#I simply must believe

[sainz100]

just a small Daniel moment from the pit lane on Thursday ahead of the Singapore GP

[hinamie]

i don't normally participate in these redraw challenges but it's megumi so i'll make an exception

[inkskinned]

oh you know it's all latestage capitalism but the thing is. how are you supposed to be a person inside of this. a person trying to be a better version of yourself.

oh, you started working young, which was kind of hard, but it's just the way stuff works sometimes. and it was 2008 and your family couldn't afford heat. but it's fine, you grow a spine and get used to the professional world and besides it was the suburbs we're talking about here, like, your life could have been actually hard, so what if your father lost his job and you can't afford to move or turn the lights back on. and once you start making money, it's good. you keep doing that. because now they're relying on you. so you have to do that.

oh you were in thousands of dollars of debt at 17 years old so that you could go to school, because you have to go to school if you want to get a "real" job. you even did it "right", you worked parttime and attended community college before you transferred to a public school. you were under so many merit scholarships.

which is fine. you pick yourself up and you say like, okay. i graduated college. i'm holding down a job. i'm doing the Adult Thing, which looks and acts like this, according to all the books i've read. you start with the shitty job and then you climb that corporate ladder.

but the shitty job doesn't cover rent and you stretch yourself too-thin so you get sick. good luck with that. the shitty job no longer pays for your meals. everyone asks why you don't just move, but there's nowhere to move to. and with what money are you going to be moving? and then the loans come back, because they were never going to forgive them, because you were 17 and trying to do the right thing, which was stupid. people are now saying you shouldn't have even gone to school.

which is fine. but because you have no other option, so you do the shitty job, and you apply every day for like 5 new ones, and despite the fact everyone says "there's no one who wants to work!" it's actually just that nobody is fucking hiring so you can either work for 13 dollars an hour in the shitty place you know (where at least you have a passingly friendly relationship with the manager) or you can start from scratch again with a different 13 dollars an hour without knowing how much abuse from the new job you'll be taking.

and if you quit you lose your insurance. if you quit you lose your housing. if you quit, you'll be another burnout kid. the lazy ones. these assholes, look at them!

and you come home to a family dinner and you hear from your father the same old thing. how he worked hard at his job and yes it sucked for a while but he was able to provide for the family and then the house and the dog and the rest of barbie's dream vacation. how the insurance did cover some of it. how you just really need to start speaking up more in manager conversations so they know you're a go-getter. you want to tell him - did you know we're actually doing more now hourly than any previous generation? - but you can't remember where you heard that statistic, and you're far too tired for the fucking argument. and then he starts in on his usual bit. where's the house? where's your kids? where's your ambition.

the same job the same money the same hours doesn't do it anymore. the same nose-to-the-grindstone now just shreds your face off. there's no such thing as upwards mobility, not really. and as far as you're aware, the money certainly is not trickling. you do the soulless stupid shit you signed up for because you fucking have to or else you literally risk your life (food, the apartment, the insurance), but it's not getting you anything. you download the stupid "save more" app and you budget and you do every right thing and then the price of eggs is 7 dollars and you say - oh great! another thing i have to fucking worry about now!

and you go to your stupid job and everyone in your father's generation just tells you to be better about being an adult. they have their homes and their savings account and their bailout and they say. well have you tried not drinking starbucks. well your generation just spends too much on clothing. well you might just be too addicted to travelling. and you - because you need the job - you bite your tongue and don't say i am being held prisoner and you're suggesting i stop pacing my cell if i don't like the scenery and you don't say what the fuck do you think i've been doing with my money and you don't say i haven't spent a cent on something nice in literally forever much less coffee you arrogant asshole. you open and close your bank app and check your loans and check your credit score and check fucking zillow and ziprecruiter and apartments.com just one time more. and still they give you that demeaning little grin and say - see, what you need is -

what you need is for your meds to stop being so fucking expensive. what you need is for the housing bubble to explode into dust. what you need is for billionaires to choke on their wealth. what you need is actual help. what you will get is more economic advice from people who are older-and-wiser.

and above you, almost in a glimmer, you can see the wedged smile of your debt getting toothier, wider.

