#i can't vote for you if i can't find ANYTHING about you except results for someone with the same name in another state!

[inklingofadream]

not having a campaign website + profile through the state voter info site is almost always a disqualifier, but for the rare double whammy, be sure to have a heavy, unconnected internet presence revealed when i google your email where you are revealed to be 1) an insane bigot and 2) as seen on TLC

[decolonize-the-everything]

If Americans shouldn't vote for Biden what should they do instead? Vote for trump? Vote third party? Not vote?

(I know most people would probably ask you this in bad faith but I'm just really distraught at the state of politics and keep hearing people say "don't say he's the only option and don't support him" but there's never alternatives given and I don't know what an effective alternative could even be)

I think a good place to start that a lot of people are comfortable with is probably volunteering and petitioning for 3rd parties to make sure they Do have ballot access next year. So that ppl Can vote for someone else next year.

And yes, vote 3rd party this election. Or don't vote at all.

Besides that? Learn some basic defense and join protests. Support encampments and do things leftists say like join a union and organize your own community whether it be your schoolmates, coworkers, or all your friends and their friends.

Y'all see the news right?

Censorship and propaganda are rampant right now, along with transphobia and racism and even Nazis are back. Tensions are high to say the least and everyone is worked up about the election and Israel.

Figure out what you wish someone else would do and then do it. Is that de-arresting protesters? Organizing a bail fund, fighting cops and throwing tear gas back at them when they make things violent?

There's a lot to fight against and even more to fight for. Find what's worth fighting for (to you) and actually start fighting for it. Don't let cops or your principal or boss or anyone else stop you.

I think one of the most important things we can do right now is remind the government and those that serve the government that they won't take our rights so easily. That if they want to silence us then we're gonna make sure it'll hurt more than it'll help. That we can and will fight back.

And that's why it's so vital that we show them we won't settle either. We won't vote for Biden.

We settled for Clinton and look where that got us.

Does it feel like voting for more and more conservative blue candidates actually helped prevent harm? Or does it feel like you were manipulated and lied to?

Gonna be real, it feels like the government is a manipulative abuser and we're all it's gaslit victims who don't want to believe things are that bad just cuz he killed someone else instead of us.

Which is like...it doesn't mean good things for us that our government could do that and we'd rationalize it, you know?

How we want to get out of this fucked up dynamic is up to us. We work, we pay taxes, we listen to the governments rule of law, and still our government won't codify rights, our trans friends are being abused by the government, or it's banning apps with censorship. And the whole time it's telling us to shut up and be grateful it isn't worse.

Abusers never ever tell you that it could be better too. And they don't want you to know that. Cuz then you leave. And if you leave then they can't manipulate and abuse you.

So yeah. They'll shit on us for doing Anything that doesn't result in us staying, for doing anything that results in us choosing our own well being instead of theirs.

But that's what we need to do.

And you need support before you do that. That's what organizing is. It's like calling the besties who hype you up to leave your shitty ex. Except it's a bunch of people agreeing to support each other when they choose to stand up for something. Organizing is making sure there are people watching back and making sure if one of you is harmed or arrested that there'll be someone there to help bail you out.

The more people you have to bail you out, the less you have to worry about being outnumbered, spoken over, or physically stopped with force.

So yeah. Do that.

Organize. I hope I stressed that enough. The people on our front lines need us to be there for them as much we need Them to keep fighting for us.

Also since I'm here: make sure you and your friends don't talk shit about protesters even when they get violent and break shit. It's not abuse when the victim finally hits back at their abuser, it's self defense.

[penny00dreadful]

WIP Weekend

Okay my lovelies, I know I've been very quiet recently but that is because I have been doing the damn thing. There's something big on the horizon, just you wait.

Thank you so much to my darlings @hbyrde36 and @thisapplepielife for the tag. 😘

Rules: Make a 24-hour poll with the names of your wips and then for whichever wins, write one sentence for every vote it gets (but you should also write 1 sentence for every vote each of them gets!)

I will be posting snippets as I write so keep an eye out. 😉

Results post

Summaries under the cut:

Return of The King - Part 8/9

Vampire!Steve, need I say more? Last chapter there was an earthquake, Wayne got the cliff-notes of the Upside Down, there was a car chase van chase, feral Steve, and they approached the gate to the Upside Down.

Comeuppance

Dustin just wants Steve to be happy. So he tried to parent trap him with Nancy. Clearly they should be together. But Steve's heart doesn't even seem to be in it at all! How is he so bad at this? And Eddie is being less than helpful

Through The Valley

Post-Apocalyptic AU. Eddie, Dustin and Nancy have a nice little community of survivors outside of Hawkins that they take care of, surviving day to day. Everyone's a little broken, missing the rest of their Party just hoping that one day they'll find each other again.

Devotion

Dungeons and Dragons AU. Steve is the golden boy of the small town of Hawkins. Harrington in name and now a Paladin with his very own oath to hunt down the Bard, the witch Eddie Munson and bring him back to justice under High Priest Henry Creel.

And They Were Roommates!

Steve and Eddie don't hate each other exactly. They just... tolerate each other. But one night Eddie doesn't come how for hours. Long after he's supposed to and it's not like Steve is worried or anything... he's just... concerned for a fellow human being... that's all.

Cat and Mouse

Prequel SpyAU. Steve is a top agent, practically running circles around his adversaries. Through a truly awful attempt at pickpocketing, he meets Eddie and it's like the guy has infected his brain, he can't stop thinking about him. Can't stop wandering if maybe Eddie's in so deep Steve won't be able to dig him out.

Unnamed PStobin+RSteddie Baby AU

Steve and his husband had always wanted kids. Except apparently Albert wasn't quite so up for it as he'd previously said. Robin is just standing there, 37 weeks pregnant with Steve's IVF baby having just punched Albert in the nose and oh god why is she leaking everywhere?? Is it happening?? IT'S HAPPENING, OH JESUS!

TAXI!

Before He Cheats

One evening, Eddie gets a call from some guy named Steve dropping the news on him that his boyfriend has been cheating on him. With this Steve person and Steve had no idea up until that day.

And Eddie rarely takes that shit lying down.

Zero pressure taggy tags. @artaxlivs @just-my-latest-hyperfixation @xenon-demon @mentallyundone @spooky-stevie @spoookysix @steventhusiast @subbaculture @theheadlessphilosopher @vecnuthy @wormdebut

[rrelationshipadvice]

Hello, I'm in a difficult circumstance and could appreciate some objective advice and insight. To put our relationship into context, I'm a 23-year-old Australian girl, and my boyfriend is a 22-year-old Korean guy who is more culturally westernised. We've been dating for five years and have been living together at his parents' house this year. We started living together in a new area at the beginning of the year. It's important to point out that, as he states, the problems we're facing are the result of "trauma." This is due to the fact that I shared, at the beginning of our relationship, that I had been the victim of sexual assault before ever meeting him. Since then, I've moved past the trauma, and it no longer causes me any problems in my life. Here are the positive and negative aspects of our relationship to give you a better idea:

There are undoubtedly some elements of our relationship that I greatly value. He's very loving, which makes me feel valued and appreciated. Also, his financial assistance is a lifeline, especially because I am concentrating on full-time study and am unable to find a job or government benefits at this point in time. He has a terrific sense of humour and always knows how to make me laugh, even when things are going bad. He's a rock of emotional support, and his willingness to help with housework, responsibilities, and simply everyday stuff is a huge comfort. Above all, I have no doubt that he loves me, and it is something I value about our relationship.

Unfortunately, there are numerous troubling parts of our relationship that I'm finding difficult to confront. First and foremost, I am unable to travel out on my own or use public transport on my own, which is extremely restricting. Also, there are tight restrictions on what I can wear, including no shorts or exposing clothes, as well as no baggy shirts or anything that might show underwear lines. His overbearing concern for my safety in public is a cause of stress, frequently resulting in anger when any guy comes remotely near me for whatever reason, as well as continual reminders to be cautious. Our physical intimacy has dropped substantially, and he is not addressing my sexual needs. To complicate matters further, he regularly makes jokes about my hygiene, implying that I'm stinky or haven't brushed my teeth despite all of my efforts. Unfortunately, our conversations about these concerns often seem to return to promises of "being more careful," leaving me feeling caught in a loop.

