#Things and things and things and things and things!

[amygdalae]

My problem with heterosexual romance novels (which I am reading under duress due to my coworker book club but find somewhat entertaining cuz they're not something I normally wld read) is that whenever the love interest is an asshole the author also makes him all dommy dom. when what I really want is for him to be thoroughly put in his place. All of these shithead Christian grey knockoff guys in these books would be excellent brat material but nobody cares what I want. Nobody cares what I want

[adobe-outdesign]

Entire Pokemon fanbase upon watching the Z-A trailer: wow I can't believe they added anti-homeless bars to the benches in Pokemon

GameFreak dev who thought those were arm rests:

[marciaillust]

your design of me

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

So... how's outpatient therapy at the mystery shack going?? :')

[biruesque]

graduation happy birthday anthy!

[l-747]

Quick mob on the kri and tah

[inanimateinsanitywiki]

my season one remaster prediction

[artsymeeshee]

they chillin like old times

[tawnysoup]

yes i can absolutely hijack this post and turn it into isafrinbelle qpr

[leupagus]

Tuesday's House Budget Vote and what you may not have heard about

I'm reposting this from a reblog of a really great post about the work that Representatives Mullin and Pettersen did in voting against the GOP budget on February 25th, because I don't want to detract from that message.

Instead, I want to talk about the larger implications of H. Con. Res. 14 itself, and why the Democrats risked so much (in Mullin's and Pettersen's cases, actual harm) in order to show up for this vote.

The vote in question is starting the first of quite a few votes for the upcoming GOP budget; it's not a done deal by any means, this was just the vote to get it started, so to speak. But it was still a very, very, VERY important vote, because not only would failure be catastrophic, but so would a win that just barely squeaked by.

And this one squeaked like a fucking mouse in Murray's Cheese Shop.

Speaker Johnson has been waffling on putting this to a vote because there were several outspoken GOP members who talked a big game about opposing it. Usually this doesn't matter, since most bills get some bipartisanship, but at present the House is in GOP hands with only a three-member margin of error, with two seats vacant (note: those two vacancies are FL 1 and 6, which are holding their special elections on April 1 — lol — and which are EXTREMELY unlikely to flip but hey miracles happen! Donate or phonebank if you'd like!). And Democratic representatives have been voting in a bloc against...well pretty much everything the GOP's been pushing through since Trump took office. Not only that, but this budget is legit unpopular with a number of Republicans, so much so that Johnson pulled the vote at first on Tuesday because he knew it would fail if the GOP members who'd threatened to vote against it actually went through with it. What he needed was to either convince them all to fall in line, or resort to cheating.

So he did both!

He and Trump strongarmed all but one of the GOP holdouts into voting yes (Congressman Massie is in many ways a turd in a toilet, and his reasons for voting no were bad, but he did stick to his guns, I'll give him that). Reports of Trump actually screaming at one of the (female, naturally) GOP holdouts are...well, unsurprising, but that's how panicked they were about getting this bill started. Usually the Whip does this work, but Tom Emmer's been laughably bad at it and so they had to get Trump to actually do some work. Which is itself sort of astonishing. But even then, they weren't sure they could get it done.

Which leads us to part two of Johnson's plan: blatant cheating. During Pelosi's last session as Speaker, she allowed for proxy voting in light of COVID and, you know, the general state of things, but the second the GOP got back the gavel they nixed it right in the bud. This puts the Dems at a disadvantage right now because at least three of them are out for medical reasons — Mullin and Pettersen, as well as Congressman Raúl Grijalva who's fighting cancer at present. (He was the only Democrat who couldn't get to the floor for this vote, fwiw, and anyone who insists he should've can suck my left tit.)

So Johnson adjourned the House for the evening, sending everyone home, but told the GOP members to stay and then tried to rush through the vote before the Dems realized what was happening. His hope was that enough Dems would be caught flat-footed/not see the recall notice/be asleep watching Taskmaster (whoops that was me) by the time they got the message to get back to the floor. That way he could lose the holdouts but still pass the budget onto the next phase.

