#it's so bizarre though like. i don't really feel as many weird attachment things with him? he just. puts me so at ease idk idk

[cozycreaturescorner]

bisexual men who I want to sink my teeth into and shake around like a chewtoy

[runwayrunway]

Galley Gala No. 4 - Saudia

Okay, so Saudia's livery isn't fantastic. But their cabin crew uniforms? Top notch.

I feel like the first thing that pops into a Westerner's mind when considering what a Saudia stewardess might look like is "aren't women in Muslim-majority countries legally required to wear a hair covering?" And the answer for airline cabin crew is not only 'no', but actually a fairly emphatic one. Emirates and Qatar Airways actually both ban the hijab (the hair covering). This means that, if you're hijabi and hoping to be a flight attendant, British Airways or WestJet would be a better choice than the national airlines of countries where the majority of women are hijabi. That's bizarre to me, personally.

(It should be clarified that the majority of these countries actually employ primarily foreign cabin crew; while certainly many Saudia flight attendants would have always been Muslim, they only began hiring Saudi women in 2020. Before this, they were all foreigners. The majority were Filipino, Thai, or Eastern European. This is true of many fields in many countries in the Persian Gulf. The UAE and Qatar also have never required head coverings by law, and from what I've heard non-Muslim foreigners generally just don't wear them.)

Saudia's cabin crew, until 2020, dressed in a very smart blue pantsuit with gold hardware and a crisp white shirt underneath. From the neck down, it is literally just a very nice-looking flight attendant uniform which doesn't come with a skirt option in order to preserve hijab (the concept).

Underneath the jackets, there are these lovely light-looking shirts and matching blue vests. I would, in a heartbeat, wear exactly identical clothing to a pre-2020 Saudia flight attendant, except with different shoes. It's stylish! And it comes with these headpieces which have headscarves attached to them, in order to actually cover the wearer's hair. It's a pretty stylish and clever way to approach the task. The scarf blends really well into the vest without constricting the neck, so if it catches on something in an evacuation the wearer won't be horribly strangled. I fully approve.

In 2020, they released an updated version. In addition to incorporating cabin crew's feedback on comfort and practicality, it updates the appearance to something I think is very chic.

These coats, with the brown gloves and shoes, are gorgeous, and I just adore the new darker blue. These are just downright nice outfits. If you asked me what job these women have, I would not guess that they're flight attendants - I would think they're working in some glamorous, high-profile job. Being a flight attendant in Saudi Arabia is not considered glamorous in the least, but you wouldn't be able to tell it from this updated look.

In addition to the darker blue, the female cabin crew are now given the choice to wear skirts, and their suits are given a belted waist for a very 40s look. I like it a lot. I think these are some of the best looking 'traditional' flight attendant uniforms out there. This has all the features Saudia's livery should have, but doesn't.

Here's something a bit weird, though. I think Saudia may have just banned the hijab*?

*The literal headscarf. The rest of their uniform is still quite hijab-compliant as far as I, a non-Muslim man, can tell.

So, there's this drapey bit. It's pretty similar to Emirates's uniforms (which I will discuss some day). Emirates bans the hijab. Emirates flight attendants are all required to remove their hijab for work, if they wear one. Saudi Arabia, until 2018, required all women, including non-Muslims and foreigners, to wear abaya. Since 2018, there is no legal requirement to wear a hair covering, and now their flag carrier seems to have banned hijabs for flight attendants.

The absence of a hair covering inbuilt in the uniform isn't equivalent to it being banned, of course. The reason I think it might be is that it's been three years now and I haven't seen anything to indicate that it isn't, despite other people asking the same question. When this is partnered with the habits of other carriers it begins to feel like it implies something. I don't know. I can't find Saudia saying anything on the topic. This particular headgear really looks almost identical to Emirates's in particular. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a bit of active imitation going on, since Emirates is absolutely massive and Saudia is probably kicking themselves for not getting into imitating them earlier and buying A380s while they still could. Imagine the efficiency of all-economy A380 hajj flights. On the other hand, Saudia's low-cost subsidiary, Flyadeal, doesn't require head coverings but does allow them, so I ultimately just don't know what's happening and am sort of curious. If anyone reading this knows more than I do, I would love to hear from you.

Anyway, all that aside, Saudia cabin crew look absolutely fantastic. These uniforms are elegant in their wide strokes and immaculate in their details, and are up there as one of my favorite uniforms that could be described in structure and vibe as "a suit".

