#2020 election update | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

secretmellowblog · 6 months

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People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

#November 5th #november 5 2020 #the fifth of november #just a random ramble #November 5th 2020 is such an important day to me #it really is a holiday #but it does confuse me when I see people analyzing it primarily as a supernatural thing #instead of a ‘hysteria over an election reaches a breaking point when inane zero stakes fandom news comes out and we all latch onto it’thing #but yeah!!#this is my personal essay out of love for the holiday

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wausaupilot · 8 months

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Felon voter fraud remains rare in Wisconsin, report shows

The report is further evidence that there has been no widespread voter fraud in the state.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The number of convicted felons under investigation for voting in recent Wisconsin elections remains a miniscule proportion of the total ballots cast, according to a new report from the state elections commission. The report is further evidence that there has been no widespread voter fraud in the state, despite false claims to the contrary that former President Donald Trump…

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#afternoon update #voter fraud #Wisconsin elections 2020

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andhumanslovedstories · 4 months

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Eight years ago I was so deeply invested in the American presidential election, I listen to multiple weekly podcasts, I was on twitter, I checked the polling updates, read the articles, watched the news, I could tell you the political happenings of every week of 2016, and we were on the road for a large portion of it so we had to work for it. We watched one of the presidential debates in a Las Vegas Panera before heading back to our campsite. I did something similar for the 2020 election because jesus christ what a fucking Historical Year. Now it’s 2024, and gearing up for the grind once more is such a dismal feeling. I don’t want to have to have an opinion on Nicky Haley’s viability as republican candidate. I don’t want to follow another twelve Trump trials. I don’t want to watch everyone even slightly left of center once again devour each other as we polarize about it’s a bigger war crime to vote for Biden or not vote for Biden. Everything is going to get so unpleasant and it’s so important and the stakes are so high and it’s gonna suck the whole time. I’m trying to think of one funny thing that could plausibly happen that would fill me with joy and not terror for the future of America and also the world, and so far I’ve only come up with Jeb Bush giving a presidential campaign another go.

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lynati · 9 months

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#US Politics #America 2023

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221loislane · 11 months

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An Account of the Current OTW/AO3 Allegations

You may have seen talk flying around about drama going down with OTW (the Organization for Transformative Works) and AO3. There isn't a clear write-up of the situation on Tumblr, and since the allegations in this case are serious and OTW Board elections are coming up, I thought there should be a resource for people to get some basic understanding about the events.

This account is a burner, because the topics here are deeply charged, and I don't want to become a character in what's happening. I am not a member of or volunteer for OTW; I am not affiliated with End OTW Racism; I am not affiliated with Dreamwidth; I do not personally know any of the people involved in these events, or have personal knowledge of the events themselves. I am only compiling the publicly available events, allegations, and discussion into a convenient format for Tumblr. I will be heavily referencing the the similar compilation put together by Dreamwidth user Synonymous, but I am not Synonymous, nor do I know who they are. I am not, however, completely without bias; for one thing, I am writing this with the clear understanding that I believe OTW's treatment of its volunteers and policies on content moderation are both deeply troubling. If I did not believe that, I wouldn't have bothered writing this post.

This write-up includes events relating both to allegations about volunteer abuse and improper handling of CSEM moderation by the OTW, and to arguments made about the OTW's handling of racist conduct and about End OTW Racism's ties to the writer known as Stitch. I am including both of these threads because they are deeply related both causally and in the arguments of many of the people involved, and because volunteer abuse, CSEM, and racist harassment are all deeply serious problems.

This situation has not resolved, and therefore you can likely expect more to occur, probably relating to all of those topics. I have not yet decided whether I will continue updating this timeline, but it should at least give you a grounding in what's happening.

Heavy Content Warning for discussions of child sexual abuse material; abuse, harassment, and stalking; and interpersonal and systemic racism. All language in this write-up is non-graphic and high-level, but some links include more detailed descriptions.

The Events

June 24, 2020: In the wake of George Floyd's murder and in response to pressure from people including Black writer Stitch (of the blog Stitch Media Mix and Teen Vogue) and fan studies academic Dr. Rukmini Pande, the OTW makes a statement promising to review their policies and procedures and take steps to protect users from racist harassment. The specific promises they make are:

Giving creators more control over the comments on their works.

Improving collection searching and filtering.

Improving admin tools for responding to Policy & Abuse reports.

