#and if i do a third one that one will be 2010s ig

[smoreal]

Alright I’m posting the timeline in two parts or three, but here’s the first chunk of the sonic games for @z0nic and anyone else to reference!

NOTE: This is very rough; assume the dates are US unless otherwise stated; actually playing/watching a runthrough of the games are gonna give you better insight, these are just quick summaries

GUIDE:

** = Maybe don’t stress too hard about putting this one in lol, just had to add it jic

“…”/‘…’ = Quotes pulled straight from Speedia or Wiki, I can link Wiki's semi-complete list here > X

 + = Missing some details, synopsis might be rough lmaoo I’ll try to link websites to start your search so you can get a clearer picture of wth is happening here, my bad :(

{…} = Contains most of my asides and/or fun facts, feel free to skip these

SONIC TIMELINE:

Sonic (‘91) – 7 Zones, 6 Special Stages; Sonic chases down Eggman on South Island to free the flickies! Beat the game with all 6 emeralds and you get the good ending, without all 6, you get the bad ending where Eggman taunts you with the emeralds.

Sonic 2 (‘92) – 11 Zones, 7 Special Stages (Introduced Super Sonic and Tails); Sonic rides his biplane ‘The Tornado’ to West Side Island, meets Tails and together they stop Eggman from collecting all 7 emeralds to power his superweapon, the Death Egg! Without all the emeralds, you get the bad ending where Tails’ is implied to have died.

Sonic CD (SEPT. ‘93) – 7 Rounds, 7 Special Stages (Introduced Amy Rose and Metal Sonic); Implied to be before the events of Sonic 2 (due to ‘a hidden image unlocked through the Sound Test, shows Tails saying, “See you next game,” implying Sonic CD occurs BEFORE Sonic 2’); Sonic stops Eggman from collecting all 7 Time Stones from Little Planet (arrives only one month out of the year), meets Amy, saves her from Metal Sonic, and stops Eggman from creating a Bad Future. ‘In the good ending, Little Planet thanks Sonic with a shower of stars and leaves Never Lake; in the bad ending, Little Planet still leaves, but Robotnik uses the Time Stones to bring it back and the player is urged to replay the game to achieve the good ending.’

Sonic Chaos (OCT. ‘93) – 6 Zones, 6 Special Stages, and considered to be a ‘follow-up’ to Sonic 2; Eggman has one chaos emerald and is looking to collect all 6 for ‘nuclear weapons,’ but in his search has caused South Island to sink. Sonic and Tails stop him.

Sonic Spinball (NOV. ’93) – Considered a Spin-off from SatAM, there are 4 Zones, 4 Bonus Stages; Find all 16, BLUE chaos emeralds! Eggman is trying to take over the volcanic ‘Mt. Mobius’ to turn it into a base, ‘The Veg-O-Fortress.’ Tails is also here, but the Tornado is shot down and Sonic is left to climb up the base ‘pinball style.’ GOAT behavior.

Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine (DEC. ’93) – “The game is set on the planet Mobius, which is inhabited by bean-like creatures. Dr. Robotnik conceives a plan to bring terror to the world by kidnapping the citizens of Beanville and turning them into robot slaves, and eventually creating an army that will help him rid the planet of fun and joy. To achieve this, he creates the "Mean Bean-Steaming Machine" in order to transform the bean-like creatures into robots. Putting his plan into motion, Robotnik sends out his Henchbots to gather all the bean-like creatures and group them together in dark dungeons so they can be sent to the Mean Bean-Steaming Machine. The rest of the game's story revolves around the player character, "Has Bean", and their journey to stop Robotnik's henchmen by breaking into the dungeons and freeing the bean-like creatures.”

+**Sonic Drift (MAR. ’94) – 3 Grand Prixs, 6 Tracks; This was only released in Japan. Technically first racing game? {We aren’t counting the arcade games that are super rare, but I’ll list them here: Sega Arcade Classics [Japan, DEC ‘91], Segasonic Cosmo Fighter [JP, APR. ‘93], Segasonic Arcade [US, SEPT. ‘93], Segasonic Popcorn Shop [JP, APR. ‘93]} And you can drive as Amy! Win!

+Sonic 3 (FEB. ‘94) – 6 Zones, 7 Special Stages, and Right after Sonic 2; Death Egg crashes into the mountains of Angel Island. Eggman meets Knuckles, last echidna of Angel Island and Master Emerald guardian, (Master Emerald keeps the island afloat and is as strong as the 7 chaos emeralds), and convinces him that Sonic is going to steal the Master Emerald. Sonic and Tails show up, Sonic is Super (presumably from the events of Sonic 2), Knuckles punches the emeralds out of him, takes them, and gets out of dodge. They make it to the launch base, ‘where the death egg is under repair,’ fight Knuckles, but then the Death Egg relaunches and they defeat Eggman for it to crash. Again. Launch Base is the final zone from this game. {Probably best if you had your own look at this since it’s important, here you go ;-; (x)}

+& Knuckles (OCT. ‘94) -  8 Zones, 7 Special Stages (but this time you seek out the Super Emeralds to get Hyper Sonic, Hyper Knuckles, and Super Tails); First Zone, after Launch Base zone from Sonic 3, is Flying Battery Zone. Sonic attempts to stop Eggman from relaunching his Death Egg while Knuckles fights off the EggRobo. Ngl it’s hard to quickly give a rundown on it since there’s a good amount of IMPORTANT lore that’ll be a mouse-ka-tool that will help us later :) so I’ll leave this (x)

+** Tails and the Music Maker (OCT. ’94) – Music teaching game. It’s cute, and idk how you’d fit it into the lore but it’d be pretty fkn sick if you did. (15min vid)

Sonic Triple Trouble (NOV. ’94) – 6 Zones, 7 Stages; Sequel to Sonic Chaos, Introduced Nack the Weasel (Fang the Sniper) and has Sonic and Tails stop Eggman’s plans by getting all 6 chaos emeralds (after he loses them from a ‘test misfire’ that send them across the ‘island’ idk which island it doesn’t specify) Knuckles helps Eggman, again. I’m pretty sure Fang is just in it for himself lol, either way he isn’t on Sonic’s side. {Also did you know Fang’s bike is called the Marvelous Queen?? Very cash money of him}

Tails’ Skypatrol (JP, APR. ’95) – 5 Areas(?); Tails comes to a ruined, remote island. Witchcart “uses the island’s railways to travel to all points and trap its inhabitants with enchanted crystal magic.” Tails saves the island from Witchcart and her minions.

+Knuckles Chaotix (APR. ’95) – 6 Attractions, 6 Special Stages, and you’re collecting 6 Chaos Rings this time :), and also Mighty makes an ‘official debut,’ {despite being introduced prior to this game alongside Ray in the arcade game Segasonic the hedgehog [JP, ‘93].} “A mysterious island” comes out of nowhere ig bc of the events of S3&K. Eggman finds out about these Chaos Rings by going through a Giant Ring/Ring Portal that leads you to the special stages in previous sonic games. The six Chaos Rings are described as “crystallized power of the Master Emerald.” Eggman makes his own Dark Rings to power his robots, and takes over this new island. Knuckles shows up to figure out what the connection is between this island and Angel Island, saves Espio from Eggman and Metal Sonic, and then together they work to rescue the others to take down Eggman… {you should read this jic I missed smth}

Tails Adventure (NOV. ’95) – Good luck understanding this one, I’m getting contradicting notes (from the Speedia) saying that “the English language manuals {state that} the story is set after Sonic 2,” and that our boy is on “vacation.” But I’m also reading on the wiki that this shit happened BEFORE he even met Sonic sooo…. Let’s just stick with Chronology ig?? Here’s the link chief.

+Sonic Labyrinth (NOV. ’95) – 4 Zones, 4(?) Bonus Rounds; Eggman tricks Sonic into wearing special shoes that make him go slow as all hell, and they’re called “Speed Down Boots.” Find three keys in each stages to escape the zones within the labyrinth and stop Eggman. (x)

+**Sonic Drift 2 (NOV. ’95) – 3(?) Grand Prixs, and a Final Road; Sonic Drift 1, but ‘bigger’ and ‘better.’ Playable Amy, Knuckles, Fang, and Metal Sonic, let’s fkn gooo.

Sonic The Fighters (JULY ’96) – 10 Arenas; Introduced Honey the Cat, Bean and Bark! Sonic and friends all have a chaos emerald (8 this time lol) and they have a tournament to figure out who will use all 8 emeralds ‘to power a spaceship’ and stop Dr. Robotnik and Metal Sonic ‘from building an evil fortress in space.’

+**Sonic Schoolhouse (OCT. ’96) – FIRST FEMALE VA FOR SONIC LETS FKNGOO. Anyways, Sonic teaches you math, reading, and spelling through fun minigames :) (schoolhouse playthrough)

Sonic Blast (NOV. ‘96) – 5 Zones, 5(?) Bonus Stages; Eggman shatters a chaos emerald into 5 shards ‘with a laser,’ Sonic and Knuckles team up to keep him from collecting the shards and ‘fortifying his island base.’

Sonic 3D Blast (NOV. ’96) – 8(?) Zones, 7 Special Stages; Before you ask, no, unfortunately for me, they are not the same thing. In this one, Sonic has to save these flickies that live on Flickie Island, but they aren’t just any flickies, they’re special bc of their ability to move freely between dimensions “via the Dimensional Rings.” Eggman is the one endangering these flickies bc he’s using them to ‘further his research.’ Pretty much to find chaos emeralds. (x)

*(please add her in I beg of you idk how you’d do this but you’d be a legend I’m trying to figure this out too)* Learning With Sonic (NOV. ’96) – “Dr. Eggman has built Gameworld, a carnival-like tower.” Amy, Sonic, and Tails have to overcome the games to get the chaos emeralds.

Sonic R (NOV. ’97) – 5 Tracks; Sonic and Tails join in on this World Grand Prix when they find out Eggman is participating. Knuckles and Amy join in. Eggman was using the race as a way to distract Sonic while he ‘hunts for the chaos emeralds.’ {Fun fact: If you owned the game and popped it into a cd player, it would play just the music :) pretty neat! One of the best soundtracks of all time and you’re able to listen to it or play the actual game… society has fallen.}

+(?)**Sonic Pocket Adventure (’99) – Pretty much ‘dumbed down vers. of Sonic 2’

Sonic Adventure (SEPT. ’99) – You got this.

[fortheloveofaussiegrit]

@fortheloveofaussiegrit 's deep dive into Mark and his love of twinks...

Sebastian Vettel 

Where does one even start when trying to explain this... that's his twink of the past, present, and future— his forever. [first: debatable but the beginning of martian at the Fuji GP 2007 when Seb crashed into the back of Mark ruining both of their races, they were running 2nd and third. second: the day i lost my sanity, Abu Dhabi 2022]

Oscar Piastri

His twink of the present [i don't think i need to say anything... but photos above are from Mark's website from his blog post about Oscar winning the F2 championship and how Mark stayed in Abu Dhabi with Oscar after the GP for the young driver f1 test...]

Mitch Evans

Without Mitch we wouldn’t have got Oscar/Mark... (this is what oscarmark could’ve been but not sure i would’ve been able to handle oscar posting mark the way mitch did) Started in 2010, Mark then went on to manage him and Mitch even moved into Mark’s home in England, down the drive but point still stands [first: Mark Webber takes protege on birthday tour, 2010 (speedcafe.com) second: Mark embracing Mitch after he took maiden victory in Formula E, 2019 (📷Sam Bloxham) bottom two: from Mitch’s IG circa 2014] 

Daniel Ricciardo

i like that belt buckle mate [first/second: F1 Paddock 2013 (📷skysports.com) third: Mark & Daniel’s BBQ on the beach ahead of the Aus GP 2011 (📷flickr) fourth/fifth: Dutch GP 2022.]

