#i've also been buying so many things that were on my wish list for months (if not years) and all have been great purchases.

[kxowledge]

in the last two years i've been buying high quality kitchen equipment - slowly over the months, after much research and much thought. so far i regret no purchase and all have improved my life significantly.

[saezurumurmurs]

A BL Platform For Everyone

NB: Please reblog this for visibility!

A little over two years ago, me and my BL crew were in our little chat sharing recommendations. 

Cat had an impressive spread sheet, Marcie and I had iCloud Notes, and it was pretty much chaos.

I looked at it and said out loud, "There has to be a better way for us to keep track of our reads and share recommendations. There has to be right?"

Cat said she wished someone would build a BL app with everything already there. Me, a developer of almost thirty years, paused while a floodlight (not a light bulb) went off in my head.

“Well I could maybe build one… cause like, I build stuff. How would that be?”

By the end of the conversation Cat had invited me to build an app for BL. 

Four weeks later, in late February of 2022, digitaljuicy.com was online. 

In the last couple of years, I’ve been listening to the fandom, paying attention to feedback, poured over analytics, read your responses to the Reader’s Survey and continued to craft a platform with all this in mind.

What I have been building is 100% for us... there is nothing but BL and it is an attempt to encompass ALL of BL. Not just the bits and pieces.

But for two years I've been struggling. Struggling in many ways, but specifically to get what I wanted out of the platform. I tried and failed so many times.

In September of 2022 I tried to raise venture capital to build the platform I wanted for us. I pitched it to accelerators and true blue venture capital.

Juicy is what is called 'pre-seed'. Which means were still so new and evolving, under-resourced and while there was interest, there was no joy. No funding was raised.

In December 2023, I realised it was time to rethink Juicy. i have been on the deepest dive for months rebuilding Juicy from the ground up and preparing the framework for the mobile app.

I’ve built something I want to use… and wild, I’m building it and using it as a fan at the same time. I'm at the point where it's impossible not to want to share.

And what kind of platform do I mean? At its most basic level:

You can track your reads, watches and plays

You can review and recommend the titles to the community, your friends, strangers on Twitter, your friend you're trying to corrupt outside the fandom. Your poison.

Timelines for you, for titles, for episodes, chapters… just about everything. I mean everything: The creators, the publishers, the studios, the actors... you can leave reviews and status posts on EVERYTHING. No algorithms, no force feeding... just discovery, recommendations and honest reviews by this community about our community and the industry we feed.

Collections! Lists of stuff you're reading, dropped, want to read, want to buy, love or hate, all pretty and organised and shareable..

A growing database resource of titles, tagged up to its eyeballs with a minutiae of data.. with reading an streaming links and anything else we find that we think is relevant.

But it is also a lot more than this.

I wanted it to be more than what it was. I want to turn Juicy into a mobile app, add some more functionality and more specifically, platform all of BL for its non-Asian fandom.

We get left out of so much, I feel like we need our own thing. 

I don’t know about ya’ll, but I was tired of being banned on social media for sharing content. How you gonna ban me for saying a 2D fictional character needs to be shot with shite and strung with cobweb? But they did… and I know it’s not just me.

What about the creators? How do they interface with the non-Japanese or non-Korean fandoms? On which misogynistic hell site?

What about the publishers and merchandisers? What about the little Etsy sellers? Why does BL have to hidden away in the databases of mangaupdates, anisearch and anilist? Why does every single manga tracker out there seem to have pitiful listings for BL? 

Is it because we’re a female or queer audience? 

Look at this lil video I made:

Either way, I’ve long felt it’s time for us to do our own thing. So I’ve been building it. Pixel by pixel. Feature by feature on my own.

Juicy has been a small chat group, but I’m the only developer. We’ve always been clear about what we wanted to build: A platform for the fandom, the creators, the publishers, the merchandisers… my goal is a one-stop platform for BL and I am damn close to presenting this new iteration.

This was and remains the core of what I’m building: The largest English platform for BL on the planet. The functionality is one thing, but building a database like that is not a one-person job.

So now I need your help.

First to keep the servers online, so I can continue to build and develop and finally, finally release the mobile app. I can't tell you how much I want that.

I’m close to pushing the new Juicy 3.0 out, and I’m very in love with the work I’ve done since December. It’s a new look, and it works 1000 times better than the previous iterations of Juicy.

I just have hit a wall financially, and need your help and support to get it over the line.

Juicy's ass is fat and I been carrying her mostly alone for two solid years. 

I’m going to launch a Kickstarter for this project in a bit so I can hire another developer  to help with the trickier bits and fine tune the mobile app, but for now, I felt a Patreon would at least help us keep the servers up and maybe, just maybe allow us to afford a few crucial bits that will elevate your experience as a user.

And because I’m a developer, and I can do some pretty kinky shit with APIs and such, if you support this Patreon campaign, you will get some nice feature perks on the platform automagically. You won’t have to pay again to access these perks in-app later.

As many perks as I can cook up anyway, not the least of which will be access to some of the nicer functions and features I’ve already built into the platform.

When the mobile app launches, you will get it first and for free! Plus we’ve been talking about a lot of other ways we can make the platform fun beyond what I've done already.

I plan to monetise the platform in various ways, but in a profit sharing model. You contribute to the database, you contribute content, you get a share of whatever the platform makes. This is already built into the system. This will be open to anyone willing, but to Patrons first.

Finally, I'm limiting the number of people who can subscribe via Patreon to 1000 people. Once we hit that number, the rolls will be closed to new membership, and everyone directed to the platform to pay for any services or merchandise.

My goal for this group of Patrons is that you become an exclusive and tightly knit inner circle.

My hope is that you will help me actively shape what Juicy will become. Your votes and say will carry weight. Your feature requests considered and if possible implemented first.

You will get access to exclusive merchandise, exclusive giveaways and promos (like free stuff), and exclusive programming from the team.

With your help we will produce an exclusive podcast for Patrons only discussing all things BL and Juicy (honestly our conversations are generally wild and hilarious... it will be a rollick for sure), along with other content for Patrons only. We've even planned watch parties and other fun shit... I swear, we want you all to be our greatest ambassadors so we are planning as many treats as we can.

Your access on the platform will be specific to your Patreon subscription and your treatment will be VIP for the life of your subscription.

Finally, the way my auADHD are set up, I have no interest in the dramas of the BL fandom, so this is never going to be about gatekeeping access to anything. It’s about making more access possible. You can help bring us all together and make us stronger as a group.

So do you think Digital Juicy sounds like something you’d like in on?

Okute Sea

Saezuru Murmurs

[thelaurenshippen]

Hey Lauren! I've just finished writing my first novel, I'm also the writer/creator of the audio series Life & Death on the Rim (Star Wars fan audio drama), and I've started my own company Galactic North Productions. What I really want to understand is how other writers/creators who are successful and profitable got there. If there are any insights you can give me I'm all ears, whether that's associations, conventions, marketing, etc etc I just really want to learn. Very determined. Thank you!

hey!!! first off, HUGE congrats on finishing your first novel, that's an incredible feat and you should be unbelievably proud!!!! secondly, I hadn't heard of this podcast before but as a huge fan of both star wars and fan works, I am absolutely putting it on my tbl list right now!!!!

so. this is a great question. and a hard question. and one that I'm probably going to spend way too many words answering, if I know myself at all.

I think this question, in part, depends on what you consider successful and profitable! for me, it's meant being a jack of all trades - a lot of my work has come from being someone who knows how to make a podcast from soup to nuts and from being a person who a lot of people know. you've already done the hard thing: making something. that's your resume, now get the resume out there!

I wish I could give advice about marketing and finding an audience, but honestly it's changed so much since I started out that I hardly know how to find an audience anymore. but the basic approach always stands I think: don't promo, build community. be authentic and enthusiastic, and hang out in online spaces that you're already excited to be in. share your passion with people. clearly you already know how to do that, making a fan podcast!

in terms of getting to know your peers, I always recommend people join the WGA Audio Alliance discord to get to know who else is working in the space and hear about events. I did meet a lot of people at events early on, but unfortunately a lot of those things don't exist anymore (or were one-offs to begin with) or were smaller, invite-only things. if you're in NY, LA, Chicago, or London, there are vibrant AD scenes, so seek those out and go to (or organize!) a meet-up.

knowing your peers is the single most important thing for getting jobs. with the exception of one cold outreach, every job I've ever gotten has been because I met somebody and vibed with them. stay in touch but not too much - don't email your industry contacts all the time, but every 8-18 months, reach out to folks and do a catch up zoom or coffee. but don't network just to network! get to know people whose work you really like. getting to know peers at your same level is just as - if not more - important as networking to those who are further along in success than you.

be incredibly findable. having the facebook page, instagram, etc. is great, but if you're a production company hoping to make money through providing services like producing, directing, writing, etc. (which is primarily how I've made a living - I don't really make money directly from my original podcasts), having a website is a must. if you don't want to pay for squarespace or wix, you can make a website through tumblr and then just buy a url and have it redirect (I wrote about this a bit in my production guide). same deal if you want to be hired as a writer - having a website or some kind of resume is huge. I'm not saying you need to have an instagram detailing your personal life or anything (for me, I get personal about my thoughts on social media, but I never post my family/partner/non-industry friends/etc. some creators have had massive success building mystery (lemony snicket, the team behind midst), but I have no idea how to do that lol

this is already too long, so to summarize: build a community, both in your audience and your colleagues, be very clear and open about the skills you have/services you provide, and, ideally, do a lot of different things that put you in front of a lot of different audiences. try a lot of things and stick with what works.

to speak more on my personal journey, just briefly: 90% of being successful in the art and entertainment industry is luck. I know that people always say that, and it sucks as advice because it's not advice at all, but it is just true. luck and timing. the only way to improve your chances are to make stuff, meet people, and be easily accessible.

