edit, added commentary from the notes:

why did i just see a noahpinion tweet with 30k likes try to claim the chinese social credit system was a thing. i thought we were done with this

All in favor of pointing and laughing at Noah (☝️🤣) but tbh not a fan of how "social credit isn't a thing at all" has become the standard talking point among anglo pro-china people bc. It is a thing. The reason these takes are ridiculous is bc they're acting like it's targeted towards individuals & some black mirror individual scoring system shit that controls the lives of individuals, when in reality it 1) does actually exist 2) is primarily targeted towards businesses (hence why "man on the street" interviews with people tend to show normal ppl in China don't really know about it) & 3) is actually cool and good

Guys. GUYS. I was thinking about a Wolf 359 social media au and I came to an earth shattering realization. Kepler is a story time youtuber. he’s a fucking STORYTIME YOUTUBER. I’m having a moment.

I keep having this train of thought every time I think about the prospect of joining a discord server . at least once a week

Printed some fliers and stickers to put up around town tomorrow. Remember that posting isn't the only way to spread awareness and build public consciousness in your area

I think it’s a hugeeee spoiler or not, but would Valtor tbhtbh marry bloom? Like, propose her, and do the whole thing, even just like they both together, and Darcy doing the ceremony. Or he don’t think that’s it’s necessary? Hope you doing good!

Gonna be honest, memes aside I don’t think marriage is necessarily the cornerstone in their relationship than it is in other fictional — or even real life — pairings.

Big part of that might be that Valtor, for one, lives outside of any official systems. There are villains that do crime but still kind of have a clear position in society (the Darkling is a General and coups his way to tsar-dom, most vampires in any vampire story do pretend to lead a somewhat normal life, villains with a royal title automatically has a rank that comes with a fitting one for their romantic partner etc.)

Valtor does not. His crimes are motivated by pettiness and his hunger for power, he builds up political figures to do his dirty work when it’s practical, but does not have any political ambitions for himself — he doesn’t wanna be king of the cosmos, he just wants to be the most powerful, and that everyone knows it. He's kind of a cryptid that way, because he appears, wrecks shit, and leaves as he pleases. The most official thing in his life was probably his imprisonment on omega, and marriage tends to very much be an official kind of thing in nature, even if it’s held in private and off the record. Official-ity IS kind of the purpose.

The only real power Valtor seems to believe in is, well, power. And they already do have a magical connection, which I think would be more important and meaningful to him than - what he considers to be - a social ritual.

Add to that that Bloom is a guardian fairy, very grounded in day-to-day life, and a princess, where marriage tends to have political implications, and I don’t think she herself would be very interested in putting a legally defined term on their relationship, unless we're talking about a redeemed Valtor maybe.

That being said!

I am not very set in this headcanon! I'm pretty sure pulling a marriage off in a fic would be MORE than doable, and really interesting on top. It's just not very intuitive for me, so I’m gonna stick to the plan and go with my gut. Doesn’t mean it’s not gonna happen in a future fic, or that it’s not a really cool concept.

Protesters climb the statue.

November 9th, 2023.

Washington D.C, U.S.A. Photographer: Neppy

Ghost eyes doodles from an AU bc they've been rotting my brain

Okay, so I was re-reading your Slider one-shot for like the twentieth time, and what really struck me (beyond the brilliance of your writing, and the way you’ve presented the disillusionment of growing up, expecting the world to be a certain way, only to realize that life doesn’t quite work out the way you think it will, when you’re seventeen), is the casual sexism just tossed ‘round by our main characters!! :o We have canonical evidence of both Ice and Mav being pretty sexist (what with “the plaque for the alternates is in the ladies’ room” and the downright stalker-ish behavior exhibited by Mav at the O-club…), but it still surprised me a lil’ when twenty-y/o Ice was just like: “The Soviet Union did the impossible and taught women to drive” —and I realized that ah, he truly was born in 1959, or something. There’s little scenes throughout your story where I find myself wondering, which one of them is better, in this sense: When Ice tells Mav that Sarah isn’t talking to him ‘cause of his combat kills, justifies it by saying: “You know how women are”, and Mav tells him all women aren’t the same… I thought that maybe, it was Mav; but then later, Ice shows a distinctive amount of empathy for Juno, sees and respects her for the skilled pilot that she is… and I thought that maybe, it’s Ice after all—he does seem to be more progressive and accepting than Mav, in general? It also made me wonder, that if either of them had been a woman, would they even have respected the other person enough to consider them to be a rival??—or would it have a been a mildly-amusing circus side show for them, to have a female pilot at TOPGUN?

