#a gentle woman

[rhera]

UNE FEMME DOUCE | A GENTLE WOMAN — 1969, dir. Robert Bresson

[blogdemocratesjr]

A Gentle Woman by Robert Bresson (1969)

[mad-prophet-of-the-airwaves]

A Gentle Woman (1969, Robert Bresson, France)

[pinacoladamatata]

The Dread Wolf's Heart...

"Where I am going is terrible"

"It won't be terrible if you're with me"

[lolas-blrr]

need this so bad

[suntails]

happy birthday silver!!

[itsmichelleotter]

Bored can someone come suck my wand🪄

[dipperscavern]

thinking about jon snow not knowing what to do when you admire him.

he’s sprawled on his stomach, bare chested & fast asleep, with the blankets covering his lower half. castle black stirs awake as the sun starts to rise, moving to start its ascension into the sky.

the ghost of your fingertips across his spine pull him to consciousness, goosebumps trailing his skin from your touch. he lightly stretches, opening his eyes as his muscles tense & relax once more.

he looks to see you sitting up, a glossed over look in your eyes as your gaze is fixated on his back — the hint of a smile playing on your lips. he’s never been looked at like that before. caressed, admired, as if he was something special.

he can feel the pads of your fingers as they run along his shoulderblades, tracing the ridges & muscles that map the expanse of his back. has he ever felt anything this gentle?

you stop your mapping of his body when you see that he’s awake. he’s not looking at you, though. his eyes are blank, fixated on a distant wall as he focuses on your touch, trying to commit the feeling to memory.

“you’re so pretty, jon.”

he feels his cheeks grow warm, no doubt starting to turn a pretty shade of pink. his entire body grows hot, nerves on fire with the sincerity of your words. jon knows you mean it — you’re no liar. suddenly your gaze is overwhelming, and he feels the need to squirm under it.

you’re evil, he thinks. the worst to ever live. can’t you see what you do to him?

he’s brought out from his thoughts when the warmth of your hand leaves his shoulders, coming to brush his hair out of his face. you tuck the strands behind his ears, the dark curls protesting being moved. jon swallows, looking up at you.

he can see the smile you’re trying to suppress, and he feels his heart swell at the fact the sight of him is enough to make you smile. the knuckle of your finger comes to trace the underside of his jaw, just the way your lips have done countless times before. the thought alone is enough to make him shiver.

you get to the front of his face, the pad of your thumb coming to run along his bottom lip. the same lips that have been all over your body are now at the mercy of your touch, and jon wouldn’t ruin this moment for anything… even if lord commander mormont had returned from the dead & knocked on the door.

jon had tried to be still, truly. he should’ve been given an award for how long he’s held out so far. he can’t help himself, lips moving to kiss the pad of your thumb. they start to descend, trailing down the slope of your hand. he presses a final kiss to the inside of your wrist, before his hand wraps around it and brings it to his cheek. he uses it as a pillow, laying his head down once more & sighing, eyes fluttering shut.

you let the smile break free now, eyes gazing down at your lover, in all his content. jon deserves it all. the gentleness, the warmth, anything that you have to give, you offer to him. he’s been through hell and back, the scars run deep. and you want nothing more than to kiss each and every one, to replace the once horrid memories with the feel of your touch.

you eventually pull away your hand, & jon’s eyes are quick to open. you can almost feel the disapproval radiating off of him, which is quickly replaced with a warm feeling deep in his chest when you reach for his right hand.

you bring it to your lap, eyes fixated on it. both of your hands cradle his larger, calloused one. you run your hands along his, feeling every vein & knuckle under your fingers. his fingers twitch with the need to curl into your smaller ones. jon’s so busy looking at your hands holding his, he at first doesn’t see the way your eyes are closed. you’re mapping him, every part of him with your hands — trying to bury the feeling in a deep part of your mind so you never forget. and once jon realizes that, he’s inclined to never let you go. just keep you here, wrapped in his arms forever. you wouldn’t mind, would you?

