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alsey · 1 year

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Author's Commentary – Prench Tale Part 1 (spoilers)

Chp.0 | Section 1

• ‌This was my third novel-grade production, and the first one written in English. No wonder these first chapters can get pretty rough around the edges, I'm always tempted to just go and edit it all into something a bit closer to my current standards.

• ‌Writing in 1st person wasn't something I had much experience with before this story, and not much more with present tense either; I've improved quite a bit since then, but here there's still a lot of characters just describing what they're doing or thinking instead of just... *doing* and *thinking*. This story was focusing on how each character was perceiving their own change, so being privy to their inner thoughts, and how they were being altered, felt like the better option. I suppose it does mesh with other Five Score stories, too.

• ‌"*Focus*, dammit..." – This was a real gamble in my eyes. I knew I'd probably lose a number of readers with lines like this one, but that way those who stayed knew what they were getting into.

• ‌Each of the three characters has its own little language idiosyncrasies, like saying 'toward' instead of 'towards', 'I suppose' instead of 'I guess', en-dash instead of semicolon, and so on. In this little introductory flash-forward, I tried to stay relatively vague on these so that it wouldn't be immediately obvious which of them was speaking.

• ‌I know it's pretty stupid, but my focus on avoiding repeating words extends to avoiding beginning subsequent paragraphs with the same letter. I've tried to be a little more lax with this rule since then.

• ‌All of Part 1 was planned, scene by scene, before I started writing. Therefore it wasn't too problematic to include in the Prologue this scene from a later chapter, but I was still a bit nervous if it would really feel natural once back in its 'native environment'.

• ‌A great, great many more ellipses yet to come...

• ‌The goal of putting this scene here was simple: reassuring readers that yes there *would* be ponies, even if the next few thousands words would be pretty human-centric; and that even though the following chapters would be very character-focused and kinda slow, there *would* be action and danger and excitement to come.

• ‌"*sigh*" – Another gamble here, with these 'stage direction'-like inclusions. Not making as much use of them as I could.

Chp.0 | Section 2, Ambre

• ‌Ah Ambre. Silly, silly Ambre. Wasn't sure how well that'd work for readers, but I liked giving a clear personality to her prose.

• ‌Trans Ambre: I was purposefully indirect in how I revealed Ambre's transness here. My hope was that readers that wouldn't catch the significance of her 'treatment' would get to know her a little bit more before the fact is laid out plainly later on.

• ‌Here we can see how much I was breaking with the conventions of present tense 1st person, having Ambre detailing her backstory in such an unnatural way. Sadly this wouldn't really improve until later in the fic... At least I was somewhat aware of the issue, hence the ‘I’m thinking to myself about how I’m thinking to myself’ bit as a way to give some kind of explanation for it.

Ch.0 | Section 3, Sarah

• ‌Fun fact: Sarah was initially called Soraya, her name changing shortly before publication (her pony name and design changed a bit too).

Ch.0 | Section 4, Laurence

• ‌Of the three characters, by far the easiest one to write for – the grumpiness helps, a lot.

• ‌Generally speaking, it's pretty wild to read this first chapter, to reacquaint myself with these initial versions of the characters, so different from what they've all become now!

Ch.1 | Section 1, Ambre

• ‌I'm currently working on an updated version of this cover art, which will become the cover for the whole of Volume 1. This first Part will have a brand-new cover instead. The cutie mark point-of-view markers will also receive an update.

• ‌I must admit that the info-dumping, though far from elegant or pleasing to my current ways of writing *Prench Tale*, has the advantage of getting the reader up to speed on the characters' state of mind early in the narrative. A necessity, considering I wanted a strong base for the human characters before the change would start – it's all a question of contrasts, so you need to have a clear idea of who these people are.

• ‌It's been noted, and I can't avoid seeing it now: there's a *lot* of French loanwords all over the place. It's possible I may have pushed for it because of the 'haha, French' aspect, but it could be just as well that I was just limited in my vocabulary (despite extensive use of a thesaurus). In this specific case, Ambre is supposed to have a more upper-class speech compared to the others, sure, but that's still stretching it a little.

• ‌The whole 'limits of transhumanism' discussion is of course a nod to the main themes of the story... And may event hint at some future developments.

• ‌Gosh that prose can be so clunky and lame and overcomplicated at times, past-me would really benefit from a good editing pass from now-me...

• ‌“It doesn't even look like a tattoo... The lines are too regular, the colors too uniform... Actually that's...” – Here, as you may've guessed, Sébastien was about to suggest it looked like a cutie mark, but he stopped himself. He's more of a closet brony at that point.

• ‌Ambre behaves pretty maturely, and seems to have a good head on her shoulders, don't you think?

• ‌There may be a pattern to Ambre deciding to stay behind to help Sarah out, and Sarah feeling despondent and unsure what to do in a difficult situation... As well as Laurence just checking out.

Ch.1 | Section 2, Laurence

• ‌"Stupid Sarah and her stupid drinks and stupid Séb and stupid Amber for making me talk so much I had to drink and stupid me for..." – A proof if there ever was one that I use 'stupid' as an insult far too often in my writing.

Ch.1 | Section 3, Ambre

• ‌"Hers are clearly less abstruse" – Seriously, who use words like 'abstruse'..? That thesaurus was a mistake! More seriously, this is a consequence of me having a very long-and-complex-and-unusual-words-skewed vocabulary in French, and simply checking translations when I want a specific word. Nowadays I try to write a bit more ‘naturally” ‘cause it’s just more believable, instead of how *I* would say it.

• ‌All this prose feels so *heavy* with unnecessary words and complicated sentences... I remember why: always afraid that I wouldn't be able to convey precisely what I wanted to convey, that the reader wouldn't get a perfectly clear picture of what I was seeing, so no choice but being extremely precise. And it makes for poor prose. I've got more trust in my readers' deductive abilities now, fortunately; it also makes for more dynamic, ‘punchy’ prose.

• Beetroot. Yeah I know it’s usually just ‘beet’ in US-English, but just saying ‘beet’ feels... lacking. Maybe I should just use ‘beets’, plural, that could work.

• “Does yours mean anything to you, Ambre? I don't know, likes or dislikes, past history, special talent..?” – More signs that Sébastien is suspecting cutie marks, even if he’s not ready to admit it.

Ch.1 | Section 4, Laurence

• “Pff... Smoke smells even worse than usual.” – Just like Ambre feeling antsy about being left alone during the previous scene, this is another sign that their brains have started to transition towards their pony selves’ – Laurence’s pony brain isn’t used to cigarette, and so the positive association between smoke and nicotine high has been lessened.

• “fioriture” – This right here is a word I commonly use in day-to-day life, in French, but that isn’t really seen as ‘common’ for most people. It feels even more bizarre in English, seriously what was I thinking? I mean, it conveys *precisely* what I wanted to convey, but it’s far from reader-friendly.

• “even if for some reason I feel slightly off-balance” – Same as earlier; her handedness is changing, which conflicts with her usual stances.

• ‘Professeur’ and ‘tireur’ are official terms for teachers and practitioners of French-style boxing.

• “But I know I've found my equilibrium, and it would be unwise to upend it.” – Portend of things to come...

• This whole boxing scene may not advance the plot much, if at all, but it’s important for laying some more groundwork for Laurence’s character. We’ve seen her grumpy in the Prologue, then asocial/introverted plus emotionally vulnerable earlier in this chapter, now we see some of her strength.

Ch.1 | Section 5, Sarah

• I’d been tempted to add an earlier scene, either during the Prologue or in this chapter, with Laurence catching a glimpse of some kind of altercation, but not intervening despite her justice sense tingling because of anxiety and such – to contrast it with this here scene of Sarah being ‘saved’ by Laurence. It didn’t really have a natural place though, and I felt her character was going to be controversial enough as it was.

• ““Your eyes are not supposed to be magenta.”, Laurence states bluntly.” – Laurence is my vehicle to convey the *precise* colors of things, she likes to be precise (and helpful) like that. Ambre could’ve identified the color too, if it’s ‘common’ enough, but for Sarah it’d only be ‘light purple’ or something like this.

• It’s funny how even for the Sarah scenes I end up talking more about the other characters than herself. Not too surprising, as she’s the character I’ve got the less affinity with, and the hardest to write for.

Ch.2 | Section 1, Ambre

• “my night was plagued by vague nightmares, full of a sense of danger, or helplessness...” – I’ve stayed purposefully vague on the content of these nightmares at first (see also previous chapter, mention of having had a rough night for the same reason). This is in part because the dream of one character will be plot-relevant, and will thus need to be directly shown, so I didn’t want to get too repetitive. Also, I often start scenes with characters waking up, which is kind of fitting for 1st person narration I guess.

• I’m honestly tempted now to depict Ambre’s troubles with a constantly growing super-mane while in the middle of serving customers their meal. Maybe that could make a fun mini-comic...

• “Kilo” – Not so sure it was a good idea, but to add a little more Frenchie flavor to the whole thing I often use the metric system, and local currency. It can be seen as a sign that what we’re reading is originally in French, but then why would the units not be translated along with the rest? Maybe it’s also kind of revenge for being always confronted to inches and miles and pounds and so on when I just wanna read fanfic. ;P

• “It also happened last evening. (recounting follows)” – Again with the direct, inellegant exposition dumb. We could maybe imagine it more as Ambre *picturing* the memories, rather than verbalizing them as written, I guess. Getting more creative in how I’d convey ‘known exposition’ may be one of the factors that contributed to increasing wordcounts.

• “I remove my glasses, looking over the object that helped me see the world as it should be seen, something that could, in a sense, be considered a part of me just as much as my natural kinky hair... I will have to relinquish them to their case, for now...” – Not so subtle parallel here between the glasses and Ambre’s whole human existence, of course.

• “*Ambre, you alright? You had us worried here!*” – Putting ‘non-standard’ speech in italics isn’t fully satisfying as a solution, but it’s better than nothing. As it is, italics have been, or will be, used to mark dialogue heard through a phone’s speakers (like here), or said in another language, especially English.

• “*We got weird eyes and hair yesterday, and freaky ears and tail during the night.*” – It was fun to scour the original story for exact times when the Mane6 had their changes occur, and take into account time zones to determine a general timeframe for our French characters’ transformation. Moreover, I considered that mainland Equestria shared the same time zone as Dubuque; I based this on the facts that Rainbow is cursed late at night, and that Dave’s birthday is similarly late at night – suggesting very similar timeframes. Consequence: the Prench crew can be awake and aware of some of the changes that occurred while the Mane6 were asleep, and vice-versa.

Ch.2 | Section 2, Sarah

• Another gamble: none of the main characters are knowledgeable in pony matters. This is in part to contrast with the original story, but also to represent how FiM just wasn’t as much of a thing in France. This is also the first element of one of the big thematic through-lines of the whole fic, which could be boiled down to ‘Know Thyself’ – they have everything to learn, about themselves, about their place in the world, and have to contend with what the world tells them, or doesn’t tell them, they are or how they should act/be.

• Sarah clearly hadn’t fully found her voice yet back then; nowadays she would be using much more ‘down to earth’ vocabulary and expressions, and I would know how to better avoid using uncommon words just to avoid repetitions.

• I actually don’t remember if the ‘being easily transfixed by the show on first exposure’ was something I’d found somewhere or if I came up with it... The idea behind it wouldn’t be that the visuals by themselves would hold some kind of mind power or anything, but instead that being exposed to a bunch of little authentic details in short succession – names, concepts, events, some aspects of look/animation of places and creatures – would evoke some inscrutable feeling akin to nostalgia or yearning or simple subconscious recognition, *especially* once the ‘memory gates’ have been reopened following the cutie marks reappearing. This could be used to explain why many of the Five Score protagonists are fans of MLP – they went through a similar, maybe less powerful variant of this effect, that got them into following the show and/or fan productions, or helped them keep on being fans after the show’s end. Of course, this is a mostly ‘first exposure’ thing, the effect lessens more and more with exposure as the brain can relies on fresher, more easily-explainable memories of pony stuff, and Equestrians-in-human-form don’t necessarily have the same ‘threshold’ for the effect to kick-in in the first place, depending on the nature of the stimuli and how much they correlate with what little buried memories manage to percolate closer to the surface. Here specifically, Ambre and Laurence got drawn in early by aspects of Canterlot and Royal Guards, while for Sarah it happened a little later once we got to the more agrarian Ponyville.

• “I ball my fists, ready to jump to my feet” – Sarah feels a bit aggressive, huh? She may be playing up the nonchalance most of the time, trying to avoid thinking too deeply about the situation, but clearly the uncertainty and upended normalcy still affect her. Maybe there’s also some new hormones starting to brew inside... Well, that’s one way to see it; if I were to edit all this again, I’d tone it down, make it more natural and understandable; I don’t like the implication that she’s somehow more aggressive or violent than the others, *especially* as it’s a frequent stereotype, when it’s mostly supposed to be impulsiveness.

• “neither of our symbols are present in the show itself” – Gambling once again, with the main characters being OCs and thus inherently less relatable/engaging from the get-go, as they don’t come with a preexisting rapport to the reader. Multiple reasons for this: first off, I enjoyed the high degree of freedom this afforded me in crafting the looks and background of the pony characters; second, it played again with the ‘Know Thyself’ theme, this time with both characters *and* readers – they don’t know who they’re turning into, and we don’t know what to expect, adding another kind of mystery dynamic to the plot; and third, even if, as one reviewer put it, most of the cool ponies were already taken, I just wouldn’t have felt comfortable making heavy use of a canon character, with all the expectations that’d come with them. Hence, OCs. Though as we’ll see later on, I did find ways to go around some of these issues...

Ch.3 | Section 1, Ambre

• First of the ‘Content Warning’ mentions. I was unsure if it were really needed, if maybe it spoiled a bit too much what was gonna happen, but I didn’t want to take any chances – we’re depicting pretty heavy stuff, with just a Teen rating. Plus, the vague warning can also help build up suspense.

• Interesting how brash and impulsive Sarah suddenly becomes all ‘huh, neat’ seeing this gruesome physical change happening on her in real time, no? This kind of response to overwhelming events/situations will have its consequences...

• The switch from Sarah’s to Ambre’s perspective here is very purposeful; like mentioned just above, the way Sarah reacts to this type of event would make for a very ‘succinct’ description, if any description at all, while Ambre stays a lot more lucid and can thus tell us what’s happening with some details. In fact, for this same reason we won’t have much of Sarah’s internal perspective on her transformation at all – denial’s setting in thick. As for Laurence’s perspective, well...

• “She stutters incoherently, eyes wide, staring in turn at Sarah's hooves, my own hooves-to-be, and her slippers-clad feet” – Laurence noticed what was implied earlier – there’s a specific sequence to how the changes play out, first Sarah, then Ambre, and Laurence last – and seeing her fate galloping towards her, she panics. Better to *choose* to harm herself and rob the change of a target, than to see herself be harmed without any way to stop it, in her eyes. We’ll come back often to this issue of control with her.

• Sarah’s denial, Laurence’s control, what of Ambre then? Well she has both enough introspection, like Laurence, and enough flexibility, like Sarah, to navigate this situation without falling down into one extreme or another. It’s also why she’s our main viewpoint character, wordcount- and scenes-wise: aware enough to describe what’s happening, functional enough to not break down from it.

• “Sarah looks dazed, and unsure, leaning against a wall, fiddling idly with her pants' waistband.”/“(...), concurs Sarah as she keeps twiddling with her pants” – For those familiar with the sequence of Five Score changes, you may have a guess what could make her feel slightly uncomfortable in her pants right now... The implication gets even more overt a bit later on.

• “Poor guy looks drained, and I doubt it's only because of his injury” – Sébastien is awesome, but he's only human; felt important to still acknowledge that for all the strength of his friendship, he's still affected by what's happening. Ambre can see it too, and thus tries to give him some respite.

• “I force the shoe to accept my changed foot with a brief ripping sound and fasten the laces; it'll do!” – A metaphor for how Ambre's trying to deal with things; trying to make things work, even if it's not easy and can't ever 'fit in' again.

• Laurence opening up about her feelings over her self-harm attempt, how she must be stronger, not yield so easily, the stress of the situation being no excuse, being put against herself... It goes beyond a need for control, even though she hasn't learned the reason herself yet.

• “a mad scientist and/or an exorcist” – I seriously spent a long time deciding if I'd dare use that slash or not.

• For the scene of Ambre going to the bathroom, I tried to stay pretty vague, focus on her emotive response rather than on the physicality of it all, but it's still one of the two likely reasons I was asked to add the 'Sex' tag to this story before publishing.

Ch.3 | Section 2, Laurence

• “The only upside of this insidious transformation is that it has sped up quite substantially the healing process” – Don’t remember if it’s something I came up with or not either. My rationale was that, basically, the curse reverting is coded to recreate the pony’s body in *exact* detail (which is the only way I can explain that it would give back ponies their exact same manestyle, age, and so on), and so as long as it’s still running its course, limited damage to a zone that is still in the process of being changed can be ‘healed’ as the transformation progresses. Not ‘healing’ *per se* then, and more the curse seeing the wound as more stuff to replace as to recreate the pony’s body. All this to say, that it gave me a convenient excuse so that Laurence’s injury wouldn’t matter much health-wise.

• “at a rate of a little less than two centimeters every half-hour” – Yup, I did the math; it’s not a random number.

• “Séb's warm voice pulls me back to the here and now” – In a lot of TF stories, including some Five Score ones, humans are to be avoided, or they’re antagonists. Human friends and family are often barely relevant, if at all mentioned. Here I really wanted to see what would happen if we kept a human friend of the protagonists right in the thick of it. I’m sure Laurence’s grateful at any rate.

• Speaking of, I’ve heard from some reviews that Laurence’s despondence, constant grumbling and general passiveness in these chapters could get old pretty fast. Honestly I can see it; she’s passive and self-focused in chapters that are already action-free and focused on the characters’ inner conflicts, with a big dose of domestic trivialities. However, her behavior wouldn’t change much, if at all, if I were to go on my editing spree, first because of character growth reasons (we need to see her at her lowest), and second because these scenes of her struggle were the primordial seed from which this whole story grew, it all started with this vision of a Five Score transformee rejecting their fate. Maybe I just wasn’t a good enough writer back then to properly frame and convey my ideas. Maybe, like some of my characters, I should learn how to let go of the stuff that just doesn’t work.

