#appreciate the small stuff

[attic-saltsz]

Jonas: Jellyfish have survived for millions of years without a brain

Jonas: A ray of hope for Remco

[cosmogyros]

(Reblog this version please!) Okay fuck it. I was too nervous to post this at first, but I see tons of non-Germans wanting to know what's going on right now. So here's my summary. Thanks to my buddy @keldermans and another German friend not on Tumblr for taking a glance at it to make sure I didn't get anything too horribly wrong <3 Any remaining errors are my bad!

I spent much of today writing up an outline of the current soap-opera drama going on in the German government, for my non-German-speaking friends who'd like to enjoy the tea as well.

Disclaimer: I am not technically German, but I did my best to explain this all as accurately as possible (and I did get a couple of Actual Germans to check it over for me).

For THE GERMAN DRAMA, see below...

Cast of characters:

The German government coalition (known as the “Ampel” – traffic light – due to its colors):

Olaf Scholz, Chancellor (leader) of Germany. Party: SPD (color: red). - and the other Red party members in the coalition - this includes the Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach

Christian Lindner, Minister of Finance of Germany. Party: FDP (color: yellow). - and the other Yellow party members in the coalition (four FDP members) - this includes the Minister of Transport, Volker Wissing - and the Minister of Justice, Marco Buschmann

Robert Habeck, Vice-Chancellor of Germany. Party: Greens (color: green) - and the other Green party members in the coalition.

Other characters: Friedrich Merz, likely to become the next Chancellor. Party: CDU (color: black).

The events I can recall so far, in roughly chronological order over the past five days:

1. The government coalition argues all day Wednesday, trying to pass laws while Lindner refuses to agree to anything. In the evening, Scholz loses his patience and fires Lindner with the legendary words, “Dann, lieber Christian, möchte ich nicht mehr, dass Du meinem Kabinett angehörst. ...So. Doof.” (In that case, my dear Christian, I don’t want you in my cabinet anymore. ...Well. Sucks.)

2. Scholz then calls a press conference and gives a surprisingly impressive speech in which his rage is barely concealed. He includes some sharp jabs at Lindner and sounds very personally betrayed by the breakup.

Scholz's speech includes the immediately-legendary line “Zu oft hat er mein Vertrauen gebrochen” (Too often has he broken my trust), which everyone here in Germany is now obsessively quoting.

He declares that he will ask for a vote of confidence in January, and if he fails it (as is expected), he will call for new elections in March, six months earlier than they would otherwise have taken place.

3. Lindner gives a very emotional and self-pitying speech in which he declares “Ich habe gelitten” (I have suffered) – another phrase that becomes an instant classic with those of us watching from the sidelines – and he includes some sharp jabs at Scholz.

4. Showing solidarity with their fellow party member Lindner, all the rest of the FDP members in the coalition resign from the government too… except for Wissing, who instead decides to quit his own political party, the FDP, in order to stay in government and keep his job. He is now a party-less politician!

5. Habeck gives an emotional statement to the press, practically in tears, coming across like a kid whose parents are divorcing and he doesn’t know how to handle it. In a maudlin moment of his speech, he compares the collapse of the coalition to the end of a relationship.

6. At the end of Habeck’s statement, a reporter calls after him: “Is Lindner going to apply for Bürgergeld benefits?”

(Background: There are two tiers of unemployment benefits in Germany. To explain it in a somewhat tasteless way, there’s kind of a class distinction. If you come from a “higher-class” profession, you can typically start by getting ALG I, which is more money. If you are unemployed for the long term or come from a “lower-class” working background, you get Bürgergeld. The stereotype about people on Bürgergeld benefits is that they spend it all on drugs and alcohol and sit on park benches getting drunk all day. Also, Lindner is known for trying to pass legislation to reduce social benefits of all kinds, including unemployment benefits.)

7. Background: After the failed assassination attempt on Trump earlier this year, a popular German comedian called El Hotzo posted a joke online saying basically “too bad he missed” and promptly got fired for saying that. He kept his spirits up and joked about the job loss, saying “Ich bin Deutschlands frechster Arbeitsloser” (I’m Germany’s cheekiest unemployed boy).

Back to the present: At a press conference, a reporter asks Lindner: “How are you handling the statements being made about you online right now, such as ‘This is Germany’s cheekiest unemployed boy’?”

Lindner seems to need a long moment to figure out how to reply to this question.

