five-rivers reblogged
Does your fandom have it?
You know what I'm talking about. That one divinely inspired fanfic that contains the holy trinity of good writing, length, and completeness.
(If it does, say the fandom and fic in the tags!)
five-rivers reblogged
Anonymous asked:
The thing that confuses me about the "don't vote" left (not the "I don't want to vote", I'm talking explicitly the "don't vote" left. I don't agree with the "I don't want to vote" left either but I can understand their logic) is they lose me at the final step of the logic. I've tried to connect the logic here, even if I don't agree with a political position I do try to understand where people are coming from (empathy for someones situation is not the same as cosigning it), but I just can't connect the dots here in a way that isn't deeply cruel. Does United States politics prioritize the lives of those in the US (and often white) over those in the Global South? Yes, it's a fucking atrocity. We should continue to make noise about it, cus Biden has used less drones and that shows progress, even if it's not enough. The part where I lose the plot is where the conclusion to this injustice is to let even more people die? Cus that's kinda how I see the idea of not voting: I can pick between shit and more shit, and at the end of the day, I'm picking whoever allows the most people to make it to the next day. Given Trumps stance on everything but specifically climate change, I feel like Biden is pretty significant harm reduction.
I don't think both things can't be true: that every life lost is a travesty we should not forget AND the more people we can save is worth fighting for.
The thing is, I have seen nothing among the "don't vote" far left (and I am talking here specifically about the people who both loudly announce their intention not to vote and try to convince others to do the same) to convince me that they actually care about harm reduction or stopping genocide. They only care about what makes them look the most Correct and/or superior to the Democrats. They yelled bloody murder about Obama using drones, they went dead quiet about Trump using them even more (even when he nearly started WWIII by assassinating the Iranian general Soleimani with one), and then said nothing at all when Biden reduced the drone program to almost nothing and withdrew the US from a failed war in Afghanistan it had long ago lost. Now they will yell all day about Israel/Hamas (something that Biden did not start and has had no direct military role in responding to) but they don't care about Russian genocide of Ukraine and Syria, Chinese threats to invade Taiwan, etc, because those governments are "anti-western/anti-American" and therefore should be defended. Their opposition to human suffering is extremely conditional and rests on whether they can look good out of it, and they never interrogate the hypocrisies of their own ideology.
Likewise: every country in the world prizes its own citizens above those of other countries. It's just a basic fact. Yes, the US has a grim history of intervening in other countries and causing untold civilian damage (especially during the Cold War and then in post-9/11 War on Terrorism). Yes, that legacy is complex and needs to be acknowledged. But literally none of that will be fixed, not to mention all the vulnerable people in America itself who will be punished, by Trump getting into power again. Biden is not just a grudging "lesser evil," but has done a lot of truly good and helpful things, regardless of the Online Leftists' constant lies, misinformation, and misrepresentation. If you spend all your time announcing what a champion you are for non-American marginalised people and/or those undergoing terrible suffering, and then deliberately and knowingly adhere to a course of action that will increase that suffering tenfold not only for those people but your own neighbors, friends, and family, then no, I don't believe you are a brave champion of social justice. You just want to know what categories of people you can gleefully and righteously punish and make to suffer for not believing the same things as you, that makes you just as dangerous as the right-wing fascists, and I can and will call out your ass accordingly.
five-rivers reblogged
Anonymous asked:
https://www.tumblr.com/qqueenofhades/743255237060689920/the-thing-that-confuses-me-about-the-dont-vote
The “don’t vote” left’s point is basically that, if Biden gets a second term, it’ll basically signal that “They’ll vote for us as long as we’re not Republicans, why don’t we do some REAL fucked up shit, if we can get away with it?” It takes the power out of the people’s hands and places it firmly in the party’s.
I can’t completely disagree with that, my caveat is that there’s no real alternative system or party in place, because top-down change is ineffective; a third party president has to contend with a two party congress.
Except no. This whole "Biden just wants to do as much fucked up shit as possible while not being a Republican, and if you give him a second term he'll do more fucked up shit deliberately to spite you" mindset is only possible as an interpretation if you a) deliberately and comprehensively ignore everything he has done to date, and b) you approach the situation with the maximum bad faith possible. Not to mention, the ultimate outcome of this Big Important Teaching Biden A Lesson is that Trump gets back into power and makes everything orders of magnitude worse, because he does in fact want to deliberately do evil shit to everyone and says so at every opportunity. There is not some magical happy alternative that springs into existence by not voting. If you choose this as a year to Teach Biden A Lesson, you are enabling Trump. Trump will be much, much worse. If you don't care about that, I still do not care what your Great Ideology is. You are not helping anyone and you are directly and irreversibly hurting everyone.
