#this applies mostly to reddit btw

[beartitled]

Found your art through the STP Reddit and now I have a new TSPUD artist to enjoy!!! Your style is gorgeous :)

Reddit 🤨❔

I don’t have reddit

*sounds of paws tapping on the keyboard*

Aha repost with no permission I see? 🔍🐻‍❄️👓

This ask actually send me on a mini research lmao

I didn’t expect to see like 4 posts on Reddit with ppl posting my comics/sending a screenshot from ?Pinterest? and asking who the author is

That made me chuckle :'D

To be clear, I don’t really mind reposts if a person credits me

Always appreciate ppl askin permission 👍

For the reference: Reblog - a button that looks like this 🔄, shares a post on your page while showing the original author; Repost - when you screenshot/save someone’s art and post it on your page (ideally with credit, but if you’re a meanie you will just post images with no word about og author); Credit - a reference to the author «this art was made by [@author] on [this social media]». Sometimes see ppl mixing up terms 🫡

(Most of the time creators dislike reposts, bc it often leads to art theft)

Since we’re on the topic, specifically what I do have a problem with:

- Don’t use my art for AI training or for NFTs

- Don’t profit off my art (no merch is allowed without my approval, if you want to use my art for commercial purposes, this must be discussed with me in advance)

- Don't pass off my work as your own (here does reposting my art without credit, creating blogs/accounts impersonating me and so on)

- Don’t use my personal projects (this applies to my ocs, any original IPs/content I create: picture books, comics, artbooks, megadrawings etc. At some point in the future I may register a legal copyright for them btw.)

I’m more flexible and forgiving with fandom art, but still would appreciate ppl communicating with me. Fandom comic dubs - are welcomed, just be sure to credit me (tag me and share the final dub too man, I’m always interested). Fandom comic translations - ask permission first please.

This list is a pretty standard for any artist really, if you’re doubting something - feel free to ask 👍

If you see somebody breaking those/potentially breaking those - feel free to notify me 👍

I considered creating “blog rules” or “list of boundaries”, but I’m not sure if it’ll work on my blog 🤔 My header is pretty oversaturated as it is - portfolio, tags, navigation and so on; if I add rules to the pile, something tells me ppl won’t even look at it 💥 + I didn’t have specific issues with anyone yet (as far as I’m aware), I might create a list if something happens, but stayin hopeful for now

There’s certain things that do make me very uncomfortable/are triggering to me. But again didn’t have any specific issues where it was a huge problem + those stuff are highly personal to me to just put publicly. For now, I prefer to resolve issues personally, there wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle at this point 🫡 Mayhaps in the future it may change, we’ll see

Also some might have noticed that I don’t use any watermarks/signatures on my art, again considered that, but never ended up implementing that 🐻‍❄️ Some part of me just likes lookin at pictures in full HD quality with no watermark 😭 (I have an art signature, but I mostly use it in my mega drawings or if someone specifically asked for a commission lmao)

Sorry for a wall of text on such a sweet ask 💥 Just saw an opportunity to talk and took it lmao

Thank you, I really appreciate your words ❤️💕

Made a doödle of the narrator bois for the old time sake :D

Surprisingly there is a bunch of reposts of my art, with is a bit wild to me (you guys actually like my comics? 🤨 what? 🤨)

Especially never imagined my voices x princesses would get so popular 💥

Oh I see you went under read-more

Come closer

Closer

Just a smol step more

I forgot to draw Smitten’s brows in this specific frame

Now you will never unsee it 😈😈😈

*tiny mischievous bear giggling*

[l-in-the-light]

Facing your own abyss in Silent Hill 2

Every save point is a red square. Looking at it is painful it's like... someone's... groping around my skull. Every hole James jumps into...

...is a square. The tv at the big reveal is an old crt one with a square screen.

Even the bathroom's mirror at the very beginning of the game is a square. Who cares about a bathroom's mirror, right? But the whole game starts with James staring at himself, into that mirror. He's staring at himself. Staring into the abyss. His mind is his own abyss. We've been looking at it the whole time, from the very start of the game.

"He who is not bold enough to be stared at from across the abyss is not bold enough to stare into himself. The truth can only be learned by marching forward."

James starts the game by staring at himself. He's not afraid of death. He thinks he wants to find out the truth, because things don't make sense to him, he can't understand anything, but he feels something is wrong.

But at the last save point, James looks away from the abyss. He was not ready to find out everything. He doesn't want to look into himself even deeper. He's afraid of what he can find. Please stop staring at me, I don't want for you to look into myself. I don't want to see any more.

A hot take: there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes it might be better not to stare too long. Heck, it takes so much courage to do that. Many, many people would rather continue their lives by holding false ideas about oneself, choosing safety over feeling uncomfortable. It's a very human thing to do. Just sometimes you don't get that choice and you can't live normally unless you not only stare back, but also jump right into that abyss. It will be terrifying, you might find things you wish you never knew, you might find out nothing of what happened to you was ever your fault, but it won't make you feel any better anyway. It's when you're at your limit that you're literally forced to face it, when you buried what made you uncomfortable so deep that you feel overwhelmed and numbed, and you don't even understand why - because you hid the reasons. Or you can just run away. Some would prefer death over the truth.

This can happen because of our mental health crashing down. Unresolved traumas, feelings, belittling our own pain, trying to fit a circle into a square hole, unbelonging.

Ultimately, it doesn't even matter what is James' personal struggle, because anyone can relate to this in some ways. You can't escape abyss for forever, we've all been there and we all will be jumping into abyss again, and again.

But this has to be said, I'm sorry not sorry:

Sometimes you will get lost in your abyss to the point you will project your own issues on other people. It's a way to make you feel more secure, safe, when you tripped over some uncomfortable truth. Because you normalize it and it can't be overwhelming anymore if everyone can relate to it, in other words: you try to belittle the problem so that the "uncomfortable feeling" goes away. It becomes normal, familiar, tamed, nothing to be afraid of as the result. But is it really fair towards the people you did the projecting on? You're not helping them or respecting them if you just throw your own issues at them like that. And this applies to Silent Hill fandom as a whole, actually, because:

Every Silent Hill game (even the bad ones, even freaking Ascension) and movie: *shows clearly that the story is about PTSD, characters suffer from symptoms and hallucinations, are triggered by sounds, suffer from victim blaming etc.*

Every second fan on reddit: James is just sexually frustrated, he doesn't have any trauma, and even if he has one it doesn't matter, what are you talking about?! You're reaching! Everything is horny and sexy in this game, my interpretation is CANON! The town is evil and it punishes James and Eddie because they're bad people! Angela did a bad thing but didn't deserve it btw.

This is mostly me venting a bit, feel free to dislike it, but I need to get it off somewhere and I decided: tumblr it is.

Like, literally, all Silent Hill series entries share a theme of PTSD, but some people will go to extreme lengths to deny it and call it "reaching" WHILE saying "sexual frustration is canon". Alessa suffers from PTSD in SH1, James, Eddie and Angela suffer from it in SH2, freaking Heather, Claudia and even Douglas suffers from it in SH3, Henry and Walter in Silent Hill 4, Travis in Origins, Alessa in the movie, Heather in the movie, Cheryl in Shattered Memories (she's even in a therapy, come on, get a clue!), Alex in Homecoming, Murphy in Downpour etc. etc. etc. They all went through a trauma, Silent Hill reflects their traumatic experiences (that they don't want to remember!), they have to face their triggers putting them through the traumatic event again and again, and then delusions attemping to lull the mind into a fake sense of comfort. Their monsters are the delusions, not their horny desires!

