#death thinks she's hilarious and loves pomegranates

[words-writ-in-starlight]

please, tell me more about death and the gay barista. where does death get her hair done? why does death like iced chocolate? has death ever considered a netflix subscription?

oh, and one more: has death read the princess bride? does death like the princess bride?

Here are five headcanons about Death and Sephie the gay barista!  (…are they headcanons if it’s my own stuff?)

ONE

Sephie has never seen someone with hair like Death’s.  It’s as thick as sheep’s wool, but perfectly obedient, sleek curls that pile up around her shoulders like snowfall.  Hours of styling, even in a salon, could never reproduce it.  They’re sitting in one of Death’s gardens–phosphorestent blossoms cast an eerie blue-white light over the sleek black walls and the cataract of precious gems pouring into a false river of opal and lapis lazuli and sapphire–and Death’s head is in Sephie’s lap as she plays with the curls.  Sephie stretches one white lock out and it springs back, and Death opens an eye, smiling when she sees Sephie grinning.

“Is it so amusing?”

“Yes,” Sephie says, delighted.  She pulls out another curl and cocks her head as Death opens her other eye.  “Why don’t you dye it anymore?”

“Dye it?” Death repeats, blinking.  Sephie nods, and it takes a moment before her question seems to click in Death’s mind.  “Oh!”  Death laughs a little.  “No, I didn’t dye it.  What color did you like best?”

“The red was nice,” Sephie says, bemused.  Death smiles at her and closes her eyes, and Sephie watches as each hair begins to change, deep venous scarlet seeping through each strand from the scalp until her lap is full of riotous red. Death opens her eyes again as Sephie huffs out a breath of surprise and rakes her fingers through the newly colored mass.

“Do you like it better like this?  I can appear however I choose, this is simply,” Death gestures down at herself, “my preference.”

“I love it,” Sephie says, bending down to kiss Death’s hairline and reveling in the electrical shock of the contact.  “However you want to wear it.  Surprise me.”

TWO

“Where does the food come from?” Sephie asks, evaluating an apple.  It’s crisp and red and perfect, and she knows that when she bites into it, it will be sweet and delicious.  “Why do you even keep food here?”

“The fruit comes from my orchard,” Death says from her throne.  A bowl of pomegranate seeds like drops of blood frozen in crystal rests in her lap, and her fingertips are stained with their juice as she pops one at a time into her mouth.   “And I keep food here because I like it.  And because you like it.”

“You mean those trees actually grow fruit?” Sephie asks, startled.

“Of course.  The rest of the food, I do what I can.  My sister brings me gifts sometimes.  She knows I love Earth food.”

“You mean she knows you have a terrible sweet tooth,” Sephie says, pointing at Death with her apple, and Death smiles, holding out the shallow bowl of pomegranate seeds toward her.  Sephie returns the apple to a dish that she suspects might be solid diamond and walks forward, until Death can neatly pull her into her lap in place of the bowl.  “You can’t fool me,” Sephie says, reeling in the pomegranate seeds to pop a few into her mouth.  They burst cool and sparkling over her tongue.  “I served you iced chocolate every day for years.”

“I do love chocolate,” Death confirms, and stretches up to peck a kiss on Sephie’s lips.  It tastes like pomegranates.

THREE

Sephie doesn’t actually know how many rooms are in Death’s citadel, but then again, Sephie is dead, and has thus reached a state of Zen acceptance about all things.  So when she opens a door one morning and finds a library with shelves twenty feet high, she doesn’t ask a lot of questions.

Death finds her quite some time later, comfortably stretched on a reclining couch upholstered in emerald green with a small tower of books climbing beside her.  Slinking onto the couch beside her, Death coils catlike into the empty spaces left on the surface and insinuates her head onto Sephie’s belly, curls–amber gold today–spilling over them both.  Sephie giggles and laces one hand into Death’s curls, lowering her book.

“What are you reading?”

“I have no idea.  It’s called Resenting the Hero, it’s great.”  Sephie gestures around her at the library.  “What is this place?”

“My library,” Death says.  “I’ve only just added it.”

“Only just?”

Death shrugs against Sephie’s side.  “I never thought to add something purely for the sake of leisure before.  Sometimes spirits spend time in my gardens, or my orchards, but this…”  She looks up at Sephie through her lashes, almost shy.  “This is my own space.  And yours, of course.”

Sephie spends a few moments working very hard not to melt through the couch at that, then clears her throat and says, “Have you ever considered a theater room?”

“A…theater room?” Death says musingly.  “Would you like one?”

Sephie laughs.  “Well, it might be nice to watch a movie together.  You would like The Princess Bride–it’s a classic.”

“I shall look into it at once.”

FOUR

Sephie’s favorite room in the citadel is a cave–or rather, it seems like a cave.  The walls drip with rubies and topaz, garnet and carnelian and amber, the ceiling laden with stalactites, and the floor stacked with pillows in a deep bowl shape.  Bringing a light inside turns the jewels into leaping, frozen fire, and casts fractured glints and glitters across the pillows.

Death doesn’t begrudge her a thing, is more than willing to give Sephie anything she asks for, and when she learns of Sephie’s affection for the place, it begins to mysteriously fill itself with gifts.  Bouquets of glowing flowers from the gardens, blankets and cushions of a fineness that Sephie never saw in life, sweets and books and bowls of pomegranate seeds and apples and cherries.  Death is always shy, when she comes to the fire-crystal room, and insists firmly that it is vital that Sephie have her own space.

Death shouldn’t be so endearing.

But stretched on the floor of Sephie’s fire-crystal room, turning her hair different colors as Sephie feeds her pomegranate seeds, it’s quite undeniable.

FIVE

Death doesn’t sleep.  Sephie doesn’t need sleep, anymore, but Death doesn’t seem to be capable of it.  So Sephie is a little startled to find that Death keeps a bed chamber, well, if palely, lit and ornamented with the same pristine jewels as the rest of the citadel.  The bed is soft and comfortable, a canopied thing with blue and green jewels inlaid in the black stone corner posts, and piled deep with pillows, and the bedside table is stacked with books and one of the shallow bowls of fruit.  Sephie doesn’t need sleep anymore, but more than once she has taken a nap in Death’s bed, purely because it’s so pleasant, and she often wakes up to find Death curled up beside her, eyes open but breath steady and calm.

This is not one of those times.  Death, after a long series of hearings and judgments in her audience chamber, comes to find Sephie in a garden with her usual unerring efficiency.

“Come with me,” Death says, and Sephie��oh, of course Sephie does.

Curled up with her head on Death’s chest, Sephie feels the low crackle of lightning through her nerves, the unmistakable feeling of power from being close to Death.  Death’s hand is tracing Sephie’s jaw as she sorts through the books on the table with the other, and Sephie hums, a pleasant sound vibrating deep through her chest.

“Read to me,” Sephie commands, and Death laughs, the sound even more inhuman at close range, before pulling her hand back with a book.  It’s a plain paperback, with a black and red cover embossed with gold lettering.

“Have you read Sunshine yet?” Death asks, amused, and Sephie smiles.  “I did recommend it to you.”

“You did,” Sephie agrees, and nestles deeper into the pile of cushions  as she tucks an arm around Death’s waist.  Even skin-to-skin, Death has no heartbeat, and her chest only rises and falls so that she can speak, but Sephie has gotten past finding it strange–it is calm, soothing, a level of peace that Earth never offered.

Death kisses Sephie’s hair and opens the book.  “Part One,” she begins.  “It was a dumb thing to do, but it wasn’t that dumb.  There hadn’t been any trouble out at the lake in years…”

[waterrunstogether]

Rites of Passage in the Fifth World

I’ve been thinking lately about the absence of real rites of passage in modern “western culture”. A rite of passage is a sort of ritualized event (that may or may not be endorsed/organized by a community) in which a person is believed to exit from one stage of life and enter the next, usually from childhood to adulthood. Other than the humiliation of high school proms/frat hazing, or getting your driver’s license, or turning 21 and getting shitfaced, my culture in the United States has little to offer in the way of true rites of passage. 

The result is a population of confused, somewhat disillusioned children driving around and going to work or university and pretending to be adults while hopelessly stuck in the liminal space between youth and adulthood.

~ 20 year old me pretending to know what’s going on ~

I have thought about quinceañeras and baptisms, religious rites of passage commonly practiced still, but considering the traumatic experience that my parents’ organized religion was for me, I don’t believe now that my baptism was a helpful event facilitating my transition into maturity. I think it was a blindingly painful event whose toxicity I needed to overcome in what I now believe was the true rite of passage. 

I first dropped acid when I was traveling in Bulgaria. My partner was in her hometown across the country and I was visiting Plovdiv with a friend. We had just finished traveling the world, or at least Eurasia, meeting new faces and trying new things and taking wild risks in Thailand and Turkey and India and Malaysia, to name a few. I had also just escaped the cult I was born and raised in which had hammered into me from birth that my sexual and romantic orientation was an abomination, as a woman I was to obey men, God loved me and wanted me to fear him (that is to say, love = fear), the leaders of the church were to be obeyed and respected all the time (even if they were obviously wrong) and so on and so forth. It was an insane transition between being trapped in these religious handcuffs and learning that I could break free all along. In fact, I carried so much self hatred and internalized homophobia with me into my supposed new life that I didn’t know what to do with myself. Despite being outwardly happier than I had ever been before with a wonderful partner and community who truly loved and supported me for who I was, inwardly I was constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown due to all of the conflicting thoughts and beliefs I was carrying and creating within myself.

The experience of that first trip was an interesting one. Every step of the way my body seemed to pull me towards the letting go of all of the toxicity that was so thick and had built up like plaque in the arteries of my energetic being--yet, I remained me throughout the trip, at the end feeling somewhat empowered but not yet finished with the transformation.

A few months later I took psilocybin, AKA magic mushrooms, with my little brother on a rainy Summer day in D.C. The whole come up of the trip was talking to trees and observing the movements of leaves, running my fingers over the moss growing on the exposed, knotty roots of tree in front of our house. But at the end of the trip, something changed. Once again my body requested, begged me, to let go of the still-prevalent toxicity inside of me. My health was in rough shape, mentally and physically, and my body knew the culprit. But once more I felt I couldn’t let go just yet, it would be too much for me, I wasn’t ready. So I spent the entire come down and then some, maybe four hours, weeping uncontrollably on the basement floor.

The second time I dropped acid was yesterday, with my partner, here in Berlin. It changed everything.

During the come up I was taken aback by how strong the effect it had on me was. My partner, bless her heart, had taken a larger dose than me, yet felt no effect the entire time. Her tolerance has always been naturally higher than mine for every kind of intoxicating substance, and LSD was no exception. 

As time went on I came to realize that her high tolerance was incredibly fortunate for me and my trip. The initial come up was amusing, as flashes of white light began to fill up my eyes, closed and open; but very quickly I began to get paranoid, strange little thoughts about being set up and targeted running through my mind as my sense of self slowly began to dissipate, just nonsense that the ego conjures up to protect itself. But my partner’s calming reassurances that she loved me and that I was safe effectively calmed me down.

Once I began to enjoy the ride up, holding a half of a pomegranate and appreciating its beauty, touching a slice of orange and loving how soft it felt in my hands, admiring the fractals of color creating all kinds of geometric shapes on the walls and snow outside the window, I became comfortable with my loss of identity. At some point I realized that I didn’t even know my name, and I didn’t care, because it was irrelevant. All that was relevant was experience. 

Imagine experiencing and interacting with the world around you without the barrier of the thing that we are so used to that it’s difficult to think of it as a barrier at all: your concept of self. Ideas about names and races and gender and desire and anger and malice and hatred just made absolutely no sense whatsoever. In this state, all that made sense was goodness and beauty and love. All that I understood was harmony and mutually beneficial behavior. My preconceived notions about who I was and what that meant were being shattered and shredded before my very eyes, exposed for what they were: nonsense.

Once I plateaued and began to slowly come down after about four or five hours I was able to contemplate what these things meant, what they would mean for me going forward. I went into the bathroom around hour 7 and decided that it was time to look into the mirror.

Many people will tell you not to look into the mirror during an acid trip, that it’ll give you the dreaded “bad trip” and you’ll have a shit time. I completely disagree. If you are like me and need to come to terms with yourself through the wonderful, horrific, beautiful, terrifying experience that is an “ego death”, I’m afraid that you’ll have no choice but to look into the mirror at some point. 

