#but we need progressives to run to be able to vote for them

[lurkiestvoid]

Look into Claudia De la Cruz! She's a 2024 presidential candidate with the Party for Socialism and Liberation and she is actively participating in pro-Palestine protests.

Thank you! I briefly looked through her website and platform, and she sounds amazing. I love her policy proposals, and I'll read more about her and how I can support her going forward.

That said, I've been through enough presidential elections now that I do not believe we can fix a two-party system by sliding a progressive candidate into the tippy top of the hierarchy. We've tried the top-down approach so many times and it has failed every single time. The closest we got in the last three decades was Bernie, and the DNC kneecapped that at the finish line.

So fuck the DNC, but a select few dems across the country have indeed clawed back tiny pockets of progress despite the damage of the last eight years, and we need those few to continue holding the line against christofascism while we work towards meaningful change with a combination of community organizing, mutual aid, protesting, AND voting, because it will take all four tools in the toolbox to have any chance of reversing this dumpsterfire.

There are 420 registered parties in the US, over a dozen declared third-party candidates for 2024 so far, and there is major perpetual and growing anti-voting sentiment in the leftist base with less than a year until the election. I personally do not believe we can create and sustain enough momentum behind a single candidate to break through, and find it more likely folks will pick a few faves and splinter across several parties.

In my opinion, we need to take a lesson from the Tea Party and work bottom-up, not top-down.

The Tea Party was officially founded in 2009 as an extremist response to the Obama presidency, and had a growing presence in Congress by 2010/2012. Today it's considered a 'dead' party, but they had MAJOR influence inside the GOP which fed and evolved directly into M@G@-style politics and policies.

They did all this in less than a decade of elections. The left can do it too, if we can simply sustain that same passion for our own shared goals.

If we want to actually drag the Overton window back to the Left and actually break the two-party system in the US, and if we want to see an actual Progressive president in our lifetimes, we HAVE to elect progressives to Congress first to have enough of a presence to realistically bring forward and successfully enact required changes such as getting rid of first-past-the-post voting, abolishing the electoral college, enacting congressional term limits, and removing the cap on the House of Representatives. A large enough progressive presence in Congress can also help us better fund and represent more third parties, and gives us a better chance of enacting progressive reforms such as UBI, universal healthcare, universal education, and more.

But in order to do that at all, we cannot afford to risk letting the far right have the oval office again, no matter who their candidate is. We should absolutely primary all disappointing democratic candidates on all levels including presidential, and I'm hoping like hell we get actual progressive candidates out of it, but in the end I will personally be voting a straight blue ticket in 2024 regardless of who wins those primaries because if Project 2025 is allowed to come into play we're all globally and permanently fucked.

tl;dr: Even on the very slim chance they would be ALLOWED to win the office in a rigged system, a third-party president won't get anything meaningful done with a two-party Congress -- and if we try and fail yet again, we may never get another chance to try at all.

(Sorry for the rant anon, I respect your intent and enthusiasm!! but I didn't wanna just leave it at 'thanks but I'm voting blue' without explaining why.)

[gacorley]

There’s some common threads I see in the anti-voting posts going around, and I feel like I need to discuss some of them. Let’s start with the biggest one:

Voting to punish evil. I see lots of variations of this. Biden is supporting Israel, therefore we can’t vote for him. Is there any viable candidate who would stop the genocide? I don’t think the anti voting crowd actually cares. They are appealing to moral feelings rather than political strategy, because strategically, you have to realize that voting is not going to change foreign policy, and that change has to be pushed by other means. It’ll probably be something in the long haul.

Democrats should run someone else. First of all, this is a shit strategy. You don’t primary your president in the second term unless your party is falling apart. This may come from people from countries where replacing the head of government is easier, but the POTUS is the de facto party head. Also, going to the lack of thought to the goal — do you know someone willing to primary Biden and able to win who would do the things you want?

Biden hasn’t done anything anyway. This is just a way to bat away pro arguments. There’s plenty of lists of progress on lots of things. Student loans, insulin price caps, regulations, anti-trust.

Putting the entire Palestinian genocide on Biden. I’m not saying there’s not culpability there, but understand that the entire US government is in support of Israel, on both sides. It was a miracle we got a handful of Senators to call for investigations. We should cut off aid, absolutely. Who’s running to do that? And keep in mind that Israel chose to engage. US officials would have liked a more limited response, not out of care for Palestinians, but because they know from experience that it will come back to bite Israel in the form of newly radicalized Hamas recruits.

Liberals just have no hope for change. This is a new one. Just some idea that people are stuck in a rut and that’s the reason the two party system exists. The two party system is a mathematical consequence of the way we vote. There is reason to hope for change. The change, though, whatever means you choose, will take decades. Keep working at it. The hope is not that this election will fundamentally change things. The hope is that many small political actions over the years will push things forward.

Funnily enough, I haven’t seen a whole lot of third party promotion, just lots of this rhetoric aiming to punish. When voting, ask yourself:

Is this problem I have with this candidate something that the other candidate would be better on?

Are there other political actions I can take that will help?

What things can change with a different President or Congress, and what needs to be pursued by other means?

Withholding your vote as a punishment isn’t really going to help. Biden doesn’t know who you are or why you are not voting for him, and there is no one with a chance of winning that will do everything you want. But you have other means. Protest, organize, donate, build up alternatives, advocate for a different system.

Vote to give yourself space and get a little bit. Do other things to keep things moving.

[hussyknee]

THE LEFTIST THIRD PARTY HAS WON SRI LANKA'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

WE HAVE A PRO-LGBT, PRO-UNION, ANTI-ETHNOFASCIST, ANTI-IMPERIALIST PRESIDENT. MY ANTHROPOLOGY PROFESSOR IS GOING TO BE PRIME MINISTER. A COMPETENT ACADEMIC WHO HAS WORKED ON FEMINIST INITIATIVES AND RESEARCH ALL HER CAREER.

please please please please god don't let them fuck this up don't let them turn into a bunch of cunts to retain their new voter base don't let them fuck up the economy don't let them let the minorities down please please please they won't ever get another chance if they ruin this one we'll be stuck with more idiot corrupt nepo babies till we die please please please PLEASE LET THIS BE THE END OF THE EXECUTIVE PRESIDENCY AND PREVENTION OF TERRORISM ACT AND PERSECUTING THE NORTH please please please let them decriminalize being gay and not bury LGBT rights please please please let there be a god I can't take anymore of this shitshow please please please don't let hope be something that keeps pissing in our faces please please please please please please please

ANURA KUMARA DISSANAYAKE WILL BE THE NINTH PRESIDENT OF SRI LANKA. TAKE THAT YOU TWO PARTY VOTING MOTHERFUCKERS.

Edit:

WHAT DO YOU MEAN FUCKING COLOMBO WENT TO THE IDIOT NEPO BABY???

AKD HAD 52%!!!!! HE WAS ALL BUT SWORN IN?????

THEY HAVE TO COUNT THE SECOND PREFERENTIAL VOTE FOR ONLY THE SECOND TIME IN HISTORY??

There is a very real chance that nobody will get over 50% of the vote. That would be really, really bad.

Fuck.

I HATE YOU MOTHERFUCKING URBAN MIDDLE CLASS LIBERAL CUNTS SO MUCH. PLAGUE ON THE WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY. FUCK YOU.

Edit 2:

Ok so first counting gets AKD 42% and SP 32%. It's very likely the preferentional vote will put him over the 50% line.

It's so poetic that Ranil's greed for power ended up handing the country to the very Marxists that his uncle hunted like animals. You love to see it. 🥰

Edit 3:

So the preferential vote didn't give anyone a 50% majority and we're still at AKD 42% and SP 32%. But apparently that's enough to declare AKD President as per the Constitution. I don't think that's ever happened before. He was sworn in an hour ago.

