#like MAYBE a libertarian at best

[cuddlytogas]

maybe it's just the Radical Rediker talking, but there's something pointed in the way that, say, popular pirate media like Pirates of the Caribbean dilutes the pirate's freedom to "bring me that horizon" as opposed to, say, "plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power" (Bartholomew Roberts).

broadly speaking, most pirates chose the life in order to escape and revenge the hard labour, corporal punishment, overworking, and unequal pay of merchant/navy/privateer ships; or the privations of their sudden unemployment once a war was over, ignored as soon as their ability to die for the state was unneeded. yes, many were thugs, but, consciously political or not, they were responding to a particular, material reality.

the pirate's desired freedom was from the effects of exploitative modes of statehood and capital production. but popular media usually shifts this into a general desire for freedom: freedom to roam, freedom to love (usually merely a cross-class white, heterosexual union), or freedom from the personal pressures of social norms. it's a vague, ahistorical, post-Enlightenment, libertarian ideal rather than a response to a real social and economic situation.

to be clear, this only really applies to specifically the late golden age of piracy, in the first quarter of the 18th century. earlier generations of pirates/buccaneers often displayed nationalist/religious motives, and were lauded, tolerated, or even encouraged by the French and English states for aiding their fights against the Spanish and Portuguese. only the last gasp of age of sail pirates had a truly anti-national energy, and both figured themselves, and were figured by the imperial powers, as the enemies of all nations.

but if we are to valourise the late golden age pirate, at his best, his ideals were for true democracy, and the abolition of nation, hierarchy, and labour exploitation; not "the horizon". he was striking out in response to specific political, social, and economic oppressions, rather than a general individual restlessness, and that reality - and its similarities to our own - are important.

I dunno, I just... have a lot of thoughts about the defanging of piracy in modern media. obviously there were a lot of things bad about them, too, and the level of egalitarianism varied between individual people and ships. but again, if we're going to be valourising them anyway... there were idealists. and they weren't subtle about they wanted.

"I shan't own myself guilty of any murder", said William Fly in 1726. "Our captain and his mate used us barbarously. We poor men can't have justice done us. There is nothing said to our commanders, let them never so much abuse us, and use us like dogs. But the poor sailors --"

#pirates #history #pirate history #Togas does meta #Rediker is Marcus Rediker and I've only just started finally reading some of his work properly but god it's good #also if you've watched Black Sails I'd love to know how much of this energy is in there #it's a bit too ~gritty for my tastes but I get the impression it's also a bit vague about freedom over material historical politics #but i could be wrong! #obviously PotC has an ingrained anti-EIC vibe but even then it's more about ''they're enclosing the sea against us wild rovers'' than #''company captains beat us half to death just for the wealth we facilitate to be funnelled to the top while us sailors are left to rot'' #and christ knows it's not interested in historical realities XD

[qqueenofhades]

do you think there's a considerable amount of (young) people refusing to vote for biden because of i/p, or do you think theyre just a loud minority? i cant really tell, myself

I have been keeping a fairly close eye on polls (at least the good high-quality large-sample ones, not the numerous trash ones which currently flood the sphere), actual voting results, and other empirical data that relies on non-social-media blathering. And while we will still need more data and see if anything changes, at this point I think we can presume that any electoral effect of the I/P situation is already baked into Biden's expected results and performances, and I honestly don't think there's much, if any, of a measurable effect.

I say this because first of all, one of the most recent high-quality, large-sample youth polls (I think it was YouGov, but I can't be sure) had precisely 0% of voters between 18-29 listing foreign policy as their top priority in 2024. There were other expected priorities: the environment, the economy, American democracy, abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, etc -- but not foreign policy. Now, caveat emptor about this being only the people who respond to polls, the fact that most polls have been largely junk this primary cycle (notably, they have way overestimated Trump's performance and way underestimated Biden's), and so forth. However, even in libertarian New Hampshire, which tends to wander more than the other solidly-blue presidential election New England states (as a number of them still have Republican governors), "ceasefire" only garnered 1% of all write-in votes, and Biden won commandingly despite not being on the ballot. In South Carolina, he just won 97% statewide, and even the Democrats who skipped the primary due to it not being particularly interesting or competitive (as compared to the highly competitive open primary in 2020) still generally say that they plan to vote for Biden in November. So overall, Biden is doing even better at this point in the primary cycle than he was in 2020, where Sanders' early wins in Iowa and NH were generating chatter about an upset. Once again, this is early and we are working with a limited sample size, but despite everything, I think we can posit that the "Democrats/Black people/Hispanics/young people won't vote for Biden because of xyz issue and therefore We Are All Doomed" thesis is at best, considerably overinflated and at worst, totally untrue.

Likewise, to be blunt: the loudest voices shouting about how they will never vote for Biden because of the Gaza situation either don't vote at all, only voted once in 2020 under extreme duress and haven't voted since, and otherwise aren't being taken into account either in polls (which are bad data because they are by nature experimental and speculative) or actual voting results (which reflect the way real people actually voted in elections). The reason the YouGov sample might not have pulled any voters between 18-29 listing foreign policy as their top priority very well could be because these people flat out don't vote and therefore won't pass any "likely" or "registered" voter screens, so despite all their yelling on social media, there's not been any actual impact. Now, this is not to say that there won't be; there has, for instance, been speculation that Biden might be hurt in states like Michigan, which have a large Arab-American population. Michigan is obviously one of the traditional Blue Firewall states that Hillary lost in 2016 and which Biden retook in 2020, and any electoral wobbling there would be ominous for his overall results. However, this is also reckoning without the fact that there is now a largish chunk of old-school GOP/independent voters who say they will not vote for Trump under any circumstances, with that number growing if he's explicitly convicted of a felony. Some of these voters might sit out, or vote for Biden, or maybe decide to vote for some stupid crackpot like RFK Jr., but the point is, if they do in fact not vote for Trump or even vote for Biden, that changes the electoral math.

Likewise: there are about 40,000 Arab-American voters in Michigan. Biden won the state by 154k votes, or 3.35%, in 2020. Even if every single one of those voters voted FOR Trump this time (which would be insane, but never mind), that alone would not be enough to flip the state from Biden, and that's reckoning without the votes that Trump will lose elsewhere. I've seen a few left-leaning publications such as the Guardian picking up the "will Biden's stance on Gaza hurt him in November" question, and the loud social media blabbermouths want to insist that it will because it makes them feel important, but at this point, I honestly don't see widespread electoral evidence of it, because, put bluntly: Democrats vote. Posturing social media "progressives" largely don't. Therefore for all the screaming they do, their views do not get incorporated into the actual results, which is a damn good thing for us.

