#DEMOCRACY (derogatory) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

smiley-mcdoggington · 13 days ago

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YAYAYAYAY MORE FORD HERO DELUSIONS CW stancest CW tfpreg CW eggpreg CW unreliable narrator CW 1982 Stans (derogatory) CW slight trans-inclusive period typical misogyny CW probably ooc but who gives a fuck

Of course, when Ford finally had unicorn hair in his reach, it was because he was tied with it. The tensile strength of unicorn hair was - apparently - supernatural, and the gnomes must have a few pure of heart souls to have gotten so much. They wouldn't have missed the amount Ford was trying to take, and if that squirrel didn't alarm them, they wouldn't have noticed at all. But now, he was trapped, being carried deeper and deeper into the woods by dozens of tiny hands on his back while he tried again to pull his arms away from his sides. The unicorn hair was actually beginning to cut into the gabardine of his trench coat, which not even a griffin could do. He would note it down if he had his journal.

He turned his head to eye the gnomes holding him up. "Where are you even taking me?! I've spoken with schmebulock senior, I believe I have a right to a lawyer." He snipped.

The gnome doing most of the carrying of his right shoulder smirked. "That was before, when we only had a council. Now we have a queen, and she will judge you."

"You're a matriarchy now?" He asked, forgetting his situation for a moment. "Has your queen only recently come of age then? My informant said you were a democracy."

"We don't raise a queen." The gnome looked disgusted. "We find her. She rules until her death and then we become democratic until we find a new one."

Ford scrunched his nose. "Why would you willingly throw out a democracy?"

The gnome gave him an odd look. "For love..?" He said like it was obvious. Ford didn't quite understand that, but when he opened his mouth to ask, another gnome nudged the one he was speaking to.

"Horace, stop sharing with the human, the Queen hates a blabbermouth." The other gnome hissed.

"Blabbermouth? You mean your matriarch doesn't allow free speech?" He huffed. "Some government. I thought gnomes were more developed than this."

All the gnomes in unison snapped to look at him like he'd spit on their mother. "Don't insult our wife." The other gnome spat.

"... 'Our'?"

Then he was thrown out of their tiny hands and onto the ground. Luckily that wasn't a very far fall and he wasn't winded.

"Our Queen! We found this interloper trying to steal our unicorn hair! And then he kicked Larry!"

Ford shuffle-squirmed until he could see some sort of throne. It seemed to me made out of a large tree warped and braided possibly hundreds of years ago, cultivated for something much larger than a gnome. Two thick legs were crossed one over the other, thin white fabric draped over them. Ford couldn't see their face or torso behind a veil of dichondra, but they were large, confident in their seat. Was that what female gnomes looked like?

"We want to give him the death penalty, my lady!"

Thick fingers poked between the thin vines, and parted them gently. "Francis, you always want the death penalty." The queen of gnomes spoke, her voice low and gravelly with... A jersey accent? It took Ford a second to recognize that round nose, that square jaw, those broad shoulders.

"Stanley?!" Ford gaped. All the gnomes hissed.

Stanley looked down at him, sitting prim in this living artifact of gnome history, long white dress dripping off his shoulders and over a beer gut more impressive than their grandfather's. His eyes were wide. "Stanford..? What the hell are you doin' out here?"

Ford squirmed in his bindings. "I should be asking you that, Stanley! Did Ma tell you I moved here?! Are you trying to ruin my research grant too?!" He hollared from the dirt. The gnomes started grabbing him again, hissing and spitting senselessly.

Then Stanley stood, and the gnomes parted for him like the sea. Ford glared up at him and Stan glared right back. "You got a lot of nerve coming here, stealing from me and mine, and saying I'm the one not welcome."

Ford struggled harder against the unicorn hair. "You kidnapped me, Stanley!"

Stan sighed. "That's not my name anymore." He said firmly. "It's Constance."

Suddenly, a few facts snapped into place. A feminine new name, long hair, feminine clothing, complete loss of the Pines' man chicken legs but the backs of her hands had divots between the bones from muscle atrophy. "Oh." He said astutely. Then; "You kept Stan in your name..?" She used to go by Stan, Ford always hated it for himself but Stan would just smile and say she liked being part of a pair. Did she still? After all these years?

Stan smiled gently. "Yeah." She said simply.

"Did you become a transsexual when you were instated as queen of the gnomes?"

Her face soured. "Eight years and that's what you ask - no, Ford." She said shortly, putting a hand on her gut before turning her back to him. "Punishment is excommunication with gnome scholars for a week, and a price hike on buying unicorn hair, now where's Larry?" She said definitively, and all the gnomes started moving around her. One particularly bitey gnome from earlier scuttling up to her so she could pick him up and hold him to her breast. The gnome looked very smug about this.

Then he was picked up again, and he started squirming harder. "Constance! Wait! I have questions!"

She sat back in her veiled throne and Ford was carried away. "Stan! Wait, Stan!" But she didn't move.

