#i fear the conspiracy theory is no longer a theory

[moon-brain-90]

...so is he taking commissions? I have 1 chocolate pudding in exchange for a mclaren

[boreal-sea]

Look.

I have made you a chart. A very simple chart.

People say "You have to draw the line somewhere, and Biden has crossed it-" and my response is "Trump has crossed way more lines than Biden".

These categories are based off of actual policy enacted by both of these men while they were in office.

If the ONLY LINE YOU CARE ABOUT is line 12, you have an incredible amount of privilege, AND YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT PALESTINIANS. You obviously have nothing to fear from a Trump presidency, and you do not give a fuck if a ceasefire actually occurs. You are obviously fine if your queer, disabled, and marginalized loved ones are hurt. You clearly don't care about the status of American democracy, which Trump has openly stated he plans to destroy on day 1 he is in office.

EDIT:

Ok fine, I spent 3 hours compiling sources for all of these, you can find that below the cut.

I'll give at least one link per subject area. There are of course many more sources to be read on these subject areas and no post could possibly give someone a full education on these subjects.

Biden and trans rights: https://www.hrc.org/resources/president-bidens-pro-lgbtq-timeline

Trump and trans rights: https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/trump-on-lgbtq-rights-rolling-back-protections-and-criminalizing-gender-nonconformity

The two sources above show how Biden has done a lot of work to promote trans rights, and how Trump did a lot of work to hurt trans rights.

Biden on abortion access: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/politics/what-is-in-biden-abortion-executive-order/index.html

Trump on abortion access: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-trump-republican-presidential-election-2024-585faf025a1416d13d2fbc23da8d8637

Biden openly supports access to abortion and has taken steps to protect those rights at a federal level even after Roe v Wade was overturned. Trump, on the other hand, was the man who appointed the judges who helped overturn Roe v Wade and he openly brags about how proud he is of that decision. He also states that he believes individual states should have the final say in whether or not abortion is legal, and that he trusts them to "do the right thing", meaning he supports stronger abortion bans.

Biden on environmental reform: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-restores-protections-for-three-national-monuments-and-renews-american-leadership-to-steward-lands-waters-and-cultural-resources/

Trump on environmental reform: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html

Biden has made major steps forward for environmental reform. He has restored protections that Trump rolled back. He has enacted many executive orders and more to promote environmental protections, including rejoining the Paris Accords, which Trump withdrew the USA from. Trump is also well known for spreading conspiracy theories and lies about global climate change, calling it a "Chinese hoax".

Biden on healthcare and prescription reform: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/06/09/biden-administration-announces-savings-43-prescription-drugs-part-cost-saving-measures-president-bidens-inflation-reduction-act.html

Trump on healthcare reform: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/07/politics/obamacare-health-insurance-ending-trump/index.html

I'm rolling healthcare and prescriptions and vaccines and public health all into one category here since they are related. Biden has lowered drug costs, expanded access to medicaid, and ACA enrollment has risen during his presidency. He has also made it so medical debt no longer applies to a person's credit score. He signed many executive orders during his first few weeks in office in order to get a handle on Trump's grievous mishandling of the COVID pandemic. Trump also wants to end the ACA. Trump is well known for refusing to wear a mask during the pandemic, encouraging the use of hydroxylchloroquine to "treat" COVID, and being openly anti-vaxx.

Biden on student loan forgiveness: https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-additional-77-billion-approved-student-debt-relief-160000-borrowers

Trump on student loan forgiveness: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2024/06/20/trump-knocks-bidens-vile-student-loan-forgiveness-plans-suggests-reversal/

Trump wants to reverse the student loan forgiveness plans Biden has enacted. Biden has already forgiven billions of dollars in loans and continues to work towards forgiving more.

Infrastructure funding:

I'm putting these links next together because they are all about infrastructure.

In general, Trump's "achievements" for infrastructure were to destroy environmental protections to speed up projects. Many of his plans were ineffective due to the fact that he did not clearly outline where the money was going to come from, and he was unwilling to raise taxes to pay for the projects. He was unable (and unwilling) to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill during his 4 years in office. He did sign a few disaster relief bills. He did not enthusiastically promote renewable energy infrastructure. He created "Infrastructure Weeks" that the federal government then failed to fund. Trump did not do nothing for infrastructure, but his no-tax stance and his dislike for renewable energy means the contributions he made to American infrastructure were not as much as he claimed they were, nor as much as they could have been. Basically, he made a lot of promises, and delivered on very few of them. He is not "against" infrastructure, but he's certainly against funding it.

Biden was able to pass that bipartisan bill after taking office. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan that Trump tried to prevent from passing during Biden's term contains concrete funding sources and step by step plans to rebuild America's infrastructure. If you want to read the plan, you can find it here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/build/guidebook/. Biden has done far more for American infrastructure than Trump did, most notably by actually getting the bipartisan bill through congress.

Biden on Racial Equity: https://www.npr.org/sections/president-biden-takes-office/2021/01/26/960725707/biden-aims-to-advance-racial-equity-with-executive-actions

Trump on Racial Equity: https://www.axios.com/2024/04/01/trump-reverse-racism-civil-rights https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-37230916

Trump's racist policies are loud and clear for everyone to hear. We all heard him call Mexicans "Drug dealers, criminals, rapists". We all watched as he enacted travel bans on people from majority-Muslim nations. Biden, on the other hand, has done quite a lot during his term to attempt to reconcile racism in this country, including reversing Trump's "Muslim ban" the first day he was in office.

Biden on DEI: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/06/25/executive-order-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-workforce/

Trump on DEI: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-tried-to-crush-the-dei-revolution-heres-how-he-might-finish-the-job/ar-BB1jg3gz

Biden supports DEI and has signed executive orders and passed laws that support DEI on the federal level. Trump absolutely hates DEI and wants to eradicate it.

Biden on criminal justice reform: https://time.com/6155084/biden-criminal-justice-reform/

Trump on criminal justice reform: https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election/21418911/donald-trump-crime-criminal-justice-policy-record https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/05/trumps-extreme-plans-crime/678502/

From pardons for non-violent marijuana convictions to reducing the federal government's reliance on private prisons, Biden has done a lot in four years to reform our criminal justice system on the federal level. Meanwhile, Trump has described himself as "tough on crime". He advocates for more policing, including "stop and frisk" activities. Ironically it's actually quite difficult to find sources about what Trump thinks about crime, because almost all of the search results are about his own crimes.

