you're so welcome babygirl

getting babygirl-d by the bible translated blog wasn't on my 2024 bingo card but it seems anything is possible now

By me :)

fucking adore this man

Okay alright sorry for all the sudden German politics influx but lemme explain what happened so far and why Germans are losing it a bit:

The tldr? Our government is getting a divorce and it's turning messy with elections being called early and now being called even earlier.

The longer version?

Okay so, groundwork first:

in Germany there is a coalition currently in power called the Ampel(traffic lights) bc the colours of the party are red, yellow and green (or not anymore or for much longer??). They're centrist slightly more left leaning than right leaning. (You could argue about that I am aware). There has been infighting for as long as this coalition has been going on. It is also the first three party coalition since y know, the Last Time.

So. Enough groundwork. The yellow party (FDP) has a finance minister (Christiane Lindner) it's this guy

You will see him in memes I am sure. We don't like him. He's an asshole and has blocked every meaningful change that the coalition had been trying to accomplish. He also got his finance plan blocked by our highest court because parts were against our Constitution.

(.... I am oversimplifying hard here it's actually more complicated than that and not fully his fault, but it's also not the focus)

What WAS the fault though of him and the FDP was that they had a strong position of "saving money at all costs" which made bigger and bigger rifts with the two other coalition partners who were more leaftleaning. The war in Ukraine, Infrastructure, climate change - there were many places that needed more money and Lidner was like naaahhhhh for no fucking reason other than "oh we need to save money!!"

Long story short there have been arguing all the fucking time and therefore have started to lose approval. Drastically lose approval. As on for the first time since the Last Time there is a far right party in charge for part of the country that is also being investigated for being Nazis. (Oversimplifying again).

Which is. Worrying. You know. Especially with Trump now being elected. It has us all a little skittish.

The finance minister has also now been fired.

You see. We were all still trying to stomach Trump winning the US election, when Scholz, in the same fucking evening, fired Lindner.

And not in a polite way. Nah. Olaf fucking Scholz our Chancellor, notorious for saying literally nothing, and with a running joke that he regularly stops existing bc that man Does Not Take Stances, a spine of wet cardboard, delivered this yesterday evening:

(English subtitles by me you already got this far watch it I spent too much time on this lol)

And it is insane alright. For his standards and German politic standards thats the equivalent of calling Lindner a egomaniacal bitch that has only his self interest at heart and can not be trusted.

Lindner and his party have been pulverised in all recent elections. Which means that after he was fired, the FDP completely withdrew from the coalition and all minister from the FDP resigned.

....well all but one who apparently stayed in his positions because he's leaving the FDP over this. What sort of shitty backstabbing kindergarten fight is this. (Jokes aside hes the minister of transportation and says he needs to stay in office in important projects. Which. True. Having minister resigning en mass is not good)

Alright cool cool cool cool. Current situation yesterday is the following:

So. Trump is president. Fuck.

Lindner got fired! Yaaay!

Wait my goverment is now also falling apart! Fuck.

Which all lead to new elections being called in Germany.

Mind you, that's not usual ok. I know other countries have systems where they can call an election whenever but that is not a thing that normally happens here. We have a schedule alright. (Insert obligatory "Germans and their plans and structure" joke)

So new elections are called for spring, nearly a year early. Cool cool cool. With a right wing rising in Germany and deeply unpopular current leadership. On the eve of motherfucking trump getting elected.

Habeck, leader of the green party and one of the few policians in germany I think is vaguely liked by ppl (the general attitude in German politics is less "I like this guy" and more "you are the least shitty choice I guess") has appearently also nearly started crying after the news broke. So. Yeah.

Now. Let's make this shitshow complete,alright?

There is this party. CDU. They had been in charge for a very long time in Germany. Centrist, right leaning, with the afd on the rising even more right leaning than before. Their current leader is Friedrich Merz, as unpleasant as human beings can go.

He has now called for the new election to be not in a few months but like. To be called next week.

In the current climate.

