#Etsy-listings-how-to-male-money-on-etsy

[thathandmadehustle]

Tailwind Tips: Skyrocket Your Social Media Growth Today!

Hey there, Etsy bestie! Ever heard of Tailwinds? This post does contain affiliates. This means I could get a commission is you use my link! so use my link! want to read more about that you can go>>> here. Otherwise continue reading… So, Let’s get real—running an Etsy shop can feel like you’re juggling a million things at once. And Between creating amazing products, managing orders, and…

[sar3nka]

I hope to not be annoying but I’m really interested in getting into the Japanese alternative fashion movements like they had in fruits (I have a friend who’s super into Lolita)but I’m not really sure where to start. Do you know anything of such things? Ty and sorry if this is out of nowhere

It's not annoying at all! Dw <3

First you'd have to specify which one of the movements appeals the most to you. There are more tame ones (mori kei for example), and ones that will make you look like fabulous eyesore.

For starters [I'll oversimplify here a bit probably], here's some I'm familiar with

• decora - fuckton of stickers, hair accessories, glitter, colors, funky textures & silhouettes. I'd compare it to scene in the west, although less edgy, and detached from music. Can be considered a playful, even childish in overall aesthetic.

• menhera (sickly cute) - hospital aesthetic (needles, pills, bandages etc), very dark undertones expressed in a very sweet, pastel way. There's also a character, Menhera-chan. The comics abt her are on tumblr!

• lolita - modesty over all, depending on type diffrent prints will be used, some types are more simple, some are complicated, full of frills and bows. General rule is that the dress/skirt silhouette should either be a cupcake or A letter (petticoats and hoop skirts are used to achieve this)

• gyaru - despite looking very male-gazey at first sight, it's a rebellion against beauty standards in Japan. Gals (aka women into gyaru fashion) are tan, have either platinum or dark blonde hair (sometimes with colorful extensions)(also brown hair are quite popular but not as much as blonde). The hairstyles are massive, as well as their nails. Clothes are very y2k - animal print, pink, white, black are the most popular colors. There's also a specific type of makeup they do.

• vkei - it's not easy to define, it refers to both music and fashion, and neither have strict rules (none at all tbh just be edgy, that's why I love it lol). The best way to get an idea of what it is is check out vkei bands and the MVs (to see the clothes the bandmen are wearing). Start with The GazettE, Dir En Grey, Malice Mizer. Oh and to see the more modern examples maybe also Mejibray and Kizu. Also check out clothing brand called sex pot revenge (funky name ik)

When it comes to how to start collecting and wearing the clothes. Um honey uh. It is difficult. I'd discourage buying from amazon or ali (unless it's just accessories), ESP WITH LOLITA DON'T EVER DO IT. I personally thrift, then DIY stuff. I've discovered that closet child (a website, can be easily found via google), aside from good deals on lolita pieces has sick vkei stuff as well. Etsy is also a good place to start, but I think it's better to thrift and DIY since it's cheaper, and if you find out it's not your style, you'll be wasting less money. Essentials often associated with jfashion are leg warmers (color n material depends on your style), cute bags (lolita bags or thirft/DIY ones are a good starter option I think), but it's not a rule really. Try to dive into the movements I listed, and find what's the prettiest, most fun for you, and just go with it. Don't be afraid to ask for help too, I've noticed people are more than happy to list cool brands and websites!

Oh and also, I've ordered a sort of a lucky pack from Glitzy Wonderland recently. Reviews said it's a great starting point to collecting lolita clothes, and when it arrives I'll definitely post what I got and whether it's as good as reviews say.

[kitfoxart]

Who is ready for a WHALE of a tale?

It begins back in 2003. I was a few days away from graduation, awkward and trollish in appearance but still convinced I would one day blossom into an elegant, Sandra Bullock-esque knockout. I'd reached a point in my life where I was through being shy around people I found attractive - I would simply say what I felt, and hope that eventually someone wouldn't turn tail and sprint.

A fella - for this story is name is Frankie Avalon - passed me a flier. He was running for class president and his flier was a comedic list of reasons students should vote for him. At the time, it was hilarious and charming, and I was sure I was also hilarious and charming enough to make Frankie fall for me - lumpy potato figure and swarthy appearance notwithstanding.

I wrote a list of my own - reasons that Frankie Avalon should stop everything he was doing and date me at once. I was witty, charming, a Lucille Ball and Audrey Hepburn sandwich. Aaaalll lady.

Frankie Avalon never spoke to me, positively ran when he saw me in the halls. No problem - I was graduating soon and leaving this raging tire fire of a town.

Three years in the future and I am living in Hawaii - still unattractive, but working on it. In 2006, record shops still exist and I work at one. I have an mp3 player and a cellular telephone with buttons. LiveJournal is THE social media platform for disillusioned twentysomethings with a creative streak, and back in those days a post just talking about how weird dating is or how I nearly got in a car accident would garner 50-60 comments each, if you can believe it. (Sidenote: Should we all go back to LJ?)

A friend from back home sent me a link to a pre-reddit style computer club forum where a certain type of male could compare software programs and D-20 dice with impunity from the pedestrian world at large. In the post to which I was directed, my old crush-letter to Frankie Avalon had been posted by someone I didn't even know, for everyone to see and snicker over. Another old crush Dave was among the snickering jerks, as well - to my absolute mortification - as Frankie Fucking Avalon.

A few words from my 2006 self on aforementioned LiveJournal: There are some things, particularly things in high school, that one should never, ever have to relive. Once you graduate and you move miles and miles away and leave absolutely everything behind in favor of a new life that actually makes sense and nobody knows who you used to be, you think it's over. You think you won't have to remember all that dumb shit you said, you won't have to play nice with people who called you names, you'll never have to go back to your stupid fucking high school reunion, and you can happily forget everything that happened to you back then.

But you can't, and it's there, and it festers under your skin like some loathsome disease, waiting until you feel safe to strike. I was gone, it was over, I'm living in fucking Hawaii for chrissake, and my past can just stay put, slowly fermenting in my psyche and building up complexes that will take years to fix like every normal person. But it's not good enough to be far away, it's not good enough to forget everyone you used to know and misplace their email addresses and never return phone calls. It's never enough because the worst, most humiliating parts of your old life will always, always come back and grab you.

I was horrified, and I moved on. Abusive relationship, money struggles, comic projects coming and going, death of my mother, the end to the abusive relationship, a move to Florida, a real career, and someone sweet and funny and smart and hot who loves me later - I get a message. A message through my etsy shop, of all places, although I imagine I'm not an easy name to find on the google.

Frankie Avalon had found my 15 year old post about him when googling his name for an upcoming job. He wrote me a massive apology.

I've always been embarrassed for just avoiding you after you gave me that letter, but I was, you know, 16 and let's say not exactly a model human being. I would never publicly shame you for that, I wasn't involved in reposting it or anything. I'm not even sure who scanned it or what my comment was on the matter in 2006 as the link is now deleted, but I imagine it was something assholey. I wish I could read what my stupid past self wrote so I could properly apologize, but anyway, I am sorry. It was pretty awkward, is all my brain holds about it currently. Most of my high-school - late-20's life is categorized that way, so it's pretty full and the details have been lost. I wish I was the sort of person to say, "Hey, it was actually pretty cool this person wrote me this response," but alas, I was a creature of peer pressure. So, mystery solved if you ever wondered.

I hadn't wondered. I knew I had put him in an awkward position as he was young and nerdy and I was not especially overburdened with good looks and charm. The apology was, however, tarnished ever so slightly by the ending, where he asked me to remove his name from the post so it would not show up in a screening for this job he wanted. Maybe if not for that, he would have apologized anyway - one can assume he had no idea I'd written the post until he searched himself, and one can further assume he didn't know how to contact me back when it initially happened.

I think all of us have fantasized about being in this position - the person responsible for childhood humiliation now coming to you with an apology and a favor to ask, the power you might hold if you decided to be a vengeful god of destruction.

But I'm not. I deleted the incriminating post, said good luck with the job and happy Halloween, and left it. The other ghosts of my past are a hell of a lot more frightening than some mush letter to a guy who never spoke to me.

But... what a day for an old ghost to come haunting.

Happy Halloween, witches.

[misssmeat]

Where did you get that?! // Sex Toys & Lingerie

I get a lot of questions about where I buy lingerie, toys, sex gear, etc. Because today is Black Friday… I thought it was a good time to finally do a round-up of my favorites and recommendations.

Almost all of these retailers are having sales today - yay consumerism holidays!!! 🙃

For those wondering - this also doubles as my Christmas list. Please/thank you.

Lingerie

Savage x Fenty - “Created for the female gaze, not the male gaze.” Rihanna has our back with cute AND CHEAP lingerie! Huge fan.

Honey Birdette - The highest tier of lingerie in my eyes. I absolutely love every single thing they create. Fucking stunning.

Thistle and Spire - Sensual and edgy. And currently, with an incredible Medusa snake collection for all you Slytherins out there.

Marie Mur - Luxury leather accessories, harnesses, and lingerie. This is where kink and lingerie meet in the most beautiful way.  

Agent Provocateur - Just simply superior lingerie. Goddess level. Always releasing new and creative pieces.

Journelle - More luxury lingerie. If you couldn’t guess… luxury is my vibe when it comes to lingerie.

Creepyyeha - Y’ALL. THE QUEEN OF THE KINK WARDROBE. I don’t own anything by Creepyyeha YET, but mark my words. I fucking will. My life will not be complete until I own a custom creepy piece. (Currently on hiatus until after the holidays - so check out her Instagram.)

Amazon - No explanation here. Good for very cheap pieces that usually don’t last more than a couple sessions of play. But usually photograph well enough.

Zaful - Same vein as Amazon. Fast fashion. Not ethically great. VERY cheap if you’re working on a tight budget though. Low quality, photograph fairly well. I don’t necessarily recommend, but I know budget options are important to many people... so, I’m including it. 

Victoria’s Secret - Okay, VS is obviously problematic and can’t figure out how to stop fucking up, but their downfall can sometimes be our win. Sales and outlets have been fully stocked due to lower popularity, and I’ve been able to grab panties/thigh high stockings for $1, bras for as low as $3, and random other lingerie pieces for less than $7. It’s a freaking steal. (Don’t buy full price VS though - go to Savage X Fenty first for similar/lower price point, better quality, AND inclusive business practices!!!)

Sex Toys - All retailers except Etsy are 100% discrete, and most Etsy sellers are careful to be discrete as well. Just be sure to double-check if you’re worried about that.

Sub-Shop - A good place to start for “serious” bondage gear that’s also accessibly beginner. The gear is much higher quality than what you’ll get from Adam & Eve/Lovehoney etc, but not as intense or as expensive as some of the other shops I’ll list below. I recommend Sub-Shop if you’re just diving into building your kink gear collection. **Having an INSANE Black Friday sale. I spent a lot of money.

eXtreme Restraints - Generally, a step up from Sub-Shop, in price/quality/intensity.

The Stockroom - Similar to eXtreme Restraints, but usually with a better selection - especially in sex furniture. I tend to jump between eXtreme Restraints and The Stockroom when placing orders. (My favorite collar is from The Stockroom!)

Restrained Grace - Feminine beautiful kink accessories!

Etsy - Various sellers. There are stunning pieces on there, but you need to put in the work to search for the good stuff.

Lovehoney - My go-to vanilla sex shop. Many of my dildos, basic anal plugs and lubes have come from Lovehoney.

Amazon - Can sometimes come through with the basics. Not usually, but it’s worth checking.

[flirting-with-psychology]

REFLECTIONS Answer the following questions:

What is the single best thing that happened in the past year?

2015:  The beginning of the fall semester when I grew a lot more confidence

2016: Studied abroad

2017: Graduated

2018: Moved into the B Flat

2019: Got a boyfriend

2020: Got a car

2. What is the most challenging thing that happened to you in 2015/16/17/18/19/20?

2015: Getting over Marble maybe

2016: Getting over Hawaii

2017: Making my 4500 film

2018: The music videos I did

2019: Deciding whether to date my now boyfriend

2020: The entire pandemic

3. What thing did you learn the most from this year?

2015: Hawaii and Marble

2016: My film class

2017: Also my film class

2018: My film jobs and internships

2019: Starting a relationship

2020: I guess the pandemic

4. What is the kindest thing you did this year?

2015:  I don’t think I’m the one to ask, you’d have to ask people who perceived kindness

2016: Same

2017: Same

2018: Same

2019: Same

2020: Wore a mask

5. Did you lose any close family member this year?

2015: Nope

2016: No

2017: No

2018: My great aunt died

2019: No close ones, but my grandma’s dementia is getting so bad she doesn’t remember who I am

2020: No

6. Pick three words to describe 2015/16/17/18/19/20.

2015: A learning experience

2016: Single, senior, band

2017: Senior to graduate

2018: Almost an adult

2019: Another year older

2020: Covid, long, stagnant

7. What did you do in 2015/16/17/18/19/20 that you never did before?

2015: Got further than I ever had in my love life

2016: Studied abroad

2017: Moved into a house with roommates

2018: Moved in with male roommates, did an internship

2019: Got a boyfriend

2020: Bought a car

8. Did you keep last year’s resolutions? What were they?

2015: Here we go. Put one happy moment from each day into a jar: YES. Go to the gym regularly: Doing better but still could use improvement. Get a summer job: Yes. Make an effort to eat breakfast: Haha nope. Make an effort to look pretty: About the same as last year. Talk to people more and appear more confident: Yes. Find things to be excited about: Not as much as I want. Find a boyfriend: NOPE. Write more: Not really. Read more: Maybe a little. Have adventures: Some, but not as much as I would like. Initiate things: Yes. Use “I” more: Yes. Be less mean to myself: Yes. Overthink less: No, still working on that. Be proud of myself for trying my best but accept not being perfect: I guess. Take responsibility: More. Be positive and enthusiastic: Still working on it. Carpe diem: Not enough.

2016: I can’t remember lol

2017: I can’t remember what I wrote. Here’s what I’ll do: write my 2018 resolutions so that when I reblog this next year I will know:

2018: Be more adventurous: Maybe? Overthink and strategize less: HA not really. Get a film job: Yes. Eat more vegetables: Maybe a little but still not enough. Go to the gym, like, ever: Yes. Read more: Kinda. Finish my Harry Potter spellbook: Not yet.

2019: Get a boyfriend: Finally did! Be more spontaneous and adventurous: Kinda? Sometimes? Lose weight and eat better: Nope. Read more books: Nope. Finish my Harry Potter spellbook: Not yet. Learn how to work hard: Not really. Spend more time with my friends: Kinda. Love myself, and be someone I love: Not really. Carpe diem: Sometimes. Keep doing the moment calendar and journal: Yes. Earn more money than I spend: Nope. Travel: Yes. Discover new music: Yes. Try new creative things: Yes. Believe in myself: Not really. Learn to be a leader: Nope. Watch more movies: Some. Think about other people: Tried to. Learn how to make mistakes: Kinda.

