#this is the sort of thing that can get a guy into philosophy fr

[the-crooked-library]

this needs greentext format so here goes -

> be me

> biracial autistic queer star trek fan, obsessed with Spock

> watch unification. be altered at your very core

> make a post about the time-bending, reality-altering, soul-bonded connection that is K/S

> someone reblogs it and tags it with Rum Tum Tugger and Mr Mistofelees of the Cats (musical) fame

> truly we live in a wondrous universe. full of infinite diversity of experience in infinite combinations

[en-djinn]

(tags from @cosmic-navel-gazin)

OK!!!!!!! GEEZ!!!!!!!! i woke up still kinda drunk and also i honestly wanted to wait til id finished infinity war (1992) and warlock and the infinity watch before i said Too much shit cz its all sort of important to it bt i guess i can do a little bit of my thoughts so far cz it is. a little all consuming in my mind rn.

this ended up being 1.5k-ish words roughly jsyk !

ok so its literally just. comic panels that destroy my mind.

youre hurting me brother. stop saying that shit.

second of all thanos totally ignoring what adam said to talk abt his own shit is so fucking funny to me. of course hes That Guy. (these are from infinity war 1992 btw)

anyway one of the reasons i like adam so much is just how miserable he is at all times. i rly love the newer versions of him tht appear younger and more naive/childlike (like a LOT. LOVE!) but og adam being just so fed up with existing is also like. i get it. i get it man. ive been there, im STILL there.

^ I HAVE SOOOOOOOOO MUCH TO SAY ABT THIS BTW COZ THE FRAMING OF THAT SHIT W JESUS BEING SADOMASOCHISTIC TOO IS JUST LIKE. EXPLOSIONS.GIF. ALSO ETERNITY IS FUCKING RIGHT! HES SO RIGHT!

anyway lastly rn is this page. its funny to me coz of the literal >:( face bt also it is. so sad. theres so much here tht i honestly dont remember what everything is exactly from bt its all frm between infinity gauntlet to infinity watch+infinity war. if anyone wants to know one specifically i can go hunt it down again.

the POINT of me posting all these is just how obvious it is what his problem is. hes depressed bro. but hes so weird cz its entirely like self inflicted and he just doesnt seem to realise it, or at least doesnt want to actually See the problem for what it is and fix it. coz thats not the part of him that does that. he literally expelled the part of him that cares abt itself. adam self appointed himself the duty of 'saving the universe' and does that to the point of self destruction over and over coz he has guilt abt it being caused by himself (magus) in the first place. hes 100% selfless with none of the selfishness needed to take care of himself. he has no fucking friends. gamora and pip are There sure bt noones sitting him down to like talk abt what hes feeling or anything. noones telling him to take care of himself. he spirals into apathy and depression and paranoia. his fight with magus IS sadomasochistic. he literally cant STOP self flagellating. he doesnt know what to do with himself when hes not doing that. u could be like 'hey man come on theres plenty of other heroes' and hed still end up putting himself back on that fucking cross, cz after that page i posted he literally does that lmfao.

now the stuff frm starlin's magus saga i really loved were these pages.

^ THE FIRST ONE IS MY FAV PAGE IN THE ENTIRETY OF THE WARLOCK COMICS BTW SOOOOO FUCKING GOOD. the mouth eating the cocoon is smth ive used in some of my designs fr magus before coz im in LOVE w the symbolism of it. caterpillars cocoon and turn into moths by sort of turning themselves into soup. using the same process thts used for digesting food, right. so its eating itself to become something else. thats magus consuming and overtaking warlock. also they keep using the lips in some other stuff when they get abstract w him and its just a rly unique weird looking thing to have there i love it.

anyway i posted those cz of the purpose vs death thing. this interests me. i have always found the classical depictions of good and evil to be Strange coz theyre just so reductive of concepts that honestly dont even actually exist? imo at least. this is all opinion stuff frm here obviously and while im interested in philosophy im not super well read on it, im just some guy in its bedroom saying words in an order. so take it with a grain of salt. however i too am prone to long inner monologues about existence so adam warlock is NOT special. good and evil dont exist. to me. theyre a mishmash of nuanced topics tht are literally just 'idk man it depends' and it all depends on a LOT of factors and then theres personal reasoning and personal perceptions of the world and ofc its easy to look at people irl and be like 'this guy is just evil' and sometimes it is very hard to argue with that bt i think pinning that sort of thing on just 'theyre evil' is genuinely defeating the point. which is that literally anyone can do any of that shit, good or bad. theres nothing inherent in anyone that is good or evil. i love adam because hes such a literal depiction of that idea, hes not good and hes not evil. hes perfectly neutral, who then CHOOSES to do good because he believes that its right and that its his duty, theres no outside force or inner quality forcing him to be that way. (keep in mind for the next part that i havent properly seen the goddess yet. ill be coming back to this after ive finished those comics probably) to me, the goddess and magus are parts of him that he subconsciously chose to partition based on his own perception of good and evil. especially since in his own words 'good and evil do not exist, there is only purpose or death'.

now heres where i get to the point: the magus and the goddess have ambitions and a will to live and goals because they have purpose. their 'goodness' or 'evilness' is totally irrelevant. warlock excised all ambition from himself. i think thats the part he has issues with himself for, because hes seen what his ambition can do in the future. THATS the problem, to him. if hes happy with what he has and only works towards his duty then he'll never do anything 'evil'. so yes. warlock has no will to live, no dreams, nothing to live for, because he forcibly removed the parts of him that did so that he could be a better messiah.

for magus specifically, and god this fucks me up a little honestly bt i just rly love magus im not even gonna lie to u gang i might be a little kinnie about it. thats a whole other topic wrt gender and having pride in being socially unacceptable or a 'monster' tht is for another post if anyone does want to hear. the point is just i have thought abt this A Lot.

