#the order just shipped meaning my card was charged

[chaos-potat]

Yippee! I'm about to have physical proof that I thought abt my siblings a lot this month, and with 13 days to spare too

[victory-cookies]

god I’m so torn. I have a few things I really buy rn but realistically I don’t think I can afford all of them. So I’m trying to weigh what I should let myself but bc I haven’t bought myself anything nice in a while

[3liza]

i mean the truth is that we do not need and should not have all this stupid plastic clutter in or houses. no one should be producing or selling this shit. everyone make your own merchandise and charge a living hourly wage to sell it 🤷 sorry to be so simplistic about this but it's one of the results of the lack of class unity specifically in the means of production-owning creative class, who is not mentioned or dealt with by the core Marxist texts as far as I know (i asked about this earlier on here, did marx ever address in his analysis people like, for example, a professional photographer who owns a camera ans prints his own dagguereotypes? or a portrait painter or idk, independent milliner or seamstress? these people all own the means of production and do not employ anyone, and the answer from better educated people than I was that no, Marx didn't mention them), I'm not well read on this at all, there is just a big void where leftist analysis of what modern economists call "the creative class"

I'm getting off topic. my point is make your own keychains in your kitchen. it's actually not hard. you can even mass produce (on a small scale) little plastic crap if you want, with resin and a UV lamp, or a 3d printer, or a laser cutter and acrylic sheets (or just use balsa wood damn, at least its biodegradable and less tacky).

all this stuff is available to little creators AND there are hundreds of people who already own these machines who will take work for you and produce your designs. you just have to actually find them and know them and email them. that's what I mean about the class unity issue with creatives. we have no large scale union, we have no large scale class consciousness, and we're all sending our orders for little plastic crap to sweatshops instead of emailing a guy with a laser cutter in his garage and saying "hey Keith can I get uhhhhhhhhhhh 50 laser cut keychains of this twerking Diggler design I made, like how much would that cost" and he's like sure here's the work and materials cost and tbh it's always always less than i think it's going to be. you just have to do some basic arithmetic and then order shipping, and I hate order fulfillment with my life but you can actually pay or barter with someone to do that for you too. learn to delegate and then factor that into your unit cost. this is basic shit every commercial creator needs to know. they should teach you this in art school but they dont

don't give me crap about "I can't afford a laser cutter" either because I just told you to email Keith. and all these machines get sold secondhand when a manufacturer or hobbyist needs to upgrade. i got a color laser printer perfect for making zines and wheatpastes and shipping labels from a retired lesbian on capital hill for $75 and it was still full of ink. my friend gave me her 20 year old canon dslr because she just didn't need it and didn't want to bother selling it. it works fine because I spent the time finding the right drivers and shit for my computer. and card readers exist. Craigslist. Facebook marketplace. nextdoor sales section. eBay. everyone always forgets eBay. eBay lets you save searches and will email you when it finds a guy selling his vinyl plotter in your city with local pickup. I'm serious

[ridiasfangirlings]

How to buy K merch in the Year 2024

I got several asks about this so rather than do each individually, I’ve decided to just make one big How to Buy K Merch in the Year 2024 post. I’m going to skip over the more obvious western sites like eBay and focus more on Japanese sites here. Because there hasn’t been much new K merch in some time keep in mind that most of what you will be looking for is secondhand, which means availability will vary.

Shopping Services

For some of these sites you will need a shopping service, so we’ll start there. This is by no means a comprehensive list of available shopping services, just ones I’ve used and liked. 

FromJapan - This one is very straightforward — copy and paste the url of the item you want into their search bar. For anything in certain sites like Rakuten this will pull up a page that will give you the item and its price in your currency and you can just click add to cart. For other sites you may need to request a price quote, there’s a small form to fill out and they’ll get back to you on if they can order it. Timing depends on when you make the request. The nice thing about FromJapan is they will hold items for you for 45 days, so you can collect multiple purchases from multiple sites over time and have them all shipped at once. The bad side is that after 45 days they will discard your items, so keep an eye on when your oldest item arrived (you can see how long it’s been at their warehouse on your account page, and they will email you as the deadline gets close too).

Treasure Japan - Treasure Japan is a much smaller service than the others on this list but also the one I’ve used the longest. Being a smaller service means they tend to be more able to purchase items that might have seller restrictions, particularly from places like Mercari. Some listings when pasted into other shopping service sites will have a ‘cannot purchase from this seller’ warning, because some sellers don’t want to deal with shopping services. I haven’t had much trouble with this merchandise-wise, but when I’ve run into it with j-fashion Treasure Japan has been able to order when the bigger services couldn’t. Their site is set up so you will input different sites in different sections, there’s one for auction, one for ‘flea market’ (this will be places like Mercari) and one for shopping sites. 

Buyee/Tenso - Buyee is a shopping service, Tenso is a forwarding service. They’re owned by the same parent company but are separate sites and you’ll need a separate account for each. Buyee is directly integrated with some sites like Mercari and Yahoo Japan, you can put in the url into their search bar and get a listing that you can buy immediately. Like FromJapan, any sites outside of the ones they’re integrated into will require you to request a quote (I found this more difficult with Buyee than FromJapan, personally) and they will sometimes be unable to purchase items. They will hold your items for 30 days at no charge, and you can request to consolidate packages for shipping.

Tenso, as I said above, is a forwarding service and somewhat more complicated. Basically when you sign up they will give you a Japanese address (presumably one of their warehouses) and you can then buy directly from Japanese websites, inputting the address you were given in the address field and paying with your own credit card. The items will be shipped to Tenso and from there you can have them sent to you. Obviously this is more complicated than a shopping service. I’ve used it mainly for things that didn’t involve an item being shipped (this is how I signed up for Fan Clan back in the day, for example, though my lottery goods were sent via Tenso too) or sites that require you to sign up to purchase from. I wouldn’t recommend it for any marketplace type site unless you’re fluent in Japanese, since sellers on those sites may try to communicate with you. 

Stores 

AmiAmi (no shopping service needed) - AmiAmi is mainly for new goods but I’ll mention it here anyway, in case K ever gets more merch. AmiAmi usually sells out on preorders, you place your order and they will let you know when the item arrives. You pay at that time. They do sometimes get used merch though so you can keep an eye out there, sometimes there will be decent deals on items that only have small flaws like the box being damaged. 

Amazon Japan (may or may not need a shopping service) - Did you know overseas people can buy from Amazon Japan? You do now! You will need to make a new account, even if you have an Amazon account in your country. Whether you need a shopping service or not depends on the item. Anything sold directly by the company will likely not need a shopping service — the majority of my K manga and the stage plays were all bought directly from here, and when I was supplying raws for Countdown and LSW I was buying the magazines from here as well (I’ve also used it for Pokémon plushies and sewing books). If the item is being sold by a third party seller though you will likely need a shopping service. The site will tell you when you try to check out.

Surugaya EN (no shopping service required)/ Surugaya JP (shopping service required) - This is a secondhand shop and a great place to find merch. The main difference between the English site and the Japanese one is that the Japanese site has a larger selection (particularly doujinshi, and even more particularly spicy doujinshi). The English site periodically has free shipping sales so keep an eye out. Surugaya also has physical stores and will sometimes share merch between the store and the site so keep that in mind too, I have had items canceled before because they sold out in store and the listing hadn’t been updated yet.

Mandarake (no shopping service needed) - Another secondhand shop similar to Surugaya. I have not actually purchased from them myself and am not fond of their interface but I know people who have bought things from here. Like Surugaya they share stock with physical stores so something you want can sell out even after you’ve purchased. 

Lashinbang (shoppng service required) - More secondhand shops. Lashinbang is rather small though so they don't always have much stuff, at least not for K.

CDJapan (no shopping service needed) - This is also better for new merch than secondhand but still worth a mention. I’ve found their prices tend to be worse than a lot of other stores though, this is more of a last resort for me.

Otaku Republic/Goods Republic (no shopping service needed) - Otaku sells doujinshi, Goods sells merch. The main draw is that these two are easy to search if you’re uncomfortable dealing with Japanese sites. I haven’t used them in quite a while but when I was buying from them they would send me free gifts with every purchase (my S4 cup came from them, as well as a bunch of clear file folders that I didn’t take pictures of because they’re being used as sewing pattern storage right now). The main downside is that while shipping is free over $50 they massively mark up the base prices to make up for it. I eventually stopped using this site because the shopping service was cheaper even with shipping and fees, you are paying for convenience. A lot of their ‘inventory’ is just listings from other sites including Surugaya, so check there first.

GoraShop (shopping service required) - This is Gora’s direct bookshop! They only have the season novelizations and Idol K books right now, as well as some Ayaka stuff. 

Kinkurido (shopping service required) - This is the King Amusement Creative shop. All Memories was sold through this shop but is currently sold out, if they ever restock Gora will likely announce it on their Twitter. They do have some other small K goods available, including some CDs and artbooks (and Sarumi body pillows). 

Marketplaces

Mercari Japan (Shopping service needed) - If you’ve ever used the English version of Mercari, here it is again but Japanese edition. You can find a lot of good used pieces here but prices are set by the individual seller so be wary of overpaying the first thing you find. Be sure to use a translator to look at the description in case you're buying a damaged item. Sometimes shopping services can try to negotiate the prices if you ask. 

Yahoo Japan Auctions (shopping service needed) - Similarly as above, if you’re familiar with eBay this is fundamentally the same thing. Some shopping services will allow you to place last minute ‘sniper’ bids, and most will let you set a maximum bid and keep bidding on your behalf until that max is reached. 

Shopping tips and things to know

The good news about buying from Japan right now: the yen is weak, so you can get deals! In the US, anyway. This may depend on your country so if you’re unsure on the exchange rate you can google “[your country’s currency] to yen exchange rate” and it should give you an approximate.

