#(yes I wrote a whole poem in the tags)

[poetpony6890]

Kieran laying down eating

King Arwan walking in : what are you eating?

Kieran: Ccccchhhhiiiccckkeennn

King whips off his shoe and throws it at him

Kieran with a shoe print on his face: ow

[rainbowtvz]

rip bu/mbleby blog i followed. you no longer exist in my mind

[italian-lit-tournament]

Italian literature tournament - First round.

Propaganda in support of the authors is accepted, you can write it both in the tag if reblog the poll (explaining maybe that is propaganda and you want to see posted) or in the comments. Every few days it will be recollected and posted here under the cut.

The propaganda here are in order from left to right, first Carlo Gozzi and then Guid Cavalcanti

Carlo Gozzi propaganda by @girlboccaccio

Do you like theatre? Do you like opera? Are you interested in commedia dell'arte? Do you like fables with dubious morales, fairy tales with dark hidden meanings, plays inspired by 16th morally ambiguous short tales and The thousand and one nights? If yes you should take two second and vote for Carlo Gozzi (yeah the funky guy in b/w on the left). Without him we couldn't have masterpieces like Puccini's Turandot and The Love for Three Oranges by Sergei Prokofiev. He was a great admirer of spanish literature and theatre. He defended commedia dell'arte and funky plays when this manners of making theatre were dying. Immaculate yeah? He wrote an autobiography named Useless Memories, truly cunty, right? He was a rate A+ hater when he decided to start shitting against the king of the new modern way of writing theatre, Carlo Goldoni. He died in a Country that stopped existing in the last decade of his life (The Not So Serene Republic Of Venice) and lost all his friends in exile. He was the bitch of the venetian intellectual life. He was the bitch of the coolest italian actresses of the time. He was friend with Francesco Algarotti, the loveboy of Frederich the Great.

Fella, if you love the 18th century, you have only one choice in you hand: vote Carlo Gozzi.

Propaganda in favor of Guido Cavalcanti by @eresia-catara

May I add further propaganda for Guido: He's a noble, he disdains aristocrats, he was Florence's number one Server of Cunt, he was the city's faggot, he was heretical, he went on a random pilgrimage but interrupted it and managed to be buried in a church anyway, he had an archenemy who sent some men to murder him on said pilgrimage, he came back and tried to murder him back in plain daylight, he gave zero fucks about politics, he got exiled because he was considered a menace for the city. He SAW DANTE's poetical talent, encouraged it, shaped it, and through him the whole of italian literature. Think about it. Also they became besties until they evolved to a tormented psychosexual haunting dynamic (see break-up poem) where Dante himself actually exiled him. In the 13th century his poetry anticipates so many of the literary themes of the XXth century, going from fragmentation of the self (his is basically vivisection and dispersion of his parts), to dissociation from one's own mind and body, lack of identity, irony, desecration, his poetry is full of schizophrenic-like hallucinations, reading them is truly a trip, and yet his language is profoundly meoldic and sweet. And there's also gender-fuckery. and theater, of course, because his poems develop like a scene from a theater (adding layers to the dissociation). So really he has it all guys.

Guido Cavalcanti propaganda by @girldante

GUIDO CAVALCANTI PROPAGANDA ABBIAMO:

LA DISSOCIAZIONE SCHIZOFRENICA:

IL COMICO, IL SIMPATICO BURLONE, IL MEMATORE ANTE LITTERAM:

IL MACABRO, IL GORE, I SINTOMI™

IL BREAKUP TOSSICO PASSIVO AGGRESSIVO CON DANTE

in conclusione

[starlost97]

— muse.

summary: Charlie found the muse he needed to his most personal love poems.

tags: almost? a smut, abstract, worshipping, gn!reader.

characters: Charlie Dalton, Mr. Keating (mentioned).

warnings: insinuations of a smut?, very abstract, reader's clothing is not specified (only the material).

a/n: so sorry for taking so long! I got sick in the middle of writing this (not I-have-a-cold sick, more like throwing-up-food-from-a-decade-ago kind of sick) so it took me way more than it needed to. I might rewrite this later but I didn't want to keep the person who requested waiting any longer!

word count: 443.

requested?: yes!

Charlie Dalton never expected to still nurture such love for poetry even after finishing school. His room in college was full of books about "the biggies", as Mr. Keating loved to call. Not only that, but some works of his own too.

He loved to surprise other people, it didn't matter how. It could be by playing the saxophone or showing how weirdly broad his vocabulary was.

However, his poetry was something that few people had the honor to listen.

Sure, he had shown some random things he wrote in class, but the ones that he truly poured himself in it were guarded to the deserving only.

And you were definitely one of them.

When he saw you alone, sitting at the barstool, he couldn't help but be mesmerized. His knees almost failed him, and with that only he already had the beginning to the poetry inspired by the masterpiece of you.

He watched you for a while, getting jealous of the silky cloth around your torso and how it slided around your waist.

Charlie didn't remember how he approached you, because when his lips touched yours, everything else didn't matter anymore. His hands were on your body and he felt himself getting hotter and hotter by the second.

As he removed the fabric from your body, his breath was mercilessly taken away from him. Not only because his lips weren't on you anymore, but also because your heavenly curves were much more that he could ever imagine.

His mouth was soon brushing against your skin again, and each sound gained from you made his whole body ache for more.

"It's ridiculous how obsessed I already am." He muttered, pressing his lips against your skin, feeling your scent. "Are you a witch or something like that?"

"I might be." You joked, gaining a smile in response.

It didn't last much, however. Charlie was more focused on grazing his lips all over you, leaving some kisses behind as a way of showing his appreciation. It was his way of thanking you for blessing him with the power to worship you.

Something that he definitely didn't take it for granted on that night, under the weak light of the tiny unisex bathroom hidden inside a cheap bar, thrilled with the risk of getting caught.

The most unexpected place to find his muse.

But isn't that the beauty of love?

It makes us feel alive.

Charlie maybe didn't love you yet on that night, but he loved being passionate over you.

He loved so much that he didn't know how the hell he was supposed to live without it.

And he wasn't going to find out.

[ioniansunsets]

Hello yuno! As vday is coming i have an idea or scenario if every heartsteel kayn were to receive handmade chocolates from his f-crush how would he react to it or feel or whichever way you would like owo!!! Feeling like the young kayn in high school moment ♡♡please take your time and its ok you dont have to rush it

✖ Valentine’s Confession Highschool Kayn ✖

✖ Word Count: 1.2k Words

✖ Tags: Mutual Pinning! Awkward young love.

✖ A/N: I wrote a mutual confession thing cause I thought it’ll be cute! I really put my whole IonianSunsussy into this please enjoy it. [Actually the idea of highschool sweethearts Kayn is also really cute. Like imagine the gap moe. He never talks about it and then during Paranoia’s debut he’s just like “ hey can I get an extra VIP ticket? My partner wants to watch.” and everyone is like ??????? and he’s like ??? “ Yeah I’ve been dating them since we were like 15. 6th year anniversary is this weekend.”]

✖ Wrote This Listening To: He just wants to be Somebody to You. I think the whole lone wolf that fell head over heels in love is cute for him hahahhaha

----

Kayn isn’t sure if he should be laughing or crying. Here he is, standing outside your club room at what, 5pm in the evening? Guitar strapped behind his back and a little gift in his hands. Ok, so he had liked you for a while now, so what, nothing wrong with love. Love was badass. So he decided to do something about those irritating feelings and bought you chocolates. So what! So, he decided it was just not hardcore enough, and went to melt and make his own fucking valentine’s chocolates for you. So What!

Maybe he baked cookies too huh? Is that so bad! Is it so bad that he got Akali to lend him some fancy stationery to write you some shitty fucking love letter! Its hardcore, its over the top! It’s how The Shieda Kayn should confess. Nothing subpar, none of that weak, half-assed work. Only the best. You only deserve everything and then some. You deserve the handmade chocolates. You deserve the expensive store bought ones he got too. You deserve that nicely wrapped box with the fancy hand cut crinkle paper in the pretty gift bag. You deserve the handmade cookies that he painstakingly made in your favorite flavor, with the cute icing of Rhaast and the matching handmade sprinkles (that Zed so kindly helped him with). You deserve the effort he took, the countless nights of planning to write down a very well written rap (confessional love poem) for you. You deserve the scented paper (his cologne) and the cool stickers on the envelope (its holographic hearts).

You deserve someone better than him.

He winces as he accidentally bit his lip too hard. Suddenly brought back to the reality of how long he has spent standing by this door. Another click of his tongue, he continues irritatingly tapping his foot while he reconsiders all he’s about to do. Was it creepy? Waiting for you after club activities? What? People should call it romantic right? It…it Was romantic…right? Waiting an extra hour or two after his own extra classes for Your own club activities to finish? I mean, he worked hard growing the balls to ask you to wait for him after school. You said yes earlier too! This is not creepy, this is just him living up to promises he made with you. This is. Normal. Yeah. Totally normal. Romance will die when he lets it. Kayn swallows hard, hand gripping tighter to the ribbon handles of the beautiful gift bag he spent his allowance on. The contents on the bag feeling heavier and heavier by the minute.

Knocking the door with his other hand, Kayn slowly peers into the club room. Slowly opening the door, he enters silently. The sickly blinding white fluorescent room lights mixing with the oranges of the late afternoon sun streaming in from the open windows. Kayn looks around, catching sight of you standing by the closet in the corner of the room packing up whatever it was that you did after school.

" Hey. I’m here like I said." " Kayn!"

He watches as you jump, fumbling as you try to hide whatever it is that was in the closet. Raising an eyebrow, he stands there, giving you an awkward smile as his eyes narrow to discern just what it is you were hiding from him.

“ Oh? Oh~ What is that huh?”

Kayn teases you, hiding his own gift behind his back as he walks over, trying to peer in and see what you’re so desperately hiding from him. As you look back at him with feigned irritation on your face, some quick maneuvers later you managed to hide whatever it is on the shelf behind your back.

“ You first. What’s that huh?”

As you ask him the question, a slow red blush creeps up his cheeks. Slowly you lean over to him, trying to see what is it that he’s holding behind His back. It can’t be right. No way life would treat someone like him this well. No way, no way. You were too close way too close. He swallows hard, leaning back to try and hide what he can behind his guitar case while also leaning away from you. So close to him that he could feel not only your presence in his personal space but the delectable warmth radiating off your skin. As your eyes meet his with that mischievous glint, he freezes. Stunned by both your beauty and the sudden realization that he should get this done and over with before he backs out. A shakily smug smile creeps onto his face as he tries his best to tamp down his anxiety with his Kayn branded cockiness. Was this something everyone went through? Were first loves and confessions this bad for everybody? God, he could feel his palms sweating again. Kayn coughs lightly to clear his throat before proudly thrusting the fancy bag in your face.

“ I…worked really hard on a little something for you. I hope you like it.”

Barely audible, Kayn whispers as he looks away shy. Contrary to his earlier actions, he gently lowers his hands and places the gift into your embrace. His eyes dart around the room, not able to meet your gaze, Kayn seemingly shrinks away from you with the realization of his past few days worth of effort all hitting him at once. The Valentine’s day gift was literally out of his hands now. A breathy laugh escapes him before he finally finds the meager courage to look at you again. And of course, he was instantly awestruck. How could he not be with you. Looking back at him with that tender look, the way your own lips slowly curl into a smile, the sparkle in your eyes as you look from him to the gift in your hands back at him.

“ Kayn…”

” No. Don’t say anything, just…go read the thing when you’re home alone. I don’t wanna hear it! I’m going!”

As he turns to leave, you quickly grab his arm, pulling him back with a quick jerk. Eyes closed, you press your lips against his. Kayn’s own eyes go wide as he looks, unblinking, back at you in shock. He was now suddenly very, very aware of what it felt like when people talked about time feeling like it's stopping.

“ And this is for you.”

You quickly return a similarly lovingly wrapped box into his hands. Kayn frozen in place, his heart working in overdrive, thumping so loudly he was sure he would get a heart attack right here right now. His face such a bright red that the blush reaches up to his ears and also spread down his chest. You could see it peaking through his unbuttoned collar when your gaze trailed down. Before his brain could even begin to regain function you quickly wave to him, scrambling to pick up your bag you run off. Leaving Kayn flustered and alone in the empty classroom as the sun begins to set. You too had to leave his presence before the embarrassment of what went down caught up to you too.

There would be a lot for you guys to talk about tomorrow at school.

Link to fanart for this!

[praetorqueenreyna]

I love reading about u talk about acotar, really intrigues me enough to consider reading the books, I'm also very interested in any and all fandom gossip, so please please please tell me what is the current situation? What is elaingate in reference to? 👀👀👀

WELL FIRSTABLE if you read the books, stop after the first one 😂 and THANK YOU FOR ASKING I will relay the tale of some of the most low-stakes fandom drama to ever exist that I accidentally started WHOOPSIE

On July 24, 2024, the blog for Elain Archeron Week posted the rules for the event. There were 4 rules, one of which was that they wouldn't allow ships with "known abusers" and listed Tamlin and Beron as examples (I assume you know who Tamlin is lmao, Beron is a kind of generic Mean Dad character). ACOTAR fandom is known for being puritanical and religiously devoted to canon, but this is a new development. Event week mods have ignored/not reblogged content they don't like that was submitted for their week, but this is the first one I've seen that outright BANNED anything.

