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kendojar80 · 2 years

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Including On Window Washing To My Stress Washing Enterprise

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#清潔公司

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architectuul · 3 years

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An Attempted Utopia

The city of Shumen in Bulgaria is home to the country’s largest monument to the Founders of the Bulgarian State. An enormous, cathedral-like complex on the plateau above Shumen tells the story of the early Bulgarian rulers through a series of larger-than-life modernist sculptures.

Shumen Central City Square (1988-1989), unfinished. Created by Ivan Sivrev, Elena Konyarska, Maya Petrova, and Tsvetan Vasilev; chief consultant architect Georgi Stoilov. | Photo © Darmon Richter

But while many other memorials built during the communist period have been doomed now to decay and obsolescence owing to their political symbolism – branded as they often are with hammers, sickles and stars – the Shumen monument, by focussing purely on the ancient past, has managed to remain relevant to, and loved by, its inheritors. Today this symbol of Bulgarian nationhood is better preserved than probably any other monument built during the 45 years of Bulgarian communism so many foreign visitors come to Shumen to marvel at it.

An upwards view, from deep within the abandoned construction site of the Central City Square concrete tower. | Photo © Darmon Richter

A vast concrete tower looms over Shumen’s city centre: phallic, foreboding, and visible from all ends of the city. Standing 18 storeys high, the tower rises from a construction site six storeys tall and spreading out to fill an entire city block. The Central City Square, a gargantuan experiment in urban design was intended to be revolutionary, incorporating shops, hotel, post office, cafes, restaurants, hall for weddings and rituals as well as municipal administrative offices but has never been finished.

Glimpsing the full scale of vast Central City Square. | Photo © Darmon Richter

When the Bulgarian Communist Party relinquished its single-party system at the end of 1989 the country slid into a chaotic and economically unstable democracy and many former state projects has been left incomplete. All over Bulgaria are the shells of abandoned construction projects, orphans of a dissolved government but nowhere any come close to the size of Shumen’s Central City Square. The tower, its most visible element, stood between two unfinished blocks which rise behind a security fence established right along the city’s central pedestrian area on Liberation Square. Only by peering over that fence, does one realise that the tower and both blocks are all the same building, joined through lower levels, dug into the hillside, with road access to the site from a street behind. The lower levels of Central City Square extend beneath the street, emerging behind you as tunnel entrances that look like metro stations. Hotel Madara, overlooking the square, was supposed to be connected with underground tunnels that would grant guests easy access to the complex.

Cross sections of Shumen Central City Square. | Drawing via Promisljena estetika (1988) Vol. 1

The street was redeveloped in tangent with the Central City Square project, around the pedestrianised area are motifs thematically connecting it to both the new complex and the monument on the hill above. For instance, the tallest column of the Monument to the Founders of the Bulgarian State is topped with a stylised black granite lion, based on a 7th century carving, a design that is echoed in the streets below, with sculpted bronze lion heads set like sentries along a sheer concrete wall. Opposite the lions, the outer wall of the new complex nods to a culture that predates even the first Bulgarians, Hermes the messenger appears in sculpted relief on the face of what would have been the new post office.

A modernist relief at the subterranean entrance. | Photo © Darmon Richter

This redesign of Shumen city centre was a world apart from the monumental design of previous decades. Nearby, the 1949 Monument to the Red Army on Slavyanski Boulevard was pure, unadulterated socialist-realism; even the 1965 Monument to Freedom leant heavily into safe political territory with its hero figure and engraved hammer-and-sickle motif.

Western block rises behind an advertising fence.| Photo © Darmon Richter

However, the complex at the heart of this city project was bolder still. Intended to revolutionise Shumen’s urban landscape in ways that would have made this city notable not just by Bulgarian standards, but potentially one of the more advanced urban centres anywhere in the socialist world.

In an interview with Ivan Sivrev appeared in Industrial Aesthetics, Decorative Arts (1988), a monthly magazine published by the Bulgarian State Committee for Science and Technical Progress, the architect described the project as a forum for this 100,000-person city. “Central City Square has been designed as a living organism,” said Sivrev, “the elements of which are interconnected and interdependent just like, figuratively speaking, the organs of a living creature. We intend for Shumen’s centre to materialise as a synthesis between aesthetic, artistic, social, engineering, ecological and other requirements, instilling the rich historical past of Bulgaria into a modern development.”

Ivan Sivrev (right) stands beside a model of Central City Square in 1988.

Sivrev lists the various facilities to be included in the complex “the ‘Man’s Industry’ Fashion House, ‘Pancho Vladigerov’ Festival Complex, the existing Hotel Madara, and on the first underground level, the House of Rituals and Services.” The Festival Complex alone was to feature “concert halls, a club house, recital halls, music rooms, a record shop and musical instrument outlets”, meanwhile, “the House of Rituals and Services consists of three ceremonial halls, a family centre and council offices where various administrative, legislative and technical services shall be provided. There shall be a conference hall with 400 seats and a club restaurant for the administrative workers.”

Preliminary (up left) and final (up right) building plan with silhouettes and cross sections (below). | Drawing via Promisljena estetika (1988) Vol. 1

Other outlets inside the building included tobacconists, pharmaceuticals, a panorama café, coffee shops, a luxury restaurant and nightclub for 250 guests. One particular theme that emerges from the interview is Sivrev’s commitment to environmental issues. The building was designed from the ground up with the goal of combatting congestion and pollution in the city; considerations which had been lacking from many of the Party’s previous large-scale constructions. The Shumen project was to feature open green spaces, rooftop gardens and planted terraces. It was planned with the intention of increasing the size of community green areas. Cascading water would provide a pleasantly refreshing spray in hot summers, while a unified public transport hub would free the neighbouring streets from traffic congestion.

A towering concrete skeleton of the complex today. | Photo © Darmon Richter

This effect would be achieved by moving some of the city’s essential functions underground. “The construction of underground levels is a social necessity” states Sivrev as “underground levels bring mass transportation stops immediately next to the city square without creating a conflict between pedestrians and motor vehicles. They improve usage of public transportation significantly and reduce noise pollution and car emissions.”

The first underground level was planned for public transport stations, flower shops, souvenir and jewellery shops, homewares, perfumes, a national lottery kiosk and ticket offices for Balkan airline, BDZ rail company, Avtotransport coach company. The second underground level was intended to feature a car park for 200 vehicles under the square and a space for 250 vehicles next to Georgi Dimitrov Boulevard. Below that, the third underground level would provide a united storage area for servicing all buildings in the square.

Silhouettes and cross sections along the main core axes of the central structure. | Drawing via Promisljena estetika (1988) Vol. 1

The project as a whole reflected new ways of thinking about urban space. There are parallels between Ivan Sivrev’s design and the Radiant City proposed by Le Corbusier in 1930, when he exhibited his design for the perfected future metropolis - a linear city formed of standardised blocks, with underground transit routes reducing the surface traffic to allow for an abundance of green spaces. Each block would take the form of a self-contained vertical village containing shops, laundries, even kindergartens. The architect likened his vision to a living organism, composed of interconnected organs working together in harmony.

Le Corbusier’s proposed extent of the Radiant City. | Photo via Stadtstreicher

“I believe we managed to achieve conceptual synergy between urbanisation and architectural-artistic concepts. The development and its attributed buildings create the necessary conditions and allow for creating a unified architectural organism in which all levels and structures are both spatially and functionally connected. This is the very first such development in Bulgaria and it applies the most advanced principles of underground urbanism” is certain Sivrev. His design sketches show that the plan for Shumen Central City Square would have seen it grow considerably larger than what’s visible today. Much like Le Corbusier’s Radiant City the project would remain unrealised and today, those who venture inside will find not utopia, but a sprawling warren of abandoned spaces and twisting concrete corridors.

