#maybe she was right. dont tell her that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

freakinator · 10 days

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thinking about kab and the thing about her i think is she knows just enough to keep herself safe Generally but not enough to really predict what would happen should something more... complicated??? unforeseen??? idk whats the right word to use but something not covered by someones reputation and/or vids happen, believe it or not this also affects her view of clownpierce (we'll get to that)

for example, mapicc has a reputation for being an violent, angry, & impulsive guy and nothing else which makes sense but is incredibly surface level and something that only really works if you dont have a lot of experience working with him

another is reddoons, his betrayal after the base incident while shocking is not unforeseen but his reputation as being a guy whos seen as being a reasonable person whos fairly loyal to his team made it seem like something he wouldnt do even tho it absolutely is

regarding how it affects her view of clown, since he isnt perfectly aligned with his reputation she instead pivots in the complete opposite direction and forgiving basically every crime he does even tho hes something much more mild and complicated than either his reputation or her view of him will ever be (think madonna-whore complex which is especially obvious when it comes to kabs vs woogies view of him)

another side effect of this Just Enough amount of knowledge aside from being blinded by her own expectations is that it frustrates ppl who think shes oversimplificating things (like me and seemingly several other tumblr users as well) especially when she claims that shes objectively correct and the smartest in the room at any given moment

how this roughness in her analysis affects her in the server still has yet to be fully seen but we do still have at least a couple months until the end but 'til then shes just gonna keep stumbling as more and more complicated situations pop up as is typical in lifesteal to happen and eventually shes gonna have to learn to adapt or else she'll be suffering the consequences one way or another

#mine.txt #analysis #ig. this is very rough tho and is more just thoughts than anything #but i wanted a tag so i can get back to this later to see how right or wrong i am #another thing that affects this is the cc/c divide which is something she likes to take control of #one of the ways it manifests is that she likes to go in and out of it frequently which can be incredibly distracting #esp if youre someone like me who wants the lsers to just. be themselves and get immersed in whats happening around them #and it doesnt help that her and her character can have Very different feelings on a situation #basically the cc/c divide or at least how kab likes to use it affects the way she acts because shes got an idea in her head already #of what to think of the other ppl in the server which makes her inflexible when unexpected things come up #as opposed to when shes just being herself reacting to things #which is unfortunate but i think reflects on how outsiders vs insiders view lifesteal #the reality vs expectations of the audience are so incredibly different esp if you only watch the vids #so much so that while watching kabs vid my initial reaction was that she wasnt as big a ls fan as i originally thought #then realized no this seems like the exact sort of thing id expect from someone whos only seen the vids; particularly of the pvpers #(specified pvpers cause only watching the pvpers vs other kinds of players on the server are Very different experiences)#tho the thing about kab is she Does have insider knowledge!#.... mainly from ppl who dont log on a lot (ash and clown and maybe squiddo)#so naturally thats gonna give her a biased view of how the server works one way or another #the exception to this would be zam telling her about eclipse federation but i think either she doesnt know or severely underestimated #just how much lying; manipulation; keeping secrets; and yap sessions built on incompatible motives and morals happened #that made s4 the way it is not only in game but outside of it as well #''we're at our best when we hate each other irl'' - reddoons according to zam

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xlillilith · 7 months

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Now marvel you knew fully well what you were doing with this

#Like hello?#You can't tell me there's nothing between them and that Gwen dont feel something towards her #Cause look at this #Homegirl is distressed that emjay is leaving #“Em jay we were finally-” FINALLY WHAT #Yeah they're treading on the edge of it #Only to rip her away from emjay and 65 AGAIN for some fuckass 616 which nobody wants #Ohhhhhh by god I hope that ongoing gets canned and marvel puts her back in 65 and gives her another story #Gwenmj #Gwemj #Gwen x mj #Giant sized spider gwen #No hate to Stephanie buuuuut #Melissa really did her thing #Maybe she'll do gwen right maybe she won't do nothing bad but...#Idk #Just pleeeeeeeeeeease put gwen back in 65 and leave her there #Stop with the 616 don't nobody want it

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daipeanutsaiban · 2 months

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Hello! Um I know it's been a few months since you said people could ask you more questions on your tgaa thoughts, but I was hoping to ask about your baskerzieks and genshinxwife ones. Like how they met, or what their last in person convos went like before each couple separated/died, etc, bc I really adore your Lady B & Mrs. Asougi designs! They deserved first names 😭

Also I'd love to hear your genklint/ville thoughts too if you care to share those!

