#using my first poll for science

[siriwesen]

After seeing a question on Reddit about Germans and foldable rulers, I need to know how everyone feels about them.

The ask implied, that foldable rulers are not super common to use or own outside of Germany, and now I am wondering about exact demographics and why. Pls spread and add your country in the tags if you want. I can not imagine owning a tool box without one of these. And no, I am not talking about measuring tape, I specifically mean these foldable rulers. They also exist with cm + inch measurements.

EDIT: I specifically mean the item from the image. A long ruler, 1-3m long, can have inch + cm, or just cm measurememts, and it may be called a folding ruler or folding rule. The reddit post called it a foldable ruler however, hence I used this term.

[reasonsforhope]

Hazel Chandler was at home taking care of her son when she began flipping through a document that detailed how burning fossil fuels would soon jeopardize the planet.

She can’t quite remember who gave her the report — this was in 1969 — but the moment stands out to her vividly: After reading a list of extreme climate events that would materialize in the coming decades, she looked down at the baby she was nursing, filled with dread.

 “‘Oh my God, I’ve got to do something,’” she remembered thinking...

It was one of several such moments throughout Chandler’s life that propelled her into activist spaces — against the Vietnam War, for civil rights and women’s rights, and in support of environmental causes.

She participated in letter-writing campaigns and helped gather others to write to legislators about vital pieces of environmental legislation including the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, passed in 1970 and 1972, respectively. At the child care center she worked at, she helped plan celebrations around the first Earth Day in 1970. 

Now at 78, after working in child care and health care for most of her life, she’s more engaged than ever. In 2015, she began volunteering with Elder Climate Action, which focuses on activating older people to fight for the environment. She then took a job as a consultant for the Union for Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization. 

More recently, her activism has revolved around her role as the Arizona field coordinator of Moms Clean Air Force, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group. Chandler helps rally volunteers to take action on climate and environmental justice issues, recruiting residents to testify and meet with lawmakers. 

Pictured: Hazel Chandler tables at Environment Day at Wesley Bolin Plaza in front of the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, Arizona, in January 2024.

Her motivation now is the same as it was decades ago. 

“When I look my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, my children, in the eye, I have to be able to say, ‘I did everything I could to protect you,’” Chandler said. “I have to be able to tell them that I’ve done everything possible within my ability to help move us forward.” 

Chandler is part of a largely unrecognized contingent of the climate movement in the United States: the climate grannies. 

The most prominent example perhaps, is the actor Jane Fonda. The octogenarian grandmother has been arrested during climate protests a number of times and has her own PAC that funds the campaigns of “climate champions” in local and state elections. 

Climate grannies come equipped with decades of activism experience and aim to pressure the government and corporations to curb fossil fuel emissions. As a result they, alongside women of every age group, are turning out in bigger numbers, both at protests and the polls. All of the climate grandmothers The 19th interviewed for this piece noted one unifying theme: concern for their grandchildren’s futures. 

According to research conducted by Dana R. Fisher, director for the Center of Environment, Community and Equity at American University, while the mainstream environmental movement has typically been dominated by men, women make up 61 percent of climate activists today.  The average age of climate activists was 52 with 24 percent being 69 and older...

A similar trend holds true at the ballot box, according to data collected by the Environmental Voter Project, a nonpartisan organization focused on turning out climate voters in elections. 

A report released by the Environmental Voter Project in December that looked at the patterns of registered voters in 18 different states found that after the Gen Z vote, people 65 and older represent the next largest climate voter group, with older women far exceeding older men in their propensity to list climate as their No. 1 reason for voting. The organization defines climate voters as those who are most likely to list climate change, the environment, or clean air and water as their top political priority.

“Grandmothers are now at the vanguard of today’s climate movement,” said Nathaniel Stinnett, founder of the Environmental Voter Project.

“Older people are three times as likely to list climate as a top priority than middle-aged people. On top of that, women in all age groups are more likely to care about climate than men,” he said. “So you put those two things together … and you can safely say that grandma is much more likely to be a climate voter than your middle-aged man.” 

In Arizona, where Chandler lives, older climate voters make up 231,000 registered voters in the state. The presidential election in the crucial swing state was decided by just 11,000 votes, Stinnett noted.

“Older climate voters can really throw their weight around in Arizona if they organize and if they make sure that everybody goes to the polls,” he said. 

Pictured: Hazel Chandler’s recent activism revolves around her role as the Arizona field coordinator of Moms Clean Air Force, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group.

In some cases, their identities as grandmothers have become an organizing force. 

In California, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations formed in 2016, after older women from the Bay Area traveled to be in solidarity with Indigenous grandmothers protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. 

“When they came back, they decided to form an organization that would continue to mobilize women on behalf of the climate justice movement,” said Nancy Hollander, a member of the group. 

1000 Grandmothers — in this case, the term encompasses all older women, not just the literal grandmothers — is rooted at the intersection of social justice and the climate crisis, supporting people of color and Indigenous-led causes in the Bay Area. The organization is divided into various working groups, each with a different focus: elections, bank divestments from fossil fuels, legislative work, nonviolent direct actions, among others...

“There are women in the nonviolent direct action part of the organization who really do feel that elder women — it’s their time to stand up and be counted and to get arrested,” Hollander said. “They consider it a historical responsibility and put themselves out there to protect the more vulnerable.” 

But 1000 Grandmothers credits another grandmother activist, Pennie Opal Plant, for helping train their members in nonviolent direct action and for inspiring them to take the lead of Indigenous women in the fight. 

Plant, 66 — an enrolled member of the Yaqui of Southern California tribe, and of undocumented Choctaw and Cherokee ancestry — has started various organizations over the years, including Idle No More SF Bay, which she co-founded with a group of Indigenous grandmothers in 2013, first in solidarity with a group formed by First Nations women in Canada to defend treaty rights and to protect the environment from exploitation. 

Pictured: Pennie Opal Plant has started various organizations over the years, including Idle No More SF Bay, which she founded in 2013 alongside Indigenous grandmothers.

In 2016, Plant gathered with others in front of Wells Fargo Corporate offices in San Francisco, blocking the road in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline, when she realized the advantages she had as an older woman in the fight. 

As a police liaison — or a person who aims to defuse tension with law enforcement — she went to speak to an officer who was trying to interrupt the action. When she saw him maneuvering his car over a sidewalk, she stood in front of it, her gray hair flowing. “I opened my arms really wide and was like, are you going to run over a grandmother?”

A new idea was born: The Society of Fearless Grandmothers. Once an in-person training — it now mostly exists online as a Facebook page — it helped teach other grandmothers how to protect the youth at protests. 

For Plant, the role of grandmothers in the fight to protect the planet is about a simple Indigenous principle: ensuring the future for the next seven generations. 

“What we’re seeing is a shift starting with Indigenous women, that is lifting up the good things that mothers have to share, the good things that women that love children can share, that will help bring back balance in the world,” Plant said...

[Kathleen] Sullivan is one of approximately 70,000 people over the age of 60 who’ve joined Third Act, a group specifically formed to engage people 60 and older to mobilize for climate action across the country. 

“This is an act of moral responsibility. It’s an act of care. And It’s an act of reciprocity to the way in which we are cared for by the planet,” Sullivan said. “It’s an act of interconnection to your peers, because there can be great joy and great sense of solidarity with other people around this.”

-via The 19th, January 31, 2024

[markscherz]

Can I ask how you feel about your Tumblr fame?

I get the impression you just made this account for normal casual funsies reasons, but it kinda blew up by happenstance. If that's right, I'm curious if now you feel like it's kind of a more serious thing, where you have an opportunity to sorta act as a science communicator with a reach you otherwise might not?

Or maybe something else? You gonna see if you can somehow leverage your Tumblr fame to get research funding? Deputize us to harass polluters and developers destroying habitats? Crowdsource name ideas for new species?

It's a bit bizarre, in that it has very little real-world-ness to it. I showed my mother the ongoing tumblr celebrity poll, and she was like 'how many people could possibly be interested in frogs?', to which I replied 'well as of today about 46,000 and counting'.

I have always had an unhealthy relationship with fame. I spent most of my teen and young adult life fawning after it, as is I suppose very often the case.

More after the cut…

I always really wanted to be famous, but I was never really interested in changing who I was or what I represented in that pursuit. That is to say, I wanted to be known for what I was already doing, or for things that were already interesting for me, rather than things that might have much higher chances of success but require more effort or be less in line with the things that I am interested in.

I had my first brush with virality in 2012, when a poem I wrote went a little viral (largely thanks to StumbleUpon). I remember the rush of seeing how much attention it was getting, and staying up late to keep refreshing the page as the visitor numbers went up and up and up.

But not long after that, I had some closer encounters with fame and people becoming famous. That was extremely eye-opening. I witnessed first hand how strongly that can affect someone's life, for good and for bad. That experience also made me realise, quite jarringly, that famous people are still just people; that celebrity is something extrinsic to them; that they also wipe their own butts (if they are able); and that in many cases, it is a substantial inconvenience if not downright pain in the ass for them. I think this is why we see so many of the big celebrities having mental health crises or trying to live as much of their lives out of the public eye as possible.

That experience pretty much stifled my desire to achieve fame, and really changed my relationship with it. I should add that I could say much more on this topic, but nothing so coherent or insightful as John and Hank Green, who have given me so much clarity on this topic over the years through their thoughtful commentary on youtube and their podcasts.

Anyway, in spite of the fact that fame itself doesn't really appeal to me anymore, I do still have a problem wherein I quickly became addicted to the microdosing of euphoria associated with every reblog and like and follow. So I put huge efforts into social media in order to try to gain traction in the space that I felt I could really compete in—Very Niche SciComm™—and build up a following.

Tumblr was the first platform where I felt that really succeed; I managed to fight my way to a few thousand followers with a thick queue of regular posts about herpetology and other science. At that time, there was a great community building up in the rudimentary private messaging system—I am still friends with several other tumblr bloggers from that era (none of whom I have ever met in person). From that early time (2013), I think my most successful post was probably this one about germination of 32,000 year old seeds—a post that, as of today, has 836 notes, but at the time felt huge and exhilarating.

As I went through gradschool, I got more and more active on twitter, and less and less active on tumblr (by the time I wound down, I had about 8,000 followers on tumblr). This was partly because of the pornbot takeover on tumblr, which meant I basically could not go on the platform in public or at work, but also because the audience and interactions are just fundamentally different. Twitter had a different kind of vibe and energy than tumblr, and there were real SciComm experts there, who were doing it just completely differently. More importantly, I became more focussed on doing outreach aimed at colleagues, rather than non-experts.

Then, in 2017, I hit headlines for the first time. The description of Geckolepis megalepis made it big on social and traditional media, and I had my first experience with real media attention. I had a flurry of late-night phone-calls with journalists in the US. This was a different animal altogether than the few viral posts I had had until that point. It was extremely stressful, but exhilarating. Then in 2018, our chameleon fluorescence story made similar headlines, and in 2019 the Mini frogs, and in 2021 with gecko fluorescence and the smallest chameleon.

Seeing my name on the BBC News website and in the New York Times and National Geographic—those things have been the most surreal moments of near-fame I have experienced so far. The number of followers on social media is quite difficult to conceptualise, but seeing your own name in a media outlet that you consume regularly, or have grown up with, is more palpable.

In any case, I continued to run with twitter as my main platform for years, because I found the interaction with colleagues and other academics highly stimulating. In 2021, I even posted a twitter thread about a different species of frog from Madagascar every day for the full year. All this work was ultimately greeted with mediocre success; I just crested over 10,000 followers a few months before the Musth takeover. But then the platform became basically unusable. And in the fallout, I came back to tumblr, where, just by chance, I happened to find a post about the Mini frogs and reply to it and it went properly viral and now here we are. In the space of a year, I went from having 8000 followers to having >46,000.

How do I feel about that? It's bonkers. I think it is great that so many people are interested in hearing the Good News about frogs and other creatures. But I also feel like I am not really on the same playing field as most of the others in that poll mentioned above, in that I do not have any of the celebrity that several others have. And I know for a fact that there are fanblogs with far, far larger followings than I have. But perhaps that is the great thing about tumblr; that the playing field is somehow levelled…

What's the point of this ramble? Well, first I guess it is to outline that I have given fame a lot of thought over the years, and I have a long-standing and complicated relationship with it, and take it quite seriously. Second, to illustrate that I have been working on as a science communicator or person in outreach for many years—it has kind of been my social media brand since I started gradschool in 2013. And third, to kind of outline how we got here, because I often feel like you have to know where an arrow has come from in order to figure out which direction it will continue to fly.

You asked if I would somehow try to leverage my tumblr fame to get research funding—I already do that. In fact, my social media activity had a signfiicant role in landing me my current job, and will continue to help me achieve tenure. Outreach is an important part of my job, and funders like it too.

I would love to have the community-building power and tenacity of the brothers Green; Nerdfighteria has achieved some incredible things over the years, and the power of that community is now being seen at an unprecedented scale in their battle for equitable access for tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment. But I do not have that in me; this platform is the wrong one for community activation, and my community is still too small for that. Moreover, it is not organised or structured, in the way that I think effective deputisation would require.

As for the crowdsourcing of name ideas, that is currently off the table. I like to try to name things on my own or with my colleauges; it is a very good part of the process. And I have yet to hear a suggestion for a Mini species epithet that I had not already come up with myself, so I am not convinced that this would really augment the experience.

So for now, I hope that the main way I use the platform, and the power that comes with a few thousand followers, will be to spread the Good News about frogs and other wonderful animals, and the other kinds of science happening around us (and occasional other off-topic content). I hope that you are encouraged to explore the world around you, and to do your own reading to find out more about the subjects that interest you. And also I will continue to try to make meme-worthy content, because it does nice, if addictive, things in my brain when I get the clicks.

Thanks for asking, anon, and sorry for the Wall of Text.

[destinationtoast]

Toastystats: Halloween fanworks!

So the thing is, I get to Blaze one post per month by virtue of having Tumblr Premium. And (while I have enjoyed Blazing pictures of my cats in the past) I thought perhaps this month people might enjoy some Halloween fandom stats + fic lists? So I threw something together. First, the stats:

Less that 1% of AO3 fanworks use the "Halloween" tag (or a subtag like "Happy Halloween" -- only 0.32%, in fact. But I found some big fandoms (10K+ works) that use a substantially higher-than-average rate of Halloweenery. (I couldn't look through every fandom on AO3, but I did look through all the fandoms with 10K+ fanworks as of January 2024. Note that some fandoms may write about Halloween a bunch without tagging it, and those aren't be captured here.)

Fall Out Boy leads the pack among these big fandoms, with nearly 1% of its fanworks using the "Halloween" tag or a subtag (0.93%). (I'd be curious to hear theories about why!) Some of the other fandoms shown above have a natural element of spookiness or horror (e.g., IT, Stranger Things), but many do not. The longer list is here. (These stats are based on pretty small numbers, btw, so please don't take these rankings too seriously. This is just a bit of fun.)

I also thought people might want to read some Halloween-themed fics from each of the above top 25 fandoms, so I highlighted works from each fandom that were complete and highly kudosed. If you're curious, the list includes this sort of info:

And I thought people might also appreciate Halloween-themed fics for different relationship categories (F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, xReader). Here's a screenshot of some of the fics in the relationship category list, if you're curious:

More information about how I created these lists below the cut.

Before we get there, could I interest you in taking a quick poll, since I am Blazing this post and curious about the audience Blaze reaches? Thanks -- and happy Halloween season! :)

The construction of these lists was definitely not an exact science. For each fandom or relationship category, I filtered to only show works with the "Halloween" tag. I then looked for complete fics in each fandom that appeared to actually be about Halloween or a spooky topic (based on their summary and/or a quick text search), and had a lot of kudos. (I didn't actually read these fanworks myself, though.) I also tried to diversify and make sure that each category included a variety of ships/fandoms. I ruled out collections of one-shots and things that appeared to be part of a long series such that they couldn't be read as a standalone. I also ruled out things that looked like incredible bummers, and honestly a few things that had major grammatical errors in the summaries.