Unfinished spaces on the easternmost block. | Photo © Darmon Richter

Plants have taken root in some of the airier regions of the complex. | Photo © Darmon Richter

Bulgaria’s communist leader Todor Zhivkov was kicked out by his own party in 1989 in response to a number of growing criticisms throughout the final years of his regime. The rise of nationalism had been a major factor, culminating in Zhivkov’s attempted ethnic cleansing of Turkish and Roma minorities, beside that there had also been serious environmental concerns. Zhivkov had continued his predecessors’ urbanisation schemes, with large-scale industrialisation as cities were rapidly expanded to accommodate new work forces. The state had done little, however, to offset the effect this was having on the environment. By 1989, The Ledger reported that 85% of Bulgaria’s river water and 70% of its farmland had been damaged by industrial wastes and pollutants.

The Danube city of Ruse had it worst of all, when a chemical plant was built across the river at Giurgiu in Romania, it began to exhale toxic gases towards Bulgaria. Soil around the Ruse area was shown to contain concentrations of mineral acid at 40 times over the safe limit. A cloud of chemical gas descended on a Ruse meeting of the Young Pioneer organisation in September 1987, and children as young as seven were seen choking, running for cover with their red neckerchiefs clutched over their mouths. Zhivkov refused to act, however, unwilling to upset his fraternal relationship with the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. The Committee for the Ecological Protection of Ruse was founded, and they began protesting Zhivkov’s lack of solutions. Initially these demonstrations were crushed, Zhivkov allegedly ordered the beating of a group of environmental activists outside an OSCE summit in October 1989, but national dissatisfaction grew. Organised, nationwide protest gave birth to the Ecological Openness movement: a forerunner to the contemporary Bulgarian Green Party.

As Detlef Pollack and Jan Wielgohs note in Dissent and Opposition in Communist Eastern Europe, “On November 3 1989, Ecoglasnost (Ecological Openness) delivered the crucial blow to the Communist political system. At least 10,000 people came and marched to parliament, carrying posters and chanting the word democracy. It was a crucial breakthrough. Just a week following the Ecoglasnost march, Zhivkov was sacked.”

Bare concrete facades on the north side. | Photo © Darmon Richter

Shumen from the rooftops. | Photo © Darmon Richter

Perhaps Shumen’s Central City Square, a Corbusian city of the future, designed for a new ecologically responsible mode for urban living, had been a belated response to the problems. Perhaps it was intended as a trial, as the first of a new wave of ecologically-friendly urban redevelopments, but even if that were the case it was too little, too late.

Even by 1988, the project had reportedly been fraught with difficulties and by disagreements amongst its creative team. Sivrev explained these as “the inability to comprehend the unity and yet simultaneously multi-faceted nature of the development.” One engineer had baulked at the prospect of building the tower and ran away from the project. “Atypical solutions require atypical thinking” Sivrev concluded.

The unfinished tower. | Photo © Darmon Richter

But the final blow came in 1989 when the communist state was dissolved and Shumen’s Central City Square, like so many other unfinished constructions in Bulgaria, had its funding cut off. In place of a unified architectural organism the people of Shumen would be left instead to deal with a colossal, crumbling skeleton.

by Darmon Richter [Adapted with permission from Ex Utopia]

#bulgaria #modernism #unfinished

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lotionsandlipsticks · 2 years

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Which high-end brands are offering sales at the moment?🤔

In almost 2 weeks, Christmas Day will be upon us once more and so the shopping in the run-up intensifies! If you’re looking for gifts for others or yourself, it can be easy to lose yourself in all the discounts and deals on offer at the moment. I’ve rounded up 4 brands that are often pretty expensive in general, but which have gift sets and sales on so you can spoil whoever you want without breaking the bank 💸

1. Charlotte Tilbury

Charlotte Tilbury’s products are usually RIDICULOUSLY expensive which is why I’ve never tried anything by her...until now. There was a deal a week or so ago offering a mystery gift for £15, so I leapt at the chance as her products are never this reasonable. The gift was a glossy lipstick in the coveted shade ‘Walk Of No Shame’ with two free samples of her skincare range, so it was definitely a purchase worth taking! Keep an eye out for similar offers, as well as gift sets she currently has on her website for £30 or under.

2. Urban Decay

Urban Decay is known for its gorgeous eyeshadow palettes, setting sprays and primers, but did you know they consistently offer discounts on their lipsticks? Instead of being £18, they’re often on sale at prices as low as £10, which for the brand is an absolute steal. I have their Limited Edition Heat lipstick in the shade Fuel, which is a perfect everyday peachy nude colour that would look good on pretty much everyone. Check out their other nude shades as well as their more ‘out there’ colours - there’s bound to be something for the lipstick-lover in your life.

3. Fenty Beauty

If you’re based in the UK, then rejoice for Boots are selling Fenty Beauty products with some tasty-looking discounts. Pretty much everything Fenty has to offer is discounted at the moment, from base products to lip products galore. Gift sets are also available including assortments of lippies and party-ready products, so if you’ve never tried this brand then now is the time to give it a go!

4. Too Faced

Too Faced often has decent deals at this time of the year, but recently they’ve stepped up their game with the amount of gift sets they have to tempt and tantalise you. Currently there’s the Gamer Girl set that contains some of the brand’s most loved products such as the Better Than Sex mascara and a classically-feminine full-sized eyeshadow palette for £35, as well as the Army of Love set that has two full-sized products and one travel-sized product with a popping pink travel pouch to boot for £35 too.

What are you waiting for?

#charlotte tilbury #urban decay #fenty beauty #too faced #christmas #christmas shopping #gift sets #discounts #sales #deals #beauty sales #save your money #uk #beauty gifts #gift ideas #make-up #make-up gifts

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powderdoom · 3 years

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Black Friday Sale Roundup

Beauty Bakerie - 40% off site wide starting 11/25

Coloured Raine - 30-90% off site wide, including $5 lip products

Colourpop - 30% off site wide, no code necessary including the Sailor Moon collection

E.L.F. Cosmetics - 25%-40% off $30+, including gift sets. Starts 11/25 and ends 11/30

Fenty Beauty - 30% off, no code needed

Juvia’s Place - up to 50% off site wide, including $10 eyeshadow palettes

Sephora - mini and travel-sized sets & specially-priced full-size products ranging from $10-$15, up to 50% off products like certain Urban Decay Naked Palettes and Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kits

Ulta - deals on brands such as Anastasia, NYX Cosmetics, Smashbox, Batiste, $15 MAC lipsticks, buy two get two free sheet masks, and much more

Uoma Beauty - Up to 64% off selected products, free shipping $50+

Wet n Wild - 50% off starts 11/30 and ends 11/30 + free shipping on US orders $15+

#black friday #sales #to be continuously updated!

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sparrowsabre7 · 4 years

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Ok, guess it's Higgs murder time. Ah not yet, final connection first. It definitely is quite haunting being in a more urban environment, there's a real smell of death and decay as opposed to the vibrancy of life seen in the greener landscapes. The large dam wall or whatever it is creates an imposing presence too.

Oh what the fuck, giant jellyfish of death. Swell. Well this is horrid. At least a single shot from the rifle seems to see them off and not attract others if they land in my path . Oh goddammit, my climbing anchor is destroyed, gonna be fall damage city I guess. Plenty of cryptobiotes around though thanks to all the piss mushrooms (which is a thing I only recently learned about).

Wow just slicing my way through the regular BTs right now, here's some classic zingers you can feel free to use:

Mind if I cut in?

Would you like to hear the benefits of going cordless?

Do you fancy a slice?

Feel free to leave of your own a-cord.

Slice to see you, to see you slice.

I'm cutting you out. Of life.

Anyway, shoved in the activation key. I do wonder how much longer the game would be if you didn't skip ANY cutscenes. Like the delivery of the package, Sam showering, peeing, pooing, adding something to the Chiral network. It's the same each time but given the frequency it all adds up.

Chiral network complete! I feel like there could have been a bit more fanfare instead of being told "your done now go to your room".

More beach time, wearing clothes this time though Amelie is dressed as Higgs but also is giant. She also says "I am the extinction entity" with a joker grin and violent camera shake zoom and the screen going red as though that's some big reveal like it hasn't been a) theorised for a good hour now and b) she already outright told me at distro.