once you’re done, sure that you’ve traced every part of him that you can reach, you bring his hand to cradle your cheek, mirroring how jon had done with your own not so long ago. you lean into it, relaxing into his hand.

it’s jon’s turn to smile now. it tugs at the corner of his lips, curving them upwards as his tongue darts out to wet them. is this what love is like? jon thinks it must be. to simply exist & be cherished by someone, to be truly adored & held close.

jon can’t resist the urge anymore. its overwhelming at this point, clouding his mind. he uses the hand on your cheek to pull you closer as he simultaneously pulls himself up, connecting your lips with his. he kisses you long & soft, as he gently moves you to lay down on your back. you’re easy in your compliance, putty in his hands; the one still on your cheek, and the other pressing to your waist as your lips continue to dance with his.

he pulls away, trailing kisses down your neck. your hands find their way to his hair, not pulling, just slotting themselves amongst the curls. once he reaches the end of his descent, he moves to place once more kiss on the underside of your jaw, before laying his head down on your stomach. his arms wrap around your waist as your hands scratch at his scalp in a way that’s divine.

& in the comfort of your arms, jon understands why so little men join the nights watch of their own accord. what is honor compared to a woman's love? what is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms? he understands now, able to fully grasp the concept of never knowing the tenderness of your touch — and it’s not a very pleasant thought.

in the back of his mind he remembers the duties you both have to tend to, but they’ll be fine, he thinks. they can wait.

[natalievoncatte]

“Lena?”

“What are you doing here?” Lena said, on the other side of the phone line.

Kara was already moving, lunging for the window, shedding her civilian clothes so fast she blurred into a streak of red and blue, the phone still mid-fall from where her hand had held it to her ear to the osprey cushion. She wasn’t thinking when she rattled windows with her passage. Less than a second later, the air snapped taught around her and burst with the cracking fury of a sonic boom as she bolted across the city in a ballistic arc that took her from her apartment to the upper floor penthouse office at L-Corp.

She was still too slow.

Lena was calling her name, her own phone flying from her hand into space as two men manhandled her over the railing into open air, almost six hundred feet up. Kara watched it happen in agonizing, hateful detail. She could hear every thudding panicked contraction of Lena’s heart even as she could count ever stitch in the side-seam of her dress.

Faster. Faster faster faster faster.

Any faster and she’d ignite the atmosphere around here.

Lena was perpetually falling, reaching up in a futile attempt to grasp the sky. Those thumping heartbeats came slow to Kara’s ears as she focused herself, time around her slowing to match her speed.

She has to do this perfectly. Hit Lena too fast and she’d kill her. Lena’s screamed stretched into a shrill endless peel as she fell, raw terror contorting her features.

Kara dove, slowing as she reached those last few millimeters of distance, forcing herself to match Lena’s speed, dipping under her so that the bewildered woman dropped into her arms and they further slowed together, Kara coming to a stop midair, half way down the length of her fall. Kara bundled Lena into her arms even as Lena clutched her in desperate fear, grasping and clutching at her in desperate fear. A wail of agonized terror exploded from Lena’s lips against Kara’s throat, followed by a taut cry of anguished relief.

“I have you,” Lena murmured. “You’re okay, I have you.”

Lena was shaking.

“They th-threw me off the balcony!”

They.

They.

Kara rose, cradling a treasure in her arms. They should have known better, these two thugs, these goons. To show her contempt, she blew them off their feet with a gust of air from her lungs. Tenderly, she placed Lena on her bare feet -her shoes had gone flying when she was tossed- and turned to her attackers.

One pulled a gun, the other ran. She crushed the crude little human weapon, so infuriatingly primitive and barbaric, almost forgetting not to pulp the wielder’s hand. As the other ran, she hooked her fingers in his collar and yanked, pulling him right back and over the railing. His scream satisfied something hateful within her and she wanted to stop herself from seizing his ankle, but she didn’t. The weight of the crest on her chest was too much to bear it.

