#immigrant struggles ish?

[wlwdisasterr]

um hi i'm super proud of myself today because i spoke in my mother tongue for the first time in a while in public

really cool for me as i have struggled with not wanting to stand out too much in my kinda society and losing touch of my mother tongue as a result but i spoke it and i'm proud of myself so yay :))

[master-of-47-dudes]

Oh! For those of you who like Lancer, I've made major progress in the campaign I'm writing: Kindness of strangers!

LRBT-III, otherwise known as Blanche to the locals. This sun-baked dustbowl of a planet has the high honor of being one of the few habitable terrestrial bodies that anyone has discovered in the Long Rim, and probably the only one that's actually any use to anyone. Luckily- or not so luckily, if you ask some people- it was Union that found it first. Well, about 70 years ago when they stumbled across this star system they got it in their heads that the Long Rim's days were numbered. There’s untold millions living out there scattered along the emptiest shipping lane in the known galaxy who'd need a way out once no one needed to pass them by, and by Christ the Buddha Union was gonna be there for them waiting with open arms.

All of that is background, though. You? You’re a bunch of mercenaries who got their hands on a couple of GMSes, decided to make your manna selling violence for pay. Worlds like Blanche don't take to colonies very well, so even two generations in there's still plenty of frontier out there being settled and railroad tracks being laid. The people out there struggle day by day to survive, and people like you are there to protect them from those who got sick of the hard life. Not everyone out there has the guts to stand up for the little guy- that's why you're called Lancers.

A setting and a campaign all in one, Kindness Of Strangers and its (eventual) follow-up Dancing With the Devil are a series of Wild West-themed 2-mission adventures intended to take players from 0-12 as they find themselves embroiled in the midst of a corporate conspiracy to overthrow the Union-backed government of the isolated colony of Blanche and a ploy to seize control over a nearly completed Blinkstation. All the while, a strange religious movement worshipping an eons-dead alien civilization grows ever more influential in the background...

This campaign tackles themes of colonialism, nationalism, corruption, and conflict between indigenous peoples, settlers, and immigrants, all in a world where well-meaning intentions have gone sour and the ghosts of the past have come back to haunt it.

Kindness of Strangers, Missions 1-3

Field Guide to LRBT-PN

Exotic Gear Documentation

Variant Frame Documentation

Kindness of Strangers Worldbuilding Short Stories

Kindness of Strangers LCP, Maps, and Assets

This latest update includes the first(ish) draft of Mission 3: The Field of Blue Children, allowing play of the first half of Act 2 and extending the LL range from 0-3. Mission 3 is heavily intrigue and RP focused, featuring a wide suite of characters, relationships, and locations in the Tourist town of Baugh- a thriving immigrant community situated on a soda lake.

The PCs have been hired to investigate a bomb threat at the newly completed Baugh Pumpworks, and water filtration and chemical processing facility that stands to end the water shortage and threatens corporate control over the colony's water supply- but is everything really as it seems? In the process, the PCs will go toe to toe with teenage gearheads, Pinkerton-expies, and a group of Sparri Espadas who got roped into this whole mess, and uncover the mystery behind the threat!

Also, there's a subaltern that talks like a pirate and catholicism.

Anyway this mission also includes a custom NPC Template (kind of, I don't know how to design the LCP for that but i did include instructions on how it works), several new reserves, and several custom sitreps!

So, check it out- I'm always looking for feedback.

[apeekintothepantry]

Meet Violet Fielding, my original historical character from 1918 Boston!

I've been doing some workshopping with my custom historical characters because I've been a little bored with AG's historical offerings of late, and because it's a fun excuse to dig into moments in time that interest me personally, but AG probably wouldn't produce a similar character themselves. (I say that, but my 1940's Hawaii character predates Nanea, so who knows! Maybe I'm manifesting some future stuff I can borrow for my gals.)

Violet is the youngest of three siblings. Her older sister Alice is in her early 20's and either a nurse or a Hello Girl, leaning towards nursing because I'm not sure I want her to go overseas and she could work at a hospital in Boston during the war. Her older brother James is 19 and enlists in the Marines once the US enters World War I. I think by Violet Saves the Day, he's returned home dealing with quite a bit of "shellshock" and that becomes a somewhat major theme.

Her parents are pretty wealthy, and the family lives in a brownstone on Beacon Hill in Boston. Her dad is a doctor and mom is a suffragist who also gets involved in causes supporting the war effort. Both parents are very supportive of their kids following their passions and getting themselves out there in this still relatively new century, which is why Alice has been allowed to go to school instead of immediately marrying some wealthy guy.

Vi herself is a precocious and creative kid. I think she likes to draw and paint and generally be crafty and creative, which comes in handy when brainstorming ways she can support her brother overseas and the war effort more broadly. While she's not afraid to get her hands dirty, she does like typically girly things like having teatime and looking at catalogs filled with new dresses. Her book series would theoretically cover 1917 through 1919 or so, and touch on the war, Women's Suffrage, the Spanish Flu, shellshock, and possibly the Boston Molasses Disaster.

Currently I'm trying to come up with a best friend character for her, as she really needs a Nellie or Ruthie in her life with the age difference and both siblings being off doing exciting and scary things without her. There are a lot of different directions I could go in with said friend - fellow wealthy-ish kid feels boring, Boston had a lot of new immigrant communities in the 1910's, some of whom did live in a specific part of Beacon Hill, Boston historically struggles with insidious covert racism but was still a city with a number of prominent Black and Jewish communities - and nothing's quite clicked as perfect just yet.

Violet is a Marie-Grace doll with a Nanea wig. Someone was selling her on a Facebook group a few years ago and I immediately felt like she was a Violet and needed to join my crew. Her last name was inspired by Lady Dorothie Fielding, a British woman who drove an ambulance during WWI and received several awards for bravery and service. Fielding's letters home were published after her death and are a really fascinating look at what it was like on the front lines doing this incredibly dangerous and important work. I used it as a major primary source for an educational interactive I helped develop in one of my previous jobs.

[eepyuii]

frostbite — pt. 7

pairing ; childe x gender neutral!reader

content ; childhood friends to “rivals” to lovers, slowburn-ish

cw ; none

notes ; happy new year!! it’s story quest time which meaaans- its teucer town. a lot of the reader and teucer being besties and *some* tiny particles of romantic feelings (if u catch them). also just a really lighthearted and humorous chapter :3

previous | next | masterlist

three knocks.

“sergeant?”

“hm? yes, ekaterina? come in.”

the secretary steps up to your desk, where you sit pitifully, head resting on your hands. it’s been some months since osial’s attack and you’ve mysteriously remained stationed at liyue, not that you mind, of course. the traveler and paimon have long since been on their way to inazuma and, according to news you heard from all around, seem like they successfully solved the crises surrounding the electro archon and the vision hunt decree. not only has there been word on the streets of their feats but you’ve also noticed a noticeable increase in inazuman immigrants by the harbor.

but- back to the matter at hand, today you find yourself incredibly more fatigued than usual, perhaps due to your struggles with getting even a good wink of sleep the night before. the sunlight creeping through the windows seems to sting your eyes harsher than normal for early morning but you still try your best to open them and read the letter ekaterina has just placed in front of you.

noticing the strain in your efforts to, well, be awake at the moment, ekaterina clears her throat.

“it’s a mandate from the doctor himself.”

now that gets you up, though not in a good way. the sheer reminder of that man’s existence is enough to shoot an icy burn into your spine, one that makes you flinch into full consciousness.

skimming more effectively through the lines, you find that the mandate talks about a ruin guard research lab here in liyue under his guise, obviously, that he is requiring you to briefly oversee in his absence. not as bad as you thought but also not entirely good. the doctor has never presently explained his affinity for ruin guard robotics to you- because truly, why would he? but it’s no less than apparent how big his interest in them is, in your experience.

with a long, heavy sigh, you nod.

