#The Gaudier Collection

[oikasugayama]

You can't escape from chuuya 😜 the same as with dazai with the reader with a short skirt nsfw I wanted the most chuuye😠

fiiiiine, fine. Have Chuuya smut that's twice as long as the Dazai one ;)

MDNI, NSFW, fem!reader in a short skirt, 5k of filthy dirty nasty smutttt, name calling, brat taming, spanking, daddy (only once), fingering, cum eating, blow job, all sorts of shit ok. MDNI MDNI MDNI

You’re always professionally dressed at work. Members of the Port Mafia are paid handsomely, so you can all afford to dress to the nines, even for a simple day in the office or a dangerous tryst out in enemy territory. Like many of your coworkers, you prefer a polished, businessy look when conducting Port Mafia business. You have a closet full of perfectly tailored pantsuits, mostly in black though you do keep a few fun colors should you get the chance to wear them. 

On your days off, however, you’re more or less unrecognizable to your coworkers thanks to the difference in your business style and your personal style. You’re not just fond of bright and pastel colors, you’re obsessed with them. The girlier, prettier, and gaudier a piece of clothing is, the more you love it. You’re inspired by Harajuku, and pastel goth styles, as well as some frilly vintage vibes now and again. You even have a small collection of colorful wigs you like to wear out sometimes when an outfit calls for just the right one. 

One of your favorite outfits includes a black tube top, a cropped pastel pink cardigan that hangs off one shoulder, a black and pink plaid mini skirt over some fashionably ripped fishnet tights and a chunky pair of black platform boots. You like to accessorize of course, and typically go for a pastel pink dog collar choker with a heart pendant, chains hanging across your waist and down one side of your skirt, dangly earrings, and several rings. Depending on your mood, your makeup is either very sharp and black, or very soft and pink, and if you choose to wear a wig, its color is the opposite of the makeup you chose.

On the day you accidentally run into several of your coworkers in a bar, you’re in a pink wig with black eyeliner so sharp it could cut a man. 

You’re not surprised that they don’t recognize you. At work you have very plain, naturally colored hair, typically smoothed back into a bun, much like Higuchi and Gin do. In a plain black suit, it’s hard to show off your style. Besides, you wouldn’t want any of your fun clothes getting ruined in the line of duty. And it’s not like, on the rare occasion you hang out with your coworkers, that you’ve had time to go home and change. Typically if you go anywhere with them that isn’t for work, it’s just to lunch in the middle of the day, or to a bar at the end of a shift. They’ve never known you to look anything except professional.

This leads you to want to have a little fun with them all, to see how close you can get and what you can start saying before one of them catches on that it’s you.

You walk past the group a few times on the way to the bar or to the table you’re perched at. They don’t say anything about you at first, and they’re not talking about anything important from what you hear. On your third trip past, however, you do catch one of them mentioning you, and you use your ability-- which allows you to focus your hearing on anything you so choose within a certain radius-- to eavesdrop from across the loud room.

“--same chick has walked by like 5 times already,” Tachihara says.

“Are you sure?” Gin asks.

“Why does it matter? We’re in public,” Higuchi says. “People are going to walk by.”

“I know it’s definitely her because, I mean, look at her. Of course I noticed her.”

You pretend like you don’t notice when several curious heads turn your way.

“God, she’s hot,” Chuuya says, whistling under his breath. “Fucking Christ, those thighs.”

“Hey, I saw her first,” Tachihara says, while the others roll their eyes and tell the two to quiet down.

“I’d offer to share, but if I get a piece of that ass, it’s fucking mine.”

“Jesus Christ, Chuuya, you’ve had too much to drink already.”

“We’ve been here 20 minutes, I’ve barely had one glass!” he says defensively.

“Why don’t you ask her to dance if you’re so interested?” Akutagawa asks, disinterested but amused at the notion of Chuuya making a fool of himself.

“Nah,” he says, waving his hand at his group. “A hot piece of ass like that you’ve gotta chase a little. I’ve gotta buy her a drink, maybe, then ask her to dance later, then lay on the charm.”

“You’re a real ladies man, Chuuya,” Tachihara says sarcastically.

The conversation gradually turns to something else. You let it drift away since your focus isn’t exactly on them anymore, it’s suddenly on the pulsing desire burning in your crotch. “Holy shit,” you think. “Chuuya wants to fuck me so bad he’s making stupid ass plans for it.” Honestly, he could hit it any day of the week if he’d just ask, but he’s never seemed too interested in you at work. “This is what does it for him, I guess,” you think, downing the rest of your drink. You then decide to grab his attention again by stretching a little, arching your back and raising your arms over your head to make your cropped cardigan and your tube top expose a bit of your belly. It’s not a lot, but for someone already desperate to see more of you, it works.

“Fucking hell,” Chuuya mutters under his breath, eyes on you. You make eye contact with him and wink, and when he smirks instead of looking away, you run your hand up your thigh, pulling your short skirt up even higher. His eyebrows raise, giving you a look like “oh yeah?” and you smile. 

“His move,” you think, using your other hand to twirl your empty glass around a little bit. Chuuya excuses himself from the group and goes to the bar quickly.

You’ve got him hook, line, and sinker.

It’s then that the worst thing happens. Higuchi’s phone rings, then Gin’s, and Tachihara’s, and Akutagawa’s, and Chuuya’s, and yours. It’s an emergency alert from the PM. You’re all being called in, and you need to be there fast. You’re only a couple of blocks from the office. All of your coworkers will be there in less than 10 minutes. You don’t have time to go home and change. You have to go right now.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you hiss under your breath, getting up and rushing for the door before the others do. Maybe if you get out ahead of them they won’t notice you--

“God dammit,” Chuuya groans. “I was just about to get her a fuckin’ drink.”

“She’s running out, too,” Higuchi points out.

“It’s weird that she’s going in the same direction as us, right?” Tachihara asks, unsure.

“There are a lot of other things out this way, dumbass,” Chuuya says.

Then you take a left, and the group takes a left. They get closer, and you try to walk faster.

Then you take a right, and they take a right. Then you approach the PM headquarter building.

“What the fuck?” Chuuya asks, rushing forward to try to stop you at the door, but you rush inside as soon as the door opens a crack.

“Hey!” Tachihara calls, rushing in after you. You hit the button to call an elevator, but realize the only available one is several floors away. You’re cornered. The jig is up.

Fuck.

“Heeeey,” you say, slowly turning around to greet the group as they gather. “Any of you know what the emergency is? I’m wondering if it’s about the Detective Agency’s involvement in our failed gun import. I was just telling Akutagawa-san yesterday that I had a feeling they’d end up losing the guns to some other organization stealing them before the Detectives could decide whether to turn us in over it.”

“Oh my god,” Higuchi gasps.

“It’s [Y/N],” Gin says.

“What?!” Chuuya and Tachihara both say, and Akutagawa is the only one to stay focused.

“It likely is exactly that,” he says. “Your foresight is spot on as usual.”

“What’s with this outfit?!” Higuchi asks, feeling your cardigan and grabbing the hem of your skirt. “It’s so short! Why are you dressed like this? You were at the same bar as us!”

“This is how I dress on my days off,” you answer honestly, shrugging. The elevator doors finally open and you all start to file in. “And yes, I’m well aware we were at the same bar,” you say, glancing at Chuuya as he shuffles past you. His cheeks blaze and his eyes lock onto the ground, refusing to meet your gaze.

So that’s how it is.

The emergency meeting goes on for two tense hours. It’s exactly what you and Akutagawa thought it would be about, and your group, as well as other Mafia and specifically Black Lizard leaders and members discuss action plans, potential repercussions, and viable reconnaissance missions. When Mori finally announces that you all deserve a break and that you’re meet again in an hour, you’re the first to get up and leave the room, feeling embarrassed to be in a work situation in your fun outfit.

Several footsteps follow you into the hallway, but they all patter off in different directions after a turn here, a turn there.

Only one set of steps follows you into the stairwell. It’s quiet, with very light steps, but you know it’s there thanks to your impeccable hearing.

The same footsteps follow you down two floors, three, four, five…

You feel like you’re being chased, but you think you know exactly who it is, and so the chase is more exciting than it is scary.

You finally get to the floor that your office is on and leave the stairwell. You walk quickly to your office, go in but leave the door cracked, and to test your theory that you’re being followed, you “accidentally” drop your phone after walking a few feet inside. You slowly bend over, letting your short skirt rise up over the curve of your ass, completely exposing your fishnet-covered ass and black thong to anyone who may be standing at the door. You grab your phone slowly, give a cheeky shake of your butt, then stand back up.

Your office door clicks closed behind you, and the lock engages loudly.

“That show for me?” Chuuya asks. You turn to find him leaning against your door. A quick glance down shows you that he’s already at least half-hard in his pants.

“Who else?” you ask softly, leaning against the edge of the desk. It’s cold on your mostly bare ass, but you act cool, crossing one ankle over the other. Your legs look long and sexy stretched out in front of you, and you can tell that Chuuya thinks so too because he can’t stop looking at them.

“It’s a shame we were called away,” you say to break the tension. “I was looking forward to that drink.”

“Were you?” he asks, slowly walking toward you. His hands are deep in his pockets like usual, always acting calm and cool. The look in his eye is different than normal, though. It’s hungry. “Nice to know.”

“You know, you’re not as forward as I thought you’d be,” you admit, leaning back on your hands. You’re on full display for him now. “I half expected you to be all over me as soon as you closed that door.”

“Tell me to leave,” he says, finally standing toe to toe with you. “Tell me to get the fuck out otherwise I will be all over you.”

“Why would I tell you to get the fuck out when I could tell you to come the fuck on already?”

Chuuya makes a noise between a moan and a growl and leaps forward, standing so both of his legs are over yours. He grabs your face with both of his hands and pulls you in for a hot, hard kiss. It’s all tongue and nipping at each other’s lips and hot panting into each other’s mouths.

Your hands shamelessly roam his body once you’ve sat up to meet him. You push his jackets back off of his shoulders so it falls onto the ground. You feel his muscular back and shoulders and arms. You slide your hands lower, feeling his sides and hips. You start messing with his belt by the time he even realizes he can touch you back.

“Fuck, you’re so hot,” he pants, yanking at your cardigan so you take it off. “Honestly good that you don’t fucking dress like this at work,” he says, yanking your tube top down too so your breasts are exposed. “I’d be fucking you every time I fucking see you.” He gropes your tits, squeezing them and massaging them in his hands. He tweaks your perked nipples, rolling them between his fingers, making them hard and sensitive. 

“Chuuya,” you whine, “why don’t you suck on them if you like them so much?” He looks up at you and smirks, temporarily grabbing you by the hips to push you further back on your desk so you can lay down comfortably. Once you’re flat he climbs on top, knees on either side of your hips, and leans down to your chest. He licks wet stripes across your tit, teasing your nipple with his tongue. He kisses open-mouthed around your boob, refusing to give you what you really want until you finally whine and shift under him, then he sucks your nipple into his mouth and keeps steady pressure on it for several seconds until finally releasing it with a wet smacking sound. He gives the other breast a similar treatment, teasing and sucking and licking. You reach a hand up into his hair, gently moaning his name while you card your fingers through.

He starts grinding his hard-on against your lower belly, just above your crotch given the way that he’s kneeled over you. You whimper and push your hips up, trying to meet him as he grinds. He’s thoroughly attached to your breasts, playing with one nipple while sucking on the other, trading, kissing, sucking hickies onto them. He works a stream of moans and pants and whines from you, getting you to moan his name several times, which makes him grind down onto you harder.

Finally, his hand leaves your chest and trails down your body, his slightly calloused fingers feeling rough on your soft skin. Chuuya flips your short skirt up, wasting no time in cupping your still-clothed cunt and stroking his fingers over it.

“God damn, you’re wet already,” he says, shifting so his face is against your neck.

“You’re fucking hot,” you admit, tugging on his hair. He bites not-so-gently, leaving an instant red and purple hickey on a very obvious spot. His fingers slowly spread, coming together again almost squeezing your pussy lips together. He does it again after you moan in his ear, adding more pressure to tease you with, and again, but this time his fingers dip under your panties and bunch the fabric up together. He pulls it up, several inches higher than your body, making the fabric squeeze in between your lips, leaving it pressing against your clit.

“Oh yeah?” he asks, chuckling when you grind up against his hand and your own panties, seeking stimulation. “That why you’re letting me touch your cunt? ‘Cause you think I’m hot?”

“Yeah,” you whine, still grinding upward. It’s working, your movements are giving you little shocks of pleasure as the damp fabric drags across your clit and also teases your pussy somewhat. “I’d let you fuck me too.” Your voice is breathy and unsteady, and Chuuya can tell just from the sound of it that you’re getting really worked up.

“I don’t know, doll,” he says, hovering over you by one hand pressed against the desk beside your head. “I kind of like the view watching you fuck yourself on my hand.”

“It’s not really ‘on your hand’ without your fingers in me.” You could swear that his eyes light up.

“What was that?” He teases you again, drifting his fingers over the extremely sensitive skin of your pussy. “Did you say something--” he dips a finger past your lips just enough to hook around your panties and pull them back, pushing them to the side-- “about my fingers?”

“Fucking tease,” you huff, reaching down to grab his hand, but he becomes an immovable force when you try to push his hand further down. “Oh and that stupid fucking ability of yours.” He laughs at that and tsks at you.