Point of clarification: The NPP are not Marxists. Foreign news is just uncritically regurgitating the pro-government Red Scare propaganda. AKD and his JVP party used to be Marxists back in the '80s and '90s. They're now more very pro-union socialist. The NPP is their coalition, which is even more mildly social democrat and just happens to be a little more left than the other two. Calling them a Marxist is like how MAGA thinks the Dems are commies. 😂

I truly don't have great hopes that much will change, but there's a chance one or two important things might. Which is more than we've been able to hope for in decades.

See this post for a run down of the what's really been happening.

Edit 4:

I retract the "openly bisexual" part with many apologies. I completely misremembered. It wasn't AKD but JVP senior K. D. Lalkantha, who said in a 2018 interview is that he has also had same sex encounters with his friends as a boy and young man, and that he knows others who have had as well. And he specifically said he doesn't see the need to maintain a label for his sexuality. Still, the fact that his party allowed this in a country that still criminalises homosexuality, to a Sinhalese magazine, speaks to a commitment to LGBT rights. He also explicitly stated his support for women's rights, trans rights, polyamory, open relationships, explicit sexuality in media. It's impressively progressive for this country. The interview is in Sinhala and you can read it here.

Here's an excellent write-up of AKD's career, political outlook and creation of NPP in The Hindu by correspondent Meena Srinivasan, a journalist whose reporting I've always liked.

[waterloggedsoliloquy]

mutual 1: sorry the update for my webcomic this week is a bit late! i really had to rush it so it prolly looks really sloppy lol [some of the most sophisticated comic art ive ever seen]

mutual 2: call me uterine lining the way astarions cervix got me bleeding profusely

mutual 3: do you think nanowrimo will give me a posthumous pity publishing deal if i mention it in my suicide note

mutual 4: okay fine i finally started revolutionary girl utena

mutual 5: does columbo know the service he did for butch lesbians. for all of us

mutual 6: wish you were here [blurry picture set of conifer woods in early autumn evening, taken as if frantically running down a winding trail]

mutual 4: im pretty hardy i dont need the trigger list but thanks for looking out for me guys

mutual 7: good morning lovelies another day the wizard tried to best me and another day i successfully locked him in the spare bathroom lol hope u like drinking shampoo fucker

mutual 8: here is a zip of every yuri manga scan i have and here is a backup in case i get dcma'd. the himejoshi lifestyle will never die

mutual 9: i wish i could go back in time to the shinzo abe assassination and ask to hold the doohickey

mutual 10: here's my essay on how wanting to be loved is the same as wanting to be eaten. three paragraphs in you'll find out that this is 100% tied to an obscure beauty and the beast manga i've been reading lately and how much i want to fuck the beast

mutual 4: oh thats why there was the trigger list.

mutual 11: YOU CAN'T LOCK ME IN THIS BATHROOM FOREVER

mutual 12: why do i have to defend my thesis to people i dont even respect. im not dickriding you just give me the degree

mutual 13: its just me and this scab ive picked into my scalp against the world

mutual 14: my little dragon got glazed and is ready to go into the kiln! everyone wish him good luck!

mutual 3: nvm i am a beautiful genius. perhaps the most beautiful genius of all

mutual 15: i think we should give david lynch rpgmaker and whatever happens happens

mutual 16: kpeyboaatrds brpokem gpuys

mutual 17: also heres my work in progress glossary of mixtec words! i still have a long way to go but i love being able to preserve my roots even in this small way

mutual 4: i just finished the black rose arc. question: what

mutual 18: i need emet-selch to be my wife

mutual 19: i need glados to be my husband

mutual 20: visited the ocean today!!! <3 beach pics!!! there is a darkness growing within me

mutual 21: the forms for my legal name change came in. pls vote in this poll of what my middle name should be: Dill Pickle (Dickle for short), Optimus Prime, Tumblr User Gorgonicteratologist, Smeve

mutual 22: just finished my 100th book of the year! this weeks read was the uses of enchantment by the psychologist bruno bettelheim,

mutual 23: reeses penis butter cups lol

mutual 4: i need to hunt akio for sport

mutual 24: oouugghhrgh. hot. dog.

mutual 25: your favorite character or fictional other would want you to brush your teeth and wash your face so you're well rested and wake up feeling refreshed! make them proud!

mutual 26: being a delivery driver isnt the worst job ive ever had but i do keep wondering what itd be like to drive off into the wild blue yonder one day and not come back

mutual 27: weird dog? [phone picture of critically endangered stork]

mutual 28: i think the two phone line polls in front of my house are having a lovers tryst. no way to prove it tho

mutual 4: WHAT

mutual 29: while you bitches are balduring your gates or finalling those fantasies im doing what a REAL gamer does. playing a b tier rpg that came out in 2004 for the 18th time

mutual 30: ^ real. hamtaro ham ham heartbreak is a masterpiece of interactive art. im not even going to call it a video game at this point

mutual 4: THAT'S HOW IT ENDS?! ANTHY?

mutual 31: can you help me pick which drawing looks better: 34% overlay or 36% soft light?

mutual 32: new video essay out. its called disability in video game narratives: final fantasy 14's most reliable fault. i churned the script out over an all-nighter and my mic crapped out halfway through but by god i did it

mutual 33: my new zine bundle is out! if you buy it you also get a discount on all my game jam games! i really cant wait for you to play them!

mutual 4: yall should watch revolutionary girl utena

[raptorific]

I saw your post re: the silver lining to Biden stepping down. I felt relieved to remember that Trump is now the only incoherent old guy in the race. However, the relief quickly subsided when I remembered that Hillary was very well-spoken and polished, if not quite as young as Harris.

Harris fortunately doesn't have quite the same baggage as Hillary, so I'm hoping that will make the difference. What do you think?

*I realize this could sound like I'm trying to agitate, and I'm not, so no need to post if you don't want to.

So, apologies in advance, because I foresee a lot of Words happening in my response here. It's worth getting into because I feel like a lot of what you're bringing up are legitimate fears but also coming more from a place of Anxiety than from an actual pattern forming

First things first, to be clear, my post about Biden stepping aside did not highlight a silver lining in otherwise bad news. Biden stepping aside has been an objective boon to our chances of securing the White House in November. I wasn't saying "this is bad news, but look on the bright side," I was saying "that dread you're feeling is misguided, because this is, in its entirety, good news."

To your point about Hillary Clinton being well-spoken and polished: that's true! She very much was! However, crucially, the 2016 election was not one characterized by a debate over how polished or articulate the candidates were. The reason this can be considered a "shit the bed" moment for Trump is because of a factor that is present in this election, that was not present against Hillary Clinton: in this election, he spent all his time and energy selling himself as the younger, healthier, less senile of the two candidates, and now he's without his primary selling point in the eyes of this election cycle's electorate.

Now, Trump is actually showing signs of severe mental decline while Biden only shows signs of "a speech impediment" and "being over 80" and on a physical level Biden is very obviously much more healthy than him, but nonetheless, through a series of lucky breaks and crafty rhetoric, he was able to sell the public on the idea of Biden being some sort of Corpse Puppet. The reason why that matters is because he successfully sold voters on the concept "someone who is old, who can't get through a sentence, is not fit to be president." That narrative wasn't a factor in 2016, and it is in 2024.

The other important factor to remember about 2016 is the context in which that election happened, and why the dirty tricks and bigotry leveled at Hillary by the right actually worked on the public. Specifically, at the time, we were coming off eight years of a black president, a historic first, who the republicans had spent years and years trying to oust or otherwise discredit, and who was poised to come out of office as a fairly well-respected figure.

