#equally validating and upsetting

[arisveah]

double empathy is such a joke. what do you mean i'm gonna spend the next two hours petrified in fear because i cant stop reading about terryfying things happening to someone. oh, its because i feel like clicking away would be abandoning them? they're not real! does that matter? hah. of course not.

so yeah, i will be spending the next several hours stuck in my book or my phone reading absolute whump to "support the character going through it" even though it makes me feel sick to my stomach and is going to irreparably change my view on the world and the people around me. because i care.

[neverenoughmarauders]

You know when you read old interviews with JKR (about the story) and you decide you wish you hadn't?

My only defence in just ignoring this interview is that she also says Grindelwald is dead and died in 1945 - which... interesting. I wonder who we saw in the seventh book? So I think we can ignore what we want here!

But seriously: Remus in love with Lily?! Like no, no, no, no....

ES: Was James the only one who had romantic feelings for Lily? JKR: No. [Pause.] She was like Ginny, she was a popular girl. MA: Snape? JKR: That is a theory that's been put to me repeatedly. ES: What about Lupin? JKR: I can't answer either one. ... JKR: Lupin was very fond of Lily, we'll put it like that, but I wouldn't want anyone to run around thinking that he competed with James for her. She was a popular girl, and that is relevant. But I think you've seen that already. She was a bit of a catch.

At no point in the books does Remus bring Lily up (oh because he was in love with her? wait for the second part), nor does he show any particular emotions when Harry brings her up (see!?), which he clearly does when Harry brings up James.

Also, in my hc, Lily wasn't all that popular. She hang around with quite a few girls as we see in SWM, but we never see any of her friends crop up later in the story, she was muggle-born (which must have limited her friendship group - and confidence - somewhat in the 70s), and her best friend was Snape, who was seen as somewhat a loser. But whatever... I guess it depends on your definition of what being popular means. I do see her a bit like Ginny - who also isn't seen to have any close friends, really, so I guess I agree?

Although I will take this piece of the interview and keep it as my hc from now onwards:

MA: How did they [Jily] get together? She hated James, from what we’ve seen. JKR: Did she really? You're a [person], you know what I'm saying.

[yvmoveon]

.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

words for your dystopian novel

Bad situation

abend, accident, adversity, anarchy, apocalypse, backwash, bad scene, bane, bedlam, bind, blooper, bottleneck, bug, bummer, can of worms, cataclysm, catch, chaos, clog, cobweb, collision, commotion, conflict, contempt, crisis, crunch, damage, deadlock, debacle, decline, deficiency, detriment, difficulty, disadvantage(s), disaster, discomfiture, disorganization, disservice, disturbance, downfall, drag, drawback, duress, emergency, error, exigency/exigence, failing, famine, fiasco, fix, flash point, flip-flop, flotsam, friction, gadfly, hang-up, harm, havoc, hell, histrionics, holdup, hurdle, impasse, impropriety, inconvenience, infirmity, jalopy, jump, lapse, limitation, lose, madhouse, malfunction, maze, mire, misery, misfortune/mishap, mix-up, neglect, nightmare, obstacle, onus, ordeal, pall, pass, pell-mell, pickle, pitfall, plague, poison, press, problem, quagmire, question, restraint, reverse, ruin, scandal, scrape, shambles, showdown, smash, snare, spot, storm, strife, syndrome, tiff, to-do, trap, trouble, turmoil, undoing, uprising, upset, weight, wreck

Danger

act of God, bad trip, calamity, cataclysm, crapshoot, curse, dilemma, emergency, hardship, ill, mayhem, peril, risk, seriousness, threat, trouble, violence

Fate

accident, break, bummer, chaff, contingency, damnation, destiny, doom, downfall, duty, flip-flop, fortune, future, good, judgment, limbo, lot, misfortune/mishap, outlook, penalty, plague, predestination, setback, suspense, undoing, windfall

Morality

abandon, affirmative action, blasphemy, conscience, craft, decadence, delinquency, dirt, enormity, equality, ethics/ethic, excess, faithfulness, falsity, favoritism, good, good will/goodwill, guile, guise, honesty, ideals, imposture, infamy, infraction, iniquity, innocence, liability, loyalty, misbehavior, misconduct, misdeed/ misdemeanor, morals, obscenity, outrage, principle/principles, profanity, responsibility, sacrilege, scandal, score, sin, treachery, trespass, trickery, turpitude, validity, veracity, virtue, wrong

Assert

accredit, adduce, advocate, affirmation, allege, announcement, attest, bemoan, bluster, brag, bring out, come clean, crow, declaim, declare, deny, drum into, emphasize, exclaim, exult, gloat, gloss, gush, impute, insist, justify, level, maintain, mockery, overrate, play down, plead, point out, proclaim, promote, pronounce, punctuate, push, rave, retract, rumor, speak out/speak up, state, stress, support, swear, testify, testimony, underscore, vindicate, vouch, whitewash, witness

Authorize

accede, accredit, acknowledgment, affirm, appoint, approve, assign, back, bar, bless, certify, chicken out, concession, constitute, countenance, crown, dedicate, delegation, disown, enable, endorse, enjoin, entrust, exempt, forgive, induct, invest, lay, let off, make, negate, nominate, notarize, okay, order, overrule, permission, place, prohibit, recall, release, repeal, revoke, spare, subscribe, validate, veto, warrant, witness

Criticize

abuse, admonition, aspersion, assault, bad-mouth, baste, beef, berate, browbeat, castigate, chasten, chew out, come down on, complaint, condemnation, correct, criticism, critique, cut, damn, debase, denigrate, denunciation, deprecate, deride, detract, diatribe, disparage, dress down, flak, fulminate, gainsay, gird, gripe, grouch, hiss, humiliate, impugn, invective, jaw, knock, lament, lay into, malign, mortify, mug, nag, offense, pick at/pick on, protest, rail, rap, reflection, reprimand, reprove, revile, row, sarcasm, scorn, sit-in, sneer, storm, swear, tell off, upbraid, vituperate

Demand

adjure, beckon, behest, bidding, call, charge, command, crave, cross-examine, debrief, demand, direct, enjoin, exact, extortion, grease, importune, inflict, instruct, necessitate, order, petition, query, request, requisition, solicit, squeeze, supplicate, take on

Government action

abdicate, abolition, administer, amnesty, cease-fire, command, depose, dethrone, dominate, enforce, exile, filibuster, override/overrule, reign, run in, second, tax, veto

Government organization

administration, cabinet, capitol, confederacy, cop, court, democracy, dictatorship, empire, government, jury, police/police officer, regime, sovereignty, tyranny

Political action

amnesty, arbitration, campaign, crusade, demonstration, drive, elect, endorse, mutiny, nomination, picket, poll, reaction, revolt, riot, sedition, vote

Restrict

bar, bind, bound, brake, circumscribe, cocoon, constrain, constrict, control, curb, dam, defer, deferment/deferral, desensitize, embargo, enjoin, expatriate, expulsion, fetters, forbear, gag, grind, hamper, handicap, hem/hem in, hobble, hold back/hold off, impair, imposition, inhibit, keep one’s cool, localize, moderate, obligate, ostracism, prohibit, rein, restrain, retard, shackle, slowdown, squelch, strangle, subdue, suspend, tie/tie up

Symbol

arms, autograph, beep, capital, charm, code, cue, device, emblem, ensign, flag, flourish, graffiti, handwriting, herald, imprint, indication, John Hancock, landmark, letter, logo, notation, numeral, script, sign, spot, stripe, tag, tick, trademark, type, writing

NOTE

Excerpted from Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Updated and Expanded 3rd Edition, in Dictionary Form, edited by The Princeton Language Institute.