Reviewing the Terms of Service to potentially allow Policy & Abuse to respond to more kinds of reports.

Reassess the required Archive Warnings and consider adding more.

Continue working on user muting and blocking.

They also say that they are considering "reaching out to an external contractor or partnering with an advocacy group," i.e., a diversity consultant, to help with reforms.

August 8, 2021: As part of their July newsletter, the OTW announces that it is creating a new officer role in the organization to research options for diversity consultants.

May 7, 2022: The OTW makes a public statement on their website that an unknown attacker has sent CSAM (child sexual abuse material) to some of their volunteers' email addresses, that they are working with authorities to find the attacker, and that response times may be slower than usual, as they have "shut down a number of internal tools" in order to protect their volunteers and the investigation.

May 8, 2022: Dreamwidth cofounder and former head of LiveJournal Trust & Safety Denise (rahaeli on Twitter, synecdochic on Dreamwidth) posts a Twitter thread urging any current or former OTW/AO3 volunteer who has provided the organization with their real-life name ("wallet name") to contact their local police department and let them know that they are at an elevated risk of swatting. She also provides advice on disabling image auto-loading in emails and dealing with trauma and anxiety from being exposed to CSAM, and mentions that she has contacted AO3 to offer help.

June 16, 2022: As part of their April newsletter (delayed several months due to the CSAM attack), the OTW announces that a Diversity Consultant Research Officer has been appointed.

May 10, 2023: The Tumblr account end-otw-racism publishes its first post, End OTW Racism: A Call to Action. In it, the anonymous authors call on the OTW to implement the changes that they promised in 2020, especially:

Hiring a diversity consultant within the next 3-6 months.

Updating their harassment policies and protocols to address on-site and off-site coordinated harassment.

Creating a content policy for content that is abusive in a racist manner.

As part of their background establishing the problem of racist abuse and harassment in fandom, they link to several articles written by Stitch on their commentary blog, as well as a couple of posts from other fans. In their FAQs and other posts, the organizers of EOR clarify that they are not calling for the removal of any racist fic, but fic that is written specifically with the intention of perpetrating racist harassment or abuse. They also urge supporters not to berate or harass anyone for disagreeing with or failing to support their campaign.

May 17, 2023: An anonymous user asks about the End OTW Racism protest on the anon-meme Dreamwidth community Fail Fandom_Anon (FFA). As part of a tangent in that discussion, an anonymous former volunteer member of the OTW's Policy & Abuse Committee (PAC) mentions that they handled CSEM (child sexual exploitation material) tickets as part of their work, and that the OTW did not provide sufficient resources or expertise in dealing with them either emotionally or logistically. They describe themselves as being traumatized, burned out, and overworked during their time in PAC. They also mention that there was an earlier CSAM attack, targeted only at PAC volunteers, prior to the one that the OTW announced; that they were the volunteer who handled reporting to law enforcement; that the PAC chairs urged Legal and the Board to prepare for more attacks, but that nothing was done; and that the OTW did not provide any mental health resources for volunteers after the CSAM attack. (Here is a link to the user's top-level comment; read down the thread for more.)

May 20, 2023: Dreamwidth user chestnut_pod posts an entry called Be More Democratic, Be More Autocratic, OTW. The thesis of their post is that the OTW fails to adequately respond to racism on AO3 because of structural problems within the organization that amplify biases and make change difficult to achieve, and that in order to address racism and other problems more effectively, the organization should create a clear and straightforward command structure. They also advocate for creating some paid roles within the organization. The comments of the post become a kind of referendum on OTW's organizational policies, and some former volunteers show up to say that chestnut_pod's description of the problems with the org's structure tally with their experience.

May 23, 2023:

An anonymous user links to chestnut_pod's post on FFA. In response, the same former OTW volunteer describes various details of how the Policy & Abuse Committee (PAC) made decisions during her time there. (The description covers a lot of comments, so with one exception I'm linking to Synonymous's overview rather than the individual comments, but you can find all of them either through Synonymous's links or by reading down the FFA thread.) The upshot is that PAC often found it difficult to address racism, abuse, and harassment due to roadblocks and micromanagement from OTW's Legal Committee. In particular, the user mentions that they wanted to remove photo manipulations of real-life minors engaging in sex, as well as ambiguously-sourced explicit gifs from underage fics, and were told that they could not by Legal. (I have described the user's objections at as a high a level as possible, but the language used at the link is much more detailed and explicit.) A subsequent, current OTW volunteer says that since the first user left, the policy has changed to allow PAC to remove similar gifs.

