JustMe

I wish I knew

[dedalvs]

With all due respect sir, and I know you've been through a hell of a lot of elections, the politics of this country have been shifting more right wing for a couple of years now and I doubt .4% of people voting for a third party would have made a fucking difference when no one in this country even listens to the popular vote

I expected that many would miss the point of the post I made—even though I literally said in the post "The point wasn't to get votes for a third party candidate"—screenshot in case you missed it:

It is voter suppression. It is always voter suppression. That was the point. It is to keep people home. The third party candidates, the fantasy candidates ("How can you vote for x candidate when theoretical y candidate who isn't in this election is so much more liberal?!"), that's the distraction. It is always about getting voters to stay home and not cast a vote. I don't know how I can make that any clearer.

Even in cases where a specific third party candidate's vote total might have made the difference (in 2000 Bush won Florida by 537 votes while Ralph Nader, many of whose voters were more allied with Gore than Bush, received 97,421 votes), the answer is never "Why did you vote for a third party candidate?", it's "Why didn't more Floridians come out to vote?" After all, with many of those third party voters, IF they were forced to choose between two candidates only, maybe they wouldn't have voted at all, so it wouldn't have made a difference. In this year's election, most third party votes went to candidates that leaned conservative, so if they weren't there, maybe Trump gets more votes in those states, not fewer.

No, listen, I don't know how to make this clearer: THE PROPAGANDA IS TO GET VOTERS NOT TO VOTE. It is ALWAYS to get voters not to vote. How they do it changes with the election, but the goal is always to get voters to stay home.

Also, in case you think I'm blaming Gen-Z, I was hoping referring to the history would set the concern aside (they weren't there in 2000). It's not a generation's fault. It is simply failing to recognize propaganda and what it is ultimately trying to get you to do. In this case, it's the same thing every time: to not vote. The liberals vs. ultra-liberals thing is a fiction to drive down liberal turnout.

I know it's been said many times, but if voting weren't important, Republicans wouldn't care about it. Truly, when they don't care about voting, that's the time to truly be frightened, because it means at that point voting is no longer relevant to the process.

(Btw I tried to tag this post and the last one with enough tags to let those who don't want to see it filter it out. I hope I've done enough of them.)

[justmeasanoptimist]

Guys, please, somebody write fanficion about David from Prometheus. I cannot be the only one that is obsessed 😭

[cholulafem-deactivated20240514]

also i fucking hate that libfems act like its an epic girlboss moment whenever industries that oppress women broaden the amount of women they're willing to oppress

yayyy an elderly women is caked in makeup for a magazine photoshoot!!! yayyy this objectively conventionally attractive model is showing her stretch marks!!! yayyy the mannequin at the store displaying uncomfortable, itchy, wired lingere is made of brown plastic instead of white!! yay this girl in a hijab is walking on a runway!!! this is progress!! women deserve equal opportunities!! equal opportunities to be hot and desirable according to the male gaze!!! this is progress!!!!

[justmeasanoptimist]

This is really rubbing me the wrong way, probably because of how important I know representation is to undervalued communities. So here is my take.

Part of the system that industries like the fashion, beauty, pastic surgery, and magazine industries hinge on to keep fueling women's insecurities is exclusivity.

Essentially, it goes like this. For corporation to sell their clothes, bogus hygiene products, makeup, surgeries, and fat loss supplements to as many women as possible at ridiculous prices, corporations needed to sell an unatainable image so that women would always be striving to for something impossible. The brilliant thing about this strategy is that it doesn't just target a specific demongraphic of women, it targets all of them. First, by creating insecurity. Second, by selling desirability. With their perfect women propaganda, they could change the products, bump up the price, and have women line the pockets of multi-billion corporations without offering anything substantial. This does center around desireability, but not necessarily the male gaze alone. If you want to be popular, if you want to be luxurious, if you want to get a man, if you want other women to to be jealous of you, etc, you will buy these products to make you skinnier, prettier, more consumable, and you will spend the rest of your life buying these products because you will never be perfect as you want to be, because every single beauty standard they add to the ever growing list is temporary, and they will change the rules if sales drop.

Through this rigged system, women are taught they can be perfect, they just haven't spent enough money. And men are taught that desirable women are the ghosts on the screen, the phantoms created by big corp. That's not to say that misogony don't have a significant hand in this fucked up machine, after all, it would be impossible for it to work if women didn't have to work twice as hard to be seen as deserving of respect no matter how they appear, but it isn't the male gaze alone.