The above are concepts classified according to subject and usage. It not only helps writers and thinkers to organize their ideas but leads them from those very ideas to the words that can best express them.

It was, in part, created to turn an idea into a specific word. By linking together the main entries that share similar concepts, the index makes possible creative semantic connections between words in our language, stimulating thought and broadening vocabulary. Writing Resources PDFs

Source ⚜ Writing Basics & Refreshers ⚜ On Vocabulary Dystopia ⚜ Dystopian World ⚜ Pain & Violence ⚜ Hate

[cathnospam]

SFW BoyfriendAlphabet for Postimeskip!Katsuki Bakugo

MHACollege AU!Bakugo, Black girlfriend reader in some parts, fluff

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Believe it or not he warms up to affection relatively fast into the relationship I see him as the type that only dated someone he has already known a while so he already had a few moments of affection with you anyway. Opening the door for you subconsciously, saving your ass from villains (or falling because you’re so clumsy), he mostly uses acts of service and quality time to express his affection. Whatever you need/want, boom you got it. Some nights he’ll just come to your dorm to relax and stay quiet for majority of the time. It’s a comfortable silence but you love it because he’ll still be silent watching you play your switch as you lay on his lap.

He may not be a lovely dovey kind of guy but his love is always shown his own way through aggressive words of affection or keeping you close beside him, squeezing your hand/thigh from time to time.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

If anything he gives Childhood friends or Academic rivals to lovers so if he was already your friend as a kid it begins to blossom more throughout middle school, but you couldn’t tell because he was a little shit during that time so it’s not noticeable until high school lmao.

Bakugo as your best friend is like having a hard headed brother/son to take care of. He pretty much took YOU in declaring at a young age you were just his sidekick but here you are damn near his equal, not just in fights or power but academically and supporting one another.

Best friend bakugo is ALWAYS who you can depend on and whether he says it or not he wants you to. He wants to feel needed. Especially by you.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Bro loves to BE held. Only in private though. PDA isn’t his strong suit but when it’s just you both hold that man or he’ll turn into a lil pissy boy.

By pissy I mean giving you the silent treatment or acting passive aggressive until you take charge and grab him into your arms. It’s kinda cute.

He will be more cuddly when he’s tired or feeling uneasy, he still has his panic attacks and moments of overstimulation so he’ll actually hunt you down and if you’re in your dorm in your bed he will move whatever is on your lap and spread your thighs to lay on your chest or tummy just to get away from the world for a second. He squeezes very hard so be prepared.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Bakugo doesn’t give “casual” or even likes the term “situationship” you guys are either together and going to get married or nothing. He does in fact date to marry because he doesn’t want to consistently waste his own time with multiple people every few months. He’s either ganna be married with his one and only or nobody at all so you’re his first, last, and only.

He’s a pro hero in college but he always gave househusband. Whenever he comes to your dorm he will tidy up, throwing a few “Why is there so much shit everywhere.” When all there is is a few empty bottles on the floor. It’s cute and sweet how he makes sure you’re clean.

He will cook for you, and has no problem doing it every single time he visits, he loves to show off his talents to you, so shut up, sit and look pretty as he makes you some of your favorite meals. BONUS points if it’s a home/childhood meal he’s never heard of and you teach it to him.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

I believe if any reason bakugo would break up with you it’d be for a valid reason, I.e. you cheating. If he found out you cheated he’d of course upset, angry, but more betrayed. It takes a lot for him to gain that level of trust in a person and for all those moments of vulnerability and love and laughter with you to be thrown away will cut him deep to the point he wouldn’t ever focus on a relationship again. It’s painful for him to know that the thoughts of once sharing his whole world with you are now a painful faded memory .

F = Fiance(How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

He doesn’t seem like the type to have super long engagements, at most 1-2 years and that’s even pushing it. He has money for days and Bakugo is a man that if he wants it he will get it so the moment he decides you’re going to be his wife(which is most likely after the first date) he is preparing to propose. He does not mind being a husband.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Now I’m not going to say he’s just a complete soft baby boy when he’s with you. Not necessarily, He can still be brash with his words, but he never once harmed you physically. Ever. Down to how he grabs your arm when rescuing you.

A few examples of gentleness he expresses is when you lay on or beside him, his scared hand rubs against your cheeks and sides, he kisses your forehead every once in a while and even before he gets up to grab you both a snack. Bakugo tends to examine your body after a fight, even a simple run in with low life villains he rushes towards you after, he has been doing it since high school, after sparing, training, whatever he caresses your face (a few times a big rough than usual if he is impatient) and critiques how you did as if he was a teacher, but all the while he’s praying in his head thanking God He kept you safe.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

You initiate 90% of the hugs, and He grew to like YOUR hugs, but he says he doesn’t. When you first hugged him he instinctively pushed you away, but you didn’t let go. For a few years he never hugged you back because hugs wasn’t a common thing for him and they were awkward, but one day after another fight with the league of villains he seen you, bloodied up and limping towards him he finally grabbed you and surrounded you in his sweaty arms. You nearly couldn’t breathe for how tightly he hugged you, but you felt your body relax, mostly because you fell unconscious on his shoulder for a second. He didn’t let you go until you were on a hospital bed.

Bakugo’s hug feel safe and warm, one arm around your waist and another holding the back of your head. Almost like a cradles you. He never does a regular side hug with you it’s either a bear hug or nothing else.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Does NOT say it a lot . It’s HARD, his actions show it so much though that it’s not to the point where you question, but he does say it at the most random or intimate times.

The first time he said it was when you both were taking a shower together and you were scrubbing his back and playfully said “I love you, jackass.” Mid conversation and he was in a sligghttllyyy good mood so he chuckled and said “I love you too, dumbass.” You knew if you pointed it out he’d get red as a tomato so you tried not to make a big deal, but bakugo felt your pause briefly and knew he finally said the world you been wanting him to say for the longest.

He’ll say it after and during sex a few times, and before going to work. Instead of a goodbye it’s “I love you, see you later.”

Because he never wants to experience telling you goodbye

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

His jealously is loud, but not verbally. It’s with glares and action. He trust you he just don’t trust other men. It’s not OFTEN but it’s enough that when it happens you never forget it.

He usually gets jealous when another guy is too close to you for comfort and makes you anything above happy. Why the hell are you happy with them? You have Katsuki Bakugo as your man he’s the only one that should make you happy?

He’s a little delusional in the head but it’s okay.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Goodness his kisses are slutty. It’s not even on purpose the dick just loves dominating everything. He tends to always initiate when you both are alone, and brace yourself because when he kisses you he goes all out. He has a habit of staring at the location as to where he wants to kiss you, usually when you’re rambling he stares at your lips, almost annoyed liked until you stop and that’s when he dives in, it’s almost like he is pushing you from the force but he slowly moves his mouth in tandem with yours, by default he uses his tongue a lot. He is also a buyer to prepared for little nips at your bottoms lip. He barely allows either of your to breathe so you are usually the one to pull back first which leads to a pissy Blondie, but it’s not even a second until he pulls you back in by your neck. You can always feel his thumb rubbing your throat or cheek as he nearly swallows your tongue, his lips are always soft and his breath super minty or sweet from a candy he popped in his mouth earlier.