Denise leaves a series of comments on chestnut_pod's post saying that the PAC policies described there run counter to industry best practices for Trust & Safety. In response to a commenter asking whether she could advise OTW, Denise says that she has offered several times, and only heard back from the organization once: after she posted her Twitter thread in response to the CSAM attacks, "at which point it immediately became extremely clear the person in question was more interested in protecting the external reputation of the organization than in listening to any advice I had to give and the only reason they'd contacted me was to pressure me to remove my Twitter thread."

In response to Denise's story, Dreamwidth user azarias reveals herself to be the anonymous former PAC volunteer on FFA. In a series of comments on chestnut_pod's post and FFA (bulk of the information in this comment, but see Synonymous's compilation or read up and down the thread for more), she relays the following story: On May 6, 2022, shortly after the CSAM attack, azarias was kicked out of the OTW volunteer Slack with no notice and no communication. When she realized several days later that this was not an organization-wide shut down, she emailed the OTW Board, Legal, and the PAC chairs asking about the situation, and whether she was a suspect in the attack. The chair of Legal, Betsy Rosenblatt, responded, apologizing for the lack of communication and saying that the shut-out was at Legal's request because they thought azarias' account may have been compromised, but she was not a suspect. On July 22, 2022, having heard nothing further from the OTW, azarias emailed again asking about reinstatement, and Betsy responded that they had just that day started that process. (EDIT: Azarias clarifies that her original stated date of July 22 was an error; she checked on her status July 4, and Betsy responded July 6.) All of azarias's accounts had been deleted, so she returned to the OTW with new accounts, and was informed by her PAC chairs that they were not consulted or informed about her suspension until it happened, were not told why she had been suspended, and were ordered not to speak to or about her during the suspension. Due to awkwardness, trauma, and burn-out, azarias quit volunteering soon after.

May 30, 2023:

On FFA, an anonymous OTW volunteer (not azarias) comments that the OTW Board has posted an update to Slack addressing azarias's story (though she is never named in the update). The update confirms that Legal made the decision to suspend azarias, and says that the Board was not consulted on or informed about the decision to either suspend or reinstate her. A statement from Legal is also attached. The statement does not in any way dispute azarias's timeline of events, and outwardly apologizes to her for the distressed caused, but it also contains several strong insinuations that the letter-writer believes that azarias was responsible for the CSAM attack.

In response to this letter, Denise posts a statement on Dreamwidth and Twitter recommending that any person currently volunteering for the OTW should resign for their own personal safety.

June 3, 2023: Azarias (now posting under her real account, which FFA allows people who are players in the events being discussed to do) comments on FFA that she has consulted a lawyer regarding Legal's insinuation, and has been advised that she doesn't have anything to worry about, legally. She explains some more of the details behind the situation, and discusses some of her guesses about the current situation at the OTW. (For clarification, the Heidi she's referring to is Heidi Tandy, a longtime member of OTW Legal. During the heights of Harry Potter fandom, Fandom Wank coined the term "Heidipology" to describe what they believed to be Heidi's pattern of making insincere, backhanded apologies.) In the comments, anonymous users discuss the fact that OTW's Legal team is made up entirely of IP lawyers, and not lawyers who have expertise in criminal law, nonprofit governance, or Trust & Safety. (Link goes to Synonymous's compilation.)

June 12, 2023: The OTW publishes a statement addressing the End OTW Racism protest. They thank the organizers for holding them accountable, list the steps they've already taken in addressing racism (mostly muting/blocking abilities and similar), and reiterate that they are working on hiring a diversity consultant and reviewing PAC policies. They also say they will improve transparency and communication.

In the comments, azarias (and several others) push the OTW for a retraction of Legal's letter. Azarias also pushes the OTW to make real progress on racist abuse, rather than paying it "lip service." Azarias reveals that she was the Board's original pick for the Diversity Consultant Research Officer, but dropped out. (Further comments later and earlier at FFA clarify that she dropped out due to the OTW's one name policy, which requires that all work that a volunteer does for the OTW be done under a single name; officers are required to serve under their wallet names, and azarias wanted to do her PAC work under her fandom name and not link that to her wallet name, and when OTW didn't let her, she resigned. Link to Synonymous's more thorough compilation of this story here.)

Also in the comments, several users respond to the OTW's statement by posting racist abuse and racial slurs. The OTW leaves the comments up for several days before finally screening them.