• “I didn't even recall bringing down my copy of *Old Man's War*” – For those unfamiliar with this great space military SF series by John Scalzi, it deals with, among other things, questions of an individual’s identity in a setting where it’s possible to switch bodies, a kind of technological reincarnation with imperfect or latent memories, and what makes one human. For example, in the first book the main character, the titular ‘old man’ finding himself into a new, youthful body, is confronted by a clone of his deceased wife, devoid of any of her memories.

• I tried to not get too preachy with Ambre’s trans monologue, or have it take too much space – hence being heard from Laurence’s critical perspective. It’s only really relevant in the context of Ambre and Laurence bonding over shared pain, of deepening our understanding of Ambre’s character and where she’s coming from, and of laying down some more thematic parallels and distinctions between trans and TF dynamics, especially in the Five Score context, which was the initial seed of Ambre’s character.

• This other book series mentioned by Ambre exists too, it's the *Tamír Triad* by Lynn Flewelling (which was split into six books instead and given a new title for the French edition, from what I've seen). It deals with prophecies, dark magic, ghosts, a usurper to the throne, and like she said, with a protagonist unknowingly living in a masculine body not her own, until her growth and the demands of the plot have her assume her feminine identity and her true destiny. Sounded fitting for helping crack the egg of a young trans person, among other things.

Ch.3 | Section 3, Sarah

• I actually mapped episode runtimes on Sarah’s day activities to see how much of the show she could consume during this time, and it was a nice coincidence that this scene could occur as she was watching ‘*Sweet and Elite*’. Beyond the little tidbit of opinion on Canterlot elites, it was a fun opportunity to have this *very* subtle cameo of Jet Set and Upper Crust, considering their both have not-so-distant relationships with some of the original characters in this story’s continuity. On the other hoof, we missed Sarah’s live reaction to the two-part premiere of season 2...

• “It's not because I've suddenly grown a pecker that I can't control myself!” – The *other* thing I suppose could’ve led to a mandatory ‘Sex’ tag. And beyond that, poor Sarah clearly needs a bit more time to get used to her new hormonal cocktail.

• Right at the end we finally get a glimpse of Sarah’s true emotional state, now that she can’t focus on something else, like binge-watching the show.

Ch.4 | Section 1, Ambre

• “Gosh Sarah snores like a train engine” – Sleeping while your nasal cavity is still being actively remodeled will do that to you, especially with the schnozzle she’s going to end up with.

• Pony height: I did some research to determine the general height of ponies in the Five Score universe, and fortunately it wasn’t too hard to figure out – a good rule of thumb is that a medium-sized pony’s eye level is aligned with or slightly lower than the waistline of a medium-sized human, which makes a fully-rearing pony about as tall as a human. This is shorter than my personal headcanon, but it fits well for more easily describing proportion changes from TF, and for most ponies to still be able to wear some human clothes. In Ambre’s specific case, her “my new eye level reaches much higher than my [human] groin” comes from the fact she started pretty tall at 5′11″, while her pony form is ‘only’ 3′5″ at from the base of her hooves to the top of her head.

• Pony proportions: I was still fiddling a bit with those when I wrote this part, but the generalities are still the same. I go for pretty horse-like ponies, in that their anatomy is as biologically believable as I could make it while maintaining that pony ‘feel’ we know and love.

• “Pff, and I thought waiting for the Dejean's coffeemaker was tedious!? – ”The whole coffee-making scene drags on a little, but purposefully so – this is meant as calling back to the Prologue and Ambre fixing herself some coffee. Back then it only took a couple minutes, but now that she’s a pony, it requires a lot more time and efforts; she’ll need to get used to her new situation, and find how she can go back to being fully functional, if it’s at all possible.

• “slowly stirring the dark liquid with my reddish spoon” – A very subtle hint that for all they’ll still have to learn and re-learn, our ponies still have some instincts to help – foreshadowing the end of this chapter. Because you see, Laurence doesn’t have colored spoons. But you know what’s red..?

• Ambre really starting to mull over her situation; it’s precisely why I wanted a trans character to go through a Five Score transformation, though she doesn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet...

Ch.4 | Section 2, Sarah

• Tried something here with the dream narration, being past tense instead of present tense like the usual narration. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a bit jarring, but I feel it’s thematically appropriate. And we’re finally getting a glimpse at the bad dreams and nightmares our characters have been mentioning for a couple chapters now.

• “Well, as they say, *quand faut y aller, faut y aller!*” – I really don’t get why I thought putting a French phrase here was a good idea. It’s not like ‘when you gotta go, you gotta go!’ was on vacation and not available. Definitely something I’d edit out, it clashes with the implicit convention that non-italicized English counts as French.

• Pony scents: a little bit of headcanon, probably not that original, with each pony having a personal scent, but beyond this simple fact, other ponies perceive this scent through some form of maybe-physiological, maybe-magical synesthesia. Here, Sarah likens Ambre’s scent to firecrackers, though like she says, more to the *idea* of firecrackers than any specific scent. And the thing is, another pony would probably describe Ambre’s scent differently, because it evokes slightly different things to them.

• “from my lower position I catch sight of my poor snapped bracelet on the floor... Forgot to take it off in the end, it must've broke during the night.” – Another case of using items and such as metaphors for the character’s circumstances, past, present and/or future. Right then, the message is that staying in denial for too long (here ‘forgetting’ the situation, when one knew the potential consequences) leads to one’s human existence (represented here by this fruit of one’s hobby, and a gift to oneself to celebrate a personal milestone) being damaged.

• In a previous chapter I mentioned how different the main trio felt so early in the story, but now with this first scene of them together, all ponied up, their group dynamic is really taking shape.

• “Is it really *that* important if I feel good right now?” – It was very purposeful to have Sarah declaring that she didn’t really care about her potential gender issues. Is it denial? Is it plain truth? Who knows, in her eyes it’s not important right now so *we* won’t know for sure. The goal was to include this perspective that I’m usually pretty frustrated with in TG stories, that despite the characters changing in major ways they don’t seem to question their situation or think too much about the implications for their personal identity – just going with the flow. I suspect that it’s mainly a question of ‘don’t overcomplicate things when we could get to the good stuff quicker’, but when it’s almost *always* how it goes, yeah it gets frustrating. Thus Sarah, representing some of these aspects so that I can discuss them.

Ch.4 | Section 3, Laurence

• “Sainfoin is at my side, ever faithful, enduring my clumsy attempts at petting him with my deformed right hand” – One of the boons of first person narration is that we can play with how each character sees the world; for Laurence, she perceives her body more as ‘what it should be’ than ‘what it currently is’, hence using ‘hands’ and other human-specific vocabulary to describe her body. It may be a bit confusing for the reader at times, but it is the intended effect – highlighting the profound disconnect between Laurence’s mind and body.

• This idea that for most ponies the change isn’t that much of a big deal is meant to explain why we don’t have many characters like Laurence in Five Score (she’s not the only one though; thinking notably to this soon-to-be-pony who chose suicide rather than complete the transformation, briefly described somewhere in the Dust-verse). Basically, the fact that the brain changes along with the body ensures that some subconscious aspects come back, including the general feeling of ‘yes this is my body, nothing unusual’.

• “That's the pragmatic thing to do” – One of Laurence’s catchphrases. The meaning she puts behind ‘pragmatic’ may not be the exact same as the dictionary definition though...

• One of the goals of this ‘let’s go make lunch’ scene was actually to have a good excuse for literally putting our three characters side-to-side to compare them. I wanted to play around a bit with body types with my characters, considering it’s something that’s often forgotten about in both the show and fan works.

• “an apple that she... somehow... holds with a hoof.” – Precisely because Sarah's not asking herself questions, she can manage better at using her hooves, letting subconscious muscle memory do the job.

• “Just try not to change it into a carriage, or make it explode.” – *wink wink*

Ch.5 | Section 1, Laurence

• “Oh just coming out of an episode with a character I really don't like, no big deal.” – As may be guessed, said episode was ‘Keep Calm and Flutter On’.

• Our ponies spend lots of time in the kitchen, but it’s to better track their progress in managing to reclaim being functional after the change, through this pretty relatable activity. Besides, it allows me to give a little more weight to my little headcanon for how ponies built a civilization on par with humans, despite lacking hands: what one human with a pair of hands can do, two or more earth ponies may need to work together to accomplish; hence a greater emphasis on community and friendship.

• The meat thing: I’ve always been curious about this idea that ponies would be strict vegetarians, to the point of getting sick from meat, that can be found in the fandom. It’s not *directly* suggested by canon, and it doesn’t make much sense from a physiological point of view... so I wanted to play a bit with it! I consider here it’s a deeply-ingrained cultural taboo, born from the centuries of ponies working closely with very smart animals but within a highly-curated ecosystem rather than someplace truly ‘wild’ like the Everfree. But more than that, we know that at least bovines are quite sentient in Equestria, so eating beef in particular would feel revolting from a purely ethical point of view (I do have a whole headcanon on the administrative and legislative aspects of ‘smart’ and ‘sentient’ animals in Equestrian society, but that’s neither here nor there). As Laurence proves, ponies are still perfectly able to eat meat products.

• “Is this body making me dumber or what!?” – One of the first real signs of Laurence being more of a scatterbrain after the change. More generally, while still neurodivergent, she’s now so in slightly different ways that she’s only beginning to notice.

• “shut up, it's magic” – The French (‘ta gueule, c'est magique’, or TGCM) equivalent of ‘a wizard did it’.

Ch.5 | Section 2, Sarah

• ““Well then Fido,” Sébastien quips as he unties me, “knock yourself out!”” – ... I can *not* believe I didn't have a ‘hey, wasn't talking literally!’ after that... I *may* have decided to highlight more Sébastien’s concern than his wits? Still, such a missed opportunity.

• “At the end of the fifth and last season of MLP... Discord takes over Equestria.” – This was written before the updated version of Five Score changed this to instead have the taking-over at the end of season 9, of course. At first I was thinking about updating in kind, but then, the change to the original didn't add much to the universe beyond some small contradictions, and went against pretty much all the universe that had been built around its original version. So I decided to keep to the 5-season thing. Two interesting consequences: I can now play with canon characters that the readers know about but the characters don't. And I like the potential surprise and foreboding feeling this could give readers who know the show isn't *supposed* to end so early.

Ch.5 | Section 3, Ambre

• Getting precise with how magic works can easily backfire. There's lots of non-compatible headcanons on the subject. But considering where this fic will go, it was necessary to give details.

• “it feels wrong to leave to their own devices somepony who's hurting” – As the pony names get more common, we're also seeing somepony/everypony crop up – but only in thoughts, to reflect that there's no equivalent of the words in the French dub of FiM (‘everypony’ is usually replaced by ‘my little ponies’), and so they don't have a French word to use while speaking either.

Ch.5 | Section 4, Chad

• “Brian is in the kitchen” – Apparently this is, like, a stock phrase widely used during English classes in French schools, or at least it definitely has reached meme status as such, and is often used to comment on how French people are pretty bad at English in general (because it’s the only sentence they know and understand, you see).

• And here we get the main reason for this chapter being titled ‘Fractious Impulses’ – beyond the tensions between the three that threaten to pull them apart, it's Chad's impulsiveness that manages to fracture the group and get them all in trouble. Other reason for the title: being the fifth chapter, and published on April 2nd, which is Five Score Day, hence starting with an ‘F’ for ‘Five (Score)’.

Ch.6 | Section 1, Ambre

• “a freaking magical laser beam” – Thought it was interesting that many unicorns could obtain pretty advanced spells that way, just like Shining did in the original story, and that it could be used as a way to evaluate the reality of the dreams.

• “Compared to my first day here, getting myself a glass is laughably easy – thanks magic!” – Those cheating unicorns! More seriously, it’s on this note that we end the succession of ‘kitchen moments’ for our characters, from their initial routine as humans to the trouble they had to adapt as ponies, and now the new normal, just as functional, only not in the same ways.

• “Darn it, he *did*!!” – Through Volume 1 I tried to never italicize the punctuation following italicized words, but it doesn’t look especially pleasing visually; I’ve decided to change that come Volume 2.

• “Laurence stomps a forehoof, cutting us off” – And here we are, the pivotal moment when Laurence shakes off the passivity; she’s got something to focus on, and she shall not dither.

• “Oh, and the password is Je_Veux_Être_Ton_Oisillon.” – A pretty obscure reference, even more so translated in French, but I know some got it.

Ch.6 | Section 2, Chad

• And here we’re really beginning to see how we end up with chapter with high wordcounts and number of sections: switching character perspectives often for advancing the overall plot.

Ch.6 | Section 3, Laurence

• When I was working on Part 1’s structure, at first this Charles dude was just a random jerk for Laurence to ‘save’ Sarah from, but then his role extended quite a bit once I realized that he’d also fit naturally in this position in the plot.

Ch.6 | Section 4, Chad

• And so we have our first song, yet another gamble! Gosh that was an ordeal... ‘Cause you see, I’m just plain bad at rhyming and I never had to write lyrics before. And I was rushing through this mammoth of a chapter to get it published on time. Not perfectly happy with it, and it’s a bit on the short side, but it does the job. Initially I was supposed to have a lot more time to work on it thanks to my buffer of two to three chapters, but after I’d been forced to publish everything I had, I only had the one week to get everything ready – or as much as I could, at any rate. I’d dreamed of actually producing the music (which is partly written), but alas.

• Oh, and we meet Crispy! Probably not as much of a surprise as she could’ve been, her existence having been introduced in Chad’s dreams. Still, another meaning for the fourth chapter’s title, ‘Four on the Floor’, beyond ‘four hooves on the floor’: four *ponies* on the floor.

• Sweetchard – or Chard. Like with Sarah/Soraya, the original name was ‘Bilberry’ (and his mane was blue instead of green).

Ch.6 | Section 5, Ambre

• Our ponies spying on the Brigade meeting was a slightly clumsy way to have the antagonists’ motivations made a bit more clear to both characters and reader, something that’s sometimes a bit problematic when you keep to first person narration and don’t have the time for long, complex detective work for the information to come up more naturally. Rushing things also makes them sound maybe a bit cartoonishly evil, but they’re not the worst offenders in this chapter...

• “Now, you all probably heard about what happened in Grenoble on Monday...” – These events are relevant for at least one other pony character in the story, though they probably won’t be discussed much in the future (though now that I think about it, I see how I could organically bring some light on these events...).

Ch.6 | Section 6, Sweetchard

• Ah, old man Laterrade and his religious spiel... So cheesy, and not much time to make his ‘arguments’ breathe a little more. It would’ve been interesting to have earlier Crispy scenes, to see how he descended from a strict but well-meaning father figure to a broken shell of a man, holding on desperately to whatever absolute truth he thought he could fall back on, with his only son lost to such devilry...

• Crispy putting herself between Chard and her father is also significant, though we won’t know why quite yet.

Ch.6 | Section 7, Ambre

• Eeyup, that’s a car chase scene alright. Slow beginnings, but we’re rushing towards the conclusion with a good serving of action. I’ve tried to improve on that point later on.

Ch.6 | Section 8, Sweetchard

• Laurence’s ‘running up a wall while beating wings’ was inspired by one of the hypotheses that had been proposed for how land-bound dinosaurs progressively developed arboreal habits and then flight.

• Laurence’s choice can be disputed for sure. Unfortunately, her decision wasn’t motivated by tactical matters only.

Ch.6 | Section 9, Laurence

• And here we’re back again, now with proper context...

• This whole scene was written in one go, outside editing, something that’s unusual for me (it’s usually more bits and pieces that are then tied together). My first real fight scene, and thus once again a gamble. I hope it worked as intended.

Ch.6 | Section 10, Ambre

• A somber note to end on, for sure... Especially as it was a full week before next chapter back then.

Ch.7 | Section 1, Laurence

• “I push through the oneiric veil, tearing the dreamscape apart” – Must have been some nightmare...

• The transfusion issue is another clue that the transformation wasn’t random, that the bodies came with a history of their own.

Ch.7 | Section 2, Sweetchard

• This scene, outside of the ‘starting to put the pieces together’, was the beginning of my attempts to improve rhythm on a per-chapter basis – adding a little tense scene or some action to each one, so it’s not just all talking.

• Interesting how these two seem to know each other so well, no?

Ch.7 | Section 3, Laurence

• I wasn’t sure if I should include this scene here or in the next Part, but it fit well enough here, and was important for Laurence’s character.

Ch.7 | Section 4, Ambre

• And at last our conclusion. Trying to put a little thematic bow on the previous events, so that Part 1 would feel like a slightly more cohesive whole, while still serving as the first step into the greater story. Very far from perfect, and perhaps not the best way to catch new readers’ interest, but it is what it is. Onward!

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orchid3a · 2 years

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I miss takeomi so bad…… I’ve thought of him several times a day it’s happening to me more and more 🥲

i know ambre i know...it’s a disease 😭😭 😭

wakui please let us see him!!

#✏️- aria is answering #✿ambre

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regulushair · 10 months

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Technically Xerjoff but actually Casamorati:

1888 by Xerjoff - I actually liked this one the most out the brand - it's sweet and slightly pastry-like spicy, but not tooth-rotting and has nicely balancing sourness (I'm not sure - from some of the flowers or from sandalwood at the bottom). Very enjoyable.

Bouquet Ideale by Xerjoff - I actually thought I was going to like that one more, but no - it's somewhat similar to the previous one - but this is somehow a bit too vanilla heavy. Still good though.

Dolce Amalfi by Xerjoff - I still don't know what quince is but it does add pleasant fruitiness and sourness to this one and makes it quite interesting. It has pretty noticeable cloves and balsamicness (balsamness?). Liked it about the same as the first one.

Gran Ballo by Xerjoff - actually noticeable start that didn't skip my nose - citruses and sour berries - and then it's pretty vague white flowers and a lot of added sweetness. It's okay.

Italica by Xerjoff - added points for realness, minus points for making me sick. I'm mostly joking, but I was afraid that at some point when perfume says "milk" it wouldn't be just vaguely lactonic and creamy but would actually smell like boiling milk, which makes me a little nauseous, and that's exactly the case here - warm milk with added caramel. Not my thing - but if you're looking for something like that I would recommend it.

Lira by Xerjoff - this is one of the more popular ones from this brand (I think?) but it didn't especially impress me - bright citruses at the start but then it's mostly just basic caramel.