However! While Nancy Pelosi no longer rules the Democratic caucus with her iron fist and fabulous coats, my man Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries learned quite a lot from her (and is pretty fucking genius himself). Not only did he and the other House leadership expect this kind of chicanery from Johnson, they had planned on it.

Because here's the thing: Mullin and Pettersen didn't get on a plane at the last minute on Tuesday; they'd gotten to DC on Monday, without telling anyone they were in town. They actually hid from the GOP members all day Tuesday in order to lull Johnson into thinking he had more of a margin than he did; if the GOP holdouts really had voted against the budget, then it would've failed. Which would have been a biiiiiiig problem for Johnson and Trump.

As it is, it's still a biiiiiiig problem for Johnson and Trump, because now they know just how razor-thin their margin is. More importantly, they also now know that the Dems will fuck with them just as much (if not more) as they will fuck with Dems. Congress (and the USA in general) has operated for years on the assumption that Democrats operate in good faith, while taking it for granted that of course the GOP ratfuck as much as humanly possible.

This moment is a chilling one for the GOP; they can't assume anymore that Dems will play fair or fight clean. Which seems like a very small thing in the larger picture right now, I know, and I also know that people would love for their Democratic representatives and senators to be more vocal and angry in public ways. I get that!

But this move on Tuesday night? Is actually going to have far bigger consequences than any meme or viral video or clever soundbite from a politician. Democrats are no longer playing by the rules that the GOP's ignored for years (if not decades); they're playing by the GOP's own rules, and they just might win.

[sparrowlucero]

I really wish queer media recommendations were more clear on if a thing actively engages with queerness vs just passively features queer characters, rather than the current & nebulous "queernorm" and "not queernorm"...

[crabsnpersimmons]

inspired by my friends and their gacha adventures

bonus end, because the road of gacha gaming is riddled with the salt:

some process sketches and lines under the cut if anyone's interested

the first little doodle that started everything:

i was originally just going to make this one drawing, with a short little dialogue thing, but i decided to draw it all out into a little comic:

fun fact: you can tell how anxious i am about drawing something traditionally by how many process photos i take. cuz if the worse comes to worst, i can always finish or fix it digitally IF my motivation battery hasn't completely drained, which... it usually is 😅

but i'm very happy with how this turned out! need to draw more silly ideas

[frenchublog]

[sicheslavchyk]

I want to scream and cry (istg who tf am i lying to, i am already crying)

To every non-ukrainian that reads my tumblr — if Ukraine is going to be given to russia, I will die. For being openly pro-Ukrainian or openly queer — one of those two, definitely. It is, like, a fact. And the possibility of that is way higher then the possibility of me dying right now from a missile or a drone (even though there's an air raid right now, yeah). Fucking crazy, but that's the reality.

Don't want to be spreading defeatism, but the things that happened in the White House today very clearly show that the US is siding with russia.

I believe in our military. They are doing absolutely unbelievable things. They are probably the only reason why I haven't given up on my life yet.

But oh my fucking god, it is so obvious that the US is trying to sell us to russia. Honestly, it is fucking unbelievable. After threatening to sanction the hell out of us in the 90s in order to make us give up our nukes and destroy missiles and military aircrafts, they failed to react when russia broke the Budapest memorandum and attacked us in 2014. They did fucking nothing. And now they are actively betraying Ukraine (sorry, I can't call it otherwise). I hate trump and every person that voted for him. I wish them to spend the next 11 years like ukrainians — actively suffering and with everyone telling them to shut up and die already.

I genuinely don't know what else to say. Support Ukraine, please. If you are not from the US — look up the info about pro-Ukraine rallies in your country. We need the support of other countries. At this point I am literally begging everyone who can read this — push your government to help us. It is crucial right now.

If you are from the US — honestly, i don't know what to tell you. Either hire a hitman who can do their job or riot and overthrow him. Yeah.

Ah, also, yeah, never fucking ever give up your nukes 🙂

[syrospit]

my darling magic man, magnus

or as my friend calls him autism jesus

———

edit: if this becomes my most liked post i will draw him naked