Btw if you see your monsters as horny creatures, then maybe you're understanding it all wrong. It's supposed to be a delusion or fear, if you're horny and just want to hump things and that's why everything you see is sexy, then it's definiely not something you actually fear, and if it is, then I think you have bigger issues to deal with than sexual frustration here.

That being said, the creature monster designer, Masahiro Ito, called those monsters "delusions". Delusion is something that isn't an accurate representation of a concept in your mind. Delusion is far removed from reality. You want to believe a lie, because you can't handle the truth.

Now, if monsters are showing your sexual frustration that you don't want to admit you have, then they should be dressed like nuns instead. You want to deceive your mind, you want to believe you're not *that* horny and are faithful to your one and only, you can't handle the possibility that you're thinking of having an affair on the side.

Let's unpack this monster (Abstract Daddy/Ideal Father), having all of the above in mind:

It's a surreal creature consisting of two people, it has two heads and two mouths. And it's not literally showing intercourse like so many in "sexual frustration is canon" camp are claiming. Because that would be *a literal representation*, not a delusion. You would literally be seeing what happened, forcing you to face it in it's full horror and that can't make you believe in a lie (remember, the idea is that: you can't handle the truth, your mind is creating a delusion to calm you down). It's a self-defense mechanism fighting back against the trauma. You need to get rid of that delusion so you can face what actually happened!

There's one more description of Abstract Daddy in Japanese that is never truly translated into english. It's おぶさったとおちゃん (obusatta tōchan), loosely it means something like "piggyback daddy"; a dad carrying a child on their shoulders/back. Now look at the creature again. It looks like a smaller person is clinging to a bigger one, if you consider that the whole frame belongs to the person on the bottom and is "their body". Perhaps the door/bedframe person is carrying the smaller one on top of itself, but since the child is heavy/older now the frame ends up bending towards the ground. It's an image of a dad carrying his child.

Kinda like this (Inu Yasha is here just to illustrate the concept). That's why the limbs are hanging loosely like that on the monster's design.

Wait a moment, but why is the frame so big under the top person? It doesn't look like part of a body at all. That's because of the subjective perspective. When you're a small child, your dad looks especially big to you. When you cling to his back, you feel like it's so broad, strong and big; so big your hands won't meet when you embrace him. And most importantly, makes you feel safe and secure, because a father should protect his child. I could swear I even read lines like that in mangas or heard them in movies before, because that's definitely not my own impression there I thought up on my very own.

In order to see the truth that your parent was an abuser, you need to get rid of that "safe and secure" feeling of delusion you're experiencing. The monster is wrapped in cloth btw to obscure the truth, what you see on the surface is incorrect, the truth is trapped underneath (and if you want to, then NOW is the moment to jump to your intercourse thoughts or draw a parallel to Mary on sickbed. Let's call it an extra layer to this monster). Literally uncovering it would be the very definition of a horror.

Extra thought: the monster attacks James like it wants to protect Angela from the possible stranger (what an Ideal Father should do, indeed). Makes the whole scene afterwards have a lot more sense too, with Angela calling James a disgusting pig who is also only after "one thing". She considered James a threat, but it wasn't a conscious fear until the defeat of the monster. Next time they will meet, Angela starts to mistake James as her mom instead, so the whole paranoid delusion of James being a threat (because he's a male and males became her PTSD trigger) got dissolved and it's the result of Abstract Daddy's defeat. Angela now knows who was the real threat.

Finally, after 10+ years I solved the mystery of Abstract Daddy. You're welcome if you enjoyed the ride. I don't even like this monster's design all that much (I find Mandarins way cooler). But this isn't the end. If Abstract Daddy is a delusion, it means all the other monsters are also delusions and HIDE the truth, not "expose" or "manifest" it in straightforward manner. Only getting rid of them by unwrapping the actual thing underneath will lead you towards truth, believing the surface level will leave you delusional. There's still a lot to unwrap about the 9 delusions of James.

Yes, Abstract Daddy is how the monster looks like for James. We never knew how it looked like for Angela. Just the name alone suggests James has some trauma related to his father as well, which is a link that connects James to Angela.

And you know what, it's fine if you thought all this time that James is just sexually frustrated. I don't know how you can explain to yourself the fact that he needs to fight the sexy creatures instead of being overjoyed he can "'get some" finally. I thought that's how touch starvation works? But even if you somehow projected your own fears onto James it's alright. You just caught a glimpse of your own abyss and maybe you're not yet ready to stare back at it. We all keep doing those mistakes. It's just human.

Yes, of course me too. Why else do you think it took me 10+ years to solve this mystery? And it's only a start of it, we barely made it under the surface of this iceberg. But I feel like most Silent Hill fans aren't even remotely interested in any interpretation that opposes "sexual frustration" angle, especially now after Masahiro Ito denied that's it's not a canon interpretation, yeeting it back to "headcanon" category where it always belonged.

Yes, sexual themes are there in the game to make you uncomfortable, but if you know the sources of inspiration (Jung), then you know the uncomfortable levels get much deeper than your post-pandemic touch starvation. Maybe you're not ready or not interested to go that far and it's alright. I'm actually not so sure I'm ready to face the deepest depths of James's abyss myself. It both fascinates and terrifies me. We might have to go full Lynch on Silent Hill 2 and realize that nothing is what it actually seems.

Link to my previous interpretation essay on Silent Hill 2, in case anyone is interested (it's about merging of Otherworlds): https://www.tumblr.com/l-in-the-light/765829615005597696.

[automatismoateo]

I was told by management they can't do anything to help when Muslim men are sexist towards me cause we gotta respect their religion. via /r/atheism

I was told by management they can't do anything to help when Muslim men are sexist towards me cause we gotta respect their religion. Exactly what the title said. I'm a floor supervisor. My job is to make sure people are working and everything is running smoothly. Well, I've been yelled at, dismissed and ignored by the vast majority of Muslim men working under me. One of them screamed at me that cleaning dishes is a woman's job and beneath him. I had my employees rotating for the dishes, it was his turn. I'm trying to be fair. Most of them don't speak english either. Which is another problem. I'm basically doing charades to explain things to them. My GM is also Muslim so he doesn'tcare at all. I'm a Hispanic woman btw. So suffice to say when HR told me it was a cultural/religious believe and I needed to be patient. I'M TRYING TO RUN A DAMN BUFFET! It's not fair to make the women and non Muslims do all the jobs they, as men, refuse to do. Why did they apply to be janitors, to then refuse to clean bathrooms. This is insane. How am I supposed to do my job then?? I know we have to respect people's religion, I'm an atheist (raised chatolic) and I do my best but this is ridiculous. Not to mention they all want to pray at the same time too. Leaving the floor mostly empty cause the GM hired a lot of them too. I've had so many panic attacks when I get home due to stress. Idk what to do anymore. Submitted October 02, 2023 at 07:10PM by BoredWitchCatD (From Reddit https://ift.tt/YTUiN30)