So yeah. if you're German mutuals and friends are currently going through their own stages of grief - this is why.

told them i’m into overstim and they confiscated my noise canceling headphones and took me to the grocery store

NOT WHAT I MEANT NOT WHAT I MEANT NOT WHAT I MEANT NOT WHAT I MEANT

using "what were YOU doing at the devils sacrament" to mean "yeah i made an embarrassing reference but you understood it which is also embarrassing" is very funny to me

my favorite part is that absolutely nobody says this except here. so if you use it in public, it's a dead giveaway that you spent the last ten years on tumblr. but then again, they recognized it, which means they were at the devil's sacrament

compilation

WIP Update

kay my calendar says I'm gonna release this design on the 4th, so I'm officially opening the ticket on this project:

holy shit the sketchwork alone took HOURS

remember this is gonna be design 2 of five so idk how much sleep i'll be getting in the next 48 hours

linework's on! holy shit how is there still more hours to go I am DETERMINED to finish this before I sleep tho lol

ignore the masking tape, if diamine oxblood senses a smidge of the natural oils on one's skin it starts to smear, and, quite appropriately, bleed on the paper.

God she's a lovely ink but she wants your skin far more than she wants the paper

oh SHIT it's 4 in the fucking morning i need. to be. asleep. but it's done!

that white space on the drop capital is where the gold will go once the designs become prints, scanning without the gold is far easier for me to digitally clean later on.

I'm releasing prints once a day starting on sunday with "pissing all by yourself, handsome?", and then there'll be this ^ one, then the cephalopod's prayer, fanfiction styles oh/oh, and then "despite everything, it's stlil you"

once that last one's released, I'll be kicking off the monthlong holiday sale that I run in order to encourage folks to get their orders in on time, since shipping out of canada will be a nightmare

keep an eye out for the listings masterpost!

New graffiti in Norwich!

Ah, it’s too late to post this on Halloween.  But here is a little story about ghosts, and roommates, and roommates who are ghosts.

Things baked into Terry Pratchett books that I didn't realise at first but very much needed and benefited from:

Being unpleasant, weird, socially difficult, off-putting, uncomfortable to be around, annoying, obnoxious, etc does not equal being a bad person

And it definitely doesn't mean others don't have a duty of baseline care about you

They don't have to like you but there is a baseline "we live in a society and I care about what happens to the people around me" type of duty that you are owed

They can think you're unpleasant to be around and even stupid and cringe in your presence but there is a duty of care to your existence

And if you are doing bad things you can stop

There are always chances to think about your actions and why you're doing them and if you really believe it's the right thing

There is always an option to stop

And some people do

And some people don't

But if people do that doesn't mean they aren't still maybe unpleasant to be around or awkward or uncomfortable

The "bad guys" in Terry Pratchett tend to

1. Believe they are in the right

2. Never question that belief

3. Have multiple opportunities to not be doing what they are doing but fully commit

4. May have points that at least feel reasonable on a surface level if you don't think about them too deeply

5. Face consequences of their own actions. Which includes the protagonist having to slap them down. If they didn't put the stuff in motion and refuse to back down they wouldn't be getting slapped

They aren't cartoon baddies they are really realised characters with convictions that they believe in and truly tend to believe their actions are the best thing to be doing. That they are doing what others should have already done

But in Terry Pratchett what makes you on the wrong side of the narrative is not your personality or your looks or how sociable you are

It's your continuing actions that define you AND your unwillingness to change

And I think I very much needed that reinforced in my life

Guards! Guards! was not the first Discworld book I read but it is the one that punched my angsty, edgy thirteen-year-old self in the face. I have never had a book hit me like that since. Nothing has ever picked me up by the scruff of the neck and shown me my own face in the mirror that way.

I was angsting around, all "the world is terrible" and "people are evil" and "humans are a blight upon the earth" and "everyone is stupid" and Vimes showed up and said, "Yeah, and?"

So what? So they're stupid and petty - save them anyway. So they're selfish - save them anyway. So it's all fucked and there's never going to be a happy ending - save them anyway. Do it anyway. You don't get to opt out of caring just because they're grubby and ignorant and reactionary and petty because so are you and that's all we've got.

No other book has ever changed my worldview in one blow before or since. I reckon that's something that can only happen to you when you're a teenager anyway. But I've never quite gotten over it.

Oh, by the way, there are already 10 covers!

Witches are next