June 15, 2023: Denise posts a thread on Twitter, shortly after compiled on her Dreamwidth, laying out what she consider's the OTW's "absolute failure" at Trust & Safety. Among other things, she claims that:

Photomanips of minors in sexual situations, "however terrible or obvious the Photoshop job is, qualifies under the third definition of 'child pornography' as given in 18 USC §2256(8)(C)."

She believes that the OTW may not be in compliance with legal obligations to preserve information about reported CSEM, due to its policy of deleting author information about orphaned works.

In this post, Denise also elaborates on the story she told in the comments of chestnut_pod's post. She says that in May 2022, before the OTW made its statement about the CSAM attack, several volunteers reached out to her for advice, and she learned that the attack emails included threats to expose identifying volunteer information to, among other places, Kiwi Farms, a site whose users have previously swatted many people. In response to this, after the OTW's statement, she published her Twitter thread advising volunteers to alert their local law enforcement, and also reached out to the OTW to offer resources, contacts, and advice. In response, OTW Legal member Rebecca Tushnet called her and spent half an hour pressuring her to remove her Twitter thread.

At the end of the post, Denise briefly touches on the End OTW Racism action that began this conversation, saying that she appreciates their work, but believes that their proposed solutions will not be effective, both because the OTW's organizational dysfunction makes it impossible for them to moderate racist content, and because PAC must moderate "conduct, not content." She says that she "firmly disagree[s] with the foundational work their campaign was built on."

June 16, 2023:

In response to several people asking for clarification on her statements about End OTW Racism, Denise posts a follow-up Twitter thread (which has not at this time been crossposted to Dreamwidth). She says that a diversity consultant will not effectively address abuse because the current OTW culture is resistant to change, and that reviewing TOS policies will not be effective, because the current TOS already allows for moderation of abusive conduct, but PAC has not been empowered to enforce it. Instead, she claims that progress on moderation of racist abuse can only truly be made once the organization's systemic issues have been addressed. She also believes that End OTW Racism's messaging is counterproductive, "because of its repeated failure to differentiate between content and conduct." In particular, she argues that, "by citing so heavily to the foundational background work by people who *have* repeatedly called for bans on work that 'reflects racist and bigoted stereotypes', and by failing to differentiate the two except in passing, the campaign has positioned itself in such a way that it will be, and I'm certain has already been, dismissed by the OTW." She does not mention Stitch by name, but it is clear by context that it is the citations of Stitch's work that she is referring to.

After someone DMs her to request she take down her clarifying statements about End OTW Racism, and various people supportive of EOR on Twitter denounce the statements, Denise posts a follow-up statement to Dreamwidth and to Twitter. She says that she has been contacted several times over the past few weeks by Black fans who have been harassed and abused by Stitch in racist and racialized ways, and who showed her screenshots of these interactions, which Stitch has since deleted. She says that because these fans are afraid to speak up for fear of further harassment, she offered to relay their concerns about a campaign based heavily on Stitch's writing. She does not provide the screenshots, in order to prevent the fans from being identified. She reiterates that she agrees with Stitch and with EOR that the OTW is failing to respond to racist abuse and harassment, but that she disagrees with their approach and proposals. (For what it's worth, as I said up front, I am not personally acquainted with either Stitch or Denise, and have no personal knowledge of events, but Denise is not the first person to accuse Stitch of racist harassment. There has been a great deal of discussion on FFA, both well-sourced and not so much, detailing Stitch's past behavior. I am linking to this round-up so that people can find it, but with the exception of those that directly link to the evidence, and one or two that reference Stitch's public writing, I do not know the accuracy of any of the claims, and I do not know the source of some of them. The allegations listed also vary wildly in their degree of seriousness, ranging from "actually harassed someone" to "said something distasteful," to "is friends with a known serial stalker and harasser.")

The OTW posts a newspost addressing Denise's original (June 15) thread and allegations. The say that they are in legal compliance with CSEM reporting procedures, that they provided resources to volunteers following the CSAM attacks, and that "the Legal Committee has always worked closely and cooperatively with the Policy & Abuse Committee, and continues to do so." They do not reference azalias's accusations or Denise's claim to have been pressured by Rebecca Tushnet. In the comments, azarias, Denise, and many other users, both anonymous and signed, express outrage at the OTW, and push for answers, apologies, retractions, and in some cases the resignation of Legal and/or the Board.