So in short: No, as of right now, I don't think there is in fact a substantial anti-Biden protest vote, and the people threatening it the most were never going to vote for him anyway. This has gone on long enough that if it was going to flag up as a major thing, I think it would have. There will always be the idiots throwing away their vote on some stooge like Cornel West or Jill Stein (lol), but once again, these people were never going to vote for Biden in the first place and it is not necessarily the case that we need to put undue credence in their threats. Not that we can slack our vigilance, as we cannot and every single person who can vote blue in 2024 needs to fucking do so if they're interested in continuing to live in a democracy, but the situation is not apocalyptic, and yet again, the Online Leftists are far from the most reliable metric of how effective their screaming actually is. So, yeah.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

[sirfrogsworth]

Not to rag on just libertarians, I would like to say I don't care for strict adherence to any political ideology or philosophy. I saw a YouTube channel on Marxism and their whole deal was basically, "This is what Marx said, let's do this word for word and things will be great." But when watching a few videos, they didn't really show how we get from here to there. It felt like they wanted to just stop doing this and start doing that with no in between. And the in between shit is the hardest part. That is the part we need to figure out the most.

I just don't want to be stuck in a box. I prefer to go issue by issue and the best idea wins. And in order for it to be the "best idea" it has to be realistic and not something that we could maybe implement some day in the far future. "End capitalism" is not a switch you can flip. But if you string together enough best ideas over a long period of time, that is usually how you achieve that unrealistic goal.

So maybe you'd start with healthcare for kids. And then maybe healthcare for old and disabled people. And when people see how well that works, healthcare for everyone.

Karl Marx thought up some good shit. I'm definitely into cherry-picking some of that and trying to make it work. But we're probably going to need to update them labor coupons. Maybe a labor Venmo app. Vouchermo? Vouchmo?

These are very tired, unrefined, stream-of-consciousness thoughts, but all I'm saying is we shouldn't confine ourselves to stuff some dude said 150 years ago.

And it would be super great if we could change some of the shit the "founding fathers" came up with. Why is so much of that set in stone?

If only there was a way to amend some of it.

[max1461]

I don't know enough econ to articulate a reason for this, and maybe I'm just working with a biased sample here, but my impression on the basis of history is that capitalist command economies and their ilk work the best for achieving prosperity. We can point to cases like the postwar US, but we can also point to cases like modern China, which works rather differently but shares the feature that the state directs economic activity on a large scale while leaving many of the specifics up to private firms and the market to figure out.

As someone with left-libertarian inclinations, this is theoretically a bit of a worst-of-both-worlds scenario. But it's always looked to me like this form of economic organization works better than either central planning or completely laissez-faire markets.

The problems with this kind of political/economic system are basically things I've articulated already on this blog. I think it gives both the state and industry a lot of shared interests at the expense of the world's human population, and this has been demonstrated in both modern China and the postwar US pretty thoroughly. But I'm not denying that for all its faults, it works.

#society

[gothicprep]

I’m camping and this is a queued post.

I watched big joel’s “conservative comedy ruined my life” in bits and pieces last weekend. or the weekend before? I don’t remember. part of me just thinks I’m getting old and running out of patience for, like, elevated react content. another part of me is thinking, “no! it’s laziness you can’t stand!” i know joel is a capable guy – I think “twitter and empathy” is an excellent video essay. i more or less know how YouTube sponsors work in a way that disincentivizes being thorough – “get it out by may 10th, or you’re not getting $200”. all that. maybe this was best practiced as a labor of love rather than a professional career, but I won’t digress

I think what my issues with it are stem from two questions that weren’t engaged with at all:

what makes comedy work?

what is a conservative? it’s a regionally variant thing in how it presents, after all.

If you’d like to hear me ramble, it’s under the cut. if not, i hope everything goes well for you today, and we’ll leave it at that.

alright. now the true reader time has kicked in. im getting dirty.

a lot of the framework I think joel is using here is from this out of context george carlin clip that’s shared en-masse whenever a comedian is in hot water for a tasteless joke. but I honestly think he and most people are interpreting it wrong – it’s somewhat backhanded advice from one professional to another. even if andrew dice clay meant his diceman character as a parody, he’s risking an audience who may not get that, and probably won’t think particularly high of him when they find out his surname by birth is silverman.

the work people remember of carlin’s is anti-establishment and anti-consumerism, yes. but the shtick in that era of his career is mostly about being curmudgeonly. he wasn’t trying to establish an over-arching theory of comedy via one larry king interview. and I guess, while we’re thinking about carlin, we ought to remember that he was arrested for cursing in public at his shows, like, multiple times in the 70s. his attitude towards political correctness (& supposedly what we’d call “wokeness” now) is deeply informed by this. he’d probably call a lot of the posts you’ve endorsed newfangled yuppie shit. don’t invoke the dead unless you know what they were about.

sorry for that digression, but I do think it matters. specifically in the case of joel, who I think leaned into the out of context clip and… developed a nonsense theory of comedy because of that. he says something to the effect of “comedy enforces social norms” when he isn’t talking about comedians. he’s talking about bullies. bullies and their patchwork of social allies aren’t funny. everyone thinks they’re trying too hard in a meaningless and pathetic race.

comedy is often predicated on surprise. if you pay attention, you’ll be a more intelligent person for it. and a more surprising one. funny how that works. I don’t personally believe this neo-breadtube space is inhabited by smart people. I don’t care how many masters degrees they’ll try to break my nose with pointing this out.

okay, getting to the point – the daily wire is not anywhere near the go-to source of conservative bile. their traffic has taken a massive hit since facebook de-emphasized viral news. Imagine making something criticizing “conservative comedy” and not mentioning greg gutfeld at all. fox’s viewership dwarfs that of the daily wire, but the daily wire gets undue legitimacy by way of being terminally online. if I said “Ben Shapiro” to my parents, they’d assume this is the name of some guy that worked with me rather than a pundit. 

he also does some idiot magic here where he calls matt stone and trey parker conservatives. they aren’t, they’re libertarians. these sorts of distinctions matter to people who care about gay shit like accuracy. he mostly looks at “team america: world police” as reference and says something to the effect of “they accepted the war on terror as it is”. like are you honestly kidding dude. have you seen the south park movie? they not only characterized the army as incompetent, but actively racist on top of that.

you have to wonder if he has a selective memory about the “team america” movie as well, because he frames it so strangely. because the version of the song where they’re shouting out the names of corporations as a joke is in the end credits only and…

oh. alright. you didn’t watch it. damn. that’s sad. couldn’t even ask you to sit for two hours without picking up your phone like a fidgety little rat.

and… like. as much as I do not like to pull the “I’m bipolar!! I find this gross!!” card, I’m doing it. at the end of this video, joel shows a video of a Roseanne Barr routine where she’s very blatantly wrote while having a manic episode. He calls it interesting, I personally don’t find this all that interesting. I’ve been there. It’s dumb. It’s needlessly scaremongering and dramatic. It isn’t interesting. It makes me feel uncomfortable while I watch it. I was never a conspiracy theorist type but the requisite nonsensical yapping is all too clear to me.