2020: Get a new job: No. Lose weight and fit into my dresses again: Noope, the opposite. Read more books: A couple. Spend more time with friends: Haha, nope, although I did zoom with them some. Go on dates: Not really. Keep doing the moment calendar and journal: Yes. Try new creative things: Yes, I tried dice making. Take risks even if they cost money: Yes, again the dice making. Make more money than I spend: Actually yes with the stimulus. Make jewelry: Some, and opened and etsy page. Get back to people in a timely manner: So-so. Be more punctual: Nope. Finish my harry potter spellbook and keep up with my character book: Nope. Learn new things: Not enough. Be the kind of person I wish I could be: No. Be more open to ideas: No. Post more pictures online: No. Don’t be such a control freak: Not even a little bit. Worry less about what people think: Kinda. Laugh more: No.

2021 resolutions: Get an interesting job. Get my own apartment. Get a covid vaccine. Lose weight. Keep doing my sticky notes and moment calendar. Be less hard on myself. Survive. 

9. Did you travel to any interesting places in 2015/16/17/18/19/20?

2015: Went to Las Vegas for my birthday and California with the band and Kentucky to see Paul McCartney.

2016: Went to Italy, went on band trips to California and Texas

2017: Went to London with my mom, went to New Orleans for my cousin’s wedding and hooked up with my 6th grade crush, went to Wyoming for the solar eclipse

2018: Went to Las Vegas for a film shoot

2019: Went to Israel

2020: Went to Harry Potter World in Orlando with my boyfriend

10. What would you like to have in 2016/17/18/19/20/21 that you lacked in 2015/16/17/18/19/20?

2015: A BOYFRIEND HAHAHA

2016: Still a boyfriend lmao fml

2017: Still a boyfriend but one that I feel satisfied with. I’m not sure if I’m there with Guacamole. Also he’s not even my boyfriend yet

2018: Still a boyfriend lmao

2019: An interesting job (finally got the boyfriend!)

2020: A job, an apartment, and a vaccine

11. Do you even believe in new year’s resolutions? Why or why not?

2015: I think they are a good idea, for reflection as much as goals.

2016: Maybe. Idk

2017: Yeah it’s a good idea

2018: It’s always good to try to better yourself and it gives you motivation to do it

2019: It’s a good idea for goals

2020: It’s good to make goals and remind yourself what to work on

12. Do you believe that 2015/16/17/18/19/20 had an reoccurring theme for you? If so, which theme and why?

2015: No more than any other year really

2016: More like my entire life has a recurring theme of being single af

2017: Not really

2018: Boys I like having girlfriends

2019: Macy’s

2020: Covid

13. Do you feel like 2015/16/17/18/19/20 went by too fast?

2015: No

2016: It went a little fast, especially now that I’m about to graduate

2017: Not really

2018: Not really, but maybe my youth went too fast

2019: It went by too fast for how much I accomplished

2020: It went by way too slow

14. Did you fall in love with any new artists during the year 2015/16/17/18/19/20? List them.

2015: I fell back in love with Taylor Swift

2016: Collabro

2017: Anastasia the Musical cast, and Hamilton is growing on me

2018: A bunch of musicals

2019: My musicals playlist on spotify has Rent, Dear Evan Hansen, Legally Blonde, Galavant, Hamilton, A Star Is Born, Frozen 2

2020: Fell more in love with taylor Swift, and Come From Away

15. Brag about two of your accomplishments in 2015/16/17/18/19/20.

2015: I made a couple cool music videos, and I lost some weight after increasing my gym attendance.

2016: I made a short film, Pancakes, with a full crew. I got straight A’s in the spring.

2017: I graduated and I made another short film

2018: I worked on two film shoots and I got promoted at work

2019: I stayed in touch with friends I made on a film shoot, and I got a boyfriend

2020: Bought a car and was the costume designer for a TV pilot

16. What was your favorite movie that came out this year?

2015: The Martian

2016: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

2017: Coco

2018: A Star Is Born

2019: Rocketman

2020: None of them were really memorable

17. Fill in the blank: In 2016/17/18/19/20/21 I will ____________.

2015: Get the confidence back that I had in the fall

2016: Graduate college

2017: Start looking for film jobs

2018: Find myself

2019: Find a new job

2020: Survive, please

18. If you could fly anywhere in the world in 2016/17/18/19/2021, where would you go?

2015: Italy, and I plan to!

2016: London, and I plan to

2017: Scotland or Ireland, and I don’t have any plans to

2018: Maybe that Israel birthright thing

2019: Maybe Ireland or Amsterdam

2020: Wherever has the least amount of covid. Of course that probably means they wouldn’t let me in

19. What was your biggest regret of 2015/16/17/18/19/20?

2015: Worrying about the future when I had something good rather than just enjoying it

2016: Not trying enough in making friends and making the most out of it

2017: Maybe not getting quite enough out of college

2018: Forgetting or never quite learning how to work hard. That and not asking a cute guy out in time

2019: Not buying that moonstone necklace

2020: Gaining weight

20. Do you think you’ll be having a better 2016/17/18/19/20/21 than 2015/16/17/18/19/20?

2015: I hope so

2016: I hope so

2017: I hope so

2018: I hope so and I think so

2019: I sure hope so

2020: I fucking hope so

21. Did you make any new friends this year? Lose any friends?

2015: I got closer with some friends :)

2016: I made some new band and film friends. One of my friends from freshman year died.

2017: I almost lost a friend but now we seem to be friends again. I also made some new ones

2018: I made some new ones, and kinda stopped being friends with some of my old roommates

2019: I think I got closer to some friends

2020: I met a few online playing among us, and I probably lost my roommates

22. What was the biggest adventure of the last year?

2015: Hawaii, I think

2016: Studying abroad

2017: Moving out and starting to adult

2018: The film shoots

2019: Dating my boyfriend

2020: Harry Potter World

23. Did you get cake on your birthday? Presents? What you wanted?

2015: Yeah I went to Vegas which was cool! Got cake and alcohol and presents

2016: I did not get cake but I got IHOP. I got presents, and the football team won the game that day sending us to the PAC 12 Championship

2017: I got pancakes, presents, and maybe I’m starting to get what I wanted?

2018: I got chocolate mousse and presents and I didn’t even know what I wanted

2019: I got cake and presents including one thing I wanted

2020: I got bundt cake and a few things from my wish list

24. How much did you change this year? What’s different about you?

2015: Not too much has changed but I think I’m prettier, more confident, braver, and value bravery more.

2016: I’m lazier, gained back the weight that I lost last year, and lost some of the confidence from last year. Wow…

2017: I’m not a student anymore

2018: I maybe lost some of my hope in my love life and felt more set in my ways

2019: I don’t have as much FOMO but I’m also getting more frustrated with my life

2020: Gained weight, got more anxiety

CONFESSIONS

Bold the statements that are true (2015) and cross out (2016) and italicize (2017) and I’m running out of formats so CAPS (2018) and *star (2019) and ~tilde (2020)

In the year 2015/2016/2017/2018/2019/2020 I confess that I….

KISSED SOMEONE I HAVE NEVER KISSED BEFORE. ~*DID SOMETHING I REGRET. *Painted a picture. *Dyed my hair. Got a new haircut I thought I’d never get before. Wrote a poem. Graduated from High School. Graduated from College. Applied for Graduate School. RAN A MILE. Ate much healthier. Ended toxic friendships. ~*GAINED A NEW FRIEND. Gained a new best friend. *Visited a foreign country. ~*LIED. ~*HAD A FIGHT WITH MY PARENTS. *HAD A SECRET/KEPT A SECRET. Realized my homosexuality. ~REALIZED MY BISEXUALITY. (OR AT LEAST QUESTIONED IT) Realized my pansexuality. Realized my asexuality. ~*Broke a promise. *Slept under the stars. ~*STAYED UP TILL SUNRISE. ~*PUSHED SOMEONE AWAY. ~*Got in a fight. SLEPT WITH SOMEONE OTHER THAN MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER. ~*ATTENDED A PARTY. Got dumped. Got a new piercing/tattoo. Learned that I wasn’t cis gender. Drank underage/used illegal substances. *ATTENDED A CONCERT. *ATTENDED A MUSICAL. ~*TRAVELED TO ANOTHER CITY. *Broke someone’s heart. *Hiding something from someone. ~*MADE SOMEONE’S DAY. Cheated on a test/homework. Physically cheated on my significant other. ~*Emotionally cheated on my significant other. ~Quit a job. GOT A NEW JOB. Learned to hate someone I thought I never would. Learned to be more patient. Saw the supermoon. ~SAW THE METEOR SHOWER.

[emptymasks]

wilford validates you being a cute boy // wilford warfstache x reader

So How About That Date? ( A Heist With Markiplier x Reader Collection [SFW])

Pairing: Trans! Wilford x Trans-male!/Genderfluid! Reader

Words: 1300

Rating: General Audiences

Read on Ao3

Tags: Comfort | Fluff | POV Second Person | Pet Names | Tooth-Rotting Fluff | Gender dysphoria

Notes (more notes at the end): something completely self-indulgent because i needed to hear this said to me because i'm worrying a lot about it

basically i wanna feel cute today but still be a guy and i think the ultimate 'you can be a guy and wear cute shit and pink and not be crazy masculine' advocate is wilford

Gender was frustrating.

There were so many rules and expectations being put on how you had to act if you were a boy or a girl, and then if you weren't either if you still had to be masculine or feminine or if you weren't allowed to be either. It was so stupid. You knew you were a boy, you knew you were... It was just hard to think that when you were just in such a mood to be, well, cute. You just wanted to throw on something baby blue or pink, some pride wristbands, hell if you were feeling incredibly brave and carefree maybe even a skirt, maybe even make-up? Perhaps not that much but, you couldn't explain why but you just wanted to look cute.

But that wasn't allowed, was it? You're identifying as male, so therefore you should have to want to be masculine? If anyone else told you they were feeling that way you'd tell them of course not, being a boy isn't about feeling or wanting to be masculine, and being a girl isn't about feeling or wanting to be feminine... But you're not talking to someone else... you're talking to you and that advice just feels stale on your tongue when you apply it to yourself.

You stand looking at yourself in the mirror. It'd be so easy to just grab something out of your wardrobe, it's not like you didn't own cute and pastel clothes. Wilford had bought some of them for you (he liked you to match colours sometimes, it was adorable) and some of them were from before... before you realised your gender, and you still thought they were cute. It would be so easy just to not care whether anyone else thought you were male... It's not like you were planning on even going out anywhere, you just at least wanted to feel nice inside your own home but...

"You in here, sugarplum?"

Oh no Wilford was back and he was going to see you getting all worked up.

"You okay?" He stopped in the doorway, squinting at you and looking you up and down. "You're just sorta... standing there."

"It's nothing, Will," You bit your lip and turned away from the mirror.

"Now, don't give me that, look at you. What is it?" He demeanor shifted. "Did someone hurt you?" You could feel the danger radiating off him.

"No, no, it's nothing like that," You reach out to touch him, your palms sliding on his chest. Physical contact always seemed to calm him down and ground him. "I just... I was thinking..."

"Ah, well, that's a dangerous thing to be doing."

"Yeah," You blew out a laugh. "I was thinking about me... being a boy and all, and I just... I felt like looking cute."

"Okay...?" He blinked down at you and cocked his head to the side. "Am I missing something?"

"Well... I'm a boy, I'm male, people already look at me and don't see a boy and now I want to dress in cute colours and stuff and so that makes it kind of definitive that no one will see me as male, because I won't look masculine enough..."

You bowed your head and didn't look up at Wilford. He didn't go into stoic silences often and you could feel your anxiety churning in your gut.

"Sweetness, you do know who you're talking to right? Look at me," You didn't move and he tilted your chin. "Am I at all stereotypically masculine?"

You looked at him. There was still pink hair dye lingering at the ends of his hair, which was flopping into his right eye, and covering meticulously maintained moustache. He had a pink button-up shirt rather than his usual yellow, with suspenders that bore the trans pride flag colours in their stripes connecting to pale blue trousers. He almost ruined the look by wearing those ridiculous, pink crocs.

"Okay so... not typically masculine colours, but you look good in them. You still like... The way you carry yourself and your voice and everything," You insisted.

"Well, as flattered as I am, that all took time you know, I'm sure you could master it if you worked at it, but just because you think I'm... passing better than you, doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. There's no wrong way to be you," He stroked his hands over your head. "Who are you trying to convince, hm? Who's opinion is bothering you? Because I'll have you know, cupcake, most people are idiots so it really doesn't matter what they think."

You buried your head into his shirt. "Was worried about what you'd think," You mumbled into the fabric.

Suddenly there were hands on your shoulders, pushing you back so that Wilford could see all of you. "What nonsense are you coming out with now? Why would it matter in the slightest to me?"

You looked at the floor. "Because you're hardly going to see me as your boyfriend if I look like a girl." You shifted your weight, you were not going to cry.

"Since when does wearing pink make you a girl? And even if the point is you want to look girly or feminine, why would you think that I...? You know we're in the same boat, sugar, but do I look like I'm letting what clothing people think is 'masculine' stopping me from wearing whatever I feel like?"

You shook you head.

"Right," His hands left you. "What do we have then?"

You looked up and he was rummaging through your wardrobe.

"What are you doing?" You asked.

"Finding you something cute to wear. You'll look absolutely, delectably, adorable." He turned and grinned at you and you finally started feeling more at ease as a blush tinted your cheeks.

Some of Wilford's fashion choices baffled you, but at least he knew what colours went together. There wasn't that many pieces to go through, and he held each one up to you, turning his head this way and that way, checking with you if you were comfortable wearing each item. Seeing as you didn't feel confident enough to go out he decided on something comfortable and lazy, a pair of pale pink leggings and an oversized white sweater that had a rainbow pastel rainbow stripe stretching from just under one armpit to the other. It buried you when you put it on and Wilford made the most ridiculous 'aww' or cooing sound which he assured to be because he was just so besotted with how sweet you looked.

"The finishing touch," He said as his hands brushed around your neck and he fastened on a baby pink choker. It had a metal charm of a flower, with pink stones in the petals and a white one in the centre, dangling from the centre just above the hollow of your throat. "Do you feel as cute as you look, honeybun?"

Your face heated up at the pet name, it always did every time he used one, and you managed to get yourself to nod. It was a pretty cute outfit, there was just still that worry of looking like a boy. You told yourself Wilford was right, it just mattered what you felt like not what you looked like, and he'd know, he'd been down this road just as you had.

"What do you think?" You asked tentatively, but smiling as you already knew the answer unless it had changed from the compliments he'd been giving you seconds ago."

"I think that I am incredibly lucky to have such a cute boyfriend," He leaned around to plant a kiss on your cheek, moustache tickling your skin. "I think I'm going to have to dress you up more often."

You think you'd let him as well.

