#OH ALSO A LOT OF THEM ARE ILLUSTRATED

[saphira-approves]

Alright buckle up y’all, I’ve got a book series recommendation and propaganda under the cut for any fans of the Inheritance Cycle.

If you read our beloved farmboy-turned-dragon-rider books and had a particular fondness for: the idea of an order of individuals chosen to be both partner and rider to powerful and beautiful magical creatures; Snowfire; an immortal evil that resurfaces in disguised and unexpected forms (specifically referencing the Draumar cult which we now know had influence in Galbatorix’s rise to power); and/or the juicy juicy drama of complicated parent-child relationships, then oh boy do I have a recommendation for you.

Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series, comprising of many, MANY individuals novels, trilogies, and short story anthologies. I don’t currently have a count for the exact total of published books, as I’ve been getting most of these from my local secondhand bookstore, but she’s been publishing these books since 1987 and is still writing them today in 2024.

Since this is such a huge collection, it can be hard to know where to start, so first of all I’d like to assure you that you can start pretty much anywhere, with any of the individual novels or series, so long as you make sure to find the first installment of that series. Personally I started with The Black Gryphon, which seems to be one of the chronologically earliest books; Arrows of the Queen of the Heralds of Valdemar trilogy would also be a good place to start, being the first published Valdemar book, though I haven’t actually read it yet—I only just got my copy today, actually!

At any rate, wherever you start, there’s a lot to look forward to. Lackey has a knack for writing characters with depth and complexity, giving them flaws that are so well balanced by endearments that even at their worst, you can still understand and empathize with them; she absolutely refuses to write idiot-plots, allowing her characters not only to remain consistent with their established characterizations, but also to communicate with each other and allow their relationships to evolve as the characters do. Characters are allowed to make mistakes, be vain and stubborn and prideful, get angry, get jealous, get scared, and yet afterward still be received with love and forgiveness when they apologize. The magic is beautifully described and, at least for me, easy to understand; the schemes are clever, diabolical, and exciting to watch unfold. There is true, pure evil in the villains, and satisfaction in their endings.

There’s also a decent amount of diversity, which may or may not be surprising, depending on what you’ve read of 80s/90s SFF. Of the handful of books I’ve read so far, here are my observations: Lackey writes fantastic and complex women full of depth, emotion, and ingenuity, each as different from each other as their backgrounds would demand. There are several canonically queer characters across the timeline, including a main protagonist. Lackey’s worldbuilding establishes several unique and disparate cultures, drawing clear influence from many non-European real life sources, with featured characters of those cultures given, in my opinion, respectful and appreciative spotlights. There are characters with disabilities, respected both by the narrative and the characters around them. There are also non-human cultures, characters, and protagonists!

As fantastic as I have been finding these books, it would be remiss of me not to add that these books will not be for everyone. They are firmly adult fantasy, and Lackey does not pull her punches when she wants her characters to suffer. There is torture, sexual assault, suicide. Not all of this is graphically described, but some certainly is; most of the graphic stuff I have so far read is of about the same intensity as the torture scenes of Inheritance, but some of the abstractions are much more intense, and I get the sense that some of what I haven’t yet read may be both graphic and visceral. That being said, if you could handle Game of Thrones’ graphic violence and assault but disliked the persistent pessimism of that series, this one might be right up your alley!

Anyway. That’s all from me for now. I’m off to go read about characters bonding with magical creatures somewhat beyond mortal ken and going on fantastic and harrowing magical adventures. :)

[xandrikart]

I've been in a BSD mood lately. Sadly it involves me thinking about those two and then crying at least once a day.

[deoidesign]

Doing master studies the only way I know how: Stealing them and making them my guys.

(Barberini Faun)

(The Fallen Angel - Alexandre Cabanel)

(Covent Garden - William Bruce Ellis Rankin)

[redactedcrowart]

regardless, i wasn't built to be alone

part of this series 1 ; 2 ; 3 ; 4

[erufin-art]

Figured I should maybe post some of the droners stuff I've made

[echonidae]

:"3c first batch of doodle commissions!! thank you all again Han, Vivid-Myth over on dA, Squidice over at @iced-squid, Tanija at @tanijathefaun, and Kanahani over on dA also!! :"D also, quick doodle orders are still open (they've yet to close, actually!!), and the queue is running on the lower side as well!! :"3c they're $5 USD each, a lil' 1000x1000px 30min doodle of your OC!! more info on them over here!! (*^▽^*)

also-also!! :3c i'll be taking (for the first time ever since starting to offer commissions) a proper bit of time-off and away from commission work, from October 14th to November 19th!!! :"D (doodles will then take a break too for the meantime, and i'll message everyone on queue too prior to it, but i'd like to let folks know right away here too!!)

(more commission-related things under the read-more :3c)

this past while, i've been working on getting a new commission batch open as i've nearly reached the end of the queue for the big orders as well, but i'm afraid i won't be able to work on much until the Oct. date– i'd very much rather avoid opening new slots only to make folks who already paid for their orders wait for a whole month on any and all updates. that said, even if i can't get new slots open now, i certainly shall have them up once i'm back on November 19th, and ready to go!! :"3c there shall be announcements prior to my going away too (option updates!! and a new option for the bigger orders too!! :'D), so i'm mentioning now but i'll talk about it at length soon!! for now tho, i hope you like these here doodles c: and i shall continue working on doodle orders until Oct. 14th!! (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

[mildmayfoxe]

my huge sticker order came 😈 accidentally made my reorder of my little skeletons a half inch smaller than usual HAHAHAH WHOOPS! so i guess special edition mini minis coming soon

[sydney-carton-of-sour-milk]

The Many Illustrators of A Tale of Two Cities 7: A. A. Dixon

"'Collins' Clear-Type Press, let me ask you a question.'"

This is a very long post.

This week's edition has, in my research, become quite the edition.

Sadly, this image is the best source for the cover wrapper illustration that I could find.

You are likely familiar with Arthur Augustus Dixon's illustrations for the 1905 Collins Pocket Edition of A Tale of Two Cities. Several of them are very common to find in Internet searches and articles about the book, if not other editions of the book itself.

But the question raised by my research for this week's edition is: Are you familiar with all of them?

Thing is, as the source above states (read the whole article if you have the time, it's very interesting!), Dixon created twelve illustrations for this novel.

And sure enough, this source from the Internet Archive and this source from @oldillustrations (hello!) both have eleven of the same illustrations - with the twelfth presumably being for the wrapper, as seen in this source (previously cited) from the Victorian Web.

Alright, so that's three separate sources, all with (effectively) the same set of elaborate illustrations from 1905. Neat!

...

...but if you start counting...

...you'll notice that this seems...

...like a lot more than twelve!

Basically, there are five illustrations by A. A. Dixon that are completely unaccounted for in any of the three sources previously cited.

For the purposes of this post, the cover wrapper is considered #0 and is not pictured in these banners.

In full-size set of illustrations in this post, this source from Google Books is the source of four of those mystery illustrations:

#3: "'He stared at her with a fearful look.'" #6: "'Drive him fast to his tomb.'" #7: "He said, 'Farewell!'" #12: "'She appeared with folded arms.'" #9 ("'Patriots and friends, we are ready!'") and #11 ("'You are consigned to La Force.'") are sourced from Google Books in the full-size versions in this post simply because the Internet Archive versions of those two illustrations had cropping issues.

To me, this is mystery enough on its own. Why would another version of the book suddenly have more than the originally-stated number of illustrations by this artist? Especially considering that the Google Books source does not have #13 ("''I know you, Evremonde!''") - why would it be missing one of the "main" set?

It gets even more interesting.

As you'll notice in the banner, we're still one off: Keen-eyed observers of the full-size set of illustrations might have already noticed that #14 ("'Carton and the spy returned.'") looks a bit different than the rest of them - a bit like what happened in the previous edition of this series!

That's because that Dixon illustration comes from this completely random source - a post from a blog called the Paperback Palette dating back to 2018 - that I happened across on Google Images of all places while sitting on an airplane trying to set up this post last week!

And to top it all off, that source is missing #6!

At this point, if your first instinct is, reasonably, that perhaps Dixon didn't actually illustrate these extra five and that it was someone imitating him for later editions, then know that that was my instinct too - until I (dare I say it again) checked those signatures!!!

(I edited the colors to prevent flashing.)

All five of those illustrations bear Dixon's signature, so it's safe to assume that they are A. A. Dixon originals - from 1905, even.

Interestingly, #s 1, 10, 13, 15, and 16 don't have signatures! Does this mean anything? Probably not - as an artist myself, I often forget to put my own signature - but still, I can't resist mentioning it!

So the most likely explanation here is simply that the publishing house originally commissioned A. A. Dixon for more than twelve illustrations and then held on to some of them, eventually choosing to publish them in other editions. Still, we can't say for sure.

And as to why some are missing from the more "complete" sets - human error, most likely!

If you scrub through the Google Books source, you'll notice that #s 11 and 12 actually repeat (one even changes color, which I have no explanation for) - it's most likely either that the book was accidentally printed with repeats of #s 11 and 12 where 13 and 14 were supposed to go or that the person scanning this edition made a similar error.

As an aside, it's so interesting that the illustrations are evenly spaced throughout the book - I had not noticed that until now!

