The Megaist of Men

This problem is nothing new, but this specific example with these numbers puts it into a fucking brutal perspective.

To put these numbers a different way: A Taco Bell burrito that used to cost ~7 minutes and 20 seconds of minimum wage work now costs ~30 minutes and 30 seconds of minimum wage work.

You used to be able to work at Taco Bell anywhere in the country and make enough money in one hour to buy at least 8 burritos (maybe 9 if you're a manager or something) and feed, like, 3-4 people a decently-filling meal. But now, the same amount of work at the same job will get you one meal for one person. And this change has happened over a mere 15 years.

"Why do so many action characters wear high heels?"

While you can do some badass tricks while rocking stiletto heels, they probably wouldn't be the first pair of shoes I'd throw on to go fight crime!

sex work

addiction

criminalize: 

this morning i was scrolling through the silly little reels on my instagram for you page, as one does, and about a good 45 minutes into this i got recommended a candle company that puts (supposedly) real diamonds in their candles.

and in my still somewhat half asleep glory i thought "this sounds absolutely ridiculous, what do i have to lose" and clicked on the website.

upon clicking on said website i was given a 10% off code that i had to use within 15 minutes so basically my mind was already made up and i decided to text brad.

so with what was probably brads approval i scrolled through the silly little website as fast as i could and decided to stick to the more classic scents since i didnt want to be stuck with something that smelled bad (although "wap" and "i hate my boss" did intrigue me briefly) and i went with "tobacco bourbon" because thats always a decent combo.

and then in a last minute decision i decided to also get "chai tea" because it sounded interesting and who knows maybe the diamonds are real.

the court should note that i did absolutely zero research on this company.

and with my 10% off on top of whatever massive sale they were having the total plus shipping came to $63.86.

brad was also very excited about this purchase and said that if the diamonds were real he may put them in my engagement ring.

candles have been retrieved

they were shipped in this very nondescript box with branded tape

*for legal reasons, these candles were never in my dorm room or were burned in my dorm room*

@undercover-vampire and i unboxed the candles

the tobacco bourbon candle smelled very good actually but the chai one smelled like a craft store from september-december, which is to say, very strongly of artificial cinnamon

the candles are pretty large, about 3 inches across and 4 inches high and are in good quality glass jars

the chai one had melted a little in transit because there was melted (and still melted) wax all over the outside of the jar. but it’s been ridiculously hot so i wouldn’t put that on the company.

the tobacco candle (on bottom) had a very off center wick (tho both were off centered). this happens sometimes with hand poured candles, but it was still odd

each candle comes with this scratch off code thing that links to a certificate of the diamond inside, which is cool

i decided to put the chai candle in the freezer and freeze the wax out of it because i hated the smell and burn the tobacco one.

i burned the tobacco bourbon candle for around 10 hours and it has a very clean burn, no exploding, but it did pop a little bit ( that was my fault tho cause i didn’t trim the wick ) and if the wick wasn’t off center it would be a 10/10 candle. no sign of the diamond yet

the chai tea candle was in the freezer for about 24 hours and i was able to tap the bottom of it twice and the candle popped out of the glass and revealed the wrapped diamond

i attacked the wax with a pair of scissors for a few minutes to get the vial out

and then i washed off the vial cause it was covered in wax

the diamond is in that little plastic bag. and yes, it is a little diamond.

i scratched off the code on the side of the candle to get the certificate

i have been burning the tobacco bourbon candle for three days at minimum 5 hours per day. the candle claims to be 100% soy wax, but brad is very sensitive to paraffin and other artificial waxes and started coughing pretty badly every time he was in my room for an extended period of time. we deduced that it was caused by the candle not being 100% soy wax.

he is upset that i “tried to poison him” (which is understandable and i put on my diffuser and humidifier with air cleaning solution and opened the window and gave him cough syrup so he’s definitely fine, but still holding my questionable candle purchasing over me head and rightfully so). so if you’re sensitive to artificial wax i don’t recommend this

it has been 2 days and brad is still coughing from the candle (and no its not the plague he took three covid tests and they were all negative)

also the package does not say 100% soy wax it says premium soy wax (which is definitely a lie. brad has several soy wax candles and does not have a reaction to them. this one is definitely made of paraffin or something else synthetic because apparently he gets severe reactions to that kind of wax) (also i would not have bought the candle if it said it was made from synthetic wax)

after listening to brad cough for what is now probably 4-5 days and having scoured a sketchy gas station for cough drops, i have decided it would be a bad idea to continue burning the candle. but i would not abandon my diamond experiment so quickly. so i texted the one person i know that has little regard for their general health and safety: @undercover-vampire

and so it was decided. katya will take the candle and when diamond appears i will get them something slutty in return. you see kids, this is why you accidently get your tumblr mutuals to come to your college.

we went to brads house this weekend and his mom was upset by the fact that he is coughing, tho she didnt necessarily think it was from a candle. she did give him about 65 remedies tho, including tea, gargling with salt water and nyquill. he is still coughing and in his stubborn glory refuses to do anything more about it.