ALSO I wanted to say you're 100% correct that if Kazuma & Klint ever actually met good ending au Kazuma would think he's the most annoying person alive. It's funny if genklint is platonic or romantic too, it's like Herlock Sholmes is right there and instead Kazuma thinks his dad's bf (best friend OR boyfriend lol) is significantly worse. Something something hating your parallel

Anyway no pressure, and sorry if you aren't looking to answer more questions at this time!

HI i love to yap and to yap about dgs especially so you're good haha <3 i'm the kind of person who needs to be asked tbh bc i tend to be self conscious/doubt myself so questions are always super appreciated 🥹💗 this post got LONG so i'm going to put it under a break to spare anyone who's just here for art or trying to look at memes during their lunch break

TL;DR: klint and primrose were engaged as kids but it was broken off upon his parents' death, it was renewed when he earned prestige as a prosecutor; their last conversation was when primrose forced him to confess his crimes to her but she'd started having doubts months ago; in my favorite hc, gkv never pursued one another beyond dropping hints here and there but because i am bisexual i also want them to have fun; genshin and yukari met by chance as teens and genshin had to convince his father to let them marry each other after finding out she was pregnant; he could never say his last words to her because writing about the professor's identity could've endangered her and kazuma.

first of all thank you so much, it makes me so happy when people enjoy my designs and characterizations for lady baskerville and mrs asougi!! for clarity, i'll be calling them by the names i gave them in this post, primrose and yukari respectively.

klint and primrose's engagement was decided by their parents and they met as children- i think they were probably feeling awkward around each other for a while since children don't really care about such things (right..?) and primrose actually chose to spend her time reading when her father would take her to visit, and she might've even been more interested in talking/playing with barok because there wouldn't be the daunting idea of an engagement looming on the horizon lol. eventually, she and klint do grow closer and come to consider each other friends thanks to him putting in a lot of effort to make her feel welcome and also have more fun (she finds him boring- i characterize klint as having been a very serious and dutiful child, though he does play with and dote on his brother).

when the van zieks parents die in my hc, losing their life in a fire specifically, primrose's father chooses to cancel their engagement because he doubts klint can suitably provide for his daughter- a cruel but logical decision as klint is just fourteen years old with no backing or achievements. as an aside, the fire is declared to be an unfortunate accident but klint silently believes it was premeditated- this incident contributes to him considering prosecution as a career. out of care for his brother, he never brings up this idea to barok.

still, primrose is a very clever child who's acutely aware that her father's doting is a form of control (such as making her wear beautiful, white clothes to easily find out if she's been sneaking out, which i think i talked about before), and she insists on meeting klint either at his estate or in the city while they both (and occasionally barok) wear disguises/common clothes. the latter option allows them to meet people outside of their social caste, and to develop a sympathy for them from an early age which also contributes to klint's growing bitterness towards other nobles. throughout his struggle to be taken seriously by these men in spite of his age, primrose continuously encourages him and even spies on her father's meetings with other gentlemen to then report to him, and this continues in their adult life with her reporting rumors and "gossip" from other ladies about their own husbands (with perhaps dire consequences in the long run, haha...)

primrose has ambitions of her own, though, many of which are philanthropic in nature and stem from guilt at being born in a wealthy household to a father who does not care about people other than his own. they are difficult to achieve as an unmarried woman (or even as a woman in general), as her father would never greenlight her ideas, and as such she becomes enraged with klint when he allows the engagement to be dispelled due to believing she would ultimately "be happier with someone else" when it would effectively condemn any ounce of freedom she could have. from primrose's perspective, klint is the only candidate for marriage because he actually respects her and understands her as a person.

