#this is what's going to destroy my country?

[tiruvenkadu]

i am realizing that this sounds like an excuse. IT IS NOT. (or, it isn’t meant to be.)

it is a lament that things are this way and i don’t know how to solve it, because the last 10 years have shown that even going up to americans, grabbing then by the lapels, and yelling “YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT GOES ON IN YOUR COUNTRY” has absolutely no effect.

my country used to have a lot of great things about it. still does, but the number is rapidly diminishing. but this country absolutely is guilty of a lot of horrible crap that never should have happened, horribly and stupid shit we never should have done, and somehow it never gets taught in schools, so…

please, if you have any ideas of how to Solve This (preferably without wiping us out, there are actually a lot of good people here, they’re just trapped in the machine and could do good if they were let out), i would love to hear it. please save us, because at this point, i don’t think we can save ourselves… and yeah, america has placed itself over the last 70 years in just such a way that if we go down, we’re pulling the entire western world and half of the underdeveloped world down with us.

dear gods, help us before we destroy all of creation. i’m begging you.

[lunar-years]

SOTR SPOILERS!!!//

I've already seen some complaints about how the plot was bad and the rebellion attempt didn't make sense/was far-fetched, but honestly that was one of the things I liked best about it!

Yes, the rebellion plot was an EXTREME long shot. The end goal really wasn't clear, the plan itself was shoddy at best with about a million things that could go wrong. It's honestly amazing that Haymitch and Ampert managed to carry out any part of it "successfully." And even then, they're really just the pawns of the rebel adults around them (like Katniss and Peeta in that way, except that unlike Katniss and Peeta, Haymitch's problem is being told too much, rather than being kept in the dark.)

I think it's pretty evident that this was a last minute, thrown together rebellion attempt hastily contrived of by immensely desperate people (and almost certainly prompted by Beetee's son unexpectedly being reaped.) Beetee needed his son's death to mean something. His wife was pregnant. He was probably already foreseeing losing them, too. He needed to at least try this. He was desperate enough to try it even if it was ill-thought and highly likely to fail. Wiress (Beetee's most recent mentee) and Mags (who's basically mother teresa like oh my god maggggs <3) would of course be wiling to jump in with him. Plutarch is desperate to get something, anything, stirring in way of rebellion. And finally they pull in Ampert and Haymitch to carry the thing out, the two tributes who have already been marked as direct, personal targets of the Capitol and have seemingly no chance whatsoever of coming out of the arena alive. it's easy to see why they alone were chosen, no other kids involved. After all, Haymitch has been told from President Snow directly that he is going to be killed. He's as good as dead already. He has nothing to lose.

Trouble is, no one expects Haymitch to actually emerge as Victor, lest of all Haymitch himself, but also everyone around him. The others are all adults who know and accept what could happen to them if the plot goes south. They take on the risks willingly. They are banking entirely on Ampert and Haymitch being dead anyway. And isn't it better to go out fighting back against the true enemy? The only thing Snow can do is take it out on them in the arena, which he will be doing regardless. Unfortunately, they're forgetting just how much Snow likes to play with his food before eating it. It's pretty clear with the poisoned milk picnic basket that Snow was indeed intending to kill Haymitch right up until the very end. He was merely waiting for the right time, after the right amount of humiliation, after forcing Haymitch to watch all his closest allies die horrible, targeted deaths. Only this time Snow waits too late. And then he has no choice but to pull Haymitch out alive so that the Capitol can have their victor.

I think the fact that it all fails so colossally is the biggest point of the book. As Plutarch comments at the end, when it does happen, the timing needs to the right. There needs to be an army to rally behind the rebels. Haymitch was given none of that. He was moved around on a chess board by desperate players. The rebels had hardly anyone on the inside. They didn't have the country behind them, no soldiers. They didn't yet understand their enemy well enough. He is set up to fail on all sides, the rebel side included. And they pay for it greatly.

On the other hand Katniss, when she comes, is very significantly not some grand "chosen one." She's pretty inarguably far, far less rebellious than Haymitch is at the start (in part because they have very different motivations in their games). Breaking into the arena to attempt to shut it down, working to destroy the generator, killing gamemakers in the arena, all that is about 10x more explicitly rebellious than the berry trick. The difference is not that Katniss is smarter or stronger. Imperatively, the only difference of any great significance is that Katniss manages to ensure her acts get seen. The berry trick cannot be covered up or cut out. It's the grand finale. And that's what makes it far more of a threat than all of Haymitch's crazy, reckless schemes to tear down the arena.

