#since he seems to win every popularity poll

[sesamenom]

four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree

-

okay so they aren't the most traditional 'calling birds' but I was running out of bird coded people so here's some gulls of Ulmo! looks like the action's picking up... :)

[Day 5]

[qqueenofhades]

How do we not give into dooming because I mean, the media circus is not letting up on this. It feels like it's going to be the new 'emails' and the prospect of fascist america seems more and more inevitable by the day. Is every election going to be like this?

Look, I don't want to get drawn back into the Politics Discourse because I really only can take a tiny bit of it at a time right now, but once again: IT IS NOT INEVITABLE THAT WE ARE DOOMED.

Fascist ideas are not popular. Polls are bullshit garbage and were off by an average of 6 points in 2022 (remember the endless, ENDLESS weeks of RED WAVE COMING media coverage and then.... literally squat? The media cannot will something into existence just by talking about it over and over, no matter how much they try). Please do not allow polls alone to shape your understanding of the election, especially when Democrats have wildly overperformed and Trump has wildly underperformed in every competitive election since 2016.

We just had it all but inevitable that France was going to turn fascist/elect the National Rally fascist party to a majority in parliament, and instead the leftists banded together and kept them the fuck out (because fulminating about Revolution!!! online never works, but voting sure as fuck does). That did not happen. It is not inevitable here either. I am shit fucking terrified too and today was a real bad mental health day, BUT IT IS NOT INEVITABLE. Do not give up ahead of time. Do not think the media and/or polls can create the reality they want just by being extremely loud and repetitive about it. Do something. Give money. Sign up to volunteer. Check out my resources post for helping the Democrats. And repeat after me:

IT IS NOT INEVITABLE THAT WE ARE DOOMED. Even if Trump did win the election, god fucking forbid, America would not be fascist instantly overnight. People would and will fight back. He would have a really hard time actually cancelling or openly rigging elections and/or using dictatorial powers, no matter how much he would want to try. Take a deep breath. Log off social media. Repeat after me:

IT IS NOT INEVITABLE THAT WE ARE DOOMED. And there is never, ever, a moment where we can never do anything at all or where everything will just Happen to us without us having the opportunity to resist (and win). We just have to make the choice to do so.

That's all I got for now. Hang in there.

[zexapher]

Art Imitates Life

Had this idea in my back pocket for what must be a few months now, but after Akumu_Oukoku’s wonderful ‘Weiss is silly’ meme,  I thought I’d finally put this one together. That, and I wanted to make a little something to celebrate White Knight’s glorious victory in Ship Wars 8! The hordes of r/fnki well and truly descended upon the tournament, and all the better for White Knight!

I think there were a few folks on the regular sub that hadn’t quite realized just how popular White Knight had become within the community, but fnki itself has turned into something of a fortress for the ship, and the results of the tourney speak for themselves. White Knight really wound up dominating, becoming champion by an overwhelming margin, and with just Lancaster and Nuts & Dolts putting up strong competition in the previous rounds.

I’m impressed, and super stoked. It’s really something special seeing White Knight come out so strong after so many years treated as a pariah, having never before made it past the first round but now becoming the champion. The stars had aligned, really. The final round taking place on Weiss’ birthday, White Knight winning the championship being the perfect gift. Volume 9 had given the ship strong foundations to stand on. We can see that expressed in not only the various memes put out over time, but also in the A-Jaune-da alliance and numerous comments inundating the polls in order to promote the ship. White Knight shippers really had an incredibly strong messaging campaign this tournament, I might say no one else came close, and we always kept it positive. Everyone involved should feel proud.

Now, as for this meme, I chose these six characters (and Weiss) because I found it rather appropriate that they have all to some extent shipped White Knight in canon. Jaune, of course, is an obvious one. The story is littered with examples for him all the way through. Similarly, Weiss has been growing fonder of Jaune throughout the show, but Volume 9 saw her interest revealed in a very pronounced manner. Nora has the most tenuous claim here, having shared few moments with Weiss. However, Nora has a moment in Volume 5 where she teases Weiss about liking Jaune’s nickname, going on to tease the Ice Queen about her thawed heart.

Oscar, of course, gets his absolutely stoked look that he throws at Jaune when Weiss accepts Jaune’s invitation to the movies. Like, Oscar is just so happy for his big bro. Blake has a moment or two over the course of the show, notably her happy little glance between Jaune and Weiss at the Argus reunion, her smug look at the ~mature~ line, and how she perks up at Weiss’ giggle with Jaune about his restored youth. No real surprise there, since Blake is actually Jaune’s offscreen super-secret best friend. Yang herself throws a little dating advice Jaune’s way, and gets her ‘one day’ line, when our boy was down in the dumps following a rejection or two. She points out to Weiss that her harshness rejecting Jaune is the sort of thing that earned her the Ice Queen nickname. And, like Blake, Yang gets her own smug look following the ~mature~ line. Then there’s my most controversial addition to this list, Pyrrha. After all, she did walk Jaune through how to ask Weiss to the dance.

Yes, this was all an excuse for me to make a post about every little scrap from the show suggesting the characters ship White Knight. If anyone can think of any more, feel free to share. Maybe Cindere killing Jaune’s rival love interests, yet her attempts on Weiss’ life seem to have only helped Jaune and Weiss grow closer, hmmm. Well, I hope you all enjoy, I had good fun making it!

[comikadraws]

Sorry, but there are some misinformations in your latest ask, which i would politely correct (I'm not attacking you).

Itachi in general is a more loved character than Sasuke, by the general public and naruto's fans. For example; on tiktok (a very popular app used by billions of people on daily basis) he is the only naruto's character that gets viral every week here with everybody loving him (hardly the otherwise happens) meanwhile Sasuke there is not that much popular or loved, in general he is very much slandered here and ignored unlike Itachi. For the daily accounts on Twitter you have to put in consideration that the daily Sasuke account has been active since 2022, meanwhile the Itachi's one since months ago and just in these recent months they started to blow up. For the Naruto's polls; Itachi was #1 in a poll in which japanese people's favorite character is and Itachi was #1 and in the 99 poll Itachi was #2 not because his fanbase mass voted, But because has too many stans and in general he is loved [ i should inform myself on more polls ].

And for tumblr.... Most naruto's fans on this site are frighteningly chronically online, Most of their takes are awful and almost every character suffer from getting horrible takes on their name.. and Sasuke stans found their way on this site. Also Tumblr is is not even remotely close to the popularity of Twitter and Tiktok and Itachi stans are not chronically online to do the shit Sasuke stans do on daily basis on this site. And Sasuke lost so many polls on this site, which i find it funny, They're always in every character's business and yet they can't even get their fav to win a poll.... That's hilarious.

Thank you for reaching out, though I actually have to disagree with you on a couple of points there. I hope you don't mind.

Purpose of the Statistics

First of all, I admit that my post was very Tumblr-centric and that experiences might vary a lot between platforms. Tumblr is currently my primary social media platform due to its versatility. This is also why most of my experiences relate to this platform, on which Itachi hate is rampant, and Sasuke endorsement is the standard.

My previous post was mostly focused on Sasuke being a beloved character (in opposition to fandom's perception that he is hated). This is especially true for fandom spaces (ie. Tumblr, Ao3, and Twitter to a degree - I explain why these spaces in a minute) and how his fans act like victims on this platform while, ironically, victimizing other characters and their fans. They seem to believe that hating on one character somehow uplifts the other and that they are "justified" because Itachi doesn't receive "enough hate".

And of course, of all the platforms to unload their frustrations on, they choose Tumblr. The one where they are the furthest thing from being a victim.

How to Measure Popularity?

But back on topic. Measuring popularity is a complicated thing. As you correctly pointed out, popularity varies in nature (ie. quantity and quality), and between platforms (influenced a lot by the platform's features and target audiences). This can also impact social media statistics, which is why character polls are probably the most reliable data to work with.

But not all polls are equal, are they? Look at that one popularity poll on Tumblr in which Sasuke lost to Ten-Ten or the one where Itachi lost to Yamato. It is not always the intention of respondents to measure popularity. Sometimes it is to troll. Sometimes it is to chase a reward.

Naruto 99

While it is an official poll in which Itachi managed to outrank Sasuke in terms of popularity, the Naruto 99 poll is also peculiar due to its voting conditions. Respondents were permitted to vote once EVERY DAY (giving fans both the ability to vote for multiple characters or pile votes on a singular character).