I know that's all exceptionally broad advice - if you'd like to share more specifics about your career goals, I'm happy to get more specific too!

[bluestjayy]

Emotional Post/Vent under the Cut (but positive this time, I think!)

I've been suffering with chronic depression since I was about 14. I've cycled through therapy a lot, I've been on antidepressants since I was 18.

You get some good advice and you get some bad advice. And often this is also contextual to yourself. Some things that work really well for me might make other people worse, that kind of thing.

By far one of the best bits of advice I ever got was to find something to keep you alive right now. Doesn't matter how small it is. Doesn't matter if it feels silly or inconsequential, if it works, put it on a list.

A reasons to live list.

Recently as I've been in what I think might be the worst mental health state of my life this far, I started small. Really small. And I mean each reason bought me a few hours.

I can't die yet because I have to take the trash out and my roommate is too scared of the bin store to do it herself. I can't die yet because I have a food item in the fridge that will go off if I don't eat it today. I can't die yet because the youtuber I like just posted a new video so I should watch that first.

After that, you start to buy yourself days. It's I can't die yet because I kinda wanna see the Venom movie this weekend. I can't die yet because there's a new episode of my favourite show this week. I can't die yet because on Fridays we order takeout food and I'm really craving it.

Next comes weeks, and even in some cases, months. I can't die yet cause I bought the perfect Christmas present for my friend and I want to make sure she gets it. I can't die yet because I have a pre-ordered item arriving. I can't die yet because they're gonna make xyz show/movie and I want to watch it.

I can't die yet because I have unfinished stories I want to tell.

And now, I am getting to look further ahead before than I have been able to for a very long time. I'm getting to say things like, I can't die yet because I'm going to own my own place one day. I can't die yet, cause in a year or two I'm going to go to Thailand with my best friend. I can't die yet, because I want to be able to get a pet cat one day, and then I won't be able to die because they'll need me to take care of them.

It feels good, that all my small steps are adding up. It feels really overwhelming that I'm starting to see these little but very real changes in myself, that I can start to see a path to a future where I survive.

And wish I could tell many people, but specifically Jeff, Barcode, and Bible (+ the whole 4 Mins team tbh) how a lot of the time, especially in the early days - they were my reasons.

There were days I woke up and said I can't die today because Barcode has a new song I need to hear. Or I can't die today because Jeff is in concert and I'm not missing those fan cams. Week to week I would tell myself I can't die today because I need to know what the fuck is happening in 4 Minutes.

They've helped me get to the point where they're part of my much bigger goals. I can't die right now because I want to see Jeff perform live in person at least once, I can't die until we get Wuju Bakery AND Happy Ending on our screens. I can't die until Bible comes to Europe somehow.

And in all of this, if you're reading, I need to also say how this community has helped me so much. This little corner of the internet we have gathered together. So much of me waking up each day is tied to not wanting to miss the stories you write and the art you make and the meta you discuss and the GIFs and the fanvids and the brainrot. All of it. Has helped me keep going, so as much as the idol's we look up to, you're all very important to other people.

There's folk out there who think about you on their worst days and feel comfort. Who seek out your creations to soothe themselves. Who find community in your Tumblr blogs and discord servers so.

Thank you, I guess. To all of you, and of course, to the boys.

And for anyone else struggling. Find a reason. Any reason at all. Make a list, and stick with us.

The world is a better place with you in it 💛

[aceofthegreenajah]

13 books! tagged by @old-man-ghost

1)Last book I read I read Ocean at the end of the lane in two days recently. It was a very fun concept. It's the kind of book that would have left a lifelong impression on me if I had read it young. But now it was just one good book in a long line of others. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2) A book I recommend Let's go with a Taste of Gold and Iron. It's a very fun mystery, and the main character made me go. Wait. I know that feeling! I have a brain exactly like that too! (Riddled with anxiety and self-doubt at the most mundane things, but when things get serious, it's suddenly all business.)

3) A book that I couldn’t put down: I don't know if it exactly fits, because I wasn't fully invested from the start. But I did read all 500+ chapters of Omniscient Readers Viewpoint in just three days. And it is the only book I've ever read that make me go "Wait. I didn't know you could do that with a book." There are so many levels of meta in this book. It's like three books in one.

4) A book I’ve read twice (or more): I reread a ton of books. Let's go for Kalevala just because I was reminded of it while taking the picture at the end of this post. I used to read it every 6 months or so as a teenager. When we were told to read it for school I just read it again instead of telling anyone I'd read it like six times already.

5) A book on my TBR: One that has been there for ages is the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. I hope to get around to it one day. I already bought it after all.

6) A book I’ve put down: Putting things down (as in meaning to continue then forgetting about it) happens often. Putting down and deciding not to continue very rarely. Last was The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. I have no idea why. In concept is sounds like just my thing and I have enjoyed her other books. My mind just couldn't get a grip on it, my attention always started to waver instantly.

7) A book on my wish list: I want an ORV official english translation SO BAD. Where is it??? It's announced and everything! Same for Nirvana In FIre, actually. Usually if I wish for a book I just buy it. It has to not exist to stay on my wish list long.

8) A favorite book from childhood: How young are we talking? Roald Dahl's witches book was my favourite at age 5. His dark materials at age 8. Good omens at age 12. Farseer trilogy at age 14. (all ages approximate)

9) A book you would give to a friend: 've gifted two people with All systems red. I would love to give it to everyone I know.

10) The most books you own by a single author: Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. As long as all 8 physical tgcf books and 4 svsss books count as separate. Though Brandon Sanderson comes very close. I think I have 7 of his books as physical copies and a few as audiobooks.

11) A nonfiction book you own: The Dawn of Everything is both excellent worldbuilding material, and really opened my eyes on how uncreative and stuck I was about how societies 'must' work. Applicable to real life as well.

12) What are you currently reading: I am still reading Exordia. It is an excellent book I'd recommend to everyone (as long as you are not particularly sensitive to body horror). But that is also why I'm going slowly because I only want to read it when I can concentrate properly. I am also reading Trash of the Count's Family when I need a less serious book, and an isekai manga, and What technology wants. The best way for me to read stuff is read whatever I feel like at the moment.

13) What are you planning on reading next? I got The Traitor Baru Cormorant at the same time I got Exordia so that's probably next.

My shelfie (one of several bookshelves. I should really weed them):

[hua-fei-hua]

tag game from @cadriona~~ 15 questions for 15 mutuals

1. are you named after anyone? uhhh my middle name comes from like, One of my white ancestors, though i don't remember the exact tracing of the bloodline rn

2. when was the last time you cried? honestly not sure, but i feel like it was not terribly long ago. less than a month ago, i think; i can be a crybaby sometimes

3. do you have kids? legally no; biologically also no; but emotionally? the number is fathomless.

4. do you use sarcasm a lot? i don't feel like i'm a terribly sarcastic person, but many other people disagree. just today one of the kids at work asked me why i use sarcasm a lot! i think at this point my habit of "saying ridiculous things with full sincerity and then expecting people to understand that its sheer absurdity means it's a joke (but still actually doing said ridiculous thing if people call it a bluff)" is just hard for people to parse in general, but since i just roll with whatever they think i'm being, it's not a big deal.

5. what sports do you play/have played? this question is so funny bc recently i've been joking that i'm the only non-jock at my workplace, but my coworker in aquatics tried to rope me into lifeguarding for the summer when he found out i could swim, and i did marching band in high school. oh, and i took a fencing course in uni before plague.

6. what's the first thing you notice about people? their jacket, then their hair. if you change both of these things at once i might have trouble recognizing you.

7. eye color? brown. you know how dominant genes are.

8. scary movies or happy endings? for the most part happy endings, but if you're too saccharine about the beginning and middle then i'm going to wish you gave me a scary movie instead.

9. any special talents? i can do calligraphy with italic / oblique pen tips (think gothic blackletter, even tho gothic is probably one of my shittiest hands); i can burp at will still; i can touch type at around 92 wpm (certified)

10. where were you born? in a hospital <3

11. what are your hobbies? good lord that's a doozy these days. regularly i read n write fic (obviously), play genshin (still), study fandom (specifically the weeb sphere and its history), and code my shrine of cringe neocities. (and also sometimes stream any one of these things to friends) irregularly i watch youtube, keep a diary, read manga n watch anime, press flowers, do calligraphy, scanlate manga, typeset n bookbind fic (physically restrained by everyone from buying $500 worth of fonts bc Literally no one understands my font disease except other typesetters) mostly, but i have god knows how many other dormant hobbies (arranging music, editing fonts, edit videos, etc.) hiding in the cracks that i should probably just put on a resume by this point. you know how it is with adhd.

12. do you have any pets? not anymore, unless you count [pet] projects, in which case yes, the spreadsheet project abt fandom migrations in particular

13. how tall are you? abt 5'6", more specifically 166.4 cm.

14. favorite subject in school? chemistry, though i english/literature was a close second, and math (aside from geometry and statistics) is still beloved.

15. dream job? someday i'm gonna teach chemistry to a bunch of high school idiots, and i'm gonna love them all so fucking much, and i'm gonna be so fucking happy that i'm still alive.

tagging (if you want!!) @stardust-make-a-wish @reach-4-thesky @cece-0708 @yongnep @kanonavi @krackerka @isnt-it-pretty @yume-fanfare @aranarumei @italiantea and now staring at my mutuals list i have started to lose my nerve so i'll leave it at ten LOL but if you wanna do it too you can just say i tagged you ( •̀ ω •́ )y

[nancypullen]

Hello, October!