Mefisto by Xerjoff - the least sweet one of all and maybe on the contrast one of the more pleasant as well - sour citruses and a lot of powdery flowers - fresh and pretty light. From my impression (and comparisons on fragrantica...) it's not awfully original though.

Tiger's Nest by Memo Paris - now that's definitely something. Wow. I've already tested this one and decided to try it one myself and it didn't disappoint. On me it opened up a little sweeter and I can agree with the comparisons to Ambre Sultan a bit more (at least from I can tell without actually trying the damn thing), but it still smells for me like a slightly damp old wooden house with a long unfired furnace. I want at least decant, please, is that so much to ask for?

#at the alchemist #perfume #xerjoff #casamorati

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thetwstwildcard · 2 years

Note

Can we learn more about Lovette?

"Big sister..." Eirlys spoke softly as she sat on her sister's bed, watching her put on her makeup "Yes Eir?" Lovette glanced back at her through the mirror "Is this another date.." "Of course it is." Lovette giggled a bit, putting on lipstick "Lovi... That won't bring back Ambr-" "DON'T YOU DARE SAY HIS NAME!!!" Lovette snapped back, slamming the tube of lipstick on the vanity, breaking the lipstick along with leaving a hole. Eirlys jumped, ears laying flat against her head. She couldn't meet Lovette's gaze, the aura off of her was too dark. Lovette growled before she looked down. With a sigh she began to clean off the ruined lipstick from her hand.

Her eyes softened as she turned back "I'm sorry... I... Just don't like hearing his name." She walked towards her sister, reaching out to pat her head "You all turned away, but I saw it. The flames eating away his body, his pleading eyes.. " Lovette began to tear up before stopping "I.. I have to go, won't want to keep him waiting" she forced a giggle and like that the fox was gone.

-------------------------------------------------------

'Ah, there he is' Lovette smiled as the man approached her "I saw that the movie-" she was shut up by the man forcing a kiss upon her, pulling her body into his desperately. She cursed in her head as she let him take control "Maybe we should skip to the fun part?" He smirked, breathlessly.

Nsfw ahead (non con)

'No...no...no...no...' "Of course ~" despite her silent pleas to herself she went against her desires as the man forced her to follow him back to his place.

'How disgusting...' She thought to herself as he forced himself upon her 'it feels disgusting, I want to throw up...' The man continued to have his way with the fox, using her to fufil himself 'heh... Crying out someone else's name.. Of course I'm a stand in...' She winced as he left more marks on her, bites and hickeys, more memories for her to be disgusted by. Time passed as Lovette mentally checked out of the situation, watching her own body move along with him acting like he wanted, not how she actually felt.

-------------------------------------------------------

When all was done Lovette sighed. The man was asleep next to her, leaving her alone to her thoughts yet again. She pulled the blanket over herself, covering her shame. The woman glanced at the clock and slowly slipped out of the bed. Silently she got dressed and left his house. As soon as Lovette was away she started to cry, digging her claws into her own arm "Disgusting... Disgusting.... I can still feel his touches... " she covered her mouth, not wanting to throw up "Ambrose..." She looked up at the stars in the sky "I'm so sorry... Please... It's my fault you're dead.. It should have been me... WHY COULDN'T IT HAVE BEEN ME?!!!?"

#twst oc #twisted wonderland oc #oc #twstoc #tw noncon #non con #cw noncon #not explicitly stated that its intercourse but it is #just Lovette not being mentally involved in it #as long as she's wanted #lovette sieglinde

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youtuberswithalex · 3 years

Text

PRVL, Vol. 3, Ch. 5: Never Miss A Beat

Summary: As the tournament picks up speed, our heroes get a chance to relax and connect with their loved ones.

Word Count: 3,567

Warnings: Family argument, a bit of implied self-hatred

(Sorry for the short chapter, but future chapters will make up for this! Promise!!)

Masterpost – Volume 1 – Previous

------

BEEEEEEP!

Roman leapt out of his seat, screaming at the top of his lungs. “Yes!!! Yes, Yang!! I knew she was gonna beat them, I knew it!!”

“Wow,” Riad said. “I did not think she would be able to put up a fight against Flynt’s trumpet. That thing packs a punch.”

“That’s Yang for you! Always the biggest, strongest blondie you could ever lay eyes on!” He flopped back down, letting out an energetic groan. As soon as he was settled, he hooked onto Riad’s arm and cuddled in. “I’m absolutely ecstatic that she’s going to the finals! I can’t think of a single person left that’s deserving of the championship!”

“Not even Penny Polendina?”

Roman looked to his other side, where Thomas was shooting him an amused look. “No way!” he exclaimed. “I don’t care if she’s got those psychic swords or whatever they are; Yang could beat her no problem!”

Joan leaned forward raised an eyebrow. “What about Pyrrha?”

“Not even a chance.”

Riad chuckled. “Didn’t you say Pyrrha beat her in a match in Glynda’s last semester?”

“Shhh…” Roman reached up and put a finger to his lips, silencing him. “We don’t have to talk about that. Yang cannot be bested.”

“Uh, excuse me, did you forget that your sister is still in the fight?” Trix huffed, leaning down from the row behind to press her cheek to Roman’s.

He paused for a moment as his face heated.

“…I can think of one person who could maybe best Yang.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Next to her, Abeba nudged her with their elbow. “Come on, let him root for who he wants. Besides, you haven’t even had your match yet; we don’t know if you’ll be in the finals or not.”

Trix raised an eyebrow. “Very bold of you to assume Eve and I wouldn’t be able to take down a couple of first-years.”

“Yeah, and did you see their match against NDGO? It was a complete luck of the draw that they managed to win!” Keahi added from Trix’s other side. “STER’s going to wipe the floor with them, no question.”

Abeba leaned forward to look at her, narrowing their eyes. “Aren’t you from the same school as Team SSSN?” they asked. “How come you haven’t given them any pointers on their strategies and stuff? Help them prepare, you know?”

Keahi scoffed. “Come on, you think I actually pay attention to other people in fighting classes? I don’t know jack about them.”

Trix and Abeba immediately deflated and slumped against each other.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” Trix sighed.

“I tried.”

As the next teams filed onstage, Roman dropped his cheek against Riad’s bicep and let out a breath. Riad stared at him for a beat before taking one of his hands with his free one. When Roman looked up, he offered a soft smile and pressed their foreheads together.

“Hey,” he whispered.

Roman smiled back, but despite the red dusting his cheeks, there was pain behind his eyes. “Hey.”

“You’ve been awfully clingy these last couple of days,” he pointed out. “Is there something going on?”

He hummed and buried his face back into his arm. His eyes flicked around, and his lips pressed together; one could almost see the gears turning in his head as he thought about the words he wanted to say next.

“Are you… worried, at all, about this?” Roman softly asked.

Riad raised an eyebrow. “About what?”

“Us,” he replied. “Like… Do you worry that things are going to end soon? Badly?”

The soft smile fell from Riad’s face; he frowned, shaking his head.

“No, not at all,” he said, leaning to try to catch Roman’s eyes. “I wouldn’t be dating you if I thought that. What’s this about, babe? Where’d this come from?”

Roman gave him the quickest of glances before looking back at the battlefield. There was a moment of quiet between them; Riad didn’t rush him, despite the nerves beginning to build up inside.

Finally, he let out a soft sigh. “Anole really doesn’t like us being together.”

Riad felt his heart drop into his stomach. He opened his mouth to reply, but Roman pushed on before he could get a word out.

“We were talking yesterday morning, and he… he really thinks we’re going to hurt each other,” he continued, “As if we’re doing this just to mess with him. And, Riad, I…” He shifted to look into his eyes. “I need you to know that that is not why I said yes when you asked me to be your boyfriend; I really, truly do adore you and Anole has absolutely nothing to do with it!”

“I know,” Riad answered, having to force his words through a thick wall of emotion. “I never worried about that for a moment. I do feel the same way about you; please don’t worry that that’s why I asked.”

“I wasn’t,” Roman replied, despite the way his shoulders fell.

Riad paused for a moment, pretending he was watching the start of the next fight as he sorted through his thoughts. “…Anole really said that?”

Roman nodded. “And he implied that we dove into this without thinking… That I was being reckless.”

“You are,” Riad said. “That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s something I really like about you.”

Scoffing, Roman rolled his eyes. “Tell him that.”

“I don’t need to. You’re the only one who needs to worry about how I feel about you,” he firmly replied. “And that’s something Anole needs to learn. Not you.”

Roman slowly nodded in understanding and leaned back in his seat. “I just wish he would leave us alone,” he quietly admitted.

Riad wrapped an arm around his boyfriend’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to his temple.

“I’ll talk to him.”

-------

Logan didn’t know how long he sat at the ocean docks after his parents left.

It was certainly more than a few minutes, if the ebbing stinging of his eyes was anything to go by. He could very faintly hear the announcers and buzzers from Amity Colosseum far, far in the air above; at least a couple of matches had come and gone, but he wasn’t paying much attention. Not when he could watch their boat disappear over the horizon.

While he felt no obligation to see them off after they set sail, he found that he wasn’t quite ready to head back to the dorm, or the arena, or… anywhere, really. At least not anywhere that he would have to interact with people. A weariness settled in his chest just at the thought.

He knew his parents needed to go. Vacuo and its citizens needed the two of them more than he did, and the ever-persistent Grimm weren’t going to let up during a worldwide tournament that just so happened to include their son. The fact that they were even gone for a couple of days was worrying; who knows what might have happened to the people they were protecting while they were away?

Logan knew this, and yet… he couldn’t stop himself from being sad to see them go.

So here he sat, in the midst of the stench of fish and tourists bustling around, watching a boat sail away as if it could grant him a few more minutes with his family before the long wait until they could see each other again.

Someone sat next to him on the bench, and he nearly leapt out of his skin; a coffee cup was offered as if nothing happened. Logan blinked and looked up to see Thamir softly smiling at him.

“Thamir,” he dumbly stated. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw you when I came by earlier on my way to my family’s house. Didn’t think you’d still be here on my way back,” he laughed. He pushed the cup towards Logan again as he took a sip of his own. “Figured I’d get you some coffee, since it didn’t seem like you’d be leaving any time soon.”

Logan glanced at it, and then back to him. “I… thought I was the one who owed you coffee after Team AMBR’s match?”

He shrugged. “Consider it a freebie,” he said.

Logan felt the corners of his lips tug up, and he finally accepted with a word of thanks before taking a sip. It was pleasantly warm, but not scorching hot, and just barely sweet and creamy— exactly how he liked it.

“So… Did your parents head out?” Thamir asked.

Eyes flicking to the boat, Logan nodded. “They weren’t able to stay away for long. Really, they probably shouldn’t have come in the first place,” he admitted, “But… I do have to say, I am… very glad they were here, even if they did have to see our loss. Perhaps even more so for the same reason.”

“They seem cool. It was really nice to meet them,” he said. “It must be intense, having a full family of Huntsmen.”

He sighed and looked down at his cup, where his fingers idly played with the rim of the lid. “It is rather extraordinary; I’ll give it that. I’m sure Roman and Calanthe could attest to my saying that it can get a bit overwhelming at times. There’s always training and jobs to be done, and hardly any time to rest.”

Thamir nodded. “I can imagine.”

“And that’s not even mentioning the impacts of being separated for long stretches of time,” he continued. “I was fortunate in that my parents could afford to stay home and take on few jobs while raising me; my mother originally insisted upon it, and Father wanted to keep that after she was gone. It was one of the most important things to him when he and Esther began to see each other. Very few children of Huntsmen are able to have that, unless they find a stable job in one place, such as the Reptilias.”

“Calanthe’s told me about that,” Thamir informed. “Her older sister had to take care of her when their parents were on missions, and then she was on her own after she left for Haven. She said it got pretty lonely.”

“Well… I suppose it’s just another part of the job,” he quietly replied. “Another sacrifice we make for the safety of humanity and faunus.”

Thamir fell into silence for a moment, staring over the ocean. He took a deep, weary breath.

“It’s not just a sacrifice for Huntsmen.” He turned to Logan. “It’s a sacrifice for the kids, too. I know time with your family isn’t the same as a life, but… It’s alright if you grieve it. You’re allowed to, even if you know it’s worth it.”

Just like that, the stinging in Logan’s eyes was back. He pressed his lips together and tightened his grip on his coffee, trying to keep his breathing steady. A lump formed in his throat, and it was harder to swallow it away than it should have been.

The echoing of a buzzer and a roaring crowd bounced around the buildings behind them, giving him just enough of a distraction to ground himself. He took a calming breath as music began to play.

Thamir bumped his shoulder against his. “You know… I remember you making a pretty hefty sacrifice a few weeks ago,” he said.

Logan frowned and raised an eyebrow at him. “You do?”

“Well, it wasn’t as big as leaving your family behind or anything, but it was still something you gave up to be ready for anything.”

“What was it?”

He pointed his thumb at the streets behind them. “The Vytal Festival Ball,” he stated, giving Logan a half-smile.

Logan scoffed and rolled his eyes. “That was not a hard decision to make,” he huffed. “Our missions were far more important.”

“Would you have gone if it was a different night?”

He blinked and looked at Thamir, who simply watched him with a soft curiosity on his face. Logan took a moment to consider the question before opening his mouth.

“I… do not know,” he admitted. “The chances would have increased, of course, seeing as the date was the main reason I chose not to attend, but, well… I still would not have had any preparations as to what to expect. I still don’t know how loud or crowded it would have been, nor how overwhelmed I would become.” Huffing out a weak laugh, he added, “I don’t even know how to dance, to be completely honest with you. For all I know, it would have been a disaster.”

Thamir hummed. “So… What you’re saying is, in two years, when we have the next Vytal Festival…?”

“I would not be able to tell you if I would go or not,” Logan finished.

Thamir nodded, and then he set his coffee to the side, getting to his feet. He turned and held a hand out to Logan.

“Well,” he said, “I can help you with one of those worries, at least.”

He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s dance.”

If he’d had any coffee in his mouth, Logan was sure he would have choked. “W-What?”

“Yeah!” he laughed. “C’mon, I’ll teach you how. We can start small.”

Logan stared at him, frozen in place; after a moment, he let out a breath and took his hand.

“Well… Alright.”

He set his drink aside as Thamir pulled him up, taking both of his hands and holding them an arm’s length away. They started to sway to the music echoing through the area.

Though I can’t find what to say, I know that you’ll hear me If you’re in this game I play, I can tell you when I need you more…

Logan couldn’t help but chuckle as Thamir started getting more and more invested in the song; his shoulders moved, and his head bobbed back and forth. Thamir caught him watching and laughed, yanking Logan’s arms forward and back to the beat.

“The more you get into it, the more fun it is!” he exclaimed. “Try it!”

He rolled his eyes, but the smile didn’t leave his face as he attempted to copy Thamir’s movements. When he beamed, he couldn’t help but notice his face warming.

“I feel ridiculous,” he said.

“A step in the right direction, then,” he replied.

Thamir took a step and began to lead them into an achingly slow rotation around each other. Logan stumbled a bit at the first step, but was quick to follow. When they made it around a full circle, Thamir pulled one hand away and lifted their connected hands, taking Logan through a careful twirl.

Taking both of his hands again, he smiled. “You’re getting the hang of this pretty quick.”

Logan grinned.

--------

Virgil threw his fist in the air and let out a cheer, nearly throwing his scroll out of his hands. “I think that’s the best score I’ve ever gotten!”

“There’s platinum?! I thought gold was the highest one!” Patton yelped.

“Nah, not even close. There’s a diamond tier, but you can only get it when you play a level on Multi-Extreme mode,” Virgil replied. He turned to Patton and reached across the space between their beds, holding his scroll out. “You sure you don’t want to give it a try? It’s pretty easy to get the hang of, even if you don’t know the music.”

Patton shook his head and waved him off. “It’s okay, really. I’m having more fun watching you!”

Virgil shrugged before looking back to his desk, where a rented gaming console projected his score. “Alright. Just don’t think you’re going to make it through break without playing a round with us. Ever since I showed him the game, Dad won’t let a person into our house without making them compete."

“Your dad plays Rhythm Hell?” Patton asked with a laugh.

He scoffed, rolling his eyes as he looked through the game’s available songs. “Dude, you have no idea. He dedicates a solid two hours every Saturday to touch up his skills.” A grin formed on his lips. “Any time we have a family event, he brings it along, and there’s a whole competition— he and Papi’s mom are, like, mortal enemies because of it. It gets intense.”

Patton grimaced. “Oh… Is she… Not a great person?”

“Huh?” Virgil frowned and looked at him, brow furrowed; when he realized what he was asking, he sucked in a sharp breath and waved a hand at him. “Oh, no, no! Not like that! Abuela’s really cool, she’s really chill usually! She just gets competitive like Dad does when it comes to video games. But it never gets aggressive, don’t worry.”

A sigh of relief tumbled out of him. “Good. Okay.”

Virgil offered a soft smile before turning back to the game. “Yeah, you won’t have to worry about anything like that when we’re on break,” he said. “We do have plans to head to Argus for a reunion, but no one is gonna be anything bad. Everyone’ll be excited to meet you.”

Finally settling on a level, the two settled into a relaxed silence. Heavy guitar and drums played through the speakers, just loud enough to hear, but quiet enough to not disturb the others in their hall. Patton watched as Virgil’s face dissolved into concentration; when the artist began to sing, he shifted and lay on his stomach, resting his chin on his arms.

“I am weak; can’t save myself, from my own flaws…”

“Can’t you see, I can hurt you…?”

An grin started to form on his face as he listened to Virgil’s soft singing. He buried his face in his arms to hide his huff of laughter.

Apparently, it wasn’t quiet enough.

“Are you making fun of me?” Virgil asked, no bite to the accusation.

Patton giggled. “No! It’s cute!”

A scoff rang out. “I’m not cute! I’m edgy.”

He bit his tongue to keep his argument back, not wanting to ruin whatever score he had at the moment.

There were a few more seconds of silence before Virgil’s humming resumed. Patton beamed and pulled his face up, turning to look at the screen, but sunlight glinted off of a picture frame behind it and dragged his attention away.

The photo showed a much younger version of Virgil nestled in the middle of their four-person family at a professional photo shoot. He was dressed in an outfit that Patton couldn’t dream of Virgil ever agreeing to today; a gray button-up, black dress pants, and a soft, purple sweater vest. His hair was short and spiked up, and his grin wide and front-toothless, but there was no mistaking it was him.

