so: masking: good, unequivocally. please mask and please educate others on why they should mask to make the world safer for immune compromised people to participate in.

however: masking is not my policy focus and it shouldn't be yours, either. masking is a very good mitigation against droplet-born illnesses and a slightly less effective (but still very good) mitigation against airborne illnesses, but its place in the pyramid of mitigation demands is pretty low, for several reasons:

it's an individual mitigation, not a systemic one. the best mitigations to make public life more accessible affect everyone without distributing the majority of the effort among individuals (who may not be able to comply, may not have access to education on how to comply, or may be actively malicious).

it's a post-hoc mitigation, or to put it another way, it's a band-aid over the underlying problem. even if it was possible to enforce, universal masking still wouldn't address the underlying problem that it is dangerous for sick people and immune compromised people to be in the same public locations to begin with. this is a solvable problem! we have created the societal conditions for this problem!

here are my policy focuses:

upgraded air filtration and ventilation systems for all public buildings. appropriate ventilation should be just as bog-standard as appropriately clean running water. an indoor venue without a ventilation system capable of performing 5 complete air changes per hour should be like encountering a public restroom without any sinks or hand sanitizer stations whatsoever.

enforced paid sick leave for all employees until 3-5 days without symptoms. the vast majority of respiratory and food-borne illnesses circulate through industry sectors where employees come into work while experiencing symptoms. a taco bell worker should never be making food while experiencing strep throat symptoms, even without a strep diagnosis.

enforced virtual schooling options for sick students. the other vast majority of respiratory and food-borne illnesses circulate through schools. the proximity of so many kids and teenagers together indoors (with little to no proper ventilation and high levels of physical activity) means that if even one person comes to school sick, hundreds will be infected in the following few days. those students will most likely infect their parents as well. allowing students to complete all readings and coursework through sites like blackboard or compass while sick will cut down massively on disease transmission.

accessible testing for everyone. not just for COVID; if there's a test for any contagious illness capable of being performed outside of lab conditions, there should be a regulated option for performing that test at home (similar to COVID rapid tests). if a test can only be performed under lab conditions, there should be a government-subsidized program to provide free of charge testing to anyone who needs it, through urgent cares and pharmacies.

the last thing to note is that these things stack; upgraded ventilation systems in all public buildings mean that students and employees get sick less often to begin with, making it less burdensome for students and employees to be absent due to sickness, and making it more likely that sick individuals will choose to stay home themselves (since it's not so costly for them).

masking is great! keep masking! please use masking as a rhetorical "this is what we can do as individuals to make public life safer while we're pushing for drastic policy changes," and don't get complacent in either direction--don't assume that masking is all you need to do or an acceptable forever-solution, and equally, don't fall prey to thinking that pushing for policy change "makes up" for not masking in public. it's not a game with scores and sides; masking is a material thing you can do to help the individual people you interact with one by one, and policy changes are what's going to make the entirety of public life safer for all immune compromised people.

nothing you say is coherent

bro, i'm not sorry. everything i say is coherent, and you're finally receiving the help you need for your chronic emotional retardation.

you don't need to do better, cause you've always been the best.

this year my challenge for everyone is to unlearn the association between love and morality. love is not something that is inherently morally good, and the absence of love is not something that is inherently bad. sex without love isn't morally bankrupt, it's just an action. people without love aren't less kind or less good, they're just people. when we can get past this false (and often unnoticed) dichotomy of good love/evil lovelessness then i think we are going to be able to take leaps and bounds in sex positivity, aro advocacy, certain discussions of mental health...

thinking about fma, one of the things i love about it is arakawa's very intentional worldbuilding. she never gave the story more than the plot needed. we don't get a bunch of flashbacks detailing the characters' lives, eveything that we know about them is only in service of the plot.

the xingese characters are there because they need the secret to immortality to gain their father's favor. and despite this being so interesting we don't really know anything else about them lol. how well do mei and ling know each other? how do their clans stand with one another? anything at all about their other siblings? they get like two interactions and other than the clans just generally hating each other we've got nothing. we don't even get anything about how lan fan even became ling's bodyguard.

then xerxes, a personal favorite of mine. ed and al are kind of casually confirmed to be descendants of a dead civilization renowned for alchemy. are we going to explore that civilization at all? ofc not. anything about hohenheim's past, other that the things you really need to know? nope. we're just generally gonna mention how he's known as a sage throughout both the east and west.

the fact that grumman is riza's grandfather? left untouched. the fact that roy studied under riza's father? you get one (1) flashback.

i love this style of worldbuilding tbh.

