quietsi

[quietsi]

i cannot hate myself into a version of me i will love.

[quietsi]

I'm a huge fan of Thriftmas/thrifting for the holidays! If you're looking for last-minute, personal, and inexpensive gifts for the holidays, here are some ideas using things you can find at your local thrift/charity store:

mugs (especially handmade ones, mugs that match their style, or ones that relate to their interests/hobbies) filled or gifted alongside hot cocoa/tea/coffee supplies

a cozy blanket, some gently worn socks/slippers, and DVD's of movies/shows you know they like or might be interested in (you could also throw in a bag of popcorn & their favorite candy)

a handwritten recipe of something you enjoy making, plus utensils/cookware/serving ware to go with it! examples: matching set of bowls + a recipe for your favorite soup, or a ceramic loaf pan with a spatula, whisk, and recipe for zucchini bread (this would also be cute to be gifted with an apron!)

gift a dinner-party-in-a-box (this would also make a great gift for someone with a new apartment!): create a set of plates, utensils, cloth napkins, a fun tablecloth, maybe a candle holder with candles, etc.

a book/books related to a hobby that they enjoy (or are just curious about) + items relating to that hobby. some examples: a book about houseplants, with a cute planter, and small glass containers for plant propagation. or a hiking guide, with a pair of durable socks, and a bandana

homemade treats (cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, candied nuts, etc) gifted in a metal tin, mason jar, or other thrifted container. you can find christmas-y tins, or tins that can be used by the recipient year-round :3

As with anything you get from a thrift store, be sure to give your items a thorough cleaning! You might be surprised how 'like-new' you can make something look with a quick scrub.

Thrift stores always have baskets, metal tins, glass jars, and gift bags that you can use to gift things in! I like to stock up when I find these things throughout the year, to use in December. Happy thrifting ^-^

[quietsi]

i love you visible brushstrokes. i love you glue warped scrapbook pages. i love you awkward poems. i love you junk journal with faded receipts. i love you poorly composed journal layout. I love you unintentionally blurry photographs. i love you asymmetrical beading. i love you curling freeform crochet. i love you fingerprints on pottery. i love you reused materials. i love you improvised instruments. i love you mistakes. i love you bravery to make it anyway. i love you creativity that hasn't been wiped clean of every drop of humanity and sanitized and commodified.

[quietsi]

Older than history itself

What if the oldest vampire was a Neanderthal girl 🤔

[quietsi]

Can we stop using "still lives with their parents" or "unemployed" or "doesn't have a drivers license" or "didn't graduate high school" as an insult or evidence that someone is a bad person? Struggling with independence or meeting milestones is not a moral failing.

[quietsi]

nobody cry okay one can of cream of chicken soup, one can of chicken breast meat, one bag of steamed broccoli, a bag of cheddar cheese, and two cups of cooked white rice all mixed together in a 9x13 baking dish at 350 until all hot and melted and crispy on top

source: my mommy

[quietsi]

you have to outlive donald trump

[quietsi]

Chai tea bag + lil but of brown sugar + apple cider packet + 16 oz. mug of hot but not quite boiling water

it will not Fix You but like. maybe. maybe.

[quietsi]

i dont consider myself a 'fashion guru' by any means but one thing i will say is guys you dont need to know the specific brand an item you like is - you need to know what the item is called. very rarely does a brand matter, but knowing that pair of pants is called 'cargo' vs 'boot cut' or the names of dress styles is going to help you find clothes you like WAAAYYYY faster than brand shopping

[quietsi]

Make the most of the next two months

Get all your vaccines

Travel while we have a functioning DOT

Read and buy books on feminism, anti-racism, pro-lgbt

Attend drag shows

Don't skip any of your classes

Read and buy history books

Find your out-of-state networks

Learn to carry cash

Get birth control solutions

Support the Biden/Harris administration

Postpone large purchases and save money

Be careful of what you say online, like un-ambiguous attacks against the incoming administration, especially in spaces that contain your full name or personal information

Feel free to add on.

[quietsi]

whether the internet becomes an intolerable surveillance state, ubiquitous subscription model, or unusably ad- or AI-ridden shithole, I think we need to remember

how to do things offline

either on your personal hard drive (just because it’s an app doesn’t mean the information is stored in your device) or on paper. I’m not saying the collapse of the internet is imminent, and I’m not suggesting we do everything completely without technology, or even stop using it until we have to. (to be clear, I also don’t think the internet will just blink out of existence, suddenly stop being a thing at all; rather I think it might continue to lose its usefulness to the point where it’s impossible to get anything done. anyway) but some people may have forgotten how we got by before the internet (I almost have!), and the younger generation might not have experienced it at all.