Our problems have been recurring lately, and just to put things in perspective, here are a few of the ones I've recorded:

A straightforward dinner with a couple friends on October 11, 2023, turned into an awful experience. After she'd kissed her boyfriend, I shared a straw with her, and he became irritated because he thought that meant I was kissing her boyfriend. On top of that, he became irritated throughout our dinner when one of the waiters walked right up to me to deliver our food. He didn't believe me when I told him that I hadn't been bumped, and it took a lot of work to get him to believe me.

A few days later, on October 14, 2023, we had to go vote, which caused our troubles to worsen once more. He saw that I wasn't "aware enough" when a man approached me to take something, like a pen, and became upset. I was left feeling confused and upset since he refused to talk to me for a full day, claiming my perceived unawareness as the reason.

We've had several conversations about these issues, but each one ends with me promising to "be more careful." This is some more information about our circumstances. Even if things have gotten a little better over time, I'm somewhat worried that these issues might continue forever. It's important to note that, except for these moments, our relationship is amazing overall. Even when I'm staying at a friend's place, he has such control over my movements that I can't leave her house without him, but I do go and end up lying about it. In the middle of it all, I sometimes find myself daydreaming about a life free of these restraints—one in which I could travel anywhere I pleased, whenever I pleased, and wear whatever I pleased. But these ideas are always followed by the weight of guilt.

I really don't know what to do next. I love him, but I can't live with the stress and limitations these problems are bringing about. Should I leave? And if so how would I go about bringing up this conversation? He thinks there is nothing wrong so I have no idea where to begin.

.

[the-fandom-crossroads]

Important Fandom Interest Check Poll!

Please vote and share around if you would be interested in a Genshin fic rec archive blog!

The basic idea would be an archive of posts linking to tumblr or ao3 fics of extremely high quality. It would make it easier to find older fics that are finished but don't have the high kudos to come up when you search by most kudos. The categories would be based on main ship or gen and the ship tag would only have fics with that ship in it. All fics would be read by me or a second mod before being added to the archive and they don't have to be complete before being added.

I am just trying to see if there is any interest in this type of blog. If the no's seem to be a lot or the number of votes is small all together. I won't sink time into coding a tumblr blog template.

If you are interested please consider reblogging so your genshin friends can also vote!

More about how this might work under the read more.

I would have submissions open and you would be free to submit your own fics along with others. I just can't guarantee I'd put it on the blog. I'd have final say to veto any fic submission. But the main reason would probably be needless smut.

Yes I am aware the idea of a genshin fic archive sounds redundant. Check marking only your ship on AO3 never gives you 20 oneshot compilation fics with other ships before the first solo fic or anything. The whole point is to make it so you don't have to scroll through countless not great fics that just happen to include your ship in the tags. And again to help older fics not get lost in the pile.

Genshin gets 100s of fics posted per day on AO3. It's not easy to sort through all of it. The blog is meant to make that easier. Also Tumblr fics. Those get lost to the void of character/reader what if posts never to be seen again.

Even if nsfw fics are included fics that are 50%-100% smut won't be included. I just can't read through that much porn personally. Including 18+ would just mean slow burns with countless chapters of character build up before one smut chapter wouldn't automatically be excluded. They would still be tagged and stored separately from other fics in that ships category.

Kaeyluc will be excluded by default. Along with any smut fics including child characters and rape/noncon. Also Porn without plot like mentioned above.

Quality would not be judged by kudos or any other metric. I even plan to allow fics with questionable spelling and grammar to an extent. If your story is moving or does something interesting with the characters involved. Then I don't care if you mix up your there, their, and they're. I don't want to exclude non-native english speakers from this list. The fic just needs to be readable.

Most ship fics would probably be mlm or wlw. There is just a larger quantity of those in general on ao3. I don't mind including lumineXchilde or LumineXdainsleif. But any other het ships will probably be reliant on submissions to be found and added.

But none of this is set in stone except for what I would be excluding. Tho that list might get longer. This is all just the basic idea and any suggestions on how to make it better are greatly appreciated!

[asking-jude]

Hello, I'm in a difficult circumstance and could appreciate some objective advice and insight. To put our relationship into context, I'm a 23-year-old Australian girl, and my boyfriend is a 22-year-old Korean guy who is more culturally westernised. We've been dating for five years and have been living together at his parents' house this year. We started living together in a new area at the beginning of the year. It's important to point out that, as he states, the problems we're facing are the result of "trauma." This is due to the fact that I shared, at the beginning of our relationship, that I had been the victim of sexual assault before ever meeting him. Since then, I've moved past the trauma, and it no longer causes me any problems in my life. Here are the positive and negative aspects of our relationship to give you a better idea:

There are undoubtedly some elements of our relationship that I greatly value. He's very loving, which makes me feel valued and appreciated. Also, his financial assistance is a lifeline, especially because I am concentrating on full-time study and am unable to find a job or government benefits at this point in time. He has a terrific sense of humour and always knows how to make me laugh, even when things are going bad. He's a rock of emotional support, and his willingness to help with housework, responsibilities, and simply everyday stuff is a huge comfort. Above all, I have no doubt that he loves me, and it is something I value about our relationship.

Unfortunately, there are numerous troubling parts of our relationship that I'm finding difficult to confront. First and foremost, I am unable to travel out on my own or use public transport on my own, which is extremely restricting. Also, there are tight restrictions on what I can wear, including no shorts or exposing clothes, as well as no baggy shirts or anything that might show underwear lines. His overbearing concern for my safety in public is a cause of stress, frequently resulting in anger when any guy comes remotely near me for whatever reason, as well as continual reminders to be cautious. Our physical intimacy has dropped substantially, and he is not addressing my sexual needs. To complicate matters further, he regularly makes jokes about my hygiene, implying that I'm stinky or haven't brushed my teeth despite all of my efforts. Unfortunately, our conversations about these concerns often seem to return to promises of "being more careful," leaving me feeling caught in a loop.

Our problems have been recurring lately, and just to put things in perspective, here are a few of the ones I've recorded:

A straightforward dinner with a couple friends on October 11, 2023, turned into an awful experience. After she'd kissed her boyfriend, I shared a straw with her, and he became irritated because he thought that meant I was kissing her boyfriend. On top of that, he became irritated throughout our dinner when one of the waiters walked right up to me to deliver our food. He didn't believe me when I told him that I hadn't been bumped, and it took a lot of work to get him to believe me.

A few days later, on October 14, 2023, we had to go vote, which caused our troubles to worsen once more. He saw that I wasn't "aware enough" when a man approached me to take something, like a pen, and became upset. I was left feeling confused and upset since he refused to talk to me for a full day, claiming my perceived unawareness as the reason.

We've had several conversations about these issues, but each one ends with me promising to "be more careful." This is some more information about our circumstances. Even if things have gotten a little better over time, I'm somewhat worried that these issues might continue forever. It's important to note that, except for these moments, our relationship is amazing overall. Even when I'm staying at a friend's place, he has such control over my movements that I can't leave her house without him, but I do go and end up lying about it. In the middle of it all, I sometimes find myself daydreaming about a life free of these restraints—one in which I could travel anywhere I pleased, whenever I pleased, and wear whatever I pleased. But these ideas are always followed by the weight of guilt.

I really don't know what to do next. I love him, but I can't live with the stress and limitations these problems are bringing about. Should I leave? And if so how would I go about bringing up this conversation? He thinks there is nothing wrong so I have no idea where to begin.

Do you want free, fast mental health help? Visit askingjude.org.

Hi there,

Thank you for reaching out to Asking Jude. I am sorry to hear that you’re going through such a challenging situation. It’s clear that there are aspects of your relationship that are causing you significant distress.

First off, it would be beneficial for you to take some time to yourself to reflect on what you value in a relationship and in a partner. Consider the qualities of a partner that you find important for your well-being and happiness. Take what you learned from your time by yourself and try having another open and honest conversation with him. Choose a calm and quiet place to talk with your boyfriend, and use statements that clearly express your feelings and concerns. Try to emphasize your experiences rather than blaming him. In this conversation, you can also provide specific examples of situations that have caused you distress, like the incidents you mentioned. This will help him understand the impact of his actions on your well-being.