The bad news: shipping is killer. Keep that in mind, especially if you’re buying heavy items like bags or shoes (yes, K has those, there are several SuperGroupies collabs. If you want a S4 purse or Yata Misaki shoes keep in mind you will probably be paying through the nose for shipping). For the European types, you may have additional taxes too so be aware of your country’s import laws. Ditto when it comes to customs. For my fellow Americans, I have never had a customs issue even when buying fairly pricey dresses so you’re probably okay on that end but I can’t speak for other countries. 

Character tax is real. Basically, more popular characters will likely have more expensive merch because there’s more demand — for example, Fushimi and Yata merch tends to be more expensive than, say, Silvers merch. Keychains and pins are usually cheaper than larger items like figures and standees either way though. 

Most of the Japanese sites will need to be searched in Japanese. For character names, I suggest going to the K wiki and grabbing your favorite character’s name in kanji and using that to search. For pairings, while marketplace sites like Mercari may have listings under the pairing name sites like Suruga will use the two individual character names so you’ll want to search under that. If your browser doesn’t have an add on to translate that’s very helpful to grab in order to make your experience easier. For K itself, in general this is really the downside of having a favorite series with a one letter title. However, using ‘Missing Kings,’ ‘Return of Kings’ or ‘Seven Stories’ can be helpful here but will likely mostly turn up merch made for that specific season/movie. 

If you want to look up something specific like a plush but don't know the Japanese word for it, Jisho can be helpful. Look up the kanji for the word you want and then copy-paste into your search. The downside is sometimes there are multiple words for the same thing or a word may be in kanji but people use the hiragana more often and you won't know, but it should get you on the right path to start.

On buying spicier goods: most shopping services have it in their terms that they will not buy adult items. In practice, however, this depends. I've had FromJapan refuse to buy perfectly tame G-rated doujinshi. Treasure Japan has in their terms that they won't ship adult items but like 70% of my doujinshi collection was purchased through them, with an R18 Sarumi book purchased as recently as last year. I've heard Buyee also states that they won't ship adult items but it's hit or miss if they turn down your order, and if you buy directly using Tenso they likely won't even open your package. Keep your country's laws regarding importing in mind, especially if you think customs might be likely to poke around in your package. Don't get in legal trouble just for spicy drawings.

Buying secondhand is a marathon, not a sprint. Sometimes it takes a while for what you want to show up, so just keep looking! When I was collecting my nui set I literally bookmarked the search for “K ぬい” (nui) on Mercari and checked every day or so, which may be more obsessive than you want but it does get the job done (I was molded in the merch search mines of trying to find lolita dresses that haven’t been sold for 10 years, so I’m used to this kind of thing). If you keep looking you may even find things you didn't know you needed, like this Sarumi bedsheet I forgot to add into my collection post.

Happy hunting!

[nekoannie-chan]

Horrible training

Horrible training

Title: Horrible training.

Fandom: Marvel, Captain America.

Ship: Steve Rogers X Reader.

Word count: 197 words.

Rating: Teen.

Summary: Apparently Brock hates you, and Steve saves you.

Major Tags: Heatstroke, faint.

Additional tags: This is my entry to @sweetspicybingo, Hurt/Comfort Bingo Card & square 19:

"Heatstroke.”

@saiyanprincessswanie

My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English if you notice any mistakes, please let me know and I will correct them.

I don’t give any permission for my fics to be posted on other platforms or languages (I translate my work myself) or the use of my graphics (my dividers are included in this), I did them exclusively for my fics, please respect my work and don't steal it. There are some people here who make dividers that anyone can use, mine is not this type, please look for the other people. The only exception is the ones I gifted 'cuz now belong to someone else. Please let me know if you find any of my works on a different platform and are not one of my accounts. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Marvel's characters (unfortunately), except for the original characters and the story.

Add yourself to my taglist here.

My other media where I publish:  Ao3, Wattpad, ffnet, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. 

If you like it, please vote, comment, and give me feedback to improve my skills and reblog.

Tags: @sinceimetyou @unnuevosoltransformalarealidad @navybrat817 @angrythingstarlight @shield-agent78 @charmed-asylum @pandaxnienke @real-fbi @Smokeandnailz @white-wolf1940 @tenaciousperfectionunknown @xoxonotme @bluemusickid @leyannrae @Harrysthiccthighss @Marvelatthisone @caplanbuckybarnes @sapphire-rogers @lizzieolseniskinda @notyourtypicalrose @hallecarey1 @nana1000night @talia-rumlow @writingshae @alexxavicry @azulatodoryuga @daemonslittlebitch @chaoticcollectivenightmare @endlesstwanted @chemtrails-club  @marigoldreamer @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @Here4thefanfics @theestorm @patzammit @kmc1989 @somegirlfromasgard

It was a hot summer day, and you were part of the new recruits, usually, Steve was in charge of this one, but that day it would be Brock.

The sun was very strong, the heat was oppressive. Sweat dripped down your forehead as you followed Rumlow's orders, pushing you to your limits, it seemed as if he wanted to finish you all off. Even though you felt increasingly dizzy and weak, you didn't want to say anything.

Steve began to watch as he had arrived early from his mission. He approached Rumlow and asked him not to be so strict due to the ambient conditions, but Brock dismissed Steve's requests.

Finally, during a series of exercises, you felt everything begin to spin around you. Voices became a blur and everything went dark.

You awoke later in the infirmary, with Steve sitting next to you.

“You pushed yourself too hard,” he said, taking your hand gently.

“I'm sorry, Captain. I didn't mean to look weak.”

He shook his head, gently squeezing your hand.

“You're not weak. You just need to rest and take care of yourself. Next time, listen to your body, okay?”

You nodded your head.

[gaiakon]

The scariest thing I’ve done to my 3ds.

December 27, 2024

This christmas I got just about everything I wanted. A green wig, make up, a camera, an hdmi capture card, and a new microphone. However there was one more thing that I didn’t tell you about. A 3ds captured card.

This is my current experience of getting one:

Before we begin, I highly recommend buying Loopy Capture Cards if you have a New Nintendo 3ds XL model, and that model specifically if you ever want a physical capture that’s affordable and close by. I also recommend sending over your 3ds to have them install it instead of trying yourself. I love modding, but when it comes to hardware, I don’t stand a chance. Just because I had bad luck, doesn’t mean that the business I went through wasn’t legit. If anything happens, I blame the postal service.

Usually during these passion projects regarding videogames and consoles. I’d pay and do it myself. Whenever I wanted to have and mod a 3ds, I saved up and modded it myself— not once, but twice. When I wanted to mod a nintendo switch, I asked my husband for his switch, and bought a new console for him to make up for it.

However, for some reason, I had a sense of urgency. For years, I learned about Loopy Capture Cards being a great service, having overwhelmingly positive results despite the survival working as early as 2012… only for it to shut down for 5 years, then open up as recent as 2 years ago. I was worried we’d have another spell of nothing for a few years more, so for Christmas, I asked my husband to pay for this service, saying that I’ll pay him back. I even paid for shipping, meaning that my paycheck was basically reduced to nothing. If all goes well, my dreams would come true ever since I was a little girl, if not. Well… I can swallow my emotions, and fight the emptiness.

It was bought 12/27/2024, and it was shipped the same day.

It was sent over by fed-ex, a shipping company I don’t trust, but it was closer, and I didn’t have the gas money to go to usps.

Believing that I may never see that thing again, I thankfully had a bought and modded spare one to play on. Whether it may be permanently my new one or not, or just a fail safe? I don’t know. What I do know is that I already missed it. Though, I went to a brief moment of grief due to having a Tomodachi Life save I actually got attached to.

Now before I say anything, I will not badmouth Loopy. If anything in his abilities in working on my 3ds more than anything. I don’t trust fed-ex, I don’t trust the pay-pal payment system, I don’t trust USPS… even a part of me believes that Loopy would have just forgotten. I did send this at around the holidays, after all, and I’m sure that the holidays are a time where he gets the most traction. If it ever does reach Loopy, I’m sure I’d have to wait to get it until at least 6 months before he gets to me.

I have no choice but to trust that fed-ex sent my package properly, it was handled with the care of a newborn, it was sent to the right address, the payment was processed properly, and that no sleeze bag stole it from him on his suite mailbox… though given that fed-ex needs a signature from him in the first place in order to deliver it, I guess theft won’t be an issue until it’s sent back.

What I know through the forums is that this could take as early as within a week, to as long as a few months. I need to keep faith. I’d like to have it before school starts again, but let’s be honest; that won’t happen.

December 28, 2024

Meanwhile on my spare 3ds, I noticed it had hardware problems. The charging port was melting, some screws were missing, and the shell plates were uneven. I debated on whether I want to replace the shells, or send them over to a repairmen services on ebay, but with no money, my hands were tied.

I tried to refit the 3ds shell back on, but it wasn’t working. It just wouldn’t fit. I didn’t want to spend more than I already have with this thing, so I think waiting for my next paycheck and checking it into a repairment service on ebay would be my best bet. More than ever did I miss the 3ds I sent away, and I hope that it would come back soon.

A day passes, and it turns out that my ship over to Loopy would be earlier than was said. What was initially going to be sent over by January 3rd, was now going to simply be delivered by new year’s eve. Good, thought I started to get a bit stressed. The package requires a signature. I truly hope that he’d be there in new years eve to sign it, but knowing that new years eve is an important holiday for families involved, I doubt it.

[armory-rasa]

A Breakdown Of How Shitty Etsy Is, for Both Buyers and Sellers

Alright, folks, you win, I’m doing my taxes. 😂

But in case anyone was wondering just how shitty Etsy is these days, the answer is really shitty.

Check this out, from the bottom up:

I get an order for an Ezio belt -- the customer sends me $241.00

Etsy takes the following:

3% of the total as a ‘processing fee’ ($7.48)

6.5% of the total as a ‘transaction fee’ ($13.65)

6.5% of the fucking shipping ($2.02)

12% of the total, again, because the customer once clicked on an offsite ad ($28.92)

So yeah, out of that $241.00 the customer paid, $52.07 went to Etsy and $188.93 went to me. 🙃 Oh yeah, minus the cost of actually shipping it ($31, because it was going overseas), so actually only $157.93 went to me.