So, I stared myself down in the mirror and admitted what I couldn’t admit for so long, due to being taught that I was essentially evil since the day I was born. I’d called myself a sinner, wicked, worthless, ugly, an abomination and just about every other mean word in the evangelical dictionary. But as I stood there looking at my body in the mirror, egoless and impartial, I said, “You have done and thought some cruel things to yourself for some time now. But you know what? You are a kind person. You are a wonderful person. You treat people with respect and love, you treat everyone you’ve ever met with so much empathy, so much caring. You love the truth, you love to be generous, you love to be a good friend. You must begin to treat yourself the same way. I know you’ve had so much hatred in your heart contaminating your energy for so long, but that is enough. That is enough. No more. I am a kind person. I am a kind person. I love you. Remember that night so long ago? Beneath the stars, where they submerged you in the baptismal water and tried to destroy you, saying these sacred waters would wash all your sins away, along with your fragile, meaningless identity? Well, they simply added more to your ego, a darker side. You built up so much negativity for so long. Well, look at you now. Your identity, all of the ideas and concepts that you’ve built up around who you really are to protect you from the hurt of Life, it’s all gone. Now you’re going to baptize yourself again. You’ll be truly reborn, this time dedicated not to destroying yourself for the sake of a religion, but dedicated to renewing and becoming and becoming and becoming.” As I looking into the mirror my silhouette became filled in with the velvet black of the night sky, full of bright stars.

I turned on the water and was baptized once again, by my own hands.

When I returned to the room I felt happier than I had ever felt in my life, light as air, free. I told several people about how much I love them and described my love for them in detail, not as this thing that’s an extension of my own ego, but my love for them was a little bit of energy that I had the honor of holding in me, in this body, and sharing between us for a time, for the wonderful events that we call our lives. I could actually see love. I understood that I was not all of the concepts I’ve built around myself, but an expression of energy in this space and time, connected to every other expression of energy in all of history, from the beginning and until the end. My matter, my body, was simply a vehicle for the energy, and would be recycled into new vehicles after I die. My energy would be transferred into new vehicles as well. That’s what we perceive as death: just a simple transfer of energy and recycling of matter. My ego would not live on, thankfully. My consciousness as conflated with ego would cease to exist with me. But the underlying animating force behind all things in the universe, the true source of consciousness, would never be destroyed or created, simply recycled again and again and again and again. Becoming and becoming and becoming and becoming.

The hilarious and bizarre world of reality is hilarious and bizarre. It’s so beautiful and mystical and wonderful and honestly, nothing I write here could ever explain how I experienced being alive in that sixteen hour trip. Words don’t convey it, words can’t convey it. Reality is visceral, experiential, impartial and impossible to quantify in something as crude as human language. 

All I know is that, today, I am a fundamentally changed person. I’d feared ego death for so long, feared that it would be too much, too painful. And it was so, so painful--but it was so worth it. I am happy and proud to exist, grateful for everything I have accomplished and can accomplish in this miraculous, tiny little vessel during this ephemeral event that is my life. I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow if tomorrow exists, and unleash all of my love on everyone who’ll have it. Love is the energy that unites us with our own bodies and the entire world around us. How lucky and strange it is to be anything at all.

May you have a peaceful day. The universe smiles upon you.

[bnhaimaginesandocs]

OK!! So I’ve been getting a lot of requests about my OCs and I decided I was gonna go ahead and start sharing them!! This is my Main OC, Ruby Sorin!! I also gave her some headcanons about her family and herself below and I hope you guys like her!!! Also here you go @just-maria

Also If you like them please let me know!!! It’s gonna be a long post ya’ll so General Headcanons are under the cut!!

TW: Mentions of Parental death briefly.

FAMILY HEADCANONS

Ruby is actually not from Japan; She is from Romania. But her father, who is one of the top support engineers in the country was offered his dream position to work with Tea Idaten as their main support engineer and he took it. Moving his youngest children with him at around the end of their middle school year (so about 14/15) and encouraged them to enroll in UA.

Their mother, Alessia Castillo-Sorin, passed away when Ruby and her triplets were around 8. She passed from ovarian cancer.

Before she passed, she was a retired side kick from one of the top hero agencies in Romania; her hero name was Shimmer.

Her father, Marcus Sorin, is Quirkless; As is her Three eldest brothers; Dimitri, Jullian and Luciano. 

She has 7 brothers. Only five of them are biological, her brothers Henric and Alfonso are adopted.

She’s the only girl in her family.

Her family is extremely tight knit and they all try to keep in contact with one another at least once a day. They have a family group chat. It gets a little difficult with the time zone differences but they make it work.

Most of her older brothers live in Romania still; some are scattered across Europe. Her second oldest brother; Luciano is a tattoo artist in Barcelona. The oldest twins; Dimitri and Jullian, are detectives in Bucharest who work along Henric and Alfonso’s hero agency.

Ruby is 1/3 of the Sorin Triplets. Her other Triplets are Lance and Leon; Leon is in Class 1-B and Lance is in the support course. The three of them are triple trouble and are extremely close with one another.

Her brothers visit Japan as often as possible to see their youngest siblings. There was at one point in time when they all showed up to the dorms to surprise the triplets. Their tears could have rivaled Izuku’s.

She grew up in a Pagan household!! She can read tarot cards insanely well and it’s something that’s helped her come up with her hero name. 

Out of all the older siblings; Ruby is closest to Luciano and Dimitri.

QUIRK HEADCANONS

Her Quirk is called Shine!! It was her mother’s quirk and she was so happy when she got it. Basically with Shine she can manipulate the light particles around her’s and other’s body! (so long as she is touching them; like holding onto their hand and it has to be skin on skin or it won’t work with another person.) due to this; Ruby’s skin seems to always have a luminescent glow around her skin that she can amp up or tone down. Her brothers like to call her a walking flashlight. 

With her quirk she can move faster than the average person, traveling at short, instantaneous bursts. She can only do this around 10-12 times. And it can only be to a predetermined location. It has been theorized by her and others that she could travel at the speed of light but she refuses to entertain the idea as it could rip apart every atom in her body.

She can also shoot light in concentrated beams from any point in her body. Mainly her hands and feet. She calls it her Lumi-Shoot. 

Her hero name is The Scarlet Witch; mainly because when she uses her lumi shot, it looks almost scarlet in color. Also because of her hair.

Due to her quirk’s main thing of being blinding enemies doesn’t mean Ruby is immune to the effects of the brightness; She actually has to have custom contacts made to help protect her eyes along with her contacts.

Out of all of her brothers; she was the only one to fully inherit her mothers’ quirk. Her brother Lance can only illuminate his hands which is useful for working support; Her brother Leon however inherited their maternal grandmother’s quirk which is manipulating water.

She considered using her mom’s hero name but decided against it. Opting to make her own.

GENERAL HEADCANONS

Ruby’s birthday is May 25th, making her and her brothers Gemini.

She Placed in the top 30 of her entrance exam. 

Her hair is extremely curly and unruly; she has a lot of trouble taming it and it sometimes looks like a “lion’s mane” as her brothers call it.

She is Bisexual and not scared to admit it. Her first crush when she came to UA was Uraraka; she literally couldn’t speak to her with out blushing and it was adorable. Her brothers didn’t let her live it down for a month.

She’s a naturally sweet and very warm person; the kind that you look at and think “oh they can’t possibly have a mean bone in their body” but actually Ruby is extremely sassy and sarcastic; she just tends to keep it to herself and her close friends more often than not. She finds it hilarious when people realize she isn’t as innocent as she seems. 

Also growing up with 7 brothers she learned how to stand up for herself pretty early on so she doesn’t take shit from anyone.

Her favorite colors are Green, Red and Blue. Specifically Emerald, Wine Red and Cobalt Blue.

Her nicknames from her family are Little Lion and Sunshine.

She has a little black cat named Salem and she loves him more than life itself. He moves into the dorms with her and becomes something of Class 1-A’s Mascot along with Koda’s bunny. 

She has Anxiety, Depression and PTSD (the last one mainly from the training camp incident where she was seriously injured); she’s on medication for anxiety and depression but meets with a counselor every other week for therapy.

She reads tarot cards on the side to make some pocket money, but she always gives them for free to her classmates. 

She’s Hellenistic Pagan specifically; a fact she somewhat keeps to herself, but will gladly discuss her religion with anyone if they broach the subject first. Her deities are Aphrodite, Persephone and Hades. She’s even let some people in the class see the altar she has set up in her room when they move into the dorms.

Her favorite teachers are Midnight, Eraserhead and Present Mic in that order. She loves Midnights confidence and fun loving attitude. With Mic it’s because he always makes an effort to help her. And with Eraserhead; it’s because he’s saved her life and also because she can tell he cares deeply for his students.

She’s typically with her brother’s most lunch periods in the support room since Lance is a workaholic and doesn’t know when to stop and take a break. 

Ruby actually gets along pretty well with the Bakusquad and the Dekusquad. Although she’s seen hanging out with the Bakusquad more often than not since she’s super close with Mina.

Her and Mina get along like a house on fire. And when those two are together they’re bound to get in trouble. She also gets along well with Aoyama, finding him to be smarter and more insightful than people really give him credit for. 

She has a small crush on Shinsou

And on Kaminari.

She’s having a dilemma someone help her. 

She and Kaminari also get along super well and she finds him to be hilarious. He also has the same taste in books as her. 

She finds Bakugou more funny than anything else and just laughs at him when he threatens to blow her up. She’s spent years dealing with Jullian, Bakugou is nothing.

She also likes Tokoyami a lot; she finds him to be intriguing.

She has a box full of Polaroid pictures that she took when everyone moved into the dorms and she typically takes a lot of them still. She also owns a record player with a crap ton of records she got from her mom and dad.

She loves vintage things and punk things so her wardrobe can go from cottage core to punk/emo there is no in between.

Her room is very cozy and always smelling of whatever incense she burned that day; most of the time it’s peach and sage. She also has a ton of fairy lights hanging around the room and it’s always just very soothing. She also has a lot of candles. Like a lot. She has a problem.

She smells like pomegranate a lot of the time due to her body spray and sometime really warm like sunlight. 

She’s scary good at Hero History and Hero Law. But she sucks absolute ass at Math.

I’ll add more to her soon!

PEOPLE I SHIP HER WITH

I typically ship her with Denki or Shinsou; Sometimes even as a poly ship.

But i’m open to shipping her with just about everyone.

But Mainly Denki and Shinsou. Because I just think they would be adorable together you know? Purple Emo Boy dating not one bu two Balls of Sunshine? Yes please. Sign me UP!

[differenttriumphdragon]

My Best Cookie Votes and Why: Round 1, Part 1

Mint Choco: While Orange is nice and all, she's ultimately a pretty flat character...and not just in the literal sense either. Minty, on the other hand, has an actual backstory, for starters, plus he's not an absolute dick to his closest friend like his opponent is. Plus, Mint's implied romance with Cocoa is infinitely more satisfying than the Citrus Love Triangle that they do absolutely nothing with. (As a side note, I find it hilarious that the very first matchup is literally just Orange Juice vs. Toothpaste.)

Sea Fairy: I like Tiger Lily and all, but literally her only purpose in canon seems to be to never get told what anything is, which is extremely frustrating on the part of the other Cookies and honestly hits way too close to home. That, and her major character arc with Princess is NEVER touched upon, while Sea Fairy presumably actually managed to reunite with Moonlight.

Pilot: This matchup was essentially Good, Loving (probably surrogate) Grandparent versus Awful, Neglectful, Irresponsible Grandparent who is confirmed to have attempted to alter her granddaughter's DNA in order to change her personality. So yeah.

Pink Choco: Neither of these Cookies really stand out at all. I am a fan of Pink's Magical Girl theming, though, and honestly I'd rather see her on stage than Carol. Also, Pink's design is leagues better.

Walnut: I'll admit, she's just more endearing to me for some reason. Her power is more interesting (and I actually understand how exactly it's supposed to work), and honestly the idea of a little detective with a teddy bear assistant is just adorable. I'm still mad about Angel, but that's not exactly HER fault, now is it?

Dark Choco: DC is a compelling fallen hero character who drives the entire story of Ovenbreak with his disappearance. White Choco Cookie is French, and that's about it. Also:

How can you not vote for him when he promises you such important lore? (Granted, he calls you out for being vain if you pick him. Hey, any lore is good lore, pal! Also, I have long hair I need to worry about too!)

Purple Yam: Honestly, the fact that he actually questions the bad writing sold me on voting for him. He's also a genuinely good character despite his only emotion being anger.

Firecracker: I absolutely love her 80s arcade aesthetic, even in spite of her being way too young to have ever been to an arcade in the 80s. She genuinely wants everyone to have fun, too. Also, Marshmallow got Flame Bat and Celestial Star locked up for her Trial.

Squid Ink: To be honest, this was one of the tougher choices. In the end, I decided that Inky needed more love after what they've been through, so they got the vote. Sorry, Fig.