Biden on military support for Israel: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-obama-divide-closely-support-israel-rcna127107

Trump on military support for Israel: https://www.vox.com/politics/353037/trump-gaza-israel-protests-biden-election-2024

Biden supports Israel financially and militarily and promotes holding Israel close. So did Trump. Trump was also very pro-Israel during his time in office and even moved the embassy to Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the capitol of Israel, a move that inflamed attitudes in the region.

Biden on a ceasefire: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/06/05/gaza-israel-hamas-cease-fire-plan-biden/73967659007/

Trump on a ceasefire: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-gaza-finish-problem-rcna141905

Trump has tried to be quiet on the issue but recently said he wants Israel to "finish the problem". He of course claims he could have prevented the whole problem. Trump also openly stated after Oct 7th that he would bar immigrants who support Hamas from the country and send in officers to American protests to arrest anyone supporting Hamas.

Biden meanwhile has been quietly urging Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire deal for months, including the most recent announcement earlier in June, though it seems as though that deal has finally fallen through as well.

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

My thoughts about the Trump assassination attempt

After having a few hours to process this whole thing and see reactions from across the political spectrum, I'm having some thoughts and some feelings.

First off, as I said earlier, Trump is a fucking boss. Take anyone who ran for president in the last 20 years, put them in that exact situation, and I don't think a single one responds by raising his fist and snarling in defiance and righteous anger. They run. They cry. They keep their heads down and the first statement you h ear from them is hours later filtered through 20 different speech writers. Today proved to me that, whatever else he may be, Trump is a genuine bad ass. He's exactly the person I want at the end of a sword pointed the United States. Because he's going to have a sword of his own pointed right back, and he's not going to run and hide when it comes time to use it.

Second, the modern left is full of monsters. The amount of people screaming and crying because this assassination attempt failed actually sickens me. It's one thing to have fantasies about easy solutions to the things that scare you. Hell, I'm not innocent. I've thought about how much better things might be if this politician was no longer around or this activist group got axed. But one of the things I did today was think about how I would feel if the assassin succeeded. And then I thought about how I'd feel if someone took a shot at Biden and he didn't survive. Neither thought gave me any good feelings. Obviously I'd be more upset if Trump died, but today showed me that I don't want us to start down the path of shooting political leaders. But too many people on the left, people who should know better, at least enough to hide their true feelings, have no problem publicly wishing Trump was dead right now. That assassinating presidential candidates was a legitimate tactic--but only against the politicians they don't like, of course.

Fuck that.

Fuck them.

America is better than that. Americans are better than that. We're not some third world shithole like Mexico. We're the greatest country in the world. We're the last bastion of representative government. The last place in the world where freedom exists. And it's time we started acting like it.

Third, I ain't got no time for conspiracy theories. Sorry guys, but this wasn't staged and this wasn't a CIA hitman. Unless real, hard evidence comes out otherwise, you won't ever get me to believe any of the nonsense I've seen floated around. Don't be so lost in the true things the media has dismissed as "conspiracy theories" that you immediately jump to the most conspiratorial explanations first for everything that happens. It's lame and cringe and a lot of people I've seen seriously putting these theories forward should know better. I know we're in our emotions right now, but keep your heads.

Fourth, my heart breaks for the families of the people who were hit with the bullets meant for President Trump. But that's the kind of evil we're facing. Whoever did this decided that the idea of a Trump presidency was so awful that they were okay with shooting innocent people just to stop him. And this is after he was already president and none of the things the media is fear mongering about happened during his first term. Those people just wanted to see a man speak. To have some hope for the future. And some piece of shit shot them because he didn't like a presidential candidate. Or worse, because the TV made him scared.

Fifth, fuck the media. You think you hate them enough, but you don't. The media is the driving force behind our enemies, and there's no such thing as a good journopig. They're all lying propagandists. We just like some of them because their propaganda occasionally hits on the truth.

And that's all I got. None of this is organized, none of this is proofread. These are just the thoughts I've been wrestling with for the past few hours. This is the only place I can get them all down without being interrupted or feeling like I need to censor myself. Do with them what you will.

[entities-of-posts]

I had a lot of grotesque dreams last night but I'll save you two of the stranger ones.

The first was that I was doing an assignment for my Biology class, but every time I answered one question, another question appeared and the assignment kept getting longer. I was doing it on the due date and it was so upsetting.

The second was that there were plants growing between my brother's teeth. I didn't believe him when he told me until I saw it, and then I freaked out.

I think they were stress dreams, if that affects any identification.

The second is the Corruption; for the first, it’s difficult to say… the urgency and neverending nature of it could be linked to the Hunt, or perhaps it could be said that you feel Buried under the ever-expanding task. Maybe the feeling of impending doom as the deadline approaches could even be the End… but hear me out now.

Some may call me a conspiracy theorist for this, but theories I have! Have you ever heard of the concept of the Dull?

The reasoning goes as such; humans love balance, love symmetry. The prevalence of inversion theory when it comes to the Fears prove this. And human imagination molds Them. But currently, one Entity is without a dance partner; the newest, still forming Extinction. There is an imbalance, a void waiting to be filled. And what would mirror the Terrible Change? The fear of nothing ever changing. Being stuck in this state of things, monotony, boredom, every day just the same as the last and the next and the next and the next forevermore. This is exhibit A.

Exhibit B: something happened in recent years. Something that left a large part of the world’s population stuck at home, the days bleeding into each other, getting cabin fever, going stir-crazy trying to escape the tedium. An event like this, on such a scale… couldn’t it be the perfect push for Something to start coalescing?

I call it the Dull, the Forever And Ever And Ever And Ever, the Broken Clock. Apathy and endless repetition, lifeless routine, rows and rows of identical greige-painted suburban homes. Always through the same motions with no end in sight. It will always be like this.

Consider it:)

[luminouslywriting]

Band of brothers headcannon ,somehow somebody told them u were cheating on them and they get super angry or depressed but then they discover it's not true, in a way or another.

An angsty request? Nonny, I'm not sure if you know this, but I live in angst and pain and prefer writing this sort of stuff haha! So keep sending in the angsty headcanon requests, because I'm SO down! Requests are open!

