#that's the majority of the posts on this blog really

[bogleech]

I learned some time ago that there's really just one specific friend circle here on tumblr responsible for the majority of smug, poorly educated 4chan-esque political takes. Like if you've ever had someone whine on one of your posts about how immigration is a form of invasion and trying very hard to seem like a harsh intellectual truth-teller it's one of the same dozen people who just constantly make new accounts and are all in the same discord to congratulate themselves on owning the tumblrinas. This is a separate ecosystem from the droves of old men who are just here to run porn blogs and think Trump will save the world

[velvetvexations]

Chiming in on the whole "do tmascs/the transandrophobia community actually harass tfems on the scale that is claimed" thing, I've been wondering that for a while too, especially since back when [Popular Trans Blogger] was dealing with The Most Normal CEO Ever I saw literally EVERY SINGLE major voice in transandrophobia circles immediately drop everything, put aside all the harassment and hate they had faced, make it clear that trans people being harmed by cishet society comes before discussing deeper theory, and basically non-stop post about how she didn't deserve that and openly critique tumblr's transphobia and how it hurts tfems despite the fact that that user and her followers had been consistently vile to transmascs. Like they all jumped up to add their voices against the banning, it was so fucking clear they were able to prioritize protecting trans people no matter what, and no one ever really talks about it because they also don't gloat about putting the swords down for the greater good. It's just something they know needs to be done and they won't paint themselves as heroes or martyr for it.

On the other hand, I've never in my entire life seen a big TRF or anyone who travels in those circles ever stick their neck out when tmascs are experiencing harassment and transphobia, not once. Not even when it leads to the same unjust bans that tfems face(which do happen, at similar rates to tfem bloggers like the idea that the trans bans are a tfem only thing is simply not true). Like I've blogs that are constantly posting about how "if you never post anything about supporting trans women then you're probably a secret transmisognist" turn around and respond to people pointing out that they never post anything even vaguely supportive of tmascs(not even talking about discourse just the usual "trans men are valid and deserve support" positivity stuff that goes around) who are on their "side" by saying "um I'm a trans woman and this is my personal blog so I don't have to say nice things about trans men ever and it says absolutely nothing about me that I never have anything kind or nice to say about even the transmascs that are on my side/valid in my opinion and actually it's bigoted for you to demand I say nice things about other trans people fuck you kthxbye" and I just. What??

I know that there have been some cases of tmasc/transandrophobia bloggers harassing a trans woman, but like. It's pretty rare and usually only a couple of people. And that's still bad ofc but the scale is different for sure. In terms of big, influential tumblr users I swear every single time a popular tfem gets deactivated all the transandrophobia bloggers jump to their defense, meanwhile TRFs just gleefully go around attacking every trans guy who so much as breathes in their direction and calls you a transmisognist if you point out that it's fucked of them to have a double standard about trans rights. Or acts like "I said something bigoted and other members of my community got mad" is harassment. Like [Popular Tfem Musician] was def getting Harassed but I watched the whole thing unfold and while there were a few shitty tmascs chiming in, overall the harassment was led by an entirely different group who was mad about something unrelated, they just happened at the same time so everyone figured ALL the harassment was coming from tmascs when it very much was not.

(Also tmasc/transandrophobia bloggers are also constantly adding "if you're a follower and I see you bothering the person I'm talking about I'll report and block you myself" they like care a lot about all trans people and will show tf up for even ones they disagree with or who have directly harmed them when push comes to shove. [Popular MLP Tfem Artist] is still getting accused of harassing other trans women despite her constantly instructing her audience to leave everyone alone. And I have def seen way more transandrophobia bloggers call out any tmascs or other trans people on "their" side get ignored and deplatformed if they prove to be bad actors. I don't see TRFs doing that like. Ever. Like they go "take our the trash in your community" to tmascs but pretend they can't read when someone asks them to denounce people who openly harasses tmascs. Or just makes excuses for them because surely we can't actually harm a trans man, it doesn't count.)

