#and I'm stopping there

[sarcasticdolphin]

Smrtolf (Canon) "An (Un)welcome visitor"

Taaffe makes his trip to Mayerling. Cut for length and well ... Taaffe's attempts to rationalize the supernatural. Defiantly somewhat dark-cracky. For the amazing @adridoesstuff as all the Smrtolf drabbles are :)

Eduard Taaffe’s ride to Mayerling had been almost entirely silent. Part of him had thought to take an - Meissner knew the recalcitrant Prince’s hunting lodge well while Wiligut tended to understand Eduard’s goals better, but in the end he only takes a single guard, and the man will wait with the horses. Strictly speaking the purpose of the trip isn’t blackmail - for all Rudolf seems childish he can be very subtle when it suits him and if he is indeed keeping a male companion - thought it was clever Meissner had thought that said companion was more a lover than a friend even if he hadn’t been willing to speculate over much - Taaffe knows there is no guarantee he will catch the prince in the act.

And so that isn’t his goal. At least not today. If he does manage to catch the Prince with his companion Taaffe won’t be complaining, but he only wants to startle the Prince. The boy will be more likely to make a mistake if he is thrown off his usual routine, and Eduard appearing at his hunting lodge unannounced certainly counts as a departure from his routine.

The roof doesn’t come into view until they turn the last corner, but Meissner had called the interior of the lodge surprisingly roomy considering how low the ceiling seemed from the outside. Eduard leaves his horse with the guard and brushes by a pair of surprised servants. Meissner had been quite specific as to which room served as the Crown Prince’s bedroom and studio.

—-----------

He’s not sure what he had been expecting when he opened the door, but whatever it had been, the truth is far stranger than all the fictions his mind had concocted.

“Kronprinz Rudolf.” Eduard isn’t sure what else there is to say besides the prince’s name. The boy is at least present, his imperial jacket nowhere to be seen and in a loose white undershirt that is half-undone with green, black, and blue paint on his hands and looking more than a little surprised to see Eduard. But he isn’t alone. Sprawled on his bed is a graceful, black-clad feminine figure with oddly painted eyes that looks more like a deranged cultist - face as white as bone with red eyes, black paint around them, and a dark iridescent cloak that looks more like a pair of wings each passing moment that Smrt watches it. But Rudolf’s demonic mistress isn’t the worst of it.

It seems Meissner had been right, though Eduard now finds the spy’s report entirely lacking - Rudolf’s companion is sprawled in a chair, dressed similarly to the girl on the bed, with the same disturbing eye paint. And to top it all off, he had a live raven sitting on his shoulder. Had Rudolf somehow managed to get himself mixed up in a demonic cult? Before Eduard can even really contemplate the answer there is a noise from a pile of fabric on the floor. The blue-gray fabric must be one of Rudolf’s jackets, though likely an old one by the state of disrepair that is evident. A small crow emerges from beneath the fabric and gives Eduard a look that Eduard for one finds more than a little unnerving.

“What-” Eduard doesn’t know what to say. How does one accuse the Crown Prince of cavorting with a Satanic cult? Even after catching the boy in the act he doesn’t think the Emperor will believe any of it. It is all much too outlandish to be true.

“For shame, Count Taaffe. Even such a - what is it you usually call me? - recalcitrant prince, was it? As I know to knock before I enter the bedchamber of my betters.” The Crown Prince does look offended by the intrusion, and more so than Eduard had really expected.

“What are these-” Eduard eyes the girl, man, and pair of birds once more. “Demons?” Because they must be demons. Or else a pair of witches with familiars. Eduard had never personally believed in any of the drivel that had marked the previous centuries, but he cannot think of anything else that they might be.

“Demon?” The girl seems more unimpressed than offended. “I thought you said Minister-President Taaffe was smart, Rudolf. I suppose that might still be true, but he’s certainly entirely unoriginal.”

Eduard takes a step back. Perhaps some information is simply not worth knowing, and he has the inescapable urge to simply flee the scene and head back to Vienna and never tell the Emperor of his misadventure. But even as he resolves to do so the girl flows from the bed with a grace that is more fitting for a cat than any girl or whatever witch-demon-thing that the girl truly is. She’s between Eduard and the door in moments, and Eduard finds himself stumbling back and tripping on his own feet to land sprawled on the Crown Prince’s bed with the small crow now perched near his hand.

“Do be careful, Herr Minister-President. He bites.” The Crown Prince looks entirely smug about the way this is going, though Eduard cannot help but note the incongruity of the fact that Rudolf still has a paintbrush in his hand. The girl comes closer to Rudolf, nuzzling into his side, and Eduard can see what he had thought and hoped was a cloak cannot be anything other than a magnificent set of dark wings, shining with a blue-green iridescence. What sort of foul demon took the form of this dark angel? Was Rudolf cavorting with a harlot of Satan himself? Eduard was no scholar of demonology the way the Archbishop claimed to be. But what would that make the man still lazing in the chair by the window? Had Rudolf fallen prey to Satan himself? Had Satan sent the succubus that was entirely too close to Rudolf to drain the life from him and the entire Habsburg dynasty? Given the myriad of misfortunes that had befallen the Empresses relations in particular it seemed a more reasonable proposition than it should.

The crow does try to bite, but Eduard manages to snatch his hand back, only for the crow to flutter forward and try and bite his nose as well, though Eduard manages to dodge the crow and it flutters off to a different corner of the room.