Uhh. That’s what I have to say. Don’t think I got my whole rant out, but this will do for now

[surrexi]

so i've been working at my new job for a little over two months now. i'm supposed to be having weekly one-on-one meetings with my boss to track how i'm settling in etc but because he's outrageously busy (like, the kind of busy that indicates there really should be two people with his job) i'm really having them every two weeks or so.

anyway i had one today, about an hour and a half before the end of the day. and it was going all right, if a little awkward because i'm a socially awkward penguin and i don't know how to mask right yet in corporate land. we were going over the various projects i'm working on, pretty normal, except every so often my boss would make an aside comment that would make me worry Something Was Wrong.

finally at the end of the meeting he's like "so there's a couple things that have been brought to my attention" (did not specify what things, like if it was something i said or i way i handled a situation or work that i did). he sends me a link to a training module he's working on building and points out a specific section that talks about a particular business dude's book about how to be a good team member, which says the key is to be humble, hungry, and (people-)smart.

boss is like "before i talk to you about [the unspecified reasons i am being made to feel vaguely in trouble], i want you to look this over and think about it. and we'll pick this up in our next meeting."

which is currently scheduled for next friday, but he's traveling that day so he absolutely might put it off longer.

he also made sure to say multiple times that if someone doesn't agree with this business dude's take on team building it's fine but also it means they won't fit on boss' team and to mention that although "many states" are at-will employment states (meaning during your first 90 days an employer can fire you without having a reason; note that texas is one such state but he weirdly didn't mention it), the company we work for "doesn't do that," which boss thinks is "very generous" of them because when he was a disney exec disney would absolutely fire the shit out of people at the drop of a hat.

so now i have NO IDEA what i did to make someone upset and/or angry at me or what i did wrong, but by god i have at least a week to obsess over (a) what i did and (b) who the fuck narc'd on me without idk TALKING TO ME FIRST?!

boss has said way more about his weird libertarian politics than i have about my own politics, i have only mentioned my religion in passing/in the context of discussing easter weekend plans with a coworker. i don't think i've behaved inappropriately or confrontationally with any of my coworkers, like with my anxiety i'm always worrying about doing my best to be clear and polite and not make people hate me lolsob.

the only thing i've thought of so far is that i've been pretty firm about working 8-hour days/40-hour weeks unless there's a concrete reason to graciously donate my time since my company doesn't do overtime pay and i'm salaried/exempt. like i have never said i would never work overtime and there's already been several days where i worked an extra 30 minutes to an hour that, again, i do not get paid for. unsurprisingly, boss frames being salaried as "we get to work more than 40 hours a week without it being a hassle because of overtime rules." and i do make offhand pro-labor comments/jokes a lot, but i haven't actually, like, threatened to unionize my fellow office workers. i live in texas ffs, if you say the word union too loud the cops show up.

i just feel like this is unhinged levels of psychological warfare from my boss and it took me SO LONG to find this job but now i'm like... maybe i'm not a good fit for your humble/hungry/smart team, bro. but god knows i don't want to be unemployed again. i just got decent health insurance! i can pay my own rent! and buy groceries and medicine!

ugh. why is everything hard.

#this has been a post #about me #work #capitalism was a mistake #anxiety

[asstrofem]

What it is, what it ain't, what it's all about, and whatever else...

(Former pinned post? Yes.)

I'm a married black nonbinary transfem (they/she). I am stubbornly leftist and very queer*.

This blog is 18+ and nsfw. However, none of that means it's a porn blog. If you're constantly coming to my blog to hide SWers in your likes, you're getting blocked.

My time on tumblr: 2011-2018 (deactivated); 2022-present.

I usually have a queue pretty much all day if I feel like it. If not, I'm tired lol. If I'm on your blog, and it seems like I'm kinda, sorta spam-liking your posts, then it's very likely I'm also sending them to my queue.

Common tags include: #txt (formerly #she speaks), #shxt (For shitposts. I came up with this while sleep-deprived. Let's see if it sticks lol), #audio, #vgmusic, #youtube, #soundcloud, #bandcamp, #spotify, #audio/video, #important, #later, and #asks. As for photos of #me, there aren't many, but they're there if you'd like to gaze upon my flesh prison.

More about me: I'm a car girl with a hot wheels collection and a love for every generation of Miatas (however, GO NB GO NB GO). I'm into racing games, cozy simulators, survival games, and the occasional RPG. I love literature and if I'm not reading my usual leftist, socialist, queer, or feminist literature, I'm reading fantasy novels, science fiction, and anything by Stephen King, or N.K. Jemisin. I also love music and dabble in music production as one of my hobbies, but lately, my other hobby, writing, has been taking up more of my time. The latter craft has grown more attractive as the barrier of entry to being or becoming a writer has remained relatively low. Plus, I love (most of) my writing (now-.....er). Also, the music industry is so garbo now, so I'll definitely pass on that.

Favorite music genres include: Pop (I'm very picky on decades, and so far, this is the best one), almost every subgenre of house, hiphop, r&b, jazz, rock and metal artists that skew more avant-garde, progressive, experimental, or alternative (btw, I'm really enjoying math rock, atm), trance, drum & bass, jungle, garage, breakbeat, neurofunk, ambient music, movie soundtracks, tv soundtracks, video game soundtracks, and many more that I won't list because I listen to too much shit.

I'm married to a cis woman. The relationship is monogamous, however, lately, I've been thinking critically about monogamy. While I'm not sure that I'm polyamorous, I don't feel that the monogamy label applies to me either; maybe somewhere in between. Idk, but with all that being said, do not come to my DMs expecting a connection outside a platonic relationship.