But yeah I fully assume the reason TRFs say no one ever harasses tmascs but that they harass tfems all the time is because they simply do not think harassing trans people is wrong so long as it's directed at the correct target. I mean why would the "trans men don't have real problems" crowd ever actually say anything nice about them or help them when they're being harassed or tell their followers to leave them alone? It's just really sad to watch, big tmasc bloggers are not harassing people the way the TRFs want everyone to think, and they certainly don't harass other trans people the way TRFs do, but they get burdened with the harassment accusations and no one thinks to even check if that's actually what's happening.

10/10, I have nothing to add.

[pluskylar]

my interpretations of all the love interests (kylar, whitney, sydney; part 1)

kylar

i always saw kylar as someone who was at their absolute limit before they met pc (or in care’s case, when they became obsessed with her). they had absolutely nothing else to live for before meeting pc. honestly i assumed that meeting pc saved their life, and that they were very very close to taking their own life right before their first meeting.

i always assumed this because of the degree of kylars obsession. i know that by the character itself kylar is a checklist of the stereotypical yandere but putting that aside for a second they also just have a really shitty life. once i learned about kylar lore i started to become even more interested in them than i already was before.

1) is an total outcast, not just in school but by the town itself

2) has no friends/ emotional support/ anyone to turn too

3) parents turned into monsters and they don’t leave them/ cares for them/ protects them

4) bullied relentlessly at school

learning that not only put their behavior into perspective for me but also made me assume that the one and only good thing they have going for them is pc. like really, what else does kylar have to live for? much unlike all the other love interests. without the pc sydney still has their faith and parent and the temple. whitney has their status. eden is lonely but their life isnt terrible. i guess you can argue that robin also only has the pc and that their life is also shitty but i would say that kylars life is a tad worse.

everything that we find out about kylar is just so gloomy, so my interpretation of them is that because of their lonely, miserable life they cling to pc because pc is their only lifeline. they cant help but be completely obsessed with pc because, their literally all they have. kylar’s intense obsession and paranoia stems from fear of losing the one good thing they have left.

whitney

oh brother. okay i’ll try to keep this one at a reasonable length. im a whitney hater through and through and ive stated multiple times on this blog but they are probably the li that is find most interesting. a semi whitney enjoyer. i see whitney as someone who cares about their social status more than anything else (and i mean ANYTHING) and will do anything to maintain it. also taking some inspiration from this amazing post.

ultimately my interpretation of whitney is someone who cares more about what people think about them (and their appearance) above all else. to quote another analysis, “affection is tainted in dolville. it is a display of control, given by force.” in my eyes and like how the op says, whitney is probably the biggest manifestation of this. whitney is definitely the outwardly cruelest and most violent to pc, but its not because they hate them. its also not only because they like them. they remind me alot of eden if eden never grew up and learned how to be somewhat normal.

whitney treats pc differently from all their other victims. i remember vrel saying in a q&a once where the question was something like “why does whitney like pc so much?” and vrel answered “theyre not sure”. i think a small percentage of their behavior of pc can be chalked up to whitney not understanding what exactly their feeling so they just decide to be violent cause it’s their default response to most things. the other majority percentage can be for a mixture of contradictory reasons.

1) whitney cares about their social status above everything else

2) in my interpretation, whitney has arrested development, is emotionally stunted and most times can only understand that they need to be on top for everything

3) whitney is genuinely into pc for reasons they don’t understand

all of these mix into how whitney behaves towards pc in game. i do think they atleast have enough self awareness to acknowledge that they do like pc, because they are capable of being normal or nice to pc on rare occasions. they can understand that pc is special from all their other victims but not identify why. nor do they really care about why because they probably would still torment them even if they understood.

last thing i would like mention is that on those rare occasions where whitney acts normal/ a little nice to pc are all when whitney is all alone. i dont go out of my way to encounter whitney so im not sure if they have normal interactions when their with their friends but the ones i’ve come across are when whitney and pc are the only ones present. the way i interpret this too, is because again whitney cares about their social status more than anything else, and peer pressure influences their actions. if no one else is there to see them do it, then yeah, they wouldn’t mind be being nice to pc once in red moon. (another thing that makes me assume this is their whole dismissal event which could be a post in of itself)

sydney

this one will be the shortest because i have a very solid image on how i see sydney. i think the reason why sydney is so malleable and impressionable is because theyre very lost when it comes to their image of themselves. not in a negative way, in a more neutral way, theyre constantly working and never really have any time for themselves.

