#my count is 25

[frankly-just-this]

This is simple, genuinely curious....

[potofsoup]

i love your fourth of july comics every year but this years feels extremely optimistic about biden’s abilities in the face of him letting roe get overturned and funding a gen*cide at worst or letting it happen at best by taking the bare minimum of regulatory action… i mean can he really be trusted at all anymore to do the right thing or act in line with the people’s demands? and how do we know the people behind project 2025 won’t just rig the election again to get in under false pretenses?

Hihi! Thank you for reading and enjoying my July 4th comics every year! I am in a non-US airport en route to a month-long trip in a place with sketchy internet, so sorry in advance for sloppiness in my response (and potentially going radio silent).

But:

I don't think he "let" Roe get overturned, since that was the Supreme Court's overwhelming conservative majority, which really started with Mitch McConnell refusing to approve Obama's appointee and forcing it into a 2016 election issue. The fact that Trump got to appoint 3 Supreme Court Justices is what got us here.

Re: Biden and the Israel/Hamas war ... on the one hand, there's definitely more that he could have done, but on the other hand, they are a whole other country over there. It's Hamas that initiated the Oct 7 attacks and took the hostages. It's Netanyahu and his right-wing government who decided to retaliate to such extreme extent. Biden can talk about how he would really like Netanyahu to stop fighting and step down, but at the end of the day that's not his call, any more than he can stop the Sudan fighting that is near-genocidal either.

So, to come to your question #1: "Can he really be trusted at all anymore to do the right thing or act in line with the people’s demands"?

For me, it's a resounding YES. Guyz, he has passed so much good domestic policies. My spouse works in green energy and the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act halved his anxiety and gave him legitimate hope. The tumblr post I linked to in my comic has links to many of the other great things that Biden has done. Tbh I voted for him in 2020 because "a moldy onion is still better than Trump", and I've been pleasantly surprised. Like how he tried to cancel student loans, the Supreme Court overturned it, and then he came back 6 months later with a different way to do it that didn't lead to a court challenge.

Is he perfect? Hell no. There's tons of stuff that I wish he did more about, or he went further on, but also he's just one guy heading one branch of government who is heading into an election year. (Just like FDR promising not joining WWII, while behind the scenes doing all the Lend-Lease Act stuff). And "the people" have lots of demands, many of them conflicting.

I'd also like to push at the unspoken part of your question... "Can he really be trusted to do the right thing..." compared to whom? Because right now the answer is "compared to Trump." And compared to Trump... I don't even trust Trump to respect the results of a legitimate election. Heck, he might just take his favorite state secrets, sell them to the highest bidder (or just show them off to someone for funzies), and then claim Presidential immunity. A decent Democrat who got stuff done vs someone who probably wants to pardon himself and all his friends and do Project 2025 stuff is not even on the same level. (Do I wish that there was a viable Democratic alternative to Biden? Sure! But who?) Heck, at this point -- imagine if it's Kamala Harris vs. Trump. Who would you vote for?

As for your question #2: "How do we know the people behind project 2025 won’t just rig the election again to get in under false pretenses?"

We don't. But also what can we do besides showing up to vote?

Actually, I need bullet points for this:

The 2022 midterm elections brought in fewer-than-expected election-deniers into crucial electoral offices at the state level, which means that hopefully most state electoral boards will continue to have integrity

Yes, voting is harder but at least we can still vote. So it's about getting out there and getting your vote counted. For some states, it involves waiting in 8 hour lines. For some states, it involves bringing 2 forms of ID. Document. Track. Make sure it's dropped off in a real ballot box and not a fake one. Don't believe messaging that the voting is happening on a different day or location, etc.

A 50.1% majority is easily challenged. A 55% majority, less so. Which means getting people out to vote.

The more people know about and think about the reality of a second Trump term (versus being disappointed by a Biden term), the more they will be motivated to vote against Trump.

Finally, let's be real here: I'm braced for a 2nd Trump term. That said:

I'm still going to go and vote for Biden, because the only way to prevent a 2nd Trump term is to vote.

A Trump term where either the House or Senate is controlled by the Democrats will be *very* different from a clean Republican sweep.

Even with a clean Republican sweep on the federal level, States have so much more power now, and voting the state level stuff will help shore up Democratic goals for the future. States get to draw voting districts however they want. States get to decide on abortion policies. If you live in a deep Red state, there still might be things to vote for that make it easier to live in now, and turn it purple a few elections down the line.

So at the end of the day, it's "Vote AND". Vote and keep living your best life. Vote and tell others about Project 2025. Vote and have hope. Even if Trump wins, at least you'll have voted against him. Vote and stay to build up a progressive wave for the next election.