Roguefort: Devsis has a really bad habit this list of putting far more interesting recent characters against old characters with nothing really to them. I mean, yeah, Ninja's mysterious and all, but you've done absolutely nothing with him since not even LINE, but the defunct game Ovenbreak 2! Other than maybe change his name from Ninjabread, anyway. Hell, Tiny Ghost is more interesting than him, but even then newer players wouldn't even know that, since the one throwaway line hinting at something more was in a Cookie Quest, which were removed from the game entirely over a year ago. Roguefort is more interesting by default.

Vampire: Can I be honest for a sec here? I hate Pancake with a passion. He deliberately makes himself seem cuter to get his way. Based on his interactions with Cream Puff, he's just as cruel as his big bro, if not as outwardly aggressive. No, Pancake relies on psychological manipulation to get everything he wants, and the worst part is IT'S FUCKING WORKING. As we speak, he's stealing a Magic Candy from Devil, from Kiwi...hell, he's even stealing it from Vampire! And now he's dominating the polls, adding insult to debilitating injury. He's not even fucking cute. Yeah, I said it.

Pistachio: Soda has absolutely no personality other than surfboard. Do I even need to say more?

Peppermint: DE could be SUCH a good villain if Devsis could decide what kind of villain she even is. Also if they remembered she was a major villain at all.

Lemon: I'll admit, I see a lot of myself in Lemon. Mostly in feeling artificial and having basically no friends, ever. I honestly think I'd be in a much worse place if I didn't have a brother. Whip could be great if they did anything with the White Swan/Black Swan dynamic he has with Skating Queen.

Pitaya: I've always had problems with the "You can only eat if you work for it" mentality. First of all, you need food to get energy to work, and if you aren't fed, then how are you going to work hard for food!? Second, what if you're disabled or otherwise can't work? Do you just starve to death, then? It just sounds awful!

Cream Puff: She's trying her best.

Kumiho: ...I honestly don't remember.

Pomegranate: A genuinely good villain who stole the show with her introduction. She could've easily been a Knight of Cerebus if the writers cared enough.

Cyborg: Blackberry abandoned a child relying on her protection to chase after a man who didn't remotely need her help. Also, she hates Devil. Also also, Cyborg is cool.

Hero: If you've read Hellfyre Speaks, you can probably guess why I personally picked Hero. I'm just surprised at the popular vote; it seemed to me like Herb was way more popular! But I guess not? Or at least not with early voters.

Werewolf: He's far more fleshed out than Gumball by far.

Devil: Have I ever actually explained why Devil is my favorite? Like, sure, he's an asshole, but he's the fun, ineffectual kind of asshole you actually wanna root for that you see in cartoons; like, in shows focused on a 'villain' character's scheming, usually with a naive idiot going along with it and a very-much-ignored voice of reason. Like in Ed, Edd, n' Eddy, or Evil Con Carne. Devil also has a flair for the dramatic, a knack for 'evil' schemes, and even the perfect foil to play off of! He'd be an absolute goldmine when it comes to the more lighthearted antics between acts, but Devsis is apparently content to just haul up gravel.

Knight: I'll be honest, I saw Alchemist and immediately clicked the other Cookie without looking who it was. But this isn't a post about her, so let's talk about Knight. First off, he'd be the perfect antagonist to Devil; Devil goes full ham when acting out an 'evil' plan, while Knight takes everything WAY too seriously. He adores Princess Cookie but doesn't know jack shit about her, which juxtaposed with Princess's nonchalant rebuttals of everything he claims about her makes it hilarious in a kind of pathetic way. (Ex. Knight claiming that Princess would probably never eat Jam again, then Princess replying she could totally go for some right now to the exact same question.) He's delusional in a way that you'd feel bad for him if he wasn't so over-the-top about it, and yet at the same time he does have skills that match up with his headcanon of how things work, just not the reputation.

Matcha: Seems like the person who'd play both sides for her amusement. I'd keep an eye on her.

[profanityfairchapbookunb]

