#the boots are based off ones i own irl lol

[teainthesnow]

What would be your 6 pokemon team and your "pikachu"? <3

so i, uh, got a teeny bit carried away lmao

anywho my favourite team! Not the most competitive team but i love all these goobers for various little reasons! talonflame, flagon, umbreon, rowlet, aegislash, and zorua as my pikachu!

[andromedaexists]

Happy Storyteller Saturday!

Are there any places, objects, or even people in your stories inspired by or directly borrowed from your real life?

Share a snippet if you like 💜

Good morning Winter!! Happy Storyteller Saturday, I hope you are doing well!

So I briefly touched on this a little bit ago, but I have a handful of characters that are based on real people in my life. What I didn't talk about is the myriad of places and objects that are also from my life! I'm going to throw this under a readmore, because I would love to share little snippets as I talk about them!

Firstly: the people. The easiest ones to spot are Kit and Icarus, who are both based on me. It is easiest for me to write a character when they are based on aspects of myself lol, though both of them are wildly different and I tend to cherry pick parts of myself to include in them. For Icarus, the big things are his autism and his love of dance. For Kit, it's his mild temper and drive to learn.

The other two characters that are actually based on real people in my life are Andromeda and Father David. I gushed about Father David last time I spoke on this, so let's talk more about Andromeda.

Andromeda, despite the name, is not based on me. They are based on my irl friend Xochi. Like, to the point that I will message Xochi if I run into a spot where I'm not sure how Andromeda would react. Xochi is one of my best friends and platonic soulmates, so I found it fitting for her to be present in Icarus' life as well through Andromeda.

Snippet one:

Icarus brought up a hand to push the blanket covering his face back and was met with a smug grin from Andromeda. He didn’t know what to make of the situation and was about to get off the counter when Andromeda spoke up, saying, “No you don’t. You are going to sit right there while I make us dinner and we are going to talk through some shit, yeah?” At some point they had grabbed a wooden cooking spoon - Icarus’ sauce spoon - and pointed it at him accusingly.

Snippet two:

“Come on, Icarus.” A whisper against his ear, a plead to join the voice in the world of the conscious. “We’re home, we gotta talk now.” “…don wanna.” “Oi! dejar de ser un bebé." Half asleep as he is, Icarus doesn't understand what Andromeda is yelling at him. Well, he doesn't understand most of what they're yelling. "'m not a baby, bitch," he responds, pushing himself up into a sitting position before pulling the warm body in front of him onto his lap and curling around it. He was already falling back into the clutches of sleep when he felt Achilles give up and lean into the hold.

Next up: Places. All of the places in both Call Me Icarus and Desecrate are based on my life. CMI takes place in Cleveland, Ohio in the 2030's. The first time around, I kept this really vague. But now that I'm re-writing the story I've included more references to the area, including allusions to The Flats, Ohio City, Playhouse Square, and Nautica.

Snippet:

Gravel and glass crunch under Icarus’ boots as he makes his way through the dark alleys of the flats. The neon lights of the shop signs do more to illuminate his path than the rising sun does as he winds his way past piles upon piles of trash. Mounds and heaps that may or may not be hiding people who were forced out of their homes by the greed of ATLAS.

As far as Desecrate goes, it is based on the small town I grew up in. I touched on it here and talk about the church here. The church is based on the church I grew up going to, St. Peter of the Fields. They said "write what you know" and I went 'bet'

Finally, objects. I don't have snippets of these (yet), but the bat that Icarus will end up using in fights is based off one that I own. There are likely other small objects in CMI as well, but most of the objects from my daily life show up in Desecrate. A Bible and a dictionary Kit uses in his research are ones that I have sitting on my bookshelf right now.

[thelemontree]

Dirty, Pretty, Beautiful (Frankie Morales x Reader)

Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!Reader

Summary: Frankie left you wanting and needy before he left for work that morning, and you plan to rectify that when he gets home.

Word count: 3.1k

Rating: oh my god EXPLICIT

Warnings: straight-up filth, established relationship, explicit language, unprotected p in v sex (wrap it before ya tap it irl, pals), finger sucking, oral sex (m & f receiving), vaginal fingering, light dirty talk + praise, one (1) ass spank, comeplay? i think (idk there is an exchange of come via making out), lots of kissing/making out, i think that's it, lmk if i missed anything lol

A/N: I have no idea where this came from. This is literally just 3.1k words of porn with absolutely 0 plot. Like, not a single crumb of plot to found here. Probably the filthiest thing I have ever written. I was horny and said fuck it, I'm making it everyone else's problem I guess LMAO. Anyways my first Frankie fic of hopefully many to come hehe. Title taken from this song by The Maine, but it's not based on it at all. All of this is gonna be under the cut bc, like I said, this is all porn.

Masterlist | AO3

You've been thinking about him all day.

He’d had you worked up ever since he kissed you goodbye before he left for work that morning. He held your hip tightly with one hand while the other tangled in your hair, still mused from sleep. He had you pulled flush against him, using his grip in your hair to angle your head for him to lick into your mouth the way he wanted. When you’d whimpered into his mouth, he pulled away slowly and smirked at the way your chest heaved and your eyes glazed over. He gave you one last peck before letting you go completely, telling you he loved you, and walking out to his truck to leave for work.

After that, you’d spent the whole day wet and achy and needy for him. It made your own day at work difficult to get through, thoughts of all the things you wanted to do to him, all the things you wanted him to do to you, distracting you from your daily tasks. By the time you got home that evening, you felt like you were going to explode because of how turned on you were.

He’d gotten home shortly after you did. He set his keys down on the table by the front door and hung his jacket and baseball cap up on the coat hooks. He toed his boots off and moved further into the house, calling out for you as you did. You met him in the living room and he smiled at the sight of you in your loungewear, a tank top and small pair of shorts that left nothing to the imagination. On the outside, you were probably a vision of comfort. But you were burning on the inside.

You knew he was probably hungry, probably wanted to shower the workday off of him, probably wanted to sit back and relax with a beer. But you didn’t care. You needed him, and you were going to make sure you got him.

He’d barely gotten a soft “hey baby” out before you wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him down into a heated kiss, moaning into his mouth at the feeling of finally having his lips on yours after thinking about it all day. His hands fell to your waist as he let out an oof into your mouth from the impact of you jumping on him. He quickly recovered, kissing you back with equal enthusiasm, his tongue brushing against yours as you licked into his mouth. You took his bottom lip in between your teeth and tugged it as you pulled away from him and settled back down on the ground, relishing in the deep groan he let out as you did.

“I have been wanting to do that all day,” you said breathlessly. He looked beautiful—cheeks flushed, eyes darkened, lips shiny and kiss swollen. Even better was the feeling of his cock, already hard and straining in his jeans, pressed against your front. Pride swelled in your chest at the fact that you did that to him.

“Anything else you’ve been wanting, baby?”

Your lips curled up in a smirk similar to the one he’d given you before he left that morning. Pulling your arms from around his neck, you took one of his hands in yours and led him out of the living room and down the hall to your shared bedroom. When you finally get him inside, you pull him into another kiss. This one isn’t as frantic as the one you shared in the living room, but it’s equally as passionate. You whimper into his mouth when his tongue works its way into yours at the same time both of his hands palmed your ass and squeezed. You pulled away from him and panted as you tried to catch your breath.

“Take off your clothes,” you said as you started to make quick work of your own. Your tank top and shorts were off and on the floor in a careless heap, revealing your naked body to him before he’d even had his shirt all the way unbuttoned.

His movements paused as he took you in, his mouth falling open at the sight of you. “Fuck, querida.”

“Frankie,” you whined, moving to work the rest of the buttons on his shirt open yourself. “Your clothes.”

He chuckled at you as he turned his attention to his pants while you took care of his shirts. Once his top shirt had been unbuttoned, you shoved it off his shoulders, adding it to your pile of clothing on the floor. Your hands worked their way underneath his undershirt, running your palms up his chest before scratching your nails back down. He hissed the feeling, dropping his belt to the floor and moving faster to unbutton and pull the zipper of his jeans down. He pulled them and his boxers down his legs in one motion, letting the clothing pool at his feet as you took the hem of his undershirt in your hands and pulled it up over his head.

When he was finally naked, you turned him and pushed him down onto the bed. He landed with a soft oof, scooting up towards the pillows as you crawled after him. You straddled him, planting your hands on either side of his head as you leaned down to kiss him again. He gripped your hips in his hands, moving you to grind your wet center along the length of his hard cock.

You pulled away and sat up, moving your hips to coat his length in your slick. You moaned at the friction of him against you.

“Do you feel how wet I am for you, baby?” You asked, your breath catching in your throat. “I’ve been this wet all day. All I could think about was coming home and fucking you.”

He groaned at your words, his head tipping back against the pillows, exposing the line of his throat to you. You leaned down and placed a wet, open-mouthed kiss to his adam’s apple, lightly scraping your teeth against it. When you sat back up, he looked up at you, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

“You want me to fuck you, querida?”

You shook your head no, lifting yourself up enough to snake one hand down in between your bodies to grab his cock. He let out a low groan at the feeling of your hand on him. You guided his length to your entrance and, without breaking eye contact with him, slowly slid down onto his length, moaning loudly once he was fully sheathed inside of you.

“I wanna fuck you, Frankie.” Your voice came out whinier and needier than you were expecting, but you were too far gone to care. He felt so good inside of you, the tip of his cock pressing on your sweet spot when he was all the way in like that. He gripped your hips tightly, no doubt leaving behind finger tip-shaped bruises for you to find in the morning.

“God, baby, I need you to move. Please.” He sounded just as wrecked as you did and it made you smile. Balancing your hands on his bare chest, you started to rock your hips, moving up until he was halfway out of you before sliding back down. He moved his hands from your waist down to your ass, kneading the flesh of your cheeks as he helped guide your movements on his cock. One of his hands left your ass and came back down on your flesh with a sharp smack, making you cry out.

“Fuck, your cock feels so good, Frankie,” you babbled, your words broken up by your moans of pleasure. “So big and so deep inside of me. I feel so full.” Your walls tightened around him when he hit your sweet spot particularly hard. He gasped out a broken moan, holding onto you even tighter.

“Taking me so well, querida,” he grunted, his eyes moving down from your face to watch where your pussy was stretched around him. The sight of it was just as good as the feeling of it. “It’s like you were made to take my cock. So perfect for me.”

You could feel your orgasm building steadily with every stroke of his cock inside of you. It was coming, and it was coming fast. You could feel it everywhere—from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, but especially in your pussy, where he was hitting you just right. With just a little more, you’d be thrown over the edge.

You reached behind you and took one of his wrists in your hands, moving it off your ass and sliding it up the length of your body. Over your hips, your stomach, through the valley of your breasts, the column of your throat, until the tips of his fingers were resting on your bottom lip. You stuck your tongue out and licked softly at his skin before pulling his pointer and middle fingers into your mouth. You moaned around his fingers, your eyes fluttering shut and your head falling back as you sucked on them. Your tongue worked around and between the digits, coating them in your saliva. You could vaguely register the sound of Frankie’s own strangled moan as you worked on wetting his fingers.

You pulled his fingers out of your mouth slowly, a string of spit connecting him to your mouth. His mouth was open as he watched you, his breaths coming out in short, frantic pants. You held his gaze as you moved his hand down to where the two of you were connected, placing his spit covered fingers on your clit and pressing down hard.

“Make me cum, Francisco.”

He growled at your command but didn’t waste any time following it. His hips seemed to move impossibly faster against yours, rocking your entire body, as his fingers worked your clit in tight, fast circles. You cried out, digging your nails into his chest as you bounced to meet his thrusts. Your thighs were trembling and the muscles of your lower stomach tightened as your impending orgasm built and built. You couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe, the only sounds coming out of your mouth were high-pitched whines.

“Cum—fucking Christ—cum for me, querida,” he heaved, pressing down on your clit even harder. “Give it to me, let me feel it.”

His words and his cocks and his fingers all worked in tandem to send you over the edge. With a shrill cry of his name, you came hard around his cock, your walls contracting around him. Your arms gave out at the force of your release and you fell forwards against his chest, burrowing your face in the crook of his neck. He fucked you through it, his movements slowing gradually as you came down from your high. Your whole body felt lighter after finally getting some relief after being on edge all day. You took in a few shuddering breaths before sitting up a bit to look at his face.

“You good?” he smirked at you, his voice strained with need to find his own release. You gave him a breathless chuckle and leaned down to press a chaste kiss to his lips.

“Yeah, I’m good, baby. Let me take care of you now.”

You pulled yourself up off his cock, shushing his whines of protest with your lips. You kissed all across his face and down his neck, sucking a light mark onto the skin where his neck met his shoulders. It would be gone by the morning so he wouldn’t have to worry about covering it up for work, but it was enough for now. You moved down his body, peppering his chest and abdomen with wet, open-mouthed kisses. When you positioned yourself in between his spread legs, his slick covered cock right in front of your face, you looked up at him with a smirk.

Your lips brushed the tip of his cock as you spoke, causing him to whimper. “I want you to cum in my mouth.”