And as for the Paperback Palette source, it's most likely that the blogger accidentally skipped over an image while combing through their edition or just glossed over it when posting the batch (I understand that from experience!) We can see this by adding up the letters in some of the illustrations' captions - doing so reveals that the letters are meant to go to P, the sixteenth letter of the alphabet.

Thus, one must be missing! Case closed!

Except... It's actually (going by both the chronology of the book and the order in which this set was found in Google Books) missing the wrong letter! Here, it seems that In the Google Books source, #7 in the full set is given the seventh letter in the alphabet, G - whereas in the Paperback Palette source, "#7" is labeled as the sixth, F:

This implies not only that #6 is absent from the Paperback Palette source but also that there is a missing mystery illustration located between this source's H and K - that is to say, before or after #9!

EXCEPT... For one, this isn't the only inconsistency I've noticed - there are several places where the letters seem shifted in a strange way. I've seen #2 listed as "C" and #9 listed both as "H" and "I2i" (???), just as two examples. (My theory is that the cover wrapper and the frontispiece may be at play here, but who knows?)

More importantly, though, it seems that, for some mysterious reason, all of the sources with relatively consistent use of these letters (i.e. all but the Victorian Web) - even the sources with only eleven interior illustrations - still give #15 in the full set the fifteenth letter, O. Which, of course, may make all of this pretty moot anyway.

Dare I say..."Oh."

Suffice it to say, just as much as major sources like the Internet Archive and Google Books are vital to this sort of research and preservation work, so are smaller websites and bloggers! After all, without the Victorian Web and the Paperback Palette, we as collective netizens likely wouldn't have ever known about the cover wrapper or illustration #14 (not to mention that the versions of the illustrations from the set posted by @oldillustrations have by far the best image quality and standardization that I've found! Please go check them out if you haven't yet!).

As for the reasons behind Collins' Clear-Type Press not publishing all of the illustrations from the beginning (if that's the explanation we're to go with here), I suppose the question I'd like to ask is:

why? why would you put us through this?

& the standard endnote for all posts in this series:

This post is intended to act as the start of a forum on the given illustrator, so if anyone has anything to add - requests to see certain drawings in higher definition (since Tumblr compresses images), corrections to factual errors, sources for better-quality versions of the illustrations, further reading, fun facts, any questions, or just general commentary - simply do so on this post, be it in a comment/tags or the replies!💫

[keymintt]

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! You got the mural job, that's amazing news =D

THANK YOU!!! i've haven't quite done anythin like this before BUT i have enough experience from other projects to where it's not a super super daunting thing. like yeah it's Big and that'll have it's challenges but i'm excited !! :>

i don't know if i can show my proposal sketch off else i'd put it here but i will certainly show the finished mural off here once it's done >:3

[honkshoo-zzz]

been doodling more lately, missed my kids ;W;

[c0rpsedemon]

over here creating an extended web (hehe) of japan-based tma ocs bc of the fucking. entities as jfashion styles post.

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

Judas in the Window (18+)

pairing: priest(apprentice)!chan x fem!collegestudent!reader

genre: ANGST ANGST and smut (mdni), childhood best friends to..?

description: you return home from college, after not seeing your old town for three years. your childhood best friend has been waiting for you.

warnings: no. genuinely so sad. religious guilt, blasphemy ig, slutshaming, degradation (f. receiving), praise (f. receiving), desperation, fingering (f. receiving), humiliation, unprotected sex (do not do this shit), brief breeding kink, mentions of past unhappiness, reader has beef with her old self fr, alcohol consumption, pet names (darling, baby, some more i dont recall), LOTS of biblical references, i warned you this is incredibly sad and wether it's a good ending is certainly debatable, reader has both her parents (if u dont, same, just imagine the dad as adam sandler and the mom as gwendoline christie), the dad is the best character x

quotes from my proofreader: "i have a new pair of panties at the ready", "im horny and angry, some say hangry", "AAAAAA"

wordcount: 8.3k

a/n: it is 2:30 am. my proofreader is asleep and i might go crazy if i dont post this now, so if there are any mistakes in the last part i am sorry, ill fix it later lmao

Your room hasn’t changed a bit.

You’re not sure why the sight knocks the wind out of you. You suppose you’d thought your parents might do something with it - maybe give your dad a “man cave” or whatever other pained, heteronormative solution to hating each other. But it’s the same exact thing. Your bed, horrible orange wood, pink princess sheets, and your desk right beside you where you stand in the doorway, all cluttered with glitter pens and marker sets and a small mirror. 

“Isn’t this great, honey?” your mom squeals, old hands squeezing your shoulders. It takes you a second to reply. You’re not even sure you want to step inside the room. “Yeah, yeah, it’s great, mom.” 

“I’m getting dinner ready, you just settle yourself in!” she says, practically vibrating at your presence. She’s so happy, it jabs at your stomach with guilt, that you can’t even bring yourself to enter. You watch her disappear down the stairs, making a funny face when she catches your eye. You half-smile tiredly. Then you’re looking at it again.

It’s like a totally closed off time capsule. Your fingers play with the doorframe, looking at the stains in the carpet, that you vividly remember creating as a clumsy child. You see the stickers on your closet-door, and the faint outline of the stickers you’d taken down. You see toys, whose names you remember, you see terrible drawings over your bed, hung with glitter tape, and you see yourself. The you that you were certain you’d stuck in the dirt and buried. The one you’d worked over-over-overtime to never see again. She was somehow alive and well in this room. A part of you roamed with a horde of anxiety, birthed by the thought that once you entered, you and her would fuse together, and all the flaws you’d had would be reignited, and you would be miserable again.

“You not going in, champ?” you jump at your father’s voice behind you. You turn to see him exiting your parents’ bedroom, taking heavy, loggy steps towards the staircase. You shake your head: “No, I am, it’s just..” you pause and turn back to the room, letting out a heavy sigh. “It’s weird.” 

Your father pauses. He has his reading glasses pushed all the way down to the tip of his nose, so he leans his head back and squints to study you. “Well- well- well, why don’t you just try out for a bit, champ, and if you don’t like it, Uh, well, we’ll situate you on the couch. How’s- how’s that sound?” 

You smile softly. “Sure.” 

“Alright, champ,” he pats your back and finally starts his descent down the stairs. 

You nod to yourself and exhale deeply, face now turned back to the super menacing not-at-all-menacing room before you. Your fears are deeply irrational. You wouldn’t just revert back to your old self. Once you’re half believing it, you finally break the barrier, and take a step inside. 

It’s not so bad after all. Everything is very still. Dust kicked up from your presence slows down around you. You’re standing under the overhead lamp, and it’s not that bad. Not so bad. You drop your duffel bag and sit down on your bed. 

You feel a lot bigger, sitting with bent knees in the plush duvet. You recognize that you can’t be that much bigger than when you last sat here, 18 years old, heading off to college in the big city. And this was the kind of town where neighbors a dozen houses over came to see you off, waving at you with big smiles on their faces, an american flag hoisted up to the blue sky. You remember the grins stretched on their faces, and how you’d been panicked to start the ignition on the car. They’d looked like they were made of wax.

Movement flashes in your peripheral. You turn your head, brushing hair out of the way. The movement is coming from the crack in the curtains. Like Moses parting the red sea, your fingers delicately brush the flimsy fabrics away. You know exactly what - who - you’re about to see. Your heart presses, red and wet, into your throat. 

Chan.

He’s there in the window directly across from yours. You almost don’t recognize him at first. He’s shirtless, pacing around and picking things off the floor, and, God, he’d gotten so big. His arms are so shapely and firm and his stomach is toned and when he turns his back to you, you see how it ripples with muscle, and your mouth is drooping open in shock. 

This is Chan, you try to remember (memories flit of him in his dad’s baseball caps, him on the playground, or on the sandy paths that fade out from the roads on the outskirts of town), but grounding yourself in the memories of him as a kid only serves to hurt you. No, you decide, eyeing his naked torso through the glass, better remember him like this. Like an adult who has faults and wrongs, not an innocent child that you abandon in your haste to grow up. 

He’s looking at you. Suddenly, he’s fucking looking at you. For a moment it seems like he’s confused, maybe fighting with the danger of recognizing you as a real, actual person in the window. Then his eyes are softened and he’s hunched over the paneled window, face split in half as he stares back at you. He used to fit so easily in the frame of that window - now you watch his shoulders press against the framework, unable to squeeze in. 

Your cheeks are burning when you squeeze your eyes shut and smile apologetically. Your childhood best friend who you hadn’t seen in three years had just caught you staring at his fucking abs through his window. You fear he’ll take offense, especially considering how you’d left things off with him, but when you open your eyes, he’s grinning softly and shaking his head. 

He walks away from the small window, and you take this as your cue to leave as well. You fall back on the bed and groan pathetically, body jittery with embarrassment. 

“Y/n, sweetheart! Dinner now!” your mom caws from the floor beneath you and you feel 16 again. This was what you didn’t want. All the power you had accumulated was slipping through your fingers by the minute. 

It’s just five days, you remind yourself. Just five, measly days.

“Coming, mom!”  _____________________________

The fucking bell tower is going. Over and over again and it shouldn’t be this loud, you’re not that close to the church, but it is. 

You lie flat on your back in the smoldering dark, completely still. It’s so loud it feels like it’s coming from inside your head. Like the curved, rusted sides of it are bashing against your skull. You don’t understand how anyone could sleep through this. You don’t understand how Chan could stay here all these years. Maybe that’s just because you couldn’t see yourself here.