A Dyke Named Lilith & Some Actual Blasphemy

And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. – King James Bible Genesis 1:27, 1611 Adam said: “You lie beneath me.” And Lilith said: “You lie beneath me. We are both equal, for both of us are from the Earth.” – Alphabet of Ben Sira 23a-b, circa 1000 [Corrective rape] is now used more broadly to refer to the rape of any member of a group that does not conform to gender norms or heterosexuality when the motive of the perpetrator is to “correct” the individual. – Sarah Doan-Minh, Hastings Women’s Law Journal 2019 *** The original sin had very little to do with apples. And I don’t mean that it was a pomegranate, like history nerds on the Internet will say to prove God isn’t real or whatever. God is real. And on the day that #MeToo was trending across Eden, He said, “But Adam has so much potential,” and cleared him of all charges. I lost the title of “original woman” to some doe eyed, goody two shoes named Eve. She was made from Adam’s rib, so she owed him her life. That’s why she was supposed to be better at obeying him. Better than me, specifically. But that’s just what happens when you’re made from the same dirt as the first man, I guess. Equality meant nothing to Adam. Patriarchy starts early in this story, and we all know what men high on patriarchy think sex should be like. I left Adam as soon I realized that God didn’t put the word, “No,” in his vocabulary. The Angels tried to bring me back and brought back a rumour that I ate babies instead. Angels are gossipy bitches. When Eve first arrived on the scene, I probably should have felt sorry for her. Making her out of Adam’s rib was a filthy trick. But, even though I watched her, over and over, trying to get his hands off her hips, I told myself she could do better. I heard her squealing “No!” in that vaguely polite voice men use to justify their lies, “I thought you meant, ‘Yes!’” so many times and still told myself she was an idiot. That if she really felt scared, she could just leave him, like I did. It was her own fault for staying, I told myself. See, I wasn’t really hip on the feminist theory until the feminists started calling me an icon. No, I used to hate on Eve. A lot. Lucifer and I would creep on her and Adam some nights. We’d lounge in the Tree of Knowledge, passing a joint, talking about how overrated they were between blowing smoke and blowing each other. I was always complaining about Eve. Her ass was too round, her tits were too perky, her skin was too smooth, her build was too tiny. Usually, Lucifer would just smile and nod. But there was one evening that was different. “Y’know, Lily,” Lucifer said. There was slowness in his voice like his words were swimming through the smoke to get out of his mouth. Really, his words were swimming through his hair. The man had a lot of coarse blond hair, and never seemed to care if it fell in his face. “What, Lucy?” I growled. Lucifer glared at me out of the corner of his eye as he passed me the joint. I raised an accusing eyebrow at him from behind my wavy brunette bangs. He sighed. He looked back to the gap in the branches we were peering down through. “You got the hots for Eve or what, Lilith?” I coughed on the smoke that was tickling the back of my throat. “Little Miss Perfect? You’re out of your mind.” I practically threw the joint back at him. The fallen angel chuckled and took a deep drag. I squirmed on the hefty branch I was perched on. I kept my glare as steady as I could. When your best friend is a sass master and King of Hell, you don’t give him any clues he might be right about anything, ever. Especially not this. “Who the fuck do you think you are, saying some shit like that?” I said, overcompensating. He grinned. The sharp corners of his mouth nearly pierced his ears. “I’m the asshole who scares The Big Man upstairs. I say what I want.” He dramatically brought the joint towards his lips like he was in one of those French movies. There it was; the sass. I snatched the joint from him before he could breathe in. “Hey!” he whined. “You know what I mean,” I said. “Okay, Lilith, come on,” Lucifer said, holding out an open hand. I sneered and slapped the joint back into his palm. He looked me right in the eyes as he blew the smoke into my face. My sneer became a grimace. He laughed. “You’re obviously obsessed with Eve, Lilith. You never stop staring at her, you never shut up about her…” “Which means I’m in love with her? Get over yourself.” I reached for the joint, but Lucifer’s hand dodged mine. He held it above his lazy body with a delicately bent wrist. “I’m not talking love. I’m talking obsession. More to do with Asmodeus than The G Man.” “You think I want to fuck Eve?” Lucifer gave a toothy grin, licking his lips in a pure mockery of seduction. “Don’t you? Don’t you just wanna have her all to yourself for a night? It could be fun, like that orgy you have with the Gorgon sisters and Perseus in Greece. Or maybe something more sensual, like what you have with Donatello in the Renaissance. Something kinky, maybe, like the fling with Mary Shelley from the 1800s. Or maybe…” He brings a thin finger to his cheek and gazes at me with a doe eyed expression that looks as disturbing on a demon as you probably think it would. “Maybe there’s a reason you used the L word. Maybe you want something more special with Eve? Something long term? Maybe… a commitment?” “Shut up!” The shout barely made it out before Lucifer pressed a hand to my mouth. He glanced cautiously to the space between the leaves. I shook my face free from his grasp and, scowling, looked as well. I realized my mistake. I caught a glimpse of Eve glancing with innocent intrigue towards the Tree, just before Adam demanded her attention again with a firm grip on her shoulder. His face was more suspicious as he looked back in our direction before walking away with Eve in tow. I looked at Lucifer who was, to my surprise, laughing silently. I raised an eyebrow. He leaned in to whisper, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t Shakespeare me before he’s even been born yet.” “But am I wrong? Why would you care so much if there wasn’t something you wanted? Don’t you want her? All to yourself, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do you part?” He motioned a hand to his heart as he recounted his irritably dramatic parody. I rolled my eyes and pursed my lips as I looked back towards the naked figures below in the Garden. The evening light was dim, but Eve’s skin glowed with a disturbing perfection. I told myself it was disturbing, and, yet, there was something about that kind of visual softness that made me wonder about her physical softness that made me wonder about— Lucifer stumbled slowly to his feet, balancing on a branch as lanky as himself, and motioned for me to follow. “Tell you what,” he said. His voice seemed more sincere than before. We slithered between the branches and made our way down the trunk and out of the Garden for the night. As we did, he made his suggestion. “Why don’t you talk to her? See if she ‘sparks joy’. And if she doesn’t, well, that’s that.” “You want me to talk to her?” I scoffed. But then, after a moment, as we returned to the Gates of Hell, I thought about what he’d said. Pausing to give Cerberus a scratch behind the ear just inside the Gate, I asked, “How?” Lucifer’s eyes glimmered with Hellfire and mischief. He curled a finger towards me, urging me to hurry up, as we made our way to the white picketed lawn and up the driveway to the quaint little house. Lucifer loved making Hell look like a nuclear family lived there. It made the real nuclear families that lived there, in the River of Fire, feel uncomfortable. That was the point. That day our home had a charred wooden “Welcome” sign on the door, and a picture window that overlooked the riverbank brimming and bubbling with damned souls. Lucifer hung his keys on the hook by the door and sashayed from the entryway into the open concept kitchen. Swinging the fridge open, gesturing towards the crisper drawer near the bottom, he said, “Pick your poison.” Lucifer had this theory that fruit could do anything. He won’t admit it to me, but he’s probably responsible for vegans. Anyway, I snorted condescendingly at first. But the more I looked at the bright, fresh produce, the more I wondered if it was worth a shot. Lucifer must have seen the shift in my expression. He walked away, leaving the fridge open. “That’s my Lily!” he called over his shoulder. “Lilith.” I retorted. Then I bent down to see what we had. It had to be a peach. Eve wouldn’t get it, obviously, there was no cell service in Eden. But there was in Hell, and in Hell we sexted with enough desperate and horny 21st century college seniors to know that this would be hilarious in 6000 years. I smirked, thinking about how fun it was going to be to tell Lucifer I gave Eve the butt emoji. But picking a fruit to seduce her with was the easy part. Getting to talk to Eve, that would be harder. Eve was sometimes near the Tree of Knowledge, but rarely alone. Adam would sometimes be with her, but she was more often accompanied by a swan or wolf or some other creature. The animals of Eden were dangerous. In the age of Genesis, they were God’s most loyal disciples. An outsider might see them as harmless and innocent but, let me tell you, every bug in that Garden was up to something. And that something was usually to keep Eve from poking her nose around the Tree. Left to her own devices, Eve might explore every inch of Eden, a sense of curiosity that she probably passed down to women like Alice and Dorothy. That’s what the animals were for. Eve would follow them away from trouble, skipping light on her nimble feet, to safety and obliviousness. Eve trusted the animals. It was late afternoon one day when I saw Adam and Eve dozing off in the pale light a few trees down, heads resting on the laps of lions. The lions appeared to be falling asleep, but their ears were still perked up. I waited. And as I waited, unmoving, I watched the sun begin to set and the muscles in the lions’ ears relaxed. This was my chance. I ascended the Tree of Knowledge, curving my long spine side to side. I folded my limbs into myself and grew soft scales that wrapped around the peach in what was once my hand. I extended the fruit towards the Earth as I dangled from the lowest branch. I flicked Eve’s name off the tip of my tongue. “Eeeeeeeve,” I hissed softly. “Eeeeeeeve.” The woman stirred. Her eyelids fluttered. At first, she seemed to be going back to sleep. Then she shook herself awake, eyes widening as she saw me. She gasped and I said, “Sssssshhh.” She looked reluctant and moved as though she was going to wake Adam. “Don’t!” I said. I let my true voice slip out for only a moment but assured myself she was too dull to notice. “Snake?” she said softly. She pushed herself to her feet and began tiptoeing through lions’ paws towards me. “Yesssss?” I said, drawing out the S for as long as I could. “Snake, I haven’t seen you in a while, I thought you left with Lu—” Eve raised an eyebrow. There was an expression in her that I hadn’t seen before at the distances I’ve watched her. This wasn’t an expression of curiosity. It was one of intelligence. “You aren’t Snake, are you?” she said. “Of coursssssse IIIII—” That look. That suspicion I didn’t know she was capable of. I was caught. I released the grasp my tail had wrapped around the branch and leapt to the ground, feet first, flesh taking the place of scales. My thick curls fell around my face as I landed, fist clenched around the fruit in my hand. The juice dripped from my fingers. Eve tilted her head. The suspicion in her eyes softened and she reached her hand towards me, slow and steady. “Who are you?” she whispered. I stepped back quickly. My heel hit a root, but I kept my pain to myself. “Don’t touch me,” I hissed. I hadn’t completely shaken the snake voice yet. Eve lowered her hand and nodded. “Okay. I won’t,” she said. Her compliance made me angry. “You think you’re perfect, don’t you?” I growled. Eve’s eyes widened, but she didn’t look offended. Only confused. This made me angry, too. “You think that because you’re so gentle and agreeable and you’ll do anything anyone says that you’re perfect. You think that you deserve this, don’t you? You deserve to be the ‘original woman’ more than me. Well that’s just fine. You can have Adam, you can have God, you can have the perfect life with the perfect family in the perfect Garden. But not all of us want that, okay? Not all of us want what you have. Not all of us are jea—why are you just staring at me?!” I could feel myself heaving for each furious breath. Eve stood facing me, breathing more calmly, but her chest still rose and fell in synch with mine. The silence was unbearable, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. At last, she did. “Lilith,” she said. “Are you…? You’re Lilith.” I scoffed. “So, he mentioned me, huh?” Eve’s eyes seemed locked on mine, no matter how hard I tried to shake her gaze. Looking up, down, around, every time I glanced back, she was still there staring. “Not that you were beautiful,” she said. I glared at her. “Don’t make fun of me.” “I’m not,” she said. She didn’t insist, as though she knew she didn’t need to. “They said you were a demon, but your hair, your skin, your breast… They’re so much like mine, yet somehow more stunning.” She broke eye contact with me to look me up and down. “What’s that?” She pointed at the remnants of the peach. I looked down at the crushed fruit. I frowned at the exposed pit in my fingers. “It’s a peach, duh,” I said. “I see,” said Eve. “Is that what grows on this tree?” She glanced at the Tree of Knowledge behind me. I let my head fall back to look up at the leaves. The branches were bare of fruit. “Nothing grows on this tree,” I said. “Just leaves and bark.” When I looked back at Eve she seemed confused. “But the Lord said not to eat the fruit—” I laughed. “Your ‘Lord’ lies to you all the time,” I said. “‘Thou shalt not eat the fruit of this tree’ really means ‘Thou shalt not associate with the whore and devil who hang out there’.” Eve blinked. “You? But why? Why would He say that about you? Why would He call you such things?” “Why do you think?” “Why are you here?” Eve asked abruptly. “I thought that you had left the Garden.” She took a small step towards me. “I thought that you and Adam didn’t get along, so you decided to walk your own path.” I stepped backwards again, closer to the Tree, my spine leaning against the trunk. “Is that what they told you?” I caught myself looking past Eve to Adam’s sleeping body in the distance. I hadn’t been this close to him in a long time. I pushed the feelings of terror and regret and rage deep down into the pit of my stomach where they could storm without me. My attention was drawn out of my own thoughts when Eve whispered, “I’m sorry.” “What?” I said. There was a solemn, knowing look on her face. “He hurt you, didn’t he?” My mouth fell open and I stuttered. “What makes you think…?” “The way you look at him,” She took another half step towards me. She lifted her arms and asked with her eyes. “It’s how I wish I could look at him, if no one was watching.” After a moment, in some spur of poor or good or some kind of judgement, I nodded. She leaned in and hugged me. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, into the crook of my neck. “I’m sorry that he did it.” My body shook. The feelings in my stomach had spread to my heart and were coursing through my veins. Terror, regret, rage… and sadness. My body shook as it tried to understand what it was feeling. I felt Eve gripping me tighter, as though to keep me from shaking myself into pieces. I felt her chest move as she breathed. I let myself sink into Eve’s arms, feeling us breath together, and I cried. Eve pulled away. I felt myself leaning towards her body to try and keep the feeling of us breathing together on my skin. But she kept her hands on my shoulders, and, for now, that felt like enough. We stared at each other for a moment. Eve smiled gently. I let the last of my tears fall silently down my still face. “I’m glad you came to me, Lilith,” she said. “I understand that kind of pain can be hard to carry alone. I’m glad you confided in me.” I looked at her sincere expression and I felt comfort. But it wasn’t alone. There was another feeling. Guilt. I didn’t come here to confide in her. I didn’t come here with pure intentions at all. Eve interrupted my thoughts, chuckling. “The truth is, I thought you were here to tempt me,” she said. “Tempt you?” I laughed. “Why would you think I was here to tempt you?” Eve smiled. “Well,” she said, “there is the fruit, and the Tree, and—” “Well,” I said, “if I was here to tempt you—hypothetically—what would you say to me?” My eyes darted away from her. I tried to hide my shame. “Would you get pissed and tell your God to smite me or whatever?” I joked. “No,” Eve said sternly. I looked back at her and saw that her expression was just as serious. I realized I had seen her face go through more emotions in this moment than in an eternity watching her in the Garden. “No, I wouldn’t. You know why?” She took my hand, pit, and all, and lifted it to her face. She leaned her lips toward my index finger and whispered, “May I?” I nodded, and she kissed the juices on my flesh. “Because I trust you, Lilith.” “You shouldn’t,” I replied automatically. “Why not?” Eve asked. “You are the first in the Garden to show me fear. That kind of vulnerability is courageous, and genuine, and unusual, in a place like this. You are the first in the Garden to show me that you don’t believe in Adam’s perfection. I thought I was the only one. I thought I was crazy. But, Lilith, if he did to you anything like what he’s done to me…” She averted her eyes. Another emotion I hadn’t seen in her before. Sadness. A sadness I knew myself. “Run away with me,” I blurted out. I don’t know what came over me. I felt as shocked as she looked at my words. But I couldn’t stop. “Run away with me, Eve. We can get away from all this. Together. No Adam, or God, or even Lucifer—that annoying bastard is my best friend, but I’d leave him in a heartbeat just to get away from… everything… with you.” She stared blankly at me, and, for once, I couldn’t read her. I felt the tears coming back. “You understand me, Eve. You understand me like no one has, like no one will. I live my whole life at the same time, Eve, I can see it all. Every person ever born, from the Creation to the Rapture and I just know… you’re the only one who will ever understand me.” Still, she was silent. I saw her eyes glisten with tears for just a second before she leaned in and hugged me again. “I’m sorry, Lilith,” she said. “You are so much more than I could have imagined.” The breath of her words felt like daggers on my neck that stabbed through to my heart. I knew what was coming was bad. I knew I wouldn’t want to hear it. “Lilith, you’re—” “Just say it already,” I sobbed. I tried to force a voice of anger, but it came out sounding pathetic. But Eve didn’t laugh or make fun of me. She simply said, “I love Adam, Lilith.” She nuzzled her face deeper into my neck. For a moment I hoped I misheard, that she would stay there forever, but then, “I can’t leave him,” she said. “I won’t tell him you were here. I’ll—” I placed my hands on her chest and pushed her away. “I don’t care what you tell him,” I said. I refused to look at her face. I couldn’t predict what I’d do if I looked at her face. “Just go.” “Okay,” said Eve, still standing there. “I will, but will you be alright—?” “Go!” I shouted. I didn’t wait for the sound of the lions’ roars as they awoke, or Adam’s shouting as he ran towards the Tree. I swung around the trunk and folded in on myself, hoping that I could fold in far enough to disappear. But I didn’t. I just turned into a snake again. So, with disappearing off the table, I slithered up the Tree and across the branches. I left the Garden and through the Gates of Hell, leaving Cerberus to whimper for pets as I passed. I ignored the screams from the River and burst through the door of the house with the white picket fence, my emerging legs still partially covered in scales. Lucifer was laying on the ugliest couch, in a black satin robe, reading a 1960s edition of Playboy, circling the names of article writers whose souls he would collect. He glanced up at me, twirling his ballpoint pen between his fingers. “How’d it go?” he asked in a sing song voice. I stormed past him to the stairs, still shedding scales as I marched up to my room. “Fuck off,” I said. “Okay,” he said nonchalantly, looking back at his magazine. I heard him shuffle to his feet shortly after I reached the second floor. Before I could slam my bedroom door, he called up to me, “Lily! Lily, I know you’re moping, but do you know if we have any apples?”

Alistair J. Cusak

[reblogthiscrapkay]

The Myth of Persephone in “Hades: Lord Of The Dead” by George O’Connor

This was a fun one. I heard about this comic series by George O’Connor from my death friend who mentioned specifically how Persephone has a bunch of agency and it definitely delivered. I highly recommend it. 

You can’t really tell from my terrible pictures but the pomegranate in Persephone’s hand is foil and shiny.I was unsure about the art at first but I ended up loving it (even if I am kind of hardcore on the “Persephone has reddish or brownish hair” concept).

As I sometimees do, I read the author’s note at the back first and George O’Connor talks about how he read a buch of versions of the myth of Persephone and was annoyed by how she’s barely in her own story. SAME. 

If anything my one complaint about this comic is that it probably should have been called “Persephone: Queen of the Underworld” since she’s kind of the main character.

The back also had these character profiles. Note how it mentions Hades’ name of “Dis Pater” which means Rich Father which is basically Sugar Daddy.

I like the last note about how “Persephone” is a less popular name.

There was also a question guide I meant to take a picture of that was kind of hilarious. It had stuff like, “Is there a better way Hades could have approached Persephone.” I mean, yeah.

I’m with Demeter on this one. Apollo is bad news.

Hades is so awkward. At first he’s very blunt and matter-of-fact but then when they spend more time together he gets more shy and mushy.

Persephone realizes that in the Underworld she has freedom and she uses that freedom to go through her goth phase and adopt a badass name. I’m actually okay with this because she clearly did it because she wanted to and not through any influence of Hades.

Hades has this great moment where he waxes poetic on the paradox of the Underworld having all the jewels of the world which man cannot use by the get to the Underworld. Then he compliments her and she makes a face that shows she’s into it..

This is just really cute, okay.

I love Demeter attacking Zeus with a golden scythe and no one really caring. From left to right I think the gods are Artemis, Helios maybe, Hera, Hephaestus, Poseidon, Hermes, Aphrodite, Athena, Apollo, Ares.

This really shows me that O’Connor did the research. In the myth canon, Hecate and Hermes have a kind of thing. Yes, this is very much like the funny jock being into the weird girl.

Yes! Go, Seph!

Here’s the cool different thing about this comic. Hades did contemplate offering her a pomegranate earlier but decided not to, hoping instead that she would chose to be with him because she likes him. So instead, this is how the agreement comes about. Persephone decides.

Then when she gets down there again, she eats the seeds to make sure it sticks and she immediately starts Underworld reform. Excellent.

CUTE. I have stared at this for four hours....

Anyway, love this one. Go read it.

[teashadephoenix]

11 Questions

I got tagged by @pomegranate-belle <3 I'm sorry this took for fucking ever?!!??

I’ll tag @lioness--hart @fox-in-the-library and @whitegodiva if you guys want to do it? And anybody else, obvi <3

1. How long have you been writing?

Actually sitting down to type stories out? Eight years old. I've been making shit up since I could talk. I have it on good authority I am entertaining to listen to.

2. What are the major themes of your current wip(s)? LONG ANSWER

omg I really dont know. I spent several hours over several days banging on this question in my head both in front of the computer and away from it only to come to the horrified realisation that I Don't Know. *gay panic*

I know the things I like to write about. I like to write about free exchange of culture, of mutual respect and fraternity with your fellow humans (which leads to themes of unity, unconditional love not only of people but of the world, and the gray area of what it means to protect those things without giving in to hate, indifference and intolerance. THE GRAY AREA IS WHERE I THRIVE.)

