#but there's a lot. so even though some are hefty paragraphs I tried to be concise

[bookwyrminspiration]

Reading your response to my last few asks has left me with more questions than answers

1. Why was Emmet in the egg outfit anyway? Are those actually eggs?

2. In what circumstances would Jacob believe that being naked and shifting in front of Charlie (the dad of the girl he was presumably trying to woo) be a good idea?? Also, as a side note, do werewolves actually need to be naked in order to shift or is they just something the one fanfic that I read got wrong?

3. Can you like give me a summary of all of Edward’s family? Cause like I feel like there’s something going on with that. Also, did Edward’s parents actually die in a plague that led to him being adopted or am I missing something here?

I apologize for my lack of twilight knowledge again. I have plans to go read it, but that might be another 2 years, so for now I’m bugging you about it.

⚙️

That's how it always goes with twilight, dw. Every response opens a whole new can of worms. I'll do my best to answer!

Why was Emmett in the egg outfit? No clue! (and yes they're actually eggs, they're hardboiled). That's just what the costume department dressed him in for that brief scene when filming--also, just so we're clear, the "egg outfit" is this outfit. It's not the outfit Roisin created related to eggs in her twilight drawing. I call it the egg outfit because it's what he was wearing while carrying the eggs and matches in color. As for why the actor was carrying a bag of eggs, it's because the director saw the actor actually doing that irl and was like this is so ridiculous we have to add that to the movie.

Why did Jacob get naked and shift in front of Charlie? It's because he was forcing the Cullens' hands pretty much. This was after Renesmee was born and he was no longer infatuated with Bella; Bella was a vampire now, and the whole family intended to uproot and move on from the area for a few reasons. One, so Bella wouldn't be around humans and be tempted to kill them while learning self control (newborn vampires are supposed to be full of bloodlust, but Bella's disappointingly well adjusted). Two, so that people wouldn't realize they weren't aging or changing at all--especially Bella, because she had active connections to people like her father. They could only keep it from him for so long, and it'd be easier to do from far away. Also wouldn't hurt to get away from the werewolves, as wolves and vampires don't really get along.

However, Jacob is tied to his pack and Forks, and if the Cullens left he'd have to make a choice between them. And he'd choose Nessie, but he didn't want to have to chose--and he wasn't sure the Cullens would let him tag along. He wanted to insure they'd stay. So with the crux of it being everyone worrying about how Charlie would handle it and deciding the solution is to not tell him and leave, Jacob went hey what it I tell him and prove to you he can handle it. And boom now Charlie knows so you don't have to keep secrets and run away, you can all stay here! It did create a tense situation where Charlie rushed over, and it was the first time Bella had been up close near a human and everyone was worried she'd lose control, but she didn't, so that solved the other problem. Bella wasn't at risk of losing control and killing a bunch of humans, so they could stay. That's why Jacob did it

And wolves don't have to get naked to shift, they just tend to because otherwise their clothes get shredded by their expanding bodies and when they shift back they don't have anything to wear and go through clothes really fast. So they wear minimal clothing (that's why they're just wearing shorts and sometimes shoes in the movies), and have a pouch on their ankle they put their shorts in when they shift so they don't have to carry their pants in their mouths.

And now a family summary! There are 7 Cullens (8 if you count Bella marrying in). And I'm trying to encompass everything important while not taking up too much space--considering there's four books I think it's rather condensed

Tw for: violence, death, abuse (including sexual), suicide, illness

Carlise Cullen is the father figure, the oldest of them all (a few centuries, turned age 23ish), and works as a doctor. He's known for his compassion and has legendary self control (only rivaled by Edward post meeting Bella), and has never drank human blood before. His father was a witch-hunter of sorts, and after he took over (though Carlisle was much more cautious about it), he ran into a vampire and was killed/transformed in the 1600s. He was horrified and tried to destroy himself, but couldn't, until he realized he could feed off animals and didn't have to kill people. He roamed the earth very lonely for centuries before he finally caved and created a companion for himself, Edward.

Esme Cullen is the mother figure, the third to join the family, and is known for being very sweet and loving; she's a little over a century old and was turned age 26 in 1921. She was in an abusive marriage and lost a baby in her human life, prompting her to take her own life, where she was then transformed by Carlisle. They are now mates.

Edward Cullen was Carlisle's first family member, transformed age 17 in 1918 because he was dying of influenza. Both his parents had already died from it, and his mother requested Carlisle save his life in a way only he could. He has the special ability to read the thoughts of those around him as though they were broadcast, sans Bella's. he had a phase early in his vampire life where he abandoned Carlisle and Esme and used his ability to hunt evil people, feeding on abusers and villains and the like, but he grew tired of the death and felt immoral, so he returned to Carlisle and Esme. He's very melacholic and generally displeased until he meets Bella and his world is turned around

Rosalie Hale was the 4th family member, transformed age 18 in 1933. She's known for her beauty and being self-centered. She was the picture perfect daughter of a wealthy family during the great depression, happy to be desired and admired, and was going to be married to another well-off family. Her greatest desire was to be loved and start a family of her own. Unfortunately for her, her fiance was actually a piece of shit, and his true colors were revealed when he and his friends got drunk one night, assaulting and killing her. Carlisle found and transformed her, and afterwards Rosalie went back and killed every one of them while wearing her wedding dress. She's also known for being quite jealous, liking cars, and wishing desperately she could start her own family

Emmett Cullen was the 5th family member, transformed age 20 in 1935. He was part of a wild crowd, but also hunted for his family for game. During one unlucky hunting session, he ran across a bear and was mauled to death. Rosalie found and saved him, taking him to Carlisle to be transformed. He's pretty much the only one of them who is happy to be a vampire and has no complaints. He's known for being boisterous, very strong and muscly, loving competition and fighting, and being absolutely in love with Rosalie, his mate. He's a himbo.

Alice Cullen joined the family at the same time as Jasper, but was transformed in 1920 at age 19 before that by someone else. She has the special ability to see the future, but only as the possibilities will play out based on current decisions. If someone changes their mind on what they're going to do, what she sees changes as the future changes. Vampires with special traits generally have hints of them in their human lives, but Alice's was incredibly strong, landing her in an asylum for her premonitions--this is why her hair is so short and spiky, as it was shaved there. She was also being hunted by a vampire tracker, James, because she had appealing blood. To save her from him, an older vampire working at the asylum transformed her, but was killed by James. Alice has no memories of her human life (compared to the vague and fuzzy few others may have) because of her time in the asylum. Once she was out, her visions guided her to Jasper (her mate) and the Cullens so they could join the family.

Jasper Hale was an aspiring military leader in the Confederate Army (yep, he was really a genuine confederate) and incredibly charismatic. He lied about his age when joining and was the youngest general in the army. At the same time, there was a secret vampire war going on in the area, and because of his charisma, he was scouted out by a vampire because she thought his charm would turn into a special ability once he was turned (by Maria in 1863 at age 19)--and it did. He can read and influence the emotions of others. So he served in Maria's army for a while. But he grew depressed from feeling the emotions of the people he was always killing, and his creator was thinking of getting rid of him because of it. A friend offered another way of life and he ran away. A while later, Alice found him (very planned out and intentional), and while she was acting strange (because of her knowledge of the future) he could feel the complete love coming from her. So with Alice they found the Cullens and joined the family. Though Jasper has the hardest time with the vegetarian diet, and while he does love the others, his primary concern is Alice. He has numerous scars and is very formidable in battle.

No one is officially adopted through legal means, all their documents and such are fake. The reason they all have the Cullen last name is part of the ruse--except for Jasper and Rosalie, who go by Hale because people assume them to be siblings and they think its better to let humans make assumptions and follow along. Though they are still adopted siblings with the others in the whole ruse.

I've given you a lot to mull over so I'll stop there, but I hope that helps! If you do read twilight I hope you have fun, but also no pressure to!

[rouiyan]

𝘔𝘠 𝘗𝘜𝘊𝘒 𝘐𝘕 𝘠𝘖𝘜𝘙 𝘎𝘖𝘈𝘓 [ 𝘭.𝘥𝘩 ]

⧏ hyuck’s installment of the keep your cool collective ⧐

synopsis: you’ve decided that the boy in ‘66’ is yours.

✧ ice hockey player!hyuck x (fem.) reader x ice hockey player!jeno + best friend!renjun

✧ genres : fluff, minor angst ✧ word count : 2.3k ✧ disclaimer : swearing

✧ author’s note — finally my brain had the gall to pull through with this idea but i'm left with the realization that all my hyuck fics are just him simping for u.

hyuck internally sighs, his head ringing and ankles sore, as the buzzer goes off, signaling the end of the third round. he’s almost elated, even though he’s sure his team hasn’t won, by just the fact that the game is over. hyuck is by no means sick of ice hockey but lately, the mere idea of it drives him into exhaustion. as he turns to expect the disappointed stare of his coach, he’s surprised when he’s met with a halfhearted smirk. weird, the coach should know more than anyone how lazily this game had played out. but then, as an afterthought, he checks the scoreboard and realizes with an oh shit, that they were tied with the opposing team, somehow.

his line of vision is parting from the board when he makes unfortunate eye contact with the person entering the rink. your hair is pulled back with a pale pink scrunchie and your outfit is a certified mess of oversized hoodie and sweat shorts upon white sneakers. he can quite literally feel the heat that is quick to rush to his cheeks, unfailing to hide his flustered state. he knows he looks stupid but he still can't help but stare and ogle at new and blatant eye candy as she crosses the threshold into the cold space. half your figure is  now covered by the wall that separates the stands with the rink though it doesn't matter because he's still equally enamoured by simply your presence. 

"hyuck, why you staring at y/n?"

hyuck can only wince inwardly as he stutters out, "that's- that's y/n?" it seems unfair that renjun's been hoarding such a pretty specimen to himself. "like your best friend, y/n?"

"yeah, what about her?"

"br-bro, you never mentioned that she was pretty."

"hey, don't even think about it. you're the last possible person i'd set her up with. plus, she's with jeno, they went on a date after practice last time, remember?"

there's an underlying disappointment in donghyuck's tone when he's only able to produce a soft, "oh," because frankly he doesn't know why he's so worked up over someone who he's never even met and that's also dating one of his close teammates. amidst his confused trance, he almost fails to notice his coach call for a pre-game huddle.

he ends up tuning out most of it, now distracted by how jeno keeps glancing back at you and making funny faces, you returning them with the! cutest! little expressions he has ever had the pleasure to lay his eyes upon. the rest of the game is played out with enthusiasm on his part, even going so far as scoring in two more points. he's quick to doubt the truth but donghyuck knows that it's whoever that girl is in the front seats that's making him outdo himself.

the game ends and his team wins, claps and cheers at how the game had turned around in their favor, but donghyuck reverts into a sulky demeanor as soon as he's off the rink and into the locker rooms. he notices jeno, being quick and almost feisty with the other boys that are taking too long for his liking in hogging the showers. donghyuck assumes it has something to do with the (gorgeous, wtf) girl that's waiting on him for a date. hardly fair, he thinks, if only he'd met you earlier by chance, he knows he'd definitely have the ability to charm you out of your wits. after all, he's smart, his face is undeniably agreeable, his sense of humor is top notch, and well, what's not to like?

instead of getting closer to you as he so hoped he would, he ends up becoming more familiar with the routine disappointment, and yet delight, at seeing you show up after practices, games, and eventually, team gatherings outside the rink. he's okay with it, he thinks. but it becomes frequent, even, that you show up out of the blue, with the invitation from jeno, and he's starting to lose his cool when it comes to the simplest of interactions. being included in a conversation with you was no problem, as long as he wasn't talking. eye contact? bearable, but not for more than half a second. and the utmost unfortunate luck for the boy if you ever asked him to pass you a fork, or a spoon, or a goddamned napkin. 

he's not so sure anymore, one sullen night, that he could ever make you his, even if he was gifted the chance. when you're not by jeno's side, you're by renjun's, and if that isn't telling enough about how uncomfy you feel around everyone else, he wouldn't know any better. but even laying within the deepest, darkest parts of night, the screen on his phone displaying your more recent instagram post of you on jeno's back, a sun setting beach painted behind the two of you, he finds his heart yearning to know more about you. he knows you're not one to reach out, to make friends unless in a situation that calls for it, so he supposes now is as good as a time as any to shoot his shot, at being friends.

he braves himself for this hefty task. his breaths are ragged and his heart is already hammering a deep crater inside his chest at just the thought of following through with his plan. his fingers are shaking and his pupils are twitting at about the same pace and it appears that none of his bodily functions seem to be within his control anymore. but before he can press the button, his door is thunked wide open with a hard force, the handle even going so far as to lodge itself neatly into the wall that's now been broken through. donghyuck's mouth is hanging ajar but he's barely surprised to see that the culprit of such heinous and costly action is jeno. lee jeno. 

donghyuck makes swift and subtle actions to shove his phone underneath his pillow but when he takes a good look at the boy's face, he realizes that he didn't need to be so discrete in the first place. jeno's eyes are swollen, and not in the way that suggests he got into a big manly manly fight and came out the victor, but in the way that looks as if his three cats died, all at once, and he'd taken it upon himself to cry for each of their mothers respectively. 

the same eyes rove about the room before settling on the bed, his body following suit but moving as if it were part of another entity entirely. the mattress sinks down low with his body weight and he repositions himself so that he's laying down comfortably, his legs still hung over and down the side. donghyuck can hear jeno's ragged breaths, not unlike his own a minute ago, and he wonders what hell of a day the boy had had to render him into this state of numbed consciousness. but before he can even form the question that sits at the edge of his mind, jeno's voice reverberates lowly in the silence of the room.

"she broke up with me," donghyuck blinks purposefully, "something 'bout how she thinks she might like someone else, fucking bastard."

"is she the bastard?" donghyuck tries to disassociate his feelings from his words and come across as...helpful in lifting his friend's mood.

jeno chuckles, "no, hyuck, she's not the bastard. bastard's the guy who has her heart. i'm glad she told me though, she's never been one to hide things."

"yeah, would've been worse if she dragged it on, huh."

"yeah, a lot worse."

donghyuck's voice almost gets caught within the confines of his rationality, "did she tell you who he- the bastard is?" he sighs inwardly, knowing that this was none of his business whatsoever, but the desire to know seeps into his thoughts. 

jeno sighs as well, "no, not really. she said it was some boy on the team though, might even be you now that i think about it."

"oh," is, yet again, the only thing he is able to produce. 

the new revelations seem to give life to donghyuck. the mere idea that there's a possibility of interest in his direction is something that he thrives off of. mundane tasks like washing the dishes are now enjoyable hobbies, no actual brain work, head empty, thoughts of you exclusively. when it comes to practice, you're no longer there, your presence reduced to hushed talk between the boys and renjun, asking him if you really are the reason jeno's been so out of it, letting easy pucks into the goal left and right. hyuck is relieved, though, that he gets a break, a step back to rethink his crazed emotions. maybe it really was just simple infatuation. maybe it was just because he hadn't gotten laid in awhile. or even just the fact that he's been hanging out with the boys too much and that the first girl he set his eyes on in days ultimately became the protagonist to his daydreams. hell, he is especially glad that you decided it wasn't worth showing your face at the rink for the time being for jeno would've been downright devastated.

that whole paragraph of feelings is bluntly disregarded and thrown off track as he enters the corner cafe a few blocks down from his house and is met with you waving your hand excitedly at him and motioning for him to sit with you. he doesn't hesitate, of course, but makes sure he takes slow and deliberate steps to the window booth you're sitting at just to make sure he at least gets in four deep breaths before he is inevitably subjected to not breathing in your presence.

"hyuck, it's been awhile, i hope this doesn't make you uncomfortable or anything," your face morphs into an expression of realization as it hits you that calling him over was entirely to satisfy your own hopes and dreams. the boy sitting across from you, smiling lightly, might as well be feigning a pleasant disposition, grossed out by the girl that dumped his friend just because she thought she was interested in someone else. by the end of this thought, your voice is reduced to a timid pitch, "you can leave if you want, it's all good."

"actually, i think that it'd be more uncomfortable for you if i left." he feels his heart constrict at the sight and the knowledge that his words enlightened your composure. you take it upon yourself to start some light conversation, not wanting to disclose the reason you'd called him over in the first place just yet. your heart picks up pace, rivaling hyuck's own, and you can't help but think of the sheer likeliness of the luck you'd just encountered. just as you decided to brave up for once and not take advantage of your best friend setting you up on one too many blind dates that were just, too artificial for you, the boy whom you had taken a liking for had shown up before your eyes, breezing through those glass doors as if it were a sign for you to just take charge. 

"and i was telling him-"

"are you free friday?"

"what? oh, what?!"

"i'm asking if you're free friday."

"i- i mean yeah, i have practice at three, but i'm free afterwards."

"let's grab dinner together then."

"oh shoot, okay, like with the boys? 'cause i could ask them if they're down."

"no, i was hoping it could be just us. like a date."

"so, hold the fuck up, you're asking me out on a date?"

"yeah, why…? am i not allowed to do that? is going out on a date with me gonna break bro code or something?"

"n- no, nothing like that. it's just...you can't possibly be serious."

"oh, trust me, i'm dead serious."

"...holy shit, i'm in."

donghyuck fucks up big time at practice, his cheeks are way too hot and he's sweating gallons per second. his jaw is clenching and unclenching in hopes that the action might make him a little more attentive while on ice but instead, he finds his eyes roving over to your figure in the stands far more often than he'd like to admit. he thinks, no he hopes, that jeno is okay with the fact that you're not here for him but rather the 'boy on the team' he'd unknowingly referred to a few months back. hyuck knows, though, that renjun is definitely not okay with it, the aforementioned boy throwing just as many glares at hyuck as hyuck's many glances towards you.

practice is over long after he hoped it would be but you're patient and supportive nonetheless. his eyes crinkle and his smile widens as you sidle into him for warmth in the cool air of the ice rink. hyuck solves this by removing the hoodie from his own, accustomed body, and gently tugs it over your shivering one. he thinks he handles the wave of adoration that consumes him pretty well, even able to ease the corners of his lips down a tad bit. "you're cute," you pull at his cheeks and suddenly things are not so easy to handle. 

donghyuck does eventually get used to all the sneaky shit you pull just to get his ears red and shy smile blossoming, but he knows he'll never get used to the sight of you in the stands, adorning his spare 66 jersey with everything else fading, and fading further away until it's just you and him, and him and you.

copyright © 2020 rouiyan all rights reserved.

✧ end note — i hope you find someone that holds you in such high esteem as hyuck does in this fic, i'm sure you deserve it <3

[orbitariums]

the man out of time | steve rogers

first ask anon asked: Omg requests are open ☺️. Time Traveler reader meets Steve in the 40s. Steve and her hit it off but she skips around time and just doesn't want to stay, even though she really likes Steve. She goes back to modern time and bumps into Steve again. They are both super confused so they talk to each other again, they still like each other and he ends up learning of her powers and it all makes sense. Sorry for the long paragraph hehe. Hope you are well! 💌 -first ask anon

note: i was sooo fucking excited to write this it just took me a little while!!! of course this request would be your lovely idea first ask anon!! this might not be historically accurate but it is what it is. it's cute n fluffy n funny i hope y'all enjoy :)))

also here’s a playlist i made for it!!! click here ♡ 

the man out of time | steve rogers + reader

         You were really just trying to go back a few years. But your time travel powers worked a little too well. Like, you were fully in another decade - your existence hadn't even been a thought at this point in time. And yet, here you were, decked out in a rockabilly swing dress that you didn't even own. Apparently with time traveling came the plus of looking culturally relevant. Never mind the fact that you didn't know where you were, and didn't know anybody here. At the very least, you knew how to get back. But it would be too dangerous to try going back to the present until a few hours had passed.

    So for those few hours, you would be here - in this crowded dance hall, where many were gathered for some type of party. It seemed to be an important party though, because there were lots of people in uniform walking around and many important looking women and men. You remembered that you were, of course, in the 40s, during World War II. Did this mean you were a part of history? Shivers ran down your spine at the thought.

    You were leaning against the wall just observing your surroundings, taking it all in. Even if you hadn't meant to get here, that didn't make it any less interesting. A bit stressful? Yes. But your thirst for knowledge, which got you labeled "mad scientist" in your hometown (though really you were just a bookish girl with an insatiable need to know and learn more), overran all your nervous thoughts.

They could only hold you back. You wanted to know so much - to ask questions, socialize, even explore. But you decided that just watching was your best option. You didn't want to cause a glitch in the matrix by talking to someone and running the risk of changing the outcome of history as we know it.

     So you were minding your business, leaning against the wall with your foot settled on the wall behind you, gazing around the room. Gazing at history. For years you had only seen this era in black and white, now it was fully blooming in color. It was such a marvel to see.

    A deep voice caught you off guard as a man sidled up next to you,

    "Parties aren't your scene either, huh?"

     Naturally, you responded, because that was your first instinct, forgetting that you weren't supposed to talk to anyone. Still gently gazing out at the crowd of people in front of you, you responded, a distracted smile on your red painted lips,

    "You could say that."

You turned to face the man, about to excuse yourself just so you could refrain from talking to him (because again, "possible glitch in the matrix!" your brain screamed at you). And as you turned to face him, it was like his body appeared before his face. He was huge, hulkish, even, almost unnaturally so. His shirt buttons were nearly popping off, and your eyes were doing the same. But his body couldn't possibly be any comparison to his face, his existence.

You doubled back, having to refrain the potential wild reaction of throwing your hand over your lips. Still, you ogled at him in surprise and shock.

    Earlier you had suspected that this party was for important people, but what you were seeing now wasn't near anything you could expect. Because standing in front of you now was the Captain America. As in Steve Grant Rogers, the man out of time.

    Your heart was racing, and your brain had to take a few steps just to catch up with your body's reaction. Here Steve Rogers was in the flesh, someone you couldn't even imagine speaking to as regularly as this in the present. Someone you could only dream of seeing. And knowing that you were talking to Captain America had you realizing that you were genuinely a part of history. That now, whatever the word "now" meant, you existed in some little compartment in Steve Rogers' huge, not yet frozen, brain.

Was this something that should've worried you? Yes, and it did. You didn't even want to talk to a regular person, now imagine all the things that could happen with you talking to Captain America. A quick calculation in your fast running brain told you that there were endless possibilities, and not all of them were good.

     But your shock and intrigue clouded your better judgment, and you were standing in front of him with nothing better to say or do, just stammering.

     "Cap-Captain," you breathed out hard, nearly gasping for air. You could only imagine how stupid you must look. You suddenly wondered if your reaction made you look out of place. Then you wondered how out of place you looked to begin with, and suddenly it became a bit hotter, and the collar of your dress felt suffocating and tight. "Captain, Steve. Captain America."

    You swallowed hard, and felt your eyes travel down to his nametag bearing the title "Cpt. Rogers." As if he needed one, you almost scoffed. You were somewhere between being incredibly scared and going full on geeky fangirl. You wouldn't call yourself a stan of the present day Captain America, but it was still pretty damn cool to see him, and your naturally nerdy disposition had you fascinated with the fact that you even got this chance.

     Steve raised his brows, but had a smile on his face.

   "That's me. It's nice to meet you," he put out his hand for you to shake and you took it, your entire body nearly trembling with some electric shock when you felt his strong hand grasp yours in a warm, friendly handshake.

    "I'm... shaking your hand. Wow. This is fu-" you cut yourself off, remembering who you were talking to and the conservative nature of the time period you were in, clearing your throat. You also realized that beyond profanity, there was no way in hell you could talk how you normally would in modern times. You'd be found out, or throw everyone off. You continued, "This is amazing. I... really, I can't believe it. It's an honor to meet you."

    Glancing around the room, you started to notice that there were signs indicating that this gathering was essentially, a celebration of Steve and the other soldiers. For all your smarts, you had definitely missed a huge clue of where you were.

    Steve liked you already. You were a breath of fresh air. Lots of people acted over-excited to see him, but it was different with you. It was genuine, thrilling, and kind of cute. There was something about you. It wasn't off, per say, but it was almost strange, in a good way. Like you were walking around with a completely different air around you, like you didn't fit in, but somehow it worked. He just couldn't put his finger on it.

     "Well, thank you," Steve nodded, and he glanced down at your hands, still melded together.

But it seemed you were the one who wasn't letting go, squeezing hard. He raised his brows, then looked up at your face, which gave away all he needed to know. You were transfixed, studying him, and too in it to bring yourself back to earth. All these things, though, he greeted with a warm smile and a warm heart.

    You realized that you were gawking, and that you were squeezing his hand far too tight, as if you were the one with enhanced strength. You laughed nervously and dropped his hand, running your own against your forehead.

     "My apologies," you murmured.

     "All the same. Where are my manners, I haven't even asked you your name yet," he grinned, and you really tried quite hard not to get lost in the depth of those blue eyes, so charming and naturally friendly. But you couldn't help yourself, your eyes darting between his and blinking fast, twitterpated.

    Seeing him up close really put things in perspective. He was handsome, he was Captain America, and he had talked to you for no real reason. You were now determined to find out why he came up to you before the end of the night. Then you would go back.

    "I'm... Y/N."

    "Y/N. It's nice to meet you, Y/N," Steve nodded, and you felt your cheeks go warm with blush.

You felt stupid and girlish, blushing to death in front of this hunk of a man, knowing he probably got this all the time. You pushed hair behind your ear, your eyes gazing down at the floor,

    "So... how- how are things?"

You were well aware of how awkward you sounded, hyper-aware, even. But Steve found it endearing, and he liked talking to you.

    "Things?" he repeated, lightly poking a bit of fun at you.

You chuckled to yourself and looked up at him, a small smirk of a smile on your face. You worked up the nerve to make eye contact with him rather than have your eyes flicker all over the place, and you let out a hefty breath through your nostrils.

    "Like, life. Is what I meant," you shook your head playfully, poking fun at yourself, and Steve grinned, laughing quietly.

    "I know, I'm just teasing you. That is a heavy question, though."

     "Really?" you were intrigued - the part of your brain that ran nonstop wanted to know more. "How so?"

Steve shrugged,

      "I guess no one really asks me that. Not these days."

       You snorted,

     "I can imagine it's a lot of bullshit and work all the time."

You only realized what came out of your mouth when you caught sight of Steve's face. He was a mixture of shocked, offended, and honestly? Fascinated. It didn't take your swearing for him to realize that there was something wonderfully different about you, but hearing such language just confirmed his thoughts further. And he appreciated your brutal honesty and ability to resonate with him, even if it came with language. And surprisingly, it didn't make him recoil, it pulled him in.