But in the time he is totally focused on the crow the girl disappears and Eduard finds himself looking frantically around. Where has she gone? But quickly his eyes come to rest on a large raven that is nestled in the Crown Prince’s arms as he affectionately strokes her feathers and presses a little kiss to her head. Truly, the Crown Prince must be bewitched.

Eduard turns to the man in the chair. All the birds must be his familiars and he must be the witch - or otherwise the demon - that has set upon the Crown Prince. 

Eduard’s eyes flick to the door, but he has no doubt the raven in the Crown Prince’s arms will stop him if he tries to leave.

“Rudolf-” perhaps an appeal to the Crown Prince’s humanity will be of some help. For as much as Eduard’s men rarely call the Crown Prince kind, they all usually agree that he is quite human. “What is this?”

“Well you’ve been putting quite the damper of me making friends in Vienna, Count. What with all the spies and such. So I had to look for other companions. I was lonely, Mein Herr.” Eduard glances at the man by the window again - he looks amused, if anything.

“Rudolf.” The man does finally speak, and his voice is more an intoxicating song than anything else. The Crown Prince hearkens immediately, his face softening and his head bowing in a way that makes Eduard suspect his demon supposition had been correct.

“Rudolf-” Eduard knows he must sound panicked, but from the music and deceptive force in the man’s voice he is more than a little hesitant to listen for long. Or to let the Crown Prince listen for long. Will the man order Rudolf to cut him up so he can feed Eduard’s eyes to his ravens and crow? The thought seems far-fetched, but everything about the entire situation is far-fetched. “I should be heading back to Vienna.”

“Heading back? But Mein Herr, you’ve only just arrived.” Rudolf is enjoying this, that much is clear. Reveling in the fact that Eduard is the one squirming. “Then again, you were so very rude, barging in like that. Run back to Vienna, Count Taaffe. And do try to find some better manners.”

Eduard flees before the man at the window can countermand the prince. He’s pinching himself the whole way back, hoping to wake up in his bed after some foul nightmare. Because this must be a nightmare of some sorts. He had no such luck. To top if all off, Wiligut is waiting for him with a report that he really doesn’t want to read and the unfortunate news that the French Ambassador is causing problems again, and that rather than just offending one other diplomat there is a veritable menagerie of ruffled diplomatic feathers that Eduard will have to smooth over. He makes a mental note to have Meissner poison the French Ambassador the next time the man parties in Vienna. The next one can’t possibly be worse than the current one and right now is the time to do it - there are at least a dozen parties with plenty of motive to do the deed.

[asoftspotforangels]

some of my favorite woven tapestries, by Cecilia Blomberg:

Point Defiance Steps

Mates

Rising Tides

Vashon Steps

[beif0ngs]

Over the Garden Wall 10th Anniversary stop motion short by creator Patrick McHale and Aardman Animations

[gongyussy]

good thing from jp twitter this week is queen of old man yaoi michiru sonoo discovering the term old man yaoi

update: somehow it got impossibly more wholesome

quick translation: おかえり: welcome home あ 終わった 終わった: ahhh, it's over! it's done! コーヒー? お茶?: coffee? tea? コ~ヒ~ ありがと: coffee, thank you~ ネクタイレア★★ ネクタイ取るレア★★★★: seeing him with a tie on, rarity level ★★, seeing him take a tie off, rarity level ★★★★ にあうな~: it suits him~

also please do follow: AraigumaSha: sensei's twitter account marureviere: maru, who does such valuable work highlighting bl manga for an international audience

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[podcastwizard]

cashier: ok that'll be $20

me (visibly sweating): ah, yes, of course! a perfectly reasonable price for a grilled cheese and a small smoothie! that was exactly the price i expected you to say when i ordered a single grilled cheese and a smoothie and my vision is NOT getting blurry as we speak! i am a perfectly normal temperature and my speech patterns are natural and even because this is the countenance of an individual who expected to pay 20 american dollars for a single grilled cheese and a smoothie!

cashier: where's all that blood coming from

[soaptaculart]

The cat and the dad she said she "didn't want"

[trainwreck-pumpkin-pie]

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996) / Mouthwashing (2024)

inspired by this post

[monsoon-of-art]

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

[captainjonnitkessler]

Sometimes I wish we would start calling out the performative radicalism on this site for the poser bullshit it is. "Remember, it's always morally correct to kill a cop!" "Don't forget to firebomb your local government office!" "Wow, it sure would be a shame if these instructions on how to make a molotov cocktail got spread around!"

Okay. But you're not killing cops or firebombing government offices. You are posting on a dying microblogging website to a carefully-curated echo chamber that has radicalized itself into thinking that taking the absolute most extreme position on any subject is praxis but that anyone discussing the most practical way to effect actual change is your sworn enemy. You do not have the street cred OR the activist cred to be talking about killing cops, babe.

[symphonyofsilence]

Let the poor man rest.

[mroddmod]

some recent stuff i've done in magma bc im kind of addicted to using it lol

[canisbeanz]

Silly doodle bc it was the first thing I thought of when I saw Pomni.

[gongyussy]

(✿◕‿◕) die (ꈍ ꒳ ꈍ✿)

[first-ex-wife]

it really is crazyyyyy how much January they managed to fit into this January