You don’t want to think about Chan anymore, but for whatever reason - you can’t decide if it was seeing him (so manly) so suddenly, or if it’s the ever-ringing bell in the distance, like a marker of the apocalypse - he won’t leave your mind tonight. Part of you understood that what had happened with you and Chan was natural, and not particularly anyone’s fault. So why did you still carry the heavy burden of guilt? Guilt that pinched at your nerve endings like the delicate tunes in a children’s music box.

You and Chan had met as children in church. It didn’t take long for you to be best friends. You’d sit next to each other on the neatly lined benches during sermon, then you’d tumble in the grass outside, and then you’d go to his house and play until dinner, after which you’d see each other again, talking from window to window. You spent very nearly every moment with him.

Then you grew apart.

It was a slow death. Seeing each other became a sort of horrific reminder that it was ending, no longer bound by church or friendship, but a mutual understanding. There’d be a sort of solemn silence whenever you locked eyes. Is this the last time? You’d wonder, and the longer it went on, the more you started to wish that it was.

And then it was. 

It was your fault. You were 13 and suddenly you were wearing makeup and your dresses were getting shorter, and you wished you were much older than you were. You started forgetting the principles they’d taught you in church. Or maybe you’d never really learnt it, only tolerated it for Chan. But years passed and by the time you were sixteen, you were being kissed and groped at parties and you were having sex in cars and smearing your lipstick on the rims of shot glasses. 

And Chan was.. Well, Chan. Chan was a skinny, virgin christian. And you liked him, but suddenly there wasn’t much to talk about. From one day to the next, all discussable topics evaporated in your hand, and talking to Chan became a stumbling, bumbling mess. 

After that you were just…. Gone. 18 years old disappearing down the dirt roads in the 2009 Toyota Tacoma, that you’d gotten for your sweet sixteen. Chan was standing on the roadside that day, but he wasn’t sure you saw him. Your wheels kicked up dust and that was all you left behind. A cloud of sand for him to grab at, looking lost in between your tire tracks. At that moment it felt like those last years were two seconds. You just slipped right out of his hands. 

Lying in bed and your heart is so heavy. Maybe it isn’t Chan, you conclude. Maybe it’s what he represented. The face of the church; the face of goodness, of purity; the face of the life you deselected. 

The cry of the bell tower becomes a song in the night. You fall asleep in the devil’s hour. _____________________________

The following day you’re reexploring. The air is dry and the sun beating down on your shoulders. You’re walking through the suburbs and then later the small town square made up of mostly parking lots. You feel peregrine, but trudging through on the pavement, it becomes clear you’re the only one who feels this way. 

Every citizen, every single one of them - in polos, in flower-print dresses, in sandals, in sunglasses - stops you to welcome you back home. They’re shaking your shoulders and they recognize you and can tell you your name and your age, and they say that it’s good you found your way back. Every interaction leaves you more depressed than the last. You’re ducking your head, crumpled up like an unsent love letter. 

Your steps are heavy, your own sandals dragging into the uneven tiles of the square. Then you’re lifting your head from the ground, and your feet have betrayed you. 

You’re standing in the opening to another street of storefronts, and 5 rows of neatly planted trees down, the church sprouts from the earth like a stake. 

It’s not just any small town church. A few steps lead up to a plateau, supported by large, white beams. They may not be Roman, but they’re there, and they’re made of smooth concrete. The building itself is made of red brick, although the color varies and looks dappled. Each side of the church has two stained glass windows, which you remember from your childhood. The door, huge and oaken, ends in a point right beneath a round window, and the bell tower shoots up, a mighty cross at its peak. 

You’re left a little breathless at it. You don’t remember it being so menacing. But there’s also something beautiful about it. How it looks at you like it’ll kill you. And how blunt it is about it. You’re blinking at it and wondering how you got here. It’s as if something’s possessed you, because despite knowing better, you begin to take calm steps towards it, eyes transfixed and soulless. 

You’re walking into the courtyard, gravel underfoot, and then you’re traversing up the steps, fingers barely brushing over the railing. Idling forward, you’re opening the door. 

“And when Mary birthed the-” 

Crrrrreeeeeeeaaaaaaaaak!

Every head snaps towards you, as you’re cracking the door open, and the trance lifts from you. Oh, shit. Your gaze grazes over the stacked benches, smiling apologetically and bopping your head.

You clear your throat. “I’m-” 

You lock eyes with the priest, whose service you just interrupted, where he’s standing before the crowd, bible in hand.

It’s Chan. 

“I’m sorry,” you squeak, voice now much meeker, and you don’t even know what to do, so you just step inside and sit down on the nearest bench. Slowly (and with low scoffs) the sea of heads turn around. One pair of eyes don’t leave you though. Chan studies you for several seconds longer, searching for something in your eyes, but you’re looking away. You just want him to continue. He does.

This is crazy, you think, and you can hardly believe you’re hearing his voice say those words, and it’s him in the clerical shirt. You supposed it made sense. You supposed you understood. But actually you didn’t, not at all. Not when he was supposed to live and change and evolve and here he is years later, dedicating his life to the one and only thing he knows! 

You’re tuning out the rest of his talk, vaguely aware of how his eyes flit over to you a little too frequently. Soon enough you’re absently clasping your hands together in a prayer and then people are lining up to thank Chan for his stellar service. 

You watch them from your seat, debating whether or not to leave without talking to him. Leaving wasn’t a bad idea. You were only gonna be in town for a week more, surely, you could avoid him until then. 

But you know you won’t do that. You want to talk to Chan. You want to feel his hand in your own. Partially you felt like maybe you could save him from just being a decoration to this hellscape for the rest of his life. You’re not sure you could go on living your life, when you know he’s just back here - still here. 

So there you are, planted in the line and hoping to save him from some dull future, and he’s shaking hands and smiling, but you can see how he eyes you, coming up on the line. 

“Thank you, Chan,” you smile warmly, and his hand is grabbing yours and it’s so soft and so big. He’s smiling too. Then you’re coughing and correcting yourself: “Uh- Father. Chan.” 

He laughs at your sputtering, clapping your hand between his two: “Oh, thank you, sister.” Emphasizing with pursed lips and wide eyes. You laugh along a little, but it’s strained. 

His smile fades slowly, and his face relaxes. He wants to say more. His fingers are still pulling your hand to his, and you just keep shaking it, because if you stop, it’ll be weird. Officially. 

“Oh, do you two know each other?” A bobbed woman from behind you in line is purring, unfamiliar hand on your back, and she doesn’t wait for you to answer before she’s talking again: “So, how do you know each other?” 

“Childhood. Friends,” Chan stammers, almost looking at you for confirmation, and you’re nodding along when the woman “ah’s” and “ooh’s”. “Oh, that’s wonderful, you guys!” And then you’re listening to her talk about some trailer down in Cassandra, and how her brother is fixing it up with his old friend, but there’s water damage in the lining of the room, and it’ll mold if they’re not careful, and it’s such useless information, you’re wondering how you’ll ever forget it. 

“Mrs. Lark, uh, I think my,” he looks at you, lips pursed, “my friend here needs to go, so..” 

Mrs. Lark gasps, embarrassed: “Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right, I’m babbling,” and usually Chan would reassure her that she wasn’t, but he has more urgent matters on his hands. “Good day, Mrs. Lark!” he says and sends her off with a bright smile. There’s a few more people in line and Chan sighs a little. 

“Can you-” he’s a little sheepish, suddenly self conscious about the clergy shirt that grips his neck, “Can you wait? Here? Just until I’m done-” 

“Yeah,” you say. He smiles gratefully. 

Chatter continues behind you with a slight echo in the large room. You wait by one of the stained glass windows, arms around yourself as you stare up at it. Each and every window was a different biblical figure, made up of small shards of colored glass. You always found it strange, looking back, how your small town church had this grand artwork. The eyes of the window peer down at you.

“Judas,” Chan comments, planting himself beside you. His voice echoes slightly in the now empty church. The whole place is both too big and too small for the both of you. “It’s an interesting choice.” 

“What?” 

“Why you chose this window over any other,” Chan breathes, eyes darting down to you, and he’s looking at you very intensely. Then, it dissipates: “I’m also drawn to this one.” 

A pause.

“I wonder why they’d make this,” you quip, feeling small beside him. “I think whoever made this wanted all sides of Jesus’ story illustrated,” Chan says. You shrug. “If it were me, I wouldn’t.” 

Chan tilts his head to the side and looks at you again. Your cheeks burn, so you smile a little cheekily. “Was that not the right thing to say?” 

Chan’s smile is gentle and bemused - almost adoring. “There’s nothing you can say in here that is wrong.” 

“I don’t think that’s true,” you laugh and Chan follows along. “Oh, you don’t?” You’re both laughing together, glee filling the crevices of the holy place, while Judas eyes you from the window. Your laughter dies down again, and when the silence returns, your heart clenches nervously. There’s a beat. 

“You keep busy?” you ask and the two of you are now facing each other. He sighs and nods, looking around. “Yeah, yeah, I got a.. Like a church get-together thing in, like, two days. I’ll be.. Preaching."

“Preaching,” you repeat, smile a little too tight. You wish you could say he didn’t notice. “Big Mr. Priest..” 