    "Wow," Steve dragged out the word - it was all he could see, and looked at you with an impressed smile.

     You bit down on your lip,

    "Woops."

    "You know... we should probably be dancing," Steve joked, and you shook your head playfully, but also frantically. There was no way you'd be able to keep up with this kind of dance, and you were not going to be the girl who everyone could see Steve Rogers dancing with.

"Oh no," you waved your hand warily. "I couldn't possibly. I'm— I'm a terrible dancer. Sorry."

"That was a joke. I'm not too good myself," Steve chuckled, and for a moment you were each just laughing, looking at each other, gazing into each other's eyes as if you were the only two at the event. As if Steve didn't have probably a million responsibilities just within this night. He was enjoying your presence a lot for someone he'd just met.

You folded your arms, bouncing gently on the balls of your feet and swaying back and forth,

"If you don't dance at these things, then what do you do?"

Steve brought his arm up, scratching the nape of his neck as he squinted a little in contemplation. As your eyes followed his movements, your brain blanked -- all you could spell out right now was "muscle" and "bulge." You found yourself wide-eyed, blinking harshly.

"Make speeches, be put on the spot, talk work."

"Anything fun?" you questioned, and he laughed, appreciating the challenge.

"Leave with a girl?" Steve replied, although it was more of a hopeful question.

You grinned, looking up at him. Was he seriously courting you right now? It seemed as though nothing should feel impossible to you, not when in the year of 2020 you had time traveled back to the 40s. But this felt unreal.

"And do what?" you smiled, and Steve became slightly flustered, then placing his hands in his pockets and rocking back and forth. He cocked his head to the side, again replying with a question,

"We could go on a walk. Visit my favorite diner for milkshakes on me?"

You couldn't help but beam at all his suggestions, your eyes glimmering as yours locked with his. You nodded, much too calmly in comparison to the way you felt inside - inflamed and jittery. Nevermind that you had fallen into exactly what you were trying to avoid - it was a beautiful fall anyway. Besides, who would you be to turn down Captain America?

"That's just fine with me. Let's get out of here, captain," you quipped, taking the initiative and linking arms with him, feeling his strong arm wrap around yours.

Talking and walking with Steve couldn't have been any more fun. Somehow it was like you both freed yourselves, rebelling and escaping from something that didn't suit you before. You didn't know what was to come next, and you certainly hadn't expected this. Anything could happen. Although you were nervous, it was just the right amount. You were excited, you felt natural walking the streets with him, arms linked together, gazing up at him like a puppy. Just being in the presence of such greatness felt like a dream.

And Steve was just as wonderful as they made him out to be, even more. In the time you spent together, you'd learned so much about him. He was kind and bright, made you feel comfortable and safe. You pulled humor and lightheartedness out of him, made him feel comfortable. He was glad to be here with you, away from everything else. He was proud of himself for working the nerve up to talk to you, for not ignoring the fact that he was so drawn to this stranger. And it was the best decision he'd made that night.

You were each strolling down the dark streets, only lit by street lights and the dim lights that came from people's windows as they got ready for bed. It felt reassuring to know that even while you were surrounded by unfamiliarity, you could find resonance in all those people, looking through their windows and wondering what they were having for dinner, imagining the ladies taking off their jewelry as they cuddled up in bed with a lover.

"I feel like I'm gonna be on a sugar high," you chuckled, sipping some of your milkshake.

Steve grinned down at you,

"Mike's Milkshakes will do that to you."

You sighed, glancing around at everything. It was beautiful here in the dark, even in the midst of war, with everything going on. Before, you could only imagine what these nights would be like. You wondered if you would've intentionally traveled back to this time instead of by accident. Considering the way things were outside of this moment in particular, you probably wouldn't. But you were glad you did. This felt like a beautiful mistake.

You pulled Steve onto a corner of an alleyway, the two of you basking under the glow of the street light.

"Steve," you said his name gently, but as if it were of the utmost importance.

He looked down at you, becoming nervous himself, feeling his heart beat in his chest. You were undoubtedly beautiful, and the two of you were more alone than you had ever been in the past two hours you had spent together, quite literally just walking and talking, sharing stories and time together. He felt close to you, towering over you, and it wasn't any less nerve wracking for you.

"Yeah?" he uttered out, and you found yourself opening and closing your mouth, trying to find the right way for the words to come out.

You just smiled, reaching your hand up and sort of awkwardly patting his shoulder, then letting your hand trail down his chest gently. He looked down at your hand, then back at you, waiting for your next words.

"Thank you. This night was so beautiful, I can't thank you enough."

At the corner of Steve's lips tugged a smile, and his eyes grew needy and hopeful,

"Don't tell me this is you saying goodbye."

You felt a pang in your chest as he said that. You hadn't considered the fact that you would have to say goodbye at some point, and you knew that meant goodbye forever. But you had been so caught up in your wonder that you hadn't thought of the moment to say goodbye. And yet, it seemed like that moment was creeping up on you.

You didn't want to look at it with sadness, it was as natural as could be, but you still wished you could stay for a little longer. You knew you had to go though, and as magical as this was, you didn't want to live in a world where you had no basis. You belonged in the modern world, it was where you should stay.

"Almost," you laughed slightly. "I do have a question for you, though."

    "Sure," Steve shrugged.

It was the one thing you really wanted to know: why you? Why had Steve chosen to talk to you, of all people? He didn't know you and you weren't boasting an important title. So, why you? You wondered. If you had some secret power to attract people like Steve Rogers into your life, you wanted to know what it was.

    You cleared your throat before you asked this question, suddenly feeling a bit shy,

    "Why did you come up to me? And talk to me... it's been on my mind all night."

Steve took in a breath and shoved his hands in his pockets.

    "I... don't know. I guess I saw a little bit of myself in you, crazy as it sounds."

     "Captain America is a wallflower?" you retorted jokingly, and he chuckled, shaking his head.

     "I just mean, you seemed like you were trying to find a way. And I'm constantly doing that. And something about you... is different. I like that."

You knew exactly what that something was. You literally didn't belong here. You weren't from here. Steve must have sensed that, even if he didn't fully realize it.

    "Hm. Well, whatever it is, I'm glad you approached me because of it. I've had the best night, really. I wish I could stay longer."

    "Oh, don't go. Not just yet," Steve grasped your hand and squeezed.

    "I can't. I have... somewhere to be," you smiled tearfully as you looked at your hands intertwined.

    Steve swallowed. He didn't intend on getting hooked on you as fast as he did, but he did. And now that he was hooked, you were leaving. It was a bittersweet moment, but he understood you had to go— it was like you had some purpose elsewhere, and that was clear to him. It was almost strange.

    "I understand," Steve replied, smiling at the touch of your hand on his, your thumb rubbing against his thumb. "I'm glad we met, Y/N. Can I see you again?"

You grinned. You certainly couldn't make any promises,

    "Maybe. But for now I have to go."

    "At least let me walk you home," Steve pressed, and you shook your head.

    "It's much further than I think you'll want to go," was all you said. Steve would've pressed more but for some reason your answer felt definite and true.

Good night Steve."

    "Good night."

Before you knew it, you were reaching up on his tippy toes to kiss his cheek, feeling his skin turn red hot beneath your soft lips. He held onto your waist gently as you kissed his cheek, and when you pulled away, you stayed there in his grasp for a moment, eyes lingering on his. You wanted more, so much more, but you had had enough already.

    You didn't want to get cocky with time. You patted his chest and took one last look at him with a smile and glimmering eyes. Then, you turned away. As Steve watched you walk down the alleyway, it was almost like you vanished into thin air.

| | |

It had been a week since your beloved encounter with Steve Rogers. It still didn't feel real, in fact you wrote down every detail in your diary so that if it were a dream, it wouldn't wither away. But it was as real as real could get. It wasn't the time traveling that surprised you, you knew that to be natural. It was the experience you'd had on your trip.

You couldn't tell anybody, not that they would believe you to begin with. You didn't want to tell anybody anyway. This was your experience for keeping. You wouldn't share this with anyone else.

    You were on your way to work, the memories of that night still fresh in your head, a cup of coffee in hand. You wondered if Mike's Milkshakes still operated. Like Steve, you too lived in New York. There was no reason for it not to exist. You would be sorely upset if it didn't - it was truly one of the greatest shakes you'd had in your lifetime.

     You were looking down at your phone and typing, coffee in one hand, phone in the other. The hustle of New York was nothing, you could handle it.

    Until you couldn't. You nearly got knocked on the floor by someone who you bumped into- or maybe he bumped into you, it was hard to say. Either way, it was a wild collision. And your coffee fell, and spilled on the both of you.

     What was funny was that the two of you were apologizing like crazy, stumbling to pick the things up that had dropped, speaking over each other.

    "Oh my god I'm so sorry," you stammered. "I wasn't watching where I was going."

    "All the same. Where are my manners?" the man asked, and you chuckled with a scoff.

     "New York will do that to you."

You were each kneeling on the ground and picking things up, scatterbrained. But you both looked up at each other at the same time, catching each other's eyes. And in that moment, something clicked for the two of you. Even when you left that day, you weren't really leaving. Because Steve was right here, a week and a few decades later. You blinked, tried to make sure your mind wasn't playing tricks on you. But it really was him. Captain America. And he wasn't dressed in full attire, but he was still there.

    You made a face, furrowing your brows. All the calculations in the world couldn't have prepared you for this happening. You stared at him, speechless.

    He broke the silence, staring at you just as intensely. The crisp blue of his eyes was piercing, staring into your soul.

    "I know you from somewhere," he said, with absolute certainty.

Your heart dropped. This was exactly what you wanted to avoid when time traveling. Not that you even expected anything like this to happen. You became bashful, shaking your head and blushing, hurrying to stand up, but Steve followed your motions as you stood.

    "No," you shook your head and laughed lightly, looking down so he wouldn't see your face.

    "I'm sure I do..." he squinted, still staring intensely at you.  You looked up, pushed your hair out of your eyes. You couldn't handle his eyes on you, not when you weren't even looking at him.

     His eyes locked with yours again and he seemed to be exploring your eyes, wide and scared and nervous, hopeful. You hoped he'd say he was mistaken. You know you would love another chance with Steve, but that night was to be fully over with. For reasons you already stated.

    But gazing deep into your unforgettable eyes, which had glimmered so brightly, it was like a switch went off in his brain, bringing him all those years back. To that one night. He squinted. How could he remember? It seemed so artificial, like it was a memory that had been falsely implanted into his brain. But that was the effect of you- you had changed his history.

    He opened his mouth, then closed it again, then dared to speak,

    "Y/N."

He said it as if it was an answer, not like he was asking if it was you. Again with absolute certainty.

You pouted, almost cringing as you answered, squeezing your eyes shut. You felt disappointed in yourself, for letting this happen, for opening this window of possibility to begin with. Your life and his life would be changed more than you were ready for.

    You sighed and took in a deep breath,

    "Hi."

Steve was still furrowing his brows at you, gazing at you with every intention,

    "I don't understand. How..."

    It surprised himself that he remembered you, just based off of one night. But you were hard to forget. And it was even more mind boggling that he was seeing you again, the both of you in the same shape as when you had first met. Had you been frozen too? No, it couldn't be. It had to be-

    "Time travel," you blurted. Your heart was racing. "I... I time traveled. I can... do that."

      "What, that's your show and tell?" Steve joked, and you felt a little less worried. At least he wasn't angry. And it felt better talking to him in present day, at a time where you both belonged.

    "You could say that. Listen, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to happen, that night was a mistake."

    "Mistake?"

    "I- I mean... it shouldn't have happened. And it was great, really, I can't stop thinking about it. But it shouldn't have happened. I didn't even mean to... it just happened. I just got lucky."

Steve looked at you. All those years ago he had sensed that there was something different about you, he just couldn't put his finger on it. Now he knew.

    "I knew there was something different about you that night. You were glowing with this... this thing... modernity, I guess," Steve nodded.

You seemed good enough. He couldn't sense any bad intentions from you, and he had a good feel for those things. It was just you. It was why the situation didn't concern him any further.

    "I'm surprised you even remember me," you laughed.

    "Remember you?" Steve repeated, incredulous. "How could I forget?"

He held eye contact with you when he said that, and it got you blushing, shrinking down and shaking your head,

    "I'm sorry."

    Now Steve raised his brows,

    "I can't see what for."

    "I just didn't mean for any of this to happen. I feel like I've disturbed you."

You apologized, but when you said it it made you realize you didn't really have much to apologize for. Steve didn't seem very upset... at all. It was just your brain telling you that you could mess things up.

    Steve chuckled quietly, shaking his head,

    "No... you haven't. And you didn't that night, either."

    "Mhm," was all you could hum out.

    "But if that's your idea of disturbing me... I think you should disturb me some more. Maybe you can disturb me over coffee. I'll make up for it," he gestured to the spilled coffee on the ground.

You had probably never blushed so hard in your life. Once again, Steve Rogers was actually hitting on you. And all the silly worries and blabber from your brain couldn't stop the feeling you got when you talked to him, when you were with him.

    "Right now?" you asked stupidly, feeling entranced by him yet again.

He smirked playfully,

    "Yeah. Unless you wanna travel back in time for it."

note: THIS WAS SO FUN TO WRITE!!!

[lcadelacruz]

It runs through our veins to tell lies about our demons; self paragraph

what: a telling of the night Ara made a dire mistake and destroyed Lia when: 1940′s (Lia and Ara are both 18-25 years old) where: outskirts of Corinth Bay tw: torture, death, curses/hexes,  mentions: @aramayer

It's never any different. At least, that's all Lia can figure out from piecing together memories that are barely there, tethered to the high rising moon that she's always found some sense of awe in, until it existed purely to pick an illness in her stomach and an ache against her spine. Never any different, because even now, seven months after the fire, Lia already feels darkened familiarity seep into her bones. Familiarity that she doesn't want, as it paves the way for nothing but pain, and truly; she'd rather be shocked by it than note the way it curls around her limbs and tightens as if to suck every ounce of life from her first, the first few drops of rain before a downpour. “Ara, Stop.” The titillated groan that surpasses grit teeth as she catches the root of a tree with a rather defiant kick is guttural, one that most definitely catches further discomfort deep within her spine, “Aren’t we far enough out yet?” Not nearly the complaint she wanted to make, but there were truly only a handful of times she could stomach even hearing herself say she couldn’t do this again. “No.” It’s rough and harsh, reminds her far too much of their father and like the creep of spiders legs, she feels the prickle across her chest that feels something akin to guilt. They wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her. Here, being relative and not necessarily pinpointing Ara and Lia, traipsing through the heavy wooded area in some effort to beat out their bodies splitting in two. Here being, the sullen look in their mother’s eyes whenever Lia moved too quickly and broke something she sure as hell didn’t intend to. Or, the way her father’s adams apple would bobble as he swallowed back the blame she knew he felt in never accepting the idea of allowing their daughter to grow up more aware of the consequences of any choice she might make --- choices, like running into a burning building after someone who was surely, already dead. They wouldn’t be here, with Ara casting a weary glance over his shoulder, uncertain of how much longer Lia would be able to keep her own feet before she collapsed beneath the shatter of bone and tried like hell to fight it, like she had every other month since. 

“Come on, Lia. We’re not there yet.” Muttered far too quietly beneath his breath to truly be intended for her ears as he cast blackened hues ahead. Years had given him as much of an edge on shifting as one could ever hope to find, a momentary familiarity that didn’t allow the venom of pain seep into bones until absolutely necessary, something only noted in the clench of his jaw and the ever present curl of knuckles. “It’s just a little ---.” Truly, if he hadn’t been so accustomed to the snap of bone, or absolutely certain he’d just seen what looked like a shadow of another person up ahead, he might have easily written the resounding crack off as something akin to the final protest of a branch in the hefty wind. Though, when it created a cavern for the pitching scream to echo so hauntingly, even that felt impossible as he rounded just in time to see Lia’s knees buckle beneath her as her spine shifted far more dramatically than he’d expected it to so soon. 

“Lia?” His head tipped to the sky as he backtracked, the blackened abyss above barely peeking through the canopy enough for him to see how high the moon rested above. Calloused hands gripped her shoulders to keep her from the ground and Lia only saw shapes beyond the boiling beneath her skin. “You’re fine, you’re still here.”

A void in time, nestled beneath her collarbone and tore the air that barely existed within her lungs with each bone that snapped beneath the pressure of balled up hands. Her own fingernails tearing the palm of her hand open to spill crimson into the air. A lengthy heave had her reaching for him and conscious thought only told her that she wished she could be six years old again. Six years old and none the wiser of how much weight the prospect of death held. “I don’t want..--” Teeth caught her lip and broke through far too quickly for her own blood to not fill her throat with a startling cough. “N-not again. I..-- I can’t. --” Wheezed out through the myriad of ribs that shattered under pressure, the harrowing screaming no doubt fulfilling any living rumor of a haunted forest. “Ara, make it.. Make--.” It stop.

Maybe, if she’d been listening closely enough, she might have heard the remnants of her brothers heart shatter against her plea. The living knowledge that there wasn’t a damn fucking thing he could do to help her far too heavy for one man. “Lia, listen to me,” He swallowed back, feeling the stringent burning between his shoulder blades. Time was always running out for them. “Stop fighting it, please.. Just..-- give in. The more you fight it the worse it’s gonna’ be.” But, he already knew his sister, and the defiant shake of her head that buckled within the resounding sharp edges of her crying might have almost made him laugh at how utterly stubborn she could be. “Same as always, okay? When you wake up, you stay where you are. Whether I’m with you or not, do not move until I find you.” His hands lift from her shoulders to cup her face, but she’s looking through him and he knows it. There’s nothing there, the blackened state of her eyes ripping the once animated depth of her usual mahogany hues feels like losing her entirely, but he knows, with the burning up of her cheeks beneath his hands, he hasn’t yet. “Give into it, Lia. It’ll be okay.”

She wished it was quicker. Though, maybe it was simply a difference of perception, because she never remembers time passing so slowly. There’s a lot of things she doesn’t remember from each and every passing shift she’s suffered with. Firstly, she doesn’t remember the ice like feeling that slips across the back of her neck. Needle like, and seeking something within the contorting stretch of bone within. Usually, everything was just, fire. Just fire. Her entire world being pulled into the flames of Alice’s home all over again as it tears at her side and rips her inside out and maybe that’s what always seemed to make it feel all the more difficult. Lia never felt the break of her bones -- the pain, of course, she never missed. But the literal snap of limbs truly never painted itself as just that. Instead, every twist and bend her body was never intended to make, simply felt as if the flames that engulfed the Miller’s front door, the fallen beam, the staircase, found more in her than the home it intended to destroy. And maybe that was simply how it’d always be; fire found a place within her bones and burnt even when she didn’t want it to, because that’s what fire did. Secondly, she doesn’t remember ever hearing that voice with the exception of one awfully vivid memory. A voice that filters in and out of existence so quickly and so quietly that Lia can’t truly be sure whether it’s in her head or not. A voice that speaks her name in the same way she says it herself, and it’s enough to convince her that it’s little more than her subconscious trying to push further unwanted thoughts to light. That it’s whatever piece of her is still fighting against her body’s need to quite literally tear itself apart, begging to draw her back to the light. The wager pitches towards it being in her head, until the shifting of shadows, a man moving between the trees beyond her brother, to catch the final slip of lucid thought before everything in this world, and the next, goes black. 

The bitter taste on his tongue is something he knows he’ll never forget. It seemed, the closer he comes to finding his sister, the weakened scent that he could use to pinpoint her with his eyes closed slipped through the trees with a creeping uncertainty clipped to his shoulders, the further such a taste seeped into his system. The thick and acrid on his tongue, the metallic echo of blood was beyond comforting, the blackened state of memory as empty and abysmal as it ever was on the tail end of a shift. Ara had once learnt to accept it, the slope of damning things all control is lost to the second he feels the shifting of his spine, but it’s never, truly, made it any easier to swallow back the uncertainty of the damage inflicted at his own teeth. It lives in the permeated edges of everything he simply won’t ever forget, there’s just something about picking skin, grime and blood from beneath his fingertips that simply stains. It’s the same bitter taste beneath his tongue now, that tells Ara, that no --- they weren’t far enough out, or close enough to alone, as he’d hoped they would have been. 

Knowledge of the taste alone leaves him a little dazed, picking apart what he knew with a further pressing discomfort in knowing the blood he could smell was quite literally on his own hands and somehow still, mottled with the ever familiar scent of his sister. It turned his stomach, or he thought it did. What it did, was in fact nothing short of a simple twist in his gut when the trees ahead parted and Ara was caught on the precipice of something else entirely as his eyes adjusted to the lowly glimmer of flame. The hitch of breath that wedged itself against the near immediate lump in his throat felt akin to a desolate plane and despite whatever desperation might have itched to claw at the rough of his palms, Ara knew he’d choke on it before finding a way to dislodge it. 

She knows this place, the space between sleep and awake. A place that doesn’t really seem real and maybe she’s still dreaming, but she doesn’t remember her dreams and sometimes she’s convinced that she simply doesn’t dream at all. That the lull in her conscious seeps deeper than even that and has since obliterated any sense of safe haven in her own mind, created to draw her from the newly bitten horrors of her own life. She knows this place, only, never has she found herself suspended so precariously on the tipping edge of pain, and the strike of panic that carves its way through her chest curled within the realization, that she can’t move. 

Lia feels everything. Figuratively, most days. While her mother’s rather icy exterior found reflection in her daughter, Aerón De La Cruz has never shied away from the idea that their youngest child was always something of a bleeding heart once the precipice of frozen and sharp icicles snapped away to reveal the cavernous pit that housed the rising tide of everything she felt. Now, its within the tepid tingle in her fingertips as they extend from the fists that once grew numb, the ache that presses against the cage of her ribs and every muscular shift that leaves her wincing in the come down every shift offers her in those few passing moments. None of it shocks her, and like waking from a disturbed slumber, the groan that settles in the thick of her throat never makes it out alive, as her hands pull to press palms to her face and never once budge. There’s no rope, no chains —- not a single tether holding her in place, yet still, any want for movement proves helpless.

There’s no real decisive moment when she can figure out what she feels next — the unwanted burn of flame far too close to her face, or the heavy scent of blood that feels so thick beneath her nose she can taste it and when doe hues finally pry themselves open despite the blinding wave of heat, she’s not sure there’s a lump big enough that might have successfully sought to block the scream that splits the coming hours of dawn so vividly, so broken and piercing that time surely shifted with it. Color drains from her face and she pitches backwards, kicking heels in the dirt to no avail as she remains strung up by some phantom force. “Ara!..--- Ara!” Immediate panic settles in her bones, within the petrified edges of each cry that splits the air and the only thing she knows, is her brother is out there, she can feel him looking for her and before her, sinking in ash and darkness, it’s near impossible to mistake what she finds herself knelt before. Protruding limbs and faces, empty and lifeless, torn from their place and piled atop one another. Bloodied and torn, cast aside and discarded as if any ounce of life were ripped from them purely for the sake of it —— like wolves.

There’s some weight to the passing thought that might have arisen had she even a moment to breathe, that panic had recently moved in and made itself right at home in the cavern of her chest, bringing fear with it, but the turning of her stomach is violent. The pungent smell that has long since found itself entwined with death settles within her nose and makes her head spin. The blank faces eerie in the fire light painting her world into the darkest depths of shadows, Lia’s only thought before she cast hues away and doubles with the heaving in her lungs as everything within her stomach came up, that she couldn’t do this —- nothing could have prepared her for what lay before her, even less so the mottled edges of implication that carved their way through her throat and buried itself within her chest. 

Her eyes stung against the burning, the volatile hammering of a singular thought against the forefront of her mind, painful beyond any snapping of bone. And the estranged cry that slipped between the cracks echoed so loudly in her own head, she completely missed the oncoming footsteps beyond the fire. Death, was not something she knew much of -- not something she’d found a way to stomach, the pressing notion that the thing that lived within her held no ounce of the bleeding heart Lia had. It knew no mercy, and offered no freedom from it. Pressure built around her wrists and tugged forcefully until Lia finds it near impossible not to look up through her own daze, the gilded wince that draws hues upwards across the bright light until the faces staring back at her sear themselves permanent into the inside of her eyelids. Haunted — red with anger, and distraught with something bruised against their soul. She’d never seen anyone look at her like that before, with all the hatred one could manage, and then some but with every gaping hole in her memory, the feverish heat that pressed against her chest, heavy and suffocating the longer it lived, Lia sought frantically to piece something together. “Please, I.. —-” A dark haired man stepped forward, his arm shot out as he wretched the air from her lungs and curled sharp fingertips around her jaw to press so forcefully she could have otherwise sworn he could tear it right from its place. Pressure watered in doe hues and she buckled slightly beneath his hold, struggling as her lungs objected with an imminent grapple for air, nails digging into the palms of her hands in hopes it might steady the oncoming blur in her vision. Something spat in a language she didn't know fell across her face like acid and it jarred Lia to piece what she knew together as she looked between the strewn bodies of two boys, only a few years older than her and those stood around the fire light, falling to the reputation of words she didn't know just yet. A strange tongue she’d only ever heard mention of tore the silence of the crackling fire in half. Hues widened and she struggled with invisible constraints. Genasi. "No.. No I didn't…" Had she done it? She could always lie through her teeth, it'd become somewhat a talent after so many years, but now… now she didn't know what existed as the truth and what she could twist to her own betterment. The painful realization that it likely didn’t matter what she did, or didn’t do useless, as far too many years had passed since her mother had told of the discernment, the  discredit any sense of humanity lost to those so readily severing their connectin to Hecate, to let a passable hatred slip between myth and legend. Allowing it to become all too clear that far too many of those with magic at the tips of their fingers, only saw the animal in them as an advantage, and rarity lay within those willing to accept a werewolf for everything they couldn’t control, and everything they were, foremost. "I didn't know. I swear I --  I didn't know! I didn’t hurt anyone, I sw--swear!" A cold brush of air slid in against her back, the frozen press of touch gliding across the back of her neck attached to the shiver down her spine, familiar at best as her name carried across the ghost like whisper. Far too difficult to forget the pitching details that seared like scars into memory of one single night seven months ago. The shift of shadow beyond those chanting drew her attention and Lia dug her knees into the ground beneath, stones and twigs biting into flesh without apology as she made some attempt to leer forward. Such familiarity jarred the organ within her chest and cast the piercing glow of the moon above as a light to lead her, only, she’d never really managed to pluck luck from the sky so easily as desperation filled her lungs in the form of words and intention that even she considered the breach of insanity. “Please..--” Russet hues pinned the flickering shadow, “I know you’re.. You’ve been watching me..” The chanting grew louder and something twisted in the depth of her shoulder so sharply she cringed, “Whoever you are, you were there.. In the house..-” Teeth dug into the dry, cracked spread of her lesser lip, her own blood spilling into her mouth as she bit back the trying whimper of her skin boiling. “M..--make them stop.” The same voice that carried her name across haunting winds, reverberating against the inside of her skull in a growing echo of laughter and she thought, there was nothing that could feel closer to death than that. “Ar--..Ara!” 