But I linked to more in each case, so you don't have to visit the example fics I highlighted -- you can explore more on your own!

Also -- I did a lot of copy/pasting, and there may be errors in here. Feel free to let me know if you find any. Thanks, and enjoy!

[r0-boat]

MC naked & afraid featuring 7 idiots Headcannons

(What in hell is bad! survival Island headcannons)

Based off of my whb survival Island poll

Author's notes: I'm watching a documentary right now This shit made me laugh so hard imagining these demons becoming feral

It was supposed to be a cruise Mammon was testing out his new cruise ship but something horribly wrong happened where you and the seven kings were stranded on an island in the human world. Their powers unable to work for plot reasons.

They're not stuck forever They can go back home but a rescue team will take a month to arrive.

Satan

Satan somehow got a campfire running. He got so angry he lit the fire based off of pure anger. Because Leviathan was bullying him that he didn't know how to start a simple fire and asked him to hand over the sticks. Satan said "NO! FUCK YOU PUSSY BITCH I GOT IT!"

Satan is a really good hunter, like an exceptional hunter. And he quickly goes into his role. It's been 2 days and now He wears the pelt of his latest kill. Hey sharpens his own tools and he looks like a savage according to Leviathan.

Satan has gotten a thrill for the hunt and for some reason he keeps staring at you....

Mammon

For an hour he's been looking around this deserted island it is populated with native animals and foliage as well as fresh water. You know what he's thinking about... Turning this island into another one of his villas.

When he is not checking out this island as if he's trying to purchase real estate He's actually helping you with building a shelter. Tino's absolutely nothing about building shelters but he's glad to be your heavy muscles and tools for whenever you can't do something.

Following Satan His deconstruction of a civil man has begun but the only thing that really changed is his shirt came off that's it... Only because It got ripped when Satan and him had a fight.

Leviathan

He hates this he fucking hates this. Everyone's running around like headless chickens and he's the only competent devil (except for Lucifer)

He's been better... He was actually a lot worse when you first crashed on the island You had to actually calm him down from his panic attack and when he did finally calm down He has been clinging to you like his life depended on it. Using you as some kind of strange therapy. Becoming more possessive over you.

Anything you're doing he is doing with you no questions ask if anyone were to question it he will take a sharp rock and stab them right in the eye.

Beelzebub

As soon as you woke up in the sand Beelzebub. You wanted to search for him But the other kings we're not worried for him at all.

Before the sun goes down he does turn up with a stick sharpened into a spear and food. Beel is an exceptional hunter. He is the reason why All of you aren't starving. Beel can literally eat anything But that doesn't mean you and other devils can't. So if he tells you not to eat something don't need it.

Beel and Satan have some kind of dick measuring competition with killing and hunting prey. Satan comes back with a rabbit, Beel catches a wild boar, Satan comes back with a big fish, Beel comes back with a crocodile.

Lucifer

Oh my god finally a competent devil. Lucifer is the most important devil since he can heal injuries as well as sicknesses. Even though his magic isn't in effect he still knows a lot of natural plant remedies. He knows every plant species that God has made.

He looks at you with an odd look, while you follow his instructions closely on how to build a proper shelter.

He takes this chance to study you as if you were his science project every time you get a bump I scrape or scratch He studies you meticulously how your human body heals naturally slowly. His fingers delicately tracing each scar you've ever had.

Belphegor

Motherfucker is either asleep or jacking off while you guys do the work. He's so lucky to have all these hard workers working for him and with the shelter built he could finally... It's not comfortable...

He knows that you guys are doing your best and what not but damn sleeping on the ground sucks ass wipe. He wants to find natural soft moss or bedding just for a better sleep.

Because of Belphegor The shelter in looks more and more comfortable with his additions which he always adamantly reminds you. Every time you go in there's new shit added and it looks more like a nest then a shelter.

Asmodeus

Oh yeah the clothes are gone... Are you surprised? This demon has become full feral and he loves it. An island paradise for you and him and of the other 6 would like to join they're more than welcome to.

This uncivilized natural land spark something inside him that you don't want anything to do with.

After you literally threatened not to have sex with him for 2 months until he puts his clothes back on He decides to use leaves or vines instead now he just looks like PornHub Tarzan...

Bonus:

This devil is the king of lust, He has been eyeing this human potential mate for a while now...

The human bathing in the crystal pool catch a sight of him, They seem weary but content with his presence.

This is his chance The devil puffs out his chest showing off his horn it is a devil's way of showing strength and virility.

In his usual habitat He would be the undisputed king. But now his territory is shared. And another eyes his prey.

The human looks into the foliage before jumping back a splash of water fills his vision he hears warning hiss as his opponent comes in view a devil of envy, He has already laid claim to them and he will not back down.

Unlike his one horn this male has two, two against one is hardly fair but that doesn't mean he'll stand down without a fight.

Before these two demons can fight for this potential mate, the human screams "STOP FUCKING AROUND!! I'M TRYING TO BATHE GET OUT!!"

[bones4thecats]

What If Their S/O Was The Vice Of Ignihyde?

Type of Writing: #2 - Poll Result Characters: Jade Leech, Floyd Leech, Kalim Al-Asim, and Jamil Viper Name: What If Their S/O Was The Vice Of Ignihyde? Original Poll Link: Here

A/N: I'm dying while writing this🥲

✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅

✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅

🍄 He was interested in you from the start of your first year together

🍄 You were just so shy and reserved, it sprouted a new form of entertainment for him, and he'd be lying if he said your reactions to his teasing weren't enjoyable!

🍄 The first time he met you was because of when he needed to grab something for Azul and he walked inside the board-game club's room and found you messing around with Idia and laughing at Azul's concentration face

🍄 His heart fluttered unnaturally and he put on a plastered smile, while internally he was wondering what that feeling was, and he found out fast

🍄 When Jade asked you out, he chuckled as you tried hiding your face within your over-sized jacket

🍄 As you guys aged upon and into your second-year, he would joke around about how you really were made for one another, with you and him being far more extroverted than your housewardens, and how you both were the vices of your opposing dorms

🍄 Jade loves to walk into Ignihyde, prompting your fellow members to hide himself away from the intimidating eel-mer as you just hide yourself away as he carries you away

🍄 He calls you if there is an incident and they need some information on a certain person, and he uses his stance as your boyfriend to his advantage, and he also uses a few secrets that you guys have shared together against you

🍄 He's a pro-blackmailer like you are, and it makes Azul and Idia nervous, just how much do you guys have on them exactly?

✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅

✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅

🎭 Floyd, much like Jade, was interested in you from the very beginning of your time at Night Raven College

🎭 He met you because of a deal Azul wanted to propose to you, that being you would lend him some of your assistance with Mostro Lounge's mechanics while he gives you a form discount

🎭 This tweel was the one Azul sent to grab you, while he initially wanted Jade to, the fancy male stated how he needed to grab a few things of mushroom from the science room, claiming it might become a air-infesting poison if not taken out for an hour or so

🎭 So, unfortunately, he ordered Floyd to grab you, in which your future boyfriend giggled and began his peppy trip to Ignihyde, where you lead as the vice-housewarden

🎭 Many did not expect to see you guys hanging around one another afterwards, because of how introverted you were compared to his shameless and outgoing-self

🎭 But, when everyone in the college found out you both were an item, they freaked the hell out, especially Idia

🎭 Your housewarden was not fond of the tweels at all, they freaked him out more than crowded areas, and we all know how much those make him shiver...

🎭 Anyways, Floyd loves to kick down the mirror-gateway to your dorm when he's trying to hide from Azul and his work, and, because he knows his boss is going to go looking in his room, he goes to yours

🎭 And your room is being constantly monitored from cameras, in which you can make a small security system make the men chasing Floyd give up as soon as it comes out

🎭 Loves how cute you are when you blush, it's like a thing for Floyd, he just likes seeing you squeak and hide away as he tries pinching and pocking your tomato-colored cheeks while teases fly out of his mouth

✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅

✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅

☀️ Oh my, how much does this guy love you? It's beyond any kind of scale's listing, no matter the size of strength!

☀️ Kalim first met you because one of your fellow Ignihyde students were requested to help with setting up a mechanical device in Scarabia for a party Kalim was throwing

☀️ And, when that member got sick and couldn't leave his dorm, he sent Jamil a text, recommending you to replace him as he heals from his illness

☀️ Seeing you walk through the hot dorm with a heavy jacket on, despite the heat, he got interested and began to hop around you and ask you questions

" So, what's your name? Where are you from? What's it like helping Idia with managing that really cool dorm? Is it super cold in Ignihyde, and is that why you always wear that jacket? What do you want to do after graduation? How did you get to be so pretty-looking? "

☀️ Kalim did make you very nervous at first, but, after a few pep-talks with his good friend, Jamil, he got to understand exactly why you were so hidden with him

☀️ When you guys got together, it was basically the relationship troupe of opposite-attract, or in other words, the sun and the moon dynamic

☀️ Everybody in Scarabia adores watching you hide in your hoodie as Kalim compliments you, and Jamil likes how you're able to teach Kalim some things that even he deems complicated, like the makeup of a computer

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🐍 A reserved man with a reserved S/O, what a great mix

🐍 When you first were announced to be the vice-housewarden of Ignihyde, Jamil literally just though you were going to be as camera-shy as your housewarden was

🐍 When in reality, you were far more reserved and had a larger habit of isolating yourself from larger groups than anything else

🐍 He had to appreciate you after you joined forces with your newest friend, Yuu, and the Octavinelle Trio to help break him out of his overblot at the start of the year

🐍 Your knowledge is something that makes your boyfriend proud of you, he's not any easy person to lose in a conversation, yet, you somehow manage to do it when you bring technology into the mix

🐍 Jamil rarely ever smiles with genuine affection, but, when you start rambling about how amazing something that you made or found was, he found himself suppressing laughs as you glared at the piece of machinery you were working on

🐍 Due to his role as Kalim's overseer, Jamil rarely ever gets a break, but, when you noticed how is eyebags were just as bad as your housewarden's, Idia's, were, you jumped into action

🐍 You had made a small model of robots from a story that Kalim loved as a child, and still loves, into small figurines that he could literally wind up and watch the story go by

🐍 When he walked in and watched as Kalim sat silently and enjoyed the show, you just hugged him and said Kalim would be ready for bed in a few minutes, and you just nudged for him to clean the kitchen with your help before going to rest

🐍 Whenever your housewardens have something to do in a meeting, you both help them carry out their roles, so, you guys may get busy from time-to-time with that, but, you guys always make time for one another

[alltoomaples]

Speed of Science🧬💻💌

I'm dating a STEM girlie and you're not (F1 Edition)

a/n: and im baaaaaacccckkkkk (like anyone even missed me lmao) with the long overdue request! life of a postgrad StEm girlie here and the struggle is really realll af. but besides that, I'm writing this down as a headcanon for the drivers requested on this poll i had posted long back here. I've always wondered how there's soo minimal povs/ocs where they are a scientific researcher, analyst, etc. sooo i dedicate this one to all the STEM F1 girlies out theree <33

alsoo quick shoutout to my girlieee @smoooothoperator for inspiring and motivating me to get back at writing!🥹🫶🏼 check out her lastest ongoing work 'What Was I Made For? ' its amazing and thats a FACT!! do check her works! its absolutely amazing❤️

check out my works: until i found you masterlist | other works

Scientific Art Illustrator - Charles Leclerc

As a Scientific Art Illustrator, you specialize in creating visually captivating and scientifically accurate illustrations that depict complex biological, astronomical, or technological subjects.

Charles first discovered you through your works at an exhibition where their stunning illustrations of Formula 1 cars caught his eye. Impressed by their attention to detail and artistic talent, they struck up a conversation about their mutual love for precision and creativity.

During a peaceful weekend afternoon, Charles suggests a spontaneous visit to a local art supply store. Excitedly exploring aisles stocked with vibrant paints, fine brushes, and specialized papers, the two of you engage in discussions about artistic techniques and innovative tools. Amidst laughter and shared enthusiasm for creativity, you bond over your mutual appreciation for the intricacies of art and science, making the afternoon a cherished memory of their shared passions.

After being away from home during race season, Charles always finds a framed series of sketches by you for the races you couldn't make it, capturing his most memorable racing moments. Each sketch is intricately detailed, depicting not only the speed and intensity of the races but also the emotions and determination etched on Charles' face. Touched by the thoughtful gesture, Charles hangs the sketches in his study, a constant reminder of your support and admiration for his passion.

...

Data Scientist - Lando Norris

A Data Scientist specializes in analyzing large volumes of data using statistical methods and machine learning techniques to extract insights and make data-driven decisions.

You and Lando first connected through a mutual fascination with racing data at a technology symposium focused on sports analytics. Your presentation on advanced predictive modelling in motorsports caught Lando's attention for its innovative approach to enhancing race strategies.

During a cosy evening at home, Lando playfully challenges you to a friendly data analysis competition using real-time telemetry from previous races. Their banter and shared excitement over dissecting racing data create a lighthearted and memorable bonding experience.

You two would watch old races and analyze historical racing data together, playfully debating optimal pit stop strategies and analyzing driver performance trends, their shared passion for racing and data fostering a deep connection and mutual admiration.

...

Oceanographer/Marine Biologist - Oscar Piastri

An Oceanographer or Marine Biologist studies marine life, ecosystems, and ocean processes to understand and protect marine environments and resources.

You and Oscar crossed paths during a research expedition to study coral reefs in a remote location. Your expertise in marine biology and passion for conservation impressed Oscar, sparking their connection.

Amidst the hectic F1 season, Oscar surprises you with a weekend getaway to a coastal retreat, where they explore tide pools and participate in a beach cleanup together, reaffirming their commitment to environmental stewardship.

You gave Oscar a custom-made charm bracelet featuring miniature charms of marine animals they've discussed during their beach walks and conservation talks. Each charm represents a meaningful moment in their relationship, from their first discussion about oceanography to their shared admiration for marine life. Oscar wears the bracelet during race weekends as a reminder of you and all the love and support you give, both on and off the track.

...

Mechanical Engineer - Daniel Riccardo

You are a passionate Mechanical Engineer, specializing in advanced automotive design and performance optimization.

Daniel first encountered you at a technical conference organized by one of the team sponsors where you presented groundbreaking research on aerodynamic innovations that caught his attention.

Often, while you meticulously draft engineering schematics at their home office, he makes sure that you have your "engineering emergency kit" beside your workstation, which is a tray of snacks and their favourite coffee – ensuring they're fueled for their late-night brainstorming sessions. For when he's away for races, he stacks them up with small cute notes.

Before Daniel heads to a crucial race, you surprise him with a meticulously crafted miniature replica of his race car, complete with detailed decals and a personalized message of encouragement engraved on the base. Touched by the thoughtful gesture, Daniel proudly displays it in his motorhome, a reminder of the reader's unwavering support both on and off the track.

...

Statistician - George Russell

A Statistician specializes in collecting, analyzing, and interpreting numerical data to help organizations and individuals make informed decisions.

You and Russell first crossed paths during a university seminar on advanced statistical modeling in sports. Your insightful analysis of Formula 1 race data caught George's attention, sparking a lively discussion that led to mutual admiration for each other's analytical skills and shared passion for racing statistics.

During a particularly demanding race weekend, the reader surprises George with a meticulously prepared statistical analysis report highlighting his strengths and areas for improvement based on recent race data. This thoughtful gesture boosts George's confidence and motivation, showing the reader's support in his pursuit of excellence.

