#how to plant blackberries

[cygnetbrown]

We Couldn't Pass These Up!

Blackberry plants in ground and mulched with chicken litter and grassclippings Even though blackberry plants were not on our radar this year, we found such a great deal on them that we couldn’t resist picking up five healthy plants to plant. At the farmers market last week, one of the Amish families was selling blackberry plants that they had dug up that morning. The blackberry plants were…

[balkanradfem]

I haven't been posting lately because I've been overwhelmed with depression and medical issues, but this morning something sad happened that I want to share.

It's a year without fruit again, which is pretty harsh on me since I rely on foraged fruit a lot, but I figured I would just collect as many berries as possible and make jams and that would have to be enough. So this morning, I went to collect blackberries, I found a new spot, pretty far away but I could get there by bike. When I collected them all, I realized I still don't have quite enough for even a single jar of jam, and I went to my usual spot, where I've been just a few days ago, figuring I could get more.

And when I got there, I found that the entire huge blackberry plant has been leveled with the ground. I didn't understand what I was seeing, I collected a basket of blackberries there just 3 days ago. How could it all be gone? It was not just cut, but there was no leftovers either, the earth was black, there was not one leaf to be seen. It was like someone both cut and burned the entire thing. But that huge blackberry has been there for as long as I've lived here, and I assume, decades before that. I don't understand. In a year without fruit. You destroy the only local source of produce?

It doesn't make sense to me. It's been happening more and more as the climate changes. Instead of preserving the local sources of food as absolutely priceless and irreplaceable, people are leveling everything with the ground.

It was a huge blow for me, I'm feeling heavy with sadness. I don't want to share a city with people who destroy everything good about it.

[keeps-ache]

i don't wanna take over the world, it sounds like a lot. but you know, laying siege to a golf course sounds really nice sometimes

[fictionadventurer]

Imaginary Books Recs: Congratulations! You've been granted further ILL access to the Coregean Library. Shall we start with Ardour and Introspection? An early nineteenth-century romance that was a favorite of, of all people, Delclis.

Ardour and Introspection by Giora Shorr

Emina Verden has a passion for plants that her loving father is more than willing to let her pursue, but after his death and her mother's remarriage to a fashionable baronet, Emina is thrown into a high-society world where she is expected to attend balls and concerts and dinner parties while enduring the company of Vivana, her over-exuberant stepsister. As Emina struggles to find a place in this new family--and a moment of peace--a friendship with a young scholar unexpectedly blossoms into something that makes this new world worth exploring. But Vivana is the one who catches his eye--and, perhaps, his heart. Will Vivana keep Emina from her one chance at happiness? Is it possible for the stepsisters to overcome this rivalry, or will it tear them apart forever?

[blunderpuff]

we've had 35-40mph sustained wind gusts all day and it has absolutely shredded the little blackberry vines i planted on Tuesday. i don't think they're going to survive this

[theda-rison]

I will admit that I do find it at least a little bit funny that every time I go out and pick blackberries off the plant that I planted and take care of...

I can hear the birds fussing in the trees because this bitch is stealing all the blackberries! Thief!

[historiaxvanserra]

Depraved

Pairing: Cassian x female!reader

Description: On a reconnaissance mission deep in the Illyrain Mountains you and Cassian come under the spell of some strange and exotic plant that sees you both subject to your basest desires.

Word count: 5.3K (ish)

Warnings: 18+ only! this wasn’t a request it’s just shameless smut with a smidge of plot (unedited sex pollen fic, dirty talk, unprotected sex, p in v, kind of dubcon but not really, etc).

For my fellow Cassian girlies. this is kind of a hot mess but honestly at least i'm writing something.

The winter sun is sinking low into the western horizon when Cassian motions for you to fall to your knees beside him. It’s depraved the way you drop to the floor wordlessly as Cassian towers over you, his large frame concealing the last slivers of sunlight as they give way to the rapidly falling night. 

“How we doin’ this, then, General?” you ask, peering through the thicket of blackberry bushes and into the small encampment nestled into the depths of the valley. There are three Illyrian’s gathered around the campfire and two flanking the makeshift entrance to the north. 

Cassian seems to be lost, somewhere distant and far away. Abandoned to the hazy recollections of warfare and bloodshed. He wears blood well you think. Carries the weight of war with the deference and respect it deserves. 

Still, he looks peaceful then. Despite the storm raging inside of him. He wears peace  well too; the sulk of his lips and the straight slope of his nose and fine-high cheekbones give the impression he was carved by the first Gods. Primordial and celestial.

He is as good as a God himself in this light-- the way the burnt sienna of the winter sun reflects in his hazel eyes. They look like molten gold. 

Your heart is thunderous in your heaving chest as he finally turns to you and offers you his large, broad hand. It’s rough against the smooth silk of your palm and his fingers flex around your wrist in a way that makes heat coil in the lowest parts of your stomach and the leathers you’re wearing cling to your skin in a way that is not all together uncomfortable. 

“Are you even listening to me, princess?” Cassian huffs running a hand over his face, leaving a smear of dried blood in his wake.

“I’d pay good money to know what goes on in that pretty little head of yours.” He muses.

“Aww, you think I’m pretty?” You say smiling wide at him. It’s only half-teasing. 

Cassian watches you curiously as you begin to readjust your thigh holster and reach for your Illyrian daggers in an futile attempt to distract yourself from his shameless flirting.

“You’re the second prettiest girl I know,”

“Only the second?” You say feigning offense and bringing a hand to rest on your chest. 

“Az is the first, obviously.” 

“Obviously, Azriel is the prettiest person I know too.” You tease, catching his eye. 

The smile. No. Smirk, that spreads across his face then is full of devilment and harmless flirtation as he pulls you closer to his side in a sidelong hug. 

“And here I thought I was the prettiest.” he says, nudging you playfully.

Once again his eye hone in on the group gathered around the campfire in the dip of the valley. The way his face sets so beautifully as he takes the time to calculate his next move is enough to take your breath away. He is utterly devastating you think. 

“I say we go in quietly,” he nods to you as he unsheaths his dagger from its holster. “Take ‘em by surprise.”

You nod slowly in understanding and agreement as you follow him into the thicket. 

You sink low and take a fighting stance as you begin the descent down the side of the valley with Cassian in tow who only laughs and huffs pulling at his own knife. 

No more than ten minutes later you’re both caught up in the fray, the dusky haze of combat falling over the encampment and the roaring of the campfire and Cassian’s deep primal shouts permeate the darkness.

You hoist yourself up from the floor with a flourish and flip your assailant onto his back in the mud as a determined elbow braces the nose of the Illyrian below you. His wings flare and flail helplessly under you in an attempt to free himself as your knife meets his chest. 

He goes limp in your grip as the sickening squelch of blood and bone echoes in the night air. You pull your knife from him with a grimace as his blood spurts and pools on the soiled bedroll. 

Standing on unsteady feet you’re surrounded by bodies; an assortment of splintered bone and broken glass, set against the backdrop of the velvet night. 

Cassian comes to stand by your side, taking in your disheveled appearance. His large hand comes to hold you by the hip while the other brushes your hair from your face as he murmurs praises quietly. When you have regained your breath he pats you twice on the shoulder before leaving you with a firm squeeze. 

There’s an uncertain tenderness in the way he regards you in the haze of battle that always catches you off guard. As though the fine line between friends and lovers is itself blurred. You can’t say you mind it. Sometimes it is this tender and rough version of him that warms you through winter nights. The fleeting memory of this version of Cassian is enough to sate your wanting. 

When you look at him he’s coated in a thin veil of sweat and you swear you can hear his heart hammering in his heaving chest. His wings slump and strain in fatigue as he allows his body to falter in a state of near-exhaustion.

The reprieve is short lived when three more Illyrian brutes armed to the nines come trailing through the northern gate. All bared teeth and snarling fury. 