Oh, how I've missed this beautiful month. October is the best month of the year and you can't change my mind. What other month spends thirty days painting the world with jewel tones and then ends it all with a big costume party? I love my birthday month, but I do consider it just one long October Eve. And speaking of costume parties, I know a little girl who is very excited about dressing up for Halloween. Let's start at the beginning. Our precious grandgirl started kindergarten in September. She loves it. A couple of weeks into school the kids were tasked with bringing a "Me Bag" for Show and Tell. They were supposed to bring a few things at home that are special to them and basically tell the class about the things they like. A short time later there was a sort of open house at the school and this is what Tyler sent us.

Just a few short days later, she was out shopping with her parents and the very same girl who had been saying that she wanted to go trick-or-treating as Jasmine spotted this and declared that she had found her Halloween costume. I wish I could show her face because she is quite pleased with herself in the photo. Looks like she wore it right out of the store.

Is that a precious little witch or what? I wonder if her classmates went home and told their parents that there's a witch in their class. Much like her Grancy she may end up on prayer lists far and wide. Too funny.

While we're on the subject of magic, guess who colored her hair? I thought about it for a long time. I'd grown out the white for a year and though I didn't hate it, I also didn't love it. I suppose I just wasn't ready. I placed an order to Sally's (the closest one is about 40 minutes away) and chose a color I'd safely used over and over. Good ol' 9NN. I'm telling you, when I mixed the color and developer I felt like a junkie cooking up fix. I couldn't wait. The color is not what I remembered. Yikes. Maybe it seems darker because I spent so long with white hair. But I'm fine with it.

I hope that neck wrinkle is caused by the seatbelt and not old age. Pretty sure it's age. Oh well. I was actually on my way to a dinner with women! You guys, I'm trying so hard to break into this town and find friends. It really shouldn't be this hard. I swear I don't stink and I'm really very nice. I have even applied for a job. It's with the library, the same library that kept turning me away as a volunteer. I'm more than qualified, do you think I'll even get a call? I'll be surprised if I do, but I'll keep hope alive and try to keep positive thoughts. If it doesn't happen, life will still be dandy. Besides, I know a little witch who might be able to cast a spell for me. Alright, enough of this prattle. My bag is waiting by the door and I'm heading to bed early to try to sleep before our early morning wakeup. I can never sleep the night before a trip. I suppose I could nibble a gummie. I have to leave those behind because Ireland has very strict rules about any sort of cannabis product and I really don't care to be nabbed at customs and thrown in prison. I've seen enough episodes of Locked Up Abroad to know that I'm too nice for prison. Looks like I'll be popping ibuprofen for a couple weeks. A little discomfort in exchange for castles and the Cliffs of Moher That's a good trade. Oh, the word comfort reminds me. One of the many gift cards I received on my 60th was an Amazon card. One of the purchases I made with it was this outfit to wear on the flight.

I will admit, that for just $29 I did not have high hopes - but it's fabulous!! So comfy, so soft and light. It's wonderful! Four pieces, the jogger pants, a short sleeved tee, a tank, and a cardigan, all in a lightweight jersey-type fabric. I love it so much that I'll definitely buy it in another color (my set is basic black). It runs true to size, so just order your regular size and it should fit just fine. Here's a link:

I'm really leaving this time. Going to grab a book and hopefully read myself to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day. Because of an airline schedule change we have an extremely long layover in Toronto, like most of the day. Maybe that will work in my favor and I'll conk out on the flight to Dublin. I rarely sleep on planes and that makes me bleary-eyed on arrival. This might be just the thing to make me tired enough to get some shut-eye on the way over. Fingers crossed. Next post will be from Ireland. Our Air BnB supposedly has excellent wi-fi, probably better than many of the hotels we've stayed in on past trips. That's good news. Brace yourself for too many photos. Stay safe, stay well. XOXO, Nancy

[wri0thesley]

Omg, a monthly date night! That’s such a good idea, I really hope things work out so you’re able to do that together! Please send Haz my well wishes too!

And 🤔 maybe I’ll set my goal to 150 as well. I’m also a fairly fast reader and I know I can knock out a few good sized novels every month, but burn out is my big concern with that. However, I’d really like to get back into writing again after a year of mentally struggling and I want to kind of relearn some things, so I’d like to read as many different kinds of stories as possible. Different authors, different genres, different perspectives and themes! I took a peek at your wishlist and some of those books looked really good! Tbh I’m STRONGLY eyeballing this one for myself

Sadly, I’m an old lady 👵 and I don’t really know how these Amazon wishlists work. Do you update them when you’ve obtained the item so you don’t get doubles? If I buy you something off it does it just go straight to you? Please let me know, because I want both of us to have this book. 😂 The cover alone is worth it imo.

i hope so! i love the cinema and we both love the theatre and we've been thinking about ways to make more physical dates (haz wants to go bowling, we love arcades, we've done escape rooms in the past!) a little more manageable for them, so fingers crossed!

i love short story collections and i always find them really good for burn-out, honestly! but changing genre and theme and style will probably also help a lot; my picks tend to vacillate between fantasy (though i like fairytale style fantasy more than high fantasy), historical, horror and sci-fi, which gives me a pretty broad scope! gothic horror and this kind of mannered gaslamp fantasy being currently popular means i've got a breadth of content to read fgbkjnjnk. i also don't mind young adult which gives me a HUGE amount more to enjoy too (there's also something to be said about how easily anything fantasy written by a woman is shelved under young adult even when it's not, but . . .).

yes!!! i LOVE that cover. so spooky. so atmospheric. the book i took into 2023 is by one of the contributing writers for that one, and i have another book by one of the other writers in my tbr pile. i find anthologies are also really fun for finding writers whose voice you vibe with too! i recently fell into the trap of looking at all those subscription boxes that send like, beautiful special editions of books and oh so many of them are so so pretty . . .

i am PRETTY sure once something has been purchased from an amazon wishlist it either says that it has been purchased or it is taken off the list, haz bought me some with a giftcard earlier this month and they were automatically removed! i also think they automatically go to the registered wishlist address (it made me pick it, so i hope so!). but please do not feel obligated, the thought means a lot to me! ;w;.

[bougonia]

Hey OP, sorry in advance for the essay but you stumbled upon something I've been thinking about a lot recently. Yes, perfumes are more popular due to advertising but it extends far beyond scentbird.

So... I just (rather abruptly) snapped out of a several-months-long fixation on fragrance. I had always been somewhat interested in fragrance from a sensory-seeking perspective but a few months ago I was reminded that there were various online communities about fragrance, a switch flipped in my brain, and I became completely obsessed. Spending hours and hours per day on various subreddits, websites, and blogs dedicated to personal fragrance.

While I did spend a lot of time just earmarking different scents that I wanted to try (most of which I never actually tried-- it was more of a "the research is the fun" kind of thing), I also became familiar with the culture surrounding perfumes, how we talk about them, and why they're having such a big cultural moment right now.

Up until recently, fragrance had more or less been a woman's game. There was enough cologne enthusiasts to keep the industry going and your average man would have a bottle or two, but if you pulled a random person off the street and asked if they wear fragrance daily, more women were going to say yes than men. Here's a survey among university students from 2020-- 56% of men vs 81% of women.

But as much as the recent trend targets women and girls, it has affected men and boys far more. In January 2023, r/perfumes had 21.2k members and has now increased by (a still absurd) 480% to 123k. r/colognes, on the other hand, had a mere 7165, and has now increased to 92k, an increase of almost 1200%. That is more than double the rate of growth. For context: reddit's userbase as a whole has increased about 21%.

(I wish I could get better data, including when the majority of users joined up, but because of reddit's API changes last year that's not really feasible)

To be clear, I do get that a certain amount is just due to the natural consequence of diminishing returns. Since more women were interested fragrance in the first place (enough to join a subreddit, anyway), there's a larger body of potential men and boys who could become consumers. But what makes people get "into" them in the first place? Obviously (and as OP pointed out) advertising.

And boy howdy are they advertising to men and boys. Specifically cisgender, heterosexual males aged 13 to 25. (Yes, 13. There was a New York Times article about the rise of designer cologne among teenage boys.)

There are so many tiktokkers and youtubers who are recieving promotional bottles of very expensive scents (seriously, it isn't uncommon for a single bottle to cost >$250, and a $100 bottle is often considered inexpensive) in return for hyping them up.

There are so many youtube videos that are top 10 lists of perfumes you need to buy Right Now using terms like "panty dropper", "smellmaxxing", and "beast mode". An emphasis is put on how the perfumes will get you compliments, how ladies love them, and how they are "the best scent" (which I find absurd; scent is a very subjective experience).

But why are boys watching these videos in the first place? What drew them there?

I actually don't necessarily think this was initially a calculated move by the perfume industry. They're encouraging and capitalizing on it now, for sure, but I don't think the initial domino was intended at all.

In my opinion, ground zero for the cologne phenomenon: Jeremy Fragrance.

Jeremy Fragrance has been a fairly popular youtuber for some time now, having been reviewing fragrances since 2014. But around December 2022, he began to go viral for his odd behavior. Interest in him died down for a little bit, but then again in March 2023 he goes viral again. After that, the previously eccentric man began an extended meltdown (theorized to be the result of cocaine usage) that cemented him as a target of parody and mockery. For lack of a better term, he became a lolcow. Clips of him would frequently go viral on tiktok-- particularly (albeit not exclusively) among teen boys and young men.

