Witchy Weirdness

Gemini Sun, Scorpio Moon, Taurus Rising. Stop bashing my signs! Also, I block pornbot accounts.

[jessicalprice]

Tailoring your own clothes

So a little while back, I reblogged a post about tailoring your own clothes. The gist of it was this (IIRC):

Someone was wondering why even people on TV with non-mainstream-TV-approved body shapes always look so good in their clothes. 

The long and short of it is: their bodies aren’t better than yours. They just have people tailoring every single piece of clothing they wear to flatter their figures. 

Off-the-rack clothes aren’t made to look good on most people’s bodies. The advice in the post was buy clothes that fit the largest part of you, even if they’re too big elsewhere, and have them altered to fit. 

That post hit me like a lightning bolt. I have a curvy figure. I’m not plus-sized, but I’ve got a small waist and large hips. Which is great in certain types of clothes (dresses, mainly), but means that if I don’t wear fitted t-shirts or blouses–if they fall straight–I just look sort of… boxy. I need clothes that go in at the waist. 

My grandma was an amazing seamstress, so when I needed clothes fixed, she was around to tailor them. When she got into her 90s and her eyesight was too diminished for her to sew, we started going to a woman in our neighborhood who’d lost her husband and had started doing alterations to bring in some extra income. OF COURSE I looked good back then. I had a tailor.

Then I moved away from my parents without really knowing How To Adult and would go to Target to get clothes and just get depressed by them and never realized how much of an advantage having people who could tailor my clothes (and, you know, parents to pay for having them tailored…) had been. 

So. I have a 1970s Singer Fashion Mate sewing machine that is designed to weather the apocalypse–I got it at Goodwill for $20. 

And I have begun researching how to tailor your own clothes. If anyone else was wondering about that after that last post, here are some helpful links I’ve discovered. 

When and Why to Get it Tailored - This article is (annoyingly) set up as a slideshow, and focuses on getting a professional to do your alterations rather than doing them yourself, but it’s got some good advice nonetheless, such as:

Basic alterations that can make a huge difference, such as adding lingerie loops to keep bra straps in place (SERIOUSLY MY FAVORITE DRESSES FROM HIGH SCHOOL ALL HAD THESE AND WHY DID THEY DISAPPEAR IN EVERYTHING I WEAR NOW?), adding snaps between the buttons on button-down shirts for larger-busted women (you know how sometimes they gap? there’s help for that), etc.

Average prices (at least on the East Coast) for basic alterations: replacing a zipper will run you about $20, while tailoring pants or a skirt to fit your hips and butt will be about $35.

If you want to get a garment made of special materials (leather, fur, beaded/embroidered silk) altered, go to someone who specializes in working with that material.

What NOT to try to alter.

How to find a tailor.

Having that perfect dress that you love so much duplicated and how much that will cost.

Learning Alterations - Great step-by-step tutorials on basic alterations like how to take in the waist of jeans (essential if you have a smaller waist and larger hips, because it’ll stop them from riding down every time you bend over or sit down).

Tailoring Ready-to-Wear - A full-on online course from Craftsy (costs $24.99) with videos and individual lessons on everything from hemming pants to lengthening them to altering shoulders and armholes to adding hidden zippers.

Plus-Sized Fitting and Design - Another online course (this one’s $34.99) that looks like it focuses both on alterations and on actually making clothes that are flattering to plus-sized forms.

Alterations and Tailoring 101 - Not a how-to post, but this one has a lot of useful information and ideas, such as identifying which garments to alter.

Alterations Needed blog - A whole blog on this stuff, with a lot of detailed how-tos. It focuses on fixing things to fit if you’re shorter than average/petite, but contains a lot of great advice for anyone (like an entry on why button-down shirts often bulge in back and how to fix it). 

Pinch and Pin your Shirt - Super-quick video tutorial (aimed at gentlemen), but useful for anyone who wears button-down shirts on how to fix a baggy shirt. 