There was already a little kickback that mostly has to do with the two competing ships for Elain, elriel and elucien. They both think the other is the DEVIL even though both ships are equally boring. Apparently, the Elain Week is run by elriels, and eluciens were already huffy about the wording of an ask wondering if elucien would be allowed in the event. This part of the story is boring and doesn't have anything to do with me, the star of the show, so I will move on.

Anyway! A few fandom friends sent me links and screenshots of all of this because it's objectively funny. I made a post talking about how funny it was, which brought attention to it on this side of the fandom. My mutuals (the most hilarious people on the planet) asked what was going on, and immediately joined in on the fun. Memes were created at an astronomical rate. Art, fic, and poems for every possible ship of those three characters were made. Amazingly enough, Tamlin/Beron has had a huge surge of content, as the two men named and specifically banned from the week. I started tagging the posts #elaingate, and apparently it caught on enough that the tag now has over 100 posts in it.

To clarify!! The issue has never been about the ships themselves. There are VERY few Tamlin/Elain shippers on tumblr, which I know because I have run multiple demographic surveys and crunched the numbers. And absolutely NOBODY was making Beron/Elain. You have to understand how bland this fandom is. They consider one of the most degenerate, disgusting ships to be the main male character and....his wife's sister. And it certainly isn't isolated to elain/elriel stans, they were just the unlucky bastards to finally verbalize these insidious issues with fandom, especially ACOTAR fandom. Mostly just that the fandom is EXTREMELY conservative, and also that people that like the Popular Thing always have to make themselves out to be the ultimate victims. It's also in poor taste for running an event week. Yes, event weeks are run by fans in their free time, but the idea is to inspire EVERYBODY to create for the thing that you're a fan of. If you're so precious that simple seeing a ship you don't like sends you to the fainting couch, an event week is probably not the thing for you.

I wrote a whole essay on modern ACOTAR fandom here then deleted it bc YOU DID NOT ASK. But anyway THAT IS ELAINGATE we are all being very silly.

[netherfeildren]

Forfeiting My Mystique

Pairing: Ezra x F!Reader

Summary: You're a girl made of golden gossamer, a work of art come to life, and Ezra, well he's dedicated his life to collecting beautiful things.

-OR-

An Ezra Art Collector AU

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: voyeurism; kind of objectifying? (not sure how to tag the strange shit going on here); ezra’s weird; mommy issues; references to past childhood abuse; touch aversion/touch starved (at the same time); sugar daddy vibes; size difference; oral sex (f! receiving); butt stuff lite; dom/sub undertones; power dynamics; self esteem issues x2; panty thieving; masturbation; obsessive behavior; possessive behavior; brief mention of recreational drug use; brief discussion of parent death

A/N: This is extremely self indulgent - basically I wrote it for me, but you guys can read it too. I know I took some liberties with Ezra's characterization but whatever.

Inspo (and some of the dialogue) pulled from Lenny Kravitz’s Paris town house Vogue tour, Jeremy Strong’s favorite things GQ interview, and “Marianne” from Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin.

Title is from the poem by the same name by Kaveh Akbar.

Word Count: 12K

Read on AO3

Ezra has always loved beautiful things. Since he was a child, his mother taught him to instill an appreciation for beauty into all facets of his world. She herself, a gorgeously beautiful creature, was well versed in such a life. But beautiful as she was, she was also cruel, selfish, capricious to her very core, and she’d turned him into a strange amalgamation of a man by proxy. At once also cruel and selfish and capricious, but hurt and soft and gnarled, as well, so that he was also made gentle and aware and hopeful. That above all else, his greatest weakness, always hopeful. Perhaps, to the point of naivety, the point of peril. For he looked for beauty in all things, and to do that, he was forced to bestow his hopeful eye upon even the ugly and harsh things of the world. 

And so he’d dedicated his life to finding those beautiful things. An art collector by virtue, they called him. A vulture, a scavenger, a treasure hunter. A man full of greed and pride, demons and too much money. All he thought of himself as, was hungry. So yes, perhaps a scavenger, a morsel of greed within the marrow of his bones, always looking for the next sublime artifact, painting, statue – person. But he also liked to think of himself as a protector of those beautiful things, of historic things. Things that changed the very face of humanity, shifted the tide of the world. A collector – always in search of the next life changing sight. Always certain the world was filled with endless possibilities for beauty, for loveliness, for sensuality, for something to captivate, to overwhelm him.

-

The first thing he sees are your feet. Standing in the gallery over from the one you’re inhabiting, people he doesnt know or give a fuck about talking at him, schmoozing and preening and prostrating themselves. Probably hoping he’ll cough up a couple million euro for whatever cause they’re pretending to crusade behind at the moment. He can see only the quarter bottom half of the famed performance artist he’d heard so much about. The entire exhibit tonight had been built around you, and it had the whole of Paris raving and ravenous for a piece of the lovely morsel they so claimed you posed as. Shallow and vain creatures that the peers of his echelon were, they were easily amused and easily bored by the smallest passing fads. At once desperate to be the first to see or speak of a thing, and consequently, the first to discard it as dépassé. 

He’d made the trek all the way to the Left Bank from his townhouse in the 16th arrondissement, to see the performance of the woman whom his associate, Oruf, had said would change the way he thought of a living creature forevermore. Big words from a little man, Ezra had no real inclination to believe. 

The angle of the wall blocks most of you from his view – granting him the sight of only your knees down. Your feet are small, he can see the tiny square shape of your nails, the gleam of them under the soft warm overhead light – lying on your side, one slotted above the other. The fine architecture of your ankles – delicate, the blue hued veins crawling like vines up the top of your foot, lost to the pale of your skin. The smooth, glossy slope of your calf, up to the flat round of your patella. It’s all he can admire from where he stands. Pretty legs, but nothing to lose one’s head over so far. 

The person talking at him is interminably long winded. Ezra would like nothing more than to beg them to shut the fuck up and be on his way. He wants another drink. He wants to see you in full. He’d heard so much about the woman sitting for the live art exhibit. You’d been heralded into a creature of myth by the wagging tongues of Paris. He wanted to discern for himself the level of sanctity you deserved. He wanted to see your face. 

Finally, he’s able to demure from the conversation, the promise of ten million euro for the charity of the sycophant’s choice, promised off-handedly – any amount of money would’ve been too little to get the gaping, begging maw to quit it’s yapping. 

He slinks along the shadows of the walls, a vulture in its natural habitat. The lights brought down to a low warm hue, meant to shape itself along the contours of your skin, bring out the soft gleam within you. Surely the oldest trick in the book, that of light and shadows. He moves further into the room slowly, your back to him. The plush round of your bottom comes into view, two little dimples gracing the low of your back, the notches of your spine, up, up, to the heavy mantle of your hair. You’re resting on your hip, your torso twisted so your chest is pressed to the chaise you lounge on, your head laying cradled in the circle of your bent arms. There is a tiny, delicate outline of a sparrow tattooed at your shoulder. He watches the slow rise and fall of your back, the shadow of your ribs – he’d feed you more if you were his. The thought comes unbidden – a little shocking – a lovely bottom, beautiful, long hair, but for a man like Ezra – one who so wholly avoided any sort of ownership by another or over another, the thought of such intimacy, something to cause revulsion, not desire, coming from his own psyche, it’s almost distressing to acknowledge as his own. 

The crown of your head gleams like a halo in the soft overhead gallery light. The room is muted, voices hushed, and the patrons rove around your unmoving body, the rhythm of your breath the only discernible sign of life on your form from back here. Oruf had claimed that you did not move a single millimeter during the entirety of the three hour long performance. He sure as fuck didn’t believe that. He was having a quite, self proclaimed, contrary and bitter season, by his own choosing, and was prone to bouts of obstinance and general disagreement at anything and everything that presented itself to him. He was choosing, as of now, to not believe in your myth.

He moves further around the center where you lay in repose. He needs to see your face. That will give him the answer he’s come here for. 

There’s a large group standing right in front of you – rudely pointing, whispering, and he feels a surge of annoyance at the sight of them. You were here to be observed, appreciated, not fucking ogled like some cheap attraction, and he was here to see you – they needed to get the fuck out of his way. 

Finally, they shuffle off, leaving the space directly in front of you open. He makes the final round above your head, comes to stand before you. Oruf had said the only part of you that moved were your eyes.

They fall on Ezra now. 

It could have been as if, in that moment, you’d gotten up, naked as Venus, to shriek directly in his face. That powerful was the force behind your gaze – a punch to the gut, his mothers handbag swinging unexpectedly, purposefully into his stomach as he scurried meekly behind her as a child. 

He pulls his Jacques Marie Mage frames from his nose. He needs to look away from the searing power of your attention. He needs a moment to collect himself, taking deep breaths as he studies the glasses, runs the tip of his finger over the bridge. He’s held frozen in place by the feel of your gaze still upon him. 

He decides in that very instant he has to have you. 

When he looks back at you, your eyes flit away. He is dismissed – made ravenous. On the verge of tears, perhaps. Look back at me, look back at me, look back at me. What sort of reaction is this to a woman whose name he doesn’t even know? Nonsensical. Perhaps it’s the sleep deprivation – the edibles he’d downed before coming, maybe he’s having a bad reaction. 

But the gift of your slow, lazy gaze roves around the space he inhabits now, everywhere but directly at him, almost like a punishment for having looked away from you first – even for a second. 

He’s never considered the prospect of trying to buy a person. The moral question or dilemma of it. He decides he doesn’t necessarily care. Whatever he has to do to get you to leave this place with him, he’ll do. What he’ll be able to bring himself to let happen after that,  if he’ll even be able to touch you, be brave enough to let you touch him, remains to be seen. Inconsequential too, he finds. 

He circles the gallery for close to an hour before he can no longer help himself, can no longer feign casualness. The rest of the art here is pale and dull in the light of your luminescence. He finally comes to a stop in a corner diagonal from where you face, in the shadow of the sculpture of Paolo e Virginia. At this moment, he feels certain Puttinati prophecised your existence, to so depict the vision of reverence he’s feeling for you in this moment. 

The performance is three hours long. In that time you don’t move your body at all, Oruf was right – lying with the stillness of marble. The only thing that moves are your eyes, and you watch the patrons closely, examine them. Your gaze is part of the art, part of the power of it. 

The visage of you is shocking, not for your nudity, but because in a lifetime filled with unimaginably lovely things, you are, by far, the most magnificently gorgeous creature Ezra has ever laid eyes on. It is like a recurring bullet to the temple over and over again for the visceral shock you pull out of him. 

Finally, finally, your gaze falls on him again. The meeting of your eyes, like the strike of lightning against the earth. He can feel his cock thicken, grow heavy, just at the touch of your gaze. It’s voyeuristic – unexpected – he can’t remember the last time he got hard. He feels almost perverted, sporting an erection at the mere sight of you, surrounded by all these people in this crowded gallery.

He can’t see your breasts entirely, pressed to the chaise as they are, only the full, pale sides. He wonders desperately at the color of your nipples, the shade, the hue. He’d like to imprint it in his mind. Know the taste of them, as well, of all your skin – wonders if the color there matches that of the skin between your legs. The thought causes hunger to climb like fire up his chest into his throat, saliva pooling heavy in his mouth at the mere suggestion of your cunt in his mind.

His eyes leave you for a moment, to cast the wide net of his gaze around the room, at the other men. He wonders if they’re hard too, if only your naked skin, lying still in repose, has the power to make their blood rush, their muscles thicken. He is not pleased by the thought of that. And when he comes back to you, you’re still on him. Gaze roaming down his body, taking in the fine cashmere sweater, his perfectly tailored suit, built to hang in a precisely designed loose cut over his shoulders, down his long legs, the incongruous sneakers, back, back up to his face, the spot of blonde at the front of his hair. A single delicate eyebrow crooks in a minute arch at him. It is all the answer he needs

You are looking back at him. It’s all he needs to know. 

As the three hour mark comes to a head the lights dim even further until only a singular overhead spotlight falls upon your form. Your skin glows, seems to flare brighter for a single moment, and then a golden sheet of gossamer begins to slowly fall from the ceiling, and right before it lands upon your body, you finally move. Your body stretches, toes pointing and curling, long arms stretched in an arc over your head. The fine lines and slopes of your body coming into startling clarity for one moment, and then you turn over, away from him, where he can’t see your face anymore, and curl in on yourself. The golden gusset falls upon your coiled form, as if you’ve finally been put to rest. The lights dim until all that’s visible is the luminous gleam of the shroud over your curled body. 

You are a girl made of golden myth and gossamer, and he must have you. 

-

“Hello, Sparrow.” He steps into the small, warm space of your dressing room.

You turn to face him, you’ve been waiting for him. “Hello,” you say slowly. “You were watching me.”