(^all from infinity war)

magus' goal is the right to exist. it WAS adam, it FELT how miserable they were and wants out. its the selfish part of adam that he needs to stop himself from self flagellating, to take care of himself a little more. i dont have a screenshot bt thats what i rly loved abt the gotg game too, that warlock straight up says he misses magus. how r u supposed to function without the selfish part of urself. this is why i dont like the straightforward idea of sins or 'evils' because u need ALL of those things. being 100% selfless is not good, being 100% selfish is not good. etc. to borrow the christian sins, u need pride in urself for self esteem, u need sloth to recuperate and calm urself, u need lust literally because humans are animals and theres this thing called having fun, wrath can be a form of kindness on behalf of others and urself. etc etc. u get my point here. there is literally nothing wrong with any of these bad traits tht are seen as negative or unwelcome in society. adam just sees them as undesirable and treats magus accordingly, and then u can start having the nature vs nurture conversation and what they did with magus in gotg v5 and thats all a little beyond the scope of this post rn.

so yeah. warlock wants to kill himself and magus has hopes and dreams and a will to live and wants the right to exist. obviously hes still a villain and we love that for it, violence is always the answer etc etc, bt i think its a fun way to think abt it all.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Trimax Thoughts Vol. 1 Pt. 1

I'm late to this because I couldn't think of what to say other than my little joke posts. This is just more sporadic commentary as a result because I'm saving some of my thoughts for when I have more information later on.

One of my favourite panels so far fr. Please Mr. Nightow what dumb shenanigans did these two get into on the regular. Please tell me. Eriks and Lina are my new favourite comedy duo. (You know. Before bad things happen. As per usual.)

Ok so some thoughts on Vash awkwardly insisting that Lina overreacted - she didn't. Self-defense is valid and Lina was well-within her rights to kick that creep in the face, but Vash is now even more passive than he was in his attempts to mitigate violence and tragedy - he's not just throwing away his own pride and dignity, he's fumbling through expecting others to do the same, which he didn't used to do btw - which, unfortunately, makes sense. He's hidden himself away and is terrified of himself - he wants so badly to avoid being the cause of or seeing any more pain inflicted on people. But here's the thing - extreme passivity can also be harmful. There are some things you should get angry at and should respond defensively to. It reminds me a little of that part in Little Arcadia where Meryl is upset with herself for not responding with the same righteous anger towards Badwick pointing a gun at his parents the way Milly did. Unaffectedness can become uncaringness if one walls oneself off from becoming defensive of that which is important to them (tbh I think Meryl was being too harsh on herself in that scene - but it's important to note that she writes the letter to her parents after, and responds more openly and honestly in future chapters). Meryl also realizes in that arc that she can choose a path for herself that doesn't necessarily have to be in perfect keeping with her parents' - they will live through her regardless - but Vash here doubles down on his original philosophy and takes it to extremes instead. I'm finding it really intriguing that Meryl appears to be learning similar lessons to the ones Vash should be, but much earlier than he does (if he will, which I hope he will). I think that might be because they have similar ideals at their cores.

Also, lol at Wolfwood seeing the footprint she left on the guy's face and just being like "nice, kid".

I hate this. I hate this. Can he quit having his reputation be thrown back in his face for five minutes? How much must it hurt him that despite him only ever wanting to help, the image most everyone has of him is this caricature of a villain who is violent and cruel and belittling and demeaning, or else, the whispers of some calamitous being on a power scale incomprehensible to humanity, like some sort of bogeyman? And then to have him reveal all his scars in such an incredibly humiliating way - and to have that be the moment we, as the readers, have definite proof that this man is, in fact, Vash. This impostor went the extra mile to look exactly like the "humanoid typhoon" but it's those scars that are the genuine reveal of Vash's true character. He's just a guy. Yes, he's capable of being dangerous, yes, he's pretty much a living weapon of mass destruction, but he is also kind and self-sacrificing to a fault and chooses this kindness every day. He is literally just a guy. I need people to be fucking nice to him. Leave him alone.

Wolfwood already being defensive of Vash counter: 1

Grandma Sheryl really said "Get my gun." Whhfsdjhfvh

I'm realizing that when Wolfwood unclasps Punisher here, this is... the first time Vash has actually seen that it is. A giant gun. This is the first time the reader would have seen this. Hjhnsdjhvn???

The hair cutting scene hurts me so bad man. I've seen a couple people break down that scene so I won't do that here but hnnng. I love that Lina so clearly cares about him. That she wanted to keep him safe too. And even though she doesn't feel like she could do enough it meant the world to him. Augh. Aughhhh.

Meryl's birthday is in February!!! This is important information.

Ah yes, Trimax Chapter 3, or, as I like to call it, "Area Insurance Girls Destroy Workplace Asshole's Entire Career by Hitting Him With Proof that He Is a Hitman Committing Murder and Fraud, Then Hitting Him in the Back with a Projectile from a Stun Gun". (Meryl and Milly I love you and I love your teamwork. Girls <3. Again, someone broke down the whole part with Meryl here so I won't get into it.)

Wolfwood already being defensive of Vash counter: 2

Wolfwood already being defensive of Vash counter: 3 (also holy shit dude???)

(For clarity, this counter I'm keeping is because it makes me laugh - I have a sneaking suspicion I know why he's there from Tristamp - which makes the fact that he reacts like this after like. What? A few days of knowing him? - really, really funny to me. Also I'm writing up a little something I noticed about Wolfwood, and this is a bit relevant, so there's that too. But mostly it's just funny.)

Geez, Knives looks demonic in the flashbacks. It's very intriguing how he's mostly faceless. I would imagine it's some complex mix of not recognizing his brother after what he's done, not recognizing him as his brother after what he's done, and not wanting to see his twin's face (which looks like his face) staring back at him as some kind of monster. I also have to wonder if Vash is a little scared of Knives, especially after July and Fifth Moon. Also, the way Knives tries to help Vash up because they're "brothers", hence, the same, but when Vash angrily accuses Knives of not being human, Knives kicks him back down while shouting about that he wouldn't want to be like them ever. Really I think this kind of highlights the dynamic in a nutshell. Vash fears harming others more than he does about his loneliness. Knives fears being all alone, I think, and is willing to commit harmful acts to assure he won't be - Vash often winds up hurt by this. Knives doesn't. It also emphasizes how Knives' offer of sticking together is contingent on Vash being agreeable, which is. Yikes bud.

Hm. Wolfwood starts calling him "Needle-Noggin" here. He was calling him Vash before. Interesting.

Brad stfu challenge. Don't be mean to him I'll be sad :(

What is wrong with him. See, Vash is exaggerating his weirdness for the bit and also to hide intense internal turmoil. Wolfwood is clearly trying to get a better vantage to see what's happening here but, unfortunately, I also think he is just like that.

I find it very interesting that Wolfwood finds it so important to finish that particular conversation with Vash, that he even went to go find him earlier to do so. It seems he was under the impression that Vash's stance is one of passivity, but that's not true at all - Vash's whole thing is that he is actually incredibly, notoriously bad at "doing nothing". Isn't it Wolfwood who was the one who wanted to leave here? But he has a point that sometimes you have to make difficult choices. Hm...