She did let him dangle though, begging her for mercy.

Kara jabbed the comms in her ear and barked orders to the DEO agent that answered her. It wasn’t ten minutes later that half a dozen agents, led by Alex herself, were dragging the two men out of Lena’a office.

Lena herself was standing on the balcony still, shivering in the late night chill. Kara pointedly ignore the way Alex stared at them both as Kara unclasped her cape from her shoulders and threw the heavy cloth around Lena, bundling her up in it.

Oh Rao, her poor feet on the concrete.

Kara didn’t think. She picked Lena up again and carried her inside. Lena didn’t protest or even speak, as delicate as a precious baby bird in Kara’s arms.

“We can… we can deal with statements later,” said Alex. “I’ll step out.”

They were alone.

Lena just stared for a moment, as Kara opened the drawer in the coffee table and took out the fleece blanket that Lena kept there for naps or those frequent nights when she just didn’t go home, unable or unwilling to abandon her work for such pedestrian things as sleep, or her own health. Kara spread it across her, covering her feet. She just didn’t want her to be cold.

Kneeling beside the couch, Kara stroked a loose lock of wind-ruffled hair back from Lena’s eyes, forgetting herself, forgetting that she was the Super and not the Girl, right now. She couldn’t help it. The Super was stoic, unruffled, full of bravado. The Girl wanted to fucking cry and scream in agony and blessed release.

She was okay. Kara made it. Lena was okay.

Lena was staring at her.

“How did you know I was in trouble?”

The way she said it, it almost wasn’t a question. It sounded flat, half an accusation.

“I was with Kara Danvers,” Kara was about to say, but the answer died on her lips, the lie too bitter to cross her tongue.

She was so sick of lying, and the reasons why she lied all seemed so… hollow, here, now, and Lena wasn’t stupid. It was halfway there, Kara realized. She could see it in Lena’s bewildered, quivering expression. The thought was there, half formed, and once the suspicion was formed, it was only a matter of time. Their friendship was built on pillars of sand and the tide was rolling in right now.

“It’s me, Lena,” Kara whispered.

Lena’s eyes widened, as her nostrils briefly flared. Lena did not ask her to clarify, or explain. Her penetrating gaze merely searched, drinking in the details of Kara’s face in a way that made her feel both seen in a warm and comforting way and horribly exposed, the chill wind from the balcony door at her back. Yet the gaze was open, permissive. Kara noticed that one of her eyes was a little more blue than the other.

Rao, Lena was so pretty. She was beautiful, yes, in the austere almost untouchable way of a young powerful woman who weaponizes her looks, but that part of her was gone now, replaced by something open and vulnerable and soft, and usually reserved for Kara, not Supergirl.

Kara sat down in front of her, crossing her legs. She wanted to reach out and sooth the trembling she saw, her hand twitching of its own accord. Lena pulled the red fabric of her cape up and tucked it under her chin, making herself small.

“It’s you.”

“Yeah.”

“You caught me.”

“I always will.”

Lena closed her eyes. “I’m tired of falling. God I’m so tired of it, I just want him to leave me alone.”

Anger flashes in Kara’s chest, sending a jolt of heat up her spine as the red-sun fire burned within her, begging for release. She kept her eyes tightly shut.

A soft cry opened them again. Lena was crying silently in the manner of one used to hiding it, her chest hitching as she held it back.

“If it weren’t for you I’d be dead, Kara.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

Something tightened inside her, clutching so hard she could barely breathe. Watching Lena fall had been like… like looking over her shoulder and seeing the green flash. Kara had pinched her eyes shut and turned away, not watching the blast, screaming in agony when the blast wave tossed her pod, too afraid to watch her world die, unable to escape it. Sometimes that feeling would wash over her and tear her from the embrace of a dreamless sleep and she’d scream.