(And the offsite ads fee doesn’t even mean they found my listing through offsite ads, just that they clicked on one in the past month, so there’s a cookie on their browser that Etsy takes as the greenlight to charge any sellers the offsite ads surcharge. And as someone who makes over $10k from Etsy a year, I’m not allowed to opt out of that program.)

This is utterly untenable, both for artists trying to scrape a living, and for buyers hoping to be able to afford their work. This is obscene, just absolute naked greed on Etsy’s part.

So PLEASE, for the love of god, don’t click on offsite ads (ie, if you see ads for Etsy on google, facebook, etc), and if the artist has another way for you to buy from them, DO IT. You’ll be paying less to put more money in their pocket.

(My storefront on my website, that uses WooCommerce as the back end? Charges that 3% processing fee, as is standard for credit card transactions on the internet, but that’s it.)

[doodlemancy]

why is your canada shipping so expensive :( trying to buy 2 of the hard drive reminder cards and the shipping is more expensive than the cards themselves

hi anon, i'm really sorry about this AND i can fix it! but i do want to explain, because i think it's something people should know if they're buying from Etsy (and other small sellers running their own shops online). it's due to a combination of several things (for which there is a solution at the end of this ramble that may or may not make any sense): -those items are listed with Etsy's special tracked letter-rate shipping, which allows me to send small, flat envelopes under 1oz for cheap within the US. the tracked letter rate is not available outside the USA, and thanks to some back end stuff on Etsy i just end up having to show the package rate to international customers instead of what i'd charge for a stamped international letter. it's, um, less than ideal. -international package rates are just plain mean and rude to small sellers and cool people who buy from them! the base price of sending even a small a tracked package to canada is frankly absurd, like i can send a bubble mailer full of charms up to the washington border for $5 but if it goes into BC suddenly it's $11. international stamps are still less than 2 dollaroonis but god forbid you have a one-ounce 4x6 bubble mailer, get out your checkbook -Etsy forces you to provide tracked shipping for orders over $10. this confounds the entire issue of shipping even further. i *could* send stamped mail, but there's no way to set up a shipping profile that's like "regular rates for most people but international customers spending less than $10 can get it for stamped envelope price

-i also typically insure international packages because otherwise there can be badtimes and that's rolled into the shipping price so that's like a dollar of the bonkers price you're seeing lol

TL;DR shipping is goofy and it gets goofier when it crosses a border (and when Etsy fails for years to develop simple workarounds for common problems like this LKDSFGHFDSJK) HOWEVER: since these are flat items, and two of them won't go over the $10 "must have tracking" limit, if you send me a message over on Etsy (just hit that contact button on my shopfront), let me know you're Canada Anon, i can work around it, create a custom listing for you, and send them in a stamped envelope. they just won't have tracking. :)

[aspenmissing]

𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊_𝟶𝟷_𝙻𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚗 (𝙿𝚝 𝟷)

In a shop called, Junk Shop Mediocrity, a blue haired male was talking on the phone with a customer.

"Thanks for calling Junk ship Mediocrity" The male, Aoba Seragaki, ended the call with the customer, only to come back on the phone for another customer who was calling. "How can I help you today?" He asks. "Yeah...Yeah...We've got a bunch of those in stock actually. Would you like to get one of them from us? Hello? What? My voice?" Aoba sighed softly. "That's awfully nice of you to say, but yeah, we've got those parts your looking for. The S type...We've actually got a special going right now. You wanna place an order?" Aoba taps his pen against the desk. "Sounds good. Thank you very much. I just need a credit card number to hold the order for you" Aoba then sighed again and placed the phone back into its charging holder.

"Aoba, let me guess. You got another compliment about your voice" His allmate, Ren, says. Aoba leans back in his chair, hands behind his head.

"Yeah...Seriously, I don't get the bid deal with voice anyway"

"It's getting people to place orders, so lighten up will you" Another voice says. Aoba and Ren turns their head to spot a silver looking cat allmate, Sushi, licking her paw.

"She had a point"

"Yeah, your right you two. It just started getting a little weird when guys said it. I just don't get why Y/N/N can't do it. She's the girl here"

"They just prefer yours" A purple to blue haired girl says, coming out from the back. Y/N L/N. "Besides, I don't even work here"

"They don't know that" Aoba whines.

"Aoba, you've got mail" Ren announces. Aoba looks at his coil.

"Right" Aoba goes to check.

"Your open, hya!" A voice shouts , a young boy with brown hair and a band-aid on his noise, wearing a mouse suit. He swung a stick on top of Aoba's head, causing Aoba to hold his head in pain.

"Ow, you friggin, little brat!" Aoba says.

"Your just as weak as you've ever been, Aoba" The Little girl, Mio, says.

"You've gotta be tough" Kio says.

"Hey, that's my line"

"How many times do we have to tell you to not play around in here. You three could get seriously hurt" Y/N says with a soft yet bold tone. The three kids look at her, just noticing her presence. Nao and Kio wore a small blush on their faces as they raced towards her, causing Sushi to jump onto the counter where Aoba was and leave Y/N to be pulled into a bone-crushing hug by the two younger boys, their arms wrapping around her neck as her's wrap around their bodies.

"Y/N!" They yell, as Nao starts to rub his cheek against Ruka's. She chuckles, hugging the two boys back. Mio giggles and skips over to Y/N, hugging her legs. Y/N looks down at the girl and smiles softly.

"Do I need to get a kendo stick of my own, you brat!" Aoba warns, looking at the siblings. Mio pulls away, grabbing Ren.

"I'm so scared. I'm gonna leave right now" Mio taunts, playing with Ren's paws.

"P-Please stop" Ren says. Sushi laughs as she licks her paw. Ruka places the two boys down. Kio separates from Y/N, leaving Nao to keep hugging Y/N, who rubs his head. Nao then looks up at the shelves, pointing to something that catches his eye "Hey, what's that?"

"I'm not sure" Kio says, mobbing next to his brown-headed brother. Aoba looks at them with narrowed eyes, but then relaxes when he feels a small hands rub his back, getting all of the kinks and knots out, causing him to sigh with relief. He looks up to see Y/N, and she smiles down at him.

"What would I do without you Y/N/N?"

"Meh" Aoba's coil beeps and he looks down at it with curiosity. He jumps up when his coil beeped, meaning that he replied and sent.

"Wait. Whoa, I didn't tell it to send" He looks to Y/N "I didn't just pick up some some Trojan did I?" She shrugs. The three kids go over to them.

"We're you just watching porn on your watch" Nao asks.

"Of course not" Aoba says, a deadpanned expression on his face.

"And why would you even suggest that?" Y/N asks, eyes squinted. At that moment, the owner of Junk Shop Mediocrity, Haga, announced his arrival as he held a box with his two hands.

"Hello there Aoba. And nice to see you again, Y/N" Haga greets the two warmly.

"Hey, welcome back boss" Aoba greets.

"Heya" Y/N says, leaning her arms over Aoba's shoulders. Her chin resting on his head.

"Yeah, I'm sorry it took me so long to get here" He notices that Aoba and Y/N aren't alone "Well now, look who's here. Wild things are visiting" The three kids smirk

"Hey, Aoba. Could you two do something for me? Sorry to ask, but could you take this pack to the delivery works? I'd take it myself but you know how things are" Haga asks, showing Aoba the box he had in his hands. Aoba nods as she starts to get up from his seat. Y/N moves back and holds out her arms for Sushi to jump into them. She does so.

"I'll come along too" Y/N says.

"We're out" Aoba says. Ren is sat in his bag, his head sticking out. "You guys be careful up there"

As Aoba and Y/N start to walk out of the show, they could hear Haga, "Behave, you guys" He scolds the children "Here, now, you three. It's dangerous to play around in the store. Children...."

"Oh, shut up!" Kio yelled out to Haga as he tried to get the item his siblings and himself wanted to have.

"Shut up, baldy" Nao yelled out too after Kio, Haga who was in a frozen position.

But outside the store, Y/N and Aoba kept calmly walking down the street and away from the shop. The two stop in their tracks as they hear Nao's words. If they were to look behind them, they would see the imaginary fire coming out from under the shop's door. They both could hear Haga's angry cried as they also hear the three siblings screams of terror.

"You thinks those kids would learn not to say that" Y/N says, Aoba shrugs. She wraps her right hand around Aoba's left bicep and laid her head on his arm; Sushi in her left arm, as Ren is sat in Aoba's bag.

==Flashback==

Years ago, a short brown haired girl walks down an alley, her cat allmate walking besides her. The girl wears a worn out jacket with baggy pants. They hear commotion and they quickly but quietly heads down the alley to another, and they turn the corner to see about 3 boys, surrounding a girl with long blue hair.

"We should leave, we don't want to get into any bother" the cat says, walking away.

"Your right" the brown haired girl goes to follow her.

"Come on sissy, scream like a girl you are!"

"I'm not a girl!" The brown haired girl stops in her tracks "Stop it, it-it hurts!" The ring leader of the group continues to pull his blue hair, as he winces in pain. The brown haired girl feels her short hair, frowning, remembering her days...

"Please stop pulling my hair! It hurts!"

She picks up a metal pipe.

The boys laugh as they keep pulling the younger boy's hair, tears starting to well up in his eyes. Suddenly the leader hears shouts of pain behind him and he lets go of the boys hair, turning around to see his friends on the ground holding their stomachs in pain. The brown haired girl stood between the two, metal pipe in hand.

"Leave the boy alone, or you'll end up like your friends" The leader doesn't respond quick enough and she raises the pipe higher "NOW!" The boy quickly grabs his two friends and they take of running down the street, screaming for their mom's "Sissys" She says, dropping the pipe on the ground. She goes over to the blue haired boy and crouches down to him, showing soft eyes and a soft smile.