You didn’t give him a chance to respond before you took him into your mouth. He yelped out a loud “Fuck!” and his hips shot up off of the bed, forcing more of his cock inside of your mouth. You gagged as the tip hit the back of your throat and placed your hands on his hips to hold him down and let you get him off at your own pace.

Once recovered from him accidentally choking you, you moaned around him, the taste of both you and him mixing in your mouth. One of his hands was fisted in the comforter beneath him, the other tangled in your hair, not moving or guiding your movements, just holding you, grounding him in the moment.

You hollowed your cheeks and gave his length a harsh suck that made him moan before pulling up and almost all the way off of him. You kept the tip of his cock trapped between your lips, swirling your tongue around it before licking at his slit, the salty taste of his precum bursting in your mouth. You moved back down his length, holding him in your mouth. You could feel your salvia pooling and dribbling out of the corners of your mouth, knew you probably looked like a fucking mess, but you didn’t care. He liked it when you looked like that, liked it when you got sloppy taking his cock in your mouth. He looked down at you and shuddered at the sight of your shiny lips stretched around him.

You built up a steady rhythm, bobbing your mouth up and down his cock, alternating between sucking it hard and licking up the length of it. His moans of pleasure were coming out of his mouth in a constant stream and his hand tightened in your hair. You knew he was close and the thought of his cum filling your mouth made you shiver and double your efforts to get him to finish.

One of your hands moved down from his hip to fondle his balls, rolling the taut skin in your palm. He cried out, his back arching off the bed as his hips weakly stuttered up, pushing himself further into your mouth. He fell back onto the bed with a broken moan. You knew he was close, knew that with just a few more sucks, he’d flood your mouth, and you couldn’t wait to swallow every last drop of it.

“Don’t—oh my god, baby—don’t fucking swallow. Please.”

You whined at his request, letting him know you weren’t thrilled with that idea, but you’d do it for him. You’d do anything he asked of you, even if it directly contradicted what you wanted.

Just like you knew he would, he came after you gave him a few more quick sucks, your name falling from his mouth in a series of broken moans. You moaned around him as his cum hit your tongue. You tried to keep as much of it in your mouth as you could, but since you couldn’t swallow, some of it trickled out of the corners of your mouth, making even more of a mess of your face and his cock. When the need to breathe became greater than keeping him in your mouth, you slowly pulled yourself up and let him slip out of your mouth softly. His chest was heaving and one of his hands was thrown over his eyes as he tried to catch his breath. You smiled at the sight.

When he finally pulled his arm away, he reached out for you, hooking both hands under your arms to pull you up to him. With your face hovering above his, one of his hands gripped the sides of your jaw, squeezing tightly to force your mouth open as he said, “Let me see, baby.”

A mix of your saliva and his cum had pooled in your mouth, coating your tongue, and he let out a deep groan at the sight of it. He pulled your mouth down onto his, licking into you to taste himself on your tongue. The two of you moaned into each others mouths as he licked inside of yours, taking his spend from your tongue for his own.

As you kissed, his other hand gripped your hip and flipped you over onto your back. He pulled away from your mouth and moved down your body until he was in between your legs, his shoulders holding your thighs open wide for him to look at your fucked-out pussy. Without any preamble, he buried his face in your cunt, his nose bumping into your clit and he shoved his tongue as far inside of you as it could go.

“Frankie!” You cried out, your back arching and your body shuddering as your hands flew to his hair and gripped. He growled into your pussy, the sound reverberating throughout your entire being as he tried to push himself impossibly deeper into you.

He ate you out like a man starved, licking and sucking at your sensitive flesh. Two of his fingers worked their way into your pussy, curling up and stroking your walls roughly as his mouth moved up to your clit and sucked it into his mouth. His tongue moved around your sensitive nub in tight, wet circles. Before you could even really comprehend it, your mouth was falling open with a loud wail as your back arched off of the bed and you came around his fingers and on his tongue.

Your release seemed to last forever, your walls pulling his fingers into you even deeper, contracting around them. He worked you through it, only pulling away and out of you when you whined and pushed at his head, too sensitive for anything else. He looked up at you with a grin, the bottom half of his face and his wiry facial hair wet with your release. He slowly kissed his way up your body until his lips could capture yours, letting you taste the mix of your releases on his tongue. When he pulled away, he rested his forehead against yours, his eyes closing in contentment as your breaths mingled.

“That’s certainly one way to welcome a guy home,” he chuckled.

You couldn’t help but giggle as you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him down for another, softer kiss. You pulled away and nuzzled the side of his cheek with your nose. “What can I say? I missed you today.”

He hummed in response, kissing you one last time before turning onto his side and resting his head on your chest. You worked your fingers through his sweat-dampened hair, finally feeling relaxed and sated. There’d be time to clean up later. For now, though, all you wanted was to lay there and hold him.

[binaryeclipse]

Send this to people you’d like to know better!

thank you @lowkeyanakin and @coldwaughtered for the tag!!! 💖

What book are you currently reading? The Secret Commonwealth by Phllip Pullman!

What’s your favorite movie you saw in theaters this year? LOL I DIDN'T GO TO THE MOVIE THEATRE. Half because there was nothing I wanted to see and half because I would rather spend my money on other things

What do you usually wear? In the fall/winter/spring my go to is skinny jeans, knitted sweaters and high heeled boots! I'm trying to get out of my flannel era

How tall are you? 5'2" (157cm)

What’s your Star Sign? Do you share a birthday with a celebrity or a historical event? I'm a Virgo and I share a birthday with Frodo and Bilbo Baggins.

Do you go by your name or a nick-name? Irl I go by my name, any variation of a nickname based on it will get shot down immediately and if you try to call me one I will fight you. However, my dad does sometimes call me isobel. But honestly Isolde/Izzy has become as much of my identity as my real name.

Did you grow up to become what you wanted to be when you were a child? Heck no. I wanted to be an archaeologist and my mom's co-worker was an archaeologist and when I met her she told me she worked the job she had, which was not archaeology, so she could do archaeology on her off time and my dreams were crushed. Working a job to do another job? No thanks.

Are you in a relationship? If not, who is your crush if you have one? I am in a relationship and she's wonderful 💖

What’s something you’re good at vs. something you’re bad at? I'm good at writing and cooking and troubleshooting mechanical shit. I'm bad at advocating for myself.

Dogs or cats? I love both and yet I want neither. Let me play with your pet so I don't need to look after one! I just know my lifestyle isn't conducive to owning and caring for a pet in the way they need. I never had them growing up so I never learned how to organize my life around something that relies on me.

If you draw/write, or create in any way, what’s your favorite picture/favorite line/favorite etc. from something you created this year? Let me just slap down the entirety of KNIGHT ERRANT here.

What’s something you would like to create content for? It's less that there's something I wish I could create content for and more a way I wish I could contribute. I stopped working on my art skills when I was 18 and while I know I can technically go back and improve I don't have the space or time to dedicate to that (and there's a lot of bad memories tied to that time in my life and that activity specifically) but I kinda wish I had kept it up and then I could have contributed cool art to the obikin fandom.

What’s something you’re currently obsessed with? O B I K I N

What’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year? My parent's visiting in September. It was nice to see them and introduce them to my girlfriend (and they liked her! she got the dad hug!) but they were so busy with friends and stuff that I never got one-on-one time with them. We didn't get to go on the cool hikes I had planned. It was just not what I wanted that visit to be.

What’s a hidden talent of yours? I'm a very good artist when it comes to landscapes with pencil and ink. Oh, and I can fold a fitted sheet.

Are you religious? Nah

What’s something you wish to have at this moment? Executive Function derp

tagging @elysian-prince, @zimriya, @rhaenyratargeryn, @anakinspraisekink, @magic-owl

[kirksfattitties]

asks you can smell the privilege and internalized ableism radiate from

(tw for ableism and other bigoted implications)

i’m bad at reading tone but even i understand that this is 100% you being condescending and trying to cover it up with smiley faces and false sincerity. and i don’t appreciate that.

before i get into deconstructing your shitty ableist argument, i want to explain the reasons i believe in self diagnosis (self-dx):

even professional diagnosis doesn’t start with a doctor diagnosing you. there has to be a reason for seeing the doctor. some people see a doctor in their adult life because they’re struggling, some people are taken by their parents, some people are referred or suggested that they see a specialist. whatever it is, you don’t just see a doctor and they magically give you a neurodivergency. people have neurodivergencies before they see doctors and even if they NEVER see a doctor.

the psychiatry system is flawed in MANY ways and to say that it isn’t means you’re denying the experiences of people with less privledge than yourself. also like psychiatry isn’t gonna suck your dick. you don’t have to be a bootlicker lol

in many places (hi hello i’m from america where our government tries to indirectly kill us by not providing us with adequate healthcare! i and many other people have many issues we can’t get fixed because simply our government cares more about the economy than us), seeing a psychiatrist or a therapist or going to a mental hospital or WHATEVER is INCREDIBLY expensive. and to assume that everyone has access and enough time/money/energy/transportation/whatever to do all of that is classist and elitist.

ANYTHING medical (including mental health) is biased towards white cis men. most studies are done on white cis men/boys. because of this, people who aren’t white cis men (or people who aren’t perceived as white cis men) are often not diagnosed. the system is racist. the system is sexist. the system is transphobic. people don’t know how to diagnose autism or adhd or personality disorders or other neurodivergencies or even mental illnesses in black people and other people of color, in women, in trans people, etc. and GOD FORBID someone be in multiple (or all) of those categories. saying “just go get diagnosed :)” is a privileged statement to make.

shocker! the psychiatry system is also ableist. if you’re already diasabled (whether it be mental or physical) and you see a doctor about ANOTHER disability? the doctor is most likely going to shoot you down. or at least be weary about someone having mutliple disabilities.

also most people who diagnose are neurotypical. they have never and will probably never experience neurodivergency so they can never fully understand it. they operate off of stereotypes of neurodivergent people and usually only stereotypical behavior of neurodivergent white cis men (which, as i mentioned before, is problematic for anyone who isn’t a white cis man). neurotypical diagnosers don’t know the neurodivergent culture and aren’t trained to recognize very common things (like masking for example).

a professional diagnosis can also be weaponized. not everyone can get a professional diagnosis because there are some neurodivergencies (such as autism and personality disorders) and mental illnesses (like depression) that can have legal and medical respercussions to have in your record. trans people can be denied medical and legal transition for being professionally diagnosed. people can lose custody battles for being professionally diagnosed. a professional diagnosis can be used as justification for taking away someone’s body autonomy (especially if that person is also physically disabled).

a LOT of neurodivergencies also have some type of symptom (or symptoms) that make it difficult to interact with people. troubles recognizing facial expressions, troubles understanding certain phrases and types of speech, paranoid about people, audio processing issues, being nonverbal in an environment that doesn’t accommodate for it, overstimulation, extreme social anxiety, discomfort in new situations, problems with eye contact, and a lot more. because like. for many nd people, interacting with people is very difficult and stressful. and hey. if you want to get a professional diagnosis? take a WILD guess what you have to do? FUCKING INTERACT with people! LIKE?? JEHDJJDKEKKDKDKDS. do you know how many professionally diagnosed nd people i know who made their appointment COMPLETELY on their own without help from a parent or family member or friend? LITERALLY ZERO! and i know A FEW nd people who have professional diagnoses! so if someone has social issues that prevent them from doing tasks like calling and making an appointment, showing up for an appointment, talking during the appointment, etc and ALSO doesn’t have familial or friend support (because newsflash! people who are friends/family of disabled people can still be ableist)? almost impossible to get a diagnosis! plus, the diagnosis process is TIME CONSUMING. not everyone can focus on a task for that long and not everyone can miss work/school for that long.

so those are the reasons i support self-dx. (although there’s probably more that i’m forgetting but i have adhd and it’s hard for me to remember things!)

so hopefully you now understand my reasons for believing in self-dx, and perhaps even you’re pro-self-dx now because before you were just uneducated on these issues and how they impact people who aren’t you.

but in case you’re still anti-self-dx and probably hate already-marginalized neurodivergent people, let’s talk about this horrendous ask (series of asks, actually) that i got sent. i feel like i can feel the self hatred and internalized ableism OOZING from this ask and into my inbox, so thanks for that i guess /s

“Sometimes people who self diagnose can take away from those who are actually nd, even sometimes from themselves.”

starting out strong with the ableism on this one by separating people into “self diagnosed” and “actually nd” people. self diagnosed people ARE actually nd

there’s not a limited number of nd resources. this isn’t a math equation of only x amount of people can be nd because there’s only y amount of resources. more people realizing they’re nd will actually MAKE more resources for nd people and will bring more awareness to being nd

even IF someone self diagnosed, and they go back on it later, what harm was done? they learned some coping mechanisms? they made some nd friends? neither of those are problematic and i think they’re both actually very helpful. i think nt people SHOULD learn more about nd people and stuff because i think that will lead to WAYYY less misunderstandings and WAYYYY less ableism

“There are many people who fake nds for attention,”

hey anon, what fucking world do you live in that nd’s are cool enough to fake having? because i would LOVE to live there. like, i literally had a post about my personality disorder (which i will not be specifying) i had to delete because people were sending my anons about how i was “scary” and “threatening” now that they knew i had the personality disorder i have. last year i left a discord server because the ableism i was recieving from not only the members of the server, but the mods as well. there are very few people i know irl who i tell about my personality disorder, but when i tell people about my adhd, they start treating me different. they infantalize me and make fun of me and use “jokes” about stereotypical adhd behaviors to alienate me and they even TELL OTHER PEOPLE without my permission. i was SEVERELY bullied throughout elementary and middle school for being nd. i have been refused job and educational opportunities as well as literal medical attention for being nd. people aren’t “faking” being nd, and if they were they probably wouldn’t be doing it for long because it’s not something that’s EASY to deal with.

kinda ironic that you’re saying people can’t diagnose themselves but that YOU can tell when someone is faking their diagnosis. that’s both hypocritical and a double standard.

masking exists. if you think someone isn’t “acting nd enough” they’re probably masking because they’ve been fucking bullied and harrassed. also you’re probably basing whatever you think nd is on stereotypes. not every nd person is sheldon cooper lol.

this is a side note but can we talk about how you’re literally just taking transmed rhetoric and molding it to fit nd people? like. you really come onto MY NONBINARY NEURODIVERGENT blog and expect me to validate your recycled “but what about the REAL [insert group] people?” ??? like grow up, elitist. you’re not better than anyone else just because you lick some boots 🥾 👅

“and claiming that self diagnosis (and this is just what I interpreted) is just as valid as professional diagnosis”

it is 😌

the only difference between self diagnosis and professional diagnosis is that a professional diagnosis can also get you medicine. not every neurodivergency needs meds and not every neurodivergency can be treated (at this time or even ever). for example, my pd (self diagnosed) doesn’t have a specific treatment but multiple symptoms of the pd (all professionally diagnosed) have specific treatments and medicines that work, so patients are given/diagnosed with/prescribed those instead. also, medicine doesn’t work for everyone! and sometimes people are allergic to or take medicines that will conflict with any new medicine.