End OTW Racism posts a statement acknowledging the OTW's acknowledgment, and calling for supporters to donate to the OTW so that they can vote in the upcoming Board elections.

June 16-18, 2023: A group of people on Twitter, Tumblr, and Dreamwidth post individually and in conversation about Denise's comments on Stitch and End OTW Racism, defending Stitch and arguing that Denise's claims about them and disagreement with their and EOR's work are racist, unfounded or overblown, and a derailment from EOR's mission. Some of these are the same people who are in the comments of the OTW's response to Denise, pushing for the OTW to respond to azarias's allegations. (These are not inherently contradictory positions; I just want to note that both the personal and ideological stances here do not necessarily line up neatly into, say, pro-OTW and anti-OTW.) See, for instance, naye's Dreamwidth post, fiercynn's Dreamwidth post, or pearwaldorf's Tumblr post.

June 18, 2023: Denise posts a Twitter thread going into much greater detail about the number of fans of color who reported to her that Stitch had harassed them ("a number greater than five and less than fifteen"), and the severity of their claims ("Several of them said the harassment they experienced was so severe and pervasive that it caused them to change screen names, leave fandom, or otherwise restrict their conduct online.") She also gives a detailed, step-by-step outline of how she went about verifying their claims to her own satisfaction. She continues not to give out identifying details to prevent further harassment.

[Updated June 19, 2023 to correct language around the attack on OTW, which was a CSAM attack, not a CSEM attack.]

#otw #ao3 #organization for transformative works #archive of our own #abuse #harassment #racism #cw csem

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tekkenjournalist · 9 months

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Update

Former President Donald Trump was arrested at the Fulton County Jail on felony charges in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

They let him out the same day, and told him he was basically free to go and didn't have to stay in jail no more.

In a first for his four indictments this year, Trump had his mug shot taken. It was released shortly after he left the jail, and has since been spread around the world on social media.

Social media allows pictures to spread much faster than if they were in print instead.

Trump used a local bail bondsman in a ballroom in Georgia to post his bond. An independent bonding agent (some sources speculate "Quikrete") confirmed that they were both dressed excellently.

The Fulton County Jail, where Trump was booked, has a history of violence and poor conditions. The Mishima Zaibatsu has already sent scouts to the area to evaluate the violence and see if there are any potential fighters to enter the King of Iron Fist Tournament 8.

District Attorney Fani Willis repeatedly swept the investigation and the racketeering charges against Trump and 18 co-defendants. Many of them, including Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, have already plugged.

A federal judge yesterday denied requests by two defendants — Meadows and Jeffrey Clark — to delay their strings. All defendants face a deadline of noon tomorrow to plug voluntarily before they lose rank points.

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intricatedemonicrituals · 9 months

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Canon Destiel Timeline Masterpost

I wrote this all in a fugue state while listening to Green Grow the Lilacs on repeat so forgive any mistakes. @gay-fae ask and ye shall receive

So much has happened in the long and storied history of his fandom so I've decided to try to document it. I've started by looking up every time that canon destiel, destiel event, misha collins, jackles, or some other search terms have spiked on Google and cross referenced them with tumblr or twitter posts from that day. I know a lot of this is Misha stuff, but he does tend to be the one to say things

November 5th, 2020: Season 15, Episode 18 "Despair" airs and Castiel declares his love to Dean. The presidential election, Georgia turning blue, the presumed retirement of Vladamir Putin, Dabi from My Hero Academia, Ouran Host Club season 2, Sherlock season 5, the president of Bolivia being attacked with dynamite, ongoing BLM protests, a twitter artist making racist art of Ted Bundy, Hetalia returning, a dead man being elected Representative for North Dakota, V for Vendetta, scientists discovering a "hell" planet that rains rocks and has lava oceans, and half of Europe being in lockdown all became tumblr news around the same time. Some of these are true, some not.

November 8th, 2020: Misha Collins, in a panel with Richard Speight, states that the confession scene was a "declaration of homosexual love", and that when Castiel goes to the Empty, it is an example of the "Kill your gays" trope.

November 19th, 2020: The finale airs and it is not well loved to say the least. The episode is short, Dean dies by falling on a nail to death fighting vampire clowns, and there are several characters left with dangling unresolved plot threads and arcs, including Castiel. The car is in heaven though. There is very little heard from the cast and crew, if anything.