His younger sister sat next to him in a lavender blouse with puffy sleeves and light blue tights. Her hair looked like it might have been styled into a nice set of low pigtails at some point, before being ruffled and tumbled around. She and Virgil held each other’s hands tight.

On either side of them were their dads, looking exhausted but proud. Their matching white dress shirts were a bit wrinkled. They each lay a hand on one of their children’s shoulders, and a close look to their Papi’s arm revealed he was seemingly holding Crina in place.

Despite the frame of the photo looking relatively modern and clean, the actual photograph was worn and faded at the edges. A couple of creases circled what had once been their family. It was the only crooked one of three hanging on the wall, between one of Virgil and Chao at a graduation and another of their team in the cafeteria, taken early in their first semester.

Patton’s eyes drifted over to his own bare walls above his desk, looming over the clutter and mess below. His scroll sat on the corner of a stack of textbooks; it blinked with a silent unread message notification. He made no move to get up and check it.

On the shelf above, a picture frame lay face-down.

“Let it latch to the hope that I’m controlled…”

He glanced at the scorched handprint stained to the door frame. Guilt and shame built up in his stomach before he could tear his eyes away. He gripped his forearms tight until a dull ache began to make its way through the muscle.

“I’VE GOT A MONSTER IN ME; IT’S TEARING THROUGH MY HEART!”

Patton just about jumped out of his skin as Virgil began to scream-sing along to the music, leaping up onto all fours and staring at him with wide eyes. Virgil either didn’t notice or didn’t care, as he only continued and started to dance along.

“It won’t stop ‘til it breaks free, so make it stop before it starts!”

Forcing himself to release his breath, Patton lowered himself back into a sitting position and watched. Virgil’s score began to go down as the beats flew by unnoticed. His eyes squeezed shut, and a grim formed on his face around the lyrics. He lifted his hands into fists and bounced them to the rhythm of the drums that were practically shaking the speakers of the gaming console.

Patton huffed out a little laugh before glancing back at his scroll.

The light wouldn’t stop blinking.

I fear the monster in my soul, I fear the monster in my soul, I fear the monster in my soul, I fear the monster…

#prvl #prvl update #alex writes #sanders sides fanfic #rwby au

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hookahmancer · 3 years

Text

Coldsteel: Hot and Cold part 1

The howling sirens of the Mobius City bank can be heard from across the village, out running with a big sack of money is none other than the nefarious naydoer Coldsteel.

He pulls down his bandito mask just long enough to tell the chasing guards behind him "nothing person-el wagie cucks!" The guards stop and gasp

"He took off his mask! We've been exposed!" "He really is the most vile!"

He sneers but in his path is Amy Rose.

"What do you think you're doing Coldsteel?" He looks around confused

"You're not Sonic. What was he busy or something? Sending his poor little..." He looks up and down her body. "Sister? To umm...buh"

"SISTER?! I'll have you know little man I'm Sonic's future wife!"

"I doubt that..." She grumbles and pulls her hammer back and he mutters "oh shit" and runs towards his left. She yells for him to come back here and in the far distance "nothing person-el kiddo!"

She grumbles and says "what trash..." The guards have these smirks on their face.

"What are you two smirking about?!"

"Nothing kiddo. Nothing at all." "He calls everyone kid."

"It's about context Amy. You know if you plan to win Sonic's heart you gotta pick up on these things."

Meanwhile as Coldsteel is still running he starts getting short on breath.

"Wow this running stuff is hard work how does Sonic do it?! Imma take a smoke break. That'll reinvigorate me. Smoking is way better than cholesterol riddled chili dogs." As he starts vaping he realizes where he is.

"Wait...isn't this one of Eggman's territories? Oh that schizo could be of great use to me!" He puts his vape away, grabs his money sack and heads toward the entrance where this giant spike robot looks down at him assessing.

"Hedgehog... Not Sonic, not Shadow, state your name and business."

"Coldsteel. Business is let me in or else."

"Threat assessment confirmed. Hate that hedgehog." Spikes come out of it's body that Coldsteel easily avoids, but realizes he can't make physical contact with the robot without those spikes prodding into him.

"I probably should've thought this through... How does friggin Shadow do it?! Oh wait he has a gun. I should probably get me one of those. I mean now that I have MONEY I can... But..."

Eggman's fortress doors slide open and Dr. Eggman walks out aggravated.

"What is all this commotion about? HEDGEHOG!"

"Wo wo there Eggy! I didn't come here to fight but make a deal!"

Eggman raises his hand to have the spike robot stand down "I'm listening..."

Coldsteel plops down the sack revealing the swathes of cash inside.

"I got all this money see? And I'm willing to pay you a large sum of it to make me something..."

"Pthfft. I am a SCIENTIST! What good is your money to me?! I'm basically a god! If I want something I can just create it. Perfect it. Your money is no good here, go home."

Coldsteel puts on a Joe Biden voice "comeon man!"

"What would you even have had me build you? Some sorta ray gun to nuke that insipid Shadow? Perhaps some sorta quantum accelerator boots so you could fight toe to toe with Sonic?"

"Man you are a one track mind Scrambled Eggs. No I don't want anything like that. Use that genius of yours to create something useful like a love potion."

Eggman squeels a bit but plays it off as a cough at being called a genius.

"A love potion you say? Such trivial engineering and morally incomprehensible! Why would I manipulate the thoughts and feelings of the neurological pathways of Sonic or one of his annoying friends just to rattle them with false dopamine and serotonin?!"

"Cause we're BAD GUYS you fucking..." Coldsteel rubs his nasal cavity.

"Look, if lets say as an example, you used a love potion on Sonic."

"ARE YOU INSANE PURPLE HEDGEHOG?!"

"Figuratively green eggs and ham! If you used a love potion on Sonic, he'd stop ruining your evil plans. Than you could do whatever you want!"

Eggman strokes his mustache and paces.

"I see your point...However, my relationship with that...hedgehog is complex enough as it is. I don't need to make the situation worse with..."

"Well it's not for YOU, IIII want the love potion to use on..."

"There is NO WAY I'm going to develop a love potion for you to defeat MY sworn enemy!"

"Holy crap I'm gonna kick you in those two little eggs of yours dangling. IT'S NOT FOR SONIC!!!"

"Hmmm..." Eggman paces around some more playing with his hands.

"The answer is still no. Your intention to bait out one of his little friends is commendable, but"

"Oh I see. You just can't do it."

"That's not it at all I just..." Coldsteel grabs his money sack

"You're not a genius at all. You're just some incel playing with his dangerous toys!"

"How dare you?! Fine hedgehog, I will devise you the weaponry you so desire...but it will be on my terms as you are incapable of realizing how volatile playing with emotions can be!"

"Yeah yeah yeah, great. Free will and all that fortune cookie goodness. Let's just do it!"

Later Eggman is mixing together compounds in his lab, puts it in a dart vial, and loads it into a gun. Pointing it around squinting one eye.

"So whom is the intended target hedgehog?"

"Well, I don't know her name, but she's pink, and has this hammer, and..."

Eggman fumbles almost dropping the gun but catches it. "AMY?! YOU'RE PLANNING TO SHOOT AMY OF ALL PEOPLE?!"

"Watch where you're aiming that thing hard boiled!"

Eggman smirks.

"I'll admit. I had my doubts at first...but that is a diabolical plan! Amy has obsessed over Sonic for such a long time, to suddenly lose those feelings for you would leave a subconscious impression Sonic was no good for her. Her infatuation for you will turn into a bitter resentment for Sonic and SHE will be my weapon!"

"...Yes. Yes that's totally what I was thinking. Now gimme the gun." Eggman pulls it away

"As if I would trust something of my creation in the hands of greasy grubby hedgehog hands! I'll be the one doing the shooting!"

"...please no." "Come hedgehog. We have a soldier to recruit into our villainous army!"

As they're hiding in some bushes with binoculars Any is talking with Sonic and Tails about something or another. Eggman whispers to Coldsteel. "Do you see them?"

Coldsteel is checking out up Amy's skirt while she playfully fidgets talking to Sonic.

"Oh I see'em..."

"Alright than I'm going to take the shot. In 3...2...1!"

He shoots the dart and in all her little movements and dancing smitten over Sonic it just misses her and Tails is shot right in the chest with the dart.

"Darn it I missed."

"Eggman I swear to God I'm gonna hang your webos as a trophy."

The heroes are freaking out. "Where did that dart come from?!" Amy screams and Sonic traces it from that angle to the bushes they're hiding it and sees figures in them and runs over drop kicking Eggman right in the face while Tails is having a panic attack saying "is it poison?! Am I gonna die Amy?!"

Sonic thrashes on Eggman "I knew you were a nasty ambre Eggshit but I didn't think you'd stoop so low as to do something like this!"

Coldsteel is hyping Sonic up like "yeah Sonic, kick him again! That Egg punk is getting everything that's coming to him!"

"Mutiny! Treason! All you hedgehogs are alike..."

"Heh, nothing person-el kid."

Tails sees them essentially bullying Eggman and just starts to laugh.

Amy puts her hand on Tails shoulder "are you ok Tails?"

"I feel fine... Actually I feel great. Who, whose that other hedgehog over there just making fun off Eggbutt while Sonic"

Amy squints her eyes and clenches her fist. "Coldsteel!"

Coldsteel notices Amy has spotted him and says

"Well I'd love to stay Doctor but I uhh...I think I left my vape on."

"Don't leave me here with this blue brute! We're a team!"

Sonic about to punch Eggman again says "team?" And looks Coldsteel's way. Coldsteel looks around and makes a run for it. "Gotta go fast!"

He runs for it and trips "ahhh fuck! Me knee!"

Tail gasps and flies over there as quickly as he can. As Any and Sonic notice Tails is acting strange.

"Are you ok Coldsteel?" "Yeah, that just friggin hurt... Sonic never stumbles. Fricking Mary Sue ass nigga."

Tails giggles and says "hold on..." Pulls out a first aid kit with anti bacterial, napkins, and bandaids, and puts it on Coldsteel. "All better!" With a big innocent smile and Coldsteel smiles back.

Sonic yells at Tails "Tails get away from him. That guy is bad news!"

Tails gets up and scolds Sonic "Sonic you know what sorta psychopath Egg garbage is! He probably used to some sorta mind control device, or or...held his family hostage! Or maybe he thought we were the bad guys! Or..."

"Tails bro, you're acting really strange... Whatever Eggman infected you with. It's messing with your head."

"My head is fine! You're just...being a jerk!" Tails turns back to Coldsteel and holds his hand.

"You wanna stay a while Coldsteel? I'd love to show you the plane I've been working on! Maybe Any could cook us up a...well I mean her cooking stinks but she tries."

"I heard that you little twerp!"

Coldsteel rubs the back of his neck really uncomfortable at the predicament he's found himself in and says "Ehhh, sorry. But your friends are kinda right about me little guy."

"My name is Tails." "Yeah yeah Tails. Uhh... Y'see EGGMAN HERE kinda screwed up the plan."

"He does that a lot." "I'm noticing..."

Eggman is crying on the ground "WHERE'S MY BANDAID?!"

"So I'm gonna go..." "Please Mr. Coldsteel?" He sees the sadness is Tail's eyes, the suspicion in Sonic's, the disdain in Amy's, he raises his hand and Tails flinches thinking he's gonna hit him but just places it on top of his head.

"Nothing person-el kid..." And runs away. Amy screams "yeah you better run coward!"

Eggman is still sobbing and looks up at Tails

"C...could you spare a little of that oxytocin hormone scoring through your blood stream for a genius?" Tails just raises his chin up like the Skinner meme

"Pathetic..."

#sonic the hedgehog #fanfic #cold steel #sonic memes

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lotionsandlipsticks · 4 years

Photo

Favourite SPFs!

Happy summer everyone! I hope that you’ve all managed to stay safe during these hotter temperatures wherever you are 🥵 I’ve been told by my family back in Wales that there’s been sweltering heat in the UK lately, and meanwhile in Spain temperatures have been a steady 32 degrees for almost all of the three weeks I’ve been here so far. Needless to say, it’s paramount that we all use a suitable SPF during the heatwave to protect ourselves from sunburn, skin damage and premature ageing 🌞

I’ve been using two different sunscreens since being in Spain - a mist for my face and a classic sun lotion for the rest of my body. My skin is very breakout-prone and a little oily, so I wanted to make sure that the two formulas I bought were light, easily absorbed and that they wouldn’t block my pores and cause more breakouts in the long run.

Let’s start with the Ambre Solaire Sensitive Hydrating Face Sun Cream Mist SPF 50 (£6.00). I first came across this sunscreen last year when I came to Spain on my own for the first time to see my boyfriend. I’d never seen a sunscreen mist before, so I thought I’d give it a try as normal sun creams feel horrible on my skin. It claims to be non-greasy, hypoallergenic and anti-pollution, so it sounded like a great option for normal, everyday use too when the weather becomes cooler.

And I have to say, I absolutely love it! This sunscreen is a lifesaver for those with oily, breakout-prone and sensitive skin as you can’t feel it on your face once you’ve sprayed it on, and as far as I know it hasn’t irritated my skin or made me break out. It’s a huge pro as well that it only takes seconds to apply, and you can even reapply it over make-up and it won’t disturb it at all as it’s transparent.

For my body, I’ve been using Soltan’s Quick Dry Protect SPF 50+ suncare lotion (£6.50). I liked the fact that it claims to dry in under 60 seconds, and that it’s water and sand resistant which means it’s great for those beach days 🏖️ It also has a 5 star UVA rating which gives me piece of mind that my skin will be highly protected and safe from damage (though it’s still important to take other precautions too!). My skin hasn’t burnt at all since using it which is quite rare for me, and I’m really pleased that this formula hasn’t caused any breakouts on my chest and shoulders, which can happen with other sun creams.

Both options are very affordable, lightweight and offer high protection and so I recommend them wholeheartedly💕

#sunscreen #garnier #ambre solaire #soltan #boots #spf #uva #uvb #skincare #make-up #summer #acne prone skin #oily skin #sensitive skin

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wlw-lovestruck-fiction · 4 years

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Calling Xenia’s children’s creators!

The amazing artist @mcbatty would love to individually draw all of your wonderful Xenia children! Of course, she will credit you fully but I thought I’d ask permission, just to make sure! @origmansello Please may she draw Bobert and Xavier?

@sick-of-it Please may she draw Xeno?

@toyhenoctus Please may she draw Taranis, Berenus and Sirona?

@dragonschaos Please may she draw Kassandra?

@nydeiri Please may she draw Ambre and Jade?

@smol-little-baby Please may she draw Valerie?

@hersheybean Please may she draw Charlotte?

@thenaughtyturnip Please may she draw Elys?

@xxbadvibesx Please may she draw your unnamed daughter?

@babybirdiee Please may she draw Luca?

@deeromanoff Please may she draw Xenia Jr?

@jedimayukidaawesome Please may she draw Chara Moonrunner and Eros Moonrunner?

@artunry Please may she draw Caiden?

#pls #this would be so good

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helshades · 5 years

Note

Please help me find a scent! When I enter a room, I want people to acknowledge my existence. I want to demand their attention, but they can't approach me. No! I want people to automatically realize that they can't play me. No time for nonsense. Serious business only. I'm in charge. I want to be intimidating and mysterious. Which perfume should I get?

So... something potent, sensual, with monstrous projection, unsweetened, but thorny, a little cold perhaps..?. In one word: tantalising.

As a matter of fact, we could go in a lot of directions, depending on your own version of ‘intimidating’ and ‘mysterious’ alone. Or your co-workers’ take on the subject, since some people are likely to feel intimidated in the presence of a powerful green floral, or any spice whatsoever now I come to think of it. As for the approachability factor, the ultra-chic grandiloquence of Rouge Hermès has been known to traumatise its fair share of opponents. Yet, I don’t suppose you’re after something quite so, er, ‘sultry dowager’. Ahem.

Never have I met a perfume so evocative as Grimoire, or so strange. One of Anatole Lebreton’s very best, it resembles nothing you could smell anywhere else, unless you could transport yourself under the robes of a young monk daydreaming over his illuminated manuscript as the window open on the herb garden carries tranquil yet troubling scents into the dusty library. It might be too contemplative for your purposes, but it is a perfume to behold, arresting, beauteous, imaginative, at once familiar and aloof.

Now, if the frankincense and dust have you parched for a wetter perfume, I cannot resist the temptation of slipping a floral in my list, though not others might think of spontaneously: Un matin d’orage, by Annick Goutal, and here you would have a difficult choice to make between the eau de toilette and the eau de parfum versions, as they happen to be quite different, the latter featuring a pretty dirty tuberose on a woody bed of myrrh and guaic, whereas the former is a little spicier with ginger and greener, in my opinion the real ‘stormy morning’ (to be perfectly honest, I wear one in the morning, and the other come afternoon) of the two. Beautiful, energising, but a little cold.

Practically on the opposite, why not something by house Frapin? One of the most respected cognac maker, in 2007 they launched a successful line of wonderful perfumes, generally thought to be leaning on the masculine side (I suppose women are meant only to sip their minute glass of sherry daintily, whereas men can haz the better spirits...) but in truth quite unisex, usually heavy with alcohol and elegantly exotic, like a casket of precious wood so often used to carry bottles that even empty the rich smell of winy fruit and spices linger. Frapin perfumes are usually well-blended and fairly close to the skin, so I’d recommend the probable loudest and my favourite: Caravelle Épicée, ‘spicy caravel’, a classy spicy-boozy juice, peppery, delicately woody with a whiff of tobacco, and a subtle slide of sexy patchouli.

I almost recommended Speakeasy as well but I find it a little close to the skin, all things considered, even though it must be sniffed once. It was made by one of my nose darlings, Marc-Antoine Corticchiato, who runs his own independent house, Parfum d’Empire, of which I dislike exactly zero creation. His very first, back in 2003, was one of the ballsiest ambers ever made, and could drink any Frapin under the table with its intoxicating head of vodka and champagne, like a very tipsy White Russian still too well-educated to lose control of his senses entirely, but he’s almost there, and he’s rambling; and his leather boots are waxed in birch tar, and his perfume is something herbal and masculine with juniper and spices... The result is a smoking Russian tea with a hefty dose of alcohol: the much-beloved Ambre Russe. Also particularly worthy of note in the house for me, with added ‘mystery’, are Wazamba, all incense, balms, resins & woods, and it is to Serge Lutens’ Fille en aiguilles what green leather desk covers are to red ones (ctrl+F, then search for ‘sage-green’.), as well as the bashful and daring Aziyadé, the forbidden Turkish delight of a girl. A lot more luxurious, and not an easy wear for everyone, and it evolves along the day marvellously (very different notes come up depending on who’s wearing it, too, which is never a bad thing), depending also on the weather. Honestly, on me it smells so much like spicey, liqorous orange that I’m incapable not to wear it on Christmas, but on most other people it does smell less like a fruity pomander.

