#The Blackberry Bushes art

[isfjmel-phleg]

Look at the beautiful art that @praise-the-lord-im-dead made of my OC Rachel and her sister when they're lost in the capital city of Faysmond in Book 1 Chapter One!

I love how she captured the Art Nouveau aesthetic of the city, how Rachel and Estelle are such a contrast to the colorful people around them, how the sisters are such tiny vulnerable figures in the vastness of this beautiful and daunting world. I love the nature motifs: the birds in the trees above the door, the fish on the door itself, the figures holding wheat (a symbol of prosperity, perfect for the design of a city that was trying to recover after a war), the duck-shaped handle of a passer-by's umbrella.

[chalkrub]

so i got through to the top 300 for the pokemon tcg contest. i'm feeling normal about it........feeling very normal and sane. which is why i also drew this in ms paint

[ki1ldeer]

Strangely colored Liam because it’s my BIRTHDAY

[spacenintendogs]

For the art requests!! Snotlout playing with Hookfang maybe <333

him sniff snoff sneff

[betweenblackberrybranches]

So uh

Im still a lot less active rn because i just dont feel so great but whenever i do draw something i will keep posting it because it doesnt take too much energy. Ill just probably interact less?

And that is frustrating because i do wanna interact with all of you and i do wanna answer so many asks i have gotten and i do wanna reblog a lot of others art with a buttload of tags to say how cool what they make is but it is just too much rn.

So yea im not as active until i slowly feel better again and also yay hanahaki comic later today (im gonna warn you i have a very loose grasp on hanahaki)

[fictionadventurer]

In lieu of getting a boxed set of the Blackberry Bushes books for Christmas, I'm just designing a cover for Book 1 in the style of the Penguin Clothbound Editions.

[imjustexistingtbh]

i want to return to the mountains. i need to return to the trees. i want to go back where my soul can roam, i need to go back, for me. i'm suffocating in this city, the people, the lights, the noise. i need to go back to the place i call home, i need to go back where it's green.

a bad poem on homesickness by me

[anarchypumpkincowboy]

I’m beholden to two mice, Bob the spy, AND THIS WONDERFUL LITTLE FISHERMAN

[aberghdesigns]

Lilac Breasted Roller perched on a blackberry vine! The photo was taken a couple weeks after the tattoo and still during the healing process.

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

‘No one fits,’ she said at last. ‘Not in the way we want to, at least. But we find our own places. We carve them ourselves, in the work we do, in the people we love.’

ALL THE PAINTED STARS - Out now!

What do you do when you hear your friend's unwilling hand in marriage is the grand prize in a tournament? You cut off all your hair, steal your brothers' armour and ride in the tournament yourself, of course.

All The Painted Stars is a sapphic medieval romance novel about using the power of ADHD and this sword you found to save your best friend from the shackles of a marriage she doesn't want. Also there's beer.

ATPS is the first sequel to One Night in Hartswood, starring Raff and Penn's sisters Lily and Jo. It is a standalone story, but does contain references to the events of Hartswood.

All the Painted Stars contains...

⭐ Best friends to lovers

⭐ Hidden identities (well, she tries)

⭐ Letter writing

⭐ Women in armour

⭐ "Aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you want to go ape shit?"

It's available NOW in e-book, paperback and audiobook wherever books are sold!

Purchase links here.

Full blurb and CW under the cut!

Oxfordshire 1362

When Lily Barden discovers her best friend Johanna’s hand in marriage is being awarded as the main prize at a tournament, she is determined to stop it. Disguised as a knight, she infiltrates the contest, preparing to fight for Jo’s hand. But her conduct ruffles feathers, and when a dangerous incident escalates out of Lily’s control, Jo must help her escape.

Finding safety with a local brewster, Lily and Jo soon settle into their new freedom, and amongst blackberry bushes and lakeside walks an unexpected relationship blossoms. But when Jo’s past catches up with her and Lily’s reckless behaviour threatens their newfound happiness, both women realise that choices must always come at a cost. The question they need to ask is if that cost is worth the price of love…

Content warnings:

ATPS contains mention of past emotional and physical abuse, and some mild violence.

It also contains explicit on-page sex scenes.

Above art (in the lake) by @felrija

[aklaustaleteller]

An Unofficial Date

Klaus has had a certain starry-eyed girl on his mind, so when he walks into a museum, not at all with the hope of finding her inside, he can't help but strike up a conversation, which might've just led to Y/n agreeing to see him again.

Warnings - none that I can think of!

Word Count - 1.6k

Masterlist | Please reblog the work to share!

