#so many predictions etc before

[rainia]

the mcyt fandom could change, the entire mcyt space could completely shift for the worse, and yet I’ll still be tuned tf into mcc. I don’t even care,, I understand football bois on a spiritual level with this one

[fingertipsmp3]

I’m gonna be completely real with you. For the past couple of weeks I have been neck deep in the Ice Planet Barbarians series with no end in sight

[icewindandboringhorror]

this is not the exact one I watched but I saw one of these "dish scape" things at someone's house who actually has TV (like they pay for dish/cable instead of just watching stuff online) and I think they're meant to be relaxing atmospheric stuff that you mostly ignore, but I sat there for 35 minutes watching absolutely engrossed.. further proof that I genuinely think my brain is incapable of experiencing boredom lol..

[kepler69b]

if i could churn out school work as fast as i churn out splatoon essays and vod reviews i would never spent more than 2 hours writing proofreading and finalising a 1000 word essay for class ever again

[orcboxer]

I'm neurodivergent and we absolutely are not good at that.

Things that work in fiction but not real life

torture getting reliable information out of people

knocking someone out to harmlessly incapacitate them for like an hour

jumping into water from staggering heights and surviving the fall completely intact

calling the police to deescalate a situation

rafting your way off a desert island

correctly profiling total strangers based on vibes

effectively operating every computer by typing and nothing else

ripping an IV out of your arm without consequences

heterosexual cowboy

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

2 & 3 from section 1 for peri and 7 from whichever section has a more interesting #7 for diodore -moss

oooh these are fun ones!

2. Describe their tent set-up (outside and inside) (Peri)

I think Peri's tent is constructed similarly to Gale and Astarion's (boxy, fabric walls, little covered area outside). Deep blue fabric w/ golden astronomical embroidery, mostly the sort of thing you see on star maps. Little golden tassles around the edges of the tarp (?) and the doorframe. He'd have a small, circular, dark wood side table short enough that you can use it sitting on the ground, and a dark blue pillow next to it; there would be some parchment and a bronze miniature astrolabe on the table. The inside would be just. full to the brim with the gaudiest night-sky-themed pillows you've ever seen. No bedroll, no palette, just a nest that would put those cube pits in trampoline parks to shame. There would be two bird perches for his familiar Medani: one taller one next to his tent and one shorter one under the overhang. The shorter one would have a crow-sized bow-tie hanging from it. Rugs on rugs on the outside area ofc. 3. What would their character quest be titled? Why? (Peri)

This is a hard one! His tav ending involves taking over the Waterdeep arm of the Harpers, so I think his arc would have something to do with that. He'd be pretty bitter about being dropped into another near-apocalyptic mess when dealing with the last one a few years prior was supposed to be a one-time thing. Something-something ptsd in a world that doesn't have the words for that yet, something-something 'once a hero always a hero', something-something the weight of responsibility...he's a planeswalker so I think part of it would be whether he decides to stay on Toril long-term and directly help rebuild the Waterdeep Harpers or if he continues to run travel around afterwards, so maybe The Far Traveller/The Far Walker?

Harpson/Fae-son are also potential options. "Fae-son" nods to him being a changeling without it being super obvious (like Astarion's "The Pale Elf"). It would also mimic his backstory reveals from RoT ("oh he's not 'from here' so, like, the Feywild" -> "OH he's not from here"). 7. Describe their arc. How would a player help resolve it? What choices can be made? Can your Tav be turned down a dark path, or pulled to a lighter one? (Diodore)

Buckle up because we're in for a long one here. I've thought about Dora's story arc a lot because she's the first of my tavs that I truly made for the game while having full control over her backstory, etc. (versus Corentin, who had their arc baked into the story as a durge). Dora's a paladin of Corellon (oath of ancients) and her story arc as a companion would have to do with whether or not she should accept capital-r-Redemption, the process by which a drow can be truly "freed" from Lolth and rejoin the ranks of the rest of elven society. It involves all of the Redeemed drow's memories being erased and them being reincarnated as a surface elf. The implication seems to be that without that, regardless of a drow's actions, they'd be thrown back to Lolth when they die? Or at least that their eternal fate is unknown (which is the way I prefer to think of it for. personal reasons). Under normal circumstances, Dora would be a long way from Redemption being presented to her at all (she's not even 200 yet and has only been on the surface for a couple decades), but like with the other gods' Chosen among the companions, near-apocalyptic circumstances tend to speed up those sorts of things.

Of course, you'd have the themes of faith & relationship with deity when they're all unequivocally real and are also mostly all assholes; maintaining or breaking generational cycles; facing the unknown; morality when none of your choices are "good" (and how that interacts with morality vs self preservation); power vs freedom; identity outside of the people who made you; etc. The choice would first be presented to her sometime in late Act I/early Act II, likely the first long rest after the group resurfaces from the Underdark and you've probably gotten some of her backstory already. I have no idea how Larian would have characterized Corellon, but he's considered one of the more benevolent/open-minded deities iirc, which could be interesting to see contrasted with Mystra, Vlaa'kith, and Shar. How much that open-mindedness would extend to a drow, even one who has been a faithful follower even before she escaped to the Surface (and who inherited that faith from her father), is unclear. At the beginning of the game she would be leaning towards accepting Redemption, despite her own misgivings about whether or not she would still be her in that case.

Her final decision (at the ending pier scene) would depend on the relationship she has with the PC and the other companions. Her best ending, imo, would be her not accepting Redemption but continuing to be a force for good. If she has a good relationship with the PC, she would have something to lose. I think seeing the House of Mourning would affect her too. After all, the thing Corellon is offering to her as a way to find peace is the same thing the Sharrans are using as a way to manipulate and control others.

She's viscerally aware of how she was socialized and very actively chooses "good", so pushing her towards a darker path would be incredibly difficult but not impossible. If you side with the goblins she'll leave immediately, and turn on you if she's in your party when you attack the grove. But if you decide to try and control the cult in Act II, depending on your over-all actions before then and how you've interacted with her, you could disillusion her to the point of convincing her to break her oath. That path would entail convincing her that controlling the cult is actually the best idea. I'm sure there would be other times that her oath could break that wouldn't necessarily lock her into an "evil" path, especially with how Oathbreakers are handled in the game. Knocking out Minthara instead of killing her outright and letting Auntie Ethel go in Act I instead of killing her are two things that come to mind.

If she doesn't choose Redemption she would be at the epilogue party, of course. I'm a bit undecided on what would happen if she does choose Redemption. She may not be there at all, w/ Jaheira, Halsin, Minthara, and/or Astarion mentioning running into her in her new, reincarnated state. Or she would be there, confused, and mention how the PC seems familiar in a way she can't quite place. In that case, she would ask them how they know each other and mention something about feeling a twinge of grief looking at everyone, but that she doesn't know why she feels that way. It would be up to the PC how much they tell her (if they tell her anything at all).

[alex51324]

Useful article from CNN on election-night misinformation.

Key takeaway is that pretty much whatever happens, Trump will claim it's evidence that the election is being rigged against him.

Some additional things to keep in mind--particularly if you haven't been through many of these before:

The winner may or may not be projected on election night. How long it takes depends on a bunch of factors, having to do with the logistics of ballot-counting and how the statistical analysis comes along. Getting a projected winner by midnight and the count taking several days are both well within the range of normal, and neither one suggests that anything nefarious is happening.

Counting of votes always continues for several days after the election, until every vote has been counted. This happens regardless of whether or not the media have "called" a winner, or a candidate has conceded.

Media outlets project election winners based on the data that has come in and their statistical models--they do not "declare" or "decide" who won. The major outlets are very motivated to avoid an incorrect projection*, so if they make a call, it's because they're really sure they have enough information to accurately predict the outcome of the final count.

Usually, when this happens, all of the major media outlets are making the same projection around the same time--within the same hour, at least, and often in the same 10 minutes or so. If there's an outlier, there's a good chance they're either guessing or propagandizing.

Candidates do not get to call the race in their own favor. There's a decent chance Trump will try, but also it's also normal and expected for both campaigns to talk like they're expecting to win; e.g. introducing their candidate as "the next President of the United States" when appearing before supporters at events. (My guess is that if he does try, the mainstream media outlets will simply sanewash it as typical election-night bravado, which is actually fine.)

The only thing that means anything, coming from a candidate/campaign, is a concession. This will often happen after the media has called the race for the other candidate; it usually isn't a surprise. A normal campaign will often go quiet--stop sending people to talk on TV, etc.--when they're getting ready to concede. (Trump arguably** still hasn't conceded 2020, so no one is particularly expecting him to concede any time this coming week.)

It's normal for the numbers to change a lot. There are always some surprises, but there are also standard patterns: results from the southeast usually come in a clump, and put a lot of electoral votes into the Republican column, early in the night. Democrats usually pick up the west coast states, which of course are the last to close their polls and start reporting results***. For the swing states, where we'll probably see a lot of reporting on very incomplete vote totals, results will start coming in first from the rural areas, which lean red; cities take longer to count their votes--because there are more of them--and lean blue.

The more uncertainty there is about the outcome, the more you'll hear about the evolving numbers--news networks have airtime to fill, and there's only so many ways you can say, "Still too close to call." Try not to obsess over these numbers; the news networks have people specially trained to analyze this exact kind of data, and if they can't say how it's going to turn out, you're not going to know, either.

If it ends up being too close to call for several days, there will probably be reporting on small, county-by-county vote dumps. It's important to realize that this is all still the original count of the votes, not a recount or "finding new votes." We only hear about it when the election is so close that these relatively small numbers of ballots are likely to affect the outcome, but it happens every single election. In 2020, Trump repeatedly claimed that ongoing counts were some how irregular, and sometimes demanded that counts be stopped when the current total showed him in the lead. This is, to be clear, nuts; the full & complete count of the votes always takes more than just the one day, and it's a bedrock principle of democracy that every valid ballot is counted.

(* Back in 2000, the Bush-Gore election with the whole Florida debacle, several major news outlets did project winners too soon, and then had to walk back their projections.

This definitely contributed to the chaos that night, and may have also contributed to the widespread perception that Bush was the "real" winner and Gore was dragging the country through multiple recounts, in those first few days when the initial count of wasn't even complete in some states.

As a result, responsible media outlets are much more cautious these days about election-night projections.)

(**On January 7, 2021 he made a statement that was taken as indicating his understanding that Biden had won, or at least that he knew he wouldn't be staying in office, but he never stopped saying he won.)

(***This often looks like the Republican being miles ahead, and then suddenly California reports in and they aren't anymore. Expect Trump to pretend that this is somehow shocking, even though the last time a Republican won California was 1988.

Similarly, he will also pretend to be surprised when, for instance, Philadelphia turns in their first big batch of results, and Harris's numbers jump up.)

[trivalentlinks]

Saw (and reblogged) a Benfords Law post going around asking people to vote the first digit of the current number of votes, which is cool! There's something deterministic about it, though (explanation below cut).

So let's do a more chaotic (less predictable) version and see if it still works:

Please vote the first digit of the number of notes on the post directly above this one on your dash.

So if the previous post has 213 notes, vote 2. If there is no previous post or it has no notes, use the post below. If that also has no notes or would take too much scrolling, vote None.

Then please reblog so more people can see this and we can try to get a better distribution!

Explanation:

For the version where you vote the first digit of the number of votes on the current poll, it's deterministic (up to human/computer error) because:

Based on the total number of votes at the end, say N, you can predict (without Benford's Law) how many votes each digit should have, assuming everyone votes correctly, because you know how many numbers less than N have each digit as their first digit.

For example, when I voted and reblogged there were roughly 28000 votes, and the numbers for digits 3-9 were the same, which could have been predicted from the fact that the number of numbers <28000 that start with a 3 is the same as the number of them that start with a 4, etc: they are all 1,111:

For 3 it's 1000 (for numbers 3000-3999) + 100 (for numbers 300-399) + 10 (for numbers 30-39) + 1 (for the number 3), so 1111.

Same for those that start with 4: 1000 (for numbers 4000-4999) + 100 (for numbers 400-499) + 10 (for numbers 40-49) + 1 (for the number 3), so 1111.

The number for 1 would be the same 1,111 as above except with an extra 10,000 for numbers 10,000-20,000, so total 11,111.

And for 2 would be 81,111, for the same 1111 as before but plus 80,000 for 20,000-28,000 (where 28,000 is the total number of votes).

There would be some error due to people voting incorrectly, or timing issues (someone voting before seeing the page update from the previous person's vote), but the distribution would be mostly predictable.

(Though this is not exactly the right distribution, because in the poll they all basically had 6% and the calculation says it should be 4%; I wonder if a nontrivial number of people are accidentally clicking last digit instead?)

