Skincare - Steven Grant

Skincare - Steven Grant

so since you guys liked blue's skincare, i've decided to start a series.

Self care was important. Especially for Steven, whose tired head was overwhelmed from Khonsu's constant nagging. He hadn't had a good sleep in his whole life, but it had been getting to him recently. Even Marc was getting a bit groggy when he fronted.

Quite the self-starter, Steven decided to look into sleep-improvement techniques. Yoga, meditation, music, white noise, weighted blankets, he'd tried them all. They were pleasant, but his sleep schedule had not improved.

It was nine pm when he rang you. You paused in jade rolling your face, turning off the facial steamer.

"Hello?"

Steven's exhausted croak answered you. "Hiya, love, sorry...can't sleep again."

You pouted sympathetically, pushing hair out of your eye.

"I'm sorry, hon, do you wanna come over? I'm doing my skincare routine but you can have some tea if you like," you offered. Steven sighed gratefully. His keys clinked quietly in the background.

"Sounds lovely, thank you."

Soon he was draped over your couch, eyes staring glassily into the distance. Poor thing, he looked a mess. The gentle jazz you'd put on wasn't helping either. Two cups of chamomile, an hour of snuggles, and Steven Grant was still tossing and turning.

In the reflection of your vanity, you saw his weepy doe eyes. Your heart broke. There's gotta be something.

Peering in your makeup drawer, you examined your collection before grabbing lavender face lotion. Your mother had mentioned that the herb helped with relaxation - though whether or not that was an old wives' tale or not was beyond you. Worth a shot.

"Stevie, c'mere," you said softly, settling next to him on the settee. He turned, mumbling incoherently. His eyes were unfocused and struggling to pay attention. He eventually saw you and budged closer, scrubbing his hands over his eyes. You beckoned him forwards and he collapsed against you, hands limp around your waist.

"Let me try something. It'll help you sleep," you added at his raised eyebrow. Relieved, he shuffled until he was looking at you dead-on.

You unscrewed the lid of your serum and rubbed a good amount on your hands. The sumptuous floral air wafted through the room. Pungent but hopefully not too strong. Confusion ticked in his brow when you began dotting it on his cheeks.

"Wh...whazzat for?"

You shushed him, stroking his cheeks to rub in the lotion. It was a nice smooth texture, cool and comforting, not too oily. You'd forgotten how much you liked it, actually. Steven hummed, leaning into your palm. Looked like it was kinda working.

The lotion had already absorbed, but you kept up the massage, stroking his nose and smoothing his wrinkled brow. His eyelids closed when you kissed his forehead, bringing his face to rest on your chest.

A small bottle of almond oil was also on the nearby table, and you shook a generous amount onto his hair. The second your nails raked across his scalp he groaned appreciatively, nosing into your shirt. Even your eyes were growing heavy. The soothing combination of your gentle breaths and the smell of almonds and sugar was softening Steven's restless mind.

He felt...floaty, distant. In a good way. His hands twitched, wanting to hold your hand but not having the energy. Your long nails felt divine on his scalp, sending waves of tingling warmth all the way down to his toes. He could live here forever, boneless on your lap and drifting aimlessly in liminal space. The view from your lap was getting blurry, and his eyes had trouble reopening.

A soft warmth was pulled over his shoulders, cocooning him in a safe bundle of calm. Your hands never stopped, coaxing him gently into the dark relief of sleep.

i guess it isn't really skincare but i guess kinda maybe a little bit (there's lotion so that counts.)

@my-secret-shame @krakenkitty @ominoose @bulletgoth @twwcs

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vent - functional literacy vs YA publication

this has been sitting in my head for years, really, but I'm so glad more people are starting to notice the effects.

YA novels have been slowly corrupting publishing strategy and overall, the literacy of readers.

DISCLAIMER

I am not saying people shouldn't read YA. Obviously, YA is a genre best suited for a certain age group (12-18). YA is fitted for the appropriate Lexile level of 12-18 year olds.