A soft, cool hand brushed her cheek. Lena reached out from the blanket and pushed away the errant tear. Kara couldn’t help herself, and returned the gesture. Lena’s skin was so delightfully soft, and whenever Kara touched her, felt her, it gave air to something like hot coals in her belly, and they’d threaten to become an unbound flame.

Something was happening here and she wasn’t sure what it was, but it was important. Kara had a sudden sense that this moment was a real one, an important one, and that she had just started bumbling through a choice that needed her full attention.

Lena was watching her, her soft intelligent eyes darting. Her breathing had calmed but she was agitated, heartbeat too fast, heat bloom crawling across her skin as her face flushed. A deep, powerful part of Kara woke up at the sight of it, something that she would normally have disdained had she remained on Krypton, a part of her that she might even have hated.

Her hand was still resting gently on Lena’s cheek. Lena met her gaze and shifted slightly, pressing a touch harder against Kara’s palm. It was an acknowledgement. It felt permissive, inviting. Lena tilted her expressions slightly and looked at Kara through her lashes.

She was scared, Kara realized. Scared but perhaps hopeful. Things began to swirl in her head. She could drown in the heady scent of an office full of flowers.

“You just keep saving me,” Lena said.

Kara rose to her knees so she could lean in, arching over her. This need, this impulse, gripped it like a firm hand on the back of her neck. It felt so wrong, so human, so Terran, but she didn’t care. For the first time she felt like doing this because she wanted it, not to make herself feel human or soothe some itch.

She hesitated every moment but Lena’s gaze remained fixed, a faint smile curling her lips as Kara drew closer, sliding an arm under her shoulders, very carefully pulling her up.

“I thought you were hopeless after the thing with the flowers,” Lena whispered. “Or maybe just regrettably straight.”

Kara wanted this to be right. She nuzzled her nose against Lena’s, one last tiny little request, and murmured, “is this okay?”

In response, Lena closed the gap and their lips met. Kara hadn’t felt like this since the first time she stepped off the ground into the open air. This was better than flying. Lena’s kiss was just so her, at once brash and hesitant, a question phrased as a declaration.

Before long Kara was holding her.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you. I won’t.”

Lena released herself; there was no other way to describe it. It was like their past hugs but more, Lena embracing Kara as though she’d like to be absorbed by her.

“I know.”

In the morning she’d pay Lex a visit. She’d talk to Alex and J’onn, make it clear that if the DEO wanted a Kryptonian on speed dial, it was time to make her priorities their priorities, and the first thing she was going to do was tear Cadmus out of their hiding places by the root.

It wouldn’t be enough to just hobble their operations, she wanted them gone. Supergirl would work in tandem with the Kara Danvers until Lex Luthor had no friends, no allies, no resources. Even the prison guard who smuggled him his caviar would learn that any largesse towards his prisoner would summon a furious Kryptonian.

She would call in every favor, seek every ally, use every resource.

Right now none of that mattered. Lena was safe, and she was in Kara’s arms.

[crustyfloor]

This parallel this parallel this parallel, it's cute how surprised Sua looks when people are affectionate with her, but I wonder if Ivan ever reminded Sua of her sister at times with the way he treated her, sometimes being reminiscent of how she used to be treated by her sister, and the cruelty was just as familiar(?)

[ayowotsdis]

There is a bitch inside me, who finds it thoroughly fascinating when unhinged women have soft husbands. Yes, like "I can't fix her so I will love her with all my heart" and "i can make him worse by loving him with all my heart". Like YES give me that comfort. They balance each other out so well.

[speeedsters]

mfers will say they aren’t dating while showing you a panel of them staring at each other

[entomolog-t]

Full size not meme-y version of these two <3

I've been playing around with some alternate fits for Aedes (not necessarily design change but more so givin' him some options)

I like a lil mix of like 50-60s with some vaguely Victorian elements.