Rambles and Rambling

A) Something on in the background, familiar and pleasant and just lots enough I can pay attention to it if I want to. A well-worn novel, slightly slowed down. A chill gaming stream by familiar hosts

B) Focusing my thoughts on something innocuous. Retelling a novel step by step from the beginning. Planning a tag for an RPG. Working out a crackship.

The two things together muffle out my panicky brain enough to let me relax enough to sleep

canon is what happens in the text. e.g. merlin tries to poison morgana

a headcanon is a fact that you have personally made up as an elaboration of canon. it is your invention. e.g. i think morgana and gwen had a teenage lesbian situationship before the events of canon. or, i think modern morgana would love evanesence.

an interpretation is how one reads the existing text. it is not an invented fact nor is it a headcanon, it is a reading. e.g. i think merlin tries to poison morgana out of misplaced self-hatred. or, i think that one line was delivered with suppressed malice and shows a nuanced relationship.

fanon is the general fandom’s accepted headcanons and interpretations that elaborate or recontextualize canon. e.g. merlin is a badass waif and morgana is a bitch.

It explains so much…..

Aragorn: Arwen used to call me Aragorn…..

BUT

Aragorn (lying flat on the ground with his face in the dirt): aweralwkerjwae

Legolas: You’re only 87– you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You can find love a second time!

Aragorn: I did. Boromir died.

Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies cut funding to disease prevention and control.

Why is measles back in America?

Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including RFK Jr, cut vaccine and measles prevention funding and programs.

Why is the New World Screwworm infecting cattle in Texas, when it had previously been eliminated from the area?

Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including Elon Musk, cut USAID funding, which in part worked to monitor and prevent screwworm outbreaks.

Why was there a flu outbreak in our armed forces?

Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including Pete Hegseth, cut vaccination requirements for our armed forces, putting all of them at risk alongside our military readiness.

What contributed to the Covid outbreak?

Donald Trump and his Republican allies cut funding to a pandemic prevention program in his first term because Barack Obama had created it.

I remember the first time we ran a full end-to-end test of this architecture on a realistic hiring scenario — 200 synthetic candidates, three jurisdictions, two job categories. It took us forty-five minutes to walk through the audit trail for a single candidate. My lead engineer looked at me and said, “This is insane. No one will want this level of detail.” I said, “A judge will.”

I think what a lot of people underestimate is just how much road there is in your city. And just how many directions the crew gets pulled.

For our city of around 50k people there are 8 of us.

Also, crack sealing is a wholly temporary measure, meant to slow the break-up of the roads, it’s not a permanent fix.

Roads tend to get closed for months on end because we have to tear the whole thing up, then, depending on the class of road, we either have to hammer-drill into concrete to lay rebar and the pour concrete, or we can get straight to paving. If it’s a road requiring concrete we’re required to wait at least 24 hours for it to set.

So after 2 days we’re finally able to pave. But the city allocates one (two if we’re lucky) 5 ton truck to transport material.

A relatively short paving job requires at a minimum of 60 tons. So that’s 12 trips to the asphalt factory and back. Each ton is around $80.

TL;DR

There are many contributing factors.

A major one is that amatonormativity makes exerting high control on your partner acceptable. Another is that we're Doing A Fascism, so anyone effected (everyone) is looking for ways to re-gain autonomy and control in their lives. This combination makes people fall into abusive patterns while believing they are helping themself and their partner.

Other contributors include but are not limited to:

Sex negativity

Nuclear family as the only accepted mode of social reproduction under capital

Straight up misogyny

Also misandry if we're being real

If your partner freaks the fuck out because you’re socializing with people of whatever gender, that is a huge red flag

Join mixed-gender groups. Meet random people