 

Fernando Alonso

again do i need to say anything? i think this sums it up (thank you to @seafoampearlygirl for the screen shot and your help too, much appreciated!!

and this... [Jenson Button, Giancarlo Fisichella, Fernando Alonso & Mark Webber for Benetton Renault 2001 F1 launch]

Lewis Hamilton

If there's one thing about Mark that you need to know its his love of twinks with world championships... @mwebber​ has a post here on these two! Mark always loves talking about Lewis and the way they look at each other.. [first: Mark and Lewis during the post-qualy presser at the Spanish GP, 2010 (📷Sutton Images) second: during the pre-race presser at the Aus GP, 2013 (📷Hoch Zwei) third: Abu Dhabi GP, 2017 (📷James Moy)]

Nico Rosberg

from teammates at Williams to Mark snapping pics of the back of Nico in 2023… [first: Mark talking to test driver Nico Rosberg during the German GP, 2005 (📷Pakusch) second: Monaco ePrix 2023]

Max Verstappen

like i said... twinks with championships [first: ‘bumped into these two over easter and managed a few k on the trails’ Apr, 2018 (Mark’s FB) second: Hangar-7, 2019]

Felipe Massa 

yeah... [first: Brazil 2012, i think (📷sky-sports.com) second: Brazil 2013 (📷xpb images)]

Brendon Hartley 

he’s already featured a few times, but from rbr junior driver to teammate... yeah.. is there a pattern? [first: Spanish GP 2009 (📷DPPI Images) second: Brendon, Mark & Timo after winning the 6 hours of Bahrain and the WEC Drivers Championship 2015 (📷fiawec.com)]

Jenson Button

and finally we get to Jenson Button, who, yes, is younger than Mark so makes it onto the list... the ultimate twink on twink... you cannot tell me this wasnt a couples holidays covered up as ‘training’. you cannot tell me they were not fumbling around in their bedsheets at night. you cannot tell me— [redacted redacted redacted] — [pre-season training session in Lanzarote, Spain. 4 Jan 2001 📷Mark Thompson]

[lewisinho]

as the anon that asked for the race list: thank you!

now this is totally up to you if you have the time to spend on this, but this is my first year watching the races, and while I've been doing some background research to get up to speed, there is still a lot i don't know. i trust your judgment so what are some races and/or f1 adjacent things i should look into? i'm going through your McLaren list and have watched the last 4 seasons of dts and the brawn documentary. are there any other books/ documentaries/ races (especially seb's) / old youtube videos that are lost in the void that i should also check out?

again no pressure and thank you!

no problem!

(and btw welcome to f1 and the world of watching some glorified hot wheels every other sunday 😁 it’s great!)

i completely get how daunting it can be as a new fan in the sport. when i was getting back into f1 it also took me some time to get back up to speed with everything, especially all the techy stuff; i honestly learned the most through just watching the races (old and new), bc you get to see all the strategies play out, the pit-stops, the overtakes etc. and the terminology just becomes much easier to understand through sheer exposure. there are also some really cool f1 data analysis blogs you might want to follow on twt/x if you want some more detailed tech analysis and graphs if you’re into that sort of thing: (x)

as for seb, oh there’s a whole arsenal of recs i have!

monza 2008, rise of torro rosso wunderkind; i presume you already know the lore with that one but ig you can never get tired of it.

abu dhabi 2010, world championship no.1 “du bist weltmeister!”

interlagos 2012, the infamous one. this one’s a rollercoaster, chaos everywhere and the manifestation of murphy’s law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. amidst a title battle against nando, seb was fighting the weather, bruno senna’s front wing, a damaged side-pod, no radio, and somehow managed to claim p6 to win the championship

malaysia 2013, multi-21 (iconique), he was faster, deal with it. 💅

singapore 2013, domination masterclass from quali to the race. (also just all of his singapore wins...lion of singapore and all that)

india 2013, title no.3 secured, changed tyres on lap 2 and came out p17, was third by only lap 13 and then won the race by nearly 30 seconds. it was also his sixth win in a row. he went on to win three more. speaks for itself. also this:

malaysia 2015, first win with ferrari, can't forget that one, also features sewis’ gay knee-touching on the podium.

germany 2019, CHAOS, in which merc got bewitched by the special livery curse 😅, with crashes, spins, 50-second long pit stops, and also features one of seb’s best drives from p20 -> p2

i also highly recommend watching Floz's fan-made docus on youtube about 'the silver war' (there are also docus for the 2014 and 2015 seasons) as well as the merc v ferrari (lewis vs seb) 2017 fight and 'fight for five' in 2018, they're so much better than dts and actually give a full run-down of what happened during the season, with all the action on-track, with interviews and providing all the context! it's so well-edited as well (you literally feel like you're watching a movie about all of the seasons) and they are just incredibly fun to watch.

in general, i love rewatching races from 2017/18 (literally my comfort seasons), personal favs include spain 2017 (strategy galore and lewis v seb), baku 2017 (for obv reasons), austin 2017; and basically the 2018 season in its entirety...

as for books, there are many driver autobiographies e.g. jb (he’s even got two lmao), mark webbah etc. but i think the best f1 book out there is adrian newey’s memoir ‘how to build a car’ if you want lore + great insight into cars!

i’d also recommend watching some older races (i could do a separate post on which ones are my personal favs) but it’s all up to you in the end! go digging, look around on yt for some highlights and just keep exploring! 🫶💜

[daughter-of-sapph0]

please stop reblogging this my notification tab is dying

this post has been edited. here's the original text:

apple completely censoring tumblr to the point where you can't even say words that aren't even sexual like soap or pipe is the beginning of the end for tumblr’s usability and user experience. the process already started with the Dec 17 ban and recently with the overexposure of ads. but pretty soon, apple is gonna make tumblr unusable. it's not like virizon cared about making the site functional when they owned it, and automatic/wordpress (current owners) definitely don't give a shit about tumblr now.

everywhere else on the internet, content is heavily monitored and censored. you'll get banned if you say anything that's against tos. sometimes that's good, as it gets rid of all the nazis. other times it's terrible, when people abuse the reporting ai to ban normal people. the whole banning system is unpredictable, so to be safe, people need to censor themselves on twitter and tiktok and facebook and ig and youtube. they can't say "kill", they have to say "unalive". they can't talk about violence, so they have to sugarcoat real world events. they can't swear, talk about racism or sex or history, or even acknowledge that the world is a fucked up place, because "kids use this app". tumblr was one of the last safe places on the internet where you could threaten to kill the president without having the fbi show up to your house.

but with this new apple shit, tumblr is becoming more like every other site online. any post that contains a word on a constantly expanding list is hidden from ios users. any blogs marked as "explicit" (which is also a huge issue btw) are unaccessible by apple users. not straight up banning people, but still preventing access to the real tumblr for those users. now over a third of tumblr’s userbase is either stuck on a completely sanitized version of tumblr, has to use the web browser version on their phone, or just cut off from tumblr entirely.

the internet used to be a place of togetherness and inclusiveness and content sharing and entertainment and fun. now it's mostly corporate garbage and ads. companies love ads. and to run ads effectively, they need as many people as possible to see them. and to do that, the places they advertise have to be family friendly so everyone can use them. that's what all of these sites are doing. banning creativity and expressiveness so they can force you to watch more ads. I understand that there's server costs. I understand that the employees need to eat. but there are so many bugs that haven't been fixed in years that it seems like @staff is getting paid to do fuck all, and instead wasting their time making stupid design decisions to distract us from them selling out.

what does this current situation say about the future of tumblr and the internet as a whole? I don't really know. if things continue as they are, more people will leave tumblr for newer sites, or twitter once tumblr becomes just as unusable as it (might as well use the more popular shitty site if they're both equally shit). eventually, within 5 or 6 years, tumblr will shut down after server costs are too high, and unless users take the time to archive everything, nearly two decades of internet history will be erased forever. I'd give it until 2035 before the internet (and by extention the vr world / metaverse / matrix) becomes so riddled with ads that it becomes completely unusable. unless, of course, something changes with how advertisements work. whether that be a new law that makes it so ads have to be less distracting or optional, or even just some sites refusing to run advertisements at the cost of user membership fees. one of those seems extremely unlikely, and the other sounds equally shit.

the internet sucks ass. I just want to return to 2010 playing club penguin and browsing early tumblr and early watching minecraft youtube videos and playing flash games on newgrounds.

the world would be a better place if literally every single ceo and billionaire immediately died right now.

[randombubblegum]

as a former youth group kid, some people would be shocked to learn just how many bands back then were christian bands who just didn’t really sing about god. my church actually had a whole thing with us about whether that was considered “christian enough” if they were openly christian but didn’t actually sing about it (bc you know they don’t want you listening to devil music etc) I actually can’t stomach any music that overtly mentions religion now lol anyway like every third band out there at the time was “christian.” Also Kellins big draw was always his voice more than anything else and is also the thing that made them more hated than other similar bands lol. Btw I was an adult listening to them in 2010 and the lyrics were no cringier than anything else at the time, sometimes even clever. I feel like that one criticism about how its only for 14 year old girls is a bit off base

“christian enough” lol 😭😭 but yeah i also cant stand any music with overt religious themes anymore LOL like sometimes ull hear a song and go “….. is this about god :/“ but in a way where u can tell the singer is religious themselves and not using it as a motif and i cannot stand

i DO rly like kellins voice tho……. i love men who have high/feminine vocals :) i dont think theyre cringy but i feel like that person meant they were like ~so deep~ in a way that you think is revolutionary at 14 and then relisten and go “huh. well its fine ig” LOL

[rosyvvoods]

what don't you like being told how problematic your faves are just for existing. is that why you're ignoring me. why are you and your friends or whoever allowed to enjoy things but apparently no one else is. your commentary is also stupid and contrived so i don't know why you think anyone would care about it, about you, or about your dumb oc and dumb art.

Hey friend, this is like the third ask you've sent within like.... 12 hours. So. Uh. I'm not sure what you want here but I think the closest thing I've said to what you're describing is just wanting to critically consume media on my own terms and that I wished other people could do it more as well?

Understand that I'm going to completely ignore messages like this from here on out but also I've been on tumblr since 2010/2011 you're going to have to do better than that if you want to fluster or upset me, if that's what you're trying to get out of this. And if you actually want to do some back and forth message me off anon and I'd be happy to talk! Until then though I'm just gonna keep posting shit, both fandom related and original fan concept related <3 have a good day ig

[twiddlebirdlet]

That person who leaked the possibility of Chris private IG if that’s his was the same person who wouldn’t stop posting ask about how we might get pictures later today

A selection of more anons I’ve received, but not all:

“The fact that the insta the anon was talking about follows the public profiles of people that Chris and been “linked” to shows that it’s probably fake. Not to mention there is a twitter and insta with the name of his old Facebook”

“I also think it’s fake... for example remember when people found out that his public one was originally ********3030? Now there are multiple profiles on insta with that name. Literally anyone can grab on to something of the past of his made public and roll with it. People troll and cause drama all the time. Also if his friends don’t follow it like who are the 23 followers. Just so weird, they can’t even view it if they don’t follow and it’s private. “

“Do you think that IG page is really his or you think it’s could be some random person account “

“That person/anonymous on the other blog was nuts like the definition of a troll posting cryptic things about private parties, implying photos will be dropped, he wasn’t alone at home. Like weird things if you were close would only know and why would you vindictively post that. Aka trolling. “

“Do you believe that insta is really Chris?”

“But none of the usual suspects and even family follow that account so it doesn't make any sense. The name was also hijacked on Twitter a long time ago where a fan was pretending to be him. “

“He already has a twitter acct, a FB private acct, an instagram public acct. Adding a private instagram acct to the mix seems too much work for someone that is not that into SM and technology.”

“I'm really going to need a little more than anons telling me it's real without even a tiny bit of proof other than me supposedly having to take their word for it.”

“So all of his BFFs and family members don't follow the account. That even includes Guillermo. And supposedly a bunch of people knew it was him and didn't bother taking screencaps or posting about it? This fandom isn't exactly known for keeping things private on his behalf.”

“I'm not proud but years ago I made a fake insta using the name of a friend of a famous sportman in my country. Like that, it was stupid I know. But I made a success of add his friends, his girlfriend who were in private, they accepted my demand. I deleted immediately. That this private ig follows Val, his sister, the Canadian doesn't mean it's really his. Maybe it's but his sister could accept it without thinking it's not him. “

“That supposed IG leak today, agree that it looks like trolling. One, the issue with the reuse of the name associated with the previously hacked private FB (when did that happen? 2010? Later? Plenty of time for him to pick new mom de crime.) Two, the followers to following was something like 23 to 94. If it actually belonged to him, I would think the ratio would be 1:1, as all his followed accounts would follow back. Third, the blog where it was anon’ed has been troll city of late.”

“"That insta is real"- going to need a little more than that to believe it lol”

“Could it be possible that someone is trolling with that insta account? For starters, it has only like 23 followers. And following women who have been discussed in fandom recently. Plus, he follows then but they don't even follow him back? It doesn't add up. “

“I find it too much of a coincidence that on the same day Seb is seen with a young gf that rumors circulate of Chris being seen with a young gf - what's going on here? And why would Chris have an IG under his old FB name? “

“That anon who posted the supposed ig promised pictures by the end of the day. Where are these pictures? 😂”

********************

I agree with most of the anons here, in that the whole thing is dubious as hell, and it’s a TROLL.