“can really devalue the account of someone who actually has a disorder”

here we go again with that “self diagnosed” vs “actually nd” bullshit. literally just say you hate poor people n minorities and leave lol

someone having a different experience than you isn’t devaluing you, but if you’re the one who always has the spotlight maybe you should use your privledge uplift other marginalized people instead of feeling angry when everything isn’t all about you 100% of the time

“I have a second ask”

i don’t want it

“Plus it can be damaging for a person if they self diagnose wrong.”

how? what if they learn information that they wouldn’t’ve otherwise known like coping mechanisms that help them with their own neurodivergencies? that’s definitely not a bad thing

i think it’s funny that you bring up that people can self diagnose wrong and don’t even MENTION that doctors can diagnose wrong. like. you know. the people who GIVE OUT MEDICINE to people. i think it’s MUCH more dangerous when a PROFESSIONAL diagnosis is wrong. what are self-dx people with wrong diagnoses gonna do? read up on nd tips? maybe smoke some weed? drink some coffee? that’s about all they can do with a self-dx. but if a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL gives you an INCORRECT diagnosis, they can ACTUALLY fuck you up.

“I was recently diagnosed with PTSD, a disorder which I would have never considered I’d have.”

that’s great about your professional diagnosis! i don’t know you but i’m glad you’re finding out about yourself and getting the help you want and/or need /srs

sorry if this sounds blunt, but honestly i’m not surprised you never considered you could have PTSD. based on your asks, you sound like you have a lot of internalized ableism you need to work through and a lot more research about neurodiversity you need to do. being anti-self diagnosis is a common belief among a lot of people with internalized ableism and a lot of these same people are the ones who have no issue with and even SUPPORT auti$m $peaks. many nd organizations that are run BY nd people (like asan) actually support self-dx.

“If I had of diagnosed my own symptoms and then started treating myself or taking precautions based on my self diagnosed "condition", it could of really hurt me.”

how? taking precautions to preserve your mental health is NEVER a bad idea. i’m not ptsd, but someone i care deeply about DOES have ptsd and has shared a lot of the precautions and coping mechanisms for ptsd with me and honestly they’ve been incredibly helpful. it’s almost as if different neurodivergencies and/or mental illnesses have overlap and that’s why there’s a whole community for us to be able to share these resources and information with each other!

the same person was rejected a formal autism diagnosis because of their ptsd, plus the fact that they’re transgender and the fact they have symptoms of adhd. it’s not really my place to talk about their experience with professional diagnosis, but i’ll send this post to them and allow them to add on their experience in a rb if they’re comfortable with that. but it’s almost as if their experience with the professional diagnosis process was unhelpful, harmful, ableist, and transphobic 🧐 and unfortunately this is a pretty common experience

“Also, by self diagnosing, I devalue the account of a person with the disorder l assumed I had.”

how? if someone thinks they’re nd, they have a legitimate reason for thinking so. either they have another neurodivergency than the one they thought they had, or they’re neurotypical and need to figure themself out and have a need for support. either way, they learned more about the specific neurodivergency, more about the nd community, and more about themself. i don’t see how that’s a bad thing.

if you think self-diagnosed people’s experiences inherently have less value, that is straight up ableism. especially considering that other marginalized identities and minorities have trouble getting professional diagnoses, you might also be bigoted in some other way. or at the very least, refusing to acknowledge your privilege.

“only one more I promise”

i don’t want it

“I understand that doctors are expensive and professionals can get it wrong,”

okay. if you understand this, then dm me your information so i can bill you for the cost of my professional diagnoses, the cost for my therapy sessions, the cost for my medicine, and the cost for transportation to and from all these places. PLUS the cost of the work and school i’ll be missing for these sessions. 🤲

“but self diagnosis can be really harmful to yourself or others.”

nah, you’re just ableist and a gatekeeper lol

“If you feel like you have a disorder, go see a psychiatrist, you may have it.”

[remembers when i went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with two major symptoms of a personality disorder and said i had other symptoms of the pd as well but refused to diagnose me with the actual personality disorder because i was a minor at the time and he told me “kids don’t have personalities so they can’t have personality disorders”. i understand being weary about diagnosing children with personality disorders because they aren’t fully developed but this dude straight up told me that i didn’t have a personality. this man literally only worked with children so that means he literally never diagnosed personality disorders. this man was literally just lazy and didn’t care about his patients. this man also refused to believe me when i told him the medicine he prescribed me made my symptoms worse and even made me hallucinate. he ignored me and refused to change my medicine so eventually i just changed psychiatrists and they put me on a new medicine that DIDNT make my symptoms worse and DIDNT make me hallucinate. also i looked it up after our session and apparently ONLY people with my pd and related ones experience hallucinations on that certain medication. it’s almost like his refusal to diagnose me and ignoring my symptoms/concerns harmed me. this man also constantly misgendered me and told me that homosexuality and transgenderism should’ve still been in the dsm. like golly, it’s almost as if being queer and neurodivergent in an extremely conservative state is harmful and dangerous. and that psychiatrists aren’t immune from being homophobic and transphobic and ableist.] but yes :) perhaps i should see another psychiatrist in this conservative state :)

“I don't want to undermine anyone's actual experiences, but it can be dangerous.”

then stop undermining people’s actual experiences :)

no ❤️

“If you feel like something's wrong, go see a professional.”

the whole point of the neurodiversity movement is that there IS no such thing as a “normal” brain, so saying that neurodivergent people have something “wrong” with them is ableist.

💰 🤲 hand it over

“I don't want to offend, I just don't want anyone to get mislead or hurt. :)”

you absolutely meant to offend. you literally said that self-diagnosed people’s experiences aren’t valid and have less value than people who have professional diagnoses

i know more people who have been (and personally have been) mislead and hurt by professionals than by simply existing as a self-diagnosed person

also i want to say that being pro-self dx is NOT being anti-professional/formal diagnosis. i think that people should absolutely get a professional diagnosis (if they are able to without negative repercussions)! being pro-self dx is more inclusive of marginalized people (like people of color, women, lgbtq+ people, people with multiple disabilities, etc). pro-self dx is simply just saying that professional diagnosis isn’t the only option

(neurotypical people and anti-self dx people don’t add anything; pro-self dx neurodivergent people are allowed to add with their experiences if they want)

[bisexualmaedhros]

stuff i want from the sims in the future in no particular order (base game, not dlc! also put under a cut bc it got longer than i expected and idk how much dash space it'll take up haha)

ability to input ur sim's pronouns, and even add multiple sets for the game to use at random maybe (though i doubt they'd go as far as that second part unfortunately). it's bullshit that they have the pride decorations and whatnot but my sims still get misgendered. granted i know progress doesn't happen all at once but my god. come on

in a similar vein, more customization wrt your sim's sex & gender (eg not having to have a flat chest if your sim is listed as male, etc; maybe even the option for a sim to transition?)

disability options, physical and mental (granted this would probably be tough to implement properly but that doesn't stop me from wanting it lol). even if they weren't able to go all out right away, it seems as though something like being able to give a sim prosthetics wouldn't be too complicated of an addition? of course it depends on how much realism you want, but like... they didn't make glasses all that realistic, but they still let us have them. why not prosthetics or even mobility aids?

happy healthy polyamorous relationship options. i doubt they'd actually put this in but a bitch can dream.

the ability to customize a sim's height

the ability to give them painted nails like you can makeup

i've heard people say they had online dating in previous sims games, but afaik they don't in ts4? why. bring it back that sounds fun

ability to have sims remove their shoes when in a house. the fact that my sims are walking around in their goddamn winter boots on these nice ass floors gives me fucking hives. i live in a household that is not a shoes off household irl and i cannot wait to get my own place and be rid of that. please i don't want to deal with this in the sims too

this is another one that sounds like it might be hard to code, but like. the option to customize the cadence of a sim's voice. i have ocs i've made who, even if i get the pitch of the voice basically right, it's hard to tell because they're supposed to be way more monotone than the game makes them. we can choose voice categories (sweet, warm, etc); i think it would be nice to also customize how expressive they are when they talk (for example, always monotone, usually monotone, usually expressive, always expressive; smth like that idk)

acne/more skin details and stuff!

[werevulvi]

I wanted to write a bit about sex segregated spaces, in regards to people who pass as the opposite sex. This is not actually about trans people, as much as it is about the safety, integrity and general rights of male-passing biological women. I am not the only gender non-conforming woman who gets tossed out of female only spaces, based on the false presumption that we’re men. I do not care about validating trans women, or even trans men, for that matter. I care about real life practicality, risks and safety for ALL women, not just those who look conveniently clearly female, which starts with accepting that some women, whether they've medically transitioned or not, pass as male. And none of them should have to feminise themselves to access female only spaces. Whether that be to ensure safety from males, or to just take a leak.

The fact that I choose to keep my beard has almost nothing to do with that I'm male-passing. It may be my strongest "male" feature, but it's hardly the only one. I still pass as male with a clean shaven face, which makes shaving my beloved beard rather pointless, in my opinion. I would realistically need to go through more than just facial hair removal to pass as my own sex again. I'd probably even need facial feminisation surgery, hair transplant, voice feminisation and full body hair removal, at the very least, to even get close to passing as female again. But even then, I'd probably STILL be read as a trans woman, i.e. male. And even IF I did all that... WHY should I have to mutilate myself (a second time) by buying into harmful patriarchal beauty standards, which would worsen my dysphoria and reduce my comfort in my own skin significantly, to be allowed the safety of male-free spaces?

Does that sound feminist to you? Because to me, it's incredibly misogynistic, and strongly counterproductive. To uphold patriarchal gender roles for the safety of women... is the most insanely anti-feminist double standard I can possibly ever think of.

To lay out my argument on this topic, I'm going to use my own experiences as examples a lot. Mostly because I cannot with any conscience speak for anyone else than myself, at least not in such detail and with such harsh judgement. But I'm sure a lot of my experiences are applicable to other masculine women as well.

First off, I still consider myself gender critical, but my allegiance to radical feminism has been waning lately. This is mostly due to that although I agree with the base premise of radfem, I tend to disagree with the proposed solutions to almost all of the issues, because to me they come across as unfounded beliefs (yes, BELIEFS) that "it would just work" without much of any evidence to back up such a claim.

And when it comes to trans people, I've noticed a lot of... shall we say, willful ignorance, going on among many radfems, which does affect opinions on gender abolishion as well as sex segregated spaces to appear rather... intellectually dishonest, to be frank. Although this is not intended as a call out by any means, I merely want for people of all sides of the radfem/gender critical/pro-trans fence to stay critical and keep questioning everything, even one's own beloved ideology. Which I don't see a lot of. Instead I see almost religious defending of radfem as the ultimate/perfect ideology... oh, guess where I've seen that before? I've come to believe that "hivemindedness" is probably part of every possible ideology out there. Even radfem.

So, anyway.

One thing I come across time and time again is the belief (yes, I dare say "belief") that people never pass as the opposite sex, although it's mostly directed at trans people, this very much applies to people who are just gnc as well. Let's not forget that. And this belief seem to often lead to that transitioned/gnc people can just use the space intended for their biological sex, no problem. However, this is not the case. There is a problem. Very many trans people, and some gnc people, pass well enough to at least blend in enough to not raise much of an eyebrow among the opposite sex, and to most definitely stand out as an outsider among people of the same sex. OR they pass barely enough as either sex, and thus stand out as an outsider among both the same sex and the opposite sex, which can cause similar problems with single sex spaces.