[specsthesecond]

https://www.tumblr.com/specshroom/752286251279908864/some-rather-unlucky-investments-have-landed-you-in?source=share

Being fucked at any time without warning, whilst enjoyable, is also very tiring. It also interrupts your sleep. Which you could forgive if every one of those using your pussy portal was polite enough to at least make you cum.

You decide to read through the contract you barely skimmed before.

Something you notice is that as your rank goes up, so too does the amount you make per punter, but also, you can start to add restrictions like times, species, gender, etc., to your pussy's portal. (Provided you still maintain the minimum usage requirements).

Now, hoes does one go from Public Pussy to Pocket Pussy rank?

Brilliant question!

Well never fear for your Number One Pussy Portal Provider is here!

I see you're an entry level Portal Partner but with your activity and customer satisfaction levels it seems you'd be more fitting in a much higher level. Have you ever thought of upgrading your contract with us? There are tons of amazing perks and opportunities just waiting for you!

For example you could sign up for the Pocket Pussy Program, in which customers have the option to purchase your portal for their own personal use. Your special customer would be your only one and they would have to pay that exorbitant subscription price to keep you all to themselves. We suggest provoking possessiveness as much as possible to maximize your chances of getting Pocket Pussy status.

Similar to the Pocket Pussy Program, there's another option that lets you sign up for the Breeding Program to earn a little extra while you work.

All you need to do is let a monster breed your pussy to term and you get paid! It's easy!

This option is most popular with tentacle patrons. You will be compensated for each egg stuffed, fertilized and laid. Yes, the gestation period might be long but don't let that stop you from your normal portal activities! In fact many tentacle eggs are known to form quicker with copious and frequent fertilization.

That doesn't interest you but you still want that bonus? Fret not!

Why not use all your holes to your advantage!

Anal and Oral Portals are always another option! These portals offer much more leeway for obvious reasons and only activate when you approve it on the Pussy Portal App. This option is reserved for our premium users and naturally you'll have a higher quota to fill but that shouldn't be a problem for you given your current performance stats.

Just imagine getting all three holes fucked and stuffed while also tripling your income!!

As a loyal portal partner, our company's number one priority is you! So to thank you for all the hard work that you do we've introduced a new feature for our loyal employees.

Introducing the Cum Button!

Now your customers have the ability to make you orgasm with just the click of a button, provided they are a premium member and have purchased enough Cum Tokens™. (Feature is still in the testing phase as customers have been far more liberal with the Cum Button™ than we initially predicted)

As you can see we offer many opportunities for you to earn what you deserve. Please take your time browsing our options, we look forward to your continued partnership!

[moonsaver]

Imagine instead of 4ggravate being a kpop boy group and reader being the fangirl, its the other way around

4ggravate forms a groupchat particularly because of you, their bias, who is also the least recognized in your group and is often overshadowed by others, leading to a desperate convergence of your fans in finding out the itty bitty stuff about you that's all on blast when it comes to the other idols in your group. They're like detectives trying to figure out whether you liked the specific flavor of ice cream on a show you participated in with your group. Each of them keep tabs on any official updates about you, recording and clipping parts of your group's lives in the tidbits where you come in, and forming a wall trying to defend you from majority of the fandom when you get backlash from false rumors. That's just how the group came to be.

Kaveh is the oldest fan amongst them – he's been there since day 1. Claims he knows the most out of all of them and tries to prove it via quizzes and guessing games. Sometimes he wins, most times he doesn't. Also the poorest of the four. He spent so much on buying your specific merchandise he didn't plan for the future concert you group was holding in his area, and ever since then he's had to tearfully decide constantly between buying albums, your photocards, new lightstick versions, etc.. and your concert that may or may not even be held in the area.

In the rare chance that he does attend your concert – he tries to get the most out of it. Front row, headbands, fanchant at the top of his head, lightsticks in both hands. When you notice him and exchange a few words over the loud crowd, he swears he's going to pass out, looking up at your crouched figure on the stage makes you look almost like an angel to him, the light highlighting your figure perfectly. Suffice to say, he eventually made an impression on you at least.. because he passed out and the crowd had to surf him to a security guard. He's deeply embarassed about it, and can't really escape it now that he's become a bit of an inside joke in your fandom

Cyno is the second older fan. Like Kaveh, he prides himself over having a good amount of knowledge about you that's not exactly easy to find – old, old, old images of other kpop idols in which you appear for a fraction of a second, spotting the products you use in your lives and being able to find out the brands is his specialty. If Kaveh has the knowledge, Cyno at least has the detective skills. He has his own individually run fanpage where most other fanpages, even your group's fanpages, refer to as a trusted source. Has also managed to create several fancams of you that were incredibly hard to get ahold of. He's those fanpages on twitter who thoroughly collect evidence and manage to pinpoint future events you're going to take part in before they're announced, and he manages to predict it correctly almost all the time. He's well known within the fandom, but due to how busy he is in 4ggravate trying to form a cumulative plan almost all the time, rarely does he find the time to respond to other fans and fanpages, and most other admins don't usually approach him either.

If anything, at least he's got more resources and money than Kaveh. I imagine he actually also is in a lot of other groups besides 4ggravate.

Alhaitham, out of everyone, is the one who's actually talked to you the most. He was originally just interested in the music, didn't really care until he realized how less and less your lines became the more songs your group churned out. So in his mind, to "make up for" the lack of lines on your end, he decides to simply just pay extra attention to your solo activities. It's not soon before you become his bias. Unlike Kaveh, he was pretty strategic and managed to plan ahead for scheduled fancalls, fanmeetings, appearances in public, etc..

he leaves a lasting impression because.. he doesn't show his appearance. At all. There's many fans out there who get your attention by doing strange things with their appearance, but Alhaitham refuses to even take off his mask just to talk to you. In fancalls, he decides to cover the cameras, always wears hoodies that cover him completely when he meets you in public. At some point, the fandom falls in love with him instead (which drives Kaveh insane), and it's not soon before there's all sorts of rumors about you two. The rumors get more wild when he only ever takes his hoodie off once when you meet him face to face. Personality wise, he sticks out because of how easily he's able to spot changes in choreography, voice, pitch, writing style, etc.. and even more so, because of how upfront about it he is, without actually being creepy about it. He gives good advice without making it sound like unwelcome criticism.

Tighnari is actually the normal one. He just generally likes the music and likes your voice specifically because he thinks your voice suits the concept the best, but because of a few injustices (which he sarcastically comments on many fancams, to which also many fans agree), he finds himself doing something similar to Alhaitham. Albeit, less.. detailed? Is what he thinks. He's actually a bit of a keyboard warrior when it comes down to it – replying to group threads that intentionally leave you out, having the sassiest comebacks to mean or rude comments about you, piecing together timelines and locations to prove false rumors wrong, working especially close with Cyno in these kinds of cases. If there's a fancam of you, Tighnari is under it fighting some or the other hater, or just blatantly commenting on the event itself that intentionally disrespects you or your group.

He's probably the only one who actually leaves a long lasting impression on you. When your car drives by a bunch of your excited fans, he's the normal one who's looking on calmly and waving to you with a stoic face. Whenever he comes to fanmeetings with Alhaitham, or has fancalls with you – it's fun! His humor is easy to accustom to, conversation goes lightly, and overall he's the tamest out of everyone. He gives you some skincare advice which you gladly accept, and somehow, despite not being as incriminating as the others when it came to detail, they're salty about how he seems to be the one who's closest to you. It's not unnoticeable the way out of all four of them, you recognize him by a first name basis. Ohhh boy.

[lovebvni]

mindset of manifestation & how i manifest

like melanie martínez, i am back from the dead.

i apologize for being gone so long, but i needed a break from tumblr. i saw toxicity swirling in the community, my life got busy, and i decided it was just time for a break. when i was planking to come back, i just saw how things got terrible and i got upset and decided not to come back.

so, im back now and with a little tutorial on how i manifest!!! <3 i hope this can help some of you out.

let’s start with background.

manifesting is kind of like predicting the future. you have something you want to happen, then it happens soon after. i feel like this is the easiest way to get into the manifestation mindset. you cannot change what you’re getting if you want it. could you change your mind later and return it like a package? yes! but before it arrives, you know it’s arrival is coming.

sure, there can be delays, but it all is going to turn out YOUR way in the end.

nile and i have been working on our mindset and this is something they wrote that i think can be really helpful — as it was to me.

from the past two years we have been actively manifesting, we learned that we often saw things as “crazy”. but manifesting isn’t crazy, it’s quite normal.

every time you get dressed in the morning, it’s an act of manifestation. you’re showing up with what you want.

manifestation is a mondane activity!! stop treating it like it was a kiss from an angel!

by reading this, you’re manifesting your eyes working, you’ve used your hands to open an app, and you have believed you can read and get through this blog! without manifesting that, you would not be here.

the first step to manifestation is believing you can do it, believing you have done it, and believing you will continue to do it. period.

there are many MANY different ways to manifest, but i manifest in 3 ways (sometimes i use all three, sometimes i use just 1 or 2.)

!! I ALMOSR FORGOT TO PUT THIS AND IM ADDING IT BEFORE I GET TO NUMBER 2 OMG!!

STOP! BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE I WANT YOU TO GET A NOTEBOOK, A SHEET OF PAPER, OR MAKE A CHECKLIST ON YOUR PHONE IN YOUR NOTES APP!!!

now i want you to write down everything you want right now down and leave the boxes blank if you haven’t gotten them yet.

once you get through that, i want you to randomly click between some of the items you want and write down things you wanted that you did get! they can be some simple and things from years ago, what matters is you have them down. throw in some things that you may have to do for school or work while you’re at it.

here’s an example! (left is before checking off, right is after)

as you can see, i added a note to the side because i got what i wanted and more abundantly! i had been manifesting a dog since i was a young child, and in 2021, i got 2!!!! (one is laying at my feet right now <3)

continue to do this daily, weekly, or whatever you have time for. i personally do this on notion and i try to add something new daily (im adding the heartstopper thing rn!!)

but yeah!! write everything u want down, and continue to add to it, just so u can see progress DOES happen and your work and effort DOES pay off!

affirming and persisting

this id the first way i learned to manifest, and the most self-explanatory.

you simply repeat what you want over and over until you get it! but not in the future tense, in the current or past tense.

ex; “i passed my maths final!”, “im so happy my boyfriend gave me those roses for valentine’s day, he’s so sweet!”, “i finished the essay for english like a week before it was due!” “i got the lead role in my play! im so excited!” etc.

now, the common factor between all of these is having a positive mindset about them. i cannot tell you HOW many times i manifested something would go well, and right before they happened, i got in a shitty mind space and wondered if it would ever happen.

but, nonetheless, i persisted through and i got what i wanted.

the pain have have been feeling cant compare to the joy that is coming. Romans 8:18

persisting is basically pushing through. think about the time you didn’t think you would make it through an injury, a school year, a trial, yet you still walked through it — even if it was slow.

like when work days are long and you want to go home, but you can’t, so you persist.

i try to think of my manifestations as an ultimatum. it’s going to happen, and that’s final. the only thing you have to do to get it is stay conscious.

and staying conscious, walking through those days, is how you get to the end!

i use affirming and persisting with pretty much everything, which is why it was first.

2. listening to subs.

it’s that simple — listen to an audible subliminal that has the results you want over and over!! that’s all i do u guys. here’s my playlist if u want it (IF I DELETE IT CHECK MY PINNED POST!! I UPDATE IT OFTEN)

i often use @stilljuststardust’s subs, slade’s subs, enchanted workshops’ subs and i want it, i got it’s subs!

all of them are trusted and credible. i cannot promise you that all the subs in my playlist will work for you, as they are (sometimes) linked to my personal desires.

3. pinterest manifestation!!

i recommend having either a whole pinterest account or a board set aside for this way of manifestation.

you simply make boards (or sections) for things you want. i would say this is best for physical items, people, looks, makeup, etc. things that re physically tangible, rather than something like reality shifting (although i do have a reality shifting board! it has been working pretty well <3)

i also have one for my mindset, my religion, so on and so forth (link btw)

i think this is pretty self explanatory. just save picture of things you want and quotes/affirmations and DONE!

i also use this sub with it :p it’s worked WONDERSSS!

if you have any other questions i will be happy to answer them!! i love you all!! go manifest!!

[tangibletechnomancy]

The reason I took interest in AI as an art medium is that I've always been interested in experimenting with novel and unconventional art media - I started incorporating power tools into a lot of my physical processes younger than most people were even allowed to breathe near them, and I took to digital art like a duck to water when it was the big, relatively new, controversial thing too, so really this just seems like the logical next step. More than that, it's exciting - it's not every day that we just invent an entirely new never-before-seen art medium! I have always been one to go fucking wild for that shit.