(interestingly, I think Haymitch would have been way more successful if he'd had the opportunity to carry out his backup plan of bombing the cornucopia during the final confrontation of the Games. The part of the plan that he came up with entirely on his own. it has to be something the Capitol's propaganda can't wash away, something that would have been impossible for them to cut out.)

Which is ultimately to say, the book is effective because it acknowledges just how complicated rebellion is. It takes far more than a few extremely rebellious, reckless people to make it happen. It takes a whole community banding together and rising up for change. On a series level, I think it also fleshes out some of Haymitch's decisions in the original trilogy, because it's easy to see why Haymitch would be so hell bent on keeping Katniss and Peeta entirely in the dark for so long. After all, look at what happened to him when he was in on all of it too soon.

[rainbowsky]

Anonymous asked: Hello Rainbowsky, Did you see what happened on [Twitter BS redacted] What do you have to say about the whole situation? Could I stay anonymous please I’m new here 💛

Hi Anon,

Be forewarned, rant incoming.

As a new person I'll forgive you for not already knowing that I hate it when people bring Twitter drama over here. There is a reason I am here and not over there. What's the point of having come here, when people keep trying to bring garbage from over there to here? I feel chased by this BS.

This is exactly the kind of thing that made me close my anonymous inbox a while back.

All that aside, people should not be bragging that they're on Twitter. Anyone still on Twitter loses my respect, sorry - and that's the politest way I can stomach saying it.

I just can't understand how anyone could remain on a platform run by a neo-nazi scumbag whose entire personality and value system revolves around getting richer (despite being the richest man in the world) by exploiting everyone 'beneath' him and destroying everything that any decent person holds dear.

He's racist, xenophobic, misogynistic (and notoriously predatory/abusive toward women), he's deeply homophobic, anti-trans to a... nazi degree... let's just put it that way, anti worker rights, anti science unless it furthers corporate exploitation, anti-environment, and his primary goal is to destroy all the institutions, regulations and infrastructure that were built to protect human rights, human health and equity in society. He has voiced that he'd like to destroy the people who believe in those values, too.

He says that EMPATHY is the biggest human weakness/problem. Yes, this asshole genuinely believes that empathy is a negative trait in human beings. WTAF.

He supports everything Trump is doing - including handing Ukraine to Russia (after exploiting them for every resource they have), handing Palestine to Israel (after ensuring all the inhabitants have been obliterated), destroying global alliances that are the only thing maintaining world peace, and invading other countries - including my own!

He has the money and power to do this, and he is working on it all as we speak! Pull your head out of your goddamn asses, people - he's an imminent existential threat to this planet and everyone on it!

If you're on Twitter right now, you might as well be on Truth Social AFAIAC.

I have never liked Twitter - it's a cesspool of hate (as is evidenced by your ask, Anon), and always has been. Yeah, of course good things have been done on Twitter, and good people have been on there over the years, but those days are long past. The few stragglers still on there are constantly embroiled in drama and feuds, and the only reason they cling on is because they can't let go of the vanity of seeing the big follower numbers on their profiles.

There's absolutely no excuse for people to remain on Twitter. None. There's no rationale for remaining on a neonazi platform, propping up and validating this awful man. It's disgusting.

That there are still turtles on Twitter is a constant source of shame and grief for me, frankly. Those who are still on there show their lack of commitment to queer rights, human rights and equality, world peace, the environment and everything that is good and right in the world. They either lack the values or the moral courage to make a change.

And there's no excuse for it. There is a solid, fully featured (in fact, with all the features Twitter once had, but which that dirtbag removed or destroyed) alternative that is easy to migrate to. The community there is infinitely better, and most people already have an account, they just aren't using it.

I don't know what it will take, or how many more horrors we'll need to witness and experience before people wake the fuck up.

As for the petty arguments with XFX, block and ignore, and get off of Twitter. As fans we should be focused on GG and DD, not on the behavior of other fans. Block and ignore.

Or of course you can do whatever you want, but you asked my opinion, and here it is.

Related posts:

Why I closed my anonymous inbox

Feminization of GG in the Fandom

Oversexualization and homophobia among turtles

Fandom Survival Guide

If you're new here, you might also find my masterlist post helpful.

[marithlizard]

If you are ever again tempted to call another person "cringe" because they do not meet your lofty standards, then please stop and read the messages above first. Then recalibrate. Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. He holds enormous influence over the incoming US president and is being granted his own new government agency to do whatever he likes. How does this man, who has indirectly caused the deaths of thousands in various ways, spend his spare time? He makes sockpuppet accounts with names like "Aaron Dittman" and posts about how great that Elon guy is. He replies to his own posts from his sockpuppet accounts to agree with himself. And today he's doing it on 4chan.