Only, she’s been wrong far more times than she’s ever been right and the heat that once built within the amber flame before her dies out. Fire still flickers in the eerie glow of the moon above and a wind rips up everything until even the hollow recess of sound itself seems suspended in the haunting curvature of her screaming, beyond the chanting that grows louder; as if people stood all around her now. The weight of her heated breath visible in the lowly puff of air she barely manages in the now ice like pitch in temperature, Lia finds it hard to believe that any of this is real, that this isn’t just a blindingly convincing nightmare that she can’t wake herself up from. Shadow shifts, falling to pieces in wisps of smoke and it’s all she can do to keep herself from buckling beneath the weight that she didn’t want to be alone as she pulls against invisible restraints again. Not alone, not here. “No..-- No, don’t.. Don’t leave me here, don’t…---” Her voice suspends itself in her throat, caught against something she can’t dislodge and for a second, she’s certain she’s choking. Oxygen burns up replaced by flame and the idea of suffocating on little more than thin air doesn’t seem so bad anymore as everything within the petite frame of the young wolf implodes and tears skin from bone. A reflective making of every wound left upon the flesh of those strewn before her. 

Certain sounds can never be unheard, never be forgotten and exist years later to echo the shifting change of time and space unlike any memory can hold for too long. Ara is sure he’ll never live long enough to draw the shrill scream that tears through the forest so violently he’s certain it’s formed a physical presence and ripped through the canopy above to leave its mark on everything it touches. But he can’t move. He can’t will his legs to do what he knows they’re perfectly capable of to draw him into the light as he watches, frozen; petrified in the wake of his sisters torture. Dark matter shifts from its place among the dead at his sisters feet in trails of mist, slipping through every well worn curvature of spell work that he has no idea how to circumvent until it disappears beneath Lia’s skin and bleeds black from every wound that slowly tears at her body. He knows what guilt tastes like. It’s metallic, thick, acrid, and bleeds crimson into his mouth. There’s no doubting what he’s done --- and there’s even less doubt suspended in knowing his baby sister doesn’t have reason to be caught at the tip of his own consequence. Though, perhaps, the cruel makings of the world they knew had painted such consequences in the most torturous manner as the impossibility of Lia’s survival dawns on him as her bones snap and shift. He knows illness, but nothing like the turning in his stomach, as the raging war of successfully shifting a second time in less than three hours becomes all the more improbable in the torment of the small circle of Genasi far more powerful than he was on his own. The pitching sound of his name ripping through the air as black blood slips like tears from the corners of Lia’s eyes, cracks, morphing into the guttural growling as human becomes animal. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen as her body contorts in a splatter of black liquid that burns up in the flames and he stumbles back into the uneven makeshift path and struggles to find enough air to fill his lungs. He knows what guilt tastes like. It’s metallic, thick, acrid and paints his hands red for the two boys he could still taste on his tongue. It’s black as night, poisonous, and pools at his sister’s feet. The strings of his greatest mistake tie a noose around his throat. He knows he can’t stay -- can’t face their world knowing this is his fault, and that he can’t stop it, and yet he can’t move. Frozen in the harrowing sounds of his sister, being forced to shift over, and over again.

She always thought agony was that feeling in her chest, the hollow in that cavernous hole that followed her everywhere she went once the flames of the Miller home had long since died. Smoke still rose from the wreckage and the world seemed to spin regardless. She thought it existed as something almost, figurative. It couldn’t be touched, wasn’t tangible enough to tear it from her own chest, neither palpable enough to taste, but she knows she’s wrong before she even opens her eyes. The gentle touch of cool hands that trace the raw red markings around her wrists draw her closer. Her mother’s weeping, she’s angry and Lia can feel it against her skin like wildfire, it’s hot and dull in the same breath and she can feel the unforgiving split of her lip that spills blood against her chin, even as the welcoming feel of cold hands lift her head from it’s hanging place. “Ara..” Her voice is ash, nothing but ash as she rasps out something barely coherent, unable to lift heavy eyelids beyond the swelling of shattered cheek bones that have yet to heal from her last shit. “It’s okay baby,” Her father’s voice --- strong, present, and undoubtedly shaking despite the careful and steady shift of his hands as he breaks the metal chains that are now so very real. “We’ve got you, you’re okay. -- Anna, take her for me.” 

Careful hands draw her in, carrying the weight of wounds visible and hidden, the permanence of every ache she felt grew in the socket of her shoulder as it popped back into place and ricocheted throughout her frame as her mother lay her down against her lap, right there in the dirt. The steady tremor of uneasy breath and tears that made no sound spilled across Anna’s jean clad thigh, lithe fingertips smoothing matted hair out with the lowly soothing sound that carried with her mother’s heartbeat. “Ara.. Where’d he..--” Barely managed as brittle and barely pieced together fingers curled into the dirt below. “He’s gone, sweetie. He’s..” Annaliese Mayer  was always hard in Lia’s eyes. Like worn marble, a sight that was almost far too noble and yet, didn’t often crack beneath the weight of the world, but she felt it now. “He’s gone, baby. We’ll find him.” It’s heavy, and somehow Lia knows what she means; he’s not gone. Not lost. Part of her knows that perhaps, she might have felt that far more violently but then again, she’s not entirely sure if anything could truly pierce her anymore. It’s heavy, and it doesn’t hurt yet, but it presses tightly within her throat and the whimper that finds her is a resounding scream for what she knows now. She hadn’t been alone, she’d felt him. She’d never put much weight in the idea that they could do that, feel each other when they were around, but it’s unmistakable now. She’d felt him -- and he’d left her. 

Nothing within the anger of her father feels enough as the power of a Delphi witch tears at what’s left of the building, brick by brick casting it aside until he can pick apart the echoes and tether a curse of it’s own to what remains of it. The familial power that burns up in the palms of his hands an eternal promise to the lineage of those that thought to harm what was theirs, that they’d never rest again, not until he found them. But there was no stopping it as she ache within her chest grew cavernous again and the dirt caught within her hand didn’t tether her to this form as well as she might have hoped it would with the warmth of her parents permeating the air around her with more stability than she thought she could swallow back. He was here, and he left me alone. It spins, screams and etches itself permanently to the inside of her skull, pierces tired, doe hues with a splitting headache that traverses across the back of her neck like a needle and leaves her with trembling lips as her grip tightens around her mother. “It’s.. it’s happening.” She didn’t know how many times it had happened since they’d left her. How many times she’d ripped herself apart beneath the weight of every cataclysmic emotion that stirred within her as the dark carried her screams to no avail. How many times she’d barely pieced herself back together before it shattered again. How to explain to her parents what it was, while the weight of the now passing full moon left those of her kind to rest. Too weak to grasp at any sense of distance between herself and her mother, Lia clung tighter as the heaving of her chest tethered to the crack her brother had left behind within the cage of her ribs, split open a little more. Aerón’s voice stilled, his fury caught within the thick of his throat as watched the tremor of bone beneath Lia’s collar. Already so weak, there was no running from this, no turning away from the inevitable as every echo left behind told them of what's been done to her as he sank to his knees beside them. The crippling proof that he’d failed his little girl leaving him hollow. “Aerón,” her mother’s voice fell quiet, far sturdier than her heart beating within her chest, “The chains.” she started, shifting slightly to pull Lia from her lap, “Pass me the chains and go home.” 

[xbananaleensyo]

“I love you” call

Ship: Ohmtoonz

Warnings: mentions of alcohol/drinking

Words: 3,755

Summary: Ohm loved Cartoonz but he doesn’t know. One day, however, Ohm gets drunk and tries to call a certain someone. Aka Ohm is a fluffy, loving drunk and doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.

A/N: Hey guys! This is my first fic I’ve ever made and I’m pretty proud of it : ) So, thank you for reading it and I really appreciate any likes/reblogs/comments! Have a nice day, yo.

              Ohm wasn’t much of a drinker. It just wasn’t something he did much. Sure, he had the occasional glass of wine at dinner parties and the mandatory swig of beer during the Super Bowl but that was all for show. He never really indulged too far into it. He felt, at most, slightly warm from the minimal consumption and can’t remember the last time he truly was drunk. But it seemed tonight was different.

              Ohm tipped the bartender and sipped at the bottle of beer he just ordered. He scanned the ballroom, spotting the couple of the night instantly. It wasn’t hard to find them, their presence radiated happiness, true love flush on their cheeks and gentle stares. Ohm couldn’t help the throbbing sensation in his chest. It was accompanied by a slow southern drawl and cheeky grin that tended to occupy his mind, especially in moments like these. He looked at the newly-wedded couple and wanted it, wanted what they had so badly instead of this longing ache. Ohm sighed, loosening the tie on his neck, before taking a gulp of his drink and joining his peers in another round of shots.

              “Bye! Thank you for bringing me home, dude! I appreciate you and your service.” Ohm yelled back at the uber before shutting the door and walking the steps to his front porch. He searched his pocket for his keys, reminding himself out loud that he needed to give his driver 5 stars and a good review. She was a nice woman, entertaining Ohm’s drunk rambles during the late night drive. He was suddenly glad he decided to carpool to the wedding venue that morning because, based on the slight stumbles up his yard, he can assess that he was in no way, shape, or form able to drive himself home, Heck, he couldn’t even find the right keys to his door.

              “There you are!” Ohm cooed, giggling as he slotted in the key to let him in. Right when he walked through the door, he was greeted with excited paws batting at his ankles and welcoming yips. Ohm was beaming at the sight.

              “Tiny! You’re such a good boy! I love you so much.” He said while carefully kneeling and cuddling the pup.

              “I’m very drunk, Tiny. So we can’t—we can’t play a lot. But just wanted to let you know that I love you and you’re the best.” Ohm sent Tiny back to his doggy bed after one last pat on his back. He decided that it probably wasn’t a good idea to let Tiny sleep in the bed with him tonight. Ohm closed his bedroom door and plopped on his mattress, somehow taking off his shoes and dress pants on the way. He should sleep he thinks but the alcohol was still running hyper in his veins causing him to feel energized and elated and fuzzy. He felt so goddamn warm, honestly. Like he was so happy and wanted to share the happiness with everyone else. And he should. There was so many good people in his life that deserved it and when was the last time he told them how much he loved them? Not enough! He concluded, already taking out his phone out of his vest pocket. He silently thanked technology for having fingerprint recognition.

    Ohm went to twitter first, sending out a quick appreciation post to his fans and followers. Then, to his discord, giving out short but meaningful messages to as many streamer and YouTube friends he can think of. Next, it was his contact list on his phone where he kept the closer people in his life. These were the ones he was gonna spoil with love. Ohm sighed with satisfaction when he hit send on Delirious’ text, stacked with paragraphs on how much he helped him over the years. He went back to his list, finally stumbling on the contact that made his heart burst:

Toonzy <3

              Ohm’s thumbs froze over the screen, not quite sure how to start the text. There was just so many things he loved about Cartoonz—which ones should he say first? Can written text even convey all the things he wanted to say? Can he even type all the love he had for him? Perhaps, he should call him instead.

              “Hi Toonzy!” Ohm greeted excitedly right after the ringer broke. There was silence on the other line though before another voice spoke up.

              “Uhh Ohm? This is Delirious?” Ohm mentally slapped himself, wondering how in the world he messed that one up. But looking at the blurry name on his screen, he can confirm he was, in fact, talking to Delirious. Oh well.

              “Oh…oh! Delirio~ Sorry, I tried calling Toonzy. I wanted to tell him some things.” Ohm thought for a second. Even if it was an accident, he shouldn’t let this call go to waste, right?

              “But-but, wait, don’t hang up yet Delirious! I wanna let you know some nice things too. Because, because lemme tell ya. You, you, are a wonderful man and I’m glad you’re in my life. I love you and…and you deserve all the love!” Ohm heard Delirious’ happy laughter on the other end, pleased that the other enjoyed his declaration.

              “Awww, thanks Ohm. I know, I saw the text messages. Love you too man, really, and I appreciate ya but are you uhhh are you drunk?”

              “Nooo I’m not drunk. I’m really drunk.” He answered, extending the ‘really’ for extra effect. He laughed at his own joke. “There was a wedding Delirio~ my…my sister’s. And it was beautiful! There was decorations and cake and good food and dancing and an open bar…” Ohm chuckled again, remembering the open bar quite well. An amazing add-on to an already amazing wedding.

              “My sister has incredible taste, Del. It, it was nature-themed! There was lots of flowers and leaves. Trees. And…and it made me realize I want a wedding like that…” And at that moment, Ohm made a mistake. He couldn’t stop his rambling, his mouth wanting to say everything on his mind. His feelings were going a completely different direction now and he felt tears starting to collect in his eyes. “But I don’t think I can! I definitely can’t.”

              Delirious seemed surprised by the mood change. He scrambled to find his words before speaking. “Ohm ca—calm down! I’m sure, I’m sure you’ll have a beau-ti-ful wedding with nice flowers and gifts and food! Don’t cry please!” Ohm shook his head even though he knew Delirious couldn’t see him.

              “Nooo you don’t understand Jon! I’m gay!” Ohm cried out, trying to make a point through his fuzzy mind. But it seemed Delirious wasn’t having it.

              “Uhhh Ohm, we know that already? You told us that like…like last year? And we fully support you and that doesn’t fucking mean, at all, that you can’t have a—”

              “No, no listen. You don’t understand. Jon, I’m gay gay. Like…like I’m gay for someone. But I don’t think he’s gay gay for me? Delirious, Cartoonz doesn’t feel the same way, huh?” he felt the ache in his heart again, letting a few tears slide down his cheeks.

              “Car-cartoonz?” Delirious sputtered. Ohm gave a long sigh.

              “Yeah…Toonzy. He’s funny and genuine and attractive and just gets me, ya know? I just wanna kiss him all the time and cuddle him and…and go on dates with him and touch him and fu—”

              “Jesus Christ.” Delirious breath. “You can’t just…just…hold on. Can you hold on? Hold on a sec, Ohm.” Then Delirious was gone. There was a lot of shuffling and mumbling in the background that he couldn’t understand. But before he could figure out what was going on, Delirious was back.

              “Okay, can you say that again, Ohm?”

              “I wanna fuck Cartoonz!” He declared, hearing more shuffling along with a sharp gasp and ‘not like that!’ protests coming from Del. Maybe, that wasn’t the exact phrase he was looking for. “No, no wait…make love with Cartoonz. Yeah, that. I love Luke. But not like…I love you Delirious but I’m uhhh in love with Luke. For a long time now. He’s, he’s amazing~ And I love spending time with him. But he doesn’t love me…why would he love me…? His insecurities were starting to leak out. Because it’s true. Why would Luke ever like him in a way that was more than a friend?

              “For fucksakes why…look, Ohm, I have a good feeling that Luke loves you back. You’re a great guy, don’t be so down on yourself. He’ll be lucky to have you.”

              Ohm shifted his weight to the side, his voice quieter than before. “How do you know that?”

              “I just have a very, very strong feeling.”

              “But why would he—”

              “Ryan, just please trust me here, okay?” Delirious pleads. He jumps at the sudden name-drop. Jonathon never calls him by his real name. He also never sounded so conclusive before.

              “Okay Jon, I’ll try.” He yawns, finally starting to feel the night catch up with him. But he can’t sleep yet.

              “You should probably go to sleep, man.”

              “But Toonzy…I gotta call…” he yawns again.

              “Tomorrow dude. Better if you’re sober and n-not about to pass out.”

              “But…Yeah…true…I’m sleepy.” Ryan starts to close his eyes as he says those words. He tries to relax through the spinning in his head. It feels like a whole minute has passed of him breathing into the mic and he assumes Delirious already left the call.

              “Good night, Ohm…”

              He barely hears the quiet murmur at the end. Ohm’s interest piqued as it sounds kinda off. It was huskier. Deeper. Ohm almost forgot who he was talking to. But it wasn’t enough to break the tiredness that was closing in on him. Ohm’s body starts to slack, he vaguely feels the thump of his phone as it falls on the bed. His thoughts float in his head, drunk, but specifically drunk on Cartoonz. Memories of hefty laughs, long beards, and southern accents filled his mind before finally settling into sleep.

               The morning after sucked. Ohm groans, finally remembering this being a big reason why he didn’t drink much. This part is utter crap.

              “I hate myself. I fucking hate myself.” Ohm mumbles, covering his arm over his eyes. He forgot to pull his blinds so the sunlight he usually loved to greet was glaring at his mistakes. His head throbbed, noting that he was still in his dress shirt, suit jacket half-on but was pantless somehow. His mouth was dry and tasted like alcohol and regrets. Suddenly, he heard Tiny bark in the livingroom signifying that there was someone in the house. But before Ohm can process if he was getting robbed or not, his gut fails him and he rushes himself to the bathroom.

              “Ohm? You okay in there, bud?” Ohm hears through the knocking on his door and his loud heaving sounds. He recognizes the voice to be Cartoonz and is glad that he decided to give him that extra key.

              “Yeah, I’m just, shit—” another round rises up his throat. Ohm is gripping the toilet bowl for dear life as whatever contents start spilling through. He doesn’t notice Cartoonz next to him until he feels hands on his shoulder, massaging his back sympathetically.

              “Goddamn Ohm, you got absolutely fucked up. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

              “Well, nothing is in me now…” Ohm says weakly. Grabbing a towel to wipe off the excess residue off his mouth. He leans on his bathtub, relieved that he can finally breathe. Cartoonz hands him a water bottle which he gladly used to gargle his mouth with before taking two big gulps.

              “So, what brings you here, Toonzy?” Ohm asks. Though he’s not complaining that he did show up, Ohm knows Luke isn’t the type of guy to come in unannounced.

              “Jonathon texted me this morning. Said your dumb hungover ass needed some assistance, probably. Just think of me as your Alcohol Poisoning Rescue Squad.” He patted the bag he was carrying to capitalize his status. That was probably how he got the water so fast.

              “Now come here, child, and lets get you all cleaned up!” Cartoonz hollered, helping him get up and escorting him to the sink.

              Ohm just rolled his eyes. “We’re practically the same age, Cartoonz.” But Cartoonz ignored him, opting to the kitchen to probably make food. Ohm looked at himself in the mirror, hissing at his reflection. He felt like shit and looked like shit. That was great. He got to work, brushing his teeth and taking a quick shower to scrub off the grime of last night. Once he was washed and changed into fresh clothes, he felt a lot better than before.

              “Pedialyte?” Ohm questioned as he entered the diningroom to find a plate of scrambled eggs waiting for him as well as some pills, a glass of water, and a bottle of Pedialyte.

              “Yeah. Del’s recommendation. I don’t drink much so I can’t say but Del swore by that stuff when he did. Oh, here’s your coffee too, by the way.” Cartoonz places a hot mug beside him, the familiar smell wafting through the air. “Made it how you like it too: disgustingly sweet and undrinkable.” He wrinkles his nose at the thought.

              “No, you’re just a barbarian and drink it straight black. What sane person drinks it straight black?” Ohm retorts, blowing at his drink to cool it down. He will fight for his sweet-tasting coffee to the death.

              “Agree to disagree.” Cartoonz huffs, settling in the chair next to him with his own plate and cup. They ate their food in comfortable silence. Cartoonz hummed and scrolled through his phone while Ohm picked at his eggs. He tried to recall what he did last night, memories of bouquets and shots filled his mind. Then he got home (somehow) and wobbled to his bed. He texted people, he thinks, and he hopes to god that it was nothing too embarrassing. And then he remembers he was talking to someone…didn’t he call Delirious?

              Ohm dropped his fork in realization. He did. He admitted his crush to Delirious. And Delirious sent Cartoonz over here. What in the heck…

              “You okay there, Ohm?” Cartoonz asked. Ohm didn’t realize he was staring at him. He picked up his fork and cleared his throat.

              “Yeah, I’m fine Toonzy. Just thinking through this headache, no worries.” Despite the reassurance, Cartoonz arches his eyebrow.

              “Are you sure…? I mean, there’s just something that’s been bugging me and I really should ask.” Cartoonz sighs, setting his phone down on the table. “Ryan, you don’t usually drink, especially get wasted, is there something wrong? And don’t tell me that ‘it was a wedding’ shit. ‘Cause we’ve been to plenty of parties before and you never had more than a bottle or two. You even told me it just wasn’t your scene. You can tell me if there’s something wrong.”

              Ohm couldn’t help his stomach fluttering a bit at Cartoonz’s concern. Any delicate attention Luke gave him made it flutter and this time, despite being hungover, made no difference. Of course, Luke was the one to spot the slight intention of his actions. That his night of binge drinking wasn’t just from the atmosphere of celebration. Luke knew him well, Luke could read him. Another reason why he was so in love with the damn guy.

              Ohm groaned, wondering how he was gonna tell the truth but not at the same time. He wasn’t gonna lie but he was also not gonna confess. Sober him was still unsure about Delirious’ observation last night. He wanted to trust him but he needed time to think about it, digest it, and besides, he didn’t feel well enough to try anyways.

              “No? Yes? I-I don’t know Cartoonz. I guess, I just got carried away and lost it.” Ohm sighs, pushing his hair back and leaning back on his chair. “The first drink was out of courtesy. The second drink was with peers. The third drink was because of the YouTube algorithm and the rest after that was…” Ohm closed his eyes, thinking about the pain in his chest at the wedding, a pain that was too familiar in his life. “…was my stupidness, honestly. I was being stupid. I love my sister, Toonz, don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for her and her husband. I cried at the ceremony. But…but she’s my younger sister, Toonz. By a good chunk too and, I don’t know. I couldn’t help but feel so jealous and, and lonely and—” wanting you. Ohm shook his head, feeling a wave of nausea when doing so, pushing it down along with his heartbroken feelings. It was hard being so in love when he knew he wasn’t suppose to be. He wanted what his sister had at that moment, to love who his heart desired freely. But he was too much of a coward and so drank way more than he should’ve to forget the fact.

              “I have a good feeling that Luke loves you back.” Delirious’ voice echoes in his mind. But that’s impossible.

              Suddenly, Ohm’s hands are being grabbed and placed on Luke’s lap. His eyes are sad looking at Ohm’s but they weren’t filled with pity like Ohm expected. They were filled with something soft that he couldn’t pin point.

              “I’m so sorry, Ohm. I wish you didn’t feel that way. But I get it. I fucking get that feeling. You have no idea. And it sucks. I even thought I was just going to live with the feeling, get use to it. Just for the sake of it.” Cartoonz’s thumb started rubbing the side of his hand, obviously nervous about the next thing he was about to say. He brought their hands closer so they laid on the base of Cartoonz’s chest. Ohm was a little surprised by the gesture. He could feel the man’s rapid pulse beating under his palms. “But that changed, I think. I hope it changed. I feel like I have a chance now when a little drunk bunny called last night…” Cartoonz smirked at Ohm’s confused look while he ransacked his memories. He didn’t call him and just didn’t remember, did he?

              “What do you mean by…”

              “…while I was in a certain idiot’s livingroom…”

              “No. He didn’t. He—”

              “…and was put on speaker phone…”

              “I’m gonna fucking kill him.” Ohm proposed, feeling the vibration of Cartoonz’s chuckle. His face was hot from embarrassment and shame. But soon was hot from something else.

              “I love you too, Ryan. So fucking much it’s ridiculous. I thought I was saving our friendship by not telling you. I didn’t think we could be more than that and, god, I’m really hoping that what you said last night wasn’t just some drunken dare. Because I don’t think I can handle it if it was just some joke.”

              Ohm shakes his head and pulls his hands back along with Luke’s. He presses Luke’s knuckles against his lips, letting it linger before speaking.

              “I meant every word of it. There’s no joke. I’ll even say it again sober: I’m in love with you Luke for who knows how long and…I want the chance to show you that.”

              Ohm couldn’t believe this was happening. It was surreal how fast it happened, how random it was. He couldn’t breathe but at the same time his lungs never felt so free. He wrapped himself around Luke’s neck, leaning in closer to kiss the lips he’s only dreamt about, but when said man pushes him away with a grin on his face, Ohm couldn’t help but question what was going on.

              “Look, Ohm, I love you and all and god do I want you, but I just watched you throw up buckets of puke a second ago. I am NOT kissing you right now.”

              “But, but I brushed and rinsed Toonzy! Twice!” Ohm pouted, crossing his arms at the rejection.

              “Nope, still disgusting. Not happening.” He patted Ohm’s head.

              “That’s rude, Toonzy. That was like the perfect fanfic moment, I’ll have you know.” Cartoonz just shrugged.

              “What about take me on a date and then we’ll see about the kissing.”

              “Oh. There’ll definitely be kissing.” Ohm said, lowering his voice so it was smooth as velvet. Ohm hummed in success when he caught Cartoonz biting his lip.

              “Okay, Ohm, can you stop being a creep and eat your goddamn eggs.” Ohm reached out, however, not wanting the moment to end just yet.

              “Wait, what time are you free? To take you out, I mean.”

              “Does tomorrow sound fine? I have to do some recording with Del in the morning but I can catch dinner.” Ohm scanned his schedule in his head, happy he was due to record in the afternoon.

              “That’s perfect.”

              “You’re perfect.” Cartoonz said, giving a quick peck on his forehead. Ohm sighed into the kiss, leaning his head on his shoulder to try to engulf himself in Cartooonz’s embrace. He wanted as much of him as he can get. He needed to catch up somehow.

              “You know, I can’t be mad at Delirious if this is the result. I know his intentions were good and he knew we just needed a catalyst but I still want to kinda punch him in the face, ya know? Maybe just the shoulder. But only just a tiny little bit.”

              “Oh, I’m way ahead of you. No one breaks your trust on my watch.” Cartoonz takes out his phone to show him a picture of a sleeping Delirious. In it, Delirious seems to be cuddling an owl-shaped Teddy Bear that Ohm recognizes as the birthday gift Vanoss gave to him a couple years back. Ohm notices that the picture was from a message thread between Cartoonz and Vanoss himself with a caption that said: He sleeps like this every night. Take this as you will.