“i see. thank you, ekaterina, you may go.”

she bows politely and turns to leave while you reread the letter to gather the full details of the research lab. once ekaterina is by the door to your office, you take note of the sound of as her heels stop abruptly as she yelps in surprise, muttering a small ‘hello, master childe’ and carrying on her way. the next moment, they very devil she spoke of is bursting into the room.

“good morning, doc!” he chirps with surprising energy for how early it is and places a closed cup on your desk.

“here! i got you some coffee, thought it might help wake you up.”

“thanks a lot… wait, how did you know i was tired-“

“and with that act of courtesy, i would like to propose my own favor to be granted by yours truly. and that is for us to sp-“

“childe, i cannot spar with you today.”

with that, the harbinger slumps into himself like a fussing child, ironic, and groans softly. he’s about to try his very persuasive best to convince you anyway when he spots the letter in your hands and raises an eyebrow curiously.

“what’s that?”

you sigh again, pinching the bridge of your nose. “a mandate from dottore asking me to check up on one of his ruin guard research facilities, here in liyue.”

childe seems to empathize with your disdain for the request and scoffs, mumbling about ‘that lunatic and his little toy robots…’.

“hm, well i wish you luck with that. i’ve also got myself some less than stellar debts to collect today, might as well busy myself somehow even if ekaterina thinks i shouldn’t.”

“good luck with that too.”

childe turns to leave, slightly less chipper than he was when he walked in, until he stops by the door to turn around. “you’re still owing me a spar for that coffee!”

“whatever!”

grassy mountains, building ruins, ginkgo trees- minlin was just like any other area of liyue, though you’d never steal any merit from the relaxing scenery of the entire region. every new place you visited took your breath away with its beauty all the same.

it’s become an unspoken habit to deal with ruin guards at this point and you knew their patterned behaviors and limits like no other, maybe only the doctor himself. several of them sat inactivated in the ruins around you, as expected, and you took note of each one for your report diligently. as you’re approaching the entrance of the lab itself, you spot another ruin guard sat against a crumbled tower- except it was not the only thing there, there were people too. it’s not hard to decipher that it turns out to be the traveler and paimon and… someone else.

wait… surely it’s not him.

“teucer?”

all three of them immediately turn around, except teucer lights up at the sight of you and jumps from his crouching position to run at you with full speed. despite being perplexed at his presence, you still kneel to welcome him with open arms.

“big sibling y/n!! you’re here!!” he yells out, elated.

you chuckle fondly and stand up with teucer clung onto your torso.

“it’s good to see you too, teuce’, but… what in the heavens are you doing all the way here?”

looking over teucer’s shoulder, you turn to the other two, who look just as confused about the entire situation as you do.

“and you two as well, weren’t you supposed to be in inazuma still?”

“mm-yeah, we were taking a bit of a break! we’re on our way to sumeru next and liyue’s the shortest way there so… might as well take some leisurely time off.”

paimon elaborates, until she and the traveler share a look and the two of them sigh.

“unfortunately, the millelith asked us to check out these rui- ahem, i mean mr. cyclops showing up around this area. and as we were doing that, we ran into teucer over here!”

you breathe out a laugh, pitying the pair’s lack of… well- time to take a break without any tasks given to them. ‘talk about leisurely…’ you mutter, quiet enough so teucer doesn’t hear. speaking of him…

“that still doesn’t explain how you were here at all, mister.” you poke the boy’s side with the hand that isn’t holding him up against you and he giggles uncontrollably, attempting to dodge your finger.

“ahahahahah! s-stop! hahah… i’m here to see big brother at the institute for toy research! you work there too, right?”

what.

oh- is that what he thinks childe does? dear gods, that’s too funny. however you do understand why childe would lie about your jobs, you think you’d do much the same. still it takes everything within you to not burst out laughing at the revelation, even the traveler seems to notice so, somewhat understanding the reason but also somewhat not. you huff out a breath to calm the urge to cackle and turn to the two once again.

“listen, you guys don’t need to worry about this one anymore, i’ll take care of him. oh! and don’t worry about the- err, mr cyclops replicas, i’ll sort them out too. go take your break, you deserve it.”

“but- they’re my friends! they like toys like i do! a-and they made the pinky promise!” teucer retaliates.

gods damn the snezhnayan pinky swear.

“plus, he did give us this big bag of mora to take care of him…” paimon eyes the traveler, who returns the glance with a nod as if they’re silently communicating.

“and yeah- we’d much rather go see this ‘toy institute’ than deal with mr. cyclops right now.”

you nod in agreement and gesture for all of you to head back to the harbor, partially to avoid seeing the millelith soldiers patrolling the area.

“so- just out of curiosity, teuce’, what exactly did your brother say about me working with toys?”

“he said you’re a toy doctor! you take care of the toys who get hurt or sick.”

“yeah, that checks out.”

—

arriving back at northland bank, the first thing you spot is childe and ekaterina discussing something at the center of the room, oblivious to your presence for the moment. that is, until teucer bursts from your tired arms to run to his older brother.

paimon, somehow, remains oblivious enough to what is right in front of her enough to whisper. “huh? what’s he doing here…”

“yay, my brother! i found you!” exclaims teucer and childe immediately perks up, ceasing any doubts that paimon might’ve had.

“i know that voice… why, if it isn’t my little brother teucer! my goodness!”

the harbinger takes his younger brother into his arms, much like you did before, except he wraps him in a nearly bone crushing hug before setting him back down.

“haha.. what a nice surprise, teucer! i thought i would have to wait till i return home before seeing you again. how are the others, tonia and anthon? is everybody keeping well?”

“they miss you a lot! tonia prays for you every day at dinner.” it seems that only after teucer’s response is when the realization of the sheer absurdity that is teucer’s presence sets within childe, his face morphing into confusion.

“wait a second… what are you doing here in liyue, teucer? how have i not heard anything about this?”

that entire interaction, you remained merely watching from behind with an irrepressible fond smile on your face- you were so lost in their reunion that you almost miss the incredulous glare childe throws to you, like he’s silently asking if you had anything to do with this. you jump slightly once noticing it and quickly shrug, shaking your head to signify that you’re just as clueless as him.

“well, what happened was- i saw a boat that looked like it was selling toys, so obviously i thought you were on board. and then when i got off i just kept walking and walking… and then, i found a mr. cyclops!”

unbelievable.

“mr cyclops scared off a bad guy, and then i found this nice lady and-and then y/n found us! so we came looking for you.”

childe seems to have another moment of realization, where another fleeting glance comes your way and he sighs, facing off to the side to mouth to himself ‘of course, the research lab…’.

“teucer…” he starts off and you seem to understand what he’s about to say right away, leaving teucer’s side to be right in front of him, beside childe. you kneel to teucer’s height and hold out your hands for him to hold, to make him feel less like he’s being scolded. his tiny hands are dwarfed by yours in a way that makes your heart swell.

“…teuce’, what you did was really dangerous. we’re both happy to see you, really, but please promise you won’t do anything like this ever again.”

childe nods in agreement and teucer sighs, letting go of your hands to put them behind his back sheepishly.

“okay, i promise… please don’t be mad at me.”

“we’re not mad at you. we just care about your safety, that’s all.” childe reassures.

“if you hadn’t met these nice people, and even more if y/n hadn’t found you, things could’ve been a lot more dangerous for you, teucer. i hope you said a big thank-you to all of them?”

“yep! i always remember my please’s and thank-you’s!

“oohh so you did notice we were here… you were just ignoring us, gotcha.” paimon adds sarcastically as she and the traveler look at childe through a sassy glare.

“haha… forgive me, it’s always family first where i’m from. don’t take it personally. i know we’ve had our differences up to now but.. a few minor quibbles aside, we get on quite well, don’t you think?”

the traveler’s incredulous reaction tells you that perhaps teucer shouldn’t listen to the conversation while they sort out their, erm, quibbles- so you gently take him by the hand and lead him off ever so slightly to the side, where you know he’ll be at least distracted enough to not listen. kneeling down, you once again take his impossibly adorable hands into yours and fiddle with them playfully, he only grins in oblivious amusement.

