✨men at the barricades listen to this✨

Saint, 19, he/they I post about life, les mis, and homosexuality Maybe some other stuff of you're lucky.

[popcornoncemore]

Welcome to my Tumblr!

A little bit about me...

I'm popcornoncemore, AKA Saint. I am 19 and I live in the U.S. I am queer, transgender, bigender, and on the aroace and polyam spectrums.

I tend to post a lot about my fandoms, but I also talk about gender, politics, poetry, mental health, and reality TV. I also just reblog cool stuff. My personal tag is #popcornwithnate.

I am currently a college student pursuing my BA in economics (which I tend to post about on my study blog, @popcornstudies). I am also studying music and I am very involved with the arts. I can often be found singing, participating in various musical ensembles, and performing musical theatre and drag.

A little about my fandoms/interests...

I tend to get very attached to certain topics and pieces of media. Many of these subjects have been interests of mine for years. Some are more conventional than others because being neurodivergent is wonderful and strange at times:

Les Miserables (mostly the musical but I'm not picky)

Transportation safety (especially ships for some reason)

American football (Go Seahawks!)

The Terror (2018)

Fashion dolls and other toys

Disaster prevention and preparedness

Survivor (I have a side blog for this too: @letstalksurvivorcbs)

Current hyperfixation: The Lost Boys (movie and musical)

I've also been known to suddenly become very attached to amusement parks, NoPixel, Conclave, Tanz see Vampire, and RuPaul's Drag Race.

A little about my point of view and personal beliefs...

For the sake of understanding my experiences and perspective, I want to disclose a couple of details about my life. I have diagnosed ADHD, depression, anxiety, gender dysphoria, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and PTSD. It is also quite possible that I am autistic. I come from a white, lower middle class American family that is quite supportive and more than a little eccentric. I was raised Christian but lean more agnostic these days. My politic beliefs are most in line with those of democratic socialists, but I am not intentionally a straight ticket voter nor will I hesitate to consider other viewpoints and admit that I've changed my mind.

It is most important to me that I base my actions and opinions in my guiding principles of kindness, equality, and love. I believe in the protection of fundamental human rights and that every person deserves to be safe.

A little bit about my boundaries...

DNI if you have ill-intent I guess. Otherwise, feel free to reach out!

Just so you know, I don't repost posts or asks with fundraisers, no matter the cause. I cannot vet them all and there are a lot of scams on this platform and scams cause me quite a bit of anxiety. Please understand, this has been my policy since starting this blog.

Please block me if you think you know me IRL. I like to keep my online and personal life separate and I post kinda emotional stuff sometimes. No one in my offline life has my Tumblr. It's not personal, it's policy.

Links:

Survivor Blog: @letstalksurvivorcbs

Study Blog: @popcornstudies

Trans + gender nonconforming support blog: @transandgnc

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_oncemore/profile

Okay. I'm done.

Congrats on making it to the end of my super long intro post. Here's a quick video as a reward: random thing that's stuck in my head.

[pansywithacrossbow]

No I don't think lost boys is telling us to reject found family for blood family I think it's telling us you can choose who your family are, found or blood its up to you who you let in your life and who you think is worthy of your love and time, who will accept you for you and not try to change you.

It tells us family comes in all different shapes and fonts.

But maybe thats just me.

[popcornoncemore]

Also, it's saying that family is the people who are willing to grow with you, admit their faults, and love you unconditionally. Michael is initially drawn to the vampires because he needs more from his human family. But while his new friends give him something he was missing, they also ask him to change himself in order to receive it

In the end, his true family are the ones who grow to meet Michael's needs without attaching strings, who acknowledge that he has been treated unfairly and actually commit to being better instead of using it to their advantage. When given the ultimatum, they finally choose Michael and Michael chooses them.

[popcornoncemore]

A little bit of commentary on American Christianity from your local Presbyterian-leaning-agnostic:

James Talarico's political opponents keep shouting that he is against God and therefore America's "Christian values." This is a man who has studied in seminary and is a long-time member of the Presbyterian Church USA.

I was moved to tears when I watched a sermon of his, hearing the fundamental calling to practice faith by loving unconditionally and helping one's neighbors, a message that has been pushed aside by those using religion to achieve personal power. I also felt strongly about Talarico's willingness to acknowledge uncertainty and differing perspectives, sentiments that are deeply important to the Presbyterian church and to how the scripture outlines the function of the church and congregation.