their engagement was eventually reinstated following klint's multiple achievements, chiefly when he made a name for himself as an extremely prolific prosecutor and primrose's father couldn't really object to it (ha) anymore. when i researched, i learned that men in the victorian era would commonly get married in their thirties once their careers were established, and i especially like that for this couple because it means that genshin could've attended their wedding. (it's also amusing to picture klint pitching him as the best man while primrose is firmly in barok's camp and they have a silly spat about that, haha. but ngl i prefer genshin as their best man because it was tradition that the best man would drive the married couple to their month long honeymoon directly after the ceremony so. he could stay behind a little while if you catch my meaning. teehee)

on the topic of genklintville, my ultimate preference/personal "canon" is that they never outright acted upon their romantic or sexual interests in one another although the tension was clearly there. but like any bisexual on the internet, i like to indulge a little bit, as shown in my previous paragraph hehe. i like to imagine a kind of kinship between genshin and primrose as they are interested in similar literature and share a similar sense of humor as well (chiefly teasing klint- in a deadpan manner for genshin). klint and primrose tend to dote on genshin in a way they think is discreet, because they can sense his loneliness at being apart from his family even though he generally doesn't voice it, but as we all know genshin isn't a fool and it leaves him quite flustered haha. genshin also relates to klint in the way that they are both heirs to something "greater than them" (the asogi clan/the van zieks heritage) and sometimes yearn to break away from it which might contribute to why genshin left for london if the first place. i'd like to add that if i draw genklint without primrose present, it's taking place with her knowledge and consent, though them being pushed to cheating due to increasing stress or suchlike circumstances is an interesting angle- it's just not something i see myself making at present. though now saying that has made me think about the ways it could be fun to explore the way klint's lying and gaslighting keeps piling up, so what's one more lie? so i'd be interested in reading a story that would attest to his guilt from committing the act and his gaslighting towards not only his wife but also to himself, hmm. the best way that i can put it is that if i'm to explore gk without the v, she must be a relevant character because i'm not about to discard a canon female love interest to focus solely on the yaoi lmao.

now for genshin and yukari, or genyu for short as i like to call it in my head (lol)... there's a lot to cover here too 😵‍💫 some of this, particularly the stuff concerning ayame, is still undecided on but i thought the more context the better!

to understand their dynamic, it feels important to state/repeat my headcanons about the asogi clan aka genshin's immediate family beyond her and kazuma, which were mentioned here. but to summarize, they are very patriarchal, strict, and the type to suppress their emotions. genshin is his father's illegitimate child, and his real mother is... hm, well, she won't ever appear in my art because it's suitable for her character, but she's a high ranking courtesan, aka "oiran", and therefore pregnancy/being a mother could bring shame to her and likely ruin her livelihood, because they are meant to project the image of being unattainable both in appearance.. and price. her disappearing for some months to a year wouldn't be all that suspicious as few men can even afford to meet her.

because the oiran brings the House where she works good money, they help her cover up her pregnancy and her son's existence by sending him to live with his father as soon as possible. once, genshin tries to visit his mother, but he is turned away. in short, his first experience was to be abandoned by someone who was supposed to love him. i think this backstory also serves to give reason to his name (written with the kanji 'shadow' and 'truth') because he is a truth meant to be hidden by the government. if you think about his father giving him that name, it becomes quite sad and implies shame for bringing his son into the world. i think it would also justify the personality i like for him, which is more reserved and serious than how i portray the rest of the visiting trio (with a boisterous but ambitious seishiro and a downtrodden but shy and earnest yuujin), and with a greater disposition for being suspicious... which is naturally a good thing for a detective.

genshin's father's wife lost her life to an illness some years prior to genshin integrating into the asogi clan, which is why he sought comfort from the oiran. to avoid unsavory rumors and to preserve both women's reputation, syoma (genshin's father) forbids his son from venturing outside of the house - paralleling primrose's childhood, which they could bond over later in life - until he turns a certain age. he's the dark sheep of the clan, to make it short. it's by sneaking out as a child that he meets seishiro, and then yukari who is accompanying ayame.

