#im not a conspiracy theorist

[krystal-prisms]

Someone give me a conspiracy theory and I will debunk it with a newer, dumber and more wrong one. No matter what you give me, I will make it worse.

[inkskinned]

it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

[babygirlphil]

WAIT A MINUTE

I just noticed something.

you know the theory that dnp are going to post a different colored heart emoji leading up to pride until they have a full rainbow?

well we missed that Phil already posted a purple one

❤️💜🧡💛...only blue and green to go now

[biblically-accurate-dca]

first meetings (bonus panel under the cut!!)

i didnt wanna add it to the main post bc it's a different size and it would mess up the format lmaooo

i think about these two a lot i think they could be really fun together in several ways. monty golf is right next to the daycare after all!!

[valtsv]

Please in no way shape or form feel obligated to answer this but since I so rarely hear about MEDICAL abuse as opposed to, ya know, the more traditional verbal/physical type (tho I think that they often go hand-in-hand) and I want to compare experiences. Was your mom "always" alternative for EVERYONE or did she make exceptions for herself? For example my mom never got me vaccinated and, like yours, withheld all sorts of medication under the guise of "protecting" me but when she got diagnosed with a chronic illness she started taking whatever the doctors gave her under excuses of her pain being "unbearable" or HER doctor not being a quack like the others, etc. Honestly it's been 4 years since I've had any contact with my mom but what makes me the maddest looking back was her hypocrisy.

my mom is on the opposite end of the spectrum in that regard. she categorically refuses to participate in any medical treatment that conflicts with her personal principles, and claimed she would kill herself if she was faced with no choice but to be vaccinated during covid (needless to say i haven't told her i'm fully vaxxed), and i believe her, because once when she had a fever so high her body seized up and she went into shock she refused to let us take her to hospital and told me she'd never forgive me if i dialled for a doctor. the whole experience needless to say didn't make me trust her opinion more, and i'm aware of how ableist and dangerous her "if your body isn't strong enough to deal with its health issues naturally it's because you're doing something wrong" stance is. i'm really sorry your mom is such a hypocrite though, that's hellishly infuriating.

[floorpancakes]

i was looking through official art again and why does this look like watanuki is the patron saint of nonbinaryism in some ancient religious fresco

[shepscapades]

hello!! does joel have any sort of big role in the dbhc au?? just wonderin', since he's one of my favorite little block people! :D

(also your xisuma comics. ALL of your comics, really!!! SO, SO GOOD!! you kick my theory brain into gear and i seriously thank you for that, LOL <3)

TUMBLR USER I’M A LOAF!!!!! HI thank you for your ask, first and foremost: I’m obsessed with the tags you put on my comics and posts and everything in general, they literally always make my day and I’m sat giggling and kicking my feet every time without fail!!! Your commentary and theories make me so happy :D the feedback and the Game-Theorizing is honestly what inspires me to keep making art so thank you for your support and general insanity it means a lot to me :]

BUT ANYWAY your actual question— I don’t have anything “specific” planned for Joel as of now, though I definitely have a lot of thoughts about him as a character and his relationship with etho and bdubs (as per the brief posts I made about double life and bdubs’ attempts to get Etho to redeviate). I’d love to get more in the weeds about Joel’s double life and honestly, double life in general :D

[yi3248]

*Snatches your Roach and run away with it*

my emotional support roach... gone...

[orangewsunglasses]

this should not be the face of a centuries old man who just admitted to creating a godlike power using literally everyone in the world while simultaneously gaslighting them about a world war that was apparently never a thing

excuse me???????

[moth-yea]

I've seen people talk before about how zipper man has no eyes because bucciaraiti hates seeing all the awful in the mafia/ world in general but nobody talk about how the zippers themselves are metaphors for him having to hold himself together through someone's death because he had no choice and now he pieces (zips) others back together because that's just what he learned ok bye

[theresearchrobin]

"Everybody do the wenis" has 8 syllables and "the wenis is a dance" has 6, which are the values of x and y. And that sequence of syllables is repeated twice, the value of z. Is this anything?

[clatoera]

yeah I know that Mags was very old etc etc etc and I know her risks of stroke but like have we ever considered that her stroke was manufactured by the Capitol and Snow like did they cause it to punish Finnick or cut off part of his life line or quiet an old woman who was just slightly too rebellious like have we considered

[megalophobic-astronomer]

bugsnax dragging me back by the ankles

[mzoyagon]

GUYS IM GOING FERAL A WHILE AGO I THEORIZED TO MYSELF THAT UZI MIGHT BE VERY SUBTLY GROWING THROUGHOUT THE EPISODES AND EITHER GLITCH GOOFED OR I'VE JUST BEEN PROVEN EIGHT

(For context this is the image that says she's 127 cm)

[valtsv]

me and my mom don't have much in common but occasionally our interests align perfectly

[possibly-a-table-or-just-gay]

My personal headcanon is Darius and Alador don't directly interact online, only vagueing eachother in the tags of their pentstagram posts but occasionally Alador will hit a nerve and Darius will just directly respond with "Say that to someone whose tongue hasn't been in your mouth" and the conspiracy theorists go WILD.