Additionally, fans were given an incentive to vote, which is the promise of a designated one-shot manga. This is what, in the end, caused minor characters like Sakumo and Shisui to show up in the top 10. It's because they are characters with grand reputations and/or importance to the plot but a severe lack of content.

However, Sasuke is the deuteragonist of Naruto and still a major character in Boruto, regularly receiving content. The blanks are 99% filled for Sasuke - with official manga content, even! With Itachi, content is so scarce that people are completely capable of distorting his intentions of being a Konoha bootlicker and a genocidal sociopath.

So it was most definitely not just popularity that influenced the poll results - It was curiosity.

Other Official Popularity Polls

It becomes more apparent that the Naruto 99 poll results likely don't reflect reality very well when looking at previous Naruto polls. In all previous polls, Sasuke has consistently gotten better results than Itachi.

Itachi's popularity usually improved alongside his plot involvement (most notably his debut in chapter 139, Sasuke's memories starting chapter 220, Itachi's battle with Sasuke starting chapter 383, and Itachi's reveal starting chapter 396). While there's been a sharp decrease during the Tenshi Bridge Arc (likely due to his lack of plot relevance), Itachi's popularity largely appears to be mostly stable during the latter half of the manga.

Aside from plot involvement, Itachi's popularity was also influenced by sympathy, as it managed to climb up the furthest (excluding chapter 107 because it was before his debut) after the truth reveal. Sasuke's popularity experienced a similar improvement after the Uchiha Massacre flashbacks.

But now, ever since that last poll (and especially since the manga's conclusion), Sasuke's character has only become more sympathetic with his return to Konoha and mentoring of Boruto. Itachi, meanwhile, didn't appear in the manga in the past 10 years. It is rather unlikely that, of all things, Itachi's popularity increased rather than decreased in comparison to other characters.

Fandom vs Fanbase

Now, even assuming that Itachi's general popularity is, indeed, higher than Sasuke's, this does not have to reflect the fandom experience on every site (which is what bothered me so much in my previous post). The reason is that there are multiple types of fans more common on different platforms - namely "fandom fans" and "fanbase fans".

Fandom members are those who interact with other fans regularly by contributing their creativity and/or expertise. But that requires space for discussions, writing, and posting pictures. Tumblr fulfills all of those criteria! Platforms like Ao3 and Twitter/X also allow for worthwhile fandom interactions. Ao3 allows for posting fanfic. Twitter/X allows for discussions and sharing fan art.

Additionally, neither Ao3 nor Tumblr are known for any form of algorithm, meaning that fans need to make a conscious effort to seek out content. It requires effort and involvement that not any fan has.

Then there are casuals and, how theheirofthesharingan likes to call them, "dudebros". They are mostly consumers. And even when they are creators, they take less of an interest in characters as "people" (ie. their personality, psychology, etc.) and therefore usually don't really interact with the fandom platforms to analyze and appreciate them. They are part of the greater "fanbase" but not the "fandom".

This often causes them to adopt the ideological standpoint of the source material. Characters who are not outright explained may end up misunderstood. Real-world parallels remain unnoticed. Ask a dudebro whether the Uchiha Massacre (a genocide) was justified and they might just answer "yes".

Like you said, Sasuke fans are way more active contributors to the fandom. Itachi fans are more active consumers. What I and other Itachi fans perceive is that, usually, Itachi has more "casual" and "dudebro" fans, likely due to his characterization as a "hero" or "martyr" by the narrative. Sasuke, meanwhile, suffers under the stigma of being an antagonist with complex trauma responses. To understand and appreciate him, a lot of effort is required, actually.

At the very least, this is the explanation that makes sense in my mind. It is a fact that the sites most known for fandom activity (ie. Tumblr and Ao3) have more Sasuke content than Itachi content, even if the general public might hold different opinions.

Itachi's Popularity on TikTok

TikTok is actually what I personally consider to be a space for "dudebro" or "casual" fans. The videos I see there are primarily song edits, focusing on vibes and aesthetics. They are cool but they are not deep or particularly big additions to the fandom. This is perfect for dudebros and casuals who are not looking for complex, in-depth content (or maybe not even fandom content at all but just canon content). Same dudebros and casuals who have a hard time getting to like Sasuke.

While this is just a hypothesis of mine, Itachi's popularity on TikTok might also be the result of "market saturation". Two types of market saturation, actually.

First, there is actually a great supply of Sasuke content already thanks to the manga and anime alone. In the case of Itachi, the manga ended 10 years ago. The anime 7 years ago. There has barely been any official content, hence the desperation for fan-created content.

And second, while I cannot confirm with 100% certainty (because TikTok's search feature sucks and always hides posts from me), Itachi content might go viral more often than Sasuke content, but Sasuke content might still get uploaded with greater frequency. Hence the #sasuke tag has 6.2M posts and the #itachi tag has 3.7M posts.

While this might also instead just be the result of Sasuke offering more source material to make edits with, the unequal amount of Itachi vs Sasuke content might create a certain "exclusivity". This might pile Itachi fans on just a few TikToks rather than spreading them out over multiple posts, causing disproportional view numbers.

There's a similar phenomenon on Ao3. Fandom content there does not rely on canon material for its generation. Its frequency mostly relies on popularity, not source material. Yet, the amount of Sasuke-centric fanfics stands in a 3:1 ratio with Itachi-centric fics.

However, the first couple of Itachi-centric fanfics still have more kudos than the Sasuke-centric ones. But that only applies to the first couple of fanfics. The obvious explanation here is that Itachi fanfics are scarce, hence fans don't get to be choosy (the other explanation is that people just really like crossover fanfics, because that's what the two most popular Itachi-centric fanfics happened to be, haha).

Itachi's Popularity on Twitter

It is absolutely true that the daily Sasuke account is older than the daily Itachi account. The claim that the daily Itachi account has only been around for a couple of months is incorrect, though, as it has been around since August 21st of last year. So more than a year, actually. Doesn't change that daily Sasuke has been active since March 2022 (2.5 years), but I felt like pointing it out.

Of course, follower counts might develop in either direction. Maybe the daily Itachi account will gain an additional 35k followers on top of its current 6k within the next 1.5 years. Regardless of which, I've actually got another source for comparison to offer, which is the daily Naruto account.

I looked at Sasuke and Itachi posts between August 1st and September 16th (today) and compared like counts. On average, Sasuke posts received 8488 likes, whereas Itachi posts received 5569.

Either way, the fact remains, namely that on Tumblr Sasuke content is more popular both in terms of consumption and contribution. And the disproportionate hate is what I am hoping to get rid of.

If not... blocking spree. I am no longer willing to deal with people who find that bullying and shit-talking is a fine behavior while also being hypocrites about it.

[shiningdesignersreflections]

Mercury: Sweet Doll

Designer's Reflection: Sweet Doll

Obtained: Pinnacle Battles 3

Rarity: SSR

Attribute: Pink/Sweet

Awakened Suit: Heart Stealer

Story - transcripts from Designer's Reflection

Chapter 1 - Telosma

Chapter 2 - Night Bloom

Chapter 3 - When a Flower Withers

Chapter 4 - Dance of Withering

Story - summarized

You meet a telosma flower, and it wants to tell you about its short life.

It grew on a tree in Mercury's Moonlight Garden, and it watched a lot of dinner parties that the CEO would hold. The flower didn't understand people's politics, but the events were still pretty to watch. One night, a girl showed up late to the dinner party. She was Lilith.

Mercury took an instant liking to her and spent the rest of the party with her. Not only that, but Lilith was a candidate for the queen of Ninir, and he wanted to help her get elected. The telosma flower had no clue why, but it liked Lilith and hoped she would be queen.

But one day, Lilith asked Mercury if he loved her. He said he was just helping her for his own reasons. Lilith declared that she would win the election without him. He found that amusing, since she needed him, and no one else had ever successfully bargained with him.

Still, Lilith walked out, and Mercury needed a new candidate to support. He chose a noble-born girl named Ciciti, who was beautiful but selfish, entitled, and nasty. She wanted to get rid of all the flowers in the garden and replace them with lilies. The telosma flower hated that, as all flowers were beautiful and lovely, not just the boring lilies.

Everything seemed to be going Ciciti's way: she was gaining popularity in the polls, and she was the star of Mercury's dinner parties every night.

