#about cif

[hep-heptagon]

Hello!! I’m Cif, and I’m a self taught hobbyist artist who likes to draw cute critters and character with pointy ears! For more info check under the cut 💟

Hi again! Thanks for clicking to read more lol

Anyhow, here are the main things a wanna cover:

• If you’ve followed me for a while/look at my old posts you might see me going my a different name. I didn’t really Change my name exactly, I just realized that going by a screen name might be a bit wiser than using my actual IRL name. That other name isn’t inaccurate, I’m just trying to rebrand a little I guess lol

• I am predominantly a hobbyist artist but I am not opposed to doing commissions if someone really wants one! I don’t prefer taking them often to be completely honest because I find them a bit intimidating, but I am totally open to doing some on occasion! Feel free to message me and we can discuss commission details if you’re interested!

• Please do not trace, reuse, sell, distribute, or do anything similar to that with my art! I can condone tracing if it is done privately for learning purposes, or if it's credited explicitly and permission to do so is given by me, but those are the only exceptions! Feel free to use them as profile pictures and banners though as long as credit is given in your desc or somewhere like that!

• I may draw some very much non-sexual nudity on the rare occasion, but I do not draw any actually explicit art. However I am an adult and some of my art may contain adult themes, so while it isn't necessarily a hard requirement, I do prefer that anyone who follows me is over 18! You absolutely must be 18 or older to commission me though!

• Feel free to message me or send asks anytime! I'm insanely awkward but I'll do my best lol

• Please check my DNI banner below before interacting, and plz just be polite and chill lol

Thanks for stopping by!

[ouroborosorder]

it’s 2 AM again. Time for my regularly scheduled “feel emotions about Void Stranger” hour.

[theoryandahalf]

Me: *about to go to bed, decides to check social media one last time*

Me:

Me: *remembers Matpat retired and this is now Tom's problem*

[heycerulean]

do not stand between a person and their color coded conlang spreadsheets

[reflection-s-of-stars]

One really subtle, fun thing about the locked tomb is how they talk about “generalist” necromancy.

Judith says in Cohort Intelligence Files that Abigail’s necromancy is “generalist,” though we later find out her real skill lies with spirits. No matter how true it is, this is one of a few things in CIF that paint Abigail as a less-than-stellar necromancer (another one is the idea that her political power is what sets her apart from the others).

So “generalist” necromancy is seen as less advanced than a specialization, like Harrow’s in bone or Ianthe’s in flesh.

You don’t see a ton of that in fantasy media. In A:TLA, normal benders like Katara, Toph and Zuko are far less powerful than Aang, because he can bend all four elements. In Aurora (my favorite ever webcomic that you should all read), Erin has more prestige than any other living mage because he can do every type of magic. The Owl House shows wild witches like Eda, who do multiple kinds of magic, to be outlaws and outcasts. I could go on.

The reason fantasy authors do this is because they want to present magic as a skill/ability, whether it’s inherent or learned. It’s like sports or an instrument: the more you practice, the more things you can do, and the more things you can do, the better you’re considered.

And that’s the big difference between these examples and the Locked Tomb: instead of a skill to learn, TLT presents necromancy as an academic field.

In academia, specialization (like a college major, or being a specific kind of doctor) is common and expected. You’re encouraged to dive deep into one area of expertise, rather than being a jack-of-all-trades. That’s what necromancy is.

“Yes, Pent is a ridiculously powerful political force and talks to ghosts on a regular basis, but she’s a generalist. Not like Ianthe, who’s good at flesh magic!”

It’s really subtle, but it adds to the tonal blend of sci-fi and fantasy that helps make TLT so cool.

[cassafrassie]

stage kisses - (also on ao3) length: 3,311 words rating: T (teenaged kissing)

A thin layer of pristine, fresh snow coats Gravity Falls’ Main Street. Multi-colored string lights twinkle through the layer of ice adorning the eaves of the downtown shops and businesses.

Dipper relishes in being able to be present for it. Though he’s spent the last three summers in Gravity Falls, it’s the first time he’s been able to be here for Winter break, and something about the icy chill punctured through with the warmth of sugar cookies, roaring fires and cozy blankets has his heart feeling full.

Even if he is currently acting as courier for the approximately three hundred shopping bags that his petite female friend and current shopping companion has loaded into his arms.

He hadn’t been paying super close attention to what Pacifica had been purchasing as she shuffled him from store to store. He was just grateful she offered to help him with his last minute gifts. He was happy to sit back and watch her work her magic as she examined treasure after treasure and piece of junk after piece of junk. He had to hand it to her— she had a knack for picking out practical yet thoughtful presents.  A classy cashmere sweater for Mabel from her. A set of new knitting needles for Mabel from him. Some crystal decanter for her parents from her. A new gaming console for Soos that Dipper had said was too expensive, but she insisted that it could be a group gift from him, Mabel, Wendy and herself, which made it okay.

And now he bears the burden of the fruit of their labor as he trudges down the street and she walks lightly next to him, floating forward and swinging her handbag without another item to trouble her or weigh her down.

Dipper glances down at one of the bags and notices a thick purple coat peeking out from neatly folded tissue paper.

“Hey, I don’t remember this one. Who’s the jacket for?”

“Oh,” Pacifica starts, waving her hand casually. “I might have gotten myself an early Christmas present too.”

“And you’ve saddled it on me?”

“Of course. I’m a lady, Dipper. I can’t be expected to do my own manual labor!” She says in faux shock.

“Oh but of course, Your Highness, my deepest apologies! Allow me to be at your service, please.”