He laughs: “Technically I’m a priest apprentice,” he says, arms crossing over his chest. You roll your eyes. “So humble.” 

“What about you? Keep busy?” 

“Yeah, college,” you sigh. “You done?” he asks and you shake your head. “I wish.” 

His expression softens until he’s frowning. You want to squirm under his gaze, only because he looks so sincere and worried and you haven’t seen each other in three years. “You look tired.” 

“That’s not-” you begin, covering the slight ache in your heart with a laugh, “I just- Couldn’t sleep last night.”

“I thought living in the big city had you sleeping like a rock when you got to our quiet town,” he teases with a half-smile.

You shake your head, looking upwards at the ceiling. “It was that bell tower, just ringing, all night.” You shrug. Chan’s brows furrow and he looks up as well, as if he’d be able to see it through the tile roof. 

“The…” he trails off, sounding lost, “The bell tower doesn’t ring at nig-” 

Beep! Beep!

“Shit- sorry!” you curse, when your phone goes off loudly. Chan stands still studying you, while you squint at your phone. “I think- I think I gotta go.” 

“Uh, yeah, sure,” he coughs, index finger rubbing over his taut knuckles. You’re pushing your phone into your back pocket again, when he reaches an arm out to you. “Uh-” he pulls back self-consciously, “Would you want to-.. Maybe, come to dinner at my place? Tomorrow?” 

You’re a little taken aback, looking at him with a softly open mouth for a moment. “Uh,” you fight back a wide smile, “Yeah, sure. I’d- I’d like that.” 

“Great,” Chan smiles too and nods. “Just- just at the house right next door, or?-”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s that one. Still,” Chan blushes breathlessly. You chuckle awkwardly. “Okay.” 

“Okay. See you then.”  _____________________________

You’re not sure why the prospect of having dinner with Chan has you so nervous. And it is just a dinner, you remind yourself, as you’re picking out your dress, just two friends catching up. After some 45 minute debate you pick out a pretty sundress.

You’d like to think there’s more to it than just the fact that Chan is suddenly very pretty and muscular. Maybe it’s the chance to make a wrong right. Maybe it’s to find out who this boy is, that was a key part of your life for so many years. Maybe you think you can change him.

Either way you’re just waiting for it all day, ignoring your dad trying to lure you out with trick shots from your garage. “HIYA!” he screams, throwing ping pong balls at your window all afternoon.

At 6:30 PM you’re standing at his door and hoping you don’t look too dolled up. His house also looks mostly identical to your memory of it. There’s something off about it though, and you study it momentarily, only to realize the front garden has overgrown. The grass comes up jagged and sharp, and the bushes bulge over the fence gate, brushing you when you waddle inside. You click the doorbell, wait a few seconds, and then begin to suspect that it didn’t work. Then you knock and you hear him fumbling around inside: “Coming!” 

He opens the door (with some struggle), and then you’re standing before each other. He’s so domestic, in a striped, brown sweater and dark blue jeans, and curly hair is framing his face like a crown. 

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

He gives you a once over, smiling shyly: “You look great.” 

“Thank you,” you bow a little, “you too.” 

Then he’s letting you inside and you’re kicking off your shoes haphazardly, while he fusses back to the kitchen. “I made bolognese, if you don’t mind!” he calls and when you enter into the living space, he’s stirring a pan vigorously. You giggle a little, smile falling at the sight of a cross on the wall behind you. “Uh, yeah, of course.” 

Slurping tomato-sauced pasta and drinking a half-expensive wine that Chan had bought, you two laugh together. You mostly talk about when you were kids, then he’s talking about joining the church and you’re talking about college. 

“Is it hard? Out there?” Chan slurs a little, both of you tipsy and warm from the wine, having moved to the couch after eating. Now, full and face burning hot, you’re looking at each other differently. Chan’s got one arm on the couch rest, the other swirling the wine in his glass. He’s smirking a little and you hate how hot he is.

“It’s.. Exciting,” you counter, a little confused at his tone. He's close enough to radiate warmth onto you, when his eyes dip down to your lips for a second. “Yeah. You like exciting,” he drinks down the rest of his wine and sets the glass on the couch table. The moon, that’s been slowly traversing the star-speckled sky, gives the glass a faint halo. Chan basks in the moonlight, half lit and half shadowed. 

“I do. I do like exciting,” you giggle dumbly, still unsure where he’s steering the conversation. Chan smiles adoringly, because there you are sitting all blushing and warm in a sundress on his couch. The warmth disappears from his eyes then. 

“Was it exciting to watch me undress?” 

Oh.

Shit. 

You almost spit out a half-drunken sip of wine, gulping it down painfully and shaking your head. You set the glass down. “Chan! I’m-” you’re scrambling, “I’m really, really sorry. I- I was just- It wasn’t about your body, I was thinking about-” 

“Shut up.” 

Your mouth falls agape at his tone, offended and caught off guard. He’s still beside you, eyes much sharper than you remember, much colder. “Stop treating me like I’m still a kid.” 

“Well, you haven’t changed much, Chan,” you scoff. 

“Yeah, that’s why you were looking at me through your fucking window,” he scoffs as well, “because I haven’t changed.” 

You sit in quiet disbelief, trying to stay mad when his face is so pretty and so close to yours, and his jaw is clenched and his cheeks are flushed from the wine. You’re deciding whether to spit back or diffuse the situation. “Look, I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m sorry.” 

The hand that was previously holding his glass lands on your knee. He leans in even further and you smell the sour air of wine on his breath. You shudder under his touch when he whispers: “I want you to be honest with me.” 

You’re looking up at him with wide eyes, heart beating in your chest like nails being knocked into wood. “Tell me what you want from Father Chan,” he muses, smirking slightly, while his thumb brushes back and forth on your knee. 

You’re completely out of breath and squeezing your thighs together, as slick begins to build up in your panties. “Come on,” he encourages, “Let it out. Tell Channie what you want.” 

“I want,” you’re shaking in humiliation, gaze cast onto the floor, “I want you to touch me.” 

“Come again?” he teases, grinning.

“Please touch me, Chan.” 

“There you go,” he mutters and finally gives in, hand brushing the skirt of your dress up your thighs, until your white, cotton panties are visible to him. The sight of you is so pornographic, he groans and dips his head into your neck. “Spread your legs for me, baby.” 

And you do, one of them drooping over his legs, while the other bends on the couch beside you. You’re already so worked up, because Chan is so beautiful and you never, ever thought you’d experience him like this. “Shh, shh, calm down, pretty girl,” he kisses your temple, as his fingers brush over your clothed core.

“Baby,” he tuts disapprovingly, “you’ve soaked through your panties.” 

You can only whine as his fingertips ghost along your dripping slit, and he’s nosing into your cheek like a big puppy. “‘M sorry,” you hiccup, and he grins and kisses your lips tenderly. “So polite for me.” 

He finally dips his hand into your panties, fingers rubbing circles into your pussy. You’re mewling and thrashing into his chest, basking in the sound of his strangled moan, when you thrash the leg in his lap and brush over his hard cock. 

His fingers move lower to dance along your slit and you grab his wrist strenuously. He hums a little. “Gonna put my fingers in your pussy and my tongue in your mouth now,” he’s mumbling and you can’t tell if he’s telling you or himself, but either way he does as promised, two fingers plunging into your sopping wet heat, while he dips his tongue in your hot mouth.

You're moaning into his lips. He’s kissing you so sloppily, spit spilling down both of your chins, and noses rubbing together, breathing scorching air into each other. His fingers are pumping in and out of you, then curling into that sweet spongy spot inside you. 

“Fuck!” you cry when he pulls away breathlessly, “so, so, so good. Chan- Chan, fuck!”

Your orgasm is building up in your stomach, with a pleasure that is simultaneously torturous. He’s looking at you so intensely, you feel like you might unravel under his gaze. “Fuck, Channie.”

“Yeah? You feel good?” he pauses his words, still curling his fingers in and out of you. His next words are somewhat uneasy: “Is this better than those other guys?” 

“Huh?” you mumble, chest arching and his mouth is watering at how inviting it is. “Back then,” he says, and it finally clicks what he’s talking about. 

“Pussy so good no wonder they all wanted a piece of you, hm? Such a slut,” he’s rambling now, fingers plunging in and out of you impossibly fast, while his other hand splays over your stomach, thumb tapping your clit. You cry out in ecstasy, unable to form coherent words to respond with.

“But you’re my slut, right?” His voice is raspy and right next to your ear. The thumb tapping your clit begins to rub circles into it. “Y/n,” he’s suddenly very serious, “say you’re my slut.” 

“I’m-” your voice crack in humiliation, cheeks fiery and eyes squeezed shut, “I’m your slut!” 

“That’s right,” he pants, trying to stop his hips from bucking into your calf. “And my slut is gonna cum on my fucking fingers right now.” 

Your orgasm feels otherworldly - maybe godly - and your whole body shakes in his hold, chest bouncing in his face and moans melodic in his living room. Chan works you through it, finally pulling his fingers out when your hands weakly push at his own.

You’re sighing heavily with hair messy and teased, slumped back on his couch. “Holy shit,” you say, grinning from ear to ear, completely dazed. Chan is watching you with a proud smirk and a tent the size of Texas in his pants. 

A thought strikes you then, and your grin is fading and your brows are furrowing. “Wait- Wait, Chan? Where are your parents?” you ask suddenly, sitting up and straight and pulling your dress down hastily. You snap your head around self-consciously. 