“You’ve got a dirty fuckin’ mouth,” he says. “Maybe you need something good in there to clean it out.” He gets off the desk and unbuckles his belt, unzips his pants, and kicks them to the floor. You sit up to see him in just his black underwear and white t-shirt, palming himself through the fabric. “C’mere and suck this dick.”

You obey, getting onto the ground with shaky thighs. He’d gotten you more worked up than you realized, and knowing yourself, sucking his dick is not going to calm you down, it’s going to get you closer to the edge.

You pull his boxers down and he steps out of them. His cock is thick and longer than your fist when you close it around his shaft. You give him a few pumps, spreading some pre-cum down his length, before leaning forward with an open mouth to take him in greedily. You start bobbing your head immediately, trying to take as much of him as possible. He stretches your mouth more than anyone else ever has, and you have a feeling your jaw is gonna get sore if you do this for too long.

Chuuya grabs fistfulls of your hair and uses it to guide you back and forth, setting a quicker pace than you already were. He works up to fucking your mouth, using your head like a sex toy. His tip bounces off the back of your throat multiple times, and you have to focus really hard on not gagging. You get messy, letting spit and drool fall out of the corners of your mouth. Tears also spring up in your eyes from him fucking your throat, but you don’t even try to stop them from falling. Your eyeliner is waterproof, but your mascara isn’t, so some black streaks may fall down your cheeks, but you don’t care. You honestly kind of want to see the fucked out look on your face when this is all over.

“You’re too good at this,” Chuuya moans. “Fucking cockslut, aren’t you? Gonna be my slut now, huh? Gonna let me fuck your throat some more, right? Whenever I want?”

You hum around him but can’t exactly nod given his cock in your mouth. He gets it though, and he also moans when you hum as the vibrations go straight into his sensitive tip when it touches the back of your mouth.

“Gonna cum in your mouth,” he grunts, “gonna make you eat it all.”

You try to shake your head, pushing back on his thighs, whining.

“No?” he asks, slowing down and stopping. “Why not, doll?” He lets you back up, finally letting go of your hair.

“That’s a waste,” you croak out, then clear your throat and try to make the fucked-out sound go away. “If you don’t bend me over my desk and fuck me until I scream I’m never fucking touching you again.”

“Oh, fuck yeah!” he says excitedly, reaching down for your arms. He picks you up effortlessly thanks to his ability, and for some reason that really does it for you. You moan just from that touch, feeling your pussy throb. Then he turns you around, pushes you down onto your desk, and smacks your ass hard. You yelp and then moan as he rubs the sting out.

“Where do you want me to cum? On your back?”

“In my cunt, dumbass.”

“Geez, you’re a fucking bitch, you know that?” he hisses, squeezing one hand around the base of his cock while the other swings and spanks you again. “And it’s so fucking hot.” He spanks you again. He refuses to tell you he felt his orgasm building from you telling him to cum inside, though his brain is being overrun by that thought now.

He flips your skirt up and rubs his hands on your ass, squeezing your cheeks and gently smacking them to make them jiggle.

“Are you having fun?” you ask him, earning another hard spank, which you moan loudly in response to, a fun smirk on your face. “I kinda like that,” you coo, wiggling your hips back toward him. “Spank me again, Chuuya-san. I’ve been very, very bad.” 

He spanks you hard and you yelp, tears stinging the corners of your eyes. “Oh, fuck,” you moan softly, torn between pleasure and pain. “You’re an asshole.” He spanks you again on the other cheek. “Will you fuck me already, asshole?”

“I would if you’d stop being a bitch.”

“Maybe you’ve gotta fuck the bitch out of me,” you say, trying to look at him over your shoulder. “You’ll never know until you try.”

“Amen,” he says flippantly, pulling your panties to the side again to make sure they’re still out of his way. He rubs his fingers over your wet pussy, dipping between the folds but never into your vagina. He spreads your wetness all over your folds, as if it wasn’t there already, but then he huffs and you hear a slight ripping.

“What was that?” you ask, turning to him.

“Stupid fucking lines are in my way.”

“Lines? My fishnets? You did not just rip my tights, you fucking douche.”

“So what if I did?” he asks, stroking himself with your wet.

“Are you serious? You fucking a-- ohhh, fuck!” You try to insult him again but get cut off by his thick cock skewering you in one swift movement. You’re so wet and ready that he slides straight in, your walls stretching to fit around his girth.

“Fuuuuuck,” he moans, throwing his head back as he bottoms out. “Your bitch pussy is the best shit I’ve ever felt, I swear to god,” he says, grabbing both sides of your hips as he withdraws and then snaps his hips forward again. “You’re so fucking hot.”

“Oh, shit, Chuuyaaa,” you whine, voice going high and strained. “You’re so big, what the fuck? What the-- fuuuck,” you moan as he sets a pace, hips snapping forward every second, filling the room with wet fucking sounds and the smack of his heavy balls against your thighs.

“I’ve gotta fuckin’ see you,” he says after only a minute, backing out of you. You grunt and groan, glaring at him over your shoulder until he once again grabs you with that ability of his and moves you around like you weigh nothing. He has you on your side, one leg hanging off the desk, the other hooked over his shoulder, and then he teases your pussy with the head of his cock, dragging it back and forth, up and down your lips, pushing in only near your clit, not near your hole.

“Chuuya, please,” you sigh, reaching down toward where your bodies meet, but he grabs your hand and pins it to the desk. “Please fuck me, don’t do this.”

“Don’t do what?” he asks cheekily, moving his hips as if thrusting, only letting his cock rub between your pussy lips.

“Don’t tease me,” you pant, trying to squirm your hips. “Put your cock back in me, now.”

“Now?” he asks, playing dumb.

“Now,” you insist. He rubs his tip against your clit.

“What about now?”

“Stop teasing me!”

“You know, that’s no way to ask for a favor,” he says. “Maybe I’ll just walk away. Then what would you do? Fuck yourself on your fingers?”

“I’ll find Akutagwa,” you huff, trying to loosen your hand from his grasp. He barks out a laugh, whole body shaking for a moment.

“Akutagawa?! He wouldn’t know what to do with a pussy like this, babe,” he smirks, finally moving his tip back toward your hole. “You really don’t think he could fuck you like I can, right?”

“What if I do?” You try to keep sounding tough, but the brat is being teased out of you, and you really, really want to be fucked dumb on his cock right now. “Maybe-- ahhh--” Chuuya enters you slowly, smirking down at you and the way your eyes roll back before fluttering closed. 

“Maybe what?” Chuuya asks, bottoming out.

“Maybe-- Akutagawa--” you stutter as Chuuya pulls back and snaps his hips forward again, spearing your g-spot as if he was locked on target.

“Akutagawa?” he asks, trying to lead you on as he slowly builds his pace. You try to babble something out, but as he starts properly fucking you, leaning over you and holding your leg up so he can press you into the desk, you just can’t think of anything except for Chuuya.

“Chuuya-- Chuuya-- Oh, fuck, right there-- Ohh, Chuuya!”

The sound alone is enough to make someone blush, your wet pussy gushing around him every time he goes balls deep, his body pressing against yours, getting wet and precum and sweat all over each other's crotches. You both get lost in it, moaning and swearing and giving stupid empath threats to each other.

“You better make me cum,” you say to him, and he responds “You better stop being such a bitch when I make this pussy squirt.”

He starts palming your tits again when he gets close, panting and fucking you as quickly as he can.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum. You sure I can bust inside?” he manages to ask through his panting.

“Yes,” you moan, “oh fuck yeah. Cum in this pussy, daddy.”

“Daddy?!” he asks, and that’s what does it. You caught him so off guard that his whole body jerks and he hunches over you, cumming a big, hot load into your cunt. His face is burning red, and some sweat drips down his forehead. His eyes are squeezed shut, his mouth dropped open, a tiny bit of drool about to sneak out the corner of his mouth. “Fucking bitch,” he says, but it’s so high pitched and tense that it makes you laugh. Your pussy involuntarily contracts when you laugh, and your whole body slightly jiggles under him, and it makes him yelp and moan again, long and drawn out. “God damn,” he whines, pulling back as if he’s going to back out now.

“Hey, hey, hey,” you say, trying to stop him by the leg that’s thrown over his shoulder. “You didn’t make me cum yet. You’re not done here, Chuuya.”

“I’m not but my dick is,” he says, still kind of whiny. “I think you just sucked me dry, I really fucking think you did.” You can’t help but to laugh a little more as he lowers your leg and rolls you onto your back. “It’s only polite--” he says, dropping to his knees “--that I return the favor.” In a flash his tongue is on your pussy, lapping up his cum as it spills out of you. He swallows it without comment, and keeps lapping at your pussy, dipping his tongue into your hole while it’s still nice and open from his cock. You run your hand through his hair again, making sure he can’t pull back too far. You want his whole face in your cunt and you aren’t letting up on this. 

His fingers join his mouth, taking over for his tongue in prodding at your hole. They slip inside, twisting together at the same time as they pull in and out. He teases your g-spot every time this way, and the side of his fingers on your sensitive walls feels so so good. You start moaning his name when his tongue swirls around your clit, working relentless circles on it. He intersperses little sucks on it, and once he even dips his nose down and uses it to rub your clit since it’s a bit firmer than his tongue. He eats you out like an absolute fucking champ, shaking his head and blowing out to give you slight vibrating sensations, suckling to give you quick peaks of stimulation, and flicking his tongue back and forth and rolling it in circles to build your orgasm up higher and higher and higher until finally.

“Oh god, Chuuya-- I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna-- oohhhh Chuuya!!” Your back arches up, your fists close tightly in his hair, and you force his face into your pussy as you cum on his mouth and his fingers, rolling your hips to meet his touches. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down, just keeps letting you use him as your orgasm rolls and rolls and finally starts to patter out. Only when you let go of his hair does he sit upright, pull his fingers out of you, and suck your cum off of his fingers.

“You’re a lot of fun, you know that?” he asks, standing up, stretching his somewhat sore muscles.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” you sigh happily. Your whole body feels weightless and blissful and you aren’t ready to get up yet, even as Chuuya starts getting dressed.

“You dress like this often?”

“Every day off,” you say, finally having enough energy to at least pull your tube top back up to cover your breasts.

“Good. You should come see me again then.”

“You came to see me. And yes, you should come see me again.” You sit up, tilting your head and smiling mischievously at him.

“Guess I didn’t fuck the brat out of you yet,” he mumbles, reaching up to grab your jaw in his hand. “Next time then.”

“I’d love to see you try.”

[fleet-off]

From a chat I had with lu @lu-sn months ago, an idea that’s been living in my head rent-free. ❤️

They’re packing up Vegas’s room at the minor family compound—Pete on the floor with the boxes, Vegas on the edge of the bed and a dozen ugly outbursts.

(It is pain and presence and all Pete’s patience in the face of Vegas’s uselessness; it is a fragile, defensive rawness and a loving, too, and all of it bound up in grief and grievance.)

The packing goes more tolerably than it has any right to. Porsche never pokes his head in. Pete follows Vegas’s terse directives unerringly, sees too much but asks few questions. Three boxes and four garbage bags are filled in short order.

And then Pete comes upon Vegas’s drawer of trophies.

Not spelling bee trophies, you understand; these are the tokens of theft and successful exploits.

So here is the ring Vegas wore to visit Tawan. A forgotten earring. A pair of briefs, abandoned by a nameless squirrel-faced little twink who dangled off Kinn’s arm and Vegas’s every honeyed word.

Gifts, too: a set of ornate golden cufflinks, an enormous and tacky wristwatch. A dozen expensive baubles Vegas never used but forever gripped tight.

Here is a collection of meticulously labeled disks—one bears the squirrel-faced twink’s name, not that he’s aware—and Vegas knows the moment Pete picks up the oldest and glimpses its significance, because the corners of his mouth tighten a fraction. He sets down the disk and lifts Tawan’s ring instead, inspecting the empty promises engraved on its inner edge.

“Drop it,” Vegas bites out.

And Pete nods, and drops the ring back in the drawer with precisely as much consideration as Tawan deserves, and they move forward.

Or so Vegas thinks, except the next item Pete produces is a second ring. Gold and jade, a gift from some big-mouthed triad boy with his tongue hung so loose he ultimately lost it. “A shame,” Vegas had told Kinn at the time, airily—“It was a talented tongue, wasn’t it?”

There are at least four rings in that drawer.

The physical evidence of everything Vegas won over Kinn once brought him a mangled satisfaction. Now it is as if Pete is raising his mutilations to the light. He clung to them—they are his, as very little has been—but they are not of him.

“What,” he says sharply, “you want it?”

Pete raises his eyebrows. “I don’t think it would fit me, if I did.”

“Don’t get fucking jealous.”

Pete tilts his head. Looks up at him, thoughtful. “You’ve been a lot of different things to different people,” he says. “Did they fit you?”

(And here is the truth: sometimes, they did. Sometimes it was the wind in his face and a motorcycle engine revving under him and a rush of pure simple abandon. Sometimes the success of the lie overtook him and he became it; sometimes he ached with fragile pride for his meager wins.)

(Some nights he lay in bed with the smothering heat of a body against his back and cold sweat on his bare skin, and only his fingers dirty from touching Kinn’s leftovers because there was nothing left inside him to hold the stain.)

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Vegas says. His voice comes out strange and hoarse. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Pete.”

Pete crawls over. He picks up Vegas’s hand where it lies limp on the bed.

Despite everything—Vegas’s chest catches, watching him slide the ring onto his finger. He loathes—loves—his lungs are shot, can’t drag in enough air.