“That’s better. Know your place, Pines.”

“I live to protect you from the horrors of the peasant life.”

“My hero,” Pacifica says, bumping into him with her hip.

They both laugh, their voices carrying down the cheerful street as they round the corner and head from the shopping district in the direction of bus stop.

The two walk in companionable silence, and Dipper contemplates how nice it would be if they could do this everyday. Just spend time together, be silly, not have to worry about school or grades or the future.

Pacifica seems lost in thought as well, and before long she begins twisting her hair in a manner that Dipper has begun to associate with her weighing her options in some situation or another. It’s something he admires about her. She’s not cold, not anymore, but she’s retained some her of calculated approach toward decision-making. Some would call it shrewd, but Dipper thinks of it as astute, and it’s a refreshing balance to many of the more impulsively-minded loved ones in his life.

“So… I got the lead in the spring play at school,” she says abruptly, somewhat out of the blue.

“Oh whoa!” Dipper tires to turn to her but is hindered by the shopping bags. “That’s awesome, Cif! You’re gonna kill it.”

Dipper knows that Pacifica has been involved in both her school’s straight plays and musicals the last two years. The only downer is that he hasn’t been able to see her perform live yet. She sent him some random parent’s recording of her belting out “Anything Goes” while dressed in an adorable little sailor costume (that dress made it into a few dreams he would prefer not to examine too closely, as a matter of fact), and another of her tap dancing up a storm dressed as a 1960s-style secretary of all things, but that’s as close as he’s been able to make it.

Maybe if his parents will let him miss a day or two of school he can go to this one. They know how close the two of them have gotten, and they also know that Pacifica doesn’t have many good friends since turning her back on a lot of the society functions her parents forced her in to.

And he’s her best friend. He needs to make it happen. He’s calculating how best to approach the subject with his parents, but his thoughts are interrupted when she keeps talking.

“We’re doing Romeo and Juliet,” she says, and there’s a strange, hesitant tone in her voice.

Looking over, he sees that she’s looking at the ground and still twisting a lock of hair around in her hands. It’s a little weird, he thinks. She’s usually a lot more confident about these types of things, but she’s acting almost… shy. That’s not Pacifica.

He figures a little playful ribbing is in order.

“Oh wow, Shakespeare, huh? So fancy.” He nudges her side with his elbow. “Look at you, Little Miss Private School.”

Pacifica smiles but says nothing. She still won’t meet his eyes.

Then it hits him.

Romeo and Juliet. The lead. Juliet. Romeo. Romeo and Juliet.

He almost drops one of their shopping bags.

“Oh.”

“Mhm.”

Dipper struggles to gather his thoughts, tries to come off casual. “That’s like, a romance, then… huh?”

Pacifica blushes. “I mean technically it’s a tragedy, in strict literary terms, but yeah, there’s… romance.” She chuckles nervously. “Like, obviously. It’s like the romance play, right?”

Dipper kicks at a clump of snow, tries very hard to keep his voice light. “So… there’s… kissing involved in that then… yeah?”

Pacifica looks at her feet. “A bit, yeah,” she confirms. She points to a bench in the park they’re passing. Lush evergreens dusted with snow almost obscure it from the street. “Wanna sit?”

Dipper nods absentmindedly, and he lets her guide him to sit on the frosted metal bench. She takes some of the the bags from him and sets them aside. He drops the rest near his feet.

Kissing. Why does this feel weird? Why doesn’t he like it? Why did Pacifica seem nervous to talk about it? Why does it feel like he kind of wants to immediately find out who has been cast as Romeo and look them up on social media and maybe find out where they live and maybe just maybe make sure they get strep or mono or anything to stop—

He shakes his head lightly, centering himself.

“Is that… weird?” he finally asks.

“Well,” Pacifica tucks a stand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve had to do a small handful kissing scenes before, so it’s not a massive deal, really.”

His stomach feels like it drops through his body to the cold icy ground beneath them.

“Oh, you have?” He cringes at the way his voice cracks.

“Well not real kisses!” Pacifica says, hurriedly. “Just, like, stage kisses, you know.”

“Stage kisses,” Dipper echos blankly.

“Yeah, like, you hold your hands on their face in a way that to the audience it looks like you’re kissing, but your lips aren’t actually touching.”

Dipper feels his heartbeat begin to settle just a bit, but doesn’t have time to examine why that is, because there are far more pressing issues at hand. First and foremost is what the heck is a stage kiss and how many times has she done this and with who and when and where and—

“Oh… huh,” he says. “How does it… work?”

Pacifica looks down, suddenly fascinated with a loose thread on her mittens. She twists it in between the the pointer finger and thumb on her other hand.

“I could show you,” she says, finally.

Dipper feels his face warm, but all he’s aware of in his brain is an immediate, pervasive thought of yes yes absolutely I would love to learn right now, right here, with you, yes.

He swallows.

“Like…?” He gestures vaguely at his face, questioning.

“Yeah,” Pacifica giggles lightly, and he can tell she’s nervous. Why is she nervous? She’s turning to face him and she has a tiny, sweet smile tugging at her lips. “If you wanted?”

“Yeah,” he says before he’s fully thought it through. “I mean, sure, yeah. That would… that could be cool.”

“Okay,” Pacifica begins, taking her mittens off before shifting fully to face him. Her shy smile broadens ever so slightly when he meets her eyes. Dipper notices her cheeks are slightly pinker than they were earlier, which is weird because they’ve been in the same cold for the last half hour at least. “Just stay still.”