“Everyone was watching you.”

“Not like you were–”

“No… not like I was.” His accent is some strange sort of concoction of eclectic European – at once French, but also slightly Germanic, with an inflection of deep American South at the end. The vowels and consonants rolling off his tongue, smooth and hypnotizing like the warm pour of honey, and then, suddenly, inflected with a bout of sharpness. Something that snaps you awake, forces you to come to attention, to pay attention to him. That was all it was really, you could tell, a forceful, demanding grab for attention at all times. He called it to himself, seduced the people around him into ardor. Whether they knowingly chose to be entranced or not, was not up to them.

“Ezra,” he gives an imitation of a little flourished bow. You give him your own name in return. “You were watching me back.” 

“I couldn’t help it.” He had demanded it of you, after all, no need to lie now. 

“I was wondering if you’d have dinner with me.” You turn back to continue packing your bag. 

“I’m not very hungry.” You feel him come closer, hear the subtle hint of pleading desperation in his sensual voice that has pleasure coiling deep in your belly. 

“A drink then.”

You’d like to be on clear ground with this man who you can see, even now, is an enigma not to be trifled with unconscionably. “Where? At your house?” you turn to crook a sardonic brow at him.

“Would you like me to take you to my house?”

“Yes. If that’s what you want too.” You’d already decided, didn’t see the point in prolonging the game. 

-

His security takes you out the back of the gallery, dark Maybach rolling smoothly up as soon as you reach the curb, and you feel the searing phantom  heat of his large palm hovering over the small of your back. 

He hasn’t touched you a single time yet, and everything within you is coiled tight, waiting for that first graze. 

He pulls the car door open for you himself, and then his driver is there, smoothly offering you his hand to help you step into the sleek interior. The leather beneath you is buttery chocolate brown and you press your thighs together. His security had taken your bag from you, and you felt bereft and listless without the protective clutch of it within your hands now. 

He follows after you, sliding gracefully onto the seat across. You can see he’s wearing two gold chains around his neck that rest in the dip of his collarbones, and your mouth waters at the sight. The car pulls quietly away from the curb and then you’re merging into the busy city traffic, ensconced in the quiet of this liminal space he’s stolen you into with him. 

He crosses one knee over the other, one thick arm thrown languidly over the back of the seat. You can see a small gold signet ring gracing his pinky – some sort of crest emblazoned on it. 

Fucking family crest kind of rich. God. You don’t know if you’re prepared for this. 

You cock your head to the side, the muscles in your neck are a little stiff and sore from holding your pose for so long, and you let your neck roll back on the head rest. 

He’s quiet, still observing, as if you’re still existing within the walls of the gallery, and not being spirited away to his home so that he might have his way with you. 

“Are you going to fuck me?” Might as well be blunt, you think, now that you’re here. He was so gorgeous in that room, watching you, circling you like a beast hunting in the wild. There was really no other way this night was destined to end, but with you beneath him, taking him into your cunt. 

“Would you like me to fuck you?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t respond, only gives you a melodic little non-committal hum, continues to look at you from the seat across with those deceptively guileless eyes. You want him to snatch you by the chin and spit in your mouth.

-

The drive ends in front of the grand façade of a pristine Parisian townhouse on a secluded street in the 16th arrondissement – flanked by national embassies, no less. 

You are very, very far from home. In a Paris you’ve not ventured into in all your years of living here. 

He helps you from the car, finally, finally, finally, thick palm wrapping entirely around the thin of your wrist. Everything within you coils and pulses, tight and wet. His skin is warm and dry, you can feel the pull of rough calluses on his palm. You’re sure he can feel the hammering staccato of your pulse through the thin membrane as you stare at the way his fingers overlap completely around the circumference of your limb.

He lets you step into the foyer ahead of him as one of his staff sweeps the door open for the two of you, ready and waiting for their master to return with a respectably quiet, monsieur, mademoiselle, in greeting. There’s a huge Basquiat in the entrance hall, across from the sweeping staircase.

“Lots of his art came my way,” he says at your obvious admiration, shock, desire to tuck tail and run back home. “We weren’t friends, but I was roommates with a guy he’d lived with. His last girlfriend was best friends with my girlfriend at the time, so when he died we had one of the first calls.”

“It’s wonderful–” Your voice is full of awe, eyes taking in a type of home you’ve never seen before up close like this. Something out of a picture book that sits on the coffee table of someone wishing for more. 

“How many bedrooms does it have?”

“Well… they get used for different things – so I’m not sure. Let’s call it eight.”

You huff a small laugh, run your finger along the keys of the opulent crystal Steinway. “Let’s call it eight, sure.”

Now that you’re here, that he hasn’t overtly said he’s brought you here for sex, you don’t really know what it is he wants from you. A bad thought, but an honest one. 

“Drink?”

“Yes, please.”

He leads you into an elegantly lush reception room, hovering hand again at the place above the small of your back. There’s a gargantuan crystal chandelier hanging at the center of the room, two enormous elephant tusks flank the elaborate mantelpiece. The room is a mix of eclectic eccentricities, both neutrally elegant and demure in its obvious wealth, but inflected with touches of vibrant color and idiosyncrasies to bring the room together in a way that you think must reflect the house’s owner. 

He moves to the bar, choosing the green bottle of twenty year Laphroaig and pours a knuckle into two crystal tumblers. He’s quiet, subdued, and the lack of small talk to fill the silence has the backs of your knees itching and sweating. 

There’s a glossy red panther sculpture prowling across a gold and ivory lacquered coffee table. He comes to hand your glass to you. “That’s a museum piece. I can’t remember where I got it, but it’s rare.” You can’t tell if he’s trying to boast, to impress you, or merely share his satisfaction at owning a piece of art worthy of a museum's gallery. You’d already discerned that at the Basquiat’s first glance, shit, at the first sight of the house. It was a veritable museum on its own. You were sure the number of museum pieces in every room were too many to count in a single night, nay week. 

You don’t sit as he goes to do, but start to slowly circle the room. An imitation of his slow roving of you earlier at the gallery. The peat whisky is bold and smoky, a surprising hint of something akin to seawater, but also mellowly sweet. You think that this must be what his skin tastes like, his come – an amalgamation of all the different flavors on the wheel. Saliva pools heavy on your tongue and you take a deeper sip, eyes flitting to him. 

“Three hours is a long time to lay so still,” he says. 

“It is. But I’m used to it by now.”

“You must be tired.”

“Not particularly – perhaps a bit stiff.”

“Have you been doing this for a long time?”

“Not so long, but not so short, either.”

“So just the right amount?”

“Yes.” He’s quiet for a moment then, still watching, watching, watching. His gaze upon you feels like the drag of a specter’s fingers along your skin, goosebumps rising in its wake. You wonder if this is how he felt while you watched him in the low light of the gallery. Hunted. But no, you imagine there isn’t anything that could make a man such as this feel like prey. 

“Can I draw you a bath?” You pause at this – firmer, more familiar ground, finally. This is what you’ve been waiting for. His request for you to get naked for him, to let him into your body. It’s what you want also. He’s not rushing this, and it’s making you feel unstable, unsure of the ground you’re treading here together. 

“Yes, I’d like that.”

-

He leads you upstairs, to one of the guest bedrooms. The en suite, one of his favorites in the house – dark marble tub in the center of the room under a low hanging crystal chandelier. The French windows let in the soft glow of the moon outside, and he draws the bath for you as you peer through the glass. The reflection of your face in the windows, eternally distracting. 

When the water is warm and ready, a splash of Neroli Portofino Body Oil poured under the stream, he turns to you. He’s hesitant – both of himself and you, equally. It’s been a long time since he’s touched a body not his own, and he feels the slight anxious tremor of his hands. Although he can’t be sure if that’s strictly attributed to nerves, or all the blood in his body pooling in his cock at the moment. 

“Can I take your clothes off?” said as gently as possible, so as not to spook you.

Your gaze is as direct as it was while you lay watching him, surrounded by half of Paris. “Yes.”

He starts at the tiny bow holding the front of your soft silk blouse together – the weave so fine, it’s almost translucent, and he can see the outline of your evasive nipples he’s been so desperate to see. He pulls on the string letting the neck of the blouse fall open, then down to the tiny pearl buttons holding the rest of it together. All without touching your skin. 

You’re panting, face already flushed, eyes bright, almost fevered. His balls are tight and heavy, ready to come, just with this. Just at the mere fucking vision of you ready and panting for him. His belly clenches and then he pushes the silk off the fine bones of your shoulders. The wings of your collarbones, the shadow of the dip in them the most tempting image he’s ever beheld in his entire life. He wants to dip his tongue into the tiny pool, fill them with ambrosia and drink directly from your skin. 

He feels his cock begin to leak. 

The zipper at the side of your skirt is next. He watches the rise and fall of your ribs, the tremble of your throat as he pulls it down slowly, revealing the rest of your skin to him. There’s a tiny lace thong around your hips, robin's egg blue. Oh, he will be stealing that for himself. 

He finally lets himself touch your skin as he pushes the scrap of lace down your legs, crouching smoothly to his knees to help you step out of it. He takes in the sight of your small feet up close now. The fine tendons of your musculature entirely too fucking beguiling. He ghosts the tip of a single finger over the top of your foot and you moan for him. So goddamn sweet and wanton. 

He unfolds to his full height and pockets your panties. To be inspected at a later time, pressed to his nose and mouth so that he might drink the scent of you down into himself. He tips his chin at the tub now, holding your wild gaze, breaths coming in short little gasps. Your cheeks are flushed the color of your nipples. The tiny wisps of hair at your neck and temples beginning to curl deliciously in the humidity of the bathroom. He could spill his seed just at the look in your eyes, he’s sure of it. 

“In,” he orders, crowds you towards the edge of the tub and grips the bend of your elbow between his thumb and index finger – as little contact as possible – to help you into the water. “Sit.”

You immediately obey, and that fills him with more pleasure than the sight of your naked skin. The control you’re granting him right now, allowing him the privilege of ordering you for the sake of his own comfort – he’s going to reward you very well for being so good for him.

He bends over the edge of the tub, hovering over your beseeching upturned face. He brushes his thumb softly over your full bottom lip. “Good girl.” Your eyes flutter shut, you look down into the water, a lovely pink blush blossoming over your cheeks. “Relax. Soak for a while.”

He can tell you want him. Badly. The flush of your cheeks down to your breasts, rosy little nipples peaked, your quick breath. That want, compounded doubly by his refusal so far to really touch you — his inability. The more he stays his hand, the more you want him, and the more you want him the harder his cock grows, the more frightened he becomes. He thinks it’s very true, that old adage, the harder you try to push a woman away from a man, the closer she will go to him by virtue of rebellion.

You sit in the warm bath for close to an hour, and he watches rapturously, hypnotized by the slick wet of the water rolling over your skin, from his seat on an ottoman at the center of the room. The weight of his gaze on your skin, almost violent in its intense desire. He wants to lick every single droplet from your body and then bite into the heavy lush weight of your tits until his teeth are imprinted in the soft flesh, bruises sucked into the pale globes. He hopes you’ll let him. He hopes he’ll let himself. 

Your returning look is equally wanton. He watches your gaze trained and hungry on the heft of his cock hiding beneath his trousers. You spread your legs for him beneath the water as you wash yourself, putting on another show, private, just for him. An unjustly jealous wrath stirs within him, coiled and hissing, at the thought of any other human on earth ever getting to see you the way he is now. Largely a passive man, the violence that surges within him has him surprised and not, in equal measures. For he thinks that no being ever having beheld you, could ever possibly be driven to feel any other way than obsessively possessive over such a creature as yourself. You’re like a siren in this moment, languishing in the warm water of his bath, in his house, where you agreed to come with him tonight. A nymph willingly slinking into the depth of Tartarus, knowing she’s in peril of being wholly devoured by the beasts that lay at its depths, and still going anyways. 

He helps you out after a while, tiny little fingers and toes soaked to wrinkles, elbow once again caught between his two fingers, and the heat rolling off your skin sears him. Has a violent tremble running jaggedly down his vertebrae. 

He wraps you in a plush white towel, pulled from the warming rack, helps you dry your long hair. Then goes to his room for one of his shirts to put you in. He pulls one he’d worn a few days ago off the pile from the chair in the corner. He wants to know you’re sleeping in something that’s already been on his skin, that smells like him, that you’re soaking now in his own scent. 

As he pulls the towel from around your body to once again reveal your bare form to him he presses a soft kiss to your naked waist – can’t help himself, the soft slope entirely too beguiling. Overtaking any apprehensions he may have, and his gut clenches with fear and desire. He can feel the weeping of his cock dribble down his thigh as he presses his lips to the warm, fragrant skin. 

You’re quiet, watching him, letting him do with you as he wants. His own little sentient doll, created for his pleasure only. “I have a farm in Brazil,” he says. He rounds your form, starts to braid the long strands of your hair into a single plait. You put up no protest – it feels like water, slipping through his hands.  “We grow organic fruit and vegetables and there’s cows, lots of cows. We never kill them, they just live there, graze.” One of his favorite places in the entire world, but perhaps, second to the place he resides now, staring at you, dressing you, touching your hair. “I love it there, I’ll take you.”