“Relax! Relax!” he laughs, “They don’t live here anymore, I bought the house from them, like, six months ago.” 

Your jaw drops. You wait just a second, hoping to catch a cheeky glint in his eyes, that might tell you he’s joking. You find nothing but blackness.

“You bought the house?” 

Chan looks at you quizzically, shrugging. “Yeah, I mean, they wanted to move, you know, see new things and I.. I just. Didn’t.” 

You can hardly fucking believe your ears.

“Chan!” you cry, frustration blooming in your chest and pounding in your head. “Why did you buy the fucking house? You’re gonna spend the rest of your life paying off the fucking mortgage, and you’re never gonna get out of here!” you shout, flailing your arms at his absurdity.

Chan narrows his eyes at you. “Sorry, city girl, we don’t all wanna pack up and live in a closet space for three years-” 

“Wha- Chan, this is not about me! How can you just.. Surrender to this place?” you shout and suddenly he’s raising his voice too. “Surrender?” he repeats, spitting it back at you.

“Yeah! Jesus, even your fucking parents wanted to leave, Chan. But you’re just- You’re gonna live out the rest of your life in this shithole and be some sort of- of priest?!” 

“I can’t believe you right now,” he stands up from the couch, and you follow suit. “In what world do you have the morality to come in here and tell me what I’m doing wrong?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” you scoff, crossing your arms. 

Your voices are echoing in the empty house, wine glasses and sauced plates standing idly on the tables nearby. Your silhouettes are confined to the large living room window, standing on either side of the moon. 

“You know what that means, Y/n,” he laughs bitterly. “No, please, tell me,” you invite him challengingly, wondering (or perhaps fearing) whether or not he’d actually go there. He prods at his cheek with his tongue, and hesitates.

“You were a fucking slut, Y/n.” His voice is quieter, maybe ashamed. Tears sting at your eyes, when you look at him incredulously. How could you think you knew this man? How could you think there was anything left to salvage? 

“Fuck you, Chan,” you spit, spinning around before the tears can fall. He says nothing, just stands alone in his living room while you dash out his door, hands wrapping around himself. 

Exiting his house into the cool, summer air, you realize one thing. The bell tower had been the call of the apocalypse.  _____________________________

You were the walls of Jericho that night, crying and tumbling in your childhood sheets, muffling your cries in the fear that he’d hear through his creaked open window. What was this pain, you couldn’t decide. Was it how he stayed steadfast or how you metamorphosed, dying only to return once again? 

In the morning, you’re dull and gray. You’re drinking coffee out of your dad’s old tourist shop mug from a visit to Niagara Falls, sitting at the dining table with puffy eyes. Your mom eyes you worriedly from the counter, leaning into your dad to whisper not-so-discreetly. 

“Sweetheart, you wanna go with us to church today? They’re having this whole event, the kids’ choir will be there!” she suggests gently and you just want to shrug off all her affection. 

“No,” you deadpan. Your mom gives your father a look. He sighs. 

“Alright, champ, that’s- that’s your choice,” he nods, mustache scrunching up when he pouts. You sigh, feeling like an asshole. “Sorry, I just-” 

“Don’t apologize, sweetheart, you just rest!” your mom shushes you, scrambling around the kitchen, ever in the hunt for some lost appliance. “All that college must wear you out, you should rest while you can, hm?” 

They’re gone by noon. You sit in the shadowed corner of your bed, avoiding the strip of light that dances across your room from the crack in the curtain. 

You’re bored, scrolling on your phone, cheek puffed up against your pillow, when it slips out of your hands and hits the floor with a loud bump. You groan, feeling like the whole world is against you today, and throw your arm off the bed to grab at it on the floor. 

It’s halfway under the bed, and when your fingers finally remark the smooth surface, they brush against something else. It’s hard and it feels dirty. You lift your head to look and tug it out.

It’s your diary. 

Phone long forgotten, you lift it carefully, like an old relic, and push open the faded pink cover. You feel like you’re about to snap in half, when your eyes survey the graphite-smudged pages of your horrible, horrible handwriting. The pages emanate a mysterious air that has you leaning back in your seat.

You’re skimming through angst entries, that has you cringing and wanting to put it down, before you freeze suddenly, inhaling sharply at the scribbled out words before you.

‘3. august 2016

God, I miss Chan.’

The words come with the promise of stinging tears in your eyes.

“Fuck you,” you whisper angrily at the page, because you’re crying again, and you close the book and hold onto yourself so tightly that it hurts. “Fuck that. Fuck this.” 

It’s perhaps the worst feeling you’ve ever felt. It’s anger, it’s sadness, it’s humiliation, it’s confusion. How did it end like this, you think. It would be so much easier if you were kids again. If he was that dorky kid from your church, who wore his father’s baseball caps and had chubby little hands when he prayed. You can do it better, you think miserably, if you get another chance. But you don’t. 

For about fifteen minutes, you curl into yourself and wait for the feeling to go away. It doesn’t. The heavy weight of realization pools in your stomach when you realize you might carry this with you for the rest of your life if you don’t do something. It doesn’t have to end like this.

Suddenly you’re light as a feather, grabbing your jacket and your keys and sprinting out the door and down the street. The cross atop the spire watches you run to it, awaiting you ominously.  _____________________________

You’re disheveled and pulled apart when you arrive at the gathering, and for once the townspeople look at you like you’re out of place. You’re late, you know, because people are taking their leave, scattering and dissolving towards the town square, and the entertainment (the kids’ choir), all robed in white, are marching away together. 

You’re panting, stumbling further into the church garden, jumping at the sound of grills being closed and rolled away onto the pavement. 

“Y/n?” Chan can hardly believe his eyes, when he sees you standing between a bed of lilies. You turn around and see him, melting a little at how tired and sad he looks. “I can’t believe you came,” he whispers, a little sparkle of hope in his gaze. You smile fondly, “Me neither.” 

Chan moves to embrace you, but freezes when he suddenly remembers where you are. “Uh, I can’t, I have to-” he stammers, scrambling for a solution, for something better than turning you away, when you’re here, close enough for him to hold. He looks around, gaze following the churchgoers as they pass through the gates, before he’s bopping his head down to whisper to you again: “Go into the church. I’ll be with you in a second.” 

You walk through that heavy, wooden door, and when it closes behind you the scrambling of metal and people and footsteps and crying children is gone. With the door, you’re sealed in here, with whatever fate follows.

All the light in the church is filtering through the stained glass windows, and once again you find yourself drawn to him. Judas. 

Part of you would expect such an artwork to depict Judas as greedy and grim, as glutinous and gloomy; that he would be hunched over with a pouch of shillings, giggling at his evildoing. But the Judas in the window is so.. Sad. 

He’s blue and gray and his eyebrows are upturned and for the life of you, you can’t figure out how the unknown artist must have managed to portray such despair in glass. You stand in the middle of his reflection on the floor, all blue and gray yourself, and you’re not sure it’s really because of the light.

That’s all the church inhabits at that moment. You and Judas, and your shallow breaths, and the stirring of dust in the air. There’s nothing holy in there with you. Just you and him.

You hear the door open to your right. You know it’s Chan, somehow you can just feel it. He must sense something in the air, because he says nothing, just walks up to stand beside you, and only then do you speak again.

“I always felt a bit like Judas,” you muster a breath.

Chan pauses and you can feel him looking at you. “Me too.” 

You furrow your brows, and finally look up at him, and there he is in his clerical shirt and his matching pants, his right cheek glowing bright blue. The whole room is so heavy, you lean against the bench behind you. 

“That’s not.. That’s not how it’s supposed to be.”

Chan doesn’t ask you to elaborate. He understands. “God made it that way,” he’s nodding with a pained expression on his face, almost as if he’s trying to convince himself. You laugh a little and hate how much love you feel, when Chan half-smiles at the sound.

“God.. Yeah,” you half-gesture to the sky and Chan giggles. Then you’re both quieting down again. “I can’t tell if it was you or God I turned my back on,” you say and you’re looking at Judas again, and how one, jagged hand holds onto his chest.

“Maybe it was both,” Chan says and there’s this unreadable expression on his face. You’re laughing again, cheeks apple-round. “I’m pretty sure it’s blasphemous to compare yourself to God.” 

“Yeah?” he laughs, “I think so too.” You’re looking at him again when he’s gulping hard and the joy drains from his face. A small frown curve his lips. “I’m sorry about yesterday, you know.” You look away.

“Me too,” you say. Chan can’t help the way his heart leaps when, without sparing him a glance, you grab his hand in yours and squeeze it. He squeezes back.

He gasps painfully and when you turn to him again, he’s choking back tears, face turning red. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I just wish… Fuck, I mean, we’re too different, aren’t we?” 

You nod. “We are.” 

“When are you leaving?” 

You smile disingenuously, hoping it’ll cheer him up. It doesn’t.

“Tomorrow.” 

Chan is crying, there’s no denying it now, no chalking it up to sniffles. Tears, turning yellow from the sun behind Judas’ back, trail down his cheeks and he wipes them aggressively, but they just keep coming. Deep, despaired moans bounce off the ceiling and walls of the church.

“Can I-?” Chan begins, unable to form words between his heart-rattling sobs. “I just- I need to-” 

“Yes,” you say, and there’s not a single doubt in your mind, that this is what you both want, as you take a step forward and pull his lips into yours. 