              Ohm cracks up, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s amazing but savage. They’re both going to have a heart attack. You’re unbelievable.”

              “But you love me.” Cartoonz says, lacing their fingers together.

              “Yes, I do. And you love me?”

              “Yes, I absolutely do.”

[ivanvukoja]

The Girl in The Saurok Armor

It was the middle of the night, the stars above now beaming brightly out from a pitch black sky. Ivan and the Huntress had been talking since sunset, perched atop that rampart in the Mage Quarter. Ivan had honestly lost track of time as he sat there, exchanging stories and thoughts with his dear friend, as the sun’s glory and luminance gradually died off somewhere in the horizon.

"Ivan.... you remember what you said that day we first met?" the Ren’dorei asked looking to Ivan’s feet then, not quite to his eyes. "About... why you hated women at that time?" She finally said with as careful of a tone as she could muster as she started to bring her eyes up to him to meet his. "I genuinely appreciate you, and want to come to kn...." She faltered then as her eyes glanced just past him, actually just above him on the stone slab he was sitting against. But with a twitch and narrowing of her brows she snapped her eyes back to him forcing herself to continue. "To know you. And you I. I want to explore and experience new..." She again twitched, trying so hard not to look up this time but something was getting on her nerves clearly. She sighed then and suddenly pulled back shaking her head. She stood herself up with helm in hand, her knee's popping just a bit from holding her position for so long.

"You're becoming a close friend, I just don't want..." She started to admit something, something that wasn't easy only to then suddenly jerk her right shoulder and swing her elbow back heatedly as she GLARED at something behind her. She then very feverishly said something short and simple in Thalassian, something that was obviously not kind, and probably a curse word or two as well. She then promptly put her helm back on and shook her head. "I can't do this right now." She said then with a conflicted frown as she suddenly stepped up to the edge. "I'm sorry." She then promptly stepped and twisted making her fall but her hands caught her on the ledge to break the speed of her fall so she would land below a bit softer. She then turned in the direction of Illdraes's house, "Goodnight Ivan." She said before promptly walking off as if she was still avoiding some unseen force that was clearly harassing her enough she couldn't ignore it.

By this point, as Eccia spoke, close to admitting some sort of truth about her feelings, Ivan was leaning forward towards the Huntress, intently hanging on to every word and phrase that she was trying to get out. Every time Eccia trailed off to shoot a glance at what was probably that specter of her dead lover she mentioned earlier, Ivan was left wanting more. More of whatever it was she had to say. Yearning for her to finish whatever it was that was obviously on her mind.

"You're becoming a close friend, I just don't want..."

And then, just like that, Eccia was gone, hastily bidding farewell and promptly dropping down from the ledge and onto the ground below. He watched in dismay as the Huntress departed, leaning over the edge to involuntarily reach out towards her with a tattooed hand, mouth open, lips parting to utter something- to call out for her, maybe, to persuade her to stay, to not do what he had done to her just last night and flee. Or to just tell her to have a good night, and that he wished to see her again soon. But the words and pleas never came. He just sat there, choking on whatever it was he wanted to say, his hand eventually dropping back to his side as Eccia disappeared from view. With a hefty sigh, Ivan leaned back against the stone wall behind him. He buried his face in hands, a typical reaction of his to stress or an overwhelming moment. Ivan was blaming himself for Eccia’s departure, of course. The sudden absence of his friend had saddened him- Eccia certainly seemed good at that, good at making him feel sad. Moreso than any other person who he’s even slightly opened up to.

That was my fault, he thought to himself. It was those stupid questions - why do I pry so hard, when it came to that girl? All I am, all my questions and feelings towards her, they’re just fuel for that ghost of hers. That’s all they’ll ever be. Her pain- I’m one of the sources for it now. Ivan looked up from his hands and to the tavern across the street, contemplating whether or not he should drown himself tonight in alcohol, like he always did after coming too close to emotions and conflict. For awhile he sat there, staring at the establishment, at the patrons inside, listening to the faint sounds of their conversations and laughter, to the clinking of glasses and the occasional shouts of joy and excitement that shot out from the open windows and doors. Not tonight.

Instead, Ivan opted to sit in silence, with his thoughts- an alternative that was, in all honesty, probably a lot more dangerous than simply getting up to get plastered across the street.

What was it that Eccia didn’t want? Ivan thought he might have had a vague knowing of the answer, but he just couldn’t articulate it. It was more of a feeling. A feeling that was far from a good one- he felt it in the pit of his stomach. Welling up like some sort of anxiety before a fight, akin to an anticipation of violence and woe, a knot of uneasiness that sat just below his gut.

Could he ever get to truly know the girl in the Saurok armor, like their mutual friend Illdraes had? That Kaldorei seemed to have had it a lot easier than Ivan in getting to know Eccia. Those two interacted well together. Ivan envied that.

And how much longer could Ivan and the Ren’dorei maintain that dance of simultaneously opening up and hiding their inner thoughts from one another? How much closer could Ivan get before further empowering Eccia’s inner demons, who were very much physical in a sense, to the point where she might...- no, Ivan didn’t want to think about that, even though it was a real possibility.

Maybe he was simply overthinking it all. Ultimately, he’d probably just be a footnote in her extensive life. He knew it, deep down inside. He’d never get close enough to be remembered anyway, not with that ghost of hers keeping him at bay, routing the Huntress every time she tried to warm up to Ivan. Maybe she knew it too, knew that he’d be forgotten sooner or later. Eccia would probably live to be several hundred years old, and wouldn’t recall a single memory of the tattooed Gilnean she met in Stormwind. Just a footnote.

Ivan shut his eyes and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He was done with this- done letting this thoughts run wild in his mind. He let the mental exhaustion from the night become physical, and eventually nodded off into a deep slumber, there on the cold, stone rampart, his sleep plagued by the usual mix of nightmares and distorted memories of the past.

But now, those nightmares had the Ren’dorei in them; her face, her voice. He always wondered if those dreams could become any more painful- now the answer was at hand.

(Mentions: @eccia-dawnstalker [credit for the first two paragraphs or so], @illdraes)

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

The Misadventures of Prince Kim - chapter 72

The final chapter. Phew. I don’t even know what to say. (That’s a lie, I left several rambling paragraphs of crying on AO3.) It’s been one hell of a ride. Everyone who read this, thank you and I love you. Kim, thank you for existing, and I love you too.

Read it on AO3 where the Morse code actually works and you can see the aforementioned rambling paragraphs of crying

It took several weeks for the telecommunication lines to be repaired. In the meantime, plenty happened. Empress Chloé continued to work on sorting out her empire, and very slowly, things began to improve. The weather remained stormy for a while, but soon cleared up. The raging river eventually returned to its normal, peaceful state. Many more students left, and by June the school seemed almost empty.

Adrien, though under a lot of stress from the recent events, sent a letter to the court of the Agreste Empire, letting them know what had happened. The crew of the ship that Gabriel had used to sail here all bowed down and swore allegiance to Adrien, their new emperor, though he was not sure how much he could trust them. Did they think he had murdered his father? There was a chance that a lot of his subjects would think so, and be wary of him. He had to be careful.

After some tearful goodbyes he sailed away with the crew, back to his home for the first time in years. His new empire could not wait for him much longer. What with the school being so devoid of students, there didn’t seem much point staying until the official start of the holidays. It would be best to go back right away and cement his reign before any troubles began.

No news was heard from Gabriel. If he had made it ashore, he was keeping quiet.

The school soon received a letter from the kingdom of Lê Chiến, informing them that the border troubles had cleared up, meaning that it would finally be safe for Kim to return. A zeppelin had also been sent up in the 7th region to provide remote telecommunications access, and within a few days it would be up and running, meaning that phone calls could once again be made to the kingdom. Preparations were immediately begun for Kim’s departure – the remaining porters collated all his luggage from his room and loaded it onto the carriages.

By this point there was no need to stay at school until the very end. No one was here anyway. Chloé, Sabrina and Lila had all left long ago. Adrien was gone now, and Marinette had soon returned to her own home, eager to see her parents again after such a long break. Nathaniel had not even returned to school after the spring holidays. Lady Caline was still here, but she was one of the very few teachers remaining. It was not possible to learn much with the school in a state like this.

The building itself seemed haunted now, too, every creaky chandelier and broken piece of tiling reminding Kim of his near-demise. He really did not want to stay here any longer. This school did have good memories for him too, of course it did. But in a way he had outgrown it. The time was right for him to begin a new chapter of his life – this time as king, ruling over a country.

He stood in his now empty room one sunny June morning, his phone in hand. Today would be the day he finally left. It would take him a while to get back home, all the way on the other side of the world, and no aeroplanes yet to take him there. But at least he was finally going home. It had been three whole years. Would much have changed?

There had been a certain number he had saved into his phone long ago. Now he dialled it, and held his breath, waiting. According to the timestamp on the letter, the communications zeppelin went up over a week ago. Surely there would be enough time for it to be working now. There had to be.

A voice finally answered.

“Good afternoon, you have reached the kingdom of Lê Chiến. How may we help you?”

It worked! It actually worked! He was speaking to a real person from back home, an actual official! It had been so long that he’d even forgotten about the time difference – of course it was late afternoon back home.

He stopped himself from laughing in relief, reminding himself to sound like a proper ruler now. “Hello, this is Prince Kim calling from my personal telephone. I think I sent the phone number details by messenger pigeon a while ago, so you can verify it if you need to.”

“Ah, Your Highness! We have been hoping to hear from you. Please wait one moment while I verify your details.” There was a pause for several seconds. “Yes, we have your personal telephone number on record. Thank you for your phone call. What do you require from us today?”

What did he require? He wasn’t even sure. He had barely thought about it at all, just wanting to see if the phone lines would even work. There was something else he definitely wanted, though, and he had wanted it for quite a long while. “Um… can I talk to my family? If possible?”

“Of course. Your parents are away at the moment, overseeing the summer solstice festival arrangements, but the Queen-Dowager-Regent is available. She has been eagerly awaiting any news from you. Shall I pass the phone call to her?”

“Yes please.”

“Right, please hold the line for a few moments.”

“Thank you.”

Kim waited for a few minutes, his heart beating rapidly. It had been far, far too long since he had last directly spoken to his grandmother. He missed her so much it was getting impossible to bear. And now, within just a few moments, he would get to hear her voice again! He was so excited he couldn’t stand still, having to pace around the room as he waited.

Finally, that familiar voice spoke. “Kim, I’m so glad to hear from you!”

He hadn’t expected to suddenly be overwhelmed with emotion, and hastily wiped tears away from his eyes. “H-hi bà… how are you?”

“I’m doing very well, thank you, but I really should ask about you! With the communications finally open we’ve been receiving all the world’s news, and it sounds like you have been through quite the adventure. What happened? I want to hear it directly from you.”

“Well… Emperor Gabriel showed up at school and tried to kill me, but then… he fell in the river when the balcony broke…” He was still crying a little, and was aware that his grandma could probably tell.

“Goodness gracious, that really is a terrible thing to have happened to you. I assume you’re out of danger now though?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. We’ve all missed you ever so much. And we’re very proud of you, too. You’ve managed to get our country into the International Alliance without any of us even being there to help you. You’ve grown up so much over the past three years, and I for one can’t wait for you to return so that I can see this change for myself.”

Kim smiled, his heart soaring at the thought of finally getting to go back to his home palace and be with his family once more. “I can’t wait too. And… I’ll try and be a good ruler.”

“I’m sure you will do just fine. We’re planning the coronation to happen around two months from now so that you have plenty of time to get back and adjust yourself. I’ll still be on hand to always help you out. And I’m sure the friends and alliances you’ve made at school will be willing to help you out too.”

“They definitely will.”

“Excellent. With you as leader, and the trade routes back open, I don’t doubt that our kingdom is going to prosper.”

Though still nervous about being a king, Kim was finally beginning to believe that too. Maybe he really could do a good job. He had survived this far, hadn’t he?

“I’m leaving school today,” he said. “My luggage is all packed away and those carriage guards who have been stuck here for like two years can finally take me home.”

“They are still there? My god, I had forgotten about that. As soon as they return they’re getting a hefty pay rise and promotion for their duty. Will you tell them that?”

“Yes.”

“Fantastic. And make sure to give us another call when you’ve almost reached home, so that we can be waiting to greet you. It was so good to speak to you again. We’ll see each other soon.”

“Yeah, see you soon.”

“Goodbye, Kim.”

She hung up. For several seconds Kim just stood there, grinning to himself, unable to stop. He was finally going home. It didn’t feel real. Home seemed like a distant memory, like a movie he had watched some time in the past or a dream he’d had, rather than a real place. The thought of finally getting to go back filled him with so much relief it made him dizzy.

He was not sure how long it was before the knock on the door – time seemed to have stopped entirely at this point. Putting his phone back in his pocket, and walked over and opened the door to see Markov hovering there, bobbing up and down a little less than usual.

“Markov! Good to see you!”

Markov wordlessly flew into the room, looking around at the emptiness of it.

“I was gonna come and say goodbye to you actually,” Kim said to him. “I guess you just beat me to it.”

Markov slowly turned around to face him before speaking. “Kim, I… I am feeling an emotion I’ve never felt before. A strange, terrible one. I don’t like it. It hurts.”

“You mean you’re feeling actual pain?” Wow, that robot was always surprising him. Every time he thought Markov couldn’t get any more sophisticated, he did.

“No, not physical pain. I do not have nerve receptors. It is an emotional pain.” His eyes were beginning to be overrun with little pixel tears. “Kim, you’re going to leave, for a very long time. And I won’t get to see you. This is a very intense kind of sadness I am feeling right now, because you are my friend, and… I… am going to… miss you… and I’ve never ‘missed’ anyone before!”

His voice was wobbling, and he seemed to be shaking. Was this a robotic form of crying? Without thinking, Kim hugged him tight.

“I’m gonna miss you too, Markov,” he said. “But I’ll try and visit as often as I can. I’ll see you every Peace Ball, at least.”

“That’s only once a year. A maximum of around 21 days out of 365!”

“Well I’ll call you up every single day. That way you can talk to me 365 days out of 365.”

“Thank you, that does make me feel a little bit better…”

“Awesome.” Kim let go of him, letting him fly back into the air. “You’ll take care of Max, right?”

“Yes, of course! In fact, that reminds me, I’m also here to inform you that Max is waiting for you at the school entrance.”

“I guess I’ll go see him, then. There’s no point me hanging around here any longer.”

Markov still had tears rolling down from his eyes. “Kim… when I first met you, I did not realize I would become emotionally attached. I didn’t even expect to form emotions in the first place. But your kindness and friendship helped with that, so thank you. Thank you for helping me experience what it is like to be human, just like you.”

Kim’s own eyes were filling up a little too now. “Hey, uh, it’s no problem. I didn’t realize you were gonna be so cool.”

“Good luck with ruling your country. I think… I think I’m going to go now…” He turned and flew out of the room.

Kim’s cheerful mood from earlier was beginning to slip away slightly. Sure, it was exciting to finally be going home again. But saying goodbye to his friends was not fun, not at all. Thank goodness for the existence of telephones. That would make things so much more tolerable.

Taking one last look around the dorm room that he had spent the better part of the last three years in, he stepped out of the door and closed it for the last time. Maybe he would come back and visit this school again one day. As much as he was getting sick of it, he didn’t want to say goodbye forever.

He headed through the maze of empty, dilapidated corridors, towards the entrance where Max would be waiting. Before he had even exited the dorm areas he caught sight of a familiar face.

“Hi Ivan, what’s up?” he said, going over.

“Hi Kim!” Grand Duke Ivan had been looking out at the courtyard through one of the windows, and now turned to face Kim with a smile on his face. “I heard you’re leaving today. Is that true?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh good, there’ll finally be a bit of peace and quiet around here.”

“Hey!”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” He suddenly gave Kim an almighty pat on the back, almost knocking him over completely. “You know, you’re actually alright. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… I’m really glad you’re not dead.”

Kim grinned. “Coming from you, that’s a compliment. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. And good luck for the future. I think you might actually do an okay job.”

“Excuse you, I’m gonna do an amazing job, you’ll see. Anyway, have you proposed to Mylène yet?”

Ivan’s pale face suddenly flushed red. “We’re only 18!”

“Pfff, that didn’t stop me proposing to Max one time. You’re just a wimp.” He left out the fact that it had been a complete accident, and he didn’t really mean it, and Max had never replied to that anyway.

Ivan crossed his arms, going back to his usual sullen demeanour. “I take back what I said. You’re gonna do a terrible job and I’m glad you’re leaving.”

“You don’t mean that. You love me really. And also I was kidding, take your time with Mylène.”

“Of course I will.”

“Cool. I gotta go see Max now, but I hope I’ll see you again someday. Good luck and everything.”

Ivan nodded at him, unable to hide a smile. “You too.”

Kim continued down the corridor as Ivan turned back to the window. It was nice that things were cordial between them now. As much fun as it had been in the past to annoy Ivan on purpose, it was even more fun to do it when they were on good terms, when they both knew it wasn’t serious. Perhaps someday they could become proper friends? Kim hoped so. He didn’t want to be a jerk to anyone ever again.

He was distracted from his thoughts when he heard someone around a corner saying his name.

“…and I guess I haven’t been calling you ‘Kim’ at all recently, have I? You’d just get mixed up with human Kim. But I should have been calling you your actual name, Imhotep, and instead I’ve been calling you ‘snake’, so in revenge you can call me ‘human’ if you want…”

He would recognize that voice anywhere – the voice of his best friend in the entire world. He ran around the corner to see that Pharaoh Alix was indeed standing there, talking to her pet snake that was wrapped around the sceptre.

Walking over, he leaned an arm against the wall, saying, “Hey, human. What’s up?”

She hit him with the sceptre. “Only the snake’s allowed to call me that!”

“Well considering that time you called me ‘Emperor Palpatine’ for like a whole week, it’s only fair if I get to call you ‘human’, right?”

“Whatever. You won’t even be here for a week anyway.”

Oh yes, of course. Now was probably the best time to say goodbye to her. He had very much been putting that off.

“I was just heading down to the school entrance,” he said. “The carriage is there with all my stuff in it. And Max is there too.”

“So this is goodbye?”

“Yeah…”

“Okay then. Bye.”

He frowned. “What, is that it?”

“I didn’t want to make it all stupid and dramatic!” She was looking down at the floor, avoiding eye contact. “What did you want me to do? Tell you how cool you are? How awesome a friend you are? Start crying and hug you and admit that I’m g-gonna miss you? Because that’s… that’s n-not happening…”

.-.. .. .- .-. the snake tapped out, sliding off the sceptre and wrapping itself around her headdress.

“Oh fine! I’ll say it! I’m gonna miss you ‘cause you’re my best friend, and l-like… I never had best friends before going to school. And I never cared about anyone this much before. And I know the main threat’s gone, b-but… you have to promise to be careful! I can’t go through losing you again! I can’t!”

She dropped the sceptre and put her face in her hands, seemingly trying very, very hard not to cry. Kim had mostly avoided thinking about his near-death as much as he could, and definitely avoided thinking about the fact that in one timeline he really did die, and all his friends were there to see it. Alix had outright forbidden anyone from speaking about it at all, so it was surprising that she was bringing it up now.

He bent down and pulled her into a hug. “I will be careful. I promise.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d promised her that he would be careful. To be fair, the death wasn’t his fault at all. From now on, though, there were no more timeline splits to ruin everything. It was just his own willpower against the world. This time, he was going to survive. He was sure of it.

“By the way,” Alix said, “I’m gonna call you up every single day and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Good. So I’ll get phone calls from you, Max, and Markov. That’s a lot of phone calls.”

“You’ll need our help, you Kimbecile. You have to do a good job at being king.”

“Don’t worry.” He let go of her and stood back up. “I’m gonna be the coolest ruler ever. Well, almost. You’re the coolest, of course.”

She smiled, wiping tears away from her eyes. “I can’t believe that’s an actual thing you said out loud…”

“Yeah, this is the last time I’ll properly see you for ages, so I have to say all the stuff I wouldn’t otherwise say!”

“Well then, since you did go and make it stupid and dramatic and cheesy, I guess I may as well carry on.” She crossed her arms, her face going red. “I think I learnt a lot from you. Like, I’m not so idiotic and reckless anymore, and I’m better at not scaring people away. That’s definitely at least partly your fault. But you got way better too, which is great ‘cause I sorta hated you when I first met you. You’re cooler now. And I didn’t think I’d end up caring this much, but I do. So yeah.”

Kim rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah, I was a jerk at first, wasn’t I… but you were really annoying too.”

“I’m still annoying, actually.”

“Good point. But I love it now.” He ruffled the little bit of hair sticking out from under her headdress. “I learnt a lot from you too. I mean, we have the wackiest history ever, don’t we? I don’t think I’ll ever have another friend as close as you. You’re special. If platonic sweethearts were a thing, I think I could call you one… if that doesn’t bother you?”

Still smiling through her tears, she shook her head. “It doesn’t.”

“Nice.” He suddenly realized that he was about to start crying too, and quickly changed the subject. “You’ll still go visit Max loads, right? He and Markov can keep you company. I know you don’t wanna lose any friendships and stuff so like…”

“Of course I’ll hang out with Max and Markov all the time. And I’ve got Jalil, too. I’ll make sure I’m not lonely. I’ve actually got the hang of friendship now.” She finally looked him in the eyes. “You don’t have to worry about me, Kim. I’ll be fine. You focus on ruling your country and not dying.”

Ruling his country… not dying… that was it, the tears were already rolling down his face before he could stop them.

“I’ll see you at the Peace Ball,” he managed to say, sniffing, hoping she wouldn’t make fun of him for crying. She was an expert at being hypocritical like that. “Maybe I’ll challenge you to a rematch of… that thing that happened in the lift…”

“Oh yeah, that thing!” Alix laughed. “I’d almost forgotten about that! You haven’t told anyone what happened, right?”

He shook his head.

“Good, neither have I. And I never will.”

.-. .- .--. / -... .- - - .-.. .! the snake tapped, rather enthusiastically.

“Yeah! Hey, maybe next time the snake can take part too.”

“But I won’t understand what he’s saying…”

“Well then, you’d better learn Morse code before the next Peace Ball. I’ll be waiting.”

Kim just nodded, knowing he wouldn’t have the time or patience to do that. “I… I guess I should go now…”

“Yeah. You should go see Max, and uh, get in a bit more scientific research before you leave.”

Kim had been putting off saying goodbye to Max too, and the thought was twisting at his insides rather nauseatingly. “Yeah, I’ll go do that… You be a good pharaoh, okay? And tell Jalil I said ‘screw you, square’ and… keep swearing on international television and being awesome…”

“Dude, if I say ‘fuck’ one more time in an interview they’ll probably start censoring it. They’ll just have to interview the snake instead.”

Kim gave the snake a stroke. “I’ll miss you as well, little buddy. Uh, Imhotep or whatever your actual name is.”

The snake gave his hand a lick with that adorable little forked tongue.

-- . / - --- --- !

“Lemme guess, is he calling me a punk bitch again?”

“Nah,” Alix said, shaking her head. “He says he’ll miss you too.”

“Aw, he’s so sweet. I can’t believe I used to be scared of him.”

“Yeah, in my experience, human beings can be far, far deadlier than snakes…”

That much was true. It was very, very true.

“Anyway,” she said, “you should probably get out of here now. The sooner you go home and see your family, the better.”

“Yeah…” He finger-gunned at her. “Remember, I love you. No romo.”

She rolled her eyes, grinning. “Whatever. See you later, weird prince guy.” With that, she picked up the sceptre and ran off with the snake.

After a few seconds of getting rid of any remaining tears, Kim continued wandering down the corridor towards the entrance, nostalgia weighing on him. Back when he had first started here, he had never considered that he’d end up best friends with the tiny, terrifying little pharaoh who had somehow managed to enrage him and also capture his heart. Life could be so bizarre sometimes, couldn’t it? There had been rivalry, and reconciliation, and coming outs, and kisses, and fist-fights over Monopoly, and too many stupid challenges to count. He couldn’t have predicted any of that.

And he hadn’t realized he would fall in love with Max, either…

No, when he had first started here, Prince Max was just that good friend of his, the guy he had seen at summer camps and found fun to hang out with. Now they had been together through the worst of times, the thought of looming wars, assassinations, influenza. Max had always been there for him. To the point where he started crushing hard, and didn’t even realize that the love of his life felt the same way in return.

In fact, when he started at this school, he hadn’t even realized there were more “fish in the sea” than just girls! Perhaps that was something he’d keep quiet about back home for a while, though. He wasn’t sure how they’d take it.

All too soon, his feet had carried him to the school entrance. The doors were wide open, allowing the warm sunny air into the large entrance room. Unlike the end of the previous years, it was almost deserted. A few servants and porters were scurrying around, packing the last things into the carriage on the path just outside.

Max was leaning against one of the walls, watching them absent-mindedly. Kim’s heart instantly lifted, the way it always did whenever he saw Max, and he rushed over.

“Max!”

Max turned around just in time for Kim to hug him tightly enough to lift him off the ground. When he put him back down he did not quite let go, only pulling back enough to be able to see his precious sweetheart’s face.

“Hi Kim,” Max said, a sweet little smile on his face. “Did you see Markov?”

“Yeah, he told me you were waiting here. He’s really gonna miss me, poor guy.”

“Well, he’s not the only one who’ll miss you a lot…”

Kim rested his forehead against Max’s. “I’ll call you up every day, I promise. And I’ll build that airport soon so you all can visit.”

“Keep an eye on the budget so that you don’t overspend on the airport. There are probably a lot of other things that your kingdom could use the money for too.”

“Your advice is gonna be so helpful, I just know it.”

Max chuckled. “I’m glad you think so. Hopefully it’ll help you avoid more misadventures.”

“Misadventures? What’s that?”

“An adventure with misfortune or tragedy. Much like the ones that have plagued us over the past few years.”

“Oh, right. Well I’ll definitely be sure to avoid those.”

Max’s voice was starting to waver, and Kim noticed he was clinging on rather tight. “Kim… there’s something I’ve been meaning to say…”

And now the goodbyes were truly going to start. Kim’s eyes were stinging, but he tried to ignore it. He couldn’t start crying again, couldn’t he? He had cried enough for today!

“I’ve already told you a lot how much I care about you,” Max continued. “And you’ve told me, too. It’s not something we ever hold back on. In retrospect, I think I owe that to you. I tend to act very logical and rational, and you’re the opposite, and it really did me a lot of good. We’re… we’re a very good balance.”

