If you hate someone, teach them to spot bad keming.

Ooh, thank you for the recommendation!

I keep trying to talk myself into starting one, but I don’t know if I have the patience for modding.

Ugh, same. I want to see all the pretty nerds showing off their pretty skills here but most days my brain won’t even type words coherently, I would be an utterly useless mod.

We need one of those hyper energetic t-girls full of all that post puberty energy and optimism, to swoop in and be queen mod of all the pretties of the fediverse for us. I really miss having all that energy, haha.

Don’t be afraid of just amassing a bunch of ‘cheapies’ to start with, there are so many fantastic fragrances made by renowned perfumers/houses, that you can buy for under £50 (€/$/etc) to train your nose on and figure out what you like.

That’s actually how I have Vanilla Vibes and Quorum, I literally just blind bought a load of cheaper perfumes going by what looked interesting on Fragrantica or was recommended on youtube, and I would likely never have bought or learnt to pick out and enjoy their notes had I gotten tiny testers first.

Also many cheap Arabic perfumes (originals and dupes) are surprisingly good, don’t be too afraid of exploring that side of this world either! Al Rehab is a great place to start if you’re unsure/skint, Choco Musk is quite possibly the best milk chocolate perfume in the world and you can get a 50ml bottle for like £6. The rest of their scents are similarly priced and pretty damn good too from what I’ve tried do far.

Could you tell me some cool stuff about artificial lighting technologies? That sounds interesting!

Do you have any favourite facts or stories?

Learning about Chinese culture is lowkey a little hobby of mine too, I’m mainly into it for the cuisines and food side of things though.

Are there any good nail art or makeup communities on the fediverse yet? I love seeing how creative people get with these art forms.

Those iridescent shadows! The teal/purple shift is so pretty!

Ugh, I know right?! All my spare coin is going towards perfumes!

Yum Pistachio is gorgeous! I love all the dupes of it too, all the Arabic houses are on top form lately.

Your combination of Super Amber and Heavy Cream sounds hella sexy!

Ok, so here’s a REALLY strange but beautiful scent combination I’ve found, let me try and set the scene it makes for you first:

You’re in an coastal pine forest during a lightening storm. It’s night. You can smell the wet earth underfoot and the forest behind you. Just before the rain starts up again, you’re looking out over the sea as it crashes against the cliffside, sea water mists the air and sheets of lightening illuminate the world.

This was from about 5 spritzes of Vanilla Vibes by JHAG (salty non-gourmand vanilla) with a modest spritz of Quorum by Antonio Puig (beast mode aromatic oakmoss) over it. Encre Noir by Lalique could probably be substituted for the Quorum for a similar affect, but you’ll need to spray a lot more of it as Quorum is very, very strong.

The way the sea salty solar notes of Vanila Vibes play against the dank mossy woods and grapefruit of Quorum, it’s so visual for me. And there’s this ozoneic smell they form together that isn’t constant but is electric and kinda how I imagine lightening smells.

Do you have any unexpectedly beautiful scent combinations? Please share if so!

The Linda McCartney Vegetarian Shredded Hoisin Duck have been my go to for a while as they’re in most of the big supermarkets here and I can get them delivered to my house.

I like to defrost them and use them ‘raw’ (they’re already fully cooked) because I find the texture gets weird when they’re prepared according to the package instructions.

Any Asian superstore will likely have many varieties of better, and probably cheaper, mock duck though. If I lived near one I would be so fat!

I had a seitan phase a few years back, I got really into finding good spice mixes to include in the dough for maximum ‘meatiness’.

I made and tried to like the ‘lunch meat’ style seitan a few times, but memories of being a kid having to eat actual lunch meat (and how slimy and sometimes gritty from gristle it was) really put me off it.

Texture wise with seitan, I liked gently beating the kneaded dough flat with the end of a rolling pin, and then tightly rolling and coiling it up, wrapping it tightly to steam, and then shredding it and adding bite sized bits to hotpot.

What’s your current favourite seitan recipe? What texture do you like your seitan?

Nevertheless, I am fascinated. And open to more!

I love reading about people’s passions, and I think it adds to it the less I know about the subject, as just sitting back and enjoying how excited and interested someone is in their thing, really is so nice.

What is ‘points hacking’? Are you moving rails and sending trains off in the wrong direction?!

As someone who no longer commutes, this sort of chaos is deeply amusing. I hope it’s this.

Ooh this is new to me! Very cool.

My main one is vegan food. Before I had access to a kitchen to make my own food, it used to involve collecting, curating and creating recipes, but has since moved onto creating (and endlessly recreating, adapting and morphing) certain flavour and texture profiles.

The current big one I’ve been very obsessed with making and eating for the last few years, is variations on hoisin mock duck wraps.

The latest iteration is a salad wrap, with leaves of nappa cabbage as the wrap, a layer of vegan garlic mayo with chilli crisp, mock duck, green onion, cucumber, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, hoisin sauce, corriander leaves, and another cabbage leaf to cover/ close the wrap. This probably has the best textures so far and tastes really good!

Making/eating kimchi is a similarly intense interest/obsession. So is hotpot. I fucking love hotpot.

My secondary major interest fluctuates between several different things, but is currently perfume.

I’m very into creating (and endlessly recreating, adapting and morphing) certain scent profiles, and collecting perfumes.