Cut for length, light spice in some, angst under the cut, picking on Webster at least once for no reason haha:

Dick Winters:

-It's not necessarily that someone told him that you were cheating as much as it was implied through subtext and he does NOT deal well with that at all.

-But he's not super vocal about it??? Like, he's the type of man who would rather just talk to you about things than let rumors lie in wait and spiral.

-It doesn't stop him from worrying about if he's done something wrong to push you away until you're able to finally talk.

-And when you do talk, there's this massive relief that you were just getting another job and talking with a superior about it—nothing malicious or mean of the sort.

-Please just reassure this man that he's the love of your life. He's a fairly secure man, but this was rough emotionally and he never accused you of anything but that doesn't mean that he wasn't worried for a second there.

-It definitely becomes a laughing point in your relationship later on.

Lewis Nixon:

-Listen, this man has NOT had good luck when it comes to women or relationships in his lifetime. So when you're a little busier than normal and out longer than normal, he can't help but spiral.

-He takes these fears to some of his friends (not Winters though, because that man would tell him to screw his head on straight haha), and they somehow get it in his head that you're cheating on him

-Cue the downward spiral of drinking and being depresso-expresso yet again

-So when you come home and you've been working extra hours to get a surprise for him—because all you wanted to do was afford a dog on your own wages rather than Lew's money—and he's all emotional and upset—it's a rough situation

-Arguments are had and feelings are hurt. So when he sobers up and realizes that you were just trying to do something sweet for him, he's hurrying to apologize in a big grand romantic gesture sort of a way.

-Moral of the story? Don't surprise him, he'll assume something else is going on or start some sort of conspiracy theory about it haha

Ronald Speirs:

-Someone starts the rumors maliciously because they had a crush/feelings for you and it gets around pretty quickly....and the thing about the entire situation is that he's unfazed? -Like this is the man who people-watches and reads people really well. He's fairly certain that he'd know if you were cheating on him lol.

-That being said, when the rumors finally make their way over to YOU, you shut them down and go to talk to him.

-He's really patient and sweet about the entire thing—because of course he knows you weren't cheating on him, but you're apologizing because of the rumors and he's just wanting to be there for you because that's a rough reputation to have going around tbh.

-Speirs is so secure in the relationship and the way that you feel about him. If not for the declaration of love, then certainly for the way that you are screaming his name later that evening lol.

-Also definitely finds the root of the rumor and uses intimidation to make them back off—no more problems like that for you two ever again.

Buck Compton:

-He's shocked and baffled as to what he's hearing and he's going through everything in his mind trying to figure out where he went wrong. Has he upset you? Were you two not close? What happened anyway?

-He gets real quiet about things when he sees you next because he's trying to figure out how to express what he's feeling.

-And there's definitely some distance on his part and so when he finally comes to you and just asks about the entire thing, YOU'RE just as baffled as he is.

-So reassure him, give him cuddles, attention, verbal affirmation that he's the only man for you, and he'll be secure in no time at all

-But also, realize that it's now going to be a lingering fear of his that you'll leave him for someone else. So be on watch and on guard for any feelings like that re-emerging over time.

-Communication and showing love is going to be big in patching things up.

Carwood Lipton:

-Heart shattered and in disbelief the minute that he sees you hugging another man that he does not recognize.

-He doesn't necessarily want to confront you and have a nasty argument about it, but his jealousy is certainly spiking quite a bit. This leads to him pulling away from the relationship.

-And then the minute that you introduce him to your cousin who has been fighting down in the Pacific for the past few years?? It all clicks into place and he suddenly feels very silly.

-Shamefully admits this to you later when it's just you two alone. And he feels really bad that he even doubted your feelings and intentions.

-But tell him that he's the one, demand that he give you a family—all will be solved by morning haha

-It becomes a running joke in your family for years to come.

Joseph Liebgott:

-JEALOUS JEALOUS JEALOUS—he knows that you have lots of guy friends and that you get along well with HIS friends. But let's be honest, it's probably Webster who suggests that maybe you're a little TOO close to some of his friends.

-And so the ugly side of his jealousy rears it's head and he's getting all possessive and kind of controlling in some ways

-Confronting him is going to be the simplest and easiest route to handle this entire situation

-It's going to be a few arguments later that he realizes that he's really messed up by accusing you of sleeping with one of his friends. But he does come to you and genuinely apologize for his words.

-Yes, this is something you and said friend are going to hold over his head for the rest of your relationship lol.

-And yes, Webster may have gotten punched by you for planting the idea in sweet Joe's head.

Donald Malarkey:

-Listen, this man pays no mind to rumors. But when the rumors involve you and another man? He tends to pay attention. He doesn't believe what he's hearing at all.

-Definitely runs to talk to you immediately about the rumors and isn't sure what to make of your reaction—shocked, of course.

-Your reassurances calm him down and a cuddle session immediately will help him feel much better

-He's definitely going to bring you flowers the next time that he sees you out of guilt lol

-Tries to be more confident in the relationship after that because you promised him that he's the only man for you

-Also attempts to quell rumors with his friends because he's fiercely defensive over you and your honor.

Eugene Roe:

-Soft man here is in love with you to the point of self-destruction, okay?? So when he comes to see you in the medic tent and finds another man kissing you, he's immediately hurt and heart is shattered.

-What he doesn't know is that that was a patient who just kissed you and you had to literally slap the man to get him off of you. So Gene here is in his feels and upset about things.

-When you come to see him and he doesn't really want to talk, you're so confused and he gets really emotional about the entire thing. It's a whole messy argument of you trying to explain what happened.

-And then of course after he's had some time to process the entire thing, he feels just awful for not listening to you or understanding the situation

-He comes to you with a really sincere and soft apology, possibly some chocolate in hand to help his case, and tells you how much you mean to him

-Is it the first time he admits that he loves you? Absolutely. And this certainly leads to the best makeout session of your life haha.

Bill Guarnere:

-Throws hands the minute that someone tells him you're cheating on him. He doesn't believe the rumors for one freakin' minute.

-So when you have to patch him up after some injuries and you're demanding to know why and he angrily explains that it's about you, it's a whole mess.