Now, since I cited one of my favourite ambers, I must mention another, which is one of the most splendid ever created: Lubin’s Akkad, which could have been the ultimate ‘perfume of an empire’, as nose Delphine Thierry sought to make the mystical fragrance that emperor Sargon, who ruled Mesopotamia twenty-five centuries ago, might have wished to offer his goddess Ishtar, who presided over love and war... The offering is a startling beauty, sombre and luminous at once, a combination of precious incenses—elemi, olibanum, styrax—with hypnotic herbs (labdanum, clary sage), hot spices (vanilla, cardamom), on a bed of amber embers. Must always be compared with its incestuous cousin Idole, based on ebony wood and a hint of leather. Darker somewhat, more dangerous, and just as heady.

Dangerous also... This one has its share of haters: Serge Noire, by Serge Lutens. It has many notes in common with Idole, including its ebony heart, but instead of rich alcohol and macerated fruits, there are strong, dark peppers and a bag of cloves that knocks you down on first sniff. I adore it, because I can’t have enough of filthy musky notes and clove, like cumin, can be (and is often) worked into a civet-like smell of sweat and sex. (The title is a pun on Lutens’ first name—the nose behind his perfumes being English mad genius Christopher Sheldrake—but serge is French for ‘twill’, a nod to Lutens’ youth designing hair, make-up and jewellery for the high fashion world.) Serge Noire is a contrasted and demanding perfume, burning hot and cold, a dark fur with hints of ash and earth, some have spoken of ink, but it ends on a more suave vanilla-scented leather. You have to be patient for this layer to appear, though.

On the civet-spice spectrum, one of my favourites: Rose Poivrée, which now-retired Hermès in-house perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena designed for The Different Company, is exactly what it says on the tin, a dark red rose with loads, but loads of pepper, black, pink, coriander, and a frisson of vetiver to better underline the insanely exciting duality of this hot-and-cold perfume. I wear it in autumn for some reason, and it keeps changing, alternating between the rose and the sweat-like cumin. It has a magnificent lookalike, with less dirty notes and added gin and leather, in Penhaligon’s Much Ado About the Duke, with the downside of the ridiculous price of their ‘Portraits’ collection, and I hardly ever see it on EBay, unfortunately, but one never knows.

Intimidating, mysterious, commandeering, quite a little bit dangerous, and of course horridly expensive, I frantically advise you to discover the entire line of D.S. & Durga perfumes. Based in New York, perfumer David Seth ‘D.S.’ Moltz and architect Kavi Ahuja ‘Durga’ Moltz are married, crazy, and brilliant; both are obsessed with the way odours allow us to armchair-travel everywhere, and their olfactory universe ventures into pre-industrial America, ‘turning things [they] love into scented stories of cowboys, open terrain, Russian novel characters and folk songs’. This is how you get one Burning Barbershop, inspired by a fire that ravaged a Westlake barbershop in 1891, hence a fragrance like old-timey tonics, lavender, mint, lime, vanilla... as well as smokey notes. (My personal favourite is Bowmakers, a homage to the violin and bow makers of the Bay Colony in 1800s New England, which is only woods—rosewood, mahogany, pine, maple—, resin, varnish, nut and leather.) In the ‘Hylnds’ collection, Pale Grey Mountain, Small Black Lake is an unbelievable chypre with herbal, mineral and aquatic notes reminiscent of an entire Scottish landscape. Even more apothecarial is Mississippi Medicine, with its camphorous head and its resinous, vegetal body of cypress and cedar mixed with coriander, juniper, olibanum, and birch tar—so powerfully, so troublingly organic, intimidating, mystical, that if it heals, it must also be a poison.

Here, impossible not to mention James Heeley’s Esprit du Tigre, the sensuous transposition of a famous Asian liniment commercially known as ‘tiger balm’, but it is surprisingly tasteful and decidedly discreet in the end. So, by Heeley, I’d rather recommend two great classics, his wondrous incenses Cardinal and Phoenicia, the first a sensually blasphemous blend of myrrh and olibanum on white linen, a peppery rose with labdanum, earthy and aerial with patchouli and vetiver; whereas Phoenicia is an imaginary voyage on the Mediterranean Sea, inspired by the merchants who brought so many precious woods, spices and fruits to the west in the Antiquity: dates and grapes, incense and labdanum, oud, sandalwood and birch, and vetiver. It has a lot in common with Aziyadé in fact, except the latter is a spice market while this one is a merchant ship with a heavy cargo of precious woods. (Have both, is essentially what I’m saying.)

So, is it showing that I’m completely obsessed with incenses? I shall refrain from adding to the list Olibanum and Oxiana by Profumum Roma, then, but I’ll have some trouble not mentioning my darling Arso and its resinous beauty with a side of grilled hazelnut... Well, if I really must stop, perhaps instead something like the intensely aromatic Victrix (oakmoss, bay leaf, vetiver, peppers and musk) or the fizzy mint & patchouli of Thundra. Profumum Roma bottles are expensive, yes, but this is because the perfumes are highly concentrated, at 43% (a higher dosage than anybody else I know), which means that they last forever with the smallest spray. Do come back to me for advice in the spring when I’m the mood for greener recommendations because Acqua di Sale, ‘salt water’, a startling seaweed, myrtle and cedar blend, might interest you.

In the meantime, because it is horribly late and I have to post this before I start waxing poetry over sticky florientals and how they too can be intimidating and stuff, but above all, before I begin waxing poetry over most of Pierre Guillaume’s catalogue (his creativity is somewhat epileptic and that catalogue seemingly endless) I’ll leave you with a note on a strange, strange flower, which is Daniela Andrier’s Une amourette Roland Mouret for zany house État Libre d’Orange, where the usually well-behaved classic orange blossom gets loose and lascivious, thanks to a temptress of a perfumer who knows how to play the indolic—that is, the fleshy—notes of the white flower, before lying her down on a bed of crazy neo-patchouli, synthetic molecule Akigalawood®, which possesses the peppery, oud-like notes of the undergrowth. Snow White and the wolf in a bottle.

#answers #nonnies #aromaphilia #you never said how office-friendly that scent should be #remind me to tell you of timbuktu later

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voguemadrid · 4 years

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Now it’s November and I’m really starting to get into the festive spirit I wanted to share some of my top picks for Christmas 2019. After compiling a few gift guides over the year, I have been really excited to work hard on this one, and it’s taken a lot.

In fact, as you’re reading this it’ll be 2 months after I first started working on it. 2 months of photos, bits of writing, product testing and email after email. It has been such fun spending 2 months compiling the perfect gift catalogue, and some not so fun writing for 9 hours straight to get it up and ready for you with plenty of time to do your own shopping. I’m feeling hopeful that I’ve found some of the most wonderful gifts to appease even the most awkward of recipients.

I’ve decided this year to share the products with photos and a review of each product, of course, there is also a direct link so you can find out how much each product costs and add them to your basket if you feel compelled! These are just standard links, they aren’t spam and they are not affiliate links so I don’t make any money should you purchase.

I’ve not been paid to share these products neither will I make any profit should you click the link. I have however received press samples of some of the products in exchange to review. I haven’t shared all of the press samples that I received – only the ones that I believed were suitable gifts for the gift guide.

I’m hoping this Christmas gift guide will suit all of you, I know the majority of you have an interest in beauty, fashion and travel so I’ve made sure to target those categories. I also know a lot of you have children and grandchildren of your own, so I’ve made sure to include a few bits and pieces that might be suitable for those too! Here’s to hoping I haven’t missed anything!

Let’s get into the Christmas spirit and start Christmas shopping!

Diptyque – Ambre Félicité Candle (Blissful Amber)

I must say, when I first got into blogging I would see people with such beautiful Instagram accounts sharing their Diptyque candle and I would always wonder if they smelt as wonderful as they acclaimed they did. Hand on heart, if the Blissful Amber is anything to go by, they certainly do. This spicy fragrance is one that I can’t get enough of.

This Christmas, diptyque has the most inviting of candles which promises to give your home the festive smell topped with protection, luck, and harmony to bring you the most joyous of Christmases and for all your 2020 wishes to come true. With the scent and colours of three candles, it’s rich in amber, geranium, and lavender, which are all known for their relaxing and calming virtues. You’ll be breezing through the Christmas period with the calming essences which are bound to please your neverending guests.

The dipytque candle is undoubtedly outstanding, the intricacy and the detail of the candle is absolutely stunning and it will guarantee to look gorgeous amongst the Christmas decorations or as a present over christmas. After all, who doesn’t love a relaxing atmosphere? Whether that’s for your other half, your mum, your grandma or your teen daughter, they’re for sure going to love a dipytque candle on Christmas Day.

The stunning colour blue also symbolises wisdom and peacefulness for the festive season and the year to come, which is something I think all of us are hoping for, for 2020 and beyond.

The SUB

Introducing Dad’s new favourite gadget, The SUB by Beerwulf. What better than relaxing after work with a nice chilled pub-quality pint whilst lounging back playing Clash on the iPad and watching the TV? And they said men can’t multi-task!

Who wants to trudge out to a pub on these dark and dreary nights when you can enjoy the great same taste and quality in the comfort of your own home? The sleek and stylish design means that the SUB looks sleek and professional, whilst not taking up too much space at home. The small, compact home draught appliance will be the envy of all your friends when you tap premium beer from your countertop.

You’ll be able to indulge on all of your favourite beers like Heineken, SOL Birra Morreti and more crafy beers available in 2L kegs. Perfect for sports nights, lazy Sundays and Christmas get together, plug in and get ready to chill, to the max.

You’ll love that the beers keep fresh for 15 days and chills all the way down to 2 degrees. With over 30 different beers to choose from, it’s bound to be the ultimate treat for any beer lover!

BaByliss 9000

You might want to take a seat for this because this is about to get real. A new era of hair straightening has arrived and I am welcoming it with the widest of open arms. Let’s face it, busy has become our default function these days. Whether it’s dashing on the tube to get to work or running between one meeting to another. We just don’t seem to have enough time in the day.

If like me, you’re constantly on the go, who has the time for a hair dilemma? BaByliss has introduced the perfect companion for those who value power, performance, and efficiency and, quite frankly, the 9000 is the future.

How many times do you do your hair in the morning, only to brave the wintry weather to find that your once styled hair has transformed into a frizzy and puffy bush? Sounds all too familiar, I know. It’s bothersome. It’s annoying, and without a doubt, it knocks our self-esteem. Thanks to the cordless BaByliss 9000, you’ll be able to touch up your look anytime, anyplace. Yes, you read that right. CORDLESS.

How many times do you find that you’re travelling to a beautiful new country and the last thing you want to do is waste time in the hotel in the morning? Now, you don’t have to. Just charge the lithium-ion battery beforehand and enjoy the benefits of cordless straightening. The ultra-fast heat up and instant heat recovery means that you can pop the BaByliss 9000 in your bag and do your hair as and when.

The BaByliss 9000 is going to be my absolute best friend when it comes to summer. With the humidity and the heat, it’s far too uncomfortable to wear my hair down, but when it comes to photos, I hate having them taken knowing that I’ll look all head and no hair when I look back at the pictures. Now, I can pop my hair up in the messiest of buns, take it down, straighten it a little on the go and be ready for all the photos! It will be bye-bye to flicks, kinks and flyaways and hola to effortless stunning hair.

The 9000 comes in the most beautiful of carry cases, the ‘Feel the Freedom’ printed travel storage case has a heat-protective lining which means that you can pop the straighteners back in whenever you’re ready.

I seriously thought these straighteners would make an ideal second pair, perfect for on-the-go, but I love them so much that they’ve actually replaced my previous straighteners and turned into my new favourite pair. They have a sleek design, which is lightweight and they’re comfortable to hold. With them being cordless, you aren’t fiddling around trying to avoid the cord. They’re super fast to heat up, taking only seconds, with three temperature settings: 160°C, 180°C, and 200°C. There is a sleep mode and auto-safety shut off for extra peace of mind. Included is the 3-Pin UK and 2-Pin Europe charging adaptor, so your straighteners are ready to travel, whenever you are!

Mr. Wonderful Stationery

I have been a massive fan of Mr. Wonderful stationery for quite a while now. Being one of the leading stationery brands here in Spain, it’s exciting to see them branching out into the UK. Not only have they released a whole host of English products, like the calendar and the desk calendar, but they have also rolled out some of their leading products from the Spanish collection.

I’ve always loved the lovely streets collection from Mr. Wonderful so I knew they’d make great gifts for Christmas. Not only is the collection of high quality, but they’re all visually pleasing to look at, with complete functionality. There is always an element of skepticism when you reach out with a new stationery brand, sometimes they look absolutely gorgeous, but don’t actually do the job you want them to do. Whereas with Mr. Wonderful, they not only appeal to all ages, but they’re long-lasting and of a really high standard. You just know that the products you order online will be as beautiful in real life as they seem.

I picked out some of my favourites to share and here’s what I thought would make great gifts for Christmas 2019:

Mr. Wonderful Lovely Streets New York City Powerbank

How often does your phone die when you’re travelling and you reach for the trusty power bank? I’m guessing pretty often. This power bank really ups the game though, not only does it have an adorable design, but it has amazing features too. Holding charge for up to 6000 hours and having an awesome feature meaning it can’t overcharge or overheat, you can charge your power bank knowing that you’ve got hours of charge to make use of. Perfect for travelling around a new city without worrying about your phone losing charge.

You can snap photos and videos and upload to Instagram non-stop with this trusty companion by your side. What I really love about the power bank is the design is the same on both sides. The extra care to duplicate the design I think shows attention to detail on Mr Wonderful’s part. It also feels super soft too!

Mr Wonderful Bullet Agenda

With absolutely zero exaggeration, I’ve been looking for this product for about 4 years. A bullet agenda that is already made for you, ready for you to fill in and use as you please. I’ve always loved the idea of starting and maintaining a bullet journal, but for one reason or another, it always seems to fizzle away. The biggest problem is that I’m just not that great at setting them up. Cue Mr Wonderful.

The Bullet Agenda is one of the most awesome gifts you can give to someone who likes to write, get creative, be organised or wants to get into bullet journalling. If like me, they aren’t great at the initial setup, this bullet agenda is perfect. The pages are already laid out with heaps of different designs meaning that you can get started straight the way. The pages are of thick quality and you’re able to use fine-line pens without it seeping through to the next page. It also has a handy bullet dictionary at the back to help you keep on top of your journalling.

The journal is a hardback book and guaranteed to put a smile on somebody’s face who wants to get into a bu-jo!

Mr Wonderful Lovely Streets London Umbrella

Heading back to the Mr Wonderful x Lovely Streets collection which is focussed around travel, I wanted to share one of my all-time favourites from the collection. Perfectly practical and the most gorgeous umbrella design I’ve come across, the London umbrella from Mr Wonderful has me hoping for rain so I can get a chance to use it often, though not too often, I still love the sun!

The wind-resistant umbrella has such a gorgeous colour complimented by the most lovely of designs. They certainly live up to their name. Adorned with a gorgeous pattern around the edge of London, it certainly pays homage to the capital of England. With a light lilac colour, vibrant pattern and a solid handle, it’s the perfect companion for popping in your handbag. Perfect for battling the British winter, spring, autumn… well and summer. The umbrella has been carefully designed that it appeals to not only the young but the older generation too.

Mr Wonderful Lovely Streets Madrid Bottle

In a world where we are all trying to be a little more conscious and environmentally friendly, the Mr Wonderful Lovely Streets Madrid Bottle is a gorgeous choice for a reusable bottle. I had been talking about how I wanted to make a conscious effort to stop using so many throwaway bottles. Every day I walk to work and pick up a drink and I’m aware of what kind of damage this is doing. I wanted a bottle that made me want to fill it up and make a change.

I also wanted one that I knew was going to be of good quality and not start smelling or lose its pattern after five minutes. After all, what’s the point in making a change if all you’re doing is buying more reusable bottles to throw away?

The Lovely Streets Madrid bottle is exactly what I was looking for. It has a beautiful Madrid design, covered with different Madrid iconic spots and cute little Spanish captions to go with it. For anybody who loves the city of Madrid or Spanish culture, this is the bottle for you. It is airtight and the design is vibrant and clear. Just be careful to always hand wash it!

Mr Wonderful Lovely Streets Reusable Bag

We absolutely adore our Disney Parks reusable bags and make sure we pop them in the car to do our weekly shop with every time, though I am a little mad that we didn’t get one for every park now! I was in two minds whether we needed another bag to pop in with it, but after I saw the London reusable tote, my mind was made up. The bag actually exceeded well beyond my expectations of it, which I probably shouldn’t have doubted knowing the Mr. Wonderful quality, but wow, it certainly went above and beyond.

The pink bag has so many gorgeous icons on it that resemble all your memories of London. The colours are bold and bright and really capture the essence of London. One of my favourite bits is how it has a fox icon which reminds me of Leicester and home. The bag though is of such high quality, the fabric is thick and feels like it can hold and endure an awful lot. Even better still, it has a zip pocket inside and a popper to close it. I really expected it to just be an open bag so the fact it comes with all these little extras makes it even better. It would make a great gift alongside a few Mr. Wonderful bits and pieces.

Slip Silk

I’ve spoken about how much Slip has revolutionised my sleep pattern, so I was over the moon to get my hands on the new marble pattern pure silk sleep mask by Slip. The price tag might make you second guess it for a minute or two, but let me tell you, it’s worth every penny. Waking up after a night of deep, satisfying sleep is worth its weight in gold.