Tag list: @thehalfdemonwitchfromamestris​ @rats-this-username-is-taken​​ @hamiltrash1411​​ @line-viper​​ (let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list for my ahwm fics, also let me know if you want to be taken off the tag list)

More notes:

so listening to kirby music playlists and 'in love with a ghost' is a total mood for being in this headspace of wanting to feel cute, but also being around wilford. could super recommend ｃｈｉｌｌ　ｗｉｔｈ　ｋｉｒｂ　~　【ｌｏｆｉ　ｍｉｘ カービーミックス】

big thanks to himbo in the @yancy-support-group​ server for inspiring me to also make wilford trans in this and for giving me the cursed idea of putting him in crocs.

and if you guys could please help me out and and reblog this promo post for the heist charms, stickers and pins i'm making and selling that would mean the world! there's also the link in there to my Etsy shop where you can buy them plugging that again because i need moneys

also if you want to see the heist art i keep drawing you can follow me on instagram and twitter

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

These senior citizen YouTubers are better than anyone else on this hellscape internet

The typical YouTuber is young, obnoxious, and speaks at an above-average decibel level. They love pranks. They love covertly selling you *products.* Even though they're your age or vastly younger, they have more money in their bank account than you ever will.

Thankfully, not all YouTubers like that. This Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for the dedicated community of senior citizen YouTubers, here to make homemade pasta, deconstruct mechanical toys, play lullabies on their guitars, knit, apply make-up, and show you how to properly take a dip in the public pool.

SEE ALSO: Logan Paul isn't the only problem. YouTube is broken — here's how to fix it.

If you're going to be an influencer, at least use your power to show Xennials like me how to make proper tagliatelle.

For all their wisdom and *actual content knowledge,* senior citizen YouTube celebrities are nonetheless a rarity. The demographic data tells the story: 96% of youth aged 13 to 17 have used YouTube, compared to just 51% of those 75 and older. Just 67% of seniors aged 65 and over use the internet, and only 4 in 10 own smartphones.

So we shouldn't be shocked that of the biggest names in YouTube — Fernanfloo, PewDewPie, Germán Garmendia, Rubén Doblas Gundersen i.e. El RubiosOMG, VanossGaming, and so on — all are male, and none, absolutely none, are above the age of 30.

That doesn't mean senior citizens are absent from the platform, or that younger generations don't love to watch older folks on screen. I know that I, for one, am not alone in not wanting to hear this guy opine about suicide prevention:

You just have to look a little harder to find the elders of the community, which we kindly did for you. Here are some of the leading senior personalities on the platform:

1. Tricia Cusden, Look Fabulous for Older Women

70-year-old Tricia Cusden formally kicked off her YouTube account and her personal make-up business, Look Fabulous Forever, five years ago. Cusden specializes in make-up made specifically for older women. 

Cusden remembers when her manufacturer told her to put videos of her products on Twitter:

"I thought, that's a really stupid idea," Cusden told Mashable. "Millions of videos are uploaded to YouTube, people just won't see them."

Pretty quickly, however, Cusden's videos started picking up real traffic: 1,000 views one day, 1,500 views on another. It was clear that Cusden had tapped into a real need — and that older women were (gulp!) using YouTube.

Cusden believes she was able to access this demographic because her product line was written up in print publications, which have older followers. These women presumably then followed her to YouTube.

In comparison to other brands that market token "anti-aging skincare" to older women, Cusden hopes to create a positive, stigma-free YouTube space:

"The beauty industry disdains and marginalizes this age group ... [but] we won't disparage you here," Cusden says. "We won't be negative."

Cusden's channel currently has 28,340 subscribers.

2. Judy Graham, Knitting Tips by Judy

In recent years, knitting has had something of a comeback among the millennial Etsy set. But why learn from some dumb book when you can learn from *THE* Judy Graham? 

Graham is a knitting legend. She's now in her 80s, and she's still producing videos nearly every week. In 2015, Graham complained to her son that it was a myth that all seniors hated technology.

"Seniors do know about tech, and they do use it," Graham told her son, who later published her comments in USA Today. 

Not everyone who watches "Knitting Tips by Judy" is older. She has plenty of younger fans (points at self).

If there's anything that Judy proves, it's that you don't have to be a young, terrible California bro in order to be successful on this nightmare platform.

3. Tim Rowett, Grand Illusions

For all the optical illusion and unusual toy fans out there (I'm assuming that's everyone on this list), Tim Rowett is your man. 

Rowett's YouTube channel, Grand Illusions, collects and reviews dozens of random toys. It's whimsical and strange and exceedingly, unexpectedly popular: The channel currently has over 881,000 subscribers.

In 2015, the Telegraph named Rowett one of the best YouTubers over 50 years old. 

The award was well-deserved. Is there anything more soothing than hearing a handsome older British gentleman with a BBC accent examine the mechanics of a bubble blower?

4. Pasta Grannies

There's no such thing as a dream job, except for Vicky Bennison's. Bennison is the founder of Pasta Grannies, a YouTube channel featuring Italian grandmas making their best homemade pasta. 

Bennison, who is 60, literally travels all around Italy hunting for the country's most talented grandmas. Every episode, she highlights a particular grandma and their specialty pasta.

Pasta and Italian grandmas are universally beloved, which is why Bennison's show has such a diverse, cross-generational audience. These women aren't trained chefs, but they're exceptionally talented and they know what a good pasta serving size is: one gallon per person.

"What you see on television requires armies of food stylists ... These are things all people can do," Bennison told Mashable. "[It's why] I do have a broad audience ... My demographics for Pasta Grannies is 25 to 65 years old." 

Some of these grannies are in their late 90s. Yet with more 341,913 subscribers, Bennison has nonetheless been able to build a digital fan base for these women.

Pasta Grannies, you are welcome in my home anytime.

5. Bossa Nakane

Though he probably wouldn't classify it this way, Bossa Nakane makes lullabies for stressed-out adults. This man is a nightingale. His music is delightfully tender: Think Nick Drake, but sung by a human robin.

Why would you ever sing "Happy Birthday" yourself when you can have the Bossa Nakane version instead? He's better.

He currently only has 3,174 subscribers. Everyone, please follow now.

6. ElderGym

ElderGym is the only YouTube fitness series on the web I'm capable of completing. A 4-minute session on how to get off the floor? This I can do. March in place for 1 minute? Hell freaking yeah. ElderGym isn't just for seniors, it's for everyone. 

Squeeze your shoulders for 1 minute. Congratulations! You've exercised.

7. Grandma Shirley

Anyone who's anyone in the senior YouTuber world knows Grandma Shirley, an 82-year-old gamer who records herself playing games for YouTube, among other places. She's best known for playing Skyrim and currently has over 410,000 subscribers.

I've never understood the appeal of watching other people play games (why watch strangers play Grand Theft Auto when you can watch ... anything else) but if I'm going to watch anyone, it will be Grandma Shirley.

8. Grandpa Kitchen

Grandpa Kitchen operates a YouTube channel where he cooks enormous amounts of Indian food and feeds if to local orphans. The channel currently operates a Patreon page in order to fund their operations; however, I was unable to independently verify how that money is spent.

That being said, Grandpa Kitchen runs an excellent show. Look at all those potatoes. How can they not make you happy?

9. Gramma and Ginga

Gramma and Ginga are two sisters, one 104 years old, the other 99. They live a few blocks from one another in Clarksburg, West Virginia. If you're the type of person who loves to see two charming older women bicker non-stop about nothing, this is for you.

Think Seinfeld, but with Grandmas.

Imagine a comedy podcast but the podcast were ... actually funny. That's Gramma and Ginga.

These women currently have 325,684 subscribers. In 2016, they made it to Jimmy Kimmel Live. 

10. Kevin and Lill

I tend to be skeptical of anyone on YouTube who has more than 500,000 subscribers and says they create "comedy." Historically, YouTube comedy is an art form lower than improv.

Kevin and his objectively charismatic grandma Lill are an exception to the rule. We talk a lot about YouTube personalities but Grandma Lill actually has one. 

As the kids say, she destroys me.

Look at her make chocolate chip brownies with her grandson Kevin, then try to pick yourself up off the floor. 

Perhaps my favorite part of the series is when she introduces the episode, saying, "Hi fellas and girls."

Just listen to it instead of reading my far inferior copy.

Grandma Lill says she didn't really know much about YouTube before her grandson turned on his camera one day in the car:

"I was surprised, but I said, 'Hey that's good!'" Lill told Mashable.

You'd think that Grandma Lill would be an inspiration to her friends, many of whom are in the same age bracket.

Grandma Lill doesn't think so.

"My girlfriends if they don’t have grandchildren [with access to technology] — they could care less about what I do! They don't care where I'm going. They don't have YouTube, Instagram."

She also doesn't particularly care how they feel. If there's someone out there she can inspire — even if it's not her best girlfriends, even if it's just herself — she's happy these videos exist.

"It keeps me younger," Lill told Mashable. "I feel like 65 instead of 88 now. Nobody can believe I'm 88 ... We're just so good."

A heartfelt thanks to *65*-year-old Grandma Lill and all the YouTubers like her.

WATCH: 3Doodler Create Plus is the perfect pen for creative techies — Power Up

[deeeelightfuldee]

surveys 043.

Did the house you grew up in have a big yard? it is a good size. average for these parts. no where near an acre, but enough to let a big dog run around and have a pool.

Have you ever worked over 50 hours in one week? oh gosh in the first 2 years at bbb my average week was 75

What has been the most difficult class you've ever taken? math. i freakin hate it.

Where would you like to travel to in the next year? pretty much wherever. I just want to go. I leave next week.. then hopefully will be doing a weekend trip comin up.

Do you think teenagers should focus more on their education rather than on relationships? oh flip yeah Have you ever studied abroad? I have not, but I have been offered the chance to study at cambridge! that was soooooo incredible and such an honor, but covid came and that eliminated all possibilities.

Do you have any medication that you keep with you at all times? nah. thought I should have headache meds on me, I don’t always.

List three things that you need to get done in the next few days. meal plan, get grad photos/degree frames done, work on retirement w/ mom

What's something that's much more difficult than a lot of people realize? being enormous 

What's your opinion on couples 'staying together for the kids?' well I had that growing up and it was notttt a good example of what a healthy marriage should look like, nor did it set good precedence on what we should desire in a partner.

When was the last time you did something on a whim? lol all summer

What was the last website you were on, before this one? etsy

Do you ever lose track of what day of the week it is? yesssss. this summer has wrecked my sense of time

Were you raised by both of your parents? If not, then who raised you? this is hard to say. my dad lived in my house but he was NEVER around.

Have you ever stolen anything? If so, why? a keychain when I was a kid. the guilt got to me and eventually I sent it back along with all my allowance for the month and a letter apologizing. The manager thought it was hilarious, wrote back to me accepting my apology, and sent the money back to be “donated to the charity of your choice” lolol

Have you ever spent over $50 (€43) on a bottle of wine? nah. I just dont get hype over wine.

When did you first start taking these surveys? on THIS account just a few weeks ago. in general? middle school.

Is your hometown famous for anything? dougs dogs! oak fest. 

What was the last thing that made you smile? someones reel on instagram

Have you ever locked your keys in your car? uhhhhhhh once.

What season do you wish lasted longer? spring.

What are some things a house would need to have for you to purchase it? NEED? very little. would like to have?? a good number of bathrooms (i want my own) a nice sized closet, a washer/dryer IN the closet or at the very least, same floor. a huge porch. a pool. lots of trees. 

How old is the last male you texted? 43? ish? maybe 42? his birthday is coming up.

How old is the last female you texted? 60s

Have you ever 'taken a break' in a relationship? no.

What was the last picture you posted to Instagram? (if you have an account) I posted a series of pictures from my birthday weekend

Have you ever began a relationship with someone you knew for less than a week? no

What do you think of current slang terms, such as 'on fleek' and 'fam?' its fun. everything has its time, right

Did any of the classes you took in high school count towards uni credit? they should have because they were college level (put on BY a college) but public school systems don’t care about homeschool transcripts.

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who Holiday Gift Guide: A Holiday in Who-ville

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The Doctor is in, and it’s about time. Although, it should be noted that the Doctor is also in a maximum-security prison, and time is running short for Earth with the return of the Daleks. Thankfully the Thirteenth Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker, has her Companions, as well as the newly returned Captain Jack Harkness, on hero duty on our little planet.

That is all happening on New Year’s Day in the Doctor Who holiday special, “Revolution of the Daleks.” Debuting on BBC-America at 8 p.m. ET, the January 1 episode picks up from the action following the twelfth season of the revived 56-year-old series, which aired this year from January to March.

Just to recap, that canon-shaking season brought The Master back, regenerated once more as a male human; traveled to Gallifrey, reduced to ruins (again); introduced Time Lord Cybermen, aka CyberMasters. The season ended with the whopper that the Doctor is the Timeless Child from another realm – with a lot more regenerations than previously confirmed — and that she is a being from whence all Time Lords emerged, thanks to DNA splicing. And all that happened before the cliffhanger of the Doctor being imprisoned for life by those intergalactic rent-a-cops the Judoon.

So yeah, a lot happened, and that doesn’t even cover the epic decade in the making surprise return of John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, who is back again for the holiday special.

With so much happening in the world of Doctor Who, it seems like a great time for a themed holiday gift guide, a season in Who-ville, if you will. The items that follow are perfect goodies to wrap up, and stuff in a TARDIS-sized gift bag (bigger on the inside, of course) for all the Whovians in your life. And if you shop for something for yourself, that’s ok; just say you got it for one of your other regenerations.

David Tennant Does A Podcast With … Jodie Whittaker (Free)

You don’t need to spend money to let the Whovian in your life know you’re thinking of them this holiday season. And trust me, if they don’t already know about David Tennant’s podcast, they’ll be thanking you. Tennant, aka the Tenth Doctor, is a delightful human being, and a genuinely engaging conversationalist. And in his podcast – which just wrapped a second season – he converses with famous friends, costars, and newsmakers, such as Neil Gaiman, Ian McKellen, Billie Piper, and Stacey Abrams. His episode with Jodie Whittaker in February 2019, following her first full season as the Doctor, is a special treat. The two discuss getting to know one another on Broadchurch, but also discuss the unique role on Doctor Who – and what it was like for her to be the first woman to step into the part.

Listen to the podcast episode here.

Thirteenth Doctor Mug ($8.95)

Blue shirt, rainbow stripes, and suspenders. If the Whovian in your life is like me, occasionally you want your fandom served up simple along with a cup of coffee. This orb-like mug captures the essence of the Thirteenth Doctor’s outfit with a few basic elements immediately recognizable to other fans. And it looks like it holds a lot of coffee, which is a perk.

Buy the Thirteenth Doctor Mug on Amazon.