Kim smiled. “I was gonna say the same! You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Max.”

“You’re the best too! So open with your feelings, so free with your heart, so passionate and full of confidence and energy! No wonder I’ve liked you for so long. Well, that, and also you’re rather attractive…”

He was sure he was blushing hard. At least Max seemed to be blushing too, as invisible as it was with skin like his.

“I don’t want to make this too long. I know you want to see your family again as soon as possible, and the journey will be long. But…” Max sniffed. “…you’re like a dream come true. You’re the one encouraging the part of my brain that runs on emotions, rather than logic. And you’ve always been supportive! Ever since I first met you, probably ten years ago now. The fact that you love me back is a bonus, since your support is worth the friendship either way… oh, I don’t even know what I’m saying, I’m just rambling…”

“You’re doing the thing I always do,” Kim said. “That thing where I gush at you about how cool you are?”

“I suppose I am doing that. Though it’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

“Well it’s my turn now.” Kim willed himself to at least hold it together long enough to say something heartfelt – Max deserved that much. “Honestly, you’re so cool I still can’t believe you like me. I used to be a jerk and everything, but you’d still hang out with me, trying to tell me to be better, trying to get me to use my brain for once and stop being an idiot. And thanks to you, I did. I got nicer, I got better at schoolwork, I’m at least a bit less reckless now…”

“Kim, that wasn’t me! That was you, thanks to your own hard work and effort.”

“You helped, though. You’re always really supportive too. I mean, you were helping me out with all my hopeless crushes even though you were into me? I’m still not over that. And you stayed in quarantine with me for months, even though you’d been vaccinated and didn’t need it, and I feel like I can tell you anything and everything, no matter what. You’re like the best mix of a best friend and a sweetheart. When I’m with you I feel more… stable, I guess.”

Max’s smile had been growing wider and wider while Kim had been speaking. “I’m going to miss all these compliments so much.”

“I’ll still compliment you over the phone!”

“It’s not the same though, is it?”

“No, I guess not…”

“There’s another thing I wanted to say,” Max said, sounding far more nervous suddenly. “Do you remember that time when you… um… accidentally proposed to me?”

Kim’s heart leapt right up into his throat. He nodded – how could he forget it? That had been mortifying!

“Well, we’re too young for that, as I’m sure you know. But, that being said… if you feel the same way in about seven years or so, then uh… feel free to ask again…”

“I will,” Kim said, his brain already coming up with all sorts of cheesy romantic proposal scenarios in his head. “Exactly seven years from now, I’ll ask. Mark the date.”

Max grinned. “Perhaps I’ll surprise you by asking first…”

“No way, I’ll beat you to it for sure!”

“Oh really? Like how you beat me to confessing your love for me? Oh wait, that didn’t happen, because I got there first.”

“But I asked you out first!” Kim shook his head, laughing. “It doesn’t matter anyway. As long as it’s in exactly seven years. I’ll have time to let my kingdom get used to the idea. And then I’ll abdicate, or maybe we could do that thing Marinette’s parents did, where their kingdoms became twin-kingdoms and they split their time ruling both… oh, I don’t know. I’ll decide nearer the time.”

“Good, you need a while to relax now. These past years have been very stressful, and ruling a country won’t be easy either. Make sure you don’t burn yourself out.”

“I’ll try.” The prospect of leaving, going home and being coronated, was weighing on him again. “You make sure to look after Markov, and have fun, and go visit Alix lots, all that stuff…”

“Of course.” Max went up onto tiptoes suddenly, leaning in closer. “None of the porters are around, so how about a goodbye kiss?”

Goodbye kiss… why did those words hurt so much? Everything about this moment was so bittersweet. Everything about the past several months had been bittersweet, actually. Perhaps it was a side-effect of growing up. Maybe his whole life was going to be bittersweet from now on.

Well then, he’d better revel in the sweet parts, and learn from the bitter.

“Sure.”

He leaned in and kissed Max deeply, wrapping his arms around him tight, never wanting to let go. If he could stay here forever, he would.

But he couldn’t. He was a prince, soon to be king, and he had a duty. Plus, he would see Max again. This wasn’t goodbye forever.

He was already crying by the time he pulled away, tears spilling out of his eyes faster than he could wipe them away. Now that the moment had actually come to leave, it was hitting him just how much he would miss this place, miss all his friends, miss his sweetheart, everything. This school and everyone in it was a part of his life now. Letting go was not going to be easy.

“You’ll have to go back to pillows from now on,” Max mumbled, taking off his glasses to brush tears away from his eyes too. Kim laughed weakly, wondering if he was blushing again.

“Pillows can’t compare to you.”

“And robots can’t compare to you.”

“I’m still gonna tell Markov about that someday…”

Max smiled briefly, then looked over at the carriage waiting outside the doors. “Your carriage is waiting for you, Kim. And your family is too.”

“You’re right, I should go…”

“Kim, I love you. And just… thank you. For everything.”

“I… I love you too, Max…”

He was crying too much to be able to say anything, so he just pulled Max into one last ribcage-crushing hug, before turning and walking towards the carriage. The guards had opened the door and were waiting for him.

“My grandma says you’re getting a pay rise when y-you get back,” he said. “You deserve it.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” the guard said with a smile, before shutting the door.

Your Highness… Soon he wouldn’t be called that anymore. Soon it would be Your Majesty. How quickly would he get used to that?

As the carriage set off down the path, Kim looked out of the back window. Max was standing at the entrance, waving. Kim waved back, though he wasn’t sure if Max would be able to see him through this tiny window. He noticed suddenly that up on the roof, Alix and Markov were there waving at the carriage too – how had they got there?! He waved at them too.

Slowly his friends faded out of sight, and the school did too. One chapter of his life was finishing, and the next was about to begin. Would it be as turbulent? As stressful? As dangerous? Hopefully not. At least he was much better at dealing with all that than he used to be, considering how much he had grown up over the past three years. Thinking back to his very first day of school, it was astounding to note the difference.

Now his spirits were lifting again, thinking of his family waiting for him at home. The familiar palace, those friendly servants, the sports rivals, everything and everyone he had been missing so much. Lê Chiến was still very dear to his heart, even after all the other places he had seen. From now on, that was what he had to focus on. Ruling his country and doing a good job, staying out of war, promoting new technologies, making allies. Everything he had been taught at school would surely help him out.

Yes, once he got back home he would not be a prince anymore. He would be King Kim, ruler of Lê Chiến. It was time to take the lessons he had learnt from the past, and put them towards making a bright future for himself, his country, and the entire world.

He looked forward to it.

[bulletnick]

Crypt of the NecroDancer: Lore Entries [Starting Weapons Edition]

And Lore Entries returns once more after a long hiatus! After the last post all about activating shrines, on a complete whim I decided to write out a little paragraph describing all the weapons the 14 playable characters start with, giving each of them a little personality and a backstory relating to the characters who wields it. This was a lot of fun to do, and a good excuse to bring back this very irregularly updated series. On with the lore!

Bard:

A simple, worn, but sturdy dagger. Truth be told, it was once just a cheap dagger, but scratches and marks that came out of misuse and travel have given it its own personality. As Octavian realised how rowdy unhappy crowds of uninterested listeners could be, he felt the need to acquire some means of defending himself, even if history shows he's far too clumsy to wield it well in most situations. Nonetheless, it's a handy weapon in a pinch. Despite all that, Octavian's attachment to it is purely practical; he doesn't want to lose a reliable tool. Useful for cutting rope, food, irksome vegetation, dissuading assailants, and many other things. He's certainly found countless ways to make the most of it, but actual combat was always a last resort for this blade. Octavian protects it as well as any other tool, but it was quickly forgotten as soon as he found... more powerful items to control.

Cadence:

The dagger she carries is hers, but long ago, it belonged to her mother Melody. It's a bit of a family heirloom for her, so she treasures it, and is perhaps one of the most unusual ways Cadence feels connected to her mother. It is a finely-crafted tool, with a frighteningly sharp blade, it's clearly been taken care of well. After being taught basic combat moves by her father over the years, she wields it with confidence, but is smart enough to use better weapons should the opportunity arise. The dagger is slightly worn and some of the finer patterns have been somewhat faded, but it hasn't seen too much use, as Melody was rarely the one to resolve matters with sharp objects. Inscribed on the blade, one can just barely make out the word 'Melody'. Melody was always a bit sheepish to admit that it was a gift from Dorian, given to her back in their own days of adventuring together.

Diamond:

Although at first glance it looks like a regular dagger, upon closer inspection one would realise that the shape of it is quite unusual. This dagger was crafted to attack and damage opponents from all sorts of angles, and to accommodate strange maneuvers, such as an uncommon curve to the blade, and a handle designed to maximise versatility and quick thrusts. And if an expert were to examine this blade, they'd find that all over there are anti-magic symbols inscribed upon it, perhaps in some hopeful attempt to dispel any sorcery nearby. It seems like a custom-made blade made for Diamond to make expert use out of, and it seems to have served him very well, complimenting his unorthodox fighting tactics and surprising agility.

Melody:

As much as it pains her to wield this familiar lute again, Melody has no choice but to use this cursed item for self-defense. Her mother never allowed her to play the lute herself, decades ago, but she had seen and heard enough of Aria playing it to know her way around it, coupled with the memories of her mother's words, legends, lectures, and warnings. Playing the lute feels very natural to her, as if it was an extension of her will, able to command it through thought and heart alone, but she must also be careful not to fall prey to the alluring music, lest she become the tool being played. For this reason she must restrain herself and use it carefully. At the very least, she tells herself, she can make some good music while it's happening, as she ignores the distinctive feeling of her heart beating precisely in sync with the plunking of the strings.

Eli:

Many years ago, Eli lost his hand in a mining accident, a small cave-in as he was working down in the mine shaft. The muscles and bones were injured beyond repair, so amputation was the only solution. Since then, he's tried to make the best of it, by attaching a shovel head to the end of it. At least he can keep working like this. Sadly, it makes for a very ineffective weapon, and it's very difficult to try and damage opponents with it. The best he can hope for is to shove them away to create a gap in-between. His true proficiency comes with explosives, which he has become very familiar with in his line of work. Over the years, he learned how to make explosives from simple chemicals, and to make them impressively compact. Perhaps this would give him an edge over his opponents, and the shovel keeps them far away enough to set the match alight and run away.

Dorian:

Dorian's dagger is perhaps the most impressive of the bunch. Being a traveler and adventurer for many years, he's always had a need for a fine blade to protect him. And indeed, in his golden years, he saved enough money to purchase the best dagger he'd ever seen. Despite decades of use, the metal can still be sharpened to a dangerous blade, and the ornamental carvings onto the wood and leather are still visible after heavy use. A sturdy, reliable, proper weapon. Perhaps its reach is short, but it'll certainly do hefty damage to anyone nearby. One notable modification came years later, when he requested his name to be imprinted onto the blade in fine cursive, even though that made cleaning it a tad more tedious. Another family heirloom for Cadence to inherit in future years, Dorian is proud of this weapon, and is very familiar with its ins and outs, ready to protect his family, no matter the cost.

Dove:

Dove never wielded a weapon in her life, and never had any training of her any kind, not to mention believing herself to be too frail and nervous to even lift up a blade, let alone point it at any living creature. Instead, she became quite familiar with nature, and amongst her discoveries, one of the most useful ones was an extremely rare species of flower that produces a unique, mysterious scent. When it's held up to any creature, they'll become confused and disorientated for a brief moment, and there seem to be no buildup of immunity ever after multiple attempts. Dove would never harm anything, but she does not hesitate to take advantage of this unknown plant to dissuade any potential threats. Nor does she seem willing to divulge where she acquired it, or how to grow more flowers, perhaps fearing it befalling into malevolent hands.

Nocturna:

A sharp, powerful cutlass, a rare sight and a weapon to be reckoned with, no matter where she goes, or much time passes. Long, long ago, before the thirst for blood and twisted colors overtook her body, she had no interest in combat or fighting. But her rebellious attitude amongst the vampires quickly ensured confrontation, and saw fit to steal a fine cutlass from a particularly wealthy town that the clan terrorised many years ago. She then trained herself how to strike blows and parry attacks, mostly with dangerous animals, but she wouldn't hesitate to defend herself against the more aggressive vampires, and soon enough, she could stand her ground in a fight. Wielding it with determination and thirst for putting an end to the undead, she breezes through monster hordes, trying her hardest to avoid licking the blade after fights. She's learned too many times that it never ends well.

Tempo:

Tempo was never meant to be a fighting machine, but a hasty end to his creation left him unfinished and searching for energy to sustain his not-quite-functioning body. After awakening in a destroyed and abandoned underground laboratory, he took the first weapon he could find to subdue the undead: A blood-coated dagger among the rubber, beside a dead scientist, covered in wires. He was unsure of what to make of it, but he grabbed it, and does his best keep himself alive off the energy of the undead. While he wasn't programmed to know fighting, he makes up for his clumsy movements and pacing by surging an overwhelming electric shock onto the weapon, immediately vaporising anything it touches, and giving him a quick way to recharge his faulty pacemaker.

Mary:

Mary is not a fighter, or a warrior, or really trained in weaponry, but she's interested in one thing above all: Keeping her favorite lamb safe from absolutely any harm. So in order to protect it, she saved as much as she could from her farm profits to purchase a handy spear, to keep threats away even from behind her and her lamb. It's seen some use in the farm, and its appearance betrays a few make-shift repairs from awkward fights. Nonetheless, Mary has through practice and stubbornness learned to fight back. There's bite marks from the lamb along the handle, and the spearhead has become somewhat blunt from auxiliary uses, but it has served her well, and even knows how to thrust it and throw above her lamb without hurting it.

Monk:

When he left the monastery, he was given only the smallest and simplest weapon, under the stipulation that anything larger or more dangerous would tempt someone into using it for the power it would grant. However, it is a dagger Monk made himself, from the intricate patterns in the handle, the carefully-crafted blade, and it's been meticulously preserved. The blade is perfectly polished and cleaned, and there are no marks and wears anywhere on it. It's also created from humble materials, and were it not for the craftsmanship, would be sold very cheaply. Monk takes great care with his tools, but ensures not to become enamored with them, and is prepared to leave them behind should it be asked of him. And he ensures to never use it unless it's absolutely necessary, and never to display it unless he has a very good reason.

Bolt:

Bolt's spear had to be commissioned, because most spears would break under Bolt's extremely demanding fighting techniques, under the sheer speed of their moves. As such, Bolt's spear is built to be able to bend more than most spears, and the spearhead was crafted to not get stuck in flesh and smoothly pull out. And yet, despite packing quite a punch, it's considerably light, able to be swung and used for very quick jabs and twists. It has also being crafted such that it can wielded in either one or two hands, as Bolt changes tactics and attacks very quickly and sometimes literally has no time to grip it with the other hand. It is a bit unwieldy to anyone else, and is not the strongest weapon, but it has served them very well, especially because it can handle the immense use and tremendous speed Bolt is forced to use.

Aria:

The blade of the dagger is coated in blood that has dried decades ago, and the end of the dagger still has small bits of muscle tissue stuck to it, from being inserting in Aria's torso, and left them for years. The dagger betrays its age with antiquated techniques and styles, but it is still sharp enough to cut. This dagger has accompanied Aria for many, many years, being her trusty old dagger. She hoped Melody would inherit it one day, but alas, she didn't have the chance. It is the only weapon Aria wields comfortably, having found everything else to not sit right in her hands. She doesn't seem to particularly mind the fact that it was once going through her fragile heart, and in fact seems even more determined to use it. This dagger has known a lot of conflict, and it shows with many scratches, the handle has been dented, and the blade slightly bent and dulled at certain points, but in Aria's hands, it is a weapon to fear.

Coda:

Nobody knows where Coda got her dagger from. From the looks of it, it appears to be just another ordinary dagger, and yet, there's something about it that makes people give it quizzical looks. Perhaps it's the distinctly inhuman writing along the blade, or the fact that the handle is shaped such that it can be held by a tail-like appendage. Either way, not much is known about her dagger, other than Coda refuses to part with it under any circumstances and is incredibly protective of it. She hesitates even throwing it at enemies, insisting on close-quarters combat as much as possible. It seems like this weapon is meant to remain shrouded in mystery...

[tastesoftamriel]

A shortcut (a long tale by Talviel)

Morndas, 12th of Sun’s Dawn, 4E 208. After my brief trip to Soltsheim and Blacklight with Lisandre, I immediately set west to uncover the territory I had left behind the year before. I had managed to cover Hammerfell’s main towns and cities, albeit briefly, and decided that I would spend some time in High Rock first instead of backtracking. It would take me over a month if I were to cross Skyrim into Jehanna or Evermore, which was the most straightforward route. However, I was disgruntled by the prospect of crossing Skyrim again, and the potential delays that would occur when word of my return would inevitably spread. There would have to be a quicker, more experimental way to travel, that I had gotten ideas from after spending time around the Dunmer. It wasn’t necessarily a good idea, but I was never good at coming up with those to begin with.

I picked Roach up from the Windhelm stables, who had done a good job of keeping her warm and fed while I was away. She grunted as I saddled her up, annoyed to be disturbed from her comfortable winter’s rest. Pulling my hood up against the snow falling in relentless whirls from the sky, I guided us on the day and a half journey north to the College of Winterhold. During the Dragon Crisis, I had received a message from the College pleading for my help in dispatching a Thalmor mage who had tried to infiltrate them and harness the power of an artifact called the Eye of Magnus. Having no magical aptitude beyond the Thu'um, I managed to take him down with a fair bit of shouting that left me winded for days after. I never stuck around to figure out what had happened after that, as I was too concerned with dragons and never had much of a care for learning magic to begin with. This was my first time coming back to Winterhold since then, and I was expecting a confused welcome.

Indeed, Tolfdir, the Master Wizard, looked puzzled when I trotted up to the main gate of the College. “Greetings, Dragonborn. What brings you to us? Have you finally decided to give magic a try after your little trial with that horrible Eye of Magnus incident?” He asked, helping me to dismount. “Greetings, Tolfdir. I suppose I am going to try my hand out at magic, in a way of sorts. But it’s your assistance I’ll be needing, because I don’t think turning myself and my horse inside out on your porch is the best idea since the only thing I’m capable of is the Candlelight spell.” The old mage raised an eyebrow. “Yes, turning yourself inside out would be quite a loss for all of Skyrim, but I don’t quite see how or why you would be doing that. What help do you need, my friend?” I rummaged through my satchel and pulled out a small but hefty tome that I had haggled out of a merchant in the Blacklight markets, and handed it to Tolfdir. His face lit up as he flicked through the pages. “Fantastic! A real Telvanni wizard’s spellbook! This will be an invaluable asset to the College and I’m sure Urag Gro-Shub would be delighted to add this to the library. But I’m guessing that this is payment for what you need.” “Please, Tolfdir, call it a favour. I know you also worship Talos so that makes at least two of us in Winterhold who are glad that Skyrim is free from one less Thalmor agent. I just came back from Morrowind and am in a bit of a rush to get to High Rock, and I hear that there’s a teleportation spell that can get me there in the blink of an eye. If you could do that for me, I’d be most grateful and the book is all yours.”

Tolfdir looked thoughtful. “Well, that is indeed an unusual request. Teleportation is definitely possible, but you’ll need to convince the Arch Mage, not me. It’s used strictly to go between the Synods and for private use by some houses across Tamriel, and as far as I know nobody but the most senior members are allowed to use it as it is a most volatile spell indeed. For those unaccustomed to teleportation, I’ve heard that at the very least you’ll be nauseous for a while and at worst you’ll disappear without a trace off the face of Nirn altogether! As much as it may disappoint you to hear, spending a few weeks in the saddle would be far preferable to any of the consequences that may await you should you wish to attempt to travel that way, but ultimately it is up to the Arch Mage to decide. Which, come to think of it, shows that you’re far more cunning than you present yourself to be, Dragonborn, since I’m sure that you’ve actually come with this Telvanni tome as a bribe of sorts.” He grinned. Brelyna Maryon, who had gone from being a star pupil to the Arch Mage of the College, was said to be a descendant of House Telvanni. “Alright, come on, I’ll bring you upstairs.”

Brelyna was in her chambers, engrossed in a large book written in a strange script I didn’t recognise. She didn’t lift her head when we walked in, and Tolfdir and I stood in awkward silence as she finished scanning a paragraph. Finally, she sighed and stood up, and jumped to attention when she saw me. “Goodness, Talviel of Riften! What a surprise and an honour! What brings you to us today?” We exchanged pleasantries, and I elbowed Tolfdir to explain my mad plan as his standing as Master Wizard would be far more persuasive than I, an outsider. When he was done talking, Brelyna stood there looking shell-shocked.

“Well, this is certainly the highlight of my day, Dragonborn. As you know, the College of Winterhold is an independent organisation and we haven’t used a teleportation spell in who knows how long. Are you sure you want to risk this? I can certainly attempt the spell, but I won’t be held responsible if something goes wrong.” “I’m all for an adventure, Brelyna. And so is Roach.” “Roach?! You mean for me to teleport your horse as well?” “Think of it as practice. And here’s something for your troubles, of course.” I shrugged, and handed her the Telvanni spellbook. She eagerly grabbed it from my hands, but looked worried. “This isn’t about the payment, Dragonborn. This is about the risk, and I’m not sure if I, or anyone else for that matter, should be attempting this. It’s seriously advanced magic and definitely dangerous. Remember the time I turned you green, and then into a cow and a horse and a dog? I really wish you’d just get on that horse and head west the conventional way. In fact, why don’t you just summon a dragon to fly you over instead?” “Come on, this will be fun! You can even gather the students to watch this as a demonstration!” I cajoled her, hoping to change her mind because by now I was looking forward to this to the point that I could practically hear Brynjolf swearing at me in the back of my mind.

Within an hour, I stood in the main courtyard with Roach next to Brelyna and Tolfdir, surrounded by excited pupils and lecturers alike. The air was steamy with the chatter of people eager to see the Arch Mage perform one of the most legendary spells around, especially on the clearly insane Dragonborn who had convinced her to do this in the first place. Brelyna raised her hands for silence, and a hush fell over the crowd. “Now, I’m going to say this once: this is a highly advanced spell that has not been practiced in Skyrim in at least a century or more. I am grateful that Talviel here has placed her trust in me, but until I can rest on the knowledge that this experiment has gone safely and successfully, nobody, including myself, is permitted to attempt this. Breaking this rule will result in swift disciplinary action, which can include dismissal from the College altogether. Are we clear?” Nods rippled through the crowd, and Brelyna sighed, raising her arms into the air, her gloved hands shimmering faintly. “Alright, here goes nothing. Everyone please stand back.” The air crackled with magical energy, and a loud roar shook the courtyard as she brought her arms down, casting the spell onto the ground. A large portal had opened in front of us, rippling blue with nothing but blackness beyond. Roach whinnied with alarm and I calmed her with Kyne’s Peace, though I felt jittery enough to puke myself.

I took the reins and stepped towards the portal, all eyes fixed on me. “Well, if this goes well you all should receive a postcard from me when I get to Shornhelm!” I joked, hoping to mask the quavering in my voice. “Talos be with you, Dragonborn.” Tolfdir said, clapping me on the shoulder. I nodded, my hand unconsciously going to the amulet around my neck. “Thanks, Brelyna. I’ll let you know when I arrive in High Rock.” “I still think you’re absolutely mad, but I applaud your bravery and dedication to the practice of magic. Safe travels, Talviel.” Taking a deep breath to steel myself, I jumped into the saddle and spurred Roach on into the whirling black mass ahead, feeling a hot wind pull us into its depths. I winced- it reminded me of getting pulled into Apocrypha by Hermaeus Mora’s slimy tentacles. Slowly, the roaring subsided, and we stepped out into daylight. Success! The spell had worked! Sort of.

Before I even had the chance to glance around, Roach reared and kicked me from the saddle, dashing off. This alone was a problem, but for me, it was a lot worse. The portal had opened directly onto the lip of a cliff, and the only way forward was down. Screaming and grabbing at thin air, I cursed myself and the portal and hoped that death would be quick and painless. Luckily for me, death was not on the menu that day. Unluckily, the fall was not painless. I plummeted right into the cold open ocean, hurting from the slap of the water and spluttering from the sting of salt in my eyes and mouth. I forced myself to calm down, treading water and trying to gain my bearings. Behind me was the craggy rock of the cliff I had taken my dive from, and on all three sides there was nothing but blue sky and rolling waves. Not a boat in sight, nor any indication as to where I’d been dropped. “I hate portals.” I muttered, swimming my way towards the cliff and following it along its edge in the hopes that it would lead me to dry land.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Blog in which Anne Hathaway is a Giant Tree Monster (AKA: Secret-Diary Reviews ‘Colossal’).

Right. Righty. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I recently watched the film Colossal, and I have a lot of thoughts about it. It’s very important that you sit down, shut up and hear all of them.

My initial reaction to Colossal can be summed up as “yeah: that was a fun way to spend 1 hour and 50 minutes.” It’s funny in a low-key, quirky kind of way and the protagonist (Gloria- played by Anne Hathaway) is likeable and relatably fucked-up enough that it’s easy to care about her. Oh, and there’s giant monsters in it, which is always nice. It’s a good film- there’s no denying that. If you want a fun way to squander some time that will make you feel vaguely intelligent by association (because its an indie thing rather than typical block-buster fare), then go ahead and knock yourself out: this is the film for you.

However, the more I think about Colossal, the more off it feels. It’s like someone put all the elements of a good film together, but not necessarily in the right order.

OK. Before I can review it, I need to spoil it completely. Sorry. If you already know the plot, just feel free to skip this paragraph. It’s basically just a synopsis. Gloria (once again, played by Anne Hathaway) is an alocholic, out-of-work writer who gets kicked out by her boyfriend and returns to her hometown, ostensibly to rethink her like but, in reality, to get shitfaced on a nightly basis. While doing that, she reconnects with an old friend from childhood (I can’t remember his name, so we’ll just call him Neckbeard), whose behaviour seems slightly creepy and manipulative from the get-go. While Neckbeard is situating himself as Gloria’s patron-slash-enabler, Gloria herself discovers that, when she stumbles home drunk through a particular part of town, a giant tree monster materialises in Seoul in Korea and mimics her movements. She lets Neckbeard in on the secret and inadvertantly kills hundreds of people in the process. Neckbeard discovers that when he enters that bit of town, a giant robot shows up in Seoul and mimics his movements. Gloria tries to stop him making the giant robot appear in case someone gets hurt and his behaviour escalates from slightly offputting to abusive and violent. Oh, and he makes his giant robot deliberately go on a killing spree, because of course he does. Inevitably, Gloria is forced to kill him using her crazy giant tree monster powers. Then she stumbles into the nearest bar so that the film can spend its final sixty seconds hanging a lampshade on the fact that she’s still an alcholic.