“Shit!” You curse under your breath and catch Cassian’s glowing hazel eyes. 

He looks feral in the moonlight as his eyes survey the three bodies approaching the encampment. His smile is wicked and glinting against the dark, his hair is wind-beaten and unruly, and his muscled chest draws in heavy, labored breaths as he struggles against his own exhaustion. 

Even so, he is beautiful. And deadly.

“You got one more fight in you, big guy?” you say to Cassian regarding him warily as the three men approach.

“I should be offended you even felt the need to ask.” he says, smiling wickedly at you before charging head first into one of the three soldiers while the other two begin to circle like vultures as you descend upon them. 

The soldier underneath Cassian shouts orders to his comrades but is quickly drowned out by the sickening crack of his neck as Cassian cradles his softening body in his strong arms. 

In a flurry of movement you attack one of the other assailants with a fierce determination that sends you both tumbling to the ground in a violent struggle as you grapple with him. It takes a few moments but once he is disarmed you overpower him with a rehearsed ease as your dagger kisses his neck and you watch as his flesh gives way and his blood oozes hot and thick against the gravel.

You take a moment to gather your wits again, feeling slightly disoriented as you pry yourself away from the thicket of flowering bushes you had landed in before you see Cassian again. 

A sudden rush of wind and a flash of movement that your eyes follow instinctively as Cass falls into view. He’s sprawled face down in the dirt near the bushes on the west side of the encampment, two bodies at either side of him. 

Unmoving and silent. 

Worry pools in your stomach when Cassian does not roll over with his signature smile on his face, the one that makes you weak in the knees. Instead he stays there, in the first, eerily still. 

“Shit, Cassie” you ask, throat hoarse and you hand on your hip as you catch your breath, “You alive over there?”

Only Cassian doesn’t respond. He’s hunched over in the thicket of ferns and blackthorn bushes. You can hear his breaths, broken and ragged, as they come in sporadic succession. 

Tentatively, you sink to your knees beside him. Still he doesn’t move. Your heart hammers violently in your chest and a wave of nausea washes over you. When he turns to face you.

His brows are drawn together and his full lips sulk before pulling into a frown as he holds a small flowering plant in his large, calloused hands. He’s sheened in a thin veil of sweat and you can hear the fluttering of his heart in his heaving chest. 

He lets the flower fall limply in his hand.

It’s an unusual little thing.

Tender stemmed and pale pink petals that split open to reveal chartreuse orbs of pollen. 

The air is cloyingly sweet, like candied rhubarb and honey.

You blink a few times as the word begins to falter around you and you fall to your knees in the mud. 

The world spins on its axis and blurs at its edges as the white spots cloud your vision momentarily. 

By the time you come to night has fallen over the camp casting the world in amethyst moonglow. 

“Cassie?” You call out into the night.

You take a few moments to gather your wits and survey your surroundings. You’re in the main tent of the enemy camp and for a moment panic sinks low in your stomach, twisting and coiling. There’s heat too.

You’re so hot.

But there is no sun for which to ascribe the terrible heat that blooms in your chest. It runs a steady line from your fluttering heart and pools between your slick thighs.

You rise on unsteady feet from the bedroll and walk out into the night air. It’s cool as it kisses your skin but offers you little relief for the aching heat between your legs.

Cassian is pressed against the wagon in front of the campfire, his skin glows a soft ochre in the firelight and you notice then that he has rid himself of his shirt. The exposed contours of his chest glisten in the light of the flame and he looks haunted.

“Cassie,” you plead as you approach him carefully. Momentarily taken aback by the pure unadulterated need in your tone.

Cassian turns to you suddenly and there is a hypnotic, sinking dread painted on his face as he takes you in. The skin sheened in sweat and the flushed skin on your cheeks and the tips of your breasts. The sporadic rise and fall of  your chest. 

“Stay where you are,” He warns, his arm outstretched to you, “you need to stay away.”

You stop in your tracks for a moment to take him in.

He smells like fir trees and ginger.

“Cass what are you talking abou-” you ask before his voice cuts you off.

“please,” He says through grit teeth, his voice is thunderous and settles in your chest like a lead weight. “Just go!”

“Cass, I-i don’t understand,” your voice softens as you take in the pained expression on his face.

You remain firmly in place, mere feet between your body and his, and you can’t fight the heat that flashes through you then. Nor the ache between your legs as your eyes trail over his chest and toned thighs clad in his leathers. 

Another pained groan from Cassian has you inching further towards him, your hands outstretched in caution as you close the distance between the two of you. 

You lower yourself onto the ground, resting on your knees as you take his chin between your fingers, turning it in your firm grasp. His face, once golden, is pallid and veiled in sweat, his jaw, once set in determination, is slack and the words that leave him are pained. Tained with something darker. 

“No, you don’t understand,” Cassian laughs cruelly, his eyes ardent gold boring into yours before flicking to your lips and then back. His voice is hoarse, and wanting. Animalistic.

“Yo-you need to leave, princess.” He whispers, it’s laden with dark promise as he rasps “or I’m not gonna be able to stop myself.”

You let go of his chin and fall back onto your knees.

“Stop yourself from doing what, Cass?” you narrow your eyes at him.

Cassian visibly stiffens, the muscles in his broad shoulders tense against you and his whole body seems to follow suit. His fingers flex around nothing, clawing at the floor in an attempt to ground himself as a wave of something washes over him.

The snarl that tears through him is inhuman.

Your trembling hands reach for him, brushing the hairs that stick to his forehead back and away from his face as you whisper reassurances to him. 

“It’s going to be okay, Cass,” You murmur affectionately, “I’m not going to leave you.”

There's desperation in the air as you continue to comfort him through the onslaught of…well, whatever it is. He convulses violently in your hold and only when the convulsing subsides do you place a hand against his bare chest. 

The jolt of electricity you feel as your hand comes to rest against his muscled chest elicits another growl from him. He whines desperately at your touch and heat pools between your thighs once more. 

“You can’t,” he says, taking your hand delicately before pushing you away with such force that it nearly knocks you backwards.

“You can’t touch me like that.” He laughs cruelly as he cards a hand through his damp curls. 

Cassian heaves a heavy breath and releases a broken cry like some sort of wounded animal. He looks utterly undone. 

Your eyes trail him hungrily as heat rises in you again. It’s unbearable the pull you feel to him. The way your body reacts to his. 

It’s then your eyes fall onto his leather clad legs, watching as he palms himself through the skin-tight material in a way that speaks to the pure depravity that clouds your judgment. Shame creeps up on you as your eyes meet. His eyes blown wide and darkening as he tugs his lip between his teeth while another snarl tears through him. 

“Cassian?” you say firmly, drawing his attention to you once more “What is happening?”

You don’t give him leave to stop you as you once again sink to your knees to be by his side, placing a soft palm on the curve of his jaw, forcing him to look at you. Cassian lets his body melt into your touch in response as he lets out a shaky breath that fans your face as his eyes search yours desperately. 

He seems to sober at your touch as the world around him falls into perfect view once more. 

“The flowers,” he says, his voice hoarse and strained, “the-they only grow deep in the Steppes.”

“The flowers?” you repeat tentatively, “What do they do?” you ask. 

“They use them in rituals,” he clarifies, his eyes boring into yours as if willing you to understand. 

When you don’t seem to catch his meaning he breathes deeply before continuing “They lower your inhibitions completely until all that is left is your basest desires.” He stresses the last part hoping to jog your memory.

“Oh.” is all you say as realization settles in your bones and a new wave of arousal washes over you. You squeeze your thighs together hoping to find some temporary relief. But to no avail. 

Cassian seems to go ridgid as the change in the air becomes apparent. It’s electric and heavy charged as he looks to you once more and his eyes glaze over with lust. 

“You need to leave,” He warns his large hand coming to cover yours and he squeezes with all the tender reassurance he can manage in his half-delirious state, “right NOW!”.