Vash just went full chaos entity for this one, huh?

"Wow, it's great that the bullets didn't pierce through and that the equipment works!" he says as he coughs up blood from the force of being hit. :/

This is a very tricky situation, morally speaking, at the end. Vash actually seems to understand the father's reaction here. But if the man shoots his daughter's murderer then it's not just the murderer who loses his "blank ticket" - so does the father. The way the screams of the murderer look like they're encroaching and pressing in on Vash... agh. And then when he goes for the gun, the father thinks Vash is judging him but I really don't think that's it at all. I don't think Vash faults the father for his anger - he understands the cruel death of a family member and the anger that comes with it. He lets the father beat him up instead and release aggression that way, which is a very... Vash way of dealing with it. It worked this time but... that's only because the father turned out to be unable to kill him after all. Vash didn't seem like he really knew what to do here, or even what the right thing to do was. He reacted on instinct. I feel this was less bravery and self-sacrificial pacifism than it was an incredibly vulnerable moment and an apology, in a way. He can't allow himself to let people die when there's something he can do, or to have them throw their futures away. But he is also sorry in a way, not for the act of intervening, but because he knows the father is hurting badly. Idk.

This is interesting, because I think it's right, but not completely. It's less that they are all his family, and more that he has taken up what he kind of sees as the family mantle (Rem's) of saving all the people she saved during the Fall, which is, unfortunately, everyone. Poor Vash, honestly. It's hardly sustainable, and even if it was, it assures that he will always be wrapped up in torment.

I just know Vash intentionally calls Wolfwood out in a really annoying sing-songy voice every time he does something nice just to embarrass him. Hjhdfnvjh

Anyways, that's all for that; until the next volume -

WHAT THE FUCK?

[txdoroki]

they take you for a picnic hcs

includes: katsuki bakugou, shoto todoroki,

genre: fluff :)

implied fem reader | warnings: none | words: 787

shoto todoroki

-originally saw the date idea on some cottagecore lesbian’s tiktok account he was stalking, and figured you’d like it so why not

-didn’t say much about it, just told you to wear something comfy and meet him in the common room

-brought waaaay more snacks than necessary.

-. he had an entire cooler bag full of food.

-i mean .. at least he didn’t underpack?

-got one of those cakes that you eat out of a wine glass, and you swore it was the best cake ever

-he seemed to be really concerned about if you were actually happy with where the picnic was taking place and you were like

-“no sho i love it! so much! pls stop insisting on finding a new spot this place is perfect!”

-poor guy spent two hours spotting out the prettiest spot for your picnic

-when a butterfly lands on your finger you can practically feel his gaze trained on you

-thinks you just. look. so. precious.

-wishes he had a picture because of how happy you looked in that moment

-if he didn’t love you the most he possibly could beforehand, seeing you settled down on the soft blanket in a small clearing near a pond he had found made his love for you pound in his chest all the more

-thankfully he got a picture of you with a dandelion behind your ear, and he looks at it often. your smile makes his heart soar

-you both watched the sunset, and he pointed out all of the shades of colors that painted the sky,

-and how they couldn’t compare to your beauty

-mans was the sappiest you’d ever seen, it sort of caught you off guard from how different he was acting

-let’s just say .. he’s way better at tooth-rotting compliments than you had expected

-he gave you small kisses wherever

-your nose .. your cheek .. your forehead .. kisses for anywhere he could reach

-your hand? bam here’s a kiss mwuah

-he ended it off with showing you the matching necklaces he had bought for you both

-you decided from then on that you were never going to part with that necklace for as long as you could

-for the first time in forever he blushed once or twice during the whole ordeal.

katsuki bakugou

-TRIES TO PULL IT OFF AND SAY HE DIDN’T SET IT UP LIKE SOMEHOW MAGICALLY THERE WERE YOUR FAV SNACKS AND YOUR FAV DATE IDEA SITTING NEAR A PRETTY STREAM ON YALL’S ANNIVERSARY

-you just went along with it tbh

-whenever you weren’t looking at him, he’d just kind of. admire you.

-but if you were busy taking in the sweet song of the nearby birds when he was trying to talk he’d be like “damnit y/n, are a couple of damn birds better than me now?” and poke at your shoulder

-you’d just smile and shake your head, telling him to go on with whatever he was talking about

-honestly, he is a bit awkward during the picnic since he had no clue what to say. i mean, he isn’t a softie he isn’t really gonna bathe you in affection

-shows you the candies he got you super urgently as if they were about to slip from his hands and disappear

-“i saw the dumb candy you like at the store .. so i got some,”

-mans refuses to admit that he went to four seperate stores just for picnic shopping ... whatever helps you sleep at night, bakugou

-finds it absolutely adorable how astonished you look while looking around at the setting his mind is like ‘hell yeah i chose the best picnic spot ever’

-bought a huge cracker and cheese tray thing to eat

-IT SLAPPED THO it had those fancy black pepper cracker thingys that are rlly good yk

-you guys talked about philosophy a lot. and about your dreams

-mans has the weirdest dreams ever

-is lowkey rlly relaxed about an hour into the picnic, but still sort of closed off

-i mean it’s bakugou. how open can he get anyways lmao

-played some music that kinda said how he felt, since he sucks at verbalizing it himself

-that sappy lil shit.. mans played dream girl by crisaunt and you almost started sobbing mY HEART JUST THINKING ABOUT IT

-it was so sweet fr tho

-wrote you a lil note that he told you to wait until he dropped you back at your dorm to open

-you were super excited for it

-“i love you, dumbass.” was the message inside

-although it didn’t seem to be much to anyone else, your eyes watered nearly enough for you to start crying from how loved you felt.

taglist: @frxggie @todoroki-shoto-is-life

[judehayward]

lady gaga voice slowly fadin in: ju-Das juda-ah-ah… frankly i missed this ridiculous depressed little man so i’m gna try my hand at playing 2 charas again. the crowd grits their teeth in apprehensive nerves. it’s fine it’s fine it’s all FINE!!!!!!!!! also this is nai btw forgot to say. anyway. ahem. without further adieu.... his intro

he pinterest:

me in the voice of a card magician performing on the street: round up round up pick a pinterest any pinterest!