Dipper nods, having not a clue about what is about to happen, but also so aware that he is powerless to stop it, and there isn’t a bone in his body that wants to try.

Pacifica lays her mittens carefully next to her, then delicately brings both bare hands up to Dipper’s face, letting her fingers cup his cheeks while her thumbs move to rest vertically over his lips, parallel to one another.

“Ready?” She asks, cheeks growing pinker by the second.

Dipper just nods again once, wide eyes fixed on hers.

“Okay,” she continues. “Here goes.”

And then she’s closing her eyes and leaning in. And Dipper doesn’t close his eyes at first because he isn’t sure if he’s supposed to, so he watches as her face gets closer. Her lips are relaxed but not puckered like he thinks they’re supposed to be for a normal kiss. Which is good because now he knows he shouldn’t pucker his own in return, even though he can feel them twitch instinctively against her delicate thumbs. When she’s less than an inch from his face, his eyes close of their own volition, and he’s only aware of her warm hands. So soft, and trembling just the tiniest bit, he thinks. But it must just be the cold.

He feels the slight pressure on his face when her lips meets the back of her hands, but that’s it. And then it’s over, and she’s pulling back and drawing her hands away, and his eyes are opening to meet hers, and he feels confusingly bereft. Like it should have been more.

“See?” she says. “Barely feels like a kiss, but looks real from the outside.”

Dipper is still gathering his thoughts. For some reason, his instinct is to ask her to do it again. It was too fast, I didn’t remember it well enough.

“That was quick.” He says, bluntly, honestly. His brain hasn’t quite caught up with his words. “What if it needs to be longer?”

“Well, you just do it for longer then, I think,” Pacifica giggles a bit.

“But doesn’t it get weird, if every kiss in the play has people putting their hands on each other’s faces?”

Dipper hasn’t the slightest clue why this matters to him so much. He hasn’t had any personal interest in theater since Mabel’s ill-fated sock opera, but for some reason, learning the ins and outs and nitty-gritty details of stage kissing suddenly seems completely essential.

“Well, yeah, I mean there are other… methods, too.”

“Oh?” Dipper asks, not really trying to hide his interest anymore.

Pacifica nods, not breaking her eye contact. “Want me to…?”

“Sure.”

He watches her take an almost imperceptible inhale.

“Okay, so if we were looking for more of a dramatic kiss— like maybe one where you needed your hands to be wrapped around the other person—“ She moves her hands up over his shoulders and around the back of his neck, and his own instinctively move to her waist “—you could basically just move your body so that the audience can’t see your faces exactly—“ She leans in closer, eyes fluttering this close to closed, and his own do the same “—and then just kiss each other’s cheeks, like close but not quite…”

Her voice quiets and trails off, and then he can feel her lips press just to the left of his-- on his cheek, but so so close to his lips that he’s sure he can feel just the barest graze on them, just at the corner of his mouth. He feels a pang of longing low in his stomach.

She doesn’t pull away so fast this time. Instead, her fingers tighten just so in his hair, and he feels the delicate pressure of her lips grow ever so slightly at the corner of his mouth. His own hands tighten at her waist, and it’s wonderful and terrible at the same time, because he can feel her closeness, her softness, can smell that lovely lavender shampoo she uses, can relish in being so near to her. It’s everything a kiss should be but just misses the mark because his lips rest just about two inches to the right of where every instinct tells him they should be.

But that’s not right, is it? An anxious part of his mind chimes in. Pacifica is his friend. She’s always been his friend. Since when does he want to kiss her?

I mean sure, he has eyes, he knows she’s beautiful. And he likes her laugh, and her wit, and the way she pokes his buttons just right. And maybe he feels happier when she’s around; whatever. And yeah when that guy asked for her number last summer while she was spending time with him during his shift at the Shack’s gift shop he got a bit annoyed, but that was because that guy was a creep and clearly not right for her and how dare he anyway when she was obviously there to spend time with him.

Dipper freezes.

Maybe… maybe he’s been kidding himself just a bit.

Pacifica seems to notice his sudden stiffness, because out of nowhere and far too soon she’s untangling her hands from the hair at the nape of his neck and pulling away with a nervous chuckle.

“Well… yeah, that’s all I really know how to do,” she says, grabbing her mittens and turning then over in her hand. Dipper notices that somehow her face is even pinker than before, and the instinct to reach out and brush his finger tips over her charmingly flushed cheeks is almost unbearable.

There’s still a question nagging in his mind. And he isn’t even fully aware of what it is, but the instinct to learn more about all this theatrical kissing business tugs at him still.

“What if, um… well what if the audience would be able to tell that it’s not real?”

“Hm?” She looks up, one eyebrow raised.

“I mean, would the director ever want you to… do it for real?” He swallows, steeling himself. “Like, a real kiss?”

“Oh!” Her eyes dart away again. “Gosh, well, I hope not.” He watches as she sucks in a breath, then brings her eyes back to his, and there’s a new sparkle behind them, filled with intent. “I wouldn’t want my first kiss to be on stage, you know?”

There it is. That’s it. That’s answer his subconscious has been looking for.

She’s never kissed someone before. Not for real.

Something about this knowledge crystalizes it all for him in his brain. It’s like the first time he tried on his new prescription glasses. He’d never known the world was so sharp and clear.

And he feels that here now also. Yes, he wants to kiss her. He wants to be her first kiss, especially. And if the way she is looking at him now is any indication— with hooded eyes and dark pupils peeking out from under her fluffy bangs, lips curved upward in a sweet gentle smile— she wants him to be it too.

She casually reaches over, starts idly playing with the hem of his coat sleeve.