Also, to be a minority listening to rad fems tell you how you shouldn't be happy to be represented in the industries that are peddling the beauty standard because some incel in his mama's basement might like the way you look are fucked up. I'll roll over dead in my grave before I let a man and what he likes determine what I enjoy doing. If you want to wear makeup and there is no color that matches your skin tone, that is disheartening, it takes the joy out of a simple thing and makes you wonder why you don't get to experience the same joys that people with lighter skintones do. If you see skinny, perfect women on runways and can't find your size in a clothing store, it makes you feel like something is wrong with you when the truth is, it's the industries that pitch perfection that are the problem. Representation fucking matters to the people that need it, so take your beliefs that women shouldn't want makeup, or fashionable outfits, or a razor that isn't 7 fucking dollars and shove it up your ass.

[bpdzai]

oh RTD you cis little man you. your trans allegories are so quaint

[justmeasanoptimist]

[ Text ID: "There's your house. There's your home. There's the stain on the floor. It's been years, but the blood's still fresh, and you're the only one who can see it. You're the only one with a hammer." ]

[justmeasanoptimist]

Keep writing weirdly specific stuff about being in love and being devoured. Is that normal? Do those things come in pairs for everyone?

[justmeasanoptimist]

imagine this, you are in love and in despair and in her arms all at once. your heart dangles from your chest, and you smile. all you can feel is teeth.

[justmeasanoptimist]

Hey everybody, just watched the season 2 trailer for Interview With A Vampire. Armand is a sexy, chic slut, and Claudia is her brilliant, terrifying self. Time to go die a thousand deaths, my friends.

[justmeasanoptimist]

the doctor knows that no one can stay with him forever. of course he knows that summer ends, he knows that goodbyes are inevtiable, he knows that everything in the universe dies. who would know this better than him? he's been at the end of everything at least twice.

but his companions don't. they genuinely believe by some trick of God, some miraculous happenstance, they will be the first. and the doctor knows they won't. he knows they will leave and it will be painful and they will crush his hearts in their hand as they go. but he can't help himself. he loves them anyway. their brilliance, their finity, he loves the way they love. so he holds onto them for as long as he can, and prays that when he has to let go of them, they arent being ripped from his fingers.

[justmeasanoptimist]

The Haunting of Hill House had something to say, and by God, did it say it. It said something about love. It said love can withstand atrocity if we let it. If we remember that it means more than fear and hopelessness ever will. It said maybe if your hand brushes mine, my breath hitches, and the monster still consumes me, but I die thinking of your gentleness in the gossamer of its web. All of it matters, but I was always meant to go. It's the love that stays.

[justmeasanoptimist]

[justmeasanoptimist]

I loved you more than I knew you

[justmeasanoptimist]

I'm not subscribing to those weird incest theories about Madeline and Roderick, but my God were they two halves of a whole.

[jupiter-suggestion]

you don't want to be cruel, but the cruelty is in you. you wish to be lovely, but the love has turned up missing.

will you embrace your feelings or reject them? can you embrace them and still be kind? can you reject them and still be honest?

[justmeasanoptimist]

if my love is missing, then i will find it. if my love is gone, then i will create it. the cruelty never leaves, but it is the love that matters. i will accept myself and my love and cruelty. and forgiveness will follow

[inconspicuoussuggestion]

clairvoyant & yet naive

[justmeasanoptimist]

my favorite qualities in star-crossed lovers

[depraved-perfumer]

halfway through fall of the house of usher and. and. this show really has everything. the worst people alive. the most haunting imagery and horrific deaths. everyone is bi. everyone is beautiful. everyone is empty and hollow and marvelously alone and flanagan’s usual softness and understanding gives way to this acerbic cocktail of condescension and just desserts. And it hits all the harder because it’s coming from Mike Flanagan, who breathes melodrama and lack of judgement. there are no good people in this show there is no forgiveness there is no mush. these people break everything they see with no regard and Flanagan sees them and he clearly states. In a just world, you are dead. In a just world, there is nothing you can do to stop the inevitable. It’s not vengeance, simply the ledger stacks up too high and someone has to pay the tab.

[ronanceisintheair]

"I'm sure this has been done before"

Yes me too but I want to hear your interpretation. I want to hear your play on it. I want to see how you connect the dots, how you shift the puzzle pieces and make them fit. Show me it through your eyes.

[justmeasanoptimist]

this, but the opposite. i want to be there when you stumble across a thought you know is connected to something someone else has already thought before. i want to watch you struggle to understand them. i want to see your frustration as you try to take it in and make sense of something someone else already knows. i want to see how your expression changes when everything clicks, and also breathe in your excitement when you realize the best things are the ones you work for.