“so, teuce’, tell me more- how’re things back home? you’re not too bored without us there, are you?”

“mm-no, i’m just fine! anthon still plays with me a bunch and tonia always reads me the letters big brother sends us, she always tells such cool stories!”

“yeah? like what?”

the young boy thinks for a moment, rubbing his chin like he’s mentally paging through the deepest, most riveting tales he can recall.

“hmm.. oh! one time she told me the story of how big brother discovered a new version of mr. cyclops! he’s bigger and.. and stronger and he’s got huge horns, like a deer! he’s like mr. cyclops' big brother.”

well, at least childe is keeping his lies somewhat accurate. but the way teucer beams and hops excitedly as he talks about the bigger mr. cyclops, or a ruin grader as you know it, seems to justify keeping him in the dark. the way his big blue eyes shine with wonder is in itself a treasure worth protecting. you’ve practically long forgotten that you’re supposed to be stalling out a conversation to distract him.

“that’s so awesome, teucer!” you grin back at him. “what other stories does your brother tell?”

“hm..- oh yeah! he also talks about you in his letters.”

oh?

“does he?” you’re unsure if you should feel good or bad about the revelation, gods know what childe says to his siblings about you.

“yeah he does! he talks about how you take such good care of the toys when they get hurt and how smart you are and how…”

suddenly, teucer trails off as he turns to the trio still conversing near you, like he’s heard something that’s caught his attention. he entirely abandons the sentence he’d left unfinished to join their side again and you find yourself feeling the smidgenmost bit disappointed that he didn’t finish speaking. you only sigh to yourself and smooth your clothes down from the crouching position you were in, joining back in as well.

“that’s right, my brother’s the greatest! he’s mr. cyclops’ bestest friend!”

childe chuckles in somewhat faux delight, to satisfy teucer and make it seem like he approves of his brother’s message, before leaning over to the traveler and whisper, as you hear it,- ‘just humor me in front of teucer, if you’d be so kind…’

“ahem- ah yes! ekaterina, i will deal with the issue of the outstanding payment right away.”

“hey! slinking off, are we?” paimon accuses.

“but, master childe, would it not be improper to ask you to deal with… debt collection?”

“a bet is a bet, isn’t it? and if you lose a bet with an agent.. well, you might as well get some exercise out of it.”

“are you going off to sell toys now?” teucer interjects, partially with admiration for his brother and partially with disappointment that he has to leave.

“that’s right. as much as i’d like to catch up a little longer, teucer, duty calls! i’m sure y/n and ms. nice lady will keep you company while i’m out, though.”

childe implies with a pleading glance thrown to you and the traveler. you nod gladly while the traveler puts her hand to her forehead momentarily and paimon mumbles a complaint about having to babysit for childe.

“sure!” teucer confirms as well. “i really like y/n and this lady already! and anyway, the nice lady made a pinky promise to take good care of me.”

the harbinger ends up leaving the four of you with a hefty bag of mora to spend out in the city while he’s working and you firstly decide to take him to an elderly lady’s kite shop. she patiently explains how to use the kites and teucer asks for a mr. cyclops shaped kite, because why wouldn’t he- you manage to convince the lady to make a custom build for it with a shining pile of mora. next, you take him to wanmin restaurant, where chef mao graciously offers to make a special dish for teucer, who can’t eat spicy food. you don’t blame him, personally- snezhnayan dishes tend to steer away from spice specifically and lean more towards warm, filling meals to endure the cold temperatures. however, the food teucer asks for turns out sickeningly sweet and even paimon, the awarded food enthusiast, feels nauseated at the end. finally, he asks you to give the wharf a better look than when he was stepping off his boat. paimon proceeds to give a mouthful of an explanation about liyue’s trade port, which ends up too confusing for teucer to even care. instead, his attention is caught by a ship anchor left in the wharf.

“teucer, don’t run off!” you urge as he takes off to see the anchor.

“that metal hook is huge! and it gets bigger the closer we get!”

“this is an anchor. docked ships use it to hold themselves in position, to stop wind and waves from blowing them away.” paimon explains.

“hmm, an anchor… got it. but i think i might get it mixed up with commodore hook.”

“commodore hook..? is that another one of your weird toy names?”

“my brother always sends me a really big toy for my birthday- commodore hook, blacksteel jack, iron tony… we keep them all in your backyard!”

“are they as big as the anchor?” the traveler asks.

“yeah, and that’s why i can’t bring them with me all the time. it’s a shame…”

you choke on your breath at a realization. “i-is that what your father was keeping under a tarp in the backyard..?”

teucer nods cluelessly. you’ve seen tarped objects behind childe’s family house that had some absurd silhouettes hidden by the protective fabric and the snow, but you’ve only ever assumed they were left over building materials- not gigantic fucking robots because why would you ever assume that’s what he’d send a child for his birthday. you’ll have to have a talk with him about gift giving at a later time.

“but my favorite is mr. cyclops. even though i mostly came here to see my brother, the other big thing i wanted to do was play with mr. cyclops! oh- are they selling fish over there, let’s have a look!”

and just like that, teucer is gone again. paimon stomps her foot in the air as she heaves frustratedly.

“quit! running! off!”

you briefly go to see the fish on display as teucer tells you of the time when childe caught him an impossibly large fish just because he asked for it. somewhere in the back of your head, you find it endearing that childe has kept up the habit of fishing just like when his father would take you on his trips to ice fish as well. maybe you could get him to go fishing in liyue, just the two of you when you have some free ti- wait, what are you saying? you’re supposed to be watching out for teucer, who conveniently has gone off to see the boats and seems to have his entire good mood flipped around.

“teuce’, you look upset, what’s wrong? are you tired?” you coo.

he sighs melancholically and covers his face behind his hands. “i miss my brother…”

“what? but we were just with him!” argues paimon.

“yea, but for such a short time that it doesn’t even count! take me to see my brother, i don’t wanna play anymore!”

you sigh and look to the other designated babysitters. they look back with defeated shrugs- seems like you’ve done what you can to entertain him for the moment. turning back to teucer, you offer to carry him in your hold as you leave for qingxu pool, where childe said he would be, and he gladly accepts. from behind you, a low gurgle can be heard.

“urgh… paimon may never recover from that dish.”

taglist ; @kentply @osaemu @rain-and-a-nice-nap

[julietasgf]

the posts about the plinth family being so immigrant-coded and the districts speaking English as a second language had me thinking about sejarcus reunion. Like imagine sejanus trying so hard to connect with Marcus by speaking d2's native language, but sejanus is rusty because he left when he was 8 and didn't have much practice speaking the language in the capitol. I imagine strabo would try to ban the language in the home after moving to the capitol to force the family to assimilate. and so sejanus can really only speak the language with Ma when strabo isn't around to yell at him for it. And when sejanus speaks to Marcus in d2's language, he's trying to be like, look even though I moved to the capitol, I'm still district at heart! I'll never be capitol and I hate what the capitol is doing! But since it's been so long since he's spoken the language, he's shaky and it comes off more as him forgetting his culture, his roots, his language, and assimilating into the society of the oppressor. just something about sejanus basically being a 1.5 generation immigrant who will never fit into the new country/place nor the old country/district </3 and how people from the native country sometimes look down on the second gen or 1.5 gen for not being fluent in the native language of the country and see them as "not really *insert ethnicity*" because they can't hold a convo about the political and economic state of the world in the native lang. ok I don't think Marcus would be snobby about rusty language skills, but its like a further sign that sejanus isn't really district anymore no matter how hard he tries to present himself as such </3

anonnnnn I love this concept!!

the idea of sejanus going to the zoo that first day, and trying to speak to marcus (even tho coriolanus is giving sejanus side eye stare bc sejanus is basically shouting in whatever the hell he's speaking), but the flow of his speech is not the same, and he ends up switching some verbs, and it sounds a tad bit broken. and now marcus refused to even LOOK at him and sejanus feels horrible because he thinks of how ridiculous it probably was.

a boy from the academy, wearing that red uniform, surrounded by capitol people at the capitol, trying to speak to a district boy in broken district language. it sounds almost like mockery. it sounds like a capitol boy trying to pass as district.