Suddenly, his path forward has never been more obvious. How did he not see it before?

“Have you… given much thought as to where you would like it to be?” he asks.

“Mm. Not so much as to the where, no.”

The emphasis she adds signals to him that she’s hinting at something. She wants him to keep fishing, and he’s only too happy to oblige.

“I see…” he begins, recklessly draping his arm on the back of the bench, behind her shoulders. “So, any thought as to the when, then?”

“Only in passing…” she leans back into his arm and relaxes into him.

“The why?”

Pacifica giggles. “Well, hopefully because he wants to do it as much as I do.”

“So there’s a who, then.” Dipper grins.

Pacifica just blushes deeper and nods.

Dipper shifts on the bench to face her on more directly, letting the arm around the back of the bench seat fall down around at her shoulders, his other hand moving forward to brush his fingers over the top of her still bare knuckles.

He leans in just so. Swallows as he prepares himself to do one of the bravest and frankly most terrifying things he’s ever done. But he’s determined to see it through.

“How about, in a park, late winter afternoon, me, because I really, really want to? Possibly even more than you do.”

Pacifica’s eyes flutter shut as she tilts her face up toward him.

“Perfect.”

Dipper feels his stomach flip and he shuts his own eyes and closes the gap between them. And the second he feels his lips lightly press on hers, he knows this is what was supposed to happen. He can’t kid himself anymore, and thankfully he doesn’t have to. There’s no fear of getting hurt. No more denial in order to protect his heart. Because she’s here, wrapped in his arms and kissing him back. He's aware of the slight flavor of her cherry lipgloss, and again of her flowery shampoo. His heart swells.

The kiss is lingering but light.  Dipper brings his hand up to tuck some hair behind her ear, and then lets it rest lightly on her cheek. Pacifica smiles against his lips and lets out a faint hum before unhurriedly, gently pulling back.

His eyes slowly open and he see hers do the same. He watches her eyes dart between the two of his, and in an instant and without warning she’s grabbing the front of his coat and pulling him back down to her for a quick but far more forceful second kiss.

A heartbeat later she releases his lapels and abruptly stands, grinning as she tugs on her mittens.

Dipper watches her helplessly, and he knows she’s committing to memory the dopey, lovestruck look on his face, but he can’t bring himself to care.

“Well we better get heading back to the Shack. These gifts aren’t going to wrap themselves!” she says with a wink.

She picks up some of the shopping bags.

“Not above manual labor now, princess?” Dipper remarks, rising and taking the rest in his left hand, head still spinning a little.

She grins and shifts the bags she holds to her right, reaches out to grasp his free hand with hers.

“What can I say, you’re turning me into a woman of the people.”

Dipper warms at the sensation of her small, mittened hand tucked snugly in his.

“So…” he starts, after a peaceful few minutes of the two of them enjoying their new, sweet intimacy. “I could… help you rehearse, if you want. Certain scenes anyway,” he adds with a crooked smile.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Pacifica giggles. “But let’s make sure to change the ending when we do. I think we can do better.”

[doreenconway-courtesan]

My services menu:

GFE/PSE/ML: Girlfriend Experience/Pornstar Experience/Make Love

XOXO/FK/DFK: Kisses&Hugs, French Kissing, Deep French Kissing

OWO/BBBJTCWS/NQNS/DT: Oral Without Condom, Bareback Blowjob to Completion with Swallowing, Non Quitter Non Spitter, Deepthroat

RO/DATY/69: Reverse Oral, Dinner at the Y, 69

BLS: Ball Licking and Sucking

CIM/CIF/COB: Cum in Mouth, Cum in Face, Cum on Body

FS, including A-Levels: Full Service, including Anal

MSOG: Multiple Shots on Target (cum as often as you like)

MMF/DP, MFF: Threesomes, Gangbangs, Double Penetration

BDSM: Bondage, Dominance, Sadism, Masochism (inquire about limits)

Excellent Mileage: competitive rates, negotiable rates, special offers, discounts, packages - all without reductions in service

[freetheshit-outofyou]

Last night in a reenactors blog a guy posted that he's finally got a 1963 dated canteen and canteen cup but needed a 1963 cover. So I checked my Bag-O-Canteens for him. The centerpiece of my canteens is my 1979 Jim Beam WWII canteen decanter. It sits on my desk and looks cool.

I had one 2 older canteens. The GP & F Co (1943) one was in the Callaway Mills (1945) canteen cover. The Vollrath (1944) canteen has no cover.

All the others are just current standard issue 1- and 2-quart canteens.

The last item(s) is my trusty old LVB (Load Bearing Vest) This was an experimental issue when I was in Panama. Our unit was selected as the tropical test bed unit. We all go tissued these vests and wore them for a few months. The DoD team came back down and we did about 10 questioners on the vest. We all got to keep them when the test bed was done. If I remember right the inside tag reflects it's experimental status. The Vests did replace the LBE (Load Bearing Equipment) for a little while but when MOLLE came out in conjunction with the Riflemen's issue gear the LBV's fell to the wayside. Now with everything attaching to your body armor there is almost no need for the LBV. The exception to that is the 40mm grenade vest. I have one of those someplace as well.

The two canteens on my LBV are the ones I was issued at my first duty station (Fort Bragg). Because they had us put tape on the Pro-mask drinking port CIF would not take the caps back so I just bought new canteens and turned those in. I started running two canteen cups in the Gulf War so I could cook in one drink in the other. I added the canteen cup stove then also. Although the one in the photos is a replacement, my first one got to hot and warped.