8. The next day, Habeck coyly soft-launches his candidacy for Chancellor by posting a mysterious video of himself on social media in which he’s wearing a cute beaded friendship bracelet that spells out “Kanzler Era” (Chancellor Era). This is apparently a Taylor Swift reference (?).

In this video, he’s sitting in an atmospherically-lit room, writing at a table. It appears that Lindner had posted a very similar picture of himself in the past, because he now tweets in response to Habeck: “All Democrats welcome here, Robert! You got the setup almost right – the lamp was on the other side. ;)” (and he adds his own pic, which indeed very much resembles Habeck’s video)

9. Angela Merkel muses publicly, “Maybe God only created the FDP in order to test us all.” (ETA: She said this a while ago, not in response to the present situation. But it's still so true :'D)

10. A mainstream German news podcast sassily comments on Friday:

“While Olaf 'Too often has he broken my trust' Scholz is enjoying his party’s admiration for his cowboy moment and Christian 'I have suffered' Lindner is going through his own personal St. Matthew’s Passion […]”

11. Buschmann (one of the FDP party members who resigned), who apparently moonlights as a composer of electronic music under the handle "MBSounds", drops a new self-composed track on SoundCloud about the collapse of the Ampel government. It’s called “To Go Is to Stand”.

The news comments dryly: “Well, at least he doesn’t sing on the track.” (Buschmann's previous biggest hit was simply an angry speech of Lindner’s, set to music.)

Lauterbach (one of the SPD party members still in office) tweets: “No offense, but I don’t think I’ll be listening to that song more than once. But still, it was good working with you, Marco.”

12. The media ask Scholz if he’s throwing his hat in the ring to run for Chancellor again. He says yes. They ask, in what ways is he different from Friedrich Merz (the dude who’s currently expected to win)? And he replies “Ich finde mich etwas cooler, wenn es um Staatsangelegenheiten geht” (I think I’m somewhat cooler [than him] when it comes to matters of state).

And now the German media is making up new words like "scholzen" (which I can only presume means "as the leader of a country, to fire other government members you don't get along with"):

[Headline translation: "Who Donald Trump will 'scholz' first"]

[bunnieswithknives]

Dev this is serious stop beatboxing.

[icara-mack]

a bit late as always, but happy nov16th everyone! 4 years… happy FOUR YEARS. <3

My piece for the @sixteenth-day-event - Quackity remembers Kinoko kingdom

(and misses his fiancés. I will never be normal about this smp)

RB’s appreciated!! I post art stuff sometimes so follows are cool if you like it :0 <- I am attempting a technique I call farming subscribers. I learnt from the best (bell ringing) (tried and true Technoblade technique) <3

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[strawbebbiesart]

june/ july / august 💌🥪🦢

[thwackk]

people underestimate the comedic potential of eobard’s existence and his extreme petty hatred for this one (1) dude

bonus because i just feel like barry would think he’s just hallucinating or something but came up with the WORST way to tell his mom that

[milkweedman]

Been doing a lot of finishing/frogging of old projects since I started packing... maybe like a dozen or two at this point, most of which I had no idea existed. And while finishing a mostly done project that had been put in Bad Item Jail is very nice, I'm learning that going "okay, even though I probably could finish this and it might not even be that annoying, I Don't Want To ! So instead I will free up the yarn for the next time I DO want to make something with it" is really satisfying. Begone, bag that is 95% completed but that I don't really like and won't really be happy with ! Now I can make you into a bag I do like. Yay !

[muscariii]

Made these two things since I had a little bit of time. To be honest I don't really like how the first one turned out :( I wanted it to look better. Rasha was made really quickly and I basically just wanted to draw her even if it's low effort. I miss her.

I'm currently really overworked since I've got a lot of assignments to do at art school. Sadly I don't have much time to draw morrowind stuff and yeah... :(

I've been thinking about what to do with the comic since it will definitely take a while until I get the next part done.

I wanted to make a poll with a few ideas I had for it but would you guys even want to vote in it?

[renewedmotionforjudgment]

[gravity-falls-fanatic89]

Picked up another little bunch of cute stickers and pieces from one of my favorite Etsy shops, NotS&PApproved 🥹 I always love how the items made feel like they came straight out of Gravity Falls ☺️ Anything from this shop makes me homesick for the Shack in the best and worst ways.