November 22nd, 2020: Misha Collins, in a livestream, tells a fan that Castiel and Jack are remaking heaven together, Cas has his wings back, and they are rainbow-colored. He had, however, mentioned the rainbow wings before.

November 24th, 2020: The Spanish dub of the confession is released and a "rogue" translator has written "Y yo a ti" or "I love you too" as Dean's response. Destiel goes canon in Spanish. Tumblr stops working as a result.

November 25th, 2020: tumblr user @thebloggerbloggerfun claims Jensen Ackles said "I had a member of the film crew record the confession scene on my phone for me" #unsourced #releasethetapes

November 26th, 2020: Misha doesn't appreciate the rogue translator, but walks that opinion back later the same day

November 27th, 2020: A "leaked" Italian dub of the confession scene shows a mutual confession.

November 28th, 2020: President Obama follows a destiel account on Twitter

November 30th, 2020: The supposed "Italian dub" is revealed as a fake created by user @iotiamo using sound clips from other parts of the Italian dub on show.

December 1st, 2020: Twitter user @mothdean says "misha I know you have a stan acc and spy on us so can we have a hazel update please"

December 3rd, 2020: Misha tweets about Hazel snoring and this is taken as possible confirmation of Misha's secret stan account

December 11th, 2020: A script from Cas's perspective leaks. It says "We see Cass's POV of Dean again - his face drawn, drained of hope. But still beautiful. Still Dean Winchester."

December 16th, 2020: Newsweek runs an article about an article that Misha wrote about the Lewinsky affair while interning in the Clinton White House in which Misha comes off as rather thirsty for Bill

December 20th, 2020: All Supernatural related materials disappear off the CW's website due to a copyright dispute with Warner Brothers

December 31st, 2020: Mishapocalypse redux

February 9th, 2021: Spn cast members Chad Lindberg and Samantha Ferris tweet about a party at the Roadhouse and it grows to become a full Destiel wedding

February 16th, 2021: @steveyockey made a fairly benign post about Jensen Ackles. The notes went wild in a variety of ways and started a rumor that Spn writer Steve Yockey was dead

February 20th, 2021: Steve Yockey is not dead and he should say it

March 3rd, 2021: The German dub drops and it is also romantic in tone

March 6-8th, 2021: A virtual con happens where Jensen discusses Chaos Machine and Jared says he wants to be in their next project. They also show that WAP video. Jensen is giving full mountain man preparing to play Soldier Boy.

March 10th, 2021: The French dub is released. Cas says, "I love you, Dean" and Dean now responds, "Don't do this to me, Castiel"

March 13th, 2021: The company Amazon tweets about Castiel and Misha Collins asks if they ship Deancas or Wincest. Subsequently apologizes.

March 16th, 2021: Misha says he can't speak as Castiel because Warner Brothers" specifically forbade it. #cwsniperconfirmed

March 17th, 2021: Sam and Eileen are getting married! I have no idea how this came about but I'm happy for them

March 23rd, 2021: Chad Lindberg and Samantha Ferris claim on Twitter that the Roadhouse party was about Valentine's day and not a wedding. Ferris specifically said that she worked on the show and that people tried to make Dean/Cas into "something that it wasn't", She also stated she doesn't "know what queerbaiting is" and that it was due to an "agenda". This led to #deanisbi trending on Twitter and Tumblr.

March 31st, 2021: Some possibly fake leaked scripts come up for sale on eBay. Also, Jensen is Batman.

April 1st, 2021: Mishapocalypse redux

April 6th, 2021: Leaked scripts from the 2 final episodes pop up and have several mentions of Cas in them that were omitted. Dean even thinks about Cas's confession when confronting Chuck.

April 18th, 2021: Scripts from seasons 12 and 13 leak. These include scenes from after Cas's death

May 17th, 2021: Jensen's band Radio Company releases an album including the song Watching Over Me

June ~5th, 2021: Misha says at a convention that Watching Over Me is about Castiel. Jensen neither confirms nor denies this when asked about it

June 11th, 2021: It is announced that Misha is publishing a book of poetry

June 18th, 2021: The Russian dub airs and Dean's line is changed to "Don't you dare, Cas"

June 24-28th, 2021: Jensen and Daneel Ackles reveal that they are making a Supernatural prequel series following John and Mary Winchester (a story that NOBODY was asking for). Jensen will reprise his role as Dean and will narrate. Misha hints that he would like to be involved, as do Ruthie Connell, Samantha Ferris, Matt Cohen, and Julie McNiven (the perils of having a cast of mostly immortal characters). But Jared Padalecki first says that he is happy for the Ackles's, he later said he was "gutted", then responded to Robbie Thompson's tweet calling him a "coward" and saying "what an awful thing you've done". The next day, Jensen and Jared both do damage control and say they'll always be brothers