About a week later, right at Ciciti's proudest moment, Mercury finally arrived to the dinner party... with Lilith! The two had made some sort of arrangement, and he was back to supporting her as queen. They danced together, all the while admitting to just using each other as political tools.

The telosma flower couldn't help but find the moment sweet and romantic. It threw itself off the tree and scattered its petals, making this moment extra special.

Connections

-There are other "object" narrators in Reflections: Yexiao's drawing comes to life and shares a memory in Spring Forest.

-On the first night of the dinner party, Lilith talks with a poet and is charmed by him. During the Puppet Encounter hell event, the doll Lilibet relives all of Lilith's journey through the other toys, and she talks with a poet toy - and subsequently steals his pen to steal his talent.

-Lilith has another Reflection, Telosma's Kiss, that relates her to the humbly beautiful flower. She begins her life as Lilith and tricks her way into the Glay family.

-In Pinnacle Battles 3, Nikki and friends find an illusion of Mercury dancing with a doll dressed exactly like Lilith. When he detects the "intruders," he sends thorny roses after them instead of telosmas.

-At the end of Voice of Desire, Lilith noticed Mercury and how he was the only one not charmed by her beauty. She made a point after winning the crown that she would do whatever it took to make him love her.

-In his Reflection for Daybreak Overture, Mercury (as a child) meets a nobleman in the countryside who gifted him a beautiful rose garden after his death. Now, Mercury owns two gardens: the Pigeon Rose Garden, and the Ninir Moonlight Garden

Fun Facts

-A telosma is native to the Indo-China region. It grows on trees, and it's a small flower that can range in color from a sunny yellow to a pure white.

-While this Reflection, and the whole game, is fantasy, Mercury is still 124 years old, and Lilith is 16 years old. The age gap is disturbingly huge... and it's worse when you remember the two were acting cutesy at the dinner party in the last chapter.

-Lilith worked alongside Nightbane to become queen, so she truly didn't need Mercury. And since he mentioned that no one had ever gotten him to negotiate before, and we see the two of them at the party, it's possible that Lilith found a way to get him to negotiate after Ciciti started taking over the garden.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

2024 Presidential Election by the numbers

1972 was the first presidential election following the peak of the civil rights movement which guaranteed black men and women the right to vote nationally, as well as the first after the ratification of the 26th amendment which guaranteed 18 year olds the right to vote. Many states still suppress black and young voters, but on paper the current overall makeup of eligible voters has been the same since 1972; ostensibly all American citizens over the age of 18 (whether or not they are registered, they are still considered eligible)

If you take a trend of voter eligibility since 1972, it has gone up an average of 8.3 million voters every election year as the overall population has grown. In 1972 there were 138.3 million eligible voters, and in 2020 there were 238.0 million. Putting all the values into a graph and plotting the line of best fit, we would expect around 244.1 million eligible voters this year.

The actual number of voters is never even close to full eligibility. Since 1972, it has fluctuated from 51.7% in 1996 to 66.6% in 2020. It has averaged 57.2%, and the line of best fit trend for 2024 predicts 62.5%, so let's call that 60%. I would expect 60% voter turnout this year; from 244 million voters, that leaves us with 146.4 million votes cast. Both of these numbers are, as expected, way down from the high water mark set by the extenuating circumstances of 2020 (158.5 million votes cast, 66.6% turnout)

Since 1972, the two major party candidates have earned an average of 95.5% of the vote (in other words, third party candidates have received an average of 4.5% nationally). This fluctuates wildly, with the median at 98.1% and the mode at 99.0%. Third party candidates do well (IE earn more than 5% of the vote) every third-ish cycle; 1980, 1992, 1996, 2016. RFK Jr. is consistently polling around 5% - 7% nationally, but he's been bleeding support since Kamala Harris entered the race in July. I couldn't tell whether his support will continue to dry up or plateau where it is, but the trend line says the Democrats and Republicans will win 96.3% of the vote in 2024 (96.9% if we ignored "elections georg" in 1992, where Ross Perot won nearly 20% nationally). 96.3% of 146.4 million votes cast, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will win ~141 million votes combined, ballpark ~70 million each.

Joe Biden won 81 million votes in 2020, and Donald trump won 75 million, the two highest vote totals ever, so again we would expect both parties to be way down this year. On average, the popular vote winner has received 48.3% of votes cast since 1972, and the loser 48.0%. Because Democrats have won 7 of the last 8 popular votes, it is very likely that Kamala Harris will outperform Donald Trump this year, but because it all comes down to the electoral college the numbers become pretty much meaningless. If you plot the percentage of votes won by the winners of the electoral college (IE, the winners of the presidency), then the trend suggests that the 2024 winner will receive 47.6% of the vote while the loser would receive 48.3%...

Ignoring this discrepancy, looking only at popular vote totals, this is about what we can expect this November, all else being equal:

Eligible voters: 244,071,189.8 Voter turnout: 146,446,713.9 (~60% of eligible) Kamala Harris: 70,731,830.8 (~48.3% of turnout) Donald Trump: 69,706,731.8 (~47.6% of turnout) Kennedy et al: 6,004,151.3 (~4.1% of turnout)

This may represent the average election on paper, but it seems unlikely in practice. While voter turnout has experienced larger drops than 6.6%, the popular vote has never dropped by over 10 million between cycles; while I don't expect anyone to break Biden's 81 million anytime soon, I don't think Harris will receive less than 75 million because the winners of the current election have always received more votes than the loser of the previous. That's not mathematically modeled, that's just a vibe, so don't take these numbers 100% seriously.

I'll try to model the electoral college sometime next week by looking at voter trends across the current swing states. Georgia flipped blue in 2020 after years of trending towards the center, but it probably won't continue on that leftward trajectory due to increased suppression of black voters in the Atlanta area following Republican losses in the Senate in 2020 and 2022.

[blockgamepirate]

So there’s another one of those cool Hermitcraft trivia posts circulating again which I kinda wanna reblog but also I’m feeling a little bit hesitant because some of the points seem maybe a little bit inaccurate or exaggerated? Like I’d like to fact check them first at least.

(Particularly what stuck out to me was the point about season two only happening because Joe did a coup, because that’s not how I understood that story the way Joe and Xisuma have told it? Or at least as far as I can remember... the impression I had was that Xisuma was mainly the person who took the initiative to keep the server going but Joe was one who broke the gridlock on whether or not they should add new members by just straight up inviting Cleo without asking the others.)

(So maybe a more accurate way to phrase it is that without Xisuma season 2 wouldn’t have happened, but without Joe, season 2 might not have had any new members. And at this point the only still currently active Hermits who were already on the server were X, Hypno and Joe, so the lineup could have turned out very differently, if the server had even survived past season 2.)

(I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure this is how I remember hearing it?)

But what actually annoyed me was this comment from someone (not OP, to be clear) in the notes:

(cut for discourse reasons)

#these people have been around for so long #compared to dsmp where its like new white guy who popped up in 2021 fully formed LMAO

(Don’t go looking for this please, and don’t harass this person, I’m just highlighting this because it’s an example of an attitude you see a lot. It’s not just this specific person who I don’t know at all and whose url I already forgot.)

So

1:

I don’t wanna start counting diversity points on each server like it’s a fucking game, but I DO wanna point out that the “white guy“ comment is pretty rich coming from a Hermitcraft fan.

Both servers have a white guy problem.

But at least with Dream SMP I can actually think of more than one creator who isn’t white, and it didn’t take them until season 2 to add a second female member...

(I know Hermitcraft is more of a private and closed group and they have extremely strict qualifications they demand from new members, plus every current member has veto power, so it’s much harder to add new Hermits than it is to add new DSMP members where it’s all decided by One Guy, but I think some frustration about this is still justified due to how big Hermitcraft is in the MCYT community.)

It’s also extremely annoying when apparently there was a whole thing where Hermit fans were insisting that Quackity is white during the sexyman polls?? Presumably just to excuse their shitty behaviour??? idek. (And I also heard on the other hand that there were some straight up racist comments made about Quackity as well. He literally cannot win, apparently.)

2:

What is this weird attitude towards new creators?? Yes, it’s cool that Hermitcraft has been around for over a decade and that the Hermits have all these cool histories in the community and even influenced the development of the game itself, but you can celebrate that without needing to put down new people, ffs.

I know it’s annoying when the new guys suddenly get more popular than your guys, but it happens, it’s the circle of YouTube. Please chill out. No need to be a hipster about it.