The ring dangles off his finger. Triad kid assumed his size, thought him grander than he was.

It looks gaudier now than it did the one time he attempted to wear it. Maybe it’s the absence of the family ring.

The tat and trinkets were designed for tawdry shapes, molds into which Vegas contorted himself. He is no longer capable of the imitation.

(Pieces of him continue to wear those shapes, still and forever. This alien body is an inescapable thing.)

Vegas watches his own hand clench into a fist. The urge—to unmake, to smash himself open—this too is inescapable. Easier to extract what is genuine from the beaten pulp than from the shell.

Pete knows this too, but he bows his head against Vegas’s arm before Vegas can even try. His forehead is warm—his hair soft—underneath, his hands hold Vegas’s wrist like a precious thing. Clumsily, Vegas’s free hand finds Pete’s nape.

“Be the parts that fit,” Pete tells him. “Hold what you want to keep. The rest will fall away.”

Here on his finger, a part of Vegas forcibly made native; here in the stretched-taut tendons of his forearm, the rot that is all Vegas’s own. Pete is careful with the invasive patchwork of him, but the specific gentleness he offers Vegas’s putrid inborn mess is fury and comfort in equal measure.

He strokes Pete’s hair. Slowly lets his fist unclench.

The ring clatters to the floor, bounces somewhere under the bed. They do not retrieve it.

[eucanthos]

Amedeo Modigliani (IT, Livorno, 1884 - 1920, Paris)

Head of a Woman, 1911-12. Limestone 65 × 19 × 25 cm

thnx mirrormaelstrom

Modern artists' ignorance about Cycladic sculpture facts was paramount to the development of [their imagination] the abstract austerity of modern art.

Arp, Brâncuși, Modigliani, Moore, Picasso, Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Alberto Giacometti, Jacques Lipchitz, and Isamu Noguchi, among others—turned to the arts of foreign and ancient cultures in order to shake off the mores of Western visual tradition.

How Cycladic Sculpture Influenced Modern Art

https://www.secretmodigliani.com/sculpture1.html

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-5-000-year-old-sculptures-shockingly-modern-art

https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.46716.html

[radioiaci]

⧐ @alastors-mom-rp

Sentiment is not often a word that Alastor considers to be in his vocabulary. Even when it is clearly something he still harbors somewhere in the muck and bile of his ever-tainted Soul. When memories trudge their way up and into the forefronts of his mind, he actively pushes them aside - they will do him no good, on most days. But sometimes, they are pervasive: the thoughts of an old friend lost, the grief given to missed opportunities, and the subtle reminders that he had once been human. Given life, given connection, given family.

His father now was of no consequence, divorced entirely from even the very concept of family and thought of as nothing more than a sickening display of humanity's worst. An example to be made. But his mother...? Another fact and figure entire.

Alastor had spent the better part of his childhood glued to her side, an ever present and doting son by any measure. Well behaved and proper, though he'd always had an issue with her insistence on pulling him into the musty old churches filled with proselytizing simpletons in an attempt to convince him to cement his Soul as one meant to eventually traverse past the pearly gates. He was certain she would be disappointed that he'd never bothered to follow the rites and rituals.

But she had other reasons to be disappointed in him. Since the taking of his own familial fate in his hands - the sharpened kitchen knife being thrust so artfully and purposefully into his father's rather pliant and aged flesh (ahh, such a sweet, uniquely heinous display) - she had grown so distant as to be nearly unrecognizable. Or maybe it was he himself who was unrecognizable.

That oh-so-blessed dance of Death that he began to fall into step with had all but eluded her until he was more than an adult - and thriving, to boot. It had only been his sloppy confidence that had resulted in her discovery of his acts at all.

And then she no longer looked at him. Did not call on him. No longer opened the door to him when he made attempts to see her. Continually, he lied to himself. Perhaps she would see reason eventually.

At least, he'd thought, she had not betrayed him to the authorities. Not that it mattered much when he took the bullet to the brain only a few months later. Her fate remained a mystery. Surely, she'd gone to Heaven. She'd always been religious. And so Alastor resigned himself to never being given the opportunity to apologize - to tell her the things he should have in their life together.

But, as he stood with umbrella in hand, unfocused gaze drifting somewhere vaguely upwards at some of the gaudier signs that decorating the buildings in the Pride ring's busier districts that continued to flicker despite the acid rain, he did not think that he would have been able to find the strength to apologize anyway. Or the introspection.

Alastor did not regret his kills. Not a single one. Whether innocent or otherwise. It had all been in pursuit of the craft. Justified, in his mind, because who among them had not Sinned? Not he, and certainly not any of the collective of bodies he'd masterfully subjected to his own machinations and eventual disposal among the murky waters of the Louisiana bayou. All to serve their purpose. A noble cause for any man or woman.

A foolish thought, he decided, to think that his mother would ever consider him any more than what he was.

Perhaps he'd always known.

[caedmonofwhitby]

ALAN DURST, Mother and Child, 1925

Durst was born in Alverstoke, Hampshire, the son of a clergyman, and educated at Marlborough College and in Switzerland.

He served in the Royal Marines but left in 1913 to study at the Central School of Arts and Crafts under Richard Garbe. He returned to the Marines for the 1914-18 War but resumed at the Central School in 1920. At that time he turned to sculpture, carving in stone, wood and ivory.

He lived in London and taught at the Royal College of Art

He was inspired by a visit to Chartres in 1914 and particularly related to the carving of Epstein, and Gaudier-Breska.

He was responsible for the masks of Comedy and Tragedy framing the entrance to RADA (right).

Much of his public work was for English churches including Peterborough, Winchester and Manchester Cathedrals.

See this work at Hull University Art Collection, Brynmor Jones Library, Hull

[fluxofthemouth]

"de Vries?" the Baron grumbled. "What are you doing in my office?"

Piter looked faintly irritated, but patient. "I work late often, m'lord. Review the hours I bill, and you will see it."

"Yes, but don't you have some lab or dungeon to creep about in?" the Baron said distastefully. It was late in the evening, and he was tired. He had been looking forward to having time to himself. Not for the first time, he quietly weighed the good and the harm of finding a replacement for this particular advisor.

"I do," Piter said, and he stood up straighter and folded his hands behind his back in a show of respect.

The Baron waited. Piter waited. Perhaps it was not respect.

"Well?" the Baron said. Starting to get angry motivates the man, he knows. He is always reading me, so carefully, he thought, with more distaste. He shouldn't play like that with me. He should do his job well, and how I ask him to, and he would not have to!

"My own internal record-keeping is impressive, but not boundless," Piter said, with that same weary patience. "And there is certain information I must use from time to time but may not memorize, so that I could not confess it under interrogation if I am captured. Many of these things that I must, at times, reference are stored here."

"Don't tell me how my own system works," the Baron growled. "All of that is in your job description because I wrote it there. I know what you're doing. I know your tricks, Piter."

A flash of curiosity crossed Piter's face. He raised his eyebrows and lifted his chin politely, giving the Baron space and attention to explain these tricks that he knows.

"You're telling me facts about legitimate reasons that you could have for being here," the Baron said. Pointing, accusing.

Piter's eyes went from the Baron's eyes to his finger. A ring looped around it reflected the room's glow globe lighting. Piter has jewelry at home, some gaudier than this, but he does not wear it here.

"You still haven't told me why you're actually here," the Baron concluded, waggling the finger and making the tiny reflections dance.

"What do you want me to say?" Piter asked. The weary patience is back, sad and pleading. "That I have come to steal from you? That I have come to eat the crumbs from between the couch cushions? I know that you are not fond of me, Baron. You do not trust me, and you find my mannerisms wretched and repulsive. Must I be acting evilly when you do not know what I am doing? Which would please you more? To learn that my actions validate your worst impression of me, and that you are right? Or to be incorrect, and to be better off than you feared?"

"I want you to tell me what the hell you are doing in my office!" the Baron shouted, taking a step forward.

Piter flinched back immediately, with his unnatural eyes wide, as if he had been struck. Without saying another word, he silently brought over a folder of papers and a stack of handwritten notes. He pointed to where he had made note of gaps in his knowledge, then offered back the corresponding tomes and folders he had been referencing. All the while, his eyes darted from his evidence to his employer; guilty, begging, earnest.

The Baron let out a deep sigh and seemed to sink into the suspensors holding him up. "You don't have to do that," he grumbled, reading over the notes. They are precise and detailed, almost too dull and uninteresting to comprehend. He doesn't envy Piter, or the many other moving pieces who keep his Barony running. "You don't have to act like that." So much drama, he thought. And for what? I don't enjoy it. Does he enjoy it? And he looked at Piter, tried to study him like he sees Piter studying others.

Piter only looked back with an expressionless fear. Small, and slight, and fragile. Looked back at the man who could order him executed now and collect his head in a basket before moonrise. If Piter enjoys it, this drama, he doesn't seem to be indulging now.

"You said you work late often?" the Baron asked slowly, still looking him over.

"Most days, m'lord," Piter breathed, licking his lips nervously.

"Good man," the Baron sighed, after some deliberation. "You and I would work half as hard if more people understood things the way that we do. Carry... carry on." It felt more like defeat than victory, though he could not explain what victory might have been possible. As Piter said, he loses if he is proven wrong, and he loses if he is proven right.

"Yes, m'lord!" Piter said. He quickly gathered his things and scurried out of the office.

The Baron felt tired. Exhausted. He went to a couch and sat down as heavily as his suspensors would allow. There was a silver bowl of wrapped cakes on a low table next to the couch, and he reached into it for a familiar indulgence. He didn't notice, but considering how often he eats snacks there, the couch was oddly free of crumbs.

When the moon rose that night, Piter's head was not in a basket. It was situated squarely on his shoulders, angled up to smirk at a masked fellow in an alleyway in downtown Barony, the capitol city.

"The real question is whether I'll kill you just for having seen this, if I choose to find another buyer," he told the smuggler. There was no trace in his voice of the groveling he showed the Baron only hours earlier. His voice was confident: smooth like velvet, and sharp like shears.

"It isn't worth what you're asking," the smuggler said firmly.

"I risked my life for it," Piter pointed out, turning the jeweled bauble in his hand so it caught the street lights, much as the Baron's ring had glinted from the glow globes. "I'll decide what my life is worth."

"If either of us kills the other, the trail that's left behind will only spell death down the road," the smuggler snapped. "Don't you dare threaten me. I might as well threaten to turn you in."

"Rest assured, I am quaking in my boots," Piter said, curing his upper lip and rolling his eyes. "But alright, if my price is really that odious to you, will you at least give me a counteroffer?"

"Half."

Piter spat at his feet.

"Two thirds."

"Three fourths, in three installments," Piter said, rolling the bauble between gloved hands.

"Four installments."

"Done."

"For how much it's worth, this will be all but impossible to sell," the smuggler complained, counting out bills. "If the Harkonnens have a reputation for anything besides wealth, it's retaliation. No one will dare display that thing in a collection."

"You'll find a buyer," Piter said fondly, holding up the bauble and turning it in the faint light. "It's called the thrill of a challenge, my dear." He has known the smuggler and his crew for several months, now. With the deal behind them, they are friends again.

"You really ought to take up a job with us, like we talked about," the smuggler said. "You say so, yourself, that it wouldn't be boring." He lightly smacked Piter on the head with the stack of bills before handing them over.

"Someday," Piter said, taking the stack and counting it. "Someday I really will. Perhaps in a hurry. Your team is a lifeline to me just for being here. I hope you know that."

"Alright. What's keeping you, though?" the smuggler asked. "The fame? The money? The spice?"

Piter tossed the bauble in the air before handing it over, smiling. He didn't hesitate before replying, "Oh, it is most certainly the drama."

[thegaudiercollection]

The Last of Us Part II: The effects of exposure four days after completion

There is a plant in my apartment. When my partner and I moved into our unfurnished flat, it was one of the few things left behind. A scrawny, scraggly thing, we left to it’s own devices tucked away as we focused on populating the space with our own things and navigating the perils of quarantine. Naturally, months later, the plant was even worse off than before from neglect. After finishing The Last of Us Part II (TLOU2) I have become obsessed with nurturing and caring for this poor dead plant until I can bring it back to life. There are other factors to my huge emotional stake in this plant other than TLOU2, such as current political events and general ennui but that beautiful game is a final straw. I loved it. I think it’s a masterclass story of the perils of hate, of longing and loss, grief and collateral. Of pain and moving on. It is a tale desperately in need of being told during modern times as ideas of revenge and justification become muddled and blurred. Naturally there are spoilers to this so please do not continue reading if you don’t want that.

SPOILERS Below

Death

​I have seen many people talk of the main character death of Joel as being unnecessary and unwarranted. As a disservice to his character. I could not disagree more. I understand those thoughts and it was a devastating loss so many years after falling in love with the character in the first game. But his death is far from a lacklustre shock tactic in place of real narrative as we’ve seen with shows like Game of Thrones. It is not death for deaths sake. His entire death is central to the story and it’s protagonists. It of course completely encapsulates Ellie’s. Here is someone with so many mixed feelings for her father figure after the discovery of his actions at the end of the first game where he killed the fireflies and prevented a vaccine being made. She says at one point “My death would have mattered. You took that from me.” This complete betrayal coupled with her desire to try and forgive even if it’s impossible is a central theme. She has a lack of closure with him, and with it she becomes lost in navigating life without that purpose. She pours all her efforts into doing what he would do. “If it was you or me, Joel would be halfway to Seattle by now.” That’s why the parallels with her beating Nora for information and demanding a location on a map from Mel and Owen, all perpetrators in the murder, mirror Joel’s actions in the first game. He does the exact same thing while trying to find Ellie. But this is a man consumed by the loss of his daughter and the last twenty years of survival and all the horrible deeds he did in that time. When Ellie does it, she is shown to be deeply effected by the trauma of it. Her numb and shaking reaction to torturing Nora. Her breakdown at murdering the pregnant Mel. The costs of this hit her hard, because she is not Joel. Which is all he wanted for her.