[seerofmike]

i've never felt comfortable with the way ppl talk about loba. everyone calls her a cunt and a bitch for being a bad friend to bangalore. like yeah it sucks but like...i think it's more of a bad writing thing than anything else. also mirage is a shitty friend too but i don't see people say anything about that. it's just that the fandom hates woc and trauma victims who don't exhibit squeaky clean symptoms

literally this, especially over on reddit. i think loba HAS acted like a bitch before, but i love her for it, the same way i love bangalore even if sometimes she's a jackass, especially to wraith. to a lot of people though, women being mean=BAD, even though mirage was equally, if not moreso, ableist to wraith. like i've seen people on reddit legit go "mirage has always been such a nice guy", completely ignoring that the season 6 quests were literally dedicated to showing how much of an asshole he was.

but god, i remember s5, the broken ghost. everyone celebrating caustic choking loba out, calling her a bitch for getting their beloved white waifu wattson hurt. then when caustic was revealed to be manipulating wattson and being a traitor...suddenly crickets? suddenly "oh he's so misunderstood and tragic because he doesn't know how to properly convey love". FOH

to be honest though it isn't always as clear cut as women=good and men=bad, trauma victims like you said get treated like SHIT by the apex fandom when they aren't perfect sad babies. during TPS people were cropping one of octane's statements out of context and there was like ZERO empathy from half the fanbase talking about an abuse victim...*acting* like an abuse victim. and then this goes in reverse, too, octane stans coddling him while calling lifeline a cunt for the way she treated him.

like no!!! they were BOTH cunts!!! but also even if you think they handled their situation poorly can we at least extend nuance to the conversation because we know they've both been abu--ah, nope, fandom verdict is octane is just selfish for the sake of selfish and lifeline is controlling for the sake of controlling.

actually ive pinpointed the root cause while writing this, which is that like half of the apex fandom has the comprehension of a brick. since most of the female characters are actually well written nuanced people and most of the male characters are shallow as fuck, that's why there's a deep divide on top of the normal flavor of misogyny. because the apex community takes everything done at surface value and goes "wow loba is a cunt but mirage is my perfect little baby tho"

[autisticandroids]

Okay so this was a while back but im preety sure you had mentioned an au of yours where dean is a serial killer and cas successfully stalks him but i don't think you talked about it more than that and i just really want to hear a bit more bc that idea sounds so tastefully fucked up

okay so. weeks later i finally end up answering this ask. it inspired this post btw. anyway spn is a show that's like. all about justifications, as i said in the post inspired by this ask. it's about having no choice and doing what you have to do. and like there is the phantasy embedded in it, a phantasy that is both indulged and punished. but most importantly it's justified. the monsters are super strong to show how brave our heroes are for fighting them, the main characters let out great wails of grief every time their lady loves are violently ripped from them (even though now they are free to do whatever they want), the narrative twists to show our heroes as correct whatever they do. the fantasy (of being allowed to enact violence, of being free from feminine "control," of being right) comes first. the material construction of the universe of supernatural comes afterward. whatever the fantasy is, the universe of supernatural will provide material conditions to justify its acting-out.

and what this means is that our protagonists, dean in particular, are constantly doing just horrific things, which in any other circumstance would be unconscionable. but the universe of supernatural provides justification for these acts. the point of my serial killer au which i think about so so so much is to ask the question: what if these justifications melted out from under their feet? what if dean was left holding nothing but a lie and the weight of everything he's done?

therefore, the premise of my au is such (under the cut because this baby is long):

john and mary winchester, in the mid seventies, joined a doomsday cult known as the men of letters. the men of letters were rather unusual for a doomsday cult, in that they believed that the apocalypse could be prevented by human behavior. this started as correct living, correct worship, yadda yadda, the kind of behavior and thought control that cults are known for, but with the justification of: if you don't do this, the world will end. eventually, this escalated to human sacrifice. the men of letters managed to untraceably kill two homeless people in the late seventies. but they eventually fell apart. however, a month after john and mary left the men of letters (mostly john's choice, mary still believed), mary died in a house fire. john took it as a sign from god that actually, the men of letters were right, and the world would end unless john himself did something about it. so he took some of the (intensely numerological) theology of the men of letters. and he worked out his own formula. and he applied it to the yellow pages. and started ritualistically killed people to prevent the apocalypse, with his two sons in the back of the car.

now, obviously, this is some kind of grief induced temporary madness on john's part, shaped by the mental abuse he suffered in the men of letters. but the thing is, once you've killed a couple of people to prevent the apocalypse. well. there's this thing called the sunk costs fallacy. john wasn't gonna question his own beliefs after that.

and he raised his boys to believe it, too, or at least he raised dean to. they didn't tell sam what they did until he was twelve, and sam didn't buy it, tried to call the cops on them several times but in the end, they always prevented him. eventually sam ran off to stanford, where he now lives under a cloud of guilt that he's too loyal to his family to rat them out.

john died a few years back of a heart attack, but dean is convinced it's because he messed up a ritual two weeks before it happened, so it pushed him further into this belief system.

dean's killings (and john's before him) are ritualistic and distinctive, obviously the same killer each time. but they happen anywhere in the united states, seemingly at random, there are inconsistent amounts of time between each one (sometimes as short as days, sometimes as long as years), and there is no particular victim profile. obviously, since our killers are following an arcane mathematical formula to make their choices for them, but the police don't know that.

castiel novak is an unemployed shut-in with a small inheritance which he's living off of, a cryptography degree, and an obsession with all things morbid. he spends most of his time on the reddit true crime forums, playing amateur sleuth. by complete chance, he happens to recognize one of the symbols frequently used in corpse displays by the so-called sioux falls satanic slaughterer (so named because the first time three of his victims were in the same part of the country, it so happened that they were all in sioux falls, south dakota. this was in the late eighties.) as being mostly only used by a little known cult group called the men of letters, which dissolved in the mid eighties.

he only notices this because, as a teen, he had a special interest in cults and fringe religious groups. the men of letters weren't a particularly notable or well known phenomenon; they were small, and a lot like every other cult that formed during the seventies cult boom. (no outsider ever heard about the human sacrifice; there were rumors, of course, but they were garbled, sensationalized, and mixed up with satanic panic fodder.)