1) Why would he name the account the same as his old Facebook one that was hacked and exposed? That’s stupid. It’s way easy to come up with a unique name to use if you’re just going to ghost with it.

2) Why would he make it public if it’s his ghost account? That’s also just dumb. If it’s going to sneak around and not be discovered, making it private is a no-brainer. It’s less likely to be exposed that way.

Finally, many of us tumblr blogs got hit with the same anon that was declaring it was his private IG, even though most of his friends were NOT following it (and they never could give me the names of any that were - I checked, and none of his known friends were following it), and also saying he had a “sugar baby” girlfriend, etc.

Again, no evidence of ANY of that. The whole thing looks like a lot of trolling from what I’ve seen so far.

[cherra-khunatta]

冷戦的な物語 (The Cold War Story)

Nope, this is NOT the exact Cold War that you often hear in history books. This is the Cold War that I have experienced myself, with the person whom I called, my “special someone.”

Allow me to share to you the details... if you peeps do not mind, hehehe (PS: He’s no longer on FB and IG for personal reasons).

Chapter 1: Santa Maria Colegio de Ciudad Quezon

2007 - Many things happened during this time. I was still “in love” with my first serious crush in school, and we barely finished yet first year high school. Also, this was the year that I met “you know who” during the recognition rites practice. Oh, don’t remind me about it since I was in freshman of high school, and that wasn’t the most pleasant experience I had—like I was too busy like having butterflies on the stomach, thinking what I would do to please my crush again.

OO NA, CRUSH darake demo imi ga nai to wakaru yo. Demo sono ato, infatuation ga nakunatta.

Well, nakilala ko lang si “future” crush sa recognition rites practice and whatnot. HEARING HIS NAME means, basically iyung maputing chinitong kulang sa height, pero when his name was mentioned, like I was SHOOKt. HANTAI PALA!!! xD

Pero di ko pa crush iyun. Kayo naman.

At RANDOM pa ako nag-a-add sa Friendster... and sorry to say that includes him.

That year was also the time I really NEED to move on from my first crush. So yeah, nagka-crush ako sa teacher (ALAM NIYO NA IYAN! Charot!), na sorry to say, ‘di ko masyadong nagustuhan ang teaching style (chos!). Well, let me tell you this: That teacher was only some “transitional period” figure so that I could just “move on” from my first crush, who obviously was rejecting me all throughout (dahil nga sa nangyari... and I never thought of transferring schools at the first place, thinking that the alma mater where I regretted studying will eventually change and open up to new ways of thinking).

And so, yeah.

Until during this one episode where... I just saw him alone during I think, recess time? HAHAHA. I was like, I dunno, I just fell for him without even knowing his true identity. I only knew his face and name, and that’s about it. DAKEDO—miryokuteki na kao ha? Chotto... sukoshi heibon nano ha... futsuu na shakai ni yoru to, sore no hou ga tekitou na keiyou da yo.

And so, yeah. Parang ganun na nga.

I asked my batchmate (well, he wasn’t my clubmate that time, so yeah...) who he was. DAFUQ kilala niya pala. Clubmate niya pala. AHAHAHAHA. I guess, it was like it came to my senses that he’s pretty attractive to my taste dahil nerdy, tsaka he takes his academics seriously. Ayun.

And yes, I really WANTED to have this formal meeting with him. Get to know each other kaya ayun. I added him eventually on Yahoo! Messenger, and that’s it. We started chatting.

And mind you mga beh, sobrang KILIG KILIG much ako, without even formally meeting him. Well, kinukulit ko kasi ng bonggang-bongga iyung friend ko na clubmate siya.

OK ok... until it came to my senses na gan’to nga. YES I WILL MEET HIM NA...

That smile from my face is not a joke. I usually greet him and talk small talk with him whenever we meet. Ayun.

LAHAT LAHAT I showed my entire tatemae towards him, and I was introducing him to my friend who’s a batch lower than him pero batch higher sakin. In short, third year level siya. And yes... kasama niya meiwaku niyang kabarkada na sumira ng lahat.

OO... at hindi ko na lang siya babanggitin dahil... I will discuss that later.

So, ayun. ALL OF A SUDDEN everything was gone. Ganun-ganun lang dahil sa nangyari. I was fucking humiliated and embarassed and shit. Ayoko nang pag-usapan and somehow, medyo it left a mark in my life na gan’to. And that time, I wasn’t really in good terms with some of my classmates dahil sorry to say, I was dealing with a lot of demons in my head. Ni hindi man lang talaga in-explain sakin ng maayos ang mental health condition ko (which you know, has emerged ever since before naging uso ang SPEAK OUT re: mental health awareness; well, no offense sa mga may mental health issues).

Somehow, another factor that destroyed our friendship was online games. DOON NA TALAGA nag-start ang Cold War.

And knowing the strict rules of this alma mater? FUCK NO. I won’t explain everything in detail na.

OK so to speak: Hindi na kami friends sa Friendster, at saka di na kami nag-uusap gaano sa YM, and yes, hindi parin kami friends sa Multiply something like that.

So to speak. NO JIDORI. Kahit civilian-wearing day, shit na malagkit, no communication with him. Just pure cold war via away thru social media for petty reasons.

2008 - And yes, he graduated from high school, and I do not have any idea about his college. Well, none of my business tho. The Cold War still continues.

So to speak, HINDI KO SIYA BINATI NUNG TANJOUBI NIYA. KAHIT GUSTONG-GUSTO KO.

Third year high school - So ayun. I met his imouto (LOL), and you know what? Ayun, sneak peek: NAGPAKILALA AKO SA KANYA with my best buddy... you know what I mean?

Hindi ko lang hinalata na kilala ko si kuya niya and shit.

DAFUQ. NAGKA-ALAMAN na during this episode like... putcha inamin ko na lang sa imouto niya na kilala ko siya at may gusto talaga ako sa kanya.

And you see, kahit pumupunta-punta kuya niya just to get her report card, like jusko, BAKIT HINDI KO PA SIYA LAPITAN!? I WAS SHOOKt. Confused me was like, I just want to talk to him, but I can’t. Social distancing lang ang peg, beh? xD

Tuloy parin ang Cold War sa internet. Walang katapusan.

Pero this was at the same time, my best buddy’s movements were kind of far from normal. Iyun din ang factor na may huge impact sa buhay ko... which would determine my future career in the long-run... (lol may pa-ganun ganun pa?).

Si meiwaku na lang talaga... she got the nice things, but on the following year I was LEFT WITH NOTHING! Admins must answer my demands... charot!

2009 - Ayun. Wala paring katapusang Cold War. Pero this time, I parted ways with my best buddy (sorry, wala nang ibang choice eh). AYOKONG mangyari iyun talaga... pero parting ways with him made my fourth year high school the WORST part of my high school life. Kasi tuwing anjan si best buddy, no one will really touch me (me paganun-ganun pa).

But yeah, I have to suck it up.

Gusto ko nang tumakas from that so-called tyrannical high school which has the crappiest quality of education in history. Putang ina talaga. Sorry for the language, but that school has to be accountable for damages (waley charot!).

That was also the time I commented on someone’s post na ganito ang school niya na gumagamit ng gantong language. Well, derogatory pa nga ang term eh (LOL).

COLD WAR PARIN.

2010 - Graduate na ako ng high school (SA WAKAAAAAAS!). Well, the bad memories and sh*t because I think the one responsible for sectioning students INSULTED ME ALL THROUGHOUT, and yeah.

Chapter 2: Pamantasang Taft Avenue

I FINALLY CAME TO HIS SCHOOL. YEE-HAW!

Pero di parin tapos ang laban. Again, the Cold War has re-emerged on what? Formspring! The shittiest website you’ll ever encounter in your entire life.

Somehow, I gained more EMENIES online... because you know that anime and video games are kind of BANNED in our household, but I watch anime secretly through torrent (shhhhh). Nalagyan pa ng VIRUS ang laptop ko dahil gusto ko talagang ma-download iyung mga content na ANIME talaga. And why the F*** did I NOT take up Japanese studies instead, if I love anime? Well, then and again the meiwaku person’s gaslighting and sh*t...

And 2010 was my FUCKING WORST YEAR because sinagad ko pa nga ang college. Bakit di na lang ako nag-gap year and shit? At gini-guilt trip pa nga ako na dapat UST na lang ako dahil ganto. But NO. Wala sanang problema ang UST but look, you want me to experience another part 2 of my high school alma mater? NO WAY, Jose. At talagang gusto ko na talagang mag-civilian clothes because it signifies FREEDOM!

Oh wait—freedom my ass. Wala parin akong bonggang-bonggang freedom dahil I was still continuing to BATTLE MY INNER DEMONS like WTF was I born this way and smth like that... ayun.

Medyo nasa stage talaga ako ng self-deprecation, NO THANKS to my background and whatnot. Everyone had really aristocratic features, and academic achievements and they’re so confident about themselves (TEKA... baka FULL of themselves).

And that’s also the time na parang hindi ko rin feel ang mga magiging kasama ko for the first 2 terms. Sorry to say, but it seems that I did not belong to their league at all.

Parang ganun.

And then again, AYOKO NANG MAG-ELABORATE gaano.

This year was the only year I learned to RISE UP from my mistakes. 2 fucking failures only means that “O AYAN, sa sobrang conceited mo kasi, ba’t di mo kaya babaan pride mo?”

Di mo masisi, turbulent masyado ang high school life ko. Meganon. Chos.

2011 - So yeah, third term of my college life... I decided to cross-enroll because I really do not feel to be with these sorts of people. YES, the elitistas.

YEAH... they only dress nicely and speak English like a person from the soshal high society pero manners ANLAYO... parang alipin race by practice parin pero naka-LV ang mga luka-luka.

KAYA AYOKO NA SILANG MAKITA! Charot!

This year was also the first time I came to Japan. MY DREAM DESTINATION! Pero huwag kayo, naging favorite country ko talaga siya (well sorry to say, na-”brainwash” ako ng mga libtard ideas that time, abandoning the conservatism from high school) dahil sa anime pati video games.

Sinabi ko talaga, sana makabalik ako sa Japan. KAHIT European studies ang major ko nun.

And yeah... medyo hindi ko na ma-open mind ko because of this constant fear-mongering from this sort of environment that isn’t really open to new ideas and only cares about snobbery. Kaya siguro mas malapit ang loob ko sa mga hard sciences majors dahil ‘di hamak mas open-minded tsaka conservative in practice talaga sila... and f*** liberals, ya know.

OO, Cold War parin talaga, fren. Di kami nag-uusap at kahit nakikita ko rin siya paminsan-minsan, I just do some sorts of weird stuff and yeah...

2012 - THESIS year. Jusko... heto pa talaga ang pinaka-judgment day sa lahat. Like, ga-graduate pa ba ako, kahit sabihin nating pasaway student ako nun?

Pero, Cold War parin.

2013 - The time I graduated from college. INUNAHAN KO SIYA! BWAHAHAHAHAHHA!

Pero huwag kayo—medyo rocky road din ang taong ‘to dahil I decided to reconcile with my best buddy and raised the white flag dahil nga siyempre, I tried to forget him but NO WAY... he was a huge part of my life kaya papano ko siya kakalimutan? Diba?

Well, because I fucking missed the graduation ball of my batch. AYOKO sanang pumunta dun for personal reasons... well, may tiket na ako pero gusto ko talagang ibenta. PRAMIS!!!

The result? GAP YEAR from looking for work. Just to attend next year’s grad ball.

After I graduated, I went to South Korea for the 1st time and JAPAN... for ze second time around. First time in Tokyo.

Grabe.

Wala akong masabi.

Dun na siguro nagsimula ang formal Japanese lessons ko.

Pero again, COLD WAR parin.

2014 - YES!!! I attended the grad party... with my high school bestie. Sobrang happy ko nun dahil makakasama ko siya muli. <3

AND...

Pumasok ako sa law school. WELL, LAHAT NG MGA MAHAHALAGANG GAMIT KO, NAWALA SAKIN. F*** those 3 drivers na alipin race by practice! I HEYT DRAHGS!!!

Pero, Cold War parin.

Chapter 3: Travajo, Shigoto, Arbeit

2015 - The time HE graduated from college. Well, I was already studying photography so yeah... and during this year, this is where I had my very first job. Ayun. Meaning to say, new crushes and sh*t, and yeah, meeting new people.

Pero, Cold War parin.

At the same time, meeting new people? Dalawa rin naging crush ko. Pero LABAG sa kalooban ko at pumunta kami ng North America. FUCK... I don’t wanna come back but my parents insisted and sh*t.