I like to write about intergenerational relationships (which leads to themes of obsolescence, changing of the guard, and how people, in general, not individuals, never really change. Like, there's For a Good Time graffiti on the walls at Pompeii. That is HILARIOUS.)

I write a lot about family, both born and found. (Everybody has a place and everybody is loved.) I write about mental illness and being queer (which all by itself leads to themes of not knowing your place in the world even if you have one. Frequently comes up against the previously mentioned theme)

So yeah. I don't know. My big WIP, the Aalee Rise series, is about a young woman on the cusp of adulthood going out into the world for the first time. It's her idealism vs reality. The other main characters in that cast are all foils re: various facets of societal structure and ideologies. One challenges her idea of government, another her idea of religion. She falls in love, her loyalties to her brother and parents are tested, she makes mistakes, she fights monsters and saves the world. A lot.

tldr; It's my sandbox and I just wanted to build castles in it. I don't really know if the castles will mean anything when I'm done. I hope they do.

3. What do you want people to take away from your story once they’ve read it?

My greatest ambition is that I could ever write a hero as beloved as the heroes I read about growing up, figures that reminds not to give up hope, to get back up when we're down, that the dark times ahead of us will come to pass.

At best, if I've done that, I'll be ecstatic and satisfied.

At worst, as long as you had a good time, if you didn't throw the book across the room in disgust, I'll take it.

4. Would you be excited if people write fanfiction about your wip(s)?

YAAAAS. I would literally never read it because Im terrified of accidentally absorbing someone's ideas and making them my own bc Christ alive that's a legal nightmare, but yes that would make my life.

And you can have my firstborn if you send me fanart.

5. What’s your go-to writing beverage?

Tea. Really strong and sweet. I make a fresh quart each morning and usually go through it by the end of day.

6. Who is your favorite oc? Tell me about them!

OMG ALL OF MY CHILDREN ARE PRECIOUS. (it's Aalee.)

Aalee Dering is the eighteen-year-old protagonist of my Aalee Rise series.  When we meet her in volume one (Worldwalk) she and her twin brother are setting off on their coming-of-age journey around the country. Her people, the Noruahai, have defended humanity for generations from unearthly creatures called asmic, and if she wants to become a licensed Marshal like her famous mother (and wow, she really, really does) she'll have to prove herself on her Worldwalk.

Aalee thinks with her heart first and always. She loves beautiful things, and all things are beautiful to her. She's quick to cry and struggles with anger, as well as distraction; she has trouble keeping focus. Good for getting into trouble. Not so good when it comes to being a responsible adult.

It would probably be easier if she wasn't of two minds on every single decision she has to make. She empathises with everyone, which can be paralysing-- how can she fight someone whose point of view she gets?

7. Do you feel that mistakes are important learning tools in the writing journey?

Mistakes are learning tools of life, darling. In writing they generally aren't the types that will destroy friendships, health, financial status, etc, which means they're generally easier to bounce back from. Unless you commit career suicide in some way...

8. Rank your ocs by their capability in a footchase (either running after or from smth, your choice)

1. Fall from the Aalee Rise series. He's a complicated human. Without getting into the context of the world he's from, he's hard to explain; but the short version is he's half-ghost so he can basically turn himself into the wind.

2. Rosie Frey from Color of the Stars but only when she's a lion. In her human form she's pretty normal.

3. Lynn Blythe (or any of the other vampires) from Echoes of Eden, because they're cheating cheaterfaces who use mystical vampy powers to be stronger and faster than humans

4. Sendmarshal Henley from the Aalee Rise series. Probably the fastest regular human. Imagine the most beautiful, tall, leggy black woman you can, all lean muscle and elegant grace, and now imagine her scooping you up and zipping out of danger with an easy smile on her face... *fans self* I stan.

5. When running headlong into danger to save someone? Aalee Dering. When running away? Frustratingly, satirically slow. She's one of those idiot heroes who stops to make sure everyone got away okay so Fall's always running back to grab her ("MOVE, IDIOT" "But that little old lady--" "FIRE-BREATHING MONSTERS. MOVE.")

9. Does your wip have romance? tell me about it!! if not tell me about a friendship/important relationship in your wip!! MORE LENGTHY BLAH

Relationships are the driving force of my writing. How one loves or is loved by other people, how they relate and engage with others, is how one grows, in real life and in fiction. There are a number of relationships in all my series that I'm fond of for various reasons. (For instance, even though she cannot STAND him, I'm eager af to write Eden and Lynn's relationship in Echoes of Eden because of how complicated it is.)

And as a rule all of my characters are queer or questioning unless otherwise stated, and I ship everybody with basically everybody else, and almost everybody has a love story in their history. (at least, their parents certainly do because I am a gross vile romantic and these fuckers came from somewhere.)

That having been said, for the sake of brevity I'll stick with Aalee Rise and limit myself to the Big Three: Aalee and her brother Elles, Aalee and her best friend Norah, and Aalee and Fall.

FAMILY: Aalee and Elles are twins. Born together and never separated, which stands out in a world where families are broken up by chaotic circumstances and random death on a regular basis. Aalee is easily distracted and has difficulty communicating her thoughts, so she tends to act on impulse; Elles is forever the cool head and the hand grabbing her by the back of the shirt to stop her from walking into danger. And after eighteen years of this... he's tired of it. He loves his sister, but he longs to see the world on his own terms, walk his own path. And Aalee doesn't share that sentiment. Not only doesn't share it, but is blown away when it comes into play. Her partner in crime wants to break away, and she does not take it very well. The first volume (Worldwalk) explores how their relationship suffers, grows, and changes due to this break.

FRIEND: Aalee's best friend of ten years is Norah. They met as little girls in a monster-ravaged town; Norah was entertaining the youngest orphans with a story and Aalee joined in. The pair of them spent a long night keeping civilians from panicking while Marshals battled asmic beyond the walls of the bunker. They exchanged addresses and became penpals over the next few years, since both of their parents travelled and they were rarely in the same place at the same time. That changed suddenly when Norah lost her father. Since then, Norah's family and Aalee's have lived in the same town. Norah is her warm hand in the dark, her shoulder to cry on, the first person she tells any good news. for Norah, Aalee is the only person (at the beginning of the story, anyway) with whom she can be her real whole self. They love each other no matter what.

ROMANCE: And then there's Fall. Aalee meets Fall when she rescues him from being murdered in a back alley-- except, oops, turns out it was a sting operation to catch the killer because he's not actually the helpless filthy vagabond she assumed he was; he's actually a powerful Marshal who was on assignment. Stuck together for various reasons, he becomes a mentor to her on her worldwalk, while she blatantly digs into the mystery of who he is, which turns out to complicate their lives, the lives of their friends and families, randos they happens across, their enemies, and also God's. To say they fall in love with each other is an understatement of cosmic proportions. They choose each other.

10. Do you believe in the advice kill your darlings?

Yeah but I take the advice as intended; which is not, as most assume, kill your fave characters, but to get rid of that which does not work, even if you love it. That pearlescent line of dialogue, or that golden bit of allegory? Doesn't matter how much you love it and how proud of it you are, if it does. not. work. it HAS. TO. GO. (save it in a new file to reread when you feel down and scrap that shit from the main file.)

that said re: killing characters, in my youth I was very much of the George RedRum Martin camp of "KILL THEM ALL" but as Ive gotten older my main focal point has been "What purpose does their death serve?" Death is not the only sacrifice worth writing. So while I am not afraid to kill my characters, I do take the nature of their deaths in the writing very seriously. There has to be a point.

11. Do you prefer plotting or worldbuilding? Why?

WORLDBUILDING MANYEXCLAMATIONPOINTSGOHERE! Plotting is like the maths of writing. It's measurement, it's brickwork, it's demolition when the wall you put up last week is three feet too long and now you have to scrap it and start over. Vital. But not my favorite part.

Worldbuilding is the art. It's the music your OCs hum and the stories that they treasure and the faith that holds them up when the crap you throw at them might tear them down. It's the story behind the jacket they wear and it's the reason they nod to the altar when they enter a place of worship and it's the meaning of their names. It's the magic. How the world works, the little details that make it real to the reader because it's real for your characters, is my favorite part of writing.

[impressivepress]

Seeing the light: what Henri Matisse discovered in Provence

Born in cool northern France, the artist decided to call Nice home after realising the difference its light could make to his work. Now the city is celebrating him.

Henri Matisse, the son of a merchant family from cold, grey Picardy, in northern France, was pulled inexorably south by the promise of art and light. While serving as a law clerk in the town of Saint-Quentin Matisse attended drawing classes at a textile-design school from 7am until 8am each day. When he finally left for art school in Paris, his father, who wanted him to be a lawyer, was broken-hearted.

By a quirk of fate Matisse began and ended his artistic life in bed. When he was recovering from appendicitis at the age of 21, Matisse’s mother gave him a box of paints. More than half a century later, in 1941, he underwent an operation for cancer of the intestine in wartime Lyons. “Give me three or four years to live, I beg of you. I need it to finish my oeuvre,” he told the doctor.

Matisse lived for 13 more years, wearing a metal corset and producing some of his finest work in bed, cutting gouache-painted paper, then directing his assistant, like an orchestra conductor, to arrange the shapes on the walls.

Matisse had sojourned on the Mediterranean coast early in the century, first at St Tropez, then at Collioure. He imitated the impressionists: Van Gogh, Signac and, especially, Cézanne. He shifted from pointillism to fauvism, avoided cubism, and was in his late 30s before he began painting in the style that was recognisably his own: simplified, monumental nudes; decorative, flat-surfaced interiors with arabesque motifs and open windows, often with a female model.

Matisse moved to Nice in 1917 and, with some exceptions, stayed there until his death in 1954.

“When I understood that I would see this light every morning I couldn’t believe my good fortune,” he said.

When the city asked Matisse to design a poster promoting its charms he suggested his Still Life with Pomegranates, with a plate of fruit, open window and palm tree. “Nice. Travail. Joie. H. Matisse,” he wrote beneath the painting.

Matisse lived surrounded by plants, flowers and cats in the Victorian-era Hôtel Régina, which had been converted to apartments, on the heights of Cimiez, overlooking Nice.

Fifty years ago the city inaugurated the Musée Matisse, in a 17th-century villa opposite the Régina. To celebrate the anniversary the city has organised A Summer for Matisse, eight exhibitions that run across the city until September 23rd.

Matisse and music

Only three of the exhibitions are specifically about Matisse. The finest, Matisse: Music at Work, at the Musée Matisse, demonstrates the importance of music in the painter’s life. At the baroque Palais Lascaris, in the heart of the old town, you can see Matisse’s illustrations for Jazz, the artist’s book he created for the publisher Tériade, in the 1940s. Posters for Matisse exhibitions are at a third venue.

An exhibition devoted to Gustave Moreau, the symbolist painter who was Matisse’s teacher, is the most interesting of five other shows. It is a sign of Matisse’s greater fame that curators have searched for precursors of Matisse’s work in Moreau’s intricate, oneiric orientalist style.

Matisse often compared the discipline and practice required by music to that of painting. He likened the precision of drawing and engraving to musical composition. “All my colours sing together, like a chord in music,” he said.

The music exhibition opens with Sorrows of the King, on loan from the Pompidou Centre, in Paris. A collage four metres wide and three metres high, its bright colours, floating yellow leaves and dancing woman belie the title.

Matisse created the work just two years before his death. It represents Salomé dancing for King Herod. Some experts say the dark figure holding a yellow guitar at the centre was a final self-portrait.

Violins and pianos appear often in Matisse’s paintings. “In Nice in 1918 . . . he began studying the violin very seriously,” Matisse’s wife, Amélie, wrote. “When I asked him why, Henri answered, ‘I’m afraid of losing my sight and not being able to paint. If I’m blind, I’ll have to give up painting, but not music.’ ”

In Matisse’s paintings musical instruments sometimes seem aesthetic objects valued for their shape but detached from purpose, as with the lute in the bottom left of Matisse’s 1915 version of a 17th-century Dutch still-life, on loan from the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In Matisse’s Interior With a Violin Case, also on loan from MoMa, we look out of the window of his Nice hotel room to the Baie des Anges. The empty violin case, like an open seashell on the yellow armchair, brings the azure sea and sky into the room.

Matisse listened to music on the radio while painting. A Provencal farandole dance tune went around and around in his head, he recounted, when he painted successive versions of his monumental Dance.

In 1929 Amélie wrote to the painter’s daughter, Marguerite (whom he had with the model Caroline Joblau), “Your father has the phonograph on . . . playing all kinds of jazz; the most suggestive tangos. He’s dancing the tango, Luxury Babe. He’s wearing his dressing gown and his black silk cap.”