-You're sitting there trying to explain that you would NEVER, and he KNOWS that so he's just mad that someone would spread the rumors anyway

-This just leads to the two of you being more annoying with PDA haha

-And having a really noisy session of sex where you're both just being so vocal about your love for one another

-Yes, everyone knows that this just strengthened your relationship.

Joe Toye:

-He hears it around the guys in the base—the thing is?? It's an old rumor about some guy that you had kissed BEFORE you were with Joe.

-He gets real quiet and sullen about the entire thing, almost a pouty behavior that leaves you with your head spinning because where is all of THIS behavior coming from??

-It takes a few days of this behavior before he's ready to talk about it and then you're attempting to explain that it's an old flame and that your feelings are solely for Joe now

-In fact, seducing him might just be the move because then he's super smug about the entire thing.

-He might even go and talk to the ex to see if HE has any feelings for you left. And yes, some intimidation might be in order to get him to leave the rumors alone because you and Joe are together now.

-You warn him not to act all pouty like that again though—it was NOT it for you two haha

George Luz:

-Bamboozled, shocked, dismayed, all five stages of grief—but mostly in disbelief

-He's immediately going to shade the hell out of whoever was spreading the rumor even BEFORE he goes to talk to you about the entire thing

-Super down on himself and joking about how he's messed up the entire relationship because clearly you're cheating—and GIRL, you better shut that down NOW

-Please just give him a grand gesture of love yourself and shade him a little bit for even thinking like that??

-Honestly, if you say you're down for marriage, problem solved and this man will never bring it up again—except for maybe in the speeches at the wedding lol

-Is convinced you're even more beautiful when you're shading him for being stupid and believing rumors haha

[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)

[hugsandchaos]

I’m gonna make this before I forget.

Imagine a Sonic Boom AU where Shadow and Sonic were friends before the series even started, but no one knew. Sonic never brought him up. He really wanted to, but Shadow asked him to keep him a secret. In the final episode of the first season, Shadow actually helps Sonic much to everyone’s surprise. Sonic is overjoyed to see him again and goes straight for a hug after the fight. Shadow lets him have this hug and even returns it. Anyone else who tries to touch Shadow is likely to get pushed away.

No one really understands how they’re friends, or how they became friends in the first place, but that’s how it is. Except they’re crushing on each other and Amy’s the first one to notice it.

Now as much as her going through some character growth and letting Sonic be happy at the cost of her own feelings and eventually getting over him would make a great side plot and opportunity for angst, I find it funny to think of Amy not having feelings for the sole purpose of her being the one to slam the table and shout “Just confess already!!” at both of them. Bonus points if others thinks Amy was crushing on Sonic and asks if she’s okay only for her to be confused.

And we all know comedy’s a key part of Sonic Boom, so I’m keeping it. Speaking of comedy…

Tails: Really? Sonic? I know he’s my big brother and I should be nice and all, but he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. One of the dullest, actually.

Shadow: I wish I knew. I fear that his foolishness might be part of it.

Another bonus bit; Shadow’s tail actually looks more like the Black Arms. Sort of. It’s much longer than a regular hedgehog’s, moves around as easily as Eclipse’s did, but it has fur and quills at the end that look like the Shadow the Hedgehog symbol. He mostly keeps it hidden, but when it’s just him or just him and Sonic, he’ll have it out. He especially keeps it in when Sticks is around. He doesn’t want to answer questions she’ll definitely ask if she finds out.

Sonic is honestly a little disheartened by this, and his slight distrust in Sticks because of her conspiracy theories being surprisingly on point with Shadow, but he understands that Shadow has trust issues and tries to help. He’ll never argue when he has it out, though. He finds it sweet when Shadow’s hands are full so he holds Sonic’s hand with his tail instead.

Actually, you know what would be hilarious? If Shadow and Sonic were already dating before the series, but Shadow had to leave for some reason. When he comes back, he does it with an accidental dramatic entrance during a fight with Eggman. The fight pauses to look at the newcomer who just walked through a disaster unscathed. Sonic goes all soft and says “I love my emo boyfriend”.

Eggman: Uh, are you sure we shouldn’t be running? He seems pretty angry.

Sonic: No, no, don’t worry. That’s how he normally looks—

Shadow, very angrily: Bluebell!!

Tails: “Bluebell”?

Sonic, already halfway across the horizon: HAUL ASS, EVERYONE, HE’S PISSED!!!

…Bye 👋

[glamaphonic]

But no for real all the "he should've gone to find Daryl/Morgan/had a protracted reunion with XYZ character instead of focusing on his wife and kids!" shit ties back into people's lack of narrative literacy and, underlying it, their lack of theory of mind when it comes to these characters and of course all those nasty implicit biases. They think that what they care about most is necessarily what Rick cares about most.

There are people who refuse to understand or accept how important Michonne and Judith and RJ are to Rick. Of course he loves his extended found family. Of course he cares about his community. But people want to act like those relationships are somehow interchangeable with (or for a lot of these clowns MORE IMPORTANT THAN) those with his wife and children. That has never been the case! For the entirety of this goddamned show, it has never been the case! Andy has outright said it: this entire story, from the moment Rick wakes up in that hospital bed, has been about a man trying to find and protect his family. That is this insane feral motherfucker's central, defining character motivation! You would think if you claim to be a fan of this character and love him so much you would know that!

And it is wildly transparent that for many people they do know that but are pretending this is no longer the case now because they don't consider the family he has made to be legitimate.

They've been "predicting" (read: wishing for) Michonne's death since the day she and Rick got together and she was "ruined" for them because they could no longer mentally sideline her as a Strong Black Woman with no internal life or emotional, physical, or spiritual needs. And the only thing they hate more than Rick having a dark-skinned black woman as a soulmate is him having a black son. Hated it so much they had a whole ass documented conspiracy theory trying to will that baby out of existence. Judith gets a certain amount of grace from a lot of them purely from the virtue of being white, but they still constantly pull out the most vile anti-adoption bullshit about her not REALLY being Rick's (or Michonne's) child too.

So they sat there and watched a six-hour narrative! A lovingly constructed narrative one of the emotional cruxes of which is the fact that Rick was separated from his wife, love of his life, for eight years, missed most of his daughter's life up until now, missed all of his youngest son's life up until now, was made to forgot his eldest son's face, made to forget his wife's face, and this traumatized him so profoundly that he literally wanted to die! This traumatized him so profoundly that when he at last had the opportunity to go back he was paralyzed by fear to the extent that he wanted to continue living an empty ascetic unlife rather than have to face the emotional turmoil of the mere IDEA of losing them all again.