I like to do this through layering different perfumes on my skin and clothes, so I can highlight certain notes/sensory aspects for myself (that may not be apparent on other people’s skin chemistry, so this, like with my other interest, is a very subjective fascination!).

Over the span of three days (between showers) I like to start in one place with my layering combinations and go on scent journeys as the notes morph and fade, and I add to them with other complimentary scents and see how far I can go. Notes linger on clothing longer and differently to how they do on skin, so as I’m layering over several days it builds up in fascinating ways. It’s very interesting to me too finding which layering combinations work one way but not the other.

Lately I’ve enjoyed starting with a base combo of Mauboussin Mauboussin (resinous yet juicy plums and lots of ylang ylang) and Musamam White Intense by Lattafa (juicy spiced oranges and too much ambroxan)- and then taking that in interesting directions as it fades over the day, like layering on more spices and wood notes, and then when that fades, onto various ouds and roses.

Or adding a Stronger With You flanker (sweet and aromatic with chestnuts + individual flanker variations), then when that starts to fade leading it with fragrances full of ginger, vanilla, lactonic nutty notes and patchouli.

Being enveloped in layers of beautiful fragrances is such big sensory good times for me and discovering new combinations is so pleasing.

Also before anyone comes at me for this, I live alone and don’t wear any fragrance when I go outside, so I’m really not hurting anyone with this hobby!

Remembering which of my devices are old method charging and which are new method is a pain.

I have several camping lamps from like 20 years ago that I almost threw out because they weren’t holding charge anymore, before I remembered to be fully draining the batteries and recharging them once a month. They work like new now practically.

I think it’s because of how the letter is written in cursive that we call it ‘double u’.

Happy birthday!

Watching with people, it’s impossible to concentrate and a waste of time as nothing will sink in.

On my own it’s usually easier, especially as it’s going to be a movie I want to watch. I absolutely cannot watch stuff while high/intoxicated though, I’m far too easily distracted.

But there’s always going to be a few that I just can’t manage to sit through, no matter how much I’d like to. Watchmen I’ve tried a good few times to see over the years now and no, not happening, it’s just too fucking long.

(Side note, I also have autism and there are some few films I have seen so many times, to the point where I know the scripts and recite along.)

Euthanasia. Access to free and humane end of life services should be a fundamental human right for all adults everywhere.

That’s going to morph into ‘dva’ hella fast as that ‘t’ is clunky to pronounce.

8 days.

I was in my early 20’s and invincible and spent a week one summer bouncing about between clubs, house parties and outdoor raves, and taking a metric fuck ton of party drugs and psychedelics.

The week started with some really good exctasy at a nightclub (like REALLY good, the whole smoking area was basically a giant cuddle puddle in the photos), and then there was a lot of speed and drone/mkat at the various after parties.

We had rooftop ‘picnics’ (blankets, cushions, and drugs) watching stars and sunrises and having lots of beautiful, silly, fun moments at several different houses, and more picnics were had in the following days in gardens and one place had a pool.

There were outfit changes and showers at various points of amphetamine induced efficiency too. I lost my favourite tshirt (Cult, Love album) somewhere and we were all swapping/sharing clothes at one point for photos. (It probably found a good home where ever it ended up though and it’s part of party karma for all the various clothes I lost and acquired that year)

Mid week, someone came round selling DMT and I’m pretty sure I induced some kind of REM state by smoking a piece (see below if you want to know what that was like). I did a bunch of ketamine too after it wore off, so that probably also really helped, what with the semi-lucid visuals that induces.

On the 8th day, (I was the last original survivor of the core group, most had dropped off earlier in the week and come back though) I was feeling relatively fine all things considered, but admittedly by this point I had a music and various song lyrics looping in my head near continuously and in a more intense way than I normally do.

Then I thoughtlessly took a tab of acid at a night club we were at (wrong environment completely for me to take acid), and very quickly stopped having fun.

I remember feeling the lsd in my jaw and then feeling very paradoxically sober and overwhelmed (go autism, go) as everything was now too loud and people, and flashing lights and humidity.

I borrowed a friend’s keys and took the night bus back to their place as it was closest, and I remember really struggling to get the key to work in the lock of their house door. It had a pull push motion required to get the latches to flip while turning and I could not figure it out. Probably only took a few minutes but it felt like forever.

Eventually I think muscle memory kicked in and I got it. I woke up like 10 hours later as my friends were getting back from another club, for another afterparty at their house, and I went home.

That was a very fun year for me, and that week of awake is legendary, even if I do say so myself.

DMT, for anyone wondering what it’s like, was absolutely fucking incredible.

You get this like little clear sheet of resin that you have to smoke in a weed pipe, covered with and on a bed of ash, so as not to burn it.

Inhale deeply, hold it in for as long as you can, and then lie flat back and close your eyes to exhale.

The visual fractals upon the exhale are intense, eyes open or closed, you are floating in the matrix with them. It’s sorta like what you see when you push on your eyelids, but more fluid and sacred feeling, and your whole body feels like it is floating. It feels like this trippy visual part lasts hours too, but in reality it’s less than a minute.

You also get this beautiful feeling of pure oneness with everything and safety, and this grounded inner calm that lasts for weeks afterwards.