“Okay,” you say easily. “I’d like that,” the gift of the gentle curve of your smile. He wants to lick into your mouth, fuck you with his tongue, slap your pussy and watch the blood rush to the surface, feel the tight clench of your asshole as he fills you with his come. 

“Will you let me watch you play with your cunt?” he asks gently.

“Won’t you do it?”

“I’m scared to touch you yet – to find out if you’re actually real.” He feels an uncharacteristically self conscious blush mar his cheeks. “I–I’m not ready. I want to watch first.” He comes to kneel between your parted thighs that dangle off the high bed. “Pet your cunt for me – show me how you like it, sweet girl. Please.” He is not above begging. Not for this. Not for you – for the sight of you playing with your wet, pink pussy. 

You spread your legs wider, give him the tantalizing peak of your bare sex, your glistening folds. You’re already fucking wet for him. He feels an unrestrained growl claw up his throat like fire. His mouth goes dry, parched. The only way to sate himself, to drink straight from the source of your glossy slick. 

You press your fingers to the pearl of your clit, swollen and needy already, he can see. You start to swirl little circles over your slippery flesh, your wet mouth falling open in a gasp. “That’s it, yeah–” he whispers, bringing his face in closer to the apex of your thighs so he can smell you directly from the source. His eyes flutter as he breathes in the scent of you, the deep amber and citrus from the bath oil, but beneath that, entwined in the rich notes, the musky scent of you. Fucking mouthwatering. He hears himself moan, the sound pulled almost unconsciously from his body. 

“Inside– put your fingers inside. Let me see you fuck yourself.” You press a single finger in, all the way to the last knuckle, and start to rock your hips. He can feel your gaze on his face, the weight of it heavy and pleading.

“Ezra– p–please, please, you do it,” you beg, let your head roll back as you press another finger in and start to rock your clit against the mound of your palm in earnest.

“But you’re doing so well, sweet girl. About to make that little cunt come for me. Look–” He gives you the weight of a single palm on the bend of your knee and you moan deep and ragged at just that compact touch. He can’t help himself – he pulls the edge of the t-shirt up to bare your tits to him and holds it up against the base of your throat where he cradles the delicate column in his hand – the entire large span of him completely engulfing your smallness. “Your thighs are trembling, treasure. You’re going to do it just for me, aren’t you?.”

“Y–Yes, yes–” 

He pushes your knee in his grasp wider, opening you more for the fileting of gaze. “Make yourself come – I want to see it. Fucking come,” it’s a demand you answer, just the sound of it causing the heat of your skin to seemingly ricochet even higher. You start to come – he watches the clenching of the muscles in your stomach as you grind your fingers deep. He can hear how wet you are, the sopping wet squelch of your pulsing cunt, and he worries for one second that he’s about to come in his pants. 

You let out a reed high mewl, like you’re singing just for him. “What a good, good girl you are,” he praises, and your eyes flutter shut, pulling your fingers away so that he’s left to admire the clenching of your stretched hole. He can see the glossy shine of your slick sliding down the crevice of your ass, and he wants to lick through your sticky arousal so fucking badly he bites down on his cheek until he tastes blood. He bends his head to press his brow to the edge of the bed between your spread thighs, tightening his grip around your knee until you whimper in pain. He loosens his hold immediately, thumb brushing soothingly over the bend before he stands, lets out a long breath. He stares down at your panting, flushed form. Wet and sated after your orgasm. Fuck all the art in the world. He’d set fire to every single masterpiece he owns in this very moment if he was granted the gift of getting to watch you come even one single time more. 

He passes his palm over his mouth, feeling the soft bristles of his scruff. He’d like to see the smooth insides of your thighs rubbed raw with it, he’d like to see the stretch of your cunt as he stuffs you full of himself, the milky white of his spend leaking from all your holes. 

“It’s time to put you to bed,” he says instead. 

Your brow creases in the sweetest little frown, red mouth puckering, still panting. “You’re not staying?” 

“No, sweet girl. I think it’s best if you sleep here tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“But–”

“It’s alright. There’s no rush.” He leans over you to press a lingering kiss to your brow, pulls his shirt down to cover your breasts. You give him a little whimper, and he allows your hand to come up to clutch the thick swell of his bicep, the heavy muscle there bunching at the feel of your grip. He moves to help you settle beneath the silk duvet, pleased beyond belief at the sight of you tucked into a bed in his home, wearing his clothes, flushed and wearing the sated look of a recent orgasm. 

“Goodnight, treasure.”

“Goodnight, Ezra.”

-

You find his room later. You can’t help yourself, following the glow of the soft light spilling between the crack of his slightly open door, like he’d left you a bread crumb trail to follow, like he knew you’d come searching. You can’t sleep knowing he’s so close, this dazzling creature come straight from a dream. Twisting and turning in the plush monstrosity of a bed he’d left you in. His shirt, butter soft, the dark, gray blue swimming around your much smaller frame. It smells like him, his cologne – you recognize the scent of Le Labo Another 13. Musky with the softest most subtle hint of jasmine, paired with something earthier – greener, and folded between all that: the soft saltiness of his sweat.  Why would you sleep when a figure from your very fantasies was right here in the flesh. Your cunt clenches, wet and aching, even after he’d watched you make yourself come. You need more, want to feel the press of his cock inside of you, the heavy weight of it. 

He’s sitting up in bed, reading something on an iPad, glasses propped low on his nose. He looks up at your small knock, not waiting for his permission to slip inside. 

“I promise, I’ll be good.” You hold your hands up in surrender. “I won’t touch you. We can put a pillow between us if you like.” You move towards the bed.

There’s a large stack of books sitting on his bedside table, flooded by the warm moss stained light of the antique Tiffany lamp. A single idiosyncrasy of old world charm in a room made stark by its bright modernity. The pile is made up of a book of paintings by Howard Hodgkin, the diaries of Alma Mahler, The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner, the fourth volume of In Search of Lost Time – you appreciate his excellent taste – and at the very top, laying open, facedown, as if he’d just put it down a moment ago, My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard. You find it fascinating to see a book that spoke of life in such a granular way — realistic, simple, a normal man in a normal world, speaking in such extensive, caring detail on the small things in his life — on the bedside table of this enigma, this person who seemed to be, by far and large, a different species to all other men you’d ever met before. To see the spine so cracked and worn — as if he’d read it over and over again, in search of the equation for that simplicity, to thus inject into his own existence – a way to embalm his own world in such appreciation for the small but infinitely significant moments. You wonder if it’s taught him much— if he’s been able to find and implement whatever it was he’d searched for through so many reads. 

“Alright,” he says easily, but the look in his eyes is slightly wary. You recognize Glenn Gould’s rendition of the Goldberg Variations playing softly on the surround sound as you crawl into his bed – under the silk smooth sheets, bringing a pillow to blockade you from him, protect him. You don’t want him to be uncomfortable, but you desperately want to be close to him also. The two of you have barely talked tonight – too caught up in the observation of one another, like two animals circling in the wild. You want to talk to him. Want to hear the sound of his deep voice vibrate through your nerve endings. 

“Intimacy is… difficult for me,” he says slowly, swallowing. “It’s hard for me to get close to people… emotionally, physically. I need time to — I suppose, to warm up to them.”

“That’s — that’s okay. I understand,” you say, because you do, because you’re the same in many ways. 

“It’s why I love art,” he continues. “You can be close to something, feel its warmth, beauty – whatever feeling it is the artist intended to pull out of you, from a distance. Untouched – it’s untouchable. That comforts me for some reason.”

“I think – I think I understand that as well. Something, perhaps, about the idea of a thing remaining as it was initially conceived as, for all time, undisturbed by outside influences.”

“Yes – yes, exactly.” His eyes are alive with the fire of being understood.

You look down at his straining erection. You can’t help it. “You’re hard,” you say. You want to touch him so badly it’s a physical ache inside of you. 

“I’ve been hard since I first saw you.”

“Let me help.”

He shakes his head, “Not yet.”

“I was embarrassed that the other patrons would be able to tell how wet my pussy was lying there staring at you.” Shocking words. His eyes flutter shut, fuck, he murmurs under his breath, brings his hand up to rub at his jaw. You’ve noticed he does that a lot – a tell of sorts. He takes several deep breaths, the tension seeming to seep out of his body by sheer force of will. 

You take him in as he settles back into the pillows, relaxing, or at least pretending to. His face, smooth and serene, laying there watching you, despite his heavy erection, but the look in his eyes – it’s also slightly provoking. As if he wants you to challenge him, question him, but also afraid, perhaps, that you’ll force his hand, that he’ll be forced to give in to what you both want before he’s ready. You decide to choose mercy – change the subject. More curious to see how he chooses to play this out.

“Let’s play the question game.”

“The question game?”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” he turns to lay on his side, facing you. Both of your hands are tucked beneath your cheeks. He’s wearing a soft, worn sweater, a tiny hole at the collar, the sleeves stretched and overly long. Oh, this may just be too much for you to handle. 

“We’ll start with something easy – what’s your favorite color?”

“That’s easy?”

“Yes.” You roll your eyes at him, laughing.

“Depends on the day,” he says very seriously. His blinks are slow, his pupils huge and dilated in the warm light of the lamp. You wonder if he’s taken something. Every time he blinks the thick fringe of his lashes fans over his cheeks, the pause of his languor allows you a moment to appreciate them.

“That’s not an answer – you have to give a real answer.” You want to reach your finger out and brush along that thick fringe, through the patchy hair on his face, threaded through with the smallest hint of silver, stick your nose in his hair and smell him right at the source. 

“It’s the only real answer there is – no one’s favorite color stays their favorite color forever.”

“Do you do this a lot?”

“What’s that?”

“Make things purposely difficult.”

A flash of his brilliant white teeth, “Oh, always.” You want very badly for him to bite into your flesh. 

“Okay, fine. What’s your favorite color right now?”

Without hesitation: “The color of your eyes – they’re very strange,” you can tell it’s a compliment, and he finally touches you again. A single finger, just the tip, to the point of your chin, tilting your head back slightly for his inspection, as if you were one of the pieces in his collection. You think you may become one by the end of this. You think you’d like that very much. You can feel the slight edge of his fingernail dig into your soft skin. 

“I already agreed to fuck you. You don’t have to woo me,” you breathe. You realize that, as of yet, he’s not overtly asked you to have sex with him – you throw the words out anyways, hoping to provoke him. This is too much. This man is too much. You don’t know what it is about him, but you want him desperately, like no one you’ve ever wanted before. You want him to overwhelm you – to take you by force. To take all choice and will and autonomy from your hands. You don’t care what will come of this, what will become of you after he’s done with you, if he discards you, forgets you –  none of that matters. All you care about, in this moment, is that he finally decides to take you, that he gives you the opportunity to let go, to relinquish control. To unfold from the pose for just a moment. A slightly deranged spark fizzes in your belly. Your heart pinches a burning little pain at the thought that he hasn’t kissed you yet, that you still don’t know the taste of his mouth. 

“None of my answers satisfy you. And yes, I do need to woo you. I find it very necessary.”

You try and emulate an unaffected scoff, his finger is still on your chin, but you feel your brow unwittingly fold into a confused frown. There is a tight knot of want coiled at the very center of you, burning hot and smoldering, and you need him to pick it apart with these strong fingers. He takes his hand away. The look on his face is very telling. He can read everything going on in your mind, you can tell. He looks like the cat that ate the goddamn canary. You try and take a deep, calming breath. “Alright, now you have to ask me one?” you divert. 

“Me?”

“Yes, you – that’s how the game works. I do one, you do one.”

“Alright,” he’s quiet for a second, contemplating, “Do you have siblings?”

“No, I’m an only child. Do you?”

“I had a brother, Damon. He died when we were younger.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yes, well– it was a very long time ago. But thank you. His daughter, Cee, is my ward now. ” Not his niece, not someone mentioned in any capacity as his family. The connection, maintained as if at a distance — his ward — cold. But he gives himself away, his tender vulnerability made transparent, with the sudden flash of bright fondness in his eyes at her name, despite his trying to remain aloof. You are not so easily fooled. You see him despite his attempts to deflect from the true core of himself. 

His gaze is so mercurial – at once relaxed, uncaring, and then flaring into something bright hot like a flash fire. But remote, remote always. Like the very center of him, his true gaze is very far away, very deep within him, and this gaze, the one he presents to the world, is merely a farce, a mask. A shroud he pulls over himself to keep others out. His own golden gossamer. You’re shocked that he’s shared this with you. 

“My parents died when I was very young,” you offer, your own morsel of ragged soul in the face of his sudden vulnerability. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, as well.”

“It wasn’t so bad, after the fact. I went to live with my aunt – my mother’s sister. She was a dancer. My childhood was… unconventional, but wonderful.”

“What about it was unconventional?”

You laugh a little, looking up at the coffered ceiling above you, the thick beams a rich, glossy mahogany. You feel his gaze on your face like a brand. He has not stopped looking at you since he first started. In a sea of years being observed, his gaze is singular in the pleasure it brings you.