Years later, while sketching the stations of the cross for the Dominican chapel at Vence, Matisse immersed himself in Bach’s St John Passion.

Before he married Amélie, Matisse wrote to her, “I love you a great deal, but I shall always love painting more.” He later described his work habits to an interviewer. “I go to bed at 10pm and I rise at 6am, partly because I want to use all the light possible.” He drank very little and indulged in “no excess of any sort”. His sole recreation, he said, was the violin.

At the bleakest times – during two world wars and the arrest of his wife and daughter by the Gestapo – Matisse never allowed his troubles to diminish the luminous joy of his creations. “Sometimes I say to myself, ‘What a beautiful day! How I’d like to take a little trip, not far from here, to see Rouault or Bonnard!’ ” he wrote. “But I think of the colour that would dry on the canvas. I’m chained to the work-in-progress and if I walk away I’ll be remorseful. I cannot go to sleep at night without preparing the work for the following morning. I am one with painting, like an animal with the thing it loves.”

Matisse had used paper cut-outs to organise his compositions in the 1930s, but after his 1941 cancer operation he turned the practice into a new art. He called it drawing with scissors. For him it resolved the challenge of reconciling line and colour.

Matisse spent four years on the bright collages for the art book Jazz. Only 270 copies were printed, in 1947. The chromatic syncopation and improvisation of Matisse’s collages were somehow evocative of the music brought by American GIs: the music of liberation. African-American musicians played in the first international jazz festival in Nice, in 1948. Perhaps not by chance, the most emblematic image, Icarus, shows a black man with a beating red heart, floating against a blue sky studded with yellow stars.

In retrospect Matisse regarded his work on Jazz as preparation for the chapel at Vence, which he considered his masterpiece. His friend and rival Picasso was so jealous of the jewel-like space, with its frescoes and blue, green and yellow stained glass, he said, “Matisse doesn’t believe in God any more than I do. How could he do such a thing?”

Amélie asked Henri to choose between her and Lydia Delectorskaya, the orphaned Siberian beauty, 40 years Matisse’s junior, who was their domestic before she became his assistant and model. Matisse chose his wife, but Amélie was so jealous she left anyway, after 40 years of marriage.

By all accounts Matisse’s relationship with Delectorskaya was platonic but close and tender. “Matisse said he came eventually to know her face and body by heart, like the alphabet,” Hilary Spurling writes in her excellent biography of Matisse.

The day before Matisse died Delectorskaya came to his room with her wet hair wrapped in a towel. He drew her portrait with a ballpoint pen. Assessing it at arm’s length, he said, “It will do.” It was his last work of art.

~ Lara Marlowe · Sat, Aug 31, 2013.

[epic-and-kitty]

49, 50, 61, 72, 83, 92

49. Do you like kids?

Yes, I love kids! I’ve been told I’m really good with kids too! Kids can be super sweet and they are absolutely hilarious. I love how creative and imaginative they are as well.

50. Favorite fruits?

Oranges, peaches and nectarines, sweet/tangy apples, bananas, most berries (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc), watermelon, pomegranates, and, possibly my favorite, persimmons, which look like orange tomatoes and have a crunchy texture and a unique fast that reminds me of fall.

61. 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

A.) Yes, they deserve to know and I’d need to have someone to talk to

B.) I tell everyone how much I love them and hug them as much as possible. Then try to do things I want to do before time runs out

C.) Yes. Death terrifies me

72. Do you want to have kids?

Yes, I’d love to have kids in the future, but I need to get my mental issues under control first. And try to figure out how to not become my parents to my child.

83. Do you like when people play with your hair? 

Yaaaaaaas, platonically or romantically. Run your fingers through my hair, brush it, braid it, pet it, whatever, I’m good with it because that is my shit!

92. Describe the what you think of the ocean.

I am both in awe and terrified. There is so much in the ocean that is beautiful and so much that is unknown. Its calm and its powerful. You turn your back on it and suddenly your sinking into its dark depths. 

Also, I wanna surf on it cause that looks super cool

[perihelion-princess]

Tagged by: @amirrorcalledthemoon Rules: Answer these 81 questions and tag 20 people The last… 1. Drink: Water 2. Phone call: My mom 3. Text message: "I'm disgusted but mildly aroused, go on" 4. Song you listened to: rain by the script! I can't stop listening to it 5. Time you cried: Earlier in chili's lmao 6. Dated somebody twice: no. 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: No 8. Have been cheated on: yes 9. Lost someone special: My grandfather 10. Been depressed: currently, my dudes 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: Unfortunately. Super grody. 12. Favorite colors to wear: black, blue, & pink In the last year have you… 15. Made new friends: yep! 16. Fallen out of love: no 17. Laughed until you cried: Yes because my friends are hilarious 18. Found out somebody was talking about you: yes 👀🔍 19. Met somebody who changed you: Yes 20. Found out who your friends are: I'm not sure what this means tbh,, 21. Kissed somebody on your Facebook list: What is a Facebook list General 22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: All of them, I only use Facebook for messenger 23. Do you have any pets: A cat named Catniss who constantly breaks my heart 24. Do you want to change your name: I used to, but not so much anymore 25. What did you do for your last birthday: go visit my friend In Bavaria 26. What time did you wake up: 9am 27. What were you doing at midnight: writing 28. Name something you can’t wait for: moving out 29. When was the last time you saw your mom: probably like 3 hours ago 30. What are you listening to right now: This fan directly above my hotel bed that won't stop creaking, so basically the sound of imminent death 31. Have you ever talked to someone named Tom: Yes 32. Something that gets on your nerves: the sound of this fan, at this point I will welcome death at the hands of its dusty retro panels 33. Most visited website: YouTube 34. Hair color: Varying shades of blonde 35. Long or short hair: short 36. Do you have a crush on somebody: Yep! 37. What do you like about yourself: I'm strong af 38. Piercings: Just my ears 39. Blood type: B - , I think? 40. Nickname: Bri 41. Relationship status: In a relationship 42. Zodiac: Scorpio 43. Pronouns: She/her 44. Favorite tv shows: I don't watch much tv tbh, but I love b99 45. Tattoos: Nope 46. Right or left handed: Right 47. Surgery: I don't know, I used to have to go to the hospital a lot when I was a kid but it's all blurred 48. Sports: i used to play flag football & soccer 49. Vacation: LMAO WHAT IS A VACATION 50. Pair of trainers: a what 51. Eating: Nothing 52. Favorite drink: Coke Zero 53. What are you up to: not sleeping 54. Waiting for: to be okay 55. Want: pomegranate because I'm craving 56. Get married: one day! 57. Career: Marine Biologist 58. Hugs or kisses: Both 59. Lips or eyes: Eyes 60. Shorter or taller: No preference 61. Older or younger: preferably older 62. Nice arms or stomach: arms 63. Hook up or relationship: relationship 64. Troublemaker or hesitant: Hesitant 65. Kissed a stranger: Yes 66. Drank hard liquor: Yes 67. Lost glasses/contact lenses: y'all might as well call me Velma because I'm always losing my damn glasses 68. Turned someone down: Yes 69: Sex on the first date: I am terrified of physical intimacy on that level 70. Broken someone’s heart: yes :// 71. Had your heart broken: Yes 72. Been arrested: Eeeeehhhhhh kind of 73. Cried when someone died: Yes 74. Fallen for a friend: yes Do you believe in… 75. Yourself: Sometimes 76. Miracles: Yes 77. Love at first sight: Yes 78. Santa Claus: No 79. Kiss on the first date: nope, that's saved for second date™ & up 80. Angels: Yes Other… 81. Current best friends names: Amber, Kat, Mary! ❤️ 82. Eyecolor: Really dark brown 83. Favorite movie: never able to choose between the lost boys and Anastasia! I tag: @groove-patrol ! 🌸

[networkingdefinition]

Saffron Quotes

Official Website: Saffron Quotes

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

• A man who is stingy with saffron is capable of seducing his own grandmother. – Norman Douglas • And Mocha’s berry, from Arabia pure, In small fine china cups, came in at last. Gold cups of filigree, made to secure the hand from burning, underneath them place. Cloves, cinnamon and saffron, too, were boiled Up with the coffee, which, I think, they spoiled. – Lord Byron • As the saffron tints and crimson flushes of morn herald the coming day, so the social and political advancement which woman has already gained bears the promise of the rising of the full-orbed sun of emancipation. The result will be not to make home less happy, but society more holy. – Frances Harper • Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies. – Sharon Kay Penman

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Saffron', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_saffron').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_saffron img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Bastian had climbed a dune of purplish-red sand and all around him he saw nothing but hill after hill of every imaginable color. Each hill revealed a shade or tint that occured in no other. The nearest was cobalt blue, another was saffron yellow, then came crimson red, then indigo, apple green, sky blue, orange, peach, mauve, turquoise blue, lilac, moss green, ruby red, burnt umber, Indian yellow, vermillion, lapis lazuli, and so on from horizon to horizon. And between the hill, separating color from color, flowed streams of gold and silver sand. – Michael Ende • Black for hunting through the night For death and mourning the color’s white Gold for a bride in her wedding gown And red to call the enchantment down White silk when our bodies burn Blue banners when the lost return Flame for the birth of a Nephilim And to wash away our sins. Gray for the knowledge best untold Bone for those who don’t grow old Saffron lights the victory march Green to mend our broken hearts Silver for the demon towers And bronze to summon wicked powers -Shadowhunter children’s rhyme – Cassandra Clare • Bursts of gold on lavender melting into saffron. It’s the time of day when the sky looks like it has been spray-painted by a graffiti artist. – Mia Kirshner • Colored lights shone right across the northern sky, leaping and flaring, spreading in rainbow hues from horizon to zenith: blood red to rose pink, saffron yellow to delicate primrose, pale green, aquamarine to darkest indigo. Great veils of color swathed the heavens, rising and falling as light seen through cascading curtains of water. Streamers shot out in great shifting beams as if God had put his thumb across the sun. – Celia Rees • Darling Daddy, This is Rose. So flames went all up the kitchen wall. Saffron called the fire brigade and the police came too to see if it was a trick and the police woman said to Saffron Here You Are Again because of when I got lost having my glasses checked. But I was with Tom whose grandmother is a witch on top of the highest place in town. Love, Rose. – Hilary McKay • I don’t want to be a great leader; I want to be a man who goes around with a little oil can and when he sees a breakdown, offers his help. To me, the man who does that is greater than any holy man in saffron-colored robes. The mechanic with the oil can: that is my ideal in life. – Baba Amte • I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. – Hamlin Garland • I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful. Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me – I am happy. – Hamlin Garland • If you enjoyed laughing in the face of death, you might like to have a crack at High Saffron. One hundred merits, and all you have to do is take a look.’ ‘I understand there’s a one hundred percent fatality rate?’ ‘True. But up until the moment of death there was a one hundred percent survival rate. Really, I shouldn’t let anything as meaningless as statistics put you off. – Jasper Fforde • In 1879 the Bengali scholar S.M. Tagore compiled a more extensive list of ruby colors from the Purana sacred texts: ‘like the China rose, like blood, like the seeds of the pomegranate, like red lead, like the red lotus, like saffron, like the resin of certain trees, like the eyes of the Greek partridge or the Indian crane…and like the interior of the half-blown water lily.’ With so many gorgeous descriptive possibilities it is curious that in English the two ancient names for rubies have come to sound incredibly ugly. – Victoria Finlay • In saffron-colored mantle from the tides Of Oceans rose the Morning to bright light TO gods and men. – Homer • never forget this moment, the hum of the bee, the saffron threads of the flower, the drawn blinds, nature’s assiduousness and human cruelty. – Edna O’Brien • She’ll soon forget.” “Caddy,” said Saffron impatiently, “she is headmistress of the private school! She’s probably never forgotten anything in her whole life! – Hilary McKay • Sometimes, looking up at Sophiatown… I have felt I was looking at an Italian village somewhere in Umbria. For you do ‘look up’ at Sophiatown, and in the evening light, across the blue-grey haze of smoke from braziers and chimneys, against a saffron sky, you see close-packed, red-roofed little houses. …And above it all you see the Church of Christ the King, its tower visible north, south, east, and west. – Trevor Huddleston • Suddenly Saffron had a picture in her mind of Sarah waiting at the bottom of the wall, and she was angry with herself. Something changed in Saffron at that moment. She knew all about feeling left out…. That was why she wanted her angel so badly; proof that she mattered as much as anyone else. “I couldn’t really climb the wall,” she said. “And if I could, what if I got caught? What would I say?” “You’d think of something.” “No. It was a stupid idea. Let’s try your way, early in the morning.” “Before breakfast?” “Yes. All right Mission Control?” “All right,” said Sarah. “All right, Superhero. – Hilary McKay • This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is – A sort of soup or broth, or brew, Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes, That Greenwich never could outdo; Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace; All these you eat at Terre’s tavern, In that one dish of Bouillabaisse. – William Makepeace Thackeray • Tough times for Martha Stewart. Yesterday, Martha Stewart reported to her parole officer and had to take a mandatory urine test for cocaine and marijuana. Martha was found to be drug-free and her urine was found to be a lovely yellow saffron. – Conan O’Brien