Voters have a tendency to view white men as, for lack of a better term, "Default" or "Normal" with no modifiers. Many of the people who voted for Trump were people who had, in reality, no specific problem with a black president, but felt that after eight years it was time to get back to "Normal." They saw Clinton, another huge Historic First as the would-be First Female President, and a lot of them said "no thanks, we just had a president who's African-American, we don't want to switch to one who's Woman-American, let's reset back to a Normal-American (read: White Man) before we do any more Progress, otherwise it'll feel like the world is changing too fast."

There's obviously other factors at play. I'm not denying Clinton had other problems as a candidate, but an overwhelming amount of why she lost was rooted in the electorate's misogyny, and their desire to return to a status quo of a white man-- almost any white man-- with no other Identity Categories, as president. It's why I do think Joe Biden would've handily won the 2016 election, had he chosen to run, but I'm not here to play the what-if game.

It's also worth mentioning, at this stage, that most of the country actually was okay with having a Woman President, and, specifically, with having Hillary Clinton be that woman president-- she received more votes than Trump by the millions-- it was only due to the system-rigging done hundreds of years ago by slavers that he was allowed to become president despite the will of the voters.

So, the reason why this matters: voters tend to like a change, to a certain extent. Barack Obama was largely able to win election in 2008 specifically because he was a young, handsome, charismatic black candidate, who stood in stark contrast to his opponent, an older white guy who just kinda seemed like a redux of the bumbling old white guy everyone already hated as President at the time. Trump won largely because of a pendulum swing away from Historic First Barack Obama being the status quo.

Right now, we've been governed by two Old White Guys for the past eight years, one from each major party. In the 2016 climate, a Historic First, electing a Something-American, was scary and intimidating to a lot of voters. This year, in 2024, we're playing a different ball game: Donald Trump is selling More Of The Same (old white guys who've been in all the elections for the past eight years and who both come across somewhat bumbling) while Kamala Harris is selling a refreshing change of pace (a younger Black and Indian woman who is visibly competent, intelligent, charismatic, and let's not downplay the effect this has on the electorate, attractive).

I maintain that running a female candidate in 2016 was, unfortunately, a political miscalculation. I think that if it had been two straight, christian white guys, the election would've been made about the issues and it would've gone to the democrats. Novelty was a liability for a candidate in 2016. In 2024, "more of the same" is a liability, and novelty could prove the greatest blessing.

Hell, look at how excited people got when Biden dropped out, and suddenly people had something election-related to pay attention to other than "BREAKING NEWS: ELECTION STILL COMING IN NOVEMBER, PROBABLY WILL GO BAD."

To your point about the baggage with Clinton: an important thing to understand is that the Republicans identified her political ambitions as early as the 1980s, and started drafting their "Running against her for President" playbook as soon as Bill was president. They were ready to take her down in 2000 when they worried she'd run, and in 2008 when she was a frontrunner for the nomination, and then finally managed to use it in 2016 when she actually was the nominee. Trump lucked into a showdown with, to re-use a recent analogy, an enemy whose Kryptonite he happened to have inherited.

The misogynist attacks on Hillary Clinton largely worked because they had been thoroughly seeded over the preceding 30 years. Many people, even democrats, really didn't like Hillary, for reasons both Fair and Unfair, and a lot of the people who voted for her were, as the cliche goes, holding their nose and voting blue. A lot of the median swing voters fell hook, line, and sinker for the GOP attacks on her, and either stayed home or voted for the other guy.

As I mentioned in my previous post, they don't have much of a playbook for Kamala Harris. They've done zero preparation for the possibility of her presidential run because they thought they wouldn't have to worry about her until 2028, if at all. They've tried "she laughs weird" but it doesn't really work because people are finding it endearing and because their guy does everything weird. They've tried "she's a childless cat lady" and that offended everyone's casually conservative step-parents and lost them a bunch of support. Trump's campaign has been tripling down on bolstering support of their small but vocal Base, by hammering down on the idea that she's a "far-left radical" but that's just a page out of the playbook they use for everybody, and doesn't really play with anybody who isn't already voting for them.

And, I already hear people typing to remind me not to forget this, they have tried the racist angle, painting her as a "DEI hire" and an "affirmative action vice president," or even claiming she's ineligible to serve because her parents were immigrants. Firstly, again, they're borrowing a failed page from their anti-Obama playbook for that last one, and second, the actually competent republican strategists have been begging the public-facing parts of the party to please stop attacking her on the basis of race and gender, for one simple reason:

Mask-off racism loses you votes. It's why Trump always has to pretend like he cares about "black jobs" and that his problem with immigration is that "Mexico is sending us all their bad hombres" rather than admitting that his problem is just that the people immigrating are Mexican at all. It's why top Republicans spent the past 16 years talking about birth certificates and constitutional eligibility for Obama, instead of just calling him slurs.

You can win voters by saying "we're okay with a black president, but the Democrats are breaking the rules by letting this guy in particular be president, it's not about him being black, it's about him being ineligible." You don't win voters by saying "keep the white house white." The people who that second thing would work on? Already voting republican 100% of the time.

Which is another important reason to have hope here: in 2016, the Republicans were still maintaining the (objectively false) pretense of not being racist. I don't think anything's changed about the Republican party between the Nixon era and today except that now, they say the quiet part loud. They've spent the past eight years systematically eliminating the power-players who maintain the Not Racist masquerade and replacing them with people who will actively say overtly, unabashedly racist shit without pretending it's about something else. It's why the republican strategists keep begging people not to attack her on the grounds of race: it will lose them voters.

That's more or less the short version of my summary of why I think 2024 will go differently than 2016. I hope I'm right. I'm right about a lot more stuff than I'm wrong about, but I'm also wrong about a lot of stuff, so I might not be. Nothing's over until it's over. If you don't want to see a repeat of 2016, go make sure you're registered to vote, and then on Election Day, go vote for Kamala Harris. Either she, or Donald Trump, will become the president at the end of this year. There is no third option that is mathematically capable of happening. If you are legally eligible to vote and physically capable of doing so, voting for Kamala Harris is the only action you can take (including inaction) that can prevent Donald Trump from taking over the country and doing away with any semblance of US Democracy altogether.

We can win this. With all of our help, we will win this. Doomerism on the left benefits nobody but the right. People being genuinely excited from now until November might actually translate into electoral victory.

[touchstoneaf]

Look. I know you're angry. Furious, even; that this is what we have to work with, that we're stuck in this position again and again, that our will never seems really to be heard, much less done. And I get it. I was angry (nay, furious), too, in 2016. I was FURIOUS that my excitement for the future was purposefully derailed and my primary vote literally BURNED or 'lost', so that we couldn't get Bernie, the most Progressive and promising candidate ever in US history, to run against Trump; because it seemed he would have been a shoo-in. That I was forced to vote for Hillary instead, because in comparison she seemed so flawed. That I had to go with the 'lesser of two evils' option. That my vote wasn't good enough for the Dems in the primary, got flushed away like it was nothing, only for them to come back and beg me for my vote a couple months later. "If they didn't want my vote in the primary, they can't have it now", I said. I also didn't actually believe that the Orange Menace, Cheeto Voldemort, could actually ever be electable. I knew he was worse than Hillary could ever be... but I truly believed that enough people were either deeply pro-Hillary or would vote for her as a matter of necessity that they didn't actually need my vote. I thought that if we managed to get a Black man elected, IN THE US, *TWICE*--if we motivated enough voters, did enough caucusing, mobilized enough callers and got enough people registered (and i did it all, even after losing the Bush/Gore one), we would have no real trouble getting a white woman from US political royalty with relatively conservative views in the big seat. I still believed in that momentum, that beauty we found during Barack's first run. Anything was possible, so why worry, really? I couldn't in good conscience abstain, but surely voting my conscience with a third party candidate wouldn't hurt anything, really. Not with a Dem powerhouse on the ballot, right? And then it happened. The impossible, the unthinkable. The ableist, racist-dogwhistle idiot with the speaking ability of a chimp, with a cadre of absolute morons at his back, actually got himself elected. (Sort of. Or even that he could cheat the system enough to slide by, which was even more frightening.) And I knew I had made a terrible mistake, and so did enough others as to help to cause this insanity to happen. That night, clinging to my then-wife with my heart in my throat at how close it was, terror rising in me... I would have taken it back in a microsecond. But i couldn't. And you won't be able to either. And this time we are fully aware that it could happen again. That it will be worse this time. TBC

[nathantheauthor]

"𝙃𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙, 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙡𝙚𝙛𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙄 𝙖𝙢. 𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙨 𝙢𝙚 𝙄'𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙚."