Big Finish Audio Plays ($9+)

“I don’t want to go.” These last words of the Tenth Doctor are relatable for most Who fans when they see a character depart from the show, but thankfully there is Big Finish Productions. For more than 20 years, the company has produced Doctor Who audio plays starring cast from the show, including six of the nine living actors to have played the Doctor (with Christopher Eccleston set to reprise his role as the Ninth Doctor in stories to be released in 2021). In addition getting more adventures from favorite characters, Big Finish also has characters collide who never met on screen — such as Missy and River Song, played again by Michelle Gomez and Alex Kingston, in The Diary of River Song. And while Captain Jack Harkness may only be returning to Doctor Who for the holiday special, John Barrowman voices the character in more than two dozen Big Finish dramas.

Listen to the audio plays here.

Doctor Who Face Mask ($12)

Bowties, fezzes, Stetsons; the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) was especially known for his pursuit of the cool fashion – and a lot of hats — and 13 seems to be keeping the pattern going (see the tuxedo and ear cuff listings below). But if it’s one thing that’s cool in 2020, it’s face coverings, and it would not at all be a surprise for the Doctor to exclaim, “I wear a mask now. Masks are cool.” So this item from Liesl Schulz of Sewn by Liesl on Etsy is a timely entry for the Whovian on your gift list. They can also feel like a Time Lord out to protect humanity and can do so with the most minimal of effort by sporting a TARDIS-blue mask emblazoned with 12’s quote.

Buy the Doctor Who Face Mask here.

Thirteenth Doctor Action Figure with Red Top ($13)

I remember the moment we were all treated to the first look of Jodie Whittaker as the doctor in her cool coat, and that blue shirt with rainbow stripes. But by the third episode of Season 11, “Rosa,” the Doctor had switched things up with a red shirt. Even though this wardrobe change is a bold choice — considering red shirts are just bad luck in other sci-fi universes – I’m more partial to Jodie’s crimson shade. As such, this 5.5-inch Doctor action figure with bum bag and sonic screwdriver is a cool collectible for Whovian fans who like a different color on 13. (Although you can get the figure in blue as well, and a TARDIS playset she can fit in.)

Buy the Thirteenth Doctor action figure on Amazon.

Doctor Who Psychology: A Madman with a Box ($15)

What makes an ancient time-and-space traveler tick? How does an immortal deal with death? And why did he once say she “got on very well” with Freud? This book edited by Travis Langley, Ph.D., the fifth in the psychology professor’s “Popular Culture Psychology” series, explores the minds of the Doctor, her Companions, and villains. And while you may not think the Whovian in your life has a lot in common with a Time Lord, Madman delves into what Doctor Who says about human nature, and humanity. Full disclosure: I am a contributor to the book, which contains my interviews with Matt Smith, and David Tennant.

Buy Doctor Who Psychology on Amazon.

Thirteenth Doctor TARDIS Distressed Rainbow T-Shirt ($16+)

Combine the Thirteenth Doctor’s TARDIS, her signature rainbow (which doubles as a symbol for pride and acceptance), with a distressed design, and you have this happy, colorful shirt from Hot Topic. It feels like a retro design out of the 1970s (back when some older Whovians were watching the show on PBS) but celebrates the new Who. Just looking at it puts me in a better mood.

Buy the TARDIS Distressed Rainbow T-Shirt here.

Doctor Who 13th Doctor 3 Piece Gift Set – Journal, Mug & Superbitz Plush ($16.99)

This officially licensed trio of goodies packs a lot of holiday cheer for less than $20. The Thirteenth Doctor Superbitz plushy collectible is incredibly cute, while the 16-page lined journal features a rainbow striped hard cover with the phrase “The Future Is Not Written.” Meanwhile the “13 Is My Lucky Number” sporting a golden TARDIS graphic rounds out this happy little set.

Buy the 13th Doctor 3-Piece Gift Set on Amazon.

Doctor Who Friends and Foes of the 13th Doctor Set B ($25)

Nearly as soon as the Doctor regenerated into 13, she began gathering a family of four with Bradley Walsh’s Graham, Tosin Cole’s Ryan, and Mandip Gill’s Yaz. Yet, in a November interview with the BBC, Jodie Whittaker revealed “the fam as a four is no more,” and that Walsh and Cole would be leaving Doctor Who after the holiday special. But just because Graham and Ryan’s adventure on the show is coming to an end doesn’t mean their characters have to leave the world of your Doctor Who fan. Instead, if you picked up the Doctor 5.5-inch action figure above, you might as well couple it with this “Friends and Foes” set with all three of 13’s original companions.

Buy the Friends and Foes of the 13th Doctor Set B on Amazon.

Ian Leino Doctor Whoville T-shirt ($25)

Artist Ian Leino’s Doctor Whoville tee has been an evolving work for several years now. His Seussian design of all the regenerations of our favorite Time Lord gathered around a holiday TARDIS initially ended with Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor. But over time, he has included John Hurt’s War Doctor, Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor, and now Jodie Whittaker joins the Whos for a snowy celebration. Full disclosure: Ian has become a friend because I love this nerdy mash-up design so much, printed on a high-quality Bella + Canvas shirt. The design is likewise available on a hoodie, and holiday greeting cards.

Buy the Doctor Whoville T-Shirt here.

Hero Within TARDIS Woven Shirt ($45)

Across the globe, the TARDIS is more recognizable as the Doctor’s ultimate companion more than the police call box it’s disguised as. It is iconic and serves as a great inspiration for creative fans. Enter Hero Within, the apparel company that has been killing it with officially licensed, and well-made, nerdy fashion. Currently celebrating its new Doctor Who license, Hero Within has recently unveiled this woven TARDIS button-up shirt that calls to mind a work shirt while unmistakably inspired by the best ship in the universe.

Buy the Hero Within TARDIS Shirt here.

John Barrowman Cameo ($125)

There are few entertainment spectacles quite like a John Barrowman panel at a comic con. The man is a showman, and truly one of the funniest people to encounter at an event. Unfortunately comic cons are on hold at the moment, and the Doctor Who fan in your life might be craving the con experience — and jonesing for John. Thankfully, Barrowman is on Cameo, where he delivers pep talks, sends well wishes, and even sings a tune. And a custom message from Captain Jack Harkness himself is a great way to prepare for the New Year’s Day Special.

Subscribe to John Barrowman on Cameo.

Doctor Who Galaxy Single Ear Cuff ($150)

Jodie Whittaker is not only the first woman to play the Doctor, she is also the first to wear an earring. And what a great earring she debuted with! Designed by Alex Monroe, and available for purchase, the Galaxy Single Ear Cuff is a sterling silver piece that begins on top with a cluster of shooting stars, connected to a 22ct gold plated hand grasping another in harmony. The elegant design conveys much about the Doctor’s philosophy, but this jewelry is striking even absent any knowledge of the show. Monroe likewise created a Doctor Who Companion single stud earring of clasping hands, and a Galaxy necklace to complement the other pieces.

Buy the Doctor Who Galaxy Single Ear Cuff here.

The Thirteenth Doctor’s Tuxedo ($247+)

When Doctor Who returned for its twelfth season earlier this year, the Doctor sported a tuxedo that evoked the wardrobe of her previous generations, and basically had fandom freaking out with excitement. The outfit was likewise a nod to James Bond for the “Spyfall” espionage episodes. Well, Tamsin Hartnell of the “The Ultimate Guide to the Fashion of Doctor Who” has done an impressive job assembling the items for the Doctor’s tux for those who might want to recreate it. The Doctor’s double-breasted opera coat by Paul Smith runs for about $1450 alone (if you can find it). However, Tamsin helpfully suggests alternatives to creating an everyday cosplay of the outfit starting around $160, with the official black and gold bowtie by Blue Eyes Bowtie costing about $87. This will take some work to put the look together, but it’s time well spent. Also, take a look around the Ultimate Guide blog as it is chockful of interesting Doctor Who fashion info.

Assemble the Thirteenth Doctor’s look with this guide.

GeekOrthodoxArt TARDIS Stained Glass ($750)

For a thousand years the art medium of stained glass has been used to honor iconic figures and commemorate grand moments of historic and religious significance. And in the 21st Century, pop culture institutions can hold near religious importance, and are worthy of representation in this art form. So why not take your giftee’s Doctor Who fandom to the next level? This custom-made TARDIS stained glass artwork uses the medium’s traditional copper foil method and is composed from over 75 pieces of hand-cut glass. Crafted by GeekOrthodoxArt, the piece measures 12″ x 24″. The stained-glass design is likewise available as a $20 high-resolution professional grade vinyl window cling. (Also, if you want to make this gift even cooler for your Who fan, you can let them know that John Barrowman loved it so much, he bought one at the Pensacon event in 2018.)

Buy the TARDIS Stained Glass here.

TARDIS ($5800+)

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Much to this writer’s dismay, there is no pre-owned time machine lot to buy a working TARDIS for the Whovian on your gift list. But you can get pretty close. Iconic Studio Creations can build a custom, officially licensed, full-size TARDIS replica (well, technically, it’s a replica of the TARDIS in the guise of a police call box, thanks to the craft’s chameleon circuit). While not bigger on the inside, this is as close to the real deal as you can get, and ISC has worked with the BBC in building these babies. Sure, it’s a little expensive, but you can’t put a price tag on love – or time traveling ships. Iconic also creates replicas of Daleks, and a remote-controlled K-9, who would fit nicely in a new TARDIS. And if you prefer your time machine to have more practical applications, you can always get a DeLorean for your giftee.

Visit Iconic Studio Creations here.

The post Doctor Who Holiday Gift Guide: A Holiday in Who-ville appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[clarencenicholsonata]

9 Tips for Audience Segmentation in Ecommerce Email Marketing

Audience segmentation should be a no-brainer, whether you're running another Amazon or shipping colorful bracelets from your garage. Ecommerce audiences are diverse, and knowing how to capitalize on that can pay off big time.

Email segmentation is a technique of splitting your email subscribers into smaller, more focused groups. These can be based on typical demographics (age, gender, education, etc.) and a lot more than that. The result is a more personalized experience and more relevant content delivered to your leads' inboxes.

This, as a result, can bring tangible benefits to your business. According to research, segmented campaigns lead to 14.31% more open and 100.95% higher clickthrough rates than their non-segmented peers. What's more, personalized emails can result in even a 760% increase in revenue.

Audience segmentation isn't a difficult topic. It can often be done with a simple Excel spreadsheet or with the basic functionalities of ecommerce marketing automation tools. The key is doing it in the first place and capitalizing on the knowledge that's already at your fingertips.

Let's talk about how to do it right.

1. Start By Getting the Data You Need

Any interaction with a potential customer can be an opportunity to get to know them a bit better. This can be a simple survey at the end of a welcome email. It can be a few questions that pop up when they browse your site, letting them customize their experience. Opportunities are plenty.

The key thing on your side is to decide what's relevant for your business. Gender and age will play a significant role in nearly any fashion retailer. Will it matter much for those of you selling car accessories?

Probably not much. You're much more interested in the brand of the car they own and their income level.

Try to figure out what's going to be meaningful from the marketing standpoint. At the same time, please don't overdo it with questions. Statistics show that the more questions you ask, likely the lower the conversion. Just because a visitor agreed to click through a few questions doesn't mean they're up for a few dozens.

Try to find a sweet spot that will get you just the right data and won't scare the users off. Barkbox offers a gift (who wouldn’t want that) with its subscription if you agree to share a few details about your dog - its name, size, breed, and others.

It’s a fun thing to click through, personalized (the dog's name you insert on the first page shows up throughout the form), and it’s quick to complete. And best of all, most clients will genuinely want to share all these details so they can receive the right gift for their pet. Win-win for all.

2. Explain Why You Want to Know More

The increasing numbers of internet users are hesitant about sharing anything about them that's not necessary. And with the various privacy scandals unfolding almost regularly, it's certainly not a surprise.

At the same time, you don't have bad intentions. You don't plan to sell this data. You're not making any money off it. If that's the case, it often pays off to be straightforward about what you need the information for. After all, shoppers will care about receiving just about the deals they care about.

For example, I'm an avid cyclist. I will gladly shop at Dick's or Decathlon whenever I have a chance. I will be reasonably happy to receive the deals on cycling outfits or accessories I actively shop for.

But as much as I admire gymnasts, I'm not likely to be shopping for the brand new model of a pommel horse, no matter how discounted it is. And I will gladly share where my interests lie, if only they ask (or figure out in some other way).

I'd avoid the general "improve your experience" or "enhance your shopping" phrases. Try to be honest about why you want to know someone's demographics or interests. Or, take a different approach and offer a small reward for sharing a few details, as HermanMiller does in this email:

For more check out these guides to getting the data you need without being sleazy and using it to help increase your sales: *10 Brilliant Ways to Collect Customer Testimonials with Instagram Marketing *How to Leverage eCommerce Consumer Reviews For Higher Conversions in 2020 *7 Easy & Effective Ways to Drive Customer Reviews

3. Use the Data From Your Emails

Analyzing such basic things as email open rates or link click throughs can give you lots of data about your audience's preferences.

With virtually any ecommerce email automation tool, you can see opens and clicks for each recipient. If you're sending a weekly newsletter with the latest discounted products and they never care even to open it, there's a meager chance they'll open it again.

But if they suddenly get active when a significant seasonal offer lands in their inbox, moving them to a different basket may be worth an effort. You could, for example, halt the regular well-designed newsletter for them but, instead, intensify the campaigns around the big shopping sprees such as Black Friday.

And better yet, ask them about their preferences on the next occasion.

Analyzing clicks can be even more powerful, mainly if you include multiple CTAs in your mailings. This is very straightforward. If specific followers click only on items related to children's toys or clothing but ignore everything else, you can safely assume this is where their interest lies. If a lot more readers show similar patterns, it might be worth moving them together to a basket more focused on this particular segment of your assortment.

If a bunch of readers clicks on any links leading to the latest promo you have in store, it may be worth following up on them a few days later. At the same time, you may not necessarily do the same for those that repeatedly ignored such offers.

Followup email from Forever 21, referencing the products a reader has viewed and those that may be relevant to them.

Maximize your ads for email marketing with Wishpond's all-in-one marketing tools. Click here to get started.

4. Find More Data Points Than Just Emails

Analyzing emails is helpful but won't always give you the full picture. You'll get it if you start analyzing multiple channels and use this data to segment the audience.

The most critical data for an eCommerce store is knowing how users interact with this very store. Whether it's a web portal, a mobile app, or both, you can record thousands of data points related to customers' behavior. You can then use them to segment users.

Here are some patterns that tell a lot about visitors preferences or decisions they're planning to take:

Visits the same category of products on multiple occasions

Adds certain products but abandons the cart

Starts browsing related products to the one they recently bought

Adds items from specific categories to their wish lists or asks to be notified when they're back in stock

When you spot such patterns, it's worth tagging visitors with certain tags and treating them a bit differently than the general public. For example, if a visitor wishlists several popular wedding gifts on Etsy, my inner Sherlock Holmes will immediately tell me they're onto something. Pushing a top10 selection of unique wedding gifts to them right after the weekend will be my top priority.

