magdapolicewomen

[celebratesocia1]

Cosmetic Executive Women Annual Women's Leadership Awards: Celebrating Women in the Beauty Industry

Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW) celebrated women and achievement Tuesday at the 2023 Women's Leadership Awards #CosmeticExecutiveWomen #WomenLeadershipAwards #WomensLeadershipAwards

[blue-likethebird]

I hate the beauty industry I hate ads where airbrushed models with all their stretch marks and cellulite digitally erased shave their already hairless legs I hate wrinkle cream ads paying lip service to embracing the beauty of aging I hate acne creams and makeup products marketed to preteens I hate being told to celebrate my natural beauty as a way to sell me products designed to “fix” every single one of the features I was born with

[ukrfeminism]

A social worker turned interior designer is tackling furniture poverty by transforming the homes of social housing tenants through her charity.

Emily Wheeler, founder of Furnishing Futures, says the need for her charity is not just cosmetic design - domestic abuse survivors are often driven back to their perpetrators after being given empty social housing with no beds for their children.

When families escaping domestic violence are rehoused by their local council, properties are often stripped of all white goods, furniture, and flooring for health and safety reasons.

Having left their old homes suddenly without any of their belongings, families often end up in a flat or house with nowhere to cook or store food and no beds to sleep in, Emily Wheeler, founder of the charity Furnishing Futures, tells Sky News.

"There are no curtains at the windows, there's no oven, no fridge, no washing machine," she says. "Children are expected to sleep on concrete floors with no beds or bedding.

"Mothers may have experienced economic abuse or coercion and might not have access to their money and find themselves having to start again.

"So you can understand why some women think 'this is actually no better for my children than going back to my previous situation'."

Emily has been a frontline social worker in east London for more than 20 years. During a career break, during which she had her two children, she retrained as an interior designer.

When she returned to social work in 2014, she says austerity meant council budgets were being cut and previously available grants for social housing tenants were no longer funded.

"I've always seen furniture poverty throughout my career, but it had got worse," she says.

"I was meeting families living in these conditions without furniture and without access to support.

"When you look at the amount of stuff councils have to spend money on just to keep people safe, furniture isn't the priority."

Moved into empty flat two days after giving birth

Laura, not her real name, moved between different emergency accommodations while she was pregnant with her first child after being abused by her ex-partner.

She says she was offered a council flat two days after giving birth.

"When I first moved in it was all dirty, there was no furniture, no carpet, no cooker, fridge, or washing machine.

"I had to take out an emergency loan from Universal Credit to get away from my partner, so I didn't have any money left when my baby was born. The first couple of nights I could only eat takeaway food because there was nothing to cook with.

"It had concrete floors. I'd get up in the middle of the night to make my baby a bottle and it would be freezing, so I had to put blankets all over the floor."

Chief executive of the National Housing Federation Kate Henderson says: "In social housing, carpets have historically been removed as standard practice for practical reasons, to ensure hygiene between lets and to prevent any possible contamination.

"In some cases, housing associations provide new flooring as standard when a home is re-let, or in other cases they may provide decorating vouchers to new tenants, which can be used for flooring of their choice."

According to a 2021 study by the campaign group End Furniture Poverty, only 1% of social housing properties are furnished.

Councils under 'no legal obligation' 

The Housing Act 1985 states that a local authority "may fit out, furnish and supply a house provided by them with all requisite furniture, fittings and conveniences".

But Emily says this means there is no legal obligation to do so.

"Councils are fulfilling their duty by providing housing, so in the eyes of the law they're not doing anything wrong.

"But having an empty shell of concrete is not a home - just because you're not on the streets."

Having seen the problem on a wider scale when she began chairing multi-agency child protection conferences, she decided to combine her skills as a designer and social worker - and create a charity to help bridge the gap.

Furnishing Futures was set up in 2019. Emily and her team refloor, paint, and furnish empty properties given to trauma and domestic abuse survivors by councils.

She uses her industry connections, which include Soho House, DFS, Dunelm, and others, to source donated furniture, and fundraises for the rest.

She believes it is the only charity of its kind in the UK.

So far they have furnished more than 80 homes across east London, and a pilot scheme with Waltham Forest council and housing association Peabody will see another three completed there.

But with thousands of families on social housing waiting lists in each of the capital's 32 boroughs alone, she wants to expand nationally.

"The hardest thing about my job is having to say no to people because we don't have the capacity," she says.

"Every day we get inquiries from women, midwives, health visitors, other local authorities, domestic abuse agencies - but we're just a small team and the demand is huge."

The charity has a 4,000-square-foot warehouse, a team of five full-time staff, and a group of regular volunteers who help with flooring, painting, and assembling furniture.

As situations are often urgent, work is usually done in just one day.

Empty homes are form of 'revictimisation'

Jen Cirone, director of services at Solace Women's Aid, one of the charity's partners, says being housed in an empty home and having to start again is a form of "revictimisation".

But she says of the charity: "It's not only the practicalities of having a beautiful space to live in but also demonstrates that others care.

"Together, Furnishing Futures is able to complete the road to recovery that work with Solace has put them on."

Hannah, not her real name, is another of Emily's clients.

She was homeless after leaving her ex-partner and given emergency accommodation a day before she was due to give birth to her first child.

"I felt extremely stressed and vulnerable," she says. "As a victim of domestic violence and heavily pregnant, I already felt alone and unsupported.

"This empty space didn't feel like 'home' and it certainly wasn't suitable for baby."

As a type one diabetic she also had nowhere to store her insulin injections, she adds.

"I ended up staying in hospital for some time due to an emergency C-section and during that time Emily turned my empty, scary space into a home for me and my child."

Emily says that although COVID and the cost-of-living crisis have opened the conversation about poverty and how it affects domestic abuse survivors, the situation is "worse than ever".

"We're not just talking about poverty now, we're talking about destitution," she says.

"People need safe and comfortable homes. You won't be able to recover from trauma, rebuild your life, and be a productive part of society if you don't have your basic needs met."

A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: "Domestic abuse survivors deserve a safe home and we are grateful to Furnishing Futures for the work they do to help these families rebuild their lives.

"We expect social housing providers to play their part and provide homes that are of a decent quality, if tenants are unhappy, we encourage them to speak to their landlords.

"Our Social Housing Regulation Act is also driving up standards and strengthened the role of the Ombudsman so that it is easier for tenants to raise complaints."