I made a post a few days ago wherein I mentioned that I want to assess Biden fairly, taking into account both strengths and weaknesses, but the rampant bad-faith, lying, misreading, misrepresentation, and open sabotage of him (especially by the online left; the GOP sometimes only wishes they were as good at turning Biden's voter pool against him) makes it really difficult to do that. My frustration with those people makes me just want to go "BIDEN IS GREAT THE END." I know he is a flawed old man (though by literally every account of a career spent in public service, he really does care about making the world a better place and any remotely good faith reading of his accomplishments thus far can see that). It is also very likely that he goes MORE left in a second term because he won't have to face the electorate again, he has always gone more left when pushed before, and he's not actually the scheming genocidal mastermind that leftist social media paints him as. Shocking, I know.
I know there are things in the world we don't like and don't want and want to stop, and therefore we blame our own president for not making it stop. But I have zero, no, none, absolutely none whatsoever sympathy for this pseudo-populist "WE NEED TO TEACH BIDEN A LESSON BY ELECTING TRUMP AGAIN, I AM VERY MORAL MUCH ACTIVIST" mindset. There's this funny thing about America wherein it is still (for now) a democracy. If Biden wins a second term, he can't run again. I would take literally anything these people said more seriously if they focused on developing their dream progressive successor for 2028 (and also figured out how to get that person elected and in a place to make real change) rather than cynically sabotaging Biden in the most consequential election year, again, of our lifetimes. If you don't like him now, find a way to make his successor a better option. Throwing a toddler tantrum and handing the country back to a senile, deranged, fascist, revenge-riddled, theocratic Trump HELPS. NOBODY. I still don't know how many times I'm going to have to say that, but yeah.
Throwing a toddler tantrum and handing the country back to a senile, deranged, fascist, revenge-riddled, theocratic Trump HELPS. NOBODY.
louder for the morons in the back who are still whining about both parties being the same
Not voting for the left because they're not Left Enough also does not make the party go more left. It makes them go more right. Because that's where the votes are.
Reblogging because for the love of Christ, I wish the “I’m not going to vote for Biden because he’s not pure/ far left/ whatever enough for me” crowd would remember what, EXACTLY, it would mean for there to be a second Trump presidency.
Assuming that any checks currently in place would stop someone who’s mindset is “I’m perfect and DESERVE to be president” from turning our country into the closest approximation of Russia he can get, is not only naive, it’s dangerously, determinedly ignorant.
I said this in 2016 and I said it in 2020 and I'll say it again:
If you don't like the fact that the leftmost candidate of the two major parties isn't left enough, the solution is neither to refuse to vote, nor to "send a message" by voting third party. Both result in an advantage to the rightmost candidate.
The solution is, vote for the guy that's not quite good enough, and then lean on him hard.
Biden has moved farther to the left than any president since Roosevelt. Yes. He's gotten more of our agenda done than Clinton or Obama. And there's many things he's tried to do that the right wingers in Congress or in the Supreme Court have stopped him from doing. He's also moved farther to the left than any president I know of when you look at his whole career; at one point he was Liberal Lite, "moderate", pro-corporation, etc... and it seems he learned from it. He changed. So we're dealing with a guy who is capable of moving left, has done so, and could be asked to go farther.
The other candidate literally wants to become a dictator, eliminate freedom of the press, and spend our tax dollars persecuting his "enemies."
Do I like the fact that Biden is supporting Israel militarily when they have caused such an enormous and horrible death toll in Gaza? No. But we have treaties with Israel and we can't easily break them. Meanwhile we have actually seen him call Netanyahu out. Including saying basically "You keep this up and no one will be your friend", implying that he is threatening to withdraw support. Trump, meanwhile, is cheerfully Islamophobic and would happily murder every single Palestinian. You care about Palestine, there is only one legitimate choice. I'm sorry, I know you want to believe there are multiple moral options you can take, but there is really only one. In the US's winner-take-all first-past-the-post no ranked choice system, the guy who gets 51% of the vote and the guy who gets 90% of the vote are exactly the same.
Look, we can win this. The right's abortion bans are wildly unpopular; many people will be voting to try to restore the right to control our own bodies. Republican support skews older, but in four years millennials didn't magically reach a point of comfortable status quo where they're likely to start voting Republican; instead Republicans have doubled down on the crazy. Anti-maskers and ant-vaxxers, who are likely Republicans, are much more likely to have died of COVID than the reality-based community on the left, since Biden won by 7 million votes 4 years ago.