“She was a dancer. I mean—” you hum, “What wasn’t unconventional about it? We lived in New York for several years, then Budapest for a time, and then she brought us here, to Paris, where we stayed until her death – where I’ve stayed since. Her girlfriends were always around – fellow dancers, costumes and makeup, drinking and men. They taught me how to smoke when I was eight — Gauloises like a fucking chimney, at all hours of the day, after that — I forced myself to stop a few years ago. Now I only have one on special occasions, sometimes.” He looks at you like he knows you’re the sort to make a special occasion out of a trip to the market. “She had many lovers. Parties… disaster everywhere, but the riotous, happy sort – not the tragic kind.”

“No?”

“No. Perhaps, to the outside eye it may have appeared different… I don’t know. No life for a child, I think. But it was wonderful. She always protected me. But– but never like a mother. She was never like a mother – more like – a friend, or an older sister.” You laugh fondly at the memories, but also a little sadly. In the eyes of an adult now, you’d never want such a life for a child of your own, as exciting as it was at the time.

“One time someone told me I ended up as I did, naked for the world to ogle at, as a means to earn money, because of her. Because of how she was. And perhaps they were right, but… but not in the way they meant —  to insult me. She taught me what art was, gave me the means to turn myself into it.” 

“Who the fuck said that to you?” His tone makes you look back at him now. All the mystery in his gaze is gone, only fury burns now – very clearly. If he’d let you, you’d cup his cheek, soothe him. 

You can see he isn’t ready yet, though. So all you say is: no one that really mattered – the truth, but you can see that it does not soothe him. 

 “What about you? What was your mother like?” You can appreciate how easily distracted he pretends to be, the deception of it, merely another shroud. 

Another one of his long pauses, filled with his eyes on you. He gives you the gift of his touch again. Thick fingers picking up a strand of your hair, running it between his grasp. You feel the slight ghost-like tingle of the tug along your scalp, there but also not, and a jerking shiver moves through you. All the hair on your body standing on end. Fuck, this man. 

“She was very beautiful – very cruel,” he says slowly, mesmerized by your hair sliding through his fingers. 

“Cruel to you?”

“To the world.”

“Why?”

“But also me.” Succinct in its truth. The thought is a terrible one – for anyone to have been cruel to this magnificent dream of a man. The backs of your eyes pinch. Another long pause. “Hmm,” he tilts his head side to side, still sliding your hair through his fingers, twisting it gently around his hair. He gives it a tiny tug, and you want to scoot forward, even just the smallest bit, just to be a little closer to him, to feel the brush of his belly against yours with the movement of his breathing. “It’s difficult to say – unhappiness, bitterness, boredom. A great and complicated concoction of things that made her into the eternally complex creature she was.”

“She died?”

“Yes. She killed herself.”

“Ezra– I’m so sorry,” the words leave you choked and breathless. 

He says it so plainly, starkly, like a slap to the face, one not meant to cause pain or harm, but shock. One meant to cause fear, something to say, look at how fucked up I am, stay away or I’ll infect you with it too. You scoot closer now, you can’t help it, and he goes immediately still, frozen – eyes wide, hesitant, but you don’t touch him. Your hair is still clutched in his hand, and his eyes move back and forth between your own and his hold on you. You’re close enough now, though, that you can feel the heat rolling off his body. Your eyes flutter shut, you say again: “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“She was too vain to grow to old age.” You feel him relax, comforted by the indication that you’re not going to touch him just yet. “I think she felt it was the only recourse for her.”

You open your eyes again, and he’s still staring at you. You so badly want to know what he’s thinking, to feel the press of his mouth against yours, to know the taste of his tongue, the feel of his incisors pressing into your skin. 

You pivot three-sixty again: “Do you want kids?” He lets out a loud barking laugh at that, head thrown back so the tendons in his neck jump out starkly. Your cunt clenches around nothing. Wet and jealous. 

“This is a very difficult game,” he says, giving you a sly look. 

“We don’t have to play anymore, if you don’t want to.” A great lie – you never want to stop playing with him. 

“No, I want to keep going.” He slides his whole hand into your hair now, palm cupping the entire side of your head in its broad expanse, and you can’t help the desperate moan that claws out of your throat. His responding hum is all-knowing.  “I don’t know. But I love being… I like being able to imagine it.”

Your mind has been lost to a daze induced by the heat of his palm. “Children?” you murmur.

“Yes.”

Your fingers are twisted into the front of your shirt, clawing at yourself to maintain respect for his boundaries. “I want them. Lots of them. I hated being an only child. I always felt alone. I want to have lots of babies.” And his eyes flare with heat at that. The first blazing sign of lust in them tonight. Everything else before this, you realize, was merely a low simmering boil. The fist in your hair tightens so that your head tilts back slightly, the line of your throat exposed for his eyes to follow. 

“Lots of them?” You nod your head minutely, wide eyed, equally ensnared by that look in his gaze as you are by his hand. 

“Then you shall have them, Sparrow.” You let out a shuddering breath, turn your face into the pillow, enjoying the slight pull to your sensitive scalp as his hand follows, try to breathe deep, temper your racing heart. You’re so wet, you can feel it seeping out of you in a constant throbbing stream. The conversation serving as a more intense form of foreplay than anything else you’ve ever done with a man. 

“It’s my turn again. When was the last time you fucked someone?” Blunt – thrown at your face to throw you off kilter. Oh, he fucking loves this. A broken little whimper claws out of your throat at that. Your cheeks are flushed, you can feel them burning, and he knows exactly what he’s doing. The smug look in his eyes taunts you, tells you he knows just how soaked you are. But it is also wild, as wanting as you are. 

“Hmm?” he presses.

“Three years ago.” It’s his turn to be shocked now. You see the pause of surprise in that bright light within his gaze. 

“Three years? Why?”

“You’re not the only one who finds it difficult to be close to people.”

“And yet you agreed to come here with me?”

“And yet I agreed to come here with you.” You don’t return the question. You wouldn’t like to know, you don’t think. And you can tell he sees that in your gaze, for he doesn’t offer up the information either. You like the mystique of him. Like some eldritch beast, a deity of old, something amorphous, not to be contained or understood. The unknowable aspect of him is appealing to you for reasons you haven't quite figured out yet, despite this game of questions you’re flirting with. 

You go next: “Are you lonely?”

“Yes, very.” A pause, and then: “You are too.” This is no question. He can see it, recognizes the same scent of it that permeates the air around him, following you. “You seemed it, laying in the center of that crowded room, naked – bared for everyone to see.” It is not said cruelly. He is only telling you that which you already know about yourself, that which is plain for the whole world to see. “And then shrouded in gold, as if you wanted to hide that vein of aloneness that flows through you – it didn’t work very well.”

“Do you think everyone could see it?”

“No.” Good. You only wanted him. 

You take another turn, you can’t help but break the rules with him. “Have you ever been with someone who– who you didn’t really want to be with, but you were– you were so lonely and needed… something… or someone?” All the surety you’d posed your previous questions with is gone now. He’s already discerned so much of you, what’s a little more bared skin? “So you just– you just settled for being with that person even though you knew it was wrong, and the only thing on your mind was the other person you really wanted to be with?”

Without hesitation: “Yes.”

“I think that’s the only type of relationship I’ve ever had. Although, the other person hasn’t really existed – just – just something I’ve thought up in my own head.”

“I accidentally called her by the other person’s name. She never spoke to me again. It was terrible– terrible of me.”

“I want to touch you so badly,” you plead suddenly. Unable to hold it in anymore in the light of all he’s shared with you. Your voice cracking and begging. “I want you to touch me, so badly.”

“I know.” Yes, he does. “You want me to fuck you.” All you can do is let your eyes flutter shut, try to continue to breathe, nod your head. 

“Why was your mother cruel to you? What did she do?” You feel like crying now. 

“Many things… I had terrible night terrors as a child. Scared her half to death. I’d scream and cry and sleep walk. For years. She didn’t know what to make of me. Some sort of demon come from her very womb to possess and haunt her house. She hated me – would lock me in a closet furthest from her bedroom to keep my howling away from her.” 

The blazing heat of anger floods your cheeks, your eyes filled with tears, and he clicks his tongue, smoothes his thumb over the slope of your cheek. “None of that, sweet girl.”

“You were just a little boy – she should have– she should have comforted you. Helped you.”

“It wasn’t in her nature. You cannot fault a thing for not being what it was never made to be. She was a killer of soft things – within herself, within me too, I think. Or she tried, at least. She tried to kill everything soft she came into contact with. But she did love me. In her own way – a wrong way, but she did. That comforts me immensely.”

“That she loved you even if it was the wrong way?”

He nods, “And that I loved her – despite all her flaws.”

“Why?”

“I… I appreciate the idea of being a bad person, and still being able to find someone to love you.”

“You’re a killer.” It is not a question for you already know the answer – you can see it in his eyes, it is his inheritance. You know that either way, it won’t make a difference to you. 

“I am, indeed. But, are you?.” The soft curve of his cunning smile is so incredibly beguiling. The most tempting thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life. You shake your head, you’re not, you never have been. You think it must be very obvious at first glance, for the patronizing look he gives you as he asks anyways. 

“Sometimes I can be very bad,” he whispers slowly, drags the tip of his finger over your shoulder, down the swell of your breast, stopping just shy of your peaked nipple, circling the point. 

“What do you do?” your voice is breathless, beseeching. 

He smooths his thumb over your bottom lip, pushes between to get inside, presses down on the hard edge of your bottom teeth to inspect the wet gleam of your tongue. “I steal beautiful things for myself–” His voice is like smoke – his confession fortuitous, on the verge of disappearing. His mystique enshrouds the both of you. You hope you disappear alongside him. 

“Is that what you’re doing now? Stealing me?”

“Yes.”

“I think I like being stolen.”

-

He wakes, very late into the night, or very early in the morning, the confounding blue hue of the outside world seeping in through the heavy drapes over the tall windows. Shielding the two of you from the real world.

Your body is entirely draped over his own. You’ve invaded him in your sleep, taken over all the space and air and thought he’s ever possessed. The soft weight of your breasts presses into his chest, your head tucked in the hollow of his clavicle so that he can feel each pass of your damp breath wash over his throat and chin. He expects to feel overwhelmed, uncomfortable, perhaps even disgusted, so much skin, so much heat, your legs intertwined with his – but all he can focus on is the fullness of your tits pressed up against him, the hot wet apex of your cunt against his thigh. You’re wet in your sleep for him – he can feel your dampness seeping through the silk of your extra panties. 

One of your hands is curled over his shoulder and he brings it to his mouth, presses a kiss to the soft, small palm. His hand dwarfs yours, swallows it whole. He sucks each one of the tips of your fingers into his mouth, bites down as gently as he can. Your hips start to shift over him, needy cunt trying to unconsciously rub up against his thigh. 

He’s going to fuck you now. His cock is hard, aching, leaking, balls heavy – has been for ages, but finally, finally his mind has caught up. Thank fuck. 

He passes his palm down the smooth line of your back, pushes his t-shirt you’re wearing up your back to get to your skin. This lovely smooth back he’d spent almost an hour staring at in that gallery. He feels a terrible, unfounded curl of jealousy, once again, that anyone else in the world has ever gazed upon the magnificence that is your skin. He wants it to be only for him, he wants you to be only for him – to own you.

His hand moves down to clutch the full swell of your bottom, pushes under your panties to take a handful of your bare flesh. He bends his knee slightly to put more pressure on your core and starts to roll your hips over him. You let out a soft little moan, sleepy, so sweet. 

“It’s time to wake up, Sparrow. I’m going to fuck you now.”

“Ezra–” you murmur, coming to. Your body seems to take stock of the situation before your mind does, little cunt suddenly grinding down more firmly onto his thigh. You let out a moan that goes straight to his cock. He grips your hips and flips you over, settling between the spread of your thighs, slotting his length into your wet cleft, he starts a slow rock that has his head pressing up and into your clit. 

“Tell me how you want to be fucked.”

Your eyes are glassy, dazed and confused. He says again, “Tell me how you want to be fucked, or I will decide for you.”

And then your soft little voice, grabbing him by the balls and showing him that as sleepy or drowsy or small as you may appear, you’re still aware of the power you hold over him: “I think I’d like you to decide for me, please.”

Fuck– he deepens the pressure of his thrusts so that his tip presses into your opening over your panties. Your jaw is hinged open, panting wet breaths as you moan for him. 

He sits back on his heels then, pulls his t-shirt up over your head and then slides your panties over your hips and down your legs, grips your knees to spread your legs wide for him. 

He was right, your cunt is the same color as your nipples. Beautiful. 

It’s drooling, begging for him, and oh, how that fills him with pleasure – for such a beautiful thing to desire him, as much as he desires it. He ghosts the back of his knuckles over your slit, using his thumbs to spread your lips wide – he bends for a taste, moans deep and long from his chest. 

“Fuck, you’re so sweet. Do you want me to feed your cunt, baby?”

“Ezra, please – yes – I want it so bad.”