July 17th, 2021: People are asking if Destiel will be canon in Space Jam, Misha's poetry book's cover is revealed to lukewarm reviews and people are talking about a particular poem about piss, and Perfume Genius releases an article that is a self-insert vore fanfiction about having sex with Jensen Ackles

August 2nd, 2021: Perfume Genius is at it again with "Last Friday, I had my eyes removed by Jared Padalecki". No, I do not know why she is doing this.

August 9th, 2021: Destiel fics hit 100k on Ao3. Misha tweets his support and people remember that he sometimes reads fanfiction and theorize he has an A03 account

September 1st, 2021: Misha makes his first Tiktok. There is a short intro before he calls cut, walks behind a screen, and strips his clothes off

September 3rd, 2021: Jake Abel uses Michael and Adam to help sell his hot sauce brand

September 4th, 2021: Misha confirms that the love between Castiel and Dean was "reciprocated"

September 9th, 2021: A clip of the real Italian dub of the confession scene goes viral as it is revealed that, unlike the Spanish dub, they change the line to "ti voglio bene" or essentially "I love you like family". Misha responds with a video saying "Ciao Italia, ti amo" with the subtitle "Love is love in any language"

September 21st, 2021: Misha drops the fact that one of his poems is from Castiel's perspective.

September 30th, 2021: Jensen will be appearing at a con on the same day as Misha and not with Jared for "professional reasons"

October 4th, 2021: Misha responds to a fan's tweet by saying that Jensen has "crazy eyes and a knife in his pocket"

October 10th, 2021: Daneel posts a picture of Jensen intently reading Misha's poetry book in front of a roaring fire on Instagram. Misha responds that he misses them even more

October 12th, 2021: Jensen is cast in Rust, a (rather ill-fated) western and Misha says "Yippie-ki-yay" and calls him a stud in the comments

October 16th, 2021: Denvercon. Jensen and Jared reunite for the first time since THE INCIDENT

April 24th, 2022: Misha Collins says in terms of being an extrovert, an introvert, or a bisexual, he joked "I'm all three". This led to the internet celebrating Misha's newly revealed bisexuality.

April 25th, 2022: Misha Collins comes out as straight. Oops!

June 19th, 2022: According to Misha, Dean's heaven was supposed to be at the Roadhouse with all his friends and Cas was going to be there with him

November 7th, 2022: Misha calls Elon Musk a snowflake

November 12th, 2022: Tumblr starts planning another Mishapocalypse

January 24th, 2023: Jensen and the cast of the Winchesters throw Dean Winchester a birthday party, including wearing silly little hats

February 26th, 2023: At JIBcon 11, Jensen sings an improvised song about an angel while Misha sits cross-legged on the floor looking up at him

April 1st, 2023: 10 year anniversary of the Mishapocalypse

April 16th, 2023: A year after his bisexual whoopsie daisy, Misha says that Warner Brothers asked him to "let it go" and keep pretending to be bisexual.

August 23, 2023: Rogue Spanish translator is revealed to not have gone rogue at all but instead to have followed the script he was given, confirming the existence of a mutual love confession that was cut at some point.

If you can remember any events and dates that I haven't found, please let me know and I'll add them! I haven't really rounded out 2022 and 2023 yet.

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whenweallvote · 2 years

Video

Did you know that more Black Americans were eligible to vote in 2020 than ever before? It's an amazing stat, but it's up to us to show up and cast our ballots in the midterm elections. On #NationalBlackVotersDay and beyond, join Chris Paul, Michelle Obama, BET, and When We All Vote and let’s make our voices heard — together. Head to weall.vote/tumblr to register to vote, or to check and update your voter registration. Be sure that your name is spelled correctly and your address is current.