He tried to note the way he came but he didn't know the forest this low to the ground and the fifty tiny hands on him were distracting. He looked back - the chatty gnome was holding up his shoulder again. "Horace! How on earth did my sister become a gnome queen? How long has she been here? Did she know I was here?"

Horace squinted at him. "Sister?"

"Yes, that's the more accurate term I presume."

"But you're so..." He trailed off.

"Ugly!" One of the others piped up.

"Smelly!" Another added.

"Kicky!"

"Scrawny!"

Ford huffed. "Well she is. We're identical - we were born as such anyhow."

Horace looked skeptical. "If you say so, scientist."

"You didn't answer my question."

Horace gave him an annoyed look. "She became our queen the same way anyone does. By marrying us and carrying our--" Another gnome elbowed him.

"She doesn't want us talking to you." The other gnome snipped, giving Horace stink-eye.

But Ford's mind caught on the verb. Carrying. Carrying. But Stan wasn't holding anything, what of theirs could she possibly be carrying?

They carried him all the way to his house, and put down on his rug. He stayed very, very still while tiny hands undid the knots of unicorn hair, noting every bind until he was freed.

Then he scrambled to his feet and sprinted back out the door. He needed answers. He retraced the steps of the gnomes, not hearing them following him but keeping up his pace anyway. It wasn't until he realized he had been running longer than the gnomes had been carrying him that he slowed, retraced his steps, found trees he recognized that only lead to trees he didn't. He found his own boot prints, the journal he had dropped, but not a single gnome. He sketched out a rough map that was somehow always wrong, found his own boot prints again, managed to circle back to his house and by the time the air started cooling he was no closer to finding that clearing he was brought to. He retraced his steps again and just by the last familiar tree he looked on and saw nothing, no break in the trees, no stray anomalies, nothing.

"Stan!" He called into the shades of orange the sky had become through the tree tops. "Stan! Where are you?!" He yelled but his words were carried off in the breeze and no response came.

He sighed, leaning and then sitting against a tree with a root he'd seen one of his gnome captors trip over. He should log the events, it wasn't every day one was captured by gnomes. But when he got out his journal and a pen, he started sketching Constance, instead.

He hadn't seen her in nearly a decade. She still had those broad, muscled shoulders, but she didn't slouch so much anymore. She seemed comfortable where she was, so easily confident the way she always had been, the way Ford always envied. Maybe she genuinely didn't know who Ford was, maybe she was drawn by the weirdness magnetism just like he was.

He drew her long, curly hair that was the same texture as their Ma's but just a bit lighter. That smile she'd given him, for just a moment. Her dress, that only emphasized her shoulders and biceps and made him wonder if she still boxed like she used to. Then her stomach, the one that protruded farther than usual, the one she had held strangely, almost protectively.

Carrying.

But that was just ridiculous. Sure, he didn't know the intricacies of gnome reproduction, and facts were relative in Gravity Falls, but his twin wouldn't just let anyone use her for a broodmare, she was a free spirit, always had been, nothing could tie her down that way, certainly not gnomes.

Even if it might have. Even if she still wanted to be a parent just like she had gushed about when they were teenagers watching Shermie and she wouldn't put him down for even a second. She wouldn't need gnomes for something like that.

He drew her protruded stomach anyway, the way her hands went over it, the way she held herself.

His sister. He wondered if Ma knew. She'd wanted Shermie to be a girl so badly, maybe she would be happy to finally have her daughter.

He wondered how his twin had changed. If maybe she was more mature, after their time apart. He sketched her out again, her sharp eyes down to her soft legs. He barely noticed how his pen loosened in his grasp and his blinks got longer until he leaned his head back against tree bark and didn't look back down at his pages again.

----

When he woke up, the air was warm, and light shone through his eyelids. Five fingers were gently combing through his hair but he couldn't feel any alarm through the warm fog his mind was steeped in. He blinked his eyes open.

"Stan?" He yawned.

The fingers stopped, and Ford frowned. "Yeah, Knucklehead. You passed out in the middle of the woods. Could have been chow for the hide-behinds doing that."

"Hide-behinds are carnivorous?" Ford slurred, before clearing his throat. "More importantly - where were you? What are you doing here? Why do you sell unicorn hair?"

Stan snorted. "Still always up for an interrogation, huh? Anybody tell you you'd make a shitty detective?"

Ford huffed, sitting up from what was apparently Stan's legs - which were softer than he remembered. Perhaps a consequence of estrogen. "I would never work for an institution that wasn't my own."

Stan cackled. "Damn straight. Is that why you got that creepy ass cabin? Avoiding the Geneva convention up there?"

Ford smiled. "I'm not at liberty to say."

"Ha! And all our teachers thought you was an angel."

"Compared to you I was a Saint."

"Says the guy that built a bomb to get out of summer school gym." Stan bumped his shoulder.

