#but that's definitely several years away

[aprillikesthings]

OKay so what I came here to post about is that while ONE trip to another country is just going to that country, now that I've done TWO international trips everyone (including myself) sees me as A Person Who Travels and I keep getting asked where I'm going next

And on the one hand it's a weird question, because both previous trips were just--

Iceland: Icelandair advertised a huge discount on direct flights on my facebook wall and made a thirty-year dream suddenly seem possible

Spain: I saw like an article? somewhere? about the Camino, read one memoir, then suddenly had a new hyperfixation and I proceeded to read fifteen more (barely exaggerated y'all) and watched a bunch of youtube videos and then asked for the time off and started training

So in neither case was it like, "oh where do I want to travel," it was like "the need to go to this specific place is suddenly consuming my life"

But on the other hand, I mean, I'm kinda thinking England a year from now? But those plans are REALLY hazy past like, "lol the British Museum has an Ea Nasir tablet gotta get a selfie with it" and "I hear Durham cathedral is gorgeous" and "Norwich is a short train ride from London and then I can visit sites associated with Julian of Norwich!!--what do you MEAN there's a three-day pilgrimage route to Walsingham??? 👀" (what can I say I'm a sucker for pilgrimages now)

TBH I just want someone else to arrange one of those multi-day bus tours of churches/cathedrals in England but for LGBT+ Anglicans!! Someone get on this!! (Jay Hulme has other things to do or he'd be perfect for it. God knows some of the churches on my list are because of his photos.)

Anyway.

I have to keep reminding myself that Spain is a huge outlier in Europe for being so inexpensive on a daily basis, plus being a pilgrim means my daily costs were literally food/bed in a hostel/a few euro for church donation boxes.

And I get that Iceland is well-known to be on the opposite end of that scale, but it still boggles the mind to compare them (all approximate):

Iceland for eight days

Flight: $500 Guesthouse room: $700 A few bus day tours + Blue Lagoon + bus to and from airport: uhhhh I think like $400 added up? Daily expenses of food/museums/souvenirs for eight days: $50/day on average, so another $400?

Total: $2,000

Spain:

Flight (into Paris, out of Lisbon) + insurance: $800 Daily cost, including hostels, food, souvenirs, sightseeing: averaged about $50 a day for 42 days total, so about $2100 Add another $100 for train/bus tickets (...I think it was more than that)

Total: $3,000

NINE DAYS in Iceland versus FORTY TWO days in (mostly) Spain.

(Okay, this is admittedly ignoring the fact that 1. I had to buy things I didn't already own for my Camino, like a backpacking backpack and a summer weight sleeping bag and TWO pairs of pricey hiking boots; OR 2. that I absolutely spent like $1,000 on physical therapy while training for the trip.)

They are just such wildly different countries. Museums in Iceland were all (US) $15-25. The cathedral's museum in Santiago (where I spent at least as much time as any of the museums in Iceland) was normally €7 but I got a discount for being a pilgrim. I think I paid €4, which is like $4.30.

Anyway none of this is about whether or not England is expensive, but I do assume it's closer to the Iceland end of things.

Especially since it's one thing to stay in hostels the whole time when you're on pilgrimage and everyone else at the hostel is too and everyone is in bed by 10pm because you're all exhausted. (Also because that's when they all lock their doors. No, really.) It's another thing to stay in a hostel in like...London. But the alternatives escalate in cost rather rapidly, especially when you're traveling alone. Oof.

ANYWAY ALSO the fact that I can afford to travel AT ALL is like 90% due to my having cheap-ass rent, no car, no kids, no student loans, and all my healthcare issues being relatively inexpensive. I've worked the same meh-paying job long enough for my hourly wage to double and to have fuck-tons of PTO. I'm 43 and I live in a run-down townhouse with three other adults and most of my furniture is all ten-year-old Ikea and I don't eat at restaurants hardly ever.

Any one part of my life could change and I would never be able to afford to do this kind of shit again.

Which is why I'm doing it now.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 184

“Well damn.” 

Jason wrenched his gaze from the mess of red and green spattered across the room, searching for the source of the voice. His head hurt, he wanted his Dad. He wanted Bruce. He… his head hurt. His everything hurt. 