How often do we find ourselves trudging through the day feeling like a zombie from the afterlife? I know I have many times. All too often I was waking up and relying solely on caffeine to get me through. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and toss and turn every hour. But after introducing the slip pillowcase and a slip pure silk mask, I’ve found that my routine is untouchable. Sure, I still have the odd nightmare, or the odd times I can’t sleep, but it’s far less common. It’s now a rarity to have a bad night’s sleep, rather than a rarity to have a decent night’s sleep like before.

The super-soft mask keeps the light out and therefore lets you sleep in peace. It is absolutely invaluable on long-haul and short-haul night flights. Flying back from New York, I slept peacefully and comfortably with my slip pillowcase. It also doesn’t pull off your make-up, so if you are a make-up wearer, you’ll sleep peacefully knowing that your eyelashes will still be in place when you rise.

I cannot recommend a slip silk mask enough. Give the gift of a gorgeous night’s sleep. After all, we all need our beauty sleep! Puppy cuddles not included.

Penguin Random House

Over the past decade, Anthony Joshua has fought his way all the way to the top of the boxing world. After facing the legendary Klitschko, labelled the heavyweight fight of the century, Joshua battled through gruelling rounds to ultimately defeat the champion and find himself at the top.

When he first stepped into a London gym back in 2008, his rise to the top might have been unimaginable to those around him. Reading about his rise to stardom and his spectacular victories, like the Olympic Gold to a home crowd at the Olympics 2012, is bound to interest aspiring boxers and sports enthusiasts. Whether that’s somebody who is aiming for the top themselves one day, or those who enjoy the sport, Joshua is a figure that many admire.

As Oliver has taken an interest in boxing, I’m hoping he’ll enjoy reading about Joshua and finding out more about his history and backstory in which the intimate biography retells the story of his journey and development. Retold by a writer who has seen Joshua’s development and growth from the very beginning, it highlights his early amateur bouts up to his major title fights.

Shop on Amazon: Joshua

Tesalate

Christmas in the sun is one that many of you might be doing, especially those of you heading out to the Costa Blanca over the festive period. Many of us will be spending Christmas sitting out on the beach, or if not, probably thinking about the countdown for our next beach holiday once the festive period is over. Why not beat the blues and get them a gift to get them excited for their next beach holiday? Or get them prepared for Christmas on the beach with the revolutionary Tesalate towel?

What is the most annoying thing about the beach? Hands down, the sand. No question about it. Most of us love to lounge about on the beach for an hour or two, but the majority of us can’t stand sand. Especially when it travels its way back to the apartment and the bed later on too. Well, the Tesalate towel is perfect for you, or your loved one, who hates the sand.

Introducing Sand Free Beach Towels by Tesalate. The groundbreaking new type of beach towel that’s large yet lightweight, super absorbent and fast-drying and yet, completely sand-free. You’ll love laying out on the beach knowing that the sand will shake off straight the way! Sold in over 130 countries, there are thousands of happy customers and I have no doubt that you’ll be the next.

The Body Shop

There are so many things to love about The Body Shop, the cruelty-free brand is one that I think we could all raise our hands and say we love it. Whether that’s the beautifully smelling fragrances or the delectable hair products or the kind to skin skincare. There’s something that everybody is sure to love.

Boasting a wide range of vegan products, alongside its pledge to be cruelty-free, I’ve loved trying out the pieces from The Body Shop and I’m certain that your loved ones are sure to love it too. With bits and pieces from The Body Shop bundled together to make a homemade hamper, or added to a gift bag or box or tucked away in a Christmas stocking, they’ll make great gifts either for a secret Santa, friends, or family. Who doesn’t love smellies at Christmas? After all, you can never have too many!

I find that I get lots of smellies over the Christmas period which means I don’t have to shop for them for absolutely ages, meaning the money I’d be splashing on showers can be splurged on trips instead! Result.

The Body Shop Carrot Wash

One word: YUM. If there was ever a scent that makes you want to eat your greens, (or oranges), it’s this. Healthy never smelt so good. Enriched with organic carrots, which are too crooked to sell to the food industry, the vegan delight leaves your skin feeling cleansed, smooth and, energized. Knowing it’s vegan makes you feel good on the inside too!

We all love to take some time away to relax and pamper, which is why the carrot face cleanser is ideal as a daily facial wash to swipe away the daily buffers from the outside world. Enriched with 93% ingredients of natural origin, it is reassuring to know that you know exactly what you’re putting on your skin. After all, if you can’t understand most of the products, it’s probably not the best. But, with The Body Shop, you know exactly what you’re putting in.

Don’t forget that the packaging is 100% recyclable!

The Body Shop Juicy Pear Hand Wash

Let’s have a show of hands, who here loves soft and smooth hands? That’s all of us right? Though most of us probably find that we tend to neglect our hands for far too long over the Autumn/Winter period and find that it’s too late before we realise it. Well, with The Body Shop, you’ll be lathering up in no time and feeling the benefits of soft, supple hands.

As part of the Juicy Pear collection for 2019, this cleansing hand wash is perfect for the festive season. Not only will your hands be soft and sweet-smelling, you’ll be right in the mood for unwrapping presents feeling clean and indulging in the long-lasting festive scent.

It would make a perfect gift inside a beautiful handmade hamper, or as part of a gift bag. Or popped next to the sink for your guests to enjoy over the busy visiting period. Enriched with pear extract from Italy and Community Trade organic sugar from Paraguay, this gorgeous handwash won’t be around for long so tell Santa quickly!

The Body Shop Drops of Gold

This place about to GLOW. The illuminating Drops of Gold is ideal as an instant brightener, which can be added to your foundation or daily face cream. Great for use on its own or as part of a mix, it will be loved by those who need an extra boost of glowiness over the Christmas period. Giving you an instant pick me up, you’re just one drop away from light and bright. Kick away the dullness and kickstart your look in just seconds.

I’ve found its ideal for popping on your cheekbones to give a gorgeous accentuated look or added around the eyes to brighten up your eyes on those less than glamorous day.

The Body Shop Tea Tree Anti-Imperfection Peel-Off Mask

DIY Face Mask, coming right up. Who doesn’t love a face mask before bed? Pop on a festive film and have the most relaxing evenings filled with self-care with the Tea Tree peel-off mask by The Body Shop.

Simply add water to the vegan formula, mix and apply to skin. You’ll love how soft it leaves your skin without being harsh in the slightest. Enriched with Community Trade tea tree oil from Kenya, this delectable face mask will instantly give skin a clearer appearance and make you feel decongested. Perfect for those unavoidable winter bunged up nights.

I absolutely love the tea tree scent. Lounging out on a Friday night with a face mask is one of the ways I love to welcome in the weekends, so chilling out with the tea tree mask was an absolute delight. I just know that anybody who already loves facemasks is going to love a peel-off mask as part of a gift set.

The Body Shop Juicy Pear Body Yoghurt

Another piece from the limited edition Juicy Pear collection, the light-weight body yoghurt is a delightfully festive formula that treats the body with up to 48 hours of moisture. After showering, it’s a gorgeous treat to slather on to moist skin to leave skin smooth and fresh, without that awful sticky or greasy feel. Made with pear extract from Italy and Community Trade organic almond milk from Spain, it certainly has the Mediterranean infusions.

The Body Shop Warm Vanilla Hand Cream

You can’t get many worthwhile gifts for a fiver anymore, but at The Body Shop, you’ll find lots of thoughtful bits and pieces and the Warm Vanilla hand cream is one of them. Battling the elements is inevitable over the winter period, so why not give them a helping hand with the Warm Vanilla Hand Cream?

They’ll be rubbing their hands with delight thanking you for the gift of soft hands with The Body Shop’s special edition Warm Vanilla Hand Cream. I’ve always adored vanilla-scented products and this one is certainly no exception. This non-greasy formula will leave hands feeling soft and smooth whilst leaving behind a long-lasting fresh fragrance of Madagascan vanilla extract, that smells so good you’ll want to eat it. Or at the very least, reach for a tub of Madagascan Vanilla ice-cream!

Reminiscent of winters gone by, this sweet appeasing scent, like its Juicy Pear friends, aren’t around for long, so get yourself to The Body Shop fast to fill up your basket with lots of festive goodies!

The Bradford Exchange

After Jane, one of my lovely readers gave Alex and me these beautiful ornaments I had to share them on my blog so you could see how lovely they are. They make a gorgeous Christmas ornament and they’re going to look beautiful on the Christmas tree.

With such an intricate design, these ornaments are hand-painted beautiful collectibles for those who love Disney!

They’re a unique and officially licensed Disney collection which are only available from The Bradford Exchange. The magic of Disney never stops in our house, but over Christmas, it gets even more… yes, it’s possible.

Our Christmas tree is mainly focused around Disney and travel so they’re going to look absolutely perfect adorning our tree this year. The Once Upon A Slipper Christmas Ornament set makes a charming and delightful gift for anybody who loves the magic of Disney and Christmas.

Pixi Beauty

With more colours than they’ll know what to do with, you can’t go wrong with a selection of goodies from Pixi Beauty, better still the Pixi Pretties collection is absolutely gorgeous and for sure going to be a huge favourite for Christmas gifts 2019. I have liked everything that Pixi has ever sent me, and the Pixi Pretties has been no exception. Filled with bold and bright colours the collaboration has been one of their best yet.

I’m always so flattered to receive bits and pieces from Pixi, from their personalized Vitamin C collection, their delightful skincare, and their beautiful palettes, I just know your loved ones will adore the Pixi Pretties collections just as much as I am. The colours will be perfect for creating Spring/Summer 2020 looks and will work just as nicely to create a flattering New Year’s Eve 2019-2020 look.

Brighten up their Christmas with a hamper filled with Pixi pieces. Velvety matte lip colours, bold eyeliners, flattering eyeshadows, and gorgeous highlighters will give you a brownie point or two when they open these!

Missguided Chill Babe

Now, I was a little apprehensive about the Missguided eau de parfum for one or two reasons. I am a sucker for a beautiful bottle and I like my fragrances to smell luxurious and be long-lasting. I didn’t think Missguided would match up at all. But, it does hold its own as a lovely daytime fragrance.

I love switching my perfumes around and I’ve mentioned it loads before. I love collecting fragrances and switching up my scent. But, I do sometimes hate putting on a gorgeous fragrance just to go to work, it feels like a waste. But, on the other hand I still want to smell lovely and fresh, let’s face it, I work with these people!

Well, the Missguided perfume certainly exceeded all of my expectations. Coming in a can, it’s an interesting design. The floral fragrance comes to life with bursting scents of raspberry and pear sorbet combined with uplifting citrus. It combines with jasmine and rose topped off with a woody tone of vanilla and amber crystals giving a long-lasting fruity yet floral fragrance. I absolutely love wearing the Chill Babe in the day. It’s such an economically friendly fragrance too so makes a perfect gift for friends or as a stocking filler.

Universal Pictures

Is there anybody out there who doesn’t love curling up on the sofa, with a candle burning, watching movies and eating snacks? Even me, somebody who loves being on the go also loves to chill-out once in a while with a good movie on. As long as there are some hot chocolate and cream to go with it, I’m happy.

There are some fantastic films being released this year which are going to be ideal for a home cinema night.

The Grinch:

Illumination and Universal Pictures presents The GrinchThe Grinch, based on Dr. Seuss’ beloved classic. The Grinch tells the story of a cynical grump who goes on a mission to steal Christmas, only to have his heart changed by a young girl’s generous spirit. Has anybody noticed that The Grinch didn’t not like Christmas, he just didn’t like people at times? Let’s face it, that’s kinda perfectly acceptable! The loveable Dr Seuss classic is perfect for getting in the Christmas spirit! The DVD also includes 3 mini-movies.

The Secret Life of Pets and The Secret Life of Pets 2:

The Secret Life of Pets 2 Box Set tells the story of Max and his pet friends. Relive The Secret Life of Pets before continuing Max’s adventure in the Secret Life of Pets 2 as he battles with more trials and tribulations in the Big Apple.

From Illumination Entertainment comes The Secret Life of Pets 2. In the sequel, Max encounters canine-intolerant cows, hostile foxes, and a scary turkey when he visits the countryside. Get the whole family together for a family movie night, or pop it in their stockings for a Christmas Day surprise. I can feel a movie marathon coming along.

Soul Analyse

Show them you believe in them this Christmas by getting them an affirmation band from Soul Analyse. The empowering bands part of the I AM collection are a wonderful gift, especially for those who find the Christmas period especially difficult or are struggling with their mental wellness.

The I AM collection has a beautiful selection of bands with varying affirmations that are sure to be a thoughtful pick-me-up for many who will need to hear it this December. The band reminds me of the Cartier band and looks gorgeous on.

With YOU’VE GOT THIS printed on the band, it will be there as a little reminder that you have the power to accomplish what you want to accomplish. It reminds you that you have the power. You have the strength within yourself to achieve whatever it is you want and need to achieve. Whether that’s taking the first steps to building an empire or just getting out of bed today, the affirmation will be there to remind you. After all, we all need a reminder every once in a while.

Elago Charging Hub

The Elago Charging Hub isn’t as white as I’d hoped it to be, instead is more of a dirty creme. The Elago Charging Hub was created to be a handy little extra either on your bedside nightstand or at your work desk. Keeping your phone, Airpods and Apple Watch together, it creates a little space to charge them neatly and together. Made with non-toxic silicone material it is made to last a while. For tech fans, it will be a nifty little gift for them to be able to charge their Apple products. Available in four colours.

Hotel Chocolat

Christmas is a time of… chocolate. And at Hotel Chocolat, delectable treats are aplenty. With plenty of festive goodies available online and in-store, you’ll be spoilt for choice with all of the mouthwatering offerings.

Why not mix and match the terrific trio on the 3 for £20 range? The Jolly penguin, Jolly Santa, and Jolly snowman trio will go down a treat in anybody’s stocking. For those on the nice list, indulge on the milk chocolate, caramel chocolate and white chocolate set for the sweetest of Christmases yet. So cute, they’re almost too good to eat… almost.

Thinking more about the Christmas dinner than the Christmas stocking fillers? No problemo. The Yule Log Classic for £20 at Hotel Chocolat is as real as it can possibly get. How? Because it was made with a real log! 3D scammed elm log branch transformed into a festive yule log is as authentic as it can possibly. With 50% milk praline, hazelnuts and crisped rice, you and your family can indulge in the great taste of Hotel Chocolat from early morning present openings to double dessert servings.

Happy Shopping!

Pinterest:

Christmas Gift Guide 2019! Featuring: Mr Wonderful, BaByliss, Diptyque, Hotel Chocolat and more. Now it's November and I'm really starting to get into the festive spirit I wanted to share some of my top picks for Christmas 2019.

#christmas #christmas gifts #christmas presents #product recommendations #product review #products

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axlolot · 5 years

Text

Ambre.

“There are still two persons you haven’t met today, but I hope you’ll get the chance to talk to them very soon.”

She stood quiet for a few seconds, before a small smile appeared in the corner of her lips. It was a tired smile, a giving-up smile. Let’s lighten the mood a little more.

“Should I try and guess who they are?”

Le Comte laughed, a tender and warm laugh for a golden and warm gentleman. Sebastian only smiled, but hid it well.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Let’s see… I suppose they are very famous as well… French?”

“One of them.”

“I see… Victor Hugo?”

“Not quite,” he smiled, amused.

“Louis XIV?”

“He died without regrets, unfortunately.”

“I see many reasons why he should have died with regrets,” they laugh at the joke. “I don’t know…”

She shook her head with a little smile, shrugging her shoulders.

“Jean d’Arc.”

“Jeanne d’Arc? Really!? So I’m not the only woman here?”

“Ha, not Jeanne d’Arc, I’m afraid, but Jean.”

“Jean?”

“History sometimes plays funny tricks.”

“… You’re telling me that Jeanne d’Arc? the woman who was said to be a witch? that same one who had to overcome many hardships because she WAS, indeed, very much a woman? was a man?”

“That is what I am saying. Yet, I can understand why you mistake him for a woman.”

Spinning on her feet, she mumbled how unbelievable that was. Did history books lie that much? What else could they have invented, after the false portraits of Napoléon?

“The other person, I believe, you will meet him soon—”

But le Comte was cut short by a loud thump coming from the door. She jumped a little in surprised, while the two others men didn’t look that much distressed when she turned to them.

“Just in time. I am sorry for the trouble, Manon, but could you open the door?”

“Y-yes…?”

Slowly, she walked towards the door and cracked it open on a centimetre, fearing something would fall right onto her feet. But nothing was behind. That was still a loud bang, something should be here. Opening the door entirely, she took a step outside the room, and looked around the hallway. That’s when she saw him.

A man was slumped against the wall, seemingly asleep, in a quite disturbing position. But after the loud noise, and seeing him in this position, her mind wandered toward the worst explanation, and she kneeled before him. She hesitated, before shaking his shoulder gently.

“Excuse me? Mister…!?”

The man cracked an eye open, and she sighed a little in relief. Thank Goodness, he’s not dead. She slumped on her feet, letting a hand on his arm, and was about to turn to le Comte when he suddenly pulled her closer in his lap.

She was shocked for a second, her heart biting an incoherent pattern, before her whole body relaxed when he gazed into her eyes. She felt strangely at ease, too much at ease in the embrace of a stranger, the dancing reflections of the lights in his eyes was all she could comprehend at that moment. They shone of an amber so deep, so vivid, that she could have sworn she saw them twirl, whirl and stir like a puff of smoke. She didn’t even want to push him away, she wanted him to hold her even closer. She let out a shaky breath when he spoke.

“… Never seen you before” he turned his gaze a little away, looking at the door, but she moved slightly as if she wanted him to look only at her—he didn’t notice the gesture. “Thought I’d wait patiently for my turn, but took you so long I fell asleep.”

So asleep he was.

Please, speak more.

He looked back at her and her fingers, which were still on his arm, tightened around his sleeve.

“So, you’re the one he was talking to?”

She knew he’d said something, but she wasn’t sure what, she wasn’t sure she had to say something, now that he looked at her as if he wanted her to speak. She couldn’t move. She just saw his lips move, maybe heard a muffled sound, but that was all. And he wasn’t letting go of her.

Seeing she wasn’t replying, and not even blinking at his question, he tilted his head.

“Hmm?”

She heard it, a curious and low hum escaped his mouth as if she was the strange one here and was wondering why she wasn’t doing anything.