[art-is-kayos]

Sight of a Star - Blue-ish Star Ryōshū and Don Quixote

[allthatmay]

So, today my husband said, "Some people think Shanks is a radial leftist, but I think he's the most centrist character in the show. Dragon fills the role of the radial leftist/anarchist that people often attribute to Shanks."

And, huh, yeah. People do often talk about Shanks like he's an anarchist, but he's really not. I've always said that Shanks is a mediator, keeping a tentative peace between the pirate tribes and the government until the time comes wherein the One Piece can be claimed and the mysterious consequences can happen, but that means he is effectively playing the part of a centrist—straddling the fence, as it were. The key difference, I think, is that Shanks knows for certain that change is coming in the form of a rubber deity, and he is trying to guide it into place. All his work is done behind the scenes with very little violence if he can help it.

Now, it's easy to assume that Shanks' plans involve the complete dissolution of the government as it presently stands; that he is simply using his power & influence to mitigate harm for the many until the "real fight" can begin (and, with him having recently decided to chase the One Piece, now it has), but that might not be the case (and, even if it is the case, a lot of centrists use "mitigating harm for the many" as a reason not to take action against some truly heinous acts). The reality may be that Shanks doesn't see the need for the total collapse of the government, or perhaps he knows something about it that we don't (i.e. because he might be of Celestial Dragon blood). I don't really believe this is the case because, as far as I'm aware, Shanks hasn't ever shown any real support for the World Gov but he has shown, time and time again, that he believes in dreams, in people's personal willpower, and in the ability of anyone to become strong and change the future. But the truth is that we can't know his intentions for certain without Oda giving us more information, so my husband's assertion that Shanks is a centrist makes some sense.

In particular, Luffy is what makes this theory interesting: slap him in between Dragon and Shanks, and there's a very real dichotomy between the two "fathers" in his life. See, Luffy idolises Shanks and thinks of him similarly to a father, but he might realise as time goes on that he can't be like Shanks; he might realise that Shanks' ideals will only carry him so far. After all, what good is it to be a pacifistic when your enemy is a powerful government that is comfortable with mass murder?

(My rebuttal is that Luffy is the only one who can be like Shanks. He is effectively Shanks' dream: Shanks wants to be strong enough to do all the work himself, to suffer all the pain himself, and while he is one of the strongest men in the world, he simply can't do that; what he can do is only achievable through the support he has at his side. Meanwhile, Luffy has close support in his crew, and he has the Gum-Gum Fruit! He can literally become a godlike figure and shape the world around him! He can do everything that Shanks wants and needs and, as sure as I am that Shanks wishes he could have done it himself—I'm thinking back to his days with Roger here—he knows that it was never meant to be him.)

This is where Dragon comes in. Dragon, in direct contrast to Shanks, uses violence as a tool whenever he can. He's all about the greater good, for lack of a better term. His thinking is along the lines of, "People are suffering now and we can help, and we have no qualms in forcibly dismantling a government that uses slavery, genocide, and imprisonment to control its populace. We don't wait for the right time to act, we simply act." Do I think Shanks would approve of Dragon's goals? Yes. Do I think he would approve of Dragon's means in achieving those goals? No, but mostly because Shanks is very self-sacrificial and tries to take whatever suffering is necessary for change onto himself, relying only on his small, personal crew, whereas Dragon is happy to let other people martyr themselves for the rebel cause. He lets a small, amnesiac child join them, for crying out loud—something Shanks would never do, not even if the child proved very capable.

If anything is to come from this difference of ideals, I think it's that Luffy will learn from both of them and find his own way to the One Piece and into the world waiting beyond. Why? Well, because Luffy is all about freedom, and no one on the side of Dragon or Shanks is truly free. As for the world itself, it's hard to predict what will happen after Luffy's done with it because it's pretty dependent on Oda's philosophy. For instance, Oda seems to approve of monarchies, which is not something I would personally imagine remaining in a world without a governing body—but, hey, what do I know?

Of course, we all know that the true centrist in the show is undeniably Garp. He will let real, undeniable harm befall those he cares about in order to maintain the status quo, or to stop the government from toppling because [gasp] that would be the worst thing ever! He's a man who believes the government is essential and joins up in order to change it from the inside, only to fall short of his own expectations because he won't stand up when it matters most. Not even for the sake of his beloved grandson.