Chan’s lips taste like every color of Judas, of blue, of yellow, of gray, of green. Salt hits your tongue when his tears trail down to where you’re connected, and he’s still crying into the kiss, hands finding your waist and clutching so, so hard. 

“Please don’t cry,” you whisper in between kisses, “you’re gonna make me cry.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t stop. He’s too caught up in memorizing the way your body feels under his hands, the way you’re moving against him, the way you’re pulling him by the collar of his clerical shirt, and how your nose feels shoved into his. 

His warm hands slide your shirt upwards, burning against your newly exposed skin. You pull away only to tug it over your head. Chan whimpers when he sees your chest, cupped by your bra and he pulls you into his chest to unhook the back, head looming over your shoulder. Ear pressed to his neck, you can feel the way it contracts, when he hiccups. 

As soon as he’s done, straps sliding gently down your arms, you’re pouncing on each other again, lips meeting rhythmically in the blued sunlight. Blindly, you’re unbuttoning his clerical shirt, fingers shaking against his chest. His hands clasp over yours soothingly, urging you to slow down. 

The whole ordeal is strangely silent, even Chan has stopped crying now, and the only sounds filling the church are the brush of fabric and your muffled moans into each other’s mouths. You’re whining though, when his shirt finally pushes off his shoulders and his torso is right in front of you and under your hands. 

You whimper at the sight alone, running your hands over his arms and over his chest down to his abs. Chan smirks at you. “I knew you liked it,” he mumbles to himself, almost childishly. 

This comment slows you down, as you’re pulling back to laugh, and you’re both shirtless in front of each other, hearts huge and glowing. Chan smiles at you adoringly while you laugh, face scrunched up and eyes crescents. 

“You can’t say that when I’m trying to fuck you,” you say finally, hair a mess on your head and lips pursed to keep yourself from laughing again. Chan loves your dumb face. He takes your hands in his and rubs the palms with his thumbs. “I know.” 

“Can I-?”

“Yes,” you whisper, agreeing before he can even get it out. Chan nods and holds you, gently guiding you onto the floor, where your entire body is marbled by the light hitting the glass. Chan stands over you for a moment. 

“You’re just gonna stare at me?” you joke, but your arms are sneaking their way up your torso. “Yeah,” Chan responds, but he’s already kneeling down in front of you, moving your arms away. 

“You are so beautiful,” he says it as if it almost pains him, but he’s straddling you and fumbling with your jean-buttons, beginning the tedious task of peeling them off your legs. You want to say something snarky, but he has you breathless and blushing, all you can muster is a meek: “Thank you.” 

He looks up from his work on your jeans at that, smiling at you fondly. 

You kick your jeans off your legs, while he begins to undo the buckle of his own pants, shoving them down his legs at the first opportunity. You’re both almost naked, you in your panties and him in his boxers, and you’re wondering why he’s showing no signs of moving them off you, dick hard and scorching fucking hot against your clothed core. Then he plants his arms on either side of your head, and rolls his hips into yours.

The moan you let out is coming from deep in your fucking soul. Only something godly could pull that out, you decide, sopping fucking wet from the star-like heat it has against you. “You sound so pretty,” he whimpers and does it again. Then again and again and again, and you’re arching your back and the both of you are moaning and groaning, filling the church with humidity. 

“Chan,” you muster, sounding on the verge of tears. His head is lowered onto your breasts, panting hard into the impossibly soft skin. “I-Inside. Now.” 

Chan wants to say something sexy, but he’s so desperate for you, that all he can manage is: “I agree.” 

He’s scrambling wildly to tear his boxers off and you do the same, lifting your hips to remove your drenched panties from your core. When you’re left bare, he lets out a choked moan, because immediately your hole clenching and gushing slick onto the tiled floor. The church floor, no less. 

“So fucking beautiful, and mine. Belongs to me,” he babbles, eyes wounded, but fingers spreading your folds open, as he lowers his head to remark on them. You mewl, fingers clawing at his shoulders. “Miss you,” you squall and he looks up at your face again. “Okay,” he responds, body moving back up to your face. Then he mutters against your lips: “Miss you too.” 

He’s kissing you again, so warm and wet in your mouth and humming into you. You claw at his back and whine wildly, when his hand steers his dick through your folds, lubricating itself in your plentiful wetness. 

He pulls away and you chase after him with sorrowful eyes. “I need to see your face when I push in,” he explains very sincerely, and you somehow understand that, yes, he needs to see it. You nod.

Then he’s pushing into you. He bursts through your gates, all thick and veiny and totally raw against the walls of your pussy. He’s slow, studying your face tenderly for any signs of discomfort, even when he grimaces from the euphoric feeling. And God, your face is so perfect, all scrunched up and twisted in pleasure, mouth agape and eyes squeezed shut. He will remember it forever.

He’s rocking in and out of you, and it’s slow, and it’s love, and it’s mature, and you’re moaning simultaneously, foreheads pressed together, as he fucks you into the floor. 

“Are you close, darling?” he pants against your cheek and you nod, because you are. Because it feels like your body has been working its way up to this final point, and every other milestone has just been a hillpeak on the way to a mountain. “Yes, yes, yes, I am.” 

“Good, so good for me,” he’s speeding up just a little bit, working the two of you closer and gaining leverage from his bruising grip on your hips. Your hand slides up his neck, from where he’s nuzzled into the side of your nose, and you whisper breathlessly in his ear: “Please cum inside, please, please.” 

And Chan’s head spins at that, thrusting so hard you’re entire body jerks. You, all filled with his kids, all soft and big stomached. The thought has his thrusts - now quite swift - becoming sloppy and has him spurting cum. You come at the feeling of him spurting inside you, spluttering you full of white seed, so much that it’s spilling out at the base of his cock. 

You’re both stilling, bodies expanding eagerly for air, and he’s still so close to you, still inside you, still buried in your hair, nose huffing breaths into your ear. The church is so painfully quiet, you begin to hear your own heartbeat. This was it. This was the narrow end. There was no other way. 

Lying your head on the tile and tilting it, so your eyes dance over the floor beneath you, you realize that Judas is no longer the artwork, no longer the masterpiece: It’s you and Chan on the floor, arching into each other and bathed in his light. To an unknowing outsider, the expressions you carry would also seem misplaced, just like Judas had to you. But you both know, still clinging onto each other like angels that flutter from the sky and into hell, that it was because of the end you had ensured for each other.

“I love you.” 

Chan whispers the words into your neck, voice thick. You realize he’s crying again, because you feel burning hot tears dribble down your neck, and his shoulders are shaking. You curl your arms around him.

“I know. I’m sorry. I love you too.” 

[maniculum]

Medieval Scorpions Effortpost

So yesterday I reblogged this post featuring an 11th-century depiction of the Apocalypse Locusts from Revelations, noting the following incongruity as another medieval scorpion issue:

The artist, as you can see, has interpreted "tails like scorpions" as meaning "glue cheerful-looking snakes to their butts".

Anyway, it occurred to me that the medieval scorpion thing might not be as widely known as I think it is, and that Tumblr would probably enjoy knowing about it if it isn't known already. So, finding myself unable to focus on the research I'm supposed to be doing, I decided to write about this instead. I'll just go ahead and put a cut here.

As we can see in the image above, at least one artist out there thought a "scorpion" was a type of snake. Which makes it difficult to draw "tails like scorpions", because a snake's tail is not that distinctive or menacing (maybe rattlesnakes, but they don't have those outside the Americas). So they interpreted "tails like scorpions" as "the tail looks like a whole snake complete with head".

Let me tell you. This is not a problem unique to this illustration.

See, people throughout medieval Europe were aware of scorpions. As just alluded to, they are mentioned in the Bible, and if the people producing manuscripts in medieval Europe knew one thing, it was Stuff In Bible. They're also in the Zodiac, which medieval Europe had inherited through classical sources. However, let's take a look at this map:

That's Wikipedia's map of the native range of the Scorpiones order, i.e., all scorpion species. You may notice something -- the range just stops at a certain northern latitude. Pretty much all of northern Europe is scorpion-free. If you lived in the north half of Europe, odds were good you had never seen a scorpion in your life. But if you were literate or educated at all, or you knew they were a thing, because you'd almost certainly run across them being mentioned in texts from farther south. And those texts wouldn't bother to explain what a scorpion was, of course -- everyone knows scorpions, right? When was the last time you stopped to explain What Is Spiders?

So medieval writers and artists in northern Europe were kind of stuck. There was all this scorpion imagery and metaphor in the texts they liked to work from, but they didn't really know what a scorpion was. Writers could kind of work around it (there's a lot of "oh, it's a venomous creature, moving on"), but sometimes they felt the need to break it down better. For this, of course, they'd have to refer to a bestiary -- but due to Bestiary Telephone and the persistent need of bestiary authors to turn animals into allegories, one of the only visual details you got on scorpions was that they... had a beautiful face, which they used to distract people in order to sting them.