Which is, ironically, a huge part of why I almost reflexively recoil at how it's used in the corporate world: because the world of business, particularly the entertainment industry, has what often seems like less than zero interest in appreciating it as a novel medium.

And I often wonder how much less that would be the case - and, by extension, how much less vitriolic the discussion around it would be, and how many fewer well-meaning people would be falling for reactionary mythologies about where exactly the problems lie - if it hadn't reached the point of...at least an illusion of commercial viability, at exactly the moment it did.

See, the groundwork was laid in 2020, back during covid lockdowns, when we saw a massive spike in people relying on TV, games, books, movies, etc. to compensate for the lack of outdoor, physical, social entertainment. This was, seemingly, wonderful for the whole industry - but under late-stage capitalism, it was as much of a curse as it was a gift. When industries are run by people whose sole brain process is "line-go-up", tiny factors like "we're not going to be in lockdown forever" don't matter. CEOs got dollar signs in their eyes. Shareholders demanded not only perpetual growth, but perpetual growth at this rate or better. Even though everyone with an ounce of common sense was screaming "this is an aberration, this is not sustainable" - it didn't matter. The business bros refused to believe it. This was their new normal, they were determined to prove -

And they, predictably, failed to prove it.

So now the business bros are in a pickle. They're beholden to the shareholders to do everything within their power to maintain the infinite growth they promised, in a world with finite resources. In fact, by precedent, they're beholden to this by law. Fiduciary duty has been interpreted in court to mean that, given the choice between offering a better product and ensuring maximum returns for shareholders, the latter MUST be a higher priority; reinvesting too much in the business instead of trying to make the share value increase as much as possible, as fast as possible, can result in a lawsuit - that a board member or CEO can lose, and have lost before - because it's not acting in the best interest of shareholders. If that unsustainable explosive growth was promised forever, all the more so.

And now, 2-3-4 years on, that impossibility hangs like a sword of Damocles over the heads of these media company CEOs. The market is fully saturated; the number of new potential customers left to onboard is negligible. Some companies began trying to "solve" this "problem" by violating consumer privacy and charging per household member, which (also predictably) backfired because those of us who live in reality and not statsland were not exactly thrilled about the concept of being told we couldn't watch TV with our own families. Shareholders are getting antsy, because their (however predictably impossible) infinite lockdown-level profits...aren't coming, and someone's gotta make up for that, right? So they had already started enshittifying, making excuses for layoffs, for cutting employee pay, for duty creep, for increasing crunch, for lean-staffing, for tightening turnarounds-

And that was when we got the first iterations of AI image generation that were actually somewhat useful for things like rapid first drafts, moodboards, and conceptualizing.

Lo! A savior! It might as well have been the digital messiah to the business bros, and their eyes turned back into dollar signs. More than that, they were being promised that this...both was, and wasn't art at the same time. It was good enough for their final product, or if not it would be within a year or two, but it required no skill whatsoever to make! Soon, you could fire ALL your creatives and just have Susan from accounting write your scripts and make your concept art with all the effort that it takes to get lunch from a Star Trek replicator!

This is every bit as much bullshit as the promise of infinite lockdown-level growth, of course, but with shareholders clamoring for the money they were recklessly promised, executives are looking for anything, even the slightest glimmer of a new possibility, that just might work as a life raft from this sinking ship.

So where are we now? Well, we're exiting the "fucking around" phase and entering "finding out". According to anecdotes I've read, companies are, allegedly, already hiring prompt engineers (or "prompters" - can't give them a job title that implies there's skill or thought involved, now can we, that just might imply they deserve enough money to survive!)...and most of them not only lack the skill to manually post-process their works, but don't even know how (or perhaps aren't given access) to fully use the software they specialize in, being blissfully unaware of (or perhaps not able/allowed to use) features such as inpainting or img2img. It has been observed many times that LLMs are being used to flood once-reputable information outlets with hallucinated garbage. I can verify - as can nearly everyone who was online in the aftermath of the Glasgow Willy Wonka Dashcon Experience - that the results are often outright comically bad.

To anyone who was paying attention to anything other than please-line-go-up-faster-please-line-go-please (or buying so heavily into reactionary mythologies about why AI can be dangerous in industry that they bought the tech companies' false promises too and just thought it was a bad thing), this was entirely predictable. Unfortunately for everyone in the blast radius, common sense has never been an executive's strong suit when so much money is on the line.

Much like CGI before it, what we have here is a whole new medium that is seldom being treated as a new medium with its own unique strengths, but more often being used as a replacement for more expensive labor, no matter how bad the result may be - nor, for that matter, how unjust it may be that the labor is so much cheaper.

And it's all because of timing. It's all because it came about in the perfect moment to look like a life raft in a moment of late-stage capitalist panic. Any port in a storm, after all - even if that port is a non-Euclidean labyrinth of soggy, rotten botshit garbage.

Any port in a storm, right? ...right?

All images generated using Simple Stable, under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Blood-Stained Wool Spun At Midnight (III)

AU MASTERLIST || FINAL CHAPTER

PAIRING: Werewolf!Ghost x F!Tailor!Reader (Set in Van Helsing Era/Aesthetic)

WORDCOUNT: 12.0k

WARNINGS: Blood, intense gore, body horror, horror, angst, mutilation, violence, wounds, blades, death, many religious imagery/references, nudity, protective!Simon, NSFW, soft/loving smut, fingering, mating press, implied virgin!reader due to time-period standards, pretty vanilla, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

Simon’s skin is bare to the moon, and he can taste your blood on his tongue. 

Eyes wide, the man’s lips are loose; jaw slackened at the horror that lays below him as crimson drips down the swell of his Adam’s apple and between the dip of his chest. He can’t move, even as the chill sets into his spine, the hair over his arms and on the back of his neck standing on end. 

All he can see is your body. 

You don’t move, you don’t smile or send him that stern look of stubbornness—the snow falls to your head, it collects on the side of your face and limp corpse. Your torn clothes show the weeping wounds and jagged remains of flesh. 

But none more so than one on your neck. The gaping tear made from his fangs. 

Not me, Simon’s fingers twitch at his sides, your body in a pool of red. Not me. 

It was him, though, wasn’t it? 

He doesn’t remember what happened, cannot recall the memories in his brain—a demon, the Lord of this forest, and a prisoner all in one. You hadn’t killed it, no, there was no way to do that. Silver could only do so much.

But it had done something to you, to make your scent twist and rot. Your soul didn’t smell right.

“I…” Simon’s voice fails him. 

His body is broken and bent, his entire side burning with pain, but none of that matters. Brown eyes quiver, and the man goes to lick his lips only to gag at the taste of copper, snapping his eyes away to pant quick breaths into the tree line. 

Simon’s hand raises to hover above his stomach, shaking. 

“I didn’t bloody do that,” he mutters, the evidence on his chest and stuck in his pores. The forest is silent. “I didn’t do that.” The man says it louder. 

You stare forward numbly with a broken neck and a torn-out throat.

Foot twisting him around, he levels his back to you, hands coming up to his head as his jaw clenched so tight his molars scream at him. What had happened? What had gone on? Simon closes his eyes and hunches his shoulders forward. 

“No,” he growls. “No, I didn’t fucking do that to you.” 

The night continues to keep him in its black hold, the snow absorbs the blood and black liquid. He can smell the rot—the infection under your skin as it brands your corpse. 

This forest was like a beacon to every monster in its vicinity. It called them here and made them lose themselves. Under the light of the moon and sun, whenever its branches told him to run and hunt as a beast, Simon Riley had no option but to obey. He would come here on a moment's notice when he felt the change coming over him, to his hut and his glade. 

There were few times he could predict it, and no matter how much he wanted to stay with you, that just wasn’t how it worked. 

Every monster that was called here was bait for that demon, and no monster had the ability to wield anything that could kill it. No silver. No holy water. 

But a mortal could. 

Every hunter entering these dark bounds had been hunting the wrong colossus and never had the chance to know it. 

Simon bends slightly forward to hold his head tighter, grunting out whimpers as if trying to keep his brain from falling out. 

“Fuck,” he breathes. Then louder than a scream and longer than the first, “Fuck!” The trees shiver. 

Simon harshly pulls at his hair, feeling the strands snap before he slides his hands up and down his face; trying to push off the crimson yet he only succeeds in spreading it. He can’t hear your heart beating anymore, can’t hear the swell of your lungs. Nothing. 

Hand lashing out, his knuckles connect with the hard bark of one of the tree’s trunks and he sends it back and forward three more times until his fingers crack and bend. When he’s done, the man doesn’t even notice the tears freezing on his cheeks as his breath puffs out in clouds. 

Simon silently stifles a ragged inhale and sags forward, unable to turn back and look at you—he can’t bear it after everything he’s been through. Forehead tapping the rough bark, his pain-filled body flaring, the blond clenches his fists like an angry child.

He should have told you in the glade—in the safety of consecrated ground where holy men and women had been buried for time immemorial. He should have explained why it was only you that made him whole.

But Simon was a silent creature; a creature of silent glances and hidden softness that borders on a fear of abandonment. He would never tell you until you happened to figure it out yourself or if it became undeniable.

Oh, you should have stayed away. 

His knees threaten to give out, so he lets them go until he can move his body to the side and lean against his tree. Barely breathing, he cares not about the cold. As he did when he was a child, all those years ago yet still shrouded in pain and hate, he loses any and all expression from his face—brown eyes dark as they stare at nothing. 

There had been a moment that he’d come back to himself as the Ghost. A brief moment. 

Simon wants to hang for the memory he now holds. 

Your eyes, blood-burst, looking into his own as his fangs rend your flesh in two. The feeling of your neck snapping under his jaws. Tongue lolling in blood and licking its muzzle; whiskers dripping.

This time Simon gags, but he also hurls up his guts, too. 

Bending his aching spine, his forearm keeps him up, bare thighs tensing and nerves quivering as his abdomen bunches. Simon pants staring blankly at the bile in the snow, saliva pooling in his mouth. He still can’t look at you. 

With little left for him, the man curls up in the snow and resigns himself to freezing to death, arms loose around his waist and injuries screaming at him. 

He’d killed you—is death not the only option left for him as well? 

Simon lays there until his eyelids grow heavy, only thinking of you and how you had been. Your kindness, your wit. He enjoyed your loudness, and there was no one to perfectly challenge him but you. 

From the first time he’d seen your form, it had only ever been you. He was yours, utterly; wholly. He should have told you to stay away.

“M’sorry, Love” he whispers into the ground, shivering violently, lips blue. His head is turned away as the trees hold their breath. “All my bastard fault—should’ve been me. It…fuckin’ hell,” Simon breathes, clenching his jaw. “Should’ve been me.”

He mutters his self-hatred until he falls silent and his chest rattles. Until the forest listens. 

Until it answers.

Simon’s eyes snap open to the sound of a world cracking in two and finds your body gone. 

—

This place isn’t real. 

You sit in a mirror vision of your shop, but nothing is correct. Looking into the corners, shadows slip away with quiet laughter, and the door rings but no one walks through. It’s…repetitive. It never stops, but you can’t seem to leave. 

You think it’s been days, weeks, even. Always it feels like there’s something watching you, and the window of your shop shows nothing but black night outside and flickering lamps. 

It doesn’t feel right to speak. 

If you speak, whatever is standing out in the street will know you’re here. 

You shake as you watch it now, silent and swallowing down saliva. Its eyes have been ripped out, and the chains along its wrists drag so loudly you can hear them even through stone and wood; they make you flinch and shiver. For whatever reason, the phantom of the man cannot find you, though he has been looking. 

He even knocks on the door.

It was a clanging, dead, thing. With a slam of a gnarled wrist and a raspy cry of your name on his slit tongue. You don’t want to ask how it knows your title, so you only hold your hands to your mouth to stifle your sobs. But for all of this, you still contained self-awareness.

You’re in Hell, or some strange, twisted version of the middle point. Purgatory. 

But why? Why here of all places—your soul had been branded, you heard that curse and felt the blackened nectar in your flesh. Had known what Simon had…

You blink quickly, looking away from the twisted man and taking down a shaky inhale. 

Whatever this place was, you and this shade were the only ones here. The only once-human ones, anyways. You didn’t exactly want to go out and meet him. 

“Please!” It bangs on the door again and your head snaps up in panic, hand whipping to your mouth to hide the sharp gasp. If you ever got out of here, you never wanted to see your home again. This version ruined it. “Please, let me in. I can’t see—it took out my eyes! Please, please I need my eyes.” 

Your eyelids close tightly, your heart clenched and beating fast. 