He loves your lips. He does, but next to that you always catch him kissing your shoulder. Bakugo will ends his days or just pause

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

…I’m sure you all know how he is with kids.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Okay so it depends if he has to work or not so let’s start off on his off days; for one, He isn’t an actual early bird. I know a lot of people say he is because he went to sleep early but if you all remember his own mom pointed out he wakes up around noon, so if it’s his day off he is snuggled in bed with you for while drifting in and out of sleep. Legs and arm stretched over your body OR you’re on top of him, if he wakes before you he will place you comfortably on the middle of the bed, a small forehead kiss and head to clean the room a bit. He often cooks breakfast while you sleep so many mornings you wake to his famous pancakes and bacon. Casual mornings are quiet, nonverbal communication between you both with him giving you a glass of water and OJ, sometimes letting you taste test different pancakes flavors he has made, and comfortably eating on the couch watching the news/yall favorite show.

If he has to work he usually sets out a bottled water for you and have your coffee already brewing to your liking. It sucks to wake up to a cold bed, but when he gets home he makes it up to you.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

A mix of settling down but in the most chaotic way. Surprisingly some days Bakugo wants to stay up late and you go to bed with him, so you try to convince him to just watch TV in your shared room. Some nights he working out and you would rather lay with him and be lazy. Some nights it’s vise versa. However it’s always ended with cuddling and relaxing in bed while eating the most unhealthy snacks. Bakugo doesn’t like to admit it but he definitely gained a few pounds since dating you due to this.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

I believe the first time he opened up to you was after the war. He had his few moments of TRYING to be more vocal about himself and his feelings towards you, but his heart softened more after he woke up from the hospital. It was when you were helping him during his time in rehab and he was making such fast process you told him how proud of him you were. That’s when he finally spewed as much of what he could out before shutting down a gain.

He told you about how he felt about you, how he thought about you in the moments you weren’t there, the way he’d always hope you come back sooner rather than later when you left, he spoke about his insecurities with you and even though it wasn’t worded THE BEST, you understood. Since then he became more comfortable with telling you certain “secrets” he kept from you. How he likes hearing you laugh, how he enjoys watching you switch up your hairstyle every other week, he especially loves when you wear braids.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

….its bakugo. He usually has just enough patience with you that’s noticeable to others, but he still gets irritated. It’s kind of his default mood at this point. With you though it’s somewhat different, he doesn’t scream at you in genuine anger instead he pouts, grumbles even like a hardheaded child. Sometimes even give you the silent treatment, but it doesn’t last long when you baby him.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

Yall talk about Deku being the observant one, have you seen his bestie Bakugo???? He remembers a lot and He’s nosey too! He remembers things you don’t even notice, like how your face grimace when you eat something too sour, or the look in your eye when something clearly annoys you but you don’t say anything. Bakugo pays attention to body language above anything else about you. He subconsciously uses it as mental notes to learn more about you. It’s kind of attractive in its own way.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

He wouldn’t tell you but he loved yall first date. It was in a small village you two happen to find after driving to the original date place but his car ran out of gas and their gas station was the nearest one. You wanted to walk around because it was so pretty and even had a sunflower field to visit. He stole a few pictures of you while you wasn’t looking in the field and you looked ethereal to him. He has it as his lockscreen.

It was his favorite moment because you really showed your true self around him, your corny jokes, yapping about your latest fixation to him. It was endearing. But most of all it was just you both. In a place nobody knew you both so he felt more comfortable himself. Bakugo even remembers the old lady that called you both a beautiful husband and wife and you didn’t correct her. He didn’t either.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

You have a personal guard dog with this one. Pro hero AND naturally strong? Girl you’re winning. He literally has told his classmates he will protect them so what makes you think he wouldn’t go even further for you? You can quite literally turn off your mind when you are with him. He got you.

Bakugo doesn’t necessarily need protection but he likes to know you have his back too, villains, fan girls, or even tripping over his feet you’re right there to help him. And he loves that.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

At first he would just do whatever you wanted to do honestly. But if it’s true he reads romance mangas then he definitely would try to recreate some dates with you he has read.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

If you had a boyfriend before him he’d probably have an insecurity about it. Bakugo would constantly compare himself to your ex even if you never speak about him. So if you can. Try to reassure him every single time that he is not your ex and that’s exactly one of the many things you love about him.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

Bakugo genuinely did not care for his looks until you kept giving him compliments. He knew he wasn’t UGLY but hated to be called pretty. You however stroked his ego, you called his lips soft so he began doing more lip scrubs in his routine, you talked about how good he smelled naturally he began to buy more hoodies for you to steal after he wore em, you talked about how nice his arms are he started walking around your dorm shirtless and wearing more sleeveless shirts, every compliment you gave him was something he adored…he may have a praise kink.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

He wouldn’t admit it but he would feel empty if you left him. I hc one of his fears is being alone after he has already has someone to be with which is probably why he didn’t want any interest in dating until you came along. He didn’t want to grow a bond that would eventually fail, but knowing you he has no intention on leaving you so you can’t leave him.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

Bakugo was born in Germany, but moved to Japan when he was one, growing up his mother would switch from speaking English/Japanese/German so Bakugo could be bilingual. And he is he can fluently speak all three.

[theloveinc]

It’s really ironic bc sending anon hate is really shameful and cruel of people but like. Yeah. Some opinions on here are Ass.

[mariacallous]

The first thing to say about the hate and scorn currently directed at the mainstream US media is that they worked hard to earn it. They’ve done so by failing, repeatedly, determinedly, spectacularly to do their job, which is to maintain their independence, inform the electorate, and speak truth to power. While the left has long had reasons to dismiss centrist media, and the right has loathed it most when it did do its job well, the moderates who are furious at it now seem to be something new – and a host of former editors, media experts and independent journalists have been going after them hard this summer.

Longtime journalist James Fallows declares that three institutions – the Republican party, the supreme court, and the mainstream political press – “have catastrophically failed to ‘meet the moment’ under pressure of [the] Trump era”. Centrist political reformer and columnist Norm Ornstein states that these news institutions “have had no reflection, no willingness to think through how irresponsible and reckless so much of our mainstream press and so many of our journalists have been and continue to be”.

Most voters, he says, “have no clue what a second Trump term would actually be like. Instead, we get the same insipid focus on the horse race and the polls, while normalizing abnormal behavior and treating this like a typical presidential election, not one that is an existential threat to democracy.”

Lamenting the state of the media recently on X, Jeff Jarvis, another former editor and newspaper columnist, said: “What ‘press’? The broken and vindictive Times? The newly Murdochian Post? Hedge-fund newspaper husks? Rudderless CNN or NPR? Murdoch’s fascist media?”

These critics are responding to how the behemoths of the industry seem intent on bending the facts to fit their frameworks and agendas. In pursuit of clickbait content centered on conflicts and personalities, they follow each other into informational stampedes and confirmation bubbles.

They pursue the appearance of fairness and balance by treating the true and the false, the normal and the outrageous, as equally valid and by normalizing Republicans, especially Donald Trump, whose gibberish gets translated into English and whose past crimes and present-day lies and threats get glossed over. They neglect, again and again, important stories with real consequences. This is not entirely new – in a scathing analysis of 2016 election coverage, the Columbia Journalism Review noted that “in just six days, The New York Times ran as many cover stories about Hillary Clinton’s emails as they did about all policy issues combined in the 69 days leading up to the election” – but it’s gotten worse, and a lot of insiders have gotten sick of it.

In July, ordinary people on social media decided to share information about the rightwing Project 2025 and did a superb job of raising public awareness about it, while the press obsessed about Joe Biden’s age and health. NBC did report on this grassroots education effort, but did so using the “both sides are equally valid” framework often deployed by mainstream media, saying the agenda is “championed by some creators as a guide to less government oversight and slammed by others as a road map to an authoritarian takeover of America”. There is no valid case it brings less government oversight.