They saw that and went, "Well him getting to be back with them is unsatisfying because it should've ended with him leaving them to go looking for a grown ass man whose closest interpersonal relation already fucking went to find him!"

And not all of them are stupid. They fucking know that there is a difference between one's relationship with their sibling or close friend and their relationship with their spouse. There's a difference between one's relationship with their sibling or close friend and their relationship with their children. And it's not about quantifying the amount of love, it's about the self-evidently different emotional needs and dependencies that exist in these relationships!!

They know it! They just don't want any of that to apply to this spouse and these children and they're mad af that the show unequivocally said that it does.

And to that I say: lol suffer, bitch.

[1americanconservative]

@VigilantFox

We were told Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone—that was a lie. We were told Sirhan Sirhan acted alone—that was a lie. We were told James Earl Ray acted alone—that was a lie. Now we are being told Thomas Matthew Crooks acted alone. Do you believe them? Here’s why you shouldn't. The Trump assassination attempt reeks of foul play, and the world can smell it. Dr. Chris Martenson has recently presented “rock solid audio proof that there were AT LEAST TWO shooters targeting Trump and the crowd.” This is no longer a fringe “conspiracy theory” because even CNN has acknowledged the presence of gunfire from three distinct weapons: Three shots from Crooks (A), one from the countersniper (C), and five from the mysterious “Weapon B.” Watch this nine-minute video as

@chrismartenson

meticulously breaks down the audio evidence. The following is a summary of Dr. Martenson’s findings: There were at least two distinctly different [unfriendly] weapons being fired. • First three shots were further away than the weapon(s) that fired the next 5-7 shots. • Sonic cracks tell us that they were also fired at Trump’s & audience’s direction (and weren’t taking out Crooks, eg). • This means that the “lone shooter” story is 100% false. As such, Dr. Martenson concludes, “So this tells us that this was a full-on operation.” “These are the questions that need to be asked. I fear for my safety and everybody else’s safety for coming out with this stuff because one thing we know is they don’t like loose ends in these stories. But man, they bollocksed this operation up really badly. Whoever was in charge of it is probably already floating in a river. I don’t know what’s going to happen to them because they really messed this operation up.”

[crepezinhos]

request where reader has a horrible phobia of the dentist, but albedo is there to talk them into going to their appointment and supporting them the way through? :)

Monthly Checkup

(REQUEST #6) POV: How would a science nerd like Albedo react towards a S/O who has a phobia of dentists?

⚠️ WARNINGS:

— This a fluffy SFW piece

— Reader is FEMALE and uses SHE/HER pronouns

— Contains exaggerated views towards science / dentists

“There’s no need to worry, Y/N, it’ll be a simple checkup, no longer than 30 minutes, so why are you so worried about this? Have you not been brushing your teeth properly?”

That was his only argument to you as he drove the car in the direction of the dentist’s clinic.

You were worried, swallowing saliva repetitively, but you that moment had to be faced sometime. You wish you had procrastinated it once again, but Albedo insisted so much on getting the chore over to not mess up the calendar that you convinced yourself to arrange an appointment today and right now. Although he has been your boyfriend for months, you two have never really found each other in this situation, meaning that you never really communicated to him that you feared dentists.

Especially because Albedo is a very rough defender of science and does not tolerate conspiracy theories about it. Tell him vaccines are fake? He’ll just tell you to have fun with the HIV tests. The Moon’s landing is fake? He’ll just walk away from you. The Earth is flat and the government hides it? He’ll genuinely wonder if you ever stepped into high school.

How would you tell such a science-strict man like him that you think dentists will kill you and torture you using sharp materials in your fragile teeth? Would he laugh at you? It would not be a good sign coming from a stoic person like him.

“I, uh… I don’t know.” You muttered, completely unsure of what to tell him instead of the real reason.

“No, Y/N, I’m serious, is there something wrong with your teeth and you’re scared that the doctor will scold you for it?” He said, stopping the car right behind the crosswalk since the signal had turned red.

He was pretty close, but it’s not it.

“No, really.” You said, trying to get him to keep going until he guessed the correct answer.

“Y/N, I can see something is going on and I’m worried about it. Please, let’s talk about it. It would be good for the both of us as a couple.” Albedo insisted, turning his body to you, but keeping his left hand in the steering wheel.

You turned your head away from him even further, feeling the will of telling him the truth taking over and tightening your throat more and more.

“It might begin a bigger discussion and that’s the last thing I want right now.” You argued.

“It won’t, unless it’s something that could reasonably end our relationship.” He argued back, proceeding to wait for a possible response coming from you. “And, a slight disagreement about something insignificant is never going to be bad for us.” He stated a little more calm compared to how he started, putting his right hand on top of yours just to caress it gently. “Please.” Albedo insisted.

And you sighed in realization that you had no good arguments to hit him back, although you didn’t find his words valid or coherent to his person. Albedo is the kind of guy to make small disagreements a bigger matter, but now that he promised to stay calm, you could use it as a weapon against him.

“Well, I… I just… have a phobia of dentists. I’m scared of what the doctor might do to me today and that’s why I’m freaking out right not.” You confessed, shrieking your body and crossing your arms in expectation of his scolding, with a nervous chuckle that was supposed to make the scene less awkward,

And silent.

He didn’t say anything, especially because the traffic signal had turned green, so he had to look forward and drive, making the car went quiet for a quick moment, the sound of motors underneath it louder than anything.

…

He breathed in and out pretty loudly with his nose out of nowhere.

…

“I’m a little offended at your expectations coming from me, I must say, but I’m surprised with this information, I thought this was just another monthly checkup, but it wasn’t. I… did not know something so important as your phobias.” Albedo commented, surprising your negative expectations, and breaking off the awkward silence.

“Oh, please, you know every time someone dares to question science you get angry.” You replied, getting a little too comfortable to make a comment at his behavior although that could phrase could begin the argument that you wanted to avoid.

And it seemed like it when he went quiet again to process what you had said to him. It looked like he was analyzing it pretty well, but you thought he’d not agree with whatever he thought of.

You kinda don’t like it when Albedo gets angry. It’s annoying and really hard to make him drop those feelings.