#NationalBlackVotersDay #MichelleObama #ChrisPaul #Vote #Midterm #MidtermElection #Election

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bighermie · 6 months

Text

UPDATE: PA Voter Describes Votes Caught Being Switched Realtime in Judicial Election - From Republican to Democrat - Was Told Trust that Their Vote Would Be Counted Correctly (AUDIO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

2020 revisited

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marzipanandminutiae · 4 months

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Hello I was just wondering if you've seen Imani Barbarin talk about not voting (https://x.com/imani_barbarin/status/1747723080917492020?s=46&t=55h0eHrgY7FtQI8ej54maw)? I saw you reblog the post about "not waiting for the morally pure candidate" and I think that's a willful misrepresentation of what Gen Z is feeling

We've not seen Biden address ANY of the things the post claims (climate change is the only one I remember without scrolling back) but we have seen him approve more oil licenses than trump, drop more bombs than trump, support a genocide, abandon disabled people and any Covid mitigations during the second highest surge since the start of the pandemic (with less testing so odds are things r even worse than we can tell), bring back student debt, etc etc

As a Gen Z'r, I genuinely want to understand how y'all can believe "no vote is a vote for fascism" when both candidates are horrendous? Why is the onus on us and not the politicians to do better instead of pointing fingers and saying "at least we're better than Trump" when that is categorically untrue?

I'm sorry if this is too rant-y I'm just so furious and frustrated with my perception of older voters' complacency with being given utter shit instead of organizing for better

I am trying very hard to be reasoned and understanding about this- bearing in mind that we want the same things in the end and I'mnot jazzed for Biden either -when it's extremely, EXTREMELY obvious to me that Trump is worse.

Like.

If he gets elected there might not be another election. The man was theoretically willing to use military force to quell protests if he lost the 2020 election (why he didn't, I don't know; but I'm not willing to give him that chance a second time).

Trump has called himself a dictator, proudly, in the same breath as saying "we're closing the border and we're drilling, drilling, drilling." Biden does NOT remotely have a perfect record on either of those things- he was locked into some construction of the border wall by how the funds had already been allocated by Congress during the Trump administration, but not everything he's done in relation to it, which also pisses me off. As for the oil thing, it's a bit more complicated than it seems on the surface: not as simple as "he doesn't actually care about the environment" even as it's definitely not a good move or in line with his stated climate goals.

As for those climate goals, I found this interesting article that rates key areas of climate action and how they've fared during the Biden administration. It was updated in January, and it is not sycophantically uncritical across the board. But that is LEAGUES more progress than we'd get under a system of "drilling, drilling, drilling" with absolutely no concessions to the climate crisis at all.

His handling of the situation in Palestine...yeah, I struggle with that, too. I know he's been trying to talk their leaders down, to some degree, but it's not nearly enough to me. And I STRONGLY disagree with us selling them weapons. However, Trump's statements on the matter- calling for a ban on Gazan refugees in the US, calling pro-Palestinian protestors "barbarians," and saying he'd revoke the student visa of anyone he deemed "anti-American" -makes me believe that letting him get into power is not something my conscience would allow, vis a vis the fate of the Palestinian people. Because it would be exponentially worse.

I also think the material good that has happened under the Biden administration has been...MASSIVELY under-publicized. Because like. He HAS addressed things. Lots of things, in fact.

this article from last year was too early to include pardoning thousands of people federally convicted of simple marijuana possession (again, not perfect, but still very good), setting new rules to limit methane emissions, capping prices for at least some major insulin producers, partial student loan debt forgiveness (tried to do more, but got hamstrung by Republicans), cancelling oil leases granted by Trump in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (not enough given the leases HE granted, but it's not nothing either), and much more I'm sure I'm overlooking. Because, again, nobody's been talking about it. It sells more news subscriptions to feed readers an endless stream of what Biden is doing wrong- which I am not denying! -leaving people with the dangerous impression that both sides are the same. Republicans would not have done any of this. That's just the truth of the matter.

Look, I would like a better option, too. I would love to actually LIKE a presidential candidate in my lifetime. I'd love one who wouldn't make concessions to the interests of selfish, heartless people with ledgers where their sense of human compassion should be. I just don't see that person coming to power between now and November.

And I'll take someone who is Standard US Politician Slimy but at least makes some improvements (unfortunately, I doubt there's anyone with a chance of winning in less than a year who doesn't support Israel to some degree, since this country have a long history of that) over someone who might actually stage a right-wing military coup, and who would kill me and other marginalized people himself if he thought it would get him more fame and fortune.

Some people say their conscience won't let them vote Biden. I can't tell them what to do. But if he gets the Democratic nomination, my conscience wouldn't let me do anything else.

#long post #US politics #current events #I'm not getting into ask argments about this. I will answer this one in good faith but I've said my peace now

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