"Sayeth I. At least I never used my babysitting job to make an information black market." He bumped Stan right back, but Stan went down cackling.

Ford took in his surroundings. He seemed to be on a giant bed of blankets and furs and clothing, a very obvious divot where one had slept consistently. The bed only ended at the trees surrounding it, and each tree had hanging plants veiling the space between like a canopy.

He looked back at Stan, who was still smiling and struggling to sit up. Like this, her stomach seemed even more prominent.

"What are you carrying...?" Ford muttered, and Stan froze like a startled deer.

"Heh - whaddaya mean, poindexter?"

Ford reached out. Stan's stomach was solid in a way that really made no sense. Warm, feverishly warm under the thin cloth, little touches of static barely registering to his fingertips.

Stan's breath hitched. "S' just part of the deal, you know. They take care of me and all I gotta do is--" Something, something shifted under his hand - two somethings in two different directions.

Ford's fingers knotted into her unnaturally white dress. "They take care of you?" He said faintly. "That's all it takes?"

Stan shifted away a little, her own hands coming up to her stomach protectively. "It's more complicated than that - and it's not like it was my first idea, it just kinda happened."

"Just happened. You just let yourself get impregnated? By gnomes? Were the gremloblins busy? Did the gnomes just get to you first? Or is there a line?"

Stan smacked his hands off of him. "You don't know the kinda shit I went through, Stanford! I've done a lot worse for a lot less, you don't get it living it up in a big fancy house where you can just chase gnomes all day instead of chasing your next meal! You think I'm a whore? I fucking am! At least a whore gets fed!" Stan had shuffled away on her massive bed, hands still over her stomach like Ford would hurt her. She still had that fire in her eyes, in her tone, but she was defensive.

Ford couldn't take his eyes off her. "I could have taken care of you."

"Fuck off Stanford, don't think I forgot your first reaction to seeing me in almost a decade!" Her voice was raised, but she glanced to the side, and something made her quiet. "You're awake, it's morning, you can piss off now." She muttered.

"I was reactive from being kidnapped, Constance, it's unreasonable to blame me when you facilitated my kidnapping on top of knowing I lived here and never saying anything!"

"You were arrested for stealing, and the only gnome that knows your name is Schmebulock, so pardon me for not catching it, scientist." At the last word she made the same gesture he'd seen Schmebulock make when visiting - he thought it was just a gnomish hand-wave.

Ford blinked. "You're really living amongst them? What happened to your sales job?"

"They all fell through. At least this gig guarantees me another month out of my car." He ran his hand over his naval. "Maybe less." He muttered.

"You're coming back with me." Ford blurted.

Stan got defensive again. "Fat chance."

"This is a very unusual condition to be in, and I specialize in the unusual, so--"

"Nope - not talking about this. Not happening. You're lucky I told the guys to keep away because if they heard you talking like that they'd eat you." She said matter-of-factly.

"Gnomes are carnivorous?"

Stan paused, squinting at him. "If I give you something to geek out over will you give up on making me your lab rat until I've at least had breakfast?"

On one hand, Ford resented that notion, he just wanted to monitor her condition, and he had a right to ask questions. On the other hand, Stan never disappointed when it came to giving him new discoveries.

"... What kind of something."

"Something you gotta be really, really, really careful with." She responded, crawling to the centre of the bed, and that divot in the blankets. Her stomach distended nearly as far as her knees, touching the bed when she crawled. He wondered if he should help hold it up for her.

But then she reached the middle and started digging into the blankets. When she was elbow deep she gave him a very stern look. "No questions if I let you hold this, and if you drop it I'll kill you." She said, and Ford nodded dumbly.

She pulled out a large, oblong pink shape about the size of a cantaloupe. "You wanna know what I'm carrying, it's more of these." She said, and before Ford could say the first syllable of his many, many questions, she shot him a glare. His teeth clacked shut audibly. "Hold out your hands."

Ford held them out, and Stanley carefully put the egg in them. It was just as warm as her stomach, and put slightly stronger sparks into his fingertips. That would explain why his hands were shaking. "Stan, I--"

"Nope, no questions. I'm fucking starving, I'm getting breakfast, if you got questions ask Ford Jr." She grunted, crawling off the massive bed and leaving Ford in a daze.

He stared down at the soft pink calcium carbonate shell his sister had given him to watch. It felt alive in his hands the way the all the wilderness of Gravity Falls did, sparking things in his hind brain without any real direction. He looked at the life Stan had made (and given to him, trusted him with) and those aimless neurons seemed to all snap into place.

This was Stan's child. His nibling. His family. His legs curled, putting the egg in his lap and curling around it until it dug into his abdomen, safe. The ambient electricity of it buzzed with content and Ford hummed right back to it.

Stan was probably joking about naming it after him, but just the thought had his vision blurring. Stan had made the most miraculous little thing, and if she named it after him? His heart was in his throat.

He stared at that pink egg and hoped it hatched looking like its mother.