I was brought up in the Presbyterian Church USA. While I lean more agnostic these days (I tend to take a more metaphorical approach to the Bible and faith than what aligns with organized religion), the teachings and beliefs of the Presbyterian church are quite important to how I carry myself through the world. As someone who chose to be baptized into the Presbyterian church and who went through the entire process of studying for confirmation before deciding not to officially become a voting member, it is quite clear to me that Talarico's preaching aligns closely with the callings of Christianity.

If this is not American Christianity, then I must ask what is? It is certainly not the doctrine of domination and power hailed by people like Donald Trump, a man who was notably raised and confirmed in the same Presbyterian Church USA, who changed his affiliation when his actions and aspirations did not align with the teachings, who time and time again has used faith to serve his own interests rather than to serve God and His people.

If Talarico is not an American Christian, then the faith is gravely lost and in need of its Shepard. He is not against God, he is against the corruption of the church and misappropriation of the faith that Christians were warned about.

Love is the way, not hate. That much is clear.

The sermon I was talking about:

[popcornoncemore]

A little bit of commentary on American Christianity from your local Presbyterian-leaning-agnostic:

James Talarico's political opponents keep shouting that he is against God and therefore America's "Christian values." This is a man who has studied in seminary and is a long-time member of the Presbyterian Church USA.

I was moved to tears when I watched a sermon of his, hearing the fundamental calling to practice faith by loving unconditionally and helping one's neighbors, a message that has been pushed aside by those using religion to achieve personal power. I also felt strongly about Talarico's willingness to acknowledge uncertainty and differing perspectives, sentiments that are deeply important to the Presbyterian church and to how the scripture outlines the function of the church and congregation.

I was brought up in the Presbyterian Church USA. While I lean more agnostic these days (I tend to take a more metaphorical approach to the Bible and faith than what aligns with organized religion), the teachings and beliefs of the Presbyterian church are quite important to how I carry myself through the world. As someone who chose to be baptized into the Presbyterian church and who went through the entire process of studying for confirmation before deciding not to officially become a voting member, it is quite clear to me that Talarico's preaching aligns closely with the callings of Christianity.

If this is not American Christianity, then I must ask what is? It is certainly not the doctrine of domination and power hailed by people like Donald Trump, a man who was notably raised and confirmed in the same Presbyterian Church USA, who changed his affiliation when his actions and aspirations did not align with the teachings, who time and time again has used faith to serve his own interests rather than to serve God and His people.

If Talarico is not an American Christian, then the faith is gravely lost and in need of its Shepard. He is not against God, he is against the corruption of the church and misappropriation of the faith that Christians were warned about.

Love is the way, not hate. That much is clear.

The sermon I was talking about:

[popcornoncemore]

I am currently visiting family in another state and it's hard for them to understand why I don't feel entirely welcome in their community. And I try to move past it because they seem to love it here.

But they don't have to walk through life with the burden of knowing that their many of their good Christian, hardworking patriot neighbors are the same people who stand for my oppression time and time again. They don't have to wonder when the kind people with open arms will break their heart with an stray comment, when the love will turn harsh and reveal it's conditions.

They can dress how they typically do, use the bathroom without confronting the law, say their name without the fear that someone will suddenly know what they are and hurt them for it. They read the signs and the flags as opinions and pride, while for me the words are like fences, being denied entry.

They see adventure and peace in those clean blue skies and beautiful rolling fields as I feel dirty just stepping onto the grass in the yard. Their futures are here, they have hope for their children. Hope that they will grow up to not be like me, hope I feel guilty tainting by just being seen.

And I try so hard to feel welcome but this place has clauses in fine print my family doesn't need to notice. It's like I was handed a clock the second I entered their land, letting me stay in their peace but only for a little while.

And though I do my best to enjoy what time I have, how am I supposed to feel at home where they can't really see me living fully in this place?

[popcornoncemore]

Congress is seriously devaluing the power of the purse by choosing to carry the ugly Trump purse. It's poorly made, badly designed, and has several holes that money seems to keep slipping through.

Do not put our tax dollars in that thing! The divas of America demand that their government carry a purse that is ethically-sourced and appropriately cunty.

If we want to be the land of the free, home of the brave, we need to start dressing the part.

[cherry-coffin]

Marko from the lost boys musical is so…

Think I’m finally a Markonite now 😳

(Don’t ever let me unlock a new fictional crush, I will scrape the internet for pictures and edit them to look super pretty TRUST, og pics from fei_cjcj and theaterrecord on insta 🙏)

[fang-bait]

request from anon: "Congrats on 100 followers! Could I possibly request something silly with Star and Michael?"