Seeking professional help could also be beneficial for you and your relationship. If the issues persist and communication doesn’t lead to positive changes, you should consider seeking the assistance of a relationship counselor. An objective third party can help guide your relationship to a healthier state. You mentioned that you are questioning whether or not you should break up with him. When considering this option, you want to think about your long-term happiness and whether or not the relationship is meeting your needs. It’s important to compare the positive aspects of the relationship to the negatives, and to ask yourself if the relationship is ultimately healthy for you. The fact that you fantasize about a life without his restrictions and criticisms may be indicative of your genuine feelings about this relationship.

In the case that you don’t see yourself being happy in this relationship anymore, make sure you have a strong support network of friends or family to ensure that you have the resources you need to heal. I have linked some websites that will help you identify if your current relationship is toxic, and how to cope with toxic relationships: https://collective.world/if-youre-wondering-if-you-should-break-up/; https://www.verywellmind.com/toxic-relationships-4174665; https://www.healthline.com/health/toxic-relationship.

Once again, thank you for reaching out to Asking Jude. I wish you luck, and remember that it’s okay to prioritize your own happiness. Healthy relationships are built on mutual respect, and if your boyfriend is not respecting your wishes and is unwilling to make a positive change, you may want to consider whether this relationship is the best place for both of you.

Best,

Irene

Ask a question here.

[lovedistrict]

Hello, I'm in a difficult circumstance and could appreciate some objective advice and insight. To put our relationship into context, I'm a 23-year-old Australian girl, and my boyfriend is a 22-year-old Korean guy who is more culturally westernised. We've been dating for five years and have been living together at his parents' house this year. We started living together in a new area at the beginning of the year. It's important to point out that, as he states, the problems we're facing are the result of "trauma." This is due to the fact that I shared, at the beginning of our relationship, that I had been the victim of sexual assault before ever meeting him. Since then, I've moved past the trauma, and it no longer causes me any problems in my life. Here are the positive and negative aspects of our relationship to give you a better idea:

There are undoubtedly some elements of our relationship that I greatly value. He's very loving, which makes me feel valued and appreciated. Also, his financial assistance is a lifeline, especially because I am concentrating on full-time study and am unable to find a job or government benefits at this point in time. He has a terrific sense of humour and always knows how to make me laugh, even when things are going bad. He's a rock of emotional support, and his willingness to help with housework, responsibilities, and simply everyday stuff is a huge comfort. Above all, I have no doubt that he loves me, and it is something I value about our relationship.

Unfortunately, there are numerous troubling parts of our relationship that I'm finding difficult to confront. First and foremost, I am unable to travel out on my own or use public transport on my own, which is extremely restricting. Also, there are tight restrictions on what I can wear, including no shorts or exposing clothes, as well as no baggy shirts or anything that might show underwear lines. His overbearing concern for my safety in public is a cause of stress, frequently resulting in anger when any guy comes remotely near me for whatever reason, as well as continual reminders to be cautious. Our physical intimacy has dropped substantially, and he is not addressing my sexual needs. To complicate matters further, he regularly makes jokes about my hygiene, implying that I'm stinky or haven't brushed my teeth despite all of my efforts. Unfortunately, our conversations about these concerns often seem to return to promises of "being more careful," leaving me feeling caught in a loop.

Our problems have been recurring lately, and just to put things in perspective, here are a few of the ones I've recorded:

A straightforward dinner with a couple friends on October 11, 2023, turned into an awful experience. After she'd kissed her boyfriend, I shared a straw with her, and he became irritated because he thought that meant I was kissing her boyfriend. On top of that, he became irritated throughout our dinner when one of the waiters walked right up to me to deliver our food. He didn't believe me when I told him that I hadn't been bumped, and it took a lot of work to get him to believe me.

A few days later, on October 14, 2023, we had to go vote, which caused our troubles to worsen once more. He saw that I wasn't "aware enough" when a man approached me to take something, like a pen, and became upset. I was left feeling confused and upset since he refused to talk to me for a full day, claiming my perceived unawareness as the reason.

We've had several conversations about these issues, but each one ends with me promising to "be more careful." This is some more information about our circumstances. Even if things have gotten a little better over time, I'm somewhat worried that these issues might continue forever. It's important to note that, except for these moments, our relationship is amazing overall. Even when I'm staying at a friend's place, he has such control over my movements that I can't leave her house without him, but I do go and end up lying about it. In the middle of it all, I sometimes find myself daydreaming about a life free of these restraints—one in which I could travel anywhere I pleased, whenever I pleased, and wear whatever I pleased. But these ideas are always followed by the weight of guilt.

I really don't know what to do next. I love him, but I can't live with the stress and limitations these problems are bringing about. Should I leave? And if so how would I go about bringing up this conversation? He thinks there is nothing wrong so I have no idea where to begin.

Hi!

I’m so sorry it took me a couple of weeks to answer you. I hope I can still help you.

What you said worries me to the point where it reminds me of this old movie called Fear with Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon. Maybe you should watch it. I’m not saying it’s the same thing, but it’s important to know that that type of thing exists.

Maybe it’s something normal for his culture to act the way he acts with you. But the important thing is that you don’t like it, you don’t agree with it and it’s making you feel as if you were in a prison. So even though there are these other positive aspects about your relationship, what’s more important to you? To me, I don’t think it’s healthy to stay in a relationship where you feel like you can’t be yourself and you are blamed for stuff that you didn’t do.

Again, maybe it’s just his culture, but are you willing to accept that? Is it worth it? It’s really up to you to decide. You could try to talk to him again maybe with a third party involved? For my marriage when we have difficulties talking to one another we always do one or more sessions with a couple’s therapist. It’s really helpful because you can express yourself better when you have someone mediating. This way he won’t be able to manipulate everything and you won’t end up saying you’ll be more careful next time. You’ll be able to say how you truly feel about all this. And maybe he’ll understand and try to change. Or maybe you’ll just get closure that he won’t change and it’ll be easier to move on.

You can also do the session by yourself to help you understand how you feel and what you truly want from life and what you’re truly getting from this relationship.

Please don’t ignore your feelings. Don’t sacrifice yourself and your freedom for anyone. I think relationships have to be “set free” if they’re unhealthy or causing pain. “If you love something set it free. If it comes back it’s yours. If not, it was never meant to be.”

I really hope I was able to help you.

Write me again if you need.

All the best!

[sophiamcdougall]

[ID @agentdedf1sh : Your queen could fucking do something?! I thought she was just eye candy at this point.]

Oof, so OK. The very broad strokes version, leaving out a lot of major caveats: our system is a fudge between our desire to be a democracy and our reluctance to get rid of the monarchy because it makes us feel fancy and the one time we cut a king's head off it was upsetting and resulted in 11 years with no Christmas. The fudge is that the Queen has immense power but she can't use it. Now you might think "so functionally she doesn't have any power" and in ALL OF OUR EXPERIENCE INCLUDING HERS YOU WOULD BE RIGHT! [Mostly, see the link above.] But it is theoretically possible to engineer circumstances in which the fact that all that power is legally, constitutionally still there would become horribly relevant after all. So here's how it works. Only the Queen has the power to appoint or dismiss a Prime Minister, who governs for her! Because she is the Sovereign! The PM can't dissolve parliament or call elections without her permission! So that's clearly not democratic, how can we make it so? Well, she only gets to appoint someone who commands confidence in the House of Commons. The simplest way that happens is like this:

There's an election

One party gets a majority of seats, i.e most MPs in the House of Commons support the leader of that party.

The leader of that party goes to the Queen and says "I'm here from Parliament, they want me to form a government, may I do that, please?"

She has to say yes even if she hates their guts, and now that person is Prime Minister.

So, in all of our experience, only 1 & 2 actually do anything and 3 & 4 are just a silly little ritual that doesn't matter and we just let it happen to be cute. The Queen is not supposed to be involved in politics and she "gives permission" to whoever Parliament tells her to give it to. And if the leading party or Parliament as a whole wants to dump a Prime Minister? Well they have various ways of making it clear that It's Over, and the PM goes to the Queen and resigns, of course! NOTE: Going to the Queen is the only way a PM can quit and despite how the press are reporting Johnson's "resignation" he has not done this. EXCEPT. Like certain other *cough the US* systems the whole thing hangs together on the assumption that no one would ever be a dick about any of it. But what if they did. What if the leading party, or Parliament as a whole, voted to get rid of the Prime Minister and he just ... didn't go to the Queen and resign?

In that scenario, MPs could make it impossible for him to govern, but they couldn't actually, legally, fire him. They have no constitutional power to make him not Prime Minister any more. They've never needed that power before because it's always been taken for granted that any PM rejected by their party would of course honorably accept their fate. The only person who has the until-this-point entirely theoretical power to sack the PM? The Queen.