Besides, even if we don’t count people like Vikkstar who admittedly didn’t play on DSMP all that much, there were still people on the server who had long histories in the MCYT community:

Phil has been making Minecraft videos at least since 2012, when he started his first Hardcore Series, and holds the record for the longest running hardcore world to date. There’s a splash text in Minecraft referencing him (”Ph1lzA had a good run!”)

Techno started his channel in 2013 and was part of the Hypixel player council (or was it called the Elite Team back then? Not sure) since he was like 14 or 15, helping with testing and game design on many of the iconic Hypixel games before the server became the biggest Minecraft server in the world. He too has a splash text in the game (”Technoblade never dies!”)

BadBoyHalo has his own PVP server called MunchyMC which was launched in 2015 and before that he was part of the staff on a different PVP server.

Also while more recent, a whole bunch of DSMP members were also on SMP Live and SMP Earth back in 2019. In fact 2019 was when a lot of the DSMP members originally got their initial boost into popularity.

Honestly the only DSMP members who fit the description of “new white guy who popped up in 2021“ are like... probably Foolish and BoomerNA??

3:

I think you probably meant 2020 anyway, because that’s when Dream, George, Sapnap, Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo became popular. I assume so anyway because those are usually the white guys people actually seem to be talking about when they talk about DSMP white guys. (Obligatory note that Ranboo is in fact nonbinary though.)

tl;dr:

You can just hype up the Hermits and just not say anything about DSMP. That’s an option. Especially if you clearly don’t know that much about DSMP.

[narrativelysignificantturtleduck]

the dilf poll: voter voices

the votes are in, and hakoda has emerged victorious! but i've been paying attention to a far more important measure of public opinion: the tags!

Hakoda has 19 mentions in tags, winning in this category as well. lots of #hakodasweep, which is funny bc i specifically engineered this poll to prevent sweeps. inigo montoya you keep using that word etc. but i love the energy.

#I’m sorry but Hakoda is THE dilf of the avatar world#in the whole franchise#fuck it you could include every adult man on this list and they will not beat Hakoda (@louisloulouie) #hakoda is the biggest dilf of all time#he is the sexiest man alive in the atla universe#PERIOD#I literally made a PowerPoint about this#I have CITATIONS (@themoons-ex) (i would like to see that powerpoint) #hakoda dilf supremacy (@truthsinwhispers) #mister watertribe chief himself (@sunset-diamond)

In a shocking/delightful upset, Piandao comes in a close second at 18 mentions. I'm going to give credit here to @bisexuallsokka - most of the piandao tags came from people who reblogged from her, and he went from 13% to 14% on the last day, coincidentally right after she reblogged the poll for a second time. he was my pick, so i very much appreciate your efforts and enthusiasm.

#where are all the people who botted the twitter poll we need you now 😩😩😩#piandao stay with me stay with me (@bisexuallsokka) #come on guys piandao could get it (@fearthevest) #you fucks need to go all in on Piandao right the fuck now#sorry… got a little heated there#but Piandao… my beloved (@stalksships) #piandao is so fucking hot (@kieran-rules-zara-drools)

Iroh has 6 mentions, and since he was in second - and very close at points - there were some #irohsweep tags. again i refer to inigo montoya.

#iroh could get it (@capitola) #okie i know its been yearrrs since i watched atla but who this other guy and why is he beating Iroh#oh.... i still vote Iroh but akxhsj;; apologies sir (@cozy-fish-crow) (these made me laugh thank you for sharing)

Bato has 4 mentions, 2 of which are about how hard it is to choose between him, Hakoda, and Piandao. fitting, considering that they're all Sokka's dads. also, he and Hakoda combined got exactly 50% of the vote. bakoda rights!

#BATO IS BEING SLEPT ON!!!!!!! (@matthew-mcjohncenahey) #bato my beloved (@unliikelylovers)

Ozai has 3 mentions, 2 of which are about how he shouldn't get votes. he is the only contestant to receive negative feedback, as he deserves.

#not ozai getting votes while arnook and tyro flounder in obscurity (@minimum-anenome) #who the fuck is voting ozai#i'm concerned about you (@forestberryteaplease)

(two more mentions have come in since the poll closed, but they don't count. you had your chance!)

Arnook and Tyro each have 2 mentions, all relating to them not getting votes.

#arnook having zero votes is crazy im sorry baby (@bisexuallsokka) #lmao RIP tyro tho (@lizardlicks)

The Mechanist managed to get 1% on the poll itself, but has no mentions in the tags. I suspect it's because he wasn't losing hard enough to merit comment (like Arnook and Tyro), but wasn't popular enough to have dedicated fans cheering for victory.

Bonus:

#d..does jee not appear more than once#I thought.. he did#nauuurrrrr jeeeeeee 😭 u were in my heart first but alas ill pick..#piandao why not (@gloomybirdie)

Jee is on the borderline, in the sense that I think people often write him as a father figure for Zuko in fics. It's a pretty logical extrapolation from him learning Zuko's backstory in canon, but it's not actually canon so I don't think he'd qualify. I'm also not sure he meets the two-episode criteria - he was probably in the background but I only really remember him in "The Storm".

I also definitely remember someone mentioning Chit Sang but they seem to have deleted their tag. Was it because I posted about how not all older men count? I meant it to be kind of jokingly serious, Committing To The Bit, but that's hard to convey online. I'm not actually offended, and lord knows I have no room to judge when it comes to liking minor characters. Plus Chit Sang probably DID co-parent teo & haru & the duke when he and hakoda escaped so it's also a borderline case.

thank you all for voting and sharing your opinions! this has been fun :)

[ingo-ingoing-ingone]

There are however a few japanese artists that sometimes draw them in military outfits. But that is more an aesthetic thing I think.

Fun fact: Submas has always been insanely popular by the japanese fans. (some are more of the nasty side of the coin however) And I do think that part of because of their popularity in Japan Ingo was chosen to be in PLA (his popularity and the fact that his japanese name Nobori basically means to ascent, so you could assume since he is introduced for the Highland part of the story and his Noble/Ride Pokemon is there to ascent cliffs it was also for a pun.)

(another note on their popularity in Japan: Ingo and Emmet were among the highest ranked popular characters back when BW came out in Japan. With Ingo always being more popular than his twin brother Emmet. Something that has since become somewhat of a joke and meme in the fandom that Emmet can't seem to win when put up in a poll against his brother)

Yup yup all this is true! (there are unfortunate people in every region of the fandom though, I want to specify)

I loved learning all this lore lol, and interacting with the Japanese submas fans who are moreso on twitter than tumblr! We might rely on simple wording and the built in translate feature there, but it's always nice when you can compliment someone's cosplay and they compliment yours from across the world! XD

[alicewoodward]

So @awigglycultist has been running a StarCanWrecked sexyman poll (and they’re doing great at it, you should go vote in the polls if you haven’t yet but maybe read this first). But looking at the way that things have shaken up, it does not seem like some of you know what a tumblr sexyman is. That or you’re just voting based on who you like most, but I can’t do anything for that, so we will pretend that the votes have just happened the way they have bcs people don’t know what a sexyman is

So let’s talk about it

A tumblr sexyman is traditionally defined as a highly popular (pretty much exclusively male) character in tumblr communities. This often means they are popular to the point of recognition beyond the fandom they originated from, but we’re going to ignore that bit since this is for starcanwrecked stuff specifically. Some sexymen you may recognize are Bill Cipher, Nagito Komaeda, Wheatley from Portal, Sans Undertale, the Onceler, Purple Guy, and Loki

But there are common traits to a sexyman. Let’s walk through them

Sexymen are often morally gray to evil. The closest to a heroic sexyman there have been to my knowledge is Sans and Reigen. idk anything about Mob Psycho, but with Sans, he still falls within the label bcs he is a potential antagonist

Regardless of specific morality, they have a trickster type role. They mess with others, often using their knowledge and power that others don’t have for that purpose. An aura of mystery is also acceptable, but the trickster archetype is much more likely to gain popularity as a sexyman

They are often not human. I saw someone arguing against Ezekiel bcs he isn’t a human, but tbh that should have been a point in his favor. Characters like Bill Cipher and Wheatley are visibly nonhuman, and people would go nuts making humanized versions of them. It was part of the whole community there

They are well dressed. They’re often dresses in suits and bowties are preferred. With the last point about them giving human versions, they almost always are humanized as wearing a suit and tie

Now this is the part people don’t like the be reminded of. But part of the reason the tumblr sexyman term exists is addressing how fandoms have a tendency to favor tall, white, skinny, men over any other type of character. There are some exceptions to this, like Komaeda, but people are quick to forget lightskinned anime characters are Asian. The nonhuman ones are always humanized as skinny white guys. When Alex Hirsch joked human!Bill would be big and triangle shaped, people lost their minds bcs he wouldn’t be skinny. You know why GLaDOS was never given the sexyman treatment the way Wheatley was? She’s a woman. You know why Dr. Facilier never rose to that status despite fitting every other trait I’ve mentioned? He’s a Black man, and fandom racism always wins out. It’s not impossible for someone that isn’t a skinny white guy to be a sexyman, but it sure is rare

Anyway, that’s about the gist of it. The conclusion here is that Ezekiel, Wiley, or one of the Lords in Black should probably win this just based on the traditional tumblr sexyman recipe. But hopefully this brief tumblr history lesson will help people make more informed votes

[takeonmetakemeon]

I saw an earlier version of this headline. By the time I was able to chew it over some wise person had changed it and removed the DEI slur.