In an even more outrageous case, the New York Times ran a story comparing the Democratic and Republican plans to increase the housing supply – which treated Trump’s plans for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants as just another housing-supply strategy that might work or might not. (That it would create massive human rights violations and likely lead to huge civil disturbances was one overlooked factor, though the fact that some of these immigrants are key to the building trades was mentioned.)

Other stories of pressing concern are either picked up and dropped or just neglected overall, as with Trump’s threats to dismantle a huge portion of the climate legislation that is both the Biden administration’s signal achievement and crucial for the fate of the planet. The Washington Post editorial board did offer this risibly feeble critique on 17 August: “It would no doubt be better for the climate if the US president acknowledged the reality of global warming – rather than calling it a scam, as Mr Trump has.”

While the press blamed Biden for failing to communicate his achievements, which is part of his job, it’s their whole job to do so. The Climate Jobs National Resource Center reports that the Inflation Reduction Act has created “a combined potential of over $2tn in investment, 1,091,966 megawatts of clean power, and approximately 3,947,670 jobs”, but few Americans have any sense of what the bill has achieved or even that the economy is by many measures strong.

Last winter, the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who has a Nobel prize in economics, told Greg Sargent on the latter’s Daily Blast podcast that when he writes positive pieces about the Biden economy, his editor asks “don’t you want to qualify” it; “aren’t people upset by X, Y and Z and shouldn’t you be acknowledging that?”

Meanwhile in an accusatory piece about Kamala Harris headlined When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?, a Washington Post columnist declares in another case of bothsiderism: “Voters want to blame someone for high grocery bills, and the presidential candidates have apparently decided the choices are either the Biden administration or corporate greed. Harris has chosen the latter.” The evidence that corporations have jacked up prices and are reaping huge profits is easy to find, but facts don’t matter much in this kind of opining.

It’s hard to gloat over the decline of these dinosaurs of American media, when a free press and a well-informed electorate are both crucial to democracy. The alternatives to the major news outlets simply don’t reach enough readers and listeners, though the non-profit investigative outfit ProPublica and progressive magazines such as the New Republic and Mother Jones, are doing a lot of the best reporting and commentary.

Earlier this year, when Alabama senator Katie Britt gave her loopy rebuttal to Biden’s State of the Union address, it was an independent journalist, Jonathan Katz, who broke the story on TikTok that her claims about a victim of sex trafficking contained significant falsehoods. The big news outlets picked up the scoop from him, making me wonder what their staffs of hundreds were doing that night.

A host of brilliant journalists young and old, have started independent newsletters, covering tech, the state of the media, politics, climate, reproductive rights and virtually everything else, but their reach is too modest to make them a replacement for the big newspapers and networks. The great exception might be historian Heather Cox Richardson, whose newsletter and Facebook followers give her a readership not much smaller than that of the Washington Post. The tremendous success of her sober, historically grounded (and footnoted!) news summaries and reflections bespeaks a hunger for real news.

[copperhawks]

The funniest thing to me about Kel, and maybe one of the most interesting because of how understated it is, is that Kel becomes a good commander in the end, not by emulating Wyldon who was cold and implacable and insensitive, or by emulating Raoul who mostly only disobeys orders out of principle or because he has an issue with what the order says about his personal relationship with Jon, but by emulating JON.

Kel doesn't even LIKE Jon, she BARELY respects him as a person. He's a good enough ruler that she's willing to fight for him and swear loyalty to him and to at least mostly believe that he wouldn't work with Blayce to make his own killing monsters, but that's as far as it goes for Kel. If he's kind to her, she finds it uncomfortable and almost untrustworthy because she assumes he doesn't care about her and so his kindness and respect towards her must be fake.

But from the outside, as readers, we know just how much Jon fought for Kel. We know how much he does respect her right to be a knight. Jon is the sole reason that Kel DID get the opportunity to prove herself, if he'd capitulated to Wyldon completely, she just wouldn't have ever been allowed to join. Kel doesn't KNOW THAT, obviously, but we do. We know that Jon did everything he could to find a way to convince Wyldon to let Kel become a page. While Wyldon claims later that the reason he chose to let her stay at the end of the probation year was because his better judgment convinced him she'd earned it, I'd be willing to bet that part of that better judgment also included knowing if he couldn't prove to JON that she needed to go, then he'd be in trouble. Kel was training and working in front of plenty of other trainers and teachers who could easily contradict Wyldon's lies if he'd tried it, many of whom are closer to Jon than they are to Wyldon.

Kel's experiences and feelings about that experience are entirely valid, and she doesn't have the knowledge we do about how hard Jon fought for her, so it's not shocking that she's upset with him for a good portion of her series. She never even discovers this truth by the end of her series, even though she does get a lesson from Jon and Thayet (and Raoul to some degree) about how politics and compromises work in order to make changes happen. So her opinion of him by the end is boiled down to the quote from Squire: "good kings weren't always good men." It makes sense for her to think this, but because Kel's knowledge base is so limited (and her worldview so black and white for much of her series), it makes her an EXTREMELY unreliable narrator about this particular issue.

Kel believes that while Jon generally does his duty and keeps the peace, he doesn't actually care all that much about his people as individuals. But in their only meaningful conversation in Squire, Jon is able to point out that he (and Thayet, who is actually equal to Jon in power, something Kel either doesn't know which would be a failure in her education or just tends to ignore so she can focus her ire on Jon) has to make a LOT of compromises in order to get ANYTHING useful done at all. Sometimes, often, it means making deals with people he doesn't like or people he just fundamentally disagrees with, because it's the first step in a multi-step plan to help more people in the long run. He also points out that just throwing his weight and authority around in order to be able to change everything he wants to change immediately regardless of what anyone else thinks about it is a great way to get himself and his family killed. Because even if he had good intentions, that would be tyranny. It does make Kel think a little, but she doesn't tend to like him much still afterwards, her resentment from her page years will always color her opinion of him a little.

However, then she gets to Haven and she's suddenly tossed into a position of leadership over a lot of other people, many of whom disagree with each other or disagree with her or both. And all of the sudden, Kel has to make compromises. She doesn't LIKE the way the sergeants often treat their men, especially the sergeants whose men are convicts, but there's very very little she can do about it without really pissing off those same sergeants and that's not something she can afford to do. There's a moment when Neal starts getting frustrated about the treatment of the convicts and she takes him out to vent to her so he doesn't vent to the sergeants, something that the sergeants would then take out on their men. Kel's reasoning as she does this is that she "preferred to avoid battles with them now so she would have authority with them later if she needed to use it." Later, Kel is talking to Daine and she says "That's all this job is... Trying to please everyone and pleasing no one. And it will only get worse, not better."

Both of these moments showcase Kel choosing to make compromises. She may not like the way the sergeants treat the convicts, but she needs to stay on the sergeants' good sides because she doesn't have enough resources to butt heads with them nor enough authority to just force the issue, and even if she DID, it could cause the sergeants to become troublesome or take out their frustration with her on the men in ways she can't see as well. But staying on the sergeants' good sides might mean letting some of their maltreatment slide if it's not physically harming the convicts. And even setting that aside, she's dealing with nearly 500 refugees eventually, all of which are from different towns in the area and have different needs, not all of which she can accommodate. This requires compromise. Sometimes she can please some of them and not others, but mostly she probably just ends up not pleasing anybody because that's often how compromises WORK.

She never makes the active connection to Jon and his lesson on leadership from Squire while she's in Haven, but that quote up there about how this job (aka being a commander) is all about trying to please everyone and pleasing no one? It sounds a HECK of a lot like "good kings weren't always good men." You can try your best to help others, but often doing the right thing can involve making everyone unhappy. You can't be everybody's friend if you're going to get anything done.