But Trump will do everything in his power to cheat. We can't just win by 51%. We have to trounce him and as many Republicans at the ballot box as we can, because they have lost the plot. Even the best ones refuse to do anything to stop the spread of this evil-for-its-own-sake movement that wants queers, Jews, and Muslims dead, POC subservient, and women of all races securely under the thumb of men. We have to stop this movement by sending a message to politicians, "these are not winning ideologies. Embrace these ideologies because of the fanatic fringe, and you will lose." Most of them aren't true believers; they're pandering. The only way to stop the Republicans being pointlessly destructive is to make so many of them lose, the rest realize, shit, the grownups are back, we better start acting like politicians and not demagogues again.
And one of the best ways to do that is to make sure Biden wins by such a large margin even Trump can't cheat his way to victory. Because he's ready. He's promised, there will be violence if he loses. (There will also be violence if he wins, but it will be state violence against us. If he loses, there will be rioting white thugs in red states, but the federal government will still have both the power and the will to try to stop that.) He's going to pull every dirty trick in the book to win. The only way to stop him is to win overwhelmingly. Then we get four more years of relative safety, where if Clarence Thomas dies or gets arrested we get a young liberal judge in his place, and in that time, we can push the Democratic party farther to the left, because they'll know why they won. They'll know who voted for them, and why, and they'll move in that direction because they want to keep winning.
You cannot save Gaza by making sure Biden loses. That is actually the worst possible thing that could happen, in terms of anything any American could do. Netanyahu wants Trump to win because Trump will back him up no matter what he does to the Palestinians.
Voting is not about proving how moral you are and selecting the perfect candidate. Voting is about getting the best possible candidate out of what is usually a lackluster selection. But this time, the choice is, an old guy who's not as charismatic and shiny as we'd like and hasn't done as much as we want, vs, literally, a wanna be dictator with an agenda that's pure evil.
five-rivers reblogged
Does your fandom have it?
You know what I'm talking about. That one divinely inspired fanfic that contains the holy trinity of good writing, length, and completeness.
(If it does, say the fandom and fic in the tags!)
five-rivers reblogged
Day 1: Insect
Starting off strong this year!! Good luck to everyone!
five-rivers reblogged
My Kingdom of Fish poll fic! Continued from here.
(Also for Dannymay Day 6: Immortal AU, because KoF is one!)
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But Danny had already started to reach for the badge with the lantern symbol, entranced by its curlicues and the graceful curve of the glass. The librarian took this as him pointing, and swept all the other badges off the table.
“So, um,” said Danny, rubbing the back of his neck, “what kind of an alteration are we talking about, here?” He could practically feel his parents glaring at him, for all that he was a whole dimension away.
“The lantern is the symbol of light,” said the librarian. “That’s what it gives you. Extra light.”
five-rivers reblogged
My Kingdom of Fish poll fic! Continued from here.
(Also for Dannymay Day 6: Immortal AU, because KoF is one!)
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But Danny had already started to reach for the badge with the lantern symbol, entranced by its curlicues and the graceful curve of the glass. The librarian took this as him pointing, and swept all the other badges off the table.
“So, um,” said Danny, rubbing the back of his neck, “what kind of an alteration are we talking about, here?” He could practically feel his parents glaring at him, for all that he was a whole dimension away.
“The lantern is the symbol of light,” said the librarian. “That’s what it gives you. Extra light.”
Does your fandom have it?
You know what I'm talking about. That one divinely inspired fanfic that contains the holy trinity of good writing, length, and completeness.
(If it does, say the fandom and fic in the tags!)
five-rivers reblogged
Would have been so funny if All Might had promised to give Izuku OFA after cleaning up the beach and then after Izuku was done, told him “There is no quirk. We just train until we get so ripped that everyone thinks it’s super strength.”
My Kingdom of Fish poll fic! Continued from here.
(Also for Dannymay Day 6: Immortal AU, because KoF is one!)
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But Danny had already started to reach for the badge with the lantern symbol, entranced by its curlicues and the graceful curve of the glass. The librarian took this as him pointing, and swept all the other badges off the table.
“So, um,” said Danny, rubbing the back of his neck, “what kind of an alteration are we talking about, here?” He could practically feel his parents glaring at him, for all that he was a whole dimension away.
“The lantern is the symbol of light,” said the librarian. “That’s what it gives you. Extra light.”