Been writing something that has had me researching left, right, and center! So I thought that while I worked on that one, I'd write a quick little something to freshen up a tad. Hope you enjoy a giddy Klaus hahah!

On a random, foggy Tuesday morning, Klaus found himself taking a quick stroll to the new Art Museum that had appeared out of nowhere in Mystic Falls. Well, for him anyways, for he hadn't come across the building in the months that he had been existing in the small town.

But one couldn't fault him for that, seeing that he had been so busy messing with a group of teenagers, or rather – with a couple of centuries old vampires, a newborn werewolf, and even a newfound witch, should he say.

But what took up most of his time was this starry-eyed girl with whom his eyes always seemed to meet whenever they were in the same room. That was all he got, though. The chance to look into her eyes for a fleeting second before she was shifting her gaze onto something else, leaving him breathless and wanting for more.

He never caught her name, or even a smile. Each time he saw her, he had been in search for a muse. And each time, she succeeded in sending a surge of creativity flowing through his entire being that consumed him so fully that he would race home and embrace that rush of adrenaline until he needed more.

Then, he would go out to steal another glance at her. The problem was, he hadn't been seeing her around for a week now. And he was anxious that she might've left the town, for she was the type of person whose absence went unnoticed for all but those who'd even once shared her company.

So, he felt a bit hopeful since he hadn't heard of Damon or Bonnie complaining about their loss of time with her. But he was also dreadful, wanting nothing more than to meet with her again knowing that this time he wouldn’t miss the chance to speak to her.

If Klaus had to be honest, he'd confess that the sole reason he was even heading to the museum was because he had a feeling that this could be one of the places he'd find her.

On his walk, he came across wildflowers and rose bushes, a couple of pinecones and a odd looking lemon tree, that stood lonely in midst of all the fog that had settled around it. And Klaus wondered if she paid attention to such details, if he should pick out a rose in case he did come across her? But he settled on not doing that, since that would surely give him away instantly.

He strolled through the corridors, sparing each art piece a single glance because he couldn't feel the emotions of looking at them for the first time and the curiousity of trying to unwind the stories in them due to his ages old knowledge that proved the collection in this museum to be quite poor.

There were a few people inside, a few dreamers scattered throughout the place, either sitting on the floor, sketching out what they could see in the painting or standing as if trying to count the stars, their eyes set on complicated pieces that pretentiously twisted the wires of their brains.

His eyes were wandering, and he was people watching now, rather than looking at the art that hung in frames. Which is how, there was a stutter in the search of his eyes when he caught sight of someone sitting against a wall opposite a painting, dressed in something quite vintage with a bowl of blackberries in their lap. A smile threatened to slip on his mouth.

He suppressed it though, looking at the ground to wait-out the disappearance of his blush before he squared his shoulders.

"Hello there," Klaus smiled, looking down at her and nodding when he had her attention. "Think I've seen you around?"

She broke a smile then, a small frown settling between her brows. "Hi, and …think I’ve witnessed a couple instances myself!" She laughed, her palm twitching awkwardly as she battled whether she should continue to eat, offer him some or wipe her stained hands on her thrifted dress.

She offered him to sit beside her instead, and then offered him her snack.

"Why thank you," Klaus murmured, his heart racing inside his chest the moment he caught a whiff of her perfume.

"I'm Niklaus, by the way."

She looked at him intriguingly, swallowing as she nodded to herself. "That's a nice name," she admitted. "Any meaning behind it?"

Klaus looked away, pretending to look at the painting in front of them in order to hide the sudden blood-rush to his face.

"Yes, yes it does," he said. "It comes from a Greek word, um, Nikolaos, I think? Means victory of the people."

"Well, I'm Y/n," she extended her clean hand out and Klaus shook it, electricity coursing through his being.

He sighed and locked his arms around his knees.

"So, Y/n," he tasted her name on his tongue and right away, wanted more of it. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing special, been writing a thesis lately. Came here for a break and some change of scenery," she shrugged.

"A thesis?" Klaus asked, feeling intrigued and when she nodded nonchalantly, he felt baffled. "On what, if you don't mind me asking?"

She was smiling bashfully now, looking down at the remaining blackberries. "You'll laugh," she said.

"And why would that be?"

She clenched her eyes shut. "Because it's on hotels," she raced to say, peeking at him with one eye to see his reaction. He wasn't laughing so she looked at him properly, dumbfounded, noting that his expression was the same as before, if not more interested.

"Tell me more about it," Klaus asked, leaning his head on his knee to look at her.

She was blushing, and Klaus made a mental note to try and get the shade right on his canvas when he went back home.