(x)

End of Empathy (time for violence)

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Koko the gorilla didn't know ASL but, like, you could say that without invalidating the existence of speech-supporting signs

have some lineart I forgot about.

Idk why but i have this hc that when Spider was younger, he disappeared for a couple days to see if anyone noticed, and nobody did. Like, the scientists assumed he was with the Sullies and the Sullies thought he was with the scientists. So after that he tried it a couple more times, and still nobody really noticed. he got into the habit of disappearing into the forest for days. With that being said, he tries it with whoever adopted him and they flip out. Sorry this is long lol.

gods he would.

he would wait, wait for someoone to be worried, each time he would disappear he would stay out in the woods longer, praying to Eywa, his Mother, that someone would notice, someone would come looking.

everytime he would go back starving, dirty, and dehydrated; he'd chug water till he felt sick and then sleep for hours, and still no one worried.

eventually he pushed himself to far, and it took hours to find the kid, passed out in a shivering ball, no one had seen him in days, and by the time he did he was on his last of his spare battery. instead of being doted on, he was scoffed at and lectured on running away and being safe in the woods. he never told anyone why he did it, never told them he just wanted to see if anyone cared.

after that he only stays out there for a day at a time, normally sneaking to either one of his 'homes' in the cover of night. no one asks questions, no one even notices, or if they do, no one says anything.

so when he starts doing it around Quaritch, never being able to wander far, but avoiding him on the ship to see if he would notice, sending the man into a panic each and every time. Quaritch will pretend not to care, but after the boy dodges him for hours, letting the man believe he was lost, he can't help but let it show a little. it's worse when spider does it in the field, cause again, he can't wander far, but he's good at hiding, and he'll put Quaritch and the team on their heads, making them nervous as all hell that something bad happened to him.

when he does it to ronal and tonowari, he gets to very aggressive love and affection and a shit ton of worry. they both go out searching for him, his siblings too, searching day and night till they find him (it doesn't take long, but it feels like an eternity to them). when they find him, it feels like they've always got a hand on him, he can't break away from any alone time, and he can't pretend like they don't care. they hold him like he's going to vanish, they beg him not to run off like that again, they shower him with love and affection.

when ronal asks him why he doesn't really have an answer. he knows why he used to do it, but is that still why he does it? he can barely mutter his answer when he finally gives into his prodding.

"used to run off... see if people... if they would notice"

"notice?"

"notice if I ran off... if I disappeared"

"oh my child"

she would hold him for hours if she could, she would never put him down for the rest of her life if it meant her son would never have to run away just to know people cared.

My current emotional support characters, maybe it says something about where I am in life currently, dunno

Anyone else feel like Kaito is almost becoming a secondary character in his own manga due to the heists slowly becoming DC clones of figuring out the tricks going on instead of just letting the heist happen and staying within Kaito's perspective.

Structural Metal Products Market Growth, Development and Demand Forecast Report 2030

The total size of the structural metal products market was USD 448.3 billion in 2021, which will reach USD 764.0 billion by 2030, powering at a rate of 6.1% in the years to come, as said by P&S Intelligence.

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Additionally, highway financing from governments will rise in the future, delivering ample prospects to businesses operational in this field. For instance, the Indian government will spend roughly USD 750 billion on railway infra between 2018 and 2030.

The support and structure formulated with steel, aluminum, and further metals had the largest share, of over 35%, in the industry. The requirement for these products is will witness momentous growth in the years to come due to their applications, including modern skyscrapers, where metallic structures are employed in ductwork, decking, staircases, and sheds.

Get More Insights: Structural Metal Products Market Revenue Estimation and Growth Forecast Report

The structural metal products market in North America has augmented recently. The requirement for structural steel has reached over 40 thousand tons. Multi-story housing construction, including dormitories and hotels, has grown significantly in the next five years and held around 10% of the overall requirement.

It is because of the growing construction industry, the demand for structural metal products is on the rise in the future.

I'm adding excerpts from a story in today's NY Times because they trigger a flush of memories that I think speak to the core of transracial adoption and the perspective it creates. A perspective that I think only kidnapped hostages might relate to.

