#also if you put thick layers it is a little sticky and shiny even when dry

[squisheebugdoodles]

Got some paint markers for cheap and they got here today so what better way to test them than moffs 83

[unpeumacabre]

soaring dragon dancing phoenix - 龙飞凤舞: chapter one

Yunmeng is no longer home for Wei Wuxian, for he is no longer welcome. And so when he visits he can always count on Jiang Cheng descending upon his head with the full strength of heaven's fury, to chase him out. But one day when he sneaks into Yunmeng again, days go by without Jiang Cheng making an appearance. Something has happened to Wei Wuxian's prickly shi-di, something that - once they reunite - they will find is far greater than they could ever have anticipated. Accompanied also by Wei Wuxian's dear friend (?) Lan Zhan and a Lan Xichen who has only just reluctantly left isolation, the four of them set out on a journey that will bring them across the greater part of China to the mystical Kunlun mountains of mythology - and more importantly, may bring them love, healing, and reconciliation.

If only Wei Wuxian could take his head out of his oblivious arse and start putting himself in other people's shoes for once...

Rating: Mature

Relationships: Wangxian, Xicheng, Wei Wuxian & Jiang Cheng

Read on AO3 (bc tumblr might mess up the formatting + more extensive author’s notes on the story)

Count: 8k

<- previous

Wei Wuxian woke in darkness, and it was a darkness he did not recognise.

He sat up, groaning as the movement jarred his bones and made him ache in places he’d not known existed. There was something clouding his thoughts, draining his energy; after a few moments wherein he tried to get his bearings, he sensed the presence of a suppressing array designed to repress spiritual energy and sap his strength.

It was not a man-made array. Instead, it had the hallmarks of something far more ancient and terrible.

The amount of resentful energy in the air was so thick that he almost choked on it. In fact, if not for the suppressing array, he would have had trouble stopping the energy from churning through his body and sending him into a state of backlash.

As he stumbled to his feet, there was a crunch underfoot. Something sharp poked into his hand as he steadied himself against the ground. He felt for the object, and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realised he had stepped on and broken the jaw bone of a skull.

“Ah – “ reflexively he recoiled. Then he relaxed as he realised it was likely the skull of a deer.

As he blinked and looked about the room, slowly things came into focus. First he saw around him walls made of dark, dank stone. There was a sour, mossy smell in the air; the air felt thick with moisture, and he wrinkled his nose in response. His head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, and there was a faint ringing in his ears, likely from the blow to his head he’d received to knock him out before he’d been dragged into this chamber.

“At least whatever took me left me mostly intact,” he muttered to himself, fishing a talisman out of his robes and lighting it with a brief spark of spiritual energy.

He looked down, and realised that the floor was littered with more bones – animal bones, human bones, and unidentifiable shards which were coated in a thin layer of something shiny. When he nudged one of the fragments, it made a squishing noise under his foot, and Wei Wuxian instantly regretted his curiosity.

This must be the lair of the human-eating monster, he thought to himself, and this is where it chucks the remnants of its meals…it must have deemed Mo Xuanyu too skinny and underfed to be worthwhile fare, and tossed me in here for storage instead. It’s not my fault his isn’t a body which builds muscle easily! Why, if I only had my old body…

As he continued to stew indignantly over the monster’s disrespect of his physique, he returned his gaze to the walls, and suddenly realised that there was a passageway carved into the wall, leading into the next room. With one last glance around the chamber he was currently occupying, he deemed there to be little else of note therein, and trotted over to the aperture in the wall.

As he walked cautiously through the passageway, feeling his way with his hands and trying not to cringe at the thin layer of sticky moisture which gathered on his palms, suddenly the corridor opened out into a large chamber. More bones crunched under his feet, and now he found he had to pick his way carefully across the floor without falling over.

Abruptly the faint light from his talisman revealed a purple-clad body on the ground, and Wei Wuxian tripped.

Thankfully, he caught himself before he managed to fall on the body, and once he had regained his balance, he squatted over the body and squinted balefully at the face of the unfortunate person.

Jiang Cheng?! Wei Wuxian exclaimed mentally. What luck!

- Or, lack thereof, depending on how you looked at it. It was supremely lucky that he’d managed to find Jiang Cheng – alive, judging from the steady shallow rise and fall of his chest – and with all limbs and his head still firmly attached. But also supremely unlucky in the sense that they were now alone in a room with both their spiritual energy severely depleted, and without other Yunmeng Jiang sect members/Lan Zhan as buffers.

“Oh well. The rice is now cooked; what’s done is done, and there’s no way around it,” Wei Wuxian sighed. “I’ll just have to deal with his bad temper when he wakes up.”

Wei Wuxian leant over Jiang Cheng and scanned his body. There were faint lines on his temples where dried blood had trickled down from a wound on his head, similar to that on Wei Wuxian’s own forehead, but there didn’t seem to be much lasting damage. His spiritual energy was worryingly low, however, and it could barely be felt through his pulse point. Hurriedly, Wei Wuxian yanked open the collar of his robe and undergarments and placed his hand against his chest.

Thankfully, the thrumming of his spiritual energy was still present – very faint and weak, but still there.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING,” Jiang Cheng said weakly.

“Aaaahhh!” Wei Wuxian yelped, falling backwards and dropping the talisman. They stared at each other for a moment.

“Why are you the one yelling? I’m the one who woke up to being groped by a goddamn cut-sleeve!” Jiang Cheng shouted, albeit a bit feebly.

“Even when you’re half-dead you’re still so noisy,” Wei Wuxian said peevishly. “I was just checking your golden core! As if I’d want to touch you. Gross. And I’m not a cut-sleeve,” he added quickly.

Jiang Cheng ignored him, lifting himself up on his elbows and attempting to get onto his feet. He slapped away Wei Wuxian’s outstretched hand and managed to hobble upright on his own.

“My golden core,” he said suddenly, and looked up at Wei Wuxian with wild eyes. “I can barely feel it. And my senses feel dulled. I can’t think properly. What the hell’s happened to me?!”

“There’s a suppressing array in place,” Wei Wuxian answered. “Can’t you feel it? It’s suppressing your spiritual energy and sapping your strength.”

“Why don’t you seem affected then?” Jiang Cheng said, his tone mildly accusatory.

Wei Wuxian paused. “I don’t have a golden core, remember. And I’ve gone so long without one, I suppose it’s easier to get used to operating on lower spiritual energy.”

He kept his tone breezy and light, but even he felt that it was slightly over-played. Jiang Cheng’s jaw clenched and he turned away.

Wei Wuxian sighed. “Come on, Jiang Cheng,” he tried. “You know it doesn’t matter to me anymore. It’s an old wound, and I was the one who chose to give it up anyway. It wasn’t your fault at all.”

When Jiang Cheng turned back, there was so much guilt and anger in his eyes, Wei Wuxian found he could no longer stand it. He broke their gaze and looked around instead.

“We’re going to need weapons for defence,” he said, thinking out loud. “Spiritual weapons won’t work, since you’re low on spiritual energy, so Sandu and Zidian are out. Oh, how about this!” and he skipped over to the corner of the room, where a bunch of corpses were haphazardly piled on top of each other, covered in sparse cobwebs. A giant hairy spider crawled out of one of the skulls’ mouths and scuttled sideways into the shadows.

From their garb, the bodies had apparently been farmers or fishermen, and accordingly, there were various tools scattered on the ground next to them. Wei Wuxian picked up a few of the items and scrutinised them.

“Here, Jiang Cheng!” he called, and held them out. “Hoe, spade, pitchfork; time to play farmer for the day! Take your pick?”

Jiang Cheng grabbed the pitchfork without looking, his eyes trained on their surroundings and scanning the walls with what little light from the talisman remained. He clenched his fist, and Zidian crackled weakly, but otherwise there was no response, as expected.

“What do you remember before you were knocked out?” he said finally. “How did you find me here?”

Wei Wuxian was relieved to find that Jiang Cheng’s demeanour was back to normal.

He dropped the tools carelessly. “Hmm… I’ve been in Yunmeng for a while, and I went to – I met some Yunmeng Jiang disciples in Yunmeng and they told me you’d taken a group of your cultivators to the area outside the city where there had been a monster causing trouble and eating humans,” he said. “Since you’d been gone for quite a while, I figured it might be an interesting monster, so I came to have a look. I found the entrance to a cave in the area the disciples mentioned, but just as I entered, something knocked me out. Though I didn’t see what.”

“It was the same for me.” Jiang Cheng’s brow darkened, and his jaw clenched. “We must find the Yunmeng Jiang cultivators who came with me – whether they be dead or alive.”

Wei Wuxian nodded grimly. “I came from another room in which there were also many bones and remnants of clothing. There must be other rooms in which they may be found.”

They made their way sombrely through the various passageways and tunnels into other rooms which also reeked of dampness and decay. One by one, they found the distinctive bright purple robes of the Yunmeng Jiang disciples, covering bodies with the flesh only recently gnawed off the bones. For all of them, Jiang Cheng knelt by their sides and covered their bones with their robes, and arranged their remains tidily as best he could.

As he stood up from the side of the last corpse of the Yunmeng Jiang cultivators who’d accompanied him on his night hunt, his eyes were red with unshed tears. Wei Wuxian tactfully remained silent as Jiang Cheng took a few moments more to compose himself.

“We should get out and find reinforcements,” Wei Wuxian said at last, when Jiang Cheng’s colour had returned, and his grip on Sandu’s handle had loosened.

At Wei Wuxian’s words, he stiffened, and said suddenly, “What about the monster? It’s somewhere in here causing havoc. Who knows how many more people will killed in the time it takes for us to get back to Lotus Pier and fetch more people to help?”

“Our spiritual energy is so diminished, and we don’t have any useful weapons on us,” Wei Wuxian answered exasperatedly. “With this suppressing array in place, what damage can we possibly do to the monster?”

“Even if we bring reinforcements, they’ll be hit by the suppressing array too,” Jiang Cheng said stubbornly

“This creature is clearly a dangerous one, if our experiences have taught us anything, and one not to be taken lightly. We won’t be able to do much to it!” Wei Wuxian protested.

“Didn’t you kill the Xuanwu even while starved for three days, and heavily injured?” Jiang Cheng rebutted angrily. “Are you saying I’m not as competent as Lan Wangji?”

When Jiang Cheng was like this, it was difficult to deal with him. Wei Wuxian let his exasperation get the better of him. “Fine! Have it your way then!” he snapped. “For the record, I still think we’re going to our death. But since you’re being so pig-headed about it, we might as well try and find the monster and do what damage we can before we end up dying.”

They walked for a bit in a stony silence. The talisman, previously already on its last embers, soon shrivelled away into nothingness. Wei Wuxian wordlessly fished another yellow sheet from his robes and lit their way once more.

In the few moments in which darkness had reigned, Jiang Cheng’s expression had changed.

He quickly schooled it back to his familiar frown, however, and Wei Wuxian would have thought it a trick of the light, if he had not seen it plain as day.

“At least… let’s at least scope out the terrain so we know it better,” Jiang Cheng muttered, with a curious scraping noise, as if he were grinding his teeth. “Then we’ll know it better the second time when we come back with reinforcements.”

“… Are you feeling alright?” Wei Wuxian asked cautiously, with concern. “You don’t have a fever, do you? Why are you agreeing with me all of a sudden?”

“Shut up! Don’t make me change my mind!” Jiang Cheng said huffily, and walked a little bit faster.

Now I remember why Jin Ling’s princess-like temper seemed so familiar, Wei Wuxian thought to himself. He’s a carbon copy of Jiang Cheng as a child! No wonder, what with the way Jiang Cheng raises him.

Of course he would never dare to say such a thing to Jiang Cheng’s face, so they continued ambling on in more silence. Suddenly, Wei Wuxian stopped in his tracks.

“What is it?”

“I can sense something different,” Wei Wuxian said, turning his head from side to side as he attempted to trace the thing which had caught his attention. He closed his eyes and focused his mind.

It took him much concentration and mental capacity, but finally he sensed what had distracted him – a tendril of energy which differed from the constant thrum of resentful energy that threatened to overwhelm him at every step, the latter which likely came from the multiple corpses that they had left behind in the previous rooms. This new energy felt more similar to the force that sustained the suppressing array, but at the same time, curiously unlike. Wei Wuxian tilted his head to the side as he tried to sort out the tangled coils of energy in the air, into a more coherent map.

“I think I can sense the spiritual energy of the monster,” he said, after a few moments. “That is, if this creature is indeed the one that set up the suppressing array. Following its energy should lead us to its location.”

“There’s such a thick cloud of resentful energy. You can tell the monster’s energy apart?” Jiang Cheng asked in disbelief.

“Master of Demonic Cultivation, remember?” Wei Wuxian said, mustering up a grin. “I lived and breathed resentful energy for a while before I, er, before the siege on the Yiling Mounds.” He rushed on quickly before Jiang Cheng could become maudlin again. “It’s nothing to me, to tell apart different sources of resentful energy.”

“I’ve never before heard of a beast that was able to cast a suppressing array,” Jiang Cheng said, thankfully too preoccupied with the matter at hand to be easily distracted by talk of the past. “It must be a human-like monster then – but no, those were clearly the marks of an animal’s teeth on the bodies of my cultivators.”

Wei Wuxian nodded. “My line of thinking was the same as yours. I don’t think this thing is purely beast-like nor human-like, and it’s probably a mix of both, such that it’s able to cast a suppressing array, and yet attack people with such ferocity and strength. We’ll have to trace the energy to its source to find out.”

With a grunt of acknowledgement from Jiang Cheng in response, they continued trudging on in a firm, painful silence. This was a foreign concept to Wei Wuxian; even in his time with Lan Zhan, that taciturn rock of a man, he’d been able to fill the void between them with his aimless chatter and the playing of Chenqing. But something between him and Jiang Cheng still felt too raw, too new and vulnerable, to risk damaging with his usual frivolous antics.

This is so awkward, Wei Wuxian thought. Should I make the first move? But he might yell at me again. Hang on, since when have I been so afraid of Jiang Cheng’s scoldings? Anyway, what would I even ask him? ‘How are the lotuses doing in Lotus Pier?’ Um, no…

Surprisingly, however, Jiang Cheng was the first to break the silence.

“How – ahem. How is Lan Wangji?”

Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure he’d heard him right at first, but as he looked at Jiang Cheng incredulously, the question forming on his lips, Jiang Cheng flushed, and looked away.

“Oh! Er, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asked, loudly to cover up both their discomfort. “I haven’t seen him in a while. He’s Chief Cultivator, you know! Isn’t that amazing?”

Jiang Cheng muttered something that sounded suspiciously like I’m the Yunmeng Jiang sect leader, of course I know who the fucking Chief Cultivator is, but then he harrumphed and cleared his throat. Wei Wuxian magnanimously decided to let him off and pretend he hadn’t heard anything.

“I thought you two were inseparable?” Jiang Cheng asked, darting a sideways glance at Wei Wuxian. “And yet you haven’t seen him for a while?”

For some reason, that particular question grated at Wei Wuxian’s skin, and the light of the talisman flickered in response to his annoyance. “Well, he’s busy,” he said airily, “and… and I’ll see him soon. I’m sure of it. As if he could go a day without my presence!”

“He seems to be getting on perfectly fine without you,” Jiang Cheng pointed out, detestably reasonable as always.

“With Lan Zhan’s poker face, how can you tell?” Wei Wuxian returned quickly. This time it was he who walked a little faster, just to be spiteful, and just because he could.

“You look like you’ve been tramping through the wilderness,” Jiang Cheng said, abruptly switching the subject.

“I’ve just been living wild for a while. You know, living off the land, eating only fruits and berries, surviving by my abundance of wits as usual…”

“Hah!” Jiang Cheng snorted. It was not a nice snort, Wei Wuxian thought crossly, and in retaliation, he decided not to respond.

Jiang Cheng finally spoke up again, after a long while in which Wei Wuxian had been distracting himself with thoughts of a new classification system for demons of the five elements. “We’ve been going in circles!” he said, and his tone bridled with frustration. “I recognise that rock formation over there. I caught my hand on it earlier – look, my blood is still fresh on the stone.”

Wei Wuxian looked at the rock, and indeed, Jiang Cheng’s blood still glistened on its surface. He wondered how he could have gotten so completely turned around – hadn’t he just been following the tendril of malevolent energy? He could’ve sworn he’d felt it getting stronger, too, which should have meant that they were nearing its source. How was it that they’d ended up circling back to where they’d started?

“I thought we were following the energy from the creature,” Jiang Cheng said irritably.

“Shhh,” Wei Wuxian said, not paying attention to him. “There’s something else at work here. Something I’m not getting.”

Surprisingly, Jiang Cheng quieted down, and leaned against the wall. He did so surreptitiously, as if to escape Wei Wuxian’s sight, but of course he noticed.

Jiang Cheng must be more drained than I thought, Wei Wuxian thought, if he’s stopped arguing with me. Especially since he’s been here for a few days more than me already, and with no food or water. I must find a way to get us out of here - and quickly.

He mustered what little spiritual energy he had left, and focused. In his mind he pushed aside the suppressing fog that clouded his thoughts and distracted his attention, concentrating only on sensing the pulses of energy emanating from every wall in the passageway around him. There was the faint tendril of energy from the creature responsible for the suppressing array, yes, and overwhelming amounts of resentful energy pouring from the corpses of the creature’s meals, and underneath it all… underneath all that energy…

“There’s a maze array in place,” he realised suddenly, his voice echoing in the stillness of the corridor. “It’s cleverly buried under the other layers of energy in this cave, but it’s there. It must have been cast a long time ago, for I could barely sense its presence. And it was not cast by the creature maintaining the suppressing array.”

“That’s what’s confusing your sense of direction?” Jiang Cheng asked despairingly. “Then how are we supposed to get out of here with little spiritual energy and our only lead a complete dead end?”

Wei Wuxian shook his head, mustering a small smile. “Don’t lose hope so easily, Jiang Cheng! We’ll find a way out. We just need a way to overcome the maze array – then we can follow the creature’s malevolent energy without being confused. We just need some way of maintaining our sense of direction.”

“What do you suggest we do? Is there any way to track our steps, perhaps?” Jiang Cheng said.

Wei Wuxian tapped idly at the side of his nose as he thought, pacing back and forth in the confined space. Jiang Cheng’s eyes, lit up by the flickering light of the paper talisman, followed him back and forth.

“I could cast a tracking spell… no, but with my depleted spiritual energy, that wouldn’t last long… I have the Compass of Evil which I worked on to improve last week, but this creature doesn’t consume souls, and so it wouldn’t work… Oh?”

The unravelling hem of his ratty travelling robe had snagged on a shard of rock protruding out of the wall, and had caused him to pause in his steps. Wei Wuxian stared down at the little loop of thread curled around the stone protrusion.

Suddenly, an epiphany came upon him.

“I have an idea!” he said, excitedly, and began picking apart the hem of his robe. Jiang Cheng lifted himself off the wall and came over to inspect what he was doing.

“What’s that supposed to do?” he asked sceptically. “Is it just another excuse for you to go naked again? Oi, just because it’s just me down here with you - ”

“It was one time, and I was eight,” Wei Wuxian said exasperatedly, “and don’t tell me you’d never seen a penis before that! I don’t know why you had to act like a blushing maiden and try to stab me with your brush. We’re both men, aren’t we? Nothing you haven’t seen before!”

While he’d been going on, and Jiang Cheng had started spluttering and turning interesting colours, he’d managed to unpick the thread from his robe, and tied it around a sturdy stalagmite on the ground. He gave the limestone pillar a few experimental pulls, and it didn’t budge.

“Now we just have to follow the thread, and we’ll know which routes we’ve walked, and which routes we haven’t!” he said brightly, as he straightened up.

“That’s… actually a good idea,” Jiang Cheng said grudgingly, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at the stalagmite.

“I always have good ideas. Don’t you know?” Wei Wuxian said, grinning. “Come on, let’s hurry. I don’t know how many days have passed, but surely it’s been too long already. We should quickly find the monster’s hideout and then figure out a way to escape.”

It was indeed a good idea, if Wei Wuxian said so himself (and he did, multiple times, very smugly, so much so that Jiang Cheng started ignoring him again), and with its aid, they managed to find their way out of the maze of corridors that surrounded the rooms containing the corpses. Wei Wuxian heaved a sigh of relief as he finally felt the thick fog of resentful energy that had been giving him a massive headache, fade away into the background and eventually disappear.

Now, the passageways they walked were a little less damp, and a little less foul-smelling. There were even lamps embedded in the wall, unlit and covered with cobwebs, but obviously made by a talented craftsman. Wei Wuxian stopped to inspect one of them, and the style of its carvings and the technique of its forging marked it as a craft belonging to the dynasty of six centuries ago.

“Whatever inhabits this cave must be ancient indeed,” Jiang Cheng said grimly, as Wei Wuxian shared this insight with him.

They stopped abruptly as a carven wooden door appeared beside them, looming out of the darkness, leading into an enclave that branched off from the main tunnel.

The frame of the door extended high above their visible range, and as Wei Wuxian guided the talisman as far up as he dared without losing his tenuous hold on the charm, they realised just how large the tunnel was beginning to run. All they could see above them was darkness, and there was no observable ceiling. They exchanged glances, and with a mutual nod of acknowledgement, Jiang Cheng placed his palm on the door and pushed firmly.

It creaked open with a loud sound of protest. The noise made both of them wince and glance around sharply to see if the clamour had attracted any undue attention. But thankfully, even after a few moments of silence, they were still alone in the tunnel, with no foes in sight. Jiang Cheng pushed the door open all the way, and they peered into the darkness cautiously.

“It’s a library - !” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, his voice hushed, as the talisman floated into the room and lit up shelves upon shelves of crumbling, decaying books and scrolls. Jiang Cheng scanned the titles, trying to make out the words on their spines.

“Vegetarian Dietary Principles,” Jiang Cheng read out, “Journey to the West, Classic of Poetry, Classic – Classic of – Music?”

Wei Wuxian expelled a surprised breath and shook his head. “Whoever owned this library must have been a great patron of the arts - he’s even managed to acquire books which no one’s ever had a copy of before! It’s a collection to rival even that of the Gusu Lan library. But such a valuable hoard would usually be maintained zealously by its collector, not left to rot away in such a sorry state.”

The talisman settled on a pile of objects arranged neatly in the corner of the library, and Wei Wuxian felt his brows shoot up even further.

“A guqin, guzheng, pipa, dihu, yangqin – truly an impressive collection of instruments from all across China!” he said admiringly. “They’ve been left to gather dust as well, and they haven’t been maintained in a while. Things are becoming curiouser and curiouser indeed.”

“Perhaps the owner of the collection was eaten by the monster,” Jiang Cheng suggested.

“Perhaps,” Wei Wuxian said doubtfully. I feel that there’s something here we’re still not getting…

They left the library behind, unable to see much in the darkness and with their limited light source. Wei Wuxian had to light another talisman, for the previous one flickered and shrivelled to dust. Just as he did, his stomach let out a loud sound of dissatisfaction, and he automatically pressed a hand to his abdomen.

“I’m hungryyyyyy,” he whined. “Jiang Cheng, do you have any food?”

“Stop talking nonsense,” Jiang Cheng retorted sharply. “If I’d had any food, I’d long since have eaten it up already!”

“Ugh,” Wei Wuxian groaned, leaning dramatically forward as they walked. “I’m going to die of hunger. Who knows how many days and nights we’ve spent in here! It’s not like you have a set sleep schedule so we can count the days. We’ve probably been walking for a few days without rest already – and who knows how much longer it’ll take to get out.”

He felt his coat slip off his shoulder, and he looked down at it. Because of the unravelling string, his already-raggedy outerwear was falling apart, and it no longer resembled anything coat-like. Wei Wuxian shrugged it off and tucked it under his right arm, and was left only in his underthings.

“I feel the wind blowing through places I didn’t know existed,” he complained, shivering.

Jiang Cheng looked at him and immediately averted his eyes, a dull flush colouring his cheeks. “Shameless!” he spluttered. “What wind?! There’s barely any wind, we’re underground! Wei Wuxian, you’re truly shameless as always!”

“Now you’re starting to sound like the old Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian muttered under his breath. “One of him is good enough, thank you very much…”

Suddenly, there was an ear-splitting crash, and it was only their quick reflexes that caused them not to be buried under a large column of rocks that suddenly came pouring down on them. Both of them leapt to the side, and stared, bug-eyed, at the spot in which they had been standing just moments ago.