And that tiktok virality had an interesting side effect. As anyone who has ever used tiktok can tell you, it has a tendency to send you down rabbit holes. For all intents and purposes, Jeremy Fragrance was a fragrance reviewer. So you and your buddies watch a few of his videos, have a good chuckle, and then tiktok keeps showing you fragrance reviews. And hey, this sounds kind of interesting actually, maybe this would help me with women...

Eventually the tiktok algorithm recognizes that other content for teen boys and young men is frequently viewed alongside cologne reviews. So other members of that demographic get those reviews. And so on and so forth-- a self-reinforcing loop.

This is a major win for fragrance companies. More interest in reviews = more reviewers = more people to get to shill for you.

Of course, I don't think Jeremy Fragrance is the only factor. I don't think people would have taken to fragrance in the same way if there wasn't already fertile cultural soil for such a trend.

I suspect the (perceived or real) disenfranchisement of boys, the same atmosphere that bred manosphere content, is at least partially to blame. There's certainly some overlap in rhetoric. I can also imagine it's a reaction to the ubiquitous punchline that teen boys are smelly and gross.

I think a similar thing happened among women, except with a bunch of smaller, less conspicuous factors. Instead of the viral smash of Jeremy Fragrance, they had the "clean girl", skincare, and other trends that encouraged girls and young women to buy all sorts of products to perfect their bodies, fragrance included. Fragrance companies, having perfected social media marketing, could pull the same tricks.

(The idea of needing to have a different perfume for every occasion/season is more or less a new phenomenon outside of hobby circles. Sure is convenient for perfume companies, though...)

The increase of girls' interest in perfumes is more or less ignored. Granted, it's not as striking as teen boys suddenly spending thousands of dollars on niche and designer perfume, but it is a massive increase. But hey, women are supposed to be into perfumes, after all. It's just another one of those costs of femininity that we expect women to bear.

Obviously a lot of this is just speculation on my end. My suspicion that it's Jeremy Fragrance's fault is especially suspect. But a lot of this is based on trends that I have noticed, and I'm far from the only one.

Anyway, I love the idea of perfumes. I love having a scent that you really like that you can smell whenever you feel like it. I like coming across something and thinking, woah, I didn't know perfumes could smell like that. However, I am very disillusioned with the perfume industry, and I especially hate the way that they utilize social media to push their overpriced products (which have been getting more and more expensive!), especially to young people who lack the critical thinking to realize they're being advertised to.

"advertising doesn't work" the increase in scentbird ads and people talking about a "personal signature scent" directly correlates with my family's interest in perfumes. Even if they're not using scentbird, something probably changed to make them want perfumes more, right?

[tiger-moran]

Also there's this post going round where someone who I already had blocked for reasons I don't remember though maybe it was that post that made me block them who knows anyway it's them basically mocking people for not reading loads of books per year and saying essentially anyone who doesn't read many books per year, their opinions on everything are uninformed and worthless, and it pisses me off no end.

I mean not only is it condescending as hell

and absurd to make it sound as if reading books is the only possible way to get information and a broader viewpoint on things

it's also basically ableist as fuck too to expect everyone to be able to read countless books

and it's ignoring the fact that many people can't afford to read countless books (and sorry but 'free ebooks and libraries exist' does not solve that problem, there are loads of reasons why both those options are useless for many people, especially many disabled and poor people)

And I am just... I am sick of wasting my time and money getting and reading books that I turn out to hate. Like even only within the past two or three years, just off the top of my head there's been Caroline Akrill's fourth book in the eventing 'trilogy', a series I loved as a child and still liked when I reread it as an adult but I hated the fourth book, it was like she'd forgotten anything and everything which made the original series engaging (possibly not surprising when she wrote it like 30 years later (and it really really showed, despite it being supposedly set right after the original series) and I really genuinely wish she hadn't bothered); Lights of Prague which was so, so boring; some Sherlock Holmes anthology, I don't know which it was since I sold it months ago, which I didn't give a damn about no not even the story involving Moriarty and Moran because it was the standard 'they are awful people and we have to defeat them' shit and despite how other people made it sound they were barely in it anyway while it was mostly about Mycroft, a character I really don't care about; Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell or whatever it's called which had the distinction of being the first book I ever managed to fall asleep while sitting up in the middle of the day reading it because I found it so tedious; the Frey and McGray series which I stuck with despite not liking a lot of elements but I did at least like the main characters (or at least I liked them when they weren't drugged and being horrible to each other) but I enjoyed the last book in the series so little I've now put the entire series in my 'to sell' box; The Magpie Lord which was just awful anyway and contained a relationship dynamic I really dislike as well. There were probably others I've repressed all memory of. Even some other stuff I liked, it kind of... degenerated for me the further it went. Like for example I did quite like most of Caroline Graham's Inspector Barnaby series but I really didn't like the last one, I didn't like a lot of it anyway and then by the end it went way too weird as well.

I am genuinely at the stage now where I just... don't dare risk buying (and therefore reading) any more books because this keeps happening, so many of the ones I do risk buying I do not like at all, but I am sick of there being nothing I want to read, of every single list of 'recommended books' being lists of stuff I haven't got the slightest interest in reading not least because so, so much now seems to be 'young adult' stuff. I do not want to read about children! I do not want to read about teenagers! And I certainly do not want to read about teenagers and their romantic relationships (or usually, it seems, ~love triangle~ shit)! (What happened to books about adults? Because going by most of the lists I've seen unless you want ~classic literature~ books about adults over the age of about 20 barely exist any more)

I'm sick of it being impossible to find anything else I want to read because nobody is writing it or publishing it, stories with the type of characters and relationships and other things I have an interest in... they do not exist. I have searched time and time again and I am not finding anything.

And if I ask anywhere for recommendations mostly all I seem to get is people recommending me stuff that bears no resemblance to what I'm actually asking for (post-WWII is not Victorian!) and where people seem to assume a book simply being ~diverse~ in some way somehow automatically makes it an amazing flawless book that I'm going to absolutely love every moment of reading, also very often all they recommend are ebooks I can't read anyway and/or books that cost like £15 each which I can't afford.

And then those shits start ridiculing and demeaning people who don't read many books.

[tomyo]

Kingdom hearts 3, finally finishing it 4 years later

A game I honestly didn't think would be off this list for a while. I bought the game when it came out and then never finished it because I was using my roommate's PS4.

Recently a friend lent me his PS4 now that the PS5 exists and after months of con season I finally sat down with it. I had intended to start from scratch until I learnt the several hours I played on the guest account where erased and my sanity would not allow several hours of tutorial again.

In the end, I bought a psn membership and reached out to that old roommate which was a nice experience. I missed them but have always just been to much in my bullshit to reach out until apparently *this*.

Maybe the funniest thing to say about all of this is this is my first and only time I've played a kingdom hearts game meaning my gameplay expectations were average. I had a goofy fun time after not having to play Olympus a third time and I relate to smooth brained Sora a lot, vaguely I get what's going on but I don't give too many shits. Yeah the start of the key blade war was a mess but my little gay ass cried at every XIII trio and co moment. That ending CG cutscenes was too short but I could easily wax on about how these characters have constantly sacrificed and gone through tragedy often in the name of each other and the hope that those in front of them could move forward. The prequel trio went through tragedy, the main trio constantly just out of reach from each other, the XIII trio stuck in an amnesiatic limbo and so forth. The fact most of them got to literally do fun kind shit together was a nice miracle.

Also bawled at the union cross cameos even though I barely played it. I love tragedy and I did earlier this weekend stop to let my avatar cry scared at their own death in the middle of war so the idea that maybe some actual users got to see their names on screen attacking the enemies but hard. Even though I haven't played the series, it's a permanent part of my life just from the cultural zeitgeist it caused in my adolescence. I wish they gave it more impact if anything but I get it, it wasn't something everyone was for.

Obviously though the biggest issue is Kairi per usual. Utada's song are sort of like a thematic tone to each chapter in the series with a theory that Kairi's designs being inspired from Utada's image at each point. Chikai is not just a love song but a wedding song, the progression from an immature and insecure relationship in the first one to one stubbornly proclaiming it's now or never with your devotion to me. It's a song meant to stand at the end of everything, it's someone waiting for you to meet them in the distance. I remember desperately trying to avoid spoilers for these past four years but being suggested from what I couldn't avoid that Kairi had proposed marriage to Sora at the end. It's also usually Kairi who gets a lot of attention in the CG openings and endings. The natural idea of this all is that it's sealing the idea of Sora and Kairi recognizing each other as a couple and potentially a maturing relationship from when they were children even though like, I don't even think two years have passed in world??? Either way she gets worse than nerfed at the end. You don't get to play as her, she doesn't get to do A N Y T H I N G aside from being said to still believe in Sora and be his emotional angst. And then she is kidnapped and killed. The worst is it failed to make it matter to me. The are a lot of reasons why everything with Kairi just did not hit any emotional level whatsoever as a Kairi stan. Riku had more romantic tension with himself on the beach honestly. And yes, I acknowledge there was literally a gay rainbow bonded key blade. I didn't really ever ship anything with kingdom hearts but I now believe in Sora and Riku I guess. Also the old dudes probably making out. Yeah, wasn't even pissed at that anticlimactic heel turn with the big baddie. Side note, buying the game was 100% worth it to have the immersive experience of Goofy and Donald call out for my from the controller. A+. Just, man, Kairi was more blank than wood this game despite them trying to say she was important. I think for a series so central on the bond of it's trios, keeping her out of the main fights was such a bummer.

Also I am not paying $30 for the dlc when I have already given the game $70+ of my money. I will absolutely watch a video of that instead.

Either way I'm happy I can finally watch videos that sat in my YouTube watch later since 2019 and I happily look forward to KH4. Bitches who know me know I'm a sucker for Shibuya and honestly I should have bought the world ends with us in the ds when i had the chance. Might come on my lists because street style is so big in that game.