Nails
The antique store’s usual clientele mainly tended to older people on their way home from church and young, clean-cut types looking for ‘conversation pieces,’ and artsy types hunting for materials or deals.
Between the gothic dress and veil fit for a funeral, the black-painted nails, and the silver jewelry, the girl who just walked in fit in that last category quite nicely.
What made her stand out was the way she went straight to the counter. “Do you have coffin nails? Real ones. Used ones.”
“What do you need that for?” asked the cashier, slightly repulsed.
“I’m burying a friend.”
five-rivers reblogged
This is a poll fic set in my Kingdom of Fish series!
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“Convince us,” said Mom, leaning forward over the remains of dinner.
“Um, what?” said Danny, leaning back. “What do you mean?”
Mom made a circular motion with one hand. “Next time you go out to take readings, you want to go explore somewhere new. We want you to stay in the areas you already know. This is all about continuing our research, so convince us. Why should we let you go somewhere else?”
All three of them knew that ‘let’ was a polite fiction. Once Danny was in the Ghost Zone, he could go wherever he wanted, and his parents wouldn’t be able to stop him. He’d also demonstrated his ability to get into the Ghost Zone even when his parents had him locked out of the portal controls. He didn’t need permission.
However, his eyes still nervously slid over to Dad, who nodded encouragingly. Danny wanted that permission. He opened his mouth to speak–
“Pick one place to argue about,” said Mom, interrupting. “One place. Not a whole list.”Well. That made things harder. There were a lot of places he wanted to go, but maybe he could narrow it down to just a few choices…
Whoops, it's been a bit, hasn't it? Anyway, I'm also writing this particular entry for Dannymay Day 4: Wander. Have fun! Poll at the bottom.
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“The Lost Library,” said Danny. That had to be the easiest to convince his parents of. It was full of knowledge (something his parents liked), and it didn’t have anything really weird going on, physically, spatially, or socially. What wasn’t to like?
Mom raised an eyebrow. “Lost, as in no one knows where it is? Would you be searching for it?”
five-rivers reblogged
Maybe I'd go faster if you weren't intent on shining the sun directly into my rear view mirror.
Maybe I'd know how far behind me you are if I could look at you without going blind.
There is no need to staple the entire sun onto your front bumper. Stop.
Why does this suddenly have 500 notes? Help.
This showing up on my dash again feels a lot like watching a truck with 1000000+ lumen headlights slowly get closer and closer in my rear-view mirror.
This post where I complain about headlight brightness now has enough notes that people are leaving tangentially related politico-cultural opinions on it.
Playing Fallen London again after a long time. Changed my in-game gender from Lady to Individual. 😊
five-rivers reblogged
This is a poll fic set in my Kingdom of Fish series!
.
“Convince us,” said Mom, leaning forward over the remains of dinner.
“Um, what?” said Danny, leaning back. “What do you mean?”
Mom made a circular motion with one hand. “Next time you go out to take readings, you want to go explore somewhere new. We want you to stay in the areas you already know. This is all about continuing our research, so convince us. Why should we let you go somewhere else?”
All three of them knew that ‘let’ was a polite fiction. Once Danny was in the Ghost Zone, he could go wherever he wanted, and his parents wouldn’t be able to stop him. He’d also demonstrated his ability to get into the Ghost Zone even when his parents had him locked out of the portal controls. He didn’t need permission.
However, his eyes still nervously slid over to Dad, who nodded encouragingly. Danny wanted that permission. He opened his mouth to speak–
“Pick one place to argue about,” said Mom, interrupting. “One place. Not a whole list.”Well. That made things harder. There were a lot of places he wanted to go, but maybe he could narrow it down to just a few choices…
Whoops, it's been a bit, hasn't it? Anyway, I'm also writing this particular entry for Dannymay Day 4: Wander. Have fun! Poll at the bottom.
.
“The Lost Library,” said Danny. That had to be the easiest to convince his parents of. It was full of knowledge (something his parents liked), and it didn’t have anything really weird going on, physically, spatially, or socially. What wasn’t to like?
Mom raised an eyebrow. “Lost, as in no one knows where it is? Would you be searching for it?”
five-rivers reblogged
Maybe I'd go faster if you weren't intent on shining the sun directly into my rear view mirror.
Maybe I'd know how far behind me you are if I could look at you without going blind.
There is no need to staple the entire sun onto your front bumper. Stop.
Why does this suddenly have 500 notes? Help.
This showing up on my dash again feels a lot like watching a truck with 1000000+ lumen headlights slowly get closer and closer in my rear-view mirror.