Started HRT on 4/20/23 (yay). Paused it late May (boo). Restarted on 11/18/23 (OOOOOYEAHHHH)

*I'm sexually attracted to many but not all; I'm extremely sapphic and, not in any order, most attracted to femmes, feminine men, mascs (not so much for cishet men, though), and nonbinary folks. The term for this is polysexual (I could be wrong, but I'm not writing a book, so I'm not checking it lmao), but since that word is not a common term, I will usually tell people I'm queer, instead.

WARNING: I am strongly against capitalism, fascism, imperialism, libertarianism, conservatism, and any type of bigotry, including, but not limited to, sexism, misogyny, racism, fat phobia, body-shaming, ableism, queer phobia, transphobia, islamophobia, etc. Minors, ageless blogs, blank blogs, stolen porn blogs, the aforementioned in the first bullet point, TERFs, fascists, SWERFs, and bigots DNI because you will be blocked. Liberals will not be blocked, but I don't agree with every liberal talking point. Pedos and other creeps will also be blocked, as well as reported. Cishet men, y'all are forever on thin ice, so either act right or I'm cracking the ice you skate on.

Other Socials (I rarely use these but if you do, let me know so I can have a reason to gtfo this place lol):

Bluesky

Cohost

#former pinned post #this is always a work in progress post lol

[leporellian]

don giovanni modern au headcanons

'didnt you already make a modern au headcanons list like 2-3 years ago' yeah and i'll do it again baby. this time though its better

(if you're wondering i sourced all the last names from various don juan plays over The Years, except for elvira's, which is a tribute to her original actress in the moliere play.)

on don giovanni himself - giovanni tenorio is, essentially, a rich idiot with no day job. his dad is a republican congressman, and giovanni says he "disagrees" with him, but really this means "giovanni calls himself a libertarian and thinks weed should be legal while Not Caring about any of his dad's other policies". - (he will change political affiliations on a dime if he's trying to persuade/seduce someone.) - (it's also funny he's a libertarian bc he's also very much a catholic still.) - giovanni's parents are pretty excessively doting on him and refuse to believe that their sweet little angel, their only child, could be a... well, you know. in childhood his mother was excessively permissive while his father was straight up physically abusive (in the "kids these days don't get paddled like they used to" way), and while it's unclear how much of that influenced the kind of person giovanni became it seems like both parents regret their parenting in their own way. - because of his family being old money, as well as his dad's stock investments (don't tell anyone LOL), giovanni has a stupid amount of money he usually treats as entirely disposable. he has no idea how to manage it and usually spends a good amount of it buying stupid shit to entertain himself for like 5 minutes or to aid in a Scheme. - (this has led to situations where leporello will come home to find giovanni holding an umbrella cockatoo and swearing it as their new pet, for example, because giovanni thought it would be fun. and it was, for maybe about twenty-six minutes.) - also because of his dad being a rich congressman with Connections giovanni is pretty easily able to get away with everything. any time leporello questions this giovanni goes "oh it'll be just like ted kennedy" which annoys lep to NO end because he doesn't even know what to say to that - he lives together with leporello, his childhood-friend-turned-roommate-turned-possible-indentured-servant, in some stupid ass mcmansion somewhere in the chicago suburbs. i'm saying naperville for now bc naperville is like the mcmansion-slash-unhinged-rich-people-behavior capital of illinois godbless

(why does everyone in this modern au live in or around chicago? because i know that place best. personal bias sorree)

on leporello - leporello catalinon was childhood friends with giovanni, which is funny bc they're so different in terms of background and upbringing - he was born the eldest of five (his siblings are all sisters) into a working-class jewish household, not too far from where giovanni grew up. he and giovanni met in elementary school and bonded, because back when he was a kid giovanni was actually somewhat nice. - eventually giovanni got in trouble in high school doing some dumb (and in hindsight relatively harmless) shit and giovanni's parents decided being his being in a public school was the problem, so he and leporello fell out of touch when giovanni relocated to some catholic school - leporello has a passion for the archival process, so he went through college with the goal of someday becoming a historical archivist. this was a good idea in that he's good at that and a bad idea in that it left him with a bunch of debt he couldn't pay back. - while coming home the summer after college he got back in touch with giovanni, who was like 'oh hey you know you could come live with me and i won't charge rent AND i can pay off your college debt for you'. leporello was like 'oh that sounds great :)' only to realize once he moved in that Something Was Not Right About Giovanni Now, and that somehow in the six years they had fallen out of touch giovanni had become... not different but definitely lacking something. - (but at this point he'd already been roped into the abusive-friendship-slash-indentured-servitude deal and he couldn't imagine any other options. so.) - also he's autistic but you knew that already.

on elvira - elvira duparc actually grew up more near central illinois, which... for those unaware of the illinois Landscape once you get out of chicagoland it turns into 'corn and weird republican backwater towns' Fast. so she grew up in a small republican town - her family was one of the better-off there, and it was a town where everyone Knew each other. so like she was considered upper-class within the community but compared to the kind of money giovanni or even ottavio's families have it's not That much - giovanni ended up in the area while on a trip somewhere and you know how it ended up going. he neglected to tell elvira about his parents or anything so until she finds him again she has No idea his dad's a congressman - he essentially pulled a 'look at me i'm so helpless and lost all on my lonesome' sort of thing and elvira, who really is ultimately an 'i can fix him' person even if she would deny the charge, took him in. in some ways he was seemingly perfect bc he was just as catholic as her family but there was also a definite subconscious idea of Escape in that giovanni had traveled much more than she had and if she were to be his partner she'd likely go move in with him away from home - anyway he abandons her and the whole town immediately turns on her and she's gossiped about like she's the town's prime slut. so she buys a beat up volvo and gets out of dodge to go find giovanni and hold him accountable (or... fix him.) - also she's bisexual and has adhd but she doesn't know either of those things until After the plot of the opera. godbless.