i think the reason why unlike other li’s you can choose what sydneys becomes is because sydney doesnt have the willpower (or desire, even) to choose for themselves. theyre at such a lost for what to do for themself that they have to let someone else choose for them. and it’s not like pc is just anyone to them either.

pc is their dearest lover and its no wonder why they trust them so much. but to trust them to a degree where sydney would allow them to choose how to live their life makes me think that they must not know themselves very well, or that they love or even idolize pc so much that they have unwavering trust in them to know whats the best choice for them.

[everyone-needs-a-hoopoe]

palestinians on this website have been driving themselves out of their minds since october 2023, past the point of heads full of grey hairs in their 20s, past the point of multiple breakdowns, getting gazans' private documents to prove they're real people while exposing and driving off the very few actual scammers there have been. multiple organisations like operation olive branch and gazavetters have sprung up to try and alleviate the toll this takes on individuals while still saving as many people as possible. ahmed 90s-ghost had a news article written about his successful escape to egypt!

those lovely organisations you listed cannot help gazans right now because they rely on getting aid trucks over the borders, which are kept closed by israel (which is ordinarily responsible for letting the majority of aid through) and egypt. the only people who can help gazans are other gazans and people like us with our valuable foreign currency.

and we need to help! even with a ceasefire agreement, children are being splattered across gaza's few remaining walls because israel never honours these things. families are still starving and freezing to death. people still have to pay rent for apartments with no walls or sleep in tents made of blankets in the pouring rain. every hospital in gaza is a bombed out shell, while wounds go septic in streets running with sewage and lungs fail in air choked with the dust of a nearly flattened city. did you know that one of the terms of the ceasefire was that hostile aircraft are only allowed in gazan airspace for a maximum of 8-10 hours per day? can you imagine living most of your day with the incessant buzzing of death above you, never certain when it's going to come for you? can you imagine how bad it was before that this is an improvement that was fought tooth and nail for?

the people sending you asks use the little internet connection they can get per day on esim cards, and the little phone charge they can buy off anyone who's managed by some miracle to keep a solar panel intact through over a year of carpet bombing, screaming into the void in a language they don't know to beg for their lives. they don't know how tumblr works. they don't know who can help them. they need ANYONE to care that they're dying.

and you don't care, so yes, you are being callous. you would not be the people who sheltered jewish people during the holocaust. you are not a good person. by reporting these blogs without rock solid evidence - evidence actual scambusters like kyra45, mangocheesecakes and neeches work their asses off to find - you are actively sabotaging the fundraisers of dying people. i am not exaggerating when i say that kills people. it has killed people. it is killing people.

i really can't emphasise this enough, much less sugarcoat it: if you've reported multiple gazan fundraisers it's very likely that you've killed someone.

the least you can do is ignore them if you're not going to donate. if you want to be a little more than an everyday nazi with the radio up loud so you can't hear the screams from the concentration camp next door, you could start paying attention to what's on each blog. many have "vetted by so-and-so" on them, or "reblogged by 90s-ghost" who as i mentioned is a real palestinian who escaped gaza who can tell at a glance if their arabic is google translated like a scammer would do. you can check out these vetting blogs and see what they do and who they promote. maybe you could even toss a reblog their way! maybe even a couple of bucks!

it's never too late to start caring. my pinned post has a few links to vetting organisations. top of my blog (under this post now) is a fundraiser led by my best friend for a baby with a failing heart who needs treatment TODAY or he's going to die. one of my friends is even offering commissions for it if that makes you feel better! you know, if it makes a woman starving herself to try and afford treatment for her infant son less of a dirty beggar.

you can stop being callous if you want to. if you have followers or money you can save someone's life. i really hope you'll try.