(the men of letters' two sacrifices were nothing particularly romantic or fantastical. they first lured panhandler josie sands back to their compound with promises of food and a warm bed when she admitted she couldn't get a bed at a shelter, and was thinking of getting caught shoplifting just so she could be under a roof in the county jail. the men of letters' leader, a man who took on the name alistair, forced his inner circle to dress in the ceremonial black robes he had given them when he initiated them into his nearest and dearest, and which his wife had sewn out of old bed sheets and dyed black with home made oak gall dye. these robes still left black smudges on the wearer's skin occasionally if they sweated too much. josie was laid, bound, on the altar, a slapdash thing constructed over the course of two days from scrap plywood and a couple of milk crates. a rich red tablecloth purchased at macy's for $3.99 hid its ugliness and gave it grandeur. alistair attempted to kill the struggling miss sands by bringing a sharpened kitchen knife down on her bosom and piercing her heart, but, having never killed a human or even slaughtered an animal before, was unaware of the problem presented by the human ribcage. after rather ineffectually poking at the area beneath sands' bosom with his knife while she shrieked in pain and terror for about ninety seconds, alistair tried a different tack, and slit her throat, which worked just fine, and she bled out quite nicely. the second and final victim of the men of letters was a local vagrant named larry ganem, an older gentleman who walked with a limp. he was lured back to the compound in approximately the same manner as sands, but instead of being bound, he was fed stew laced with sleeping pills. even if alistair hadn't slit his throat, he wouldn't have woken up. it's actually arguable whether he was still alive at time of sacrifice; mary winchester (eight months into her first pregnancy), who, as a member of the inner circle, was in attendance, actually tried to take ganem's pulse as he lay on the altar (now covered by a different tablecloth; the red one had turned stiff with sands' blood and been subsequently burned) and found nothing, so it is entirely possibly only sands' death can be directly laid at alistair's feet, and ganem's is the fault of mrs. ellen harvelle, who prepared the laced stew. regardless, these two deaths are lessons in the nature of human evil: it is very rarely skilled, suave, or smooth. it's often slapdash, half-hearted, and just plain incompetent. but that makes it no less grisly. alistair may have begun to drink his own kool-aid, as it were, and escalated this far out of genuine belief that the apocalypse was coming and it was up to him to stop it, but it is far more likely that he sensed the imminent collapse of his little empire, and wanted to bind his subjects to him through the horrors of shared guilt, considering two lives a small price to pay for the continued loyalty of his inner circle. and the tactic worked: the men of letters didn't start to collapse in earnest until almost four years later. perhaps if alistair had continued the killings, the men of letters could have lasted for far longer, maybe even up until the present day. but it seems that alistair, a psychiatrist by training and unused to violence, simply didn't have the stomach for it. unlike, say, john winchester, who before his time with the men of letters had done a two year tour in vietnam, during which he had killed three living, thinking human beings with the american government's go-ahead.)

anyway. castiel is the first person, ever, to make the connection between the men of letters and the sioux falls satanic slaughterer. and once that connection is made, castiel begins to research the men of letters far more in-depth. and he notices something: the theology of the men of letters was intensely numerological, filled with patterns, significant numbers, and even spiritual equations.

castiel thinks of the seemingly random selection of the slaughterer's victims, and has an epiphany.

he cracks all his fingers, and gets coding.

six months. it takes castiel six months to discover an equation that could fit the slaughterer's pattern. it's complex, but also clearly based on several of the men of letters' holy numbers, and accounts for every single one of the killings. it also suggests that there should have been two or three more deaths scattered across the years, but more than likely those did happen, it's just that they weren't reported as part of the slaughterer's portfolio.

but much more importantly, castiel's model can also make predictions. there will be two killings, fifteen days apart, in a city seven hours' drive away, six weeks from now.

so castiel waits. and he books a hotel room. and two months later, he's waiting outside 217 oak street when a shadowy figure climbs up a tree and lets itself into the upstairs window.

dean winchester is feeling particularly all alone in the world when he breaks into maisey banks' home (217 oak street). his father has been dead for half a decade, and he hasn't spoken to his baby brother for twice that. it's not like this whole grizzly saving the world business makes him a lot of friends. so once he's done killing maisey (which is easy, she was ninety three and dying of cancer anyway. she doesn't even wake up when he slits her throat) and arranging her corpse in the appropriate manner, with prayers and sigils, he turns around. and sees a man standing behind him.

smiling slightly.

as he watches dean gut this old woman.

dean freezes.

the man takes a step forward.

"you're very attractive for a serial killer who's been operating since the eighties."

dean is silent.

"family business, is it?"

silence continues.

"i'm not here to report you to police. i'm just here to see if my algorithm worked right."

and dean finally breaks his silence: "what the hell is wrong with you?"

what's fun here is that dean knows (or rather "knows") that he isn't a serial killer. so he finds what cas is doing, this amoral serial killer stormchasing, morally repugnant. because cas has no way of knowing he isn't a regular serial killer.

there's also the fact that that cas proceeds to flirt with him. aggressively. and follows him back to his motel.

but the thing is that dean is all alone in the world. and as cas continues trailing him around, he starts getting, well, flattered. and feeling a little bit less alone.

it doesn't take very long before they fall into bed. even if cas is an amoral stalker with a fetish for what dean considers a distasteful yet necessary vocation.

so. they fall into bed. they fall in love. they make a little life together, in dean's big sexy car. dean tries to explain to cas that he's saving the world. that these people's lives are a necessary price to pay. and cas seems to listen.

of course, castiel doesn't believe a word of it. but he's found that he likes dean. really likes him. and he realizes that the collapse of dean's belief system would destroy him.

so he sets about becoming as complicit in it as possible.

even to the extent where, when dean is hit by a car and ends up into the hospital a day before one killing is meant to take place, castiel agrees to take on the job. (he doesn't actually kill anyone, obviously. but he does use his extensive skill with computers to create three fake newspaper articles which make it look like he has.)

but five years later, something goes wrong. really, really wrong. dean miscalculates the formula. and by the time he checks his work, the actual date of the next kill, as demanded by the formula, has passed. in fact, so have three others. and the world didn't end.

dean collapses. he hyperventilates. all those people. all those people. for no reason. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people.

cas seems totally unfazed. dean stares at him in shock. but cas just takes dean in his arms, and whispers in his ear: "oh, dean, i never believed in the equation. i love you no matter what you've done."

and dean buries his face in cas' chest.

[studies-in-the-art-of-deduction]

How do you learn how to deduce people? If possible, could you do an explanation for one of the ones you did on Reddit? (Btw, love your blog. It’s been very useful in learning deduction of objects. If you remember me, I’m r/eurus-h)

Hi! I definitely remember you, and i love your question

So this question is interesting because it's very broad, it's the whole reason this blog even exists! Asking how you learn to deduce people is a little bit like asking how do you learn to perform surgery. The action of performing surgery is sort of the culmination of studies in multiple disciplines, the knowledge acquired in different sciences, and the practice of multiple different methods, coming together as the surgery is being performed. Similarly, as deductionists we study a lot of different disciplines such as psychology or chemistry, we amass a lot of knowledge in things like body language analysis and microexpression recognition, and we practice many different methods of gathering and processing information like situational awareness and abductive reasoning, all to be applied as we consider necessary when we're actually performing the action of deducing.

That being said, when you learn to perform surgery there's an actual course of general medicine in med school that you need to go through that is mostly the same anywhere you study, and just like that, there are things you need to study in order to learn to perform deduction that are what we could call "universal". These are the very broad strokes, but the general idea is that everything you need to learn in order to deduce can be classified into 5 categories

Mentality

Observation

Reasoning

Training

Knowledge

Mentality deals with the mental state you need to acquire to deduce anything and anyone, you need to be very detatched from what you're deducing in order to avoid biases, you need to rid yourself of any assumptions, you need to constantly check the way you're approaching the deduction in order to avoid jumping to wrong conclusions, etc.

Observation deals with the gathering of information that you're gonna use to deduce, and as you train your observation skills you're gonna realise just how bad we are at paying attention to the world around us, and so keeping this skill sharp is a must

Reasoning is perhaps the most complicated category, and it deals with piecing the things you observe together in order to reach conclusions, and using those conclusions to reach further information

Training is literally what it sounds like, exercises, challenges, ways of testing yourself, pushing your limits, and keeping your skills sharp in order to not lose the habits that you start to build up as you learn to deduce

And finally Knowledge deals with every piece of information you store that can help you make a deduction, it's basically building this encyclopedia composed of different subjects in your head that serves as a data bank you can access when deducing

So as you can see, learning to deduce anything, including people, is a bit of a process, and something you have to build up to. the very first step is to start working on your observation skills, since you can't deduce anything if you don't have a way of gathering data about the world around you that you're trying to deduce. The question itself encompases way too much for me to answer in this ask, but that's why i have this blog (and my other blog Amateur Deductions), to provide people with the information needed to learn this skill, and it's also why i'm working on a bit of a project with a friend to give anyone that wants to learn a much more structured way of doing so (keep an eye out for that, i'll definitely be posting about it soon-ish). To give you a good starting point, look into Situational Awareness and exercises to train it

I hope that gave you a bit of a begining of an idea of how the whole thing works, and some sort of a starting point to get into it, and if you have any more questions, be it more broad or more specific, my inbox is always open

Happy Observing!