With that one of the two most intensive games on this list can be crossed off. The other being GTA 5 but I also don't really plan to jump on that anytime soon. More concerned with playing the Kinect games on my 360 lmao.

[justmehernthemoon]

hey kaitlyn! somehow we're already more than halfway through the month, isn't that wild? 2022 is slipping away right before our eyes. anyway, hope you have a great weekend!

also, I wanted to lyk that I'm going to be travelling a bit soon so hopefully I'll still be able to send you these but I'm not sure I'll have time/opportunity to check every day. got any big plans for the last two weeks of the year?

idk when I'll have time to watch yellowjackets but it's been on my list for forever, I'm sure I will eventually! personalized vans are so cute, those sound really special 😊 for me it's probably my rings, I have one that I got to make myself which was super cool and one of those little wave ones, buying it was basically the last fun thing I did before the pandemic. I only know english!! I've studied a bunch of languages, but none really stuck, I didn't start young enough to have a good head for languages unfortunately. I never got into euphoria either tbh, my friends were telling me about it and how wild it was kinda turned me off of it honestly. I agree the looks are iconic though 😂

questions for today!! what's one skill you wish you were good at? what's your favorite emoji? if you could talk to one person, alive or dead, who would you want to meet and what would you talk about?

-✨

hiiii ✨

it’s so weird how close to 2023 we are 🥴 i genuinely can’t believe it’s already nearly next year time moves so quickly but so slowly ����

no worries about that, just enjoy your travel!! i hope you have a smooth trip :-) I don’t have too much planned but one of my friends from high school will be around so i am excited to see her!! i visited her when i was in LA in October and i miss her so im really looking forward to it :)) also going to do an escape room with some friends and do some fun stuff on NYE :D plus christmas w my family we have breakfast and stuff so looking forward to thaaaat, what about you?? any fun plans? :-)

oh that ring sounds so cute!! and fun that you got to make it yourself omg love crafty stuff :)) I love rings they’re one of my favorite accessories i have so many but i always get worried wearing them bc I am such a fidgety person and worry i will lose them skskd

hmm I wish i was good at picking up languages just really wish i knew two well, or that i could sew and stuff it seems so useful 😭 and also wish i could draw well ! what about you?

😵‍💫🫣🫡 are my favorites rn lol, 🌝 is a contender as well. what is yours??

hmm that’s so hard, but i wish I had been able to meet my mom’s grandma, she talks about her so much and i wish i had a chance to meet her. what about you?

sending you hugs and hopes for travels, happy sunday!! ♥️♥️

[thepeakyfckingblinders]

White Lies - part II || Thomas Shelby x reader

⤠ MASTERLIST⤟

↬ Part One ↫

Summary: White lies can lead to tragic outcomes.

Warnings: swearing, angst, a tiny hint of violence, May Carleton insert, slight smut

Author’s notes:

Behind each one of these works there are sleepless nights and something really close to multiple mental breakdowns, so, please, take a minute to send me a message about it, I need actual feedbacks to understand how to improve my skills and grow ♡

I’m sorry babes, for everything. Love you ♡

Also this is getting me on my knees, I've been through a terrible writer's block (I'm still dealing with it tbh) so I know this second part won't be as good as the first one, can't put into words how frustrating it is for me, wish I could do better, but apparently I just can't now. Hope you'll like it anyway.

If you want to be added to my tag list, please, directly message me

I’m Italian, English isn’t my first language, so I apologize for every possible mistake I made. Also, please, help me improve my writing by telling me if there’s something wrong

ENJOY!

Your hands kept trembilng with nerves while you tried to stuff as many things as possible in the beige luggage Thomas had bought in Lambeth earlier that month, in view of his upcoming business trip to Brighton; or at least that was what he had fed you: new opportunities coming from international sea trades, something they couldn’t have missed, he said.

Well, if that was true, he wouldn’t have had much trouble in buying a new one.

All at once, a painful knot of mixed emotions dug into your venter, leading your teeth to pitylessly drown in your lower lip, in a desperate attempt to hold back tears; curled locks falling before your eyes with every abrupt movement you made in order to leave that house without coming across your fianceé. Yet, unfortunately, there was no way to avoid the compulsive thoughts haunting you. Ruthless flashes about your recent encounter at the Garrison flooded your sore mind, bringing along a wave of vivid images freshly framed by your brains, splitting your breath in a thousand little shards and corroding your trust with each passing second.

You could see him, holding her the way he did with you, placing his callous palms around her waist and letting his fingers viciously pierce her exposed skin only to bring her closer and closer, as if to erase the boundary between their bodies.

You could see his volluptuos lips, stroking the spot right beneath her jaw, whispering profane words against her fervent flesh in an obscene confession, waiting for her to redeem all of his sins with the inviting warmth of her thighs.

You could see his marble hips, diving in hers again and again, conducing an unmerciful assault; the sweetest battle to fight, one able to mend his intangible war wounds.

For a brief moment, the walls revolved around you, creating a pale vortix tainted by the bluish light filtering through the windows without any cloud to cross its path; night had fallen on Birmingham and that melancholic atmosphere just made everything harder as your watery irises run upon every corner of your bedroom, unintentionally trying to absorbe each detail of the safe heaven in which your love had flared and expired.

That was a burdensome decision to make, but you were well aware of how those things worked; you had seen it on your mother's flesh, you had seen hope sprout into her eyes every time your father came back home, hands holding his cap and face performing the most compelling expression of guilt. On a regular basis, he begged her to forgive his weakness, that's how he called it; still now you knew there was no weakness in what he did, he wanted to, he deliberatley chose to act that way. Every single time, he promised not to hurt her again, and every single time, she embreaced him, turning her other cheek, because it's what you do when you love someone, that's what she said while he prepared to slap her again; yet you knew now that affection should grow out of respect, that loving someone shouldn't leave you wretched, never. Thereby, your childhood had passed watching your father systematically break both his vows and your mother's heart, only sparing her for a few weeks, a few months when she was lucky; a miserable fate that you had sworn you wouldn't have shared.

Due to those acrimonious memories, your previous haste had now given way to a leaden attempt to say goodbye, as your feet stumbled towards Tommy’s beside-table until your fingertips were able to trace the dark groove gouged by his initials into the bright metal of his favourite cigarette-case, the one you’d given him, the one meant “for special occasions”, he said. Eyelids harshly shut because of the sharp hiss tearing up your ears, while you allowed yourserlf that single compromise, placing that relic in your bag as to preserve one last bond with him; and then you finally marched out of your own life.

Or at least you tried to.

Moments before your hand could reach for its knob, the door brusquely opened, leaving under your bewildered stare a panting Thomas with just his waistcoast and withe shirt on: sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the black bow he had worn now hanging untied around his creased collar. In a scant second, his blue orbs stroke into yours, scourging you with a wintry glare only to fall right after on the suitcase held in your right fist.

“You fucking packed your things, y/n?!” A deafening thud arose when the bag fell to the ground at the exact moment his hand slammed the door behind his shoulders with a violent blow, before running through his already messy hair; his ring shimmering in the dark together with his drizzly eyes now clutched to your face only, your feet taking a few step back when he slowly moved forward.

“You were leaving?” That atrocious question escaped his lips in a short breath and his brows took a painful fold in the process, causing a dull ache to grip your entrails at that sight.

“You were gonna leave me without a word?” Eventually, Tommy's coarse voice erupted from his scratched throat with all of its impetus, riverberating across the room and then into your eardrums so to let you gather each accent of blind sorrow and rage held through those words.

Anticipating every possible answer, Thomas took another stride in your direction, still that cautious attempt just forced you to retreat again, almost suffocated by his sole presence. Truth was that you couldn't trust yourself around that man. At times he felt like a plague corroding both your mind and body. He had sort of an arcane power enabling him to subjugate you in the sweetest way, had you let him; sometimes he was like a snake-charmer, sometimes you reckoned he was the snake himself.

“Stay away from me” Your unsteady voice finally came out, and it sounded as if it had been subdued for ages, yet his complete inability to comply with other’s will led him to neglect your first warning.

“Y/n, please-” Nevertheless, that mournful preach was soon estinguished by your harsh tone not leaving space to hesitation anymore. “Don’t fucking touch me, Thomas”

Your hands slapped his arms now dangerously close to your silhouette, but soon his firm grasp enveloped your wirsts allowing him to reduce the distance between your bodies.

“I said stay away!” you pratctically screamed in his face and your head swayed, having your locks fall forward, as you struggled to wriggle out of that deadly grip.

“No, y/n-” His calm voice once again tried to keep you in place along with his callous hands, but you were far too overwhelmed to regain your control.

"Get the fuck off me! Get off, let me go!" Histerical peaks distorted your voice as you kept writheing against him like a wild animal held captive.

"Y/n, stop! Stop it, calm down... fucking breathe" Thomas raised his tone, submerging your cries and leading your bust closer to his own so that your forearms were now trapped in between your bodies and his fingers clenched around the sleeves of your dress. Suddenly, all of your forces seemed to vanish in the dark coldness filling the room, your muscles yelding against your will.

"Let go of me" At this point your rage gave way to resignation, escaping your lips in the form of a pleading whisper, echoing your previous demands.

"Just listen to me, y/n. You need to trust me" He spoke again and you could sense a condiscendent softness in those words. You knew him too well, you knew how his silver tongue always managed to violate people's mind with such ease, making them puppets in the hands of an expert string-puller. And you hated him for trying to do the same with you.

Your wrath started to emerge again, boiling in your veins until your palm violently connected with his face for the second time that night.