[dolljunk]

One of the things about my housemate is that he's a big Abbey collector and has a lot of parts hanging out. One of his regrets was getting Artclass Abbey but ripping out all her hair because she got glue head.

Surprisingly, at one of my local charity shops, I found another Art Class Abbey missing everything and a hand, but her hair wasn't too gluey. So she ended up snatching bald Abbey's body and accessories. I treated Abbey's glue head with Cif and after all that, I wasn't too jazzed about her face.\My housemate convinced me to wipe and repaint her, just make her look less wonky.

I did try my best to replicate the paint but this is a good case study of how I lean with my colour choices and the subtle changes I would make considering how much I like Abbey's usual paint.

[imreadydollparts]

So, we all know that I’ve been experimenting with getting rid of Mattel’s nasty head glue for years, now, and have settled on L.A.’s Totally Awesome in the US as my go-to product (CIF brand cleansers seem to work, too).

Here’s a link to a post with an overview and some other links:  https://www.tumblr.com/imreadydollparts/708236837686214656/mattel-head-glue

I don’t have the patience to dig up all of the reference links but over time a chemist on a Russian forum did some chemical analysis on the glue, discovered it’s either 1 part of a 2-part epoxy, or was mis-mixed so that it could never set, and suggested Xylene as a cleanser to remove it.

Xylene isn’t a very friendly chemical (though a paint thinner that is xylene based is often recommended for deflocking MLP without messing up their paint) and an art conservationist decided to try a friendlier surfactant called Triton X 114 which works on similar things as Xylene.

Triton X 114, when just a few drops are worked into gluey doll hair like shampoo (you must rub, friction is key, and add a little water) obliterated the glue. Glue gone. No glue left other than a little tackiness at the roots, which makes sense because the hair is so dense, there.

It can be purchased here:  https://museumservicescorporation.com/products/triton-x-114-1-pint

You want gloves.

Now, I don’t have a lot of glue headed dolls left. I sold them all because I didn’t feel like dealing with it, but I did get a little tube of Triton to test out because Totally Awesome treats glue head AND can deflock a My Little Pony without damaging her paint, and in the same vein of thought as Xylene to Triton, I hoped that Triton would work on G1 flocking glue, too! Having a single chemical that could strip flocking glue without hurting the factory paint would be really nice! T.A. does a decent job of it but I do often have to get out some acetone for thicker globs of glue.

I also dug up an old Venus McFlytrap head that had never been treated and a Goldie Locks head which I had used in a T.A. experiment some time back which was still gluey.

Well....... I have hard water, and we discovered that Triton doesn’t work nearly as effectively in hard water.

This is the same problem I have with products like Goo Gone. Goo Gone can dissolve the head glue, but I can NOT wash the Goo Gone out no matter how long I scrub with how much soap, because I have hard water.

After washing both Venus and Blondie were still rather sticky.

I did manege to grab a jug of distilled water, though, and it made a huge difference. Even with gloves on I could feel the surface texture of their hair change as the glue was washed away.

Very nice.

I did deliberately rub off Venus’s flocking (don’t worry it was already damaged) so I could clearly see how the glue was affected by Triton X. It was not.

Regardless of what purity of water I used, Triton does not do anything to MLP flocking glue and cannot be used to deflock a pony. Boiling hot water knocks the flocking off well enough and also gave me a good view of Triton’s effect on the glue. No effect, just like Venus.

I used a little acetone here so you can see that the yellowing is the glue which didn’t come off.

So.

Is Triton X 114 better at removing Mattel head glue than L.A.’s Totally Awesome?

The end results are about the same. You get clean hair that might be sticky still in denser areas.

-

Washing the hair with Triton doesn’t affect the glue remaining inside the head unless you get some inside the head and let it sit for a while. It’s kind of a pain to get out, again. You will have so many bubbles.

Again, the end result is the same as with a long soak with Totally Awesome. The glue that remains will have formed a crust on the outside of any chunks, and loose globs will come out or be easier to manually remove because the outer layer is no longer sticky.

-

Triton is faster at removing glue from the hair by a long shot. You might have to shampoo and rinse two or three times, but that’s still much faster than soaking for days to weeks in T.A.

-

You need a lot less Triton to treat a doll head than T.A. since you’re using a drop or two per head instead of having to fill a cup with cleanser and then change it now and then.

-

Triton is less effective in hard water which might mean needing more washes and taking longer/more water to rinse, whereas T.A. doesn’t lose any efficacy in hard water and is very easy to rinse.

Distilled water greatly improves Triton’s efficacy and ease of rinsing.

-

T.A. will strip off flocking glue and Triton won’t. If you’re trying to clean up a doll head with flocking do NOT touch the flocking while the head is wet or it will come off regardless.

-

T.A. will dissolve rubber bands (been so happy that works...) and plastic hair ties and Triton doesn’t.

-

T.A. is kind of stinky and Triton is scent-free.

So, honestly, neither is better at getting head glue out of Mattel doll heads, but both work.

If you enjoy the process of washing doll hair, don’t have the patience to wait, or maybe you can’t leave cups of concentrated cleanser laying around because you have kids/pets, you might want to go with Triton.

If you want a more hands-off, passive experience with removing head glue or don’t have time to stand around washing doll hair, Totally Awesome might be the best option for you.

Personally, I think both are pretty great and I’m just happy that there is something out there that works.

I am disappointed that it didn’t work for flocking, though. It would be very nice to be able to rub a nice soap into flocking and have that glue all just go away without taking the paint with it, wouldn’t it?