Sorry to say, pa-sh*th0l3 na kasi iyung alam niyo na, pinaka-supposedly makapangyarihang bansa sa buong daigdig este hegemon. Gomen nasai to my American friends, but if you knew me closer and deeper, no offense to your country tho!

I was sooooo inggit sa mga taong nakapag-Japan on this year. Haist. Di afford mag-Japan pero afford mag-US? ABNORMAL OI.

Hanggang kapritso’t pabonggahan lang kayo dun eh. And I HATE IT!

Pero 2015 is also the year that I really need to move on from you-know-who. Kasi jusko, dami-daming gwapo diyan! Hindi lang siya!

2016 - WAIT... this is the best year for me... and pretty much the worst. First time kong pumunta ng Kyoto and thought that this is like the Philippines when it’s summer. Tourists weren’t really too many and yeah, move on talaga from that special someone dahil inisip ko one day, mahahanap ko na talaga ang special someone ko. Jusko, daming mas gwapo pa dun anoh! HAHAHAHA.

And my first time to USJ! YEE-HAW!

Bonggang-bongga’t heto na rin ang “moment of truth has finally arrived” and sh*t, at saka PANIBAGONG CRUSH all the way... sa work ko pa nakita at dehins basta-bastang tao iyun! BWAHAHAHAHA at siya pa nga nag-udyok sakin mag-art (BWAHAHAHAHA).

Hindi biro iyan—kung di dahil pinapunta ako sa Craft Mania, malamang I would have NEVER spent my money ng bonggang-bongga sa mga art materials na di ko pa alam gamitin that time. Pabonggahan lang and sorts of stuff (KIDS, don’t try this at home, ha? Learn to save your keep kahit papano)—para lang mag-show off.

2017 - COLD WAR PARIN.

2018 - COLD WAR PARIN.

Pero mind you, this is when the defining point of time I really have to prove myself na worthy akong mag-Japan. NOPE. Not the Japayuki sort of thing dahil... watashi no kao kara suru to, not to brag, but does it seem like... DO I LOOK LIKE A JOKE TO YOU!? Beh, move on na! Hindi na high school itey! Chos!

Pero mind you, this was also the time I un-expectedly PASSED JLPT for the first time. I literally was happy, but still not complacent. Nakukulangan pa ako.

And this is also the time I proved to myself, babalik ako sa Japan to fulfill my childhood dream: Disney Resort sa Japan dahil dun ko talaga gusto eh! Haist talaga, malas ako at dehins ako half-Japanese, you know that feeling of wanting to go to Japan before 2010 because of the cool stuff... pero turns out hindi. Mamaya na.

And after going to Tokyo Disneyland? The next day, we went to unexpectedly the art store that would become my FAVORITE PLACE in the world dahil na-meet ko na ang lalakweng nagpa-tibok ng puso ko. CHAROT!!! Imagine, grabe OPPOSITE niya talaga ang color ng mga Binay, walang gluta pa iyan! Pero likas na gwapo’t magaling pa mag-English (never mind his funny accent LOL). At BAROK pa Nihongo ko nun. As in hazukasii tsukaikata desho! w

Siya ang defining moment ng buong trip ko sa Japan. Dahil siyempre, he has this smile na sobrang sincere at walang pretensions... like he was like that dude whom you want to take for dinner. LOL me paganun-ganun pa.

AT siyempre, back to you-kn0w-who again, tensions are getting relaxed, pero COLD WAR PARIN technically.

2019 - Heto na iyung taong formally pumunta ako ng Japan na walang uwian talaga. Dire-diretso na ang paninirahan ko bilang ryuugakusei. At siyempre, hazukashii parin dahil shit talaga na malagkit, my Japanese wasn’t very very good. Sono kaiwa nouryoku ha zenzen hazukashikatta desho. Maa, mou takusan naratta houga yoroshii yo.

And YES, I went to different places like Kamakura, Yokohama Chinatown, Kobe, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Nara... shit andami na talaga. Dahil naka-stay ako sa Japan for a year. And my mom often visits me dahil siyempre hitorgurashi ako ditey. And it’s quite depressing ya know—loner, iyung feeling na welcome ka pero di ka parin belong sa society nila. At medyo confused stage parin ako dahil pagod na ako ng bonggang-bongga sa Philippine politics kaya I need a fucking break. But no... things don’t really work that way ya see.

Chapter 4: The moment of truth has finally arrived—tokoro no naka ni ha, Nippon de

And this is one defining moment when wait... like I went to Kobe for the first time around...

Nandito na lang ako sa Japan, at siyempre iyung crush ko na iyun talaga (oi, hindi si opposite skintone ng mga Binay, ok?), I just want to reconcile with him ever since. So, why not again... do something about it?

Remember, wala nang Yahoo Messenger. Wala na ring Friendster. Pati Multiply tigok na rin. At saka wala na ang online games, anoh? DotA na lang tsaka Mobile Legends, pagkaka-alam ko.

And so it happened like this...

He already viewed my IG posts, and that was the time I really had to focus on my studies in the bekka program. Andito na lang ako sa Japan, at saka you know... like the kalungkutan in my eyes show that despite that I love Japan, and I wished to naturalize in the place I consider my second home, parang gusto ko nang i-abandona iyung idea na iyun. Because for one, I am fully aware that Japan is not an immigration-friendly country.

So yeah, because he views my stories on Instagram, I guess this is the time I have to poke him on Facebook?

Oo, sa Messenger ko pa ginawa iyun.

And surprisingly, he sent me a message.

Ayun.

Wait lang ha... ayun.

Nakita ko na talaga na “Sorry sa late reply... ano po iyun? Oh, na-alala nga kita, at sorry sa nagawa ko noon. Sobrang immature ko nun at alam mo na hindi ka deserving sa ganun.”

Umiyak ako. Bonggang-bonggang reconciliation na talaga ang ramdam ko.

Nagpasalamat talaga ako sa kanya, siya iyung dahilan kung bakit nandito ako sa Japan. Shikata ga nai kedo, kung di dahil sa kanya well... I would never be in Japan right now.

Siya parin talaga ang babalikan ko at the end of the day. At hindi ko mai-tatanggi na siya talaga ang inspirasyon ko sa pagpunta ko rito sa Japan bilang ryuugakusei.

2020 - Coronavirus.

Heto na rin ang taon na for good na ang rainichi niya. Totsuzen iyun, hindi iyan ang original plan niya. And his company was already dissolving, so he has to deal with things and stuff before he gets free time.

At takot talaga siya sa coronavirus.

At naka-graduate pa ako. Pasado ko lahat mga subject ko. Pero hindi parin ako kuntento talaga. May kulang pa.

OO, nung panahong iyun sobrang depressed talaga ako. Fuck, all the good and the bad memories in my Japanese university were like, emerging again, just looking at the clothes.

It’s like telling me I really have to go back home.

Kailangan ko nang umuwi ng Pilipinas dahil wala na ako gaanong obligasyon dito sa Japan. Also, whenever I wake up in the morning? I often get depressed, wishing nagtagal lang ako dito sa Japan, pero mukhang hindi talaga para sakin ang Japan, iyan ang ramdam ko.

But I wished so hard, magkita pa kami.

Kotoshi no rokugatsu - Dapat nakauwi na ako ng Pinas nitey. Oo nga, dahil hanggang gantong buwan lang ako andito sa Japan. And I’m stuck in a limbo simply because of that panirang coronavirus.

I cannot admit, I was battling my own demons while I was in school. Like, hindi ko talaga tanggap ang nakaraan ko because I wasted my time being YOLO. Like, ano ba talaga gusto ko paglaki ko?

Fuck, how I wish I planned earlier, but certain factors like political something something was a hindrance. PERO HINDI.

Until I finally decided to meet him.

Lubusin ko na’to. I worked so effing hard just to bring back our friendship. I wanted a closure. I WANTED IT EVER SINCE. Gusto ko na talagang tapusin ‘tong kabanatang maitataguri kong Cold War.

The Cold War that shaped me into a better person, I guess?

June 10 - The day we finally met.

The day when eventually, niyakap ko siya at tinawag ko na sempai.

I finally found the closure I was seeking for.

I noticed, maraming nagbago for sure: First and foremost, inamin niya ring dehins niya gusto masyado ang nangyari sa high school life... and yeah mas enjoy di hamak ang college life, where he learned a lot of stuff.

Sa Japan pa talaga, of all places. I tried other sorts of cultures, if this will fit me, but in the end I simply ended up being in the place I consider my second home, and met my crush there and had the closure I was seeking for: Didn’t expect he would delete some of his social media accounts which sorry to say, parang Fall of the Berlin Wall ang peg.

I was like, I would never expect him to be the person I knew since high school. Kung di ko man lang na-afford makipag-jidori sa  kanya o batiin siya sa Meris o sa La Salle...

Kaya siya tinatawag na Cold War.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

We went into Election Day with a hypothesis: Most Americans would cast a straight-ticket ballot — with some notable exceptions, which we’ll address in a moment. And we decided a good way to test this was to look at statewide races most likely to drive turnout in a midterm election cycle: U.S. Senate and governor contests.

There were 22 states that had races for both the Senate and governor on the ballot this election cycle. And what we found was the same party swept both offices in 16 of the 21 states where each race has been called1, with Democrats capturing both races in 12 states and Republicans doing so in four. Or, in other words, our hypothesis was mostly right — most Americans did vote for the same party in their Senate and governors race. But there were five states — Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio and Vermont — where voters chose a Republican governor and a Democratic senator.

And while we were interested in what happened in these five states (more in a moment), we also wanted to look at every state that had both a Senate and governor race on the ballot to see just how far apart the voting margins were. The idea was this will help us understand how uncommon — or common — split-ticket voting was in 2018. And we could then situate what happened in 2018 by looking at previous midterms to see if there was a trend in how much split-ticket voting occurred between these two offices. (Spoiler: Split-ticket voting hit a new low.)

To do this, I calculated the difference between the margin of victory in the Senate and gubernatorial races for each state using the Democratic and Republican vote shares in each contest.2 And as the table below shows, Massachusetts had the biggest difference between its vote share margin in its races for Senate and governor. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker won reelection by about 32 percentage points and Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren garnered a second term with a roughly 26-point margin, producing a gap of 57 points. So, in other words, in hyper-blue Massachusetts roughly 25 to 30 percent of voters cast ballots for both Baker and Warren.3 Two other states, Vermont and Maryland, also had very large differences between their Senate and governor races — about 55 and 47 points, respectively. Along with Massachusetts, these races all featured relatively popular incumbent Republican governors — Phil Scott in Vermont and Larry Hogan in Maryland — running in strongly Democratic states that easily reelected incumbent Democratic senators. The popularity and independent streaks of these GOP governors clearly helped them overcome the sharply Democratic leans of their states.

Split ticket voting in statewide races is pretty rare

Difference between the size of the margin of victory in 2018 Senate and governor races

Senate Governor State Winner Incumb. Margin Winner Incumb. Margin Difference MA Warren ✓ +25.5 Baker ✓ +31.9 57.4 VT Sanders* ✓ +40.3 Scott ✓ +14.6 54.9 MD Cardin ✓ +33.4 Hogan ✓ +13.4 46.8 CT Murphy ✓ +20.2 Lamont +3.1 17 AZ Sinema ✓ +2.0 Ducey ✓ +14.4 16.5 HI Hirono ✓ +42.3 Ige ✓ +29.0 13.3 MN‡ Klobuchar ✓ +24.1 Walz +11.4 12.7 ME King* ✓ +19.0 Mills +7.6 11.5 TX Cruz ✓ +2.6 Abbott ✓ +13.3 10.7 NY Gillibrand ✓ +33.0 Cuomo ✓ +22.3 10.7 OH Brown ✓ +6.4 DeWine +4.2 10.6 TN Blackburn +10.8 Lee +21.1 10.2 WI Baldwin ✓ +10.9 Evers +1.1 9.7 NM Heinrich ✓ +23.5 Grisham +14.3 9.2 RI Whitehouse ✓ +23.0 Raimondo ✓ +15.5 7.6 PA Casey ✓ +12.8 Wolf ✓ +16.8 4 MI Stabenow ✓ +6.4 Whitmer +9.5 3 WY Barrasso ✓ +36.9 Gordon +39.8 2.9 NV Rosen +5.0 Sisolak +4.1 0.9 MN‡ Smith ✓ +10.6 Walz +11.4 0.8 NE Fischer ✓ +19.2 Ricketts ✓ +18.9 0.4

Election data as of 10 a.m. on Nov. 16, 2018. Only states with both a Senate and gubernatorial election that featured candidates from both major parties are included. This means California is excluded because no Republican candidate qualified for its Senate election. Florida is also not included because both its Senate and gubernatorial elections are still uncalled. Some data may not add up due to rounding.

*Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Maine Sen. Angus King are included as Democrats because they caucus with the party in the Senate.

‡Minnesota is included twice because it had two Senate elections this year.

Source: ABC NEWS

But these three states were notable outliers — no other state had a difference between their Senate and governor races that was greater than 17 points. That said, these less divided contests can still show you where a stronger candidate for one party may have made a difference. Take Tennessee’s Senate race, for instance. Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn defeated Democrat Phil Bredesen there, but Bredesen — a popular former governor — made the Senate contest notably closer than the gubernatorial election.

Incumbency may have been a factor, too. Both the Tennessee Senate and gubernatorial races were open seats, but in another GOP-leaning state like Ohio, there was one incumbent on the ballot, which might help explain why Ohioans elected a Democratic senator and a Republican governor. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown won his race by about 6 points and Republican Mike DeWine won the open-seat governor race by 4 points. Given that Ohio is 7 points to the right of the country, Brown probably benefited at least some from an incumbency advantage The two races ran relatively close together — the difference was 11 points — suggesting that most voters voted for the same party in both contests.

But we were also interested in what would happen if we took a step back and zoomed out, looking at other midterm cycles and split-ticket voting. How would 2018 compare? It turns out that 2018 is part of a trend that shows fewer Americans are splitting their tickets (at least in races for the Senate and governors in midterm elections). This election had the smallest median difference of any midterm cycle going back to at least 1990 — 10 points.4

As you can see, even though 2018 has the lowest mark in the past three decades, the median difference from election cycle to election cycle has bounced around. Still, the overall trend is one of decline, at least since 1998. You might wonder why there are fairly regular ups and downs in the chart, but this can be explained by the number of elected governors running for re-election in each cycle.

For example, only eight incumbent governors ran in the 24 states included in my calculations for 2010, whereas in the 2014 cycle there were 16 states with incumbent governors. And what I found was cycles with fewer incumbent governors running tended to show less evidence of split-ticket voting (a lower median) while cycles with more incumbents demonstrated more evidence of split-ticket voting (a slightly higher median). Part of this is because governors often benefit from an incumbency advantage. As my colleague Nate Silver pointed out in his introduction to FiveThirtyEight’s governor forecast, partisanship explains less in gubernatorial elections than it does in federal contests, and therefore, incumbency might matter slightly more for governors than it does in either the House or Senate.

No matter which way you cut it, the difference between the margins in a state’s gubernatorial and Senate races has shrunk. More voters are casting straight-ticket ballots. There are exceptions, of course, but this shift matches what we know about the larger electoral picture: voters are more partisan and the country is more divided than it’s ever been in the modern era of U.S. politics.

[femmesfollesnebraska]

Blog at 40, Wanda Ewing at 40

This is my third in my series of blog posts on the occasion of my recent 40th birthday, and LFF’s forthcoming 10th anniversary (April 2021), writing informally around some of my favorite artists – what did they do / create their 40th year? Why do I like them so much? What’s my favorite work of theirs? Just a few words from me complemented by images, as I figure out what I’m doing at 40.

My first post on the series was on Judy Chicago. My second post I mused on artist Carolee Schneemann. For this third post, I bring it back to my friend and mentor, feminist artist Wanda Ewing (1970–2013), probably the first artist I ever met who directly and fearlessly claimed to be an artist dedicated to celebrating her womanhood--notably for her, black womanhood.

I have written about Wanda and her work, and published interviews with her many times. Perhaps my favorite was an interview we did for the now defunct online magazine, Gender Across Borders (which I reposted on my blog). I remember that evening sipping wine at a local Omaha cafe, talking art and feminism, absolutely one of my favorite days. I wrote about her on my blog several times, most notably after her passing (find it here) which details how I met her, and how much she personally meant to me. I also wrote a little memorial about her for SGC Print International Journal as well as a few posts on her blog now managed by her sister, about the formal facets of feminism in her work, from a presentation I gave about her at an art conference (post 1 on satire + feminism; post 2 on pop art + feminism; post 3 on pop art + feminism continued).  So, I won’t go on here about how much her mentorship and friendship meant to me or how much all of her work impacted me. Here are three works of hers created during her 40th year - that happen to be three of my favorites....All artwork (c) Wanda Ewing from wandaewingartist.com.

Peach n Plum, acrylic and latex on canvas, 2010, 79″ x 100″

Writes Wanda about her painting:

I LOVE painting! I don’t know that it’s my strongest means of expression, but I do enjoy the act of moving color around a surface with a brush.

The funny thing about it is that my paintings tend to always look like prints — flat and graphic. It works.

I find her modesty so funny -- obviously her painting is AMAZING. I remember seeing this work in our Peerless exhibit we curated together, tremendously and lusciously covering a wall, beautifully graphically and the content combined with flowers, celebrating sexuality and sensuality, femininity and strength, in a huge way, just pure awe. I also remember that night - how crowded that pop-up exhibit was - for an exhibit of work by women - pointing at each other across the crowds mouthing “you did this” - “no you did this” makes me tear up, and her amazingness.

I wouldn’t have a master’s degree in art history if it weren’t for Wanda - it never occurred to me before speaking with her and her seeing my total curiosity and passion for all things art (and feminist art at that), via my curating, blog and art column I had in the local paper. I didn’t think I could do it - she knew I could.

At any rate - back to her work - 

Bluebell, 59x57″, 2010, acrylic and latex on canvas

Contrast is one of my favorite things about Wanda’s work - along with everything mentioned above - she had such a skill with format and color. I love Bluebell’s pose, hand, eye contact - not only does her work inspire the graphic/concept of my work - but in how I model, how I stand, how I practice modeling (I modeled for her classes many times), how I practice body love and confidence. She herself had the best walk, the most celebratory love for her body which is exuded stellarly in her work such as this.

Just 2 more of my favorites of hers:

Midnight,  Yarn, canvas mesh, sequins 51″x 26″, 2012

I love her latchhooks - the last series she made before she passed, and she debuted at our exhibit, VOICE. I remember her telling me the above portrait was from a photo of Halle Berry - I have this on a magnet on my fridge and look of it daily and think of Wanda. This series again, softens and celebrates images of black women. Wanda on her website of this series:

If I had a dollar for every piece of yarn I cut and knotted, I could pay my house off and probably buy a vacation home somewhere really cool. I’d probably have one in the Bay Area. Ooh or maybe Toronto. Never stop dreaming!

I like to allow my self to try new things when it comes to my artwork. Working with other materials is challenging, frustrating and always teaches me something new.

I remember her emailing me (after I had moved away) telling me about the hours she spent “hookin”. Her voice (her own blog posts are also archived on her website) is/was also so impactful - not only what she said/wrote but how she said it - I find strength in hers that was so universally strong, feminine and fierce at the same time, just like her work.

Lastly - (so hard to pick just a few!)

Video Grrrlzz 2, graphite on paper, 2005

I remember going to her fundraiser around this time before she did a residency and purchasing a small print similar to this - tributes to video vixens like Karrine Steffans and basically how much shit they took, the drawing above says it all. I also love Wanda’s view of drawing:

…the root of everything…

YES. I was a drawing major of studio art in drawing - we would argue with the ceramicists about which is best - I mean, come on, obviously drawing. I love her line work, her texture, how she drew figures. Her inspiration is clearly evident in my work. 

Her writing, all of her work, inspires me professionally, artistically and personally. In fact - she inspired and named this blog. Go check her out - https://wandaewingartist.com/ . 

Unlike my previous blog posts (though I may go back and add), I’m going to share a few drawings I made in tribute to Wanda...

Tribute to Wanda Ewing, pencil and watercolor in on paper, Sally Brown Deskins, 2019

Double Edged Sword (Tribute to Wanda Ewing), acrylic and ink on canvas, Sally Brown Deskins, 2017

Tribute to Wanda Ewing (trio), watercolor ink on paper, 2019, Sally Brown Deskins

~Sally Brown (Deskins)

https://sallydeskins.wixsite.com/feministart

IG @sallery_art

-

Les Femmes Folles is a volunteer organization founded in 2011 with the mission to support and promote women in all forms, styles and levels of art from around the world with the online journal, print annuals, exhibitions and events; originally inspired by artist Wanda Ewing and her curated exhibit by the name Les Femmes Folles (Wild Women). LFF was created and is curated by Sally Brown Deskins.  LFF Books is a micro-feminist press that publishes 1-2 books per year by the creators of Les Femmes Folles including the award-winning Intimates & Fools (Laura Madeline Wiseman, 2014) , The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters: Ten Tales (Laura Madeline Wiseman/Lauren Rinaldi, 2015 and Mes Predices (catalog of art/writing by Marie Peter Toltz, 2017). Other titles include Les Femmes Folles: The Women 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 available on blurb.com, including art, poetry and interview excerpts from women artists. A portion of the proceeds from LFF books and products benefit the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s Wanda Ewing Scholarship Fund.

Submissions always open!

https://femmesfollesnebraska.tumblr.com/callforart-writing

[nutritiousinsightsusan]

Gluten: Eat it or Leave it?

Gluten has been in the human diet for thousands of years, yet remains one of the most confusing and frustrating dietary topics in modern nutrition. Should you eat it or avoid it? Is a “gluten-free” diet really better for you or is it just the latest diet fad? Well, that depends….and this is what I’ll discuss today.

 What is gluten?

Gluten is the name of the storage proteins found in the seeds (grains) of grass, and there are over 1,000 sub-fractions which have been identified. Yes, all grains contain gluten, because these proteins, along with starch in the endosperm, are necessary to help nourish a germinating seed.

 And yet, only one sub-fraction of gluten, alpha-gliadin, is considered to be gluten when it comes to identifying the gluten-containing grains in the US. By this definition, only wheat, barley, rye, spelt, and triticale are on the list.

 But this is incomplete. Other sub-fractions of gluten are found in oats, rice, corn, and millet, but since they don’t contain alpha-gliadin, they are not on the list of gluten containing grains. This is not scientifically sound and misleads consumers.

 What does the “gluten-free” label really mean?

The “gluten-free” label is an interesting label. Although there are over 1,000 sub-fractions of gluten, only one sub-fraction matters in the current regulations – alpha-gliadin. When it comes to labeling, only items which DO NOT contain wheat, barley, rye, spelt, and triticale will carry the “gluten-free” label.

 However, knowing that gluten includes many other proteins in many other grains, a more accurate description of the current “gluten-free” label would be “alpha-gliadin-free”. It is worth discussing the idea of labeling products as “grain-free” vs. “gluten-free”, since the definition of “gluten-free” remains limited.

 Why does gluten in the diet matter?

Gluten is a protein, so it can elicit an immune response in the body, and this can have serious consequences on our health. It depends on genetic, environmental, and lifestyle components for each individual, but it is estimated that up to a third of the population has some sort of negative response to gluten. Consuming gluten may not be in your best interest for general health and may even be life threatening. Having an accurate understanding of how you react to gluten is important for protecting health.

 How do I know if gluten might be a problem?

If gluten is a problem for you, it is defined as either an allergy or a sensitivity. There are four categories of gluten reactions:

 1.     Allergy

2.     Celiac Disease

3.     Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity

4.     Non-immune malabsorption Syndrome

 The first category is a traditional allergy to wheat. This is determined by a blood test or the traditional allergy skin prick, developed in the 1950’s. A traditional allergy to wheat will trigger a histamine immune response known as IgE and is easily detected. This is similar to a peanut allergy.

 The other three categories are not allergies because they will not elicit an IgE response. Instead, other immune responses occur, including antibody production, and may involve IgA(lungs and intestine), IgG (systemic), and IgM (initial) responses. These are known as gluten sensitivities and are the major source of gluten-related disorders.

 The most familiar category of gluten sensitivity is specific to the intestinal tract and the alpha-gliadin sub-fraction. This is known as Celiac disease, a life threatening autoimmune disorder. This can produce bloating, abdominal pain, irritable bowel, weight gain, malabsorption of nutrients, intestinal lesions, villous atrophy, and internal bleeding. It is generally diagnosed by the presence of antibodies to alpha-gliadin and a positive test for transglutaminase 2 (IgG). But sometimes Celiac is so subtle in its course that it isn’t correctly diagnosed until there is extensive and irreversible damage to the intestinal tract and other organs, including the liver, brain, and thyroid.  It has been shown that it can take up to eleven years to receive a correct diagnosis.1,2

 Why the difficulty? Because gluten sensitivity isn’t reliably specific to alpha-gliadin IgG test. Some Celiac patients will never test positive for antibodies to alpha-gliadin using the IgG fraction, yet their intestines will exhibit the end stage damage seen in those with antibodies to alpha-gliadin. They know they feel better when not consuming gluten, but their blood work testing for IgG responses doesn’t indicate a problem.