All caught up? Good- now that I’ve explained the film, I can start picking it to death. Firstly, let’s address the elephant in the room. How come, in a film where all the giant monster action is taking place in Seoul, there isn’t a single named Korean character whose actions have any real impact on the plot? Actually, you know what? Don’t answer me just yet. We’ll be coming back to that a little later. Just ackowledge the room elephant and move on for a minute.

The thing that’s been really bugging me though is infinitely more pedantic and less political: the entire second half of the film was completely avoidable. Let me explain, there’s a scene, right after Neckbeard discovers he can make a giant robot appear in Seoul when tries it out deliberately for the first time... but first he makes sure that there’s no-one in the area surrounding the giant robot appearance site who could get hurt (apparently, there’s an app for that). And there it is: plain as day. Gloria has an opportunity to get away before Neckbeard becomes a full-on abusive arsehole and Neckbeard’s own sense of biting inadequacy is ameliorated by his ability to make a giant robot materialise in Seoul and start breakdancing. Even Seoul gets its own resident giant robot, which has got to be the world’s best tourist attraction. At that point, if Gloria hadn’t decided that Neckbeard Must Not Summon the Giant Robot and started a fight over it, all the awful, harrowing shit from the second half of the film just wouldn’t have happened. Not that I blame Gloria as a character: she’s obvs meant to be traumatised by all the death she caused when she was the giant tree monster, so her reaction is understandable. It’s just that, knowing the whole clusterfuck was easily preventable and could have had a happy ending for all concerned robs the film’s ultimate payoff of any sense of catharsis. Instead of being viscerally satisfied when Neckbeard finally gets killed by a tree monster, I just felt a bit sad and empty. He didn’t have to evolve into the world’s most ginormous douch-kanoo: he could have wiled away his twighlight years boosting Seoul’s tourist trade through the medium of interpretive being-a-giant-robot.

Incidentally, that whole scene raises another nagging complaint. Gloria intervenes to stop Neckbeard doing his giant robot thing, but walking right up to him (meaning that her Tree Monster thing also manifests in Seoul) and slapping him in the face. If that fight had actually escalated, thousands of people in Seoul could have died... which is what Gloria was trying to prevent. She aims to prevent a giant robot killing hundreds of people by starting a fight with that giant robot, which could potentially kill many more people. Not to drag geopolitics into this, but you can tell the characters in this film are Americans, can’t you? Cough cough regime change cough. Seriously, had she been taking ethics lessons from Mass Effect’s Reapers? YOU CAN’T SAVE PEOPLE BY ENDANGERING THEM, DIPSHIT.

Actually, that brings us back to my point about how there are no fully-developed Korean characters in this film where giant monsters are attacking a major Korean city. Throughout the majority of this film, Seoul and people of Seoul don’t really matter: they’re just used as the manifestation of the psychodrama bewteen Gloria and neckbeard. That could be a deliberate comment on the way American popular culture views eastern countries, but it doesn’t feel like it. Maybe the writers just needed to signpost it better. Also, it means that when Neckbeard goes kill-crazy and destroys half of Seoul, instead of being shocked and appalled, I was just kinda hoping for a few juicy shots of the giant robot kicking over buildings. You can’t paint an entire city as nothing more than the backdrop for some mellowdrama between two self-destructive a-holes and then expect your audience to feel emotional when it gets stomped on. That’s not how movies work.

A few other annoyances remain to be addressed, but they don’t really work towards the overall theme of this piece, so I’m just going to splurge them in any order I feel like.

Firstly, there’s the issue of Gloria’s boyfriend (his name is Tim, but you’ll only ever think of him as ‘That Guy from Legion’). He’s way better villain than Neckbeard, but the film does nothing with him. He kicks Gloria out and then stalks her a bit and that’s it... but the subtleties of his behaviour and the way he goes about being a nob make it clear that, if the script had any interest in him whatsoever, he could be a really compelling, hateable villain. Unlike Neckbeard whose name I still can’t fucking remember.

Speaking of which, what fucking idiot came up with Neckbeard’s bad-guy motive. He hates himself and how small his life feels? What is he, a school bully in a 1990s infomercial? Look, we’re told he’s motivated by self-loathing, but we’re never told why. He’s relatively erudite as small-town villains go; he has a circle of friends and owns a respectable little bar; he has good memories of going around setting off illegal fireworks with his bezzies. There’s no compelling reason for him to despise his life other than the fact he lives in a small town and comes from a vaguely working-class backgroud, which just makes the film-makers seem weirdly classist and snobby. I imagine the pitch for this idea went something like this “Oh, of course he hates himself, Baron Fucksmythe: he’s rural and does an ordinary-person job. I mean, I hate him and you hate him- why wouldn’t he hate him.”

Then there’s the guy who hovers in the background for most of the film, then has sex with Gloria, delivers some furniture and fucks off never to be seen again. You know how non-sequiters are usually phrases or jokes that come out of the blue and bear no relation to the rest of the film? Well, Colossal may be the first film to have a whole character be a non-sequiter.

Finally- and I realise this is a trivial thing to piss-and-moan about, but I’m going to anyway- very few alcoholics caught in abysmal self-destructive spirals look like Anne Hathaway. Nobody whose liver is slowly failing them while they pour themselves another round falls asleep against a wall and wakes up with perfect skin, fabulous hair and impeccable (if hipstery) dress-sense.

Colossal is a good movie. Sort of. It’s even got a nice feminist subtext with Gloria realising that many of the men in her life are abusive fuckwads and learning to make herself independent of them. But it undermines itself at every turn. It can’t decide what to focus on. Is it a movie about alcoholism and the psychopathology of addicts and enablers? No, because that plot line never goes anywhere. Is it a movie about abuse and victimisation? Kind of, but there’s so much else going on, it’s hard to feel viscerally invested in that plot-line, so it lacks impact. Is it a comedy movie that tackles multiple issues with a tongue-in-cheek attitude? Sort of, but its not consistently funny enough to get away with it.

The film’s attitude towards small town, rural, working class America and literally the entirity of Korea undermine its progressive, feminist credentals with a faint air of classism and not-quite-racism while its light, quirky comedy creaks audibly under the weight of the hefty subject matter. With a little bit of polishing, these issues could easily have been resolved, and a lot of the film is enjoyable as is. But a bit of tighter focus, better characterisation and a more global attitude would have been very welcome additions.

[liberallifeblog]

Your First Colonoscopy! What to Expect

Whee! Time for a Tube Up Your Tuchus!

image: wikimedia commons

By Crabby McSlacker So, some perspective here: for people with serious illnesses who've been through hardcore, painful, debilitating, invasive medical procedures? A colonoscopy is probably child's play. (Although let's be clear, that's just an expression. If your child actually plays this way? We need to talk). But for most people, there's at least a little trepidation. And for many, if statistics are to be believed, that fear is significant enough to skip the procedure entirely! Well sure, it could save your life and all, but really? Do you have to? There are actually some alternative colon cancer screening methods. But since I didn't get to use one of them myself, discussion of these will be brief, and possibly a little bitter. I've had a couple of  colonoscopies now. (And an additional bowel prep due to my hysterectomy.) My second colonoscopy was just a few days ago and the memories are still fresh. So I'm thinking it's time to share some info and observations and tips?  This is after all, a health blog, although with recent posts on tattoos and winter travel, it's easy to miss that part. Here's the thing: for some people the whole colonoscopy thing is a breeze. For a very few unlucky folks: it's horrible. For most people I know, myself included: the procedure and the prep are somewhere in the middle. Decidedly unpleasant but not intolerable. But being a whiner myself, I get tired of all those public-spirited accounts of the colonoscopy process that make it sound entirely innocuous in order to get you to go ahead and get yours. I'm not going to lie to you just to make sure you go do it. You need to and you will be really glad you did it! But it's not exactly fun. Here's at least one chronic complainer's take on what's involved. And for those of you who have already joined this exclusive club? I'll be curious if your experience was similar or if there are all kinds of different colonoscopy experiences. Warning: due to mature and disgusting subject matter, reader discretion is advised.

Why You Should Suck it Up and Get a Colonoscopy (or Other Screening Test)

According to the NIH, colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. This blows me away, considering how slow-growing and preventable colon cancer generally is.  And while overall rates are going down because of better screening, rates in people under 50 are going up. Environmental toxins? Diet? Bad karma? Who knows, but it means that screening, and even early screening, are more important than ever.

What Are Some Alternatives to Colonoscopy to Screen for Colon Cancer?

Home Stool-Testing Options: These include FIT (fecal immunochemical test) and Colorguard. There are pretty obvious upsides to not having to prep your bowels, get doped up with sedatives, and have a stranger ram a scope up your butt to see what lurks inside. But the downsides include less accuracy, and a need for more frequent testing. Do you want to send in a smear of your poop to a lab every year? (Or, in the case of the pricier ColorGuard test, every three years?) On the other hand, if you are at low risk and would otherwise skip screening entirely, these are definitely worth looking into. Sigmoidoscopy: These are in many ways similar to a colonoscopy. You still have to do bowel prep, and there's a scope involved, but the doctors' don't look at nearly as much once they're up in there. This may mean less sedation is needed, but you have to wonder: what's the point of going through all that if they're only going to look at the left half of your colon? Virtual Colonoscopy: This alternative does not generally require sedation; an x-ray technician obtains images of your colon from outside your body, not from inside. Sounds great, right? But virtual colonoscopies still involve bowel prep, plus you have to swallow a contrast agent. You will still have a tube inserted where the sun don't shine, but not nearly as far up. It's there to inflate your bowels so they can get a better look. Fun times, right? There are others possibilities in the works too, stay tuned! Like camera pills and, even more exciting, blood tests for cancer that detect cancers in early stages anywhere in your body.

When it's Time for Your Colonoscopy

1. Carefully Pick Your Provider or Facility This may not be an option depending on your insurance or geography, but if it is... there does seem to be a difference in various facilities in terms both of expertise and patient-coddling. Some clinics are brusque and factory-like, others are extremely solicitous and try to make the experience as tolerable as possible. Ask friends who've been through it, talk to doctors, read reviews if you can find any. If you are high-maintenance like Crabby is, you will appreciate having expert doctors and kind nurses and assistants to hold your hand, listen to your concerns (however misguided or hysterical), and get reassurance that you that will indeed survive relatively unscathed. 2. Don't Blow Off  the Instructions, Read 'Em When You Get  'Em If you are freaked out about the whole thing, you may attempt to pretend it isn't happening. Totally understandable! Yet if in order to maintain this illusion you  avoid the literature you've been given? You will run into trouble. Sorry, you can't wait til the last minute to deal with the details, or you'll have to reschedule and probably pay a hefty cancellation fee. Some of the prep starts a week in advance, with certain foods (mainly nuts and seeds), medications, and supplements you need to avoid. Then a few days out there are even more prohibitions. There is also a prescription you'll have to fill, and lead-time can be essential on this one. My first bowel prep they RAN OUT of the Rx I wanted and I had to drink twice as much of an old-school kind because that was all they had. Also, while there are "generic" prep instructions like I'm giving here, each practitioner has their own take on it, so read what THEY send, don't rely on The Google. So steel yourself, make yourself read the damn thing when they send it, then mark your calendar or send yourself a reminder or whatever on the first date when you're supposed to start doing things differently.

Colonoscopy Prep

Part 1: The Part Where You Starve Yourself OK, technically you won't be starving. The "clear liquid" diet you have to be on the day before you go in will actually let you drink and eat a days worth of calories in the form of Seven Up and chicken broth and jello. (But not red or purple jello). A clear liquid diet is no fun. You can have coffee or tea (yay!) but can't put any milk in it. You will feel cranky and deprived no matter how much of that stuff you have. But here is an important tip: Get a few calories, even if they're stupid, pointless, ridiculous calories. If you are trying to lose weight or are otherwise mindful of calories or carbs, this may seem like an excellent opportunity to bank a lot of missed meals. You can't eat normal food anyway. And really, is Seven-Up any more satisfying than club soda or iced tea or a diet drink? Why not just have a no-sugar beverage instead? Nothing you're going to have under the "clear liquids" category, whether caloric or not, resembles actual food. So why not just hydrate and skip the sugar? Well, a little of this caloric deprivation is fine, especially if you are used to fasting. You will probably have a pretty low-cal day just because of the "no fun" aspect. But I discovered something interesting: Even though I occasionally do some intermittent fasting , and I'm totally used to functioning normally without calories for a day? Total fasting can be a really bad idea before a colonoscopy because you need a reasonably strong stomach for disgusting nature of the upcoming bowel prep. The combo of the laxative regimen below, combined with low blood sugar from fasting was, for me, pretty much a disaster, even though I was very conscientious about hydrating. So my advice: get at least half a days calories in you, even if they're of necessity mostly sugar. Part 2: Choke Down the Most Disgusting Fluid You Will Ever Consume in Your Life

Photo: Missy Meyer

There seem to be many variations in formulas. I've tried three: the first was the hilariously named GoLytely. Yep, I think that's pronounced "Go Lightly." Could anything be further from the truth? Don't kid yourself: you will not be "going lightly." I've also had "HalfLytely," which is a version of GoLytely that requires a smaller volume of fluid and, as I recall, some pills. Neither of these taste totally horrible, not that they're pleasant. But the texture is icky and the grossness factor builds exponentially as you force yourself to drink more and more of the liquid.  Of the two I'd go with the Half version. My third, and least favorite, was SuPrep. It required the least amount of dilution and the overall volume was the smallest. But the taste was horrific. The grapey faux-fruit overlay did not conceal the essential bitter, metallic and salty grossness it. It was a two step process, and for reasons I will bore you with below I would never, ever, ever, ever do that again. Part 3: Station Yourself Near the Toilet and Pray for Mercy (Sensitive readers: you may want to skip these next paragraphs). Again, the first two times were not so bad with the GoLytely variants. More fluid was involved in the ingestion process, so the clean-out was not painful, just extremely thorough. Sort of amazing and amusing really. But it was all over the day before the procedure, and I slept just fine the night before. This time, the SuPrep was a nightmare.  I took the first dose, as instructed, at 5 p.m. the night before my procedure, but it only worked little by little. By bedtime I was exhausted but I was terrified to sleep because it was still wreaking havoc on my innards, and I was petrified I'd soil the bed. (I managed not to, thank god). But I had to get up repeatedly during the night, and as of 5 a.m. the next morning, I was still running to the john from the first dose. And I still had one more dose to come. I briefly considered doing a swan dive out the third floor window instead, but then the whole torture of the first half of the prep would have been wasted and I don't know if 3 floors would even be fatal. The second dose made me feel so nauseated that I threw it all up an hour later, and I feared that my whole procedure would be cancelled because I still wasn't entirely, um, "cleansed." I was still using the restroom minutes before the procedure.

What Happens During Your Colonoscopy?

Sedation: You change into a hospital gown (I was allowed to keep my socks and bra on) and they stick you with an IV in your arm or on the back of your hand. Or in my case, they stick you and stick you and stick you and stick you. My veins are shy that way, initially defeating even the most veteran of nurses, but eventually they always manage to get in. At this point, patient accounts vary. Most people get conscious sedation, which is supposed to relax you, ease discomfort, and induce amnesia.  A few people are so resistant to the drugs they remember the whole thing, and some of these people report more than mild discomfort.  Yet I've read that most people don't experience much distress at all. But see the catch here? Personal accounts of an entirely painless procedure are inherently unreliable. Most patients have no clue because they don't remember!  And I suspect there's something of a health industry conspiracy to maintain the illusion that because you don't remember pain, there wasn't any. My first colonoscopy I definitely felt a sharp poke at the first bend and yelped. No memories after that. The second time? The last thing I remember was the request to roll over on my side. So I don't remember them snaking a tube up my colon but I'm confident they did. In fact, procedures were undertaken each time involving hot snares. I can't imagine I enjoyed these, but I was pretty doped up, so it's possible I didn't feel 'em much.  No way to know, right? Which creeps me out more than a little. Another tip:  tell the staff before they sedate you if you've had bad experiences in the past with nausea and vomiting following anesthesia. I have, so they added anti-nausea medication to the IV, and hallelujah, it worked! Not barfy at all afterwards.

After Your Colonoscopy

You have to have someone there to take you home, and don't make any big plans afterwards. My first time we'd scheduled dinner with friends and I was practically face down in my plate of tacos and we had to leave early to get me back to bed. Many people feel only a little groggy and are fairly functional afterwards. I am so NOT one of those people. I become a zombified lump of useless humanity with limited ability to speak or move, though my wife claims I am quite adorable in this state. All I can do is sleep. Possibly this is because the staff know a high-maintenance whiner when they see one coming and they dope me up accordingly. This time I was even more out of it than before, and it became quickly apparent when I tried to leave that I needed a wheelchair to get to the car. Once home, my patient wife got me to bed and I went straight to sleep in my clothes and slept all afternoon. I woke up for a couple hours, ate, and went back to bed and slept like a dead person through the whole night. But the next morning... It was over and I felt great. I was Queen of the World! This is a cool thing about a colonoscopy.  You survive it, and it's like a rite of passage. Even more than that stupid AARP card you get in the mail, your post-colonoscopy status qualifies for full membership in the Sensible and Responsible Middle-Aged Person Club. And let's stop apologizing for that, ok? We Responsible Middle-Aged People rock and we are setting ourselves up to be healthy, vital, and Bad-Ass Old People. We should all have wild tribal post-colonoscopy ceremonies or something a few days after the procedure. What do you say, maybe we do some jello tequila shooters and play our old Rolling Stone albums at full volume and sing and dance and howl at the moon? Well, as long as moonrise is early enough than we can be in bed by nine p.m.

What If They Find Something?

This will be the subject for a future post, since I'm one of those people who Has Things to Find. I'm still awaiting pathology results, but I can say this much: Don't panic! It's the people who have these things and don't know about them who are in trouble, not you. I'm thinking maybe I'll follow up later with a post about polyps, diverticulosis and hemorrhoids since I am lucky enough to host these. I'm sure all you readers can't wait to read about these and all the other fascinating aspects of colon health that we could discuss! Or, um, maybe not. Do you dread your first colonoscopy or have you already survived it? Any other medical procedures or tests that strike fear in your heart? Your First Colonoscopy! What to Expect posted first on http://ift.tt/2kDxLY4

[woohooligancomics]

Webcomic Whimsy Review: Next Town Over

Welcome to the first Woohooligan Weekly Webcomic Whimsy! I've given a couple of interviews in the past, but this is my first experience with reviewing. If you have any suggestions for ways to improve these reviews, feel free to leave a note. If you're a webcomic author and would like a review, you can see my announcement and review rules here.

Title: Next Town Over

Author: Erin Mehlos • Facebook • Twitter • DeviantArt • Patreon

Site: NextTownOver.net

Genres: Action/Adventure, Steampunk, Spaghetti Western, Weird West (real magic)

Rating: PG/T - violence and occasional adult situations

Updates: Sundays

Synopsis (from the site): Next Town Over is a weekly western, liberally spiced with sorcery, secrets and steam. It primarily chronicles the curious rivalry twixt laconic, mechanically-inclined Vane Black and sorcerous rogue John Henry Hunter ... and no: it most certainly does not take place in the historical American west.

I couldn't write a review of Next Town Over without first acknowledging Erin's breathtaking illustration. Case in point, this is page four:

All of the art is of this consistently high quality or in many cases even more compelling in scenes where something really spectacular is happening.

I started reading on page one and the atmosphere of the story feels very Wild Wild West or better yet like the roleplaying game Deadlands, in its use of steampunk and spaghetti-western themes. What you might find missing if you're a fan of the movie, is the witty, buddy-cop-style banter. That might be because the "sorcerous" John Henry Hunter doesn't have any buddies... though after you've read through a few pages that's not so surprising. Yes Hunter is a magician, but he's no robe-wearing wizard, he's a traditional western gambler who happens to have picked up a formidable knowledge of the dark arts in his markedly mysterious, all-but unexplored past. It seems those eldritch talents are mostly to blame for the wanted posters littering every town, promising a hefty reward for his person, breathing optional. It starts on page five at ten-thousand, which you might think is high enough in a western, but it continues to climb throughout the story thanks to a viscious cycle in the plot. Hunter appears, some hopeful local tries to claim the reward, and Hunter employs his sorcery to burn the entire town to a cinder! Of course when there's nothing left of the town, there's nothing left for Hunter but to continue on to the next town over. Hunter couldn't have a sidekick or buddy to banter with, the kid would at best slow him down, but probably be worm-food in short order. But lest you think that Hunter is a murderous villain, he's actually quite genteel and even charming and helpful at times. He's just not letting some yokel kill or jail him, and if that means destroying the livelihood of all the innocent bystanders in their town, then so be it.

Sometimes there aren't bounty hunters. That's when we see Vane Black, the woman who hunts Hunter throughout the series. While Black's reasons and past are as mysterious as Hunter's, she's obviously not after him for the money; it's personal and seething. Where Hunter is genteel, warm, conversational and notably magical, Black is the strong silent type, cold and mechanical. What she lacks in social graces, she makes up for in steampunk weapons and a willingness to use them, no matter what bystanders might be in the way, which is one thing she has in common with Hunter. But while Hunter's infamy is widely known and his reward keeps rising to reflect all the towns his hellfire has destroyed, Black is entirely unknown, despite her amber eyes, ashy gray skin, marvelous machinery and apparent lack of blood. But lest the lack of blood lead you to think Black is an actual machine, she and Hunter were married once.

The yin-yang relationship between Hunter and Black is emphasized by their horses. A horse named Diamonds is severely injured in their struggle and rather than put the horse down, Black turns him into a steampunk cyborg! Not to be outdone, Hunter turns a subsequent stallion into a literally flaming, hellfire-fueled nightmare!

In addition to the main story, Erin has also published several interludes featuring interesting side-stories in her world. I particularly enjoyed one titled Genevieve about a writer who sells his soul.

I have only one complaint about Next Town Over: pacing. I need to clarify that, however. If you're just looking for action, the pacing is great. There's lots of action in every chapter and it's beautifully illustrated, no problem there. If you're looking for a story, I think there's a really cool one in here if you can bear the wait. Amidst all the action in a given chapter you might get one small nugget of backstory, but it's doled out in such minute increments that it never feels to me like it's enough. Usually backstory is presented as a brief flashback from Black's perspecive, you might call them flashblacks. Things she sees frequently remind Black of her murky past with Hunter. Sometimes these flashblacks last a few panels, but often it's just a single image, forcing you to tease out the context.

As of right now, the comic is seven years old and I've read eight chapters of it and in three paragraphs, I've already told you almost everything I know about the pivotal backstory between Hunter and Black... almost everything. I know Hunter and Black were married, but I still have no clue why Black is motivated by revenge, what tragic event is stuck in her craw, gnawing at her seemingly undead gut. Admittedly this may just be my bias. If you enjoy stories that leave a lot of mystery or room for interpretation, then you may find this aspect of the story appealing. For my personal tastes, seven years and eight chapters is a long time to wait for this amount of information. Having said that, the beautiful illustrations, the action, and the cool steampunk feel meant that I enjoyed reading it, despite feeling at times like I was trying to read a book that had been previously torn up and I was reassembling the pages without page numbers.

So there's my pitch. If you enjoy beautiful illustration, action and adventure, magic, "the weird west", and a lot of mystery, you should definitely mosey over to the Next Town Over.

If you are a webcomic author and are interested in a review from me, you can check out my announcement and my review rules here.

If you enjoy my reviews and would like to help ensure I'm able to continue publishing them, you can contribute on our Patreon or if you're short on funds you can also help me out by checking out and sharing my own webcomic, Woohooligan!

Thanks! Sam

[teaandgames]

The Right to Drool - King’s Quest IV

King’s Quest! A series that lasted thirty years, inspired countless adventure games and is still quoted today! It’s time to look back through history, right up until the present, and see just why this series deserves its place in history. This week: bloody everyone is sick and dying in King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella! Copy protection is evolving. King’s Quest III made sure my copy was legitimate by making their spells impossible to remember while King’s Quest IV just throws away all pretense. Tell me the first word of the second paragraph of the second tip in the help section of your manual, it barks, with a loaded pistol pointed directly at my head. It’s as good a way as any as getting your player to learn their way around. Beats a lengthy tutorial, I guess. But once you move past that, King’s Quest IV is yours to explore and it’s actually a pretty hefty step up from its predecessors.

It has more common with I and II, in the sense that we have no timer and are not limited to one location, but it looks, sounds and plays a lot nicer. What’s more, things felt a touch more natural, even if the frequent bugbears of the series make themselves known. And it still has a manic obsession with wasting my time. But the improved graphics, complete with basic cutscenes, and the fact that it doesn’t feel like someone rattling off the last line of every fairy tale in the book, made King’s Quest IV actually enjoyable to play.

The story too is one I can get into. It picks up where III left off. King Graham, whose graphics have mercifully improved (meaning he doesn’t appear to have severe jaundice anymore), throws his adventurer’s hat towards his children but before they can catch it, he keels over. Way to ruin the moment, Graham. The good king is deathly ill and no one seems to know how to help him. Except a magical fairy who jumps through the magic mirror because the world needs more magical deus ex machinas. This time it’s Graham’s daughter Rosella who gets to go on the mystical, and frequently fatal, journey. And it was a good journey, with some great moments that didn’t feel ripped off. Appeasing a house of ghosts, for example. Or bewitching a snake.

I do find it kind of odd that the developers put so much work into giving the world so much personality but left our characters with none at all. Rosetta can play instruments really well and that’s about the entirety of her personality. The unnamed narrator has more personality than Graham’s whole family. When the evil fairy’s son falls in love with Rosella, I had to wonder what attracted him. Was it her completely vacant stare? The way she fell down the stairs constantly? Love works in mysterious ways. Anywho, Rosella is taken to a far off land by a good fairy, who is also sick, and asks Rosella to fetch her a talisman from the evil fairy. She also points out that there is something in the land that can cure Graham, meaning she hasn’t just kidnapped her for no reason.