[beepofsleeplessdreams]

thinking out loud about some anime an illustrator i like worked on

so, one of my favorite illustrators (at least, I think that's the right term for him) is yoshitoshi ABe. recently i made the decision to look through a bunch of projects he had a hand in, mostly because i wanted to see what kind of stuff he'd attached himself to over the decades. prior to this i'd only seen Serial Experiments Lain, but i feel like basically everyone's seen that so that's not saying much lol. this was partially spurred on by a friend of mine telling me Texhnolyze was among their favorites. at time of writing, i've finished Texhnolyze and NieA_7, and i'm watching Haibane Renmei on-and-off and loving it. the world is bizarre and beautiful, and the character designs are lovely and have so much personality in my eyes. so that's where i started. so below is a series of rambles and thoughts i've had on this little journey of mine up to this point. i've still got a ways to go.

misc. spoilers for Texhnolyze in the next section

texhnolyze was a show i really enjoyed, but falls into the same pit as serial experiments lain in my brain. i struggle to understand what it's trying to say below the immediate surface and i end up primarily enjoying it as a surface-level product. not to say that i didn't make some connections in my head along the ride, i have so many questions about the world that i want answered, and some really fun observations I made. ichise's conversation with the voice in the chair was something that i had a lot of fun picking apart because it tickled that little goblin in my brain that loves social science. with the whole idea that height relates to authority, the pile of stones bringing images of gods on mountains in myth, but the chair tying all that powerful imagery up in this idea of boredom. apathy of the gods and all that. the entire trip to the surface is something that had me on the edge of the seat, and kinda tied into my greater sci-fi brainrot. that whole idea that one a society stagnates and rots people seek "better times", and this is how you end up with so many space prussians/germans being bad guys in older sci-fi anime like classic gundam and legend of the galactic heroes. it's people clinging to an idea of a """better time""" to larp that they're better than they are. this is what was going through my head during the arc of the story on the surface, whenever i saw that outdated technology that lives only in old b&w movies and period pieces. despite these obversations, i feel like i can't formulate a big picture, this is by no means bad, but i can't help but feel like i'm "missing something". though, this might be rectified in lain's case when i get around to it, it's been close to 10 years since i last watched it.

misc. spoilers for NieA_7

this is one that i don't think i ever heard someone talk about prior to me just plucking it off of ABe's wikipedia page. it's this weird slice-of-life comedy about living in poverty but there's also humanoid aliens that are kinda just around and comically failing to integrate into society. that whole second point, with the aliens, i feel it kinda detracts from a lot from the show's actually really simple and touching heart about just trying to escape being poor. the whole thing is kinda tainted with this mild xenophobia for the sake of "comedy" and the vast majority of the recurring aliens are these really mean-spirited racist stereotypes. eventually i came to ignore the vast majority of that aspect of the show, besides the titular NieA, and focus on the part of it that really spoke to me. the main character, Mayuko, is a young adult working 3 jobs on top of going to cram school in a desperate attempt to get into a good college and escape poverty by getting a """real job""" and a """future""". the reason why i use quotations is the same reason why her character really spoke to me. she was so focused on the mere act of survival and vaguely working towards the future that she never found the time to really think about the future. no plans, no dreams, inching towards a success she has no idea how to capitalize upon. something similar happened to me, personally. i spent the vast majority of highschool and college fighting for good grades and accolades with no other plan than to just get away from a very toxic family situation. and i succeeded. i gave up a social life for the sake of advancing and was rewarded by getting poached right out of college into a fairly comfortable. i moved out 6 months later and subsequently broke down. without that constant pressure of ESCAPE ESCAPE ESCAPE i had this sort of psychological explosive decompression and became incredibly depressed, and almost made some very poor and very permanent decisions. i saw a character that was flying towards the same mistakes i made and i was wondering all along if the show would propose some kind of "solution" that i'd failed to see. it didn't offer anything concrete, but something much simpler that i nontheless really appreciated. a loving promise that things will be okay somewhere, someday. the same sentiment helped me when i needed it. i get that that's corny as hell, but i'm a stupid mushy man-thing. it's a show i really recommend people look at, because while the lows are INCREDIBLY low and mean, the heart is there and beautiful.

[ytwokid]

hey uh might be a dumb question, but where did your "modern websites that emulate old internet" post go? I bookmarked it a while ago so i could come back to it, and did multiple times, but suddenly the link stopped working. i cant seem to find it anymore, was it deleted?

o shit-- in some state of delirium I must have purged it. I will remake it for u quickly here w/ a couple new additions:::

https://www.friendproject.net/ - a MySpace clone. reputation is a bit tarnished due to the creators committing some fucked up shit on one of their partner sites but overall functional website w/ a relatively active community. there are some rumors about the "safety" of this site but they're largely untrue, it's fine. don't use a password you use for other shit, don't send classified messages over the system, etc.

https://www.windows93.net/ - a very cool website w/ many nostalgic features, bizarre little thing w/ a myspace clone attached.

https://myspace.windows93.net/ - the myspace clone in question. active community, HOWEVER this site uses CSS and Markdown for customization, bit of a learning curve if ur new. DO NOT LOSE YOUR PASSWORD YOU CAN NOT REQUEST ANOTHER.

https://www.vidlii.com/ - old YouTube clone, bizarre community and right now not entirely functional, acct support is next to nonexistent tho I believe they are trying to fix this. still fun 2 browse.