 Despite the possibility of no IgG antibodies, alpha-gliadin reaction is clearly the “gateway” to understanding gluten sensitivity, as it is the most likely to be identified based on current laboratory testing. As more research is conducted, though, we are learning that people who tend to react to the alpha-gliadin commonly also react to the other sub-fractions of gluten at some level. And this creates inflammation not only in the gut but also outside of the gut, begging a deeper understanding of gluten sensitivity and other immune responses.

 Gluten sensitivity really is an autoimmune disease with diverse manifestations, meaning it may produce symptoms outside of the intestinal tract.3 And this brings us to the next type of reaction: Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity. It can manifest as joint pain, arthritis, brain fog, ataxia, neuropathy, headaches (migraines), depression, eczema, skin rashes, carpel tunnel, Hashimoto’s thyroid disease, Schizophrenia, anxiety, ADHD, autism, hair loss, weakened vessel walls, and liver cirrhosis.3-13 Symptoms that manifest outside of the intestinal tract have been less likely to be recognized and diagnosed as being related to gluten since they may produce responses with IgA and IgM as opposed to IgG, and patients can suffer for years before understanding the role of gluten in producing these inflammatory responses and problems.

 The last type of sensitivity is identified as Non-Immune Malabsorption Syndrome and occurs because gluten sensitivity has destroyed the villi lining the intestinal wall responsible for nutrient absorption. This may be the only sign of a gluten intolerance.

How can you test for gluten sensitivity?

The least expensive and easiest way to test your sensitivity to gluten is to COMPLETELY avoid it for at least two weeks and then see how you feel. This refers to avoiding alpha-gliadin, so it would be anything containing wheat, barley, or rye. After two weeks, you can reintroduce these grains and see how you feel. This can be pretty dramatic for some people. For others it can be subtle, but the longer you abstain, the better you feel. The gold-standard for trying this is six months, because some patients have really inflamed systems that need to heal from other infections and toxins, including mold and glyphosates from pesticides which can produce symptoms similar to gluten sensitivity. Those who find they’re sensitive may want to go a step further and eliminate all grains from the diet in order to truly assess their ability to optimize their health.

 Eliminating gluten becomes easier with practice, but it may initially feel like there’s a lack of options for eating. Resist the temptation to buy processed “gluten-free” products as these often contain hydrogenated oils and sugars and are no better for you than other processed foods. There are some options for pasta and bread products without gluten, but try to break the bread and pasta habit altogether and substitute other foods. Make “gluten-free” bread or pasta an occasional food rather than a staple food since many of these can raise your blood sugar substantially.

 The best way to understand your gluten tolerance is to combine an elimination diet with blood and DNA testing. Using only a blood tests to determine gluten tolerance is limited because it will only analyze immune response related to IgG, IgA, IgE, and IgM pathways known as the T Helper 2 response (TH2). It will not account for those whose sensitivity takes the T Helper 1 pathway (TH1), which will react to gluten as a toxin and try to get rid of it, producing inflammatory damage but no Ig cell response. Both pathways can lead to autoimmunity but only one will be detected by the blood test. This is where DNA testing can be helpful.

 1.     DNA:

Checking for the HLA DQ on chromosome 6. There are two genes but lots of different alleles which present on the genes. The Celiac variant markers are DQ 2, DQ 2.5, and/or the HLA DQ8 genes. The other markers, which are not indicative of Celiac but gluten sensitivity, are the DQ1 or DQ3 genotype patterns, and these are associated with neurological symptoms such as depression, neuropathy, Schizophrenia, arthritis, anxiety.  Not all DNA tests will go beyond the DQ2 and DQ 8 SNP’s related to Celiac. The DQ1 and DQ3 may also need to be tested. The full test is available at www.glutenfreesociety.org

 2.    Blood Test

Array 3 from Cyrex Labs. This test looks for 12 different peptides to gluten, not just the gliadin fraction that is the traditional lab test. More information can be found at www.cyrexlabs.com

  REFERENCES

 1.      Van Heel DA, West J., Recent advances in coeliac disease. Gut. 2006 Jul;55(7):1037-46.

 2.      Goddard CJ, Gillett HR., complications of coeliac disease: are all patients at risk? Postgrad Med J. 2006 Nov;82(973):705-12.

 3.      Hadjavassilios, M. Gluten Sensitivity: from Gut to Brain. Lancet Neurol 2010; 9: 318–30.

 4.      Marietta E, Black K, Camilleri M, Krause P, Rogers RS 3rd, David C, Pittelkow MR, Murray JA. A new model for dermatitis herpetiformis that uses HLA-DQ8 transgenic NOD mice, J Clin Invest. 2004 Oct;114(8):1090-7.

 5.      Lindqvist U, Rudsander A, Boström A, Nilsson B, Michaëlsson G., IgA antibodies to gliadin and coeliac disease in psoriatic arthritis, Rheumatology (Oxford). 2002 Jan;41(1):31-7.

 6.      Humbert P, Pelletier F, Dreno B, Puzenat E, Aubin F, Gluten intolerance and skin diseases, Eur J Dermatol2006; 16 (1): 4-11.

 7.      Selva-O'Callaghan A, Casellas F, de Torres I, Palou E, Grau-Junyent JM, Vilardell-Tarrés M., celiac disease and antibodies associated with celiac disease in patients with inflammatory myopathy, Muscle Nerve. 2007 Jan;35(1):49-54.

 8.      Hadjivassiliou M, Grünewald R, Sharrack B, Sanders D, Lobo A, Williamson C, Woodroofe N, Wood N, Davies-Jones A., Gluten ataxia in perspective: epidemiology, genetic susceptibility and clinical characteristics, Brain. 2003 Mar;126(Pt 3):685-91.

 9.      Hadjivassiliou M, Aeschlimann D, Grünewald RA, Sanders DS, Sharrack B, Woodroofe N, GAD antibody associated neurological illness and its relationship to gluten sensitivity, Acta Neurol Scand. 2010 Apr 15.

 10.    Eaton W, Mortensen PB, Agerbo E, Byrne M, Mors O, Ewald H., Coeliac disease and schizophrenia: population based case control study with linkage of Danish national registers, BMJ. 2004 Feb 21;328(7437):438-9.

 11.    Hadjivassiliou M, Grünewald RA, Chattopadhyay AK, Davies-Jones GAB, Gibson A, Jarratt JA, et al. Clinical, radiological, neurophysiological and neuropathological characteristics of gluten ataxia. Lancet 1998;352:1582-5.

 12.    J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2006 Nov;77(11):1262-6., Hadjivassiliou M, Grünewald RA, Kandler RH, Chattopadhyay AK, Jarratt JA, Sanders DS, Sharrack B, Wharton SB, Davies-Jones GA, Neuropathy associated with gluten sensitivity.

 13.    Gluten sensitivity: from gut to brain., Hadjivassiliou M, Sanders DS, Grünewald RA, Woodroofe N, Boscolo S, Aeschlimann D, Lancet Neurol. 2010 Mar;9(3):318-30.

 14.    http://www.acupunctureintegrated.com/articles/malabsorption-syndromes-and-celiac-disease

 15.    www.glutenfreesociety.org

 16.    www.thedr.com

[dizzybunnies]

s3 theory (spoilers ig)

ok so this is concerning the pickup from the s2 finale so like if u havent seen that then scroll on down

ok so i was thinking. ykno that popular theory that cass is gothel’s kid? well lets do some quick maths babey!!

cass says shes 4 years older than rapunzel in keeper of the spire. rapunzel, as we know, is 18, as stated in the original 2010 movie.

that means that within 4 years, gothel and cass split up. gothel had to get her hands on raps, so she must have put cass up for adoption, because according to the fandom wiki (i cannot for the life of me remember when this happened, but i am assuming its true to help this theory out) the crownguard isnt her biological dad.

that being said, i doubt they had her around at the castle for 18 years until raps came home, and im sure there were no other ladies-in-waiting, considering there was no princess. its possible they had one on stand-by for a few years, but i doubt a literal newborn would need a lady-in-waiting.

ladies in waiting are also typically high-rank/noble, and are meant to servants AND companions to royals, so its highly likely that cass was hired within a few days of rapunzel’s return. like the king was probs like “yo crownguard. u got a daughter we can use as rapunzel’s lady-in-waiting lmao” and he was like “yea shore”

so cass is of course like, fuck yeah, i can finally start proving how kickass i am. point being she was hired with no connection to rapunzel at all, and by the end of s2, it had only been about a year since they had met, and while a lot can happen in a year, the opposite is true in terms of trust.

so s1 happens, and so does the majority of s2. then the house of yesterday’s tomorrow happens, and we see her coming out of the door at the end. if you look at the door, it looks like a beautiful forest--suspiciously so, considering it looks strikingly similar to the forest gothel’s tower was in.

so she walks out looking all somber and depressed. could she have seen something about her past? did she see gothel giving birth to her, raising her with love for 4 years, and then suddenly abandon her at some orphanage (and she thinks that hey, maybe her and eugene arent so different after all) to go and kidnap the lost princess that she herself later attended to?

wow. so she went through an awful childhood because of raps? the girl who hasnt been trusting her lately, the girl she serves to, the girl that didnt correct her/dismiss her when she addressed her as “your highness” instead of her loving nickname “raps”? (cue fuck this shit im out)

she finally though being a lady-in-waiting could be her big moment. she could prove she was awesome, that she could lead a squad, that she could protect royalty, but what has she been doing? following orders. being betrayed of trust. being hurt at the hands of the woman shes supposed to devote her life to. and for what? 

so no. fuck that shit.

aaaand the finale happens. her destiny? obviously she was put in this position to take the stone for herself to prove how great she can really be. all this time, she was being tested. her courage, her strength, her patience all led her to this very moment.

so the rocks were guiding HER there, but in order to play things off smoothly, the rocks also appeared to be there for raps; it would have been suspicious otherwise. likely, they also hid the fact that there were equally there for eugene, who was meant to take the stone himself as nobody was sure what would happen to rapunzel if he didnt. again, made sense, played smoothly, not suspicious at all. but the deep, dark, motive? eugene and raps were just pawns in the game of CASS’ destiny. they had to be there to 1) help her get there and 2) arouse no suspicion.

well fuck that, raps thinks except more politely because she would never say fuck, because rapunzel’s been betrayed for the third time within a year and honestly she literally she would rather watch paint dry at this point.

luckily, however, eugene still has fight in him, and is like well shit i need to get that damn stone back so we can reunite it with the sundrop, and because rapunzel cant touch it or at least not touch it until its safely in our posession because we dont know what could happen to her, i guess its up to me to save the day, and he yeets to cassandra and the two get in an epic fistfight except its only epic for cassandra because shes as strong as thanos now

so the two fight, raps is probably having a simultaneous heart and panic attack as she watches her boyfriend and best friend killing each other, and wow thats pretty tramautic but we dont need to get into that.

at one point, because this is disney and if raps is the sun then eugene is the moon, eugene is able to call upon the power of the moonstone to defeat cass. it probably somehow merges with him as well as she, but because hes the dark prince and has dark blood, it resonates with him better. maybe it breaks into to pieces; his is about 2/3 of the stone while cass’ is 1/3. eventually, the thirds reuinte and cass is drained of all power, probably unconcious on the ground, and raps, not knowing how to feel, shouts for her. no answer. she whispers eugenes name, and he turns around and his eyes are the brightest shade of blue shes ever seen, and maybe he has a sickass blue streak of hair, but he says nothing, and hes standing over cass’ unconcious form and raps is still scared fucking shitless in the corner. she repeats his name, and he shouts, and hes covered in evil magic, and rocks are spreading everywhere, and maybe some cool ice stuff too idk, and pause. 

you know pokemon? ok and you know that Cool Ash Pokemon moment when one of ashs pokemon evolves or learns a new move, and it loses its shit? think pikachu, think infernape, think greninja, think lycanroc. they lose their shit and ash being ash just dashes to them and gives em a big ol hug. 

unpause, rapunzel is ash and eugene is ash’s pokemon. hes hurting her but has no control and hes screaming, and shes saying she loves him and shes holding him tight and shes crying and damn its really angsty.

eventually his magic calms down and he slumps to the ground, and hes like half awake and he asks what happened, and rapunzel explains everything, and cass wakes up, and the angst is over because this is disney so we need a happy ending damnit (even though we know cass isnt at their wedding in the future but hey. hey you. shut up. shush.)

so yeah the angst is over and raps explains what happened with cass and the three become friends again and eugene and raps kiss so the moonstone and sundrop are finally united, all three of their destinies have been fulfilled, and the rest of the season is the three of them living life happily and eugene eventually asking rapunzel to marry him!

babey.