as an aside, i want to add that while syoma holds misogynistic beliefs, he still feels a sense of responsibility so he does eventually pay off the oiran's debt in the end- not that she's particularly grateful since he led her on and made her promise not to abort his child without ever planning to marry her. not a great guy, but def a fun character to write. those are things genshin deduces in his teenage years, and he swears to never become like his father.

as for yukari, her family history is also nebulous, and i don't know if i even want to establish her circumstances before meeting ayame and genshin because i like the meta irony of those details remaining unknown to us just as they were unknown to those around her outside of how she is tied to other people. ayame's friend, genshin's wife, kazuma's mother- never her own person. she reaches a breaking point during genshin's absence, but i won't go into detail about that for now because it's part of a long project of mine. what i can say about her is that she does housework for ayame's family in exchange for room and board, but she's not categorized as a servant because ayame cherishes her, a privilege that makes her feel awkward at times.

genshin fell for her due to her frank and joyful approach to life which was so different from the outlook he was raised on, and she piqued his curiosity with her unusual and often "silly", but free, behavior. he has the utmost respect for her, which is why as much as i like gkv and think it could work in a modern au with yukari's inclusion/approval + rapid methods of communication, i think realistically genshin wouldn't have the heart to start anything with someone else when she is waiting for his every letter so far away. he wouldn't be able to read the expression on her face, and she could easily lie about being okay with it.

in this wikipedia article about marriage in japan in the edo period (1600-1868), it reads: "Members of the household were expected to subordinate all their own interests to that of the [household], with respect for an ideal of filial piety and social hierarchy. [...] Marriages were duly arranged by the head of the household, who represented it publicly and was legally responsible for its members, and any preference by either principal in a marital arrangement was considered improper."

you might've guessed where i'm going with this, but genshin's father had already chosen a wife for him, and that person was ayame, who is from a 'good' family. obviously that marriage didn't go through with yukari becoming pregnant at 18 or 19 (!!), and syoma capitulated to genshin's request that he be given permission to marry his girlfriend which only further strained his relationship with his father further. as for ayame, she was fortunate that the man she was interested in was studying medicine, and therefore struggled less for her family to accept yuujin as her husband. but for yukari, although she knows genshin doesn't love ayame, there's always that nagging feeling that she was the "wrong" choice. after all, she has to witness the interactions between genshin and his family every day, and her presence is often the source of tension. her only rock after ayame's death and genshin's departure is her son, who starts rejecting spending time with her as he grows older because, well, he's a teenager (something i want to expand on in that project i mentioned).

in yukari's case, she was never able to read her husband's last words as even writing about the professor's identity could endanger hers and kazuma's lives, but perhaps genshin had promised he would briefly return at the half-way point of his stay overseas and then ended up having to break that promise by choosing to investigate the professor killings before eventually losing his life. yukari's feelings of helplessness were confirmed as the truth in her eyes then.

as for primrose and klint's last conversation, it's been sitting in my wips for a while LOL. i def think she had her suspicions, and when she finally gathered her courage to confront him, he broke down and told her the truth. i've revised this comic and especially its dialogue so many times that i don't even know if i like it anymore, please pray for me 😅

It's funny if genklint is platonic or romantic too, it's like Herlock Sholmes is right there and instead Kazuma thinks his dad's bf (best friend OR boyfriend lol) is significantly worse.

this made me laugh LMAO honestly kazuma would be so petty about it meanwhile i feel like he'd get along super well with the man's own wife 😂 i also think that as an adult kazuma would admire his father less and even be a bit of a tsundere lol, but yeah in a No One Dies/Good Ending AU(tm) he'd probably resent genshin a little for leaving him and his mother, whose struggles he witnessed firsthand for ten years. hell, maybe he does resent him in the current circumstances even if it's not the dominant emotion when it comes to his father, it of course being grief... still. lord van zieks get your paws off my dad!! 🙄💢 also if genshin starts reciprocating the attention kazuma might start killing LOL

...this answer is now well over 2000 words and i still feel like i'm leaving things out i feel CRAZY omg. autism diagnosis unnecessary atp lmfao.

also just found this in my #yukanotes i should've just copy pasted all this augh. i love yukari very much she is extremely dear to me. 😊💗

thanks again for your questions I'M SORRY IT'S SO LONG....... i DO love to yap 🥹🥹💗