​Joel never wanted Ellie to be like him. Ellie was what dragged him from that person into a better one. He learned to care again with all the vulnerability that brings. Ellie’s process is so similar with the narrative parallels. We spend the majority of the game begging Ellie not to go through with it when we see the adverse effect it has on her. The people around her and herself are hurt with every act of revenge. Where initially, we see Abby, the one who dealt the killing blow, we as an audience are calling for her death. We can’t wait to kill her. And the game solemnly shows us that cost. We sit there going wait no I don’t want Ellie to feel this way. But it’s what we wanted. This is the cost.

Playing as Abby

​I was initially reluctant to play as Abby for half of the game but it was a brilliant and integral part of the plot. We see so many parallels between her and Joel when she starts to look after Lev and Yara, two kids she discovers. We see the similarities between her and Ellie with her desire of vengeance. We see these interpersonal connections that grow on us, the very people we condemned immediately at the beginning. We see them as having their own complex lives, their own three dimensional narratives. We start to care about them and start to see how Abby and her friends have their own motives. Ones we want to disagree with because we love Joel but it’s hard to do so because it seems so right that he would be the antagonist to them. That’s not why we should disagree. The game shows us that the cycle of violence harms everyone in the vicinity of it. The only winning move is not to play. To say no and break the chain. Abby has the complexity of Joel. His brutality matched with their good deeds. It is a great opportunity for us to connect with a character that had she been introduced any other way we would have loved. Hell, when the trailer first showing Abby came out people lost their minds about how great she seemed. How capable and strong. The game tells us that if we love Joel then we should love her too because they both have the same flaws and same merits.

​Misery Porn

​I’ve seen people describe this game as unnecessary misery porn. I get why, and if you don’t want to play a game with a profound sense of loss and tragedy throughout then it won’t be for you. But it isn’t misery for misery’s sake. Every stroke of sorrow is either to drive us to empathise with characters feeling the same kind of way, or to show the cost of violence as an answer to overcoming grief. Some say that just because it’s post apocalyptic doesn’t mean it needs to be sad. I agree. The genre itself is far too often just a outlet for people to have gruesome and half baked plots with character death as a substitute for genuine plot. But a sequel to a game so routed in tragedy, a game called The Last of Us, you shouldn’t criticise it’s sequel for not being primarily focused on softer elements. The sadness of the sequel is a clear and direct progression of themes set up in the first one. It would a disservice to the series to change gear. That’s not the core themes of the games. If you think the ending of the first game is a happy one, you should revaluate the outcomes for both Ellie and Joel and the morality of Joel’s actions. If you still think the sequel does a disservice but filling itself with pointless misery then fair enough. But I think the sequel is entirely honest to its roots and if anything is better than the first one as it has that platform of character development there to springboard a emotionally stocked tale for fans to immediately dive into.

​Lastly

​I think people who think Joel’s death was out of character and sloppy writing should take that anger and pain and direct it towards the narrative as the game would want of us. The seemingly bold execution of a main character so shockingly and so early on is exactly the kind of pain Ellie felt at his death. To have someone who means a lot to you taken so quickly and ruthlessly is exactly what sets her on the path of the game. And the ultimate message is one of overcoming that grief. Her journey of violence that leads to nothing but more death ends with her leaving Joel’s guitar behind, literally moving on, from that pain. Trying to kill Abby, killing her friends, brings no solace. It costs so much. Her walking through and empty house is the cost of her leaving her family to pursue vengeance. As Dina says “She doesn’t get to be more important than us.” Ellie mad the very human choice to desperately try and force herself to overcome her PTSD and her loss of Joel by misguidedly going for revenge. But as she is moments away from getting this outcome she sees a flash of Joel the night she told him she was going to try and forgive him. And she stops. She finally allows herself to grieve without recompense. Greif doesn’t have a quick fix. It has to be felt, harshly and wholly. Working through the pain, letting time take its course, and getting to the place where you can evaluate your actions and their fruitfulness, is the only way forward. It cost Ellie a lot to learn that and to get to that point. But I think the end is ultimately a showcase of her process from where she was to where she is. I was so deeply affected by the end because it’s the greatest tale of grief and the cost of revenge as an answer I have ever experienced. For everyone who doesn’t like it I am sorry. I hope you can put that anger and disappointment into the narrative and use it to further connect with the characters. If you can do that, I think you’ll discover a fantastically told tale. I hope you do.

[drathanasius]

Plaguetober 2022 GIF roundup! Final GIF can be found here. (Have to link due to Tumblr image number restriction). Prompt list by the extremely excellent @plaguefairy. Captions below the readmore. (All credit to the original pixel art asset creators over at @habitica.)

Plaguetober Day 1: Garden -- Nothing could exceed the intentness with which this scientific gardener examined every shrub which grew in his path: it seemed as if he was looking into their inmost nature, making observations in regard to their creative essence, and discovering why one leaf grew in this shape and another in that, and wherefore such and such flowers differed among themselves in hue and perfume. Plaguetober Day 2: Key -- Dr Athanasius considered himself an unofficial steward of the old mechanism, though it involved a considerable climb, requiring much stealth, ever since he first obtained the key. Plaguetober Day 3: Familiar -- Whenever Dr Athanasius took up any of his instruments, Her Abdicated Former Majesty the Erstwhile Queen of Sweden (Erstwhile for short) was always sure to come running. Plaguetober Day 4: Clover -- This is number eight, and the doctor’s at the gate… Plaguetober Day 5: Rotten -- It might smell terrible to you, but it’s undeath-sustaining ambrosia to my hungry little friend here.

Plaguetober Day 6: Find -- After a bit of tricky fishing, he finally found it: The elusive Bone White Hippocamp! Her playful sea-horse woos her soft commands/Turns his quick ears, his webbed claws expands/His watery way with waving volutes wins/Or listening librates on unmoving fins. Plaguetober Day 7: Jester -- In prison cell and dungeon vile/Our thoughts to them are winging. When friends by shame are undefiled/How can I keep from singing? Plaguetober Day 8: Knot -- Now dash’d upon the billow/Our op'ning timbers creak/Each fears a wat'ry pillow/None stop the dreadful leak/To cling to slipp'ry shrouds/Each breathless seaman crowds/As she lay/Till the day/In the Bay of Biscay, O! Plaguetober Day 9: Conundrum -- When one finds oneself in a sticky situation, it can sometimes be advisable to transform one’s foe from an adversary to a steed. Plaguetober Day 10: Pie -- The venomous apples of the outer peninsula required some careful handling, but their flavor was truly beyond compare.

Plaguetober Day 11: Reveal -- I draw down/The open eye/That helped me see/Through the disguise. What’s concealed/Becomes revealed/And I am free.

Plaguetober Day 12: Circle -- Omnia nodis arcanis connexa quiescunt.

Plaguetober Day 13: Everlasting -- If the T. dohrnii jellyfish is exposed to environmental stress, physical assault, or is sick or old, it can revert to the polyp stage, forming a new polyp colony. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation, which alters the differentiated state of the cells and transforms them into new types of cells. Theoretically, this process can go on indefinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal.

Plaguetober Day 14: Impale -- In retrospect, perhaps Dr Athanasius should have ascertained that the range was clear before attempting to collect his arrows. Plaguetober Day 15: Play -- Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Plaguetober Day 16: Reminiscing -- Dr Athanasius in the Musaeum Kircherianum in Collegio Romano, the place of his creation, depicted next to the innermost segment of the speaking trumpet from which he had been lately disconnected. Plaguetober Day 17: Maize -- Dr Athanasius suddenly realized that he had gone all-in on precisely the wrong sort of corn for the Autumn Festival and strove quickly to obliterate the evidence of his faux pas. Plaguetober Day 18: Crime -- The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter. Plaguetober Day 19: Jovial -- Fly agaric didn’t tend to have quite the same effect on Dr Athanasius as it had on others of his acquaintance, but he enjoyed the occasional nibble just the same. Plaguetober Day 20: Awaken -- I was only wakened when I had reached the last light sleep which dissolves of itself, and it must have been very light, for it was an almost inaudible whistling noise that wakened me. Plaguetober Day 21: Chatter -- Ordinarily, Dr Athanasius thought of himself as a sort of elevated flaneur, creeping along the rooftops of the city, the chatter and hum of its citizens in his ears. But occasionally he walks the streets themselves, on those rare wet nights when the city is quite, quite empty and quite, quite still. Plaguetober Day 22: Lost -- Try as he might, Dr Athanasius could not reconstruct the plans for his Father’s sunflower clock. The secret to its mechanism seemed to have been forevermore lost. Plaguetober Day 23: Greet -- Dr Athanasius’s reanimated lion adored taking walkies in the Lichgate of the Belimbed, because there he always found a friendly hand to greet him, pat him, throw his bone, and offer him skeletal scritches. Plaguetober Day 24: Cobweb -- Once his friends the cobs were done with them, Dr Athanasius collected their webs for use in his armamentarium. They were particularly useful for staunching excessive bloodflow. Plaguetober Day 25: Melancholy -- Whenever Dr Athanasius felt a bit down, he pulled out his trusty copy of D'Urfey’s Pills to Purge Melancholy, and his heart was immediately lighter. Plaguetober Day 26: Rest -- You wouldn’t think a 17th Century automaton would dream, but you probably wouldn’t think a candle would stay lit in a giant clamshell either. Plaguetober Day 27: Sheet -- That old sheet that Dr Athanasius had stumbled across turned out to have some unexpected properties. Plaguetober Day 28: Cabinet -- Dr Athanasius inherited several things from his Father’s renowned Cabinet of Curiosities, among them the Ira Dei Dragon Balloon and the (slightly singed) Vesuvius Basket. Plaguetober Day 29: Embark -- Fortified by a draft of Cosmiel’s celestial liquor, Dr Athanasius prepares to essay the heavens. Plaguetober Day 30: Music -- Since his disconnection from his speaking trumpet, Dr Athanasius has lacked the power of speech, but from his perch atop the ramparts of the city, he strives always to embody the principles of the Musurgia Universalis. Plaguetober Day 31: Goodnight -- And so the Dr Athanasius who lives in dreams – perhaps only in dreams; perhaps not – bids farewell to him that has harbored him.

[brain-deadx0]

Halloween

Bonus of New Big Brother

Summary: Remys first Halloween with Patton and Virgil.

note: bit of a time skip for the occasion and to get me out of my slump. Remys been with Patton since the very end of August and this is obviously in October so he's more comfortable than previous parts. Also Remy calling Patton by his name isn't important in this because I still don't know that full timeline of personal nicknames.

Warnings: I don't know… kids growing up? Let me know if there's anything.

"What about these?"

Patton let out a startled scream.

Virgil giggled mischievously while Remy stood there in confusion.

Patton took a deep breath and composed himself before comically wiping his brow with an exaggerated, "Phew."

"... Is that a no?" Remy asked.

"Sorry, kiddo, but spiders are a no go."

"Dad's scared of spiders," Virgil told him, "he has rack-no-phobia."

"Arachnophobia yeah," The man said somewhat sheepishly, "Fake spiders aren't as bad, but they still make me nervous. Plus more often than not I'd probably forget it was fake whenever I noticed it."

Remy shrugged and put the plastic spider back on the shelf, "Kay,"

They continued to look through the stores small collection of Halloween decorations before settling on a few pages of window stickers, various cat themed statues, as well as a few bats Virgil wanted to hang from the ceiling.

"Ok time to find our costumes," Patton told them as they moved to a different section.

"Yeah!" Virgil cheered.

"Have you boys figured out what you're gonna be yet?"

"Nah," Remy admitted. Honestly he hadn't been trick or treating since he was really little. He didn't even realize Patton was planning on letting him until the man had asked about a costume a week ago.

"Well there's plenty of costumes and stuff to look through," The man told him brightly, "I'm sure you'll find something."

"Ooh! Ooh! I have an idea!" Virgil said as he tugged on Remy's sleeve.

~

Patton watched as Virgil whispered excitedly into Remy's ear. Remy listened for a moment before smirking, "I like the way you think, Vincenzo."

Virgil giggled mischievously before dragging Remy farther down the isle.

...

Mr. Janus and the twins were waiting for them when they pulled up to the house. The twins immediately raced to the car in an attempt to get the best seat while Mr. Janus trailed behind with his cane.

Eventually everyone was buckled in, including an annoyed Roman in the very back, and they went on their way.

Remy looked around as the group made their way into the pumpkin patch. There were a few vendors with various fall themed items set up near the entrance, farther down he could see some sort of play place and beyond that a barn. He could only assume the actual pumpkin patch was somewhere beyond there.

"I'm gonna get the biggest pumpkin!" Roman announced.

"Not if I get it first!" Remus told him.

"Just remember you have to be able to carry it." Mr. Janus reminded them.

"And I'm stronger which means I get the biggest." Remus added.

"Are not!" Roman told him.

"Are too!"