[jacktaylorfansite]

Iain Glen’s Jack Taylor Is the Perfect Fix for Your Game of Thrones Withdrawal The Thrones star also weighs in on whether Ser Jorah will ever get a change of clothes.  by Joanna Robinson

For the last seven years, Scottish actor Iain Glen has spent a good portion of his time filming one of the biggest shows on the planet, Game of Thrones, in Ireland. When he’s out and about in Belfast, he’s the steadfast Ser Jorah Mormont. But a few hours drive away down on the coast of Galway Bay, they call Glen by a different name. “I can’t really go out and walk the streets without getting a lot of attention as being Jack Taylor,” Glen told VF.com over the phone. “That’s who they think I am, in very sweet, very supportive way.” Jack Taylor is the hard-drinking, Irish private investigator hero of the books by Ken Bruen, and the lead of a series of nine hour and a half TV crime thrillers of the same name. In Taylor—a former officer of Irish Garda Síochána and something of a ladies man—Glen gets to bring the full force of his charm out from behind the layers of repression he plays on Game of Thrones. In fact, through a quirk of European TV’s laissez-faire approach to scheduling, Glen actually appeared in his first Jack Taylor episode back in 2010, before he ever picked a sword on Thrones. And now, all nine episodes—including the third season, which just aired in the U.K. last fall—are finally available for Glen’s American fans on Acorn TV. Talk about methadone for your Thrones withdrawal. The actor spoke with VF.com about the lure of crime thrillers, why Jack Taylor has more success with the ladies than Jorah, and whether we’ll ever see poor Ser Mormont change out of that nasty, filthy shirt from Season 1. V.F. HWD: I heard that you’re a life-long crime thriller fan. What about that genre appeals to you? Iain Glen (IG): All that crime does is just give you a structure to your story in a very simple sense—a very strong beginning, middle, and end. Within that, you’re just telling stories. It can have romance, comedy, whatever you like. I suppose I think it’s a liberating milieu. There’s been a rich vein of Scandinavian drama, The Killing or The Bridge; through those, I feel like I’ve got to know Sweden a bit and Norway a bit. You get to know the politics of the place, the people, relationships. You sort of discover a society through it. If that’s true of Scandinavian crime, I wonder what about Jack Taylor is distinctly Irish. IG: There’s a great deal that is quintessentially Irish. There’s a strong obsession with religion and Catholicism within Ireland, which has done lots of good things and lots of bad things. The Irish boom and bust business—they made hay, and then it all went pear-shaped—means Jack is always deeply suspicious of business and those that are making money out of the community. Obviously you’ve got beautiful coastal Galway, but it’s a paradox in some ways—it’s a very beautiful coastline and city center, but there are problems. It’s got one of the highest suicide rates in Ireland. There’s a big youth population and quite a lot of drug culture there. There’s a dark underbelly to it. One of the things I like about Jack Taylor is I do think you get to know a community. You get to know Jack, his family, his mother, his difficult relationship with his mother, the people he falls in and falls out of love with. There’s a kind of claustrophobia, which is very true of that part of Ireland. We know it. It’s very funny. When we film there, I can't really go out and walk the streets without getting a lot of attention as being Jack Taylor. That’s who they think I am in very sweet, very supportive way. You’ve got this great, big, beautiful blue coat that’s iconic to your character. How much does slipping that on put you in the Jack Taylor mindset? IG: Ah, Jack Taylor and his coat. The producers were a little bit wary to begin with because it covers everything. But like a dialect, I think it certainly helps me as an actor. In a single statement, it tells you that he used to be Garda. He’s ex-police, and he’s still fucking with them, really. He’s upsetting them by wearing the coat, and they constantly want it back and they’re never going to get it. Meanwhile, poor Jorah would probably kill for that coat—he’s been stuck in pretty much the same costume since Season 1. IG: They found it for me, a costume that just felt right. I don’t know. It just felt like it belonged and belonged to him. But every year it gets dirtier and dingier and more threadbare. I’m worried that by the end, Jorah will just be wearing scraps. IG: I think Jorah just needs to land in a safer place, and then he’ll have time to change his clothing. Get cleaned up a little. You’ve actually been Jack longer than you’ve been Jorah. I think it’s hard sometimes for American audiences to understand that you can shoot nine installments of a story over seven years. IG: It’s been a frustration, sometime, but I am entirely, or at least to some degree, responsible for the time it’s taken to put together because I need to be very available for it. Because of other commitments, that’s been quite difficult. But you try and keep a continuity thread. We hope to make six more as soon as we can, and I think somehow in that feature format, that hour and a half rather than an hour, I think you get away with more time between them somehow. But there are so many different platforms now for TV in a way that it’s been such a radical change. Now when it hits Acorn, people who never saw the first ones can watch it all at once. Hopefully, if we’ve done it right, you don’t feel the time it’s taken for us to put it together. Maybe I look ancient in the last one and I look young and youthful in the first. I have no idea. I know a lot of people who watch you on Thrones are rooting for Ser Jorah to get the girl—any girl! Do you think they’ll be happy to see that Jack Taylor isn’t all about unrequited affection? IG: Yeah, it’s sweet, the fan reactions. I think that they wish Jorah well, and I think they wish he would—that he deserves physical love in return or something. I don’t know. I mean, the male fans react a little differently. But there is a certain female fan where maybe they see themselves in the story, and as long as you’re failing as Jorah, you’re maybe still more available for them in a funny way. Jack is a polar opposite in that he will get himself into terrible sexual pickles all the time, and is always doing very inappropriate things like having sex with the major suspect and that sort of stuff. He goes there without thinking and then ponders it afterwards, and Jorah ponders it too much, I think. Not that Jorah’s ever going to get it. Well, he might. Who knows? Do you have any general words of optimism or hope for Jorah fans who are quite worried about that spreading stony rash on his arm? IG: In all honesty, no one is more worried than me. There’s a high death rate in Thrones, and I desperately don’t want to be part of that number. We’ll have to see what unfolds.

[omanu]

i have a few tags to do, so im gonna do them all in one post so i dont keep tagging the same ppl in multiple things idk. dont worry, you dont need to do them if u dont want to ♥

i was tagged by @nashira , the angel ♥

¤ nickname: well, irl is manu, but tbh my name is manu. i have another nickname my family uses, that is budi lol

¤ zodiac sign: sagittarius 

¤ height: the best scenario here is 167cm, idk how much that is in ft or whatever lmao

¤ orientation: ….. like everyone 

¤ favourite fruit: cantaloupe 

¤ favourite season: winter and fall

¤ favourite book: i dont think i have one, but like, the last book i read was fucking amazing everyone should read, it’s gay, it’s a series of three books, and it’s called when women were warriors.

¤ favourite flower: all of them? i love flowers in general

¤ favourite scent: RAIN, and ngl the scent of matches 

¤ favourite animal: dogs and cats

¤ favourite colour: light colors and also black and blue

¤ coffee, tea or hot cocoa: hot cocoa

¤ average sleep hours: well now i sleep a lot i would say 8-12 

¤ cat or dogs: BOTH

¤ n° of blankets: just one

¤ dream trip: ANY GOOD BEACH

¤ blog created: idr well, but 2015? or maybe late 2014. but ive been on tumblr since 2009/2010 lol

¤ favourite song: ……..dude idk rn is any song of bts, but on my last fm it’s probably a song by adam, the love of my life. and i love too many songs so i cant just write them all

Rules: Use the first letter of your name to answer each question. Real answers only. If the person who tagged you has the same initial, you must give different answers. You cannot use the same word twice. Once you enter your answers, tag 10 other people! i was tagged by @superunknwn​ , another angel ♥

Your name: Manu

A four letter word: mole *looks at nashira and sara* A boy’s name: … Manu An occupation: Musician Something you can wear: mittens  A place: McDonald's  A reason for being late: … idk … Moving? Medical matter? idk i used two words but they both begin with the letter m lol Something you shout: mYLES A movie title: Moana Something you drink: Martini An animal: Monkey A type of car: Mercedes  Song title: Ma City by bts lol i was just singing this

i was tagged by @bensun​ a looooong time ago sorry, but i too love doing these so why not. this one is similar to the first tag game, but im doing it anyway

Answer the questions and tag 20 followers you would like to get to know better! —————– Name: Manu

Nicknames: budi. i want new nicknames tbh, cute ones.

Zodiac Sign: sagittarius

Height: 167cm 

Orientation: same, i like all genders but the s*x part is……. uh, idrl

Ethnicity: native brazilian (indigenous) (wow i just saw this on the internet and im using it), mixed with whi*te some time in the past. i would know better if whi*es hadnt done that

Favorite Fruit: Probably blueberries or just berries in general and I loooove smoothies …. with any fruit to be honest

Favorite Season: Fall and winter

Favorite Book: to mention another one im reading the third book of the vampire chronicles, i love the second one, i love lestat

Favorite Flowers: yeah i like flowers, but idrn their names, i just love it

Favorite Color: light colors, but also black and blue again

Favorite Animal: dogs and cats

Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: hot chocolate

Average Sleep Hours: 8-12 ay

Cat or Dog Person: BOTh

Favorite Fictional Character: MIDNIGHTER

Number of Blankets I sleep with: just one

Ideal trip: beach!!

Blog Created: 2015 ig 

dear @superunknwn​ tagged me on this a looooooooooooooong ass time ago, sorry ily (actually she didnt tagged me but i wanted to do this so i just saved on my drafts) 
Rules: 
1. go to this site: https://www.random.org/lists/ 2. Pick 15 of your favorite characters or favorite people from your fandoms and list them 3. Tag at least 5 people 4. Have fun with it! 
— 
1. Mom/dad: Apollo!!!!!!!!!! yes!!!!! 2. Your sibling: jim halpert lmaoo thats fine 3. Your grandma/grandpa:  michael jackson 4. Haunts you: park seo joon 5. Your boyfriend/girlfriend: adam lambert (ok…. i would prefer jhope but ok) 6. Your ex: taystee hdsfkhfdksjh 7. Your best friend: MIDNIGHTER 8. Proposed to you: MYLES KENNEDY DHJKSHFDF 9. Your boss: slash….. thats not ideal but glad that i know him 10. The random person you met at the bar: lestat fdkslsd friend 11. Your rival: seo in guk NOOOOO he is my bf wtf 12. Gave you your first kiss: rothen skljkld 13. Drunk and singing karaoke with: lzzy hale my love 14. Played 7 minutes in heaven with:  JHOPE DFHKFSDJKSFHKJSD 15. Gave you your favorite dessert: chris traeger, my favorite dessert is not raisins

tbh im not gonna tag ppl anymore, ive already tagged everybody, yall just can do it

@lionesslindsey tagged me on this a looong time ago too, no surprise

RULES: answer all questions, add one question of your own and tag as many people as there are questions. (but that’s so many D: I’m too awkward for so many) (relatable lmao) Tagging: everyone i tagged on this long ass post Whoever wants to do this though, go ahead!