There's also the thing that it generally is easier to pass as the opposite sex among complete strangers, compared to people who know you/your background. They tend to read you differently, depending on that.

At least in my experience, complete strangers assume I'm male and don't even as much as raise an eyebrow about how male I come across as. They accept their false assumption at face value. And why wouldn't they? 99,97% of people who "look like me" are biologically men. Then people who know I'm transitioned, but didn't know me pre-transition, tend to see me as a female who looks very convincingly male, whether that makes me a masculine woman, trans man, or any other (female) label in their eyes. They claim to be able to "see" my female nature, yet they somehow had no idea before I told them about my true sex. Then people who know about my history and saw it happen from the time before my transition (now only really my family) never quite succeeded to see me as anything other than a gnc woman. To quote my dad: "You look like a woman who's trying to look like a man." Although I'm sure my mom and sister don't have quite as harsh views about me, lol. They still seem to see me the way they always have, regardless of what name or pronouns they use for me.

This matters, because although people who know I'm transitioned and may even have witnessed my transition from the beginning, struggle to see me as a man (which I respect entirely and I'm VERY careful to not push wanting to be seen/read as anything in particular, but also, people do not want to be rude, especially irl) that does not go for people who have never even seen me before the moment I walk into... say, a public bathroom. To them I cannot possibly be anything other than a man, and it's almost impossible to change their view of me as male once their brains have registered me as such. I need to conjure up pretty fucking compelling evidence to shatter that view they have of me.

This is important, because it means I cannot feasibly use female only spaces, unless someone else (who is also female) vouches for me and explains my situation for me. This is, most likely due to people being more likely to believe an unlikely explanation when it's told by someone else, because maybe I could be lying; and only someone of the same sex as me can accompany/escort me into female only spaces, obviously. But even then, there's a ton of tension around my presentation. An air of distrust, basically. The question that hangs in the air: "Is that a trans woman?" even after they've been given a thorough explanation of my situation. It's uncomfortable for everyone involved. Imagine how it goes then if I'd just show up unannounced, and without someone to vouch for me. I just get booted on sight.

Yes, I can whine about this all day, but that is NOT my point.

My point is that I'm either directly, or implicitly, unwelcome in female only spaces, despite being biologically female, because of my transitioned appearance... despite I'm not even on testosterone anymore since 2 years ago. Sure, most gnc women (whether transitioned or not) don't seem to have turned out quite as passable as me, but clearly, it happens. So let's stop pretending that it doesn't.

So with that in mind, I don't always have access to a gender neutral space. Like for example when I travel with the ferry that goes between my island and the mainland of my country, there is only men's bathrooms and women's bathrooms. No third option. That's a 3 hour boat ride, and with my coffee drinking habit, I will need to pee at some point or another while aboard that ship, alright. And no, peeing in the ocean is not an option, as squatting over the railing would be incredibly dangerous, and most likely not even remotely allowed. Granted, I don't take the ferry often, it's just the most clear example I can think of. Because it's my only means of transportation to/from the mainland, except from flying, which is incredibly expensive, less reliable and obviously an environmental hazard. So when I do have to use that ferry, I'm kinda stuck with my choices.

So then, am I better off going with the men's or women's bathroom? I am much more likely to be left alone to do my business in the men's, so even though that is not the space I want to be in, nor do I think it's "right" for me to be there, sometimes it's even a bit scary, other times even impractical if there's only urinals and no stall, and it's absolutely not validating at all - it's the only bathroom that I can realistically use, without too much trouble. And I don't want trouble. But I also hate having to put my own safety on the backburner for the perceived safety of other women, who are not actually at any higher safety risk when left alone with me.

So, onto the more general, political aspects of this issue:

Women in male only spaces may be less of an issue in regards to safety, at least for the majority of people (men) in that space, especially if the woman in question passes as male. No one gives a fuck, generally. But problem is then that she is at far greater risk than the majority of people (women) would be with a single male, in a female only space. As I think a group of women against one male is generally less risk towards the women, when compared to a group of men against a single female, which can be extremely dangerous for her. Although I've so far never been faced with any sort of violence in a male only space, let's not pretend that my presense in a male only space is somehow LESS dangerous for me, than how dangerous the presense of ONE male in a space with a whole group of women, would be for those women. Statistically and realistically, I'm at a far greater risk than they are, and no, I do not have any more choice in the matter than they do.

Thus, this kinda skewed idea of safety and choice, becomes a question of ethics, I think.

Furthermore, I'm a person of principles, and it wouldn't sit right with me that if males should never under any circumstances be allowed in female spaces, but females could be allowed in male spaces. I refuse to be a hypocrit on purpose! No, if males should never under any circumstances be allowed in female spaces, then females should also never under any circumstances be allowed in male spaces. OR, if females CAN under some special circumstances be allowed into male spaces, then males should be allowed the same in female spaces. Both of these solutions pose serious problems, which I keep seeing being brushed under the carpet a lot, and that annoys me.

But if we go with the first idea, of barring people from using opposite sex spaces altogether, then where the fuck do I pee? Should I utilise my "right" to use female spaces, despite making everyone uncomfortable and feeling threatened by my presense, as well as risking being kicked out and forced to use the equivalent male spaces anyway, which is exactly what that idea is meant to prevent - or should I completely avoid being in places which I know does not have a gender neutral bathroom, such as the ferry? Would that not be discrimination? Which is the most reasonable option here, what is the most practical, what's wrong and what's right? Do I even have a RIGHT to use female bathrooms, and if so, how do I prove it, considering my ID still says I'm male?

Trans men aren't gonna be nearly as willing to use female only spaces, and trans women definitely not eager to use male only spaces. But aside from that validation factor, I have the exact same struggle as trans people do on this particular point. Quite often they do toss and turn at which bloody bathroom to pick, not just out of validation, but because they genuinely struggle to figure out which one is the best option for them practically. Especially if they don't quite pass as either sex, and most and foremost just wanna do their business without unneccesary drama.

Also, to clarify: barring trans people from opposite sex spaces is NOT discrimination, as they never belonged there to begin with - but leaving them with no other option than to pee themselves, is. Which means that I think it's fucked up to barr them from those spaces BEFORE having solved the problem of "if they can't go there, then where?"

Perhaps I'm the only one around here who cares about males' integrity, safety and human rights. But even if so, I should not be the only one to care about gnc females' integrity, safety and rights. Male-passing females, whether transitioned or not, whether bearded or not, are still female, and if we don't want them in female only spaces, and not in male only spaces either; why? Because they "chose" to medically transition and/or dress in men's clothing?

Yeah, well, in most cases of transitioned females, they transitioned because of dysphoria, which no one chooses to have. It's a medical condition. Barring people from spaces they'd otherwise be welcomed into, due to the visual outcome of the treatment of their medical condition... is ableism. Barring a woman from a female only space she belongs in, solely because her unusual physical appearance freaks you out... is ableism. Also, simply being gnc and being viscerally uncomfortable with presenting femininely is also not a choice. And even if it was... shouldn't it be? That's why I cannot roll with that sorta solution. I dunno if it counts as a form of discrimination by definition, but it just smells a lot like it from where I sit. That it's no more right to toss me out of, or give me trouble, in a women's bathroom, than a masculine women who also passes as male but who has not medically transitioned.

That said, however, women's safety DOES matter a lot to me. Hence my reluctance to join their spaces, despite being a woman myself. I guess, what I'd want is complete sex segregation to work in my favour, but I can't promote a rule that would discriminate against me. I'm sorry, I just can't. I desire FUNCTIONAL sex segregated spaces, but realistically they cannot function. Truth is that the only womens spaces I've been allowed into since I began passing as male, are "trans inclusionary" ones that openly allow in trans women, ironically. I care about the safety of other women, and their right to have their own spaces... but not at the expense of my own rights, as a fellow woman. To say otherwise would be a crime against myself. I really wish this could be solved in some way that would work in practice, but honestly I don't think it can anytime soon. Not without some seriously tried and proven, practical and humane methods to check what sex people entering single sex spaces actually are.

That is the reality that people have to face. And personally I'd rather focus on women's rights than trans rights, but as a woman who's medically transitioning, I'd shoot my own foot no matter which one I'd choose. That's quite a dilemma.

So where my opinion stands on this right now, is basically this: I think female only spaces should only be for biological women, but I'm reluctantly okay-ish with males who pass as female utilising female only spaces, and vice versa for females in male only spaces. However, this does not feel ideal at all. It's a compromise. Ideally, I want such spaces to be entirely sex segregated, and for even people who pass as the opposite sex (like myself) to be allowed into spaces of their biological sex. My appeal here is both realistic practicality with the reality that some people really do pass as the opposite sex, as well as the safety, rights and integrity of male-passing women.

[danieyells]

Thanks for answering my questions! I know it was a lot lmao but I Am Have Questions and very few people informed enough to discuss them with xD

I suppose it is possible they Oniwaka and Co. were being rent from their exceptions and not to Tokyo itself, but I thought the way it worked was that MC rent their connection to Tokyo itself and overwrote it with their own! I hadn't considered your angle before; something to think about haha

If I remember right though, Sitri's wings, and with them his powers, only grew in recently right? Like, a little while before the first Valentine's Event? That's why he had so much trouble controlling them if I recall correctly! But sustaining himself on that energy is one thing that can be explained (though! It's possible that part of Sitri's deep desire for chocolate in general, but valentine's chocolate especially, is the love that gets put into them? Not to say he sustains himself solely on it or anything, but it might explain the strength of his desires ahaha)

Wait. Do those character quests mean that collisions can literally send people into the pasts of other worlds?? Like fr?? And also, does that mean collisions are like, direct overlaps with other worlds and not just illusory versions?

Part of why I'm trying to sort this all out is because I want to write a TAS fic, but I needed a better understanding of how, exactly, the system works, and was basically about to throw my hands in the air and say that actually nobody goes home at all until they've fulfilled their contracts ever and that's that xD I've finished all the story content btw! Including chapter 11 and most of the translated events, except for the Canaan one (gotta get on that, pray I get myself a Dagon 5★)

Does that mean that we contracts are *unfulfillable*? Like MC's connection with Agyo was basically like "I want friend lmao" and then they got their friend, but does that mean that Agyo is trapped in Tokyo until MC decides that they don't want to be friends with him anymore?

Also, do you think that if a Stray Transient does eventually run out of energy to sustain themselves in Tokyo, they get booted back to their world permanently, or do you think they just recover their strength in their home world and then get pulled back over?

Thanks again for answering my questions! I hope that this is proving as interesting to explore to you as it is to me hahaha

I don't mind that it's a lot at all! Lol it was just a surprise. I'm honored to be approached about this kind of thing, and I find it very interesting, yeah! 'u' I love worldbuilding and characterization so thinking about/sharing my thoughts on it for things I like is always a pleasure.

I mean it's possible they're rending their connection to Tokyo, but I feel like that wouldn't take the exception away? Because it came from an interaction they had, not Tokyo itself. I figured they were torn from the exception and the exception and fighting robbed them of all their energy in the proccess of making them a. . .screaming, mindless fighting machine lmao. Like rending a familiar from someone? But that familiar is inside them? If that makes sense? I don't remember if this was explained to begin with let alone how lol I should reread it lol

Sitri's wings did come in pretty recently, and they're implied to be a puberty thing. The problem is that he says they came in "the other day"--which doesn't necessarily mean "two days ago" as convenient as that'd be. The Japanese is even more vague, just saying "When I was taking a bath" without giving a timeframe. But I kinda figured that, until the wings popped in, love from his family was enough to sustain him. Because Bathym doesn't have a family here, really, he has his fans and the guild. But also since his family knew about the wings, saying they were a sign he was growing up, maybe they have a similar power that pops in during puberty and thus were able to feed him others' feelings. But yeah they were new which is why he couldn't control them.

As for the pasts in other worlds. . .time doesn't flow in other worlds the same as it does in Tokyo necessarily. El Dorado isn't even around anymore, time in Shangri-La flows slower than in Tokyo, etc--but these places still participate in the Game despite that. So worlds and timelines aren't entirely stable--after all time's been reset over and over. Also, we have time travelers from Utopia(which is the future???) so if they were forced to conform to a single space-time path that'd be kind of difficult? So, yeah, time and space and memories aren't necessarily stable in collisions. I mean, if a world collided based on memories, who's to say those places are still exactly as remembered? It works for the jungle in Shangri-La because it's a jungle and how much will that change--but the collided oceans are connected to towns in other worlds? Dagon connected islands from various worlds into one, too--those can't all be his own memories or from the same timeframe. Collisions are pretty unstable by definition so it doesn't surprise me that time can get screwed up along the way.

But yeah collisions seem to be actual overlaps of some sort--since Macan remembered that he heard MC's voice that happened in the collision, Xolotl met and saw himself in the collision, etc. And those things had effects that brought them to Tokyo to begin with.

Oh, there's also Nomad's character story where MC was invisible to everyone but Nomad--Nomad could feel them too--because the worlds were unstable under Ikebukuro Coliseum and they reminded Nomad of the prison he was in, causing the Collision.