"You okay, kid?" He nods, tears still flowing down his face "Hey, don't cry" She wipes away the tears "Don't let them get you down, there just jealous that you have such pretty hair" The boy hiccups.

"Y-You don't think I'm a girl?" The girl smiles sadly.

"I'll admit, at first I did. But now I see you are completely male. But I apologise for thinking so. I just didn't like how they were pulling your hair, remind me of when I got mine pulled. Reason why my hair is so short now." She gestures to her short hair "And I cried to, but I learned their opinions and actions aren't worth my tears" The boy wipes the rest of his tears away with his sleeve "Let me introduce myself, my name's Y/N and this-" She gestures to the cat allmate who had been sat on top of boxes watching the scene "-is Sushi. What's your name?"

"A-Aoba"

"Well, it's very nice to meet you Aoba. Now" Y/N stands up, holding out her left hand "Let's get you back home" Aoba doesn't hesitate to grab her hand and the three walk away.

==Flashback End==

Aoba, Y/N, Sushi and Ren walk down the sidewalk, Aoba with a slight smile at the remembrance on how he had met Y/N and Sushi, how different Y/N looked now from back then. When Ruka and Sushi took him home, his granny was worried and Y/N had explained what happened. His granny had then offered her a place to stay, since she knew that Y/N didn't have a home due to what she was wearing. Y/N had gladly took up the offer and now she and Sushi had become part of the family.

"So how do we get down to delivery works today?" Aoba asks, looking to his allmate. Ren looks at all the routes that he could find, and when he did he suggests the route to the two.

"Formulating recommendation..." Many maps show up in front of Ren's face "East 241 street is closed for inspection. And there are several busses out of service. Your best bet is going to be the north terminal"

"Thanks Ren, works for us" Y/N thanks the dark blue allmate.

"All in a days work" Ren reply's.

"This is an request for citizens of the Old Residential District" The news lady says in the background "Recently, there has been an increased in internal clashes among members of the street gang, Ribsteez." Aoba and Y/N stop when a sign came up and said 'stop'. Aoba sighs, looking to the female Ribsteez leader.

"Seriously, Y/N/N? Did you and your gang make the members of Ribsteez clash again"

"Hmm" She places a finger on her chin, showing a thinking face "Will you believe me if I said no?" Aoba shakes his head playfully "It's not just me" She defends herself, Sushi still in her arms. Aoba sighs softly when he realizes he has more gang leader friends. Two of which he has know since childhood.

"If you see anything, please report to the police immediately" The female news reporter says. Y/N looks to Aoba with a sheepish grin.

"You won't turn me in, will you?" Aoba smirks.

"I just might" Y/N playfully pouts, turning her head. Aoba than holds her right hand softly, entwining their fingers together loosely "Nah, your to important. Besides-" Aoba uses his other hand to fit up Y/N's hood over her face" -who else will get me free passage through the streets without hassle" Y/N lifts the hood back, to make it sit on top of her head. She looks up at the man she's known since childhood and smiles.

"So what, I'm just some get out a hassle free card" She jokes. Aoba shrugs with a laugh before himself and Y/N turn back to the screen.

"Also, anyone leaving the island is required by law to obtain permission. Thank you for your cooperation." The news woman concludes her news report.

Just then, a commercial came on to the screen. It showed a purple cat that had jumped for a pile of boxes onto the surface of a wood table and rubbed her head with its paw. An announcer then had just started talking about the fluffy purple cat, "The new allmate D7! With the long awaited cat-type specs and convenient picked size" Sushi and Ren looks up at their owners who are staring at the commercial with a straight face.

"Hey, Aoba, Y/N" A voice says behind them, which causes them to look back and turns around to the source, the two dropping their hands. Aoba hummed in response and Y/N smiled at who had called them, returning one. A man stood at the top on cement stairs that connected to the side of a hair salon building, wearing a Red Kimono, a big katana on his back and a small red bird allmate perched on his shoulder.

"Koujaku" Aoba greets.

"What are you two doing all the way out here?" He asks, making his way down the cemented stairs.

"What do you think? I'm working, and Y/N decided to tag along. I'm making a delivery" Aoba says.

"What about you?" Y/N asks. Koujaku stops in front of the two, looking down at her as she looks back up at him; he gives her a closed-eye smile.

"I'm always busy"

"Yeah right, whatever" Aoba says, sarcastically. Koujaku then pulls Y/N from Aoba's side and near his own body. He strokes Sushi's head, who purrs.

"Well, if your delivering something then your probably on your way to delivery works" Koujaku says "Bet your wearing out your shoes" Koujaku says, playing with Y/N's hair. "Say Hi to Yoshie for me"

"I say Hi so you don't have to again. What's up with that?"

"Lucky Dog, you get to see Clara again don't you" Beni, Koujaku's allmate says. Ren sweat drops.

"You've got a strange definition of lucky" Sushi says, looking up at the small bird, from Y/N's arms.

"I agree" Ren agrees.

"Well, it ain't that bad" Koujaku notices Aoba's hair.

"I couldn't help but notice but it looks like your letting your hair grow wild again" Koujaku says. He reaches out to touch Aoba's hairs, but stops himself.

"Yeah, Yeah I need a haircut, just don't stare at it" Aoba frowns slightly "It's kind of embarrassing to me, having someone as professional as you standing around, plotting a make over for me" Koujaku smiles.

"You actually did a good job with it this time, you shouldn't be so self-conscious" Koujaku looks down at the ombre haired girl, pulling her hood down gently "And your hair's also getting longer. I told you to stop by whenever and you'll be on the top of my list"

"I know, I know. I've been meaning to, but I've just been caught up with stuff lately. I mean, you know how the boys are" Koujaku nods, knowing how the members of her team 'Jokers' are. They live up to their name, they love getting into fights and sometimes jokes with their opponents, such as: pretending to be scared only to kick their ass, or back out of fights only to turn around and clock their opponents in the head.

"Mr. Koujaku!" A faint yell calls him, causing him to look back with a curious look on his face, his arms still around Y/N's shoulders. Two girls were running near Aoba, Koujaku, and Y/N and their allmates.

"Where are you opening your shop today? I don't trust anyone else with my hair" A woman with brown hair that went to her shoulders asked with her hands together in front of her, a pleading look on her face.

"Well, that's nice" Koujaku says, giving them another closed-eye smile. The two girls have heart eyes, looking at Koujaku. They then stop their heart-eye glances to look at Y/N in his arms, and they stare at her with jealousy. Y/N then glares back at the two girls. Aoba sees the tension and gently grabs her left arm, pulling her away from his hold.

"Okay, we've gotta go" Aoba says, walking away with Y/N, when the stop sign finally decides to sink back and reappear onto the other side.

"Right, see you later. If you ever want a real hair cut, just let me know okay, Aoba. Same goes for you Y/N!"

"Not gonna happen, dude" Aoba says.

"I'll try" Y/N says.

"Hey, I forgot, I'll be by later so say hi to your grandma for me okay?"

"Yeah, yeah" Aoba says, waving his hand at Koujaku, not looking "Jeez"

"He's just trying to be nice, Aoba" Y/N says gently, her arm wrapped around his arm.

==Flashback==

Years ago, a young Aoba and Y/N are with two other boys at an abandoned area. Y/N's hair is slightly longer than the time her and Aoba had met and she's in cleaner clothes.

"Your hair looks like a girls. You expect us to believe it hurts when you touch it" One of the boys says, gripping Aoba's hair. They tug as Aoba whimpers in pain as the boys laugh.

"Leave him alone!" Young Y/N says, hitting the boy holding her in the arm, only for her hair to be gripped by the boy holding her.

"Just tell us if it hurts, sissy" A hand grips at the boy holding Aoba's hair. A young Koujaku glares at them.

"You jerks, you shouldn't treat a girls hair like that, understand"

"What did you say?" The boy asks. Koujaku's grip hardens "Ow! Hey! Watch it!" Koujaku flings the guy holding Aoba's hair to the ground and the one holding Y/N is suddenly smacked in the face by the back of her head, falling to the ground, groaning in pain. Y/N holds Aoba close, who's nuzzles his face into her side

"You okay miss?" Koujaku asks Y/N, she nods, smiling. He looks down at Aoba, who's still nuzzled into Y/N's side "Hey little girl, are you okay?" Y/N goes to answer but is cut off by Aoba's tears and hiccups.

"I-I'm not a girl" Aoba says, continuing to cry. Y/N rubs the side of his head.

==Flashback End==

Aoba, Y/N, Ren and Sushi continue their way to Delivery Works. Aoba has his eyes closed and kept walking, as Y/N holds onto his right arm to guide him across the street as the two had remembered how they met Koujaku.

"Well," Aoba starts after they finished the flashback "Even after Koujaku found out I was actually a guy. He still took the time to keep the jerks off my back" Aoba says, he then looks to Y/N and Sushi "And you were just the same, you took me around places and kept bother away from me"

"Koujaku's good like that" Sushi says, now sat with Ren in Aoba's bag.

"No, Koujaku, Y/N, and yourself are good like that" Ren corrects, licking Sushi's cheek. Sushi instantly goes to clean herself with her paw.

"Yeah" Aoba agrees as he looked at Y/N who was smiling at the two allmates.

==The Jokers Logo/Sushi/Y/N's Looks==

[biggestdev]

Cheap (kinda) DIY hormone testing

Hormone level testing is something that came became an issue during my transition; I am going through my doctor for HRT, and my health insurance bit me in the ass. Since my doc is a small practice, they ship my samples out to get tested, and insurance only covers hormone tests if they take place AT my GP's practice. Like, in the physical building the sample was collected int. A weird cutout, but I assume it's something meant to fuck me over intentionally, and I can't make them budge on it.