Parliament COULD go ahead and elect a new leader who could duly go to the Queen and say "can I be PM please?" But that still wouldn't, in itself, de-Prime-Ministerify the existing PM.

So this would put the Queen in a positon where only she could fire the rogue Prime Minister, and she should because she's supposed to honour the will of Parliament. But there is no Parliamentary mechanism for prompting her to do this, and it would certainly look and feel a lot like getting involved in politics, which she's absolutely not supposed to do. Especially as in this scenario the PM probably still has at least some MPs supporting him -- so essentially we're imagining a scenario where Parliament has torn itself in two and by sacking the PM the Queen would be picking a side! So what if -- being very old and frail and finding herself in a situation she's never been in before and which was never supposed to happen, a situation where instead of just rubberstamping the request to be PM of anyone in front of her as she has her entire adult life, she has to make a decision ... what if she makes the wrong call?

Hopefully, after today's events, this is all interestingly theoretical now. But as I say. Johnson has not actually resigned yet.

[blindbeta]

I have a question! Thank you for existing I deeply appreciate it. I was wondering if it is possible for a blind person to be able to read by learning the shape of raised letters, rather than braille. I ask because I have a situation in which it is reasonable that the blind character would know this, if possible, and the person they are travelling with is completely illiterate.I thought it might be interesting if the seeing character could describe the letters, or find a way to texture them so the blind character could tell them what something says. I have done a great deal of research for this character, but this is the one part I can't find a clear answer for. Thank you very much.

Good question, nonnie.

The short answer is, maybe? It would depend on the time period and location of your characters.

Since you want both characters to read, I’ll assume this culture has a formal writing system in place and values written communication.

A Brief History

In order to address this, allow me to offer a brief history of Braille. Because what you’re describing is exactly what happened in France before Braille was invented. This informative video summarizes it pretty well. Here is the text version of the video. The video mentions the embossed letter or raised type method of reading that was used at the time. It was difficult to read and the letters had to be very large in order to be understood, making it harder to read words and sentences. Reading must have been very slow.

According to this page on the National Braille Press website, reading this way required slowly tracing raised print letters. To write, one had to memorize the shapes and try to create them on paper, although they could not read the results.

Creating books was even more difficult. According to this page, [quote] “teacher Valentin Haüy made books with raised letters by soaking paper in water, pressing it into a form and allowing it to dry. Books made using this method were enormous and heavy, and the process was so time-consuming that l'Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles, or the Royal Institution for Blind Youth, had fewer than 100 of them when Louis Braille was a student there.” [End quote]

Braille books are already notorious for taking up several volumes. Large print books are only a little better. Textbooks used in schools take up several shelves to translate one print textbook.

Individual use and traveling with these things must have been impossible for the everyday person, even if you were a student.

Also, in this video by blind YouTuber Molly Burke, at the 9:05 time-stamp she answers the question: why don’t we raise print letters for blind people? She explains that it took too long to read and is not as efficient as Braille.

In the interest of time, I’ll try to keep this brief. The transition from the raised print letters to Braille was not a smooth one.

In 1826, first embossed letters published in English was James Gall’s triangular alphabet. Read about it and other systems here.

Another source says Gall’s writing system was introduced in 1831. The system did not gain much popularity outside of Endinburgh.

According to this page: [quote] “In 1832 The Society of Arts for Scotland held a competition for the best embossed type. There were 15 entries but Edmund Fry’s alphabetical system of roman capitals triumphed. Shortly afterwards John Alston began printing at the Glasgow Asylum for the Blind using a slightly modified version of Fry’s design. “Alston type” proved popular and inspired similar forms across Europe and North America.” [end quote]

None of these really caught on outside of certain areas.

In 1821, Charles Barbier was invited to the Royal National Institute For Blind Youth in Paris to demonstrate his Night Writing invention, which was developed for soldiers to read in the dark. It was too difficult to read and so was not used by soldiers, nor did it end up being used by the blind schools. However, a young Louis Braille was in the audience and was inspired.

In 1825, Braille thought he had figured out a good system of writing.

In 1829, he published the first Braille alphabet.

1834 - Braille is invited to Exposition of Industry in Paris, which extended the popularity of the Braille system.

1846- a school for the blind in Amsterdam starts using Braille’s system.

In 1852, Louis Braille dies.

1854- Royal National Institute For Blind Youth officially adopt Braille as official system after fighting it for years.

Because Braille didn’t take hold as quickly in Britain, the British and Foreign Blind Association, all of whom were blind, voted in 1870. They decided Braille was the best system. Braille quickly fell into use all over the world with the exception of the United States. By 1882, the embossed letter system was over.

In the U.S, from 1868-1918, the New York Point system was used. American Braille (developed by a blind teacher named Joel W. Smith) was also used from 1878 to 1918, when the U.S switched the standardized English Braille.

Would Your Character Know Raised Type?

Remember how I said you might be able to do this depending on the time period and place?

If you have French characters, you can used the raised type method as you described in your ask if the story takes place before, probably, 1825. It would be reasonable for your character to know the raised type method if they had attended a blind school before the Braille method was adopted in 1854. Between roughly 1829 and 1854, the French blind character attending school would know about the Braille system and probably complain about their school not teaching it despite Braille himself teaching there.

Similarly, they could used raised type depending on where the story is set, when the character attended school, and what system was in place at the time. If the story is a fantasy, you could make up a history similar to what I described above, although it would be important to have schools for the blind and have Braille or the equivalent be created by a blind character.

Remember that your blind character needs to learn the raised type method if you want them to use it.

If Braille would be available in real life (such as a more modern setting), I would prefer a blind character use Braille instead. Which is why I tried to offer alternatives that were historically justified.

I don’t feel very comfortable with a blind character having to use a raised type method rather than another system, because Braille literacy is declining nowadays and something about learning a raised type method over Braille (or other system, depending on where you set the story and what they were using at the time) doesn’t sit right with me. Your character doesn’t have to use Braille specifically, but I would rather they use the system that is available to blind people at that time. For example, if your story is set in the United States, it would be fine to use American Braille or the New York Point, depending on the time period.

If your story is modern, blind people can usually read raised print letters on signs, such as for the bathroom. In fact, a lot of people who can’t read Braille get by this way. However, keep in mind that we have screen-readers and audiobooks now. People aren’t reading entire texts or even many words with this method.

As for other countries, I tried my best to research what places, such as Japan, used before Braille. For several reasons, including the European-centric search results that keep coming up over and over again, finding the correct information is proving difficult. In some cases, previous methods may have unfortunately been lost due to colonization. It is important that we acknowledge that.

I feel that it would be easier to leave the research up to you since you know where you want to set your story and your own personal background, historical knowledge, etc.

Keep in mind that not all blind people in the world had access to formal education, depending on the place, time, their social class, etc. If you want your blind character to know how to read, you’ll need to find or create a setting that allows for it.

Generally, I would prefer blind characters use methods designed for blind people, whatever that happens to be in that time or culture. Prioritizing the other characters’ needs and having a blind character learn raised type over Braille when Braille actually exists in the story doesn’t work for me.

Like always, I suggest having more than one blind character in the story to avoid tokenism. Also, since your character is going to teach another character, be sure to show your blind character’s needs and goals as well.

I hope this helps. Feel free to message me or send another ask. I am not a historian and so if anyone wants to correct anything, such as dates, or provide any relevant knowledge, please feel free. I tried my best with this question. I would be grateful for help if anyone has more information!

-BlindBeta

[itsbenedict]

I just finished hosting a 15-person game of Mafia for some friends. One tradition we have for these games is that every death is accompanied by some themed narration, so for my game I opted to spice it up with some art on top. Had to draw it real quick since I didn't know for sure who was going to die next until it happened.

The game's theme was "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure", with the hidden subtheme that all the roles (stands) were named after They Might Be Giants (@tmbgareok) songs! A list of their powers, links to songs, and a recap of the game under the cut.