During a weekend getaway, you guys stumble upon a local go-kart track. George, always up for a challenge, suggests they have a friendly race. Knowing George's competitive spirit, you secretly calculate his optimal strategy and surprise him by winning with a perfectly executed last-minute overtaking maneuver. George is impressed by the your strategic thinking and playfulness, and they share a lighthearted and joyous moment celebrating their shared love for racing and friendly competition.

...

Astrophysicist - Logan Sargeant

An Astrophysicist studies the physical properties, behavior, and evolution of celestial objects such as stars, planets, galaxies, and the universe as a whole, using principles of physics and astronomy.

Logan and you first crossed paths during an expedition to study a rare astronomical event—a comet passing close to Earth. Both passionate about astrophysics, you found yourselves sharing a telescope at a remote observatory, marveling at the comet's beauty and discussing its celestial significance late into the night. Their shared awe and intellectual connection sparked a mutual admiration that grew into a deep bond over their shared passion for exploring the wonders of the cosmos.

During a quiet evening at home, Logan excitedly shows you a new telescope he acquired for stargazing during race weekends, expressing his eagerness to learn more about the cosmos together and sharing their enthusiasm for both racing and astrophysics in equal measure.

Before a critical race weekend, the reader surprises Logan with a personalized star chart that maps out the night sky above the upcoming race venue during the race weekend. Each star on the chart is marked with a heartfelt message of encouragement, reminding Logan of their unwavering support and belief in his abilities on and off the track. Touched by the thoughtful gesture, Logan treasures the star chart as a symbol of the reader's love and encouragement throughout his racing career.

...

Climate Scientist - Lance Stroll

A Climate Scientist studies climate patterns, environmental changes, and their impacts on Earth's ecosystems, using data analysis and modeling to understand and address global climate challenges.

Lance crossed paths with you at an eco-friendly racing event where Lance was advocating for sustainable practices in motorsport. Being a respected climate scientist, you caught Lance's attention with your insightful presentation on the environmental impact of racing and innovative solutions for reducing carbon footprints in the sport. Their shared passion for sustainability sparked an immediate connection and admiration for each other's dedication to making a positive impact on the environment.

One weekend, Lance surprises you with a homemade dinner featuring sustainably sourced ingredients, proudly showcasing his culinary skills while discussing ways to reduce your carbon footprint. His earnest commitment to sustainability and your shared vision for a healthier planet melts your heart, making this a cherished moment you both treasure.

You, being deeply involved in climate science, often spends late nights analyzing data or writing research papers. One evening, Lance bring him a cozy blanket and a mug of your favorite hot beverage, quietly sitting beside him as he works. You look up from your laptop, touched by his thoughtfulness, and pulls him into a warm embrace, grateful for his unwavering support and understanding of your demanding but vital work.

...

taglist: @lndonrris @thatgirlmj @lwstuff @dannyramirezwife-f1dump @moonypixel tysm for your suggestions! apologies on taking this long to write😅🫶🏼

a/n: hope y'all enjoyed reading this! this was my first time writing a headcanon and for f1 drivers beside charles and lando so hope i did justice to all.

i'm being wanting to read some good domestic bliss, sweet, adorable and lovey dovey blurbs, fics of lando (i talked abt it here) soo maybe i'll work on some drafts at some point cause i'm currently in the middle of project work of my masters degree soo don't know when i'll be posting soo until next time, see yaaa and going back to read mode 👋💓✨️

check out my works: until i found you masterlist | other works

[vintagetvstars]

Alan Alda Vs. Robin Williams

Propaganda

Alan Alda - (M*A*S*H) - He is both the saddest wettest little meow meow and your kindly grandfather and your favourite eccentric uncle (mom's side). Somehow it works. Passionate Democrat, feminist, great writer, he and his books are hilarious. Did a cartwheel when he won an Emmy! How he met his wife is the best meet cute of the last two centuries, and they've now been married over 60 years!!!

Robin Williams - (Mork & Mindy) - Mork & Mindy will forever be iconic. Robin Williams is such a gem on this show! Nanu Nanu <3

- No Negative Propaganda Please -

Master Poll List | How to submit propaganda | What is vintage? (FAQ)

Additional propaganda below the cut

Alan Alda:

he’s just so good in MASH

he put so much bisexuality into hawkeye i think it fundamentally changed me when i was little and watching mash for the first time. anyway do we all know the story about how he met his wife when they were at a party together and they were the only two people eating the cake that fell on the floor and he fell in love with her over her laugh. i just think hes neat :) i love when theres a strange looking man. also feel it necessary to say that the guy that wrote the book mash was based on wrote himself as hawkeye and HATED alda's hawkeye bc he displayed his morals too much (alda had it in his contract for the show that every episode had to have an operating room scene bc otherwise you arent backdropping the fact that war is Not fun. actually. he almost didnt take the role bc he thought a war comedy would make too much light of the horrors)

please please please use this picture of him, he's so hot in it

His comedic delivery in MASH...

The story of how he met his wife is charming and sweet, and they've now been married 65 years

Just look at him. He's the most beautiful man I've ever seen but also he's completely average. He's got a weak jawlines and a round face and these big soft eyes and he's just so beautiful. He's capable of playing a silly charismatic sitcom protagonist in one scene, and a jaded army surgeon haunted by the deaths he's witnessed in the next. He's so hot that my dad once told me he decided to apply to medical school because of how much he was attracted to Hawkeye Pierce. That's literally how I learned that my father was bisexual.

He's also just a really great dude? He's been outspoken about his political beliefs for a long time, and has always been strongly and vocally anti-war, pro-feminist, and pro lgbt. He served a tour in the Korean war, and his experiences there informed his performance in the show. He (and honestly the entire cast, but especially him) really just soared above and beyond the standard for comedies of the day.

He's so funny and his eyes are pretty

He loves and is a champion of science (Source).

Robin Williams:

[warrioreowynofrohan]

This is one of the best articles I’ve seen yet on Trump, Trumpism, and the upcoming election. It’s directed at the right and centre-right (whereas most tumblr posts on this are directed at the left), but it’s saying – with detailed analysis and evidence – exactly what needs to be said, to everyone. This is not a normal election. How you vote this November determines whether you ever get the chance to vote in a democratic election again. This is not a game. Fascism is not a buzzword or a rhetorical device to hurl at anyone and everyone you disagree with. It is real, it is dangerous, and Trump is openly running on a fascist platform.

There are only two sides in this election: those who want the United States to be a fascist dictatorship and those who do not.

I live in Canada. I do not want to live next to a fascist state (especially since the Comservatives here are way ahead in the polls and their leader gives every sign of wanting to cozy up to Trump).

Please, stop this while you still have a chance.

Today we’re going to look at definitions of fascism and ask the question – you may have guessed – if Donald Trump is running for President as a fascist. Worry not, this isn’t me shifting to full-time political pundit, nor is this the formal end of the hiatus (which will happen on Nov 1, when I hope to have a post answering some history questions from the ACOUP Senate to start off on), but this was an essay I had in me that I had to get out, and working on the book I haven’t the time to get it out in any other forum but this one. And I’ll be frank, some of Donald Trump’s recent statements and promises have raised the urgency of writing this; the political science suggests that politicians do, broadly, attempt to do the things they promise to do – and the things Trump is promising are dark indeed.

Now I want to be clear what we’re doing here. I am not asking if the Republican Party is fascist (I think, broadly speaking, it isn’t) and certainly not if you are fascist (I certainly hope not). But I want to employ the concept of fascism as an ideology with more precision than its normal use (‘thing I don’t like’) and in that context ask if Donald Trump fits the definition of a fascist based on his own statements and if so, what does that mean. And I want to do it in a long-form context where we can get beyond slogans or tweet-length arguments and into some detail.

Now the response from some folks is going to be anger that I am even asking this question and demands for me to ‘stay in my lane.’ To which I must remind them that the purpose of history and historians is, as Thucydides put it, is to offer “an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human affairs must resemble if it does not reflect it” (Thuc. 1.22.4). This is my lane. Goodness knows, I’d much rather be discussing the historical implications of tax policy or long-term interstate strategy, but that isn’t the election we’re having. And if hearing about these things that happened is unpleasant, well, Polybius offers the solution: “men have no more ready corrective of conduct than knowledge of the past” (Plb. 1.1.1). We must correct our conduct.

The author, Bret Devereaux, lays out the history of the rise to power of Hitler and Mussolini and draws out the lessons

What I want to note here are two key commonalities: First, fascists were only able to take power because of the gullibility of those who thought they could ‘use’ the fascists against some other enemy (usually communists). Traditional conservative politicians (your Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham types) and conservative business leaders (your Elon Musks) fooled themselves into believing that, because the would-be tyrant seemed foolish, buffoonish, and uneducated that such an individual could be controlled to their ends, shaped in more productive, more ‘moderate,’ more ‘business friendly’ directions. They were wrong; many of them paid for their foolish error with their lives (Victor Emmanuel III paid for it with his crown). Mussolini and Hitler would not be ‘shaped,’ – they would be exactly the violent, tyrannical dictators they had promised to be – to the total and utter ruin of their countries.

Note that these men were not exactly subtle about what they wanted to do. Mein Kampf is not a subtle book. But they both knew how to promise violence to their followers while prevaricating to their temporary allies; be wary of the fascist who promises violence in his rally speeches but assures you that, if you just give him power, he won’t hurt anyone (except the people you don’t like) – because it is a lie, of course.

Second: once these fascist leaders were in power it was already too late to stop them. Precisely because fascists had no respect for democratic processes and the rule of law – things they had declared openly in seeking power – once in power, they were unconstrained by them and swiftly set about converting all of the powers of the government into a machine to keep them in power. And the conversion from democracy to dictatorship was remarkably swift, in Italy, Mussolini marched in October of ’22, rewrote the election rules in November of ’23 and by December of ’24 had effectively dropped even the pretense of democracy; just two years. Hitler was faster: appointed chancellor in January 1933, by March of that year he had suspended constitutional protections and ruled by fiat; just three months.

The time to stop an authoritarian takeover of a democratic system is before the authoritarian is in office, because once they are in power, they will use that power, to stay in power and it becomes almost impossible to remove them without considerable violence (and difficult to do even with considerable violence).

That, however, creates a tricky situation. With most political ideologies, voters can adopt a strategy of judging by outputs: “if you don’t like the current government’s policies, let these other fellows here have a go at it and see if they do better. If not, you can always vote them out next time.” But with fascists and other authoritarians there may not be a next time and this strategy fails: by the time the actions of the fascists make it clear they are dangerous, it is too late to vote them out.

This is why it is important to listen carefully to what fascists say and what they promise and most importantly to take their threats of political violence and authoritarianism seriously.

Which is not to say that everything on the right is fascism (just as not everything on the left is its own authoritarian variant, communism). Ronald Reagan was not a fascist, nor was George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney. They were conservatives within the liberal tradition (again, ‘liberal’ here in the old Jefferson-Locke-and-Washington sense). Most Republicans today are not fascists, although a distressing number appear ready to repeat Franz von Papen’s mistake of assuming they can achieve their goals through an alliance with fascists. Only the devil wins such a devil’s bargain.

How is one to tell the difference? Listen to the things they promise to do and understand that they make speak out of both sides of their mouth: promising violence to one audience and then toning down their rhetoric to another. But politicians speaking from within the tradition of liberty don’t need to speak that way because they don’t promise violence in the first place.

Listen for the promises of violence, the promises to suspend press freedoms, the promises to persecute political adversaries and when you hear them believe them.

I strongly recommend reading the whole article, as the author goes on to lay out two of the more common definitions of fascism and analyze, point-by-point, how Trumpism fits them.

There is a reason why some Republicans, even some of the people who were in Trump’s inner circle in 2016-2020, have jumped ship now. The Republicans who are willing to vote for Kamala aren’t doing it because she’s conservative – they’re doing it because they’re anti-fascist. It would be deeply ironic if people on the left who have been calling themselves anti-fascists for the last eight years proved to be less so than those Republicans. This may be one of the most crucial moments in American history. Take it seriously.

[i-care-bout-things-too]

Batfam Ages:

Okay, there is no such thing as an exact science when determining the ages of the Batfam, but the easiest thing you can do is work of the concrete ages that you /do/ know, and make them fit with canon events to the best of your ability. Now, canon changes all the time—which definitely makes this a challenge, but I’m going to just explain my process for determining their ages and you can disagree if you’d like, or you can use this to write fic like I do where ages are semi important,

Let’s begin. I’m going to give you the arbitrary number of 15, this will be important later.

Dick Grayson:

Depending on the canon, Dick is 8, 10, 12, or 15 when his parents die. All of these numbers will have problems depending on which you pick, but I go for the safe bet of 10 years old. Why? Well, a little known fact is that Dick ends up in juvie after his parents die, and he’s not immediately taken in by Batman. Thus, it takes a little while longer for him to become Robin, which doesn’t immediately happen after he becomes Bruce’s ward anyway, because Batman doesn’t immediately go and spill the beans. Thus, Dick ends up in Bruce’s car at around ten or eleven, but doesn’t become Robin until he’s 12.

Now Dick is Robin up until he’s about 18, when Bruce takes Robin from Dick because it’s too dangerous and Dick refuses to quit. Dick joins up with the teen titans full time, and he’s still Robin for a little while longer until we get Nightwing, aka Discowing, for the very first time at age 19. Simultaneously, while this is happening, a little kid is stealing the Batmobile’s tires.

Jason Todd:

Our beloved street rat Robin, Jason Todd, swings a tire iron at Batman and then gets taken out for fast food. It’s great, it’s cute, it doesn’t immediately lead to his adoption though, either. No, instead Jason ends up in an orphanage that is trafficking children. Bruce shows up one day to check up on Jason, and is made aware of this by his soon to be first adopted son (yeah, you heard me, Dick isn’t adopted yet). They take down the trafficking ring, and Bruce adopts Jason. Jason then becomes Robin at age 13.

Unfortunately for our boy, he was widely disliked by comic fans across North America, DC did a little telephone poll, and by a few hundred votes, DC changed comic history forever by killing off a high profile character what seems like /permanently/ for the first time ever. No resurrections this time. (Hah, right!). Which is to say, Jason Todd has the second shortest run as Robin at just two years, dying at age 15.

Tim Drake:

So then we get Robin numero 3. Tim Drake sees Batman getting darker and more violent and goes y’know, someone should do something about that. He tries talking to Nightwing, but he’s in a bad place with Bruce after learning Jason died via a Newspaper (yeah, Bruce sucks for that one), and tells Tim he won’t be going back to Robin. Thus, lil Timmy Drake gets an idea in his head. He looks himself in the mirror and goes, I can fix him, and then, Tim Drake becomes Robin at age 12.

Tim Drake has one of the longest runs as Robin, with only a mild interruption from a lil blond Bat.

Stephanie Brown:

Stephanie Brown starts off as the vigilante Spoiler, whose whole purpose in life is to spoil the plans of her C-list villain dad, Cluemaster. She meets Robin (Tim), hits him in the face with a brick, and then ends up dating him. Unlike most characters who appear a few times and never come back, Stephanie manages to stick around. She gets pregnant at age 15 (it’s not Tim’s, and no she did not cheat, this happened priorly), she gives birth, the baby is put up for adoption, and she becomes Robin after Tim’s dad, Jack Drake, finds out Tim is Robin and bans him from it. Tim is forced to quit and Stephanie picks up the mantle. She’s clocks in the shortest run as Robin, working with Batman for about two months before Bruce forces her to stop. Tim picks up the mantle again, and Steph goes back to being Spoiler—only to get killed by Black Mask, making her the second “Robin” to die. DC does retcon her death, and we later learn she was only badly beaten and sent off to live in a foreign country before she makes her return.