I love these immensely and always love the envelopes @grunklejam makes with them. It's a wonderful touch to already great things ☺️

[gum-iie]

[delusionaltoma]

having a small group of followers/mutuals who support me >>>>>>> anything else

[unforth]

Ngl as a small business owner who puts out something extremely pirate-able and who has never earned enough to make a pay check, this...

...is extremely upsetting.

Do y'all realize that most small business are maybe a handful of people? Do y'all realize that company's like LLCs exist to protect owners from legal and financial repercussions if the company falls apart? I'm not a company because I have stockholders, I'm a company so that if the business goes bankrupt the banks can't seize my fucking house. It's not evil to use existing legal structures to protect my family's assets. It's not unreasonable to ask people not to steal from businesses like mine.

It's like on Tumblr when it's One Artist or One Author Doing The Thing Themself you guys are all about it but the minute anyone tries to collectivize to do better we go from One Person Against The World to The Embodiment of Capitistic Evil with no in between, which is especially insane coming from the website that claims to think individualism has turned toxic and we should do more with community organization. The minute lots of people are involved in a business, there HAS to be legal structures like contracts and shit to protect the people involved. The Lone Creator Forging a Path is great for that one person. What about everyone else?

And so... some of us try to make a company to lift up a group.

And then I see shit takes like this.

Maybe. Maybe DONT fucking pirate from literally anyone just cause they've got the word "company" I'm the name?

Maybe remember that for small businesses, yes even when they're a company, there's a single person, or a family, or a group of friends, who are working their asses off to build something, and actually? Stealing from them makes you a FUCKING DICK.

Like. You realize we're just people right? Other regular people trying to survive the dystopian hellscape that is the now?

Maybe stop acting like you're automatically entitled to the labor and creations of others solely because you've decided that there is an entire huge category of people it's okay to steal from.

Like honestly. What the fuck.

[mossy-paws]

Phigting headcanon ask!

What do think are the phighters fav drink? :D

YES YES YWA YES YES!!!! I LOVE ASKS LIKE THESE LETS GOOOOOOO!!!! IM SO SORRU IT TOOK SO LONG FOR ME TO GET TO THIS BUT!! LET ME JUST COMPILE ALL OF THEM REALLY QUICK!

Sword, ice water with lemon. I actually headcanon he’s allergic to caffeine (because anything with caffeine will make birds very sick)

Rocket, sprite or blue Fanta

Subspace can’t drink due to his rot, he probably eats electrolyte packages lmfao

Medkit is addicted to black coffee

shuriken loves green tea/matcha

vinestaff likes sakura tea or cherry ramune

Icedagger likes söderblandning and Julmust especially

Scythe likes vinegar, straight vinegar. (And sometimes a key lime martini on the side)

Broker, once more, likes whatever is illegal.

Skateboard likes coca cola

slingshot likes milk because cat

boombox likes ginger ale (the bottle is green okay I couldn’t think of anything better)

Banhammer likes his mamas smoothies

Zuka likes those gas station slushies, blue raspberry mixed with Coke is probably his faborite

Hyperlaser likes beer or any sort of alcohol (duh)

Katana likes Baekseju

Valk like champagne

Dom likes red wine, but only the most expensive kinds

Voidstar likes the blood of her victims

Windforce likes protein shakes

Firebrand adores root beer floats, he also likes to make them with Dom and valk! His favorite is probably just with vanilla ice cream

Ghostwalker doesn’t drink but if he would it would be watered down cremated ashes

Illumina likes communion wine and holy water

ghostdeeri can’t drink liquids since it would extinguish her flame lmao

Darkheart likes chemical waste

Venomshank likes French Bloom Le Rosé

Coil likes monster energy drinks

Lord PWNATIOUS only likes the most expensive kinds of alcoholic drinks on the market

traffic likes gutter rain water /afF

okay so that’s all of them! Enjoy these I love getting to talk about stuff like this ;3

[fairytalearista]

I saw a post that resonated with me the other day, and I'm now wondering if my experience is more universal than I realized. So, would you mind answering the following:

And, by "experience anxiety" I mean disordered anxiety, where your nervous system will go into disproportionate panic modes on a semi-regular basis. Bonus points if you have been diagnosed by a professional, but it's not necessary.

I also pulled out "trained in handling crises" as a separate options, because I'm more interested in natural tendencies here. You are welcome to ignore those options if you want to think of crises you are NOT trained to handle.

Please reblog to increase sample size, please