ta-da it’s aesthetics:

lead marbles instead of eyes, a stolen hearse careening down the wrong lane, wearing a faded smiley face sticker on your forehead while receiving a serious lecture, bags under the eyes that are so big they could pack enough clothes for a three week vacation, a cigarette wobbling from your bottom lip as you squint against the sunlight, passing out on a stranger’s rooftop, placing sunglasses over the eyes of a biology lab skeleton, gangling around the place like shaggy minus his scooby snacks, saying “fuck off” to inanimate objects

about tha Bitch:

ok to start w i won’t lie i’ve pasted in an old intro here bc i just hate intros i hate writing them i hate them................. bt it’s fine.......................... lets pretend this is all fresh n sexy n new....... bsically this is jst a disclosure tht this isn’t tht well written bc it’s old n stinky bt we’re all jst having fun here. bye

he hd to do community service bc he kind of… hd a bit of a breakdown before the funeral of his elderly neighbour who bsically raised him bc her kids rly didnt care abt her they jst wanted her inheritance?? so he… stole the hearse w her casket still in it n ws jst like… drivin around the place sort of… tryin nt to cry…..KJJFHSFKJGHKFG i mean. it isnt funny its actually sad bt :/ in a very bizarre n jude way. he gt caught n taken in fr questioning bt her son kind of realised hw… broken up abt her death jude ws n had a heart n didnt press charges. regardless he stil hd to do community service bc it ws like taken seriously even tho it ws his first proper offence. doin it rly exhausted n depressed him so when he wsnt doin tht he ws just hibernatin in his room……. this ws like 2/3 months ago nw mayb bt... just some fun lore fr u all

in a new development in terms of sexuality i jst am nt quite sure……. hes always thot he ws straight… fooled around w a 90s hugh grant lookalike once n ws jst a bit like :/ my rocks rnt blasted off? bt who knows wht the future holds… who KNOWS wht the future holds ladies n gentlemen

born in sheffield in england, bt they went back and forth between there n san fran a lot jude was an unhappy accident. his parents never rly used protection bc they were super Liberal n Au Naturel n believed in the pull out method bc… they were maniacs. bt then the ONE time they used a condom in an effort to b safety conscious it broke n hence…. jude was born

they just kind of ran w it bc they had such a passionate relationship tht they were like What The Hell…. may as well! itll be fine we’ll learn to be good parents n love him like normal ppl do

spoiler alert: tht didn’t work out

they were ok to him like they weren’t abusive or anything like that bt they just found him to be a massive burden n hindrance to their plans. they literally….. had sex all day every day n acted like a pair of teenagers. it ws a super weird environment for a kid to grow up in bc he literally had no role models or… guidance or…. anything rly. occasionally they’d joke around w him or pretend they even knew what grade he was going into but for the most part they just Didn’t Care one bit

they were both suuuuper into the arts. they’re both rly good sculptors bt they paint too n they actually own a successful gallery in san fran

as a result he grew up around a lot of creative n sometimes pretentious ppl. the friends of his parents were more present in his life than his ACTUAL parents bc they were always jetting off to diff countries to scout out new pieces fr their galleries n just have a gd time in beautiful places without…. the annoyance tht ws their son forcing them to b responsible n look after someone else. tbh some of his parents friends were rly damaging too bt….i won’t go into that just yet. it doesn’t rly…need properly explaining bc jude never talks abt it anyway n it….is rather triggering so i’ll jst….leav it for now tbh fgkhdfgh. basically they just were Not Nice n jude had a lot of bad memories he keeps repressed

bc of how he ws raised he has a p cultured taste. he luvs classic lit n p much anything artsy. he can play piano 2 n sometimes gets rly high n thinks he’s mozart level gd at composing. i mean he’s gd bt… Calm Down Jude. personality wise he acts out sometimes bc he’s so frustrated. he tried rly hard to be someone his parents wld care abt by doing wild or stupid things so he’d hav funny stories to tell them n tbh sometimes it works n he gets them to laugh w him but it isn’t a parent/son bond n it never rly wil b.

he’s rly sarcastic, sleeps around a bit, has an overflowing secret sketchbook n if he cares abt someone he’ll probably draw them n get rly defensive if they find out abt it fkjgdhfkj bcos he’s an Independent Boy without a sentimental bone in his body. or so he says. at heart he is jst a very Sad Boy w lots of repressed issues like depression genuinely just does NAT giv him a single break bt he plasters over this w wise cracks n never discusses his emotions ever. he’s actually p decent or at least tries to b. he’s kind of like tht bit in superbad where michael cera gets rly drunk n makes a toast to women. tries to b? a feminist bt sometimes fucks up n offends ppl n is like dam….. my bad fr :/

he has p bad insomnia so he like never sleeps fgjkhfgjkf he always has rly sleepy eyes n rubs them tiredly mid conversation. he smokes a lot of weed to try n compensate fr this n make him tired bt he still struggles a lot

ANYWAY that aside he’s at lockwood doing fine arts. he luvs painting n photography n philosophy n all tht. a pretentious fiend sometimes? maybe_so.gif. he isn’t rly pushy abt it tho n tends to like.... take nothing seriously bt at the same time acts like he is??? like he’s very deadpan in everything he does

ummMMMMmm honestly idk i’m blankin on what else to say. ull find him smoking weed reading an american classic or gnawing at his thumbnail n getting charcoal smudges on all his clothes. wandering the streets eating frm a cereal box without care in public. he’s p broody n scruffy n he’s mostly here fr a good time. o and he’s That Guy that would die fr morrissey (his vibe not personality bc i hc jude was depressed n shut himself inside all day when he actually found out what a dick he is dfjkfhg) and all that stone roses the smiths etc stuff music wise. HMU FR PLOTS!!!!!! i’m down fr anything

[judememories]

lady gaga voice slowly fadin in: oOoohohOhoh im in love w judas.... ju-Das juda-ah-ah... i rly missed jude tbh so i decided to bring him in as a second. i hv faith i cn manage jugglin i... ...... .. . have faith. in case u dnt kno it is me (nai) n this is like. the one (1) male chara iv ever managed to play longer than jst a few weeks. truly jst Zee Fruit Of My Womb! bt anyway. jst gna leap right in to the intro. we die like men

he pinterest: 

me in the voice of a card magician performing on the street: round up round up pick a pinterest any pinterest!