If I find other helpful tutorials, I’ll add them. If you know of any, please let me know!

[mikkeneko]

Also, for people approaching this for the first time: A lot of Dry Cleaners’ shops will do minor alterations – hemming, repair, etc. You can check on their website, or ask if they don’t have one. Worst that can happen is they say no.

[amvs]

hold on i have a take that’s going to upset people

[amvs]

a queer woman dating a queer man is just as queer as two people of the same gender dating

[amvs]

btw it’s not “straight passing” or a “straight relationship” it’s a queer relationship. cause we’re queer. cope and seethe etc ✌️

[homunculus-argument]

Was talking with my therapist about how it's possible to completely lose one's own identity to people-pleasing - when you grow up being constantly preoccupied with concerns about what other people want, and the ideal outcome is always whatever makes everyone else happy, it's possible to simply not learn to know yourself at all. If the only thing you've ever strived for in life is to make everyone else happy, you just never pause to think what you want, or what you would enjoy, independently from anyone else's desires.

As an example of this, I recalled that for the longest time, I just didn't listen to music when I was alone, because the thought never occurred to me. I didn't have my own taste in music, I was fine with listening to whatever the people I was with wanted to listen to, but whose music would I be listening to if I wasn't with anyone else? She thought this was a great observation, and gave me a homework assignment to find a song I like, just on my own and for myself, and show it to her next week.

So I guess my therapist is about to learn about the existence of mongolian folk metal.

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

Paladin™: when you’re kinda feeling cleric but also want to Stab

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

Sorcerer™: when you wanna be a caster but you don’t wanna be a nerd

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

Bard™: when you’ve never made a decision in your life and you don’t intend to start now

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

Warlock™: when you’re not quite ready to admit you’re into cryptids like that

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

Druid™: when honestly you’d rather be on the floor petting the DM’s cat but they made you play and this is the next best thing you guess

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

Fighter™: when all the weird puzzle shit bores the snot out of you and you’d rather stack dice til the fighting part gets here

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

Rogue™: when you’ve never solved a problem in your life, and in fact have caused many, and you’re just fine with that honestly

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

Cleric™: when your friends are a gaggle of idiots with a deathwish and you’re the only person who’s capable of saving them from themselves

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

Ranger™: when the druid has the right general idea but is just a bit too friendly and outgoing and trusting for your tastes

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

Artificer™: when you’ve watched ALL the DIY and maker videos youtube has to offer and it’s started spilling over into your tabletop characters

[not-safe-for-democracy]

[transsending]

Chick-fil-A fined over "volunteer" program that paid people only in meals

North Carolina eatery had asked some workers to direct traffic but paid them only in meal vouchers — not wages.

[nekkowe]

[knife-friend]

scroll down for a pupper

APRIL FOOLS! IT WAS A KITTY INSTEAD!!

Hope everyone has a scare-free April Fools day! ^^

[corzev]

frog

[penny-anna]

[1dietcokeinacan]

Screeeeching at this meme a girl I went to high school w posted recently

[uncle-worm]

[weaselle]

story time 

they used to give us 15 minutes to do the mile, which meant you could walk it and still qualify if you watched your pacing

one time we were doing the mile and my buddy (a japanese-american goth music nerd guy who wore fishnets and stuff to school) ran by me, huffing and puffing, which was weird because he usually did it in a half hour walk

i was on pace to finish in 14 minutes 30 seconds, walking in solidarity with my friends even tho i grew up playing all the sports and could have easily run it, because fuck school and fuck gym class in particular

Anyway i see my buddy (we didn’t hang out much in school but we grew up playing together because we lived on the same block) i see him go by hauling ass, high-key unusual, so i cranked up to a run, caught up to him, and asked him what the hell

So he tells me (in a gasping sort of way) that the gym teacher, a terrible bully who was always riding me and my friends, was once again giving him shit about never qualifying on the mile and my friend reminds him that he’s excused by a doctor, and the gym teacher basically called him a faker and threatened to fail him if he didn’t run