The tension rises when the scent of his arousal hits you. Dark musk and sweat tainted with the faint smell of florals that sends your senses into overdrive. The urge to reach out and touch him is always maddening as he lets out another agonized snarl. 

“Please, princess,” he pleads once again, “I won’t be able to hold off for much longer.” his voice is dark now and laden with desire as his eyes trail your form beneath your leathers. 

You smell so good. He murmurs so low that the sound burns into the darkest, most base parts of your mind. That murmur you will think about in the nights to come. 

“I can’t leave you, Cass,” you say seriously watching the way his brows knit together before allowing his jaw to go lax. 

“I won’t leave you.” 

“You have to,” he huffs as he palms his cock through the material of his leathers again, a sharp hiss leaving him at once, “or I-I’ll not be able to stop myself.” 

“And you won’t either.” 

The words hang heavy in the air as he allows the gravity of the situation to settle around you both and you try to ignore the way his words send a wave of pure unadulterated pleasure through you. 

“And if I don’t want to stop you?” your hands trace lazy patterns into the slick skin of his chest, following the lines of his inky tattoos. 

“Fuck darling,” he says letting his forehead to rest  against yours as his eyes flutter shut,  “you can’t say things like that to me and expect me to be able to control myself.” he chuckles darkly. 

“Not when you’re lookin’ at me like that,” he takes your jaw between his thumb and index finger to bring your lips to his before placing a tender kiss there.

“Not when I can practically taste you.” His tone is much darker now as he nips at your  lower lips to pull you into a bruising kiss.

“Then let me help you,” you whisper airily, your fingers ghosting along his arms, following the contours of his chest, running gently over the swell of his pectoral muscles, down along the ridge of his abs and coming to rest on the  deep ‘v’ that disappears into the hem of  his leathers. 

Your free hand comes to the hinge of his sharp jaw, cupping his face as you pepper wet kisses along the skin there. 

“I can’t ask you to do that,” he says, his voice tense and body malleable under your deft touch. It takes all his self-control to insist again “I won’t ask that of you.”

In truth, you’ve wanted him this way for the better half of two decades but now, looking at him, all desperation and depravity, you’re not sure there’s any going back to the way things were. You want to be his friend. But you want this more.

You want to watch him come undone around you. You want to feel the rough pads of his fingers and they bruise the tender flesh of your hips and thighs. You want it to be you who he finds release. It has to be you. 

“You’re not asking, Cass” you remind him, your hands coming to grip his face, “let me help you.” 

He looks at you and something flashes in his hazel eyes; it's something dark and needy. A wordless plea. 

He nods gingerly, letting his hands come to rest on your hips, his fingers digging into the skin so tight that he is sure to leave his mark upon you. 

As you swing a leg over him so that his lower half is caged between your spread thighs he lets out to growl he has been holding. It’s feral and steeped in want. He’s near a primal trance by the time your hands find their home wrapped around his broad, strong shoulders as he bears your weight in his lap, letting you grind your wet core against him. 

The whine that leaves you as his thigh comes into contact with your clothed core is perverse and has you clenching around nothing. Your body sings in his bruising grip and you fit in his lap like you were made for him. 

His kisses are brutal and leave you half-breathless as he pulls away to gaze into your eyes. 

“I won’t be gentle with you.” he warns sternly, his eyes searching yours for any sign of hesitation. When he finds none he wastes no time taking the material of your leathers between his strong palms and pulling until they are bursting at their seams. Giving way to his strong grip and exposing your bare flesh to him. 

The sound that leaves you as your bare cunt comes into contact with the cool night air is pornographic and has Cassian groaning into the bare skin of your shoulder. 

“I don’t want you to be gentle with me, Cass” you say to him as your lips skim his.

“I can take it.” you breath airily nodding to him. 

He doesn’t say anything but dips his head into the curve of your neck before parting his lips. The feeling of his teeth sinking into the junction of your neck and shoulder feels as close to heaven as you might ever get. 

As your back arches away from him in protest Cassian takes the opportunity to free himself from his leathers with a pained hiss that melts into soft whimpers as you grind against him. 

He looks so beautiful like this; lips parted as his hand strokes his hardened length, the heavy length of him angry and red as the beads of precum glisten like pearls at his tip. He releases a heavy breath and pumps himself once more before dragging the head of his cock through the slick of your folds, gathering your arousal before pulling you down onto him with a force that sends tingles down the line of your spine.

You sink down onto him painfully slowly, savoring the dull ache as you take a moment to accommodate to his size. 

“Takin’ my cock so well, princess.” he hisses through clenched teeth as you sink down impossibly further. He splays an open hand over the bulge in your stomach pressing lightly as he begins to roll his hips at a brutal pace. He moves without warning, unforgiving and cruel as he fucks into you roughly. 

“‘Thought about this so many times, Cass.” you say burying your face into the crook of his neck as his hips snap against yours as you grind down onto his cock.

Cassian falters momentarily, a glimpse of the man you know through the haze of his carnal trance. His eyes glow golden in the low light and his hands come to hold your face in place as he brushes the stands away from your face behind the shell of your ear as he places a gentle kiss on the tip of your nose before his eyes darken once again. 

“I’ve thought about it too, princess” he says softly to you, barely more than a whisper.

He takes hold on you firmly, one hand spread across the expanse of your back and one on your hip as he flips you over with all his brute strength, his careful hand beneath you cushioning your fall. 

“Thought about how you’d look wrapped around my cock,” he growls, pulling all the way out of you before sinking back in with a harsh rut of his hips that  has you fluttering around his cock like a velvet vice.

“How pretty you’d sound begging for my come,” he groans as you wrap your legs around the small of his back, pushing him deeper into you as you moan gospel into the shell of his ear. 

“Beggin’ for me to make you mine.” It takes you by surprise as the words leave him, his voice is low and dark but laced with a certain clarity that rings true. 

You want him to claim you. Make you his. 

“Then make me yours, Cassie.” You beg prettily, your eyes boring into his with a vulnerable desperation.

He stares at you for a moment, a strange look of longing and awe on his beautiful face before it morphs into something carnal and animalistic that makes arousal coil in your stomach.

His amber eyes meet yours again, his hands coming to rest at either side of your head when your legs wrap tight around his middle as he resumes his brutal pace. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he says as his calloused palm runs over a hardened nipple before enclosing your breast and squeezing with fond pressure, “and all mine.” he finishes quietly, murmuring to himself. 

Cassian pulls back slowly so that he comes to rest on his knees, his large hands honing in on your thighs and pushing them further apart exposing your cunt to him with a guttural moan as he regards the way you’re wrapped around him. The milky ring that appears at the base of his cock and the way your back arches with each slow drag of his cock as it reaches that spongy spot inside of you. 

“This pussy is mine,” he snarls, fucking into you again before finding his brutal pace,  “look at how well you take my cock, baby.” he praises. 

“Like you were made for me.” he murmurs to himself, reveling in the feeling of your tight cunt fluttering around him again. A ripple of pleasure roars through him again when he feels you pulse around him and he senses your inevitable orgasm as you begin to chase it. 

“Say it, princess” he commands you, his breath hot and dangerous as he lowers himself so that you are chest to chest, “I need to hear you say it.”.

You nod enthusiastically, your hands coming to tangle in his hair, dipping down to his broad shoulders, tracing the lines of his tattoos as you roll your hips to meet his. 

“I’m yours, Cassian,” You confirm, your voice certain and thick with need. It’s desperate and depraved the way you beg for him until your voice is hoarse. 

I need you. Need you to fill me up. To make me yours. 

The words break apart in your mouth as your pleasure hits you like a tidal wave that crashes to the shore with a violent shudder.

“That’s it baby,” Cassian whispers as he fucks you through the last ripples of your orgasm. He draws one hand to rest against your abdomen, pressing lightly so that he can feel his cock move deep inside of you. 