@undercover-vampire is coming to get the candle tonight to finish burning it

i have still been airing out my room because being in my room makes brad cough more

i emailed the company's customer service

brad went to the health center on campus and they tested him for covid, strep, bronchitis and mono and it was none of those things. they think its a viral infection from the candle and he could be fucked for up to 2 more weeks. if it gets worse then hes really fucked. we do not want him to be really fucked.

at the end of my night class i convinced my friend to take me to target, except my professor held me 25 minutes late because he has terrible time management and we had to target speedrun before they closed. I was so stressed that i left my phone in my friends car when we went in but i got brad all kinds of stuff to make the cough not as coughy (because he is too stubborn to do it himself). and, fellow romans, my friend was mildly (or perhaps severely) concerned about me cause i was mid break down looking frantically for lemon juice, and saying that this was the only time ive ever gone to target and not looked at the price of anything. then i got carded for buying vicks spray and almost accidentally stole some lemons.

@undercover-vampire came to my room to get rid of the accursed candle and said that if they start to die from it then we will be forced to freeze the wax out. this seems like a very good compromise.

i gave brad his stuff and he only insisted we return 4 of the things (which is decent) and he nearly cried over the soup i got him. this candle has put me through the 5 stages of grief.

then i vaccumed the entire box of baking soda that i had sprinkled off my carpet and swiffered and febreezed the fuck out my room. its really good that it worked cause my carpet looked like i had dumped crack all over it and i dont want to have to do that again.

and it paid off cause brad came in and sniffed my room and didnt immediately die of coughs

brad is still very much dying. if he was in victorian times he would have two feet in the grave.

@undercover-vampire has lit the demon candle

this was then followed by:

in addition, brad emailed all of his professors and res life the following email:

does it sound like a robot wrote it? kind of. is the stay safe part a little ridiculous given the circumstances? absolutely. but at least we got a response

here is my refund:

so they refunded me less than the cost of one of the candles, which is a little annoying, but at least it is something. im actually impressed they gave me anything because their site outlines a pretty strict return policy of 5 days within receiving your candle and no refunds once the sticker with the diamond code is scratched off. part of me wonders if there is someone from the company following along with this saga and that's why i got a refund...im onto yall...

the candle has, unfortunately, but also to absolutely no ones surprise, fucked up @undercover-vampire. but instead of making them cough violently, they started sneezing and "passing out more than usual." so we are currently trying to figure out if we know any other poor unfortunate souls who do not care about their general health and safety or wellbeing who want to be part of the experiment. i also still have to go retrieve the candle from them.

and brad is still coughing, its better, but still not good. he went back to the health center and the nurses think it gave him acid reflux and gave him basically tums in a little orange pill bottle that doesnt close very well.

brad also does not want to put the diamonds in my engagement ring anymore so idk what were gonna do with them. i was considering posting them on ebay and auctioning them off to you all.

i have exciting news

we have found a volunteer to be demon candle's guardian!!! how fun!!!!

its @femme--de--lettres and they have so graciously decided to get poisoned by the candle on behalf of my silly saga

the candle has also been shipped and i know this is counterintuitive since the waiver has yet to be signed, but i had to mail it on friday and i know it wont actually get shipped until monday cause of when mail pickup is. they also claimed they sent me the tracking info but they did not. gotta love a campus post office.

not really sure why they mailed it priority mail one day. that seems rather silly and i definitely didnt ask for that.

since our last update several of you have had some questions, which i will now answer

1. why not just freeze the wax out of the candle saph? why are you going through the process of poisoning someone else? havent you taken enough lives?

because friends and romans, we have come too far to quit now. i want to know what is in this candle. freezing the wax out would be so anticlimactic. also andie was a willing and eager participant who signed a waiver

2. could it be the tobacco scent? tobacco is a bad scent

i do not think so. brad has a few other candles that have tobacco listed as a fragrance note from notably better brands (diptyque and i think maison margella and threshold?) and he is an avid wearer of the tom ford cologne tobacco vanille. none of these things have ever induced coughing fits whatsoever. i do agree though that it could be a fragrance issue, but the actual tobacco is not the problem

3. is brad okay? i hope brad is okay. and your other friend.

brad and katya have both recovered from their candle related illnesses! brad only had one small relapse when i had to bring the candle back to my room to send it to andie

also really unrelated but idk why you all keep assuming brad and i are engaged, we are not

anyway, with these questions answered we can now move forward

andie, @femme--de--lettres, my friends, romans and countrymen, has been sleuthing (which was not part of the job description as candle guardian) and they have some exciting updates:

and, believe it or not, they did get another response from our good friend marry!!!

this is, needless to say, Interesting Information. i thoughouly scoured their website last week and the only information i found about their candle wax was that it was a """soy blend""" and so good you can "use it as lotion" which seems like a lie.

i am particularly intrigued by the sentence "the combination of raw materials is constantly changing" that sounds sketchy. and the fact that they "try to always offer the safest and best materials whenever possible." which sounds like. sometimes they do not do that and they know that.

interesting.