MC could travel the collision/memory without Nomad around and get accurate information about its layout to help him escape.

If the collision doesn't alter the actual past then there's no way they'd know without Nomad physically with them. . .and there's no way Nomad would know where to go to escape the prison if MC weren't able to get actual information.

Then MC breaks the lights--only Nomad can see them, but they can affect reality/the past in a way that influenced everyone in it. And they're able to escape thanks to information MC gathered about and influence MC had on the world that Nomad would have no means whatsoever of getting/doing on his own.

Then they saw present Nomad who said MC was his, MC tried to reassure past!Nomad that it was okay, they were the same person, and past!Nomad felt betrayed.

Past Nomad sees MC through the transient light and chases after them, bringing him to Tokyo in continued pursuit of revenge.

. . .and present Nomad, now home with Mc and having had resolved the collision, remembered that he'd been chasing MC through the transient light but had travelled to Tokyo to find them--but had not travelled to them. He'd likely forgotten who he was looking for because he was kind of out of his mind at the time and thought he was chasing after his own hallucination to begin with.

Now that he remembers he wanted to kill MC for leaving him but also knows that he's the one who MC left him for, he deems them half a traitor for only betraying the him of the past not the him of the present and lets them off the hook for now.

(nice kabedon--DAMN THE TEN IMAGE LIMIT.)

MC was the one he wanted venegence against when he left Utopia, although he still has to get revenge against the people who turned him into a tiger. But he went to Tokyo to get revenege against MC and made a contract with them without remembering they were the target. He says he won't kill them for now but someday, when his other revenge is done, he'll come after them for betraying him. Until then they're his assistant and they'll be helping him get revenge. If they betray him again--betray him "one and a half times"--they'll become the new priority and he'll kill them first.

But even he said that he thinks that he's crazed for revenge is stupid so MC figured out that he wants them to keep him in check. (He calls them 'traitor' fondly(? He smiles while doing it, I think it's pretty fond) and I wish he kept doing that but it'd probably reveal more to people than Nomad is comfortable revealing lol so he calls you by name instead.)

Also, canonness note, he declares them his detective assistant when he declares them his accomplice--and in the Beach House Andvari he reiterates that's your relationship too. Which means that his character quest is canon across events. And if events are canon--whether through your choices or not(at one point in the story you know Gyobu but you only met him in events until that point???) that means Mc making pacts with everyone could be canon too.

. . .but yeah collisions are just time and space freaking out. Maybe they're past resets of sorts.

And oooh fanfics are exciting 'u' I'll give it a read if you link it! And congrats on reading everything! *U* I've gotta do that myself lol and good luck getting 5★Dagon!! I wanted 5★Tangaroa(someone I have added has him and. . .holy shit he heals himself, he heals allies around him, he's practically invincible) but I ran out of transient stones and I'm poor irl 8'D The Canaan event is fun and also chaotic and will probably give you even MORE questions about how the fuck timelines and collisions work. Because it kinda introduces a new mechanic into the mix. So uh brace yourself?

The problem with "nobody goes home until they've fulfilled their contracts" is that some people just don't have contracts. And their own desires only seem to cause gates to open and take them, not actually bind them--someone from Tokyo(or in Tokyo in MC's case) needs to be their binding agent if they're not like. A World Rep or someone similarly powerful enough to stay on their own(this is a guess--they're probably sustained by being the System and thus stand on the faith of all their people from their world. Alternatively they're bound to Tokyo via MC as the trophy.) Otherwise they wouldn't note that transients disappear eventually if unbound by a contract.

Gullinbursti isn't attached to MC by contract anymore not because MC said "I don't want us to be friends" or anything but because MC refused to make a proper contract with him because he'd misinterpret it. But he's still hanging out, so. It's not immediate. But, yeah, there are probably unfulfillable contracts that can only be broken by death or declaration. Agyo is stuck with MC until MC says he can go lol--I mean they're friends now but it'd defeat the purpose of the pact if they went away as soon as that happened. Because MC wants more and more companions they'll never truly have their desire to have friends fulfilled probably. So anyone summoned that way gets to stay in Tokyo until MC is no longer in it or maybe until MC decides "I don't want people around me anymore/I don't want to see anyone ever again" and truly means it--which will declare their contracts fulfilled and send them home, if they have a home/life to return to.

As for if Stray Transients go back permanently, yes and no. I think they go back and recuperate their energy and they stay home if they don't have an outstanding pact(whether they're aware or not)--however if they were just there because they went into the light and had nothing binding them to the land but that energy/will that brought them, they'd go home without bwing sent back unless they really wanted it again. Thus they can be resummoned, intentionally or otherwise. If MC one day dismisses everyone, regrets it, and says they want their friends back, everyone would come back. But if they didn't ask for everyone to return they'd stay home(disregarding that they'd probably all go NO WE WANNA GO BACK TAKE US TO MC and the transient light would bring them back to Tokyo again lmao.)

So. Yeah, they'll stay home until summoned again, even after they get their energy back, I think. If they don't have a home to go back to maybe they float in the void for a while, kinda like how MC just kinda existed as the Exiles without a home or like how Robinson says they can't stay anywhere forever because they're Wanderers.

(Somewhat related, Shiro mentions in the Apprentice Santa event that it must be hard to import turkey to Tokyo. . .import it from where? Tokyo is closed off on all sides INCLUDING THE OCEAN. That means someone's bringing turkey from other worlds into Tokyo--a business-like summoning contract lol. "Come to Tokyo, bring goods from other worlds, and you can go back until I need more" basically. Using another world like a manufacturing plant lol. . .little things like that make me consider that you can go and come back at the will of a summoner, assuming you donct have an artifact or ability that allows you to traverse worlds as you please.)

Another thing for you to consider if you wanna be a bit more puzzled: remember how much belief plays a part in how things work in Tokyo. Consider. . .if someone claims they're not a stray transient when they actually are and everyone around them believes that they have a contract or guild or something keeping them there even though it's not true. . .are they bound to Tokyo by that belief as long as they're around more people who think they're bound to somebody? Will they disappear if people stop believing them or they're around people who believe they're a stray? Consiquentially if people believe a stray will disappear sooner than later does their timer run out faster? If Ose somehow ran around telling people that transients won't disappear with his ability to make people believe everything he says, do they stop disappearing because no one thinks they will? I suppose he can't lie to nature, but can those beliefs sustain people? I mean belief can cause Oni to be hurt by beans, can cause Behemoth to regain his sense of taste, can cause people from worlds that've been destroyed to become demons because the Angels invading will it to be so. So where does belief's power end and the power of the System kick in? Does the game end if MC puts on Ose's crown and tells the Representaives it's over and they all lost? Or would the alternation of belief on a mass scale cause an Exception by clashing with something more powerful than it? What, since they so value Systems and the Faith that sustains them, to the point that losing Faith in your System causes a full on collapse of the world it holds together(see:Canaan), is more powerful in this game than the power of belief?

[illnessfaker]

[ cw: f-slur, rape mention ]

no reblogs pls. this is a long vent.

haha not to be a hysterical faggot crippled shut-in freak or anything but the way ppl talk abt the defensiveness around the f-slur that some gay/bi male users (and some transfem users) on here as if it's some kind superiority pissing contest thing and not primarily about...respecting the boundaries and experiences of those gay/bi male (and transfem) users. like...being on this site as a fag-adjacent person (i say that half-jokingly because it sounds silly on one hand but on the other that's the most accurate descriptor of my gender identity, lol) is becoming increasingly draining and upsetting with how "progressive" homophobia against gay/bi men is apparently becoming, like, a meme among lgbtq people and that's acceptable somehow bc lgbtq people aren't cishets or because it's "only online" and therefore doesn't matter.

like idgaf abt ppl who aren't gay/bi men (or transfem) using the f-slur in every single context possible. if they're affectionately referring to their gay/bi male (or transfem) friends with that word (so long as said friends are comfortable with it) that's one thing. who cares. i even rb'd something where a cis butch (iirc) lesbian was talking about a gay man she knew who she was affectionatly calling a faggot and the things she said warmed my heart. if they're throwing it around at every opportunity or using it as an edgy insult against random strangers on the internet, that's another. the users on here who do the latter also regularly display behavior that like...shows a pretty clear disdain for gay/bi men (or transfem ppl) not apart of their online or "irl" circlejerks and echo chambers, and that is in no way disconnected from their love of using the f-slur, lol.

the "it's only online and so it's unimportant uwu go outside" thing also really feels like such a spit in the face as someone who both lives in a rural area full of cishet white men with guns that might try to kill me if i walked out of the house in drag (not to mention i live with my bf and his family and his parents are homophobes themselves i'm sure), and is also someone with health issues that usually keep me at home and in bed when i'm not working. i didn't always live here but even in my hometown the only "lgbtq space" i had was the high school GSA which didn't do shit other than the day of silence and was attended by people i did not feel safe around (e.g. my ex-friend who was very emotionally manipulative and ended up raping someone.) i don't have any other lgbtq spaces to go to other than online ones. if i never joined tumblr i might still be a self-hating cishet girl, or i might be dead, who knows. like, i've accepted at this point that personhood isn't something i'm allowed in (outside of my whiteness) so fuck me i guess if we need to but the idea that other young, impressionable, and/or traumatized lgbtq people who only can meet other lgbtq people and learn about lgbtq things online for whatever reason don't deserve to have us make an effort on cultivating internet spaces that are as accessible and safe for them as possible, or that their experiences and feelings are somehow unimportant is just...vile. like ofc not everyone needs to "pander" to "logged on" disabled fags like myself maybe but if you have any kind of large following on social media maybe consider that the things you say and do on said social media have like...an actual effect on other people instead of pretending that it's "just online" and therefore consequences for your actions either don't matter enough (to you personally) or somehow don't exist.

but going back to the fag thing, most popular lgbtq tumblr users on my dash i see nowadays just...simply do not give a shit whatsoever about gay/bi men, to the point they're normalizing "progressive" and "acceptable" homphobia against us bc they've convinced themselves due to the bigotry some gay/bi men (often cis, white, and wealthy mind you) exhibit we are "the cishets of the lgbtq community," despite horrific violence still being committed against us every day and despite other lgbtq people being capable of engaging in that violence themselves. ppl make thinly veiled jokes and memes where the punchline is men having sex with each other or effeminacy as if those things aren't primary avenues for gay/bi men being abused, assaulted, and killed (including acts of abuse and assault of a sexually-driven nature), as if said jokes and memes don't serve to normalize the mentalities that drive homophobic hate crimes. it's not like...a coincidence that most lgbtq people who makes these jokes aren't gay/bi men (or transfem). this doesn't even get into how things like homophobia and anti-effeminacy can pretty much boot certain gay/bi men from manhood...or womanhood...or any place in gender altogether.

call me exlusionary if you want but i think it's fair to say that the chances of people who aren't gay/bi men (or transfem*) facing the repurcussions of those mentalities in any meaningful way, the chances of these people actually having lived as or going to live as "faggots" is any meaningful sense is slim to none, and that's why they're so comfortable participating in this shit, and that's why i'm triggered(tm) by them "reclaiming" faggot (which doesn't really involve reclamation bc calling random strangers on the internet or gay/bi men you hate a slur isn't reclamation you morons), because frankly if you're not apart of either of those groups, you're just not a fucking faggot. it's not your word just because some rando on overwatch called you it for picking hanzo in comp. period. end of story. it's also just extremely absurd to try and claim faggotry as something you experience while...readily and happily engaging in homophobia and fag-hate (which isn't synonymous with the former term but i'm talking abt ppl who probably seldom ever engage which discussions and theory surrounding how homophobia instrumentates itself in society - or at least that which doesn't conform to their worldview). within the gay/bi male community there's plentu of masc "straight-acting" gays who weaponize this shit against fem gays and they (should) get held accountable in the same way. you're not special.

and god, being told my gendered experiences as a fag-adjacent person where (white) cafab women are fully capable of engaging in social forms of "oppression" against me and other fags in undeniably gendered ways is somehow an outlier and therefore not reflective of broader social by (white) masc urbanite tbros with definitively more social standing than i'll ever have in my life, as if i somehow developed this understanding of gendered violence just based off my own life and not...the reported and sometimes even recorded experiences of countless other fags who get mocked and silenced because anything that deviates from a watered down, shoddy cis feminist take on gender is fake news(tm) or bordering on saying misandry exists (like no it doesn't exist but acting as if homophobic shit like anti-sodomy laws, for example, has zero to do with gay/bi men's manhood is just nonsensical). convos on here abt gender being mostly dominated by (white) cafab women or sometimes (white) masc trans guys is such a mistake lmao.

anyway i'm tired and stressed and pretty done with having "acceptable" homophobic shit shoved in my face on a daily basis both online and offline but nevertheless i must persist because i'm not lucky enough to have anywhere else to go, really. just...think critically abt ur actions regarding gay/bi male sexuality and gender-stuff pretty please. please.