Yet, as suddenly as she found herself trapped in her own body, she recovered from it when he chuckled, amused, letting go of her. She shuddered quite violently, bringing her hands around her arms and leaning away from him. He seemed to find funny the fact that she felt she wasn’t in control of her body any more. A soft ‘scusa’ left his lips, a beautiful smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Did I surprise you?”

His voice was low, and warm, sounding caring when he asked her this question. Only them could hear him talk, like they were sharing a secret no one should know about. Her eyes found his once more, surprised that he’d talk to her and that, this time, she understood what he had said. Strangely, they didn’t have that same energy than a few seconds earlier.

“Yes…” she murmured.

“Heh. Your words match that look on your face. That’s unusual.”

He helped her to her feet. As he moved, a scent seemed to follow him, or emanate from him, she wasn’t sure. A light scent of cold tobacco was over-flowing from his coat, followed close by that of leather. She believed the scent of smoke to be repulsive, but his flowed strangely pleasingly in the air.

“And here he is. Our last resident.”

She spun around to see le Comte in the door frame, a fondness in his eyes.

“Hm? What? We’re introducing ourselves?” his voice sounded cranky, and he smiled once again when she looked back at him. “I’m Leonardo Da Vinci.”

Hearing his ‘scusa’ and the slight rolling of the R on his tongue, she could have guessed as much. Yet, Leonardo Da Vinci, that one was really impressive.

He must have understood her thoughts, just looking by the size of her eyes when she looked at him, and he chuckled, turning to his friend. She followed his gaze as well.

“You have met everyone, now, Manon. Aside from Sebastian and myself, nine of the greatest figures in History are gathered here.”

“I don’t know what happened, be you must have run out of luck to find yourself in this place.”

He ran a gloved hand through his hair. Now that he was speaking louder, she could hear the roughness in his voice, a sleepiness lingering in the back of his throat.

“W-why would you say that?” she dared to ask.

His eyebrows frowned slightly, joined by a small smile tugging at his lips. He looked at her like he would have at a small hurt animal. He didn’t need words to convey what his thoughts, she could have guessed. ‘You poor little thing, not having a clue what’s waiting for you…’, or something along the line.

“… Simply put, cara mia…”

Her brows rose slightly at the nickname. She had never spoken Italian, and didn’t know even the basics of this language, but ‘cara mia’ sounded quite the provocative nickname, if only by the inversion of the noun and determinant. She wouldn’t bother you readers with a scientific explanation of this phenomenon, but translated, this nickname resembled more a “darling of mine” than a simple “my darling”. It was inviting her to grow closer to him.

“I don’t think you’re going to enjoy it, here…”

But before she could think it any further, le Comte put himself between them, his sudden appearance making her forget about everything that just happened.

“We’ll talk this out tomorrow. For now, I’d like for you to rest,” passing his arm around her shoulders, he brought her along with him. “Sebastian prepared a room for you, further away from the other residents.”

“Thank you…”

She found the thought very considerate of them.

“It’s nothing, really.”

She wanted to turn around, maybe say goodbye to this Leonardo, or just check if he was still here, but she didn’t dare look over the arm around her shoulders.

The room they gave her could be described in one word: WOW. If the salon didn’t impress her much during the dinner, her room did. Like le Comte’s room, this one had for main colour a tender and soft beige. Unlike the warm feeling of the past room, and the austerity of the hallways, this room gave off a soothing vibe. She felt very much at ease, and let herself sunk into the bed. The bedsheets puffed a cloud of lavender, which relaxed her mind, and she sighed.

“Maybe it’s all just a dream, hm…” she whispered to herself, closing her eyes.

The stress and adventures of the night taking their toll on her, she fell asleep without even realizing.

But she woke up, her mind still hazy from the nap, to the creaking of the bed. Looking around, she noticed it was still night time, and wondered if she could have bumped something and woke herself up. But the rustle of the bedsheets made her freeze as she was about to turn around.

Someone’s here with her.

Someone’s here on the bed.

A second later, she could feel the bed sink slightly where her feet were, and she gasped before holding her breath.

Someone’s getting closer.

The bed sank, even deeper, just next to her waist, as if someone was leaning on their arm. She frowned and sensed her whole body tense as she felt a breath glide on her cheek.

“Who’s here!?”

She screamed, throwing her arm at where she thought the person was, only to have her wrist caught and pinned above her head.

“Let go of me! Don’t you fucking touch me!” she hurled, throwing her legs and her other fist at the person.

But they didn’t reply. All she could hear as an answer was the heavy breathing of that person as they tried to trap her under their own body. She couldn’t even move her hand from their grip, it didn’t even tremble, still and strong as a machine. Her wriggling didn’t make it easy for her capturer, but they somehow find their way to catch both of her legs under theirs, and pin her hands to the mattress. She moved and kicked, but to no avail. She was trapped like a prey, their weight holding her down. They weren’t even that heavy, yet they held her so firmly. Their strength was unbelievable.

Tears formed in the corner of her eyes as she started to scream.

“I’m screaming! If you touch me, I’ll call le Comte! They’ll call the police!”

She whined loudly when they panted in her ear, trying to at least free her hands.

She didn’t like the fact that they were so close. She didn’t like how their breath told her how exciting they found the situation. She didn’t like that they had the upper hand, didn’t like how much time they could have spent watching her in her sleep without her noticing.

And she despised the fact that, despite the situation, when they breathed and blew at the sensitive spot right under her ear, she felt that strange feeling pulsing through her neck and down her whole body.

“Don’t touch me…” she whispered, tears falling down her cheeks.

She tried desperately to hide her neck from them, panting heavily.

“Don’t move…”

_____________________

II > III > ...

#the amber in her soul #ikemen vampire #napoléon #wolfgang #leonardo #arthur #osamu #le comte #sebastian #vincent #theodorus #isaac #jean #william #pivoinewrites

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charissekenion · 2 years

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Real Deal Sunscreen Review Pt 2

Okay, it’s part 2 time of my SPF special. As mentioned in part 1, I simply had too much to share for just one episode, so here are my thoughts on a further FIVE sunscreens. If you missed part 1, in that episode I reviewed five products, including Ultra Violette SPF50+ Queen Screen and Medik8 Advanced Day Total Protect Anti-Ageing Moisturiser; you can find a link to that episode below if you’re keen to know more about those products. Both episodes only feature SPFs that I actually enjoyed – I feel that makes more sense; why would I get you to listen if I’m going to slam a product?

I’d love to know what your favourite SPF is so be sure to pop into my DMs over @beautymepodcast on Instagram or email [email protected] and tell me!

Thanks as always for listening; please do like, share and subscribe – it really helps.

Products mentioned:

Black Girl Sunscreen Moisturizing Sunscreen Lotion for Face and Body SPF30: https://www.comprisbeauty.com/products/https-comprisbeauty-com-products-black-girl-sunscreen-spf-30-by-blackgirlsunscreen?_pos=1&_sid=b8f209760&_ss=r

Black Girl Sunscreen Make It Matte Sunscreen Gel for the Face SPF45: https://www.blackgirlsunscreen.com/product/make-it-matte/

La Roche-Posay Athelios Invisible Fluid SPF50+: https://www.boots.com/la-roche-posay-anthelios-shaka-ultra-light-facial-sun-cream-spf50-50ml-10259635

Hawaiian Tropic Satin Protection Ultra Radiance SPF30: https://www.superdrug.com/Skin/Sun-Care/Sun-Protection-Lotions/Hawaiian-Tropic-Satin-Protection-Lotion-SPF-30/p/389100

Ultra Violette Supreme Screen Hydrating SPF50+ 50ml CURRENTLY SOLD OUT

Ultra Violette Supreme Screen Hydrating SPF50+ 75ml – Australia only: https://ultraviolette.com.au/products/supreme-screen-spf50-75ml

Garnier Ambre Solaire Dry Mist Ultra Light Dry Protection Mist SPF50: https://www.superdrug.com/Skin/Sun-Care/Sun-Protection-Sprays/Ambre-Solaire-Dry-Mist-Sun-Cream-Spray-SPF50-200ml/p/898959

Products mentioned in Part 1:

Ultra Violette SPF50+ Queen Screen Lightweight Skinscreen UVA + UVB Broad Spectrum 50ml

Medik8 Advanced Day Total Protect Anti-Ageing Moisturiser SPF30 5 * UVA 50ml

Kosé Cosmeport Suncut Water In UV Protect Essence SPF50+ 80g

Vitruvian Man Resurrection Cream Broad Spectrum SPF20 50ml

Garnier Ambre Solaire UV Water Transparent Protecting Spray SPF30 150ml

#SPF #sunscreen #Black Girl Sunscreen #Hawaiian Tropic SPF #suncare #sun protection

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zombiiesque · 3 years

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Nocturne Alchemy Musk Haven: Three Musks

Originally published on 7/23/2020

Hey y'all! Back so soon, hard to fathom I know! There was a request in the House of NA Tent on Facebook for some thoughts on the musks in the new SL section, Musk Haven. Well, relatively new, and so far very popular amongst the fans in the Tent. I have three: Amber Musk, Vanilla Musk, and Sandalwood Musk - and I love them all. Shooooo, my Musk Haven wishlist alone is a bit daunting! So anyway, I thought I would go ahead and do a little writeup, since I was testing them. I want to make brief mention of the bottles: These are a bit larger than the normal bottles, they're 6ml instead of 5, and they have a beautiful domed gold lid. So appealing, and the labels are just gorgeous!

A quick mention, I emailed Freja today - I swear their customer service is second to none. My first two Musks did not have inserts, but they are included in every Musk now. If you want to get an insert - reducer cap for your Musk, you can ordinarily order them from the SL Bazaar section, but it is the only section that is not yet up on the website, as those items are still in California. Thanks to Freja for the information - she says to tell you all she LOVES the Musk Haven! 💗 It is also on the Nocturne Alchemy business page on Facebook, as part of an informational note from Thoth: Everything else will be stocked except the SL Bazaar, as those items are still in California, but they’ll arrive here by Halloween update.

From the Musk Haven section, on the NA website:

Bastet's Musk is a fresh, clean and light skin musk, intimately sensual. This fine perfume was created by Bastet herself, using methods similar to the creative process of Bastet's Amber. Bastet’s Musk is a magnetic skin musk made from a soft white floral blend of Tuberose, Mallow, Angelica, Musk Flower, and White Lily all balanced exquisitely through Enfleurage methods of oil extraction. Each perfume in the Bastet’s Musk line is meticulously blended from only the most beautiful imported materials sourced all around the world.

Amber Musk - Amber accord from Patchouli, Myrrh, Rockwood, Sandalwood, Benzoin, Frankincense, aged eNVie saphir, and soft white floral blend of Tuberose, Mallow, Angelica, Musk Flower, and White Lily all blended beautifully into Bastet's Musk base. This was my first selection - I saw the words eNVie Saphir and I knew I was toast. Anything that has Saphir draws me like a magpie to something shiny. I fell so hard for that from my very first huff, it's totally intoxicating and I really need to do a full review of the variations I have....note to self. So on me, this is such a lovely, warm, golden amber and musk blend. Saphir is like liquid gold. Thanks to the base of Bastet's Musk, that's balanced with a delicately beautiful light, gauzy, floral weaving in and out. I never get much but a whiff of the other notes in the background on my skin if I really huff at my wrists. They play a supporting role as Saphir and Bastet's Musk curl around you in a beautiful, fluffy cloud. So, if you have Saphir, do you need Amber Musk? Well, I'm certainly happy to have both. See, I find myself craving Saphir, but for me it feels like more of an evening scent. I mean, I wear it whenever I please of course, but if you are perhaps looking for something a little lighter - Amber Musk might be just the ticket. If Saphir is a little black dress and your sexy heels for date night, Amber Musk is a floaty white sundress with sandals for a summer lunch date. Feel me? Hah!

Sandalwood Musk - Egyptian and Indian Sandalwood, Sandalwood chips, Australian Sandalwood, Heartwood, and soft white floral blend of Tuberose, Mallow, Angelica, Musk Flower, and White Lily all blended beautifully into Bastet's Musk base. OOOOOF this is such a favorite of mine. I need to update the NA Mood Lifting Scents post to include this, because it's a snuggly warm hug of sandalwood and musk. So incredibly beautiful. This perfume just makes me happy from the moment I open it. I immediately get a fine incense sandalwood, golden and humming. As it melds to my skin, the light, white Bastet's Musk base joins it and they blend as if they were made for each other. I get a slight creaminess from the mallow in this one, I don't really notice the delicate florals much in these musks - but that mallow makes a little appearance as I'm huffing at my wrists, and I am thinking it's what really marries the sandalwood and musk so flawlessly. I'm in heaven. If you are at all a fan of sandalwoods, hooo this is a sandalwood lover's dream. It's so...I can almost SEE the light golden chips, and this is nudging it's way into my top five sandalwoods from NA. Sandalwood Musk is a delight.

Vanilla Musk - Bastet's Ice Cream accord made from fresh and dried *Madagascar Vanilla beans, Vanilla Crystalline Cream, Butter accord, Caramel Accord, French Vanilla Bean Absolute, Vanilla Milk accord, Vanilla Orchid, Crystalline Absolute, Vanilla Sugar, Mallow Root extract and soft white floral blend of Tuberose, Mallow, Angelica, Musk Flower, and White Lily all blended beautifully into Bastet's Musk base. *Madagascar Vanilla beans have been beautifully aged for two years specifically for this blend. I think Vanilla Musk is the musk I can smell the base of Bastet's Musk the most in! On me Bastet's Musk translates as a close skin scent, almost a feeling of a white linen. The florals are so delicate and creamy, and this is compounded by the previously mentioned mallow note - which really melds with the vanilla part of Vanilla Musk, because oooo that Bastet's Ice Cream Original is just so delicious. BIC original to me smells like walking into a little ice cream parlour. I get the scent of the cone, as well as the rich vanilla ice cream. Vanilla Musk is a lovely, seamless marriage of velvety vanilla and gossamer, delicate musk.

And as you all know, I adore layering. So you know I have experimented with these! I am happy to report that they are, as all of my other Studio Limited perfumes, wonderful layered. I've layered Vanilla Musk with Hessonite (Patchouli), Apricot Sugar, Protoceratops, Camarasaurus. Sandalwood Musk is fantastic with Pteranodon, Cryolophosaurus, Santalum White, Santal Ombre, Black Frankincense - really the sky's the limit - Sandalwood Copal would be beautiful, and I really should try Egyptian Peach Blossom! Amber Musk, oh that one is a joy to layer as well. Ambre Ombre, Egyptian Musk, Diamond, Crimson, Amber Beetle....I haven't tried it with something fruity yet but thinking about it intrigues me. I want to make a brief mention of aging. If you've read any of my blog, you know I'm a big fan of how well aging Nocturne Alchemy's perfumes only enhances their beauty. The three Musks I have are no exception to this, they have really just continually grown more and more exquisite over the time I have had them. This is the magic of Nocturne Alchemy, isn't it?

Do you have any of the new Musk Haven musks? What are your favorites? Which are you wanting to try? There are three new musks in the Musk Haven with the reopening, Freesia, Tuberose, and White Lotus. I adore their lotus notes! I'm also lusting after Tobacco Musk, Patchouli Musk, Rice Milk Musk, and thanks to my friend Suki, Heliotrope Musk. Well, and so many more.

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hunny-bunny-babyy · 3 years

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Colorful Lips Hippie Whisper Words Of Wisdom Let It Be Ladies T Shirt

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youtuberswithalex · 4 years

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PRVL Vol. 3, Ch. 2: New Challengers...

(A/N: "I'm not gonna update every week" I said, before I proceeded to scramble to finish this chapter today so it could go up one week after the first chapter)

Summary: On their way back to their dorm, Team PRVL meets a couple of interesting characters that teach them a little more about one of their teammates.

Word Count: 4,168

Warnings: Fighting (in a tournament), cursing

Taglist: @haikyuupaladin @an0therrand0 @isabel3710 @ilia-a-isms (Let me know if you want to be added or removed!)

Masterpost – Volume 1 -- Previous -- Next

—–

Stepping off of the airship, Virgil wrapped his arms around himself. “You guys really don’t have to come, if you don’t want,” he said. “Seriously, I’m fine.”

“It’s okay, Virgil,” Patton insisted. “We could all use a break. Maybe we can even go to the fair grounds to get something to eat!”

Roman gasped as he jumped to hover in front of them. “Ooh, doesn’t Simple Wok have a booth?! We should check that out at some point!”

“Ah, yes, over-priced and over-salted noodles,” Logan grumbled. “What a wise use of our Lien.”

“There’s more than just noodles in them, Logan,” Roman shot, crossing his arms. “Have you ever had the seafood special? The fish is cooked to perfection!”

Patton paled, and his voice cracked. “What?!”

“Uhh, I mean…”

Virgil grunted and took a step away from them. “Look, you guys go wherever you want. I’m going back to our room.”

“It would be beneficial for you to eat something,” Logan pointed out.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You may not feel like it, but after a panic attack like that—”

“Logan, I’m not eating!”

The other three froze, and the air around them grew tense; other students passing by shot them a look, to which Virgil curled away from. He let out a huff and frowned, rubbing his face.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I’m just…”

“Overwhelmed,” Patton softly finished.

Virgil slowly nodded. “Yeah.”

Roman let out a hum and landed. He placed a hand on Virgil’s shoulder, but when he ripped away, he settled for placing it on his own hip instead. “Maybe taking a break isn’t such a bad idea.”

Letting out a slow, shaky breath, Virgil let his arms relax a bit. “Yeah, that… That sounds good. I just don’t want to keep you guys from anything.”

“Personally, I don’t know of anything that would require our presence immediately,” Logan said. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“Logan! Logan!!”

“Logie!!”

Logan froze, eyes widening as he spun around. The others followed suit.

“Uh, Lo?” Patton asked. “Do you know them?”

Further down the path, and man and a woman were sprinting towards them. The man’s face was mostly covered by a dark blue cloak and medical mask, and the woman’s head by a hijab, but Logan didn’t need those details to know exactly who they were.

He blinked.

“Ah,” he said. “It’s my parents.”

“Your parents?!”

Before he could respond, the two tackled him to the ground.

The other three let out yelps and jumped to get them off, but were stopped by the sound of laughter. Logan wasn’t cringing or trying to get away; instead, his arms wrapped awkwardly around theirs, and he was laughing softly.

“Father, Esther, please!” he chuckled. “You’ll draw attention!”