In a feverish desperation you claw at him, his shoulders, his waist, the delicate flesh of his sculpted thighs drawing him impossibly closer to you. 

His own growl comes out in a broken rasp as he starts to lose himself to the euphoric feeling of your cunt clenching around him again in a desperate struggle. 

You cling to him fighting to find purchase, to brace yourself against the steady wall of muscle while Cassian chases his own orgasm, setting a cruel pace that begins to blur the lines between pleasure and pain and threatens to tear a broken sob from as you fight against the urge to come on his cock again. 

You kiss him desperately; nipping at his collar bones before pressing bruising kisses into his neck, mapping the broad expanses of his chest before coming to rest at the junction between his neck and the sharp line of his jaw.

Chest to chest, his heart thunders violently against yours and with every hungry kiss he seems to slip further into his primal trance. Another feral snarl rips through his chest as your lips connect in a kiss that tears the breath from you. It’s ceaseless, and leaves you senseless as he keeps fucking you at his brutal pace. 

It’s all consuming and devouring as Cassian gives in to his basest desire, drawing his cock all the way out before driving back in with an animalistic force that has you coming undone with a gentle sob.

Cassian slumps against you so close you can feel his beating heart as he groans against you, kissing the skin of your neck before coming to your parted lips, leaving a trail of wet kisses in his wake, all while his hands map the contours of your body. 

“That’s it, Cass,” you encourage him gently, pulling at the curls at the base of his neck as you feel him pulse inside of you as his hips begin to slow to a tortuous and teasing drag as he finds his release.

You feel the heavy tip of hip pulse violently in your cunt, the thick vein that runs along the underside of his marble length and the warm ropes of cum that coat your walls until you feel his release leaking out of you. It is depraved, the way your legs tighten against him, unwilling to let him go just yet.

His chest heaves, the rise and fall sporadic and wild as he breathlessly collapses against you, the weight of him a comforting crush as you chase the last waves of pleasure as your heart plateaus to a steady rhythm. 

You look at him through thick lashes searching for any sign of regret but finding only a strange reverence and unspoken longing in his amber irises. It is a longing you have wanted to see in him for so long. And perhaps it has always been there, behind the darks of his eyes but now, in this light, they shine with it. It glints in his eyes with a knowing acknowledgement that it is keenly felt and received.

He’s dazed and still half-wild when he places another kiss on your lips. This time it is tender and loving. Not completely free of lust but there is something else there too. Something new and sacred and gentle. 

His hair is damp and his skin glows golden in the dying light of the fire and the air is still thick with the smell of your union but you feel somehow lighter. Unburdened by the release of emotion you’ve both been holding for so long. You breathe deeply and your body relaxes into his once more. 

Like you were made for him and him alone. 

“You alright, princess?” he asks softly in a way that arches on anxious as his eyes meet yours in an unwavering stare.

“I’m just fine, Cassie.” You smile carefully, bringing a hand to rest on his cheek, rubbing tentative circles into the skin there. 

“We’re going to be just fine.”

Cassian searches you for any sign of uncertainty all he finds in its place is love. A love that burns bright against the dark skies. A love that comforts him in the knowledge that his life is forever changed by what passed between them. A love that will warm him through the long nights. 

The smile that blooms on his face is one full of ardour and child-like awe as he takes you in once again. Pressed so tight against him that he can feel the curve of your breast and the beating of your heart. Skin flush against him and flesh malleable in his deft grasp. 

His eyes trail the line of your body, committing the curves and divots to memory as he recalls the sound of you coming undone around him again. In his memory it sounds  like birdsong or some ancient song. Hypnotic and depraved.

He had dreamt of this so many times before and in the haze of dreaming you always felt so real. But having you here, in his arms feels like some cruel trick. 

Like he’s just waiting for realization to set in. For you to recoil in unadulterated horror. 

But you never do. 

Instead, you take his face in your hands again and kiss him with a devotion that you reserve only for him before opening your mouth to whisper to him what he assumes are words of reverence and praise. 

“I hope you know we’re going to do that again.” and your laugh sounds like birdsong in his ear.

[evilminji]

Here I sit, considering Blood Blossoms.

It can be safely assumed, that the species originally developed their Anti-ghost properties to drive HUMANS and other things with, well, SOULS? Away? But as some enterprising human likely did, was selectively bred for purely Anti-ghost properties.

As with most things in nature, we can only assume it was originally to allow for unfettered spread of its seeds. Likely even had an effect on other PLANTS, allowing it more soil in which to grow. A "Blight Blossom" if you will. Or "Life's Bane".

But! That is not what I wonder about.

I wonder about the OTHER end of the evolutionary niche. Like plants with berries, meant to entice birds and other animals into carrying their seeds to new and fertile grounds.

Are there Ghost ATTRACTING plants?

And I don't not mean, drugs, though that certainly WOULD be one means of attracting potentially symbiotic relationships. I mean plants that smell unusually good. TASTE good. Have developed around high ectoplasmic areas.

Do they only exsist in the Realms? Or are such plants possible to find in the living Realm?

If I found them, dug them up carefully, and transferred them to a brand new home, freshly built on untouched land... would it be haunted in short order? Or would the plants die, because the environment could no longer support them?

The most LIKELY contender to exsist? Would be some sort of extoplasmic berry. An EXTREMELY hardy and slow growing vine, that likely grows in places of high extoplasm. Such as old war zones, grave yards, old hospitals, and cities with particularly high death counts. Or Amity. Really, anywhere it can find a LOT of Ectoplasm.

I imagine the berries would literally glow. Like neon battery acid. Reminiscent of blackberry bushs with long creeping vines and hooking thorns. Darker, red black leaves.

DEEPLY lethal if the living ingested. The comparison to battery acid being not made lightly.

The berries, I imagine, would basicly be sugar water and ectoplasm. Sweet ecto. The plant "realizing" that ghosts need ectoplasm. If it HAS ectoplasm, they will come get it. And if the form the ectoplasm is pleasing? They will cultivate the plant to get more.

Because that's what it does. It passively gathers ectoplasm from the air, water, and soil.

Into a nice, neat, EDIBLE little treat.

After all, it's not like there's a hole to the Zone just lying around! Do you know how hard it is to luck out and find a natural portal? How are we to feed ourselves? Sit here and suck air?

Yes, the portal makes the plant effectively redundant. But! Much like pigeons? It doesn't stop EXISTING just because ghosts aren't using it now. Just going unharvested.

Which? Is probably why there are so many new ghost animals. They ARE berries after all. Danny should probably talk to people about that. It's irresponsible to just up an leave lethal fruit where humans might find it.

@hdgnj @nerdpoe @ailithnight @the-witchhunter

[windvexer]

Potentially you gotta stop making all those substitutions to the spells, witch bestie.

If you're trying to learn magic and have chosen to do so through other people's published instructional manuals, and the magic isn't working, consider asking yourself if you are actually following the rituals provided.

I've been speaking with multiple people lately who are all struggling with the same thing, so perhaps a post on this topic is germane.

Unless you understand the tradition you're working with and why certain things have certain meanings, you probably do not have the background required to make effective substitutions.

Working within someone else's established tradition is not the same as working within your personal eclectic path.

Imagine you go into a working group which is super into bioregional practice and they've developed elaborate rituals which always work for them.

They give you a purification ritual which calls for a red apple, wild-harvested cotton, and local mulberries to be worked over during a full moon.

They do not tell you why each of these things is included. They just give you the list.

We're going to substitute a store-bought cotton ball, obviously, and what to do about the mulberries? We can google "mulberry correspondences," find out they're related to "healing" which is the closest thing we can figure has anything to do with a purification ritual, then pretty much figure that since chamomile is associated with sleep and purification, and sleep is a Lunar thing, right, that we can just use a sleepytime chamomile tea bag, and there you have it!