It remains his first point in the column, an insult he considers to be undeniable.

I was impressed by the fact that someone could write those words and publish them without fear that their reputation would be ruined.

That reminded me of 2006 and the end of the Republican Party.

I was one of the people in 2006 who though that the Grand Old Party was finished. Or rather I was rooting for it to die. The financial irresponsibility, the war crimes, the death of privacy, the hypocrisy and false morality: all of it needed to end. Obviously it didn't. So now as I survey the American political landscape I have to discount my perceptions of its future. But I have begun to think I wasn't wrong.

It prompts me to remember 1994. What a political year that was. Its momentousness has been completely forgotten. We take it for a given that Republicans can win the House in any given election, but in my lifetime the opposite was true. I took it for a given that they couldn't.

The Democratic Party's stranglehold on the US House of Representatives from 1957-1995 was historic and yet is forgotten. In 1994, Democrats' life motto "all politics is local" had put a Democrat in the House Speaker's chair after every election for more than a decade before I was born. It was all I had ever known. It was all my older siblings had ever known. It seemed to be all anyone had ever known.

Naturally, not everyone was intimidated by their decades of control. I will never forget the co-worker at my college janitor job who told me that people get tired of parties and vote for one for a while and then the other. A few years later his words rang in my ears almost like prophecy. The idea that people tire of parties became a foundational part of my worldview, one that helps predict political outcomes in any nation.

In retrospect, the Republican takeover of the House looks expected. One of those inevitable things. The Contract With America is a historical footnote, not the key to creating a political transformation years before it had to happen.

If they happen to think about it at all, I suppose the Contract With America is in most people's minds a simple list of promises, an abbreviated version of a party platform, perhaps a piece of political propaganda. Seeing the UK's Reform Party borrow its language in its Contract With the People creates that impression.

It was not that. It was a list of ten proposals that had been poll-tested and polished. It was the agenda Americans wanted that Democrats would not pass or could not pass. It was the distillation of pent-up political desire. In the same year when Republicans took advantage of middle class fears of disruption to their personal health care to stoke the fires of change, Newt Gingrich sealed the deal by promising to not just stop Democrats but also accomplish all the impossible things the middle class had wished for.

Change was inevitable. But not that much. Not that fast.

Both parties seem to have forgotten the lessons of that year.

Twelve years later, Republicans had nothing left to offer. They had no proposals Americans wanted. Except tax cuts.

And they had nothing in 2008. Or 2010. Or 2012. Or 2014. Or 2016. Or any year since.

Except, of course, tax cuts.

Instead of reinventing themselves or tacking to the center, they have shot themselves in the foot over and over by elevating their fringe and boisterously, passionately handing seats to Democrats.

They have defied political gravity partly by marketing themselves as the party that will stop Democrats. It is half a strategy. They are a brake, not a steering wheel.

It has been 18 years since they exhausted their list of popular proposals and eagerly reached into their bin of unpopular wishes. In that time they have found nothing new. It has been 30 years since they could claim to represent the forgotten, but they keep doing it. In their minds, every year is 1994.

The Republican Party did not die a political death in 2006 as I had hoped, but it did die ideologically. Eighteen years of intellectual CPR have not revived it.

This is why I disagree with everyone that the nomination and election of Donald Trump changed the Republican Party. He did not change Republicans, he spoke for them, just as they told us he did. What he spoke was all the party had. That is precisely why he spoke it.

If he is defeated in November and any attempts to incite violence are thwarted, as I expect will happen, he will also have had little lasting effect on American history. All that he changed was the media's perception of who his party represented.

To hear pundits tell it, as long as Trump is at the helm, the party does not represent white men in suits. But as soon as he is gone, it will once more.

That is balderdash.

The conservative white men in suits lost, but they did not lose to Trump. They lost to their party. They are not the standard bearers they believed themselves to be. They are not the thought leaders they were certain they were. They are nothing more than ornaments. And that realization stings.

They soothe themselves by embracing along with self-deluded Democrats the claim that Republicans have become some kind of cult, as if Donald Trump was saying something previously unpopular with rank and file members of the party. As if the party's sudden rejection of their own ideas was a a rabbit pulled from populist magician's hat and not the fall of the curtain that had concealed the ideological wires creating the party's seeming defiance of gravity.

Now we are in 2024, when conservative white men in suits are calling Vice President Harris, a former Senator, former Attorney General, former District Attorney and former prosecutor a DEI candidate who did not earn her position.

One found it possible to call one of the most stirring political speeches since 2008 "weird," in a childish "I know you are but what am I" response to Democrats' most effective (and by the way accurate) attack line. While claiming without fear of losing his reputation that a speech with concrete policy proposals aimed squarely at *conservatives like him* was devoid of substance.

Because Republicans have nothing else. Because it isn't Trump who is intellectually bankrupt. Because if he could have won the Republican nomination with popular proposals that Democrats actually oppose he would have.

It is Donald Trump who is held captive by his party, not the other way around.

And unless that changes, one way or another, one year or another, they will all go down together.

And the long-postponed end of a party that even after years of improbable defeats cannot agree on anything except racism, misogyny and tax cuts will arrive.

Someone will have to offer popular proposals Democrats oppose. But it won't be the party that's doubled down on the racism and misogyny that's crippled them.

If conservative Californians can create an alternative party that can beat Democrats in the state where Republicans first became irrelevant, then they will be the state that leads the nation as they claim.

Change is in the air. It hasn't felt like this since 1994 when a party that had years before exhausted its popular proposals was finally thrown out.

Despite the statistical tie in the polls, I predict a Democratic trifecta in November. But we will see.

[qqueenofhades]

The 2025 project seems to reflect that the Republican Party is becoming more and more fascism, but it actually reflects the growing number of extreme nationalists, misogynists, and racists among ordinary Americans. US is a democracy, and politicians rely on votes to stay in power. The fact that the Republicans dare to draft such a project shows that they are confident it will gain significant public support. Politicians aren’t fools; they wouldn’t pursue something that only a small group agrees with while the majority opposes it. The global rightward shift is evident, and though I’m not American, my country is also deteriorating in many ways. Why is this happening? Because the economic base determines the superstructure?and in recent years, the global economy has been in decline?

Mmmm, I'm gonna have to challenge you here.

First of all, it's just flatly not true that there's a "growing number of extreme nationalists, misogynists, and racists among ordinary Americans." That movement has become more vocal and visible in post-2016 America, but there's absolutely no evidence -- and indeed, a lot of evidence to the contrary -- that their numbers are growing instead of shrinking. The Republicans got lucky with Trump's win in 2016 thanks to a combination of decades of anti-Hillary smears, extensive Russian interference/psyops, the anti-democratic Electoral College, and general misplaced complacence that he was never going to win and people didn't need to bother voting for two disliked candidates. They've flatly lost every competitive nationwide election since then -- 2018, 2020, 2022, and very probably 2024. In between, their hand-picked Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade (guaranteeing the right to an abortion in all 50 states) and set off a titanic tidal wave of voter support for abortion rights, even in very dark red states like Kansas and Kentucky (which are not liberal by any stretch of the word). In fact, the Republicans' (flatly false) excuse that they just wanted to "return [abortion rights to the states]" has been unveiled as another lie due to their desperate attempts in this election cycle to ratfuck voter-approved abortion questions off the ballot in Arkansas, Missouri, Florida, and elsewhere. This is a badly losing issue for them, even in deep red states, and they don't want people to vote on it, because they hate democracy. We'll get to that.