“Well, I must agree that I do get unnecessarily angry when someone spreads fake information about science, but this is not the case here. I would never get angry at you for a fear, Y/N, especially when I know there’s a pretty good reason behind it.” He calmly explained his point of view to you, making you look up to him finally.

Not even you what he meant. Although that’s what you should’ve expected coming from a boyfriend, you didn’t understand how your fear wasn’t against his patterns or how you ‘have a reason.’.

“What do you mean I have a reason?” You asked.

“Your braces. You had them for some several years, didn’t you? I know that the process of it is usually very painful because of the many alterations they cause in your mouth, so maybe your brain started developing this fear to somehow protect you from these alterations, although they don’t happen anymore… I do believe it’s a little exaggerated, but I will not oppose something that could also happen to me.” He explained his reasons to you, but you barely understood his scientific explanation.

“Really?” You asked, finally looking up to him, a little happy that Albedo was upping the stakes against himself for you.

Albedo letting a person dare science and leave it like that? That was progress.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I would ever avoid appointments because of it. Would you do that, Y/N?” He clarified before you had any further bad ideas of him.

“I mean… I procrastinated this moment a lot.” You confessed, looking away again in embarrassment.

“But you’re still here in this car, with me, going to get this done, so I don’t think there’s any problem, is there?” He asked pretty solidly.

“No… unfortunately…” You whispered to yourself.

“Could I go in the room with you? Would that make you feel more comfortable?” Albedo asked more softly.

“Yes… please.” You answered a little nervous but also relieved that he made such a cute question.

You knew that Albedo would defend from the dentist if necessary, which made your heart go back to its normal rhythm.

“Was it that bad, Y/N?” Albedo asked with a slight smirk on his face as the elevator went down many floors.

“… Shut up.” You answered, chuckling.

“I’m kidding, Y/N, but I do want you to always remember these better experiences. It will end up replacing the bad ones and create a new perspective that will make your next visits less stressful. You had me really worried with all that intensity back in the car and I don’t want to ever see you like that again for such an unrealistic reason, alright? Let’s keep your tears for better occasions, the both of us.” He said, pulling your face closer to his just to smooch your forehead gently as he smiled and stared at your eyes.

“… Fine.”

Don’t forget to like and comment if you liked it <3

Anon, if you’re reading this, I apologize for the very late deliver. If you have been keeping up with my posts, you must know that I have been recently on a trip which took all my days from tumblr. I am finally back, but I still don’t have much motivation or creativity to write at the moment. This isn’t a hiatus, but expect me to post a little less until school’s back. If you really had an appointment with a dentist, I really do apologize for missing it because it would’ve probably made you comfortable.

(Also, the braces thing was a self-insert feature of me but I believe other people can relate to it too, sorry if it’s a bother or not real about you.)

And, remember that dentists don’t want and will not hurt you, they just want to do their job, and some of them just really love their job, so there’s no need to be afraid. ❤️

Taglist: @kindofscenic @kindofshyent @the-stinky-winky

[astradyke]

The ‘big surprises’ for TIT omg and Dan’s giggle, what do you think Phil was hinting at and more importantly what would you like it to be?

i have nothing truly exciting to say about this except that it put fear of God into my heart because like WHAT WILL THIS SHOW BE!!!

we really don't know a lot about what this show is but i will reiterate what i think the plot of it might be -- note that this is what i was conceptualizing back when we were still debating if it was going to be a documentary. it's being renewed in my head though because they reacted to TATINOF, so...

i think TIT might be Dan and Phil going back through the history of their online careers, except! at one point! something mysterious happens (metaphor for not accepting one's self/fear) and the two of them are split apart from each other and stranded in two different 'eras' of their lives. this gives us solo content but also like... i can entirely see a dramatic Dan monologue happening as he finds himself trapped somewhere in 2018, and Phil ending up trapped in 2022 and doing some bit about The Hiatus. eventually the two of them end up reuniting with each other and they push forward to 2024, and then... musical number? maybe?

i don't know if that's a big surprise but i do think if the show gets framed as like Let's Do All These Fun Bits! like reacting to phan conspiracy theories probably around the like 2012-2016 era yeah? it might be surprising if there's suddenly like rising tension, like maybe throughout the show you see them start to get a little uneasy, and then the split occurs.

also because these motherfuckers love a 'the world would rip apart if we're not together' trope so... time itself ripping apart because the two of them are separated feels about on par with them.

(also honestly i have just been thinking about a Dan monologue for a while and originally my thought was that it would be in 2012 but i think they're going to get through 2012 pretty quickly with BBC retrospection and i no longer think they'll be mentioning any of the... things happening in 2012 anymore. so i think if Dan has any kind of crisis it's going to hit him in 2018. i would also love if this monologue addressed rebranding and like... moving past existential crises as being his whole like gig.)

oh also they're definitely going to do foreplay on stage but that's a little obvious by now.

anyway, those are my main thoughts ^_^

[scotianostra]

On 21st July 1796 Robert Burns died in Dumfries, he was just 37.

Rather than go over Rabbie's life, this post mainly covers the last few weeks of his life, and him dealing with his iminent demise………

It is apparent from Burns’s correspondence, his poetry, and even from his First Commonplace Book that the bard was plagued by ill health on several occasions throughout his short life. ‘A Prayer in the Prospect of Death’, first published in the ‘Kilmarnock’ edition of Burns’s Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is believed to have been written in 1784 when the bard was just twenty-five years of age and suffering a bout of ill health: O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause Of all my hope and fear! In whose dread presence, ere an hour, Perhaps I must appear!

Burns gives this poem the longer, more explanatory title, ‘A Prayer, when fainting fits, & other alarming symptoms of a Pleurisy or some other dangerous disorder, which indeed still threaten me, first put Nature on the alarm.’