“I know, I could see – all night, I could see how hungry you were. I’m going to eat you now.”

Please, please. 

He settles between your thighs. Soft little licks to your swollen clit, then down to thrust his tongue into your hole. He grips the back of one thigh to press it up and back into your chest, uses his other hand to press down low on your pelvis, gives you more pressure as he sucks your clit back into his mouth. He can feel the clench of your pussy around his tongue, the shake in your thighs. Your keening moans move through him, have him grinding his aching cock into the mattress. You’re going to come in his mouth, he can feel it, taste it, your slick running from you, sweet and musky, all for him. 

Your hands clutch at his curls, pulling and tugging hard as you arch your back and start to orgasm. Ezra, Ezra, Ezra. It’s a litany, a benediction. You are a work of art come to life to sing into his ear. 

He gentles his mouth over your quivering sex, laps slowly at your pulsing entrance. He wipes his mouth over the tender slope of your inner thigh and goes back to his knees, licks his palm of your wet as he watches your gaze on him. 

He cradles your small foot in his hold. He likes the thought that he can grasp that which has carried you through your life, in his hand. For some reason, it fills him with immense pleasure, the feel of your soft foot, the thought of you walking through life, walking through the world, towards him, to find him. Always him, only him. 

There is a wound in him, dark, and putrid, overwhelming his existence always. It was only through the cathartic fulfillment of holding a beautiful thing in his hands that he felt reprieved of the terrible thing. He feels that reprieve in this moment, with the delicate weight of your small foot cradled within his palm. 

He brings it to his mouth and digs his thumb harshly into the elegant arch, forcing a moan out of you, deepening the curve of your spine, then drags his teeth along the instep, presses a soft kiss to your first toe. He can see the clench of your little hole at his ministrations, the flush of your skin from the peaks of your breasts to your cheeks. 

Your breath is hitching, breasts quivering with your gasps. He bends to lick into your mouth, thin ankle still held in his grasp, finally, finally taking the taste of your tongue onto his own and you moan, wanton and desperate, your legs wrapping around his waist to bring him closer. 

“I’m going to give you my cock now,” he presses into your skin, open mouthed kisses to your throat, your neck, your breasts. He nips a gentle bite to one swollen little nipple. 

He grasps the base of his cock, passes his hand slowly from root to tip once, twice, and then presses the flushed head to your clit, grinds there for a moment, you jerk, then moves down to your hole, feeds you just the tip. You cant your hips, try and take him deeper, but he holds back, pulls out and moves back up to circle your clit again, and then back down again to press inside. “No, no, no, Ezra, please – I need it so badly – so badly.” He watches a tiny tear, track down your temple and back into your hair, and he gives you the entire thick length of him at that, fucks inside, all the way to the end of you. 

“There? How’s that?” He presses a kiss to your breast, sucks it into his mouth. The taste of you is godly. “Is that better, needy thing?”

“So good – so good,” you sigh. Stretching your arms high above your head, arching your back to let him in deeper. 

“Fuck, yes–” he groans. He sits back on his heels, grips your hips and starts to give it to you hard. The strong swing of his hips causing the soft jiggle of your tits with every thrust. Your eyes are closed, lashes fluttering, soft mouth open and wet. So fucking beautiful. 

“Will you let me fuck your ass too?” Your head is already nodding, all rational thought currently being fucked out of you. “You will, won’t you?”

“Yes, yes – anything you want.”

“Good girl.”

He changes the angle, fucks up into that spongy devastating part of you he plans to own after this is done, and he starts to feel the tight pull of your inner muscles working to suck him deeper. “That’s it, beautiful, just like that. Taking me so wonderfully.” 

“God– I– I’m–” you press your palms to his belly and he brings one of your ankles up to his shoulder, presses a kiss to the bone. 

“God isn’t here right now – just me–” He grits his teeth, gives it to you harder. He can feel his orgasm start to pool, hot and liquid, at the base of his spine, balls drawing up tight. 

“Give me another, Sparrow, one more. Need to feel it around my cock,” spit through clenched teeth. 

“Oh, fuck – that’s so good,” you moan, and then you’re milking him, pulling his come out of him with the tight wet clutch of your muscles. 

“Fucking perfect, yes – just like that.” He lets his head roll back on his neck, hand grasping your ankle as he fills you. 

-

He watches you eat your pain au chocolat. Sitting in the warm morning sun of the observatory. Tiny bites of the flaky sweet bread, dollop of chocolate sitting at the corner of your mouth that he plans to lick off in a second. He is mesmerized. He knows, empirically, he probably looks like a fucking creep, staring you down as he is, but he can also see the subtle preen in your gaze when you glance up at him every so often. You enjoy this part of your play as much as he does, so it seems. The watching. 

“Will you let me take you somewhere today?”

“Yes, I will.”

“Brazil? I’d show you the farm.”

You swallow, the most guileless eyes he’s ever beheld, shining in the light. “Brazil? Really?”

“Of course, treasure. Or anywhere you want. Your happiness is mine to watch over now. I would do anything for you.” As he says it, he can tell, you did not lie when you said you’d like to be stolen. 

[inkedwingss]

about poetry

Good things take time? Sometimes. There are dreadful things that happen for too long, and amazing splits of a second. The amount of time and effort are not the main indicators that something has value.

I was thinking that specifically because of my poems — because I was arguing with myself the other day about how I feel they have no value, even though I'm aware this is the wrong thought to think (and I will always defend thinking and feeling something is a real experience, but not necessarily rooted in truth). But poems... What are these little creatures? It's just that they happen so quickly! They burst from my mind and I type as fast as I can so I don't lose the line. They are not perfect, but they are mine, and they are true, and they are... Valuable.

I cried one day on my way to the coffee shop to see my new friend and give him the poem I wrote for him. Our friendship was two weeks old. The poem took me less than ten minutes to write, and while reading it, he cried. We sat under the sun for about three hours (not the whole day, not a whole life), and then he walked me back to the bridge — probably a five-minute walk.

All of that had immense value. Priceless treasure. It happened fast. It burned my heart forever.

To me writing it's just what I do, something I can't stop doing and I will never stop doing even if I don't ever publish anything at all. I don't struggle to write, I struggle with physical pain/fatigue, my own wrong thoughts, a busy routine and other shit, but writing will happen. At some point in my day, I just have to do it.

So yes, we live in times where things are immediate, and I will always advocate for the slow life, slow growth... I don't believe in rushing the process or jumping stages. It takes time to build true skills even in the creative, intuitive realm. It does! But also, sometimes, things happen fast. Maybe you have a talent, or you practised so much that know it just "comes naturally." Maybe you've been deeply inspired. Maybe your brain is wired that way (@goodluckclove). Whatever it is: what you do still has value even if you struggle to do it, or when you do not struggle at all. Value is within.

I decided to do with this one that was waiting in my draft for the first tag list post. Thank you, angels.

@caustic-splines @hersurvival @icantdance @poetici @informedimagining @thedayoftherae @sablewing @stumbling-through-time @burntblanc @lelestarmy @fairytaleinagem @remnantofabrokensoul

[azullumi]

kazuha — him as your lover ☆彡

summary: how is he as your lover?

pairing: kazuha/gender-neutral reader

tags: fluff; headcanons

word count: 700+

Kazuha, despite the similarities of his personality in public and to you, actually acts differently around you compared to others. It's hard to tell it at first until you witness it first-hand— the way he speaks, talks, and treats others.

Yes, his way of talking is still gentle to others but for you, his tone is much warmer and softer in a way that it reminds you of cold mornings with a warm sun. If he ever accidentally raised his tone, he would immediately apologize and say he didn't mean it.

He's really affectionate and would always show his feelings for you. He lays himself open and holds enormous amount of trust and love for you.

He doesn't hesitate in giving you reassurances and would often express himself through words. He would occasionally write poems at the thought of you and would let you read it. Your existence, his feelings, and everything being put into words are honestly so beautiful, just the thought that he thinks of you in such a lovely way warms your heart. The first time he showed you his work, he was really nervous and anxious about what you might think.

"What do you think? I wrote this while thinking of you. I'm not confident in my skills and I'm not exactly talented."

"Kazuha… It's beautiful, what are you saying? You clearly have a talent for this."

"Really? Then can I show you my works from time to time?"

He's definitely the type to tell you stories about his travels when the two of you are sharing a peaceful moment together or when the two of you are in bed and have a hard time falling asleep. He's the type to twirl your hair on his fingers and play with it while he speaks, his soft and warm touches paired with his voice eases you to sleep immediately. When you wake up in the morning, however, you'll be greeted by an empty bed but you'll see him moments later entering the room with breakfast on hand that he has prepared for you.

You could say that his love language consists of physical touch as you find him occasionally grabbing your hand and locking his fingers with yours when he has the chance or hugging you whenever he can. He would always find reasons to touch you, to trail his finger down your arm or draw circles on your hand as he plays with your fingers. Man would do anything just to feel you against him.

Occasionally, he would also give you a kiss and most of it was on your forehead. The first time seeing you for the day? A kiss on your forehead. He thinks that you look adorable? A kiss on your forehead or cheek. You just woke up by his side? A kiss on your crown or forehead. He just wants to kiss you? There, another kiss. He would also pepper your face with kisses when the two of you are alone, kissing your cheek, your forehead, your nose, and everywhere. In this way, he shows how much he loves you.

Dates? Oh, don't even get me started with it. Man loves dates over anything else and would take you out nearly everyday, even if it's just simple ones wherein you two would just walk around and talk. He would often show up on your doorstep unannounced with a bouquet of your favorite flowers on hand and invite you to go on a walk with him. Sometimes, he would have a dinner reserved at a restaurant or you two would have a picnic outside. Sometimes, he would come inside your home and cook for you while you either watch him or join in to help which he would gladly accept.

"What are you making?"

"Dinner, for us."

"Can I help?"

"Of course, you can, my love."

He has a collection of endearments at the tip of his tongue but he prefers 'my love' the most. Just a simple one sounds so sweet and summarizes all his affection and adoration he has for you.

He adores you in every way, he adores your smile and could stare at it for the whole day, he adores your laugh and voice and could listen to it for eternity, he loves how soft your skin feels against his fingertips and the way your hands hold his, he loves everything about you and oh darling, your so-called imperfections and flaws are beautiful to him as they make all parts of you. He has never realized what was missing in his life not until he met you so he will do whatever it takes to not lose you.

— navigation | masterlist

[xanyiaz]

guys i AM 'the' gavin, avior, porter and camelopardalis fan 🙏🙏‼️and here's why @plaqying :

I MADE GAVIN IN THE SIMS 💀💀 and also posted several fanarts of him (on my friend's behalf):

also i wrote this essay about him:

lemme just write an essay about vincent and gavin for a second-

so i was relistening to this audio earlier *the vincent audio after lovely got kidnapped*

and he talks about how he was kind of an asshole before because he was only ever thinking short-term and only ever flirting with people as a means to eventually feed from them. but lovely and what they went through with adam changed him because it made him realise that he had changed. he had become different from how he was as a human, but lovely made him remember that version of himself - like they awakened the vincent that, although still being very flirty, he sees and embraces them as they are, and doesn't just flirt to feed but because he wants to, because he loves to, since he loves them. it reminds me of my other favourite character gavin - how he's also an asshole in the beginning (i have a type ig 💀) but it's only because other people only saw him as sex, as a tool to get off with, but not as just he is. they ignored the best part of him - his heart. they forgot he even has one because they were too busy wrapping themselves up in a fantasy with him, only to then throw him away once they're finished. but freelancer stuck around. they saw him for how he is. not as an incubus, just as "gavin". i love characters like this - that, at first glance, just seem a certain way, but underneath all that, the flirty exteriors, are the most beautiful beings with hearts of gold. and both of them are so patient; they didn't expect anything in return, after all, why would they? everyone else only wanted them for their flirty self or to use them for their body, not for their soul. lovely helped vincent realise that he had grown too used to putting up a false flirty front and that because of that, he had forgotten who he was underneath all that - a caring, loving person who also encourages lovely to become a better person; and freelancer, who got helped by an incubus and some silly lil elementals to realise that it's ok to reach out for help sometimes and that doing so isn't a burden on others, helped gavin realise that people want to be around him for more reasons than just sex, he is deserving and worthy of much more than that.

in short i'm so incredibly sane about them and love them a totally normal amount i promise.

---

wrote 2 POEMS based on avior and starlight:

also i imagined this: if starlight had/has pimples or spots or freckles and disliked them or felt insecure because of them i just KNOW avior would like- compare them to the stars and the night sky and kiss every one lightly, showering them with love until they start believing themself that they are as beautiful as avior says. this is how i imagine it:

slight sovereign state spoilers ig ??

starlight: "i'm breaking out so much, look how many pimples i have showing."

avior: "hey, don't say those things about yourself. all your spots and details and everything about you considered an "imperfection" by yourself, or anyone else, are my favourite parts of you. they paint star constellations all over you, and every time i look at you, i just want to plant kisses over each and every one of them. we may not have had any indicators of what time of day it was when we were stuck in hell together, but you were and still are my night sky, my sunshine, my whole universe, all the stars in my galaxy. every time i look at you, i see that all over you. your so called "imperfections" ignite my soul. you're my everything, starlight. never hate anything about yourself. and do not doubt even for a single second that the way i feel about you would change because of all your beautiful details. you are the stars that light up the galaxy of my heart. starlight, star bright, the stars in your eyes light up my life."