“so i got a couple of us witnessed that…. and now i’m gonna give myself a fucking asthma attack… because i’m fucking sick of this shit all the time… fuck that motherfucker… i hope i goddamn die on him”

the school wound up having to call an ambulance, he coughed up actual blood and passed out

the gym teacher got suspended over it, when he came back he stopped fucking with the un-athletic students. And my buddy didn’t even have to show up at all for gym class for the rest of the year. School legend

[genderkoolaid]

anyways. drag kings have been around for decades & are equally as important as drag queens. drag masculinity faces serious erasure & that’s a problem. support your local drag kings

[genderkoolaid]

whenever I see people reblog this or my other post about this with some variation of “oh i didn’t even know drag kings existed!!” it makes me so sad. I’m glad u know it now but like, the fact that people don’t even know drag kings exist? how many people do you thing would get into drag if they knew drag kings and drag masculinity was a Thing? how many more people would get to explore their masculinity via drag?

[punkrorschach]

Some kings to get you going.

Landon Cider, Buck Wylde, Miles Long, Koco Caine, Murray Hill, and Spikey Van Dykey.

[shesfagulous]

I should also recommend Beau Jangles and Mudd the Two Spirit, my two personal favorite kings!

Beau is very much inspired by Cab Calloway, so you know. I, Heidi Ho myself, just have to be obsessed.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 𝕸𝖚𝖉𝖉 //𝐉𝐉 (@muddthetwospirit)

Mudd is an indigenous king and honestly? His looks are FUCKING INSANE I love him.

Drag kings haven’t just been around for decades, they’ve been around for over a hundred years.

As an aspiring professional queen myself, the erasure of drag masculinity is quite literally offensive to the artform as a whole. Kings have contributed so much and they deserve better.

[deeisace]

They have been around for over a hundred years!

In the 1800s, drag kings were called “male impersonators” (and likewise, drag queens called “female impersonators”), and they would work the music halls (like, variety acts, comedy and theatre) - mostly singing silly or risqué songs like “Burlington Bertie from Bow”, “Following in Father’s Footsteps” or “Jolly Good Luck to the Girl that Loves a Soldier” - and many of them also did panto, acting as the Prince Charming, or Peter Pan (as is traditional), things like that

One of the early ones was Bessie Bonehill in the 1890s

Here she is, from an image search -

Later on, there was Ella Shields

And Hetty King, who worked until the 1930s, 30 years on the halls

But perhaps my favourite was Vesta Tilley

[iamanimaginarybeing]

And because black people are often ignored in conversations like this, who are some notable black “male impersonators”

The infamous Stormé Delarverie

And while not male impersonators per se, there were black (queer) black female performers who wore male garb in their shows - Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker and the queer Harlem Rennaissance icon herself Gladys Bently

[theunfairfolk]

my little cousin confidently declared that mother nature had a counterpart named daddy electric and i feel like this concept needs to be explored

[chassdraws]

Daddy Electric and Mother Nature sounds like a cute 70s act

[tsavo-witch]

And l feel like Hermes could have a Daddy Electric vibe

[animentality]

[odinsblog]

EYE remember. They sicced the police and the National Guard on us. For exercising our constitutionally protected right to assembly and protest.

And I also remember how, especially under cover of darkness, cops became particularly nasty and brutal.

We protested to say Black Lives Matter,

People protested to Occupy Wall Street, the police brutally attacked them.

Water protectors protested at Standing Rock, police and the National Guard pepper sprayed them.

The police are attacking and killing unarmed protesters right now today at Cop City in Atlanta. So please let’s knock off the “imagine if people in the US protested like that” nonsense. Sometimes it feels like we stay protesting, like since before I was even ever born.