I can't decide whether "Elon is a father who gets a lot of sex" or "kek you frens later, anons" gets the award for Most Cringe Thing Anyone Has Said Online Ever.

(ETA: Never mind, apparently he also used to roleplay as his own toddler son on social media as some kind of kink thing and I refuse to learn more. The award is cancelled.)

[hazel2468]

I love how that person who was like "oh ew a Zionist" also has reblogged posts about not being antisemitic and buying into antisemitic conspiracies while ALSO like.

Reblogging posts about how Israel is a uniquely evil "colonial scar" and how Israel is "murdering children" and like. Literally straight up antisemtic shit.

Leveling criticism at Israel that positions it as a unique evil among all other countries and doing literal blood libel (IE, Israel murders Palestiaian babies in a way no other nation kills children) is FUCKING ANTISEMITIC. Israel is JUST A COUNTRY. It is JUST another nation, doing the shitty stuff that other nations do. And if you find yourself railing against Israel EXTRA hard right now, or ever, in ways that you do NOT rail against other shitty countries that do shitty things (and, I can't believe I have to say this, if you find yourself saying that the kidnap, rape, torture, and murder of any civilian ever is justified because "uwu this radical extremist group is freedom fighters"!) then you're a fucking antisemitic, racist bigot.

Like. It blows me away how so many people don't seem to see that Israel, the Jewish state (whether you agree with how it is run or not, whether you agree with how it came to be or not) gets SO MUCH MORE SHIT than other comparable shitty countries... Come on.

Because the alternative is that you DO see it. That you DO agree with all of those things that are STEEPED in age-old antisemitic conspiracy. And you agree.

[lord-squiggletits]

i know i’m late to the conversation—i just watched the movie this month—but i feel compelled to say this because i was genuinely shocked (still am) to see that the overwhelming takeaway for many viewers was the "d-16/megatron was right" bs. while it’s understandable to sympathize with his anger and grief, justifying his actions in the end or framing them as entirely right feels so deeply misguided. what surprised me even more was the tendency to shift the blame on orion/optimus, as though he was solely responsible for d-16’s downfall. it’s disheartening to see orion/optimus being villainized so much. his efforts to reason with d-16 came from a place of desperation and hope, as he tried to prevent the escalation of violence. at that point, d-16 had already begun to spiral into his unchecked rage, disregarding the safety of those around him. to see that nuance overlooked, with orion being faulted for a situation that was far beyond his control (the whole "don't be like sentinel" thing is often used to shit on op lol), is genuinely baffling.

while i love that the movie showed the tragedy of d-16’s arc and even empathize with his situation, painting his actions as justified—and vilifying orion/optimus in the process—feels like a misreading of the movie’s core message. sorry but i was so happy to see your post about the movie, it was tiring to see so many 'megatron was right about this and that' comments.

Oh man if you're new to this fandom, you really ought to know that this place is full of people who glorify terrorism and war in the name of "justified revolution" and it doesn't really matter what Dee/Megatron does or how horrible/over-the-top it is, he's oppressed or he's mentally ill or he's just plain upset which means that everything he does is justified and questioning him makes you evil.

It's so funny because I hoped for sure that a continuity where both OP and Megatron were working class individuals before the war would reduce this kind of shit take (compare to something like archivist/librarian OP and gladiator Megs in TFP or CBV, or cop OP and miner Megs in IDW1), but unfortunately this fandom literally still found a way to blame Orion for everything even though he suffered the exact same things Dee did..... and furthermore Orion literally was the rebel challenging the system compared to Dee who wanted to keep his head low and not cause trouble so honestly at this point I just think the fandom (and somehow new fans whose first exposure to TF is this movie) purely sides with Megatron on everything as either a knee-jerk reaction or some misguided attempt at being counterculture and intelligent.

People get sooooo mad when you tell them that unbridled rage and killing everyone who disagrees with you isn't a good social/political strategy, but then again this is a problem that is universal to humanity and not just the Transformers fandom. It's just a shame that so many people looked at a movie that blatantly spells out what the moral of the story is, and has all of the protagonists be working class oppressed people fighting against a tyrannical system, and their takeaway from it is still basically "fascism is okay if you're mad enough about it and if your friends try to stop you it's a sign that they're centrist liberals who think punching Nazis makes you as bad as a Nazi." It's childish black-and-white thinking masquerading as critical literary analysis.