"Jesus Christ, woman, what the hell is wrong with you?" Thomas growled while stroking the sensible skin right under his left cheekbone, partially tilting his head away from you as his feet put a new distance between your figures.

"I don't care how much you say otherwise, you did this to me" Jolted words left your burning throat, garbled by the tears you were desperately trying to hold back. This time it was you to step closer, accusation drenching your every gesture.

"Bullshit! I love you and you know that" Tom’s index finger mandatorily pointed at your flushed face, his blue eyes thrusting open and inviting you to reckon his indisputable truth.

“How can you expect me to believe a single syllable coming out of your mouth now?" Your fierce gaze remained locked onto his algid irises, still, despite your efforts to hold back, a few salty drops slipped off your made up lashes, pouring the dorsum of your hand as you abruptly covered your lips in order to suffocate your sobs before speaking again.

"You lie for a living, Thomas Shelby, you craved an empire out of lying" Pointing at his chest, you took another stride towards him, teeth clenched with frustration as you went on.

"And I was a deceived fool for even hoping that you could be different with me." Finally, you allowed your lungs to take a proper sip of air, relaxing your limbs long enough to let your sorrow stream through your core, while your eyes refused now to directly look at your fianceé. "But I won’t let myself fall into your trap again, not again.”

The moment his ears caught that almost inaudible whisper, Thomas threw his arms around you, his right forearm placed at the end of your back, holding you tight, while his other hand intertwined with the soft hair behind your neck, guiding your cheek close to his own so that you could perfectly feel each other's breathing, your chin partially resting above his shoulder. "Love, please..." His warm, yet lower voice filled your ears once again, and, even though you only wanted him to lull you out of that obnoxious feeling of sadness, you forcefully shut your eyelids to regain control over your tumultuous emotions.

"Tell me why I should believe you" Those distrustful words created a sharp constrast with the warmth fluttering between your bodies, as you leant against his smooth skin, involountarily seeking comfort.

"Why shouldn't you believe me? When have I ever lied to you, eh?" Tender strokes guided your head out of the croock of his neck, while Tommy grasped your face with both his palms, foreheads pressing against each other and eyes enchained.

Almost staggered by those entrancing blue seeps, scared by that extreme closeness and its venomous effects, you took a deep breath and reluctantly shied away from his embrace, turning your back on him and approaching the window in hope to retrieve some lucidity. "Yeah, right. You don't lie to me, you're much too clever for that. You just hide things"

Soon you felt Tommy's gentle grip around your arm, applying a slight pressure in order to have you turn around and face him again. "What? what do I hide from you?" His voice still soft against your mouth.

"You've been sleeping with her for months under my fucking nose" You shoved him, now screaming on the verge of that incessant emotional rollercoaster dragging you between rage and sorrow, over and over again, exhausting you.

"That's not true, and the way you're reacting just proves I was doing the right thing not telling you about May" Following your lead, Tommy rose his voice too, his eyebrows wrinkling into a disappointed look, as he tried to shift the blame on you, too bad his manipulative ways could not spellbind you; not that easily, at least.

"Don't you dare playing these twisted games with me, you bastard" Nails scratching the soft flesh of your palms now clenched and wildly thrown against his torso in a haphazard attempt to cause him some sort of pain.

"Fucking stop it, y/n! Stop!" Tommy's eyes stroke you once he'd managed to capture your wrists for the millionth time, still trying to extinguish your violent outbrusts. "Just talk to me like a damn civil person" He screamed inches away from your nose.

"Says the one who goes around cutting people and burning places down" You bitterly spit back, while your angry stare openly challenged him.

"Well, sorry, darling, but you should've thought of that before" Like a mirror, Tommy's attitude immediately emulated yours, going back to the sharp, mocking sarcasm usually clothing his speech, his pink lips curled in a taunting grin. “It's not like you didn't know how things worked around here" "Oh, there he is, the earnest, transparent man you've always been; haven't you, Thomas?" A forced laugh erupted from your throat, while you patethically exasperated your tones, brows implausibly arched, putting on a sympathetic expression almost as sardonic.

"Yes, yes, I fucking have!" His coarse shout wiped away any residual irony. "It's not my fault you still struggle with all of your insecurities, making scenes in front of my whole pub for a stupid toast" And once again he was trying to defend himself by goring you at one of your weakest points.

Trembling droplets started to dance before your dilated pupils as your strengh faded, having you feel like a bewildered kid when confronted with a thinly concealed truth. Your white teeth rabidly skewered your lower lip cloaked in the shadow cast on the rest of your face by your prone head. The whole room fell silent, only filled with your heavy breaths and the meek weeping that you had finally stopped stifling.

"Have you been with her?" Eventually, you forced your watery eyes to look back at him, while you asked that atroucious question with an apparent calm that made your own skin crawl.

"No" Thomas wasted no time denying your doubts and offered you a straight answer leading your eyelids to shut faintly, as your chin aimed towards the ceiling in a desperate attempt to process the whole thing. "Aye, look at me" His warm hands enveloped your cheeks, his thumbs fondling your wet skin until he was sure he had your attention. "No" He repeated "I'm yours, y/n, and you know that"

A well known tenderness radiated from his grieved features, accompained by the hint of a grim smile. "I'm yours in ways other people couldn't even think of, I've let you see each and every chink, every weakness" his soft lips lingered yours moultiple times, leaving you nothing more than a glimpse of a kiss. "I chose to, because I trust you with my life, you keep me sane, y/n"

Salty tears invaded your tongue as your mouths finally indulged in a proper kiss, slowly caressing each other for a few long instants, while your muscles relaxed under his loving touch. "You fucking keep me sane and I don't know what I'd do without you."

Tommy desperateky draw a trail of delicate pecks from your chin, through your cheekbones and up to your forehead, until you found yourself incapable of restraining your instincts and deepened those intimate touches, giving life to a fervent kiss able to leave you both out of breath in the space of a scant minute. Still, you kept devouring each other, until Thomas lifted you with ease, adaging your body on the soft mattress behind his back and palcing his palms behind your knees so to spread your legs and wrap them around his waist. Panting hard against your incandescent flesh, Tommy left openmouthed kisses on your face and jaw and neck, while his fingers undid the top of your dress increasingly discovering further slices of velvety skin, new hunting ground for his ravenous lips.

With just as much eagerness, you managed to free him from what was left of his elegant suit, your nails scratching his solid shoulders as you let the white and black fabrics fall to the floor, soon followed from your own clothes.

Tommy's hands promptly engulfed your now bare curves, his teeth still grazing at the already sensitive skin of your neck as his muscular torso led you to lay back, trapping you in between his half tensed arm and his mesmerizing face, as he slowly entered you, never diverting his egnited pupils from yours.

And then you felt him seize your waist and bring you closer, until your ribs almost wedged in his own. And then you felt his lips praying an unholy preach beneath your ear. And then you felt his hips drowning in your afire flesh, again and again.

But none of that was enough to heal your wounds this time.

You wanted to trust him, you wanted to believe his words and feel safe and sheltered again, with him and him only; still, you knew that, from then on, paranoia would’ve taken over with every extra hour at the office, with every night spent out, with every business trip, and that, for sure, was not the life you wanted.

You knew affection couldn’t survive the bad seeds of suspect without rotting to hate and exasperation; so you just dediced to leave your love while it was still uncorrupted, not bearing the mere thought of watching it slowly deteriorate into reciprocal disdain.

One last time, you glanced at Thomas laying pacefully asleep behind your shoulders, before you left the room with a painful burden crushing your chest.

tag list: @spidey-pal​, @shadow-of-wonder​, @stassaurus​​, @peachlle​, @livvtheangel​, @myjbphase​, @namelesslosers, @crazyonesarethebest​, @vxxn128​, @keithseabrook27​, @spaghettirogers​​, @writingstudent​​, @hp-hogwartsexpress , @eggingamazinglove​, @geeksareunique​, @cailoleaf​, @simonsbluee​ , @hereforsmutandfluff​, @starxtt​, @jenepleurepasbaby​, @staygold-bebold​, @marvelschriss​, @captivatedbycillianmurphy, @lucillethings, @rivianqueen, @kaitlyn2907, @cottonvioletsposts, @50shadesofireallydontcare, @lucrea, @bittergomez, @nothingleftthaticando, @glupolizam, @twiggymorrison, @sweetheart0217, @thomashelbyswhore, @arminsarlerts, @prongsies, @burnt-out-highschooler, @bank-of-rubytowne, @stressedandbandobessed7771, @imagineadream, @superanimenatural, @landyray, @cryostrich, @vicisbookishblog

[rainbowsnsunnies]

The ultimate hack to getting my life together

Since the start of this blog (and the main motive behind starting this blog actually) I've been focussing on how to get my life together cuz I'm a college student who always procrastinates thinking I've got more time than I actually do and then when I start on the project, the time is too less. So eventually I've to either turn in a bad paper or ask for extension (which I have done more times than I can count)

I have tried all the challenges in the book, the 100DOP, the social media detox, fitness challenges, lifestyle challenges, EVERYTHING. But why did nothing work? I sat there, in agitation and despair (okay this is sounding a lot like some commercial now, maybe I should've taken marketing) until I realised, the ultimate tool to getting my life together is CONSISTENCY!

I don't HAVE to buy fancy planners or spend hours doing a bujo and I can STILL get my life together. The key is in just doing it everyday. I did all these challenges and when they ended, I stopped with the habits (I didn't even complete all of them, pathetic, I know). I'm not saying there's something wrong with the challenges but it was my mindset that was wrong. I took it as some small time project and not a full time goal.