Now my room is in panic mode so I guess it finally is Higgs murder time.

Just gonna check my mail first though.

Deadman goes full Para Medic on me in an email about films and how My Fair Lady might be about London Bridge and about a living sacrifice built in the foundation which seems like the heaviest foreshadowing ever. Wondering if Amelie can only exist on the beach and essentially stays dead to keep the UCA going or some shit. He also name drops Shape of Water which is funny.

Ok, out we go and ho lee fuck, that's a big BT. This dude is "make my monster grow" size. Higgs is here being all weird and monologuing. I still don't really get why he wants to destroy the world... hopefully he'll explain in his inevitable death monologue.

Amelie is stuck in the chest of the BT like Rita Repulsa from the 2017 Power Rangers movie so unclear how I'm meant to save her. Oh, Higgs just ported her out of the BT. That makes things easier. Hmm he stuck his mask on her and now she's talking creepy. Like... is the mask magic? Is it a truth serum, I really don't get it. It's also electric and stuff just.. anyway, she's saying she will soon emerge all beaches into a single shore which will cause an extinction event.

"Surely you've figured it out by now." I haven't actually, please mansplain for me, Higgs. Amelie is the source of DOOMS, the nightmares and visions of the future - ok, I had sort of had that in my head as one of the options given that Bridget's baby may have been a BT and Amelie said she was born on the beach - oh, and that was the end of the explanation... I was hoping for a little more specificity.

Ok, boss fight now and Amelie is back in the BT but so is Higgs so betting he's the weak point. Ok, seems to be going well, normal firearms work better on Higgs than the BT stuff which, as with normal BTs, is actually quite pathetic damage wise. Glad I made the grenade launcher and rocket launcher to take with me, though already running low.

Damn,switched to shoulder which is more awkward, I guess I'll have to rely on BT weapons. Thanks to all the creepy player mannequins.

BOOM BABY! Big boi is down. Oh ma , all that chiralium just disappearing into the ether...

Ah you prick you're still alive... oh sick, Lou is using the odradek to deflect Higgs' shots. NO! You fucking shit head! You shot at Lou. This is bad, I don't k ow if BBs can survive without their lil jar thing. Oh and after what I said last post about the licking, maybe Higgs is a pervert after all since he's slung Amelie over his shoulder but is unnecessarily holding her by the ass.

Ah shit, now Sam's dying and Higgs says he's going to see me on the beach... ok, so I've repatriated... how do I get to the beach?

Maybe by sleeping? I could get to Amelie in dreams. Nope, that's not the way. Do I... kill myself?

Will have to pause it there as I hear the kittens have woken up.

Obligatory kitten tax:

#death stranding #sparrowsabre7 plays death stranding

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insomniac-dot-ink · 5 years

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The Breakdown Ch1

genre: supernatural gay ghost story

rated: M

words: 4.3K

summary: What do you get when you combine an urban legend turned real, a psychic hick, and bunch of ghost hunting Yankees? A bad time.

All Kevin Lampton wants to do with his summer is stop The Lady in White from killing anymore road trippers in the middle of nowhere Kentucky. Unfortunately, a group of ghost hunters looking for answers makes his job a lot more complicated.

Chapters: One, Two

Website⭐Ko-Fi ⭐Patreon ⭐ WordPress⭐Twitter

Prologue

Technically, no one agreed on its name. It had no name and no place on the maps- faceless as a cliff smoothed over by time and as anonymous as a stranger in a New York City subway at rush hour.

The dirt road peeled off highway US 68 halfway between Lexington and Springfield in the dusty empty guts of Kentucky. There was no hint of its existence except a dinky gas station on the corner that didn’t even sell hot dogs and required a pair of clunky keys to enter the fly-infested bathroom. The turnoff itself was only indicated by a little green arrow on a rusting metal pole.

Kevin had tried several times to kick down that green arrow and put up construction cones across the mouth of the road. That had worked a couple times before “Destruction of Public Property” letters started showing up in the mail. He tore up the letters first and then the next green arrow.

The unnamed road eventually breached the tiny town of Reginald. Its long bumpy neck skirted around the boxy houses with battered tires out front, ownerless dogs barking at the burnt sky, and dried grass the color of eye-crust. After Reginald it breached into “nothing land,” land that could be anywhere at all in its tired and timeless way.

It raced for thirty straight miles after that- no bends, no twists, no turns. It was as a straight as khaki pants at an old navy sale and guys in bars who would rather sleep on concrete floors than even brush the skin of another man.

It surged perfectly lonely toward Hillsboro. Hillsboro, population barely 100, was like Reginald except with the aftertaste of even more broken satellites on each roof and burnt trash since the garbage trucks wouldn’t come out that far.

Some people called the road between the two towns “Hillsboro Road” or “Reginald Lane,” each town denied such names and spat on the ground at the mention of it. An old man with a handsome nose half the size of his face and a bite for every other word called it “Catpiss Trail.”

It was yellow in the sunlight, and tinted brown in the night, ground that took on whatever color suited its mood. The dirt was loose and dried, easily sludgy in the rain, and a scourge to tires everywhere as the rubber flung stones into the air like rapid-fire projectiles. It was the type of road that was just another nameless dirt road in a nameless corner of the world.

Nevertheless, someone swore on their mother’s grave that there used to be a sign next to it, just a wooden post with white lettering. The post had read “Sumpter Road.” Kevin agreed on it being Sumpter Road. It was a thirty-mile lick of dirt that connected the very empty bits of a middling world. Sometimes a field or two bordered its edge- owned by men in ties that had never stepped foot in Kentucky. They grew grain or corn or somebody’s next sandwich. But mostly, it was grass, dry grass the color of yellows-lesser-cousin, a decayed yellow that had given up on its goals a long time ago.

You could drive for miles and miles alongside that wilting yellow, across flat plains with only tiny white shacks off in the distance and rusting red pickup trucks abandoned off to the side. It was junk and nothing all at once. Empty, lonely, ugly Sumpter road.

Locals of Reginald and Hillsboro used different options other than Sumpter. They knew not to travel on that road, not at night, not during the full moon, not during the crevice moon or no moon, and especially not during the summer. There was a conscious little heartbeat that traveled from mother to cousin to old great aunt back down to second cousins twice removed: don’t go on the dirt road off highway US 68, you know the one.

They knew not to go there, Kevin knew not to go there, and despite their collective best efforts, somebody wasn’t listening. People in Subaru's and Honda’s and family minivans, always in the lean months of summer with the faint smell of sweet heather and somatic cow filling the air.

They appeared as the sun roasted the dry earth and sucked the color from the sky until it was such a fragile, wilting thing you wished to drag your finger across the silken bottom and taste it.

Kevin knew those summer’s well, and he was sick of them.

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Chapter 1: The Blue Toyota

Seven miles from the highway, fourteen minutes from the closest house, twenty miles from the nearest public restroom, Kevin Lampton snapped open a folding lawn chair. The chair had been his roommates, but his roommate claimed it had been left in their backyard from the previous owner.

Strips of worn cloth draped across it from one metal limb to the next, the stripes had probably once been bright teal and red and clean white. Now it was just a faded peach and wheezing blue, it was rusted around the screws and held his weight with a reluctant groan.

But it had been free which was perfectly within his budget.

The headlights of his shitty 1990 Hatchback blew up his lumpy shadow across the ground and was the only light for miles except the teetering mix-drink stars up above. The headlights streaked valiantly across the dark ether and cut out a little life there. I’m wasting so much fucking battery, he reminded himself bleakly, but it was better than waiting in the dark.

He used headlights since flashlights always made him feel like an amateur that was just asking for someone to knock it out of his hands and kick him in the nuts for free. He wasn’t an amateur.

He slouched in the chair and the hungry heat crawled across his flushed skin, it was technically May, but it had the teeth of July- beating down on his brow and dripping long damp fingertips down his spine. He had on a white tank-top, one that made him look like he stored a shotgun in his trunk and didn’t know how to give his consonants any backbones.