Then something solid wacked him on the head. He curled even tighter around his egg, but when he turned it was only Constance.

"Shit, I thought the hypnosis was a me thing. Not everything's a threat, Ford Jr. is a little ugly, also a gnome, and what always knocks me out of it is imagining the birth so I guess try that."

Ford blinked - it burned, had he been forgetting to blink? But he turned to properly face Stan, relaxing his hold on the egg. Stan looked beautiful, aetherial, heavy with life and glowing with it and--

Stan thunked him again on the head with what he now knew was a wooden bowl full of nuts and berries. "Imagine. That thing. Coming out of you."

Ford looked down at the egg again. It was larger than both his fists put together.

"See? Not as cute now, huh."

He didn't imagine himself, he imagined Stan, alone and in pain without him there, having to do everything herself, a normal human birth could be fatal, he didn't know the statistics of someone with an incorrectly shaped pelvis. He looked back at her, struggling to carry herself, heavy with more of these little wonders that she would have had to give life to alone if Ford hadn't found her.

"Do you need the bowl again?"

Ford shook his head. "If I were hypnotized I would know, Constance." He said simply. His sister rolled her eyes. "And beyond that, I really think you should--"

"I got you breakfast." Stan cut in, balancing the wooden bowl on his bent knees. "Gimme Egg Ford."

Ford handed over the egg like a dead man handed over his heart to Anubis, and Stan picked it up one-handed, tucking it into her elbow and against her breast like a mother would. "Did you really name it after me?" Ford asked, taking the bowl to pick at.

"Maybe. Maybe I just named him after the car."

Ford snorted. "And not after your old beater?"

"Hey. Put some respect on the Connie-mobile's name. I even got her a new license plate for it."

"Oh - not Stan?"

"You call me Stan, you get it, anyone else does I got some brass for em'." She grumbled, sitting herself down properly.

Ford smiled at her. She averted her eyes and grabbed a handful of Ford's breakfast. "I still think you should come home with me." He said with more surety behind it.

Stan sighed and put a hand on her stomach. "Not your lab?"

"Well, my lab is most of my home, but I do have a living area. Technically." He could still see her doubt, defensive of her young. "I can take take care of you - I will, I want to. I can do thousands of times better than those damn gnomes, I swear."

Stan sighed like she was carrying the world - and she might be - and looked down at his namesake. "Maybe. A little help with the next two would be good, at least. Gnomes have shitty bedside manner." Ford nodded. "... So after this, you'll let me sleep on your couch or something? You know I can't pay rent, and it'll take a few days after these two are born to work and--"

"You'll sleep in my bed."

Stan's eyebrows shot right up. "Oh. Like..." Her head lowered, looking for any eavesdroppers. "Like highschool kind of sleep or middle school kind of sleep?"

"Whichever you'd like." Ford said. "But, ah, I did appreciate our highschool sleeping arrangements."

Stan's cheeks were pink and she had a smile on her face. "Damn, Sixer, way to romance em'." She mocked, averting her eyes again.

Ford cupped her face. "I could always take you out - I suppose it's my responsibility as the man."

Stan snorted. "Yeah, such a gentleman." She commented, but pushed her face into his six-fingered hand.

"I'm serious. I want to get to know my sister." He said very seriously.

Her face got redder. "Whatever you say, Casanova. Now finish your breakfast, the gnomes worked hard to get all those."

Ford put his bowl to the side. "Breakfast can wait." He said sternly, cupping her other cheek and kissing her.

She sighed like she was home, leaning into him. Ford held her easily.

#Pardon the one italicized comma #Ford is so susceptible to hypnosis before the portal its not even funny he's got his mind's legs spread at all times #That was a horrible metaphor why did I say that #Stan: So yeah I'm a surrogate #Ford: *nodding* these are our children that we will raise and I should start setting asside college funds for them #stancest #Don't check the word count on this #Any amount is too long #drafts

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margindoodles2407 · 6 months ago

Note

you are yet to tell us your fandom-controversial takes on the corrie guard and their poor marshal commander

I require this to be rectified posthaste (take your time lol)

Ask and ye shall recieve, friend-o (I spent three days on this)

(@whyoneartheven Hola. You'll also probably want to see this)

DISCLAIMER. Hello there. I urge you, if you are currently reading this dissertation, to perhaps- either now or later- step aside to read this glorious fic, which not only changed my brain chemistry in indescribable ways but also shaped at least 90% of my perception of Fox as a person. I am contractually obligated to warn you, though. That it's a T- rated fic. And it's a hard T. There is some dark subject matter here. However. If you are okay with that. PLEASE READ IT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE OH MY FORCE GO READ IT GO READ IT NOW I AM LOSING MY MIND IT'S SO GOOD IT'S SO GOOD IT'S SO GOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDD:

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3653110 (you're going to have to copy and paste the link but i swear it works)

And Now, Your Scheduled Programming.