I got tired of failing at all productivity challenges and just gave them up, but not doing anything felt guilty. So I would wake up, make a tiny to-do list mentally and just focus on that for the day, EVERYDAY. And in 2 weeks, I'd lost 2 kgs, I'm catching up with my coursework faster than ever, I'm not stressed all the time and I'm just doing better. It made me think, how is this happening? I'm not even on a productivity challenge, and then I realised, I was forming the most precious habit, THE HABIT OF CONSISTENCY (with adhd! which makes it even more astonishing!).

I'm not going to make this longer, my intention was to just help out anyone else who might be feeling like I did, and unable to keep up with any challenges and ultimately feel like they'll never be their dream person or achieve their goals or just not feel productive in general. You will, all you have to do is make little changes EVERYDAY. You may not see the difference that big in your day-to-day, but when you take a overall look, say, at your past month, you'll be surprised by the things you've set in motion, things that were stagnant for so long. So, commit to doing what you want to do, everyday. One thing that helps me is I try not to see how many days I've followed something (like filling a habit tracker) because sometimes, it gives me that limiting factor again, and sometimes it demotivates me???? Like I automatically think, oh i've been doing this for enough time now, i can take a break WHEN I DON'T REALLY NEED A BREAK, but maybe that's just me. So now I wake up, and I tell myself, what I did yesterday wouldn't matter if I don't do it today. And I tell this to myself everyday, it also helps me take a break when I genuinely need one. I still skip my workout somedays, I still spend a whole day without reading as much as a page, but I don't feel so guilty about it anymore because I know I needed that break on those days.

Please try to do this, if you're feeling stuck. Its made a huge difference in my life (2 weeks of it, but that's bigger than the 40-45 days I followed of the 100 DOP, soooooo). Wish you all the luck and positivity to achieving your goals :)

"It gets easier, but you gotta do it everyday, that's the hard part" - Bojack Horseman

[absotivelyplushilutely]

Oo love seeing them like this. I have thoughts!

This is long because I've been thinking a lot about these releases and designs and I've no one to talk to about it IRL (plushies are one of my special interests, I could talk about just Jellycats all day).

TL;DR: I picked out pictures of my favourites of the bunch, my favourite new series are the Fuzzkins and the Blowzy Belles. I wish there were more bigger and floppier designs. I also wish there were more fantasy designs. Like many I was initially disappointed by the Jan 4th release, but after sitting with it I concluded that I liked several of them, I was just most interested in designs that aren't out yet but that's not a bad thing because the Feb drop is close to when I get paid.

(I've added alt text to my images and tried to bold key points that don't necessarily stand out on their own because of the length because I know that can help with walls of text)

I know there are less designs and the release schedule has been a bit strange, but honestly I'm hoping that this will actually work out for me, it does mean they'll miss my birthday at the end of this month but I actually get paid in the middle of the month so a mid-month release works well for me and I'm hoping to have some money earmarked for Jellycats. I have a number of favourites out of this new bunch including...

So these 6 are my top favourites (in no particular order going left to right row by row). Tumblie Elephant, Cosmo Monster, Fuzzkin Monkey, Tumbletuft Turtle, Francisco Frog, and Fuzzkin Lamb. If I manage to buy any of them this is where I'll be starting for sure, although there's of course ones from previous releases that I would also love to get, not to mention the retired Jellies I'm often keeping an eye out for.

I really like the Tumblies and would like to try to get a few of them, I don't have any yet though, I just think they're very sweet. The colour and shape of Tumblie Elephant is just right.

The monsters are also ones I'd like to work on collecting, I nearly got a couple of them in the past on multiple occasions but something usually comes up when I'm just about to do it, maybe this year will be the year and I'll start with Cosmo. I've seen a picture with some of them pictured together and they look lovely as a set.

I think the Fuzzkins are my favourite new series (or the Blowzy Belles they might be tied), they just look so so cute and I wonder what their texture is like, I also like that while they're small they're not too tiny, good holding size and a good size for display. They are similar to several other series currently available but something about them just lands more for me even though I like the other sets too, and they're also just slightly bigger.

I also really like Francisco Frog although I'm a bit concerned about them being tricky to actually get ahold of because frogs are so popular. I think the fabric may be different to a lot of the other plushies that are a sort of similar size and shape (like the River Ramblers, Peddlars, etc) so I hope Francisco won't look out of place with the rest of them. I actually really want to make other clothes for Francisco, I think that could be really fun so I could change their outfit around and maybe take them on adventures if I go anywhere, and make seasonal outfits. My Francisco may be somewhat of a model if I get them.

These are others that I really love (again in no particular names listed left to right row by row)... Lavender Dragon, Quaxy Pig, Wee Pig, Blowzy Belle Sheep, Crowning Croaker Green, Enzo Bear, Yummy Duckling, Herbie Highland Cow, Ginny Goat, Dory Duck, Nesting Bunnies, Yummy Lamb, Tumbletuft Cow.

As with previous dragon releases I wonder about the texture of the wings whether they'll be like the snow dragon or more like some of the more recent ones that I hear feels more denim-like (I figure it's the latter). I would like to get the rest of the dragons eventually, rn I have Dexter and Snow dragon, but wing texture will decide which size I'd go for.

I have such a fondness for Blowzy Belle Sheep, the more I look at them the more I think it might actually be a top 7 and she might even be one of the first I buy if I can, I love the floppy limbs and the big gentle eyes, I've known sheep who had that vibe before! I also like Enzo Bear, to me they give off big chill bear vibes, like I imagine they'd take their time picking their words and getting their point across.

Looking at Herbie Highland Cow and Ginny Goat I think they're probably a continuation of the series with Sherri Sheep which is exciting because I recently found that she was back (I've wanted her for a while, she may be gone again by the time I'm ready though xD or maybe I was wrong and she was never discontinued), and if these designs are in fact connected to Sherri then it makes sense she became available again.

I did also intend to include Cecile Chicken (I feel like my Silkie Chicken would like to hang out with Cecile), and Blowzy Belle Cat in the above images but here those are too (feels weird leaving them out).

Honourable mentions:

I always think the Jollipops are very sweet.

I like the Sweetsicles, but I'm curious about the texture.

Oswald Orangutan is great, orangutans are super interesting, and I like that he's a big stronk adult, a good contrast to Pongo (both are good).

I like how much Ramonda Ostrich actually looks like an ostrich.

The Escarfgots are also fab (I wish they'd put Sandy Snails eyes up like that too).

The pair of lovebirds are adorable, I like the concept, I'd be tempted to put magnets in so they could look like they were smooching or snuggling like birds do.

Cluny Cockerel is another favourite (I love birds, if I had my own place I'd literally use the Birdlings and other Jellies like Cluny and Cecile to be part of my living room decor and as friends to keep me company!)

I think the Wavellys are kinda like some previous designs but a bit bigger which I like (I think it's Fluffy Whale I'm thinking of), I think if they released a big version the size of the larger Billow Manatee I would struggle to resist!

Finnegan Frog is another good design, they're probably going to be one of the most popular designs this time.

I love the Fun-Guys in general, they're another I'd definitely have living in my living room if I had my own place of some sort or if I knew I was going to be able to sort that out one day, the new colour is lovely.

Fou-Fou Peacock is another case of me pretending to pick Jellies to decorate my imaginary living room, I love birds in general, but when I was a kid someone nearby when I lived semi-rural owned peacocks and one day I found a feather and picked it up. I used to sit and watch the peacocks sometimes but the owner didn't like that so I'd have to hide in the bushes outside of their fence xD was only for a couple minutes at a time but they're such cool birds!

I like all of the Huddles and the sheep is no exception, I know the descriptions say "parent and baby" but I prefer to think of them as a plushie with their own plushie, their emotional support plushie! It's very cute that way I think.

Burly Boo Sheep reminds me a bit of the Rondles (was so disappointed that they were retired so quickly), I love chunky Jellycats like these.

I was tempted buy the Higgeldy Piggeldies when they released and now they've added a bigger size I'm like!!!

I'd also be tempted by the smaller Fossily Pterodactyl because them being small compared to my other Fossilys makes sense to me.

I know this contains the spring collection so I understand why it's mostly farm animals (not complaining about that anyway) but I'd have loved to see a couple more fantasy creatures or made up critters. I also have been noting that there have been a lot of sort of "posed" sitting or standing plushies, so I'm hoping that at some point this year they'll do some more floppy plushies similar to the dragons or the huggadies or smudges where they're floppy and soft.

Also large sized Jellies seem a wee bit lacking recently, they've discontinued a few of the large variations and we're getting a lot of ones that are 6"-9" which isn't a bad size, I just feel like we could do with more in the 12"-24" sort of size range, that's my favourite size for cuddling. I've got the Huge Bartholomew Bear, and Huge Dexter Dragon, and a couple of the huge Huggadies and they're so fantastic. Although maybe there's so many smaller Jellies in this set because they're introducing Really Big Bartholomew Bear (who's super cool I just don't have room and try to avoid doubles, I plan to allow myself one Really Big Jelly and it'll be Sacha Snow Tiger). Or maybe it's always like this and I've not noticed xD

I was kinda hoping they'd bring us "Huge" Barnabus Pig as well, same size as Huge Bartholomew and Montgomery. Small Jellies are great for certain things like display and such or if they're small enough they're great to take around as a comfort friend (I have a few for that), but I cuddle mine so bigger sizes are my favourite. I know they can't do everything at once though, of course!

I have a few specific designs that just aren't for me which is obviously fine, or even good. Bug designs generally give me the heebie jeebies but I can imagine there will be some people who are super happy about the earwig and the other two unusual bug designs and I think it's super cool the Jellycat is able to provide that to people. Everyone deserves cool things related to their favourite things and interests!