Some of this she might've learned from Raoul's style of command, but Raoul commands a fairly small amount of people (at least in comparison to a King), and so we see him able to be pretty friendly to the people he commands in a way that Jon is perhaps unable to do. And she might believe that she learned some of this from Wyldon, but Wyldon had a tendency to be very unfair and biased due to his raging bigotry and conservative values, as well as the fact that he doesn't actually even LIKE being a training master and that likely impacted the way he treated the pages (he's almost never that kind to the pages, whereas we see him capable of being quite kind with the refugees later, which is where Kel comes to the conclusion that he hadn't enjoyed being a training master).

But Jon makes an entire speech about how he (and Thayet) have been working THEIR ENTIRE REIGN to change laws that help people. He explains how they have to consider the needs of merchants, nobles, farmers, street people, priests/priestesses, and mages. They have to consider not only what these people might need or want, but also what they could do when they feel sufficiently offended and how that could impact not just the royal family or the nobility but the realm as a whole. Jon points out that they HAVE made changes, for the better, and that just because they don't always succeed at everything or because they have to compromise sometimes, doesn't mean they aren't working at making changes or that they don't care about helping people. Not everyone you have power over is going to be your friend, they might not even be someone you like. But if you're going to take on the job of leadership, that's something you have to be willing to accept and work with, which often means making compromises with people whose needs and values are contradictory to your own.

Jon probably knows when he makes the compromise with Wyldon that it will likely impact a lot of people's good opinion of him. Alanna is right there and clearly angry, and we know Thayet doesn't like the decision, either. And it's entirely possible that Jon knows in the moment that Kel herself will put the blame on him because he's the King. But he also knows that if he insists on Kel being allowed to be a page without trying to compromise with Wyldon, Wyldon will quit over it and he'll end up with ten DIFFERENT problems that could cause a lot bigger issues to far more people than just one girl. So he makes the compromise. He sacrifices Alanna and Thayet and even Kel's good opinion of him in order to ensure that Kel gets the opportunity to become a Knight without turning all of his nobles against him which could ultimately lead to a civil war. Is it fair? No, and he knows it. But it's the best option he has in order to get the outcome they all actually want which is just for Kel to have the chance to prove herself.

Kel has to make similar choices once she's finally in a position of leadership of her own. And whether she realizes it or not, without ever even spending more than a few minutes with Jon, she ends up emulating his leadership style more than anybody else's because it WORKS and it works WELL. She'll probably never admit it, she might never even realize it herself, but she's so much more like Jon than any of the other men she sees as role models. And I love that. I love the dramatic irony of that, that the one person Kel only barely respects because of a compromise he made on her behalf that she'll never even know about, is the person Kel ends up most resembling. Jon is the reason she has the opportunity to become the Protector of the Small in the first place, Jon is the person who created that environment that allowed her to nurture those values, and she'll probably never even really be able to acknowledge that, because sometimes that's what being a good leader means.

[kkoffin]

i read thru the whole 88 page judgment from the new UK supreme court decision and i need yall to understand how ABSURD it is that trans people are upset about this at all. long post but important bits highlighted in red bc i know everyone on this app has attention span issues

(context: (stick with me here)

1) the act sets out “it is discriminatory to exclude anyone on the basis of their sex.” and then a list of exceptions, so the single sex spaces/services allowed will be referred to as “exceptions” 2) the judge is looking at the whole act, and based on the language and context, deciding whether or not EVERY mention of “woman”, “man” or “sex” within the act was intended by parliament to include people with a gender recognition certificate or not. 3) we either can or cannot include people with a GRC. this is a discussion largely regarding single-sex services, it either includes TIMs with GRC and rejects TIFS with GRC or vice versa. that’s the most important factor and why it’s most absurd that trans people are upset about this.)

the main part that really stands out, one of the exceptions the judge relied on was regarding (paraphrased) “it would not make sense for a person of the opposite sex to need this service”. this refers to mainly medical treatments for sexed biology. not only does it not make sense for a TIM to need a service such as cervical cancer screening, but if we say this does include people with a recognized “female” gender, IT EXCLUDES TIFs. WHO ACTUALLY NEED THIS SERVICE.

Remember, we cannot make an exception for this specific kind of single-sex service - the word “sex” works just the same across the whole act. a judge cannot make amendments to the act, only interpret it, and it must be interpreted in context.

Even for a trans activist judge this would be a tricky spot to be in. it’s choosing between the “validity” of one trans-identified sex and the literal access to actually necessary healthcare for the other. this was made to protect those people and literally maintain their access to health services. Again, if we said this act was including people with a GRC, trans identified females would be excluded from countless necessary health facilities for women, vice versa.

alongside the gender recognition act, a grc still makes a trans identified person their desired gender for “all [other] purposes”, and the exceptions in the equality act are limited. mainly only government/healthcare services, maybe gyms (maybe), groups of under 25, higher education and communal accommodation. plus minus some.

it does not directly include bathrooms, (though they could be argued) but most certainly it does not mean “trans women are no longer women”. trans women are still literally “legally” women. all that’s really changed is an ability to recognise a difference between a “legal” female and a “biological” female, at this point only limited to within one act. that same act lists trans people as a protected group who MAY be discriminated against on the basis of their trans identity. trans women are legally women in literally every way besides within this one act. one exception to the rule "trans women are women".

this post is already super long but i might reblog it with some more things in the judgment that stood out to me later. also this was all written in one sitting so i might edit, forgive any typos or inaccuracies. i’m not registered and especially not in the UK so don’t take this as gospel or use as legal advice

[yes-no-maybe-soo]

Reminder that Sylus was released with:

6 4 stars & 6 3 stars, while the OG3 had 18 of each

1 bond, while the OG3 had 2

1 anecdote, while the OG3 had 3

1 free companion, while the OG3 had 3

No photobooth background. He only just got it after 6 months

No full stellactrum, as opposed to the OG3. For the longest time, Sylus was missing yellow and red— now he has 2 yellow and 1 red. Of those, 1 yellow was a promise card, thus locked behind a paywall and now no longer available.

In total, as of right now, Sylus has 34 cards, meaning that he still, after half a year, has less cards than the OG3 had upon release (41). Bear in mind that a number of these 34 cards were limited and thus no longer obtainable, while another portion of them are only obtainable through the Silver/Radiant Galaxy. So for new & F2p players, unless they are very lucky, they'll have to make due with the 17 standard cards available. Which makes real progress impossible. Sylus is not only P2W but basically P2P. If you missed out on his limited 5 stars and especially his second myth? You're fucked. B/c he still doesn't have his green 4 star solar pair.

The discrepancy in number of memories compared to the other LIs also means that the likelihood of pulling Sylus cards is drastically lower than the others — ~11-12% VS ~30% according to calculations made by a number of different players both on the CN and global side.

Presumably because of his puny amount of cards, Sylus' orbits are locked at level 80. That means that he has 70 less floors than the OG3. This, paired with his low number of cards, means that raising affinity becomes extremely difficult after a certain point, especially if you can't afford to spend a lot of money.

In addition, Sylus girlies need to spend twice the amount of stamina as other girlies in order to level up cards. Why? Because, in contrast to the OG3, he does not have a Bounty Boss dedicated to his prime Stellas (in his case Pink and Green). This means that we have to fight both Snoozer and Lemonette if we want to level up the majority of his cards.

Sylus girlies have been reaching out to customer service for months about these issues, and have either been given nothingburger replies or been totally ignored. There have been exactly 0 meaningful communication on Paperfold's side. No one is asking them to give us what we're missing tomorrow, but we are asking for some confirmation that our valid concerns are being heard and that the issue will be rectified. But so far... nothing. All that the CN girlies have received as of yet are attempted gaslighting and subtle threats. Is this how you treat any — much less your objectively highest paying — consumers?