[haggishlyhagging]

During the '80s, mannequins set the beauty trends—and real women were expected to follow. The dummies were "coming to life," while the ladies were breathing anesthesia and going under the knife. The beauty industry promoted a "return to femininity" as if it were a revival of natural womanhood—a flowering of all those innate female qualities supposedly suppressed in the feminist '70s. Yet the "feminine" traits the industry celebrated most were grossly unnatural—and achieved with increasingly harsh, unhealthy, and punitive measures.

The beauty industry, of course, has never been an advocate of feminist aspirations. This is not to say that its promoters have a conscious political program against women's rights, just a commercial mandate to improve on the bottom line. And the formula the industry has counted on for many years—aggravating women's low self-esteem and high anxiety about a "feminine" appearance—has always served them well. (American women, according to surveys by the Kinsey Institute, have more negative feelings about their bodies than women in any other culture studied.) The beauty makers' motives aren't particularly thought out or deep. Their overwrought and incessant instructions to women are more mindless than programmatic; their frenetic noise generators create more static than substance. But even so, in the '80s the beauty industry belonged to the cultural loop that produced backlash feedback. Inevitably, publicists for the beauty companies would pick up on the warning signals circulating about the toll of women's equality, too—and amplify them for their own purposes.

"Is your face paying the price of success?" worried a 1988 Nivea skin cream ad, in which a business-suited woman with a briefcase rushes a child to day care and catches a glimpse of her career-pitted skin in a store window. If only she were less successful, her visage would be more radiant. "The impact of work stress . . . can play havoc with your complexion," Mademoiselle warned; it can cause "a bad case of dandruff," "an eventual loss of hair" and, worst of all, weight gain. Most at risk, the magazine claimed, are "high-achieving women," whose comely appearance can be ravaged by "executive stress." In ad after ad, the beauty industry hammered home its version of the backlash thesis: women's professional progress had downgraded their looks; equality had created worry lines and cellulite. This message was barely updated from a century earlier, when the late Victorian beauty press had warned women that their quest for higher education and employment was causing "a general lapse of attractiveness" and "spoiling complexions."

The beauty merchants incited fear about the cost of women's occupational success largely because they feared, rightly, that that success had cost them—in profits. Since the rise of the women's movement in the '70s, cosmetics and fragrance companies had suffered a decade of flat-to-declining sales, hair-product merchandisers had fallen into a prolonged slump, and hairdressers had watched helplessly as masses of female customers who were opting for simple low-cost cuts defected to discount unisex salons. In 1981, Revlon's earnings fell for the first time since 1968; by the following year, the company's profits had plunged a record 40 percent. The industry aimed to restore its own economic health by persuading women that they were the ailing patients—and professionalism their ailment. Beauty became medicalized as its lab-coated army of promoters, and real doctors, prescribed physician-endorsed potions, injections for the skin, chemical "treatments" for the hair, plastic surgery for virtually every inch of the torso. (One doctor even promised to reduce women's height by sawing their leg bones.) Physicians and hospital administrators, struggling with their own financial difficulties, joined the industry in this campaign. Dermatologists faced with a shrinking teen market switched from treating adolescent pimples to "curing" adult female wrinkles. Gynecologists and obstetricians frustrated with a sluggish birthrate and skyrocketing malpractice premiums traded their forceps for liposuction scrapers. Hospitals facing revenue shortfalls opened cosmetic-surgery divisions and sponsored extreme and costly liquid-protein diet programs.

The beauty industry may seem the most superficial of the cultural institutions participating in the backlash, but its impact on women was, in many respects, the most intimately destructive—to both female bodies and minds. Following the orders of the '80s beauty doctors made many women literally ill. Antiwrinkle treatments exposed them to carcinogens. Acid face peels burned their skin. Silicone injections left painful deformities. "Cosmetic" liposuction caused severe complications, infections, and even death. Internalized, the decade's beauty dictates played a role in exacerbating an epidemic of eating disorders. And the beauty industry helped to deepen the psychic isolation that so many women felt in the '80s, by reinforcing the representation of women's problems as purely personal ills, unrelated to social pressures and curable only to the degree that the individual woman succeeded in fitting the universal standard—by physically changing herself.

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

[arugulaeater]

is makeup unbiblical?

I'm guessing that you mean to ask if the use of makeup is sinful—since of course lots of things (such as flying airplanes or committing cyberattacks online) are not explicitly described in the Bible, but we can still draw conclusions about their morality! And I think the modern idea of makeup differs significantly from makeup in biblical times.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about the use of makeup in the Summa, which you can read here. In summary, he says that the intent and the way it's used matters, saying that good reasons could be to look nice for a husband/to attract a husband, or to hide disfigurements, whereas bad reasons could be to tempt people towards lust or to be deceptive about your appearance. So the cosmetic item itself has no inherent morality.

Now, I don't think that older writings on morality are inherently outdated just for being old, but I think it's also important to consider our contemporary culture since this deals with a matter of social custom.

Makeup is extremely prevalent and normalized in many places today to the point where it's often expected for women to wear makeup. Sometimes it's explicit, like a boss who mandates that female employees need makeup to look "professional". Even with superficial "it's your choice!" platitudes though, girls are bombarded with advertising and media depictions that place heavy pressure on them from a young age, whether consciously or not. I believe that regardless of how free women are in the sense that nobody is holding a gun to our heads and forcing us to use makeup, the fact that it is so normalized and frequently presented as a default in which opting out is viewed an act of rebellion inherently impedes upon women's freedom in the matter. Especially for teenagers, who are especially vulnerable to struggles with body image and social acceptance.

Also, the modern makeup industry overall profits greatly off of women's insecurities and sexualization, largely benefiting wealthy male executives, and has a large negative environmental impact. The ubiquity of makeup leads to unrealistic and unnatural standards for women that generates inequality.

For these reasons, I broadly have a negative view of makeup. These aren't the consequences of an individual woman using makeup, but the wider societal picture.

On an individual level, I think there are plenty of valid reasons to use makeup, especially given the aforementioned influences. Some women feel compelled to wear makeup to have a fair shot in the work force, which is sad that it happens but an understandable motive. It could be that it makes her feel a little more confident. It could be that she enjoys the artistic side of it. So I agree that if you aren't intending to be a harmful influence on others, trying to be deceptive, or deriving inordinate pride from your appearance, it's not inherently wrong. Not to condone the faulty intentions, as they should still be avoided, but I also believe that even women who have those dubious intentions may have their culpability lessened due to the influences upon her (e.g., does the 14-year-old really want more sex appeal or has she been exposed to unhealthy messages about where her value lies as a female?). God understands our weaknesses.