01) Mogis - 「Flo Wheeler」

02) TD260 - 「Working Undercover For The Man」

03) JGH27 - 「Good To Be Alive」

04) Raya - 「Stone Cold Coup D'Etat」

05) KK / Sahrimnir - 「Thinking Machine」

06) Spontaneous Combustion - 「The Statue Got Me High」

07) Leviwulf - 「Push Back The Hands」

08) DarkFalco - 「I Am Alone」

09) Deli064 - 「Doctor Worm」

10) Fedaykin - 「Letterbox」

11) Surge - 「I Am Alone」

12) Wikxen - 「Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head」

13) Minby - 「Where Your Eyes Don't Go」

14) Bel - 「(She Was A) Hotel Detective」

15) SnakeInABox - 「By The Time You Get This」

Bold roles were Jotunheim (Mafia), normal roles were Johnsburg (Town), and italicized roles were third parties. (Jotunheim is the realm of giants from Norse mythology! The mafia were, in fact, giants! And the town's job was to figure out who might be giants! And the two sides were Jo and Jo! JOKES!)

「Flo Wheeler」 was a town role with a power that was pretty dangerous to the user- if anyone happened to be watching or tracking when a kill took place at night, Mogis would look like they'd visited the target that night in addition to whoever actually did. It could potentially be used to catch a mafioso in a lie, but otherwise it was more of an obstacle for the town to overcome- a miller-type role.

♪ You can't do the time, therefore you didn't do the crime ♪

「Working Undercover For The Man」 was a third-party role working for the Speedwagon Foundation to perform a threat assessment. TD could win with the town, but could win and leave early if he could guess all the names or powers of every other stand in the game. He could scan a name every night, to help that along.

♪ Planning midnight raids / On our unsuspecting fans / While the roadies rig / The video surveillance van ♪

「Good To Be Alive」 was a spin on the usual town doctor role- normally, a doctor can target a player and prevent their death if they would die that night. But... JGH couldn't actually prevent deaths- just fake it. The dead would become ghosts, who couldn't vote and couldn't be killed but were still allowed to talk as if they were alive.

♪ Hello leg / such a shaky leg / Just barely more than decoration ♪

「Stone Cold Coup D'Etat」 was a third party with an unusual win condition. They had to recruit a certain number of people to a private side-chat- and then make sure all those people got killed. Plus, she could redirect anything that happened to her at night to her recruits. If the recruits figured out what she was doing and got rid of her, they'd get a boost to their power.

♪ The bark now commands the trees / The queen is overruled by the bees ♪

「Thinking Machine」 was a town role with a mysterious purpose that didn't seem to make much sense at first. Sah would get, every morning, a strange series of numbers and letters of uncertain origin. It was information, somehow, but how to use it?

♪ Tape has brightening arm connect (Wait, that didn't make sense.) / Self-paint lever itching does! (That made even less sense!) ♪

「The Statue Got Me High」 was a mafia power. As the song describes, the victim is enthralled by the monolith and forced to obey its commands, until their eventual death. That is, Spont could recruit a player to the mafia, but they'd die one night later- and if he wasn't careful, he could die and his recruit would flip back.

♪ And now it is your turn (your turn to hear the stone and then your turn to burn) / The stone, it calls to you (you can't refuse to do the things it tells you to) ♪

「Push Back The Hands」 was a passive ability that caused anything that would happen to Levi- a nightkill, an execution, some other power- to be delayed by one day, giving him some time to react. He'd be told who it was that targeted him, so going after him as mafia was risky.

♪ Screeching tires but never a collision / Endless day without a sunset provision ♪

「I Am Alone」 was a weird one. See, DarkFalco, who was mafia, didn't have a stand as such. She was the stand- and she was the stand of Surge, who was town. They were linked together in everything, meaning the mafia had to work to keep Surge alive on top of their own people. She could send messages to Surge at night to mess with him, though.

♪ Before you fire I should inform you / One of us is a double ♪

「Doctor Worm」 had no real special abilities. His ability was to be pretty good at playing the drums, a power that had absolutely no relevance in a game of Mafia.

♪ I'm not a real doctor, but I am a real worm I am an actual worm ♪

「Letterbox」 was a mafia ability that let Fedaykin pick another player, and offer that player a chance to deliver a private message to one other player of their choice. He could see the "secret" communications, though, and once per game he could edit the message before delivering it.

♪ I'll never know what you'll find when you open up your letter box tomorrow ♪

「Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head」 is a classically mafia ability, but in the hands of a town player: the ability to force another player to vote for another. Normally the manipulated person isn't allowed to say what happened, but there was no such restriction here- confusion's no good for the town.

♪ Memo to myself: do the dumb things i gotta do: Touch the puppet head ♪

「Where Your Eyes Don't Go」 let Minby pick someone else to watch him at night. If anyone visited him to target him with an ability, the person he designated would be told the names of those people. A nasty trap for the mafia, as long as Minby doesn't pick a mafioso to share the information with.

♪ Where your eyes don't go, a part of you is hovering / It's a nightmare that you'll never be discovering / You're free to come and go / Or talk like Kurtis Blow / But there's a pair of eyes in back of your head ♪

「(She Was A) Hotel Detective」 was a very powerful town role- Bel was the cop, and could scan another player's alignment at night, plus track or watch them. Except... not directly. She couldn't scan players- she could scan hotel rooms, and if other players didn't check into the hotel at night or give up their room numbers, her information was useless.

Here are the room numbers, in order: Levi (1) Snake (2) JGH (3) TD (4) Spont (5) Sah (6) Deli (7) Fed (8) Minby (9) Falco/Surge (10) Raya (11) Wikxen (12) Mogis (13).

(Oh, and Thinking Machine's codes were actually encoded versions of her results, and Sah would get a weaker version of her power if she ever died.)

♪ She's got her ear to the walls / And she's tappin' the calls / If you've got a secret, boy / Forget about it! ♪

「By The Time You Get This」 imbued its wielder with the incredible powers of... an estate lawyer! Which meant Snake could leave a will behind when he died, naming another player and casting a vote on them from beyond the grave the next day.

♪ By the time you get this note / We'll no longer be alive / But our skulls are smiling still / At the thought of things to come ♪

So! Here's how it all shook out.

Day 1: The first day is always kind of a tossup, since no one has any information yet, and everyone's just trying to verbally stir the pot. Levi soft-claims his role right out the gate, warning town not to try targeting him or else. Mogis is executed, casting a vote on himself to save the town the trouble of dealing with Flo Wheeler.

Night 1: Spont uses the statue to recruit Wikxen, at the same time that Wikxen forces Snake to vote for Levi. So, now the usually-scum power in the hands of town is in the hands of scum for real. Bel scans room 3, and learns that its occupant is innocent. Raya recruits DarkFalco, and accidentally recruits Surge alongside her, to her surprise. JGH tries protecting Levi, to test if his claim was a bluff.

Day 2: Levi tries to push JGH on the basis of having targeted him last night, but everyone agrees to wait and see if Levi actually dies first. Votes circle around Wikxen and Raya for suspicious-seeming defensiveness on Day 1, and ultimately, when it seems like Wikxen's about to be executed, a small group of players flip their votes at the last minute and vote Raya out while she's asleep and can't defend herself. Rude! She was poised to win the game for herself and the town, since she'd convinced Falco that the mafia would benefit somehow if they were all recruited.

Night 2: The mafia kills Minby- and Minby opts to tell have Fed watch him, wasting his power. Lucky for town, though, Bel happens to scan room 8, confirming Fed is mafia since he volunteered his room number. Wikxen's coat contains a furnace where there used to be a guy.

Day 3: Wikxen forced Snake to vote for J, making him look bad- but Sah begins sharing his bizarre results from Thinking Machine, and Bel confirms that they're a log of her detective power. Then she points out that Fed is mafia, and the town falls in line behind the accusation with Sah to confirm.

Night 3: Spont uses the statue to recruit Bel, to keep any more problematic scans from ruining them. Bel, before being recruited, scans room 10, though- and now the town knows there's something funky with Falco and Surge, because Sah gets the results and knows what they mean. Due to their mismatched alignments, though, the encoded version is still misleading, so there's wiggle room. TD scans Spont and learns his role name.

Day 4: Spont concocts a daring scheme. He has Bel lie and claim to have received an incriminating result on him- so that Bel will be caught in said lie when Sah produces his own results. The plan is to frame Bel, who's a dead girl walking anyway, and clear Spont's name going forward. But the town talks themselves into explaining away the contradiction- even when TD reveals Spont's stand name, and Spont denies it outright and claims 「Combustible Head」, a fake vigilante (town nightkiller) role instead, the town explains away that, too. After a few more people claim, TD260 has completed his mission- his correct guess wins him the game and he leaves. Spont cleverly excuses himself by claiming that TD lied about his role to get him to claim his "real" one. Afterwards, the town ends up executing Deli064 instead, for some reason- poor Doctor Worm!