Toby by Madame Macabre.

Y'all were desperate for him, he won by a massive majority vote... So I present my take on Ticci Toby, as well as some of his relationships and what he's doing now, and fair warning, it's HEFTY. I do have to lay out a couple things before we actually get into his rewrite, because they are important for his character in the long run, especially to understand his story and themes.

The first of these articles that I have to lay out first is the concept and existence of Ripper Inc, as that is where he is currently aligned. The concept of Ripper Inc is the closest thing to the Creepypasta Family you will get in this universe, I found family and sort of reformation program for serial killers and monsters, pointing their homicidal tendencies and destructive capabilities towards those more deserving. Jack Revver (oc), the living skeleton behind it, has also turned it into a safe haven and protection for those hunted by or once influenced by cosmic entities such as Slenderman, Zalgo or even The Rake and HABIT. it's essentially giving characters that would have been better people under any other circumstance that chance to be better. Pastas who hunt pastas in a way. It also makes them celebrities, but I'm not going to get into that aspect as I'll see the faction itself for its own blog post.

The other main thing we need to get out of the way is that this variant of Toby was very much made out of spite for what the fandom did to him, and has also since become spite towards his creator. This doesn't mean his original origin is very much intact, but there are several changes that neither would have expected or planned out, in fact I don't even call him "Ticci Toby" at all, he's just... Toby. And I'll get into that and why later on in this post. But I present a more faithful reimagining of Toby Rogers.

Now! Let's actually get into it, and I want to start with something that does affect his design a little bit, and that is his equipment!

My Toby comes strapped with dual holsters and two sheathes, as well as two ammo belts wrapped around him. The reason for this being while he's still sports his iconic hatchets that reside within the dual sheets, the holsters and the ammo belts contains flare gun and a sig sauer P365, as well as their ammo.

Kind of the reason for the guns is because I always felt it a little bit weird that proxies mostly were given only melee weapons, especially in a world where any house you can break into you can just get shot. So, of course, Toby adapted and got the Sig Sauer, the flare gun was something he picked up afterwards, which out of universe is a reference to the burning of his house, but in universe it is a tool for hunts and just... Yeah, he won't hesitate to shoot somebody with it. Does he prefer melee? Yes, but he knows he's always going to be able to get close.

I've kind of made Toby into the asshole with a heart of gold archetype, he's a tsundere. Toby is rude, brutally honest, snarky and has sassy, but somewhat dry sense of humor. He's prone to depressive episodes, he's an overall conflicted person, one that's not even sure that he deserves redemption. I'm writing him that's how I see the natural progression of the original Kastaway Toby as a person.

I should also note that Toby does in fact have a small list of powers, as these are the baseline abilities I gave every single proxy. Toby has Captain America levels of strength, speed, agility and durability, as well as a healing factor that allows him to heal from minor wounds in a matter of 10 minutes and substantial damage in a couple hours.

One of the key distinctions between him and a lot of variants is the fact that when we first see him he's already been a proxy for years, he's in his mid 20s now, hell, he was already legally an adult by the time he was proxified, he was 19 during the events TICCI TOBY. I wanted to be more accurate to his source material for his age, as he's constantly getting shoved into the younger brother type role among a lot proxy interpretations, but he's not THAT young, he's at least a grumpy middle child.

Toby by the time we meet him is not a good person, but he can't be described as truly evil either, he's a victim of the world's darker side, from the cruelty of children to manipulators, a lot of his life was decided for him. But that doesn't excuse the things he's done, cuz ultimately, doing the things he's done are still, maybe out of necessity, but that doesn't make it any better.

Toby absolutely hates being referred to as Ticci Toby, the reason for this comes from the fact that this has been a name used throughout his life growing up to demean and mock his tourettes, to break him down, it's a nickname synonymous with bullying. This is something I've always kind of disliked the fandom form, using the story title as his code name instead of giving him a new one, so for this rewrite... During his team as a proxy, well, they call him "Matchbook". A permanent reminder the scorching fire he left his old home in, and a nod to the end result of a lot of his missions. However, nowadays he merely goes by "Toby", wanting to distance himself from his past and start anew.

Now, I'm sure this is what you're waiting for, the actual meat of his character, how I've completely restructured and rewritten his years as a proxy and what comes after. And we'll close out the thread with a lot of his relationships with those around him.

Toby's early time is a proxy was very much constant work, hit jobs, information scrubbing, stalking, and even stealing from police stations. A mind controlled pawn willing to do any odd job, he had nothing but orders left. It wouldn't be until after the first month that he would be brought to the "mansion", a dilapidated manner on the outside, but the interior was absolutely pristine, and it seemed to stretch on forever. In fact, it did, but other oddities were present as well, such as a door quite literally growing a name plate for him, or the living doll and undead nurse running around. Not that he could really feel anything towards it all other than cold and difference, that was the blessing of this situation, it was no longer just the physical pain that he didn't feel, but matters of the heart either for a time.

Of course emotional numbness didn't stay forever, and some of those around him began to become like family, a clawed entrance guard, a stoic tunnel dweller, a crimson artist, a fallen cop and even a missing soldier, they were the first things he's had to emotional connections since he vanished that night. He finally and fully settled into his life, knowing there was no way back for him and nor did his slender sickness riddled mind want to go back, he was a proxy to the end, a puppet on strings dancing to the static beat.

And it would be that way for the majority of his time as a proxy, mission after mission, and time spent with the few proxies he had gotten close to. Eventually it culminated into what would be his final day as a proxy for a long while. Thinking that Toby's ties had been completely broken, and that his missing memories we're finally and fully lost. During the final year as a proxy Toby was given a single mission, to hunt down and kill a woman who'd been close to figuring out his identity, an ultimately he did track her, and with pistol drawn... He found himself unable to fire, because what stood before him was his mother and everything came flooding back.

It was after this moment that Toby went on the run, taking his mother with him, and for months they were constantly moving, trying to throw off any of their would be hunters. A miracle fell into they're laps, as he saw her for the first time, Jane Phoenix. With the two of them brought before the skeleton, Jack Revver, their days of being hunted was over, as well Toby did not have the context for it at the time, deals were pulled to guarantee his safety.

The trio together, Toby Rogers, Jack Revver and Jane Phoenix, formed the organization known as Ripper Inc, Hired guns that handle contracts that I wanted Dead or alive, jobs that are usually considered suicide missions. It was because of a public incident regarding them that the world found out about the existence of monsters, but the veil of secrecy around the paranormal and supernatural have been truly shattered.

And this was his life for a while, he became a celebrity, he was free from the reign of the Slender Man, and most importantly, he'd found family and saved his mother. But nothing good lasts, and ultimately, in the same year, there would come again that shattered him once more. Didn't always been a hot shot, for all the months you've known her, but he never expected her to chase down Jeffrey Forester by herself, and there were three things that happened that night. Jane with ultimately be slain by the very man who made her what she is, a grieving Revver would be cited carrying her body through the streets in a vain attempt to get her help... And Toby returned to the proxies, he sought emotional numbness once more. How could he not? She was 19, she was the very age that he started at. A twisted mirror of sorts.