I personally would encourage that makeup's presence is minimized in women's lives because of the negative societal situation... I don't think it's fair to attribute sin for that on an individual woman though, the cooperation with those aspects are very distant even if they are collectively harmful.

My personal behavior is that I did not use makeup for most of my life since I simply wasn't interested, and then I did use it semi-frequently for a while, and now I still have some of it but I rarely use it... I'm okay with using it for special occasions or costumes, since it's an "out of the norm" thing. I have a specific reason which is kind of personal: my family and I did an activity together where I had makeup done as part of our cultural dress, and (as a brief explanation) I experienced frightening and threatening behavior from someone as a result of it. I'm now very happy to be in a safer place in life where I'm free from violence, so using a bit of makeup was something that I liked to do to appreciate that that man doesn't own me and that I can go against his wishes. I guess it's a kind of way to cope with something messed up... But once I run out, I don't think I want to use it anymore because I don't want to participate in the broader normalization of women wearing makeup in everyday situations. I'm considering using some when I get married so I don't look washed out/flattened in photos at a distance, but I'm not sure.

In summary my belief is that makeup as an object has no inherent morality and can be used for either licit or sinful intentions, and it is also greatly overemphasized in modern society and should not be viewed as a basic everyday necessity in a woman's life.

[nysocboy]

Gemstones Episode 3.4, Continued: Mistaking dependency for love, two breakups, and some Cantonese guys

Previous: Episode 3.4: Wieners, betrayals, a burning a-hole, and Kelvin at his jerkiest. With a nude Steve Zahn bonus

Earlier in this episode, Stephen stepped up his harassment of Judy and BJ, Jesse sparred with Pontius, and Kelvin refused to accept responsibility for the Smut Busters Scandal.  Now things are getting worse.

The fag: Stephen plays pickleball with BJ, who doesn't know about the affair.  He describes sex with the girl he's seeing in disgustingly graphic detail, including something that I have never heard anyone but Judy mention.  But BJ doesn't get it, merely objecting to the disrespectful talk. 

Stephen counters: "You're a weak little fag."  No, BJ protests, he is a straight cis male, "but I don't believe that queer people should be referenced in that way." 

 Stephen's fag and the earlier "trash talk" are the only homophobic references since the first episode of Season 2.  While neither refers specifically to Kelvin, they are structurally placed to draw attention to the "rumors swirling around" him, and the effect that coming out may have on his career. 

We cut to Eli and May-May in the garden, joking and bonding.  She tells him: "I was never jealous of your riches, but I'm jealous that your kids still love you."  Eli: "Don't mistake love for dependency."  Remember that Kelvin and Judy have never been in romantic relationships before, and aren't sure how to go about it.  Are they really in love with their partners, or using them for power, control, social status, and sex?  It's time for Kelvin's descent into the darkness.

Church leaders got to think about the optics: This scene is very difficult to read.  It seems to go in three directions at once. We begin with the Siblings and Martin in the executive board room.  Kelvin is still wearing his virginal-white sweater: this is shortly after the food-court parents meeting. Jesse states that they are here to discuss  "When people think people are molesting people."  

Wait -- no parent has accused Keefe of child molestation.  Jesse is jumping to conclusions. Or maybe he's responding to the gay rumors, but he can't admit that to Kelvin.  

Without asking for the guys' side of the story, the Siblings and Martin have decided to move Keefe into Immigrant Outreach.  It sounds like a great job -- doubtless with more money, more responsibility, and duties more closely aligned with Keefe's interests.  And it seems quite benevolent. They could have hidden Keefe away in a file room somewhere, or just fired him.  

But are they responding to a pedophilia accusation?  Martin tells Kelvin that "this is not the hill to die on": it is trivial, purely cosmetic. Keefe will still play a valuable role in the church. That sounds like a response to Keefe being outed as gay.

Judy agrees: "Church leaders have to think about the optics." Kelvin cannot stay closeted with an assistant youth minister who is "openly gay."  So what if they're separated during work hours?:  "You need to suck it up."  A gay joke, har-har.  Kelvin replies: "Like you sucked it up on tour?"  

After that dig at Judy betraying BJ, Kelvin run away, proclaiming that he's voting "no" on everything else on the agenda.  Next up: funding a battered women's shelter.  "I vote no!"

We switch to BJ and Judy having sushi, perhaps later on the same day.  BJ notes that he ran into her guitarist Stephen at the pickeball court, but got turned off by the explicit descriptions of his girlfriend's...you know. But he still doesn't catch on that Stephen was talking about Judy.

The Dining Room Tomb: At home, Kelvin is looking for Keefe.  He tries the bedroom, then comes downstairs. Notice that one of the pictures on the wall depicts a stylized naked man.

 Keefe is sitting at the dining room table, wearing a BDSM sub outfit, cutting out crosses for the youth group bulletin board, but they all turn into daggers.  I get it - - the church has betrayed you.

 This must be the same day as the parents' meeting and the board meeting, but Kelvin has changed from his virginal-white sweater into a ridiculous plaid poncho with a super-exaggerated top wave.  He has never looked more unattractive. Will being unattractive make things easier?

Check out the room decor: dark, oppressive, tomb-like.  Does it even have windows?  In this depressing, troubling space, Kelvin says: "I have to talk to you about something, and it's not easy to talk about." "Sexual stuff?" Keefe asks, thinking that he wants to discuss their less-than-satisfactory sex life.

No, it's about the job offer.  Kelvin tries to get him excited about it - "you can use your Cantonese!" -- but he can't put a positive spin on something that he introduced with "it's not easy to talk about" rather than "I have fantastic news!"  Keefe thinks that the job offer is a slap in the face, caused entirely by Kelvin refusing to take responsibility for the Smut Busters scandal.

The breakup after the break

On to the breakup: Keefe is going to move out "so the air can be cleared," to alleviate the gay rumors that could cost Kelvin his career (Dude, they just cost you your career).As he speaks, he deliberately hides his "wedding ring," to signal that the relationship is over.  In his next scene, it will be gone altogether.

He continues "You Gemstones are stars, destined to burn bright. Best that I step aside."  