“Honestly, didn’t expect them to find another half-breed. Didn’t think there was another halfa out there…”  

He tore his gaze away from the floor- when had it gotten there- finally finding the other… person? The person giving him an empty smile through some sort of muzzle and missing an entire arm. Well, he couldn’t judge, he’d torn his nails off while digging out of his grave before… this. 

“Hey, kid, don’t sweat it, it’ll grow back,” the man apparently noticed where he was staring, shoulder twitching as he shrugged and more green pouring out. Jason couldn’t stop staring, eyes slipping from the growing pool to the rest of the chains apparently keeping the person on that side of the… room? Cage? Cell? 

“Shit, hey, kid, kid, don’t cry, uh, fuck, shh, kid don’t cry-” the person made a noise, some sort of hum or croon that caused him to relax. To his already brain-damaged confusion. “C’mere, away from the door now, shh…” 

Oh, when had he started to move? It was like he blinked and was stumbling away towards the chained person, practically tripping over a limb before the person managed to catch him. “Ope, oh you’re just a little baby-” a hand, clawed, carefully ran through his hair, tucking him against a rumbling chest that nearly made him tear up again. He wanted Bruce. 

“It’s alright kid, shh, they won’t get you,” the man rumbled, everything about him green to his rapidly closing eyes. Pale skin like a corpse, black scales like rot, hair white like snow, all stained green with blood.  “They’d have to kill me again for that.” 

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

I think some part of me will always be that kid walking out of a huge movie theater into a grey overcast afternoon not realizing her world was about to be permanently changed but feeling changed already herself by the animated Disney film she'd just seen that she would spend a year acting like she was too cool to be affected by, even though she'd never cried at a movie before that and and the cries from the speakers were still ringing in her ears on that cold, overcast afternoon, right before her world changed

[minakoaiinos]

Lost my original post of this from the other day but I genuinely don't understand how Black Butler discourse ever shifted into the does Sebastian ~really~ like Ciel or is Ciel just dinner line of conversation that is pervasive as it is because Sebastian is the one that has absorbed his whole existence into Ciel's. Sebastian's face is what Ciel wants Sebastian's whole purpose is doing things for Ciel Sebastian's every hell of a butler yes my lord speech is about how he's Ciel's and Ciel is the one going around saying shit like whatever Sebastian is just my pawn 💅

[seance]

sorry if i'm not really here these days but i'm trying to survive several things at once, among them the ever growing need of exploding z*onists with my mind

[reflectionsofgalaxies]

gonna do the stupid thing for my stupid mental health

[999-roses]

unpacking 'sinophone' and its sinophobic roots

so. it never occurred to me to just type "sino diaspora" into google before.

and google is like "oi!! you meant sinophone yeah? here's wikipedia on sinophone" and here's like the other top results

I'm squinting. What the hell do you academics have against diaspora using the term diaspora?? I click.

inb4 this whole rant: I have no qualms with using sinophone as a language-family-use descriptor (like sinophone media), but coming from academia or as an academic field unto itself. but. the literature about wanting to use it as a demographics thing & separate it from "chineseness". just. looook if anyone knows that they're no longer like this let me know. with what im seeing, im having a bad faith moment

so... this is the academic that's hard pushed the term for sinophone.

"crit on orientalism might be complicit for allowing Chinese intellectuals to call themselves victim under an 'unreflective' nationalism" & "but the flipside may be a new imperialism" yeah?? any more unsubstantiated claims???

What a joke!! Clearly only takes authority about Chinese history from western sources, like literally has the uncritical echo of "X country doesn't deserve territorial integrity" that literally fueled western imperialism, and not just of China. Treaty of Nanjing 1842 ringing no bells? Sigh. National sovereignty is the barest basis against overt imperialism where someone just comes over and declares where you live their colony!!! ... is this a test in how far can you stretch the definition of imperialism or colonization? lmfao, China invests in poverty-relieving measures like building houses and improving infrastructure out in Tibet, Guizhou, Xinjiang, and you have the audacity to call that colonizing?!? 我真无言了。

different article by the same person:

laughable to think that the Chinese state even bothers to think I exist, let alone talk to me about my diaspora status. (I was born in the US)

also, people are really out there saying 'diaspora has an end date' huh

here it is. here is the 'scholar' conflating American or western imperialism with things Big Bad Scary Red China does.