What the working group has failed to tell you is that this entire ritual is based on local mythology where the cotton wight fell in love with the mulberry dryad and they got married under the full moon by sharing an apple, and the entire ritual isn't based on sympathetic container magic, but is a heirophany which recreates the marriage of local sacred spirits, each of whom has sworn to heal and purify those who honor their love.

A heck of a lot of witchcraft authors do not break down why every single step is taken.

And if you apply contemporary witch-lite logic to everything ("cotton is white so I'm going to relate that to color correspondences and substitute a white candle for purity"), you can end up immediately canceling out a spell.

Not understanding or connecting with certain spell/ritual steps is not a good reason to change them.

You had mulberries once as a kid and they gave you stomach cramps and now you personally associate them with hexing and sickness, so even though there is a ripe mulberry tree outside, you are going to go get a container of blackberries instead, which you personally associate with purification, and -

(You get the drift)

The spell calls for making a paper box, within which you hide the wild cotton and mulberry. Then, at a crossroads at the full moon, you unfold the box to reveal its contents, and offer an apple to the correspondences.

Which would mean we'd have to learn how to make a paper box (fun!) but also like, why this unfolding thing? Nothing I've read so far in my witchcraft books has explained the magical meaning behind opening a paper box. This is basically a container spell, right? I'll just use a glass jar.

(The plant spirits who informed the local coven about this spellwork specified an opaque, degradable container)

If you're using other people's work, you're more or less sacrificing yourself to the reality that they probably are not explaining everything to you, and that your assumptions about what makes that magic tick could be so far off base that even your most educated guesses will fall short.

Yeah, using other people's traditions can mean you don't have what's required to do everything, and that's kind of just the way it is.

I'm not trying to be Mr. Just Go And Buy Stuff You Moneybags, but I guess I am being Mr. If You Can't Do It Then You Can't Do it.

And no, I'm not saying that it's impossible to figure out substitutions.

I'm specifically referring to a situation where a practitioner is trying to figure out magic, hasn't been able to make strides, and then it turns out they've been radically modifying and altering spells from specific traditions to a point where the spell is obviously functionally DOA.

At one point I was learning some slightly advanced bit of coding. I downloaded a set of files from a code library and installed them on my website.

The thing was, at that point in my education, I had enough experience to basically understand what was going on with each file. So, I edited them as I went, modifying them to my custom specifications.

Wouldn't you know it! When I launched the code it was broken. DOA, if you will.

I went back to the code library, and the top comment was,

INSTALL THE FILES AND MAKE SURE THEY WORK BEFORE YOU TRY TO CHANGE THEM. Everyone keeps changing things before they even test launch it and then they come back here and complain that the code is broken. IT ISN'T BROKEN.

[headspace-hotel]

Oh, God, it's so important to learn to NOTICE though. When I first started learning about plants I realized that the real world—the REAL real world, and that's what I'm getting at here really, the natural world is so much more REAL, because human made environments are like...very dim, simplified simulations—is boggling to the mind in its sheer level of detail.

It feels like there's so much happening on the screen when you look at the internet, so much visual chaos in the form of ads and sidebars and videos that play automatically, but, God, just look at some dirt. Look at a regular patch of grass and weeds and look at how much there is going on.

How many species of plant are in a weedy, overgrown lawn? Whatever number you guess, it's too low, because you haven't learned to see. You can only see big and obvious shapes and colors. But I realized I was trapped in this...almost toddler-like simplification in my perception, and I realized that the more I cracked my brain open trying to identify plants and trees, the more I could zoom in on the parts of nature that had once seemed like the finest level of detail and see higher and more intricate tiers of complexity.

To almost everyone, grass looks like just grass. Do you know how many kinds of grass there are? Do you know how many I've found in my own yard? There are at least 15 different grass and sedge species in our yard. And I have no idea how they all looked like just grass to me before. There are dozens and dozens of species of plants and wildflowers in our "lawn."

And there are trees! Tiny saplings, the children of great and mighty trees, constantly sprouting in lawns and roadsides and ditches, unable to know that they are destined to be unnoticed and cursorily mowed down.

Today I saw a tiny oak tree, maybe six inches tall, poking from the grass in a green, well-maintained lawn, and I felt so much grief, because that little tree is never going to grow up to be a towering giant, because—why? Because of the kind of world ours is. Not because we don't want to live in a world of towering trees, but because we've genuinely and through no malice or transgression of our own become unable to see and recognize those trees as tiny seedlings. Every patch of grass is the same as every other patch of grass to us.

And, because of the kind of world ours is, it doesn't really occur to us that there would be trees in our back yards if we looked. Trees? For free? Nothing in this world is free. Trees are forty-two dollars apiece, at the garden center at Lowe's. Trees are an asset to highlight when you are selling your house. 1.2 acres, fruit trees on property! 1.4 acres, mature trees!

Anything that begins to grow in your lawn unprompted, without your permission, is a "weed," automatically in our minds, because...it doesn't make sense. Beautiful flowers and sweet, edible fruits happen because of hard work, fertilizer, landscape fabric, weeding, watering, soil testing kits, hundreds spent on potted perennials. We all know that. Nothing generous or beautiful ever just happens to us, so every little stranger that germinates in our lawns is a "weed," threatening to take away what little we do have.

And yet. And yet blackberries are ripening in the shaded thicket out behind my house. And yet wild chicory and dandelions are blooming in the tall grass to the brush pile. I show my family a picture of what the purple passion flowers will look like when they bloom, and it's like it's hard for them to believe—that's native to here? they just grow wild?

They do. They do. And so do majestic oak and sycamore trees, elm and tulip poplar. The seeds of trees that may outlive us by hundreds of years have germinated in our lawns and sidewalks and drainage ditches. This place was a forest once, and in all its little edges and corners it is always starting to become a forest again.

I think we HAVE to see this. I think every single person needs to break their brain with 25 hours of trying to identify plants using Wikipedia, Google, and pure confusing-sedge-induced rage until they get their third eye blown wide the fuck open.

People need to see this happening with their own eyes, the Happening that is always happening in nature, the activity and life always flourishing and living in every square millimeter of every yard and walkway and roadside, how absolutely absolutely bursting with species even a crack in the pavement on the side of the road is, how mind-numbingly simplified and static our concept of the natural world around us is next to the real thing.

There are so many kinds of lightning bugs. Did y'all know that? I'm seeing them now. There are many different species, with different colors and markings, and I'm noticing them chilling in the foliage around me in the daytime. I'm listening to the songs of birds and learning to recognize them, and there are so many more birds around me than I really realized.

I heard the call of a bird today that I did not recognize. Why didn't it register in my mind before that birdsongs I couldn't recognize were gaps in my knowledge?

Why doesn't it feel essential, immediate and necessary to seek knowledge about the other living things in our immediate surroundings? To at least know their names?

If I don't know my neighbor's name after living next to them for ten years, I haven't done anything to be their neighbor; they're just a stranger that lives near me. Are the trees and birds around me not my neighbors too? People will look up the name of an actor they've recognized before in a show, the name of a song they heard. Why are grasses and trees so far outside of what immediately seems relevant to us? What has our world done to our curiosity? To our sense of belonging in a world that is fundamentally interconnected and generous and alive?

Out there, on a pristine green lawn, a tiny seedling of an oak tree sprouts, barely six inches high. I saw it earlier on my walk, and I felt so sad. I'm sorry that we cut down a forest and turned it into this place. That's what I thought. But something changed in my mind as I thought it.

I realized that a forest was not a thing but a process, and not a process either in the sense that there's a beginning and an end result, but in the sense of things happening and being connected to other things, and I understood that the immensity of this thing far transcended what the word "forest" denotes.