Although he acts like he's being benevolent, thinking of Kelvin's career, it's obvious that Keefe has had enough. Kelvin treats him as a boyfriend, buddy, assistant, and valet from moment to moment, ignoring his needs and desires (how many times has he puckered up for a kiss that never came?), yelling at him when he tries to help, standing by while he is ignored by the family, tortured by the God Squad, accused of child molestation. Don't mistake dependency for love: it's time to move on.

Another Breakup: Shortly after the sushi, I guess -- the chronology is confused here -- Judy is meeting Stephen at some sort of arcade.  She orders him to stop stalking her husband, but he resists: "You want me!" 

Nope, "I'm BJ Barnes' bitch and no one else's!" 

Uh-oh, Stephen invited BJ, too!  He forces Judy to come clean about their affair.

And a threat: Cut to Eli convincing the Montgomery Boys to sing for their mother -- they've refused for several years.  The song they choose is "Sinner, You'd Better Get Ready."   Not exactly spreading the love, are you, boys?  But it's apropos to several of the relationships crumbling before our eyes.

Love is lost:  Late at night, Jesse catches his son Pontius having sex with his girlfriend (beefcake alert: we see Kelton Dumont's actual butt, not a stunt double).  This is a direct violation of his agreement to not have sex in the house.  

Jesse lectures: "When you allow yourself to trust another person, it stings extra when that trust is betrayed. Love can be lost. Relationships can be damaged forever." His speech is interspliced with Judy crying as BJ prepares to leave, and Kelvin crying as Keefe drives away.

In the last shot, the Montgomery Boys are stockpiling ammonium nitrate, a powerful explosive. They returned to their father after all. They're going to betray the Gemstones! We never find out what Uncle Peter wants the explosives for.  He starts on a scheme that doesn't require them, and when that falls through, decides to use the explosives for a new scheme.

Shortly after this episode aired, someone -- I don't know if it was a showrunner or a fan -- posted on Tumblr that "everything is going according to plan."  But for now, and through the next three episodes, the Gemstones are in ruins. The end.

The full review, with nude photos and explicit sexual discussions, is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

[thetudorslovers]

Giulia Tofana was born in Palermo in the year 1620. Her mother was the infamous Thofania d'Amado, who was executed for murdering her own husband in 1633. It's been rumored that d'Amado passed down the recipe for her best-performing poison to her daughter, but even if that wasn't the case, Giulia herself was skilled in brewing all kinds of tinctures.

She moved from Sicily to Naples to Rome, expanding her black-market trade. Harboring a soft spot for women trapped in loveless, suffocating relationships, she started selling toxins to help them escape. With the help of her daughter, a group of trusted associates, and possibly a priest, Giulia launched an underground ring of criminals from her apothecary shop. To those not in the know, her business was cosmetics. She sold powders and liquids to enhance women's beauty.That front made it easier to disguise her best-selling product: Aqua Tofana.

Aqua Tofana was a coveted face cream or oil used by Italian ladies looking to preserve their youth… or procure a status of widowhood. It came in a bottle or a powder case often labeled as "Manna of St Nicholas of Bari," a popular healing ointment for blemishes. Made of a mixture of lead, arsenic, and belladonna, Aqua Tofana contained some of the same ingredients as normal cosmetics at the time, which helped it to blend in on a woman's nightstand or vanity. Husbands were none the wiser that their wife's beauty regimen was their death warrant.

Giulia was beloved by the people, especially the women, both powerful and poor, who she helped. She got word of her warrant before the authorities came knocking and was granted sanctuary by a local church until a rumor began to spread that she had poisoned the city's water supply and the government took action, apprehending her and subjecting her to horrific torture.

Giulia confessed to killing over 600 men from 1633-1651 in Rome alone, though that number could be lower given that her confession came under duress. It's believed that Tofana was executed in Campo de' Fiori in Rome in 1659, along with her daughter and a few of her most reliable associates.

[thelesbianpoirot]

Same L&O anon. I’m with you and that’s why I still watch. They get it right more than they get it wrong and I’m going to tune in to watch a creep get his comeuppance,every time. I tried the Chicago one too but it’s trash and the main guy has rancid vibes. Criminal Minds is the only other current one I can stand. My friends love NCIS Hawaii because it’s got a lesbian couple but it’s bland as hell and I’m past the age of watching things just for gays it actually has to hold my attention. Like Cold Case. Lily Rush is amazing and it’s probably my favorite procedural. I still haven’t finished it because I’m trying to stretch the show knowing there isn’t more. Do you remember the Season 2 episode Best Friends? Unexpected twist but I thought they told executed the lesbian love story very well.

Heyo! I hope you didn't view my reply as combative, I was replying while at work so I text without reading it, yeah a cop show that actually out misogynist and creeps well is rare. There are hundreds of procedurals avaliable on TV or streaming, but many just don't HIT the same way as SVU or criminals minds or cold case, OR the occasional bones episode, a sexism or rape or child victimization case on BONES is also very satisfying. There is a prostitution/cosmetic surgery episode of BONES second 1 or 2 that I love. She calls cosmetic surgeons butchers and spends the whole episode ranting about how evil the industry is and the portrayal of prostitution was so sympathetic, a girl says "none of us are here because we want to be" and it just feels so real, I wanted to cry. So many women in my family had to do traumatizing shit to feed us kids and keep a roof over our heads, and they weren't even "professional prostitutes" it is just expected that working class single moms have to fuck a boss or an ex baby daddy or have sex with an abusive husband to keep their kids safe. It felt so real. Unglamorous. NCIS Hawaii sucks! all the spin off sucks. NCIS is only good for a few seasons when the team had the perfect chemistry, after Ziva left, there was nothing for me. OOH I love Cold Case, I don't watch it season by season in order, just random episodes based on a good synopsis or a guest star character actor I love, so I didn't know about best friends, BUT GUESS WHAT I'M WATCHING TONIGHT while I EAT DINNER??? THANK YOU for the rec. After the Law and Order mission is over, I think I will try Rizzoli and Isles, a show that try to survive I hear off lesbian gaybaiting, revolutionary, we never get gaybaited! it is always dudes.