All of this terror lets you think about Simon. And so you do, and try to not blame him for what he did even if you know in your heart it’s not his fault. 

You remember the first time you met him, and you think that’s perhaps one of the best memories you hold. 

“If you expect me to fix this, you’ll need to hand over half of your soul and a blessing from God himself,” you frown at the remains of a pair of tweed pants, blinking with your mouth agape. “I’d ask what happened, but I think that would put me on a list of some kind, Sir.” 

Simon stares.

“How much?” You sigh and shake your head. 

“Really, there’s very little I can do here short of just offering you a new pair.” Placing the scraps on the table and lightly pushing them forward, the man moves his large hand out to take them from you. 

Your fingers touch, and you blink as a slight spark makes you flinch. Simon as well, you remember, had snapped his hand back to him, his eyes slightly widening and his throat holding down a breath. 

“Woah,” you mutter, touching your head as you suddenly go lightheaded. “S-sorry about that, I don’t know what—”

“Both.” Simon slides the fabric back to you. 

Your senses come back in a slow sweep and you clear your throat. “...Both?” 

“Fix the pants and sell me another, yeah?” A quirked brow, but something else swims in that dark gaze, something that fights with itself. “I’ll pay. Money’s no problem.” 

“Oh,” you blink, taken aback. The both of you stare at each other. 

You’re struck by the thought that this man’s eyes are far more deep than anything you’ve looked into before. 

“Of course, if that’s what you want.” He grunts, tipping his head and looking to the side for a moment. He wears that strange covering, too. The one that sits on his nose. 

“Good.” Simon backs up a step before pausing. “You have a name, then, Tailor?” 

You tilt your head and cross your arms, eyes narrowing carefully. “Just as you do.”

That silk fabric twitches, gaze sparking. 

“Simon Riley.” Your smile slowly pulls at your muscles, and for the first time throughout the day, you truly mean it. 

You don’t know how time works here, but you also can’t really understand that you’re dead. Of course, the thought of an afterlife crossed your mind in your living hours, but you’d never thought you’d go to one so soon. 

But every time you blink, you don’t think you’re meant to be here.

So, again, why? The question was mulled over incessantly after every memory of Simon, and you start to believe he’s the catalyst. 

What were you missing? 

The man himself had hinted at it, talking about how your scent to him was opium—like a drug. It kept him…him even when a monster. 

“Please!” You’ve discovered that all of the windows are bolted and the front door is locked, but it never becomes daytime here. A perpetual night and a pleading soul guarding you. In the long hours where you sneak from one empty room to another, so similar to real life that it makes you sick, you wonder if this place is an exact replica of the city you called home.

If some of the other houses are not so vacant after all; the inhabitants hiding like you are. Purgatory sounds about right.

Chains drag and there are garbling sobs and you stare at the door without the key to open it. 

The thing was blind—if you could sneak past it…your eyes looked out the window to Simon’s home across the street. There was a pull to all things that included him. A sanctity. Despite how your life had ended, how you’ll surely still think about it and sob out of pain, you can’t blame him for it. 

He didn’t have control.

You begin to think of a plan to break out without making any noise as you close your eyes tightly, hands clenching at your sides. 

“Back again, Mr. Riley?” Your bell rings and you glance at the intimidating figure walking through. He takes a deep breath when he enters, nodding in greeting before lumbering to the counter. 

“Any trouble?” He had a habit of asking this when he’d been gone on a longer trip of his, always back disheveled and with bags under his bloodshot eyes. As if he gets back and the first thing he wants to do is come see you.

The thought didn’t bother you. 

You laugh, “I’m happy to report the only thing that happened was that a pigeon ran into the window.” 

Brown eyes glance over his shoulder to blink at the impression of feathers on the front glass.

“Poor Bastard,” he huffs, amusement in his accented tone as he slips his hands into his pockets. “Get any feathers out of it? New pillow if you’re lucky.” He tilts his chin. “If you know how to pluck a bloody corpse, that is.”

“You’re incredibly strange, Mr. Riley,” you laugh, nodding your head at him. “I’ve never heard a man state such things.”

“I wrong?” Simon grunts, but you hear his slight smile in his tone. 

You only roll your eyes. “I highly doubt a pigeon would give you enough feathers for a pillow.”

“Well, you’re just not fuckin’ trying hard enough then, yeah?” 

“Are you here for a reason, Sir?” You can’t stop smiling, holding back your loud laugh as happiness is plainly stated on your face. “Or are you just here to speak to me about the feather-quantity of the local birds?” 

Simon’s eyes are crinkled slightly, and you try very hard to imagine him beaming just as you do, though you know it’s slim. 

You want to make him smile; you want to be the reason he does. And you don’t even know why. 

Your very soul leaps when you see him from across the street, it tightens and calls out like a reaching hand desperate to grasp into another counterpart. You’d never felt like this about a man before, much less one you barely knew anything about on a personal level. 

You liked Simon Riley.

“I was thinking ‘bout a new undershirt. Black.” A hand moves up and a pile of money is placed on your counter. “Anything’ll be good, just need a new one.” 

“Of course,” you easily slip into business, not bothering to look at the sum. “Special occasion?” You pause before fake laughing. “A lady to impress, perhaps?”

Your heart sinks more than it should; nearly hurting. Did Mr. Riley have a courtship? 

He blinks at you carefully, long lashes caressing his scarred cheeks. You swore his lips under the silk twitched. 

“No,” is all he says, blunt and casual, thighs shifting. 

You stare, hands touching themselves on the counter as heat burns your cheeks. 

“Okay,” you mutter, embarrassed, though you don’t know why. “That should be no trouble at all. I’ll just need your measurements.” 

Simon nods once, staring at your hands before he takes off his jacket and places it on the wood. You grabbed your long measuring tape and slipped to the front, asking lightly for him to hold out his arms. 

Heart hammering, he does so; great torso flexing and face blank. 

You begin with the chest, sliding your hands along his clothed body to flatten out the tape until you can see the mark it rested at. It would be false to say you didn’t lose your breath slightly, being so close and able to freely feel the swell of his muscle. Under your fingers, his pulse was like a hammer, and he was so large you actually had to give him a hug to connect the other side around him.

“S-sorry,” but Simon’s eyes are entirely blown, body tense and slightly shivering as your hands feel him. 

“Don’t be,” he breathes, and you feel the push of his lungs to his ribcage; molten heat. 

Your lips tingle, and heat seeps into your stomach as you shift your thighs to quell it. 

Simon grunts, and his head turns down incredibly fast. 

You blink. “Mr. Riley?” 

“Nothin’,” his lips flinch, and his brown eyes, more like black now, dart to your lips. “M’fine. Keep going.” 

You do so, oblivious to the coil in the man’s gut that mirrors yours, flaring with every gentle poke and prod.

It was when you’d almost given up that there seemed to be something else on your side in this god-forsaken place. You found your knife. 

It was in the same drawer where your tape measure should be, just sitting there where all else was absent. You stare and slowly reach for it, sliding your fingers over the hilt and the glint of the blade before picking it up. 

But you’d checked this drawer a million times over, what had—

There’s the sound of a fluttering of wings outside of your shop, and you’re unimpressed with yourself at how your mind immediately goes to a helpful pigeon spirit. You hold a hand to your lips to stop yourself from laughing, despite it all.

A spark alights in your heart. 

“Thank you,” you whisper to nothing, turning the blade over in your hands and smiling. 

Walking slowly, you avoid every creak in the wood—unlooping your belt for the small prong that would come in handy. Placing the blade into the slit of the lock, you insert the prong above it, twisting and waiting to hear a series of clicks; putting your ear next to the wood. 

The dragging of chains is far off, the loud wailing distant. 

Now or never. 

You hold your breath and listen to the sounds of the lock, sweating and grimacing. It’s so very silent outside—you’re so used to the clanging of metal and the clop of hooves that it scares you more than the monster. Like you’re standing out in a field but there’s no wind, no air even. Unnatural nothingness. 

So hard at focusing, when the click of the door lets you know it’s open, you don’t notice the heavy breathing on the other side. Standing and taking out your knife, you silently celebrate plucking your belt away just as the handle jiggles. 

Only you’re not touching the handle. 

Blood leaving your face, you can only skitter to the side as the hinges squeal like a dying animal, the barrier slowly opening as your back flattens against the wall. At first, nothing happened. 

The door is open and you stare wide-eyed as no sound enters your ears. Lamp-light seeps in, creating a long glow along the floors. 

A ragged breath makes you want to shrivel up, and then the wailing starts. 

“Please, please, where are my eyes?” Too close. 

You flinch wildly as chains are dragged into the room, the scent of dead wood sticking to your nostrils. Up close, the man’s skin is dripping water—seaweed over his shoulders and hanging off his restraints. 

He walks inside and the gaping wounds of his eyes make you nearly gag. “Where did you take them? I want them back, please, let me borrow yours until I find mine again.”

He drags his heavy silver chains far into the shop, stumbling and groaning through sobs. Those things seem to have no end to them, and he bumps and walks into the back room right as you slip outside. 

Immediately, you rush out into the street, crossing the cobble and hopping the long metal ahead of you as you re-loop your belt with one hand and grip your knife tightly. Getting to Simon’s house, you grasp the handle of the door and pull.

It jerks with a bang of metal.

Locked. 

“Shi…” you trail your curse and bite your lip. Silently, you take a step back to quickly think as the warden still calls hopelessly from your shadowed shop. Where else would you go? The inner city? The town?

Your eyelids blink. 

The forest. That had to be it—there had to be answers there, right? 

You were beginning to grow more fearful that you would be stuck here forever, in between life and death. A branded soul and yet, you weren’t in Hell. Or, at least, you imagined Hell far more hot than this. 

Turning, you slip down the steps and speed walk down the road, not running for fear that your shoes would make too much noise. That was also strange—all of your clothes were mended here, stitched back together as if never cut; wounds healed and nonexistent. You weren’t one to complain.

“Where are you going?” The Warden is on the steps, and he falls down them in a shattering of bone and a slurp of wet skin. “Please, give me my eyes! I can hear you running away—I can smell your souls! Let me have what little is still free! Let me see!” 

Souls?

You start sprinting as the great wail of chains lets you know you’re being pursued. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Your lips expel, skirts swish, and muscles tense all at once. Like a race, the man’s panting breath is almost felt on your neck, bare feet far faster than he should be. “I don’t have your eyes—I’m sorry, but you’ve really got the wrong person! T-try down the block?!”

You call loudly behind you in hopes that it will get him to give up on you, legs pumping harder as he screams with rage and you curse yourself with every breath. He’s gaining on you, somehow, this blind beast is gaining on you.

There was no way you were making it to the forest.

In a split-second decision, your shoes skid over the street, and, steeling yourself with what little sanity you have left, you turn with your knife at the ready. 

Hell, you’d already died once. 

But you’d never forget the image of this beast running towards you with a wailing mouth and dragging chains, the things so heavy they wrench back his arms. You falter for a moment, but shake your head and raise the knife in one hand, gritting your teeth despite your unimaginable fear. 

Bravery was far too hard at this moment, but there was no more running. You take down a shaky breath and will your arm to stop vibrating with its sweaty palm.

“My eyes!” It screams. “Give me your eyes!”

Seven feet, five, four, three—

A familiar rageful roar takes over, and a black shadow covers the street lamp light from above as if a storm of vengeance. You watch as the gargantuan body flies over you and wastes little time for pleasantries.

The Ghost slams its body into the Warden, and they go down in a flurry of feral snarls and wails. You watch, frozen still with shock, as black claws can be heard tearing through flesh and rending meat, a slick slapping of pig slop as black blood spills to the streets. 

In the utter absence of all else, you listen with a quivering body, the fear extending down to your spine. Not of the other thing on its back, wailing and sobbing about its eyes even as its gut is invaded by a large muzzle and ivory fangs, but of that muzzle-owner itself.

You didn’t realize how much of a shock it would be to see Simon again. Like this. 

Your eyes stare blankly at how an arm is ripped from its socket, shredded from a shoulder, and tossed to the sidewalk with a rabid jerk; the body of the Warden lifted as the Ghost rises to his back paws and grips tightly. Hands on the lower half, mouth on the top, your jailer is torn in two with nothing more than a tear and a sound of vertebrae popping. 

Black splatters over your cheeks, but you make no move to swipe it away. 

Simon drops the body to the ground, and it twitches—it speaks as it bounces. Brown eyes dig into its mangled face, ears erect. 

“My eyes…M-my…eye—” A large paw pad is pressed into its head, and pressure is leveled. Brought down like an anvil. 