I hope everyone can see how blatantly unfair all of this is, and understand why such a large number of us are angry and upset. We have been called greedy and ungrateful, but tell me, how is asking for fairness, for the bare minimum, greedy or ungrateful? We have never asked for special treatment, only equal treatment. The argument that all of this discrepancy in basic content is due to Sylus being "new" has never been and will never be valid.

To end this post on a somewhat hopeful note, the current boycott by the CN Sylus girlies have resulted in a significant drop in daily revenue. One can only hope that this will finally make Paperfold listen and rectify this mess, or at least communicate with their consumers,

Let me remind you that while this issue currently only affects Sylus mains, it will eventually come to affect all of us. B/c if they can get away with this behaviour with one character, then I guarantee you that the other LIs will be next. In fact, from the look of things, Caleb will receive the same treatment.

If you as a global player wish to help do something about all of this, I'd highly recommend writing an email to the company (loveanddeepspace-en@infoldgames.com). Additionally, there is talk of organizing a petition in support of the CN girlies, the link to which I will post on my blog, should it become a reality. While it might be true that global players unfortunately hold little sway, doing something is still better than doing nothing.

If you're curious to learn more, please refer to my pinned post for links and additional info on the situation.

Finally, if you've read all of this, thank you 🙏 I appreciate you for taking the time.

[little-saw]

sys LITTLE + sys CG ! doey doughman headcanons !! ☆ *

( part 2 )

Before you read, I'm making a few rules / disclaimers. I am not a part of a system. I made this as both a req and a way of beginning to learn how to write hcs for systems. Any and all (gentle) criticism is welcomed! I headcanon Doey to be a part of a system with the 3 kids in his body. Finally, I will not tolerate discourse, I have no interest in listening to fights about who is and who isn't valid. I don't care about your views. Do not discuss them here.

Req by anon :)

• Doey's system originates from the young children combined in their body, as well as the traumatic event that involved such.

• Doey experiences bad dissociative episodes. They got especially bad when Poppy left. Matthew, who is the systems caregiver, was able to regress around her, so her leaving was very triggering.

• Their episodes are disabling and disorientating, but they try to push them down so as not to scare the little toys.

• Their collective name is, of course, Doey the Doughman, and their connection to their human names has disappeared with time.

• They don't exactly have a "host," they share a body made for them and have equal amounts of identity amongst it.

• Jack is their systems little, being the first body in Doey, his trauma and fear can easily affect the others in their system. Usually agitating Kevin or making Matthew anxious.

• Kevin took the form as a protector to cope with the abuse and trauma all 3 experienced. He tends to front mostly when they collectively are all upset. He is extremely moody and aggressive, as well as impulsive.

• Matthew fronts the most, as he is the most mature. He acts as the systems caregiver, proving comfort to the others during times of pain. Both in his system and the toys around him.

• Kevin and Matthew are very protective and brotherly to Jack.

• They have a few other alters, but those were not once physical human beings such as the 3 boys.

• On nights where Jack is fussy, Matthew will care for him, reassuring him he's safe and they'll have dinner in the morning. And one day, he'll be home to mommy and daddy.

• Kevin has ADHD, which ended up spreading to their entire new body. Doey spends time stimming by singing and humming their old theme song. as well as clapping, wiggling, and stretching their limbs

• These are also grounding techniques for when they feel somewhat switchy.

• Kevin tries not to regress, not wanting to be seen as weak, however occasionally he does slip.

• He's an impure regressor, much more violent and cranky than Jack is. But Matthew knows how to handle him.

[bamtwozled]

I need to hear thoughts on craftsverse dan

the thing that fascinates me the most about him is that he’s kind of afraid of what he is. dan appears to be a much better conduit for the occult forces they’re trying to communicate with—in glitter faces, he draws the pentagram seemingly without his own knowledge, in potato prints he seems to have some ability to understand what they’ve summoned when it speaks to him, and in slime he’s the one entrusted with completing the ritual to bring Him into their world (there’s also the little clip of him spinning the slime bowl presumably with his mind, which isn’t on the same level but is still a “something’s up with this guy” indicator nonetheless).

and yet there are multiple points where he’s afraid of what’s happening to him. in glitter faces, he panics when he discovers that he’s drawn the pentagram, and phil has to guide him back from it. in slime, he’s very clearly upset both before and after cutting his hand open to contribute the blood, and only starts laughing again when phil does. when the ritual is complete and He rises, dan full-body flinches. he still does all these things he’s supposed to do, up to and including literally stabbing phil to death and carving out his heart, even though doing so does seem to pretty significantly affect him, but he’s clearly not as perfectly on board with everything they’re doing as phil is.

phil’s role is pretty straightforward. he’s the true believer, and the sacrifice that’s happy to be a sacrifice because of that faith. he’s the driving force in these videos. he’s always the one to introduce the craft and guide dan and the audience through it, and he has more lines that directly acknowledge his absolute faith (think “I can’t see, but that’s okay, because I believe” from potato prints, or “I’m happy to give it to him” when dan says “this was just a start, but he’ll need it straight from the source” in slime, and that attitude around his own impending death also contrasts with dan’s trepidation around his own much smaller blood sacrifice). there aren’t really any times where his devotion or persona waver, but dan’s do.

and like I think there are plenty of things you can read into that, although we get more into headcanon territory rather than a direct interpretation of the video. the simplest explanation is that he does believe on his own, it’s just not quite as unshakeable as phil’s faith and confidence. another interpretation that I’ve played with in the past is that his devotion is more to phil than to Him, and his belief comes more from following phil than directly of his own accord. phil’s “everybody makes mistakes” in glitter faces is just a silly little line about dan being left handed, but in looking at dan having some fear of his own abilities, it’s possible that he sees plenty of things about himself as being a mistake, especially if any of this manifested before he really knew what was happening. finding someone who accepts and likes that part of him, even if it’s just because it’s useful, would be welcome, and could easily push him into this acolyte mindset. but again that’s all just like interesting headcanon territory based on how their power dynamic seems to me to play out in their videos, and there are plenty of other equally valid ways to read it.

I just think “this is the one thing he was made perfectly for, and yet it scares him” is such a fun and fascinating basis for a character like this, and I think it adds a lot more depth and room for interesting speculation than if they’d both been 100% complete believers

[gayofthefae]

Was going through the Willelmike triangle Little Women parallels in my head again and realized how deep they go because they literally MADE Will and El siblings!!

So let's do this.

Jo and Amy are siblings. Amy is a painter. Jo desires independence from men. Laurie believes the only way he can be happy is by being with Jo romantically.

Amy has loved Laurie since she was a child but never interfered with his interest for Jo, but was still visibly upset by things like them skating together ahead without her (yes, really). She did not make a move on him and was sympathetic towards him when he was sad about her. Jo loves having Laurie in her life. But she also later says that what she desired from him romantically was validation and, in that way, to provide her a feeling of value, not romance itself. Laurie overcame the feeling that he could not be happy without Jo's romantic love and fell in love with her sibling, Amy, when they, by happenstance, are in the same place without Jo or anyone else together for an extended period of time. Amy has idolized Laurie since loving him as a child but he makes her angry and she calls him out for these things. This humanizes him and makes their love more mature and equal that it would have been with her previous crush. But Amy has distanced herself from the idea of ever hoping he could love her back after all these years and at the idea of a romance with him, she pushes him away.

They match it beat for beat. One would expect them to continue to

So good news for season 5...

Jo is sad for a moment, logically. But she has a happy ending and she is completely okay. Beat for beat.

