Because we don’t live in Candyland, we live in reality. Conflating the two currently viable parties is centrist, in impact if not in intent. The reality is that harm reduction is the adult way to process complex choices in the world. All of the things she claims to care about will be objectively worse under Republican control, full stop. And shitty as it is, the Presidential race is currently a binary, again full stop. Claiming anything else is ignorance.

If she, or anyone else, actually cares about breaking the binary, you don’t do that flirting with a ridiculously unrealistic longshot (this word does not even begin to accurately describe the magnitude here) in the presidential, you do it by focusing efforts on legitimizing third parties where they are potentially viable - local and smaller scale races. You put in the fucking work and put your boots on the ground - you canvas your local community in support of local third party candidates, you inform your neighbors of the issues and importance of third party options locally, or you fucking run third party in viable elections yourself if no third party option exists. Talking about breaking the binary by conflating both sides in the presidential election is ignorance, reductive, and entirely non-productive.

Best case scenario Roan is wildly naive to reality, but even then her words only muddy the waters and encourage preventing very real harm reduction, full fucking stop.

Also what policies? Like what’s the point of feigning a moral stand if you don’t define it? If she has legitimate grievances with the Democrats or leftist politics (yes pedants, I know they’re different and I’m saying “or” to include both, not to conflate them), then she should voice them. Otherwise she’s saying nothing but playing into the bs “both sides” false narrative that enormously benefits the right.

I think she is absolute right and within her rights to be critical and unenthusiastic about the Democratic options, but without actually offering critique then what is her weak centrist take accomplishing?

Hey man, I’m allowed to make a Beatles reference if coo coo ca-choose to.

Also All-man Brothers? That doesn’t sound very inclusive; get back to me when you allow women brothers too.

That’s fair and I see your point, even basically agree with it. That said, I still wonder sort of what standards we’re holding for “good” characters and how realistic that is. And I want to make a brief caveat that I don’t know you and can’t speak to your personal opinions so I will be making some generalizations about the topic in general; I apologize if it feels like I am unfairly lumping you in with anyone and promise that is not my intention. It is clear to me you aren’t a right wing chud screaming about DEI but rather you’re a very decent person looking for fleshed-out representation that isn’t shallow or driven by stereotypes.

Okay, caveats out of the way now, here’s the thing: I have a gay friend who is very proud of their community and themselves for being who they are despite any social pressures. This friend frequently goes out wearing full-blown rainbow attire, speaks with the affectation of their community, and they will absolutely inform you of their orientation upon their first meeting. Of course my friend has vastly more depth than just their community affiliation, but that affiliation is definitely going to be the largest and most prominent quality you associate with them, especially if you never move beyond acquaintanceship to friendship.

If my friend was in a video game, they would absolutely be described as flat or tokenism. But they are a real person. Even if you’re thinking to yourself right now “well frankly it sounds like your friend is lacking in depth in real life,” (I’d disagree, but go with the argument none the less, please), the fact is they still exist. There are people who define themselves by their identifiers first. So I don’t think the mere inclusion of these “flat” representations are inherently problematic.

I don’t think a flat character of an under-represented demographic is harmful in the way that a bad or stereotypical representation is. I think there is still benefit in the normalization of lesser-represented groups in media, even if those representations aren’t the deepest or most compelling characters. A gay shopkeeper who is flamboyant and one-note still helps normalize the idea of gay people in normal aspects of life.

But of course we can’t settle for these characters as the whole piece of representation. We have to still demand deep and complex under-represented characters, especially in lead or primary roles. I just personally don’t think the flatter characters are inherently problematic or detrimental to those goal. If anything, I think they’re almost kind of tangential or non-sequitur to the topic. The point isn’t to complain about flat under-represented characters and discourage their inclusion, the point is to demand good and complex under-represented characters regardless of the inclusion of these flat other representations.

I’m very sorry for the novel I wrote, my brain is crazy today and I couldn’t make it more concise in this moment.

Also I have no yet watched Kaos so I can’t comment on the representation in that show, but it does sound compelling from what you describe.

Also also, in case it’s not clear, I don’t think we’re arguing; I think we probably agree with each other about 90% of the way here.

I see your point and don’t disagree exactly… but…
I will say it is odd that I hear this kind of criticism of flat gay/female/minority/etc characters but for some reason never hear complaints about the equally-flatly written comic relief characters, or best friend characters, or sage characters, etc. Video games and other stories frequently contain flat characters that are used more as props for the protagonist or other characters to react and respond to, yet complaints about these characters seem to only pop up when said characters happen to represent an under-represented demographic.

It took my awhile to get it until somebody put it this way. The objects aren’t exactly “moving” apart from each other, rather space in between them is expanding. So instead of thinking of it like a bunch of objects in a line being pulled away from each other, instead imagine it like a bunch of vector based objects random placed on an infinite canvas - now rather than moving the objects at all, try to imagine instead reducing the scale of all of the objects equally. Now of course this isn’t perfect, as really what is happening is kind of the opposite, as the objects remain the same but the space between increases, but the relationship is the same here. So nothing is exactly “moving” in relative space, but everything is still expanding. Thus this expansion can happen infinitely without anything breaking the speed of light.

Yes. To the best of my knowledge there is no restriction, and the only breakages I’ve noticed in the app in that internal links don’t work (links to a post on a sub just opens the sub) and I can’t view the “other discussions” page on a post.

Also like, food and water you acquire is food and water you don’t have to purchase or otherwise gain, meaning you can use the resources you would have used on food on military operations instead.

If you mod a sub, you can still use third party apps for some reason. I have a tiny, practically private sub, and I can still use the Boost app for reddit with no problem.

Yep. The difference is one side is rubbing their hands excitedly while saying it.

No thanks. Games that choose to sign with the anti-consumer storefront don’t deserve my attention as the consumer.

It’s cool to learn the official guidelines; thanks for doing the legwork here!

I’ll accept the lowercase L (in my East Coast based US education we were taught liters should also be capital L, but that seems to either be flat-out incorrect or have fallen out of fashion), but googling images of the cans shows me no space between the number and the unit.

It’s nothing. Without a unit those are just numbers. A can of coke isn’t 12, it’s 12floz.

Or so my metric companions don’t shit themselves in their panic-induced rage at the sight of imperial units, a coke can isn’t 355, it’s 355mL.

I believe I specifically asked you to articulate how the people I mentioned aren’t sex workers but Instagram and non-nude OF models somehow are.

Hey that’s not fair!

…we’ve also got Star Trek memes.

Are Hallie Berry, Drew Barrymore, Alexandria Daddario, Madonna, the singer Pink, or countless other people who have posed for commercial available photoshoots or video scenes “sex workers”?

If no, I’m going to need you to articulate how they aren’t but Instagram and non-nude OF models somehow are.

Well, I do apologize for asking of you the Herculean effort of reading three whole paragraphs.

I appreciate you, my drunk friend.

Yellz0 and Kaitlyn Krems are not “sex workers,” unless you expand the term so broadly so as to include anyone offering titillating, at which point every model and most actors would fall under it as well.

So no, I am specifically not assuming they follow sex workers, I am assuming they follow people who offer titillating content, as expressed.