The Ghost crushes a skull under his foot and the resounding pop is enough to make you snap out of your frozen terror. He turns to you seconds later, mouth stopping its snarling and going silent all at once. 

The beast blinks slowly, ear twitching once.

Averting your gaze, you completely give up in light of this new arrival and clench your eyes shut. Your neck hurts—burns—like it’s being ripped open over and over again, snapping, and the light getting sucked away. 

Great feet take lumbering steps forward; you take one back. 

“I…I don’t,” you shudder and shake, hand holding your knife. Your mind can’t comprehend him being here—in this void with you, leaping in a great bound to tackle the monster to the ground. No, no, this was another phantom. He was going to kill you again. 

Wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t his fault.

You back up some more until there’s a soft huff. It’s tiny, small as if coming from a lap dog that Mrs. Ida would own. Your eyes are firmly shut, yet he tries again. 

A wet nose is leveled to your forehead, pressing in and tapping you lightly. A chuffing noise echoed in the back of his throat, gruff and low as he breathed you in. You hide a whimper as that nose dips to your neck, imagining the ways he’s going to sink his teeth in and how your bones will—

The Ghost sags into you, and with a flick of his ears, the large head begins to rub into your flesh as he grunts. Your eyes snap open as his gargantuan hands circle your waist, anchoring you to his chest as he leans back on his haunches; small noises bouncing from his breast as he curls his head behind yours. You’re lifted gently as you squeak, hands snapping to dig through fur and, like logs, your feet dangle from under you. 

You don’t speak as Simon begins running out of the city, down the black outskirts. Into the midnight shadows the two of you disappear in the direction of the mirrored forest, your body in his grip and the side of his head never failing to lean into yours. You can feel his eyes roving, darting down and around, before always coming back to you regardless of the things he smells here. 

Like a candle in the dark, he had already scoured the bounds of this purgatory for you—waiting for that small flicker of something to grasp onto that would let him find your light. And it hadn’t been your scent or the way you’d yelled. It had been the very call of your soul, or, at least, souls. 

Because that was what it was. 

The reason you were here instead of Hell was because that corruption had only marked your soul. Not realizing that half of it didn’t belong to you. 

Simon knew little about how it worked, but sometimes people are only born with a fraction of their soul as theirs—the other pieces snapping into place when a match is met but still not held as theirs. Your other half, the reason you stayed here, was because Simon’s soul had held you up like a rope to an anchor.  

That spark in the tailor’s shop; the longing and the insatiable pull to be near you—marked as two pieces of a puzzle sitting right next to each other, the image leaking from one to the other. 

A Fated Pair.

The Ghost breaks through the treeline and you curl into him as he covers you with his arms, eyes watching the black trees and the void of space above him. There were no stars here—no moon. You can’t see anything, but he can. 

Simon rushes your intertwined souls back to the place he had dragged himself through; a great fissure in the earth that had opened and swallowed your body who knows how long ago. Weeks, months—years, even. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered. 

His instincts brought him through, and his guilt had kept him going; this all-consuming and deathly guilt. He’d never forgive himself, but he can’t leave you here. 

Simon finds the fissure as great screams begin to wail out from the city, echoing off the trees and over the air. A scream and a plea. Hundreds, thousands. 

He doesn’t bother to stay, because you’re in his arms and his nose breathes in your scent. You grip onto him tightly, shaking with a fear-bathed quiver to your lips, and those large arms hold you ever closer; a large grunt and a rub of his chin. 

Simon stands on the very edge of a void, and he jumps. 

—

You wake to the large dog curled around you, softly breathing and using his body to shield you from the gentle snowfall. So warm does his blood run, that you don’t even feel the cold on you, only the brush of silk and the hard press of his hands. 

Simon’s breath ruffles your hair, his spine shaped in such a way that not a sliver of you is visible to the world beyond your head in his neck, resting on the swell of his softness like a pillow. As if he was a swan, keeping you in a bed of feathers.

Your eyes flutter open, and you take air down to bathe in the scent of earth. 

The Ghost shifts, grunting and not letting up on his grip. 

You’re in the very same place you died, yet there’s no evidence of that—the blood is gone, the broken trees are surrounded by young ones, and the snow is deeper than it had been before. But your clothes are…

You shift, and the beast lets you go easily, though his eyes don’t leave your face. He stays on the ground as you sit up, looking down at yourself. 

While the forest may have moved on, you, it seems, have not. 

Your clothes are back to the state they’d been in before—torn and ripped open, long gouging marks and stains that would never come out. You tense at the sight, swallowing saliva down as if wine with a grimace. Like a magnetic link, your eyes slowly turn up to meet Simon’s. 

He waits. He watches. That muzzle of his closed and his breath slow. If you told him to get away, there would be no doubt that he would—he would disappear and never come back to you, a memory that fades into a dream and then farther on. 

Your fingers twitch as his large claw lifts, a finger pointed and slowly coming up to your face. You try not to balk away as it draws near to your nose, where a tiny snowflake rests. The blackened sickle pauses, Simon’s chest expands, and then he slightly brushes it away with little more than a twitch of his finger. 

The knife is only a foot away, sitting bright and glinting in the morning light. You look to the sky to distract from your burning cheeks; your internal war. 

Light. Real and glowing above you from a globe set into the heavens. 

Gazing at it with wide eyes, your sockets fill with stinging tears, blinking until they slip down your cheeks and you put a hand over your mouth as a small sob wafts out. You bend your spine forward and cry, gasping. 

Simon keeps himself away, unknowing if he should reach out or if he would only make it worse. His great body is tight with agony, souls raging with pain. Everything in this form was more instinctual, more in tune, he wanted to comfort you—to make it alright again, but even as a human, when had he ever been good at that? 

The Ghost watched, body wound up but still deathly still; ears pointing straight. His hands twitch. 

You sob until your lungs hurt and your head feels light, not knowing how to process this in the slightest. When you’re done you numbly stare at the ground below you, trying to rid your mind of death, demons, and wool. 

A human hand on the top of your head makes you startle. 

Snapping your red eyes up, you meet tight orbs of brown, a face twisted with remorse and a deep inner hatred. 

“I…” Simon’s lips utter out, his voice low and pale skin in the snow. “M’sorry, Sweet Girl. I can never fuckin’ give you an apology that matters, eh? But I need to say it—I need you to know.” You stare and feel his fingers caress your scalp. He looks away, breath small. “It’s all my bloody fault, yeah? So don’t you dare think for a second that anythin’ comes back to you.” 

The hand threatens to leave you, to slip back down and return to his side, but with a small noise of alarm—one that had Simon’s eyes widened in concern—your body darts forward. 

Connecting with him, you make him grunt as his biceps press into your side, shocked as his first reaction is to make sure you don’t fall. 

“Get me out of here,” you plead. “Please, Simon, get me out of here.” 

There’s no hesitation as he lifts you upward, a bridal hold like the same he had used to lift you above the thorns and mutters into your hair as he quickly walks into the trees. 

“C’mere, I’ve got you. Don’t cry, c’mon now, you’re back. You’re back.” The knife is left far in the past, and there it will stay—far away from the two of you. “Breathe, then.” 

You bury your head into his neck, breathing hard and shaking not from the cold but from memories; things you shouldn’t know. 

“M’sorry,” Simon says again, voice cracking. “Christ, I’ll never say it enough.” 

If you hated him he understood—would welcome that Hell in its own right. Of all the things he’d done, this was the worst sin he could have ever committed. He’d spend the rest of his life thanking whatever power was out there that had broken the earth for him; had led him to you. His tailor.

You sob through a panicked chuckle. “Y-you already have, you brute.”

Simon rubs his face into your hair, holding your quivering souls together and opening his mouth in a shaking exhale as his eyes flutter. 

“Breathe,” is all he says, repeating everything like a record and an order as you hone on the stiff tone—getting you to focus. 

You follow the pulse in his neck, lips pressing into his flesh as your head tilts. 

You’re both back at Simon’s hut as you still try to calm yourself, the man’s face turned into yours and his forehead pressing into your scalp. There’s so little for you to grasp onto besides him—how he feels, the dig of his fingers, and the sound of his breath. 

He sets you on the bed and he pauses, kneeling down slowly as his hands come to gently clutch your cheeks. 

“Can you look at me, Love?” Simon asks you, voice gruff in its low tone. You shiver, sniffling, before your eyes stutter over his features and land on those burial mound browns. He releases a tiny puff of breath—a flicker of his lip.

“Atta girl, jus’ like that, then.” The man blinks slowly, tilting. Simon looks you over with a heavy expression, one that shows the pain and the weight he carries. “Need to get these off, okay?”

A finger lightly travels to your neck, tapping the remnants of your shirtwaist as a few more tears slip out when you blink, shakily nodding. Simon’s lips tighten. 

“Want to do it yourself,” he breathes, “or is it alright if I touch you, Sweetheart?” Your hands are too unstable to do it yourself, he knows that just as well as you do. 

So, in a small broken whisper, you simply utter out, “Please.” 

Simon nods once and the topic is settled; he knows.

The man’s fingers deftly undo the buttons, one after the other as the light from outside seeps into the small square of a home. He doesn’t comment—doesn’t make a sound—just does what he can to help you and get you sorted out; Simon could hear the rapid set of your heart, feel your pulse like a rampaging storm. 

When you’re down to nothing but your flesh, the man grabs the covers from behind you and wraps you in them, his eyes not once flickering downward until you’re entirely swamped by fabric. A hand on your waist squeezes. 

By now the brush of his skin atop yours had sucked you in as if lighting had struck with every pass or small press. The glide of his scars and calluses grounded you here. 

There were very few beings that would hunt for you through life and death and fewer that stayed that course. Thumbs once more brush away the water on the swell of your face. 

“Sleep,” he utters, even if there’s light outside. 

You gaze at him, at his stubble and his pale complexion; the wind rustles outside. What would he do? Guard the door most likely, perhaps even think of how to get into town and grab new clothes for the both of you, food, and necessities. Simon’s mind was fighting itself, just as it always had but now there was the largest stain on his consciousness that he could ever remember having. 

He was worried if he handled you, you might break under him. You…you already had. Avoidance, even if it killed him inside, was the best course of action.

Your mouth is filled with wool, tongue heavy, but in your heart and whatever feeling you have burning in your chest, you know you can’t let him move away from you. Simon being this close made it…easier. Even if a piece of you was still hesitant about black fur and sharp teeth. He had said it himself, hadn’t he? 

Simon wasn’t the Ghost, but at the same time how could they ever be apart from one another? 

Yet, your lips are already moving just as he’s about to stand up. 

“Stay?” Simon’s lungs take in a silent breath, a moment of long silence as he tries to understand why you would want to be around him at all. His hands twitch, your eyes catching the way his Adam’s apple bobs with a slow swallow. “Please, Simon,” you breathe. “I don’t…I can’t be alone again.”

He grunts and is already lifting you. 

Simon shifts your body back and lays you nearest to the wall, shuffling his body until he can lie with his spine facing you; his face to the door as he stays unblinking. 

“Nothing's going to happen to you,” he says, and you turn so you can lightly rest your head into the span of his shoulder blades. Simon’s jaw clenches. “It’s safe here. We’ll figure it out when you’ve got your energy back.” 

You want him to explain, but perhaps right now sleep was the best option. For all intents and purposes—you can’t even remember when you last had true sleep. So you stay there, skin to skin, and breath to breath as the sun still shines outside; the wind travels slowly. 

As you slip off, Simon has to restrain himself from turning around and pressing you into him—leveling his head above yours and breathing you in like how he wishes he could. But no. Too much. 

He’d explain it all when you were better. 

So he settles on the fact that all he can do is watch the door with a far-off expression, his body sagging back into you as your heat meets his.

—

You slept for three days, and in that time, Simon had only left once. On day two he went into town where he’d snuck like a thief—and there truly was no better analogy. Wearing only a blanket once more, the man breaks into your closed Tailor’s shop; boards on the windows and a sign out front to set it for sale. Inside, everything was as it had been left. Dust and layers of stale air, but there was never a better place to be for Simon.

It was where he met you, after all. 

He takes everything he’s able to carry. A large trunk of clothes, personal belongings, and anything that looks of great importance; clothing himself in a simple undershirt and pants along the way. With that, he goes to his own home and grabs all manner of money. Come morning, people would believe it was a robbery, and that was perfectly fine with him. 

Mostly everything belonged to you, anyway. They could have his sparsely furnished home and its cracking foundations. It mattered not. But he knew you needed your work—your passion. 

As he grunts and lifts the trunk, a knicker echoes out behind him. Blinking, dark eyes look behind to find a meeting pair—a long horse’s neck leaning out of a stall. They stare at each other before Simon huffs a chuckle and turns to the shadows.