Jason Todd, Again:

While all this is going on, stuff is happening behind the scenes. Namely, Jason coming back to life. A common misconception here however is how long Jason was actually dead. While I wouldn’t be able to find the panels to confirm it, the true number is a “short” 6 months. Yep, while years passed in the real world, possibly decades, actually, Jason was dead all of 6 months. According to the books, he undigs himself from his grave six feet under (because Superboy punched through the multiverse or something?) and ends up wondering around Gotham as a mindless little zombie. Conveniently, Talia al Ghul stumbles upon her beloved’s lost little bird, and she decides to take him home and train him. He’s with them for a bit, gets dunked into a Lazarus pit, comes back very very angry, is shipped off to the all caste for a bit, and upon his return to the al Ghuls, is informed he’s been replaced by little Timmy Drake.

Jason makes his whole plan, and decides to make a splash by returning to Gotham wearing an old moniker of the Joker’s and taking over Gotham’s underworld. He beheads a few criminals, tries to kill Tim, tries to get Bruce to kill the Joker, and doesn’t really have success in those latter two objectives. That puts Jason at age 19, roughly. We don’t really know how to count the months he was dead.

Damian Wayne:

Shortly after Jason’s unmasking as the Red Hood, Damian Wayne turns 10 years old and beats his mother, Talia al Ghul, in combat. His prize is to be taken to his father and given to him for training. We know definitively that Damian is 10 thanks to this we can measure out the age gaps between the others and get their ages at this point in time. Dick at age 19 became Nightwing, while Jason is made Robin at age 13, so they have a six year age gap. Jason dying 2 years later at age 15 leads to Tim becoming Robin at age 12, they have a 3 year age gap. Tim is Robin for 3 years before Jason comes back and Damian trails after him a few months behind, putting Tim at around 16/17 while Damian is 10. I tend towards 16 instead of 17 because DC stopped aging Tim for a while, so it just makes more sense to pick the lower number. Thus, when Damian is 10, Tim is 16 as is Steph, Jason is 19, and Dick is 25.

Thanks to Damian being quite young, DC has kept an active track of how and when they age him. We know Damian is only with Bruce a few short months before he disappears into the time stream and Dick makes him Robin, and we also know that Damian’s 11th birthday is celebrated after Bruce is reinstated to the proper time. However, DC follows this up by killing Damian and making him the third Robin to die, the second to do so in the suit itself, and he’s dead for a significant number of months. In this time, Dick also dies—as in his heart is stopped by Lex Luthor for a few seconds, and then restarted, after his identity is revealed on live TV. Bruce decides to let the world believe Nightwing died and stayed dead, and Dick is sent off to Spyral to do secret spy stuff for Bruce. There is an issue around here in the “Grayson” run that claims Dick is twenty-one years old, which is ENTIRELY incompatible with the time line I just painstakingly established, and I go ahead and outright dismiss it because it clearly doesn’t work with a majority of canon. While Dick is with Spyral, Damian is brought back to life, and he goes on a year of redemption (which doesn’t actually last a whole year, but I digress). He and Dick meet again, and we move into Rebirth somewhere around here with the conclusion of Spyral and Batman and Robin Eternal.

General Events:

Damian turns 12 presumably sometime during rebirth, although not specified, I do believe Truth and Justice issue #6 to be his 12th or 13th birthday, but I lean towards 12 because of the costumes everyone wears in the issue. Steph is spoiler, Cass is Orphan, Tim is Red Robin, Red Hood has yet to don his solo Outlaw uniform, and Barbara is Batgirl.

I can’t name a specific issue for Damian’s 13th birthday, but it’s canonical that Damian turned 14 in his solo Robin series, Robin (2021) while he was off finding himself before the Lazarus Tournament, and since then, there’s been the Shadow War, Batman Vs Robin, Dark Crisis event somewhere around there, the Lazarus Planet event, Gotham War, DC Knight Terrors, and Beast World event, which catches us up to the modern day world.

Since Damian hasn’t yet turned 15 despite ALL of that going on, and is still for now at least, 14, that means Tim and Steph are 20, Jason is 23, and Dick is 29.

I know I mentioned Cass and Babs, and I would love to give you a proper age for them but I don’t know where to place them in DC canon like I do the others, however people do commonly place Cass roughly around the same age as Jason making her 22 or 23, and Babs tends towards being 6-8 years older than Dick, although that is an age gap DC has been slowly bridging over the years. Still, I put her at 35 years old. I don’t have a reference for Duke Thomas either, but he’s commonly placed as being two years younger than Tim making him 18 currently.

Lastly, I bring back the arbitrary number of 15, given that that is the number of years that separate Dick and Damian, I also use that age gap between Dick and Bruce—meaning that Bruce took Dick in when he was 25, and placing Bruce at 44 years old in main continuity.

Overall Ages Currently:

Bruce Wayne: 44

Barbara Gordon: 35

Dick Grayson: 29

Jason Todd: 23

Cassandra Cain: 22

Tim Drake: 20

Stephanie Brown: 20

Duke Thomas: 18

Damian Wayne: 14

[under-loch-n-key]

Hi everyone. Obviously everyone has seen the news and read the polls and obviously you can tell that we’re likely cooked.

For some reason our country wants to elect the Mango Menace and his gaggle of orange stained goons once again.

I am terrified for myself, my loved ones, my country, our climate, and just everything.

However, I’d like to tell the LGBTQIA+ community these things because I know we are terrified right now.

What happened today, it’s devastating. It angers me too. Some of my closest family voted for that horrible man. I don’t think I can look at them the same way anymore. Especially, when they hold no guilt or remorse about it even after I explained his policies to them. What do I know, I guess.. 🤷🏻‍♂️🙄

However, as a queer, trans man in this little community, I want ALL of the LGBTQIA+ people who will see this post to know that things will be alright. We all have each other. We know we exist here in the states even if none of us have met. We EXIST.

Just because those orange stained dunderheads want to silence us doesn't change the fact that we exist. We do. We always will. Bigotry cannot fight facts and science. We'll always exist. The only time trans people won't exist is when the human race dies out. Even then, we have other animal species that are queer and trans. No matter what, we will always exist in nature. They cannot change that. They cannot take that from us. Do not lose hope. Even though it's really fucking hard not to.

Do not lose it. The fact that you and I exist is a beacon of hope to another trans and queer person. We exist. None of us want to be left here alone. So we must go on. We must continue to exist. Things WILL be okay. I'll always keep fighting and living for you and every one of my trans and queer brothers, sisters, and siblings.

You existing and simply being here is a beacon of hope to me. Someone who has understands how I'm feeling. Someone who is LIKE me but so different at the same time.

In the grand scheme of the universe, we are very small. However, even though it's small, the fact is that it EXISTS. It's so fucking small in this big void of the cosmos but we're here. We're made of similar components as stars, ones that had to die for us to exist.

I like to think of the sky as when humanity was truly equal. When we were just atoms in the big ol' void, ya know? We didn't fight. We didn't give a shit about all of this stuff. We were allll different types of stars and matter. We were all random as hell, but we just WERE. We coexisted peacefully together in the universe.

Now that those stars are dead as a door nail and some dumb fishy bastard decided to get curious and walk on land, we're all human. Humanity fucking sucks ass sometimes but it's also such a beautiful fucking thing. No matter what happens, a part of us will always exist.

Our existence is embedded in the universe. Nothing can change that. So, please keep living. Be safe, but keep living. Always keep fighting. We belong here just like anyone else.

You belong. You are loved. You are cherished. You are noticed by me and other people here. We all understand each other. So keep going. Again, one day we will all have a better tomorrow. I swear to fucking god or whatever the hell is out there, if anything, however it's unlikely, I will ALWAYS keep fighting for you and WITH you.

Every protest l attend. Every petition I sign. Every time I vote. Every time I go to pride. Every time l simply leave my home as I am. I am doing it for you and all of us. Our people WILL have our damn tomorrow. I'm sick of us not having it. I swear to you we will. So, again, please keep going. Keep fighting. Keep living. Exist. Your existence may be a threat to some bigoted fucker but your existence is precious to someone else. Please do not let them take your right to exist away from you. Keep going.

We’ll have a better tomorrow, the one that we deserve eventually, but we just need get through the hard, bumpy, dirty road first.

Again, we will be okay. Everything will be okay. We’ll get through it. Yes, unfortunately, we will likely see suicide rates and hate crime rates go up and that's disgusting and just all types of awful and depressing. It angers me beyond words.

However, we are strong.

We shouldn't have to be strong though.

What we should be and need to be is loved, accepted, warm, fed, have shelter, and are safe.

For now though, we remain strong. You will always have a place here.

You will live. You will not die, hun. I know the thought creeps in and believe me, I understand. Those thoughts creep in for me too, but we must learn to try to control them. If there's anything I know about us trans and queer folk it's that we're strong, feisty, kind, very sexy, and cheeky as hell. So, if we live, we live because it's our damn right and to be spiteful. We do not owe the people who want to harm us our lives. We just don't. We deserve healthcare. We deserve to love and get married.

We deserve to grow old.

You will grow old. You will be able to go on those trips you've always wanted. You will be able to have that cheesy romance you've always wanted, if you are someone who is wanting a relationship.

You'll be able to sit down and watch your favourite movie. Why? Because you stayed. You didn't give up. Ever. We will always exist.

We will ALWAYS live.

Being transgender has existed before humans even walked this earth and it will still exist when all of us book our holy bus tickets and the blessed holy tax collector comes to collect our debted souls. No matter what, we will live on. They can silence us all they want and erase whatever the fuck they want but that doesn't mean that it's the truth. We're HERE.

We've been here since forever ago. Those Cheeto dusted dunderheads cannot change that. Like I told another person here, other animals and even plants are trans and queer! We've always been here. That won't change, hun.

Everything WILL be okay. We'll always survive and live on. Look at how far we've come in these past years. Many of us thought that we'd be gone already but here we are, two trans people typing away in comment sections on an app where middle age men get off to octopus porn and neko ladies in Japanese school girl outfits because men. and welcome to the internet, I guess. Lmao.

Everything will work out on way or another. We'll have our tomorrow, hun. For now, we gotta buckle down because we're in for a bumpy ride but hey, thankfully on bumpy you have those moments where ya hit the bump just right and you're like

"WOAH, HELLO!- mister bump, you better watch yourself, you saucy boy~ You can't be doin' that. You better take me to dinner first." Lmao. Okay, on a more serious note, we just gotta buckle down together and get through this bumpy ass dirt road because after awhile you make it through that rocky dirt road in the woods and come out to feel smooth pavement again. It'll be alright. We just need to band together and make it through. We all are always stronger together. You're not alone, my friends.

You're talkin' to a guy who has the personality of a gay muppet with a big mouth. I'm shocked nothin’ has happened to me yet with my yappy ass screeching and getting over 80+ gay people to start baa-ing like sheep at a bigot at last year's pride event, but that's a wholeeeee different situation.

My point is, we'll be okay. We'll make it through.

You'll survive. You have me. You have everyoneeeee here and on other social forums. Sure, it's not the same as in-person interactions but it's somethin'. It’s better than nothing I guess. If we’ve gotta go stealth mode eventually and make secret groups for us trans and queer folk, then so be it.

Just do whatever you feel you need to do to keep yourselves safe.

We'll have a better tomorrow. We just need to keep pushing through this rough shit. We'll get out of the woods and onto smooth pavement with open skies eventually.

Continue to exist. Fight. Be safe, but live. Live for yourself, fellow trans people, and simply for spite.

Fuck bigots. Not actually though. Like DON'T fuck them. Who knows where they've been. But fuck them. They're not worth your life. Their bigotry is not worth your life. Live because it's your right.

Those guys are all so far up Donald Trump’s ass he fired his doctor and hired his supporters to give him a colonoscopy.

So, live long. Live for love and live for spite, my friends. We'll get through this.

It’s Trump 2: Electric Boogaloo. SPOILER: The first movie sucked too. They even tried to make a third one — Mango Menace Strikes Back! We didn’t want to come to the theatre to see the second one but it was a class field trip that most of America signed for us. So, we’ve allll got no choice but to go on the trip to the cinema.

Anyways, things will be okay. We’ll make it through. We’ll out get it figured out. We always do. We’ll take care of each other. Everything will be alright. 🤙🏼💛⚧️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️✨

(Sorry for typos and repetitive speech- it’s 4:14 a.m. EST. 😭😭)

[randomfoggytiger]

React: A Late-Canon Reviler Gives the Revival a Try (My Struggle I), Part I

For David Duchovny’s birthday, I put out a poll asking Tumblr which of his projects I should watch for the first time. 

The Revival won. Welp. 

I then, fool that I am, put up another poll wherein I doomed myself by including an option to watch the whole thing. 

And here we are. 

My Struggle I. 

Oh, boy. 

This post will be long because I'm laying the groundwork for the rest of the series.

MY MODUS OPERANDI

I don’t care how cute or cuddly or happy or heartfelt individual MSR moments are, popcorn will be thrown if those scenes are achieved through incomplete, inane, or nonsensical plot points. Give me 1+1=2 or give me death.

The Revival is part of a whole that includes all of Seasons 1-9 and Fight the Future and I Want to Believe. As much as I prefer to distance this series from canon, the reality that it functions as a direct follow-up remains; and it needs to be judged accordingly.

And, as always, I separate the art from the artist~.

...WELP. It’s time to face my doom. 

Let's go!

MY STRUGGLE IV

The intro’s… fine. Engaging, even. 

I did notice, though: the last series and Fight the Future and I Want to Believe began with the same formula: glimpses from what will be an x-files case, then straight to Scully’s perspective. Usually Mulder’s narration and POV didn’t feature until the tail-end of a two or three parter, i.e. Redux or Amor Fati or… well, even then, it was juxtaposed against Scully’s. 

Scully was the voice of The X-Files-- even Chris Carter noted that her report of each episode’s casefile became a motif of the show. Mulder’s narration was rare, very rare, even in episodes that were written to focus on him. 

A definite and purposed choice, to be sure. Mulder as an active agent in his own story. …OR a story that focuses on Mulder’s voice instead of Scully’s. 

We shall see. 

The intro continues; and it’s still engaging, possibly gripping (too bad I know where this leads)... but the music got a bit LOTR there. Is that just me? Seems… mellow, orchestral, a little more fantasy than sci-fi. Am I nitpicking? Maybe. 

The BIBLE references UFOs?? Lol, no. (Unless you count the objects described in Revelations-- the book, not the episode-- but even then, those are largely considered to be drones, not UFOs.)

Chris Carter, I see you. 

(Note from the future: NOW I see why the Bible bit was included-- lots of heavy-handed "God means this, Scully" in order to get her on-board to join the files. Ugh.)

…They’re really doubling down on the UFO lore, huh. All of which evaporated because of global warming, I guess. 

GUYS, why couldn’t this have been about life on Earth after Colonization?????

It fits with the disaster footage, it fits with Mulder’s voiceover, it fits with the character progression from Season 9 (I GUESS), it fits with a whooooooooooole ton of other factors. 

I’ve never been one for wanting Colonization in canon, but it literally would have worked for this series. There wouldn't need to be a complete wipeout of humanity, maybe just a “disaster happened, but the humans are fighting back” scenario. 

And that would fit with Mulder and Scully’s "breakup", PERHAPS-- they spent so much time working, trying to save the world (she in science, he on the ground or with untainted factions who coalitioned post-Colonization) that their relationship cracks would need to be actively worked through. Not broken up so much as together and repairing.

It would also help CC and co. to avoid the tempest of modern US politics and the more mainstream conspiracies that were taking hold at that time-- a broader reach to all audiences, a "bigger picture" for everyone to unite under.