Some closing thoughts because I spent hours writing all this up since I had to keep doing other things and it left me staring at the designs repeatedly xD In the end I've come to the conclusion that while I felt disappointed when the Jan 4th drop came I actually do really like a fair few of them, it's just that the ones I'm likely to prioritise if I can are still to come (I know many others are in the same boat) and that's actually not a bad thing. I think very approximately out of my favourites after some consideration I might prioritise my top 10 picks something like this...

Blowzy Belle Sheep (the more I looked at them the more attached I've gotten)

Tumblie Elephant

Fuzzkin Monkey

Blowzy Belle Cat

Cosmo Monster/Fuzzkin Lamb (tied)

Cecile Chicken

Tumbletuft Turtle

Crowning Croaker Green/Yummy Duck/Francisco Frog

Herbie Highland Cow/Ginny Goat

Enzo Bear/Quaxy Pig

(that's definitely not how top 10s work xD)

Very long, I am rarely concise! Please excuse any typos, I'm terrible at typing on my phone.

All New Jellycats Of 2023

Ko-fi / Instagram

I figured you would all like to at least see all of the new designs even though Jellycat has not released them for purchase yet. If they're not gonna show them, I will. The whole "limited release" (so-called by Jellycat) annoyed me.

This list is sorted mostly alphabetically and includes newly available sizes as well. I hope this satisfies everyone's curiosity and we can finally talk about the new Jellycats as I had hoped we could at the beginning of this week. Most of the designs are pretty self-explanatory I think, but if you have questions you can of course ask. Please keep in mind though that my inbox is already super full, so patience is appreciated.

Leave your thoughts in the comments, reblogs or tags! Any feedback is interesting to me, whether positive or negative! Finally, I hope this will make it easier for people to make a wishlist of this year's Jellycats for themselves. (A limited number of these are available on the website now, most of them will be released on the 15th of February)

I put all of these new designs in the queue as well, so if you follow along in the next weeks you will see them all individually!

-Victor

[collecting-diamond-pieces]

The Yes-Challenge

I've been playing a few challenges over the last couple of months and found myself wondering why I still haven't completed all of the aspirations. So, just for fun, I made a list of things I haven't done yet. And it kind of became my own little challenge that I really enjoyed playing. That's why I'd like to share it with everyone who may read this! ^-^

(Don't worry! Some Gens might seem harder than they are.)

Rules:

It's called the "Yes Challenge" because whenever the game asks you if your Heir should like/dislike a certain skill, you have to say "yes." Even if it's a skill you have to max for this challenge you have to go for it.

No cheats but you may use mods for the sake of story building.

You also may use everything that is available at the reward store.

Master aspiration and career of each generation.

Have fun!

Generation 1: Troubled Till now you had a nice life. A great family and loud friends. Then your parents died and you were left with nothing but a hole in your heart. Still, you decided to keep moving and the only way out you saw was by fulfilling your lifelong wish: To own a farm.

Traits: Animal Enthusiast, Lactose Intolerant, Bro Aspiration: Country Caretaker Career: The farm is your job but you may take as many odd jobs as you please

Always have a cow or llama and some chickens around

Adopt two dogs or cats

Get the Outdoorsy lifestyle

Have two close friends

Be a single parent

Take your child out for a picnic

Master Gardening and Pet training

Generation 2: "Learned" out of parent's problems Growing up, you and your parent barely had enough money to keep the farm. And since nobody was ever in your neglected house, you started to take care of it. - But one day, while you were scrubbing the dishes again, you promised yourself: your life would never ever look like this. Traits: High Maintenance, Adventurous, Materialistic Aspiration: Both the Mt. Komorebi Sightseer and the Extreme Sports Enthusiast Career: Criminal

Move to Mt. Komorebi

Marry a coworker

Master: Skiing or snowboarding and climbing

Get into 3 fights

Get the Adrenaline Seeker lifestyle

Only buy the most expensive objects (unless you're really thinking they're too ugly) - build a mansion

Generation 3: Secret agent at day party animal at night You know? Enough is enough! Life isn't just all about work and dirty money - life should be one big party that never ends! Traits: Noncommittal, Dance Machine, Goofball Aspiration: Party Animal Career: Secret Agent

Get every social event there is up to gold level

Have at least one party a week

Win a dart game

Never commit to marry

Each of your kids is the result of a random party hookup - have at least two children

Take invitations as often as you can

Master dancing and mixology

Generation 4: So humans … yeah they're a bit difficult Growing up there always were strangers in your house. - Your parent was really awesome and you know they cared deeply for you but ... random strangers in your room while you were doing your homework. Random strangers in the shower when you wanted to brush your teeth. Random strangers in the bush while- Yeah I guess you get it. So your plan was to have a quiet and normal life … but this? This was not the plan.

Traits: Vegetarian, Maker, Loner Aspiration: Master Maker Career: Crafter Branch

Get a grade A at school and master scouts

Master fabrication and robotics

Build a robot

Never replace a broken item, repair them yourself

If you are playing with mods: Have a polyamorous relationship (I know that at least wonderfulwhims and mccc have the option.)

If you are not playing with mods: Fall in love with two people and eventually choose one of them.

Generation 5: Make the world a better place You love your family. You just can't handle their tech lifestyle, and that's okay. Still, you move out quite young because you are just too different. All you knew was the world needs to be green - green - green, and not metallic grey.

Traits: Loves Outdoors, Green Friend, Cheerful Aspiration: Outdoor Enthusiast Career: Interior Decorator

Talk to all of your customers about how they could make the world a better place

Get featured on TV

Get your neighborhood to a green footprint

Find a partner who has the trait "Loves Outdoors" as well

Take your children on a camping trip

Cann vegetables or fruits 5 times

Master fishing and herbalism and get gardening up to lvl. 5

Generation 6: You ARE a Star... but no one notices Life is based on luck and you just don't have it. In school you had lots of friends because you were (just that) cool…but they never really saw you. Still, you are certain that eventually-eventually someone will see you - AND THEN you'll become a famous singer as you always wished for. You just have to work for it.

Traits: Ambitious, Music Lover, Jealous Aspiration: City Native Career: Style Influencer

Move to San Myshuno

Find a friend in every neighborhood of San Myshuno

Win a karaoke contest

Publish a song

Play an instrument

Master singing

Get married at the romance festival

Generation 7: The meaning of life is knowledge You were inspired by your parents' ambition. You learned young that one only needs to know EVERYTHING to make it in life. And frankly, you're sure that YOU are THE person who CAN judge a book by its cover.

Traits: Perfectionist, Proper, Bookworm Aspiration: Academic Career: Education

Master all toddler skills

Master mental as a child, and write a diary

Max two of your character values

Master logic, research & debate, and wellness

Enroll in college and move into university dorms

Get into an organization at college and max it

Have an affair with one of your professors

Win a debate

Give two wellness classes

Have two children when you are an adult: One must have the trait evil, the second born is the new heir

Generation 8: YOU ARE THE STAR! - But this time for real! You lost your parents at a very young age and were left with nothing but your older sibling. - So actually the decision was quite easy: You packed your bags because it was time to show the world what you really have to offer. - And don't worry, it'll love you!

Traits: Self-Absorbed, Lazy, Creative Aspiration: World-Famous Celebrity and Master Actor/Master Actress Career: Actor/Actress

Get into Media production while you're a still a teen

Enroll in the Drama Club

Move out the second both of your parents have died

Master Media production and Acting

Get the Junk Food Fiend lifestyle

Find a best friend you truly care about (it's the only person you let close to you until your child is born)

Have a child with someone who is famous as well

Get married for the sake of this child and - of course - for your holy reputation

Get divorced later on

Be good friends with all of your children

Generation 9: You might find it creepy I call it calming Your world is full of paparazzi and all you ever wanted was to get out. So you fleed to the end of the world, and there you found the love of your life - old bones.

Traits: Genius, Family-oriented, Unflirty Aspiration: Archaeology Scholar and Jungle Explorer Career: Gardener up to lvl. 5 then quit

Get the Health Food Nut lifestyle

Live in a tiny house

Master archaeology, Selvadoradian culture, and parenting

Have at least two children both will be the next heirs

Adopt a child

Have a wall full of pictures of your family

Complete the artifact collection

If still alive - take your and your partner's parents to Selvadora

Generation 10: The twisted siblings The world doesn't have to understand everything - that's all we have to say.

Traits: First Heir: Hates Children, Snob, Insider | Second Heir: Geek, Good, Erratic Aspiration: First Heir: Villainous Valentine | Second Heir: Neighborhood Confidante Career: First Heir: Salaryperson | Second Heir: Babysitter and Manual Laborer

First Heir: You hate children. Even when you were one yourself they annoyed you. At least all but your sibling. And then the accident happened -, to YOU of all people. But...let's just pretend it never happened, okay?

Have a relationship while you're still in high school, but eventually part ways

Have a child by accident and drop it off at your sibling, move into a small cabin next to their house and pretend it didn't happen

Adopt three kittens or puppies the day after

Have 4 failed relationships then decide that dating "is just not for you" until you randomly bump into your high school love again

Get the Coffee Fanatic Lifestyle

Master Juice fizzing

Second Heir: They might think you're crazy - but who really is sane these days, right? How can they deny that your house is haunted? ...maybe...maybe they are here because you still keep around one of those artifacts that your parents brought home.

Take one of your parents' artifacts with you when you move out

Must have the "haunted house" lot type

Become a Paranormal Investigator later on

Master Cross-stitch, Flower arranging, and Medium

Get the "brave trait" from the reward store - change the lot type after that

Fall in love with a ghost

Adopt your sibling's child as a care dependent

Finally, decide: did all of this actually happen, or was it just in your head?