I'm starting to feel callous for saying this:

Please, Please, Please, if you are in a situation where you need money or have a go-fund-me started, DO NOT send people asks about it.

Make a post with places to donate instead, spread awareness through reblogs, but don't go into strangers DMs or Ask Boxes soliciting donations. It makes you look like a bot, not a real person needing help.

The big scam one I'm seeing right now is individuals "in Gaza" asking for donations. Before Gaza they said the donations were because of an illness. Bots/scammers are using Gaza to pull at your heartstrings and scam you.

Donate to places you can trust. Like Amnesty International, Free The Children/WE Charities, UN Crisis Relief, Red Cross, etc. Places you know are credible.

I feel callous for deleting/blocking/reporting asks like that but just know it is a scam. It's using your empathy against you. Do not fall for those asks. Donate to causes, raise awareness, but delete and block those asks/dms because they are not real people. it's the same copy/pasted story on each one. Do your research before donating and be safe online.

[melrosing]

What is Dany fans' beef with Jaime?

idkkkk like as ever, not all Dany stans, i follow a fair few who just don’t give a shit about Jaime and all power to them. I don’t think tarring everyone w the same brush is helpful. and also it’s worth adding that Dany gets a LOT of hate from many corners of fandom, I would say more than perhaps any other POV. this is a big part of why she has such a defensive fandom. the bad takes about Dany are genuinely so, so bad, and they are thrown around every day.

but yeah there are a handful of stans who will whip out their bad faith Jaime takes at a moment’s notice, and I get the impression that this is bc they believe themselves to be on the defensive against Jaime stans as a group. yet the only evidence I’ve ever seen for that is a handful of vastly inflated twitter arguments they’ve had with 2-3 show Jaime pfps that I, a Jaime stan of some years now, had never fuckin heard of.

so yeah there are a lot of posts by these stans saying Jaime stans want Dany dead bc we’re scared she’ll ruin his redemption arc and kill him and she makes him look bad and w/e which is just…. I mean as I say I’ve been active in Jaime fandom for a while now and I have basically never seen these talking points made by any big jaime stan. I can’t speak for show stans or random accounts w 20 followers, but as far as the Jaime stans who actively and regularly contribute to the fandom go - idk I just haven’t seen it.

and I’m gonna be real Ive never imagined that Dany would have ANY real impact on Jaime’s redemption arc, which has a whole lot more to do w Brienne, Cersei, the Starks, the Lannisters more broadly, etc etc. I am not worried about Dany killing Jaime either, bc however he dies, I don’t see how it would narratively make sense - for either of them - if Dany had anything much to do with it. they are tied up w different characters, themes, story strains, and so on. and also, I think Jaime would probably LIKE dany. maybe they’ll meet under tense circumstances, so perhaps they don’t hit it off as they might have, but Jaime likes ppl like Dany: she’s honest and honourable, without any pretences. Dany meanwhile, has valid reasons to be suspicious of Jaime. So I’d really like the two of them to have an opportunity to talk about the rebellion, her parents, and maybe why he did what he did to Aerys. I think they’re two people who could understand each other given the right opportunity.

and I also really like Dany, I have always liked her. but even talking on my own blog about the fact that I DON’T like bad faith Jaime takes has ended up w random Dany stans writing hundreds of words about how that’s just bc I secretly hate Dany stans and Dany herself and I’M supposedly a violent misogynist who only likes Jaime bc I can get off to jb etc etc (if this seems like a complete non sequitur that’s bc it is) so honestly, it’s hard for me to say what their beef is. as I have already said, Dany undeniably gets vast amounts of hate, and I have seen it come from all corners. but to claim that Jaime fandom are major proponents of this is just a lie, and who knows why they tell it.

[pan-magi]

Another time for me to go into anime and manga differences, woop. This one is more technical in how some things cannot be simply adapted because different mediums. Somewhere out in the interwebs (outside tumblr) I saw someone claim that adaptations have to be 1:1 to be good and this is also a semi-refutation of that.

I go kind of in lecture mode I'm sorry ><. I try to keep the tone relatively informal so I hope it isn't too boring of the read.