---------------------------------------------------

Commander Fox

By MarginDoodles2047

What I see in Commander Fox is a man who is, fundamentally, deeply kind.

I see a man who was once a little boy, the youngest of his batch of brothers, and with a red giant for a heart. I see a little boy whose heart was huge and warm and beautifully bright, who loved like it was breathing, who gave and gave and gave without a thought to himself. I see a boy whose heart's deepest darkest desire was to be a medic, whose hands ached to heal and not to hurt, who wanted to fix what was broken and stitch back together what was ravaged and ragged and ruined.

I see a boy who could not ever see that dream become more, because he was created to lead armies to victory, no matter how high the blood-price.

I see a youth who worked like a madman to prove himself, and whose efforts were finally rewarded with the promise that he'd never have to see the battlefield he hated so much. I see a youth ecstatic at the thought that he'd spend his days protecting, for Coruscant, the beating heart of the Republic, was his to guard and to defend. I see a youth who spent his last night on Kamino with bright, excited eyes and a giddy racing in his huge, warm, bright heart, because he, of all his brothers, the youngest, little Fox'ika, had been deemed fit to spill his blood for the Supreme Chancellor himself.

I see a man who stepped off the transport, who took his first steps onto the planet-city, hand locked in his best friend and co-Commander's, with eyes still shining and a smile that could put the ecumenopolis's own glittering brightness to shame.

I see… that smile start to fade, as the days and weeks go by.

Because I see what Fox could not, not at first: I see the decadence, the degeneracy, the decay that lay just beneath that shimmering facade. I see the minds of people from all corners of the galaxy, some noble but most twisted and corrupted, as they go about their petty lives squabbling and backrooms-dealing in the name of Democracy but really for their own gain. I see the inflated, fragile egos of countless humans and aliens who are more than willing to treat their fellow beings as objects to use and discard when they're done with them.

Most horribly, I see at the center of it all the deceptively gentle smile and cruel beady eyes of a man in blood-red robes, who spins this web of corruption and abuse around him like a very patient spider that finds himself delighted to have caught a very earnest and very naive white-and-crimson-armored beetle right in the center of it.

I see a man who finds his entire world ripped out from under his feet, yet still a man who tries to make the best out of a bad situation for weeks. I see a man who fights back against every snide comment, every attempted backhanded slap, every derogatory sneer of Clone, with the fire from his red-giant heart flaring in his eyes and burning in his voice, yet who- increasingly exhaustedly- turns nothing but his innate kindness and warmth and empathy on his terrified younger brothers, despite being terrified himself. I see a man who is so determined to be cheerfully rebellious, even to the face of the most powerful man in the Galaxy---

But when he holds the broken, badly-concussed body of his best friend and right-hand man, the body of a brother beaten and battered and barely-alive as a punishment for his defiance, I see a man who resolves then and there that as long as he is Marshal Commander of the Coruscant Guard, no one but he will take the blows and the bruises and the fractures and the insults and the absolute hell that is the Senate.

I see a man whose heart is huge and warm and whose beautifully bright light is flickering and sputtering like a dying candle, who loves like it's breathing, who gives and gives and gives without a thought to himself.

I see him give his body to the blows and the slaps and the throwing and the names. I see him give his gentleness, his comfort, his protection to his brothers. I see him give everything he has to make sure the politicians' attentions are on him and never on his Guardsmen.

I see the sweet little boy get buried under layers of callouses, to be dug out only for the suffering men he's sworn himself to protect. I see him cut himself off from his batch-brothers, firstly because he feels they'd never understand or believe him and secondly, because he doesn't want that spider of a man to have any more leverage over him than he already does-- because I see a beskar will that only one person can bend and twist like taffy, I see a man hewn from marble that only one person can toy with like a marionette on a string.

I see once-dark curls shock themselves full of silver and once-bright eyes go dim and dull and sunken. I see too-sharp cheekbones and a once-smooth young face get violently gashed in half from eyebrow to mouth-corner, just because. I see black eyes and deep hematomas expertly hidden under layers of drugstore concealer and violent electric burns expertly hidden under the layers of his armor. I see the scars that are tokens of thoughtless cruelty and deliberate torture alike.

I see a man who spends his nights on Coruscant with exhausted, weepy eyes and a panicked racing in his shrinking, cooling, flickering heart, because he, of all his brothers, the oldest, Commander Fox, has been deemed fit to spill his blood for the Supreme Chancellor himself.

(I see, one particularly bad night, a glass of something dark and burning. Over time, I see that glass turn into two glasses. Then a bottle. Then three bottles. Then five bottles and a sobbing, heartbroken man slumped over his cluttered desk- a man who dried to drown his terror and his grief but instead finds himself drowning in them and a sea of cheap Correllian alcohol.)