Which was all true. But usually he didn’t want to show it. However, summer didn’t play by any judgement structured by how much PBR you drank or how much army camo print you owned. It was too hot for t-shirts and he settled.

He remained in his ragged slouchy jeans though, not even the murderous undead deserved the sight of his knobby gawky knees in shorts.

Kevin blinked up at the night sky, a vast unreadable thing, and listened. Crickets chirped in all directions and a few coyotes cried woefully to each other in distant places, but nothing more. Sometimes he thought he spotted blinking lightning bugs just above the tides of grass, but he usually chalked up to his imagination.

He slipped the cracked screen of his Samsung phone out of his pocket and just barely registered the time: 10:32. He sighed again. Kevin Lampton was big subscriber to sighing, he renewed it every year and regularly added: wrinkling his mouth into a tiny scrunched frown and running a hand pensively through his shaggy brown hair.

He needed a haircut. He needed to clip his nails. He needed to get back to his tiny motel room and throw out the milk in the mini fridge- it was at least five days old. He needed music.

He sighed again and instead craned his neck back and went over notes in his head: perfectly inelastic: the price stays the same regardless of the quantity demanded. Demand curve is a vertical line.

Elastic: if price elasticity of demand is greater than 1, quantity reacts to price…

He traced the vocab words on the arm of the plastic chair and occasionally mumbled to himself. He lost track of time, there was no other choice at that point in the night but to lose track of it.

11:00, 11:30, 12:00, coffee break, piss break, cursing at his cellphone as its battery drained, 12:20.

Kevin got all the way up to his anthropology notes and classifying primate bones. Orangutans: lesser apes, globular head, longer forelimbs.

It was 12:22 and the night split open like a ripe melon bashed with a baseball bat. A horrifying guttural scream pierced the air. He didn’t exactly hear it with his ears, which always seemed stupid if he thought about it too hard, but it pierced through his mind in a flurry of sickening bites. Yellow jabs, cloying blows, gut churning, and body seizing sensations.

Kevin let it hit him once, twice, before bursting to his feet and digging his hands into his stuffed pockets and patting the contents. He extended his senses outward: sending soft feelers toward the bleak oceans of anyone nearby. “Shit.” They were two miles up the road, further up than he expected, but ghosts were dreadful about being reliable.

Another shriek bristled from behind him and Kevin tossed his chair aside and dove back toward his car, “Shit!”

He hopped into his shitty hatchback, stalled the ignition in a reckless moment, and then backed all the way up. His tires threw up dirt as he accelerated with the devil on his heels and he took a U-turn that as more of a V-turn.

His car groaned for a moment, but had enough soul left to take off with a high-pitched growl and dramatic skid. He gunned the gas and fishtailed across the night, “Come on baby.” He sped, there was no speed limit out there, but he had no way of knowing what ‘fast enough’ was going to be.

He got close enough to recognize the robust shape of a car pulled off crookedly to the side of the road, headlights splashing across the ground and two pale figures sitting rigidly in their seats. The sound of someone twisting the key in the ignition with careless jamming motion crackled through the air.

Waves of spiky sticky fear pierced Kevin’s stomach and knew he was in the right place, obviously. That’s also when all the life went out of his car.

It didn’t stall or sputter or curse at him in any known electric language, it simply rolled to a perfect limp-boned stop. As it always did when he got this close.

Kevin scrambled out of the car and locked it just in case, you know, just in case.

“Stay calm!” He shouted across the way as they kept revving the engine and going absolutely nowhere. He started running. It was a shiny dark blue Toyota with a handsome finish, the plates were from out of state.

A woman with chin-length stiff red hair sat in the passenger seat, wild-eyed and chest heaving, all the blood drained from her face and hands braced on the dashboard. She was wearing a college t-shirt and looking at nothing.

A man with black glasses and a dark stubble beard sat next to her, eyes on the steering wheel and muttering curses in jagged uneven breaths. They looked like a young couple that were either lost, wayfarers, or their GPS had general murderous intent. It didn’t really matter at this point.

Kevin swung around to the passenger side door. This was the tricky part.

“What was that?” The woman’s voice was shrill, frantic and formless. “What the fuck was that Robert? Tell me you saw that Robert.” Robert did not respond.

Kevin hesitated; he had tried this part before with varying results. Quickly he decided on a new combination of methods, first tapping on the glass lightly and then simply opening the passenger door and hopping inside.

She always left the doors unlocked by that point.

The woman let out a shriek like bloody murder and jumped to the side, and the man looked up with empty-eyed terror.

“Don’t worry folks!” Kevin put his hands up and realized maybe ‘wife beater’ wasn’t the ideal outfit in this situation right then. He cut to the chase. “When’s the last time you saw Her? One minute ago, five?” “Ahhhh!” None of his methods seemed to work very well.

The man snapped out of his stupor and balled his fist up, “Get behind me Julie!” He put his arm out in front of the woman’s chest and offered impractically. He was plastered to the back of the driver's seat and Julie wasn’t getting behind anything. Kevin raised his hands up even further, “I’m here to help.” He winced as Robert raised his fist, “Wait, wait, you don’t want to punch me! I promise. I’m your lifeline.” They both stared at him, dumbstruck, the girl hyperventilated, “WHAT the fuck is going on?”

“Is this some sort of sick prank?” The man’s face bubbled red hot, “Tell me if you think this is some sort of practi-” “Not a prank,” Kevin’s eyes roved around the back of the car and an inconspicuous cold gently seeped through the air like mist rising off early morning grass, “I swear.”

“Don’t tell me...” The woman wrapped her arms around her body and shivered- she felt it too. “Don’t worry,” Kevin explained quickly, “You’re lucky I got here in time, now… when’s the last time you saw the lady in white?”

“What, what are,” the woman stammered. He was too late. There had been too much talking. Kevin was too late.

He was still working on this part.

He saw the movement before he saw the shape itself. Skin as white as crushed daisy petals, hand small and childlike one moment and then tendril thin and clawed the next. Kevin’s breath stalled in his chest, the white hand slithered out from the backseat, just by the driver’s side window and hovered for a moment.

It stalled in place, like the second before a giant metal airplane with no feathers or hollowed bones or thousands of years of aerial evolution pressed off the hard earth and into the sky anyway: a certainty of the impossible.

The hand lunged, fingers spreading impossibly wide, impossibly quick, and it clenched around the man’s neck with no ceremony or preamble and squeezed. His head hit the headrest with a swift jerk and his glasses slunk down to the end of his nose.

“Sir!” Kevin barked, but the hand was already latched on. The blood drained from the man’s face like there was straw attached to his neck and sucking. His skin squished in like silly putty being molded and the smallest of choking noises escaped his parted lips, barely a noise at all.

The woman didn’t move, Kevin internally complimented her for not pissing herself… yet.

Kevin reached into his large pockets. He was getting better at this part. When he first started, he used to quote bible lines like “the power of Christ compels you” and “in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit, be gone.” However, it didn’t seem to make any difference.

“Fuck off!” He shouted in its place and didn’t turn around; he knew better than that and continued yelling. “Get back!” He dug out salt rocks from his pocket and tossed them wildly into the back, flinging them over his right shoulder with abandon. A guttural growl answered, like a barely rumbling thunder cloud or the echoes of a tumbling rock fall in a canyon. A warning.

He caught her eyes in the rear view mirror.

He wouldn’t dare turn around, but he could do this much. She was positioned in the middle seat perfectly so and staring unblinkingly ahead.

Her skin was as pale as bleached bone and tendrils of lank black hair fell around her face. Her eye holes were surrounded with ragged black eyelashes, burnt ground around white, a white with no irises, a white with no pupils, a gaping emptiness with bruises underneath. Deep shadows and sagging skin, unslept and unwept.

The eyes themselves were nothing, empty fissures, otherworldly, but the bags under her eyes spoke of something human, something real, skin gathered and drooping mundanely. A suggestion of a person in the worst way, and it made his stomach heave.

“Fuck off!” He yelled again and threw another handful of salt, a hissing came right by his ear like the hiss of pipes just about to burst, animalistic and inhuman.