ta-da it’s aesthetics:

lead marbles instead of eyes, a stolen hearse careening down the wrong lane, wearing a faded smiley face sticker on your forehead while receiving a serious lecture, bags under the eyes that are so big they could pack enough clothes for a three week vacation, a cigarette wobbling from your bottom lip as you squint against the sunlight, passing out on a stranger's rooftop, placing sunglasses over the eyes of a biology lab skeleton, gangling around the place like shaggy minus his scooby snacks, saying "fuck off" to inanimate objects

about tha Bitch:

he hd to do community service bc he kind of... hd a bit of a breakdown before the funeral of his elderly neighbour who bsically raised him bc her kids rly didnt care abt her they jst wanted her inheritance?? so he... stole the hearse w her casket still in it n ws jst like... drivin around the place sort of... tryin nt to cry.....KJJFHSFKJGHKFG i mean. it isnt funny its actually sad bt :/ in a very bizarre n jude way. he gt caught n taken in fr questioning bt her son kind of realised hw... broken up abt her death jude ws n had a heart n didnt press charges. regardless he stil hd to do community service bc it ws like taken seriously even tho it ws his first proper offence. doin it rly exhausted n depressed him so when he wsnt doin tht he ws just hibernatin in his room....... n thts where hes been 2 explain his absence to any of u whose charas had... connections w him Way Back When

in a new development in terms of sexuality i jst am nt quite sure....... hes always thot he ws straight... fooled around w a 90s hugh grant lookalike once n ws jst a bit like :/ my rocks rnt blasted off? bt who knows wht the future holds... who KNOWS wht the future holds ladies n gentlemen

frm this point on i wnt lie iv pasted in his old intro bc. a bich is lazy! a bich is predictable! and a bich! is! unapologetic!

born in sheffield in england, bt they went back and forth between there n san fran a lot jude was an unhappy accident. his parents never rly used protection bc they were super Liberal n Au Naturel n believed in the pull out method bc… they were maniacs. bt then the ONE time they used a condom in an effort to b safety conscious it broke n hence…. jude was bornthey just kind of ran w it bc they had such a passionate relationship tht they were like What The Hell…. may as well! itll be fine we’ll learn to be good parents n love him like normal ppl do

spoiler alert: tht didn’t work outthey were ok to him like they weren’t abusive or anything like that bt they just found him to be a massive burden n hindrance to their plansthey literally….. had sex all day every day n acted like a pair of teenagers. it ws a super weird environment for a kid to grow up in bc he literally had no role models or… guidance or…. anything rly. occasionally they’d joke around w him or pretend they even knew what grade he was going into but for the most part they just Didn’t Care one bit

they were both suuuuper into the arts. they’re both rly good sculptors bt they paint too n they actually own a rly successful gallery in san fran

as a result he grew up around a lot of creative n sometimes pretentious ppl. the friends of his parents were more present in his life than his ACTUAL parents bc they were always jetting off to diff countries to scout out new pieces fr their galleries n just have a gd time in beautiful places without…. the annoyance tht ws their son forcing them to b responsible n look after someone else. tbh some of his parents friends were rly damaging too bt….i won’t go into that just yet. it doesn’t rly…need properly explaining bc jude never talks abt it anyway n it….is rather triggering so i’ll jst….leav it for now tbh fgkhdfgh. basically they just were Not Nice n jude had a lot of bad memories he keeps repressed

bc of how he ws raised he has a p cultured taste. he luvs classic lit, especially kerouac, n p much anything artsy. he can play piano 2 n sometimes gets rly high n thinks he’s mozart level gd at composing. i mean he’s gd bt… Calm Down Judepersonality wise he acts out sometimes bc he’s so frustrated. he tried rly hard to be someone his parents wld care abt by doing wild or stupid things so he’d hav funny stories to tell them n tbh sometimes it works n he gets them to laugh w him but it isn’t a parent/son bond n it never rly wil b. 

he’s rly sarcastic, sleeps around a lot, has an overflowing secret sketchbook n if he cares abt someone he’ll probably draw them n get rly defensive if they find out abt it fkjgdhfkj bcos he’s an Independent Boy without a sentimental bone in his body. or so he says. at heart he is jst a very Sad Boy w lots of repressed issues like depression genuinely just does NAT giv him a single break bt he plasters over this w wise cracks n never discusses his emotions ever. he’s actually p decent or at least tries to b. he’s kind of like tht bit in superbad where michael cera gets rly drunk n makes a toast to women. tries to b? a feminist bt sometimes fucks up n offends ppl n is like dam..... my bad fr :/

he has p bad insomnia so he like never sleeps fgjkhfgjkf he always has rly sleepy eyes n rubs them tiredly mid conversation. he smokes a lot of weed to try n compensate fr this n make him tired bt he still struggles a lot

ANYWAY that aside he’s at lockwood doing fine arts. he luvs painting n photography n philosophy n all tht. a pretentious fiend sometimes? maybe_so.gif

ummMMMMmm honestly idk i’m blankin on what else to say. ull find him smoking weed reading an american classic or gnawing at his thumbnail n getting charcoal smudges along that Dramatic model jawline. he’s p broody n scruffy n he’s mostly here fr a good time. o and he’s That Guy that would die fr morrissey (his vibe not personality bc i hc jude was depressed n shut himself inside all day when he actually found out what a dick he is dfjkfhg) and all that stone roses the smiths etc stuff music wise. HMU FR PLOTS!!!!!! i’m down fr anything

[mingi-bubu]

Watch “Youth With You” with Me!

Episode 8 Part 2

- yo okay here we are for part 2 and i didn’t realize that it’s almost a full hour long

- i think i got too used to part 2 of the episodes being no longer than 30 minutes

- but anyway we definitely are going to be seeing the theme song performance this episode

- oh i wonder who’s gonna leave class a??

- only 3 of the class a group are staying from the prererating

- babymonster stays, ofc right??

- HELL YEAH SHE DOES I LOVE AND STAN TALENT UP IN THIS BITCH

- yan yu also stays and kun complimented her on her confidence

- please let zoe stayyy

- awww they embarrased kunkunnie!!

- kun seriously stop yixing pd-ing

- BITCH HE IS DEADASS QUOTING LAY IM SICK OF HIM

- I AM SO SICK THEY ARE DEADASS CALLING HIM OUT ON IT TOO

- SOMEWHERE YIXING IS SMILING AND CLAPPING OVER HIS SON’S ANTICS

- kun stop fukcing

- lmao they block the apple on the back of lisa’s macbook but then don’t cover up the fact that it says macbook air on the other side im screaming

- i just realized that she goes by shaking bc her name literally sounds like it i am bobo the fool

- laksjdf;laksdjf kun is sick of shaking i love one man

- oh thank god we’ve finished the ratings

- class a has the opportunity to appear in elle magazine i’m dead

- my jaw literally dropped

- im not even ten minutes into this episode and i am over it all

- kun please im so weak “can’t you pretend you don’t know”

- kun is having so much fun watching this video and the reactions of the audience

- i am so proud of naho thanks for listenting to my tedtalk

- kun’s side profile is straight up disrespectful

- this video is very cute i love how supportive all the trainees are of each other

- ok im a bit emo now

- "im a strict mentor” kun you are a baby

- i love one (1) man honestly like he’s tearing up and i might cry too oooooof

- what is he doing

- oh.  oh no i might cry

- i am tearing up tho fr fr

- i feel like he’s definitely feeling some of the old feelings from his run on that stage

- sort out your emotions bitch you too tf?