---

look how many porter headcanons i wrote RAAHHHHH:

- under people's skin or in contrast, how to charm and flatter people, he's SO charismatic and knows exactly how to get what he wants

- he has dyed tips of his hair- like i imagine it being either white/light grey or black and then like red or purple or blue dyed tips and like it's longish shoulder length but styled like miyamura from horimiya

- he likes board games but ESPECIALLY cluedo

- he likes wine-tasting

- he has heterochromia eyes- either like blue and red or blue and purple

- he wears corsets 🤭

- he wears HELLA jewellery- skull rings and loads of ear piercings and like a tooth necklace or something and just LOADS of vintage jewellery

- he knows how under people's skin or in contrast, how to charm and flatter people, he's SO charismatic and knows exactly how to get what he wants

- but also- he's so used to charming people or putting on a show/facade that, when people do genuinely want to get to know him and be close with him, he's reluctant and inexperienced- most people don't stick around after they get what they want from him, which is why he's so interested in & curious about treasure, why he's so enamoured with them bc they also seem so enamoured with him and he wants to understand why.

- also he has the sluttiest waist ever and he's so babygirl- wbk but i had to say it anyways 💀

also i made a playlist for him ofc <3

---

i also made these edits of gavin, gavin (again) + cam and porter (edited him twice) (can't believe i haven't edited avior yet smh):

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camelopardalis my love <33

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i have made more posts about all of them but it would take too long to scroll so you'll just have to take my word for it 😭‼️also i LITERALLY have most of gavin's audios memorised by now- and also porter's first audio- trust i am all of their biggest fan 🙏🙏 but also if i don't win- that's fair enough lol good luck to everyone 🫶🫶

[chilly-weirdo-in-a-tomb]

*Vibrating with excitement* would you like to share opinions on tlt characters zodiac signs. Because I have so many

(Naberius is a Virgo sun Taurus rising imo)

I have a lot of opinions. Bear in mind that I am not an astrology expert and I personally consider zodiac signs simply a fun, sometimes humorous thing and not an end-all, be-all thing. I don’t know a thing about rising signs or moon signs or all that. I don’t even know my own full chart! I’m friends with a very big astrology buff and they—in all seriousness—told me I was born the wrong sign 😂. According to them, I act like a Sagittarius.

But as for my TLT zodiac opinions, I’ve included my thoughts in the tags of each poll I’ve posted. So far, my prediction have been 50/50. I’ll go into more detail about my thoughts in this post, though.

Past polls:

Gideon is an Aries. Two of my best friends are Arieses and they give off the same energy as Gideon. It’s a kind of ‘fuck you if you’re rude, fuck me if you’re hot’ energy. They don’t give a flying fuck what society thinks of them. They’re also incredibly gay. Do I also happen to fall for Aries a lot? Yeah. Am I in love with Gideon Nav? Also yes.

Harrow is a Scorpio. I’m a Scorpio and so is one of my other best friends. I identify a lot with Harrow (we have the same genre of religious trauma/Catholic guilt, as well as a shit ton of grief and loss in our lives), but honestly, I just go with vibes. Incidentally, I’m related to one of people who helped discover Pluto (the planet that rules Scorpio) which is also the Ninth house. Like, legit these bone lesbians are from Pluto. I’ve seen several posts joking about that why Harrow’s so short. Because she’s from a dwarf planet.

Palamedes is a Virgo. This is based solely on one guy I knew in high school. Dude was a walking encyclopedia and had a pair of Pikachu sunglasses. I feel like Pal would wear Pikachu sunglasses.

Camilla my love. I thought Leo. Again based on one person I knew in high school. But Tumblr at large thinks she’s a Virgo and after some thought, I agree.

The Tridentarii are either Leos or Geminis. I said this in the tags, but Leos for personality, Gemini for the meme. My friend from high school is a Leo and she is one of the most driven and determined people I have ever met (so Ianthe it hurts). But she’s also one of the biggest romantics I’ve ever met. Like romantic as in the art/literature movement. She wrote me a fucking poem hyping me up because she saw that I was going through a tough time (self image issues). She compared me to the goddess Athena and I have never been more honored. Ray of fucking sunshine is the most wonderful sense (CORONA AF).

Babs. He was a fucking asshole, but he deserved better than what he got. Taurus. Yet again, based solely on a dude I knew in high school. Voice of an angel that boy. Bust out into a rendition of “A Whole New World” on an escalator one time and no one complained because it sounded so good. But a low key asshole. Not entirely unexpected as he was a tenor. Yes I am throwing shade at tenors. Most tenors (and many sopranos) in my experience are bitchy as fuck. Naberius Tern has tenor energy. Polls ended with Leo taking the win, with Aquarius a close second.

Other:

Dulcinea. The real Dulcinea. My other love. She’s horny for revenge and I love it. Chronic illness Queen. Like, can we please talk about the representation in this series? We have all manner of queer representation, mental illness rep, and chronic illness/disability rep! I know that *spoilers* it’s actually Cytherea in GtN, but then the real Dulcie shows up to be a bad bitch in HtN and I am in love with yet another TLT character. She’s a Libra and I love her.

OUR LADY OF FUCKING PASSION. Pash. TLT’s John the Baptist (take a look at Alecto Theory 11 for more on that). Capricorn. I don’t think I know any Capricorns irl, but from what I know of them, she’s a classic Capricorn.

So yeah, those are my thoughts.

[antimony-medusa]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers.

I was tagged by @regicidal-optimism

In no particular order:

A World Away (A Step Apart), (14,531 words) my OW superhero/supervillain romance with identity shenanigans, a dystopian world, and in-world supervillain RPF social media posts. This one was so fun to write. I've spent a lot of time on various social medias over the years and I delved into it for the fake discourse, and some of those social media jokes are some of my favourite things I've written. Plus I got to make up two guys that I love, OW is so fun.

A Hundred Things You Have Not Dreamed Of, (27,743 words), a DSMP emduo au in a vaguely superhero au about coming back from dehumanization. This fic was the one where I had to go holy shit I really do keep writing about food as healing I need to start tagging that on my fic, but also I just had a great deal of fun delving into, on the one hand, the hurt/comfort of expecting pain and not getting it, and on the other hand, the actual legitimate joys you can find in the small good things of a life you're choosing to live, even if baldly speaking it's not a great life. Like these guys don't know how to cook, and they live in a shitty apartment, and they have minimum wage food service jobs and don't have internet, but they also have friendship and community and 3 meals a day, and a laptop that can play videos, and that can also be something to appreciate. Plus it was a really fun challenge to take characters who basically don't act like the characters at all, because of trauma, and show them gradually growing into themselves. I still love this one a lot.

three deaths, no burials, one sunrise, (804 words). Oh boy. This one. DSMP, and c!wilbur focused, and second person, and inspired by a richard silken poem and a ursula vernon speech and a post about how wilbur didn't get a grave. At this point I don't even know if that's true canon, but I love this fic for how completely it took over my brain, I sat down and wrote it in one setting. Fuckin' pulled out of me like unspooling rope hand over hand. Having complicated feelings about your death and how it was marked or unmarked by the people around you, and exploring that through video game statistics, is something that can be so personal.

The Totem Of Undying Job, (62,696 words), DSMP, the syndicate heist Las Nevadas. So oh man, this was written in the era of the prison arc and you can probably tell, but I am still proud of how much I went into existing lore for the characterizations, not to mention proud of pulling off a long-fic. I keep thinking of it and going "man I should write more prey duo", or "I should write more tntduo", or "dang, beeduo slaps", or what have you. The first full and complete novel-length thing I had written in almost a decade, and I still think it hangs together, concepted and written entirely just me with myself in a google doc. The way I approach writing is very different nowdays, but I still love this one and I'm proud of pulling it off.

And honestly there's a lot of fics jockeying for this final spot, but I will give it to Soothing Natural Energies by Rebalancing External Wealth, Today, At Rekindled Flames Marriage Therapy Conference, (4,482 words), my origins sneegza marriage fraud shenanigans heist. I wrote this one in 24 hours for an exchange, and I was absolutely digesting my own stomach with anxiety the whole time, but I got it done, and then I posted and people said it was funny! And it had good worldbuilding! They liked it! And I drank some coffee and sat down to read it and went what do you know, I also like this, I think it's funny. Sometimes when I go oh god can I actually write comedy I go back to this one and I remind myself that yes, I can feel out how punchlines work. Also that I should write more origins, it's delightful.

tagging: @chrysalizzm, @imperialkatwala, @creetchure, @lennjamin-o7, @droidofmay

(don't feel obligated, any of you, I was just mentally paging through the people I follow trying to find people who hadn't already been tagged.)

[justices-blade]

☆ did someone say anniversary munday

from neffi!! thank you :D

celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

repost, don't reblog. only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

happy anniversary, TOA! here's to many more years spent together.

name: leo

pronouns: he/him

birthday: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

where are you from? what is your time zone? the states, but im in europe now and i aint plannin to leave, baybey. CEST!

how long is your roleplay experience? uhhh 13 years of which 11 were on tumblr. the passage of time is horrifying

how were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? deviantart sonic oc self inserts. dont say anything

how were you introduced to TOA? im an avid skimmer of the tellius tag on tumblr and saw toa crop up a few times in the past but the concept of fodlan as a setting fundamentally scared me for a good while because it was the only fe game i wasnt even remotely familiar with. then one winter holiday in 2022 i saw neffis leonardo crop up in the tag and i was like lmfao it would be fucking hilarious if i started writing edward again right and then i blacked out for the next 12 hours and suddenly im here.

do you have any pets? nope. i do want a rat a spider or a snake though. maybe a toad even

what is your favorite time of year and why? autumn... its the cusp of summer and autum weather rn actually and im freaking thriving

what is your IRL occupation? graphic design student (help)

some interests and things you like/enjoy? gaming and writing are the no-brainers, but i also love dnd, drawing and making cosplay. despite being easily scared i also really like horror. also frogs are eternal i love frogs forever and ever

what non-fire emblem games do you play? currently it's mostly warframe, elden ring and arknights with some enstars on the side HAHA maybe xiv'll suck me back in soon < his ass still hasnt played dawntrail

favorite pokemon type & pokemon: favorite type is ghost, but the charcadet line has RICOCHETED to the top of my favorite pokemon list over spiritombs throne LMFAO

tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! i once wrote a poem based off of haurchefant greystone of ffxiv fame for korean school because i could not fucking think of anything else and i won a fucking award (minor) for a competition i didnt even know i was getting myself into????

i also inject frogs into any art assignments that i really dont want to do so i find the motivation to do them lmfao

how did you get into fire emblem? smash bros brawl baybey. i watched my friend play awakening for a bit but i only owned a wii (region locked. american. we were in europe) so i crawled to my dad all sopping wet and pathetic to ask if he could pretty please buy me por while he was on a business trip to i think LA. he brought back rd instead.

what fire emblem games have you played? hilariously exactly the same amount as last time (sorry) (gba, tellius, 3ds, engage)

first & favorite fire emblem games: radiant dawn all the way babyyyy

list your 5 favorite fire emblem characters across the series! chad leonardo edward limstella micaiah. yep

who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? can be any context and reason! leonardo showed his pretty face on the screen when i was 14 and it was over for me

any fire emblem crushes? 😳leonardo showed his pretty face on the screen when i was 14 and it was over for me.

jokes aside im not sure i do crushes but if we're talking about current i think pandreo applies

if you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first s support? who would you s support nowadays? - awakening: stahl or miriel - fates: hinata... or beruka - three houses: jeritza probably i am going to be so real - engage: pandreo.

favorite fire emblem class? are thieves meant to be a gimmick/utility class. yes. do i care? BOY OH BOY. rogue my beloved... (also i inevitably end up doting on at least one archer and anima mage)

if you were a fire emblem character, what would be your class and stats? would you be playable? weirdly magic-heavy thief i think. playable only if he likes your vibes. probably have to recruit him like cath. i'm not even that good i'm best used for meteor/bolting/bersesrk etc bait

if you were a three houses character, what would be your affiliation? golden deer!

if you were an officers academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? boon in faith+axe, bane in riding+heavy armor, hidden talent in authority. no it does not mean i want to be in charge. but alas im reasonably good at it.

if you were an engage character, which nation would you originate from? i thought on elusia for a while but honestly i think its firene for me. i will never say no to citrus.

how do you pronounce TOA? 🤔toe-ah...

current TOA muses: edward, chad, denning

past TOA muses? its just been these three so far baybey

who was your first TOA muse? if you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? [gripping edward really hard as i hold him out towards the camera] this boy has lived in my brain rent fucking free for 11 years he is a vital part of my deciding whether i get fries with my burger order atp

do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? reiterating this from the last time i filled this out: little guys and pensive freaks. i also fundamentally like characters who experience internal conflict of interests between their morality and their loyalty/duty/other social trappings. its tasty!