When you finally did open your eyes again, deep in the third night, everything was different. 

You blink at the bright roar of the fireplace, the flickering of the candles that push back any darkness—curtains on the windows to hide the blackness of midnight. There are your belongings on the cleaned table; the foot of the bed and, there, on the desk. Measuring tape, fabric scissors, and yards of materials are stacked in the spotless corners. 

There’s no doubt that the broken window is fixed for the moment as well. 

New sheets sit on the end of the bed, waiting for you to get up before he can fit them. Jaw loose, you glance all around as the fabric pools at your waist, bare body glistening in the light as your head moves like a bird back and forth slowly. Dare you say it, the place felt…homely. Warm. Small, yes, but the definition of comfort rarely mattered when speaking on size. 

There’s a shuffling sound outside the door and you realize you’re alone. 

Face stuck at the door, your sudden tension is somewhat lessened by the small grunts and puffs of a large nose and heavy, clawed, feet. Somewhat. 

An open maw bites down on your throat with a tearing of flesh before your neck fully snaps.

Your hand lightly comes up to your throat, pressing very loosely as the sounds continue, spiking your cautious curiosity. You know you shouldn’t be holding this against him, but, you had…died. You had felt your neck snap and your blood coat his fangs. 

Somehow, Simon had brought you back from that, but he had been the one to do it in the first place. 

No, you think, feet very carefully sitting on the floor. No, not Simon. The Ghost.

Yet again—aren't those the same? It was a constant question.

Your lips are thin as the dagger in your heart digs ever deeper, but it is your dagger, and it is also your heart, too. Yours. Standing, you cover yourself with the thin sheet, hearing it drag behind you as your body takes you to the door with quiet and even steps. 

So much the two of you have gone through—it seemed hard to comprehend it in this world of black fire and battling beasts; hell and purgatory. He’d tracked you down…how? As your hand meets the handle, slowly walking feet coming closer from beyond it, you tighten your hold on the fabric near your neck and breathe slowly. 

You first see crimson, and then the beady brown eyes of a large dog and a stained muzzle. Breath tight, you stare at the dead bodies of two sheep in the Ghost’s maw, limp bodies hanging from the legs out of puffed cheeks. The both of you halt your courses. 

Simon’s eyes slash down your nearly-naked form, and he drops the animals to the ground before his head darts to the side; snow splattered with blood and the imprint of large woolen bodies. He snorts and takes a single step back, seemingly hunching down lower as he sniffs the air in distraction. 

His feet pivot, one clawed foot moving away.

“Simon,” you say, breath puffing over the cold air. He waits, head only slightly tilting your way; eyes pointing down. You don’t know why you speak, why you call to him like this. 

The silence settles as you struggle to articulate, mouth opening and closing like it was a choice between speech or the metaphorical blade to your throat. You close your mouth and look to the side, the lids of your eyes tightly shut. 

Without another word, you’re setting your feet in the drowned snow and walking up to him, fingers shaking before your hand extends from the elbow. It rests above the side of his muzzle, hovering with a tiny quiver as you fight with your own fear. 

You can feel Simon’s eyes on you now, watching. Always watching. Forever watching. Eyes like hard earth; like the dirt under your nails. 

Simon’s throat grumbles, and before you can make a decision, he helps make one for you. 

He softly moves his great lumbering head down and to the side—slotting it under your hand as you gasp, feeling the strands of fur under your grip. Immediately, your eyes snap to meet his, seeing long lashes holding snowflakes. The Ghost’s so large that he has to bend low in order to give you a comfortable resting point for your hand; sitting in between his sharp ears. 

You swallow down your nervousness as the seconds draw on, your heart rate slowing until you can properly move closer and feel the waves of fur beneath your fingertips. Playing with them, you card your digits in gentle strokes, hearing the low purr that rattles your bones as a great weight is leveled into your torso. 

A tiny giggle emanates from your chest, and the beast responds by only pushing himself deeper into your stomach. 

“Easy,” you mutter, eyes light as a smile forms on your lips. 

The chill seeps in gradually as you both stand there, a werewolf and a barely-clothed tailor. Before long you’re shivering even as you feel content next to Simon and to steal some of his furnace-like heat. 

You pull back and the wolf momentarily tilts to find you, only to open his eyes when he can’t feel your sturdy body. He blinks, before slowly standing back up to his full height. 

The light from the hut seeps out to cover you, and you take comfort in that—if the door shuts on its own, you’d be left in a darkness you know you’ll fear for many, many years. With its illumination, you speak freely.

“I don’t know how you did it, Simon,” his right ear twitches. “But…but I want you to know that I don’t blame you for what happened. I should, I know I should, but for the life of me, whenever you’re near I can’t think straight. Please, when you’re back to,” you huff a tiny laugh, “whenever you’re back to walking in a man’s skin, explain it to me. Explain why I can’t think of anyone else but you.” 

Avoiding the sheep, you step back into the hut and close the door as those dead eyes follow loyally, the wolf not breathing beyond a thin line of condensation wafting into the air. 

You only make it five steps back to bed before the wooden barrier is opened loudly, hitting off the back wall and shutting closed on its own. Turning back quickly, startled, you’re met with a fast panting chest and a human hand that swipes blood away from his lips. Bare skin is close to yours, and your eyes widen at the instantaneous blown feeling of your pupils. 

Simon’s face is above yours.

“Because you own half of my fuckin’ soul,” he breathes into your scalp, accent rich and heavy with implication. “Just as I own half of yours.” 

Literal or a metaphor, you care not. 

You both stay there, hearts pumping and skin tingling as the air increases in temperature—the sheet around you held in a tight fist suddenly seems almost suffocating. Your arms itch to drop it. Drop it now and let him see you; let him feel you like no other has. Where did these thoughts come from? Or…had they always been there?

The man hasn’t moved, and you know he won’t do anything unless you ask it of him, but you can smell the sweat on his skin, the scent of blood and musk. Quick death and dragging claw. 

If he was fire, it would be a blessing to be burned. 

“Simon,” you say, voice tight. He grunts like a damn dog, hands at his sides twitching as his bare chest shines. So many scars. You want to trace them, to feel them writhe. “You’re no good for me.”

“I know,” he growls. 

You press your lips to his and breathe him down as the sheet falls from your shoulders, all-encompassing hands finding the swell of your hips and sliding behind them; gripping tightly. Your own dig at his waist, finding the bulk of his abs and the deep tapper of his v-line before you gasp at his hand kneading the flesh of your arse. 

At the motion, Simon takes the opportunity to smirk before letting his tongue slip into your mouth. You release a small noise from the back of your throat, and he groans—one hand coming up to grip the base of your skull and maneuvering your head farther upward. He pulls back and presses into you, your face growing hot as he finds your neck and starts leaving deep open-mouthed kisses as his chest vibrates. 

Lips swollen and sensitive, you whimper as he bites down at every other interval; arms around his waist and nails running up and down his spine. Simon shivers, hips lightly bucking as you press on the small of his back. 

“Fuckin’ hell, Love,” he nuzzles under your ear, pupils wide and blackened, feral-like. “The things you do to me, yeah? Drivin’ me up a damn wall whenever I caught a whiff of what I did to you.”

Your stomach is rolling in tight knots of desire, lungs heaving as his hands squeeze and travel. At your core, you can already feel the slippery effect on your folds—a stain of sin that leaks out with nothing to hold it hostage inside of you. Face tightening as Simon groans long, he leaves hickey after hickey, as if unable to not mark your neck and under-ear. 

The feeling of teeth there doesn’t even startle you, no, not now. 

You ache with need, legs threatening to close in on themselves before Simon loops a hand in your inner thigh and keeps them open. The world around you blurs as your body tingles with a yearning that almost hurts.

“C’mon now, Sweetheart,” his lips come back to yours and you let him ravish you with long, deep kisses as his hand moves up. You balk forward and shiver as you feel the deep press of his growing lust for you against your stomach. “Don’t wanna know how long I’ve been dreamin’ about this.” 

Your eyes flutter, and you gasp out through the joining of your hungry mouths, “Show me, Simon. Show it to me.” 

His teeth bite slowly into your bottom lip, easing you into this game of wolf and sheep as his half-closed eyes open and dig into you. Simon’s fingers flex but don’t move, the other still at the base of your neck; your own have been leaving crescent-shaped marks on his back for a while, absentmindedly pulsing along with the heated blood in your veins. 

There are still the remnants of sheep’s blood on his cheek—slashed up the side of his face and over his deep-set eyebrow, but you find you don’t care at all. 

With how his fingers tap so close yet so far to that sensitive bundle and the dripping mess of your insides, nothing matters. 

“My Girl wants that?” Simon hums, and as easily as if he were picking up a shirt from your shop, he lets his thick fingers push you open as you suck in a quick breath and sag into him. Into his neck you sigh, hitched airways making it seem tight. Instinctually you open your legs wider, whining at the press of calluses and scars in your clutch and sliding up your sensitive walls. 

Simon stops and waits mid-way past his first knuckle with two fingers, groaning as you tighten and flex around him at the foreign sensation. His thumb at the back of your head moves up and down, his own thighs hard with eagerness and a stain in his abdomen from the lack of attention—but he cares little about his own leaking head, content only when able to give you pleasure in the purest form. 

Your stomach as well as his are wet from his weeping tip, the chill of it making you both shiver and try to mash your bodies ever closer as the sheet below you two is tangled at your feet. The fireplace crackles. 

“Simon,” you keen, and he answers with a bite of your shoulder before rubbing his head into your neck. Like opium, he’d said. If only he could tell you your scent now was convincing enough to make him lay on a bed of burning coals if only he could smell it for three more seconds. 

Arousal. Lust. Animalistic desperation that Simon’s eager to bring you to the brink of—face sick with pleasure and eyes blown with numb satisfaction. Open and bare to him.

“Attagirl, that’s it,” he slides his digits deeper as your hips buck, making him grit his teeth to hold back a grunt as his dick is jostled. “So wet for me, fuckin’ perfect. Let me help, yeah?” 

“Fuck, Simon,” he buries his fingers at the base, wasting no time in crooking them back toward him and pulling his wrist down. You moan loudly, stretching and being played like an instrument. Simon’s fingers repeat the motion until you’re a mess of rutting thighs and shaky legs. 

The man takes down every moan and whimper—every sigh and jerk with a growing sense of pride. His dick is begging for friction, and the little bit he gets is from your stomach rubbing against it with every slippery sound of his fingers entering and exiting your core. 

Simon’s mouth is open with a tight pant for breath, mirroring yours before the pad of his palm rubs against your bundle. You arch into him, whining and pleading instantly with a burning face, half convinced something had overtaken your body to make you act in such a way. 

The man moves his fingers faster, making sure to maneuver his limb in such a way as to get your clit harder and harder with every pass, leaving you limp in his arms. Simon anchors you to him with a hand on the back of your shoulder blades, grip hard and knuckles white. 

As your face screws up and a fire burns in your core, nails leave long scratches down the back of his torso as if he was a wooden trunk to tie a horse to—a rock in a storm. 

“Simon,” you sigh out, head stuck under his chin. “S-so good, keep going.” 

He opens his mouth as he rubs his chin on the top of your scalp, mixing your scents together potently. 

“Look at me,” Simon utters, in his desperation to bring you to the edge, his accent is as deep as you’d ever heard it. “Look at me, Love. Wanna see your eyes watchin’ me as you fall apart. I’ll make it good, promise.” 

“K…” You gasp as everything keeps building up and up, teeth clenching together and legs fighting to close around his hand—Simon bullies you open through the overstimulation; the flood of your senses. “Know you will!” 

“So good to me, Sweetheart,” he grumbles, taking you by the side of your cheek and leaning back slightly so he can still let you rest on him but also watch. 

Your eyes flutter with every rapid intrusion from Simon’s digits, tight and textured walls giving in to him as he pushes and prods, searching for something as his brows crease and his abdomen bunches. The man’s biceps flex and strain, feet wide open and lips parted as he locks onto your gaze. 

“Fuck, what a bloody sight to see. Yeah, you enjoying that, then?” He mutters, and only when he pushes those teasing words out does he find a point inside of you that leaves your mouth opening and your toes curling; that he truly loses his breath. 

Holding your head forward, Simon’s jaw slackens as your face contorted with pain-like expressions of confused pleasure, sweat glistening your forehead and your lips swollen—neck nothing more than raised skin from all of the man’s biting. 

You strangle down such an instinctive and leg-shaking moan that Simon nearly forgets that he’s not even truly inside of you yet; balls tightening with building excitement and his length begging to be squeezed, used for nothing but that same expression on your face.