And at this point people pretty much just don't give a shit about Orion/Optimus and will find a way to make him the villain no matter what the context is, no matter if he also has feelings or if he also deserves to be respected/listened to/validated as Megatron's long-time (possibly lifelong) friend. If ppl look at the way Dee treated Orion and their other friends and DON'T see what was concerning about that then there's really no saving them until they deradicalize a little and learn what usually happens when "kill all the bad people until society is a utopia" is implemented as a governing party's primary strategy.

[martzahhh]

And i just want to disclose that by saying this i am also completely against communism as someone who lives in a post communist country that was absolutely destroyed by the soviets ideologically and economically, and my parents have grown up in Poland while it was still under the communist regime and there's absolutely no way i could ever want to go back to that but one thing that derives from communism that i agree with is the idea of abandoning the sole IDEA and THOUGHT of classes in a society. Even distribution of goods BUT based on actual factors, so basically obviously if someone owns a fucking company i agree that they should earn more than their worker this makes perfect sense, in the same way that a cashier should logically make less than a doctor and have a lower standard of living because if they had the same lifestyles we would have no fucking doctors and everyone would want to be a cashier or a cleaner cause that doesnt require nearly as much input as being someone of high education and skill. But at the same time the country should do their best to provide everyone with the same opportunities (at least vaguely) and then what or who they become occupation wise would mostly just depend on their skill, dedication and intelligence / willingness. Which obviously high profile jobs require most of the time. Ok rant over sorry

The insecurity, entitlement, and rage of the white working class has been a valuable mechanism of maintaining white supremacy since before the Civil War. Probably since Bacon’s Rebellion.

Nothing has changed. These people would rather lose their livelihood and watch their children die of measles than ever accept a person of color in an elite, prestigious leadership position.

The white ruling classes don’t care about these people either, but 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🫠🫠🫠🫠

second reader, historian with a PhD in black American history, adds: “I would go further that these people would literally accept harm for themselves if it meant Black/Brown people would also be deprived/harmed”

[k2ulhu]

hulu was doing live coverage of the election until 2:00am, at which point my power randomly went out and when I reopened the hulu app on my tv the election coverage was replaced with

[theabyssofhappy]

ok yeah so I see how that looks bad lmao. I think what I’m trying to say is that Nuir has left a lot of details unclear. We don’t know whether or not BOE’s genocidal movement predates the cohort’s invasions. The name certainly suggests that it did, or at least anti-Jod stories were passed down through generations. I think it’s the Emperor Himself who says that they turn populaces against him. Who’s to say there’s not a grain of truth in that? Maybe originally the “trade partnerships” really were mutually beneficial, and then BOE started stirring up anti-necromancer sentiments? It would be just like Jod to then massively overcorrect and become an imperialist police state to root out BOE. Again, Jod is definitely not the good guy in that scenario. He’s a literal fascist. But intent matters. It is different if his opressive policies are a result of BOE, and not the other way around. Honestly to me Jod gives massive tech-bro vibes. He’s incredibly gifted in certain areas, and it’s given him massive amounts of power. But now he thinks that his experience in science and necromancy makes him qualified to run an entire country, and it doesn’t, but he can’t see that. I feel like it’s an important to remember that a huge piece of his story in NtN is Jod thinking that people will immediately understand his position, trying to reach the masses, and then getting politically outmaneuvered and destroyed. Like, he is genuinely bad at politics, optics, all that. But he killed everyone who was good at it, and so now it’s just him and no one is there to tell him he’s an idiot. He isn’t comically evil. He’s like an idealistic tech bro, who opens a social media company thinking that people are mostly good. Then over the course of the next decade he finds out that A, a lot of people suck, and B, he could be making a lot more money. Next thing you know, he’s removed the “don’t be evil” slogan and is attending Donald Trump’s inauguration (yes, ik I’m mixing my metaphors).

I’m not saying Jod is good, because he definitely isn’t. But this isn’t some guy rubbing his hands together and chuckling. Jod is literally god. He’s head of an empire, and I think he maybe doesn’t realize that authoritarianism is only going to breed contempt. Jod started out good. His cryo project was genuinely noble. There’s a reason Alecto chose him. But through a mix of general incompetence and an inability to see when he’s wrong, he’s created a fascist regime that he literally can’t escape. Because what happens if he gives the planets their freedom? You think BOE will just give up? No, they’ll spend centuries trying to nuke the nine houses in revenge, and eventually they’ll succeed. Now, that does not justify what Jod has done. It’s not even close. He’s caused so much death and suffering. But he didn’t start out this way. And he didn’t necessarily mean to get to where he is now. He deserves some hate (ok, he deserves a lot of hate). But he doesn’t deserve to be treated as if he’s unquestionably evil, because I don’t think he is.

