ziggy-scardust

[ziggy-scardust]

also violent nuns

I feel like tumblr should be bigger fans of The Blues Brothers. It's a movie that has everything we value as a community. Attention and respect to pioneering black musicians, open hostility to nazis, open defiance to police, Carrie Fisher with a rocket launcher and flamethrower, a soundtrack that goes hard as hell, John Belushi so blasted on cocaine that he continues to do somersaults despite having a broken ankle. It's got it all!

[ziggy-scardust]

why is this too accurate. I also like metal and early 2000s white girl music. (And also 2020s white girl music bc Charli XCX and Chappell Roan SLAP.)

Ummm so everybody who likes metal also has Another Genre they like. Usually early 2000s white girl music. What's your Another Genre

EDM and traditional folk music

[ziggy-scardust]

Someone was asking in a thread what kind of people could work for ICE right now.

I think it's a good time to remember that the image above are the people who put children into gas chambers.

When I was little, I asked what kind of person could work at a concentration camp.

The answer to both questions I think is "normal people who have accepted the dehumanization of another group of people."

[ziggy-scardust]

please stop writing "viscous" when you mean "vicious", it produces the weirdest mental images ever

[ziggy-scardust]

Shout out to dysfunctional teenage friend groups from 80s movies, gotta be one of my favorite genders

[ziggy-scardust]

dont ever hesitate. reblog this.

Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696

Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-8433

LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255

Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386

Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743

Eating Disorders Hotline: 1-847-831-3438

Rape and Sexual Assault: 1-800-656-4673

Grief Support: 1-650-321-5272

Runaway: 1-800-843-5200, 1-800-843-5678, 1-800-621-4000

Exhale: After Abortion Hotline/Pro-Voice: 1-866-4394253

Trans LifeLine: 1-877-565-8860

Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-888-373-7888

Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233

BDSM Partner Abuse Hotline: 617-742-4911

Substance Abuse Helpline: (800) 784-6776

[ziggy-scardust]

If tomorrow I won the lottery or some elderly billionare relative died and left me their fortune and I had a massive pile of cash, I would immediately buy a lot someplace more habitable and then build a next level Art Nouveau castle.

I see billionaire mansions or luxury houses and they're all so fucking boring. What's even the point. You have all this money and everything is white and looks like a dentist's office waiting room? The fuck is wrong with you. Install a two story stained glass window. Live a little.

[ziggy-scardust]

explain your gender in 10 words or less without using boring words like “male”, “female”, “nonbinary”, “masculine”, “feminine” or “androgynous”.

go!

[ziggy-scardust]

The entire point of going to college (or any school) is not just to learn what you’re studying - which you won’t actually do, by the way, if you outsource your thinking & your assignments to AI - but also to develop your critical thinking, memory, logic & inference skills. If you’re not actually doing that, it’s like using a motor scooter on a treadmill and then saying “look! I ran five miles!” You will not develop your skills; in fact, they will atrophy, the way your muscles would if you used a machine to exercise for you.

"Why is it a problem if students use AI to get through college"

Because if you demonstrate to me that you're willing to set aside concern for truth, evidence, and verifying things with your own eyes whenever it happens to be inconvenient for you, I have a solemn responsibility to make sure you don't get into medical school.

[ziggy-scardust]

Keep watching JAG. The similarities continue. Also, it’s great to watch JAG as a fan of NCIS - Donald Bellisario created both and it’s like looking at the sketches underneath an oil painting.

I usually describe JAG as “imagine if Top Gun, A Few Good Men, and NCIS had a really cheesy schlocky late-1990s baby with F-14s in every other episode”

Holy shnizz!

I just watched the first episode of JAG yesterday and JAG is probably more realistic in terms of time period accurate misogyny, but my 86' Flyboys would NEVER!!!!

Also why is Lt. Rabb low key a Maverick knock off? Naval aviator, dark hair, green-blue eyes, has an infamous father that went down in Vietnam, had their RIO die! The only difference is that Rabb is a JAG while Mav is still a pilot.

Like come on!!!

I know people really like JAG but the similarities are uncanny!

[ziggy-scardust]

In my defense I have no garden and love rhubarb enough to pay for it

Fucks me up to see rhubarb for sale in grocery stores. Like people buy rhubarb?? With money?? It's an edible garden weed.

[ziggy-scardust]

[ziggy-scardust]

[ziggy-scardust]

There’s been an ongoing backlash to women having sexual autonomy & autonomy in general for the last 20+ years. Now we’re seeing a lot of people, and young people in particular, romanticize “tradwife life”, that is, situations where women didn’t control their own money and bodies and often couldn’t leave marriages. We’re seeing manosphere “redpilled” incels claim nonsense about women being inferior and that men should control them. We’re seeing women’s rights to their own bodies get rolled back - this isn’t about being pro-life, it’s about controlling women with pregnancy (and not giving a damn if they die because they couldn’t access care, no matter how much they wanted the pregnancy.)

So yeah, that’s manifesting in a society-wide increased prudishness about sex. And it makes what Sabrina Carpenter’s doing all the more subversive.