-DV

[toonstarterz]

BECAUSE I’M NOT POPULAR, I’LL READ WATAMOTE: CHAPTER #166

Baseball season is in the air! Thankfully, you don’t need to be a fan of the sport to like this chapter. So long as you enjoy the stupid antics of a bunch of socially awkward teenage girls, there’ll be plenty of fun to be had. And of course, it wouldn’t be Watamote if they didn’t include a bunch of expertly intricated plot threads and natural character development as well. With all of Nico Tanigawa’s passions coming together once again, I can say that this chapter is definitely in top form.

So without further ado, let’s play ball!

Chapter 166: Because I’m Not Popular, I’ll Go Cheer

Tomoko getting flabbergasted just by Katou existing never gets old.

You know, I always had the impression that Tomoko wording things in the most perverted way was just a gut reaction due to her mind being perpetually in the gutter. But now, I feel like her answer here is just too on the nose to be anything but deliberate. IdiotPerv!Tomoko is hilarious, but TrollPerv!Tomoko is too powerful. 

Consequently, Tomoko can’t say shit without it biting her in the ass.

Okada with the save. Sure, she probably didn’t want to look like a slacker from Katou either, but still. If Katou’s the mom friend, then Pineapple-chan’s the exasperated, but supportive onee-san friend.

I just realized that this is a standard routine with these two: Yuri will say something tactless and Mako will call her name out in admonishment. If this has been going on since they first met, then Mako has boundless patience and/or is the absolute best friend that no person should ever take for granted. Not that 

Yuri does...mostly.

Y'all can tell that baseball fan Ikko had a blast drawing the backgrounds in this chapter.

Speaking of which, I’m 212% certain that Komiyama’s role in this chapter is to be the mouthpiece for Nico Tanigawa’s baseball fanatism. Given that it’s technically in-character (for who is basically their self-insert), and baseball chapters can only feasibly happen every hundred chapters or so, I’m fine with the mangakas taking these little indulgences.

Hey, let the girl live a little! Komi’s gotta cram ten chapters worth of dialogue she won’t get into one.

Pardon me, Tomoko, but you seem to have left your self-awareness by the entrance to the stadium.

Naturally, Tomoko hates that Komiyama isn’t making a fool of herself in front of her mom-crush. It’s easy to forget that so long as you don’t set off her berserk buttons, Komiyama is actually quite...normal. Like, being amicable with others and casually humble-bragging is her default state. 

Nico Tanigawa’s artistic habit of putting nicknames under faces always amuses me.

There’s being upset, and then there’s being petty. We all know that Tomoko is aware that Itou is in the band, and any other day, she wouldn’t hold that against the girl. But because she’s salty over Komiyama acting cool, her sensibilities revert back to Year-1 Tomoko logic. 

Now, if I were a more crass person, I could make the assumption that the majority of those underclassmen were a combination of girls admiring Fuuka’s “cool beauty” status and boys wanting to check out an attractive senior girl in a cheerleading outfit, discrepancies notwithstanding. 

But I won’t.  

Oh yeah, Miho. Based on the above cheers, she seems like your average popular girl, but if you recall, she got a kick out of Katou’s “offers” to Tomoko. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a bit of a mean streak in her.

Btw...armpits? Okay, then...

You’d think that by now, Tomoko would learn some subtlety before pulling shit like this.     

Normally, I’d call Tomoko out for shenanigans since I thought she was mostly over the whole “slut-shaming” thing. But given how she wasn’t thinking this when the girls in her class wore cheerleading outfits during last year’s sports festival (that we know of), I can only assume that this is more of Tomoko’s jealousy due to Fuuka’s friendship with Katou.

Either that, or Tomoko just doesn’t want to admit she finds her hot.

I think we’re all in agreement that Ucchi’s gonna lose massive points for this.

On the other hand, the image of Emoji Girl screaming about Tomoko’s crimes through a megaphone is peak absurdity, and I’ve been laughing my ass off for twelve minutes. 

In all seriousness, I’m kind of glad that Tomoko is finally getting her way overdue karma for all her skirt-peeping. Sure, it’s all been played for comedy, but that doesn’t change the fact that its sexual harassment, or the fact that she’s more than likely gotten away with it for being female.

It’s all fun and games until your stalker calls you out on it.

LIES.

You know...maybe it is Tomoko’s fetish. She’s done it so frequently, and it’s always been portrayed as just another one of Tomoko’s “quirks”. But given the context of all those occurrences, having a skirt-peeping fetish actually sounds very plausible. Thank you, Yuri, for that insight. 

Looking at Katou’s expression, it might be her fetish, too...

Seeing Tomoko get more and more mortified as everyone keeps dogpiling on her shame makes for quite the cathartic reading. 

Add on to the fact that Komiyama, the biggest perv of all, is the most dignified at this moment just makes this whole chapter an absolute treat.

Considering that Tomoko basically just got outed as a pervert in the middle of a crowd of spectators, she’s taking this quite well. First-year Tomoko could’ve had a legit panic attack if that had happened, but now, she actually has enough nerve to retaliate. Sure, Tomoko had some decent ammo with the Tanabata wish, so she likely had more guts than she would’ve been, but it’s still impressive nonetheless.

Sasaki Fuuka–putting a new spin on the term “victim-blaming”. 

Komiyama can be the reasonable one while Tomoko is the crazy pervert, or Tomoko can be the reasonable one while Komiyama is the crazy pervert.

But the universe just can’t have both be reasonable or perverted at the same time. 

As someone who knows jacksh*t about sports, I have to admit that this is an interesting fun fact if it can be applied to the popularity of real-life sports teams and cheer squads.

I could totally see this becoming a meme in the Watamote fandom. Anyone?

These moments of zero dialogue, sometimes a whole page’s worth, excel at immersing the reader into the story. Suddenly, you’re not just reading about characters in a story. You’re now experiencing first hand what’s like to be at a baseball game, with a few familiar faces from the band and cheer teams making it feel a lot more lively. 

If it weren’t for all the wonderful peeps on Reddit, I never would’ve caught that this is the same baseball manager we’re seen periodically since the beginning of the series. You know, the one Tomoko did that fake dub for?

Perhaps I’ll call her...Beta!Nemo. 

A PSA to all you non-sports fans: You can now pretend to be interested in your favorite high-school teams just by tuning into your local service provider.

Go, Harajuku Makuhari!

You know, I think I mentioned before that I wasn’t sure what Komiyama’s career prospects were.

Now I’ve got a clue.

Yo, I could feel that pain from my screen.

For a second, I thought this was Reina, given we can’t see her eyes and that she’s manspreading (sounds like something she would do). But then I pictured her actually signing up for cheerleading and...yeah, no. 