[bi-kisses]

I cave. I was a radfem / am still one in theory but everyone is being ridiculously careless with their activism these days. I admit I rooted along for tighter regulations concerning transition particularly for children but it's apparent it doesn't stop there and whenever I tried voicing my concerns to other friends and groups I got belittled and told I was falling into the fearmongering of the TRA. And I also admit I believed that at first but now you can't ignore that the people advocating for the denial of the TRAs demands also cut into women's rights and that of homosexuals and protection rights. It's just too dangerous to play around like that - it doesn't feel like it's worth 'fighting' for if the result is this. Yeah I hurt when I think about the stories of TIMs slithering into our positions and spaces but compared to what is happening and planned to happen law-wise I hurt even more... So I no longer consider myself allied with radfems even though at core I have the same beliefs. I will not act on them. The execution of these are not progress in any way. So begrudgingly - in a two sides only system with no middle ground - I'll cave to their demands for the long run. Also I realise there are more moderate TRAs who acknowledge the two bio sexes (although they they still insist transitioning is possible) who also criticise the TRAs who are one the nonbinary trip (like you) but I honestly think we are all at a point where we can't refuse taking sides when the issue (to vote on) is black and white. Maybe that's just the election fear coming up. So my ask is to you as a kind of mediator/ person between the two sides: what's your take on this? Justified fear to have or baseless concerns? Is taking sides necessary?

Genuinely a really interesting thing to talk about!

I think that, the problem with "picking a side" in this case, is that beliefs aren't the same as actions. So when you hold opinions, they can be very nuanced and have layers regarding the validity of this or that identity, but when it comes to actually calling for societal change, that nuance is.... Flatter.

As a result, yeah, I think we *are* sort of forced to choose one extreme or the other, despite our beliefs falling somewhere in the middle, because there isn't any opportunity right now to push for those moderate views, legally speaking. The options are bodily autonomy for all, including transition, or restricting the rights of women and children.

I agree with a lot of tenants that radical feminists stand for, such as abortion rights, normalization of body hair, fighting porn culture/the sex industry, and being critical of the beauty industry (makeup, cosmetic surgeries, etc). But that doesn't mean I align myself with radical feminists, because ideologies don't own ideas outright, and I disagree with so many other core beliefs.

Radical feminists these days have prioritized their hatred for trans people, predominantly trans women, over the rights and autonomy of women in general. You're absolutely right and it's not an easy thing to admit, if you've been ascribed to a label and/or community for any length of time, that they're on the wrong side of things.

Because, circling back, it has become a matter of those two extreme sides, and radical feminism has chosen to fight for restricting everyone's rights out of hatred for <1% of the population.

To answer your questions directly, I do think there's justified concern. The UK is a great example of how poorly this is turning out. And if you plan on actually engaging in activism outside of the internet, I do think you have to choose a side, or at least a cause, to stake your effort into... Even if you aren't 100% on board with the cause as a whole.

I'll use my friend as an example. She's a trans woman living stealth and has been doing a lot of activist work advocating for Palestine. The committee she's a part of had a controversy because another member was accused of transphobia. This controversy was drawing away time and resources from their main cause, being Palestine. My friend honestly didn't give a shit if someone on the board had transphobic beliefs because that wasn't the point of what they were doing, so she tried to redirect that attention back to their work rather than internal conflict. She had to pick a side there, as a trans person, and she chose the pressing matter over the personal one.

I think it's something we can learn from and relate to.

I want to conclude by thanking you because your ask was really interesting as a fresh perspective. If you'd like to talk more, my DMs and ask box are open.

[mask131]

Fragments of fright (10)

This translation comes from a small witch-and-occult centered section in a French magazine entirely dedicated to the Middle-Ages (Histoire et Images Médiévales, Medieval History and Images). It was the issue 51, August-September 2013). Written by Claire Goumot.

The Belladona

The Belladona, or Atropa belladonna, is a black-berried plant well known in the Middle Ages. It was nicknamed the Devil's Cherry or "Belle Dame", the Beautiful Lady, because of its incredible properties. Its botanical name, "Atropa", is from the same root as the name of the last of the three Parcae/Moirai - Atropos she who cuts the thread of mortal life. This was because eating belladona caused hallucinations, and could be deadly. This is why it was considered a a "plant of witches", and witches used it as an oinment to either poison people or fly all the way to their sabbath. But its common name comes from the cosmetic use Italian women had for this plant during the Renaissance (the "bella domna", beautiful ladies) - a few drops of belladona juice in their eyes dilated their pupils, which made their gaze more shiny and intense. As with all plants, when well-dosed, it as benevolent properties: it is appeased, can be an anesthetic, prevents spasms. It is still used by modern medecine to treat skin and eyes.

Salt

Since Antiquity, salt is a divine and magical element in many societies. It is believed that it can protect people from bad luck, evil spells, and that it can unveil the truth. Men of the Middle-Ages spread salt inside their house, and placed some on their doorsteps or in their pockets. Salt was a mark of wealth, because it was a rare and costly product in the Middle-Ages, that had its own tax. People who accidentally spilled their salt-pot took the habt of throwing a pinch of salt over their shoulder, as a way to mock Fortune and to show that they still had plenty more salt to throw around... With time, as witch trials were on the rise, salt became a protection against the Fiend. The one who spilled the salt-shaker could be accused of being a sorcerer, because it meant he couldn't actually grasp the holy salt. He then was forced to grab a pinch of it and throw it over his shoulder to prove that he did not fear the salt. A variation of this rite had the person throwing salt over their shoulder to blind the demon haunting them, and thus prevent any kind of misfortune or curse it could have caused. Today, to spill the salt-shaker is still believed to be a bad omen, and this is why people try to avoid passing it from hand to hand. By putting it on the table and letting the over person take it, you limited the risks of the salt spilling AND placed the next person to the test. It should also be remembered that ever since Antiquity, poisoners had the habit of putting their poison inside the salt - as such, not giving the salt container from hand to hand made you less of a suspect, and made the victim more "responsible" for their death, since they took the salt off the table on their own.