Here is the manga panel in question:

(From when Aladdin and Alibaba are in Amon's dungeon and witness the slime reforming and regenerating. The text here is "A slime appeared (x3)." I believe in the official English release the translation is slightly different with "Here, a slime. There a slime. Everywhere a slime." I do think that one is slightly funnier which is important to this.)

(If any aversion to slime or gooey things this isn't the post for you. It's my whole example. Also some with Aladdin almost being eaten at my example at the end.)

You may be thinking what's the big deal with this simple panel? The anime has the encounter be basically the same. You are correct. However, the presentation is very different.

What I find funny about the panel is the repetition of the slime going splat and the accompanying text reinforcing it. It is so simple and so effective. The scene is basically like "oh, look, there's one here. And another one here. Oh no, they're coming together. We're in trouble." The delivery works best with a graphic novel medium as compared to an animated one.

The crux, in my opinion, is the emphasis the text and narration give. If Aladdin and Alibaba voiced the line out loud it would have been out of place and out of character for both of them. Neither are type to have stream of consciousness observations spoken out loud, which the above emphasis will be if given to a character.

Without the text emphasis, the scene doesn't really convey a joke. It's more of a standard action scene. That's fine. A way to attempt to add it in the anime is to linger on the slime an extra moment to draw attention to the uh oh funny.

Here is the equivalent in the anime:

The first column I set to a 150ms; the second is slowed to 200ms. The slightly slower one can add some foreboding. The meaning is not clear though and up to the audiences interpretation on why the camera chooses to linger on the shot, as it were. If someone watching does not get the visual joke and frame the whole thing falls flat. That is a failure to the action end of the scene that demands a quick pace.

What's the big deal for a straightforward joke? That is about it, really. I chose it because it has the clearest distinction in being a 1:1 scene and conveying two different tones due to the simple medium difference. I do not think the anime is weaker. The scene in movement lends itself to be more action oriented. Thus, that's the focus. If it tried a literal translation of that visual joke it would have fallen flat and ruined it.

The anime does still have the comedic (also horrifying) framing that is allowed to be translated more literally. See example two:

&

The above gif is set to 2 seconds per frame. I don't know what the timing is for the anime. I was lazy to check, eep. The important part is the jump cut makes it funny and makes it work so well. In my opinion at least.

That's a wrap~ Sorry for being a bit dry and lecture mode. Magi does a decent job and that means letting the show breathe as an adaption. I wanted to take the opportunity to be a bit of a nerd about it. haha. Thanks for reading.

[biblically-accurate-dca]

painting test with a limited color palette

here's the moon equivalent!

[aroaceleovaldez]

What is the PR disaster in question that made Rick announce TSATS? I wasn’t active in the online fandom at that point

Of course! This was awhile ago so it figures people don't remember it/aren't familiar:

Basically a couple years back (2020) the fandom had some posts circulate discussing the ways different characters in the Riordanverse were written poorly or offensively. There was a masterpost that went around tumblr but the two major points people were particularly focusing on were Piper and Samirah (particularly because Piper had featured prominently again in Trials of Apollo recently and the third MCGA book had further emphasized and discussed Samirah being Muslim, since it was supposed to take place during Ramadan). Basically each had multiple posts breaking down the ways they were depicted incorrectly or offensively. The entire fandom for a little bit was VERY intensely discussing this (and it's around this time the "RR crit" tag got very popularized on tumblr - it did exist before, but suddenly was being used VERY frequently - cause it was that wide-spread - though the discussion took over basically every side of Riordaverse social media on different platforms). People really wanted Rick to respond to these criticisms, so he did!

He made two blog posts, one about Piper and one about Samirah. He has since deleted both so the links are to archived versions. The short version: he essentially tried to justify his poor research and double-down that he hadn't written them offensively, actually, people were just being mean to him. The fandom, of course, reacted poorly to this.