Not to sound all pretentious if you already know, but cheerleading really is one of the most difficult, dangerous, and underappreciated sports there is. In addition to all the physical risks, you have to maintain an endlessly cheery disposition, even when it’s hard. That’s why I call it the “customer service job” of the sports industry.

The go-to method to keep your in-story sports team at peak realism: 

Unwavering mediocrity. 

As opposed to them hurrying up and win? Quite the pessimist you are, Tomoko...

not.

As startling as it is to hear these words come out of Tomoko’s mouth, it’s not entirely unfounded. For all her negative worldviews, crude behavior, and general apathy, the one thing that has always been constant about Tomoko is that she knows things can be better and she wants things to be better. She never got the chance to really strive for it back then when she had nothing to latch onto. But now that she’s got friends, Tomoko realizes that she can feasibly make some of those ideals a reality.  

Their unbridled admiration is sweeter than diabetes.

Insert long-winded discussion of a related social phenomenon that probably exists, but the author is too lazy to research here. 

She...didn’t deny it. 

Character development...I guess?

I was wondering where Tomoko would draw the line on her slut-shaming towards Fuuka. Granted, it’s probably easier to feel empathy when you can see that shit happening from other people rather than yourself. 

But seriously, Katou? Pimping out your friend? You terrify me more and more with each passing chapter. 

See what I’ve been getting at? Tomoko knows that realistically speaking, her summer is probably not going to be anything extraordinary. Inconveniences will occur, moments of boredom will arise, and missed opportunities will transpire. But as I’ve reiterated time and again, even those “plain” experiences can become delightful memories when shared with those you care about.

That’s going to be a crucial feeling from this point on, it looks like. ‘Cause based on Yuri’s expression, she may have the most difficulty resonating with that kind of emotion. Let's see just how Yuri handles an expanding social circle–Tomoko included–that’s a little more bright-eyed than she is. 

We’re in the seventh inning stretch of Tomoko’s third year, and time will only tell if it ends in a victory.

[occupyvenus]

@doublehex replied to your post “Actual footage of aegony stans popping a bottle of champagne...”

You make it seem as if only J0nerys shippers bought into it. BryndenBFish thought it was a legit interview at first, and he was someone that has poured over most of GRRM's interviews. The way the interviewer wrote his responses were very cleaver. And it was written by no means a Jonsa shipper, because the Jonsa answer was just one small part about it. Get off your high horse and take a chill pill.

How about you get off my post and take a red pill that takes you back to reality? 

I do not make it seem like only J0nerys shippers bought into it. I specifically made fun of the specific group of people (mostly J0nerys shippers) who used this interview as “prove” to debunk Jonsa and celebrated the “death of the delusional crackship” before getting all their facts straight. Yes, while the Jonsa passage was only a small part of the interview, I made fun of the people who only cared about this “small part” and made a big deal about it. Weak reading comprehension, much? Would explain a lot of things. 

As a lot of other people, I didn’t dismiss the interview right away either, that would be just as biased as buying into it without any further questions. I thought maybe the “interviewer” had some personal connection to GRRM and he did them a solid by talking with them. I read the entire thing, while considering the problems that arise with automated translation and compared his statements with some he’s made before. I actually took my time to apply some critical thinking skills before forming a final opinion. The post was not directed at people like BryndenBFish (btw, what’s with the appeal to authority? People can’t think for themselves unless someone with supposed “higher credentials” gives them the green light to do so?) who did the same thing, who wasn’t sure about it’s legitimacy, but actually looked into it before drawing any final conclusions, but at the gullible, biased idiots who never learned to not believe everything they read on the internet. So what is your point exactly? 

Btw, I retain the right to make fun of the people who didn’t even bother to look into it before making hateful, condescending, snarky posts because there were so many things that should make everyone capable of critical thinking at least a bit sceptical: 

An exclusive interview with a high-caliber author is published on some random, unknown blog? 

Why didn’t a “professional journalist” sell that thing to some news media, actually making some profit with their supposed profession?

Why wouldn’t the author at least take one picture with grrm?  

One tiny little google session would’ve showed that this “interview” wasn’t picked up by any verified news outlet. 

Neither westeros.org, nor the asoiaf wikia picked it up either. They’re usually pretty fast with that. Most interviews show up a few hours after they were published. Maybe because the administrators have connection to grrm and his pr-team themselves and are aware of any upcoming interviews? 

The interview has no links to grrm’s blog, twitter, his official website and their was no mention of that interview on all these outlets either. 

The interview was ill-formatted and the blog itself looks rather shitty. Not a sign of professionalism. 

Why would GRRM agree to making interview that was only going to be published in Spanish? Why would GRRM agree to making an interview with such a low-profile outlet at all? 

Those were at least a couple of things that seemed fishy about the circumstances of the “release”. If that wasn’t enough to at least raise one of your eyebrows, there are couple of things about the content that an attentive reader could/should have noticed:

George is praising D&D? After politely redirecting any questions about them with neutral answers? After throwing some epic shade at them not two months ago? (Like, he has no time to watch “his own show”, but fangirls about another? Sick burn, george.)

GRRM has never outright denied any fantheories. Here he takes strong stances about Azor Ahai and Jon’s endgame romantic partner. This isn’t about me being a pressed shipper, it simply isn’t in line with his previous reactions to questions like this. Do you remember the dubious, unambiguous way he talked about S@nsan in the past? He didn’t confirm it, he didn’t completely deny it. He 

While we’re at the topic of the jonsa-passage, he contradicts himself numerous times here alone, for example: Well, in my books Jon Snow is dead ... but to find out about his possible relationship with Dany you have to keep reading. Any romantic relationship is very unlikely, because they only share a siblingy bond ... but Jon and Sansa don’t even have that. Like, what? Sounds awfully like a rehash of your usual anti-jonsa arguments, don’t you think? The creator of the whole series has no more to say than your average redditor? 

Btw, Grrm honestly reacting to a question involving his original outline? When has that ever happened?  

I remembered that Medusa interview, I don’t remember any news about it being fake. But in this interview it’s presented as fact and common knowledge?  

GRRM answers a question about Arya by talking about how she isn’t like Sansa? Sounds less like him and more like your typical reddit douchebag. 

Btw, he talks about revenge and it’s downfalls, but doesn’t bring up Lady Stoneheart? A character about whose non-inclusion in the show bugs him so much, he talks about her significance to the narrative every chance he gets? 

At one point he emphasized that Jon is dead in the books, but later doesn’t correct the “interviewer” when she calls Jon a king? How is Jon a king in the books, btw? Or would GRRM really confirm in an interview that Jon will become KITN in the books too? Seems like an obvious mix up of book and show canon to me. 

Another instance of this is him taking Cersei as an example that women can rule in Westeros, when talking about Asha. In the books, Cersei does not rule in her own right, she rules through her son. This is no correct comparison to Asha becoming queen of the Iron Islands, at least not for current book-canon. And Goerge doesn’t discuss show canon. 

Just in general, many, many answers don’t hold up to the usual intellectual level displayed in his interviews.  

He says Jon Snow isn’t a hero, that every question about right and wrong depends on which side you are own, - which sounds a lot like him - but “regarding Dany, deserving something because you're a good person doesn’t mean you will obtain it?” Biased, much? 