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[equitiesstocks]

Saffron Quotes

Official Website: Saffron Quotes

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

• A man who is stingy with saffron is capable of seducing his own grandmother. – Norman Douglas • And Mocha’s berry, from Arabia pure, In small fine china cups, came in at last. Gold cups of filigree, made to secure the hand from burning, underneath them place. Cloves, cinnamon and saffron, too, were boiled Up with the coffee, which, I think, they spoiled. – Lord Byron • As the saffron tints and crimson flushes of morn herald the coming day, so the social and political advancement which woman has already gained bears the promise of the rising of the full-orbed sun of emancipation. The result will be not to make home less happy, but society more holy. – Frances Harper • Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies. – Sharon Kay Penman

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Saffron', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_saffron').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_saffron img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Bastian had climbed a dune of purplish-red sand and all around him he saw nothing but hill after hill of every imaginable color. Each hill revealed a shade or tint that occured in no other. The nearest was cobalt blue, another was saffron yellow, then came crimson red, then indigo, apple green, sky blue, orange, peach, mauve, turquoise blue, lilac, moss green, ruby red, burnt umber, Indian yellow, vermillion, lapis lazuli, and so on from horizon to horizon. And between the hill, separating color from color, flowed streams of gold and silver sand. – Michael Ende • Black for hunting through the night For death and mourning the color’s white Gold for a bride in her wedding gown And red to call the enchantment down White silk when our bodies burn Blue banners when the lost return Flame for the birth of a Nephilim And to wash away our sins. Gray for the knowledge best untold Bone for those who don’t grow old Saffron lights the victory march Green to mend our broken hearts Silver for the demon towers And bronze to summon wicked powers -Shadowhunter children’s rhyme – Cassandra Clare • Bursts of gold on lavender melting into saffron. It’s the time of day when the sky looks like it has been spray-painted by a graffiti artist. – Mia Kirshner • Colored lights shone right across the northern sky, leaping and flaring, spreading in rainbow hues from horizon to zenith: blood red to rose pink, saffron yellow to delicate primrose, pale green, aquamarine to darkest indigo. Great veils of color swathed the heavens, rising and falling as light seen through cascading curtains of water. Streamers shot out in great shifting beams as if God had put his thumb across the sun. – Celia Rees • Darling Daddy, This is Rose. So flames went all up the kitchen wall. Saffron called the fire brigade and the police came too to see if it was a trick and the police woman said to Saffron Here You Are Again because of when I got lost having my glasses checked. But I was with Tom whose grandmother is a witch on top of the highest place in town. Love, Rose. – Hilary McKay • I don’t want to be a great leader; I want to be a man who goes around with a little oil can and when he sees a breakdown, offers his help. To me, the man who does that is greater than any holy man in saffron-colored robes. The mechanic with the oil can: that is my ideal in life. – Baba Amte • I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. – Hamlin Garland • I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful. Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me – I am happy. – Hamlin Garland • If you enjoyed laughing in the face of death, you might like to have a crack at High Saffron. One hundred merits, and all you have to do is take a look.’ ‘I understand there’s a one hundred percent fatality rate?’ ‘True. But up until the moment of death there was a one hundred percent survival rate. Really, I shouldn’t let anything as meaningless as statistics put you off. – Jasper Fforde • In 1879 the Bengali scholar S.M. Tagore compiled a more extensive list of ruby colors from the Purana sacred texts: ‘like the China rose, like blood, like the seeds of the pomegranate, like red lead, like the red lotus, like saffron, like the resin of certain trees, like the eyes of the Greek partridge or the Indian crane…and like the interior of the half-blown water lily.’ With so many gorgeous descriptive possibilities it is curious that in English the two ancient names for rubies have come to sound incredibly ugly. – Victoria Finlay • In saffron-colored mantle from the tides Of Oceans rose the Morning to bright light TO gods and men. – Homer • never forget this moment, the hum of the bee, the saffron threads of the flower, the drawn blinds, nature’s assiduousness and human cruelty. – Edna O’Brien • She’ll soon forget.” “Caddy,” said Saffron impatiently, “she is headmistress of the private school! She’s probably never forgotten anything in her whole life! – Hilary McKay • Sometimes, looking up at Sophiatown… I have felt I was looking at an Italian village somewhere in Umbria. For you do ‘look up’ at Sophiatown, and in the evening light, across the blue-grey haze of smoke from braziers and chimneys, against a saffron sky, you see close-packed, red-roofed little houses. …And above it all you see the Church of Christ the King, its tower visible north, south, east, and west. – Trevor Huddleston • Suddenly Saffron had a picture in her mind of Sarah waiting at the bottom of the wall, and she was angry with herself. Something changed in Saffron at that moment. She knew all about feeling left out…. That was why she wanted her angel so badly; proof that she mattered as much as anyone else. “I couldn’t really climb the wall,” she said. “And if I could, what if I got caught? What would I say?” “You’d think of something.” “No. It was a stupid idea. Let’s try your way, early in the morning.” “Before breakfast?” “Yes. All right Mission Control?” “All right,” said Sarah. “All right, Superhero. – Hilary McKay • This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is – A sort of soup or broth, or brew, Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes, That Greenwich never could outdo; Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace; All these you eat at Terre’s tavern, In that one dish of Bouillabaisse. – William Makepeace Thackeray • Tough times for Martha Stewart. Yesterday, Martha Stewart reported to her parole officer and had to take a mandatory urine test for cocaine and marijuana. Martha was found to be drug-free and her urine was found to be a lovely yellow saffron. – Conan O’Brien

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[shutupxdance-blog]

EPISODE ONE.

GAME DAY.  『♬♬♬』

The days slip between your fingers. It’s hard to keep track of time when you’re indoors at the best of times, but the time here is thick like honey and vanishes at once if you don’t keep a close eye on it. You’ve met other contestants. You’ve familiarized yourself with the location. Enough pictures of you have been taken to put in the promotional material — when did that happen, you ask? You didn’t see anyone taking pictures of you? That’s odd. They’re very good pictures. Don’t worry about it. When the floor everywhere in the studio lights up with arrows pointing you towards the stage, you know what it means. Like lions to the slaughter.

Before you begin, you’re taken to the dressing rooms. Augusta helps with your makeup, the glamour sliding onto your skin like oil on water, shimmering slightly. You’re still visibly you, at least. The fair folk watch this show because there’s humans on it, after all. Vibrant, original, full of life and warm blood. Everything they’re not. The stage lights are bright, far too bright, casting you all in a range of shifting neon colours, but far from the warmth you’d expect, the light is cold. Cíoroc is preening on the stage, asking a cameraman how he looks. The cameraman stares at him with iridescent marble-like eyes and says nothing through his stitched-shut mouth. Cíoroc beams like this is the greatest compliment he could have received.

Once everyone is on stage, Augusta starts counting down. Filming in three. Two. One. “Welcome, welcome, welcome, to the thirty-ninth season of HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN, with me, your longtime host, Cíoroc Mair!” The riotous applause has to come from somewhere — the studio seems to be filled with a lively audience when you glance at them, although whenever you look too closely at a particular set of seats they’re empty. “Our contestants will make friends, they’ll make enemies, but will any of them make it to the end of this competition and win their fabulous prize?”

The audience gasp in suspense before Cíoroc delivers a wink and a comically exaggerated shrug. His voice is one part smooth-talking politician, one part late-night radio DJ, one part carnival showman. “All of them want it. Only one can get it. But that’s the way it is on HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN: kill or be killed!” The bloodthirsty excitement with which he says it is met with the same preppy cheers from the audience. “And now, both for our lovely contestants and for you folks at home, I’m going to explain how this game works! Augusta?”

She’s there, at the back of the stage. You didn’t see her walking, but she’s there, using a remote control to flip through images as Cíoroc speaks, each one a simple flickering image of two words in block capitals.

TAKE A LIFE.

“If you want to win HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN, all you have to do is kill a fellow competitor!” He beams like he just got to announce that it was Christmas and his birthday on the same day. But those of you reaching for the kitchen knives as we speak, nuh-uh-uh!“ Although the audience is right in front of you, their laughter feels canned. “Because there’s more! We all know how squishy mortals can be! Who at home hasn’t accidentally broken one? The game would be over if that was the only aim before I could say mbériamh bríathria-baosamh!” That one, apparently, is also hilarious with the crowd.

NOBODY CAN KNOW.

“Now, the rest of your fellow competitors, they don’t want to watch you win and take their shot at their dreams just because you murderified someone! So they get a chance to stop you, in a little segment of the show we like to call the TRIAL GAME! That’s right, in this exciting segment we make you, the contestants, our judge, jury, and executioner! Investigate the murder, create your theories, and debate it out in an hour-long odyssey of justice, desperation, and lies before you take a vote to find out if the killer is going to get the prize of their dreams or be a part of the very special segment IT’S YOUR FUNERAL, where a found-out killer is ironically executed in a personalized way voted on by the viewers at home!”

PLAY FAIR.

“You can lie all you want, but you can’t cheat! We aren’t called the Fair Folk for no reason, hahahaha!” Augusta smiles at him from the back like she wants to strangle him to death. “So we’ve got a few extra rules to make sure the game is fair and even for all of you. Firstly,  you can’t kill more than three people! Otherwise someone would just poison a lovely bowl of pomegranates and have nobody left to accuse them! And there’s nothing worse than a poisoned pomegranate! Secondly, as soon as three people other than the killer see the body, the alarm will be sounded so that everyone can get in on the investigation! And thirdly…” the synth music in the background seems to get louder the more he talks, and as he continues a burst of glittering neon-coloured confetti drifts down from the ceiling.

SMILE FOR THE CAMERAS.

“Have fun! Just remember, you’re on the greatest show on Earth! At the end of the season, fans will vote on all the classic award categories we give to participants on the show, such as ‘bloodiest death’, ‘most tumultuous whirlwind romance’, ‘most tragic backstory’, and much, much more! The viewers at home are here to see you make friends, fall in love, share your life story, and most important, kill or be killed.” He pauses, smile rictus-wide. The silence is deafening and lasts for several uninterrupted seconds before the audience applauds and he continues.

“So that’s it for the introduction! And for those of you at home thinking, ‘aw, Cíoroc, I’ve seen this all before’, I’m gonna tell you, we’ve got some surprises in store! So stay tuned, keep smiling, and remember: this is the only show where the blood is real, the humans are real, and the feelings: oh, boy are they real!”

And with that, the cameras turn away, Cíoroc gives you all a giddy thumbs up, and he and Augusta walk towards the back of the studio. “Oh, it never gets old!” Cíoroc giggles, before their conversation gets a little more serious — it’s hard to eavesdrop over the thudding music, but Cíoroc seems irritated, while Augusta puts her shoulders up in a ‘not my fault’ sort of gesture. But then again, who can really tell what either of those two are feeling, or if they’re even feeling anything at all.

In the room with you are seventeen people who you know are willing to kill you. There’s no question to be had about it here, no equivocating. You’re not trapped. You read the marketing and you came here just like the rest of them. Now the only question is who will make the first move.

KILL.

OR.

BE.

KILLED. 

[sportsandfitnessinfo]

New Post has been published on http://fitnessandhealthpros.com/beauty/i-swapped-indie-beauty-for-sephora-products-and-the-results-were-cray/

I Swapped Indie Beauty For Sephora Products–And The Results Were Cray

A version of this article previously appeared on JacalynBeales.Com.

Approximately five years ago, I made the decision to go green and natural with my beauty. That meant ditching all “generic” beauty products for those typically only found online for $ 40 per jar/bottle, which further meant spending most of my monthly income on natural skincare.

Yes, it is as ridiculous but worthwhile as it sounds.

Then, three years ago, I stopped wearing makeup altogether and now only wear the odd bit of concealer when I feel I need it. Though I don’t spend nearly as much money on makeup as I do skin care, natural makeup products made with ingredients that are actually natural and palm-free can be a bit pricey, especially when you live in the snowy tundra that is Canada (for UK people, that’s a totally different country from the US, just sayin’) and most of those items are shipped from the United States.

But I digress.

Over the past five years, I’ve tried – and ditched – many a natural beauty product, not only for their greenwashed ingredient labels but also due to their ineffectiveness as a product overall. But my experience with natural skincare – and my commitment to it – has meant avoiding all of the brightly, albeit unflatteringly, lit stores such as Sephora, where most women my age go to play with makeup and drop their paychecks at the checkout counter on the way out.