So yeah, that's all like pre-story open, that's all set before 2017. So this is where we first meet him, this is where we first pick up. In September of 2017, Jack Revver tracked him down once more, pulling him out alongside Heather Marshall, and with the choice to take one more. See unbeknownst to Toby, a truce had been formed, an agreement reached for reasons that only a couple years later he would find out.

There was a new found family, made of three familiar faces and a new one, he he hadn't ever met Bethany (Nina) before, but it heard about what Forester did to her family once they reach the offices, he felt... A sort of responsibility. Years have passed since then, and we're currently in the year of 2025. He has found a new family fully, been able to spend time with his mother, befriended other people like him, and even been on talk shows. Toby's.... Living a future he could have never seen. Often times he's still not even sure if it's deserved, he's killed countless, burned and destroyed homes and lives, but he's basically living the high life now.

He's in a high position the boot, as a founding member and one of the highest ranking members of Ripper Inc, and he almost gets the feeling, he's going to be the next head. Revver always told him of bright future, and often times Toby gets the impression that Revver is talking like he's going to die.

So, yeah, that's kind of where we are and where we leave him for now, so let's get into character relationships and dive into what his relationships were with his fellow proxies and the Ripper Inc family.

Proxy relationships:

Slenderman is probably one of the people he hates the most, if not his most hated. He is his a manipulator and abuser, the creature that's quite possibly the one who orchestrated his entire life to be as miserable as it has been. His freedom from the creatures control is something he's never going to give up again.

One of his most iconic dynamics, we'll dive into how he feels about Masky. He hates him. Toby and Tim often fight, Toby often pointing out the hypocrisy and arrogance in Tim's words, and Tim is often quick to point out Toby's lack of teamwork and rude attitude. Toby considers Tim to be a self-righteous and self-serving bastard. He hopes they never cross paths in a professional line of work again.

Hoodie is also rather hated Toby, and a good portion of this is due to the fact that hoodie does not care about people, he's begun to only focus on the mission. His indifference frustrates and worries Toby, making it so he'd deny in mission that he has to work with him.

His dynamic with Kate is probably one of the most healthy he has amongst the proxies, having formed a sort of sibling dynamic over the years. And even now, they're rather close, meeting up at the tunnels Kate spends most of her time every now and then. She's often one of the people Toby invites to the Christmas parties and ALWAYS shows up for his birthdays.

Toby and Own Allastar happy weather unique dynamic, much like Kate, he feels a sibling role, however he was the first to encourage Toby to pursue his hobbies outside of the missions, that a weapon wasn't the only thing he had to be. He was probably one of the most true friends Toby had ever had, and still is. The Red Artist's artistic depiction of Toby hangs within his bedroom.

Toby has very mixed feelings about Cody, this boy was made to replace him, he had been indoctrinated during Toby's months away. Ultimately, he believes X-Virus to be a good kid deep down, but can't bring himself to look the boy in the eye. He can't stand looking at his reflection, it makes him sick to his stomach.

His dynamic with Nightmare Ally is certainly a strange one, well they aren't on negative terms, he wouldn't consider them friends either, even if she still does occasionally help him, it's more of work acquaintances. And Toby is rather thankful she's one of the ones that often shows up as aid thanks to the truce.

His relationship with Ashlie is. . . Unique. They were briefly an item, he can safely say he's dated the boss's daughter. Although, the relationship died due to the lack of expression and communication on her side.

His relationship with Gregory Blaine is probably one of his most important, he was the small injections of morality back into Toby throughout his years as a proxy. Archive was, and is an essential part of Toby's foundations for the present. The former cop wasn't like the rest of the proxies, is frog's vacation wasn't made out of a choice to save the woman he loved. . . Toby respects that, maybe even envies it.

Probably the most surprising one, was Eric Watson, a former soldier who served in the Middle East after events of 9/11. Wildcard as they called him, was the very man that taught Toby how to shoot. The friendship they've shared is one Toby never could have predicted, and in recent years. . . He's lost contact, he's unsure where he went.

Tooru Jirou is someone Toby has VERY conflicted feelings towards, they get along well, and he does feel sympathy for her situation. . . But at the same time you can't exactly deny but it's all her own fault, play stupid games and you win stupid prizes. Adrenaline is definitely living with her stupid prize, whether she wants to or not. Regardless, they do often work closely together, she's even convinced him to appear on her streams.

Ripper Inc relationships:

Jack Revver is sort of the father Toby never had, a source of guidance and often the first to help him pick himself back up. Revver has shown Toby levels of kindness he's rarely seen outside select people, an unmatched sense of generosity and patience towards him. They'd start Ripper Inc together with Jane Phoenix, and it's made the two's bond unbreakable.

Toby's friendship with Jane Phoenix was like that of siblings, they bickered and fought, but deep down they always cared for the other. He still feels a sense of responsibility for what happened to her, despite knowing it wasn't his fault.

Bethany Gent (Nina Hopkins) is another he has found himself quite close with, as if using his sense of guilt and responsibility over what happened to Jane as a building block to protect Nina despite everything. She's a victim, just like him, and just like Jane was. Nina is one of the few people that can get him to go out shopping, acting as a sort of little sister dragging her older brother around. He'll never admit that it's kinda fun, he'd rather die first.

He's known Heather since their days as proxies, she'd served as a secondary motherly figure, somebody he could always depend on, one of the few cornerstones. Even now, he's still close with her, often going on missions together. Their bond has become inseparable. Rouge is one of his closest friends.

Liu Woods is, well, they get along alright, but he can't exactly really tell how he actually feels about the man, they haven't exactly going out of their way to befriend each other. Their relationship is strictly professional.

Nurse Ann used to greatly scare Toby, her methods we're far from humane or rational, but nowadays, he's doing quite close to the undead nurse, Annabelle Mia being his most trusted medical professional. They bonded over a shared distaste for Tim.

Jane and Mary Richardson have quickly become some of his closest friends, the two serving as elder sisters to him, with Mary often checking up on his mother for him while he's on a mission, and Jane serving as his personal trainer in hand to and combat. He's forever grateful to have met the married couple, they've had a positive impact on his life.

Eyeless Jack. . . Frankly scares him, such an unpredictable individual and one he could never spot unless he made his presence known. Sure, he'd trust EJ with field medical work, but just how literally talked and how hard it was to tell he was there in the first place. . . It just rather makes Toby uncomfortable.

His relationship with Korbyn JumpingEagle is one with a lot bumps, as initially she didn't truly understand his personality and who he was, and instead would opt to nag him and hit him with her trademark sass. Of course, overtime is they've become friends, given a couple near death experiences, it tends to bond people. They both pulled a better understanding of each other nowadays, even occasionally joking with each other.

Sally Williams and Lazari Swan are like the annoying youngest siblings to him, much like corbin, they were under the protection of Revver... And he's often found himself begrudgingly joining their tea parties or playing pretend with them. He for some reason just can't bring himself to be as mean as usual with them.

His relationship with scarecrow can best be summoned up as enemies to friends, they did try to kill each other in their first encounter. Once the circumstances had changed, they bonded rather quickly over there shared trauma with cosmic horrors, he with Slender, and her with Zalgo. They work rather well on the battlefield together as well.

Zero frankly weirds him out, the tulpa's bizarre antics almost never make sense to him and he's begun to learn not to question it. They get along all right, but he can't help getting the feeling that somebody's always crying for help when he looks at her.

Sadako is probably one of the weirdest dynamics he's had, I mean, there's not really much proper planning you can do around a media ghost who can now just travel anywhere she wants to the internet. They are in fact friends, but it does tend to lead to awkward moments and comedic situations half the times she appears. But alas, there's nothing to do, if she's the information relay.

Samantha Revver has shown that much like her husband, she quickly took on a parental role, and even became quick friends with his actual mother. The vampire has been nothing but kind to him, even going as far as to teach him how to cough to help him be even further self-sufficient.