5. Beware of Loopholes

You notice someone is very interested in a particular topic, so you immediately retarget your campaigns to convert a lead. More often than not, it will benefit you greatly. Keep looking at the data, though, because your assumptions won't always turn out to be accurate.

Suppose someone (a male) is looking for a gift for a female friend. They'll explore your store, checking several categories their friend has a keen interest on. They may end up buying something as well. Unless they're very much into this friend, they're not likely to be buying her gifts anytime soon.

The data, though, would suggest sending them a lot about women apparel and purses. Not only will they probably never open these emails but are likely to unsubscribe rather quickly or report your emails as spam.

Prevent such situations by analyzing the data of newly formed segments with the necessary diligence. If someone doesn't open the first two or three emails with your newly-formed campaign, it may be worth moving them back to a general basket. Again, consider asking them about their preferences in one of the emails or via a popup on a website.

6. Don’t Get Overwhelmed with Segmentations

Because of the above, if you haven't been segmenting your audience before, I highly recommend that you start slowly. Building a few segments, and seeing how they perform first is the way to go.

Sure, you may have lots of data already. You may be anxious to set up 50 custom segments and push to customers precisely what (you think) they need right now. Unless you get the whole team involved, you'll likely have problems tracking each segment's performance.

You may miss a vital detail and send a wrong campaign to the wrong audience. You may miss the loopholes and quickly lose the audience that has zero interest in their new campaigns.

Start with 3-5 segments based on basic demographics. Then, expand them into behavior-based campaigns, adding more and more data points and, at the same time, keeping in check how the existing campaigns perform.

7. Benefit from Refills & Subscriptions

There are certain products that its users need to buy with some, at least, regularity. Think about dog food, contact lenses, medicines, electric toothbrush's heads, or virtually any kitchen or bathroom supplies.

Unless the clients changed their habits, they'd be inclined to buy those again and again. And if they purchased from you before, why not make it easier to re-purchase?

With most products, you'll be able to estimate the lifetime of a product sold. If you're selling a pack of three monthly contact lenses, an email sent 2,5 months after initial purchase will likely be met with a favorable reception.

Rather than sending them a broad selection of contact lenses every month, consider such timely notifications. They're almost guaranteed to give you much better results.

8. Use Past Purchases to Help Drive Sales

Past purchases can give you precise insight into customers' interests. They also can tell a lot about the person's income level or just the amount of money they're willing to spend on certain products.

If you're selling jewelry, you're likely to have a wide range of prices across your products. It makes sense – some will spend $10 or $30 and will be entirely happy with their purchase. Others won't even look at the sub-$1000 items.

If someone only bought the inexpensive, discounted products in the past, sending them a luxury item isn't likely to get them to convert. Same way, sending cheap necklaces to the more (seemingly) affluent customers could even cost you a quick unsubscribe. Use the data wisely.

Oh, a protip – don't name your segment "Poor People" or something similar. Some email sending providers include the list name on emails confirming a subscription or an unsubscribe.

9. Find the Right Time to Send

Much research has been done on the perfect times and days for sending emails. Different times work for typical 9-to-5 office workers and different for the stay-at-home tribe.

Something else will also work for students or teenagers. What works best differs also based on industry and type of product on offer. You'll need to figure it out.

The bottom line is that people are more likely to open emails and interact with them at certain times. If you drop them the latest promotion at 9 am right when they're starting a busy day at work, they likely won't even recall it when they're out of their focus zone. Delivering some fantastic deals right when they set off for a lunch break might do the job, however.

Many email marketing automation services will determine the client's timezone for you with high accuracy. You can also double-check it against their purchase history if there's any.

Needless to say, it's worth checking what works for this particular audience. Sadly, there's no ideal time that will work for all, but the amount of data on this subject is abundant.

Wrapping up

Email segmentation is a vast topic that requires deep thought but can yield some fantastic results. No matter the type of business you run, I believe it's worth your time.

There are many factors you should take into consideration. First of all, figure out the type of data that defines your customers well and explain why you need it in the first place. Then, gather insights from past emails and website behavior. Often, the audience will let you segment itself nicely if only you ask, and this should make the job easier for you.

And when you have what you need, start building segments one by one. Analyze the performance of each before you proceed with more. Beware of loopholes that can derail your segmentation outcome and take advantage of some of the tips I mentioned - individual sending time, financial criteria, or the need to refill certain products.

If you did the homework, you'd soon start seeing the improved engagement, and the boost in sales and retention will shortly follow. Best of luck!

About the Author

Piotr Malek is a Technical Content Writer at Mailtrap, a product that helps people inspect and debug emails before sending them to real users. Piotr is also a traveler, an avid cyclist, and a runner.

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[scuba-sam]

Grey Fox Skull This skull is from a male grey fox who was fatally struck by a vehicle. He’s currently listed in my Etsy. ShinerSkulls.etsy.com

(Please do not remove my link! I know some of you don't want to have text with the photos, but my shop is how I make money to support myself, and I would like for my shop link to be with the photos. Thank you.)

[eunych-born-eunych]

tell us more about witchcraft tumblr

oh boy. follow @alkaloidwitch​ for my unironic witchcraft opinions. I’m a witch! and a materialist with a background in empiricism/scientism, also a materialist in the marxist dialectical sense! you can be all of those things at the cost of your popularity among idealist witches, non-witch materialists, and most of all:

Normies.

my materialism and my witchcraft both grow out of madness; human beings are computers complex enough to perceive things that are not real. For things I know to be real, there is materialism; for things I know to be chimerical, there is witchcraft. as the chaos magicians, wankers that they are, put it: belief is a tool. believing something now may serve a purpose, even if you do not intend to continue believing it later. Playing make-believe with my literal demons now will help me try to make sense of the material world better later.

And it is imaginative play, much as it is deadly serious; much of what we do in life is imaginative play of some kind. let’s pretend there’s a thing called money and let’s pretend it belongs to this specific kind of paper, these specific bits of metal. let’s pretend a corporation is a person. let’s pretend sex is simple; no, let’s pretend sex and gender are different; no, let’s pretend to stop believing in gender and start pretending to believe in ungendered sex.

materialism, again, is the resolution. imaginative play doesn’t have to be bad, but things that are only imaginary play by certain rules; we learn them as children. so when your imaginative play, witchcraft, seeps into your view of the world (as it must), other people calling themselves witches are sometimes going to believe or imagine mutually-contradicting things; the politest way to resolve an imaginary conflict is to come up with some imaginary solution, the more minimal the possible, and stop talking about that because it’s gonna harsh yr witchcraft to get snippy.

entirely different things happen when people come, materially, into conflict. and witch tumblr frustrates me a lot because my tacit acknowledgement that

“none of this is real like rocks are real, so when your imaginary collides with the material world, the material world is always going to trump. if it is materially bad, I don’t care that your imaginary justifies it, and if it is entirely immaterial there’s no point arguing about it”

…is not super popular with tumblr witches. there’s lots of, like, arguments and discourse and positivity posts about the wildest shit.

a three-screens-of-scroll witch tumblr textpost: positivity post for lazy witches! uwu // • positivity for lazy witches who [emoji-capped bullet points all the way down]me: it’s so inspiring that lazy witches can be positive despite the incredible scrutiny and terrible hardships the morning people witches subject them to, ⭐⭐⭐⭐🌟

so, like, I don’t have the same reaction to the idea of demon apologia that OP did. thinking highly of demons just isn’t that uncommon in my circles. to me, that post’s fucking ridiculous because why would you ever bother making it? if you wanna work with demons, do it, but like… other people don’t like demons, and make their own witchblr posts from that perspective, and you can resolve that conflict by just ignoring the imaginary content that is not meant for you.

a clarifying example is in order.

‘don’t use sigils you find on the internet, anyone can upload a curse and say it’s a different spell!!’

my guy. that is so far from being anybody’s real, substantive problem. you would never know unless they told you. their imaginary isn’t accessible to you and you can ignore it. if someone tells you they made a sigil you used to be a curse, and you feel like you have indeed been cursed, that’s still an event internal to you. and after all, someone could lie and tell you their beneficial sigil was actually a curse after you’ve already used it, just to fuck with you.

I can’t get this level of panicked about that level of made-up problem! if the idea of curses hidden in graphics created by random Internet denizens appealed to me, I’d engage with it on my own and not waste time trying to convince other people they should care about my niche paranoia.

the thing is, cultural appropriation is way less imaginary than witchcraft. there’s a real, economic impact to the mass-production in the West of symbols indigenous to ‘exotic’ colonies. there is a real dehumanization involved in treating someone’s proudest and most mundane garments, alike, as being a gaudy costume purchasable cheaply from any two-bit metaphysical store.

(privilege claim for the next bit: I’m a white, American settler-colonialist. that’s a me. I’m a that.)

and on the subject of metaphysical stores…

… run by white settler-colonialists who claim to have spirit animals and have no sense that there might be something inappropriate about shopping for toys in the cultures and religious practices of living indigenous populations whose homeland we are still occupying by force, whose access to their own cultural history we are still actively sabotaging, to sell bastardized sweatshop lookalikes whose significance is less than half-remembered and wholly stripped of context to other white settler-colonialists

there’s endless newb questions in this form:

Q: “can I use this color candle to mean this thing?”A: “I don’t care?”[a reblog insisting that actually they CAN’T use that color candle to mean this thing is the version that went viral]

, which indicates extreme hesitancy to break the rules of the imaginary.

on the other hand, witch tumblr is actively resistant to any demonstrable criticism. these same people fretting about candle colors also throw bizarre tantrums mocking the concept that they should stop cleansing with smoke from white sage, a critically endangered sacred herb that isn’t farmed, and how dare you say they shouldn’t call their white ass waving burning herbs in the air on occupied land ‘smudging’.

no-one cares if you think about the candle differently; stop asking for our input on that shit, because you don’t need it and we have better things to do. on the other hand, people very much do care if you engage in the alt religious scene’s rampant bigotry, but you don’t wanna listen to us on that. those priorities are fucked.

also witch communities have long, long memories, and some things happen again and again. a sampling:

the annoying

‘fluffy bunnies’ who read one barely-researched pop-Wicca text and are here to tell non-Wiccan witches what they’re doing wrong.

relatedly, ‘curse-shaming’, a practice in which even ‘respectable’ Wiccans participate, is genuinely aggravating if you’re at all into, like, historical witchcraft, because for a very long time (Wicca under that name had no public presence before 1954) there’s been not much more traditional for a witch than a curse.

arguments about “male witches” (that no-one acknowledges arose out of transmisogynistic practices in Dianic Wicca, and not really in reaction to men).

‘the Burning Times’ (not real, any historical events embarrassingly misrepresented).

“Easter is a pagan holiday;” relatedly, “Easter is Eostre is Ishtar”.

“Christmas is a pagan holiday.”

the ugly

an entire alt-history of Europe and European magical practice in which Jewish people play no perceptible part.

neo-Nazi physiognomies being passed around as “correspondence charts”.

every reputable resource on Norse mythology, Heathenry, or Asatru has an explicit public disavowal of Nazis, for very good reasons.

anti-Black propaganda, dated to the sixteenth century, about Afro-Carribbean syncretist esoteric/religious practices being repeated with all explicit reference to race left out on Tumbler Dot Com in 2017.

gentiles doing Kabbalah.

an all-white vision of the Hellenistic Mediterranean.

that one girl who stole black people’s bones from burst/eroded graves in a Louisiana graveyard and posted about it on Tumblr (one of witchblr’s few big mainstream crossover posts), leading to her arrest.

the (mostly) harmlessly bizarre

god-marriage

god-phones

what is a familiar really? (& relatedly: sex with spirits. EXTREMELY traditional, by the way),

etsy shops where you can buy custom spirits (NOT as in alcohol),

chemically-treated quartz named as if it was a real mineral,

“correspondence charts” broken alphabetically into individual readmore posts listing the magical properties of various objects (with a reblog later on in the chain complaining that people need to be more obsessed with pointless minutiae)

minors-only witchcraft discord server drama that you’re actively, unsuccessfully trying to avoid learning about

looking for witchcraft podcasts that aren’t run entirely by dudes

“my dog is horrifyingly sick, what spell should I cast?”//”GO TO THE VET”

a wealth of incredibly shitty and boring and unreadable esoteric PDFs by snake-oil salesmen

skyclad discourse

my tarot cards just read me for filth

thirty-year-old woman who should know better by now: christian witch is an oxymoron

christian witchblr: the Law of Attraction is just the prosperity gospel for Democrats

someone’s angry about the existence of secular witchcraft again

[hella-free-space]

Hi :) I'm pretty new to rats I kept one when I was a child poor rat, my main questions are what bedding and food people use for their rats I'm really concerned about bedding because of their respiratory issues. What fun activities you can do with them and whether to get 2 or 3 and make or female for a beginner. I have a local breeder who desexes, vet checks and everything before they go, and what size cage I currently have a 2 story but will upgrade as they grow but not sure to what :)

@notalltreellamas I want to preface thisentire reply by saying that The Rat Gugu on Youtube is one of my favorite resources for rat care! TheRatGuru hasa playlist called “Rattiepedia | The Ultimate Guide to Pet Rats” and it coversall of the questions you asked PLUS a ton more stuff! :) I highly recommendchecking out the channel!! Also, Ratblr exists so I’m sure there are a ton of blogs that you could peruse or send asks to if you have any other questions or want to know about specific setups or ideas they’ve posted on their blogs :DThere’s also an INSANE amount of DIY enrichment, hammocks, and other cage decor on pinterest. Rattie toys don’t have to be expensive, either, since there’s a ton of “Dollar Store DIY” toys and enrichment ideas out there! Google is your best friend when doing research so don’t be afraid to ask questions or dig a little deeper to find an answer! more under the cut

HOUSING

[ Source: julieszoo74 ]I’m not sure what cage you have, but I highly recommend looking into whether or not your specific cage is a good fit for ratties :) Some cages that are labeled as rat appropriate by pet stores are not (same goes for hamsters, birds, bettas, etc.) so it’s a good idea to check that out or upgrade asap! :)The rule I’ve heard mostoften is 2 sq ft/rat but bigger is always better! Also keep in mind that ratslove to climb so make sure your cage has some vertical space to hang shelves, hammocks,tunnels, etc. The Critter Nation is personally my favorite rat cage. You canbuy a single or double critter nation and a single will comfortably house 2-3adult male or female rats! I definitely recommend using no-pill fleece bedding (shelfcovers + ladder covers + litter box) with this cage, since it makes cagecleanup a breeze. You can buy the shelf/ladder covers (usually on ebay or etsy) or sew them yourself! This cage has plenty ofspace to hang toys, hammocks, shelves, perches, baskets, and whatever else youcan think of :)

(note: you can buy a single critter nation, which has the shelfunderneath and the rolie feet, or the “add-on” which has no shelf or roliefeet. The add-on is usually a little cheaper, but the single critter nation’s shelf and roliefeet are handy dandy)

Martin’s Cages areanother popular choice among rat owners! :) Lastly, you can even DIY a cage!