( *disclaimer just in case that i definitely don't see transfems as some "type" of gay/bi men. there are transfems who identify with gay/bi manhood and/or faggotry. there are transfems who don't. that's entirely up to them. thank u. )

[artificialqueens]

Lemon's Misadventures in Dating, Chapter 6  (Lemon x Everyone) - Mermelada

A/N: Hi everyone! Here’s chapter 6, as seen on Ao3! I found out that Lemon’s irl mum is Scottish, so naturally, I had to include her as a character and base her on my own! More is coming soon, so watch this space! :D I love you all!!

[07:24] HEY GIRL!

[07:24] I’m so sorry but I ate your sister for breakfast

[07:24] She was a grapefruit lololololol

[07:24] I’m sorry please don’t hate me

[07:24] But she was delicious

[07:25] So what’s the tea on Little Miss Lemon? I want to know everything! What’s your favourite type of pasta?

Lemon read the messages again as she sat at the kitchen island, sipping her coffee. She couldn’t help but smile. That was not what she was expecting at all from Priyanka, she looked so poised and regal in all her photos, yet in reality she was coming across as a complete goofball. Although it had been three hours now, and she was still awaiting a reply.

[09:58] Umm how fucking dare you?

[09:58] Don’t even expect me to respond to that until I get a full apology, you murderer.

Was the joke not obvious? Fuck, what if she thinks I’m serious? But then she started it…

“What’s got you smiling, princess?”

She jumped with shock as her mum walked through the door, placing her handbag on the counter and opening the fridge door. She knew her mum only worked a half-day on Thursdays, but her sudden appearance was a surprise nonetheless. Lemon felt like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t be.

“Oh, nothing,” she sang, quickly locking her phone and putting it back in her pocket, away from prying eyes, “how was work?”

“Well you’re not acting like it was nothing,” teased her mum, moving around the kitchen in a blur as she prepared her lunch. “Is it a girl?”

Lemon failed to hide the blush rising on her face, she knew her mum meant no harm, but she was not prepared to get into a conversation about dating and hookups with her so early in the day, and with so little alcohol to hand. “Muuuuuuuuum” she groaned, hoping that the coolness of her hands would remove the redness as she placed her chin in her palms.

“I’m just glad you’re happy, darling, you deserve it after the summer you’ve had!” Lemon couldn’t deny that her mum had been an absolute angel these last few months. She listened to Lemon way back when she had first admitted that things weren’t working like they should be, and never once offered any judgement or tried to convince her to stay. She had even helped Lemon move her things out of her old apartment as quickly as was humanly possible for the pair of them, while she was at work. “Are you up to date with your tetanus shots though, because you’ll need one if she’s doing that to you!”

Just when Lemon felt she couldn’t get any redder, her mum’s finger was poking the mottled bruise peeking out from under the loose collar of her t-shirt, her whole body burning as her mind flashed back to the moment it had been placed there… the body above her trembling, grabbing a handful of platinum hair as they grinded against each other’s thighs, the muffled cries in French… “Oh my god, mum, please stop!”

“What?! You can’t just disappear for two nights in a row and not expect me to be curious! What’s her name?”

She audibly groaned at her mother’s prying tone, laying her head on the cold marble countertop. “Mum, I love you, but I am not having this conversation with you right now!”

Fucking Rita, I’m sure she’ll find this funny at least, Lemon made a mental note to text the other woman later, wondering if she’s had any similar happenings with her work colleagues, or if she had enough experience - and common sense - to hide the evidence of her Tinder trysts better. At least she had put on leggings after waking up today, as shorts would have only showcased an even more incriminating patchwork of colourful marks across her inner thighs.

Her mum simply smiled and wrapped an arm around her from behind the high kitchen chair, planting an affectionate kiss on her daughter’s temple. “Well, you know what I always say, pumpkin, as long as you’re happy and safe, go out there and have fun! Are dental dams still a thing? Do you need some?”

Lemon could only muster a grunt in response, her head making an audible bang as she threw it onto the counter, deeply wishing that the conversation was over. Right on cue, she felt the phone in her pocket buzz with a new notification. She practically leapt off her seat, ready to run to the safety of her bedroom. “Well, on that note, I’m going to remove myself from this deeply uncomfortable situation. Thank you, mother!” 

“Ooh is that her texting you? When are you seeing her next?” The enthusiastic questions fell - as her mum expected - on deaf ears, Lemon gulping down the remainder of her cold coffee and placing the empty mug in the sink.

When she finally reached her safe haven, she pushed the door closed and jumped back on the bed. Despite knowing her parents wouldn’t mind at all, she still wasn’t ready to admit she was trying to move on, let alone with an assortment of random ladies from the Greater Toronto Area. She grabbed at her phone excitedly, her eyes lighting up when she saw that Priyanka had finally answered.

[13:35] My dearest Lemon, I must beg for your forgiveness, for I have sinned gravely. Upon awakening from my slumber and entering my cooking chamber, my stomach began to sing a dreadful tune. In the search for something to quell its anger, I encountered a grapefruit, as cute as your face and as juicy as your ass probably is. With no other option, I slaughtered it, dressed it with some sugar, and devoured its flesh. Would you please accept my most sincere apology in the form of a drink sometime?

This crazy bitch. No other interaction on the app had left Lemon feeling so giddy, her heart had sped up and her stomach was doing somersaults. Yes yes yes yes oh my god of course! Luckily her common sense kicked in, and she realised she should probably act a bit less… desperate.

[13:40] Let me think about it

[13:41] Loljk of course!

[13:41] Any day/time work best for you? I’m afraid I’m fully booked this weekend

[13:41] Mourning my sister and all

[13:41] (I mean the grapefruit btw sorry that could have been weird)

Luckily, she didn’t have to wait long for a response. 

[13:42] LOL I’m glad it didn’t turn dark

[13:42] Any night that’s not a school day is best for me!

[13:43] Speaking of which I better get back and entertain some little people, ttyl xo

[13:43] KIDS, btw, just in case xx

Lemon shook her head as she smiled, Priyanka was certainly something else. Cute, funny, sexy… hopefully she didn’t ruin it by having bad breath or murderous tendencies. She couldn’t explain it, she already felt something special about the girl, something she hadn’t felt since- no. Let’s not ruin a good thing by thinking about her. But the more she looked at Priyanka’s profile, the more memories of Juice kept flooding her mind. Taking a moment, she sat on the floor, stretching her legs out in front of her and breathing deeply and rhythmically, a makeshift meditation to nip any panic in the bud.

Is it still too soon? Maybe I’m not ready to be moving on if I still think about her so much, and if I still get so emotional doing so. Images of the former couple danced around her head; walking hand in hand, snuggling on the couch under blankets, even just helping each other cook, or drinking coffee in bed on a rainy morning. I thought it was what I wanted, but maybe I was wrong. She sat silently for a few minutes, trying her best to think of nothing but a dark sky filled with distant, twinkling stars, but even that took her mind back to the nights they’d spend wandering around their neighbourhood, talking about their hopes and dreams, where they’d live once they got married, how many cats and dogs it was acceptable to have. It seemed like the natural course for them, but not everything can work out the way people want it to. 

She didn’t know whether it was the buzz of her phone on the bed behind her, or Gus’s gentle panting as he pushed through the door which awoke her from her semi-trance, but she took the opportunity to stand up and shake the stiffness out of her body. It was a natural impulse to bring her hands to her eyes to wipe away her tears, but she was pleasantly surprised to not find any there today. Maybe things were getting better after all. 

She and Gus both slid onto her bed, the dog circling three times before plopping himself down in the crook of Lemon’s elbow, which she rewarded with a firm scratch under his chin. Picking up her phone, it buzzed again in her hand with messages from Rita.

Dr Rita <3 [14:02] shared a link

Dr Rita <3 [14:05] Bonjour! How are you today, mon citron? I had a nap after work and I am now ready for the gym :-O Last night a colleague told me about this dance school where his daughters go, a teacher is pregnant and will need someone to cover the classes when she is off. I thought of you :-) I hope you slept better than a baby! X

Dr Rita <3 [14:06] Also I found a bruise on my ass yesterday, I was in pain every time I was sitting down, thank you very much…

Lemon had always believed in fate to some degree, and upon seeing the link Rita had sent, she had no doubt that destiny had been on her side during the events of the last few days. She stared at the familiar tan bricks of her old dance school, the smiling face of her old principal teacher finally giving her the push she needed to get back in the saddle. She threw on a pair of jeans and a woolen cardigan, replying to Rita with one hand as she pulled on her ankle boots with the other.

[14:10] Merci merci, I’ll check it out!! Have fun at the gym, you crazy pomme! How was sexy kidney lady? 

[14:11] And de rien 😘 my mum saw the one on my neck today, she thinks I’m being bullied 😞

Jumping down the stairs two at a time and shouting a quick goodbye to her mum - closing the door before she could hear the inevitable embarrassing reply - she walked as quickly as her legs could possibly take her to the dance school, a path she had already walked hundreds of times throughout her childhood. Even if they said no, she would sign up to classes or find some auditions, how could this not be a sign from the universe to start dancing again? As she reached the heavy iron door, she checked her phone one last time.

Dr Rita <3 [14:14] Courage, ma belle! They would be idiots to not want you! Well, she made me my favourite tea and told me she liked my lipstick, so I think we are married now?

Dr Rita <3 [14:16] And I am so sorry! :-( Do you have arnica cream? I hope your mother knows it was at your request? ;-)

She had really lucked out with Rita, she needed a good friend like her in her corner right now. And as she stepped inside, navigating the bright corridors to the principal’s office, she was really glad she’d downloaded Tinder.

[gotatext]

PREFERRED NAME — nora. i think i started going by it in like, 2009?? my full name is eleanor but i hated it n thought it was way too pretentious n i never felt like it fitted me so when i started writing on forums i decided i’d be a nora rather than eleanor and then my school friends called me it and it just kinda stuck, the only person who calls me eleanor is my mum

PRONOUNS — she / her / ethereal being beyond comprehension

AGE — 23 but i tell everyone im 21 because even tho time is literally fake im desperately clinging to that fleeting thing we call youth trying to catch it like smoke in my hands

PINTEREST — i actually have two. this one is my main one where i just cram all my shit n i’ve had it for years and some of its super unorganised. then i also have this one which is one i made for exclusively female characters. it started as mythological figures but now its like, women in literature and the occasional oc as well. variety is the spice of life!

DISCORD — lindsay lohan’s meth#8664

TUMBLR (PERSONAL/MUSE/RPH) — i used to be froseths but now im pvrscphones cos ya gal is a fucking whore for mythology 

OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE — oi oi guvna ere’s me twitta. also here’s my letterboxd n my goodreads if anyone still uses tht

MYER-BRIGGS — enfp / infp border .... the classic profile of a lit student

HP HOUSE — hufflepuff, am fuckin mad. 

ZODIAC — libra which is a joke because i am in no way balanced but i guess i AM indecisive and a peacekeeper so?

DO YOU BELIEVE IN ASTROLOGY? — i believe it when it says good shits gonna happen in my life and blame it if bad shit happens but i don’t strongly follow it i just find it interesting

HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU STARTED RPING ON TUMBLR — maybe like 14?? my first rp blog here is literally so embarassing i wrote as clove from the hunger games n my best friend irl wrote cato :/ it was wild

WHAT YEAR WAS IT? — like 9 years ago?? 2010 maybs

NAME A RANDOM ROLEPLAY THAT STICKS OUT IN YOUR MEMORY — me n my friend ellie made this really cool group the summer before we left for uni which was loosely based on a concept mentioned mayb once in the divergent series, but it gave us loads of freedom to make it our own thing. it was called the fringe n it was like..... this dystopian society where people with different genes were cut off from the rest of society n lived in overrun slum cities where different groups had like, a monopoly over weapons, produce, etc.... my character jack was the leader of this lost-boy-esque tribe called the wolf pack who were hunters n used to run across the rooftops wearing the skins of animals they’d killed and engage in tribal rituals with sacrifices to the gods n shit. sounds lame but everyone there was so invested in their character arcs that it was a shame to see it go. but ! it kind of reached its end point so we blew it up w nukes n they all died. tragic.

WHAT WEIRD ANIMAL WOULD YOU HAVE AS A PET IF IT WAS REALISTIC — a fox?? do ppl keep foxes? idk i’ve always just felt a sense of connection w them like when a fox stares at me im like this shit is life i am living and breathing in this bitch.... visceral

NAME THE FIRST SONG ON YOUR DISCOVER WEEKLY ON SPOTIFY OR THE FIRST SONG THAT COMES ON APPLE MUSIC / ITUNES SHUFFLE — everbody party tonight by cobra man n summer girl by haim..... not my usual stuff but big summer chillin vibes,.....

NAME A BOOK THAT YOU READ IN SCHOOL THAT YOU SURPRISINGLY LIKED — lord of the flies and also the handmaid’s tale. one of assignments was to write a chapter from another character’s perspective n i chose moira

NAME A BOOK YOU HATED THAT MOST PEOPLE LIKED — skellig. fuck off with ur asprin ugly bat man i don’t care. also of mice and men. don’t care about the rabbits or curley’s goddamn wife.