GRRM confirms a couple of characters as bisexual, some very surprising candidates included, but doesn’t mention those who have relationships with both men and women in canon like Ellia, or even Jon ?

George names a rather specific release date for Winds of Winter? 

Those are only a few things I remember. If I went through this glorious clusterfuck one more time, I’m sure to find more. There are so many things in this “interview” that stick out, but in the name of fairness, let’s look at some of the things that seemed convincing:

Some passages successfully copied Grrm’s way of speaking. 

Some statements were in line with grrm’s usual style of answering spoilery questions. (You have to keep reading, the show is the show and the books are  the books etc)

No one could be batshit crazy enough to seriously fake an interview with GRRM. 

Sry, if all these red flags didn’t lead you to even do a bit of investigating, if instead, your first reaction was to make petty posts about “jonsa being dead” and “grrm killing jonsa” you deserve to be made fun of. Should I give you a pat on the back for focusing solely on the few things that seemed legit, while completely dismissing everything that pointed to the opposite?

Sry not sry, but after being called “delusional” for shipping Jonsa, despite bringing up a bunch of compelling arguments, while your strongest argument against it is screaming DELUSIONAL!!!,  after being told “to seek professional help” thousands of time, I have absolutely no problem with pointing out the mass delusion that these assholes suffered from the last day. Payback’s a bitch. I actually made another post about why this whole surreal situation is so endlessly funny to me, and it has nothing to with people “who AT FIRST thought this as a legit interview”, before taking a closer look and realizing that it’s most likely forgery (like your weak argumentative shield BryndenBFish did). 

It’s because of the sheer hypocrisy and the delicious irony: 

J*nerys-stans and co were so desperate to discredit us “delusional crackshippers” that they took some random interview on some random blog with  zero credentials, something that seemed fishy to anyone who took 5 minutes to clearly think about it, but instead they just swallowed it like a bowl of dramatic rice, because they were so excited about proving that other people are “delusional” and I just can’t. This morning there were dozens of posts celebrating that the “delusional jonsa stans will finally shut up about their delusional crack ship” and now they’re the ones whining about being called delusional and how unfair and inappropriate that is and, fuck, payback’s a bitch. Like, you gotta appreciate the fucking irony of the situation.

Never forget the blessed Halloween of 2k17 when antis got a taste of their own medicine. The dramatic rice remember.

Now pop in the blue pill and go back to the matrix where jonsa-shippers are the “delusional” ones, who only see what they want to see”. That’s the only place where you people can still pretend that jonsa-shippers are the ones who lack critical thinking skills. I’ll be enjoying the view from my high horse, thank you. 

Actual footage of you, thinking you can get one over me with that weak ass comment.

[maximuswolf]

Social anxiety, working 100% remote, got an offer for double the salary... but will need to go to the office eventually. Thoughts? via /r/Anxiety

Social anxiety, working 100% remote, got an offer for double the salary... but will need to go to the office eventually. Thoughts?

So about a year and a half ago I had a panic attack in the office of my previous job, which lasted a full day, and I ended with heavy anxiety (non-stop palpitations, some shaking and sweating...) for the best part of the following month. Things never got quite back to normal tho, and ever since I've developed some form of anxiety disorder. I very recently started talking to a therapist (please don't roast me on this :( ), he says it's most likely social anxiety (which makes sense to me) with some agoraphobia sprinkled; but we are still navigating it.

That old job was very stressful and I believe that + me being generally anxious and unresty all my life piled up and triggered this thing for good. Can give more details if it's relevant.

Today tho, I live mostly by myself (one housemate) and work as a software dev for a company that's 100% remote. Pay is good (around 60k), I like my coworkers, manager is chill, I've got my office setup here and no real pressure to leave. I'm kind of indifferent about the job ngl, it's a "pay the bills" thing, I could do it for some years but don't love it. I'm not super bothered about that, I have my own hobbies and I appreciate keeping my job separated from the rest of my life (tho I'll admit, this whole thing made me discover and got me interested on VR-assisted therapy...).

I recently got a contractor offer from a big company in the same field as the current one I'm working on, the job is more or less the same thing (btw don't mind the "legal implications", it's cool), except this second company is offering nearly double of my already decent pay (around 110k). The catch is that it's on their policy that I'm expected to go to the office about 3-4 times a week on normal circumstances (I can do 1-2 days remote).

Of course, right now that does not apply because of covid - all work is remote, and tbh, it probably won't apply for the next 6 months or so at least. But once things get "back to normal" is when it can get hairy - it's a big company and the people from the company that I've talked with about this can't make any guarantees that down the line they could make an exception for me. They still tell me I should accept the offer because "don't worry about it, this covid thing will take a big while and even after it's done, they won't ask everyone to start going straight away". They also tell me it's a chill place to work on.

Right now I have anxiety even on zoom calls, I keep my camera off anytime I can and when it's facetime I'm very uncomfortable, I start having palpitations and my palms get sweaty and shit - I can still manage to finish them and I can present/do pair programming. However, I can totally see myself having panic attacks in the office because that's exactly how this blew up for me.

So here's the thing: I'm just starting therapy now, so it's possible that I could learn to manage anxiety to the point that, when the time arrives, I can start going to the office - but it's possible I can't (I'm still at the point where I struggle to go get my groceries :|). It's possible that they will, when the time comes, like my work enough that they'll just let me continue remote - but no guarantee.

I'm of 2 minds on this - one part of me thinks its an irresponsible risk and that I'm fortunate to be doing good in a very accomodating position right now, also I do enjoy being remote now; on the other, I've gotten to where I am right now by job hopping, it's a very substantial amount, I'll still have some time to get better, and what if it's actually better for me to force myself into a position where I must be more social?

And about he money, is not really that I need more money, I live way below my means, but I value my time a lot and in this regard, I'd make my years worth twice as much. I'm in my mid 20s and I like to invest, so for me big amounts today translate into early retirement tomorrow.

I'm yet to talk to my therapist about this, so this is me in part writting down my thoughts to clear my mind up a bit before that. Also, I'd love to hear from someone that went through something similar as I think it's a bit of a counterintuitive situation.

Thank you all!

Submitted February 01, 2021 at 11:49AM by throaway203478029374 via reddit https://ift.tt/3j74pzm

[mc-dude]

grandma’s snkincare (snail skincare) routine

got an anon asking about my skincare routine, so here it is!

note: I have very dry (not oily) skin and am not prone to cystic acne (ever since I did accutane in college.. which seems to have nuked whatever ability my face had to produce horrible cystic acne.. horrific, but effective i guess). i mostly just get hormonal acne breakouts around my lips/chin area and closed comedones on my forehead/chin (those are like little hard bumps that never turn into pimples, just stay... bumpy)

the resources i use to optimize my routine when i was starting out are reddit.com/r/skincareaddiction (yes, i know it’s reddit but everyone on there are just wonderful supportive women so it’s Safe) and reddit.com/r/asianbeauty which specializes in asian products mostly catered for sensitive skin (which i have).

i guess the biggest thing i realised that really helped me out when choosing products was that my skin wasn’t oily because i have oily type skin, it was just oily because my skin was so dry that my body was overproducing oil to compensate for how dry it is. sounds counterintuitive, i know, but it really changed the game once i stopped nuking my skin with drying ingredients and learned how to moisturize properly.