He reached into his other pocket and silently apologized to the upholstery. The man was choking, gasping, eyes bulging out of his head and spit dripping down his chin in glistening strings. The woman Kevin was squished next to remembered to scream.

“It’s got him, it’s got him!” She babbled and twisted around in her seat to look. The second she turned a new scream etched out of her insides, primal and broken. He took note for future reference: shoulda told her not to look.

He held up a pouch over his right shoulder.

Kevin squeezed the cold plastic bag furiously and aimed without looking, like he was trying to splatter abstract art somewhere and hated the canvas itself. The blood squirted out of the little tube in a perfect arching stream and the sound of liquid hitting fabric followed. He waved it back and forth until it sagged empty and deflated in his hands.

Kevin’s arms goose-fleshed and the overwhelming scent of bog rot and frost flooded through the car’s vents, a hissing like rattlesnakes and tortured cats joined it. Julie stopped screaming to cover her nose and mouth and she gagged on the waves of rank air.

Robert on the other hand started hacking and drawing desperate breaths of air, the type of sound you hear in the wards of newborns or from ailing vacuum cleaners.

Kevin braced himself, grabbing the handle above and shoving one shoe against the car door and the other against the dashboard. “Hold on.” He advised, but it was lost to the violent gagging of the woman and the man besides her attempting life.

The car shuddered like it was going through turbulence, rocking forward and backward as a bucking bronco trying to dislodge them, tipping wildly in some unseen ocean.

Kevin squeezed his eyes shut as their impromptu roller coaster trip shook the life from them like rag dolls in the hands of a vindictive toddler. Julie crashed into his side while the man gasped for air with a certain reverence and loving devotion.

Kevin exhaled from somewhere deep within himself when the tipping settled and the temperature in the car quickly climbed like a morning birdsong at dawn.

The woman clawed at the dashboard in a move Kevin could only wonder at and she twisted in her seat to look behind them again, teeth clenched and whole body trembling. A vein popped out of her forehead like a rather elegant blue engraving in her skin.

Kevin released the tension rippling through his nerves and exhaled. It was over.

He shifted in place, he was now positioned directly on top of the plastic middle island between the seats and tilting his head up toward the ceiling. He closed his eyes for a moment and listened. It was quiet except for crickets chirping. The scent of blood seeped through the air, but that was his fault.

“Where is she?!” The woman said louder than strictly necessary. “Where the fuck is she?!” She reached for the door, ready to do the logical thing and bolt.

The man felt at the red-marked puckered skin on his neck and wheezed in response.

“Don’t worry,” Kevin remembered he had to do this part too. “She’s gone. Don’t get out, she’s gone for the night.” The couple in the car both turned to him at once, as if seeing him for the first time and clearly not being pleased.

“You,” the man spoke first, still laboring for the breath and his voice faint as a crushed soda can. “You,” he seethed, “What is this?” He spat, “Who are you?” The guy who just saved your life.

“You can try the car now,” Kevin said instead, “it should start.” They both eyed him warily, mutely trying to process the existence of the evil undead and also this sunburnt white kid in a wife beater sitting in the center of their car. “I’m Kevin,” he looked between them, “I stop stuff like this.” He didn’t elaborate or add only on this road and with this particular ghost. “I came to help.”

He could still feel the anxiety and adrenaline rolling off the couple. It was a vivid electricity that clogged his chest and made his teeth ache. However, they hadn’t tried to hit him again- which was a fabulous perk for that night.

“Are you,” the girl poked at his cheek the way you might poke a strange stray dog collapsed on your porch, “are you real?” Kevin knit his brow together. “Yeah, I am,” he struggled to explain, “I, uh, she’s the only other thing on this road.” That didn’t seem right either. “In Kentucky.” He frowned, “Okay, maybe just on this road.”

The man mutely grabbed for the keys and tried the ignition, the car easily murmured to life with no complaint, you’ll want to check the shocks later. Kevin didn’t add that yet.

The woman held her chest and stared off into nothing, “What was it?” She finally whispered.

“Was that real?” The man had turned the car on but was still feeling at his abused neck. At least he dropped the idea it was a prank, you know, the murder kind of prank.

Kevin realized he was stuck between the both of them in the car, a dinner party he was not invited to nor wanted to attend. “You shouldn’t drive on this road ever again.” He said darkly, “Not ever. She might remember you.”

“What is this road?” The man asked, tasting the weight of each word and staring at Kevin with an even keel.

Kevin nodded, because that was the right question, “Sumpter. Just try to remember it.” Kevin said plainly as exhaustion finally peeled off him like soggy tree bark from a dead oak. They looked back to him, “What did you do?” The woman asked, flatly and not particularly kindly.

“I just stop stuff like this,” he repeated, “with a little lamb’s blood and salt.” You’ll need to get the back reupholstered- he didn’t say that yet either. “You’re okay now, really, like I said she won’t come for you again tonight.” He met the woman’s eyes and managed to extend a small scrape of reassurance toward her. “It’s over.” Kevin glanced over to the door handles to indicate his job here was done.

They both were still looking at him, “And what the fuck is it?” Robert growled.

“Ghost.” Kevin stated flatly. He waited for their disbelief, their rejection, their grappling with wild powerlessness and the simply thought of something more to all this. Kevin pushed out another wave of reassurance and another long moment passed. He cleared his throat, “The Lady of the Road. The Strangling Demon. The Lady in White depending on who you ask.”

Julie’s entire body shuddered at that and she curled inward like a roly-poly poked with a stick and buried her face in hands. It was a long fertile moment, hanging in the infinite, and then she started crying softly, without any pretenses or filter.

“Uh,” Kevin scratched the back of his neck, “I should go.” He didn’t look over to her; he already felt enough of her trembling shock waves of mortal despair. “I’m just… yeah.” They ignored Julie as she had her private moment and Robert turned to him with strangely piercing dark eyes, “How did you find us?” Kevin licked his cracked lips, “I’m from around here. I know she sometimes attacks people on this road, I come out a few times to stop it.” It wasn’t entirely the truth, but he needed to get out of here. “I should get going.” The man was frowning so hard it might as well have been an indent in his lower face, he reached for his door handle and silently stepped out. This was the point where some people gave Kevin cash or a hug, but it wasn’t one those nights.

“Wait,” the woman’s hand strangled the back of his shirt and stopped him, “How do you know she won’t come back?” Kevin didn’t turn to look back at her, “I just know. It’s the rules, it’s only on this road and only once, promise.” A long silence stretched thin, the man’s eyes shifted outside the car and the woman’s weepy voice clung to him. They focused on him, “Where does the road end?” Kevin just pointed, “When you reach the highway, then you’re out.”

The man and woman exchanged a glance. “And you get rid of her? That’s your job?” The man asked steadily, feeling his neck again.

“I mean, yeah, kinda. It gets rid of her for a little while.” This was Kevin’s least favorite part.

The man got back in the car and closed the door, “I’m Robert, that’s Julie,” he grunted, “Show us the way from here?” Kevin sighed deeply, and sometimes they asked him to stay with them. “Sure.” He would have to walk back to his car later. It was going to be a terrible night.

The couple didn’t say anything more with the scent of lamb’s blood drying and the air-conditioning left off. He rode silently to the highway with them in the blue Toyota, his thoughts dripping out his ears and falling to the ground like unfolded laundry. He didn’t bother pick them up again.

They’re alive tonight. Another car is going to be okay. He reminded himself gently, now just 90 more days of this.

Ninety more days, another summer, and however else long it took to make sure no one else died because of The Lady in White.

Kevin would make sure of it no matter how many times it took.

Next Chapter =====>

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Hey! Being a writer is a tough business and I put the “ah” into st-ah-rving artist so if you enjoyed the story please consider donating to my ko-fi or subscribing to my website or patreon

#ghost story #supernatural story #mlm #urban fantasy #original story #urban legends #novel #my work #original writing #the breakdown #LGBT fiction #original novel

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meaninginmakeup · 4 years

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Primers- Studio Perfect Photo Loving Primer by Nyx and Primer Potion in Original Formula by Urban Decay.