So, I switched to an at-home, mail-in hormone test. I'm putting my two cents out there, just in case it helps anyone, I assume the DIY-ers out there are already aware of stuff like this. The test I ordered is from ZRT Lab:

Specifically, I ordered the "Hormone Trio" blood spot sample. There is a saliva sample method available (spit in a cup vs wipe blood on a sample paper), but their own research papers indicate the saliva sample isn't as accurate for testosterone, so I went with the blood spot method. It's not CHEAP by any means, at $130, but it's certainly cheaper than the $500 I WAS CHARGED by the local university hospital to do the SAME TESTS!

There is a caveat in the fine print that you should be aware of: California residents still need a doctor's note for ZRT Lab to process their samples. I don't know why, it's stupid, but it's a clear line that they draw.

This is the cheapest test I was able to find for these hormones, everything else either left out progesterone, or cost close to (or over) $200. I don't know if transmasc people need any other hormones tested, but for me, a transfemme, the three in the Hormone Trio test (Estradiol, Progesterone, and Testosterone) were the exact 3 my doctor was looking for.

As far as how easy it is to use, I found it very straightforward: it includes a lancet to poke a hole in one of your fingertips (the instructions said to go into the side of the finger at a weird angle, but I couldn't get enough blood to take samples, so I gave up and went right in the middle of my fingerprint, that worked much better), then drip blood onto the indicated spots on the sample card. Let the samples dry overnight, then pack it up and ship as directed (it comes with a prepaid shipping label).

On top of that, I was surprised at how little information they require to process a sample. there is a form sent with the kit, and I only included my name (chosen, not legal), age, gender, email, and a list of current medications. I also had to fill out at least one "symptom" (since they didn't have "is trans" in there, I just chose "mild anxiety", literally just pick anything), I know this because I DIDN'T choose a symptom at first, and they actually called me after they received it, telling me they need at least one symptom in order to process the sample. The nice lady on the phone actually started reading out all 50+ possible symptoms, I took pity on her and stopped her pretty quick ("oh you said anxiety? yeah, sure, that one".)

All in all, it took about 10 days from when I shipped the sample, to the results being posted in their online portal.

All in all, I'm happy with how easy and cheap (compared to the alternative) this test was, and I'll probably be using them for the foreseeable future, unless of course my insurance gets it's head screwed on straight and actually starts helping me instead of just charging me to do nothing, but we all know they'd light themselves on fire before actually helping anyone 😊

Oh, yeah, and this isn't an ad or anything, I did my own research and paid for the test in full, it's just a regular old review.

[internerdionality]

Every time a customer is like “I’ll never purchase another [redacted] again!” and we’re all like…

Coz like the thing is, we actually don’t mark up our product that much. The profit margin on our cheapest model is like $400, and even on the most expensive model it’s only a couple grand. And I get paid like $35 bucks an hour for tech/escalations support, right? So if you’re going to be that entitled customer who is gonna demand hours of my time trying to teach you 3D design from scratch and shit to try or give you gift cards and loads of emotional labor to make up for your imagined slights, it’s *genuinely cheaper* for the company to just break up with you early.

Like, I had this customer the other day, they dropped like two grand for our cheapest model and expect gold star service. Oh and they didn’t even buy it from US they bought it from like a Best Buy but the warranty is through us as the manufacturer so I still have to deal with them, cause as it happens one part of their system arrived broken, right? Okay, no big, right? We order them a new one and they Karen at the frontline tech who had the misfortune of dealing with them enough that he decides to give them an exception and ship it in advance instead of waiting for them to ship back the broken part first.

(This isn’t a huge deal, we just have to put a hold on their credit card and then manually release the replacement order rather than tying it to the returning order but it takes more staff time so we’re not supposed to do it very often)

Anyway, they apparently get the idea that this exception means they’re gonna get the replacement like, the next day.

(Which, I have this whole other rant about how Amazon is screwing things over for other companies by using the incredibly abusive labor practices that they do, because customers now expect that they’re gonna get things tout de suite and it shouldn’t cost them anything but even Amazon bleeds money on shipping, it’s just that the monopoly it gives them makes up for it. But no other company can do that without hemorrhaging money cause we have to pay fulfillment center and shipping companies that aren’t literally killing their employees. And people who run small business, like most of our customers, don’t understand that when they’re paying us for shipping, they’re paying for the warehouse staff we contract with to get the right thing off the shelf and pack it and put the right label on it, not just whatever FedEx or UPS are charging for shipping, because they don’t consider that labor when they doing their own budgeting).

But ANYWAY so they call in like 19 times (not exaggerating even a little) in the two days after this all goes down, wanting the tracking number for their part. And it turns out that whoops! the tech who diagnosed the problem made the exception to ship in advance but the service rep who processed the order was kinda operating on autopilot and forgot to manually release it.

At which point they go absolutely apeshit and the whole thing becomes my problem.

And they’re just Karening and Karening in my ear about how they’ve had to spend so much of their time working to fix this, and they made commitments to their customers based on the tech rep telling them it would definitely ship the next day (he didn’t, and I listened to their entire 40-minute call to prove it) and are now out thousands of dollars (why the hell would you commit to making “thousands of dollars” of product with a machine you JUST bought, that you only spent two grand on? This is our lowest model, we don’t even market it as a business tool! Sorry dude, your bad business plan is not my problem) and I have to “prove” to them that we’re going to stand by our product or they won’t further invest in our company, and oh by the way, they have friends who have millions of followers on social media, and I should know what that means, so I better really try hard to win back their trust…

And I’m just like….

Please, dude. Please go fuck yourself and never spend another dime with our company. You’ve *already* blown through our entire profit margin on the machine you bought by sucking up so many hours of staff time. You are literally more trouble than you’re worth. PLEASE just go away so I never have to hear from you again.

"i won't be coming back here" is the funniest possible thing you can say to a customer service worker. you're at your place of work and someone comes in, acts like a jerk, ruins your day, and then, paradoxically, finishes up by reassuring you that this interaction is now over and you'll never have to see or hear from them again

[20dollarlolita]

Okay, first of all, sorry I've never told followers this before, but never, EVER, pay Joann Fabrics and Crafts with PayPal. It's an absolute crime that neither Joann or PayPal is willing to tell you that they can barely communicate with each other, but they don't. It's been a few years since I was a manager there, but at the time I worked there, refunds from paypal purchases were made in the form of Joann gift cards, because they just couldn't talk to Paypal at all.

When you place a Buy Online Pickup In Store order, a hold on your mode of payment is places for the total cost of the order. When the staff marks the order as pulled, the hold is released and the payment is charged for the actual items that were pulled. This is because it's easier to charge someone less money than the hold than it is to refund money for items that were out of stock. If the whole order is out of stock, the hold should be released in its entirety. Once the hold is released, your bank or credit card has 3 days to process the released hold. I believe that 3 days is a federal law, but someone can fact check me on that if you want. The thing about PayPal is that they don't actually have to obey that law. PayPal's terms of service allow them to hold whatever they want from you for whatever reason or just because they're bored. They once held $600 of mine for 3 months because my neighbor moved in and he was a felon. PayPal has different rules from a normal bank. Paypal also once had my account locked for over a month and every 10 days I had to call them and ask why it wasn't unlocked, only for them to tell me it was unlocked except that it wasn't unlocked.

Joann freight from the main trucks is never actually checked into the store inventory. They have a list of what was on the truck, and when the truck is marked as arriving at the store, the items go into the inventory. This wasn't as shitty of a system when they didn't do Bopis or Ship from Store, because people can't buy what's not on the shelves, so having 160 garlands in a box in the stock room doesn't impact in-store customers as long as there's 5 out on the actual shelf. But it does impact online customers who order 80 garlands and are then told that they can only fill the order with 5 of them. This system was bad when I started working there in 2016 and it's only gotten worse as the company has continued to keep cutting hours and expecting the workers to just work harder (for minimum wage) to make up for it. But this system also means that if a box arrives damaged or the wrong box gets sent to a store or if a box got left on a loading dock in Ohio or something, the store inventory doesn't know.

Remember how I said staff cuts? Well, here's another fun one: the bopus system counted how many orders we canceled, but not how many items were in a canceled order. This meant that, when we had corporate demanding to know why we weren't filling more orders, we'd see really long orders and just cancel the whole thing so that we could get to doing the smaller orders faster and getting our numbers up. This was really garbage, but because of the restrictions that we had coming from corporate, it was the only way to get the numbers they wanted and avoid getting into trouble. I assume that the warehouses operate on a similar "we made up numbers that you have to reach and now you reach those numbers by doing things not how we want you to," because I used to get giant cartons with 1-2 items in them. I'm assuming corporate is tracking how many cartons get packed in a certain amount of time, but aren't tracking how many items get into the cartons.

In other "corporate didn't want it to work like this but it absolutely worked like this," on those surveys on the receipts, the 0-10 system was a lie. It actually read that 10 was a success, 9-5 was a failure, and 4 and below was a zero. This meant that if someone was being shitty, and I pegged them at wanting to leave a lower-scored survey, I'd stop trying to recover any customer service points and would just try to get them out of there. If you're going to give me a zero by giving me a 4, then I'm going to just shovel you out the store as fast as I could so that I could hopefully get someone who was going to do the survey and give me a 10. Also corporate did care about the time that a customer threw a roll of quarters at my head, but not for my own safety, just to lecture me on why I got a zero on that transaction. So yeah, throw a 220gram piece of metal at my head and then let me get yelled at for not making you happy because I couldn't materialize garlands out of my asshole.

So yeah, based on how things were heading when I left, it's tracking that things are now this bad. I can't actually go into the store I used to work in, because they don't pay hours to do freight before the store opens. So instead, cut counter and register employees are expected to do their jobs, also fill buy online and ship from store orders, and do freight, for the same amount of pay and in the same amount of time. This meant that boxes of freight were being left everywhere, since the employee doing that freight was only given 4 hours and was also doing three other jobs at that time. This meant that I can't actually shop with the people I really like and care about, because their unattended freight boxes have made the entire store wheelchair-inaccessible.