(I don't think marcus would be snobby, but he would definitely be pissed off 😭)

then he comes back home, and begs his ma to help him practice, because he needs to speak with marcus, but he knows he doesn't sound as natural as when he was a child. and his ma helps him practice, and he actually gets less rusty, but it still isn't the same, he still sounds more like a capitol boy trying to pass as district than an actual district kid (the irony that in the capitol, he has a district accent, but speaking the districts' language, he has a capitol accent). and marcus still. doesn't. talk. to him. he refuses to do it, and all sejanus can think is that his language skills got so bad to the point maybe marcus can't even understand him anymore.

(marcus actually can understand him, it's just that there are other reasons)

also, this weighs a lot on the whole thing regarding not being able to fit in one place or another. other mentors would probably be annoyed or jealous that sejanus can actually communicate with his tribute properly. why are they all struggling while sejanus is there speaking effortlessly? but at the same time, for someone from the districts who grew up speaking that language, it's clearly not 100%, it's slow-ish and it doesn't sound completely natural.

he'll never be enough district, but will never be seen as capitol either.

[official-megumin]

I completely forgot to post about this

But I finally had a doctor's appointment yesterday, my GP checked for noticeable neurological problems(she couldn't find any thankfully) and checked my recent bloodwork to see if any levels were off.

I had a low-ish blood percent and normal leaning slightly towards low b12 levels IIRC.

So she ordered some more bloodwork to further check iron levels and other stuff.

I then asked for written notes about what is up to give to the immigration office we'll visit tomorrow to extend Cuppy's visa. She said she wouldn't have them ready till later yesterday till today and said I could just come pick them up today. I told her that I could not do that, and she asked why.

I had just come to her telling her that I can barely work and struggle to even lift my arms...

So yea, who knows what will happen from here, but at least I have some blood tests ready for me to get closer to an answer. But yea, it was definitely not worth the multiple week wait time.

...On a positive note, the package that got delayed finally arrived! So that is cool.

I also got started on my staff today and have gotten the basic shaping and gluing done. So likely I'll have it ready for saturday where I'll be going to a ren faire with my mom and Cuppy.

Wish me luck, last time I tried something like this, I had to give up within an hour or two to go home. And that was before I got this sick.

[otakween]

Digimon Tamers - Episode 13

Whelp I guess they used up all the budget for episode 12 because this one was really bad. Like unpleasant to watch at times bad. You can't tell from my screenshots, but most of this episode was composed of still images, extreme close ups, and lazy silhouettes. Oh well, this is just the nature of these older, long-ish shows.

Notes:

So from the opening shot I knew this was gonna be a rough one. An overly long silhouetted battle between Guilmon and...some other digimon they didn't feel like animating properly lol. The shot that annoyed me the most though was the scene where Takato is talking with his teacher and the camera is zoomed out on their basically still bodies. Takato's teacher is frozen in this unnatural pose with her hand on her face for waaaay too long. I was like "MOVE!" There was a similar shot at Jian's family's dinner table where one of his sisters was frozen, smiling at the screen while everyone else was moving. These are the things I notice as an adult lol. Really takes you out of it.

Since there was so little animation, this episode compensated with a lot of talk with HYPNOS rambling on about their latest plans. I had to keep rewinding because there was a lot of jargon and I would zone out because there was nothing to look at on screen. The worst offender was the "Zoom call" (I know Zoom wasn't a thing) between the main HYPNOS dude and his colleagues. I thought maybe the images on screen were supposed to be profile photos because they didn't move, but then they moved slightly! Were those supposed to be live videos?? Was one guy just in "swinging-a-golf-club" pose for like 10 minutes straight? They should have just kept them still at that point...

The writing for Asanuma-sensei is so weird. She tells Takato that she thinks she "made a mistake" becoming a teacher. Uh...TMI! You don't say that to your 10 year old student! And then Takato agrees with her, which was so shady lol. I guess I wasn't wrong when I said she sounded dead inside.

Juri's Guilmon doodle was adorable. Glad she's sticking up for Takato. I like her little dog puppet, but can't help but feel if she did that IRL she'd get bullied :/

I really don't like the HYPNOS ladies. Their jobs are just too vague and they don't really have personalities. They always look off-model too.

So...main HYPNOS guy is racist?? Suggesting that Jian's family should pronounce their names the JAPANESE way. Geez. You don't see racism brought up too often in anime unless it's fantasy racism, so I found that interesting. Since their names were Americanized in the dub, I guess its probably left out.

So Jian's dad was one of the creators of Digimon like Oikawa? I didn't see that coming. Definitely the most intriguing revelation of the episode. If he knows about Digimon then...wouldn't he realize that Terriermon is one?

Impmon telling Culumon that his "culu culu" gimmick is annoying was satisfying not gonna lie lol. I want to see more of the two of them together.

Chinese characters always seem to have big families in anime. I guess that's the stereotype in Japan. Seems weird to me because of the old "one child" policy, but what do I know? (I guess Chinese immigrants in Japan would be a different story).

Sooo...mysterious ending with Terriermon acting hypnotized (haha HYPNOS...get it?) Kind of alarming since he was smacking into the window. I was struggling to digest the explanation but I think HYPNOS is baiting the digimon so that they can destroy them?

We get some hint of a potential big bad because one of the enemy digimon mentions his "God..." They're sure taking their time to cut to the chase with this one.

[marta-bee]

I put together my Christmas wish list for family, which this year included a lot of history and politics books I've been wanting to read. It actually felt good, a low risk way to tell family this is what I stand for. But it's also a good round-up of vaguely liberal if not outright progressive titles that caught my interest, which is a rec list in its own way, so I thought I'd share.

Non-Fiction/RL-ish Books

Built from the Fire: The Epic story fo Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street (Victor Luckerson)

Countdown 1960: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the 312 Days That Changed America's Politics (Chris Wallace)

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade (Ann Fessler)

The Message (Ta-Nehisi Coates)

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson)

The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust (Francis S. Collins)

War (Bob Woodward)

White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy (William J. Barber)

And the more fannish ones:

The Fall of Numenor: And Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth (J.R.R. Tolkien)

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18 (Joseph Loconte)

The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science fiction, and Fantasy (Ursula K. LeGuin)

Norse Mythology (Neil gaiman)

A Place Called District 12: Appalachian Geography and Music in the Hunger Games (Thomas W. Paradis)

The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology (Tom Shippey)

A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages (Ed. Dimitra Fimi)

Star Trek: Open a CHannel: A Woman's Trek by Nana Visitor

Tolkien and the Modernists: Literary Responses to the Dark New Days of the 20th Century (Theresa Freda Nicolay)

And finally, some charity groups I suggested family and friends donate to, all of which are doing work near to my heart:

Carolinas Care Partnership [an LGBT support group around here, particularly focused on housing access, health care and therapy access, especially for people affected by HIV/AIDS but not exclusively]

Life After Hate [supporting people leaving far-right and white nationalist groups]

NC Immigrant Solidarity Fund [they do financial grants for families facing deportation, also legal and social support for all kinds of recent immigrants]

Pro Publica [doing important independent investigative journalism, and boy is their work vital]

Promising Pages [you've heard of food banks? that, but for books]

Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom [doing good work to build Jewish-Muslim solidarity, The Kid and I particularly like that they're woman-centric and spotlight some lesser-known voices]

Sojourners [a good general left-leaning evangelical group, good at producing journalism and educational resources for *cough* less progressive evangelicals, they're good at speaking that community's language]

[daughter-of-sapph0]

Tell us more about the maids please!