The book against witches: the Malleus Maleficarum

The Malleus Maleficarum, also known as the Witches Hammer, is a book of the 15th century written by two German Dominicans: Heinrich Kramer "Institoris" and Jacques Sprender. This manual for inquisitors and jurists detailed the process to identify, interrogate and punish witches. The first part of the book defines the "seal of the devil", aka the marks to recognize a witch (birthmarks, warts, beauty marks, parts of the body that do not feel anything, extreme skinniness, unbridled sexuality, presence of a familiar). Some details are quite... something, since the book details the most extavagant powers of the witches : they could use charms and tie knots to make men infertile, or they could steal men's penises to hide it in birds nests. The two other parts of the book are less amusing, since they are "practical" parts detailling several cases of witch trials, witch interrogations and witch executions. All those were done by the use of trials and tortures that harmed the flesh, "by fire or by water", "under the eye of God", to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused. One of the most famous accusations of witchcraft of history stays the one of Joan of Arc, who ultimately was proven innocent of witchcraft... But still condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake for this. The witch hunt will only end in Europe in the 18th century - with a total number of victims estimated between 50 000 and 100 000.

The witch's broom

The broom is the most iconic emblem of the witch, and this since the Middle-Ages. Why attach such a usual and banal item to the figure of the witch? First, because women were deeply associated with the broom - just like the cauldron or the spindle, this was one of the tools of the woman's domestic work, and the cauldron and the spindle in fact would also go on to become magical items in folklore and fairytales. In the Middle-Ages, feminity and domestic work only make one. Then, we also have to recall that brooms were made of Genisteae, aka "brooms" (broom shrubs, broom trees), a plant usually used in magical potions or medicinal brew to fight venom or lower tension. It was this same Genisteae that the witches used in the skin-ointment that allowed them to fly and to go to the sabbath (though sometimes the ointment serves to cover the broom rather than the witch's body).

The broom-shrub has a strong symbolical meaning : according to the Bible, the broom plant's rigidity is a cuse because the shrub refused to open its branches before the Holy Family as they fled king Herodus. Witches thus use a plant cursed by God to get closer to the Devil. Outside of the witches domain, the broom-plant had better connotations: it was the emblem of Charles VI, and the one of Goffrey Plantagenet, who always wore some of it on him, hence his name (the "broom plant" is known in French as "genêt").

[coochiequeens]

Another rapist now claiming to be a woman and demanding a transfer to a women prison

An incarcerated sex offender who abducted and raped his care worker is now claiming to identify as a “woman,” and demanding cosmetics and a transfer to a women’s institution. 

Albert Caballero, 50, is currently detained at Edinburgh Saughton Prison, where he has served half of his sentence and is eligible to apply for parole. But Caballero is reportedly now boasting to fellow inmates that he will be transferred to a women’s prison prior to his release after abruptly claiming a transgender identity. In addition to now calling himself “Claire,” Caballero has been demanding red lipstick from the prison. 

Insides sources at the facility spoke with The Daily Record and revealed that Caballero’s behavior had a “chilling effect” on other inmates. The source said: “There’s something about him that calls to mind Silence of the Lambs. He has mad, staring eyes and sometimes they just seem to go right through you.”

The unnamed source, who is said to be a senior staff member, continued: “There has been talk in the jail about the prospect of him seeking a move to be among women but, given his offence, I don’t see how anyone would risk it, even the most vociferous person in favour of self-ID.”

On December 27, 2018, Caballero abducted, physically assaulted, and raped a 25-year-old female care worker when she was visiting at his Edinburgh home. 

Caballero had arranged for a meeting with the woman, who worked with The Action Group, an organization which provides housing and community support to those with additional needs. He told the woman he had difficulty with his locks, at which point she realized he had locked her in his home.

As she attempted to escape, Caballero blocked her exit. A struggle ensued, but Caballero ultimately overpowered and sexually assaulted the woman. Following the ordeal, he then repeatedly instructed her to contact the authorities, saying, “Phone the police. Tell them I’ve raped you,” and followed her to her car before she drove away.

Caballero also contacted emergency services himself to confess. The High Court in Edinburgh heard how Caballero told the call handler what he had done, and threatened to commit suicide by jumping in front of oncoming traffic.

Some time later, law enforcement officers discovered Caballero outside of a police station, where he told them: “I’ve raped someone. I’m guilty. I’ve done a very bad thing.”

The victim contacted her management in a state of distress, and the incident prompted an investigation by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE). The probe found that the woman’s employer had failed to make an appropriate risk assessment regarding the danger Caballero posed to female workers. It was also discovered that although Caballero had a history of “escalation of inappropriate behavior,” incidents were not being recorded properly.

The woman was so traumatized by the assault that she has since not been able to return to work.

In June of 2019, Caballero was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison. He was placed on the sex offenders’ registry indefinitely, and will be made subject to a supervision order for an additional four years after his release.

Caballero is the third Scottish rapist to proclaim a transgender identity in the past week.

On January 15, a serial rapist who targeted women in changing rooms and restrooms reportedly had begun identifying as transgender and sought a transfer to a women’s prison. Jonathon Mallon, 40, was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 on a slew of rape charges. He has now begun referring to himself as “Charlene” and has allegedly been “bragging” that he will be in a women’s prison by the spring.

Days later, it was reported that a man standing trial for the alleged rapes of two women had begun identifying as transgender. Adam Graham, 31, now goes by the the name “Isla Bryson” and was referred to by feminine pronouns both in court and in UK media coverage. Graham has been charged with raping the women with “her penis,” according to court documents.

The slew of disturbing news comes just as Scotland is debating controversial new sex self-identification policies. In December, Holyrood passed the Gender Recognition Reform bill (GRR) which streamlines and eases the process through which an individual can change the sex markers on their official documents. The measures have been strongly opposed by women’s rights campaigners in Scotland.

Ashten Regan, Scottish National Party MSP representing Eastern Edinburgh, resigned from her post last October in a show of protest, saying she could not support “any legislation that may have negative implications for the safety and dignity of women and girls.”

Notably, an amendment to the bill put forward by Conservative Member of Scottish Parliament Russell Findlay which would have prohibited anyone convicted of a sexual offense from changing their legal sex markers was rejected.

On January 17, and for the first time in the United Kingdom’s history, Westminster chose to invoke a Section 35 Order to block the GRR bill from obtaining Royal Assent. 

Under Section 35 of the Scotland Act of 1998, Secretary of State for Scotland Alister Jack can prevent a Holyrood bill from becoming a law if it is believed that the legislation would have an “adverse effect” on the application of laws reserved to Westminster.

Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been determined to see the GRR bill passed, and referred to Westminster’s move to block the bill as a “full-frontal attack” on Scottish Parliament, according to the Guardian.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met with Nicola Sturgeon at a hotel in Inverness on January 12, where they are understood to have discussed the GRR bill in private.

