kaydee falls

The wound is backstory. The structure they built on top , the habits, the walls, the jokes they make to change the subject, the way they leave before they can be left, that's character. So don't show me the wound. Show me the architecture.

Also, more often than you might think, they’re not actually promoting bigotry so much as “didn’t consider all the implications of something” or just used words that were polite then but considered offensive now.

I mean it accomplishes getting them out of office, which is extremely fucking important, and then, yes, you have to keep campaigning and voting against them for the rest of your life. There is no one election that is going to #own the other party into not existing anymore.

We vote in every election forever. That is how this works.

According to the Census Bureau, 65.3% of US citizens voted in the 2024 election, the third-highest turnout in the past 34 years. Turnout increased by 13.1 percentage points since the most recent mid-term elections in 2022, but decreased by 1.5 percentage points since the 2020 presidential election.

At least 1/3 of US citizens (and often far more!) never vote.

Second question. Do you know the demographics most likely to vote in every single election? Older people vote more than younger people, and conservatives vote more than liberals. Fascists keep winning in America not because a majority of Americans like fascism, but because the people who like fascism are far more likely to vote than the people who don't like fascism. If the 1.5% of people who voted in 2020 but did not vote in 2024 had voted, Trump would have lost.

Voting out fascists works, but we have to keep doing it. And we have to keep doing it in every election.

It sounds like a lot, and it sounds like a drag, but the thing is, politics is not like movies or novels.

In movies and novels where there is a villain, there is usually One Great Big Climactic Battle Against Evil at the end of the movie, where Our Hero does something really smart/brave/whatever and Defeats Evil And Wins The Day For Good. We've seen this so often that people have started to believe that this is how life works. And it isn't.

Real-life politics is a lot more like household chores than anything else. You don't do the dishes Once For All and then never have to do them again. Ditto laundry, scrubbing the toilet, etc. These things have to get done regularly or things are going to get gross, and the more gross you let things get, the longer it takes to fix them. If you keep doing the laundry, and the dishes, and wiping up spills when you make them, and cleaning the bathroom on a regular basis, and sweeping/vacuuming the floor on a regular basis, and putting away your stuff, then your house will be comfortable to live in. If you do these chores at least occasionally, it probably won't be too bad. If you never do them, things are going to get very bad (and possibly unsafe, with mold and stuff growing on the unwashed dishes).

In the same way, political stuff is just ongoing. Voting happens at least every two years in the US. Legislatures meet for months every year. The executive branches (Presidents, governors, mayors) work year round. There's always something important going on, and it may be boring stuff but it can have absolutely huge impacts on everyday life.

despite being a child of the 80s whose parents, understandably, had no experiential basis for teaching internet safety, i knew internet safety. no real name, no real location, don't share your age more than a rough range if at all, etc. why did i know those things? because adults in my first fandom communities taught me and other kids who showed up in those forum and chat spaces. they moderated or deleted messages that shared too much, laid ground rules, shepherded us. i knew those people in community, not in isolation (another tip the forum babies were given).

when my parents tried to ban me from all fandom internet-- a thing that was 80% of my social experience, as a rural, autistic, homeschooled teenager-- i posted a farewell in the forum (after a whole day of angry crying and arguing). one sweet member of the forum was a 20-something mom with two toddlers, and she wrote a lovely letter for me to print for my parents explaining how the community was moderated and what a benefit it could be and offered her own email and phone number if they wanted to chat.

they didn't reach out to her, but that letter is why i was allowed to stay online. just having the offer and the explanation was enough to reassure my parents. i wasn't besties with this woman, just a casual friend in the same space, but we stayed in touch. i respected her and the advice she and other adults in that community gave and it kept me safe in other interactions going forward

i'm friends with many of the people from that community on facebook now. they're still friends with each other. that kind woman? i watched via internet as her kids graduated. she watched me get married and have my own kids.

one of my older friends in another fandom was in her thirties when i got my driver's license as a teen. she celebrated with me. she sent my oldest kids a baby shower box that contained blankets that became their special blankies they still have saved somewhere as teens.

those relationships have been some of the most important ones of my teen years. they were people who enjoyed fandom chats with me, but also invested in me as a PERSON and not just as a kid they were tolerating. in the right context of healthy friendship, their advice and perspective kept me safe and helped me grow.

You just have to find someone to be brave for.