And look. I'm not here to yuck anyone's yum, but I would say that a scorpion's face has significant aesthetic appeal only for a fairly small segment of the population. I'm sure you could get an entomologist to rhapsodize about it a bit, but your average person on the street will not be entranced by the face of a scorpion. So this did not help the medieval Europeans in figuring out how to depict scorpions. There was also some semantic confusion -- see, in some languages (such as Old and Middle English), "worm" could be a general term for very small animals of any kind. But it also could mean "serpent".* So there were some, like our artist at the top of the post, who were pretty sure a scorpion was a snake. This was probably helped along by the fact that "venomous" was one of the only things everyone knew about them, and hey, snakes are venomous. Also, Pliny the Elder had floated the idea that there were scorpions in Africa that could fly, and at least one author (13th-century monk Bartholomaeus Anglicus) therefore suggested that they had feathers. I don't see that last one coming up much, I just share it because it's funny to me.

*English eventually resolved this by borrowing the Latin vermin for very small animals, using the specialized spelling wyrm for big impressive mythical-type serpents, and sticking with the more specific snake for normal serpents.

Some authors, like the anonymous author of the Ancrene Wisse, therefore suggested that a scorpion was a snake with a woman's face and a stinging tail. (Everyone seemed to be on the same page with regards to the fact that the sting was in the tail, which is in fact probably the most recognizable aspect of scorpions, so good job there.) However, while authors could avoid this problem, visual artists could not. And if you were illustrating a bestiary or a calendar, including a scorpion was not optional. So they had to take a shot at what this thing looked like.

And so, after this way-too-long explanation, the thing you're probably here for: inaccurate medieval drawings of scorpions. (There are of course accurate medieval drawings of scorpions, from artists who lived in the southern part of Europe and/or visited places where scorpions lived; I'm just not showing you those.) And if you find yourself wondering, "how sure are you that that's meant to be a scorpion?" -- all of these are either from bestiaries or from calendars that include zodiac illustrations.

11th-century England, MS Arundel 60. (Be honest, without the rest of this post, if I had asked you to guess what animal this was supposed to be, would you have ever guessed “scorpion”?)

12th-century Germany, "Psalter of Henry the Lion". (Looks a bit undercooked. Kind of fetal.)

12th-century France, Peter Lombard's Sententiae. (Very colorful, itsy bitsy claws, what is happening with that tail?)

12th-century England, "The Shaftesbury Psalter". (So a scorpion is some sort of wyvern with a face like a duck, correct?)

13th-century France, Thomas de Cantimpré's Liber de natura rerum. (I’d give them credit for the silhouette not being that far off, but there’s a certain bestiary style where all the animals kind of look like that. Also note how few of these have claws.)

13th-century England, "The Bodley Bestiary". (Mischievous flying squirrel impales local man’s hand, local man fails to notice.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (A scorpion is definitely either a mouse or a fish. Either way it has six legs.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Wait, no, it’s a baby theropod, and it has two legs. (Yes, this is the same manuscript, that’s not an error, this artist did four scorpions and no two are the same.))

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Actually it’s a lizard with tiny ears and it has four legs.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Now that we’re at the big fancy illustration, I think I’ve got it — it’s like that last one, but two legs, longer ears, and a less goofy face. Also I’ve decided it’s not pink anymore, I think that was the main problem.)

13th-century England, MS Kk.4.25. (A scorpion is a flat crocodile with a bear’s head.)

13th-century England, "The Huth Psalter". (Wyvern but baby! Does not seem to be enjoying biting its own tail.)

13th-century England, MS Royal 1 D X. (This triangular-headed gentlecreature gets the award for “closest guess at correct limb configuration”. If two of those were claws, I might actually believe this artist had seen a scorpion before, or at least a picture of one.)

13th-century England, "The Westminster Psalter". (A scorpion is the offspring of a wyvern and a fawn.)

13th-century England, "The Rutland Psalter". (Too many legs! Pull back! Pull back!)

13th or 14th-century France, Bestiaire d'amour rimé. (This is very similar to the fawn-wyvern, but putting it in an actual Scene makes it even more obvious that you’re just guessing.)

14th-century Netherlands, Jacob van Maerlant's Der Naturen Bloeme. (More top-down six-legged guys that look too furry to be arthropods.)

14th-century Germany, MS Additional 22413. (That is clearly a turtle.)

14th-century France, Matfres Eymengau de Beziers's Breviari d'amor. (Who came up with that head shape and what was their deal?)

15th-century England, "Bestiary of Ann Walsh". (Screw it, a scorpion is a big lizard that glares at you for trying to make me draw things I don’t know about.)

I've spent way too much time on this now. End of post, thank you to anyone who got all the way down here.

[metalandmagi]

In honor of Women's History month, I just want to remind people that some of the most influential and popular manga in the anime community are written/illustrated by women. And I'm not just talking about groundbreaking shojo like Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, Card Captor Sakura, or Black Butler (or things like Chihayafuru, Migi to Dali, Sakamoto Desu ga?, Nana, Natsume Yuujincho, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Violet Evergarden, A Silent Voice, and a million more). To be clear, those series are also amazing, and I'm not demeaning them in any way. They deserve just as much respect as everything else.

But right now I'm talking about shōnen series or series that are usually marketed towards men specifically or have appeared in shōnen magazines. I mean things like:

Beastars, made by Paru Itagaki

Gangsta, by Kohske

Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic by Shinobu Ohtaka (which I promise isn't what my screen name is a reference to, even though I love this show).

D.Gray Man by Katsura Hoshino

Dorohedoro by Q Hayashida

To Your Eternity by Yoshitoki Ōima

Mushishi, made by Yuki Urushibara (aka Soyogo Shima).

Noragami which is written by two women, collectively named Adachitoka, similarly to romance author duo Christina Lauren.

Blue Exorcist by Kazue Kato

Inuyasha (and Ranma 1/2 and Urasai Yatsura) by Rumiko Takahashi, which I know for a fact served as a gateway anime for a shit ton of people across generations (but especially for people my age).

I have to shout out Posuka Demizu, who illustrated The Promised Neverland, which is my favorite manga series. She may have given the characters weird looking facial proportions, but damn if she ain't one of the most detail oriented (and sneakiest) artists out there.

And finally, a little story you may know called Fullmetal Alchemist, written by Hiromu Arakawa (who also wrote Silver Spoon, The Heroic Legend of Arslan and lots of other stuff but I wanted to highlight those two specifically).

There's also been speculation that a small hidden gem called...what was it again?...Oh yeah, DEMON SLAYER is written by a woman. But Koyoharu Gotouge's gender hasn't been confirmed so it's still just a theory.

idk, I just love women.

[cheriladycl01]

Hi!

Could you please write something for whichever f1 driver you want with a reader who's a children's books illustrator and author? Maybe they get to know each other because his niece is obsessed with her books and he took her to one of her events.

I'd like to see how the grid and the media would react to someone so bubbly, kind, and creative!

Thnx!! <3

My sunshine - Lewis Hamilton x ChildrensAuthor! Reader

Plot: Lewis comes home to find his niece and nephew obsessed with one lady’s books! Little did he know you’d end up being his whole future!

“What you reading there?” Lewis asked as he grabbed some fruit from the fridge and started to cut it up. Babysitting was one of his favourite free time activities.

“MAE THE MAGICIAN” they both yell at him, making him pause cutting the fruit. He knew his niece really enjoyed reading but to see his nephew so excited about this book was odd.

“Mmmm what’s it about?” Lewis asks as he starts to make little snack boxes for the two, ready to take them out to the park.

“This girl called Mae, and she helps Gaia and George using her Magic tricks, she’s funny” the girl describes to her favourite Uncle.

“Woah, what kind of magic tricks does she do?” He asks.

“She makes sure their homework is complete and their beds are made for when their mum gets home!” His nephew explains.

“Oh and then this book is good to. Can we show you our library uncle Lewis” his nephew begs looking up at him with those puppy dog eyes that he couldn’t say no too!

He follows them up, being taken to one of the smaller bedrooms that was being used as as playroom/ library. There was an expanse of books, but what caught his eye was how many of the same author there were.

It was the same one as the book they were reading from earlier. It seemed she had lots of kids books varying in ages from very young, basically just pictures books, to a series of books which reminded him of the Rainbow Magic Series that his brothers girlfriend had read when she was younger.

They all had titles of careers with a matching name. Both boys and girls.

Alex the Astrologist

Bianca the Brain Surgeon

Colin the Conductor

Daisy the Dragon Tamer

Ethan the Ecologist

Freya the F1 Driver

Who?

That intrigued him.

“Have you guys read all of these?” He asks with wide eyes.

“Of course! She’s the best! Our favourite” one of them exclaims as they re-order books that had been misplaced.

“Which ones your favourite?” He asks his nephew.

“She wrote one about me! Called Kaiden the Karate Master” he exclaims making chopping actions with his hands.

“And you?” He asks Willow.

“She wrote one about me to called Willow the Writer” she says shoving the book at him happily to which he looks through looking at all the cute little illustrations to which he later researched that they were actually drawn by the author as well.

Upon doing further research and trying to get some of her latest books on pre-order he went down a rabbit hole, finding her instagram which was incredibly cozy and just what he expected from an author.

There was a few posts of her charity work and what she did around her community. The links led him to her official website where she had her various charities, an about her page that he couldn’t help but browse but he also saw a part where it showed up and coming events.

“Willow? Kaiden? How would you feel about going to meet Y/N Y/L/N, maybe get a few books signed?” He asks the next morning, wondering whether that would be something they were into.

“YES!” They’d both screamed.