“Agh, my eyes,” said Jiang Cheng loudly, as the fog from the avalanche cleared, and piercing sunlight shone down on them from the large hole which had suddenly opened up in the ceiling of the tunnel, far above them. Wei Wuxian shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted blearily up at the hole.

…

“LAN ZHAN!!!!” he cried out happily, as he made eye contact with a very dear, familiar figure. Lan Zhan peered imperiously down at them, the sunlight making it seem as though his head was glowing.

“Speak of Cao Cao and Cao Cao will arrive,” Wei Wuxian said, bouncing excitedly up and down on the spot. “Didn’t I tell you Lan Zhan could be counted on to rescue us?* Huh? He’s reliable, isn’t he?”

*A/N: (he didn’t)

“Did you really have to invoke his name?” Jiang Cheng said grumpily, following his gaze upwards. “I always feel like he’s looking down on me, but now he’s actually literally looking down on me.”

Another figure appeared beside Lan Zhan and peeked cautiously over the edge of the hole. After squinting for a while more, Wei Wuxian realised it was Lan Xichen.

“Are you two alright?” Lan Xichen called down to them, his gentle voice filled with concern. “I’m afraid we went a little, ah, overboard in trying to get down to you two…”

“We’re fine, Zewu-jun, thanks for your concern!” Wei Wuxian hollered back up at them. “Won’t you come down and join us? We’re depleted of spiritual energy and unable to join you up there!”

Lan Zhan immediately flew down, but the moment he alighted and laid his eyes on Wei Wuxian, his finely-sculpted eyebrows shot up towards to his forehead.

“What – what happened to your outer robe?” he said, sounding faintly strangled.

“Oh – this? I used the string from my hem to track our progress through this cave,” Wei Wuxian replied cheerily. “There’s a maze array in place, although it’s quite difficult to detect, and with our limited spiritual energy there wasn’t any other way to stop ourselves getting lost. Jiang Cheng will tell you it was quite a clever idea. It must have been quite cold outside, Lan Zhan, your ears are turning pink! Here, rub your hands together…”

Jiang Cheng, predictably, ignored him and lifted his hands in a salute to Lan Xichen, who’d descended as well to join them. “Sect Leader Lan,” he said formally, and Lan Xichen returned the gesture. Jiang Cheng turned to Lan Zhan and repeated the gesture, a little more unwillingly.

“Here, take this,” Lan Zhan said, pulling a qiankun pouch out from his sleeve. Sticking his hand inside the pouch, he drew out an overcoat with the designs of the Gusu Lan sect and placed it securely around Wei Wuxian’s shoulders.

Wei Wuxian whistled in surprise and appreciation. “Lan Zhan, you came prepared! It’s one of your robes, isn’t it?” A thought occurred to him which made him laugh out loud in pure delight. “Ooh, Lan Zhan, are you embarrassed by my lack of clothing? You know I’m shameless, I don’t mind even if I’m just parading around in my underwear or even if I’m stark naked.”

“As you can tell, Hanguang-jun, he’s doing perfectly fine,” Jiang Cheng said acrimoniously. “The days of starvation and lack of spiritual energy haven’t done anything to dampen his personality.”

Wei Wuxian pouted. “Lan Zhan knows that,” he replied peevishly. “We killed the Xuanwu together under the same circumstances, remember?”

A soft laugh from the side reminded him of Lan Xichen’s presence, and he spun around to face him.

“Sect Leader Lan, what’re you doing here?” Wei Wuxian asked curiously. “I thought you were in seclusion. What brings you here?”

Lan Xichen smiled. “I was in seclusion, but Wangji came to me today and told me of your and Sect Leader Jiang’s disappearance. He was quite distressed by the news, and asked me for help to track the two of you down. And when I heard that A-Yao – that Jin Guangyao had been seen in the area…”

He hesitated, and said no more. None of them pressed him further.

“How did you manage to find us?” Jiang Cheng asked quickly, directing his question at Lan Zhan.

“Jin Ling wrote to me when he found that you were missing,” Lan Zhan answered. “We followed your trail to this place. And I could sense Wei Ying’s energy coming from here, so we entered here.”

“You could sense my energy?” Wei Wuxian asked, bewildered by this new turn of events. “But – how? Plus the suppressing array – “

“Where is the human-eating monster?” Lan Zhan asked abruptly, cutting him off. “Have you already killed it?”

After a pause, Wei Wuxian shook his head, and relayed the events of the past few days to them. It turned out that Jiang Cheng had been missing for nine days, and Wei Wuxian for three – that explains why Jiang Cheng looks so exhausted, he thought to himself; nine days without food or drink will do that to you.

Lan Xichen passed them water in a flask and two bags filled with baozi, steamed buns, which Jiang Cheng immediately started scarfing down ravenously. Lan Zhan took the other bag and held up the flask to Wei Wuxian’s mouth.

“Drink,” he said softly. One of his hands came up behind Wei Wuxian’s back to steady him.

Wei Wuxian drank obediently, thinking, I am so loved.

When he finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Lan Zhan immediately fished one of the baozi out of the bag and held it up for Wei Wuxian to take a bite. The meat inside the bun tasted truly delicious to his starved palate, and he couldn’t stop himself from letting out little ‘mm’s of enjoyment as he chewed.

Only when Wei Wuxian had finished munching on the baozi did Lan Zhan exhale and relax, although his hand still remained on Wei Wuxian’s lower back.

“Thanks, Lan Zhan,” he said, smiling widely. Something about Lan Zhan’s presence always left him feeling refreshed. “I knew I could count on you. You’re such a reliable friend. No wonder you’re the Chief Cultivator, indeed!”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Jiang Cheng said indistinctly, and Wei Wuxian whipped around to look at him.

(If he was being perfectly honest, he’d forgotten Jiang Cheng – and Lan Xichen – were there.)

The two of them were staring openly at him and Lan Zhan, the bag of baozi dangling loosely from Jiang Cheng’s hand and Jiang Cheng’s cheeks still stuffed with bites of baozi so that he looked like a squirrel. Lan Xichen’s smile looked like it had ossified on his face.

“What?” Wei Wuxian said in confusion. He looked at Lan Zhan for reassurance that he wasn’t the only one bewildered in this situation, but Lan Zhan seemed to be trying to do something with his face, alternately widening and squinting his eyes at the two other people.

Lan Xichen coughed. “Never – never mind, Young Master Wei,” he said, his smile back on his face, although now it looked a little bit forced. “If you’ve finished your meal, we should proceed with your original plan to find the human-eating monster. Wangji and I have spent only a few moments in this cave, but already I can feel the effects of the suppressing array. Wangji, you feel it too?”

Lan Zhan inclined his head, his face back to its usual expressionlessness. “It was not cast by a human,” he replied. “The energy is different. Staying here longer than necessary will result in full depletion of our spiritual energy.” He materialised his guqin and played a few complicated sounding notes. Blue light flared as he cast the pathfinding spell, and it formed a faint line on the ground showing the direction in which they were to go.

“We must hurry,” he said brusquely, “or my energy will fail and the spell will disappear.”

“Got it,” Wei Wuxian said, nodding decisively, feeling much more comfortable and at ease now that he was no longer alone with Jiang Cheng, and Lan Zhan was here at his side. As they walked, Wei Wuxian filled the silence with his usual chatter, speculating about the origins of the creature and how it could possibly have cast a suppressing array, interrupted only by Lan Zhan’s ‘mm’s of acknowledgment and the occasional offered insight.

If he was speaking a little louder than usual, it was only because he could feel the supreme awkwardness radiating off the two sect leaders walking behind them. It wasn’t coming off Lan Xichen, no – Wei Wuxian had previously turned around surreptitiously to check on the two of them and Lan Xichen had looked perfectly at ease and his usual composed self. Rather, it was Jiang Cheng who was blatantly trying to avoid everyone’s gaze, and who’d answered Lan Xichen’s initial attempts at conversations with curt, albeit polite, rejoinders.

That’s strange, Wei Wuxian mused to himself, as he chattered on to Lan Zhan about his theories regarding whether or not beasts had souls akin to that of humans, Jiang Cheng’s used to silence and isn’t often fazed. I wonder if something happened between him and Zewu-jun? Or maybe he’s just tired. Or maybe he feels left out of the conversation between me and Lan Zhan? But that’s not my fault! He’s the one being all grumpy and crabby. I mean, I know things aren’t exactly back to normal between us, but I’d thought after the Guanyin Temple events he’d started to hate me a little bit less…

“We’re here,” Lan Zhan said, stopping abruptly, as the faint blue line on the ground ended and they were faced with a large door.

This was different from the door that had led into the library, for it was carved out of granite and not wood, and gems were embedded deep into the stone in a pattern that radiated out from the centre, where two large knockers were located. The faces of two door gods glared at them out of the darkness, painted as they were on either panel of the door.

It must have been a glorious sight, Wei Wuxian thought to himself, when the lamps had been lit. But now the gems only gleamed dully in the limited light from the talisman, and the paint of the door gods was chipped and peeling. Now their stares looked mournful, rather than stern and majestic, as they would have been before.

Words were carved into the upper frame of the door, large, sombre characters in ancient text. They looked as if they had been etched into the stone by a great claw, the edges of the words were still clear and relatively unchipped by time.

“Cave of… Cave of Dormancy?” Wei Wuxian read with some difficulty, for he had not practised reading ancient scripts to any significant extent.

“There is a great well of yang energy beyond this door,” Lan Xichen said from behind them, his voice almost awestruck. Wei Wuxian concurred. As they had been following the path indicated by Lan Zhan’s pathfinding spell, he too had felt the presence of a boundless amount of yang energy emanating from some unseen force, that now apparently lay behind this door.

Even in his weakened state, it felt ponderous and overpowering; he could not imagine what it felt like for Lan Zhan and Lan Xichen, whose reserves of energy were mostly intact. True to his thoughts, Lan Zhan staggered slightly, and the blue line on the ground faded. Wei Wuxian dropped the ratty overcoat tucked under his arm, and steadied him with a hand on his elbows.

The faint crackle of Zidian echoed throughout the space as Jiang Cheng clenched his fist, and he strode forward, placing his palm on the handle of the door.

“Sect Leader Jiang, we must be cautious,” Lan Xichen said, and in his gentle voice it did not sound like a rebuke. Jiang Cheng spared him a sideways glance, then nodded shortly. It took the both of them to push the heavy doors open, and Lan Zhan levered himself out of Wei Wuxian’s grasp to peer carefully into the chamber.

It was the light that hit them first, and blinded them.

Jiang Cheng grunted in surprise and cast his head away, for he had been the first one to gain entrance to the chamber. Wei Wuxian pushed his way forward and squinted into the blinding light.

Once his eyes had stopped metaphorically bleeding, he made out lamps on the walls, larger than the ones in the passageways, and this time, these were lit, with a curious iridescent flame that flickered and danced even though there was no wind.

As his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he began to make out more features of the room. It was a vast chamber, with the ceiling towering high above them, and every panel of the walls inlaid with gold and jade. Golden dragons snarled motionlessly at them from the corners of the room, their presumably-once-gleaming surfaces now flecked with dirt. Two thrones sat at the far end of the room – which was more like a hall – one enormous and golden, the other slightly smaller and carved in jade. A thin layer of dust covered every single object and surface in the room.

Except for the centre of the chamber, a shining golden pedestal, upon which lay a great slumbering long.

There was a sharp intake of breath from behind Wei Wuxian from Lan Zhan that told him he’d noticed the long as well. Very slowly, not daring to take even a single breath, Wei Wuxian stepped backwards and back into the passageway.

Once he was no longer in the hall, he spun around, his eyes open so wide he felt they were about to fall out of his skull.

“It’s a Shenlong. A heavenly dragon,” he hissed frantically. “The nine resemblances were present: the stag’s horns, the camel’s head, the demon’s eyes, the snake’s neck, the clam’s belly, the carp’s scales, the tiger’s paws, the cow’s ears, and most distinctive of the Shenlong, out of all the types of long – the eagle’s claws, of which there were five on each foot.”

Jiang Cheng’s were equally wide. “Is it… is it the real thing?” he managed. “Or is it a deformed copy, like the Xuanwu of Slaughter you and Lan Wangji fought?”

“He is a true Shenlong,” Lan Xichen spoke, and there was a subtle tremor in his voice. “He had the chimu atop its head, without which he may not ascend to the heavens.”

“That explains how he was able to cast the suppressing array, and the non-human aura of his energy, given that a Shenlong is a fully sentient being and not merely a mindless beast. But what’s he doing down here, though?” Wei Wuxian wondered aloud. “A Shenlong belongs in the heavens or in the body of water he governs, not under the ground where he has no access to the water which sustains him.”

Lan Xichen shook his head, his gaze equally uncomprehending. “Before we left the chamber, I observed that there were large lacquer panels on the walls with accompanying text, which likely depicted the Shenlong and his story,” he said quietly. “I did not get a close enough look at the words, however. But there is one thing beyond doubt – this Shenlong is unlike his more benevolent peers, and is responsible for the disappearances of the people of Yunmeng. We must find a way to observe both the Shenlong and the panels on the walls, which may give us a clue as to how to combat him.”

“According to the stories, it has superior sight and smell,” Lan Zhan spoke up. “It will be difficult to evade its notice.”

“It did not notice us when we first entered, however, and we were rather noisy,” Jiang Cheng said. “If we are careful, we should be fine.”

Given that none of them saw any other way to proceed, it was on that note of caution that they entered the chamber once again. Wei Wuxian kept his eyes firmly trained on the Shenlong, but even as they eased themselves slowly past the door and into the room, he did not wake. The lines of his magnificent, serpentine body rose and fell in tandem with his breaths, and the silky tendrils of his beard fluttered in the air that whooshed out of his nostrils. A pearl glimmered faintly from where it was nestled underneath his chin.

Wei Wuxian could not help but stop and admire his majestic beauty. It was truly a sight he’d never thought he’d see in his lifetime, for long were said to be mere figments of imagination, myths of the past.

But… I suppose, if there’s a Xuanwu, why not a Shenlong? It was a perfectly reasonable line of logic, he thought, and besides, unless he and the other three were having mass hallucinations, the proof of truth in those supposed legends lay before his own eyes.

It was only when he was sure that the Shenlong was deep in slumber, that he finally turned his attention to the four lacquer panels on the wall. These were clearly done by a great artist - like the rest of the statues and art pieces of the chamber - for the panels were carefully inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gold leaf carved into the shapes of miniscule birds and flowers that fluttered in and adorned the background of the scenes. Below each panel were lines of ancient script, carved deep into the rock by the same great claw which had labelled this cavern the Cave of Dormancy.

The words were not clear to him, given his inability to read ancient text, but thankfully, the pictures were evocative enough that he was able to get the main gist of the story. In the first panel, the Shenlong perched atop a mountain, watching as the towns and people in his purview were washed away by strong wind and rain. In the next screen, he was depicted swooping downwards into the fray and picking off various unfortunate victims from the deluge of water below. His large bulging eyes, created with carven jade gemstones, glimmered malevolently in the light. Blood gushed from his cavernous jaws.

Then, in the next panel, a Fenghuang – a divine phoenix - had descended upon the scene, and was tussling violently with the Shenlong, her long, sharp beak digging into the flesh of the Shenlong’s leg where it was buried. The artist had captured their likenesses so perfectly that the extended claws of the Fenghuang seemed to leap out from the painting at viewers, and her vibrant feathers appeared soft and inviting to the touch.

The scene depicted in the final screen was set in a familiar location: here, in the Cave of Dormancy, the Fenghuang presided over the Shenlong, the iridescent plumage on her wings spread wide as she cast her shadow on the slumbering Shenlong. His long body was now marked heavily with the scars of battle and blood, and he lay in exactly the same position as he was in now, atop the golden pedestal, feet tucked under his body and tail curled round his head; a curiously docile posture.

The only difference between then and now, Wei Wuxian reflected, as he glanced back to the actual Shenlong, was the array of bones now scattered haphazardly around his pedestal – some animal, some human.

The old stories only tell of the Shenlong as a noble and wise creature, who bestows rain upon peasants as a water god, Wei Wuxian thought to himself. This Shenlong must be a rogue one, akin to the black dragon of Jizhou which was killed by the goddess Nüwa. This Shenlong must have brought calamity to the surrounding towns and abused his power to consume human flesh.

All this information he recalled from dusty textbooks and boring lessons on rainy days that seemed a lifetime away – well, he corrected in his mind, for him at least, they were a lifetime away. But there was no time to dwell on his sad past, now. The important thing at hand now, was to find a way to defeat this Shenlong, and stop it from killing any more Yunmeng people. The only thing was – how? Wei Wuxian could see from the grim look in the eyes of his companions that they were similarly nonplussed.

In the stories, there were few who actually fought a long, and even fewer who survived, Wei Wuxian thought, his brain working furiously. Of those few, most were deities or gods like the Monkey God Sun Wukong, or the Third Lotus Prince Nezha. Long have few weaknesses and many strengths, and it will be difficult to conquer it without external, godly help…

Then, all of a sudden, came the clear, sonorous ring of a bell.

Immediately, all four of them froze. Slowly their gazes turned, from the four panels on the wall, and landed on the Shenlong sleeping atop the golden pedestal.

Wei Wuxian’s last thoughts?

…

We’re fucked.

[golden-redhead]

Oumota Week 2019 - Day #1 || Stuck in a Small Space

Summary: After the game, Momota is at loss. Maybe getting stuck in an elevator with the guy he killed can actually give him some answers.

Read on AO3.

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What’s Left of Me

Public appearances are part of Momota’s new life, an unwelcome distraction from the brittle routine he’s been working on for weeks, an overall flimsy sense of security in this chaotic life of his. Wherever he goes, dozens of curious, prying eyes follow his every step, phones reaching out to capture every angle of his existence in a digital illusion of permanence and spread all over the Internet. 

His agent drags him from one interview to another, endless photoshoots, conferences, fan meetings until it leaves him drained, so impossibly drained and defeated, made to smile through it all, his lips stretched in a perpetual grin, shaking hands and waving and answering the questions the way his agent taught him to. It’s all just one big farce but it’s easier to go along with it than try to defy Team Danganronpa and their minions. He knows it would just be a losing battle, as it’s one thing that has been made perfectly clear as soon as he got successfully pulled out of the simulation, spooked and confused, barely able to coin out sentences, drugged out of his mind. 

So when he finds himself standing in the huge, luxurious lobby of the recording studio all he can do is try to distract himself with idle plans of what he’d prefer for dinner and daydreaming about a long, well-deserved nap he was planning to take once this farce is over and he’s finally allowed to go home. 

He promised his agent he would join her as soon as he finishes his cigarette, her curt, sharp nod a silent permission. He’s on his third cigarette now, the silvery smoke coiling and dancing above his head as he exhales it through his nose, trying to empty his head and forget about the responsibilities and expectations weighing on his shoulders, even if just for a moment. 

“Well, well, well,” comes a familiar voice from behind his back. “If it isn’t Momota-chan!”

Momota spins around, startled, almost choking on the smoke he’s just released from his lungs, his mouth falling open and brows shooting in surprise until they disappear, hidden by the spiky bangs that fall down on his forehead. 

“O-Ouma!” He chokes out, shaking his head as if in denial, not trusting his eyes just yet. “Since when were you—What are you doing here?”

A relaxed smile crosses Ouma’s face as he steps closer, the very image of controlled nonchalance. 

“Oh? Hasn’t Momota-chan been informed that he should be expecting my delightful presence today?”

Momota tugs at his goatee absentmindedly, trying to remember what kind of interview exactly they were supposed to have today. They all felt like a big, indistinguishable blur to him. “Uh… Should I?”

Ouma tuts with disapprobation, crossing his arms over his chest and puffing his cheeks out childishly. “Rude! Rude, Momota-chan! Does our friendship mean nothing to you?”

Momota shrugs simply and moves to put out the cigarette, promptly crushing it under his boot until all is left is a cigarette-shaped pulp. Once that’s taken care of he finally turns fully to Ouma. It’s the first time in weeks that he has a chance to take a good look at him, take in every detail, every fold of his shirt, every sticky and stained with mascara eyelash and the smudge of fluid hiding the dark bruises beneath his eyes.

He’s wearing a shiny dark suit that in the right light glistens with the faint hues of deep purple, his signature checkered scarf wrapped loosely around the narrow neck. He looks smaller in real life, somehow, childish features accented with sharp dark eyes and adorned with a sly smile that looks almost out of place on a face so young. The long strands of his plum-colored hair have been slicked back in a way that is sure to cause heart palpitations of many fans, only barely making him look more mature. Despite his midget height and endearingly full cheeks (now that Team Danganronpa took hold of his diet), Momota could almost call him handsome. Almost.  

He hasn’t had much contact with him since they were both released from the hospital, nothing more than small banter at an occasional group interview or a photoshoot that required that all participants of the fifty-third season were present, tension heavy in the air as they struggled to co-exist in the forced proximity, even if only for an hour or two. Momota would lie if he said he wasn’t curious about what happened to Ouma when the worst was over — his search history a discriminating, shameful proof of that — but he couldn’t bring himself to actually reach out to him, his insides turning into a painful knot whenever he tried, fingers hovering uselessly above the keyboard and head hollow with empty-sounding I’m sorry’s and forgive me’s that Ouma would never dignify even with a single glance, much less with a response. 

In a way, he almost wishes they had more time at the hospital — as suffocating as it was — before they’d been released into this wild, vicious world that praised them for the blood on their hands and was a blaring reminder of every bad choice, every wrong decision he’s ever made. Maybe if he had more time he would have mustered the courage. Maybe he wouldn’t be here now, guilt tugging at his insides and unvoiced apologies burning in his throat. 

The truth is, Team Danganronpa couldn’t have held them in the hospital for more than a few weeks, too busy moving on with the organization of the next season to care for those they broke already, Momota and others soon to be replaced with even more traumatized kids with hollow eyes and sunken cheeks, the memory of bloodstained walls and insidious stench of death still trapped underneath their eyelids whenever they drifted to sleep. 

Ever since he woke up from his stimulation-induced slumber, everything felt somewhat distorted, like he’s gazing at the world through the thick wall of glass, deceivingly similar to what he remembers but somehow also disturbingly different. It’s disorienting and he’s unsure how to navigate this new world in which he can’t take two steps without being pursued by a crowd of fans, many of them underaged, wrapping themselves around him and blinding him with the flash of their mobile phones, every single one of them adorned with Danganronpa-themed cases. This new, second — or third? who knows, really — life he woke up to what feels like he’s pushing through deep waters, fighting against the current, and no matter how much time has passed it doesn’t feel like he’s moving forward at all. Hours blend into days and days into weeks and nothing really changes, nothing feels like it leads to something meaningful and he almost misses the game because in some horrible, vile way it had been better than being stuck in this strange state where everything just doesn’t make sense.

However, not everything changes. Ouma’s just as boisterous and smug as he remembers him from the killing game to be even, though there’s no longer any need to pretend or hide behind his shield of carefully crafted lies and vaguely, Momota wonders what he’s overcompensating for. 

“Come on,” he says instead of voicing that thought out loud, gesturing to the elevator. “We better hurry or my agent will pluck my eyes out.”

Ouma taps a long pale finger against his chin, considering it. 

“Hm… Nah.”

Momota scowls, irritation prickling under his skin. “What do you mean ‘nah’? We are already late!”

Ouma tucks his hands at the back of his head, staring at Momota through half-lidded crystalline eyes, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet, make-up smoothing the sharp contours of his face. He cocks his head to the side, his ear almost resting against his shoulder, a lazy grin playing on his lips.

“Since when was Momota-chan such an obedient little puppy? You do everything they say?”

Momota groans loudly. Of course nothing could be easy with Ouma fucking Kokichi around. 

“Look, I’m not in the mood for your fucking mind games. What’s this really about? You better not just be difficult for the sake of being difficult, dude.”

“Hmm, or maaaybe I just wanna see Momota-chan get his eyes plucked out?” Ouma continues to cackle, shamelessly, not at all intimidated by the annoyed pull of Momota’s eyebrows or the dirty glare he shoots him.