okay so I already gave away a bit of lore in this post, but I'll drop some more lore

Avery and Iris and two OCs from a story I'm writing called Fool's Mate. just be warned, it is porn. like really heavy fucked up porn, and I absolutely do not recommend it to everyone. dead dove and all that. but I'll try and censor most of the nsfw stuff and keep it at least pg-13 in my lore dump

also, major major spoilers for Fool's Mate below the cut. there's only four chapters out right now, and a fifth dropping soon-ish. some of these bits of lore won't be revealed for several chapters. so only read if you want spoilers.

okay so where do I even start. well first off, this is actually a sort of adjacent / spinoff story to someone a friend of mine wrote called The Matron's Handmaiden, which is a really good M/s lesbian love story that's longer than LOTR. although it is extremely intense and hard to get into, and I certainly don't recommend it to everyone. I'm trying to write FM in a way that you won't need to have read MH to understand it, but will still be entertaining if you have. basically the only thing you need to know is that the Italian mafia exists, and runs a semi-secret operation where people get made into... let's say "less-than-willing servents"

so Fool's Mate focuses primarily on the relationship between Rosa DiAngelo and Avery Fitzgerald. Rosa's parents come from two different crime families. her father, Antonio Fiore, was a hitman for the Italian mob her, Margarita Ruiz, comes from a family that ran a drug empire in Puerto Rico until the communist revolution forced them to move to new york. being from two different cultures and competing for control of the city, Tony and Rita's families fought a lot. despite this, they fell in love with each other. although they try to treat this as a storybook Romeo and Juliette style romance (or I guess in this case West Side Story), their marriage was actually arranged so that the Italians could have a share of the opium business while the PRs received protecting from the mob, and was seen as mutually beneficial for both families.

Rosaline Fiore was the first and only child born to Rita and Tony Fiore. she grew up rich, pampered, and spoiled rotten. everything she could ever possibly want was handed to her on a silver platter. but around the time she was about 7 or 8 years old, her father started to get back in with the mob and was almost never home. to help take care of Rosaline, Tony "hired" a maid named Irene Sorello, who he renamed to Iris.

Iris had a rough life growing up. her mother left home, and her father was incredibly abusive. she was always a bit goth and into the occult and mysticism and stuff, but her father called it demon worshipping and tried to make her stop. when she was around 16, she ran away from home, and through a series of unfortunate events, ended up becoming the Fiore family's live in maid, and Rosaline's babysitter.

Iris realized early on that Rosaline was an extremely weird kid. she had almost no empathy for others. she's unsure how much of this is caused by her parents, especially her father, being neglectful, and how much of it is Rosaline's own issues. despite this, Iris deeply cared for Rosaline and did her absolutely best to take care of the princess.

Rosaline went to a private catholic high school called St Andrew's Academy. her two friends, Juno and her cousin Christina, stayed by her side no matter what. there was an incident where a classmate was being racist to her, but when Rosaline told her father about this, that girl's family mysteriously moved away. so no one fucked with her after that.

around the time Rosaline starts high school, Aiden Fitzgerald is about 7 years old. he lives in a small new york apartment with his mother, Eileen. Eileen, a single mother and Irish immigrant, struggles to raise her son on her own. she seeks help from a close friend of hers, another single mother Veronica Accardi, who also has a daughter of her own named Violet. Aiden and Violet grow up to be close friends, almost like siblings. and Ms Accardi is like a second mother to Aiden.

I'm not gonna reveal how because spoilers, but one day Eileen dies. Aiden is traumatized, and Ms Accardi volunteers to adopt him, raising him as her own son.

eventually, Aiden comes out as transgender, changing her name to Avery. Veronica and Violet are both super accepting and support her transition.

meanwhile, back at the Fiore manor, Rosaline is 18 and in her senior year. for the past year, her and Juno have been dating. but Juno has been showing more and more masculine traits, wearing the boys uniform, cutting her hair shorter. eventually, Juno comes out to Rosaline as a trans man and changes his name to Julius. Rosaline doesn't take this easily, assuming that Julius is trying to turn her straight, and the two get into a huge fight and break up. despite this, they both still have feelings for each other but are both too prideful to admit it.

Rosaline is furious, and acts like a huge brat when she's not given something she wants for the first time in her life. she takes out a lot of this anger on Iris, who takes the abuse without resisting. around this same time, her father who has only been home occasionally for the past decade announces that he's retiring from the mob the same month Rosaline leaves for college. Rosaline interpret this as her father not loving her and trying to avoid her, and feels that her low empathy and abusive tendencies (as well as a past traumatic even that I won't spoil) makes her unlovable. she tries to talk to Iris about this, realizing that she has a crush on her. but when Iris rejects her and says that Rosaline is more like a sister to her than anything, Rosaline loses her temper and whips Iris across the back so hard that she still has a scar over a decade later.

meanwhile, Avery is having simar feelings towards Violet. being by her side for her entire life, she feels a deep attraction for her. but Violet has repeatedly shown that she sees Avery as more of a little sister, and Avery feels it's too awkward to confess her feelings to her. around this time, she meets a new best friend, Rachel Goldwyn, and the two hit it off well. Rachel acts as the sort of overprotective mother of the group, and is especially needed when Violet's teenage punk antics get them into trouble.

Rosaline leaves for college, and tries to separate herself from her family as much as possible, going so far as to change her name to Rosa DiAngelo to avoid people recognizing her as a mafia princess. she sleeps around a lot, having a preference for girls with dark red hair just like Iris. Rosa and Christina hang out whenever they get a chance. but despite all this, there's still an aching feeling that she misses Julius, but will never admit it to herself.

years pass. Violet graduates high school, then Avery and Rachel a few years later. Violet starts a band who eventually get a record deal, and Rachel gets married and has a kid before she's 21. including Rachel's husband and daughter, the five of them live in a tiny crowded apartment. while Rachel and Violet are somewhat successful, Avery is an absolute failure. she can't keep a job, or a boyfriend, to save her life. the only thing she's half decent at cooking meals that Ms Accardi taught her. her main hobby is watching video game streams online alone in her room.

for her 21st birthday, Violet and Rachel basically force Avery out of the house to go to a nightclub, despite how much Avery hates it. there, she meets someone who can't keep her eyes off her; Rosa DiAngelo.

and that's at least most of the backstory for my OCs so far. I'm currently writing chapter 5, which is a flashback to were Avery and Rosa first meet. and I plan on introducing Iris properly in a few chapters, too, as well as giving Rosa a bit of a family reunion.

if you wanna hear more nsfw details or want a link to the current four chapters, dm my other blog @angel-in-shibari, because I am NOT posting them here lmao

[mamamittens]

Yet another late night thoughts when I should be sleeping. Rambling thoughts below.

I really love isekai stories. Either being reborn or dropped in as you are (maybe a different age cause let's be honest, most anime has shenanigans grown adult me can't keep up with but younger, spry me has a bit of a chance ig).

And sometimes they deal with the differences between worlds. You know, government, magic, races, and general topography. That sort of thing. But very few really go into how different on a fundamental level this new-ish world would be.

It got me thinking how hard it would be to adjust to, you know?

I mean, you lose everything. Basically all of your skills are either useless or not longer quite so relevant. Everything you've dreamed of doing is likely impossible as you imagined it. Your support system is gone. Your comforts and coping mechanism arent the same anymore.

You can't eat your favorite food because the specific type of flour that used to be ubiquitous is gone. Or brand. Or fruit or whatever. Your safe food is no longer safe, if it even exists anymore in any form.

The air is going to be different. The WATER won't taste the same. The fabric for your clothes is different. The ambient sound is different (even if both places are rural the bugs and birds aren't the same). Nothing smells right now.

How quickly would you notice all these changes? How much even registers or does it all blur into anxiety and loss of control?

The grass doesn't look right.

The sky is different in a way you can't describe until nightfall and the stars are no longer your friend. These aren't the distant lights you wished on as a child but strangers who are indifferent to your plight.