It's amazing how different working there looks after I started working at a place that's at least well-staffed and not being judged exclusively by somewhat arbitrary number goals. My current job has a whole host of nightmares, but at least "good customer service" is based on things other than horribly biased surveys.

Just a heads up, something really messed up is going on with Joann (fabric/craft store) and I highly recommend you don’t order online from them. Multiple people, including myself, have placed orders, had the entire thing or most of the order canceled by the store the same day while claiming the items aren’t in stock. However, they will hold the amount of your order for a month, in PayPal’s case, and not actually cancel it. I have called, emailed, and texted all of their customer service lines and only got one text in response that was just… a lie?

Obviously, they should not be allowing people to order stuff that supposedly isn’t in stock to begin with, but they should also actually cancel the order and not let a chunk of your money sit in limbo or never refund it.

Additionally, the twenty something items I ordered (to make a gift for a friend and for some Patreon stuff) were all very different things and there’s no reasonable way every single item was out of stock. And then they lied and said it was a payment issue:

When I spoke to both my bank and PayPal they said everything is up to date and perfectly functioning.

I honestly can’t tell you what, exactly is going on. But something is. And it’s bs. And I would highly recommend you find another source for crafting supplies if you can.

[secondbeatsongs]

Hello! I'm Julie from Cariona and I just want to ask if you're interested in doing ads/promotions here on Tumblr? If yes, how much do you charge per reblog?

For proof of legitimate promotions, you can check @catchymemes, @sulfatto, @isnt, and many others.

Website for reference: http://cariona.com Over 200 five star Facebook reviews: https://www.facebook.com/carionaproducts/reviews

Please feel free to respond here or reach out to us on marketing@cariona.com for more details! Thank you once again and have a great week!

absolutely fascinating that you decided to send this as an ask, when you also DM'd me. unfortunately, you may realize that this was a mistake - you see, asks can be responded to publicly.

so, allow me to respond:

hi, Julie! I'd never heard about Cariona before, so I decided to go poking around, and I learned something!

well, I learned a few things, actually. from your site, Cariona seems to be a small business that sells reusable menstrual products. and while I will never advertise a product that I haven't used, there's nothing wrong with wanting people to promote your company.

I have, however, found a few problems.

the first thing I found was this post by @crafiet from May 12th of last year, saying that shortly after making a purchase on your website, her debit card info was leaked, and used to make facebook ad purchases.

it seems that at least back then, your payment system was insecure. I'm really hoping you've fixed that, because. yikes.

and when I messaged crafiet to ask if it was okay if I linked to her post, she also mentioned that even though your website says you ship from Georgia, her package came shipped from China, and took a long time to arrive.

that's pretty sketchy.

the next thing I found was some folks talking about receiving cards with their orders that have a QR code on them with the words "Scan For God's Message To You", and that on the other side, have this bible verse:

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. Psalm 63:1

fun fact! that's from the King James Version (which I have a lot of thoughts about, but I'm not going to get into that right now).

additional fun fact! that particular psalm is from that time David fled to the wilderness because Jonathan's dad was trying to kill him.

and that's why I have to talk about the verses that follow it:

(ID in alt text; link to the NIV version if you want it)

so...are we like 100% sure it's god that David is thinking about here? because...I mean...that's pretty horny, right? and all of this while on the run from his boyfriend's dad?

I'm not saying anything, but like...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

it's a weird verse to choose for this, that's all.

anyway, back to you, Cariona: after seeing people talking about the bible verse cards, I decided to poke around your website more, and allll the way at the bottom of it, finally found your "About Us" page, which ends with this:

...look. there's nothing inherently wrong with being christian. but to say "we do not wish to impose any beliefs on our customers", and to then put bible verse cards in people's orders? that's sneaky, and I don't like it.

I also think it's a bit sneaky that you've flagged your tumblr account as pro-trans on shinigami eyes. at least, I assume you flagged it yourselves, because I didn't find a single post on your blog that mentions trans issues.

(though you have, entertainingly, reblogged some stranger things fanart, and a castiel cat cosplay)

and while your website uses very gender-neutral language, your "About Us" page doesn't say anything about being inclusive of trans people, just that you don't "discriminate against anyone who has a different belief than ours."

unfortunately, that's not good enough for me. I have this sneaking suspicion that "trans people are the gender they say they are" counts as a "different belief".

lastly, since you say on your website that people can message you asking about your faith, I had a friend do that!

baptists. you're baptists, which is a pretty conservative denomination.

and according to you, part of that 10% you donate goes to your local churches, and some missionaries. who are also probably baptists.

so.

in the end, I just...don't trust you? I don't trust that the 10% you're donating is going to organizations that aren't homophobic or transphobic. I don't believe that you're not trying to impose your beliefs on others, because that's what you're obviously doing. I mean, your "About Me" says that one of the reasons you built this company is to spread the gospel.

and I especially don't like it that you reached out to me (an openly queer person) for promotion without mentioning that you're an evangelical company.

so to answer your question, Julie: no. I am not interested in doing ads or promotions for you on tumblr. and honestly, you probably picked the wrong website for this kind of thing.

[absolxguardian]

This is specifically for transdermal, but when I wanted to try a higher T dose, my prescriber wrote a prescription for a ninety day supply of two pumps a day, and since it's considered a different prescription than the supply I was currently working through (you can often get around filling limits this way. I've been receiving both 100mg and 300mg bottles of gabapentin for a long time and have never been flagged, although that's to give me more control when I need to take emergency doses), it was filled as soon as it was prescribed. The new dose ended up fucking with my fibromyalgia, so I went back down, but I can still use the bottles intended for a higher dose. So a 90 supply has become a 180 day supply. This also lets you stockpile, as laws and insurance rules about refilling will treat it as a 90 day prescription. Admittedly there is a corresponding increase in cost, and as OP says, transdermal is more expensive than injectable. After my insurance negotiating down the price, I pay almost $300 for what is de facto a 180 day supply.

Another thing that is your milage may vary depending on your insurance and still this is only about the US is switching to a mail order pharmacy option offered by either your insurance or a chain pharmacy. Yes that means concerns about mail theft and overheating; and it depends on if your insurance and mail order service will even ship schedule 3 drugs. Call your insurance (there's a number on your card) or even just have your prescriber try to send in a prescription. But it takes so much of the executive function off medication refills. At least through CVS Caremark, they will digitally stockpile prescriptions until you're allowed to fill them. So no going to the pharmacy at specific dates and scheduling follow ups as closely around when you need new prescriptions. They just charge your card and ship it. They will also conduct the calling around to other pharmacies and suppliers that is normally off loaded onto the patient for you. This has kept me completely protected from the shockwaves of the Adderall shortage, at the quiet literal cost of being on a boutique form of methylphenidate that isn't even stocked by most brick and mortar pharmacies.

The monetary cost might also be worth avoiding the increased scrutiny applied specifically to injectable medication and owning needles.

10 Ways To Avoid Getting Caught Up In a Testosterone Shortage

There’s zero indication that testosterone shortages are going away, so it’s important to arm yourself with information so that you know what to do when a shortage strikes. 

1. The best way to avoid a testosterone shortage is to not let yourself run out of T to begin with. It’s a good idea to always keep a backup vial around, but this is becoming harder to do in many areas of the U.S. where 10ml and 5ml vials are no longer dispensed and only 1ml vials are available. (Seemingly all of the sudden, pharmacies are enforcing the 28-day rule that calls for multi-dose vials to be discarded 28 days after first use.) If you can, leave a spare vial in your emergency kit, and order your testosterone prescription refill BEFORE you actually run out of T!

2. Get informed about the shortage. Talk with your pharmacist and look up information about the shortage online. You may be able to find out when the shortage is expected to end. In the U.S., you can use this USA Drug Shortage Search tool. In Canada, check here.

3. Take your prescription to another pharmacy. Pharmacies don’t all run out of testosterone at the same time, so if your pharmacy can’t fill your prescription crack the phone book and start calling all the pharmacies in your area, even pharmacies in nearby cities if you have to. You’ll probably need to see your doctor to move your prescription to a different pharmacy.

4. Switch to another brand or formulation. This can be harder to do than it sounds. First, you’ll have to see your doctor for a new prescription. Don’t delay as it’s unlikely that you’ll be the first in line for the alternative brand or formulation and what often happens during a shortage is that the alternative product also becomes unavailable due to increased demand.

In Canada, there are just two brands of injectable testosterone available. They have different concentrations of testosterone requiring a different dosage, as well as different suspension oils which some people are allergic to. If you obtain an alternative brand or formulation, be sure to read the label carefully and compare it to what you normally take.

Switching between different delivery methods, ie. intramuscular vs transdermal, can also lead to difficulty in maintaining stable hormone levels and it can take months for your body to adjust to the switch.

“Switching back and forth between different products is not ideal, and many doctors do not have experience in prescribing the different forms of testosterone,” said Dr Anastacia Tomson during the recent South African shortage.

Of course, be prepared to pay more as all the alternatives to T. cypionate and T. enanthate will be more expensive.

“I noticed a difference when I switched from Reandron to Testex, but this [shortage] is much worse. It’s not just about getting my period back, which is bad enough because it means reliving everything I’ve struggled to get away from, it’s about general changes in my body. I feel more sluggish and tired. And I’ve put on weight.” —Yerai, transgender man in Spain

5. Check with your local trans health clinic. If you have access to a trans health clinic, you may find that they keep some testosterone on hand and can give you shots during a shortage (provided you have an existing prescription.)

6. Get injectable T compounded. Only certain compounding pharmacies can make injectable testosterone so you’ll need to search around. Depending on where you live in the U.S., New Era Pharmacy in Portland, OR may be able to ship to you. Some downsides are that the accuracy of testosterone concentrations in compounded T has been questioned and compounded injectable testosterone can cost twice as much as what you’re used to spending on testosterone.

7. Get T from a friend. This is illegal and would likely be frowned upon by your prescribing doctor, but when times are tough sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

8. Ration your supply of testosterone. If you can reduce your dosage or frequency of injections, you might be able to ride out the shortage, though you probably won’t feel 100%.