[Further elaborated events under the cut since this got a bit lengthy]

(Fun fact, this all happened within a month or so of the time i posted an open letter on aphobic tropes in the Riordanverse that Rick replied to, and then he immediately followed with announcing that Reyna was intended to be ace-coded [which cause a LOT of fandom debate] before Rick dipped for a couple of weeks, and then came back to post the blog posts in response to Piper and Sam stuff. So I like to jokingly refer to this as "The time I imploded the fandom/drove Rick off of twitter." Twas I that set the house ablaze.)

Rick fully left social media after this and the LT Musical social media manager became Rick's social media manager for the time being.

So this all happened June/July of 2020. Tower of Nero would end up being published in October of 2020 and a few months after that Rick would state that he was done with the series and wouldn't be writing any more series installments involving Percy, and also that he wouldn't be writing a Nico quest following Tower of Nero as it "wasn't his place to" and encouraged the community to write their own versions of Nico's story.

The community continued to circulate the tumblr posts and discuss the topics of Rick's offensive character depictions, and this is also where we see the dramatic shift in how the fandom depicts Piper in fanwork (though in most cases it is admittedly not an improvement 😬) because of all this discussion. This is also around the time when the fandom brought Viria under scrutiny claiming that she was whitewashing Piper as part of the same discussions, through the justification that she was drawing Annabeth as having tan skin (which she does canonically), and if Annabeth has tanner skin then Piper then that's whitewashing Piper? Except they were using completely separate images of not fully rendered Piper art versus Annabeth in dramatic lighting, so it's all very awkward and poor logic, and did actually get kind of racist. A lot of people were calling it "Tannabeth Blackchase" (yeah, i know) or similar and a common sentiment you'd see repeated is "Don't draw Annabeth as having darker skin than Piper, because that's offensive/racist/whitewashing." (Note: it was not phrased "don't draw Piper as having lighter skin than Annabeth" - we also won't get into certain offensive depictions of Native Americans, but I digress). But yeah, the Annabeth stuff in all that did not age well at all.

Anyways, in October of 2021 however Rick would announce that he was co-writing The Sun And The Star - with a lot of heavy emphasis on how Mark Oshiro works as a sensitivity reader, and some false advertising from the official social media that Mark Oshiro was the first time a non-Riordan author would be collaborating on the series (disregarding the ghostwriters completely). One of the big criticisms in the breaking down of issues in Rick's writing was his lack of ever seeking a sensitivity reader, and fans claiming that a sensitivity reader could solve a lot of the problems. This was basically Rick's "look! I totally listened!!!!" (though it did little to actually improve things, based on the book) and in TSATS as well Piper gets a large cameo at the end where the text very directly addresses a lot of points made in criticism of Rick's writing of her.

We also then of course got the CoTG trilogy later, explicitly stated to be for advertising purposes for the show.

So basically, short version: Rick came under scrutiny for a lot of offensive writing within the span of two months, made some bad blog posts doubling down about it, left social media. TOA ends. Rick says he wasn't going to continue the series/write what would become TSATS. Community celebrates the end of of the franchise but also continues to discuss Rick's poor writing and the blog posts at length. Rick suddenly announces TSATS and Mark Oshiro's involvement. Everybody gets distracted from being mad. Show announcement stuff also happens and the discussions peter out.

[leroibobo]

pictures from the old city of jerusalem's "african quarter", which comprises of ribat al-mansuri and ribat al-basiri. mamluks built the compounds in the late 13th century to house muslim pilgrims and the poor. ottomans used them as prisons, and the british closed the prisons when they occupied jerusalem in 1917. the ribats then came under the ownership of the islamic waqf, and were leased to the local afro-palestinian community.

afro-palestinians have an array of origins. like some other diaspora communities in palestine, some came through pilgrimage - al-aqsa was on their hajj path, and while many would visit to pray there, some decided to settle in jerusalem. there are also some who came to palestine enslaved or conscripted, most recently to ottomans. some came during the time of the british mandate, many as conscripted laborers to the british. afro-palestinians who can trace their ancestry do so to nigeria, chad, senegal, or sudan.