- i keep flashbacking to kun as the center for the theme adkfja;ldjf

- everyone not in class a: hell yeah babey we get to watch performances

- MR FRUIT AAAAAHHHHHHHH HE GAVE THEM A DIRECTIVE I AM EMO OVER HIMMMM

- shaking looked like she was about to go “huih bitch???” and then remembered that they’re being filmed

- ok wow that product placement was not subtle in the slightest

- jesus chritst

- is this what it means to be in class a

- PLA;LDSFKJA;SLDKPOIEWRGHAOREWIHG KUN LOOKS SO GOOD AND THEY PLAYED HARD TO GET I NEED TO REWATCH TAHT PART

- I WAS JAMMING TO HARD TO GET THE FIRST TIME TO PAY ATTENTION

- HE LOOKS SO GOOD THIS SI SUCH A GOOD LOOK FOR HIM IM SO IN LOVE HE REALLY FUCKING HIT IT OUT OF THE PARK IN THIS EPISODE WITH THE FITS DIDN’T HE

- episode 8 aka jae is horney over cai xukun for almost 3 hours

- aksjkfd;alkdsjflkads kun looking at shaking bc she deadass asked that question right next to him

- shaking’s rap was fun ngl

- snoop dogg and then immediately trips that’s such a mood

- that high note sure was uhhhhh something

- kun looks like a mix between an elderly man and the guy in your philosophy course who you kinda hate but are also really attracted to and if you saw him at a party you wouldn’t say no

- hahahahahahahahaa put kun in the center im so weak

- have him do it again i love one man

- so by a difference of four votes, xin liu won center position

- i really am sick of this song guys i;m so sorry

- xl is wearing shorts instead of a skirt which i respect

- kun keeps serving look after look after look this episode what the fuck were his stylists on and how can we keep giving it to them

- kun is getting too sentimental what the fuck

- and then he tries to be funny.  sweetie we’ve talked about this

- oh shit whaddup they just promoted people to class d real quick

- kun is literally so supportive what the heck

- not to be like im in l*ve with him but if he ever needed an*thing i would dr*p everything to h*lp him

- he literally looks so good @ his stylists thank you so much for doing the lord’s work

- ok here we go for the performance!

- oh shit is the stages moving??  the theatre kid in me is screaming

- i do like the costumes for this stage a lot but that might just be the catholic school kid in me

- i don’t care for the flashing lights but i never liked flashing lights in the first place mainly bc i’m worried for those who have epilepsy and also bc it gives me a headache

- essentially kpop and cpop performances and videos are not geared to that audience and it’s you know,  a thing that exists

- so yeah the stages do in fact move

- god i would love to talk to the set designer about them and how they did it

- also i feel like watching kun’s center stage performance for his run after this bc that song really did pop off

- i wonder though who’s going to get cut but i think that’s next episode

- oh wow do we get to see them model waht the heck these outfits are so fun

- ok and that looks like the end of the episode y’all

- im sorry that like a solid 30% of my commentary was just about kun and how good he looked

- next episode i will try to temper that response in me alkdjfa;dlkjf

[maxmollon]

(via Who the Fuck is Jacques Ranciere? | Critical-Theory.com)

WHO THE FUCK IS JACQUES RANCIERE?

A French critical theorist and philosophical troll in a world of ivory tower intellectualism, bourgeois academics, and Jean Baudrillard, Ranciere stands out as a kind of anti-philosopher. A University of Paris professor and former student of Louis Althusser, Ranciere has committed his intellectual project to destroying its foundations.

While that may sound a lot like Baudrillard, who wants to remind everyone that everything is simulation and nothing matters, or Nietzsche who attacks the foundations of Western metaphysics, Ranciere takes a different approach. Namely, by accusing every other philosopher of being a shitty Platonist and hating democracy.

While other philosophers deconstruct the metaphysical tradition and replace it with their own project, Ranciere’s philosophy can be summed up by “meh, people will figure it out.” And thus we present: the thought of Jacques Ranciere.

#1 “Fuck the Police” is Pretty Much his Definition of Politics

This counts.

In his “Ten Theses on Politics”, Ranciere makes a simple claim. There are two kinds of politics in the status quo, fake poser bullshit masquerading as politics and the real thing. Ranciere calls the poser politics the “politics of the police”. Ranciere calls “real” politics “dissensus.”

What the Fuck is Dissensus?

Dissensus is the process by which actors disrupt the politics of the police.

You see, the police are all about telling you what to do and where to do it. Remember that time that cop got all up in your grill for skateboarding in front of 7-11? Or, if you’re a person of color, remember that time a cop arrested you and planted drugs on you for skateboarding in front of 7-11? That’s the police order; the partitions that the police put in place for what can be seen, said and done, and where they can be done. When that cop drove away and you kept skateboarding, you totally disrupted the police partitioning of  that space (sort of).

The police says that there is nothing to see on a road, that there is nothing to do but move along. It asserts that the space of circulating is nothing other than the space of circulation. Politics, in contrast, consists in transforming this space of ‘moving-along’ into a space for the appearance of a subject: i.e., the people, the workers, the citizens: It consists in refiguring the space, of what there is to do there, what is to be seen or named therein. It is the established litigation of the perceptible. – Ten Theses on Politics

We can see how these police partitions work in the events of Occupy Wall Street.

You see, some bankers made this park on stolen native land for them to eat lunch in while they rested from robbing the world of millions of dollars with complicated derivatives and other bullshit nobody understands. When some hipsters decided they wanted to camp out on Wall Street, the police were like “GTFO bro”. And when those hipsters started camping out in Zuccoti Park and ruining those bankers lunches, the police calmly reminded the protesters that the park belonged to white people in suits.  The police reminded the protesters that if they want to take part in this “politics” business they need to vote like everyone else, or at least have some sort of “concrete demands”.  But they didn’t, so then they started pepper spraying kids.