"Well, it's going to be a tangent, so don't complain, okay?" She looked at him warily. He blinked softly, urging her on and she felt something shift between them.

"You asked for this," she sighed, and he chuckled, picking up another berry as she turned so that she was facing him, sitting cross-legged with a straight back.

She went on then, and Klaus was absorbing every single word that she was saying along with her wild hand-gestures that he felt like were going to hit him at some point. He noticed the sparkle in her eyes doubling-up as she talked about something she clearly felt passionate about.

Her cheeks had grown slightly red, and her mouth was stained by the blackberries. She mentioned how she had an even softer spot for haunted houses and hotels, making him grin with her.

It felt vulnerable for some reason, and Klaus' heart felt like it was growing inside of his chest.

She was spilling for him all of the research she had done so far, and it was admirable how well she was doing at explaining to him all of it. He wasn't sure if he was going to be able to look at the hotels the same way again, knowing now the way she looked at them.

And he knew that he was going to pester her again sometime and ask her about the gold chain that she wore, in the middle of which hung a glass globe that held something in the shape of a star preserved inside it. He had a feeling that everything that adorned her body held some meaning to it for her. 

"And I think that's all I've got on it, so far anyways," she finished with a deep breath, looking at him with a big grin on her face. She had lipstick on her bottom teeth, or maybe it was just the berrie’s stain; Klaus looked away.

"I think I have a newfound soft-spot for hotels now," Klaus sighed, straightening his back and leaning against the wall, craning his neck to look at her.

"I'm so very glad to hear that," she chuckled. "My apologies for talking your ear off, but hey, you asked for it!"

"I've got a feeling that I might ask for it again," he winked, and she looked away immediately, the corners of her mouth lifted up.

"Can't be now because I need to get going," she shrugged, checking her wristwatch whose leather band was beginning to wither off.

"Sure, think I wasted some of your time there," grinning sheepishly, Klaus rubbed the back of his neck.

But she laughed as she packed away her book and the empty container back into her bag. "No, Klaus, thank you for listening," she said, genuinely.

"Anytime," Klaus muttered shyly, watching as she got up and waved him goodbye.

Klaus waved back with a wistful smile, watching her walk away when he suddenly realised.

"When will I see you again?" He shouted, ignoring the incredulous looks he got from the strangers. He slipped his hands in his pockets and shrugged when she turned around to look at him with wide eyes.

"I love taking evening walks around the neighbourhood," she said at a normal volume, and Klaus heard her just right.

He was going to be delusional and tell him himself that today had been an unofficial date, maybe he'd ask her out for an official one when he saw her the next time.

He nodded at her, giving her a salute as he rolled on the toe and then the heels of his feet, grinning shamelessly as she laughed and walked away, sparing him one last glance before turning around the corner, out of his sight but not once out of his mind.

[ecc-poetry]

SMASH THE MUSEUM, I NEED OXYGEN Elisa Chavez

exhibit 1.  My dad texts:  IS CRIME REALLY UP IN SEATTLE?  I send him a picture of the garden at Cal Anderson's heart. Black Lives Memorial. NO, I say. It felt like proof to me. Diversifying  in the face of scarcity. Transubstantiating the earth into wafers. 

exhibit 2. The oregon grape, qʷəbqʷəbčac  (qweb-qweb-chadth),  mahonia aquifolium, is "beloved by hummingbirds and bees."  I bring coffee to tired throats,  I bring post-it notes and pens; call me pollinator. Black and gold, buzzing corona.  Feathered shoulders. Busy, busy. 

exhibit 3.  Commenting Seattle says, Get rid of that weed patch, then the road mural on Pine. It's eating up the space we need for cars. Spare me your tree museum.  Your noblesse oblige, your death printed in triplicate. This feels like the right time to say  that I personally don't get the Mona Lisa. Kids' art I understand: color anarchy,  eyes wilding like coals in construction paper. Words I understand. I always stop for messages on telephone poles and building corners: "Wanted: the squirrel who stole my bagel"; "when I helped build this place  a worker fell down the elevator shaft and died." The Venus de Milo, I understand: armless, beautiful. Found in a farmer's field, where his habits of sowing and upturning resurrected the goddess from the earth. This is to say that not all beauty will make itself obvious to you.

exhibit 4. I watch my best friend pick blackberries straight from the bush by I-5. She swallows, no fear. I'm too scared to eat without permission, but I've thought of smoke and the tart juice ever since.  I read blackberries grow especially well  on the sites of old house fires.  I hope if I have to, I'll do the same.

exhibit 5. In the garden, we hors d'oeuvre  like it's a birthday party. We sing, we town hall, we fucking juggle. A man falls; like bees, we shift to give him space.  Like bees, the gardeners tend. Someone says, "I have narcan" and they get him back to blooming. Straggling, maybe. Pretty, maybe not. But alive.

exhibit 6. Ms. Lyles, this one's for you. For your children, who I pray will learn the story of a city that did better. Grief is a seed. It waits through winter, sprouts between the ribs like sidewalk cracks and puts reminders in your lungs. It's okay to breathe your grief. It's okay to speak it. Our grief is a story committed to dirt. We just hope something good will grow.