Clearly mixing up concepts of tributary system with colonialism, and acting like historically (other than Yuan era under Genghis) that ancient China/Chinese culture was expansionist, going around trying to conquer peoples and set up colonies. Admiral Zheng He would spit on you.

Comparing the spread of culture and language in Ancient China to the colonization and subjugation that the French/Belgium did in Africa, or the British Empire, or the Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America, is so blatantly dishonest. The indigenous people of Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang still speak their own languages and use their own scripts, and yes, they learn them in schools alongside the national language... which is Chinese!!! Yes the Hanyu writing system was adopted and adapted by many neighboring cultures in ancient times, but you literally don't examine WHY? The fluidity in its system: frequently non-Han peoples invented characters to suit their language, like there's even some Canto-specific characters that are in use today. Another reason that Chinese writing system was so popular was because two Sinitic language speakers who do not speak the same language could communicate through the same script. Yeah, Ancient Chinese scholars and dignitaries often had an insufferable elite-ness and superiority complex, but describing their attitude as subjugating and forcing other people to adopt their system? What a wildly malicious mischaracterisation!

just... mask off, gringo butt-licker.

Please. where is the "Chinese containment" policy? The white papers reaffirming what the international community agrees, what Taiwan historically agrees (tho Taiwan held that it was the true capital/head of all of China), that Taiwan is part of China?? I know this article was written back in 2010s but are you seriously comparing American weapons deals and boots on the ground with Chinese military exercises in Chinese territory that haven't harmed a single civilian? "critical" my ass!

gotta love the title of this one. yeah, I know it, I've seen it before. the Chinese or feminist binary, pick a side /s

but hey in this piece she admits she's ignorant and unobjective and out of her league sometimes?

edit: found this:

yeah that about seals it for me. anti"diaspora" sinophobe

[jdah]

For some reason I want Suho to experience so much suffering that it nearly breaks him

We already know that his path is half-paved since he’s born with innate power (inherited from father) and the fact he got companions along the way - So even though he goes through hardship, he’ll constantly have the support he needs

But ngl I kinda wanna see (or just imagine) Suho going through a challenge so difficult that absolutely no one could pull him out from (that even his own father can only watch helplessly as his son gets carried by the waves of misfortune

that his precious son’s fate is destined to be the greatest sacrifice)

,,,,,,

I remember the discussion I had with a mutual — How there’s a charm in giving so much angst to a character for that sweet sweet relief of comfort (angst w/ happy ending) and it stuck w/ me 😭

I know it might not happen with SL:R but I can’t help imagine Suho reaching his breaking point - sacrificing his all for the sake of his companions/family and the only relief is a simple kiss that speaks “It’s okay, you’ll be okay, we’re here for you now”

[applecherry108]

I…

So I grew up watching The Simpsons. And maybe I shouldn’t have, but hey, it was the 90s and parent-sanctioned family time to watch a show that was definitely inappropriate for little-little kids.

Anyways.

I knew Phil Hartman, voice of Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz died in 1998, when I was seven. I knew he died and was sad about it. I missed his characters.

MOTHERFUCKER I WAS TODAY YEARS OLD—30-FUCKING-2 TO BE EXACT—WHEN I FOUND OUT, FROM A YOUTUBE THUMBNAIL, THAT HE WAS MURDERED. IN HIS SLEEP. BY AN EX-PARTNER.

WHAT THE FUCK

[ofdreamsanddoodles]

every so often i'll be like "why do i feel so bad?" as if there hasn't been a family crisis that hasn't resolved itself for like. half a year now

[angeltannis]

You ever write a long story’s entire first draft and then by the end of it, your understanding of the characters has changed so much that when you go to revise/rewrite it you’re like “Who are these people 😂”? Like the early chapters feel like cardboard cutouts with the characters’ likenesses printed on them, lmao

[sheliesshattered]

The overdress is all in one piece! And we have sleeves! With bonus screen accurate Rhaenyra ring!

Work has been extra weird this week, but weird in a way that's given me more time to iron and pin and sew than I usually have. So I was able to get through that long list of pressing tasks from my last post, and then pin the two front panels to the side panels (which are already sewn to the back panels), pin the back seams of the sleeves, and sew those four seams earlier today.