1. coke or pepsi: i dont drink soda heh 2. disney or dreamworks: I love them both, but my absolute fav movie is The Lion King. lindsey i just copied ur answer bc BITCH ME TOO, just addin Mulan here 3. coffee or tea: i dont like coffee and i never really wanted to try tea lmao 4. books or movies: Both!!!!! 5. windows or mac: only tried windows 6. dc or marvel: DC pls 7. xbox or playstation: even though i dont have and console, i like ps better 8. dragon age or mass effect: never played. dont have a console lmao 9. night owl or early riser: if those are video games…. never played i dont have a console 10. cards or chess: cards! 11. chocolate or vanilla: Chocolate 12. vans or converse: converse, never owned vans bc im poor af, so i would probably like both 13. lavellan, trevelyan, cadash, or adaar: have no idea what those are 14. fluff or angst: fluff pls 15. beach or forest: beach!!!!!!! 16. dogs or cats: BOTH 17. clear skies or rain: BOTH 18. cooking or eating out: it depends on my mood tbh 19. Spicy food or mild food: both 20. halloween/samhain or solstice/yule/christmas: what 21. would you rather forever be a little too cold or a little too hot: a little too cold 22. if you could have a superpower, what would it be: stop time 23. animation or live action: animations 24. paragon or renegade: what 25. baths or showers: baths, even though i dont own a bathtub 26. team cap or team ironman: Iron Man 27. fantasy or sci-fi: Fantasy 28. do you have three or four favourite quotes? not really 29. youtube or netflix: youtube 30. harry potter or percy jackson: hp, but pj was pretty awesome and diverse than hp.... actually I think I only like hp more bc of the movies, but pj... is very awesome too idk 31. when you feel accomplished: 6. dc or marvel: when i finish a drawing 32. star wars or star trek: star wars 33. paperback books or hardback books: as long as i have books 34. horror or rom-com: yikes rom-com 35. to live in a world without literature or music: death 36. pastel colours or dark colours: i love both!!!!!! 37. tv shows or movies: bitch everything is both here 38. city or countryside: city, but i too love contryside 39. if any other zodiac sign could describe you, what would it be: i have no idea 40. if you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life what would it be: dont ask me that omg 41. cinema or theatre: cinema 42. if you could be any fictional character’s best friend, who’d you be: midnigher’s 43. smiling or smirking: slut for both 44. are you an ‘all or nothing’ type or are you more consistent: i dont do anything so idk dude 45. playlists or your whole library on shuffle: shuffle 46. travelling or staying at home: traveling, but i would love staying at my own home 47. books or fanfiction: Both 48. If you could live in a fantasy world, what world would it be: huh, i had never thought about this, i cant answer now. but probably i would choose to live in one of my daydreaming shit 49. your favorite cartoon: idk i live irmão do jorel, a brazilian cartoon 50. name the weirdest five songs on your itunes, current or past: bruh im dont know 51. mountains or plains: both! 52. favorite anime (or tv show if you don’t watch anime): YURI ON ICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 53. which social media platform are you most like yourself on: Tumblr AND youtube 54. What are some of your passions: music 56. If you have a pet, do they do anything interesting/weird (like a cat that plays fetch, a bird that can say funny things, etc)? : not really. my cat sleeps funny sometimes hsajkdhas

[ssfoc]

Just cause Harry can't / doesn't show it publicly...I mean I doubt this was any easier for him...one team right? And damn must it suck to stand beside him and can't do anything :(

I'm sure Harry's heart was breaking along with Louis' and all the Tomlinsons. Seven years is nearly a third of Harry's life. That kind of love doesn't go away. We all saw Harry on the night of the X Factor performance of Just Hold On. To me, he looked devastated, proud, tender. I mean, he's Harry. He's an intelligent, sentimental, loving person. There's no way the past year--and what Louis has had to deal with--hasn't affected him. A single selfie doesn't tell me that much. I'm not clairvoyant and I can't guess what story I'm supposed to buy, or piece together later from whatever fragmented, unreliable sources. I have to laugh thinking that PR implies that relationships are built on shared sweatshirts. I mean, this level of proof is so stupid and YA romance novel, I have to think the reason is to look blatant, to make it look bad for Louis. That angers me. It's insulting to him and to fans too. And actually a single event doesn't really change things that much for me. Can it erase what I've been following and seeing since 2010? The pointed tweets and IG posts? The obvious contradictions in official narrative? The genuine facial and body language I've seen over and over? The fact that, whenever Louis and Harry are together, they look happier than anything in the world, their bodies relax and are at peace, there's a feeling of joy and intimacy.Despite everything, I think that Harry and Louis have been there for each other, have been growing stronger together. No relationship is without challenges. I'm sure they argue, bicker, disagree. But from what I've seen, they love each other. They genuinely do. Everything tells me they still do. And the rest is noise.

[tamboradventure]

How to See Taiwan on a Budget

Posted: 6/8/20 | June 8th, 2020

With a million things to do, a huge variety of delicious food, warm-hearted people, lots of hiking opportunities, and beautiful buildings and temples, Taiwan has it all.

Yet, despite that, it remains one of the most underrated — and undervisted — countries in Asia.

On the one hand, I like that it’s still off the radar because it means fewer crowds. You’ll never see too many people traveling around Taiwan. It’s, to use the cliche, a hidden gem you have (mostly) to yourself. There are no hordes of people trying to take their IG selfies.

On the other hand, it’s a shame people don’t make Taiwan a bigger travel priority because it’s so wonderful and has so much going for it. This is a country that deserves way more attention than it is given.

And, what’s great for budget travelers like us, is that Taiwan is also super affordable.

It’s on a level of cheapness similar to parts of Southeast Asia, with many meals costing only a few dollars. Even when I “splurged” on a meal like a high-end sushi omakase, I spent less than 1,200 NT$ ($40 USD). A meal (and too many beers) at an English style pub aimed at expats? Less than 360 NT$ ($12 USD).

Taiwan is a dream destination for those looking to get a lot of value for their money.

Today, I’m going to break down some typical costs in Taiwan, my suggested budgets, and ways to save.  

Typical Costs

Taiwan is pretty cheap so, as long as you don’t eat at high-end restaurants or stay at upscale hotels, you won’t be hard-pressed to spend a lot of money. Here’s a list of typical costs in new Taiwan dollars (NT$):

Noodle soup – 30-45 ($1-1.50 USD)

Noodles – 40 ($1.35 USD)

Rice – 85-100 ($2.85-3.35 USD)

Lunch boxes – 100 ($3.35 USD)

Sushi lunch – 300 – 450 ($10 – 15 USD)

MosBurger (best fast food burger joint) – 165 ($5.50 USD)

Museum entry – 30-100 ($1-3.35 USD)

Metro ride – 30-65 ($1-2.15 USD)

Taxi – 70 (plus 25 per kilometer) ($2.35 USD plus 0.84 per km)

Intercity train ride – 375-850 ($12.55-$28.40 USD)

High-speed rail (HSR) – 155-1,500 ($5.20-50.15 USD)

Hostel dorm – 240-600 per night ($8-20 USD)

Hostel private room – 1,050-1,350 per night ($35-45 USD)

  How Much Did I Spend?

Over 13 days, I spent a total of 29,273 NT$ (2,252 NT$ per day). In USD, that’s $981 ($75 USD per day). Now, my notes were a bit less than fully detailed towards the end of my trips and I can’t find some receipts so I’m going to round this up to an even 2,375 NT$ ($80 USD) per day.

That’s actually a lot more than I thought I spent. I had to do the numbers twice but more on that in a second.Here’s how those costs broke down:

Food – 8,597 NT$ ($289.20 USD)

Accommodation – 13,351 NT$ ($449.12 USD)

Tours/Museums – 1,410 NT$ ($47.43 USD)

Transportation – 5,915 NT$ ($198.95 USD)

So why did I spend so much money in a country that I said just was “super cheap”? I mean $80 is way more than Southeast Asia levels. Well, it has more to do with me than travel in Taiwan:

First, I stayed in private rooms. At three to four times the cost of a dorm, that is going to add up really quickly. I don’t like dorms since I’m a light sleeper and, since I was traveling alone, I didn’t have anyone to split the cost of the room with.

Second, I took a lot of high-speed trains. Those tickets are 600-1,200 NT$ ($20-40 USD) a ride versus 150-300 NT$ ($5-10 USD) for the regular train. Since I had little time and a lot of ground to cover, that drove up my costs.

Third, I took a few private tours as I wanted a local guide for myself so I could ask a battery of questions about life in Taiwan. I enjoy doing that over group tours, especially when I am researching destinations for guides like I was during this visit.

And, finally, in an effort to eat as much as possible, I probably had 3-4 meals a day, including many high-end restaurants and Western food. That amount of food really shrank my wallet (but sadly not my waistline). I’m talking a Hobbit level of eating here:

Those four things drove up my daily average to levels your average traveler/backpacker wouldn’t hit in such a short time.

  How Much Do YOU need?

So, with that said, how much do you need to travel around Taiwan? If you replicated my trip, I think 1,930-2,230 NT$ ($65-75 USD) would be enough. You wouldn’t want for anything on that budget and it would cover cheap private accommodation, high-speed trains, some tours, and a healthy amount of food and drinks. If you took a few slower trains or stuck to eating at food markets (avoiding high-end sushi restaurants like me), you could get by closer to 1,785 NT$ ($60 USD) per day.

If you’re on a backpacker budget, you need around 890-1,040 NT$ ($30-35 USD) a day. A dorm room will cost you around 300 NT$ ($10 USD), meals are only 90-150 NT$ ($3-5 USD) each, and beer is pretty cheap. Taking regular (slower) trains would save a few more dollars a day.

In short, whether you’re a backpacker or just a regular budget traveler, you’re never going to spend a huge amount here. Outside accommodation and high-end food, everything in the country is super cheap.  

How to Save Money in Taiwan

If you’re looking to spend even less money and get some good deals, here are things that can lower your costs even more:

1. Skip the High-Speed Rails (HSR) The high-speed trains in Taiwan are super convenient (though they only go down the west side of the island): they depart every 15 minutes and the journey between Taipei and Kaohsiung (the most southern point) only takes 1 hour and 50 minutes.

However, they are also very expensive: a ticket from Taipei to Kaohsiung costs around 1,500 NT$ ($51 USD). On the other hand, the “local” trains are half the price at just 845 NT$ ($28 USD) (likewise, it’s just 539-739 NT$ ($18-25 USD) from Taipei to Tainan and around 375 NT$ ($12.50 USD) from Taipei to Taichung).

Plus, the HSR line doesn’t pass through city centers, so you’ll either need to take a bus or train from the HSR station, costing more time and money.

So, if you want to save money and aren’t in a rush, skip the HSR trains.

2. Stay in Hostels In Taipei, hostel dorms can be found for 550-700 NT$ ($18.50-23.50 USD) per night for 6-10-bed rooms. Private rooms in hostels can be had for 1,600-2,200 NT$ ($54-74 USD) per night.

Also, skip hostel private rooms. A basic two-star hotel will cost 1,200-1,500 NT$ ($40-50 USD), making it a better budget choice if you want privacy.

3. Eat at the Food Markets The food in Taiwan is world-class. I didn’t appreciate it much when I lived there back in 2010, but now I realize just how diverse, tasty, and healthy the food is. Every town is littered with day and night markets. If you want to save money on food (and it’s very easy to do that here), eating the local food at these markets is the best way to eat on a budget. You’ll find most meals cost around 30-80 NT$ ($1-2.75 USD).

And, even if you prefer a sit-down restaurant, you’re looking at 120-150 NT$ ($4-5 USD) for a meal at a place serving Taiwanese cuisine.

You never need to spend more than 400 NT$ ($15 USD) per day here.

Eat local = save big!

4. Avoid Western Food I mean you didn’t come all this way to eat a bad version of the food you can get back home, right? You can find every Western dish your heart desires in Taiwan and most of these meals will cost about 300 NT$ ($10 USD). But, frankly, skip Western food. I never found anything that great and Taiwanese cuisine is way more delicious and filled with such variety that you’re not going to get tired of “eating the same thing” over and over again.

5. Take Free Walking Tours One of the first things I do when I arrive in a new destination is take a free walking tour. They give you the lay of the land, show you the main highlights of the city, and provide you with a local guide who can answer your questions.

Like It Formosa is the best walking-tour company in Taiwan, offering tours in Taipei, Jiufen, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. Its tours have a cultural and historical focus, making them a great foundation for your visit.

And, if you’re in Taipei and want something more lively, Tour Me Away offers free tours as well as pub crawls and food tours starting at 600 NT$ ($20 USD) per person. They’re a good choice for backpackers looking to meet other travelers.

6. Take the Bus Intercity coach buses are available to all major cities around Taiwan, including Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. They are comfortable, modern, safe, and have air conditioning (too much, usually, so bring a sweater).

A bus from Taipei to Kaohsiung takes around five hours and costs 300-500 NT$ ($10-17 USD) depending on what day and time you depart.

The two main intercity bus companies are Ubus and Kuo-Kuang Bus. For fares and timetable information, visit taiwanbus.tw.

7. Take in the Free Attractions There are plenty of free temples, shrines, museums, and parks around the country. There’s more than enough to fill your days. I never had a problem wandering around the cities and finding things to do that didn’t cost a penny. Your local accommodation or guide book or Google can tell you what to do.

8. Go Hiking Spend your days hiking Taiwan’s many mountains and trails. Taiwan is filled with national parks. The country is so small that you are never far from any park, they are well connected to public transportation, and they are all free.

***

Taiwan is an incredibly affordable destination . To me, it’s on par with some destinations in Southeast Asia since the food was cheap and so many activities were free. You get a lot of value here. So, if you’re looking for an uncrowded and affordable place to visit, Taiwan is it.

Book Your Trip to Taiwan: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld. If you want to stay elsewhere, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and I think will help you too!

The post How to See Taiwan on a Budget appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

from Nomadic Matt's Travel Site https://ift.tt/3eUCrUe via IFTTT