"Alright," Mr. Janus interrupted, "You're both very strong, but we aren't getting the pumpkins till the end."

"Yep! Now how about you kiddos go play while we get the tickets for the hayride and corn maze."

"Race you!" The twins said before bolting for the play area.

"Come on, Remy!" Virgil said as he quickly grabbed Remy's sleeve and pulled him after.

Remy smirked before the two of them ran after the others.

-

Patton smiled from his place in line as the boys ran around the playground. It was a process but Remy was slowly starting to open up and let some of himself shine through.

After an interactive hayride where they helped "Jack the Scarecrow" beat his rival "Jedd" in the scarecrow games, Patton and Janus let the boys run through the corn maze while he and his brother wandered the rows of vendors.

"What about this one?"

"Absolutely not." Janus told him.

Patton placed the stuffed pumpkin that even he wouldn't use back and looked for something even gaudier to annoy his brother with.

They ended up getting a few handmade fall decorations each before Janus went to rest on a bench near the maze exit. Considering the boys were on a time limit in an attempt to win a prize from the pumpkin patch they would likely be done soon. While Janus waited Patton went to get some coffee and hot chocolate for everyone before they went through the petting zoo. After that they'd go find pumpkins.

~

Later that night, Patton couldn't help but smile as he glanced back in the rear view mirror. They had gone back to Janus's to carve pumpkins in the backyard and after a long day both his kiddos were exhausted. Virgil was already passed out in his booster seat and Patton could tell Remy was making a valiant attempt not to do the same.

...

October 31st

Patton grinned from his spot on the couch. He could hear Virgil speaking in hushed tones around the corner of the wall. No doubt encouraging Remy, who was standing in the opening. Despite his cool facade Patton could practically see the blush under the pale makeup.

"Ok now do it!" he heard Virgil whisper excitedly.

Remy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, shaking his head minutely, before opening them and striking a dramatic pose, "Beware!" He announced, "For I am a monster here to destroy you!"

Patton managed not to make even a semblance of a laugh out as Remy dramatically flipped his vampire cape and dashed behind the wall while Virgil ran out at the same time in his bat costume.

Virgil let out a loud hiss, "Haa! I want to suck your blood!" He said before running over and jumping into Patton's lap.

Patton laughed as he squeezed his son tightly, "Oh no!" He yelled, "Someone save me!"

Virgil laughed wildly as he bounced around on the couch, Patton moved quickly before jumping up and grabbing him under the arms to spin him around making the kid laugh harder.

"Alright," Patton said after setting him down, "does everyone have everything? Pillowcases, fangs, wings, everything in between?"

Both boys nodded before they all pulled into the car to go to Janus's house.

When they got to Janus's Roman and Remus were right there to open the door. Remus was wearing a flashy black and green pirate costume, bedazzled eyepatch and all, as well as a fake mustache. Roman was wearing a red dress with a white jacket. There was a fake silver crown on his head with a red gem in the center. Both boys had clip on earings.

"Oh my gosh you both look amazing!" Patton gushed.

While the kids admired eachothers costumes, Patton made his way to the kitchen where Janus was pouring bags of candy into large bowls. "Hey, Jan."

Janus looked up from his task and smirked, "I still don't understand your obsession with cats considering you can't go near them without sneezing your brains out."

"I can't help it. Cats are paw-sotively purrrfect." Patron told him as he made a pawing motion with his cat gloved hands.

His brother's dog ears flopped as he shook his head, "Just help me move these by the door." He said before shoving a bowl full of candy at him.

"Dad!" Roman asked when they walked into the living room, "Can we please go trick or treating by ourselves this year?"

"No."

"Pleeeease? We're practically teenagers. Besides Remy's with us this time and he's almost an adult."

"Yeah!" Remus agreed.

"Regardless," Janus told them, "it's not fair to Remy to make him keep track of you, he doesn't know his way around-"

"But we do!" Remus interrupted.

"-And don't you think Uncle Patton would still want to take your cousins?" Janus continued.

The twins seemed to begrudgingly accept that part at least.

Patton looked at his own boys. Both were watching the interaction quietly but their faces gave them away. Virgil seemed slightly disappointed, which admittedly hurt a bit as he always loved trick or treating with Patton before, and Remy, still hard to read behind his mask of teen indifference, seemed to have the nervous aura he tended to have when he wanted something but didn't think he could or should ask for it. It's a good thing Patton was good at reading people or else the poor kiddo wouldn't have gotten much for his bedroom.

"I don't mind letting them go if you, Remy, and Virge are ok with it." He lied.

Virgil perked up immediately, "Really?!" He asked.

Patton smiled happier than he felt, "If Remy and Uncle Janus say you can."

The three younger boys turned pleading eyes to Janus. He lasted a miraculous five seconds before turning a questioning glance to Remy.

"I mean… Roman and Remus would have to be the ones making sure we don't get lost." Remy admitted.

"We can do that!" They said excitedly.

Patton and Janus shared a look, "Ok you can go." They told them.

The three younger boys cheered.

"We expect you all back by ten o'clock understand?" Janus told them.

"No promises!" The twins said as they headed for the door, Virgil trailing behind.

"I'll watch the time." Remy told them.

"Don't worry too much," Janus told him when the younger ones were put the door, "as long as you're back before eleven you're fine."

"...I thought you said…?"

Janus waved him off, "Just don't tell them, you'll be fine."

"Go have fun and get those king sized candy bars the neighbors hand out, kiddo." Patton smiled.

Remy looked between them for a moment before an impatient yell from outside got him to turn and leave.

"...You ok?" Janus asked after the door closed.

"No… you?"

"...We will be." Janus told him, "Though I don't know who gave them permission to grow up so fast."

Patton laughed a bit at that, "Yeah, I might just have to fight them."

"Want to watch Hocus Pocus?"

"Sure."

...

Two movies, and countless trick or treaters later, the boys returned with full pillow cases and wide grins.

They put in one last movie to watch while the kids sorted and traded candy on the floor and the last trick or treaters made their rounds.

Patton had to admit, while he was sad to see his youngest getting more independent, seeing his kiddos openly laugh while throwing candy at eachother and riding sugar highs, maybe made it worth it.

And hours later, he carried a sleeping Virgil to the car with a sleepy Remy following behind. Virgil didn't want to let go as he was put in his carseat and Patton hadn't even started the car before Remy was asleep next to him.

Patton smiled, they might be growing up but they'll always be his kiddos.

[taurnachardhin]

The latest thing to come out of my expressing-Cosmere-fandom-through-crafts hobby: an 18th century-style tie-on pocket with Rosharan embroidery

[image description in alt text; project details under the cut]

I'd been wanting to sew a tie-on pocket ever since seeing Bernadette Banner's first video about them, mostly because I thought it would be quite useful for crafting and household tasks that require quick access to multiple tools. (I am forever setting down a tape measure on the nearest flat surface and then completely forgetting which one within 10 seconds.) And then a couple months later, I was listening to this Dressed episode about tie-on pockets and was amused by how similar their cultural significance was to safepouches (basically the idea of this intimate, private space where you keep stuff you don't want other people to see, like money, or a diary, or a stolen Soulcaster...), and the idea evolved into "tie-on pocket, but make it Stormlight Archive." (And actually, given that there's some other 18th-Century European fashion influences on Alethi clothing, it wouldn't surprise me if Sanderson did partly take inspiration from tie-on pockets when he came up with safepouches!)

I used a template from Adventures of a Wanna-Be Seamstress for a starter pocket shape, though I think I ended up stretching it to make it wider--my final dimensions were about 8x11 inches.

The design around the border is the First Ideal in women's script, which I used the wonderful women's script generator to export as an svg and then manipulated into the pocket shape in Inkscape. (Not very well lol, you can tell this was my first time playing around with vector images because I could NOT manage to get the text spacing even around the whole curve. I decided it was good enough for this purpose though! Just ignore how comically scrunched-up “journey” is...)

Palah glyph for my favored Radiant order.

I was going to stop there, but then I was like, "hm no. gaudier." so I freehanded a fanciful botanical design to fill up the rest of the space, mostly inspired by the embroidery on this extant pocket from the LACMA collection. I first drew the things by the bottom of the opening as those daffodil-looking flowers about a third down from the top of the LACMA pocket, then decided at the last minute that it would be cuter to make them enlightened ;) mistspren instead.

The whole thing is hand-sewn. I started this around the end of September last year, so it's been a 7-month endeavor! Mostly because it was small and portable, so I worked on it when I knew I would be stuck sitting somewhere for a while, and saved at-home free time for other things. But this was also pretty much my first attempt at embroidery, so there was a certain amount of unpicking my stitches and starting over in the beginning when I decided I didn't like how it was turning out.

[hansoulo]

lay back in cloying sin

part three of “Pillar of Salt”

Pairing: Boba Fett/Princess!Reader (she/her pronouns, no Y/N)

Warnings: NSFW-ish; references to marks and bruises, kissing, probably inaccurate descriptions of ballroom dancing, fluff, mentions of alcohol consumption

Word Count: 3.3k

Gif Credit: (x) by @/ktfhett

A/N: boba & reader: [tyler the creator voice] oh no i hope i don’t fall 

༓ series masterlist ༓ 

Dinner was a tedious affair, filled with hollow pageantry. It was one last hurrah before the send off of the honored guests, one of which you’d never talked to and the other who was nowhere to be found. The former, Lord Vader, sat at the head of the long table and made for very unamusing company. You had the distinct impression that he’d rather be anywhere than here, having to listen to his uniformed subordinates squabble in grating voices and your father simper about mining collectives. That made for two of you.

But the cavernous banquet hall was always beautiful, if a bit ostentatious, and the food never disappointed, so you consoled yourself with a loosened corset and the promise of a second dinner by servants who pitied your forced small portions.

You floated into the large room, shuffled through by the compounding procession before an older man offered to help you into your seat. The ornateness of your evening wear made you grateful for the help, watching in sincere thanks as he pulled out the high-backed chair.

“Thank you, um…” the color of his robes and the softness of his hands signalled high rank and you chanced a guess. “Duke...?”

“Sagcock,” he finished for you. “Jovron Sagcock.”

He has got to be joking.

Evidently, he wasn’t.

If the man saw you choke on a laugh, sputtering it into a hiccup as you sat down, he pretended not to notice. After all, princesses knew better than to be unbecoming or crass or know why any part of that exchange could be fodder for humor.

Fighting down one last cough, you attempted to regain some sense of decorum. What a wonderful start to the evening.

The arrangement of persons on this particular night was strange though, even disregarding the title of the man now seated beside you. There were more people than usual filling out the hall tonight, all fancily clad and buffed to shining. Boba wasn’t anywhere to be found.

The supposed importance of the occasion probably necessitated a shuffling of seats to soothe egos and encourage conversation, but you weren’t used to being so close to the head of the table, near parallel with your mother. Usually your elder sisters sat higher and provided you the benefit of distance. Of course, they were all gone now. Your brother was still too young to be at evening dinners, so there was no buffer between you and your parents’ ire.

Maybe this was the Maker’s way of getting back at you for your tiny tryst. Maybe they all knew about what happened in the garden and were just waiting for the shoe to drop, branding you as a harlot and finally letting you free. Vader’s static words travelled down the table and mingled with your father’s but you were too busy entertaining worse-case scenarios to understand conversation.

People were observing you, you realized partway through the first round of courses. Watching you with strange eyes as if you were the last scrap of halfway-spoiled meat for imperial officials and all the nobility that had come to pay their prostrate respects. No one had really given half a damn about you before, which made it all the more strange.

A heel foot softly kicked at yours underneath the table, breaking you out of your glazed thoughts. The fork you had been mindlessly moving across your plate stopping mid-swirl. Looking up, you met the quiet glare of your mother and cleared your throat.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” you asked. Your question was punctuated with a smile too large to be genuine. The queen’s head jerked towards the grizzled man seated to her right and you turned towards him at her behest, face open in trained invitation. “Oh, hello, General.”

General Enes, current commander of the army of Quas Killam. Not strictly Imperial, but aligned close enough to have him in the king’s good graces and to reside permanently at court. He was also a Duke and probably a cousin thrice removed, but who was counting?

“No need to stand on pleasantries, your Highness,” the gray-haired man assured you, one large hand resting over his stomach as servants replaced the dirtied plates in front of you with new ones. You only sipped delicately at your algarine as he chortled and remembered, “It seems like yesterday that you were running around the palace with your sisters. A little sprite of a thing, weren’t you?”

Was he drunk already? “Yes, I remember,” you tread pleasantly; carefully.

The general settled and let out one last chuckle before his eyes grew hawk-like again, trained in the jewelry and accoutrements that signified your being old enough to marry but young enough to have not yet been taken. Like a prize. Or a charity donation. “You’ve grown into quite the young woman, you know.”

So that’s where this was going. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes and tried to look gracious. “Thank you, sir. That’s a high compliment.”

“How old are you again, dear?”

Masking your surprise at the forwardness of the question, you supplied your age to a nod of approval from both him and your mother.

“A good age, I’d say. ‘Round the same as my youngest.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” you shot a look down the table and caught a glimpse of cropped flaxen hair, its owner sitting enough seats down to prevent any shared conversation. You counted your blessings for it and smiled, tight-lipped. “Your son and I shared company when we were children.”

“Well that’s very nice,” the queen interjected quite loudly and looked around the long table with a light laugh but cold eyes. “Isn’t that nice?”