Jana Revver has shown as well, that kindness. She's playfully picked on and teeth toby, but at the end of the day they act like siblings, she acts like an elder sister and almost reminds him of. . . Lyra. The entire Revver family has been like a second family to him. He wouldn't trade their bond for anything.

Jeffrey Hodek is somebody that Toby can't help but pay, before joining up with the group he was just a washed up and retired killer I wanted to live a normal life, but of course, as Toby knows well. . . Normal isn't an option for people anymore. They've got a rather friendly relationship, but ultimately they don't talk too much. Hodek is much more likely to hide up in his room and rewatch shows and movies the 80s and 90s.

Clockwork is... Natalie Oulette is an individual that greatly concerns him with her behavior, and yet... He finds himself strangely wrong to her, and ultimately they have gotten together. More than once. They're dysfunctional, sure, but they're actively working to find a way to make it work. If any song would describe their dynamic, it'd Your Stupid Face by Kaden MacKay.

Wow, this took so much longer than I thought it would but welcome to the end of the Toby information! Hope ya like this ramble!

[ultimatepokemontournament]

🏆 How This Will Work

Complete! Congratulations Mimikyu!

TOURNAMENT PROGRESS SUMMARY WEBSITE

For this tournament, we found the best of each Generation before moving on to our final Inter-Generational tournament consisting of our 9 Generational winners.

TOURNAMENT FAQ

Polls will be self-reblogged 12 hours after they were first posted.

Rematches were considered for each poll where more than two Pokemon were included. This was to make sure the results were as correct as possible.

The Pokemon included in each poll have been and will be seeded and balanced (which is to say, randomized with moderation to ensure the best possible experience).

OTHER LINKS

Influences Survey - What's impacting people's choices? [View Results]

Favorite Types Survey - [View Results]

Underdog Tournament Nominations

@ultimateunowntournament - Unown-centric spinoff tournament

#uptpropaganda - Participant-made voting propaganda tag. Posts won't be reblogged onto this blog. Propagandists are encouraged to link to the polls they want people to vote on.

I Voted Badges featuring our Generational winners

WHAT'S INCLUDED/EXCLUDED

Temporary forms will not be included separately. (Spring Deerling, Fan Rotom, etc. will be considered the same as Summer Deerling, Rotom, etc.)

Regional forms will be included separately and in the Generation they were introduced.

Mega evolution and Gigantimax forms will be considered temporary forms, but their images will not be included.

Shiny forms are not included in this poll. You may vote with shiny forms in mind (alongside any other reasoning you may have,

TAGGING INFO

Each post will be tagged with the competing Pokemon (ex. #alolan diglett) and the generation (ex. #gen 7), so you should be able to find what you need, and spoiler Generation 9 if you need to! Asks will be tagged with #inquiries. Self-reblogged polls will be tagged #12th hour reblog. Announcements tagged with #announcements.

CREDITS

@cursed-child-autumncookie helped out with some of the image-related work!

📌 Blog runs in the West Coast USA Timezone (Pacific Time/UTC-8)

If you have any feedback, please don't hesitate to send an ask! This event has been designed carefully, but it's impossible to predict how things go until you release them into the wild, and any comments you have are essential to the health and success of our time together!

And remember, don't forget to have fun, stay safe, and be kind! ❤️

[transfaguette]

one step further than the "Trump isn't worse enough to justify it," i will say that "Trump or a different, worse fascist will just run again in 4 years and no amount of executive order bullshitting or SCOTUS-packing will ever protect us in a long-term way from the legislative and state-level threats posed by Project 2025 (which the president is not in charge of - even his veto power can be subverted when Congressional republicans cram it into budget votes to threaten government shutdowns, which has been an extremely effective strategy for them so far), which means that any way Trump is worse is ultimately moot when the Democrats' only strategy is to be the less-bad option on the ballot and when they are shown no reason to change that strategy."

this will keep happening. this happened the first time Biden ran. this happened when Hillary Clinton ran, too, and it's why she lost - her platform was based on some loose, half-baked trappings of identity politics plus saying how bad Trump was a lot of times, not issues, and the voters knew it. this has been the pattern for the past decade and it has hardly resulted in an ounce of durable progress that the right hasn't been able to strip away almost immediately. In 20 years it will be very clear that this "he's bad but not as bad" idea is all horseshit when nothing has improved and a lot of things have gotten worse no matter what we do.

the fascists are playing a long con - they always do - and this kind of lesser-evilism actively enables it. we need to vote in (or otherwise install) someone who will actually commit to antifascism in a way that doesn't consist of appeasement, not some weak, decrepit worm who plans to appeal to neoliberal, pro-genocide centrists and kick the fascism can down the road and let it fester for as long as it helps his cronies get elected. the democrats will keep nominating these dogshit candidates until we stop voting for them, and that will be our undoing.

bonus assignment: read about the amazing liberal policies of Weimar-era Germany some time. they were about to legalize gay sex! in the late 20s! and then they ran into A Few Unfortunate Problems With That Plan because liberalism is not and has never been the antidote to fascism.

Listen like, fundamentally I don’t disagree with this. I get what you are saying. But what I don’t get is how that means voting Biden still isn’t harm reduction in the short term. Which is all I have ever said on the topic. Like political action has a much broader scope than voting, which is laughable to even call political action. But how does “I would rather Biden win this election than Trump” mean I wish America will bleed a slow liberalist death to fascism. Like I think we are arguing with shadow puppets.

[pawsnread]

I am going to be frank because this has been bothering me for a while. And I just need to say my peace.

If you are a US citizen, eligible to vote, and planning to sit this election cycle out because “both candidates are equally bad”, then kindly f*** you.

There will never be a “perfect candidate”. The only perfect candidate that aligns exactly with all of your ideals on domestic and foreign policy is *you*. And unless you are planning to run for president, then get off your damn high horse right now.

Let me tell you what is going to happen if you don’t vote because of XYZ issue: Trump will win. Why? Because MAGA and right wing conservatives don’t give a damn about the issues you care about. They don’t care about the poor and working class (even though a large swatch of them are poor and working class). They don’t care about people of color, women, queer people, immigrants, Palestine, Congo, Sudan, etc. They DO NOT care. They only care about returning to a USA that never really existed. And they will be the ones who vote because Trump is galvanizing them. If MAGA vote and liberals and progressives don’t, there is no question that Trump will win.

If you are still in the “they are both equally bad” mindset, let me remind you that Trump, Vance, and/or the GOP party have said they will: restrict women’s reproductive rights, gut Medicare and other social benefits, dismantle the Dept. of Education and all the protections that go along with, revoke birthright citizenship, do away with/severely gut the FDIC which will affect retirement and pensions. If they plan to do all that - which they put in 900 pages of writing so this is not hyperbole - then what do you think their plan is for the 1st amendment and voting rights? If Trump is elected again, none of us will be able to speak out for ourselves much less for those who can’t speak and need us to speak for them.

“I’ll just vote 3rd party then”. Okay, great, we still end up in the same orange shit bucket. Because let’s be real, as great as some of the 3rd party candidates are, historically no 3rd party candidate in the past has garnered more than 30% of the vote (and that 30% was an outlier). When you have an election race this close, literally every vote counts. Any vote that doesn’t go to one of the major candidates is effectively a non-vote, and whoever has the slimmest margin will win - and it won’t be that 3rd party candidate.

Look, I know there are some of you who are all “I still don’t care, you can’t change my mind”. Fine, whatever. If you still think that way, that’s your choice. It is your vote to do with what you will.

But, in my opinion, you are also condemning us to hell.

[vmures]

Its very tempting to panic about the election, it's equally tempting and very easy to end up in conversations that are essentially a circle jerk of doom and gloom. Neither of these things help in the long run. They won't help with the actual election, nor will they help with your mental health.