“Christ,” he breathes, teeth grinding and feeling you fight to keep his fingers in. Slick drips down his wrist, tapping the floor in a clear stain that could bring him to his knees. 

You can’t even speak, spine curling with such raw electric sparks. If Simon isn’t careful, your legs will entirely fail you. 

“Sim-” Your voice is high, mixed with panic as you let him hit that same point again and again like a hunter. “Simon!” You chant, fighting to meet his eyes as your vision blurs. 

Everything was too hot, the scrape of his calluses on your flesh like a knife raking through your insides with pleasurable stabs. 

“Jus’ like that, Love,” he breathes, not blinking. “C’mon know you feel it. Squeezin’ my fingers just right. Look at that pretty little face.” 

You’re building and building, standing on the precipice of a large chasm. There’s nothing to stop you from going over the edge—and you don’t want anything too. 

Your body tenses gradually, knees wobbling and your abdomen pulling into itself. A sharp claw seems to play with the string of your impending release, fiddling with it and taking it into its fingertip; rubbing it back and forth in a slow game.

Your breath comes out in short gasps, moans getting higher and more cut, Simon’s eyes are transfixed, panting like a dog, and, in an instant right before you break, moves his fingers at a break-neck pace. 

Your sharp cry is caught on his lips, sucking it down as your orgasm floods his hand, leaving it a sticky mess that he continues finger-fuck you through with firm strokes. He’s whispering praises on your lips, keeping you up as his hand snaps to your waist when your legs buckle. Your walls move like a noose, letting the man fantasize how it would feel to have you speared open in his lap as you writhe and take him down in the low light. 

All of these thoughts, this sight, make him harder by the second. 

Simon keeps moving his fingers, drawing your explosive release out until you plead quietly for him to stop from overstimulation. The sensation makes your abused clit cause your spine to arch with every touch of his wet palm. He obliged, the sound of slick slapping halting, but his fingers didn’t leave your spasming cunt as your limp head fell to his shoulder. 

Your chest heaves, aftershocks leaving your mind blank to all else but the press of skin and sweat. The air reeks of sex and hot breath. 

Simon’s head clacks yours, fingers flexing as you whimper and dig your hands into his sides. He chuckles and slowly pulls out, taking long strings of cum with him as they string his fingers together and dribble to the floor from your slit. He holds you up, uncomfortably shifting his feet when your body jostles his raging erection—making him hold back a tight gasp. 

“Good?” The man asks, gruff and casually. Your open mouth lays a firm kiss on his burning flesh as he side-eyes you waiting for a response. 

“Yeah,” your voice is far off. Simon chuckles lowly. 

In an easy sweep of his arms, you’re picked up and carried to the bed; set down to the plushness that’s down one sheet. You lay on your back, gazing up at the man as he stares down at you in turn. 

Neither of you speaks until Simon has to rip his eyes away, clearing his throat. Your eyes travel down before widening at the violent red of the man’s length—the thing twitching and dripping pre-cum down to the base in an obvious plea for stimulation. Yet Simon makes no move to do anything. 

“You should get some more rest—”

“Let me help,” you whisper, eyes widely innocent as they meet the browns that snap your way, those orbs slightly widening. “I own half your soul…right?”

Simon watches you, jaw loose. 

“It looks painful,” you ease out, pointedly moving your gaze downward with unabashed boldness. 

“Is,” he utters. If he was being honest, he was worried that he had been coming on too strong—that this part of the night might be going a bit far. You were a lady, after all, and he respected you as such. He needed confirmation. 

“Then let me help, Simon.” Your eyes blink at him, hand coming up to trace the bulk of his thigh muscles. His breath goes shallow, self-control fraying fast. Just a little more. You lick your lips. “I want to feel you take me like no one else has. I want you to stay in this bed with me until the fire goes out and the light outside peels through the curtains. Can you do that for me?”

Your wet core pulses again, wanting—waiting for something more. Something only Simon could give you. 

The man’s chest rattles. “Yes,” he relays, words low. 

After a moment of eye contact, the man places his knee on the bed, shifting so that he has himself in between your legs; hands coming up beside your head. Your lungs are heavy, fingers coming up to rub over his blood-stained cheek as his nose brushes yours. Simon’s stubble itches you, but you still sigh constantly as he kisses you once more. 

This was slower than the previous—less desperate though you don’t know how as you could feel the strain of his length prodding like a hot iron in your inner thigh. It made you slightly nervous, the size and the action itself, but you didn’t doubt who you wanted to be the one above you. 

Simon kisses the side of your lips, nipping at the skin as he grunts out, “You sure?” 

Brown eyes never waver as they stare you down. Any ounce of hesitation would be found immediately and the action would be over; Simon paraded around as a cold and heartless beast, but never had there been a man more considerate of your own safety. He didn’t want to hurt you. 

You drag your fingers through his hair and he shudders, one grip sliding to your legs as the drag of barely-there claws makes your breath hitch. Your lips mutter, quietly, “Yes.” 

“Gotta make me believe it, Sweetheart,” Simon kisses over all of the marks he left, slowly dragging the warm press of his mouth and side-eyeing you. 

You glare down at him and feel his smirk on your skin, how he hooks his hand under your knee and lightly lifts the limb. Your muscles flex at the sudden spread of your legs, your hand in his hair grasping tighter. Simon sighs low as your body shifts, shivering at the slick heat he restrains himself from rutting against. 

Face burning at your bare excitement, the man’s eyes glaze over. 

“I’m sure, Simon.” 

“Don’t wanna make you feel like you have to—”

“Simon,” you interrupt his comment, and the blond huffs, the air sliding over your heated skin.

“Tell me if it hurts and I’ll stop.” You smile softly and drag his face back to yours, kissing him deeply. “Let me try…” Simon mutters on your lips, and soon both of his hands are pushing up your knees as you widely blink at the openness of your core before your legs are folded up. 

You whine at the stretch, the embarrassment of having your dripping folds on full display. This was foreign to you.

Simon hums, looking down and groaning. He taps his forehead to yours as you breathe deeply, letting him take control. 

“Okay?” He asks, and your heart skips a beat. 

“Are you going to keep stalling,” you breathe, looking into his gaze teasingly. “Or are you going to show me how you can’t function without me beside you?” 

There’s a stretch as he lines himself up, hips moving back and abdomen sliding over yours—your lungs stutter as his eyes glint at you; lips flicking in a smirk.

“You going to keep me here?” You breathe, voice breathy as Simon’s length begins to steadily press forward, your face twists as you take him down, lines forming on your forehead. “Make me,” his hands keep your legs up beside you, open as they tighten. His lids narrow in concentration at the tight vice of your walls, having to slowly bully his way into you inch by inch. “Make me tailor your clothes a-and spin your wool?”

The sounds from your joining bodies are vulgar. A slide and a coating of flesh with natural assistance as Simon’s jaw clenches, not able to help the jump of his pelvis as you moan and arch your back as he moves even farther into your clutch. 

You both writhe as he bottoms out, bodies shaking at the intensity of the moment and the sparks under your flesh. 

“Ah,” Simon strangles a whine, eyes tight shut as yours follow. Quick kisses are placed on your lips. “Don’t tempt me, yeah?” 

The great stretch of your insides leaves you sighing, tiny waves of pain pushed back by pleasurable pulsing and the scrape of veins. His head lays in the hold of your womb, slick leaking out from the ring of your core. 

“We,” your hips jerk, and Simon’s hands on your knees tighten until you know there’ll be bruises come morning. “We’re beyond temptation.”

Simon chuckles—his eyes dark and glimmering in the firelight. “Smart girl.”

He lets you adjust there for a moment, even if his dick is pleading with him to move and drive your back into the mattress; to see your face crease in rapture. But that wasn’t what his head wanted, no, he wanted this done right. 

When you look at him and your thighs stop shaking, he carefully grinds himself into you, letting your bundle of nerves meet the wirehair of his happy trail and give himself the slightest feeling of relief. You bite your lip, one hand on Simon’s cheek and the other still in his hair. 

The angle of your legs makes you feel him that much deeper, even as he simply grinds himself inside of you and doesn’t move much beyond that. 

“Feels good, y’know that?” Simon mutters as your mouth takes down a slow breath, eyes stuck on each other as the man fully begins to remove himself and softly flinch his length back into you; exiting just enough before letting him re-enter. “Tight; warm.” He shudders, gritting his teeth. “C-can smell you like this—how much you want it. Always have.” 

You whine at the words, tightening around him as he begins gently fucking you in earnest, the slap of skin and tight walls joining the crackle of wood. The scents on the air are a perfect mix of addictive pheromones—so potent even you can smell it as you try to meet every dig of his hips.

Simon’s face goes to your neck, nuzzling into it as his eyes go tight. 

“Fucking hell,” he breathes out a groan into your ear, mouth open. 

 The heat returns easily to you, the burning in your gut. Simon’s pelvis hits you, stimulating your clit every time in the perfect way, as if he’d glanced at your body once and immediately memorized what made you tick. His sweat drips and pools with your own, slick leaking out to the mattress and making you feel dirty in the best way as your cut-off sighs hit the ceiling. It's hot in here; nearly too hot to focus on the slide of skin and dig of your nails into his hair. It’s telling how fast you seem to hit that peak again, at the constant scrape of his veins and the push of your walls as if trying to force him in. 

Your back arches into him, and Simon cants his hips faster, biting on your chin and pulling at your lips as his eyes watch with eagerness. His abdomen bunches at the sheer pleasure he feels making you feel like this, chest heaving and large build all but swallowing you below him. 

“Simon,” you breathe, kissing him on his lips eagerly, growing desperate. 

“Let me take care of you,” the man grunts hard, getting harder to focus, “trust me?”

“Yes,” you say immediately, clenching your jaw as he brushes a spot so deep inside of you that your eyes go blurry for a moment. Your lips move without your brain understanding the slurred words. “Yes, I trust you. I…I…oh, fuck.” 

He sighs and bites a whimper down as your walls flex, gripping him tighter and tighter. 

“Knew I’d find you,” Simon pushes your legs harder into the mattress, form slightly shaking. You moan high into his mouth, eyes fluttering and knot growing tighter. “Knew I’d make it right, eh? Death can’t keep you away from me, not now. I’ll find you.”

You gasp, itching cord snapping and release spilling out around the plug of his dick as he continues on as you jerk and rut out of order; eyebrows pulled in. It isn’t long after that Simon follows you, shoving his lips on yours as his mouth parts with a tight cry. Inside of you the spill of his seed fills your womb and he fucks through it, hands releasing your legs to rub up and down your sides. 

Your core floods as he stays there, resting and stationary above you, his weight heavy but not crushing. The both of you stare at one another and breathe down the heated air; all of the scents and the desire there—the unspoken bond that extends life and death. 

Simon grunts and forces out, breathless, staring through blown pupils.

“I’ll always find you.”

In the morning there’s a pile of wool sitting in a cloth sack against the wall, and the sound of chopping wood outside. The curtains are drawn to the bright rays of the morning sun as they meet your softly smiling face, visage half-covered by the newly fitted sheets.

[baddybaddyadardaddy]

Okay, I'm going to make a wild prediction about Adar and Galadriel in Episode 8, so strap in.

An overarching the/major motif of the Rings of Power from the very first episode has been, obviously, the interplay between darkness/light.

"To find the light, we must first touch the darkness." / "Before light, darkness must flee, etc."

Adar and Galadriel together are a manifestation of that duality between light and dark and accordingly, I think there's a compelling case for them to team up against Sauron at the end of Season 2.

Here's my attempt at this argument:

PARALLELS BETWEEN ADAR AND GALADRIEL

The show has established a few strong visual parallels between the two of them.

Mourning ritual. Galadriel mourning for Finrod in S1Ep1 is echoed by Adar's mourning of the Uruks in S2Ep7. They even mirror the single tear.

What's more, Galadriel bears WITNESS to Adar's funeral ritual, enforcing the connection of this moment.

Seed planting. Frankly, my jaw hit the floor when S2Ep2 had Galadriel planting seeds in the memorial garden in Lindon, because the shots/framing were almost IDENTICAL to the seed planting Adar does at the beginning of S1Ep6. The sentiments of both instances are the same "life over death," though the words do differ.

Flip sides of the same coin/mirror to one another. The show has also presented us with many instances where they function as mirrors to one another. If not signficant, why do?

Barn scene. The barn scene in S1Ep6 is a PRIME example, when Adar literally calls Galadriel out for the hypocrisy of her hatred of the orcs.

The dinner scene. Adar once again holds up a mirror to Galadriel, pushing back against her notion that "you yielded to him. I resisted." Then they have the shared acknowledgement that without Sauron, the world seems a "dull grey" (GREY, interestingly, a halfway point between dark and light). Adar's face in response to her admission will live rent-free in my mind forever-- it's like he's been SEEN for the first time in his life.