Hey friends, if you're in the Seattle area, please consider lending your voice to saving the Black Lives Memorial Garden! There is so much you can do that would be helpful to preserving this vital space: filling out a community survey, donating, asking local orgs and businesses you frequent to sign the letter of support. And more, probably!

Please share this poem/post/the linked resources with Seattle buddies, and remember to support your local gardeners. Okay I luh you buh-bye!

[sylfvr]

Dedicated to the Ice Caverns not far from the peaceful village of Dali. Inspired by a couple of mornings of frozen silence and halted time. To the blackberry bush outside my window which looks so pristine clad in white. To the mellifluous winter winds. To my friends and family. To the community. Thank you.

The cover art is a digital collage made of:

pdimagearchive.org/images/b656ed61-4a1b-4ec8-a4de-bd1f08e6fa70/ pdimagearchive.org/images/879c0c34-1018-4e76-bb9e-e34fb77ed0ea/

The logo's font is traced from the font visible on the cover of Old French Fairytales, illustrated by Virginia Frances Sterrett (1920) publicdomainreview.org/collection/old-french-fairytales-illustrated-by-virginia-frances-sterrett-1920/

The frame was made by myself.

I recommend listening to this album either at night or as the sun is slowly rising during winter.

[prickleclan]

Prickleclan Intro!

prickleclan was founded by a group of cats fleeing from a crumbling rogue group in a separate territory and wanting more in life. on the way, they picked up a few strays and promptly settled in the countryside alongside a few other established clans. their camp is protected by thorny shrubbery, most notably blackberry bushes, coining the name prickleclan!

i made this blog for fun, and consistent updates are really unlikely between both school and art block, so please don’t expect too much from it!!

this blog is run by my main account @fawnwhisker !! please go check it out my art is super awesome pleaaasee …

[1863-project]

Okay, was thinking about it and I remembered a lot of you were very young or not even alive for this, so:

When 9/11 happened I was 12 and had just started 7th grade. I grew up in a suburb of New York City. 12 people from my town died, including a firefighter whose son was in my younger brother's CCD group.

Things changed SO fast. Practically overnight. Suddenly, we were all hypervigilant, and after the immediate response of assistance from around the world, the prejudice was oozing from nearly everywhere. In northern New Jersey, we had and still have a large west (Middle East) and south Asian population. They were hit the hardest.

People freaked out just because a mosque was going to be built in lower Manhattan within several blocks of Ground Zero at one point. It was ridiculous and the Islamophobia was so fucking awful and infuriating. It still is. It didn't go away. For the most part, New Yorkers are usually good to each other because there's literally someone from everywhere here, but this was legitimately terrifying. People would even attack Sikhs - who weren't Muslim, Sikhism is its own thing - because they saw the turbans and made a decision based on racism (i.e. bin Laden had a turban so these people must be like him).

The "patriotism" was miserable. "Freedom fries" happened because people were mad that France didn't want to go into Iraq with Bush in 2003. We all thought it was stupid then too.

The Chicks (formerly known as the Dixie Chicks) got blackballed because they came out against said war. They were one of the biggest country acts in the world at the time. In general, country music went through a massive tonal shift post-9/11 and became far more "patriotic" and conservative. Johnny Cash wouldn't have recognized it.

The Flash movies that inevitably popped up satirizing politics were...something. You can find most of them archived on YouTube these days. But that was how the internet tended to cope back then.

The shift from happiness to paranoia was so fucking fast. I went from a world where my biggest concern was pre-ordering the GameCube to being worried about politics and death all the time. All the news showed was footage of people dying for weeks. Politicians started using the footage in commercials. You just had to keep reliving the trauma of it over and over again. I stopped watching the news.

It was, looking back on it, a huge galvanizing point for the American right. Politicians started using 9/11 to justify so many things. This was where I began to see as a young teenager that you could use people's prejudices to get a grip on power and get what you wanted. I didn't like it.

