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With everything else that's going on, I can't believe I have to spend energy being angry at my state government, too

don’t die on me, septa

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Didn't actually watch the game, but I got a pretty good idea what happened just by checking the scores every time I heard my neighbors scream.

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Another installation in the series "drawings I left sitting unfinished on my desk for four whole months"

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Viridian City seems fun

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Happy Birthday to Silver Pokemon, whose dad is celebrating by buying himself a new suit

Bonus pokespe

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Okay so I was doing something for work and sifting through some old things on my computer.... and I found this???

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How do you mourn a friend when you live inside her borders? How do you grieve an idea that you only ever hoped might be true? How does an atheist lose faith?

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Ok. Shit.

I get the feeling I'm not gonna sleep tonight, and who knows, I might regret this tomorrow but I need to get some thoughts out.

I've tried to retain this idea that most people are inherently good. Some of this is the remnants of whatever religious faith I was brought up in, and some of it is just what I tell myself to stay sane. It's getting harder to think that way, but I am trying to hold on to it.

There's this image I keep replaying in my head. My dad and I were visiting family down south shortly after he had wrapped up his cancer treatment. We stopped by my aunt's house in South Carolina, and she told me with tears in her eyes about how she had started gardening again after my dad's diagnosis. There was a Trump flag flying from her roof.

On another visit to the same family members, we were visiting a college and walked by a gender neutral bathroom. My uncle made some off-color joke about it and then quickly moved on when nobody laughed. My sister (a sort of closeted trans woman) looked at me with an expression of both deep sadness, and whatever face you make when you watch a bird fly head-first into a window.

My point is, I know these people aren't filled with hatred and malice. It's not constructive to waste your energy hating them when their greatest sin is ignorance.

I barely remember the Obergerfell decision, but I remember being in middle school around the time it happened. Attitudes towards queer people weren't great, but they changed so rapidly that I barely noticed. Maybe the fact that this was when I realized I was queer gave me a false sense of security when it came to the "moral arc of the universe", or maybe it's the example I have to hold onto about how fast things can change.

It's easy for people to fall into patterns of hate when they lack exposure, and the media landscape right now is making easier to avoid that sort of exposure. The basis of the fight against extremism is education, and I think it has to also be compassion.

Don't get me wrong, I also have family that are more than likely not worth the effort ("they" control the weather and all that), but those aren't most people. Most people are exhausted by politics. They see the price of groceries and vote for the other guy regardless of who's name is on the ballot. Or they're like a classmate of mine, who didn't really like either candidate and was having trouble just voting for the "better" one.

If anything, I guess this is a reminder to myself to hold on to empathy despite everything. It's fine to feel angry. Hell, it's probably good if it gets you moving. But we cannot respond to dehumanization with more dehumanization.

I'm not really all that religious anymore, but I hold on to some things. One of them is this: All things, by virtue of being crafted by God's hands, have value. Or, as my dad said it "God don't make no shit". This goes for yourself, as well as everyone else. I can't let myself lose that right now.

I don't want to belabor my point too much, but I do want to say that I saw people saying things like "it's all over if trump wins". I'm not going to lie, it's bad and people are going to get hurt and die because of this. America was waiting for the results of it's biopsy and we found out it's cancer... but we're not dead yet. I don't have a specific action I can advocate for, but please, don't give up. Authoritarianism is a longstanding wound on this country and it festers in apathy.

Take a deep breath. Regardless of what happens, time moves forward and the sun will rise in the morning. I am going to go to work, make some dinner, and hopefully find some way to work volunteering into my schedule.

Recommended listening if you want to cry right now

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i haven't experienced true joy since 2015

how are we feeling, americans

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Couple relevant highlights from the birthday boy:

"the Ambition of acquiring greater Riches than the rest of ones fellow Citizens, the establishing that odious Inequality of Fortunes [or] of usurping more power than the Laws allow...shocks the equitable Spirit of a Republic...the Selfish Enemy to his Country [who behaves this way] must fall under the wholesome Rigour of the Law"

"In Monarchy a foolish or Knavish King whichever Chance has happen’d to place upon the Throne...is surrounded by designing, servile Flatterers, the Business of whom, it is, to make the foolish Monarch believe and act as will best suit their purposes... but if the King for the Misfortune of his Country is a Man of Abilities, they become the Instruments of his Tyranny, and share the spoils of those whom they have assisted in ruining- How are Places of Honour and Trust given in such a Government...?"

And:

"[N]o virtuous philosophic Mind will take Offence that the useful industrious part of the Community, should have their persons and properties equally protected with those of the most enlighten’d Men_ nor think it unreasonable, that they should choose Men whom they judge worthy of the important Trust of Governing_"

All that to say, happy birthday, John Laurens.

GO FUCKING VOTE.

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I think I need to start coming up with my own unhinged and unverifiable history takes. Anyway, Stephen Gerard founded Gerard college because after he bought the first bank of the united states he spent the rest of his life haunted by the ghost of Alexander Hamilton

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Is drawing Meade with a braid acceptable or do we need to credit you in some way??

Credit? My guy, it's nice of you to ask, but I'm not about to claim ownership of an historical figure with a vaguely anachronistic hairstyle.

As an aside, I do really enjoy seeing how peoples art influences each other. It's a lot more obvious in a smaller fandom like this one, but I love when a specific detail or stylistic element that I recognize in one person's work starts showing up in another's. Like, someone recognized a thing they thought was cool and it impacted them so much they decided to start doing it too. Any member of a community is bound to be influenced by the others, and it's nice when you can watch it happen in real time.

TL;DR: draw the braid.

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Living in a body with chronic pain is insane. I'm going about my day thinking: Wow! I'm in a lot of pain right now, is there something wrong? Did I hurt myself?

The answer is no, but the sack of flesh and blood I have been trapped in for two decades screams like a toddler in a grocery store. All because... uh... my dinner was too spicy?

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My exams would be so much easier if I had the confidence to defraud the federal government