andie has been burning the candle for about 15 hours inside and 10 (?) outside and has not yet died of mystery candle disease. she did some poking around in the wax with a skewer and was able to deduce that there is indeed a diamond capsule in the candle

this is where we stand now with the candle burning

next up is that andie emailed customer service two more times trying to get more information about the wax and marry (who appears to be their one customer service rep) basically just gave them the same information as the first time. it looks like we will not be getting any further with that

as per the request of you hooligans we decided to test the wax with a makeup test it that we got off of amazon. we decided to use the makeup test because it says that it works on body lotion and marry kept telling us we could use the wax as lotion. here were the results:

andie tested the wax first when it was hard and then melted and the melted results seemed more conclusive and that revealed that none of the tests came back with super high results of anything. so the wax probably doesnt have a bunch of harmful chemicals but we are not really sure since we have yet to find a quirky chemistry professor to run test results on the candle. this means that its likely the reactions may come down to fragrance or just a reaction to the wax itself and not the chemicals.

but alas friends, the best has still yet to come.

andie and i did a deep dive on the company.

like a deep deep dive.

the results of which shall be revealed Soon

-it was mine and brads anniversary (1 year)

-i had every assignment ever due and then five more

-i got tonsils fucky illness (tonsillitis) which is not mystery candle disease

so alas. here we are. also i’m currently in delaware. crazy how these things happen, huh?

anyway did y’all know that ned fulmer is a florida man? kinda on brand, ngl

what’s that? oh. yes. i can get to the point.

the results of mine and (mostly) andie’s deep dive:

foreverwick candle co was started in good old 2017 by two students who may have possibly been attending michigan state (according to instagram and linkedin searches). these two people had the original trademark until 2021 when the trademark then went through involuntary dissolution

and you’re probably wondering what the fuck that means. i was too. luckily andie knew what it was:

so it sounds like the two founders either broke up or didn’t agree on something pretty massive. kinda funny considering the company origin story is about a couples first date.

a completely different person now has the candle company trademark. we did find his address, or an address of some sort that was possibly related to him, but it was to a trailer park in texas. sus.

one of the founders had some more trademarks registered to him that never went through, all to skincare related things. he may currently have an operational skin aloe cream something or other company. the highlight of the deep dive was andie finding the contact information for that one:

and there was also this:

we also think that the reason for all the skincare trademarks (cause there were quite a few) was because the founders originally wanted foreverwick to have a skincare component (potentially why they keep telling us you can use the candles as lotion?)

so we have no real answers. and i know this is vague but guys i am not about to get sued over a tumblr post.

we did discover tho that their candles were once featured on fox news, which is really really funny to me.

@femme--de--lettres finally unearthed the diamond capsule!!!

the diamond, as was the case with the first one, is absolutely minuscule:

currently we are trying to figure out how to test to see if the diamonds are real. i will likely take mine to the silly diamond store in the mall that i work at and see if they can test it for me, andie was thinking of a more unconventional method for theirs

just some casual diamond arson y'know. gotta keep the saga interesting as we near what very well may be the close. we will see what happens. several of you suggested trying to scratch glass with the diamond, but they are too small for that to effectively work without them flying across the room when you inevitably lose your grip.

i suppose the end of the saga is approaching. i have many more questions than answers but-

oh?

what is this??

new information that will draw this out even more????

i see.

yes, yes. i understand

oh, this will be good.

first and very foremostly i dont know why i have three separate asks in my inbox about what the delaware post is. astounding that you know what the candle saga is and not the delaware post. but i digress.

secondly thank you to @nuri148 for consulting a mineralogist on twitter and telling us that our diamond testing methods were, at their core, silly:

also now my candle saga is on twitter. not sure how i feel about that but alas these candles do have their consequences and one of them is that this post now has 16k notes.

someone else commented that we should tell consumer product safety about the candles. not sure if that will happen yet, we want to find out whats actually in them first.

which leads me to my next point: if you or someone you know is a slightly unhinged and chaotic chemist who wants to test some candle wax, send me an ask.

and finally. andie. sweet darling wonderful @femme--de--lettres (who is still a spooky halloween girl looking for a valentines day girlfriend, i might add) decided that it would be wise to purchase 2 more accursed candles.

now i had nothing to do with this! i do not condone this behavior whatsoever! but i was curious.

andie picked out two scents:

apple cinnamon and

i will never escape this.

i would like the court to note that andie's candles were packaged FAR BETTER than mine were:

lets recall what mine looked like:

i like their addition of the "we really appreciate it!" like. i think theyre onto the saga guys. their pr team is reading this and staying updated. marry i know youre invested in my saga. please do not sue me.

anyway

there is a vast difference in pouring here.

andie chose not to scratch off the little diamond code things yet so well see how big her diamonds are.

here is the scent description for the delaware candle:

idk why they would want to go back there or why rushing river water smells like strawberries and vanilla, but at the same time i expected nothing less.

aparently tho. the icing on the cake. the delaware candle. smells like licorice.

andie, who hates licorice, then made this meme to describe her feelings on the candle:

not sure how strong flowing river water translates to licorice but alas, nothing about this company has made sense so far. and also, it aparently does not smell like licorice when it is lit.

saga for everyone who’s

asked me about it