People started drawing memorial art almost immediately. The phenomenon of memorial art being done decades later with cartoon characters still persists on deviantART to this day, but when it started, it was mostly people doing vent art because it's really upsetting to be a kid and see death on that scale on the news.

It took me 15 years to go back to the site after 9/11. I'd been as a kid in 1997 and I went up in the South Tower with my family. I didn't set foot there again until 2016, 15 years after the attacks. I found the name of the firefighter whose son was in my brother's CCD class. It was surreal.

This chapter of American history arguably closed for many people in 2011, when bin Laden was killed in a raid. I remember watching the Mets play the Phillies that night. Daniel Murphy, who I'd named a cat after two years earlier, was at bat, and suddenly the crowd started chanting "USA." I used my Blackberry to check the news and that was how I found out. I was a senior in college, about to graduate. I don't even remember how I felt, just that the way I found out was so fucking weird.

It was a really stressful, bizarre climate to grow up in. In the time between my 12th and my 22nd birthday, I saw my entire world get turned upside down overnight, massive waves of prejudice, unnecessary wars that killed even more innocent people, literal war crimes (tw: rape, murder, prisoner torture, every other bad thing you can think of under the sun), and the rise of false patriotism and nationalism, which you can still see the right wing harnessing today.

If you're going to mock something here, mock the false patriotism. Mock "Freedom Fries." Mock George W. Bush. Just...don't mock the actual moments where people died. Too many innocent people died from the attacks themselves, the Islamophobia afterwards, and the wars that followed. That shit isn't funny.

[gardeningforfun0714]

Hi everyone I’m sorry I haven’t updated as much as I planned, but I thought I’d share pics of how everything’s going in my garden (6/23/24)

The tomatoes have exploded and there’s lots of flowers. I’m hoping it’s not too hot and we actually get fruit this year (last year got so hot our tomatoes didn’t even flower during the normal growing season).

Next is the corn, which are also doing really well. It’s the sweet corn variety. Funny story, I planted the corn seeds without knowing you kind of need a lot to get a good crop because it’s wind pollinated. However, we have about 10 mature stalks and I’m hoping to get at least a small harvest. A few of the stalks are taller than me (5’3”/160cm) and one of the ears growing already has silk growing out of the ear.

Next are the cucumbers. One of the plants has a few eggs on the bottoms of the leaves so I used some Sevin dust. I’m hesitant to use neem oil because I’ve noticed lots of ladybugs in the garden and don’t wanna kill them.

The carrots are doing well after being transplanted. Unfortunately I don’t remember when I started the seeds so I’m not sure if they should be farther along by now (I believe I planted around late April/early May—late for seeds I know but I’ve got a long growing season and few frosts).

The various fruit trees/bushes/shrubs are doing well. Pictured are a thorny blackberry vine, an olive tree, a papaya tree, and a babcock peach tree. Everything is doing amazing. The blackberry is producing, the 4 peaches are growing and changing color while the olive, fig and papaya have been putting in some major growth/establishing.

Last is the melon patch. It’s also exploded and there are so many watermelons throughout the whole patch of varying sizes from bb-sized to the one pictured with my hand. I didn’t see any cantaloupe yet, but there’s lots of flowers. I haven’t actually gone into the patch due to how crowded it is (I’m hoping if we do get some we’d be able to see them when they get big enough). I’m estimating we have between 12-15 watermelon at least so far.

However, not everything is doing so well. The rabbits have been so destructive, they killed my producing pole bean, the peppers I transplanted into the ground and most of the radishes, leaving 2 left for us (I did start new seeds though because radishes are some of the quickest vegetables you can grow from seed to harvest).

For things I didn’t cover like the grapes, blueberries, raspberries, guava trees, the apple tree, the lemon tree, various flowers, onions, potatoes, and pineapples, they are all doing good as well. I also wanna add that I did start new bush beans/pole beans as well as various kinds of peppers (jalapeños, hot salsa blend peppers, golden bell peppers) in containers to make up for the ones that got chewed. Hopefully those will make a nice fall harvest. The potatoes are almost ready to be harvested and the blueberries and raspberries have had berries ripen one at a time due to how small they are (this is the first year for berries).

As for other things I have planned, I have a few art pieces I’d like to post if that’s something y’all are interested in. I also would love to talk about my experience with gardening and mental health but any and all posts related to that will be labeled with appropriate trigger warnings.

Thanks for all the support with likes/reblogs. Feel free to come lurk, talk, vent, ask, whatever. I just wanna inspire others that think they cannot grow things that they can. If you’d like to talk I mostly would like to talk about gardening/plants/mental health and how it impacts us as humans.

Happy growing🌱🌿💙