anyways! after much trial and error my current routine is:

remove shitty makeup with micellar water. i use this shit i found in germany but any micellar water will do they’re basically all the same and will take off makeup super efficiently. idk how well it works for eye makeup since i don't wear any but for bb cream and foundation it works great!

cleanse with Hada Labo Tokyo Gentle Hydrating Cleanser which I found out about on that asianbeauty subreddit i mentioned above. it’s really great for dry skin and doesn’t have any fatty alcohols which I realised my skin was sensitive to. sometimes people’s skin love fatty alcohols! just not mine lol.

every other day use Paula’s Choice 2% BHA. this is what gets rid of my closed comedones (the little bumps on forehead and chin) and keeps them away. chemical exfoliants are much more gentle on your skin and will actually benefit you way more than a physical exfoliant (aka something like apricot scrubs.. ow!) in the long term as physical exfoliants will cause small micro-abrasions and increase the amount of wrinkles on ur face over time. also they are super drying!

use my Curology (this is my referral link lol give me that $$ discount) mix of 8% Azelaic acid (a chemical exfoliant for improving skin texture aka my skin is super smooth and nice feeling all the time), 1% Clindamycin (a minor antibiotic for preventing acne), and 0.25% Zinc Pyrithione (an antifungal thing for getting rid of acne). I just found out about Curology like a month ago and holy shit, it’s amazing. It’s $20/month for access to an actual Dermatologist that you can message every day if you want who will send you personalized prescription cream for you to use on your face every day. Trying to get an appointment for a dermatologist in the US takes like, a year for where i am so this is a lifesaver. i’m loving their service so far and will continue to use for a long, long time. the first month has a trial btw that’s only $5 so you can try it out and see how you like it. most dermatologists on there will respond to you within one business day. super awesome! i just read that they don’t ship out of the US, unfortunately, so if you need another option.. vv

if you can’t afford the monthly curology thing or its not available where u are, i would recommend replacing this step with another AHA type acid like The Ordinary 10% Azelaic Acid Suspension or Paula’s Choice 10% AHA. Finding which acid works for you is just trial and error, but don’t apply it that frequently or else your moisture barrier will be damaged and your skin will get tight and oily once again. I would recommend starting using it once every 3 days and then working your way up from there if needed. These might seem expensive but I have a 10% AHA bottle that has lasted me for like.... over a year. so it’s actually really cost effective lol.

after my curology mix I then break out the SNAIL MUCUS! this is a recent addition that i honestly am loving so much. I’m using corsx Advanced Snail 92 All-In-One Cream after my chemical exfoliant which helps to heal old & new acne scars/wounds and improve the feeling of my skin to give it a sorta healthy glow. it basically just helps accelerate healing, so if you have a healing pimple area it will disappear wayyyy faster with this on than without. it’s amazing! thank u snails! i slove (snail love) u!

after, if I’m really needing some more moisture (bc my skin dries out so much in the winter time in this dry dessert environment i find myself in), I use Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel which is another fatty-alcohol free moisturizer for sensitive, dry skin. i love this! it’s so cool feeling too, like sticking your hand into a lovely little pillow of moisture. my dermatologist on Curology recommended this to me and i can’t get enough. this is kinda expensive tho so if u can find a cheaper alternative than go for it (and also let me know lol)

last and not least, if I have a pimple that needs to Go I will gently pop & drain it (ew) and then apply a hydrocolloid bandage on top, which basically are made for gross wounds like burns and things that are very.. liquidity.. and will basically suck out all the liquid from the pimple and make it heal super fast. honestly if i pop a pimple the night before and slap on of these on it’ll usually be flat and well on its way to healing when i wake up. this is the best discovery ive had in my years of skincare and it’s a total gamechanger. i get the duoDerm ones which come in a pack of 10 sheets that I just cut little squares from. they are super duper cost effective. one box will last like over a year! super good investment tbh. also if i have a particularly bad pimple that doesn’t go away over night sometimes i’ll just leave it on throughout the day and if anyone asks what happened ill just be like ‘oh, i stabbed myself with a pencil’ or something and ppl will just shrug. sometimes i’ll also just be like ‘i got a giant pimple’ and people will nod empathetically, also. it depends on who u are as a person

and that’s my routine! remember when adding new products to always test it out before slapping it all over your face to see if it’ll break you out or if you’re allergic to it. i’m really bad at this tbh but i’ve seen so many horror stories of people just developing horrible cystic acne from new products so remember! to! patch! test!

if you have any questions feel free to send me an ask! 

[cedar-woods]

Desperate for advice

Hi reddit. This is my first ever time posting something so personal. I am looking for advice as I am becoming desperate.

My husband (35M) and I (33F) have been together for almost 10 years. We are deeply in love and basically can never get enough of each other. We love doing everything together.

But we do have problems in the bedroom, we are both aware of it and we both want to fix it. We are always open and honest about our feelings and we really wanna make it work. However, I feel I am the main culprit for the situation. Penetration sex is incredibly painful for me, which means that I don't feel like having sex any more and drive has gone significantly down because of this.

Let me explain how we got to this point. When we started going out, I had very low self-esteem. I had been single for 2 years before we got together and had very little sex during those years, just a few casual occasions here and there, but nothing special or worth mentioning.

When we got together, I wanted sex all the time. We had a bit of trouble at the beginning because he's very well endowed and my vagina was quite tight, I guessed for the lack of sex I had before. But we started having sex more and more and the tightness passed and we had great sex from there on.

Like I said, I used to want it all the time, more so than him, to the point that I would get frustrated when he wouldn't want it. We then started having less and less sex. I then was diagnosed with a mild depression due to anxiety and stress at work that explained my lower sex drive. I started going to therapy, and CBT helped a lot in general, but didn't do much for my sex drive. However, I was determined to have sex with my husband, because I love him so much and we both think sex is a really important part of any healthy relationship.

But when we started trying having sex again, I started to feel an incredible pain when he would try to penetrate me. A stabbing pain that I couldn't get past through. So I went to the doctor. And they told me that it was all in my head and there was nothing wrong with me. That I just needed to relax and use more lubricant. But I knew it was not in my head. The pain was real and I had no lubrication issues. But the pain it was unbearable. Like when you pour alcohol on an open wound.

I kept going to different doctors until I was diagnosed with a disorder called lichen planus, which affects mucus areas like the inside of the cheeks and the vagina. That condition explained the pain, but none of the treatments I went through helped. Mostly creams I would apply in the affected area. Nothing would take the pain away. The more we tried, and the more it hurt, the more frustrated I would get. He was understanding and loving, but I could feel his frustration as well, that I couldn't give us what we wanted. He's been nothing but loving, caring and understanding, but I know this is affecting him a lot.

We also went to sex therapy, and I started doing dilators therapy, but even with that (which I religiously did every day) the stinging pain would still prevail.

To top it all off, I also have trouble giving him head, because my jaw locked off a long time ago, and since then I am not able to open it enough and keep it open for a long time because it hurts a lot as well.

So with no penetration possible, no oral sex possible (which I love to give him btw, but it's just so painful!), and with no anal sex possible because neither of us is really into it, I am a bit at a loss as to what to do.

I will keep looking for doctors that hopefully will be able to help me, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask the lovely reddit community to see if anyone has gone through similar problems and how they went about fixing or dealing with them.

Thank you for reading this far.

submitted by /u/lovingwifeneedshelp [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/sexover30/comments/gkrju0/desperate_for_advice/