However.

More than half of YA readers are older than eighteen, most in their early to mid twenties.

Why is this a problem?

The accessibility, popularity, and easy reading level of YA novels is appealing to mass audiences. While that is not necessarily a bad thing, it means that adults are not expanding their reading level. This is a troubling reality for advanced employment.

In a work environment, reading is content-appropriate and usually highly advanced. Employees need to analyze and maturely reason with product/client problems and find solutions. As you get older, the reading content is supposed to evolve to fit that mindset.

When adults are consistently reading below the expectation, it weakens their reasoning skills and makes them functionally illiterate.

About 21% of American adults are functionally illiterate.

What is functional literacy?

Literacy is the ability to read and write proficiently and at an age-appropriate level. Functional Literacy is the ability to reason and use reading/writing skills to connect topics to the world around you.

TLDR: literacy: I can read the paragraph. functional literacy: I can find the theme/deeper meaning of the paragraph and relate it to something contextually relevant.

Why is this bad?

An inability to reason and analyze means that employees and adults in general are less equipped to deal with age-appropriate problems. After a while, underperforming becomes a norm. In advanced fields of work like medicine and technology, this inhibits expansion and proactive care.

The YA industry has normalized a mediocre, basic structure of writing. A problem has arisen with the lexile level juxtaposed with the content level.

Plenty of 'YA' novels contain graphic content that is very mature and should be handled as such - namely, sex and mental health. In a lot of popular BookTok and 'mafia/forbidden romance' books, the reading and writing level is consumable for 14-18 year olds, but the content maturity is very adult.

Hence, mature topics are handled poorly and young people are exposed to very damaging material without proper education or understanding of real-life consequences. Similar to the sex ed crisis; when teenagers aren't given a proper explanation and education about impactful issues, they grow into uneducated and naive adults.

Does this show up in school?

Yes. yes, 1000%. I work as a TA for several of my professors and I tutor high school students.

I have noticed a resounding difference in reading and writing ability in the last five years.

When I was in the tenth grade, we read Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Ayn Rand. it was expected that you could reasonably explain and hypothesize about themes, real-life examples, and differences between old and new world priorities.

I have talked to students that don't know what a theme is. They cannot analyze more than spelling and grammar. The writing quality they test into basically plateaus at 9th grade. Most popular media is a 9th grade or younger reading level. This doesn't prompt people to advance their reading skills, because 'they don't have to.'

This terrifies me, because there are so many occupations that require advanced lexile levels and adults just aren't meeting standard.

A large part of this has to do with the internet.

DISCLAIMER 2

I am not bashing the internet. I love Google. The only thing I have to say is that google has changed the way we think. Before google was more than a learning device, usually you would find a dictionary or a thesaurus to look up definitions.

I am Gen Z (I'll be nineteen soon) and I was raised with a home computer, but my mom insisted I use the encyclopedias first. When you go through the process of looking up the letter, then the cross section, blah de blah, it creates a kind of 'deep processing' where you get the context, definition, and application of the word/subject you're looking up.

When you google a word/subject, it gives you a surface level summary and a definition. Hell, you don't even have to spell the word right, it'll do it for you.

This also creates the spelling issues of most adults. With autocorrect and voice-to-text, spelling isn't a priority. I think my grade is the last that even did spelling sheets.

This is scary, personally.

I think in the future, educated positions will be replaced with AI and most people will fill in the jobs that don't require more than a high school diploma. In America, some states don't require a Master's to teach.

I suppose medicine, technology, science etc would still advance if we had AI to do it for us, but I can't imagine living as a species without the ability to think maturely. The dependence on everything else would be disturbing.

anyway thanks for listening xox

I got one of those big hoop earrings today and remembered why I never got one before it was like my worst nightmare

97 notifs in an hour guys what is happening are you okay

i need some harcore fluff. none of that lowkey stuff. i need soul crushing, heart imploding amounts of awwww