summerlightning

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Alien by Paolo Rivera

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5000 years ago.

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did you know you can read an entire queer post-apocalyptic story about healing and threesomes, for free.

hey it's the last week of 2023 and you have nothing better to do. read After The Storm. it's free and illustrated on wattpad.

do you like super-size cinnamon rolls? do you like adorkable cyborgs. do you too fantasize about getting rescued from your shitty job where they stab you a lot and then given all the fish you can eat and also a beautiful couple of nerds who desire you carnally? this is your story. please enjoy.

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Broke af?

But still interested in feeding yourself? What if I told you that there’s a woman with a blog who had to feed both herself and her young son…on 10 British pounds ($15/14 Euro) per week?

Let me tell you a thing.

This woman saved my life last year. Actually saved my life. I had a piggy bank full of change and that’s it. Many people in my fandom might remember that dark time as when I had to hock my writing skills in exchange for donations. I cried a lot then. 

This is real talk, people: I marked down exactly what I needed to buy, totaled it, counted out that exact change, and then went to three different stores to buy what I needed so I didn’t have to dump a load of change on just one person. I was already embarrassed, but to feel people staring? Utter shame suffused me. The reasons behind that are another post all together. 

AgirlcalledJack.com is run by a British woman who was on benefits for years. Things got desperate. She had to find a way to feed herself and her son using just the basics that could be found at the supermarket. But the recipes she came up with are amazing. 

You have to consider the differing costs of things between countries, but if you just have three ingredients in your cupboard, this woman will tell you what to do with it. Check what you already have. Chances are you have the basics of a filling meal already. 

Here’s her list of kitchen basics. 

Bake your own bread. It’s easier than you think. Here’s a list of many recipes, each using some variation of just plain flour, yeast, some oil, maybe water or lemon juice. And kneading bread is therapeutic. 

Make your own pasta–gluten free. 

She gets it. She really does. This is the article that started it all. It’s called “Hunger Hurts”.

She has vegan recipes.

A carrot, a can of kidney beans, and some cumin will get you a really filling soup…or throw in some flour for binding and you’ve got yourself a burger. 

Don’t have an oven or the stove isn’t available? She covers that in her Microwave Cooking section. 

She has a book, but many recipes can be found on her blog for free. She prices her recipes down to the cent, and every year she participates in a project called “Living Below the Line” where she has to live on 1 BP per day of food for five days. 

Things improved for me a little, but her website is my go to. I learned how to bake bread (using my crockpot, but that was my own twist), and I have a little cart full of things that saved me back then, just in case I need them again. She gives you the tools to feed yourself, for very little money, and that’s a fabulous feeling. 

Tip: Whenever you have a little extra money, buy a 10 dollar/pound/euro giftcard from your discount grocer. Stash it. That’s your super emergency money. Make sure they don’t charge by the month for lack of use, though.

I don’t care if it sounds like an advertisement–you won’t be buying anything from the site. What I DO care about is your mental, emotional, and physical health–and dammit, food’s right in the center of that. 

If you don’t need this now, pass it on to someone who does. Pass it on anyway, because do you REALLY know which of the people in your life is in need? Which follower might be staring at their own piggy bank? Trust me: someone out there needs to see this. 

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Something something the visceral horror GLaDOS must feel after watching Chell for so long, only for her test subject to literally go off the rails and disappear inside of her.

It's such a fantastic reversal of power! In an instant, it changes the genre from Chell's psychological nightmare into Glados's body horror.

This whole time Glados has been creating a psychosexual connection to her lab rat, and now that rat worms its way through her body in a way she can't track.

There's almost an intimacy about the rooms Chell solves being specifically tailored for her to see. They're a dishonest facade, until Chell escapes from the predetermined path and sees what Glados truly is/looks like, and ventures all the way to the heart of her, stripping her bare.

"What if you were a massive mechanical complex and I skittered through your insides and climbed into the heart of your most private and vital organs? And we were both women?"

This too, is Yuri

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werewolf yuri

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Speaking of geoguessr, here's the funniest things I ever saw ingame

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Chalcedony !  

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armand + text posts

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Source: beth_thefirstyear on Instagram

I have four muffin tips for making bakery style muffins at home.

Tip number one:

Rest your batter for 15 minutes in your mixing bowl after you make it. This is gonna allow the starch molecules to swell and absorb, creating the thicker batter and the thicker batter is known for doming!

Tip number two:

Fill your muffin holes with at least six to eight tablespoons of batter. That’s like a heaping half cup okay. You want them super full so they’re gonna create that dome.

Tip number three:

Kinda goes along with tip number two. You’re only gonna fill every other hole in your muffin pan. And why we do that - that’s so the muffins that are baking can spread and dome without running into their neighbors. Because when they run into their neighbors they get like square edges but we want perfect dome circles.

Tip number four:

You’re to bake your muffins at a high temperature initially. That’s gonna be 425*F for the first seven minutes. And then keep them in the oven and lower the temperature to 350*F for the remaining bake time. Starting the muffins off at a high temperature initially allows the muffins to rise rapidly and it sets the outer surface of the muffin, producing a dome shape.

There you have it. My four muffin tips for creating bakery style muffins.

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new star

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The Scales of Seduction is out now! It is available in both ebook and a special mass market style paperback with a full wrap cover.

Seeking to change her body, Petra Kruos, a mercenary and the last living Basilisk, strikes a deal with the goddess Cybele in exchange for recovering Perseus’ divine armaments from his grave. The hero’s corpse rests within the lair of the legendary Medusa, who lives in exile surrounded by a vicious and deadly gauntlet. Surviving to reach the gorgon is perilous enough, but the potent lure of a fellow serpent threatens to undo everything Petra holds dear. The Scales of Seduction is a 33,000 word F/F erotic romance novella between a butch trans woman and a feral cis femme, focused on lesbian desire and reclaiming one's body from those who would destroy it.

Content warnings are available on the itch.io page.

BUY HERE | GOODREADS

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One you cannot miss! Comics premier fantasy author returns with a stunning new work: 'Sacred Bodies' by the brilliant @sticksandsharks: 'In a sacrament to strengthen the bonds between two villages, a Garaang Ba’It is wed to a human woman. Tolpan and Dualayim each have their own apprehensions about being chosen for this vow, but soon find that they share more understanding of each other than they could have known.'

This comic will be released digitally in October as part of ShortBox Comics Fair, an online-only event that will see the release of over 140+ new, original comics from artists around the world!

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the queen's quarters.

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The Vampire Lestat returns in the new season of #InterviewWithTheVampire, premiering on AMC and AMC+.