[firespirited]

Current desk crew, current books,

current project: Abbey needs pruning, a teensy bit more white plugs to her parting and to the other side to match (I don't have her exact match for her pale blonde so we want it to look like her hair ends with white at both edges). I repainted her lips (needs a little clean up of pink stuck on glitter) and need to decide about the iris.

She needs some bleaching in back using hair peroxide and corn starch (acne cream could damage her blue skin) but that can wait.

She got cif treatment twice to get to the remaining glue without using heat that would melt her kanekalon coloured streaks. i scraped around with sharp scissors and tapped the head hard once dry to remove all glue crumbs. She's super soft now, if not brushable because the bobble tinsel knots itself and the bubble tinsel is throughout the hair.

Totally worth it, I really like Signature Abbey and I don't find the repro as appealing. Degunking a nasty gluey mess was satisfying and could be spread out over several days.

[ouroborosorder]

I just saw the Secret Conditional Dialogue at the true ending of Void Stranger, some massive spoiler thoughts behind the read more:

So, if you have 1024 Karma / Justice at the fusion segment at the end of DIS, (which is AN INSANE AMOUNT. NO ONE SHOULD EVER DO THAT. DON'T GRIND FOR IT. JESUS CHRIST,) there's some special dialogue based on if you're playing as Lillie or Gray. And I honestly find this dialogue really really compelling.

Lillie, the whole time, is the exact opposite of everything every character is. Every other character in Void Stranger is desperate, trying to achieve a dream that they know they cannot reach, but they need to try anyway. "We are without hope, and yet we live in longing." Yet to contrast that, Lillie herself is without any strong conviction. She turns into an Egg at the end of her playthrough, she explicitly was not in the Void by choice, she's just another lost soul with no objective.

So I find it compelling that Gray's line about light becoming endless mirrors Cif's dialogue during her bossfight to such a strong degree. Add's dream was, we can extrapolate, to become human, a goal that they tried to accomplish when creating Cif - creating an artificial Manusya capable of Enlightenment. Cif, however, couldn't understand the idea of a dream or of striving for something greater. Cif was without dreams, and the desire to understand why someone would desire became her truest desire. They both dream of reaching beyond the bounds of their demon-ity, and achieving something greater, achieving something human. But in the end, Cif dies as a maggot, and Gray's light fades out.

But Lillie... doesn't get such a sad ending. She doesn't have a desire, going in. She just wants to be here, in this moment, because she loves her mothers. She doesn't have to live without achieving her dream, because she didn't have a dream to begin with. She's happy to live in this moment, to be with the people she loves one last time. But she dies, conscripted into someone else's war, never to spend the time with her mother she could have had in another timeline where Add didn't play their hand.

It's compelling in how Void Stranger plays with the themes of buddhism and desire that Zeroranger establishes, but plays with them much more purposefully and intentionally in this finale. Because I think all these endings are tragic. Those with a desire are destined to fail, but those without cast aside their humanity and become an inert object. It very much feels like Void Stranger is a game about the failure of "desire is the root of suffering." To lack desire and passion is to strive for nothing, to dream of nothing but the past's regrets. But to only look to the future is to reach for the stars, dreaming of an endless light that can only ever fade.

...But... I'd much rather look to the stars, anyway. I would much rather try to make my voice heard than not. Because... when I was asked if I could hear them... I felt... a desire to reply in kind.

[irrolyphant]

Timothy Olyphant, 55, is an actor who starred in Deadwood, Live Free or Die Hard, and Justified. He will star in the FX miniseries Justified: City Primeval this fall and currently co-stars in the Max miniseries Full Circle. He spoke with Marc Myers before the actors strike.

TIMOTHY:

You couldn’t get me out of the pool when I was a kid. We lived next door to a swim and racket club in Modesto, Calif.

I began regular swim practice at age 6. My older brother, Andy, took to tennis, which probably helped us get along. We were competitive. Our younger brother, Matt, did a little bit of everything and eventually became a water-polo player.

I was born in Hawaii, but we moved to Modesto when I was 3. My dad, Bevan, worked for Del Monte and left to work at E&J Gallo Winery soon after we relocated to California. He started in bottling and worked his way up to vice president of production.

My mom, Katherine, was a full-time mom. She was the nurturing type. Whether I won or lost, she’d always talk about how well I competed or how beautiful a swimmer I was, never about whether I won or not. She’s very sweet and encouraging.

Just as I was starting high school, my parents divorced. After they split up, we quickly figured out who was responsible for what. For example, our dad didn’t really know how to do laundry or cook. If we were going over to his place, we’d probably be eating out.

When you’re young, any time your foundation gets rocked, it sets you back a bit. I’d been a good student when my parents were together, but there definitely was a dip after the divorce. I kind of saw what I could get away with and wound up just an okay student.

I wasn’t in school plays. I’m not sure I saw that side of me yet. Instead, I was at swim practice and hanging with my buddies. I also liked to draw a lot, which I suppose is how I expressed myself.

I was a solid swimmer in the Central Valley. I set a CIF SAC-Joaquin Section Record and wound up with an All America Swimming Certificate. By my senior year, I realized swimming was my ticket out of town and certainly the only way I’d get into a great university.

I worked hard. After USC saw the times I was posting, they called to recruit me for the team. When I flew out to USC on my recruit trip, I met with the dean of the architecture school. He said there was no way I could manage both the swim team’s practice schedule and the rigors of the architectural program.

I asked him about the art gallery downstairs. He said it was part of the fine-arts department. I didn’t even know you could get a degree in that. I met with the fine-arts dean and asked if I could be on the swim team. He said we’d work it out.