[eloise-t-g]

i think for me, the watcher situation comes down to this:

it's absolutely respectable that the watcher team wants to grow and produce better quality content. it's respectable that they don't want to stagnate and end up pushing the same content out over and over again. that's not satisfying for them creatively, i get that.

however, if higher quality, more heavily produced content is not what your fans are asking for, then you can't ask them to fund it.

this all-or-nothing method they've gone for is frankly bizarre. it feels like they leap-frogged all other alternatives to improving their finances and ended up here, alienating and frustrating the majority of their fanbase (the fanbase they thanked for getting them to where they are).

i think this could have gone a lot better if they:

Hadn't hyped up this video for a week.

Hadn't announced the worth it successor just beforehand.

Hadn't put out a wishy-washy, "boo hoo we're so sad about this", over-produced video.

Hadn't made it $6/month (more in a lot of countries given exchange rates).

Had considered that this means fans in specific countries literally cannot pay for the subscription due to geo/region-locking.

my ideas for improving their funds, aka things they could have tried before blowing their brand up: create their own website with two options - a free version with ads and a paid version without ads, OR make better use of their patreon/make their website extra content, not all their content, for example:

Put the ghost file debriefs on there.

Put shows like survival mode on there (or even shift that show from pre-recorded video to live-stream - live stream access to patrons and VOD access to everyone, maybe).

Put episode commentaries there.

Do reaction videos to their old buzzfeed content, talk about memories and BTS, and put that there.

Put one/two episodes of each show, per season on there (and ONLY there).

Put the episodes up there a few days early.

Make specific, website only content (that's not your main and most popular series aka ghost files and puppet history).

Record the live, in-person shows and put those VODs up there.

EDIT (thought of something else lmao): put extended or even uncut versions of ghost files on there. Paranormal Detour on Detune's twitch channel has shown that people will willingly sit through 6+ hours of a ghost investigation.

EDIT: idk, do livestreams once a week where you watch scary movies with fans on discord or twitch.

(side note: the fact that they're not taking down their patreon and instead shifting all of their podcast content on there, something the patreons who have been loyally giving them money for years didn't ask for, is ridiculous and greedy. add to this the fact that they don't even get a free sub to the new website, instead get 40% off - a measly 10% more than anyone else who subs before the official launch).

the thing for me is that they're claiming they want to make "television" and "television-grade content". that's completely fine. what's not completely fine is acting like your four episodes a month is equal to netflix's entire catalogue.

this really felt like it should have been something they told us they were progressing towards, not something they revealed to be on the imminent horizon. idk, it just feels out of nowhere. no, they don't owe us all of the info about their company. but something had to be better than this.

final thought - it's okay and valid to be upset at the team for this. for a lot of people, it's a complete betrayal (especially the comment that $6 a month is something "anyone and everyone can afford", i mean yikes). i do think some people's anger got the best of them, and some of the comments i've seen across youtube, twitter, and tumblr are plain bullying, racism, and harassment. until we have the whole story, we can't decide that one founder (aka steven in a lot of people's minds) is solely responsible. i know a lot of these awful things are only coming from a small minority of the fandom, but they still get seen.

at the end of the day, all three of them got up in front of a camera and made this video, together. that can only lead us to the conclusion that they made this decision together. acting like these men in their 30s couldn't stand up against it if they truly wanted to, is so strange and parasocial lmao.

tl;dr there were much better ways of going about this announcement, if it even needed to be made at all. however, that doesn't excuse the hateful shit being spewed at the team. for now, all we know is the three founders decided they were done with youtube, and done with their loyal youtube audience.

(i have so many more thoughts on this but i need to stop lmao. however i do wonder how different things could have been if 1. they had hired someone with actual business experience as their CEO from the jump, and 2. this video was more of a "hey we're broke! this is a last-ditch effort to save our company!". guess those questions will remain ... well ... you know ...).

[mariacallous]

This is a gift article

“In normal times, Americans don’t think much about democracy. Our Constitution, with its guarantees of free press, speech, and assembly, was written more than two centuries ago. Our electoral system has never failed, not during two world wars, not even during the Civil War. Citizenship requires very little of us, only that we show up to vote occasionally. Many of us are so complacent that we don’t bother. We treat democracy like clean water, something that just comes out of the tap, something we exert no effort to procure.

“But these are not normal times.”

I wrote those words in October 2020, at a time when some people feared voting, because they feared contagion. The feeling that “these are not normal times” also came from rumors about what Donald Trump’s campaign might do if he lost that year’s presidential election. Already, stories that Trump would challenge the validity of the results were in circulation. And so it came to pass.

This time, we are living in a much different world. The predictions of what might happen on November 5 and in the days that follow are not based on rumors. On the contrary, we can be absolutely certain that an attempt will be made to steal the 2024 election if Kamala Harris wins. Trump himself has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the results of the 2020 election. He has waffled on and evaded questions about whether he will accept the outcome in 2024. He has hired lawyers to prepare to challenge the results.

Trump also has a lot more help this time around from his own party. Strange things are happening in state legislatures: a West Virginia proposal to “not recognize an illegitimate presidential election” (which could be read as meaning not recognize the results if a Democrat wins); a last-minute push, ultimately unsuccessful, to change the way Nebraska allocates its electoral votes. Equally weird things are happening in state election boards. Georgia’s has passed a rule requiring that all ballots be hand-counted, as well as machine-counted, which, if not overturned, will introduce errors—machines are more accurate—and make the process take much longer. A number of county election boards have in recent elections tried refusing to certify votes, not least because many are now populated with actual election deniers, who believe that frustrating the will of the people is their proper role. Multiple people and groups are also seeking mass purges of the electoral rolls.

Anyone who is closely following these shenanigans—or the proliferation of MAGA lawsuits deliberately designed to make people question the legitimacy of the vote even before it is held—already knows that the challenges will multiply if the presidential vote is as close as polls suggest it could be. The counting process will be drawn out, and we may not know the winner for many days. If the results come down to one or two states, they could experience protests or even riots, threats to election officials, and other attempts to change the results.

This prospect can feel overwhelming: Many people are not just upset about the possibility of a lost or stolen election, but oppressed by a sensation of helplessness. This feeling—I can’t do anything; my actions don’t matter—is precisely the feeling that autocratic movements seek to instill in citizens, as Peter Pomerantsev and I explain in our recent podcast, Autocracy in America. But you can always do something. If you need advice about what that might be, here is an updated citizen’s guide to defending democracy.

Help Out on Voting Day—In Person

First and foremost: Register to vote, and make sure everyone you know has done so too, especially students who have recently changed residence. The website Vote.gov has a list of the rules in all 50 states, in multiple languages, if you or anyone you know has doubts. Deadlines have passed in some states, but not all of them.

After that, vote—in person if you can. Because the MAGA lawyers are preparing to question mail-in and absentee ballots in particular, go to a polling station if at all possible. Vote early if you can, too: Here is a list of early-voting rules for each state.

Secondly, be prepared for intimidation or complications. As my colleague Stephanie McCrummen has written, radicalized evangelical groups are organizing around the election. One group is planning a series of “Kingdom to the Capitol” rallies in swing-state capitals, as well as in Washington, D.C.; participants may well show up near voting booths on Election Day. If you or anyone you know has trouble voting, for any reason, call 866-OUR-VOTE, a hotline set up by Election Protection, a nonpartisan national coalition led by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

If you have time to do more, then join the effort. The coalition is looking for lawyers, law students, and paralegals to help out if multiple, simultaneous challenges to the election occur at the county level. Even people without legal training are needed to serve as poll monitors, and of course to staff the hotline. In the group’s words, it needs people to help voters with “confusing voting rules, outdated infrastructure, rampant misinformation, and needless obstacles to the ballot box.”