I think Jod is unfairly hated on by tlt fans, personally. Like, he killed ten billion people, but they were gonna die anyways? Imo those deaths are on the trillionaires, bc they'd doomed everyone. Jod at least brought some of them back. And yeah, he lied to the lyctors and let them kill their cavaliers, but I feel like we can't really blame him for that? We know Jod loved the cavaliers (he brought them back to life, after all) so if he let them die he must have had a damn good reason, we just don't know it yet. Yeah, I don't agree with his interstellar imperialism, but also I sort of see where he's coming from? It doesn't justify what he's doing/has done, but the non-dominican civilizations thought Jod was the antichrist before the cohort even reached them. Add on BOE's genocidal intentions, and Jod's treatment of these planets seems nuanced, although colonialism is pretty hard to justify.

Not saying he's a saint or anything (he can't be a saint, he's God! *slaps knee*). The man started a religion around himself. He is not a good person. But I think people act as if he's completely evil, and nothing in this series is that black-and-white. Jod clearly wants to be good. But he's human, and he's flawed.

[black-and-yellow]

Have you thought about how Mic could theoretically make a black hole with his quirk? I think about that often.

I have not, no. I think it would depend on if his body could handle that volume or whether he'd just die instantly which I think is more likely.

But if he could do it, what do you think would happen if he faced off against Thirteen. What happens when two black holes face eachother.

[skeletons-in-ur-closet]

this isnt the account for this i KNOW but jjk just ended and it was the worst thing ive ever read oh my daysssss

[usac-official]

"I can assure you, I am not evil. Just doing what I must to uncover the truth about myself."

[Here comes the backstory.]

"So, I have been working at this facility for thirty years now, without a care in the world. However, the most peculiar thing happened around seven years ago. You see, I wasn't born a citizen of the United States. I moved here for work. One would think that I'd hold my home country, my culture, everything with me, but one day, I woke up, and... it was gone. Everything. I had tried grasping for it, trying to find some semblance of where I was from... but nothing came to mind but a headache.

"The first piece I'd found of my homeland came to me a few months later, in the form of subject #1120. Much like me, when he came into our custody, he couldn't remember anything about where it came from. However, their accent told me all I needed to know. They were from the same country as me. I tried finding something, anything, all to help him remember, but nothing worked. Just like me, they remembered nothing.

"However, one day, I dropped a one dollar bill on the ground in The Phantom's room. He noticed the eye of providence—the triangle with the one eye—printed on the bill and stared at it for a while, seemingly horrified. I'd asked them what was wrong, and they told me that they couldn't remember why, but the symbol was familiar to him somehow, so I decided to do my own research. And do you want to know what I found, Billy? I found out about a cult that worshipped a triangular demon with one eye, one that was planning on destroying the world through an apocalypse that it called 'Weirdmageddon'. And the name of this cult? Ciphertology. They worshipped Bill Cipher. All signs point to Bill Cipher and his cult being the reason I cannot remember my homeland, and I intend to get it back. No matter the cost, I will get it back. And you are going to help me."

[Footsteps ring out down the hall as someone leisurely approaches PARANOID-TRIANGLE's cell.]

(@usac-official)

[He tries to move close to the door, clinging to the wall nearby, ready to RUN.]

[la-pheacienne]

I'm generally not a gatekeeper in fandom but if you say "Bilbon Sacquet" or "Serpentard' to me I'm going to commit a crime

[astral-from-afar]

I don’t get what the fuck ‘stop the boats’ even means. It’s just another attempt at being anti-immagration because it’s better to point at an invisible boogeyman than the real internal damage they have caused to other countries which has led them to try coming here

[six-eared-gremlin-ao3]

I hate politics, but my life literally hangs on this; we can't do better if Trump gets back in office. If he gets back in it's Game Over for anyone who isn't a straight white cisgendered Christian man. Women, Queer People, POC, Non-Christian- we won't stand a chance-

I have to vote for Biden not because I like him or what he's doing, but because the alternative will either kill me or make me wish I was dead, along with so many people I know.

We can't fix anything if he wins. Go and vote.

Okay in the midst of this I do wanna say that this absolutely WILL get Trump even MORE support.

So, here's what you're gonna do, okay:

GO. FUCKING. VOTE.

[madigoround]

Kitten I fear the world is fucked and will never get better and life may not be worth living