on donna anna and don ottavio - anna ulloa and ottavio robinson are engaged but really they don't seem to be a good couple... anna is always rather closed off (Read: Closeted Lesbian Alert) while ottavio is. definitely says he loves anna and appears to be devoted to her but it's unclear how much he'd actually do for in a time of crisis. and Well - ottavio and giovanni were actually college buddies and their families know each other bc ottavio's dad is Also a congressman. ottavio claims he doesn't endorse any of giovanni's "tomfoolery" but at the same time his attitude about it is to essentially just ignore it. some suspect he secretly envies giovanni in some way and just never says anything about it. ottavio also seems to be trying to go into local office and work his way up to being a gov official on the same level of his old man. - actually ottavio's first Government Job was being an assistant for pedro ulloa, anna's dad, who's a county commissioner. which was how he and anna ended up meeting. - anna very much wants to hold office just like her dad. in fact she probably wants it even more than ottavio does. but she hasn't ever actually Ran for office yet and just busies herself with various government jobs. meanwhile ottavio is like, on a school board or something and is almost sort of indignant about it - anna is deep in denial about being a lesbian and tries to reason why her and ottavio are a Fine Couple Actually constantly. she's been asked on multiple occasions if she's aromantic and she's like NO... i'm just PRAGMATIC and TAKING IT SLOW that's all... but like. looks into camera We know what's going on. - (to be fair anna's parents were very distant with one another to the point you could claim Both of them were deep in some closet or another and just never fully figured it out. so anna doesn't have any baseline of what a relationship Should look like.) - (anna's dad was basically like... you know the dad from bambi? best possible comparison i can make.)

on zerlina and masetto - they're just some guys. literally - zerlina aminta and masetto batricio are two freshly-graduated-from-high-school sweethearts who are like, going into the local community college together or some shit. zerlina wants to be a schoolteacher but honestly she absolutely would teach children swears if she was able to so she's a long way from her goal. masetto... idk what masetto wants to become. a physical therapist maybe? - they haven't even voted for the first time yet so they don't actually know that much about anyone's Government Parents. like when giovanni's trying to butter up zerlina he's all like ...you know my dad could let you get anything... he's congressman tenorio... and she's like Who the fuck is that. which rubs giovanni more of a wrong way than he admits. - zerlina absolutely still reads warrior cats and could name nearly every major and minor character in my little pony: friendship is magic. note that neither of these passions are in a childish way but in a 'oh she is kind of unhinged godbless' way. - masetto is also autistic but in like the complete opposite direction of leporello. leporello is a chatty extrovert autistic who is so so desperate to please people and understand social skills. masetto is polite but beyond that he really cannot be bothered to give too much of a shit. - which means between masetto "will say the obvious thing everyone is thinking but doesn't want to say" and zerlina "has no filter and will give her honest opinion completely unprompted" they WILL collectively tear you a new one without even realizing what they're doing. leporello was around them for like 30 minutes tops and they somehow fully psychologically analyzed him and nearly drove him to tears without realizing it. (which is funny given he's like 10-11 years older than them.) - zerlina can and likes to drive like a maniac but she chooses not to most of the time <3 she wanted to be a monster truck driver when she grew up and honestly it's unknown if she ever actually gave up on that dream or not

on Other Stuff - i think giovanni dies by grease fire. he's overworked leporello to the point lep can't cook like usual, and once elvira gives her as-per-canon spiel abt him Stopping right the Fuck Now he's already got his mind off it. so when things erupt into flames he doesn't think and just shoves a whole pot of water onto it thinking That will Stop It (it didn't) - i'm not entirely sure the specifics of the statue here but i think leporello very clearly remembers that after they'd both been burned by the grease fire- leporello being in better condition than giovanni- giovanni started shrieking about pedro ulloa and "the man of stone" and started panicking about his last rites. the smoke had made leporello too woozy to see much but he does feel like Something Else Was There. who knows how much of it was real or how much of it was leporello's smoke-induced delusions - afterward when leporello was in the hospital over the whole thing giovanni's parents decided to give him the choice of either suing them or them just paying him enough money to clear both his medical bills and the leftover debt he already had so he can start anew. leporello is too tired to fight at this point so he just takes the money. he finds he has a bit left over and donates that away to women's shelters - the whole story is reported in the media as being that giovanni committed attempted assault and manslaughter, and then purposely killed himself over it with a grease fire when he realized the cops were closing in on him. the death report isn't exactly accurate but leporello doesn't know how to explain what he's seen so it just remains that way. giovanni's father resigns in disgrace a few months later because it led to the reveal of just How Many of his son's actions he was covering up. - leporello and elvira are friends of Course they are friends. she shaves off her hair and becomes a total biker butch and he ditches all the clothes giovanni got for him that he found So scratchy and uncomfortable. they both live in their own apartments now and both are visibly much happier for it - (although i do imagine the don's abuse and the nature of his death- he had a closed casket funeral, i'll say that- have left leporello with a case of ptsd) - about a year after everything goes down anna dumps ottavio and starts dating elvira like 2 weeks later LOLLLLLL... and another year on leporello finds his own partner that he loves and trusts. so. they're happy in the end even if the path there isn't smooth - you might also ask, 'wait if anna and ottavio both wanted to hold political office who got there first?' the answer is zerlina. she ran for school board and got in by sheer willpower alone like something out of looney tunes. it turns out she's way better at arguing about things than she is at actually teaching kids. GODBLESS!

#don giovanni #opera tag #rambles

[solid-snaked]

Making an uneasy peace with the fact that Ron Swanson of Parks & Rec is Solid Snake from an AU where he had a normal childhood

WOW. I'M UPSET, ACTUALLY, BECAUSE. because. Certain Swanson quotes aren't things a domestic Dave wouldn't say:

"When I walked in this morning and saw that the flag was half-mast, I thought ‘All right, another bureaucrat ate it!'"

"Literally everything is a weapon, son. That folder, in my hands, is far deadlier than this bow of yours."

“Crying: Acceptable at funerals and the Grand Canyon.”

“I would rather bleed out than sit here and talk about my feelings for 10 minutes.”

“Friends: one to three is sufficient.”

"Fishing relaxes me. It’s like yoga, except I still get to kill something.”

"The less I know about other people’s affairs, the happier I am. I’m not interested in caring about people. I once worked with a guy for three years and never learned his name. Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes.”

“One rage every three months is permitted. Try not to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”

Rebuttal: No way Dave would be as pro-America as Ron. Also, I think he would stop at maybe one ex-wife. I turn to the peanut gallery for defense from the turmoil this ask has given me.

#i really cannot bear this. #solid snake #mgs #ask tag

[gaymormonmike]

MARGINALIZED

My focus recently has been on my marginalization as a gay, divorced, single man in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I had an insight last week as I studied scriptures and pondered and prayed about marginalization in general.

What does it mean if someone is marginalized?

Today, marginalize refers to the act of treating a person or group as though they are insignificant by isolating and/or disempowering them. The term marginalized applies to the person or group that is treated insignificantly, pushed to the margins of society and rendered powerless. Marginalization is the result of discrimination. Discrimination exists in many forms, such as racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, homophobia and xenophobia. Whether or not the discrimination is overt or covert, it marginalizes others and that is unacceptable.