“Oh, who’s gonna care?! All they’re seeing is a family that’s been separated for too long!” the man laughed.

Regardless, they pulled apart and climbed to their feet, pausing when they saw the wide eyes of the other three. The man gasped and pointed at them.

“You’re his teammates!” he exclaimed. “Patton, Roman, and Virgil, right?! You kids were fantastic today!”

The woman beamed and nodded, holding up a pair of balled fists. “A set of promising Huntsmen for sure! You’re the perfect team for our Logie!”

Virgil raised an eyebrow, smirk forming. “’Logie’?”

“Yes, it’s a term of endearment Esther has attributed to me,” Logan explained.

Patton smiled, leaning out just a bit from where he was hidden behind Roman. “Aw, that’s sweet.”

“You know what else is sweet?! That knock out you made!” his father laughed, punching Logan’s shoulder. “What a hit!”

“That Sanders kid really had no idea what was coming!” Esther added. She pulled him into a headlock. “Way to beat the competition!”

He grabbed him from the other side before pecking Esther on the lips and ruffling Logan’s hair. “Where’d you learn to fight like that?!”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Oh, I may have gotten a few tips over the years from a couple of exquisite Hunters…”

“You two are Hunters, aren’t you?” Roman asked. “What in the world are you doing here? I thought Logan said you were on a mission in Vacuo of some sort!”

Logan’s father scoffed and waved his hand. “And miss the chance to watch our son in his first big league tournament? Never!” He yanked the medical mask down to his neck and beamed a bright, white grin. “You can call me Virtus. Really, it’s so great to meet you guys! Thanks for taking care of our son!”

“Oh, we’re not—”

“We aren’t really—”

Virtus let out a loud laugh and threw his head back. “Humble kids, huh? Reminds me of my days back at Haven!”

His hood tipped over, causing long, dirty blond hair to spill out and over his shoulders. Logan ripped away and scrambled to snatch it up, stuffing it back into place without missing a beat.

“Father!” he hissed. “You must keep your hood up! What if someone saw?!”

Grimacing, Virtus clung tight to his hood and spun his head wildly; as soon as he was sure no one was looking, he let out a breath.

“That was a close one,” he muttered. He reached up and ruffled Logan’s hair. “Thanks, kid.”

Logan pulled away and fixed it, but not without a small smile. “Just be careful.”

“Hey, that’s our line!” Esther laughed. She ran a quick hand through his hair, as well; he sighed and let it remain mussed.

“Um,” Roman said, “Why, exactly, is it, that you have you keep yourself hidden at all times?”

Virtus winked. “Well, when you’re Hunters like us, you gotta keep your potential enemies on their toes in case they’re searching for you!”

Virgil paled. “What?”

“You never know who’s after you,” Esther added, leaning forward and waving her fingers. “Someone could be right here, hiding in the shadows, just waiting for their moment to strike!”

“Please, you two. We aren’t children,” Logan said. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at them. “We know the dangers that come with being Hunters. I would appreciate it if you didn’t attempt to frighten my friends, especially considering the fact that we’ve already had a few encounters with people trying to kidnap us.”

Virtus grinned. “How can you be kidnapped if you’re not kids anymore?”

“Father.”

Patton let out a giggle and slammed his hand over his mouth; Logan shot him a sharp glare.

“Do not encourage him, Patton,” he huffed.

He coiled back further behind Roman. “Sorry…”

Roman paused, glancing over his shoulder as Logan’s parents went back to doting all over him. Patton had his arms wrapped around himself as tight as the film that he could still practically feel yanking the sword out of his hands. He was chewing on his lip hard enough that Roman feared he was about to draw blood; his brows were furrowed, and his eyes wide, glued to Virtus’s boots.

Ah, Roman thought.

He pushed his wing back to cover Patton’s field of vision, and then he let out a wail, throwing a hand over his forehead.

“Oh, how parched I am after all that fighting! And how foolish I am for having left my water bottle in our dorm!” he cried. He fell back against Patton, light enough to keep them from falling over. “Please, Patton, I beg of you, go fetch it for me before I perish!”

Virgil raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms. “Roman, you can fly.”

“I beg thee, Patton!” he repeated. “And please, take our dear Virgil on this perilous journey! It could take weeks! Or months! Or however long it will take for a nap to replenish your energy!”

“Aw, you poor thing!” Patton exclaimed, muffled by the wing pressed against his face. “Of course we’ll go! Where’d you leave it?”

“I’m afraid I can’t remember! My mind is far too gone to recall! You’ll just have to spend however much time is needed to search for it!”

Logan rolled his eyes.

Patting Roman on the shoulder, Patton peered around and gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t you worry, kiddo. Virgil and I will find it!” he declared. “Where can we find you? You probably need to sit somewhere…”

“Oh, thank you!” Roman stood up straight and turned, keeping a wing out between Patton and Virtus. “Just contact me on my scroll, I’ll let you know! You are a saint, dearest Patton!”

He nodded and grabbed Virgil by the hand, dragging him off without another word. As soon as they were out of sight, Roman smiled and turned back to the Lyceums.

“I hear Team AMBR is about to have their match,” he said. “Would any of you like to join me in watching what is sure to be an almost flawless victory from two skilled students, one handsome boyfriend, and their wonderful yet irritating leader?”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were dying of dehydration?”

“Oh, no! That was just a ploy to get those two to go take a nap!” Roman admitted. “I don’t even own a water bottle, truthfully!”

“Roman, you realize that Patton is just going to spend his whole afternoon searching for that nonexistent water bottle instead, right?” Logan pointed out.

He paused, and then he shrugged. “I’m sure Virgil will figure it out and explain it to him.”

Logan sighed. He turned to face his parents and placed his hands behind his back. “Well, if it’s alright with you two, I would like to watch some more matches and evaluate the students of the other schools. I know you’ve probably seen more than enough fighting out in the field and aren’t too excited to watch more—”

“Are you kidding?! I was worried you were gonna say no!” Virtus exclaimed.

Logan and Roman blinked. “What?”

Esther laughed. “Oh, come on, you think it’s like this out in the field? It’s life or death out there!” she said. “Here, there are rules! You can root against your favorite team without worrying about the danger!”

“And your partner getting knocked out doesn’t mean they’re going to be killed,” Virtus added, shooting a wink at Roman.

“Besides, we’re not going to be here for the whole competition. As long as we’re spending time with you and your friends, Logie, we’d love to do whatever you guys want while we’ve got the time!”

“Oh. Um, well,” Logan stuttered, “Then I suppose we’d better get back to the colosseum before we miss many more matches.”

Esther and Roman cheered; she held up a hand, which he gave a high five with a twirl in the air. As he shot off back towards the airships, she grabbed Logan’s hand and dragged him along, pressing a rough kiss into his hair. He let out a noise of protest, but followed along anyway.

Virtus stayed still for a moment and crossed his arms, watching them go with a soft smile. A warmth settled in his chest; he glanced up at the clouds before looking back at Logan.

A flash of magenta caught his eye. His smile dropped.

A woman with a long ponytail was stepping off the ship just in front of his family. Her back was turned, but her tattered, pink cloak revealed enough armor and ammo for him to take note.

She looked to the side. Sunlight glinted off of the metal guard over her mouth.

“Father?”

Virtus blinked, glancing to where Logan stood, raising his eyebrows at him. By the time he looked back to where she was, the woman was gone.

Narrowing his eyes, he pulled the medical mask back over his mouth and headed towards the ship.

----

New Message from: [Deleted]

Hey!

New Message from: [Deleted]

How have you been?

New Message from: [Deleted]

I hope you’ve been good. We’ve been doing alright here!

New Message from: [Deleted]

We love and miss you a lot

New Message from: [Deleted]

Call me sometime, okay?

Delete Messages?

>YES< >NO<

----

“And that’s it! Team SVIJ wins the match for Haven Academy!”

Nila leapt out of her seat, throwing her arms out. “What?! No way! He totally had her cornered!”

“Were we watching the same match?!” Roman shot back. “She wiped the floor with him!”

“Um, did you see his use of Fire Dust?!”

As the stage began to reset, Logan slid down and pinched the bridge of his nose. “At this rate, the two of you are going to start attracting Grimm…”

“Oh, it’s all in good fun! Haven’t you ever placed your bets on a match?” Virtus asked.

“Considering you never allowed me to go to matches by myself, no, I haven’t.”

On the other side of Logan, Thamir laughed. “We can bet on this one, if you’d like.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t we both rooting for the same team?”

“Eh, like your dad said, it’s all in good fun. I’m sure they’ll understand,” Thamir replied. “Wanna wager… a cup of coffee?”

Logan smiled. “That sounds adequate.”

Thamir grinned and looked back at the field. “Good,” he said, “Cause I happen to know a nice little coffee shop down in Vale that’s got some pretty good stuff.”

“Oh? Which shop would that be?”

“Up next, we have Team SAMM of Atlas versus Team AMBR of Beacon!”

Roman screamed and shot into the air, gesturing wildly at the teams coming onto the field. “That’s my boyfriend!” he screeched. “That’s my boyfriend!”

“And your brother,” Lloyd called.

“Right, right, of course—Oh, look at how the light just accentuates his eyes! Look how handsome he is!”

“No wonder Anole doesn’t like them dating,” Thamir muttered.

Esther snorted and snuggled into Virtus’s arm. “That’s just young love.”

Riad turned around and waved up at Roman; in return, he beamed and shot a kiss. Grinning, Riad moved to give one back, but Anole grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around to face the other team before he got the chance.

“C’mon, dude, focus,” he huffed.

Riad let out a soft laugh and got into a fighting position. “Right. I’m all ears.”

“No, you’re not,” Marjani giggled, pulling her swords out of their sheaths. “You’re a whole body!”

“Babe, please,” Bora sighed.

Across the way, one of the four girls in front of them laughed.

“Thank the gods you clarified. I would have shifted my whole strategy to fighting a giant ear if you hadn’t have said something,” the girl in pink said, pointing to her faded, cloudy eyes. She raised her eyebrows and smirked. “Might’ve just ruined your chances of winning, though.”

Anole returned the look. “Oh, I wouldn’t bet on that.”

The one in the long, purple dress chuckled. “I certainly wouldn’t, either. We’re practically guaranteed to win, regardless of what Sakiz thinks she’s dueling against.”

The smaller screens popped up around the stage and began to spin, and the two teams turned to watch them slow to a stop.

“What do we got?” Sakiz asked.

“They’ve got the Volcano Fields,” the girl with feathers poking out of her scalp answered. “We’ve got… Shit.”

“What?”

“The pirate ship,” the one in purple said. “In a pool.”

As the floor began to recede, the girl with feathers looked down at her metal arm and leg. “Shit,” she repeated.

The girl in all black turned to glare at AMBR, but kept her face towards her teammate. “Don’t worry, Myrtille,” she said, “we’ll keep you out of the water.”

As soon as the stages were set in place, the two teams jumped into their battle stances.

“What’s the plan, Anole?” Bora asked.

“Operation Four Square,” he answered. “Let’s knock these girls out as quick as we can.”

“In three… two… one…”

Myrtille looked to their leader. “Sakiz?”

“BEGIN!”

“Mauve, Ash, go!”

The girl in black shoved her chain into the hands of the girl in purple, who wrapped it around an arrow and fired it into the birds’ nest at the top of the mast. Ash spun her arm around Mauve’s waist and lifted her into the air just as the chain sent them flying after it.

“Don’t let them get the high ground!” Anole shouted.

Bora and Marjani sprinted towards the ship, each going in a wide arc on opposite sides of the remaining members of Team SAMM. Sakiz and Myrtille drew their weapons—a pair of machetes and an ice saw, respectively –and charged towards the boys.

Riad lifted his mace. “Plan?”

“Keep Myrtille out of the water and Sakiz out of the lava,” Anole ordered.

“That’s it?!”

Myrtille threw her saw down between them, and the two leapt apart.

“Do you have a better idea?!” Anole shot back.

Riad opened his mouth to respond, but Sakiz swung her machetes at Anole, drawing his attention away to dodge. Myrtille shot towards him just a second later, and Riad had to throw up his mace to block.

In the stands, Roman punched the air. “That’s right, don’t you touch my boyfriend!”

“Roman, this fight couldn’t continue if there was no contact,” Logan pointed out.

Calanthe let out a yell and began to repeatedly smack Lloyd’s arm, grinning as she pointed towards the ship. “Look! Look! They’re about to do that—that bounce-board thing they do!”

“Bounce-board thing?” Virtus repeated.

As Bora and Marjani made it to the bottom of the mast, Bora held out her scythe, and Marjani hopped onto the blade; she swung as hard as she could at an angle, and Marjani leapt off at the peak, sending her flying to about the height as the bird’s nest. As she began to descend again, she drew her swords and wedged one in between the planks.

Marjani glanced up just in time to see Mauve aiming an arrow directly at her face; she gasped and flung herself under the post, digging her other blade into the wood of the mast. The arrow slammed into the sand, just barely missing Bora as she sprinted her way up the mast. As soon as she was close enough, the girls latched hands, and Marjani pulled Bora up to stand next to her.

“What do you think, should we pull a ‘Bi-Bi’ on them?” she asked.

“You read my mind,” Bora replied.

She swung to the other side of the mast and threw her scythe up to the edge of the bird’s nest while Marjani jumped back and stuck both of her blades back between the boards. The two launched themselves into the air…

…Only to find Ash and Mauve standing back to back with their weapons already pointed towards them.

Mauve fired a black arrow, to which Marjani spun and sliced in half as Mauve hopped onto the edge and flipped backwards; she twisted to shove Marjani’s head into her bow and held it tight against her neck.

At the same time, Ash flung her chain to wrap around Bora, the sudden pinning of her arms causing her to drop her scythe. She yanked, and Bora went flying around the other side of the mast, slamming into Marjani just as Mauve leapt off of her, kicking her forward in the process. The chain continued its momentum, and within just a few seconds, the girls were wrapped tight around the mast.

“This is homophobic,” Marjani grunted.

Anole dove backwards and rolled as one of Sakiz’s blades swooped by, just barely tweaking the tip of his nose. As he slid to his feet and ground to a stop, he felt one of his shoes crunch at the very edge of the lava field. He shot it a glance and cursed, moving to raise his bow to push Sakiz back, but she slammed both of her machetes down and pushed him further onto the rock.

She gave him one final shove before spinning and raising her weapons; Anole took this chance to snap his bow apart, and he flung one half around her wrist just before she could strike.

He whipped her around, realizing a second too late that they’d been standing mere feet away from a bubbling lava pit. Holding back a yelp, he fired a shot of Gravity Dust and yanked her back just as her foot scraped against the drop. She slammed into his chest with a high-pitched yelp, and he held her tight. A plume of lava shot into the air.

“Watch yourself!” he exclaimed.

Sakiz slammed the top of her head into his chin; as he stumbled back, she slammed a punch into his stomach, and a knee into his face.

“Don’t make those jokes,” she growled.

Guilt and heat shot up his spine, and he waved his hands.

“I—N-No, that—That wasn’t what I meant!”

Letting out a yell, she whirled around and kicked him in the head, knocking him to the ground.

Metal clinked and clanked as Myrtille and Riad parried, inching their way back and forth into each other’s space with each hit. They glared and kept their eyes close on the other’s, neither daring to look away. The strain and the autumn heat mixed into sweat dripping down their foreheads; a drop fell into Riad’s eye, but he forced himself to ignore the intense stinging.

Myrtille suddenly reached way back and spun her ice saw before gripping it tight with two hands and stabbing it towards Riad. He twisted just out of reach; while she readied another attack, he pressed a button on his mace and slammed it into the ground. She jumped just in time to avoid the sheet of ice spreading, but slipped as soon as she landed, hitting the ground with an Oomph!

Riad took a second to glance up at the scoreboard, and then over towards the bird’s nest; eyes widening, he whirled around towards their leader.

“Anole, the girls!”

He snapped his head up to follow his teammate’s gaze, letting out a curse as soon as he spotted them. Sakiz let out a yell as she slammed her machetes down; he rolled out of the way just as they made contact with the floor. Anole used the momentum to slide to his feet and sprinted forward, tackling her just long enough to wrap his bow string around her waist. Firing another Gravity Dust bullet, he leapt into the air, dragging her with him, and twisted.

As soon as he unwrapped his weapon, he put his feet on her stomach and kicked her, sending her into the Volcano Field and him towards the water. He watched close to make sure she landed safely—if roughly —on one of the rocky hills.

“Don’t move!” he yelled, before he sunk into the water.

Riad threw his hands out, glancing back at Sakiz before shooting a glare towards where Anole had disappeared. “Bro!”

His legs were suddenly swept out from underneath him, and he and Myrtille slid across the field, him struggling to get his calves out of her grip while she kept pushing them towards the edge of the ice. He dug the spikes of his mace down to try to slow them, using a bit of Fire Dust to help the cause, but she punched it away with her metal arm. The force ripped the handle from him, and he watched with an outstretched hand as it slid out of reach.

They finally made it to tile; the rough tiles burned Riad’s bare arms as they skidded across. He moved to kick Myrtille away, but she held him firm stood, pressing a foot onto his chest.

“Ha! Gotcha!” she exclaimed.

Movement caught his eye; he looked over to watch Sakiz as she carefully felt her way around and tried to find a way down.

“Don’t move,” she mockingly said under her breath, using her foot to search for a good place to put it. “How about you don’t tell me what to—”

A shriek slipped out of her throat as a rock crumbled; she slid down a steep edge, digging her fingers into the ground as her legs and torso began to dangle in mid-air, right over a bubbling pool of lava.

Riad let out a yelp of his own and snapped his head to look at Myrtille. “Dude, your leader—!”

“What, do you think I’m an idiot?!” she snapped. “I might be a starling, but that doesn’t make me a birdbrain! You can’t trick me into looking away as I’m going for the kill!”

Sakiz tried to pull herself up, only to lose her grip and fall another few inches. A pebble dropped and bounced off of her foot at just the right angle, landing on a loose boulder that was just out of her reach.

Myrtille lifted her ice saw like a golf club; Riad refused to look, forcing himself to try to remember anything and everything from those seemingly pointless math classes they’d all been forced to take.

Roman jumped to his feet. “Riad, get out of there!”

With a deep breath, Riad summoned as much aura into his fist as he possibly could and slammed it against the floor.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #rwby #rwby au #prvl #alex writes

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