#i really should finish and post my comics about all these hcs =_=;;#i either always (wrongly) assume people dont care and/or am held back by my perfectionism orz #can u tell i was shamed for my interests as a child 🙂#ANYWAYS im trying to write out info for my dgs ocs on toyhouse right now so i'll share their profiles here whenever im finished!! >_<#when i say 'primrose becomes enraged with klint' she literally storms in and slaps him btw. so im worried ppl will hate on her but like.#when ur life is dependent on a boy who claims to love you but then abandons you to that kind of life?? and you're fourteen??? maybe ur not #in total control of ur emotions! just saying #the only other time she gets violent is well. when. you can take a guess at what would make her extremely angry and disappointed.#the great ace attorney #tgaa spoilers #dgs spoilers #headcanon #replies #drbtinglecannon #oc: primrose #oc: yukari #ayame mikotoba #klint van zieks #genshin asogi #baskerzieks #genklintville #and uhh #asogi couple #genyu #tagging for archiving purposes 🙇 sorry to clog ur feeds!!

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crystalpallette · 4 months

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get you a girl who can give you everything

this started a long long time ago when I made a joke about how sega should put ringo in more dresses, and then my friend reminded me that oh yeah!! I can do that instead!!! and then one thing led to another and we joked about punk ringo and I drew that too. using ringo like a dressup doll is so cathartic it's kinda crazy

some bonuses (original designs, timelapse) under the cut bc I like these designs!! I might do some more with them!! please disregard the band poster in the first second of the timelapse that's something else!!!

#everyone look at my girl isnt she so pretty #puyo puyo #ringo ando #my stuff #please look at the timelapse it nicely packages a week of suffering into a minute :)#you cant tell at all from the recording. but all those teeny tiny scallops on ringo's dress? i drew all of those by hand #because the scallop brush i downloaded didnt look right. it never does why do i have that #plus the lace cutouts on the bottom i also drew by hand because i wanted them to look kinda like bunches of apple seeds #but thats not really a thing you can search for- 'lace brush that looks like apple seeds' is wildly specific #there's probably an identical brush to what i painstakingly drew by hand but dont tell me about it i want to think i did that for a reason #punk ringo on top was a lot less work on the lineart bit except for that godforsaken guitar #i had to make sure it looked right and it took forever #but what punk ringo gave me the most trouble with was posing #i knew i wanted an arm out to mirror lolita ringo but thw initial draft was meant to be her holding the guitar the opposite way she is now #(as in her hand was gonna be backwards)#and do you know how hard it is to balance a guitar like that. i had to grab my guitar and do a photoshoot to see what was most natural #while still having leg up arm out #this was fun to do even if i had about three crises in the middle of it #i tried doing my old rendering style again after a while and it was fun too #lolita ringo gave me a bit of trouble in the fact that my brain couldnt handle the dress being shaded but the apples being flat #but we got it lmao. i dont know if ill ever do this again it took too long #but maybe half of the time was because suddenly halfway through everybody needed my help for something or other that required me to leave #anyway wow thats enough rambling. i should go to bed now

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bunnieswithknives · 10 days

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sorry if idk this but what do you think about Wordgirl now in 2024 do you still like it do you still want to make art or talk about it or are you just done with all of it forever and plus i seen that you haven't made art of it since 2022 so you just done with all of it oh yeah and what about The Magnus Archives + Wordgirl ao3 fic too like is that just going to be and i know that your working on 2 au's now just wanting to know that's all

My interests tend to come in intense bursts and then fade. Unless something like, big happens like it gets a reboot its unlikely I'll be coming back to it anytime soon. As for the fic I don't have any current plans to finish it unfortunately.

