#which I think is saying something

[a-clarice-dream]

A thoughts on a tale of trying to see F1 live in the next year: a very upset fan rant.

My home GP, tickets having recently gone on sale. Great! I think. It’s the weekend of my birthday, I’ll treat myself. And it’s a big treat myself, because I’d be having to travel to go.

The grandstand tickets: last year it was surge priced and not at all what was initially disclosed, which is borderline illegal (and I suspect will remain the same). All good ones this year tied up in $6000+ experience packages. I have a chronic illness that makes GA not an option, unless I want to hang around for as long as I can tolerate it and accept that I may have to leave mid race, which considering that I have to travel to attend is not a good option.

The hospitality tickets: all even remotely reasonable ones gone in two seconds. Everything else is over $3000, and I’m not game to buy certain ones because the weather is very unpredictable. Except if you’re a business - mysteriously, there are still openings for businesses to host parties in places that are “allocation exhausted” for us plebeians regular fans.

I think to myself, damn, I can’t really afford this. Let’s see what’s on in my city that weekend:

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Everything is in the other city where the race is. Not even a watch party that I can find. And I don’t have irl friends who are into formula 1, so I’m not even able to host a watch party or something like that for a race falling over my own damn birthday weekend.

I think and dream and hope that I can go to the GP in person, knowing that the tickets are insane, even just for Sunday, and speak to my family. They’re even willing to chip in and make it my birthday present. I do the math, and to fly to the city, stay there and see the race is over $6000. That is the price of a nice international round trip flight. That is nothing to sneeze at.

So I research. I read everything I can about the place I was trying to get a ticket for, and find out that most of the hospitality tickets for this race are consistently bought out by corporate and business shmoozers whose employees get to go for free and try and sell each other shit while having not a single fuck to give about the race. Reviewers and online comments consistently convey that these people are not there for the race, and they don’t care for any part of the technical side of the sport: you will not be among fans. Moreover, it’s implied that the free booze et al. is what many of them are actually there for. It’s kind of hateful as a fan to know this is what is playing out; and that genuine fans of a sport are being priced out of the best seats by businesses and corporate TM who do not give a fuck about racing. Knowing I’d be attending alone, a horrible thought races in the back of my mind about the incident a few years back with the woman supporting Mercedes who was assaulted by drunken men Redbull supporters in the grandstands. Throw in the fact that I know cell signal at these events is often appalling, I’m not feeling overly confident or comfortable for my personal safety. Being alone and in this situation that could potentially turn shoddy very quickly is suddenly sounding highly unappealing despite the fact that I love this sport and this is supposed to be my birthday present.

The nail in the coffin is that the accomodation is almost as much as the hospitality ticket. It’s not particularly nice accomodation either, but everything is booked out only days after the first tickets were released and the hotels are very aware of how much they can scalp on this weekend.

Ultimately and heartbreakingly, I decided that I absolutely cannot justify the cost. Especially as a woman travelling alone, it’s not worth it, and I’m not a woman who shies away from doing things alone. And I love this sport so damn much and I want to see it live, but it genuinely feels like the fans are being priced out. A part of me wonders whether the recession the government is currently pretending isn’t happening would make the tickets cheaper closer to the time; but the consensus online is generally that there aren’t any tickets available closer to the time for this race; and knowing what’s already gone down with the accommodation, that will get even worse closer to the time of the race. I actually think it will all get worse, as the state hosting the race is in dire economic straits and is really looking to squeeze cash out of anything that moves gather money by any means possible and the formula racing just happens to look like a huge paycheck.

I hate it. I hate it all. I just wanted to enjoy my favourite sport and the racing that happened to fall on the weekend of my birthday, live.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Dog Meshi.

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[inkskinned]

having good & true friends will literally save and protect you in a million unfathomable ways. like okay we have written so many times about lovers. but the way a platonic friend laughs and cries with you. the way they hold your hand at 14 years old and at 34. the way they keep a little silver tie to you, touching base over and over and over. how you can go years without talking, only to re-meet and discover: oh shit! you're still cool!

there are people who have been in my life for more than half of it, and i have loved every version of them. do you know how fucking beautiful that is. yeah love will save the world. but the way friends love you is gonna save the you.

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[abstractfrog]

Happy 1 year anniversary to Mr Sherlock Holmes! Here's a litttleee celebratory comic from me

[ofswordsandpens]

its funny because Percy has been spiraling ever since pjo and whenever he has a particularly bad episode you have other characters actively worried about it and you think to yourself surely they're going to intervene, surely someone is going to talk to him about it, and then like no one ever does lol

[technically-human]

Remember when I said I need to be in a very specific mood to draw kisses? well it finally happened

[knifearo]

being aromantic is like. hey btw you're going to live a life that is the culmination of most of society's worst nightmares. sorry lol ✌️ but then you turn around and take a really good hard look at it and it turns out that living in that nightmare is fucking awesome and you get to wake up every day and take that fear that other people have and laugh and hold it close until it's a great joy for you instead. and being happy is a radical act that you define instead of someone else. and you're sexy as fuck that's just a fact of life i don't make the rules on that one

[redysetdare]

enough stories about how someone learns to truely be happy through love. i want a story where someone is desperately seeking out love thinking it's the only way to be happy only for them to learn by the end that happiness is what they make of it and they don't need love at all to make it.

[bixels]

tarpit site.

[lucabyte]

Taking pride in One's own appearance.

[thedreadvampy]

Losing my shit about this article in which a transphobic Tory was so busy panicking about existing in the vicinity of a Trans that she almost certainly misheard "jeans" as "penis" and decided that not only was this a problem with the other woman, but also that the world must be informed of this pressing danger.

"a trans woman! I had to stand directly behind her....I thought, 'this is going well', I'm handling The Situation fine'..."

translated: I saw a tall woman with broad shoulders. How would I get out of this alive? I thought. she has a PENIS. PENIS PENIS PENIS. through some force of PENIS I mean will I managed to PENIS behave normally towards her. My hands were PENIS PENIS PENIS shaking as I tried to dry them. summoning up all my PENIS courage I said 'dryer's crap innit'. she turned to me and said " yeah I'm just goiPENIS PENIS PENIS"

It's been a week and I'm still shaking. This proves trans women are the problem and I'm not weird. I'm fine. It's fine. If you think about it I'm the hero hePENIS!!!!!

very this

[chloesimaginationthings]

scooped michael afton gives me gender envy . i need his gender Now.

Michael Afton, the epitome of gender

[shadowduel]

eye of the beholder

[mothfishing]

last thing about this from me i promise. actually i don't, fuck you if you don't like it

the "old web" space is extremely hostile to disabled people. there is a show of patting themselves on the back for linking accessibility resources they've never read, while at the same time flat out promoting inaccessible practices. the thing is, they don't make the page slightly more difficult to read, they make it impossible to.

if you're photosensitive, using an inaccessible page can flat out give you seizures in the case of epilepsy, or otherwise cause massive disabling migraines and other painful effects. if you're a screen reader user, be it because of blindness, dyslexia, or other print disabilities, depending on exactly what nonsense you've done to your website, it can read things in a nonsensical order, refuse to read at all, or flat out CRASH.

if you're out here saying that html is so easy and anyone can learn it, put your effort where your own mouth is and learn accessibility standards. don't be so fucking apathetic - if you think inaccessibility will save you from data harvesting, you frankly deserve it getting stolen