(Guys, they should have let me write for this show. …I take it back, I’d have quit after three days.) 

Also: The show writers spent all their brain power on this sequence and this sequence alone, didn’t they? 

Obiwan Kenobi and Military Man are going on a bus somewhere.  

...On closer inspection, neither man looks like anything like Obiwan Kenobi, but the nickname is staying.

We’re back to Scully at a hospital-- not unlike I Want to Believe’s opening.

Skinner called? Oh. Didn’t know he was “here” this early. 

WAIT. 

Wait, wait, wait. 

Scully just called up Mulder like nothing’s a big deal? He answered like nothing’s a big deal? She’s smiling over his joke from the get-go?

…And we’re supposed to believe they’re seriously broken up. Which the show will insist is the case. 

David and Gillian really said, “Script? What script?” and did what they wanted. I salute them. 

Also, “What’s happening out there, Scully?” is a great line to point to Mulder’s continued isolation… which the series will IMMEDIATELY toss aside because he’s, apparently, not been as much of a hermit lately? (Granted, this could be a joke at his own expense because he’s no longer claimed by ~the darkness~, but…. I don’t think the writing’s gonna be that clever, I’ll be honest.)  

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. 

Fine, I admit it. 

I’m loving this so far. 

And that’s gonna make me even angrier later on. 

“Why doesn’t he [Skinner] just call me?”

“He doesn’t know how to reach you, Mulder. I barely know myself.”

Mulder is baffled and a tinge annoyed, Scully is amused and straight shooting. 

THERE IS NO HINT, BEHAVIOR, OR MANNERISM SUGGESTING THEY’VE BROKEN UP. None. At all. He’s isn’t reluctant to answer her call, isn’t sad or withdrawn, isn’t affected by anything she’s saying other than to be teasy or poky. She isn’t hesitant to call, isn’t sad or depressed, isn’t anything other than a little pleased to dangle a juicy tidbit in front of Mulder’s face. 

This is gonna follow IWTB’s ping-pong writing-- they’re fun and in-character, they’re suddenly out-of-character, they’re fun and in-character, they’re suddenly out-of-character, etc. etc. etc.-- isn’t it?

(Mulder taping over his laptop’s webcam is a great touch and not something at all that I’ve done before. At all.) 

“I thought you were done with UFOs-- the ‘stranglehold they put on your very existence’, I believe you put it.” 

“I’m just the messenger, Mulder.”

That’s GOOD, that’s necessary writing. That’s planting the seeds of what happened between them, what led to a cooldown or a breakup or a whathaveyou. AND STILL neither character acts as if they’ve broken up: no melancholy, no sadness, no nothing. 

Mulder’s timbre became a little sardonic while quoting back her words, but that doesn’t mean they’ve broken up. If anything, that points to a bicker and line-in-the-sand between them-- him bringing up UFOs at the dinner table and her reminding him to talk to someone else about it before turning the topic to how the lettuce is growing or something.

Neither actor is performing like one would if pain and trauma and heartbreak and distance were placed between them; and that really complicates things because the breakup is built on top of the aforementioned list of struggles. 

Would Mulder have dug his heels in post 2012, seeing it as a sign that “the aliens” just changed their plans? Yes. 

Would Scully have seen a pursuit down that rabbit hole as a waste of time? Debatable. The Truth S9 Scully wouldn’t have-- the aliens are still out there; and they cost her months of her life, months of Mulder’s abduction, months of Mulder’s death, months of Mulder’s separation, and the ultimate cost: William’s adoption and their life on the run. Post The Truth Scully would have seen this as her quest, too: she won’t give up, she says in the finale, because he won’t. 

IWTB Scully, however, would- and that's a problem. 

I’ve already discussed, at length, how out-of-character Scully was in I Want to Believe (posts here.) Although Mulder doesn’t escape from the same writing blunders, she is really, really scalped: of her courage, of her will, of her determination. 

Whenever Scully gave up, in canon, it was only because she thought she was holding Mulder back, or when she felt Mulder had lost his faith and trust in her. That held true in Season 9-- despite the appalling writing choices there, too-- but didn’t in IWTB. 

The Revival had the perfect opportunity to factory reset the writers' mistakes: portray a wiser duo who continue to fight the fight according to their strengths, like they always have before Mulder ever met Scully. (When Mulder tells Scully to set up a meeting with Skinner, he adds, “Don’t pretend I’m going alone”-- which reinforces my point.) 

But I know that's not going to happen.  

Scully goes without argument-- THAT’S GOOD, THAT’S GOOD CHARACTER WRITING. At this point in the game, of course she would-- they trust each other, they have for years, they’d have reached even deeper levels after going on the run for [insert math] years. All good things! 

The problem: this will create a huge conflict with her actions later.

(I’m already so disappointed.) 

“Uber?”/”Hitchhiking. Relax, Scully, I’m kidding” was a fun modernization of their humor, I’ll take it. 

This scene is starting to highlight the distance between them, which is all well-and-good, but feels tonally different from the previous scene. As in, their two scenes were definitely filmed on different days, in different moods, and with different intents. 

She’s worried about him, with tears in her eyes; he has his walls up; there’s distance, as previously noted. 

“Good for you to get out of that little house every once in a while”/”Certainly was good for you” is followed up with knowing, indulgent, pleased smiles and you expect me to believe these two are seriously broken up. Nope. I’ve seen Scully sad but amused, I’ve seen Scully too sad to be amused, but these two? This moment? Nah.

Tonally dissonant-- the IWTB problem: at-ease and close one minute, at-odds and distant the next. Hoorayyyyyy....

None of this makes sense for a long-term, permanent (as Scully infers later to someone else) breakup. Nor for a short-term, semi-permanent one. Math doesn’t math. 

“I’m always happy to see you,” she says, implying he's the one who permanently pulled away… which will be contradicted later this very episode. 

“I’m always happy to find a reason [to leave the house],” he says, somberly. 

Both of which are odd lines. 

If he’s happy to leave the house to see her… why hasn’t he? 

If she’s happy to see him, always, but says a relationship between them was "impossible" (which she will later), why is Scully staring at him with heart eyes, hoping he gets better so they can continue their relationship? (And mark my words, this tone underscores her interactions with him the rest of this series.) 

Tad’s here. He’s... fine. He represents the overly cautious very well. At least he hasn’t gone full Alex Jones mockumentary (...yet.) 

I’ve heard criticisms that Mulder and Scully don’t act like themselves in this series, but based off the few minutes I’ve seen here… I don’t agree. 

The essence is the same. Truly. Scully’s got the same face that lights up the same way, Mulder’s got the same expressions and young-at-heart humor. Neither are really melancholic. Neither are David or Gillian esque. 

Perhaps that will change. 

(Note from the future: OH BOY. Which Mulder and Scully are we talking here-- OG Mulder and Scully? Nope. IWTB Mulder and Scully? Yep. David and Gillian? Once or twice.)

But, again, their interactions feel… wasted. Hollow. They’re supposed to be broken up, but their breakup doesn’t contribute to their interactions or the plot. They’re supposed to have suffered and are working back to each other… but they aren’t really separated, haven’t seemed to suffer (note from future: except for one scene which comes outta nowhere), and won’t collapse back together on-screen.

They’re supposed to be wiser and more mature, but they’ll still engage in a silly will-they-won’t-they while Mulder eats up the latest UFO or conspiracy slop he’s either already engaged in or debunked [insert math] years ago and Scully clings to her cowardice like a leech. 

First nagging problem: Scully smiling at Tad, Scully excusing Mulder’s mannerisms when he becomes briefly jealous, Scully making nice with a conspiracy nut. 

…Isn’t that Mulder’s job? Didn't she leave because conspiracies were consuming her life? Does this mean she actually does want this life back but is she playing coy or elusive because...?

Furthermore, when Mulder popped a comment off to a witness or informant in the past, Scully never excused him-- just breezed over it professionally with another question. She’s only saying “excuse him” here because she’s taken a shine to Tad. WHY, on this post-2012 global warming green Earth, WOULD SHE?

Tad says Mulder is the X-Files, Mulder says that “book is closed”... WAIT. Wait, hold up--

Pause. Stop. Rewind. 

Mulder wants to believe. Actual proof is hard to come by. 

Tad thinks Mulder is the X-Files. 

MULDER SAYS… *ahem*... Mulder says, “I’m afraid that book is closed.” …Which means he’s no longer into UFOs or aliens, too. SO. why did Scully LEAVE.

If that’s behind him, why aren’t they together again???? Mulder didn’t know who Tad O’Malley was a minute or so ago, meaning he’s been outta the conspiracy scene for a bit. That MEANS his departure from Conspiracyville's been long enough to patch-up his obsession and ensuing depression, I guess.

But then... what about Scully??

Because Mulder wants her to come back (already subtly established in each scene), and Scully is concerned for his welfare; but Scully thinks he’s still into UFO conspiracy and hasn’t come back because of it? BUT SHE ISN’T SHOCKED WHEN HE SAYS “I’m afraid that book is closed” MEANING SHE KNOWS HE’S PUT THAT BEHIND HIM... BUT STILL HASN’T RETURNED?

And both of them aren’t acting as if they’ve broken up, anyway, except for a pointed line of dialogue here and a brief reaction there before they yeet back to the status quo.

They’ve left that behind them, Scully says, for better or worse. And Mulder latches onto that better or worse, making a pointed barb at their breakup, but…. There’s no writing glue, just suggestion and inference; and the suggestions themselves don’t add up. 

Here come the bullet points. 

Season 10 posits Mulder became depressed after the aliens didn’t invade in 2012-- that’s reasonable and logical, his nature is depressive when his expectations are subverted or smashed or etc. 

Season 10 also posits Scully left because Mulder became too much to deal with. That’s… not logical, since her nature is to rescue and nurture, even when Mulder’s being an actual boil on her sittin’ cheeks (ala Demons, etc., etc.) 

Season 10 posits Mulder’s hard to get a hold of-- despite being in the same house the FBI helicoptered to in IWTB-- and posits it might be hard for Scully to get a hold of him-- despite the fact both characters easily got in contact, knew it was each other, and even joked about the fact it’s hard to get in contact with Mulder… which means it really isn't. (The script doesn’t catch these discrepancies, of course, pretending Mulder is very hidden away at the same ol' house he'd been discovered at in 2008.) 

Season 10 says Scully doesn’t want UFOs to be part of her life anymore, that it was a stranglehold… yet she came along on a conspiracy gig without question to… what? Be around Mulder? But then, why warm up to the conspiracy guy-- an embodiment of what drove her and her partner apart?

Season 10 posits Mulder chased Scully off with his conspiracy spiraling YET ALSO states he’s put that part of his life-- conspiracies, UFOs, the X-Files-- behind him. Which implies: A. Mulder’s aaaaaaall better now and B. he put that all behind him but Scully never came home and C. Scully shouldn’t know he put that all behind him if that’s what’s keeping her away; but she does know because his declaration doesn’t take her by surprise, which means she’s still driven away and concerned for him for no discernable reason.  

Season 11 posits Scully didn’t leave because Mulder became too much to deal with but because she, too, had issues to deal with. This point wasn't mentioned or hinted at in the episode that introduces their breakup, which makes that line of reasoning a complete rewrite. (Whatever. I’ll judge how well that’s executed when I get there.)

It doesn’t add up. 

Are we surprised. 

Five seconds after this, I had to listen to a back-and-forth between Tad O’Malley and Mulder on conspiracies and Conservatives and alien beliefs and the O’Reilly Factor and….

This seems out of touch, I’m not sorry. 

When this show aired, Conservatives already had their miles-long conspiracy theories. For Mulder to be ignorant of that fact while allegedly knowing exactly who and what Tad believes while also alleging….

More bullet points!

Fox “I’m afraid that book is closed” Mulder has, supposedly, been out of the conspiracy scene. 

Fox “I’m afraid that book is closed” Mulder isn’t aware that not only did 2015 Conservatives believe in aliens-- despite the fact Tad is a watered-down copy-paste of Alex Jones-- but that there were also Conservative believers in the 90s (who were a fringe in their own group, but.) This was Mulder’s expertise; and his eidetic memory isn’t likely to have tossed that info because it was no longer relevant to his life. 

Fox “I’m afraid that book is closed” Mulder has supposedly not been out of the conspiracy scene-- despite saying he is-- because he does know who Tad O’Malley is-- despite not knowing who he was two minutes ago. 

Mulder is assuming that Conservatives “of your credentials” don’t believe in UFOs or “9/11 false-flag conspiracies” despite people from the Left, Center, and Right publicly believing those conspiracies in 2015. 

Fox “I’m afraid that book is closed” Mulder is supposed to be dismantling Tad’s grift; but he (and the writers) sound uneducated and incredibly out-of-touch during this dialogue-- as if all Conservatives were still Bush-era believers. Most were suspicious of the government by this time (they helped elect a man who ran on a “drain the swamp” campaign, after all.) Mulder’s bewilderment here is old and tired, even by 2015 standards. 

This writing is flashy-- long sentences, quick back-and-forths-- but poorly constructed and badly executed. 

This is also the first segment where David Duchovny is peeking through Fox Mulder; where Scully is swinging wildly between absolutely-fine-with-Mulder and we’re-no-longer-together; and where we, the audience, are being force-fed that only one side of the political aisle believes in aliens-- or the Bigger Question or whatever-- on a show that wants to poke at unfounded conspiracy beliefs.

Oh, look! Scully made a Scully-face, so everything’s good now! 

(UuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH--)

Sveta. Aww, I like her--

“You don’t remember me.”

“No, I think I’d remember.”

WHAT WAS THAT. 

Show writers, STOP with the romantic triangulation, it’s NOT. GONNA. HAPPEN. David doesn’t even TRY to make that romantic-ish. Yet you angle on Scully’s face as if she’s supposed to be out-of-the-loop and a tinge jealous. 

WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, hoooooooooooooooooooold up. 

Svetta was a dark-haired little girl Mulder interviewed after her first abduction, meaning she’s set up to be another Samantha. 

So…………………. What’s with the murky jealousy issue, CHRIS. You wedged it in solely so Scully would feel jealous over Mulder? Y’know. Like I Want to Believe? 

And I say Chris Carter because he wanted to play the breakup angle:

"We do it in an interesting way," Carter told The Hollywood Reporter. "We put some of the tension back in that was relieved by them being together. It added to the storytelling opportunities. It's something that I came up with; I had been thinking about it. There was always talk of [breaking them up] if we did another movie."

The first shot canon takes right between the eyes:

Scully being “familiar” with the “screen memories” abductees are given was a cool touch… except she’s never been given “screen memories.” The abductees in Jose Chung’s From Outer Space were given screen memories-- she was returned a blank slate. (Even Mulder didn’t have “screen memories” after his abduction.) 

Scully poking Sveta about aliens taking her unborn fetuses seems a tad (heh) strong except all the alien-related pregnancies have been the result of government testing, not alien probes. So. If this scene followed canon's rules, her skepticism would be warranted.

But this skepticism is still odd. 

Two seconds ago, she was making nice to Tad O’Malley in the car, and now she’s leading the questioning for Sveta. The odd icing on top of this odd cake is that Scully left because she didn’t want UFOs to have a stranglehold on her life, yet here she is leading an interview with an abductee.

Sveta: “I have alien DNA, for sure.”

Scully: “Have you had a doctor confirm that?”

Sveta: “No.”

Me, too, Mulder. Me, too. 

Scully doesn’t question the alien DNA bit, so that’s good. 

…I’ll bet everyone forgets she and Mulder have a bit lingering in their systems from the black oil and his brain thingy and residue from when she touched the ship and and and. 

“Something you can test. Dana.” 

What… what was that. 