In theory, Momota knows he shouldn’t be bothered by Ouma’s rude remarks, he knows it’s all just a part of the game for him, an invisible wall he’s raised for protection just so he doesn’t have to expose what lies under the thick layers of lies and deceptions. In practice, though, it’s as annoying as ever and not for the first time he wishes he could understand what is happening in his head.

“Look, I’m not too thrilled about this interview either but the sooner we start, the faster it’ll be over. You coming or not?”

Ouma nods his head vigorously in mock agreement. “Oh, such wise words! Who knew Momota-chan can be so wise!”

Momota tsks, but refuses to bite. Instead, he turns back to him with a shrug and pushing his hands into his pockets heads to enter the elevator. Once there, he turns to Ouma expectantly, one eyebrow raised in an unvoiced challenge, signaling it to be the last chance to join him.

If he didn’t know better he would have sworn that he noticed a flash of… something, some foreign emotion he can’t quite name, passing through his eyes as Ouma shoots a single, almost wistful glance in the direction of the nearby stairs as if weighing his options. It disappears almost as quickly as it appeared, leaving Momota wondering whether it had even been there in the first place. 

“Ughh, fiiine,” Ouma throws his arms into the air, “I’ll go if Momota-chan insists.”

Momota doesn’t point out how at no point did he actually insist on anything and simply moves to the side to let him in. 

Ouma skips into the elevator, humming some cheerful inharmonious tune. As soon as he reaches the control panel he pushes a few buttons all at once, cackling at the annoyed frown Momota rewards him with. With a quiet whoosh the door finally closes after them, slots clicking into place as the elevator begins its slow ascent.

It doesn’t take them far, though. 

Moments later, the elevator jolts to a sudden halt with a deafening screech, the force and abruptness of it enough to send Ouma to the floor with a high-pitched, undignified yelp of shock. He slams onto the floor with a hollow bang that makes Momota wince in sympathy. The lights flicker and for a horrifying second Momota’s convinced they’ll give out completely, shrouding them in darkness. He allows himself a small sigh of relief when it doesn’t happen. 

“Uhh,” moans Ouma from the floor, sound muffled slightly, “what just happened?”

“We’re stuck,” observes Momota sounding much calmer than he feels. 

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

“Don’t ask dumb question if you don’t want dumb answers.”

“There’s no such thing as a dumb question, Momota-chan, unless you’re the one asking them.” 

Momota waves him off impatiently. “Whatever. Now shush, we need to get some help or we’re gonna be stuck here forever.”

He examines the control panel for a second, wondering what the hell are they supposed to do next. This is why I hate elevators, he thinks to himself bitterly. Fortunately, whoever designed the elevator was prepared for those kinds of situations and added the emergency button, easily distinguished from the others by its strikingly red color. Momota pushes it without thinking, stealing a quick glance at his phone, wincing when it becomes glaringly obvious that there’s no chance they’ll start the interview on time. The threat of having his eyes plucked out feels more and more real with every minute.

He waits, listening to the ringing sound that fills the elevator after he pushed the button, a sense of relief spreading over his body when someone actually answers the call. 

“Hello?”

“Uhh,” Momota starts lamely, suddenly at a loss of words. He clears his throat and tries again. “Momota Kaito here. We are, uhh, we are stuck in an elevator.”

He hurriedly explains the situation, informing the man on the other side what happened, which floor they are stuck on, how many people are in the elevator. 

He doesn’t feel very reassured when the man takes in all the information only to respond with, “We’ll see what we can do. It might take a while since we have to send someone there. Just hang in there, kid.”

With that the conversation is over, the voice on the other side gone. Momota runs a hand over his face, letting his eyes flutter shut for a second as he tries to make some sense out of all of this, understand how he went from calmly smoking his cigarette, minding his own business, to being here, trapped with Ouma at his side. He can feel Ouma’s amused stare boring into him from where he sat crossed-legged against the opposite wall, surely deriving great pleasure from watching his anguish.  

Of all the people he could have been stuck in an elevator with it had to be the guy he killed. 

He grips the phone in his other hand tighter and after a second of hesitation, he reluctantly types a quick text to his agent and then promptly turns the sound and vibration off, not looking forward to the angry stream of furious messages he’s undoubtedly going to get. 

“Great,” he says sarcastically, leaning heavily against the wall and sliding slowly down its length until he lands on his butt. “So we’re trapped here. You happy now?”

Ouma beams at him. “Very!”

“Seriously, why are you like this,” he looks up to glower at the ceiling as if expecting an answer from above. “Did you have to push all those buttons?” 

Ouma nods his head, a solemn, serious expression on his face. He presses a hand to his chest, just inches above his heart, his words dripping with false sincerity. “Yes, absolutely, my sweet, naive Momota-chan. I was testing if the elevator is safe and clearly it’s not! Who knows how many lives we saved by sacrificing ourselves. It was a brave and necessary deed that I do not regret.”

Momota groans, reaching for his neck to rub at the sensitive muscles, trying to dissolve the tension there. 

“Save it for the cameras,” he murmurs distractedly. 

He shifts a little, looking for a better position on the cold, hard floor. He’s partly glad he doesn’t have to be trapped at that interview, bombarded with a never-ending stream of intrusive, probing questions but being stuck here with Ouma is hardly an improvement.

“So, Momota-chan,” Ouma chirps almost conversationally, “now that we are all alone is there something you wanna tell me? Confess your undying love, maybe?”

Momota’s brows furrow and he fidgets slightly, suddenly uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the intense gaze of Ouma’s resolute eyes. He has no idea what he could be possibly getting at, but he also knows for a fact that Ouma is far more perceptive than most people give him credit for (if his batshit, absolutely insane plan from the game is any indication) and he’s not too into the idea of falling victim to it (again), not when there’s no way for him to bolt out of here if things go dire. 

“Nothing,” comes a stiff response. And then, after a moment’s hesitation, he adds: “Don’t start, Ouma, not when we’re both stuck here.”

The words sound almost like a warning. Unsurprisingly, Ouma pouts and lets out an offended huff. “Momota-chan’s not fun.”

Momota lets a single bark of a laugh at that and shakes his head, leaning against the wall, its surface cold against his back. Fun. What a funny word. Wasn’t it fun, posing as the source of entertainment for millions of people all around the globe? Wasn’t it fun, hacking blood all over the floor and getting poisoned and dying on screen just so people can cross one more person out and debate whether he was a hero or a martyr? He sure as hell hopes that at least someone got some fun out of it, because he certainly can’t say it for himself and so he feels like he’s under no obligation to be fun now. 

The familiar anger flames at the pit of his stomach, raw and fierce, until he stiffens it the same way he always does, at least when in public, the ache inside subduing but not going away completely. It’s fine, though. He’ll just have to smash a few plates once he comes back home or something. 

He clears his throat, absentmindedly rubbing his arm on the spot where the arrow pierced the skin. There’s no scar left, no evidence to prove that whatever transpired in that hangar was anything more than a vivid illusion crafted by the skilled hands of corrupted technicians and death-crazed writers.

Sometimes, he almost wishes that there was something, anything, a proof of all the suffering they were subjected to, something palpable and permanent. Because maybe if there was they would put a stop to it, maybe then they’d stop this beast that consumes everything on its way just to please the masses and uphold the faux image of the peaceful society, too absorbed with children dying on screen to realize how wrong it all is. 

It’s an ugly, rotten thought, one that he can’t help but entertain every now and then.

He shakes his head, as if trying to banish those intrusive thoughts, and focuses on his breathing the way his therapist taught him, grounding himself, centering in the present until his thoughts have a chance to slip into the dangerous area that he spends the best part of his days suppressing because nothing good could possibly ever come from them. 

“Sure, whatever you say.”

Ouma huffs some more and perches his chin on his knees, wrapping his arms around them, tightly.

“Sooo,” he eyes Momota up and down curiously, “wanna play a game?”

Momota snorts. “A game? With you? Pass.”

Ouma purses his lips, “You are killing me here, Momo-chan.”

“Not for the first time and not for the last time,” he responds without thinking and then clasps his hand over his mouth, realizing too late what he’s just said, the horrid implications coming to mind all at one. “Shit… I didn’t mean it like that.”

Ouma simply hums to himself, unimpressed. “Sure you didn’t.”

After that, they drift into silence. Momota throws his head back, leaning against the wall more comfortably, and tries to think about random astronomy facts, little curiosities they packed his head up with, even though he has no recollection of ever learning any of it. Sometimes he ponders whether he should hate astronomy, hate that foreign being they formed him into, stripping him of who he was before any of that. Strangely, this artificially implanted passion becomes a distraction, his escape when everything becomes too much for him to handle and he feels like falling down, face first into the unknown. It’s a rare sense of comfort, something familiar among all those things that make no sense to him in this grotesque, strange world that lost its charm. Ironically, sometimes it feels like he’s been much more happy back in the game, dying and lying through his teeth, struggling to hide the bloodstained shirts and make it through another day without crumbling in defeat. At least back then he had a purpose. Now? He has no idea what he’s supposed to do now.  

Every day is like learning how to walk, breathe and exist again, going through the motions without registering them, struggling between the constant switching between disocciating and hyperawareness, never quite reaching that normal state of in between. 

He avoids Shuichi and Maki, awkwardly deflecting whenever they try to press, the excuses piling up until he runs out of them and doesn’t even try anymore. They pretend it’s fine and in turn he pretends that it’s enough. The two of them are much closer now that they went through hell to the very end, together, bonded by whatever it is they thought that they feel for him and he tries to learn how to be happy with that. 

There’s not much that he can do, really, simply enduring every day like a man on a mission. One step followed by another, pushing through every evening until he can cross out another day in his calendar and start this little game anew, no finish line in sight.

It’s an involuntary, hushed whimper that pulls him out of his thoughts and he blinks, disoriented and half-slumped against the wall. He straightens up, trying to center himself back to reality and locate the strange, alien sound. His eyes slip to the side only to shoot open, round and alert.

“What the—Ouma?!”

The other teen doesn’t respond, doesn’t even acknowledge Momota’s concerned shout, his quick, shallow breaths unnaturally loud in the small space of their shared elevator. There’s a worrying, rosy blush that tints his cheeks and nose, evident on his otherwise deathly pale face, bangs damp with sweat. He’s trembling, little tremors wrecking through his bony limbs.

“O-Ouma?” Momota tries again, shuffling closer, panic spreading through his veins, all senses at a full alert. “Hey, you okay, dude?”

“Ah… hahahaha… g-got you, Momota-chan,” Ouma laughs breathlessly, one hand pressed against his heart, grasping at the creased, thin material of his shirt, his chest heaving and eyes wide, burning feverishly when he lifts them up to try to focus on Momota but instead looking through him, unseeing. “Y-You worried?”

“Fucking—Yes, of course I am worried!” he yells and then immediately chastises himself when Ouma flinches at the volume. “Shit, sorry.”

He anxiously sorts through the symptoms, struggling to connect the pieces and figure out what is happening, how to help. He’s always been a man of action, unable to just sit and do nothing, letting others suffer in silence. He hovers above Ouma indecisively, torn between the desperate need to help and paralysing fear of making things worse. The painful knot in his stomach continues to tighten and his fingers dig into the skin of Ouma’s thin, bony shoulder when the realization finally dawns upon him. 

A panic attack. 

He swallows thickly, shocked and confused, eyes wide as for a long —too long —moment he just stares in mute horror, a faint nervousness tingling at the walls of his stomach. 

There’s a sense of familiarity that one develops from spending so much time around so many broken people, picking up the shattered pieces of who they used to be and struggling to piece it together without the original pattern, relying on the vague memories and wishful thinking alone. It’s a process of trial and error.

So it makes sense that what he does next is that, too. Trial and error. 

“Ouma? Ouma, hey, listen to me,” he shifts closer, his grip on Ouma’s arm growing steadier, more sure. He slips his fingers into his other hand and squeezes, once, hoping that it comes off as at least somewhat comforting even if his hands are clammy and he can feel the panic slowly rising in his chest. “It’s gonna be okay. Just… just fucking breathe, man.”

He pats Ouma on the back awkwardly, his other hand drawing senseless patterns into his open palm with his thumb, the same way his grandma used to do when he was little, frightened by the stories about children-eating monsters building a nest under his bed. Of course, in the end neither the monsters nor his grandma turned out to be real, but it’s not a thought he wants to linger on for too long.

He brings his attention back to the boy at his side.

Gone is the fierce, unstoppable force that is Ouma Kokichi, replaced by a ghostly-looking scrawny boy who doesn’t look his age at all. In that moment, he reminds him way too much of that person he saw back then in the hangar, all bloody lips and broken pieces tucked behind the thorny wall of lies and hiding behind a healthy dose of frighteningly convincing sinister smiles. It’s like reliving those moments again with a striking clarity, everything coming back to him all at once, hitting him with a force of a speeding truck. His whole body feels like someone’s pulling at a raw nerve, a soaring, burning sensation that drowns out everything else. 

He pulls Ouma closer, unable to offer any more comfort than that, just letting him shiver, huddled at his side. 

He feels inadequate. 

Useless. 

He’s spent hours and days and weeks struggling to make things better, fueled by the naive belief that as long as he believes in himself and the people he chose to trust he can do anything he can put his mind to. Sometimes it feels like there’s not going to be any better, like he’s stuck here and now, just like they are both stuck in this elevator, trapped in between the floors and refusing to budge.   

They lose the concept of time, trapped in their little metal cell and eventually Ouma stills in his half-embrace, his eyes no longer as glassy and absent as before, the trembling gone except for his hands which he curls into fists when he notices Momota staring down at them. His breaths still come in quiet, shallow puffs but he’s no longer on the verge of hyperventilating which Momota decides to take as a good sign.

Momota waits a few more minutes, anxious, but ultimately the curiosity triumphs over uncertainty and with a gentle nudge to Ouma’s side, the words escape his lips before he could bite his tongue. “Hey, you feeling better now? Wanna talk about it?”

Big, doe-like eyes find his, dull and blank until he looks at Momota, really looks at him, and something in them shifts, a different kind of glint when a strange kind of resolve seems to set in. Momota isn’t sure what it is. All he knows is that he doesn’t like the sudden change in his demeanor, doesn’t like the way something familiar and cruel flashes through his eyes as he blinks back the last traces of panic and replaces it with steel and indifference. 

“Gonta tried to commit suicide,” Ouma says, apropos of nothing. “Did you know that?”

Momota swallows thickly, a sense of dread wrapping around his insides, squeezing. “W-what?”

Ouma giggles, a quiet and breathy little noise, just at the verge of hysterics. The sound of it sends a shudder down the length of Momota’s spine and not for the first time he wonders how Ouma does that, replaces one mask with another like it’s a child’s game, snaps out of one role and slips into another within seconds. Going from a full on panic attack to… whatever it is now can’t be normal. It isn’t normal. 

 “Yeah, the good ol’ bug boy couldn’t handle the pressure. He’s fine, though. Found him on time or something.”

A wave of relief crashes into Momota and if he wasn’t sitting already he would have felt his knees go weak, giving out under his weight. 

“Jesus. Don’t scare me like that.”

“Isn’t that cool, though? I would have gotten him killed twice! Wouldn’t that be suuuper impressive, Momota-chan?”

Momota’s brows crinkle as he struggles to understand whatever twisted logic Ouma is using. “What does any of it have to do with you?”

“Weeell, it is perfectly obvious, my beloved Momota-chan. What’s there to not understand?”

“Humor me.”

Ouma makes a face.

“Uh. Fine, have it your way. It’s really not that hard, though. You know, brain is a muscle, Momota-chan, you should exercise it more.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not true,” mutters Momota under his breath.

“Anyways, obviously Gonta-chan has been so deeply affected by how cruelly I manipulated him that it drove him to take his own life.”

Momota’s whole body goes numb, a suffocating, cold feeling spreading through his limbs.

‘You can’t possibly believe tha—”

“Huh?” Ouma stares at him, a long, pale finger pressed against his lower lip sweetly, eyes round and innocent. “Isn’t that what happened, though?”

“Stop,” Momota manages through gritted teeth. 

“Oh please, Momota-chan,” Ouma laughs sarcastically, an ugly bitter undertone in his voice resurfacing. He raises from his crouching position on the floor and takes one, two unsteady steps forward, his stance somewhere between bold and provocative as he sways slightly in place, worn out muscles unable to carry his weight. He turns back to Momota, his eyes gleaming in the dim light of the lone light-bulb hanging above. “I think we’ve been through too much to still lie to ourselves. I manipulated you, didn’t I? Just like I manipulated Gonta.”

Momota opens his mouth to protest, to object to whatever nonsense Ouma’s spurting this time, but the words get stuck in his throat as he realizes his brain is blank, unable to come up with an adequate response. Ouma uses the opportunity to continue. 

“I made you a murderer,” he spits the last word pointedly, almost as if it’s poisonous on his tongue, and Momota’s resolve falters even more when the gaze of his eyes pierces right through him, its intensity preventing him from tearing his eyes away. 

“I turned their beloved hero into a cold-hearted murderer,” repeats Ouma for emphasis, violet eyes bright and unblinking, lips twisted in a rapacious sneer. Now that he started the words won’t stop spilling as if some kind of dam has been broken and there’s no stopping it now. “Was it fun, Momota-chan? Did you enjoy putting me in my place? Did it feel gooood when you punched me? Did it feel good when you killed me?”

“Don’t say that,” Momota finally finds his voice, weak and raspy, his head shaking in a way that feels way more automatic than it should, lacking conviction. “Oh my god, Ouma, why would you even say that?”

“Well, isn’t that right?” Ouma questions, letting out a snort of dismissive laughter. “Are you calling me a liar, Momota-chan?”

“No,” Momota asserts weakly, his thoughts swarning in confusion. Ouma won't let him think, he won't let him gather his thoughts, the ball is in his court now and he steers the game however he likes, dragging Momota along, whether he wants it or not. “I’m not calling you a liar but it’s not—”

“Sooo everything I said is true, right?”

“God, Ouma… You know it’s not that easy. You know it doesn’t work like that.”

Ouma blinks up at him in pretend confusion, head tilted and lips frozen in a condescending smile. 

“Like what?”

“It wasn’t you. Okay? They made you do that, they made all of us do that and no one here is to blame.”

Ouma laughs in stunned dismay. “So what? Does it mean we are some naive little babies that don’t have to take responsibility for our actions because we were—-what? Brainwashed? Manipulated? Is that what you’re saying?”

“W-wha—?!” Momota sputters, both nose and forehead wrinkling in confusion. “No? But like… None of that happened. It wasn’t real.”

“Aww, what a lovely sentiment, Momota-chan,” Ouma coos, batting his eyelashes. “So when you killed me you knew it’s not for realsies?”

He doesn’t let Momota answer, a sharp, over-dramatic gasp drowning out Momota’s hurried explanation, his eyes welling with crystalline tears: “And you didn’t tell me? How dare you, Momota-chan! And here I thought I was dying for real.”

Momota fidgets, suddenly very uncomfortable, jaw clenching. His eyes dart from one corner of the elevator to another, looking for some kind of exit that maybe they overlooked. 

“Can you like… Stop talking about dying? And… About me killing you?”

Ouma wipes the fake tears away with the verge of his sleeve, the dark material now smudged with whatever he used to mask the shadows under his eyes. He pays it no mind. 

“Oh? Does it bother you, Momota-chan? Why? I mean, isn’t that what happened? And what you just said wasn’t, quote and unquote, real?”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that,” grumbles Momota, glaring defiance. He struggles to form sentences, knowing full well that any argument with Ouma is really a fight of wits, an impossible attempt to try to keep up with him.

“I mean… Sure, it happened. And yeah, it was absolutely fucking awful. But we weren’t like, us, y’know. And before you interrupt me again,” he flashes Ouma a sharp glare, raising his finger warningly in a ‘it’s my turn talking’ gesture, “yes, it was us. But we had no memory of who we are and had to watch our friends —yes, friends, don’t even try to argue that,” he adds quickly, seeing as Ouma opens his mouth, undoubtedly ready to disprove that point, ”die horribly. It’s enough to fuck anyone up. We were just trying to survive. Nothing wrong with that.” 

Momota braces himself for the upcoming counter-arguments, knowing how relentless and stubborn Ouma can be, determined to confront and challenge every point he made until Momota’s no longer sure what they were talking about. 

Not this time, though. 

He simply looks at Momota flatly, in a way that is as unlike him as it’s physically possible, completely throwing Momota off his game with the pure unpredictability of it.

“Whatever. Sometimes you really are naive, Momota-chan.” He says it matter of factly, not a jab at his intelligence nor a compliment, just a simple statement. 

“Uh… Sure. Same to you,” Momota says dryly, not truly understanding what he’s getting at, much to Ouma’s amusement if the patronizing smirk he flashes him is any indication. He sits back down, in the opposite corner from Momota, seemingly disinterested in continuing that discussion, as if he’s just decided that it’s not worth it anymore and chose to let Momota feed himself with whatever delusions he believed in.

He doesn’t understand Ouma. He’s a fucking enigma, escaping any definitions or even basic common self and Momota always finds himself struggling trying to keep up with him, with his twisted thought patterns and double-meanings behind every action or sentence or smile. 

 Still, when Momota stares at him he thinks he almost understands.

He thinks back to Ouma’s brief panic attack, to how under certain angles, if the light falls just right, being trapped here feels just like back then, the metal ceiling and floor of the elevator deceptively similar to the cold, smooth surface of the hydraulic press, looming from every side, ready to begin its descent at any moment. The press is a common guest in his dreams, staring him as he stares right back, reflecting galaxies he’ll never see with his own two eyes. In his dreams, ridiculously saturated specks of pink spread over it in a poor imitation of stars. 

He considers what Ouma said before, the part about killing Gonta twice, the dreadful implication of him being the reason of Gonta’s doom. What does it make him then? Was he to Ouma what Ouma was to Gonta? Was he the one who ultimately, unintentionally led him to his grave, both figuratively and literally? 

He knows, logically, that Maki would have never gone to the hangar if it wasn’t for him, no one would have been hurt if it wasn’t for him. No killing plan would have been needed. 

He squeezes his eyes shut, fists clenching and unclenching helplessly at his sides.

No.

That’s wrong and he can’t think like that. 

It’s tempting, so incredibly tempting, to just let his mind slide into that dark area and accept things at face value, to let the guilt spread like an infection until he’s dying again, waiting for his end. He’s good at it, after all. 

But it’s not an answer and on some level he knows, he knows it very well that sooner or later he’ll have to face it, get over himself and change something, because deep down he is a survivor and whatever happened in the game was a choice.  

They —all of them— were nothing more than a product of this twisted world, driven by a clever program and a well-planned script in the hands of the wrong people. Back then, they had no other choice than to follow the scenario someone else designed for them but it’s no longer true, they are no longer part of that sick, warped game and they don’t have to play by its rules.  

Momota licks his lips. Takes a deep breath.

“You don’t have to believe me but I guess what I’m trying to say is… None of that shit is our fault, Ouma. And the best thing we can do now is try to move on. You are not responsible for what they made you. All that matters is what you’re gonna do from now on or whatever.”

Ouma pulls his knees closer to his chest and snorts into them, amusement gleaming in his eyes when he tilts his head to get a better look at Momota’s face, his own partly obscured by his dark bangs. 

“If you say so~!” he sing-songs. It sounds dismissive.

Momota sighs deeply, dragging a hand over his face tiredly. “I know that deep down you know I’m right, even you can’t be that pessimistic. I sure as hell know that’s how I felt. Can’t you be honest with yourself for once?”

“Silly Momota-chan, I’ve always been honest with myself. Anyways, that’s your shtick, not mine. Momota-chan reaaally should stop projecting on little ol’ me. And I’ll have you know that I’m a realist. You’re just so disgustingly idealistic that anyone who has even a slightly different opinion than you looks like a pessimist in comparison.”

Irritation prickles under his skin. Talking with Ouma sometimes feels like going in circles, beginning and end blurred into one, replaying the same arguments time and time again, never reaching a conclusion. “Fine. Let’s say you’re right, I don’t feel like fucking fighting,” he concedes, resigned. “Why can’t you be honest with me then?”

To his utmost surprise, Ouma actually seems to consider the question. He regards him with a sharp gaze of strikingly clear, critical eyes, squinting slightly. Then, he shrugs, looking away. 

“You have yet to give me a reason to.”

It’s an answer that’s vastly different from what Momota would have preferred to hear but in a way it’s almost hopeful, an unspoken promise. 