A baby oak tree growing with nobody's permission on a flat green lawn belongs to this thing, "forest," just as much as a massive hundreds-of-years-old oak tree in the depths of the woods belongs to "forest," because a forest is growth, survival, persistence, the fight of a place that once was a forest to become forest again

I'm sorry I said to the tree you cannot kill me in a way that matters said the tree in reply, and I saw my own insignificance next to the indifference of the universe, and it was so infinitely gentle and merciful

[esoteric-chaos]

Imbolc - Spoonie Witch Friendly

Imbolc is usually celebrated between February 1st & 2nd, in the Northern Hemisphere (In Southern hemisphere around August 1).

Imbolc is a fire festival celebrating the home, hearth, and the halfway point between Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox.

Is is the celebration of the return of the light and sun. A great time to honour the coldest days and the arrival of spring.

Imbolc Correspondences

Colours

White

Gold

Silver

Pastel Colors

Herbal

Rosemary

Basil

Bay leaves

Cinnamon

Myrrh

Hay

Chamomile

Angelica

Lavender

Daffodil

Blackberry

Willow 

Edibles

Blackberry

Root vegetables

Dried fruits

Stews

Mead

Fermented foods

Grains

Dairy (specifically ewe's milk)

Cider

Herbal tea

Canned foods

Oats

Animals

Deer

Cow

Sheep

Lark

Swan

Bear

Wolves

Groundhog

All burrowing and hibernating animals

Crystals

Gold

Silver

Brass

Amethyst

Moonstone

Garnet

Ruby

Symbols

Candle flame

Seeds

Besom/broom

Brigid’s cross

Serpent

Sheep (due to Imbolc’s association with ewe’s milk)

White flowers

Snowflakes

Flowing water and springs

Sunwheel

Star

Evergreens

Spiritual meanings

Creativity

Awakenings

Introspection

Fresh beginnings

Perseverance

Patience

Renewal

Revision

Healing

Frugality

Self-care

Youth

Scents

Cinnamon

Rosemary

Basil

Cedar

Mint

Gods / Goddesses / Spirits

Brigid (Celtic)

Aphrodite (Greek)

Bast (Egyptian)

Ceres (Roman)

Cerridwen (Celtic)

Gaia

Hestia (Greek)

Vesta (Roman)

Venus (Roman)

Athena (Greek)

Demeter (Greek)

Persephone (Greek)

Aenghus Og (Irish)

Eros (Greek)

Faunus (Roman)

Pan (Greek)

Cernunnos (Celtic)

Osiris (Egyptian)

Asmodeus (Demon, personal UPG)

Need some suggestions to celebrate? I got you covered.

High energy celebrations and ritual

Astral projection/travel

Divinations

Cord cuttings

Create a Brigid’s Cross

Gardening (best time to start to plant seeds)

Make resolution(s) and goal(s) for the year ahead (I'll fight to the DEATH about my personal opinion that this is a better time for resolutions than New Years itself. Best time for renewal and goal setting)

Ritual to say farewell to winter

Make bread

Spring clean! It’s the best time for it

Low energy celebrations 

Starting a manifestation journal

Burning a bay leaf with manifestation on it

Planning in your planner

Lighting a candle in honour

Make a cup of tea

Practice self care

No spoon celebrations 

Prayer

Putting on sun lamp

Greet the sun at sunrise

Rest

How you celebrate the holiday does not matter. You can choose to do any activity that feels right. These are only suggestions and remember that you're enough no matter what.

Also please note some stuff is UPG. A great book is Year of the Witch by Temperance Alden for honouring the celebrations and if you wanted to work more seasonally. It's not wiccan based and has plenty of resources for every witch.

[artofmaquenda]

You don't hold power over me

When I help my mom with her garden to remove ivy and the little bindweeds that creep up on other plants and slowly suffocate them, how fast blackberry bushes grow and become almost impossible to reach through, I'm reminded how we need to mindfully tend our own inner garden as well.

I admire these plants for their own strength and determination every year, so I have to tend these mental vines in the same way and remind myself to walk through life with an open heart. Life can be painful and daunting, like walking through the brambles with thorns and nettles to reach to the other side. It will tear your clothes and leave behind scars, but it gets easier, the path becomes clearer the more you walk through it every day and nurture these paths.

These vines symbolize the way the ghosts of our ancestors can still haunt us, how the vines of others can hold us down and how we bind ourselves, but we can break free.

[charlunday]

i would love to hear all of your third toastbaby thoughts please and thank you, he sounds delightful 🥺

Ask and you shall receive!

I honestly didn't think anyone would be that interested, but here we are. This is my idea about a third toast baby.

With my ideas for all their kids' names, I like to incorporate plants and local wildlife. Brambell comes from both the plant brambles (blackberries) while keeping the structure of the name Bramwell. However, this evolves into the nickname Bluebell, which becomes just Blue (and also baby Blue). Angsty preteen Blue hates this and insists his name is Brambell, Mama.

In agreement with @paintedpeeta , I think he was absolutely not planned at all. He's very close in age to his brother, maybe just under two years younger. (Meanwhile, I think Everlark waited somewhere around four years between baby #1 and baby #2, since that's Katniss and Prim's age difference)

So the two brothers, once they're a bit bigger, are constantly squabbling and brawling. This is shocking to Katniss, who at eight years old wouldn't have dreamt of throwing hands with her darling four year old sister. Peeta, on the other hand, scruffs them like kittens like it's any regular Tuesday. (I think he and his brothers were closer in age, and therefore very physical when it came to childhood disagreements)

Outside of that, baby Blue is all about his mama. Katniss wore all 3 of her babies, but the first two were too squirmy to continue that practice into toddlerhood. Blue, on the other hand, is happy to cling to her back and whisper to her while she does chores. He's definitely the most clingy of their kids.

He's also the most shy! As he grows up, he stays quite soft-spoken, preferring to communicate in judgy looks (like his mother).

As he grows up, he also bears a startling resemblance to Katniss' father.

Essentially, Peeta jokes about how Katniss hit copy and paste with her genetics, and he still isn't entirely sure she didn't create a clone. Except for his curly hair! I think all 3 of their kids have Peeta's curls because they're just that stubborn.

When it comes to skills and things, I think he and his brother take the best to shooting. He's stealthier, but his brother is the better marksman (and is quite arrogant about it). Their sister, much like Prim, does not have the stomach for hunting. She loves animals too much.

And finally, once they're all grown up, he's their tallest child. I think all of their kids outgrow their Mama, but Blue is the only one that outgrows Peeta. Just by a hair. He's tall, thin, wiry, a good tree climber.

Anyway, thanks for reading all this! I think about him a lot, as you can tell. I hope you all enjoy him, too.

[klausysworld]

hello can you do a one-shot for yandere klaus mikaelson where he usually visits y/n in his wolf form

Wolf!Klaus

Pt 2 Pt3

The night Klaus had finally broken his curse, and he was running through the forest killing anything that moved, he came across a little house. Flowers grew outside of it, strawberry and blackberry plants almost fully grown.

There were birds bathing in the little fountain, some eating from the feeders and houses that were high up in the trees. He neared the water source cautiously, watching the house as he lapped at the cool water.

He could see the shape of a womens body, her. His ears perked as he heard her soft voice speaking to somebody on the phone, his head tilted as he listened to her laugh, a sound that sent shivers down his spine and had his ears falling back against his head.

He was glad he had ran ahead of Elijah, his brother would have laughed at the reaction he was having.

But that didn’t stop him from nearing her door, his large paw scraping at the wood as he sat and waited for it to open. To say she looked shocked would be an understatement, she didn’t move an inch as fear pooled in her eyes. He wasn’t able to enter her house, stupid vampire disadvantages.

He breathed her in as his head tilted the other way. Her mouth opened and close a few times as she glanced behind him and then back to his eyes. Her lips were lovely blush colour, he love how they moved as she tried to form words. After another minute or so she was taking small steps back, and yet she left the door open?