You have nothing here. Even if you have the knowledge to go farther than this world would ever allow, you'll never have your grandmother's chicken noodle soup despite memorizing the recipe. Auntie's chocolate chip cookies she swore you to secrecy for. The pot roast recipe you spitefully stole from your ex. Even a master's level understanding of the printing press process won't bring back the smell of aged dime store novels that rest in a small town library and is fawned over by generations of romantics who noticed the suspiciously nearly naked man holding a fainting woman in his arms.

None of that matters because nothing you find will ever quite replace the old. So none of it tastes the same. None of it feels the same. Smells the same.

On a fundamental level, you have nothing from your old life but memories no one else will understand.

It's the most extreme story of immigration that, when done right, asks the question "How much can you really take with you?"

Everything is new now and you can't. Go. Back.

Most of the time there's plot going on so the protagonist needs to adjust quickly (helps if they're reborn or a child) but I feel like it'd destroy me a little to walk with a character struggling to soak up a world of opportunity while mourning the imperfect land they came from.

Or maybe it's the hint of the tism that screams how frightening it must be to go somewhere where even the stars I never memorized are cold strangers to me, and me to them.

Where no amount of searching will grant me even a taste of home. Any semblance of a familiar scent is little more than a mirage to my senses. Doubt filling me while wondering if I've ever heard church bells that sounds just like this.

How horrifying and breathtaking an alien world must be to an unwilling traveler.

[mandy4ever69420]

opinion on kevin?

i would really LIKE to like him. i think he's really fun and amusing at times. i do miss when he was snippy in s1 i thought that was charming as fuck. also he looked like the chick from the mr brightside video. all flushed cheeks and shapely eyebrows.

my favorite thing in kevin's plot was also about s1 ish in time. i really liked that he was a decent person you were meant to take seriously and he had literacy struggles. this is pretty niche of me but considering the way literacy is weaponized against victims of colonization(+enslaved peoples), how there are plenty of world languages w/out a writing system, and how education is used as a class marker/barrier i have some really strong feelings about sensitive portrayals of people who don't really read. so i thought that was delightful. this is also why it's sad to me when any joke later is a bit about portraying him as funny for not knowing stuff. whatever

unfortunately for kevin and also for V i take people calling immigration extremely personally. and i also can't help but compare that when mickey learned of the way that immigrant workers are treated he was genuinely indignant - like, he didn't have the resource or influence to do what he thought he would about that, but he really clearly just thought it was gross. before any other motives he was just like UGH. vs kevin just thinking "oh awesome idea" + hiring some uninformed guys to work on Asbestos with no PPE of all things. um! well he probably killed at least one of those guys.

he got a lot of the brunt of time rotting away at a character. my guess is because he's not as close to fiona as V was & was in a pretty stable relationship the whole time - a lot of TV shows don't know how to write an established relationship as interesting without just, really dumb drama. shameless does a lot better than other shows with that though. like at least kev and v having problems after having kids is extremely common + probably v was having postpartum depression without realizing it

obligatory "thanks kevin" for being an ally even when it's not very convenient. genuine live reaction first time watching the show when he was like ok fuck these gentrifiers but can we quit the gay bashing. i wanted to like fist bump him or something. he doesn't get all the brownie points in the world though because being not a fucking asshole to mickey does not a saint make. and he was weird as fuck about his hot wife and his hot wife's hot wife. not unrealistic but like dude come on

um and last thing i think it's really funny how scared he was when mickey threatened him a little. this is more a reflection of mickey cultivating his own reputation but i liked that mickey scared the fuck out of kevin bad enough that kevin fucked up his own life (gun in the house, antsy, you remember) without mickey even having to show up to beat the fuck out of him. lol! and his kissassery at that party for terry and all. it was a blessing for kevin's dignity that mickey came out when he did and he could diffuse mickeys nerves by being annoying about it instead of dangerous

[k4nzi]

Hazbin Hotel oc who I wanna put online because I need decent Irish representation that ain't a leprechaun. I can't draw for shit so have a written reference instead!

Name: Adrian Mulligan

Age: 33 (sinners stay the age they died at)

Lifespan: 1914-1947

Ethnicity: White Irish

Cause of death: Murdered with a gunshot wound to the chest

Human appearance:

ginger hair, green eyes, grey flatcap, not entirely sure how to describe 1920s-30s American fashion so I'll post pictures of what clothes he usually wore when he was alive.

Demon appearance:

He's essentially a tall orange fox demon, a humanoid-ish fox basically. He's tall and lean (roughly as tall as Angel Dust). His face is relatively human minus the sharp teeth, eyes and fox ears. His body has orange fur on his torso that fade out to black from his forearms and from below the knee. His eyes have black scleras and green irises. He wears black trousers, black heeled boots, a white blouse with a black bowtie around the collar, and black waistcoat.. He has a fluffy fox tail for good measure. His fox appearance in Hell is a reference to foxes being portrayed as sly and untrustworthy- like a conman. His hair remains similar to when he was human except it's more orange than ginger and is fluffier to mimic a fox's fur.

Life:

Born in Dublin in 1914, Adrian was born into a poor family. In 1925, his family saw all the prosperity in the USA and moved there...only for it to be less than ideal. Not everyone benefitted, immigrants like him for example, from the roaring 20s so Adrian spent most of his time on the streets. He had a knack for petty theft and pickpocketing as a child. As he grew older and the Great Depression hit, he found himself needing to think bigger. He began to get into con artistry. Scamming desperate people for their money. It wasn't much but it helped him get by. He once tried (and failed) to scam a member of the New York Mafia but instead of handing his ass to him...Adrian landed himself a job. He began working for the mafia as a conman, bootlegger and spy. He often worked at night and had to be incredibly calculating if he wanted to make money out of someone. When Prohibited ended in 1933 and the criminal bootlegging industry fell, Adrian found himself struggling again. The pressure of losing an important source of income meant Adrian had to bring in more money from his scams. He was stuck doing this up until his death in 1947. He was murdered by a gunshot to the chest as an act of revenge because it turns out that people don't like being cheated of their valuables.

Afterlife:

Unsurprisingly, a life of lying and deceiving landed Adrian in Hell. He was determined to make his afterlife different though. He spent his life with barely anything...he won't let his afterlife be the same. This time though he was in luck... sorta. The Radio Demon: feared but respected. He found Adrian when he was new to Hell and homeless. Spotting an opportunity, he promised Adrian power he could've only dreamt of when he was alive...for a price. Adrian however, didn't see any other choice, so he reluctantly accepted the deal. His soul in exchange for a place as Alastor's right hand demon and power. The powers were voodoo, shadow manipulation and fortune-telling (the only limit for that is that he can't tell his own future and yes I got inspo from Dr. Facilier from Princess and the Frog). All of this gave Adrian the nickname "The Shadow Demon" (yes that was a Princess and The Frog reference which works nicely considering Keith David voices Husk and Facilier). His power and influence at Alastor's side helped Adrian become an overlord himself. Desperate sinners give him their souls in exchange for his fortune-telling or he cons demons for their souls. Adrian ended up at the Hazbin Hotel to work as a butler and Alastor's minion. He has everything he never had as a human...but is it really worth it? Is being used as Alastor's stooge worth the status?

That's all I got so far, feel free to ask any questions! I could talk about ocs all day fr

[directedbywomen]

Celebrating Elizabeth Lo!

"Elizabeth Lo is an award-winning nonfiction filmmaker who is interested in finding new, aesthetic ways of exploring the boundaries between species, class, and unequal states of personhood."

Learn more on Elizabeth Lo's website.