They fall into silence, no more words needed for now, Momota lost deep in his own thoughts. 

No, things aren’t the way he wishes them to be but with time he wants to believe he’ll be able to forgive himself, let go of this crippling guilt that eats at him during the days and nights. It’s funny, knowing that Ouma carries his own guilt that’s not unlike his. It’s easy to regard Ouma as this mysterious being that’s above everything and everyone else, existing in his own bubble that Momota’s never had access to. The thing is, he really wants to, though, for better or for worse. 

He still feels like he’s been opened raw, foreign hands tugging at his insides, poking and prodding in places they don’t belong to, leaving him spent and exposed in a way that has a bit too much to do with emotional vulnerability. But there’s something about Ouma, whether they are fighting or arguing or simply sharing a moment of imposed silence, that makes him think that maybe someone understands in a way no one else ever would. 

He wants something better for Ouma. And… if he wants something better for Ouma he should also want something better for himself. No matter how much trouble he has admitting that. The words would never make it past his lips but it’s alright. Baby steps. 

Maybe Ouma is his answer, his way to repair the things he’s managed to mess up along the way. Maybe if he can help him, repay for all the wrong he did… Maybe he would find a way to help himself, too. One day.  

Unexpectedly, a plan starts to form in his head and for the first time in ages he doesn’t feel like dying anymore. 

Momota takes a deep breath in an attempt to calm his frayed nerves. He smiles at Ouma, hopeful. “How about we stop fighting each other and work together for a change?”

Ouma furrows his brows, sending him a bored, disinterested glance. “Haven’t we done that working together part already?”

Momota blinks at him, surprised. “Huh? When?”

Ouma arches an eyebrow, staring at him incredulously. When Momota still doesn’t follow he lets out a loud, exasperated sigh and rolls his eyes as if Momota is a great source of suffering for him. “You just asked me not to talk about it like, five minutes ago. Geez, make up your mind, Momota-chan.”

“Oh… Right. That.” 

Momota smile falters at the vividly real memory of the hydraulic press that flashes before his eyes, face dropping. He wonders if these memories will ever fade, at least a little, so it feels more like a bad, worn-out-through-years dream and not something that would swallow him at any moment, bring him all the way back to where he started. 

He perks up moments later, though, punching his fists together, eyes bright with confidence and new-found resolution. 

“That’s in the past, though! I’m talking now. Just you and me. What d’ya say?”

Ouma folds his hands in the air and puts his chin on them, a weary expression on his face. “What are you even proposing, Momota-chan?”

‘I don’t know yet! Or, like… I can’t tell you yet. But I’ll figure it out. I’ll find a way to show Team Danganronpa that we are so much more than they thought. They might have controlled us in the game but now that we are out they have no control over us. We are our own people now, so... Fuck the contracts, fuck them. They say that your happiness is the best revenge so that’s what we’re gonna fucking do!”

Ouma blinks at him a few times and then wrinkles his nose in distaste, as if he’s just smelled something highly unpleasant.

“Wow, sometimes I forget how dumb Momota-chan really is,” he comments and relishes in the glimpse of offended fury that flashes through Momota’s eyes at the insult. It’s one thing in their messed up lives that would never get old.

“I’m not dumb. And if you keep saying that I’m gonna call off my offer!”

“Oh, please do! I’m sure there’s a ton of volunteers fighting to take my place,” comes Ouma’s wry response and he almost cackles out loud at the faint blush of offended fury that coats Momota’s cheeks and stretches to the tips of his ears. 

“I fucking hate you.”

“Aww, I love you too,” Ouma chirps with unabashed glee and even has the audacity to wink at him. 

Momota groans, the sound bouncing off the walls, and hides his face in his hands. 

“You are impossible.”

“Thank you, I try~!”

Momota mumbles something inaudible under his nose and Ouma uses the occasion to shuffle closer to him. 

“But you know what?” he questions humorously, trying to peek through the hands still splayed over Momota’s face. “Hey, Momota-chan, stop ignoring me, I have something important to tell you!”

Two fingers move slightly to the side and a lone, mauve eye glares appears, glaring defiance.

“What?”

“My life’s been actually suuuper boring lately,” complains Ouma loudly. “So I guess I could use some entertainment.”

The eye blinks at him, widening slightly.

“Wait… so you’re in?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m in.”

“Oh.”

Momota lets his hands fall down, revealing a stunned, hopeful look on his face. “Wait, for real?”

“Geez, Momota-chan, how many times do I have to say it?” Ouma rolls his eyes impatiently, drumming his fingers against the metal floor. “Yes, I’m in. Someone has to be there to take the blackmail photos and post them all over the Internet when you inevitably make a complete fool out of yourself.”

Momota’s brightens with a smile, so happy that he turns a deaf ear to that last comment.

“Great,” he beams at Ouma and for the first time in days, weeks, maybe years, it doesn’t feel forced. “You’re not gonna regret it!”

Ouma sighs deeply. “I already do.”

Momota’s about to sprout some more motivational nonsense about revenge and happiness and his own, private theories about what Ouma needs or doesn’t need, but before he can do that, someone pries the door to the elevator open, momentarily blinding both of them with the light that breaks inside. 

When they finally get freed, Momota’s immediately swept away by his agent, yelling in tune with Ouma’s, something about schedules and programs and ruined plans and there’s some sense of deep satisfaction, located somewhere in his chest, pulsating warmly when he realizes that for the first time in a really long time he finally has some resemblance of control over his own life, something that Team Danganronpa couldn’t possibly take away from him.

[reyskyber]

That’s a Wrap

Words: 4097

Clarke owns a gift wrapping shop.  Bellamy is terrible at wrapping and of course he leaves it until the last minute on Christmas Eve to bring it to Clarke’s shop.

In hindsight, Clarke should never have left her shop open past six PM on Christmas Eve.  She mentally kicked herself when she heard the front bell ring, indicating a customer had walked in.  She looked up at the clock on the wall, 10:03PM?!  She sighed heavily before stepping out back onto the shop floor.  

A man a similar age to her was stood at the counter.  His cheeks were flushed red from the cold and a scarf was wound tightly around his neck with thick rimmed hipster-style glasses resting ow on his nose.  He didn’t look up when she entered the room, he was too busy on his phone.  Clarke rolled her eyes, not only had he come in to her shop at 10pm the day before Christmas, but he also didn’t even have the decency to give her his full attention.  

She cleared her throat and he looked up, smiling slightly.  He put his phone away and pushed his glasses higher up on his nose.  

“Hi, sorry.  I’m really sorry, I just-” he stopped himself.  “I know it’s really late, and this is the last thing you want to be doing right now.  But, I need your help.”

She nodded at him to carry on.  He pulled a package out of his coat pocket and she had to force herself to hold back the laugh that tried to escape her mouth.  The package was covered in sticky tape with bits of wrapping paper flying everywhere.  She met his eyes again and gave him a small smile.

“Well, they can’t say you didn’t try.”  She joked.  He huffed out a laugh.

“Will you please help me?”  He asked, a pleading look crossing his face.

“Okay, but only because you’re beyond help.”  She replied, smirking.

He came to the right place, she thought.  When Clarke had originally pitched the idea of a gift wrapping shop to her friends and family they’d all laughed at her.  They all said no one would pay to have someone else wrap their gifts when they could do it themselves for free.  Clearly, they had underestimated the hectic lives of millennials and their bad wrapping skills.  Clarke set up her gift wrapping business a few years ago, and though she wasn’t making millions, it paid the bills and she enjoyed it.  Christmas was hands down her busiest time of the year, she usually made more in the month of December than she did in all the other months in the year put together.  And part of that was due to her shop being open at ridiculous hours – like now.

“You want a drink or anything?”  She asked him as he placed the present – which was more a ball of Sellotape with pieces of wrapping paper in-between – on the counter between them.

“No, I’m alright thanks.”  He said running a hand through his dark curls.

“Well, I’m going to get a coffee before attempting to undo this disaster. The Christmas wrap is over there,” she told him, pointing towards the seasonal display.  “And then just take a seat.”  She said before walking back into the break room.

When she returned, coffee in hand, he had picked a paper and was sat at the counter on his phone again. Not that she could blame him really, there wasn’t much to do in the shop other than look at wrapping paper.

“Hey, did you find one you like?”  She asked, setting the coffee down.

“Yeah.”  He said, smiling and pointing to the paper he’d chosen.  It was one of her favourites, it featured a deer in a forest scene, and had taken her ages to perfect the antlers.  The customers seemed to like it more than her other prints and she was proud of it.

Clarke started cutting through the layers of tape on the present, and before long she peeled back the layers to find a box from an expensive soap shop.

“Seems like a lot of effort just for soap.”  She said, looking up at him.  He blushed a little and scratched his neck.

“It’s for my sister, she’s just come back from backpacking through Europe and I made a joke about her not showering for months, so…”  he trailed off shrugging.

“Cute.”  Is all she said.  Clarke took a moment to properly take him in, when he’d walked in he’d been an asshole on his phone, but now he was looking at her sheepishly and she had to admit he looked cute.  His black hair was like a halo of curls around his face and his eyes were that perfect shade of warm brown that she’d always found endearing.  Pair that with the dusting of freckles across his face and Clarke was a lost cause because he was cute and hot.  

Clarke quickly got to work wrapping the present.  She expertly tied to bow and attached the gif tag once it was wrapped and smiled to admire her handiwork.

“You make it look so easy.”  He said, startling her a little.  She often got lost in her work, she just hoped she hadn’t hummed to herself again. She looked up and at his baffled expression and she smiled at him.

“Well, it is my job.”  She pointed out, he rolled his eyes at her.  “What do you want on the gift tag?  Anything special or just ‘Merry Christmas’?”  she asked.

“Uh, just ‘Merry Christmas, love Bellamy.’  Please.”  He said, she nodded and wrote it down on the golden tag.

“There you go, Bellamy.”  She smiled. He nodded his thanks and took out his wallet.  She keyed in the cost on the register.  He paid her and she handed him his neatly wrapped soap.

“Thank you so much for this…”

“Clarke.”  She supplied, smiling.

“Thank you, Clarke.  Really, you’re a life saver.”  Bellamy said as he put the present back in his pocket.

“Don’t worry about it.  I’ve got a feeling you’ll be back.”  She smirked.

“Oh yeah?”  He smirked back and quirked a brow.

“I hope so,” she smirked.  “You’re good for business.”  He smiled back and shook his head.

He looked down at his watch.  

“Oh shit, I need to go.”  He said, jumping up from his seat at the counter.  “Thank you so much again, Clarke.”  He called as he left.

Clarke waved goodbye and then started to pack her things away.  She stretched, trying to ease the pain in her back. She decided to lock the door before any more late shoppers could get in.  Clarke moved her equipment off the counter and put the discarded paper in the trash.  

When she got home Clarke collapsed into bed, tired from a busy week of work.  Something scratched her leg as she rolled over and she found a wedge of Sellotape and wrapping paper from Bellamy’s present stuck to her pants.  She rolled her eyes but smiled to herself at the thought of his warm smile right before she fell asleep.

Clarke thought that would be the end of it.  But the year after as she was tidying away her supplies, in walked Bellamy.  His cheeks were once again red from the cold, and his glasses steamed up slightly as he entered the shop.  A smile broke across her face as she watched him try and stop them from steaming up with his scarf, which was different from the one he wore last year she noticed. He smiled at her as he closed the door. At least this year it was within her normal shop hours, she thought.

“Please don’t hate me,” he began as he stepped up to the counter.  “But, I attempted wrapping again.”

She rolled her eyes and bit her lip to hide her smile.

“How bad is it this time?”  She asked, quirking a brow.

“Uh, it’s just easier to show you.”  He reddened as he took the present out of the shopping bag and placed it on the counter.  Clarke looked down and felt laughter bubble up her throat.  She cleared her throat and tried to remain professional. Bellamy had somehow managed to use three different types of wrapping paper and still have the present showing.

“How did you get worse at wrapping?” she wondered aloud. “Sorry.”  She snapped her eyes back up to him, but he was smiling despite her jab.

“It’s okay, I suck at this.  I know.” He replied, a small laugh escaping him.

“You know the drill, pick some paper and take a seat.  Do you want a drink?”  She asked, stepping back from the counter.  

“Uh, can I just get a black coffee, please?”  He requested and she nodded, leaving him to look at the paper samples.

Returning with two drinks, she found him sat at the counter poring over the design book.

“Hey, did you find one you liked?”  Clarke asks, setting down the drink next to him.  He smiled in thanks and pushed his glasses up.

“These are amazing.”  He said in wonder, flipping through the book.

“Thanks.”  She said, ducking her head and looking down in embarrassment.

“These are yours?”  He asked, his eyes widening in disbelief.

“Yeah, I draw them and then they get sent off to get turned into wrapping paper. Didn’t you know?”  She asked, tilting her head and smiling at him.

“No, but that’s really cool.”  He told her, smiling a genuine smile.  He held her gaze for a couple of seconds before dropping his attention back to the book.

“Do you have any of this one?”  He asked, pushing the book across the desk and showing her the design.  It was a simple design, an autumnal print with various leaves that blow through the wind.  She loved the effect of the shiny rose gold parts of the design and it was one of her favourite non-Christmas ones.  

“Yeah, of course.”  She told him cheerily as she got to work.  Once she’d undone Bellamy’s nightmare of paper and sticky tape she was left staring at a rock.  Don’t get her wrong, it was pretty; it was grey on the outer layer with rings of blues and purples and pinks as it got towards the centre.  But it was still just a rock.  She voiced this to Bellamy and he chuckled.

“It’s a paperweight.  My sister, Octavia, she just got a job in an office.  I never thought she’d like it, but she says she’s loving it.  I thought it might look nice on her new desk.”  He said, reddening and ducking his head in embarrassment.  Fondness bubbled in Clarke’s chest, all she could think of was how cute Bellamy looked when he was embarrassed.

“That’s sweet.”  She told him, smiling.  She got to work measuring the paper.

“So, uh, not to pry,” he started and she looked up, raising an eyebrow. “But, how do you even keep this business afloat?”  

She huffed a laugh.

“I rely heavily on Christmas to get me through the year, but there’s always birthdays, and Valentine’s and weddings and stuff.  Plus, I sell my gift wrap online, so that helps a bit too.” She admitted, shrugging.

“Huh, that’s really cool.”  He told her honestly.

“What about you?” she asked as she folded the flaps on the present. “What do you do?”

“I’m a high school teacher.”  He admitted somewhat bashfully.

“Oh, cool.  What subject?”  She asked, genuinely interested.

“History.”  He replied, smiling slightly.

“You’re not one of those guys that dresses up to recreate World War Two battles, are you?”  She asked, smirking at him.

“Nah, I’m too cool for that,” he replied smirking before sipping his coffee.  “I’m more into ancient history.”  She laughed as she lifted her own cup to her mouth.

“Do you not get bored of wrapping presents?”  He wondered aloud.

“Not really,” she admitted.  “I’ve been wrapping all my mom’s presents since I was fifteen.  She’s almost as bad as you.”  Clarke teased.  Bellamy rolled his eyes.

“So, is that how you started?  Wrapping for you mom?”  He asked. Clarke smiled at the memory.

“Yeah,” she replied.  “My dad always did the wrapping when I lived at home, and after he died she didn’t want to do it anymore, so I said I’d do it.  And it turns out I was alright at it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.  She looked up at him.  “About your dad.”   He looked like he meant it.  She gave him a small smile as she stuck the flaps down.

“But yeah,” she said quickly, changing the subject.  “I tend to avoid wrapping as much as I can now.  My friends and I do secret Santa so I only have to do one present.”  She chuckled.

“No boyfriend or girlfriend to buy presents for?”  He asked, and she almost laughed at his bluntness.

“Is that just a way of you asking me if I’m single, Bellamy?” She teased, looking up at him.  He reddened again and she felt a tug in her chest.  She bit her lip to keep from smiling.

“But no, no significant other to wrap presents for.”  She told him truthfully.  He smiled a wide smile and she felt herself blush.  She cleared her throat as she tied the bow on the present.

“There.  All done.” She smiled and handed him the gift.

“Thank you.”  He said standing up.  Clarke felt a twinge of sadness, she enjoyed talking to Bellamy and he made the time go quicker.  She hadn’t realised how tired she was until she’d stopped wrapping the presents and was left with the thought of tidying up the shop before closing tonight.  

She inwardly sighed and got to work on tidying up.  Bellamy got to the door and then stopped, turning towards her. Clarke looked up and furrowed her brow in concern.

“Clarke?” He said, stepping back towards her.  

“Yeah?”  she replied, tilting her head to the right in confusion.

He looked down and the tips of his ears were slightly pink, clearly flustered over something.

“CanIgetyournumber?”  He rushed out.

“Pardon?”  She asked, suppressing a giggle.

“Can I get your number, please?”  He repeated, slower this time.

A grin broke out onto her face as scribbled her number onto a scrap piece of wrapping paper.

Three years later found Clarke back in the shop on Christmas Eve, just like the past few years.  The bell at the front rang to notify her of a new customer.  She stretched her neck, and walked to the front of the shop.  A sigh of relief escaped her when she saw Bellamy standing in front of the counter.  

“Hey.”  She smiled and kissed his cheek as he came around the side of the counter to greet her.

“Hey,” he replied.  “I thought you might need this.” He told her as he set down a takeout coffee cup. Clarke beamed up at him.  

“Thank you.  I love you.” She smiled sweetly at him and leant up and pressed a quick chaste kiss on his lips.  He left to hang his coat up and she looked around the shop, mentally making a list of the jobs that needed doing before they closed for Christmas.  

The shop had almost doubled in size in the past couple of years. Bellamy had introduced Clarke to his sister Octavia, and her husband Lincoln.  Lincoln was an artist who really loved to experiment with charcoal and biro pen, Clarke was intrigued immediately and they grew to be close friends over their shared love of art.  Last Christmas she’d asked him to draw a print or two, if he had time, with the promise of any profits they would earn.  Clarke thought nothing much of it, thinking Lincoln would be extremely busy with his other commissions.  He’d surprised her when he arrived the shop with ten new design ideas that she adored. Together, they’d narrowed it down to five and printed them.  They brought them back this year and the customers loved them.  

Their newfound internet fame had helped a lot too.  Octavia had a degree in business and IT, and with her help Clarke had set up a blog and an Instagram account for the prints and the shop. Octavia ran the social media for the shop and it picked up and snowballed, the small shop soon had over fifty thousand followers and Clarke had to relocate to a bigger shop with more storage space.  She missed the old shop, but she was definitely glad of the more spacious office and storage rooms.

When Bellamy returned she was cataloguing the leftover rolls of wrap.  

“Did you wrap your presents for Octavia?” She asked as she took a sip from the coffee cup.

“I made sure to get a present that didn’t need wrapping this year.” He said, smirking at her.

“What’s it taken?” she asked, joking. “Five years?”

“You must finally be rubbing off on me.” He replied, chuckling.  

She set her cup down and moved on to restocking the ribbons.  She was writing out the product code on her clipboard when she felt his two strong arms wrap around her middle.  She leaned back into his embrace and sighed as he kissed her temple.

“How many appointments do you have left?”  He asked her as he rubbed her arms soothingly.

“Only a couple more.”  She replied, giving his hand a quick squeeze.  Due to their influx of new customers Clarke had set up an appointment system for people to bring in their gifts for her to wrap, so she didn’t get overwhelmed with work like she had last year.  

“You don’t have to stay, you know.”  She told him glancing to the side to look at him.

“Yeah, but I want to.”  He told her before kissing her cheek.

“What?  You’d rather surround yourself with wrapping paper than watch one of the many history documentaries we’ve got saved on the tv at home?”  She joked.

“Yeah, I want to spend time with you,” he admitted, honestly.  “I’ve not seen you much this week because you’ve been so busy.”  Clarke felt a stab of guilt, she had been busy this week with trying to juggle all her appointments and the shipments of the orders.  She may have accidently neglected Bellamy she though with dismay.

“Okay.”  She smiled and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze.

Bellamy dropped his arms from around her when the doorbell jingled again. Clarke stepped out of his embrace and went to tend to the customer.

***

Clarke checked her watch after waving goodbye to the customer.  11:45, she sighed and locked the front door of the shop.  Walking back to the break room she stretched before flopping down on the couch next to Bellamy.

“Remind me to never let someone in with thirty presents after ten PM again.” She said as she nestled herself into his side.  Bellamy brought his arm around her and hummed in response.  Clarke chanced a glance up at her boyfriend, he was reading the book she’d got him for his birthday but he looked tired and distant.

“Everything okay?”  She asked him.  He glanced over at her and gave her a small smile.

“Yeah, I’m just tired.”  He said, looking back at the book in front of him.  Clarke wasn’t sure she believed him, but she let it drop.  She wasn’t going to start a fight on Christmas Eve.

The silence stretched between them and Clarke wasn’t sure why.  She abruptly stood just to have something to do.

“I’ll just tidy up then we can go.”  She told Bellamy he nodded in response and she stopped herself from rolling her eyes.  Honestly, what was up with him tonight?  

Clarke huffed about the shop giving it a quick tidy.  She really couldn’t wait to get home and snuggle up on the couch with Bellamy with some rubbish Christmas film.  She wasn’t sure whether he was going to be weird and quiet all night, but she hoped not.  It was freaking her out a little.  He only usually got like this before big events at school like the kids’ graduation and the parent-teacher nights - he got all jittery and closed off.  But school had been out for well over a week now, so she had no idea what had caused it.

Bellamy cleared his throat at he walked in from the break room.  She glanced up to see him hovering around nervously.  Bellamy hardly ever got nervous; she narrowed her eyes at him.  Before she could ask him anything he spoke up.

“I know we said we’d do presents tomorrow, but...” he trailed of gesturing to the small gift bag on the counter.

“We do presents tomorrow because it’s Christmas tomorrow.”  She told him as she stepped towards him next to the counter.

“Technically, it’s Christmas now.”  He retorted, pointing at the clock above his head.  She stuck her tongue out at him, but opened the bag anyway.

A small box was inside with wrapping paper she’d recognise anywhere. It was one of her own designs, it was a water colour design of a winter scene that may have been heavily inspired by Bob Ross.  She’d never painted anything like it before and she’d gushed to Bellamy about how proud she was of it for weeks.  

“You remembered?”  She smiled up at him.

“Of course.”  He said, his cheeks slightly red.

She took the box out and undid the paper.  She looked at him quizzically and raised a brow.  The wrapping paper was all she could see because it appeared to be a ball of paper with tape wound in all directions.

“At least you know I wrapped it.”  He admitted bashfully, a blush crawling up his neck.

She rolled her eyes, and started to work her way through the layers of paper and tape before she could reach her gift.  With each layer of wrapping Bellamy seemed to get more and more angsty and she had to duck her head to hide her smile when she finally reached the present.

It was a small jewellery box.  She swallowed.  Clarke was pretty sure what was inside, but she didn’t want to get too excited in case that wasn’t where this was going. She took a deep breath to shut off her brain before she over analysed everything and opened the box.

She was greeted with a beautifully simple silver ring with a cluster of diamonds in the centre.  The ring was gorgeous, and certainly not earrings, she thought with a smile.  She turned to look up to Bellamy with a grin on her face.

“Clarke,” he said softly.  “I don’t think words could ever describe the way I feel about you, not properly.”  Hot tears were building in her eyes now and her heart swelled.  He took the box from her hand and knelt down on one knee.  Clarke laughed shakily as he continued.

“I love you so much and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.  Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she whispered smiling.  “Of course, Bell!”  He slid the ring onto her finger and stood up.  Tears were in his eyes too and she sniffed as he wiped them from her face. He peppered kisses across her face and repeatedly told her he loved her.

She brought her hands up to cup his face and gently wiped his tears away with her thumb.  He was staring intensely into her eyes with a look of adoration that made her heart leap.

She stood up on her tiptoes and sealed her lips over his.  The kiss was slow and sweet and Clarke tried to convey all the love that was bubbling in her chest into the kiss.  She sighed into him as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her flush against him.  Clarke tilted her head back to deepen the kiss and she felt Bellamy moan into her mouth when her tongue flicked out against his lips.  Clarke smiled, breaking the kiss before she pulled away. Bellamy tried to chase the kiss, planting a small peck on the edge of her mouth.  He settled for resting his forehead against her while they caught their breath.