#Its so shocking whenever anybody mentions that fic to me #like its just such a specific combo of interests how are there this many people interested in it...#I have some fragments of unfinished chapters for it laying around but I was struggling to get them to work #and I definitely dont have the motivation to finish them now #If youre curious the chapters were going to be Slaughter avatar miss Power and Web avatar Mr Big #and possibly Flesh avatar Butcher but I never got around to starting that one #The Miss Power chapter was basically going to be about her having kind of lost her thread #I wanted to leave a lot of ambiguity as to what happened with her home planet #but she hadnt been in contact with them for agessssss and her radio is damaged and her ship is in bad shape #the chapter was just going to be her being like 'pfff I dont interpersonal connection Im doing great out here. Murdering. All on my own'#Well she has her little squirl thing but she treats him like an animal #mr giggle cheeks or whatever #anyway I wanted it to imply that whatever happened her bloodthirst was destroying her #The Mr Big chapter was from Lesley's perspective #She would have been one in a long long line of assistants that Mr Big went through like candy #Lesley is his favorite though because. while she is terrified of him. shes still willing to push him. to be honest with him #but she also knows exactly when to step off. when to lie to appease him #( its always a tossup as to whether he wants a sweet lie or the harsh truth that day. He can always tell either way #its a gamble he does to be cruel. She always picks right though. or maybe he's more lenient with her than he should be)#He likes that she knows exactly how to push him without ever stepping over the line #He likes that her guilt and revulsion are slowly eating her up inside but shes too selfish to leave #She likes being special. She likes the idea of ruling the world alongside him #She'll always be second in command but shell be so much higher than everyone else #and shes willing to do anything to get that #Mr big doesnt think shell ever make it that far #but he likes her anyway #shes the one assistant he'll be sad about dying #OK damn apparently I did still have things to say about this old fic DAMN #still not gonna finish it tho. they call me the struggler becaus.e writing is a struggle...

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faaun · 7 months

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idk how to live so im going to talk to myself out loud until i do

#listen. take a deep breath. i know your bpm is high but you need to think with me for a second.#remember that you are paper thin. all your facets are sheets of paper and what you gave her is just another one.#make a new one. you dont need it. you dont need her to see you. i know you think you need her but you will be okay. i know its hard.#you wish you could have shown her how you loved her. listen to yourself. you are made of paper.#she might be concrete or maybe wood or maybe gold. you need to start laying your roots elsewhere. shut that thought down #and blink and listen. the parts you keep thinking of arent lost. they still happened and they are yours to keep.#there is beauty in this loss. tell me about the beauty in this loss. its okay to think about it. you got to see it all and nothing more #and this is great because it would have been bad. you know it would be violent in a way you dont need. you know this to be true.#you are going to look at that empty space in her shape and youre going to fill it with everything that happened when you knew her.#the memories with her but then also the the way your friends talked you through it. the game with the clovers.#your first allergic reaction you almost died and you couldnt stop laughing and you were held so close to their hearts.#learning the names for all the floursecent gene tracking dyes that everyone else knows already. about the exam - listen again.#i know you think if you fail your life is over but you need to try your best. youre not going to get a good grade in a uni test for the fir #youre going to make up for it. youre going to make sure you make up for it. do you understand? i love you. you have to do this.#right now you need to sit up. breathe. i know your heart hurts. go to the living room. grab something to eat. i dont care if you feel full.#youre going to clean your mattress heater. youre going to study a bit longer and then youre going to sleep. youre going to tell your mother #im sorry and i might genuinely fail a test. shes going to tell you its okay. if you do badly in this course you can just become a neurosurg #just agree. dont argue right now. its okay. youre okay. you are paper thin. i know any puncture hurts.#breathe. think of your friends. think of their hands in yours. it isnt eternal.youve lived through worse. the empty sky is still beautiful.#the lack of her is still beautiful

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beeseverywhen · 4 months

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"All political parties face a trade-off under a first-past-the-post electoral system. Governing depends on attracting a broad coalition of voters, inevitably involving compromises that leave a party’s base disgruntled.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that as we move closer to a general election, the discontent from the anti-Labour left who claim there is little to distinguish Keir Starmer from Rishi Sunak in the battle for the premiership is only getting noisier."

"The argument is threefold: there’s no meaningful difference between the Conservatives and Labour; Starmer supposedly can’t be trusted because he has dropped pledges he made in the 2020 leadership election to shift his party towards the centre; finally, the “Tories are toast” and Labour can’t lose, so disgruntled left voters can safely vote for other parties, such as the Greens.