WHAT TV SHOW DID YOU RECENTLY BINGE? — im not a big binger bc i find it jst makes me depressed if i watch tv all day but im nearly finished stranger things season 3 n i recently finished euphoria (big rec but proceed w caution as quite triggering content)

FAVOURITE QUOTE — cool girl speech from gone girl. but also “there’s something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls” i know its like.... such an overused quote but it really encapsulates this kind of feral girlhood that a few of my characters like bridget n greta have tapped into. i also loved the line “i feel like i could eat the world raw” from song of achilles, that really captures this kind of.... pure n childlike enthusiasm tht i wanna achieve w rory 

LINK TO A VINE THAT EXUDES YOUR ‘ENERGY’ — this is my energy completely am always covered in glitter n staring broodily out of the windows of ubers at 4am like im in the sad bit of an indie film 

DO YOU WRITE OUTSIDE OF RP? WHAT DO YOU WRITE? — uhh.... not as much as i shd.... i want to be a writer so i shd be makin some effort to get my stuff Out Into The World but im just not.... lol. ive done a lot of poetry collections . i wnt to finish a novel @ some point too.

THREE YOUTUBERS YOU STILL TRUST — bold of you to assume i trust any youtubers

A CELEBRITY CRUSH THAT JUST WON’T QUIT — id literally die for saoirse ronan n timothee chalamet :/ chance perdomo also owns my ass. 

EVER MEET A CELEBRITY? SHARE YOUR STORY — i once high-fived dani harmer, the actress who played tracy beaker. today my sister text me tryin to make me guess what celebrity she just saw on holiday in wales and for ages she let me think it was timmothee but it was actually bradley walsh from the chase :/

WHAT’S YOUR PICTURE-PERFECT NIGHT? — i am in a bomb ass crop top and mini skirt, several scrunchies in my hair, glitter all over my face, wearing cowboy boots. we eat dinner in a trendy but affordable pub that doubles up as a cocktail bar n then we drink zombies or sex on the beaches n go to a rave where everyone is on the same wavelength n i share drugs with girls in the toilets and we swap numbers knowing we will never text each other but its ok bc in that moment we feel like we are soulmates and everyone is super drunk n touching everyone else n its all very visceral and we walk through the woods when the rave ends and lie in the grass because we wish to suck out all the marrow of life 

A CONSPIRACY THEORY YOU KINDA BELIEVE IN — princess diana was murdered 

ARE ALIENS REAL? — maybe the real aliens are the friends we made along the way

PLAY ANY PHONE GAMES? WHICH ONES? — love island game im addicted and way too invested in my fictional relationship with bobby, a cartoon

WHAT’S A FILM YOU LOVED WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG AND RECENTLY WATCHED, ONLY TO FIND OUT YOU DON’T ANYMORE — bold of u to assume i remember my childhood. but if we’re talking last 10 years angust, thongs n perfect snogging is so so cringe 

DO YOU COLLECT ANYTHING? — pairs of glasses belonging to other ppl when they break / get new ones even though i can see perfectly well. 

WHAT’S SOMETHING YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BUT YOU’RE TOO LAZY? — mythology...... always a craving and a wish i’d read like ancient texts but my school wasn’t good enough to do greek or latin or any of that shit n even tho i could read english translations i cant be bothered. also criminal psychology

THREE LANGUAGES YOU DON’T SPEAK, BUT WISH YOU COULD — italian, french and latin

MOVIE YOU’VE WATCHED MORE THAN 5 TIMES — ladybird, about time, angus thongs, shrek 2, what we do in the shadows, the history boys, atonement, coraline, the breakfast club, ferris bueller’s day off

NAME A FICTIONAL CHARACTER FROM TV/FILM/MOVIE/GAME/BOOK THAT YOU FIND YOURSELF PROJECTING ON / YOU RELATE TO — cecilia lisbon. rue in euphoria. alison brie in glow. adam parrish in the raven cycle. richard papen. olivia cooke’s character in thoroughbreds. allen ginsberg in kill your darlings. lily in sex education. holliday grainger’s character in the film animals --- i too am an aspiring writer who never writes and just gets drunk instead .

DO YOU FOLLOW ANY SPORTS? WHO DO YOU ROOT FOR? — no. cba

HOBBIES BESIDES WASTING AWAY HERE? — i go to the movies basically every day bcos i work in a cinema. im also a voracious reader n i occasionally do theatre or costume making

PLUG A TV SHOW / MOVIE / BOOK / VIDEO GAME / ETC… YOU WISH MORE PEOPLE WOULD CHECK OUT — where the wild things are (film by spike jonze).  animals. beats. the book fen by daisy johnson and a girl is a half formed thing by eimar mcbride. andy warhol’s biography from a to b and back again

WHOSE BRAIN WOULD YOU LIKE TO PICK, ALIVE OR DEAD? — phoebe waller-bridge on how i get her life. carey mulligan on how she got to be such a good actress n how i can become her. maybs wes anderson. maybs gillian flynn. i tend to listen to podcasts w the ppl i really wanna pick the brains of.

TEAM EDWARD OR JACOB? — edward :/

LAST MOVIE SEEN IN THEATRE — blinded by the light n i lovd it

DO YOU STILL READ? — when i finished uni i kinda got out of the habit but this week i finished two books so ive set myself the challenge of a book a week.

IF SO, WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING? — i finished song of achilles yesterday n i also finished call me by your name yesterday. started circe by madeline miller today, im also partway through milkman by anna burns and the plays of annie barker

ON A SCALE OF 1-10, HOW MUCH DID YOU HATE FILLING THIS OUT? – 3 i didnt hate it bcos at heart i am self-indulgent and love fashioning some sense of self when i feel lost in a world that is scary and constantly changing 

[ariyadaivaris]

hey ive been trying to figure out how to do this for awhile and since some anons have asked im gonna try 2 articulate my feelings about f*nn and this is not going to be very polite and im sorry, its nothing personal and if you have a perspective on him that i dont its fine and i absolutely get you and im glad you can enjoy that! i just wanted to try and work through how the fuck i feel about him and this is ultimately a pretty personal post and not a Manifesto on How F*nn Is Bad (i dont think he is, particularly, ftr), so like, if youre not interested which I CANNOT FAULT YOU FOR AT ALL, just know that its cool to go on! this isn’t trying to start shit or anything, i genuinely dont want to, im just writing this for Me, basically. its alright. 

thanks thats the intro done okay take care i love u

what...does f*nn have even. he’s good in the ring but he’s surrounded by people who are better. he doesn’t have a character. what motivates him? what the fuck is he even fighting for? what is his personality, even? he absorbs the storylines of everyone around him in any feud he does too often for him to be as underdeveloped as he is and yet we are here and WHY???

i mean. apollo. let’s look at apollo! apollo is similarly kinda underdeveloped character-wise and most of who he is comes from who he is irl, and people don’t really play characters up irl! but like. it’s not glaring in the same way f*nn is, because

1) apollo got called up SUPER SUPER EARLY in nxt where f*nn had YEARS to develop a character and still holds a spot as longest reigning nxt champion, and

2) apollo plays a support role! he’s not a main event player (which is fucking criminal in and of itself but thats another issue) and him being underdeveloped+not as fleshed out lends itself pretty well to him supporting people however they need support at the moment. it’s not Ideal but it works well for who he is in the context of story stuff, which is not the case for f*nn

(also 3 secretly but apollo’s moveset is actually really varied and interesting which f*nn’s is...not but that’s a subjective thing obviously lol)

like. f*nn is just. such a nothing of a wrestler. i’m sorry but genuinely i don’t know or understand what there is there. he doesn’t have a character besides...vagueing people on twitter until he gets what he wants and yes okay i know that’s not an entirely true unbiased thing to say and im sorry but also i dont think im exactly Wrong

(also about vaguing people on twitter i know that has something to do with how bad his 2017 booking was, i WON’T deny that, and multiple people are booked badly in dubya at once and they all deserve more than that, but also f*nn’s the only person who really got any rage on his behalf as far as i’ve seen and it’s definitely affected my feelings about that)

the only thing he’s got going for him is a storied history in new japan, which itself feels lacking in the ring, and which honestly...gets...a lot more credit than deserved (and mostly SOLO credit at that)? he DID create the bullet club but his bullet club was essentially an entire stable of Foreigner Heels. cheap heat. any story he told (and i only know that there was apollo 55, im unaware of any other feuds, so bear that in mind) feels so...like...secondary to that of anyone he worked with. he could be a support role and get away with being the white bread he is but GOD FORBID that should happen, and so he just engulfs the story of anyone around him and does nothing and it’s just

it’s disappointing and its boring and exhausting to see him get shot after shot after shot doing the same thing over and over again because He Can. i have nothing much against him, i think he’s petty and petulant and very...self-absorbed, like, not in an entirely bad way but in the sense that he buys a lot of his own hype? and its...off-putting. i don’t know him personally though obviously, that’s just how i feel about him based on what ive seen, but like, as a person, its whatever. i just can’t stand him as a wrestler or a character. he’s generic and unmotivated and so. NOTHING and it’s exhausting to watch and try to make something meaningful and enjoyable out of. especially juxtaposed with the miz rn, and even with s*th, who i hate but who at least HAS a personality even if it’s a genuinely awful one

not even going into the fan reception of f*nn vs anyone else who’s more deserving and interesting than he is, lmao, i’m bitter as anything about how f*nn is treated compared to the cruiserweights because NATURALLY and OBVIOUSLY i’m biased, you all know this, i don’t deny it, i cant say this comparison is all the way fair when im so so so FUCKING cwuisewweights, but like, the reaction to f*nn getting Beachballed vs any of the 205 dudes getting Beachballed was so heartbreaking in how much More he gets just for the name he’s got

i don’t know. i don’t know. i just think he’s such a nothing of a character, surrounded by people (taguchi, joe, kevin, hideo, FUCK IT, even s*th or like, fucking, KENNY, or the young bucks, or ANYONE) who really care about the character and story they have against him, and instead of being relegated to a supporting role where he’d be like, Worth anything, he’s thrust into whatever title picture or main event there is because He’s F*nn B*lor and it’s so...so much less talked about or acknowledged and for the life of me i don’t understand why. i don’t know what it is im missing

again, i don’t have much against him as a person, i personally don’t like how he acts but he doesn’t seem Proublematique in any way beyond...the foreigner heel stuff which is inherently built in anti-japan sentiment EVEN THOUGH that is strictly kayfabe afaik (though he does fucken. support the special olympics and did some Cool Trendy Straitjacket Entrances as prince nevitt and that is a very VERY personal thing i have against him) i guess that’s what matters. i just. ugh. im over it

i appreciate him being vocally supportive of queer fans but i don’t owe him for that and i still think it sucks that he, a (as far as i know) straight white dude, is getting the platform to do that instead of people who are actually queer and out in the same company. sonya isn’t getting this chance, and more blatantly, darren never got that chance. despite having the block the hate movement, and despite the fact that his coming out is what got him a face turn while it was ENTIRELY and COMPLETELY unacknowledged in the canon universe of wwe proper. like, i guess that’s not f*nn’s fault but there’s a common trend of men of color being pushed down to boost him up and it’s not the best. i don’t think that’s all his fault but i don’t like it

again this isn’t like, denouncing Liking F*nn, its fine! this isnt decrying everything about him, i don’t wanna fight about this, and if you like finn, sincerely i’m glad you can find something there to like and i hope you’re having a good time with him! and to boot i really DON’T know much about anything he did before dubya, and so i could very well be wrong about everything. like, calling the gullet blub just a Cheap Heat Stable? that interpretation could be and probably is wrong. i know that, and i know that’s probably gonna affect how i feel abt him, but also god i do not care even a bit enough to learn and i would rather die than look at pr*nce nevitt/gullet blub anything

i dont know. i hope this didnt come off as.......TOO shitty, i know this is a stupid and mostly impenetrable post, its alright, this is just me trying to work through this for myself and i promise its not like...a huge thing. thats all! thats all. im sorry if i worded this weird at all and i know my perspective isnt the best or most informed on this, but also i am very very tired of f*nn and i don’t think that’s an unfair thing to say

[chromemuffin]

Shoukoku no Altair Liveblog (Chapter 5)

A lovely image. The lines are lighter/clearer in the digital version, but this one has the translation of the names and their titles so. I just love these portraits though, especially how some of them fall out of the frame (Shara! And the tall dudes). And wow, for once you don’t look like a tiny child, Mahmut! He still comes up to Zaganos’s chin, though he is a little taller than Shara. (despite me dragging him for his stature, I’m not much better irl. I am also short enough to be inconvenienced by the world around me.)

Before I even get started on the gut-wrenching situation Mahmut has found himself in from last chapter, let me comment more on those portraits.

I love the detailing on the frame, and the designs at the bottom that symbolize each character. Not going through all of them, but here are some nice details I noticed:

Iskander looks puffed up. :3

I keep meaning to mention this, but haven’t found a place to bring it up since noticing it after the first chapter. Iskander is shaded so that there is a light band in the shape of a crescent moon on his forehead.

Louis’s pants/leggings/whatever these are have some sort of pattern or embroidery on them. The manga-ka’s attention to detail is nothing short of amazing. Not to mention the circles on Mahmut’s standard outfit, which have to be drawn every time he appears in it.