“You’ve ruined all our future Christmases now, Bell.”  Clarke teased.

“How so?”  He asked and she felt his forehead crease against hers.

“Well how am I supposed to top this present?”  She asked smirking.  He rolled his eyes as she giggled and he leant down for another kiss to shut her up.

Sure enough, a year later Clarke topped Bellamy’s present when she surprised him with a “World’s Best Dad” mug.  He looked at her quizzically before she announced that they were having a baby.

[bittersweetjj]

Mally High Shine Liquid Lipstick

Price: $20.00

Shade: Blossom

Claims: Mally’s High Shine Liquid Lipstick is the perfect finish to your look that gives you those full and juicy lips. The unique applicator loads the opaque color onto the brush so it glides smoothly across your lips. The result is the perfect amount of special opaque color combined with the stunning shine of gloss to give you a polished look, even when you're in a hurry.

Ingredients:

Bis-diglyceryl Polyacyladipate-2: A sticky paste, semi-solid emollient often used as a lanolin substitute. It's valued for its high water-binding properties, excellent adhesion to the skin and glossy finish.

Polybutene: A oligomeric oil, sometimes derived from petroleum, that is used in its hydrogenated form, as a binder, epilating agent, thickener and lubricant. It is naturally tacky or sticky and is also used for its adhesive properties.

Lanolin Oil: Emollient, very thick substance derived from sheep. 

Petrolatum: Vaseline is pure petrolatum, and petrolatum is a rich emollient and FDA-approved skin protectant. It is one of the best ingredients for dry to very dry skin, including around the eyes. Although derived from crude oil (thus making petrolatum a natural ingredient), it is highly purified prior to being used in cosmetics, so there’s no risk of exposure to unwanted chemicals. Can help replenish, soothe and beautifully moisturize skin’s outer layer. It’s widely considered safe and highly effective.

Microcrystalline Wax (Cera Microcristallina): Plastic-type, highly refined wax derived from petroleum and purified for use in cosmetics. Used as a thickener and to give products a semi-solid to solid smooth texture.

Isopropyl Palmitate: Texture enhancer and emollient as used in cosmetics. It can potentially be problematic for those with oily skin, depending on the amount in the product and your skin’s response. May be synthetic or derived from plant and animal sources. 

Beeswax (Cera Alba): Used primarily as an emulsifier.

Disteardimonium Hectorite: A vegetable-derived suspending agent used to thicken oil-based products and serve as a stabilizer for emulsions

Dicalcium Phosphate: Opacifying Agent

Propylene Carbonate: Liquid used as a solvent and film-forming agent.

Mica: Earth mineral included in products to give them sparkle and shine. The level and look of the shine mica provides depends on the color and how finely it’s milled. Mica's sheer, translucent and skin-hugging properties make it a popular ingredient in mineral powders. Mica powder reflects light from the face because of its glittering or shimmering properties, and can create the illusion of a smoother, softer and more radiant skin tone.

Titanium Dioxide: An earth mineral used in sunscreens that is capable of blocking both UVA and UVB rays; also used as a pigment.

Iron Oxides: Natural oxides of iron (iron combined with oxygen); pigments are used to enhance colors in cosmetics.

Ultramarines (Lapis Lazuli): A bright blue mined mineral pigment.

Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate: A glass-type material used as a bulking agent.

Silica: Mineral found abundantly in sandstone, clay, and granite, as well as in parts of plants and animals. Silica can also be produced synthetically and is used as an absorbent powder and thickening agent in cosmetics. Certain forms of silica can improve even distribution of pigments in cosmetics and prevents them from settling in makeup. Silica particles can enhance the absorption of other ingredients.

My Thoughts: My relationship with Mally High Shine Liquid Lipstick was rocky in the beginning, due to the title and the packaging. The title is High Shine Liquid Lipstick, which is deceiving because its not even close to being a liquid lipstick. Its definitely just a lipgloss at the end of the day. Not a huge deal, but the packaging of the lipgloss was more annoying. It comes in a standard lip gloss tube but with a brush applicator. If the brush fit into the tube perfectly I wouldn’t have a problem but this wasn’t the case. The bristles kept getting caught in the opening and would eventually became bent. I had to cut a chunk of it off.

After that I didn’t have an issue with the packaging until now. As I write this review I just now notice the silver lettering wasn’t on the tube anymore. And I can’t recall recently seeing it, so it must have come off maybe 6 months ago.

Mally High Shine Liquid Lipstick in Blossom is a beautiful shimmery mauve in the bottle. When I put it on its a different story. Blossom had a metallic finish with a mauve tint to it, also it was very very shiny. Mally should have named it Mega Shine instead. The tint of mauve is opaque in color. Since the tint wasn’t that strong I would pair this with a lipstick. I would only apply it to my center of the lips, so the metallic finish gives a little pop to my look.

Mally High Shine Liquid Lipstick texture is thick and on the sticky side. It does feel a bit heavy on the lips which i can handle. What I can’t handle is every little thing that gets stuck to my lips. It drives me crazy! If I have chapped lips it doesn’t look pretty when the tint just clumps up. The staying power isn’t that great. The metallic and the tint does fades away after 2 hours to a shine and shimmery. So I am forced to reapply. When it comes to drinking the lip gloss does stay on but transfers a bit. For eating it comes completely off.

Even though I am not a big lip gloss fan, the unique metallic finish grew on me since I didn’t have anything like it in my collection. Plus it had a delicious sweet fruity scent to it.

Would I purchase Mally High Shine Liquid Lipstick? Even though the finish is a unique, I still wouldn’t purchase it because I am not a huge lip gloss fan.

Pros:

Mauve tint 

Tint is opaque

Shiny Metallic finish 

Adds a bit of pop when paired with a lipstick

Sweet fruity scent

Cons:

Not a liquid lipstick, its a lip gloss

Brush applicator is too big for the opening of tube

Silver lettering on the tube came off

Texture is thick & sticky 

Random things get stuck on lips

Feels heavy on the lips

Chapped lips the tint clumps up

Staying power is weak

After 2 hours have to reapply 

Transfers when drinking 

Eating wipes it off completely

If you found this review helpful please click on the heart or reblog. Feel free to reply with your thoughts on the product.

[imhereforbvcky]

Pick Her Poison

Summary: Coffee shop meet cute: Bucky tries to convince you to have coffee with him.

Prompt(s): “I can fix this” for @just-some-drabbles​’ RomCom challenge!

Warnings: I think I swore once?

Word Count: 2557

It was a gloomy fall day all around. The grey and drizzle outside had persisted at least since you’d woke well before dawn that morning and trudged to your bus stop and into work. Even in your waterproof hooded jacket, the humidity clung to your skin and filled your lungs like a smooth heavy smoke.

Once you unlocked the door and shrugged out of your dripping coat, you rubbed your hands together and got to the first order of business: making yourself some coffee. With the lights to the shop still dim and the world outside not quite waking, you started up the massive ovens and pulled out the racks of small pastries the night shift had prepared before closing yesterday. The morning continued as always, you buzzed through the small shop, swapping fresh baked pastries from the oven to the display case, sometimes adding a drizzle of sweet, sticky icing, sometimes a bit of orange zest, sometimes a thick, warm chocolate sauce that would firm up just enough to stick as it cooled.

You still had about half an hour before you opened, when you finally turned off the ovens and put a shiny, sweet, clear glaze over a set of blueberry-peach tarts. There was no rush; it was the last batch for the morning so you painted the sticky gloss onto the fruit carefully, enjoying the familiar routine and humming along to the quiet acoustic covers playlist you’d put on. Your focus was interrupted by a rattling at the door.

A tall, broad figure in a dark hoodie and deep green cotton jacket tugged on the door, and finding it locked, dropped his head back in what you guessed to be a groan. How many times had you been there, rattling the security cage of the dry cleaner’s or begging the pharmacist behind the closed wall of metal to please, for the love of god, just hand you the already filled prescription sitting right fucking there. With a warm smile and a near laugh, you walked to the door and held it open for him.

As you reached for the light switch, finally illuminating the rest of the cafe beyond your oven and display area, he pushed back the hood and pushed his hands into his hair shaking out the dark, dripping locks. A few thick pieces fell forward near his eyes and when you turned back to him, prepared to make some mindless customer service small talk the words disappeared in your mouth. God he was so… his grey-blue eyes were piercing, especially against the dark shine of his slick hair. A drop of rainwater made a path down the slope of his nose as you took in the thick layer of scruff covering his jaw and those soft looking pink lips that you realized were moving. Shit. He was talking to you.

“...just pouring out. Thanks for opening up for me.”

“Oh uh, yeah, no problem,” you managed to recover. You smiled at him before quickly turning back toward the counter, praying he didn’t see the way you chewed your lip nervously. “Looks like it’s really coming down now, I think you need a better rain jacket.”

He chuckled softly and waited until you’d made it around the counter to face him before answering. “I guess it’s not really carrying its weight in this weather,” he agreed, running his fingers over the edge of the sopping dark green cotton. “But I’m sentimental.”

“Hmm sentimental and impractical,” you teased, shaking your head, “A dangerous combination. Sounds like you might be a romantic.”

The warm wave of his laughter hit your ears but it felt like it’d slammed into your gut. It was so rich and yet somehow gritty at the same time. And it sent little flutters through you as you grinned back at him and stepped into place behind the register. God, he had to see how hopelessly you were mesmerized by him.

“I’ve been called a lot of things before, sweetheart, but that is definitely not one of them.”

For some reason the little nickname that would normally make your blood boil, only sent another flutter through your stomach. This sopping stranger impeding on your quiet morning had somehow captured your full attention in the most pleasant way. He couldn’t have been more cryptic if he tried, you knew absolutely nothing about him apart from his sentimental love for that jacket and that he was an early riser.

“Alright then, stranger, what can I get for you?” you asked.

He pulled out a neatly folded, now soggy, piece of paper and tried to make out his own smeared scribbles as you copied them down, making sure to catch the names next to each order.

As you got to work on the drinks, you asked which was his, offering to make it first while he waited and sliding him a chocolate croissant. You took note of his name from the list of orders. “Bucky.” It certainly wasn’t the name you were expecting. When you asked about it he explained and the pair of you fell into casual conversation while you worked. It was light and easy. He was somehow both charming and a little reserved all at once and it drew you in like a magnet.

“There you go,” you smiled warmly, drinking in the cool blue-grey that stared back at you with a bright smile.

He thanked you and turned to go but stopped short. For a second, you panicked, making sure you hadn’t forgotten any of his order.

He quickly turned back to you, like he was forcing the words out as fast as he could before he lost his nerve. “Hey, when does your shift end?”

You looked at him with wide eyes, your mouth gaping open and closed, searching for the right answer. You liked him - a lot - but even you knew not to tell a complete stranger the ins and outs of your schedule. “Later today,” you finally managed, taking a rag and cleaning the espresso machine.

“I… sorry,” he stumbled, “I just… can I buy you a coffee?”

You glanced, purposefully at the large espresso machine in front of you and the bags and bags of coffee beans lined up behind you and offering only a playful smile.

“Right,” he laughed, shaking his head. “Okay, how about tea? Hot chocolate? It seems a little early in the day for a hot toddy but…”

You laughed, leaning forward on the counter. Not wanting to let this go, but also unsure how to proceed. “I’ll tell you what, if you ever make it back here and you figure out my drink, I’ll come drink it with you.”

“I’ll take that offer,” he called to you with a wink as he backed out the door.

Bucky did make it back. He came early again a few days later and made the same long order plus one. The last drink he hadn’t written down for you. Instead, he narrowed his eyes, giving you a quick once over before asking for a mocha with caramel.

You smiled and began making the drinks. “Someone’s got a sweet tooth,” you observed, writing the order on the side of the cup and waiting for a name to write on it.

“Hopefully you,” he smirked, leaning forward with his elbow propped on the tall bar top.

“Is this for me?” you asked, incredulous that he’d been bold enough to just order the thing. He didn’t even know if you’d like it.

“It is if it’s your drink,” his smile grew into this playful arrogant thing that you somehow wanted to both savor and wipe off his face at the same time.

“Afraid not,” you grinned, sliding it over to him.

This continued for weeks. He’d come in every couple of days and order what he thought you might like. Sometimes he came early and ordered a handful of other coffees and left with a glance at you of apparent serious concentration, like he would decipher some code to your favorite coffee just by looking at you. Other times he just ordered his usual and something new for you and he’d sit by the window working on some paperwork, always glancing at you as if he expected you to change your mind and take the seat opposite him. But a deal’s a deal and you wouldn’t be stuck with the sugar coma drinks he always guessed at.

Rather quickly, you found yourself eager to come into work, hoping he’d come in and try again, that he’d smile at you and set your day off on a high. Honestly, there was no reason for you to keep tugging him along like this other than that it was the game now and you loved his attention. You loved how it felt to see him walk in and lean on his elbows on the bar top and explain exactly why he thought you had to be a pumpkin spice girl. If he’d just asked you out, you would’ve said yes. But this game made you feel special and important to someone and that just felt too damn good.

On one of these days he sat in his usual seat, bent over some paperwork. He’d already finished his own coffee and had started in on the failed drink he’d ordered for you. In truth, you wanted to laugh. The menu wasn’t that big, how could he take so damn long to figure it out?

“Well don’t you look dreamy today,” Natasha, one of your regulars, observed as she hovered by the register, taking in your far off stare. You honestly hadn’t even seen her. She definitely had a way of slipping in unnoticed and scaring the shit out of you if you were preoccupied with something else. She was like a cat. A very pretty cat. But you’d gotten used to it; she was a regular and a very fun one. The two of you had become friendly acquaintances, and you sometimes shared the odd things that happened in your day or gushed over common interests while she waited for her cinnamon macchiato, extra shot.

“I do not,” you dodged, shaking it off.

“Yes, yes you definitely do,” she insisted. You ignored her and turned to start making her drink, but she wouldn’t let it go. “Oh! Is the guy here?” She spun quickly, surveying the room for anyone watching you more closely than the others.

Finally relenting, you nodded behind her, “Yeah, your eight o’clock. Green jacket by the window.”

She casually turned to her left, leaning on the bar as if she were just coolly waiting. As her eyes landed on him, a sly smile crept across her face.

“Oh my god,” she muttered, rolling her eyes before turning back to you.

“I know, he’s cute right?” you laughed, “Like, really cute. Oh my god, Tash, you should have seen him that first day! Just a sopping cute puppy. I don’t know what the hell he’s doing waiting around here buying all these stupid drinks for me.”

She nearly snorted out a laugh. She and Sam had been teasing him relentlessly about his sudden taste for expensive coffee shop beverages and his recent eagerness to make the coffee runs.

“I think that’s pretty obvious,” she grinned, taking her drink and winking before she headed for the door.

You stuck your tongue out at her and laughed before getting back to work cleaning up after the morning rush. Letting your attention drift to your work, you didn’t notice as Natasha stopped in front of the window where Bucky was working. She tapped on the glass sharply, drawing his attention immediately. She pointed to him and then curled her finger back, beckoning for him to follow her.

She didn’t wait for him but he caught up anyway.

“So that’s why you keep making the coffee runs,” she smirked, only glancing at him as he stared at her, amazed at how she always seemed to know everything.

“What? What are you--?”

“Y/N. The coffee girl,” she deadpanned, taking a sip of her drink as they walked. “When are you going to stop this stalker thing and just ask her out?”

“I’m not…” he thought for a minute and then groaned, “Shit is this creepy? Does she think I’m stalking her?!” He was genuinely worried, suddenly shoving his hand into his hair, a nervous habit.

Natasha laughed. “No! I mean, it would be creepy if she weren’t into you. But she clearly is, so why haven’t you just asked her out yet?”

“I don’t know, it was kind of this thing where I’m trying to figure out what she likes to drink… Shit. It’s weird isn’t it?” Bucky had worried himself into never wanting to go back again.

“Okay, relax, I can fix this.”

“You are a cheater,” Bucky called clearly, arching his eyebrow as he approached your counter, daring you to disagree.

“I beg your pardon?” you laughed.

“You don’t even have a favorite drink!” he slammed both hands on the counter, like he was exasperated, but the small smirk tugging at the corner of his lips gave him away.

“I don’t?” you asked, drawing out the words as you turned to start his usual.

“Nope. It depends on the day, doesn’t it?” he followed you down the bar to watch you closely. “In the fall you like cider with lots of cinnamon and nutmeg. When it’s extra cold you like a mocha, but with an extra shot so it’s not too sweet. When it’s warm and breezy you like iced chai with a little honey. But at night, when you can’t sleep, I bet you go for good old fashioned hot chocolate.”

“Wow!” You were genuinely surprised and he could read it all over your face. “And how do you know all this?” you asked, sliding his drink to him and lifting your steaming hot cider, extra cinnamon and nutmeg to your lips.

“I did my research this time,” he grinned. You continued to stare at him, more than a little confused. “Natasha told me. She knows everything about everyone. But that’s not the big question.”

Now you really were confused. You set down your mug of cider and grabbed a chocolate croissant out of the display case for him.

“Alright, I’ll bite. What’s the big question?” you asked.

“The big question is: does your little trick mean that you really, really don’t want to have coffee with me and I should find a new coffee shop because I’ve harassed you for weeks without even realizing and should be too embarrassed to ever come back now? Or does it mean you wanted me to keep coming back and I should up the ante and ask you to come have dinner with me?”

You couldn’t help laughing, suddenly realizing your own mistake and relieved that Bucky had persisted. You wound your way around the counter with your cider in hand and sat at his usual table. “Definitely the latter.” With a nod to the seat across from you where he always sat, you smiled, warm and excited, finally, finally making good on your deal.

“Oh thank god,” Bucky sighed, taking a seat and picking up the croissant. “Because I’m addicted to these now. I don’t know if I could give them up.”

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[djnailsspasalonrayford]

Recommend the best nail salon patterns for summer 2020

Besides the main role is to enhance the sensation of the fingertip nerves, the nails also work to enhance the beauty of the hands. Especially when they are put on shiny nail polish coats, they make the hands even more beautiful and seductive. Here are the most beautiful and suitable nail designs for her to unleash the coming summer and good tips to take care of them.

Besides the main role is to enhance the sensation of the fingertip nerves, the nails also work to enhance the beauty of the hands. Especially when they are put on shiny nail polish coats, they make the hands even more beautiful and seductive. Here are the most beautiful and suitable nail designs for her to unleash the coming summer and good tips to take care of them.

Beautiful nail designs hot trend 2020.

If in winter the hands would be mostly covered in thick layers of fabric, summer comes when they will be more visible. So if she has a beautiful nail set , it will be even more beautiful and impressive. Let's take a look at the beautiful nail designs in 2020 .

Nude color nails

For girls with a gentle, feminine style and do not want to stand out, choosing nude tones for nails is the most perfect. Tone nude is not fussy skin skin, luxurious and discreetly beautiful. Some nude tones and close to the nude tone that many girls favor are purple brown, rose brown, milk nude, ...

Simple, elegant nude nails

Beautiful nude nail model made many girls nearly rubbed Nail polish

Lacquer in recent years has emerged as a new nail trend of the decade. They are especially popular among Western European women. This nail template will give your beautiful fingertips a very impressive look. With this nail style you should choose trendy colors such as reddish brown, purple, black, moss green, green, ... to make your nails beautiful, more prominent.

Ombre-colored nails

Ombre red wine is worth a try

Nail ombre brown earth is a beautiful nail color option worth considering

For mischievous and dynamic girls, ombre is a beautiful nail model and worth a try. To create an ombre you need to use at least 2 light dark colors and paint from one color to another. Because of this color combination, ombre is still a beautiful nail for summer 2020.

Stone fingerprints Strange stone pattern, outstanding White tone stone is not fussy

If you want a way, youthful, more prominent, then try a beautiful nail pattern inspired by stone. Nail patterns bring freshness or elegance with extremely unique hot and cold tones.

Nail motifs Fascinated with diagonal striped nail

The polka-dot pattern has been renewed for beautiful nails Using motifs such as polka dots, plaid, checkered or wavy has long been popular in nail beauty. Although they are classic motifs, they are always color variations to best suit the trend of beautiful manicure. With the summer of 2020, hot colors such as rose-orange, orange-red or red-wine will still be popular.

Nail drawing figure

Outstanding beautiful nails with peach-shaped nail This beautiful nail nail is also worth a try

The delicate and lovely drawings are also a good hint for her f5 to leave her pretty fingers for a more fresh summer. It could be a few beautiful flower buds or a small piece of orange, a ripe cherry, ... or whatever she loves. She can also draw the whole table or choose a few fingers to make her nails prettier.

Multi-tone nails and combined motifs Set of nail for her short nails Team passionate about gold tone must immediately try this beautiful nail nail set

Perhaps this is the most beautiful nail style that has rained the rain in recent years. It breaks down classic nail polish when every nail is decorated exactly the same way. With this nail style, you can use different textures, patterns and colors for different fingers but still in harmony. Thanks to that, the beautiful fingers become more prominent, unique and attractive.

Floating stone nails

Nail mounted stone luxury Beautiful with floating stone nails The nail style studded with stone and floating flowers is very popular. They bring more elegance, nobility and charm. However, the downside is that the rocks and floating flowers are easy to fall off if they are not firmly attached. Metal nails

Like studded stones, metal nails are just as common. They are mounted on the nail surface to give a special and sharper feel. At the same time when doing this beautiful nail style you must also pay attention to daily activities to keep metal particles sticking for a long time.

Sticky nails or glitter

Stick nail tips gently and subtly

Nail shine makes nails beautiful and more luxurious

Nail stains have a long history as well. Even so, it still has a lot of charm with girls. Thanks to the emulsion and glitter, the nail color is more beautiful and prominent and more sparkling thanks to the light reflection effect.

Transparent colored nails Transparent nail adds metal personality

Transparent colored nails with peach motifs add a peach pattern to a gentle, feminine girl Although there are many paints available in a variety of colors, more luxurious and attractive, transparent colors are still popular with many girls. like. This is a color that does not stand out or flaunt, but is discreetly beautiful. In addition, if you like the way more, you can decorate a little more motif at the top of the nail for a cute, trendy tone. What beautiful nail polish colors will be hot trends summer 2020?

Factors to have beautiful nails are the colors used on them. This summer, classic hot colors such as red, yellow and pure orange will still be very popular. In addition, beautiful nails with more trendy and luxurious tones such as orange, red wine, earth rose, red earth, ... are also very suitable for this summer. Bass and neutral tones such as light brown, earth brown, cream, beige, light purple. Or cold colors like tea green, moss, emerald green, blue or black will make her fingers more beautiful and attractive.

Nail care tips after nail work

Beautiful nails, meticulously painted, will help beautify and stand out beautiful little hands. However, there are also many girlfriends wondering how to take care of the nail after nailing so that the nail is durable and still healthy? The truth is, whether high-end or universal nail polishes, they are not entirely benign to human health. In nail polishes often contain 3 most dangerous substances are formaldehyde, toluene and dibutyl phthalate. They are added to nail polish for a silky, lustrous shine and to last longer. Even so, nail polish bottles still have great appeal to women. Therefore, if you want to have beautiful, strong nails while ensuring your body has little impact, you should pay attention to take care of your nails. Regular, proper care will help keep your nails beautiful and keep the polish color for a long time

Use foods rich in protein, calcium to keep the biotin horny layer strong like cauliflower, cereals, spinach, ...

All you need to know about Pro Power Peel at Euphorea

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Soak your nails with olive, coconut, or jojoba oil for 15 minutes a day to provide moisture.

Use nail cream to strengthen your nails.

Wear gloves when performing nail-harmful tasks such as washing dishes, cleaning the house, or working with harsh chemicals.

Do not remove nails often because it will thin the horny layer of the nail, easily leading to yellow nails, onychomycosis.

Nail polish with a moderate frequency will still help you look beautiful without affecting your health.

A set of beautiful, pretty, personality or classy nails in your favorite color will be a subtle way to show who you are. Please choose for yourself a beautiful nail style, like to make this summer more meaningful and interesting.

[weightlossfitnesssinfo]

Healthier Living Fore More A More Beautiful Complexion

What is magnificence? There are many issues that imply magnificence to many various folks. With so some ways to realize magnificence, you might be in all probability questioning the place you possibly can start. Start by studying the ideas on this article.