I figure most people probably use the internet mainly for communication with friends and family, entertainment and creation (eg. writing), and looking up how to do things, so here’s how to do those things offline:

First and most importantly, download everything important to you onto at least one hard drive and at least one flashdrive! files can get corrupted and hardware can get damaged or lost, but as long as you keep backup copies, you have much-closer-to-guaranteed access versus hoping a business doesn’t decide to paywall, purge, or otherwise revoke your access. I would recommend getting irreplaceable photos printed as well

download and/or print/write down:

anything important to you - photos/videos, journals, certificates, college transcripts

contact info - phone numbers and/or addresses of friends/family (know how to contact them if you can’t use your favourite messaging app), doctors (open hours would be good too), veterinarians if you have pets, and work

how-to’s - recipes (one, two), emergency preparedness (what do I do if… eg. I smell gas)

other things you might google: cleaning chemicals to NOT mix, what laundry tag symbols mean, people food dogs and cats can and can’t eat, plant toxicity to pets

and know offline ways to find things out - local radio station, newspaper, a nearby highway rest area might have a region map, public libraries usually have a bunch of resources

also, those of you who get periods should strongly consider not using period tracking apps! here’s how to track your period manually

free printable period tracker templates (no printer? public libraries usually charge a few cents per page, or you can recreate it by hand)

moving on to entertainment, you can still get most media for free! it’s completely legal to download your favourite movies to your own personal hard drive, you just can’t sell or distribute copies (not legal advice)

movies: wcostream.tv (right click the player) - the url changes every once in a while but usually redirects; I recently noticed that it’s hiding a lot of movies behind “premium,” so it may or may not work anymore | download youtube videos

music: how to get music without streaming it | legal free downloads

games: steamunlocked.net - doesn’t have every game and can be slow to update, but very reliable

books: free online libraries | legal free downloads

otherwise passing time:

active outdoor games

for road trips (social verbal games)

for when power’s out

for sheltering in place (not all offline, but good ideas)

board games (often found at thrift stores)

ad-free customisable games collection (mobile)

read, write, draw, or whatever your craft is, sing, dance, clean, reorganise, take a bath

go outside - excuses include napping (if safe), eating, reading, finding cool plants/animals/rocks, playing with the dog

places to go include:

zoos and museums can be surprisingly cheap

parks and nature preserves

library, mall, or game shop

and a few miscellaneous things for good measure:

time budgeting | household management

how to use a planner | I’ve had success with visually blocked-out schedules like these

please add on if you have any other offline alternatives to common uses of the internet!

[quietsi]

Vengeance Saga has me acting up

[quietsi]

I have delivered🫡

Based on my HC from… literally half a day ago blasting 600 strikes on repeat can do wonders apparently

[quietsi]

[quietsi]

I think a lot of people haven't actually read Flatland so you may not realize A. What Bill's eye mutation means and B. What precisely Bill did to destroy his homeworld.

Bill's home isn't completely the same as Edwin Abbott's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (notably, women and men can be both polygons #feminism) but we can assume most of the mechanics are the same. The basic premise is that the world is 2D. Everyone perceives the world in a 1D way, along the plane. There's a part of Journal 3 that describes this pretty well.

Bill can see up to the stars because his eye is on the flat surface instead of on the side like everyone else, like this:

(He's also slightly 3D, as we can see in the show.)

But there's one more important Flatland detail. The denizens of Flatland (and therefore likely Euclydia) do still have organs "inside" their bodies. Since there is no depth, they're just on the inner radius of their bodies. The 2007 Ehlinger movie adaptation shows that:

If Bill wanted to "give his world a new perspective" and "show everyone what they were missing," he wanted to get everyone to look upward.

Meaning he probably tilted the entire world.

Meaning everyone not only slid off of the plane, but all of their organs spilled out and everyone died.

...Hence "so much blood."

(The only issue with this is that it doesn't account for the number of times Euclydia is referred to have been burned ("saw his own dimension burn / misses home and can't return", he only has ashes leftover), but I'm sure the act of turning an entire dimension upwards expends a lot of energy.)

[quietsi]

The way most autism literature describes "literal interpretation" is often not at all similar to how I experience it. Teenage me even thought I couldn't be autistic because I've always been able to learn metaphors easily.

In fact, I love wordplay of all kinds. Teenage me was fascinated to learn all the types of figurative language there are in poetry and literature.

But paperwork and questionnaires are hard, because there's so much they don't state clearly. Or they don't leave room for enough nuance.

"List all the jobs you've had, with start and end dates." What if I don't remember the exact day or month? Is the year enough?

"Have you been suffering from blurred vision?" Well, if I take off my glasses the whole world is blurred, but I'm fairly sure that's not what the intake form at the optometrist is asking.

Or the infamous (and infuriatingly stereotypical) "Would you rather go to a library or a party?" What sort of party? Where? Who's there? I work at a library. Am I currently at the library for work or pleasure? Does it have a good collection?

It's not common figures of speech that confound me. It's ambiguity, in situations that aren't supposed to be ambiguous.

[quietsi]

god gives his most niche fandoms to his most autistic warriors