Night 4: The evidence vanishes from Bel's charred and smoking chair- because JGH tries to protect her at the same time the mafia are killing him! Bel is a ghost now, and the town never finds out her alignment.

Day 5: Bel not dying poses a problem for the mafia, because Spont was supposed to prove his own innocence by pretending to kill her! The mafia tries to misdirect by having Bel lie again, claiming to scan room 10 when she actually scanned room 6, Sah. Ultimately, though, the town is able to coordinate behind killing Surge and Falco, which- because they're linked- is a compromise option that both parties are happy with (when perhaps they shouldn't be).

Night 5: Since Bel is technically dead, Spont recruits again, grabbing Sah and removing the threat of scans entirely. If he'd recruited Snake instead, they'd have won on the spot, since only his will-vote prevented them from winning instantly due to outnumbering the town. We move on to a somewhat redundant...

Day 6: It's now down to five players- Spont, Sah, and Bel vs Levi and Snake. The mafia technically outnumber the town, but Bel's vote doesn't count, and Sah's going to burn the next night- so the town can still win by forcing a tie and then using Snake's By The Time You Get This power to place a vote on Spont. But that's if they can figure it out and get on the same page, and... they don't. There's no way there could be three mafia still alive, so the mafia are able to sow total confusion and ultimately get the town all voting for Bel... who's a ghost, and can't vote or be executed, which the town doesn't know because JGH died before he could fully explain. The execution defaults to Snake, and the mafia win the game.

[enormous-moose]

I'm about to post something very controversial but if you stick it out I guarantee it will be worth it.

Hitler was a person. Hitler had a family who loved him and Hitler had a successful plan for Germany.

Hitler is often painted as a monster because how could anything but a monster do what he did? I was told to write a paper that defended Hitler. I was told I needed to prove to the world he accomplished many things.

If I go over all his accomplishments I think I'd puke.

However, I do understand why I was given this assignment.

After I turned in the paper I had a sour taste in my mouth. I had watched hours of video of his youth camps. I had read papers that boasted how amazing he was and what awesome things he was going to do.

My professor told us after we handed in the paper why he had us do it, why we watched those videos, why we read those articles, and why we needed to understand he was accomplished.

If you only see him as a monster you only see the monster. You don't see why people voted for him, you don't see why people followed him. If you don't see why he was successful you can't prevent it.

In those successful things there were warning signs. There were signs about nationalism. "Germany will be the ultimate power" There were dangerous signs that people ignored because he was producing results. The youth were taught his rhetoric and because of this he could cut out opposition at the roots and in private homes. "Love your country, be proud of your country and your heritage!"

At first glance you have to understand that he was empowering his people through a terrible few decades where they were feeling little love for their country and their leaders. The people followed him because he gave them what they wanted.

Why do we need to know that Hitler was a person? Because then we know that other people can do this. Don't look for monsters. Dont look for people who come out extreme. These people are hardly ever going to succeed because they need support from the masses.

This is why extremists don't win:

Consider the masses are rated by a groups of numbers.

1 = extreme left

10 = extreme right.

5 = neither left nor right.

Polling will show that MOST people will fall as either 3 or 7 which are considered moderates in either left or right categories.

But why?

Because these extremes are where you find the dangerous ideas that scare people away.

If you can only be a 10 if you go to a Christian church, hate abortion no matter what, and want less taxes on rich then very few people can qualify as a 10.

Polling wise same goes for a 5. If you are on the fence about everything no one wants to vote for you.

So we find a common middle ground.

When candidates are chosen they are chosen because they fall as close to a 3 or 7 as possible.

Even better if either side can get closer to a 5 while still being decisive about options.

Why does this matter?

Those dangerous people will portray themselves as a 3 or a 7 to gain power.

Example: Trump was wildly different during the first campaign than he was during his reelection. You can see the difference in debates. His rallies showed him pretty much in his element (like Hitler). During debates he was completely different vs Hilary to Biden. Make no mistake that's how he gained votes and that is why on reelection he lost because he went too extreme and stayed there.

Why am I writing this?

Partially because people believe they will find monsters when they look for monsters and partially because people don't realize how candidates are chosen.

So please consider this when you vote: vote your party if you want, but look for warning signs in their off camera attitude and off debate messages. Debates: they are scripted they know what they will be asked and they know what to say to gain favor. On the road: they need to be themselves because no one is telling them what to say except for their desire to appeal to their people.

Trump's desire was to appeal to the hatred of anyone he and his group deemed unamerican. Hitler promised a growth of country and finally an era where Germany became great again. (Sound familiar?)

Primaries are a WONDERFUL time to see who you can vote for. This is usually when the extremists are able to be weeded out, but we are currently in dangerous times where what was an extreme used to be a 10 are now closer to a 7 and 10 is a KKK leader and nothing less.

This is why primaries are important and why voting in them are more crucial than ever. Sure these 7s might lose out to a 3 or 4 but voter turn out is terrible and it's because we keep thinking "monsters are apparent." We couldn't possibly elect a Hitler because we'd totally see it coming.

Well guess what we won't, MTG is a living proof of a monster that is able to walk among far superior politicians.

So please keep this mind mind during voting and election seasons. ALL of them.

[sapphiresonstrings]

Voting Privileges

There's this idea floating around that more people voting is good for democracy, so everyone should be encouraged to vote even if they don't know anything at all about what they're voting for. Some countries even make voting mandatory.

This is so wrongheaded that I don't understand how anyone believes it.

Obviously democracy works best when the voters are all A) informed and B) have no loyalty to any person or party, so that they can change their votes from election to election in response to changing politics. And obviously democracy works worse for every voter you add to the mix who is either C) too uninformed to keep track of politics or D) loyal (derogatory).

I propose the following reform that would remove the influence of both corporations and idiots from politics, thereby creating a more pure democratic system:

All political parties are banned. All political advertisements are banned. It is a crime, punishable by ten years in prison, to use television or radio to tell the general public the names of anyone running for office, when an election is being held, or how they should vote. It is a crime, punishable by ten years in prison, to advocate for any political position in any public space, or in any private space containing more than 99 people. If you want to go door-to-door, you can't tell anyone your name, policies, or what election you're running in unless they invite you inside and close the door behind you.

The only way to discover this information is to go to a government-controlled website, which contains a list of the dates of upcoming elections. Each candidate running for office is given a page on that website where they can post whatever they want. These pages are presented as a list of hyperlinks in an order that randomizes itself every time you visit the site, to avoid bias.

Henceforth, politics are to be private, individual, and antisocial. No rallies, no chants, no marches, no slogans. Group identity is to be suppressed with extreme prejudice. There should be no reason to ever vote for anyone except a genuine belief that their policies are correct.

Anyone who wants to be involved in the political process needs to find out about the election by themselves. Ideally, this would result in less than 1% of the population voting in any given election - the most informed, most self-controlled, most difficult to manipulate 1%. No amount of money could influence the outcomes of these elections, because with no ads there would be nothing for that money to buy.

[space-malex]

There's lots of back and forth on who Victor should be with, but all s1 and s2 showed me is that Victor isn't cut out to be anyone's partner at this point in his life. He did Mia dirty and couldn't even properly apologize for it in s2 and the Victor who actually prioritized Benji's happiness and tried to take all responsibility for their kiss with Derek so they can keep dating disappeared in s2. He couldn't even articulate that breaking Benji's trust was wrong with spilling his secret to Rahim, let alone understand him at any point during the season. I don't know if it's supposed to be an international character flaw to be worked on or if the writers think having everything from Victor's POV is a good excuse, but it bothers me a lot. I really thought Malex was the height of showrunner bias and uneven writing, but Venji is so much worse. Alex at least always had a POV and a well-defined personality I could easily empathize with. You can't pile a ton of trauma on a character and never explore it, especially if it's supposed to be half of your main ship. I don't know how reflective a Twitter poll is of the audience split (the one they did on Instagram was much more overwhelmingly in favour of Venji, but they also don't show how many people voted), but it's not surprising that a dynamic that was basically written to be pretty much perfect so far and a fun alternative for the main ship's drama is appealing to so many people. They could have easily sold Venji better this season as a couple. They can lay a better foundation for future romantic them if they spend real time together platonically in s3 and stop putting each other on pedestals. They can also ruin what's appealing about Vahim with drama in s3. It's anyone's guess how s3 is going to play out. All I know is if Venji is still the endgame, I don't want a redo of s1 with Victor trying to work harder at a relationship he ultimately doesn't want to be in than he ever tried to make it work with the guy he's supposedly in love with. That's a recipe for disaster. A lot of shows are guilty of never showing us an endgame ship actually working on screen before putting them back together at the end of the show. I really want better here.