If you discover that your nail polish is changing into thick within the bottle or sticky, simply add some acetone, or nail polish remover, into the bottle. Add a tiny bit, then shut the bottle and shake vigorously. This provides you with a pair extra purposes of the nail polish.

If you need pores and skin that appears vibrant and recent, carry moisturizer round always. This is important, particularly within the winter, when the air is dry and pores and skin cracks and breaks; that isn't so engaging! Skin that's moisturized will have the ability to stand up to breaks and cracks.

The finest solution to deliver out the colour of your eyes is to put on eyeshadow in complementary colours. For blue or grey eyes, yellows and oranges are splendid. Look for mascara and eyeliners which are darkish brown with hints of brick, deep purple, or maroon. Those colours assist blues to face out.

Baking Soda

Pimples and blemishes can instantly erupt to trigger chaos in your make-up routine. If this has occurred to you, a fast house treatment is to place a small blot of normal toothpaste on it. Let the toothpaste dry for about 10 minutes. Following this tip will help scale back the dimensions of the pimple considerably.

If you need to restore the shine to your hair, you possibly can really use baking soda! Use a little bit little bit of baking soda combined in along with your shampoo earlier than shampooing. Lather your hair as you often do. Doing so will assist restore your hair's pure shine and luster.

Make your pores and skin look extra vibrant by utilizing a moisturizer with a heat gold or pink undertone. A cosmetics sponge is essential to making use of make-up to your brows and your cheeks. To preserve from trying shiny you must solely apply the moisturizer to the apple of your cheeks and beneath your eyebrows.

If you've got a square-shaped face, use a coral or creamy rose blush to melt the angular look. Use your fingers to use the cream to your cheeks. Next, use a delicate, pulling movement to mix the colour up in the direction of your temples.

Sharpen your eyeliner pencils and lip liners usually. This may also enable you to preserve them clear. Makeup pencils are simpler to sharpen should you put them in your freezer for 10 minutes first.

If you might be searching for a pure solution to clear your pores and skin with out spending rather a lot on pores and skin therapies, be sure you drink loads of water every single day. Water will help to purify and detoxify your pores and skin from the within out, and this course of will help you attain luminous pores and skin.

Try to avoid taking baths or showers which are too scorching. Hot water will enlarge your pores and produce extra oil to the floor. Those oils then get washed away by the bathe. Bath and bathe with heat or tepid water to take care of the tender and exquisite look of your pores and skin. You may also get monetary savings by decreasing your utility invoice.

If you employ a curling iron or different warmth software in your hair, make sure that the merchandise you employ for cleansing, conditioning and styling your hair are heat-activated. If you commonly use these instruments, they will harm your hair. This kind of merchandise may also make your hair softer and extra resistant.

The magnificence merchandise you personal will last more if saved refrigerated. This could be a refreshing tip, particularly within the summertime. Keeping your make up in your fridge will will let you use it whatever the climate. The cooling sensation is certain to depart your pores and skin feeling refreshed and chilled.

You could make your basis last more should you combine it with moisturizer. Also, with the inspiration being barely watered down, it is going to appear rather a lot much less heavy. The additional advantage is that you'll now have solar safety in your basis too should you used an SPF moisturizer.

Make a pure, alcohol free mouthwash utilizing purified water and peppermint oil. You want one drop of the peppermint oil for every ounce of water. The purified water ought to initially be boiled. Then place the variety of drops of oil you require into a big glass or ceramic container. It is necessary so as to add the boiling water subsequent. Use a clear fabric to cowl the container, and permit it to chill down utterly. Next, decant the combination into an hermetic bottle or container. Use it as mouthwash!

Curl eyelashes earlier than placing mascara on. Using an eyelash roller could make an even bigger affect that you just understand, serving to your lashes look longer, and in addition creating the visible phantasm of lifting your complete space surrounding your eyes. Carefully squeeze and maintain the gadget on the base of your lashes. Open it, deliver it to the top of your eyelashes and squeeze yet one more time. Doing this provides a pure look to the curl you might be giving your lashes.

Honey is a superb addition to your magnificence arsenal. You can profit enormously from honey in your magnificence routine. You can add some honey to your skincare. Mix it with sugar for an exfoliating scrub. Also, honey will be utilized to lotion for a thicker product. Putting honey in your shampoo will go away your hair shiny and tender.

Torn fingernails will be mended with tiny fragments of teabags. Pour the tea leaves into the rubbish first. Next, lower a bit from the empty teabag massive sufficient to cowl the tear in your nail. Apply the bag, paint over it and the look will likely be full.

Shimmer eye shadow can have wonderful outcomes. This kind of eye shadow provides your eyes a shine that brightens your eyes and offers them the phantasm of being greater. Choose colours which are much like your pores and skin tone, be it orange or pink. Have enjoyable exploring the various other ways of making use of an unlimited multitude of shades.

When you need to enhance your look, you want to focus in your bodily health, the garments you put on, your posture and your pores and skin. By engaged on every of those important matters, it is possible for you to to construct a greater and extra stunning model of your self.

When you apply eye shadow, look within the mirror at a downward angle. Don't pull in your eyelids or apply extra stress to them. If you just be sure you look downward, you may apply it proper. This will will let you see your lid clearly with out having to the touch them.

As a person, you in all probability are involved with the situation of your hair. Remember that conditioner isn't elective!

Could you be allergic to your eyelash glue? Before making use of, place among the adhesive in your arm. Apply a layer of plaster atop that, then let be for a day. If there isn't any rash, you might be good to go.

Men and ladies usually have an effect on their look adversely by neglecting a easy grooming job. You should handle your eyebrows and there ought to at all times be two of them. Thread, wax or pluck them to maintain your eyebrows outlined and underneath management.

The essential components to remain conscious of when working in your bodily look are your wardrobe, skincare, posture and health. Addressing all of those points will enable you to look higher and really feel higher.

A prime coat of the very best high quality is essential for a manicure that's going to final. Right after you paint your nails, add a prime coat in order that it seals within the paint. You also can add touch-up coats, in order that your nail polish doesn't chip or peel away. Having a high-quality prime coat could make your manicure final a number of days longer than regular.

Go shiny if you'd like extra full trying lips. Use a concealer brush dipped in bronzer that may be a shade 2 deeper than your pores and skin tone, and description the sting of your lips. Then, use a gold, peach or coral lip gloss.

Your magnificence routine must be a day by day affair. If you do it in 10 minute segments it is going to profit your schedule. Attempting to do the whole lot at one time could go away you feeling overwhelmed, and also you would possibly surrender.

Watching a heart-wrenching film? Keep these tears from dissolving your mascara. Do this by a tilt of your head that makes the tears run from the attention's interior nook. This will cease tears from messing up your make-up.

Eye Drops

But, the solar's damaging UVA rays are sturdy in winter months as effectively, so a sunscreen is helpful year-round. When your pores and skin is protected against the weather, you might be defending it from getting old too rapidly and from illnesses, reminiscent of pores and skin most cancers.

To add additional sparkle to your eyes, use eye drops day by day. You will look rested and refreshed with the redness and fatigue eliminated out of your eyes. Always have a bottle of eye drops in your desk or purse and use them when wanted. Having stated that, you must solely use the beneficial quantity.

It's a good suggestion to take a break from heated hair styling instruments, or keep away from them altogether, if you wish to have wholesome hair. Heating implements reminiscent of curling irons, flat irons, heated curlers and blow dryers harm your hair badly. If it's essential to use them, not less than give your hair a little bit time to recuperate between makes use of.

Reduce facial puffiness by utilizing an ice-cube and holding it towards the highest of your mouth. This helps handle that puffy face. Then splash chilly water throughout your face, and you will notice dramatic enhancements in just some minutes.

If you might be working low a beloved nail polish that's retired, attempt including a little bit of polish remover to its bottle. Shake up the combination after which use it as you usually would. The colour could also be a bit lighter, however it is going to nonetheless be very like it was.

You could need to use eyelash extensions for particular events. This is a superb thought for brides or ladies going to formal occasions. IF you set some extra eyelash in your personal you'll make your eyes look bigger and youthful. You are certain to be thrilled with the consequence.

Dark circles no extra! Massage round your eyes, ranging from the skin and dealing across the eye with facial moisturizer. This will assist your pores and skin look far more refreshed.

Before mattress you must apply your base coat, colour polish, and prime coat so it may set in a single day. Do not be involved about any polish that will get onto your pores and skin. It will scratch off simply within the bathe you're taking the subsequent day if you stand up. This tip will shield your nails, and it's easy to do.

Your physique is wealthy within the mineral zinc. It helps your physique to heal from wounds and successfully combat towards free radicals. To improve you consumption of zinc, you possibly can take a complement or eat meals, reminiscent of darkish chocolate, which are naturally excessive in zinc.

People have totally different views on the topic. What one particular person finds stunning, one other could think about ugly. This actuality trickles down into how we work to beautify ourselves. The ideas talked about above ought to assist offer you inspiration to get began.

To cease you from chewing in your nails, swipe them with cleaning soap. This retains the nails clear and stops you from biting them since it is going to style dangerous.

Healthier Living Fore More A More Beautiful Complexion Find more on: Weight Loss Fitness

from Weight Loss Fitness - Feed https://weightlossfitnesss.info/healthier-living-fore-more-a-more-beautiful-complexion/

[weightlossfitness2]

Healthier Living Fore More A More Beautiful Complexion

What is magnificence? There are many issues that imply magnificence to many various folks. With so some ways to realize magnificence, you might be in all probability questioning the place you possibly can start. Start by studying the ideas on this article.

If you discover that your nail polish is changing into thick within the bottle or sticky, simply add some acetone, or nail polish remover, into the bottle. Add a tiny bit, then shut the bottle and shake vigorously. This provides you with a pair extra purposes of the nail polish.

If you need pores and skin that appears vibrant and recent, carry moisturizer round always. This is important, particularly within the winter, when the air is dry and pores and skin cracks and breaks; that isn’t so engaging! Skin that’s moisturized will have the ability to stand up to breaks and cracks.

The finest solution to deliver out the colour of your eyes is to put on eyeshadow in complementary colours. For blue or grey eyes, yellows and oranges are splendid. Look for mascara and eyeliners which are darkish brown with hints of brick, deep purple, or maroon. Those colours assist blues to face out.

Baking Soda

Pimples and blemishes can instantly erupt to trigger chaos in your make-up routine. If this has occurred to you, a fast house treatment is to place a small blot of normal toothpaste on it. Let the toothpaste dry for about 10 minutes. Following this tip will help scale back the dimensions of the pimple considerably.

If you need to restore the shine to your hair, you possibly can really use baking soda! Use a little bit little bit of baking soda combined in along with your shampoo earlier than shampooing. Lather your hair as you often do. Doing so will assist restore your hair’s pure shine and luster.

Make your pores and skin look extra vibrant by utilizing a moisturizer with a heat gold or pink undertone. A cosmetics sponge is essential to making use of make-up to your brows and your cheeks. To preserve from trying shiny you must solely apply the moisturizer to the apple of your cheeks and beneath your eyebrows.

If you’ve got a square-shaped face, use a coral or creamy rose blush to melt the angular look. Use your fingers to use the cream to your cheeks. Next, use a delicate, pulling movement to mix the colour up in the direction of your temples.

Sharpen your eyeliner pencils and lip liners usually. This may also enable you to preserve them clear. Makeup pencils are simpler to sharpen should you put them in your freezer for 10 minutes first.

If you might be searching for a pure solution to clear your pores and skin with out spending rather a lot on pores and skin therapies, be sure you drink loads of water every single day. Water will help to purify and detoxify your pores and skin from the within out, and this course of will help you attain luminous pores and skin.

Try to avoid taking baths or showers which are too scorching. Hot water will enlarge your pores and produce extra oil to the floor. Those oils then get washed away by the bathe. Bath and bathe with heat or tepid water to take care of the tender and exquisite look of your pores and skin. You may also get monetary savings by decreasing your utility invoice.

If you employ a curling iron or different warmth software in your hair, make sure that the merchandise you employ for cleansing, conditioning and styling your hair are heat-activated. If you commonly use these instruments, they will harm your hair. This kind of merchandise may also make your hair softer and extra resistant.

The magnificence merchandise you personal will last more if saved refrigerated. This could be a refreshing tip, particularly within the summertime. Keeping your make up in your fridge will will let you use it whatever the climate. The cooling sensation is certain to depart your pores and skin feeling refreshed and chilled.

You could make your basis last more should you combine it with moisturizer. Also, with the inspiration being barely watered down, it is going to appear rather a lot much less heavy. The additional advantage is that you’ll now have solar safety in your basis too should you used an SPF moisturizer.

Make a pure, alcohol free mouthwash utilizing purified water and peppermint oil. You want one drop of the peppermint oil for every ounce of water. The purified water ought to initially be boiled. Then place the variety of drops of oil you require into a big glass or ceramic container. It is necessary so as to add the boiling water subsequent. Use a clear fabric to cowl the container, and permit it to chill down utterly. Next, decant the combination into an hermetic bottle or container. Use it as mouthwash!

Curl eyelashes earlier than placing mascara on. Using an eyelash roller could make an even bigger affect that you just understand, serving to your lashes look longer, and in addition creating the visible phantasm of lifting your complete space surrounding your eyes. Carefully squeeze and maintain the gadget on the base of your lashes. Open it, deliver it to the top of your eyelashes and squeeze yet one more time. Doing this provides a pure look to the curl you might be giving your lashes.

Honey is a superb addition to your magnificence arsenal. You can profit enormously from honey in your magnificence routine. You can add some honey to your skincare. Mix it with sugar for an exfoliating scrub. Also, honey will be utilized to lotion for a thicker product. Putting honey in your shampoo will go away your hair shiny and tender.

Torn fingernails will be mended with tiny fragments of teabags. Pour the tea leaves into the rubbish first. Next, lower a bit from the empty teabag massive sufficient to cowl the tear in your nail. Apply the bag, paint over it and the look will likely be full.

Shimmer eye shadow can have wonderful outcomes. This kind of eye shadow provides your eyes a shine that brightens your eyes and offers them the phantasm of being greater. Choose colours which are much like your pores and skin tone, be it orange or pink. Have enjoyable exploring the various other ways of making use of an unlimited multitude of shades.

When you need to enhance your look, you want to focus in your bodily health, the garments you put on, your posture and your pores and skin. By engaged on every of those important matters, it is possible for you to to construct a greater and extra stunning model of your self.

When you apply eye shadow, look within the mirror at a downward angle. Don’t pull in your eyelids or apply extra stress to them. If you just be sure you look downward, you may apply it proper. This will will let you see your lid clearly with out having to the touch them.

As a person, you in all probability are involved with the situation of your hair. Remember that conditioner isn’t elective!

Could you be allergic to your eyelash glue? Before making use of, place among the adhesive in your arm. Apply a layer of plaster atop that, then let be for a day. If there isn’t any rash, you might be good to go.

Men and ladies usually have an effect on their look adversely by neglecting a easy grooming job. You should handle your eyebrows and there ought to at all times be two of them. Thread, wax or pluck them to maintain your eyebrows outlined and underneath management.

The essential components to remain conscious of when working in your bodily look are your wardrobe, skincare, posture and health. Addressing all of those points will enable you to look higher and really feel higher.

A prime coat of the very best high quality is essential for a manicure that’s going to final. Right after you paint your nails, add a prime coat in order that it seals within the paint. You also can add touch-up coats, in order that your nail polish doesn’t chip or peel away. Having a high-quality prime coat could make your manicure final a number of days longer than regular.

Go shiny if you’d like extra full trying lips. Use a concealer brush dipped in bronzer that may be a shade 2 deeper than your pores and skin tone, and description the sting of your lips. Then, use a gold, peach or coral lip gloss.

Your magnificence routine must be a day by day affair. If you do it in 10 minute segments it is going to profit your schedule. Attempting to do the whole lot at one time could go away you feeling overwhelmed, and also you would possibly surrender.

Watching a heart-wrenching film? Keep these tears from dissolving your mascara. Do this by a tilt of your head that makes the tears run from the attention’s interior nook. This will cease tears from messing up your make-up.

Eye Drops

But, the solar’s damaging UVA rays are sturdy in winter months as effectively, so a sunscreen is helpful year-round. When your pores and skin is protected against the weather, you might be defending it from getting old too rapidly and from illnesses, reminiscent of pores and skin most cancers.

To add additional sparkle to your eyes, use eye drops day by day. You will look rested and refreshed with the redness and fatigue eliminated out of your eyes. Always have a bottle of eye drops in your desk or purse and use them when wanted. Having stated that, you must solely use the beneficial quantity.

It’s a good suggestion to take a break from heated hair styling instruments, or keep away from them altogether, if you wish to have wholesome hair. Heating implements reminiscent of curling irons, flat irons, heated curlers and blow dryers harm your hair badly. If it’s essential to use them, not less than give your hair a little bit time to recuperate between makes use of.

Reduce facial puffiness by utilizing an ice-cube and holding it towards the highest of your mouth. This helps handle that puffy face. Then splash chilly water throughout your face, and you will notice dramatic enhancements in just some minutes.

If you might be working low a beloved nail polish that’s retired, attempt including a little bit of polish remover to its bottle. Shake up the combination after which use it as you usually would. The colour could also be a bit lighter, however it is going to nonetheless be very like it was.

You could need to use eyelash extensions for particular events. This is a superb thought for brides or ladies going to formal occasions. IF you set some extra eyelash in your personal you’ll make your eyes look bigger and youthful. You are certain to be thrilled with the consequence.

Dark circles no extra! Massage round your eyes, ranging from the skin and dealing across the eye with facial moisturizer. This will assist your pores and skin look far more refreshed.

Before mattress you must apply your base coat, colour polish, and prime coat so it may set in a single day. Do not be involved about any polish that will get onto your pores and skin. It will scratch off simply within the bathe you’re taking the subsequent day if you stand up. This tip will shield your nails, and it’s easy to do.

Your physique is wealthy within the mineral zinc. It helps your physique to heal from wounds and successfully combat towards free radicals. To improve you consumption of zinc, you possibly can take a complement or eat meals, reminiscent of darkish chocolate, which are naturally excessive in zinc.

People have totally different views on the topic. What one particular person finds stunning, one other could think about ugly. This actuality trickles down into how we work to beautify ourselves. The ideas talked about above ought to assist offer you inspiration to get began.

To cease you from chewing in your nails, swipe them with cleaning soap. This retains the nails clear and stops you from biting them since it is going to style dangerous.

The post Healthier Living Fore More A More Beautiful Complexion appeared first on Weight Loss Fitness.

from Weight Loss Fitness https://weightlossfitnesss.info/healthier-living-fore-more-a-more-beautiful-complexion/

[shiobookmark]

Utena Cosplay for first timers

Thought I’d show you guys a work in progress shot now that it actually looks like something. Everything except the trim is detachable so I can just use the jacket normally when I’m not cosplay. Unfortunately it is really warm, being wool, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to wear it if the weather turns out too hot.  I have a wig and I just need to finish some detachable cuffs and finish sewing the lining into the sleeves. Then attach the cord to the epaulettes and brooch. I’ll need to get her shorts later since I bought the wrong size. Otherwise we’re all done! Under read-more is a quick rundown on how I did this costume because there are essentially no guides online.

I used the pattern Kwik Sew 2454. I increased the length by about 25cm in the body and then trimmed as needed.  If you don’t know how to sew, take classes. Following a pattern on your own will not produce the same results. I took this to my class at my local rec centre and my teacher knows how to set sleeves, blind stitch hems, put darts in the elbows and properly fit it all.  The fabric is a plush wool fabric I got from a wholesaler. I needed 2 metres but I’d recommend getting 1/2 extra because I ended up having to use fabric in the wrong direction for the inside panel. It doesn’t matter because it can’t be seen but best to be safe. The first thing I had to do was cut the pieces out. But there’s this thing called grain where you have to follow the fabric grain perfectly or things will get twisted and fall weird.  The lining is silk I believe, sure smells like it and was given to me by my teacher. It’s called moire taffeta apparently. Definitely line it, makes the jacket more cosy and professional looking.  The trim is in cream because I thought red would be too intense. I went to Spotlight and found this gorgeous stuff in little roses and fake pearls. More subtle. It’s also less military than red trim. But it was expensive, so be wary of that and keep your eye out. I needed about 4 metres of it.  I bought long trim and cord in cream as well, about 1 metre each. The goldy bits: the brooch, the rose holder and the triangle pips there are all made of sculpy. It’s just a heat modelling clay you bake at 130C in an oven for 15 minutes. Base coat it with white acrylic, then go over with gold. To get the shiny gem effect I painted the green gem in swirls of gold first, then once it was dry I painted with emerald green acrylic, letting it be thin enough in places to show the gold sparkle and really thick in others to make shadows.  The rose holder I just copied from a picture, I rolled out a nice even sausage in sculpy like you do with playdough and just coiled it. There are etsy sellers who make them too. I used a spray on varnish, but you’ll have to test on some scrap painted sculpy (I just tested on the triangle pip things because they were less work to make) to see if the varnish dries properly and doesn’t stay sticky. I superglued butterfly pin backs to them all. 2 on the rose pin so it could sit straight.  There are no pockets. I forgot and honestly I don’t really want them. I plan to make false pocket shapes I can pin on along with the oversized cuffs if I have time.  The epaulettes were a bitch, my initial plan was to paint some hemisphere shapes but all I could find was a styrofoam ball and it looked crappy. So I got creative. I used this free ball pattern. http://stitchesandloveblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/finally-my-free-fabric-ball-pattern-is.html

Epaulettes 1. Cut out six panels and then cut them all in half so you sew together two hemispheres rather than a ball.  2. Run some stitching in one piece of thread around the edge of the hemisphere and don’t finish off, this is a gathering string. Think of it like a drawstring bag. 3. Then cut a circle of cardboard to make the pauldron base. Shove some stuffing into the hemisphere and slap the card on top.  4. Pull that gathering thread tight enough so it’s evenly gathered around and the card can’t fall out, then tie the thread ends together. 5. Cut a circle of felt for the base. Cover the whole that shows the card and stitch it on. Boom! You have a little pin cushion thing. 6. Edge it with tassels and stitch/glue a safety pin on the flat bottom so you can pin it to your costume. It doesn’t look like gemstones, but the felt gives it and nice soft look and it’s better than crappy styrofoam.

The petticoats This is dead easy. I got some white mesh stuff from the offcuts bin that is apparently used for curtain... undercurtains?  Measured how long I’d need and folded two layers. Made sure it was straight by measuring each side of the fabric. Pinned some pleats roughly evenly, checked to make sure it was still wide enough for my hips and stitched. Then stitched some lace edging on the bottom. My plan is to stitch the petticoats to my red shorts rather than ruin my pretty coat. The ring Ah this thing. There are some expensive replicas out there but if you’re on a budget just find a cheap plastic ring that’s a bit bigger than you need and use it as a base for some sculpy. Shape the ring around it and try to make it the right size. Best to err on the side of slightly too small. Once baked use a fine grain sandpaper to smooth it out and file it down to size. Paint like the other stuff and draw on the crest. The Wig I recommend Arda Wigs. They’re really nice folks and I know nothing about wigs but mine is really soft and comfy and I’m in love with it. Good for my big head too. My head is 23 Inches around and I have hair as long as Utena’s to shove under it. Buy wig caps, they’re cheap from Arda.

Look up a tut online for how to tuck your hair. I used the Luthien in rose pink because I prefer softer, subtler pinks. But really it’s up to you. https://www.arda-wigs.com/collections/cosplay/products/luthien-classic Let me know if I forgot anything.

[cutiecrates]

Cutie Reviews: Kira Kira Crate April 19

Theme: Spring Soiree

“It’s a spring soiree with April’s curation of cosmetics and skincare products!“

Pure Smile Sake Face Mask

I decided to start with this item because I’ve already gotten before, way back towards the beginning of the box I believe. I’m not going to fully review it as a result, but I will say that it includes Ceramide 3, Vitamin-E, Collagen, and Hyaluronic acid. It’s usable on all skin types, any time of the year. and because essentially it’s a normal/average Pure Smile face mask. It’s decent and does a good job moisturizing, but I wasn’t a big fan of the scent.

Yuzu Hot Cleansing Gel

Our next item is this big bottle of cleansing gel, made from yuzu, honey, shea butter, and peptides and is made to cleanse and remove the impurities and makeup left-over on the skin. The hot part comes from the fact that this product is made to warm up on the skin as you put it on, then you wash it off. The product ensures your skin doesn’t feel stripped and raw like some other cleansers might. 