Your father looked at you for the first time all evening as if on cue, boring a hole into your face with the words he seemed to be telepathically trying to put in your mouth.

The taste of bitter wine on your tongue made your thoughts fevered, though not borne out of alcohol so much as the memories of someone else’s touch in the same places. “Yes,” you repeated vaguely. “Very nice.”

Darth Vader apparently didn’t remove his helmet. You wondered why he came to dinner at all.

The remaining evening hours had been whittled away by dessert and drinks. Everyone who cared to stay shuffled into the ballroom, a behemoth of a thing filled with inky windows and sparkling artifice. It was a blur of waltzes and predetermined couplings with boys you’d been ignoring since you were old enough to kick them in their shins, but you didn’t care enough to go to pains to avoid it. They broke up the monotony of introductions, at least, and let your mind and body be somewhere else for a while.

All compounded, the night left you flushed and tired. You needed alcohol. Or air. The latter was probably the more reasonable choice of the two.

Being in the midst of ballroom theatrics allowed for an easy enough escape, and a side entrance to a balcony overlooking the palace grounds became the object of your attention.

The tall double doors lay open in their glass encasings and spilled out lamplight refractions on the guests’ gaudy clothing and gaudier jewelry, everything sparkling and warm. But you were far enough away from it to still be chilled by the night air, a balm for your flushed cheeks and fizzling temper.

Usually guests ignored it in favor of staying indoors, so you were fairly confident in the promise of solitude and an undisturbed breeze.

But someone apparently had the same idea as you.

“Hello,” you ventured out a greeting to the silhouette not yet fully in your vision. You stepped closer and the heels of your shoes echoed on clay tiles. “I’m sorry, am I bothering you?”

Royal Highnesses shouldn’t really care about whether or not they were disturbing strange party guests, you could make them leave if you felt so inclined, but something in you was feeling magnanimous tonight. You tried not to think about why.

The figure didn’t turn back towards you, still facing out towards the blurry glitter of urban lights far off in the distance. It looked pretty this far away, all glowing masses and amorphous buildings that scraped the sky. You’d never  been close enough to see all the dinge and smog that made its home in places not populated by princesses. Marble felt more familiar than metal.

The man wore metal too, and his voice scraped at your chest when he answered. “You’re not bothering me, princess.”

Oh.

You ventured cautiously towards the balcony’s edge, next to the man you now could recognize as Boba. The thick stone railing was cool to the touch. “Hello.”

His helmet tipped to the left, which was probably his way of saying it back.

“I didn’t see you at the dinner,” you noticed quietly. Would it be presumptuous to assume he was avoiding you? Intellect said yes, but ego didn’t listen. You leant forward, the speckled marble digging into your elbows as you mirrored Boba’s sightline out into the city. “You know, you wouldn’t have needed to make conversation. Lord Vader was the guest of honor and all he did was sit there.”

“I don’t like crowds.”

“Ah.”

A silence lapsed between you, awkward as if you were strangers. You were though, weren’t you? Strangers. Not friends. Not lovers. Not really.

But if he asked you to crack yourself open for him, you would. You would rip apart every satin petticoat and snap the boning in your corsets until your hands were raw if it meant he would touch you; skin to skin. You’d run away and cite a hidden fountain as the reason why.

You didn’t know what he’d give up for you, if anything. Boba didn’t seem like the type to have much in the first place. Either by choice or by necessity.

The garden afternoon nagged at you after having time to form coherent thoughts, and the fizzy shine of palace lights reflecting off his helmet reminded you of what you’d been meaning to ask.

Night made you softer-spoken. “Why did you let me take off your helmet?”

Night made his edges sharper. “Why did you want to?”

“I asked first,” you volleyed back as reason enough to get an answer first.

Boba wasn’t a Mandalorian in the true sense of the word, at least that’s what gossip told you, so it didn’t really matter if he took the helmet off or not. But he kept it on in front of everyone else.

The hunter gave you visor-silence and your impatience made you concede. “I just wanted to see you,” you breathed out, still not looking at him.  The admission sounded much more naive than you intended.

His words held their characteristic aloofness but were edged by gentle teasing. “What if I said the same?”

That he wanted to see you?

You still didn’t understand half of why he did what he did and what he wanted, but you turned to face him head-on anyway. Cold moonlight fell on your neck and the air cracked with fever. You tried to reply in jest. “Then I’d say that you were being stupid.”

“You’d be right.”

A swallow bobbed in your throat. He always seemed to take up your vision; fill it and suffocate you with seemingly no effort. “And then I’d ask you to do it again.”

“Do what, princess?”

He knew. He just liked seeing the words come out of your mouth.

“Let me take your helmet off.”

This time, he guided your hands up himself. They were slow and almost careful running across your palms, placing them on the mechanisms your fingers found in quick memory. Set on the balcony railing, the helmet seemed to be a prop. An upside down bucket filled with all the things you had yet to say to each other, spilling out onto the ground in a fog.

“I like you better without it,” you decided when he turned back towards you, his weight still resting on the railing with one cocked hip. Everything about the way he looked was dark: inky black curls and scarred brown skin and eyes that pushed the air in your lungs with a stall and a catch. They looked even darker next to tan clothes and green armor.

His voice wasn’t entirely lacking in humor. He did that. Humored you. “Do you now?”

“Mhm.” you nodded with fake seriousness, slightly giddy and slightly too brave. You blamed it on an excess of wine and good company. “Better-looking.”

He only scoffed, a flash of pearl-white canines serving as one half of a smile. A smile that had been wider when it was against your collarbones, your neck, your mouth. A smile that you wouldn’t mind being in other places.

You nudged Boba’s shoulder with your own when a waltz kicked up in the background, faint through the open ballroom door. “There’s music,” you implied, half-joking and half-expectant. There had been this whole time, of course, but acknowledging it now seemed better than never. “You should ask me to dance.”

“I’m not one for dancing, your Highness.”

The title made you roll your eyes, a commonplace formality that you usually insisted on but now found overly facetious. Coming from him, that is. “Clearly not,” you almost snorted. Pushing away from the marble ledge with a finality that seemed almost comical, you held your hand out and waited, eyebrows raising and fingers beckoning. Well? your face seemed to say, Are you coming?

His sigh was bone-deep and settled in your chest like chunks of black plaster, but it felt good. “You’re not going to let me leave, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” you replied, as if it’d be ridiculous to expect anything else. Princesses danced with men at parties. You were a princess. Boba was a man at a party. In a roundabout sort of way. “It’s easy, I promise,” you assured, wrapping your hand around his wrist and pulling him away from the balcony. His glove slipped down a bit; just enough that your thumb could press one soft circle against the tan skin over bone.

Uncomfortable wasn’t really the correct word for how you thought he felt. You doubted Boba could ever be uncomfortable. No. No, the right word would probably be… bemused. Like he was in a menagerie watching a creature, something exotic and pretty, with mild interest while it still had his attention. But you did have his attention. That was something.

“You put your right hand on my waist,” you moved to reposition the large fingers more accustomed to blasters than they were to bodices. Boba smirked, almost boyish, when you caught his hand wandering someplace else. “Not that low,” you chided with quiet exasperation, placing your palm atop his and guiding it back up.

The pale leather was warm underneath your skin and you bit down a smile, almost awe-struck at how strange your hand looked next to his. Yours was polished, weighed down by heavy gold bangles and softened by years of idle play. His, you suspected (for you didn't actually know; hadn’t yet actually seen), was anything but.

“That’s good,” you supplied lightly. “And then I do this,”your other hand reached to rest on Boba’s shoulder. “And then- no, no you give me your left hand. Hold it out- good.”

Still looking down, you were careful not to trip over your skirts or his boots. “And now we just-” you breathed out and glanced up, surprised to find his expression strangely careful. Almost tender. You gulped down the quiet notch in your throat. “-now we just um… sway. Like this.”

You eschewed complication in favor of a simple rhythm, just letting your feet fall wherever they liked so long as they didn’t tangle in themselves. Now wasn’t the time for anything laborious; you didn’t have faith enough in Boba’s footwork. But he actually wasn’t too bad all things considered. A bit stiff and a bit gruff, but those were part and parcel. It was a bit like dancing with a tree trunk. A very handsome, very broad, very taciturn tree trunk. It was easy to let yourself sink into it a little with how solid he felt.

The man arched an eyebrow when your fingers stretched to thread together with his. “Just sway?”

“You’re welcome to do a jig instead if you’d like,” you replied wryly as your weight shifted from foot to foot. The hand around your waist stiffened at the prospect and a grin escaped your face.

“Nevermind.”

The amusement that had previously only been in your throat escaped in a quiet laugh. “Thought so,” you whispered, victorious. Tension, bunched up in your shoulders and collected in your bones, melted completely when he pulled you closer and let your head fall against the space of his neck. Sinew fit against silk like puzzle pieces and warmed the quiet moment that followed. Neither of you spoke for fear of disturbing the fresh peace.

You found yourself dwelling more and more on hypotheticals. Unrealistic and stupid, you knew, given who you both were. But still you dwelt, unable to fathom a reality outside of the last nine hours and inside a reality within which Boba was gone.

Would he fit here, with the stucco and plaster and ivy? With all the sheltered society of an insignificant court? With you?

You wondered if he dwelt on hypotheticals, too.

Swallowing cold air as Boba thumbed the collar of your dress, you felt the light scatter of broken blood vessels from hours before smart again. Your cheek pressed against the pauldron of his beskar, but neither of you were really dancing anymore. “I- I wanted to talk,” you began quietly. “About earlier.”

“Did you not like it?” Did you not like me?

“No! No, I…” you shook your head, trying to rid yourself of his assumption. The crystals hanging from your headpiece tinkled with every soft movement. “No, I… I liked it. I like…” The lump in your throat seemed to travel down back into your stomach. “You,” you finished, swallowing the final word and leaving all its implications to settle in the night.

He could feel the rise and fall of your chest; delicate and airy and resigned. You spoke again. “But you’re leaving tomorrow and... and we could’ve been caught. And the more I think about it the more I really am not looking forward to the idea of some court scandal or being cloistered up like a nun because I—”

He called you your name.

He’d never used your name before.

You lifted your head off his shoulder, desperate-eyed and looking for answers you both knew he couldn’t give. “Yes?”

“Kiss me.”

You barely breathed out an okay before the arm around your waist tightened, crushing you against cold metal and a warm body.

He kissed you how a lover would. Like how a first kiss should’ve been.

It was gentle. Warm. Tender-mouthed and aching, placing promises down your throat with a soft hand and closed eyes. It was… It was…

It was broken up far too quickly.

A voice called out your name from somewhere far-off, regally accented and not at all welcome. It called your name again, first middle and last with all the titles in between with much less patience. Your mother, queen consort.

The groan of displeasure that escaped you was muffled in Boba’s mouth and swallowed up before it could give either of you away. He recovered much faster than you did, peeling back from your body with eyes already alert and scanning the shadows for passersby. There were none. For now.

“It’s my mother,” you whispered, letting your eyes roll seemingly out of your skull. “They’re probably doing some send-off for Vader’s entourage.”

Neither of you mentioned the fact that Boba was part of that entourage too.

Your last words were rushed before the footsteps became too close and the mercenary pulled away. You didn’t really want to stay to hear the answer. “Will I see you again?”

Boba Fett, you’d come to learn, wasn’t the kind of man to offer more than what he knew he could give.

The helmet went back on. “I don’t know.”’

[chronicallylatetotheparty]

Float Like A Butterfly... Ch.6 ...Sting Like A Bee

Summary: An unexpected ally appears before Marinette. The only problem is, he's stumbled onto something he shouldn't have. And she needs it back.

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

Marinette was having a terrible day.

First she shows up late with the principal accessory of the Gabriel line's Fashion Week showing. Fashion Week! Marinette was looking forward to it all month! 

Next Audrey Bourgeois, Style Queen herself, treats the hat Marinette worked so hard on like gum on the bottom of her shoe. Sure Adrien had been super encouraging but he hadn't seen the look of utter contempt on Audrey Bourgeois face. No one could look that disgusted all the time!

Speaking of Adrien, he didn't make getting over him any easier by being so kind.

And if that wasn't enough Marinette's brain insisted on using Chat Noir's Miraculous to fight the akumatized villain. Again! She didn't want to think about Chat Noir right now because... Because... Marinette blinked rapidly. Deep breath... Because thinking about Chat Noir was painful.

But that wasn't even the worst part.

"Don't worry, Tikki. We'll get the box right after the show," Marinette stage whispered so as to not alert her parents. Who walked not even a meter away.

Tikki let out a concerned whine. Oh, this was a bad idea. She could feel it. Marinette was right that they couldn't get away from her parents beforehand. But that only made Tikki even more anxious to get searching. And Marinette really didn't need something else to worry about on top of... everything else.

She hoped no one found it.

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

Chloe's day was ridiculous. Utterly, ridiculous!

She sat next to her mother as Adrien walked down the runway. Lingering dread squashed and thrown into the very back of her mental walk-in closet where she kept unimportant things. Like shoes she never wore anymore, problematic outfits and lingering guilt that totally wasn't her's. Adrien wasn't slowly disintegrating anymore so why dwell on the past?

Adrien's performance was flawless and Chloe was absolutely certain she appreciated his efforts more than anyone else... Even if Alya Cesaire was livestreaming.

The show went off without a hitch. Adrien seemed fine but then he was almost as good at pretending as she was. Chloe eyed him as Gabriel's lackey, um, assistant pulled him along. Not physically, of course. It was more of a metaphorical pulling.