Eyeshadow- Gigi above the crease, Zsa Zsa above Gigi and blended out, Reality Star on the lids, all from the Then and Now Palette (no longer sold) by Too Faced. Lastly Super Shock Shadow in Be Our Guest (no longer sold) by Colourpop.

Mascara- Voluminous Primer by L’Oréal, Mega Length by Wet N Wild, and Lash Paradise by L’Oréal.

Inner Eye Highlight- Twinkie and Glitter Donut from the Then and Now Palette (no longer sold) by Too Faced. Then Super Shock Shadow in Get Lucky (no longer sold) and Super Shock Shadow in Glitterati (no longer sold), both by Colourpop.

Undereye Liner- Tropicana by Nomad Cosmetics (sadly not very pigmented, and didn’t apply brightly with a mixing gel nor setting spray), Aya from the Afrique Palette by Juvias Place, and super Shock Shadow in Get Lucky (no longer sold) by Colourpop.

Concealer- Conceal and Define in C3 by Makeup Revolution.

Highlighter- Top Notch from the Duolight Palette by BH Cosmetics.

Setting Spray- Make It Last by Milani.

Powder- All Nighter by Urban Decay.

Lipstick- Lala from the Little Twin Stars x Sugarpill Collection.

Bonus- I had to show off my cute new shirt! My mom was kind enough to buy me a couple new work appropriate shirts for my new remote job since they do weekly video calls.

Reminder, I’m now a Beauty Tap Digital Advisor! If you follow me first (click here), I earn a commission from every purchase you make on the site. We’ve got skincare, makeup, and other body care items (including surgical grade face masks). It started off as a company that brought Korean Beauty products to the US, but they now carry brands from all over the world! Not to mention they have brands with biodegradable packaging, and a brand that has braille on their boxes. They also offer samples to be shipped to your home that are made in a lab (here in WA state), since we all know you can’t trust samples at Sephora/Ulta to be very clean right now with Covid. So you can try the products before buying the full size. Feel free to message me with any questions!

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ragecrack · 4 years

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Things I want/am saving up for:

https://www.sephora.com.au/products/anastasia-brow-powder-duo/v/ebony

https://www.sephora.com.au/products/anastasia-dipbrow-pomade/v/ash-brown

https://www.sephora.com.au/products/kvd-vegan-beauty-lock-it-setting-powder/v/5-dot-4g

https://www.sephora.com.au/product/kvd-vegan-beauty-kitten-mini-shade-plus-light-contour-duo/v/light

https://www.sephora.com.au/products/kvd-vegan-beauty-kitten-purrfect-cat-eyes-mini-mascara-and-eyeliner-set/v/default

https://www.sephora.com.au/products/kvd-vegan-beauty-shade-plus-light-contour-palette/v/default

https://www.sephora.com.au/products/tarte-shape-tape-contour-concealer/v/12n-fair-neutral

https://www.mecca.com.au/urban-decay/anti-ageing-eyeshadow-primer-potion/V-022203.html?cgpath=brands-urban

https://www.strawberrynet.com/en-au/m/urban-decay-complexion-primer-optical-illusion-28ml-0-95oz/213108/?trackid=5801500001&campaign=Google+-+PF&langboxoff=true&gclid=Cj0KCQjwuJz3BRDTARIsAMg-HxW5o6ExPcAOWPrfTj7096y8uhrNmupHTIhoWkZIqMKlSJA5-VURh74aAguFEALw_wcB

https://www.cospicky.com/collections/daily-wear/products/little-devil-sexy-lace-bat-cute-wings-2-piece-lingerie-cp1812302

That's enough to work towards for now. If anyone feels charitable for my birthday, pm me. Otherwise, after/zip pay help me now.

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belladoesmakeup · 5 years

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Hey everyone,

In the past I have shown you my favourite foundations and done little reviews on them but this time I wanted to talk about the foundations with their matching concealers and how well they work. For this I have chosen my top 3 pairs that I think work the best and cover different price ranges.

First off we have Fenty Beauty now this option is the only high end makeup combo I’ve included because it is expensive but I wanted to cover all price ranges and the pairing works like a dream. So in this collection the foundation is £27.00 and the concealer is £19.00 now before we start I just want to point out £19.00 is expensive for a concealer but compared to most highend brands they normally range from £24.00-£29.00 so in that perspective not as bad. Now what I love about this range is that they have made finding the matching concealer so much easier. With this range whatever your foundation shade is your concealer is as well so in my case my shade is 120 and that’s for both products and the concealer is designed to compliment the foundation of course you can look at other colours depending on what you’re looking to use it for but overall I love how easy it is. The products blend perfectly together and give you a buildable coverage that starts off medium and builds to full coverage which is my coverage preference.

Next up we have the first of two drugstore combinations, this is the NYX combo and price wise is still drugstore but on the higher of the pricing. This range is the Can’t Stop Won’t Stop which are full coverage products and personally I would compare the quality of both products to the Urban Decay All Nighter range in terms of coverage but I find this combo doesn’t feel as thick on the skin but still gives you amazing coverage. The foundation costs £15.00 and is described as medium to full coverage which again means its buildable which is great for people who want to chose their coverage. My shade in the foundation is Alabaster which I would describe as light ivory. The concealer costs £8.00 and is ridiculously full coverage it’s probably my favourite at the moment and my shade in that range is light ivory which matches the foundation really well.

My last and ironically cheapest combo is by my favourite brand Revolution. This was the first brand that really got me into full coverage makeup that felt comfortable as I mentioned earlier I use to wear All Nighter by Urban Decay but it just felt too thick to wear comfortably. My favourite thing about ghe foundation is it had a applicator stick to apply the foundation on the face which I’ve never tried before and it makes the process so much quicker and much easier to build coverage. The collection is called Conceal & Define and is something I’ve talked about a lot on the blog. The foundation is £9.00 which is brilliant considering how full coverage it is and how much product you get, and the concealer is £4.00 in regular size or £7.00 in supersize. Like the fenty collection your foundation shade is your concealer shade which for reference I’m F1 if I’m going very natural and if I’m looking for a sutble hint of colour I’m F3 in the concealer and foundations. This is easily one of my favourite combinations that I wear the most, the products blend effortlessly together and even though the product is full coverage it feels so light on the skin and genuinely lasts for ages.

I hope this post gives you some ideas if you’re looking to try some new products out but have a particular price range, writing this post has really made me realise a) how many products I’ve tried in the last year and b) what I actually like in a foundation / concealer. All products are available worldwide if you’re interested. If you have any questions about the products mentioned feel free to message me.

Lots of love

Bella x x

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cowbuttcrunchies · 5 years

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It's that time of year again: get ready for our Cosplay Black Friday-Cyber Monday roundup!! This year's announcements have seen some very last-minute timing because of Thanksgiving's early date, and some sites are still keeping their sales a secret. However if you’re looking to stock up on wigs, lenses, makeup, or fabric for the 2019 con season, now’s a great time to do it - check out the below guide, comment with more vendors, let us and be sure to share with your friends to help out your fellow cosplayers!

*~*~*~*Circle Lenses*~*~*~*

Circle Lens suppliers are really keeping their deals a secret for even longer this year; so far nobody has announced their sales, but expect to see them updated here some time this week. They will likely be similar to last year's deals, and in the meantime here are the links and descriptions for last year's discounts:

Uniqso (http://bit.ly/2AkTvm1)

2017's sale: Up to 50% off lenses - for 2018 you can also stack an additional 10% off everything for up to 60% off with our year-round coupon CBC along with the above link

Honeycolor (http://www.honeycolor.com)

2017's sale: Free trial lens with every order

Pinky Paradise (http://www.pinkyparadise.com)

2018 details will be announced on Thurs 11/22: "1=3 Promo"

TTDEye (http://www.ttdeye.com)

Nov 21-Nov 30: 50% off all lenses

*~*~*~*Wigs*~*~*~*

Again this year a lot of cosplay wig suppliers are offering rolling discounts that change from day to day!