I just found out about the Sabrina Carpenter thing. If you people think that’s offensive, you would have to spend the next three days in shock on the fainting couch if you saw just one example of the things I jerk off to. You also don’t know what the phrase “male gaze” means if you think that’s what’s happening here.

[ziggy-scardust]

If you ever feel like you don't contribute to fandom because you "only" comment—

A regular serial commenter just joined a fandom Discord server I'm on and people are coming out of the woodwork to thank her for her service to the fandom, expressing how much joy her comments on their works bring them.

Remember—they're never only comments.

[ziggy-scardust]

So, yes, 100%, Maverick fucked up big-time (though I get the impression he may actually have said sorry in the past, but he just never gave Bradley an honest explanation, which is what he really needed and was owed.)

I also really feel for him and get why he did it even if it was wrong. It’s implied they knew Carole was dying, which is just a lot for a teen who’s already lost his dad. And BB has anger issues (justifiably! But if, in your thirties, you’re nearly crashing a $65m flying death machine and putting the whole airspace at risk because you can’t control your anger, that’s irresponsible as all hell.) Plus, the timing shakes out to be right around 9/11. I can see a grieving, terrified Maverick & Carole knowing she won’t see him grow up and being scared of what could happen to him, not only because of Goose but because the US military is suddenly looking a lot more dangerous, making a rash decision they wouldn’t otherwise.

It’s deeply wrong that Maverick went along with Carole’s fear and let his own unresolved trauma about Goose’s death get the better of him. It’s also eminently understandable. (And I am fully prepared to believe that a grieving teen Bradley getting swept up in the post-9/11 jingoistic fervor truly wasn’t ready to attend a notoriously intense military institution, even if that doesn’t make it right.)

But Mav seems to be fully aware of the fact that he doesn’t deserve forgiveness. He doesn’t expect it, either. He won’t give him a real explanation because if he’s not going to be forgiven, he doesn’t want to tarnish his mom’s memory too. He 100% should’ve handled this better. But also? If Bradley’s gotten this far, he, too, should be able to act like he can handle the responsibility of operating that death machine, and he’s definitely not doing so. It may not be reasonable to expect him to be well-adjusted. It’s sure as hell reasonable to expect him to either not lose his cool or not get behind the stick of this lethal aircraft if you know you’re losing your temper.

It is messy. Bradley’s fully entitled to cut Maverick out of his life forever. Thing is, his anger implies he doesn’t want to. He seems to be looking for a reason to forgive him.

look I know we love Mav (and his relationship with Bradley) but I genuinely love thinking about how he fucked Bradley up for life, and how Top Gun: Maverick is an amazing example of how you can love someone so much, but so wrongly. (It mildly baffles me when people talk about Bradley going no contact as being an overreaction because he absolutely deserved to kick Mav out of his life).

The ghosts of Nick and Carole Bradshaw haunt the narrative relationship between Mav and Bradley. When he sees him again for the first time, he doesn't think of a memory of just Bradley, he thinks of one with all the Bradshaws, and it shows where he's at when it comes to his relationship with Bradley. He's an extension of Mav's relationship with his parents—and it's Bradley who reaps the consequences of Mav's unresolved trauma about Goose's death.

What does it feel like to be 17-18 years old and told by your father figure that you can't follow in his (or your biological father's) footsteps. What does it feel like when nearly everyone you'd ever admired was this Thing but YOU alone weren't good enough?

This doesn't even take into account that he takes it a step further and pulls your application. He doesn't say sorry, and he doesn't say it years later, and in fact will double down on how you're not ready, and then tells all your peers that it all depends on the pilot and YOU don't cut it...

and you're meant to be well adjusted after all that? Trust your instincts when you've been led to believe you weren't actually good enough for all this in the first place?

Maverick, meet me in the parking lot because I need to knock some sense into you.

[ziggy-scardust]

I like this a whole lot better than I like Cormac McCarthy’s writing. (Though to be fair I always thought that what was considered “muscular prose” was just an excuse to make it borderline unreadable.) Your present tense reads better to me.

and now I miss my grandpa too. And my Uncle Chet, who taught me a lot of outdoors things.

Memories of Grandpa Hank

I'm eating a bag of mormon gorp that tastes like gasoline while watching the rain run down the mountain. The taste doesn't even bother me anymore - all homemade gorp tastes like this. It's just a natural consequence of everyone keeping their prepper shit in their garages. 

My dad's out in the clearing, wandering around with his GPS. He's got some pieces of wire out on top of it to try and make the effective antennae bigger, but it just makes it look like he's dowsing. Another mormon tradition. I ask him if he's close to find water yet, and he looks up at me, little rivers flowing off him, and says yeah - he can feel it. 

I'm sure he can. I settle under my tree and watch the droplets roll down the needles. Awaiting the final judgement of Judge GPS. 

A few minutes later, it provides: 

Turns out my dad forgot to record the location of the car this morning. The GPS remembers where we parked yesterday, but by luck my dad knows how to get from there to our car. Downside is that it's a nine mile walk just to get to yesterday's position, then another five miles to backtrack. That's fourteen miles total. 