Ty for the ask anon!! ice is more socially progressive than mav yes.

But—maybe this is my experience growing up in one of the bluest counties in Commiefornia and then going to one of the most leftist-coded colleges in one of the most leftist-coded cities in The World; uhh, even if a white man votes D all the time & has professional respect for women/minorities to their faces etc, get him in a room with a bunch of other white men, especially in a masculine and competitive environment like the gym or the navy, and uh. progressive or not, what you get is a lot of “The Soviet Union did the impossible & taught women to drive.”

And it was the 1980s. (As a reminder, in top gun’s 1986, less than 45% of Americans even approved of interracial marriage.) It sucks to say it, but if Ice was making fun of Cougar for quitting the navy cause of his psych issues such as they may be, and openly calling bullshit on Maverick’s MiG story in front of everyone, I am quite confident in saying he Would Not respect a female pilot to her face—if they were the same rank. At the same rank, it’s a competition. All weaknesses, even perceived biological ones, are to be exploited and called to attention. —But, once he’s advanced in rank, proven his own superiority, he’s more inclined to favor a meritocratic “sex doesn’t matter just fly good” attitude, ergo his relationship w/ “Juno” (she’s just a literary symbol to show that Ice may have respect for other minorities in the Navy “your career speaks for itself” but NOT FOR HIMSELF as a closeted man). This “who cares about gender/race just fly good” attitude is probably where 50s+ Maverick lands too, which is why no issues with Phoenix.

but jesus GOD maverick is a sexist in the original Top Gun. That’s why I wrote the prologue to WWGATTAI—a part of me definitely believes both he and Ice are definitively queer, but a part of me also wonders, are they just also conditioned to dismiss women as intellectual/societal equals because of their time in the 1980s male-dominated Navy? CAN they really only have a truly equal relationship with another man? I have no idea what my Ice’s sexual orientation is for exactly this reason. Yes, he’s functionally gay by the end of it, and that’s what I keep calling him—but sexuality is fluid & complicated. It’s definitely more-than possible he’s mostly straight and it’s just the circumstances of his wildly intense trauma-bond relationship with Maverick that led to their relationship as I wrote it. If you don’t LIKE/understand/respect women, and only feel at home/excited by committing acts of male-typified violence with the few men you respect, how does that bend your definition of the word straight? ...its still straight, but only straight-ish!

not to take it a step further, but WHY ELSE is canon maverick single in TGM? he canonically can’t make it work with women until he retires from the navy!!! he doesnt know how!!! His military environment is not conducive to normal long-term relationships with civilian women!!!

hm. feeling annoying and embarrassing to be around today. dont like that.

uninstalled chrome from my computer and switched my search engine

each day i grow stronger

I don’t miss her anymore!!(the girl who used to be a tiktok/twitter addict, never went outside, spent years cooped up in her room, made idiotic decisions)

I love her!!(the girl who’s best friends are tumblr, Pinterest, and nature)

I love her!!(the girl who goes outside and documents her life, while not overly exciting, still managing to live in the moment)

I love her!!(the girl who is slowly finding her peace through stories, nature, and film)

I love her!!(the girl who’s no longer struggling to keep high grades and finding that learning comes easy to her when she doesn’t procrastinate)

I love her!!(the girl who’s no longer afraid to express herself in what she wears, how she carries herself, what she loves doing)

stranger things season 4 and it’s effect on society has literally been a black mirror episode

Reminder that Jstor lets you access 100 academic articles/book excerpts/journals (I believe per month) for free!! If you like a topic or a novel or a type of art, I guarantee there's some really kickass essays on that topic sitting there waiting to be read

And that's not even getting into the many many open access journals and books, which don't even count towards your total!!

worlds first kantrio shrine on neocities. it is coming soon.