Stray (2020)

"I think that, on some level, the film is indeed trying to channel this immigrant experience, the feeling of being an outsider. I showed the film in China once, and someone asked me why I like to occupy this outsider’s perspective. They very astutely pointed out that because I grew up in Hong Kong, culturally American with a Chinese-American mother, and later moved to America, I’m familiar with this experience of being an outsider. And yes, that’s probably why I’m drawn to the outsider’s gaze. Being a foreigner in Turkey was a very comfortable position for me." Read more in Guernica Magazine's Elizabeth Lo: “Like the dogs, I existed in a limbo where I wasn’t entirely part of human society.”

Bisonhead (2016)

“A quietly devastating glimpse into the modern indigenous struggle, focused just as intently on the snowy land and sturdy bison, as it is on the faces of the native tribe. Rendered with a non-showy compassion, director Elizabeth Lo pairs poetic visuals of Yellowstone with a haunting wind-swept soundscape to gracefully document the gutted native culture attempting to persevere.” (No Budge)

Hotel 22 (2014)

"The metallic bus railings and seats generate a neon, blue-ish hue and give the film a sci-fi feel. But this is not a work of fiction, instead it’s the grim reality that many Bay Area homeless persons face each night." Read more in The Independent Magazine.

Explore Lo's filmography on MUBI:

[lambotel]

hey! i don't mean to sound rude but i have a few questions ❤️ so i know you have a lot of dolls but i just wanted to ask how did you start your collection and why? are your dolls haunted? where are they from? how much were they? and do you buy them yourself or are they gifts? not that i want you to tell me your whole life story i'm just curious and have asked others similar questions! ❤️

hi lol, its ok. and idk how to answer any of this but i will try. already struggling w the first one, dont know how or why. i have always been used to my dad gifting me and my sister cars because he would rather get me, her and my brother the same gifts and always went with what was more boy-ish for whatever reason. always made us match clothes and everything, everything was almost the same, so it's crazy how we eventually did grow up to have different interests etc. mine became colelcting antique dolls because one day my dad just boguht a really big beautiful porcelain doll home (when i say big, not extremely big, just bigger than the others) for me. and he wanted /me/ to have it. part of. me believes he did it randomly but out of love, while the lther part of me believes he was guilty and upset when he saw how jealous i was seeing everyone have dolls that can literally sing. he never wanted to make me feel singled out in things or different from others, even though i was, and even though he was terrible in some doings- this was kind, and special. like a way to see i didnt need a singing stupid doll when i can have a very old antique one WITH the letter of authenticity.

growing up i noticed similar looking dolls in the charity shops i went to, they were expensive but also not cheap. i used to get bulloed really bad in highschool and college (yes, in college too lol), i had no friends and spent most of my days with my mum because my dad always worked. me and my mum always went to charity shops because the clothes and house stuff was just way cheaper. i dont want to say they let me buy what i want out of pity, but i know they were always trying to get me back on my feet again - thats the thing with asian, immigrant parents. never being able to tell you words of affirmations, but always somehow showing it in their actions. my mum knew i would look at a doll or two here and then, she always picked it up without asking or saying anything. brushing its hairs and putting it on my shelf for me and organising my books too. my mum bought me all the books sitting on my bookshelf rn.

if you want to start your own collection, i think you should start looking in charity shops or antique stores. a lot of old people, or family members of old people, dump their stuff there all the time. i have many memorable items from charity shops that aren't just dolls. they're worth a look. and dont worry about not getting an authenticity certificate - if you are bothered, you can always describe your doll online, however some antique sites (?) will ask you to pay in order for you to get info from them. so be careful. you can always ask straight from the person youre buying, if you look on places like depop or etsy, but who knows they might be lying lmao. i personally wouldnt care too much about it. i just am informative on it because my first doll came with it, i was hyper fixated on it for ages.

i hope this answered everything. i might delete this later if i decide to feel like i have over-shared on this platform.

[beardedmrbean]

Oh yes the hoteps, how the fuck they got together? And why their main base is in Chicago?! Is there a certain kool aid I don’t know about

Also about my ancestry, the thing is I may visit Nigeria if a close friend from they want to come or like for research.

I mean in my black oriented stories, I was slams a hammer so hard in the audience head pointing out the black Americans would see the native Africans as foreigners

Also make passive aggressive comments on the Dahomey.

Actually…I wonder if I could like every talk to a African and expose how bad our education system is telling the us the whole story about the Africa slave kingdoms

I imagine they would have downright shocked that black Americans of all people never learn about the Dahomey until the first women king trailer

Like to me, sorry not taking away the Jewish people struggles, just showing how bad my community knowledge is to our ancestry. Is like a Jewish person never taught what Emperor Hadrian did to ancient Israel.

Then how just about how people like you reveal we did the genetic history of black Americans ancestors with enslaved ancestry and parts we’re from

Why isn’t taught, a huge identity crisis among my community id that we were taught that our pre American ancestors were only slaves.

Of course we aren’t part of those tribes but give us better state of mind…ish

But one thing

Me: So you bitch about the war on drugs and militarization of police the elites did?

Black activists: yep

Me: Had it ever occurred to you that we are taughted a sanitized version of the African slave trade all the way to college while we get hit with the native atrocities and Japanese interment camps stuff in middle school. And how antagonistic we are on average towards African immigrants because we act like toddlers?

BA: nope

Good why am I doing research about our main ancestors more than you

Oh yeah the root thing

https://x.com/copicsquiddo/status/1392364456127221761?s=46

You know with the whole decolonization talks, I notice that the left intentionally leave out black Americans because at the end of the day we are the irreversible result of colonization…unless the left have this dumbass option that modern Yoruba culture is the same as my ancestors were part of-oh my god

So yeah we’re rootless, to where we only have middle upper class people povs of Africa until the 60’s

Also this idea that black people cant cruel as our white slave owners? Oh yeah that never-

*Phone call from the afterlife*

Hello? Oh it Maya Angelou, pointing out that she was RAPED by her mom’s boyfriend as a child and why she was muted for a few years. OW! Oh it Micheal Jackson hitting that high note point out how much of a pos his father was to him and his siblings

Remember that Jackson 5 mini series where they point out the dad was abusive as hell

Got a feel mj and the others did “uncredited” consultants on that series

I heard that mj dad didn’t even GRIEVE or act sad his fucking son was dead. My god, actually I was checking Paris Jackson, she was on an Amazon show called the Swarm where she said her was culturally black. Swarm centered around a serial killer obsessed with a beyonce stand in.

So have the daughter of a man who finger twitch at concert made people faint. Is a good reference

But I read up that MJ mom tried to funraise a documentary after her son death…holy fuck is the MJ we know is a least terrible result of the household he was in?

Um oh yeah, *phone rings* oh Tyler Perry, orphan (wait she was and tp were basically Judas for their higher ups), children of the welfare queens and abusive inner cities parents pointing out the hell they went through

Okay I’m talking about child abuse, but I notice when white, Asian, and Latinos point out their parents and elders shitty actions they are supported

But when black Americans points out that a lot of our parents beat us harder than overseers did to other field ancestors. We need to treat them with kids gloves

Of course not all and we do point out this shit. We need to treat these abusive tactics with kids gloves

“Slavery, racism, and systematic oppression is why!”

Hmmm, why I don’t see Mexicans, Indians, Argentinians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Native Americans, giving their elders who often went through hell too. The same execuses?

Oh yes the hoteps, how the fuck they got together? And why their main base is in Chicago?! Is there a certain kool aid I don’t know about

Splinter from nation of islam, or something like that is my guess. Nailed it

I mean in my black oriented stories, I was slams a hammer so hard in the audience head pointing out the black Americans would see the native Africans as foreigners Also make passive aggressive comments on the Dahomey.

To them here they would be, just like the other way around would work the same, and far more than passive aggressive, but they earned it.

Prev bit and Like to me, sorry not taking away the Jewish people struggles, just showing how bad my community knowledge is to our ancestry. Is like a Jewish person never taught what Emperor Hadrian did to ancient Israel.