jerusalemite afro-palestinians were employed to guard al-aqsa throughout the ottoman period. during the 1948 palestine war, some joined the arab liberation army and fought with fellow palestinians to defend al-aqsa and their presence in jerusalem. the position of guards has been taken by occupation soldiers since the 1967 war, after which a quarter of the afro-palestinian population became refugees in surrounding countries.

jerusalem's afro-palestinian community still live in the compounds today, which also house the local african community society. (the door in the last picture is theirs.) afro-palestinians as a whole face the same legal, social, and economic restrictions and maltreatment as other palestinians, compounded with the same anti-black racism from israeli government and police which ethiopian jews and eritrean asylum seekers face, which result in a form of "passport racism" unique to them.

[anghraine]

I'm trying to redirect my political thoughts from my fandom escape blog again, but I found something interesting enough that I thought I'd talk a little about it.

Occasionally I choose suffering (looking at the more granular 2024 exit poll breakdowns rather than the summaries that I mostly don't trust much at this point). Anyway, I did find something intriguing, if not particularly surprising, in the CNN exit polls, which were done in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin with a sample size of 22,914 voters.

(I mention the specific states forming the sample because this pretty notably excludes any blue states while including some reliably Republican ones.)

Anyway, most exit polls including CNN's let respondents identify their place on the US political spectrum: conservative, moderate, or liberal (reminder that "liberal" in US usage can be a pejorative for "less leftist than me" but also a shorthand for "radical leftist" but also for "anyone who doesn't seek a cishet white Christian ethnostate", but also can be a more neutral synonym for progressives and/or leftists and is often used that way, as here). So you can look at the election results for each of these ideological factions and what share of the overall sample size they represent.

The interesting thing: this "liberal" category accounted for very similar proportions to 2020 of the overall vote in the sample (24% in 2020, 23% in 2024—a difference well within the margin of error of exit polling). There is no need to explain liberals/leftists staying home in 2024: at least in terms of proportions of the overall electorate, they didn't. Just under 1/4 of voters in 2024 were liberals or leftists, just as in 2020.

Okay, if the most leftwards faction of the US political spectrum actually formed a similar proportion of the electorate, then who did they vote for?

Harris. In CNN's own exit polls from 2020, 89% of this faction voted for Biden, and (surprisingly!) a full 10% voted for Trump. God knows what motivated that 10% Trump share after four years of his hellscape of an administration at the height of COVID, but in any case, that support cratered in 2024. 91% of this group voted for Harris and only 4% for Trump. It's an estimate, but it looks like these very peculiar Trump voters had enough of him in 2024 and around half either voted third party this time or for Harris.

So which faction is Trump's victory coming from? Further consolidation of the far right?

In part, yes! 90% of conservatives voted for Trump in 2024, vs 85% in 2020—likely, some conservatives who voted third party or even for Biden in 2020 came "home" this year. However, conservative turnout was actually a little down in 2024, proportionally speaking: conservatives dropped from 38% of the sample in 2020 to 34% in 2024.

But there's one more major faction in all this: "moderates" or centrists. To be clear, we're talking about the US version of centrism, given that this is a US organization polling US voters about US politicians, not "Bernie would be center-right in Denmark" or whatever. This moderate faction jumped from 38% of the overall sample in 2020 to 42% in 2024, and they swung hard towards Trump, though Harris still won a plurality of them. In 2020, 64% of moderates voted for Biden vs 34% for Trump. In 2024, 57% of them voted for Harris vs 40% for Trump—that is, the Democratic lead among centrists dropped precipitously from +30 to +17.

Tl;dr—ideologically speaking, this data suggests that Trump owes his victory to gains among both right-wing and centrist voters rather than some faction of would-be leftists or progressives apathetically staying home or voting third-party or otherwise deserting Democrats (because they're insufficiently radical or for any other reason).

Oh, and if you're curious as to how this compares to CNN's 2016 exit polls, I also checked those! Harris's 84-point lead among the most leftwards faction is a significant improvement from HRC's 74-point lead in 2016. Trump also got 10% of that group in 2016, as in 2020, so it's this campaign—not Hillary's or Biden's—that managed to eat into whatever the hell is going on with that group.