As I thought about that some insights came to mind.

I was a small child marginalized in many ways. I was a Highly Sensitive Person in a family that did not like a HSP boy. I had a father who wanted a boy like his ideal, the man he never was. I grew up early, knowing I was not acceptable, something was wrong in me. I lived in the ghetto of a small Midwestern town. That side of town was regarded as trash. Child abuse was common and just part of life. We did not know any different. I went into a profession, Registered Nurse, dominated by females. Once again, I was marginalized as a "male nurse."  When I was 13, I understood I was attracted to my male friends. I knew that was wrong and I felt so different and so alone and so marginalized. After I joined the LDS church, I accepted that my sexual orientation was a sin that would result in eternal punishment, and I fought against it so hard. I got married, had children and grandchildren and tried to be happy. I was on the outer edge, and I was a man divided against himself.

As I think about the members of my ward and the many good people who pursue being good, I wonder how many of them are marginalized in some aspect.  Maybe they all fall into some marginalized group.

LBGTQA+ and allies

People of color

People of African American descent with family history of slavery

People of religious groups who may not be in favor for various reasons, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah Witnesses, Snake Baptists, Holy Rollers, Whirlimng Dervishes, etc. etc.

People raised in the wrong part of town.

Single parents, Orphans, Adoptees, Adopted parents, childless parents,

Shamed, self-loathers, want to be someone else’s,

People who project onto others, those projected on, those who use transference to defend themselves,

Married people, teen-agers, pre-teenagers,

People who went to schools that were not the best, community colleges, virtual colleges, home schooled, schools dominated by non-white races.

Latino people, pickers, illegal aliens, people with foreign accents that are not desirable,

People with everyday jobs, housekeepers, hotel cleaners, waiters and waitresses, sewer workers, garbage collectors, used car salesman, scammers, phone solicitors.

People with smelly homes, broken down porches with appliances and furniture on them, uncared for yards.

People with dirty children in bare feet and dirty clothes

Appalachians, hillbillys, southerners, racists, bigots, nazis, KKK, Haters,

women, girls,

Fat people, people with glasses, ugly people, people who spit in public,

Bullies, fighters, controllers, get their wayers

Abusers, sexual, emotional, physical abusers, their victims their survivors

Criminals, jail birds, cons, ex-cons, police, fireman, law enforcement

Lawyers, doctors, nurses,

Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, Liberals, Communists, Fascists, Libertarians

Rich people, people with no worries or cares or need to help.

People of privilege who can have everything they want.

People who like snakes and lizards

People with odd looking hair, dyed or long or wild or standing up or part shaved, or all shaved or just different

People who are animals, dogs, cats, deer, pigs

People from Poland, Russia, Mexico, China, Asia, people with slanty eyes, with red dots on their foreheads, Muslims, people with turbans, women covered with burkas,

Blondes, especially female

Single people, unmarried, divorced, windowed,

People addicted to drugs, alcohol, pornography, sex, working out,

Lovers of fame, fortune, liars, thieves, politicians,

Heart breakers, non- committers, seducers, pedophiles, enticers, embracers, touchers, feelers,

Homeless people, beggars, street people, shopping cart people.

Atheists, Agnostics, God haters and profaners, 

People who believe they are saved, condemners, better than thouers, people who know it all, prideful people.

Have I left anybody out? Or have I failed to insult you or the group you align yourself with? Or the group you want to forget you ever were a part of? Or the group you are happy to be a part of and do not appreciate being lumped into here?

I also fear that we will compare who has it worse. I say that each situation, whether of our making or by our birth or others’ choices, are legitimate. I have heard or read of thousands who had it worse than me. It did not take away my issues and what I go through. Your trials and tribulations and joys are yours and deserve the same reverence and respect of all others.

These words cannot define or describe the people they may represent. They cannot be equal in their results or effects. First there is the person who experiences these words in their lives. Each is different and unique and deals with a myriad of ways.. Some can turn these experiences into stellar personality adaptations. The environment that you grow up in and the attitudes of those who influence you can change the effect of these situations. They can become a reason to overcome or a reason to despair. Your faith can change how you view life, and its' vagaries can change the outcomes. The options you have or the perceived options you have can change how you react to all situations. The intensity of the experience and its effects on you can vary greatly. It is true that some of these are a result of things you cannot control or change. Others have the potential to be choices that you can control or change. But to some degree we all have traits or situations that others judge, feel superior to or dislike enough to not want to acknowledge your worth or value. If we examine ourselves, we will find we are both victims of and people who sometimes, marginalize others.

My question is how any of us can feel superior or look down on anyone else, when we are all in some way marginalized people?

I am a strong believer in Heavenly Father and Mother and my Savior Jesus Christ. I attest that he made all of us, everyone on the lists above. He loves us fully and completely as we are. He wants us to be better, but He loves us with our faults and offers a way back home to His side. Many of the people I listed above are people that I am either a part of or have judged in my life. I seek to be a better man, a better queer man, a better Christ-like man by realizing that the people at church and in my social sphere that marginalize me are themselves marginalized in some capacity. My goal is to help us all see that and accept that we can love one another because we are different and we have incredible stories and incredible pasts and that we can all become more loving, accepting and affirming.

#queerstake #lds #Mormon #marginalized

[communistkenobi]

I also got that performative vibe from the ep which usually really bothers me but idk i just....didnt care this time? like it was done really well and added a decent amount of depth to the world by exploring how people survive outside of qzs (be it preppers or raiders or what have you). they also expanded on bill's character in a way that makes him more of a parallel to joel and highlights the theme of survival. bill chose to die with the person he loves where joel chooses to keep surviving after each person he loses. idk i feel like yeah it's performative but done in the best way possible to expand on the themes of story and the world if that makes sense

That’s totally fine! I don’t honestly have strong feelings about Bill’s role in the narrative, so if people enjoyed that change then I have no beef with that. I’m not inherently opposed to adaptational changes in general, like I think treating source material as a sacred text that needs to always be 100% faithfully reproduced is a bad way to go about approaching adaptations in art. This just did not land for me personally. I don’t know if it was because the actors didn’t have the right chemistry or that I was too distracted with the THIS IS IMPORTANT GAY REP framing of it to enjoy it. idk it just did not work for me. I guess I just also was not open to entertaining like, intimate queer rep with a conspiracy theorist libertarian guy - there was a very weird dissonance between like “the beauty of gay love” versus the character’s vile politics. It’s something that was maybe more charming or quaint 20 years ago, but again with a show that is consciously paralleling itself to covid, a guy who is like a government conspiracy end-times survivalist type - especially one with a libertarian flag in his garage - is not a character I am going to have any sympathy for, no matter how sanded down and palatable his politics are made to be for the audience in order for him to have this beautiful love story with another man.