Majoring in fine arts for me was like winning the lottery. In high school, I’d get in trouble for drawing when I was supposed to be doing schoolwork. Now, in college, drawing was my schoolwork.

After my senior year, I left USC several electives shy of a degree and didn’t finish until the pandemic. But before I left, I met some drama majors who got me thinking about acting.

By then, my college girlfriend, Alexis, and I had married. We moved to Seal Beach, south of Los Angeles, where I coached swimming. To fulfill some of my electives I took an acting 101 class at UC Irvine. I had a ball. It was a language I understood immediately.

I read Stanislavsky’s and Sandy Meisner’s books on acting. I realized that it wasn’t a frivolous pursuit but a craft on par with how artists I admired approached painting and sculpture. I told Alexis I was thinking about pursuing acting rather than a master’s in fine art. She said, “Tim, just do something. Just pick one thing and do that.”

The guy who taught the intro class was a graduate student who recommended I study with Bill Esper at the Esper Studio in New York. Fortunately, Alexis’s dad lived there and let us move into his place.

My career has been many little steps—a lot of one step forward, two steps back. I’m not sure if there was any one role that really changed things, but landing the lead in “Justified,” in 2010, certainly helped things along.

Today, Alexis and I live in Los Angeles and have three grown kids. We moved in 15 years ago and love the house and neighborhood. I still draw and swim.

Breakfast is my favorite meal. I make steel-cut oatmeal in my rice cooker, which has a porridge setting. When I come home from swimming and have my oatmeal, I feel like I’m 8 again. And you know what? That feels pretty good.

—————

Timothy’s Digs:

Full Circle? I play Derek in the miniseries about a kidnapping gone awry and the family secrets exposed.

Blissful space? Sitting in a blue chair in the kitchen having coffee with my wife.

Cool buy? A painting by an artist I’ve admired for at least a decade or so.

Tennis? I play with my brother and oldest daughter. The fact that they play with me means the world.

Youngest daughter? Vivian. She’s an actress in the coming season of Justified: City Primeval.

[lilyblackdrawside]

The friend whose playthrough of Void Stranger I watched and gently assisted with has now finished their playthrough. We've had a lot of fun, I had a particularly enjoyable kind of fun watching them struggle and then succeed and their disbelief whenever I said "Okay, now there's still something else" countless times. Witnessing their own approaches and thought processes with these puzzles was great, it's really a one-of-a-kind thing. It also felt nice that I got a lot of mileage out of the detailed notes that I had taken in the time I spent with the game.

Especially their joy in the Cif run after the grueling no-burdens Lillie playthrough was so good. I even got to lead them on like "Enjoy it while it lasts, this is a quick run and after this it's back to Gray for the real game.

We did both regular Gray endings, Lillie's hardmode, Cif's "Find Bee" ending, Trail of Traitors (I let them struggle against Cif for two sessions before telling them to just use the sword on one of the two options, that was particularly funny.) and then the dev room. I also just told them about some of the small stuff they missed such as Ninnie, Cif's B254 ending and the carcass ending cause at that point they were just exhausted and it was a good time to finally end it.

I can only hope that other players of this game can get this experience too.

[theoryandahalf]

Jerika and Dan Own My Soul

I love them, your honor.

My main complaint about CIF: the camera work and how hard it is to take screenshots of the looks. The models really needed to slow down. The six separate tones/styles for each creator was also a little strange but I don't go here, my idea of fashion is a sweatshirt from Target. I'm so not their audience lol.

Dan SLAYED but I cannot get a great photo of him as Monty to save my life ;_;

[coochiequeens]

There are so many people and causes that need legal help and the ACLU is helping this freak?

By Genevieve Gluck September 18, 2024

The ACLU has successfully fought to have a transgender baby killer be given taxpayer-funded “gender affirming” surgeries. Yesterday, the United States District Court of Indiana ruled that Autumn Cordellioné, born Jonathan C. Richardson, had been subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment” by being denied the various plastic surgeries he had demanded.

Richardson is currently serving a 55-year sentence for the murder of his 11-month-old stepdaughter. As previously reported by Reduxx, Richardson had been left to care for the child while her mother was at work. That night, he was visited by friends who observed he was “acting strangely” and refused to invite them in the house as he normally would.

Despite claiming the little girl was sleeping, Richardson had loud music playing in the home, and his guests noted that he appeared to have a fresh, bleeding tattoo of the child’s name carved into his arm. Shortly after his friends left, Richardson went to a neighbor’s home and asked them to call 911, claiming the child was unresponsive. The baby would later die at the hospital, with the cause of death determined to be asphyxiation by manual strangulation.

Richardson was booked awaiting a court hearing, and would later tell a prison official “all I know is I killed the little fucking bitch.” The following year, he was found guilty and sentenced to 55 years in prison.

In 2020, while incarcerated at the The Correctional Industrial Facility (CIF) in Madison, Richardson began identifying as transgender and taking estradiol, a synthetic estrogen, and anti-androgen spironolactone. Two years later, Richardson lodged a sexual harassment complaint claiming that he had been raped by his cellmate in 2005, and that he stabbed the inmate in retaliation.

Despite the brutal nature of his crime, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Indiana took up his case and launched a human rights lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC).

In the suit, which was filed in August of 2023, ACLU lawyers refer to Richardson as an “adult transgender female prisoner confined in a male institution,” and complains that “the total ban on gender-affirming surgery violates [his] right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.”