https://neocities.org/ - geocities reborn. you can make ur own website here for free! my website is hosted here! awesome community and gr8 for learning html, and finding oldweb graphics.

https://www.geocities.ws/ - offers the same thing as neocities, though less of a community I believe.

https://www.dreamwidth.org/ - blogging website, looks n feels pretty old. customizable, really nice little place.

https://wiby.me/ - a search engine that only brings back oldweb results. type in a term and get a very old looking site or the occasional neocities page thrown in lol.

http://web.fc2.com/en/ - a bit like neocities/geocities.ws. if you google this domain you can pull back a lot of weird sites, some very old. you can also host a site here, tho I don't know much about it.

and for some graphics......

https://www.glitter-graphics.com/ - internet time capsule of old internet graphics.

http://www.jellymuffin.com/ - like glittergraphics, get a look in here before she's gone.............

http://smayliki.ru/ - a russian smiley website w/ lots of oldweb graphics. get em before they're gone, these sites go down by the day.....

https://gifcities.org/ - search engine for old internet graphics hosted by the web archive.

http://blingee.com/ - a relic, the editor no longer functions but you can still browse before she's killed.

honorable mentions

https://www.soemo.co.uk/ emo focused website. feels old. bit weird, never used it myself but knew some ppl who did.

[mistwraiths]

2 stars

Warning!!! This will be super spoilery

You know I didn't think there could be a bad gays in space book but WOW. Okay, maybe that's a little harsh but I hated this book for the majority of the time reading it because it was just... bad. The only reason I finished it was because I was stuck at work and didn't have anything else to do except read.

Let me get this right out of the way first. After like the first part and the second part, the book got better only because they were very short parts after that and it did focus more on the tension. Once you learn the big thing in part 1, it's not that hard to kind of guess where it is headed. It's not even particularly done well. There's also so many plot holes lmfao.

The BIGGEST problem was the characters themselves. Like I hated them. It doesn't make any sense that this TRAINED FOR THIS SOLO MISSION SON OF THE SPACE TECH/WAR TECH/REALLY SMART PROGRAMMER EMPIRE would be the absolute whiniest, mopeyest, I'm lonely, I just lay around and not do the work the OS asks me to crybaby. Like????? He's so fucking juvenile and literally doesn't act in the SLIGHTEST as a capable astronaut. All he does is eat, whine about how lonely he is, lust over Kodiak, and get horny. He accuses Kodiak of homophobia in his head despite no evidence, suddenly feels something is UP with OS/the mission despite nothing being very obvious to the readers??? He was just genuinely insufferable to be in the mind space of especially when things started getting repetitive.

Kodiak was only a smidge better only because I never had his POV. Other than being apparently the only capable astronaut and engineer, he didn't really seem to have a personality other than gruff, pseudo-cold war Russian dude. I didn't care for him, didn't get attached to him or cared about their relationship.

Even though part 1 was the WORST part of the book, which is hysterical because that's where most of the important shit is, the relationship between Kodiak and Ambrose at least had the longest to actually form and you could at least understand. But my god, the rest of the relationships that Ambrose and Kodiak have get phenomenally short in how quick they get together. Why? Because a voice recording says that they love each other basically. Y'ALL I'M ???? If I found a voice recording of myself telling me ALL THIS SHIT and included yes you love them, I'd be like okay maybe old you did but i don't have any real reason to??? I wouldn't immediately want to bang them?? It's just bizarre.

So yeah, this book features clones being sent to basically to go to a viable planet and eventually restart the population with zygotes left behind. This secret mission is hidden by playing off a sense of duty to rescue Minerva, Ambrose's sister on Titan, who went offline 2 years ago testing Titan and recently sent an emergency distress signal. But after they do all the tasks, OS kills them and travels thousands of years until the tasks pile up and opens a set of new clones. So there's a lot of repetitive moments as the clones find out and do tasks, etc.

I don't understand why the OS just didn't figure out that Ambrose started acting weird and figuring shit out after watching porn. Like it's supposed to be smart. Why was there a mention of the air leak multiple times to have NOTHING be done about it or anything happen?? Also, why the fuck were we given so much information about Fédération and Dimokratía, all this information about how different they were and everything for it to not even matter!!! Like could have cared LESS. Also the killing of the clones just felt pretty extreme. Like lol imagine you learn that you're the hope of humanity and the clones are going to make sure the journey goes well (and yes sad you died and you even as a clone don't really deserve that) so you ritualistically murder a clone that's not alive yet so you can live yourself for maybe 30ish years and hope that the ship survives the rest of its journey without needing those.

The ending was also very oh look you crash landed and survived. Grow a greenhouse and now you get to have a baby. It's just weird y'all.

I came here for a good time, I think it was kind of mentioned like a Stucky in space vibe. I didn't get that at ALL. I wouldn't recommend.