That’s what the police order does, it tells you to take part in the fake politics – casting a ballot, going to a town hall – and tries to divest energy from what Ranciere calls real politics. After all, the Egyptian revolution didn’t start because people started sending nicely worded petitions to the government. It started when people manifested themselves in the public spaces that were once apolitical.

#2 He Doesn’t Get Along with his Colleagues

Ranciere got his first exposure by contributing to Reading Capital with his teacher Louis Althusser.

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https://www.wikiwand.com/fr/Lire_le_Capital Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In contrast to the Hegelian dialectic, which emphasized the idealist observation that human experience is dependent on the mind's perceptions, Marxist dialectics emphasizes the importance of real world conditions, in terms of class, labor, and socioeconomic interactions. - Historical materialism, also known as the materialist conception of history, is a methodology used by some communist and Marxist historiographers that focuses on human societies and their development through history, arguing that history is the result of material conditions rather than ideas. This was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818–1883) as the "materialist conception of history." I

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It may be surprising that a few years later Ranciere put out Althusser’s Lesson which might have well been a raging “fuck off” to his teacher and mentor. The quarrel started over the events of May ’68. While Althusser and other Marxists were asserting the importance of Marxist academia in the French student revolts, Ranciere began to break away from this traditional mode of thought. Marxist intellectuals accused the revolts of being bourgeois and undisciplined. To which Ranciere accused Marxists of being a bunch of little shits:

The underlying idea, to focus solely on the theoretical level, is not only that Marxism is learned exclusively through books, but also that it is learned only from the classics. It is that every development is a betrayal, that every application of Marxism is a deviation into pragmatism, ideology, and political manipulation. We can see quite clearly from the phrase, ‘to focus solely on the theoretical level’, that what was at stake on the practical level was the rejection of the ‘developments’ that Khrushchev, with his successors and emulators, had introduced to ‘classical’ Marxism. This was the time, for example, when it was common to teach that peaceful coexistence was the supreme form of class struggle . . . The purism of theory could not but have political effects. And that was really all that mattered: we could say everything, provided nothing that we said had practical effects. – Althusser’s Lesson

But that was just the start. Ranciere’s project became more and more defined as time went on. From a criticism of Althusser and orthodox Marxism, Ranciere’s message soon became “Philosophy – it’s a big bag of dicks.” Writing Hatred of Democracy, Ranciere attacks the Platonic tradition and ties it to practically every Marxist philosopher. He argues that everyone in the Western tradition, from Plato to Marx, wants to become a philosopher king to shovel Truth into the mouths of the blind ignorant masses. Ranciere carries this line of thought to his other books such as “Disagreement” where  he accuses every theorists of democracy of being a Platonic saboteur.

One of his most famous feuds is with fellow Althusser alumn Alain Badiou for his self-professed Platonism.

Badiou, whose goal is to revive an “egalitarian Platonism,” penned an essay about Ranciere titled “The Lessons of Jacques Ranciere: Knowledge and Power After the Storm,” whereby Badiou acknowledges that the shittiest thing he could ever to do Ranciere is agree with him:

“To speak only well of Jacques Ranciere is not an easy task, given the positions that the two of us occupy. Perhaps my constant praise might, in fact, be the worst fate that I could have in store for him. Would doing so be precisely the most underhanded way to attack him? If, for example, I were to announce that we are in agreement on a number of important points, how would he take that? Would he rather just as soon change his mind on all those points and leave me behind?” – Jacques Ranciere: History, Politics, Aesthetics

And then there’s Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard, who started his career by telling everybody to “Forget Foucault” is an academic troll par excellence. The theorists of simulation has taken Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle and turned it into a nihilistic portrait of doom and despair. But Ranciere ain’t got time for that. Writing in “The Misadventures of Critical Thought” he says “theorists of simulation” (a not-so-subtle reference to Baudrillard)  are at the heart of simulation itself.

The Marxism of the denunciation of the mythologies of the commodity, the fallacies of consumer’s society and the empire of the spectacle. Forty years ago, it was supposed to unmask the machineries of domination, in order to provide the anti-capitalist fighters with new weapons. It has turned to exactly the contrary: a form of nihilist knowledge of the reign of the commodity and the spectacle, of the equivalence of anything with anything and of anything with its image

…The current disconnection between the critical procedures and any perspective of emancipation only reveals the disjunction at the heart of the critical paradigm. It may make fun of its illusions but it remains enclosed in its logic. This is why I think it is necessary to re-examine the genealogy of the concepts and procedures of that logic and the way in which it got intertwined with the logic of social emancipation.

– The Misadventures of Critical Thought

#3 He Thinks Your Professor is Worthless

It might seem ironic for a teacher to conclude “fuck smart people.” But in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Ranciere makes that very claim. You see, Ranciere has been hating on philosophers from the very beginning. From his very start in Althusser’s Lesson, to Hatred of Democracy, to The Philosopher and his Poor, Ranciere is constantly accusing philosophers of proposing a capital T truth to reign down in a golden shower of truth onto ignorant masses. That makes a really compelling case for why I shouldn’t be reading Ranciere at all, and maybe just fucking up the police on my own terms.

But in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Ranciere takes teachers to task. You see, teachers are trying to make you stupid. Really stupid. Like you would be better off thinking about shit really hard instead of taking a class on something. Why does he say that?

There was this dude named Jacotot, and he was awesome. He was a French guy who went to teach in Belgium after the French Revolution. He was teaching French, but his students only spoke Flemish. He, by the way, did not speak Flemish. So doing what any responsible teacher would do, Jacotot gave them a recent version of this book Telamaque that had the French on one side of the page and the Flemish on the other side and said “figure it out.”

And they did.

Ranciere advocates this form of  “universal education” and says the traditional teacher/student model is only meant to perpetuate societal inequality and keep students in a state of stultification. Stultification – that’s a fancy word for stupid. The implications of this philosophy are A) You don’t need a teacher like Ranciere to teach you anything and B) An illiterate parent could teach their children to read by plopping a book down and saying “figure it out.”

The crazy part? This shit works, and not just around random corners of Europe where the tradition was born.

You know how your dumb ass can barely figure out how to change the settings on your Kindle? Remember that fancy college degree you spent more than $100k on? Well fuck you, because kids in Ethiopa who don’t even know what a tablet is can not only fix your settings but remove any pesky security measures while they’re at it.

You see, someone at One Laptop Per Child had the bright idea of just dumping a bunch of Motorola Zoom tablets in an Ethiopan village full of kids. The children did not speak English, which was the language loaded on the tablet, and they had never seen a computer before. Within weeks these kids were fucking wizards with the things so much so that they actually figured out how to jailbreak them.