The suit was intended to challenge a recently-adopted policy stipulating that the IDOC cannot provide transgender surgeries to inmates. House Bill 1569, which took effect in July of 2023, bans the spending of state or federal dollars on sexual reassignment surgery for inmates. The bill, the ACLU argues, “mandates deliberate indifference to a serious medical need and therefore violates the Eighth Amendment.”

Among a list of demands prepared by Richardson and presented as evidence in court was a document titled “Surgeries to Reach My Ideal Self.” The first item on the list, the court heard, was a “vagina,” followed by: breast implants, a brow lift, a brow reduction, a tummy tuck, gluteal implants (BBL), a uterus transplant, hair removal, and wigs.

However, during court proceedings Richardson stated that he had amended his demands to two surgeries, an orchiectomy and a penile inversion.

In addition to identifying as transgender, Richardson identifies as “Muslim,” and is currently engaged in a separate lawsuit against his prison’s chaplain for being denied a hijab.

During his deposition, Richardson told the legal counsel for the IDOC, Alex Carlisle, that in 2018, he had been informed about gender identity by another male inmate at CIF who went by the name of “Pearl.” According to Richardson, Pearl had brought in pamphlets from California state prisons that explained the concept of “gender identity” and introduced to him, for the first time, the idea of taking feminizing hormones.

“I always knew I was a girl, didn’t know that term applied. Because until I talked to Pearl I didn’t even really know transgender was the name for it. I was hearing at the time that it was transsexualism and that didn’t seem to fit me because it was apparently people that like to wear girl clothes to have sex,” Richardson said in his deposition.

However, Richardson also stated that while briefly married to the mother of the infant he murdered, he had been working in an “adult bookstore” that sold pornographic videos. While employed as a janitor, Richardson would have sex with various male customers while pretending to be a “girl.”

Richardson further testified that he had taken the feminine name “Autumn” after his high school girlfriend, and said that he used to steal his sister’s clothing and his mother’s makeup as a youth. “When I put on the clothes, I could for a second realize the girl inside,” he said.

“I felt I was only a woman when a man used me,” Richardson remarked. “It was the only acceptable time to be a woman so it brought me a certain amount of satisfaction that I was pleasuring a man like a woman would and I got to express who I was.”

But the mother of the baby girl Richardson strangled to death opposed his legal bid to obtain surgery. Linda Thomas submitted a brief statement expressing her concern that his identity may be concealed from her when he is released from prison.

“On the day he murdered my child, I personally observed Plaintiff with a fresh bleeding tattoo of my child’s name on his arm while I was at the hospital that evening,” Thomas said. “I live in fear for myself and my children of the day [Richardson] is released from prison, which largely increases at the thought that [his] identity may be concealed upon release.”

ACLU attorneys under the leadership of Kenneth Falk attempted to have Thomas’ testimony dismissed as court evidence on the basis that “Ms. Cordellioné objected to the relevance of this declaration.”

During court proceedings, Kate Meltzer, a legal representative for the Office of the Attorney General, emphasized an issue of “timeliness” related to Richardson’s attempts to secure an early release.

On January 4th, Richardson had lodged a pro se request seeking a reduction of his sentence. According to Meltzer, Richardson’s request claimed that the “circumstances that resulted in the crime are no longer present,” as the motivation for the murder of the young girl was “tied to [his] transgender identity and [his] gender dysphoria.”

The court also heard testimony from Stephen B. Levine, a psychiatrist who specializes in sexual dysfunction and transsexualism, who founded the Case Western Reserve Gender Identity Clinic in Cleveland during the 1970’s. Levine was Chair of the fifth edition of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) Standards of Care in 1998. He also served on the American Psychiatric Association DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders.

In March of this year, while the case was ongoing, Levine emailed the Attorney General’s counsel Alexander Carlisle pleading with him to empathize with Richardson. According to Dr. Levine, Richardson’s condition “is a product of the need to find coherence, consistency, and stability”. The “countless traumas” experienced by Richardson, the gender clinician said, “began with her birth (actually with her pregnancy)”, indicating his belief that a transgender identity develops in utero.

As noted in court documents, in recent years Dr. Levine derived between 40% to 50% of his income from serving as an expert witness in litigation regarding the treatment of patients with “gender dysphoria”.

The ruling issued by Judge Richard Young on September 17 has far-reaching implications and sets a precedent for further surgeries and hormones to be doled out at taxpayers’ expense. The verdict declares that the statute added to Indiana’s legal code in 2023 barring the DOC from facilitating “medically necessary gender-affirming” surgeries for inmates qualifies as “sex discrimination.”

In a statement on Richardson’s legal win, ACLU of Indiana Legal Director Kenneth Falk said: “Today marks a significant victory for transgender individuals in Indiana’s prisons. Denying evidence-based medical care to incarcerated people simply because they are transgender is unconstitutional. We are pleased that the Court agreed.”

The ACLU has pursued multiple lawsuits in several states against the US prison authorities on behalf of men convicted of horrific crimes. As revealed by Reduxx, a 2019 ACLU lawsuit against the New Jersey Department of Corrections which required the state to allow violent male inmates to self-identify into the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women was lodged on behalf of a self-admitted diaper fetishist and convicted terrorist.

Last year, the ACLU of Florida criticized officials for not providing “gender-affirming care” to a convicted rapist and murderer prior to his execution. Duane Owen had been handed a death sentence after brutally murdering a 38-year-old mother and a 14-year-old girl in 1984. Owen claimed that he sexually assaulted women as part of a ritual to harvest their hormones, and that he was a transsexual who carried out the sexual violence to “turn himself into a female.”