do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? i love digging deep into lore and piecing it together even if its not immediately evident and a bit fragmented (its the soulsborne enjoyer in me). BUT if i need to do this for a main or major character with a bajillion dialogue and context clues strewn across three playthroughs of a game and i could easily overlook things i would be a little too scared of getting soemthing wrong. "oh x loves orange juice" "WRONG x said as a one off in the middle of this heavy story segment that he hates orange juice and prefers strawberry milk actually" i would fucking die. i would die

what kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? UNRELIABLE NARRATION. shit you look at and go "hm that aint whats going on rn at all". love that shit. i try to not overuse it but i love when it becomes more evident midway through a scene. good stuff. i also love writing impulsive stupid responses and vividly descriptive scenes, but also i love writing affection and devotion in general, even if exceptionally gooey and cavity-inducing, even if ill-advised and misplaced. there's so much more i can add here but i love writing i love writing with people i love writing with y'all. love and peace.

and violence. i used to be scared of fight scenes but now i love thinking in those milliseconds between the violence. flurries and slurries of blood. can i rip more shit apart pretty please

do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man i hope i get to write this one day”? [stuffs my fist in my mouth and screams]

incredibly loosely speaking. i want edward to realise he's been a bit fucked up actually and have to sit in that thought instead of shrugging past it as usual. i want chad to sit with someone and just connect with them so they don't feel as alone (yes this has happened i just love when this happens). i want denning to forcibly feel an emotion, and whether they get better or worse from it might depend entirely on their company.

favorite TOA-related memories? sorry that i keep bringing up edwards 37.5 damage astra during the final fight of apollyon ouranos i just can't stop thinking about it. that's so much fucking damage. that said i loved banding together against the impossible and FUCKING WINNING

present or past tense? uhhh present < just had to go back to check

normal size text, small text, no preference? normal size is a bit easier for me to read, but i have no real preference

got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 either you know my delusions or you don't . at any rate i don't think my rosters going to move anytime soon

[nocasdatsgay]

From the Heart: a spring time affairs fic

For @tamlinweek day 2 poet

Pairings: Tamlin/OC/Lucien/Elain (implied)

Rating: T | Word Count: 1012 | Masterlist | AO3 Link

Summary: Ez asks Tamlin about the poems he wrote for Flora during their courtship.

Warnings: implied polycule, OC/Lucien implied interruption of fun time, bad poetry, a child, crude humor

A/N: okay I swear I’m done and taking a break now 🫣😅 also Tamlin’s limericks are corny. Just be aware 😂 also if this doesn’t meet the rules I can remove the tags

Once Ez got older, every weekend Tamlin made a point to spend time with him. They were in the library that particular afternoon. Tamlin was reading and Ez had been too before he abandoned his book for coloring pens. It was silent save for the clock ticking. Until Ez looked up from his paper.

“Papa, is it true you wrote poems for mama?”

Tamlin looked up from his book. He narrowed his gaze at his son's innocent face.

“And who told you that?”

“Lu said you wrote poems for mama. Before you married. He said you didn’t know how to flirt so you put your feelings on paper.”

Tamlin was going to murder Lucien. “Yes, Ez. I wrote poems for your mother.” He ignored the flirting remark for now.

“Can I read them?” His son's eyes were wide with excitement.

“I’d have to find them.”

A lie. Tamlin panicked internally, again cursing Lucien. His poems- limericks really, were silly and crude. They also had topics his son was not old enough to be reading about. Or ever considering they were to his mother. The one Tamlin wrote about Flora’s breasts came to mind. His cheeks heated but his son didn’t seem to notice.

“Maybe mama has them!” Ez gasped. “I’ll go ask.”

“No.” Tamlin stood from his chair. His son froze in place. “I mean mama is busy. We can ask her at dinner. It’ll be. Surprise.”

That seemed to do it.

“Okay papa.” And Ez went back to coloring.

Tamlin needed to find his wife and warn her. He closed his book and stood from his chair.

“I’ll be right back. You keep drawing and you can show me your progress when I return.”

Ez nodded, not looking up from his paper. With that Tamlin left the library. He knew exactly where Flora was and hopefully he was about to kill two birds with one stone. He went through the old nursery and knocked on the door that joined their rooms. He didn’t wait for a reply, using his magic to unlock the door. Sure enough Flora was pulling the sheet up on her body and Lucien was doing the same with the duvet.

“Gods Tam, I thought you were Ez.” Flora let out a sigh of relief.

“Lucien,” Tamlin glared at him. “Why did you tell our son I wrote his mother poems?” Lucien fell back on the pillows laughing. “This is not funny. He’s asking to see them.”

“Oh no.” Flora’s eyes went wide.

“Exactly!” Tamlin put his hands on his hips. “He’s going to ask you at dinner to get them.”

“He asked me what I was doing yesterday and I told him I was writing poems,” Lucien was still laughing. “He asked what those were and I said it was what you used to court your wife with.”

Flora kicked her foot under the blanket. “I liked those poems thank you very much.”

“You’re both forgetting how inappropriate they are. And not for our son to see.” Tamlin huffed, brushing back his long hair nervously.

“Well, not all of them were inappropriate.” Flora let the sheet fall while she thought. “I can find a few clean ones and show them.”

“I would rather you didn’t.”

Lucien sat up still grinning after he finally stopped laughing. “Tam, what’s the worst that could happen?”

As it turned out, the worst that could happen was Ez having an honest tongue like Lucien. At dinner, Flora handed him two of the tamest poems. Ez looked at the first one while he ate, all of them silent while he read.

“Papa, these aren’t good.” Ez furrowed his brows. “You like this, mama?”

The whole table erupted with laughter. Even Tamlin, with his face in his hand, had to laugh. Ez did not take that well. He shrunk into his seat, trying to hide. Elain noticed first, being closest.

“Honey, we’re not laughing at you.” Ez didn’t seem to be buying it. “You said something funny just now that is all.”

“Brutal honesty is the term,” Lucien pointed his fork at Ez. “Always be honest. Cauldron knows your father needs it.”

“For what it’s worth,” Flora grabbed one of the poems, looking it over again. “I like it because it came from the heart. Even if it isn’t the best, it’s still from him. Your papa wrote it for me and I always treasure that. That’s why I kept them, my pumpkin.”

Tamlin took his wife’s hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back at him lovingly.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he turned to their son. “We can go over some poetry books. Look up the rules and both of us take turns writing. You can help me improve.”

The way Ez beamed at him melted his heart and made the mild embarrassment worth it. When Ez looked away, he still shot Lucien a look that said this wasn’t over. Then again, Tamlin realized from the way Lucien grinned back, that was probably his plan all along.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Flora was laughing so hard she was wheezing. After putting Ez to bed, Flora pulled some of the more questionable limericks out.

“Your breasts are the size of a melon. It makes me want to act like a felon,” she couldn’t read the rest from laughing so hard. “I don’t even know what a felon is!”

It was Tamlin’s turn to laugh.

“You didn’t say that when I first gave it to you.” He used his teeth to nip at her ear.

“Our boy was correct to question my judgment. How did I ever read these and think ‘gosh Tamlin is so sexy for writing that’?”

“Is that a challenge wildflower?”

The air in the room changed dramatically, both of their scents sweetening as they looked each other in the eyes.

Tamlin chuckled again. “You question my methods yet I can smell you just like the day I gave it to you.”

“That’s because it’s you, love,” she replied, tapping his nose with her index finger.

The limericks and poems were quickly abandoned to the floor shortly after.

[duckprintspress]

Meet Aether Beyond the Binary Contributors Em Rowntree and Kelas Lloyd

Today, we spotlight two more of the creators contributing to our current crowdfunding project Aether Beyond the Binary(a collection of 17 aetherpunk settings starring characters outside the gender binary): Em Rowntree and Kelas Lloyd!

Cadillac’s Bus by Em Rowntree

About Em: Em Rowntree’s first foray into the world of writing was with a story called The Magic Land that featured a unicorn and a flying carpet the size of a country, and they’ve been chasing that high ever since. They’ve been sharing their writing online for almost nine years, and have had poems and short stories published in anthologies. They live in the UK.

Links: Twitter

This is Em’s second contribution to a Duck Prints Press anthology; they also wrote a story for Add Magic to Taste.

Title: Cadillac’s Bus

Tags: pending

Excerpt: 

From their vantage point, the kid couldn’t see the rally racer inside. Couldn’t see the black gloves with one white star of pure aetherlight painted on each fingertip. Couldn’t see the curled mess of long grey hair. Couldn’t see the steely, hungry, fiercely joyful look on their face as their vehicle plunged on through the moorland. But the kid could picture it all, down to the last detail.

They put their hands in the air.

“CADILLAC JONES!” they yelled, loud enough for the cow to hear them a few hundred yards away and lift its head – but nowhere near loud enough for Cadillac Jones themself to know their name was being screamed as they disappeared out of sight, away down the track. “CADILLAC JONES FOREVER! YES! THE BEST –” The kid turned to left and right as though looking for someone to tell, but there was no one beside them. “THE BEST! CADILLAC JONES FOREVER! YES!”

They stood, overwhelmed, keeping the moment alive as long as they could. A few minutes after the rally racer had turned the next corner and gone out of sight, another vehicle came hurtling round the bend after them. The kid lifted their arms again – and this time turned their open hands into raised middle fingers.

“YOU SUCK!” they screamed in delight, a smile of joy splitting their face.

True by Kelas Lloyd

About Kelas: Kelas is a disabled, trans, bi author and artist currently (unfortunately) living in Texas. They graduated from the University of Central Florida with an English degree and love cats, tea, and all things speculative fiction. A lot of their writing features magic or disability or both, and they’re often found in Star Trek, Mass Effect, Babylon 5, and Untamed spaces. You can also find them in a lot of bead and resin spaces, because they love making sparkly jewelry of all sorts. 

Previously published pieces include an article on disability in The Last Of Us, short stories in two publications by Shacklebound Books, a pair of poems about being trans, an essay on disabled life, and a whole bunch of pieces about San Diego Comic-con. They’re single, an Ernie looking for their Bert, but they have a found family that stretches around the globe and some of their birth family accepts them for who they are. 

You can find out more about them at kelaslloyd.com

Links: Personal Website | Archive of Our Own | Twitter

This is Kelas’s first time writing with Duck Prints Press.

Title: True

Tags: character study, foster family, found family, friends, genderfluid, magic use, non-binary, present tense, self-esteem issues, teenager, third person limited pov, transphobia (mentions of)

Excerpt: 

“Oh,” Eva says, trying to recover. “Yeah, okay. So what’s the procedure? Are you gathering up all the ducklings and then herding us over?”

Paul looks at them as if they can see through the joking tone Eva’s adopted. “You’ve got a map in your booklet. I’m here, so I introduced myself, but there’s a schedule in there too. Everyone here is old enough to herd themselves; I’m here for support.”

“So you catch us in the trust-fall exercises,” Eva says, opening up the booklet to find the map and schedule.

“No, I make sure to drop everyone during those.”

Eva’s gaze snaps up to catch Paul’s grin just before it turns into a faint smile.

“You’re here because you’re struggling with aether,” Paul continues. “Most of the time a teen is struggling, it’s because they don’t know themselves well enough yet to let it flow through them the way as it’s supposed to. That’s what I help with.”

Make sure you visit our Kickstarter campaign page to learn about the collection, take a peek at the merchandise, read more excerpts, and more!

[cooking-with-hailstones]

Thanks for the tag @bahbahhh :D

Rules: Give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and your fic with the least amount of words.

Most hits: Shadows: an epistolary poem from Steve Rogers to Bucky Barnes Outing myself here as a former marvel girlie lol. Winter Soldier had a vice-like grip on my psyche as a 17yo. I'm still kinda proud of this one ngl.

Second most kudos: Is That A Yes? My first foray into writing NSFW! This was a lot of fun - Link and Zelda reminding each other of what it means to be human, not only the Goddesses chosen vessels. (porn with plot zelink oneshot)

Third most comments: A chance encounter at the blood clinic TBH I'm so proud of this modern au. It is so silly. (What if you meet your soulmate because you fainted at the blood clinic?) Gen Zelink one-shot (unless I finally write the second chapter that's still bonking around in my brain)

Fourth most bookmarks: Silk and Moonlight This was a collab with bahbahhh for Zelinktines 2023! B did the art, and I'm still not over how beautifully it turned out. Inspired by a vintage silk nightgown I own.

Fifth most words: Is that a yes, again, but I'm going to take the opportunity to shout out my Kass & Link being buddies fic, which has the 6th most words: Bright is the ring of words

Least amount of words: We only have each other Okay, look, I was really bored at work one night and the line "do you wanna punch a nazi?" just appeared in my head to the tune of "do you wanna build a snowman" and so I wrote a parody Stucky version of the whole song and it is just as ridiculous as it sounds.

Tagging @louwhose @pikayay213 and @drsteggy !