She disappeared for a moment before returning with a raw steak on a plate, he blinked at her blankly. He took a step back allowing her to put the plate outside the door and get back inside to safety before moving to eat it. His body lowering to lay before her as she slowly sat down cross legged watching him eagerly. He found her odd yet intriguing.

Halfway through his meal he felt her hand on his head, a low growl bubbled in his throat as he looked back at her. Eyes wide as her hand froze in place over his fur. Reluctantly he put his head down, allowing her to pet him. Her hands ran through his fur from his head down his neck and back, and he absolutely loved it.

Her nails lightly tickled his skin in a way that had him wanting to roll onto his back so she would rub his belly. Of course he did not out of the small amount of pride he still held onto in that moment.

He did however stand up making her panic but was pleasantly surprised when he moved to lay back down, head in her lap making her stroke him once more

“You’re absolutely gorgeous” she whispered looking him over, such soft fur for a wolf, almost as though it had been conditioned. He growled softly in return, almost like a purr to her words.

His tail began to beat at the floor, he immediately growled at his tail and urged it to stop but the way she giggled at him only made it wag harder much to his embarrassment.

As the day grew long she returned to her home and told him to go back to his fun.

But as he wondered back through the woods, and encountered other wild wolves and dangerous animals he began to worry that she would be harmed. He stayed watching her home the entire night. Eventually Elijah caught up with him and nearly had to drag him away from the house

“Niklaus you’re being ridiculous. What on earth are you waiting for?” He questioned annoyed that his brother was prolonging the deal he had made the previous night to reuniting him with their family.

———————————————————————

The next time he saw her was months later. He had almost forgotten about her after everything happened with the werewolf hunting and then his fathers death.

It was only when he found himself all riled up and in need of a run did he find his way to her house again. It was as though she called for his wolf. He ran directly to her home, no hesitation in any step as he raced against himself only to end up back at her door in the middle of the night.

He clawed at her door, whining for her to come see him. He grew frustrated when he listened to her sleep, her breathing still heavy as her body lay in her bed. He had not control over himself as his wolf let out a howl so loud that it shook every tree in Mystic Falls.

His tail immediately went again as he heard her footsteps approaching, the door cracking open as she looked through the gap to him. Her eyes desperately trying to adjust to the darkness and she took in the creature before her. Her brows knitting together in confused before recognition fell over her.

“What’re you doing here?” She whispered opening the door further giving him a better view of her. Her legs on full display for him as she stood in only her underwear and a shirt far too large for her. Was it a mans shirt? He didn’t like that thought, not one bit.

“Go home” she shooed, he sat before her patiently awaiting her to let him inside making her sigh

“Go, go on, back to your family” she ushered.

Instead he took a different response, his ears went flat to his head, his eyes becoming big, pupils dilating as he let out a soft whimper. He watched as her expression softened

“Are you cold?” She asked quietly glancing to the sky, clouds thick and grey making her feel worse for leaving him outside, he was rather sweet. He hadn’t given her a reason to be feared, no he let her pet him and wagged his tail for her. He was harmless.

“Okay…just tonight though” she muttered opening the door making him stand but wait for her to say those extra words

“Come on, come in already it’s freezing”

As soon as she said them he was inside, brushing himself up against her bare legs as she closed the door and began to walk up the stairs. He followed closely behind her, jumping onto her bed to which she was not keen on

“Absolutely not. No dogs on the bed, down” she pointed to the floor and he blinked at her

“Bad dog” she mumbled trying to push him ofd but he was far larger than any dog she may have encountered, more than half the size on her when it stood on all fours. She could only imagine how tall he would be if it stood on its hind legs. He growled in a warning at her, watching as she gave up and sat before him. He could see her anxiety building, the fear he would harm her in sleep.

In an attempt to comfort her thoughts he moved closer to her, pushing her to lay down and laying with his head on her stomach. Hesitantly she pet him again, slowly drifting off into sleep with him in her arms. 

He left in the morning, one last look at her peaceful face as she slept before returning to the chaos that was his life.

———————————————————————

Klaus found that she could be spotted around Mystic Falls far more often than he realised. She was always around at shops or just on walks. Sometimes in the grill with a friend or two. He wondered how she would react if she knew he was the wolf that lay with her at night. How she would act if he were to turn before her, from wolf to man, see her expression as she found a naked man in her bed when she awoke.

He had this thought often. Said thought was often followed by a made up scenario in his head of her kissing him, him showing her just how animalistic he could be. Though at the same time he found he wanted to make slow sweet love to her instead. Show her how gentle he would be for her.

Occasionally he wondered if she would ever let him touch her in his wolf form. He had never thought of anything like it before but imagining her sprawled out on her bed with his long tongue between her legs as her fingers clung to his fur stirred something inside of him.

He had gotten himself off far too many times to the thought of her body, to her face and how she would react to seeing him. She thought his wolf form was gorgeous then his human form would surely stun her.

———————————————————————

He found that he stayed at her house almost every night. It baffled him how she would allow a ‘wild animal’ to stay so close to her but he assumed she must feel safe being wrapped in something so dangerous.

Somebody who is cruel to everyone but her.

He paced her room impatiently as he waited for her to get out of the shower. God how he wanted to be in the room with her.

His claws stuck to the floor as he felt himself becoming frustrated, sexually and emotionally.

When she came back in with only a tiny towel around her he froze in place.

“Oh…what are you doing here? I didn’t let you in” she mumbled holding the towel to her tightly. Yep Klaus had taken to inviting himself in now.

“Go wait outside while i change” she told him nodding to the door but he wouldn’t budge. She didn’t feel comfortable changing infront of him, something about him was more than just an animal.

“Please Wolf, just for a minute” she pleaded and reluctantly he walked off. Waiting until she let him back in. She wore her flared jeans and a low cut top, of how he adored the v-neck tops she would wear.

He jumped up onto her bed, his tail circling her as his snout pressed to her neck, inhaling her cleaned scent. The smell of cherries and vanilla flooding his senses and he purred for her.

She stroked his fur cooing to him unaware of the way his eyes looked down at her cleavage, tongue licking his lips as he tried to subtly near her breasts. He decided to just go for it and shoved his snout between her boobs making her shriek and grab at his head. A laugh bubbled inside her as he hid his face under her top, his fur tickling her as she shoved at him

“Wolf!” She yelled pushing at him in the middle of a laughing fit. His tongue licking at her valley only tickled her further causing her legs to start kicking as she screeched. She managed to get him off her, still laughing as she lay on her back staring up at him while he stood over her with a tilted head.

He knew he shouldn’t have done what he did but thankfully she didn’t seem upset, she was still struggling to breath through her hysterical state. If he were in human form he would be chuckling too.

———————————————————————

It got to the point where he was stealing her things. Taking items from her wardrobe when he left in the mornings, occasionally he’d try sneak one of her teddy bears or other sentimental possessions.

He had a little collection at home for her, his room smelt of her and he loved it.

He often found he would have the panties he stole in his hand while he humped at his pillow which was cover with one of her tops, trying to replicate how he would mount her and make her his. This helped him relieve himself a lot, no longer getting overly riled up and nearly pouncing on her each time he saw her.

He still followed her in human form but it was so much easier to get close to her in his wolf form besides he could protect her much better aswell.

[anipgarden]

What Kind of Plants to Add

This is my sixth post in a series I’ll be making on how to increase biodiversity on a budget! I’m not an expert–just an enthusiast–but I hope something you find here helps! 

I’d love to be able to give a quick and easy list of things to add, but frankly I can’t do that. I can strongly encourage you, however, to look at these categories of plants and do further research to discover what’s native to your area, so you can plant things that’ll have the most impact in your particular area.

With that being said, I will mention a few plants as examples. This is in no way, shape, or form me telling you that you have to or even should buy these specific plants. Not every plant works well in every place in every garden, not to even mention across countries. Above all, if you’re wondering what plants you should be adding, I can wholeheartedly say plants that are native to your area--or at least nonnative non-invasive.