Likewise, polls of "culture war" issues like LGBTQ+ rights, abortion rights, immigrants' rights, etc., consistently get much more support among ordinary Americans than not. The ordinary public is becoming more liberal, not less, even in the face of constant aggressive and reactionary attempts to undo the sum total of social and civil rights movements from the 20th century. Republicans' views are getting less popular, not more, and this is also driven by the ongoing demographic change in America. Within a generation or two, whites may be in the statistical minority, and that deeply terrifies people whose entire political and social identity is built on ethnostate white supremacism. The reason Republicans are getting so extreme and antidemocratic now is because the electorate is getting younger and younger, more diverse, more accepting, and less tolerant of their age-old bullshit. As such, there is a very visible window of time outside which the Republicans will not be able to win competitive nationwide elections, even despite all the advantages they're building into the system and have always had. That terrifies them. It is also why they have decided to destroy democracy.

Which leads us into your next assertion that "US is a democracy, and politicians rely on votes to stay in power. The fact that the Republicans dare to draft such a project shows that they are confident it will gain significant public support. Politicians aren’t fools; they wouldn’t pursue something that only a small group agrees with while the majority opposes it." Yes, maybe, in some exceedingly generic logic that doesn't take any account of the actual situation in the US and the fact that the Republicans have made their hatred for democratic free and fair elections very, very clear. This is why Trump pushed the "election fraud" Big Lie in 2020 and sent a mob to attack the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the certification of Biden's win. This is why states controlled by Republicans have frantically enacted as many voter suppression and voter-removal laws as possible and conducted constant purges to get voters (especially the mysteriously missing 1 million Democrats in Florida) off the rolls. This is why they talk approvingly about Trump being "a dictator on day one." This is why they have pursued a decades-long strategy to capture the federal judiciary (by installing extreme right-wing hacks to the bench and then funneling extreme-right legislation into their courts to get a favorable ruling and/or send it to the extreme-right Supreme Court). And on, and on, and on. The Republicans are explicitly aware that their ideas cannot win in a free and fair election, because their ideas are terrible, and as such have been taking massive, ongoing, and coordinated efforts to disenfranchise American voters, expose them to lakes of sordid Russian propaganda/psyops in favor of Trump, double down on the xenophobia and white nationalism to stoke Fear Of The Other, and everything else they possibly can to prevent voters from voting for their opponents. They hate democracy and they are not counting on democratic methods to implement Project 2025. They intend to do it by secretive oligarch methods funded by right-wing billionaire dark money and their Russian friends. That's the whole point.

Indeed, you can see that in the fact that as soon as Project 2025 became widely known and therefore widely hated, the Republicans were thrown into a panicked fluster of disavowing it and insisting that Trump didn't actually know about it (which is a lie, but that's all the day). Because it is electoral kryptonite, they are trying every single method they can to lie to voters long enough to get into power and do it anyway. Authoritarians can often come to power through democratic elections, but once there, they do their utmost to degrade, erode, or otherwise destroy the institutional safeguards that prevent them from keeping power forever. Trump is a literally textbook example of this and he has made his intentions very clear. He flat-out told a group of Republicans at an event earlier this year that "we'll fix it so you won't have to vote again." He already tried a coup and somehow the Republicans nominated him again, because of the deep corruption of the party on every level, but the Republicans are not doing Project 2025 because they think it will organically generate popular support (and they know it doesn't.) It's a blueprint for a tiny group of extreme right-wing theocrats and fascists to get their way regardless of what the broader public says about it, and represents the culmination of decades of far-right power-play strategies related to exploiting economic, racial, social, and cultural grievances. They're doing this now in order to lock in their power before long-term demographic changes make it impossible for them to win another democratic American election. So their solution is to get rid of democratic American elections, the end. This is explicitly a project for permanent minority rule. They know that and that's what's driving their strategic choices here.

As such, essentially saying that the Republicans aren't really fascist, and/or the real problem and/or are just giving an increasingly fascist American population what they want, removes any moral responsibility for their deliberate choices and legitimizes the populist claim to be acting "for the people" instead of a corrupt institutional system. Everyone knows the many, MANY problems with American politics and government; we don't need to go through them again. But even if they were "just giving the people what they want," which as noted above they're not, it still wouldn't make it okay or defensible. To use the obvious example, just because Hitler was popular and democratically elected in 1933 doesn't make what he did right, and the social forces that propelled him to power weren't just a passive "reflection" of The People's Will but were shaped by the larger fascist-curious interwar 1930s. In fact, America also had a burgeoning fascist movement in the 1930s, driven by WWI and Great Depression fallout, but Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal explicitly created extensive government mechanisms to support society, provide new jobs and welfare, and other integrative and restorative economic methods. This crucial difference in approaches -- the New Deal vs. the Nazis -- is why America remained democratic despite the challenges and Germany fell into autocratic genocidal fascism.

This is because populism and dissatisfaction with democracy rises when people feel that the government is not listening to them, is not responsive to their needs, is ignoring them, or otherwise not doing what they want. It is driven by multiple factors, primarily but not only economic, and it is stoked by powerful interest groups who have a vested interest in using the fissures to discredit democratic governments and movements. It is also by no means limited to America, as you note at the end. Think of the decades-long campaign by the British media against the EU, driven by British isolationism and exceptionalism and a sense that the petty bureaucrats in Brussels had no right to be telling the almighty British Empire what to do. This created and stoked existing social grievances which were often domestically caused (since as Margaret Thatcher destroying the British social-welfare state in the 1980s) and turned that grievance against an external opponent who was easier to blame. As such, as we know, it led to the country voting for Brexit in 2016 despite what a whopping, overwhelming, incredible own goal that was and continues to be for the UK, especially economically and socially. It was obviously dependent on many contextual factors from British history, politics, and culture, and there were certainly many people who actually thought it was the right thing to do (and not just about racism, which uh, hmmm), but it's very difficult to think that this organically or naturally came about without a direct and extensive popular-pressure campaign designed to do just that.

People often vote against their own interests because they have been convinced that democracy is corrupt or ineffective or "just as bad" as authoritarianism, which allows illiberal populists to rise to power. These populists often use racial, religious, or cultural grievances, especially against perceived "outsiders," to artificially stoke existing prejudice and justify crackdowns and/or consolidations of their own personal power and destruction of institutional systems and safeguards meant to stop them from doing that. That's how we got Erdogan in Turkey, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary, and Trump in the US. Other authoritarian movements around the world are also driven implicitly or explicitly by the massive autocratic and antidemocratic global influence disinformation machine headed by Putin in Russia. As such, it's not accurate to insist that this just represents a simple passive "rightward shift" among the global population overall. It is happening because it has been designed and manipulated and pressed into happening. It can still be electorally resisted, which is also the most effective strategy for removing authoritarians, but if we fail to vote out Trump once and for all in 2024, it will be MUCH harder and much more deadly.

Overall, to simplistically claim that the Republican party is just giving the increasingly fascist Americans what they want and expect it to derive broad popular support is, as I have demonstrated above, a diametrically backward conception of the problem. The Republicans are deliberately and increasingly fascist because they realize that very soon, if allowed to continue operating in its accustomed fashion, the American democratic system and American public opinion is going to make them obsolete. They're racing the clock to cement permanent super-minority rule, and to change the rules overall, before America's shifting demographic composition and ideological mindset locks them out. That is why they are throwing so much misinformation, fearmongering, lies, Russian propaganda, and everything else that they can think of at this election, to get Trump and loyal Project 2025 footsoldier Vance into the door before the door slams shut for a long time. That is why this election is so fucking existentially important and why it is so crucial to accurately conceptualize and describe the problem, what it is, and how to respond to it. As such, while I otherwise don't do this much anymore because I no longer have the desire to argue with the people who are likewise brainwashed in the opposite direction and insist it's a Pure Leftist Moral Duty not to vote against fascist authoritarianism (as, uh, also happened with the fragmented and infighting German left-wing opposition in 1932 and good thing nothing bad happened next):

The end.

