#LJ was empty #all the devils were here

@frightfullytreeish how could you hide this gloriously accurate response in the tags?

to all the people saying this was an embarrassing time: I am 34 full years old and reading/writing these fics brought me so much joy and rereading them still does. embarrassment is a construct, cringe culture is dead, and the found family trope saves lives.

I was 28, wrote three of them, and then wrote ANOTHER one several years later. (Except for the Loki parts, because that wasn’t my jam.)

I feel like this is a call-out post for @copperbadge

The year is 2022 and I’m 42 years old and this is still me, yes. 

(Mind you, I was more on the “writing” than “reading” side of Marvel Post-Avengers Fic but I’ve just replaced a googledoc of That Fic with a googledoc of the latest Shivadh Romance novel.) 

It is 2022 and I am 43 years old and I just reread a bunch of @scifigrl47’s Toasterverse and Tales of the Bots cause it’s been a rough couple weeks and I needed some comfort reading. And this weekend may see me diving into Foodieverse for the mumbleteenth time and there is nothing wrong with that.

You only have to look at Clint/Coulson of MCU to see how far a fandom can take a pairing from VERY little source material and just run marathons with it. Screw “Life finds a way,” FANDOM finds a way…

1. The Republican Party turns out for EVERY vote. Primaries, local elections, midterms, you name it. Most dems show up once every four year and then get defeatist when things don’t immediately change. It took the Republicans YEARS to overturn RvW but it has been a long game goal of theirs. YEARS of voting, and you’re gonna opt out after one vote. Okay.

2. Primaries are when you vote for who you want. Elections are when you vote for who you can. If you’re not voting in the primary, you’re letting the moderate centrist do-nothing candidate win.

3. Local elections affect your daily life. That sherif in Texas who is refusing to enforce the abortion ban? Local election. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, so much of this is trickle up from local politics.

4. Call your damn representatives. Even if it feels hopeless. The gun control reform that just passed (as minimal as it is) was bipartisan because people showed their reps that they wanted change. Get vocal as a voter and prove courting your vote matters.

5. If someone in your area is running for office and needs votes, be a signature for them. Not everyone can afford to pay to run. You want to support better candidates, put your name behind them (only in your district and always read what you’re signing first).

6. The two party system is shit. We know that. But the democrats are a big tent housing a lot of different opinions and trying to cater to them all. Republicans are generally united in one mission of dismantling everything and protecting only their own. This is also why Dems don’t have the same type of “super majority” and can’t easily whip the same voting results. And anyone who thinks Obama had a super majority for enough time to codify roe does not understand politics. He had about 18 days of actual in-session time, split into two different sessions.

7. Purity politics isn’t going to get you anywhere. The candidate is a bus stop getting you closer to where you want to be. They’re not the end goal, and a smart voter knows that.

8. Voter suppression is huge in America. Help other voters register and get to the polls. It’s not always indifference keeping people from voting. Do something to help disenfranchised voters.

Let me repeat: The two party system is shit. We need to get rid of the electoral college. We need ranked choice voting. We need to get rid of Citizens United. Our country is an oligarchy. Always has been. Not denying that. But Living in these ideals of what we should be without creating any change now isn’t going to get you anywhere. Being defeatist and abstaining from the process is cutting off your own nose to spite your face. Its saying “the other team is scoring too many goals, so instead of playing, I’m just gonna sit on the sidelines. That’ll teach everyone.” No, you’re just gonna keep losing. Maybe, instead, vote in the primaries and choose better teammates.

Y’all kill me with these “hot takes.” They ain’t even half baked.

Now, if you want to talk about the other things we should be doing IN ADDITION TO voting, like general strikes, organizing, etc. Then that’s a different conversation we should also be having.

Also no, there is no such thing as “one more vote.” Vote every time. Vote consistently. Vote national. Vote local. It’s the absolute MINIMAL amount of civil engagement you can do. If you can do more than vote, do more, but at least vote every single time.

A lot of people really think democracy is something they only have to do once. It's not. It's something we do constantly - because greedy and power-hungry and malicious people are constantly trying to take advantage of society. Evil never stops, so neither do we.

Evil never stops, so neither do we.

VOTE.

To paraphrase a rant I did pre-2020 election: Hold your nose if you must while you cast that vote, but you better effing vote. Anybody who doesn’t cast a vote while simultaneously griping about the system is a sanctimonious asshole who doesn’t actually care about people nor the fascist underpinnings of the GOP and its abuses of power, and just wants to be right. This is the system we have. We have to USE it while also trying to FIX it. It’s not one or the other. And if you’re not actually doing anything to fix the system and are just on social media griping about it? Then STFU (but still vote).