Harris's +17 with moderates is actually a slight improvement on Hillary's +12 in 2016. Biden's jump to a +30 lead among centrists in 2020 represented either a backlash against Trump from centrists, or Biden's own rapport with that group, or some mysterious issue some of those voters had with both HRC and Harris (I wonder what it could be!!), or some combination thereof. Regardless, there are a lot of actual ideologically centrist voters in the USA and not just would-be leftists who haven't heard the good news of Marx yet. And Trump has an iron grip on the right wing at this point: he beat Hillary with conservatives by +65 in 2016, then beat Biden with an even larger margin of +71, then leapt to a 81-point lead over Harris with right-wing voters this year.

[fancyshooting]

r3volv3r oc3lot

[ironicsoap]

you are expendable, you are not expected to return

[randomly-generated-posts-machine]

'cause I'm in fucking major historical event

[bearotonin-international]

Hey, I love this blog, but it does feel a bit irresponsible to be sharing a video where a human is performing extremely dangerous and somewhat sketchy behaviors with wild animals. I went looking for info and could only find that tiktok and don't have the mental energy to parse through all of that to find out if that place is even legit (the way he handles interacting with the ostrich and bears make me doubt). And looking through the tags, the video is showing the false idea of domestication of wild creatures.

I just wanted to share my concerns since I don't usually see videos like this come across my dash unless they're being critiqued cause of who I choose to follow. :c

hi friend. This person works at some kind of animal sanctuary and is a trained professional. Also, if you actually listen to the video, he explains that he doesn’t interact with the animals (the brown bears) that he didn’t raise and doesn’t fully know and trust their behavior, because it is dangerous.

also the video literally has the text in it that says clearly “Do Not Attempt” because this man is a trained professional who works with wild animals for a living and is NOT encouraging people to treat wild animals as if they are domestic and safe to touch

the team is dedicated to posting responsible and ethical bear programming, and can be trusted to vet our posts. we do not require any additional assistance, thank you.

friends, we would like to take this time to gently point out that coming into someone’s asks with unsolicited ‘advice’ or ‘concerns’ about the way they run their blog is actually an etiquette no no and generally not something that’s in any way appreciated. We’ve been getting a fair few of these types of ‘helpful suggestion’ asks lately, and would like to remind people that this is not something the team particularly appreciates, especially when there isn’t a fully factual or correct basis. While your intentions may be harmless or well-meaning, it doesn’t mean that you should unsolicitedly share your opinions directly in people’s inbox and ask them to change the content they post on their blog.

this is not an indictment of this person or this ask, but a general reminder to everyone. and we shouldn’t have to specify, but unfortunately feel we must say that there is never permission to go harass anyone involved in this ask. If you don’t agree with something, just ignore it and move on. There will be no unkind words said on or in response to this post, friends.

[aglionbyacademia]

“glimpse of an anxiety riddled mind” installation 2024 janell richter

Do NOT repost

[orangedogsquad]

Whyyy do people have their dogs on flexi leads in a vet. It’s unnecessary 😭

Waiting for Henry’s appointment this evening and two terriers came barrelling out of the consult room on flexis, very much not controlled by the owners, and swarmed Henry and me in the waiting room. Poor boy was spooked and couldn’t get away since he was backed into the corner. I asked them to give us space because he doesn’t like other dogs in his face and one of the owners commented ‘Awh, sorry, didn’t see you there’ while they did nothing to pull their dogs away??

Thankfully Henry recovered alright and was happy taking treats from me/ignoring the terrier Staring and crying at him, but my god why are people so clueless. They finally pulled that one back, but while the other owner was paying, their one ran straight back up to us :))

Henry did really well though and felt brave enough to go up to it and sniff it before they got it away again. But then the first one started saying ‘oh do you want to say hi too??’ to their dog. Like, my guy, I told you he’s shy/doesn’t like dogs in his face. Do Not push it. I got Henry doing ‘paws up’ on the bench, and they finally gave up.

Note to self, Henry goes up on the bench to start with next time…