Venting can be useful, but if you end up in a ranting/venting cycle where you just work each other up ad nauseam, then you aren't releasing the worry and anxiety and anger, you are building on it. For me this leads to a severe increase in suicidal ideation, so I work hard to stay out of that sort of chatter.

It's okay to be terrified, and in fact I think we all should be, but if it's one thing my decades of therapy have forced me to work on it's my inclination to catastraphize. My therapists over the years have basically helped me learn that that me letting my anxiety hijack my brain and disrupt all logical thinking, which in turn can help set up a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Panic freezes us up and keeps us from doing the work. Panic is what the GOP wants in democrats and progressives right now. They want us to give up and make it easier for them to win the election.

It's utterly terrifying, but there is work we can do still. Even if it's just reblogging reasonable takes and encouraging everyone to vote blue and vote blue down the entire ticket. If you are able, you can offer to help give rides to people who need help getting to the polls. You can help people navigate getting an absentee ballot so that they can vote by mail if they are unable to get to the polls. You can encourage people in your area to register to vote and help them navigate that process. Our hands are not tied, the election is not over yet.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jess Piper at The View From Rural Missouri:

When I first moved to Missouri, I taught at a school in Kansas City. I introduced myself for the first time to a co-worker, and she asked where I was from; I told her Arkansas. I didn’t specify a town because no one has heard of Altus, AR. She said, “What’s it like moving to a big city?” She assumed I was from a small town because I was from Arkansas. I laughed and asked her if she’d ever heard of Little Rock or any town in Northwest Arkansas? They are pretty big cities and all are in Arkansas.

To be clear, I was not offended. I am rural, but I have noticed over the years that folks confuse GOP-dominated states with rural spaces. They aren’t the same. Even the reddest states have blue cities. Even the most regressive of states will have progressive voters. And, rural communities always have Democratic voters. Ask me how I know. I know there has been much written on the vote-against-our-their-self-interest, redneck voter. Something about red hats and diners. Something about guns and racism. A lot of it isn’t nice or even true. I have some thoughts…

Reaching rural voters.

Rural folks aren’t props. You don’t have to pander to us with pickups or jeans or boots, although if you showed up in a pair of Mucks, I’d know you were the real deal. You don’t have to wear a plaid shirt, or drive a flat bed— looking at you, Josh Hawley. You don’t have to use the word “y’all” unless it’s natural. You don’t have to talk down to us like we aren’t educated. You don’t have to ask about crop prices unless you know enough to not embarrass yourself. You don’t have to act any differently with rural people than you would with any other bloc of voters.

[...]

It’s not that difficult to understand rural people. Many of us have been rural all of our lives and we want the same things every other American wants. We are like you in most respects, but we might value physical privacy and a hands-off approach to government a little more — and we don’t mind a long drive to town. Here are a few misconceptions about rural Americans:

We all live on farms. In fact, most of us don’t. Many of us work in ag, but we don’t own big farms. You need generational wealth to buy a farm that you can make a living off of. There is a listing just down the highway from me for 220 acres of tillable ground. No house, no out buildings, no barns. It’s listed at 1.5 million. That’s just the land. Now, go price a combine. You’ll need generational wealth.

We all vote against our self-interest. We often vote for progressive ballot initiatives (hello, legalized weed) so you know that’s not true. However, I will not be able to vote for a State Representative in November. My current Rep has no Democratic opposition. Last cycle, it was me running against him, but I couldn’t afford to run again this cycle. When tallying up Dem voters, it will be easy to write my district off, but we will have no one to vote for. I couldn’t vote in my self-interest if I wanted to.

We are all gun nuts. I mean, a lot of us own guns, but we also use them. They are tools in my house, not accessories to wear to town and never used to intimidate. My kids hunt (we eat what we harvest) and we also use them to protect livestock. It’s also handy if you’re in FFA and enjoy competing in shooting events. P.S. Not all of our kids are in FFA or 4H, but those programs are awesome…especially for young women.

We are all racists. I’m absolutely positive rural America has its share of racists, but guess what? So do the cities. There are Black folks who have lived in rural spaces for generations (shocking!) There are people of all backgrounds who call rural America home, just like every other corner of the US. We have racists, but racism isn’t just contained in rural spaces. It’s an American epidemic, not a rural one.

We are all angry. I recently read a book title about the “angry white rural voter” written by a couple of progressives and my first though was, well, this will help the cause. Yes, there is anger, and if you visit places like my town, you’d see why. We aren’t building, we are razing. We aren’t growing, we are diminishing. The anger isn’t from some pissed off redneck. It’s local folks seeing their way of life dying. Their children moving away and never coming back. It’s not anger…it’s sadness. Yes, many of us could vote better, but back to not having a Democratic nominee…

Here’s what I truly think; the way back to sanity is through rural America and red states. Wyoming has the same amount of Senators as California — why not send money and resources to Wyoming? Or Montana. Or Arkansas. Or Iowa. Or Missouri. Contest every seat on every ballot — even in rural spaces. Especially in rural spaces.

Jess Piper writes yet another home-run piece on rural voters and Democrats: they are in rural areas, even if they are outnumbered and oftentimes don't have a candidate running for such offices.

Hopefully the trend reverses.

[victimeyez]

HELLO I am alive (mostly) and wanted to provide a little update on life and story progress.

Okay, uh, to try to summarize a whole lot of shit, I have been insanely busy. Partner and I were hunting for a new place, got new place, all the stress of moving one place in-state and another across state lines. New place was NOT what was promised on every account and has revealed itself to be a miserable little death trap. 

Now we are living out of suitcases and boxes while voraciously hunting for a new place so we can move AGAIN. I work 45 hours + 30 min commute each way, so I have about 4 hours a day to house hunt, view houses, clean, run errands, rest, food prep, socialize, and write. I have weekends off, but I have timed obligations every day of the week. 

Because of all the craziness, writing has had to take a back seat to make way for “trying to plug a sinking ship while on it” emergency procedures. This has slowed my writing progress significantly, and I’m continuously disappointed by my progress. However, I look back on my time spent, and find none wasted. I’ve just been overwhelmed. 

I am hoping we will have the new place secured + initial move complete within the next week or two, and then we’ll be able to unpack at a more relaxed pace. I am eager to get my life back. 

As for the actual writing, I have struggled with keeping a consistent schedule due to additional factors. I lost a beta reader who contributed a lot due to an unfortunate disagreement, and my writing goes much smoother when I have a few people I can bounce ideas off of.

I also will be writing, think “oh I’m almost done”, and then get additional ideas of what I want to do and what needs to be described. At the end of the week, I usually find myself at an impasse. Do I hurry up and close the scene so I can post the chapter on time, or do I take the additional time to really write this the way I want? I want to be timely with my updates, and setting a posting schedule for myself has really helped to keep me going. It’s important to me. It is also important to me that I write a story that I enjoy writing, and a story that does not compromise on any qualities that people enjoy. If people are reading for the pain, then I want to provide indulgent scenes of pain. Would the story still be worth reading if I cut half of my ideas just so I could publish on time? I don’t know. I would hate to skip out on any qualities of the story that people enjoy reading, because that’s the whole point!

I don’t really know what to do. I don’t want to dissolve my deadlines because they have really helped keep me driven, but I also don’t want to produce rougher and shorter pieces just to try to maintain the pace. I consider all of this story to be a rough draft, and hope to better refine it later on, but I still want to show writing that has gone through significant edits and thought. 

I value the opinions of other writers and readers. I’m thinking about what I want to do to make this work better. Maybe I could do more polls and things with different ideas I have so those who would like to vote can have a say, but I don’t want to spam folks on my taglist or reveal potential spoilers to anyone who does not want them. 

Anyways, this is just to try to explain myself a little bit I guess. Comments, thoughts, messages, replies, smoke signals, and carrier pigeons are all appreciated if anyone has suggestions. Thank you, thank you so much to the people that read my little stories and put up with my erratic schedule. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it, it really means the world to me. 