The gel has a runny-thick texture, it reminds me a lot of honey. It has a strong citrus scent~

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

I love love love this~! Not only does it smell amazing, but it felt so good when I used it. It heats up but even in summer its not an unbearable heat, it’s a soothing, comforting heat. It comes off the skin really easily when you clean it off, and my face felt wonderful afterwards.

Super Flash Mascara

Our next item is a new, flashy looking mascara! I’m always on the look out for new ones since my favorite one dried up, and so far I’ve been loving the ones I get in these boxes. This is made with a 3D effect in mind, providing your lashes with extra volume without the use of a eyelash curler. This is the long style, and its supposedly water proof.

Also, in case anyone was curious it barely has a “mascara scent“ and mostly smelled nothing. So if you’re sensitive towards it or dislike the smell, I feel like this could be a good option.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥

The product is really good and works extremely well. The booklet suggests multiple layers of mascara to increase the effect but I think one-two swipes is fine too, I really noticed a difference as soon as I put one swipe on. 

However... I did notice one problem. I don’t know if its just mine or not, but as soon as I opened it, I noticed several hairs from the mascara wand shedding off on the rim and sticking out of the wand. It’s kind of a hindrance and trying to get them off seems to make it worse.

Malibu Green Eyeshadow

I’m thinking this brand’s become popular over time, I think this is the 3rd Malibu single eyeshadow I’ve received from the boxes. Not that I mind, they’re pretty cute and I love glittery shadow like this.

Anyway, for spring we have this pretty lime-ish color, perfect for celebrating spring and St. Patricks Day. The booklet suggests using it as an under-eye liner or lining the upper eyelid, or even putting it at the corners.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

I don’t really have any issues with green makeup but I don’t wear it either. I don’t really step out of my comfort zone very often, but with good reason- some makeup clashes with the clothes you have on. I don’t really think I have anything that would look great with green, but I do have some acceptable clothing, such as the shorts I have on now and a floral top, green would go good with them.

However... this shade is pretty gentle, it’s not neon or dark, it’s noticeable but not in a bad way. I feel like this specific shade is a lot more versatile, and it feels nice on the eye. The product is very light, I had to darken the camera on my phone just to get a clear view of the product. It’s also easily applied and you don’t need a lot to see it.

Momocos Lip Gloss

This is our last item, a really cute glitter gloss! It was available in Cherry or Peach, and as you can see I got cherry. It has a very strong scent and flavor, but no color whatsoever.

The cherry scent is nothing like the lip tint I just reviewed, while that one was cherry medicine, this is exactly like a sweet cherry popsicle~

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

Besides looking really cute in the tube, I love cutesy monster-looking thingies, so I really liked the packaging and logo design on the side too. I admit that I do prefer products with color, but for a shimmery gloss this one delivers! The scent and flavor does fade other time, as does the initial stickiness when applied. The brush is incredibly soft and feels nice on the lips too.

♥ Cutie Ranking ♥

Theme - 2 out of 5. It might just be me, but I didn’t really understand how many of these items went with spring. Like I get the green eyeshadow, and peaches and cherries are popular spring fruits (I think) but that’s it. A soiree is like a party or hang out I think, so I could see someone using these items prior to an event, but I don’t know. I think they should have went more flowery, personally, or included something for Easter.

Content - 5 out of 5. Everything is good and works, I liked all of items with the exception of the face mask- but it does what was promised so I can’t fault it over a personal disliking of a scent other people find acceptable.

Total Rank: 7 out of 10 Cuties. The items are great and worth trying, I like them very much. But I felt like the box could have done better with the theme; but at the same time I don’t believe any of my boxes did anything flowery for spring, and I’m not sure if anyone included much of an Easter theme either, which feels like a little bit of a wasted opportunity.

♥ Cutie Scale ♥

1. Momocos Lip Gloss - It doesn’t have a color but I love the scent/flavor and its overall very cute looking.

2. Yuzu Hot Cleansing Gel - I LOVE this, it smells so amazing!! I’m not someone who wants to take the effort of using a face wash or things like cleansers and stuff, but this does encourage me to do it more often.

3. Super Flash Mascara - It’s so metallic and shiny! I like the quality of the product, but the little hairs/strands of the wand is a bit annoying to deal with. I’m not sure why they’re falling off like the way they were....

4. Eyeshadow - I think it’s a pretty shade, but it wouldn’t be the first one I reach for.

5. Face Mask - It’s a plain mask and while it did its job, I dislike the scent. I’m not big on alcohol or things that remind me of it.

[sageslays]

Hello Beauty Babes!

I ordered one of the palettes from the new NYX In Your Element collection which features 6 elements (Fire, Earth, Air, Metal, Water, Wind) Each element has its own palette for $30 (which I really think is just hella expensive), and three lipsticks for $9.

I only picked up the Fire palette from the Elements collection, but I did pick up a few products from the website that are either new, or only online right now.

I’ve spent the past few weeks really testing this baby out (as well as the other products) and am gonna give you ALL the tea!

  So, let’s get into it. I’m gonna go straight to the palette!

I was very happy with the packaging and size. It’s about the size of my hand, not including the fingertips, and the pan sizes are great. They aren’t super small, so you can swatch with your finger, and get into it with your brush. plus, you get a fair amount of product!

so, lemme be 100% honest with you guys

I love this palette.

I do! specifically, the mattes. They are so amazing! They have the formula of higher end shadows, and in some cases, its actually better! Well, from swatching. I haven’t done a full eye look yet but seriously these are sooooo smooth. they only need one or two layers for full pigmentation.

The red is like a classic firetruck engine red color and it is so stunning and pigmented! I also love the orange shade in the bottom left corner. pretty much all the mattes are fire. the burgundy is rich in pigment, and the warm red toned brown is as well. Yellow is not an easy eyeshadow color to make. I’ve found that some can be less pigmented than the other shadows in the palette, and can also bunch up when swatching. I find that the yellow in this palette does kind of the same thing, but its pigmented and blends well.

The metallics. If you’ve read my post on the My Little Pony palette from PUR then you’ll understand me when I say this:

WHY CAN’T I FIND A PALETTE WITH THE METALLICS I WANT?!?!?!

I want metallics that POP that stand out, that sparkle and reflect. These metallics, just don’t do that. However, they aren’t ALL bad.

The gold in the middle section is probably my least favorite metallic shade. It doesn’t pop, and in my opinion why else would you wear gold if it isn’t showstopping? Same with the yellow toned shade in the top left corner. Honestly I don’t see myself wearing that shade. However, The Copper and Blue/Brown shades in the bottom right corner. I love them! The copper isn’t sparkly, but it is very pigmented and I’ve worn this and loved it! Same with the blue brown shade. It’s pigmented and actually metallic!

So, the big question is…Is it worth the high price point? $30?! When I heard that I was like BIHHHHHHHH but now that I own and use this palette, here’s my two cents…

I think it’s worth it. These shadows are so pigmented, and blendable. Of all the red’s I own, this may be my favorite! Fall out isn’t crazy, and I get a pigmented blended look every time! The only negative would be the two metallic shades that don’t give me the metallized look I want. But still, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another palette. In fact, I’m really hoping to get the Earth palette next!

So, I really do think this is a good buy. If you like warm, fiery looks, this is the palette for you!

So, I picked up some other products from the NYX website. Mainly products I haven’t found at Ulta, that are just online.

I bought the NYX HydraTouch Oil Primer for $13.99.

I haven’t seen this in store and i was also really interested in this because one, I have normal/dry skin and am always up to try anything that will help hydrate skin, and two, because this reminded a lot of the Smashbox Oil Primer!

I was a bit skeptical about putting an oil primer on my face. I was worried it may act badly with the foundation or make me look greasy.

BUT OH MY GOD THIS PRIMER IS AMAZING!!!

It gives me such a dewy fresh flawless makeup look. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten asked what primer/foundation I use whenever I wear this! I do make sure to set my face with powder just so my face makeup will last and won’t look shiny. I do think if you aren’t wearing a full face of foundation you can get away with not setting the whole face.

If you were like me and wanted to try out the smashbox oil primer without paying so much, I would totally buy this primer. Even if you have drier skin, and want a hydrating primer for a dewy finish, check this primer out!

P.S. if you want to see this primer in action, check my IG posts from the past week or so. (there’s a link on my home page) @SageSlays_

Next, I picked up the NYX #ThisIsEverything Lip Oil for $6.00. (why am I so into oils?)

I am always interested in products that moisturize and hydrate and prep lips. So I thought this would be great for that.

This is such a great formula. It’s not too thick and it isn’t sticky, but it’s thick enough to really moisturize the lips. I use this before bed, when I wake up, before makeup to prep my lips for lipstick, AND this is great by itself for a clear gloss lip look. I am totally loving this product.

Lastly, I bought one of the NYX Prismatic Shadows in the shade Dollface for $5.99.

I have a few of the Prismatic Shadows. These are either amazing in terms of color and formula (Like the shades Rose Dust & Gilded, which are faves of mine) or, they just…aren’t as good.

Dollface is a shadow that I don’t yet know how to feel about it. When I first swatched it was dissapointed. It wasn’t super metallized, and there was some fall out from the swatch. However, when I applied this damp, the formula had improved alot and I got really great color. I haven’t worn this on the lid yet, but will update you on this post when I do eventually.

Alright you guys! That’s all for this post!

Keep up with me on social media:

Instagram: @SageSlays_      Snapchat: @SageCatherineXO        Twitter: @SageSlays

I’ll see you guys in my next post!

Stay Fierce, & Stay Fiery!

XOXO, Sage Slays

  NYX Haul!!! Including The New NYX In Your Element Fire Palette! 🔥✨ Hello Beauty Babes! I ordered one of the palettes from the new NYX In Your Element collection which features 6 elements (Fire, Earth, Air, Metal, Water, Wind) Each element has its own palette for $30…

[fountainpenguin]

Head, Shoulders, Knees, Toes

Just a compilation of my notes about Fairykind physiology. Skin, crowns, wings, exoskeletons... reproductive systems... I trust you can all behave yourselves. 

BASICS

SKIN

The Seelie secrete lots of oils from their skin, and bathe more often than the Unseelie as a result. They feel a little sticky when you touch them, which may be why fairy dust tends to cling to everything.

The Refracted are like birds. Just. Feathers everywhere.

This will probably surprise you, but Anti-Fairies are a lot like armadillos! They have a very low body temperature and their babies are always identical to someone else, though [nine-banded] armadillos always give birth to four identical quadruplets, and Anti-Fairy pups resemble their host counterpart. 

I draw Anti-Fairies with all the blue fur because it’s easy to just say, “They’re furry” and leave it at that. But technically, Anti-Fairies are built like the screaming hairy armadillo. In simple terms, they’re covered in scutes, or scales, and they also have long hairs coming out of those scales. This allows them to move through thorns and branches without tearing up their skin (though their wings will still tear if they’re not careful).

We learned in “Teacher’s Pet” that armadillo armor is resistant to Fairy magic. This is yet another thing that makes Anti-Fairies so annoying to Fairies. They just literally can’t do anything to them even though Anti-Fairies can use magic against Fairies. This is why Poof and Foop always fight with their hands, lasers, or indirectly (i.e., Poof using magic on a locker door so the door slams Foop as he passes). Indirect contact is fine. But Fairy magic used directly on an anti-fairy just bounces off.

I say this, but Anti-Fairies resisting magic is only true if you hit them where they have the armor. Just like the Fairies will shut down if you put pressure on their windpipes, Anti-Fairies have soft underbellies. It’s very difficult to drive a knife through one’s back, but you can get one through their stomach or their throat. Not that it matters. If you actually do kill an anti-fairy, it’ll just turn to smoke and regenerate.

Female anti-fairies have some scales across their breasts too, to cushion the pain of breastfeeding a baby born with fangs.

HEALING AND HEALTH

The Fairykind are resilient creatures built to last for hundreds of thousands of years. In their prime (Juvenile stage through adulthood), they can get sick, but won’t die from viruses or disease. Part of the reason for this is, of course, magic. The other part is purely because they’re flying creatures. The extra energy required to fly boosts their immune response. This is why bats don’t get sick when they carry viruses; see also, this article.

Pixies have a lower body temperature than Fairies and are more prone to getting sick because of this. Anti-Fairies are reversed. They function best when cold; in warm areas, they become sluggish and their immunity goes down. Fairies often wave this fact around to discourage Antis from wanting to be godparents to humans, despite the fact that no sickness can kill an Anti-Fairy if their Primary counterpart is still alive.

“Magic can’t affect magical objects” was made canon in “Abra-Catastrophe”. A Fairy who gets stabbed with a magical blade will feel no pain; the blade will pass through the skin very easily, and although the Fairy can feel it, it doesn’t hurt and won’t damage the body. The wound will seal within seconds after the blade is removed.

Fairies naturally heal quickly; however, large wounds will only heal with time and sleep. Cuts in a wing with an unenchanted blade can’t be healed, and those caused by a magic-touched weapon will heal only if one sleeps while holding their wand or something, since it requires that much magic and rest to repair the damage.

DUST TO SMOKE

“Fairy Idol” heavily implies that Fairies turn to colorful dust when they die. We’ve discussed Fairy death rituals and the Daoine before.

A dead Fairy is dead and there really isn’t anything you can do about that. But as long as their counterpart is alive, an anti-fairy cannot die. Instead, if “killed”, they disintegrate into smoke and then regenerate.

Anti-Fairy regeneration is all or nothing. If one loses a hand, it won’t grow back until they “die”. Also, regeneration is no cure for sickness. An anti-fairy with a cold can’t kill himself to cure the cold; the cold is considered part of him until it runs its course, so it regenerates too. Anti-Cosmo is blind in his left eye and nearsighted in his right. That stays. Many anti-fairies have scars. Those count as an infliction and don’t disappear. You can’t pick and choose what you want.

When a Fairy or Anti-Fairy dies, it would seem they take their clothes and anything in their pockets with them, the same way they do when they change shape. So I guess anything they can pick up and hold is considered part of them as long as it’s “in their inventory”, so to speak.

CROWNS

Put simply, a crown keeps a Fairy’s body stable and allows them to breathe magic from the energy field. Removal of a crown makes a fairy dizzy.

Crowns were shown to be magnetic in “Jimmy Timmy Power Hour” and “Dad Overboard”. So whatever they’re made of, metal is apparently involved. I’m of the belief they they’re made of calcium and enamel, like teeth. Perhaps they just have a shiny metal coating.

While on this subject, birds and bats - and therefore Refracts and Anti-Fairies - can sense magnetic fields. Also, when Wanda shapeshifted into a car, she was magnetic enough to get caught in the magnetic field herself.

WINGS

Luckily, Fairykind wings don’t have to support their entire body weight in order to allow flight. The wings do their best and magic covers the difference. However, wings do require the capability to function. Someone with wings which are torn, covered with clothes, or tied together cannot fly.

Seelie Court wings swivel downwards. Those with the direct musculature (fairies) can manipulate their wings independently. Pixies have the indirect musculature and must move all wings together. For further study, I suggest the YouTube video, “Dragonfly Wings in Slow Motion - Smarter Every Day 91”.

Unseelie Court wings fold rather than swivel. Seelie Wings cannot stretch straight behind them, but Unseelie wings can. Anti-Fairy wings mimic those of bats, although they function a bit differently due to the differing body structures. For further study, I suggest the YouTube video, “Animal Flight: Wing Structures and Wingbeat Mechanisms”.

All pixie wings look the same since they are genetically identical. Fairy wings vary by subspecies (as do those of Anti-Fairies, but it’s easier to recognize their subspecies by the size and shape of their ears). 

There are many more parts to wing anatomy; this is just a simplified reference. Anti-Fairies do not have uropatagiums (Flap between legs and tail) or propatagiums (Flap between neck and thumb). Anti-Fairies do have tails, but due to the absence of the uropatagium, they look more like a rabbit’s than a bat’s (It’s no accident Anti-Fairy World is also known as Hy-Brasil).

The membranes of a Seelie’s wing don’t really feel pain, but the costas do if you twist them the wrong way (upward or back). The membranes of Anti-Fairy wings are thick and leathery, and they do hurt if yanked, burned, torn, etc.

When a Seelie baby is born, its wings are encased with a seal like a hard shell that prevents them from working. These are called flight casings, and they don’t fall off until a baby has tasted milk for the first time. 

Before this point, the baby has only its father’s contribution to its magic pool- its mother’s flows into it once the “bubble” has burst. Obviously, wingless Fairies tend to have a lot less magic than winged ones, which is why they’re frequently found lower on the social ladder.

Seelie Courters go through frequent wing moults during their lives- twelve before they get their adult wings, twelve after, and then Number 25, the senescent moult. Once those last wings wear out, you’re done.

As with teeth, moulting isn’t synced up with their Unseelie counterparts; Anti-Fairies are still able to fly as normal even while their Primary counterparts are temporarily grounded.

Exoskeletons

I refer to Foop’s square form, Poof’s ball form, Goldie’s triangle, etc. as “exoskeletons”. These shapes are essentially a layer of “blubber” that helps protect the soft baby as they adjust to the world and their ability to fly and use magic. They shed it about the time they wean; around a year on average. Poof and Foop are a special case due to the freezing of the timestream.

Although I acknowledge in my ‘fics that FOP babies are shapes like this, it’s not my favorite worldbuilding detail. My personal headcanon for Foop is more like-

He looks a lot more like a baby bat this way, while still maintaining his general “square”-ness. It takes time for a baby anti-fairy to learn how to stand on its hind legs, so until then we just get baby Foop scuttling through the halls like this. I favor babies learning how to fly gradually, rather than straight after birth. They are clumsy fluffballs that can sit in a teacup. Adorable pets back in the day. Almost worth having a baby for purely to enjoy the anti-kid scampering about.

This is just a rough design; an anti-fairy should have feet that allow it to grip branches or rafters and hang upside-down. Anti-fairy hind legs are underdeveloped; even when standing or walking, they wobble and often don’t attempt it for longer than a few minutes (their legs bend the wrong way, after all).

Because of this, anti-fairies can’t take off directly from the ground the way Fairies and the Refracted can. They have to be in the air to do so, which usually requires jumping off something or rebounding off a wall. Lots of parkour.

In the first chapter of Frayed Knots, we saw that the sooner lifesmoke unites with a body, the lighter colored the anti-fairy will be. Foop was a quickie and has very light fur (or hairs, if we wish to be technical). Anti-Cosmo is much darker.

Reproduction + Childcare

*Slams hands on table* Are you guys educated in the ways marsupials give birth? If you aren’t, I’m here to tell you all about it.

I see the Seelie as “loose marsupials” (and the Unseelie as “truer” marsupials). They’re able to fly while carrying their young in their pouch. This is especially important because they live in places like cloud worlds which are, well... like clouds. Walk too far over and whoops, you’re falling to your death. It’s like living in a forest filled with trees that are a mile tall.

So to avoid dropping their babies to their deaths that way, their Aos Sí ancestors evolved (via magic?) pouches to carry the young. Perhaps evolution is slow and Fairies have yet to make the full switch from the birthing process we’re more familiar with? Hm.

Anyway. Can you name a real-life "flying” marsupial? How about sugar gliders? I think of sugar glider anatomy when I imagine that of Fairies.

Now, in my fanfics, I play along with the idea that Fairy reproductive organs mirror those of humans for the simple reason that everyone understands the concept and I didn’t want to pull anyone out of the story or have to stop and explain. But my official headcanon is still the marsupial thing.

A Fairy’s pouch (or “marsupium”) is not upward-facing like a cartoon kangaroo’s. It’s more of a hole, like that in a tree. Here’s a super quick sketch of Cosmo that I’m not up for coloring:

My anatomy’s kinda off because we’d want to make sure his hips are wide enough to support his weight, etc., but you get the idea. The entrance to the pouch can be pretty small - not much larger than a belly button - but the babies are pretty small too, so it works out.

Being [sort of] marsupials, a male Fairy of course has a couple of nipples in his pouch. However, these nipples produce only liquid magic- not milk. Nothing of actual nutritional value. Female fairies have pouches too, but they don’t have nipples in theirs. They just have breasts instead, for milk. I guess that makes sense. Milk nipples on breasts, magic ones in the pouch. Or, maybe female fairies do have magic-giving nipples in the pouch too, idk.

I’m thinking that Fairies can have one or two kids at a time, but perhaps only one baby fits in the pouch. So, Mom has a pouch too so she and Dad can both travel the clouds without the risk of dropping babies. Though I do like that idea about the armadillos almost always giving birth to four babies. Technically, the Aos Sí were made up of three different parts. Always giving birth to three babies, but then splitting apart so now one baby is left to be nourished by the Fairy self, one by the Anti-Fairy, and one by the Refract is an interesting theory, I think.

There’s really no good explanation for why male fairies give birth (as I assume the only reason it’s part of FOP canon is because it would be out of character for Wanda to run off when pregnant the way Cosmo did, or maybe there was some network rule at the time forbidding pregnant women on air- Dunno).

I really enjoyed “Fairly Odd Baby” and I love Poof, but I do wish “fairies are pregnant for a hundred years and Cosmo (or Wanda) was pregnant all this time” could have been a thing instead. Creatures that can live for thousands of years and yet are only pregnant for three months doesn’t seem right to me. Ah, well.

In Fairies, it’s the male who has the uteri. But Anti-Fairy reproduction is a bit closer to that of seahorses. It makes no sense for the female anti-fairy’s reproductive system to reflect that of someone they have no relation to. 

So, I figure that it’s the male anti-fairy who carries the pup for a short while (we’ll say thirteen days), and he then delivers its body to Mom’s pouch from his. This makes a lot more sense now that I know sugar glider pouches face forward. Before that I spent ages trying to wrap my head around Anti-Cosmo doing this while hanging upside-down with an upward-facing pouch, and the true meaning of this idea filled me with fear and confusion.

Anyhow, here is thirteen-day-old Foop:

The body isn’t “alive” in a manner of speaking, but it does actually crawl into Mom’s pouch the same way real-life marsupials do. Those back legs may be underdeveloped, but the kids have strong shoulders.

For several months - up until the next Friday the 13th - Mom will continue nourishing the baby. She’ll eventually give birth to it and the smoke that acts as its soul. When the pup’s body and lifesmoke unite, if my understanding of “Anti-Poof” is correct, then it’s officially “born”.

In real-life marsupials, the baby’s jaw isn’t developed enough at this young age to open and close its mouth. Until they are officially born, anti-fairies are the same way; pups are permanently locked on to the teat in their mother’s pouch. Fairy nymphs, however, are developed within their parent until the age of three months, and by the time they’re born, they can move their mouths just fine, and easily attach and release as necessary.

Pixie births are a different matter altogether due to Wolbachia pipientis and stuff, but I believe we’ve covered that enough in the past. Anti-pixie births are a bit more awkward since it’s supposed to be female antis who give birth. But, it seems to all work out.

Like the gliders, Seelie babies can’t thermoregulate (maintain their own body temperature). Fairies may be resilient creatures, but while they can’t die from sickness, they can die if their body temperature strays too far from the norm. Even as adults, Fairies who get too cold are at risk for diapause or even death.

So that’s the physiology overview! Obviously we can’t just infodump all of this in the fanfics, so it’s nice to have a Tumblr for things like that.

[haiyuta]

Honeymoon Night | WinWin

Group: Nct Member: WinWin/Sicheng Genre:smut, marriage, first-time, mutal masturbation, kissing, Requested: Yes Words:2.4K A/n: I really edited this so I hope you noticed. I’m human so I do make mistake I do make mistakes. This osn’t super smutty it’s more of a awkward first time lovers. I normally write super smutty but it was nice showing more emotional side to it.

Closing your eyes you recalled the last 4 hours. It was stressful time planning a whole wedding. It was all worth it for one of the best days of your life.

You’ll always remember taking those steps walking down the aisle looking at Sicheng beaming smile.

Realizing that you may be the luckiest person alive at be marrying Dong Sicheng. He was a perfect human in your opinion. A great boyfriend that you were lucky enough to snag. He was affectionate, kind and also understood you.

From having a Traditional/Chinese style wedding with him after much discussion. He wanted more of a Chinese wedding while you still kept your culture in it as well.