With Labour so far ahead in the polls, the urge to debunk these sentiments may seem like an expression of paranoia. But all three aspects of this narrative are comprehensively wrong, including the reassurance that it is safe for anyone who would prefer a Labour government to vote for another party in Labour-Tory contests."

"But what this underplays is the number of Labour-Tory marginals where a relatively small vote for other left candidates could cost Labour a win. James Kanagasooriam, of the polling company Focaldata, has written about the “sandcastle” nature of Labour’s likely majority; his forecast is that there will be many more marginal seats in the 2024 parliament compared with 2019. If more than predicted numbers of those who voted Green in the locals decide they can afford to do so in the general election because Labour is so far ahead in national polls, that will boost the Conservatives.

Next up is the idea that Starmer’s dropping of some of his leadership pledges makes him dangerously untrustworthy. But this is the product of a system in which the tiny unrepresentative slice of the electorate that is a party membership pick their leader before voters choose their prime minister. Anyone hoping to be PM would have to shift position between a leadership selection and a general election: a Labour leader’s most important job is to connect with potential voters, not to coddle members with the comfort blanket of a policy platform such as the “free broadband for all” 2019 pledge that was roundly rejected.

Liz Truss provides a cautionary tale of what happens when a party leader seeks to impose a membership-endorsed platform on the country without a general election. For Starmer to have stuck to his 2020 leadership election pledges, instead of spending the past four years understanding voters, would have been fundamentally anti-democratic.

The most egregious aspect of the anti-Labour left argument is there isn’t much to choose between Starmer and Sunak. Yes, Labour’s “Ming vase” election strategy has seen it take a much more cautious fiscal approach than many of us would like: it has effectively adopted the Tory macroeconomic worldview and with it a set of spending constraints that no one sensible thinks either party could stick to in the wake of the election.

That is frustrating for anyone hoping this election campaign may illuminate some of the tough trade-offs facing Britain; but it would have been incredibly risky for one side to go it alone on this. The alternative is Labour walking into the trap and handing the Conservatives a “Labour tax bombshell” election campaign.

From a commitment to scrap the Rwanda plan to making clear that in an ideal world Labour would discard the two-child benefit cap, there are plenty of reasons that it is preposterous to think that a Starmer government would make the same trade-offs as successive Conservative governments that have financed billions of pounds worth of tax cuts for more affluent families by cutting tax credits and benefits for low-income parents. The six pledges Starmer launched two weeks ago may be incremental, but Labour needs voters to believe they are deliverable, and they are indicative of a very different set of priorities than those that animate Sunak."

"Starmer is not without weaknesses, as shown by the days he took to clarify an interview last October in which he gave the impression he thought Israel had the right to withhold power and food from Gaza. But there is no doubt whatsoever he would make a vastly more compassionate and competent prime minister than Sunak. To encourage people to put that outcome at risk by casting a protest vote against a Labour government that does not yet exist is perhaps the ultimate form of luxury belief campaigning."

#i dont particularly like starmer either #and labour have dropped a lot of policies i love and picked up some that I'm highly sceptical of #but those battles can be fought once theyre in power. right now all you lot are doing is doing the tories work for them #uk politics #labour winning is not a guarantee. WE DO NOT HAVE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION #if the left vote is split. the tories WILL benefit #let's vote tactically now. for whatever party has the best chance of getting the Tories out in your constituency #be that lib dems. labour or greens. and once we've done that. we can all write to our mps and make our feelings known #i for one would love to finally have an mp that actually fucking listens to their constituents and makes themselves avaliable #my tory mp barely ever even bothers to vote #that's not democracy is it #I'll be voting for a lib dem mp as she's the only one with a chance of beating the huge majority my current tory mp has #and then I'll be sending her a shit Ton of letters asking her to stand up for Palestine and trans rights and disabled people #and stand against child poverty and landlords and over policing and over militarisation IN PARLIAMENT #as someone in a tory safe seat this is my only chance to maybe have my voice in parliament heard and it drives me up the wall #that you are all telling ppl to throw that kind of chance away

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