A lot to unpack

Victor did apologize to Mia, said he loves her and never meant to hurt her. It’s a bit complicated because Victor never went into the relationship with bad intentions and it took him the majority of the season to come to terms with his sexuality. Yes, he should’ve ended it right away when he figured it out, and he shouldn’t have kissed Benji when he was still with her. But still, there is a fine line here because there’s only so much of an apology Victor can give without it feeling like he’s apologizing for who he is, for being gay, and that’s not something he needs to feel sorry for. I think we should also keep in mind that Mia had her little thing with Andrew at the same time and never told Victor about it. She didn’t cheat or anything (or when he kissed her she stopped it) but she had obvious feelings for Andrew that she hadn’t dealt with. Luckily they finally got resolved in s2 but they were definitely there when she was still with Victor.

Now, what is it with this Victor slander in my house? He and Benji were pretty much constantly arguing or making up, but I’ve rarely seen people apologize to someone else as many times as Victor did to Benji about things that weren’t even his fault. He spent all season apologizing for his mother, even though he has no control over what she thinks or does, but also assured Benji that she is trying and that she is getting better. And he would know that better than Benji because he knows his mother and Benji does not. Or apologizing for not being ready to come out to everyone. And then turned around and did it anyway, which was what he wanted to do, but it also felt a lot about Benji and something he was doing for him as well. Which, fine, it’s Victor’s decision and he didn’t regret doing it. But then when there were consequences that hurt him by his team being homophobic, Benji first shrugs them off and then encourages Victor to quit the team so that he’s not around homophobic people. Which okay, first of all homophobes exist everywhere but I digress. Victor was miserable after he quit the basketball team. It’s not actually what he wanted to do, and he loves basketball, and Benji had no respect for that either. He acted like basketball with some kind of leftover heteroness that needed to be expelled from Victor. And he talked shit about it with his friends right in front of Victor. In fact, every time Victor tried to express himself, he would be essentially shut down by Benji and end up apologizing. Until episode 6 with the birthday and episode 8 after Isabel caught them together.

So look, I don’t think Benji had to tell Victor anything about his alcoholism because it’s his personal business and it’s really difficult to talk about something like that and it was definitely up to him when he wanted to open up. But then he turned around and was basically pissed at Victor for knowing even though Victor found out by accident. And then he refused to talk about it. And then when Victor expressed his hurt that Benji didn’t want to talk to him, Benji responded by completely attacking Victor and straight up saying it was exhausting work being with him bc he’s got a religious homophobic mom and is newly gay. Like….what?? 

Benji judged Victor for 1) being a jock 2) his mother and 3) being a baby gay. Victor never once judged Benji for his alcohol problems, he was just hurt Benji didn’t share with him. He didn’t judge Benji for anything else for that matter. He definitely shouldn’t have told Rahim about Benji, even though I do understand he needed someone to open up to and he trusts Rahim, it was a violation of Benji’s trust and not okay. But that’s like…the only bad thing Victor has done all season.

As for the pov thing- it wouldn’t be such a big deal if they actually developed Benji as a character, which they have not. We get no moments of him where he’s not with Victor (except the one conversation with Isabel, which was about Victor). If you’re going to have a character not share about their life to the protagonist, you need to find another way to share it with the audience. It leads to a disconnect and lack of emotional investment in Benji for many people. The fact that I feel I know Rahim better after 5 episodes than I do Benji after 20 is saying something. But the writing has given Rahim development that it hasn’t given Benji. It’s not surprising a lot of people in the audience are feeling more connected to Rahim as a result. Polls are never the most reliable thing since it depends on who sees them and how many people (twitters was about 20k respondents iirc but no idea about ig). I see a lot of vahim shipping on twitter and ig, tumblr not so much. But I will say I’ve seen people coming around on vahim who are watching the season now, as opposed to the smaller number who immediately watched the moment it came out, went in shipping Victor and Benji and had a knee jerk reaction about the possibility of another romance for Victor.

This is not comparable to malex in any way so I have no clue why you’re bringing them up.

And personally, I was never invested in Victor and Benji’s relationship. Even in s1 I was like 🤷🏻‍♀️ And now, with or without vahim, I think Victor and Benji should break up. They’re just not a great couple and I feel like the show would do well to make it okay for your first relationship to not necessarily be right for you. Especially for a gay couple because that like…NEVER happens on tv. It doesn’t take anything away from what v*nji mean to each other. Sometimes people just aren’t compatible. I didn’t start shipping vahim bc of anything with v*nji directly, I just loved their dynamic. I love seeing Victor light up. I love seeing him comfortable instead of constantly feeling insecure and apologetic. To me, vahim connect in a way v*nji do not.

Victor did not develop feelings for Rahim just because he was having issues with Benji. Just like Benji did not develop feelings for Victor just because he was having issues with Derek. Implying that does a disservice to both relationships and kinda takes agency away from a character and their feelings. But I want him and Benji to end things for real before anything happens with Rahim. Which might mean trying to make it work for a while longer. 

We will see!!

[survivor-ingary]

Episode 2 - "I DON'T WANT THE MYSTERY MOUSE-CA-TOOL BESTIE" - Ellie

At the tribal, Ping was voted out of the Pendragon Tribe nearly unamimously. Tribal immunity for this round is Pictionary.

I bet all these bitches know i voted for Keith and now they are going to come kill me in my sleep if i die i blame dylan

yass round 2 i either think im in the best position on this tribe or theyre all secretly coming for me thats all

Tribal went as well as I expected it to go. No major drama. It seems like Keith is in real trouble if we do go to tribal again though which would put me in a very tricky spot. For now, though, I will be trying my best in the upcoming challenge. The problem is, however, timezones and schedules. Jon is going to be our drawer, but he can only do it tonight or in the early afternoon tomorrow which I will not be there for. Additionally, Keith is asleep so we have no idea what his schedule is going to be so we basically had to schedule the challenge without him. And Nya could only do right before the deadline tomorrow which Jon cannot do. I hate this for us, truly. I just hope that Moth and I can rub our brain cells together for this one so that we can pull out a win. OR somehow the other tribes fail horribly. On the bright side, I am finally starting to catch up on Duolingo exercises. They're a lot easier than I thought, but it is still going to be tedious af to save up enough coins for some of the higher end products at the shop. As a final note, I am going to work with Nya in the long term as we promised each other to. Hopefully that actually works out. Time to actually be loyal and be a hero this time around. Need to try something different.

If we lose this challenge, I will be very upset. We went so hard on this challenge!!! I believe that we can at least get second place, but I don't know how crazy the other tribes are. So, let's see what goes on

Ayyyyy soooooooo looks like the four, Colin, me, Ava, and Brayden are officially in an alliance!? I’m really hyped to be working with everybody and already have sights on who should go if we have to go to tribal 👀 but like I’m gonna feel so bad if we go to tribal and I orchestrate a whole plan to take someone out I gotta do it when I’m not in my feels and the planets aren’t fucking with my emotions too heavy. But go alliance ! This means I’ll be able to stay safe until hopefully a merge and hopefully we can avoid a tribe swap till then which I get those vibe from it !! But I’ll be here to survive two more tribals just in case which is pretty rad. Other then that hopefully me offering to draw doesn’t end us up in the bottom and we can keep killing ! But anyways that is it as off know hopefully I have a lot more coins tomorrow morning and I get hit the hat shop bright and motherfucking early.

Just got asked to be apart of an alliance <33333 the besties in the group trust me which maybe ain't the right move but for now we gotta love the bonding. exciting!!!