So while Galadriel sees herself as a warrior of light, and views Adar as a creature of darkness, the show does a pretty superb job of showing that both of these characters have light and dark within them in equal measure.

They were both tempted by Sauron and succumbed.

So there is a clear, thematic link between these two from that standpoint.

ADAR'S JOURNEY TOWARD THE LIGHT

Next, I think it is clear Adar on a path toward light/redemption as an elf, and it tracks in a VERY LITERAL SENSE.

First time we see Adar, he is bathed in an angelic light. As he performs the funeral ritual for Magrot, light streams into the Uruk tent.

The shot at the end of S2 Ep1, when the camera lingers on Adar as Gil-Galad's call to the Eldalie commences. Adar feels the undeniable call to his elven past. That camera shot was NOT A COINCIDENCE, and I'm FOREVER FERAL ABOUT IT.

Cavalry charge at the siege of Eregion. Adar is OBVIOUSLY backlit:

There is a dividing line between light and shadow an Adar is RIGHT on the border of it.

When he steps up to take possession of Nenya, the sky behind him is split between a darker side and a lighter side. (You can argue that it's a CREEPY light, but it's still light. There is almost no all-black coloring on him in that second frame when he actually has the ring. For a character that's been head to toe in black the entire series, this is Significant.)

So where does that leave us for the big Sauron smackdown?

My first wild prediction: In an INSANE reversal, Galadriel will be the one to bring Morgoth's dark crown to the confrontation, while Adar will wield Nenya, a symbol of light.

It's not inconceivable that Gal could have smuggled it out of Adar's camp somehow under her oversized Uruk cloak. And Adar, OBVIOUSLY now possesses Nenya at the end of S2Ep7.

I think the fight between Galadriel and Sauron is ACTUALLY a three-person fight; we just haven't seen Adar in the promos because

1. Obvious plot spoilers and

2. HE WILL BE FIGHTING IN A FAIR FORM BECAUSE NENYA WILL HEAL HIS CORRUPTION.

My second wild prediction: This three-person fight is telegraphed in The Last Temptation. There's a new motif (not musical, so unclear if this is the correct term??) that starts around 1:07. It sounds like an aggressive children's choir. Interspersed, we get some of Gal's themes and Sauron-flavored music. I think this new bit could be either a combined theme for Gal/Adar fighting side by side, OR a new motif for a changed/elven Adar. It's aggressive, which to me tracks with Adar's fighting style that we saw through S2Ep7, and it builds and gets more voices added to it as the song progresses. At one point, it blends perfectly with Gal's theme.

Third wild prediction that I hope I'm wrong about: Adar will likely get fatally stabbed during this fight. I could see him giving Galadriel the ring at a crucial moment, in as a redemptive act, which would forfeit any protection it might have offered him, and I think he'll receive a fatal blow from Sauron, but not before we get a much clearer picture of EXACTLY who Adar is. IF they do it this way, it will be a deeply satisying end to Adar's story arc, IMHO.

Last thoroughly unhinged thing I will leave you with:

Nolwa Mahtar translation (from S1), according to Bear's blog:

Finish the war, the darkness, end this suffering

Impossible to pursue, deep in shadow, follow light

Finish the war, the darkness, end this suffering

Bright warrior against darkness.

Obviously this theme plays a HUGE role in S2. I believe the lyrics are different; we don't know what they say yet.

But I have contended all along that this piece has always applied in some way to BOTH Adar and Galadriel.

Galadriel is the bright warrior standing against Sauron's darkness, yes, that image is obvious.

But Adar, a figure who lived deep in shadow, follows light, ultimately finishing his own war and ending his own suffering.

[novy2sirius]

᭓ ྀུ༺ a degree theory by nikola stojanovic

please read before proceeding

important note: this is not my info. this is all from nikola stojanovic’s theory on degrees in astrology. he has books on it that i think you can find online and download for free

trigger warnings: murder, car crashes, sex, and suicide

sign degrees

zero degrees: 0°

the same characteristics as the sign it’s already placed in. example - aries venus at 0° is purely an aries venus, obviously aside from the house energy

aries degrees: 1°, 13°, and 25°

beginnings, leadership, taking action, fighting spirit, not giving oneself up to fate, struggle, war, abuse, labor, diligence, etc

taurus degrees: 2°, 14°, and 26°

food, money, stability, earth, luxuries, sound of voice, singing voice, etc

gemini degrees: 3°, 15°, and 27°

communication, self-expression, technology, books, siblings, neighbors, etc

cancer degrees: 4°, 16°, and 28°

home, traditions, nurture, loyalty, faith, mother, the ocean/water, etc

leo degrees: 5°, 17°, and 29°

life, children, attention, fame, creativity, strength, happiness, light, etc

virgo degrees: 6° and 18°

improvement, health, to diminish, routine, animals, acts of service, etc

libra degrees: 7° and 19°

harmony/fairness, charm, beauty, law, music, art, dancing, pleasures, etc

scorpio degrees: 8° and 20°

death, major transformation, wealth, jealousy, sex, secrecy, taxes, etc

sagittarius degrees: 9° and 21°

wisdom, abundance, college, travel, photography, success, beliefs, etc

capricorn degrees: 10° and 22°

hard work, fear, public attention, karma, father, boss, isolation, history, etc

aquarius degrees: 11° and 23°

unexpected experiences, technology, friendships, networking, divorce, etc

pisces degrees: 12° and 24°

spirituality, escapism, dreams, illusion, the sea, mysteries, the hidden, etc

special degree meanings

supreme power: 2°

this degree is often found in the charts of people with remarkable achievements, who had extreme power, and who were highly respected according to nikola’s research

eroticism/a fun life: 5°

many sex symbols like marilyn monroe have this in their chart. nikola believed this was the best degree in general as well. he thought it indicated lots of fun and pleasure in one’s life

suicide/divorce: 11° and 23°

according to nikola the aquarius degrees (11 and 23) both indicate divorce occurring when placed in prominent positions in the chart. 11 is the only one indicating suicide though

car accidents: 15°

nikola believed that when this degree was connected to 8th house or scorpio placements it could indicate getting into car crashes

pure evil: 18°

nikola believed that this degree indicated a negative destiny for someone. he thought it was the worst degree you could have in your chart, based on his research he thought it was solely about facing hardships and nothing more. he also believed it could indicate being an evil person with no good intentions

to kill or be killed: 22°

just as the title reads, nikola believed this degree indicates being killed or being a killer. another thing he believed it could indicate was abandonment in the area of life it’s placed

clairvoyance: 29°

nikola believed this degree indicates someone that has very good intuition and can make accurate predictions about the outcomes of events

my opinion on astrology degrees

i personally don’t believe in nikola’s theory 100%, although i do think there’s accuracy to the signs being associated with specific degrees. i have always had stronger belief in my numerstrology degree theory than anything when it comes to this subject though. i definitely do not believe 18° is fully negative like he claims since the universe is yin yang so there’s always both positive and negative ways things can manifest. these are just my thoughts though

do you believe nikola’s degree theory? comment below!

[prettieinpink]

Being that girl once again- back to school!

It’s back to school season everyone, and my favourite times of the year. In this post im going to give you stuff to do for back to school + advice in specific areas of your school life! I hope everyone can take away something from this post <3 

THINGS TO DO BEFORE BACK TO SCHOOL <3

Revise your past term content in your core subjects, ensure there’s nothing you do not understand(it’s better to understand now than have to understand later)

Review what you are going to be learning for this current term in your core subject, you don’t have to study it, just familiarise yourself. 

Catch up with your friends- hang out, call or text before the new school term. My favourite thing is to create predictions of drama, couples etc in the upcoming term w my girlies!

Create SMART goals for you to achieve that term, in any aspect you want. I say; 1 goal for academics, 1 goal for social and 1 goal for extracurriculars/sports. 

Clean your room !! do a deep clean and declutter. E.g wipe down all surfaces, hover pillows, vacuum floor, clean mirrors, take out any clothes you dislike

Do an everything shower + face masks!!

ACADEMICALLY

Everyday afterschool, revise everything that you’ve learnt today + the things that you struggle on

Anytime you get homework, complete it as soon as possible. Most of the time, it’s easy and non time consuming. 

Create study guides for exams/tests while actually learning instead of when the assessments are actually coming up. It saves you a lot of time, which you can use for studying effectively.

If you don’t already, have a specific learning/studying style that works for you. E.g flashcards, blurting, mind map, spaced repetition, the feynman technique. (ofc you can have multiple). Just know the pros and cons of each studying technique. 

Or, what I do is that I assign specific studying techniques to different subjects e.g science - blurting, HASS - flashcards, maths - the feynman technique. This may be different to what you have the most success learning.

Have a place, time every day or at least most days, where you can study without distractions. I like to study at the library afterschool, it’s chill and literally void of any distractions.

The only advice in which i’ll say is not optional– do practise questions under the said test conditions. Stop using websites, listening to music, being on your phone etc. Get in the zone and transfer the environment. 

SOCIALLY

Make an effort to say hi or goodbye to some people, even if you do not know them that well. If you’re up for it, ask them how they are going or how their day has been.

Start remembering names and birthdays. This will literally make people like you so much more, it’s so simple but people swoon over this. Process names in your mind and write down birthdays in your calendar. 

Don’t be afraid to talk to others. Most people do not care if you talk to them, and some are glad that you talk to them. This is how people become well-known or well-liked. 

Watch videos on how to converse with people you do not know well effectively and become close with them. TED x has a lot of videos on this, and are usually helpful. 

Don’t try to fit in with the crowd. It’s so draining, and even if you think they do, they most likely dislike you(sorry!) . Instead, find/be with your people. 

Join a club/extracurricular. You meet so many like-minded people this way, while still developing your own skills. I say everyone should at least have one solid extracurricular. 

If you are in a talking stage, three weeks is enough time for him or you to decide if you’re willing to date them. It’s not the 1920s anymore, we have imessages, facetime, skype and others to communicate and get to know each other without contact

Call out your friends if you notice them doing something toxic or generally anything they shouldn’t do. E.g gossiping, getting mad at others, bullying someone. If they continue, it will influence you in the long run.

MENTALLY 

Reframe your mindset. I know most of us do not favour school, but do not dwell on negativity and find ways to be positive/neutral about your circumstances. You’ll feel so much better.

Detach. Detachment is literally essential in highschool, there’s so much drama and most likely you will somehow get tied up in it. Stop absorbing what happens and let it influence you, observe what happens and learn from it. I have a post on this here. 

Start saying affirmations everyday. I know affs are usually viewed as a manifestation thing, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be a simple one minute way to cultivate a neutral/positive perspective of yourself. 

Journal. Things will happen, so journaling is a great way to discuss your circumstances, feelings, trauma, relationships etc and develop a sense of identity at the same time. I have a post on this here. 

Meditate. It can be go-go-go constantly, but just take a break and gain some mental clarity and see how much better you feel decluttering your mind. 

Embrace a change and growth mindset, especially in an environment where we are constantly required to adapt. 

PHYSICALLY

Start stretching.. seriously. You sit at a desk for like 5 hours a day excluding lunch and recess, everyday, which is of course going to do a number on your body. It can relieve pain in many different areas.

Have at least 1 form of exercise you do everyday. I know being students, we have to sit at a desk constantly. But, do not give up on practising good exercise habits. Not only can it help with results, it’s good for you.

Get the recommended sleep of 6-8 hours per night, which is good quality sleep without disruptions. It helps with long term memory and you’ll feel better. 

Start packing healthy but tasty lunches to school instead of buying. You’ll save so much money in the long run, and it’s better for your body. 

BEAUTY 

Get your uniforms tailored just a bit. Not too noticeable, but enough that it fits better on your body. Especially for button formal shirts, as they make you look 10 times as bulky than what you actually are. 

Buy new jewellery, earrings, necklaces or whatever you’re allowed. Subtle but noticeable jewellery makes girls look so pretty.

Learn new hairstyles!! Don’t just wear the same hair everyday, mix it up, it’s fun and makes you look attractive. 

Get a good eyebrow gel + clear mascara. Legit life changer, I look so much better everyday because I look put together without make up.

apply  vaseline on areas you would apply highlight, but avoid your eye area. 

Have a good skincare regime!! Being a student is stressful, getting pimples is a sign of stress. 

Okay that's it. Happy back to school everyone! Here’s an affirmation for you <3

I am intelligent and capable. I am skilled and confident in my abilities. I am perceived well by others. I am healthy. I am wealthy. I am looking for this term to be full of good grades, vibes, friends, growth and fun.