[starlight-time-machine]

Week in Review

04/14/2024 – 04/20/2024

Sunday

Week 10 of missing Cipher Academy

Woah, another new character in Girl Meets Rock…I’m a little trepidatious but let’s see how it goes… Always appreciate more Machiavellian Rin, though.

I didn’t have a lot of time for manga today, but I read the new Unluck Undead chapter because I wanted to see the popularity poll results. Like a lot of fans, I was surprised to see Tatiana up so high, but I’m soooo happy to see Feng at third. Then the chapter itself went and reminded me that oh yeah he’s kind of a complete asshole at times… But it seems like Nico giving him a talking to was enough to change his mindset a little. I’m excited to see how this tag team shiritori match goes, especially with Feng already being able to target the pieces of Language’s soul embedded in her creations. (Also how did he braid his hair so fast…I really would’ve liked to just see ponytail Feng or hair down Feng…)

Monday

Oshi no Ko fine. Sometimes the insertion of comedy to soften dramatic blows gets a little grating.

Dandandan good, this mangaka’s creature designs are always some of my favorites, and this one is no exception. It seems like we’re going through the regular cycle of a kid being overtaken by supernatural powers before incorporating those powers into their own fighting style and joining the team, though, and I’m really hoping this is the last. I don’t know how much more I can take before Dandadan feels like it’s really just spinning its wheels.

Magilumiere fine. It appears we’ve been flung into the endgame all of a sudden.

Chainsaw Man fine. We got some fun banter between Quanxi and the others, at least.

Watched through the rest of the Glow Up season and it was generally uneventful (I skipped the Metaverse episode because LMAOOOO fuck that dumb shit). The drag episode was my favourite, as it felt like they were having a lot of fun being self-referential and irreverent (bringing back the model from the infamous I Like To Watch video was an inspired choice). Roo’s look for Cheddar was really breathtaking, too. Other than that, I’m just glad that the person I was rooting for won.

Finally continued my Undead Unluck reread and it’s so good… The best part about Loop 101 for me is how every arc feels like a completely different genre. Fuuko and Void’s boxing match was so hype, Fuuko defeating Sean and his switchblade with ease was such a nice full circle moment, the Buroja War arc was fantastic in terms of character development across the board (gay of Billy to find Tella by the scent of his conditioner though), and the Phil arc was fun, but I mostly loved it for all the Sean/Gina moments it provided.

Tuesday

Agh

Wednesday

Aghhhhhh

Thursday

I can’t believe I missed DunMesh Thursday but I was truly knocked out after rushing work once again. But I did have time to read the latest chapter of Yuria-sensei no Akai Ito – it seems like learning about her dad’s affair and coming to understand her sister’s perspective is what’s going to push Yuria to chase her own wants, which I think she rightfully deserves at this point.

Friday

I’m not gonna lie I got some insanely bad news today so I’ve just been lying in bed depressed out of my mind

Saturday

Undead Unluck reread made me feel better…especially since the Tenraisai arc is so fun and funny. The exploration of the familial bond between Feng and Shen is so cute and touching…and that being the crux to Shen winning their bout was absolutely perfect. One thought I did have while rereading was realizing how…Feng has kind of overtaken Shen as my favourite character… 101 Shen just doesn’t have the tragedy-tinged unhinged energy of 100 Shen that I loved so much, and meanwhile Feng has just grown more and more likeable while still being a battle freak… And he’s even funnier in the subsequent high school arc, which was super wholesome and fun as a whole. (But wow, Chikara’s parents deciding to time travel with Chikara at the end kind of fucked me up, because for all their relatives know, they just disappeared for 16 years…). I decided to stop reading here since I’m pretty much caught up, and I’ve just fallen more in love with Undead Unluck now that I can actually remember more than 50% of the plot. At this point I might raise its score from a 9 to a 10 (I had docked it points for being so heterosexual and having so many fridged relatives, but now I’m just enamoured by the story’s heart and compassion), but I’ll save that thought for when the series ends.

DunMesh Saturday…with a side of spicy ramen and cheese rice cakes to soothe my depressed soul…it was a fun episode…seeing the groups collide and the new social dynamics forming was fun…the first next episode should be fun too…

[arpov-blog-blog]

..."One year from now, President Joe Biden will either be a victorious first-term president preparing for his second and final four years in office, or a defeated one-termer presiding over a transition for a man who tried to prevent him from taking office four years earlier and spent the last four years undermining him and denying his very legitimacy, all with the aim of reshaping the American government into an instrument of personal revenge.

At the moment, it’s not clear at all which of those outcomes will come to pass. But with the days until next year’s general election passing with what seems to be increasing speed each month, Mr Biden’s team appears confident in their plan to win the coming rematch which their putative opponent — former president Donald Trump — has called “the final battle” for the country itself.

And despite the more than 90 felony charges he faces as he runs to be the first ex-president to reclaim the White House since Grover Cleveland accomplished that unprecedented feat more than a century ago, the team behind Mr Trump has reason to smile as the year comes to a close.

With a GOP structural advantage in the US electoral college that essentially forces any Democratic presidential candidate to overperform in terms of turnout and a popular vote advantage if he or she harbours any hope of winning the presidency, one might think Mr Biden’s inner circle would be alarmed, particularly given Mr Trump’s designs on using the executive branch as a cudgel against his real or perceived enemies — and their families.

But Mr Biden’s camp isn’t wringing their hands just yet.

In public, the president’s most visible lieutenants have made a point to avoid invoking this year’s election or crossing the line into partisan politics, lest they run afoul of a New Deal-era law known as the Hatch Act.

But in private conversations with The Independent and in publicly released documents, both the Biden White House and the Biden re-election campaign are confident that next year will bring a reversal of fortune in the 46th president’s poll results, particularly since it is almost certain that Mr Trump, the man who Mr Biden bested nearly four years ago, will once again be his opponent next November.

“There are deep fears about our freedoms being eroded and our democracy being dismantled – election denialism, efforts to undermine our country’s democratic institutions, and forces that aim to restrict the right to vote itself. All at the direction of Donald Trump, who remains a real and credible threat to our democracy,” she writes, adding later that Americans “should expect to hear more from President Biden, Vice President Harris, and our campaign drawing this important and sharp contrast – but also about how this fundamental difference between the candidates impacts our future”.

And in a conference call with reporters held on Tuesday, the Biden-Harris campaign manager made even more clear that the president’s brain trust believes this year’s campaign will be “about protecting our democracy and every American's fundamental freedoms” rather than a contest “between competing philosophies of governing”.

“When Joe Biden ran for president four years ago, he said we are in the battle for the soul of America. And as we look towards November 2024, we still are,” she said. “The threat Donald Trump posed in 2020 to American democracy has only grown more dire”.

Another top Biden campaign aide, deputy campaign manager Quinton Fulks, told reporters that Mr Biden will use upcoming appearances this month — including one on the anniversary of the January 6 attack on the Capitol — to highlight the threat posed by Mr Trump and hammer home how the defeated former president has become yet more dangerous as a challenger to the sitting president."

[mariacallous]

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), has a realistic chance of defeating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the upcoming presidential election on May 14. Erdogan’s slow response to the devastating earthquake in February has undermined popular support for him.

The most recent poll by ORC on April 12 puts Kilicdaroglu ahead with close to 49 percent support, and Erdogan getting just 41.5 percent. The average of nine different polls puts Kilicdaroglu ahead with 48.3 percent against 43.8 percent for Erdogan and 5.5 percent for third party candidate Muharrem Ince. In that case, Kilicdaroglu and Erdogan would face off in a second round, since a candidate must receive more than 50 percent of the votes to get elected.

A second round could be dangerous for the challenger, who will need support from every corner—especially from Turkey’s poor and working-class voters. But Kilicdaroglu seems to believe he must cater to the right on economic issues to win, while at the same time appearing to challenge Turkish nationalism, a combination that could put him on the path to defeat.

Kilicdaroglu has so far succeeded in assembling a coalition of secularists, Islamic conservatives, and Turkish nationalists. He has also secured the endorsement of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). That is a unique achievement, which bespeaks the widespread discontent with Erdogan across a wide variety of constituencies that otherwise have little, if anything, in common.

But Kilicdaroglu is facing mounting difficulties in his attempts to reconcile the conflicting interests and demands of the disparate forces that have rallied in support of him. While his Turkish nationalist ally, the far-right Good (Iyi) Party, refuses to consider even talking with the HDP, the HDP expects that Kilicdaroglu, if he wins, will embark on talks with them on building a new republic.