YAY FOR ROUND 2! Okay, so I meet once again with the Hat Shop and... third times the charm! Except,,, the charm is getting nothing AGAIN lmao I'm not complaining though, still got that extra vote :P I stayed up at 1 AM for this challenge, and I honestly think our team popped off. Anastasia was guessing a ton, and Riley was amazing at drawing real quick! I have a relatively good feeling about our performance, so I hope I wake up to the news of our tribe being immune :D

so yesterday I set myself on a mission to get an alliance. I wanted Ava + Brayden + Toph + me as a majority alliance. it was our day off from tribal so I thought it was the perfect day to do it!! I talked to Brayden about it first because he's the person I feel the most comfortable with, and then after a lot of coordination and careful communication I was able to pull it together!! I think the most important thing when making alliances is making everyone feel like they're a big part in it. So I was careful to ask each person how they feel about the others, about the game, and made a point to say that I wanted to work with them specifically. Some may call that a little manipulative, but I wanna make sure that I'm an essential part of the alliance!! i need everyone to feel like they need/want me there.

all of this happening so soon into the game is a testament to how aggressive I'm playing this time around. I usually like to lay low and just rely solely on my social game in the start, but I'm trying this out to establish myself early on! I wanted to play the tribe leader and I think I'm doing that in a smart and subtle way!!

so yes now we have a 4 person majority alliance named "duolingo owl hate club" because fuck that guy. I think we're the 4 most active and present people on the tribe so it's only natural for us to work together, but I think it's definitely worth noting that I was the one that was pulling the strings here.

We just did the pictionary challenge, I have a good feeling about it!! Toph was an amazing artist, and if we win, all credit rightfully goes to him!! I think the guessers also did great of course, but like come on, the artist has to be the mvp. I'm really hoping we pull through!! I don't mind going to tribal, but I genuinely don't wanna vote anyone out yet. I'm fine just playing the game in a precautionary way. I know I'm in a great position if we do go to tribal, but it's always preferred that we don't go.

Everyone else on my tribe: doing the challenge and kicking ass

Me: I’m sleep

Riley (Tumblr has once again chosen violence so only the first 10 get banners 🥲)

I think our challenge went pretty well! My team were good guessers. Feeling like I've established some Integrity now. Hope it keeps me safe later!

Toph Soooooo we finished the challenge with 32 points and like wig !! I was a quick as drawer for 32pts expect when my internet lagged, but still ! I think we whooped some ass and if we do go to tribal I know it won’t be me going, thanks to Duolingo owl hate club but I’m also worried same could have and advantage because they seem pretty kean on learning a lot in like 3 hours and then tried to cover that statement to not seem so threatening but like babs s a huge threat too apparently they love Duolingo and know 5 laugnes ? This is from brayden but If so go babs ! That’s absolutely iconic for real Life but fucking scary in this game ! I gotta be buddy buddy with them so hopefully if they do have something it won’t be them going home first and it will be Ava. But I’m thinking we might get second place again unless someone is a fucking wizard at this.

Dennis hmm i think we did well enough in the challenge to not see tribal tomorrow but who knows i guess we shall find out tn

the way ellie was so on top of stuff yesterday only to oversleep the challenge makes me giggle maybe shes freaking out about it which makes me also giggle but i dont think its really a big deal

anastasia asked me to call yesterday and i was like sure lets talk but it is damn near impossible to hold a conversation with her idk i tried BUT she did tell me “yeah i just got off a call with ellie” im like i see. she says shes down to work with ellie but that quickly switched from ellie being ~experienced~ but good to know ellie is also playing hard. anastasia also mentioned that she talks to riley a fair amount who i still have yet to connect to well. but dat makes me think ellie is def talking to riley too miss debate team is definitely a talker. but good on her for the social game i guess

kenneth keeps being like haha we’re the same person and im like yeah👁 i bet we are👁

i just wanna win and not think about tribal just keep it slow and chill for now keep learnin my welsh i guess

Ava Second challenge was Pictionary and I had a ton of fun playing. The tea is: toph did a great job. He was pretty vocal about not being a great artist but really I think he did great. However, Babs was super inactive yesterday and ~too late~ said they were a great artist and should've been picked to draw. It was kind of like.... k babs thanks for the belated "help". They did do great guessing which scored a point in my book. Brayden was supposed to play but last minute logged off without saying anything so we did the challenge without him :/ sorta a bummer. Anyway the lack of participation from Sam is kind of popping off so we'll see where that leads them... Overall a fun game and fingers crossed we did well!

Moth I think we did okay at the challenge. Today I am dying from the heatwave so I’m not thinking too straight! Stay cool everyone

Ellie So yesterday Anastasia and I called for about an hour!!! I’d say we’re definitely way closer, she’s someone I really wanna work with although the idea of her and Brayden eventually being on the same tribe is kinda scary cause I know how close they are. Still she’s so fun to talk to and I just love her energy so much!

Pictionary challenge results: Jenkins Tribe wins with Penadragon second, Hatter Tribe has to go to tribal council on the following day.

Ava Well well well seems our bob ross, toph, didn't pull through (y'all think babs would've pulled it out for us or slept through our challenge like they said they almost did?) I can't wait for tribal. I'm in it for the drama. I'm hashtag voting Sam off - didn't even bother to be apart of our challenge and not too sure they've even been online for a full 24 hours. Weed out the weak.....

Anastasia

Brayden https://imgur.com/n60Lz0c

guys i dont know what to do someone help me out

Dennis i hope damn brayden gets the boot

Raffy Woo! We don't have to go to tribal again! We stan!

Ellie So I figured I’d go idol hunting today cause the shop was about to close and I just wanted to see what had been bought and what possible hats there were, I see that there’s a hat I have enough for that hasn’t been bought and I decide fuck it let’s get it

APPARENTLY ITS SOMETHING THAT IM NOT ALLOWED TO KNOW WHAT IT IS OR HOW TO USE IT YET???? THEY SAID ILL FIND OUT ABOUT IT LATER

I DONT WANT THE MYSTERY MOUSE-CA-TOOL BESTIE

Sam Well you see. I like all my tribe people. And I think we did real good on that music video! So, I think rather than voting anyone else off, I think I should just vote myself off if that is possible! Ahhh

Babs So sad to see Sam not only go but go through what they're going through :( same w Toph :( they all seem so lovely

Keith Not sure if i submitted a confession after the last tribal. But if I didnt here it is.

Happy I made it out of that tribal. I had raffy backing me with whom I played. Last time we played. We were at odds. We didnt work together but whats worse that we were against each other. It was either him or me goin out. Hopefully thats the past n we can work together. I jus need to keep things calm n show that Im not here itching to make big moves. So they dont feel threatened by me. N its easy cause right now. I havnt made that kind og bond with anyone on my tribe. To even think of such moves. Lets see what round two holds for me.

Colin so uh

we lost! :(

I was really bummed tbh. Like I thought we did well but circumstances with the challenge were just really unfortunate, from conflict about who wanted to be the artist to people disappearing the moment the challenge started, I think we did well despite all of that. Except we did kinda get stomped anyway. Oh well!! The game moves on. Tribal has to happen.

Initially I was gonna push for Babs, just because I feel like I don't wanna attach myself to them too early on. I've seen how much of a bitter player they can be, and lets just say I'm not the most loyal ally to have. however! 9 minutes after we lost, Ava announces to our alliance that she's voting Sam. I wasn't surprised, Sam has been the one not really pulling their weight. But I had some good connections with her!! we both did colorguard and shes so sweet and easy to talk to. I was really conflicted for a little bit, debating on whether or not to actually push for Babs. I think brayden sensed my hesitance but we both knew there was nothing really I could do to stop Sam from being the vote. At first tribal, the initial name always spreads like wildfire.

However, my mess was stopped abruptly by Sam asking to be voted out. welp!! okay then!! babs stays i guess!! i'm not too bothered. I'll never turn down an easy vote hehe.

Pretty sure there's a swap tonight. I'm kinda scared of that

uwu

Brayden

i almost forgot to upload this but dont worry i just remembered

Colin screams

Toph So we’re going to tribal in 20 and all I have to say right now is if there is a tribe swap after I’m gonna so scared but I ducking called I had a vibe and it was right that’s what is gonna win me this game trusting my intuition. I’m holding on now and gonna be the biggest comp beast next challenge in case I get fucked on this swap !!!! Or at least if it is a swap 🤔

Riley I don't know what this announcement's gonna be I'm worriedddd... Ginny said it probably means we're swapping teams but I don't wannaaaa I like our team.

Toph Sam self sacrificing made this the easiest vote ever and me being safe is a plus I guess 😎