If you live in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin, you can also volunteer to help All Voting Is Local, an organization that has been on the ground in those states since before 2020 and knows the rules, the officials, the potential threats. It, too, is recruiting legal professionals, as well as poll monitors. If you don’t live in one of those states, you can still make a financial contribution.

Wherever you live, consider working at a polling station. All Voting Is Local can advise you if you live in one of its eight states, but you can also call your local board of elections. More information is available at PowerThePolls.org, which will send you to the right place. The site explains that “our democracy depends on ordinary people who make sure every election runs smoothly and everyone's vote is counted—people like you.”

Wherever you live, it’s also possible to work for one of the many get-out-the-vote campaigns. Consider driving people to the voting booth. Find your local group by calling the offices of local politicians, members of Congress, state legislators, and city councillors. The League of Women Voters and the NAACP are just two of many organizations that will be active in the days before the election, and on the day itself. Call them to ask which local groups they recommend. Or, if you are specifically interested in transporting Democrats, you can volunteer for Rideshare2Vote.

If you know someone who needs a ride, then let them know that the ride-hailing company Lyft is once again working with a number of organizations, including the NAACP, the National Council of Negro Women, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the National Council on Aging, Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote, and the Hispanic Federation. Contact any of them for advice about your location. Also try local religious congregations, many of whom organize rides to the polls.

Smaller gestures are needed too. If you see a long voting line, or if you find yourself standing in one, report it to Pizza to the Polls and the group will send over some free pizza to cheer everyone up.

Join Something Now

Many people have long been preparing for a challenge to the election and a battle in both the courts and the media. You can help them by subscribing to the newsletters of some of the organizations sponsoring this work, donating money, and sharing their information with others. Don’t wait until the day after the vote to find groups you trust: If a crisis happens, you will not want to be scouring the internet for information.

Among the organizations to watch is the nonpartisan Protect Democracy, which has already launched successful lawsuits to secure voting rights in several states. Another is the States United Democracy Center, which collaborates with police as well as election workers to make sure that elections are safe. Three out of four election officials say that threats to them have increased; in some states, the danger will be just as bad the day after the election as it was the day before, or maybe even worse.

The Brennan Center for Justice, based at NYU, researches and promotes concrete policy proposals to improve democracy, and puts on public events to discuss them. Its lawyers and experts are preparing not only for attempts to steal the election, but also, in the case of a Trump victory, for subsequent assaults on the Constitution or the rule of law.

For voters who lean Democratic, Democracy Docket also offers a wealth of advice, suggestions, and information. The group’s lawyers have been defending elections for many years. For Republicans, Republicans for the Rule of Law is a much smaller group, but one that can help keep people informed.

Talk With People

In case of a real disaster—an inconclusive election or an outbreak of violence—you will need to find a way to talk about it, including a way to speak with friends or relatives who are angry and have different views. In 2020, I published some suggestions from More in Common, a research group that specializes in the analysis of political polarization, for how to talk with people who disagree with you about politics, as well as those who are cynical and apathetic. I am repeating here the group’s three dos and three don’ts:

•Do talk about local issues: Americans are bitterly polarized over national issues, but have much higher levels of trust in their state and local officials. •Do talk about what your state and local leaders are doing to ensure a safe election. •Do emphasize our shared values—the large majority of Americans still feel that democracy is preferable to all other forms of government—and our historical ability to deliver safe and fair elections, even in times of warfare and social strife. •Don’t, by contrast, dismiss people’s concerns about election irregularities out of hand. Trump and his allies have repeatedly raised the specter of widespread voter fraud in favor of Democrats. Despite a lack of evidence for this notion, many people may sincerely believe that this kind of electoral cheating is real. •Don’t rely on statistics to make your case, because people aren’t convinced by them; talk, instead, about what actions are being taken to protect the integrity of the vote. •Finally, don’t inadvertently undermine democracy further: Emphasize the strength of the American people, our ability to stand up to those who assault democracy. Offer people a course of action, not despair.

As a Last Resort, Protest

As in 2020, protest remains a final option. A lot of institutions, including some of those listed above, are preparing to step in if the political system fails. But if they all fail as well, remember that it’s better to protest in a group, and in a coordinated, nonviolent manner. Many of the organizations I have listed will be issuing regular statements right after the election; follow their advice to find out what they are doing. Remember that the point of a protest is to gain supporters—to win others over to your cause—and not to make a bad situation worse. Large, peaceful gatherings will move and convince people more than small, angry ones. Violence makes you enemies, not friends.

Finally, don’t give up: There is always another day. Many of your fellow citizens also want to protect not just the electoral system but the Constitution itself. Start looking for them now, volunteer to help them, and make sure that they, and we, remain a democracy where power changes hands peacefully.

[galindaisgay]

Something I find interesting about Elphaba, Fiyero and Glinda are their similarities and differences about the way the world works. Also the way they act in relation to their worldview and why they make the choices they do. (Movie and Musical versions)

Elphaba: Idealistic, tries to conform but is also rebellious, hopeful. Craves external validation.

Elphaba is idealistic. She knows that the world can be unfair and cruel but she truly believes that it can be better, that she can make the world better. She’s always been an outsider so rebellion comes naturally to her. However she does conform to her father’s expectations. She listens to him, tries to make herself less seen, takes care of Nessa all in the hopes of receiving parental validation.

Ultimately, Elphaba is a rebel because what she desires is outside the realm of normalcy. She wants true equality for Animals, she wants the world to be fair and just. She finds her strength and becomes tired of “playing by the rules of someone else’s game.” All the while Elphaba does crave her external validation and for someone to love her for who she is (Glinda & Fiyero). She wants the world to like her and not judge her based on her skin. She gets a taste of what that’s like once she befriends Glinda but ultimately the world will always judge her based on the color of her skin instead of the quality of her character.

When she becomes the ‘Wicked Witch’ she loses all external validation and although it hurts she’s used to it, she’s dealt with it all her life. But she still craves that validation (wanting Fiyero to find her beautiful as she is which, she doesn’t really get but I won’t get into that here).

Fiyero: Realistic, rebellious, nihilist. Does not crave external validation.

Fiyero is a realistic through and through. He knows how the world works, thinks it sucks and copes by pretending that nothing matters cuz they’re all gonna die anyway. Despite this, he rebels against the world in his own way by slacking off, breaking the rules, getting kicked out of multiple schools. Even though he looks like a perfect prince his behavior is less than perfect. Id imagine his parents would be upset with him for slacking off but this is his form of rebellion against a world he can’t change. This shows that Fiyero does not crave validation from external sources. What he wants is someone to understand him for who he is (Elphaba).

Glinda: Realistic, confirmative, resigned. Craves external validation.

Glinda is also a realistic through and through but instead of rebelling against the expectations of the world, Glinda embraces them. She crafts herself into the vision of perfection by looking and playing the part. It’s hinted at in What is this feeling that Glinda acts in the way her parents want her too: “But of course, I'll rise above it. For I know that's how you'd want me to respond.” This implies that Glinda has been brought up to act in accordance with the standards that her parents and the world has thrusted upon her. This in turn makes Glinda constantly play a role.

She craves the validation she receives for playing the part of a good, perfect, society girl. Yet, she also has to “grin and bear it” even when she may not believe in role she’s playing. While she craves external validation she also wants someone to understand her for who she is (Elphaba) but she cannot let go of her need for outside validation.

When you look at their character traits it’s easy to see why they made the choices that they did. For their choices aligned with their worldview. Though, in the end Elphaba and Glinda are changed for good and are able to see the world from the others point of view, it’s still too late to undoom their narrative.