Ugh, Gabriel Agreste started talking with Chloe's mother through his assistant's tablet. Like, yeah, apologizing to the Queen of Style was a no brainer. But he could have at least come in person! Not like Gabriel was doing anything important besides being the world's richest hermit.

... And Dupain-Cheng was there too. Of course she was. At least her mother would put Dupain-Cheng in her place. Chloe felt herself smirk at the thought.

Adrien raised an eyebrow. As though reading her mind.

Chloe pretended not to notice. No petty satisfactions here! No, sir! But it wasn't like the Queen of Style was going to say anything about Dupain-Cheng's hat except-

"It's the most exceptional thing I've ever seen!" Audrey Bourgeois announced.

Exact- Wait, what!?

"You're a visionary, Marinette! Glitter's had its day..."

Chloe's ears rang, drowning out her mother's voice. Exceptional? Her? Over a- a- a hat!? A vice squeezed Chloe's chest with cruel precision. When her own present was rejected without even unwrapping it!? Chloe's fists shook as she bit her tongue.

"Isn't that nice for your friend, Chloe dearest?" Andre Bourgeois asked.

"It's ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous!" Chloe whirled on her mother. "I've never been to New York with you and you're taking Marinette Dupain-Cheng!?" She spat.

"I'm afraid I have a last minute meeting to attend, my dear Audrey," Gabriel announced from the tablet. "Nathalie, bring Adrien home immediately."

Adrien's attention snapped from Chloe to Gabriel. "But, Father, I-"

"Do not embarrass me in front of the Bourgeois," Gabriel snapped, ending the call.

Jaw clenching shut, Adrien stared at nothing with stormy eyes as Nathalie led him away.

"I'm taking her because she's exceptional, Claudette. Uh- Chloe," Audrey stated matter-of-factly, the Agrestes already forgotten.

"I'm exceptional too!" Chloe shot back.

Audrey inspected her white gloves, bored of this exchange. "The only exceptional thing about you, my dear-" Audrey deigned to glance at her daughter. "-is your mother."

Chloe's blood boiled as she shook off Andre's hands on her shoulders, standing straighter. "I'll show you how exceptional I can be!" she promised.

Just as an akuma entered Chloe's present.

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

Alya was having an amazing day!

Her livestreams hadn't gotten this many new views since she almost got sacrificed by Pharaoh. The Ladyblog's activity was up. And Ladybug chose her as the Black Cat!

Sure it was weird that Ladybug didn't want to talk about it. But still! Black Cat! Alya tried to contain her grin as she thought about being Ladybug's partner for a day...

Her pace on the sidewalk slowed, enthusiasm dampening a little... Setting her face in determination Alya skipped into gear. All the more reason to piece together what happened! And she'd start with-

A burst of yellow light shot forth from the Grand Palais. Jolting Alya out of her thoughts as the newest akuma victim gave their villain speech from the roof.

"I am Queen Glitter! And from now on the only exceptional person in Paris will be me!"

Alya ran... straight for the villain who was obviously Chloe as she summoned a cloud of glitter and shapped it into a collection of accessories. The constructs restricting the movement of whoever they landed on. Scarves wrapping people's legs together or tying them to lampposts. Hats covering people's eyes as they tried to yank them off. There was even someone with his hands stuck in high heels. Queen Glitter made a giant floating scarf to stand on and took off in a random direction; leaving a trail of gaudy accessories in her wake.

Great. It was going to take forever to catch up to her now! Taking cover in an alleyway so Queen Glitter's sparkly formal wear wouldn't notice her, Alya scanned the street. Mentally kicking herself for not having recorded the villain speech for the Ladyblog.

"Looks like you're raring to go," Ladybug observed as she landed next to Alya. A familiar box in her hand.

"Ladybug! Didn't think I'd be helping out again so soon!" Alya held out her palm and Ladybug placed the Black Cat Miraculous in her hands again.

"Y'know the drill, right?" Ladybug's eyes wandered to the people in various states of running-for-their-lives.

"Give it back when we're done and don't take it personally," Alya paraphrased as Plagg emerged in a ball of light when she placed the ring on her finger.

"Ladyblog girl again?” Plagg gave her a once over. Ears flat against his head but swishing tail betraying his apprehension. "Well, at least Alya's not blue boy."

“He wasn’t that-“ Ladybug shook her head. “Y’know what, never mind.”

Glancing between them Alya filed that tidbit away for later. "C'mon, Plagg. We did great together!"

"You were okay," Plagg acknowledged. "Could've used more cat puns."

Alya chuckled. Of course he'd like those. With a -slightly forced- encouraging smile from Ladybug, Alya called out: “Plagg, transforme-moi!”

Green lightning traveled from Chat Noir’s ring across both arms and down her torso. A green sash wrapping around her waist and trailing into a tail. Running her clawed gloves through her hair as cat ears materialized. Said hair puffing up into an afro. Armor padding her shoulders and torso. Alya flexed her fingers to get used to the feeling. Chat Ombre's suit still felt strange on her skin compared to Rena Rouge.

Ladybug leapt onto the rooftops and Chat Ombre followed her lead. Racing towards the villain while avoiding her glitter. "So what's the plan?"

"Queen Glitter is basically a reskin of Style Queen," Ladybug thought aloud.

"But without that annoying habit of turning into a cloud!" Chat Ombre supplied.

Ladybug launched her yo-yo at a pedestrian and yanked him away from Queen Glitter's constructs as they passed by. "But she can spread her power over a wider area."

"Don't worry, Ladybug. We'll be- Look out!" Alya tackled Ladybug out of the way as a trio of glittery top hats zoomed past.

"Your reign is over Ladybug and wannabe Chat Noir!" Queen Glitter announced as she floated over them. Her appearance was similar to Style Queen except her crown was even bigger and gaudier. A foux glitter scarf around her shoulders. "I don't even care if you don't give me your Miraculous! I'll simply immobilize you and take them by force!"

They evaded a flurry of coats by jumping down to the street. "Really?" Chat Ombre called out. "That all you can throw at us? A tacky outfit?"

"Wouldn't be the first time!" Ladybug agreed.

"No one ever appreciates my gifts!" Queen Glitter stomped her foot. "Fine then. Why don't we try something more expensive!" Raising her hands she lifted two cars wrapped with giant bows into the air.

Alya's eyes widened. "Oh, shi-" Chat Ombre evaded Chloe's attacks as the villain played wack-a-chat. Glitter accessories flying in and attempting to restrict their movements as well.

Ladybug wrapped one of the vehicles with her yo-yo and spun it back at Queen Glitter.

The bright red sports car hurled towards her and- She stopped it with the palm of her hand. "You'll have to do better than that if- Where'd you go!?" Queen Glitter scanned the empty street, rising higher for a better vantage point.

Chat Ombre locked eyes with her for a second before a chimney obscured her line of sight. "Somehow I don't think that bought us much time." Alya voiced as a wave of clothing rose over the city.

Ladybug spotted a strip of blue between the rooftops. Thinking quickly, Marinette grabbed Alya's hand and turned them towards the Seine. Diving into its waters with a torrent of glitter in their wake.

Queen Glitter's constructs crashed into the river and washed away with the current.

Chat Ombre made for the surface once it was clear but Ladybug pulled her back. Chat's staff in her hand and yo-yo on her face. Pointing towards the magic tool Ladybug offered it to Alya.

Nodding, Alya quickly pressed it to her lips and took a deep breath, sweet oxygen filling her lungs. Giving Ladybug a thumbs up once she didn't feel like her chest was on fire.

Grabbing her hand Ladybug led Alya further upstream until they found a boat.

Gasping the (relatively) fresh air Alya examined Chat's staff. "I didn't know it could do that."

"Yeah, the Miraculous are full of surprises. And we'll need one of our own to beat Queen Glitter. Lucky Charm!"

A spotted snorkel fell into Ladybug's hands.

"Don't we already have one of those?" Chat Ombre asked.

Ladybug's brow furrowed as she stared at it. "Yeah... Wait, Queen Glitter's powers don't work underwater!"

"So, all we need to do is get her there!" 

Ladybug glanced at a pair of recycling bins. "And I know just how to sneak up on her."

Chat Ombre grinned. She liked this plan.

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

Chat Ombre hated this plan!

It had all gone smoothly. The glitter constructs ignoring the recycling bins they used as disguises. Snake style. Chloe was dumbfounded when she saw them. Enough to let them take the elevator up to the Grand Paris' rooftop where Queen Glitter set up her makeshift throne. Giving them the opportunity to tackle her towards the Seine.

Unfortunately, Queen Glitter could make constructs of any size. Like, for example, a wide brimmed hat big enough to stretch from either bank of the Seine.

"You were going to make me wear this?" Queen Glitter held up the Lucky Charm- "No thanks!" -and struck it across her knee.

Alya winced as the villain broke Ladybug's insta-win button in half. "Please, tell me you have a plan?" Chat Ombre glanced at the spotted hero currently wrapped up in an extra long scarf just like she was. The floating constructs squeezing just a little bit more as Ladybug struggled against them. Alya tried bending her wrist to Cataclysm her restraints but her right hand was held away from the rest of her body.

"No planning! Not that it'll do you any good. I've already won! Me! Queen Glitter! MWAHAHAHAH- Do you mind? I'm trying to savour the moment!" Chloe snapped as Papillon's emblem glowed over her face.

Alya's head turned from an increasingly frantic Ladybug to the annoyed villain.

"Of course I'm going to take their Miraculous! Why wouldn't I take their Miraculous?"

"An excellent question, your Highness!"

Three pairs of eyes snapped towards the source of the unexpected voice.

"... Who the heck are you supposed to be?" Queen Glitter demanded.

"Aristos! At your service!" He bowed with a flourish, giving Alya a good look at the bee shaped comb at the base of his ponytail. Blond hair highlighted with black stripes. Goggles obscuring his face, making his green eyes hard to read despite the grin on his lips. Suit mostly yellow with black, V-shaped stripes on his torso, forearms and lower legs. Three hexagons on his chest giving the impression of honeycombs.

"No no no no no no." Ladybug stared at Aristos, not realizing that she was speaking aloud.

...Well, that can't be good, Alya thought.

"Ha! Did you really think more insects would help, Ladybug?" The villain mocked. Her constructs closing in on the interloper.

Aristos' smile took on a darker edge. "I'm not with her, your Majesty. I'm here to pledge myself to the most exceptional Queen I've ever seen! Really, where does Papillon get off talking to such a glittery figure as your Highness like that?"

Alya blinked. Really? Even Chloe wouldn't fall for-

Raising her hand the villain halted her constructs' advance. "Hmm, well at least you know how to treat royalty." Queen Glitter offered her bejeweled fingers. "I guess you can be my underling."

Ah. Right. Never underestimate the power of Chloe's ego.

The Bee, Alya was ninety-nine percent sure he was the Bee, took Chloe's offered hand and leaned down. Lips hovering over the back of her hand. "Oh! That reminds me your Highness, I have a gift for you."

Queen Glitter's eyes shone. "A present? For me? It better be the latest- Ow! I'm getting to that!" She snapped at Papillon, looking away from the Bee to glare at the absent supervillain.

Aristos removed the striped top Alya recognized as his Miraculous tool from around his waist.

"You didn't beat them! I did!"

Casually, carefully, Aristos placed his top on Queen Glitter's hand. Point against her glittering skin.

"You couldn't do it yourself so you sent me!"

"Venom," the Bee breathed.

"What was-"

Queen Glitter froze as Aristos' top glowed; his power paralyzing her. The constructs bursting into clouds of glitter. Chat Ombre landed in a crouch as her restraints vanished.

"It worked." Aristos sounded as surprised as Alya felt. "It worked! Yes! Nailed it!" He pumped his fist as relief overflowed and- Was he crying?. "Independent hero debut successful!"

"What?" Ladybug was staring at the Bee apprehensively and that didn't help Alya's nerves.

Aristos' mood instantly became more subdued. Blinking rapidly to get the water out of his eyes. "Oh, right. You're still here."

Chat Ombre tried not to take that personally. He did just save them, after all.

Ladybug stepped forward. Voice even, diplomatic. Never mind that she seemed this close to freaking out. "Listen, Aristos was it? I don't know how you found that Miraculous but you have to give it back."

His face was disturbingly neutral. "...Don't I get a 'thank you' for saving the day?"

The tension in Ladybug's shoulders wouldn't budge. "Thank you, but I really need that Miraculous back." She held out her hand.

Aristos stared at Ladybug's hand like it was something alien. Cracks appearing in his facade. "Yeah, pass."  Walking backwards, away from Ladybug and Chat Ombre, he kept them in his field of vision.

"Wh- The- Y-you can't just decide that!" Ladybug sputtered, stepping forward.

"Just did! How do I even know this Miraculous is even yours?" Aristos asked, increasing the distance between them.

Alya got the distinct impression that he was bullshitting them.

"I'm the one who lost it!"

Alya's eyes widened. "You lost a Miraculous?"

"Not helping, Chat!"

Aristos' features twitched, eyes narrowing. "Sure you say it's yours but how do I know that?"

Chat Ombre bristled at the implication. "Ladybug is the Hero of Paris!"

Aristos gave her a once-over, his expression inscrutable, but said nothing.

Wow. Rude.

"That Miraculous belongs to the G- to me."

"That's interesting because I say it belongs to me." Aristos laid a hand on his chest. "Looks like it's your word against mine. Guess which one I'm choosing?"