Arda Wigs (http://www.arda-wigs.com)

Fri 11/23: 450 newly discounted wigs will be 30% off

Mon 11/26: 10% off site-wide. Orders over $75 will receive a free factory sample wig and 15 random orders may receive a $25, $50, or $100 gift certificates

Tues 11/27: 15% off site-wide. All orders will receive 10%, 15%, or 20% off of future purchases. Discounted wigs will increase to 50% off and 50 random orders may receive a $25, $50, or $100 gift certificates

Weds 11/28: 20% off site-wide. Orders over $75 will receive a random makeup grab bag or PixelSmithy jewelry gift and 15 random orders may receive a $25, $50, or $100 gift certificates

Epic Cosplay (https://www.epiccosplay.com) and Pish Posh Wigs (http://pishposhwigs.com)

Tues Nov 20th onward: Use promo code LACEFRONT25 for 25% off all EpicCosplay lacefront wigs & all Pish Posh Wigs, with free shipping

More doorbuster deals will be announced every day by 10am PT

Wigisfashion (https://www.wigisfashion.com)

Beginning Black Friday Week: Up to 40% off

Arda Wigs Canada (http://ardawigscanada.ca)

Fri 11/23: All discounted wigs will be 30% off

Mon 11/26: 10% off site-wide. Orders over $100CAD will receive a free factory sample wig and random orders may receive one of twelve $25, one of ten $50, or one of three $100 unique coupon codes

Tues 11/27: 15% off site-wide. All orders will receive 10%, 15%, or 20% off of future purchases. Discounted wigs will increase to 50% off and random orders may receive one of four $25, one of two $50, and one $100 unique coupons codes

Weds 11/28: 20% off site-wide. Orders over $100CAD will receive a free 50g container of Lumin's Workshop Foam Clay. Random orders may receive one of four $25, one of two $50, and one of one $100 unique coupons codes

*~*~*~*Craft Supplies*~*~*~*

Joann Fabrics (http://www.joann.com)

Strangely, the Joann's paper ad does not seem to have any Sat or Sun coupons, but check the website and app for extra codes

Fri Nov 23: 6am-12PM: 25% off your total purchase

Fri Nov 23: 50% off any regularly priced item

Nov 22 & Nov 24: 40% off all singer sewing machines

Nov 21-25: 70% off McCall's and Simplicity patterns

Nov 21 & Nov 23: 40% off Singer Sewing Machines

Nov 21 & Nov 23: 50% Cricut accessories

Nov 21 & Nov 23: 60% off all apparel fabric

Michael’s (http://http://www.michaels.com/)

Michael's does have Thursday coupons, but please be considerate and avoid shopping on Thanksgiving.

Fri Nov 24: 7AM-12PM: 25% off your entire purchase

Fri Nov 24: 12-10pm: 40% off all regular priced items

Sat Nov 25: 8AM-12PM: 25% off your entire purchase

Sat Nov 25: 12-10pm: 50% off any regularly priced item

AC Moore (http://http://www.acmoore.com/)

Fri Nov 23: 5AM-12PM: 40% off regular priced purchase

Fri Nov 23: 12PM-Close: 60% off any item

Sat Nov 25: 8AM-12PM: 30% off regular priced purchase

Sat Nov 25: 12PM-Close: 55% off any regularly priced item

TNT Cosplay Supply (http://tntcosplaysupply.com)

Fri Nov 23 - Nov 26: 20% off all foam and free shipping on orders over $100

Muppin.com / Sew Much Cosplay (http://www.muppin.com)

Fri Nov 23-Nov 26: 20% off Sew Much Cosplay and other cosplay products with the code "Holiday2018"

True North Cosplay (http://truenorthcosplay.com)

Fri Nov 23-Nov 25: 25% off all foam

Spandex World (http://www.spandexworld.com)

Week of Black Friday: 15% off site-wide

Miccostumes (http://www.miccostumes.com)

Fri Nov 23: Unspecified sale, to be announced on Nov 23

*~*~*~*Makeup*~*~*~*

Ulta (https://www.ulta.com/blackfriday)

Online Thurs Nov 23 and afterward in-stores: Tons of varying discounts in the above link

Sephora (Preview at available via their mobile app https://www.sephora.com/black-friday)

Online Thurs Nov 23: Lots of varying product discounts, also in the above link

Urban Decay (http://www.urbandecay.com)

Thurs Nov 22: 20% off site-wide or 25% off for loyalty members, along with free ground shipping

MAC (http://www.maccosmetics.com/‎)

Weds Nov 21-Nov 27: 25% all purchases for Select members

Mon Nov 26-Nov 29: Free full size gifts

Nars (http://www.narscosmetics.com)

Weds Nov 22-Nov 27: 20% all products

Anastasia Beverley Hills (https://www.anastasiabeverlyhills.com/)

Thurs Nov 23: Discount sets - 4 eyeshadow palette set will be available for $90, with a 10 lipstick set for $60.

IT Cosmetics (http://www.itcosmetics.com/‎)

Thurs Nov 22-25: 20% off site-wide with the code ITFRIDAY

Mon Nov 26: 25% off on $30 or more orders with the promo code CYBER25. Orders $70 receive a free Hello Lashes Mascara.

Bite Beauty (http://www.bitebeauty.com/‎)

Fri Nov 23: 20% off site-wide, free shipping, and a free 5-piece gift with any $35 purchase along with the promo code "FRIDAY5".

Ardell Beauty (http://www.ardellbeauty.com)

Thurs Nov 23-Nov 26: 30% off site-wide.

BareMinerals (http://www.bareminerals.com/‎)

Nov 25-26: 25% off site-wide with free shipping

E.L.F. Cosmetics (http://www.elfcosmetics.com/‎)

Mon Nov 19-Nov 26: Free $25 gift for purchases over $25 in-store

Weds Nov 22-Nov 26: 50% for purchases over $30 online

Milk (http://www.milkmakeup.com)

Thurs Nov 23-Nov 25: 25% off on orders over $35.

GlamGlow (http://www.glamglow.com/‎)

Thurs Nov 23: 30% off site-wide

Soko Glam (http://https://sokoglam.com/)

Thurs Nov 23: 30% site-wide with the code "SGBF18"

Colourpop (http://colourpop.com)

Wed Nov 21: 30% off lip products

Thurs Nov 22-Nov 23: 20% off all eyeshadow palettes

Sun Nov 25 1pm-Nov 26: 30% off site-wide

Surreal Makeup (http://www.surrealmakeup.com/)

Weds Nov 21: Discounted highlighters, blushes, and body shimmers

Fri Nov 23-Nov25: 40% off all eyeshadows

#black friday #cosplay #cyber monday #cosplay sales

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paragonrobits · 5 years

Text

The two of them - the monster learning to be a man in a heavy coat that hid his lopsided and muscular figure from the view of those whose would have their most vicious aspects shown to the world if they saw him too clearly, and the hunter in an inexplicably adorable sweater so overstuffed it was making her waddle around like a wooly snowman - wandered into one of the more run down parts of town. This was honestly a bit hard to make as a judgement call, since their town hadn’t been doing so hot in a long time.

The big, lumpy shamble-man had been sincerely worried he was the fault of that, though he had a very difficult time explaining to her why he should think so; he struggled to put some very complicated ideas into words when speaking aloud was difficult for him; he said some things about fire within and the world burned with purifying force and things going wrong because of that, and some other stuff that really didn’t make sense, especially not to him.

She contented herself with soothing away his increasingly distressed sputtering with soft, smooth pats on a shoulder larger than her torso. Gradually, he quieted, and when they went onward, he silently walked behind her as he explained that urban decay and gentrification - together with rising rent rates and money being leached out of anyone who could live there - was a force much nastier than anything he had to live with.

She knew the route well. The two of them came to a small home, a large number of opulent dog houses in the yard looking a lot more tidy than the house itself, and from the garbage spread around, the bones in the yard and a large amount of stray cats apparently used to getting food - or perhaps they were just free roaming pets - this was something of a local party scene. The hunter knocked on the door.