By Genevieve Gluck Genevieve is the Co-Founder of Reduxx, and the outlet's Chief Investigative Journalist with a focused interest in pornography, sexual predators, and fetish subcultures. She is the creator of the podcast Women's Voices, which features news commentary and interviews regarding women's rights.

[chimeramoth]

this guy is pretty cool. i dig his sci-fi druid aesthetic and appreciate how the designers try to incorporate floral shapes throughout his suit. i just feel like again, this execution just didn't quite hit the mark.

i see this design and i see inspiration of the concepts of Black Mercy from before Overwatch was released, and maybe i just cling onto that concept design a little too hard and can't get over it. i thought that version of Mercy was INCREDIBLE. i could definitely have some bias there.

i also appreciate that overwatch is trying to include and incorporate more diversity of characters who are lgbtqia, but i'm still so hesitant when this comes from Blizzard, a company who has such a dumpster fire history to include a healthy diversity of characters in queerness, femininity, women, ethnicity, and culture. like it's true that they have gay characters, strong women characters, people of diverse ethnicity, and have been trying to include more cultures from around the world, but like, they do have a history of misogyny, homophobia, and racism. Lifeweaver is pansexual, which is awesome, and OVW2 will be having a pride event this year, which is also awesome. i'm just, again, hesitant and will have to see how this plays out.

this is also just more of a cosmetic idea i would have pushed if i had any say on the design team, but what if instead of a rose, he techno-conjured lavender? as a nod to lavender being a queer favor for both masculine and feminine people, claiming that "streak of lavender" aesthetic. and who knows, maybe he'll have different flowers throughout his skins. like including carnations and particularly wielding a green carnation, or having daffofils, or pansies.

not necessarily a queer flower but what if they come out with a skin where he has a rafflesia on his back :0

i'm looking forward to seeing Lifeweaver's lore on a proper wiki page and seeing what else we learn about them :)

[cherrileena]

𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃𝐍'𝐓 𝐁𝐄 𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐊!

full name:  jubileena cereza bing .

nicknames:  leena .

age: twenty - two .

gender:  cis  female .

species:  human .

orientation:  bisexual , biromantic .

date of birth:  tbd but she's giving aries sun .

place of birth:  tbd .

residence:  evermore .

occupation:  cosmetic sales rep .

RELATIONSHIPS

parents:  giovanni bing ( father ) , francine bing ( née goode , mother )  .

sibilings:  n/a.

significant other(s):  n/a currently.

PHYSICAL

faceclaim:  m.ikey m.adison .

eye color: dark brown .

hair color:  dark brown .

height: 5′4″

CHARACTER INSPO

cheryl blossom (moreso the comics version but u know RED), tomie kawakami (tomie), lux lisbon (the virgin suicides), lenore (castlevania) and yumeko jabami (kakegurui).

                                  𝐎𝐇 𝐍𝐎 ! 𝐈 𝐆𝐋-𝐆𝐋-𝐆𝐋-𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐃, 𝐓𝐎𝐎 !

HEADCANONS

she is extremely picky with her nicknames. no 'juju', no 'jubi', just leena. she's incredibly particular of how people perceive her and sees her name as part of her "brand", the jubileena bing empire that will eventually come to fruition.

also pertinent to the brand thing, cherries are a huge part of her aesthetic as one might expect. she can often be spotted wearing at least one red article of clothing (which will be the centerpiece of her whole outfit) or at the very least a blotted red lip. it has to be blotted, as she's trying to go for a soft girl persona and red lipstick is too bold! again, she's picky and detail oriented.

extremely rancorous and vengeful, despite not letting it show. she *will* go out of the way to execute revenge on someone; more specifically, she'll pay someone to do it for her, as money isn't a problem and getting her actual hands dirty could pose a massive issue with the image she's carefully constructed for herself.

big mommy issues. it just has to be said. leena hasn't spoken to her mom since she was very little and as far as she knows, her mom is somewhere in the italian riviera with some millionaire and his dumb children who must somehow be much more interesting than jubileena herself. she resents her mom bad. her father, poor guy, tried as he might to make leena happy, to bond with her but aside from the drag racing (which did bring them closer together), nothing really filled the emptiness her mom left.

still on the subject of her father, leena definitely sabotaged any and all relationships he might've had with other women. big parent trap vibes. i have a feeling she would cherry pick (haha get it) the worst parts of every girlfriend he had and use them as an excuse to "protect her dad". deep down, i just think she didn't want to be abandoned yet again.

is obsessed with drag, as in the art of drag. big rupaul's drag race fan. this is bc i'm dumb and originally thought "drag racing" meant the show and not acting racing w cars. ya girl is foolish and small and not a native speaker pls be kind. i have to make her liking drag race a thing now. she quotes it on the daily

leena has a MASSIVE social media presence, which should not be overlooked! she's popular on both tiktok and instagram, and has plans to start a youtube channel soon. she uses her platforms as a means of gathering attention and increasing her popularity, while also promoting herself and recommending products she sells at her job. a real influencer my dudes!

[beardedmrbean]

A Florida doctor accused of raping his sedated patients was found dead on Monday in what has been ruled a suicide, officials said.

An officer found Eric Andrews Salata, 54, dead in a ditch on Monday after receiving a call for a welfare check about eight hours after his ankle monitor had apparently been switched off, according to the incident report, which adds that a gun was found near his body.

The Medical Examiner ruled the death a suicide, a spokesperson for the Collier County Sheriff's Office said.

Police arrested Salata Nov. 21 at his clinic, the now-shuttered Pura Vida Medical Spa in Naples, after two women alleged he raped them while they received cosmetic medical treatments under sedation at the spa, according to a statement the Naples Police Department released on Facebook.

Salata was arrested on two counts of sexual battery to a physically helpless person, and detectives executed a search warrant on the clinic in search of evidence, according to police. He was released on $100,000 bond the following day, and ordered to surrender his passport and wear a GPS monitor until his arraignment, which was set for Dec. 19, according to jail and court records.

Salata operated the spa — which offered cosmetic procedures including botox, fillers, fat reduction and vein treatment — with his wife, according to an online directory of businesses in the area. Salata’s wife was present at the office at the time of the arrest, according to the arrest report.

Salata’s wife did not immediately return requests for comment.

Both the spa’s website and its Facebook page were inaccessible Thursday.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.