[theophagie]

Don't know why people think that Verosika lied when she called Blitz selfish in the sheets, I fully believe that it was the stolussy that converted him to reciprocal down-going. I Trust that it was

[genericpuff]

There is this rumor that the post from Rachel where she is upset about this years Nomination not getting hyped, might be fake

lmao I'm not taking the bait, anon, you can literally find the post and prove that it's real on her BlueSky in less than 30 seconds. How we interpret it is largely our own opinion, obviously, but the post itself is very much real and very easy to find.

[slyandthefamilybook]

...And here we come upon a problem as basic as the nature of knowledge itself: all of our prodigious cognitive and computational abilities are inadequate to a full comprehension of our complex world. As humans, we remain heavily dependent on certain tools of perception and conception that our cultural and biological heritages have taught us are useful. These tools–such as language, causal logic, religion, mathematics–are indeed powerful, but they are powerful precisely because they reduce complexity to intelligibility by projecting our mental concepts onto the world. One consequence of this is that our recognition of significance is always what some philosophers call "theory laden," meaning that it is shaped by what our theoretical framework and cognitive tools encourage us to recognize as meaningful. Anti-Judaism, as I have argued throughout this book, is precisely this: a powerful theoretical framework for making sense of the world.

...

After all, no matter how overrepresented the Jews may have been among the European "bourgeoisie," they remained a tiny minority of that class. How could that tiny minority convincingly come to represent for so many the evolving evils of the capitalist world order? More broadly, how could untold millions of Europeans (and not only Germans) come to believe–or act as if they believed–the claims of the Nazis (and not only the Nazis) that Jews and their conspiracies so threatened the security of the world that they needed to be excluded, expelled, or exterminated? According to Horkheimer and Adorno, the liquidation of the Jews of Europe was not grounded in "reality." It took place in the vast gap between and explanatory framework ("anti-Semitism") that made satisfying sense of the world to a significant portion of its citizens, and the complexity of the world itself.

They set out to explore that gap in a philosophical history of modern thought they drafted in 1944 and later published as Dialectics of Enlightenment. Their final chapter, "Elements of Anti-Semitism: Limits of Enlightenment," suggested that what gave anti-Semitic ideas their power was not so much their relation to reality, but rather their exemption from reality checks–that is, from the critical testing to which so many other concepts were subjected. "What is pathological about anti-Semitism is not projective behavior as such, but the absence of reflection in it." In their terms, the problem is a heightened resistance to reflection about the gap between our ideas about Jews, Judaism, or Jewishness, and the complexity of the world. From their point of view, anti-Semitism provides adherents with a cognitive comfort: the fantasy that the gap between our understanding of the cosmos and its fearful complexity does not exist.

...

...[A]cross several thousand years, myriad lands, and many different spheres of human activity, people have used ideas about Jews and Judaism to fashion the tools with which they construct the reality of their world. The goal of my project, like Horkeheimer and Adorno's, is to encourage reflection about our "projective behavior," that is, about the ways in which our deployment of concepts into and onto the world might generate "pathological" fantasies of Judaism. And my choice of method owes something to Auerbach's conviction that the study of a given moment, problem, or even a single word in the distant past can teach us something about a much longer history, extending even to our own.

Selected excerpts from Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition (2013 Nirenberg, David)

[whereispearlescentmoon]

Dragon!Pearl. But like, a dragon with dinosaur esque feathers and multicolored plumage and scales that are black but iridescent like an oil spill. Am I right fellas?

[cheesebearger]

i know there are people upset about dead boy detectives being canceled, but it's almost certainly due to the spate of sexual assault allegations surrounding neil gaimen. it has become very clear that neil gaimen is a practiced, lifelong predator. he has harmed many. he has violated and abused.

gaimen's properties being canceled are the natural consequence of the mask being pulled off. people rightly do not want to continue allowing gaimen avenues to profit when he's harmed so many. even if he's not directly involved in directing the show, he is an executive producer. and he does not deserve profit or platform.