Ladybug's yo-yo was suddenly spinning in her hand. "I swear, I'm not gonna lose another-"

An insistent beeping from Ladybug's earrings interrupted her.

"Welp! Love to stay and dance but it looks like you two need to buzz off before your precious identities are exposed to little old me."

Why did he sound bitter? Everything about him made Alya's head spin with questions. Not least of which being how the heck someone holding the Bee Miraculous showed up in the first place.

Taking his top, Aristos hopped onto the edge of the Grand Paris' roof. "Might want to deal with her before that happens."

Alya looked to where he was pointing to see Queen Glitter still paralyzed. When she glanced back at the Bee he was gone.

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

Adrien's day sucked.

Paris Fashion Week was always a chore but this year was even worse. Despite having friends around he felt lonelier than ever. Getting to talk to Marinette only helped so much. Adrien was still expected to plaster on a smile and represent 'the brand'.

And that was before he got turned into a freaking statue!

At least it's better than mind control.

Shut up!

He did not want to see Ladybug or her new partner up close and personal! Thank you, very much! But like always what Adrien wanted didn't matter.

Imagine his surprise when a Miraculous practically falls into his lap. A familiar glow blooming in his chest against all reason as Adrien opens the box.

"Hello, my King," the unknown, bee-like kwami greets formally.

There's a turning in his stomach that Adrien tries his best to calm it. "H-hi! I'm Adrien. What's your name?"

"I am Pollen," she bowed. "Kwami of Subjection. An honor to meet you. It has been a long time since I've had a king."

"Just Adrien is fine." Taking the Miraculous, a comb of all things, out of it's box Adrien stares at it. It's disguise all black and only vaguely shaped like a bee compared to the details he glimpsed before Pollen came out.

"Of course, my King."

Adrien sighed. Pollen was nothing like Plagg. Then again, Adrien wasn't sure the world could survive two of him. The lazy little jerk was enough to drive any Guardian mad all by himself... God, he missed Plagg.

"Um, anyway, how does your power work?"

Pollen clapped her small appendages together. "It's very straightforward, my King. You simply call out 'Venom' and your top will activate. Then strike your opponent with the point and they'll be paralyzed for however long you desire." She whooshed toward him for emphasis.

"Paralyze..." That was certainly more straightforward than using Cataclysm.

'Cause you sucked at that, didn't you?

Shut up. This was... What was he doing? When Adrien held the Bee in his hands he felt... Alive. Like a promise that things could be better this time around.

Adrien jumped as insistent knocking on his changing room door startled him out of his thoughts.

"M. Agreste? Mme. Sancoeur says we're back on in five."

"Be right out!" Brushing the Miraculous with his thumb to make sure it was really there Adrien placed it in his pocket. Hesitating for a moment he offered his jacket to Pollen.

Nodding, she zoomed into Plagg's old hiding place.

Taking a deep breath, Adrien opened the door. "Let's get this over with."

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

Adrien ran off as soon as Papillon's mark appeared on Chloe's face. Catching Marinette doing the same from the corner of his eye. Glass raining down as Queen Glitter broke through the Grand Palais' roof.

Pollen zipping out as he tied his hair into a makeshift ponytail. Holding it in place with the Bee Miraculous.

"Quickly, my King! Say 'Pollen, transforme-moi'!"

Adrien stared at her. He could hear screaming as people ran.

"My King!"

His oldest friend just got akumatized for the second time.

"My King!"

All he had to do was speak!

"Adrien!"

His knees shook as his back hit the wall behind him for support. "But... I wasn't chosen."

Pollen floated higher as her eyes widened in surprise. "Weren't you given my Miraculous?"

Adrien shook his head. "I f-found it... After giving up the Black Cat."

This time Pollen dipped as she nearly fell out of the air. "Chat Noir."

Adrien shook his head even more emphatically. Hands going up to cover his face. "N-no! Not him! Can't be him!" he choked.

Pollen laid her hand on his and Adrien tensed at the touch. "My King."

Something in her voice made Adrien look at her.

"You wish to help, do you not?"

"... Yes."

Pollen's eyes softened. "Then help."

Adrien stared at her. So sure that she'd want nothing to do with him once she knew what a failure he was... But that wasn't the case.

Rising shakily to his feet Adrien gave Pollen a grateful smile. "Pollen, transforme-moi'."

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

Aristos panted as he glanced up from the alleyway. Spotting no pursuers. "Pollen, detransforme-moi."

Landing on Adrien's outstretched palms, Pollen beamed tiredly at him. "Excellent work, my King."

Adrien smiled back. "Oh! What do you eat? Plagg loves Camembert but..."

"That would be fine. However, I prefer something sweeter."

"Yeah..." A weight settled on his chest. "Let's see what we can find..."

Pollen frowned. "Is something wrong, my King?"

Adrien avoided her gaze. What was he supposed to say? That disobeying Ladybug felt wrong? That he almost let his guilt and resentment make him say cruel things to his replacement? That his heart wouldn't stop pounding? "It's just... Do you want to go back?"

Pollen blinked.

"You're supposed to listen to the Guardian, right?" Adrien bit his lip as his heart tried jumping up his throat. "It's not fair of me to keep you if you want to go back."

Pollen sat up on his palms. "I have been in the Miracle Box for a long time, my King. I can think of worse things than spending what time I have outside it with you."

Adrien's eyes burned as he wiped away tears. "Thanks, Pollen."

Ladybugs swirled in the sky as they repaired the city.

"Of course, my King," Pollen smiled.

"Call me Adrien."

"Yes, my King."

Adrien sighed. A smile coming to his lips. Looks like Aristos was sticking around for a while.

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

Retroactively giving Black Cat Alya an afro.

[morganofthewildfire]

“I thought it was a one-night-stand…and now we’re married…”

Vegas had been a bad decision for Lysandra’s bachelorette party. An absolutely awful one. Completely terrible in retrospect.

At first it had seemed great, a quick vacation and a place where they could gamble and get shit-faced drunk without any judgement. It sounded so great that Aedion had decided to crash and make his bachelor party the same weekend, in the same place, at the same hotel. But the collective group of them had quickly taken the event way too far.

Which was why Aelin was in the predicament she was in.

She groaned as she rolled over in the hotel bed, clutching her head as she was forced into the morning light. Only the sheers were shut, not the curtains, so the sun was freely shining into the small room.

When she pried open her eyes, they landed on the figure under the covers next to her. Rowan Whitethorn. Aedion’s best man, the bane of her existence … and her one night stand.

Last night was a big blur for her, having started the party off early in the evening. She had gone hard, drinking way too much and having no inhibitions. Her dress had been short, her cares nonexistent, and her lust for Rowan Whitethorn high.

He was attractive by every standard you could measure him against, with his silvery hair, tan skin, dreamy green eyes, and the striking black tattoo that wasn’t everyone’s type but was definitely hers.

No matter how annoying she found him, she couldn’t help but feel enthralled by him too, and she knew he felt the same way. So something like this had been brewing for a while and therefore wasn’t unexpected. That tension had just finally sparked between them the night before, leading to them stumbling up to his hotel room. She didn’t remember much, but she remembered that.

He was still sleeping, back muscles contracting as he breathed, and eyelids fluttering from whatever dream he was currently in. The sheets covered the lower half of his body but it was clear he was still naked, as was she.

Aelin sighed and sat up, not bothering to cover herself. Her head ached like crazy and her body still felt tired, probably due to the absurdly little amount of sleep she was sure she had gotten.

Her eyes felt like they had sand in them, and she reached up to rub them but froze as soon as her hands came into view.

Her breath caught in her throat and she stared. Stared at her left hand, and the shiny diamond ring that sat on her finger. On that finger.

She didn’t understand. Didn’t know where this piece of jewelry came from, or why it was on her hand. Did she somehow steal Lysandra’s at some point during the evening? But no, this wasn’t Lysandra’s ring. Aelin had helped her cousin pick that one out, and this was not it.

This particular one was more her taste than her best friend’s. As much as she loved Lysandra, her taste was slightly gaudier, and this ring was too simple and elegant for her. There was only one main stone, with two smaller diamonds on either side, and the band was simple gold, no other embellishments.

But that didn’t explain why she had it.

A sharp intake of breath caused her to glance to her right, and she saw Rowan slowly opening his eyes, obviously struggling as much as her.

His head was tilted towards her on his pillow, so when he managed to wake up all the way, she was the first thing he saw.

His eyes widened for a second as he recognized her and most likely remembered what happened, and lingered on her exposed chest for a second before meeting her gaze.

He opened his mouth to say something, propping himself up on his elbows, but his attention got caught on the same thing as hers had been, the shiny bling on her outstretched hand.

“What is that?” he muttered sleepily, rubbing his face as he pushed himself up all the way.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly, turning her face back to the offending item. But as her eyes traveled, her focus caught on something else on the dresser. It was one of the cheap plastic crown things with a veil attached, which wasn’t unusual for a bachelorette party, but the cheery words Just Married! in pink on the front of the crown was.

You get that after the wedding, not at the party before.

Her brows furrowed in confusion and she got out of the bed, grabbing Rowan’s discarded shirt to slip on instead of trying to shove herself back in her dress. Aelin walked over to the crown and picked it up, showing it to Rowan, whose own brows shot up.

“What is that?” he repeated, emphasizing the last word.

But her eyes landed on one last thing that made her stomach drop. She darted over to it, whole body protesting the sudden movement, and snatched up the cheap paper certificate, reading the words out loud.

“‘Las Vegas Wedding Chapel congratulates the marriage of…’” her voice faltered as she finished the rest, ‘“Aelin Galathynius and Rowan Whitethorn.’” She glanced over at him, eyes wide. Rowan stared right back.

“Fuck.”

[nem0c]

Walsall Gallery, being a private collection (thank you, 1920s socialites), has a lovely layout. Instead of arranging rooms by artist or year, they are grouped by loose themes. So you get these juxtapositions between Epstein and Sally Ryan sculptures (Kitty Garman, hair cropped close and boyish, exaggerated eyes, crooked nose, thin neck), Egyptian figurines (Harpocrates, who else?) and Buddhist statuary (peak male physique found in nepalese figurine) - Gaudier-Brzeska sketch of eagle by egyptian hawk (horus again, a doubling) by rather squat french cockerel. Latin American modernist representation of mechanised agriculture by english attempt to pretend there were smallholding peasants in the 1890s. Religious exhibit - Epstein’s christian pieces were taken as deliberate insults by the english public but see them here by mediaeval books of hours and they’re practically respectable. Nice, large windows with a view over Walsall canal (new offices one side, collapsing victorian warehouse on the other) and the high street such that the art is situated within the town itself. Exhibit as collage rather than museum piece.

[already-14]

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

sculptures photogr. par Christian Roger

De Ezra Pound

Tristram - Livres Illustre

Henri Gaudier, dit Gaudier-Brzeska, né en 1891 près d'Orléans, quitte la France en 1911 et devient, en trois années d'une prodigieuse activité, l'un des premiers sculpteurs modernes. Toute la sensualité et la puissance de son ouvre méconnue se révèlent pour la première fois dans ce livre, au fil des superbes séquences photographiques réalisées par Christian Roger dans les collections du monde entier. Quand Gaudier meurt en 1915, à 23 ans, dans les combats de la Première Guerre mondiale, son ami Ezra Pound rédige sur leurs années londoniennes un témoignage bouleversant, qui est aussi l'une des plus passionnantes contributions à l'histoire de l'art du XXe siècle. Et dans un post-scriptum de 1934, il ajoute : " Gaudier est irremplaçable. Personne n'est apparu capable de prendre sa succession. Brancusi continua seul la conquête du marbre. "

" Ce livre est admirable, pour trois raisons simples, l'auteur, le sujet et leur connivence. Sur Henri Gaudier, sculpteur, Pound avait écrit un livre fulgurant et épique. Il est enfin traduit. "

Philippe Dagen - Le Monde

[nightmarewritings]

wait have I asked you abt your ocs in the mad max AU ? if I have then oops lol, but also what kind of apocalypse scenario would they do well in? ~ @nastyatticman

I’m not 100% (my memory is SO bad) but just in case I have and my thoughts on it have changed:

Alder, Julian, and Everett In The Post Apocalypse

Alder:

Family killed by a roving gang of raiders, Alder was the only survivor. Still very, very scarred up and traumatized.

Not too different, but has a much larger territory he roams and defends as his own.

Much better armored, since he steals armor from anyone who trespasses and dies at his hands.

Julian:

Smug, still incredibly wealthy, only it’s in water, food, and weapons. Pretty much a warlord. Has a very “bread and circuses” view of ruling. Keeps the public entertained and decently fed, but they’re still not much better than servants.

Doesn’t have to hide how cruel he is, regularly hosts and even participates in big (and heavily weighted in his favor) death matches. Kinda like the Thunderdome meets ancient gladiatorial combat.

Honestly not the worst warlord type guy around, but still just as much a scumbag as regular Julian, just now he’s in a skimpier, gaudier outfit. 100% has a big leather cape too.

Everett:

Protects a very old collection of books and lots of wildlife. Lives in an old mall-turned-sanctuary with a group of like-minded conservationists.

Unlike the scarless regular version, this Everett is missing an arm, he lost it defending the sanctuary.

His sight is fading pretty quickly, his chest hurts all the time, and he’s certain he won’t make it to 50, so he wants to make sure everyone in the sanctuary is safe and secure before he passes. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe, or die trying.