[serendipnpipity]

The traditional 15th-anniversary gift is crystal... and our future's just as clear.

(Preliminary sketch under the cut!)

@bewareofthenewphannie :3

[thresholdbb]

what's the threshold theory

There was a post about how Tom is the only crew member who isn't really affected by the Borg, and there's a theory that he has so much luck because he saw the past and the future when he crossed the transwarp threshold. He saw the past and the future, all of time and space. There's some subconscious part of him that remembers that experience. In fact, Tom refused to play a part in Chakotay indulging Annorax's temporal incursions, probably because a part of him knew nothing good could come of it.

If we extend that same theory to Janeway, some of her wild luck with time travel and other crack plans starts to make sense. She doesn't verbally hate time travel until after the events of Threshold, since it happens in Time and Again without complaint. Janeway has an uncanny knack for time travel, as evidenced every time she deals with it. She hates time travel, but it might be because part of her knows exactly how to manipulate the timeline. She manages to avoid the "inevitable" temporal explosion in Future's End, saving both Voyager and Braxton. She resets the entire timeline in Year of Hell, and no one else followed her reasoning. She pulled it off flawlessly. In Relativity, she senses the incidents are all related, despite it being just one reading that connects them. By the time she's involved, she has a temporal incursion factor of .0036 and a time travel protocol named after her, even if that may just be Braxton's personal grudge. Then there's Endgame, where she intentionally changes the timeline. Up until this point, she has been dragged into time travel, but for the first time, she jumps in on purpose. How does Admiral Janeway know how to get them home sooner in a way that completely avoids the Temporal Integrity Commission? It's because she has seen all of time, and part of her knows exactly what needs to happen so she can get Voyager home and do it in a way that becomes baked into the prime timeline. Maybe she doesn't consciously remember what happened during her transformation, but the experience lives in her mind somewhere, guiding her decisions.

[ishootthelightsout]

to add to my previous post, there are so many crazy things to talk about from this interview… from Ann basically whoring Mark out for sponsors to the pub they bought (which closed in 2016 and apparently didn't pay workers or creditors, according to some guy on a car forum?)

[just-another-obsessed-fangirl]

breaking hearts for the fun and it's bloody

day 7 of @jagertittyshipweek: blood (i know it's not day 7 yet, i was just too excited to wait)

bloodless human version here:

[radaverse]

Haven't posted any art on a while so have some lazy PoM doodles

went through a lot together didn't they

[wildglitch]

Im 2 hours and a half away from debating infront of my class for 30 minutes. Im so fucked

[esprei]

Emmet month - Day 30: Party

Emmet celebrates my birthday with me! 🎂

(and in return I give Emmet an entire month dedicated to showing love and appreciation for him! ✨)

[sunnys-side-upside-down]

Blorbo's Eepiest Soldier

Thank you everyone for your kind words, I'm doing better and am back to it <3

[thestormlightnetwork]

Yumi: See how I respect the rituals of a yoki-hijo? Very demure, very mindful. I don't ask a yoki-hijo when do I get my ritual tote bag.

Nikaro: See how I DON'T REFER TO WOMEN AS CONCUBINES??? VERY DEMURE. VERY MINDFUL.

Yumi: so she wasn't your concubine? Liar.

Nikaro: *slams her head against the wall.*

[voxfruits]

so deep in hyperfixation that i made fanart OF A FUCKING FORTNITE SKIN BROOOO 💀😭😭 its so over for me

[jadegr8]

So I was looking for photos of David Tennant to send my brother in order to annoy him (I'm an incredible sibling :) and found this:

And... I mean...

Ineffable Husbands 🥺

I did my best on this, took me about five days of occasionally working on it and I probably spent waaay to many hours with details but for one of the first times ever I actually bothered to use different brushes to get different looks, experimented with colors and shading and had so much fun that I even made a background (I hate them and usually never care)

[booktomoviebrawl]

NO WAY?

[viperwhispered]

New goodies arrived while I was away!

More things by @mintmoth (shop here) and Malleus by @humbuns (shop here).

I just... Had to get that Malleus, I had no choice, and I've been debating the other two designs for a while (just didn't want to splurge on everything at once). So I'm very happy with all of these. 😊

Had to rearrange the magnets a bit but here they all (+ 1 sticker and 1 pin) are on the side of my PC. Don't let my phone's camera lie to you about the colors and about making some things look more washed out than they actually are irl.

Earlier stuff is from artsyco3xist (shop here), mintmoth and its.badradish (etsy here).

[zippityzap]

I think i’ve caught a cold :(