[ source: reachthestars ]

I’ve seen C&C cages,cages made out of old cabinets or book shelves, and even custom-build ones!

Bedding

My twofavorite types of bedding are the Carefresh paper bedding (nonscented andnoncolored) and no-pill fleece bedding! Rats have sensitive upper respiratorysystems, so they shouldn’t ever be kept on any type of bedding that gives offdust (like cedar or pine shavings). You can use Carefresh if the cage has adeep enough litter pan at the bottom. You can also use fleece strips since they’rewashable/reuseable :) Whenever you use fleece bedding (whether it be asshelving covers or as strips) I’d recommend using a litter box (Yes! It’s possible to litter-train rats!) as well to helpkeep the fleece clean longer and to minimize having to shake out thefleece/pick poop out of the fleece strips before washing.

Food

Blocks arebetter than mixes when it comes to feeding your rats! If you use a mix, therats will probably just pick out what they like and leave the rest of the fooduntouched, which can be an issue since they wouldn’t be getting propernutrition! I love Oxbow and Mazuri for rattie staple diets! :D Now, youngratties and older ratties have different protein requirements and it’s veryimportant to make sure those needs are met! After I discovered this, I changedmy rats��� diet so I wanted to mention it to you since it might not be listed inarticles you find online! The Rat Guru covers this issue more in this video: 

Treats

Rats can eat a TON of different “people-foods” so varying a rattie diet is pretty easy! The video above lists some treats and foods to avoid, and this list is also pretty extensive! :) (dark chocolate seems to be debated and I don’t have any personal experience with feeding it to my rats, so if anyone has some resources or opinions about feeding rats dark chocolate, leave a comment or reblog!)

Water

Waterbottles work better than water bowls imo :) I like to have at least 2 waterbottles in the cage, usually one near the food bowl and one somewhere else inthe cage (like, one on the ground floor and one on another level). You can use water bowls, however, for enrichment! I’ve seen people give their rats a bowl for bobbing-for-frozen-peas! :p

Pairs vsTrios vs Groups

I had pairsgrowing up! However, my mom adopted a trio (and then a pair, for a total of 5ratties) so I feel like how many rats you own depends on how much time you haveto devote to them :) I don’t think I could have 5 rats out at a time unlessthey had their own room or tall large pen, and when I interacted with her rats,I’d take them out one or two at a time since that’s what I felt mostcomfortable with :) If you feel like 3+ rats would be overwhelming or if youwant to start with just a pair, that’s perfectly OK :) As long as they’re notkept alone, you should be good!

Males vsFemales

I’ve alwaysheard that males are a lot more laid back and relaxed than females. I’ve onlyhad 1 pair of male rats growing up, and they were older from what I canremember so that may have also played a part in their activity level. Youngfemale rats are super energetic for sure though! :D Adult males are also alarger than adult females, so if you want big fat ratties, go for males! If youwant energetic playful ratties, go for females! I should also mention, though,that not all ratties will conform to this gender stereotype, and this doesn’tmean that male rats aren’t playful or fun or that female rats won’t cuddle withyou! If you’re picking up ratties from a breeder, talk with them about whatpersonalities you’re looking for and I’m sure they can set you up with rattiesthat are a good fit for you! :)

I feel like it’s also important to address The Rat Fan Club and Debbie “The Rat Lady” Ducommun. She’s a heavily debated figure in the rat community and I have my own personal feelings about her, as do many others.The Rat Fan Club facebook group andwebsite are good sources for questions that might have hard-to-findanswers, however, I would not suggest these sources for *actually treating* medicalissues. Both the group and website are good resources and have aninsane amount of information on the nuances of rat care and ownership and recognizing certain illnesses.

However, Debbie “The Rat Lady” Ducommun is NOTA REGISTERED OR LISCENCED VETERINARIAN as far as I know (she has a degree in animal behavior and has worked as a vet tech, though)and is a proponent of at-home care and/or homeopathy and I do NOT agree with at-home surgeries of ANY kind unless they are performed by a veterinarian who has the proper and necessary equipment + environment to do so.

I’m not exactly sure if she’s pro-vet or pro-owner treatment, as she seems to feel like vets overcharge and can be a waste of money and details a TON of treatments for different illnesses and injuries on her webiste, but also provides a list of veterinarians and prefaces some of her pages with the suggestion that you should seek veterinary care if the situation warrants it. I would advise you to take her medical advice with a few grains of salt and consult a veterinarian as to whether a treatment can be given with otc meds or if a treatment needs to be performed by a licenced veterinarian!

There are some issues that can be fixed athome (i.e. if your rat is itching you might need to usehypoallergenic/non-colored/non-scented detergent to wash their fleece beddingor hammocks. However, your rat might be itching because s/he has mites and thatrequires medical treatment and you should consult a vet) but it’s never a bad idea to get your vet’sopinion! :)

Please, please, please consult a local veterinarian! You said thebreeder has a vet, so talk to the breeder about vets that they would recommendto you! :)

If anyone has anything else to add about rat ownership, rat care, enrichment suggestions, or anything else concerning ratties, please feel free to add on to this post! :)

[buckybee]

Once a bee learns to fly

Written for @acespnminibang​ 

Author: ifonenight / buckybee  Artist: Thette / @bold-sartorial-statement  Rating: Mature Pairing(s): Dean Winchester/Castiel Word Count: 5195 Summary: Cas, ace as they come, hand makes sex toys as a job-slash-hobby, and wears things that make him feel pretty in his spare time. He’s doing well all by himself, but when a client, impalabatmobile-67, asks for a special tutorial, Cas will find himself intrigued. Author Notes: I wanted to write a story where Cas didn’t care for sex at all, but still enjoyed some things that society associate with sex. And how he lived it.  Links to fic and art: FIC/ART

Mid September

The water was warm on Cas’ skin, chasing the last residues of sleep away. He tilted his head up, letting the spray hit him on his chin, nose, eyes, a last goodbye to the cozy atmosphere of his bed, and then turned the shower off, stepping out onto the worn out carpet. He shivered at the cold room - save money, save money, save money - and hurried to cocoon himself in his big towel, one of the only luxuries he allowed himself.

Mornings had always been hard for him. Waking up was really one of the worse parts of his days, which probably told something about himself he didn’t want to analyze too deeply. But alas, it had to be done.

He yawned, pulling on a soft pair of pants and an old sweater, and wandered in his tiny kitchen. Time to start the day, apparently.

Sitting at the kitchen table some time later, a cup of coffee and a snack on hand, Cas felt definitely readier to start his day. His laptop was silently coming to life in front of him, and he put his password in, lazily watching the enlarged photo of a bee appearing on the screen.

It was a nice picture, good quality and a lovely subject, and he smiled faintly at it; that had been a nice summer, the year he had taken it, mostly spent bonding with his sister and coming to terms - good terms - with his sexuality. It would always be a fond memory, captured in an almost monochrome photo.

As soon as all the icons settled on the screen he opened his browser, starting to type in the address bar - he need to check his email, couldn’t postpone his assignments any longer - but his eyes were caught by Tumblr’s little square, listed between his favourite websites on the home page.

He hesitated. He really should’ve started working on his essay, but he still had a week before he had to turn it in, and seeing how his business was doing wasn’t exactly the most irresponsible thing to do. Just a couple of minutes, ten at most, and then he would face the first, blank page of the essay.

His personal blog’s dashboard appeared on the screen, full of kittens’ videos and fandom posts, but he managed to resist the temptation and ignored them, quickly changing blog and switching to his professional one.

Dildos, lingerie, padded handcuffs, floggers, feathers, they were all there, showing up nicely in his layout. And he had had fun making every one of them.

His business was simple and entertaining, yes, if a bit unorthodox. Handmade sex-toys, not too expensive but of good quality, simple yet original, seemed to be well liked out there.

He had started making them for friends, fellow students who came to know about his art-and-craft skills by his brother.

They were the ones that actually suggested to expand his work to something less innocent than stuffed animals, only half-seriously. He treated it as a joke a first, giving a sparkling dildo to a girl as a birthday gift, making the toys funny rather than useful, but it turned out he was actually good at it and he had slowly got more and more requests, until he had decided to make a little business out of it; he had also started to offer advice and tutorials after a while, for free. He didn’t earn a lot, but it was still something, and it was nice.

Despite the endless teasing his brother subjected him to every time he saw him, Cas was quite happy with what he was doing.

It wasn’t fancy, or big, but it was a nice way to help paying for his everyday needs. And it wasn’t really demanding - he only had to do what he liked to do, and he usually found a way to include his work in his classes’ researches, and that made things pretty interesting.

His askbox warned him he had almost fifty new messages; opening it, he began to sort through them: a dozen were specific orders – mostly for dildos and collars; some were from shy anons exposing their problems with their sexuality or gender and asking for someone to listen – and he would have to answer them before the next day, as he didn’t like to leave that kind of asks lingering more than it was necessary; one was from a customer who hadn’t understood that this blog was only a catalogue and that, unless it was a custom made order, clients were to go to his Etsy, linked at the end of each toy post, and in his description, and in his FAQs, and buy his stuff there; finally, there was a request for a tutorial.

He send back a short reply to the inattentive customer, redirecting him to his shopping page, and then, curios, he scrolled up to the tutorial request.

impalabatmobile-67 asked:

hi! uh, i know this probably sounds weird, but can you make a tutorial for edible panties? i tried to make them myself but they, like, melted before i finished them, but your tutorial are always easy to follow so maybe i’ll understand what i’m missing here. i get it if they’re not your thing, don’t worry. thanks.

Edible panties. Well, that was new and he would have to do some research before giving instructions to anyone, a couple of tries maybe, but yes, it was doable. And kind of interesting, as he usually found new things to be.

Sex-aced-it answered:

It’s not “weird” at all, don’t worry. On the contrary, quite vanilla , I’d say. I will have to investigate a bit on how to make them, since it is new to me as – I suppose? - it was to you, but yes, I will make a tutorial about it.

Are you interested in underwear in general or panties specifically? And will they be for male or for female bodies? I don’t know if this will influence the product, but better safe than sorry. Were you thinking of classic candies and sweets or something else for the food? Let me know.

He checked the message again, and then sent it. He got up to make a peanut butter sandwich, taking his time to spread the butter meticulously on the bread, and took a bite while settling in front of his computer again. He refreshed the page automatically, his mind already on the essay, when he spotted a new message at the top of the page.

impalabatmobile-67 asked: 

thanks man, you’re awesome. i guess underwear in general’d be fine, but my panties are for a guy. candies&sweets are good.  

Before he could have done anything, another one arrived, and then another.

 impalabatmobile-67 asked:

 didn’t mean mine like *mine*, only that i asked for them. and, uh, can you not show my url when you’ll do the tutorial? it’s kinda personal. i probably sound like a repressed guy but my little brother is on tumblr as well and i don’t want him to see this.

impalabatmobile-67 asked:

sorry, i’m rambling. u didn’t need to know that.

Cas sighed a little and hit the ‘reply’ button again. This guy didn’t seem a jerk, only a little… lost. His essay would have had to wait apparently some more.

Sex-aced-it answers:  

Again, please don’t worry. You don’t have to justify your actions with me and I’m not going to judge you. I completely understand wanting to keep your own business private. Have you already thought about the design? I could help you with that too if you’d like.

Unsurprisingly, impalabatmobile-67 answered only a couple of minutes later. He really had a piercing imagination.

They chatted for almost an hour, exchanging ideas about the shape and the size and what kind of flavors Dean would have preferred. He seemed nice, and when they said goodbye, Cas had a little smile on his lips.

  Early October

“Do you have the munchies?,” Gabriel asked, and Cas could hear some sort of admiration in his tone.

“It’s for a project,” he answered distractedly, examining a licorice strip and carefully lowering it inside a paper bag.

His cart was full of similar bags, stuffed with candies. He wasn’t sure he could add them to the panties, actually, but Halloween was close anyway. Better safe than sorry.  

“A project?,” Gabriel answered, amused. “For you porn blog?”

“It’s not a porn blog,” Cas answered automatically, passing the cart to Gabriel so he could ring everything up.

Gabriel snickered but didn’t press on. It was a familiar banter by now, nothing they couldn’t recite in their sleep.  

“What is this project about anyway?,” Gabriel asked, giving Cas his change and rummaging on his desk, triumphally popping a lollipop in mouth once he found it.  

“Edible panties,” Cas said, hiding a smile when Gabriel choked on his own spit. For all his flamboyant sexual life, his brother was definitely more of a prude than Cas himself was.

“You’d be such a perv, I swear,” Gabriel muttered, and Cas gave him a dirty look.

Gabriel rose his hands up in surrender. “I know, I know, you can be a perv right now, too,”

Cas just grabbed his bags and got out the shop, giving Gabriel the middle finger on his way out.

  The ingredients were spread on the table, resting on a cheap table cloth.

Cas eyed them dubiously. The recipe seemed easy enough, but he wasn’t sure how resistant they could actually turn out to be. Or comfortable. Or igenic. Honestly, the idea of eating something that had rested on someone else’s crotch made him nauseous, but he guessed that once you swallowed what came out of a person’s genitals, you could brave anything.

He picked up his phone and shot Dean a message. They had abandoned the inbox a while ago and were using Tumblr’s messaging system now.

Sex-aced-it

I’m starting. I cannot guarantee a satysfing result though

Dean’s answers was almost immediate. Cas had warned him that he was going to try today, and apparently Dean was eager to know how it was going. He seemed very invested in these panties.

impalabatmobile-67

don’t worry 2 much about it man

impalabatmobile-67

i mean if they turn out a mess u can still eat them

Cas’ nose scrunched up and he looked down again at the table. The whole ensamble just didn’t look that appealing.

Sex-aced-it

If you say so

impalabatmobile-67

don’t u guys like sweet things?

Cas frowned down at the screen, leaning his hip against the table.

Sex-aced-it

What do you mean?

impalabatmobile-67

all those talks about cakes… made me wonder

It took Cas a moment to understand Dean’s allusion, and he found himself smiling when it clicked.

He could still go a little on the defensive sometimes, when the topic of his sexuality came up - and who could blame him, really? - but he found these sort of jokes funny, if a little cheesy.

impalabatmobile-67

im more a pie kind of guy myself

Sex-aced-it

Don’t you like cake at all?

impalabatmobile-67

oh I like cake alright at times ;)

Sex-aced-it

What was that wink for

impalabatmobile-67

like… cake as a metaphor for… someone ace?

impalabatmobile-67

nvm, it was dumb

Cas stared at his phone, the text clear on its white background. He admittedly wasn’t the best at social interaction, and social clues, in certain context, could be somewhat a mystery for him, but he most certainly wasn’t stupid.

Dean and him hadn’t started talking that long ago - a month at best - but Dean had been friendly and their interactions easygoing. And, sometimes, very clearly, flirty.