So like I guess my reaction is just like, I know I am supposed to take this rep as meaningful and profound. In and of itself I don’t find this offensive, even if I’m not particularly persuaded by it, but coupling it with parallels to irl right wing conspiracy theory people, I have an extremely hard time buying into that

#asks #tlou hbo

[max1461]

I like the paleocons and the "don't tread on me" libertarians. I don't agree with them about almost anything, but I get along with them. I'll get along with any doomsday prepper. Maybe he's homophobic. Ok, so, fine, I won't bring up gay people. He won't ask if I'm gay (etc.) because I'm charming and friendly with people and make them feel at ease. I'll get along with any doomsday prepper and we'll talk about the best water tanks or whatever. I'll learn something about water tanks.

The econ guy libertarians make me uncomfortable to be around. They're very collectivist. "The market distributes resources in the most efficient way and increases human flourishing". Ok... I mean obviously I'm not against human flourishing. Whether he's right or wrong it's not like I think this guy is a bad person or something. But it's like. Whatever. Ok that's how you think society should be. How about you. I mean what do you do. I think they like to nerdsnipe each other with econ problems. I can't be nerdsniped. I don't have much of a problem-solving urge. I like to know stuff, I'm not that interested in puzzles-for-puzzles-sake. A "hard Grothendieck" as they say. That sounds dirty.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Heya!

I'm the person who said I may unfollow before, remember me? I decided to respond to a few of the points you made. >But libertarianism isn't about no rules or no government. It's about limited government.You can be libertarian and still support a moral rule of law. So, this one is my fault for not clarifying enough what libertarianism is. And I will say, it is my fault. I do agree with this statement! And I personally agree that no laws or restrictions at all is stupid, I just support minimal government interaction. >Banning abortion doesn't "oppress woman". You're not supporting freedom or women by saying "yeah I don't really like abortion and I do think it's killing a child, but it shouldn't be banned because freedom". Where do you draw the line? When is it not okay to kill a child because of "freedom"?  My line is drawn usually at conception (Or a few months until birth), I personally, as said before, don't endorse abortion AT ANY TIME, but I do believe that it should be allowed at these times if it is really a problem for >As for "coat hanger abortions", there is no evidence of them ever happening. Illegal "back alley abortions" use the same methods as abortions you can get now at any Planned Parenthood in the country. They happen in clinics and are performed by the same people who would perform a legal abortion. This! Alright. Lets get into this First, yes, coat hangers aren't actually commonly used for abortions. I just use is as a umbrella term as that is what people commonly associate with it. Its not really a term I agree with, but I simply use it out of lack of a better term. Additionally. The problem isn't the CURRENT RATE OF DEATHS. Because that isn't what I'm worried about. The problem is that the POTENTIAL for these rates can rise. RIGHT NOW, the rate of illegal to legal abortion deaths are the same, but you also have to realize the ratio of legal to illegal is not EQUAL. If these rates remain consistent as illegal abortions become commonplace, we would see deaths RISE. >I would recommend actually looking into these things, as well as what actually happens during an abortion and the reasons why women get them (hint: almost all abortions are elective, not for any health related reason) I try my best to! I know most abortions are elective. I find that gross. I think they should just be for health reasons in a moral vacuum but we just don't live in a society that can accommodate for that without some people getting hurt. >but I fear you conveniently unfollowed me before I could post anything that might get you to reexamine your beliefs I may've unfollowed, but I haven't plugged my ears. I'm not the type to be afraid of healthy discussion, and I'm glad you've kept this so civil! >. You already understand that abortion is "snuffing out the light and beauty of life", but you still need that extra push to realize that banning or restricting immoral acts to protect human rights--in this case the right to life--is not contradictory to believing in and supporting freedom. It is, in fact, necessary.  I just don't really like the implications of abortion. I feel, similar to gun control, it can spiral, that if we do well and truly restrict this right, not only will we be blindsided by some shit we didn't see coming, but also that it could lead to a slippery slope of justifications that can lead to more suffering. Am I wrong for thinking this way? Maybe. But I may be right too. No one's moral values are perfect, and we can't let them get in the way of rational decision making.

For better, or for worse, I don't like putting my personal beliefs and repulsions into politics, as that is how problems start. I appreciate your response and wish mine helps you think. I'm not looking to change your mind or anything. I want to learn and debate just as much as you do, even if I don't agree with you and can't actively support everything you believe. Thanks for reading if you do!

The problem is that the POTENTIAL for these rates can rise. RIGHT NOW, the rate of illegal to legal abortion deaths are the same, but you also have to realize the ratio of legal to illegal is not EQUAL. If these rates remain consistent as illegal abortions become commonplace, we would see deaths RISE.

This is from the article that I linked in response to you bringing this up the first time.

"[T]he data suggest," observes Joseph Dellapenna, author of the most definitive work of U.S. abortion history, "that there have been as many maternal deaths in the United States annually from legal abortions (estimates range from 15 to 35 per year) as there were maternal deaths from illegal abortions in the years immediately before Roe v. Wade was decided

What this means is that back before Roe, when abortions could be banned and women got illegal abortions, the death rate of women from getting an abortion was little different than it was with legal abortion in all 50 states. What happened last year is we went back to pre-Roe. All the available data shows that death rates from abortion won't rise significantly with abortion being banned. But even if it did, even if the yearly death toll doubled from 35 deaths to 70 per year, that would still pale in comparison to the around 600,000-800,000 babies murdered each year in an abortion.

That's really the only number that matters. Because if you think abortion is murder, and it seems that you do, you also think that killing at least 600,000 children a year is a valid price to pay to keep the number of women who die yearly from abortions from maybe rising above 35. Why is that? Because they're unborn? Because it's easier to sympathize with a woman you can see and talk to that it is to sympathize with an unborn child you can't interact with? If that's the case, then you're the one letting morals and emotion "get in the way of rational decision making."