9. Patience. If a testosterone shortage isn’t expected to last very long, you might be able to just wait it out, although symptoms of low T will start to creep up as soon as two weeks after a shot.

10. Underground labs. This is illegal and not recommended. Buying testosterone from a rogue internet pharmacy is a dangerous way to obtain medicine, but when you’re left without options the risks can look a little less menacing. If you’re forced to resort to this, you absolutely must purchase a testosterone testing kit.

Hopefully, you’ll never feel the effects of a testosterone shortage, but if you do, at least you’ve got a game plan now.

Source: Testosterone Shortages: Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For YOU?

[ahsokathegray]

The Platinum Prevaricator

Pairing: Rexsoka

Prompt: Rexsoka Week '22 - Day 1 - Revenge / Rebels

Summary: When searching for answers, Wolffe finds more than just the truth on Rex's datapad.

Tags: 18+ language, nudes, mentions of sexual situations, rex is dishonest

Word Count: 2,908

A/N: I wanted to write why I thought Wolffe kept Ahsoka's messages from Rex in Rebels. Also, this can be read as a standalone piece or as a part 2 to The Platinum Prude fic I wrote in 2017

read on ao3! / rexsoka week '22 masterlist

Wolffe has frankly had enough of it. Rex was his brother and a brother he’d long respected, but he’d always made too many exceptions for the man. Even these days, he did just that. It was a bad habit, really. Rex and Gregor were the only brothers he had left… he didn’t really see any advantage in denying them exceptions.

So what if they sometimes drew a little bit of attention, so what if Gregor ate more rations than were his, so what if they had to move around every few weeks. Those were just the cards they’d been dealt. That was just the galaxy they lived in now.

Having removed their inhibitor chips, Wolffe expected they’d be on the same page more 一 he and Rex that is. 

He touched a finger to his temple, feeling the lengthy cut on his head. At least it wasn’t as big as the one on his face. The new wound had begun to heal, but was still sensitive to the touch. It almost looked as if the two scars might connect.

Rex had appointed himself In Charge of their small trio. It had taken some getting used to, seeing as they were once both leaders of their own respective troops. A troop of three was hardly something to argue over. Wolffe had allowed it, seeing as the former Torrent Company Captain knew more about their new normal than he did.

After all, Rex had his chip removed immediately after the order was given. Wolffe and Gregor had not. 

The story he’d told them was that the ARC trooper Jesse removed it and, while he wanted to believe it, he also knew better. Rex was many things, but a convincing liar was not one of them. Wolffe knew that there was a piece of the story being withheld.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Rex. He did. Thus far, he’d made some tactful moves. That was Rex’s nature anyway, but there was a respect to be had for being able to navigate in unpredictable times. He admired the former Captain for that. Rex had saved their skins on multiple occasions since the Republic blew to shreds. He just… had secretive ways of going about it all; secret contacts. Wolffe had a distaste in his mouth about that. 

Gregor was no help. He didn’t care either way if the two of them were fully informed or not. 

“Rex handles the missions, it’s his call, whatever means he has of keeping us safe is his business.”

If there was one thing Wolffe didn’t like, it was being left in the dark on these matters. He had the clearance and right to know who exactly Rex was shaking hands with… who he was always messaging.

He didn’t know why they ran the missions that they did. He didn’t know why they risked their asses for supplies that they didn’t keep. Supplies they were told not to ask questions about. Neither he nor Gregor knew if they were run-of-the-mill rations or weapons or what. Why should they continue running into skirmishes for other people’s missions and motives they knew nothing about?

Wolffe had let it slide for too long.

“The way I see it… these jobs put food on the table and keep Rexster happy. It’s a win-win in my book. You won’t hear a complaint outta me!”

Gregor truly was no help. 

Rex would be returning the following day. He never said where he was going, but he also didn’t clear his ship’s log. Last time he left, Wolffe snuck onto the ship to peek at the destination history. 

He’d come from Ord Mantell. The old Separatist planet became a place Rex had visited many times over and without the company of Gregor or himself. His biddings remained undisclosed to them. 

With a place like Ord Mantell, Wolffe was becoming more and more weary of his blind trust in the Captain. If they were dealing with the likes of the Black Sun or the Shadow Collective, the boy in blue was in for a world of hurt. He almost didn’t want to know, but the ongoing secrecy worried him that much more that what they were truly associating with was nothing good.

His grip tightened on the handle of his mug. He’d had enough of it. He would no longer partake in this forced complacency like his brother did. He was owed answers and he was tired of pretending to go along with these blatant lies.

The 501st’s Captain was not with his respective General or the rest of the 501st during Order 66. It had been split right down the middle. Rex had been promoted to Commander and had served under General Skywalker’s former Padawan… and had lied about it. What the blonde had failed to consider, was that Wolffe had long known all of this. The Jedi he served under was presently at large. Remaining details were muddled, but Wolffe knew better than to believe Rex’s story about being in Coruscant airspace when the Chancellor was kidnapped.

Wolffe and the rest of his pack were about to depart the planet when Grievous’s Invisible Hand crash landed onto the surface. He’d received every detail of the mission that had delayed their departure.

Up until this point, Wolffe was fine with his vod’s lie. It didn’t hurt him or Gregor and the subject was frankly quite painful to all of them… brothers being wired and controlled like droids; disposed of like droids. They just didn’t address it.

He remembered how Rex had made eye contact with him as he told the story. It was his biggest tell. Normally, he has an equal amount of eye contact as with the ground or the world around him. Whenever Rex was lying, he was focusing too hard on the eye contact, almost as if he was trying hard to believe the lie himself.

Wolffe swore his cybernetic eye was responsible for how exceptionally privy he was to otherwise minute details.

Rex’s lying and going around unchecked would be coming to an end.

“How are you boys holding up?” Rex called as the door shut behind him, a slight saunter in his step, “Miss me while I was gone?”

Wolffe stiffened in his seat, keeping a watchful eye on the blonde as he removed his tattered cloak. His twin blasters were placed on the counter and he began to look toward the man sitting in the corner when the ‘fresher door opened.

“Rex!” Gregor greeted, a towel slung over his lower half, “How’d it go, vod? We sure missed ya ‘round here!” The man’s signature laughter ricocheted in his ears.

The two men exchanged a quick hug and Gregor crossed the small kitchenette to regain some decency. It didn’t go unnoticed to Wolffe that Rex hadn’t answered their brother’s question.

“Wolffe,” Rex started, setting down his datapad and pulling a chair up, “What about you?”

The Captain had straddled his chair backwards, propping his arms up on the back of it as he sifted through a bag of Mantell Mix. He offered his brother some. Wolffe declined, “Not for me, vod. I never did have a sweet tooth.”

Gregor was ever oblivious to the tension in the room. He strode back in, now fully dressed in his civvies, starting some drawn out tale about how the last time he divulged in a sweet snack, it had been laced with Glitterstim spice. 

The remainder of the evening played out similarly. There was a thick tension between him and Rex, with Gregor’s heedless joking cushioning its sharp edges. Enduring the Commando’s incessant chatter was excruciating, to put it in the very least. Normally, he could ignore it just fine, but Wolffe was on edge tonight. He’d had one goal in mind for over a week now: get his hands on Rex’s datapad.

He’d crafted the most meticulous plan. He was proud of how precise it was. 

For the past few weeks, Wolffe began noticing an unbreakable pattern. Rex would leave his datapad on the table in their AT-TE’s kitchen area. It always remained there until he went to sleep, but all throughout the evening, he would continuously return his attention to it. The catch? He never once got up to grab it.

Wolffe knew his blonde brother was waiting on something, he just didn’t know exactly what that something was. 

He did know that by the time Rex headed to bed, he’d finally go retrieve it and place it on the underside of his pillow. It was no big secret that he did this, but he also knew neither Wolffe nor Gregor would go reaching under his head in search of it. They each had their own. 

It was a simple yet timeless plan, but it would work. 

Like clockwork, the Captain remained true to his set pattern. Rex was becoming predictable. He stood from his spot in the room and made a karkin’ beeline for the device. 

He bid his brothers a goodnight and the door to their shared quarters sealed closed behind him. Wolffe would wait well into the night to make his move. He’d been waiting for weeks; a few more hours were manageable. 

Not long after Rex went to bed, Gregor followed suit, leaving Wolffe alone in the living area. Not much longer.

Wolffe shut all the lights off inside the old tank, finally making his own way to the sleeping quarters. He did everything as he normally would, changing nothing. 

The door shut softly behind him as he padded across the durasteel floor to his bunk. He plucked his own, dusty datapad from a low drawer and began the process of doing a complete wipe on the device. He didn’t ever use it anyway. 

He snapped his head around at Gregor, whose snoring had just started. For a moment he envied his vod. Wolffe knew he’d get a good night’s sleep too if he had lived a life away from the majority of the war. With that, he knew his plan was in motion. All he needed was for Gregor to be asleep. Rex had started in on his slumber hours ago, still stuck in his military routine.

Still a prude. 

Wolffe’s datapad screen went white, then black. Words scrolled across the screen. Wipe complete. 

He stood from his bunk and, with light feet, crept over to Rex’s. Making sure the light on his device was blinking, he held it near his brother's pillow and waited. Seconds felt like several minutes as he watched the blinking white light. Nerves danced in his stomach and suddenly the light switched to green. Transfer successful. 

Wolffe could’ve gasped. He was told that it worked, but had never tried it for himself. He returned to his side of the small room. Everything on Rex’s datapad had just been copied over to his. His heart pounded in his chest, echoing loudly in his ears. Where did he even begin? Everything he’d wanted to know was now waiting for him.

He immediately started digging through messages — old and new. 

Hunter? The scarred clone began reading, finding that it was the name of one of the enhanced clones. Rex was in contact with Clone Force 99? He found messages pertaining to the rescue of Gregor. Gregor had mentioned that was part of his rescue, but either left out or failed to realize how much deeper it went. The greedy man pressed onward.