Indeed, we might consider that the threat of illness never truly left the bard: there are several references throughout the poets’ correspondence to rheumatic episodes, hypochondria, physical injury, toothache and periods of ‘melancholy’. However, the first signs of the illness which would eventually claim Burns’s life began in the winter of 1795 when the poet was confined to his sick-bed for several weeks. His health declined over the course of the months that followed, and from the bard’s correspondence in the summer months of 1796 it would appear that he sensed the finality of this particular episode of ill health. In a letter to George Thomson on the 4th of July hewrote: ‘ I received your songs, but my health being so precarious nay dangerously situated, that as a last effort I am here at sea-bathing quarters. – Besides my inveterate rheumatism, my appetite is quite gone; & I am so emaciated as to be scarce able to support myself on my own legs.’ If you remember my last post about Burns at the beginning of the month where he sought the healing powers of the Brow Well and bathing in the Solway Firth near Ruthwell. Burns was soon aware that the sea-bathing was ineffective, writing to his father-in-law James Armour on the 10th of July that;

‘I have now been a week at salt water, & though I think I have got some good by it, yet I have some secret fears that this business will be dangerous if not fatal.’

Tragically, Burns’s final letters became increasingly desperate, and the poet expressed deep concern for the welfare of his family, it became clear the bard was preparing for the worst when he wrote to his brother Gilber:

God help my wife & children, if I am taken from their head! – They will be poor indeed. – I have contracted one or two serious debts, partly from my illness these many months, & partly from too much thoughtlessness as to expense when I came to town that will cut in too much on the little I leave them in your hands.’

Burns was right to be concerned. Indeed, he died in significant financial difficulty, overshadowed with the threat of debtors’ jail. Burns himself acknowledges this in a letter to his cousin, James Burness, on the 12th of July in which he states: ‘When you offered me money assistance, little did I think I should want it so soon. A rascal of a haberdasher, to whom I owe a considerable bill, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process against me, and will infallibly put my emaciated body into jail.’

Before this threat could be realised, Burns died surrounded by his family and close friends on this day in 1796.

While biographers and critics have offered several theories surrounding the cause of Burns’s death (many of which are fanciful and without evidence, some even hinting at conspiracy), scholars and medics who have examined the poet’s own account of his illness, together with those of his contemporaries, agree that the poet most likely died from bacterial endocarditis: a serious complication of his recurring rheumatic illness. Of course I dn’t think his like of alcohol helped though.

Robert Burns’s funeral took place at midday on the 25th of July 1796, I will cover it in more detail in a few days……

[carefulfears]

Top 5 msr hand holds <3

below the cut because you know i'm gonna TALK.

1. closure

the two of them sitting in that coffee shop, both cups in front of them untouched, filled to the brim, reading samantha’s journal. bearing witness to the suffering of this little girl. they are in this moment together. they have been in this moment together since he looked at her and told her “nothing else matters” to him, seven years ago in that motel room.

for the past seven years, scully’s job has been to play the skeptic, to argue against the paranormal theories that his grief leads him to. later that night, she stands outside the door of the last person to see samantha alive, and prays for aliens.

they’ve been in this together for the better part of a decade and they’re sitting in a coffee shop reading the truth they’ve been looking for, how devastatingly human the evil of it was, and she looks at him with tears in her eyes and squeezes his hand.

2. redux ii

one of the few moments in the series where you see scully break…scully defines herself so completely in loyalty. in following him, in being ahab’s starbuck, in being her captain father’s first mate.

in this moment, mulder is heading off to a hearing where he will be testifying to details of the conspiracy and against members of the FBI. this is It. this is The Truth. this is The Quest that they’ve been working on for five years. the dutiful first mate would send him on his way.

scully clings to his hand. she doesn’t want to lose any more time (nine minutes in bellefleur was enough). she can’t believe either of them are going to go through the next few hours, the last few hours, without each other.

she might not be there when he returns, she’ll be the next on the list of people to have disappeared behind his back, and he’s kissing her cheek and casually cracking jokes, and she‘s desperate to hold on for just a moment longer.

3. tithonus thumb war

one, two, three, four…we die next to each other or never at all. what’s immortality next to a mindless game with your best friend?

scully asked fellig, “how can you have too much life? what about love?”

he answered, “love lasts 75 years, if you’re lucky. you don’t want to be around when it’s gone.”

in a story about the grief of eternal life, waking up in that hospital, i don’t see scully taking on the quest to give it up.

4. dreamland

the central question of this episode, becomes the central question of the rest of the series: don't you ever want to get out of the car?

while they may be years from stepping away from the car long enough for that house and "normal life" that scully laments driving past, for a moment they stand in front of it.

they gaze up at lights in the sky the way they did on their second case together, the way they did in antarctica, and he reaches wordlessly for her. half "scully, you gotta see this" and half "stay here on the ground," it's an instinct that doesn't disappear with their memories.

it's like that thing DD said once, "there is no such thing as that story ever ending. those characters are forever searching. that’s what they do. even if we’re not watching them, they’re out there."

they'll get back in the car and they'll "just keep driving," for years and for decades and for the rest of their lives, because they'll forever be searching. and when there's something to see, they'll reach for each other.

5. pusher

"smile, scully."

kneeling down before her to surrender his weapons, he meets her worried eyes with a calm smile.

this episode is all about palpable tension and anxiety, about walking into a losing battle without control of the stakes, and it's most visceral in scully from the moment they decide to send mulder in alone.

but before she nervously watches a surveillance screen, before she jumps up the moment the feed cuts out, before she runs in after him, before she screams at a serial killer and cries out to him in fear...she quietly looks down at him, the way she has so many times before, and keeps his hand still. steadies them both, holds them both in this moment.

the emotional arc of this episode is bookended with touch, and more than the absolution in the way she reaches for his hand in the final scene, it's this moment that simplifies it to me. it's the calm before the storm, and the time that's taken in the midst of it all, to pause outside influence while they still can.

(BONUS: Fight The Future)

reaching out to him as she recommits, parroting back his own words to him. she has memorized everything that he has ever said and it is the two of them in this work, in this fight.

if they quit on each other now, they lose.

+ ghouli

[mariacallous]

The words “RIP America” trended on X minutes after a jury in Manhattan found former president Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts for falsifying business records in connection to a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Images of an upside-down American flag—a symbol of distress that became co-opted by the 2020 Stop the Steal movement—flooded social media, as Trump supporters, fringe extremists, right-wing pundits, and politicians voiced their anger.

Ever since the trial began, pro-Trump commentators—and Trump himself—have been priming MAGA online ecosystems to claim foul play if the jury found him guilty. The response to his felony conviction was predictably swift, with many characterizing it as a declaration of “war” from the “deep state.” Incendiary rhetoric about how the guilty verdict was a sign of America’s collapse reverberated from the mainstream right all the way to the fringes.