Cynical? Who, me?

Even I am not immune, however, to the draw and pull of Sephora. Whenever I do have occasion to visit a Sephora store, it is often with a friend or family member, and I never fail to become extremely overwhelmed every time I walk into one. The selection and array of brands is unreal, but what may perhaps be most surprising to us green beauty junkies out there is the fact that Sephora actually carries a few natural brands – or, as close to “natural” as mainstream beauty stores can carry. For example, my recent trip to Sephora revealed shelves lined with Farmacy and Drunk Elephant products, in addition to other “indie” and cult brands like Herbivore Botanicals. Though these brands are quite expensive – the average price of their products starts at around $ 40 and only increases frighteningly from there – I have been known to spend $ 100 on facial serums that prove totally effective, so I bit my tongue and stepped down from my soapbox.

For every one natural brand in Sephora, there are five more completely unnatural ones, and watching my friends pick out products that are clearly made with only-God-knows-what was surprising; in fact, while watching other shoppers, I became fascinated by the lack of discerning taste in products. People like certain brands and products, and they stick to them. No judgment, just keen interest.

After speaking to one of my friends in the UK over a series of hilarious Snap Chats recently, she said something that truly resonated with me. To paraphrase, my friend put me in line by betting that I couldn’t last a week using Sephora-sold brands, and my head began to spin. She’s totally right, I thought to myself as I was applying my $ 65 facial oil that night; there’s no way I could do that.

So, of course, I challenged myself to two weeks of using only Sephora-sold beauty brands. And it kind of really sucked.

How It Went

Upon accepting this self-induced challenge, I made a trip to the mall and entered the Sephora store with immense trepidation – not only for my skin and hair, but also for my bank account. There was no way I was coming out of this challenge unscathed, and neither was my debit card.

Hurray!

As I was perusing each display of different brands and products – many of which were Korean, as is currently the latest trend in beauty and skin care – I kept in mind the type of products I was looking for: facial cleanser, face mask, moisturizer, dry shampoo, under-eye treatment, spot treatment, hair oil, facial oil, and concealer. I would try to acquire samples of each type of product where possible but also ended up buying a few full-size items due to lack of sample-availability.

Facial cleanser. The facial cleanser I purchased was the Clear Bloom Cleansing Oil from Farmacy, which starts off as an oil and eventually turns into a “milk-like” texture for cleansing purposes. It purports to be a makeup remover and cleansing oil, but it was the cheapest cleanser I could find that came in a bottle bigger than my thumb for the same price as others. Aside from the fact that the first 5-8 ingredients are just alcohols and things you seriously cannot pronounce without a sherpa to guide you through the ingredient label, the cleanser smells oddly like dirt and window cleaner mixed together and removed my makeup just about as well as a L’Oreal cleanser would.

So, not a great first start.

Face mask. The next product at hand was the Dr. Jart Water Replenishment Cotton Sheet Mask which, aside from making me look like a serial killer, was ridiculously difficult to use and smelt purely like chemicals, something I haven’t been accustomed to since my days as an over-the-counter, drugstore-beauty user. I purchased two of the masks and used them once each week and saw no visible results, but they did sting like a mo-fo and caused my skin to breakout, so I suppose there’s that.

The ingredient list on this mask (and other Dr. Jart masks) was also quite heinous, as was the fragrance, leading me to conclude that these masks need to go die a slow death somewhere, preferably not in the ocean where the obscene amount of plastic used to wrap these masks will likely end up.

Face moisturizer. After my skin was suitably dried out by both the cleanser and the mask, I needed to layer up with a decent moisturizer and settled on the Ultra Repair Cream from First Aid Beauty. I’ll fully admit here that this facial moisturizer made me swoon thanks to its uncanny ability to hydrate my skin all day long without causing my t-zone to imitate an oil spill. It has a subtle fragrance to it that, shockingly, didn’t overwhelm my nose all day, and it works awesomely under concealer. The ingredients in this bad boy are pretty much what you’d expect – not to natural – but I couldn’t help falling in love with it and I feel terribly guilty about that.

Dry shampoo. Next up was dry shampoo, and I have to tell you that my body was freaking ready for this. For some time leading up to this self-induced challenge (read: torture), I had wanted to try the new Dry Shampoo Foam from Ouai. I had seen the dry shampoo foam all over Instagram, as well as in many an online article, with rave reviews, and the devil’s advocate in me kept insisting that it would be more effective than the natural dry shampoos I own and use – though I’ve alway preferred a natural dry ‘poo to the artificial ones. Upon first using the foam, I was impressed; this was doing its job and I raved about it to friends on Snap Chat like it was my job. I watched the brand’s instructional video to learn how to properly apply and use the foam and felt myself actually becoming Jen Atkin…until I looked in the mirror 30 minutes minutes later.

Not only does the foam have a perfumed scent to it that is totally overwhelming and grandma-like, but the foam had actually made my hair greasier-looking than it was when I first applied the foam. Ouai claims that the dry shampoo foam will give you volume while cleansing the hair; the foam goes on wet but dries dry for a chic yet totally useless user experience that yields unfortunate results. I proceeded to use the dry shampoo foam for another five days – even on washed hair, for volume, as the brand’s video says you can do, and I trusted Jen Atkin because, well, she styles Kim K’s hair and for some reason that made me trust her? – and promptly tucked it away into the back of my bathroom drawer, never to see the light of day again. Is it possible for dry shampoo to make your hair look dirtier, even if it’s clean???? Because that’s what happened.

I should have trusted Sephora’s online reviews of the foam rather than a brief brand video, but I guess this only proves that I’m a sucker for dry shampoo. I’m also totally embarrassed by my semi-promotional snaps I subjected my friends to about this dry shampoo for literally no reason.

Did I mention the dry shampoo foam is $ 30/bottle? BECAUSE IT IS.

Hair oil. After the harrowingly greasy experience that was the Dry Shampoo Foam, I decided to give Ouai the benefit of the doubt and try the Hair Oil, thinking that not all Ouai products could be bad. And, honestly, for the most part, this hair oil isn’t actually that bad. Unless you factor in the smell. My god, the smell. Applying even the tiniest amount of this oil resulted in a head of hair that smelt as though I had dunked myself in a bath filled with floral oils of I-don’t-know-what-the-heck, and that made this hair oil difficult to use. I found leaving it in overnight was the best solution, but only when I was willing to sacrifice my first hour of sleep being kept up by the stench. So, basically, I used the oil five times and never, ever again.

Oh, and the first ingredient? It’s listed by the EWG’s database as being considered potentially harmful as well as tumor-causing in animals. So yeah…take that as you will.

Eye treatment. Following the hair oil was the under-eye treatment. For my bank account’s sake, I bought two of Sephora’s brand name eye masks in Pomegranate, which purport to tone and energize the under-eye area using, well, you guessed it: pomegranate extract. A salesperson at Sephora recommend it to me as a cost-effective and quick solution to pricey eye treatments, and the color of the packaging caught my eye (no pun intended), so into my Sephora basket they went!

As far as eye masks go, I was surprised by the results of this one; it actually brightened my under-eye area and made my usual bags look less severe. I was impressed by how simple they were to use as well, though they’re a bit slimy and the smell is quite strong. However, for $ 6 a pop, the results outweigh the low cost, and I’m ashamed to say I would buy this eye mask again.

But, you know, I never will, because the ingredient list is not so lovely.

Spot treatment. Moving onto the spot treatment, and my skin was ready for some TLC from a blemish-fighter that would [hopefully] help repair the not-so-stellar results of the cleanser and face masks. The lovely sales people at Sephora were kind enough to give me a sample bottle of the Super Spot Remover from Origins, as there was no way I was going to spend $ 25 on a bottle of gel with an ingredient list longer than my college application. Nah.

Like most generic spot removers, I found this one from Origins to have a slightly chemical-y smell with the ever-popular burning sensation typical of spot treatments which seek to burn the blemishes from your skin. Though it wasn’t entirely useless, as far as spot treatments go, I found it dried out my skin quite severely and worked best when applied over a facial oil at night. It did help to banish the odd blemish or two I experienced after using the face masks and cleanser, but I fear to think of the ingredients used and how dry my skin could potentially become with continued use of this spot treatment.

Facial oil. The facial oil in question was a sample of the U.F.O Ultra-Clarifying Face Oil from Sunday Riley, a brand I see on Instagram and beauty pages quite regularly. The oil purports to be a medicated dry oil which absorbs quickly and clears congested pores for problem prone skin. And while it did absorb into my skin quite nicely, I’m unsure as to where the “dry” part comes in. Within half an hour of using the oil, my skin not only became quite oily itself, but the oil did little to calm my naturally red cheeks. It was also next to impossible to use under makeup as part of a moisturization routine, and the smell was something else. Something not very good. Like burnt grass and tea tree oil mixed together. Was I losing it??

Considering a full-size, 35ml bottle of the oil costs $ 100 (before tax), I said a silent prayer of thanks to the sweet women as Sephora who were willing to give me a sample.

Concealer. When it came to concealer, I decided to purchase one that wasn’t at all natural – and doesn’t purport to be. It was, however, recommended to me by both friends as well as Sephora employees who swore by its effectiveness and ability to mattify the skin. So, needless to say, I was all for giving this concealer a go. It’s the Soft Matte Complete Concealer by NARS, and yet again I was able to get my hands on a small sample of it. The full-size container of the concealer goes for $ 38 a pop, but my small sample was enough to last me almost the two full weeks, and matched my skin quite well, in the color “Macadamia.”

Real talk: this stuff works. And I’m not at all ashamed to say that I would probably buy this concealer if it weren’t filled with ingredients I’m wary of putting on my own skin. It provided amazing coverage without drying out my skin and worked well as an under-eye concealer on days when my bags were particularly awful. It even did a great job of mattifying my skin, which was a welcomed surprise.

The Takeaway

Over the course of two weeks, I pampered my skin with Sephora-sold brands which were at times totally overhyped or completely justified, both in their pricing as well as their overall effectiveness.

Though my skin and hair don’t appear to have benefitted from the products I used, apart from the under-eye mask and concealer, which both pleasantly surprised me, I learned a very important lesson over the two weeks of this challenge; mainly, that many brands are pretty awesome at greenwashing, especially when the packaging they use to do it totally distracts from that greenwashing. I was disappointed to learn, for example, that the cleanser I was using had a palm derivative in it but made no effort in its packaging to attest to that. The ingredients in the hair oil also concerned me, and I found it slightly off-putting that something as simple as a hair oil could have potentially harmful ingredients.

Was I at all surprised that some of the more artificial and chemical-laden products worked well? Not really. But I didn’t expect to like them, let alone find them to be as effective as they actually were. And though I’m committed to using only natural products – I’m not-so-subtly glad for the challenge to be over – the two week period did help me to recognize why some people may be wary of ditching their tried-and-tested products (like concealers) for more natural options. Some of these not-so-natural products really do work, but it’s up to us as individuals to determine whether the risks and results from using artificial ingredients on our skin and hair are truly worth the temporary benefits.

No one made me “suffer” through two weeks of using Sephora-sold products, but I’m happy to have put myself through the “ringer” of not-so-natural beauty. Now, I’ll never have to wonder again what some of beauty’s most currently-coveted items are truly like.

Oh, and neither will my bank account. Don’t try this at home, kids.

Are you a green beauty convert? 

Also by Jacalyn: The Moon Juice Cookbook Is As Woo-Woo As You’d Think–And I Love It

Related: Is Your Green Beauty Habit Actually A Fast Beauty Addiction?

Get the Glow–Not Clogged Pores: 3 Best Non Comedogenic Oils for Your Face

Get more like this—Subscribe to our daily inspirational newsletter for exclusive content!

__

Photo: Sephora, Tolph Cam, Fashionista, Mrs. James Recommends

After several years spent traveling the world, Jacalyn settled back in her native home of Toronto, Canada to earn her Degree in Classical Studies. A dedicated wildlife advocate, she has for the past three years written on the issues and conflicts threatening the world’s wildlife and advocates for the conservation of Africa’s lions. Jacalyn’s dedication to and involvement in wildlife activism inspired her to join the global movement of conserving wildlife and living an ethically conscious, eco-friendly lifestyle. As a writer, she has had many opportunities to report on wildlife conflict and, through her writing, raise awareness and become a voice for conservation. In 2014, Jacalyn founded the social media community called PACH, through which she works with global NGOs and NPOs whose efforts are helping to save Africa’s lion. Read Jacalyn’s work on www.jacalynbeales.com.

Originally at :Peaceful Dumpling Written By : Jacalyn Beales

#Beauty, #Cray, #Indie, #Products–And, #Results, #Sephora, #Swapped, #Were #Beauty