Not much, nothing over the top, just a joke here and a compliment there, but it was still more than Cas had done in some time, and definitely not something he usually did with his clients.

Dean seemed nice, though, and funny, and a little cute. Cas had always had a weak spot for cute boys.

But it still was only something to put a smile on his face after a tiring day - he didn’t stop to consider the implications, because he didn’t think there would have been any. Besides, an internet romance, without even knowing what Dean’s last name was, or where he lived, or what kind of skeletons he hid in his closet - Cas was brave, and he was reckless, but he had learnt self-preservation along the way. And this? This was not something he could endorse in in good conscience.  

But here Dean was, with his lame lines and flustered-looking backtracking, and Cas’ walls had never been that solid to begin with, honestly.

He had started tapping an appropriate reply when a new message appeared under the last one.

impalabatmobile-67

so are u gonna try to make them??? i’m getting old here dude

And just like that, the moment was lost.

Late October

Parties at Charlie’s were always very liberal, very queer, and almost always tipsy, at the very least.

Cas, throwing back a shot of vodka, mused that Halloween was the least probable time to be an exception to the rule.

His corpet was starting to squeeze him a little too much, and his ankles ached, but there was no way in Hell he would have given up his costume now. Well, thinking about it, maybe the shoes could go, the stockings were the important part anyway…

He tried to lift his right foot and unfasten the lace of the stiletto, but the room suddenly started to shift and here he went, falling from his heels with an empty glass in his hand and oh god please let there not be any sharp edges on his way down-

Something strong and firm collided with his chest, but it was a gentle blow, and Cas found himself staring at an illustration of a yellow bat.

He looked up, questioning, and green eyes blinked down at him, surrounded by a black mask with pointed years.

Cas started giggling.

The masked man frowned and straightened him, passing an arm under his armpits to help him support his own weight.

“Are you okay?” he yelled in his ear, trying to make himself heard over the music, but Cas was laughing too hard to answer.

The man rolled his eyes - so green - and started to drag him over to the stairs that led to the upper floor. Cas weakly hit his cheek to get his attention. “Bridal style, bridal style!” he hooted when the man turned toward him, trying to throw his leg over the man’s arms and managed only to send them both staggering against a wall.

“Dude, I’m not bringing you upstairs in my arms,” the man grunted, tugging him on the first steps.

“But I’ve been saved by Batman!,” Cas protested, gripping the man’s shoulder for dear life now that they were climbing the stairs. “I demand it!”

“Jesus, you’re really in the part of Frank, aren’t you,” the man muttered, but Cas, a little dizzy, a little nauseous, could still see the amused smile on his lips.

He didn’t remember much after that.

  "God,“ Cas lamented, trying to get his coffee machine to work. The smell of beans only had already cleared his head a little, but now he needed the real deal.

"Tell me about it,” Dean’s voice said, equally roughed, from Cas’s phone’s speakers.

Charlie’s Halloween party had been hard on Cas the night before, and apparently Dean had had a similar experience, if his pained tone was anything to go by.

“I was at this friend’s place,” Cas said, finally managing to turn the machine on. The scent of strong coffee rose from it, lazily diffusing in the air, and Cas had never known a sweeter blessing.

“Did you just moan?,” Dean’s voice came, a little belwidered, but Cas ignored it.

“I guess I had a little too much to drink,” he continued, pouring himself a cup of coffee and sighing in it, inhaling the fumes. “And then Batman saved me when I was about to fall on my face, and then I blacked out.” He reverently had a sip, and had to actively force himself to keep quiet, this time.

It took him a moment to realized the line was silent on the other side.

“Dean?,” he asked, catious, and Dean cleared his voice over the static.

“Were you wearing a Frank-N-Furter costume, by chance?,” he asked, voice neutral, and Cas froze.

“How do you know that?” he replied, confused and a little scared, but Dean didn’t say anything.

“Dean?,” Cas pressed, even though he should have had hung up, turned off the phone, what if Dean was a stalker, what if-

“Do you know Charlie?,” Dean finally said, and Cas’ heart almost stopped.

“How…?” he asked, and he heard Dean’s breath rushing out of him, amplified by the speakers.

“I think,” Dean said, very carefully, “that we have a common friend.”

Early November

The coffee-shop was crowded, but not unbearably so. Cas was sitting at one of the tables, near the window, nervously watching the street. Anxiety hadn’t really kicked in, but he was still a bit tense.

Rationally, he knew that this wasn’t like meeting a stranger, nor a person he wasn’t certain he could stand, but it was a big deal for him nonetheless. This was a relationship he had invested times and energy and feelings in, and if it didn’t work… He didn’t really want to think about that option.

Discovering that he and Dean lived in the same city had been kind of a shock.

Everything that Cas had been cautious of, that he had protected himself from thanks to the hypothetical distance between them, and the net’s impalpability, had suddenly came to knock at his door. Young feelings, still fragile and new, that were slowly twisting themselves inside Cas’ blood vessels and shooting right toward his heart, hidden among blood cells and oxygen.

And what was Cas supposed to do with them?

Meeting today had been a jump in the dark, that Dean had agreed to make with him. It had made the abyss a little less scary.

Still, perhaps arriving half an hour before the actual date hadn’t been the smartest idea he had ever had, since the more he waited, the more he freaked out. He sipped his water, checking his watch; he wasn’t supposed to be there for ten more minutes. He took another gulp, and then promptly choked on it when a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

He sputtered, coughing and trying to breath some air in, feeling the light weight of fingers gently rubbing his back.

“Cas? Are you okay? Come on buddy, don’t die on me now.”

Eventually managing to breathe again, he turned his head up to see Dean smiling down at him, eyes actually a bit worried, and still so, so green, and really, Cas realized, everything could be really going to be just fine.

“Assbutt” he rasped, cautiously taking a sip from his bottle and glaring at him.

Dean’s laughter was so much more breathtaking in person than on the phone.   

 Mid December

“I’ve been hurt before,” Cas said, quietly, on their maybe fifth or sixth date, while they were having dinner at Cas’ place, on Cas’ comfy carpet. A sort of indoor pic-nic.

Dean watched him attentively, warm and reassuring, but Cas kept fidgeting with a loose thread on the carpet, not looking up.

“When I was young, by my own doing, trying to feel things I couldn’t feel, and later, by partners who said that they understood and that sex wasn’t a requirement when instead… it was.”

He could see Dean’s hand twitching to reach out, but they weren’t yet at a point where they could just understand what the other needed without asking, and Cas was particular about touching.

Hiding a smile, Cas brushed his fingers against Dean’s, and let him squeeze his hand in his own.

“I need you to understand, Dean,” he started, trying to make his voice firm.

No matter how happy he was with himself, how comfortable, there was always a little voice in his head that whispered to him he was being selfish, unreasonable, when he did this kind of talks. But he had built himself so much stronger than those ugly murmurs, now. Let them come. He was not afraid.

“We will never have sex. Ever. I won’t start liking it just because I’m with you, and I won’t do it just to make you happy.”

He looked at Dean, trying to see any sign of discomfort, but Dean’s face was blank. It happened sometimes, when Dean wasn’t ready to let others know what he was thinking, but it wasn’t necessary a sign of something bad.

And then Cas felt fingers drawing gentle circles inside his wrist, and relaxed a little.

“No matter how turned on you get by something, if you try to pressure me in any way… I won’t react nicely.”

Dean still didn’t say anything, and Cas smiled quietly at him, bringing Dean’s hand to his lips to kiss it lightly.

“You can get turned on, though, masturbate, whatever you need. I’m not sex repulsed, just indifferent towards it in general. Moreover, I don’t mind being in a open relationship, if that’s what you want, but we would need to establish clear rules in that case, and it’s an another whole conversation,” he added, interlacing his fingers with Dean’s. “If you want to stay with me, these are the conditions. I’m done with my speech. Now it’s your turn. Did I weird you out? I didn’t mean to.”

Dean looked at him for a couple of seconds more, and then nodded. “Alright,” he said.

“Alright?,” Cas echoed.

“Alright,” Dean said, and grinned at him with his golden, beautiful eyes, and Cas, somehow, trusted him.

Late January

“I still can’t believe I got to do this,” Dean murmured against Cas’ skin, in the quiet of Cas’ bedroom.

Cas shivered a bit at that and settled better against Dean’s chest. “Doing what?,” he asked, even though he knew exactly what Dean was referring to.

“Touching you, smelling you, hell, even seeing you.” Dean traced light circles on his covered belly with his finger, resting his chin on Castiel’s shoulder. “Are you okay with this?” he asked, loosening the hug.

Cas grabbed his arm and tightened his hold again. - I am - he answered, turning his head for a kiss.

Dean gave it to him, and Cas thought that that Heaven his mother was always talking about when he was little could be found much easier than she thought. And then distracted himself because thinking about his mother in that moment seemed really a waste of time.

When they separated, both of them smiling like the idiots they were, Cas hold out a hand and gently freed himself from the embrace.

“Wait there,” he ordered, pointing the bed. While Dean obeyed, he took an anonymous bag out of his drawer and went to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

He wasn’t completely sure of what he was about to do, but then again, when ever had he been completely sure about anything? It didn’t matter. It was for Dean, and for himself, too, and if it didn’t work out, well, nobody would be seriously hurt. A bit embarrassed, sure, but he could live with that. Dean would have never made him feel inadequate.

 He undressed, folded his clothes, and opened the bag.

He took the stockings out first, feelings their softness between his fingers. They were beautiful, white silk and lace, and he couldn’t wait to wear them.

He put them on, careful not to break the texture, and spent some moments admiring his legs. Smooth and elegant, just like he liked them.

The white panties, adorned with black lace, were next, and he shivered a little at the feeling of them on his skin. He took his time adjusting them, and when he felt like they were good, he took the neutral lipstick out of the bag and turned toward the mirror above the sink.

His lips were chapped like always, but he couldn’t do much about it. Besides, Dean had never complained.

He uncapped the lipstick, and squeezed the tiny bottle to put some on his index finger. Watching his reflection in the mirror, he applied it on his bottom lips, and then pressed his lips together to spread them on the whole mouth. He cleaned the area around it a bit and smiled at his face in the glass, satisfied.

The thing was, Cas liked to be pretty. He liked to wear things that made him feel sensual, even though he didn’t care for others’ attraction toward him. If you asked him why, he probably couldn’t have explained it, but then again, the reason behind it wasn’t that important. It was all about sensations and nerves’ reaction to stimulus or something like that.

Dean had already seen him in flimsy clothes, but it was a costume, at the time. Just a mask, not the real Castiel, just being himself, in pretty lingerie. Showing off to his boyfriend in a way he never purposely did with anyone else.

Because Cas liked to be pretty, but he didn’t really like the attention that came with it. Or the expectations.

With Dean, though? Cas knew that Dean would look straight at him, and see exactly what Cas wanted to show him.

He turned to the bag once more, biting his lips. One last thing, and then he would be ready: a pair of black high heels, sleek and shiny.

The action of putting them on went less smoothly than the others - he stumbled and nearly fell into the tub, and had to yell at Dean he was fine and not to come in - but finally, everything was in place.

Taking a deep breath and shaking his head a bit, as in to clear it, he squared his shoulder and exited the bathroom.  

Dean looked up from his hands in his lap and did a double-take, freezing on the spot.

Cas waited for his eyes to roam oh his body, taking him in, searching for what he could find sexy, but they remained fixated on his face, instead, without wandering even a little bit.

Actually, Dean seemed not be breathing at all.

It would have been hilarious if Cas hadn’t been so nervous.

“Dean?” he asked, finally, uncertain.

That seemed to shake him out of his trance, and he coughed, cleared his throat, and then diverted his eyes, fixing them somewhere on the wall.

“Cas, fuck” he answered, his voice lower and rougher than usual. “This is harder than I thought.”

Yeah, that wasn’t helping his nervousness at all.

“You said you would have liked it.” Cas said, confused and a bit mortified.

Dean let out a weak laugh. “I do, Cas, and that may be our problem here.”

Cas frowned, but after a moment, it clicked. It wasn’t difficult to understand what Dean was worried about, really. Cas should have anticipated it.

He approached the bed slowly, as if not to scare Dean, and sat next to him.  

“Dean,” he called gently, and Dean shot him a look, but he apparently couldn’t maintain it.

“Dean,” Cas said again, taking of of his hands in his own. “You don’t have to be ashamed of your attraction, just like I don’t have to be for the lack of mine. I wore this because I knew you would have liked them, and I also knew how you would have liked them, and done it anyway. Your erection won’t make me uncomfortable.”

Dean twitched at the word, and Cas laughed quietly against his cheek.

“Stop worrying so much,” he said, kissing the side of his mouth. “You won’t hurt me. I promise.”

“I just,” Dean said, but didn’t continue.

“You just?,” Cas repeated, nudging him, with his cold nose against Dean’s neck.

“I just don’t want to do something, without meaning to, and scare you off,” Dean finished, looking at the ground.

“Oh, Dean.” Cas grabbed Dean’s face in his hands, gently, forcing him to look at Cas in the eyes. “Let me lead, okay? I promise I won’t let anything bad happening to us.”

Dean’s eyes were still doubtful, a little afraid light shining in them, but he nodded, and Cas released him.

“I feel good like this,” he said, taking back one of Dean’s hand, putting it right on his legs, on the soft fabric of the stocking. “I wore all of this as much for you as I did for me. Will you look at me, Dean? Tell me how pretty I am?”   

Dean took a deep breath. “You’re always pretty, Cas.”

Cas stand up, letting go of his hand, and moved in front of him, between his knees. He put his palm under Dean’s chin and tilted his head up gently. Dean finally, finally, met his eyes on his own.

“Tell me again, like this,” Cas ordered him softly, smiling. Dean stayed still for a moment more, and then, surrendering, he slowly, hungrily, let his sight slide all over Castiel’s body. Cas felt it like a caress all over him, tender and butterfly light.

Once Dean’s look had reached his feet - and he had gasped loudly - his eyes met Cas’ own again, and they were dark and full of heat. “You’re beautiful.” he said, voice rough and full of awe. “So fucking beautiful, Cas.”

“As you are, my love,” Cas murmured, and letting himself be laid out on the bed, admired as a work of art, he thought that, yes, no matter how much it took for him to reach this point in life, it was well worth it.

  July, years later

“Sam,” Cas groaned in his phone, blindly patting around on the bed to wake Dean up. Dean grunted and swatted his hand away, cocooning himself against Cas’ back, warm as a stove. Cas tried to roll away but Dean sneaked an arm around his middle, lightning fast.

“I hope this is important, Sam, it’s eight a.m. on a Sunday.”

“Sorry!,” Sam exclaimed, excitedly, not sounding sorry at all. “But I think I found an investor for your shop!”

Cas abruptly woke up, finally managing to disentangle himself from Dean, whose protest was apparently to slobber all over Cas’ pillow.

“What?,” he asked Sam, putting a pair of pants on and quietly exiting their bedroom.