I see it all, and I see it… go unnoticed, because what the Senate, the Media, the Public, sees is a perfect, polished Marshal Commander whose black-brown and silver curls have never a hair out of place, whose bleak eyes can hold perfect and even intense contact with those of their focus, whose sharp split face is nonetheless clean-shaven and unblemished and even- in its own macabre way- handsome when it's not hidden under his helmet, whose bruises and scars are rendered invisible and whose hands never shake and whose never-raised voice is measured and even and soft and always, always, polite.

Fox is not the only one I see, though. I see Command Batch, increasingly concerned regarding little Foxy's clipped, too-polite monosyllables and terse responses. I especially see Wolffe and Cody, angrily sad and deeply worried, respectively, about the change that has come over their vod'ika. I see Rex's relationship with Fox grow cold and distant and strained for reasons he's not entirely able to fathom. I see Thorn, worrier that he is, the only one able to really get through to his superior, his best friend, his brother, the only one who knows the extent of the wreck that Fox has become. I see the Guardsmen, from the oldest surviving veteran to the freshest most innocent shiny, ready to die for their Marshal Commander because he's the only one who makes them not want to die from the torture that is their job.

I see the Chancellor, who really doesn't care about him, because, in the grand scheme of things, he's nigh-inconsequential to his master plan, yet who keeps him around because isn't it fun to have one person on whom he can inflict all the mental and physical and spiritual torture he likes, because he has no safe space or confidante that could protect him? One person he can tell that plan to because he has no one to tell and stop the coming darkness? One person who can know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who the Dark Lord of the Sith is, because even if he did have someone to tell, who would believe that the kind, soft-spoken, grandfatherly Chancellor, who's so respectful of all his troops and fights so hard for the rights of the GAR, could possibly be the great evil behind the entire war?

I see Commander Fox.

I see a man whose red giant heart is breaking, bursting at the seams. I see a man who still loves like it's breathing, who still gives and gives and gives without a thought to himself, but whose breathing is turning asthmatic and whose well to give from is by no means infinite. I see a man who still, in his heart of hearts, is trying to be a medic, trying to play doctor to a division that is horribly broken and fumbling with his own mangled hands to stitch back together a division that is ravaged and rugged and ruined almost beyond repair.

I see Commander Fox, and he's running out of time.

#star wars #you ask margin babbles #The Fox Dissertation #The Corries Tag #Margin's Academic Papers #margin writes #okay i think that's all of my major commander fox notes. goodnight (just kidding i'm going to be on here to see YOUR REACTION #MUAHAHAHAHA)

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trashwaaveactual · 2 years ago

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"Fire all the Republicans" Cry the retards who also shriek about the "sanctity of democracy" Bunch of drooling retards.

Fire. All. Republicans.

if Republicans shut down the government over budget reasons, remember that they're the ones who grow the deficit every time they're in charge by giving massive amounts of our taxpayer money to corporations

our country can't survive much longer under republican rule, and will almost certainly crash under another garbage "president" like tRump

the hypocrisy is cartoonishly evil

#democracy (derogatory)

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hollow-keys · 2 years ago

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I suffered through Tom King Wonder Woman so you don't have to, here's the review:

The set up is that Amazons become outlaws because one Amazon attacked a guy who assaulted her, then all the guys in the bar attacked her because of it, a full bar brawl happened and she killed them. Already, this feels very uninspired.

Instead of being told through Diana's perspective, the entire story is narrated by a guy who's unnamed for most of the story. Wonder Woman is a secondary character in her own book and isn't even on most of the pages.

Additionally, a lot of important information is glossed over. The political atmosphere and lead up to the bill outlawing the Amazon's should be the focus of the first issue. We should see Wonder Woman and her allies organising and reacting to the events, but this is all handwaved away by a few narration boxes from the currently unnamed guy I just mentioned. He tells us that she protested the governments outlawing peacefully, but it's not shown. The only time we see Diana up to this point is a brief nothing-conversation with Steve Trevor.

When the act is put in place 300 amazons are killed or imprisoned. We don't see her defend them once. We do see a lesbian amazon get gunned down because apparently the government somehow got bullets that can cut Amazon steel.

When we first see Diana after the act's in place she's at the graves of those guys who were killed and she tells the government agents that are after her that she's trying to solve their murders? Homegirl, your people are being genocided.

She doesn't actually seem to care, she appears like an emotionless slate who talks of "obligation" to the Amazons like this is a job, not her people being hunted. The most emotion we get is being told by an Amazon ambassador that she gave her sword to her to resist the temptation of using it, which could point to her being enraged by all this but, again, it's not like we hear from Diana herself.

Edit: I forgot she got angry when a gov agent called her a bitch but yeah that's it on the emotion front.

She then talks to Steve about the situation, again, and then we're finally fully introduced to the narrator guy, The Sovereign. He is part of a dynasty of men that have been secretly ruling America for centuries wielding the lasso of lies. No, seriously.

Firstly, putting America's problems at the feet of an entirely made up guy who's secretly subverting democracy is exactly the type of overly simplistic bullshit I would expect from an ex-CIA operative like Tom King. It's a neat explanation that doesn't require you to consider structural problems, all you gotta do is dispose of this one guy.