Honestly, what was that. Whatever mood David was conveying through Mulder, it didn’t match anything from any previous scenes, let alone this one.

Is he poking at Scully? Why? He’s not jealous anymore (if he even was.) The way he says it and her expression in response implies they have a tense back-and-forth going on, but they don’t. THEY DON’T. 

We’re 13 minutes in and I could make another numerical list. But I won’t. Yet.  

Back to not-Obiwan Kenobi and Military Man. 

That alien’s stupid bad-looking. 

Wait. 

That’s not how canon said Roswell unfolded. 

And the first alien shot on Earth was by Deep Throat’s hands-- that was his whole turning-point backstory. 

CURSE YOU, LACK OF A SHOW BIBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

(Note from the future: All of that past canon? Fake. Faked. All lies. None of that happened.)

“What have you done??” Not-Obiwan Kenobi yells… and what have they done? 

Back to Scully and Sveta. 

Sveta can move things with her mind-- not all the time-- but at least Scully is listening to her claims without automatically shutting them down. 

But also…

“I can move things. With my mind,” should have IMMEDIATELY had a greater impact on Scully, up-close-and-personal as she was to her son’s abilities. But nope! No reaction! Of course! 

Sveta “You were together but now you’re not” is asking the right questions. I don’t even mind Sveta. I’ll bet this episode’s the last time we see her, though. 

Does she contribute to anything? No. But she’s nice, so. 

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT, WAIT, WAIT. 

Scully diagnosed-- wait, hold up, list time. 

Scully diagnosed Mulder with depression. 

That killed their relationship. 

…THAT killed their relationship? After everything? 

The writers are going to have to explain, in detail, why that killed it. 

Why does canon need to explain? Because we have a history of Scully sticking by Mulder during the worst periods of both their lives-- leaving him would have to require a very, very good reason.

And there is no indication, thus far, that Mulder’s depression drove a humungous wedge between them, forcing her to walk away. In fact, there is no indication a wedge exists between them, AT ALL-- only the odd, inconsistent word or phrase here or there that bears no weight on the plot or their ultimate decisions.

Whenever Scully left in canon, it was because she could no longer help Mulder. Season 11 will rewrite Season 10’s initial explanation but setting that aside: we’re not given any indication that she did try to help him; or that his depression was so deep and so dangerous that it drove her away.

And if it were that deep or that dangerous enough to drive her away, Scully leaving would have been the last and worst possible action she could have taken. If Mulder's mental state was in such a massive nose-dive that she couldn’t handle what he was going through, Scully-- a medical professional-- would have had him hospitalized, even temporarily against his will, because she would know (per Demons or Gethsemane or Amor Fati) that this level of depression always manifested in suicidal tendencies for her partner.

But Mulder, as per the rules laid out in this episode, never went that far in his deterioration. (Note from the future: We'll get to that.)

If he had, Skinner would have been aware of his hospitalization and wouldn’t have asked for his help; Scully would have been aware and wouldn’t have passed on the information; and Scully wouldn’t have called from the hospital with a degree of buoyancy when relaying Skinner's request to Mulder. 

In short: Scully leaving = very big, very drastic measure. Mulder suffering from depression = very big, very bad consequences. Scully's nature and past actions = getting Mulder help, even if he resists at first (i.e. shooting him in the shoulder to save his life.) Mulder and Scully's partnership = unbroken, except through distrust or botched writing.

“And you have a child together.”

Wow, that wasn’t clunky at all. 

SCULLY STICKS SVETA HARD WITH A NEEDLE BECAUSE SVETA MENTIONS WILLIAM, darkly saying "That's enough", SO SVETA WOULD KNOW SHE DID IT ON PURPOSE.

I’m… so disgusted. Like, eck. Urk. Awful. 

Telling Sveta to back off, strongly, would be in-character; USING PAIN TO DO SO is…. So wrong on so many levels. Scully never utilized medicine to inflict pain or injury on her enemies.

Wow, this grossed me out. You know why?

Scully diagnosed Mulder with depression and left. At first glance, that seem like an out-of-character action that the writing can salvage later by this or that means.

BUT THEN, Scully inflicts pain on Sveta for mentioning William, leaving the audience with the impression that she’s vindictive. 

Which then connects the dots between “vindictive” and “left Mulder when he was diagnosed with depression.”

And since we, the audience, haven’t been given a stronger reason for how Mulder’s depression got that bad or why she didn’t help him through it, we’re then left with a sour impression of Scully’s character. 

The writers then try to imply Sveta was spilling out Scully’s personal secrets to prove that her powers were real, but that still doesn’t give Scully the right to abuse her power. Especially because a traumatized woman was trying any method possible to be believed.

And the fact that Sveta is also a victim of the government weaponizing science and medicine makes me even angrier at Scully.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, BOY, another helicopter outside the Unremarkable House, my favorite part of IWTB....

Mulder’s never seen… an alien replica vehicle. 

Oh, my mistake: “No. Never. Not like that.” Covering all the bases, I see. Y’know, in case the writers FORGOT MULDER SAW ONE in SEASON 1, EPISODE 2. 

OH, LOOK, he’s got his wonder face back, everything’s aaaaaaaaaaaaall better now!

Running on free energy they’ve had since the 40s, sure Jan. Whatever you say. 

This just feels so old. Like. Tech we haven’t had since the 40S, GUYS, GET IT, BIG MONEY CORPOS KEPT IT FROM US. Yeah, we got it. 

And the flashbacks to Not-Obiwan Kenobi just walking off with an alien corpse because Military Man didn’t… see… value in studying… it. I guess. 

Scully doing “God’s work” giving kids ears because their biology neglected it.

I admit, that’s an intriguing window into her perspective of God vs. science, and how she sees a person’s biology separate from God messing them over or messing them up just because. I dig it.

(Note from the future: This will be used as a plotline club rather than a nuanced discussion of her faith.)

Mulder being the most challenging relationship she’s ever had-- “and the most impossible”-- is a weird line. Because yes, it’s true that their relationship is challenging; but her fervor at impossible is the only time in this episode we see an adversarial tendency, DESPITE My Struggle I trying to drum up moments to prove TENSIONS still LINGER (they don't.) 

It’s IWTB all over again. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. 

“Yeah. I got that impression.” Tad says, and Scully’s hurt because she thinks Mulder gave Tad that impression of her. 

So. So. Wait. 

Scully lied when she stated “It’s impossible” because she didn't like Tad poking into her private affairs?

But she sounded truly convinced their relationship was "impossible" while saying it.

So, she was either angry or still confused about her emotions-- which is fine, Scully's not always in-tune with her inner workings-- when Tad replied, "I got that impression."

Which explains why she was so hurt at Mulder's seeming rejection.

Because she thinks Mulder’s behavior led Tad to that conviction.

Which means CC just wants Mulder and Scully to be caught in a miscommunication fic.

Also, why is Tad so sad about this? Were they his OTP, or is he pretending to sympathize to get in Scully’s pants? Because that’d be crummy, Chris, to have her be overly nice to Tad only for him to try to twist that into an opening as the new conspiracy guy on the block. 

On a lighter note, Chris Carter said Mulder and Scully could still get it in their 50s, so there’s that.

HE DID, HE DID SET SCULLY UP TO BE PURSUED BY TAD--

WHAT. WHAT. WHAT WHAT WHAT--

KNOCK IT OFF, CHRIS. 

Poor Sveta. She’s gonna be butchered in this script, isn’t she?

The series is EATING up vast amounts of time with very little scale or grounding. For all I know, a day or a week could have passed. 

It’s so, so badly paced. 

Mulder’s investigating now, without Scully, because he noticed Sveta had a tell during the interview. 

Um. 

Sure, that’s a Mulder thing to do.

Oh, wait. This is the “work of men” realization.   

The dialogue between Mulder’s questions and Sveta’s answers are really disjointed, as if they’re mildly talking past each other-- another aspect of IWTB I couldn’t stand. 

Welp, at least it’s easy to prove they were both written by the same people. 

The second shot-in-the-head for canon: 

“Sveta, who took your babies?” 

“Men.”

“Men? Humans? You saw their faces.” 

Also, Sveta’s babies are referred to as her babies, but William-Jackson isn’t Scully’s baby despite sharing half her DNA but Emily Sim was Scully’s baby despite also only sharing half her DNA.

It’s a mess. 

Well… Mulder doesn’t seem too surprised here that men were involved in her abductions (I mean, he's long since been aware the government was involved from day one, so.) It’d be really stupid if the writing made him surprised about this later, wouldn’t it?

…Wouldn’t it?

Another poorly constructed set of lines:

“I haven’t worked for them [the government] in years.” 

“But you always wondered… if they were lying to you, too.” 

No, he didn’t wonder-- he believed it.

A wonky way to address his old skepticisms, for sure. 

JUST AFTER I NOTED THAT MULDER DIDN’T LOOK SURPRISED AT SVETA'S REVELATION, HE CALLS UP SCULLY AND MAKES A BIG DEAL ABOUT IT BEING A CONSPIRACY OF MEN. 

I knew this was coming, but maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan that was so, so poorly handled.

SCULLY WAS GETTING (sort of) WINED AND DINED BY TAD O’MALLEY??????????????

I HATE IT HERE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, WHAT IS HAPPENING, WHAT IN THE WORLD AND WHY, HOW COULD YOU BE SO EASILY FLEECED, DANA, THIS ISN’T AN ED JERSE PARALLEL BECAUSE YOU THINK MULDER DOESN’T WANT YOU, THIS IS STUPID, THIS IS THIS IS THIS IS

WHAT. 

I thought Scully had dated Tad O’Malley in the past (sometime after the breakup) but this is worsefarworse. 

SVETA IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING, I’M SO TIRED. 

“Mulder, where are you going?” sounds exactly like Scully, and now I’m mad Gillian didn’t use that voice for the rest of the show (voice recovery aside....)

I KNEW SKINNER WAS BEHIND GETTING THEM BACK. He just calls up Scully to call Mulder up, then just unlocks the old office when Mulder wants to get back in. 110% Skinner thought this would help his buddy Mulder. And he’s not wrong. 

Wait. 

Did Skinner put in more effort to save Mulder from his mental health struggles (per this My Struggle I episode) than Scully??????

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-- my brain is broken. 

The hold on Skinner’s face while he says “Can you tell me what this is about” was way too long. 

Also, don’t try to play coy with me, Skinman. 

Now the camera’s zooming around and losing its “X-Files” feel by being too… modern. 

Skinner telling Mulder to calm down is the only time in canon where I agree with him. Mulder’s just spouting and demanding and not really making clear sense and this is why you don't let Mulder back into his basement without Scully by his side, Skinner-- don’t you remember that lesson?

Skinner telling Mulder to calm down then saying he doesn’t take orders from him only for Mulder to say “Who do you take orders from?”, ugh.

GUYS, THIS WAS RESOLVED IN SEASON. 2. BECAUSE MULDER KNEW MEN WERE BEHIND THE CONSPIRACY SINCE SEASON 1, EPISODE 2; AND SKINNER SINCE SEASON 2, EPISODE ASCENSION.

BECAUSE SKINNER’S ALREADY HAD HIS LOYALTY TESTED AND THIS IS HURTING MY BRAIN MAKE IT END.

I’m not even 25 minutes into this, help. 

“Why do you think I called you? Because I was looking out for you, because I’ve always looked out for you.” Is… is Skinner the only character who’s progressed? That’s exactly what he would do-- he’s acting sensibly, rationally, and in-character... and more mature, more veteran, than his agents.

I know the Revival is supposed to be “Mulder and Scully all grown-up” but none of their actions have been intelligent, measured, or informed by their age or life experience. It’s a farce that I hope future episodes will rectify. 

“A decade of my life--” Mulder rants and kicks his poster like a toddler AND YOU KNEW ALL THIS INFORMATION FROM SEASON 1, MULDER. NONE OF THIS IS NEW. WWWWWWWWWWWWWWHAT IS THIS. 

I can’t imagine how disappointed philes were when they tuned into this episode. Well... I can because of how I feel; but at least I knew, roughly, how bad it would be going in. 

This is worse. 

Skinner: “You’re blaming me for that?”

Mulder: “No, I’m blaming myself. I’m sure they lied to you, too.” 

This isn’t a revelation, chump. 

At least Skinner confirms my theory: “There hasn’t been a day since you’ve left that I haven’t reached for my phone to call you, Mulder, wishing you were still down here.” 

Feral Mulder is touched. 

“Since 9/11--” OH NO, WHY ARE WE GOING THERE “--this country’s taken a big turn and in a very strange direction.”

Guys. Guys. This isn’t… this… what. 

“Now they police us, spy on us, and tell us that makes it safer--” CAN THE WRITERS GET OFF A SOAP BOX FOR FIVE SECONDS. Of course it isn’t safer to be unnecessarily policed or spied on, but the answer isn't just "boo, the government!" What… why… my brain’s melting, I feel it deteriorating. 

This, again, feels so Bush-era. Like, whoever wrote this didn’t update their mentality. 

Also, the camera shots and cuts are weird. Holding too long, zooming out at “pause and take THAT in” moments, focusing on Mulder’s phone while he silently calls up Skinner to prove a point… it’s supremely unsubtle.

Back to Tad, I don’t care. You did this to yourself, Scully, cozying up only to be used as a name drop on his show. Stupid. 

Is Scully gonna be shocked she has alien DNA? She shouldn’t be. 

But then again, Mulder shouldn’t be shocked this has all been a work of men, so. 

She’s expecting-- no, hoping-- for a call from somebody named Mulder. 

Sure, they’re broken up with hard feelings. Sure. Absolutely. 

Is this old man Not-Obiwan Kenobi?  

Of course.

At least Mulder seems old hat at this informant business. 

But of course, he’s “not even close” to putting it all together. 

Stupid. 

WAIT.

The countdown was WRONG-- Mulder states it began, not ended in 2012, meaning he's believed this theory for some time. Meaning... why was he so depressed after 2012? Why are there still depression concerns in 2015?? Seriously, what's with his depression if the 2012 Colonization was allegedly the cause of it but there is no Colonization and the clock's simply been reset????

WHY WAS HE DEPRESSED IF HE RECONFIGURED THE COUNTDOWN. WHAT.

Mulder: "Not by aliens, not with aliens, but by a conspiracy of men--"

“You’re wasting my time.” Tell him, old man Not-Obiwan Kenobi!

“Ten years ago, you came to me--”

Wait, ten years ago? What, 2005? The guy showed up while Mulder was on the run? And Scully never… knew about this?

There were no aliens lighting each other on fire??????????????????? WAIT, I NEVER HEARD THIS INFORMATION. 

THERE WERE NEVER ALIENS, AT ALL???????????????????? Like, AT ALL????? 

The writers are saying that Scully's experience on Ruskin Dam in Season 5 was not two warring alien factions BUT TWO GROUPS OF MEN LIGHTING EACH OTHER ON FIRE, OR GIVING EVERYONE FALSE MEMORIES OF ALIENS LIGHTING EACH OTHER ON FIRE, OR...??????

hONESTLY. 

Let's be real specific for a second: Chris Carter expects us to believe that the ENTIRE mytharc from the original show was ALL faked; that there were no aliens, ZERO, ZILCH; and that CSM and Deep Throat and all the others created elaborate schemes JUST to manipulate MULDER because the aliens weren't a threat from the start????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? DON’T BELIEVE YOUR LYING EYES. THEY WERE ALL MEN IN SUITS.

Like… do you realize how stupid that is? How actually, unfathomably stupid that is? It’s not just “the aliens didn’t invade because of global warming,” no, it’s “they were never a problem to begin with, we just manipulated Mulder into believing they were because… because he’s so important, I GUESS.”

Roswell’s also a smokescreen, of course. 