“Yesterday I went to this corporate party,” Sam answered, talking one mile a minute, “and there was this very rich european lady who I somehow ended up talking about your project and she was really interested in it!”

“Somehow?,” Cas asked, distractly, heart pounding.

“Well I may have done some research before the party… But who cares, her name is Bela Talbot, ace as fuck, very kinky. Loves your idea. I’ll drop by later to explain everything?”

“Yeah,” Cas mumbled, still dumbfounded, and the line went dead.

He felt Dean padding into the room and then hugging him from behind.

“Everything’s alright?,” he asked, voice deep from sleep.

And Cas’ face broke into a smile, toothy and huge. “Yes. Alright.”

[stimtoybox]

the 12 sided magic cube/holy crystal can also be found on wish. I paid US$9 plus $2 for shipping, and now its up for free with $2 shipping. That said, I don't know about using the wish app outside of america, and I know a lot of people are weary of it because the products come from different Asian countries who might not be paying their workers enough.

Thank you so much for letting us know, anon! It’s taken me a little while to get to this, but I really appreciate your sending this one in.

(I’m pretty sure the same issues about underpaid workers apply to cheap eBay and Banggood items as well - and, in fact, to just about any inexpensive item we purchase here in the West. It’s hard when you’re disabled and don’t have a lot of money, because you often don’t have choices in not purchasing these sorts of items, but there are absolutely discussions to be had about how our consumer society is founded on underpaid workers in dangerous conditions in Asian factories.)

I, personally, am a little ambiguous about Wish - for one, it’s hard to access information about items without signing up for an account (and I personally dislike this). It also forces me to pick a binary gender (male or female) when signing up, which is unnecessary, exorsexist and dysphoria-triggering, none of which I need when I just want to look up information about cheap stim toys.

(In fairness, Banggood made me do this, too, so it isn’t just Wish. eBay didn’t, and neither did Etsy, so if NB people don’t want to endure being gendered by a program that’s going to use very binary notions of gender relating to interest to recommend items for us, I’d go shop on those sites. I know this is going to sound a little picky to cis people, but in a world where we’re hit with casual exorsexism every time we just want to go to the toilet, it’s important that we discuss this. There will be other non-binary stimmers who feel that same moment of anger, distress and dysphoria when faced with having to pick one of two alien or incorrect options just to shop for stim toys.)

On the positive side, they even have an app for Windows Phone, which is more than most sites offer. Even Tumblr no longer supports Windows Phone!

I don’t know if it’s a difference in regional pricing or just because the item sold out very quickly (this has been in my inbox a little while, but I looked soon after it arrived) at that price, but the cheapest offerings I get on Wish are for $7 AUD with $2 AUD shipping. (There’s one listing here, but there’s a few of them available.) In fact, I’ve never seen an item listed for less than $2 AUD and shipping is always estimated $2 AUD, so my feeling is that for me, at least, Wish things aren’t that extraordinarily cheap. I’ve seen the same prices for items on eBay or Banggood.

It might be that for whatever reason, I’m missing out on the very cheap listings (time, luck) or that they’re just not offered so cheaply for Aussies. I’m not sure, and I’d love to see some more non-US folk weigh in about Wish and their pricing. For example, I find Tangle Jrs listed at $2 AUD, but by the time I pay the estimated $2 AUD shipping, it’s a little more expensive than the $2 USD with free shipping Tangles I’ve bought on eBay.

(So, thus far, I’ve had to deal with dysphoria for offerings that aren’t any better than what I’d find on eBay.)

I’ve heard a lot of US folk get great deals, though, so I think it’s absolutely worth checking out (especially if you’re based in the US).

Again, thank you so much, anon, and I apologise for not posting this sooner!

- Mod K.A.

[dannydevito69]

BINDING 101

I’ve recently seen a lot of people using dangerous binders and methods of binding, so I’m making a masterpost of tips for binding safely, where to get binders, how to wear them, washing them, and generally what you need to know if you are a binder wearer! Info under the read more! 

Safe Binders

 Two of the best and most common binder brands are GC2B, and Underworks. I, personally, prefer gc2b binders because they are made by trans people, specifically for trans people; whereas the underworks binders are made for cis men with gynecomastia, a condition where men grow breast tissue.  Other brands make binders, such as Flavnt Streetwear, who make swim safe binders that are designed in a way that they don’t show under tank tops. However, usually more expensive binders last longer, so in the long run it will be the more cost effective binder, to quote one of my favorite musicals, Kinky Boots, “ A good shoe will last a man a lifetime, but a cheap shoe will keep a man poor because he has to buy new ones every time they break.” Imagine that, but with binders.

 Finding the Right Style

 Most binders are one of two styles: the half tank, and the tank.  A half tank binder usually looks like a crop top. The tank comes in multiple designs, some look like if you sewed extra stretchy fabric to the half tank, and some have compression the whole length of the tank.

-Tank binders are good if you don’t like your binders to ride up, or want to feel like you are wearing a shirt rather than a bra type shirt.  These binders can easily be tucked in, and will not ride up if you tuck them in.  These are good for the winter if you want an extra layer to keep warm.

-Half tank binders are the most common type of binder, they are often what a person imagines when they hear “binder” and are commonly depicted in art of trans guys.  These binders usually hit right around the bottom rib cage area, depending on how long your torso is.  These binders are especially good for the summer, because they don’t have the extra layer that tank binders do.  

 Finding the Right Size

Different binder companies have different sizing methods and are specified on their websites.  NEVER order a binder in sizes that are too small, as they can cause lots of damage to your health and body.  Most sizing methods will have you measure the circumference of your ribcage just under your breasts, and the width of your shoulders.  Binders will stretch and wear out over time, which will cause them to be looser.

 Finding the Right Color

 Most people prefer a white binder, but these can get stained easily and tend to show wear more than a dark color.  A good way to chose the color of your binder is to think of what colors you wear the most.  For instance, if you often wear dark colors, you might want to get a black binder.  If you wear mostly light colors, you should get a white or nude binder. Some binders come in more flashy colors, and even cool prints.  Ultimately the color is up to you.

 Trustworthy Binder Brands

 gc2b

gc2b is a company ran by trans people specifically for trans people.GC2B binders come in two styles, and 11 colors.  They make a half tank binder ($33 USD) and a tank binder ($35 USD).  They come in a range of nudes, a range of neutrals, and a range of bright colors. The nudes come in five different shades, each with a number, one being the darkest and five being the lightest. ((I am fairly pale and wear a number five nude)) . The neutrals come in black, grey, and white; and the bright colors come in blue, red, and olive green. These binders are a nylon and spandex blend, which is extremely important as this allows your lungs and ribcage to fully expand. They are constructed with a compression panel in the front, and a spandex back and straps. These binders are safe to swim in, but be careful with swimming in chlorine pools because they can change the color of your binder.  These ship in discreet packaging, a standard grey plastic envelope.

  Flavnt Streetwear

Flavnt is another company ran by two LGBT people, a set of twins, Chris, who is a trans male, and Courtney, who is a lesbian, and are made specifically for trans people. A Flavnt Bareskin binder will set you back about $50, so they are pricier.  A percentage of the profit goes to a trans man’s top surgery, and they pick a different person every couple of months.  Right now the bareskin binder is sold out, but the company is working on getting them restocked.  These binders sell out VERY quickly, their last restock sold out in 30 minutes.  If you follow them on social media, like twitter or instagram, you can get notified when they restock and get one then.  They also have an email newsletter, where you’ll get emailed when they restock.  These binders are also safe to swim in, again be careful with swimming in chlorine pools because they can change the color of your binder.  

 Underworks

These binders come in a vast range of styles, and can be found on their website under Health, and click Gynecomastia. The company also has a sub company called f2m that sells the same binders Underworks makes, as well as other compression garments like shorts to slim your hips and butt.  Underworks binders can range anywhere from $17 USD to $99 USD.  They have regular binders, and two binders specifically for swimming (one is the $99 binder), and the other is $45 USD. They also sell three packs of binders for $85, which saves you $5.  The three packs come in their two most popular binder styles, the tri top, which is a half tank binder, and the ultimate chest binder tank.  The tri top comes in white, black, and a pale nude, and is $29.99USD.  The ultimate chest binder tank comes also in white, black, and pale nude, and is also $29.99.  Both of these binders have five star reviews, and are often praised in the trans community.  These two binders are 70% medical grade nylon and 30% spandex.  These (except for the swim binders) are not safe to swim in.

 Etsy

There are many independent binder companies on etsy that will make customized binders, where they are made to your exact measurements and come in pretty much any color or pattern you want.  They range from $17 USD to $120 USD.  ALWAYS check if the seller has good reviews, and what fabric/s they are made of.  

 Non-Binders that Bind

There are many compression sports bras that work as binders, especially if you have small breasts. The Nike original compression sports bra is a great one, and can be found at JCPenney, Macy’s, and Kohl’s for $22.50. The Nike bra also has their Dri Fit fabric, which will wick sweat and keep you dry and cool. These are a good option to start wearing binders, or if your parents do not want you to wear a binder or will not buy you one.

 This is a good review on three of the binders listed here

 Binders for Free/Cheaper Prices

There are a couple of organizations that help people that need binders and can’t afford them, such as the Big Brother Used Binder program, and the Point of Pride program (run by point 5cc, an excellent website for trans males/masculine people). Here is a master post of places where you can get free/cheap binders.  You can often see binders being sold on second hand clothing websites such as Depop, Vinted, and Poshmark.  

 How to Bind Properly

Getting your Binder Problem one: you can't buy a binder with your credit/debit card, you can't use your parent's card, or you only have cash If you save up some money you can buy a Visa gift card, which you can then use as a credit card on most websites to buy your binder. Problem two: you can't have your binder shipped to your house and/or your parents will check your mail before they give it to you Ask a friend who is trustworthy if you can ship the package to their house, and they can give it to you that way. There is also the option of opening a P.O. box, but renting these costs money and not all websites ship to P.O. boxes. Problem three: your parents will question what the binder is if you put it in the wash There’s a couple ways around this, one is hand washing your binder in a bathroom while your parents aren't washing. You can leave it to dry in a place they won't check, such as your closet. ((I managed to wear a hoodie my mom didn't like and wouldn't let me buy ((my friend bought it for me)) and washed it in my sink before my mom got home, for almost three months before I accidentally wore it in front of her.)) The second solution is to ask your friend if they can wash it at their house, it might seem like an odd request, but if you explain the situation to them they will most likely help you out. Another solution is to tell your parents that it is a different article of clothing, such as a tank top ((if it is a tank style binder)), sports bra, or crop top and put it in the wash Problem four: your parents will notice that your chest looks flatter Put the binder in your backpack before you leave, and change when you get to wherever you are going. Make sure to take it off before you get home if your parents will be home when you come back.

Putting on Your Binder

If you don’t have broad shoulders, you can pull your binder over your head like a shirt or a sports bra. A good way to put it on is to put your arms through the arm holes, and pull the bottom down. If the back rolls up, you can pull the back of the fabric down if you have good shoulder flexibility, if not you can ask someone to help you with it. I find that the tank binders are easier to put on due to the extra fabric. It WILL be tight when you first put it on, but this is normal. If you are unable to breathe and fully expand your lungs, it is not the right size and is too small. If it doesn’t bind you at all, it is too big.

 Washing your Binder

If you hand wash your binder it will last longer. Kay has a good guide on handwashing your binder (add kays post). However, you can wash your binder in a washing machine if it is on the delicate and cold settings, but make sure you air dry it. You should wash your binder once or twice a week depending on how much you sweat.

 Other Binder Wearing Related things

ONLY wear your binder for 6-8 hours a day, more than this can cause back pain, breathing problems, and can possibly injure your ribs.

 Wear a light weight bra/cloth bralette under your binder or keep one with you in case you need to take your binder off in public.

 TAKE BREAKS if you wear your binder at work or school, take a bathroom break as often as you can to take your binder off in a bathroom stall to give your chest a rest.

 If you have larger breasts or sweat easily, putting pieces of cloth or paper towel between the areas where the skin has contact with the skin to avoid rashes, chest acne, fungal infections, yeast infections (yes you can get these on your skin!) and other sweat related problems. I personally prefer the paper towel method as I can throw them out at the end of the day and always have fresh ones.

 You can always wear a low compression sports bra or bralette under your binder, which can make the binder easier to put on. If you have a layer between your skin and the fabric of the binder, you can avoid skin irritation from chafing from the binder. This can also ease the pain in nipples from binding.  If the binder gives you back pain from poor posture, you can wear a posture support bra underneath your binder, I do this and it helps immensely.

 If you are wearing a baggy shirt or hoodie, you can wear a worn out binder or a high compression sports bra to give your ribs and chest a break.

 You shouldn’t wear your binder every day, but if it is necessary use the weekends and any day off to rest.  

 An important thing to remember is a binder will NOT make you completely flat, but this is ok because most cis guy’s chests are not flat.

 ALWAYS stretch when you have your binder on! Good stretches to do are shoulder stretches, back stretches, arm stretches, and neck stretches.  Try to do this multiple times a day and as often as you can when wearing your binder.  

 DRINK WATER!! Staying hydrated is very important when you have multiple layers on.

 NEVER sleep in your binder. This can cause so many problems, much like the problems caused by wearing your binder for too long.

 How to Spot a Bad Binder

 Bad Binder Indicator #1

The binder is marketed for “tomboys” or “lesbians”

NEVER buy a binder that is marketed towards tomboys or lesbians, as these are usually constructed very badly and can break your ribs.  On the subject of ribs, if you damage them, there is a possibility that you will never be able to wear a binder again, might be refused top surgery, and permanently disfigure your ribs.  Also, if you do break your ribs, you can’t wear a binder until they have completely healed, which usually takes one to two months.  

 Bad Binder Indicator #2

The binder is constructed fully with compression material and has no give

I cannot stress this enough, these binders will hinder your breathing IMMENSELY which can cause you to pass out, and can easily break your ribs.  

 Bad Binder Indicator #3

The binder has clasps instead of one solid piece

If the binder has clasps, this is usually a sign that the binder does not stretch, which can cause the problems mentioned in #2.

 Bad Binder Indicator #4

The binder is marketed for cosplay

These binders usually are extremely compressing, which does not make them safe for long periods of wear and extended wear.

 Bad Binder Indicator #5

It’s strapless

These are possibly the worst binders, it may be tempting to use these to wear tank tops, but they WILL cut your chest open and chafe.

 Bad Binder Brands 

I’ve compiled a list of binders that are not safe. Most of these are found on eBay and Amazon. If you have to order your binder from Amazon, Underworks sells theirs on Amazon.

LesLoveBoat

Most AliExpress brands that sell binders

LesMax

Most eBay sellers

A good rule of thumb is if its under $15 and isn't second hand, it's probably dangerous.

If you have any other safe binding tips and tricks, add them on!

Source: I’ve been wearing binders for five years

Be safe and happy binding!