I remember 1998ish after my high school days when I met up with some friends of friends at a random garage party. I was the only one who wasn't white because I was only ever surrounded by white people my entire childhood. I'm not white though. I was always in danger of racism but in a particularly horrific way where it is not blatant. More of a gimmick or fetish. On this one evening I was surrounded by mostly young white men who liked rock music and beer. One of them was someone I recognized as actually a sweet boy from a few years back. As he talked to me and we laughed about school days he proudly showed off his new tattoos. Tattoos of large Nazi Swastikas. I was horrified. But I knew the unspoken game I was supposed to play...having been adopted into a white world...I wasn't a "real" threat as a brown person. I wasn't like "those trashy N-words". So I was safe. I could laugh at his stupidity if I wanted to and he would laugh in agreement that his tattoos were just meant to be a joke. A ploy for attention more than...being a Nazi sympathizer.

He flirted with me and asked me to sit on his lap while we chatted and drank. And as I did, my heart broke for him. And my mind downplayed my own fear of his probable violence. I was being brainwashed into white supremacy, so that I would remain safe. I put his comfort first and foremost above my own discomfort so much so that I actually felt empathy for him. But now I realize that I was heartbroken because this moment just proved all my fears were valid. That the mistrust of the all white environment I grew up in was legitimate. Again I was feeling the free fall of abandonment.

And I've seen this repeated by white supremacy over and over....the use of coercion and twisted humor to cover up the insanity of bigotry.

This NY TIMES story occurred decades after that crazy night in the garage. Kids are still dealing with the same problem. No matter how liberal or educated or wealthy a town and community wants to be in this country....there is a sickness that runs though our United States culture.

As long as it keeps being ignored and laughed off it will continue to thrive.

thinking about "you have a life" / "i don't know what i have" + "what do you want, dana?" / "i want everything that i should want at this time of my life" + the perceived shame in scully's loss of normalcy... "unlike you, mulder, i would like to have a life" + "do you believe in the afterlife?" / "i'd settle for a life in this one" + "don't you ever want to just stop? get out of the damn car? settle down and live something approaching a normal life?"

her friend ellen saying, "well, first you have to get a life." tara, pregnant with their christmas gift, saying that life before one grew inside her was "somehow...less, just a prelude," while barren dana cries in the kitchen. "i know you and dad were...disappointed...that i chose the path that i'm on."

thinking about how mulder said, "this is a normal life," and how she smiled. (he doesn't know any different). how, in the end, he said, "hey, scully? i know it's not your normal life, but thanks for coming out there with me."

(christmas before quantico, "i guess i'm afraid of making a big mistake. dad thinks i am." and missy's response: "it's not his life, dana.")

her application to adopt emily was rejected: "you're a single woman who's never been married or had a long-term relationship. you're in a high stress, time intensive, and dangerous occupation."

bill's reaction: "sounds like something your partner would say. this isn't about any little girl, dana. this is about you. it's about some...void, some emptiness inside you that you're trying to fill."

and mulder to the judge: "the fact that she can adopt this child, her own flesh and blood, is something i don't feel i have the right to question, and i don't believe anyone has the right to stand in the way of."

(that last christmas with missy before everything: "there is no right or wrong. life is just a path...just don't mistake the path for what is really important in life. the people you're going to meet along the way. you don't know who you're going to meet when you join the FBI. you don't know how your life is going to change, or how you're going to change the life of others.")

and ultimately, it all leads to a leather couch. and after contemplating that sacrifice of normalcy, what she should want, the decisions she could have made, she says, "i once considered spending my whole life with this man...what i would have missed."

she could've been a doctor, like her father wanted. she could've settled down, married waterston, had a normal life, like her friends and brother wanted. but what would she have missed?

"what if there was only one choice and all the other ones were wrong?" / "and all the...choices would then lead to this very moment. one wrong turn, and...we wouldn't be sitting here together."

I keep thinking about how sad and unfair Ice King/Simon's relationship with Fionna and Cake was in the main Adventure Time series. We all made fun of him for writing gender bent fanfiction of Finn and Jake. Characters cringed at how obsessive Ice King got about his fantasies, the lengths he went to so they could be real. He believed so fiercely in those ideas that he acted out in ways that were extreme even for him.

Typical Adventure Time to take a gag and make it into something serious.

Because Fionna and Cake WERE real. Prismo created them and their world and then dropped it into Ice King's head. Yes, he had permission but did IK know the reason? The risks? What even was happening? Or did Prismo take advantage of the fact that Simon was a prisoner in his own mind with little agency to force more confusion into his scattered and incoherent brain. How much of his actions was the result of a godlike being knowing that Ice King's resultant behavior would be written off and dismissed.

In addition to the loss of sanity and identity Simon had to deal with over his years as Ice King, he also had the burden on an entire universe of living people living in his head adding to his delusions. How devastating that must have been for someone who could barely tell what was real on a good day.