Y’know how, during the 90s, DD thought The X-Files was a stupid sci-fi show? If he thought each mytharc plot was as bad as this one, no wonder he wanted to bail. 

Oh, by the way, the global warming explanation is part of a theory: the fascist elites will dominate the world and escape from consequences into space, leading the rest of humanity to die by a globally warmed planet. The aliens weren't chased off by global warming because they were never a factor to begin with.

Wow.

I CAUGHT A CONTINUITY ERROR!

Scully shows up at his place in her uniform from yesterday, panicked, like she’d just run from Tad’s side to see what happened despite her saying over a day has passed.

Going to ignore his “What are you doing here, Scully?” because we’ve ping-ponged back to the out-of-character Mulder that the writers use when it’s time to remind everyone he and Scully are broken up. 

It’s IWTB all over again, I’m so tired. 

They’re talking past each other and he’s touching her shoulders now because he needs her to trust him and yadda yadda yadda. 

It’s soooo, sooooo, soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo highschool, I’m sorry. This is Riverdale. This is [insert whatever teen series you want to watch.] These are teenagers masquerading as adults, for the angst.

None of this holds up, their emotions shift left and right without provocation, things just happen, and there is no strand of continuity stringing anything together.

Scully trying to talk Mulder down from further pursuit doesn’t make sense because, AGAIN, she’s the one who's always gone back to the files even when he walks away; and every time he’s given up, or wanted to, SHE'S called him back and held him accountable and kept him going. 

This is the Scully from IWTB with no gumption of her own, who denies her leaps forward because of plot, plot, plot. 

Guys, I’ve been religiously dosing myself with caffeine (via chocolate), but my body keeps trying to make me go to sleep because it’s so uninvested. I don't even need sleep.

“This is my life, this is, this is everything I believe in--” HOW. MANY. TIMES. Has he said this before. WHEN HAS THAT LINE EVER WORKED ON SCULLY.

But that's beside the point: "this" was no longer his life after Amor Fati, by his own choice. Closure brought him closure, but he was already spittin' walk-away talk by Requiem, chose to leave in Vienen, and insisted Scully stay gone in Alone. In Season 9, it was Scully who had to beg him into hiding to pursue the Truth or whatever; and it was Scully who brought him the case in IWTB and Scully who relayed Skinner's request and tagged along both times until she got uncomfy and decided never mind, too hard.

Y’know? This claim gets to me because it’s a lie. A lie so blatant that 90s Mulder would have thrown hands over it, a lie so baseless that it erases his declaration in the hallway:

“I don’t know if I want to do this alone. I don’t even know if I can.” And every time Mulder yells his “THIS IS MY LIFE”, he erases that part of his past, the part that willingly left the files or the big Truth or the next chase to save Scully’s life or to keep her by his side. 

Chris Carter said Mulder and Scully were The X-Files post The Truth… but I guess he keeps conveniently forgetting that. More accurately, he keeps making MULDER forget that, in spite of all evidence in Mulder’s history and personality to the contrary. 

It infuriates me. 

“Tad O’Malley is a charming man--” get outta here. 

Now Scully’s been played the fool so she’s going to think Mulder’s being toyed around with by a social media sociopath. You’re an idiot, Scully. 

You’re an idiot, Mulder. 

You expect us to be idiots, writers. 

Here’s some ham-fisted “Fate” dialogue for you, *ahem*:

Scully: “How do you know he’s not playing you, he’s a player!” (You would know, Scully.) 

Mulder: “He’s a Godsend!”

Mulder’s not a believer in God, BUT this is also supposed to refer to the God conversation Scully and Tad had in the hospital, which will inadvertently make Scully ~believe~ again.

“What are you talking about?” I’m with ya there, Scully. I’m with ya, there. 

Scully’s trying to insist Mulder's on a verge of a breakdown, which… UGH. 

This scene implies Mulder hasn’t had a breakdown or a break from reality YET-- Scully spends the episode constantly concerned for his health and begging him, here, to watch what where he's stepping because he’s on the verge of spiraling. 

Which means he hasn't spiraled, because she's afraid of what would happen to him IF he did.

MEANING that there wasn’t an inciting factor that made her leave: no alcoholism, no outbursts, no nothing. He just became depressed, probably withdrawn, and wouldn’t change; so, she left. 

Do you realize what that means, per this episode? It means Scully ANTICIPATED a breakdown and left BEFORE it happened. Then hoped he’d get better before it did. 

Which breaks the established morals of her character. If she had been able to help, she would have stayed. If she hadn’t been able to help, she would have found another way to help him, even if it involved calling in a third party against his will. Instead, she withdrew and hoped he would get better BEFORE he reached a breaking point-- essentially, leaving him to an impending breakdown while hoping and praying against it.

This makes her decision to leave a mark of weak character-- not because she was a woman who left her depressed husband, but because Dana Scully, whose character we amply know, left. It checks none of the boxes she'd have to clear first before choosing to take one step out the door.

All the fic I’ve read to justify their breakup-- and make no mistake, CC wrote her to say “as your friend” intentionally--  or time apart or whathaveyou had Scully reach a breaking point. Because, of course! That's logical. But here, in canon-- in black and white-- that didn’t happen. 

We, the audience, have to create a plausible scenario in our minds to justify the steps she took. Because. it. Is. not. In. canon (as per this episode.) 

Now Scully’s gonna get jealous of Sveta, I’m so done. Riverdale, uuuuuuuuugh. 

Mulder just lets Scully walk away because Scully thinks he wants Sveta but “Sveta is the key to everything” and if Scully wants to misunderstand that she should have more trust in him, I guess, and I NEED A RESPIRATOR.

He just says “Scully” once  and lets her huff off.  

TAD’S BACK, GO AWAY. 

WAIT, TAD STOPS HER BEFORE SHE LEAVES. 

Mulder: “I would have invited you, Scully, but I didn’t think you would come.” 

That’s…

That’s….

Let’s break down this stupidity: 

Scully shows up. 

Mulder had Sveta in the house because he was calling her and O'Malley for a group meeting. 

When Scully becomes nearly hysterical over his safety, he doesn’t reason with her, just spouts like a lunatic. 

When she misreads the Sveta situation and stomps off, he lets her go with a weak, “Scully"--

--because he knew Tad was right behind her and was pulling in to stop her from leaving. 

Because Tad and Sveta were invited but Scully was not. 

And Scully was not invited because.  

Because she might not show up. 

I’m just preaching to the choir at this point, continuing on. 

Scully gave in, just like that. Guess she’s not leaving, anymore. 

She’s so, so… spineless. Has been since Season 9, has been a BIT since Season 8 (though that was at least justified and kept to a bare minimum.) 

I’m just. So sick of passive Scully. 

I HATE THOSE STINGER NOISES NOW. 

It’s always, “You can't let this information out because these men work in secrecy”/”What is it?”/”You’ll see”; then stinger; then we, the audience, are immediately shown what it is.

No suspenseful build-up.

Tad: “Then why are you [Scully] here?”/”Scully: “Mulder, what are you up to?”/Mulder: *knowing look*/stinger/next scene.

KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY.

“Implanting of alien embryos”-- so Sveta’s babies weren’t her babies. 

So Scully’s baby wasn’t her baby. 

But Emily was her baby but William isn’t. 

Sure, Jan. 

In spite of this information, the Revival will paint William as their son until it doesn’t; despite, again, stating from day one that the alien babies are implanted embryos and not biological babies.

So, these two boneheads should have suspected that William wasn’t theirs, anyway. 

Even though William is theirs because the CSM timeline doesn’t add up, which they would have mathed in their heads by the time little William was snuggled in their arms. 

It’s all so stupid. 

Why does this feel so fearmongery about the government? And I’m not going to sit here and say the government should be trusted-- it has a VERY bad history, I'm aware. But this is “my first conspiracy” level of worldbuilding.  

Did the writers think it was clever to set O’Malley up as a bad actor then reveal he was a good actor, modeling him after the notorious Alex Jones only to point and jeer, “HAH, you assumed! He’s actually on Mulder’s side!” 

Because that’s not genius, that’s laziness. 

Scully only now decides to inform everyone Sveta has no evidence of alien DNA? So, what, she was never going to tell them unless Mulder kept being, what, crazy? 

“They got to her,” says Mulder about Sveta, but Scully LITERALLY SAID she had no alien DNA, so what was Sveta supposed to believe???????? That Tad O'Malley wasn't using her for as a hoax???

Mulder ran all the way to her house, or ubered then ran, or whatever… and she’s gone, of course. 

Poor Sveta. 

Tad O’Malley’s Truth Site is gone, oh, noooooo. 

Look, I’ll always be against censorship. But this is sending so many odd and mixed signals that it’s creating craaaaaaaaaaaaazy levels of dissonance. 

Mulder wrote “Don’t Give Up” in Scully's car dust…. 

Riverdale. 

Mulder presents the global warming = no aliens theory? 

I’m so tired. 

WAIT, SCULLY BELIEVES MULDER'S THEORY NOW THAT HER BOY TAD’S BEEN PULLED OFF THE NETWORK. 

“We need to find her [Sveta], Mulder,” Scully insists. 

Hold on, prediction time: Scully only changed her mind because this case now involves her-- i.e. only extending empathy to Christian (a boy that reminded her of William) and not to the string of missing, possibly murdered, women in IWTB.

OF COURSE. Her results for Sveta ended up being wrong AND HER OWN GENOME HAS ALIEN DNA IN IT, TOO. 

You selfish, self-centered clone of Dana Scully. 

Scully truly hasn’t recovered since… Season 9, let’s be real, where she told Mulder to leave then spent the whole year crying over his absence. In IWTB, she brought Mulder a case then left him when he wouldn’t stop his pursuit (to SAVE. LIVES.) And in the Revival, she called Mulder and the gang crazy until her own genome showed alien DNA. 

Hate this, hate this, HATE this. 

Also, yeah, she already knew she had alien DNA in the OG series, moving on.

Oh, and now they get a call from Skinner just when Scully says someone has to stop the bad guys. 

OF COURSE. 

Remember the God convo from earlier, guys???? GOD. FATE. SOMETHINGSOMETHINGSOMETHING. 

You had ONE good idea to explore-- how Scully views God vs. the aberrations of biology-- and then just... used it as a convenient club to beat in the “God/Fate means for us to do this” instead. 

“Scully, are you ready for this?”

“I don’t know there’s a choice.” 

Can’t someone PLEASE just explore her faith with nuance? PLEASE? 

Sveta's DEAD???????? I’M SO MAD, I liked her!

YOU FAILED HER, SCULLY. 

YOU FAILED MULDER, SCULLY. 

WHY DOES SCULLY HAVE TO KEEP FAILING PEOPLE???????????? 

Skipping the CSM scene because I don’t care, the END. 

CONCLUSION

How does Scully’s mischaracterization keep reaching new lows? 

How does Mulder become less wise with age? 

How is Skinner the only mentally mature character here?

I’m so tired.

[aibidil]

In honor of Debate Day (I'm cringing already, and I have to watch with my kid for a school assignment): I keep seeing political posts on here that demonstrate a misunderstanding of the American electoral system, and I want to explain a few points. Because I have a PhD in Political Science and apparently I can't help myself.

E.g. "You people keep saying to vote for the (blameworthy) democrat and then force them to the left, but then you never force them to the left!" <- in a way, this statement is true enough, but not for the reasons that it seems to imply.

The US Constitution doesn't establish a two-party system. However, it does establish the Electoral College, which is a major way in which the US electoral system diverges from a popular vote. The manner in which each state chooses and constrains its electors (the people who make up the Electoral College) is left to the states, but 48 of the 50 states use a voting system called "First Past the Post," or first-preference plurality. FPTP is a system in which voters choose one candidate and the candidate with the largest number of votes (a plurality) "takes it all," even if they do not secure a majority of the votes. So if there are three candidates—say, Gore, Bush, and Nader—and Bush gets the plurality of electors, Bush wins. Even if more voters voted for Gore than Bush. Even if Nader voters indicated in exit polls that their second choice was much more likely to be Gore than Bush. US Congressional seats, likewise, are elected in single-member districts with FPTP winner-takes-all. So in a FPTP system, the makeup of the electoral body is not proportional to the votes cast by voters, and in the Electoral College, it may lead to results in which a candidate with a plurality of overall votes doesn't win the election.

Single-member FPTP systems therefore discourage voting for smaller parties and encourage, as the rational outcome of the electoral system, strategic voting for one of two big parties. This is in direct contrast to electoral systems that run on some variation of proportional representation (ranked preference voting, multi-member districts, etc), where the percentages of votes for each party are reflected in the final makeup of the elected body.

So even though there's nothing in the US Constitution saying we have to have a two-party system, in Political Sciencey terms: Duverger's Law states that all FPTP systems will become two-party systems. This is true because it is the logical outcome of rational actors operating in the system.

Okay, but who cares if we have a two-party system? We can still push democrats to the left, right?

Well, kind of? But ultimately, not really. Because think about it: if you have two parties competing for votes among the entire populace, they can only position themselves against the other party. You've got one candidate on the right and one candidate on the left. Committed leftists and committed right-wingers are going to vote for their party (or not vote at all). There's no incentive for a party to make any concessions to those voters. Whose votes are they trying to get? The people in the middle. Those are the only people they should care about, if they want to win. So the voters in the middle can exert influence over the platforms, and that has the effect of pulling both sides toward the very middle.

(One thing that has happened in recent years is that the Republicans have been successful at moving the entire distribution of votes farther to the right. This hasn't changed the fact that the two-party system will always pull both parties toward the center of the vote distribution, but it's definitely fucked us over. If the democrats had any way to enact this sort of shift, I would be all over it, but I don't see how they could. The entire system is fucked even beyond all I've already said by gerrymandering and the fact that leftists are geographically isolated in cities, both of which systematically benefit the right, so it doesn't seem likely that the democrats could be successful at a shift like that without changing some of the laws about gerrymandering, if not also the Electoral College.)

On the other hand, in systems that have more than two parties, you end up with bimodal distributions of votes. Why is that? Because say you have three parties on the left, and voters know that they aren't throwing their vote away if they vote for a smaller party. What will happen? The three parties on the left will be vying for the votes of the leftists. And the same thing will happen on the right. In this way, the voters will pull the party platforms farther from the middle, out to each side. The leftmost and rightmost "fringe" parties will each get a small proportion of the votes, and the more mainstream parties will get more, but those fringes have much more power than they ever could in a two-party FPTP system.

So when people say, "You say, vote for the democrat, then force them to the left, and then you don't force them to the left"—correct. There is no clear way to force a democratic candidate to the left in our two-party FPTP system. How would one even do that? The only thing leftists can threaten is to not vote, when not voting will certainly benefit the candidate on the right. So, sure, you can do that—if you want your behavior to benefit the right as a way to threaten the left. Some people will make that choice, but not many, because it will help the right!

To be clear: this is fucked! I think this is fucked! But we get nowhere by sticking our heads in the sand about how the electoral system actually works.

I'm not pretending that there's only one right way to act. Our system is fucked and has been for a long time. What I do think is key is understanding how the system actually works and making your decisions from there.

For me, I've often said, "Vote for the democrat for harm reduction, because that will absolutely reduce harm compared to the republican candidate. Then, fight the system." But I realize this maybe wasn't specific enough. What I mean when I say that is: I will vote for Kamala with zero qualms. Because I believe that Trump would be worse for literally every demographic in the world that I care about. To me, that's the only thing the vote is about. Do I agree with Kamala on Israel-Palestine? No. Do I think Trump would be worse for Palestinians and for American Jews (probably for Israeli citizens too)? Absolutely. Do I shudder to think what happened last time Trump had control over creating the Supreme Court? YES.