(thank you!!) sorry if you didn't mean for this to be shippy, i have starbeam brain

[popcornoncemore]

Les Amis are still building the barricade when these two weird looking kids just show up and everyone kinda assumes they are Gavroche's friends until he walks up and is like "who the hell are you?"

The guys give the kids a closer and while they are a little confused why they chose to bring wooden stakes to a gun fight, the kid's combat gear and one of them wearing a red bandana is enough to convince Les Amis that these are just more revolutionary gamin turning up to the battle.

By the time it's time to start fighting, one of the new boys is trying to convince Gavroche to don a crucifix while the other one has taken to portioning out what appears to be a huge jug of water into a bunch of empty wine bottles Grantaire left about the cafe.

But just as Courfeyrac has started to usher the last of the revolutionaries out to the barricade and Combeferre tells them to load their weapons, another young kid comes running up the street, out of breath and wearing an horrendously bright outfit that Jehan audibly gasps in awe at.

The kid stops and frantically addresses the two new boys: "Edgar! Allen! I waited on you for like an hour before Michael mentioned he saw you all the way over here! What are you doing?!"

Irritated and ready to get on with the revolution, Enjolras snaps "These citizens are here to fight the national guard!" at the exact same moment Edgar and Allen answer with "We're here to fight the vampires!"

They quickly turn to the other party with confused faces. Before anyone else can say anything, a voice comes from the dark alley next to them: "Did someone mention vampires?"

"Oh dearest Montparnasse! You shouldn't have come, I know how you dread the sunlight so!" cries Jehan as he rushes to the shadows of the alley pushes through the small gang standing with Montparnasse to throw his arms around the criminal.

[json-derulo]

having the Aviation Accident Investigations Autism™️ has actually done wonders for the way I process and respond to my own fuck-ups

[json-derulo]

And I don't just mean "oh, my little work mistake is actually nothing compared to a fiery crash that kills people," either. The reason commercial flight is so many orders of magnitude safer than any other form of transportation is because after every accident and incident, an independent regulatory body investigated it with the express goal of figuring out exactly what happened, why, and how to prevent the same thing from ever happening again—not to root out which person deserved the blame or the liability.

It's a simple, shockingly effective idea. It's also worlds away from how most people approach their own mistakes and the mistakes of others.

[json-derulo]

Because it’s never just one person’s fault. And even when it is, it still isn’t. 

The sharpest, best-trained pilots make worse decisions when they're tired or sick or stressed out, so there's two of them. The most dedicated and experienced air traffic controllers garble an instruction over the radio sometimes, so pilots are trained to always repeat clearances back to catch misunderstandings quickly. The best and brightest maintenance mechanic still overlooks a screw or misconnects a wire once or twice in her career, so aircraft systems are built with two or three or four layers of redundancy, and pilots are exhaustively trained to deal with failures safely. 

Everyone eventually has a bad day. Every component breaks down. Every computer gets a bad a Windows update and spirals into a reboot doom loop. If it’s possible for one person’s mistake to domino into a mushroom cloud of a fuckup, then that task is too critical to be one person's sole responsibility. The accident sequence starts with the design of the system—so how do you improve the system to keep it from happening again?

[json-derulo]

oh yeah. The “modern commercial aviation is the safest form of transport” thing only applies to planes, btw. A helicopter is a beautiful metal horse that wants to break its legs and die so so so badly

[popcornoncemore]

THIS! These are the things that people so often miss when it comes to analyzing and understanding issues, accidents, and failures.

I particularly loved the way you expressed these sentiments:

"The accident sequence starts with the design of the system—so how do you improve the system to keep it from happening again?"

"Because it’s never just one person’s fault. And even when it is, it still isn’t."

"An independent regulatory body investigated it with the express goal of figuring out exactly what happened, why, and how to prevent the same thing from ever happening again—not to root out which person deserved the blame or the liability."

Whether it be on the news, in politics, or from the mouths of the other students in my undergrad classrooms, I frequently hear people misunderstand or dismiss the importance of this style of problem solving and prevention. We cannot go through life assuming that people, even the most skilled, most well intentioned people, are not capable of error. Additionally, we cannot assume that a system is any more infallible than the people it consists of.

Aviation accident investigation is not notable because it has somehow ensured that people never make mistakes or that systems never break. That is impossible. It is not notable because it will always direct us to the select individuals we seek out to have someone to blame and punish in a way we understand. That would be ignorant and ineffective.

Aviation accident investigation is notable because it is a discipline that takes something as multifaceted as cause and looks at it in a way that is just an complex. Aviation accident investigation isn't about leaps and bounds. It does not produce simple blame or a deluded solution of so-called perfection.