The outcome of Turkey’s presidential election will be decided by three key constituencies: Turkish nationalists, Kurds, and the working class, with the latter partly overlapping with the other two. Broadly defined, including some white-collar workers, the working class represents 70 percent of the workforce. Historically, the working class in Turkey has rallied to conservative parties, and the Justice and Development Party (AKP)— Erdogan’s party—has been no exception. This is mainly because the working class has been shaped by the conservative values of its rural origins, and the right has won these voters over by championing their religious culture.

Although he is still leading in the polls, Kilicdaroglu will nonetheless be at a disadvantage against Erdogan in a second round, as he in fact can only be certain of the full support of one of these three constituencies: the Kurds.

Kilicdaroglu faces two obstacles that he will have to address in order to win: the issue of nationalism and the perception, notwithstanding present deep economic troubles, that Erdogan—given his overall record over the past two decades—can fix problems and attend to the needs of the socially disadvantaged. In the first case, Kilicdaroglu must succeed in striking the right balance between Turkish and Kurdish nationalism, offering freedom to Kurds without appearing to be endangering national unity—a near-impossibility. In the second case, he needs to convey a message of social change that sways the working class, a majority of which Erdogan still carries, and to whose plight Kilicdaroglu has so far paid insufficient attention.

Winning over the Kurds has exposed Kilicdaroglu to criticisms from Turkish nationalists, which could prove fatal for his chances. Erdogan supporters in Turkish media are cultivating the image of Kilicdaroglu as being in cahoots with Kurdish separatists, claiming that he would sell out national security interests and do the bidding of the United States, the alleged patron of the opposition. Statements in the Turkish press by leading representatives of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Kurdish political movement in Turkey have done nothing to improve Kilicdaroglu’s standing among Turkish nationalists.

Ahmet Turk of the HDP stated that imprisoned party leader Abdullah “Ocalan will be freed the day after the election” while Murat Karayilan of the PKK announced (quoted in Sabah among other media) that “ on May 14 not only a president but a system will be chosen.” HDP representative Sirri Sakik said “we are going to change this one hundred year old republic.”

Kilicdaroglu, who in 2021 stated that his party will oppose all cross-border military interventions in Syria and Iraq (which have been undertaken against the PKK and its affiliates) in the future, must dispel the suspicion that he would show leniency toward the PKK. To do that, he needs to state unequivocally that he expects the U.S. government to cease its support for the PKK-linked Kurdish militants in Syria and that Turkey will not hesitate to take action in order to protect its national security interests.

Meanwhile, Kilicdaroglu should reiterate his earlier vow that Selahattin Demirtas, the former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish HDP, will be freed, and pledge to free other elected representatives of the HDP as well. His message must be that democratic reform at home will be coupled with a firm commitment to the preservation of national security interests, and that the PKK statelet in Syria will not be tolerated.

More importantly, Kilicdaroglu must take aim at neoliberal capitalism. The CHP is officially a social democratic party, but it has—like many European social democratic parties—changed its class composition as it has become an exclusive party for the middle and upper middle classes and moved to the right on economic issues. This mirrors the transformations of British, French, and Scandinavian social democrats. But the CHP’s estrangement from the working class also has  to do with the cultural gap that separates its secular middle-class base from the religiously conservative working class.

To win, Kilicdaroglu must remind working-class voters that Erdogan’s party has catered to the business class, ensuring, among other things, that wages are low, as trade union activities have been strictly curtailed. According to official statistics, approximately 14 percent of the workforce is unionized, a drastic drop from 58 percent when the AKP came to power. But the real number is likely even lower, around 10 percent—when informal employment is taken into consideration—and strikes are regularly banned.

As a result, social and economic inequality has increased dramatically during the Erdogan era. According to the 2022 Word Inequality Report, by the Paris-based World Inequality Lab, the richest 10 percent of Turkey’s population earn 23 times more income than the bottom 50 percent.

The report also reveals that although Turkey’s national wealth has more than doubled in the last 25 years, wealth inequality has increased during the AKP’s two decades in power, with the bottom 50 percent possessing only 4 percent of national wealth, 40 percent in the middle owning 29 percent and the wealthy 10 percent owning 67 percent of the national wealth. But Erdogan’s party has still retained the loyalty of the exploited lower classes by providing cheap housing and basic health care, and by appealing to their religious conservatism.

While Kilicdaroglu has embraced religious conservatives and reassured them that the historically secularist CHP has no issue with Islam, he has not taken the next step of reconciling his party with the working class.

Kilicdaroglu has stated that “savage capitalism” and neoliberalism have wreaked havoc on the planet and said he would join forces with activists and politicians around the world—such as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders—dedicated to a more equitable distribution of wealth and incomes. However, partly in order to keep his right-wing dominated opposition alliance together, Kilicdaroglu has refrained from pushing for economic redistribution and for the restoration of labor rights. But in an election that has for all intents and purposes been reduced to a choice between two versions of the same right wing, Kilicdaroglu will have difficulty convincing voters, notably the working class, that his leadership will truly make a difference.

Although there is broad agreement among the opposition—from Islamic conservatives to socialists and communists—that the priority is to rid Turkey of Erdogan, it should also be clear that this alone is not going to be enough to ensure the defeat of authoritarianism. Indeed, Kilicdaroglu’s main shortcoming is his unwillingness to recognize this and to confront the crippling political legacy of right-wing rule that has condemned Turkey to some version or another of authoritarianism for the last century.

Instead, what Kilicdaroglu appears to be offering is a restoration in all but name of the original AKP, which, like the opposition alliance he leads, was an alliance of free-market conservatives and Kurds. But that was also the party that paved the way for the authoritarian edifice that Erdogan has erected, and the proposition that democracy can be restored in alliance with former lieutenants of Erdogan is counterintuitive.

A particularly striking case in point is Sadullah Ergin, a former AKP justice minister who has been selected to head the CHP list to parliament in the Cankaya district of Ankara in the parliamentary election that will be held simultaneously as the presidential election. As justice minister, Ergin oversaw the mass incarcerations of dissidents—including military officers, politicians, journalists, and intellectuals—who were wrongly accused of having plotted a coup against the AKP government. Some angry CHP supporters argue that Ergin should stand trial and not be elected to parliament to represent the party.

While Kilicdaroglu’s deference to the right will deny him the support of the majority of the working class, it may also turn off some core CHP supporters who are middle-class progressives and nationalists.

Like right-wing Turkish nationalists who are wary of Kilicdaroglu’s popularity among Kurds, some of these CHP voters may opt for Muharrem Ince, the third candidate in the presidential election. Ince, who was the CHP’s presidential candidate in 2018 but has since left the party, has touched a chord among Turkish nationalist voters with his calls to stand firm against the PKK, receiving 7.2 percent in the April 12 ORC poll. According to the polls, his voters will be evenly split between Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu in a second round.

Kilicdaroglu’s belief that winning the presidency requires tacking to the right and not challenging the fundamentals of the socioeconomic order of Turkey, while at the same failing to dispel the growing suspicion among Turkish nationalist voters that he is gravitating toward calling the fundamentals of the nationalist order into question, is a recipe for electoral defeat.

Instead, Kilicdaroglu should take inspiration from the example of his predecessor Bulent Ecevit, a progressive populist who led the CHP between 1972 and 1980, and who is the only leftist so far to have governed Turkey. With his opening to religious conservatives, Kilicdaroglu has to a certain extent revived the tradition that Ecevit introduced when he endeavored in the 1970s to reconcile the left and secularists with religious conservatives.

But Kilicdaroglu lacks both Ecevit’s determination to change the economic system and his nationalist fervor. It was this combination that paid off when Ecevit in 1977—in the wake of his 1974 decision to invade Cyprus in response to Greece’s attempt to annex the island—carried the CHP to its best electoral result to date, 41.4 percent.

Turkey’s history demonstrates that democracy will remain elusive as long as there is no left-wing alternative to a form of conservatism that has mostly led to authoritarian populism. And the electoral record, in turn, shows that right-wing hegemony has only been broken when the left has succeeded in combining a call for social justice and systemic change with respect for popular religiosity and Turkish nationalism.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu can’t afford to neglect offering the working class the prospect of social change, nor can he let suspicions that he is soft on Kurdish separatists linger.

[babynerdperson]

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