Secondly, the idea of a person/group secretly pulling the strings is deeply tied to anti-semitic cabal conspiracy theories, even the word cabal comes from Yiddish. Sure, not all people who believe this type of thing believe that it's a Jewish person/group controlling the world, but the further you get in conspiracy circles, the more prevalent anti-semitism becomes. This guy also has a big nose, which is a common stereotypical Jewish feature.

Thirdly, the lasso of lies? Seriously? Why? Questions, questions and no good answers.

All of this is written in Tom King's unmistakable style (derogatory) where all the dialogue is disjointed, all the characters are sad + stoic and the political commentary is meaningless at best.

#wonder woman #diana prince #tom king #dc comics #wednesday spoilers #meta #📨

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trashwaaveactual · 11 months ago

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Based.

This doesn't happen often enough.

#j6 #j6 insurrection #liberal hypocrisy #democrats #vote democrat #vote biden #vote blue #vote blue no matter who #liberalism is a mental illness #democracy (derogatory)#am yisrael chai

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susansontag · 3 months ago

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I sometimes feel a weird pressure on here to post something derogatory about trump after I’ve just posted or reblogged something rightfully critical of the democrats, lest people new to my blog, or even longterm followers and mutuals, think I’m somehow endorsing trump or really like the republicans suddenly or something. it’s such a strange urge, almost fearful.

it’s my memory of the all the years I spent refusing to speak my mind on politics, activism, feminism, whatever, for fear of backlash because I was aware they were more ‘extreme’/‘radical’ than is typically allowed for in polite conversation in capitalist liberal democracies. but regardless of the occasional return of that feeling, of that fear of ostracisation, I will never go back. I have certainty in that.

my political opinions will keep developing as they may but I don’t want to ever be concerned that I have to justify why I hate the democrats and republicans, and the entire US project itself. to be clear, my own state is not exempt from that. there’s never a reason to have to apologise for or coddle those murderers. I wish I could stop feeling afraid but sometimes you have to feel fear and not betray yourself at the same time. if someone can’t handle criticism of biden or someone, who will be meeting many a US president before him in hell, without someone bending over backwards to say they don’t condone or endorse trump… well who cares. it’s important people know there’s a huge realm of opinion outside these partisan squabbles in capitalist societies. and I’m so glad about that!

#it’s not like everyone has to agree with me in everything. I don’t demand that of anyone. so it also shouldn’t be demanded of me #moth.txt

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trashwaaveactual · 2 years ago

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Lol, just vote them out!

“They took our land, they imprisoned our queen, they banned our language, they forcibly made us a colony of the United States. America says they are democratic, that is a lie! They have never been democratic with Native people! They have never been democratic with Indians! They have never been democratic with Hawaiians!”

#democracy (derogatory)

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 10 months ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 16, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 17, 2024

The complaint of Republican vice presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) last weekend on CNN that Democrats are bullying him by calling him weird has stuck with me. As I wrote at the time, Republicans have made punching down their stock in trade for decades, and Vance’s complaint suggests that the Democrats are finally pushing back. It strikes me that behind this shifting power dynamic is a huge story about American politics.

Since the 1950s, those determined to get rid of business regulation, social welfare programs, government infrastructure spending, and federal protection of civil rights have relied on a rhetorical structure that centers “real” Americans who allegedly want nothing from government and warns that un-American forces who want government handouts are undermining the country by bringing socialism or racial, gender, or religious equality.

In 2024, that rhetoric is all the MAGA Republicans have left to attract voters, as their actual policies are unpopular. Yesterday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told reporters at his Bedminster availability that to win the 2024 election: “All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody that's gonna destroy our country."

But it is not just Trump. A MAGA pundit has called Vice President Harris “Hitler and Stalin combined but times 200,” and on Wednesday, Republicans in Minnesota nominated Royce White as their candidate for the U.S. Senate. “We face an enemy that intends to bastardize our citizenship through an idea called globalism,” White has said. “We must begin to understand how the global affects the local and take a stand for God, Family, and Country.” White has also said that “women have become too mouthy,” and that “Donald Trump could get up on stage, pull his pants down, take a sh*t up at the podium, and I still would never vote for you f*cking Democrats again.”

The rhetorical strategy setting up Republicans against a dangerous “other” was behind Trump’s demand that Republicans in Congress kill a bipartisan border bill so that Trump could continue to demonize immigrants. You could see that demonization of immigrants today in Vance’s straight-up lie that Vice President Kamala Harris “wants to give $25,000 to illegal aliens to buy American homes.” In fact, Harris today called for Congress to expand plans already in place in the Biden administration, and none of those plans call for giving money to undocumented migrants.