[haggishlyhagging]

Cosmetics occupied a dark place in the medieval imagination for a number of biblical reasons. First and foremost, they were not natural, and naturalness was the benchmark of anyone truly beautiful. The moment a woman resorted to cosmetics, she was attempting to embellish the work of the divine. This in turn led to the second concern, a conflation of makeup with dark magic. Both concerns were combined in the biblical story of Jezebel, which was trotted out to warn women who were thinking about trying a new recipe for rouge.

Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab of Israel, was a fairly terrible person. Aside from being foreign (which we are meant to understand was automatically bad), Jezebel had engaged in some light murder. She and Ahab had a neighbor, Naboth, who owned a thriving vineyard next door to the palace. After he rebuffed their offers to buy the land, Jezebel conspired to have him falsely accused of blasphemy. He was executed, and the lands passed to her and her husband (1 Kings 21:1-14). Subsequently, justices closed in on Jezebel, whereupon she "painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out of a window." She was later thrown from that window, her blood splattering everywhere. Her corpse was eaten by dogs (2 Kings 9:30).

While most of us would probably say that the thing that marked Jezebel as the wrong sort was, you know, the murder, medieval biblical exegetes disagreed. For them, the worry was the eyeliner and the hairdo. As a result, Jezebel makes a return in the New Testament, in Apocalypse 2:20-23. In Apocalypse, which you might know by the decidedly less cool name Revelation, John of Patmos (ca. 6-100 C.E.) got extremely angry with Jezebel. According to John, God had complained to him that she "calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works; and I will strike her children dead." Biblical scholars considered the references to “sexual immorality” and “adultery” here to be directly linked to the whole eyeliner thing, given that murder was decidedly less attractive to the average man. The fourteenth-century Czech preacher Jan Milic of Kromeriz (d. 1374), for example, announced that during the Last Days, Jezebel would arise from the dead to lead "all who paint their faces" to their Last Judgment and subsequently to Hell. Jezebel's use of makeup thus was more than just throwaway vanity. It is an overtly sexual act that could be conflated with large-scale and vaguely magical seduction, and that had a clearly delineated role in the Apocalypse. In other words, it was not good.

Meanwhile, Jewish and Christian communities could turn to Genesis for their concerns about women using makeup for the purposes of seduction and bringing about the end of the world. Some scholars' commentaries on Genesis warned against the daughters of God who had used cosmetics to disguise themselves and seduce a group of angels, "the sons of God." These women explicitly attempted to improve on God's natural creation and bring themselves up to the level of the divine. Luckily for the hussies in question, they didn't manage to bring about the Apocalypse, as Christian mystics were concerned they would. They were instead blamed for the Great Flood—their sinful nature being one of the things that God allegedly wished to wash from the earth. While cosmetics didn't manage to completely destroy the world in this instance, they came close. Makeup and the dangerous seductive power that women could wield as a result of it were clearly best avoided.

In case Jezebel's dangerousness and the Flood were not enough of a warning, medieval writers set out to underline the diabolical possibilities of eyeliner. Enter, again, the concerned father of daughters, the Chevalier of La Tour Landry. This time he shared the tale of a beautiful princess, whose looks brought her acclaim, admirers, and riches. Rather than remaining a pure emanation of the will of God, however, this princess was augmenting her looks with makeup. As she aged and her beauty faded, she attempted to keep her looks by using yet more makeup, but her face began to wither. The Chevalier assured his daughters that "I heard tell from many that when she was dead, her face became such that one could not know what it was, nor what type of deformation; because it did not seem at all to be the face of a woman, nor did anyone take it for the face of a woman, so hideous was it and horrible to see. So, I think indeed that the layers of paint that she put on it were the cause of this phenomenon."

Some theological scholars saw fit to consider the real victims of the use of cosmetics: men. In the twelfth century at least two theologians, the French Peter the Chanter (d. 1197) and his likely student the English Thomas of Chobham (ca. 1160-1236) tackled the hard question of what, exactly, men should do if they engaged a sex worker in good faith, only to find out later that she had been wearing makeup. Both enlightened minds agreed that in such a case, the clients who hired such women would have in effect been duped. Any woman who was found to be using cosmetics to entice clients was essentially selling falsified goods and should have to return any money that she received for sex.

In the Muslim lands, the seductive power of cosmetics stirred similar concerns, especially perfumes. Jurists grappled with the question of what women could anoint themselves with and came to the conclusion that while it was fine for women to use tints to enhance their faces, these substances shouldn't be heavily perfumed. A light perfume, which could be perceived only by those in close physical proximity to a woman (namely, her husband), was acceptable. What was not acceptable was a perfume that left a trail of scent and therefore seduction. Women who ignored such rules faced legal consequences, as "a perfumed woman who passes by a group of men in order that they will notice her smell is an adulteress."

Women who were tempted to use cosmetics, then, faced condemnation from a number of camps. They faced theological and legal consequences should they decide to enhance their looks through outside help. These concerns were not necessarily for the women but for the men whom they could defraud and seduce thanks to their contrivances. Furthermore, made-up women could cause an honest-to-God Apocalypse, or at least a fairly major flood. Either way it was clear that, in order to ensure the social order, women had to be threatened with legal repercussions.

-Eleanor Janega, The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society

[discoobsessedgirly]

I like to "create a person" when making these type of collages. lemme introduce you to these 4 baddies.

🪴 Samantha: Sammi, for short. She's a plant lover, a stoner girl fs. she listens to dad rock, plays the bass, loves matcha tea & always brings snacks to the sesh. her obsessions are lush products, the color green, brown leather, & Kurt Cobain.

🌸 brooke: Brooke is THAT girl. her parents are both business executives, so sleep overs at her house are elite. she's a fashion girly, a tad bit dramatic, & fiercely loyal. her obsessions are tech, lingerie, & study sleep overs.

🕷 chelsea: your favorite scene girl, Chelsea has dyed her hair 9 different colors. She loves going to shows, skating, & making make up tutorial videos. she tells the most offensive, most hilarious jokes. She always tells you when you have something on your face. Chelsea's obsessions are vans skate shoes, viva la bam, jeffree star cosmetics & the boulet drag Brothers.

☮️ paige: paige is the free spirit who often gets called "tree hugger." that doesn't bother her, the only thing that bothers her is litering, ignorance, waste & hatred. she recycles everything, thrifts all her clothes, attends every political rally. she smells of cinnamon & grass. paiges obsessions are 70s music, social politics, yoga & women.