He sent you a DM on Instagram explaining that he was planning on bringing his niece and nephew to your book signing in London. You replied immediately which shocked him, explaining you’d be more than happy to do a private signing afterwards for him and his family and how you were a huge fan of his.

At the book signing.

You were pretty exhausted after the public signing and needed to have a break and just grab a drink where your throat was on fire for talking as much as you had.

But within the hour you were ready to see Lewis and his niece and nephew. They were so polite to you when you stood up to greet them and what shocked Lewis even more is how easily you communicated to the younger kids.. It was like second nature to you how you used your hands to basically animate everything you say to make you seem so youthful and energetic.

“Hi I’m Lewis and this is Willow and Kaiden” he introduced and from after that he was insanely smitten with you, everything you did he would watch with wide eyes.

You spent the time interacting with the kids and signing the copious amounts of books that they had bought for you to sign. You also talked to them about upcoming stuff that they would enjoy where they had really liked your career series for young children.

“Hey I know you might think this is a little soon but I’d really like to take you out some time, for dinner” he asked one his sibling had taken the kids outside to the car say that he could ask you some more personal questions. They ranged from what you enjoyed to how you got into writing children’s books specifically.”

“Well, I think I would really like that, I don’t think I’ve ever been out on a proper date” she smiles looking down and blushing lightly at the comment.

”Never been on a proper date, I’ll have to treat you right then?” he smirks looking over you.

“Where would we go?” You ask politely starting to collect the books left over from the signing.

“Out to a restaurant or a movie, maybe a picnic at some point when it’s warmer the weather isn’t great right now” he says stepping closer to her.

After the book signing you and Lewis went on dates, lots of them and to say his niece and nephew were excited was an understatement you would randomly turn up to family events and they’d start to get your books early and not published Waterstones versions that normally were gifted to them.

“Baby I really want you to come to a race with me, I want to show you off to everyone there and how cute you are. I bet the grid will love you just as much as I do. Actually scrap that, that’s impossible” he smiles and you can’t help but giggle.

“Of course I’ll come with you Lew” you smile leaning across him and kissing his check, before gripping his hands and holding them.

“You ready to meet everyone?” He asks with that soft chocolaty voice that could make you melt.

“I think so, I’m just kind of nervous what they’ll think” you say a light blush forming into your face wondering if you’d embarrass yourself on camera, or if they’d ask you questions … it was hard.

“Well, for the record I know they’ll love you. You want a run down?” And you of course nod wanting to know as much as possible.

“Well, there’s my teammate Charles who you’ll probably meet first in the garage. You’ll love his girlfriend Alex she’s a diamond and you’ll talk about fashion no doubt!” He grins and you not trying to take in the names knowing more are to come.

He talks about his ex team-mates George and Valtteri and how you’d get on with both of them pretty well. He also knew Lando and Daniel would love you, as you all had very similar bubbly people personality’s.

He was excited to show you off to not just them but everyone, you weren’t like the other Hollywood Stars and actresses you were just so … normal? NOT that he would ever describe you as that, because that almost felt like an insult to you.

“Are you nervous baby?” He asks looking over to you as he pulls into the paddock.

“A little, I’ve never been around this many people here before” you say looking over to him, grabbing onto his hand on the gear stick.

“You’ll be fine, and you’ll finally get to watch me in my job. I love watching you write and draw but I want you to see what I do” he nods and you smile, loving this side of Lewis.

He had this intimacy that you’d never experienced with anyone else. Little things he appreciated knowing that you’d never had with anyone else.

You walked through the paddock together scanning your little pass on the thing seeing an awful picture of you come up that Lewis must have submitted.

“Lewis what the hell!” You asked gazing at the picture he’d chosen.

“What! I love that photo of you!” He smiles happily gazing at you looking at the picture that slowly disappears.

“Come on, let’s get you to the garage so you can get familiar with everything” he smiles a hand sneaking round your waist as he guides you through the bustling paddock.

When you enter Ferrari Garage your greeted by all the mechanics, a lot of them with young children knowing exactly who you are and wanting pictures to show their kids when they got home.

Charles and Alexandra greeted you only 30 minutes later and you and Alex got along great, taking Roscoe and Leo for walks around the paddock while she tried to help you adjust to all the hustle and bustle of life in motorsport.

“So how long have you and Lewis been together now?” Alex asked with a small polite smile.

“Oh! It feels like forever! He’s only been so sweet and like to me” you grin, your voice getting louder and louder as you talk about Lewis. Alex notices and can’t help but smile at how you’re talking about Lewis.

After meeting Alex and Charles the next people you ended up meeting was Lando and Oscar. Lewis had asked you to grab his water bottle from the car which he’d left behind and you got lost on your way back the two McLaren drivers immediately noticing and recognising you.

They helped you back to the garage just as they were being called for the race and that they needed to get into the car.

Then next thing you knew as you were watching Lewis come round a corner, a little drift as skidded in the gravel but caught himself well enough that it didn’t lessen his time too much.

Then you were casted on the TV screens and you couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.

You gave a polite little wave and grin to the camera before it panned off of you and back onto the race.

“And that’s Y/N Y/L/N she’s the current partner of Lewis Hamilton and she’s a very well known author of children’s books, ones that actually my own children read and I just know they are going to be kicking their feet that I got to meet her today” the commentator offers with a little chuckle.

“Yeah what did you think of her?” The other commentator for Sky Sports asks.

“Ah she’s just so sweet, she wouldn’t stop talking about her writing and I was more than happy to listen and she was so polite and happy and god’s I want her in the paddock more often, she’s such a little ray of sunshine”

After all the excitement, you had this energy around you that you couldn’t describe and it gave you loads of writing juices. You got home to the hotel that night and you wrote down all your ideas, sat in Lewis lap.

You knew for sure you’d be coming back to way more races and you’d been missing out!

Taglist:

@littlebitchsposts @hockey-racing-fubol @laura-naruto-fan1998 @22yuki @simxican @sinofwriting @lewisroscoelove @cmleitora @daemyratwst @lauralarsen @the-untamed-soul @thewulf @itsjustkhaos @purplephantomwolf @chasing-liberosis @summissss @gulphulp @starfusionsworld @jspitwall @sierruhhhh @georgeparisole @youcannotcancelquidditch @tallbrownhairsarcastic @ourteenagetragedy @peachiicherries @formulas-bitch @cherry-piee @spilled-coffee-cup @mehrmonga @eiraethh @curseofhecate @alliwantisadonut @dark-night-sky-99 @i-wish-this-was-me @tallrock35 @butterfly-lover @barnestatic @landossainz @darleneslane @barcelonaloverf1life @r0nnsblog @ilove-tswizzle @laneyspaulding19 @malynn @viennakarma @landosgirlxoxo @marie0v @yourbane @teamnovalak @nikfigueiredo @fionaschicken @0picels0 @tinydeskwriter @ironmaiden1313 @splaterparty0-0 @formula1mount

[starplanes]

A (5 star) review of Bury Your Gays, by @drchucktingle!

I read this book in one sitting. I did not plan to read this book in one sitting, but I could not put it down, accepting that my lunch break was now an extended reading break. Bury Your Gays was just that good.

It starts simple. Screenwriter Misha has been told by his exec that the season finale of his show must out, then kill the two leads. He needs to bury his gays because the board has determined it's where the money is. Misha says no. Then starts getting stalked by his (definitely fictional, right?) characters from other shows. Either Misha developed some incredible supernatural powers in that meeting, or something more sinister is at work…

Bury Your Gays illustrates why queer people should be allowed to tell the stories they want to tell, instead of being made to use queerbating, tragic tropes, or fake relentless optimism in the name of corporate Pride. It's a story about the queer struggle to find oneself in a world that makes it so, so hard. There's a lot of love for the queer community poured into this book, and oh does it shines. I especially adored the ace rep - and the concept of ace rep as a plot point. I shall not explain further. However, I am more scared than ever of the corporatization of Pride.

Bury Your Gays also criticizes capitalism's monetization of tragedy and exploitation of workers. It explores what happens when ethics are ignored in the name of an ever-growing profit margin, to the point where the bottom line becomes a near-sentient thing. It leans into the horrors of AI and data-mining by combining the two and going all the way with it. Chuck Tingle has acknowledged all my fears of black box algorithms and also made them ten times worse. Truly a feat! I will be sleeping with my router off!

It's a masterpiece of horror, both visceral and psychological. Since the main character is a horror writer, the story is very genre aware. There's a lot of fun to be had in the tale of "writer being followed by the monsters he wrote," and certainly no small amount of terror. It gets gory here and there, with plenty of suspense in between. Hints are laid out for the reader, enough where I was occasionally able to predict what was coming just a page or two before it landed. My jaw dropped multiple times! The writing is descriptive enough to pull you right in (and gross you out!), and it's paced near-perfectly. There's all these little moments sprinkled in that elevate the whole story, from fun references of other work to subtle clues you'll only catch on a reread.

This book will be living in my head rent-free from now on. It's about so many things and yet has interwoven them all perfectly. Fans of classic horror movies will love this story. Those of us fed up with AI generated trash will love it. Anyone who joined a WGA picket line will love it. Asexuals fed up with lack of representation will love it. People who watched multiple seasons of Supernatural will love it. Is that you? Go pick up Bury Your Gays. Be scared, be sad, be angry. But also validated, loved, and joyful.

TLDR: Read this book when it comes out on July 9!