I wonder where "ancient" stops applying, that one happened well after Jesus

an·cient ADJECTIVE

belonging to the very distant past and no longer in existence: "the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean"

Suppose that works, nice and vague too. Granted that one doesn't turn up in Christianity so it's not too well known outside of Jewish circles, but they do their own schooling too, pretty much no matter where they are they have 'Jewish School' identity is important to them and all their holy days are confusing to a outsider.

There's a handy chart for us gentiles

Admittedly black Americans were not given the chance to do the same, there was "africatown" technically Plateau, Alabama where former slaves that still remembered home could go to escape Americans, not just white people.

Prev bit+ Of course we aren’t part of those tribes but give us better state of mind…ish

Absolutly be good to learn, sadly the nature of how so many got here y'all are likely to be in the same boat as so many of the rest of us are there, we're all mutts, I'm a european one they'd be african. Might explain some of the pan african stuff honestly, with DNA tests now you can pinpoint though just make sure the company isn't one that will sell your info to the cops or anyone else.

Me: So you bitch about the war on drugs and militarization of police the elites did? Black activists: yep Cont:

It's gonna start sinking in soon enough I think, the information is there and people know where to look now so there will be some folks that are not in the mood to be berated anymore that will begin the education process.

My guess at least.

This sounds familiar, can't just blame white people for that tho, also lots of the kingdoms and what not that did the selling and being sold don't exist anymore, makes it even harder.

Prev and I heard that mj dad didn’t even GRIEVE or act sad his fucking son was dead. My god, actually I was checking Paris Jackson, she was on an Amazon show called the Swarm where she said her was culturally black. Swarm centered around a serial killer obsessed with a beyonce stand in.

joe jackson that was bad ya, same with mya angelou, Tina Turner, and several other people through history, folks need to give up on the race dynamic parts of abuse and just focus on how to help people heal,

Blaming the actual abuser instead of some nebulous concept would be good too. Nice to give the bad guy a name, even if it's Joseph.

Okay I’m talking about child abuse, but I notice when white, Asian, and Latinos point out their parents and elders shitty actions they are supported But when black Americans points out that a lot of our parents beat us harder than overseers did to other field ancestors. We need to treat them with kids gloves

Overseers knew better than to beat the tractor with a baseball bat, one of those things that changed with slavery being abolished is working conditions could actually get worse.

Coal miner talking about the boss telling him to be sure and get the mule out if there's a cave in,

'what about me and the men boss'

'I can hire more men, gotta buy the mule'

“Slavery, racism, and systematic oppression is why!” Hmmm, why I don’t see Mexicans, Indians, Argentinians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Native Americans, giving their elders who often went through hell too. The same execuses?

there's a reason it changed to bipoc from just poc while the lgbt alphabet soup keeps getting longer and more inclusive.

[charlesandmiranda]

Arrival!

Writing to you this morning from our hotel breakfast! Just wanted to fill in everyone about the rest of our trip before we start our first full day. I doubt we'll be able to post EVERY SINGLE DAY WE'RE HERE but we're definitely gonna try and keep it frequent enough to be interesting!

From our last post, we were heading from Baltimore to Toronto, which was a very quick hour and a half-ish flight. From Toronto, we headed straight to our gate to which started boarding shortly thereafter, so it was a pretty quick turn around. It was almost kind of a shame because airport was actually kinda pretty, and I wouldn't have hated a few extra minutes to look around at all the really lavishly decorated restaurants and stuff.

Then came the 14 hour flight. It IS a very long time, don't get me wrong, and by the end my back was VERY achy and my legs definitely craved stretching but also they keep the windows closed and the lights low for most of the trip so you honestly kind of lose track of how long you've been on there.

Charles and I both watched some movies on the flight; we started the first two episodes of Severance (which was also provided on the flight and I've been curious about for a while anyway -- anyone else here seen it?) and played games on our Switches. I also read a lot; I loaded my e-reader up before we left. In a weird way it was kind of nice to have such a long, uninterrupted time where there was nothing to do but leisure activities even if you're doing them in a mostly uncomfortable way --I think Charles and I (Charles especially) struggle with justifying how we spend our free time, always feeling like there has to be something else we can be working on or doing, but it's kind of a bad habit and terrible mental state to always be in, so we're working on it. Unfortunately, neither of us managed to get much sleep on the flight despite our best efforts, I think I managed maybe 20 minutes total?? So it wasn't super restful for sure.

Thankfully, our flight was kinda ahead of schedule, and we ended up landing around 5:00 PM / 17:00 which is like....3:00 AM for those of you in the Eastern US timezone! We're 12 hours ahead of y'all, so when I'm writing this, I'm writing to you from the future!!!

After getting through customs and immigration, baggage, etc. we were stopped by a news crew from a show called Why Did You Come To Japan? They seem to stop tourists at the airport pretty regularly, and we ended up talking to them for a while. Charles said that as someone who used to be a camera guy himself, he always tries to stop for folks filming stuff like that, because he knows how hard it can be to get people to talk to you and work with you. They were very interested in the fact it was our honeymoon, and that we got engaged here, and even more interested that we were really into Oishinbo, which is a food manga from the 80s/90s. It's not super popular in the US although personally I love & recommend it, and I kinda get the impression from the crew we spoke to that it's a classic but kinda old fashioned here. They said in all their years of doing these interviews, it was their first time having a foreigner mention it. They gave us a card and a slip of paper and asked us to contact them again, because they may be interested in meeting up with us again later in our trip to film more for the show (!?) so we'll see how that pans out I guess!

Speaking of, after we finally left the airport, we took the Skyliner train to Nippori, and then transferred to a JR Line train to get us to Shinjuku station. We've stayed in Shinjuku for at least part or all of our trips in the past, and it kind of feels like a home base for us now. We usually stay in or around the Kabukicho area, which is known as an entertainment district with lots of nightlife. If you want brilliantly lit signs and that crowded cyberpunk-y look, Kabukicho is a great place to be!

NOT THAT IT SUPER MATTERS, BUT the card in the photo, with Hello kitty and other Sanrio characters on it, is a Pasmo card, we each got one. Basically it's a little card that you can add money to, and you can use it to pay fare on most trains and buses, as well as lots of vending machines and stuff like that. You can top it off as you go as well.

We checked in to our hotel, the Shinjuku Gracery, and IMMEDIATELY needed to stretch out on the bed and shower the sweaty airport off of us, haha. The Gracery is built on top of a Toho Cinema movie theater, and the whole hotel has a very classy Godzilla theme to it. There's a to-scale Godzilla head built on top of part of the building, looking like he's about to demolish it, and he roars and blows steam out of his mouth, haha. To be honest, a night in the Gracery is one of our "we're on our honeymoon, we deserve this!" splurges -- it's one of the more expensive parts of our trip, given the rest of the time we'll be staying in smaller hotels and airbnbs and the like. We dished out a little extra cash to stay in what they call a Godzilla view room, where you can see the head of Godzilla that is mounted to the roof of the hotel from your room! Totally cool. I had to include specifically a picture of the shower, because I loooove these big hotel showers!

(sadly the filter for this exhibit not only doesn't fit my phone screen but also insanely reduced the image quality LOL)

We took a rest, then headed out to get a bite to eat. We hit up a ramen shop we'd been to in the past, and spent a while walking around the Kabukicho area, including the micro-bar district, Golden Gai. It was interesting to see what's changed and what hasn't since we were here last; for example, they were in the process of demolishing a VR arcade when we were last here, and now there's an ENORMOUS, lux-looking hotel in its place!

We ended up in the unfortunate position of feeling physically very tired but mentally pretty awake, and even though we spent time in our hotel room soaking in the bath, it was probably 1 AM our time before we actually fell asleep, meaning we were up for like....32 hours straight, I think?

Today, our plan is to check out a few shops in the area around Kabukicho, and a little later we'll be checking out and moving on to Akihabara, where our next hotel is. It's well known for being crammed with electronics and used and new like....nerd stuff, and is pretty close to a district jam packed with guitar shops, so we'll have a pretty full day! Stay tuned I suppose!!

Til next time!