parents about all the f*cked up sh*t that’s going on, which I couldn’t seem to communicate my point across to them because they believe that Trump was the lesser of two evils for this election(they aren’t conservative, they’re really moderate, but I lean way closer to the left), and then immediately had to go to school, all within the span of about 45 minutes. Sooooooo yeahhhh, how was your morning?