So the eyepatch twins are Colbert and Eleanor? I remember Eleanor’s name mentioned last chapter. And seems they are also from the Cult of the Red Snake, as is evident by the Arbok-like creature. Arbok is based on the Indian cobra, for the pattern on its hood, but I’m not well versed in snake species so idk what the symbolism here is. It looks very happy for some reason, though.

Chapter 5: The Citadel

Onto the actual chapter! We left off with Mahmut getting punched in the gut by an ugly rusty looking club of a sword.

Chill, dude. Seriously. 

Poor Mahmut.

I don’t think his leg gets cut here, there’s no blood, so does that mean you are supposed to use that sword to bludgeon your enemy to death? It looks like a club, really it does.

(And I can kind of see how this outfit was supposed to be a dress, there are just so many folds and stripes involved it just looked like one big cloak.)

Stop being creepy, eyepatch dude. The font makes it more ominous too. (Also, he has very pointy ears.)

Oh? What have you got there, Iskander? The basket Shara carried their clothes in? Looks like Mahmut sent him on a mission of some sort. Also, an interesting note. Apparently golden eagles fly with a slight V shape in their wings, like an airplane.

Interesting, another crest. This is the place Leredrick is from, if I recall.

Oh, man. This lady’s dissatisfied face.

Ha! ‘I’m outta here’. She even does a little hand wave to say, ‘this isn’t worth my time’. She’s so done.

Well, that escalated quickly.

A lot of these characters pull off dramatic, menacing, sinister, and ‘I don’t give two fucks’ very, very well.

HAHA yeah awkward moment when you realize it was all a sham and there is absolutely nothing you can do to take it back.

But, who is this I see approaching:

Iskander, what are you up to.

Looks like a bird and a dancer are here to save the day.

OF COURSE, eyepatch lady has to go and ruin it. Oh nooo, Shara.

So it was the container Mahmut keeps meat in for Iskander, not the basket. Poor birdie, gotta work nights too. xD Eagles aren’t nocturnal. And he has to sacrifice his food to boot.

But where he is dropping it off?

“Once the Imperial Army gets here, we will have to fight on their side. Once we do, the Empire will save the hostages. All we can do now is hope the Empire will keep their promise.” I’m not so sure about that anymore, Ibrahim. They seem kind of trigger happy.

And back to Zaganos. What have you been doing this whole time? Preparations I guess.

Uh...what is that...Zaganos is the ‘Poison’ General so...I love the detailing on the jars/bottles, though. Each one is different for some reason. Are they each a different poison or did he just decide to stick them in fancy containers? Yeah, they didn’t exactly mass produce things back then, but these aren’t even all in the same style.

Zaganos really does not hold back, does he. Though he does seem to be thinking about the decision here, it is a pretty underhanded tactic. Well, at least he’s not jumping at the bit to use it.

Well, who do we have here? People from the Empire, right. Why are they attacking the guys sent by Louis...? Aren’t they on the same side...And since the name of the eyepatch people’s cult is Swedish, maybe that means they are more like mercenaries Louis hires, rather than actual soldiers from Balt-Rhein.

Gllad is an awkward name to my English speaking self. You don’t see that consonant cluster every day, and it’s one letter off from Glad (in Japanese it is グララット, guraratto, so yeah, that matches).

I like this more formal introduction to these two, though, purely for the fact that the antagonist actually got injured (it’s like, a scratch on the arm but whatever) before the main conflict with them even starts.

I see. So Leredrick just doesn’t want to follow Louis’s plan (quite an extreme way to say ‘fuck you I’m doing my own thing’ considering they’re on the same side though lol).

Poor kid. Stop bludgeoning him with your club sword, you jerk.

UGH, his expression morphing into resolve and defiance. Aand then back to pain.

LOOKS LIKE IT CAN STAB. will you please leave him alone already you ass

Even worse than a pointy sword, it is uh apparently CRACKING bones. And he has to twist it around, pouring salt in the wounds much.

Now that’s just painful to watch urggh. And that is a LOT of blood on the next page.

What’s going on...I think I see a wing shadow there... (and the text box from hovering over the image whoops)

AHAHA THAT’S GREAT. Seeing her just go fwip! Gone! was greatly needed after seeing Mahmut freaking tortured in an alleyway.

Shara’s expression is great, too. And I really like the flow of the lines framing her on this panel. It’s just so fluid and swirly.

Holy mother of- that is a lot of birds. Way to go, Iskander! OH. Was he...maybe dropping his container of meat to attract the other birds? It seemed that he was dropping it off near a tent earlier.

Mahmut is a summoner of birds. That would be his special power in a fantasy land.

And this is actually really fucking terrifying. More terrifying than just Iskander coming at you with claws outstretched. Apparently the largest of the golden eagle species can have a claw on each foot that is only a tiiiny bit shorter than that of the harpy eagle (the largest eagle in the world, and a deadly thing that can carry deer into tree branches and can easily cut you to the bone). Female golden eagles can be the size of a man’s torso. So, WOW.

And now we get smug Mahmut! God, this kid’s expressions.

This is a massive page (I think it’s a 2-pager actually). Just...drawing all that detail. The cover coming off (with those stripes), the frame of the tent, the birds, the people and all the supplies that formed a wall around them.

Oh.

OH. Not so high and mighty now, are we.

YES. SAVED BY A DANCER AND A BIRD.

Methinks you owe Iskander some meat. What a good birdie.

I’m surprised you can move that arm of yours, though.

BUT. I have not forgotten Zaganos, who is preparing to use some very deadly concoctions. Oh, never mind! They got the message to him on time.

Very nice horse. I like the tassels it’s decked out in.

lol She’s great. Got a passed out/dead guy right next to her too.

“All the troops were drunk at the time or something.” Better than knowing you were outsmarted by a kid, a dancer, and a bird right.

His faces are...haha and he even has a hand on one hip. *pokepoke*

We don’t know much about them yet, but these two are rather fun. ‘Killed by falling rocks’...Ok...

OH YEAH. EYEPATCH DUDE. HE’S STILL THERE.

So, falconers usually use a whistle to call their bird back to them, but it looks like Mahmut uses his for other purposes.

Like smacking swords out of people’s hands. What happened to his club sword?

It also has the little wing symbol on it. Actually, is it a whistle? I can’t really remember if it was ever mentioned anywhere that it was. I just assumed.

Ooh, this battle is not over yet. Man, Mahmut is tough. He was still able to fling that thing around with his injured shoulder. Adrenaline is a godsend.

Very nice. You can see a bit of blood (!! he really needs to get that treated) and it seems he let the sword fly out of his grasp on purpose to-

Choke him, apparently, nice.

But the question is: What would Mahmut have done in if he was in Ibrahim’s situation? Interesting. He’s talking about how he is helping Ibrahim out, not based on his actions here, but because they’re friends.

WELL, you certainly got back at him. Is he dead? And what happened to Eleanor after she got carried off by the birds? Are they both dead.

Anyway, I’M SO GLAD THIS DIDN’T END IN TRAGEDY. I still have 17 more volumes to go for that to potentially happen!

Iskandeeerrr I like his little jesses. Iskander is half the reason I’m looking forward to the anime.

Btw, you owe him some meat, Mahmut.

They cleaned this up for the digital release (it was originally spread across 2 pages and thus a little awkwardly split up).

STOP. You’re not allowed to make me cry this early in the series. (kidding, I don’t cry easily, but damn. That was a great ending to this arc.)

...What is with your expression, Iskander.

That is the look of a bird that has seen some shit. My cat makes the same expression sometimes for no good reason.

The credits page is a nice touch. You usually don’t get one like this. I love Mahmut petting Iskander up there in the corner. Birds like to be scratched, too!

...Though Zaganos has this, like, Medusa hair going on. Does it get worse without the hat?

AND THAT’S THE END. DAMN was that an emotional rollercoaster.

← back・onward →

[maquillagemenu]

Stash that cash

Hi from the self-proclaimed coupon, money saving queen. 

It’s known that I love a bargain, yes I love to shop but I also have other expenses aside from my beauty obsession - no, not the bills or rent, but food. Yes my second obsession, food. Lol! In this post I’ve shared a few of my money saving tips that have allowed me to save a some cash, and put it elsewhere -food-. 

Read until the end for some coupons, and FREEBIES which are currently on! 

1) Aswell as stashing your cash, stash products - contradictory? I’ll explain!

If you’ve got a product you’re obsessed with RESTOCK. Get backups when there’s a sale. Buy one-get-one, 3 for 2, 1/2 off, whatever the case may be - if you use something often, back it up whilst you can get some $$$ off!

Ok so you know what I mean - we’ve ALL been in a position where we’re popping into Boots to buy an essential, see an offer sign and suddenly we’re grabbing everything,

I’ll take that lipstick, roll on, pack of baby wipes, oh and the baby food is discounted too? yep, I’ll take that, not that I have a baby or anything... baby food diet anyone? 

Don’t be that girl. Go into boots for what you want, and only that (if ever possible). We all know we’re going to repurchase the essentials - cotton rounds, makeup removers, cleansers, etc. So, if theres 3 for 2 purchase 3 lots of cotton rather than one pack of cotton, a pack of q-tips and some cotton balls which you KNOW you won’t use. In the long run you WILL save. 

2) Try before you buy

Samples. Don’t be afraid to ask for them - they’re available, all you’ve got to do is ask! This applies realistically, only to high end - but losing out on a high end product is way more heartbreak than not exactly matching a drustore shade.

Hit up your favourite counter and ask to be matched. The employee will match you to their belief of your shade - don’t believe them. May sound shady, but however talented the MUA may be, 99% of the time their opinions aren’t correct. This is no fault of their own - shout out to the decpetive store lighting. Ew.

So, here’s what to do - You’ve got two options: If they have a sample, take it. If they don’t give out samples or have ‘run out of samples’, tell them to apply it ALL OVER your face. Now, leave the store, and walk out into natural daylight. Instantly you’ll be able to see if the colour matches your neck, if it doesn’t - congrats for not wasting 20-something-pounds-plus, if it does, wait on it. 50% of the time a foundation will oxidise, meaning it will darken when in contact with the atmosphere. If it doesn’t turn orange, and you like the overall finish, go ahead and buy it. If you turn into an umpa-lumpa, again, congrats, your moneys still in your purse. 

Ofcourse base products are not the only things you can sample. Skincare is another! Often skincare does not get along with everyones skin and the outcome can be horrific, aka, breakouts! You can get samples of skincare by buying the mini trial sized kits, getting them as free samples at checkouts of certain websites or looking out for coupons online (see below)! 

3) Don’t buy blindly

If you shop online you’re shopping blindly. I won't lie, I buy blindly all the damn time. 90% of the time everything is perfect but that 10% of the time is again, over base products! 

Never buy base products online if you haven’t seen them irl prior. Google image swatches, those little squares of colour on the website, Youtubers you’ve seen who you THINK are the same shade as you, etc can’t be your reference when buying online. Just don’t do it. Go to the store, see the items in real life and if they work out better online, go purchase them there after... 

That leads perfectly onto my next point...

4) You don’t have to drop, to shop.

Online shopping in the comfort of your own home, snug in your onsie whilst sipping on some chai is more often the better option. Waiting for your delivery and getting that surprise package from your postie is the best feeling.

I tend to buy online more simply because deals online seem to be better. You can search coupon websites, sign up to get email/text notifications from websites when deals are on, referal codes, loyality discounts etc seem to be all online. Before hitting checkout, always search ‘(store name) coupon/promotion codes (month) (year) for example: ‘cult beauty, promotion codes January 2017′- 9/10 times you’ll find one. Even if it’s just 10% off or free shipping, it’s an extra couple of pounds in your pocket.

5) Buy and sell

Depop. My second favorite app after Instagram. Every few months I take the time to clean-out my collection and downsize. Instead of throwing out or giving away, unused or barely used products, Depop them! Earn a little cash to put towards your next purchases.

There’s always things we buy and never use, don’t suit us, or don’t get along with our skin, but there will always be someone else out there who obsesses over that product you don’t particularly enjoy.

If you aren’t a fan of Depop, check out selling pages on Facebook! There are tons, just search for Beauty sell, or buy and sell makeup etc! Or, better yet, if you have a following of some beauty fanatics on your Instagram - advertise products you want to sell there. Pretty simple, huh?!

Now for some coupons! YAAAAS.

Freebies!

Chance to recieve a FREE Rimmel Volume Shake mascara - click here

FREE bath bomb from Bathing Beauties - click here

Win one of 2,000 Sukin Hydrating Mist toners - click here 

FREE Avene Cleanser and mosituriser - click here

FREE The Body Shop nail polish - click here

FREE Bobbi Brown serum - click here

FREE Lancome serum - click here

FREE gifts on Cult beauty for spending certain amounts on certain brands - click here

Student discount!

Currently on at: Feel unique, look fantastic, Superdrug, HQ hair, etc. Go ahead and check out the Unidays website!

Money off coupons!

‘YOU15′ for 15% off Cultbeauty

£10 off your SpaceNK order - click here

Save £4.50 at MAC when buying a lipstick and lipliner combo - click here

Thanks for reading my loves, I hope you save a few £’s or get yourself some freebies and tips out of this! - I’ll be back with another one of these posts next month so be sure to follow my instagram, sabxli to know when I post! Xx