TLDR;

[whatiwillsay]

I know it's been a lot of politics lately so not to be annoying but one thing that irritates me the most with dems is how they only seem to be able to get shit done when they're on their way out of office. Biden's plan to reform the suprem court is a great proposal with term limits for the judges and stricter ethics code and if he would've just done it in the beginning when he had the democratic super majority a lot of bullshit could've been avoided and he never codified Roe v Wade like he said he would even though he literally has executive power and could've done it day one and it's because dems love dangaling rights so they have an easier way to get elected when they hold peoples rights hostage but if he simply would've codified it he would have won the reelection against the guy who's been spending years bragging about killing peoples right to choose imo

you can't codify roe with executive power he needs congress to pass something like that. he did use executive power to try and increase access to abortions:

but executive power can't grant nationwide access to abortions. america has checks and balances and alone the executive branch isn't THAT powerful. this was a good read:

he put forth some proposals about the supreme court but it's not going to change anything unless congress supports it.

while we had a supermajority in name, senators like sinema (who fully went republican once in office) and manchin don't always vote with the party line.

i do agree dems should hustle up and try to do more but i also understand why a lot of it never happens. we need to ungerrymander the districts of the house and push for voting rights in red states and flip them blue. if every liberal/dem/leftist/progressive in america always voted we'd never lose the presidency and we would probably always have the house and i think even the senate.

we just have to put our heads down and get out the vote and then pressure our policiticians to actually do the progressive shit they run on. but it's a little more complicated than just having the president issue executive orders. it's a long game and we need to show up at every election for a few dozen years and then i think america will actuall progress.

[cascadianights]

I also sometimes create the strawman, the rich straight white cis abled man who has everything going on & nothing wrong.

But it's a trap. That person exists, but he sure as hell isn't the majority. You're probably not going to run into him on the street, or in a Tumblr argument. The experience and power that person holds is immense, and anything said to knock them down is valid - even if it means redirecting the exact vitriole and hate, the same death threats and "you don't even deserve to be alive" shit that's been thrown at us, and calling it "progress."

If you aren't careful all it does is mutate the very valid, long-standing frustrations you hold into a way to disregard other's real struggles & any information you don't want to hear.

It's how TERFs fueled women's anger and frustration at the men who've hurt them, into anger towards all men and anyone approaching or coming from masculinity. It flattens this huge swath of experiences into one line, a man who learned his whole life the negatives of masculinity and nothing else. It doesn't provide healing for the women who were hurt, it pushes them to be more afraid and see every man as a danger regardless of the situation. It doesn't teach men how not to be dangerous, or how to recognize people teaching them to be. It alienates, everyone.

It's the way white people will internally roll their eyes at a light skinned indigenous person talking about their culture, or interrogate them to be sure they have a right to it. It's the way "white privilege" has become shorthand for "immense class power," both erasing the original targeted points the term is trying to make AND alienating the massive poor rural white population who KNOWS your full of shit saying they've had everything handed to them. It's the way states with white liberal city centers are seen as massively progressive (even if it's only 2% more of the pop that are democrats, gathered in 1% of the state) - and states that vote red every time deserve to be "cut off and sunk into the ocean."

It's the disabled people who need to feel Most Oppressed to validate the reality of their suffering, so spend hours trying to prove that mental disability and physical are separate & put their fellow disabled peers through the EXACT shaming/interrogation/judgement/"its not that bad have you just considered trying" treatment our doctors put us through. It's the way the new acceptable thing in disability spaces is to mock autistics (always portrayed as white and very low needs) for being too annoying/loud/present.

It's the way they can differentiate between a Real queer (who they agree with/can pity) versus a Fake queer (who said some shit they didn't want to hear/hasn't had the exact same lived experiences and could Never Understand). It's the way they can argue for hours about which minute aspect of identity that is only visible sometimes grants unimaginable (and Literally Unreal) safety and power, rather than focusing on the fact that none of us should need to be passing at all times to feel some level of safety.

It's a strawman! That only serves as an outlet for anger that tends to splashback on everyone around you! It has its place, and that place is not in almost every single conversation we have about difficult topics! Your morality cannot be based on finding ways to validate redistributing the violence that has been shown to you! Your political stance cannot be "only the people like me who agree with me should live!" Your MOVEMENT OF PROGRESS AND EMPATHY cannot be based on the cop you never learned to quiet in your mind!!!

We will never succeed if we ourselves are cutting our own communities to pieces.

[rotating-hyperfixations]

Not to bring up politics on my fandom blog, but I gotta let out somewhere so I’m yelling into the void on tumblr so bear with me.

I truly think the U.S needs to go back to teaching civics in schools at a higher level then they currently are; because the amount of people who seemingly can’t grasp how elections and general politics run is astounding. Like, I totally get being frustrated with the state of American politics and the amount of corruption and private equity in what’s supposed be a public entity, but yall are really starting to test my patience when it comes to election season. Because yall are being dumb with this whole “don’t vote for Biden”/vote third period campaign you’re trying to put out there.

Unfortunately America is a two party system and a lot of people fall somewhere within the political spectrum. And generally throughout history, even if you didn’t agree with a candidate you vote for the one that more aligns with your values in the hopes that you can get them to change their opinion on important matters through congress and the senate (aka state reps). However in the last three election cycles a lot of people have become one policy voters (meaning one issue makes or breaks who they’ll vote for) and now we’re on the brink of rolling back a centuries worth of progress because a bunch of far right christofacists were able to come into power by people not voting. And rather then recognize that we are legitimately headed down a very dangerous path if Trump gets elected for a second term; people have just decided to not vote or mobilize a third party candidate. Both of which unfortunately just leads to a Trump victory because republicans are far more likely to vote as a party than democrats.

While think that at some point a real effort has to be made to try and get some more younger and progressive politicians in power, the year on election is not the time to start. and that is simply because America at this point it not capable of coming to together to recognize anyone who is not a democrat or a republican and it’s not a change you can implement at the national level immediately. For these changes to occur people need to start showing up at non Presidential elections and voting progressive and third party candidates locally, so it gets on the radar and they start to take it seriously and adopt that ideology within their own parties. However, yelling on the internet that you’re not going to vote with seemingly no alternative plan isn’t going to do anything. Not to mention no politician is ever going to cater to every base within a party, it’s simply not feasible. I’m sure that there are moderates who disagree with certain aspects of Bidens politics, but they understand that Biden is a far better alternative to Trump.

And ultimately that’s what all of this boils down to, the Trump of it all. If Biden was facing back Republicans of old like Mitt Romney or John McCain, I’d say sure not voting and making a statement on the democrats not accurately representing your beliefs will make you not vote for them would be ok. Unfortunately a second term of Trump is going to have far more reaching implications than I think people realize, and don’t realize how serious it is. Out side of the fact that Trump has basically already demonstrated that if he can, he won’t peacefully transfer power to whoever succeeds him. But he will roll back a ton of civil liberties and probably do irreparable damage to certain parts of the country and branches of government. Like do you really want to get an even more conservative Supreme Court or for things like abortion bans to become national law. And I know that people think that’s fear mongering or that they don’t care about the damage it does to their community, which is fine and all I suppose. But there are a ton of kids who are powerless in this matter who don’t get a say, who may not feel the same way and saying “you don’t care” even as a minority group is still an insanely privilege take and a very short term thinking.

And finally, if you’re not voting for Biden because of his handling of the Hamas Israel war, allowing Trump into office is not going to help anyone over there. Because Trump and republicans have already stated that they are pretty much on the side of Israel and are going to probably aid them even in more in bombing the shit out of Gaza. So if that’s the hill your will to die on, don’t dilute yourself into thinking that not voting for Biden will do anything to help anyone or desecrate the situation because Trump will make it far worse and then America will be complicit and all the activism in the world won’t help.