Also in that vein today was the announcement of Representative James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, that he is opening an investigation into Minnesota governor Tim Walz’s work in China. Walz is the Democratic vice presidential nominee. He went to China in 1989 as part of a teach-abroad program and went on to coordinate trips for students in China, becoming a vocal advocate for human rights in that country as leaders cracked down on opposition. But by suggesting this cultural exchange is nefarious, Comer can seed the idea that Walz is somehow operating against the interests of the United States.

This longstanding rhetoric that positions Republicans as true Americans defending the country against those who would destroy it has metastasized into the determination of MAGA Republicans to replace American democracy with a Christian nationalism that cements the power of white patriarchy. Vance has been in hot water for his derogatory remarks about “childless cat ladies”; interviews have resurfaced in the past few days in which he embraced the idea that the role of “the postmenopausal female” is to take care of grandchildren.

The New College of Florida is in the news today for illustrating the logical progression of the idea that Republicans must protect the nation from those who would destroy it. The New College of Florida was at the center of Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s program to get rid of traditional academic freedom. He stripped the New College of its independence and replaced officials with Christian loyalists who tried to build a school modeled after those that Viktor Orbán’s loyalists took over in Hungary. New College officials painted over student murals celebrating diversity, suppressed student support for civil rights, and voted to eliminate the diversity, equity, and inclusion office and the gender studies program. Faculty fled the New College, and more than a quarter of the students dropped out. To keep its numbers up, the school dropped its admission standards.

Yesterday, Steven Walker of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that the school cleared out the Gender and Diversity Center, throwing the books it had accumulated into a dumpster. Officials said the books are no longer serving the needs of the college: “gender studies has been discontinued as an area of concentration at New College and the books are not part of any official college collection or inventory.”

The image of piles of books in a dumpster in the United States of America is not easily forgettable.

But the dominance rhetoric of the MAGA Republicans was never just about political power. Political power always went hand in hand with corruption. A new book by Joe Conason called The Longest Con notes that the modern right-wing movement has its roots in the promise of grifters after World War II to protect America against the communists they insisted were infiltrating the country. Their promises to defend true Americans against an enemy was always about getting cash out of the deal.

Conason emphasizes how drumming up fears of an “other” was a deliberate grift to put money into the pockets of those who told small donors that their dollars were vital for defending the United States. The biggest prize for the extremists, though, was the control of government purse strings that allowed them to turn federal and state largesse toward their own cronies. Conason notes that under President Ronald Reagan, Republicans’ cuts to government oversight and reliance on the private sector to regulate itself, along with their belief that unfettered capitalism was a form of resistance to communism, led to a boom in corruption.

That corruption has continued in the Republican Party, largely unaddressed as politicians insisted that those calling it out were simply un-American malcontents engaging in political hits against good, patriotic Americans. In contrast, as any corruption on the Democratic side can be expected to be sliced and diced in public, the Democrats have stayed relatively clean.

And this is why Vance’s comment about Democrats bullying him jumped out at me. Republican dominance is cracking as Trump struggles and Vance offends people, and as that dominance falls away, the many things it covered are starting to get attention—among them, stories of Republican corruption. And they’re doozies.

On Sunday, for example, Garrett Shanley of the Independent Florida Alligator, the student newspaper of the University of Florida, reported that when former senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) took over the presidency of the University of Florida, he “channeled millions” to his Republican allies and to secretive contracts. In 17 months he more than tripled spending from his office, with most of the money going to his former aides and political friends, most of whom continued to live and work outside the state. Sasse was appointed in November 2022 in an opaque hiring process and stepped down unexpectedly in July, citing family issues, although Vivienne Serret of The Independent Alligator reported that DeSantis allies on the Board of Trustees forced him out.

One of the biggest stories in the country these days is the corruption scandal in Ohio, in which dark money groups led by the FirstEnergy utility company worked with former Ohio House speaker Larry Householder to put into office politicians who, thanks to about $61 million in bribes, backed a $1.3 billion bailout for FirstEnergy paid for with tax dollars.

On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost agreed to settle the scandal. FirstEnergy will pay a $20 million fine, an amount that Marty Schladen of the Ohio Capital Journal notes is less than one-third the amount FirstEnergy spent to bribe legislators, and a fraction of the money ratepayers have had to pay because of the corrupt legislation the bribes paid for.

Nothing better illustrates the grift at the center of today’s MAGA Republicans than Donald Trump’s Big Lie that he actually won the 2020 election and that it was stolen from him by those dangerous “others,” the Democrats. The Big Lie enabled the Trump team to continue soliciting donations in order to fight for the White House. According to Conason, Trump and his fellow election deniers pocketed $255.4 million between the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of the electoral votes that would make Democratic candidate Joe Biden president.

On Monday, jurors found former Colorado election clerk Tina Peters guilty on seven counts in relation to her compromising of her county’s election system. Peters was determined to get voter information to My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a key Trump ally, in order to prove the Big Lie. She is facing more than 22 years in prison.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #election 2024 #corruption #bullying #MAGA #political power + corruption #cronyism

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