No, it seeks to understand and improve by every bit of truth and knowledge it can, acknowledging that while error cannot be fully eliminated, there are ways to reduce that risk to a game changing, lifesaving degree.

Researching this topic taught me to have grace for myself and others and to acknowledge the universal potential for mistakes. But it was also a lesson that effectively addressing problems is not a matter of pretending perfection is possible, rather working within the realm of possibility to accomplish something real. The important part of chasing perfection is the chase itself. That's where the work actually gets done.

I'll end my little rant by addressing the helicopter in the room by pointing out something I've noticed in my research. The safety of commercial aviation is possible because of how aviation accident investigation works. However, risks in other forms of transportation, often the kinds that few consumers interact with directly, are not always handled with the same thoroughness. (For example, in the US, the National Transportation Safety Board investigates all aviation accidents regardless of severity, but requires an marine incident to involve significant monetary or human loss to receive an investigation. Who are the people at risk in these situations? Often times it's employees who depend on their jobs to secure financial stability).

We can't simply stop at commercial airlines. Just because risk in another form of transportation isn't as visible to the public or as impactful to a firm's demand doesn't mean it isn't worth addressing.

Okay, putting the transportation autism away for the moment.

(Unless you want to see my aviation accident investigation point expressed this in terms of the domino metaphor that I have perhaps definitely overextended, in which case you can check below the cut)

Hear me out. We cannot effectively eliminate the possibility of that hypothetical line of dominos falling as dominos do. Removing the first domino just leaves a different one in its place. Simply placing them with gentle faith will only ease the mind rather than address the problem.

No, we have to do the work to minimize the chances, placing them farther apart and sticking them down and reminding people not to shake the surface the dominos are on and keep oblivious, curious hands away from the setup.

We can't just alter one aspect of the game or keep doing it the same way expecting different results. Our best bet is truly understanding the game, collecting information, and working together, doing our best to not simply play with the dominos in a careful line, but design the line of dominos knowing that some of them will fall, that we'll need to know exactly how to reduce the fallout and improve our setup for next time.

If you don't want falling dominos, don't play with the dominos! If you want to keep playing and reduce the amount of times you have to repair the line, be an aviation accident investigator or something.

[fang-bait]

a star to start the day 🌟

[ellis-is-overthinking]

everyone’s so upset about the wordle answer being “pshaw” and I’m over here like “clearly these people haven’t read the raven cycle.”

[hexmari]

This is exactly what I thought seeing this post for the first time:

[popcornoncemore]

OKAY BUT WHY DID IT ACCEPT THE WORD "PASAG"

I was so lost and just putting in combinations with the letters I had left and it accepted "pasag."

That is not a word. I was so confused and all letters ceased making sense at that point.

[no1michaelemersonfan]

You asked for drawing idea.

Marko. That it. I just want more marko in the world.

[vraik]

Honestly though the longer the musical goes and the more Sean, Dean, and Brian settle into making the boys their own, the more charmed I am that they basically kept all the boys' vibes but shifted them one to the left.

So we have

Movie!Dwayne and Musical!Marko -- the beautiful dark-eyed cowboys and first wives

Movie!Paul and Musical!Dwayne -- the horny blond idiots (who are also, despite that, weirdly chill)

Movie!Marko and Musical!Paul -- the ones with the magnificent coat they presumably made themselves who's always doing incredible freak shit in the background.

The diabolicule part is unchanged.

[unicorngunter]

It's been long time without drawing them...

[popcornoncemore]

Just wondering how common it is for other neurodivergent people to find themselves becoming fixated on really random objects?

Not like, you're really into cars or you collect figurines or you like a specific topic or you decorate a certain way, but more so you just really enjoy a random and ordinary category of physical object that other people do not typically obsess over. Think finding joy and comfort interacting or thinking about anything from egg cups to safety pins to bottle caps or whatever.

(Personally, for about the last year I have been very fixated on string/fairy lights. I have at least 10 strings of all different shapes and colors in my tiny dorm room and I'm always in the lookout for new or interesting ones. I just like to look at them and think about them and when I feel upset or overwhelmed, I will often turn all of my string lights on and spend a while staring at them).

I'd love to know if other people feel the same way and what objects they fixate on!

Do you have a type of random, ordinary physical object that you find yourself fixating on?

Yes (neurodivergent)

Yes (neurotypical)

Yes (unsure)

No (neurodivergent)

No (neurotypical)

No (unsure)

No idea/I'm so confused/bald/results

Voting ended onJul 20

I've included my current string light wishlist below the cut...

[soulvampp]

I need musical Marko fanfics right now it’s not even funny give him to me