“We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He’d never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs [in English] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android. Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android.”

There’s more. These other researchers decided to give this whole universal education thing a shot and gave a bunch of molecular biology textbooks to a bunch of Tamil-speaking kids in South India. The text books were in English.

Left on their own for two months, without external help or instruction, the researchers felt that surely this task would demonstrate that ‘yes, we need teachers for certain things’ (Mitra 2010). Indeed, after two months, when Mitra asked them what they understood of molecular biology, the children confirmed that they understood nothing. What gets the biggest laugh at Mitra’s numerous talks, however, is the response of one girl from the group, who explained: ‘Apart from the fact that improper replication of the DNA molecule causes genetic disease, we understood nothing else.’ – Of Slumdogs and Schoolmasters – Jacotot, Ranciere and Mitra on Self-Organized Learning

When given an exam on the material, however, the kids all failed. And by failed, they averaged 30%, which is exactly 4 points lower than I scored on my high school physics final that was administered in a language I speak.

Want to Learn More About Ranciere?

If you’d like to explore the thought of Jacques Ranciere, you can read his Ten Theses on Politics for free on Scribd. You should also check out this Ranciere blog, run by Paul Bowman and Michael O’Rourke.Paul Bowman, by the way, is really into writing about the intersections of Bruce Lee and Ranciere.

[happyfunnycoolgirl96]

oh shit more anglophobia talk below I guess

i suppose all those faceless strangers in my inbox didn't particularly get to me because it's easier to take it as a fat joke since you can always slam an anon down with "come off of anon pussy" it's an easy target but whatever, but when an actual mutual who i'd had conversations with, who'd answer my asks and complement, was pretty nice and vice versa, just completely fucking TURNED on me and started calling me a chav... (why does everyone use that directed towards me? it's brit slang created by the country you hate so much apparently. also it's supposed to attack lower class people despite one of the guys who called me a chav literally saying right ON HER BIO THAT SHE BLOCKS ANYONE WHOS CLASSIST DEAR SWEET LORD LMAO and you know what I had to do to find that out? i selected the word chav on my phone and clicked define on the pop up. get smart) ....despite comparing oranges to apples and saying that it was similar to straights and gay people discourse, like he was acting like he didn't like the contextual or subliminal meaning of this particular type of argument despite showing some pretty strong signs that he just straight up didn't really like brits at all. i thought you were chill man!! why the fuck did you get your panties in such a twist!!! the fuck? why did you react like that? fr!! and like, if we argue in a post and you start being all paggro and calling me chav don't delete the post later just so that your public image looks nice and shiny and lovely! the fuck! that's sneaky man i'm not telling you how to run your tumblr but oh fuck i'm getting pretty unreasonably mad about this one guy so whatever. anyway i hate everything about vagueposting and the philosophy behind so jeremie if you're reading this i don't particularly hate you (despite the really aggressive tone of this post lmfao) i'm just upset on how much you seemed like a nice person and how easily that bond was broke, I don't doubt that you're a good guy but it's more of a "i think you're okay but I don't like the things you do" sort of thing. tumblr didn't glitch and make you unfollow me if you were wondering, i soft blocked you since you don't really seem like a particularly... chill or understanding person, to be frank. i don't mind if you pm me, i don't mind if you don't, i'm not trying to seem like the bigger man here or like the more responsible one i suppose but in short, i don't hate you, i don't love you, and you're just another guy on the internet to me, as neutral as can be. also if you read this lol kudos, hope nobody takes this as a sign to stalk people's blogs after they fight or anything i'm just not in the mood (or ever will be) to be bitter right now. thank you for coming to the worst ted talk ever, this will be the last time i talk about that one specific brit fight again, fin

[leonbloder]

When You Think You Have To Earn Grace

I've always been a task-oriented kind of person.  Assign me a task, and set a deadline, and I'll get some stuff done... you can count on it.  And if there's no one to give me something to do, I'll assign myself tasks and set my own deadlines.

Sometimes, I assign myself too many tasks and set unreasonable deadlines, but let's not dwell on that for the moment.  

There's this sense of satisfaction that I get when I am hustling and checking things off my lists that is hard to beat.  But I'm a pretty terrible supervisor for myself.    

I will often look back on my day when I get to around 5PM and if I haven't completed enough tasks, I'll either begin berating myself for being a slacker or make myself work overtime.  

And there's no one to complain to because I'm also the HR representative for myself, so any complaints won't really get very far.  Even if they did, I'm also the CEO of myself, so there's that.  

Let me tell you something just between us---the CEO of myself is a real piece of work.   I can't stand that guy sometimes.  He has this idea that the more things I can get done, the better I'll look, and the more worthy I'll be.  

I've driven that metaphor about as far as it can go.  But there's a ton of truth in that for far too many of us, am I right?  And worse, there are more than a few of us who apply this same kind of philosophy to our life of faith.  

No matter what we say we believe about God's love and grace, we turn God into some sort of dour Accounts Receivable department head who is always checking the ledgers and giving us grief for not measuring up.  

Then we live our lives always feeling like we're not ever good enough.  We become trapped in a hellish kind of office cubicle life with a dead plant on the desk, a trashcan full of Doritos bags, and a stack of work that never seems to go away.  

Here's the thing... God doesn't work like that, not by a long shot.  And we can be set free from that way of thinking and living if we are willing to embrace the grace that God freely gives to us out of love.  

Fr. Richard Rohr writes extensively about the perils of living a life of faith that turns God into a ledger-keeper.  Instead, he employs a vision of God as a Divine Locksmith, longing to set us free from our self-made prisons:  

Grace is the secret, undeserved key whereby God, the Divine Locksmith, sets you free from your self-made prisons and merit-badge mentality.  It shows itself as radical forgiveness—of reality in general—and then forgiveness of each individual thing—for not being perfect.  

Have you fallen into patterns in your life where you think that doing is more important than being?  Have you created an image of God that is never satisfied, an image of God that demands more and more from you in order to earn grace and love?  

If so, I want you to hear this... That god doesn't exist.  In fact, the only existence that god might have is in your own head, constructed by you, voiced by you, and perpetuated by you.  

It's time to fire that image of God.  In keeping with the whole office-based theme of this Devo... Give that image of God the walking papers that it so richly deserves.  With no severance.  And an escort out of the building, holding nothing but a box of junk from a desk.  

Because you were meant for more than a merit-badge, ledger-based kind of faith.  You were meant to live an abundant life, full of hope, joy, and love.  

May it be so for you today and every day and may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.