Rafa. According to past transmissions, she was both a smuggler and an informer for Rex. 

Saw Gerrera. A known rebel whose messages Rex continues to receive, but never replies to. 

Cut Lawquane. The deserter. 

Echo. The old 501st ARC who had, seemingly, joined the group of defective clones. 

Ahsoka. Wolffe knew the name all too well. The Chosen One’s Padawan. His own General, Plo Koon, had harbored a soft spot for her. The Jedi was found guilty of bombing the Temple. He’d gone with the team sent to bring her in. She was given the other half of the 501st to capture the Sith on Mandalore. She was who Rex had been assigned to when Order 66 was issued.

She was the one who he’d seen kiss Rex in the medbay that night, some years prior. 

He began scrolling back to her earlier messages with the Captain. 

Ahsoka: I’m safe. I’m sorry, Rex. This was the last thing I could have ever wanted, but it’s the only way I can keep you safe. Let me know when you land. 

Rex: I just landed. Position is secure. I wish you luck, sir. 

Ahsoka: Keep in touch. 

Wolffe knew he had been right, but this was clear confirmation of the lie. Rex had been with her on Mandalore. Rex was not above Coruscant and had consciously made up a story… to cover up what? 

Rex: What you told me when we saw each other last. Was it true?

Ahsoka: Every word of it, yes. 

Rex: Is it still true?

Ahsoka: Everyday. 

Rex: I didn’t know what to say then. I was shocked at the confession as well with you leaving… I love you, too… I’ve loved you for such a long time now. 

What a pansy. He rolled his eyes. Wolffe loved his brother and he was thankful for his part in extracting him from the Empire. However, he didn’t know the esteemed Captain Rex could be so soft. He scoffed and kept digging. 

Ahsoka: I can’t begin to tell you how much I miss you. Being apart from you when I know you’re not gone is the biggest battle I never thought I’d face.

Ugh, scroll. 

Wolffe was not about to read further into that sickly, affectionate garbage. Bile rose in his throat. 

Rex: Fuck ‘Soka. Made me make a mess.

What in karkin’ hell?

He went back up to see what that message could possibly be in response to. 

There were photos attached. 

Against his better judgment, he opened them. Wolffe couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was a series of very explicit images; sent by not just her but Rex too. It was highly pornographic. 

He got out of the image bank completely.

Try as he might, he couldn’t shake the images from his head. They had been burned into the backs of his eyelids. Physical scars aside, Wolffe was now scarred for life at the images he’d just seen. Rex grabbing his cock and sending pictures like that, legs spread with the camera in front of him. He could never admit it, but he felt a pang of jealousy. Whoever told him all clones' cocks were the same size, had lied. 

Ahsoka’s photos were more suggestive than they were explicit; insinuating pleasure and teasing rather than really showing anything. 

Ahsoka: Rex you just made me come. 

Wolffe really thought he’d be sick that time. Commander Tano was not his type, but Rex was eating her up. Literally. The Platinum Prude was a prude no longer… Now, he was just the Platinum Prevaricator. He scrolled on, annoyed.

Rex: The boys just transferred the crates to your team. I hope these will aid you in the fight.

Ahsoka: I appreciate it, Rex, more than you know. It’s a small effort now, but we are making waves. Every bit counts

Rex: I never thought I’d say it… I still hate it, but we are making more progress for the rebellion as a whole by being apart.

Ahsoka: We are. I’ll see you next week on Ord Mantell. Tell Hunter to expect me.

And there it was. The confession, the truth, the whole kriffing story. No wonder the Captain was so happy when coming back today. He’d been getting his fucking dick wet. Rex was in league with everyone on that list, everything pertaining to the rebellion in one way or another. He’d enlisted Gregor and himself in a cause they didn’t sign up for!

Wolffe was fuming. He wanted to destroy the device in his hand, go over to the Platinum Prevaricator and confront him; teach him a lesson or several with his fists until the skin on his knuckles broke. Did he know what kind of risk — what kind of danger he was putting his vode in? He ground his teeth together and began to detect a faint metallic tang. Wolffe’s nostrils flared as he began to talk himself down. Do nothing. Tell him nothing. Say nothing to Gregor. This never happened. Make the transfer. 

This ended tonight.

With that, Wolffe walked once more to Rex’s sleeping form. He didn’t get to sign them up for a rebellion. They had earned their retirement. He didn’t get to swap sexually charged messages and photos while his brothers did his dirty work. He didn’t get to fuck the rebel-Jedi every few weeks while he bunked up with Clone Force 99. Not while he and Gregor took his orders as he just lied and came in his hand. He didn’t get to keep secrets when it put the lives of his others at stake. Who does that after you lose all the brothers you have?

Deft fingers made quick work of getting Rex’s datapad from underneath the pillow and swapping it with his own. An exact replica. Now, his rebel friends would contact him, but it would go straight to Wolffe. Rex would never be the wiser, having a datapad with a different contact number, awaiting messages that would not be arriving.

The Platinum Prude (can be read as a part 1)

[wellfine]

Seeing the Sanji gaining weight after wci post immediately after the SH body types post made me wonder if your Sanji is... actually underweight/close to underweight? Like it doesn’t seem quite Sanji-Zeff dynamics to remain distressingly underfed dispute an athletic lifestyle but at the same time, ‘Sanji doesn’t believe he deserves more food than some unfeeling distant guide to correct living tells him he does’ feels very correct. So I imagine he stress eats during WCI and gains like 15 kilos and then post wci loses maybe 5-7 of those kilos, ultimately coming into equilibrium at something closer to a healthy body weight now the true depth of his trauma has been laid bare & accepted by the straw hats

Oops! You activated my deep Sanji headcanon trap card! Lotta words below (CW for talk of disordered eating)

I definitely drew/see Sanji as being a little underweight due to a difficult relationship with food, which I tried to hint at in my notes, but I tend not to say it outright that often because it always invites people with weird attitudes about disordered eating/underweight bodies/etc. I also tried to contrast between his "repose" and the other characters' to show how his body fat percentage tends to stay lower, while the other characters fluctuate (e.g. Zoro) or stay at a higher BF% and end up with less visible muscle definition as a result (e.g. Usopp).

To be totally honest with you Sanji has a lot in common with people at risk of disordered eating - traumatic childhood, being told he was worthless, especially based on his failure to achieve physical 'perfection', total deprivation of control over his earlier life (both when he was on Germa and when he was starving with Zeff), specific lack of control over his food (starving with Zeff especially), a love of food that manifests in preparing food for others' enjoyment rather than his own, and general difficulty accepting his own self-worth (running to Germa in order to save anyone, his difficulty accepting that Luffy wanted him as his chef, his attempt to sacrifice himself at Thriller Bark, etc).

People have misconceptions about what an eating disorder is, and whenever I try and bring it up, there are people who say he could never have one because "he starved once, why would he ever go hungry again!!" (when food scarcity especially in early childhood is a HUGE contributor to developing disordered eating) "he's a chef he loves food" (not everyone with an eating disorder hates food) "he's not underweight" (I mean, thanks to their overrepresentation in media people don't always recognise what underweight bodies really look like, especially when those people are also muscular, but to wit, you do not need to or want to be underweight to have disordered eating) "he's not a teen girl" (eyeroll emoji)... and not even touching the worse comments that dump on people with disordered eating etc. in order to insist their fav could NEVER, as if it's a moral judgement to have an ED, and implying it would somehow be an insult to Sanji.

Fact of the matter is most people's disordered eating has nothing to do with how they look, though I think you could also make the argument Sanji meets that criteria, too (I don't think a dude whose most defining character trait - tied with his eyebrow - is that he covers half his face 24/7 could be described as "confident in his appearance"). Most eating disorders emerge from a lack of control, which is like... Sanji's whole thing. He had no control over his life at Germa, he had no control over his situation on the rock, and we can see how fastidious he is about other aspects of control in his life as an adult. Monitoring his food intake down to the kilojoule is a very likely way he might deal with the trauma he's gone through. There's also the desire to make invisible/internal trauma visible, like other forms of self-harm. I think Sanji both wants people to worry about him and also wants nobody to know anything is wrong with him whatsoever and so it could easily manifest in passive ways like this - Zeff or Nami etc. worrying over "have you eaten enough?" is much easier for him to process and accept than anyone recognising his internal trauma.

All this to say, I think Sanji - probably without even consciously realising it - has a complicated relationship with feeding himself that manifests in him maintaining a borderline-underweight BF% for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with his appearance. I don't think he would've been underfed while at the Baratie, but I still think he would've been developing controlling compulsions around food that would've grown more once he left that environment and was solely in charge of not only his nutrition, but an entire crew's.

I think he probably tries to make sure he eats enough, mostly so that he can still be a useful and functional Straw Hat, but it's a manual thing. Like he doesn't realise until he's back underweight again and starting to notice the effects and has to pour butter over all his meals for a few weeks, lmao. And I think he definitely struggles emotionally with the idea of not "deserving" or "earning" certain foods, and using food (or lack thereof) as a way to punish himself. Add on to the fact that he's been smoking since he was a kid so his appetite is probably shot to hell, and I think you just have a guy whose natural inclination is not to eat more than absolutely necessary and oh, oops, he has a whole ship full of people he loves more than anything he has to feed first, guess he'll just have to make do on the scraps.

A few others have also pointed out the aspect of weight gain as a form/result of healing from trauma, and I can totally see this for Sanji, too. Comfort eating often stems from the exact same reasons as restrictive eating, control/lack thereof again being a major one. I don't think he would have to lose any of the weight gained in order to be happy or healed, though. Maybe he would gradually lose some of the weight he gained during WCI, maybe he wouldn't, but I think overall the arc works as a very appropriate backdrop to explore Sanji working through and starting recovery from disordered eating on top of his recovery from his other traumas.