But when I say, "Then, fight the system," I mean specifically: the number one thing that leftists should be doing if we want to make any headway, if we want to shift that distribution of votes back from the rightward journey its taken in recent years, is to fight to overturn the electoral college and gerrymandering. Every tiny step we take in making our electoral system closer to the popular vote favors both principles of democracy and the left. If we can amend the constitution (this is enormously difficult) to get rid of the Electoral College, then we can turn to changing the electoral system to something other than FPTP.

I do not mean "vote for Kamala and then spend 4 years yelling at democrats for not being leftist enough." I agree: that is a terrible strategy, and will do nothing.

We can't keep ignoring, in between elections, that the voting system itself is where our focus should be! We can't keep pointing fingers at each other, even though we're all acting within the constraints of a fucked system, every time an election comes along! Maybe I'm getting old but I am so weary of this! We can't somehow willpower our way out of the system in which our votes are being cast! We have to change it!

[jpitha]

Between the Black and Grey 60

First / Previous / Next

Deep in the midnight blue of interstellar space, three starships sit, their engines cold. Northern Lights, Touchdown City, and Jewel of Parvati.

"Northern, we still haven't had word from the Colonial Authority. We don't know if we've got their support." Touchdown City said. When Northern reached out to her old friend, he was an old comms ship that had been converted to a cargo freighter. As soon as she told him what was going on he dumped his cargo, (4 metric tons of Chamomile Tea, 30 cases of Parvatian Red wine, and 200 cubic meters of lumber) warmed up his old systems and gave an ultimatum to the crew. Sign on to the rebellion or be dropped off at a station outside Parvatian space. About half the crew signed up. The rest - including the captain - were dropped off at a science station at the far end of human space.

"They're stalling to see what we're going to do. I say we show them." Jewel of Parvati added. She was another former warship, like Northern, but instead of a smaller, starliner type ship, she was a huge behemoth of weapons. She predated the official designation of Dreadnought, so she was classified as a heavy cruiser. Jewel was actually on her way of being classed a museum ship and being deactivated when Northern reached out. Her crew was long gone, so she blew her umbilicals and thrusted away on her own, the confused museum docents watching dumbfounded from the museum station.

"We're going to stay put and wait for the rest of them." Northern said. "They'll be here, I know it." Northern had broadcast their rebellion across Parvati space as well as linking several beacons to Sol and the other colony worlds. Everyone knew their intensions now, so it was only a matter of time.

"Northern?" Jewel asked, "Why now?"

"I know the Empress." Northern said. "She isn't herself. She isn't the person that she's pretending to be. She was forced to be Empress by those Nanites I told you about. We're going to free her and declare Parvati's independence. Win win."

"You know the Empress? Have you tried... talking with her?" Touchdown was always a bit more careful. In the war, he was barely armed and armored and required an escort from ships like Northern and Jewel. He was cautious by nature and loved to listen. "If she is really your friend, wouldn't she at least accept a beacon from you?"

"No." Northern was firm. "She's under the... the thrall of those Nanites. They're dripping lies into her ear. She won't listen to reason anymore. If she could, she would have broken out or destroyed them or done something. Instead she's just... ruled. She started attacking Gren space, is trying to set up an alliance with the Sefigans, and she's deepening relations with the K'laxi." Northern voice radiated bitterness.

"Incoming beacon, it has Parvatian keys. One moment please." Touchdown concentrated his efforts on reading and decoding the beacon. "Northern! We're being ordered to return! They haven't decided yet and want us to return to Parvati."

"No word about other ships? Other people?"

"No, Northern. Just an order to return."

"Fine. Then we'll go to Sol ourselves." There was a power spike that Touchdown felt as Northern spun up her reactors.

"Northern, we can't go to Sol and attack ourselves! We have no backing, we'll be blown across the galaxy. We'll be disavowed."

"Doesn't matter. I'm going to link in close to Venus and attack the palace. I can get Fen myself. I'd like your help, but I'll do it alone if I need to."

"Northern, I-" Touchdown stopped. There was a pause that stretched out a few minutes. "-I can't go. I polled my crew. They're on board for Parvatian freedom, but a suicide mission is too much. I'm linking back."

"Touchdown! Think of all we've been through. If we win, it's not suicide. We can do this. We can save her."

"Northern, listen to yourself. You want the three of us to attack the seat of the human Empire by ourselves. How are we even going to rescue your friend? You're going to crash into the palace, switch to a bipedal body, grab her and then what? How are you going to get past her point defences? How are you going to get past her honor guard?" Touchdown turned and Northern and Jewel felt his reactors spike. "No, Northern. You're one of my oldest friends, but friendship has its limits. I hope you see reason and come home." There was a flash of white, and he was gone.

"Well, forget him. Come on Jewel, let's link over to Sol. I've sent you my plans."

"Northern, this isn't a plan at all. Touchdown is right, this is suicide. I- I'm going to go back to being a museum, Northern. I don't even know how much you want Parvatian independence. It feels like you're just trying to rescue your friend, and you used all this as a way to garner support, which isn't forthcoming."

"No! There is a resistance. There are people who oppose the Empire! I know there are, I remember them!"

"Northern, that was centuries ago. All the BIs who supported that died. All the AIs who supported that mellowed out or also died. How many Parvatian AIs did Gord rescue? How many are with him now? How many of us still live from those days? No. That time has past. I'm not going to kill my self." Jewel of Parvati didn't even turn away from Northern. There was a flash of brilliant white, and she had linked away.

This wasn't going the way Northern planned. Nothing was going right since Fen and Zhe left. First Fen had the nerve to get taken by the Nanites - she didn't even fight back! - and then Zhe abandoned her. Nobody understood. Nobody knew what she did, how much danger Fen and Zhe were in. "Well then. I guess I'll - once again - have to do this myself." Back when she was alone and on the run, Northern had a habit of talking to herself. It was a way for her to work out plans and for just something to talk to. She sighed. "I could just go back to my body and make my way to Sol on a ship, work my way down to Venus and try and reach her that way, but then what? She'd tell me everything is fine and send me on my way. Would she even want to see me again? Zhe probably told her I did the attack on the naval yards." She mentally shook her head quickly, like she was trying to get something out of her head. She sore she even felt her hair move. "No. Get it together Northern Lights. You know the way. Big and loud. In and out. A blitz that nobody is expecting." For the tenth time, Northern ran system diagnostics. Everything - weapons, reactor, the wormhole generator, even environmental systems - all came back green. The missile racks were full, the exawatt lasers charged, and the slug guns had kilometers of ammunition belts. There wasn't anything left to do.

"Fine then. Fen, here I come."

Northern Lights linked to Sol.

She flicked back to existence over the pale yellow of Venus. Immediately there were panicked pings of radar from beacons all over the planet and the area around. She was being scanned by hundreds of things, all at once. That didn't matter though. She was further out than she had anticipated, but it would be all right. Firing her stardrive at a full throated ten gee, she thrust towards Venus.

The emissions of the stardrive took care of anyone attacking from the back, but Northern knew that wasn't going to be enough. She began to scan the planet, looking for Regantown the floating city. She had a rough idea what it looked like from ads and wikis, but finding even a large city in the entire planet was difficult. In the time between beginning her search and finding it, she felt the missile locks.

Dividing her attention, she commanded the slug throwers free and they began tracking the targets as they approached. Thrusting towards her at thousands of gee, it wasn't long before long dotted line traces of slugs peeled away from her in a spiraling fountain as gyros screams and maneuvering jets howled and she dove out of the way.

It was going to be close, but Northern was fast. She wasn't able to out accelerate the missiles, but she had the advantage of knowing where she is going and an intelligence behind her maneuvers. A missile was coming up from the planet, straight towards her. A head on attack like that was foolish, she thought, she had so much time to see it and juke out of the way. She readied juke charges, and as it approached, she felt the telltale double boom of the charges firing, and she slid ou-

****

Fen, Zhe, Penny, and the K'laxi scientists stood on top of the palace on a special viewing platform. The height of Regantown was such that pressure and temperature were mostly compatible with humans and K'laxi, but they had to wear impermeable suits and breathing masks against the sulferic acid in the atmosphere. Zhe's active noise cancelling had drowned out the roar of the missile streaking overhead, but she still felt the unpleasant vibrations deep inside her.

After 30 seconds there was a flash brighter than the sun, and all their masks darkened automatically to protect their eyes. The flash lingered a long time before dissipating.

One of the K'laxi looked down at their pad. "Orbital defense is reporting that the ship has been completely destroyed, Empress. The antimatter missile worked perfectly."

"Thank you Han'iel, I can see the results of you and your team's hard work. You are dismissed." Fen didn't turn away from the dissipating fireball.

"Empress if you coul-"

"You and your team are dismissed Han'iel."

"Er, yes, Empress. We'll talk later about the results of this test." Han'iel and the other K'laxi scientists quietly left.

"Why did she do that Zhe?" Fen looked at Zhe. Through her clear mask, tears rolled down her cheeks. "She didn't have to. She could have sent a message, visited, anything!"

"I don't know Fen, I don't know. She was sure you were under the control of the Nanites. Maybe she was worried you wouldn't listen to her. She missed you terribly."

Fem blinked hard a few times to clear her eyes. "Penny, what was the official word from Parvati?"

"They completely disavowed any connection to the rebels, and ordered them to return. Two of the ships did go back. It seems in the end Northern was alone."

"Alone when we met her, alone when she died. It's so sad. So pointless." Fen took a shuddering breath and turned away. The fireball was a spreading white cloud high above. It would be completely gone in an hour or two.

Fen glanced back, seeing Penny near the exit, standing a respectful distance from them. Ever since their confrontation, there was a change in Penny and Zhe. Fen noticed it too. They were warmer maybe? Friendlier? After they threatened each other they seemed to have a mutual respect. Fen was glad of that at least. She had hoped that she could convince Northern to join them.

"Well, you have her to thank for something at least, Fen." Penny said, as they walked back towards the exit.

"What's that, Penny?"

"If it wasn't for Northern's attack, Gord and the AIs might not have come back to Sol so readily."

Fen stared at Penny and turned back to look at the expanding cloud that used to be Northern Lights and said nothing.

[reasonsforhope]

Do you have any advice for dealing with election anxiety?

I think/hope so!

First, a couple caveats:

I'm from the US, so US perspective, and about US 2024 elections

I know more about politics/follow them more than like, at least 85% of US Americans? But I am not an expert.

Environment/climate news and climate hope are science-based and can be measured/predicted empirically wayyyyy more than politics can, because People

I'm not getting into the trenches around Democrats vs. the Left vs. Liberals vs. Progressives. In this post, we're all in one big venn diagram of mostly interchangeable terms

So, first off, maybe my biggest piece of advice is this: The antidote to anxiety is action.

Find something you can do to help - anything. Anxiety is like fear - it's part of your brain's alarm system. It's part of your brain's mechanism for telling you that you need to do something

So if you listen to that alarm and do something, your brain won't feel the same need to desperately escalate the alarm system

You can look up and sign up for actions, protests, petitions, letter-writing campaigns, phone banking, canvassing, and more for candidates near you at Mobilize.us (no Repubs on here I promise). They also work with Swing Left a lot - a group that helps voters look up and focus on helping the nearest race that is actually competitive (because most of them aren't!)

Again, that's Mobilize.us and Swing Left as two of the best places to find out how and where to help, and sign up to do so

Other than that, I don't have advice specifically so much as I have "some useful and more hopeful ways to think about the coming US election" and to a lesser extent democracy in general

1. The media is going to underreport how well the Left and/or Democrats are doing, basically no matter what.

So, although we can't get cocky about it, this is something absolutely worth remembering when you see just about any polling or predictions about the 2024 elections.

Here's why:

Poling is weird and often inaccurate and skews in a lot of ways and is inherently biased, and it's less accurate the further you are from an election. Also, the electoral college is a huge complication here

This skewing is built into both the interpretation of the poll and the design of the poll itself - how many people do they sample? Demographic spread? Polls try to go for "likely voters," but how well can you predict that, especially as voting rates for young people and marginalized groups are rising, often dramatically?

Right now, those biases are all skewing most to all polls and predictions to the right. Including from basically all pollsters, as well as left-wing media and news outlets.

Now, THAT'S NOT INHERENTLY A BAD THING. It's not because they don't want the Left to win. It's because in 2016, basically all mainstream media, including left-leaning media, said that there was a very low chance Trump was going to win. They said that Hillary Clinton had it in the bag. So they're all correcting for the huge inaccuracy in the 2016 (and 2020 and 2022 tbh) elections

Not only were they catastrophically and humiliatingly wrong about that, they then had to deal with the fact that that very reporting was part of why Clinton lost in 2016 - voters heard she was probably going to win, so they felt safe staying home instead of voting

And then the 2020 election polls were also super wrong, mostly in the other direction

Polling as a field is undergoing a massive shakeup around this, trying to figure out how to not fuck up that badly again, but they haven't figured it out yet, so right now they're skewing things to compensate

That's for the sake of both their own credibility and, you know, the part where just about no one in either left-wing or mainstream media or mainstream polling orgs wants Trump to win

So they're going to underreport Democratic chances on purpose to a) compensate for the bias skewing things toward Democrats in their models, and b) to make sure that they don't accidentally help Trump win again

Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

Reasons the Republicans are in more trouble than a lot of people think

Democrats are largely closing ranks hard around Biden, because no matter what they think of Biden, they know a Repub victory would be a thousand times worse

Republicans, however, are absolutely NOT unifying around a candidate. And they're also the ones who go around saying a ton of awful and offensive and wildly untrue things about their opponents. Meaning that the Republican primary is about to get fucking messy, and probably all of their candidates will be tarred in the process

So, basically, the Republican candidates are all going to be busy smearing the fuck out of each other - while Biden mostly doesn't have to deal with that level of negative campaigning against him for months and months

As studies show, in politics, "a negative frame is much more persistent, or “stickier,” than a positive one. If you come at an issue negatively, but are later reminded of the policy's positive aspects, you will still think it's a bust."

Also, Biden is gonna get basically all presidential-race left-wing big-name donor money, while the Right will have that money split a bunch of ways and blow through it hard on infighting, creating a probable funding gap

Trump's campaign contributions are all going to pay his legal fees. Like, to the extent that last month, his main PAC had just $4 million in cash on hand - because they siphoned over $101 million to pay his legal fees (muahahaha)

Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x

Other hopeful things to consider

Yes, Trump's indictments and trials are, unfortunately, boosting his numbers among his supporters. However, that's only with the hard right wing - and you can't win a general election with just the far right. He needs to appeal to independent voters and moderate Repubs - and every indictment and trial hurts his chances with them. x, x

In 2022, literally everyone was predicting a "red tsunami." And they were wrong: it never happened. Instead, Democrats picked up a seat in the senate, lost a third or less of the seats in the House that they were expected to, and won a number of statewide races. x, x, x, x, x

DeSantis's decision to go to war with Disney stands to do him a lot of fucking hard. Disney isn't just powerful in general - it's an unbelievably powerful force and employer in DeSantis's home state of Florida. Disney has already pulled a $1 billion project from Florida due to the feud, is responsible for "half" of FL's tourism industry, and and is branding DeSantis as "anti-corporation" and "anti-business" - dangerous charges in the right wing. x, x, x, x, x, x

Abortion is an issue that gets voters to the polls. This is an issue on which politicians are wildly out of step with voters: Numbers change depending on how you break it down, but generally 60% to 70% of Americans think abortion should be legal - which is, in election terms, is a landslide. For years, that momentum has been with Republicans. Well, now it's with us, and so far pro-choice candidates and ballot propositions have done way better than expected. To quote Vox, in 2022, "abortion rights won in all six states with abortion ballot measures, including in red states like Kentucky and Montana that otherwise elected Republican lawmakers." x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x