During the first dance he held your waist tight almost as if he was afraid to let go. Sicheng leaned down, his hands holding your hips in a firm grip.

Leaning towards your ear he whispered during the first dance “you look radiant in your dress” while you were cuddled into his lean chest.

Flustered with his complimented a smile graced you “You look rather dash in that suit.” Always feeling nervous and weird with him. He grinned at your cheesy comment holding you closer.

After the dance and such you went to bowing to his Chinese parents asking for honors and beautiful wishes. They gladly accepted as you got individual blessings from his family. Like good fortune, good health, lasting marriage and even great fertility.

Which you and Sicheng blushed at when they gave you the last blessing.

The older members of Nct stood by Sicheng side as his best men all looking handsome in there identical suits. Nct were practically family, thankfully the company let them come all the way for the wedding.

Taeyong looked especially happy when he was given exclusive rights as godfather/uncle. For a child not even thought of yet, but he was excited non the less.

Jaehyun took one of your bridesmaids home you remember correctly. You shook your head imagining the texts you will get from her soon.

Looking around the hotel room you were bunked in temporary honeymoon suite it had almost a apartment feel to it. Tomorrow morning you will be with Sicheng on a plane landing in Hawaii for your real honeymoon. The first day as Mrs. Dong.

A bottle or champagne was already chilling on the side of the bed. Glasses that read ‘Mrs. And Mr’ on it  You sighed staring at the gown that hung from the closet regretting how much it cost for only 4 hours of use.

Sicheng loved dark colors on you so you jazzed yourself up in some pretty yet not to revealing lingerie. It covered most of your body like a bikini and a nightie so it wasn’t to risky.

“Hey are you sleeping yet” Sicheng spoke up as he entered the room. You grinned at him sitting up “no I was thinking about how much fun we will have later” you said rather suggestively.

Catching the whiff on Sicheng intoxicating smell of his unique cologne scent.

Sicheng still had his white dress shirt rolled up and slacks on. His inky black hair pushed to the side.

As he threw his jacket to the side arm and put down some of the bags he got from his family.

Sicheng gave his 100 watt smile and jumped on to bed rocking it a little. “Look what Taeyong gave me” yoir husband said. He pulled out a decorated box of condoms with a little sticky note attached.

Taeyong clean handwriting showed.

~ 'For WinWin have a great time. Even I want to be a uncle. But let’s be safe here!!!’…from your thoughtful leader Taeyong.

You let out a small laugh “oh my gosh Taeyong is so embarrassing” you said. To be honest this was going to be your first time with Sicheng after years of dating you both decided after confessions of love. To wait till marriage.

Yeah it was kind of dorky in this day and age to wait till marriage. Sicheng seemed right on board with it claiming love could wait for him love should be built on emotions than physical. That never stopped the two of you from maybe sexting once in a while.

“You look good” Sicheng complimented you noticed how he tongued his cheek. His gaze seemed to gleam with want with a hint of excitement.

You leaned up next to your husband, a hand went touched light touch on your cheek. His hand was slighty callous.. A small grin lit his face.

Staring into his calm brown eyes you almost melted in his stare. “I want this to be perfect" he admitted his voice low. You nodded your lips inches from each other begging to meet each other. You were both eager and nervous at this act.

“I do to” you chuckled looking down at your beautiful lingerie

He pushed you in the bed in a soft manner as he laid above you his face a look of just pure want.

“I want you so bad” you whispered finding your voice and courage to break the awkward atmosphere. Sicheng gulped his Adams apple bobbing up and down.

Leaning down to swipe kisses off your lips. His hands roamed your body as he felt the lace of the lingerie. His long fingers touched your skin and waist. As he poked and felt your body.

Sicheng trapped your body with his legs trapping you. Making him the more dominate one in this situation.

“Beautiful” Sicheng said kissing down your neck leaving small kisses. “Gorgeous” he said getting closer towards your chest.

He looked up at small gleam in his eyes “can I” he asked for permission. You grinned “of course.” His fingers found there way under the lingerie on your breast.

He touched and played with your breast nub for a second he seemed so eager didn’t know what to do. He fumbled while he played with your chest. It was a cute clumsy but also quite pleasurable.

Sicheng finger tapped your bud of your nipple. You gasped as he pinched at little “should I stop” he asked worried his eyes searching for your approval. You shook your head because it felt too pleasurable for him to stop.

His fingers didn’t seem so interested when his hand went to your heat. His hand laid on the outside feeling the lace.

“This is so weird” Sicheng said, his lusty gaze connecting with yours. You were nervous about this act but Sicheng stare made you feel confident.

“I think people call this foreplay like getting us all hot and bothered if before sex” you told him.

His middle finger gently caressed your silt “wow its really wet” he mumbled almost amazed. Biting his lower lip and he kept eye contact with you.

You involuntary closed your eyes in pleasure.

“Sicheng” you moaned in pleasure. “I think I like lace more because of you” you peaked out to look at him. Sicheng had cute grin on his face.

“Am I doing good” he asked looking for a approval. You nodded a  moan slipping out as Sicheng gently played with you.

Sicheng bulge was growing in his slacks. He grabbed his dick moved it so it will be more comfortable. A nice outline was showing his erection.

Sicheng fingers playing with you through the lace of your panties a heat rising in your stomach. His long fingers so close yet the layer of fabric stopping from real contact.

“Stop teasing me please” you whined out in pleasure.

“Oh sorry” Sicheng apologized quickly drawing his hand back suddenly.  You threw your head back and let out a small laugh “its okay you don’t need to apologize during sex” you told him laughing at his apologetic attitude.

“Sex” Sicheng repeated the word after you, he had a lop sided grin. You looked at your husband curiosity “this isn’t sex this is making love” he said leaning closer to you. His eyes narrowed as he looked down at you.

He stole a kiss on your lips again, this kiss was held for a moment.  "Even though this isn’t the best and is to be fucking honest awkward as fuck" He breathed out. His cursing really took a affect you.

“It’s still making love, sex is pointless right now it’s love making” Sicheng said his tone so low his light brown eyes held a seriousness in them. “This is our first time together we will remember this for the rest of our lives”.

You were almost shocked at Sicheng deep words. His words were so passionate it almost made you shiver in your skin. It was like he flipped a switch with a more lustful gaze to match.

Sicheng took off his dress shirt popping the buttons one by one revealing his pale lean chest. Large hands went to yours entangling together in a tight hold. You were so close it felt like your pulses were in sync.

“I’m aching” Sicheng said his voice laced with want, as he looked down at his bulge. It looked painful how trapped it was in his suit pants.

Sicheng pushed down his pants taking out his dick, he strokes himself a couple of time, You felt yourself blush staring at his aching member. It was shiny with a wet liquid, you assumed was his precum.

“Can you touch me” Sicheng confessed in a breathy tone, he sounded so desperate. You glanced down at his aching dick. It was long and pale not as thick. It did stand straight with a slight curve to it.

His face was flushed with a light tint of red. You nodded and took your right hand to touch him. His one arm held onto the bed as his other creeped along your body.

It felt hard and warm as you gripped him, pumping your hand up and down in a lazy rhythm. Sicheng above you “ah fuck” he hissed the lucid words.

Mumbling a few Chinese curse words as you touched him.

You kept up the pace of your wrist as you jerked him off. Jerking his dick it was getting stiffer and wetter in your hand. His erection pulsed in your hand.

You felt a hand creep back and started to explore past your lingerie underwear. You smiled at how comfortable he was, exploring your heat his fingers expertly diving into your silt.

“Fuck I might” Sicheng whispered a low groan was pulled out of him. “We better stop before I do too” you moaned in pleasure as his long fingers slowed there pace. Pleasure was building up to also a orgasm which you didn’t want at this moment.

You both took your hands off each other, staring at your husband handsome yet flushed face. “Okay baby” Sicheng mumbled kissing your forehead. You heard him pull the condom out the foil.

He fumbled putting it on his dick nicely. You gently pulled off your panties not wanting them to get in the way.

Your husband took your hand once again wrapping his long fingers into yours. Leaning up to you face to face. His normal smiley face was replaced with a angsty want.

Sicheng left a small kiss on your lips. Your lips paused then you attacked each other again. Making out you tasted him feeling ever so erotic with the kissing.

For a quick second his tonuge melting into yours. You grabbed his dick and gently guided him towards your entrance. Helping him guide into you. You felt yourself clenched around him as he pushed into you.

A small smile graced his lips “it feels so good” he said in a amazed voice. Sicheng pushed his tip in lightly he sighed “tell me if I’m going to fast okay” he asked.

You gasped at the feeling, closing your eyes enjoying the tantalizing pleasure you were receiving. A moan slipped out of you as Sicheng rocked his hips into you.

At a steady pace he thrusted into you. “Fuck Sicheng” you groaned in frustration as your body heated up. The smell of sex was already filling the hotel room.

“So wet for me” he said,  continuing to finger your cilt. You held Sicheng neck close to you. Cuddling yourself into him as you guys held on the strings of sanity you had left.  Running your fingers through his hair as you felt the silky texture. As you lightly pulled on his hair.

He panted with pleasure and lifted up with legs so he could go deeper into you. “Fuck I’m going to” Sicheng said his voice full of lust.  

Sicheng stayed at a good pace with you. He pumped into you as you held him. He whispered little curse words to beautiful words in your ear. If you weren’t already having sex you would laugh.

A euphoric feeling filled your head as you went ridge for a second tightening your hold on Sicheng neck feeling his black hair through your fingers tips.

Sicheng didn’t stop he gave a few more hip thrust “fuck so tight” Sicheng moaned. Panting as he slowly drew out more thrusts. Feeling the warm liquid pulse through a plastic comdom.

“Fuck you feel so good” he moaned his hips still thrusting and twitching. You closed your eyes exhausted from the sex and the wedding.

Sicheng held you for a while, he was panting in your ear. The room was filled with pants and whispering to each other.

You waited a moment relaxing in his hold eyes closed tight. “Baby” Sicheng spoke up, pulling you close to his naked chest.

“Yeah” you mumbled your voice weak your head dizzy. “That was amazing” he kissing your head.

You were almost suprised you both weren’t freaked out of each others naked body. “well was it worth the wait” you asked leaning over to give his plump lips a kiss.

“Of course” Sicheng told you.

Sicheng gave a small smile and closed his eyes. “Are you ready to go to the best honeymoon” He asked. You nodded “to relax of the beach with you.”

“To see your body laying next to me every day” he added. You nodded.

“And faster we got to sleep the faster we can do it again” you said in a funny manner. Closing your eyes accepting sleep. “I can’t wait” Sicheng said laying his head closer toward yours.

[whichchick]

All About Pie

I make very, very good apple pie. My mother made very, very good apple pie, won prizes for it at the fair. I don't eat bought-pie because that's paying good money for craptacular pie when I can do better myself. Now, I take my pie way, way too seriously. I'm also pedantic, wordy, and a big fan of Winesap apples. However, much of my advice, once you wade through the pedantic part, will probably be of some use to you, even if you insist on using nonstandard apples. All other fruit pies are modifications of apple, and the modifications are at the very bottom of this document.

Making good pie is like being able to play the piano. It takes some practice. If you try to make pie three or four times, have three or four less-than-perfect pies, and then quit because it's "too difficult", that's like sitting down at a piano three or four times in your life and being disappointed that you can't play Chopin's Concerto No. 2 in F minor like a pro. D'oh.

The ingredient missing from most pie crust recipes is practice. Learning to make very good pie will probably take you around twenty not-so-perfect pies, the vast bulk of which will be edible. You will learn most effectively if you can make at least one pie per week.

Here's how I make apple pie (read entire set of directions and commentary first before attempting to make pie):

Preheat oven to 350.

For 1 crust (you need two, a top and a bottom, so you will be making this twice):

1.5 cups white flour (I use Gold Medal all purpose. Have never tried the 'for baking' kind.)

.5 cup lard (Prior to 2004, I used blue Crisco unflavored shortening.  In 2004, and again in 2007, Crisco was reformulated and it doesn’t work like it used to because trans-fats were what made it great.  Lard is predictable,behaves better than modern Crisco, and works unless you’re vegan or abstaining from pork.  If either of those apply, Crisco or similar is your best bet.)

half a teaspoon salt

Mash all the above together in a good-sized bowl using a fork or a pastry blender. Mash together well. You want something that looks rather like cornmeal and is all evenly mixed.

Add 3-4 Tablespoons ICE COLD WATER.

The cool water from your tap is not good enough. Please run a glass of water, add ice, and let it sit for ten minutes, then measure from that. Do NOT just use cool water from the tap. It makes a difference. I'm not kidding.

Start with the low end of the water and stir. Dough should just hold together in two or three big lumps when you've added the water. Stir it fifteen, twenty strokes in a 'round and round' pattern with a fork before deciding if it 'holds together' or not -- it holds together better with some stirring, so your initial assessment might be off.

If you add too much water, the dough will be too sticky. If you add too little water, the dough will be too fragile and won't hold together. This takes some practice and it varies depending on relative humidity, how much water's in your flour, etc. There is no way to fix the dough once you've added too much water. You also can't work the dough a whole lot or it will get tough, so don't overstir.

Er. I should mention that this is *not* a friendly pie dough. This is a melt-in-your-mouth pie dough that will impress eighty-year-old ladies from the heart of pie country. Said old ladies will tear up on having a bite and say, in their wavery old-lady voices, "I didn't think anyone still knew how to make crust like this." If you want friendly, easy pie crust, go somewhere else. This is not that. This is the OTHER kind of pie crust, the kind that led to people using inferior bought pie crust because they couldn't hack making this kind.

Turn out the dough, press into a flattened beef-patty shape with your fingers, and roll it out with your well-floured rolling pin. You do NOT get a second chance at this. If you screw the pooch and make some ovular thing that won't fit your pie tin, you are not permitted to wad it up and try again to roll a better circle. That will make pie crust like leather, and we do not wish to eat leather. Leather is bad.

Roll from the center to the edge. Do not try to roll across the whole thing, that is not good. Work from the center to the edge. Try for a good-sized, mostly round product.

Also: Forget the whole marble pastry surface or the ice-filled rolling pin. These things condense if properly chilled. Condensation adds water. Water is *bad* for sticking. Do not go that route. Gadgets do not make good pie crust. Practice makes good pie crust. Forget the gadgets and practice, practice, practice.

Once you've rolled it out, roll up the pie crust like a scroll of paper, using a flipper/turner to free it from the counter. Lift it up in 'scroll form' and unroll it over the pie tin. (This gets easier with practice.) Gently press the dough into the pie tin to make sure you got all the way to the corners. Patch any bare spots you might have with excess overhang.

Put pie tin (with bottom layer of dough) in fridge to keep it cold while you're working on the filling.

Peel 7 or 8 (depends on size) Stayman Winesap apples. These are round, unattractive, not-shiny apples with no shelf-appeal. They look like hell next to the shining Red Delicious, the glorious green Granny Smith, and the striped Gala apples. Don't worry. They might *look* like hell, but they don't taste that way at all. You can *sometimes* buy them in stores. I get mine from the local orchard. (I live in central Pennsylvania, arguably the best apple country in the world.) Winesaps ripen in October, about the middle of the month, and they store well for the winter, very suitable for xmas baking.

Slice the apples up for pie... this is more important than you think it is. You are aiming for uniform, NOT WEDGE SHAPED, flat pieces that are thin enough for you to just barely be able to see the knife blade through. If you can't see the knife blade when you're slicing, then you are slicing too thick. If the slices are thinner than 1/8", then you are slicing too thin. You want big, flat slices. You DO NOT want wedges and you DO NOT want little fiddley bits. Do big flat slices, turn the apple 1/4 turn, do big flat slices, etc. You will have leftover square cores with some pretty decent meat on 'em. This can't be helped. Do not cut the bits off and put them in your pie. The bits cook to mush and make a mushy pie. Mushy is bad.

Put the apple slices in a roomy bowl. In another, smallish bowl, mix 3/4 cup (Full disclosure: I personally like half a cup but most people think they like their apple pie sweeter than I do. In these directions, I compromised on 3/4 of a cup as an amount more in line with what people expect out of an apple pie. I use half a cup in my own pies.) of white sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 3 Tbsp. white flour all together so that it's well mixed. I use a fork for this.

Forget the whole cornstarch thing, cornstarch is for peach pie and cherry pie and berry pie. FLOUR is for apple pie. For very juicy apples, you may need more than 3 Tbsp. of flour, but you'll learn what 'very juicy' looks like with experience.

Dump the cinnamon-sugar-flour mix over the apple slices and GENTLY fold the apple slices over and over until they are coated. You do not stir roughly or you will break the nice, flat apple slices you worked so hard to cut. (Some breakage is inevitable, but try to minimize it.)

Remove pie pan from fridge. Put apple slices in pie pan by dumping half of them in there, arranging them with your fingers (to fill all spaces fully), and then repeating the process with the second half of the apple mixture. The fruit should dome slightly above the pie tin. Give the pie tin a gentle back-and-forth shake to settle the fruit.

Many people have 'air' baked into their apple pies because they do not take care. Use uniform, flat slices that pack well. Employ only Stayman Winesap apples (in a pinch, Granny Smith OR Rome will work, but neither is as good) for best results. Attempt to settle the apples ahead of time. Avoid the air-pie.

Dot the top of the fruit with four or five small pats of real butter. This adds richness to the filling.

Fix the second piece of pie crust and put it overtop of the pie Use the same "roll it up as a scroll, then airlift it over the pie tin and carefully unroll it" method that you employed so successfully to get the bottom part of the crust in the pie tin. No, I'm not being sarcastic. It works quite well, once you get the hang of it. Then, trim off the excess dough. Tuck the edges under and crimp with your fingers for a pretty fluted edge. (Again, this is a practice thing and you'll get better the more you do it.) Using a sharp knife, do a "plus" pattern (use two jabs for each 'arm' of the plus), turn the pie 45 degrees, and do another "plus" pattern using single jabs to divide the pie into eight slices while creating steam vents. That's probably confusing as hell. (N.B. The world will not end if you fail to vent your pie the way I vent my pie. I like my method and think it's worthy, but you can do what you like.)

I am of the opinion that doing little fruit cutouts and other dough artistry is not conducive to making good pie crust. If you can do that sort of foolishness with your pie crust, it isn't short enough and it won't be tender enough. Aim for just this side of 'impossibly fragile' and you'll have pastry that melts in your mouth.

Put the pie in oven, bake 40 to 50 minutes. Pie is done when crust is lightly browned, apples are bubbling (usually you can hear 'em), and pie smells good. It really does take 40 to 50 minutes.

Remove pie from oven. Apple pie filling and crust will get firmer if you allow the pie to cool completely.

Crumb-topped apple pie is for people who can't make decent pie crust.

Cherry pie: Use sour Montmorency pie cherries. You will need a generous four cups of pitted sour cherries. To the fruit, add 1.25 cups of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon almond flavoring, and 4 Tbsp. of cornstarch. Do not add red food coloring. You don't need it and it will make people think you used sorry-ass bought pie filling like a lamer.

Peach pie: Use peaches that are ripe and give gently to the touch. Dead ripe peaches are juicier with less shape and will make a sloppier, but still tasty, pie. Unripe peaches (firm to the touch) are unsatisfactory. You will need about 7 peaches, peeled and cut into reasonably skinny wedges. Add 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon almond flavoring, 2 Tbsp. flour, and 2 Tbsp. cornstarch to the peaches.

Berry pie: You will need a generous four cups of berries. Add sugar to taste, usually about a cup. All berries are juicy and will need 3 Tbsp. cornstarch, 3 Tbsp. flour to help settle them. A small amount of almond flavoring (1/4 teasp.) probably wouldn't hurt, but you won't need cinnamon. Berry pies (blackberry, blueberry, raspberry) usually boil over. Badly. The prudent baker puts a cookie sheet on the oven shelf underneath his or her berry pie.

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Beauty Advice To Look Your Best All The Time

What one individual thinks is gorgeous might not be to the following individual! That does not imply you should not make efforts to enhance your seems to be although. Read this text to study some ideas that may improve your magnificence.

Fill an empty pot or a tiny jar with the moisturizer of your alternative. This small and moveable container matches properly in your pocketbook, briefcase or desk drawer. Just put some moisturizer throughout your face whenever you suppose your pores and skin seems to be or feels dry.

For a quick-fix, hold an empty jar stuffed with face moisturizer in your purse or automotive. This moveable container can match into a handbag, automotive, work desk drawer or journey bag. As quickly as your pores and skin turns into dry or flaky, apply a small quantity of moisturizer to your face.

If you discover certainly one of your nail polishes beginning to get sticky and thick, you possibly can put some nail polish remover in it. Add solely a small quantity earlier than shaking completely. You will be capable of apply some extra layers of polish this manner.

Nail polish remover is ideal for when older nail polishes get thick and sticky. You ought to simply put slightly then put the lid again on and shake it up. This might depart you with one or two further coats of polish.

Before utilizing a self tanner, all the time exfoliate. Doing this will help you take away useless pores and skin and reveal clean, new pores and skin. The outcomes of your sunless tan will seem clean and extra even. This will authenticate your golden glow and even make it final for much longer.

To shield your hair from warmth harm, let it air dry as typically as attainable. When you might be utilizing a blow dryer mixed with a straightening or curling iron, you might be doing numerous harm to your hair and scalp. If it's essential to use your hair dryer, hold it on low warmth. This will protect your hair, conserving it silky smooth, and stopping it from turning into frizzy.

The scientific definition of magnificence is symmetry. Try to take care of your symmetry when striving for magnificence. Whether that is in making use of make up, or trimming a beard and or mustache, make sure that they're mirror photographs of one another on the left and proper sides.

Apply Vaseline to your eyebrows earlier than going to mattress. This will nourish your hair and result in shiny, healthy-looking brows. Be sure to not get vaseline on every other a part of your face, since it'd trigger your pores and skin to interrupt out.

Beauty is difficult. Beauty may be discovered in lots of issues. Maybe the bushes in your yard are lovely, and even your partner or associate. Keeping an open thoughts to magnificence means your coronary heart may be stuffed with heat everytime you discover it. Optimists that all the time see magnificence on this planet are usually among the many happiest of us.

Get rid of any hair that is in the way in which 24 hours earlier than you apply your faux tan. Whatever elimination system you like, make sure that you're happy with the outcomes and provides your pores and skin a little bit of time earlier than utilizing your tanning product. This will assist to make sure that the tan you apply is even and clean.

If you need your lips to look larger, put some white eyeshadow that has has a shimmer proper above the realm referred to as "cupid's bow" in the midst of your higher lip. The mild reflecting off the center of your higher lip creates the phantasm of a full higher lip.

Change your coiffure and hair shade to positively alter the look of your face. Your lower must be glossy and pretty lengthy - falling simply above shoulder size. Color across the face by high- or low-lights can body it. This will draw consideration to those facial options.

Go with a matte blush if you happen to're like most of us and have regular pores and skin. Shimmer blush causes zits and scars to really stand out. However, you may make your pores and skin look flawless with matte blushes, which cowl up blemishes higher.

An glorious methodology of clearing up your pores and skin for a low value is ingesting water. Water acts as a pure cleaning agent and washes toxins out of your physique, leading to clear and delightful pores and skin, all day lengthy.

Make positive that you simply wash all make-up brushes frequently. Wash them in heat water blended with slightly child shampoo, and work it by the bristles. Always rinse out all of the cleaning soap and be certain the brushes air dry. This retains make-up from build up within the bristles, whereas additionally eliminating acne-causing micro organism.

Drinking milk every day ought to turn out to be a vital a part of any magnificence routine you might be following. This product will assist to strengthen your bones through the course of your life. Milk has numerous protein and builds muscle mass. It can even provide help to keep a decrease weight. Milk is a simple approach to make your physique lovely.

Put a finger in your mouth and attempt to transfer the pores and skin from the within that will have gotten some lipstick on it. Doing it will take away lipstick from the internal elements of your lips - the place it's prone to do nothing however get smeared in your tooth - with out mussing the seen lipstick on the surface.

Beauty is commonly subjective to particular person tastes, however sure fundamentals are timeless truths. Because you've got gained some sensible information from this text, you need to use it to your profit.

Total magnificence is the sum of many alternative parts. Skin care can also be important to magnificence. Some individuals ignore their pores and skin, particularly males. If males paid some consideration to skincare, they might be stunned on the end result. Their look would enhance and their general outlook would change.

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