Flowers

Flowers are some of the most common ways people work to increase biodiversity in their gardens, and who can blame them? Seeing pops of color out your window, and directly seeing the impact via butterflies and bees visiting the garden? It’s a win-win for us and the wildlife!

Flowers--especially native wildflowers--are a quick, easy, and cheap way to increase wildlife traffic in your garden. Perennial gardens are more likely to get you the most bang for your buck, as they’ll come back year after year if you treat them well. But don’t dismiss annuals--if you get ones that easily reseed, they’ll eagerly return on their own! If you can, do your best to ensure that the flowers you plant all have different blooming periods--that way, your garden can support wildlife throughout the year instead of for just one brief season. 

Flowers are environmental super boosters. Their nectar and pollen can feed insects and birds, their stems and leaves can provide nesting materials for all sorts of creatures, and their seeds are a popular food source among birds at all times of the year.

Climbing Plants

Climbing plants can be fantastic options for maximizing your impact. If you have limited ground space, growing up can provide interest as well as additional habitat for all kinds of creatures.

Training plants up a trellis, fence, or bare wall offers food, shelter, and habitat. Trumpet vines, passionflowers, honeysuckles, and more will provide sweet nectar for pollinators as well as nesting and hiding spaces for other wildlife like birds, bugs, and lizards. Do note that in some cases, climbing plants can actually affect the structural integrity of walls and roofs if allowed to climb too much and too far along a house, so be careful. 

Bushes/Shrubs

Bushes provide shelter for creatures, which then provides hunting grounds for other animals. Their fallen leaves and petals can be food and shelter for detritivores, amphibians, reptiles, and small mammals--and they also provide good cover for moving around the garden, for creatures who like to stay hidden. They can be a bit more pricey to obtain--unless you get cuttings or seeds and are willing to wait--but they’ll definitely be worth it, and they’re typically low-maintenance once they’re established.

Bonus points if you get a flowering and fruiting bush, like bottlebrush, serviceberry, lilac, or others. This’ll make your bushes not only a place of shelter, but a food source as well--and depending on the kind you pick, may be food for you too! Making a garden border with a series of bushes can be a great option to providing lots of habitat, if you can manage it.

Shrubs with pithy or hollow stems are excellent options for supporting solitary bees. Some examples you could look into are elderberry, raspberry, blackberry, or sumac.

Trees

Trees have a high up-front cost and take awhile to grow, but once they’re settled in place they provide crucial habitat to all kinds of creatures! Insects will be attracted to flowers they may provide, or to nest in the wood. Others may eat the leaves as food, or use them as nesting materials. Birds will perch and nest in trees, and feed off the fruits and seeds and insects that also use the tree. Squirrels also use trees as nesting places, piling up dead leaves into huge clusters to raise their young in, and will absolutely feast on any nuts the tree may provide. Mice, badgers, and more will feast on fallen fruits or seeds, and bats roost in the trunks when given the chance. Detritivores eat fallen leaves and decomposing fruits, providing further food for hunting creatures. Trees can also be good for us--they help block out noise and air pollution, and are the poster child for taking CO2 and making it breathable oxygen. Not to mention they can provide plenty of food for us, too. Nesting grounds, hunting grounds, shelter from weather, and more--trees are, in my opinion, likely to be the best way to boost biodiversity long-term. If you can get your hands on a sapling for cheap and can care for it for awhile, I’d definitely give it a shot! Make sure the tree won’t get too big for where you’re growing it, though--you’ve definitely gotta plan for the long-term before you plant any. 

Some trees can be grown in containers. Though they won’t become gigantic branching behemoths, they’ll still do their part to support all the life that depends on them. Growing a tree from seed may take awhile, but could be an easy option to getting one if you have the patience--the trees are more than happy to help you, as they drop tons of seeds and fruit in fall for you to gather. 

Groundcover

Bare soil is the enemy of microbial life in the soil, and while small pockets of bare soil can be great nesting places for bees and other insects, having swaths of empty soil should be avoided. Groundcover plants grow low to the ground in a sprawling habit, and will often spread quite easily on their own. This is a great way to provide shelter, keep soil temperatures cool, block out weeds, and give your soil life a chance to thrive.

Sometimes, ground covers don’t even have to be planted in the ground. Shallow-rooted plants like succulents, ferns, and alyssum can be planted into cracks in stone walls, and moss can be planted by making moss graffiti and painting it onto a surface. As with climbing plants, do make sure that you don’t cause extra damage to important walls and housing foundations.

Host Plants

Host plants get their own section, because plants of all kinds can be host plants for different creatures! It’s common to think only flowers can be host plants in the beginning, but in reality, many bushes and trees are host plants to dozens of species of butterflies and moths. Honestly, I feel that factor's not talked about enough. Look up what insects live in your area and what kind of host plants they need, and plant some if you can! Bonus points if you can plant a variety of them--I know that there’s hundreds of kinds of milkweed, each one flowering and leafing up around different times of the year. Planting several varieties of milkweed, then, would provide monarchs with food through several seasons, allowing many more of them to grow up in your garden!

Nectar Plants

Plants that provide nectar to insects is a great foundation to increasing biodiversity! This is, of course, many native wildflowers (and even nonnative wildflowers, though be sure they aren’t invasives who’ll do more harm than good), but many native bushes, vines, and trees will also provide nectar to hungry pollinators! 

Keystone Species

To be frank, some plants can have a bigger impact than others in a landscape. By all means, every bit helps, but if you want to boost biodiversity quickly there are a few plants that can essentially serve as the backbone of local ecosystems that you can grow in anything from a balcony pot to a small patch of your backyard. These plants can be different depending on where you are, so do your research to find out what would be best to grow in your area. If you can’t get them all? That’s alright! But even hitting just a few of these target species really can do a lot.

That’s the end of this post! My next post is gonna be about things to keep in mind/continue to do once you get plants in the ground! Until then, I hope this advice was helpful! Feel free to reply with any questions, your success stories, or anything you think I may have forgotten to add in!

[byhees]

what he reminds me of.

엔하이픈 희승 ・ female reader + word count 300 genre fluff established relationship warnings not proof-read kissing skinship — more

a/n. blank

strawberry-flavoured lip gloss; he’d playfully lean in to steal a peck on your glossy lips, earning a soft complaint along the lines of “having to reapply another layer”. he wishes you could see just how pretty you look in such moments, from his point of view.

oversized hoodies; the type that’d engulf the wearer in layers of fabric, its hood concealing countenance, casting a shadow over features. he likes to tug the hood off your head, because it gives him a full view of your face; he likes to hold your fabric-encased hands.

the scent of blackberries and cedarwood; the smell becomes increasingly more obvious when you’re nestled nicely in his warm embrace.

stay-at-home dates; falling asleep near the end of a movie marathon, limbs messily entangled with the one another.

unscented hand cream; on days that you’d forget, he’d delicately rub some of the moisturiser onto your hands, fingertips brushing against your skin.

chocolate-covered strawberries; making them as a fun date-night activity. him always feeding you the first bite, eyes morphing into crescents at your reaction.

soft-coloured shirts; he loves the way the colours compliment your complexion.

sun-kissed skin; more often than not, he’d find himself staring at you in absolute admiration— your beauty transcends the capability of words.

cheek kisses; a bonus if you’re wearing some form of a tinted lip product, a soft stain dawning his skin.

sunsets and beaches; sitting on a gingham picnic mat, and simply watching as the skies take on an orangey-pink hue. hands interlocked, as the sun casts long, languid shadows along the shoreline.

video games; jokingly challenging the other to a small bet. him finding all ways to be a menace and distract you, lips occasionally planting short kisses on your face.

polaroids strung up by old yarn; snapping new pictures every so often, and hanging them up on the little collage wall.

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