From there the story gradually gets more interesting. The game is broken up into sections, with Rosella needing to get a succession of items to appease the evil fairy. Considering the last one is Pandora’s Box, it’s probably a good idea to ensure that Lolotte (the evil fairy) is good and dead by the end of the game. The items are scattered across Tamir and, aside from Pandora’s Box, we’re given at least a basic hint as to where to search. It’s still not a lot to go on but at least we have an objective, so we can start gathering the means to solve it. It makes it feel more structured too, like the game has small acts. It’s important to give the player some sort of small goal to work towards, as we can then start slotting in the pieces. I have a shovel, a ghost needs something of theirs and there is a graveyard nearby.  One add one equals grave robbing.

Tamir is also quite a nice looking place to go to. There are nicely detailed meadows, complete with a unicorn, and the good fairy (who’s name i’ve completely forgotten) lives on a sweet tropical island. In fact the graphics have improved all round and the developers have seized on that with more elaborate locations. We even go inside a whale at one point, which has teeth that look disturbingly human. Though the character portraits have gained a definite uncanny valley look. There are even a few technical improvements, such as the ability to look through a keyhole at one point. Doesn’t sound like much but if King’s Quest I was MS Paint level then King’s Quest IV is at least on the level of Flash.

Gameplay wise… well, it’s much the same. The version I played does score some points because typing now freezes the game. I don’t have to load up my text bar with some time dependent action and hope for the best. It also allows for mouse based movement, which came in handy when I had to navigate a narrow path and was close to breaking apart my keyboard. Some of its puzzles even have logical solutions once you inquire more into it. I also tended to have a smaller item pool, so those that did run on anti-logic could just be rubbed against everything in my inventory. But the biggest problems that still hang over the series are random chance and climbing sections.

The first comes in two flavours. King’s Quest IV still uses that incredibly frustrating tactic of not making puzzle solutions work the first time or not having a character appear every time you enter their screen. When the walkthrough has the line ‘if the minstrel is not there, keep exiting and entering until he is’ something has gone terribly wrong in the design room. The worst offender was a simple puzzle. Put worm on hook, type ‘fish’. It took me roughly ten tries to get the fish. If I hadn’t known about it, I would’ve given it up thinking I had to do something else. I guess back in the day when your game’s selection was limited, you could talk about it with friends and keep trying but that doesn’t wash with me. The second flavour comes in a cave section. It’s completely dark for one, but we have a lantern. But every screen you enter there’s a chance a troll can appear and you cannot get away. So be prepared for a lot of pointless loading.

Then there’s the climbing. I’m pretty close to having flashbacks of that damn beanstalk in the original game. There’s one climbing section in the whale’s mouth that isn’t so bad, as it at least doesn’t kill you when you fall off, but any time I came to a flight of stairs I knew that I was going to die at least once. It pulls a bunch of odd perspective changes too, which alter what your keys do and ended in a lot of flattened Rosellas. You do kind of get used to it, but I disliked having to slowly edge up every flight of stairs. At least there were a few staircases that Rosella automatically walked up, so maybe things are looking up for me.

Still, King’s Quest IV comes to a satisfying conclusion, with Graham and the good fairy all being healed up. The journey there is interesting too, full of witches, zombies and ghosts. I even started solving some of the problems myself, rather than being fully reliant on the walkthrough, which seems to me to be an indication that’s King’s Quest is moving in the right direction. I caught myself having fun, traipsing across the landscape looking for the next puzzle to solve. All they need to do is eliminate the random chance that can absolutely ruin the exploration aspect (and sort out the bloody stairs) and we’re laughing.

[seasideopinions]

New Year, New Me?

The New Year always brings with it the heavy weight of expectations for the future and the burden of wounds from the past. It seems as though everyone indulges in some self introspection and soul searching come January 1st. Typically,this comes in the form of paragraph long Facebook posts and Instagram captions, some new hair cuts, and declarations of “new year, new me.” I, like the masses, am somewhat guilty of engaging in these superficial traditions. Which brings me to this post.

After a hefty holiday season, and saddled with high expectations for the upcoming months, I thought that the general public might need a little reminder to take care of themselves through it all.  And being a self centred millennial, I decided to do it by talking about the example I know best: me.

2016 was, as Kylie Jenner so eloquently put, “the year of just like, realizing stuff, you know?” Collectively we realized many things, such as the general ignorance of the American public (Trump supporters, we're looking at you), the beginning of a neo-coldwar relationship between Russia and ,well, everybody, and the level of atrocities required before the world pays any attention (Re: Syrian Refugee Crisis). Globally, we might all agree that 2016 may have been the beginning of the end; that maybe the Mayans were four years premature in their prediction. In 2016 we realized countless things, and personally I realized more than I thought was possible.

The past 12 months were tumultuous for me, at best. My resolution going into the new year last January was to get myself back to the gym and take care of my health in a way that I had been lacking. That lasted for about 4 months, during which time I lost 12 lbs, gained a lot of self confidence, and a much happier mindset. It seemed as though nothing could go wrong.

Unfortunately, right when things are going smoothly is when you're the most unprepared for a speed bump, and the shock of it can send you hurtling off the shoulder of the road. That's what happened to me when, after months of having everything under control, I suddenly found myself finished second semester, desperately looking for a job, and struggling to keep my head up in a sea of anxiety and depressive feelings. These issues are not new to me, however I was entirely surprised at their return, as things had been going so well. Fast forward through the summer months, past a grueling 40 hour a week job, a wrecked knee, and a therapist, all the way to September. Things were starting to get better for me. School was back in session, work was less demanding, and I seemed to be reaping the rewards of 2 months of counselling. But once again, things began to unravel. Work was exhausting, and I was dealing with health problems, including nasty side effects from a new medication that left me sick, tired, and unable to eat enough for five weeks. The next bout of medication I tried was very successful, and the weeks of drowsiness and nausea were behind me. The hospital trips and tests were over as things worked themselves out. But, with the stress of finals, work, and the holidays, the anxiety returned. Following a particularly nasty panic attack, I finally booked back in to see my therapist. During a conversation with my boyfriend, we decided that what I need to do in 2017 is focus on myself, and stop worrying so much about what I thought I should be doing. This lesson is something that everyone can benefit from.

During our 20s, it's very easy to get caught up in the idea of the perfect trajectory of our lives: Graduate in four years, move out, work a part time job, get a fancy internship during the summers, make connections and network, have a relationship, party on the weekends and go on Instagram worthy vacations because it's the best years of our life, dammit! It's totally, 100% unrealistic

I, like most students my age, spent the better part of 2016 working on everything except for myself.  I spent every weekend working this past semester and I took five 3000 level classes, all while ignoring my own health and well-being. I didn't spend time doing things that I enjoy, nor did I spend enough time with my friends. I was so busy that even when I had a day off of work and school, I felt obligated to do something productive, like go shopping, see a friend, or go on a date with my boyfriend. There were very few days this year, especially the second half, that I spent on myself.

To start off my year, the first thing I needed to do was make more time for myself. Between work and school, something had to go. Rather than stalling my education or quitting a job I love, I decided to simply slow down. I plan on taking three courses instead of five this semester, and then take two in the spring. Rather than sprinting from January to April, writing exams, and then working 40 or 50 hours a week from May until August, I plan on leisurely strolling through the first half of the year. My goal is to take the artificially created pressure off of myself. As students living in a world where housing, food, and education prices are all rising, and the job market is competitive, we're conditioned to believe that we should always be doing something more. Take more courses, work more hours, join more extracurriculars. This mindset can be so harmful,  because when we're constantly working towards something, we don't take the time to enjoy what we do have.

My second goal is to spend more time doing things that I enjoy. The value of time spent doing things simply for pleasure and not for work is entirely underestimated. I plan on honing my photography skills, playing the piano more often, learning how to play the guitar, reading more books, and writing more often. I want to try out new cafés, explore new areas of my city, learn to drive, and go on more day trips. All of these things are thought of as luxuries in this fast paced world we live in, but they shouldn't be. Taking the time to feed your passions and your creativity is so important to your happiness and sense of satisfaction in your life. If I was to ask each and every person reading this if there’s something they wished they had more time to do, I'm positive everyone would be able to list off at least one thing. This year take time to enjoy things that are valuable to you on a personal level, not on a financial or academic level.

My third goal for 2017 is to take control over my own health. This is about understanding that health encompasses the body and the mind working together, and that if one isn't in tip top shape, the other will suffer. As students, we rarely have the time to take care of our bodies or our minds, and many of us take their good condition for granted. However, like anything worth having, our health is worth working for. Personally, I need to workout for my mental health as well as my physical health. I need to be aware of what I'm putting into my body, from alcohol, to fast food, to nothing at all. I need to make sure to get enough sleep, get enough fresh air, and take my vitamins. I need to talk to my friends, my family, my doctor and my therapist when I'm not feeling my best. I need to act in a way that's  responsible and conducive  to all types of health: mental, physical, and social. My hope is that taking more time for myself will allow me to do these things naturally, without additional stress. I sincerely believe that by making your health your number one priority, everyone can lead a much happier life.

As 2017 begins, we know that the world around us is unpredictable. More celebrities will die, Trump will become the President of the United States, and the Kardashians will probably do something stupid. While we can't control any of that, what we can do is take care of ourselves. Not everybody has the luxuries that I do, and not everyone can do everything on this list. But in some way or another, I believe that by slowing down our lives, spending more time doing things that we love, and taking control of our health, we can all enjoy a happier and healthier New Year.

[eulogy34-blog]

yeast face mask Options

• Shrink enlarged pores and sustain clear, young-looking skin by regularly implementing clean orange juice in your skin for a couple of minutes. It can mend challenges like dark spots, pimples, and wrinkles also. https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Honey-Face-Mask : Inside a bowl or even a container, insert some sugar and grate some orange peel immediately to the jar. Pour in some honey for the exfoliation of skin. Subsequent insert coconut oil and mix perfectly. In a small mixing bowl, mash ¼ an avocado While using the again of a fork or Mix if it’s more handy for yourself. Insert 1 teaspoon honey and 1 teaspoon coconut oil and mix thoroughly. Making use of clean up fingers, use a thick coat of this combination on to your face. Invalid email tackle Subscribe to L'Oréal Paris Email messages By enrolling I comprehend and comply with the privacy plan and conditions of service, such as the usage of arbitration plus the waiver of any course or group declare to solve disputes. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/722616702689548155 has long been using a honey mask and he or she enjoys the way in which it makes her skin sense moisturized. I think I would like a beauty working day when I Do that, too! Blend nicely that has a motorized blender and make use of a beauty brush to apply this egg white face mask with your skin. step to remedies while ago viewed objects and featured recommendations › View or edit your searching record Warning: Extended usage of aspirin or hefty doses must be prevented, as it might go away the skin excessively dry and help it become search yellow. Aspirin doesn't accommodate all skins, which must also be carefully viewed as When picking which face mask to employ. • Simply rubbing fresh orange peel on your face can help lighten skin shade. In addition, it tightens the skin and increases the feel. In Females of color, skin may seem ashy or dull from lifeless skin buildup. These face masks, combined with normal exfoliation and each day utilization of moisturizers must soothe dry, chapped skin. Why invest more than $twenty over a store-bought facial scrub every time they remain on the face for just minutes and all These fancy components get washed down the drain? Anti-inflammatory means your inflamed pink acne will be soothed and healed, producing them fewer pronounced. Antibacterial and antiseptic properties will help struggle off acne leading to germs and microbes, staving off much more acne and pimples. I have compiled some great facial scrubs that function just and also the pricey scrubs, but all definitely all organic and price pretty much pennies. An easy method to different yolk from whites is you crack an egg into a bowl and acquire an vacant h2o bottle and squeeze it, you should definitely hold that grip. then place the outlet with the bottle over the yolk and Permit that grip go and it should really suck the yolk in to the bottle.

The Ultimate Guide To egg white face mask

Writer: Gaurav Rathore Hi, I am Gaurav, author of your short article and operator of this Web site. I want you to possess better daily life problems. Following searching for numerous goods and guides, I last but not least believed to discover the finest a person. If you wish to use this mask yet again in the future, produce a new batch. Pure face masks like this can ordinarily stay about a 7 days inside the fridge, but in order to be Harmless, get started new anytime.[4] It’s deeply nourishing to the skin and loaded with protective antioxidants that guard the skin from untimely aging and absolutely free radicals.  Other Negative effects may possibly consist of dry skin and normal irritation, particularly if additives for instance pure lemon juice are utilized. Only your dermatologist will help you choose if using an egg white mask is best for your needs. Banana face masks are both of those nourishing and moisturizing and significantly perfect for dry, aging and mixture skin. Mash up a banana and spread it with your face or utilize the recipes underneath to make masks formulated to your skin type. Hi Fahi! Of course, I’d give it a try and see how your skin likes it! But something else that works really well for obvious pores is my deep pore cleaning mask recipe — I feel you’ll seriously like that a single and see an enormous variance. Rinse off the mask right after quarter-hour, and pat dry your face which has a towel.[7] The yogurt assists with shrinking the seem of pores, and tightening pores. The orange juice assists with refreshing skin cells, and softening severe skin traces. A pop up will open with all outlined internet sites, find the choice “Enable“, for that respective internet site underneath the standing head to enable the notification. I would like to consider egg white face mask but I have worries about salmonella. Do you can get salmonella from egg yolk? Hey !!! Am pleased to have this coffee notion … It’s better to test instead experiencing sip with a mug Thanks all .. .. Try some respiratory exercises. This will likely drive your thoughts to focus on the exercising and could enable you to neglect regardless of what it truly is which is stressing you out. Thanx. I'm a black/african girl 0f forty one. I am light-weight in complection, but my face looks so dull and grey. I've attempted evri products but my skin retaliates skin care program. four tbsp. finely floor espresso or coffee beans (already ground coffee and even instantaneous coffee perform if you do not have your individual grinder) You would normally detect that yogurt provides you with that cooling soothing feeling when used, that’s since it has that anti-inflammatory agent.

strawberry face mask Can Be Fun For Anyone

In the following paragraphs, I share eighteen astounding takes advantage of for simple elements you can find while in the kitchen area. Make your very own infant wipes, receive a recipe to get a lip scrub, give on your own a steam by using a teapot and more. No HTML is authorized in feedback, but URLs will probably be hyperlinked. Responses are not for promoting your articles or blog posts or other internet sites. Sorry I couldn't attach a “before” image to check, but in the event you head in excess of to this previous article about my skin difficulties, you can certainly see for yourself. I Primarily appreciate applying it prior to a day or right before one thing important Once i want my skin to search it’s finest. The speedy brightening, smoothing and line reducing results lasts for hrs and several hours! Some declare this mask eliminates darkish circles. So I've diluted this mask with h2o and utilized it flippantly below my eyes. It did make the underneath eyes seem rather less dark. Yes, Banana face mask with leamon and honey does enable take away tan, but additionally softens your skin and makes it glow. If you have dry skin, it is possible to combine an egg yolk also. (i) Though applying a purely natural face mask similar to this, enable it to be certain to stand around your sink or in rest room to stay away from slippage on the floor. To check When you've got oily skin, press a paper napkin to the forehead. Whenever you pull it absent, it ought to be soaked in oils. I've numerous pimples considering the fact that 7 many years n also hvng dim places of dat.. i hv tried evry possibl point.. but nthng work.. my skin variety is Merge.. n m also hvng white heads way too.. even afta gng for cleanse up nthng hd workd nonetheless.. how banana wl aid me.. n in the quantity of dayss… @ Pralad: You need to take care within your skin routinely. Include things like the following pointers is your skin care schedule. Exfoliate, dress in sunscreen, and use light-weight lotions consistently, and you’ll by no means again have to handle milia seeds. If you have already got them, don’t attempt to do anything by yourself. Talk to a dermatologist rather. It’s far better to be Protected than sorry! Yet another thing Each time applying this type of masks Be sure to tie your hair back again as it makes your hair messy and results in the sticky influence. This content material is correct and legitimate to the most beneficial from the writer’s awareness and isn't meant to substitute for formal and individualized assistance from an experienced Experienced. Coupled with other strong nutrients from other purely natural components, we can easily formulate powerful banana face masks which can help in resolving various skin issues, which include combating wrinkles, eliminating pimples, skin brightening and several extra.

Top skin care Secrets

@ Pralad: You must acquire care within your skin frequently. Consist of these guidelines is your skin care routine. You need to think about your perfume bottles no a lot less than assertion pieces, and keep them faraway from warmth and light to lengthen their shelf lifestyle to protect their scent and quality. […] In the following paragraphs, I share eighteen wonderful makes use of for basic substances you'll find within the kitchen area. Make your individual infant wipes, get yourself a recipe for just a lip scrub, give on your own a steam by using a teapot and a lot more. When you've got time, therapeutic massage your skin with ice cubes just after this. The applying of banana can make your face glow and also out the rough skin. Electricity-filled with all of the goodness of these fantastic ingredients, this face mask is likely to make the skin glow and take away tan from oily skin. About a length of time, you will definitely detect an All round improvement with your skin texture, spots on your own skin is going to be lightened and you may working experience a fresh glow and glow with your skin. Mix honey and cinnamon alongside one another, and apply on your face. Go away the mask on for 10-half-hour. The antibacterial Attributes of both honey and cinnamon make this honey mask perfect acne-susceptible skin. If you're able to take care of it, you could implement banana-yogurt mask right away. If you really feel it can mess-up then you can Permit it sit with your face for approximately thirty minutes or as extensive as you possibly can,then rinse it off. Ensure that you get rid of eye makeup with an appropriate makeup remover. The region round the eye is delicate so You should not pull or rub much too tough. You may as well use olive oil to be a organic eye make-up remover. Treat your self to a luxurious wax therapy like they do in posh spas world wide. Dip fingers into warm wax and then peel absent leaving arms soft and supple. In my view it is a great combination for your mask to treat acne and pimples, as a result of following factors: (i) Cinnamon may help rid your face or back of acne by both equally drying out the skin and, yet again, bringing blood and oxygen on the skin surface. Breaks down grime and Grime, removes excess oil which normally can clog up skin pores and lead to acne breakout. steptoremedies as a versatile deep cleanser to unclog skin pores. I’ve been utilizing an historic Asian masks for a couple of days now and my skin feels fantastic! The recipe for an enormous bowl is: 1 spoon of pure termeric powder (yellow-brownish spice), two spoons of pure honey, two spoons of all organic yogurt ( any will do), 2 spoons of brown rice powder, 50 percent of a lemon, and you may incorporate 1 egg white nevertheless the egg white isn’t in the initial recipe. This articles is exact and accurate to the best in the author’s awareness and is not meant to substitute for official and individualized assistance from a certified Expert. I heard anyone say It's not a good idea to apply lemon juice with your face because of its acidic mother nature. Is that this real?

The best Side of banana face mask

• Increase 5 tablespoons of simple yogurt, two tablespoons of honey, and two teaspoons of orange juice in 50 % a cup of immediate oatmeal. This moisturizing face mask helps preserve delicate, easy and radiant skin. As this mask will get messy, It will be a smart idea to tie or pin your hair back. You might also want to consider draping a towel in excess of your chest and shoulders to shield your clothes. I have tried out lots of household facials, but I have in no way heard of, or tried using a banana mask ahead of. This really is so thrilling :). I can not hold out to try it. Thanks for sharing, and also you're pics are brilliant. I have never applied it on my skin nevertheless, but I'll check out it. Thanks for sharing. I've bookmarked it to refer back I Voted it up and useful. Add lemon juice on the egg white. You will need two teaspoons of lemon juice. The lemon juice will act as a organic astringent and help do away with the acne and blackhead-creating bacteria. It might also assistance lighten your skin.[2] Must you use the entire combination and may you save The remainder for an additional use? Also, how frequently ought to it's applied? Clean the mask off and pat your face dry. Use lukewarm water to rinse your face off. Consider not to clean too tough. Gently pat your face dry that has a comfortable, clear towel. Refrain from conversing or smiling Along with the mask on mainly because stretching the tight skin may possibly bring about wrinkles to look. Utilizing cleanse fingers, implement the mask onto your face and therapeutic massage it systematically in the course of your face for sixty seconds. Then reapply a thick coat of the mask onto your face and lie down for 15 mins. Breathe calmly and Assume good ideas whilst permitting the mask get the job done its magic! Hold out thirty to forty minutes, then rinse it off with warm drinking water.[2] Almond oil absorbs simply into your skin. As it is light-weight, it will never clog your pores and result in acne. If you can't get almond oil, nonetheless, you can use One more form of oil. i do think that egg white alone is highly productive in dealing with skin troubles, my Tale of acne when i was eighteen was cured by egg white. Once i turned 22 a similar overcome. and now im 27,managing my Grownup acne.just dont be lazy You can even insert ½ tsp of olive oil to this mask being a moisturizer so you would not have to reapply moisturizer soon after using the mask. Just Make certain that the mixture is thick ample that it sticks towards your face and isn’t runny. You may start off by pouring 1 / 4 cup of your sugar within a bowl then including oil by the tsp right up until the combination reaches a regularity that you want. Thank you for producing your account on EverydayMe. This short article or item has become added in your favorites.

A Review Of honey face mask

These seem to be superb face masks, honey does wonders to your skin and leaves your face very smooth! Yet another face mask that is certainly Tremendous straightforward and very advantageous is an easy honey and cinnamon mask. After you say Egg White, does it essentially need to be an real egg white or am i able to use egg white from a carton? I have an Egg white Carton And that i want to ask if it is the same as utilizing an True Egg white Egg. Is anyone receiving this? LOL! This great mask is rather effective in obtaining rid of surplus face oils. For those who have dry skin, please refrain from making use of this drying and tightening face mask. As a substitute, try out an egg yolk face mask recipe. Include honey and avocado to a little bowl and mash alongside one another. Stir in the ground almonds. Spread more than the face and neck and just after 15-twenty minutes, rinse with warm water. You can get rid of acne without enduring the agony of digesting bitter tablets or implementing All those creams and lotions which, most often, are very little but lumps of petroleum jelly mixed with a synthetic scent, coloration, gentle bleach, and random antibiotics. When I was close to fourteen, my hair got a little bit oily from my things to do. To help keep my hair new more time just after I washed it, I would use whipped egg white on it. I set it in my damp hair, and Permit it dry, then brushed it out. My hair experienced much more volume also. -Once you rinse your face with lukewarm h2o, clean it again with chilly water a couple of minutes later. This can tone your face and boost the firmness within your face muscles. Blend effectively and use a uniform coating over your face, Primarily on the parts with too much facial hair. Have on dim clothes if you are utilizing this mask because it stains the garments (I learnt it the difficult way!). A caution when working with lemon juice: Lemon might also make the skin photosensitive. Rinse your face comprehensively and use sunscreen when you’ll be out from the Solar before long afterward. You should do an allergy check before you decide to try out any of our masks. Study our basic safety details and use Guidance before you move forward. Hi Samm! Sure You need to use honey and tiny drops of h2o. But milk or milk derivatives work ideal in mask Caution: Kelp could possibly be allergenic to some as a consequence of its substantial iodine information. Also, kelp could possibly be rich in metallic pollutants like guide and cadmium, because nearly all of industrial sewage and wastes are finally dumped to the seas. Anti-inflammatory suggests your inflamed pink acne will be soothed and healed, building them considerably less pronounced. Antibacterial and antiseptic Qualities should help combat off acne resulting in germs and germs, staving off more acne and pimples.

The smart Trick of honey face mask That Nobody is Discussing

Hi I have a wrinkles below my eyes which is extra day by working day kindly advise me that will i use Uncooked banana by mashing it two times every day, is this powerful? This quick banana face mask works by using turmeric and baking soda to assist you to get glowing skin and lessen pimples and blemishes. Continue to be acne-free with common software. (i) As this mask is fairly sticky, Be sure to pull back again your hair with a head scarf or band to stop your hair from acquiring messed up Together with the mask. Whisk while in the honey. Do that right up until the lemon juice, olive oil, and honey Merge right into a medium-thick Remedy. You may adjust the level of honey and olive oil you use depending on how thick or slender you would like the scrub being. Have you tried a variation with the honey mask? What are your preferred meals-based mostly elements to implement with your skin? Comment below! This could avoid it from having sticky. To safeguard your garments, think about draping a towel more than your upper body and shoulders. @Anne Harrison: Hi there and welcome! Whey drinking water is not just fantastic for skin, but also for hair! It softens skin and leaves it looking smoother and healthier. Whey drinking water also incorporates Stay cultures of pleasant bacteria that can help stability skin's pH far too. If you can take care of it, you may utilize banana-yogurt mask overnight. If you're feeling it'll mess-up Then you can certainly Enable it sit on the face for about thirty minutes or as very long as you can,after which rinse it off. Go effortless to the lemon juice. Lemon juice can dry out and irritate your skin. In case the scrub contained olive oil, you might use more lemon juice, but simply because this one particular doesn’t, stick to only a few drops of lemon juice. I used to be performing some analysis on working with honey for acne, and I discovered this article. Here’s an interesting quotation: It's also possible to insert ½ tsp of olive oil to this mask as a moisturizer so that you do not have to reapply moisturizer immediately after using the mask. Clean your face with a delicate cleanser. Use a mild cleanser to scrub your face with lukewarm drinking water, then pat your face dry which has a clear, dry washcloth. 3. Banana Face Mask to take care of Acne and Pimples: Are you currently worried about pimples and acne? This chemical absolutely free mask with natural ingredients, particularly, turmeric and baking soda functions to struggle acne / pimples, decreases blemishes and assist in obtaining glowing face. woooooow!!!!!!great interesting face masks…:D I've several issues on my face like darkish spots,rough skin,blemishes…:( i just want to know how many days in each week I am able to use these masks????and will i utilize only banana every day???thank you…:)

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The cone-shaped mask especially is determined Together with the Ku Klux Klan in a very self-conscious work to mix the hiding of private identification With all the marketing of a powerful and intimidating image. Honey's rigorous antibacterial motion can get rid of current acne and stop any more unwelcome pimples. I favor The actual Darling face mask by way of Chief Tresses Skin colour therapies with their epidermis face cleaner. Genuinely helpful many thanks !! see listed here my write-up secret for flawless skin ... This information is correct and legitimate to the most effective on the creator’s understanding and is not intended to substitute for official and individualized assistance from an experienced Experienced. Masks were utilized to alienate and silence prisoners in Australian jails inside the late 19th century. They had been made from white cloth and protected the face, leaving only the eyes obvious. Banana with yoghurt is a match built in heaven because it hydrates the skin as well as heals the patchy dry skin. Wonderful piece. Superior to have back again to Basic principles and out in the chemical laden cosmetics. I'll be attempting honey tonight. Some 2500 decades in the past, kings and commoners alike have been entertained by dance and mime accompanied by audio wherever the dancers usually wore masks, a vestige of the previously era when this sort of dances were being enacted as religious rites. As outlined by George Goyan, this exercise evoked that of Roman funeral rites where by masked actor-dancers represented the deceased with motions and gestures mimicking those from the deceased when singing the praise of his existence (see Masks in Effectiveness over).[39] Europe Although it may well not usually be achievable, attempt working with all organic and natural components. The significantly less artificial chemical substances the higher! At the time every week, make use of a sugar scrub or exfoliating fabric to get rid of lifeless skin cells. For those who wear make-up, cleanse your makeup brushes often to avoid the Create-up and distribute of microorganisms. To find out how your diet regime can influence your skin’s health and fitness, Continue reading! Although the niqāb generally demonstrates membership of some Islamic Local community, its intent is to not hinder recognition, even though it falls beneath some anti-mask legislation like the French ban on face masking. Occupational Honey for your skin is largely character’s wonder, and these 4 Uncooked honey face mask recipes are some of my most loved home made recipes for nourishing my skin. Inuit teams fluctuate broadly and don't share a typical mythology or language. Not incredibly their mask traditions may also be generally various, Though their masks tend to be produced out of driftwood, animal skins, bones, and feathers. See also: Masks amongst Eskimo peoples [2] Also, orange peel also incorporates potassium that can help the skin retain its dampness and also magnesium that helps beat skin getting older induced by cellular oxidative hurt. Suffice to convey then, that the rightful spot for orange peels is just not in the trash can but inside your natural beauty routine.