“As of today, with this fake guilty verdict against Trump, America is no longer the United States,” wrote Joey Marianno, a pro-Trump political commentator, to his 466,000 followers on X. “We are a third-world shithole heading for a Civil War. I have no desire to see this country to unify. There’s no country to unite. We are long past that.”

Many of the biggest proponents of “Stop the Steal,” which culminated in the January 6 Capitol riot, did not hesitate to claim that the verdict was the result of a “rigged” justice system.

In a video posted to his 2.3 million followers on X, Infowars’ Alex Jones said that the “deep state and globalists” put Trump through a “kangaroo” court in the hope that a guilty verdict would harm his campaign. “Ladies and gentlemen, we see our republic on its deathbed right now,” said Jones, adding that he believed that “false-flag terror attacks blamed on Trump supporters angry about the verdict” were imminent. “We do not want any violence, we do not want any attacks,” he said.

Ali Alexander, a far-right conspiracy theorist, did not mince words either. “Today is Jan. 6th for the entire nation,” he wrote on Telegram to his 12,000 subscribers. “This is worse than the Civil War. Respectfully.”

That kind of rhetoric even made it to the airwaves. “We have been calling it lawfare,” said Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro.“I think lawfare is far too soft, it's far too benign. This is warfare.”

Trump sounded off on Truth Social and in a fundraising email shortly after the verdict came in, doubling down on his false claim that he’s a victim of political persecution, perpetrated by a corrupt system that’s hell-bent on “stealing” the 2024 election from him again.

“THIS WAS A DISGRACE—A RIGGED TRIAL BY A CONFLICTED JUDGE WHO IS CORRUPT. WE WILL FIGHT FOR OUR CONSTITUTION—THIS IS LONG FROM OVER!” he wrote on Truth Social.

Trump’s claims of “rigging” were repeated by supporters. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk also perpetuated conspiracy theories about the verdict. “This case was engineered for years, from the very top of the Democrat apparatus, to bring down Trump, using a rigged law in a rigged courtroom with a rigged jury,” Kirk wrote on X. “We must win. We must defeat these savages. Stand with Trump.”

In addition to posting an upside-down flag on X, US representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a Trump loyalist, called it a “sham trial” orchestrated by “radical leftists and deep state operatives.” You don’t see this level of corruption in a banana republic, but it’s happening in our own backyard,” said Taylor Greene. “There is NOTHING they fear more than another Trump Presidency.”

The far-right fringe’s response was even more ominous. Proud Boys channels for various chapters responded to the news in one word: “War.”

On Patriots.win, formerly the subreddit The Donald, which was a hotbed for January 6 preparation, alarming rhetoric also proliferated quickly. “There are only two choices in November, Trump or civil war, I will hope for the former but prepare for the latter,” one user wrote.

The highly active Telegram chat dedicated to (but not officially affiliated with) Bannon’s War Room also erupted in angry rhetoric. “Time to minute man up ! call to arms!” one member wrote.

“I'm ready to serve again! this time no retreat until every last globalist gone! I’ve never been so angry in my life,” another person wrote.

Overall—the consensus was that a guilty verdict would help, not hinder Trump’s chances of winning in November. “That fake ass conviction is gonna just jump up Trumps poll-numbers,” wrote New Jersey Proud Boys on Telegram.

“Import the Third World, become the Third World. That’s what we just saw. This won’t stop Trump. He’ll win the election if he’s not killed first,” ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson wrote on X. “But it does mark the end of the fairest justice system in the world. Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family.”

Trump, who has made history as the first former president to be found guilty on felony charges, will be sentenced on July 11. He is expected to appeal his conviction. Each felony carries a maximum sentence of four years, but the judge may opt to sentence him to probation or home confinement, according to Axios. The Republican National Convention, where delegates are expected to support Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee, will begin on July 15.

[chevelleneech]

I don't know why some jkkers get so hung up on their own theories, none of us actually know anything at the end of the day anyway. I see moments/things in them that clearly (in my opinion) cross a friendship barrier by most people's standards and stuff that pretty clearly leans into attraction from both of them. Beyond that, who tf knows? There's an entire spectrum of possibilities clear from them having nothing going on romantically and never have, all the way to having been dating for the past 8 years + secret engagement (this is a joke for those with their panties on too tight). They could label it, they could not, they could be involved currently, they could've been involved in the past, but are no longer, they could be planning to be involved in the future, they could be exclusive and committed, they could also not be.

I wish jkkers weren't so one-track/hive mind sometimes because I do actually think a lot of the fandom sees their relationship as special or different in some way even if they don't want to post about for fear of being called a shipper or the fact that so many big accounts are tkkers. I also think a lot of people are like me, where they see things that are sus, are open to the possibility, but don't want to delve too deeply/cross boundaries into conspiracies and then go into jkk spaces where they kind of force the "they clearly started dating around here, got serious around here, had a fight here, etc." theories and get turned off. I like the tumblr jkker space because I feel like there is a lot more conversation here, but it can also get echo-chambery. Its ok to just be chill and acknowledge you see some stuff going on that seems unique to them and enjoy and support that special bond. If they are involved romantically, I don't need to know when that started or for how long or any other personal details (unless they want to tell us of course) and I can still enjoy them together as they are.

Yeah, I don’t see why what I said triggered anyone let alone two people, lol. I’ve done nothing but post about how cute they are together and the fact that them being platonic seems extremely unlikely to me, even if they aren’t romantically involved. So me saying I have a theory that they might have put off making things official until after their service, should not have been an issue.

That said, I know for a fact I have differing views on when they got together, if they are. I’ve seen people fight others on it too many times, because for some reason people hate even the suggestion that JM and JK haven’t been together since the day they met, lol. But I agree with folks who say somewhere between 2017-2019 is when things officially shifted between them. Any time before that seems extremely unrealistic to me, but I don’t talk about it because it brings “Why would they act like THIS if they weren’t dating yet!?!?!?!????” anons, and nobody has time for that.

So yeah, I’m enjoying myself here and enjoying their interactions as they come. I thinks it’s obvious they view each other differently than they view the other members, but that’s the extent of my sort of “fact” talk. Everything else is speculation, even if a singular conclusion makes the most sense.