Upon the door there was a small sign, he observed. It looked something like a diagonal line, slashed low upon a straight line, and laid over this was an iron trinket in the shape of a solemn wolf’s head.

Marking territory, she had said earlier, and had added, Don’t mess with their stuff.

Werewolves, she had explained on the way, were chill. They weren’t compelled to hurt humans like vampires were, and something that was part way between a man and a wolf could have the very worst aspects of both… but in her experience, they normally didn’t. As long as you didn’t give the werewolves a reason to get irritated with you, she had cautioned him, there wouldn’t be a problem.

He wasn’t too sure what to expect when the door opened; perhaps an incredibly hairy man like a dog on two legs? A wolf with thumbs? Or perhaps a sort of mobile shag carpet. He didn’t expect to see a man and a woman looming behind it, both of them astonishingly tall and wide.

Both of them immediately beamed with delight upon seeing the hunter, and the man of the two - taller than the woman, his skin a deep brown and his straight black hair falling down nearly to his elbows - cheerfully swaggered forward and lifted her off the ground, his huge arms barely working to pull her into a massive hug. “Li’l sunshine!” he boomed, every word a short and sudden exclamation. “I ain’t see you around here in forever!”

The other werewolf, a voluptuous woman with skin the warm brown color of good clay and rather broader even then the man, grinned in delight as well. Over the hunter’s giggling complaints, she slouched on over and gave her a hefty smack to the shoulder and leaned in for her own hug. The hunter made a squeaking sound at this much muscle being brought to bear on her. “Help?” the hunter squeaked.

“Suck it up, buddy,” the second werewolf said, grinning toothily, all full of mischief. Her teeth were long, pointed like canine fangs. “This just what ya get for never dropping by!”

Both of them hugged her extra hard, and she squeaked again, blushing especially hard as both giants engulfed her in their muscular forms. Her friend, still apparently not noticed, watched curiously. “Okay…” she whimpered. “I’ll call more…!”

“Good enough.” The larger of the two let her down with surprising delicacy in someone that large and built pretty much like a truck that ate other, weaker trucks. He turned and glanced at the patchwork man, who froze.

The expression looking at him wasn’t human at all, not even slightly. It wasn’t cold - it was warm, like a fireplace set invitingly with rugs to sit on - but it was different from human. It was too direct, too straightforward, with none of the little self deceptions or walls humans instinctively made in themselves. He’d seen dogs give that kind of look, calmly look at you and think prey, friend or threat and sort you into the proper category.

The woman looked at him too, giving him the same exact look. Calm, patient, and tense with potential activity. He had never felt the inclination to flee from humans, but now his spine (well, at least one of them) felt a cold shiver crawl up it. Like some kind of unwanted insect with very cold feet.

Their eyes did something strange. They turned bright yellow, the pupils contracting, and it was the eyes of wolves looking at him, and they didn’t just see him. They saw… what he was.

They knew. The knowledge sank into him, certain and inexplicable, and he didn’t know how he knew this, but it was clear all the same. There was no hiding the truth of him from them. He wasn’t human, not like how they appeared to be, and not like his hunter friend. He was a, an abomination to the world.

Then the man of the pair grinned, walking forward and hugging him too. Though the patchman was much larger than him, towering even while hunched over, he was still lifted high into the air like he was no heavier than a child. “Any friend of little sunshine,” he said gently. “Is a friend of mine!”

The woman tilted her head, exactly like a dog that was up to something. “And what’s your name?” she said, with surprising gentleness.

“Quilt,” he said solemnly. He liked pretty things. Quilts were pretty. And you made them, one bit at a time, slowly fashioning it into something more complete and better than it was before. Like making yourself into a man. This struck him as a good omen, perhaps.

She considered this, and nodded. “Well, come on in.” She waved a hand towards the door. “Mind the frame, big guy. Don’t hurt yourself!”

It was a bit of a squeeze for him, and the inside of the house was not very well maintained; not in the sense that they didn’t care, but that they were too poor to afford treatments, and perhaps had better things to do. A few cats prowled around, mewing with mild interest at him and clawing at the legs of the two werewolves, even when one of them openly descended to the floor, legs turning furry and clawed, the whole body becoming more streamlined and sleek, jaw elongating and teeth growing, and like water a man had become a massive wolf.

The wolf led him into the living room, cats still doing their best to annoy him, and in the living room, there was a couch. The room in general looked horrifically trashed, and the couch had the worst of it. It looked as though it had been torn in half and roughly put back together… and judging from the broken shards on the window, someone had tried to put it through the wall. Plaster had crumbled from those walls in the shape of someone’s head, and not even remotely human-like head at that.

On the couch there were a few others. Three wolves of varying size, color and shape, looking for all the world like dogs. One gave him a cool look, sizing him up, another bounded straight up to him in a challenging ‘COME AT ME BRO’ sort of way, and another completely ignored him after a brief blink of acknowledgement. Nestled between all of them was a girl that looked very much like the first werewolf that had greeted them but rather smaller and very young, and considered him with a neutral, even gloomy expression, and nodded briefly at him. She returned to watching the television, which looked like someone had tried to break it in half.

The hunter came in after him, looking appalled. “What happened in here!?”

“Bad stuff,” the girl on the couch said, sighing.

The big woman sighed, clapping the hunter on the shoulder. “We got hit a few nights ago,” she said grimly. “This complete fu- uh.” She stopped, the girl on the couch sitting there all innocent and polite. “Bad guys came out of nowhere and attacked us. Broke in, came right at us, tried to kill us on the spot. Couple tried to drag Deppie out before we mauled ‘im good.” She indicated one of the wolf-shape werewolves, who snorted irritably at that. “Scared the hell out of the cats, too.”

The hunter considered this. “How many, exactly?” She said, carefully.

One of the wolves went all fluid, jerkily reforming into the shape of an absolutely massive woman almost as big as Quilt; hair grew thickly from all over her body, not quite long enough to be fur but very close to that, her teeth were long enough that a bite would seriously rip up flesh, and her fingers bore long claws. Even her face was only slightly human, the facial structure decidedly canid in some small ways. “‘Bout a dozen,” she said casually, still sitting the same exact way she had as a wolf. She spoke slowly, like she had to weigh her words to come out of her transformed lips.

“Vampires?” Quilt suggested. He wondered if there was a connection here.

The big wolf on the floor, the same one who had hugged him, turned to look at him inquisitively. Behind the hunter, the big werewolf lady tilted her head as well. “What makes ya say that?” She asked.

“Um. Uh…”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. WAsn’t vampires that hit us.” She frowned. “I don’t know what they were. They were… they were…” Her face wrinkled into an irritated snarl. “I don’t remember. It’s like, looking at ‘em, hurt.”

“Clockwork,” the girl on the couch said quietly. “Clicking hard, not remembering why they were here. Forgetting why, all the time. Ripped out, twisted around, sent our way.”

“Yes,” the near-human shaped werewolf on the couch said, like this was a regular sort of thing. “They were… weird. When they died, they just faded away. And they felt all… confused, I guess.”

The hunter sat down on the couch, with some space still left. “It was feral vampires that attacked us,” she said grimly. “I was hoping you guys might have heard something or been onto some kind of conspiracy going on here.”

Quilt thought, and he thought hard. It hurt a little. “We are attacked by vampires, and these friends are attacked by… clockwork demons?” he shook his head. “Is this… normal around here?”

“It might be a coincidence,” the werewolf lady said, looking delighted to be called his friend all the same. “But maybe not. Listen, I’m waiting on a call from some friends at the freehold, they swear they’re there’s something bad lurking around their place. Think you guys could hang around, see if this is connected?”

Quilt raised an oversized hand. “What’s a freehold?” he said innocently.

There was a long pause. “Wow. He’s new around here, isn’t he?” the werewolf lady said, with affection.

#my writing #fics #my OCs #quilt (OC)#world of darkness #nWoD #werewolf the forsaken #hunter the vigil #promethean the created

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