In addition to all the innocent and unarmed Black people they routinely murder, the police also did things like shoot protesters directly in the head with tear gas canisters, at point blank range. I remember police wilding out on students who were protesting at UC Davis campus to protest tuition hikes. I remember the police tear-gassing a young girl named Sarah Grossman. The cops gassed her in the face and she died from it. And the media even tried covering for the police by parroting their version of events that she had asthma.

I could continue…

But I do not begrudge the French protesters. Like, not at all. They are right to protest Macron’s callous neoliberal ass, and I hope they get what’s theirs. I hope they win. We are on the same side.

#Solidarity #PowerToThePeople ✊🏿

But yeah, let’s not divide and conquer by pitting “our” protests against “their” protests. Let’s not memory hole lived reality and dishonor all the protests that really truly did occur, and are still ongoing even as we speak.

[crippledanarchy]

A fully grown adult commented on that reddit post of "My cat got upset when my girlfriend spanked me" with "maybe you weirdos shouldn't be physically harming your partners" and I'm losing my shit adfklhsglk

[crippledanarchy]

The first time My cat saw me getting smacked around during sex, he did Not defend me, but instead jumped onto the bed and slapped me in the face so he could be on the winning team

[arctic-hands]

Okay first of all how dare you make me laugh when I have pneumonia

[tsavo-witch]

Bleh, had to cut some of my alocasia's back to corms today. But at least they aren't dead, just unhappy with me.

[tsavo-witch]

I made some Emotional Support Toffee this evening. It's an English toffee with added herbal tonics and some dried herbs. Its then topped with salted pepitas, black sesame seeds and dark chocolate.

This is a kitchen spell to boost my reserves and support me as I start a new job.

I also made a chai butter toffee (today l learned the difference between English Toffee and Butter Toffee) as a prosperity spell.

[tsavo-witch]

If you don't pay your taxes, the Government comes after you. Who do you think you are? Someone rich perhaps?

Nope, I was reposting my boyfriend's exact words. He's from rural virginia, and I was amused by his thought process. Direct action can be a useful tool, when used in the right p and Ace at the right time.

[sometransgal]

I keep thinking about that one post that was going around talking about the potential origins of cheese and everyone immediately jumps to it must've been rotten milk that they ate out of desperation. But I'd like to posit that the first cheese was probably someone adding an acid to warmed milk and realising it splits it. Like it's not that big a stretch of the imagination for someone to think "oh I like warm milk but I also like this acidic fruit, I wonder if I can mix them". From there a little experimentation on separating the new curd from the whey and you've got a simple fresh cheese.

I dunno I think the reason I wanted to make this post is just that we tend to desscribe a lot of discoveries around food as desperate acts of starvation and not genuinely thought out experimentations based on observations like every other form of human knowledge. Ancient people weren't stupid starving unwashed masses and it's important to remember that. They were people who could think and deduce and logic their way through things as good as you or I.

[duckbunny]

there's this narrative I've encountered several times about our early ancestors figuring out that cooking food makes it good, and it goes "some meat probably fell in the fire and then when it cooled down they tried eating it and that's how they found out food could be cooked."

which, I do not accept. I have seen humans. I would like to propose an alternative explanation.

Cooking is the result of an early scientific experiment entitled "Does Meat Burn?"

(It was part of a wider research project considering such questions as Does Antler Burn? Does Hide Burn? Does Hoof Burn? and the oft-repeated Does My Hand Burn Ow Fuck Yes Actually It Does)

[lila-liliheureux]

Feel like "Does Meat Burn" may have been a direct follow-up project to "Does My Hand Burn Ow Fuck".

[nothorses]

Found this in the comments of Shaun's latest video on Andrew Tate, in which he talks pretty extensively about how important it is for men to find ways to be confident in their genders without trying to adhere to, or enforce, anyone else's ideas of manhood on anyone.

Highly recommend checking it out.

Anyway. I rarely see folks talk about the positive impact transmascs have on manhood as a whole, and I think it's important to acknowledge and celebrate that.