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Whether it is The standard hard-boiled eggs that can be elevated into mouthwatering deviled eggs or boiled egg sandwiches, or maybe creamy poached eggs with a gorgeous runny yolk, eggs are an exceptionally low cost and adaptable residence staple. yes u can eat oranges at interval situations, no problem in the slightest degree, vit-c is among the boon for girls/females u may even get vit-c dietary supplement whole life, no want of even stopping at the time of pregnancy also, my working day begins with 1 cup of orange juice i like it It will give you the glow that you simply’ve often needed. Your excellent skin care products s that are offered as acne creams, or cleanses, or oil harmony products should comprise this component. Utilize the mask over your face and wait 20 minutes. Wash it off applying lukewarm drinking water, then Carefully pat your face dry using a gentle, cleanse towel.[22] Contemplate including a squeeze of lemon juice to brighten your skin or reduce acne. To find the most bang for your personal buck and the very best final results, try to look for cold pressed, unrefined coconut oil. I take advantage of THIS coconut oil. You can find chilly pressed, unrefined coconut oil in most grocery and wellbeing food shops. Exfoliate your skin at the time weekly. This may assist buff absent All those useless skin cells and leave your skin experience silky-easy. You utilize scrubs, loofahs, and exfoliating sponges. You'll want to utilize a gentler exfoliator with your face than on the rest of The body. Usually do not rub your face to wipe off the mask, just use a clean cloth with heat drinking water. It helps make the removal simpler. Do you need to do a thing Odd like rubbing something around your face right before a date (or one thing important), as well? Or perhaps you might have A different amusing ritual? I’d enjoy to hear about it! Depart me a remark and allow me to know so I realize I’m not the only weirdo who does this stuff An egg has several antioxidants which make your skin glow and having Banana during the face pack provides a more nutritional significance to it. It can be when you utilize the ice directly to your skin. It's best when you wrap the ice inside of a washcloth, then use it for your face for a single minute. Just carried out this face mask, my skin feels fab! Pretty like the concept of turmeric extra to it so I’ll do this future time x Bananas are full of iron, potassium. Honey is really a normal healer. It absolutely was even utilized by Egyptians for managing there wounds and cuts. https://twitter.com/steptoremedies/status/1087107481564823552 exploit this mask consistently! I just take employed the morning’s coffee grounds combine in olive oil or maybe a cream and Mix right into a paste. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA6vWbDFAZY place in some turmeric powder. In India turmeric is often used in face masks to produce the skin glow and to stop skin eruptions. Get ready for your mask by washing your face and tying your hair again. Use warm water to assist open up your pores. When you are sporting makeup, you need to acquire it off applying make-up remover.

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Other masks which have exaggerated very long faces and wide foreheads symbolize the soberness of 1's duty that includes electrical power. War masks will also be preferred. little herbs youtube videos from the Ivory Coastline and Liberia carve masks with round eyes to symbolize alertness and anger, Using the straight nose to symbolize unwillingness to retreat.[30] Just after making use of honey compresses for eight times, he observed the microorganisms experienced absolutely disappeared without having his taking one antibiotic. i want to know the households treatments for tumaric from india for itchy skin on the face as well due to the fact I know the proper Option I need to know urs smilrs I cherished the eggwhite, lemon and honey mask and I'll use it 2 times weekly. What recipes can I use for daily to reinforce my sagging skin, lighten the dim marks below my eyes and assist my turkey neck? Quite a few splendor professionals say You do not want them due to the fact toners are meant to remove all remaining traces of oil, makeup, and dirt, and a very good cleanser ought to do this. Banana face masks are both of those nourishing and moisturizing and specially perfect for dry, getting older and mixture skin. Mash up a banana and unfold it on your face or utilize the recipes beneath to generate masks formulated for your personal skin form. Hi, many thanks for The good report! I are already applying egg-white now for a few yrs, but it absolutely was instinctive rather then possessing examine it on the internet. These face mask recipes are very easy to make at home, making use of popular components obtainable in the kitchen area. Orange peel is nutrient-loaded and has several Gains for skin, not simply skin lightening. Mash up the banana, then blend from the honey. For most effective effects, put the components inside a blender. Add the juice of the lemon or orange. Implement to face for quarter-hour ahead of rinsing with a interesting washcloth or simply a steaming heat washcloth. Observe with all your standard moisturizer. Coffee and cocoa face masks have extensive been a favourite of splendor aficionados. As https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_mask , they lessen puffiness inside the face along with the eye location, brighten skin and wake up a dull complexion (hello caffeine!). This facial mask recipe performs wonderful regardless of your skin variety. Most of the masks and people Utilized in European festivals belong on the contrasting types with the 'superior', or 'idealised attractiveness', set in opposition to the 'unsightly' or 'beastly' and grotesque. From the Andes, masks had been used to gown the faces from the lifeless. These have been initially manufactured from fabric, but later on burial masks ended up at times manufactured from beaten copper or gold, and infrequently of clay. Fantastic and beneficial write-up. I love anything handmade - It truly is normally the purest and Ideal! step toremedies might use only organic and natural oranges due to all of the pesticides which are Generally sprayed on them. It just felt 'organic' to select up the eggshell and dab the remaining white onto my face esp concentrating about the parts beneath my eyes.. its worked for me ever since withj no detrimental Negative effects so consider it on your own.. :) go natural!

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Very well maybe. Some beauty authorities strongly recommend eye creams. Why? The skin around the eye consists of no fatty tissue which is consequently incredibly skinny and prone to wrinkles. Apply this mask with cleanse fingers in your freshly cleaned and dried face. The baking soda may well sting somewhat, but This is certainly no lead to for alarm. "It had been super easy and straightforward to do. I will go on accomplishing this facial for just a easy and more youthful wanting skin. Thanks." RD Rylie Doosendorf Really don't be scared to dress in makeup, but do it with care. Use make-up that's ideal for your skin style, and take away it in advance of intending to sleep to stop breakouts. This articles is exact and true to the best on the creator’s expertise and isn't intended to substitute for official and individualized suggestions from a professional Expert. Take it easy on your own as you await the combination to settle and dry in your face. You could lie down and breathe deeply, contemplating content ideas! Clean your face twice each day to keep it oil-absolutely free, boost complexion, and prevent breakouts. You need to clean your face in the morning any time you rise up, and from the evening prior to likely to mattress. The #1 reason for wrinkles is sun damage, so it's important to work with a sunscreen of at the very least thirty SPF out of your early yrs on even in Winter season and on cloudy times. An excellent trick is to purchase two moisturizers: One particular with the evening and 1 for the day that features UV protection. will check out, seems straightforward enough. can these be produced in advance and just how long does it continue to keep for when egg white is faraway from egg shell? Is loaded with citric acid, which gently lightens dim skin and evens out discolouration. Also lightens dark spots and acne blemishes. In this post, I share eighteen amazing uses for essential ingredients you can find in the kitchen. Make your personal little one wipes, receive a recipe for your lip scrub, give yourself a steam with a teapot and more. We've given you some absolutely free shipping tokens. The totally free delivery tokens are legitimate until number of days. A free supply token is automatically used every time a supply charge is thanks. So, enjoy the bigbasket expertise more with the free deliveries! the egg white by yourself performs for me. I exploit to possess massive zits on my face but now It is Plainly all long gone, my pores became tight and no signs of scars, it had been astounding. I utilize it each tuesday and friday. Oh And that i also dab ice on my face. I really would not advise lemon. You should use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No facts is shared with Facebook Until you interact with this function. (Privacy Coverage)

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No HTML is authorized in comments, but URLs is going to be hyperlinked. Responses will not be for advertising and marketing your article content or other internet sites. To help make powdered orange peel, just help you save up orange peels in the natural oranges you eat, clear away the white fribrous sections on the inside with the peel, and clean them in warm distilled water. [sixteen] Check out a number of the following leisure tactics: Take a wander throughout the block. This will help you to perform off some steam. The clean air can also help quiet your intellect. In accordance with the BBC, a man through the title of Sam Edwards from Wrexham, Wales credited honey with preserving his leg! Just after becoming Minimize by a koi carp, he became infected with Mycobacterium marinum and produced a rare skin ailment. Now, a lot of the recipes under tend to be more potent and will only be applied 1-2 instances per week. Other people You should utilize each day. I’ve designed notes for how often Each and every mask need to be utilised. Certainly, after the honey mask I washed off using a warm face cloth then I do the plan in advance of bed eg, utilize moisteriser . The components necessary for generating orange peel face mask for the oily skin and acne are given below. Honey consists of a hefty serving of antioxidants for moisturized and vivid skin. Polyphenols in honey wipe out no cost radicals that cause oxidative tension in skin cells, therefore slowing down the getting older process of skin. Mix the above elements comprehensively in a little mixing bowl. Coat your face Along with the combination utilizing thoroughly clean fingers. Let it accept quarter-hour. In the meantime, you can lie down, shut your eyes and unwind as being the mask does its magic. When the time is up, rinse your face, and pat dry using a cleanse towel. Do-it-yourself face masks are crammed with character's restorative goodness, in the form of the nutrients, minerals, acids, and oils stated from the tables over, without any in the substances that store-acquired masks must have for an extended shelf life. Permit’s examine the powerful nutrients in raw honey for its nourishing Advantages to skin! Below, understand a few distinctive face masks you can try out on your own in your own home, Each and every with a special reward. Mix clay, honey and apple cider vinegar in a small non-reactive bowl (under no circumstances use metallic when dealing with clay). Stir together and Carefully implement to your face and neck. Just after quarter-hour, take out the mask with warm h2o, then with chilly water. These seem like exceptional face masks, honey does wonders towards your skin and leaves your face very sleek! Yet another face mask that may be super simple and very effective is a simple honey and cinnamon mask. Combining egg whites with honey and lemon juice will make a highly helpful Do it yourself egg white face mask for acne. Honey has solid antibacterial and anti-inflammatory Qualities which make it incredibly efficient versus acne.

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Promptly refreshes the skin, decreases the scale of pores, balances pH level during the face, safeguards skin for trapping pollution and dirt in everyday life. For your skin care natural face masks, there is not any normal ingredient that's a reasonably shut substitute for turmeric. Should you are searhing for an all purely natural, refreshing face mask component to present your skin cells a healthful Strengthen, orange peel powder is for yourself! This powder can be utilized in face masks to help you individuals that: The fresh new lemon juice also is effective to crystal clear acne and lighten the skin to provide you with sleek, blemish-free of charge skin. Hello! I've essentially dried my orange peels but.. :-/ I forgot to not include things like the white component (which you explained it shouldn't be). Can I continue to utilize it? May perhaps I know what big difference will it make, utilizing 'only the prime most component' and 'such as the white component'? Spread the orange peels in a very tray and area them in a place that receives loads of sunshine. Leave them there until They are really thoroughly dried—this typically normally takes 1 to two times, but may take up to 5 in cold, cloudy weather. This assistance enables you to enroll in or affiliate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, to be able to gain dollars from adverts on the articles. No facts is shared Except if you engage using this type of aspect. (Privateness Plan) Certainly, You can utilize banana with orange peel powder. For improved outcomes add in comprehensive product milk also and generate a thick paste. Utilize this mask on all the face, averting eye place and go away it about thirty minutes. Then gently get rid of it with heat h2o (don’t rub your face as it may irritate your skin). This uncomplicated banana face mask works by using turmeric and baking soda that can assist you get glowing skin and decrease pimples and blemishes. Stay acne-totally free with normal application. Make sure you how much time until I start out viewing effects Once i get started using the face mask( orange peel powder, oatmeal and baking soda) and how frequently should really I utilize it in per week? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QZn8i5kT2A are don't just great for salads and for detox nevertheless it can be perfect for your skin. As it provides a good cooling influence since it hydrates, moisturize and lower any acne redness in just one day. If you're fighting acne then grapes are actually fantastic way to remove them. (ii) Skin beneath the eyes is extremely delicate and requires day-to-day moisturizing to maintain it from destruction and wrinkles. Castor oil functions being a prosperous moisturizer which can be used day-to-day for retaining the skin beneath the eyes tender and supple as well as avoiding wrinkles from showing. Start out grinding the peel in your foodstuff processor. The primary picture shows the peels soon after 3 pulses. The second picture exhibits the finely powdered peel, just after about 40 seconds of grinding. I had read and tried using banana masks ahead of. But they are distinctive and it seems to be good. I'd not considered the orange juice just before. I'll give it a check out .

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> Who doesn’t want to scent excellent all day long lengthy? A fantastic scent can not just cause you to smell wonderful, it may possibly increase your self esteem manifold. I have hardly ever heard of an egg white face mask right before. In general, I am happy which i came upon this hub. many thanks for that recipe and a few insight regarding how to have a cleaner and more healthy searching face. Voted up and shared. It's the weakest finger and is not going to extend the fragile skin under your eyes just as much. Stretching skin too much can lead to wrinkles. On account of they both equally genuinely fantastic to scale back substantial pores, also tighten them. As oranges are filled with vitamin C which Normally exfoliates your skin. It gives you an acne totally free skin In addition, it will make your skin brighter that very last at any time. It dries in close to ten minutes. I clean it off After i get while in the shower. I recognized a fast and appreciable distinction in my fine strains, enormous pores, black heads and standard skin texture. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/722616702689548172 considered things and highlighted suggestions › See or edit your searching record Many of us require one another to market our Hubs and acquire the word out. Take a 2nd to comply with me, and sick follow you appropriate back again. Thank you! As avocados are full of antioxidants. So it hydrates and moisturizes your skin devoid of clogging your pores. It also has Vitamin C, E plus a. What's more, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_zWPn_5aag consists of omega 3 & nine acids which seriously helps to soothe your skin. Additionally, it helps to brighten your skin and really helps to struggle with acne and Sunshine spots also. New-year should-haves: the best splendor solutions for all Skin & Human body New-season ought to-haves: the most effective beauty products for all favourite28 This face mask is also superior for mature skin as these 3 ingredients put with each other, are fantastic for cutting down the looks of great lines. Are you fatigued together with your acne? Defiantly. use this face mask as this mask is absolutely free from chemicals and great for everyday use. As baking https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Face-Masks-Using-Natural-Ingredients helps to open clogged pores and excessive oil. whilst turmeric has anti bacterial and anti viral Homes which combat against pimples. The cinnamon and nutmeg honey face mask smells astounding and is effective miracles in fading acne scars and night out skin discolorations! Permit’s begin to see the skin benefits of the components With this one particular: When you're feeling your skin tightening up, Carefully take away the egg white, having a fabric soaked in warm h2o. I'm wondering what my Duchess will visualize all that delightful egg on my face. Duchess is my wonderful cat.

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Can I combine mashed banana with sugar, orange juice and avocado oil ? And if Of course am i able to shop inside a sealed container? Many thanks Natural and residential designed products and solutions are fantastic for face mainly because it dose not manifest aspect outcome. I like natural face wash & I keep it in my hand bag. Reply The egg white don't just aid nourish and company your skin, nonetheless it will likely aid tighten the pores[1] Discard the egg yolk or save it for one more recipe. You may use the egg yolk to make a nourishing face mask. Make reference to the part in this post on generating a nourishing face mask to find out how. Breaks down grime and Dust, removes excess oil which otherwise can clog up skin pores and bring on acne breakout. Will work as a flexible deep cleanser to unclog skin pores. Increase the olive oil or coconut oil. You will need 2 teaspoons of olive oil. The olive oil will moisturize your face, leaving the skin feeling gentle and clean. If you do not have olive oil, You may use coconut oil as an alternative, which can be also incredibly moisturizing. What's more, it aids remove blackheads and scars. Milk is surely an age-outdated skin cleanser. It removes impurities and works to be a organic emollient. Tips: It presents Excellent results, but it really does take time and energy to see them. Should you don’t instantly see a alter, don’t hand over. You could’t assume outcomes in just a working day or two. Also, the mixture is most effective used when freshly produced. Go away the mask on for quarter-hour. To prevent the mask from dripping everywhere you go, take into account laying down or sitting down in a snug chair together with your head tilted back again. You may also use this mask inside the bathtub when you are soaking or taking a soothing tub. When you say orange juice- which a single-new orange juice that we make or a single in a carton that we purchase from outlets? Serach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty mentioned acne website. Most of the acne cures get care of oily skin as well. So I'd personally recommend first you handle your pimples difficulty. • Provide a healthful glow for your skin by mixing 3 tablespoons of orange juice in 50 % a cup of natural and organic honey and smearing this solution onto your face and neck for 20-twenty five minutes.   "My face is quite oily and I have blackheads on my nose and chin. This worked very well, I will be applying it two times every week Any more."..." more AO Afi Owusu It can be your choice. You should do it soon after washing your face, that's Generally accomplished each morning and evening. Many people use masks inside the night, as that may be when they have essentially the most time. Rub the mask into your face, utilizing your thoroughly clean fingers. If wanted use a second coat for making the elements penetrate deep into skin pores. Anticipate 10-quarter-hour and wash your face with lukewarm drinking water devoid of using any soap this time. You'll cheer up seeing your glowing face. Voila!

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Ingesting a great degree of water every day can help quite a bit. Also, clean your face and consider off all makeup every evening. Bear in mind, the skin in your face is much more fragile in comparison to the skin with your arms and legs. Pick exfoliating scrubs carefully. The more substantial the grains, the more abrasive the scrub will be. Stay away from scrubs with walnut shells When you've got delicate skin. Turmeric not merely can help take care of acne, nonetheless it may take in surplus oil from the skin and lighten discoloration. When you've got an American model coffee equipment, make use of the coffee grinds inside the filter; if you have an Italian design equipment, just unscrew and take away the particles still left between the parts of the cafetiere. To maintain pimples away, use orange peel mask. What's more, it cleans your pores of the Dust and oil and prevent blackhead at the same time. Minimize your stress amounts. Pressure can not only wreck havoc on your head and sleep, but your skin too. It may lead to acne, breakouts, along with other skin troubles. Set reasonable goals and limitations for yourself, and go away time every week so that you could do things that you take pleasure in. Details: Aspirin or acetylsalicylic acid is an efficient skin conditioner and is often located in skin care merchandise. Also, it really works really very well to take care of acne for the people with oily skin. [24] Use brown sugar to get a gentler scrub and white sugar for a daily scrub. You can use any type of oil you desire, but coconut oil or olive oil would get the job done finest. Need something more robust? Test salt! You need to use any that actually works nicely for yourself, but if you use olive or coconut oil while in the mask after which use an oil infused moisturizer, it could lead to breakouts if you have oily or mix skin. Blend clay, honey and apple cider vinegar in a small non-reactive bowl (never ever use metallic when working with clay). Stir with each other and Carefully utilize on the face and neck. After quarter-hour, take away the mask with warm drinking water, then with chilly h2o. Become a member of Reward Me and obtain unique presents! Turn into a member Mixing honey, orange peel powder and yogurt produces a mask which will help you decrease acne scars and blemishes. This is utilised to gather data on visitors to article content together with other webpages on our internet site. Until you happen to be signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable details is anonymized. Mix the egg white and lemon juice. Employing a fork, swiftly whisk The 2 ingredients right up until the egg white will become foamy and frothy. Increase lemon juice to the egg white. You will want two teaspoons of lemon juice. The lemon juice will work as a normal astringent and help get rid of the acne and blackhead-leading to microbes. It may help lighten your skin.[two]

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Incorporate your substances. The method for mixing your components is usually to stir the sugar and oil inside a bowl right until These are just put together, then to include from the finely chopped fruit or vegetable. Subsequent, muddle the combination alongside one another.[23] Don’t press hard. The sugar will do its operate even with Light stress, so resist the urge to press down challenging while you unfold it in excess of your skin. Make sure you take out eye makeup with an appropriate makeup remover. The world across the eye is sensitive so Do not pull or rub also really hard. You can also use olive oil like a normal eye makeup remover. Increase lemon juice towards the egg white. You will want two teaspoons of lemon juice. The lemon juice will act as a pure astringent and assistance eradicate the acne and blackhead-leading to microbes. It may aid lighten your skin.[two] Incorporate the honey towards the egg white and lemon juice, and blend anything once more. You may need ½ tablespoon of honey. Ensure that it's the translucent, runny kind. Honey is antibacterial and functions as a organic antiseptic. It is additionally moisturizing and will help replenish the skin.[three] To implement orange peel powder as a natural cleanser, Mix it with a little bit water to create a paste. Utilize it in your skin and leave it on right until it dries absolutely. At last, rinse it off with lukewarm drinking water. Thank https://www.facebook.com/steptoremedies/posts/2087800381313231 for the subscription. Your electronic mail structure is Erroneous! Unfortunate, but we could not add you to our mailing record ATM. Subscribe We all know that oranges are perfect for well being, proper? But just like all fruits, the peel actually features a Considerably greater concentration of nutritional vitamins, minerals and nutrients when compared to the fruit by itself! • Shrink enlarged pores and maintain distinct, more youthful-looking skin by frequently making use of contemporary orange juice with your skin for a few minutes. It could possibly heal difficulties like dark spots, pimples, and wrinkles also. Realize that including make towards your combination will decrease its shelf lifetime. To put it differently, Never produce a large batch, in any other case it could go lousy ahead of You should utilize all of it. On top of that, should you add fruits or veggies to your facial procedure, you'll want to refrigerate it.[19] Should you discovered this short article valuable please have a second to tweet, like, or share this text by utilizing the buttons at The underside in the web site. I’d definitely appreciate it. Finally, scrub your skin with this particular mask and go away it for nearly fifty percent an hour to obtain gentle, glowing skin. It works for a natural bleach and lowers Solar tan when applies about three times in each week for a minimum of a month. Combine the lemon juice and honey, and implement the mixture towards your face. Let it to sit down for 20-30 minutes. Lemon juice exfoliates your skin, brightens darkish spots and fades scars. Decide on an oil. The following oils consist of elements that will reward your skin:[12] Olive oil is of course antibacterial and can moisturize extremely dry skin devoid of clogging pores.

Top sugar face mask Secrets

In a very bowl, consider some orange peel powder, sugar and almond oil. Ensure the amount of sugar is equivalent on the peel powder and listed here you've got a fairly easy recipe to a beautiful smelling lip balm that’s effective and simple to generate. Oily skin is the key reason behind acne breakout. Through the lots of treatment plans for oily skin The easiest method to treat it truly is utilizing banana. Is a strong antibacterial and antiseptic agent. Slows down the getting old technique of skin by battling off no cost radicals. Moisturizes skin. As a culture of scattered islands and peninsulars, Melanesian mask sorts have made inside a extremely diversified vogue, with an excessive amount of wide variety of their development and aesthetic. An additional custom of European masks formulated, far more self-consciously, from courtroom and civic activities, or entertainments managed by guilds and co-fraternities. These grew outside of the earlier revels and had come to be evident with the 15th century in places like Rome, and Venice, exactly where they developed as entertainments to enliven towns and metropolitan areas. Hence the Maundy Thursday carnival in St Marks Square in Venice, attended via the Doge and aristocracy also involved the guilds, together with a guild of maskmakers. In Europe, Schumann's affect coupled with the early avant-garde artists to really encourage groups like Transferring Photo Mime Clearly show and Welfare Condition (both equally in the united kingdom). These organizations experienced a major affect on the subsequent generation of teams Functioning in visual theatre, which include IOU and Horse and Bamboo Theatre, who make a theatre where masks are utilised as well as puppets, movie and other visual types, having an emphasis around the narrative framework.[fifty two] Practical masks Quite a few African masks depict animals. Some African tribes feel that the animal masks may also help them talk to the spirits who live in forests or open up savannas. Men and women of Burkina Faso referred to as the Bwa and Nuna call on the spirit to prevent destruction. The Dogon of Mali have sophisticated religions that also have animal masks. Combine all the above mentioned components in a small bowl. Use a thick coat in the combination on to your clear face. Allow it sit for quarter-hour or till it dries out. with 6 egg whites following that. K. experienced now designed by far the most wonderful macarons for the New Calendar year's Eve party (see Flickr Photograph established below), so I had to think of A different idea. Meringues or pavlova 3. Your face could be a bit purple following the scrub. It is because of your sugar scrub which stimulates suitable blood circulation in the face. The redness will vanish following a while plus your face will be glowing and no cost from peeling skin and useless cells. Oily skin is actually a norm, particularly in warm and humid climatic circumstances. Dealing with this certain style of skin can be very tough as you have to be further careful together with your skin and food stuff patterns. No HTML is allowed in reviews, but URLs will likely be hyperlinked. Responses usually are not for selling your articles or other internet sites. The caffeine articles may help decrease swelling and restore the skin's misplaced blush, brightness and vitality. The ground beans are great to clean and scrub, when caffeine includes a tightening effect on your skin pores. Thanx. I am a black/african woman 0f 41. I am gentle in complection, but my face seems to be so uninteresting and gray. I've attempted evri item but my skin retaliates skin care regime.