With those seams done, the sleeves are sleeve-shaped and the dress is basically dress-shaped. All of those new seams need pressed, and the sleeve seams will need to be hand-finished since the black silk organza is a bit itchy on its cut edges. There's just one more body seam left to sew for the dress, the center front seam, and then the little shoulder seams.

There's quite a lot of finishing to be done, both on the dress and the sleeves. In the above pic, the sleeve is just clamped closed at the underside of the wrist, and once it has its hooks-and-eyes it'll fit a lot more smoothly. And then there's all the seam finishing for the dress, hemming the neck and armscyes and skirt edge, and handsewing on all the trim and beading. Lots to do!

I've been working little by little on the handsewing for the seams finishes for the underdress, and then it will need all its hemming too. But when possible I've been trying to focus on the overdress, because if it came down to it, I would rather have the overdress done and leave the underdress somewhat unfinished. But today is exactly 15 weeks until I have to pack for Dragon Con, so I've still got time, and I'm hoping I can get everything finished to my liking in the time remaining.

Besides the dress itself, I still have a few things to do on the wig, and I've been tracking down the jewelry pieces one by one, and I may actually end up making one piece that I've been unable to find. I also want to make a little handbag to carry all my stuff at con, but that's definitely on the nice-to-have list.

Some days I feel like I'll be able to get through this whole project with time to spare, and other days I feel like I'm going to be working on it up until the very last moment, and maybe have to cut corners to get it done. Getting through this last portion of machine sewing and into all the extensive handsewing will hopefully give me a better idea of how long the whole thing will take.

But, of course, I'm already having Ideas™ about what other cosplays I could make for Dragon Con this year, if I do end up having time at the end of the summer. One of them would be pretty straightforward, and I could use the same pattern as this project with just a few modifications, and I already have at least most of the materials I would need to complete it. The other one is completely ridiculous, with tedious machine sewing and handsewing, but damn it would be fun.

Welp. I guess if I want to have any hope of finishing this cosplay and maybe one or two more after that, I should probably get back to it. My iron awaits!

[im2tired4usernames]

I want their fuckin freedom they have no chores no responsibility they can go out with their friends when ever they want for however long they want they can sleep in there bed all day they eat drink drive vehicles use the phone have a home with no bills no expenses they can spend their money on stupid things that bring them joy with no worry of the gas they burned in someone else's vehicle or if there's dinner at home they have no worries about laundry no worries about dishes no worries about the messes they make because they know I'll clean it up always I want to be viewed by my family and by my friends as someone who is an actual person with limits and boundaries and who has goals and dreams they'd like to accomplish in the day besides laundry for 16 people and not a tireless cleaning machine. I want to be able to rest and have hobbies I want to be able to do things with my partner and my friends again I want to be able to fuckin daydream and make up stories again for Christ sake I want to feel like a person and not a corpse forced into playing "tradwife" I want the freedom they all have while I'm in the background doin they're dishes.

[prismatoxic]

loving the timeline i got to witness of:

-yahtzee reviews a game on zero punctuation -in the course of the script he finds a reason to bring up ayn rand/atlus shrugged, mostly as a joke -brings up ayn rand again as the closing punchline -final credits message is "bioshock was a good game wasn't it" -one day later the escapist uploads a new extra punctuation about why bioshock's opening is amazing

did you get bioshock on the brain by any chance, mr. croshaw?

idk what his schedule of making ZP/EP looks like, though i do suspect that EP might possibly be visually edited by someone else? i'm like 99% sure yahtz still does ZP by himself except to pass it by matt the editor for notes on where he should maybe swear less, but EP is kind of visually different (despite using yahtzee's art still) so maybe he just reads his script and lets matt do the visuals? idk. the man's busy he puts out 2 videos like every week, i wouldn't blame him

regardless, my point is that idk where in the process he decided to make an EP on bioshock, but the idea of him writing the sea of stars script, thinking about ayn rand a little too hard, and getting on a bioshock kick because of it is pretty damn funny

if he addresses this in the bioshock video i'm going to feel very silly but i was just taking a food + youtube break so i only watched the sea of stars review for now

[churchsideblog]

what was wrong with my ward that we had multiple sunday school lessons preaching about the virtue of not complaining

[cicadidae-tm9899]

my little sister is pissed off bc she’s convinced our mom threw away some of her clothes bc they had pride stuff on them.