I also wholeheartedly reject the idea of ignoring morality when making laws. If laws aren't moral then they aren't valid. Cold rationality has been used to justify atrocities across human history. "Rationality" is what got us "14 days to flatten the curve" and "executive order 9066". I'm not saying that pure emotion should be relied on either. That's how you get the Patriot Act and pretty much all gun control as well. But morality can't be thrown out in favor of rationality when it comes to making laws. And if we're talking pure rationality, then the number of babies killed still outweighs the number of women who die from abortion. The only moral solution is to ban abortion and then fund advances in women's healthcare, specifically pre- and post-natal care, along with education resources about pregnancy, abortion, and the risks associated with both.

[leaftilde]

What are your top 5 games?

GOOD QUESTION. I dunno if I can give them ranked, but I can give you a Top 5 (I think). These won't necessarily be The Best Games, but they will be my favourites. Games that made me sad when they were over.

Bioshock: Holds a special place in my heart. I love the aesthetics, I love the setting, I love the idea of playing with the idea of player *choice* in a video game, and though everyone points at this as like Patient Zero for ludonarrative dissonance, I think there's more of a metacontext in here than it's given credit for. It's a black arrow shot to the heart of Objectivism and Libertarian ideals of "great men" moving the world. it's practically a violent screed delivered on Ayn Rand's exhumed corpse. The only thing that isn't too hot about it is the shooting. Yes, one of my favourite games is actually not that good a game.

Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters: I absolutely love this game and what it accomplished, especially being a 3DO game originally. Exploring a vast galaxy, assembling a coalition of very silly aliens, and kicking the hell out of some space-tyrants. More like a series of minigames than a single one, it's nevertheless a wonderful experience best played blind and with a notepad for making your own notes/maps.

Final Fantasy XIV: I know, I know. It's gotten plenty of praise but it's genuinely one of the more emotionally moving video games I've ever played. I can't recommend it without massive caveats (the first 40 hours, a full game length, is incredibly mid) but the payoff is...it's quite good. G'raha Tia I LOVE YOU MY BEAUTIFUL BOY

Alpha Centauri: I'd be remiss if I didn't include a 4X game, given how much time I spent playing them in my 20s. AC is, IMO, their shining star. A deeply cynical but nevertheless interesting and exciting story told almost entirely through background details and cinematics you get when you unlock technologies. I've stolen so much from it over the years it's ridiculous.

Mass Effect 2: Bit of an odd choice I guess. It's great! But maybe not everyone's favourite game. Great characters, tight story, wonderful worldbuilding and I love the idea of putting together a ragtag team of scoundrels, roustabouts, and pals to pull off a suicide mission. But, importantly to me, it's the first game I tried out playing a female character because I heard "Femshep" was better than Maleshep and something fucking...clicked in my brain. Like shifting into drive and finding you can't put on the brakes anymore. It led me here, eventually, so I gotta give it a shoutout. Or damn it forever, I guess, for letting me know, in a small way, that things could be better.

[nodynasty4us]

From the February 5, 2023 item:

Koch didn't say yet who he plans to back for president. He probably hasn't decided. Most likely he wants to see what the field looks like and who has the best chance to stop Trump. That won't be known for at least half a year, maybe more. It could be a tough call because candidates Koch likes on the economic issues may be anathema on the cultural issues.

Read the rest of the short piece for all the reasons why top Republican donor, libertarian-leaning David Koch is at odds with Trump about nearly everything.

#david koch #donald trump #libertarians

[compacflt]

Dude you should be so so so so so proud, literally one of the best pieces I've ever read. It's the angst and complex characterization of Baldwin's Giovanni's Room meets the research behind The Alienist (the book, obvi- haven't actually seen the show yet). I adore how you maintained the characters' personal values even though I don't like them most of the time, and I now know way too much about the military in general because I would wikipedia something every third sentence. (Also thanks for that because coincidentally I'm working on a research project on how low-level fighter jet training affects marine animal behaviour, and I actually passed my first oral with flying colours because of the random knowledge I have acquired while reading/because of your fic.) That being said, I desperately want a physical copy on my bookshelf- would you ever feel comfortable distributing one or letting us go get it printed professionally? If not, I totally understand and am more than happy with what we have access to now! Seriously, thank you- it's incredible.

thank you thank you thank you for the ask!! just gonna answer by point

1. i am very proud!!! just extremely editorbrained ie have been trying to fix all the flaws for the last two months straight, and now all i see are problems & flaws that i couldn’t fix…. you guys should see my hard copy of this fic every single page is basically black with pencil. just ripped it to shreds. it’s just a writer thing i think, i am my own worst critic :(

2. if by personal values you mean political opinions … I wish it were like socially acceptable to post my extremely in-depth headcanons about random shit like this because i am so deep in it that i literally wrote out ice and mav’s voting records since 1980. Tldr: conservaDems. registered R but consistently vote D. mav would vote libertarian if his husband weren’t standing over him threatening divorce. after 1/6/21 change their registration to D & are basically just neolib shills. only reason they don’t vote obama in 2008 is that mccain was a navy vet.

3. thank you for the compliment but i am literally BEGGING you guys not to take anything i say/claim in this fic about the military to be true. there are certainly elements of the truth but many of the details i literally just made up. or altered to make plot sense (see IRST discussion ch 9, IRST was SUGGESTED by Boeing in 2007/8, not implemented until 2010ish). so much of the plot simply would not happen in real life. i can make a whole post about this sometime if people are interested cause there is actually so much I could say about real life accuracy in this fic/implications of real life shit…

4. no way???? that research project sounds so interesting??? congrats on passing ur oral!! idk what that means but congrats!!!! coincidentally i am also working on a research project—it’s why i have to stop working on this fic at some point. my senior research thesis is a novel about USAF CSAR chopper pilots so ive been doing so much research over the last 5 months… but about the USAF not the USN. my navy research HAS helped though. so maybe it’s a mutually reciprocal relationship :) i would love to hear more about ur project!!!

#re: anyone who wants a physical copy #give me some time to finish the slider one-shot/various other drabbles #& then send me a DM & ill send you my formatted pdf for You To Do With What You Will #but please please don’t advertise it because i really do feel weird/legally gray/morally gray about it #lol my copy has a foreword & an afterword and notes & everything #somehow ive managed to write 220k words & keep my GPA over 3.9 & keep my social life alive this year #most exhausted I’ve ever been in my life #this answer was drafted at the kraken-islanders game #if you guys are watching at home im with the group of kraken-outfitted college kids in the third row #im the asshole waving two kraken flags #west coast best coast #asks #edts notes