[shober-arts-blog]

so. weathergirl petra/lukas huh. i might as well drop the concept designs i did when the idea popped into my head

(not discouraging the anon who said they were making an animatic! go right ahead with your idea im just posting this to share it)

context below cut:

[rad-roche]

okay!! painting wrapped up, eager for you to see it. i have some super cool bonus news. guys

never stop posting

[alexjcrowley]

HOW DID I FUCKING FORGOT IT WAS MAX'S BIRTHDAY OH MY GOD I AM SO DUMB HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAX KNOW THAT YOUR MERCH POPULATES MY VIRGINITY CORNER

[glitteringcrab]

They built a wall around infinity

What is the Central Finite Curve wall made of???

Is it some random sci-fi stuff like "sub-ether barrier"?

Well, if the theory that the colour yellow is associated with brain stuff is true, I'd like to point out the following:

1. The ultra beam Eyepatch Morty shot through the Citadel to bring down the Curve was yellow:

It became stronger after Eyepatch Morty infused it with blender-ed Ricks and Mortys:

Why did that work??

How could that have possibly pierced through some sort of dimensional wall? Is it really just a matter of something as "benign" as calibration or killing them to be thorough?

2. And who else, apart from Eyepatch Morty, had been collecting the bloodied remains of Mortys in vats?

Why, the Citadel Ricks.

That's... odd.

Did they collect physically "defective" or misbehaving clones before disposing them all off in one go?

Was it a slaughterhouse, with excess rickless Mortys being sent to death?

Was it a sort of punishment to terrorize Mortys into obedience?

Was it a sort of execution for criminal Mortys?

Was the number of Mortys dying in the Citadel from horrible living conditions simply that high, that they needed to be collected and disposed off in a special way?

Could be any of the above really... But even at the first time I watched this episode I thought that was odd.

(...and why have portals that apparently do nothing but spew blood... Where did that blood come from?)

(Is it Rick blood...?)

3. Rick says this concerning their brainwaves:

He's making it sound like it's just a matter of detection. Visibility. Camouflage. Nothing actually substantial, just a matter of stealth.

...says Morty, referring to his "camouflage" properties.

...replies Rick, which seems kinda redundant, doesn't it?

He agrees with Morty that "Morty is more than a human shield", but the only actual "more" thing in Rick's subsequent description of Morty is the phrase "perfect impenetrable".

Is he just rubbing in Morty's face how effective he is as camouflage?

...Or is he talking about something else?

Something... truly impenetrable...?

What. IS. The. "Wall around infinity". Made. Of??????

(...is it like... crystallized brainwaves of Mortys who died painfully...?)

(I mean, if you can crystallize time, and infuse a freaking liquid with code that allows it to pierce through dimensions, why not also be able to liquify and project brainwaves?)

[mikesbasementbeets]

are you arguing that bi mike believers, unlabeled mike believers, and those who are undecided are homophobic?

no. i’m not arguing that any person or sets of people are homophobic. i do think that there are certain avenues of thought that come up often in arguments against a definitive gay mike reading which stem from homophobic biases that, given the benefit of the doubt, the people arguing them may not realize are homophobic or even realize that they hold those biases.

believing that mike is bi or being undecided about it doesn’t mean you’re homophobic. obviously. however, plainly acknowledging that mike canonically does not exhibit attraction to women and then insisting that he could still be attracted to women in spite of that, to me, indicates a (possibly subconscious) bias against men who are not attracted to women. if your instinct when confronted with a character who presents a categorical lack of opposite-gender attraction, concurrent with active displays of same-gender attraction, is to round up every possible alternative explanation, all equally hypothetical and unsupported by canon, to avoid coming to the logical conclusion of that specific narrative dichotomy (homosexuality), then all i’m asking is that you examine what biases you might be holding onto that lead you to that reaction.

[musical-chick-13]

Regarding the whole "Fandom Is An Escape, so why should I have to care this much about misogyny/racism/ableism/transphobia/etc." thing. Idk about the rest of you, but it gets kind of hard for me to "escape" when I keep seeing people say the same vile things about characters who share aspects of my identity that I hear all the time in real life.