I'm only thirteen. 

Think you can make it? my dad asks. And it's a kindness that he's worried, but it's not like there's an alternative. What else would I do, sit down in the murk and cross my fingers he finds me again? Ask him to carry me 14 miles? 

I'll be pretty jelly legged, I say. But yeah. I'll make it. 

Attaboy, he says. He fishes a bag of poptarts out and offers me one as - I think - a peace offering. A, sorry you're gonna have to walk 14 miles in the rain because I goofed kind of gift. 

I take a bite and, despite being individually wrapped, it still manages to taste like diesel fumes. We start hiking our incredibly long distance in terrible weather for foolish reasons, and I joke to my dad that the only way to make this day any more mormon would be by pushing handcarts. 

He laughs. Neither of us laugh again until 11 pm, when we stumble like drunkards into camp. My grandpa has stayed up late to make sure we weren’t lost, but he only stays up long enough to see us arrive. We try to eat a dinner of sweet potato stew, but after falling asleep in the middle twice, we agree to just go to bed. 

I sleep in well past nine and wake up to nobody in camp but my grandpa. My dad left with my sister to keep hunting around 5 am. I know that everyone assumes that their dad is invincible when they're 13, but I'm 28 now and part of me still thinks he's gonna live forever. That God made exactly one perpetual motion machine, and it raised me in the desert. 

---

Around noon my grandpa suggests hunting again. If it was my dad, I'd probably tune him out, but I like my grandpa's style of hunting. My dad hikes and hikes and hikes until the elk get tired and just let him shoot them. My grandpa finds the sleepiest, sunniest, coziest field and takes a nap there, figuring if the elk have any decent taste they'll come there at some point.

Man's got a knack for knowing what elk like - he's right more often than not. I think he might've been an elk in a previous life. 

I go with him, and much as I hate to admit it, the hike is good for me. I start off walking like a pirate on two peg legs, so stiff I might as well not have knees, but by the end of the mile and a half walk I'm almost normal. We make it to the edge of the clearing, and my grandpa finds a patch of grass taller and softer than the beds inside the trailer, and he curls up to sleep there. I look across the grass and I watch the comings and goings of critters through the field. Sometimes I use the scope to get a magnified view, but I never do so with my hand on the trigger. The thought of accidentally looking a person through that glass is something that sends a chill up my spine. 

Some deer wander through the glen, but it'd take a fool to mistake one of them for an elk. A few hours later, my grandpa wakes up and asks if I want to wander around a little. It's a lovely day. Rain comes in bursts in Arizona, and the day after is almost always clear as can be. And for a short while, all the desert browns turn green and lush. Hard mosses turn squishy and cacti swell up like fresh baked muffins and for a while you can get why people settled in these god forsaken wastes. 

So I go with him, and we walk on, me with my gun, him just taking in the forest. He looks so peaceful that I get a little jealous, but it's not until my grandpa stops and looks at me that I even notice it myself. Takes a mirror, sometimes, to know yourself.

Being near my grandpa is always a strange thing for me. He's quiet, and he doesn't talk much, and I don't ever get the feeling that he's particularly emotionally intelligent - but it's like he's interacting with a reality more raw and real than mine. Like I'm watching symbols on a screen and he's counting atoms. And sometimes, just being near him gives me access to that raw matter. Just something about how he is breaks the illusions of the world.

He looks at the gun like a foreign object, like he doesn't recognize it, then he looks at me. He speaks and he doesn't mince words. 

What would you do if an elk came across the path and you shot it right now? he asks. 

Well, I'd start cleaning it, I say, and he waves the words away like cobwebs in his face. 

But would you celebrate? he presses.

And I look at him, and I don't actually see any judgement staring back. He knows the answer, and he's at peace with it. He’s asking so I can see it too. He’s being a mirror so I can see my own face.

I think I might actually cry, I admit. And he nods along in agreement before reaching forward to take the gun off my shoulder. 

Lets just walk today, he says. No chance of killing anything. No worrying about that. 

Right, I say. 

He pops the chamber open and tosses me back my bullet. I catch it, and the relief I feel is palpable. 

Can I change my mind? I ask, and he shrugs.

Whenever you want. Hunt or don’t. It’s not the hunting that I’m worried about. It’s seeing you ignore your conscience.

And for a moment, I'm there in the real world with him, and my gloves are off, and reality is a metal cube in my hand: Sharp and cold and heavy.

Or maybe that’s just the bullet.

---

We make it back to camp a bit later than my dad. We get there and he’s waiting for us. If he's tired, he doesn't show it. 

How'd it go? he asks. My grandpa looks at me, and I don't know how to respond. I don't know how to explain it, and I am scared. 

Great, he replies. It's a shame Babs only has a doe tag. We saw a five-point out there. Close enough to hit with a football. 

No, my dad says. If his grin was a half inch wider, both ends of his mouth would meet in the back of his head and everything above his tongue would slide off.

Tell him Babs, grandpa says. And, not for the first time, and especially not the last, I try my hand at spinning a yarn. 

It's pretty good. But at 13, I still have a lot to learn.